Raigo Pajula/Getty Images(TALLINN, Estonia) -- Vice President Mike Pence and second lady Karen Pence arrived in Estonia Sunday afternoon, kicking off a three-country visit of Eastern Europe.

The Pences, who left from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland Saturday night, were greeted at the Tallinn airport by U.S. Ambassador to Estonia James Melville and Estonian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sven Mikser. The group shook hands and spoke briefly before the vice president's motorcade headed to the Pences' hotel.

Pence tweeted upon his arrival.

On behalf of @POTUS, arrived in Tallinn, Estonia with @SecondLady to meet w/ leaders of Baltic States on security & prosperity #VPinEurope pic.twitter.com/YmKsiBQyvK  Vice President Pence (@VP) July 30, 2017

Pence also tweeted Saturday night, along with a photo of himself boarding Air Force Two.

On my way to Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro to meet with leaders in the region on behalf of @POTUS. Keep up with #VPinEurope. pic.twitter.com/6gJTy3WRv6  Vice President Pence (@VP) July 30, 2017

In explaining the purpose of the trip, a senior Trump administration official told reporters last week, "This builds upon the administrations engagement. The secretary of defense had been there recently, and it builds upon the vice presidents trip when we addressed some of these leaders at the Munich Security Conference when he met with the three Baltic presidents then. And he has since hosted the prime minister of Georgia here at the White House, as did the president. And then on Montenegros accession into NATO, we also hosted leadership here in the White House."

The office of Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas said in a press release Saturday that Ratas and Pence will meet at 5:30 p.m. local time to "discuss cooperation in defense, digital issues and cyberdefense, as well as cooperation between the U.S. and the EU in connection with the Estonia presidency of the Council of the European Union."

Ratas said in a statement, "The contribution of the U.S. to the security of the Baltic states and also the whole of Europe is vital, and I certainly wish to thank the vice president for that. Besides that, we plan to speak about the Estonian digital solutions that are of interest to the U.S. and developing cooperation in cyberdefense at our meeting. Another important topic that will be on the table is the cooperation between the EU and the U.S."

Prime Minister Ratas meets with Vice President Pence today https://t.co/z3KEX6KNpE pic.twitter.com/TYx3rtZ2jW  Estonian Government (@EstonianGovt) July 30, 2017

A senior White House administration official told reporters last week that while in Estonia, Pence will "highlight our strong bilateral ties, including by trade and investment. And, particularly with Estonia, successes in the cyber realm and their current partnership on cyber issues, and their leading not only in that region, but globally."

On Thursday, Karen Pence expressed her enthusiasm for the trip on Twitter.

Looking forward to our visit to Eastern Europe where I will highlight my initiative, art therapy. What an honor! pic.twitter.com/1nwZlk2IKe  Karen Pence (@SecondLady) July 27, 2017

According to the second lady's office, she will tour a medical center in Tallinn and participate in a roundtable discussion with art therapists.

In Georgia, the vice president will "highlight our commitment to the U.S.-Georgia Strategic Partnership and our strong support for Georgias sovereignty and territorial integrity, according to the senior administration official. The officials said Pence will also note "its internationally recognized borders and our support for Georgia and their Euro-Atlantic aspirations."

While in Georgia, Karen Pence will visit with patients of an art therapy program in Tbilisi.

On Wednesday, Pence will attend the Adriatic Charter Summit in Podgorica, Montenegro, to highlight the U.S. commitment to the Western Balkans and underscore the importance of good governance, political reforms and rule of law. Also expected to attend are the leaders of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia and Slovenia.

In Podgorica, Montenegro, the second lady will tour a honey farm, where she will learn about a local family's beekeeping business.

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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.


Shriya Saran, who spent quite sometime shooting in Portugal for Paisa Vasool, has fallen in love with the European country. Although she had travelled quite a bit in Europe, this was her first ever outing to Portugal and the countrys scenic locales, beaches and food have struck a chord with Shriya.

In a recent interview, Shriya said, I travelled extensively across that European country . I am absolutely besotted with the Portuguese bridges and ports. The beaches are spotless, quiet and heavenly . I also got to witness a colourful festival in its capital, Lisbon, where thousands of people took to the streets. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I treated myself to the famed green wine that the Portuguese have popularised, and binged on the delicious local cuisine.

Not just that, apparently, the whole experience reminded her of Goa. After wrapping up her shoot in Portugal, the actress went on a road trip to Barcelona and she had a great time in the whole process.

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Actor Vishnu Manchu, who has been shooting for Achari America Yatra in Malaysia, is reportedly injured while performing a bike stunt. Vishnu was immediately rushed to a nearby hospital and his condition is said to be fine.

Even though media reports claim that Vishnu sustained serious injuries and is undergoing treatment in ICU, sources close to Vishnu trashed the reports. Vishnu will soon be heading to the US for his wife Viranicas delivery.

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Jul 30, 2017 | By Julia

Vancouver-based artist Shawn Hunt has collaborated with Microsofts local maker space The Garage to develop an experiential sculpture at the crossroads of 3D printing, robotics, and holographs. Drawing on Indigenous imagery, Transformation Mask functions both as a personal artistic expression of Hunts identity, and an exciting new showcase of whats possible with Microsofts wearable augmented reality device, the Hololens.

Its a win-win for both parties, but as Hunt notes, it wasnt always an easy path. I have never felt like I really belonged to any one particular movement, culture, category, or clique, says Hunt, whos heritage combines Scottish, French, and Indigenous Heiltsuk roots.

As an artist this has given me an incredible amount of freedom. I dont feel that my work is conceptual, traditional, artefact or craft. It is neither ancient nor modern. Instead, I feel as though my work has elements of all of these categories. This is a freedom that allows me to distort, subvert, hijack and remix these categories in order to offer new points of view, explains Hunt.

The Canadian artist wishes to challenge viewers preconceptions, he says. He believes his art is at its most powerful when it poses questions, as opposed to giving the viewer all the answers. My goal is to make the viewer think, he adds.

This subversion is precisely what inspired Hunt to begin incorporating cutting edge technologies into his creative process, a move that quickly caught the eye of Microsofts Vancouver headquarters. It wasnt long before Hunt was collaborating with a team of Microsofts finest, collectively exploring how Robotics, 3D printing and Mixed Reality could tell stories through artwork.

According to Hunt, the starting point was the raven figure in Heiltsuk mythology. Seen as the ultimate trickster, the ravens fluid identity was both an explorative standpoint and an overarching symbol in the final piece. After a considerable amount of experimentation, the team came up with Transformation Mask. The interactive installation features a bird mask akin to traditional Indigenous design, but with decidedly cyborgian elements, thanks to robotic mechanics and elements of Mixed Reality.

Beginning with a paper prototype, Hunt and his team gradually built up the technology, moving from hand sketches and foam core to a digital prototype and aluminum skeleton. True to its traditional Indigenous form, no straight lines are featured on the raven. Complex compound curves and procedurally generated hex patterns were used instead, making the 3D modelling that much more impressive.

In total, the mask required almost 300 hours of 3D printing time. The finished mask is comprised of over 20 3D printed PLA and acrylic resin components, each individually printed, and measures over a metre in length. The components were assembled on open beam aluminum rails with interlocking elements between the 3D printed pieces. An array of sensors, processors, electronics, and other mechanical bits guides the masks behaviour. Theres even an ultrasonic range finder for detecting users and triggering the experience autonomously. Several linear sensors attached to the metal skeleton instigate the initial phases of motion, while microcontrollers work uniformly to control LEDs and behaviour, as seen through two Windows phones (one for each raven eye). The Hololens oversees and coordinates all of these separate pieces via a bluetooth connection.

When the user peers into the mask, he or she is taken through an experience of metamorphosis and an onslaught 3D content. The work presents a new trajectory for engagement and exploration of First Nations practice; one that points towards technology and innovation as aspects that expand traditional practices and opens new avenues for interpretation, says Hunt.

The holographic experience itself is nothing short of extraordinary: animated volumetric drawings emerge in conjunction with particle simulations and spatial sounds. Hunt says the overall sound was an important focus for him: the custom sonic design was implemented first, in fact, and then used to inspire the timing and tone of the visuals, rather than the other way around.

The result is Transformation Mask, a powerful innovation that builds on pre-existing technologies and symbols, but combines them in an entirely unseen way. I like the idea of art being like a catalyst, or a flash point, Hunt says. And with the creation of an experience that crosses boundaries of sound and image, art and technology, and old and new, Transformation Mask is about as catalyzing as it gets.

Posted in 3D Printing Application

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Sudip Bose in American Scholar:

When Ludwig van Beethoven arrived in the Bohemian spa town of Teplitz in July 1812, he was ill, heartbroken, anxious about his finances, and growing deafer by the daythe dismal weather that greeted him, cold and sopping wet, could not have lifted his spirits all that much. He had been to Teplitz before, indeed, the previous summer, when his doctor had similarly ordered him to take a restorative cure. The town was renowned not only for its hot springs but also for its sylvan setting, the deep forests and pristine lake offering the sick and weary the promise of recuperation. Royals and other noble types frequented the spa, and during the summer of 1812, that glittering crowd would have been abuzz with news of Napoleons recently commenced invasion of Russia. Beethoven, the consummate anti-aristocrat, had no wish to hobnob with such a crowd. Yet there was one illustrious man, a regular at Teplitz, whom the composer was desperate to meet: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.

Beethoven revered Goethe, having composed incidental music to the 1788 drama Egmont as well as several songs set to Goethes verse. The two artists had already made initial contact in the spring of 1812, Beethoven writing to Goethe a letter brimming with effusive praise and Goethe responding in warm, encouraging terms. As Jan Swafford notes in his recent biography of Beethoven, the period of the early 1800s was the Goethezeit, the age of Goethe, and following the death of Immanuel Kant, Goethe and Beethoven stood alone as the two colossi of German culture. That they should not only meet, but perhaps become friends, even collaborate on an opera, as Beethoven desired, seemed inevitable. And yet, it was not to be.

They did meet in Teplitz. For most of one week, they took walks together, talking constantly. Beethoven played the piano for the writer and brought up the idea of an opera libretto. Goethe seemed amenable, but once the two men returned homeBeethoven to Vienna, Goethe to Weimar, where he was an official of the courtnothing came of these tentative plans. More than likely, the artists never met again.

More here.
9AA: Wall tops Parkston for first state football title in 28 years
Genres : Drama, History, War

Starring : Gregory Peck, Ivan Bonar, Ward Costello, Nicolas Coster, Marj Dusay, Ed Flanders

Director : Joseph Sargent

Plot Synopsis

The story of General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander during World War II and United Nations Commander for the Korean War. "MacArthur" begins in 1942, following the fall of Philippines, and covers the remarkable career of this military legend up through and including the Korean War and into MacArthur's days of forced retirement after being dismissed from his post by President Truman.
CARLSBAD, Calif. and KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia, July 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Verdezyne Inc., a synthetic biology company producing biobased chemicals, announced today that a groundbreaking ceremony was held on July 30th for its VerdePalm plant, Verdezyne's first commercial-scale renewable chemicals manufacturing facility, at the Bio-XCell premier biotechnology and ecosystem park in Nusajaya, Iskandar, in southern Malaysia. The new facility is designed to produce biobased long chain diacids via fermentation of Verdezyne's proprietary yeast, which has been engineered to use non-food biomass to produce high value chemicals. The first product produced at VerdePalm will be dodecanedioic acid (DDDA), a 12-carbon diacid that is a component of many consumer products currently made from petroleum. DDDA is a main building block of FerroShieldTM, Verdezyne's nitrate-free dibasic acid mixture used in a variety of corrosion inhibitor applications.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the VerdePalm plant was co-hosted by Chad Waite, Chairman of the Verdezyne Board of Directors, and YBhg. Tan Sri Dato' Abdul Ghani Othman, Chairman of the Board of Sime Darby Berhad, the largest investor in Verdezyne Inc. Attendees included Malaysian dignitaries and representatives from Verdezyne's partners, Bio-XCell Malaysia and the Malaysian Biotechnology Corporation. The Guest of Honor, YAB Dato' Mohamed Khaled Nordin, Chief Minister of Johor, presented the Officiating Speech.

The VerdePalm plant is expected to be completed in 12-18 months. VerdePalm will be the world's first biobased plant for DDDA production. "Importantly, the starting yeast will be made from the spent biomass that results from palm oil processing," Waite stated. "Crude palm oil and palm byproducts, as well as other plant-based raw materials, will be used to produce approximately 6,000 metric tons of industrial grade DDDA each year. Verdezyne's technology will enable a very low-value by-product of palm oil processing to become a high-value "green" product that reduces the use of petroleum."

"We are excited that a product made by Verdezyne and our Malaysian partners will be shipped around the world to be used as an alternative to the typical petroleum-derived intermediate chemicals," said E. William Radany, Ph.D., President and CEO of Verdezyne. "The VerdePalm plant is part of our comprehensive strategy of expansion into Asia, and represents a major step toward our goal of replacing petroleum-derived chemicals with renewable drop-in replacements," he noted.

"Malaysia is proud to host Verdezyne's first commercial manufacturing plant, which is located at the Malaysin Bio-XCell park. I believe the eco-system provided by the park will be an excellent fit for the VerdePalm facility. Malaysia will continue to commit to the ongoing advancement of biotechnology in the country. The groundbreaking ceremony signifies Verdezyne's readiness to work with Malaysia and marks another milestone in our quest to add value to the palm industry using biotechnology as a catalyst," said Zainal Azman B. Abu Kasim, Senior Vice President of BioIndustrials, Bioeconomy Corporation in Malaysia.

DDDA is a key component of FerroShield, which can be used in numerous corrosion inhibitor applications including metalworking fluids, engine coolants, metal cleaners, die cast release agents, and aqueous hydraulic fluids. "Marketing of FerroShield was launched in February of this year," Dr. Radany added. "The rust inhibition industry is in need of a high-performing dibasic acid mixture that can be easily incorporated into existing customer formulas. We foresee strong demand for FerroShield in a number of countries in Asia and Europe, as well as in the U.S. and Canada."

About Verdezyne

Verdezyne is a synthetic biology company offering biobased chemicals manufactured via fermentation of its proprietary yeast cells. The company has two commercial products, BIOLON DDDA (dodecanedioic acid) and FerroShield dibasic acid mixture. Current investors in Verdezyne include BP Ventures, DSM Venturing B.V., OVP Venture Partners, Monitor Ventures, and Sime Darby. For more information, visit www.verdezyne.com or connect with the company on Twitter, LinkedIn or Facebook.

For samples, orders or more information about Verdezyne's FerroShield, please contact:

The U.S.: kwilkinson@aceto.com

Asia : ddda@wecocbc.com

: ddda@wecocbc.com Europe : ferroshield@will-co.nl

Verdezyne Media Contact:

Jenna Ngian

Vice President, Global Sales and Marketing

JNgian@Verdezyne.com

760-707-5288

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/verdezyne-groundbreaking-ceremony-in-malaysia-commemorates-initiation-of-the-worlds-first-biobased-ddda-plant-300496369.html

SOURCE Verdezyne
By Amira El Masaiti

King Mohammed VI delivered the much-anticipated Royal speech tonight at 9 p.m. Dealing out criticism of government policy and exhortations to change mentalities, the King did not shy away from addressing governmental corruption, which he said puts the country at risk.

While the relationship between the government and the people should be built on trust, the king recognized that many of the ties between the state to its citizens are fragile, particularly when the government goes out of its way to keep the public in the dark.

If the King of Morocco is not convinced of the way political activity is conducted and if he does not trust a number of politicians, what are the citizens left with? asked the King.

The lack of public access to the evolution witnessed in Morocco in the political domain and in the area of development has not, according to the king, led to the kind of positive reaction you would expect from political parties, leaders and government officials when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccans.

King Mohammed VI asserted that the governments tactics in playing the role of the victim, hiding behind the monarchs power once they mismanage a task, is no longer tolerable.

When matters do not turn out the way they should, they hide behind the Royal Palace and ascribe everything to it, while when results are positive, political parties, politicians and officials vie for the spotlight to derive benefits from the achievements made, both politically and in terms of media exposure.

Despite the fact that Moroccos development policy choices remain sound, wiping out corruption has not yet been achieved, considering that mentalities that have not evolved as well as with the inability to implement projects and to innovate.

As a result, citizens complain to the King about government services or officials that take too long to respond to their queries or process their cases, asking him to intercede on their behalf, said the King, implying that government policies and public service must be revised.

The King reiterated to government officials what is expected of them in serving the public. Citizens are entitled to convincing answers  within reasonable timeframes  to their queries and complaints, including the explanation or justification of negative decisions.

He continued, requests and queries should not be turned down without a valid legal reason; they should be rejected only when they are inconsistent with the law, or when the citizen concerned has not completed the relevant procedures or met the requirements.

Opportunities for the youth to engage in governance and participate in political and decision-making has been dis-incentivized by governmental actors corrupt behavior and insufficient communication with the public.

The practices of some elected officials induce a number of citizens, especially young people, to shun political life and take no part in elections. Put simply, they do not trust politicians; indeed, some stakeholders have perverted politics, diverting it away from its lofty objectives, said the King.
In a speech on Saturday on the occasion of the Throne Day, King Mohammed VI lashed out at the political elite, telling them they must take their responsibilities seriously or quit public office.

The Kings speech heavily criticized politicians and officials, who he said have neither followed up with development policies and projects in the kingdom nor properly done their duties.

The evolution witnessed in Morocco in the political domain and in the area of development has not led to the kind of positive reaction you would expect from political parties, leaders, and government officials when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccans, the king said.

The monarch drew attention to the mentalities that have not evolved to go along with this evolution.

What is more deplorable in the eyes of the king is the attitude of the political elite and officials, who are more concerned with their public image than serving the nation and peoples interests.

When results are positive, political parties, politicians and officials vie for the spotlight to derive benefits from the achievements made, both politically and in terms of media exposure, says the King.

Vying for media exposure and political wins has led parties and politicians to forget their primary mission in serving the public, the king explained. Instead, the kingdom has witnessed intense competition between political actors, even in the midst of serious crises such as the one in Al Hoceima, during which elected officials and political parties from the government and opposition have kept exchanging accusations over who is to blame.

The king expressed his disappointment at the growing intensity of party rivalries.

Running public affairs should have nothing to do with personal or partisan interests, said the monarch. I have noted that most stakeholders have opted for a win-lose rationale to preserve or expand their political capital at the expense of the homeland, even if that means making the situation worse.

The desire to seek the limelight is contrasted with a completely different behavior when things go wrong. In this case, officials and politicians hide behind the Royal Palace and ascribe everything to it.

As a result, citizens turn to the monarchy because politicians cannot get things done nor respond to peoples demands. The critical tone of the speech is unprecedented, although the King rebuked officials on previous occasions.

This time, however, the King gave those in positions of power two choices: either they do their jobs properly or concede their positions to others willing to take their responsibilities more seriously.

To all those concerned I say: Enough is enough! Fear God in what you are perpetrating against your homeland, says King Mohammed VI. Either discharge your obligations fully or withdraw from public life. There are plenty of honest men and women in Morocco.

Not assuming ones responsibility before God, the homeland, and the King is treason, said the royal speech. Facing the situation, the King stated that people can no longer derelict their duties and get away with it. The monarch insisted that Article 1 of the constitution, linking responsibility with accountability, should be rigorously applied.
The King has granted a royal pardon to 1,178 prisoners, which include Rif protesters and PJD youth members.

The royal pardon benefits a number of the Rif activists who have been detained following eight-month protests in the Al Hoceima region.

On the eve of the Throne Day, which will be celebrated on Sunday in Tangier, Morocco Ministry of the Royal Household announced that the Moroccan monarch has decided to grant his royal pardon to Rif protesters, as well as PJD youth members.

It is unclear, however, whether Nasser zafzafi, leader of the protest movement, has also benefited from the royal pardon.

Prior to his much anticipated royal speech, King Mohammed VI has granted a royal pardon to 1,178 prisoners, including some Rif protesters and PJD youth members, said a statement by the Maghreb Arab Press.

The king has given royal pardon to four inmates over their remaining prison term, while 811 inmates had their prison terms reduced.

One convicts death penalty was commuted to life imprisonment, while 25 inmates benefited from life sentences commutation to fixed prison terms.

The same sourced added that 58 inmates have benefited from the pardon over imprisonment term or remaining prison term, 22 others had both their prison sentences and fines dropped.

Sentences for Seven prisoners were pardoned while fine were kept. 180 inmates benefited from pardon over their prison terms and fines
King Mohammed VI addressed, on Saturday, a speech to the nation on the occasion of the eighteenth anniversary of Throne Day.

The speech is as follows:

Praise be to God,

May peace and blessings be upon the Prophet, His Kith and Kin

Dear Citizens,

Today, we are celebrating the eighteenth anniversary of my accession to the throne, in a national environment characterized by achievements as well as challenges.

This yearly celebration is an opportunity to renew the mutual bonds of the Beia uniting us and to take stock, together, of the state of the nation.

The development projects and the political and institutional reforms carried out target a single goal: to serve citizens, wherever they may be. There is no difference between north and south, east and west, urban and rural areas.

It is true that Moroccos resources are limited. It is also a fact that many regions need more basic social services.

However, Morocco has been constantly developing, by the grace of the Almighty. Progress is clear and real; it is recognized across the board and in all sectors.

Today, however, we are witnessing glaring paradoxes that are hard to understand or accept.

On the one hand, Morocco enjoys indisputable credibility at continental and international levels, the esteem and consideration of our partners and the confidence of major investors, such as the Boeing, Renault and Peugeot groups. But on the other hand, we are shocked by the end results, the facts on the ground and the modest achievements made in certain social sectors, so much so that it is shameful to admit we are actually talking about present-day Morocco.

While it is true that our action, through a number of sectoral plans  like those relating to agriculture, industry and renewable energy  has been successful, human and local development programs, which have a positive impact on citizens living conditions, do us no credit, nor do they match our ambitions.

In many sectors, this is mostly due to the inadequacy of joint action, the lack of a national, strategic dimension, inconsistency instead of harmony, disparagement and procrastination instead of entrepreneurship and concrete action.

These paradoxes are even more acute when we compare the private sector  which is efficient and competitive, and which is built on a governance model that has incentives, as well as follow-up and monitoring mechanisms  to the public sector, particularly our civil service, which is suffering from poor governance and weak performance.

The private sector is attracting the best human resources that are trained in our country. They are involved in the management of major international groups in Morocco as well as small and medium-sized Moroccan enterprises.

As for civil servants, many of them do not have the skills, qualifications or ambition required; moreover, they are not always guided by a sense of responsibility.

Some of them report to work for only short periods of time, preferring to settle for modest  but guaranteed  pay, instead of working hard to improve their social conditions.

One of the problems which impede Moroccos progress is the weakness of the civil service, be it in terms of governance, efficiency or the quality of the services provided to citizens.

For instance, the regional investment centers  with the exception of one or two  are a problem. They impede the act of investing instead of serving as a mechanism that provides incentives and resolves the problems of investors at the regional level, without their having to go to central government departments.

This has an adverse impact on regions that are suffering from insufficient  sometimes inexistent  private investment and from the public sectors weak performance. This, in turn, affects citizens living conditions.

The challenge is even more daunting in regions with the biggest shortage of health, education and cultural services, not to mention the lack of jobs. Greater cooperative efforts are required to close gaps and help these regions catch up with the others.

Conversely, regions with a vibrant private sector, like Casablanca, Rabat, Marrakech and Tangier, are enjoying strong economic dynamism which creates wealth as well as jobs.

To put an end to this situation, governors, caids, directors, staff members, local officials, etc. should work hard, just like staff in the private sector  or even harder. They should show a sense of responsibility that does credit to the civil service and yields concrete results since these officials are entrusted with serving citizens interests.

Dear Citizens,

All in all, our development policy choices remain sound. The problem lies with mentalities that have not evolved as well as with the inability to implement projects and to innovate.

The evolution witnessed in Morocco in the political domain and in the area of development has not led to the kind of positive reaction you would expect from political parties, leaders and government officials when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccans.

When results are positive, political parties, politicians and officials vie for the spotlight to derive benefits from the achievements made, both politically and in terms of media exposure.

However, when matters do not turn out the way they should, they hide behind the Royal Palace and ascribe everything to it.

As a result, citizens complain to the King about government services or officials that take too long to respond to their queries or process their cases, asking him to intercede on their behalf.

Citizens are entitled to convincing answers  within reasonable timeframes  to their queries and complaints, including the explanation or justification of negative decisions. Requests and queries should not be turned down without a valid legal reason; they should be rejected only when they are inconsistent with the law, or when the citizen concerned has not completed the relevant procedures or met the requirements.

Given this situation, citizens are entitled to ask themselves: What is the use of having institutions, holding elections, forming governments and appointing ministers, walis, governors, ambassadors and consuls if they live on one planet, and the people and their concerns are on another one?

The practices of some elected officials induce a number of citizens, especially young people, to shun political life and take no part in elections.

Put simply, they do not trust politicians; indeed, some stakeholders have perverted politics, diverting it away from its lofty objectives.

If the King of Morocco is not convinced of the way political activity is conducted and if he does not trust a number of politicians, what are the citizens left with?

To all those concerned I say: Enough is enough! Fear God in what you are perpetrating against your homeland. Either discharge your obligations fully or withdraw from public life. There are plenty of honest men and women in Morocco.

This situation can no longer be tolerated because the homelands interests and those of the citizens are at stake. I am choosing my words carefully here, and I know what I am saying because it comes after deep reflection.

Dear Citizens,

The responsibility and the privilege of serving citizens call for action that goes from responding to their basic demands to implementing projects  big and small.

As I always point out, there is no difference between small and large projects. All projects are meant to meet peoples needs.

Whether a project concerns a district, a hamlet, a city, a region or the entire country, it still has the same objective, which is to serve citizens. In the eyes of citizens, digging a well or building a dam, for instance, are equally important.

What is the meaning of responsibility if the official concerned loses sight of one of the most basic requirements of that responsibility, which is to listen to citizens concerns?

I fail to understand how officials who do not fulfill their duties can leave home, drive their cars, stop at traffic lights and brazenly and shamelessly look people in the face, knowing that they are aware of their unscrupulous conduct.

Are these people who took the oath before God, the homeland and the King, and who fail to perform their duties, not ashamed of themselves? Should not any official who is guilty of dereliction of duty be held to account and dismissed?

I must insist, in this respect, on the need to apply rigorously the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 1 of the Constitution, which links public office with accountability.

It is high time this principle were implemented in full. Just as the law applies equally to all citizens, it must be applied, first and foremost, to all officials, without distinction or discrimination, and in all of the Kingdoms regions.

This is the dawn of a new era in which there is no difference between officials and citizens as far as civic rights and obligations are concerned; nor is there room for shirking responsibility or avoiding sanctions.

Dear Citizens,

I insist on the need to implement the provisions of the Constitution fully and rigorously. This is a collective responsibility which lies with all stakeholders, each in their respective area of competence  the government, parliament, political parties and all the institutions concerned.

When an official obstructs or delays the implementation of a development project or a social program, this is not simply a case of dereliction of duty; it amounts to treason because that official is harming the interests of citizens and preventing them from enjoying their legitimate rights.

Strangely enough, there are some officials who fail in their duty and still consider that they deserve a higher position.

It is attitudes and inconsistencies such as these that give substance to the widely-held belief among most Moroccans that the reason behind vying for positions is to benefit from rent-seeking and to wield power and influence to serve ones own interests.

And since examples of such practices exist in everyday life, people unfortunately tend to give credence to this belief.

But, thank God, not all politicians and senior civil servants are like that. There are trustworthy people who genuinely love their homeland and who are known for their integrity, uprightness and commitment to serving the public good.

Dear Citizens,

The events taking place in some parts of the country have regrettably revealed an unprecedented lack of the sense of responsibility.

Instead of each party fulfilling its national and professional obligations; instead of resorting to cooperation and collaborative efforts to resolve citizens problems, the parties concerned have been laying the blame at one anothers door, and narrow politicking has been allowed to take precedence over the homeland. As a result, citizens interests have been ignored.

Some political parties believe that all they have to do is hold their general meetings, those of their political and executive committees and get involved in election campaigns.

But when it comes to engaging the citizens and solving their problems, they do nothing and are non-existent. This is unacceptable on the part of institutions whose role is to guide and represent the citizens and to serve their interests.

I never expected partisan bickering and political score-settling to go as far as to jeopardize the interests of citizens.

Running public affairs should have nothing to do with personal or partisan interests, populist discourse, or the use of strange expressions that undermine political action.

I have noted that most stakeholders have opted for a win-lose rationale to preserve or expand their political capital at the expense of the homeland, even if that means making the situation worse.

The fact that political parties and their representatives refrain from performing their mission  sometimes deliberately, and sometimes out of a lack of credibility or patriotism  has further compounded the situation.

Given this regrettable and dangerous vacuum, law enforcement services have found themselves face to face with the citizens. They have bravely and patiently fulfilled their duty, showing restraint and commitment to the rule of law as they maintained security and stability.

I am referring to Al Hoceima, but what happened there could actually occur in any other region.

This refutes what some have referred to as the security approach, as if Morocco were sitting on top of a volcano, or as if each household and each citizen were being watched over by a policeman.

Some even say there is a radical wing and a moderate one, adding that they disagree on how to tackle these events. Nothing could be further from the truth!

In reality, there is only one policy and a single, unwavering commitment, which is to enforce the law, respect the institutions, ensure the security of citizens and safeguard their property.

Moroccans know that the people behind the afore-mentioned anachronous theory are using it as a business undertaking; they also realize that what these people say is not credible.

They act as if law-enforcement services are the ones who run the country and control the government and senior officials. It is probably these services that set prices, etc.

By contrast, law enforcement officers are making major sacrifices, working day and night in difficult conditions to fulfil their duty, maintain the internal and external security and stability of the homeland, and safeguard the security, serenity and tranquility of citizens.

Moroccans have every right and ought, in fact, to be proud of their law-enforcement authorities. I say this loud and clear, without any inferiority complex: if certain nihilists do not want to admit this, or refuse to tell the truth, it is their problem  and theirs alone.

Dear Citizens,

The Moroccan institutional model is an advanced political system.

Nevertheless, for the most part, it is not properly applied. The problem concerns actual implementation on the ground. Having said that, I am particularly keen to respect the prerogatives of institutions as well as the separation of powers.

However, if officials fail to discharge their duties, and the interests of the homeland and of citizens are jeopardized, it is incumbent upon me, as per the Constitution, to ensure the countrys security and stability and to safeguard peoples interests as well as their rights and freedoms.

At the same time, I will not accept any backtracking on democratic achievements, nor will I tolerate any obstruction as far as the work of institutions is concerned. Both the Constitution and the law are quite clear, and powers need no explanation.

Officials must exercise their prerogatives without waiting for someones permission. And instead of repeating the same excuse  namely I am being prevented from doing my job  it is better for them to offer their resignation, which nobody would reject.

Morocco must come first: before political parties, before elections and before senior positions.

Dear Citizens,

Until my very last breath, I will always take pride in serving you, for I was brought up to love our motherland and to serve its sons and daughters.

I solemnly promise, before God, to keep up my earnest endeavors and seek to meet your expectations so that your aspirations may be fulfilled.

Allow me, Dear citizens, to speak my mind and tell you exactly how I feel, eighteen years after assuming the sacred mission of leading the nation.

I cannot hide certain matters from you. You know them quite well. It is my duty to tell you the truth. Otherwise, I will let you down.

You will notice, Dear Citizens, that I have not talked about our territorial integrity, Africa, or any other foreign policy issue.

Needless to say, the question of the Moroccan Sahara is not open for discussion, and, of course, it remains a top priority.

What I am seeking to achieve today, in all regions of the Kingdom, is a new massira, or march  a march for the achievement of human and social development; a march for equality and social justice for all Moroccans, because such a major endeavor cannot be carried out in one region and not in the others.

One may come up with the most efficient development model and the best plans and strategies but:

 without a change in mentality;

 without having the best civil servants;

 without the political parties choosing the best elites that are qualified to run public affairs;

 without a sense of responsibility and national commitment; one would not be able to offer all Moroccans the free, dignified life one wants them to have.

I do not want you, Dear Citizens, to think, after listening to this address, that I am being pessimistic.

Far from it! You know that I am a realist. I tell the truth, painful though it may be.

Pessimism is the lack of will, the absence of a forward-looking vision and the inability to see things as they are.

Thank God, our resolve is both firm and sincere, and we also have a clear, long-term vision. We know who we are and where we are heading.

Throughout the centuries, and by the Grace of the Almighty, Morocco has managed to survive countless hardships, thanks to the close, symbiotic relationship between the Throne and the people.

And here we are today, forging ahead and making progress, together, in various sectors. We confidently and resolutely look forward to making more achievements.

Almighty God says:

Allah does command you to render back your Trusts to those to whom they are due; and when you judge between man and man, that you judge with justice.

True is the Word of God.

Wassalmu alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
By Mohammed Loulichki

Source ( OCP Policy Center)

The decision of the South African High Court on June 15, 2017, ordering to seize the Moroccan phosphate cargo destined for New Zealand and to take the case to trial, has been considered by OCP and the Moroccan Government as an indignation and a law instrumentalization for political purposes.

In less than three weeks, two shipments of phosphates extracted from the subsoil of the Sahara region and exported by the company Phosboucraa were seized in Panama and South Africa respectively and were the subject of two verdicts of varying scope.

On May 1, 2017, following a request by the Polisario, the South African port authorities took advantage of the entry of the vessel Cherry Blossom into Port Elizabeth to seize the cargo of 55,000 tons of phosphates it was transporting to New Zealand and confiscate the ships documents, pending a judgment.

On May 17, 2017, a Danish vessel Ulta Innovation carrying 50,000 tons of phosphates on behalf of Agruim, a Canadian company, was the subject of an order by the Panamanian Maritime Court during its transit through the Panama Canal, bound for Vancouver.

In its decision of June 5, 2017, the Panamanian court declared itself not competent to rule on this case as it concerns a political issue of international dimension, and dismissed the Polisario for failing to prove that it was the owner of the cargo.

Contrary to Panamas court decision, on June 15, the South African court stated that: The Polisario represents most of the populations of the Sahara and that the exploitation of phosphates in the subsoil of this region does not benefit this population. In its forthcoming deliberations, the South African judge will need to determine the identity of the Cherry Blossom cargos owner and whether or not the immunity from jurisdiction invoked by the Moroccan lawyers to divest itself of this matter is applicable.

This decision provoked strong reactions in Morocco and criticism even within South Africa. Indeed, in a comment made the day after the South African courts decision, the think-tank, Institute for Security Studies (ISS), based in Pretoria, rightly noted the involvement of the Ministry of South African Foreign Affairs as a stakeholder in this case and interpreted the decision as a reaction to the success of Morocco within Africa.

The initial South African courts decision is contrary to the decision handed down by the Panamanian court two weeks prior. It comes in a context characterized by tension in the relations between Rabat and Pretoria, the most recent of which were the positions adopted by South Africa when Morocco applied to join the African Union last January.

Pending the considerations and basis of the next decision by the South African court, it is already possible to note a few observations and to make some comments on the arguments put forward by the Court of Port Elizabeth to justify seizing the Danish ships cargo and documents. This analysis will be based on the concepts used, the approach followed, the establishment of the Courts jurisdiction, and the content of its decision.

1. At the conceptual level, the court departs from United Nations terminology or makes qualifications that are legally inaccurate. This is the case with the term occupation (paragraph 38, paragraph 40), which neither the General Assembly nor the United Nations Security Council uses in the context of efforts to find a political solution to the dispute over Moroccos recovery of its Sahara.

Moreover, the Court mentions a tripartite agreement allegedly signed between Morocco, the UN and the Polisario (paragraph 6), which would thus have constituted a de jure mutual recognition of the two parties when, in fact, it concerns proposals of August 1988 submitted by the Secretary General of the United Nations, accepted separately by the same parties, and incorporated into a document called a resolution plan. The Security Council adopted this same document in its resolution 658 (1990) dated June 27, 1990.

2. As far as the approach is concerned, the Court seems to retain only the factual and historical evidence that corroborates South Africas official position in all its concordance with the positions of Algeria and the Polisario. As an example, neither the negotiation process under way since 2007 nor Moroccos development efforts in the region are found in the Courts reference system. The same is true of the requirement to conduct a census of the Tindouf camp populations, requested for the past six years by the Security Council and not adhered to by Algeria and the Polisario.

Another example is that the Court blamed Morocco for having rejected the referendum provided for in the resolution plan, whereas it was the United Nations that established this finding in 2000 because of the impossibility to conduct the identification process.

Lastly, the court, instead of relying on objective evidence or on legal reasoning in order to construct its arguments, limited itself to unrelated statements, such as the first paragraph, which reads: It is said that the Territory of Western Sahara is the only African territory that continues to be subject to the colonial regime.

3. Concerning jurisdiction, South Africa is neither the customer nor the carrier nor the owner of the vessel in order to be entitled to an interest in bringing forth proceedings. Similarly, regardless of whether it is conventional law, customary law, or even South African law, the vessel Cherry Blossom has not committed any infraction of South African rules or international rules that could justify its detention and seizure of its cargo and its documents.

Its entry into the Port of Elizabeth for supply was a routine act carried out in good faith, with no apprehension or doubt about the future behavior of the South African authorities. In addition, Morocco has not taken any action against South Africa that would be detrimental to the interests of that country, which could have justified reprisals on its part.

The vessel did not commit any violation within the waters under South African jurisdiction that would have triggered its responsibility in accordance with the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. It was not accountable for any claim that would have justified its detention, in accordance with the Brussels Convention of 1952 on the Unification of Certain Rules on the Arrest of Sea-going Ships.

In the absence of a treaty basis to justify its jurisdiction, the Court of Port Elizabeth relied on the South African Law called Implementation of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court dated July 12, 2002, which provides for universal jurisdiction. It is well known that this jurisdiction cannot be invoked for a commercial dispute and remains explicitly and exclusively reserved for crimes against humanity, war crimes, genocide and torture.

4. Concerning the verdicts content, we note three fundamental points which seem to merit special attention: the representation of the populations of the Sahara, the status of Morocco vis-a-vis the Sahara region, and the legality of Moroccos exploitation of the regions natural resources.

a. Representation of the populations of the Sahara:

Throughout the judgment, the South African Court refers to the Polisario as a national liberation movement  representing the people of Western Sahara and recognized as such by the United Nations (paragraphs 5 and 6). However, the United Nations, the African Organization nor the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) have never recognized it as such.

On the African level, the granting of the status of Liberation Movement has always been the exclusive jurisdiction of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) Liberation Committee. Thus, for example, the South West Africa Peoples Organization (SWAPO) and the African Nation Congress (ANC) were given recognition of this status, which provided them with the status of observer representation in the OAU and in the United Nations.

During the Committees existence, between 1963, the date of the creation of the OAU, and 1995, the date of the end of the Committee, the Polisario was never granted the status of a liberation movement, presumably due to the existence of other movements which were Unionists and the lack of support within the OAU for the granting of this status.

At the UN level, the Polisario is not considered as a liberation movement nor as a sole and legitimate representative but only as a petitioner in the Fourth Committee and the Committee of 24. For the purposes of the current negotiating process leading to a political solution, the Polisario is considered as a simple interlocutor, with an ad hoc and functional status, with no legal implications, which enables it to be involved in the negotiations without being able to address itself, in any capacity whatsoever, to the Security Council, the General Assembly or its five other main committees.

This conclusion on the non-representativeness of the Polisario was also enshrined by the European Union Court of Justice in determining the territorial scope of the Fisheries Agreement between Morocco and the EU.

In this respect, one is justified in questioning the reasons that prompted the Polisario to submit its application to the South African court on its behalf and on behalf of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic (SADR), whereas the one presented to the European court was only in the name of the Polisario. The latitude thus given to the South African judge to play on the two statutes in order to guide his reasoning and decision could explain this alternative.

Another inaccuracy lies in the proportion of the Sahara populations located to the east of the wall and in the Tindouf camps in Algeria. The South African court asserts that it constitutes the majority of the total population originating from the Sahara region. A factual and neutral reading of the history of the conflict could have informed the South African judge that the majority of the Sahara regions population lives in Morocco, as has long been attested by the United Nations Identification Commission. This population cannot, therefore, accept to see its right to representation confiscated by the Polisario.

b. Moroccos status vis-a-vis the Sahara region:

In its judgment, the South African court considers that Morocco has recovered the region of the Sahara, through the use of force (paragraph 19), that the populations of this region are distinct (paragraph 18) from the population of the rest of Morocco and that at most, Morocco can be considered as a de facto administering power for the purposes of the courts deliberations.

By invoking the general principle of international law on the illegality of the acquisition of territories by force, the South African court asserts that Morocco occupied the Sahara Region by force and that Spain offered/gave (paragraph 19 and paragraph 41) the territory to Morocco. Such assertions are far from reality and do not stand up to proven facts duly reflected in international legal instruments.

The reality is that Morocco has recovered its Sahara by exclusively peaceful means, without recourse at any time to armed force and that the Royal Armed Forces entered this region under an agreement negotiated with the former colonizer, registered with the United Nations and endorsed by a General Assembly resolution.

Is it necessary to note that the Green March, a peaceful and civilized means to pressure Spain to negotiate with Morocco for the surrender of the Sahara, did not give rise to any armed confrontation nor one of a military nature.

It is also necessary to recall that Moroccos decolonization process is a sui generis case, because while the occupation of the Moroccan territory has taken place in stages, the recovery of the entire territory of Morocco has also taken place gradually and is awaiting completion. What has in fact been a constant feature of Moroccos approach is its determination to achieve its full territorial integrity through negotiation and in harmony with international law.

Finally, it must be remembered that the International Court of Justice (ICJ) recognized allegiance bonds between Sahrawi tribes and Moroccan Sultans, and that the Green March led to the negotiation of the Madrid Agreement in November 14, 1975. This was followed by the final return of the ex-Spanish Sahara to the mother country, in conformity with international law and the United Nations Charter.

The same agreement was registered on December 9, 1976 with the United Nations Secretariat in accordance with Article 102 of the Charter and endorsed by the General Assembly in resolution 3458 (B) dated December 10, 1979.

On these developments, the South African court decided to exclude the foregoing and went so far as to claim that the population of the Sahara is distinct from that of Morocco and that Hassania is closer to Mauritania than to Morocco (paragraph 18). Such an assertion completely ignores the history, sociology and demography of the entire Moroccan South, including the Sahara region, and particularly the degree of integration of the southern tribes into Moroccan society.

c. Exploitation of the Saharas Natural Resources :

Since Morocco presented its autonomy initiative in April 2007, Algeria and the Polisario have undertaken actions to neutralize the dynamics created by the autonomy proposal. There has been an attempt over these past eight years to include the human rights dimension in MINURSOs mandate. Then, faced with the failure of this process, the Polisario turned to the question of the natural resources in the Sahara, making its exploitation contingent upon consulting the Tindouf camps populations or using the resulting income to exclusively benefit these same populations.

In reality, the Polisarios objective is quite different: Faced with the growing challenge of the humanitarian condition of the Tindouf camps populations, the Polisarios objective is a race to the bottom, depriving populations in the Sahara region of benefitting from the exploitation of local natural resources in order to put them in the same precarious situation as the Tindouf camps populations.

Indeed, thanks to family visits between the Sahara region and the Tindouf camps, visitors have been able to see for themselves the unprecedented development recorded over the last years within the region, which contrasts with the humanitarian situation they experience in the camps.

By adopting Polisarios thesis on the Tindouf camps population size, the Court asserts that those who can benefit from the extraction of phosphates are not the populations of the territory but more likely the Moroccan settlers (Paragraph 48), and that the ownership of the cargo belongs to the Polisario (paragraph 49). In doing so, the South African judicial body relies essentially on the resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly and the opinion of its Legal Counsel to try to challenge the legality of Moroccos exploitation of the natural resources in the Sahara.

In this sense, it should be noted that the context in which these resolutions were adopted was characterized by the will of third world countries, supported by the socialist bloc, to regain their full sovereignty, including the means of ensuring their political independence and socio-economic development. This process resulted in a series of resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly from 1952 to the end of the 1970s. The quintessence of these instruments can be synthesized into three parameters:

 Non-discrimination between the populations of the region,

 The development of the well-being of these populations and the promotion of the viability of their environment,

 The non-exploitation of the resources of the region in contempt or to the detriment of the interests of its population.

The insistence on these principles is explained by the historical context of decolonization characterized by the excessive exploitation of natural resources by the ex-colonial powers in their overseas territories, for the exclusive benefit of these same powers regardless of the interests of indigenous peoples or concern that the newly independent countries avoid any external influence.

As for the opinion of UN Legal Counsel Hans Corell in 2002, the UN official said: An analysis of the dispositions of the United Nations Charter, the resolutions of the General Assembly, the jurisprudence of the International Court of Justice and State practices indicates that exploitation is illegal only if it is conducted in disregard of the needs and interests of the population of the territory in question.

By applying the 3 principles to the situation of the Sahara populations, it enables the following observations to be made:

The development that the Sahara region has been able to experience does indeed show discrimination. However, this discrimination is rather positive in favor of local populations. It has been dictated by the need to compensate for the deficit accumulated since 1975 in all development sectors. Below is indicative data:

The Sahara region currently has over 3,379 km road, compared to 850 km in 1975, an electrification rate of 92% while the national average is 71%, 74 educational establishments compared with 6 in 1975, 50 health facilities compared to 10, the Human Development Index (HDI) increased from 0.408 in 1975 to 0.729 currently (while the national index is 0.672).

A study undertaken by the well-known consulting firm KPMG in July 2015, focusing in particular on the role and impact of the company Phosboucraa in the socio-economic development of the Sahara region, revealed the following:

 Phosboucraa is the largest employer in the region with 2,200 employees, and the 50 subcontracting companies in the region have created 627 jobs

 Payroll is equivalent to $177 million

 The percentage of employees from the region increased from 4% in 1975 to 76% in 2017.

 In 2016, the 500 people recruited were 100% locals

 In 2017, the companys top management has 20 senior employees from the region compared to one in 2003

 In terms of investment, all of Phosboucraas profits are fully reinvested locally

 OCP plans to invest $250 million between 2013 and 2022 in developing the region

This demonstrates that not only is the phosphate extracted from the subsoil of the Sahara region and not exported in contempt or to the detriment of the local population, but that to a great extent it benefits these same population.

Moreover, the State has allocated additional resources, for Moroccos duty of solidarity with respect to its Saharawi component, which go well beyond the phosphate and fishery revenues because each dollar of revenue generated from the region corresponds to seven dollars invested by the Moroccan public and private sectors.

To better understand the scope of the South African courts findings, it is important to link it to the context, which is characterized by the following determinants:

 Moroccos return to the African Union and the role it could play in boosting the Organizations structures and improving its capacities

 Moroccos place on a continental level and its concrete initiatives of co-development centered inter alia in phosphate-related activities

 The prospect of an upcoming resumption of the process to seek a realistic political solution under a new leadership by the United Nations

 The adverse bilateral relations between Rabat and Pretoria precisely because of the Sahara question.

It is undoubtedly these elements that the South Africa court considered when it repeatedly referred in its judgment to the complexity and novelty of the case before it. However, unlike the Panama Maritime Court, which for the same reasons declared the Polisarios application inadmissible, the South African court decided to render a final judgment on the case of Cherry Blossom.

This next step will give the South African court the opportunity to overcome the misstep dated June 15 and correct the damage done to relations between Morocco and South Africa. It will also be an opportunity to measure the degree of independence of this countrys justice system and its impermeability to external pressures and influences.

That said, and beyond this case, the real stakes far exceed the seizure of 50,000 tons of phosphates. The real challenge facing the international community as a whole is the negative impact of such actions on trust between States, respect for the sovereignty of States, including immunity from jurisdiction and enforcement, and the imperative international cooperation, which guarantees the fluidity of commercial transactions and the safety of maritime routes. What is at stake is the security and predictability that are always attached to any rule of law and, a fortiori, to the rules of international law whose purpose is to regulate relations between sovereign States, and avoid arbitrariness, unilateralism and political manipulation.

It is to be hoped that the rule of law, the sense of responsibility, and common sense will prevail.

About the author Mr. Loulichki

OCP Policy Center Senior Fellow

Mr. Loulichki has an extensive experience of 40 years in diplomacy and legal affairs. He assumed inter alia the functions of Head of the Department of Legal Affairs and Treaties in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was also Ambassador of Morocco in Hungary, Bosnia  Herzegovina and Croatia (1995-1999), Ambassador Coordinator of the Government of Morocco with MINURSO (1999  2001), Ambassador of Morocco to the United Nations in Geneva (2006-2008) and New York (2001-2003 and 2008-2014), as well as President of the Security Council (December 2014).

Mr. Loulichki was appointed President of the Counter-Terrorism Committee of the Security Council (2013), President of the working Group on Peace Keeping Operations (2012), Vice-President of the Human Rights Council (2006), Facilitator of the Universal Periodic Review of the said Council (2006 and 2010) and President of the National Committee in charge of the follow up on nuclear matters (2003-2006).
Shoji Matsumoto

Professor of African Law systems

Sapporo Gakuin University

South Africa is a third State in the Western Sahara Conflict. In the UN, the conflicting parties are only Morocco and the Polisario That State should remain to be a third State. Any State organs, including the courts, of South Africa are not entitled to decide the territory of a foreign State like Morocco.

Agreements on the territory and boundary have been called dispositive treaties. And they have been held valid erga omnes, opposable to third parties, and effective permanently.

Real rights in international law had been defined as those which were attached to territory and which were in essence valid erga omnes.( UN, Yearbook of International Law Commission 1972 i, 1974, 250.). In 1998, Eritrea-Yemen Arbitral Tribunal has rendered an award as below:

Boundary and territorial treaties between two parties are res inter alios acta vis-a-vis third parties. But this special category of treaties also represents a legal reality which necessarily impinges upon third states. If State A has title to territory and passes it to State B, then it is legally without purpose for State C to invoke the principle of res inter alios acta, unless its title is better than that of A (rather than of B).( Eritrea v Yemen (Phase one), 1998, Report of International Arbitral Award (RIAA), 1998 xxii, para.153.)

The International Law Commission (ILC) states that the issues of territorial status have frequently been addressed in erga omnes terms, referring to their opposability to all States. Thus, boundary and territorial treaties have been stated to represent a legal reality which necessarily impinges upon third States, citing the above-cited award. ( ILC, Conclusion of the Work of the Study Group on the Fragmentation of International Law, UN Doc A/61/10, 2006, para.251.)

The concept of effective erga omnes is confirmed by the principle of respect for the territorial integrity of a State, and further supported by more general entitlements of non-injured third States to invoke the responsibility of a State for an internationally wrongful act under the Draft Articles on Responsibility of States.( ILC, Draft Articles on Responsibility of States for Internationally Wrongful Acts, with Commentaries 2001, UN Publications, 2008, art.48.)

A dispositive treaty has a permanent character. Case Concerning the Territorial Dispute (Libya/Chad) (Merits) is illustrative. One of its main issues was the permanence of the legal effect of the Treaty of Friendship and Good-Neighbourliness between France and Libya. The ICJ observes as follows:

A boundary established by treaty thus achieves a permanence which the treaty itself does not necessarily enjoy. The treaty can cease to be in force without in any way affecting the continuance of the boundary. In this instance the Parties have not exercised their option to terminate the Treaty, but whether or not the option be exercised, the boundary remains. This is not to say that two States may not by mutual agreement vary the border between them; such a result can of course be achieved by mutual consent, but when a boundary has been the subject of agreement, the continued existence of that boundary is not dependent upon the continuing life of the treaty under which the boundary is agreed. (ICJ Rep 1994, paras.72-73.)

As such agreements are effective erga omnes, so non-agreement on territory or border is also valid erga omnes. Any third States are not entitled to delimit the territory or boundary of other States frivolously. Thus, the State organs of South Africa should refrain from deciding on the attribution of the Territory.
The Doklam stand-off between India and China going on for over a month has added another chapter in the unending differences between India and China with respect to border. The involvement of Bhutan in this matter has only increased the complexity of the matter.

This stand-off has been explained from various angles. Chinas expansion plan, refusal of India and Bhutan to join the One Belt One Road (OBOR) project and diversion from the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) that India objected due to violation of its territorial sovereignty are said to be behind the Doklam stand-off. While Indias border disputes with China and Pakistan are old and still unresolved, these new developments hardly indicate reduction of complexities for India.

Conventional wisdom dictates that co-operation, engagement and dialogue are the ways to resolve any issue. While these options should be pursued, it is necessary to consider and implement other options. These other options, if not alternative to dialogue, should at least be parallel to it. It implies considering the broader policy perspective rather than resolution of an isolated issue. This would require India respond in a quick and decisive manner to the developments that have going on and also the developments likely to arise in the future. The parallel option calls for a widened focus on strategic matters in conduct of foreign relations.

The border issue with China need not be approached only through the limited prism of land border. Chinas expansion plans run through land as well as sea. India too needs to focus more on maritime security than just territorial security. Two themes  Continental Mindset and Sea Blindness  in Indias foreign policy need to be overcome for addressing any strategic situation.

Indias geography (peninsular location with a long sea line) makes for a compelling case to have maritime strategy as an important part of the foreign policy. However adequate attention was not paid to the maritime domain as compared to territorial boundaries. The potential of Indias maritime location is yet to be exploited to the full in terms of security and connectivity.

It is important that the relative neglect of the maritime domain must be overcome. There have been positive indications in this direction in recent years. The focus on maritime domain has been increasing in both defence as well as economic areas. Modernization and strengthening of Indian Navy as well as development of maritime infrastructure and port development has been receiving thrust. Speaking at the Maritime India Summit in 2016 Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, This is the right time to come to India, it is even better to come through the sea.

Keeping the option of dialogue and engagement with China open, India should look forward to extend the engagement with the neighbouring countries (like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Maldives), Southeast Asian countries and Indian Ocean Littoral States. The focus should be on engagement in the area of maritime security and co-operation. Joint naval exercises like Malabar Exercise should benefit India as well as other participating countries. Increasing maritime engagement with various countries should result in regular and increased naval exercises.

Activating strategic arm of the foreign policy with a thrust on maritime domain would not only forward Indias overall interests but it may also aid India at the time of resolution of border disputes. It would mean that as far as China is concerned, such a policy of India would act as a competition as well as deterrence.

The border dispute with China is an old issue. It is true that this one irritant has not affected the relations of India and China in other sectors especially the economic sector. This is an indication of matured diplomacy between the two countries. India on its part has always advocated of peaceful solutions to all the outstanding issues.

However India also needs to guard itself against the expansion plans of China which are detrimental to the formers interests. A strategically inclined foreign policy which would serve Indias geopolitical interests in a comprehensive manner should be adopted. Making maritime security and naval diplomacy as instruments of foreign policy would act as leverage for India to assert its dominance in the region.

(The Author is an Independent Researcher based in Vadodara and can be reached at  niranjanmarjani@gmail.com)

Niranjan Marjani
Genres : Action

Starring : Elizabeth Rodriguez, Shirley Rumierk, David Zayas, Mike Carlsen Victor Almanzar

Director : Ben Snyder Ari Issler

Plot Synopsis

After being involved in the fatal shooting of a local drug dealer, U.S. Marine Nelson Sanchez (Victor Almanzar) returns to the neighborhood he fled years ago. Amid the fanfare and celebration on his homecoming from Afghanistan, the brother of the deceased learns of Nelson's return and vows revenge. When word reaches Nelson that his would-be killer is due on the 11:55 bus, he decides to protect himself and his family and make a stand. Nelson seeks out assistance from a fellow Marine vet, (John Leguizamo) and asks his drug-dealing godfather (David Zayas) to broker peace. As the clock ticks down, Nelson charts an unlikely path to break the cycle of the violence that has defined his life. 11:55 also stars Elizabeth Rodriguez, Julia Stiles, & Shirley Rumierk.
Natalie Portman, 35, is the face of Dior. The Oscar winner looked breathtaking in her latest Miss Dior fragrance campaign, which was released on July 29. Natalie decided to go braless and she really did pull it off. Natalie was in the most neutral makeup and let her narttural beauty make everyone fall for her. Natalie with this photo made the brand look even more elegant than usual in an ad campaign where she flaunts her amazing figure.

Natalie shares a deep love for Christian Dior and have partnered with them for the last five years. Ive been working with Dior for so long and they have been so incredibly supportive of me and my career, Natalie told British Vogue in 2016. I have also been lucky enough to travel to some pretty incredibly places with them, giving me time in foreign countries I may not otherwise get to experience. I feel very lucky to have them in my life.
A gunman opened fire at a nightclub in southern Germany early Sunday, killing one and wounding four before being shot by police, officials said in a statement.

The 34-year-old attacker was critically injured in a shootout with police officers as he left the disco, and later succumbed to his wounds in hospital, police said in a statement.

The motives of the man, who probably acted alone, are not known yet, they said.

Officers began receiving emergency calls from terrified clubbers at around 4:30 am (0230 GMT) after the man began shooting in the nightclub in an industrial zone in the city of Constance, killing one person on the spot and leaving three other people seriously wounded.

Shortly after he left the building, he was shot by police. One officer was also injured in the exchange of fire.

Terrified nightclubbers had either fled the building or found a place to hide, police said, adding that the danger was now over.

Helicopters were circling overhead and special forces were also deployed to secure the site.

Local broadcaster SWR reported witnesses saying that the gunman was armed with an automatic pistol.

A bouncer at the site had sought to stop the attacker, but was himself injured by the man, SWR said.

The shooting came just two days after Germany was shaken by a knife attack in the northern port city of Hamburg.

A 26-year-old Palestinian had killed one and injured six in an assault at a supermarket.

He was a known Islamist with psychological problems, and investigators say his motives remain unclear.

Germany has been on high alert about the threat of a jihadist attack, especially since last Decembers truck rampage through a Berlin Christmas market that claimed 12 lives.

But it has also been hit by other assaults unrelated to the jihadist threat.

Among the deadliest in recent years is a Munich shopping mall rampage by 18-year-old German-Iranian man which left 10 people dead including the gunman himself.
U.S. President Donald Trump once again blasted China for its inaction against North Korea following Pyongyangs latest missile launch.

He said in a series of tweets, I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem! (sic).

The Pentagon confirmed that North Korea on Friday launched its second flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The launch came a day after the 64th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War.

The anniversary had led to increased concerns the regime planned another test to fire another intercontinental ballistic missile.

Earlier this month on July 4, Pyongyang had also conducted its first successful test of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14, which it said was a gift to American b******s on their Independence Day.

The US President has repeatedly called on China to step up the pressure on its rogue ally, Pyongyang, and to do more to halt its nuclear program.

His comments are a contrast to what he said in April this year as he praised Chinese efforts to rein in North Korea.

Trump told a news conference at the time that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would try very hard to pressure Beijings ally and neighbor North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.
Aiken, SC (29801)

Today

Considerable cloudiness with occasional rain showers. High near 75F. Winds WSW at 10 to 15 mph. Chance of rain 40%..

Tonight

Cloudy skies this evening will become partly cloudy after midnight. Low 42F. Winds W at 10 to 15 mph.
Genres : Action, Science Fiction, Thriller

Starring : Anne Hathaway, Jason Sudeikis, Dan Stevens, Austin Stowell, Tim Blake Nelson, Rukiya Bernard

Director : Nacho Vigalondo

Plot Synopsis

Gloria (Anne Hathaway) is an out-of-work party girl who, after getting kicked out of her apartment by her boyfriend (Dan Stevens), is forced to leave her life in New York and move back to her hometown where she's reunited with her childhood friend (Jason Sudeikis). When news reports surface that a giant creature is destroying Seoul, South Korea, Gloria gradually comes to the realization that she is somehow connected to this far-off phenomenon. As events begin to spin out of control, Gloria must determine why her seemingly insignificant existence has such a colossal effect on the fate of the world. Experience the wildly original film critics are calling, "a great deal of fun" (New York Times).
July 28, 2017

CAIRO  July 16 marked the fourth month since Nahed Lashin, the first female mayor in Egypts Sharqiyah governorate, disappeared under mysterious circumstances, raising many questions about whether her disappearance or abduction was related to her being a female mayor and whether such a hypothesis would prevent women from running for positions of power.

Lashin became mayor of Hanout village in Sharqiyah governorate in September 2014, thus becoming the first Egyptian woman to win the post of mayor after the January 25 and June 30 revolutions, despite the heavy participation of women in both events. Lashin is the second woman in the history of Egypt to win the post of mayor, after Eva Habil, who became mayor of the village of Kamboha in Assiut in 2009.

Mayors in Egypt are appointed by the security directorate of their village, which chooses them based on their reputation, the opinion of the residents and the plans they provide to maintain security and take care of the interests of the citizens in the village.

Lashins disappearance has led to many rumors about her fate. On July 26, some newspapers reported that her body was found, while others reported that she had returned home. Salah Lashin, the mayors brother, denied the two rumors on the same day in press statements.

Most Egyptians associate the position of mayor with men, although neither the Mayors and Sheikhs Law No. 58 of 1978 nor its amendments in 1994, 2004 and 2015 prevent women from running for office. Only customs and traditions have gotten in the way of women holding such positions.

The mayors functions differ according to the executive regulations of the Mayors and Sheikhs Law of each governorate, but they usually include establishing security in villages that are located far from police stations. Albeit with limited capabilities, mayors coordinate with the security services on major issues, and they cooperate with governors on problems relating to agriculture, transportation and population issues.

Mayors amicably resolve local disputes before they develop into revenge or land seizure operations, which are common crimes in Egypts rural areas and in Upper Egypt. They also attest marriage contracts of girls who do not have official papers. Because mayors usually know all of the village families and residents, they can tell whether a girl has reached the legal age to get married.

Azza Kamel, a journalist focusing on womens affairs, wrote in an article in the Egyptian daily Al-Masry Al-Youm on May 22, The security director of Sharqiyah said he had found a message on Nahed's husbands cell phone wherein she tells him she was not returning home and asks him for a khula. If Lashin wanted to abandon her husband, then why did she disappear? A khula doesnt require such a disappearance and is openly done. She has been missing for two months and a week. How come the security forces are so sure that her disappearance is linked to marital disputes?

A khula is when a wife tells the court she wants a divorce and the court executes her demand after all reconciliation efforts end in failure. Also, the wife commits to repay the financial dues paid in the marriage contract and waives her future benefits.

Al-Monitor tried to contact Lashins husband to no avail.

Kamel criticized the security forces that are investigating the disappearance of Lashin and said, Wouldnt it have been better to deal with her disappearance as though it was related to criminal grounds pending a proof of the contrary? The fact that she fought with her husband and went to stay at her sisters doesnt mean that her disappearance is strictly linked to a marital dispute that can happen in every house.

The mayors brother posted on Facebook on July 25 a photo caption calling on the people of the Hanout village to organize a silent protest on July 30 in front of the Sharqiyah governorate building in solidarity with Lashins family and to condemn the security forces neglect in dealing with the mystery of her disappearance.

A security source in the Security Directorate of Sharqiyah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, The security forces did not rule out other reasons. We have conducted several investigations, raided some hideouts and interrogated people known for their kidnapping operations in the village of Hanout and the neighboring villages, in vain. We cannot rule out the possibility that she might have willingly run away, especially considering that her family has not been asked for ransom, nor can we deal with her disappearance as a murder case because there is no evidence thereof. We have not found any body or weapon, and there was no threat of any kind.

Kamel also noted the suspicious circumstances of Lashin's disappearance: Her husband did not report her disappearance until April 26, meaning 40 days after her disappearance, and he did not explain why he waited so long before reporting. And since it is a woman, rumor has it that she was under a certain spell and that she was visiting sheikhs to break this spell.

Al-Monitor contacted residents of the Sharqiyah governorate to ask them their opinions. Mustafa Khalaf, a student at Cairo University who hails from Sharqiyah, said, The social interaction with the incident is normal as many rural residents, especially uneducated ones, believe that magic is behind many incidents of the kind. And her husband's delay in reporting the incident is also understandable because several families refuse to report such cases, even in Cairo, out of fear that the kidnappers would harm the kidnapped in the event they learn that the police were informed.

He added, I dont think that Lashin was kidnapped because she is a female mayor. She is not the first person to be kidnapped in Egypt. She has been in office since 2014, but of course, many people in the countryside and in Upper Egypt are against women holding such positions. But I don't think this would lead anyone to kidnap or murder her, at least not nowadays.

An agricultural engineer from Sharqiyah told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, I think Lashins disappearance is related to her position, even if she has been occupying it for a while now. Some religious or social fanatics may have been angered by decisions she has made. Also, there may have been attempts to overthrow her for some time now, but the conditions had not been ripe yet. There are rural families who refuse female participation in rural areas, and they continue to impose their influence through crimes and threats, albeit to a lesser extent, and the state should deal with these.

Huda Badran, the head of the Egyptian Feminist Union, told Al-Monitor, Women are discriminated against in all parts of Egypt and throughout the world, and the state is making efforts to empower them by giving them leading positions and appointing them as ministers or governors. But such efforts are not enough because citizens' cooperation is a must.

She said, The success of Lashin or other women in any position and their lack of exposure to harassment operations depends on how citizens deal and cooperate with these women, and there are certainly many who are against her holding of the position. It is also certain that the incident will prevent many women from running for such positions. Therefore, the state should make efforts to raise awareness of women's issues all the while going beyond the female quota in parliament as well as some female appointments.
July 28, 2017

It is no secret that there is a considerable rift between the Donald Trump administration and the European Union. Trump fulfilled his election promises of an America First policy, objecting to globalization, regionalization, the European Union, free trade deals and climate change. He vehemently objects European immigration and refugee absorption policies. He does not hide his dislike of Europes strong women, namely German Chancellor Angela Merkel. On Syria he cooperates mainly with Russian President Vladimir Putin. On the Israeli-Palestinian issue, he largely works solo, in cooperation mainly with Egypt and the Arab Gulf states. He has developed a better personal relationship with French President Emmanuel Macron, mainly in order to have a European partner on anti-terror issues.

Brussels has witnessed a major shift in the EU-US relationship in the respective outlooks on economic and security policies. A senior EU official close to Federica Mogherini, the European Union high commissioner for foreign affairs and security policy, told Al-Monitor that given the internal and external situation, Brussels is compelled to develop a more independent foreign policy, including on Middle Eastern issues. Following the Brexit, the EU is headed today mainly by a German-French alliance  Merkel and Macron. With the economic might and influence of the EU in the international arena, Brussels, Berlin and Paris are determined to run an effective and more independent foreign policy.

The senior EU official told Al-Monitor that Brussels is particularly concerned with the Israel-Palestinian issue on the backdrop of recent violence outbreaks in the aftermath of the July 14 terror attack near the Temple Mount. Mogherini has been consulting lately on this issue with the German, French and Italian leaderships. They are all concerned that violence will spiral out of control, turning into an armed intifada. Mogherini is also in constant contact with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, but the US administration does not involve the EU in the ongoing efforts of its envoy Jason Greenblatt, except for periodic updates.

The way the EU sees the current situation, there is a real danger to the stability of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas regime. Abbas is coming under considerable fire from Hamas in Gaza, from allies of his Fatah rival, Mohammed Dahlan, and from radical Fatah members in the West Bank. The pragmatic Arab countries offered Abbas only rhetoric support in these difficult times.

Brussels foresees a prolonged crisis; not only in relation to the imminent events around Al-Aqsa Mosque, but also, and more so, concerning the general stalemate in the peace process. Adding to the developing crisis is the growing rift between Fatah and Hamas. In an attempt to support Abbas, the EU will enhance its economic assistance to the Palestinian Authority and keep an ongoing dialogue with the president.

Abbas met with Macron on July 5. Macron stuck to the traditional French position in favor of a two-state solution based on the 1967 lines with Jerusalem as a shared capital. With that, the EU official claimed that until the 2017 UN General Assembly meeting in September, Europe will not take any concrete initiative so it wont be seen as disrupting the US efforts. Also, no joint European foreign policy decision will be made until after the Sept. 24 German elections.

According to the official, one can assume that if the United States does not launch a regionally-backed two-state solution process, Merkel (assuming she wins as expected in the upcoming elections) and Macron, together with EU headquarters, will launch a European initiative on the terms of reference for a two-state solution and a peace conference to be convened in Brussels.

We are committed not to let this year pass without a serious effort in favor of a two-state solution, said the EU official. He added that the alternative is a grave deterioration into greater violence by the more radical and fundamentalist elements in Gaza and the West Bank, which could indeed endanger Abbas regime. Brussels is holding constant dialogues on these issues with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Arab League.

According to a senior Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs official, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is certain that Trump will block such a European initiative. Speaking to Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, he stated, We see Europe as hostile to Israeli interests and pro-Palestinian. The European leadership is probably frustrated to have been marginalized by the Trump administration.

On the other hand, a senior PLO official told Al-Monitor that Abbas will welcome such a European initiative and that the issue indeed came up in the meeting with Macron. The Palestinian leadership believes that the EU should never be underestimated, he argued.

Be that as it may, such a European initiative may be too little too late.
July 29, 2017

On a typical Sunday in July at Sailors Cafe in the Aegean resort of Alacati, three young couples are loudly debating whether they should just stay on in the Aegean for good rather than return to the rat race in Istanbul.

An older customer turns to us with a smirk, displaying the full signs of a laid-back Aegeans disdain of the tense, competitive and loud Istanbulians. They all say the same thing, he whispers. So many Istanbul residents dream of settling in Izmir or one of the pretty Aegean towns around the city.

Except it is no longer just a dream. According to figures by the Turkish Institute of Statistics (TUIK), 16,000 people moved from Istanbul to Izmir in 2016.

This is a major change in terms of the migration patterns between Istanbul and Izmir, Ulas Sunata, an associate professor of sociology at Bahcesehir University, told Al-Monitor in a phone interview. Throughout the Turkish Republics history, people from all over the country moved to Istanbul, with the slogan Istanbuls streets are paved with gold. The migration between Izmir and Istanbul was always in Istanbuls favor; Izmirians moved to Istanbul for education or employment and they just stayed. Then they went back to Izmir after retirement.

Izmirs reputation as the Chicest Retirement Home in Turkey is not unfounded. Turkeys former Chief of Staff Hilmi Ozkok lives in the quiet town of Urla, 35 kilometers (22 miles) from Izmir, away from the controversies that surround retired top brass. Turkeys former ambassador to Washington, Nabi Sensoy, who left diplomatic life after a conflict with then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2009, settled in downtown Izmir.

According to Sunata, however, the present wave is not the migration of the retired or the semi-retired. On the contrary, the new people settling in Izmir are middle- to high-level businesspeople or blossoming entrepreneurs in their late 30s and early 40s.

They are highly skilled professional people in mid-careers. Papers have long been reporting on the brain drain from Turkey to the European countries and the United States. Those who do not go abroad try to find a job in Izmir, said Sunata.

Aykut Hocaoglu, the deputy director of Teknopark Izmir, told Al-Monitor that Izmirs attraction goes beyond Istanbul, as Turks who returned from abroad also chose to settle in Izmir. The technology park, established in 2002, hosts 145 domestic and foreign research and development companies, including AirTies, a company established by former Silicon Valley executive Bulent Celebi to provide wireless solutions for small businesses in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.

Six of the companies that are based in Teknopark Izmir have either been established in or operated abroad for some time before settling in Izmir, Hocaoglu told Al-Monitor, referring to it as a brain drain in reverse. In 2017, half of the new members came from outside Izmir, he said. Earlier this year, insurance giant Allianz announced that it will move its operations center to Izmir, creating 1,100 jobs.

But Izmirs business opportunities are still meager compared to Istanbuls, leading Sunata to conclude that the new wave of migration is more about a better life than better business. According to Sunata, the move to Izmir is a lifestyle migration  a term that refers to the perception of Izmir as a modern city that allows a liberal lifestyle while conservatism spreads in Turkey. Numbers from TUIKs Izmir office show that Izmirs demography is indeed different from the Turkish average: men and women marry later in Izmir (the average age of marriage for women is 25.6 for Turkey and 27.7 for Izmir); the infant mortality rate and unemployment are low; and the education level is high, thanks to the citys six universities. Once Izmir's mayor joked that if Izmir could apply to the European Union, it would have gained membership easily, while Turkey, the eternal candidate, would stay outside.

The citys politicians and business circles bank on the modern image. Aziz Kocaoglu, the citys popular mayor from the opposition Republican Peoples Party (CHP), told Al-Monitor that more and more non-Izmirians settled in the city in search of freedom, tolerance and multiculturalism.

Being an Izmirian is a frame of mind, he quipped, referring to the easygoing, multicultural residents of the city known for its Levantine, Jewish and Greek heritage. Thus, it is no surprise that the Infidel Izmir, as it was called in the Ottoman era due to its non-Muslim majority, remains staunchly anti-Justice and Development Party (AKP) and unforgiving against Erdogan, who once referred to the city as infidel in a speech. The citys unofficial anthem, the Izmir March, a song that praises the victory of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk in the War of Independence, has become the song of the naysayers of the Turkish constitutional referendum last April, which gave extended powers to the presidency.

Traditionally a center-right city but consistently voting for the CHP since 2002, Izmirians hardly miss an opportunity to snub the AKP. Erdogan experienced a rare moment of public humiliation in one of his Izmir meetings in 2014 when a woman made a rude hand gesture as he passed by. She got 11 months in prison, but her gesture went viral. In 2016, when then-Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu paid a visit to Izmir on the occasion of Womens Day, one of the municipalities in the city decorated the streets with Womens Day posters that mocked the AKP statements on women, including AKP heavyweight Bulent Arincs remarks that decent women did not laugh in public.

People come to Izmir for a better quality of life, said Nilgun Gurkaynak, an associate professor of marketing at the Izmir University of Economics. Originally from Izmir, she pursued a fast-paced corporate career in Istanbul, but resettled in Izmir at the age of 40. I got a job and put my daughter in a better school than I would have done in Istanbul, she told Al-Monitor. Izmir has less opportunities than Istanbul, but accessibility is higher. Istanbul, with its traffic jams, crowds and tense work life, drains your energy. You may have dozens of cinemas, exhibitions and concerts in a city, but they have little practical use when you have neither the time nor the energy to go to any of them.

After 10 years, she confessed that she is getting slightly restless with Izmirs slow pace and has started teaching part-time at a university in Istanbul. "I need that stimulus that the metropolis offers," she said.

Admittedly, laid-back Izmir has its own difficulties, such as the slowness of the service sector, the difficulties of penetrating business circles that have known each other for generations  the old Izmirians network  and a relaxed work ethic that includes a three-day weekend in summer and a resistance to early-morning meetings in winter. Despite the claims of Izmir residents that theirs is a land of tolerance, the treatment of Syrian refugees, whose number is around 118,000, has been far from exemplary, with employers beating up workers or abusing small children.

For some, the Aegean dream does turn sour. Vural, who asked Al-Monitor not to use his real name, invested his savings from 14 years of corporate life to buy a boutique hotel in Alacati in 2011. After six years of the quiet life, combined with a decline in tourism, he sent his resume to a headhunter in Istanbul. Now I just need to find another Istanbulian with an Aegean dream so I can sell him the hotel, he told Al-Monitor.
July 29, 2017

In a July 19 statement, Kurdistan Regional Government President Massoud Barzani said that holding a referendum is a natural right of the people of Kurdistan that they will not back down from. According to the spokesperson for the Independent High Electoral and Referendum Commission (IHERC) in Kurdistan, around 6 million people in the Kurdistan Region and the disputed territories such as the oil-rich city of Kirkuk, Sinjar, Makhmour and Khanaqin have the right to vote in the referendum. Forty-eight percent of the Kurdistan Regions land is still disputed between Baghdad and Erbil and some 2.7 million people live in the disputed territories.

According to Article 140 of the constitution, the territorial disputes between Baghdad and Erbil was set to be settled by the end of 2007, but the Iraqi government never implemented this article. For Barzani, the nonimplementation of the Iraqi Constitution is one of the main reasons he wants to hold a referendum Sept. 25 in the Kurdistan Region and the contested areas. However, there are many challenges that may eventually keep the referendum from happening on the scheduled date, especially in the disputed territories.

Barzanis referendum decision was preceded by a vote of the Kirkuk Provincial Council (KPC) April 4 to hold a referendum to decide the future administration of the province. However, many of the Arab and Turkmen members of the KPC boycotted the vote altogether. The KPCs vote came after a call March 14 by Kirkuk Gov. Najmiddin Karim to raise the Kurdistan flag over the government buildings in Kirkuk province. But the Iraqi Turkmen Front opposed this move and filed a case against the acting head of the KPC, Rebwar Talabani, in Baghdad. By the same token, the Arabs and Turkmens of the disputed territories are expected to boycott the upcoming referendum and ask Iraqs supreme court to declare that holding a unilateral referendum in the disputed territories is illegal. If these measures fail, they may eventually resort to violence. Nationally, Baghdad is not happy about the planned referendum either.

Apart from Baghdads discontent and the opposition of the local Arabs and Turkmens to the planned referendum, there are regional and international challenges. Regionally, the influence of neighboring powers such as Turkey and Iran can affect the trend of the referendum. Iran can influence the Kurdistan Region not only because it is bordering the region, but also through its allies from the central government and the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU). The PMU contains different groups, but the most powerful factions are those that maintain strong links with Tehran.

In April 2016, the PMU clashed with the peshmerga in Tuz Khormato. If the PMU and local Sunni fighters agree only on one thing, it is against the presence of the peshmerga in the disputed territories. Moreover, in a move that coincided with preparing for the referendum, Iran cut water flow from the Little Zab River to Kurdistan. Iranian officials have recently told a high-ranking Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) delegation, If you hold a referendum, do not expect anything good from us. More recently, the Iranian defense minister has threatened that the separatist movements in Iraq will not be tolerated. In short, Iran is unequivocally against the Kurdish referendum and will try to prevent it from taking place.

Turkey has also been an influential actor that has presented itself as a guardian of the Turkmen community in Kirkuk and other disputed territories. Turkish influence comes from the countrys strategic position for the Kurdish oil and gas and as a kin-state for the Turkmens in Iraq. Like Iran, Turkey did not mince words when it came to the referendum issue. It has already warned that holding a referendum by Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan Region would be a "grave mistake." Despite the thaw in relations between Iraqi Kurds and Turkey for the last decade, Kirkuk is where the Kurdish aspiration for independence and Turkish support for Turkmen collide.

As the referendum in the disputed territories has the potential for further instability, it attracted international objections as well. For example, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq already released a statement in which it explained that "it has no intention to be engaged in any way or form as concerns the referendum, to be held on 25 September." The United States and most of the Western countries oppose the referendum, too. US State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert already told reporters that the United States supports "a unified, stable, democratic and a federal Iraq."

The Kurdish internal discord cannot be overlooked either. The rivalry between the PUK that has dominated Kirkuk  the epicenter of the disputed territories  politically and the KDP that has controlled a lot of Kirkuk's oil infrastructure can affect the timing and the possibility of holding a referendum in general and in those areas in particular.

Despite the above internal and external challenges, there are also technical obstacles over the vote. For example, the head of the Kirkuk commission has already said that "no preparations have been made for the referendum as there were no instructions from Baghdad to do so." In other words, instead of the Independent High Electoral Commission (IHEC), IHERC in Kurdistan will oversee and conduct the referendum, including voter registration. Unlike the Kurdistan Region, where data from previous elections is available, there is no reliable data on the disputed areas that IHERC can readily rely on for the voter registration. Therefore, given the time constraint and the difficulty of determining voter eligibility, it is unlikely that IHERC will be able to hold a referendum Sept. 25 in the disputed territories.

In the past, due to the difficulty of determining who will be eligible to vote, neither census nor referendum (two crucial stages of Article 140) was implemented. In other words, due to the history of forced displacement from Kirkuk under the Arabization process and returning a large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 2003, defining a voter registry was particularly challenging. Further complicating the matter, since the emergence of the Islamic State in the last three years, a new group of IDPs has emerged in Kirkuk province. Not only because IHERC doesn't have enough time to figure out this complex matter, but also the commission is sharply divided over Barzanis call for the referendum. One of the nine members of IHERC resigned on July 24, claiming that there is no serious intent by the commission to hold parliamentary and presidential elections in the Kurdistan Region as well as the upcoming referendum.

Amid all of these practical and technical challenges, holding a referendum on Sept. 25 will be difficult  if not impossible. These challenges can prevent the referendum from taking place in the first place or they might oblige Barzani to postpone the referendum, particularly in the disputed territories.
July 30, 2017

Turkeys Idlib quagmire

Fehim Tastekin reports how both the CIAs decision to end a covert program to fund Syrian armed groups and the Gulf-Qatar crisis may force an eventual showdown with al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in Idlib.

This column wrote back in March, While the United States is consumed with planning for unseating the Islamic State (IS) in Raqqa, Idlib may prove a comparable or perhaps even more explosive fault line because of the blurred lines among anti-Western Salafi groups such as Ahrar al-Sham, which is backed by Turkey, and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham [which is linked to al-Qaeda]."

Tastekin provides unusual detail on Turkeys options in Idlib. US, Turkish and Saudi intelligence officials in the joint operations centers had taken some steps to improve the field situation after al-Qaeda fighters gained strength in Idlib, Tastekin writes. In February, US, Saudi and Turkish intelligence services called in leaders of local groups and told them that unless they could form a workable joint front, the joint operations center would cut off assistance, which included fighters' salaries, light weapons, ammunition and anti-tank missiles. Faced with this ultimatum, 17 organizations declared they had united under the Northern Front Operations Room.

He adds, In parallel efforts, Turkey conducted a series of meetings in Ankara with Syrian militia leaders to set up armies called Jaish al-Watan and Jaish al-Tahrir to extend Operation Euphrates Shield to Idlib, but the effort failed. Cutting off assistance to these groups will make them even less relevant.

Tastekin explains, Western- and Gulf-supported groups may come under more pressure to join the peace talks at Astana, Kazakhstan. Currently on the Idlib front, HTS is consolidating its hold over the area.  Now Turkey has had to send 150 fighters it had 'borrowed' from Ahrar al-Sham back to Idlib to help out."

Mat Nashed writes, While the cease-fire holds for now, activists and analysts say that armed groups are undermining the role of civil society.  Rather than fully sabotaging relief services, HTS has tried to win support by establishing its own civil department to oversee provisions. Ahrar al-Sham, a rival ultraconservative militia that wields considerable power in Idlib, has adopted the same strategy.

Tastekin adds, The CIAs withdrawal might also affect Ankara's operational plans regarding Idlib. Ankara was relying on Ahrar al-Sham to end the HTS domination there, but Turkeys hopes were misplaced.

The Gulf-Qatar crisis is also affecting the balance of forces in Idlib. Qatar, like Turkey, has been a major backer of Ahrar al-Sham, and it is unclear as yet whether that support will continue. Saudi Arabia, Tastekin writes, upset with Turkey for its support of Qatar, is not expected to cooperate more with Turkey in northern Syria. We have to remember that the conquests of Aleppo and Idlib in 2015 were made possible mostly by generous support from the Saudis.  Those criticizing Trumps decision say that, in the absence of the CIA, Turkey and the Gulf countries might begin supplying the radical groups with advanced anti-aircraft weapons, especially MANPADS (shoulder-fired missiles).

This column has argued for years that the al-Qaeda-linked groups and Ahrar al-Sham are brothers in arms and ideology, committed, if under different banners, to Sharia rule and ending the Syrian peoples tradition of secularism and tolerance toward minorities and other religions. It was not so long ago that Ahrar al-Sham and al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra (as it was known then) rallied together under the Jaish al-Fatah Army of Conquest banner. Although the groups were thankfully run out of Aleppo, many of their surviving members managed to escape to Idlib, where they terrorize the local population.

With regard to Turkey, there is perhaps a bit of what goes around, comes around. Amberin Zaman wrote earlier this month about a Turkish Interior Ministry report that details the government's battle against the Islamic State. To be sure, Zaman explains, Turkey is the country that has suffered most from IS, the report notes. The group has conducted 14 attacks against Turkey, including 10 suicide bomb attacks and three shooting attacks. Some 304 people have lost their lives and 1,338 as a result of IS actions.

Zaman continues, Some experts say Turkey largely has itself to blame for this outcome. Turkey has long been accused of leniency if not outright collusion with IS, which grew stronger as a direct result of its lax border policies that let armed rebels of all stripes to go in and out of neighboring Syria in the hope that they would overthrow the countrys President Bashar al-Assad.

Zaman adds, The jihadis have targeted the Syrian Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG).  The deadliest IS operations inside the country targeted pro-PKK Kurds, and the official reaction was a deafening silence. The lack of response fed accusations that Turkey was egging IS on against the Kurds, most notably when the group laid siege to the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani in 2014."

Al-Monitor columnists have for years covered and lamented the two-way jihadist highway and the porous border between Turkey and Syria, which fueled the transit of foreign fighters and supplies to both IS and Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda affiliate, as well as Ahrar al-Sham and other Salafi groups.

Turkeys quagmire in Idlib is complicated by the United States mostly staying out of the action there, and ceding ground, until now, to Russia and Turkey. Moscow understands the threat of Idlib as a rats nest of jihadi and Salafi hold outs, but is wary of an escalation, at least for now, especially given the uncertainty over Turkeys intentions and capabilities.

Bruce Riedel explains that al-Qaeda has also begun to increase the ideological challenge to Saudi Arabia. Al-Qaeda will no doubt test the new security team in Riyadh, Riedel writes. Cells of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula remain active, and as-Sahab will go after the legitimacy of the new crown prince, painting him as unqualified for the throne. The kingdom is facing a complex and interrelated series of challenges with deadly enemies.

Circus trial of 'Cumhuriyet 17'

Amberin Zaman reports on the circus trial of 17 journalists, including Al-Monitor columnist Kadri Gursel, on alleged collusion and support for terrorist organizations in Turkey.

Human Rights Watch writes that the trial is part of a "vicious crackdown on independent voices. The group notes that there appears to be nothing that would indicate any kind of criminal wrongdoing, much less helping terrorism.

Zaman writes, At the last count at least 150,000 people had been sacked from government jobs and academia and 50,000 or more jailed over their alleged collusion. With over 150 journalists currently behind bars, Turkey remains the worlds biggest jailer of journalists. Yet in a recent interview with the BBC, Erdogan claimed only two of them were real journalists. The rest, he insisted in a recent public address, consist of murderers, fraudsters, thieves and child molesters.  The bulk of jailed media workers were employed by now shuttered Gulen-affiliated titles, a crime in and of itself regardless of what they reported or the opinions they aired. Victims who fall under this category include Sahin Alpay, a septuagenarian intellectual who is in ailing health, as well as respected liberal economist Mehmet Altan. Their plight has attracted far less sympathy among Turkeys urban secularists, partly because many believe that not only was Gulen mired in the coup but that he helped propel Erdogan to power in the first place. Many others have been imprisoned over their affiliation with pro-Kurdish outlets.

International scrutiny of Turkeys record on media freedom and solidary for its embattled journalists has never been more important, Human Rights Watch concludes.
July 28, 2017

Ankara faces a major quandary now that al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has seized Syrias Idlib area abutting Turkeys Hatay province.

HTS captured more than 30 locations in the clashes of July 18-24, decimating Turkish-backed Ahrar al-Sham and its allies, who were forced to retreat from Idlib south to rural Hama. HTS gained control of areas with border crossings to Turkey. Only the Bab al-Hawa border crossing opposite Turkeys Cilvegozu was handed over to a neutral civilian administration after the adversaries reached an agreement July 21.

What course will Turkey take now that the field situation at Idlib has shifted in al-Qaedas favor? What problems might Turkey have to deal with?

So as not to disrupt the humanitarian and military assistance coming through the Turkish border, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra), the key force of the HTS coalition, had stayed away from the border crossings since Idlib was captured in March, although Bab al-Hawa and the unofficial crossing of Khirbet al-Jouz were the main sources of revenue for Ahrar al-Sham. Ahrar al-Sham lost control of Bab al-Hawa and Khirbet al-Jouz when clashes resumed after the July 21 cease-fire. HTS, aware of the vital importance of keeping the border crossings open, agreed to allow Bab al-Hawa to be managed by a neutral civilian administration.

Turkey can't stop humanitarian relief from crossing into Syria, but it might decide to use the border crossings as leverage to force HTS to cooperate with Ahrar al-Sham. Turkey might also provoke civil society bodies of the Syrian National Coalition that are not comfortable with the presence of HTS. Some civil society groups already have demonstrated against HTS.

But HTS, which is determined to block Turkey's moves to extend Operation Euphrates Shield to Idlib, probably won't agree to coexist with Ahrar al-Sham.

These changes in the field's power configuration are likely to alter Turkeys plans for Idlib and Afrin. Until July 27, Ankaras plan for the border was to mobilize its local Euphrates Shield forces based in the Azaz/al-Bab pocket to expel the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) from Tel Rifaat and Menagh and then open a corridor between Azaz and Idlib. Next would have been to push away the HTS forces north of Idlib and put that area under the control of opposition forces sponsored by Turkey. Finally, Idlib would be declared a deconfliction zone as per the accord reached with Russia at Astana, Kazakhstan.

What Turkey really wanted was to lay a tight siege on Kurdish-controlled Afrin, which today is mostly surrounded from the northeast by Turkish-backed forces. Nevertheless, the people of Afrin can still reach Aleppo and Manbij via Tel Rifaat. These were all plans Ankara wanted to implement with its ally Ahrar al-Sham and related groups. But now Ankara has realized that Ahrar al-Sham can't be the linchpin of a strategy against HTS.

The Ahrar al-Sham collapse at Idlib left Turkey with two difficult choices for the future of the area. Either Turkey will enter into a direct confrontation with HTS or will agree to have Russia and Syria carry out operations in the same area. The first option means those living in Idlib would flee to areas under regime control; the second option means they would have to escape to Turkey  and Ankara doesnt want even one more single refugee.

Turkeys military intervention at Idlib could well lead to reactions different than the ones it dealt with when its adversary was on the Jarablus/al-Bab front. Turkey, through coalition intelligence operations rooms at Antakya and Gaziantep, has for a long time supported both Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and Ahrar al-Sham. To declare HTS, Jabhat Fatah al-Sham's umbrella group, an enemy could turn the guns on Turkey. Many opposition groups, despite their internal squabbling, might declare Turkey an occupation force.

Kurdish and Turkish news media talk of scenarios without having adequate background information. According to theories in Kurdish media, Turkey has realized the Syrian Democratic Forces, affiliated with the YPG, will turn toward Idlib after liberating Raqqa. So, the theory goes, Turkey has decided to eliminate its own ally, Ahrar al-Sham, as a power on the ground so that Turkey itself can occupy the Idlib region. Turkey could enter the area with the pretext of cleansing it of al-Qaeda.

Interestingly, this theory gets support from the Turkmen front. Turkmen National Movement Party Vice President Tarik Sulo Cevizci thinks Turkey will not allow al-Qaeda to dominate the Idlib region and will intervene with its own army. "Turkey wants to enter and stay in that area. Ongoing clashes in Idlib may provide Turkey with circumstances that could justify intervention, he said.

Turkey sees itself as a game maker at Astana. But it was Ahrar al-Shams initial field superiority that provided Turkey with strong cards to play. Ahrar al-Sham relinquished most of his field leverage when it lost control of the area and some of its allied groups. Although the Nureddin Zengi Brigade, which the United States supplied with TOW anti-tank missiles, has declared it is splitting from HTS and will remain neutral, 19 other groups (some of them miniscule) joined HTS July 18-24.

Local security sources say the Qatar crisis has also weakened Ahrar al-Sham and its allies. These sources claim it was Ahrar al-Sham joining the Astana cease-fire process and its affiliation with Turkeys Operation Euphrates Shield that actually empowered HTS and allowed it to impose its control over the area. On May 12, HTS had arranged sermons in mosques denouncing Turkey. Soon after that, it began attacking Ahrar al-Sham.

Jabhat Fatah al-Sham, which recently was forced to agree to a cease-fire in its clashes with Hezbollah and the Lebanese army in Lebanon's Arsal border area, is now expected to transfer those 1,500 fighters to Idlib. That means an experienced combat detachment will reinforce HTS.

Idlib has emerged as the place where Syrias war is likely to be decided. Fighters evacuated from different parts of Syria have been relocated to Idlib. But that war is not imminent, not yet. The Syrian army is still focusing on Raqqa and the energy-rich areas of Homs, Deir ez-Zor and Palmyra. Such a widespread front makes a concentrated operation at Idlib beyond reach for the time being. With Idlib as the last act in the approaching conflagration, the worst burn victim of those flames could well be Turkey.
Jennifer R. Statham For AL.com

Curiosity is what Wesley Crunkleton credits for his beginnings in real estate, and his eventual establishment of Crunkleton Commercial Real Estate Group.

Crunkleton said he learned early on that, in business, successful people aren't afraid to take risks, even ones leading to unfamiliar territory. Now, more than a decade after its beginning, Crunkleton Commercial Real Estate Group is a major player in property management and development in Alabama.

The company is responsible for several high-profile projects in Huntsville, including helping redevelop downtown with The Garage at Clinton Row and other projects including properties on Holmes Avenue, Jefferson Street, Church Street and Pratt Avenue. Crunkleton is also bringing a new retail center to the former Huntsville Times site on South Memorial Parkway.

Crunkleton, 38, grew up in Montgomery and went to college at Berry College in Rose, Georgia., earning a degree in finance.

"After graduating in 2001, I decided I did not want to chase my initial aspirations of becoming an investment banker and always had an interest, (call it curiosity), in commercial real estate," Crunkleton said in an interview via email. "So, I spent two days at my aunt and uncle's house in Birmingham, (that is where I decided I wanted to move after college), going down the list of commercial real estate firms in the yellow pages and making cold calls to try and get an interview. Out of 40-plus cold calls, I was able to get two interviews. Lucky for me, one of them worked out and my commercial real estate career began in Birmingham, Ala., in June 2001."

Setting a foundation

In 2005, Crunkleton rented a single office in Huntsville, having come to the Rocket City for one particular property management assignment, Valley Bend at Jones Farm. He said he has been fortunate to have built the life and business he has in Huntsville. He is married 11 years to Meggan Crunkleton, CEO of Roosevelt & Company, and they have three boys. He is the principal at Crunkleton Commercial Real Estate Group, based in Huntsville. There he works with his team of real estate whizzes, and his father, Richard Crunkleton.

Contrary to public perception, Wesley and his father Richard, aside from being the founding members of Crunkleton Commercial Real Estate Group, have two very separate careers, and they count this as a strong suit, he said.

Richard Crunkleton, originally from Louisville, Kentucky, moved to Huntsville in 2001. He has more than three decades experience in commercial real estate and is a licensed broker in Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee. According to the Crunkleton Associates website, he originally got started in commercial real estate by "buying valued added properties, renovating them, adding tenants and then selling the properties for a profit."

Prior to founding the real estate group with his father, Wesley was a senior property manager with EGS Commercial Real Estate in Birmingham.

"I came to Huntsville to take on one particular task and my father was already here working on his business. As a matter of fact, it just dawned on us not too long ago that between the commercial properties that he and I own, we actually do not own anything together. This is not on purpose, of course, it just goes to show you that everyone in this industry values commercial real estate in different ways and an investment opportunity that he may find attractive, I may not and vice versa," Crunkleton said.

When he first moved to Huntsville, he did the bookkeeping, all property management duties along with trying to build a leasing and brokerage business.

"Meggan was extremely supportive during these first few years as it was very long hours and many of the night she would come up to the office to assist me in work that needed to get done. Today, I spend most of my time working on growth strategies for our company and working on development opportunities. I am still active with leasing and brokerage, but not to the degree I was years ago," Crunkleton said. "We have a wonderful team of highly energetic and talented brokers that do the majority of the heavy lifting in this category. As for property management, I still participate with our management team. But just like our brokers, we have a wonderful management team that does the bulk of the heavy lifting."

Building future Huntsville

Risk tolerance is a major advantage in the real-estate world. Mixing risks with a passionate vision has lead Crunkleton to some of his favorite projects, he said.

"No two projects are the same and it seems like every project slides off the tracks at some point in time and it is our job to get it back on track. It takes the experience of losing deals, saving deals, etc... to shape your skills in the business," Crunkleton said. "It is incredibly fascinating to me.

"Right now, I am really passionate about downtown redevelopment. While it is certainly not our largest project, transforming the bottom half of the Clinton Parking Garage into retail space and a specialty coffee shop is probably one of my favorite projects to date."

Wesley Crunkleton and his wife, Meggan, cut the ribbon at The Garage at Clinton Row.

Construction and renovation began in the spring of 2016 to repurpose the first level of the Clinton Avenue parking deck, installing six retail spaces. The grand opening of The Garage at Clinton Row was held in November. Located at The Garage are clothing retailers Elitaire Boutique, Roosevelt & Company, as well as eateries Frios Gourmet Pops and Honest Coffee Roasters.

Following The Garage at Clinton Row, Crunkleton Commercial Real Estate Group began to renovate an 11,000-square-foot historical building built in 1915 at 104 Jefferson Street in Downtown Huntsville. 104 Jefferson will consist of office spaces with a "Modern Industrial" design. Other recent projects include Cornerstone in Madison, Winchester Commons, Twickenham Square, and The Avenue, where Crunkleton is handling leasing for developers Charlie and Sasha Sealy.

It is a challenge that Huntsville is a "smaller city" and many new-to-market retailers and restaurants lean towards opening in larger markets such as Birmingham, Atlanta, and Nashville, however, the Huntsville-area is gaining recognition, Crunkleton said.

"When we are able to get a new retailer interested in Alabama they seem to always want to try Birmingham first. That trend is starting to change though," he said. "We have several (projects) in the pipeline that we hope to announce soon."
Goodyear announced this evening that it and the United Steelworkers have reached tentative agreement on a new five-year master labor contract covering nearly 7,000 workers at five plants in the U.S., including the Gadsden plant.

The agreement came shortly before the four-year contract was due to expire at midnight.

"We believe we have crafted a new labor agreement that positions both Goodyear and the United Steelworkers for success in the future," Jim Allen, Goodyear's vice president of Global Labor Relations said in a statement.

The tentative agreement is subject to a ratification vote by USW members at the five plants covered by the contract, including plants in Kansas, North Carolina, Virginia and Ohio.

The local unions are expected to schedule ratification votes within the next few weeks.

The talks began June 15.

Goodyear-Gadsden manufactures radial light truck and passenger tires and employs approximately 1,550 associates. Goodyear has operated in Gadsden since 1929.
The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency has issued a missing child alert.

The Macon County Sheriff's Department is asking for the public's help in finding a 9-year-old girl who was last seen today about 4 p.m.

Neisha Howard, who is black, may be with her non-custodial mother, Jerlean Octavia Scott and an unknown white female, the sheriff's department said. They may be traveling in a red SUV, make, model and Florida tag unknown, the sheriff's department said. They may be going to the Clear Water, Fla., area.

Anyone with information on the whereabouts of Neisha Howard, please call the Macon County Sheriff's Department at 334-727-2500.
Genres : Drama, Classic

Starring : Barbara Stanwyck, Nils Asther, Walter Connolly, Gavin Gordon, Lucien Littlefield, Richard Loo

Director : Frank Capra

Plot Synopsis

Set in war-torn Shanghai, this visually stunning melodrama opens as Megan, the fiancee of a missionary, arrives in China for their marriage. Their plans are interrupted by civil war and Megan finds herself caught in a riot after visiting an orphanage. General Yen, a ruthless Chinese warlord, rescues and whisks her away to safety in his palace. Megan soon suspects she is not his guest but his prisoner yet she begins to feel a strange attraction to her captor. The once controversial topic of interracial romance between a Caucasian woman and a Chinese man earned this film some notoriety upon its release but Capra considered it a "strangely poetic romance" which was a risky art film for its era.
A federal appeals court says a judge was right in tossing out a lawsuit filed by a Bessemer attorney against the five U.S. Supreme Court justices who made up the majority opinion legalizing gay marriage nationwide.

The U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday stated in an opinion that lawyer Austin Burdick did not demonstrate actual or imminent concrete injury to himself.

"And even if Burdick had a legally protected interest in winning his constitutional arguments -- and plainly he did not -- the district court did not err in concluding that Burdick's allegations are "vague," "abstract assertion[s]" that were insufficient to establish a concrete injury," according to the opinion issued by a three-judge panel of the appeals court - Circuit Judges Tjoflat, Stanley Marcus, and William Pryor.

"Burdick's complaint identifies no specific legal argument he has lost or will imminently lose as a result of Obergefell (the same-sex marriage ruling)," the court's opinion states. "Nor does it identify any factual basis for his allegation that Obergefell will cause him to lose income. Burdick's abstract allegations simply do not demonstrate any actual or imminent concrete injury."

U.S. District Court Judge Madeline Haikala on Oct. 26, 2016 also tossed out the lawsuit based on judicial immunity. The 11th Circuit did not address the immunity issue since it had declared the lawsuit should have been tossed out on the other issues.

Burdick filed the lawsuit in February 2016 against the five U.S. Supreme Court justices - Anthony M. Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kegan - who made up the 5-4 majority in Obergefell.

In his lawsuit, Burdick had argued that in their decision in the Obergefell case declaring same-sex marriage legal that the justices went "beyond a manipulation, twist, strain, or unique perspective on the text and crosses over in to an abandonment of the Constitution."

The lawsuit cited the five justices for violations of the 5th Amendment, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty and sought damages exceeding $6 million.
Two years after settlers killed a Palestinian baby and his parents, the Dawabsheh familys pain lives on.

Duma, occupied West Bank  On a scrap of land in the Palestinian village of Duma, thorns and wild daisies bloom between rough pebbles and three breeze-block graves.

To the left is the smallest grave, containing the remains of 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh. Propped behind it is a sign reading: Here lie the bodies of the martyrs of the dawn burning, who rose to the heavens after the sinful assault by a group of settlers on their home on Friday, July 31, 2015.

Ali, along with his parents, Saad and Reham Dawabsheh, fell victim to an arson attack by Israeli settlers that night. Ali died immediately, while Saad, 32, passed away after a week in hospital, and Reham, 26, after six weeks. Ahmed, Alis older brother, now 7, was the only survivor.

Nearly two years later, their friends and relatives are still struggling to deal with the tragedy.

I am trying to bring my life back to normal, Alis uncle, Nasser Dawabsheh, told Al Jazeera from his family home in Duma, a 15-minute walk from the gravesite. But that takes time. Maybe it will take years.

Their grief is compounded by the dead ends they have encountered while trying to obtain an admission of responsibility from the Israeli government. In April, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said the young boy would not quality for compensation as a terror victim.

Under Israeli law, the state must compensate victims of terrorism  but the law does not apply to Palestinians, such as Ahmed, who live in the occupied West Bank and are not Israeli citizens or residents.

The Dawabsheh family has now filed a lawsuit against Israel, demanding that the state accept responsibility for the attack and pay $4.4m in damages.

Financial compensation, Nasser said, is less important than a full admission of responsibility from Israel: Our goal is not money, because money will not bring back what we have lost, he said, noting that the family has rejected previous offers of compensation from the state.

READ MORE: Israeli wedding party celebrates Dawabsheh killings

Back in 2015, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the Dawabsheh case as a terror attack in every respect. In January 2016, settler Amiram Ben Oleal was charged with murder on the basis of a hate crime in relation to the firebombing. A minor, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was charged with being an accessory to committing a racially motivated murder.

For the Dawabsheh family, it was not enough: [The state must] accept responsibility for the attacks and the terrorism from the settlers, who live in the outposts built on our lands  with the protection and help from the occupation army, Nasser said.

The Israeli Defence Ministry did not respond to a request for comment. It has previously said that the Dawabshehs could apply for compensation from a special committee for victims of supposed nationalistic attacks.

But Hassan al-Khatib, a lawyer representing the Dawabsheh family, said that more than 90 percent of Palestinian compensation claims lodged with the special committee are refused.

Israeli human rights group BTselem told Al Jazeera that the state encouraged settler attacks by maintaining loose to nonexistent enforcement of the law, noting in a statement: This is but one example of Israels refusal to pay compensation to Palestinians when it clearly should and can do so, according to any moral and legal standard.

Q&A: For Israel Palestinian blood is very cheap

Whatever the outcome, the Dawabsheh family lives alongside terrible reminders of the attack in Duma, an unassuming village 25km southeast of Nablus.

In Saad and Rehams former home, one smoke-stained wall bears the words: They burned the infant. Among the charred, twisted knots of the familys belongings is a melted, black-and-orange childs buggy. Sooty blankets, dust and shards of broken glass are scattered across the floor.

The house has remained this way since the night of the firebombing, nearly two years ago. Nasser says it will not change; the family hopes to turn it into a museum.

Every time he sees the house, I feel like the attack happens again, Nasser said.

When people leave, I stay inside the house and cry for more than an hour. In the past, the place was full and active, but now it is dark.





A mural drawn inside the house since the attack shows a tiny boy wrapped in a Palestinian flag, his wide mouth open in silent terror. Skulls hang from the arms of a mobile toy hanging above his playpen, itself set alight by a hand bearing the Star of David.

The Dawabsheh family blames Israels settlement policies for the fate of their loved ones. Settlements in the occupied West Bank have continued to expand, even though they are considered illegal under international law, and Palestinians continue to face violence and intimidation from settlers.

Between 2013 and 2016, just eight percent of completed cases of ideologically motivated attacks against Palestinians and their property in the occupied West Bank led to indictments, according to human rights group Yesh Din, which cited a trend of protracted failure in the investigations.

READ MORE: Israeli army among worlds child rights violators

Meanwhile, as the physical burns that Ahmed sustained are healing, the broader recovery process will go on for some time.

He knows everything that happened, Nasser said. He remembers how they [the settlers] attacked his parents, and sometimes he explains how he escaped. He always asks: Why did they attack us? Why did my dad not stop them? He thinks that his dad was a brave man and should have stopped them.

Rehab Zaid Dawabsheh, Saads mother, says she cannot face the sight of the familys torched home.

I left the part of the village where the house was burned, because I am not able to face that place, or see it, or cross its door again, she told Al Jazeera, sitting in her bright white reception room.

Just days earlier, Rehab had lost her husband, now buried next to Saad, Reham and Ali.

Back at the gravesite, warm morning sun radiates across the breeze blocks. The cemetery is empty of mourners, but Rehabs words hang in the air.

Day by day, my sadness is increasing, even though the attack happened two years ago, she said. The sadness has not stopped.
An Uzbek woman who was trafficked to Thailand and forced to sell sex shares the story of her escape.

Its nearly 10pm and Umida* is cooking dinner  a simple meal of rice and meat for the 11 members of her household who have been stuck inside the house all day due to Uzbekistans intense summer heat.

Since emerging as an independent nation in 1991, after nearly 200 years of Russian and then Soviet rule, Uzbekistan has slowly seen some economic progress. But poverty and unemployment remain high and many Uzbeks travel abroad for work. This leaves the men, women and children vulnerable to forced labour and sex trafficking.

My older sister works in a hospital in Moscow, so I look after her children, Umida says. Shes the only one who understands what happened to me in Bangkok, I have told nobody else.

Born into a large, impoverished family, the 36-year-old says life was difficult growing up. Her mother died in 2000, leaving her father, a builder, to care for his four children. It was hard without my mother, she recalls, the families in my town with two parents had more money.

When she was 28 years old, Umida says she met a local Uzbek woman who promised her profitable work in Thailand. Umida doesnt say whether she knew the specific nature of this work, but explains that with the hope of providing for her son who was then six years old, she agreed to travel to the Thai capital, Bangkok.

But, when she arrived in Thailand, she realised that she had been deceived. The woman who had made the arrangements destroyed all of her documents. She was a very bad lady. She gave me no food, no money. I could only go outside to work every day, Umida says quietly. The woman forced her to work as a prostitute on the streets of Bangkok.

Trafficked for sex

Many downtown Bangkok streets are lined with women, shifting from one foot to the other, whispering to passers-by, hoping to attract their next customer. Statistics from the Thai Ministry of Public Health and from NGOs indicate that there are more than 120,000 people working in the Thai sex industry.





Some of these women are engaged in sex work because they have no other way to make money, others have been forced into the industry, and many are trafficked to Thailand from other countries.

Annie Dieselberg, CEO and founder of Nightlight International, an organisation committed to helping victims of sex trafficking and exploitation, says that the authorities do not always take the situation seriously. Often, authorities dont recognise the complexities of sex trafficking  that it isnt as simple as underage women in a brothel, Dieselberg says. It may be an adult woman, walking the streets of Bangkok, being forced against her will to work for sex.

Angkhana Neelapaichit, one of the seven National Human Rights Commissioners appointed by the Thai king to examine and report acts which violate human rights or do not comply with obligations under international treaties to which Thailand is a party, concurs. Essentially, I can say that dealing with trafficking among sex workers, in the long run, is still challenging for Thailand and it is hard for authorities to find the real perpetrators, she says.

After a few months, Umida attempted to escape her trafficker, anxious to return home to her son. She managed to convince one of her clients, who sympathised with her, to give her money for a return flight home.

He gave me a lot of money, so I bought some things for my son and a plane ticket home, Umida says. She went to the Uzbek consulate in secret and was issued with a certificate to return to Uzbekistan. When she arrived at the airport, however, a woman with a face veil approached her. She revealed herself as the trafficker. She was angry and threatening  Umida felt powerless before her. She caught me. I didnt know what to do. She took my passport and I had to go back to work.

She worked for a further five months, receiving little to no money. She was made to stay in an apartment with no shower and no food, she recalls.

I was hungry. It was only when I had a customer that I could have a meal. We would go out and drink and eat, she says of the meetings with clients. Then we would end up in a hotel or an apartment.

Escaping the clutches of her trafficker

Umida saw another chance for escape when she met Emily Chalke, cofounder of Ellas Home, an NGO helping women exiting trafficking and exploitation.

Chalke, working at Nightlight International at the time, met Umida at a Bangkok hotel known for hosting exchanges between sex workers and their customers. Chalke explains that she met Umida after another Uzbek woman told her that Umidas passport had been taken away.

Everyone at the hotel knew her as the girl who was in trouble, Chalke says.

Umida told Chalke that she wanted to escape. They agreed to meet at another hotel so she could pretend that she was going to see a client and from there they took a taxi to a safe house.

She was angry when I met her, so angry that so much had been taken from her, Chalke says. She only had the clothes on her back and a small notebook where she had written the amounts paid to her trafficker, more than $10,000 by that time.

Nightlight International made the arrangements for her return home and reported the case to the police.

The trafficker was arrested, Chalke says. It was the first arrest police had made of an Uzbek trafficker in four years. But this required Umida to make a statement. She was terrified. I had to go to court once. I was so scared to see the bad lady, she says, adding: [But] the people around me helped me and I was able to do it.

Her trafficker, however, was freed after paying bail and disappeared, never to be prosecuted.

Read a related article on the victims of modern day slavery trafficking in the UK

Prosecuting traffickers in Thailand

The trial on July 19 in which Bangkoks Criminal Court Division for Human Trafficking convicted 62 people on charges of human trafficking, including an army general, was Thailands largest human trafficking trial and an unprecedented achievement for the Thai military government.

Dieselberg says the current government is accomplishing more than its elected predecessors. When we began helping victims of sex trafficking in 2010, justice honestly seemed out of reach.

Still, she thinks that more needs to be done. Though the military is absolutely doing more to address trafficking, it is primarily addressing labour trafficking, the seafood industry, and minors.

In many cases, the sex trafficking rings are small, comprising one to five women, whereas labour traffickers often exploit more victims at one time. Many large anti-trafficking organisations lack the financial and human resources to focus on smaller cases, so there is a greater value in targeting a greater number of people in one place, Dieselberg explains.

Neelapaichit, the Human Rights commissioner, agrees. [Dealing with sex trafficking] is very challenging for Thailand. Thailand tries to show they have policies to fight against trafficking, but there are still many traffickers that are free and have no criminal offences.

There can also be improvements in providing safety and services for the victims, Dieselberg feels. At the moment, it is still not considered beneficial to a victim to identify the trafficker and take them to court  she would rather return home and be safe.

Out of the approximately 100 victims of sex trafficking her organisation has helped, only three initially agreed to testify. This led to two court cases but neither resulted in a prosecution.

Dieselberg says she hopes the immediate effect of the high-profile case will be a warning to traffickers, but adds that they always look for other ways to continue their trade. It sends a message, but a law only makes a difference if it is enforced continuously.

Neelapaichit agrees, Thailand must continue to show that it really wants to fight human trafficking and will not allow perpetrators to walk freely, even if the traffickers are from Thailand or are officers or security forces.

It took three months for the police to gather the information they required in Umidas case and for her to receive her travel documents, but she finally returned to Uzbekistan and to her son on October 20, 2009.

Her son is now 14 years old. I am home with him and he goes to school every day, she says proudly. She helps her younger sister bake bread and care for the family. She is determined to express how much her life has improved since Bangkok.

After I returned to my son, I found us a place to live. I dont want to remember the bad times. I dont think about them. I only remember the kind people that helped me and the friends I made. Life is so good for me now, now I am happy.

*Name changed to protect identity








Looking at the world through the eyes of the Web
The family of a Palestinian citizen of Israel killed by Israeli police in Jaffa are demanding justice.

The family of a young Palestinian man fatally shot by Israeli police in Jaffa are demanding justice for what they believe was a cold-blooded killing.

Mahdi al-Saadi, a 22-year-old Palestinian citizen of Israel, was shot in the chest and killed in the early hours of Saturday morning. Israeli police also shot another young man at the same scene, Sleiman Abu Taleb, who was taken to hospital in critical condition.

I was travelling, and I got a phone call from my wife telling me that they killed our boy. The police did not get in touch with us or tell us what happened. He was killed for no reason  in cold blood. They killed him because he was an Arab, Jamal, Mahdis father, told Al Jazeera.

Israeli police say the young men were suspects in a shooting at a store in Jaffa around 4am (01:00 GMT) on Saturday.

A number of suspects opened fire and fired shots in Jaffa. They fled the area on a motorbike. The police unit chased the suspects. What we know after that is that the two suspects were taken to a hospital. One of them passed away from their wounds and the other one was wounded moderately. The case is being examined, Israeli police spokesperson Micky Rosenfeld told Al Jazeera.

The family does not believe the police narrative.

The owner of the store that theyre claiming my son fired shots at is my friend, and hes with me here at the funeral. Whether it happened or not, my son didnt do it, Jamal said.



READ MORE: Has Israels security apparatus failed?

Umm Musab, Mahdis aunt, said, this would have never happened if they were Jewish.

The occupation narrates the story as it likes  whichever way it works for them. Even if they were involved in any crime, it should not have led to the killing and wounding of anyone, she told Al Jazeera. Were not going to be quiet about this. Were going to stop the world to find out who killed him and make sure that he gets punished. Their job is not to kill our boys. Their job is to secure our safety, but they do the exact opposite.

There are some 1.8 million Palestinian citizens of Israel, the descendants of Palestinians who remained on their land when Israel was established in 1948 in a violent process of ethnic cleansing that led to the expulsion of some 750,000 Palestinians from historical Palestine.

They face discrimination in almost all fields of life in a state that defines itself as Jewish, making inequality a reality. There are over 50 laws that discriminate against Palestinian citizens of the state.

We are in utter shock. That night, Mahdi was calling his dad and telling him that he wanted to get married, that he was ready for marriage, said Umm Musab, noting that the heavy deployment of Israeli police in Palestinian neighbourhoods constantly stirs tensions.

They want our boys to fall into a trap and to arrest them and shoot at them. They stole our land; we dont want them to take our souls as well, she continued. Enough is enough.

READ MORE: The Nakba did not start or end in 1948

In response to the latest killing, Palestinian youth in Jaffa on Saturday took to the streets in anger and blocked the main road, spurring confrontations with Israeli police, who arrested an estimated eight Palestinian citizens of Israel.

AbdulQader Abu Shehadeh, an activist who was among those who were violently detained, said he went out to see what was going on before police arrested him for no reason.

I had to wait 10 hours for interrogation. They accused me of being at an unlawful protest. I was at the police station until about 2am yesterday, Abu Shehadeh told Al Jazeera. There is an unbelievable amount of police and border police in Jaffa today, closing the main road, and theyre still arresting people. People are very nervous.

Abu Shehadeh said that Palestinians in Israel have a serious problem with the police, who treat Palestinians as enemies.

The police, in general, regularly assault young men in a very savage way  [they are] very politicised and the political parties do not have the power to protect us, even from the problems within our community, he said. They treat us as enemies, and we dont know how to deal with this.





According to Adalah, Israels Police Investigation Unit (Mahash), which operates under the Ministry of Justice, disregards the majority of complaints filed against Israeli police. In a 2014 report, Adalah found that between 2011 and 2013, the Mahash closed 93 percent of complaints without laying charges.

Whether or not an illegal act had been committed prior to the Israeli police shooting and killing of Mahdi al-Saadi in Jaffa is immaterial to the issue at hand. The only question in this context is whether he posed any danger to the officers. According to reports, the police shot at the motorcycle in order to get it to stop and make an arrest. This constitutes a violation of the Israel polices own open-fire regulations, which were made public in 2016 as a result of freedom of information petition submitted by Adalah, Adalah lawyer Fady Khoury told Al Jazeera.

The regulations state that in the case of a vehicular pursuit for the purpose of making an arrest, firearms should be used only as a last resort  Shooting to kill has become the policy exercised by Israeli police officers in the field when they deal with Palestinian citizens, Khoury added.

At least 50 Palestinian citizens of Israel have been killed by police since 2000.

Mahdis death comes after two weeks of increased violence and tensions between Israelis and Palestinians in the occupied territories of East Jerusalem and the West Bank.

On July 14, an attack by three Palestinian citizens of Israel near occupied East Jerusalems al-Aqsa Mosque compound killed two Israeli guards, leading Israeli authorities to enforce more measures of control on the compound in the form of cameras and metal detectors.

READ MORE: Israeli measures at al-Aqsa will increase resistance

The new measures enraged Palestinians, spurring two weeks of civil disobedience and protests until the cameras and metal detectors were removed.

During the events, Israeli forces shot dead at least six Palestinians and injured more than 1,300, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent.

Samy Abu Shehadeh, another activist in Jaffa who was present during the recent confrontations, believes that Mahdis killing came as an act of revenge for the past two weeks.

Why did they have to shoot him? Why didnt they just shoot at the motorcycle? Why dont we hear about Jewish citizens being killed by police? Its obvious  they do not have any problem with using violence and even killing because no one will get punished, he told Al Jazeera.

There was so much violence in the way that they were arresting people in Jaffa. It was obvious that their retreat from everything they did in Jerusalem and al-Aqsa hurt the ego of the security apparatus. It seemed like they were coming to take revenge.
After months of protests, millions are called upon to choose representatives of an assembly to redraft the constitution.

After months of protests and clashes, with more than 100 people killed, Venezuelans were called on to choose the members of a new National Constituent Assembly that will be tasked with drafting a new constitution.

Sundays vote marked the second time Venezuela had a Constituent Assembly.

In 1999, the then newly elected President Hugo Chavez and voters supported the initiative.

The difference this time is that Sundays election was ordered by decree, with no referendum indicating that a majority wanted a change.

Venezuelans answered one question: Who should represent you in the assembly?

Results were announced on Sunday, when The National Electoral Council said that more than eight million people voted.

The turnout was more than double the estimated of both the governments political opponents and independent experts.

We have a Constituent Assembly, Maduro said in a speech to hundreds of supporters in central Caracas after the electoral authority put the voter turnout at 41.5 percent.

So what does this process entail? Below, we answer key questions:

1. What is a National Constituent Assembly?

An elected temporary parliament that has the mandate to draft or reform the Constitution.

President Maduro invoked article 347 of the Venezuelan Constitution, which reads as follows:

The Venezuelan people are the depositary of the original constituent power. In the exercise of that power, it can convene a National Constituent Assembly with the purpose of transforming the state, creating a new legal system and drafting a new Constitution.

The president has the power to do so, although he will not be able to object to the constitution that results from it.

In terms of changes, it is not clear yet what is coming.

Maduro has talked about the Constituent Assembly as an initiative that will resolve political and economic challenges, but it is unclear what the reforms will be.

Critics fear that the Constituent Assembly will try to override the National Assembly, the only government sector not controlled by Maduros party.

READ MORE: Venezuela has reached the zero hour  Whats next?

2. Why did Maduro call this vote?

President Maduro called for the Assembly on May 1 amid a political crisis marked by a month of almost daily demonstrations.

The president announced his decision saying it was the only road to restore peace.

In a speech, he said that he aimed to let the sovereign people impose peace, harmony and true national dialogue.

Maduro assured that the new constitution will be an improvement of the revolutionary plan of Chavez.

3. Who can elect and be elected?

There will be 545 elected delegates to the assembly, from more than 6,000 candidates.

From those, 364 will be chosen by local polls. The other 181 members will be elected by members of seven social sectors, including indigenous groups, poor farmers, students, and pensioners.

Those sectors have always shown strong support to Chavez and Maduro.

The opposition is boycotting the election, so from the 6,000 people that are running for seats, they do not have any representation.

Critics say the process has been distorted, because the president chose who could be listed in the constituent. That decision was not open to the public.

READ MORE: Venezuelas worst economic crisis  What went wrong?

4. What do supporters say?

This has not been an imposed process. I support it. It is an instrument of the state, something imposed is not submitted to a vote by Rossana Melendez

They say they are willing to participate and hope the vote brings stability.

We will participate in a process that the majority, accept, receive and are willing to participate in. On July 30, we will see the true support to the Bolivarian Revolution, and President Nicolas Maduro, General Gabriel Oviedo, a candidate to the Constituent, told Al Jazeera.

The Constituent will continue, and with it the mechanisms will come so that each one responds to its illegal acts, its time to have justice, and to defend the motherland, he added.

Cilia Flores, Maduros wife and a candidate for the assembly, believes the move will bring peace and stability. The National Assembly went crazy, and they thought they could overthrow President Maduro  the people want peace, and this stability will be given to us by the Constituent, she told local media.

This has not been an imposed process. I support it. It is an instrument of the state, something imposed is not submitted to a vote, Rossana Melendez, an environmental manager, told Al Jazeera.





5. What does the opposition say?

What by Jose

the state that we have, the constitutional base that we have]

The opposition rejected the move from the start.

A Supreme Tribunal magistrate, Luisa Ortega Diaz, said the assembly was not the solution to the crisis and called on Maduro to think carefully to avoid more bloodshed.

Jose Haro, a constitutional lawyer, said: What happens if this Constituent Assembly is imposed, without having consulted the people, is that it [risks dismantling] the state that we have, the constitutional base that we have.

It gives way to a situation of high voltage political conflict, which can lead to even greater confrontation. The day that Maduro summoned the Constituent Assembly, the number of killed in demonstrations was no more than 29. After he made the announcement, the number has tripled  If this goes ahead, Venezuela will enter a dark period.

The opposition is demanding elections to remove Maduro from power. They blame him for an economic crisis that has caused shortages of food, medicine and basic supplies.

6. How long could the process take?

Last time this happened, the process began on February 2, 1999, and finished with the publication of the Constitution in March 2000.

The Constituent Assembly could last more than a year because referendums and elections must be convened to determine the constituents, who are likely to discuss for months the issues concerning the new constitution.

This would allow the president to stay in power during the process, and could lead to a delay of the 2018 presidential election.

7. What was achieved the first time this was done?

The Constituent Assembly of 1999 made significant changes, including increasing the presidential term from five to six years; unifying the two chambers of the National Congress into a National Assembly, and changing the name of the country to the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.

8. What happens next?

Pressure from the opposition is expected to grow. Maduro has warned that his government is ready for any scenario.

According to its decree, the National Constituent Assembly will be installed within 72 hours after the proclamation of the constituents.

President Maduro promised that before the new constitution is implemented, it would also be the subject of a referendum.

During the 1999 Constituent Assembly, Congress was shut down. This time, the Congress has said it will not cooperate.

9. International reactions

Cuba, Bolivia, and Nicaragua, congratulated the government for the outcome.

And governments such as Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, Peru, Panama, and Spain, did not recognise the results.

The US condemned the election and threatened to impose new strong and swift sanctions.

Nikki Haley, the US ambassador to the UN, on Sunday called the election a sham and step towards dictatorship, adding that the US will not accept illegitimate government.




Hamas should not trade the rights and hopes of the Palestinian people for its own survival by making a deal with Dahlan.

We have made mutual efforts with our brothers in Hamas to restore hope for Gazas heroic people, Mohammed Dahlan told Palestinian legislators gathering in Gaza on Thursday, July 27. He spoke via satellite from his current exile in the United Arab Emirates.

The audience clapped. True, Gaza has been pushed to the brink of humiliation so that its truly heroic people may lose hope. But the fact that it was Dahlan that uttered these words appeared odd. More bizarre is the fact that his audience included top members of Hamas.





Dahlan, who had once been praised by George W Bush and was chosen by neoconservatives to lead a coup against the elected Hamas government in Gaza in 2007, seems to have finally managed to sneak his way back to Palestinian politics. Outrageously, however, Dahlans ominous return is facilitated by no other group than his archenemy, Hamas.

It is convenient to blame such dramatic changes of attitude on the nature of politics, ever selfish, pragmatic and often brutal.

But it is far more complex, and tragic than such a truism. Gaza has been under siege for over a decade. The Israeli siege began in 2006 when Hamas won parliamentary elections in a decisive victory, leaving Fatah, the leading faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), in the opposition for the first time since its inception the 1960s.

Proving incapable of understanding or accepting the democratic process, Fatah lashed out at its Hamas rival and worked hard to undermine its rise to power.

READ MORE: Dahlan reveals controversial Hamas deal on Gaza

But it was mostly Israel, backed by the United States that vehemently rejected the choice of the Palestinian majority. Within months, Israel imposed a siege on Gaza, the centre of Hamas popular support, while the US withheld financial assistance to the Palestinians, urging its allies to do the same.

Hamas was left with no other option but to form a government alone. To protect its political institutions, the movement also established its own interior ministry police force. Then, alarm bells rang even louder.

Hand-picked by the neocons to overthrow Hamas

It was Gaza-based Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan who was selected to lead the mission of overthrowing Hamas. The choice was made by W Bushs own National Security Council Middle East adviser, Elliot Abrams.

Then, the neocons were leading a campaign to construct a New Middle East, which was the culmination of the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 and then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rices aggressive diplomacy in the region.

The situation for Hamas and Gaza is dire. But there can be no moral justification to swap the rights, hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people with the arrogant ambitions of a self-obsessive warlord and his wealthy Arab benefactors. by

The US government was eager to show that its violent military adventures in the Middle East would eventually lead to political stability through a US-sponsored democracy initiative.

Hamas election victory was a devastating blow to the Bush administrations efforts. The Islamic group that championed armed resistance and rejected the Washington-consensus and its pro-Israeli vision in the Middle East presented Washington with an unprecedented dilemma.

The man to thwart Palestinian democracy was Dahlan. It was the obvious choice, since Dahlan, a warlord by any standards, had good ties with Israel, a strong position within Fatah and was deeply connected to various Arab intelligence agencies. He also commanded 10 security branches in Gaza, dedicated mostly to cracking down on dissent. Many of those imprisoned and tortured by Dahlans forces, funded and trained under a programme managed by US Lieutenant General Keith Dayton, targeted Hamas fighters, political leaders and supporters.

The plan was a massive failure. In the matter of a few days in the summer of 2007, Hamas routed Dahlans forces, and, until this day, single-handedly controlled Gaza.

Dahlan first sought sanctuary in the West Bank, yet soon had a falling-out with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. He fled Ramallah in 2010, after being accused by his own party of corruption and a coup attempt.

For the last seven years, Dahlan has lived in the United Arab Emirates and become very close to the crown prince of Abu Dhabi, Mohammad bin Zayed.

Although Dahlan began amassing wealth in Gaza before his exile in 2006, his fortune in the UAE grew exuberantly.

READ MORE: Will Mohammed Dahlan return to lead Gaza?

When interviewing him for the New York Times last November, Peter Baker couldnt help but marvel at Dahlans wealth from the very first paragraph of his report titled In Muhammad Dahlans ascent, a proxy battle for legitimacy.

His spacious home here in Abu Dhabi  features plush sofas, vaulted ceilings and chandeliers. The infinity pool in the back seems to spill into the glistening waterway beyond, Baker wrote.

At that time, and still until this day, tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza remained homeless following the Israeli war on the Strip in 2014. A few months earlier, the United Nations had described Gaza as unlivable.

None of this seemed to matter to Dahlan, who used Arab funds to further divide already divided Palestinian ranks and to eventually exploit Hamas need to survive as Israel and Egypt worked to bring it to its knees.

An alliance with the weakened Hamas

In a move, engineered with the help and support of several Arab governments including Egypt, Dahlan managed to exploit the rift between Hamas and Fatah while presenting himself as the saviour of the dying Gaza Strip.





With no room for him among the top Fatah leadership, he resolved to impose himself back on the Palestinians through an alliance with the weakened Hamas.

The resistance movement managed to withstand Israeli wars, but an Israeli-Egyptian siege proved nearly impossible to overcome. Two million Palestinians in Gaza suffered from life-threatening cuts of electricity, food, clean water, medicine and fuel, not to mention are denied freedom of movement.

Last May, the PA in Ramallah significantly reduced salaries of its employees in the Strip and withheld payments to the Israeli company that supplied Gaza with its limited supply of electricity.

With Israel, Arabs and the Palestinian leadership all involved in breaking the will of Gaza, Dahlan arrived on the scene, with a massive Arab-sponsored largess, offering charity, electricity and supplies.

Of course, he sought a political price in return: a power-sharing agreement.

In June, a Hamas delegation visited Cairo to meet Dahlan under Egyptian supervision. The Hamas delegation was led by Hamas newly elected leader Yahya Sinwar, who spent 20 years in Israeli jails and led the movements military wings resistance against Israel. Sinwar agreed with Dahlan on an understanding that would give the exiled warlord a leadership position in Gaza in exchange for an Egyptian decision to open the Rafah border that connects the Gaza Strip to the Sinai desert.

READ MORE: Gazas Game of Thrones  A fight to defeat resistance

Expectedly, the Gaza power-sharing deal is angering the Abbas leadership, which is betting on Hamas and Dahlans inability to generate enough funds to sustain the impoverished Strip.

But considering the support of wealthy Arabs and the full involvement of Egypt, the agreement has a reasonable degree of success in the short run.

The Rafah border is reportedly due to open next month, and an electric power plant on the Egyptian side of the border will soon to be constructed. Once completed in 18 months, Gazas 22-hour long blackouts could be significantly reduced.

However, conflict will likely arise in the future.

Reviving an old formula

Confident in its strong support base in Gaza, Hamas thinks it is still able to out-manoeuvre Dahlan and his plans to end, or at least silence, the resistance in Gaza. A glance at the history of Fatah suggests otherwise. Indeed, the Oslo Accords in 1993 was the culmination of years of pressure, financial manipulation and intimidation of Yasser Arafat and his supporters.

In the final analysis, the Palestinian people gained nothing, and all that remains of Fatah today are empty slogans. Having been browbeaten and weakened by Israel and the Arabs, Hamas is now walking the same path.





A few analysts are suggesting that the current political game is aimed at reviving an old formula that envisaged a Palestinian state in Gaza and parts of the Sinai desert, where many Palestinian refugees would be permanently settled.

Although the Palestinian leadership and people rejected such plots in the past, Israel and its Arab allies might be hoping that Gaza is too weak and Palestinians are far too divided to reject such deals.

However, it is likely that such a calculation will also backfire.

Dahlan has failed repeatedly in the past, in subduing Gaza, in controlling the PA, in deposing an aging Abbas and in other plots. Why should this new gamble be any different?

Moreover, in their weakest moments, the Palestinian people proved strong enough to defeat any initiative that would compromise on their rights, including their Right of Return.

As for Hamas, it must not copy the failed Fatah experience. Palestine is bigger and more valuable than both movements, their political ambitions and calculations.

True, the situation for Hamas and Gaza is dire. But there can be no moral justification to swap the rights, hopes and aspirations of the Palestinian people with the arrogant ambitions of a self-obsessive warlord and his wealthy Arab benefactors.

Ramzy Baroud has been writing about the Middle East for over 20 years. He is an internationally-syndicated columnist, a media consultant, an author of several books and the founder of PalestineChronicle.com. His books include Searching Jenin, The Second Palestinian Intifada and his latest My Father Was a Freedom Fighter: Gazas Untold Story. His website is www.ramzybaroud.net.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Countries want Syrian refugees to go back, but have they done anything to stop the Assad regime creating more refugees?

It is indescribably devastating to watch as the international community intensifies its push to normalise the occupied, murderous regime of Bashar al-Assad. Major players in Syria are using Syrian lives as leverage and to signal theyve had enough of Syrians and their crisis.

Recently, the UNHCR made an odd, somewhat troubling, statement. Based on figures from aid agencies, their spokesman said that 440,000 internally displaced Syrians  meaning Syrians already in Syria  have supposedly returned to their homes since the start of 2017 and that this was a notable trend.





He then went on to say that despite this, the agency wouldnt recommend or sponsor refugee returns given multiple risks that remain, and that Syrians seeking asylum in other nations needed to be given safe havens.

There are two levels of frustration that come with such statements: first, that 440,000 IDPs are being presented as a notable trend in the context of over six million Syrians displaced internally and over five million living as refugees in other countries; and second, such statements carry very little weight with an international community that has shown not only is it content with letting Assad and his allies continue creating refugees, but is also willing to join the war on terror perpetuated by Assad and his allies.

When Syrians go back

When the UNHCR says conditions are not ideal for return, it means that Syrians, refugees or not, face risks with any movements they attempt to make, starting from the moment they stand in line at any given border to re-enter their country.

Syrians Ive spoken to tell me about abuse and corruption at the borders of neighbouring countries. One told me they had to pay bribes to border officials in Jordan to ensure safe passage back to Syria. Several have told me their passports were confiscated in Jordan and they were told to check in with Syrian intelligence branches upon their return to their hometowns.





Others returning to Syria through Lebanon have waited for hours to be let back into Syria, fearing the worst as Lebanese and Syrian regime officials humiliated and berated them. Thats aside from the money theyve had taken from them at the borders, which is particularly painful given that most of these Syrians are already suffering financially. Then, there are those whose sons over 18 are immediately whisked off to forced conscription with the regimes army.

This problem of forced conscription, faced mainly by young men, is a major risk not only at the borders, but also in areas under the control of the regime and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces. The Assad regimes ministry of defence has recently imposed new laws for punishing any men who attempt to evade mandatory service in the regimes army.

Once Syrians make it back into Syria, they have to pass through checkpoints, risking detention at the hands of the regime or various armed militias. Syrians, both refugees and IDPs, tell stories of being questioned for hours by the regimes militias and seeing fellow countrymen killed at these checkpoints.

OPINION: Xenophobia will not solve Lebanons refugee crisis

In liberated areas, IDPs also face incidents of harassment and extortion and fall victim to infighting between armed groups. That is beside the continuing air strikes by the Syrian regime, Russia and the US-led international coalition that have killed, maimed and displaced thousands of innocent civilians.

Refugee dodge ball

On World Refugee Day last month, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave a speech in which he spoke about Turkeys generosity to refugees, telling the international community Turkey could help advise on how to permanently solve the Syrian refugee crisis. Earlier this year, Turkey and Russia, despite backing opposing sides in Syria, agreed to work together (with Iran) to establish de-escalation zones across Syria  a plan that never really worked.

In one way or another, all of these major players have contributed to Assad and his allies clinging to power and have obstructed the Syrian revolution. Yet, they now have the audacity to resent the presence of Syrian refugees within their borders. by

And despite the fact Turkey is host to the most Syrian refugees, it has sealed off its Syrian border with a massive wall built for security purposes and to stem the refugee flow. There has also been a growing number of incidents of Turkish border guards shooting at Syrian refugees trying to cross the border. NGOs operating in Turkey  some working with Syrian refugees  are also facing a crackdown by the Turkish government. As isolated incidents, these occurrences wouldnt mean much. But examined as a whole, it is clear refugees are paying the price as Turkey deals with its own internal affairs and attempts to clear out anyone it deems a threat.

In Lebanon, three refugee camps were destroyed in a matter of days, two of them destroyed by fires and one of them raided by Lebanese authorities. Dozens of Syrian refugees were arrested in the Arsal camp raid in the name of fighting terrorism, and at least five of them were returned as bodies, tortured to death in custody.

In the days after these incidents, Lebanons prime minister, Saad Hariri, published a series of tweets, including in them a call to put pressure on the Assad regime to allow the UN to build camps on the Syrian side of the shared border as a means to better protect Lebanese interests.

Hezbollah, a backer of the Assad regime and abuser of the Syrian people, is now brokering deals with various actors in Syria to force refugees back over the border from Arsal. Tension in Lebanon is at all-time highs, as is anti-Syrian refugee sentiment.

And it is not just Syrias neighbours. In the West, the United States and France have been the loudest about their willingness to acquiesce to Russian demands in Syria. Furthermore, the US has already reached the 50,000 refugee resettlement cap set by the Trump administration, meaning that not only is it allowing abuses to be committed on its behalf in Syria, it is also actively blocking victims of its crimes in Syria from seeking refuge in the US. Syria is also one of the six countries included in Trumps travel ban, which is now being battled in the courts.

In one way or another, all of these major players have contributed to Assad and his allies clinging to power and have obstructed the Syrian revolution. Yet, they now have the audacity to resent the presence of Syrian refugees within their borders.

Malak Chabkoun is an independent Middle East researcher and writer based in the US.

The views expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeeras editorial policy.
Official in Lower Shebelle region of Somalia confirms 24 soldiers dead but al-Shabab fighters claim 39 troops killed.

At least 23 African Union peacekeeping troops and a Somali soldier have been killed in an ambush carried out by armed group al-Shabab in the countrys south, according to a senior regional official.

The fighting broke out when the al-Shabaab fighters attacked the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) troops early on Sunday in the Bulamareer district of the Lower Shabelle region, about 140km southwest of the capital, Mogadishu.

We have carried 23 dead AMISOM soldiers and a dead Somali soldier from the scene where al Shabaab ambushed AMISOM today by Ali Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region

We have carried 23 dead AMISOM soldiers and a dead Somali soldier from the scene where al-Shabaab ambushed AMISOM today, Ali Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region, told Reuters news agency.

The armed group, which has been fighting the Western-backed government in Somalia, claimed they had killed 39 African Union troops.

The claim by the al-Qaeda-linked fighters, made by the groups spokesman on an affiliated radio station, could not be immediately verified.

Earlier on Sunday, Colonel Hassan Mohamed confirmed that an AMISOM convoy came under attack.

Local residents confirmed to AFP news agency that the fighting had taken place in the Lower Shebelle region, a hotly contested area where al-Shababs spokesman said they had staged their ambush.

The mujahedeen fighters stood over the dead bodies of 39 soldiers, among them senior commanders, Abdiaziz Abu Muzab told Andalus radio.

READ MORE: Farmajo calls for arms embargo end to defeat al-Shabab

The African Union has a 22,000 strong force in the country dedicated to fighting al-Shabab and supporting the internationally backed government in Mogadishu.

Residents said the troops were ambushed in the village of Golweyn as they escorted supplies along the road that connects Mogadishu to Lower Shebelle.

Fighting broke out and continued for more than one hour, said Ali Osman, a witness to the battle.

In April, a minibus travelling through Golweyn hit a landmine, killing at least 14 people.

That attack was also blamed on al-Shabab, which has fought successive governments in Mogadishu and also carried out attacks in Kenya and Uganda.
Company says it will remove apps that do not comply with Chinese laws seeking to ban VPNs not approved by regulators.

Apple Inc has announced that it is removing virtual private network (VPN) services from its app store in China, drawing criticism from VPN service providers, who accuse the US tech giant of bowing to pressure from Beijing.

VPNs allow users to bypass Chinas so-called Great Firewall aimed at restricting access to overseas sites.

In January, Beijing passed laws seeking to ban all VPNs that are not approved by state regulators. Approved VPNs must use state network infrastructure.

Apple has done much good for privacy and security in recent years, but actively assisting censorship crosses the red line of human rights. https://t.co/gzhRPqs5g9  Edward Snowden (@Snowden) July 29, 2017

This is very dangerous precedent which can lead to same moves in countries like UAE etc. where government control access to internet.  Star VPN (@star_vpn) July 29, 2017

In a statement on Sunday, an Apple spokeswoman confirmed it will remove apps that do not comply with the law from its China App Store, including services based outside the country.

Beijing has shut down dozens of China-based providers and it has been targeting overseas services as it bids to tighten its control over the internet, especially in advance of the Communist Party congress in August.

While personal VPN providers have been the subject of state-led attacks in the past, this marks the first time Apple has complied with requests to scrub overseas providers from its store, a move that VPN providers say is unnecessarily supportive of Chinas heightened censorship.

Apple has done much good for privacy and security in recent years, but actively assisting censorship crosses the red line of human rights, Edward Snowden, the American whistle-blower now residing in Russia, said in a tweet.

Apple sends notices to providers

VPN provider ExpressVPN said on Saturday that it had received a notice from Apple that its software would be removed from the China App Store because it includes content that is illegal in China.

Were disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding Chinas censorship efforts, ExpressVPN said in a statement.

Other major providers, including VyprVPN and StarVPN, confirmed they also received the notice on Saturday from Apple.





We view access to internet in China as a human rights issue and I would expect Apple to value human rights over profit, Sunday Yokubaitis, president of Golden Frog, which oversees VyprVPN told the Reuters news agency on Sunday.

Yokubaitis said Golden Frog will file an appeal to Apple over the ban.

China users with billing addresses in other countries will still be able to access VPN apps from other branches of the App Store.

A number of VPN apps were still accessible on the China App store on Saturday, according to Reuters.
At least nine killed as opposition protests against election for new legislative body turn violent.

At least nine people, including an election candidate, have been killed in the past 24 hours in Venezuela as the country voted for an all-powerful new legislative body tasked with reforming the countrys constitution.

Countrys opposition parties boycotted Sundays polls, which they say is aimed at consolidating President Nicolas Maduros power.

Counting of ballots across Venezuela began on Sunday night after the voting was extended by an hour. Preliminary results were expected before the end of the day.

Shootings at protests killed a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old in the western state of Tachira. A soldier was also shot dead there. The death toll also included a 30-year-old regional leader of a youth opposition party in the northeast town of Cumana and two protesters in the western state of Merida.

Anti-Maduro activists wearing hoods or masks erected barricades on roads and scuffles broke out with security forces who moved in quickly to disperse the demonstrators.

The president, elected in 2013, has faced months of protests for presiding over a debilitating economic crisis that has seen high inflation rate and shortages of food and other basic amenities.

He has pressed ahead with the vote to create the all-powerful constituent assembly or temporary parliament despite US sanctions and months of violence which has claimed the lives of around 120 people.

The US has condemned the violence, urging governments in the region and around the world to take strong action to hold accountable those who undermine democracy, deny human rights.

READ MORE: All you need to know about todays vote in Venezuela

Al Jazeeras Lucia Newman, reporting from the capital Caracas, said that it was a sad and bloody day in Venezuela. She said that half a dozen protesters with bullet wounds were rushed to neighbouring Colombia for treatment.

Maduro has accused right-wing governments of trying to sabotage 21st-century socialism created by his predecessor, the late Hugo Chavez. Several regional governments, including the United States, have voiced opposition to the controversial election.

The US envoy to the UN, Nikki Halley, on Sunday called the election a sham and step toward dictatorship, adding that the US wont accept illegitimate government.

The emperor Donald Trump wanted to halt the Venezuelan peoples right to vote, said Maduro, as he voted at 6am in a low-income area of Caracas.

A new era of combat will begin. Were going all out with this Constituent Assembly.

Supporters of Chavismo, the movement founded by Chavez, said they wanted to halt the unrest.

The [opposition] wants deaths and roadblocks and the government wants peace, said Olga Blanco, 50, voting for candidates to the assembly at a school in Caracas.

Maduro is gambling his four-year rule on the 545-member citizens Constituent Assembly empowered to dissolve the opposition-controlled congress and change laws as it reforms the nations constitution.

The voting started at 6am local time with almost 20 million Venezuelans registered to cast their ballots, according to Telesur, a pro-government pan-Latin American media network.

The opposition called for new protests on Monday and Wednesday against the inauguration of the powerful Constituent Assembly (CA).

We do not recognise this fraudulent process, senior opposition leader Henrique Capriles said on Sunday at the close of the controversial election, which was marred by violence.

Capriles spoke of a black day and blamed what he termed President Maduros sick ambition.

To show the massive scale of public anger, the opposition earlier this month organised an unofficial referendum over Maduros plan. More than seven million voters overwhelmingly rejected the constituent assembly and voted in favour of early elections.

The oppositions bid last year to hold a recall referendum against Maduro was rejected, regional elections have been postponed and the president has repeatedly ignored the opposition-controlled congress.

READ MORE: All you need to know about todays controversial vote

Turnout will be key to determining the legitimacy of the election. But that will be difficult to ascertain.

I am at a polling station in Caracas and there is nobody here. There were a lot more people in the morning, but since then thereve been just a few people dropping by, Al Jazeeras Newman said.

The Al Jazeera correspondent said that it was very difficult to get the exact figures on polling percentage. The opposition claims only 15 percent went out to vote while the government is claiming it to be a major success, she said.

President of the ruling Socialist party said it was historic and the biggest turnout ever, but the opposition members are not even showing at the polling centres.

Javier Farje, a Latin America political analyst, said that Maduro government is not going to rewrite the Constitution but they are going to introduce nine reforms in the current constitution.

I believe the only solution is to restart the dialogue that was suspended in December 2016 when the opposition abandoned the dialogue because they disagreed with the government, he told Al Jazeera.

They have to go back to negotiating table. Constituent Assembly should not be seen as an obstacle for that. It is not going to replace the current National Assembly, lets make it clear. The National Assemby can still do its job.
Flight of bombers follows Pyongyangs missile tests and comes as Trump derides Chinas response to apparent threat.

The United States has flown two bomber jets over the Korean Peninsula in a show of force after recent North Korean missile tests, according to a US Air Force statement.

Saturdays move came after North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike the US mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump.

The flight of B-1B bomber jets was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the Hwansong-14 rocket, the US statement said.

The bombers took off from a US airbase in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

READ MORE: Second North Korea ICBM test proves US in strike range

North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability, Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J OShaughnessy said. If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.

In the past, the US has used similar flights as a show of force in response to North Korean missile or nuclear tests.

Pyongyang: Entire US in range

The Korean Central News Agency said on Saturday that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un expressed great satisfaction after the Hwasong-14 reached a maximum height of 3,725 kilometres and travelled 998 kilometres, before accurately landing in waters off Japan.

The agency quoted Kim as saying that the launch reaffirmed the reliability of the countrys ICBM system and ability to fire at random regions and locations at random times, with the entire US mainland now within range.





Analysts estimate that the Norths first ICBM in early July could have reached Alaska, and said that the latest missile appeared to extend that range significantly.

Trump condemned the test as a threat to the world, and rejected North Koreas claim that nuclear power ensures its security.

Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said he held telephone talks with US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and agreed on the need to put the heaviest possible pressure on North Korea.

We confirmed that we will closely cooperate in adopting a fresh [UN Security Council] resolution, including severe measures, and working on China and Russia, Kishida told reporters.

China, the Norths main ally, said that it opposed North Koreas missile launches, which it said violate UN Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyangs banned nuclear and missile programmes.

At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate, Chinas foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

However, Trump said he was very disappointed in China.

In messages on Twitter, he wrote: Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet

they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!

Kiyul Chung, professor at Chinas Tsinghua University, said China has few options and is doing all it can.

Chinese participation in UN sanctions against [North Korea] has been [significant], he told Al Jazeera. What Trump says doesnt mean much.

He explained that besides pressuring China, the US has few options.

I dont think China will do more, because there is nothing more it can do, he said.

Growing concern

Washington and its allies have watched with growing concern as Pyongyang has progressed towards its goal of having all of the US within range of its missiles to counter what it labels as US aggression.

There are other hurdles, including building nuclear warheads to fit on those missiles and ensuring reliability.

But many analysts have been surprised by how quickly Kim has developed North Koreas nuclear and missile programmes, despite several rounds of UN Security Council sanctions that have squeezed the impoverished countrys economy.

North Korea is not believed to have yet developed the technology to miniaturise a nuclear weapon to fit in a missiles warhead.
Court stood by decision to sentence demoted soldier Elor Azaria to 18 months in prison for killing wounded Palestinian.

An Israeli military court on Sunday upheld the 18-month sentence of a soldier convicted of fatally shooting a Palestinian attacker who lay on the ground wounded after stabbing and wounding another soldier, in a case that has divided the country where military service is mandatory.

Sgt. Elor Azaria, an army combat medic, was recorded on a mobile phone video as he fatally shot a badly wounded Palestinian who had allegedly attacked a soldier with a knife beforehand, wounding him.

The Palestinian, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, was lying on the ground unarmed when Azaria shot him in the head.

The 2016 incident occurred in the volatile city of Hebron in the West Bank.

Israels top generals pushed for the prosecution of the soldier they say violated the militarys code of ethics they hold dear.

Large segments of the public, including politicians on Israels nationalist right, sided with Azaria. Some called him a hero who was being wrongly persecuted.

READ MORE: They killed him because he was an Arab

Speaking from outside the military court in Tel Aviv, Al Jazeeras Imran Khan said that this case had polarised Israeli society.

The army says that Azaria was in violation of rules of engagement, while the left-wing say this is simply about the dehumanization of Palestinians, or a symptom of a much wider national psyche here, Khan said.

In Israel, military service is compulsory for most Jewish men, and soldiers enjoy widespread sympathy and support.

Israels Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman issued a statement urging the soldiers family not to continue appealing. Its a difficult day, he said adding the ruling must be respected.

He said the militarys Chief of Staff should be asked to pardon him. I have no doubt he will take into consideration the difficult circumstances, he said.

Other ministers also called for the soldier to be pardoned.

Leah Tsemel, an Israeli lawyer, said that Azarias sentencing is a very light one.

Under these circumstances, I would say that any Palestinian youngster in Issawiyeh who throws stones at Israeli soldiers would be very happy to get this year and a half in prison, she told Al Jazeera, referring to a town in occupied East Jerusalem.

However, she said that the message behind the courts decision was still important.

The message that comes out of the military court says there should be some sanity in the attitude of the army towards Palestinians, she said. We are not in the Wild West.

READ MORE: Azaria exposed the reality of Israels colonial project

Human Rights Watch welcomed the court decision. Upholding the conviction of a soldier convicted of fatally shooting a man who posed no threat sends an important message about restrictions on lethal use of force, said Sari Bashi, the Israel and Palestine advocacy director at Human Rights Watch.

Israel has been coping with Palestinian attacks that erupted in 2015 which at times were a daily occurrence.

Since then, Israeli forces have killed more than 256 Palestinians; Israel has said that most of them were attackers, others died in clashes.

During that same period, Palestinians have killed 48 Israelis, two visiting Americans and a British tourist in stabbings, shootings and car-ramming attacks targeting civilians and soldiers.

Israel blames the violence on incitement by Palestinian religious and political leaders compounded on social media sites that glorify violence and encourage attacks. Palestinians say the attacks stem from anger and frustration at decades of Israeli occupation.
Opposition decries election to decide upon body tasked with reforming constitution as a power grab by President Maduro.

Venezuela is voting on Sunday to elect a legislative body tasked with reforming the Constitution, in a poll which has triggered international alarm and deadly street protests against President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro predicted a big victory in the election of the 545-member citizens Constituent Assembly empowered to dissolve the opposition-controlled parliament and rewrite the Constitution.

The opposition has urged a boycott, saying the vote marks a move towards dictatorship by an unpopular president desperate to cling to power with the backing of a loyal military.

Al Jazeeras John Holman, reporting from Caracas, said that the opposition feels that the vote is stacked against them in favour of government supporters.

A leading newspaper here summed up this vote when it said, The government is choosing its representatives, as no opposition candidates are taking part in it.

The United States, European Union and Latin American powers, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, have come out against the election, saying it would destroy Venezuelan democracy.

READ MORE: All you need to know about todays controversial vote

Four months of street protests against Maduro have left more than 100 people dead, and exposed deep political divisions in this oil-rich nation reduced to economic calamity.

Demonstrations tapered off just before Sundays vote after Maduro decreed a ban threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for protesters.

But fear of violence worsening has rippled across the region, and beyond.

Several foreign airlines, including Air France, Delta, Avianca and Iberia have suspended flights to the country.

Families of US diplomats have been ordered to leave following the imposition of American sanctions on 13 current and former Venezuelan officials.

Maduro  who described the Constituent Assembly as a card that will win this game  on Saturday said the vote was the most important election held in Venezuelas political system.

Authorities on the eve of the vote said all was ready for the nationwide balloting, although the head of the electoral council acknowledged some voting machines had been burned in attacks on polling stations.

Freddy Guevara, an opposition politician, said further demonstrations would take place on Sunday.

There will not be calm as long as the people dont have peace, he said.

Colombia and Panama  refuges for tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the chaos at home  have said they will not recognise the results of Sundays election in Venezuela.

At an overnight protest in Villa del Rosario, a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border, hundreds of Venezuelans taking shelter there decried the election.

We dont know whats going to happen in this situation created by this president, said one of them, Bella Buitrago, 48. Were all extremely nervous.

We dont want Mr Maduro  he should leave the country, said another, Sindry Borges.

Some in Maduros administration have broken ranks with him, most prominently his attorney general. Two diplomats resigned this week in dissent: one at the UN and another at the embassy in Panama.

The Venezuelan leader has blamed the mounting unrest against him and his policies on the US, working hand-in-hand with the Venezuelan opposition to wage an economic war.
Pence visiting Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro to signal support and draw line under perceived aggression from Moscow.

US Vice President Mike Pence is visiting Estonia to reassure the three Baltic NATO members, concerned over neighbouring Russias military activity, before continuing on to Georgia and Montenegro with the same mission.

Pence will meet Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas on Sunday regarding the possibility of installing American anti-aircraft defence systems in the small country of 1.3 million people.

Relations between Moscow and Tallinn have been fraught since Estonia broke free from the Soviet Union in 1991, joining both the European Union and NATO in 2004.

READ MORE: Donald Trump ready to sign Russia sanctions bill

More recently, Estonia and fellow Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania have been spooked by Russias frequent military exercises near the region and its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

Local analysts expect Pence to offer Estonians what they want to hear, that the US is a good loyal ally and that they appreciate Baltic sacrifices including their two percent of GDP spending on defence and their participation in military operations in Afghanistan, according to Tallinn University international relations specialist Matthew Crandall, as quoted by public television ERR.

Russias Zapad exercises have caused concern in Lithuania, since they will take place relatively close to the Suwalki gap, a land corridor crossing southeastern Poland which is critical to the security of the Baltic states.

The 80-kilometre stretch of border with Lithuania is sandwiched between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the west and Moscow-friendly Belarus to the east.

This corridor of land is considered the potential Achilles heel of NATOs eastern flank, because a hypothetical Russian offensive there could easily isolate the three Baltic countries to the north.

Lithuanian authorities have said that up to 100,000 Russian and Belarussian troops could take part in the exercises.

READ MORE: Is Russia really a threat to the Baltic states?

But Belarus Defence Minister Andrei Ravkov told the Russian TASS news agency that the soldiers will only number around 13,000.

Montenegro joined NATO in June in the face of bitter opposition from Moscow, which says NATOs steady expansion into the former communist states of Eastern Europe threatens its own security and cannot go unchallenged.

The US Senate passed a sanctions bill Thursday which includes a provision preventing the president from removing sanctions without congressional approval. Only Trumps signature is still needed to turn it into law.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov called the bill a very serious step towards destroying the prospects for normalising relations.
The monarch pardoned 1,178 detainees, including a number who had joined protests in the troubled northern Rif region.

King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Saturday pardoned more than a thousand people who were under arrest for taking part in protests in the troubled northern Rif region, the justice ministry announced.

The monarch pardoned a total of 1,178 detainees, including a number who had joined demonstrations in the northern port city of al-Hoceima and surrounding area, the ministry said in a statement, issued shortly before King Mohammed made a televised speech to mark 18 years on the throne.

The justice ministry said pardons were granted to those who have not committed crimes and who are not implicated in serious acts  bearing in mind their family and humanitarian conditions.

IN PHOTOS: Social unrest boils over in Moroccos al-Hoceima

The Rif, a predominantly Berber region where al-Hoceima is located, has been gripped by months of unrest.

Protests erupted last October after a fishmonger was crushed to death in a rubbish truck as he tried to retrieve a swordfish confiscated for being caught out of season.





Demands for justice later snowballed into a wider social movement named Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, calling for jobs, development and an end to corruption.

Abdessadek Al-Bouchtaoui, a lawyer for detained protesters, described the mass pardon as a positive step but it does not go far enough, because we are calling for the release of everyone held.

According to the latest official figures, 176 were being held, including the movements leader, Nasser Zefzafi.

The government has promised to make major investments in the region, sent ministers to the area and withdrawn police from prominent sites in a bid to defuse the situation.

A brief lull ended on July 21 with clashes over a banned demonstration which also drew in supporters from among the large Moroccan diaspora.

Seventy-two police officers were wounded by stones and 11 protesters were injured by tear gas used to break up the rally, the official news agency MAP reported, citing authorities in al-Hoceima.
Ruling PML-N party, which holds parliament majority, nominates disgraced leaders brother as next prime minister.

Pakistans parliament will meet on Tuesday to elect a new prime minister after the disqualification of three-time leader Nawaz Sharif.





Mamnoon Hussain, Pakistans president, called the special parliamentary session late on Saturday after Sharif put forward Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the interim leader and his brother, Shahbaz Sharif, as the long-term successor.

Shahbaz, currently the chief minister of Punjab province  Pakistans most populous region and the Sharifs political heartland  will have to resign from his post and run for a by-election to join Parliament before he is elected as prime minister.

Sharifs Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party has a strong majority in parliament and is expected to succeed in installing Abbasi for the interim 45-day period.

The opposition is expected to name a candidate to challenge Abbasi in the parliament vote, but the former petroleum minister looks set to win.

Sharifs party holds 188 of 342 seats in parliaments lower house and, with additional votes from its allies, is expected to obtain 214 votes. To win the top slot, Abbasi needs 172 votes.

READ MORE: Pakistans democracy reels from Nawaz Sharifs removal

The ruling PML-N party has vowed a smooth transfer of power after Sharifs removal.

The quick handover looks to ease political upheaval sparked by the Supreme Courts decision on Friday to disqualify Sharif for concealing his assets.

Sharif has lashed out against the courts decision and his opponents who used the Supreme Court to topple him.

But he has vowed his party would continue to focus on economic development, touting a faster-growing economy as proof of his success.

The wheel of development is moving and may God keep it rolling, and may it never stop, he told members of PML-N on Saturday night.

Opposition leader Imran Khan, who pushed for Sharifs investigation, called Shahbazs selection a form of monarchy.

They are family parties, he said. They are basically  families run the parties  In monarchy, its hereditary, its through blood. We are still stuck into it.

Panama papers

The probe against Sharif began after his children were named in the so-called Panama Papers leak for owning off-shore accounts and properties.

Sharifs party has resolved to file a review petition in the Supreme Court to reverse the judges decision.

The court also ordered criminal investigations for him and his family.

READ MORE: Whats next for Pakistans Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif?

The three-term prime minister has a history of rocky relations with Pakistans powerful military and has been removed from office three times.

Al Jazeeras Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said: What the people dont want is selective accountability.

Most of the reaction coming out of the country has been positive. The Pakistani people want all the politicians, bureaucrats, judges, generals and everybody across the board to be accountable, so there has been no violent reaction on the streets.

No civilian government has ever completed its term in Pakistan.

Pakistan has been ruled by military generals for more than half of its 70-year history.
Ozamiz city mayor was among list of officials publicly shamed last year by President Duterte of being linked to drugs.

Phillippine police have killed a city mayor, his wife and 10 others during a series of pre-dawn anti-drug raids in the south, officials said.

Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of Ozamiz city, is the latest official to be killed since President Rodrigo Duterte launched a drug war.

Officers were to serve warrants for the arrest of Parojinog, his daughter, and four other officials of Ozamiz city when they allegedly opened fire on Sunday.

READ MORE: Philippine police dumping bodies of drug war victims

The officers were met with volleys of fire from [the mayors] security, prompting the Philippine National Police personnel to retaliate, Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said in a statement.

Parojinog was among the more than 160 officials Duterte publicly linked to drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Parojinogs wife, a provincial board member who was also a relative, and four security guards of the family were among those also killed, Pacleb said.

Parojinogs daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested.





Officers recovered grenades and ammunition, as well as illegal drugs, in the raid, according to police provincial chief Jaysen De Guzman.

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs.

He becomes the third mayor to be killed in Dutertes bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead since June 2016 and drawn wide criticism by human rights groups.

In November 2016, police officers killed Rolando Espinosa, the mayor of Albuera town, shooting him inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte.

A week before that, Samsudin Dimaukom, the mayor of the southern town of Saudi Ampatuan, was killed in a gun battle at a police checkpoint on suspicion he and his security personnel were transporting illegal drugs, authorities said.
Qatar says reports that Saudi-led group would allow Qatari planes to use air corridors in emergencies are false.

Qatar has denied Saudi media reports that Arab states would allow Qatari planes to use air corridors in emergencies, saying they were spreading false information.

Qatars transport and communications ministry and its aviation authority on Sunday denied claims that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain had taken such a decision, the state news agency QNA reported.

Saudi state news agency SPA on Sunday cited a statement from the Saudi aviation authority (GACA) as saying they had already agreed on emergency air corridors, which were identified under ICAO supervision, and that they would be open from August 1.

Nine corridors have been identified including one in international airspace over the Mediterranean Sea that will be monitored by the Egyptian authorities, SPA said.

Qatar called on the countries to not leak false information before the ICAO meeting in Montreal on Monday.

ICAO was not immediately available for comment.

ICAOs 36-state governing council could act to settle the dispute presented by Qatar, but such interventions are rare and time-consuming because the UN agency usually negotiates disputes through consensus.

Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the UAE, and Bahrain broke diplomatic relations with Qatar in early June largely over their allegations that it supports terrorist groups  a charge Qatar rejects.
President Vladimir Putin orders reduction in staff and vows for additional measures in retaliation to new US sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said Russia will expel 755 US diplomatic staff and could consider imposing additional measures against the United States as a response to new US sanctions.

Putin said in an interview televised on state television on Sunday that he ordered the move because he thought it was the time to show that were not going to leave that without an answer.

He, however, ruled out any immediate measure against the US. I am against it as of today, Putin said in an interview with Vesti TV.

Moscow ordered the US on Friday to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two US diplomatic properties after the US House of Representatives and the Senate approved new sanctions on Russia.

Russia said the US had until September 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people, matching the number of Russian diplomats left in the US after Washington expelled 35 Russians in December.

New US sanctions were in part a response to conclusions by US intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 US presidential election, and to further punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

OPINION: Wag the bear

Worsening relations

The Russian president reiterated that the US sanctions were a step to worsening relations between the two countries.

We were waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, were holding out hope that the situation would change somehow. But it appears that even if it changes someday, it will not change soon, Putin said.

However, he said Moscow and Washington were achieving results on cooperation even in this quite difficult situation.

The creation of the Southern de-escalation zone in Syria showed a concrete result of the joint work between the two countries, he said.

Earlier in the day, a top Russian diplomat warned of retaliation by Moscow.

Speaking on ABCs This Week, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov referred to a bill passed by Congress on Thursday to sanction his country as weird and unacceptable, and said it was the last straw.

If the US side decides to move further towards  deterioration, we will answer. We will respond in kind. We will  retaliate, he said.

The US-Russia relationship has become increasingly strained in the wake of US intelligence agencies conclusion that the Kremlin interfered in the US election to discredit Hillary Clinton and help President Donald Trump win the election.

Russia has denied meddling in the US election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former director of the FBI, is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race and whether or not Trumps campaign may have colluded with Russia  an allegation that Trump and his associates have staunchly denied.
Top officials from main countries boycotting Qatar meet in Bahrain to reiterate demand that Doha stops funding terror.

Four Arab countries boycotting Qatar will only enter dialogue to ease the dispute if Doha agrees to certain demands, and fights terror, the group said on Sunday as they met in Manama.

High-level officials from Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt reiterated their positions on the Gulf crisis, condemning Qatar for what they perceive as Dohas support for armed groups.

Qatar has repeatedly denied those allegations.

The four countries are ready for dialogue with Qatar with the condition that it announces its sincere willingness to stop funding terrorism and extremism and its commitment to not interfere in other countries foreign affairs and respond to the 13 demands, Bahrains Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said after meeting his counterparts.

The televised news conference in Manama came more than one month after the Saudi-led bloc cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a land, sea and air blockade on the country.

As part of the boycott, the four countries also expelled Qatari expatriates.

The group on Sunday acknowledged that Qatari citizens had suffered as a result of their siege.

Refusing to negotiate

However, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir refused to negotiate on a list of 13 demands on Doha that was received by Qatar more than two weeks after the crisis broke out.

Scaling down relations with Iran, closing down Al Jazeera and shutting a Turkish military base, which is currently under construction, were included in that list of demands.

[Qataris] speak of every issue except how to put an end to their support of terrorism, said Jubeir, accusing Qatar of not being genuine.

These demands are not negotiable. We cannot shrink [the list] down, he said.

Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani dismissed Sundays statement from the four countries and said sanctions were violating international laws.

There isnt a clear vision (from Manamas meeting), there is only a stubborn policy from the blockading countries and refusal to admit that these are illegal actions, Sheikh Mohammed told Al Jazeera.

Its a continuation of a policy of intransigence.

READ MORE: Qatar-GCC crisis  All the latest updates

The group also hit back at Qatars claims that the bloc was politicising the Hajj pilgrimage by restricting the journey to some Qataris.

The bloc is only allowing Qatari pilgrims to fly to Saudis Mecca from an airport in Doha, making the journey challenging for those who live or work abroad, such as students.

I think this press conference confirms that we are at the first day of the crisis. We have not moved for the last 50-plus days, we havent moved anywhere, Mahjoob Zweiri, professor at Qatar University, told Al Jazeera.

It seems they are not convinced and are insisting on the list of demands. They are singing a different song. The international community has a very positive impression about Qatar in fighting terrorism, but the four countries are not sharing the same impression as the international community.

Zweiri explained that the status quo is likely to prevail for now.

We should expect reaction from Washington, Germany and the UK tonight or tomorrow. I think Tillerson will be upset after what he heard today, he said, referring to Rex Tillerson, the US state secretary, who has previously voiced support for Qatar.

John Yearwood, the chairman of the International Press Institute, said that the latest information was deeply disappointing.

We condemn it in the strongest terms possible  the new demand that Al Jazeera [Media] Network be shut down.

Throughout the world Al Jazeera plays a very important role in getting information unbiased to citizens of the region. And any attempt to shut down Al Jazeera goes against free flow of information, he said.
The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, spoke in June 2013 of prejudice and discrimination in his country. Britain was suffering, he remarked, from "an apparent rise" in anti-Semitism, along with "other poisonous and debilitating forms of intolerance." He must be perplexed in the extreme that the "apparent" has become a dramatic increase in that intolerance in 2017.

According to a survey in July 2017 by the British Community Service Trust, there is now an unprecedented increase in this disease. There were 767 anti-Semitic hate incidents recorded in the first six months, January to June, of 2017, the highest level ever recorded and a 30% increase from the 589 incidents in 2016. In London, there was a 10% rise to 425, and in Greater Manchester an 85% rise to 145.

The incidents involved damage to Jewish property; physical assaults on individuals; direct threats; verbal abuse; and graffiti on Jewish institutions, synagogues, schools, and cemeteries. They were noticeable in coordinated campaigns using social media, in the general media, and in political rhetoric. About a quarter, 142, came from social media, 10% were violent, 80 were physical attacks, 51 damaged or desecrated Jewish property, and 29% were politically motivated or used political language. The largest number comprised "abusive behavior." Disappointingly, some of the anti-Semitism came from public figures.

No one specific, single factor can explain the increase, except perhaps that there was more reporting focused on the misdeeds of members of the Labor Party and more informed reporting of incidents. Thus, the explanation can be based only on long-term factors.

It has been clear for some time, and a cause for dismay especially by Jews who traditionally viewed the Labor Party as their political home, that an increasing amount of British anti-Semitism has come from the political left. As a consequence, the Labor Party and its present leader, Jeremy Corbyn, who has done little to discipline expressions of anti-Semitism by party members, have lost the trust of many Jews.

There are a number of particularly flagrant examples of anti-Semitism. One concerns the case of Ken Livingstone, former Labor mayor of London who is notorious for his remarks that Adolf Hitler acted in support of Zionism and who compared a critical Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard. Livingstone has a loud mouth and a tin ear; he believes that Jews were too rich to vote for him. The Labor party did try to discipline him but ultimately failed.

Another, perhaps more shocking, example is the case of Lord Nazir Ahmed, appointed to the House of Lords in 1998 and one of the first Muslim peers. He had been convicted and imprisoned after he killed another motorist when sending a series of text messages while driving his Jaguar X in December 2007. He served only six weeks in prison. He blamed his imprisonment on a Jewish conspiracy, the result of pressure applied on the court by Jews who "own newspapers and TV channels." He was suspended from the party and finally left it.

A third is Jackie Walker, a leader of the far-left Momentum group, who holds that Jews were the chief financiers of the African slave trade. Even worse, on April 11, 2017, 145 members of the Labor Party wrote to Chairman Corbyn saying "I am Jackie Walker" and asserting that Israel is a "racist state."

Dave Rich in his book The Left's Jewish Problem has pointed out that until the1980s, the British left was broadly pro-Israeli, a country with a strong social democratic component. This attitude changed, partly because of the emergence of more right- wing Israeli governments and because of the results of the 1967 Six-Day War but mainly because of the well organized pro-Palestinian and Islamic campaigns, originally assisted by the Soviet Union, against Israel, which accused the State of Israel of being a colonial, oppressive, and "apartheid" country. A considerable number of Labor Party officials and councilors openly expressed anti-Semitic sentiments, and many were not reprimanded in any serious way. In the 2017 parliamentary election, Jewish candidates of the Labor Party were deselected in a number of constituencies.

The result has been a disaffiliation and a political swing of a considerable number of Jews away from the Labor Party. Though there is not yet full or accurate analysis of the way Jews voted in 2017, nor is there a distinctive "Jewish vote" especially among younger Jews. However, pre-election polls suggested that only 13% of Jews would vote for the Labor Party, while 77% would vote for Prime Minister Theresa May and the Conservative Party. One token is the result in four crucial constituencies in north London, which have a significant number of Jewish inhabitants, the so-called "Bagel Belt." In these four, there was no swing to Labor as there was in the rest of London, though not to Conservatives, but rather to the Liberal Democrats.

The "apparent" rise in anti-Semitism is real, and it is the outcome of prejudice. It is a wake-up call. A public opinion survey in 2015 held that about one third of British citizens thought that at least one anti-Semitic view is definitely or probably true. Beliefs are prevalent regarding the 260,000 Jews in the country, 0.4% of the total population, who are criticized in the usual prejudiced way as dishonest in business, disloyal, overly focused on the Holocaust.

These prejudices are of course sometimes related to actions of the State of Israel, but increasingly they have a life of their own, unrelated to any alleged Israeli actions. A notorious example was the decision in August 2014 by a branch in London of Sainsbury's, the large supermarket chain, to remove all kosher products from its shelves after the store was picketed by pro-Palestinian protesters. The irony in this case is that none of the removed kosher products came from Israel. The moral is obvious: a need for informed objective knowledge and political and social courage.

The British left should learn the lesson. Its members should get medical help to end the disease of anti-Semitism.
In truth, the Russians colluded through GPS Fusion to harm, not help, Trump and the evidence of that is coming out. Its time to repeal the Special Counsel law which has now been used twice to hamstring two Republican Presidents, has dubious constitutional authority, and will never result in the indictment of a prominent Democratic politician.

Under the Constitution there are three ways to deal with official corruption: the ballot box, impeachment, or criminal prosecution. Instead, in recent years we have tried two different means: the Independent Counsel law, now lapsed, and the Special Counsel law. Pepperdine Law Professor Douglas M. Kmiec explains the difference and argues that the features of the independent counsel, which the Supreme Court held constitutional, and the special counsel law that has not been challenged, are different, notably that the absence of outside supervision of the prosecutor and failure in both instances of the application of the Special Counsel act -- the Plame case, and the Russian interference case now under Mueller -- lack what the Court called a necessary predicate for such an investigation: a finding by the attorney general that there is reason to believe that a crime has occurred. That did not occur in the collusion investigation. In the Plame case, as I show, the major figures all knew there was no crime before they began the investigation.

In the case of the Independent Counsel investigation of Whitewater, you may recall the prosecutor said that they had reason to believe Hillary Clinton had committed perjury before the grand jury, but as prosecutors should not indict unless they believe a conviction is likely and the case would be brought before an Arkansas jury who would never convict Bill Clintons wife, no indictment would be sought.

Absent a dramatic shift in D.C. demography and political sentiment, you can be sure this would be the case should any special prosecutor find criminal wrongdoing by a prominent Democrat, especially Hillary Clinton. She has a ticket to ride (as she did when Comey absolved her of gross misuse of classified information). In contrast, any prominent Republican tried here already has a strike against him.

My online friend Ignatz Ratzykywatzky now describes what we have:

So Comey intentionally leaked his memo to cause Mueller to be appointed to investigate a plan by Putin to generate a fake scandal to fool dopes like Comey. Top. Men.

But for the addition of a new player, GPS-Fusion, this case is remarkably similar in evolution and cast of characters to the Plame case. The genesis of the Mueller investigation was the recusal of Attorney General Sessions on the ground that he was too close to the subject of the investigation. It was on the same ground that former Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself in the Plame leak case. In both cases the media incited recusal.

On October 31, 2016 David Corn (who worked for the Nation during the Plame case and now for Mother Jones), wrote in Mother Jones A veteran spy [David Steele of GPS Fusion] has given the FBI information alleging a Russian operation to cultivate Donald Trump. GPS-Fusion is a smear-for-hire operation. Among the smears created by this outfit of which we are now aware were a number against Mitt Romney, including the tape of his remarks about Obama supporters secretly made at a donors meeting; the false claim that the videos of Planned Parenthood negotiating for the sale of fetus body parts was fake, and attacks on the credibility of Venezuelan dissidents who had charged Venezuelan officials with graft and money laundering. In addition, they were working to get Russian sanctions via the Magnitsky Act lifted, having been hired to do so by Natalia Veselnitskaya, the woman who tried to entrap Donald J. Trump. Prior to David Corns article, GPS met with a Mother Jones journalist according to Steele himself. And that journalist was most certainly the Democrats water bearer, David Corn. Steeles group had shopped the story around and on January 19, 2017 BuzzFeed published the GPS dossier.

After BuzzFeed published Steeles dossier, individuals mentioned in the dossier sued Steele and Orbis Business Intelligence for defamation. In his defense, Steele blamed Fusion GPS for circulating his dossier among reporters without his permission. However, he admitted off-the-record briefings to a small number of journalists about the pre-election memoranda in late summer/autumn 2016. Steeles defense contended that in October 2016, Fusion GPS instructed him to brief a journalist from Mother Jones, as Daily Caller reporter Chuck Ross summarized. Despite Steele admitting that his dossier was never verified, and despite specific allegations in the dossier being disproven, Corn has continued to promote the dossiers thesis, recently publishing an article claiming that Donald Trump Jr.s Emails Sound Like the Steele Dossier. In his recent piece, Corn argued that Donald Trump Jrs meeting with Natalia Veselnitskaya vindicates Steeles dossier: Trump and his supporters have denounced the Steele memos as unsubstantiated trash, with some Trump backers concocting various conspiracy theories about them. Indeed, key pieces of the information within the memos have been challenged. But the memos were meant to be working documents produced by Steele -- full of investigative leads and tips to follow -- not finished reports, vetted and confirmed. [snip] But that media firestorm, based on nothing but unverified information -- probably fed to GPS by the Russians -- from a smear for pay outfit caused Sessions to recuse himself.

In the previous special counsel case  Plame -- both Mueller, then head of the FBI, and Comey, then acting attorney general upon Ashcrofts recusal, were informed even before Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed that no one had deliberately outed her to punish her husband; that the information Novak published came from Richard Armitage, a Colin Powell underling and that it was absolutely inadvertent. And yet they used that to hamstring GW Bush and his administration and to convict Lewis Libby. That conviction is proving to be, as I argued at the time, a prosecution without a crime.

Last year, Libby sought and received a reinstatement of his law license and an investigation was held, with counsel confirming his innocence:

In the District of Columbia Court of Appeals Disciplinary Counsel's Report readmitting Libby, the Counsel noted that Libby had continued to assert his innocence. As a result, the Counsel had to "undertake a more complex evaluation of a Petition for reinstatement" than when a petitioner admits guilt. But the Counsel found that "Libby has presented credible evidence in support of his version of events and it appears that one key prosecution witnesses [sic], Judith Miller, has changed her recollection of the events in question." The reference to Judith Miller, a former New York Times reporter, involved her memoir, The Story, A Reporter's Journey. In the book, Miller said she read Plame's memoir and discovered that Plame's cover was at the State Department, a fact Miller said the prosecution had withheld from her. In rereading what she called her "elliptical" notes (meaning hard to decipher), she realized they were about Plame's cover, not her job at the CIA. She concluded that her testimony that Libby had told her Plame worked at the CIA was wrong. "Had I helped convict an innocent man?" she asked. Miller went on to note that John Rizzo, a former CIA general counsel, had said in his memoir that there was no evidence that the outing of Plame had caused any damage to CIA operations or agents, including Plame. That statement rebuts the prosecution's closing argument that as a result of the disclosure of Plame's identity, a CIA operative could be "arrested, tortured, or killed."

Who paid for the GPS-Fusion smear job which was used to persuade Sessions to recuse himself and which led to the appointment of Mueller as special counsel? Well, thats a mystery the Democrats are doing everything to hide.

Kimberley Strassel reports:

What if, all this time, Washington and the media have had the Russia collusion story backward? What if it wasnt the Trump campaign playing footsie with the Vladimir Putin regime, but Democrats? The more we learn about Fusion, the more this seems a possibility. [snip] We know that at the exact time Fusion was working with the Russians, the firm had also hired a former British spy, Christopher Steele, to dig up dirt on Mr. Trump. Mr. Steele compiled his material, according to his memos, based on allegations from unnamed Kremlin insiders and other Russians. Many of the claims sound eerily similar to the sort of oppo Mr. Akhmetshin peddled. We know that Mr. [Glenn] Simpson is tight with Democrats. His current attorney, Joshua Levy, used to work in Congress as counsel to no less than Chuck Schumer. We know from a Grassley letter that Fusion has in the past sheltered its clients true identities by filtering money through law firms or shell companies (Bean LLC and Kernel LLC). Word is Mr. Simpson has made clear he will appear for a voluntary committee interview only if he is not specifically asked who hired him to dig dirt on Mr. Trump. Democrats are going to the mat for him over that demand. Those on the Judiciary Committee pointedly did not sign letters in which Mr. Grassley demanded that Fusion reveal who hired it. Heres a thought: What if it was the Democratic National Committee or Hillary Clintons campaign? What if that money flowed from a political entity on the left, to a private law firm, to Fusion, to a British spook, and then to Russian sources? Moreover, what if those Kremlin-tied sources already knew about this dirt-digging, tipped off by Mr. Akhmetshin? What if they specifically made up claims to dupe Mr. Steele, to trick him into writing this dossier? [snip] If the Russian intention was to sow chaos in the American political system, few things could have been more effective than that dossier, which ramped up an FBI investigation and sparked congressional probes and a special counsel, deeply wounding the president. This is all to Mr. Putins benefit, and the question is whether Russia engineered it.

While the press has been promoting a ridiculous and ass backwards Russian collusion story, it has been sitting on a far bigger story: The likelihood that the Congressional Democrats financed and enabled the largest espionage ring in U.S. history. This story has been percolating on the internet for weeks with no mainstream media coverage. It got a tiny, misleading smattering of coverage this week when the FBI arrested Imran Awan, Debbie Wasserman-Schultzs internet employee, for trying to flee the country after transferring almost $300,000 dollars to Pakistan.

Ignatz sums up the media U Turn:

1. The wsj, nyt and wapo now all agree what wasn't a crime didn't occur.

2. Because they all know what was a series of crimes by the Dems, did occur, so now it's time to move on to more important things... like not seeing Dems in handcuffs.

The most detailed coverage of how the Awan brothers were hired, overpaid, and had access to all the Democrats communications and how Schultz protected Imran and kept him on her payroll even after the Capitol Police denied him and his three brothers further access to the Democrats computers was on the Daily Caller:

Should the press decide its past time to sit around promoting GPS Fusion smears and do some work?

1. Who coordinated the hiring of the Awan brothers by dozens of Democratic Congressman?

2. Why were they so grossly overcompensated (millions of dollars) for no work?

3. Were they kicking back money to the Democrats, doing dirty work for them, or blackmailing them?

4. Why did Wasserman-Schultz keep the Capitol Police from searching her laptop they had confiscated from Imran Awan?

5. Why did Wasserman-Schultz keep him on her payroll after the Capitol Police further barred him and his brothers from accessing Congressional computers?

6. Why did the Iraqi fugitive and Hezb'allah supporter Dr. Ali-al Attar lend them $100,000?

7. Who is paying Chris Gowan, a Clinton insider, to represent Imran Awan?

8. Why did the Awan brothers continue to have security clearances when they had declared several bankruptcies and were engaged in financial misdealing?

9. Why were the Awans broke when they were making so much money and living so modestly?

10. Why did eight members of the House Permanent Select committee on Intelligence issue a letter demanding the Awans be granted access to Top Secret information?

11.Were the Awans working for Pakistani intelligence and the Moslem Brotherhood?

12. To whom were the Awans sending data to on an offsite server?

Buckle your seatbelts. Draining the swamp is going to create a lot of waves.
There was a report from Bloomberg of "audible gasps on the Senate floor" as John McCain voted NO on the Obama Care skinny repeal bill. Gasps, really? I would've gasped had he done anything different. McCain was simply, predictably, being McCain. This is the same McCain who continually tries to sabotage Donald Trump. This is the same McCain he's been for at least 25 years.

McCain and friend, 2013

Consider a little history for context sake:

The Arizona Senator and I first crossed paths during the 1992 Campaign between incumbent George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. McCain was emerging as a media darling during this time, putting his days in the Keating Five Savings and Loan Scandal behind him. The Keating Five? Oh, McCain and four Democrats, of course. Some things never change. Certainly not McCain.

Meanwhile, Clinton's team of James Carville and George Stephanopoulos had put North Carolina squarely in the cross hairs as a must-win state in 92, and a series of odd events had landed me as Communications Director of NC Bush Quayle. Thus, as a small government pro-liberty Reagan conservative, I was in the service of a mushy moderate President who was determined to distance himself from Reagan, along with his rhetorically challenged VP. It was a root canal experience, let me tell you.

Team Bush was struggling because they couldn't, or wouldn't, run clearly to the right of Clinton and expose the differences. When Ross Perot entered the race, he further muddied the waters because his agenda agreed with the conservative agenda about 75% of the time, yet he clearly despised Bush more than he wanted to defeat Clinton. Whatever Perot's motivations were, the result was that the 92 election was an ideological mess, and Bush was not a man who even understood that, let alone overcame it.

To make things worse, enter John McCain, who was riding his war hero story, and a questionable passion for the pro-life position, into stardom on the right during this time. A big part of McCain's self-serving strategy was to ingratiate himself to the liberal media by trashing other Republicans, which he did often. So, paradoxically, he gained credibility on the right, by trashing the right, because he became the only man (ostensibly) on the right that the media liked, and we were desperate on the right to be liked by anyone in the media. Consider: talk radio was new and small, CNN was the only cable channel, and Andrew Breitbart was just starting to emerge from his "hippy dippy" liberal youth (his words).

The Mainstream Media still ruled the roost, and McCain's message to them was that Bush "must stop being so extreme," as in so extremely conservative. The exact opposite was true. Bush wasn't nearly conservative enough, nor capable of articulating those views on which he was conservative. Clearly McCain knew this, wanted Bush to lose, and to climb the ladder in the vacuum a Bush loss would create. And the media was all too happy to help. I was forced to try and use whatever media influence in North Carolina I could muster to overcome McCain's message, which is why I remember it like yesterday.

And yes, I fully understand that now, everybody on the planet is onto McCain's schtick. Most of that didn't really happen until at least 2000, and into 2008 and beyond. In 92 however, I was on a lonely planet. I even got into a heated dispute with the host on the G. Gordon Liddy Radio Show in early 1993 about this. Gordon was still drinking the McCain Kool Aid, as were all of his listeners.

Now back to the future: everyone knows what's in the Kool Aid now.

So here we are, with McCain shaking off the effects of cancer to cast a vote that ensures we probably wont get the same treatment he did. The John McCain who sabotaged the so called 'skinny repeal' vote over Obama Care, and who fought openly with Donald Trump months ago, is exactly the same John McCain he has always been. He not only trashes conservatives at every opportunity, he then takes credit for being this courageous "maverick," even as everybody knows that trashing conservatives to the media is the easiest, most gutless thing a person can do.

Almost everything about McCain's carefully crafted image is a lie. It always has been. And now, in a somewhat cruel irony, McCain has access to massive amounts of Obama Care-exempted health care, while voting to make sure you and I remain trapped under this failed disaster. In other words, McCain is just being McCain. This is who he's always been.

He "reached across the aisle" in the 1980's to enrich himself while the Savings and Loan scandal was bankrupting average Americans. He reached across the aisle in the 90's to help Bill Clinton. He reached across the aisle in 2005 and 06 in the name of comprehensive immigration reform. He reached across the aisle to help foist the corrupt Dodd-Frank bill on us. And on and on it goes.

Now he's reaching across the aisle in service of a corrupt, lobbyist contrived and bureaucrat enforced abomination called ObamaCare. Of course he is. This is who John McCain is, and always has been.

Edmund Wright is a contributor to Breitbart, American Thinker, Newsmax TV, and author of 2013 Amazon Best Selling Elections book, WTF? How Karl Rove and the Establishment LostAgain.
We can understand when a socialist dictatorship like Venezuela disintegrates into chaos, but it is not much different than the ongoing coup against the constitutionally elected President Trump and his administration by political operatives of former President Barack Hussein Obama.

Despite multiple investigations of alleged Russian collusion dating back to Trumps, shocking to liberals and progressives, election, the only crimes we know have been committed have been the leaking of classified information by Trump opponents, starting with the illegal unmasking of former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn.

Flynn was an outspoken critic of President Obamas Middle East policy which included the betrayal of Iraq and the American lives lost there, which precipitated the rise of ISIS, whose rise Obama willfully ignored. Now we are learning the unprecedented scope of the illegal unmasking in intelligence reports of Team Trump members by unqualified members of the Obama administration for the political purpose of first derailing the election of President Trump and then the undermining of his administration. House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes revealed in a letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats his concerns the Obama operatives had used national intelligence information for political purposes. As Fox News Politics and Catherine Herridge reports:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has questioned whether Obama officials improperly sought the names of Trump transition members in this way -- and, in the letter obtained by Fox News, Nunes provided new details about what his investigators have found. [T]his Committee has learned that one official, whose position has no apparent intelligence-related function, made hundreds of unmasking requests during the final year of the Obama Administration, he wrote to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats. Only one request, Nunes wrote, offered a justification that was not boilerplate and articulated why the identity was needed for official duties. Three of the nations intelligence agencies received subpoenas in May explicitly naming three top Obama administration officials: Former CIA director John Brennan, former national security adviser Susan Rice, and former U.N. ambassador Samantha Power.

This is nothing less than an attempted coup, sedition against the government of the United States by official sworn to uphold the Constitution. The sheer volume of unmasking requests by people such as Samantha Power who have no legitimate reason to make such requests speaks volumes of their political purpose. As Nunes made clear in his letter, the political agenda behind these unmasking requests was quite clear:

Explaining his concerns, Nunes said in the letter that Obama-era officials sought the identities of Trump transition officials within intelligence reports without offering any meaningful explanation as to why they needed or how they would use the information. The committee, Nunes wrote, is left with the impression that these officials may have used this information for improper purposes, including the possibility of leaking. He noted that some of the requests were followed by anonymous leaks of those names to the media.

Sen. Tim Kaine has carelessly thrown out the word treason regarding charges of Team Trump collusion with the Russians, whom he and others claim is trying to subvert our democracy. It is clear that it was not the Russians, but Team Obama that was and still is trying to subvert our democracy. The breathtaking subversion and criminal activity that is involved here is only now becoming apparent:

Herridge delivers the false patriotic denials of the ringleaders of the unmasking operation, with a Power spokesperson saying, Any actions she took were in the context of her National Security Council position advising president Obama and Power has been unambiguous about the need for Congressional Russia investigations. Not investigations into her own or her cabals connections, just the phony ones theyre trying to pin on the President. Herridge quotes a spokesliar for Rice who said, Unmasking was done for intelligence, not political purposes and noted that there was no immediate response from Brennan. Brennan called for a coup against President Trump earlier this week from the stage of a conference of globalist, deep state, anti-Trump establishment types in Aspen.

It would appear the coup has been underway for quite awhile. Team Obamas protests that these unmasking were for national security purposes rings as hollow as many other claims from the Obama administration. Former U.N. ambassador and Obama National Security adviser Susan Rice, arguably the leader of the serial unmaskers, has made a career of lying for the Obama administration in covering up both its incompetence and its motives, starting with Benghazi.

Obstruction of justice? How about President Obama secreting away in his presidential library for five years records regarding Susan Rices involvement in unmasking the names of Team Trump officials in intelligence reports? From Breitbart News:

The National Security Council cannot hand over records relating to former National Security Adviser Susan Rices surveillance of Americans, because they have been moved to the Obama presidential library and may be sealed for as many as five years, conservative watchdog Judicial Watch announced Monday. The NSC informed Judicial Watch in a letter dated May 23 that materials related to Rices requests to know the identities of Americans swept up in surveillance of foreign targets, including any Trump campaign or transition officials, have been moved to the library. The NSCs Director of Access Management John Powers said in the letter: Documents from the Obama administration have been transferred to the Barack Obama Presidential Library. You may send your request to the Obama Library. However, you should be aware that under the Presidential Records Act, Presidential records remain closed to the public for five years after an administration has left office. Judicial Watch earlier this year filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for those documents, including of communications between Rice and any intelligence community member or agency regarding any Russian involvement in the 2016 elections, the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers, or any suspected communications between Russia and Trump officials.

As much as Flynn has taken fire as being an architect of unspecified collusion with the Russians, Susan Rice has been like the iceberg that sank the Titanic -- barely visible above water but dangerous enough maybe to sink the Trump administrations ship of state.

As reported by Circa News, Rice, while serving as Obamas National Security Adviser, requested the unmasking of the names of Team Trump officials mentioned in the so-called incidental surveillance of the Trump transition team:

Computer logs that former President Obamas team left behind in the White House indicate his national security adviser Susan Rice accessed numerous intelligence reports during Obama's last seven months in office that contained National Security Agency intercepts involving Donald Trump and his associates, Circa has learned. Intelligence sources said the logs discovered by National Security Council staff suggested Rices interest in the NSA materials, some of which included unmasked Americans' identities, appeared to begin last July around the time Trump secured the GOP nomination and accelerated after Trumps election in November launched a transition that continued through January. The intelligence reports included some intercepts of Americans talking to foreigners and many more involving foreign leaders talking about the future president, his campaign associates or his transition, the sources said. Most if not all had nothing to do with the Russian election interference scandal, the sources said, speaking only on condition of anonymity given the sensitive nature of the materials. Ordinarily, such references to Americans would be redacted or minimized by the NSA before being shared with outside intelligence sources, but in these cases names were sometimes unmasked at the request of Rice or the intelligence reports were specific enough that the Americans identity was easily ascertained, the sources said.

Well, isnt that special? While Trumps pick for this sensitive post was under scrutiny Obamas adviser was doing opposition research which involved data mining classified intelligence reports. Rice requested the unmasking of names, something only three people, according to Circa, were authorized to do:

Dozens of times in 2016, those intelligence reports identified Americans who were directly intercepted talking to foreign sources or were the subject of conversations between two or more monitored foreign figures. Sometimes the Americans names were officially unmasked; other times they were so specifically described in the reports that their identities were readily discernible. Among those cleared to request and consume unmasked NSA-based intelligence reports about U.S. citizens were Obamas national security adviser Susan Rice, his CIA Director John Brennan and then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch.

If Susan Rice had worked for Richard Nixon, she could have been one of his Watergate plumbers, perhaps retiring as plumber emeritus. We are all familiar with Susan Rices tour of the Sunday talk shows after the Benghazi terrorist attack. That was no accident, but a calculated part of the Obama administrations disinformation campaign to protect President Obamas reelection chances and Secretary of State Hillary Clintons chances to be Obamas successor in the White House.

But Susan Rice is only the poster child for the criminal Team Obama leakers. They are numerous as cockroaches. Now we find that not only did FBI Director James Comey leak classified information to the media, but so too, allegedly did the FBIs General Counsel, James A. Baker. As Circa News reports:

FBI General Counsel James A. Baker is purportedly under a Department of Justice criminal investigation for allegedly leaking classified national security information to the media, according to multiple government officials close to the probe who spoke with Circa on the condition of anonymity Baker is a close confidant of former FBI Director James Comey, and recent media reports suggested he was reportedly advising the then-FBI director on legal matters following private meetings the former director had in February with President Trump in the Oval Office.

Forget Watergate, Democrats. Compared to your own criminal enterprise, Watergate was indeed a third-rate burglary. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, you have a lot of work to do and a lot of people to prosecute for their crimes against the government and people of the United States.

Daniel John Sobieski is a freelance writer whose pieces have appeared in Investors Business Daily, Human Events, Reason Magazine and the Chicago Sun-Times among other publications.
"You think that if you don't fight back then maybe they'll like you, stop picking on you, calling you a freak. Well, here's what it is. They don't like you. They don't dislike you. They're afraid of you. You're different. Sooner or later different scares people. Victim or not; make a decision." The Accountant, 2016

The above words are from the film, The Accountant, spoken by the father of the main character, a brilliant man who as a child was diagnosed with Asperger's, a high-functioning form of autism. The father is a career military man, a Colonel who, rather than treat the boy as disabled, trains him to confront his social demons and to deal with the world as it is. The boy is bullied at school, of course, and the quote launches a flashback to when the boy is about twelve. The father takes him and his younger brother to a meet where a group of other boys are planning to beat him, and gives the little speech at top before his son gets out of the car to confront the bullies. But the boy is prepared. His father has trained him well; the training has been brutal and effective.

The fathers admonition perfectly describes President Trump's place in the DC establishment since winning the election. They don't like him. They are afraid of him. He's different and different scares them. He does not think like them, operate like them, or play by their rules. So they want to take him out. They are the bullies, our beltway politicos and the media. Trump is not afraid of bullies. The quote is also a prescription for and an explanation of how Trump is dealing with his place in that world. Somewhere along the way he learned, or someone trained him, to never be a victim.

For many months, the Democrats have insisted Trump colluded with Russia to win the election. Everyone, including the Democrats, knows very well this is not true, that it was a tall tale invented by the Clinton campaign the night she lost the election. But because the Democrats and their handmaidens in the media assume the public is stupid, they thought they could pull it off. They have learned their lessons from Goebbels and Alinsky; it's all about selling the big lie.

No one has been more dogged to that end than California congressman Adam Schiff. He continues to make a fool of himself slogging this false narrative. And now it is blowing up in the faces of the Democrat/media connivance to bring down a President they abhor. As the truth begins to break through the media blockade, the fact that it has been the Democrats all along who were colluding with the Russians is becoming quite clear to a wider public. The Democratic Party, the Clinton campaign, the FBI, our intelligence agencies under Obama, have all colluded to undermine and sabotage the new President. (Russia tries

to intervene in elections all over the world to sow chaos.) They will not succeed as Trump long ago learned who to ignore and who to engage. He knows how not to be a casualty of orchestrated smear campaigns: fight back hard. When he fights back like the left, the left is stunned. How dare he behave as they do!

As long as people like Charles Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Patty Murray, Maxine Waters, Sheila Jackson Lee, Keith Ellison, Luis Gutierrez, Al Franken, John McCain, Susan Collins, etc. keep getting elected, the country will continue to be drawn into the vortex of Marxist socialism and all that it entails (think Venezuela) and the scourge of single-payer health care which, of course, is not health care at all. It is ironic that the left keeps harping about Russia. For decades progressives revered and hoped to emulate the former USSR. Such is the blatant hypocrisy of the left. They, of course, would never submit to the indignities of anything less than concierge care, let alone Medicaid; they want to throw money at the middle class and the poor and not be bothered by their petty problems like the fact that they do not have access to actual care. The elitists in Congress only want to feel good about themselves. They rarely follow through and discover that their lobbyist-launched votes for or against any policy have been disastrous for "the people" for whom they care not at all.

With the possible exception of Joe Manchin, it is impossible to name a single Democrat with an actual conscience regarding "the people." There are several Republicans: Mike Lee, Tom Cotton, Ted Cruz, Chuck Grassley, Louie Gohmert, and Trey Gowdy who are honest brokers, men who are of the actual world, not the pretend, insulated version of it. There are a few more but not nearly enough to buck the rest of them, the capitulators.

The Founders would be ashamed. The loss of reverence for individual liberty and overall freedom and the left's love of statism are a betrayal of all they had achieved by 1789. The Democrats' disdain for the Constitution is heartbreaking. The vicious retribution of John McCain's tanking even the slightest, almost meaningless repeal of Obamacare is a personal revenge victory for him and a blight upon the nation. McCain revealed that his own character yields to his personal demons, not the country or the people who elected him.

The very fictional life of The Accountants character is the stuff of all violent action films and has nothing whatever to do with Trump beyond the reaction to his presence in the midst of a closed community, Washington, DC. His own family was intact and he was trained to be a warrior in business, a survivor, not a virtual machine for physical self-defense. But the words of the film's warrior father ring true: The DC establishment, Democrat and Republican, does not like Trump. They are afraid of him because he is different and different scares them.
President Trump's tweets announcing that he will order the military to reimpose a ban on so-called transsexual service members may please his political base, and also further galvanize political opposition on the left, but as a matter of policy, it is a muddle he might have best left alone. The problem is not that President Obama's lifting of the ban was a good thing, or that reimposing the ban is necessarily wrong. It's that transsexuals are hardly a serious problem for the military today, and legally, the situation regarding sex and sexual identity in the military is a morass.

Good evidence of this was the ambivalent-sounding response to Trump's tweets by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, announcing "no modifications to the current policy" pending further guidance from the secretary of defense. For his part, Defense Secretary James Mattis said much the same thing through a spokesperson, citing pending guidance from the White House, with some reports saying he was "appalled" by Trump's action. In other words, they will ignore the tweets for the time being, unless or until something concrete is delivered from the White House. The military has enough on its plate now without having to further embroil itself in another social controversy.

It is true that Obama's action on transsexuals was playing politics with the military in the worst way, but he did, and in doing so, he encouraged some people to "come out," thus potentially exposing themselves to separation under Trump's new policy. Separating these people, if that's what it comes down to, will not go over well with many in the military, who prize loyalty, consistency, and honesty. Having told these people you are okay to come out, it will be hard to punish them, and the military likely will strive for some kind of amnesty.

As far as allowing transgendered people to sign up, that policy had yet to be implemented, Mattis having wisely put it on hold. So a solution may be some form of amnesty for transsexuals already in uniform, with the ban applying to any recruitment of acknowledged transsexual service members.

But a larger question is whether a transsexual recruitment ban can hold legal water, given the military's policies in other areas  and by this, not just the lifting of the ban on service members sexually interested in members of the same sex, but the gender integration of the military in general.

Whether one agreed with Obama's lifting of the ban on homosexual service members or not, the move was inevitable, and it would have been forced on the military through legal action eventually, despite executive prerogatives. The reason is that the underlying grounds for keeping out homosexual service members simply evaporated over the last few decades, so retaining the ban was in effect purely arbitrary.

First, the risk of blackmail, traditionally a reasonable policy to bar homosexuals when homosexuality was a social and professional black mark, was long gone. But more to the point, the gender integration of the military removed arguments that physical attraction and sex in the military environment were intolerable. In fact, heterosexual relationships in the military have become a far greater headache for the command than homosexuality ever was.

As a JAG officer thirty years ago, I participated in the administrative separation of a number of homosexual soldiers. All of the separated soldiers were competent, but one way or another, they ran afoul of the ban. Usually, it was through some indiscretion that revealed the soldier's orientation, followed by an admission, and then separation. In one case, a soldier propositioned a new lieutenant, a violation of rules against fraternization in addition to revealing homosexual orientation, but that was the worst of it.

Compare this to the situation in today's military, where sex is fairly rampant at all levels, from private soldiers to generals, with scandals regularly roiling the services  and that's just what we see on the surface. Add to this the problem of pregnancies.

Homosexual trysts, especially those between men, tend to be relatively transactional and drama-free. That tends not to be the case with women involved, and especially not when you have multiple males competing for a lesser number of females. And homosexual encounters do not result in pregnancies.

As of 2015, 16 percent of female sailors were reassigned from ship to shore duty, a remarkable attrition rate that costs the Navy over $100 million per year (and growing), at roughly the cost of $30,000 per deployed pregnant sailor (not counting the added cost of losing that sailor with all the expenses of her training should she decide to leave the service due to her condition). And this is just relationships that result in pregnancy. It doesn't take into account the friction of multiple sexual relationships aboard ship, or the secondary impacts of the pregnancies on the fathers (or putative fathers) left aboard ship, and so forth. By comparison, an old sea salt might long for the days when a few male sailors occasionally stole some time together in the boiler room.

This leaves another big question hanging. The Obama administration also removed the last restrictions on women in direct ground combat, expanding to the utmost limits the possible interactions of men and women in the most critical, difficult, and sensitive of areas. But the Trump administration has done nothing about this and seems unwilling to take action. The first two female Navy special forces candidates, at least one of whom is going for the SEALs, are now in training.

Given all this, potentially quite effective legal challenges to the transgender ban are in the offing. After all, at least as I understand things, a transgender person is extremely unlikely to get pregnant. A male presenting himself as a female will never be able to do it, and a female presenting herself as a male will essentially sterilize herself. Their probable statistical deployability is likely to exceed that of the average female service member when the overall risk of pregnancy is taken into account.

On top of all this, the services are all pushing harder than ever to attract female recruits. It can be hard nowadays for a basically average white male (average ASVAB scores, high school record, and physical fitness) to get into the military. On the other hand, a potential female recruit with the same qualifications, especially a minority female candidate who demonstrates the least bit of interest in a military career, will have to swat away hovering recruiters as they compete for her enlistment contract.

Expect the services to slow-walk Trump's tweets to bureaucratic oblivion, and any recruitment ban on transgender recruits to eventually fail a legal test.
Bob Jagers is quite a celebrity in our area and member of our parish. He is a very nice man and wonderful storyteller. He visits the local schools, and you can hear a pin drop when he speaks to youngsters learning about D-Day in their history classes. The kids love him and call him back over and over.

To say the least, Mr. Jagers has quite a story to tell.

This weekend, Beatriz and I spent an evening celebrating Bob's 95th birthday. It's always a treat to celebrate anyone's 90-plus birthday, especially a man who can speak personally about the gunfire and sounds of D-Day 1944. Bob was not among those who landed, but he did spend time at sea supporting the invasion.

A few years ago, Bob published his story in a book called Whales of World War II:

I was born in 1922 in Chicago, Illinois, and later moved to Grand Rapids, Michigan.

I graduated high school in Grand Rapids. I went to two years of Aquinas College in Grand Rapids before entering the war. I enlisted in the Navy in April of 1942. But they permitted me to finish my term.

In June of 1942 I was sent to Great Lakes naval training center, for my boot camp. After boot camp, I went to quatermaster signaling school .

Upon completion, we were asked what kind of ship we wanted to be on, and I said I wanted to be on a submarine. They interviewed me and gave me some exhaustive tests for submarine duty, and they said I was number 21. The next complement of sub sailors needed was of 20. If any of the previous 20 were rejected, or refused to go for some reason, then I would be selected.

Looking back 50 years, I was quite fortunate in that all 20 of them were selected. The next thing I knew I was on a train for amphibious training at Solomons Maryland.

I spent several months there, went aboard a training vessel, a LST training vessel on the Chesapeake Bay.

While aboard this training vessel, we had some cases of spinal meningitis. Since we were out in the bay, and spinal meningitis is very contagious, they sent one man that was ill ashore in what we called a small boat or a LCBD.

As we were out in the bay, they discovered a second sailor that was ill, so they put him in a second LCBD and took him to the hospital. Well on the small boat, it required an officer, a signalman, plus the small boat crew.

So we went aboard and I was the signalman.

This is wartime so there were no lights, you have to feel your way and it was midnight or dark. And our officer said, "well I wanna take a shortcut".

Instead of heading along the shore and going back to Solomons, he took a shortcut, but we got lost.

We ended up into a tributary of the Patuxen, at a farmer's dock, and we went to the farmer' house, and we found that we were close to the Patuxen naval air base. So they called the air base and they sent an ambulance and the sick patient plus the officer went in the ambulance. The boat crew and ourselves had the ship for ourselves. Well we followed the river up to the naval base. We spent the night at the naval base, had breakfast, and returned to our ship. Aboard this training vessel, we had some powdered milk, and the powdered milk was about the size of a coffee can.

Later on, when we received our own ship, we had to sail to New York, and we were given a list of things of things we had to order, and on this list was ten cans of powdered milk. The storekeeper thought that ten cans of powdered milk would not be enough, so he changed the manifest to read one hundred cans. When the cans came they were huge, like a thousand pounds instead of ten pounds. So two years later when we decommissioned that ship, we still had some of that original powdered milk. We put that powdered milk in every available place we could find. It was down in the engine room, it was down in the flag locker which was part of my responsibility, that was rather an unusual story. We sailed from New York to Bermuda, where we gathered a convoy to sail towards North Africa. It took us 36 days to go from New York to Bermuda to North Africa.

An LST is the slowest ship in the convoy. It travels maybe four or five knots, about six miles an hour. Not only do you travel from Bermuda to North Africa, but you have to zig zag. So I'm sure that the destroyers and destroyer escorts that were accompanying us really didn't like to see the LST's come along because the convoy moved very slowly.

We went to the straits of Gibraltar, landed at the naval base of Oran.
Australian counterterrorism authorities raided five properties outside of Sydney and arrested 4 men in connection with a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane.

The foiled plot was a significant departure from previous counterterrorism arrests in Australia, all of which involved low tech, "lone wolf" attacks.

Sydney Morning Herald:

In a significant departure from the low-tech lone actor attacks that Islamic State has inspired in Australia, the group of mostly middle-aged men were allegedly working on an "elaborate" plot to build an improvised explosive device that could take down a plane. Bomb squad officers were among dozens of police who raided five properties across Sydney on Saturday evening, smashing their way through glass doors and brick walls and arresting four men. Fairfax Media understands a homemade bomb was allegedly found in a Surry Hills terrace, possibly to be planted on a commercial flight to the Middle East. The operation has forced authorities to implement emergency security arrangements at all major Australian airports. In Sydney, enhanced security was enacted on Thursday when police received an indication of a possible threat. The measures, including extra screening and additional checks of cabin and checked baggage, are expected to lead to longer queues and check-in times at Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin, Perth, Adelaide, Canberra, Cairns, Gold Coast and Hobart airports. "We have taken this threat very seriously," Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said on Sunday. "You should infer we think this was credible and there was an intention and quite possibly a capability as well." Khaled Merhi, Abdul Merhi, Khaled Khayat and Mahmoud Khayat were arrested at a terrace in Surry Hills and units in Renown Avenue and Victoria Road, Punchbowl, and Sproule Street, Lakemba, respectively. They have family links to each other and links to previous plots and established networks. Investigators believe that, based on the degree of sophistication of the plot, the group may have had some overseas direction. Police successfully applied in court on Sunday to extend their interrogation for 24 hours.

There are few terrorist groups capable of "overseas direction" and that includes ISIS. This should come as no surprise to Australian authorities as ISIS presence has been growing in Asia and the Pacific for the last year. Several attacks have taken place in the Philippines and Indonesia in recent months and Australian authorities fear that some of the more than 100 Islamists who fought for ISIS in the Middle East could return to wreak havoc.

The men arrested yesterday were known to authorities. Unlike the French and some other countries, the Australian government appears to have kept close tabs on them, moving in after receiving intel that a plot was imminent.

It's understood an operation was being planned last week but police were forced to bring it forward drastically following information from an overseas agency. "[We] agreed last night was the right time to go," NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said. "The reality with terrorism is that you can't wait. You can't wait till you put the whole puzzle together... In this case, we risk assess regularly, hourly sometimes, around the clock."

From the way authorities are describing the plot, we can expect more arrests - possibly airport employees and certainly other confederates who assisted in getting bomb parts and finance. This was no fly by night operation. And others in the neighborhood may be implicated.

Neighbours at three of the five homes said they had seen men in religious robes coming and going in recent weeks. A Surry Hills resident, Debbie, said she saw a group of men loitering in the street at 6am recently. They came out of Redfern Mosque and walked into the Cleveland Street home that was raided. On Sproule Street, a resident said he had often see people in religious gear coming and going from the unit. One night recently he saw about 10 men arrive at the unit.

A wake up call for the Australian government and people. They have a far more serious Islamist problem than they previously thought.
The virus of racial hate-mongering has spread to London, as rioters carrying black lives matter placards created chaos following the death of a suspect held in custody by the police. The BBC reports:

Fireworks and bottles were hurled at riot police as a protest following the death of a black man turned violent. Rashan Charles, 20, died after being apprehended by police in Dalston, east London, on 22 July. Earlier, a peaceful protest took place at Stoke Newington police station which Scotland Yard said was separate. Angry clashes broke out on Friday evening after protesters blocked part of Kingsland Road and set mattresses alight. Some of the protestors carried Black Lives Matter placards. (snip) At one point protesters, some wearing masks, jumped on to a lorry and clung to the wing mirrors as it drove through the barricade.

Breitbart linked to a tweet with video of this terror-like (Nice, Berlin Christmas Market) attack:

A lorry drove through a barricade made by protesters angry at the death of Rashan Charles amid violent scenes in east London pic.twitter.com/OR9QtP92XY  Press Association (@PA) July 29, 2017

There was even more violence. with police tweeting, "Officers have been subjected to abuse and violence. Whatever the frustrations, this is patently not what the family of Rashan Charles wanted."

This is the scene on Kingsland Road where gangs of masked youth are attacking the police with bottles pic.twitter.com/g5caH4zQDM  Spectrum SINO Radio (@SINOinUK) July 28, 2017

Right now in Dalston pic.twitter.com/SKbCeCOSXO  Max Lee (@m8xyl) July 28, 2017

The enemies of Western democracy long ago discovered that aggravating racial tensions is one of the best ways of hobbling the performance of economies and societies based on personal autonomy and achievement. Policing offers opportunities on a regular basis to claim systematic oppression wherever demographic segments of the population differ in their level of adaptation to the demands of a free economy.

In earlier ages, disease traveled from continent to continent on ships. Then came airplanes, and the spread of diseases like chicken flu into global epidemics. With electronic mass media, however, the virus of hate can be transmitted instantaneously.

But somebody went to the trouble of printing up Black Lives Matter placards:

I wonder who?
Whatever his personal faults, New York Senator Charles Schumer is not stupid. He used to post his diploma from Harvard University on his US Senate website, until I mocked him on these pages and it went into the memory hole. His entire manner of speaking is premised on the assumption that he knows more than the listener, and has flavor notes of a sneer in the finish.

So when the distinguished senior senator from the State of New York lectures on the founders and the Constitution they bequeathed us, you might expect that he brings at least some facts to his presentation.

You would be wrong.

In a speech on the floor of The Worlds Greatest Deliberative Body, Schumer claimed that Our Founding Fathers Intended for Congress to Improve Our Healthcare System.

This is nonsense on a stick.

Our Republic was founded on the notion of limited government. There is nothing in the Constitution, nothing in The Federalist Papers, and nothing in the historical record of the Constitutional debate indicating that the federal government was contemplated as having a role in improving health care.

He who controls the past also controls the future. Making crap up on the floor of the Senate will fool the Democrat products of public education, but it is a naked propaganda lie.
Hidden in all the late-breaking political hoopla Friday afternoon, when the media was in another Trump feeding frenzy over White House musical chairs, was an announcement by the F-35 Joint Program Office that a $3.69-billion contract for the F-35 Lightning had officially been awarded to Lockheed-Martin for its 5th-generation fighter. Interestingly, around two thirds of that order went to foreign buyers:

Most of the money, $2.2 billion, goes to buy one British F-35B, one ItalianF-35A, eight Australian F-35As, eight Dutch F-35As, four Turkish F-35As, six Norwegian F-35As aircraft, and 22 F-35As for Foreign Military Sales customers.

I say interestingly, because when I wrote a piece a few weeks ago about how my own assessment of this aircraft was changing after reading how awed pilots are who actually have flown the plane in simulated air combat against ground anti-aircraft defenses and aggressor air forces, a few obviously knowledgeable commenters expressed some doubt that the foreign buyers would come through on their agreed upon acquisitions. Those purchases, they correctly noted, were going to be needed to drive down the overall unit cost of the F-35, which, in excess of $100 million per copy, has been the primary criticism of the aircraft. If the numbers published by Breaking Defense are correct, then it looks as if the foreign purchasers are getting their birds for less than $50 million a copy. Of course, that $2.2 billion could represent partial payment. It also includes no Israeli aircraft, and that country has said it alone will purchase fifty F-35s in their various iterations, with other countries saying they'll order almost twice that number if the price comes down.

Whatever. It's a good sign for the American taxpayer that plenty of foreign governments are buying in on the Lightning. For a complete account on planned total purchases by country, go here: Look Who's Buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 Now.
Fusion GPS, the political opposition research group at the center of the media's Trump-colluded-with-the-Russians "narrative" has been abnormally cozy with the mainstream media organs it's used in its disinformation and smear operations. Now, they're protecting them.

Daily Caller reports that these very same press creatures who worked with Fusion GPS to spread the false stories about Trump, have gotten curiously silent about the firm's role in the widening web of scandal about the firm's actual role in colluding with the Russians. They include CNN, the Washington Post and the New York Times, none of which have reported a word about the new revelations showing that Fusion GPS took money from the Russians to undercut President Trump.

Fusion GPS apparently took money from anyone. They not only cooked up the infamous phony "golden showers" dossier about President Trump, not a word of which was true, though some media outlets reported it that way, they also engineered the Russian meetings with President Trump's son, Donald Trump, Jr., and two other associates inside the Trump Tower, as a means of making it appear that Trump was in bed with the Russians all along. In testimony last Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committe, hedge fund manager William Browder said they were up to their eyeballs working with the most nefarious elements of the Russian government/oligarchy. Daily Caller writes:

At the same time that Fusion GPS was crafting the dossier allegedly exposing the Trump campaigns collusion with the Russian government, they were also working to advance Russian interests, according to Browders testimony. Browder told the committee that Natalia Veselnitskaya, the same Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort at Trump Tower during the campaign, hired Glenn Simpson of the firm Fusion GPS to conduct a smear campaign against me and Sergei Magnitsky in advance of congressional hearings on the Global Magnitsky Act. The law is named for Sergei Magnitsky, a lawyer who represented Browder before Russian authorities jailed and killed him after he exposed a massive fraud scheme.

Who among the mainstream media organs has been more persistently, consistently, insistently anti-Trump than the New York Times, the Washington Post and CNN? they are praising themselves like crazy as hard-hitting reporters who are finally doing 'real journalism' with the advent of the Trump administration, given their sorry past as media lapdogs during the previous one.

But it doesn't hold water with these revelations. Apparently, they were just string puppets for Fusion GPS and its media manipulators. They got their fake scoops, they ran with them, they did what Fusion GPS wanted, and Fusion GPS took its payments from its clients.

Is this media corruption or what?

What's the deal with all the silence from the mainstream press, these colluding outfits in particular, now that the truth is coming out?
Hackers competing in a contest at a Las Vegas convention breached the security of several voting machines, pointing to glaring deficiencies in the security of US elections.

The Hill:

Tech minds at the annual "DEF CON" in Las Vegas were given physical voting machines and remote access, with the instructions of gaining access to the software. According to a Register report, within minutes, hackers exposed glaring physical and software vulnerabilities across multiple U.S. voting machine companies' products. Some devices were found to have physical ports that could be used to attach devices containing malicious software. Others had insecure Wi-Fi connections, or were running outdated software with security vulnerabilities like Windows XP. The Register reported that the challenge was designed by Jake Braun, the Chief Executive Officer of Cambridge Global Advisors and Managing Director of Cambridge Global Capital. Without question, our voting systems are weak and susceptible. Thanks to the contributions of the hacker community today, we've uncovered even more about exactly how, Braun said. The scary thing is we also know that our foreign adversaries  including Russia, North Korea, Iran  possess the capabilities to hack them too, in the process undermining principles of democracy and threatening our national security. The machines were bought on Ebay, and were manufactured by major U.S. voting machine companies such as Diebold Nixorf, Sequoia Voting Systems, and Winvote.

Was this a true test of voting machine security? Unknown. "Remote access" could mean several things and may not faithfully represent the kind of cyber security used by states to safeguard voting machines.

Also, this is not news to people who have been warning about the security of our voting machines for years. But no hacker has yet demonstrated they can access actual machines being used to tabulate real votes.

That's still not totally comforting considering what's at stake.

During the 2016 election, Homeland Security offered their help to states to secure their networks. Most states took them up on it. At that time, it was believed that several voter registration lists had been hacked, not the machines themselves. But the apparent ease with which hackers broke into the machines should be a wake up call to states to better secure the vote.
An illegal alien accused of raping two women in Oregon was deported at least 13 times since 2008 according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

ICE also says that the alien was the subject of a detainer when he was arrested last December on unrelated charges. Since Oregpmn authorities follow sanctuary policies, he was released before ICE could take custody of him.

Daily Caller:

Sergio Jose Martinez, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, had been deported at least 13 times since 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) spokesperson Virginia Kice confirmed to Portlands KATU2. Martinez, 31, was also the subject of an ICE detainer request placed Dec. 7, 2016 with the Multnomah County Jail, where he was being held on local charges. Because Oregon law prohibits police from using agency resources to enforce immigration law, jail officials released Martinez the following day without notifying ICE. ICE last encountered Mr. Martinez Dec. 7, 2016, at the Multnomah County Jail and lodged an immigration detainer against him at that time requesting that the agency be notified prior to his release, Kice said in a statement. However, despite the detainer, local authorities released Mr. Martinez back into the community the following day without providing any notification to ICE. Martinez is accused of two separate attacks against women in Portland on Monday, reports local CBS affiliate KOIN. Police say Martinez first broke into the apartment of a 65-year-old woman, bound her hands and feet with scarves, and proceeded to sexually assault her. Later that day, he confronted a woman in a parking garage with a knife and threatened to kill her. Police suspect that Martinez was attempting to kidnap the woman as she left work. As KOIN reports, Martinez has a lengthy criminal history in Oregon and California. He has been arrested at least 20 times for offenses ranging from burglary and drug possession to auto theft and hit and run, according to police records. Along with local charges, Martinez has been deported back to Mexico on several occasions, most recently on Nov. 2, 2016. Oregon has for many years been one of the nations most restrictive states when it comes to allowing local law enforcement to cooperate with federal immigration authorities. A 1986 law prevents police from using any resources to arrest or detain people whose only violation of law is that they are persons of foreign citizenship present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws. The Oregon legislature passed a law in late June that expands that prohibition to all public bodies within the state.

Do Oregon residents realize their political leaders have made them sitting ducks? This is another brutal crime that didn't have to happen and is a direct result of policies that put politics above public safety.

More to the point, the crimes committed by this illegal alien need not have happened if there was a law that covered people who repeatedly violate American soveriegnty and cross the border illegally. At what point do we jail illegals for this kind of serial law breaking?

The Trump administration is at war with these sanctuary cities and states, looking to cut off some funding to punish them for their defiance. It's an issue that will almost certainly end up before the Supreme Court. Until that happens, innocent people will suffer and die unnecessarily because some politicians see an advantage to pandering to the Hispanic community. Their refusal to cooperate with federal immigration authorities is not about money, or "compassion." It's about politics. And it's time for the practice to come to an end.
Charles Krauthammer has been going after President Trump consistently of late, almost as if it were back in the days of the primary contests of 2016 when Trump cant win.

The following excerpt is from his Sessions Lessons op-ed in the Washington Post, and seems to indicate that the good doctor must be living in a cave:

"Moreover, in America we dont lock up political adversaries. They do that in Turkey. They do that (and worse) in Russia. Part of American greatness is that we dont criminalize our politics."

The Obama Administration and FBI started an investigation and started spying on Trump in July 2016 either based on nothing or a fake dossier.

The Obama administration illegally unmasked a large number of people, none of whom seemed to be Democrats.

The Obama administration illegally spied for years.

Democrats and a special counsel are threatening to impeach Trump for no actual crime.

The Justice Department and Democrat Attorneys General throughout the U.S have threatened to jail adversaries on climate change for no actual crimes.

Obama clearly had IRS target political opponents to shut them up

And now Dr. Krauthammer acts like Obama never criminalized politics and Trump did, because he said negative things about Sessions. Where has Trump threatened criminal action for someone who just disagrees with him? I would ask Dr. K: Where did Trump threaten to criminalize anything Sessions did?
In Saint Charles County, Missouri, near Weldon Spring, adjacent to Highway 40, lies an enormous mound of rocks, rising out of the ground like an ancient burial tomb. Underneath it lies tons of hazardous waste produced by a chemical plant that once stood in its place. Today, Weldon Spring draws thousands of curious visitors each year. They climb to the top of the 75-foot tall dome to read the placards that tell the story of the sad history of communities that disappeared in 1940 to make way for the worlds largest explosives factory.

Between 1940 and 1941, the US Army purchased over 17,000 acres of land in Saint Charles County, just outside of St. Louis On those land happened to sit three pretty towns with rolling wooded hills - Hamburg, Howell, and Toonerville. They were immediately evacuated. Hundreds of homes, businesses, churches, schools and any other buildings in the area were either demolished or burned and within a few months the three towns ceased to exist. A massive factory was erected to manufacture TNT and DNT in order to supply Allied troops in the Word War II. The Weldon Spring Ordnance Works, operated by Atlas Powder Company, employed more than 5,000 people and contained more than 1,000 buildings. By the time the plant ceased production on Aug. 15, 1945, the day the Japanese surrendered, it had produced more than 700 million pounds of TNT.

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After the war the Army began selling off pieces of the land. The State of Missouri acquired 7,000 acres, while the University of Missouri bought another 8,000 acres, which was later sold to the Conservation Department. These pieces of property are today the Busch Memorial Conservation Area and the Weldon Spring Conservation Area.

A small patch of land  about 2,000 acres - was retained by the United States Atomic Energy Commission. It was there the Commission built a uranium ore processing plant in 1955. The Weldon Spring Uranium Feed Mill Plant, operated by Mallinckrodt Chemical Works of St. Louis, processed raw uranium ore into yellow cake, or concentrated ore which was shipped to other sites.

The processing plant operated until 1966. During the Vietnam War the Army planned to use part of the old uranium processing facilities to produce Agent Orange, a herbicide used to defoliate jungle during the war. The Army later abandoned the plan without ever producing the chemical at Weldon Spring. The site sat abandoned for more than 20 years, but still contained contaminated equipment and hazardous chemicals. Waste lagoons were filled with thousands of gallons of water contaminated with radioactive wastes and heavy industrial metals.

Beginning in the 1980's, the U.S. Department of Energy began extensive decontamination of the area, eventually building a gigantic waste disposal cell to entomb the waste materials. The official name of this site is the Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project (WSSRAP).

Completed in 2001, the mountainous structure covers 45 acres and stores 1.5 million cubic yards of hazardous material. Stairs lead up to the top of the cell where there is a viewing platform and plaques that provide information about the local area, the history of the site, and the construction of the waste disposal cell. Visitors can also visit the 9,000-square-foot interpretive center housed in a building at the base of the cell that was once used to check workers for radioactivity. Incidentally, the top of the Weldon Spring waste disposal cell is the highest point in St. Charles County.

There is a similar nuclear waste dome in on Enewetak Atoll

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Satellite view of Weldon Spring Site Remedial Action Project (WSSRAP)

Sources: Ruralmissouri, Vice, Wikipedia
MOSCOW - President Xi Jinping said he hopes the Chinese army to deepen exchanges with armies of other countries to advance global military cooperation and further contribute to world peace.

International military cooperation boosts strategic mutual trust as well as global and regional peace and stability, Xi said in a congratulatory video sent to the Russia-initiated International Army Games 2017 as it convenes here Saturday.

Xi, also chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), sent his greetings to attendees on behalf of the Chinese government and the CMC in the video.

The International Army Games 2017, which runs through August 12th, comprises of 28 events held in Russia, China, Azerbaijan, Belarus and Kazakhstan.
Entertainment / Celebrity

by Staff reporter

After spending over a decade south of the Limpopo trying to carve out an acting career, former Studio 263 leading lady Anne Nhira has finally returned home.Local audiences who have been starved of the sight of a talent that was at one point thought to be the brightest on the Zimbabwean small screen, will have a chance to catch another glimpse of Nhira who returned from her South African base to lend her star power to a local production.Nhira will star in Cook Off, a film that has been in production for the last few weeks.News of the film's production will be music to the ears of fans of popular television series Battle of the Chefs, as the man at the helm of the production is that show's director, Thomas Brickhill.The film will also mark a breakthrough for Joe Njagu, the man who also contributed to last year's blockbuster film Escape.This will be the young filmmakers' debut as a frontline producer.While many will be happy to see such a powerful team behind the scenes, it is Nhira's return to local screens that will excite Zimbabwean film lovers."So I have been quietly shooting a movie called Cook Off in Harare, Zimbabwe for the past couple of weeks. A cool role as one of the judges, very mean judge so to say .I enjoyed every playing the role definitely," she posted on Facebook this week.Besides running her own business, Ann Studios International, and a role as a quality assurance and risk manager with one of the top SA wellness companies, she has also featured in a number of South African productions among them The Rapist in 2012 while in 2014 she also had a role in Zabalaza.She also recently featured in a TV drama called Mutual Friends.
Entertainment / Music

by Simbarashe Sithole

Shungers talent promotion concert, headlined by prominent Zim Dance hall artists Crystal and Silent killer in a bid to promote upcoming artists in Mvurwi Mashonaland Central on Saturday night, was marred by hooliganism.Drunk people stormed the stage as Crystal was performing on stage. People began exchanging blows and throwing empty cans, forcing Crystal to stop playing. The music promoter, (Shungers) also known as Shingi Run'anga, together with his musicians also decided to leave.Local artists included the youngest Zim Dancehall star Ras Jarinhi (9), King Naplton Lady Dee and Whistler.According to the Master of Ceremony, John Ndaele (Jalontso) said that Silent Killer, aka Mikairi Ngirozi Yehondo, did not perform due to the violence.He said: "Silent Killer could not perform because of the mayhem though he took drugs but you know these guys perform better when they are taken high."Bulawayo24.com was informed that he was scheduled to perform before Crystal.
News / National

by Richard Chidza

Former Cabinet minister Christopher Mutsvangwa has dismissed charges by President Robert Mugabe that he is being sent by securocrats to campaign for his ouster as cracks between the ageing ruler and his once trusted generals continues to widen.Mugabe last Thursday told a Zanu-PF women's league rally that some military commanders were now in a hurry to see him exit State House, in what was seen as a direct attack on Zimbabwe Defence Forces commander Constantino Chiwenga.Chiwenga has of late been entangling himself in Zanu-PF succession wars, fighting in the corner of a faction linked to Vice-President Emmerson Mnangagwa against another one known as G40.Mugabe complained that the meddling by the military could be tantamount to a coup. He singled out Mutsvangwa, who is also the Zimbabwe National War Veterans Association chairman, as a proxy for those trying to push him out of power.Last year war veterans fell out with Mugabe spectacularly after the former fighters told the 93-year-old ruler that it was time he handed over the baton to Mnangagwa.Mutsvangwa was fired from his Cabinet post and was suspended from Zanu-PF.His group of former fighters continues to take pot shots at Mugabe, but the former war veterans minister insisted in an interview that he was his own man."That accusation [that he is being sent by Mnangagwa backers] has no basis in neither fiction nor fact," he said."If I could be my own man just after second year at the University of Rhodesia's law faculty lecture room in 1975 to go and join Chimurenga, I can still be my own man today."If I could withstand battlefield combat against Rhodesia's standard army and all other hardships, it means I have my own resolve of mind and body."That accusation from a revered revolutionary icon should instead be directed at [Higher Education minister] Jonathan Moyo, a wartime deserter turned traitor, turned spy and lately thief of Zimbabwe Manpower Development Fund [Zimdef] funds."In 1994 President Mugabe fired me as ZBC chief executive officer."In 2007 I flatly declined his ambassador post to Germany and in 2015 I asked him for the privilege to fire me as minister, all to show that I am my own man".Chiwenga recently launched a scathing attack on Moyo, saying the minister had become a security threat for criticising the command agriculture programme that is being spearheaded by Mnangagwa.At a rally in Masvingo, Mugabe expressed surprise at the army commander's remarks but the Thursday salvo at the generals was more direct and analysts said it showed the president's frustration over the securocrats' deep involvement in Zanu-PF infighting.Besides Moyo, other government ministers have also been publicly expressing fears of an army takeover.Harare Metropolitan province minister Mirriam Chikukwa told Zanu-PF supporters that Mugabe "was installed by God and nobody can remove him. Not even a gun."Zanu women's league secretary for external affairs, Tabitha Kanengoni-Malinga chanted "down with the spirit of a coup" during the Thursday meeting addressed by Mugabe.University of Zimbabwe political science lecturer Eldred Masunungure said Mugabe's utterances showed that he feared he was losing control of his own succession, with securocrats now openly on Mnangagwa's side."He is concerned that the faction he prefers, in this case the G40 group, is losing out because of lack of support from the military," he said."Over the years Mugabe has allowed the securocrats to make pronouncements that were patently partisan as long as they supported his position."He has always been selfish and now realises that the army is supporting a rival faction and for selfish vested interests wants them off the succession debate."Masunungure said Mugabe's charge that "the gun must not lead politics" was insincere since he has relied on the military to hang on to power."In Zanu-PF, the gun and politics have always been equal partners and depending on the configuration of the time, one props up the other," he said."It is a different ball-game now and Mugabe is being opportunistic as always."The military is no longer doing his bidding and Mugabe is crying foul."Maxwell Saungweme, a political analyst, concurred, saying Mugabe should admit that he has been beaten at his own game."He is just making noise. He is no longer in charge but the military is in control," he said."He forgets that in 2008 he lost to [MDC-T leader Morgan] Tsvangirai and the military did what they did to keep him in power."His rantings are driven by people such as his wife [Grace] who are taking advantage of his advanced age for their political gains. Those rantings are a clear outcome of him being arm-twisted by his wife."Given the embeddedness of the military in our politics, his rantings can trigger adverse action against the country's peace and stability and drive us close to a civil war as Zanu-PF rips itself apart."Respected academic Ibbo Mandaza said Chiwenga must be worried about Mugabe's outburst, which could mean his days in the army were numbered."He has had enough of the military and Chiwenga in particular should be scared," he said. "He has been making a lot of political pronouncements; if I were him, I would watch it and take Mugabe's rantings seriously."It cannot be business as usual. Mugabe is making his position clear."Meanwhile, former Finance minister Tendai Biti said the statements were an indication that Mugabe had decided on his preferred successor and now wanted to clear the path for a smooth transfer of power."He is trying to provoke a certain section of the security services that supports him," the opposition People's Democratic Party leader said."Mugabe and his wife have chosen a successor in the confines of their bedroom but now the military is opposing it."They are aware that the military has been kow-towing with Mnangagwa."Biti said Mugabe has created a monster by rejecting calls by the opposition to introduce security sector reforms that could have forced soldiers to confine themselves to the barracks."This is a militarised state and Mugabe is just the civilian lipstick of a securocratic regime," he added."Mugabe has resisted calls for reform but we will continue (with the calls). The Constitution says the army should be apolitical and remain in the barracks only to work for the security of all citizens and defence of the country."This military, however, is captured, it is politicised and Mugabe must learn to live with his creature."MDC-T spokesperson Obert Gutu said Mugabe's fears of a coup were real because the military had become embedded in Zanu-PF politics."Mugabe is damn worried about the prospect of a military coup against his regime," he said."He realises that the military is now deeply involved in the Zanu-PF factional fights and he appreciates that this could be a recipe for a deadly civil war."But then, it is Mugabe himself who is responsible for politicising the military."The chickens are coming home to roost. It's his skunk. He must skin it."Political analyst Shakesphere Humauswa said there was nothing new about what the generals were doing as everything in Zimbabwe had become militarised.Ahead of the controversial 2008 presidential election run-off election, generals declared that they would not salute Tsvangirai if he beat Mugabe in the polls.Securocrats have made a number of political pronouncements since then and the president has never, until now, censured them.
If youre considering a subscription to the Disney Plus streaming service, you may be wondering how much it costs. The service is available on both
News / National

by Stephan Jakes

A Zanu PF activist in President Robert Mugabe's area Zvimba West Ward 9 is reportedly intimidating and threatening villagers with violence and ordering them to repent and join the ruling party as soon as possible.Heal Zimbabwe reported that on Wednesday 19 July 2017, Councillor John Chinake and Ward Chairman Reason Alfas, both from Zanu-PF, intimidated community members ordering them to "repent" and join Zanu PF or risk being beaten in the upcoming elections."Chinake went further to threaten that all known opposition supporters will be evicted from the area before the voter registration process begins. This took place during a Zanu PF restructuring meeting conducted at Chirau Hall in the ward," HZT said.
Derek Whitener, whose brain was damaged in the savage January beating in the parking lot of a Dallas Target, couldnt move or speak or recognize anyone. But, he says, his brain was busy thinking about how to direct certain parts of Pippen, which opened last week. As he struggled to heal enough to leave the hospital, he thought about Pippins troubled journey as he searches for meaning and purpose.
News / National

by Stephan Jakes

Bulawayo Vendors Trust have expressed discontentment with the proposal of 150% customs duty to be imposed on imported vehicles made by speaker of the national house of assembly Jacob Mudednda questioning as to who will benefit from such a move."Jacob Mudenda (Speaker of the National Assembly) has recommended that Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (ZIMRA) should charge 150% customs duty on second hand car vehicles.He also stipulated that like Rwanda, the informal sector must be incorporated into the mainstream economy as he suspects that it possesses $5 Billion.This will greatly affect the informal business sector which is ran by Small or Medium enterprises (still growing and finding balance in the industry), which gain little or no income at all," the trust said through a statement."Questions like, who will benefit? Who will lose then arise. Who will benefit largely from this 150% customs duty imposed on informal traders? Is it the economy, the Government or the informal sector itself? The government is trying to promote the local market. However, question is, are the vehicles sold in Zimbabwe affordable to everyone, both the elite and those from the grass root level, taking into consideration the price at which the cars are sold?"The trust also said the government should ensure that the demand and supply of goods is adequate to accommodate everyone so as to avoid having people importing second hand cars from outside the country."One measure that can be practiced in Zimbabwe is to that which is effectively used in South Africa. South Africa possesses no ex-Japanese cars because of the terms and conditions that are offered by companies that assembly cars. High taxes cannot be charged to an exorbitant economy, such high taxes should be charged or used in countries which have a flourishing industry," said the trust."Mudenda talks from a privilege position, he gets free fuel, free cars, that are imported from other countries at a minimum of $400,000. He only thinks about getting tax from the informal sector not putting in place laws that enable it to growIndeed, this is a sign of greed."
The cops now suspect that Appunni too had a role in the conspiracy.

Kochi: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the actor abduction case issued a notice to Sunil Raj aka Appunni asking him to be present before it at Aluva Police club for interrogation on Monday. The direction comes amid reports that the personal manager of actor Dileep who had gone into hiding after the actors arrest is already in police custody outside the state. The notice was issued to the address of Appunnis house at Eloor. The cops now suspect that Appunni too had a role in the conspiracy.

According to sources, the SIT plans to question Appunni and Dileep together to elicit more details about the conspiracy. Meanwhile, the SIT on Saturday interrogated Edavela Babu, actor and general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Actors (AMMA). Officials said during the questioning session that lasted over an hour, he was asked mainly about the rehearsal camp of a stage show organised by AMMA in 2013, during which actor Dileep had allegedly developed a grudge against the victim over some personal issues.

Meanwhile, Pulsar Suni, main accused in the case, told cops he worked as driver of Kavya Madhavan, Dileeps wife, for two months. The actor had stated to the police that she didnt even know Suni. The cops are in the attempt to collect details about Sunis presence at the shooting location of a movie in which Dileep and Kavya acted together.
Yet, when the police killed Anandpal Singh in an encounter last month, there was public outcry for a CBI inquiry.

Jaipur: With 37 cases of murder, kidnapping and extortion against him, Anandpal Singh was undoubtedly Rajasthans most feared criminal in the recent past. Such was his terror that he was always escorted by a hundred policemen before his filmy style escape one and a half years ago.

Yet, when the police killed him in an encounter last month, there was public outcry for a CBI inquiry. Under pressure from Rajput community  its core votebank  Vasundhara Raje government finally obliged.

This was 10th case handed over to CBI in last eight years. Of these, the CBI has rejected two cases while another was accepted after four times rejection. Even in remaining seven cases, the CBI has not been able to make much headway.

Former Congress minister Babulal Nagar was acquitted in a rape case against him. In another high-profile Bhanwari Devi murder case, involving senior Congress leaders Mahipal Maderna and Malkhan Singh, witnesses turned hostile, while rest are pending in courts or under investigation. In fact, in last one decade, on court directives, the CBI has investigated two dozen cases related to Rajasthan although the government has no update.

Even though, there has been no let up in demand for the CBI inquiry. A senior police officer attributed this to distrust in the local police. People trust it because they believe it is relatively difficult to influence the CBI, he said. However, more often than not the demand is also driven by political interests  either to settle political score or under compulsion of vote bank politics.

BJP leader and former Jaipur mayor Pankaj Joshi filed a corruption case against Congress leaders Ashok Gehlot and Sachin Pilot and the matter was instantly handed over to the CBI. Now, the Congress wants CBI inquiry in Delta Meghwals rape and murder case because the accused is believed to affiliated to the Sangh. If Rajput community pressurised the Raje government in Anandpals case, the Jats demanded CBI inquiry in Dara Singhs encounter. Interestingly, the CBI which investigated the case on Supreme Courts directives was left in lurch after Dara Singhs wife Sushila Devi turned hostile midway.
The chief minister also appealed to all parties to collectively find a solution to the problems of Jammu & Kashmir.

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday said that the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will not allow the closure of cross-LoC trade and pushed for nominating members to the Assembly from the other side of the LoC for joint meetings.

The PDP will not allow the closure of cross-Line-of-Control (LoC) trade and continue to work towards opening more routes across the de facto border with Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir (PoK), she said at a rally to mark her partys 18th foundation day.

Seeking a joint legislature with political participation of PoK residents, she said, There are (25) seats reserved in our Assembly for that Kashmir. We should decide together to make nominations for those seats. We should decide that this Assembly meets once in this Kashmir and once in that Kashmir every year so that we can talk about tourism, travel and opening of Sharda Peeth (temple in PoK).

Sharda Peeth is a revered place of Kashmiri pandits and is located about 150 km from Muzaffarabad, the capital of PoK. Assuring continuation of cross-LoC trade, which is under the scanner for alleged terror funding and movement of narcotics, she said, There are many difficulties through the Wagah border (in Punjab), charas and ganja comes from there but no one talks about closing it. Just because a mistake happens on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad road, we should not talk about closing it.

We will not allow that to happen, she said.

We are in favour of opening more routes. There should be facilities like banking there (at crossing points). There should be (full) body scanners (for trucks) so that we know what is coming in and what is going out from here, she said.

The chief minister also appealed to all parties to collectively find a solution to the problems of Jammu & Kashmir. On July 21, the Jammu & Kashmir police seized on LoC 66.5 kg of narcotics, including heroine and brown sugar, worth Rs 300 crore from a truck coming from (PoK) in Baramulla district. Following a complaint from India, Pakistani authorities earlier this week asked for suspending the trade between the two sides.

According to media reports, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has recommended the closure of cross-LoC trade after gathering evidence that it is being misused to fund terrorists.

The cross-LoC trade, which takes place twice a week, was restored by launching of truck services simultaneously on Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawlakote routes on October 21, 2008, ending a 61-year-long embargo.
Justice CS Karnan earlier also made a representation before President Ram Nath Kovind seeking remission of his jail term.

Justice Karnan had earlier moved the apex court seeking his release and cancellation or suspension of the jail sentence in the contempt of court case. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The advocates for Justice CS Karnan, guilty of contempt of court, on Saturday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh seeking an expeditious and favourable consideration of the memorandum which Justice Karnan had sent to President Ram Nath Kovind.

The Home Minister was also pleased to give a patient hearing and assured Karnan that the representation will be considered expeditiously.

Karnan earlier made a representation before President Kovind seeking remission of his jail term.

The said representation was handed over to the President by hand, by post and by electronic means.

Karnan also sought an audience from President Kovind and Rajnath Singh.

Earlier, the said memorandum had been represented before the additional private secretary of former president Pranab Mukherjee also.

On July 3, the Supreme Court rejected a plea for a hearing on the bail of Justice Karnan.

Justice Karnan had moved the apex court seeking his release and cancellation or suspension of the jail sentence in the contempt of court case.

Justice Karnan was arrested by the Kolkata Police in Coimbatore.

On June 7 as well, the apex court refused to grant relief to Justice Karnan in the contempt of court case where he was sentenced to six-month imprisonment.

The apex court earlier on May 19 rejected Justice Karnan's plea for recall of the six-month jail term for contempt of court, stating that the petition was "not maintainable" in the court.

The top court had taken suo motu cognizance of numerous letters written by him against judges of the Madras High Court and the apex court and restrained him from exercising administrative and judicial powers from February 8.

Karnan is the first ever sitting judge of a higher court in judicial history to be sentenced to jail term.
The Congress on July 28 flew 44 of its MLAs to Bengaluru to stop more of them from switching over to the BJP.

Bengaluru: The Congress Party on Sunday accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of buying and threatening their MLAs in Gujarat for Rs 15 crore and paraded its 44 MLAs who are camping in Bengaluru.

Addressing a press conference in Bengaluru, senior Congress MLA from Gujarat Shaktisinh Gohil said, "Ask these MLAs the way they are threatened, they chose to stand by party even when offered Rs 15 crore."

He said BJP is doing horse-trading and we are trying to protect the democracy.

"BJP is hitting below the belt; we are fighting to protect democracy. We have required numbers. There is no need for us to stay here (Bengaluru) for even a minute if they (BJP) say, they won't threaten," Gohil said.

Hitting back at the BJP, the Congress leader further said, "When there was flood in Banaskantha, my MLAs were there with people but no BJP minister, leader or chief minister was there."

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani had accused the Congress of being insensitive and irresponsible, and said that they have sent their 44 MLAs to stay in a 5-star hotel in Bengaluru, while Gujarat is facing floods.

Gohil, however, defended the party's decision to keep the Gujarat MLAs in Bengaluru and said, Theres no need for us to stay here (Bengaluru) for even a minute if they say they won't threaten.

Gohil further said that they have also managed to establish contact with seven Congress MLAs, who were reportedly inaccessible.

"Seven MLAs (Member of Legislative Assembly) are in our contact, their conscience is awakening. We have requested them not to come in people's tricky ways, stick to the party," Gohil said.

Earlier, the Congress had said that BJP is using "money, muscle and state power" to engineer defections, after at least six of its MLAs (Member of Legislative Assembly) had resigned from the party to join the BJP.

The party on July 28 flew 44 of its MLAs to Bengaluru to stop more of them from switching over to the BJP.
The chief minister kept the portfolios of home affairs, general administration and vigilance.

Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar along with Union Minister Ram Vilash Paswan and MP Chirag Paswan during swearing-in ceremony of Ministers in Bihar cabinet at Raj Bhawan in Patna. (Photo: PTI)

Patna: A day after winning the trust vote, Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar expanded his Cabinet with the induction of 27 ministers who took oath on Saturday.

Of the 27 ministers, 14 are from Mr Kumars JD(U), 12 are from the BJP and one is from Union minister Ram Vilas Paswans Lok Janshakti Party.

Mr Kumar inducted Mr Paswans younger brother Pashupati Nath Paras, who is not a member of the Assembly. Sources said he is likely to be nominated to the Legislative Council soon. In the 243-member House, a maximum of 37 ministers are allowed.

The chief minister kept the portfolios of home affairs, general administration and vigilance. The chief minister handed over portfolios of finance, commercial taxes, forest and IT to deputy chief minister Sushil Kumar Modi of the BJP.

One member of the new Cabinet, Mangal Pandey, former state BJP president and the organisational in-charge for Himachal Pradesh, couldnt turn up for the oath ceremony as his flight was delayed.

The chief minister refused to offer a Cabinet berth to NDA allies Rashtriya Lok Samta Party (RLSP) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) of Jitan Ram Manji.

Mr Modi earlier handed over a list to the chief minister of 12 members from the BJP to be inducted into the Cabinet and also discussed the distribution of portfolios, sources said.
The Prime Ministers announcement came after Opposition political parties started accusing him of ignoring the devastating floods of Assam.

Guwahati: Putting an end to all the consistent attacks from the Opposition parties, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday decided to visit Assam to inspect and assess the situation in flood-hit areas of the state on August 1.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi is going to visit Assam on August 1, tweeted Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal.

Though details of Prime Ministers day-long tour programme is yet to be known, the security sources stated that he would go for an aerial survey of the worst flood-hit districts of Dhemaji, Majuli and North Lakhimpur districts.

The Prime Ministers announcement came after Opposition political parties started accusing him of ignoring the devastating floods of Assam and the northeast while giving priority to his home state, Gujarat, for which he announced an interim relief of Rs 500 crore.

The Congress, while attacking the Prime Minister for not announcing any interim relief package for Assam, said, Prime Minister remembers Assam only during the elections. However, Assam finance minister Himanta Biswa Sarma strongly countered the allegation.

Some people are trying to spark a controversy that Mr Modi has visited Gujarat and not Assam. Are we showpiece that some one will come to see us? said Mr Sarma.

He clarified that the central government had extended all necessary help to the state during the floods and even an inter-ministerial team had been appointed in the state to assess the damage caused by the floods.

It is significant that about 11,000 people are still reeling under floods in Lakhimpur, Nagaon, Jorhat, Sivasagar, Golaghat and Karimganj, with a little over 2,000 people currently lodged in 10 relief camps, the daily report read.

The floods have devastated over 2.10 lakh-hectare of crop area in Assam of which about 40,000-hectare of paddy fields have been rendered unusable due to heavy silt deposit ranging from two to 10 feet.
The identities, group affiliation of slain militants was not known immediately as search operation was still in progress, police said.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Tahab area of Pulwama district on Saturday night following information about presence of militants in the area, a police official said. (Photo: File/Representational)

Srinagar: Two militants were killed in an encounter with security forces on Sunday in Pulwama district of Kashmir, police said.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Tahab area of Pulwama district on Saturday night following information about presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

He said a gunfight broke out between the two sides early on Sunday, in which two ultras were killed.

The identity and group affiliation of the slain militants was not known immediately as the search operation was still in progress, the official said.
News / National

by Staff reporter

Former War Veterans minister Christopher Mutsvangwa has rubbished President Robert Mugabe's "revisionist account" that he went to war earlier than him, claiming the 93-year-old was now forgetting what happened.Addressing members of the Zanu-PF women's league in Harare on Thursday, Mugabe slammed party bigwigs and affiliate organisations that are calling for him to step aside and make way for a successor including Mutsvangwa, whom the nonagenarian claimed he had received in Mozambique when he joined the liberation struggle."Where are these clandestine manoeuvres that are being done by some little-known organisations and some people who were with us during the war coming from when these people are not the ones who chose me?"People like Mutsvangwa, whom we received at Chimoio as they were coming from university along with other guys, today they now say I must go', it's painful but they are not alone, it's not Mutsvangwa per se, they are being sent," Mugabe said.The leader of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association (ZNLWVA) came out guns blazing yesterday accusing Mugabe of distorting history.The ZNLWVA has previously threatened bloodshed if their preferred choice of Mugabe's successor Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa is blocked.Mutsvangwa, who was fired from both his government and party positions, told the Daily News Mugabe's "recollection on Chimoio Zhunda Camp is just plainly false.""His legendary memory can only now be failing him as advanced age is wont to do. The truth is that I am the one who received ...Mugabe at Chimoio Zhunda Camp; and not the other way round as now claimed by the comrade who became the first President of the Republic of Zimbabwe," Mutsvangwa said."His version is patently a revisionist account. Only G40 Jonathan Moyo could have penned it for him to regurgitate."Comrade President, true revolutionaries have that attribute of historical integrity as a cardinal virtue. Let us be true and honest to the Chimurenga II Revolution as it happened. Such integrity is greatest tribute to so many of the fallen heroes of that epochal generation," he added.The garrulous former Norton legislator said the correct position is that he arrived at the camp in early July 1975, "soon after Mozambique's independence day on June 25, 1975 together with Willard Zororo Duri, John Mayowe, Sobusa Gula-Ndebele, Masimba Mwazha from the then University of Rhodesia.""...Mugabe only got to Chimoio Zhunda Camp in September 1975... well after my earlier arrival. He came together with Edgar Tekere, Nisbert Makotsi and a Dengwani."He added that Mugabe and Tekere came to the front along with about 150-200 other comrades who would form Company D when Nyadzonia was opened as the refugee holding camp.Mutsvangwa said Mugabe had crossed the border in April soon after the assassination of Zanu chairman Herbert Chitepo.Upon his arrival in Mozambique, Mutsvangwa claimed, Mugabe was resisted by the occupants of Zhunda Chimoio Camp who argued that he was not their political leader as they had been recruited under the auspices of Bishop Muzorewa's United African National Congress.In resisting Mugabe, Mutsvangwa said the camp occupants agitated for his denial of food."As university students, the five of us took the lead in diffusing the smouldering confrontation as Mugabe was only backed by the handful 200 comrades he had recruited from Highfield."I remember Duri roping me to clandestinely arrange for Oppah Muchinguri(-Kashiri) to cook for Mugabe as the two (Duri and Muchinguri-Kashiri) knew each other from their shared home in Manica Bridge, Watsomba."Concurrently, we set to work for his acceptance. We used our gravitas as university students to persuade the more numerous refugee occupants of Zhunda Camp to be accommodating of the estranged Mugabe and his group of 150-200 recruits."According to Mutsvangwa, Mugabe was only taken from the refugee camp "to go to teaching exile in far north Quelimane."
Behl is also a member of the legal cell of the separatist amalgam led by Geelani and a 'close associate' of the Hurriyat hawk.

A spokesman for NIA said the office and residence of Devinder Singh Behl, who is linked to hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani were searched in Jammu. (Photo: Representational/AFP)

Jammu/New Delhi: Widening its probe in the terror funding case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday interrogated Chairman of Jammu Kashmir Social Peace Forum (JKSPF) Devinder Singh Behl at his resident here, on suspicion of routing funds to separatists from their Pakistan-based handlers.

A spokesman for NIA said the office and residence of Devinder Singh Behl, who is linked to hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani were searched in Jammu.

Behl is also a member of the legal cell of the separatist amalgam led by Geelani and a "close associate" of the Hurriyat hawk. Behl, the anti-terror probe agency said, also regularly attends the funeral processions of militants.

"The NIA is investigating his role as a courier as he is suspected to be involved in routing funds to separatist leaders from Pakistan-based handlers," the spokesman said.

He claimed several incriminating documents, four mobile phones, a tablet computer and a few other articles were seized during the searches, and Behl was being questioned.

In a related development, the NIA also issued summons to Naseem, the younger son of Geelani, asking him to appear before it on Wednesday.

Geelani's elder son, Nayeem, who was asked to present himself at the agency's headquarters in New Delhi on Monday, has been admitted to a hospital in Srinagar after he complained of chest pain, members of the Hurriyat faction said.

Nayeem, a surgeon, had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years and is considered Geelani's heir apparently.

Nayeem was to be questioned in connection with the terror funding case which has named Hafiz Saeed, leader of Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, as an accused.

The NIA has also named separatist organisations like the two factions led by Geelani and moderate leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and all-woman outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat in its FIR.

Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh has already been arrested by the NIA and was being interrogated.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, spokesman for Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, and Peer Saifullah were arrested from the Valley last week.

Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman for the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' have also been arrested. All of them have been remanded in 10 days NIA custody.

The NIA had registered the case on May 30, accusing separatist and secessionist leaders of being in cahoots with terrorist groups.

The case was registered over raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including through hawala channels, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in the state and for causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.

The NIA conducted searches in several places in the state besides Haryana and the national capital. Electronic devices and valuables worth crores of rupees were impounded.

It is for the first time since the rise of militancy in the early 1990s that a central probe agency has conducted raids in connection with the funding of terrorist and separatist groups.
The BJP has allegedly blamed Communist Party of India (Marxist) workers behind the incident.

This comes after the CPM and the BJP in Kerala declared war on each other on the night of July 27th, as both sides went on an attacking spree on each other's party offices, resulting in major property damage. (Photo: File)

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Police on Sunday detained eight people in connection with the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in the state capital on Sunday.

The accused have been sent to the police custody.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

He also appealed to social media users to restrain themselves from spreading rumours and provocative messages, which would attract legal action.

Earlier on Saturday, a RSS worker was murdered in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam.

Police said 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around at 9 pm on Saturday night. An investigation has been launched and search is on for assailants, they said.

Read: Rajnath Singh calls Kerala CM to take action against murderers of RSS worker

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) workers behind it.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers.

No one was inside the office at the time of the incident.
Rahul Gandhi indicated that priority would be given to youths in the ticket distribution by Congress in coming elections.

Bhopal: Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday said many states in the country plunged into unrest after NDA came to power at the Centre.

Winding up his two-day visit to Bastar in Chhattisgarh, Mr Gandhi said, Today there is crisis in Jammu and Kashmir. There is resentment in West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim and north-eastern states. During the UPA regime, peace used to rule in all these states. He was addressing party workers in Bastar.

Expressing concern over deepening crisis in J&K, he said the state has been witnessing growing militant attacks and increasing number of ceasefire violations from Pakistan over last one year.

Till 2014, terrorism in J&K was over. Tourism had received a boost in the region and 45-50 flights used to land in Srinagar daily, he said.

Mr Gandhi indicated that priority would be given to youths in the ticket distribution by Congress in coming elections. He exhorted the youth Congress leaders to be prepared for taking the plunge into electoral battle in coming days. He, however, said winning prospect of a candidate would be the key criteria during ticket distribution by the party.

Mr Gandhi made it clear that the party would go to Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh in 2018 under the joint leadership of PCC president Bhupesh Baghel and Congress legislature party leader T.S. Singhdeo. He exuded confidence that the party would retain its base in Bastar in the coming Assembly elections.

Of the 12 Assembly seats in Bastar, Congress had won nine in the 2013 assembly elections. The party had lost the 2013 Assembly elections in Chhattisgarh by a whisker by winning 39 out of total 90 seats. The ruling BJP had won 49 seats to form the government in Chhattisgarh for third time in a row.
Though, the BJP has described it a courtesy call, the development has already surcharged the political atmosphere of the frontier state.

The growth of saffron party in the northeastern states has created a furore in the ruling Congress in Meghalaya where a large number of its leaders may desert the party. (Photo: PTI/File)

Guwahati: In what may prove to a major setback for the Congress Party, more than seven legislators from ruling alliance in Meghalaya have sought an audience with BJPs national president Amit Shah during his visit next month.

Though, the BJP has described it a courtesy call, the development has already surcharged the political atmosphere of the frontier state, which is schedule to go for Assembly elections in 2018.

Meghalaya BJP president Shibun Lyngdoh told this newspaper, At least seven legislators from Congress, United Democratic Party and National Peoples party have approached me for an audience with our national president.

He, however, quickly added that it would be too early to say that they want to join BJP. You can say this is a request for a courtesy calls. They just want to meet our party president, said Lyngdoh, who admitted that people are inclined to join the BJP in the Christian-dominated frontier state.

The BJP doesnt have any representative in the present 60-member Meghalaya Assembly, although BJP had succeeded in opening its account in previous assemblies of Meghalaya.

The growth of saffron party in the northeastern states has created a furore in the ruling Congress in Meghalaya where a large number of its leaders may desert the party.

Fearing for an anti-incumbency setback in the forthcoming assembly elections, many Congress leaders are also said to have been looking for ticket from regional political parties.

The political observers felt that Meghalaya has been a very strong Congress bastion but chief minister Mukul Sangma has failed to keep the moral of the party workers. The speculations in local newspapers about Sangma, who has won from Ampati in Garo Hills for several terms, now searching for second constituency for himself has contributed to nervousness in the ruling party.

Meanwhile, the BJP is down playing Mr Shahs visit to the frontier state saying he is visiting all the states in the country to understand the ground situation.

The BJP president was scheduled to visit Meghalaya on July 12 but it was cancelled due to his other engagements. His visit has been rescheduled for August, but the exact date has not been fixed so far.
Talking to this correspondent, Mr Garg said that fighting for justice is in his nature.

New Delhi: Lawyer-cum-social activist Vivek Garg is one of the few Right to Information (RTI) advocates in Delhi who have been on the forefront in culling information from official files and sharing it with the people to show them whether the system is working for their welfare.

Talking to this correspondent, Mr Garg said that fighting for justice is in his nature. His area of focus is to keep a tab on bureaucrats and politicians, whom he believes are the roots of corruption. After getting information from government departments, he brings it to the public domain through the media. He also approaches the Anti Corruption Branch of the Delhi government, CBI, and courts for the prosecution of those people against whom he gathers strong evidence in his RTI replies.

Mr.Garg said that he has filed around 15,000 RTI applications the past decade. He was successfully been able to expose several scams such as the sugar scam, onion scam, CNG fitness scam etc through his RTI activism.

Asked about what hurdles he faces in getting his information, Mr. Garg said that it is very difficult to get complete and factual information from the government on all RTI applications, especially from the Delhi government.

These agencies, he added, try to shield information on contentious issues. But whatever information we get, we fight with the resources and manpower we have and it is our priority to distribute information so that it reaches the masses. He said taxpayers have the right to know where their money is going and whether it is being utilised or misused by the officers.
Officials said strict action was necessitated as the existing laws failed to deter lawbreakers.

New Delhi: Think twice before littering or throwing garbage in the open as it may land you behind bars. The municipal corporation has decided to impose criminal charges against violators. The chief law officer of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation (EDMC) has also issued an order in this regard.

For different offences there are provisions of imprisonment of minimum one month to a maximum of two years and fine or both. Sources said that the other two corporations may also follow the EDMC decision to make the city clean. A senior official told this newspaper that if municipal health officers find mosquito breeding in houses, the owners may be charged for endangering public safety as this may lead to an outbreak of vector-borne disease like dengue or chikungunya. The culprits may be booked under section 270 of IPC with a provision of two years of imprisonment.

According to a senior civic official, the existing penalty on violating sanitation bylaws is too weak and hence it decided to slap criminal charges against violators. The imprisonment would vary from one to six months depending on severity of the violation.

To keep Delhi free of littering and insanitary conditions, various provisions of the IPC/CrPC, the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act, prevention and control of various pollution regulations and the NGT direction issued from time to time may be invoked against the violators to check and control of insanitation in Delhi. Departments may proceed accordingly, said an order issued by the chief law officer of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.

The civic body has identified 14 provisions under the IPC to deal with sanitation woes. Any pollution that may cause fouling of drinking water has also been put in the category of criminal offences.

Officials said the strict action was necessitated as the existing laws failed to deter the lawbreakers. Its repeated attempts to amend the sanitation bylaws for higher penalty also failed to yield results. The draft of the amendment in sanitation bylaws is pending with the Delhi government for the last seven years but the same could not be notified.

The order comes following instructions from the Delhi high court to maintain proper sanitation in the national capital. The high court had recently pulled up the three civic bodies as it had also said that even citizens should take responsibility of keeping their surroundings clean.
The incident unfolded at around 7.30pm, when Taslima landed at Aurangabad.

Mumbai: Controversial Bangladeshi writer Taslima Nasreen, who landed at Aurangabads Chikalthana airport on Saturday evening for a three-day visit to the city from Mumbai, was sent back after supporters of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehad-ul Muslimeen (AIMIM) protested against her visit, shouting slogans of Taslima Go Back.

A mob of around 500 persons had gathered outside the hotel where she was to stay and later they thronged the airport shouting slogans against the exiled Bangladeshi writer. Police stopped her from stepping out of the airport. After she was told about the situation, Taslima returned to Mumbai, officials said.

The incident unfolded at around 7.30pm, when Taslima landed at Aurangabad. The protests, led by AIMIM leader Imtiyaz Jaleel, had been going on outside the airport since around 6.30pm, according to the cops.

Deputy police commissioner, (zone II), Aurangabad, Rahul Shrirame told The Asian Age, Information about her scheduled visit was conveyed to us around 4.30pm, following which we put in place a team for her protection and to secure the hotel where she was to stay. But the protestors got to know about her visit and they assembled at both locations.

Amid the protests, the police met Taslima inside the airport terminal and told her that the visit could trigger a law and order situation in the city as people opposing her presence had already learnt about it and were sloganeering at the airport. She then decided to return to Mumbai and cancelled her three-day visit to Aurangabad. However, no complaint has been lodged with the police.

The Mumbai police also confirmed that no complaint had been lodged by the author with them. However, they unwilling to disclose if Taslima was in Mumbai or had left the city for some other location.

Last month, the union home ministry had extended her visa for a year, with effect from July 23, 2017. She is a Swedish citizen now and has been getting Indian visa on a continuous basis since 2004. The author is living in exile since she left Bangladesh in 1994, because of threats from fundamentalist elements.
He was remanded in police custody till Tuesday by a city court on Sunday.

Mumbai: The Parksite police, which is probing the death of 17 persons who died in the Siddhi Saidarshan building collapse in Ghatkopar, on Saturday night arrested a key accused, Anil Mandal. He was remanded in police custody till Tuesday by a city court on Sunday. The police is questioning Mandal over his alleged involvement in the planning and execution of the interior work of the nursing home located on the buildings ground floor.

The police want to ascertain his and others roles in unauthorised alterations, include breaking of load-bearing pillars at the nursing home, which allegedly led to the crash.

A police officer said, Mandal, who is 28 years old, had been working with the main accused  Sunil Shitap  for the past few years. Shitap said during the investigation that he was not around when the renovation work was going on and he had appointed Mandal as a supervisor for the project.

The officer said, Whatever renovation went on during the two days of construction was overseen by Mandal. We are interrogating him to get the exact details about what had happened.

He added, During investigation Shitap told police that Mandal was the one who oversaw the workers and appointed the architect. He made all plans and then Shitap came into the picture. Shitap is now playing a blame game.

The police has also identified five more people, including the contractor, interior designer and labourers, who were hired by Shitap to carry out the renovation work. In the process, they are said to have disturbed some pillars, weakening the base of the building and rendering it unstable.

The police had asked for the blueprints of the ill-fated building three days ago, but is still awaiting a reply from the civic body. Some Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation officials, however, said that they dont have any idea about the blueprints.

Police officers said they need blueprints to get the exact details of the buildings structure and which pillar the labourers had removed.
The chaos in the assessment of papers and the delay in announcing results has negatively impacted the BJPs profile, said sources.

A file photo of teachers and students holding a protest in the Fort Campus of University of Mumbai to raise their concern at the unprecedented crisis which has thrown the future of lakhs of students into uncertainty.

Mumbai: Under fire from the Opposition due to the delay in announcing the Mumbai University (MU) final year results, vice-chancellor (V-C) Sanjay Deshmukh is unlikely to be able to hold on to his post for long. The buzz in the corridors of power has been that Dr Deshmukh, who hails from Vidarbha, enjoyed the support of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis, who had endeavoured to bring in young and dynamic faces to lead reputed educational institutions in the state.

According to sources, which are close to both, the relation between the two has soured in the last few months. The CM has been made aware about the complaints against Dr Deshmukhs style of working, said a source. As a result, Mr Fadnavis is said to be disappointed and unlikely to intervene on Dr Deshmukhs behalf. Congress leader Sanjay Nirupam, Yuva Sena leader Aaditya Thackeray and former V-C, Bhalchandra Mungekar have called for his dismissal. Student organisations have also been pressing for his dismissal. But the state government has said it would first ensure that the results are cleared and only then take any action. Sources indicate that Dr Deshmukh may not be sacked, but will be given the option to resign on moral grounds.

The chaos in the assessment of papers and the delay in announcing results has negatively impacted the BJPs profile, said sources. Since it came to power in the state, the BJP inducted many new faces in educational institutions, who were expected to be role models in administration.

Dr Deshmukh had earlier been attached with Rambhau Mhalagi Prabodhini, Uttan, Thane, which is seen as think tank for the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, for a few assignments. He has also worked with railway minister Suresh Prabhu, when he was environment minister in NDA-1 government.

Students irate, frustrated

Complaints from students waiting for their results continue to flood all social media platforms. Post-Graduation colleges that are affiliated to Mumbai University are waiting for the results to come out before they start with their classes. However, other universities like the Pune University, the Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, or those that are abroad, are out of reach for MU students. We spoke to some students for their reactions to how this three-month-long waiting period for results has impacted them.
Neelima hanged herself when her husband and daughter were not at home.

Neelima Goyal hanged herself from a ceiling fan in the flat in Kandivali (east). (Representational picture)

Mumbai: Television actor Manoj Goyals wife, Neelima Goyal (40), allegedly committed suicide by hanging herself from a ceiling fan at her residence in Kandivalis (east) Lokhandwala area on Saturday at around at 3.15 pm.

The police, which has registered an Accidental Death Report (ADR) in the case, said she left a suicide note in which she mentioned that no one should be held responsible for her act.

Neelima hanged herself when her husband and daughter were not at home. She was depressed for past few weeks, according to the police.

According to the police, Neelima is the wife of actor Manoj who has starred in SAB TV channel comedies like Golmaal Hai Bhai Sab Golmaal Hai and Tu Mere Agal Bagal Hai.

The official also said that during the preliminary investigation, it was revealed that Neelima, who was a housewife, was depressed since the past few weeks and was staying aloof.

Dilip Yadav, a senior police inspector of Samata Nagar police station said, Prima facie it is a suicide as we have also found a suicide note at the spot, but the investigation is underway. The incident took place on Saturday, but an ADR was registered early on Sunday.

The official also said that it was mentioned in the note that she took the extreme step because she was depressed.

The incident came to light when her eight-year-old daughter returned from tuitions and found the door locked from inside.

As no one was responding to her repeated calls, the minor opened the door with spare keys and found the bedroom door locked from inside. The girl alerted her neighbours who then called the police.

Neelima Goyals body was sent for post-mortem on Saturday, and no foul play was found.

The deceaseds husband said she was depressed for the last few days. The suicide note also said she is taking the extreme step because she is depressed, said the police officer.

The Samata Nagar police station on Sunday registered a suicide case.

The police has initiated an inquiry and will record statements of Neelimas family memer. As of now, the Samata Nagar police has not found anything suspicious.
News / National

by Staff reporter

President Robert Mugabe has declared that he is not prepared to step down despite his old age, and growing concern over his health.Mugabe told thousands of his ruling Zanu-PF supporters at a rally held at Chinhoyi University of Technology that he was still fit to continue as president of the southern African country.The veteran leader, whose party was battling internal fissures caused by his failure to groom a successor in his 37 years in power, said he would remain in office because his party was sharply divided and he did not have faith that any other member of his party would be able to square off with former premier Morgan Tsvangirai of the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party in an election."Some people would want to be president of this country. Some are saying the president is going but I am not going anywhere. Some are saying I'm dying but I am not dying," said Mugabe.Mugabe, 93, said he feared that at the present time any person who wanted to succeed him would be trounced by Tsvangirai in an election.Zimbabweans were set to go for polls in 2018.'My organs are still very strong'Zanu-PF was currently divided into two distinct factions that were battling to take over from Mugabe when he eventually left office. One faction was reportedly led by Mugabe's deputy Emmerson Mnangagwa, while another faction made up of Young Turks was pushing First Lady Grace Mugabe to torpedo Mnangagwa's presidential ambitions by having her succeed her ageing husband."Anyone who wants to take over will need time to be accepted by the people. There is no unity in the party at the moment and the MDC will have a field day if someone new is to contest against Tsvangirai," said the nonagenarian.The nonagenarian's declaration that he was not ready to leave office was made only a few days after his wife Grace urged him to name his successor.Mugabe's remarks came at a time when Tsvangirai and other pro-democracy groups in the southern African country had called on the Zimbabwean strongman to relinquish power for failing to run the affairs of the impoverished nation.Spokesperson of the Tajamuka pressure group, Promise Mkwananzi, said that Mugabe was no longer fit for purpose and should step aside for new blood to take over."He [Mugabe] is old and frail and he must therefore resign because he is incapacitated to lead the country," said Mkwananzi.However, Mugabe - who has made numerous trips to Singapore for medical attention - said he still had the energy to continue as president of Zimbabwe."My doctors have told me that my organs are still very strong. They were surprised that my bones are still very strong and I pray that God will continue to give me the gift of life," said the veteran leader.
Seven years after its introduction, Google has dropped Instant Search.

Google has taken down its landmark Instant Search feature. Instant Search, which was first introduced in 2010, automatically populated search results as the user typed in a query. Introduced under the guidance of Marissa Mayer, the then vice-president of the company, the feature played a major role in changing how users obtained information on the Internet, while cutting back on the time it took to do so. Google had estimated that it would collectively help save millions of seconds per hour by surfacing results as fast as possible. Today, the intention behind killing the Instant Search feature is to make it more mobile device friendly.

The company observed that over half of the searches on Google are coming from mobiles these days. The number of searches coming from desktops is decreasing at a fast rate. Moreover, since fingers and virtual buttons are used while interacting with the software, Instant Search does not make much sense. In a statement given to a popular online tech magazine, a Google spokesperson explained the change.





We launched Google Instant back in 2010 with the goal to provide users with the information they need as quickly as possible, even as they typed their searches on desktop devices. Since then, many more of our searches happen on mobile, with very different input and interaction and screen constraints. With this in mind, we have decided to remove Google Instant, so we can focus on ways to make search even faster and more fluid on all devices, the spokesperson says.

Now, as the users type in a query, they will only see search suggestions and can click on those suggestions to see the results. The search will not load any result pages without clicking on a search suggestion or clicking enter.
Pakistan lawyers appear confused after Sharif sentencing/

Islamabad: Is Nawaz Sharif disqualified for life, or is there a possibility of him staging a comeback? A day after the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from holding public office, legal experts and political observers appear equally confused, as are ordinary Pakistani citizens.

When asked about the duration of Mr Sharifs ouster from Pakistans active politics was put to seasoned lawyers, most seemed confused. Some said the question needed to be addressed since it has remain unanswered for far too long, Dawn reported.

A five-member bench disqualified Mr Sharif under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, which state that a member of the Parliament should be truthful and righteous. Tariq Mehmood, former president of the Supreme Court bar association, told the newspaper that a larger bench of the Supreme Court was seized with a number of cases, including those of Samina Khawar Hayat and Mohammad Haneef, in which the moot point was to determine whether disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution was perpetual or not. Former chief justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, hearing one of such cases, had wondered how anyone could be disqualified from participating in elections forever on the basis of articles 62 and 63, saying people could reform themselves to be qualified under the provisions at some point of time.

Senior lawyer Raheel Kamran Sheikh recalled that former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was disqualified on June 19, 2012, from parliament for committing contempt of court under Article 63, which specified disqualification for five years.

Unfortunately under Article 62(1)(f) no period of disqualification has been specified, he said, but endorsed what Mehmood observed.

Sheikh said some cases were pending to determine should the application of Article 62(1)(f) be restricted to the current election or to all times to come.

He said the Supreme Court was in a catch-22 situation, since by citing the reasons for disqualification of Sharif, it lowered the threshold for ineligibility of elected members to such an extent that too many heads might roll in future.

Through the Panama Papers judgement, he feared, the balance of power had been tilted in favour of the Supreme Court and the qualification of lawmakers had been threatened.

He said if the judgement was implemented across the board, the parliamentarians, feeling threatened, might react by getting together for a constitutional amendment aimed at curtailing or restricting the scope of powers under Article 62 of the Constitution.

One the other hand, vice chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council Ahsan Bhoon said the disqualification of Sharif was forever.

To support his observation, he cited the 2013 Abdul Ghafoor Lehri case in which former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had held that under Article 63, there were certain disqualifications which were of temporary nature and a person disqualified under Article 63 could become qualified after the lapse of a certain period, whereas the disqualification under Article 62 was permanent.

Thus, Article 62 did not provide any period after which a person, who had been disqualified under the provision, could be eligible to contest elections of parliament, he said. Former additional attorney general Tariq Khokhar also said that Sharif had been disqualified for life since ineligibility for not being sadiq and ameen was forever.
Nawaz Sharifs brother Shehbaz, the 65-year-old Punjab CM, cannot immediately replace take over as Prime Minister as he is not an MP.

Islamabad: Pakistans ruling PML-N party on Saturday named former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the interim Prime Minister until ousted premier Nawaz Sharifs younger brother and Punjab chief minister Shehbaz is elected as a member of Parliament to be his eventual successor till the 2018 polls.

The decision was taken at a meeting chaired by Nawaz Sharif and attended by the partys top leaders who rallied behind the Sharifs, the countrys most powerful political family.

Nawaz Sharif proposed the two names for partys formal approval. The parliamentary board approved the nomination by Sharif as mark of trust in him, a party leader told PTI. But Shehbaz, the 65-year-old chief minister of Punjab, cannot immediately replace his brother as he is not an MP.

Abbasi, the 58-year-old loyalist of Nawaz Sharif, is expected to serve for 45 days and will resign to let Shehbaz succeed as permanent premier, party sources said. Shehbaz will contest the election from NA-120, a constituency in Lahore which has fallen vacant due to the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif.

The Supreme Court on Friday disqualified 67-year-old Nawaz Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the embattled leader out of office.

The courts ruling abruptly ended Nawaz Sharifs third tenure as Prime Minister and forced the partys top leadership to find his successor.

The five-judge bench also ruled to send references against Nawaz Sharif, his children Maryam Nawaz, Hussain Nawaz and Hasan Nawaz, son-in-law Mohammed Safdar and former finance minister Ishaq Dar to an accountability court.

At the Saturday meeting, PML-N also decided to challenge Nawaz Sharifs disqualification through a review petition in the apex court.

Nawaz Sharif was accorded a tremendous welcome when he arrived to chair the meeting. The participants chanted the partys slogan: Dekho dekho kaun aaya, sher aaya sher aaya. (Look who has come, lion has come.) Lion is PML-Ns election symbol.
Shahid Abbasi was appointed oil minister when Nawaz Sharif won his third election in 2013.

Islamabad: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who is set to become Pakistans interim Prime Minister, is the former federal minister for petroleum and natural resources, and a businessman who launched the countrys most successful private airline.

Considered highly intelligent and a long-time loyalist of Nawaz Sharif, the former Prime Minister who was ousted by the Supreme Court on Friday, the 58-year-old Abbasi will act as a placeholder for the Sharif dynasty.

He is due to be rubber stamped by in a parliamentary vote as Prime Minister until Sharifs younger brother Shahbaz, a provincial minister, can be elected to the national assembly and take over the leadership.

Mr Abbasi was appointed oil minister when Nawaz Sharif won his third election in 2013. Educated in the US at George Washington University, he was born in Karachi but is a member of the National Assembly from Murree.

Mr Abbasi has been elected six times as a member of the National Assembly. In 2003, he setup a private airline Air Blue, the countrys most successful private airline and challenger to PIA.
The four Arab states cut ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of backing terrorist groups and cozying up to their arch-foe Iran.

Qatar has denied allegations that it has been backing terror groups. (Photo: AP)

Dubai: Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain are expected to discuss imposing new economic sanctions on Qatar when they meet in the Bahraini capital Manama on Sunday, the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper reported.

The four Arab states cut ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of backing terrorist groups and cozying up to their arch-foe Iran, allegations Doha denies.

Foreign ministers of the four countries "are expected to impose sanctions that will gradually affect the Qatari economy", al-Hayat newspaper said, citing unidentified Gulf sources, without giving any further details.

Bahrain's state news agency BNA said on Saturday that King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa had hailed cooperation between the four countries in fighting terrorism.

Diplomatic efforts led by Kuwait and involving the United States and Turkey have failed to end the row, which has affected travel and communications between Qatar and the four countries and led to harsh verbal exchanges in the media.

Saudi Arabia has closed its land border with Qatar while all four countries have cut air and sea links with Doha, demanding the gas exporting country take several measures to show it was changing its policies.

Turkey and Iran have stepped in to provide fresh produce, poultry and dairy products to Qatar instead of Saudi Arabia and the UAE, with Oman providing alternative ports to those in the UAE.

The four Arab countries added 18 more groups and individuals they say are linked to Qatar to their terrorist lists last week.
In the meantime, the PML-N which enjoys a majority in parliament, has nominated ex-oil minister Shahid Abbasi as interim prime minister.

The ruling party named Sharif's younger brother Shahbaz as his successor over the weekend, but he must first enter parliament by contesting the seat left vacant by Sharif. (Photo: Representational/AFP)

Islamabad: Pakistan's parliament will meet on Tuesday to elect a new prime minister after the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif following an investigation into corruption allegations against his family.

The ruling party named Sharif's younger brother Shehbaz as his successor over the weekend, but he must first enter parliament by contesting the seat left vacant by Sharif.

In the meantime the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which enjoys a majority in parliament, has nominated ex-oil minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as interim prime minister.

Read: Pakistan's deposed PM Sharif names brother Shehbaz as successor

The top court ousted Sharif on Friday after an investigation into corruption allegations against him and his family, bringing his historic third term in power to an unceremonious end.

"The nomination papers --- shall be delivered to the Secretary, National Assembly by 2.00 pm, on Monday," said a notification by the National Assembly Secretariat and seen by AFP.

It said the assembly would meet at 3:30 pm IST on Tuesday for the "election of the Prime Minister".

The younger Sharif -- who is chief minister of the country's most populous province of Punjab -- has so far been unscathed by the corruption allegations engulfing his brother's family.

Read: Shahid Abbasi to be interim Pak PM till Sharif's brother Shehbaz takes over

However he only holds only a provincial seat and therefore must be elected to the national assembly before becoming prime minister.

On Saturday the Election Commission said fresh elections would be held in Nawaz Sharif's former constituency, in the family's power base in Punjab, in a process that could take up to 45 days.

Abbasi is set to be rubber-stamped as placeholder in the parliamentary vote.

The opposition could also field a candidate but has little chance of securing enough votes in the 342-seat house.
Pope Francis has Hail Mary recited at the Angelus to support the victims of trafficking and convert the hearts of traffickers. The world seems to be getting used to this "aberrant plague", which is ugly, cruel, criminal!" The pontiff mentioned the parables of the treasure and precious pearl. The quest "is the essential condition for finding". The discovery of the treasure and the pearl entails "sacrifice, detachment and renunciation. The joy of the farmer and merchant in the parable "is the joy of each of us when we discover the closeness and consoling presence of Jesus in our lives."

Vatican City (AsiaNews)  Pope Francis issued a strong appeal against human trafficking, a form of "modern slavery". At the end of Angelus's prayer with pilgrims in St Peter's Square, the pontiff said that today is World Day against Trafficking in Persons promoted by the United Nations".

"Every year, thousands of men, women and children are innocent victims of labour and sexual exploitation and organ trafficking, he said. It seems that we are so accustomed to it that we consider it a normal thing. This is ugly, cruel, criminal! I would like to call on everyone to counter this aberrant plague, a form of modern slavery. Let us pray together to the Virgin Mary to support the victims of trafficking and convert the hearts of traffickers. Let us pray together to Our Lady: Hail Mary . . .".

Earlier, Francis spoke about todays gospel (17th Sunday, Year A, Matthew 13:44-52), in particular the two parables about the treasure hidden in the field and the precious pearl, for which the farmer "decides to put at risk all of his possessions in order not to miss a very exceptional opportunity," and the merchant who "decides to bet everything on that pearl, to the point of selling everything" else he has.

"These similarities point to two characteristics concerning the possession of the Kingdom of God: quest and sacrifice. The Kingdom of God is offered to everyone, but it is not made available on a silver plate; it requires dynamism: it is about seeking, walking, doing. The attitude of quest is the essential condition for finding. It is necessary that the heart burn from the desire to attain the precious good, that is, the Kingdom of God that is present in the person of Jesus. He is the hidden treasure, he is the pearl of great value. He is the fundamental discovery, which can become a turning point in our lives, filling it with meaning."

"Estimating the irreplaceable value of the treasure leads to decisions that also involves sacrifice, detachment and renunciation, Francis explained. When the treasure and the pearl are discovered, when we find the Lord, we must not let this discovery become sterile; we instead must sacrifice everything else to it. It is not a question of despising the rest, but of subordinating it to Jesus, placing Him in first place, placing grace in first place. Christs disciple is not the one who deprived himself of something essential; it is the one who has found much more: he found the full joy that only the Lord can give. It is the evangelical joy of the healed patient, the forgiven sinner, the thief to whom the door of paradise has been opened."

"The joy of the Gospel fills the heart and the whole life of those who encounter Jesus. Those who let themselves be saved by Him are freed from sin, sadness, inner void, and isolation. With Jesus Christ, joy is always born and reborn (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, No. 1). Today we are exhorted to contemplate the joy of the farmer and merchant in the parable. It is the joy of each of us when we discover the proximity and consoling presence of Jesus in our lives. This presence transforms the heart and opens us to the needs and the acceptance of our fellow human brings, especially the weaker ones. Let us pray, through the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so that each of us may know, with daily words and deeds, the joy of finding the treasure of the Kingdom of God, that is, the love that the Father has given us through Jesus.
Contact Californian columnist Lois Henry at 661-395-7373 or lhenry@bakersfield.com. Her work appears on Sundays and Wednesdays; the views expressed are her own.
Opinion / Columnist

March towards the complete emancipation of the African continent

Ensure that African development goals are predicated on unity for equal levels of development

Make it known that the fate of African countries are and peoples are intertwined

Unite African nations through sound regional bodies

Ensure collective self reliance

Oppose external economic and political involvement of the continent

Guarantee power consolidation in Africa

Re-allocate global resources as well as unleashing fiercer psychological energy and political assertion that would unsettle social and political (power) structures in the Americas.

Act and compete on the world stage as do other large entities, such as the European Union and the United States.

Make sure that there is an end to racialism and segregation

Conserve the African culture or rather the African way of doing things.

Ensure independence from the Europeans

Be proud of being African and also the African languages

Further integration whether political, social or economic.

Today I am going to look briefly at Pan Africanism ideology. This ideology has its roots from the time of slave trade and colonization of the peoples of Africa. However, the need to extricate African states from the yoke of bondage imposed onto them by the white men made most African states to stand in unity and solidarity with utmost sagacity and tenacity against a common enemy and with a common goal of liberation from these ruthless imperialists.Pan Africanism as an ideology seeks to integrate Africans in all spheres whether political, social, economic and religious. Some of its advocates are inclusive of Malcom X, Ahmed Sekou Toure, Julius Nyerere, Haile Selassie, Marcus Garvey, Kwame Nkrumah and academics such as W. E. D. Dubois among others.It is crucial to note at this juncture that pan Africanism as an intellectual movement extends beyond continental Africans. The movement has a substantial support base among the African Diaspora in the Caribbean, Latin America and the United States of America. "African people both on the continent and in the Diaspora share not merely a common history but a common destiny''.The African cause inspired convergence of African leaders and the first conference to discuss African issues was convened by Henry Sylvester - William in 1900 in London. The success of this symposium painstakingly revealed and made plain that the African people can unite for the achievement of prescribed goals. Delegates of this remarkable conference conversed on the need to create a movement that would campaign for the rights of the African. Fundamentally, the conference created "oneness in experience".Series of pan - African Congresses spearheaded by DuBois were held between 1919 - 1945 and these were successful. Ostensibly, the 1945 Congress marked a watershed for the eventual decolonization of the African continent through the declarations to end colonial rule and racial discrimination.The 1945 Declarations did not only perpetuate visions and hopes of a United Africa but also injected a dosage of militancy which nourished the struggle for national independence. The 26 delegates included Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Obajemi Awolowo of Nigeria, Jomo Kenyatta of Kenya and Hastings Banda.The liberation of Ghana in March 1957 paved way for other African countries to come up with sound courses of action towards their much needed independence. Kwame Nkrumah became the icon of Pan - Africanism and he acknowledged the efforts of American and West Indians of African origin in the development of Africanism; the likes of Marcus Garvey.To safeguard the sovereignty and territorial integrity of member states, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was established in 1963. The same organization would further promote the global relations within the framework of the United Nations. A United State of Africa was what Gaddafi really wanted after he took leadership from Nkrumah in 1972.The Pan - African ideology seeks among a multiplicity of considerations to:The contemporary politics has revealed that the relevance of Pan Africanism as an ideology is now questionable.Unity or integration in today's political sphere is limited. The current political dispensation is more like a "One man For Himself and God for Us All" situation as argued by Lord Castlereagh. Therefore, the fate of African countries is not intertwined as it was meant to be. Africans collaborated for the sake of extricating themselves from the shackles of imperialism and soon after that it proved that collaboration was getting weak.We cannot talk of homogeneity in terms of economic development. South Africa, for example, has proved to be economically progressive than the rest of African countries due to a plethora of reasons. Its development levels cannot be compared to that of Somalia for instance.Regional Economic Integration is limited among Africans. Some states within Africa prefer integration with other bodies outside the African continent. This to me reveals that local regional bodies aren't progressive and are existential for formality sake or mere talk shows otherwise they aren't beneficial to the member states.Therefore, divided attention means that some member states will therefore show their allegiance where their interests are best served. South Africa, for instance, is a member of BRICS (Britain, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). South Africa is therefore better served by this regional bloc as it enhanced her development plan other than Regional and Economic Bodies in Africa.The pan African ideology is in a quagmire as there is no religious commitment to the notion of disengagement from the West. The current Look East Policy which most African States have endorsed has become more dogmatic for the majority of African countries.It is quite unimpressive and paradoxical that in as much as the Africans lament of the Look East Policy, they are actually looking directly West from a very close point of view. Therefore, external influence is still existential and neo - colonialism is so rampant.Most Africans are suffering from schizophrenia and this already underscores the notion of African identity. Empowerment among Africans is still limited as of now.Arise Oh Africa!Stand your Ground!Defend the African Cause!No to Neo Colonialism!We Need Sound and Effective Regional Bodies!Let us BE Proud Africans!Let US be Conscious Africans, LET US EXERCISE OUR HARD EARNED FREEDOM!!!LET US WORK TO DEVELOP OUR CONTINENT!TOGETHER WE CAN MAKE IT!ARISE AFRICA, ARISE! LET US ARISE TO DEFEND THE AFRICAN CAUSE, YES WE CAN!Written by Patricia Masiyakurima, A 3RD Year Student in the Department of Politics and Public Management, Midlands State University, Zimbabwe.
Opinion / Columnist

'One thing I would like to urge progressive Zimbabweans is never to allow your attention on critical issues in this country to be diverted by Grace Mugabe's venom which she usually spit every time she gets an opportunity to hold the mic. People must focus on Rita (Rita Makarau, the Chairperson of the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission) because as we all put our focus on the Lacoste and G40 fight I suspect Rita is busy helping the regime to steal the coming 2018 polls as usual whilst they try to divert our attention with their cheap intra party fights just like the Baba Jukwa debacle of 2013'If ZANU PF is being torn apart by the internal fights over the succession issue 'regai dzitungane dzomudanga' that has nothing to do with the pro-democracy movement let them deal with their burning house. People are over rating Grace Mugabe giving her unnecessary attention whereas the most important person who deserves all our eyes and attention (this reminds me of Tupac's All Eyes On Me) is Rita Makarau the Head of ZEC because whatever she is doing and brewing behind scenes is critical and very important as it determines whether the coming polls will be free and fair or not. The internal fights within ZANU PF that's their own baby to feed and none of our business and there is nothing for the opposition to celebrate as this does not guarantee them victory either. After following the Chiwundura by-election recently I realized that the rigging machination in this country is very serious and well advanced that having a free poll on this land is still a long way to go. The pro-democracy movement must put all it's energy on demanding an even ground in 2018 and before allowing yourselves to have your attention diverted by the Lacoste and G40 tug of war ask yourselves the following questions;Is Zimbabwe ready for a free and fair poll in the coming 2018?Why is ZEC delaying BVR as if it does not have political will to implement it?Even if BVR is done does that guarantee us a free poll is the data not gonna be tempered with or used to intimidate people?The issue of proof residence on registering to vote is it not gonna disadvantage the youths out there who are the majority of the electorate?If Mugabe appoints the third Vice President is it going to end in ZANU PF structures or this VP will also be appointed in government burdening taxpayers?We are now a few months before the polls why is that only ZANU PF is given coverage on the national TV when will they start to give all contesting parties equal media coverage?There are a lot of critical issues which deserves our attention not Grace's venom it's neither here nor there let her bark herself out you and I must keep focused on demanding conditions which will enable a free and a fair poll in 2018 which will respect the will of the people of Zimbabwe in 2018. Don't forget how millions of Zimbabweans were fooled by Baba Jukwa in 2013 and every morning many people (myself included) could wake up and check updates on Baba Jukwa's page and spend the whole day debating about it yet they were busy stealing elections behind scenes. To date no one knows how 2013 polls were stolen because we were all busy following Baba Jukwa's dramma.Are were not falling into the same trap this time again following those interface rallies and debating about how Grace spits venom on people like George Charamba who for his whole life used all his brains, bones and marrow to build and defend Robert Mugabe? Once again let me repeat myself, that's their own baby to feed and let them (ZANU PF) deal with their burning house, that's none of my business. But all our eyes must be on Rita she deserves our attention more than Grace. Food for thought.Nkosilathi Emmanuel Moyo, Snr is a human rights defender and democracy activist based in Kwekwe, Zimbabwe. He writes in his personal capacity and he is reachable on his Whatsapp +32485850059
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Related: Xi attends parade in Inner Mongolia as PLA marks birthday

President Xi Jinping ordered the country's military to further improve its combativeness and stay loyal to the Party after he observed a massive military parade in the field for the first time on Sunday.

China showcased its real combat capabilities at a training base in Inner Mongolia autonomous region to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Xi, also the chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected the troops on Sunday morning at the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, about 400 kilometers northwest of Beijing.

"I firmly believe that today we are closer than any time in history to achieving the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and we need more than any time in history to build strong people's military," Xi said after the parade.

"The Party and the Chinese people are proud to have such heroic military," he said.

Xi also urged all soldiers and officers to enhance political awareness, resolutely obey orders from the central leadership and improve combat readiness through reforms and innovations, thus to build the PLA into a world-class force.

"I firmly believe that our heroic military has the confidence and ability to defeat any incoming enemies," Xi said.

This is the first military parade held at the PLA's most advanced training camp, which is also the biggest in Asia. It is also the first time China has held a parade to celebrate the founding of the PLA.

The spectacle involved more than 12,000 troops, 600 pieces of military hardware and more than 100 aircraft of various types, representing the Chinese military's most cutting-edge technology.

All officers and soldiers in the parade are from actual combat units, from cyber warfare to Rocket Force. More than 40 percent of the equipment displayed at the event was showcased for the first time at a parade.

Zhurihe base facts

The Zhurihe base replicates realistic battle conditions in a variety of terrain, such as grasslands, hills and deserts. The training base covers an area of 1,066 square kilometers, almost the same as the land area of Hong Kong, and has its own hospitals and logistic facilities.

Zhurihe has been hosting realistic combat exercises since 2007. Drills, typically involving battles between red and blue units, are designed to get soldiers used to fighting more skillful and better equipped foes.

In 2014, Zhurihe hosted a six-day joint anti-terror drill with forces from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan teaming up with PLA personnel.
United States Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit. RENATE MORALES, on behalf of herself and all other persons similarly situated, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. PROVIDENCE HEALTH SYSTEM - SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, Erroneously Sued As Providence Health and Services, Inc., Defendant-Appellee. No. 16-55072 Decided: July 28, 2017

Before: BEA and HURWITZ, Circuit Judges, and MOTZ,** District Judge.

MEMORANDUM*

After a fall, Renate Morales received twenty physical therapy sessions at a Providence Health System  Southern California (Providence) facility. Medicare made conditional payments for the first twelve sessions, subject to any recovery from an alleged tortfeasor. Instead of billing Medicare for the remaining eight sessions, Providence placed a lien on Morales' tort claim. In this putative class action, Morales claims that Providence's failure to bill Medicare constitutes breach of contract, fraud, negligent misrepresentation, violation of the California Unfair Competition Law and Consumer Legal Remedies Act, and breach of the covenant of good faith and fair dealing. The district court dismissed Morales' first amended complaint without prejudice for failure to exhaust administrative remedies. We affirm.

1. Providence argues that this court does not have jurisdiction over this appeal because the district court dismissal was without prejudice. But, if a district court terminates an action for a claimant's failure to exhaust administrative remedies, we will treat the matter as final unless the claimant could begin anew or continue the administrative process. Barboza v. Cal. Ass'n of Prof'l Firefighters, 651 F.3d 1073, 1076 (9th Cir. 2011). No administrative remedies remain for Morales. The time to appeal administratively any denial of benefits has run. See 42 U.S.C.  1395ff(b)(1)(A); 42 C.F.R.  405.924(b)(12)(ii), 405.980(b)(1)-(2) (setting a time limit on reopening of an initial determination). The dispute resolution process in 42 U.S.C.  1395y(b)(2)(B)(vii)(IV), which the district court cited, applies only to conditional Medicare reimbursements, not to the failure of a Medicare provider to submit a payment in the first place. See id.  1395y(b)(2)(B)(i)-(ii). We therefore have jurisdiction over this appeal.

2. The Medicare Act's exhaustion requirement, 42 U.S.C.  405(h), applies to judicial review of claims arising under the Act. Uhm v. Humana, Inc., 620 F.3d 1134, 1140 (9th Cir. 2010) (quoting Heckler v. Ringer, 466 U.S. 602, 614-15 (1984)); see  405(h) (No findings of fact or decision of the [Secretary] shall be reviewed by any person, tribunal, or governmental agency except as herein provided.);  405(g) (providing that review may be sought in district court only after any final decision of the [Secretary] made after a hearing). A claim arises under the Act (1) where the standing and the substantive basis for the presentation of the claims' is the Medicare Act  and (2) where the claims are inextricably intertwined with a claim for Medicare benefits. Uhm, 620 F.3d at 1140 (quoting Heckler, 466 U.S. at 614-15). Each of Morales' claims is at bottom  complaining about the denial of Medicare benefits and therefore is subject to the exhaustion requirement. Id. at 1142-43.

3. Morales concedes she did not exhaust administrative remedies, but argues that  405 does not apply because she is not seeking review of any decision of the Secretary and is not suing the United States, the Secretary, or any officer or employee thereof. But, Uhm was also a suit by a Medicare beneficiary against a private entity and the Secretary was not a party. Id. at 1145. Morales also argues that she could not be required to exhaust administrative remedies because none existed. But, as the district court noted, [t]o the extent Plaintiff is claiming that [Defendants are] running afoul of the Medicare Act by collecting reimbursement from her in an amount greater than what is permitted under that Act she is making a claim for benefits. The administrative appeals process under 42 U.S.C.  1395ff governs benefits determinations. Alternatively, Morales could have submitted the relevant claims directly to Medicare. See 42 C.F.R.  405.904; see also 20 C.F.R.  422.510(b) (prescribing the use of Form SSA-1490 for patients to request payment).

AFFIRMED.

FOOTNOTES

. We deny both Morales' and Providence's motions for judicial notice. Dkt. 16, 21.
Oregon Heatwave: Inland Possibly 106, Coast May or May Not be a Relief

Published 07/29/2017 at 6:43 PM PDT - Updated 07/29/2017 at 6:53 PM PDT

By Oregon Coast Beach Connection staff





(Manzanita, Oregon)  An excessive heat watch has been issued by the Portland office of the National Weather Service (NWS) for the inland valleys and the Oregon coast range, in effect from Tuesday through Friday evening. It is somewhat likely records will be broken, with Portland and the Willamette Valley reaching over 100 degrees on Wednesday through Friday, and quite possible parts of Oregon may see close to their hottest day ever at around 106 degrees on Wednesday or Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Oregon coast looks more likely than not to be cooler, but maybe not by much. The north coast area (as in Cannon Beach, Seaside, Pacific City) could be in the 90s, while the central coast (such as Newport or Yachats) should be in the 70s.

So far, most predictions have the beaches in the 70s those days, however.

Record high temperatures are likely inland climbing to around 100 Tuesday, heating up to 103 to 108 Wednesday and Thursday with heat possibly continuing into Friday, the NWS said. Low temperatures are expected to remain warm dropping only into the mid 60s to lower 70s.

The timing on all this: temps will keep warming up each day, with Tuesday reaching into the 90s and then higher the next two, three days. The NWS said these record-setting temps will be exasperated by poor nighttime recovery, with lows still near 70 degrees.

There is uncertainty about Friday which could be another record setting heat day, the NWS said.

The Oregon coast, however, is being predicted with some confusing signals on the NWS website. The excessive heat watch notes that higher temps there in the 80s or 90s are possible, especially further north, but the actual forecasts are showing temps in the mid to late week as being in the 70s.

This starts to get explained in the Forecast Discussion section of the NWS' website. A thermal trough is the sticking point for predictors, as it's uncertain right now what it will do to the beaches. It may bring more offshore flow in  or it may not, which would mean higher temps there.

We may need to extend the Heat Watch to the coast tomorrow if the models continue to show any significant offshore flow, the NWS said. If onshore flow to the coast stops, temperatures - especially along the north coast - can shoot up into the upper 90s. Thursday this is likely to be the hottest day inland and we will probably begin seeing a bit of onshore flow Thursday at the coast with lower temperatures.

However, for the inland portion of the state, confidence is quite firm that the heatwave will push conditions well over 100 degrees, but how much over 100 is still  well, up in the air. Meteorologists there also offered some warnings about the accuracy of some weather apps.

This event could be one of the strongest since 2009 when Portland reached 106 on July 28th and 29th, the NWS said. We have tempered some of the extreme numbers coming out of the raw model guidance and people would be wise to be wary of some of the numbers being shown by various automated routines.

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Chattanooga Girls Leadership Academy will begin the new school year Thursday by hosting a week of special activities and celebrations, designed to spark excitement and establish high expectations as the CGLA community returns to the classroom. First week activities begin on Thursday and continue through Wednesday, Aug. 9.

The first week of school is a brief yet critical period for both teachers and students, says Dr Elaine Swafford, CGLA executive director. Acknowledging that students need time to adapt and recalibrate from the relaxing days of summer to the structured educational environment sets a positive tone for the launch of a new school year. By offering a week of transitional programming, faculty and students have the opportunity to interact and connect. They are able to build relationships that nurture academic success.

Dr. Swafford continues by referencing research about school attendance. Studies confirm that students who attend school on the first day are more enthusiastic about their education and more hopeful about their futures. Without question, the programming during first week of school is foundational for improving attendance and achieving high academic performance.

Working throughout the summer, the CGLA faculty coordinated transitional programming to helpstudents start the school year strong and prepared. According to Maryo Beck, CGLA principal, teachers planned activities to elevate the schools commitment to educational excellence. Our schedule encourages exchanges between faculty and students, notes Mr. Beck. For example, students and faculty will engage in open discussions about topics such as bullying, college readiness, community service, careers, financial management, health and wellness, and technology. Activities include a cookout with games, followed by sessions when faculty and

students explore their shared extracurricular interests. Students and faculty will also spend a day traveling together to visit local colleges, learning about emerging STEM careers.

The week concludes with faculty and students participating a variety of team and relationship building exercises, says Dr. Swafford. We want the last day of the first week of school to be the positive beginning for the next 36 weeks of the school year. We want the 2017-2018 school year to be defined by a concept of community and teamwork that instills confidence and cooperation and recognizes the potential of every individual.

For more information about the beginning of the CGLA school year, contact Donna Coleman, director of development, at 618-5362 or donnacoleman@cglaonline.com. For more information about CGLA, visit the schools website at CGLAonline.com.
Hollywood star Nicole Kidman has told how she would love to take on more television roles as she praised the rise of women in the industry.

The Oscar-winning actress, 50, also added that she would like to turn her attention to comedy as she spoke at the Television Critics Association press conference on Saturday.

She took to the stage to talk about her role in Sundance TVs Top Of The Lake: China Girl, alongside Elisabeth Moss, after attending the same event earlier this year for her part in similarly female-led HBO series Big Little Lies.

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According to the Hollywood Reporter magazine, she told the audience at the Beverly Hills event: Would I love to do more TV? Absolutely.

I love that for the two series that Ive done on TV, Im sitting with women up here and that means that the roles are here, the roles are in television and thats really exciting.

As an actor you go where the great roles are.

Expand Close Kidman (right) joins co-stars Gwendoline Christie, Elisabeth Moss and Alice Englert on the panel (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP) AP/PA Images / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kidman (right) joins co-stars Gwendoline Christie, Elisabeth Moss and Alice Englert on the panel (Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP)

Best known for her roles in more hard-hitting dramas and films, which last year included portraying Australian mother Sue Brierley in emotional epic Lion, she said she would like to show her lighter side.

They always say Im not funny, she told reporters. I would love to be able to do a comedy, I never get offered them.

Im willing to fall on my face, Im willing to get back up again. I want to keep trying.
The city centre complex has been bought by investment firm Wirefox

The CastleCourt shopping centre in Belfast has been purchased for 125 million.

Investment firm Wirefox has bought the city centre complex from Hermes Investment Management in one of the largest commercial property deals in Northern Ireland in recent times.

Wirefox, which is based in Holywood, Co Down, said it plans significant capital expenditure in the 365,000 sq ft centre.

The firm is headed by BJ Eastwood, the grandson of well-known bookmaker Barney Eastwood.

Acquisition agents Savills will manage the property.

Ben Turtle, from Savills, said: "Despite the shock of Brexit and ongoing political uncertainty, the retail sector in Northern Ireland continues to perform strongly, with positive retailer performances and robust letting activity.

"With consumer confidence at its highest level since the third quarter of 2015, and the economy expected to grow at a faster rate than previously predicted, we expect Wirefox to reap the benefits of this high-profile acquisition."
Uniformed police officers are to take part in Belfast's gay pride parade for the first time.

Serving Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers will take their place in the colourful annual parade through the city centre next Saturday.

A PSNI spokeswoman said: "Police officers and staff from the Police Service of Northern Ireland have been involved in the Pride parade for many years. However, this is the first time they will have taken part in the parade in uniform."

"There will be a number of senior police representatives at the Pride event."

Belfast Pride comes amid heightened scrutiny throughout the UK on LGBT issues in Northern Ireland after the Democratic Unionists' parliamentary deal with the Conservative Party.

The region's continued ban on same-sex marriage is one of the issues preventing the restoration of a powersharing government in Belfast.

Sinn Fein has said it will only agree to re-enter a coalition administration if the DUP stops blocking a law change.

The DUP has used a controversial Stormont voting mechanism - the petition of concern - to prevent a law change, despite a majority of MLAs supporting the move at the last vote.

The party rejects any suggestion it is homophobic, insisting it is instead protecting the "traditional" definition of marriage.

An estimated 20,000 people marched through Belfast earlier this month calling for the introduction of gay marriage.

Following March's snap Assembly election, the DUP no longer has the electoral strength to deploy a petition of concern in its own right, though it could still potentially combine with other socially conservative MLAs to do so.

That will only be tested once, and if a devolved Assembly can be re-established out of the current political crisis in Belfast.

If the region's politicians fail to establish a new executive, direct rule from Westminster could be re-imposed.

If that were to happen, the responsibility for legislating on the region's marriage laws would be handed to the London government.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Ireland will not help Britain design an economic border for Brexiteers

The Irish Government's latest intervention on Brexit is motivated by politicking for domestic purposes, the DUP claimed.

Nigel Dodds insisted Dublin was positioning for a general election after Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said Ireland will not help Britain design an economic border for Brexiteers.

The southern administration is unconvinced by the UK's plans to use technology to maintain the invisible land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The DUP deputy leader said: "All of this can hardly be put down to inexperience. Rather, it seems to be deliberate positioning by the new team at the helm in Dublin in preparation and positioning for a coming general election.

"Dressed up as grand ideas, what's going on is pure politicking for their own domestic market. Let no one pretend otherwise.

"It's simply taking things backwards at a time when common sense co-operation between our two countries and between the Republic and Northern Ireland is what's needed."

Mr Dodds said there was already an economic border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

"For instance, does he (Mr Varadkar) not realise that every time you cross the border, you need to change currency?

"Or that each jurisdiction is subject to entirely different taxation and financial regimes?

"Since Enda Kenny and Charlie Flanagan departed the scene, confusion seems to be the order of the day."

Mr Varadkar also said he would try to find solutions that would "minimise the damage" to relations between Britain and Ireland, to the peace process and to trading links.

The Times newspaper prompted the exchange after suggesting the Republic's preferred option for a post-Brexit frontier was for customs and immigration checks to be located at ports and airports instead of on land.

Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney told Irish national broadcaster RTE: "There is no proposal that is suggesting that there be a border in the Irish Sea."
Sinn Fein has said the restoration of an Executive is only possible if "rights are implemented and agreements honoured" ahead of a meeting with the Secretary of State.

Sinn Fein's Conor Murphy will tell James Brokenshire on Monday that when talks resume, they should be "short, focused and rigorously impartial".

The Newry and Armagh MLA said: "Sinn Fein is entirely committed to a restoration of the power-sharing institutions but that will only be possible if the British Government get serious about their responsibilities to uphold citizens rights.

"It simply isn't tenable that language rights, marriage equality and the right to coroners inquests are protected everywhere else on these islands except here. I don't think anyone would seriously want an Executive on that basis, where some citizens are denied the right to equal treatment.

"It is entirely reasonable to expect equality of treatment and it is entirely reasonable to expect that previous agreements are honoured. If everyone can sign up to that when the talks resume, the institutions can be restored in a very short space of time."

Last week Mr Brokenshire confirmed that the stalled talks on resolving the devolution crisis will resume next month, earlier than originally expected.

On his visit to the United States, the Secretary of State said he wanted to "press ahead" with renewed negotiations towards the end of August.

The five main Assembly parties - DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP, UUP and Alliance - had not anticipated serious meetings would restart until September.

Mr Murphy added that negotiations should be "short and focused on an early resolution".

"It is certainly Sinn Fein's view that the negotiations should be short and focused on an early resolution".
More than 60 people were forced to spend the night in temporary accommodation after a crane collapsed.

Some have been told they can return to their homes after the 35-metre crane, with a 60-metre jib, was stabilised, having come to rest against the former Primark store in West Street, Reading.

But Thames Valley Police (TVP) warned it could take days to remove the machine from the scene as expert engineers from the Netherlands assess the damage.

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Emergency services were called to the scene at around 2pm on Saturday and 60 residential properties were evacuated.

A total of 62 residents were re-homed by Reading Borough Council overnight, with others preferring to arrange to stay with friends and family.

Superintendent Robert France said firefighters worked with others to stabilise the machine.

The crane has now been stabilised and the fire service has left the scene, however TVP and Reading Borough Council remain at the scene, he said.

Although the crane has been stabilised, the jib of the crane is damaged, therefore expert engineers from the Netherlands are travelling to the UK today to assess the damage. It is possible that it may take a number of days to repair the jib and remove the crane from the scene.

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Residents of Cheapside, Oxford Road and West Street south of Primark have been told they can return to their homes, as well as those who access their properties from Friar Street.

But those who live in Friar Street, with access from West Street, and some West Street residents are still not able to return home.

West Street remains closed, but all other road closures have been lifted.

Supt France said: We apologise for any inconvenience to residents, however our main priority is your safety. Thankfully, no one has been injured during the incident.

For those residents that are unable to return to your properties at this time, if you need access to essential items inside your homes such as medicines or baby food, please present yourself to the police cordon and officers will attempt to assist you.

He added that the Health and Safety Executive has been informed of the incident.
Searching the Scriptures is a commendable work. Acts 17:11 praises the Bereans, Now these were more noble-minded than those in Thessalonica, for they received the word with great eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see whether these things were so. (NASU) We need to remember that there is a right way and a wrong way to search the Scriptures. The Bible is a book like no other. Rather than one book, it is a library of books. Each book stands alone as a complete literary work on its own. However, each book fits together marvelously to form a unified work. Remove any one of the books and what is left is an incomplete picture of God and His redemptive work. It is easy to fall into legalism, looking for some rules to follow that we think will earn Gods approval. It is also easy to think we can find a formula for a better earthly life. These miss the point.

Jesus gave a clear word on the right way and the wrong way to search the Scriptures in John 5:39-47, You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; it is these that testify about Me; and you are unwilling to come to Me so that you may have life. I do not receive glory from men; but I know you, that you do not have the love of God in yourselves. I have come in My Father's name, and you do not receive Me; if another comes in his own name, you will receive him. How can you believe, when you receive glory from one another and you do not seek the glory that is from the one and only God? Do not think that I will accuse you before the Father; the one who accuses you is Moses, in whom you have set your hope. For if you believed Moses, you would believe Me, for he wrote about Me. But if you do not believe his writings, how will you believe My words?" (NASU) This is a portion of a lengthy response that Jesus gave to religious leaders who were seeking to kill Him because He was, in their opinion, breaking the Sabbath and also equating Himself with deity.

Jesus point goes right to the heart of the issue. It is possible for us to do exactly as the Pharisees did, going over the Scripture with a fine toothed comb, diligently looking for rules to keep, believing that this would make us righteous. Rather, Jesus calls on us to search the Scriptures looking for Him, because it is Him that all of the Scripture points to. Remember that Jesus is speaking specifically about the Old Testament. Certainly the New Testament speaks directly of Jesus, but the Old Testament also does so even if sometimes in shadowy types and pictures. The Old Testament historical narratives, laws, sacrifices, genealogies, poetic wisdom literature, and prophecy all testify about Jesus. If we read the Old Testament looking for anything other than the promised Messiah we will miss the main thing.

Jesus went on to say that the eternal life the Pharisees thought they could find in legalism could never be found there. Eternal life can only be found in coming in faith to the One the Scriptures testify about. The Pharisees thought that they believed Moses but they did not because they did not understand (or perhaps they did not want to understand) what Moses and others had written about in the Old Testament. The Bible is first and last a record of the Creative and Redemptive work of God. Please do not search it in vain.
Met Police said Chambers admitted possessing a firearm, possessing ammunition without a certificate and having class A drugs with intent to supply (Kirsty O'Connor/PA)

A gangster who hid a gun linked to two murders and stashed hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of cocaine has been jailed for a decade, Scotland Yard said.

Andre Chambers, 34, of Woolwich in south-east London, had evaded detectives for three years before his capture, and admitted the charges at Croydon Crown Court on Friday July 28, according to the Met.

Chambers, of Harlinger Street, had earlier pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm, possessing ammunition without a certificate and two counts of having class A drugs with intent to supply.

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In September 2013, officers found a hidden 9mm Glock handgun, eight bullets and hundreds of grams of high-purity cocaine at a property in Southwark that Chambers was living in.

Forensic analysis found it was used to murder 24-year-old Errol Davis at a nightclub near London Bridge in 2008. It was also linked to the murder of 25-year-old Larry Safie in East Dulwich in 2009. It was further found to have been used in two attempted murders in both 2007 and 2009.

Scotland Yard said Chambers did not commit the killings, but was holding the gun for other gang members.

A man was arrested and charged over the murders of Safie and Davis but was acquitted following a trial. Inquiries continue in both investigations, the Met said.

Chambers was caught in a minicab near Woolwich Ferry in October last year, more than a year-and-a-half after a 20,000 reward was offered for information on his location.

Acting Detective Inspector Martin Thorpe said a dangerous man was off the streets following the three-year hunt.

He added: Chambers did everything he could to evade capture and no doubt got complacent and thought he had got away with the offences committed in 2013. I hope his sentence serves as a warning to those intent on concealing weapons and dealing drugs, we will continue to pursue you no matter the length of time.
The search for a missing five-year-old girl believed to be with her father, who is wanted by police, has moved to the Republic of Ireland.

Molly Owens is thought to be with Brian Owens, 26, who has a warrant out for his arrest.

Owens failed to turn up at Caernarfon Magistrates Court in North Wales on Friday for sentencing. North Wales Police have not said what offences he had committed.

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Police now say they believe father and daughter are in Ireland with 31-year-old Elaine Doutch.

Superintendent Jane Banham of North Wales Police said: Our investigation is ongoing and we are still appealing for information from anybody who may have been in contact with Brian Owens to get in touch with us.

From our inquiries we believe they are in the Republic of Ireland with a woman by the name of Elaine Doutch, and we are in close contact with our colleagues at the Garda who are assisting us.

We just want to ensure that Molly is safe and well and are issuing a direct appeal for her to be returned home.

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Molly is described as having collar-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She sometimes wears pink glasses.

It is now known that she was last seen wearing a dark blue T-shirt with a light pattern on the front, blue jeans and trainers. She is also believed to have been carrying a toy similar to a teddy bear.

Brian Owens is described as being 5ft 9in and of slim build. He has short brown hair and blue eyes.

He was last seen wearing a white top, dark trousers and trainers and was carrying a blue jacket.

Ms Doutch was seen wearing a black top, grey cardigan, dark trousers and white trainers.

Anyone with information is asked to contact North Wales Police quoting reference number V113559.
Police have thwarted a terrorist plot to bring down a plane, arresting four men in raids on homes in Sydney's suburbs.

Prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said security had been increased at Sydney Airport since Thursday because of the plot.

The measures were extended to all major international and domestic terminals around Australia overnight.

"I can report that there has been a major joint counter-terrorism operation to disrupt a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane," Mr Turnbull said.

"The operation is continuing."

Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colivn said details were scant on the specifics of the attack, the location and timing.

"In recent days, law enforcement has been become aware of information that suggested some people in Sydney were planning to commit a terrorist attack using an improvised devise," he said.

"We are investigating information indicating the aviation industry was potentially a target of that attack."

Mr Turnbull advised travellers in Australia to arrive at airports earlier than usual - two hours before departure - to allow for extra security screening, and minimise carry-on baggage.

Justice minister Michael Keenan said the plot was the 13th significant threat disrupted by police since Australia's terror threat level was elevated in 2014.

Five plots have been executed.

"The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors, but the events overnight remind us that there is still the ability for people to have sophisticated plots and sophisticated attacks still remain a real threat," Mr Keenan said.

"In light of this information, it's very important that everyone in Australia remains vigilant."

The operation was carried out by the Australian Federal Police, New South Wales state police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the country's main domestic spy agency.

The investigation could continue for days, Mr Colvin said.

Seven Network television said 40 riot squad officers wearing gas masks stormed an inner-Sydney house before an explosives team found a suspicious device.

A woman led from a raid by police with her head covered told Nine Network Television: "I love Australia."

AP

Deakin University security expert Greg Barton said the first plot to target aircraft in Australia, the highest aspiration of many extremists, was a "pretty big threshold moment".

The plotters were apparently making a peroxide-based explosive device rather than using nitrate-based chemicals that can be detected by airport security swab tests, he said.

Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi used such a peroxide-based explosive, triacetone triperoxide, better known as TATP, to kill 22 concert-goers in Britain on May 22.

"TATP's called Mother of Satan because it often kills the bomb maker because it's very unstable as it's mixed," Mr Barton said.

"But if it's mixed well, it can be very potent and a small amount can be enough to bring an aircraft down if it's done very, very expertly."

He said the plan most likely was to take the explosive on board in carry-on luggage unless there was a baggage handler involved who could ensure that a stowed bomb exploded near the fuselage where it would be most damaging.

"The speculation is that the bombers would like to put it in carry-on luggage so they can be sure of getting it placed near the fuselage skin," Mr Barton said, adding however that putting something in a suitcase was "a lottery whether it ends up near the outside of the luggage hold or packed near the middle".

There was no evidence that airport security had been compromised, Mr Colvin said.

"We believe it's Islamic-inspired terrorism," he said, when asked if the Islamic State terror group was behind the plot.

AP
Men are rounded up during a drug raid at a community in Manila, July 20, 2017.

A mayor, his wife and at least 13 others were killed Sunday when Philippine police launched predawn raids at the homes of local politicians accused by President Rodrigo Duterte of being drug traffickers.

Among those killed was Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog of southern Ozamiz city, his wife, Susan, and brother, Octavio, who was a town official. A daughter, Nova Princess, who is the mayors deputy, was arrested.

The raids occurred less than a week after Duterte vowed to continue with his anti-narcotics war amid criticism from rights groups.

Several kilos of methamphetamine hydrochloride and high powered firearms were seized from six homes owned by the Parojinogs, according to officials.

Police said the raiding team were met with a volley of fire from the mayors private militia, triggering a gun battle that lasted about two hours. One policeman was hurt but was said to be out of danger.

There was gunfire coming from the security of the Parojinogs, forcing the policemen to retaliate, local police spokesman Supt. Lemuel Gonda said.

Private militia members employed by the mayor were killed in the gun battle, according to officials. Ozamiz police chief Jovie Espenido said 15 were killed in the raids, the Associated Press reported.

A separate raid at the home of another of the mayors brothers, village councilor Ricardo Parojinog, yielded several weapons and drugs, but he escaped and is the subject of a manhunt, police said.

War on drugs

The Parojinogs were among those named last year by President Duterte as among about 150 local officials and politicians involved in drugs. The family denied the accusation.

At least two other mayors allegedly linked to drugs were killed in 2016.

In November, Albuera mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. was killed in his jail cell during a shootout with police after being arrested on drug charges in October. Also in October, another mayor, Samsudin Dimaukom, was gunned down by police officers near the southern region of Maguindanao after he allegedly rammed through a checkpoint and fired at them.

Sundays raid came less than a week after Duterte vowed in Congress he would carry on with his drugs war that has left thousands dead since he took office last year, despite widespread condemnation from rights group.

In his state of the union speech on Monday, Duterte asked critics, including the United States, the European Union as well as the United Nations, to instead educate the public on the scourge rather than condemning him.

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, Duterte said.

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.

Police said at least 2,700 alleged drug addicts and drug peddlers have been killed since Duterte became president last year. About 5,700 drug-related deaths were under investigation including those blamed on vigilantes.

The government has denied having a hand in the killings and said they could be part of a purge by warring drug gangs amid the governments large-scale drug war.
Pole sitter David Brannon of Elora, Tn., survived a flurry of mid-race cautions to win the 10th annual Firecracker 50 Saturday night/early Sunday morning at Fort Payne Motor Speedway.

Brannon, in his Longhorn Chassis powered by a Clements Race Engine and sponsored by Elora Gin and Brannon Cotton Farms, led all 50 laps to collect a $3,000 payday, winning by seven-tenths of a second ahead of a bunch of "Bama-Brigade" racers.

The event was finally put in the books on the third attempt, due to continuous interruptions from Mother-Nature back during the previous weeks. At the conclusion 12 cars finished the race, with 10 completing all 50 circuits.

Brannon's qualifying mark of 13.496 seconds set a new track record of the 27 total Super Late Model entrants. Defending race champion Josh Putnam of Florence, Ala., ran second early before slipping to sixth. Local racers Robert Gant and current SLM track points leader JT Seawright finished closely behind Brannon at the checkers.

Picking up 13 spots, Daniel Miller of Lynchburg, Tn., finished eighth after starting 21st. Heath Hindman of Signal Mtn. Tn won the B-Main, while Darrell Hayes and Teddy Snow used track points provisionals to make up the 24 car starting field.

Fans were treated to a second straight "Fan Appreciation Night" at the track with a Fireworks Show and a discounted $12 general admission ticket.

Phenix City, Ala., Richie Stephens and Pelham, Georgia's Jason Price split the twin UCRA 602/Sportsman features, both of whom race in the Phenix City (AL) area on a regular basis and had never been to Fort Payne before Saturday . Stephens has now won four out of the last five races in the 602/Sportsman UCRA Mini Series between Fort Payne and his East Alabama Motor Speedway home track and takes over the points lead from Jesse Hughes.

Regular racing in all FPMS classes resumes next Saturday, Aug. 5 . More details can be obtained online at

Regular racing in all FPMS classes resumes next. More details can be obtained online at www.FortPayneMotorSpeedway .com or on the tracks Facebook page.





Official Results: FireCracker 50

1. David Brannon 2. Robert Gant 3. JT Seawright 4. Aaron Ridley 5. Lucas Burns 6. Josh Putnam 7. Kasey Hall 8. Daniel Miller 9. Luke Riddle 10. Heath Hindman 11. Darrell Hayes 12. Kip Fossett 13. Dusty Carver 14. Tod Hernandez 15. Teddy Snow 16. Shay Miller 17. DJ Hayes 18. Colby Kilgore 19. Clay Joseph 20. Richard Smith 21. Tom Maddox 22. Sam Seawright 23. Casey Turman 24. Bryan Grider
Ya Qiaoli has been waiting eagerly for her university admission letter, at her home in a mountainous village in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, ever since she was told that she has been admitted to Guangxi University of Nationalities.

For her, the letter is crucial. It means she can spend the next four years in Nanning, the regional capital, studying finance.

Ya scored 549 points out of 750 points in June's national college entrance exam, better known as the gaokao. The points guarantee university acceptance, yet they are not enough for her to apply for a good major.

"I was able to choose either a good university or a good major only after I got the bonus points for ethnic minorities," Ya said.

As a Zhuang ethnic student, Ya got 10 bonus points, according to a national policy that allows ethnic minority students to gain as many as 20 bonus gaokao points.

The policy helps ethnic minority students, many from remote and impoverished areas with poor educational standards, to reduce their disadvantage in the exam.

Ya studies in the only high school in Fengshan county, her hometown. Located in Hechi city, it is a national-level poverty-stricken county. Among a total of 1,133 students who took gaokao this year, about 60 percent were ethnic minority students, mainly from the Zhuang and Yao ethnic groups. According to the policy, Zhuang students can get 10 bonus points and Yao students can get 20.

When the recruitment was finished, 97.7 percent of students were admitted to universities or junior colleges.

"The figures increased obviously compared with 10 years ago, as a result of both improved education quality and favorable policies," said Luo Yingyang, deputy principal of Fengshan County High School.

In Leye county, a national-level poverty-stricken county in Baise city of Guangxi, more than 20 percent of all 789 students taking the gaokao this year were admitted to universities, with most of the rest admitted to vocational colleges.

Huang Bingzhong, principal of Leye County High School, said that for many students whose families are poor, university entrance could guarantee that they would be lifted out of poverty.

"Sending a child to university or college is the best way for a family to get out of the mountains," Huang said.

China sees education as a key method in its poverty alleviation efforts, so it has launched favorable gaokao policies for students from rural and poor areas.

In April, the Ministry of Education announced that top-level universities would enroll 63,000 students from a number of underdeveloped regions in 2017, about 3,000 more than in 2016. Recruiting of poor students into provincial-level colleges is expected to grow by 10 percent this year.

Under these requirement, in Guangxi, a total of 2,507 students have been recruited by 154 universities, 300 more than in 2016.

Guangxi has the most number of ethnic minority people in China, and it is also one of the least developed regions, with 28 national-level poverty-stricken counties, in which 11 are ethnic minority autonomous counties.

With the number of school-age children growing, many poor counties face a shortage of competent teachers, funds and schools.

Principal Luo said the school was designed to accommodate a maximum of 2,200 students, but currently there are nearly 3,500 students. The school lacks not only classrooms but new facilities.

Low salaries also makes it hard for teachers to stay.

"Every year, several teachers resign, and it is very difficult for us to hire new ones," he said.

Leye County High School has cooperated with other higher qualified schools so that students can have lessons given by teachers of these schools online. Yet more methods are hoped to be launched.

More funding is needed to improve the educational conditions such as buildings and facilities in poor areas, said Ya Qiming, an official of education in Donglan county, another national-level poverty-stricken county in Hechi.

"Teachers' salaries and welfare should also be improved so that they would like to stay in these areas," he said.
Chinas first X-ray space telescope [File photo]

The other day, reading a headline in the China Daily, Data of Chinas first X-ray space telescope to be open to global scientists, I was both surprised and somewhat concerned.

Surprised, because it is international best practice in science to share data with anyone, no matter what their institutional affiliation, nationality or geographical location. I had therefore expected no less than an open and transparent data policy from the team running the Hard X-ray Modulation Telescope (HXMT), nicknamed Insight.

Concerned, because the headline implied that scientific policy makers apparently thought such openness was novel. It is not; open data sharing has been the international norm in the field of space science since the first scientific missions supported by NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA).

Of course, commercial and national security interests can preclude some open data-sharing, but an X-ray satellite designed to explore distant celestial objects to better understand their nature  including that of the massive black holes at the centers of many nearby galaxies  hardly pose a threat to national security.

This policy of openness  both in terms of data availability and data acquisition  has been enormously beneficial to both NASA and ESA. Their joint project, the Hubble Space Telescope, is arguably the most productive scientific instrument ever built.

Its productivity is due largely to the way it offers unrestricted access to anyone with a great idea  the competition is fierce, with oversubscription rates by factors of eight or more; however, if your idea is ground-breaking, it doesnt matter where you are based.

The students and junior researchers in my team at Peking University routinely use Hubble observations that have languished in its Data Archive for years, perhaps never explored or used for other purposes.

The age of observational data in astrophysics doesnt matter; the novelty of the results does  and by using years-old Hubble data, we have managed to publish a number of ground-breaking discoveries in prestigious journals like Nature.

Of course, we get the academic credit for those discoveries, but both space agencies also get what they hoped for: more publicity and a confirmation of their cutting-edge status.

Such are indeed the prospects for the X-ray observations the Insight module will obtain as well. No matter who publishes their scientific results, the eventual kudos go to the Chinese team responsible for the satellites development and operation.

By international norms, the scientists involved understand their data, as well as that obtained for any other scientist whose proposal is accepted, will be theirs for just a year, the proprietary period.

For so-called survey facilities, like ESAs current flagship mission Gaia (which will revolutionize studies and understanding of our own Milky Way galaxy), the timeline is somewhat different. Their data will still be made publicly available, but through annual data releases; the first Gaia release happened just recently.

So, my concern when reading the newspaper headline was that it might indicate an underlying reluctance by the scientific policymakers responsible for Chinese space missions to truly embrace a spirit of international openness. This would send a poor message about the scientific community on which I consider myself an integral and active member.

Fortunately, upon reading the full article, I was reassured that Chinese space scientists indeed want to contribute their novel achievements in high technology to the international community.

Perhaps it was just the headline writer who didnt quite understand the potentially negative implication of his words. By joining forces with the greatest minds, scientific progress becomes ever more promising.

Richard de Grijs is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:

http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/RicharddeGrijs.htm

Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
 Flash

U.S. President Donald Trump has approved a bill that imposes additional sanctions on Russia and intends to sign it, the White House said Friday.

The U.S. president "read early drafts of the bill and negotiated regarding critical elements of it," the White House said in a statement.

"He has now reviewed the final version and, based on its responsiveness to his negotiations, approves the bill and intends to sign it," it added.

Earlier this week, the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate overwhelmingly approved the bill that will slap tougher sanctions on Russia, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK).

The bill will also grant U.S. Congress the power to block Trump from unilaterally lifting sanctions on Russia.

This bill came although Trump administration officials had called on lawmakers to grant "flexibility" to the White House in dealing with Russia.

Trump's approval of the bill came after Russia announced that it would scale down U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people and seize a U.S. warehouse and a recreational compound known as a "dacha" in Moscow in retaliation for Washington's anti-Russian actions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has personally authorized the Foreign Ministry statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.

"We have received the Russian government notification. Ambassador (John) Tefft expressed his strong disappointment and protest. We have passed the notification back to Washington for review," the U.S. Embassy in Russia said in a statement.

Russia will respond to U.S. sanctions while still willing to normalize bilateral relations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson by phone on Friday.

These moves were caused by a series of hostile actions by Washington, including "unlawful" sanctions and "slanderous" accusations against Russia, said Lavrov, according to a statement of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

In December 2016, 35 Russian diplomats were expelled and two retreats in New York and Maryland used by Russian diplomats for recreation and receptions were closed by the administration of outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama over accusations of alleged Russian hacking during the presidential election.

"The Russian decision to reduce U.S. diplomatic staff appears linked directly to the new Congressional sanctions bill," Steven Pifer, senior fellow of Brookings Institution, told Xinhua.

"Neither action will help the U.S.-Russia relationship, which was already at a difficult level," said Pifer.

Meanwhile, the security expert said plenty of work is needed to improve the frayed relations.

"It is going to take patient, hard diplomacy to move the relationship to a better point," Pifer added.
 Flash

The U.S. government is seeking to create hazardous conditions for Iran by imposing fresh sanctions, Iran's First Vice President Eshaq Jahangiri said here on Saturday, state IRIB TV reported.

"They (the U.S. adminstration) have the intention of introducing Iran as the violator of the (2015) nuclear deal and to create a consensus against Tehran in international arena," Jahangiri said.

Also, they want to picture Iran as "insecure and risky" country for foreign investments, he was quoted as saying.

Iran will never stay silent in the face of U.S. threatening measures, and will respond appropriately, he said.

Jahangiri's remarks followed U.S. new sanctions against the Islamic republic over the latter's missile program.

The United States imposed on Friday new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran in response to what it called Tehran's "continued provocative actions" including a recent rocket launch, said U.S. Treasury Department.

Iran launched on Thursday a space vehicle which used technologies "closely related to those of an intercontinental ballistic missile," representing a "threatening step by Iran," said the U.S. statement.

Iran's Foreign Ministry, however, slammed Washington's threats and pressures pertaining to Tehran's recent successful launch of a satellite carrier, saying that the launch of satellite carrier is "Iran's inalienable right" and in compliance with its international obligations.
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A rare, solid gold replica of the 1969 Lunar Excursion Module that landed on the moon has been stolen from a museum in the U.S. state of Ohio, local police said Saturday.

Police in Wapakoneta, Ohio, said in a press release that it received a call of burglary alarm at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum just before midnight Friday.

The police found that the gold replica, which measures about five inches (12.7 cm) high and roughly 4.5 inches square (29 cm square), has been stolen, according to the release.

"This piece is very rare as it was presented to Neil Armstrong in Paris, France shortly after the moon landing," the press release said. "This piece is one of only three to exist. One was made for each of the three astronauts that completed this mission."

The replica was made by Cartier in Paris and police said its value cannot be determined.

In a statement posted on Facebook, the museum said: "Theft from a museum is a theft from all of us ... For every day that an item is missing, we are all robbed of an opportunity to enjoy it and our history."

Armstrong, born in Wapakoneta in 1930, was the first man to walk on the moon in a 1969 mission that also included Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins. Armstrong died in 2012 at the age of 82.
Kurdish Authorities Say Assyrian Professor Killed By Family Member

The public prosecution in the Cezire canton of Rojava-Northern Syria said in a statement that neither the Asayish police nor the YPG had any involvement in the killing of Dr. Elias Ishaq, an Assyrian professor whose body was found in Hasakah. The Rojava authorities said that one of Ishaq's relatives was responsible for the murder. Dr. Elias Ishaq's body was found on 21 July in al-Hasakah province near the village of Umm al-Malah, 5 kilometers west of Hasakah city, with a bullet in his head. According to the public prosecution services in the Hasakah province (Cezire canton), Nazir Georgianan, the son of Ishaq's sister was responsible for the death. Dr. Ishaq was the dean of the faculty for agricultural engineering at the Furat University in Hasakah. After his death, groups opposed to the Asayish and the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) accused them of killing the Assyrian professor. However, the prosecution denied this. "We deny this accusation and we affirm that we are still the party responsible to protect the security and safety of citizens in the Al-Jazira [Hasakah] province," the organization said. According the Commission of Inquiry and Prosecution in Cezire canton, after the victim's body was examined and evidence was collected, the investigation confirmed that the murderer was Nazir Georgianan, a relative of the professor. While he initially surrendered to the Syrian regime in the security square in Hasakah, Georgianan later surrendered to the Kurdish security forces and will be prosecuted. The commission accused Nazir Georgianan of trying to kill his father and grandfather due to conflict over money.
The head of Luxembourg's financial lobby group has accused Irish politicians of making "false accusations" against the Duchy as the battle to snare London-based firms looking for a new home after Brexit intensifies.

Nicolas Mackel denied suggestions the Duchy is allowing so-called "brass plate" operations that would give firms token access to the single market.

He was responding to comments made by former finance minister Eoghan Murphy earlier this year which were interpreted as a thinly veiled criticism of Luxembourg.

The chief executive of Luxembourg for Finance told the Press Association: "As long as we can get those sorts of false accusations out of the debate, I think all the other competitive elements are just a normal occurrence of business."

"We make it a point never to talk negatively about our competitors, unlike some of them. I think it's just like in politics - you resort to that sort of communication if you really don't have anything to say about yourself and your strength."

Mr Mackel believes the inflammatory remarks made by Mr Murphy in a Reuters interview - complaining that other European cities were being "very aggressive" and taking part in "creeping regulatory arbitrage", referring to lax rules - were made for "internal political needs".

He added: "Since then, the circumstances in Ireland have changed with a new government and they themselves having been able to make some announcements on companies (choosing Dublin after Brexit).

"So there will be no more need to resort to this sort of communication."

A spokesperson for the Department of Finance said the comment by Mr Murphy "was not a criticism of Luxembourg or any other member state".

They added Mr Murphy had raised a number of issues during a scheduled meeting with European Commission VP Valdis Dombrovskis earlier this including "ensuring there is consistency across EU member states" in applying regulatory standards for financial services.

Mr Mackel acknowledged there was competition to draw business among rival EU financial centres, including Frankfurt and Dublin "to a certain degree", but said Luxembourg felt no pressure to offer special terms and firms were weighing a raft of criteria when choosing their post-Brexit hubs.

In recent months Barclays, Legal & General and Bank of America have revealed plans to base EU-focused operations in Dublin, while the Duchy has gained commitments from the likes of US giant AIG, Northern Trust and insurers RSA and Hiscox.

The Luxembourg for Finance chief said having a dedicated insurance regulator has been a draw for the sector, while most asset managers have boosted activity in the country without fanfare in preparation for Britain's divorce from the EU.

He expects the city to attract approximately 2,000 jobs in the next one to two years as a result.

Mr Mackel said Luxembourg made a conscious decision to hold back from running international roadshows in a bid to win business, eschewing a tactic employed by the likes of Paris and Frankfurt.

He added: "We felt we would not necessarily need to and I think we were actually right.

"Many of the asset management companies that operate out of London have a Luxembourg platform, and were going to very naturally use that Luxembourg platform to consolidate their activities on the European continent.

"The same goes for banks."

However while Luxembourg was gaining business, Mr Mackel said Brexit is still being viewed as a "lose-lose proposition overall".
Update 2.30pm: Mayo Mountain Rescue is carrying out its usual operation on Croagh Patrick for the annual pilgrimage.

Six casualties have been treated and taken off the mountain so far today.

A man in his 70s suffered a heart attack earlier today, he was resuscitated and airlifted by Coast Guard helicopter 118 to Galway University Hospital.

A number of others received varying injuries.

Earlier: Do not let the weather fool you if you are climbing Croagh Patrick today.

Today is the annual Reek Sunday when pilgrims attempt to climb the mountain in honour of Saint Patrick.

Hundreds of rescue volunteers from mountain rescue teams across the country will be on hand for the mountain's busiest day of the year - along with 120 volunteers from the Order of Malta.

The Unit's spokesperson Aoife Clarke says you have got to be well prepared for the climb.

"What people need to remember is this is a mountain. It's not a hill, it's a mountain, so the weather conditions when you start climbing by the time you get to the top it could be completely different," she said.

"It's really important that people come prepared for every sort of weather eventuality. We'd ask people when they start to climb that they have good footwear on, good comfortable clothes, lots of layers, layers they can take off and layers that they put on, and make sure they have raingear."
A monitoring operation has continued overnight following severe gorse fires near Kilternan in South County Dublin yesterday.

Dublin Fire Brigade are urging the public not to dispose of rubbish in the hills and only light camp-fires in designated areas.

Units from Dunloghaire, Tallaght and Phibsboro, including a water tanker, were all called to assist in the operation.

It involved cutting down a 110-thousand-volt electricity pole, and bringing in a drone to oversee the direction of the fire.
A five-year-old girl has been reported missing in the UK - and is believed to be with her father who is wanted after skipping court.

Molly Owens is thought to be with Brian Owens, 26, who has a warrant out for his arrest and is thought to have travelled to Ireland.

Owens failed to turn up at Caernarfon Magistrates'Court in North Wales on Friday for sentencing. North Wales Police have not said what offences he had committed.

Molly is described as having collar-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She sometimes wears pink glasses. It is not known what she is wearing at the time she disappeared.

Brian Owens is 5ft 9in and slim, with short brown hair and blue eyes.

Superintendent Jane Banham of North Wales Police said: "Our investigation is ongoing and we are still appealing for information from anybody who may have been in contact with Brian Owens to get in touch with us.

"From our inquiries we believe they are in the Republic of Ireland with a woman by the name of Elaine Doutch and we are in close contact with our colleagues at the Garda who are assisting us.

"We just want to ensure that Molly is safe and well and are issuing a direct appeal for her to be returned home."

Anybody with information is asked to contact North Wales Police, quoting reference number V113559.
Temple Bar in Dublin is set to get a revamp.

The city council is planning to give the popular tourist area a de-clutter to improve accessibility.

Plans include removing the podium in the square and getting rid of bins and sandwich boards.

Martin Harte from the Temple Bar Company thinks it is a good idea.

"It'll make it a more useable space, which currently it isn't." he said.

"It's hard to run cultural events there at the moment because there's a lack of space. It's a bit of a mess, there's a lot of clutter.

"This will free it up and make it more of an amenity for the citizens of Dublin."
Iraqi intelligence officials have foiled an attempt by Islamic State to attack revered Shiite shrines and the sect's spiritual leader.

The IS plan was to launch a series of suicide attacks in Karbala and Najaf that house the shrines as well as the home of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Travellers flying from Canberra Airport are being warned to arrive early and expect additional screening as security is boosted at terminals around Australia on Sunday.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and law enforcement agencies announced screening at all major airports had been ramped up overnight following the discovery of an alleged terror plot to bring down a plane with a bomb.

Around Australia passengers on domestic flights are being told to arrive at the airport two hours before takeoff but Canberra Airport is seeing business as usual without additional delays on Sunday.

Some airlines are contacting passengers nationally via text messages on Sunday to alert them to "additional aviation security measures".
On April 27, the game was up. Gary Helou stood down. Credit:Jason South So too was Bradley Hingle, the company's chief financial officer. Both men, alongside the company itself, are now the subjects of ACCC prosecution. By August 2015, the price for whole milk powder had fallen from $US2500 a tonne to $US2050 a tonne. Credit:Penny Stephens Helou's spray at his Chinese team is just one of the extraordinary revelations in the regulator's detailed statement of claim lodged this week in the federal court.

The document gives an unprecedented insight into the unravelling of one of the Australia's biggest agricultural companies and a collapse that sent reverberations through both the investment community and dairy towns around southern Australia. Dairy farmer Kate Lamb described Murray Goulburn's milk price cut as ''a kick in the guts''. Credit:Jason South He shouldn't come back until he has put in place BIG and IMMEDIATE DEALS!!! Former CEO Gary Helou. For its part the company says it will not comment on matters before the court and will respond to the allegations in the ACCC documents when its defence is filed at the end of August. Riffing over spilt milk

It's called the "RIF" inside Murray Goulburn. Every month the Revised Income Forecast is prepared to help track the company's performance, especially the all-important "final milk price". lllustration: Matt Golding. At the start of every financial year, Murray Goulburn would provide two prices to its supplying farmers  the opening and final milk price. The opening price, usually, is about 90 per cent of the final price at the end of the year. In every year of its life, bar a hiccup during the global financial crisis, Murray Goulburn had followed this pattern. In the unpredictable world of farming, this is a way of trying to introduce some certainty.

The production of the RIF is a key focus of the ACCC in its pursuit of the executives and company it claims misled farmers about what they might expect. There was a RIF in the background when on May 1, 2015, Helou wrote to farmers saying the company forecast a final price of $6.05 per kilogram of milk solids. It was built on assumptions about the volume of whole and skim milk powders, butter and cheese Murray Goulburn could sell and the prices it would get. Murray Goulburn was betting on increases right through the coming financial year. Yet court documents reveal that the prices Murray Goulburn was accepting were already dropping sharply by the end of May. By August, the price for whole milk powder had fallen from $US2500 a tonne to $US2050 a tonne, skim milk from $US2100 a tonne to $US1720 a tonne, and butter from $US3500 to $US3000 a tonne. Budget 'very aggressive'

From the get go, there was nervousness in the ranks. Aditya Swarup, executive general manager of strategy, wrote to Hingle on the same day the letters went to farmers, saying the budget for the dairy part of the operation was "already very aggressive". Despite some wobbly signs in the markets, the company doubled down in June, even as respected forecaster Rabobank sliced its expectations for prices by roughly 20 per cent. At a board meeting on June 24, Helou and Hingle recommended the board set an opening price of $5.60 per kilogram of milk solids after working backwards from their final price promise of $6.05 a kilogram. That day, the company announced the price to the market and farmers.

"While commodity dairy markets remain subdued and exchange rates unpredictable, we are confident that demand growth for dairy foods will remain strong over the medium to long term," Helou said in the release. The ACCC says that by this point, Murray Goulburn already knew that markets were moving against it and should not have made the representations it did without appropriate qualification. By July, the sales division was running numbers that came up short of the budget from May. In fact, they felt that every quarter would miss its target and the gross profit for the division would be $200 million south of where it needed to be. Enter the RIF. The message was bleak. The "low" case was a final price of $5.06 per kilogram milk solids and the "high" case was $5.33  well shy of the $6.05 promised to the world. There was talk that seizing "opportunities" could lift the top case to $5.66. Alarm bells

By the end of the month, Helou was acknowledging internally there was a "gap". The ACCC alleges this was another clear moment to come clean. It wasn't taken. Alarm bells were ringing though as prices in August were hitting record lows. The response? Management came up with a series of "stretch targets". In effect, this meant massive increases in production and sales goals. For example, the new targets would require the sale of 49 per cent more 1 kilogram milk powder packets, known internally as sachets, in the financial year. A RIF was prepared using the stretch targets and, sure enough, the result was a top-case scenario at $6.05.

The company's head of group finance, had seen enough. "These forecast/prices do not look like they are based on reality  rather purely a goal to seek to achieve a certain outcome," he wrote in an email to Hingle. "Not putting realistic forecasts to the business/board, including high opportunity targets, does not serve any purpose in actually getting a realistic picture on the true prospects currently around the milk price." Fonterra calls out prices It was at about this time that Murray Goulburn's arch rival, Fonterra, had called out prices in Australia as being too high in the middle of a global dairy rout.

Fonterra chief executive Theo Spierings warned a conversation with farmers needed to be had about paying a more sustainable milk price. Credit:Pat Scala Nevertheless, the RIF was taken to the board a couple of days later on August 28 and subsequently Helou presented the company's results to investors. "We think the market has bottomed," he optimistically predicted. The company did suggest there was a chance prices might slide but maintained confidence it would hit the $6.05 benchmark. Investors lapped it up and the share price jumped 5.8 per cent in a day. In the ACCC's eyes, it was all digging a deeper hole.

Murray Goulburn held meetings with farmers around Victoria and South Australia who were looking for good news amid unusually dry conditions that had seen some culling stock. Throughout, the script was retained. By now it was RIF time again and the September edition told management that the stretch targets weren't being hit and the most likely price was $5.67. The public result was the same. No change. The dose was repeated in October when the RIF predicted a recovery in global prices that would secure the $6.05 as a "high" case but that $5.73 was most likely. The ACCC says those number were based on both unrealistic commodity prices and the stretch targets. Another public examination was on the horizon in the shape of the company's annual general meeting. There Helou stuck to the $6.05 pledge but warned that could slide to about $5.60 if things did not go to plan.

New plan hatched Within weeks, another big rival, Warrnambool Butter & Cheese, was publicly complaining that the prices being paid to farmers couldn't be maintained when global prices had halved. By November, some of the stretch targets were being ditched and a new plan was put to the board to go after the Chinese infant powder market. This underpinned a slightly new-look RIF aimed at filling a building profit hole despite  as the ACCC puts it  there being "no contracts or firm commitments for the sales". For the record, the RIF's best guess on the final price was $5.69. The baby formula plan didn't last a month. It was ditched just before Christmas and a new plan hatched.

Murray Goulburn would try to sell 58,000 tonnes of sachets at a price that would produce $150 million in gross profit. This second stretch target would help produce a final price of $6.04. (Murray Goulburn had sold just 11,872 tonnes of sachets between July and November of that year. Its previous annual record was 15,000 tonnes.) "Murray Goulburn did not know whether it would be capable of producing enough sachets to meet the second sachet target," the ACCC says. 'Clear, simple and bold' Executives were nervous. There was talk of logistical problems reaching the targets. The December RIF tipped the most likely price as $5.68.

Helou was not about to start the new year without a plan. He wrote to senior executives saying he had targets that were "clear, simple and bold". The company, which had only once before produced more than 4000 tonnes of sachets in a month, would count on producing almost double that to churn out 42,000 tonnes over the first six months of 2016. Not only that but, starting in February, it would produce 200 tonnes a month of infant formula. Babies were back on board. Yet again there were no contracts in place to buy the additional product. The board by now was showing signs of scepticism.

Ken Jones, a director, sent an email to the board, Helou and Hingle "stating that he was extremely concerned about Murray Goulburn's half-yearly accounts and future prospects for profits getting anywhere near the PDS advice and suppliers' expectations". Difficult questions Executives too were asking difficult questions. Confronted with a February RIF that forecast a final price of $5.61, some clearly felt things had gone too far. Executives met with Hingle where one told him "he did not understand how that forecast could be achieved from what he was seeing within the business". February sales were well short of the RIF and both the "sachet volume and price are at risk" according to an internal message.
Treasurer Scott Morrison has described Labor's $17 billion plan to close family trust tax loopholes as a "direct assault" on small business and has challenged Opposition Leader Bill Shorten to release the full details of his policy.

Describing Mr Shorten as a "till raider", Mr Morrison said the Labor plan was yet another negative policy "dripping with envy and higher taxes" that would do nothing to get Australians into jobs.

"This is another direct assault on small businesses by Labor. Bill Shorten is whacking small business families with a double tax," Mr Morrison told Fairfax Media. "He is using small businesses as an ATM, putting his hand in their till. If your family runs a small business and you have a family trust, Bill Shorten thinks you're the problem, that you're dodgy."

Mr Shorten confirmed the crackdown on Sunday, telling Labor's NSW conference he will introduce an across-the-board minimum 30 per cent tax rate on discretionary trust distributions to people over the age of 18 if he wins power.
The Turnbull government has announced plans for a national independent review of the Murray Darling Basin Plan in a bid to restore confidence in the system in the wake of water theft allegations.

Water Minister Barnaby Joyce will write to his state counterparts this week seeking their agreement for the Murray Darling Basin Authority to carry out a basin-wide compliance probe of the state-based regulations that govern water use.

The Murray and Darling rivers meet at Wentworth in NSW. Credit:Justin McManus

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said while the basin plan had delivered significant milestones the claims aired last week by the ABC's Four Corners  that some irrigators had stolen billions of litres of water in the Barwon-Darling region of northern NSW  warranted investigation.

"While the government is confident about COAG's implementation plan it is important that basin communities and all Australians have confidence that the rules that underpin fair and lawful water use throughout the basin are being followed," he said in a statement on Sunday.
The House of Representatives and the Senate should run two parallel inquiries into MPs' citizenship, say the Greens, to end the uncertainty over whether all federal MPs are eligible to sit in Parliament.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale said that when Parliament resumed in August, there needed to be an independent audit of all MPs' citizenship status, to confirm there were no more dual citizens.

"Every member of Parliament should be treated the same," he said.
A 2016 survey conducted by the Coalition for Women's Refuges found only 61 per cent reported being always able to take women without residency, with one in five reporting they had no ability to take women in such circumstances.

According to Anna Kerr, co-chair of the Women and Girl's Rights Subcommittee of the Australian Lawyers for Human Rights advocacy group, "women's refuges are frequently unable or unwilling to accept women who do not have a visa status that qualifies them for Centrelink payments".

Some of the most vulnerable women and children are being left with nowhere to turn if they need to escape domestic violence. Credit:Stocksy

A decrease in the number of free beds in shelters following the NSW government's ' 'Going Home, Staying Home" funding reform disproportionately affects migrant women who are unable to receive Centrelink payments.

Women's domestic violence shelters in NSW are being forced to turn away women without residency or citizenship, a problem that will only be exacerbated with the proposed changes to the citizenship test , advocates have warned.

The coalition is a group of refuge owners who oppose the 2014 reform, which saw a number of shelters closed or merged into general homelessness programs run by religious charities. Its survey attracted participation from 62 of the 76 women's refuges in operation in NSW last year. Of the participating refuges, only four said the reforms had not affected their ability to deliver services.

Kerr says the result is that refuges find themselves forced to take the pragmatic approach of turning away women who do not have residency, as someone receiving Centrelink payments  or otherwise able to pay contributions  could potentially fill their bed.

"While freeing up more beds, this has the result of leaving some of the most vulnerable women and children in our community with nowhere to go if they need to escape domestic violence," says co-chair Rita Shackel. "These are often women who have the additional disadvantage of limited English language skills."

Extending the waiting time and tightening the English language test for citizenship will decrease the number of migrant women able to receive Centrelink payments, impeding their access to refuges, the legal advocacy group says.

A NSW Department of Family and Community Services spokesperson told Fairfax Media "any" women from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless because of domestic violence are entitled to support from the "specialist homelessness services" they fund (which includes services which admit men and people suffering from other forms of homelessness), citing that $61.6 million will be allocated to such services over the 201718 financial year.
A new bid to improve diversity in the Australian Defence Force will target potential recruits from the country's Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern, Vietnamese, Malaysian and Indigenous communities.

Defence Minister Marise Payne and Defence Personnel Minister Dan Tehan launched the latest diversity push as part of efforts to ensure the ADF reflects the wider Australian community.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and Defence Minister Marise Payne. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

A new The ADF Surprised Us recruitment campaign seeks to widen the potential talent pool for Defence recruitment and features culturally diverse serving members share their stories, including about service in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics related roles.

It includes case studies of serving members from diverse backgrounds who have become Australian citizens, answers frequently asked questions about life after enlisting and seeks to dispel misperceptions about life in the ADF.
Police raid a home in Lakemba on July 30 over an alleged plot to bring down a plane. Credit:Michele Mossop "These and further measures have been extended to all major airports around the country overnight," he said. "Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be. Travellers should be prepared for additional scrutiny at screening points." Mr Turnbull has cautioned travellers to arrive early. Credit:Luis Ascui He said domestic travellers should be prepared to arrive at the airport at least two hours before their flights.

"They should limit the amount of carry-on and checked baggage so far as possible, as this will help to ensure that security screening is efficient," he said. A man arrested at a home in Surry Hills remained in hospital with head injuries. Credit:Channel Nine News The national terrorism threat level remains at "probable", unchanged since 2014. "Our number one priority is to keep you safe," Mr Turnbull said. 'Additional burden on screening system'

At Melbourne Airport, Qantas staff told passengers the queue had been long during the Sunday morning rush, but it had cleared by mid-morning. Passengers could be seen having their bags checked by airline staff before heading to security, but there were no reports of major delays at security screening points at either domestic or international departures. There was no visible sign of an increased security presence either. Airport officials declined to reveal what the increased security measures were, beyond urging passengers to arrive two hours before their flights in case of delays. "As the measures place an additional burden on the screening system, it may take a little longer than usual to get through the process," the airport said in a statement.

Passengers seemed to be untroubled by the tightened security. Tameka Bullen, 33, said she was confident police and security staff were on top of things as she arrived to check in for a flight to Adelaide. "I know there is a threat, but I'm not really concerned about it, to be honest," she said. "I travel to Bali a lot and I think they do three bag checks there now. They do what they can do." Monique Vandervleut and Tiffany Siciliano, both 22, were also unconcerned as they headed home from a five-day trip to Melbourne.

"It's a good thing they're doing it, but I'm not concerned," Ms Vandervleut said. Forensic teams collect evidence Police expect to be at a unit in Sproule Street, Lakemba, for several days. On Sunday, forensic teams removed bags of evidence and searched the second-floor home belonging to an older couple and some adult children. One neighbour captured dramatic footage of a man in his 30s with just a towel around his waist being taken away in handcuffs. The neighbour said he'd often seen people in religious gear coming and going from the unit. One night recently he saw five men in robes all arrive at the house.

Another neighbour, who wanted only to be identified as Sami, said several homes in the street were evacuated as officers smashed their way through a glass entrance and donned gas masks and oxygen tanks while they searched the unit. A woman who lives above the family said the older man painted her unit a year ago and was "so nice, completely lovely". At the same briefing as Mr Turnbull, Justice Minister Michael Keenan said the plot was the 13th "significant disruption" in Australia and 70 people have been charged as a result of 31 counter-terrorism operations around the country since 2014. "The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors," he said. "There is still the ability for people to have sophisticated plots and sophisticated attacks still remain a real threat." Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said early investigations suggest the plot involved the use of an improvised explosive devise to attack the aviation industry.

"Searches are ongoing. This is the start of a very long and protracted investigation," he said. NSW Police Commissioner Mick Fuller urged Sydney residents to go about their business as normal today but to be prepared for disruptions. "Come into the city, take your trains, go to the shops, you shouldn't be concerned in relation to this," he said. "There is not specific information that means you should sit at home." How the raids unfolded About 1pm on Saturday, the Australian Federal Police conducted a number of terrorist raids across Sydney over a suspected bomb plot to bring down a plane.

The raids took place in Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl and were not planned but were a rapid response to information about the plot received by police. The bomb squad attended the scene of the Surry Hills raid on Cleveland Street, which was closed for several hours. The family who lived in the raided house on Cleveland Street have been described as "perfectly nice and normal people" by a neighbour whose property backs onto theirs. "We knew them to say hello to and they seemed nice," the woman in her early 30s, who didn't want to be identified, told AAP. An elderly couple lived in the home, the neighbour said, and they had adult children. The neighbour came home while the raid was under way and said there were "heaps" of police at the scene.
A tiny plot of land by the beach in Cronulla is the source of a big battle between the community and the Sutherland Shire Council which wants to knock down a much-loved public amenity.

The Women's Rest Centre, locals point out, is more than just a toilet block. Staffed 363 days a year by attendants, it is a community hub where families have gathered for more than five decades, serving an estimated 100,000 locals and visitors annually.

Renee Watson with her children Jack, 6, and Georgia, 4, at the rest centre at Cronulla. Credit:John Veage

"It's the heart of the village," said Annette Hogan, who is running a community campaign to save the centre. "That's what makes it so special."

Newspaper clippings show the community in Sydney's south was agitating for suitable public amenities in Cronulla's commercial district as early as 1938, decrying the serious lack of "ladies' retiring rooms and baby creches".
The winter weather record has tumbled as Sydney experienced its warmest July day on record with the temperature topping 26 degrees at Observatory Hill.

Scarves were traded for shorts as the mercury rose throughout the day, reaching 26.5 degrees at 2:10pm, creeping above the previous record of 25.9 degrees set on July 24, 1990.

Coogee Beach visitors enjoy the hot weather on Sunday. Credit:Katherine Griffiths

With the temperature reaching 18 degrees at Observatory Hill by 9am, many people headed to the beach where the water temperature was 18.7 degrees.

By noon, the temperature had hit 21.7 degrees before climbing to 25.9 degrees at 1:20pm, data from the Bureau of Meteorology shows.
Indigenous activist Sam Watson is pleased an attempt to erase an important part of Indigenous history has been taken off the table.

In 2016 an online petition called for the inner-city Boundary streets to be renamed as they were outdated and related to the oppression of Indigenous people.

Sam Watson wants Indigenous history preserved, not erased. Credit:Michelle Smith

It is understood the petition was put together after the street names has been changed, by what appeared to be a sticker, to read "Boundless Street".

The petition attracted 1062 supporters and the Brisbane City Council and the state government considered supporting the change if public consultation proved the change was wanted by the community.
Victorian prisoners will be able to ask a magistrate to wipe all outstanding infringement fines under a contentious scheme introduced this month by the Department of Justice.

The scheme gives magistrates the authority to expunge fines for traffic offences, public transport violations and unpaid toll fees, and is aimed at improving the rehabilitation prosects of inmates.

Santos Bonacci was threatened with a three-year jail sentence for refusing to pay 483 fines in 2014. Credit:Facebook

However, the new powers under the "Time Served Scheme" are expected to rankle low-paid Victorians who do not commit criminal offences, but are still required to pay fines.

The scheme, which came into effect on July 1, could also cost the state government millions of dollars in lost revenue  with more than 90 per cent of prisoners owing fines, according to a 2014 report.
Two people are fighting for their lives after a serious car crash in Bedford on Sunday morning.

Police were called to the incident on Grand Promenade, near Catherine Street at around 8.50am.

The Bedford crash. Credit:Perth WA Revenue Raisers Alert

It is understood a white BMW was being driven south on Grand Promenade, and a gold Holden Astra was being driven north on Grand Promenade.

The two directions of traffic are separated by a median island.
Bangkok: When Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte was running for election, he vowed that under his rule fish in Manila Bay would grow fat from the bodies of drugs users and addicts.

Many observers saw his remarks as shock tactics from a foul-mouthed former provincial mayor who revels in making outlandish statements, such as declaring recently he could be 50 times more brutal than any Islamist extremist who staged beheadings.

"Give me salt and vinegar and I'll eat his liver," he said.

But 12 months after taking office, fishermen say they have been dumping bodies of dozens of drugs suspects in Manila Bay on the orders of police, who human rights groups accuse of carrying out thousands of extra-judicial killings.
Digital online lender Prospa has secured a $20m debt facility from the Australian arm of a US-based commercial finance provider, Partners for Growth (PFG).Headquartered in Silicon Valley, PFG specialises in lending to growing technology companies and has recently made headlines in Australia by providing funds to Sydney fashion retail start-up GlamCorner.Ed Bigazzi, CFO of Prospa, was instrumental in the firms fundraising strategy. PFGs funding follows the strategic approach that the fintech has taken since its launch back in 2011.Like our small business customers, Prospa requires funding to grow. PFG plays an important role in the market by filling the gap left by the traditional banking industry," said Bigazzi.Like us, they take a partnership approach and really took the time to understand our business. They share many of our philosophies about how to build long-term competitive advantages and long-term stakeholder value.PFG and Prospa approach finance by filling gaps left in the market by the traditional banks.In 2015, Prospa became the first small business lender in Australia to develop its own securitisation warehouse structure and gain access to greater volumes of capital than a typical corporate lending facility.
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Friday was a normal day for my friend Barbie Levin, an occupational therapist. She went to the modest home of a brand new patient, a baby whod had a stroke in utero, was now 1-year-old and still not crawling because one leg was too weak.

As the mom watched, Barbie got down on the floor and placed the baby into crawling position. Then she asked the mom to go get the babys favorite food  a veggie stick (The kind thats like a Cheeto, not a piece of celery). As the baby tried to propel herself forward but couldnt, Barbie propped the weak leg up and the baby managed a tiny scoot. Then Barbie had the mom get on the floor, take her place, and do the same re-propping.

The baby took her first three steps ever. She reached the treat and, said Barbie, smiling broadly, ate it with relish. As she left, the mother stunned with joy, Barbie felt pretty good.

And also pretty bad.

Like that baby, Barbie was born with a medical problem, too: something wrong with her urinary tract that affected her kidneys. As a little kid in the 1950s and 60s, she was in and out of the hospital in an era when people were a lot less sensitive to what that feels like for a child.

The nurses would practice catheterizing on me, Barbie, 61, recalls.

Each stay at the hospital lasted about a week, and she never knew when another one was coming.

My mom would wake me up and say, Its a hospital week!  and Barbie would be overwhelmed with terror. Probes and pain and loneliness loomed, as did the humiliation of having interns, mostly men, coming in to examine her urinary tract and discuss it as if she wasnt there.

Thank god for the arts and crafts lady who made her daily rounds. Barbie made a set of tiny dolls. She kept them for 40 years.

By then, Barbie was a real mom, a single mom by choice.

I spent all those years working with and falling in love with other peoples children, she says. It was time to have my own.

But her kidneys, damaged since childhood, were starting to fail. A few years ago the doctors told her shed probably need a transplant  terrible words to hear in New York.

The wait for the kidney from a deceased donor in our state is seven to nine years, one of the longest waits in the country. (That, by the way, is why we should have people opting out if they dont want their organs donated upon death, rather than having to opt in by checking a box on our driver licenses. In Spain, everyone is automatically registered for after-death organ donation, unless they choose to check the No box. The average wait for a kidney there is eight months).

Since the wait here is so long, and since a kidney donated by a living person tends to last up two twice as long as a cadaver kidney, as Barbies condition worsened, she started a blog, Barbi esKid neyQu est.wordp ress.com .

How do you explain to someone who you are, and why they might want to consider giving you a kidney?

Barbies now college-age daughter Yona took a stab at it. She and her mom have one of those relationships, she wrote, maybe because it has always been just the two of them, where they sing together in the kitchen. They watch a lot of murder mysteries on television, the British ones. They live in Stuyvesant Town where Yona grew up watching her mom check in on elderly neighbors (there are plenty!) and bring them soup.

As Barbies friend, I watch and marvel, too. She loves learning things like carpentry and cocktail making. She invented a grated ginger cocktail in 2012 that is still the talk of our circle. She made her own guitar, and couch, and just did a glassblowing class with her daughter. Even as a child at Jewish sleep-away camp, where one of the offerings was Yiddish class, she signed up.

I was the only one.

She loved it.

Like many of her friends, I did a little research and found out that giving a kidney does not shorten the donors life or compromise their health. So I got tested to see if Im a match. Im not. None of us are. Turns out I couldnt do a swap either, where Id give my kidney to a patient I matched, and their donor, a match for Barbie, would give her theirs. So instead, I am introducing you to her.

A childhood spent at the hospital. An adulthood spent making ailing kids better, and parents weep for joy. Endless curiosity. Deep friendships. And a loving daughter she loves back, more than the moon and the stars.

A life worth saving.

Barbie.

Read Lenore Skenazys column every Sunday morning on Brook lynPa per.com
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
latest news

October 31, 2022

Buddy TV

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As 15 entities including Reliance file their expressions of interest for Future Retail, here's all you need to know about the company and ...
Korean auto major Hyundai, the second-largest car maker in India, is looking to enter the domestic commercial vehicle market. Seoul-headquartered Company (HMC) is evaluating the prospects of the Indian small and heavy commercial vehicle market.
Co-Chairman Ravi Venkatesan on Sunday said that the company could be 10 times as large as it is today if it could execute well to harness advances in digital and machine learning.
The Supreme Court (SC) has directed Panther Fincap and Management Services, owned by former stockbroker Ketan Parekh, to deposit Rs 50 crore by September 11 or else, face detention in civil prison.
The government is looking to leverage Air Indias assets to lighten the debt burden of the company to make it attractive to potential buyers. However, the new owner of Air India may need to absorb around Rs 6,000 crore of the working capital debt, internal calculations have shown.
The Kerala unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a statewide shutdown on Sunday in protest against the killing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist allegedly by Communist Party of India (CPI-M) loyalists.

The 34-year-old RSS worker, who was hacked on Saturday night in the state capital, breathed his last at a private hospital. The deceased has been identified as E. Rajesh, who was a "Karyavahak" attached to the RSS unit at Sreekariyam near here.

State BJP President Kummanem Rajasekheran, who visited the hospital, told reporters that this was a result of state-sponsored violence.

"The CPI-M led government has become a mute witness to the violence going on in the state capital district. Even our state party headquarters was attacked. But we exercised restraint.

"But now, we are left with no other option but to call for a statewide shutdown tomorrow (Sunday) to protest the killing (of Rajesh). The state government has not even called for a peace talk to resolve issues," Rajasekheran said.

According to the BJP, Rajesh was hacked by four suspected youth wing activists of the CPI-M people, who came on two motorcycles.

He suffered serious injuries in his face, hands and legs, and according to the BJP, his left hand was severed and thrown away.

The killing comes a day after a group of CPI-M workers led by local Councillor I.P. Binu smashed six vehicles parked in the state committee office of the BJP.

After the attack at the BJP headquarters, the residence of the son of CPI-M state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was stoned.

For the past two weeks, an uneasy calm has been prevailing in the capital district, with the activists of the BJP and the CPI-M attacking each other every now and then.

Thiruvananthapuram district CPI-M Secretary Anavoor Nagappan in a statement issued here on Saturday night said that the CPI-M had no role in this incident.

"There were some local issues in the area and in this incident, the CPI-M has no role," Nagappan's statement read.

(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.)
Amid reports of an extension of the last date to file for Income Tax returns, the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) on Saturday while denying the same said no such proposal was made.

The last date of filing returns, the chamber clarified, would remain July 31, while urging taxpayers to ensure complete adherence to norms and timely completion of the procedure.

Earlier this month, to render better services to taxpayers and reduce grievances, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley launched the taxpayers service module and mobile app 'Aaykar Setu'.

"This is an important step forward by the CBDT for several reasons, out of which the principal reason being technology. This app is designed to help discharge any queries of the citizens without any external help," said Jaitley while addressing the reporters at the launch in New Delhi.

Adding to this, he said that the app reduces the interface between the department, which is the assessing officer and the assessee in terms of the physical interface.

Available in android version and desktop version, the new app is a new step by the Income Tax Department (ITD) to directly communicate with the taxpayers, on a range of multiple informative and useful tax services aimed at providing tax information at their fingertips.

"It will help to improve the image of the department," added Jaitley while saying that the app will have many positive consequences.

The module compiles various tax tools, live chat facility, dynamic updates, and important links to various processes within the Income Tax Department in a single module. The tax payers will also be able to receive regular updates regarding important tax dates, forms, and notifications on mobile numbers registered with the ITD.

All taxpayers who wish to receive such SMS alerts are advised to register their mobile numbers in the Aaykar Setu module.
Political uncertainty in Pakistan triggered by the ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be advantageous to its military which may now back terrorism against India more aggressively, foreign policy experts said on Sunday.

They also felt that the prospect of Indo-Pak engagement became very dim as the Pakistani military would not like to see any improvement in ties with India.

"Political uncertainty and instability in Pakistan will be to the advantage of the military in that country," said G Parthasarathy, who was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan from 1998 to 2000.

Meera Shankar, who was India's Ambassador to the US between 2009 and 2011, echoed similar views, saying internal instability will further consolidate the military's hold over the country.

Lalit Mansingh, who was the foreign secretary from 1999-2000, too said political instability in Pakistan will further embolden the Army and in such a scenario, it will more aggressively push terror activities against India.

He said India's standoff with China in the Dokalam area has further encouraged Pakistan to step up cross border terrorism against India and an internal political structure in Islamabad will be conducive for Pakistani military to pursue its goal.

Parthasarathy, too, said the military's domination will mean continuation of the policy to back terror groups against India.

Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by Pakistan Supreme Court over undeclared assets relating to Panama Papers scandal.

Ruling PML-N has named former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the interim prime minister until Nawaz Sharif's younger brother Shehbaz is elected as a member of parliament to succeed him as his eventual successor.

Both Parthasarathy and Mansingh said they do not expect any movement in engagement between India and Pakistan after Sharif's resignation.

Ties between India and Pakistan nosedived after Pakistani terrorists attacked India's Pathankot air force base in January last year. Following the attack, India had said talks with Pakistan cannot take place unless it stops cross border terror.

"In Nawaz Sharif, at least you had a politician who wanted to improve relations with India," said Parthasarathy, adding the prospect of Indo-Pak engagement was dim under a weak government in Islamabad.

Mansingh said any kind of dialogue between the two countries was unlikely, adding Pakistani military giving full access to China including to its military personnel in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir was a matter of concern.

"I see the state of freeze between India and China continuing until the forseeable future and we might even expect surge in cross border terror activities," said Mansingh, who was also India's envoy to Washington.

Shankar said the military was calling the shots even under Sharif's leadership and it used corruption charges against him to pull him down.

"It will be interesting to see whether the Army will allow Shehbaz Sharif to take over as the Prime Minister. The judiciary in Pakistan is playing an active role as some people are saying it was a constitutional coup," she said.

T C A Rangachari, India's former envoy to France and Germany, said Pakistan's policy towards India has been same irrespective of having internal stability or instability.

Rangachari, who had served in Islamabad as Deputy High Commissioner, said Pakistan's approach towards India has been guided by the armed forces and it does not change even though there is any change in the country's political complexion.

He also said there was political stability in Pakistan during the the 1965 war.

"We will have to wait and watch, how things unfold there. We should not make quick judgement," he said.

Mansingh said Sharif was advocating better economic ties between the two countries but the next government in Islamabad is highly unlikely to follow the line.

Shankar said though Sharif was for better relations with India, his views did not find space as the Army was influencing foreign policy decisions.

(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.)
Two militants were killed on Sunday by the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, a defence official said here.

Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said: "Two militants were killed in an ongoing security operation in Tahab village."

According to the police sources, the two victims were identified as Irfan Sheikh and Abid.
Residents of Gantholi village held a demonstration in front of the Goverdhan Police Station on Saturday demanding that a four-year-old girl, who was allegedly kidnapped on Saturday, be rescued quickly.

The demonstration was called off after the police assured that they will rescue the girl within two days, former RLD district president Deepak Chaudhary said.

"The villagers have been assured that the girl will be traced and rescued within two days," SHO Kamlesh Singh said.

The demonstrators alleged that the police had taken no efforts to trace the girl, who was kidnapped on July 26 afternoon, from the Gantholi.

The police, however, refuted the allegation.
In a move to sort out the procedural mess that exports have got stuck into after the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST), the Customs department has notified that currency exchange rates for drawback purposes would be announced on a fortnightly basis, as was the case earlier.
Its a repeat of demonetisation for Surat-based diamond polisher Arjanbhai Ambaliya, who has hardly seen any orders since the roll-out of the goods and services tax (GST) on July 1.
The expanded tax base following the Goods and Services Tax (GST) registration along with the removal of double taxation and other benefits under the new tax reform would help the country in terms of having more resources, said the Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday.
At least six PAK-FA prototypes are already participating in flight-testing and flying displays, such as at the recent Paris Air Show

The decks are clear for the ministry of defence (MoD) to sanction the long-delayed Indo-Russian project to jointly develop a cutting-edge Fifth Generation Fighter Aircraft (FGFA).
The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is an international event of military music performance undertaken by the Armed Forces. In fact, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the largest tattoo performed in the world in the majestic, sprawling stretch of Edinburgh Castle Esplanade, Scotland. .

.

The invitation to the Indian Navy Band to participate and perform in this prestigious event scheduled from 01 to 26 Aug 17 is indeed a matter of pride and befitting recognition of the professional prowess of the Naval band. The participation of the Naval Band would further cement the ties between the two countries, more so, when the Govt of India and UK have announced 2017 as the India-UK Year of Culture to celebrate cultural ties and the 70th year of Indian independence. .

.

The Indian Navy Band has been practicing hard in the last few months to further hone their skills to capture the hearts and minds of the music enthusiasts in this international event. The band comprising of 01 officer and 65 musician sailors would perform under the leadership of Commander Vijay Charles DCruz, Director of Music (Navy) who would be the Principal Conductor during the event. The Indian Navy band is scheduled to depart for London from Mumbai on 30 Jul 17. .

.

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is well renowned event with over 50 bands participating, and nearly 8500 visitors attending the daily performances. A total audience of nearly 2.5 lakh attends the event over the period of 26 days. Apart from India, bands from countries like Australia, France, Germany, Japan, etc, would also be performing at the tattoo this year. .

.
A terrorist plot to "bring down" a plane was foiled late on Saturday, as authorities raided four properties across Sydney, with four men in custody.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the media on Sunday, and said that the arrests were centred around a plan to detonate a bomb  involving an aeroplane, Xinhua news agency reported.

Turnbull said the investigation was underway and that security has been ramped up at all major airports across the nation as a result of the heightened terror threat.

"Every day, every hour, we are focused on ensuring that our defences against terrorism are stronger than ever," Turnbull said.

"That our co-operation is tighter than ever. That our co-ordination is swifter than ever before. Now, we have strong transport, security systems in place in Australia, to prevent acts of terrorism."

The Prime Minister said that travellers should be aware that the measures imposed at airports may cause delays, but that safety of passengers was the number one priority.

"Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be. Travellers should be prepared for additional scrutiny at screening points, and while it is important that Australians are aware of the increased threat - be assured we have the finest security and intelligence services in the world and they are working, as is my government, and all our governments around Australia, night and day, to keep Australians safe," Turnbull was quoted as saying.

Travellers have been urged to arrive at airports at least two hours before their flights, and to limit how much baggage they bring.

The four men in custody after the raids have not yet been charged.
Former Pakistan prime minister Nawaz Sharif, on Sunday, vacated the Prime Minister's House and departed for Punjab province's Murree town along with his family members.

Geo News quoted sources as saying that Sharif decided to reside in Murree rather than his Raiwind estate in Lahore till the election of the new prime minister slated for Tuesday.

According to reports, Sharif personally met all the staff members of the PM House before leaving.

Sharif along with his wife Kulsum Nawaz, his daughter Maryam Nawaz and his son-in-law Captain Safdar vacated the PM House two days after a five-member bench of the Supreme Court unanimously disqualified him for failing to disclose his 'unwithdrawn' salary as chairman of a United Arab Emirates (UAE) based firm at the time of filing his nomination.

Sharif had resigned from the Prime Minister's office following disqualification from the Supreme Court in the Panamagate verdict.

According to reports, the legal basis for disqualifying Sharif is explained in the page 23 and 24 of the verdict.

It says: "As a sequel to what has been discussed in paragraphs 13 above, the following declaration and direction is issued:-

i) It is hereby declared that having failed to disclose his unwithdrawn receivables constituting assets from Capital FZE, Jebel Ali, UAE in his nomination papers filed for the General Elections held in 2013 in terms of Section 12(2)(f) of the Representation of the People Act, 1976 (ROPA), and having furnished a false declaration under solemn affirmation respondent No. 1 Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is not honest in terms of Section 99(f) of ROPA and Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, 1973, therefore, he is disqualified to be a Member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament);

ii) The Election Commission of Pakistan shall issue a notification disqualifying respondent No 1 Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from being a Member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) with immediate effect, where after he shall cease to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan."

The apex court ordered the National Accountability Bureau (NAB) to file a reference against the accused in an accountability court in six weeks, directing for the trial to be concluded within six months.

It is the second time in Pakistan's 70-year history that the Supreme Court has disqualified a sitting prime minister. In 2012 then prime minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was disqualified over contempt of court charges for refusing to reopen a corruption case against President Asif Ali Zardari.

Also, no Pakistani prime minister has ever completed a full five-year elected term. Most tenures have been cut short by military coups.

While serving as the country's Prime Minister in 1993, Sharif was sacked by the then-president over graft allegations, while in 1999 he was ousted in a military coup.

Following the apex court's verdict, the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) announced Punjab Chief Minister and Nawaz Sharif's younger brother Shehbaz Sharif as the next Prime Minister of Pakistan.

(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.)
American forces successfully tried out on Sunday a missile interception system the United Stataes (US) hopes to set up on the Korean peninsula, military officials said following a trial just days after North Korea's second test of an ICBM (Intercontinental ballistic missile).
US President once again blasted China for its inaction against North Korea following Pyongyang's latest missile launch.

He said in a series of tweets, "I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

The Pentagon confirmed that North Korea on Friday launched its second flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The launch came a day after the 64th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War.

The anniversary had led to increased concerns the regime planned another test to fire another intercontinental ballistic missile.

Earlier this month on July 4, Pyongyang had also conducted its first successful test of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14, which it said was a "gift" to "American b******s" on their Independence Day.

The US President has repeatedly called on China to step up the pressure on its rogue ally, Pyongyang, and to do more to halt its nuclear program.

His comments are a contrast to what he said in April this year as he praised Chinese efforts to rein in North Korea.

Trump told a news conference at the time that he was confident Chinese President Xi Jinping would "try very hard" to pressure Beijing's ally and neighbour North Korea over its nuclear and missile programs.

(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.)
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President Xi Jinping said China needs to speed up the modernisation of its military to fend off threats in increasingly dangerous times.
Attention women, if you are trying to conceive a baby naturally, then a study has found that artificial insemination may increase the chance of successful pregnancy by 22 percent.

The study also indicated that artificial insemination, also known as intrauterine insemination (IUI), raises a couple's likelihood of have a successful pregnancy from nine to 31 percent, if they have been trying to conceive for three months.

The researchers stated that when combined with female fertility drugs, IUI can be more cost effective and less invasive than IVF.

This comes despite the UK's NICE stating couples who have been unsuccessfully trying to conceive for more than a year should bypass IUI and start IVF.

Roy Homburg from Homerton University Hospital in London argues that skipping IUI and proceeding directly to IVF is "like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut".

Researchers from the University of Auckland analysed 201 women, who had spent three months trying to conceive naturally.

Each woman was asked to have three rounds of IUI alongside taking a drug that boosts ovulation.

The results suggested that IUI can increase a woman's chance of having a live birth from nine percent to 31 percent, a rise of 22 percent.

In a separate study, researchers from the Fertility Clinic Isala in Zwolle, the Netherlands, analysed 602 couples and found that, after six rounds of treatment, IUI has similar success rates to drug-free IVF.

Dr Ben Cohlen from the Fertility Clinic Isala said, "For unexplained or mild male infertility, I would do at least three cycles of IUI before trying IVF."

The researchers noted that women are required to have healthy Fallopian tubes in order to be eligible for such treatment.

The success depends on the extent of the woman's fertility problems, the woman's age, if medication is used to enhance ovulation, and the man's sperm count and quality.

Side effects are non-serious but may include abdominal cramps.

The findings are presented at the European Society of Human Reproduction and Embryology meeting in Geneva.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Sunday visited Jaya Memorial in Chennai and paid tributes.

Arun Jaitley was in Chennai to attend GST Conclave in Chennai.

The Union Minister was accompanied by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Finance Nirmala Seetharaman.

Both of them were received by the state Finance Minister Jayakumar at the Marina Coast and were later taken to Jaya memorial where they paid tribute by garlanding former Tamil Nadu chief minister Jayalalitha's statue.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Australian authorities have arrested four men as they foiled an Islamist-inspired terrorist plot to bring down an airplane.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed the development at a news conference here on Sunday, reports the ABC news.

The arrest was made yesterday after the authorities seized material that could be used to make an improvised bomb, which the perpetrators intending to smuggle onto a plane in order to blow it up.

Police said it was an Islamist-inspired plot, but they did not link the plan to a specific terrorist group.

Meanwhile, Turnbull said the "major counter-terrorism operation" was ongoing.

The Prime Minister said extra security measures have been in place at Sydney Airport since Thursday and have since been put in place at the country's other major airports.

Transport security officials advised travelers to get to their airports two hours before their scheduled flight departures.

Last month, ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack at a suburban Melbourne apartment building where one man was killed and three police officers were wounded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has condemned the killing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in Kerala who was murdered on Saturday night and blamed Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) for the attack.

Speaking to ANI, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said that the ruling party (CPI-M) is definitely behind the death of the RSS worker.

"They (CPI-M) celebrate after killing RSS people. They are mad people sitting in power and doing things like these."

He further demanded that the Central government should dismiss this government.

Speaking to ANI on the same matter, BJP member Sudesh Verma added that this is not the first incident of political violence in Kerala, where a RSS or BJP worker has been killed.

"Hundreds of workers have been killed, we have been raising these issues but the so called- liberal and progressive forces in this country don't condone this because it is happening against our members," Verma said.

He also questioned the "award wapsi brigade'.

"Every killing needs to be condemned and action needs to be taken. We expect that Kerala government should act on this," he added.

However, CPI-M state secretary Kodiyery Balakrishnan has maintained that his party members were not responsible for the murder and castigated the BJP for creating law and order problems in the state.

"The probe shows the attack against RSS worker is not a political killing. The main accused Manikandan is not a CPI-M member. His father is an INTUC worker. Those who are in custody are from various political outfits, one is from BMS also," Balakrishnan said in a press conference.

A 34-year-old RSS leader was murdered in Kozhikode on Saturday night. The police has so far detained eight people in connection with this case.

The BJP has blamed the CPI-M for carrying out the attack.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Management Development Institute (MDI), Gurugram, in association with Directorate General of Resettlement (DGR), Ministry of Defence, has been conducting six-month course for retired armed forces officers.

This specialised course assists and guides the participants in various fields of corporate sector including sales and marketing, operations, information technology, supply chain management, human resource, finance, retail, telecom, strategy management, education and so on.

Since defense personnel come from a background where they are well-trained and crafted in handling crisis situations, quality management training with great leadership exposure can further enhance them in becoming the most sought human resource in no time.

MDI has designed the specialised program to make officers well equipped in managerial competencies for the corporate world. The program can be opted by both retired as well as by short service commissioned officers.

An added advantage of this course is that the military MBA aspirants can impart useful and effective leadership experiences to their civilian counterparts.

Parul Gupta, Course Director, said: "The program consists of 3 semesters with 50-60 participants in the batch. She also said the course is sponsored by DGR (Directorate General of Resettlement), Government of India, as it provides 60 % of the course fee which is Rs 2.2 lakh per participant and the rest 40 % has to be paid by the applicant. This course is in great demand as it has been very effective and the participants have gained lots of practical exposure related to management."

Squadron Leader Praveen Singh with the Indian Air Force from the short service commission, who opted for this programme after serving 10 years for armed forces, said, "This initiative of DGR and MDI is commendable for ex-servicemen to find a firm footing in the corporate world."

Squadron leader Smriti Dixit, who joined the course, retired in 2015 after serving the Air Force for over 11 years, shared her experience and hailed the structure of the program. She even went on to say that there is no institute that can enrich and cover the larger syllabus at such a short span of time, which MDI is doing.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A youth was detained after three (7.62 mm) live rounds were detected in his bag at Kailash Colony Metro Station on Sunday during security check.

The incident took place at 12:25 p.m. when a Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) personnel at the screening duty detected something suspicious in the bag of a passenger at the metro station.

The official asked the passenger to show the bag's content, following which three live rounds were found.

Later, the passenger identified as Jitendra Kumar, aged 18 years, was handed over to Delhi Police for further probe.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least two were killed and three other injured in a shooting in a German nightclub in Konstanz, police said.

The 34-year-old suspect suffered life-threatening injuries in a gunfight with police officers outside the venue, near the Swiss border, reported the Independent.

The suspect later died in hospital.

The motive behind the shooting remains to be unclear.

One police officer was reportedly injured in the exchange of fire with the suspect.

Local media reports suggest that the other person killed was a guest at the disco, and the police and prosecutors stated, the officer's wounds were not life-threatening.

Police said that special commando forces have been deployed in the city, as it was not clear, whether, the suspect had accomplices.

(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.)
An accused has been arrested for molesting and trying to kidnap a girl in Delhi's Vasant Kunj area.

In her complaint, the victim said while she was going back home from her work on Saturday evening, then a man molested and tried to kidnap her.

Police have arrested the accused, 22-year old Rohit Choudhary in this regard and further investigation is underway.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After losing all hopes of help from the officials, senior-citizens of Cantonment area in Hyderabad have taken the responsibility to fix the pothole-ridden roads onto their shoulders.

They have been working continuously for the second week, as the roads are in poor condition and some of them need expansion.

"The road is in a very bad state. This road needs expansion and for a safer journey I request the government to repair the roads," a senior citizen, Avtar Singh told ANI.

Despite assurances on several occasions from the officials, no action has been taken yet and the road is supposed to be dangerous, especially for the people, who ride two-wheeler.

Chandrashekar, a young man, who has joined the cause seeing elderly people repairing the roads said, "This is for the second week we are here. This is a twelve feet road and it needs to be widened. Cantonment officials are least bothered. A major accident took place here yesterday and the person injured in that accident is in a serious condition."

Seeing the elderly work, many kids and young people have also joined them to repair the roads. The road repair work is continuing, solely by the civilians and senior citizens.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday interrogated Devinder Singh Behl at his resident here, over his suspected connections with Separatist elements.

The NIA is also conducting raids at various premises of Behl, who was supposedly connected to Hurriyat before 2008.

Earlier on Wednesday, Separatist leader and Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) chairman Shabir Shah, was sent to a seven-day Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody in connection with a terror-funding case.

Shah was under house detention for a very long time, in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar. The reason for his arrest is yet unknown as he was already under house arrest since many months.

On July 24, the NIA arrested seven separatists over money laundering charges, for funding terror in the Kashmir Valley.

All seven separatist leaders - Altaf Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Mehraj Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam, Naeem Khan and Bitta Karate - were later sent to 10-day NIA custody.

The accused have been charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

Six of them were arrested from Srinagar, while Bitta Karate was arrested from New Delhi.

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.

The 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.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Kerala state Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on Sunday called for a statewide strike over the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam yesterday.

The BJP has alleged Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) workers behind it.

Meanwhile, the Police have started an investigation.

This comes after the CPM and the BJP in Kerala declared war on each other on the night of July 27th, as both sides went on an attacking spree on each other's party offices, resulting in major property damage.

The clashes between the workers belonging to the two political outfits have erupted regularly in the past years, claiming an almost equal number of people from both sides.

A number of violent incidents were reported between BJP and CPM workers on Thursday night in Thiruvananthapuram, including attacks on residences of cadres.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers.

No one was inside the office at the time of the incident.

However, the Trivandrum Police declared Section 79 of the Kerala Police Act in Thiruvananthapuram to prevent demonstrations, protect marches and meetings till July 30.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In the backdrop of a spree of violence between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Communist Party of India (Marxist) members in Kerala spurred by the death of an RSS activist, the Kerala unit of the Congress Party on Sunday staged a protest demanding peace in the state.

Many Congress leaders including party's state president MM Hassan and Leader of Opposition in the assembly, Ramesh Chennithala are on a hunger strike in Kozhikode.

A 34-year-old RSS leader was murdered in Kozhikode on Saturday night. The police has so far detained eight people in connection with this case.

The BJP has blamed the CPM for carrying out the attack.

However, CPM state secretary Kodiyery Balakrishnan has maintained that his party members were not responsible for the murder and castigated the BJP for creating law and order problems in the state.

"The probe shows the attack against RSS worker is not a political killing. The main accused Manikandan is not a CPM member. His father is an INTUC worker. Those who are in custody are from various political outfits, one is from BMS also," Balakrishnan said in a press conference.

"Within last two weeks two cases were registered against the victim and the main accused for personal rivalry. BJP is trying to create law and order problems in the state," he added.

According to police, Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack, which took place around 9 pm on Saturday.

Earlier, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh dialed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressing concern over the prevailing law and order situation in the state.

He called on the Kerala Chief Minister to nab the perpetrators and bring them to justice expeditiously.

Rajnath took to his twitter handle to inform about the same and wrote that 'political violence is unacceptable in a democracy'.

"Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state," he tweeted.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers. No one sustained injuries in the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Kerala Police on Sunday detained five more people in connection with the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker here on Saturday.

Earlier in the day, three people were taken into police custody in connection with the case.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

He also appealed to social media users to restrain themselves from spreading rumours and provocative messages, which would attract legal action.

Earlier on Saturday, a RSS worker was murdered in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) workers behind it.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers.

No one was inside the office at the time of the incident.

(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.)
Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's appeal to the Centre to not block trade routes with Pakistan has not gone down well with many, as experts have pointed out that Separatists are the only beneficiaries from such a trade.

Defence Expert, P.K. Sehgal, while speaking to ANI criticized the use of cross-border trade in the valley and said that only the separatists are the beneficiaries from such a trade.

"Money is created for separatists and it's used for anti-India motives. It's used for narco-terrorism, ammunition etc," he said, adding that vote bank politics continue to get the better of Mufti and that she is pursuing with the cross-border trade because her constituency is mainly occupied by separatists.

He also said that in order for the cross-border trade to continue, a number of checks and balances need to be kept in place so that nothing works in favor of the separatists.

Speaking on the same, senior journalist Rahul Jalali pointed to the civil unrest in the valley ever since Mehbooba Mufti took office. He also criticized her for not commenting on any of the issues in the valley before the arrest of the separatist leaders.

He spoke of a Coordination committee which was present during her father, Mufti Mohammad Sayeed's regime and said that she should have revived the committee and held talks within her ambit.

Speaking on her cross-border trade comment, he said, "She speaks beyond her jurisdiction. These are international matters with another country and she could have taken this up in the agenda of alliance through the coordination committee."

The flurry of criticism comes after Mufti on Saturday appealed to the Centre to revive the Lahore Declaration for restoring peace in the Valley, and not block trade routes with Pakistan.

The Lahore Declaration is a bilateral agreement and governance treaty between India and Pakistan which was signed in 1999 before the Kargil war.

Her statement came a day after she had warned the Central Government against diluting Article 370, which grants special status to the state.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Expressing concern over the prevailing law and order situation in Kerala after the killing of another Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday called on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to nab the perpetrators and bring them to justice expeditiously.

Rajnath took to his twitter handle to inform about the same and wrote that 'political violence is unacceptable in a democracy'.

"Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state," he tweeted.

Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state. 1/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

"I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy," he added.

I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. 2/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

He even requested the Chief Minister to curb the political violence in the state.

"I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously," he tweeted.

I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously. 3/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

Earlier in the day, the Kerala Police detained eight people in connection with the murder of a RSS worker which took place yesterday.

Three were nabbed early on Sunday, followed by five other accused being detained soon.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

He also appealed to social media users to restrain themselves from spreading rumours and provocative messages, which would attract legal action.

Earlier on Saturday, a RSS worker was murdered in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) workers behind it.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers.

No one was inside the office at the time of the incident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Isha Sharma

New Delhi [India], July 30 (ANI) : Filmmaker Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra today revealed that his upcoming Bollywood flick, 'Mere Pyaare Prime Minister,' which is based on the story of a mother-son relationship, teaches about hope and taking charge of a situation.

While talking to ANI, the 54-year-old said that it's story of a single mother, whose eight-year-old son wants to make a toilet for her. "He is really concerned about her and her safety when she goes out to defecate in the middle of the night, every night like lakhs of women do in India [sic]."

"For the solution to this problem, he writes a letter to the Prime Minister of India and comes to Delhi with his two friends to deliver him the letter and get the toilet made. It's a story of hope, inspiration. It's a story about doing something about the situation that is around us and not simply talking about it. It's a story about taking responsibility onto yourself rather than looking at the government for answers every time and pointing a figure at them," he added.

The 'Delhi 6' director stated that the children living in slums are much happier as they go through a lot of difficulties and struggles but their best part is that they don't give up, they are full of hope.

While giving details about movie's lead actress, the ace director said that national award winner Marathi actress Anjali pathak is absolutely stunning and very talented. She is a very fast growing name in world cinema.

The 'Rang De Basabti' director said, "The mother-son love story is set in the slums of Bombay to be exact in Ghatkopar east in slum colony called Gandhi Nagar, which is a fictitious name for the neighbourhood Amrut Nagar."

Toilet is a very big issue and this is an endless topic of discussion, the 'Mirzya' director concluded.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Russian President Vladimir V Putin announced on Sunday that 755 American diplomats would be expelled from Moscow by September 1.

The expulsions were ordered on Friday when Russia ordered the United States to reduce the number of their diplomats in the country as a mark of retaliation for new sanctions against Moscow passed last week by the US Congress.

Putin, while speaking in a television interview on the Rossiya 1 network, said that "Russia's patience in waiting for improved relations with the United States had worn out."

"We waited for quite some time that maybe something will change for the better, had such hope that the situation will somehow change, but, judging by everything, if it changes, it will not be soon," Putin said, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had earlier issued a statement saying the number of American diplomats in the US Embassy in Moscow and its four consulates across the country should be reduced to 455 by September 1, which is the same as the number of Russian diplomats currently serving in the US

It also said it would seize two US diplomatic properties, including cottages just outside Moscow's city center and a warehouse facility in Moscow. The embassy properties must be handed over by August 1.

Russia's move came a day after the US Senate passed a bill expanding economic sanctions on Russia, as well as North Korea and Iran.

The massive vote margins reflected growing bipartisan anxiety over Trump's two meetings with Putin in Hamburg, Germany, this month.

Following the orders, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov threatened further retaliation against the US

"If the US side decides to move further towards further deterioration, we will answer, we will respond in kind," CNN reported Ryabkov, as saying to ABC's "This Week."

"We will mirror this. We will retaliate. ... But my whole point is, don't do this, it is to the detriment of the interests of the US"

The deputy foreign minister did not specify what Russia's plans for retaliation are, but said that the country has "a very rich toolbox at our disposal."

Earlier, Putin, speaking at a news conference in Finland, accused the US lawmakers of "insolence."

"We are behaving in a very restrained and patient way, but at some moment we will need to respond," Putin told reporters.

"It's impossible to endlessly tolerate this kind of insolence toward our country. This practice is unacceptable. It destroys relations and law," he added.

The sanctions bill would slap new sanctions on Russia, and would set into law penalties former president Barack Obama's administration imposed on Moscow in December, for its meddling in the US election last year and for its aggression in Ukraine.

The bill also would give Congress veto power to block any easing of those sanctions.

The growing tensions between Russia and the US over the sanctions bill come in the wake of the congressional investigations into Russian hacking into the 2016 election, which the US intelligence services have said was an effort to influence the election in Trump's favour.
Villagers who have been displaced due to closure of Sardar Sarovar Dam have demanded rehabilitation here, on Sunday.

The villagers have protested by covering themselves with shrouds over the government's "fake promises" when they were displaced.

Speaking to ANI, a resident at the protest said that they are protesting because they have not been provided with any services that they were promised with, which includes a home, proper roads, electricity and water.

Devram one of the head protestor said, "You yourself go and see that the construction of roads is still going on. This is should have been completed by May 8, but till now they are working."

Adding further he said that they don't have any additional needs, and are just asking the authorities to complete the work that was promised to the villagers.

"We are doing this protest because the government is not listening to us," another resident at the protest said.

Earlier in June the Sardar Sarovar dam on the Narmada River, was closed shut, fifty-six years after its foundation.

The Gujarat Government got permission to "shut the gates" of the dam, marking the "completion" of the project, due to which many villagers were displaced from their homes.

Of the total 23,614 families affected by the SSP, 9242 families were rehabilitated in Madhya Pradesh, while 5,551 families were migrated to Gujarat, accepting the rehabilitation packages.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
With six Congress MLAs having quit in Gujarat, Congress have accused the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of corrupt practices to lure members from their party.

Speaking to ANI, Congress leader Arjun Modwadia, said that a new chapter has been opened by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah and that they are managing to expand this plan beyond Gujarat.

"Even though they don't have the majority, they manage to form the government through like they did in Gujarat and Manipur", he said, further accusing them of forming unethical alliances like they did in Bihar or the PDP in Kashmir, which he termed to be anti-national.

He also said that the Gujarat Model is spreading beyond Gujarat because of Modi.

"They roam around with money to bribe people but the ones who have been loyal to the party will continue to be loyal to them and won't fall in their trap," he added.

Earlier, the BJP on Sunday said that the grand old party is now a sinking ship as their cadres are losing faith in the party leadership.

"People are now aware that the Congress Party is now a sinking ship. And is not a trustworthy party anymore," Shahnawaz Hussain told ANI.

They said that the Congress has been making baseless allegation against the BJP and further called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi to come up and clarify why their party is crumbling down like a deck of cards.

The developments come after at least six Congress MLAs in Gujarat resigned from the party to join the BJP.

(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.)
In response to North Korea's latest missile launch, the U.S. Air Force flew two B-1B bombers accompanied by South Korean and Japanese jet fighters over the Korean Peninsula on Saturday.

The U.S. Pacific Command said the mission was in "direct response" to North Korea's "escalatory launch" of intercontinental ballistic missiles July 3 and July 28, reports VOA News.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander.

"Diplomacy remains the lead; however, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worse-case scenario. If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing," he added.

Meanwhile, President U.S. Donald Trump blasted China for its inaction against North Korea following Pyongyang's latest missile launch.

He said in a series of tweets, "I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!(sic)."

The Pentagon confirmed that North Korea on Friday launched its second flight test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The launch came a day after the 64th anniversary of the armistice that ended the Korean War.

The anniversary had led to increased concerns the regime planned another test to fire another intercontinental ballistic missile.

Earlier this month on July 4, Pyongyang had also conducted its first successful test of a long-range intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14, which it said was a "gift" to "American b******s" on their Independence Day.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 13 persons were killed and several others injured on Sunday in a truck and a passenger van collision at Abbottabad Chowk on Hassan Abdaal road in Pakistan's Punjab province.

The van which was travelling from Rawalpindi to Peshawar crashed with a truck coming from the opposite direction at Abbottabad Chowk and caught fire after hitting a gas pipeline following collision with the truck, Dunya News reported.

The injured persons were admitted to nearby hospitals.

Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif expressed grief over loss of lives in the incident and directed the concerned authorities to submit a report on the accident.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Venezuela's beleaguered government is set to go ahead with a vote on Sunday that will elect a 545-member constituent assembly with the power to rewrite the constitution and dissolve state institutions.The assembly could give Maduro new powers and dissolve state institutions.

Opponents of President Nicolas Maduro have stepped up their protests against the controversial vote and critics at home and abroad have warned will seal the demise of the oil-rich nation's democracy.

Maduro's regime has forbidden protests through Tuesday, saying violators will face prison terms of five to 10 years. It says it has dispatched more than 370,000 troops across the country to secure Sunday's vote.

Violent clashes with the government have killed 113 since April, according to the Venezuelan Attorney General's Office, as the country faces economic and political crises with falling crude oil prices that funds most of the government's socialist agenda.

The newly elected body would rewrite the 1999 constitution, the cornerstone of former President Hugo Chavez's "Bolivarian Revolution," which extended presidential term limits and allowed for indefinite re-elections.

Opposition leaders won a majority of seats in Venezuela's National Assembly in midterm elections in December 2015 because of the economic crisis the country has been facing and the results were a blow to the oil-rich country's socialist government that has held the congress for 16 years.

The political upheaval started in late March when the Venezuelan Supreme Court dissolved Parliament and transferred all legislative powers to itself, which is stacked with government loyalists. The opposition claimed Maduro was creating a dictatorship as impeachment attempts were blocked by the Court.

International pressure against Venezuela's election has been increasing as the United States, Mexico and Colombia said they're freezing assets and imposing other restrictions on certain current and former Venezuelan government officials.

The U.S. Treasury Department slapped sanctions against 13 Venezuelan government officials. The sanctions come ahead of the planned July 30, 2017, election orchestrated by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro of a National Constituent Assembly that will have the power to rewrite the Venezuelan constitution and dissolve all government institutions.

"As President Trump has made clear, the United States will not ignore the Maduro regime's ongoing efforts to undermine democracy, freedom and the rule of law," Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin said in a statement.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
After Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about 'Quit India' movement in 'Mann Ki Baat', the Congress Party on Sunday questioned the former that where were the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) or other connected organisations in that struggle for India's freedom.

"Prime Minister Modi talks about 'Quit India', India's struggle for independence, where was RSS or other connected organizations in that struggle for India's freedom? What was the contribution of India's right wing in India's independence struggle?" Congress party leader Manish Tewari told ANI.

Meanwhile, another leader Renuka Chaudhary advised the Prime Minister to do more and talk less as "people are dying every day in the name of caste, cow and communalism".

"The very fundamental of this country is to remove casteism, it is known as secular credentials. You have to do more, than what you talk. People are dying every day in the name of caste, cow and communalism," she said.

Earlier in the day, while addressing his 34th edition of his monthly radio broadcast of ' Mann Ki Baat', Prime Minister Modi said that the nation have to take pledge to quit un-cleanliness, poverty, terrorism, casteism and communalism from India.

"This year we are celebrating 75th anniversary of Quit India Movement. We should celebrate 15th August 2017 as the Sankalp Parva or the Day of Resolve. We have to take pledge to quit un-cleanliness, poverty, terrorism, casteism and communalism from India," he said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In one of the largest single haul of narcotics, over 1,500 kg of heroin, valued at Rs 3,500 crore in the international market, was seized from a ship off the Gujarat coast, the Coast Guard said on Sunday.

The crew members of the merchant vessel have been arrested and are being interrogated, said Coast Guard officials. The ship has been seized.

Based on intelligence, the vessel was intercepted by Coast Guard ships Samudra Pavak and Ankit around noon on Saturday. The heroin was concealed in a horizontal pipe on the top deck, an official statement said.

"This is the largest single haul of narcotics substances till date," the statement said.

"The search operation for the suspect vessel at sea was commenced by the ships and aircraft of the Coast Guard on July 27," it said, adding a vast area of the sea was kept under continuous surveillance.

"The movements of all ships in the area including the suspect vessel were minutely observed throughout till its apprehension along with eight crew members by Indian Coast Guard ships on July 29," it said.

The ship was brought to Gujarat's Porbandar port on Sunday morning for further investigation.

A joint investigation by the Coast Guard, Intelligence Bureau, police, Customs, Navy and other agencies was on, the officials said.

--IANS

desai/vd/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 11 militants were killed when the Afghan police repelled a Taliban attack in Paktika province, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.

According to a ministry statement, the insurgents were killed and 17 others injured when Taliban militants attacked police checkpoints in Sarobi district on Saturday evening, Xinhua news agency reported.

No police official was injured in the operation, the statement said.

The Taliban have yet to make any comment.

--IANS

py/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 13 persons were killed on Sunday morning when a van caught fire after hitting a gas pipeline in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, officials said.

The passenger van travelling from Rawalpindi to Peshawar collided with a truck at Abbottabad chowk and then hit a gas pipeline in the area, Dawn online reported.

The vehicle caught fire, engulfing all 13 passengers aboard, the official said.

The official said the bodies of the victims have been severely burnt and identification through DNA testing may not be possible.

--IANS

py/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Over 22,000 people have been evacuated from a Spanish festival in the city of after a massive fire on Saturday night, local emergency services said.

Pictures posted on social media showed festival goers running away from a stage engulfed by flames, Xinhua news agency quoted Sky News as saying.

The Director General of Civil Protection in Catalunya posted on Twitter that no injuries had yet been reported.

Pyrotechnics on the stage have been blamed, British newspaper Daily Mirror quoted Spanish media as reporting.

A video shared on social media shows how the blaze erupted in a matter of seconds as the speaker system was engulfed in fire, triggering music fans to run for safety.

The emergency evacuation procedure flashed on the stage screen as the flames erupted, according to Daily Mirror.

(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.)
In a crackdown on Internet services by the Chinese government, Apple has removed all major VPN apps from the App Store in China.

VPN service providers in China on Saturday received a notification from Apple that their applications would be removed from the App Store "because it includes content that is illegal in China".

The notification was first shared by ExpressVPN, a VPN provider based out of British Virgin Islands which also operates in China.

"We are disappointed as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date and we are troubled to see Apple aiding China's censorship efforts," said ExpressVPN in a blog post.

However, users who access the apps from a different territory's App Store by indicating their billing address to be outside of China are not impacted.

The move is in line with the Chinese government's effort to censor open Internet.

--IANS

sau/amit/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
In July, the legislative committee of Dunn County approved a referendum question that is unprecedented in rural America. The question asked Congress and the U.S. president to nationalize health care.

Its chances of success looked good ahead of the Nov. 8 referendum. Results of this referendum could make waves in Wisconsin.
Showing exemplary courage, a young beautician foiled an abduction bid on Saturday evening when she jumped out from a car into which she had been dragged by two men in Vasant Kunj area of south Delhi.

Seema, 22, was heading back to her home from work around 8 p.m. when she was dragged into a car, with a Haryana number plate, by two men.

But their attempt to kidnap her was thwarted as she jumped out from the car window, a senior police official told IANS.

She later raised an alarm, which made the two kidnappers flee from the scene.

The assailants remain unidentified.

The police are examining the CCTV footage to trace them.

--IANS

sp-vn/amit/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A dawn-to-dusk shutdown called by the BJP following the murder of an RSS activist derailed normal life across Kerala on Sunday, residents and officials said.

Shops and markets were closed almost everywhere, reports reaching here said. All public vehicles went off the roads, leaving hundreds stranded at railway stations and bus terminals.

The Bharatiya Janata Party called the protest after suspected activists of the ruling Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) hacked to death E. Rajesh, 34, a member of the RSS, here on Saturday night. He died a few hours later.

Those who ventured out in their own vehicles on Sunday were stopped by angry BJP and RSS workers on the main roads.

A family which travelled from Thiruvananthapuram to Kochi, a distance of 250 km, said it underwent a nightmare.

"At several places supporters of RSS and BJP stopped us and spoke to us as if we were criminals. Finally, after undergoing a lot of trouble, we reached Kochi," businessman Ajith Kumar told IANS.

At several places, BJP and RSS workers reportedly expressed their ire on those who had to travel.

"A funeral that was to take place has been postponed for tomorrow (Monday) as many people who wished to come could not make it," K. Thomas, who hails from Puthupally in Kottayam district, told IANS.

The only saving grace was that since today was a Sunday and a public holiday, government offices were anyway shut.

Hundreds who arrived at railway stations found themselves stranded as they could not get any vehicles to reach their destinations. The shutdown officially ends at 6 p.m.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
China topped in pledging Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Nepal during the 2016-17 fiscal that ended in mid-July, Nepal's Department of Industry (DoI) has said.

China has been topping in investment commitments to Nepal in the last few years, Xinhua news agency cited the DoI data as showing.

China pledged 8.35 billion Nepali rupees ($81 million) followed by India with 1.99 billion Nepali rupees, and South Korea pledging 1.88 billion Nepali rupees.

Chinese investors pledged more than half of the total FDI commitments Nepal received during the year as the Himalayan country received a total FDI commitments of 15 billion Nepali rupees.

Nepali industrialists said the increased investment in Nepal should not be taken as a surprise given that China has been investing heavily across the world.

"Chinese investors are seeing a lot of investment opportunities in Nepal and they are coming here," Bhola Nath Pathak, project coordinator of Hongshi Shivam Cement, a Nepal-China joint venture industrial unit, told Xinhua.

During the Nepal Investment Summit organised by the Nepal government here in March, Chinese investors pledged the highest amount compared to investors from other countries.

The Chinese delegation committed FDI of $8.2 billion against total investment pledges of $13.52 billion from seven countries.

Entrepreneurs, however, say the realisation of pledged FDI commitments has remained sluggish.

"The investors still have to encounter many bureaucratic hurdles," said Pashupati Murarka, former President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI).

"The government should clear the bureaucratic hurdles quickly for those investors who have received the licence to develop the industry."

Nepali government officials said they were making efforts to ease investors in Nepal.

"We initiated the process of legal and institutional reforms and simplified procedures for registering industries," DoI Director General Shankar Aryal said.

Nepal has introduced new Industrial Enterprises Act, Special Economic Zone Act and new Foreign Investment Policy lately offering more facilities to investors and easing the process of investing in Nepal.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Filmmaker Anubhav Sinha has nothing to do with Omung Kumar's "Bhoomi", but he is enraged by claims that the first poster of the Sanjay Dutt-starrer is copied from a Hollywood film. He says he is not in favour of "some bizarre, out of work, useless pests" who put people's hard work down.

Sanjay shared the poster on his 58th birthday on Saturday, and it shows a close-up with him in a grim mood with his face covered with dust and blood. Some people highlighted the resemblance of the "Bhoomi" poster with Liam Neeson's film "Grey".

To prove his point, Sinha took to his Facebook page and cited examples of several other projects that used close-up shots for their poster.

The lengthy post that came with a disclaimer 'Warning - abusive language alert', read: "Bollywood is so full of some bizarre, out of work, useless pests. Can't put a movie together themselves and they start running down other people's work the moment a movie gets off the ground."

He went on to explain what bothered him, and also cleared that he is not speaking up because he has some vested interest attached to the project -- which is directed by Omung Kumar, and backed by Bhushan Kumar and Sandeep Singh.

Sinha added: "This afternoon saw a fantastic poster of 'Bhoomi' (I have nothing to do with the film but for the fact that I love Sanju). Minutes later, another Liam Neeson poster of a movie called 'Grey' started circulating as the one 'Bhoomi' copied. F*ck you guys!"

The "Tum Bin" maker continued: "It is a bloody close-up and I attach here quite a few such posters that for sure did not copy each other. These are posters made of a close-up. I think the 'Bhoomi' poster is fantastic and that's it."

Sinha feels "movies are about magic that a large team puts together over years. Blood, sweat and money goes behind it. If you start talking shit about movies from the point they get off the ground you will ruin the magic.

"And you mother-f***ing losers, remember if Bollywood does well, chances are you will also get to make a film someday. Sorry about my abusive language. But I am angry, very angry! So if you can't put a movie together, shut the f**k up."

Touched by the post, Omung also took to Twitter to thank Sinha.

He posted: "It is encouraging that while on one side we have people who are on the move to kill the zeal of passionate filmmakers, on the other side, we have people who are empathetic. Thanks for putting it in words Anubhav, what it takes to put together and release it. As long as we have people like you to support and encourage us, the show will go on."

"Bhoomi" marks Sanjay's comeback after he was released from the Yerwada Central Jail in Pune in 2016. It is an emotional and sensitive revenge drama that explores the relationship between a father and daughter. It also stars Shekhar Kapur and Aditi Rao Hydari.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Three more flood-related deaths were reported in West Bengal, taking the toll to 31, even as Indian Air Force helicopters dropped food and medicines in marooned areas and rescued nine people in West Midnapore district.

Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the situation had improved but could worsen again if more water was released from the dams.

"Three more persons have died in the last 24 hours. The toll since July 21 (when the heavy rains started) is 31," a state government official said but did not give the details as to where and how the fatalities occurred.

Around 2,067 relief camps were opened in the 11 flood-hit districts where 165 villages spread across 104 blocks had been inundated due to heavy monsoon rains and release of water from the Damodar Valley Corporation (DVC) dams since last weekend.

"The (flood) situation has got better but the problem will again rise if more water is released. The quantum of water released was more than the amount during the 1978 floods," Banerjee said while leaving the state secretariat Nabanna.

Asked about the stranded people in Pratappur village of West Midnapore district's Ghatal block, she said: "Many persons were rescued from Ghatal and we are trying."

A Defence Ministry spokesperson said nine people, including three women and five children, were rescued from the area by air force helicopters that took off from the Barrackpore air base.

"Nine persons were winched up and food and medicines dropped," the spokesperson said.

The state government official said the situation had improved in the affected districts due to the rainfall receding and the DVC releasing less water.

Meanwhile, the DVC withdrew the yellow flood warning message for Panchet dam in neighbouring Jharkhand.

-- IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Unable to afford an apartment in Silicon Valley, a contractor working for is being forced to live out of her car.

According to a report in Daily Mail, Parsha, who has earned a sobriquet 'Pinky' for her pink hair, pink car and pink dog, is already burdened with student loans and medical bills.

"I tell people all the time, stop looking at what somebody got and what you see on the outside," 'Pinky' Parsha was quoted as saying.

According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the average asking rent for a one-bedroom apartment in northern California neighbourhood is over $2,300 a month -- which Parsha, who has two children, cannot afford.

So she lives in a car and has not yet divulged to her co-workers about her condition, fearing she may be looked down upon at her workplace.

"They would be shocked that I'm going through that because they would be like 'I see you smiling at work, you appear to be happy. You look normal, you look clean'," Parsha said.

But now she plans to make her living condition public, hoping to stir a debate about the high rents in the Bay area neighbourhood.

Here's a video of a Black #Facebook employee in Silicon Valley telling her story.

She's currently homeless. pic.twitter.com/NAPeJpwNlh  Crystal Johnson (@Crystal1Johnson) July 29, 2017

"I think that companies need to look at the salaries, are we paying employees enough to survive?"

According to Facebook, the company "understands and recognises the burdens a higher cost of living has on the less prosperous part of the community".

" is committed to being active and responsible neighbours by supporting the communities near Menlo Park headquarters," a spokesperson was quoted as saying.

According to the report, Facebook claims to have invested an initial $20 million contribution to community groups, philanthropies and companies in an effort over the next few months and years to grow their regional impact.

When asked about Parsha's living conditions, Facebook said that Parsha was not a direct employee, but worked for a third-party contractor affiliated with the social media company.

But the company's representative added that Facebook strives to create a fair and equitable work environment for all of its employees, including contractors.

"The minimum salary at Facebook is $15 an hour (which includes third party contractors), and the company has instituted better conditions for contractors, including 15 days' off, paid vacation and a new child care benefit of $4,000," the report noted.

But Parsha said she has been working with Facebook for just two months and has already begun looking for a second job in order to help pay the bills.

She also runs a non-profit organisation called "Love n Me" that aims at empowering women and girls to pursue a successful life.

Parsha had undergone abuse and depression in past but she bounced back and pursued higher education and completed her Master's degree in Counselling.
National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran's Majlis (parliament) on Saturday passed the general outlines of a motion to reciprocate the US sanctions on the country.

The motion, if ratified in the Majlis open meeting, will "counter the terrorist and adventurous measures of the US in the region," Xinhua quoted Press TV as saying.

It also envisages measures to support the Iranian armed and security forces as well as those Iranians who would be affected by the US actions, Iranian Deputy Foreign Ministers Abbas Araqchi, who had attended the meeting of the commission, was quoted as saying.

Araqchi described the motion as an appropriate measure in response to the "hostile and malicious" policies of the US.

The US sanction measures would have adverse effects on the implementation of the landmark nuclear agreement, also known as JCPOA, which was signed between Iran and six world powers in July 2015, he said.

The US imposed on Friday new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran in response to what it called Tehran's "continued provocative actions", including a recent rocket launch, said US Treasury Department.

Iran launched on Thursday a space vehicle which used technologies "closely related to those of an intercontinental ballistic missile," representing a "threatening step by Iran," said the US statement.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Iraqi intelligence service has thwarted a plot by the Islamic State group to carry out attacks against Shia shrines and the house of the most revered Shia leader, the media reported on Sunday.

"The terrorist Daesh (IS) was prepared for three separate operations from outside Iraq to attack the shrines of Shia Imams in Karbala, Najaf and Samarra provinces, and the residence of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani," Xinhua news agency reported.

The group also aimed at attacking a mosque in the town of Kufa and some crowded areas in the oil-hub city of Basra in southern Iraq, with the objective of igniting sectarian strife between the Shia and Sunni Muslims.

"The attacks were designed to be carried out by car bombers and dozens of suicide bombers of different nationalities," an intelligence official said.

The intelligence information was presented to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, and to Interior Minister Qassim al-Aaraji to get orders to carry out pre-emptive airstrikes against terrorists.

The Iraqi warplanes destroyed seven IS posts, where dozens of IS militants and their booby-trapped vehicles were gathering, in the IS-held areas of Mayadeen inside Syria and the Iraqi town of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, leaving dozens of IS militants killed, according to the official.

The holy Shia city of Karbala, about 110 km from Baghdad, is home to a shrine that includes Imams Hussein and Abbas, while Najaf, about 160 km from Baghdad, is home to the shrine of Imam Ali, as well as the house of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Samarra, about 120 km from Baghdad, is home to a shrine that includes the two Imams of Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari.

"The scheme is the most dangerous in the history of Iraq which, if succeeded, would drag Iraq into an unknown dark tunnel and a spiral of violence and blood," the official added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The IRDAI's latest order against private life insurer Sahara India Life Insurance Company Ltd., which in effect shuts down the company's business, has raised many questions for which there are not many answers, say senior industry officials and experts.

The Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) in its July 28 order has said: "The promoters of the company (Sahara India Life) are no more fit and proper; a sum of Rs.78 crore has already been siphoned off in name of the security deposits; the shareholders and Board of Directors are not keen in recovery plan; the company is mainly surviving on the release of reserves. However the situation may not continue for long as the new premium of the company has come down significantly."

On the insurance regulator's serious charge that Rs 78 crore has been siphoned off, industry officials ask what action have the IRDAI or the administrator appointed by it in June 2017 taken in that regard.

"It is not clear who has siphoned off the money. If it is fraudulent diversion of funds, it is a criminal act that will have to be taken cognizance of by the police and criminal court. It is not clear if IRDAI has lodged a criminal complaint," K.K. Srinivasan, former member of the IRDAI, told IANS.

"If it (IRDAI) has not done so far, it is perhaps duty bound to lodge a criminal complaint without further delay," Srinivasan added.

The IRDAI's July 28 order is silent on how and by whom Rs 78 crore were siphoned off.

However, information gleaned from the IRDAI order dated June 12 shows that Sahara India Life had paid a little less than Rs 80 crore as rental deposits towards opening of 646 pan-India branches to a group company.

Curiously, the IRDAI has not permitted Sahara India Life to expand its branch network.

According to the IRDAI, its July 28 order is based on the June 22 report by the administrator appointed by it. The insurance regulator has not made the administrator's report public.

"The siphoning charge also brings into picture the role of professionals like auditors -- external and internal -- appointed actuary. Did not the statutory auditors detect siphoning of funds?" a senior industry official asked.

He also said the appointed actuary is a representative of the insurance regulator and he/she submits two major reports about the company detailing the financial position and the actuarial reserves. The company also submits several returns to the regulator.

Srinivasan said as per the IRDA Act, the regulator is vested with the responsibility to protect policy holder's interests and ensure orderly growth of the industry.

"Hence the decision of IRDAI to transfer the assets and policy holder's liabilities of Sahara Life to ICICI Prudential Insurance under Section 52 B (2) of the Insurance Act seems appropriate," Srinivasan added.

Another industry expert not wanting to be named told IANS that the IRDAI has not explained in detail the reasons for appointing an administrator to run the affairs of Sahara India Life and then ordering the transfer of all its polices to ICICI Prudential Life Insurance.

"If IRDAI's decision is to protect the interests of policyholders, there were no major complaints against Sahara India Life of not settling valid claims. Further, there were no questions of the insurer falling back in its solvency margin. The company's solvency margin is much higher than others," the industry expert said.

Officials said there are insurers who have earned several crore of rupees of undue income from policyholders but the regulator has not taken such a punitive action against them as he has done in the case of Sahara India Life.

Industry officials also question the IRDAI's move to appoint its General Manager R.K. Sharma as the administrator of Sahara India Life.

"Earlier, the power to appoint an administrator was with the central government and the regulator had only a recommendatory power. After the amendment of insurance laws a couple years ago, the power to appoint the administrator was given to the insurance regulator," an official said.

"Normally, the government will not appoint its own official as an administrator or liquidator of a company. It would appoint a retired official or a professional. But in the case of Sahara India Life, an employee of IRDAI has been appointed as an administrator," the official said.

Industry officials told IANS that the IRDAI should look at the larger picture while regulating the industry than getting bogged down with minor aspects like filing of returns by the insurers.

"The regulator should give the comfort of confidentiality to the whistle-blowers. But that comfort is not there now," a senior industry official told IANS.

Several attempts to contact IRDAI officials by IANS for clarifications did not succeed.

(Venkatachari Jagannathan can be contacted at v.jagannathan@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
James Bond will battle a blind super-villain in Croatia in the upcoming 25th instalment, tentatively titled "Shatterhand", reports say.

The next film in the long-running franchise, which will see actor Daniel Craig fighting a blind antagonist, is based on the 1999 thriller "Never Dream Of Dying" by author Raymond Benson, who also wrote Bond books "Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day" and "The World is Not Enough", reports mirror.co.uk.

The novel opens with a police raid on a French movie studio that goes badly wrong, while an actress with a sordid past leads Bond to his final target.

"Bond scriptwriters feel it could be the perfect follow-up to 'Spectre'. They are hoping to film in Croatia next year," said a source.

The source added that the producers were furious when a local mayor revealed that they had been scouting for locations in the coastal tourist hotspot of Dubrovnik.

Craig, who has been playing the famous spy since the 2006 film "Casino Royale", has not yet been announced as being back as the British Secret Service agent.

But there are reports that the 49-year-old star is set to return for his fifth stint in the series despite declaring he would rather "slash his wrists than play the secret agent again".

The 25th James Bond film will hit cinemas in November 2019.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
July 27, 2017

Iranians approval of the 2015 nuclear deal is growing, but so is their appetite for restarting the countrys suspended program if the Donald Trump administration stops implementing the accord.

According to a survey released today by the Center for International and Security Studies at Maryland (CISSM) and IranPoll.com, 67.1% of Iranians now approve of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). That compares with 55.4% who said so soon after Trumps election and 62.6% a year ago.

At the same time, some 55.4% of Iranians would approve of their government restarting aspects of the nuclear program that were limited by the JCPOA if the United States walks away from the deal. Thats up from 48.4% before Trumps election.

The change in outlook comes amid growing signs that Trump may be getting ready to act on his comments disparaging the nuclear accord. The president has repeatedly challenged the recommendations of his top foreign policy advisers to continue implementing the JCPOA, telling The Wall Street Journal on July 25 that he believed Iran was not complying and suggesting that he might not provide the necessary recertification in October.

Ebrahim Mohseni, a research scholar at CISSM and a lecturer at the University of Tehran, told Al-Monitor, While Iranians hope for the best and are optimistic about the JCPOA, data suggests that they are ready for the worst and would support some form of a retaliation if the United States abrogates the deal.

In January, in an earlier University of Maryland poll, a large majority of Iranians predicted that the Trump administration would violate the JCPOA. Instead, Trump has twice grudgingly recertified Iranian compliance and waived the requisite US sanctions.

Several Republicans opposed to the JCPOA have told this analyst that their aim is to goad Iran into violating the agreement by imposing more non-nuclear sanctions. The Associated Press reported that the Trump administration was considering demanding new inspections of Iranian military facilities in hopes that Tehran will balk. But such demands could also trigger a time-consuming process that might postpone US abrogation of the accord.

The government of President Hassan Rouhani has so far largely abided by its obligations, according to the US State Department, while accusing the United States of violating both the spirit and letter of the JCPOA. The uncertainty caused by Trumps expressed unhappiness with the deal, however, has discouraged some foreign businesses from returning to Iran, empowering hard-liners opposed to Rouhanis diplomacy with the United States.

Just as in previous polls, Iranians say they are disappointed with the economic benefits that have followed implementation of the JCPOA in January 2016. A substantial majority of 63.4% described the economic situation in the country as poor, compared to 58.6% a year ago. A slight majority of 50.2% told pollsters that they think the economy is getting worse, compared to 43.4% a year ago. This is despite the slow but steady increase in foreign investment in Iran as well as the recovery of Irans oil exports to pre-sanctions levels.

For most Iranians, the ball is in the US court as far as the future of the JCPOA is concerned, said Paul Pillar, a former US national intelligence officer for the Near East and South Asia. There is still solid Iranian support for the agreement, despite disappointment with the slowness of economic benefits. But Iranians are prepared to respond strongly to US noncompliance, including by restarting currently restricted parts of their nuclear program. Both the opportunities and the costs associated with US decisions about the JCPOA have never been clearer.

Both supporters and opponents of the JCPOA in the United States have raised the possibility of renegotiating aspects of the agreement to extend limitations on Irans nuclear program that are due to sunset in a decade, or to include issues that were not part of the deal.

However, Iranian officials have said they are not interested in renegotiating the JCPOA at this time, and a majority of Iranians seems to agree. In the latest poll, 62% opposed extending limits on Irans nuclear program even if Iran is offered relief from more US sanctions. A similar percentage said Iran should not extend such restrictions under any circumstances.

Both the Trump administration and the US Congress have sought to impose new sanctions on Iran related to its ballistic missile program and its support for groups such as Hezbollah. These activities fall outside the purview of the JCPOA.

In the new poll, Iranians say their government should resist such pressure. A majority of 55% says Iran should continue testing missiles despite new sanctions, although 31% would offer to negotiate ways to improve confidence in the nature of the program, which Iranians maintain is defensive.

Terrorist attacks in Tehran in June by the group that calls itself the Islamic State (IS) have boosted Iranian approval for foreign organizations that fight IS. According to the poll, 67.9% say Iran should increase backing for anti-IS groups, up from 59.8% a year ago. Meanwhile, a majority of 64.9% backs the deployment of Iranian military personnel to Syria to help the regime of Bashar al-Assad, up slightly from 62.7% a year ago.

When asked who they believed was responsible for the attacks on Irans parliament and on the tomb of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic, 52% blamed IS. However, large percentages of 60 or more said Saudi Arabia, the United States and Israel provided guidance or support for the perpetrators of the attacks.

Rouhani, who was re-elected by a solid margin of 57% in May, remains popular, with approval from 76.2% of the population. His foreign minister, Mohammad Javad Zarif, the chief negotiator of the nuclear deal, has a similar approval rating, as does Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Ebrahim Raisi, the losing presidential candidate in May, has an approval rating of 56.6%, up from 48.3% in a survey conducted after the election.

The latest poll was conducted by telephone among 1,004 Iranians from June 11 through June 17. The margin of error was +/- 3.1%. Despite the limitations of polling in Iran, CISSM has conducted similar surveys over the past few years that appear to accurately reflect trends in public opinion on crucial issues.

Correction: July 28, 2017. An earlier version of this article stated that 50.2% of those polled think the economy is getting better, when in fact this percentage reflects those who felt the economy is getting worse.
CADOTT  Several dozen trucks, a race track filled with mud and a cheering audience were the ingredients for a successful Nabor Days celebration in Cadotts Riverview Park on Saturday.

The celebration began Friday and ended Sunday, one day shorter than previous years Nabor Days.

The annual Mud Bogg drew the largest crowds. Several hundred people filtered into the field throughout Saturday afternoon to watch trucks and tractors struggle through a race track of mud to pop out on the other side.

Many attendees found cold beer and dart games across the street from the Mud Bogg.

A short stroll down to the shores of the Cadott Flowage brought crafting tents, bounce houses and bingo games.

Although the villages Chamber of Commerce disbanded in February this year, Nabor Days was organized by the Cadott Community Association, a band of community members and local business owners.

Ashley Anderson of Cook and Anderson Chiropractic in Cadott is an active member of the Cadott Community Association.

She said it was formed specifically to keep producing Nabor Days, which is the village of Cadotts only community summer festival. Its just people from the community who have stepped up, she said in a Thursday interview.

No carnival rides were seen at this years Nabor Days, but Anderson is optimistic about rides for next year.

It is (the Associations) plan to keep doing this, she said.
Kenyan police on Saturday said they have intensified the search for an intruder who stormed the rural home of Deputy President William Ruto and later shot and injured a paramilitary officer guarding the residence.

Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinett said the armed suspect had approached Ruto's outer gate at around midday and hit an officer on duty several times with a machete and managed to enter the farm complex.

"Other police officers were quickly mobilised and the intruder was forced to hide at a building that is still under construction," Xinhua news agency quoted Boinett as saying.

He said the Deputy President was not at the residence and the house is secure. Ruto had left for a political campaign in neighbouring county.

"The injured officer is undergoing treatment and is in stable condition. Specialist officers have been deployed to deal with the intruder," Boinett said.

The sources claim that three suspects were killed in a shootout with security officers while the fourth was fatally injured as the attackers stormed the large compound.

--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.)
A man allegedly committed suicide by jumping in front of a moving train at Kolkatas Mahatma Gandhi Road metro station on Sunday evening, causing the service to be partially disrupted, an official said.

"A person jumped on the down line in Mahatma Gandhi Road metro station while the train was entering the platform at 5.24 p.m. on Sunday," Chief Public Relations Officer of Kolkata Metro Railway Indrani Banerjee told IANS.

Banerjee said train service was partially disrupted following the incident as the metro officials were trying to retrieve the victim's body.

"We did a power block in the line to take out the body. We have taken some extra time to see whether the person is alive or not. Meanwhile, we are running services between Maidan and Kavi Subhash metro station in both directions," she added.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The Mayor of a southern Philippine city and seven others were killed in an anti-drug operation on Sunday, authorities said.

Several weapons and a large volume of crystal meth were seized following the operation against Ozamis Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog, Xinhua news agency reported.

An official said Parojinog's daughter Nova Princess, the city's Vice Mayor, was arrested at the family's estate in San Roque Lawis village.

Parojinog's wife Susan and Octavio Parojinog Jr, a member of the provincial legislative board, were among those killed.

The Parojinogs were among powerful warlord clans whom President Rodrigo Duterte has named as biggest narco-politicians in violence-plagued Philippines.

Duterte had publicly named and threatened the family for their alleged involvement in drugs trade, kidnapping and other crimes.

The family was also tagged as the founder of Kuratong Baleleng, a gang of former military men who were into kidnapping and bank robberies in the 1980s.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Though discussions on shifting the financial year to January-December instead of April-March are still on within the government, the change will not happen next year, according to Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar.

In order to start the next financial year from January 2018, the government needs to present the Union Budget some time in November, which does not seem to be possible as the process is time-consuming and has to be kicked-off well ahead, the minister said.

"These are points of discussion in the government. For now, consider March as the end of this fiscal year," Gangwar told IANS in an interview.

After Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the current parliament session said the government is considering changing the financial year to January-December, speculation has been rife about the switchover in 2018.

However, there was no official confirmation either way on this and the government continued its stance of "discussions are on".

Experts were of the opinion that the mammoth change was not likely to happen so soon after implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, as the shift involves a lot of operational issues, including cutting short the year to three quarters, changes in government's balance sheet, new assessment year for income taxpayers and bringing forward of the Union Budget.

The Narendra Modi government had already advanced the Union Budget by a month to February 1 from 2017 in order to complete all the legislative processes and approvals for annual spending before the start of the financial year from April 1.

So far, Madhya Pradesh is the only state to adopt a January-December financial year. On May 2, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced that the state would be shifting to the new fiscal from 2018 and complete all its budgetary proceedings by the close of 2017.

Chouhan has also issued instructions to clearly chalk out the state government programmes to be completed in quarterly, half-yearly and annual fashion.

The April-March financial year was adopted in India in 1867 to align it with that of the British government.

Prior to that, the Indian financial year used to begin from May 1 and end on April 30.

Meanwhile, with the GST Council meeting scheduled for August 5, Gangwar said the various issues that have cropped up since the roll-out of the new indirect tax regime would be discussed.

The minister said that the tax rates on textiles, hybrid cars and gold could also be discussed.

"We have decided that on August 5 whatever changes are necessary will be brought about. The problems being faced by people... Council will discuss on those lines and whether any change is needed," he said.

"Since the time GST has been implemented, people are putting forth representations on tax rates from all states. We will consider (them)," he added.

The minister, however, noted that the July 1 roll-out has been smoother than expected and the government was ready for more challenges.

"The glitches and problems experienced have been less than expected," Gangwar said.

(Meghna Mittal can be reached at meghna.m@ians.in)

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Popular Telugu actor and Jana Sena party chief Pawan Kalyan on Sunday said he would continue his efforts till finding a permanent solution to the problem of high prevalence of kidney-related diseases in Uddanam region in Andhra Pradesh's Srikakulam district.

He met a team of doctors, including a professor from Harvard Institute of Medicine, which visited the region to study the problem and was briefed about its findings.

The actor-politician along with the medical team will meet Chief Minister N. Chandrababu Naidu on Monday to submit the recommendations. Naidu is expected to make key announcements to address the issue.

Interacting with the medical team, which visited the region at the instance of Jana Sena, Pawan said his efforts would succeed only after a permanent solution to the problem was found.

"Any big effort begins with first small step. We have taken the first step," he said.

The actor clarified that his effort was aimed at solving people's problem and it was not for .

He said if necessary he would take the help of opposition YSR Congress Party to address the issue.

In January, Pawan had visited Uddanam and after meeting some kidney patients, he had urged the state government to address the problem in a time-bound manner.

Noting successive government failed to address the issue despite large number of people dying of kidney-related ailments in one region, he warned that if the government and public representatives failed to respond, the Jana Sena will launch a public movement on the issue.

Stating that setting up dialysis centres is not a solution, he said efforts should be made to find out the causes and prevent the disease.

Pawan had also tweeted that that over 20,000 people of all age groups have died of chronic kidney diseases in the region during the last two decades.

"Currently lakhs are affected with this chronic kidney disease known as 'Uddanam Nephropathy'. Successive governments and honourable legislative members of the last two decades could not address this issue effectively," he had said.

The party's media team documented sufferings of the people. According to the World Health Organisation, Uddanam is one of the three regions in the world with the highest concentration of chronic kidney diseases.

--IANS

ms/vd

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday urged Kerala Chief Minister Pinrayi Vijayan to curb political violence in the state, a day after an RSS activist was hacked to death in Thiruvananthapuram.

"Spoke to Kerala CM regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state," tweeted Singh.

"I have expressed my concern about the law and order situation in the state. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. I expect the political violence in Kerala is curbed and the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously."

On Saturday night, a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist, E. Rajesh, 34, was murdered in the Kerala capital. Suspected members of the Communist Party of India-Marxist have been taken into custody in connection with the murder.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A leading Pakistani newspaper on Sunday accused the Supreme Court of ousting Nawaz Sharif as Prime Minister on "troublingly narrow legal grounds" and called for a review of the judgement.

"Out of necessary respect for the Supreme Court and abundant caution in a matter where a hasty or premature assessment could trigger controversy, the initial response by sensible and responsible quarters to the Panama Papers judgement was to emphasise the need for immediate political and legal acceptance of the court's orders," the Dawn said in an editorial.

"Now that the short but final judgement has been analysed by the legal community, the political class and the citizenry in detail, the implications of it for politics in Pakistan need to be forthrightly addressed," it said.

"The consensus in expert and independent circles is two-fold and clear: Nawaz Sharif has been stripped of the Prime Ministership on troublingly narrow legal grounds and the judgement has the undesirable potential to upend the democratic process in the country.

"In the circumstances, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar ought to consider, following an appropriate petition, convening the full court to review the five-member bench's final judgement in the Panama Papers case."

The Dawn said that if Pakistan's democratic project was to be sustained and strengthened, "the rules of the system must be clear, fair and transparent".

"It had been hoped that the Supreme Court would deliver a well-argued and well-reasoned judgement that would create a desirable and easily implementable legal precedent.

"Instead, the one that now holds sway in the application of disqualification criteria for elected officials is staggeringly wide and could become the source of chaos in the parliamentary realm," it said.

Dawn said: "Sharif, both as a citizen and as the legitimately elected Prime Minister, had a justifiable expectation of fair and proportionate justice.

"That does not appear to be the case in the five-member bench's final judgement and it has profound consequences for the future of the office of the Prime Minister and of Parliament itself."

On Friday, the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from holding the post of Prime Minister, saying he had been dishonest to the judiciary and Parliament about financial details of his family as revealed by the Panama Papers.

Sharif is expected to be succeeded by his brother, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A US-based company has created a medical device that can monitor heart rhythm of cardiovascular patients and transmit electrocardiogram (ECG) to doctors through their smartphone.

The wireless "Kardia Mobile" device, manufactured by US-based company AliveCor, links to patient's smartphones through an app available for Apple and android devices which immediately transmits "one-lead" or "30-second" ECGs to doctors, Peoria Journal Star reported on Sunday.

The device will be offered to thousands of patients of Illinois-based cardiology group Prairie Cardiovascular, where it will be used to monitor patients for early detection of "atrial fibrillation" and other heart-rhythm problems.

The goal is to give doctors the opportunity to add or adjust medicines and take necessary steps in time to help patients avoid strokes, heart attacks and other heart-related events.

"Early diagnosis is important," said Ziad Issa, cardiologist at St. John's Hospital's Prairie Heart Institute of Illinois.

Prairie Cardiovascular becomes one of the few other health-care centres in the US to adopt the technology which has been cleared by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is available in stores and online without prescription.

"The health-care system is not designed for consumers. This [device] enables patients to be more engaged and participate in their care," said Doug Biehn, Chief Operating Officer of AliveCor.

However, some doctors have raised concerns over the possiblility that the device may produce unnecessary doctor visits, testing, false alarms, which could worry patients.

The doctors noted that the device will be helpful if confined to genuinely high-risk group who are already experiencing frequent symptoms and receiving multiple visits and ECGs.

--IANS

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Filmmaker Mani Ratnam is eagerly looking forward to the release of upcoming Malayalam-Tamil bilingual drama "Solo", directed by his erstwhile assistant Bejoy Nambiar.

"Going by the first glimpse of the film, it looks very promising. I'm looking forward to the film," Ratnam told IANS.

"Solo", starring Dulquer Salmaan in the lead, is an anthology of four stories with a mythical touch.

"It's a collection of four different stories on earth, water, fire and wind. I can't divulge more about the plot at this moment," Nambiar had told IANS, reiterating the film is a genuine bilingual.

"We have shot every scene twice. Once in Tamil and the second time in Malayalam. It was like shooting two films at the cost and time of making one film," he added.

"Solo", gearing up for September release, also stars Arthi Venkatesh, Dhansikaa, Dino Morea, Neha Sharma and Sruthi Hariharan.

The film is jointly produced by Getaway Films and Abaam Films.

--IANS

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Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday urged Muslims worldwide to take a stand against the US and Israel's "villainy" during the imminent annual Hajj ceremonies.

One of the topics related to the Islamic world is "the issue of al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Aqsa Mosque, which is in focus today," Xinhua news agency quoted Khamenei as saying.

"There is no better place than the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, to voice Muslims' opinion and stance in support of Palestine and Aqsa Mosque," he said.

He said the US interference in the affairs of Muslim countries and its creation of terrorist groups is another important reason for the Muslims to take stand against these countries during the Hajj ceremonies to be held in late August in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.

"The US government is more villain and malicious than the terrorist groups. Muslims should be cognisant about the divisive plots hatched by the enemies," he stressed.

Iran decided to withdraw from sending pilgrims to Hajj ceremony last year, with concerns over the safety of the pilgrims after the deadly stampede in Hajj of 2015, in which more than 450 Iranians died.

After resolving the issues between Tehran and Riyadh, Iran decided to send as many as 86,500 pilgrims to the annual Hajj ceremony this year.

--IANS

vgu/dg

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MILWAUKEE  A Rust Belt state that built a manufacturing legacy through assembly-line jobs will have to quickly transition to a more highly skilled workforce now that Foxconn has selected Wisconsin as the site of its coveted U.S. electronics plant.

This will not be your grandfathers factory, said Tom Still, president of the Wisconsin Technology Council. This will be a high-tech facility that will attract workers of various skill levels to produce products that will really define where the economy is going to go for years to come.

Foxconn, best known for making iPhones and other Apple products in China, announced plans Wednesday to build its first U.S. manufacturing plant in Wisconsin  a decision cheered for its potential to transform the states economy. But many questions remain, including the type of jobs the Taiwan-based electronics giant will offer and whether it will follow through on its plans.

Foxconn said its $10 billion factory  at a yet-to-be-determined site in southeastern Wisconsin  will initially bring 3,000 jobs and eventually employ 13,000 workers. It would be a substantial gain for a state that currently has 472,000 manufacturing jobs and is still recovering from factory layoffs  including the closure of a General Motors plant after the 2008 financial crisis.

Foxconn has not said what type of jobs it will offer in order to produce liquid-crystal display panels that are used in televisions and computer screens. But the average salary for the jobs will be nearly $54,000, suggesting some of the higher-end positions will be engineers, software developers and people proficient in computer-assisted design, Still said.

Economists elsewhere note highly skilled postings arent always easy to fill.

For an indicator I would look at Michigan. Theres lots of workers in Michigan and theres lots of advanced manufacturing jobs in Michigan, and most of them are difficult to fill, said Stefanie Lenway, dean of the Opus College of Business at the University of St. Thomas in Minneapolis.

Lenway also said that making LCD screens doesnt involve people because people create defects on the glass and thats expensive, so its unclear how many of the jobs will be for assembly workers.

Still said worker shortages for higher-skilled jobs are common around the country and its a challenge that Foxconn couldve faced with any of the other states it was considering  Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Texas.

But Wisconsin officials say the states higher education system is capable of producing enough employees by the time the plant opens in 2020. However, its a process that needs to start now.

Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker said part of wooing Foxconn to Wisconsin included meetings with chancellors from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and UW-Milwaukee and the president of Gateway Technical College to talk about training opportunities so graduates would be prepared to work at the plant.

For something of this magnitude were going to have to quite literally start training people now for jobs that will be open over the next couple of years, Walker said Thursday during an interview on WTMJ-AM. Were going to start doing programs specifically targeted towards getting the workforce theyre going to need.

To close the Foxconn deal, state lawmakers still have to approve a $3 billion worth of tax credits for the company. The incentive package, which lawmakers could take up in a special session next month, will be pro-rated on how many jobs the company creates and how much it spends.

Walker and other state officials have said the trade-off for the incentives will pay off in the long run, noting that Foxconns presence will create thousands of other jobs through the hundreds of suppliers it will rely on for materials.

Walker said Democrats who were skeptical of the deal were cynics.

But the full impact of Foxconns planned factory may still be too early measure, according to an economics expert at the UW-Milwaukee.

Its difficult to assess how this factory, if in fact it comes to be, will affect the labor market without knowing what the jobs are, said Marc Levine, senior fellow and founding director of UWMs Center for Economic Development.

Critics have also cautioned that Foxconn has made promises before to invest in the U.S. and not followed through. Foxconn promised in 2013, for example, to invest $30 million and hire 500 workers for a new, high-tech factory in Pennsylvania that was never built.

So I think theres some question about the modus operandi of Foxconn on these sorts of things, Levine said.
Training in "realistic conditions" by thousands of Chinese troops before Sunday's massive military parade marking the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Army is "not related to neighbourhood situation", a military spokesman said.

The training of 12,000 troops participating in the parade was arranged in accordance with the armed forces' annual training plan, Xinhua news agency quoted Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defence, as saying.

Ren did not elaborate on what he meant by "neighbourhood situation".

The Chinese and Indian armies have been engaged in a stand-off since June at Doklam region, which China claims to be its. India and Bhutan call it Bhutanese territory.

India said it entered Doklam in order to stop road construction by China. China has warned of dire consequences if India does not withdraw its troops from the region.

The spokesperson on Sunday said the troops taking part in the parade were fresh from military training so that they could show their battle spirit.

China held its first-ever Army Day parade at Zhurihe military training base in Mongolia region to commemorate the 90th birthday of the Army.

Over 600 pieces of armaments and 100 aircraft were displayed, nearly half of which were paraded for the first time, according to Ren.

He said the parade was a breakaway from the formalities of ceremonial parades.

--IANS

py/mr

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
The US on Sunday deployed B-1B strategic bombers near the Korean peninsula in response to the latest launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile by Pyongyang, the Japanese Defence Ministry announced.

The exercises involved two US bombers along with Japan's Mitsubishi F-2 fighters, Defence Minister Fumio Kishida said at a press conference.

This is not the first time the Pentagon has deployed these bombers, stationed at the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, in a show of its military might in response to what it considers provocations by North Korea, reports Efe news.

The B-1B bombers were also deployed over the Korean peninsula after the Kim Jong-un regime conducted its first ICBM launch on July 4 and when it fired a short-range missile in May.

Washington also deployed the bombers on June 20, following the announcement of the death of American student Otto Warmbier.

Warmbier passed away after being returned to the US in a comatose state by North Korea, which had held him for 17 months.

The latest deployment of the US bombers is aimed at responding to North Korea's second successful ICBM launch on Friday.

The Hwasong-14 missile flew 998 km for about 47 minutes and reached a maximum altitude of 3,724.9 km before falling into the Sea of Japan.

North Korea called the launch a success and asserted that it could strike any part of the US with the missile.

Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump said on Saturday that the country will not allow China to continue "doing nothing" to resolve the North Korean issue.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet," Trump tweeted.

"...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!" he said in another tweet.

Following the North Korean launch on Friday, Trump said he will take all steps needed to protect the US and its allies in the region.

North Korea's continued missile tests have escalated tensions in the Korean peninsula and led to tough rhetoric by the US, which has also hinted at the possibility of pre-emptive strikes against the country.

--IANS

ksk/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Four senior advisers of Islamic State (IS) have been killed following a US forces airstrike in Afghanistan's Kunar province, officials said on Sunday.

"US Forces-Afghanistan has confirmed the death of four senior advisers of the IS in a strike that also killed Abu Sayid, a senior IS leader, in Kunar province on July 11 this year," Xinhua news agency cited a statement by US forces in Afghanistan as saying.

The four eliminated IS elements were identified as Sheik Ziaullah, Mulawi Hubaib, Haji Shirullah and Assadullah, said the statement, adding that all of the four had played crucial role in Afghanistan.

"We will be relentless in our campaign against IS, and there are no safe havens in Afghanistan," the statement quoted John Nicholson, commander of the US Forces-Afghanistan, as saying.

Hundreds of IS militants including three top commanders have been killed during the Afghan and NATO forces operations over the past year.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
US forces carried out a missile interception system test on Sunday, a military agency said.

The US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and the US Army conducted a successful missile defence test, using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system, Xinhua quoted the MDA as saying.

The MDA also said a C-17 military transport aircraft launched a medium-range target ballistic missile (MRBM) over the Pacific Ocean, which was "detected, tracked and intercepted" by the THAAD weapon system located at Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska.

The test was conducted to gather threat data from a THAAD interceptor in flight, it added.

This was the 15th tests for the THAAD weapon system.

(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.)
On his 42nd birthday on Sunday, actor Sonu Sood says he only wished he had achieved more success in his life earlier when his mother could see it happen.

Asked if he had to change something in his life, what would it be, Sonu told IANS: "I wish if I could have achieved more success in my life earlier when my mom could see that happen, she could have seen those movies, could see the success rate that happened after I lost her."

The "Dabangg" actor says the only regret that he always has in his life is "whatever I achieve, how much ever I achieve, my parents are not there with me".

Is it going to be a working birthday for Sonu?

"Yes, I will be travelling at the time of my birthday. I am planning a huge event in Abu Dhabi for a cause, so I believe it's a good day to start with doing something for others. That's how I will be celebrating my birthday this year."

Sonu is not only appreciated for his acting skills, but also for his well-chiselled body.

Is it a pressure to look a certain way at his age?

"I don't think there is any pressure."

"I feel motivated everyday by seeing people and listening to them when it comes to fitness. One needs to follow strict discipline in the life to streamline it, so it's not whether you are in this industry/ profession of an actor or an engineer or whatever you are doing it, but I think when you respect your body, when you take care of your body, I think everything falls in place," he said.

--IANS

dc/rb/vt

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
A woman member of an inter-state gang of gunrunners has been arrested and 14 semi-automatic pistols seized from her in east Delhi, police said on Sunday.

Mobai was arrested on a tip-off on Wednesday evening when she went to the Shastri Park area to deliver the consignment to one of her contacts, the police said.

Hailing from Umarti district in Madhya Pradesh, Mobai had entered the world of crime 15 years ago, according to the police.

"The sophisticated pistols of 7.65 mm calibre had 'Made in England' and 'Made in USA' markings," Deputy Commissioner of Police P.S. Kushwah said. Fourteen magazines were also seized.

Mobai told the police she collected these pistols from a manufacturer in Gandhwani district of Madhya Pradesh and supplied them to various contacts and criminals in Delhi, the National Capital Region (NCR) area and Uttar Pradesh.

--IANS

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(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) members of Parliament (MP), particularly those from Kerala, can be seen scurrying for cover when approached by members of other Opposition parties, particularly the Congress. Kerala MPs of the CPI-M are being pilloried because the state unit voted against a proposal to re-elect party General Secretary to the Rajya Sabha. Yechury was set to be re-elected from West Bengal with the support of the Congress, but the party faction closer to former general secretary Prakash Karat opposed the move. Opposition leaders  from the likes of former prime minister Manmohan Singh to former defence minister A K Antony and others  have told CPI-M leaders how they were amazed at the Kerala units decision. Some others have openly expressed surprise that the personal rivalry the Karats (Prakash Karat and his wife Brinda) have with Yechury should have contributed to such an important decision at a time when the Opposition is struggling to fight the Narendra Modi juggernaut and needed the services of the CPI-M chief in Parliament.
Come August 2, the six-member (MPC) will announce its verdict. This is the sixth meeting of the committee and much water has flown under the bridge since the MPC came into existence. The good thing is that the fledgling MPC may be just settling down, with the committee members delivering a spilt verdict in June. However, there are still some thorns in the flesh as far as the MPCs operations are concerned.
The ruling party, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), in Uttar Pradesh has decided to dilute the vote bank of its rival Samajwadi Party (SP) through its ongoing social outreach programme for the Yadav community in the state.


The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a hartal in Kerala on Sunday to protest the killing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker allegedly by a gang led by a history-sheeter near Thiruvananthapuram.

Police said 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around at 9 pm last night. An investigation has been launched and search is on for assailants, they said.

BJP state president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleged that the Communist Party India-Marxist (CPI-M) was behind the attack, a charge denied by the district leadership of the Left party.

The BJP has called for a state-wide hartal today, the state BJP chief said.

Police are maintaining a strict vigil and have clamped prohibitory orders for three days from July 28 after BJP's Kerala unit office here was vandalised and the house of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri was attacked.

Earlier, 10 people, including four from the student and youth wing of the CPI-M, had been arrested in connection with the violence in the city.

(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.)
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Speculation is rife that the politically sensitive Rs 64 crore Bofors payoff case will come up for substantial hearing in the Supreme Court soon, amidst a fresh media report suggesting a financial quid pro quo for the Rs 1,437-crore Howitzer gun deal in 1986.

BJP leader and advocate Ajay Kumar Agarwal, who had challenged the Delhi High Court's May 31, 2005 judgement quashing all charges against the Europe-based Hinduja brothers in the case, said the matter was listed in the weekly list earlier this month, but could not be taken up.

He said the apex court may list the matter after its constitution bench completes hearing on the right to privacy matter and that he was also contemplating filing an application for an early hearing.

The apex court had on October 18, 2005 admitted his petition which was filed after the CBI failed to approach the top court with the appeal within the 90-day deadline after the High Court verdict.

The hearing will assume significance in the wake of the demand in Parliament by ruling BJP MPs for reopening of probe into the Bofors kick-back scandal after the media reports quoting Swedish chief investigator Sten Lindstrom's suggested payment of alleged bribery at the top level.

Agarwal, who had contested the Rai Bareli Lok Sabha elections in 2014 against Congress President Sonia Gandhi, said he will also draw the attention of the apex court that he has written a letter to the Enforcement Directorate seeking investigation into the trail of the kickback money under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999 and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.

In the July 28 letter to the ED, he claimed that the alleged crimes were committed continuously till the year 2006 when two London accounts held by Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrochi, who has been accused as one of the middlemen in the deal, were de-freezed.

The BJP leader said he is writing a letter to the CBI asking it to file an affidavit about the facts and course of investigation into the case, as during the brief hearing on December 1, 2016, the agency had told the apex court that the authorities had not permitted it to file an appeal against the May 31, 2005 verdict.

Agarwal said he will try to convince the apex court through his petition that the "High Court had quashed the charges against the accused persons on technical grounds and the order was totally perverse which is liable to be set aside."

Justice R S Sodhi of the Delhi High Court, since retired, had on May 31, 2005 quashed all charges against the Hinduja brothers -- Srichand, Gopichand and Prakashchand -- and the Bofors company and castigated the CBI for its handling of the case saying it had cost the exchequer about Rs 250 crore.

Before the 2005 verdict, another judge of the Delhi High Court, Justice J D Kapoor (since retired) on February 4, 2004, had exonerated the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the case and directed framing of charge of forgery under Section 465 of IPC against the Bofors company.

The matter was last listed on February 28 this year when it was adjourned.

The apex court had on October 18, 2005 allowed Agrawal to file an appeal against the high court verdict in the absence of any appeal by CBI.

The December 1, 2016 hearing had taken place after a gap of almost six years since August 12, 2010.

The Rs 1,437 crore deal between India and the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors for the supply of 400 155mm Howitzer guns for Indian Army was entered on March 24, 1986. The Swedish Radio on April 16, 1987 had claimed that the company had paid bribes to top Indian politicians and defence personnel.

The CBI on January 22, 1990 had registered the FIR for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery under the Indial Penal Code and other sections of Prevention of Corruption Act against Martin Ardbo, the then President of AB Bofors, alleged middleman Win Chadda and Hinduja brothers.

The CBI had alleged that certain public servants and private persons in India and abroad had entered into a criminal conspiracy between 1982 and 1987 in pursuance of which the offences of bribery, corruption, cheating and forgery were committed to the extent of Rs 64 crore in the contracts for the supply of Bofors guns.

The first charge sheet in the case was filed on October 22, 1999 against Chadda, Quattrocchi, then Defence Secretary S K Bhatnagar, Ardbo and the Bofors company. A supplementary charge sheet against Hinduja brothers was filed on October 9, 2000.

A special CBI court in Delhi On March 4, 2011, had discharged Quattrocchi from the case saying the country cannot afford to spend hard-earned money on his extradition which has already cost Rs 250 crore.

Quattrocchi, who fled from here on July 29-30, 1993, has never appeared before any court in India to face prosecution. He passed away on July 13, 2013. The other accused persons who have died are Bhatnagar, Chadda and Ardbo.

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Detection and reportage of suspicious transactions, fake currency notes and cross-border fund transfers in the country's economic channels doubled in the last fiscal year, leading to unearthing of over Rs 560 crore black money, a government report has said.

The report of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the premier technical snoop wing under the Finance Ministry, said the financial year 2015-16 saw a "record increase" in the detection of such instances.

All banks and financial intermediaries apprise the FIU of the detections as part of their obligation to comply with the country's anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing measures.

"The year 2015-16 ... Saw a record increase in the number of reports received, processed and disseminated by the FIU," the recent report, accessed by PTI, said.

The number of cash transaction reports (CTRs) doubled from 80 lakh in 2014-15 to over 1.6 crore in 2015-16 and that of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) rose from 58,646 to 1,05,973 during the period, it said.

"A similar growth was registered in counterfeit currency reports (CCRs) -- over 16 per cent, NTRs -- nearly 25 per cent, while there was an 850 per cent growth in the number of cross border wire transfer reports (CBWTRs) during the period," the report said.

The central agency, tasked with analysing suspicious transactions in Indian banking and other financial channels, also issued a "record number" of 21 sanctions against the violating entities (banks and others) under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The report attributed the increase in number of the detections and their reportage to the FUI's "proactive outreach" to stakeholders to ensure that they increasingly detect such instances.

However, a senior finance ministry official said it was due to the "increasing penetration" of technology and awareness against suspect fund movements at a time when the fight against black money is actively being pursued in the country and the world.

"An increased awareness and the fight against black money is leading all the stakeholders, including the government and reporting entities such as banks and others, to be pro-active in detecting suspicious activities in their channels," the official said, requesting anonymity.

"A sustained momentum in enforcement of the law and strict compliance of established norms is required to keep these numbers growing, which is an indicator that the regime against black money, tax evasion and money laundering is strong in India," he said.

The report said that based on the STRs disseminated by the FIU, the CBDT detected unaccounted income of Rs 154.89 crore, the Enforcement Directorate nosed out proceeds of crime of Rs 107.47 crore and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) came across assets worth Rs 300 crore during 2015-16.

The total value of money unearthed stands at Rs 562.36 crore.

It said the black money detection figures in the last fiscal year are for "only 5 per cent of cases" flagged by the FIU to probe agencies.

The FIU obtains reports from banks and other institutions and sends them for action to investigative and enforcement agencies that are mandated under the law to combat economic crimes.

While over 3.53 lakh CCRs were received in 2014-15, their number rose by 16 per cent to over 4.10 lakh in 2015-16.

Similarly, CBWT reports during 2015-16 increased to over 1.1 crore as against 34 lakh in the previous year.

Cross-border wire transfer pertains to any transaction of more than Rs 5,00,000 or its equivalent in foreign currency where either the origin or destination of fund is in India.

Likewise, CCR is defined as the usage of a forged or counterfeit currency note or bank note as genuine or where any forgery of a valuable security or a document has taken place during a cash transaction at a bank.

An STR is a transaction that either indicates that it has been made in circumstances of unusual or unjustified complexity or appears to have no economic rationale or bona fide purpose.

It is also applicable to the transactions that give rise to a reasonable ground of suspicion that it may involve financing of the activities relating to terrorism.

An NPO Transaction Report (NTR) pertains to all transactions involving receipts by non-profit organisations of more than Rs 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency.

The FIU, established in 2004, provides financial intelligence to law enforcement agencies for safeguarding the economy from abuses of money laundering, terrorist financing and other offences.

It disseminates this data to probe agencies to check economic crimes, ascertain the extent of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) in banking channels and undertake legal action under criminal laws to check money laundering and black money.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Following are the top stories of the northern region at 2130 hrs:



DES 3 DL-ZOO STAMP



New Delhi: How about visiting the Delhi Zoo and getting clicked in front of your favourite animal's enclosure for a personalised postage stamp?



DES 15 UP-TOILETS-SISTERS



Amethi (UP): Brothers in this district have lined up a different gift for their sisters this Raksha Bandhan - a toilet.

DES 28 PB-AMARINDER-MOTHER



Patiala: A galaxy of leaders, including former Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh, were present at the 'bhog' ceremony of Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh's mother 'Rajmata' Mohinder Kaur, who passed away recently.

DES 12 MANGOES-KARELA-NAMES



Rataul (Uttar Pradesh): The Gadha is fodder for donkeys, the Haramzada good looking but bland in taste and the Langda, well, not lame but a little off balance. Mangoes all, but each distinctive in taste, look and etymology!By Manik Gupta



DES 31 JK-DALAI LAMA-MEHBOOBA



Leh (J&K): Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti welcomes Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, who is currently on a visit to Leh in connection with an annual Buddhist function.

DES 16 DL-HATECRIME RALLY



New Delhi: Against the backdrop of a string of lynching incidents, a group of about 100 bikers left for Mewat region from Delhi to spread the message of communal harmony and raise voice against hatred-driven violence.

DES 17 JK-CLASHES



Srinagar: Six people are injured as protesters clash with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district after two militants were killed in an encounter.

DES 25 JK-LANGUAGE-PROTEST



Jammu: The Jammu and Kashmir government's decision to create 49 assistant professor posts for teaching Kashmiri in colleges of the Dogra-majority Jammu belt triggers a row with various Jammu-based organisations terming the order as an "assault on Dogra identity".

DES 20 INDU



New Delhi: Renowned filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar organises special screening of his latest movie 'Indu Sarkar' here, with some ministers and other politicians gracing the occasion and praising it.

DES 33 HP-RAPE



Chamba: An irate mob protesting against the alleged rape of a school girl went on rampage at Tissa in Chamba district setting ablaze a PWD rain shelter and two kiosks, say officials.

DES 37 JK-HIZB-NAIKOO-FUNERAL



Srinagar: Self-styled Hizbul Mujahideen divisional commander Reyaz Naikoo appears at the funeral of slain militant Shariq Ahmad at Awantipora in South Kashmir's Pulwama district.

DES 18 DL-DRUGS-AFRICANS



New Delhi: In a major crackdown, three African women and a man are arrested by the NCB in the national capital for allegedly trying to smuggle out narcotic drugs worth Rs 70 lakh in the international market.

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APJ Abdul Kalam

However, in latest development, leader of a local Hindu outfit objected to the placing of Quran and Bible near the statue on the ground that "no permission was taken" for the same.

Hours later, officials manning the memorial, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 27, kept the Bible and Quran in a glass box in the vicinity of the statue.

Hindu Makkal Katchi leader K Prabhakaran filed a police complaint claiming that the two holy books (of Quran and Bible) were placed without permission from authorities.

"I respect all these books. But keeping them (in the memorial) without permission is wrong. Steps should be taken to see that such things are not done again," he told reporters.

Vaiko-led MDMK and the PMK have raised questions on the need for keeping the engraved 'Bhagavad Gita' alongside the wooden statue of Kalam playing the musical instrument 'veena' in the Rs 15 crore memorial, designed and built by the Defence Research and Development Agency with which Kalam was associated for a long time.

Meanwhile, Kalam's relatives Sheik Dawood and Salim told PTI earlier today, "An unnecessary controversy was raised by some people. DRDO officials worked tirelessly for the memorial construction and had not sculpted the Bhagavad Gita near the statue with any (ill) intention. Now we have left two books -- Quran and Bible near the statue".

They said they would also place a copy of Tamil treatise 'Thirukkural' near the statue soon.

They said Kalam was a leader to all Indians and no one should seek to politicise the issue.

An MDMK spokesperson said party founder Vaiko had already questioned the need for a Bhagavad Gita there, when Kalam used to refer only from 'Thirukkural'.

A PMK leader, who did not wish to be named, also questioned the need for sculpting the wooden piece with the name of 'Bhagavad Gita', saying Kalam was common to all citizens of India.

The memorial at Peikarambu, inaugurated on the second death anniversary of the popular scientist at his home town here, also has on display a replica of rockets and missiles on which the late scientist had worked.

Besides, about 900 paintings and 200 rare photographs of Kalam, who held the office of president from 2002 to 2007, are on display at the memorial.
The Janata Dal (United) will support the opposition vice presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the August 5 elections notwithstanding its joining hands with the BJP.

A seniro party leader said that the commitment to support Gandhi was made by party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar prior to joining hands with the BJP.

"Nitish Kumar ji had made the commitment to support Gopalkrishna Gandhi prior to joining hands with the BJP and will fulfil it. There is no going back on it and we have not changed our stand," senior party leader K C Tyagi told PTI.

The JD-U moved out of the 'grand alliance' with the RJD and the Congress and decided to join hands with its old-time ally the BJP to form the new government in Bihar. It had split from the NDA in 2013 after a 17-year-old alliance.

Party leaders, however, say that it has to fulfil its promises made earlier.

The decision of the JD-U will not alter the result of vice president's election as the ruling NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu has a big majority in his favour and is likely to sail through easily.

On whether its lone MLA in Gujarat would support the BJP or the Congress in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, they said since he is opposed by the BJP, he is free to take his own decision.

In the wake of its own legislators switching sides and resigning after Shankarsing Vaghela quit the party, Congress heavyweight Ahmed Patel needs the support of the NCP, the JD-U and other MLAs to win the third Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat.

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Land acquisition for the 15 km long Agartala-Akhaura rail project to link Indian Railways with Bangladesh Railways, has started, officials said today.

"We have served notices to 257 families to acquire 66 acres of land for the rail project and the land would be handed over to the railways by August end", West Tripura District Magistrate and Collector Milind Ramteke told reporters.

He said, the Central government has already released Rs 97.63 crore to acquire the land.

The process of laying the 15 km long railway tracks to connect Agartala with Akhaura in Bangladesh will be completed in two and half years time after laying of tracks begin.

Out of the 15 km track, 5 km would be on Indian side and the rest in Bangladesh.

Ramteke said that the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) is the nodal agency for implementation of the project in Indian side.

Bangladesh government has also started acquiring around 70 acres of land for the project, NFR officials said.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu and his Bangladesh counterpart, Majibul Haque had jointly laid the foundation stone here on July 31 last year.

A flyover of 3.7 km would be constructed on the Indian side to save cultivable lands and the entire project cost would be borne by the government, he said.

New Delhi is keen to establish the rail link as it would connect West Bengal and Tripura through Bangladesh.

During Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's visit to New Delhi, the two neighbours had agreed to lay the tracks between Akhaura and Agartala.

The Agartala-Akhaura railway route would connect Indian Railways with Bangladesh Railways which would improve connectivity and boost trade between the two countries.

The 1,700 km distance between Agartala and Kolkata which goes through the 'chicken's neck' in Siliguri would be reduced by 350 km if passengers could move through Bangladesh, officials said.

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Government employee Bhim Singh has been visiting 'Parliament wale Sarkar' -- an over 300- year-old shrine right across the premises of Parliament House -- for last 20 years every Thursday drawn by, what he calls, its healing spirit.

In his late 40s now, Singh, comes to the mazaar to perform prayers to thank the power that he believes pervades the shrine, which is watched over by a lavish neem tree like a guardian angel.

"I had some kidney problems a few years ago. I consulted doctors but it did not help me. Someone then suggested me to seek help of 'Neem Wale Baba', and he mitigated my pain. Since then, my faith in him has only been reinforced," says Singh, as he wraps a starch-white handkerchief over his head before genuflecting in obeisance.

Murshin Shah, the caretaker of the shrine says, most of those who have been "blessed by the baba" come back to him and either help in the maintenance of the mazaar or in funding its functions like the 'Urs' (anniversary).

"One person, who felt beholden to Baba after benefiting from him, has financed the entire civil work, which got over a few days ago only," he told PTI, pointing to the new gleaming marble-and-granite surface of the shrine.

The 21-year-old who had to take over the mantle rather early from his father (Khalid Shah), after he died at the age of 43 two years ago, recalls the legends and stories associated with the shrine, which he says, is visited "mostly by the Hindus".

The shrine is located on the edge of the Red Cross Road and on the side of the Tuberculosis Association of India office building. The long and imposing fence of Parliament House complex runs on the other side, with the iconic circular building of the House visible from the place.

"My father used to tell me the story of this shrine and two 'peer babas' interred here about 300 ago, which is considered holy by people. One is the master -- Hazrat Baba Abdullah Shah Madine Shah -- and the other his follower ('shagird') -- Hazrat Baba Ruhaddalle Shah Madine Shah.

"Because of the presence of the neem tree, they began to call him 'Neem Wale Baba' as is written on the signboard hung on the tree. But, many people also call him 'Sarkar' or 'Parliament Wale Sarkar' because of the proximity to the building. In fact, when I go to Ajmer or other places, many people tell me -- 'You are caretaker of 'Parliament Wale Baba'," he said.

Murshin, eldest among five brothers, says the place has been under the care of his family ever since the building of the Parliament was being constructed. The building was erected in 1920s.

"During that period, once an engineer's young son was bitten by a snake, and he had fallen unconscious, and presumed dead, when he was brought to the shrine and by baba's blessings, he regained his life. That boy, who lives in south India, is now in his 80s and still comes to pay obeisance. That is his grace," he said.

On weekdays, many government officers and staff can be seen bending their heads in obeisance at the edge of the 'chabutra' (raised platform) on which the shrine is situated. A lot of them are working youth, who can be seen either stopping by at the shrine to just offer a quick prayer or a coin in the designated donation box.

30-year-old Anand, a media professional, whose workplace is located nearby the shrine says, "the place reaffirms his faith in the divine."



"I come from Jamshedpur and even while I was in Ranchi, i used to visit shrines. They give us peace and spread communal harmony. I had moved to Delhi on August 16 last year, I will be completing a year in the capital soon. Will go to 'Neem Wale Baba to seek his blessings that day," he says.

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Coin collectors and numismatists will have enough to celebrate this year as the Government Mint, Mumbai has kick-started sale of commemorative coins to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's return from South Africa and the Komagata Maru incident.

The coins have been made on the theme 'Centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's Return from South Africa' and will be available in denominations of Rs 100 and Rs 10.

The Komagata Maru incident dates back to May 23, 1914 when the ship carrying 376 passengers, majority of whom were Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus -- was denied entry into Canada after an immigration dispute. Some of the passengers were killed in protests on their return to India.

The government mint office in Mumbai has put up for sale these commemorative coins which can be booked from July 26 till September 26, both online and offline.

'Centenary of Komagata Maru Incident' themed coins are available in Rs 100 and Rs 5 denominations.

The proof coins cost Rs 3,225 each while uncirculated coins (UNC) carry a tag of Rs 2,644 each which are all inclusive of the goods and services tax (GST), the India Government Mint, Mumbai said in an advertisement.

"The coins will be delivered through India Post within six months from the date of closure of booking," it said.

The coin on Gandhi's return from South Africa in 1915 bears two images of the Father of the Nation -- a young man in western attire and the other is the legendary thinly clad old man wearing round-shaped spectacles.

The centenary completion year '2015' is engraved at the opposite corner to that of '1915'. The proof coin embossed letter M -- meaning printed at Mumbai -- have a frozen effect on the surface design with a mirror finish.

The coin commemorating Komagata Maru incident depicts a big ship named 'Komagata Maru' sailing in the sea, with year 1914-2014 printed at the periphery of the coin.

These types of coins commemorate events of historical and social importance as well celebrates achievements of public or private organisations.

These high quality coins hold great value for collectors and those who study currencies, tokens, paper money and related articles -- the numismatics.

The Mumbai mint, a unit of Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL), has been manufacturing these commemorative coins apart from circulation coins.

The first commemorative coin was issued in 1964 in the memory of India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 2016, the mint had come up with only one commemorative coin themed on Centenary of Banaras Hindu University.

Year 2015 saw issuance of three commemorative coins on International Yoga Day, 125th birth anniversary of B R Amdebkar and Golden Jubilee of Indo Pak War 1965.

In 2014, coins were issued to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru. While in 1972, coins were issued to mark the 25th year of India's independence.

Also, 2010 was a dedication to '1000 Years Of Brihadeeswarar Temple' and birth centenary of C Sbramaniam as well as platinum jubilee of Reserve Bank of India.

The mint office has been issuing commemorative coins all through the years since 1964 on various themes.

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The NIA today conducted raids at two places belonging to a close aide of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in Jammu in connection with its probe in the terror funding case in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

In a related development, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) also issued summon to Naseem, the second son of Geelani, who heads separatist conglomerate Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, to appear before the agency on Wednesday. His elder son Nayeem has been summoned at the NIA headquarters tomorrow.

The NIA raided the office and residence of a lawyer this morning amid allegations about his close proximity with Geelani, said officials, who are familiar with the developments.

His foreign trips have come under lens and he will be questioned soon, the officials said.

This is the second raid in Jammu in connection with the case of terror funding. Earlier, the agency had raided a businessman.

Earlier, the NIA had issued summons to Geelani's elder son Nayeem, asking him to appear before it for questioning tomorrow in connection with its probe in the terror funding case which names Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, the front of another proscribed outfit Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), Hafiz Saeed, as an accused.

The NIA has also named separatist organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and all-woman outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat in its FIR.

A surgeon by profession, Nayeem had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years there. He is tipped as the natural successor to the Geelani-led Tehrek-e-Hurriyat, a separatist conglomerate comprising hardline groups.

Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh has already been arrested by the NIA and was being interrogated in the same case, they said.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, who is also the spokesman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the NIA from the Valley last week.

Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' have also been arrested. All of them have been remanded to 10 days of NIA custody.

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 the HM, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, LeT, other outfits and gangs.

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 the Kashmir Valley by way of pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.

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.

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 and carried out arrests.

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No steps have been taken for the introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said.

Replying to an RTI application filed by a PTI correspondent, the central bank said the Government of India had sought its comments on the launch of Sharia-compliant mutual funds by State Bank of India in December 2014.

The RBI submitted its reply the same month, it said.

The Islamic or Sharia-compliant financial system is based on the principles of not charging an interest on deposits, as it is prohibited under Islam.

"The Reserve Bank of India has not taken any step for introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in India," the reply said.

The RBI was asked to provide details on the introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in the country.

The SBI had in 2014 announced the launch of the same. However, it was deferred to make it a better and more attractive fund in the future, according to an official communication.

H Abdur Raqeeb, General Secretary, Indian Centre for Islamic Finance -- an NGO trying to introduce members of the Muslim community to the Sharia-compliant banking system, said the initiation of such special mutual funds for a select group of people would be a much-desired and welcome step.

"It is a misconception that Sharia-compliant mutual funds are beneficial to a particular community. These funds will benefit the economy and ensure financial inclusion of those who avoid such investment for religious reasons," he said.

Raqeeb has been coordinating with various government and regulatory authorities for the introduction of the Sharia- complaint banking system in India.

"When the launch of Sharia mutual fund was announced by SBI, some of the gulf countries were very enthusiastic for investment. It is high time the RBI and the finance ministry instructed SBI to relaunch the same," he said.

SBI had rejected an RTI application seeking details on the relaunch of Sharia-compliant mutual funds, saying the "query is vague and not specific".

The RBI had earlier proposed opening "Islamic window" in conventional banks for the gradual introduction of the Sharia- compliant banking.

On the instructions of the RBI, an Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) has examined legal, technical and regulatory issues for starting interest-free banking in India and has submitted its report to the government.

The RBI had in February last year sent a copy of the IDG report to the Finance Ministry.

A committee on financial sector reforms, headed by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, had in late 2008 stressed on the need for a closer look at the issue of interest-free banking in the country.

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During his two-decade-long career with the Indian Railways, station master Anil Kumar Shukla has helped passengers in multiple ways. He has now added retrieving a gold chain from poop to his list of accomplishments.

Shukla, currently posted at the Yeola station - about 35 kilometres from Shirdi and 260 kilometres northeast of Mumbai - got a call on July 16, informing him that a passenger had dropped a gold chain in the toilet of a train passing through his station.

"It was an unusual call, no doubt about that," laughed Shukla when contacted by PTI. "I rushed out when a passenger stopped the train and said he had dropped his gold chain into the toilet and wanted us to find it," said Shukla.

The gold chain weighed 50 grams, said its owner, Dr Chavan Patil, an orthopaedic surgeon, and was worth Rs 1.5 lakh.

"It is a lot of money to flush down the drain," said Patil, who was travelling from Nonand to Manmad in Maharashtra by the Maharashtra Express on July 16 and dropped his chain while changing his shirt at the Yeola station, which falls on the Ahmednagar-Manmad rail route.

The doctor sought help from the officials and his expectations weren't misplaced. The Railways, after all, had in recent times taken a slew of measures to meet passenger needs - from delivering medicines, wheelchairs, food and blankets to retrieving phones and laptops left behind.

However, this time, the Railways' helping hand could literally stink from the effort.

"After I pulled the chain to stop the train, the guard and station master came to help me out. However, they said they couldn't do much because the toilet was bio-tech and could be opened only by the cleaning crew at Kolhapur. They asked me to go to Kolhapur and make enquiries," Patil said.

Patil, however, went home to Phaltan, around six hours from Yeola -- and then his tech-savy daughter took over.

On July 18, she posted a tweet, urging Rail Minister Suresh Prabhu to intervene in the matter.

The minister replied in 10 minutes.

"I have given orders to concerned department to do the needful," he tweeted.

In half an hour, Patil got a call from the Pune Railway station chief, asking him about the lost chain.

"He asked me to go to Kolhapur the next day. I did, and learnt the toilet was not bio-tech but the usual one," he said.

So, the chain, they realised, had fallen through the hole in the Indian style toilet at Yeola station.

It was then that station master Shukla received his second "unusual call" in as many days.

Informed that the chain was somewhere on the tracks of his station, Shukla, along with his staff, scoured an area of around two kilometres. To compound matters, it was also raining heavily that day.

And then he spotted something jutting out of the pebbles.

"We used a wire to pull it out. Yes, it was dirty and covered in filth, but nothing a good wash couldn't get rid of," he said.

A heavy-duty wash under a tap at the station later, the chain finally made it to the hands of its very persistent owner, three days after it went down a black hole.

It is, however, not clear if Patil wore the chain immediately on its return!



But what's known is that the effort that went into locating the chain wasn't quite a waste.

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The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has asked the Defence Ministry to trace and share with it all missing files related to the Bofors scandal, according to its two members.

The six-member sub-committee on defence, headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, is looking into the long-pending non- compliance of certain aspects of the CAG report on the Bofors guns deal.

The PAC strongly objected to the ministry's suggestion that certain paragraphs of the CAG report may be dropped as some files related to it are missing, according to the minutes of the parliamentary panel's meeting, a copy of which is with PTI.

The meeting was held earlier this month.

During the meeting, both PAC chairman Mahtab and BJP MP Nishikant Dubey stressed on the need for top ministry officials to trace and share missing files and notings related to the deal.

According to the minutes of the meeting, top defence ministry officials agreed that the ministry will share all the required details with the PAC.

When contacted, two MPs who are members of the committee confirmed that the ministry has agreed to share the details with them.

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 CAG report on Bofors is the oldest "pending" report before the PAC, which examines audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India after these are tabled in Parliament.

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A joint team of CRPF and police today arrested three naxalites from Bihar's Aurangabad district.

Acting on a tip off that naxalites are pasting posters in different areas to terrorise people to make their proposed August 3 Bihar bandh a success, a joint team of CRPF and local police raided Sahajpur and Kalidi villages of the district and arrested three naxalites who had come to paste posters, Superintendent of Police, Satya Prakash said.

The arrested naxalites have been identified as Ramlagan Singh Bhokta, Kamlesh Singh Bhokta and Mahesh Bhuiya, SP said adding that police are conducting raids to nab their accomplices on the basis of information received from them.

These naxalites have been indulging in various naxal activities, he said and added that Kamlesh Singh Bhokta had been in jail for his involvement in naxal activities but at present he was on bail.

These naxalites were trying to influence and motivate local youths to join naxal outfit, SP said.

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A drunk police constable shot dead his senior colleague in Meghalaya's West Jaintia Hills district early today and fled with the service riffle, police said.

An alert has been sounded by police to arrest the accused constable Lusen A Sangma who fired six rounds from his weapon at havildar Litsingh Inghi killing him, they said.

"We have issued a look out notice against 3rd MLP Battalion constable, Lusen A Sangma who has killed one of his colleagues," Superintendent of Police, R Muthu told PTI.

He said the incident took place at around 1 am early today at the camp at Sahbsein, around 15 km from Jowai, the district headquarters.

For unknown reasons, constable Lusen Sangma stormed into the top-floor room of havildar Litsingh Inghi and fired about six rounds from his weapon at the havildar who later succumbed to his injuries.

The constable then rushed down main exit of the battalion building and fired another 15 rounds in the air to make good his escape with the weapon, the SP said.

The SP said the motive behind the killing is yet to be ascertained but from preliminary investigation into the incident, we have learnt that the constable was in a drunken state.

District Police chiefs in the entire state have been alerted for his arrest, he said.

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An assistant professor of Ravenshaw University was suspended on the charge of sexually harassing a student, university officials said today.

The chemistry department professor was suspended yesterday after the alleged victim of the same department lodged a complaint with the authorities against him.

The university's Sexual Harassment Committee was asked to probe the allegations levelled by the student and submit a report, the officials said.

During the period of enquiry, the suspended teacher was asked not to enter his department and shall be attached to the office of the registrar.

He was also asked not to leave the headquarters without prior permission, the officials said.

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It is only natural for the rich to take pride in the designer wears they don and flaunt. But not Sudha Murthy!



One of India's richest women, the chairman of the Infosys Foundation decided to give up on shopping instead.

The last saree she bought was 21 years ago, before she went to Kashi.

What led to this change?



"I was in Kashi to take the holy dip, and when you go to Kashi you have to give up something that you enjoy the most. I gave up shopping, particularly sarees, from thereon. I now only buy the essential items," Murthy told PTI.

"I have to say I feel very happy and free," she added.

But, one thing that Murthy and her industrialist husband Narayan Murthy continue to splurge on is -- books.

The couple loves reading, and their massive collection of over 20,000 books neatly arranged in two libraries, stands testimony to it.

But, the philanthropist confesses to detesting the idea of lending her books to anyone, even her husband who she thinks can easily afford to buy them.

"I tell my husband, 'how could writers survive if everybody started borrowing their books?' We, the authors, want people to buy books.

"That is the only way we can earn -- from our royality," she quipped.

Murthy, who recently came out with a new book, "Three Thousand Stitches", has established over 60,000 libraries in Karnataka alone through the Infosys Foundation.

Not many know that when the idea of Infosys germinated in 1981, it was Sudha who initially funded the company with her savings of Rs 10,000.

She gave her husband three years to fulfill his dream.

"At the time, I told him to bring bread on the table in those three years. And if he could buy a two-wheeler and a two-bed room house, that would be the ultimate for me," she said.

And rest is history.

According to Forbes, Narayana Murthy's net worth at present amounts to USD 1.92 billion.

However, for Sudha, the wealth and fame came at the cost of a few dear friendships.

"I lost many friendships because of my wealth. When my friends met me, they had an agenda in mind. Just because I had money, they expected one thing or the other from me, which they didn't before.

"So yes I have lost some good friends, and this is what hurts me the most," she added.

On the flip side, she also admits that the same money lets her do all the social work...Be it building 2,300 houses in flood affected areas or helping earthquake victims in Gujarat.

"We come from a background that has a solid value system. That's the reason earning lot of money never got to our heads. But, yes it definitely provided us with the opportunity to help people in different ways," she said.

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With memories of a country ravaged by war and lives traumatised by lost husbands and families, four Afghan women have found solace in cooking authentic Afghani food in India which, they hope, will give them a new recipe for life.

All single mothers, who first showcased their skills at a weekend food stall at the Dastkar bazaar in 2015, have now come together as a proud food catering group called Ilham, which means inspiration or positive.

The four -- Haniya, Saaleha, Sadiya and Nafisa (their names have been changed because they do not wish to be identified) -- today organised a meet for food lovers of the city at Vasant Kunj in south Delhi, in association with Commeat, an online community of food enthusiasts.

Ilham-e-Afghan, as the festival was called, featured many special Afghani dishes, including kebabs and pilafs.

While "enjoying their profession" and managing families with their earnings, the Afghan women said they found India similar to their home, yet "substantially different" when it came to the lives of women.

"Indian and Afghanistan cultures are quite similar. The substantial difference is that the people in Afghanistan did not want women to go out and work. But here we are earning our livelihood," said 60-year-old Sadiya, who lives with her eight children in an Afghan refugee community in Bhogal in south Delhi.

Remembering the initial difficult days in the country, 28-year-old Haniya from Ghazni, who fled to India with her daughter to escape an abusive marriage, said she felt safe here, but hoped to overcome the language barrier.

"We are not able to share our ideas with others as we can't speak Hindi fluently," Haniya, who is now attending Hindi classes at a UNHCR-run training centre, told PTI.

The four, who started wielding ladles from an early age, today take pride in what they cook best.

While Saaleha is known for her Shammi Kebabs, Nafisa makes finger-licking Kabuli Pulao, a special pilaf. Haniya can cook Mantu and Ashak (varieties of dumplings) like no one else, and Sadiya excels at making Chapli Kebabs and desserts such as the milk-and-rice based firni.

The dishes figured at the Sunday event, which also offered the chicken dish Qormi-E-Murgh and Borani Banjan, eggplant in yoghurt sauce.

With help from the livelihood support group Access Development Service and UNHCR, they offer takeaway and delivery services through a mobile application. They have since received catering orders from luxury hotels and an embassy and have put up food stalls at festivals such as Jashn-e-Rekhta.

But the group stressed that while they did make money selling food, it wasn't enough to help them plan for the future.

"Our current earning is not much, though we are getting money from the UNHCR. But it is not enough to manage our household expenses, and we are still facing problems in paying rents and our children's school fees," Saaleha said.

A mother of four, Saaleha, 38, ran away when her husband was abducted and her in-laws wanted her to marry their son, who had a substance abuse problem.

Nafisa, 27, from Mazarshareef, who lost her husband in the war with the Taliban, has only one wish - to ensure that her children get good education.

"Our earnest desire is that we should send our children to private schools for quality education. We want to build their future. And these plans will come true only if we earn money. Otherwise they may remain a dream forever," she said.

Aditi Sabbarwal of UNHCR, who started the Ilham group in 2016, said events such as today's food festival strengthened their hopes and made them feel they had a place in India.

"We want them to realise that they are getting recognition here, they are even getting work here. So we are trying to motivate them with events such as these," she said.

There was a time, she said, when the women had to take medication for trauma and insomnia.

"Now with constant work they have their aims to look forward to," she said.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
: Top stories from Southern region at 1730 hrs today.

MDS2 KL-LD RSS



Thiruvanathapuram: Five persons taken into custody in connection with the killing of an RSS worker here even as the BJP calls for a dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal today to protest the incident.

MDS3 TN-KALAM-MEMORIAL-GITA



Rameswaram (TN): An engraved 'Bhagavad Gita' near the statue of late president A P J Abdul Kalam kicks up a row, with his family seeking to put in to rest by placing a copy of the Quran and Bible near it.

MDS4 KA-GUJ-KARNA



Bengaluru: Congress says it will parade its all legislators from Gujarat before the media this evening in an effort to put to rest all speculation, including internal bickering in the party, as charged by BJP.

MDS5 TN-HAASAN-JAYAKUMAR



Chennai: Ruling AIADMK (Amma) camp continues to target veteran actor Kamal Haasan, with Finance Minister D Jayakumar asking him not to "pretend" that he is going to enter politics but indeed take the plunge.

BOM5 TL-DRUGS-PROBE



Hyderabad: Telugu film actor Tanish Alladi likely to appear before the special investigation team (SIT) of Telangana's excise department as part of an ongoing probe into a high-end drug racket busted by it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Naeem Geelani, the elder son of Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was Sunday admitted to the SKIMS Hospital after he complained of chest pain.

"Naeem has been kept in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit," a Hurriyat spokesman said.

He said Naeem Geelani, who is under the NIA scanner for alleged terror funding, is a heart patient and had suffered a massive heart attack in 2009.

Naeem Geelani was scheduled to visit New Delhi today for the NIA investigation and had also booked a flight ticket, the spokesman said.

"He has been under regular medical care. Repeated psychological pressure may have had adverse effects on his health," he added.

(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.)
Post Graduate students of Veer Surendra Sai Institute of Medical Science and Research (VIMSAR), Burla today launched an indefinite cease work against the institute director's way of functioning.

In another development, residents of Burla called for a bandh tomorrow demanding the arrest of those who pelted stones at the residence of the institute's director, Aswini Pujahari, on Friday night.

The medicos have also begun a dharna on the premises of VIMSAR over the issue. House surgeons and undergraduate students of the institute have also supported the agitation of PG students.

Student representative of the institute Himansu Mishra said "We have resorted to cease work as the director has created a negative environment in the institute. We are not willing to work under him. The director is taking decisions without consulting anybody."



"We also demand the director withdraw the case against students and create positive environment in the institute. We want him to stop humiliating students," he said adding, "We will continue our agitation till government representatives or the director meets us over the issue."



The students, including 240 PG students, 150 house surgeons and 750 under graduate students of the institution have gone on a strike expressing resentment over functioning of the director.

Students have also lodged a case against the director in Burla police station today. In their complaint, they alleged that the director instigated the public to attack UG and PG students yesterday.

Director of VIMSAR, Aswini Pujahari offered a compromise formula to resolve the stand-off.

He said the students should first apologise to the man who was thrashed, accept their mistake for hurling stones at his residence and give in writing to the police that they will maintain peace in the institute.

Tension gripped VIMSAR after two PG students allegedly assaulted an attendant of a patient and then pelted stones at the residence of the director.

The residents of Burla, Sambalpur and Hirakud gathered at Burla and gheroed the police station demanding the arrest of the students involved in it.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
At least 15 incidents of women's braids being mysteriously chopped off have been reported from the villages of the Mewat region in last two weeks, police said today.

These bizzare happenings have left the villagers in panic. Most women report to have fallen unconscious when their braids were chopped off leading to the villagers blaming godmen, ghosts, witches and "cat-like" creatures.

Police, however, dismissed these claims and said it was the handiwork of anti-social elements.

Yesterday, one such incident was reported from Gurgaon. Sunita Devi, a resident of Ashok Vihar phase-III area, approached the police, claiming that on the night of July 28 she was attacked by a strange-looking man, in his 60s, when she was alone in her house.

"While I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, I saw a thin man in a red and yellow outfit on the main entrance of my house. When I went to enquire, I saw he was carrying a trident. I told him to go away. He went away and disappeared only to reappear," she claimed.

Sunita said before she could comprehend anything she fell unconscious.

"When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor and my braid was chopped off," she claimed, adding her house, however, was not ransacked.

Police said they have made a Daily Diary entry of the incident and launched a probe into the matter.

Gurgaon Police PRO Ravinder Kumar said the perpetrator was yet to be identified and the woman has not complained of any external wounds.

The woman was in extreme trauma and still terrified. She was admitted to a private hospital and discharged last evening, he said.

Another incident was reported in Malhaka village. Aseena had fallen unconscious and when she woke up she found her hair had been chopped off.

"I'm feeling scared," Aseena said.

A police complaint has been made in the matter.

To deal with the rising apprehension caused by these incidents, the village panchayats have asked women to tie their hair in buns instead of braids.

Living under a shadow of fear, women are venturing outside to get water and fodder only in large groups and patrol parties have also been formed to nab those responsible.

"We have assigned our male members or family heads to patrol on a daily basis in two shifts. They are to stay alert 24X7 in order to combat the gang, animal or ghost, whatever it may be, responsible," Ram Mehar Yadav, a resident of Punahana told PTI.

DSP Ferozpur Jhirka Yadram said police has received complaints of 2,3 incidents in Ferozpur Jhirka's Santhwari and Satras villages. They have also been reported from Malhaka village, Punahana, Dallawas, Jharpuri, Hamka, Padhen, Shikarpur, Mohammad Pur Aheer.

"Local villagers are saying that women's braids are being chopped off mysteriously. They say a cat-like animal appears and makes them unconscious. It then chops off their braids and disappears. They villagers claim that ghosts are behind it," Yadram said.

It is suspected that a gang of anti-social elements was behind such incidents. They want to terrify villagers and violate law and order situation and harmony of the district, he said.

No FIR has been registered in the cases as of now, Yadram said.

While Mewat Superintendent of Police Nazneen Bhasin said, "An unknown gang is behind this chopping of women's braids in Mewat. We have earlier detained two persons from a group in Nagana at Barmer district but they were not involved."



She, however, cautioned that some cases may have been rumours.

Manisha of Haryana's Punahana also claims to have been targetted. She get her braid was cut off two days ago when she went to the jungle to get grass for cattle.

"My mother and I had gone to the jungle to get fodder. She says she saw a person for a few moments and lost consciousness," she claimed.

Mewat Deputy Commissioner Mani Ram Sharma said the cases would be solved soon.

"There is nothing like ghosts...Some anti-social gang or group is trying to create panic in the region. Police and administration have beefed up vigil and security and have urged residents and villagers not to spread rumours," he said.

This incident brings back memories of the 'Monkey Man' scare in 2001 in Delhi when there were reports of a strange monkey-like creature attacking people at night.

(This story has not been edited by Business Standard staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
Infosys Co-Chairman Ravi Venkatesan today said that the company could be 10 times as large as it is today if it could execute well to harness advances in digital and machine learning.

"There is a huge opportunity to use advances in digital and machine learning - and all these areas. Infosys should be ten times as large as we are if only we can execute well," he said.

The opportunities ahead for the IT industry and Infosys, in particular, are phenomenal, Venkatesan told PTI.

"You know what Bill Gates had said? Anybody who says best days are over, he or she is crazy, because the best days are yet to come," he added.

"All changes should be positive. I think we are living in a very interesting time. It is not just a difficult time," he added.
| BY Ricki Green |

Today is National Orgasm Day, and to celebrate the online sex toy retailer Lovehoney has launched its popular Bunnies TVC via London agency Brave, into the Australian market.

The spot first aired in the UK last year.

The UK sex toy retailer is seeking to share its unique brand of sexual happiness to Australian shores, after seeing exponential growth here since setting up a warehouse in Brisbane, facilitating super-fast delivery. Lovehoney is one of the only sex toy retailers to advertise on mainstream television.

In the last year, Lovehoney.com.au has clocked up hundreds of thousands of searches on the site, and by ranking consumer interest in terms of web traffic and population size, they have calculated that the following cities are technically the sexiest  coming in at number one is Sydney, followed by Melbourne, then Brisbane.
Sunday, July 30, 2017 at 8:38AM

If you find yourself in Honolulu any time soon, make sure to not text while you cross the street. The Hawaiian city just passed a law that will fine people who are using their phone while crossing the street. Starting October 25th, Hawaiian authorities can fine first time offenders for looking at devices (even laptops and digital cameras) between US$15 and $35. It can go as high as US$99, depending on whether youre a repeat offender. The only exemption is if youre calling emergency services while crossing.

The Distracted Walking Law is important for the city. According to Mayor Kirk Caldwell, the city has more crosswalk impacts than almost any other city in the US.

Source: Engadget
Investment in dwellings, an important sector of the economy, has traditionally contributed significantly to economic activity in the territory. Data from the ABS shows that from 2011-12 there was a significant drop in investment in dwellings (both houses and apartments). In seasonally adjusted terms, and calculated on the same basis as economic activity is reported in the Budget papers  that is, through the year average  dwelling investment dropped by 5.5 per cent in 2012-13, a further 5.8 per cent in 2013-14 and a further 14.1 per cent in 2014-15. Notably in each of the three preceding years prior to 2012 dwelling investment had increased. By the end of 2015-16, investment was 14.4 per cent less than in 2011-12.
"Beginning as a migrant resource centre our organisation is underpinned by local cultural organisations and a community-based approach to settling refugees into the Canberra community. It was difficult to compete against tenders from national and international aid and settlement organisations tendering for multiple regions across Australia," she said.
"I saw it online and thought this is exactly what I need in my life right now," she said. "I don't know many people but I know I need help in that journey."
Millennial Moms Review: 2022 Acura MDX is pretty close to the perfect family car

I dont know if perfect is attainable, especially considering weve got the world of options when it comes to modern vehicles. Were spoiled and, as such, we have very specific needs and wants. Driving-wise, the 2022 Acura MDX is one of my favourite ...
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.
Sauber may have canceled its deal with Honda to run its engines in Formula One next season, but the Japanese manufacturer isnt giving up just yet.



According to the latest from Autosport, Honda has been holding discussions with other teams in search of one that will use its power units. And the leading candidate appears to be Toro Rosso.

The Italian team has been on the grid for over a decade now. It ran a Cosworth engine in its first season, but has since switched back and forth between Ferrari and Renault power. Its the latter that the team is running this year, albeit under its own brand (much as Red Bull is running the same Renault engines with TAG Heuer branding).

Of the other teams on the grid, Ferrari, Mercedes, and Renault make their own powertrains. McLaren already runs Honda engines, while Sauber has ruled it out. That leaves Red Bull, Toro Rosso, Williams, Force India, and Haas. Given the superior performance demonstrated this season by the Ferrari and Mercedes power units, neither Williams, Force India, nor Haas are likely to switch to Honda power. That leaves Red Bull and Toro Rosso, and Red Bull isnt likely to switch from an underperforming powertrain to an even poorer one  nor is McLaren likely to welcome the idea. That, in turn, leaves Toro Rosso as the most likely candidate, though the deal is anything but certain at this point.

For its part, Honda apparently feels that the added data from running a second team would help it learn that much faster than it has based only on the information it gleans from its partnership with McLaren. But as Autosport points out, Toro Rossos arrival wouldnt necessarily mean McLaren staying. Woking has made no secret of its discontent with the Honda power units, but with Mercedes and Ferrari uninterested in powering their rival, and Renault fully loaded with four teams to motivate, the opening of a slot on the French manufacturers roster could leave McLaren switching places with Toro Rosso.

Photo Gallery
Photo: Getty Images

What you need to know about other types of dementia

Dementia is a common and growing problem worldwide.

While 95 per cent of cases are attributable to Alzheimers disease, vascular dementia, Lewy body dementia etc., little is known about the remaining five per cent of dementia cases.

These types of dementia are extensive, and are known as rare and unusual dementias.

In 2002, a European Union project on rarer forms of dementia estimated a prevalence of five cases per 10,000 people in the community (Alzheimers Europe 2002-2003).

Rare and unusual dementias are classified into 4 groups:

Degenerative Causes: Familial Alzheimers disease, progressive supranuclear palsy

Vascular Causes: CADASIL, normal pressure hydrocephalus

Infectious Causes: neurosyphilis, HIV and AIDS dementia complex

Human Prion Disease: fatal familial insomnia, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease

Degenerative Causes of Dementia

Progressive Supranuclear Palsy:

Also called Steele-Richardson-Olszewsky syndrome

Occurs around age 60 years

Characterised by tauopathy (abnormal levels of tau protein) with nigral (eye movement, motor skills) and corticobasal (movement) degeneration which involves the cerebral cortex (outer layer of neural tissue of the cerebrum), plays a key role in memory, awareness, thought, language, attention and perception

Classic symptoms: supranuclear gaze palsy (inability to look in a direction based on area of brain affected), backwards arching and rigidity of neck with gait problems and imbalance (tend to fall backwards)

Cognitive symptoms: reduced verbal fluency, inattention and executive dysfunction (planning, abstract thinking, behavioural control)

Disease progression is slow with initial retention of insight

Vascular Causes of Dementia

Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus:

Pathophysiology is unclear, but there is a possible cerebrovascular role

Easily mistaken for Alzheimers disease or Parkinsons disease

A build up of CSF (cerebrospinal fluid) in the brain ventricles (hollow fluid filled chambers) caused by an obstruction or absorption is impeded

Can be secondary to other conditions e.g. brain hemorrhage, meningitis

Alzheimer like symptoms occur because the enlarged brain ventricles press on and damage nearby brain structures that affect memory, walking and bladder control

Signs and symptoms known as the classic triad: wet, wacky, wobbly urinary urgency, frequency and incontinence cognitive impairment, confusion, prominent memory loss, slowness of thought gait disturbance (like walking on a boat), weakness, short, shuffling, wide steps

Diagnosis: CT Scan/MRI of head, presence of the classic triad, thorough case history

Treatment: CSF drained by lumbar puncture and/or drain CSF from brain by a shunt

Prognosis: if effective, gait will improve almost immediately, and the milder the dementia, the more likely it will improve. However, for those with moderate to advanced dementia, there is unlikely to be a significant improvement

Infectious Causes of Dementia

Syphilis is a sexually transmitted disease caused by a bacterial infection. It is treated with Penicillin. Syphilis has been increasing since the advent of the HIV epidemic. Since 1996, rates of syphilis have increased significantly amongst homosexual men and men/women 55 years and older.

Neurosyphilis:

Neurosyphilis develops in 25-40 per cent of untreated people (Mehrabian, et al., 2009)

Usually presents more than 10-25 years after initial infection

It is a slow, progressive destructive infection of the brain and spinal cord

Changes in personality, cognition, mood, severe executive dysfunction, can present as a frontal lobe type dementia

Psychiatric symptoms include mania, grandiose delusions, paranoia

Neurological signs include ataxia (poor coordination), disturbed speech, abnormal pupils, nerve pain, pain in extremities, seizures, paralysis

Diagnosis: blood tests  rapid plasma regain (RPR)

Treatment: IV Penicillin

Prognosis: symptoms may be potentially reversed if person responds to treatment

Human Prion Disease

A prion is an infectious particle. When it enters the body, the prion begins folding into an abnormal almost 3D shape and triggers the existing normal forms of protein to change into the prion shape.

In the brain, the prion protein affects the grey matter with subsequent nerve loss, gliosis (scarring) and characteristic spongiform change (small round empty spaces).

There are four types of human prion disease that cause dementia:

Sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:

Most common form (85 per cent)

Occurs after age 50 years

Early signs: headaches, weight gain, fatigue and depression

Then rapidly progressing global dementia, myoclonus, ataxia, progressive pyramidal, extrapyramidal and cerebellar dysfunctions with gait, vision (leading to blindness) and speech problems

Diagnosis: EEG (electroencephalograph) CSF analysis, MRI, tonsil biopsy is negative

Medications may be given to reduce the severity of movement disorders and for comfort measures

Prognosis: rapidly progressing disease where the person can neither move nor speak (akinetic mutism), death follows in six months to one year

Iatrogenic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:

Caused by inadvertent transmission of CJD between humans mostly via medical procedures e.g. corneal graft, prion infected surgical instruments

Symptoms, investigations, treatment as per sporadic CJD, progresses very rapidly

Variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:

Also known as mad cow disease

Caused by transmission of prion protein variants via food originating from cattle e.g. beef

Psychiatric symptoms: depression, personality changes, irritability, aggression, fleeting delusionNeurological deficits: chorea, ataxia, myoclonus, dysaesthesias and dementia

Diagnostic tests: MRI, tonsil biopsy for prion protein is positive

Life expectancy usually 1214 months

Familial Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease:

Also called human spongiform encephalopathy

Accounts for 10-15 per cent of all CJD cases

Age at onset can be as early as age 20, but more common ages 40-50 years

Symptoms and treatment as per sporadic CJD

As this if familial, genetic testing may identify carriers and early/late onset varieties of this disease, therefore genetic counselling is essential.

This article is written by or on behalf of an outsourced columnist and does not necessarily reflect the views of Castanet.
Photo: BC Wildfire Service The BC Wildfire Service is responding to a fire near Naramata.

UPDATE 2:50 p.m.

The fire in Naramata is 100 per cent contained.

The fire broke out on the Penticton-Naramata boundary earlier this afternoon, sending a plume of white smoke into the air.

Stephanie Chambers, with the City of Penticton, said there was a tactical evacuation of Sutherland Road, but everyone has now been cleared to go back to their homes.

While the BC Wildfire service initially reported the fire was northeast of Naramata, it appears it was southeast of Naramata, near the boundary with Penticton.

The fire is holding at 100 per cent containment and crews are mopping up the last remnants of the fire.

Naramata and Penticton fire crews were the first on site with air support from BC Wildfire.

UPDATE 2:10 p.m.

A fire is burning 1.5 kilometres northeast of Naramata Saturday afternoon, and is currently estimated at 0.2 hectares.

BC Wildfire Fire Information Officer Rachel Witt said the fire is within the Naramata Fire Department's jurisdiction, but BC Wildfire Service crews are en route to assist.

We do have ground crews going, as well we have three helicopters, said Witt.

There are structures nearby, but none are threatened at this time.

ORIGINAL

Castanet is receiving reports of a fire in Naramata.

Several readers have sent in pictures of smoke in a wooded area and have reported fire trucks racing to the scene.

One woman said a helicopter and airplane are circling the fire.

Castanet will have more information as soon as it becomes available.
Photo: Facebook - Kara Martin Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stopped by Revelstoke Saturday.

UPDATE: 4:15 p.m.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau encouraged people to donate to the Red Cross in Revelstoke's Grizzly Plaza Saturday afternoon.

Every time the Red Cross is there to support families, to help people through difficult times, he said. The fact that we're all here today to be there for our friends and neighbours over a few mountain ranges and around us is really, really important.

Trudeau spoke about the ways the federal government is helping those impacted by fires in B.C., including matching the $600 the Red Cross is giving to each evacuated home and mobilizing the Canadian Armed Forces to assist.

During his speech, Trudeau gave a shout out to the NDP MP for the Kootenay-Columbia riding, Wayne Stetski, who was at the event.

This is someone who shared an extraordinary moment with me a little over 15 years ago, Trudeau said of "ideologically misguided" Stetski. We worked together to build the Kokanee Glacier Cabin in memory of my little brother, but in memory of everyone who had been lost there.

In 1998, Trudeau's brother Michel died in an avalanche at the age of 23 in Kokanee Glacier Provincial Park.

Following Trudeau's remarks, Revelstoke's mayor Mark McKee gave Trudeau a picture of Nels Nelsen setting the ski jump world record in Revelstoke in 1925, along with a Revelstoke-made Trapper snowboard and a family season pass for Revelstoke Mountain Resort.

"You better come to Revelstoke to use it," McKee said. I usually don't hug snowboarders, but I'll make an exception in this case.

Trudeau was scheduled to board the CP Canada 150 Train in Revelstoke, bound for Calgary.

ORIGINAL: 3:20 p.m.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is stopping by Revelstoke Saturday to attend a fundraiser for those affected by wildfires.

The Canadian Red Cross fundraiser is holding the fundraiser in Grizzly Plaza in downtown Revelstoke.

Trudeau was set to arrive at 3 p.m., but is running late. He will also speak at the CP Canada 150 Train in the small community, before boarding it en route to Calgary.

Newly elected MLA for the Columbia River-Revelstoke riding Doug Clovechok, Grand Chief Doug Kelly of the Sto:lo Tribal Council, Chief Wayne Christian of the Shuswap Nation and Councillor Alan Louis of the Okanagan Nation also spoke at the event.

Tom Jackson, an Officer of the Order of Canada, provided music at the event.

Those who couldn't make it to Revelstoke for the fundraiser but would like to support the Red Cross fire relief efforts can do so online here.
Photo: Periscope - Jamie Rye Fire crews fought a grass fire in Kamloops Saturday afternoon.

UPDATE: 5:45 p.m.

Shuswap Road in Kamloops has now fully reopened, following a closure due to a grassfire Saturday afternoon.

ORIGINAL: 4:45 p.m.

As conditions across the province remain hot and dry, a grass fire was sparked in Kamloops Saturday.

The blaze started just before 4 p.m. on the 700 block of Shuswap Road, and large flames quickly tore through the tall grass near the road.

Kamloops Fire Rescue attended the scene and doused the grass fire.

Staff Sgt. Edward Preto of the RCMP says Shuswap Road will be closed in both directions for several hours.
Photo: G. Grimshire The Elephant Hill wildfire burning near Clinton, Saturday afternoon.

UPDATE: 6:30 a.m.

More wildfire evacuation orders and alerts were issued late Saturday night in the Cariboo Regional District.

About midnight, the CRD issued an evacuation order for areas north of Green Lake, and RCMP began expediting residents from their homes.

The order is in effect for the area east of Highway 97 to Porter Lake, including the north shore of Green Lake, Little Green Lake and all of Watch Lake and Little Horse Lake.

The evacuation route is 83 Mile Road to Highway 97 and north to 100 Mile House; or Watch Lake Road to Highway 24 to Highway 97 and north to 100 Mile House.

An evacuation alert was issued for areas south of Highway 24, from 93 Mile to Lac Des Roches.

Elsewhere, the CRD expanded an evacuation order for the Clisbako area, and expanded an evacuation alert for the Blackwater River and Nazko area, about 100 kilometres west of Quesnel.

The evacuation route is along the Baezaeko Road to Nazko Road into Quesnel.

Photo: CRD

Photo: CRD

UPDATE: 11:10 p.m.

The Elephant Hill wildfire continues to force people from their homes, with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District issuing yet another evacuation order for an area northeast of Clinton.

The most recent evacuation is for all of 70 Mile House, along with properties south and east of Green Lake.

Full details of properties affected can be found here.

Evacuees must travel to Kamloops, north along Highway 97, east along Highway 24 and south on Highway 5.

Strong, gusting winds have caused the Elephant Hill wildfire to grow "rapidly" Saturday evening.

UPDATE: 8:50 p.m.

The evacuation order near Clinton has been expanded once again, as the "rapidly moving" Elephant Hill wildfire continues to grow.

Saturday night, the Thompson Nicola Regional District expanded the evacuation order to include the Highway 97 corridor, north and south of Clinton, including Chasm Road and Loon Lake Road.

A full list of evacuated properties can be found on the Thompson-Nicola Regional District Facebook page and a map of all evacuated properties can be found here.

While the Village of Clinton Chasm Mill was initially excluded from the evacuation of Clinton earlier Saturday, it has since been evacuated as well.

Additionally, homes in the Bonaparte Plateau have been put on evacuation alert.

The BC Wildfire Service said strong winds have stirred up the Elephant Hill fire's behaviour Saturday.

"Strong and gusty winds sent embers across containment lines and over the Bonaparte River in the northeast and northwest corners," a BC Wildfire Service press release state. "Due to extreme fire behaviour and gusty winds, the fire has moved upslope towards Clinton. All available suppression options (including airtankers, helicopters and structural protection units through the Office of the Fire Commissioner) are currently being used."

UPDATE: 6:30 p.m.

In addition to the evacuation of Clinton Saturday afternoon, the Cariboo Regional District issued an evacuation alert for the area north of Green Lake, northeast of 70 Mile House.

The south shore of Green Lake, which falls under the Thompson-Nicola Regional District area, is already under an evacuation alert, due to the growing Elephant Hill wildfire.

A detailed map of the new alert area can be found here.

ORIGINAL: 5:10 p.m.

The entire village of Clinton is being evacuated due to the encroaching Elephant Hill wildfire.

Growth from the more than 70,000 hectare blaze prompted the Thompson-Nicola Regional District to issue the order Saturday afternoon at 4:30 p.m.

In addition to the entire village of Clinton, home to more than 600 people, 13 additional homes northeast of Clinton were also included in the order.

A full list of the additional homes affected can be found here.

A handful of properties northeast of Clinton were evacuated on Wednesday due to the fire as well.

While Highway 97 has been closed north of Clinton at 70 Mile House and south of Clinton, those travelling southbound from Clinton will be allowed through.

Evacuees must register in Kamloops at the Sandman Centre at 300 Lorne Street. Those who don't require any services can register with the Red Cross by phone at 1-800-863-6582 or on the Red Cross website.

The BC Wildfire Service has 351 firefighters fighting the Elephant Hill blaze, along with 19 helicopters and 65 pieces of heavy equipment.

The fire has already destroyed about 60 homes in Loon Lake and more than 40 homes in Boston Flats.
Photo: Twitter - @HighAltitude101 Residents of 100 Mile House were welcomed back home on July 22.

Officials fear high temperatures and a chance of lightning could bring an uptick in fire activity next week.

The Cariboo Regional District announced Saturday that the evacuation alert for 100 Mile House and surrounding communities was rescinded, although officials warn that an alert or order forcing people from their homes again is still a possibility.

While some communities settle in, the village of Clinton, about 120 kilometres northwest of Kamloops, received an evacuation order Saturday forcing hundreds of people from their homes.

Environment Canada forecasts rising temperatures up to and above 30 degrees Celsius for the southern Interior in the coming week, and the BC Wildfire Service has said the forests are much more dry than normal.

Chief fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said there is no rain in the foreseeable future for the southern parts of the province and there's a chance a sub-tropic weather system could bring lightning later in the week.

"To have that lightning arrive on Thursday, which is what the forecast is indicating right now, could make for a very dangerous situation out there in terms of new fires starting," he said.

Chris Duffy with Emergency Management BC said that roughly 3,700 people remain displaced by the remaining 18 evacuation orders in the province, down significantly from the tens of thousands that were forced from their homes earlier this month.

Crews are still responding to the 148 fires burning across the province, an effort Skrepnek said has become more challenging in some areas with people returning home.

Issues include people using off road vehicles in areas that crews are working and some people are boating on lakes that helicopters and water skimming aircraft must access.

"I don't think they're intentionally trying to impede operations, and I think what it could be in many situations is just ignorance of how large these fires are and how expansive our operations have become," he said, adding some fires are more than 1,000 square kilometres in size.

Skrepnek said the wildfire service has the authority to close off areas near fire sites if these problems persist.

Incidents of vandalism and stolen equipment such as water pumps and hoses have also been an issue and Skrepnek said the wildfire service is working with RCMP to resolve the problem.

RCMP Staff Sgt. Annie Linteau said no arrests have been made for interfering with wildfire operations, although some fines have been issued to people caught breaking campfire bans and other restrictions.

The province has seen 810 fires this season, costing the wildfire service $166.7 million since April 1.
COLUMBUS  Sherlock Service Dogs owner and trainer Rebecca Williams distracted Echo, a 2-year-old Australian shepherd, while his handler Olivia Kuehler hid down a hallway inside 30 Center Mall.

Come find me, Kuehler commanded.

Williams let the dog go and he sprinted down the hall, wagging his tail. For him, this is a game where he gets rewarded with treats and affection.

Williams said thats intentional.

The more life-saving techniques we can turn into a game, the more (the dogs) want to do it, said Williams, gesturing to Kuehler petting Echo. And it increases their bond.

Kuehler has mastocytosis, a rare disorder that causes her body to spontaneously go into anaphylaxis. Without any training, Echo started alerting her when he could tell she was going to have an episode.

Hell know before I know, she said. He starts licking me and becomes clingy.

Williams said dogs are able to sense approaching medical episodes with their keen sense of smell and because they are hyper aware of body language. Their sense of smell tips them off to chemical or hormonal shifts too minute for humans to detect and they read changes in posture or facial expression that signal an episode is imminent. After their owner has a few episodes, the dog learns to recognize those changes.

In 1993, Williams was diagnosed with Sjogren's, Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and chronic fibromyalgia, all of which affected her mobility. Williams saw that helping impulse in her own dog, an Australian blue shepherd named Hadji she bought in 1995.

I bought her just to be a good family dog, said Williams. I got involved in obedience training because I took her to obedience class, then ended up doing herding competitions.

When Williams was having mobility problems, Hadji would try to help.

Every time I would try to transfer from wheelchair to couch she was in the way, said Williams. It didnt take long to realize my dog was trying to help me.

Hadji was then trained to be a service dog.

With Hadji by her side, Williams went back to school in 1997 to get a degree in counseling. While she was in school, a student asked if Williams could train her dog to be a service dog.

When she received her diploma at graduation, Hadji crossed the stage with her.

In 2000, Hadji was getting old so Williams decided it was time for her to retire and find another service dog. She found a service dog company in Lincoln that ended up hiring her to write training manuals and conduct evaluations and assessments for clients. She was program director there for 14 years.

Williams had a cerebral hemorrhage in 2002. As a result, if shes overly stimulated it could trigger a seizure.

That really changed things a lot. I was no longer able to work a full-time job, she said. It made me focus directly on the dogs, because thats something I can do on my time and my schedule.

At the Lincoln company, she noticed clients who also had seizure disorders struggled under the business' training schedule.

When they were coming to these classes, the number of seizure flare-ups increased, she said. So I decided to turn things around and train them one on one."

Originally from Georgia, Williams moved to Columbus in 2014 and started Sherlock Service Dogs, offering obedience and service dog training.

One advantage of working one on one with her clients is shes able to evaluate her clients' needs and tailor the training to meet those needs.

I have dogs that Ive trained to open the fridge and get a drink or to hit the handicap button, she said. But I dont want to spend time and money on something thatll just be used as a party trick, like, 'Look at what my dog can do.

That can save clients time and money. Service dogs can cost anywhere from $16,000 to $35,000.

Its not that agencies are making great big money, she said. Training, veterinary care, food, it all adds up.

Also, shes able to work with family pets that meet the key criteria for their owner's needs, like Echo.

Echo didn't have any effective obedience training before Williams started working with him, and he spent almost all his time at Kuehlers parents house, so he was fearful of new things.

But Williams decided to work with him because he had two key features  hed already naturally started alerting Kuehler and had the right disposition for training. Hes gentle, quickly forgiving and investigates things that initially startle him.

One test Williams does is popping open an umbrella, which startles the dog. Then she waits to see if the animal comes back to investigate.

When the dog is afraid and he doesnt come back and face his fears, theres just no way, she said.

Williams will train Echo to consistently alert Kuehler when shes about to have an anaphylaxis episode and teach the dog how to keep her safe in that situation. Kuehler also has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, so Williams will teach Echo to help her with balance during activities such as climbing and coming down stairs.

Williams has connections at a flight school in Colorado that allow her to take clients and their dogs on a Cessna so they can have their first flight experience in a small, controlled environment.

Sherlock Service Dogs has clients across the country, from Orlando to Vermont and Nebraska to California.

One case involved a young girl who needed an oxygen tank at all times but was too small to carry it. Williams trained a poodle named Izzy to carry the tank, giving the girl greater freedom.

In another case, she trained a dog to alert and assist a 5-year-old boy with a seizure disorder.

The look of joy on his face and the look of relief on the familys, she said. Thats why I love what I do.

As someone who also lives with disabilities, Williams said she gets a lot of satisfaction from pairing someone up with a dog that will also help them live life on their terms.

Seeing the look of a sense of security on their faces is why I keep doing what I do, she said.


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Enjoy the first large-scale museum exhibition dedicated to tramp art since 1975. More than 150 examples of tramp art, concentrating on works from the United States, with additional international examples.

For Immediate Release: October 24, 2016 (Santa Fe, NM) The Museum of International Folk Art presents No Idle Hands: The Myths & Meanings of Tramp Art, the first large-scale museum exhibition dedicated to tramp art since 1975. The exhibition will present more than 150 examples of tramp art, concentrating on works from the United States, with additional examples from France, Germany, Switzerland, Scandinavia, Canada, Mexico and Brazil to demonstrate the far reach this art form has had. Additionally, the show will analyze and dismantle the myths and misperceptions about tramp art, particularly as they relate to assumptions related to class, quality, and the anonymity of the makers.

Tramp art describes a particular type of chip-carved woodwork that was practiced in Europe and the United States between the 1870s and 1940s, making use of discarded cigar boxes or crates that were then notch-carved along the edges and layered. Objects made were primarily boxes and frames, but other household objects such as small private altars, crosses, medicine cabinets, wall pockets, clock cases, plant stands, and even furniture can be found.

"Tramp art's place in art history has been troublesome. It has had detractorspeople who regard it as 'the ugly duckling' of folk artbut also numerous champions," said Laura Addison, Curator of North American & European Folk Art at the Museum of International Folk Art, and the show's curator. "This exhibition will erase any doubts about the quality and craftsmanship of the work and situate tramp art as a practice at the crossroads of cultural transformation at the turn of the 20th century," she said. Addison also pointed out that by juxtaposing historic pieces with those by contemporary artists working in the tramp art style, the exhibition frames this art form as an ongoing tradition that continues to capture the public's imaginationmyths and all.

"The ingenious objects in the Tramp Art exhibition use recycled or repurposed wood, and highlight a moment in time a century ago when artisans, many of them immigrants to the US, created a new variety of folk art," said Khristaan D. Villela, Director of the Museum of International Folk Art. "They are a testament to the ability of untrained artists to produce objects of immense beauty and complexity," he said.

For many years, tramp art was believed to have been made by itinerants and hobos, thus its name. It has been demonstrated, however, that this belief, first put in print by Frances Lichten in a 1959 Pennsylvania Folklife article, is erroneous. Nonetheless, the name "tramp art" has remained the only terminology used for this practice, and the paucity of scholarly studies to dispel the mistaken notions about tramp art have allowed the myths to persist.

Whittling objects such as wood chains and ball-in-cage whimsies was a common pastime, including among railriding "hobos," and some examples of tramp art were likely by the hand of itinerant laborers or artisans. However, this style of carving was more commonly the practice of family men and blue-collar factory workers making functional domestic objects or gifts for the women in their lives. Efforts have been made in recent years to identify makers by name and unearth their biographies; these personal narratives illustrate a very different story of the makers of tramp art. As these makers and their stories come to light, it has become obvious that home and family are central to an understanding of the practice of tramp art.

No Idle Hands will present tramp art objects according to four primary areas: Introduction/historical context, home & nation, frames & boxes and devotional objects. Works in the exhibition will come from the Museum of International Folk Art permanent collection as well as loans from a number of private and museum collections across the country. An exhibition publication will accompany the exhibition, with essays by Laura Addison, Curator of North American & European Folk Art, Museum of International Folk Art; Leslie Umberger, a curator in the area of folk art and self-taught art at the Smithsonian American Art Museum; and Eric Zafran, a retired curator of European art, most recently at the Wadsworth Atheneum.

The Museum of International Folk Art Museum Shop is located in the museum at 706 Camino Lejo (Museum Hill just off Old Santa Fe Trail). 505-982-5186.

MUSEUM OF INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART

The Museum of International Folk Art is a division of the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs.

The Museum of International Folk Art's mission is "to enrich the human spirit by connecting people with the arts, traditions and cultures of the world." Founded in 1953 by Florence Dibell Bartlett, the museum holds the world's largest international folk art collection of more than 150,000 objects from six continents and over 150 nations.

The museum's collections represent a broad range of global artists whose artistic expressions make Santa Fe an international crossroads of culture. For many visitors, fascination with folk art begins upon seeing the whimsical toys and traditional objects within the Girard Collection. For others, the international textiles, ceramics, carvings and other cultural treasures in the Neutrogena Collection provide the allure. The museum's historic and contemporary Latino and Hispano folk art collections, spanning the Spanish Colonial period to modern-day New Mexico, reflect how artists respond to their time and place in ways both delightful and sobering. In 2010, the museum opened the Mark Naylor and Dale Gunn Gallery of Conscience, where exhibitions encourage visitors to exchange ideas on complex issues of human rights and social justice.

Over 90,000 national and international visitors visit the Museum International Folk Art every year. Through folk art, the museum encourages all to find a common ground upon which to craft better lives for all.

Museum exhibitions and programs are supported by donors to the Museum of New Mexico Foundation and its Director's Leadership Fund, Exhibitions Development Fund, and Fund for Museum Education, as well as by the International Folk Art Foundation, also established by museum founder Florence Dibell Bartlett.
The Photographic Society of Chattanooga will present Tom and Pat Cory on Thursday, Aug. 17.

The Corys have been working photographers and members of PSC for a number of years. They have lead workshops and tours throughout the world, and have been published in numerous mediums. Their most recent article Slovenia, A Photographic Journey is in the current Photographic Society of America Journal. Their program will be The Beauty of Water.

The presentation will begin at 7 p.m. at the St. John United Methodist Church, 3921 Murray Hills Dr. in Chattanooga. Visitors are welcome.



For beginners or photographers that want to get their camera off of automatic, there will be a Boot Camp at 6 p.m. The discussion will be on, How to Critique Your Images."



For more information, call 423-344-5643 or e-mail Richard Smith at president@chattanoogaphoto.org.




A man who intervened in a traffic crash and allegedly fired shots at a crowd of people early Thursday, hitting the windshield of a Chicago fire engine responding to the South Side crash, has been charged, authorities said.

Lavell Morris, 34, of the 7900 block of South Phillips Avenue, was charged with three felony counts of aggravated discharge of a firearm toward an occupied vehicle, according to Chicago police.

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Morris appeared for a hearing Saturday at the Leighton Criminal Court Building, where a judge set bail at $250,000.

One of the three firefighters in the engine said he suffered a cut to his nose, apparently from flying glass.

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The two-car crash happened in the 7900 block of South Yates Avenue just before 2:25 a.m., police said. One of the people involved in the crash called the man to the scene, and an argument ensued.

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As firefighters in Engine 126 pulled up, the man retreated to a light blue Ford Marauder he parked at a Subway shop and grabbed a handgun, according to preliminary information from law enforcement.

The man fired from the edge of the parking lot, according to witnesses. A shell casing could be seen on the ground near his car.

Two firefighters had gotten out of the engine and three were inside when he started shooting, said one of the firefighters.

One firefighter said he heard three shots, one of them piercing the windshield. He appeared dazed as he stood inside the crime scene tape, hands on his hips, staring straight ahead.

A firefighter with a bandage covering his nose said flying glass had cut his face. He said he was thankful the situation wasn't worse.

Another sighed, saying this was the second time in his 12-year career that someone fired shots at him while on the job.

Officers arrested a suspect and recovered a weapon, authorities said at the time.
Shootings occurred in the Heart of Chicago, Austin, Marquette Park, Cabrini-Green, South Shore, Park Manor and other areas across Chicago from July 27 to July 30, 2017. (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune) (Erin Hooley/Chicago Tribune/Chicago Tribune)

More than 90 casings littered a Heart of Chicago block after two people were shot there early Sunday.

As residents near the 2200 block of West 18th Place woke up to walk their dogs, officers placed more than 90 evidence markers at the crime scene. Many evidence markers were placed next to what appeared to be rifle casings, and a law enforcement source later confirmed at least some of the casings were from a rifle or rifles.

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An officer placed evidence marker 93 next to a bottle of alcohol that had been left on the road.

In addition, an officer guarded casings that were found on Western Avenue near 15th Street.

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The attack happened about 3 a.m. while a 32-year-old man was standing with others outside in the 2200 block of West 18th Place, police said. The gunfire began from "an unknown source," and the man took himself to Stroger Hospital after he realized he had been shot in the mouth, police said. His condition was stabilized at Stroger.

A 30-year-old man was grazed on his back while he was driving on the same block, police said. He was being treated at Mount Sinai Hospital, but police did not immediately have information about his condition.

The men were among 10 people who were wounded in shootings during a 13-hour period from Saturday to Sunday in Chicago.

The shooting happened on a residential street filled with apartment buildings and homes. A photo of the Virgen de Guadalupe was visible on a doorway of a home, feet away from where casings were littered at the intersection of 18th Place and Oakley Avenue. An older man looked out of a window of the building as officers worked the scene.

Detectives also focused on a stretch of 18th Place just east of the intersection.

Before the sun rose, a couple went to the edge of the crime scene to check if their car had been damaged by the gunfire.

The man, who did not want to be identified, was in his living room when he heard the gunshots. He grabbed his dog and went into a room farther back in his home.

"It sounded like it was next to me," he said. "It was bad."

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They've lived in the neighborhood for about three years, but the violence seems to have escalated within the past year.

The couple and other residents believe the recent death of a known gang member in the neighborhood could be contributing to some of the violence they are experiencing. The sidewalk across the street from Sunday's shooting was marked with a memorial for a person and included symbols associated with gangs.

"We're going to try to break our lease," the man said.

Another resident, a woman who also did not want to give her name for safety reasons, said she heard what sounded to her like an exchange of gunfire.

"I've never heard a pop like that," she said. "It just doesn't end. God damn."

She's lived in the neighborhood for most of her life, and she recalled when gun violence claimed the life of a 7-year-old girl.

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The 2300 block of West 18th Place is named after Ana Mateo, who in 2003 was killed in front of her home by a stray bullet. The girl was playing with friends and siblings when the shooting happened.

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The woman said she doesn't allow her children to ride their bicycles outside and she doesn't feel safe spending time in her backyard.

"This year has been the worst," she said. "It's been nothing but (expletive)."

In February, the Tribune reported that gangs on the city's Southwest side increasingly are using rifles.

At the time, there were more than 30 shootings believed to have been tied to semi-automatic rifles in the Back of the Yards and Brighton Park neighborhoods over the previous nine months. At least 46 people were shot in those attacks, 13 fatally.

Police suspected the rifles were being passed around by members of four rival Hispanic gangs in the area  La Raza, the Almighty Saints, Satan Disciples and Gangster Two-Six.

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Since February, several more people have been shot by rifles in that area. Among them were two Chicago police officers shot and wounded in early May at 43rd Street and Ashland Avenue in Back of the Yards.

In other shootings:

About 5:25 a.m. Sunday, a 42-year-old man was near the 6200 block of South Indiana Avenue in the Washington Park neighborhood when someone approached him and shot him in the right elbow, police said. He took himself to St. Bernard Hospital, where he was in good condition.

In the Washington Park neighborhood, a 31-year-old man was wounded in the buttocks in a drive-by shooting about 2:55 a.m. Sunday. He was in the 300 block of East 57th Street when someone inside a black SUV shot him. He took himself to the University of Chicago Medical Center, where his condition was stabilized.

About 3:25 a.m. Sunday, a 20-year-old man was standing in the 1900 block of South Shelby Court in the Pilsen neighborhood when someone inside a passing silver car opened fire, striking him in the stomach. He took himself to Stroger Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

Two men were shot about 11:25 p.m. Saturday in the Chatham neighborhood on the city's South Side. They were walking in the 100 block of East 80th Street when someone opened fire at them. A 21-year-old man was shot in the leg, and his condition was stabilized at Jackson Park Hospital. Another 21-year-old man was grazed on his left foot, and his condition was stabilized at the University of Chicago Medical Center.

About 10:35 p.m. Saturday, someone inside a silver Jeep shot a 28-year-old man in the left hip, police said. The man was inside a double-parked car in the 2800 block of West 57th Street in the Gage Park neighborhood when the Jeep pulled up next to him and someone inside shot at him. He took himself to Holy Cross Hospital, where his condition was stabilized.

Expand Autoplay Image 1 of 21 A 21-year-old man was fatally shot on a porch in the 2400 block of North Meade Avenue on July 31, 2017, police said. (Elyssa Cherney / Chicago Tribune)
A 10-year-old girl was reported missing from the Albany Park neighborhood, police said. (Provided by Chicago Police Department)

A 10-year-old girl who disappeared Saturday evening from a playground in the Albany Park neighborhood has been found safe, police said.

Rijah Williams had been last seen about 7:25 p.m. Saturday at the playground, which is located on the same block where she lives, according to a news release from Chicago police.

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The girl was located safe and returned to her family, police said in an updated release late Sunday morning.

Anyone with information about the girl's whereabouts had been asked to call detectives at 312-744-8266.
A South Side man posted video on social media of himself in front of Chicago police headquarters threatening to shoot several police officers present, including an officer guarding the Bronzeville administrative offices, authorities said Saturday.

Unfortunately for Lawrence Fuller, someone spotted the video and quickly reported it to Chicago police.

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In the Snapchat video, reportedly shot around 4:30 a.m. Thursday outside the police headquarters in the 3500 block of South Michigan Avenue, Fuller was seen with a handgun, threatening to "shoot this b---h up" and saying "I'm gonna pop his a-- in the head," with police officers in clear view, according to police and Cook County prosecutors.

After police were alerted, investigators spoke with the unnamed officer seen in the video, who said he spotted the same man trying to get inside the building with something in his hand, Cook County Assistant State's Attorney Jillian Anselmo said. That officer never spoke to or confronted Fuller, 25.

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Authorities tracked Fuller to a relative's home in the 3500 block of South Rhodes Avenue hours later and arrested him. Inside the home, police recovered a Daisy brand air gun, according to Fuller's arrest report.

Fuller was later charged with threatening a public official, a Class 3 felony. On Saturday, Judge James Brown ordered Fuller held on home electronic monitoring in lieu of $75,000 bail.

Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said Saturday that CPD's organized crime unit acted quickly to arrest Fuller.

"Watching that video is a sobering reminder of the dangers police officers face every day, and the actions and statements of the offender are quite frankly reprehensible."

wlee@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @MidNoirCowboy
An Indiana man shot and killed himself shortly after gunning down a doctor who refused to prescribe opioid medication to his wife, authorities said this week.

The alleged murder and the suicide unfolded within just hours of each other Wednesday in Mishawaka in northern Indiana, a state that's been gripped by problems with opioid addiction over the past several years. St. Joseph County Prosecutor Ken Cotter told reporters that Michael Jarvis confronted physician Todd Graham for not prescribing an opioid for his wife's chronic pain, but he cautioned that investigators are still determining whether drug addiction played a role in the killing.

Cotter said during a news conference Thursday that Jarvis and his wife showed up at Graham's office for an appointment Wednesday morning. Jarvis became upset after Graham told them that he doesn't believe chronic pain requires opioid medication. The couple left, but Jarvis - armed with a gun - drove back to the doctor's office about two hours later, Cotter said.

At that point, Graham was on his way to the St. Joseph Rehabilitation Institute a few miles from his office. Jarvis followed him to the institute's parking lot where the two argued, Cotter said.

"There were two witnesses who were outside and in close proximity," Cotter told reporters. "Jarvis went to those two witnesses and told them to leave. They saw a gun."

Jarvis shot Graham, then drove to a friend's home, where he "gave indication that he was no longer going to be around," Cotter said. The friend, concerned for Jarvis's safety, called 911, but Jarvis killed himself before police arrived.

Cotter said Jarvis' wife did not know that he had driven back to the doctor's office and killed Graham. It also remains unclear whether both the husband and wife were addicted to opioid medications or whether Jarvis wanted the drugs for himself.

"There's some indication that Jarvis may have also had his own issues. We're still investigating that," Cotter said. "We're talking about a man who made a choice to kill another person. We're not talking about the opioid problem. . . . Was that a contributing factor in his decision? We don't know that yet."

Cotter said Jarvis was not a patient of Graham's and that investigators are looking at medical records to determine what drugs, if any, he and his wife had been prescribed previously. He did not say what type of opioid medication Jarvis and his wife were seeking when they went to Graham's office.

The South Bend Tribune reported that both Jarvis and Graham were employed in some capacity by the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, just west of Mishawaka.

Jarvis, 48, was a part-time parking attendant and groundskeeper, a university spokesman said in statement, according to the newspaper.

Graham was a consulting physician at the university.

"His brutal death is shocking to us all, we extend our condolences to his family and friends. Our prayers are with them," the statement said of Graham.

Graham, 56, was also a physical medicine and rehabilitation specialist at South Bend Orthopaedics, where patients gave him a 4.3 out of 5 rating.

Patients who wrote reviews on the clinic's website described Graham as a trustworthy doctor who took the time to answer their questions and explain their problems. One said he's the best doctor the clinic has. Another called him a "miracle worker."

"Dr Graham is more than my dr to me. He has treated me like a friend and I owe him my life. I can never thank him enough for his kindness and caring through my journey of a tough diagnosis of cancer. He is a great and caring dr," one patient wrote in July 2016.

Another patient wrote the same month: "Dr. Graham was awesome. He looked at my MRI results and immediately had a plan in place. I really appreciated the time and concern he put into getting me some relief for the pain that I've been in. Hopefully this works!"

Graham studied at Northwestern University School of Medicine in Chicago and did his residency at the university's rehabilitation institute.

"He dedicated his life to taking care of people and that's the sad, sad part of this whole thing ... His personality was electric. He lit up a room anytime he walked into the room," physician A.J. Mencias, Graham's friend and business partner, told NBC affiliate WNDU.

Mencias said Graham had three children.

Cotter, the prosecutor, echoed those tributes at the news conference.

"He did what we ask our doctors to do: Don't overprescribe opioid and, unfortunately, for whatever reason, Jarvis made that choice to take his life," he told reporters, adding later: "Every homicide is tragic, but this one in particular, I think, hits home to everyone. It hits home to all of our medical professionals. Their job is to try to help people, and that certainly what Dr. Graham was doing."
That represents a fascinating bit of illogic, namely that if his staff or cabinet have done something stupid, whether they admit it or not, it's OK, because he'll pardon them.

Admittedly there are forces at work, whether they are the media, adversaries such as Russia abroad, and even political factions at home, who don't like Donald Trump and want him out. However, that doesn't mean the president can act like a smug, spoiled brat.

Instead he's got to figure how best to work with both sides of the aisle while at the same being more judicious in choosing his staff and Cabinet and passing his legislative agenda. It's clear that the president has gotten off on the wrong foot regarding his staff, Cabinet and closest advisers. No president in recent memory has made so many bad choices about those he wants to help him govern the nation.

Of course, all of us could be wrong. In a month or a year or the end of his term in office, we might find he's smarter than we thought and done a fantastic job governing the nation. I think I'll check Las Vegas and see what the odds are that will happen.

 Dean Dranias, Plainfield
Work is continuing at W.J. Murphy Elementary School in the wake of flooding that left the school's library a total loss, officials said.

While other Round Lake School District 116 schools also took in water during the series of thunderstorms that swept Lake County two weeks ago, Murphy is the only building where opening in the fall might be an issue, spokeswoman Heather Bennett said.

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The Round Lake Park school saw about six feet of water on its lower level, which houses the library, cafeteria, gym and some classrooms, she said.

"Things are moving along very well here, but we aren't able to commit to a start date just yet," Bennett said in an email Thursday.

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The district is still shooting to open the school on time on Aug. 21, but making that happen is dependent on successful air quality tests and the timely delivery and set-up of a six-classroom mobile unit, she said.

The air tests are planned for this week and mobile classrooms will be used until repairs on the impacted areas are completely finished, Bennett said.

A lot of work remains at Raymond Ellis Elementary School and Beach Elementary School, but they should be able to open for the first day of school, she said.

As the Waukegan Police Department continues its investigation into the Waukegan District 60 superintendent's missing personnel file, one school board member has called for an independent investigation.

Superintendent Theresa Plascencia's personnel file was discovered missing in late May, after the News-Sun requested Plascencia's resume and other application materials.

The district was only able to provide the first page of her resume, but was subsequently able to provide all the requested documents after reaching out to the firm that had handled the district's 2015 search for a new superintendent.

The missing personnel file continues to be a topic of conservation in Waukegan and on social media.

"My phone's been going crazy," school board member Miguel Rivera said. "People want closure. We can't just let this go away. ... We can't just let it go, and I'm not going to let it go away. I hope the board is with me."

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Rivera said he wanted an independent investigation to look into the matter.

An internal investigation identified possible suspects but wasn't able to conclusively identify who took the file, said board members who were briefed on the matter.

The Waukegan Police Department is also still actively investigating the issue, Cmdr. Joe Florip said. As long as the case remains unsolved, it will continue to remain open.

A request by the News-Sun to see a copy of the police report was denied, and the News-Sun is challenging that denial with the Illinois Attorney General's Office. That challenge is pending.

The school board shouldn't make any decision about an independent investigation as long as the Police Department is still investigating, board member Brandon Ewing said.

He said he was also not happy with the results of the internal investigation but it was what he expected considering people come in and out of the Lincoln Center all day.

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The file had been stored in a locked cabinet in the locked office of one of the deputy superintendents, school district attorney Thomas Morris said in an email.

"I think bringing in an independent investigator would still be inconclusive," Ewing said.

With Waukegan District 60's expansion of summer school to its preschool, elementary and middle schools, its food service department is seeing a corresponding jump in the number of meals its handing out, officials said.

The district served about 16,250 meals last summer and is on track to serve about 41,000 meals this summer, spokesman Nick Alajakis said. About 1,300 students are enrolled in the new preschool to eighth-grade summer school programs and about 580 high school students take classes over the summer.

Most of these meals are going to students enrolled in summer school, though some community groups and other summer programs do bring the kids in their programs over to the schools for lunch, he said.

Carman-Buckner Elementary School is the only site where breakfast and lunch are offered but summer school isn't taking place, Alajakis said.

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The district chose that site because the school sits in a high-need area, said Alicia Williams, the district's manager of child nutrition and transportation.

Carman-Buckner averages about eight students per meal each day, but some days sees as many 24, Alajakis said.

The cost to the district is virtually non-existent as the building would be open anyway, Williams said. Principals are at the buildings year-round and so are maintenance and other staff.

Like during the school year, Waukegan District 60 has all its meals reimbursed by the federal Department of Agriculture's free and reduced-price lunch program that allows districts with high poverty rates to offer breakfast and lunch at no cost to all its students.

District officials wish more people would take advantage of the program, but many parents don't think about utilizing the schools over the summer, Alajakis said. The district wants the community to "equate their building as a place in the community they can gather."

The meals students get at school are also often the most nutritious they receive, Alajakis said.

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Williams said she's heard from teachers and other staff that the meals help students concentrate in school.

"Anytime you can feed a student whose hungry it's worth it," Alajakis said.

emcoleman@tribpub.com

Twitter @mekcoleman
Nufer: Count your blessings

"While you are having that second piece of pie, reflect on the blessings of the past year and appreciate being with your loved ones on Thanksgiving Day"
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has called for steadfast efforts to push overcapacity cuts after government inspections found that a number of steel mills were trying to resume production of inferior-quality steel bars.

"We must stand firm in capacity-cutting efforts to prevent shutdowns in production from flaring up again," Li said in an instruction note on the findings of an inspection by the State Council.

Those breaking government rules will be strictly punished, and authorities with weak supervision will be held accountable, the premier said.

China's State Council requires all facilities producing inferior-quality steel bars to be dismantled across the country by the end of June, but the inspection found two mills in Tianjin were still in business while one company shutdown in Hunan Province was seeking to restart production.

As excess capacity has weighed on China's overall economic performance, cutting overcapacity is high on the reform agenda. In 2016, China completed both its annual targets for coal and steel capacity reduction ahead of schedule.

The government work report this year stated that China would continue to cut overcapacity in bloated sectors, with targets to slash steel production capacity by around 50 million tonnes and coal by at least 150 million tonnes this year.
Hisense, a China-based home electronics manufacturer, first opened shop in South Africa in 1996. [File photo]

A Chinese company in South Africa has successfully integrated itself into the local business culture by greatly contributing to local social economic development and creating hundreds of jobs.

Hisense, a China-based home electronics manufacturer, first opened shop in South Africa in 1996. In the last two decades, the brand has expanded to South Africa's four major cities and is now found in over 3,500 retail stores nationwide as well as 10 neighboring countries.

The brand is widely recognized as a cost-effective alternative in home electronics.

In contrast to many other foreign investment companies, Hisense has opted to open its major manufacturing facility in South Africa in an attempt to create local job opportunities instead of importing products from overseas plants, said Claire Noyes-Smith, marketing manager at Hisense South Africa.

She told Xinhua in a recent interview that the establishment of the facility has secured Hisense's footprint in Africa and given them the impetus needed to expand further on the continent.

In 2013, in partnership with the China-Africa Development Fund, Hisense invested around 350 million rand (about 27 million U.S. dollars) in the Atlantis industrial area outside Cape Town, and established a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

The 27,000-square-meter manufacturing development has come as a much-needed boost to the community of Atlantis, where poverty and social issues are part and parcel of everyday existence, Noyes-Smith said.

The factory now employs over 500 people on a full-time basis, with training and social upliftment projects benefiting approximately 2,000 people in the community, the marketing manager said.

Currently, Hisense is the only international electronics brand that locally manufactures its products on a large scale, as opposed to those that only have much smaller assembly lines.

Noyes-Smith noted that Hisense made a conscious decision to create jobs for 500 previously unemployed locals. The area of Atlantis is beset with socio-economic challenges, including gangsterism, drugs, crime, and most notably a 55-percent unemployment rate.

The establishment of the Atlantis factory has a wide-reaching positive impact on employees and their families, Noyes-Smith said.

Besides, the workers are trained with specialized skills by experienced engineers sent from the Hisense headquarters. This is not only to uphold the quality and productivity of the brand, but also to ensure the transference of skills is duly achieved, Noyes-Smith said.

Currently, Hisense has been endorsed by the "Proudly South African" campaign and is planning to upgrade the production technology used in the Atlantis facility.

Hisense started a training program this year in order to upskill 1,000 technical engineers. They are partnering with National Rural Youth Service Corps and Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education and Training Authority to get this project off the ground, Noyes-Smith said.

According to data released by GFK, a trusted source of relevant market and consumer information, Hisense occupies 24 percent of the market share for televisions in South Africa, ranking at number one and out-competing other major brands such as Sony, LG and Samsung.

With consumer expectations rising in South Africa, Hisense is confident that there is still room for expansion in the local market, Noyes-Smith said.

"We will also place a bit more emphasis on driving our mobile growth strategy, and also work towards expanding further into Sub-Saharan Africa,with South Africa being a solid African base," Noyes-Smith added.
The first "Great Meeting Open to All" will be held at the Shaolin Temple from July 29 to Aug 4 in Dengfeng, Henan province.

A kung fu practitioner smashes bricks using one hand in Luoyang, Henan province, early this Month. XU JUNWEN/CHINA DAILY

The 1,500-year-old temple will welcome kung fu masters and enthusiasts from home and abroad to share their skills and views on kung fu.

Shi Yongxin, the abbot of Shaolin Temple, came up with the idea of holding the "Great Meeting Open to All" in August 2016, said Zou Xiang, website manager for Shaolin Temple.

The meeting welcomes people of any social status and identity who will be treated equally through diverse forms of cultural exchanges, including Chan (Zen Buddhism), martial arts and medicine, Zou said.

The events date back to the late 4th century, according to historical records.

"Besides the martial arts, Chan and medicinal culture are regarded as the essence of Shaolin culture, and the contests involving the traditional 72 Shaolin kung fu arts can also be seen during the seven-day event," Zou said.

In addition, many foreign disciples are welcome to join in events such as the lamp transmission ceremony, and take part in the "Shaolin Temple and the Northern Buddhist" academic seminar.
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Chinese President Xi Jinping mounted a field jeep to inspect troops at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Sunday morning.

Han Weiguo, commander-in-chief of the parade and commander of the Central Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), reported to Xi that the troops are ready.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, ordered the inspection to begin.

The parade is held in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of PLA.
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National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran's Majlis (parliament) on Saturday passed the general outlines of a motion to reciprocate the recent U.S. sanctions on the Islamic republic.

The motion, if ratified in the Majlis open meeting, will "counter the terrorist and adventurous measures of the United States in the region," Press TV reported.

It also envisages measures to support the Iranian armed and security forces as well as those Iranians who would be affected by the U.S. actions, Iranian Deputy Foreign Ministers Abbas Araqchi, who had attended the meeting of the commission, said.

Araqchi described the motion as an appropriate measure in response to the "hostile and malicious" policies of the United States.

The U.S. sanction measures would have adverse effects on the implementation of the landmark nuclear agreement, also known as JCPOA, which was signed between Iran and six world powers in July 2015, he said.

The United States imposed on Friday new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran in response to what it called Tehran's "continued provocative actions" including a recent rocket launch, said U.S. Treasury Department.

Iran launched on Thursday a space vehicle which used technologies "closely related to those of an intercontinental ballistic missile," representing a "threatening step by Iran," said the U.S. statement.
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The U.S. Navy's newest guided-missile destroyer (DDG), USS Rafael Peralta, was commissioned on Saturday in its homeport of San Diego, the U.S. state of California.

USS Rafael Peralta at sea near Bath, Maine following acceptance trials, December, 2016. [U.S. Navy File photo]

The newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, DDG 115, is named for U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta from San Diego, who was killed in 2004 in Iraq and posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for heroism.

Peralta smothered an enemy grenade with his body to absorb the majority of the lethal blast and shrapnel and saved the life of two U.S. soldiers with him in the battle of Fallujah.

USS Rafael Peralta is the 65th Arleigh Burke class destroyer. It is equipped with the Aegis Baseline 9 Combat System which includes an Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capability incorporating Ballistic Missile Defense 5.0 Capability Upgrade and Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air capability.

The ship's IAMD radar will provide increased computing power and radar upgrades that improve detection and reaction capabilities against modern air warfare threats, according to the website of U.S. Navy.
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New Zealand Foreign Minister Gerry Brownlee on Saturday denounced the further testing of a ballistic missile by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) on Friday.

"I'm deeply concerned that North Korea continues to flout its obligations to the international community by testing these missiles -- it's completely unacceptable," Brownlee said in a statement.

"New Zealand would encourage North Korea to look at the plight of its people, who are living in less than advantaged circumstances, while the regime spends millions of dollars on its weaponisation program," Brownlee said.

The DPRK test-fired an unidentified missile, which the country described as an ICBM called Hwasong-14, at 11:41 p.m. Friday (1441 GMT) from its northernmost province of Jagang.
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Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan undertook the difficult task to regenerate both government and his ruling party ahead of the crucial 2019 elections, after having complained of a "fatigue" amongst his political entourage.

Erdogan, who has been ruling Turkey since 2002, first as prime minister and then president, had a very narrow victory, 51 percent in the April constitutional referendum, which granted him extensive executive powers.

Despite the victory, with the opposition claims of rigged results, the president expressed concerns that the state of things at his Justice and Development Party (AKP) was not as he expected.

After regaining the leadership of the AKP in May following constitutional referendum, Erdogan refuses any defiance inside his "home" which vowed to rejuvenate the cabinet.

He put up the first step of the rejuvenation with replacing and swapping 11 ministers on July 19, with a six-month "action plan" expected ahead of the 2019 presidential and parliamentary elections.

This scheme will reportedly include new projects and reforms in several areas where the AKP already made significant improvements, such as transportation, energy, labor and health, winning votes for the party across the country in past elections.

With key ministries such as the foreign affairs, interior and economy unchanged, Erdogan appointed one of his fervent and loyal supporters, Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag, as deputy prime minister, and also the government spokesman.

It is Bozdag that oversees the massive purge launched against the U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of having masterminded the failed coup attempt last summer, which resulted in arresting 50,000 people and dismissing more than 110,000 others from public service.

Most of the constitutional changes will come into effect after the elections and Erdogan will only be able then to assume his new powers, which critics claim will drift this NATO country into even more authoritarian rule.

"When a party has an exceptional longevity in politics, it is only natural that some people lose focus, get tired or simply don't have the necessary drive to do things the way it should be," said an AKP official, who preferred to remain anonymous.

His comments came less than 24 hours after Erdogan convened an unannounced meeting of local bodies of AKP, where, according to the press, he called on to those "exhausted" to quit their duties for the sake of the 2019 elections.

"The 2019 elections have a critical importance for us. We have to work hard in order to win the hearts of people. It is not easy to stay in power," said Erdogan, reported Hurriyet Daily News.

"Erdogan is our leader as he is the one who knows the party better than anyone else," said the AKP source, adding that the faith will bring dynamism and enthusiasm to the party.

Erdogan also made important changes in the party in recent days, replacing some of the high ranking officials with some young and ardent newcomers, or "fresh blood," as pointed out by the pro-government press.

Other than economic and diplomatic hardships with her neighbors and European powers, Erdogan also has to deal with opposition leaders who plan to leave their mark on the political agenda.

Kemal Kilicdaroglu, the leader of the main opposition People's Republican Party, Turkey's oldest political institution, led a 450-km-long and publicized "Justice March" from Ankara to Istanbul to protest the government's crackdown against all opposition circles in the midst of the state of emergency, which was imposed after last year's coup attempt.

The mild mannered and 68-year-old politician became a force to be reckoned rallying hundreds of thousands at the finishing line, and could be Erdogan's main rival for the next presidential election, said experts.

Moreover, Meral Aksener, a former interior minister and ambitious nationalist, is also becoming a prominent figure in Turkish politics and a possible challenger to Erdogan.

The Turkish "Iran lady" is reportedly planning to announce a new political party, which might draw attention from the religious and nationalist grass roots of AKP.

The new presidential system approved by Turkish voters in April changed things for Erdogan, elected as head of state in 2014.

In the past, when the parliamentary system was still valid, the charismatic crowd pleaser Erdogan had no real problem securing a government and a majority of seats with a vote of 40 percent. But under the new constitution, Erdogan has to obtain over 50 percent of votes.

The AKP will celebrate in August its 16th anniversary. The party, which was founded in 2001 and has never lost any election since 2002, is now trying to remain in full strength for the 2019 election campaign, said the party's spokesman Mahir Unal.

Meanwhile, some experts argue that the religious card will define AKP's policy in line with Erdogan' wishes to promote the mostly secular Turkey as a republic with Islamic ideals.
It was the first time a large-scale parade had been staged as part of commemorations to mark the founding of the People's Liberation Army, which celebrates its 90th birthday on Tuesday.

It was the first time a parade of such scale and importance has been held in the field.

It was the first time President and PLA Commander-in-Chief Xi Jinping was seen in PLA fatigues on an occasion like this.

It was the first time some of the PLA's new weapons made their media debut.

All these firsts occurred on Sunday at Zhurihe in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region, which is the PLA's largest and most sophisticated combined tactics training base.

That the show was staged at the once mysterious Zhurihe, a training base devoted specifically to drills in simulated combat environments, where the PLA's latest weapons along with the latest tactics and methods of operation are tested, was not only further proof that the PLA is embracing greater transparency but also a sign of its greater self-confidence.

China's past experience of being ravaged by foreign powers has cultivated in Xi an acute awareness of the nation's need for a strong, capable military.

Although to some scrutinizing it from a different perspective it may have sent a divergent message, as Xi told the PLA troops on parade on Sunday, the country needs a strong military "more than ever" as the world is far from tranquil, and the country's peace needs to be guarded.

And certainly, above all, Sunday's parade was a review of the military reform Xi has masterminded and presided over.

Barely a year after he assumed leadership of the Communist Party of China in 2012, Xi incorporated national defense and military reform into the country's comprehensive reform plans. For the first time in history, national defense and military reform were written into the resolutions of a CPC plenum as an independent section.

Two years later, Xi officially inaugurated the ongoing reforms amid a high-profile anti-corruption campaign within the PLA. An overall plan was announced in July, followed by a 300,000 cut in PLA troops in September and an implementation plan for command system reform in October.

Since then, the PLA has realized a profound change in structure and strategic thinking.

The formations at the Sunday parade were reportedly structured in combat groupings to reflect the PLA's new emphasis on joint operations, echoing Xi's idea that combat effectiveness is the fundamental gauge for the military, and demonstrating that the PLA is getting closer to what Xi envisions as a leaner, more capable, world-class modern military.
Editor's note: After the 18th Communist Party of China National Congress in late 2012, far-reaching reforms have been carried out to make the People's Liberation Army leaner, stronger and more efficient. Here we take a look at how the PLA has become a lethal force.

China's second aircraft carrier is transferred from dry dock into the water at a launch ceremony in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province, April 26, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

First domestically developed aircraft carrier

The nation officially launched its second -- and the first domestically developed -- aircraft carrier in Dalian, Northeast China's Liaoning province, on April 26.

The ship is the largest and most sophisticated surface vessel the country has ever built.

It will have a displacement of about 50,000 metric tons and a conventional propulsion system. It will carry domestically developed J-15 fighter jets and other ship-borne aircraft. The ship will also use ski jump-style takeoffs for fixed-wing aircraft, the same as the Liaoning, China's first aircraft carrier.

Related story: China launches first domestically developed aircraft carrier
NANNING - Ya Qiaoli has been waiting eagerly for her university admission letter, at her home in a mountainous village in south China's Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, ever since she was told that she has been admitted to Guangxi University of Nationalities.

For her, the letter is crucial. It means she can spend the next four years in Nanning, the regional capital, studying finance.

Ya scored 549 points out of 750 points in June's national college entrance exam, better known as the gaokao. The points guarantee university acceptance, yet they are not enough for her to apply for a good major.

"I was able to choose either a good university or a good major only after I got the bonus points for ethnic minorities," Ya said.

As a Zhuang ethnic student, Ya got 10 bonus points, according to a national policy that allows ethnic minority students to gain as many as 20 bonus gaokao points.

The policy helps ethnic minority students, many from remote and impoverished areas with poor educational standards, to reduce their disadvantage in the exam.

Ya studies in the only high school in Fengshan county, her hometown. Located in Hechi city, it is a national-level poverty-stricken county. Among a total of 1,133 students who took gaokao this year, about 60 percent were ethnic minority students, mainly from the Zhuang and Yao ethnic groups. According to the policy, Zhuang students can get 10 bonus points and Yao students can get 20.

When the recruitment was finished, 97.7 percent of students were admitted to universities or junior colleges.

"The figures increased obviously compared with 10 years ago, as a result of both improved education quality and favorable policies," said Luo Yingyang, deputy principal of Fengshan County High School.

In Leye county, a national-level poverty-stricken county in Baise city of Guangxi, more than 20 percent of all 789 students taking the gaokao this year were admitted to universities, with most of the rest admitted to vocational colleges.

Huang Bingzhong, principal of Leye County High School, said that for many students whose families are poor, university entrance could guarantee that they would be lifted out of poverty.

"Sending a child to university or college is the best way for a family to get out of the mountains," Huang said.

China sees education as a key method in its poverty alleviation efforts, so it has launched favorable gaokao policies for students from rural and poor areas.

In April, the Ministry of Education announced that top-level universities would enroll 63,000 students from a number of underdeveloped regions in 2017, about 3,000 more than in 2016. Recruiting of poor students into provincial-level colleges is expected to grow by 10 percent this year.

Under these requirement, in Guangxi, a total of 2,507 students have been recruited by 154 universities, 300 more than in 2016.

Guangxi has the most number of ethnic minority people in China, and it is also one of the least developed regions, with 28 national-level poverty-stricken counties, in which 11 are ethnic minority autonomous counties.

With the number of school-age children growing, many poor counties face a shortage of competent teachers, funds and schools.

Principal Luo said the school was designed to accommodate a maximum of 2,200 students, but currently there are nearly 3,500 students. The school lacks not only classrooms but new facilities.

Low salaries also makes it hard for teachers to stay.

"Every year, several teachers resign, and it is very difficult for us to hire new ones," he said.

Leye County High School has cooperated with other higher qualified schools so that students can have lessons given by teachers of these schools online. Yet more methods are hoped to be launched.

More funding is needed to improve the educational conditions such as buildings and facilities in poor areas, said Ya Qiming, an official of education in Donglan county, another national-level poverty-stricken county in Hechi.

"Teachers' salaries and welfare should also be improved so that they would like to stay in these areas," he said.
BEIJING - More and more Chinese students are putting overseas study tours on their agenda this summer.

Consisting of language courses, sightseeing and international communication, study tours meet the demands of Chinese parents and students for a long and fruitful holiday, despite high costs of around $4,000 to $6,000.

This year saw the number of students going abroad for study tours increase by nearly 40 percent, with reservations for tours starting almost a year ago, according to English First, a Swedish-English education company in China.

YOUNGER PARTICIPANTS

A recent report published by a Chinese tourism booking website showed most study tour participants were teenagers in middle school.

According to the report released by Tuniu.com in June, 73 percent of their participants in 2016 were middle school students, 11 percent primary school students and only 3 percent college students.

Students of a younger age seem to be the upward trend.

"The biggest growth of our clients in the past few years is among primary school students, over 50 percent," said Joe Chiu, Country Manager of China's EF International Language Center.

Unlike study tour participants in other countries who are at least 13 or14 years old, Chinese parents seem to be more willing to let their children go on tours at a very young age, Chiu said, noting that the youngest Chinese participant on his program was only five years old.

PURPOSES VARIES

According to a blue book on global study tours released by New Oriental Education & Technology Group, expanding children's horizons was the major goal for parents, while improving language skills, experiencing independence and exploring cultural diversities were also popular.

Zhan Fuman, a 14-year-old from Guangzhou, currently on a 15-day study tour in Australia with a price tag of 32,800 yuan (about 4,870 U.S. dollars), went to the United States for her first overseas study tour last winter.

"She has been much more confident and independent since her first tour in the U.S. and learnt to use knowledge from books and real life communications," said Zhu Wanxia, Zhan's mother.

Going on a study tour does not lead to going to a foreign university in the future, Zhu said, adding that they preferred their child to go to a top Chinese university instead.

According to Chiu, only half of students in their study tour programs went abroad for higher education.

"Some parents consider staying in China as a better choice for their children, and such overseas study tours are more about qualities beyond learning by the books," said Chen Jingjing, Joe's co-worker from English First.

According to China's Ministry of Education (MOE), over 80 percent of Chinese students who studied abroad returned to China in 2016.
HOHHOT - President Xi Jinping has called for closer cooperation on fighting desertification among countries and regions taking part in the Belt and Road Initiative.

He made the remarks in a congratulatory letter to the sixth Kubuqi International Desert Forum that kicked off Saturday in the Kubuqi Desert in northern China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Desertification is a severe challenge facing the global community, Xi said, adding preventing and controlling desertification is a great cause that benefits both the current and future generations.

He said China has always attached great importance to combating desertification and made remarkable achievements.

Kubuqi is a good example of China's success in containing desertification and China offers its experience with the international community, Xi said.

He noted that since its founding ten years ago the forum had become an important platform for nations to exchange experiences in combating desertification and achieving the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

As the theme of this year's forum is "Greening the Belt and Road, Sharing the desert eco-economy," Xi said it is of great significance to strengthen cooperation in the prevention and control of desertification among countries and regions along the Belt and Road routes.

He urged delegates to the meeting to pool their wisdom and contribute to the building of a green Belt and Road and improvement of global ecological environment.
Troops prepare for a military parade at Zhurihe training base in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, July 30, 2017. The parade was held to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. [Photo by Feng Yongbin/China Daily]

China has showcased its real combat capabilities in a military parade at a training base in Inner Mongolia to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.

President Xi Jinping, who is also the chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected the troops on Sunday morning at the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, about 400 kilometers northwest of Beijing.

This is the first military parade held at the PLA's most advanced training camp, which is also the biggest in Asia. It is also the first time China has held a parade to celebrate the founding of the PLA.

The spectacle involved more than 12,000 troops, 600 pieces of military hardware and more than 100 aircraft of various types, representing the Chinese military's most cutting-edge technology.

All officers and soldiers in the parade are from actual combat units, from cyber warfare to rocket force. More than 40 percent of the presented equipment is debut first time for a parade.
The flag raising ceremony during the military parade at Zhurihe training base in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region Sunday, July 30, 2017. [Photo/Xinhua]

President Xi Jinping urged the People's Liberation Army to spare no efforts to become a world-class military after inspecting troops in the Chinese military's first field parade in several decades.

Xi, who is also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, said the country was close to realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and, therefore, a mighty military was much needed to safeguard the process.

He told PLA's top commanders and officers and soldiers who just staged a parade in front of him on Sunday morning to stick to the Party's leadership, to continue serving the people, to further improve their combat capability and to deepen the reform and boost innovation.

"I am convinced that our heroic armed forces are confident and capable of defeating enemies daring to provoke us, of safeguarding our sovereignty, security and development interests  and of making new contributions to the China Dream and world peace," he said.

The PLA carried out a field parade on Sunday morning at the Zhurihe Training Base in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region to mark its 90th anniversary that falls on Tuesday.

Hundreds of large weapons and equipment, many of them never shown to the public before, and 12,000 troops took part in the grand parade.

It's the first time the PLA have held a parade at an exercise field in nearly four decades.

In 1981, a parade was performed at a training base in North China and witnessed by the late Party leader Deng Xiaoping. Three parades have been staged at Tian'anmen Square in Beijing since then in 1999, 2009 and 2015.

Sunday's event was also the first parade specifically organized to celebrate a founding anniversary of the PLA.

It represents the PLA's determination to become a top military in the world.
NANJING - Novelty ringtones lose their fun when they announce your dirty secrets.

A court in eastern China recently introduced a shaming ringtone to embarrass debtors and pressure them to pay the money they owe.

The Guanyun County People's Court in Jiangsu Province teamed up with a local telecommunication operator to design a "special ringtone" for local "laolai" (those who avoid repaying their debts).

The measure is aimed at shaming debtors who go missing after being ordered to repay debts, according to the court.

If anyone calls the debtor, the ringtone tells the caller: "The subscriber you are calling has been put on a blacklist by the Guanyun County Court for failing to repay their debts. Please urge the person to fulfill his legal obligations. The Guanyun County People's Court appreciates your support. Thank you!"

"The ringtone is designed to warn debtors and force them to repay their debts as soon as possible," said Pan Xingjun with the court.

Pan said that the ringtone let laolai feel the pressure from friends and relatives.

"The ringtone will disgrace debtors and force them out of their hideouts," Wang Yong, an employee with the court, told the Paper.cn. "The debtors' relatives and friends will be reminded of the debtor's lack of credibility and they can avoid being swindled."

"They cannot cancel the ringtone by themselves unless they repay their debts, and all mobile phone numbers registered under their name will be covered by the ringtone," Pan said.

China adopted a nationwide real-name registration policy for mobile phone number subscribers on Sept. 1, 2010. All new registers need to provide their ID cards to telecom operators to obtain new phone numbers.

"The court will give proof to help cancel the ringtone once they repay the debts," according to Pan.

So far, ten debtors have been put on the list by the Guanyun court. Most of the debtors are self-employed people who have hidden or transferred their assets to avoid repaying debts.

"They have the ability to repay, but refuse to carry out their legal obligations," the court said. "Some of them fabricated proof to resist repaying debts."

The court said it would work with more telecom operators to further enforce the measure.

When the ringtone was launched on the morning of July 20, a laolai immediately called one of the judges in the afternoon to cancel it, promising to repay the 100,000 yuan (14,800 U.S. dollars) he owed in installments.

Guanyun is not the only place to adopt the ringtone policy. The city of Huangshi in central China's Hubei Province and the city of Dengfeng in Henan Province recently introduced similar measures.

Many laolai have tried a variety of ways to shun repayment.

On Friday, a court in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, said that a 59-year-old woman had plastic surgery in an attempt to disguise herself to avoid repaying 25 million yuan of debt.
BEIJING - China will hold a grand gathering at the Great Hall of the People at 10 a.m. Tuesday in celebration of the 90th birthday of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, will attend the event and deliver an important speech.

The event will be broadcast live by the China National Radio, China Central Television, China Radio International and several official websites.
State Police have identified the two tractor-trailer drivers who were killed in a crash on Interstate 81 Friday evening.

Police said Epitacio Noel Diaz-Morales, 34, of Florida City, Florida, and Cosmin Ganta, age unknown, from California, were both pronounced dead at the scene of the fiery crash on I-81 in Penn Township at 9:30 p.m. Friday.

Police said Diaz-Morales was traveling in the right lane of I-81 south just north of the Kutz Road overpass when he abruptly swerved into the left lane and jackknifed. The vehicle slid over the Kutz Road bridge abutment, fell onto Kutz Road and caught fire, according to police.

The trailer stayed on the interstate, blocking the entire left lane and most of the right lane.

Ganta was traveling behind Diaz-Morales' tractor-trailer and took evasive action to avoid striking the trailer. However, his tractor-trailer hit the concrete bridge abutment and became wedged between Diaz-Morales' tractor-trailer and the barrier, according to police.

Ganta's tractor-trailer immediately caught fire, and police said he was unable to get out of the truck.

Cumberland County Charley Hall pronounced both men dead at the scene. Hall hadn't been able to confirm their identifies earlier due to both drivers being burned beyond recognition.

Police said they do not know why Diaz-Morales initially swerved his vehicle on the interstate.

Posted from abc27 News earlier on Cumberlink:

Two tractor-trailer drivers were burned beyond recognition after a fiery fatal crash, according to the Cumberland County coroner.

The crash happened on I-81 near exit 37 (Route 233) around 9:30 Friday night.

Cumberland County Coroner Charley Hall said in a release, both tractor-trailers were traveling southbound on I-81 when one of them struck the guardrail and then part of a bridge. The tractor trailer was then hit by the other rig and burst into flames.

Hall said the drivers will need to be identified with dental records.

State Police is investigating.

Posted earlier on Cumberlink:

NEWVILLE, Pa.  A coroner was called to a scene on Interstate 81 where two trailer-trailers were fully engulfed in flames.

According to PennDOT, the incident closed I-81 northbound and southbound between Exit 37 (Route 233) and Exit 44 (Route 465) in Penn Township.

The incident was reported around 9:30 p.m. to be in the area of mile marker 38 in the area of Kutz Road, which was also closed.

No other details were immediately provided by authorities.

Reported earlier:

A multivehicle accident has closed all lanes of Interstate 81 between Exit 44, Plainfield, and Exit 37, Route 233. The accident was reported about 9:45 p.m. No other details were available.
A flag guard formation consisting of officers and soldiers from the army, air force, navy and rocket force of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) attends a military parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the PLA at Zhurihe training base in North China's Inner Mongolia autonomous region, July 30, 2017.[Photo/Xinhua]

The parade held this morning to mark the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army attracted hundreds of thousands of viewers and incited lively discussions online.

The live-streaming of the parade at Zhurihe Training Base in Inner Mongolia autonomous region by China Central Television (CCTV) has been viewed 28 million times on Sina Weibo, a Chinese micro blog. The topic hosted by the broadcaster now ranks first on the website in terms of popularity during the past 24 hours. It has garnered 250 million page views and some 230,000 netizens left comments.

Weibo user bengdadenainiu wrote, "Thanks to such a mighty army, we can enjoy this life without fear or concern."

"I have tears in my eyes watching this parade. The establishment that Chinese people have achieved is built on the blood and sacrifice of past generations. I can feel the country is growing stronger," stated weibo user Moushan.

Data from Baidu, China's leading search engine, shows that the parade is currently the most searched term on the website with more than one million related results.

The complete video of the 70-minute parade has been played 130 million times on Tencent's video service platform, v.qq.com. Entries related to the parade take up the top four places among the most viewed six videos.

"I feel so proud to see the parade. In 90 years, the Chinese army started from nothing and achieved such impressive progress. I feel so proud to be a Chinese," a viewer commented on the website.

The field parade kicked off in northern China at 9 am Sunday. The PLA's 90th anniversary falls on Tuesday.

This was the first time in nearly four decades that the PLA held a parade at an exercise field. Hundreds of large weapons and equipment, many of them never shown to the public before, and 12,000 troops took part in the grand event.
The People's Liberation Army's parade on Sunday reflected the Chinese military's latest efforts to strengthen its combat readiness and joint operation capability.

The PLA also used the occasion to publicize its achievements in armament mod-ernization as nearly half of the weapons and equipment used in the event were presented for the first time in a parade, according to organizers.

The military sent 12,000 troops, about 600 land and naval weapons, and nearly 130 aircraft to participate in the parade, the first in the PLA's history to celebrate its birthday, which falls on Tuesday. The event was organized by the PLA Central Theater Command on orders of the Central Military Commission.

Field parade

The event began at 9 am at a training field of the Zhurihe Training Base, Inner Mongolia, as President Xi Jinping, also chairman of the Central Military Commission, took a car to inspect troops from all military branches who were taking part in the event. After the president returned to a central stage built to review the parade, more than 200 soldiers, carried by assault vehicles, escorted flags of the Party, the People's Republic of China and the PLA and passed the central stage.

Then 17 attack helicopters flew past the parade zone, forming the two Chinese characters of Aug 1, the birthday of the PLA. They were followed by another 24 helicopters that flew in a shape of the Arabic numerals of 90, which symbolized the 90-year history of the PLA.

Next, 18 transport helicopters, guarded by eight attack helicopters hovering low in the air, landed and deployed hundreds of soldiers at a rough training ground in front of the stage.

The demonstration of helicopters carrying troops to "penetrate enemy defense" was the first time the PLA has presented fighting maneuvers in a parade and also marked the public debut of the PLA Ground Force's airborne assault unit.

Weapons used by the ground strike group were the Type-99A main battle tank, Type-08 and Type-04A infantry fighting vehicles, 122-milimeter and 155-mm self-propelled howitzers, 300-mm multiple rocket launcher as well as HJ-10 anti-tank missile carrier. All represent the best arms of Chinese land forces.

Next in line was the information support group. It showed some of the nation's latest electronic warfare devices, such as electronic reconnaissance and electronic countermeasure vehicles, as well as anti-radar and communication-jamming drones, making public the PLA's information operation capacity for the first time.

The third group represented the Chinese military's special warfare prowess, with hundreds of elite commandos riding on dozens of light-duty reconnaissance and armored assault vehicles.

The fourth group  air and missile defense  featured early-warning radar, anti-aircraft missiles and anti-missile interceptors. The HQ-9B and HQ-22 missiles are new-generation weapons in China's air and missile defense systems.

The next formation, the naval combat group, was composed of marine and naval missiles including the latest models  HHQ-9B air defense missile and YJ-12A anti-ship cruise missile.

Up in the sky, the bulk of the aerial combat group roared through the dust and exhaust produced by moving vehicles on the ground. The group comprising seven elements  early-warning and control aircraft, bombers, transport planes, refueling tankers, aircraft carrier-borne and land-based fighter jets as well as a mechanized parachute unit.

Aircraft taking to the sky included almost all of the PLA's most advanced types, such as the J-20 supersonic stealth jet, the world's third type of fifth-generation fighter jet, KJ-500 early-warning and control plane and Y-20 strategic transport jet.

The next two groups were logistical support and counterterrorism forces.

The last, perhaps also the most eye-catching, group was from the PLA Rocket Force. Five types of ballistic missiles including DF-16G, DF-21D and DF-26 were carried by wheeled launch vehicles.

According to the Rocket Force, DF-16G carries conventional warhead and has high accuracy, strong destructive power and a short preparation time.

The DF-21D land-based, anti-ship ballistic missile features a large coverage and good penetration and target-tracking capabilities. It is a milestone in the PLA's effort to implant strategic capacity into its conventional ballistic missiles.

The DF-26, a new strategic deterrence weapon, is capable of conducting off-road launches of conventional and nuclear warheads in tough terrain. It can carry out a rapid nuclear counterattack and medium- to long-range precision strikes using a conventional warhead, the Rocket Force said.

Closeness to combat

Sergeant Major Ding Hui, a veteran tank driver who has taken part in four national-level parades  in 1999, 2009, 2015 and on Sunday, said the public can see via the Zhurihe parade what his unit, a mechanized infantry division, has gained through its combat-ready training in the recent years.

"You can see that we are well trained and equipped. Our training is now very close to actual battle. Our weapons keep improving  the Type-99A is the most advanced tank I've operated," he said. "Compared with previous tanks, it is easier and more comfortable to use and can communicate with other units such as aircraft to call for reinforcement."

Ding also said the tanks moved at a speed of 15 kilometers per hour in Sunday's parade, faster than that in previous parades, which was maintained at 10 km/h. He said the higher speed was meant to demonstrate the "fighting status" of tanks.

Major General Tang Ning, deputy chief of staff of the Central Theater Command's ground force, said the PLA Ground Force has been seeing huge strides in terms of information capacity and diversification.

Now, more combat units have air defense missiles and self-propelled guns in addition to their traditional weapons such as tanks and armored vehicles, Tang said. They have adapted to those new arms and modern joint operation, he said.

Major Mao Lei, an Air Force staff member in charge of training the paratrooper unit in the parade, said the composition pattern of his unit revealed its sense of combat readiness.

"During previous parades at Tian'anmen Square, we sent only one type of airborne tracked armored vehicle, but this time, our parade unit had not only the armored vehicle but also an airborne wheeled assault vehicle," he said. "This was because their combination, rather than merely one of them, is what we would use for a real battle. We showed today what we would be like in an actual war."

He said the Chinese parachute force has become capable of making long-range deployment of heavy-duty weapons thanks to the intensified training and deliveries of new equipment during the past five years.

"For instance, compared with the past, when we were capable of airdropping just one type of heavy-duty equipment in each operation, we are now able to deploy multiple types of such equipment in a single mission," he said.

Lieutenant Colonel Qing Yingsong, an Air Force officer from the Central Theater Command who makes plans for bombers' training, said the bomber units that appeared in the parade engage in regular drills to confront anti-aircraft, radar and electronic-warfare forces to hone pilots' capabilities.

He said the units also conduct long-range flight training over the high seas to test their strike capability.

Qing's colleague, Colonel Fan Huiyu, an Air Force researcher in the command, said the headquarters for air units in the parade used command and communications vehicles instead of fixed facilities in previous parades.

"This was because we treated this parade as an opportunity to verify our readiness for a real combat, which requires us to be mobile and to be able to respond quickly," he said.

Contact the writer at zhaolei@chinadaily.com.cn
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China shows off military strength in PLA parade 2017-07-30 10:15:53 chinadaily.com.cn Zhang Zhihao China has showcased its real combat capabilities in a military parade at a training base in Inner Mongolia to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.

China has showcased its real combat capabilities in a military parade at a training base in Inner Mongolia to mark the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army.

President Xi Jinping, who is also the chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected the troops on Sunday morning at the Zhurihe Combined Tactics Training Base, about 400 kilometers northwest of Beijing.

This is the first military parade held at the PLA's most advanced training camp, which is also the biggest in Asia. It is also the first time China has held a parade to celebrate the founding of the PLA.

The spectacle involved more than 12,000 troops, 600 pieces of military hardware and more than 100 aircraft of various types, representing the Chinese military's most cutting-edge technology.

All officers and soldiers in the parade are from actual combat units, from cyber warfare to rocket force. More than 40 percent of the presented equipment is debut first time for a parade.

Zhurihe base facts:

The Zhurihe base replicates realistic battle conditions in a variety of terrain, such as grasslands, hills and deserts. The training base covers an area of 1,066 square kilometers, almost the same as the land area of Hong Kong, and has its own hospitals and logistic facilities.

Zhurihe has been hosting realistic combat exercises since 2007. Drills, typically involving battles between red and blue units, are designed to get soldiers used to fighting more skillful and better equipped foes.

In 2014, Zhurihe hosted a six-day joint anti-terror drill with forces from Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan teaming up with PLA personnel.
A farmer stands near his combine during harvest near Sequim, Washington. [Photo/Agencies]

Trade talks held in Washington earlier this month provided an open goal for headline writers. "China to import American rice", or some variant thereof, was how many of the US media outlets greeted the positive outcome of a wide-ranging bilateral economic dialogue.

The concept of China, birthplace of rice cultivation and now its largest producer and consumer, shipping in supplies from the United States was newsworthy from the novelty aspect alone. In fact, China has been importing rice from other countries and regions for some time to meet the demands of a growing population and an increasingly industrialized economy. Purchases, principally from Asian neighbors, have already turned it into the world's biggest rice importer.

The Washington rice deal is the culmination of a decade of negotiations. Shipments will go ahead once Chinese officials have inspected production facilities in the US. The agreement is important as much for its symbolic value as for the sums involved. Overall, the US exports 3 million to 4 million metric tons of rice a year, while China produces about 206 million tons.

However, the deal underlines a positive shift in expectations for the future of the US-China economic relationship after the dire threats of a trade war that emerged during Donald Trump's successful "America First" presidential campaign last year. The Washington talksofficially termed the US-China Comprehensive Economic Dialoguewere the fruit of the first meeting between Trump and President Xi Jinping in April. Meeting at Trump's Florida resort of Mar-a-Lago, the two leaders agreed to establish the dialogue to resolve differences on perhaps the most crucial area of bilateral relationstrade.

Discussing a one-year action plan for future economic cooperation, the two sides agreed to address a trade imbalance that currently works in China's favor. Trump complained, during his campaign, of unfair competition from Chinese producers that he said had impoverished traditional US manufacturing states. China's stated policy, meanwhile, has been that trade relations should be established on a "win-win" basis that profits both sides.

A statement from the US Department of Commerce said the Chinese team had "acknowledged our shared objective to reduce the trade deficit, which both sides will work cooperatively to achieve". According to the statement, the first 100 days since the Mar-a-Lago summit had seen progress on a number of important issues, including credit ratings, bond clearing, electronic payments, commercial banking and liquefied natural gas. It also noted that China was allowing imports of US beef for the first time since 2003.

"The principles of balance, fairness and reciprocity on matters of trade will continue to guide the American position so we can give American workers and businesses an opportunity to compete on a level playing field," the Department of Commerce said.

The Chinese side, for its part, said it looked forward to an expansion in the trade in services with the US. According to a statement from the Chinese delegation, expanding bilateral trade in services could help promote balanced trading relations between the two countries.

The two sides also agreed to create a more open investment environment and to finalize an investment treaty that has support among US and Chinese businesses. The dialogue showed both sides recognize that current trade imbalances were unsustainably large and could damage the prospects for cooperation in other vital areas such as diplomacy and security.

For China, "win-win cooperation" remains a fundamental foreign policy objective.

In the overall context of the mammoth problems that Washington and Beijing have to resolve to put their economic ties on a new footing, the deal on rice might seem insignificant and even trivial. But it provides a handy symbol for the opening of a more balanced and mutually beneficial bilateral trade relationship.

The author is a senior editorial consultant for China Daily. harveymorris@gmail.com
Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, speaks at a symposium for provincial and ministerial level officials held on Wednesday and Thursday in preparation for the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. MA ZHANCHENG / XINHUA

The keynote speech made by Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, at a high-profile workshop this week offers a glimpse into the themes of the upcoming CPC National Congress. The speech lays an important political, ideological and theoretical foundation for the success of the 19th CPC National Congress slated for later this year.

It has been a routine practice for the Party's top leader to address high-level officials ahead of the CPC National Congress, held every five years, to unify Party members' thoughts and chart out the future course of development.

The top leader's tone-setting speech, which summarized the achievements made in theories and practices since the 18th CPC National Congress in November 2012, was a mobilization call.

In his speech, Xi hailed "the historic changes" in the development of the CPC and the nation over the past five years, saying China's development is standing at a new historical starting point, and socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new development stage.

The major achievements made in socialism with Chinese characteristics mean the Chinese nation, which experienced tribulations and hardships in modern times, has made a historic leap from "standing up" to becoming better-off to getting stronger, Xi said.

This also means that socialism with Chinese characteristics has expanded the pathway to modernization for developing countries, thus providing "Chinese wisdom" and "Chinese solutions" to problems facing humankind, Xi said.

Xi's speech adeptly puts forward the vision for China's future development. He said China must accomplish the national goal of building a moderately prosperous society by 2020, and strive for the great victory of socialism with Chinese characteristics as well as the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation.

To achieve that end, he called for continuous efforts to promote economic, political, cultural, social and ecological progress, and urged the Party to enhance theoretical confidence and strategic focus, broaden its vision, and give a new summation of its theories.

In terms of economic and social development, Xi emphasized commitment to the supply-side structural reform. Efforts should also be made to prevent and defuse major risks, alleviate poverty, and prevent and control pollution to push forward sustained and healthy economic and social development.

"The strict governance of the Party will always be an ongoing process," Xi said, stressing that the future of a political party or government is ultimately determined by whether the people are for or against it.

Presiding over the opening session of the workshop, Premier Li Keqiang called on senior Party officials to study Xi's speech, follow its spirit both in thought and action, and stay committed to the principles and values of the CPC Central Committee with Xi at its core.

The CPC has convened seven national congresses since the reform and opening-up was initiated in the late 1970s.

The authors are writers with Xinhua News Agency.
Pakistan's Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi speaks during an interview with Reuters at his office in Islamabad November 8, 2013. [Photo/Agencies]

ISLAMABAD  Pakistan's parliament will meet Tuesday to elect a new prime minister after the disqualification of three-term prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament. The party nominated Sharif's longtime loyalist Shahid Khaqan Abbasi for the top slot on Saturday.

The opposition is expected to name a candidate to challenge Abassi in a vote in parliament. But the six-time lawmaker is expected to win.

Sharif proposed Abbasi as interim prime minister until his brother Shahbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, can contend in a by-election for the seat left vacant by his brother's disqualification.

Pakistan's Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif from office on Friday for not being honest and concealing assets.

AP
BERLIN - A 34-year-old man opened fire in a nightclub in the southern German city of Konstanz on Sunday, killing one person and seriously injuring three others, police said.

The suspect was fatally wounded in a gunfight with police officers outside the music venue after they had rushed to the scene shortly after the incident around 0230 GMT. He died later in hospital.

The motive for the shooting is unclear. One police officer was also injured in the exchange of fire.

Police said in a statement that special commando forces have been deployed in the city as it was not clear if the suspected had acted alone or had accomplices.

On Friday, a failed asylum seeker killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg. Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and he had was psychologically unstable.

Reuters
Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull speaks as Australia's Minister for Justice Michael Keenan listens on during a media conference in Sydney, Australia, July 30, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

SYDNEY - Security has been tightened at Australian airports after police foiled "Islamic-inspired" plans for a bomb attack on an aircraft during counter-terrorism raids in which four men were arrested, the Australian Federal Police(AFP) said on Sunday.

The increased security presence caused minor delays for some air transport operators on Sunday and authorities warned travellers to prepare for potentially more significant disruptions as traffic picked up during the week.

"In recent days, law enforcement has become aware of information that suggested some people in Sydney were planning to commit a terrorist act using an improvised device," AFP commissioner Andrew Colvin said during a press conference with Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on Sunday.

"We do believe it is Islamic-inspired terrorism. Exactly what is behind this is something that we will need to investigate fully.

"At this time we dont have a great deal of information on the specific attack, the location, date or time. However, we are investigating information indicating that the aviation industry was potentially a target."

Five properties were searched on Saturday across the Sydney suburbs of Surry Hills, Lakemba, Punchbowl and Wiley Park. The commissioner said four of those searches may continue for days.

An AFP spokesman told Reuters the four men, who were arrested on Saturday, had not been charged as of Sunday afternoon.

Turnbull said advice from Australian security and intelligence agencies had led to increased security measures at Sydney airport on Thursday with tighter security implemented at the country's other domestic and international airports on Saturday.

"Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be," Turnbull said.

Colvin said travellers could expect an increased police and security agency presence at airports.

"You can expect longer delays to make sure that more screening is being done on baggage, both hold luggage as well as hand luggage," adding that travelers should allow more time toget through security.

Airlines Qantas Airways and Virgin Australia notified passengers via text messages, social media and emails to expect delays though disruptions at the nation's airports appeared to be minimal on Sunday.

A spokesman for Adelaide Airport reported delays of about half an hour for some flights but said traffic was otherwise smooth.

A spokesman for Melbourne Airport, Australia's second busiest, said it was preparing for delays during peak weekday periods.

Australia, a close ally of the United States, has been on heightened alert for attacks by home-grown militants returning from fighting in the Middle East, or their supporters, since 2014.

Authorities say they have thwarted a number of potential attacks since then but there have been several "lone wolf" assaults, including a cafe siege in Sydney that left two hostages and the gunman dead.

About 100 people have left Australia for Syria to fight alongside organizations such as Islamic State, Australia's immigration minister said last month.

Reuters
Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro show his ballot as casts his vote at a polling station during the Constituent Assembly election in Caracas, Venezuela July 30, 2017. [Photo/Agencies]

CARACAS, Venezuela  Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro asked for global acceptance on Sunday as he cast an unusual pre-dawn vote for an all-powerful constitutional assembly that his opponents fear he'll use to replace his country's democracy with a single-party authoritarian system.

Accompanied by close advisers and state media, Maduro voted at 6:05 am local time, far earlier and less publicly than in previous elections. The run-up to Sunday's vote has been marked by months of clashes between protesters and the government, including the fatal shooting of a 61-year-old nurse by men accused of being pro-government paramilitaries during a protest at a church a few hundred feet from the school where Maduro voted.

Maduro and his administration deny links to violent paramilitaries and say the political opposition is responsible for the violence that has left at least 113 dead and nearly 2000 wounded in four months of protests.

"We've stoically withstood the terrorist, criminal violence," Maduro said. "Hopefully the world will respectfully extend its arms toward our country."The Trump administration has imposed successive rounds of sanctions on high-ranking members of Maduro's administration, with the support of countries including Mexico, Colombia and Panama. Vice President Mike Pence promised on Friday that the US would take "strong and swift economic actions" if the vote went ahead. He didn't say whether the US would sanction Venezuelan oil imports, a measure with the potential to undermine Maduro but cause an even deeper humanitarian crisis here.

The special assembly being selected Sunday will have powers to rewrite the country's 1999 constitution but will also have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

While opinion polls say a vast majority oppose him, Maduro made clear in a televised address Saturday evening that he intends to use the assembly to govern without limitation, describing the vote as "the election of a power that's above and beyond every other. It's the super power!"He said he wants the assembly to strip opposition legislators of their constitutional immunity from prosecution and jail at least one  Freddy Guevara, a hard-line opposition leader and one the highest-profile organizers of four months of protests against the government.

"This little Hitler has his cell guaranteed!" Maduro shouted, using his frequent nickname for Guevara.

The opposition is boycotting Sunday's vote, contending the election has been structured to ensure Maduro's socialist party continues to dominate. So all 5,500 candidates for the 545 seats in the constituent assembly are his supporters.

The vote's success will be measured by turnout, with the opposition urging Venezuelans to stay and the government encouraging participation with tactics that include threats to state workers' jobs and social benefits like subsidized food for the poor.
Dear Abby:

I am a Yale-trained pediatric nurse with a post-master's as a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I respectfully ask that you retract your answer to "First-Time Mom in New Jersey" (June 21). I'm concerned your response will encourage other mothers to buy into the incorrect assumption that it's "impolite" to ask questions that ensure their child's safety.

You should have encouraged and empowered "First-Time Mom" to politely ask about the presence of weapons in the other parents' homes, and if so, how they are stored. It's important information for her to have.

If she has every playdate at her house and refuses to go to another home because she's afraid to ask about gun safety, eventually the other mothers will pick up on the fact that she doesn't trust their child-rearing capabilities, but won't know why. If these potential friends don't have unsecured firearms, or if they do and they are properly and safely stored, your advice will prevent healthy, honest friendships from developing, which will socially isolate her.

How will she ever ensure a break for herself by allowing and encouraging her child to socialize at another trusted mother's home she knows to be safe? Your advice will only isolate "First-Time Mom" further and put her and her toddler at great risk.

Colleen M. Sullivan

Dear Colleen:

Of course, you are right. The woman's question wasn't about etiquette. It was about child safety. A large number of readers besides you agreed my perspective was off. I have heard all of you loud and clear, and I apologize.

I should have advised: "You are responsible for your child's welfare. Part of assuring her safety involves asking whether weapons are on the premises and, if so, what safety precautions have been taken.

You also should ask if the children will be under parental supervision at all times. If anyone feels concern for your child's safety is presumptuous, do not allow your child to play there. Suggest instead that the children play at your house."

Dear Abby:

I am a pediatrician and a mother. Your advice to "First-Time Mom" about gun safety runs counter to the recommendation of the American Academy of Pediatrics as well as numerous gun violence protection groups.

Research shows that guns are present in one in three homes, and that one in three of those guns is kept loaded and unlocked, posing a risk to children. This is why I routinely recommend that parents inquire about the presence of guns and storage methods at the homes their children visit. I also urge them to discuss with their child the importance of never touching a gun and immediately notifying an adult if they come across a gun or are shown one by another child.

Jessica Mowry

DearAbby.comDear AbbyP.O. Box 69440Los Angeles, CA 90069Andrews McMeel Syndication
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A suspected member of the brutal MS-13 gang wanted in connection with two area murders was apprehended early Saturday more than 1,400 miles from Houston, local law enforcement officials confirmed.

Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez, 20, also known as "Terror," was taken into custody near Alexandria, Virginia, by law enforcement authorities executing a search warrant, Houston Police Department spokeswoman Jodi Silva said.

"I think we can all sleep better," Harris County Assistant District Attorney Lisa Collins said of the arrest.

NATIONAL ATTENTION: Trump targets MS-13, "worst of the worst" says Houston top cop

Herrera-Hernandez is a member of the brutal MS-13 gang out of El Salvador that Houston Police Chief has called "the worst of the worst."

Now Playing: It may be that President Trumps crackdown on immigration has made of of Americas deadliest gangs even stronger. Josh King has the story (@abridgetoland). Video: Buzz 60



Officials in both Harris and Fort Bend counties are looking to extradite Herrerra-Hernandez to face two murder charges.

Herrera-Hernandez is accused of killing a 16-year-old boy who is believed to have witnessed several MS-13-related murders, according to a news release from the Houston Police Department.

The teen, Estuar Quinones, was found dead in June 2016 at Buffalo Run Park in Missouri City.

Herrera-Hernandez is also accused of killing another documented MS-13 gang member, Kevin Alvarez, 26, on July 9 outside a southeast Houston apartment complex, according to sworn statements from Houston police officers. Alvarez was found dead from multiple gunshot wounds about 10 p.m. in the walkway between several units of an apartment complex at 265 El Dorado.

The apprehension of Herrerra-Hernandez represents a win for local law enforcement authorities who are focusing increased attention on gang violence.

Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo announced in June he planned to form a specialized unit to combat violent crime. He has called MS-13 "the worst of the worst."

MS-13, or "La Mara Salvatrucha," was formed in California in the 1980s. The gang spread throughout Central America and the U.S. and is infamous for the grisly murders.

In Houston, the gang is responsible racking for some of the area's most gruesome murders.

For example, MS-13 gang members were convicted for murdering a 14-year-old boy here in 2014 who wanted to go to church instead of associating with the gang.

They were also charged with killing a girl earlier this year in a Satanic sacrifice.

This week, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions flew to El Salvador to meet with law enforcement officials there to discuss ways to combat MS-13, which has become the face of President Donald Trump's war on illegal immigration.

Herrera-Hernandez is from El Salvador and has been in the U.S. without documentation, local police have said.

This week, he landed on the Texas Department of Public Safety's list of most wanted fugitives, along with Carlos Alberto Gonzalez-Barahona, 26, also believed to be an MS-13 gang member.

Gonzalez-Barahona is wanted on a murder charge in connection with the June 18 shooting death of his estranged girlfriend in northwest Houston, according to authorities. They said he is also wanted on an aggravated kidnapping charge after he kidnapped the driver of a pickup at gunpoint in Brazoria County.

Staff writer Cindy George contributed to this report.
Police are still on the hunt for a shooter after a July slaying outside a Houston nightclub - and now there's a $5,000 reward.

On July 15, just before midnight, a brawl broke out in the parking lot of a bar in the 10200 block of Club Creek.
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!)
The First Alternative Natural Foods Co-op is partnering with one of its vendors to send used bikes to West Africa for students to ride to school.

The co-op collected used adult bikes and bike parts Saturday at the Corvallis Farmers' Market. The co-op will continue accepting donated bikes Sunday and Monday at both of its Corvallis locations and also is collecting bike seats, spare tires, helmets and donations for shipping costs.

Joel Gustafson, brand manager for the co-op, said the bike drive is a local event that has global impact.

Alaffia, a Washington-based fair trade body care company that uses indigenous African resources, will send the bikes to students in Togo. According to UNICEF, 90 percent of girls and 80 percent of boys in Togo drop out of school before secondary education.

According to Alaffia, Togolese students must walk up to 10 miles a day to attend school. With no buses, the journey to school becomes time-consuming and students often drop out to help their families.

The graduation rate for recipients of bikes from Alaffia is 95 percent, said Anne Gamab, communications liaison for Alaffia, who was collecting bikes at the farmers market.

Gamab said students apply for the bikes through their schools and Alaffia assesses the students needs to determine who needs a bike the most. Alaffia has been holding bike drives in Washington and Oregon since 2004 and has sent more than 7,000 bicycles.

When students receive bikes, local Alaffia employees offer them lessons on taking care of their bicycles, Gamab said. Alaffia mechanics also visit villages to repair bikes.

Students who receive bikes are asked to sign a contract that says they will use the bike to go to school and that they will graduate from school, Gamab said. Girls must also promise not to become pregnant; the company says that pledge has contributed to a decrease in teen-pregnancy rates in rural villages in Togo. When students graduate from school, they are asked to pass along the bike to a younger student or sibling, Gamab said.

The First Alternative Co-op sells Alaffias products and has been partnering with the company to hold bike drives since 2013. The co-op has collected about 300 bikes for Togolese students, said Jen Luck, a sales planner at Alaffia.

Gustafson said he likes what Alaffia stands for in both the creation of its products and its philanthropic efforts. Collecting bikes and parts is a tangible way to help, he said.

You know its going somewhere and will have results, Gustafson said.
WASHINGTON  Looking, as prudent people are disinclined to do, on the bright side, there are a few vagrant reasons for cheerfulness, beginning with this: Summer love is sprouting like dandelions. To the list of history's sublime romances  Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy  add the torrid affair between Anthony Scaramucci and Donald Trump. The former's sizzling swoon for the latter is the most remarkable public display of hormonal heat since  here a melancholy thought intrudes  Jeff Sessions tumbled into love with Trump. Long ago. Last year.

Sessions serves at the pleasure of the president, who does not seem pleased. Still, sympathy for Sessions is in order: What is he to do? If dignity concerned him, he would resign; but if it did, he would not occupy a Trump-bestowed office from which to resign. Such are the conundrums of current politics. Concerning which, there is excessive gloom.

"To see what is in front of one's nose," George Orwell wrote, "needs a constant struggle." An unnoticed reason for cheerfulness is that in one, if only one, particular, Trump is something the nation did not know it needed  a feeble president whose manner can cure the nation's excessive fixation with the presidency.

Executive power expanded, with only occasional pauses (thank you, Presidents Taft and Coolidge, of blessed memory), throughout the 20th century and has surged in the 21st. After 2001, "The Decider" decided to start a preventive war and to countenance torture prohibited by treaty and statute. His successor had "a pen and a phone," an indifference to the Constitution's Take Care Clause (the president "shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed") and disdain for the separation of powers, for which he was repeatedly rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Fortunately, today's president is so innocent of information that Congress cannot continue deferring to executive policymaking. And because this president has neither a history of party identification nor an understanding of reciprocal loyalty, congressional Republicans are reacquiring a constitutional  a Madisonian  ethic. It mandates a prickly defense of institutional interests, placing those interests above devotion to parties that allow themselves to be defined episodically by their presidents.

Furthermore, today's president is doing invaluable damage to Americans' infantilizing assumption that the presidency magically envelops its occupant with a nimbus of seriousness. After the president went to West Virginia to harangue some (probably mystified) Boy Scouts about his magnificence and persecutions, he confessed to Ohioans that Lincoln, but only Lincoln, was more "presidential" than he. So much for the austere and reticent first president, who, when the office was soft wax, tried to fashion a style of dignity compatible with republican simplicity.

Fastidious people who worry that the president's West Virginia and Ohio performances  the alpha male as crybaby  diminished the presidency are missing the point, which is: For now, worse is better. Diminution drains this office of the sacerdotal pomposities that have encrusted it. There will be 42 more months of this president's increasingly hilarious-beyond-satire apotheosis of himself, leavened by his incessant whining about his tribulations ("What dunce saddled me with this silly attorney general who takes my policy expostulations seriously?"). This protracted learning experience, which the public chose to have and which should not be truncated, might whet the public's appetite for an adult president confident enough to wince at, and disdain, the adoration of his most comically groveling hirelings.

Speaking of Scaramucci, and in his defense: His love interest, the president, was elected for his persona rather than his principles. Hence there is a vacuum at the center of the person who is at the center of the country's absurdly president-centric conception of government. Therefore, loyalty inevitably manifests itself as sycophancy. Nevertheless, the smitten Scaramucci is himself evidence of something encouraging: Upward social aspiration is still as American as Jay Gatsby.

When plighting his troth to Trump, Scaramucci repeatedly confessed his "love" for his employer, thereby exceeding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin's comparatively pallid testimonial to the president's "superhuman" health. Scaramucci grew up in Port Washington, the Long Island community that is East Egg in F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby." Gatsby lived in West Egg, yearning to live across the water, where shone the beckoning green light at the end of Daisy's dock. Scaramucci's ascent to a glory surpassing even that available in East Egg shows that the light on the lectern in the White House press room is, at last, something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
First, they made up the name of a fake police agency. Then, they slapped together a website.



Finally, they filled out a form nicely asking the U.S. Department of Defense for a few military-grade supplies  and a week later they had a $1.2 million stash of night-vision goggles and pipe bomb trainers.

Luckily, it wasn't MS-13, Tango Blast or any other gang of gun-crazy criminals behind this bold subterfuge. It was the Government Accountability Office.

MILITARY LIFE: 13 signs you grew up in a military family



The sting was part of an assessment designed to test internal controls in the DOD's excess property program, which allows the feds to hand over extra military equipment and supplies to local law enforcement agencies for free.

Since 1991, the Law Enforcement Support Office program  run by the DOD's Defense Logistics Agency  has doled out more than $6 billion of property, including everything from mine-resistant vehicles and ammo to refrigerators and sofas.

Houston Police have scored everything from motorized carts to trucks to night vision sniperscope - more than $2.7 million of goods just since 2014, according to data compiled by the University of Idaho's Steven Radil. League City police stocked up on piles of rifles, while Freeport, Pearland, Richmond and Alvin all got mine-resistant vehicles.



Sometimes called the "1033 program" in reference to the section of law authorizing it, the federal hand-outs came under fire in 2014, when tear gas-tossing police in Ferguson showed up in armored vehicles in response to peaceful protests over the police shooting of Michael Brown.



Two years later, the National Defense Authorization Act charged the GAO with assessing the program's controls  and the results were damning, as outlined in a 76-page report released this month.



GAO investigators found the DLA did not routinely verify ID when police  or faux police  pick up their supplies. And on top of that, the agency doled out extra supplies when the GAO showed up to get its order.



"Furthermore," the report notes, "although we were approved to receive over 100 items and the transfer documentation reflects this amount, we were provided more items than we were approved for."

While the order didn't appear to include mine-resistant vehicles or AR-15s, it did include some potentially dangerous items, like simulated rifles and simulated pipe bombs, which could potentially be lethal "if modified with commercially available items," the report notes.



The assessment also looked at specific states' uses of equipment obtained through the program. In Texas, for example, police agencies in San Marcos and Hays County reported using mine-resistant vehicles to rescue more than 600 stranded people from rising floodwaters in 2015.



The GAO report offered a series of recommendation for the program's improvement, including a fraud risk assessment and bolstered internal controls after the approval process.



Although the shocking sting operation flew a bit under the radar in some quarters, the ACLU certainly took notice.

The civil rights group, which has long been critical of the 1033 program, offered scathing commentary on the report's findings.

"Honestly, you can't make this stuff up," wrote ACLU legislative counsel Kanya Bennett.

"It appears all law enforcement  even a 'fictitious federal agency'  can get federally supplied weapons of war, with quite literally, no questions asked."
An argument outside a nightclub in west Houston ended Sunday morning in a hail of gunfire that left one man in the hospital.

The shooting happened around 4:30 a.m. in front of Allure Lounge, near Richmond and Ocee. The 10 to 15 shots fired left bullet holes in the nearby strip mall and shell casings littered across the ground outside.
An armed, barricaded suspect drew police to the scene and sparked the second of two unrelated SWAT standoffs Sunday morning in southwest Houston.

Just before 5:30 a.m., the Houston Police Department responded to a call for shots fired in the 9000 block of Fondren.
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A shooter on the run after gunning down a man outside his family's apartment sparked a SWAT scene Sunday morning in southwest Houston.

The violence broke out just before 1 a.m. at the Los Arcos Apartments on Fondren near Ludington. Houston police responded to a call for shots fired and arrived to find a man lying dead on the sidewalk.

His family was home inside the apartment and heard the fatal gunfire. It's not clear exactly what sparked the multiple shots, but witnesses told police there was "some type of argument" before the slaying.

The shooter had already fled on foot by the time police arrived, but a witness claimed to know the gunman's identity, and cooperated with police.

Initially, Houston police said they hoped to ID the shooter and pursue charges, but within hours officers and hostage negotiators had surrounded a nearby location where the suspect was believed to be hiding.

Police and a SWAT team fanned out into the neighborhood and posted up outside the suspect's home near Cambridge Glen and Sandpiper.

"This is a murder suspect, we consider him dangerous," Executive Assistant Chief Troy Finner told reporters.

"If you kill somebody, you're suspected of killing somebody, you're considered dangerous."

But when authorities finally got a warrant for the home, they burst in only to find gunman had already left. Police still believe he initially came to the home before fleeing.

Authorities did not offer clues as to where the suspect might be hiding. The wanted man has a criminal history, police said, but they declined to name him.
After years of promising to repeal Obamacare and an extended floor show in Washington that ended with the Affordable Care Act's survival, U.S. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said Saturday that it's time to move forward.

She thanked people for pushing back on repeal efforts and called for Gov. Greg Abbott to expand Texas' Medicaid program at a news conference at a Third Ward community health center.

"I come today for several reasons. First, to thank the Houston-Harris County community for marching, for coming to town hall meetings and listening to the facts," the congresswoman said.

Since the Affordable Care Act - known as Obamacare - was enacted in 2010, 31 states and the District of Columbia expanded the eligibility for their Medicaid programs to include people with incomes above the federal poverty level. Millions have found health coverage in large-population states that expanded Medicaid, according to the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. An additional 3 million people were insured in California and 2 million more in New York - which have Democratic governors. More than 600,000 people in both Ohio and Illinois, which have Republican governors, were covered.

More than 1 million Texans were enrolled in Affordable Care Act marketplace health insurance plans in 2016, according to Kaiser. Of them, more than 900,000 received advance premium tax credits that reduce monthly insurance payments, and nearly 650,000 benefited from "cost sharing reductions" or discounts on deductibles, copayments and coinsurance.

Republican efforts, including calls from President Donald Trump, to "repeal and replace" Obamacare stalled in Congress with the demise of last week's "skinny repeal." That measure would have left 16 million Americans without health insurance over the next decade, according to the independent Congressional Budget Office.

Jackson Lee said the impact of enacting Trumpcare or ending Obamacare would be devastating for hospitals.

"Organize around a proposal to fix the Affordable Care Act," she said. "It can be fixed."

Jackson Lee said she wants to meet with Houston-area health leaders to reach common ground on issues including a single-payer option; reducing premiums and deductibles; facilitating more competition and choice between health plans; and increasing transparency in health care pricing.

State Rep. Ron Reynolds, a Democrat who represents parts of Fort Bend County, stood with Jackson Lee to advocate for a Medicaid expansion.

"Texas leads the nation in the number of uninsured residents," he said. "Health care, it isn't a privilege that only the wealthy should have. It is a fundamental right that I believe that everybody should have. ... We will not give up until everybody in Texas has access to affordable health care."

The news conference was held amid patients waiting for weekend appointments in the small lobby of the Central Care Integrated Health Services clinic on Delano.

Christian Palmer, a 31-year-old Houston paralegal, has been out of work for about a month and is now uninsured. She attended the news conference because she favors a single-payer system.

"As a person who has just lost their employer health care, I am especially paying attention," said Palmer, who is exploring her options for health insurance while she tries to piece together freelance work. "No one should have to go through all this nonsense and scrambling to secure such basic rights."
AUSTIN -- While a majority of House Republicans have signed on to support many of Gov. Greg Abbott's must-pass bills during the special legislative session, as he had demanded, new tallies made public on Friday show that a number of the measures still lack widespread support from GOP members.

Among those: school choice for children with special needs, a teacher-pay hike and prohibiting government agencies from collecting union dues.

Property tax reforms and measures to curb mail-in ballot fraud and to extend the life a special state commission studying Texas' sky-high maternal mortality rates garnered the greatest support among GOP sponsors, with 98 members of the 150-member House already signed on to sponsor the latter, according to Abbott's list.

The governor met with about 50 members of the House on Monday and told them he expected them to sign on as sponsors of his key bills by Friday -- to get as many as possible publicly committed. Several members quickly complained they were being strong-armed.

Generally,the fewer House Republicans that support a bill increases the odds it would have trouble passing, with among numerous controversial items opposed by most Democrats in the GOP-majority House.

A controversial bathroom bill, which House leaders have criticized and hinted may not pass, got support from 50 House GOPers, while a limited alternative that covers just schools got only 24 supporters. Abbott thanked supporters of both versions.

While Abbott earlier had promised to make public the lists of lawmakers who supported and opposed his 20-issue agenda by Friday, the lists he released were only of supporters. Missing, though, were key House Republicans whose committees must first approve the bills before they can come up for a vote by the full House.

Though the state Senate passed all but one of Abbott's 20-bill agenda in the first seven days of the special session, Republican House Speaker Joe Straus and several of his lieutenants have signaled that much of Abbott's agenda could be derailed for a lack of support. As a result, Abbott has ramped up the pressure on conservative House Republicans to sponsor all his bills as a signal of strong support.

Straus' top committee chairmen refused to sign on to most or all of the bills by Friday, including Committee Chairman John Zerwas, Public Education Chairman Dan Huberty and Appropriations Subcommittee chairs Larry Gonzales and Sarah Davis. Other repeated absences include former House Speaker Tom Craddick and Education Committee member Ken King.

The school-choice bill got just 20 of the House's 95 Republicans, meaning that 75 members of Abbott's own party were not willing to sign on. The list included not a single member of the House Public Education Committee that must approve the bill first.

A bill prohibiting the collection of union dues for teachers, correctional officers and child-welfare workers got just 37 GOP sponsors. Police, fire and EMS workers' dues could still be collected, a move that opponents including some House members have said is an unfair exemption that should doom the bill.

Abbott's proposal to increase teacher pay by $1,000 a year got 38 supporters -- 37 Republicans and one Democrat. Six Republicans on the 11-member House Public Education Committee did not sign on, an indication that bill could face trouble, as well.

A proposal to block cities from enforcing limits on tree cutting drew support from 42 GOP House members, and bills that could require cities to expedite constructing permitting and preempt local ordinances against cell phone use in vehicles got 47 supporters each.

Stronger support was registered for a bill to ban abortion insurance coverage (67 supporters), strengthen patient protections relating to do-not-resuscitate orders (63) and curb mail-in ballot fraud (60). A bill to limit the growth of state spending has 56 supporters, although 10 Republicans on the House Appropriations Committee that must approve it did not sign on. The creation of a commission to reform school finance laws garnered 55 sponsors.

New annexation limits for Texas cities got 52 supporters, and property tax reform got 50 -- a signal that played out later in the day when the House Ways and Means Committee approved a bill that will limit property-tax increases by requiring an automatic rollback election if cities, counties and special districts raise taxes by more than 6 percent. State Rep. Dennis Bonnen, R-Angleton, the committee chairman and author of the bill, said he thinks there is enough support in the House for the bill to pass.

The Senate passed a similar bill last week.

Legislative leaders had earlier speculated that if Abbott was successful in pressuring 50 Republicans to sign on as sponsors for any of his 20 issues, they probably stood a good chance of passage -- without specific opposition from Straus and other House leaders.

Straus has said he thinks the Legislature should be spending its time revamping the state's complex and troubled school-finance system, rather than trying to restrict bathroom access based on the gender on a birth certificate, in a controversial proposal that business leaders have warned could cost Texas jobs and billions in revenues from the loss of major sporting events.

While Abbott made public the lists of supporters bill by bill on Friday, and issued separate news releases throughout the day to call attention to the support, aides offered no comment on the lists after they were released.

House Republicans deciding whether to publicly back the governor's preferred legislation attempted to cross three of his bills off their to-do list Friday, including one of three of Abbott's preferred abortion bills. House Bill 13 would require abortion providers to report details of patient complications from the pregnancy ending procedure within three days, a task opponents argue is onerous and time-consuming.

Lawmakers also approved a bill that would curb costs for people who live in one of roughly 50 communities that charge plant mitigation fees when a private property owner cuts down trees in an effort zeroing in on local control. The governor vetoed a bill identical to House Bill 7 after the regular session and has told conservative Republicans he wants a different bill.

The House also agreed to fund the second half of a bill that would allow the Texas Medical Board and four other agencies to continue operations.
A couple years ago, I was driving out to City of Hope in Duarte and was able to listen to a whole segment on KPCC, an interview with in-coming Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon. He spoke very eloquently and forcefully about environmental abuses and dangerous industrial and commercial pollution in working class residential communities. It was very inspiring and I immediately called-- all excited-- then-candidate for Congress Nanette Barragan. An environmental champion who, as a small town mayor had taken on Big Oil and won a battle to prevent offshore drilling, Nanette was running against the single most corrupt member of the state legislature, Isadore Hall, a guy notorious for taking money from Big Oil and voting for their interests in Sacramento. Nanette was the underdog in the race-- by far-- and I figured an influential figure like Rendon could give her campaign a much-needed boost.

When I told her, excitedly, about Rendon's interview, she laughed. "He's backing Hall," she told me. I was gobsmacked. I had never heard a more persuasive argument for the premise of Nanette's entire campaign than what Rendon had just said. In recent days, all of California has learned that what Anthony Rendonand what Anthony Rendon does are entirely unrelated. Anthony Rendon-- at the behest of Jerry Brown, another hypocrite-- killed the Medicare-for-All bill that the state Senate had passed.

Many voters are now leary of any promises from Democratic politicians . And they should be. Over the weekend, thenoted that enraged activists are doing what's necessary to recall Rendon . It can't happen fast enough-- not just to Rendon but to all political betrayers of their constituents everywhere in America. Reporter Melanie Mason:

When Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon (D-Paramount) halted a measure to establish single-payer healthcare in California, the bill's most dedicated backers immediately called for him to be removed from office.





Now, more than a month later, single-payer advocates have taken the first formal step to follow through on their threat, giving Rendon's office this week notice of intent to circulate a recall petition.





Rendon's move to stop the single-payer bill-- which he called "woefully incomplete," noting it passed the state Senate without a method to pay for it-- was the catalyst for the outcry.





"If we recall the Assembly speaker, maybe someone else [will be] willing to push this bill, to get it out of the rules committee and send it to the Assembly to get a vote on it," said Jessica Covarrubias, a proponent of the effort. "Maybe that will help everyone get healthcare."





Covarrubias, a 27-year-old law student from South Gate, described the recall campaign as "literally a grassroots effort." She first learned of the recall campaign when single-payer activists, incensed by Rendon's action, launched a door-knocking drive to inform voters in his district.





The notice, which proponents mailed on Tuesday and was received by Rendon's office Friday, was signed by 60 people; at least 40 signatures must be deemed valid, belonging to registered voters of his Southeast Los Angeles County district. It was filed by Stephen Elzie, an Irvine-based USC law professor who is acting as an attorney for the effort.





...The recall effort faces tough odds. As the powerful Assembly speaker, Rendon has been a robust fundraiser, ending 2016 with more than $1.2 million in the bank. Other labor groups, including unions representing construction workers and grocery clerks, publicly sided with the speaker's decision to shelve the single-payer bill and could serve as as a well-financed cavalry should Rendon face a heated campaign to oust him.





Still, this week's step forward in the recall effort underscores how activist anger over Rendon's decision continues to simmer weeks after the measure, SB 562, was blocked.





Last week, the California Nurses Assn., which sponsored the legislation, paid for two mailers to be sent in Rendon's district, assailing his move as "holding healthcare hostage" and "protecting politicians, not people's healthcare." Both mailers encouraged recipients to call or visit Rendon's office to voice their displeasure, although the flyers stopped short of calling for a recall.





Michael Lighty, policy director for the nurses' group, said the union was not involved with the recall effort, focusing instead on pressuring Rendon to let the single-payer bill move forward.
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.
This week over t240 years ago the English chemist Joseph Priestley discovered the atmospheric gas oxygen. Priestley called the new substance dephlogisticated air, which he made in the famous experiment by focusing the suns rays on a sample of red mercuric oxide, HgO. In his preliminary announcement of the discovery he said the evolution of the gas appeared to be completely new but he did not have an opportunity to pursue the matter because he was about to tour Europe. While in Paris, however, Priestley managed to replicate the experiment for the great French chemist Antoine Lavoisier.

Not knowing exactly what the gas was, Priestley first tested it on mice, who surprised him by surviving quite a while entrapped with the air, and then on himself, writing that it was five or six times better than common air for the purpose of respiration. Later on in his paper Observations on Respiration and the Use of the Blood, Priestley was the first to suggest a connection between blood and air. As a side note Priestly immigrated to the United States in 1794 due to religious convictions and settled down on a large farm in Northumberland, Pennsylvania, eventually dying there at the age of 70 in 1804.

Oxygen is the third most abundant element in the universe after hydrogen and helium. Interestingly, our Sun also has some oxygen present, about one percent, but that occurs as highly ionized atoms that have lost most of their electrons due to intense thermal energy. On Earth, oxygen is everywhere. At least half of the Earths crust contains oxide compounds such as silicates or carbonates. Our oceans contain vast amounts of oxygen, at least 88% by mass (the rest being hydrogen).

Oxygen gas is the second most common component of the Earths atmosphere, taking up 20.8% of its volume and 23.1% of its mass. For some reason, Earth is unusual among the planets of the Solar System in having such a high concentration of oxygen gas in its atmosphere. There are only traces of the gas present on neighboring Mars and Venus. A good question then is why are we so lucky?

Scientists say that originally when the Earth formed oxygen gas was almost nonexistent in the atmosphere. It took photosynthetic archaea and bacteria to produce the gas beginning about 3.5 billion years ago. From core sample measurements it can be shown that oxygen first appeared in significant quantities during the Proterozoic eon. Some of the early oxygen was absorbed by the iron in the oceans but when this was used free oxygen began to outgas from the oceans 32.7 billion years ago, reaching 10% of its present level around 1.7 billion years ago.

Since the beginning of the Cambrian period (541 million years ago), atmospheric oxygen levels have fluctuated between 15% and 30% by volume, the peak occurring during the Carboniferous period, the age of swamps, about 300 million years ago, when atmospheric oxygen reached at least 35%. In modern times, oxygen is constantly being produced as a byproduct of photosynthesis, a light driven splitting of water reaction.

According to some estimates the green algae present in marine environments provide about 70% of the free oxygen produced on Earth. But if we suddenly used up all of our oxygen and begged our terrestrial plants to generate an equal amount, that process would take over 2,000 years to restore what we have.

Besides oxygen being needed for all present life forms, the gas is used extensively in industry. One large consumer deals with the reduction of iron ore into steel. Commonly called the Bessemer process, allows for the removal of sulfur and carbon impurities with the injection of high pressure gas into molten iron and consumes 55% of commercially produced oxygen.

Another 25% of oxygen gas is used by the plastics industry. The polymer ethylene is reacted with oxygen to create ethylene oxide, which, in turn, is converted into ethylene glycol. This begins a whole host of products, including antifreeze and polyester polymers some of which find use in the fabric industry.

Online sources show that the remaining 20% of commercially produced oxygen is used in medical applications, metal cutting and welding, and in water treatment. In the figure below a Hoffman apparatus is shown that can split water into hydrogen and oxygen using electricity.
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CLEVELAND, Ohio - A 14-year-old girl who went missing from Brunswick last week was found safe early Sunday in Sacramento, California, police said.

Sacramento police called Brunswick officials about 3:45 a.m. Sunday to report that Mia Rose Anderson was found safe. The teen was reported missing Monday, prompting local authorities to ask for the public's help on the department's Facebook page.

Missing teenager Mia Anderson has been located in Sacramento, California.  Brunswick Police (@BrunswickPolice) July 30, 2017

Mia's return to Ohio is still being coordinated, Brunswick police said. No further details about how Mia got to California, or who she was with in the state, have been released.

If you'd like to comment on this post, please visit the cleveland.com crime and courts comments section.
ELKO  Thunderstorms swept through the area on Sunday afternoon, sparking four fires including one northwest of Wells that has burned 2,500 acres.

The Pole Creek fire is about 20 miles north West of Wells and is 20 percent contained. Firefighters from the Bureau of Land Management and the Nevada Division of Forestry have responded to the blaze.

There are some structures near the perimeter of the north side of the fire but firefighters are expected to have the perimeter contained before those buildings are threatened.

BLM Public Affairs Officer Greg Deimel said the weather system that produced lightning Sunday afternoon did not produce enough rain to stave off potential fires.

There was lightning within five or six miles of Elko so that wasnt good, he said. Elko didnt get anything but there was rain all around in different spots.

Firefighters are expected to have a perimeter around the fire within the next day but the terrain could make things difficult.

It makes it harder to put in a fire line around a fire, Deimel said. When you get up to some of the upper slopes you get into the volcanic rock and you get some grass it just gets harder. Its hard to dig in rocks.
CLEVELAND, Ohio - Buying school supplies is a rite of passage for millions of families.

Retailers kicked off the back-to-school season in July, with promotions that seem to run earlier every year. Next weekend, Ohio will sweeten the sales pitch by offering a sales-tax break on clothing, school supplies and instructional materials.

In its third year in a row, Ohio's "tax-free weekend" is one of 16 offered across the country. The exemption applies from Friday through Sunday, Aug. 6. and is limited to certain items: pieces of clothing priced at $75 or less and school supplies that cost a maximum of $20. There's no limit on the number of qualifying items a shopper can buy.

Ed Jaroszewicz, marketing director at SouthPark Mall in Strongsville, views the tax holiday as a benefit for families. The prospect of one-time savings boosts traffic at the mall, he said, but he expects the weeks leading up to the first day of school to be even busier.

"Back-to-school is our biggest summertime initiative," he said.

Based on Cuyahoga County's 8 percent sales-tax rate, "a family spending $300 on school clothes can expect a savings of about $25," Jaroszewicz said.

The back-to-school shopping season seems to start earlier every year, particularly at big-box stores such as Walmart and Target.

National surveys contain mixed forecasts of how much families will spend leading up to the school year. The National Retail Federation said total spending, for primary and secondary school and college, could reach $83.6 billion this year, up from $75.8 billion last year and $68 billion in 2015.

"Families are now in a state of mind where they feel a lot more confident about the economy," Matthew Shay, the federation's president and chief executive officer, said in a news release. "With stronger employment levels and a continued increase in wages, consumers are spending more, and we are optimistic that they will continue to do so throughout the rest of the year."

Based on responses from 7,226 consumers, the trade group expects families with children in elementary school through high school to spend an average of $687.22 per student. For college students, average back-to-school spending is projected to be $969.88.

But a survey released by the Deloitte accounting and consulting firm predicts more modest spending, of an average of $501 per student. That's essentially flat from last year.

Mass merchants like Target and Walmart and off-price retailers, such as T.J. Maxx, are likely to get the bulk of that business. Their gains will come at the expense of traditional department stores and specialty clothing stores, Deloitte predicted. Walmart, the world's largest retailer, started displaying back-to-school merchandise in stores in early July.

Eighty-one percent of people who responded to Deloitte's survey said they planned to shop at such mass retailers [?] a 24 percent increase from last year. Name-brand, discount stores also gained fans. Twenty-eight percent of people still expected to visit department stores, but that group fell significantly. Last year, 54 percent of respondents included department stores on their back-to-school shopping list.

And only 8 percent of parents said they planned to visit specialty clothing stores, down from 25 percent in 2016. The survey's findings are yet another indicator of how much the retail businesses - and consumer preferences - have changed.

Ohio's sales-tax breaks apply to items of clothing priced at $75 or less and to school supplies that cost a maximum of $20. There's no limit on the number of qualifying items a shopper can buy.

For 20 years, some states have offered sales-tax holidays for many items on back-to-school shopping lists. State laws vary widely, as does the option for cities to participate or pass. Consumers generally can save 5 to 10 percent on purchases, depending on local tax rates.

This year, retailers in Ohio, Alabama, Arkansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia are required to participate in tax holidays. In New Mexico, participation is optional. Missouri and Florida let retailers opt out if only a small share of their merchandise would qualify for the tax exemption.

Depending on a family's size and needs, the savings can be minimal. But retailers enjoy the hype, since shoppers seeking deals on school supplies often spend money on other things.

Kira Smith, 40, of Cleveland, said that the savings add up even with an only child. And tax-free weekend simplifies the math when she's shopping with her 14-year-old daughter.

"When I took Kynnedy shopping last year on tax-free day, it was easy for her to budget for herself and spend money on her own," Smith said. "She knew that if she wanted a $12 shirt at Forever 21, it actually cost $12."

Parents heavily favor mass-market retailers like Target when it comes to back-to-school shopping, according to a recent survey by Deloitte, an accounting and consulting firm.

Stores tend to feel the back-to-school shopping bump in August. If you prefer to shop online, odds are good that you've already filled your basket.

Last year, online shopping peaked on July 16, according to an analysis from the NPD Group, a market-research firm based in Port Washington, New York. NPD defined the back-to-school season as July 2 through Sept. 3. Bricks-and-mortar buying didn't spike until the first two weeks of August.

Local tax-free shopping days do have a heavy influence on shopping patterns, the firm said.

But the National Retail Federation expects parents to spend the bulk of their back-to-school budget on electronics, not clothing and traditional supplies including binders and backpacks. In Ohio, gadgets don't qualify for the sales-tax break, even though they're increasingly part of the curriculum.

"Schools are changing their classroom experience to include more technology including laptops and tablets," said Pam Goodfellow, principal analyst at Prosper Insights & Analytics, a consumer-data company based in Worthington. "That is why many parents, specifically millennials, are spending more during back-to-school season and taking advantage of retailers' best deals to stretch their budgets."
CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A 25-year-old man is dead after being shot Saturday morning, police say.

The man suffered a gunshot wound to the chest during the shooting that happened shortly before noon on Spruce Court off West 25th Street, Cleveland police spokeswoman Sgt. Jennifer Ciaccia said.

The Cleveland Metropolitan Housing Authority police responded after a report of a man shot in a hallway, she said.

Police found the man unresponsive. He was taken to MetroHealth where investigators later learned at 3 p.m. that he died, Ciaccia said.

Preliminary information from police indicates the man visited a woman at a home on Spruce Court. Witnesses said they heard gunfire and saw two unidentified men run from the scene, police say.

The men took the victim's car after one of them took a weapon from him, according to police.

Police found the car unoccupied about 3:30 p.m.on Colgate Avenue

Anyone with information on the shooting is asked to contact investigators at 216-623-5464.

If you'd like to comment on this story, visit Saturday's crime and courts comments section.
AKRON, Ohio - Hundreds of yellow-shirted runners and walkers paid tribute to Devo, the influential band whose roots run more than 40 years to Northeast Ohio, with the first Devo 5K in downtown Akron.

The race came on the same weekend as the two-day DEVOtional 2017 at the Beachland Ballroom in Cleveland. Bassist Gerald Casale, an original member of the band, greeted the 5K participants from Lock 3 stage, took pictures with folks, and said he hopes the race continues as an annual event.

Proceeds go to Miller South School for the Visual and Performing Arts.

Runners and walkers cruised along Main and surrounding streets, winding up at Lock 3. It offered more than a typical 5K: A handful of participants wore energy domes, and booji-boy volunteers doled out water along the way, dressed like the band's homogenous-mascot-like character. Vertical placards, placed along the route, posted factoids about the band.

Several participants brought dogs; even a whippet named Devo strolled the course.

The slogan listed on the hefty medals each participant received says: "You can't run from de-evolution."
Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, is in one of the most dangerous states in all of Mexico. (Illustration by Joel Downey / Cleveland.com)

PAINESVILLE, Ohio -- A Painesville woman is scheduled to be deported Tuesday to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico, despite the recent kidnapping of a Painesville man deported there and a U.S. State Department website warning US citizens to stay away.

Elizabeth Ford, the Chardon attorney representing Beatriz Morelos Casillas, plans to file a motion Monday to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) asking them to stay the deportation or at least change the city Casillas will be deported to.

"The government itself says it's dangerous," said Ford. "And just this week a Painesville man recovering from a severe head injury was kidnapped after he was deported there (and is being held for ransom). Why would our immigration people choose that city to send anyone to, especially a mother of four to?"

ICE has not yet responded to Plain Dealer questions about the reasons for using the dangerous city as a deportation site.

Nuevo Laredo is in the Mexican state of Tamaulipas bordering eastern Texas and is described on the U.S. Department of State website as dangerous and a place that should be avoided.

"U.S. citizens should defer all non-essential travel to the state of Tamaulipas due to violent crime including homicide, armed robbery, carjacking, extortion and sexual assault," the travel warning says. "The number of reported kidnappings in Tamaulipas is among the highest in Mexico."

The warning adds that law enforcement in the state is "limited to non-existent" and that the most violent activity occurs near the U.S. border.

"Organized criminal groups may target public and private passenger buses traveling through Tamaulipas," the report says. "These groups sometimes take all passengers hostage and demand ransom payments...Nuevo Larado has experienced numerous gun battles and attacks with explosive devices in the past year."

U.S. government employees are under a midnight to 6 a.m. curfew in the state, yet the Painesville man who was kidnapped was dropped off in Nuevo Laredo "in the middle of the night" according to Ford.

While the attorney helps the victim's family work with the kidnappers for his release, she is also concerned about Casillas, 37, who is scheduled to be deported Tuesday.

Casillas came to the United States illegally about 20 years ago at the age of 17 and was arrested last Sunday.

"She was driving home when she passed an Ohio Highway Patrol officer who had stopped another car on I-77," said Ford, at a rally Thursday. "She apparently did not pull totally into the other lane and the trooper stopped her."

She was cited for driving without a license and police turned her information over to ICE. Because Casillas, was once caught trying to enter the United States illegally earlier, she is not being permitted a hearing before an immigration judge or being allowed to post bond and is scheduled for a swift deportation.

Immigration attorneys note there has been a huge crackdown on immigrants since Donald Trump took office.

According to ICE, "Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly has made it clear that ICE will no longer exempt any class of individuals from removal proceedings if they are found to be in the country illegally.

"ICE agents and officers have been given clear direction to focus on threats to public safety and national security...but when we encounter others who are in the country unlawfully, we will execute our sworn duty and enforce the law," the website says.
July 29, 2017

 A gold model of an Apollo lunar module gifted to Neil Armstrong shortly after the first moon landing in 1969 has been stolen from the Ohio museum that bears the astronaut's name.



Police responded to a burglary alarm at the Armstrong Air and Space Museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio, shortly before midnight on Friday (July 28), where the 18 karat gold, five- inch-high (13 centimeter) miniature lunar lander was found missing.



"Entry to the museum was discovered and taken was a solid gold replica of the 1969 Lunar Excursion Module that landed on the moon," Russel Hunlock, Wapakoneta police chief, stated in a release. "The piece is very rare as it was presented to Neil Armstrong in Paris, France shortly after the moon landing."



Update for July 31: In addition to the lunar module replica, award medals/ribbons and presentation coins that were in the same display case as the gold model are also missing, according to the Wapakoneta Police Department.



The gold lunar module was one of just three crafted by the jeweler Cartier and presented by the readers of the French newspaper Le Figaro to Apollo 11 astronauts Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins during their post-flight visit to Paris in October 1969. The models replicated many of the details on Eagle, the lunar module that Armstrong and Aldrin flew to a landing on July 20, 1969.







One of three 18 karat gold Apollo lunar module models crafted by Cartier and presented to the Apollo 11 astronauts. (Cartier)

The intricate models were gifted to the three astronauts in red leather pyramid cases and were inscribed on the lower or descent stage of the lunar module with their name and "Les lecteurs du journal Le Figaro" (in English, "Readers of the newspaper Le Figaro"). Each model also had a hidden microfilm roll secreted under the descent stage engine with the names of the newspaper's subscribers and supporters who underwrote the presentation of the three replicas.



In 2003, the gold model presented to Apollo 11 command module pilot Michael Collins was auctioned for more than $50,000. It was either then or later reacquired by Cartier, which has publicly displayed the model in the years since at the American Museum of Natural History, The Forbes Galleries and in its own boutique in New York.



Hunlock stated the value of Armstrong's model "cannot be determined."



The Wapakoneta Police Department is being assisted in the case by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and the FBI. As of Saturday morning, the "scene was still being processed," according to Hunlock.







The Armstrong Air and Space Museum was opened in July 1972 in Wapakoneta, Ohio. (Armstrong Air and Space Museum)

The Armstrong Air and Space Museum remained closed to visitors on Saturday morning, according to the institution's Facebook page.



"Theft from a museum is a theft from all of us," museum officials stated. "Three hundred people driving from across the country were robbed of their opportunity to experience the museum today. For every day that an item is missing, we are all robbed of an opportunity to enjoy it."



The Armstrong museum is located in Wapakoneta, where its namesake was born. Opened in July 1972, the museum today displays the Gemini 8 spacecraft that Armstrong and crew mate David Scott flew in 1966, as well as spacesuits worn by Armstrong in flight and training, on loan from the Smithsonian.



Armstrong, who died in 2012, was not associated with the museum's founding, but helped where he could.







Neil Armstrong's Cartier-crafted 18 karat gold Apollo lunar module model, as gifted to him in Paris. (Armstrong Air and Space Museum)

"I did try to support them," Armstrong told historian James Hansen for "First Man," his 2005 biography, "by presenting them with such materials as I had available, either gifting or loaning items."



"The truth is that you can't steal from a museum," officials at the Armstrong museum wrote on Facebook. "Museums don't 'own' artifacts. We are simply vessels of the public trust. Museums care for and exhibit items on behalf of you, the public."



The Wapakoneta Police Department is asking anyone with information about the lunar module model's theft to contact its office at 419-738-8802.
The Gruesome Backstory:

You have Russian mystic Grigori Rasputin to thank for those disclaimers. Well, not directly, seeing as how he was utterly, thoroughly, painstakingly dead by the time MGM released their 1932 film Rasputin And The Empress. Rather, the impetus came from Rasputin's head murderer, Prince Felix Yusupov. In the film, Rasputin is murdered by Prince Paul Chegodieff, but not before the mystic hypnotizes and rapes Chegodieff's wife, Natasha. Now, Prince Yusupov had been in no way secretive about his role in Rasputin's murder, so he reasonably posited that audiences would equate Prince Chegodieff with him, and by extension assume that Rasputin had his mystical dong all up in Yusupov's wife, Irina -- whom Rasputin had never even met.

Russian Federation

"His dying words were, 'I never fucked your wife, and while I have length, yours is clearly the more girthy and powerful dong.'"

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The Yusupovs sued for defamation, and a jury agreed with their claim, awarding them $125,000 in today's money. If that seems somewhat paltry, we should note that the total court costs for MGM nearly equaled the film's entire production cost. As a direct result of the case, MGM and other studios began slapping the "Any Resemblance To Persons Living Or Dead" disclaimer on every last film they produced -- even those clearly based on actual persons living or dead.
Earthworks on the Colorado River

**Local Natives and production crew preparing to film an acoustic set in the Colorado River Delta.

La Cronica de Chihuahua

Julio de 2017, 22:02 pm

Sonoraninstitute.org

You know how they say, You cant love what you dont know? Well, this is why we need to reach out to people who dont know what the deal with the river is. Reaching out with the Local Natives is a fantastic way into thousands of peoples hearts, says Gaby Gonzalez, Environmental Education Coordinator at the Sonoran Institute. Shes part of the team that recently spent a long day together filming the newest episode of Earthworks from VICE Impact.

The episode connects the Sonoran Institutes work in the Colorado River Delta with the L.A.-based band, Local Natives. It was shot on location in the Delta region, an expansive, sandy landscape near Mexicali, Mexico. Between a private acoustic set in the estuary and some incredible tacos the sixteen-hour shift was exceptional. Gaby says, My favorite part of the day was getting to hang out and explore the river with the band. It was way more intense than a regular media tour. First, because this was a large group, production, sound, etc.the whole packagewhile we usually host a couple reporters at a time. I loved seeing how they all worked together.

VICE Impact describes Earthworks as Basically a Planet Earth with musicians. In each episode a musician, band, rapper, or R&B star travels to an amazing ecological location anywhere in the world to learn more about its needs, the dangers it faces and how we can help save it. Along the way, the musicians play beautiful music connecting with the natural setting, sometimes even using the sound nature provides them. Bringing environmental awareness to a young audience is important to the shows creators because Now, more than ever, its up to us, as young people, to take on this mantle of conservation, preservation and action to show people these beautiful, life giving places that will be lost to us if we dont do something about it. The Colorado River doesnt flow to the ocean anymore.

A lot of people think the river ends at the US-Mexico border, so its usually very surprising to find out theres a river down here too and that theres super committed people working to restore it and to better the communities around it. said Gaby Gonzales, who lives this work every day. The day on set took on new challenges with things like lighting, sound, working out logistics and a fair amount of time spent having to wait. The director even lost a shoe in the mud, but he wasnt fazed one bit, according to Gaby. Overall, the time was spent immersed in the Delta, making sure the importance of the river was clear.

Karen Schlatter, Adaptive Management Specialist at the Sonoran Institute also helped orient the band and production team to the river. Shes adept at showing those who arent familiar with all the issues surrounding the Colorado River the history and recent work in the Delta. She described to the band members how theyre directly connected by living in Los Angeles, a city that relies on the Colorado River for its drinking water supply. Before the shoot, they were not entirely aware of the huge impacts of human water use on the environment. Karen enjoyed the chance to show them the positive side of what is possible through restoration and community involvement. She made sure to highlight the fact that restoration of the Delta is a bi-national undertaking that involves collaboration on all levels, from water users in LA to US and Mexican governments, to local communities.

Gaby and Karen showed Local Natives and the Earthworks team how resilient the Delta is. Despite decades of degradation and desiccation of habitat, there are many areas that still support native plant and animal species, including several endangered and endemic species.

The audience for Earthworks is also resilient. Its reassuring to hear VICE Impact relate that their younger audience has an environmental awareness, and knows that their generation is open, conscious, perceptive, empathetic and primed to take this fight on and shift the tide of consciousness towards creating a real future for Mother Nature. Its the kind of mindset that makes for good collaboration. When asked why they saw the Sonoran Institute as the right organization to work with on this project, VICE Impacts director of advocacy, Nick Carter, professed The Sonoran Institute is doing incredible work to bring life back to the source that gives life to so many of us, the Colorado River. They are committed to one of the most noble causes anyone could commit themselves to and it was an honor for the band and the team to work with them.

Plus, says Gaby, kayaking in the river and exploring the riparian forest along it. I loved watching the band play! The scenery was super special; I wonder if theyd ever played in a place like this before. What about another favorite moment? Sharing tacos with the bandnot your usual fan moment, chose Gaby. Those tacos were freaking amazing, according to Karen.

Blog Post By: Corinne Matesich, Marketing Communications Coordinator
At Def Cons hacker voting machine village, where 30 pieces of election equipment sat waiting, hackers were given a deliciously wicked goal. John Hopkins computer scientist Matt Blaze said, We encourage you to do stuff that if you did on election day they would probably arrest you.

And they did. Most of the voting machines were purchased via eBay, but some did come from government auctions. Despite the various different manufacturers of the voting equipment boxes, there was a common themethey are horribly insecure.

Granted, come election day, officials would likely notice if hackers were physically taking apart the machines. Tinkering with an external USB port on a computerized voting box and using it to upload malicious software may or may not get noticed. Yet those are not the only ways hackers could potentially influence votes and an elections outcome; theres the sneaky way of remotely accessing the machine from a laptop.

Hacking WinVote machines

As journalist Robert McMillan pointed out, it took less than two minutes for one participant to get remote access to a voting machine. He tweeted: Greetings from the Defcon voting village where it took 1:40 for Carsten Schurmann to get remote access to this WinVote machine.

WINVote boxes have horrific security, according to Victor Gevers. The WINvote machines run Windows XP, have autorun enabled and include a hard-coded WEP Wi-Fi password.

Can you imagine trying to vote and instead being rickrolled? Yes, hackers were able to load the infamous Rick Astley video onto a WINVote box.

Thankfully, WINVote machines are no longer being used. That doesnt mean all vulnerable voting boxes have been put out to pasture, though.

Hackers also penetrated the hardware and firmware of a kind of touch-screen voting machine used in hundreds of jurisdictions across the country, and could attack a simulated county voter registration network, like the networks in 21 states that were compromised by attackers last year," McMillan reported in a Wall Street Journal article.

Preventing voting machine hacks

All of these touch-screen machines are unauditable, said election technology security specialist Harri Hursti. You should have paper ballots, and there should be an audit process.

Barbara Simons, president of Verified Voting, hopes the hacking village helps provide the momentum for repairing our broken voting systems. There is a solution, and its not rocket science.

One of the things we want to drive home is that these things are ultimately software-based systems, and we know software-based systems have vulnerabilities. That just comes with the territory, Blaze told Forbes. We want to make the problems public, so they can be fixed, so the public will know what the problems are and will be able to demand their systems be improved.

Jake Braun, one of the organizers of the event, told Reuters, Theres been a lot of claims that our election system is unhackable. Thats BS. Only a fool or liar would try to claim that their database or machine was unhackable.

The scary thing, Braun told The Register, is we also know that our foreign adversariesincluding Russia, North Korea, Iranpossess the capabilities to hack them, too, in the process undermining principles of democracy and threatening our national security.

Blaze pointed out, The stakeholders for voting machines are everyone in the country. So its important the problems get fixed.
Connecticut is a sanctuary state in all but name, so perhaps its gauche to discuss social science showing immigrants, legal and illegal, take from the state more than they give back. They do, in fact, but not in ways you might expect, and certainly not in ways familiar to headline readers of Matt Drudge and Breitbart News.

First, its important to establish that immigrants, even unauthorized ones, do pay taxes. If they work, they contribute to payroll and income taxes. If they rent or own a house, they pay property taxes. And, of course, they pay all manner of sales and excise tax. A recent study by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy found that illegal immigrants alone, about 490,000 people, pay $125 million in state and local taxes. Theyd pay more if they had legal status.

The issue becomes more complicated when it comes to federal taxes. The former chief actuary of the U.S. Social Security Administration found that 1.8 million unauthorized immigrants use fake or stolen Social Security numbers. Thats a crime, to be sure, but it means they put more into the old-age insurance program than they will ever get back. How much more? About 13 times more. In 2010, it was $13 billion in, $1 billion out. Given the number of people using fake or stolen ID numbers is expected to nearly double by 2040, we can also expect that ratio to widen.

But that doesnt mean immigrants, legal or illegal, pay they own way. Not at first. Two recent studies by the Urban Institute and the National Academy of Sciences found that first-generation immigrants are costlier than native-born citizens: on average about $3,000 more per adult. This is mostly due to the cost of educating their kids in public schools. First-generation immigrants tend to have families twice as big as Americans do. About 22,000 kids in the Connecticut are born to non-citizens. The more children a group has relative to others, the costlier they are to educate.

That appears to be a one-time investment. With successive generations, the fiscal burden on taxpayers get lighter and lighter. Indeed, over longer periods, state taxpayers enjoy a healthy rate of return, as it were. According to Governing magazine, the effects reverse. An author of the Urban Institute study told the publication: The people who contribute the most to society, even when you control for demographics, are these immigrant (kids).

Thats important to public policy because of two things happening at the same time. Connecticut is getting grayer and its population is getting smaller. As baby boomers move into retirement, they will put more demand on services while contributing less in the form of taxes. Elected officials, especially in cities, have debated ways to recruit and retain people. But there is one area in which there is nearly total agreement: We need immigrants to maintain growth.

For one thing, their spending power in Connecticut is $2.7 billion, according to one study. For another, immigrants are more likely to be entrepreneurs. This is something not currently taken as seriously as it should be in Hartford. The focus now is on bringing mammoth firms like Amazon to the state by offering them all kind of goodies. But as Scott Galloway, a professor of marketing at NYU, told Bloomberg TV last week, mammoth firms like Amazon are net job-killers. Furthermore, they dont contribute in the form of taxes to retrain people for available jobs. Entrepreneurs, however, do the opposite. They create whats called dynamism, a necessary force for business innovation and economic growth.

Slowing down the impact immigrant entrepreneurs have on Connecticuts economy is President Trumps immigration policy. Instead of targeting bad hombres, as he promised, his administration is going after immigrants with no criminal records who have employment and own property. They even have native-born spouses and children. There are many factors putting a drag on the economy. One is surely the removal of these immigrants.

But removing immigrants isnt the only thing putting a drag on the economy. So if the expense of taking responsibility of kids left behind after the federal agents deport their parents. Again, an estimated 22,000 residents are children of illegal immigrants. And the cost to society is compounded over time. Instead of flourishing as they typically do in the second and third generations, providing society a healthy return on its investment, these kids of immigrants are caught in the gears of foster homes and bureaucracy.

Thats bad for them.

Thats bad for business.

John Stoehr is a fellow at the Yale Journalism Initiative.
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Greenwich-based XPO Logistics billionaire chief executive Bradley Jacobs has founded and run several businesses from his longtime home of Greenwich, but his latest venture is proving to be the biggest.

In late 2011, he took over Express-1 Expedited Solutions and renamed it XPO Logistics. Within six years with the help of numerous acquisitions, the global transportation logistics business has edged into Fortune 500s annual ranking of biggest companies by total annual revenue and been named the top third-party logistics provider in North America.

After Fortune ranked XPO as the fastest-growing company last year, its climbed more than 160 spots and slotted itself between WestRock and Aramark to rank as the 191st largest company in 2017 with nearly $15 billion in revenue.

Its collection of recent accolades includes the title of Fortunes fastest-growing transportation company, one of Forbes top 500 best American employers and most innovative growth companies.

Those successes are the fruit of investing approximately $425 million annually in technology, Jacobs said. It is something the chief executive likes to tout as a crucial aspect of his companys continued success. Technological innovation. Thats what drives us, he said last week in an interview.

XPOs growth extends beyond numbers on paper. The roughly 60 employees who occupy its Greenwich headquarters outgrew its former offices at Greenwich Office Park, Jacobs said, so he moved them to new offices located in Greenwich American Centre in February. They now work surrounded by more than 100 acres of woods on the outskirts of Greenwich, a minute drive from the Connecticut-New York border.

Visitors drive over a bridge that puts a four-story structure housing Blue Sky Studios and financial groups on their right and a sloping green hill on their left before encountering a low-lying building that serves as XPO offices for Jacobs and some financial, human resources, marketing and legal staffing, according to Matthew Schmidt, XPOs director of public relations.

The new location offers cheaper rent and is convenient commute for employees and easy access for global executives who convene there for quarterly leadership summits, according to Jacobs.

Hungry for growth?

During one such summit last week, around 20 XPO executives gathered along a pale wooden conference table to review its second-quarter results. Seated at the head, Jacobs and his chief operating officer, Troy Cooper, led the meeting , which followed XPOs recent announcement it will publicly offer 11 million shares of common stock, which sent its stock price swinging. The move forecasts a renewed acquisition appetite, according to Moodys.

In the last few years, its been XPOs choice of acquisitions that spurred its growth and landed it amid the worlds biggest brands, Cooper said. Weve had 17 acquisitions in the period of six years, and they have all been leaders, he said. Then we do what we can to enhance what they do already.

This strategy depicts XPOs adaptive and agile character, Cooper said of the company that, according to it latest numbers provided by Schmidt, employs 89,000 people around the world, including almost 400 in Connecticut.

XPO may cover a lot of ground with its breadth of services, but Jacobs explains its central purpose simply. We help retailers and manufacturers move their goods through the supply chain as fast as possible, he said. From boats sailing with goods from China that are transferred to trains in Chicago and land on a truck in Kansas, we do all that, Jacobs said.

When it comes to sending those goods back to where they came from, in instances like returning unwanted merchandise, were a leader in reverse logistics, he said.

But where XPOs strengths are most evident, he said, are in its last-mile delivery of heavy goods. Were seven times the size of the next biggest player, he said.

Creating a buzz

Looking ahead, firms in the higher rankings of Fortunes list appear in reach for XPO, given Jacobs outlook on its growth opportunities. Were growing by the growth of e-commerce, he said, adding he plans to add customers as well as expand services through cross-selling.

Were still relatively young in this space, Cooper said, and were creating a buzz in the industry.

In the wake of Connecticut losing the likes of General Electric and Aetna to neighboring states, Jacobs said he doesnt have plans to abandon the Nutmeg State anytime soon. Citing Greenwichs suburban appeal combined with closeness to Wall Street investors and bustling Manhattan transportation, the Connecticut enclave retains its allure for Jacobs, he said. Plus, hes called Greenwich home since 1990.

The taxes have gone up in Connecticut since I first started out here, he said. But you cant let taxes determine major decisions. Thats like the tail wagging the dog, right?

Contact the writer at mbennett@greenwichtime.

com; Twitter @Macaela_
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Goldman Sachs doesnt like to wait, but it did for Owen West, while he took four leaves of absence.

The first time was to try to climb the north face of Mount Everest, which the Greenwich resident was forced to abandon 700 tantalizing feet from the summit.

Then twice after 9/11, West rejoined the Marines in a combat role, helping to train a battalion of Iraqi soldiers known as the snake eaters that he chronicled in a non-fiction book.

The most badass banker on Wall Street, dubbed by Business Insider, was promoted to partner by Goldman.

Now the third-generation Marine with the Harvard pedigree and Stanford MBA is facing a new crucible  as a Pentagon nominee of Donald Trump.

Pending confirmation by the U.S. Senate, West will serve as assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low intensity conflict. If approved, he will report directly to Defense Secretary James Mattis and serve in a similar capacity as the secretaries of the Navy and Army, but for special operations forces.

Having served under Secretary Mattis in Iraq, I knew hed assemble a high performing team at the Pentagon, and I was very eager to try out, West told Hearst Connecticut Media.

West, 47, has developed an unlikely kinship with one of Trumps biggest detractors during the confirmation process, U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., who introduced his fellow Greenwich resident last month at a hearing of the Armed Services Committee.

One of my colleagues referred to him as a renaissance man, Blumenthal said. Hes remarkably thoughtful and insightful and has a very practical real-world view of military and foreign policy. He has almost unique credentials for developing and shaping our special operations forces.

Thats indeed high praise from a Democrat who has opposed many of the Trump administrations nominees.

West said that as a neophyte to the political process, he appreciated Blumenthal being incredibly supportive and helpful, and Ill never forget it.

Wests nomination could come up for a vote by the full Senate as early as this week.

Blumenthal shares the same Ivy League pedigree as West and served in the Marine Corps Reserve during the Vietnam War, although not in Vietnam. In the 2010 Senate race, Blumenthal faced criticism about whether he conflated his service with seeing combat, which he did not.

There are very few Harvard Marines, West said. We connected immediately because Dick is a Marine, his son is a Marine and another son is a Navy SEAL.

West is poised to follow a similar career path as his father, Bing West, who was assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs during the Reagan administration. The younger West said he first introduced himself to Blumenthal this spring at a fundraiser for the Greenwich YMCA, where the senator is a regular and the Wests two sons, who attend Brunswick School, swim and play water polo. They then met at a local diner and in Washington, D.C.

Special Operations are going to be at the tip of the spear for this nation and its future national defense, Blumenthal said. Well be relying on them to do the really hard work, safeguarding our national security around the world. Theyre a critical element in our national defense. Hes going to have a really key mission.

Although he described himself as apolitical, West could be thrust into the middle of the upheaval of Trumps Washington in a number of policy areas, from the Pentagons dealings with Russia to a controversial new ban on transgender people in the military.

The eligibility rules for military service are set by the different branches of the armed forces and are outside the purview of the special operations forces, West said. When asked about Russia, he referred to a questionnaire he filled out for the Armed Services Committee before his confirmation hearing.

In Russia, an old adversary is creating global instability with hybrid tactics, West wrote.

http://twitter.com/gettinviggy; nvigdor@hearstmediact.com; 203-625-4436
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BRIDGEPORT  The only heat many people are worried about at this time of year is the temperature at the beach or pool.

City and state officials, however, are trying to salvage a proposal several years in the making to pump industrial heat that would otherwise be wasted to downtown buildings, providing heating at a cheaper cost than natural gas.

The bottom line is this project is far from dead, said state Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport.

The Bridgeport thermal loop  a wonky-sounding but, proponents argue, economically and environmentally vital proposal for Connecticuts largest city and potentially other municipalities  was initiated under former Mayor Bill Finch, Bridgeports so-called green chief executive.

It was eventually embraced by the man who defeated Finch in the 2015 Democratic primary, Mayor Joe Ganim.

Developed by NuPower LLC, the loop would use a network of underground pipes to capture and use heat from the Wheelabrator waste-to-energy plant, a proposed United Illuminating fuel cell and other sources. The lower heating costs were supposed to be a lure for new downtown businesses, and there were tax benefits for the cash-strapped city from the project as well.

But the UI fuel cell proposal, which would have helped to fund construction of the thermal loop, was rejected by state energy officials during a competitive process for new power sources. Regulators concluded the project would be too costly for utility ratepayers.

So thermal loop supporters successfully pursued an alternative and had a bill passed during the recently concluded legislative session allowing the fuel cell to move forward.

Then Gov. Dannel P. Malloy vetoed it, despite, as previously reported, some last-minute lobbying from Finch. Malloy called the bills goal commendable. But, he noted, the fuel cell and thermal loop lacked adequate consumer protections or regulatory oversight.

There was some speculation about overturning Malloys decision during the special veto legislative session early last week.

We decided not to ask our colleagues to try to override the veto as a show of our willingness to continue to work with and engage with the (Malloy) administration on getting this moving forward with their support and blessing, Stafstrom said.

On Wednesday, representatives from both sides of the debate gathered at the governors office in Hartford to try to figure out a way forward: Stafstrom; state Rep. Joseph Gresko, D-Stratford, also a paid adviser to Ganim on green initiatives; state Rep. Jack Hennessy; the state House and Senate chairs of the legislatures energy committee; staff from Malloys office; the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection commissioner; the executive director from the state Public Utilities Regulatory Authority; an executive from NuPower and their lobbyist, Kevin Reynolds, who is also Bridgeports lobbyist.

It was everybody who had an interest in this, one way or the other, getting around the table, said Gresko. They took two hours of their time.

So what was accomplished? The thermal loop is not dead. But ground will not be broken soon, either.

Everyone involved in this discussion agreed to continue a full exploration of all avenues that could be pursued to move this project forward, said Dennis Schain, a DEEP spokesman. He added the agency is supportive of the concept of thermal loops and a draft 2017 state energy strategy recognizes their benefits.

But, Schain added, DEEP still wants the related fuel cell project to be a competitively priced one to avoid burdening UIs ratepayers with excess costs.

To that end, DEEP is encouraging NuPower and the city to pursue the fuel cell approval through a brand new process just signed into law by the governor. Harris said NuPower has agreed to do so, though he is skeptical of success because the fuel cell/thermal loop proposal is a different animal than just building a new fuel cell.

That (approval) process is also designed to get fuel cell development in areas that dont have a lot of power generation, Harris said. The problem is Bridgeport has a ton of power generation. We dont really fit into that.

That is why, Harris said, the thermal loop  intended as a pilot project which could eventually be modeled in other cities and towns  might still require a different route for approval.

Were going to continue to work with the (Malloy) administration to refine legislation that everyone is fully supportive of, Stafstrom said.

Harris said the governors office has committed to sending us a proposal.

Bottom line, Harris said. This is really complex stuff. ... It is a new idea and one of those things thats not easy to accept within the framework of the current market and regulatory structure. But we appreciate how seriously (state officials) are taking it.
Bringing an idea to life through event marketing can be a beneficial way to cut through the noise and build brand awareness. When executed correctly, the return can be priceless.

Consumers are genuinely seeking more authentic connections to the products they buy, says Tabitha Rand, events manager for Low Res Studio, via email. We have become so over-exposed to brands through the internet and social media that it has the overwhelming ability to be perceived as disingenuous. Creating positive experiences through event marketing builds honest and lasting relationships almost immediately.

Rand is one of the event marketing experts who breaks down the planning process, and shares lessons learned to make the experience not only positive, but profitable.

Heres what they say works.

1. Approach event marketing as relationship building tool.

As an online business, Jeana Anderson Cohen, founder of A Sweat Life, a fitness site that hosts three to four events a month, sought to create an opportunity for readers to connect with the brand in real life. The decision was based on getting to know the companys customers, rather than the events ability to pad the companys bottom line.

For most brands it's not about sales, says Cohen in an email. It's about forming a deeper connection between your message and your consumer.

Janice Yu-Moran, Complex Director of Public Relations for Conrad Chicago and Waldorf Astoria Chicago, echoes this sentiment. Through email Yu-Moran explains how experiential events are different from other marketing tactics.

With event marketing, the goal is awareness, says Yu-Moran. That cant be measured through revenue generation. Instead we look to event attendance, media coverage, social media mentions and sales leads to measure success.

Related: 4 Tips for Marketing Events That Will Transform Your Online Business

2. Collaboration leads to profits.

If the primary purpose of an event is not to make money, it is important to find resources to offset the cost of production. One way to do so, says Rand, is by creating partnerships with local businesses.

Through [local] relationships we are able to get amazing services on trade or even donated, she says. This helps to control our bottom-line while also building our B2B network.

If events are being produced at a higher frequency, Cohen recommends pursuing corporate sponsorship. Nike, Gatorade and GM are all brands who have partnered with her in the past. She suggests having conversations with potential sponsors frequently and a minimum of five months in advance.

Her other bit of advice, learned the hard way, is to avoid building something custom for a sponsor unless it is truly authentic to a companys mission. Invite sponsors to be a part of things youre creating, she says. Thats probably what attracted them to you in the first place.

3. Spend and invite strategically.

When the Conrad Hotel in Chicago opened its doors, it made a splash with a Mad Men themed party estimated to have cost $40,000. While public relations and advertising helps with name recognition, Yu-Moran says. The hospitality and service of a hotel is best experienced and not just read about.

She justifies the expense by explaining how with one activation, the company targeted traditional media, sales clients, local tourism organizations, investors and social media influencers in one night. With more than 300 people in attendance, the cost would have been too high to host individualized one-off events, she says.

An opening is one of the rare opportunities a company has to attract a crowd. Yu-Moran leveraged the company milestone and targeted influential people in the hospitality industry to ensure word of mouth marketing happened long after the event had passed.

Related: 4 Ways Technology Is Changing the Events Industry

4. Rookie mistakes to avoid.

Begin with an event idea and date. From there event logistics begin to fall into place says Victoria Kent, founder of Victoria Kent PR, in an email.

She suggests researching to see if there are any competing events that take away from a companys core audience. Once the date is set, securing a location is the next step. From there a timeline of what needs to get done by when, begins to unfold.

Too many people get paralyzed by the idea of how much work an event can be that they never start, Kent says. Execute an event within the scope of what you offer, or around something that has personal meaning in order to stay authentic and true to your brand. Planning around something youre passionate about will keep you excited during the process.  She also quickly to points out that creating off-brand events for the sake of hosting something, is a mistake.

And the biggest misstep someone can make when it comes to event marketing? Not delivering on what is promised.

Related:

4 Tips for Hosting an Unforgettable Marketing Event

4 Ways Technology Is Changing the Events Industry

4 Tips for Marketing Events That Will Transform Your Online Business



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Between rising costs and stagnant salaries, Americans are saving less than ever. The 2008 economic crisis is often blamed, but Americans have been saving less for quite some time now. Consumer trends and alternative credit options have convinced people that there are other ways of generating value in the short term, distracting them from the necessary habit of putting away funds for the future.

Add in the kinds of debt that people are willing to incur, and the U.S. has a major problem on its hands. NerdWallet reports that the average American household spends $1,300 on interest on credit card debt alone. Student loan debt has skyrocketed in recent years to a shocking $1.28 trillion and shows no signs of decreasing anytime soon.

Related: Don't Let Student Debt Paired With Startup Debt Demolish Your Financial Security

These issues were often discussed on the 2016 campaign trail, with a few candidates -- Trump, Clinton and Sanders -- offering their own solutions. Sanders argued for higher minimum wages coupled with free education for all students. Clinton advocated for income equality and better treatment at the workplace, while Trump argued for bringing jobs back to the U.S. Seldom did any of them discuss how to motivate Americans to make better financial decisions and prepare for a timely retirement.

The good news is while politicians may have missed the mark last year, entrepreneurs have been hard at work thinking of new ways to help people plan ahead and do the tough work of saving. Eugeny Prudchyenko, CEO and founder of EvoShare, explains how he caught inspiration to help solve this problem.

I spotted a Prudential billboard saying the best donation is donating to your retirement. This made me think, What if someone were to streamline popular cash back solutions to peoples retirement accounts? Which is how EvoShares cash-back service was born. Other entrepreneurs and innovators are catching the same spirit and developing unique approaches as well.

Related: It's Shocking How Many Entrepreneurs Aren't Saving For Retirement

1. Increase savings through spending.

Many companies realize that instead of pushing back on consumer spending habits, they can tap into them to help customers save. Companies like Target and GAP have done this to help encourage charitable donations by giving shoppers the option to allocate a portion of spending to charitable causes. Prudchyenko shares, If we dont want to have taxes and retirement age increased, migration of responsibility for peoples retirement from the private sector to public sector should be stopped. Utilizing new sources for retirement contributions can significantly impact this accomplishment. Solutions like these are great because they tap into real consumer trends rather than trying to alter them, creating alternative avenues to drive savings behavior.

2. Employee benefits alternatives.

More and more companies are searching for alternative ways to help their employees contribute to retirement. While the traditional pension of the 20th century is rapidly disappearing, companies havent stopped caring about the later-in-life success of their employees. Thats why large companies have 401k matching plans and other vehicles for helping employees plan for the future. Prudchyenko shared that EvoShare is working with companies to help create cash back tools for their employees' retirement. This is a part of a growing movement comprised of business owners looking for creative ways to help employees without negatively impacting profitability.

Related: What's Your Safe Money Plan for Retirement?

3. Banking alternatives making waves.

Millennials are naturally skeptical of traditional financial institutions. They watched as their parents struggled through the recession due to decisions they made on the advice of many different kinds of financial professionals, and as a result, they tend to seek out alternative methods for managing their money. The result has been an onslaught of startups catering to alternative banking and investing. Companies like Simple, which creates a bank free debit option, and apps like Mint that track spending, help consumers transact and track their decisions outside of traditional banking.

As the financial sector evolves to meet consumer demand, one thing is certain. Any business trying to help solve for the consumer stands to be the most successful. When entrepreneurs develop new approaches to old problems, the result is often a better market for everyone.

Related:

Americans Are Not Good Savers. These Entrepreneurs Are Helping Change That.

10 Ways to Travel the World Without Breaking the Bank

Financial Snowballs: How to Grow Your Savings Every Day



Copyright 2017 Entrepreneur.com Inc., All rights reserved



This article originally appeared on entrepreneur.com


Lets stroll back to the last time the numbers-crunching Kabuki dance dragged miserably through a summer in the State Capitol. It was 2009 and we barely knew the housing bubble was burying us in broken glass, twisted plumbing, roofing tiles and red ink.

Then-Gov. M. Jodi Rell, who rose from lieutenant governor after John G. Rowland resigned on his disgraced path to a guilty plea and his first stint in federal prison, had been on the warpath all summer with majority Democrats.

Finally, she decided to let a Democratic budget slide into law without signing it. Embarrassingly, she thought she retained line-item veto power and made a few pointed changes. Wrong!

Maybe the financial struggle of 2017 will all go away next year when the Yahoo millionaires who thought the Twitter-in-Chief would cut their capital-gains taxes, finally cough up the hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue the state anticipated.

But in the changed economy, the jobs that have not quite returned to pre-Recession employment levels are paying only a fraction of what they did before 2008.

So Connecticuts in trouble. A full month into the next budget cycle and there is no new spending package, only a $5-billion hole and a stalemated General Assembly.

Republicans smell blood. They have steadily gained seats to the point where its an 18-18 deadlock in the Senate  highlighted by 14 tie-breaking votes this year by Democratic Lt. Gov. Nancy Wyman  and a tiny 72-79 minority in the House.

So why should they go against a winning political strategy and work with Democrats?

Democratic leaders this year have faced major unity challenges in their shrinking caucuses. Liberal urban dwellers have different agendas than the rural and suburban lawmakers. The one thing they have in common is the desire to win re-election.

Without the $40 billion or so authorized to fully fund state spending. social-service contractors, living with the governors executive order of minimal funding, have started furloughing employees on Wednesdays.

The House last week staggered, with one defecting Democrat, into approving Gov. Malloys $1.5-billion concessions deal with state unions. Its fate in the Senate isnt assured, although without it, both the gestating Republican and Democratic budget proposals would be so out of whack that the annual flow of municipal aid and school funding usually released on Sept. 1, would be in serious jeopardy.

The arguments, as usual, were best summed up by the leaders of the House of Representatives just before the 78-72 vote sent the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition deal, with a four-year no-layoff clause, a five-year contract extension to 2027 and a whole new, less-generous retirement plan for future employees, to the Senate.

Traditionally, House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, of Derby, speaks first. She pushed the GOP alternatives. There are only four states that collectively bargain pensions, she said. Theres a reason for that, because it does not allow the states flexibility, particularly in these economic times, to do what they need to do to keep their states afloat.

She said that the current budget struggle is dividing middle-class taxpayers: state employees and others, who she portrayed as losers  that would be me and, possibly you  while unionized public employees are winners with the contract deal. This will affect each and every one of you and each and every one of us. We cant do a darned thing about it, if this passes.

She predicted that the $5-billion deficit will return in various forms.

We have an option, Klarides said. Its not illegal, because there are many sections to our proposals. There are non-union health care changes. We know that starting in 2022 we can start making those statutory changes. There is a way to take care of state employees so they still have their health care, so they still have their pensions. So they dont go to their mailbox in Miami Beach, Florida, five years from now and get that letter that says sorry, out of money. You dont have pensions anymore, you dont have health care any more. 

House Majority Leader Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said that in 2017, some of the major workplace improvements and labor struggles of the 1940s and 50s seem a long way off.

Without noting the 20-year union deal perpetrated by Rowland (yes, he is in prison again) in 1997, Ritter mentioned that its coming back to bite.

It was Democrats and Republicans, both legislators and governors, Ritter said. Were all bearing that debt now, those costs. I think the question, if youre listening at home, is how do you deal with it, and what kind of state are we? What surprised me the most about the proposal I saw from across the aisle, was the way in which you dealt with the problem. It was essentially taking away collective bargaining in the state of Connecticut. The reality is there has never more in our country been a stronger growing divide between the wealthiest and the poorest and the middle class is knocking on heavens door.

Who knows when this years version of the Connecticut budget charade will end? But it will.

Ken Dixon can be reached in the Capitol at 860-549-4670 or at kdixon@ctpost.com. See twitter.com/KenDixonCT. His Facebook address is kendixonct.hearst.
ALCHEMIE is a full-time professional band proudly based out of Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA that plays original and modern rock and pop. They have come a long way since their first public Albuquerque performance in October 2015.

Their new CD dark was released in February 2017 and two songs on the album were nominated for New Mexico Music Awards: Blues II in the Blues category, and Highway 1 in the Adult Contemporary category. Their cover of It Was a Very Good Year, released as a single, was nominated in the Cover Songs category. These cuts can be heard on www.alchemielab.com.

Listen!ABQ, Albuquerques official music portal, named ALCHEMIE Artist of the Month for March 2017.

KOBTV4 taped an interview and performance of 4 songs from dark for the Good Day New Mexico program. KOB-TV will continue to air the live performances throughout 2017.

Albuquerque the Magazine featured an interview and photos of the band in the May 2017 issue.

ALCHEMIE is getting radio airplay on KUNM FM 89.9 (Ear to the Ground hosted by Matthew Finch and Overnight Freeform hosted by Bob Ottey, David Paytiamo, Dennis Andrus and others). KUNM is playing cuts from "dark" (including the New Mexico Music Awards-nominated "Blues II" in broadcasts that reach 100,000 New Mexicans.

On May 1, ALCHEMIE was interviewed by Alpha-Omega KAZQ TV-32 for upcoming broadcasts.

Please go to alchemielab.com to learn more about the band.
Theresa Mays summer charm offensive of inviting rebellious Tory MPs and partners to drinks and canapes at Chequers, revealed by this paper last week, is straight out of the David Cameron playbook. Said one MP disloyally: Dave used events like this to praise our better halves for their patience in putting up with living with politicians. Theresall have to go a bit further  shell have to thank us for having the patience to put up with her.

Theresa Mays summer charm offensive of inviting rebellious Tory MPs and partners to drinks and canapes at Chequers is straight out of the David Cameron playbook

Low-profile Cabinet Minister David Gauke is commendably modest about his chances of succeeding Theresa May. Im not even the favourite in my own household, he tells friends. Just as well. Online betting sites have the Work and Pensions Secretary as a rank 100-1 outsider. Plus they refer to him as Jeremy Gauke. A dark horse indeed, then.

Helle will be having a heck of a laugh

The wife Neil Kinnocks Labour MP son Stephen  ex-Danish PM Helle Thorning-Schmidt, below  says his humour has helped their 20-year marriage. Weve had our problems, but we just really like each other. He doesnt take himself too seriously, she says. Now Helle is running a charity in Westminster, he can keep her amused at breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Even Jeremy Corbyn seems to accept theres a limit to his hero worship. Dog hears Jezza is worried some party activists at Labours party conference in Brighton in September wont want to hang around till the last day to hear him deliver his keynote speech. Hes agonising about shifting it back 24 hours to the traditional Tuesday afternoon slot so people can hear the Great Leader speak and then bugger off early.

Anna's Foxy Flop...

When mischievous Remain Tory MP Anna Soubry went to Nottingham races last week and saw horses called May Remain, Champagne Rules and Foxy Rebel on the card, she couldnt resist a punt on all three. The first two won but her hopes of going on a shopping spree were blown when Foxy Rebel limped home second last. I blame myself for backing a nag that reminded me of Liam Fox, she laughed.

Few stood to lose more from the Tory Election disaster than the threatened hedgehog population after the defeat of their Commons guardian, ex-Plymouth Sutton MP Oliver Colvile. Colvile, who wants hedgehogs made a protected species, says Transport Secretary Chris Grayling is to take over the role. Grayling must first win over animal welfare Minister Michael Gove. Politicians dont come more prickly.

Charming Education Secretary Justine Greening is highly amused by reports that she once dated notorious Tatler Tory Mark Clarke, thrown out of the party after appalling drunken and bullying antics on the Conservative campaign trail in 2015. We didnt even have coffee, says Justine.
Just after the last crash, in November 2008, the Queen asked a roomful of academics and economists why they hadnt seen it coming. She wont have to do that next time. This week the klaxons started to sound. Another crash is on the way.

And so if you wake up one morning and the cashpoint machines are empty, and there are long, angry queues outside famous high street banks, you, the Queen and the Government will have no excuse for being surprised.

The warning came very clearly from Alex Brazier, a director of the Bank of England, in a speech in Liverpool that ought to have been on every front page and at the top of every broadcast news bulletin.

Great fleets of such cars are pouring out of showrooms thanks to easy-money loans called Personal Contract Purchase (PCP)

For if he is right, all the controversies, from the EU to Donald Trump, that fill the bulletins will shrivel into nothing pretty soon. Of course he did not put it quite like that. He has to be cautious. He said: Household debt  like most things that are good in moderation  can be dangerous in excess. Dangerous to borrowers, lenders and, most importantly from our perspective, everyone else in the economy.

And then he noted that consumer credit has recently increased more than six times as fast as incomes. There is no real money to cover this. Its a gamble on the future being just like the present.

It is very similar to the dangerous sub-prime mortgages that infected the Western financial system with impossible debt ten years ago. He warned of a spiral of complacency. As loans become easier to get, more money is lent on easier terms. The spiral continues, and borrowers rack up more and more debt. Lending standards can go from responsible to reckless very quickly. The sorry fact is that, as lenders think the risks they face are falling, the risks they  and the wider economy  face are actually growing.

Its not just maxed-out credit cards, though debts of this kind are now huge.

Theres a big new danger. If some of your neighbours have recently acquired shiny, big new cars, they may be part of the problem. Great fleets of such cars are pouring out of showrooms thanks to easy-money loans called Personal Contract Purchase (PCP). Almost four new cars in every five are now bought through these PCPs. Put simply, this postpones the main final balloon payment for as long as four years.

If, at the end, the buyer cant pay, he can just hand the car back and walk away. Can you see how risky this is for the lender? The money comes from the finance arms of the car companies, not usually from banks themselves, but if used car prices fall, as is quite possible, the whole thing goes down the drain. And that might spread to the banks and the rest of the economy.

Mr Brazier warned: The banks that are involved, as well as the shareholders of car companies, will want to think very carefully about the risks.

Or will they? Experience suggests that lenders dont want to think about this at all.

So if they wont, Chancellor Philip Hammond and the rest of the Cabinet should be thinking very hard indeed about what to do if it all comes crashing down one day, and farmers fields are full of used SUVs that nobody knows what to do with.

Theyll say it came out of the blue, but it wont have done. Its about as predictable as next autumn, and may not be much further away.

We have been warned, and if the Government isnt ready with a plan, then Im not sure what will save it from the wrath to come.

The real mystery in the BBC's new drama

Baffling and biased: Nicole Kidman and Alice Englert in Top Of The Lake: China Girl

There are many odd or baffling things about the BBCs expletivestrewn new detective series, Top Of The Lake: China Girl.

The first is Nicole Kidman, playing a latelife lesbian who has apparently had an accident with the Australian national grid which has turned her hair into a vast scouring pad.

The second is the ultra-modish actress Elisabeth Moss, beloved by

Left-wing critics despite the fact that she is a Scientologist (would they even write about her, let alone praise her, if she were an active Christian?).

But above all, it is the portrayal of all men as weak, porncorrupted, slobbish and ignorant.

This is not accidental. It is not balanced elsewhere on the BBC. Why is it not condemned as bias?

Let's change the Tories' name - to Doris

I suspect the whole Trans issue has been cooked up so that nobody can ever say anything about it (including here) without being somehow in the wrong, and open to attack by the Thought Police. Now that theres no more mileage in homosexuality, its the best way of making conservatives look like bigots.

But those of you who have clung to the Tory Party through thick and thin must have wondered a bit last week when it endorsed the idea that anyone can be whatever sex, sorry gender, that they want to be.

Heres the simple explanation. The Tory Party itself has changed sex, from Right to Left. It is a Trans party. Im puzzled that it has yet to change its name. How about Doris? And it now feels free to come out. Yet still you vote for it.

Those of us who worry about the terrible state of our prisons fear all the time that there will be huge blazing riots like those of 1990. But could it be that what we face is one long riot, all across the system, never quite bad enough to be a major national scandal? More and more brave officers are badly injured.

More and more prisoners are violently attacked, or kill themselves in despair. Add all these horrible events together, and it is much worse than the Strangeways outbreak of 1990 and the others that followed. If anyone in government is interested, I can explain whats wrong and how to fix it. But they wont like my prescription, so I expect they wont ask.

Those of us who worry about the terrible state of our prisons fear all the time that there will be huge blazing riots like those of 1990. Pictured: Strangeways

The BBCs Panorama programme was attacked last week by the President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists for alleged scaremongering. Why?

This gripping, tragic and carefully researched piece of work explored the mass murder of 12 people in a Colorado cinema, five years ago. It found that the killer  previously a shy, peaceable and awkward student  had undergone a huge personality change after being prescribed increasing doses of antidepressant pills.

He suddenly became a gun enthusiast, his academic work went down the drain. He dyed his hair orange. He began making crude sexual remarks to women.

Now, varying personality changes are not all that uncommon in people who are prescribed these pills, as any careful reader of the newspapers will know. Sometimes they are mild, sometimes they are large. But they do suggest a problem that needs addressing.

The programme was careful not to say the pills caused the murders. How could we know? Proving that A caused B is, oddly enough, one of the most difficult tasks in science. But this is by no means the only case of a person taking antidepressants going very badly off the rails.

Add to that the discovery a few years ago that the pill companies had (quite legally) suppressed their own research, showing their products were not as effective as claimed, and what do you have? You have a case for a thorough inquiry into the whole thing. It is not scaremongering to ask for one and Im very glad Panorama has brought this important subject right into the mainstream of debate. Others please copy.
Vlogging is typically considered to be a youthful pursuit, with most well-known online stars still a long way from 30.

But an unlikely YouTuber has emerged in the form of a 70-year-old grandmother from South Korea, who has brought a breath of fresh air to the world of social media.

Park Makrye has earned herself celebrity status in her home country for her hilarious videos, documenting her day-to-day life as a fashion-forward pensioner who is fighting off the risk of dementia daily.

Posting under the moniker Korea Grandma, she shares everything from her top make-up tips to her colourful adventures abroad.

Park Makrye, 70, has become an unlikely YouTube star, with her hilarious videos documenting her day-to-day life as a stylish pensioner

Makrye - who continues to run her own diner in Yongin, south of Seoul - says her life has been completely transformed since dipping her toes into the YouTube world.

'We used to think, "Since I'm over 70, my life is over". But as I started doing this, I realised life starts at 71 years old', she explained, adding an extra year onto her age in line with Korean custom.

The idea for her own YouTube channel came about when her granddaughter Kim Yura, 27, treated her to a trip to Australia, after discovering her grandmother was at high risk of getting Alzheimer's disease.

A video she posted online of the pair on holiday in Cairns in January - which included Makrye describing her first time diving in the ocean - quickly became a big hit among South Koreans.

Encouraged by the popularity of her first video, Yura urged her grandmother to carry on making videos, in the hope that it might be a way to stave off dementia.

Posting under the moniker Korea Grandma, she shares everything online from make-up tips to her adventures abroad

Makrye (pictured right with her granddaughter) says her life has completely transformed since tipping her toes into the YouTube world

Six months later, Makrye has posed for a women's magazine and hosted her own home shopping show, as well as appearing in a YouTube advert for Samsung.

She has earned herself a large fan base in South Korean, amassing nearly 300,000 subscribers on her YouTube channel, as well as more than 100,000 followers on her Instagram page.

In fact, her fans are so devoted that they travel across the country to at at her diner, which is situated in a remote part of Yongin that has no easy public transport access.

Explaining her love for the Korean grandmother, 31-year-old Lee Injae said: 'She's real. She's not fake. It's refreshing to see the world through the eyes of a grandmother.'

Makrye still runs her own diner in Yongin, south of Seoul, with fans flocking there to get a taste of her food

She said she used think her 'life was over' at the age of 70, but explains how YouTubing has now given her a new lease of life

The idea for her own YouTube channel came about when her granddaughter Kim Yura, 27, treated her to a trip to Australia, after discovering her grandmother was at high risk of getting Alzheimer's disease

Makrye's granddaughter Yura added: 'I learned then that my grandmother was just like us. She likes to travel, eat tasty food and take pretty photos. I'm her fan too. She is such a cool person.'

However, life was very different for Makrye growing up. Her father refused to send her to school because she was a girl, instead forcing her to do work about the house - including cutting firewood in the mountains and walking hours to carry it home.

A neighbour briefly gave her reading and writing lessons, but she still doesn't know how to spell most words.

'My mum and dad didn't teach me even though we were not poor because they wanted to put me to work,' she explained. 'As I do YouTube now, I feel sorry that I haven't been educated.'

However, she is not deterred from writing messages to her fans online, even if her Instagram posts are almost illegible and need 'interpretation'.

Since launching her YouTube channel six months ago, she has already amassed nearly 300,000 subscribers

Fans say Makrye - who is seen testing out various beauty products in her YouTube videos - is 'refreshing' and 'real'

Her fans have dubbed her unique way of expressing herself, with no spaces between words and respellings like 'shampangyi' for champagne, as the 'Makrye font.'

Makrye later encountered other challenges in life, with her husband abandoning her and their three young children after running up debts.

However, she began running her restaurant while raising her children single-handedly, eventually repaying the debts.

All three children finished high school, and granddaughter Yura was the first in the family to attend college.

Despite all her success on YouTube, Makrye said she would never give up running her diner - saying she will carry on working there 'Until I die'.

Despite her success, Makrye has encountered a number of challenges in life. Her husband abandoned her and their three young children after running up debts

However, she began running her restaurant while raising her children single-handedly, eventually repaying the debts

Her father refused to send her to school because she was a girl, instead forcing her to do work about the house. Pictured is Makrye showing a picture of herself as a teenager
Many women dream of designing their perfect wardrobe, but that dream has become an important reality for one plus-size fashion blogger who has put her own spin on the 'fatshion' industry.

Bethany Rutter, 27, from London, has created a vibrant clothing collection with curvier women in mind, after becoming frustrated with the lack of options on the market.

Bethany found most collections aimed at larger women were based on the assumption shoppers wanted to look 'ultra-feminine' and accentuate 'hourglass figures' - so has designed a line full of block colours and androgynous shapes in response.

Bethany Rutter, from London, has teamed up with German-based brand navabi to design a grown-up collection with curvier women in mind

Teaming up with the German brand navabi, she has designed a range that goes up to a size 28 - and will take women straight from the office to a dinner out with friends.

Bethany wanted to create statement pieces that could be worn every day - with the use of bold, bright colours being an important part of that mission.

Speaking to FEMAIL, Bethany explained how she designed the range with the gaps in her own wardrobe in mind.

The blogger went to navabi's Germany office to work with the design team there, picking out the exact fabrics and colours she wanted for her garments.

Describing her aim for the collection, she said: 'I wanted it to be stuff that you can wear every day, but not be super casual. I think that's what's missing from the plus-size market.'

Bethany - who started her Arched Eyebrow blog back in 2011 and also works as a social media editor for navabi - says brands assume that curvier women want ultra-feminine clothing, when that's not always the case.

Frustrated with the clothes on offer for larger ladies, she embarked on creating a range that would take women from the office to a dinner out with friends

She wanted to create pieces that would make a statement but could still be worn everyday - with the use of bold colour being an important part of that mission

'It's assumed that we want to wear dresses that show off our waist and mimic an hour glass figure, even if we don't have one,' she explained.

'The thing I've learnt as a plus-size blogger is that we're not always given the same choice as slimmer women.

'Brands will say that plus-size women want this thing or want that thing, without really giving them a choice.'

Speaking about the benefits of creating her own collection, she said: 'If you're plus size, there's a real chance that the item you're looking for doesn't exist and has never existed.

Bethany, 27, explained how she designed the range with the gaps in her own wardrobe in mind

She went to navabi's Germany office to work with the design team out there, picking out the exact fabrics and colours she wanted for her garments

Bethany said her favourite piece from the collection are the green high-waisted trousers, explaining: 'Good trousers are really hard to find in a plus-size'

'I was able to magic up those items from my head.'

Bethany said her favourite piece from the collection are the green high-waisted trousers, explaining: 'Good trousers are really hard to find in a plus-size, and I just think the colour is so perfect.'

Other garments in the nine-piece collection include a cobalt blue duster coat, fuchsia midi skirt and a red shift dress.

Prices range from 39.99 to 129.99, with all pieces available in sizes 14 to 28 from navabi.co.uk.
Michelle Dewberry shot to fame as the UK's first female winner of The Apprentice in 2006.

Michelle, 37, stood as a candidate for West Hull and Hessle in the last general election on a pro-Brexit platform, and currently hosts Sky's political show The Pledge.

The passionate Brexiteer tells FEMAIL that people who want to 'turn to experience and bring back Tony Blair to sort out Brexit' are 'absolutely bonkers'...

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The Apprentice winner Michelle Dewberry writes for FEMAIL, arguing that people who want to bring Tony Blair back to negotiate Brexit are be 'absolutely bonkers'

I've heard some ridiculous things in my time but last week on The Pledge, I was told that it was time for Theresa May to 'turn to experience and bring back Blair' to sort out Brexit.

Supposedly he is the man who 'knows what he's talking about when it comes to Britain and Europe', and should be invited to join the official negotiating table on our behalf.

I honestly fail to see the logic in involving a person dubbed 'yesterday's man' to negotiate our way out of a club that he a) wants to stay in and b) wants to be the boss of.

He is also a man that a large amount of the British public want to see behind bars, for his involvement in war crimes.

Michelle claims that the former PM (pictured at a Brexit meeting in May) is lining himself up to be President of the EU

With this in mind, am I missing something? Why on earth are people suggesting that he's the man for this job?

Make no mistake, Tony Blair is indeed determined, and a man on a mission, but I can't help but feel his latest attempt is not purely altruistic.

He admits he wishes he had made a public bid for the original position of President of the EU, and now it may be that he's spotted a golden opportunity to position himself nicely, should that cushy role come up again.

I listen to him over and over again, telling us what a mistake Brexit is, and how we only voted for it because we (particularly us Northerners) were basically too thick to understand it. Quite frankly, it's getting boring.

Mr Blair, I hate to break it to you but if you truly think the 'general public' are idiots and couldn't possibly grasp Brexit, then it's time you took a look in the mirror.

As a prominent Remainer, he and others had plenty of opportunity and an open stage to educate us on the benefits of the EU. To let us know why we should indeed stay in, and to convince us of how rosy the future could be if we remained.

They didn't.

Instead, they focused on fear-mongering, feeding us the negatives, and the doom and gloom of why we shouldn't leave and how we would be damned if we dare set foot outside of the bloated ball of bureaucracy that he wanted to lead.

I voted to leave. And I did so for many reasons, including because I was absolutely fed up of the ridiculousness of the EU. Yes, it has it's good bits but then again, doesn't everything?

I can't help but see it as a bureaucratic ego-train. Much like the train they insist on chartering every month between Brussels and Strasburg as they transport their entire parliament between the two places at eye-watering costs, because, wellbecause of nothing really, just because they can.

Michelle stood as a candidate for West Hull and Hessle in the last general election on a pro-Brexit platform

I also voted to leave because I don't believe that uncontrolled immigration is sustainable, nor wise.

People are quick to dismiss any form of normal discussion around the 'I word' as racist or xenophobic, but it isn't. It's a conversation we needed to have a very long time ago and one that if we had, could have perhaps avoided the referendum all together.

Cast your mind back to 2004, Blair made a decision not to apply any form of transitional controls when free movement expanded to Eastern Europe (even Germany had the foresight to do so!). It was a bad decision.

And if that is the kind of 'experience' we are talking about when considering bringing back Tony Blair, I think we will do just fine without him.

Michelle currently hosts Sky's political show The Pledge, where the topic of Tony Blair and Brexit was discussed (Pictured here while appearing on a panel on Question Time this year)

As for those saying that Brexiteers have now changed our minds - we haven't. Even a poll commissioned last week by Blair's own institute showed that 75 per cent believe Britain's immigration policy is too open, as well as them being overwhelming in their support of us leaving the EU. Awkward!

Let's please not make Brexit an extended job interview for the role of EU President. Leaving is an opportunity to create a new future for ourselves and a new relationship with the EU.

To those saying 'bring back Blair to negotiate Brexit' I've got a message for you - you're absolutely bonkers!
A high flying tech guru who struggled with loneliness after becoming a mother for the first time has launched an app to connect like-minded mums

Michelle Kennedy, 34, from London, who is the former deputy CEO of Badoo and was also an integral part of the launch of Bumble, gave birth to her son Finlay in 2013 and despite feeling prepared for motherhood, found it a difficult 'adjustment'.

'I was lonely and that was a really difficult realisation. It felt like a dirty secret that I couldnt verbalise,' she told FEMAIL.

'I found the judgement flying around to be really intimidating. I was praying I would meet someone who also watched Love Island and drink red wine on a Monday night (gasp), but who also wanted to talk about an amazing new book, or political concerns that were worrying them. Just someone who would keep me in touch with 'Michelle pre-mom'.

Michelle Kennedy, 34, said her loneliness felt like a 'dirty secret' when she had her son Finlay four years ago

'But I think to move to the next level of truly being friends can take a series of "dates", before you realise that you don't share the same values or outlook on life.'

So she decided to put her skills to good use and launched an app that matches mothers with similar interests.

Users can swipe up to give other mothers a 'wave' to spark a conversation and say hello and if they get a wave in return, the app highlights their shared interests.

When another mother waves back, the app highlights their shared interests. Peanut says more than 10 million "waves" have been exchanged since February.

Michelle readily admits that nothing could have prepared her for the reality of becoming a mother, despite feeling well organised ahead of the birth.

'Id bought everything on my list, Id read a few books, Id attended NCT, Id even attended an additional antenatal course, just to really make sure I had it covered,' she recalled.

'I felt professionally at the top of my game, I was running an extremely successful dating platform. I had great friends and a good family life, so motherhood seemed like just another step in my life.

The mother-of-one had a highly successful career in tech, but found new motherhood more tricky to navigate

Michelle's app Peanut matches women on their interests, so they can meet other like-minded mothers

'When Finlay arrived, I felt as if I had been naive. I hadnt appreciated how different everything would become. I was scared, I felt like everything was changing and it was out of my control.

Id gone from working a million miles an hour, around people constantly and all of a sudden I was at home all day on my own with this little dude. It was a difficult adjustment.

'My husband would go to work every day and leave me at home, sounds ridiculous to phrase it like that, but thats how it felt at the time.

'I wasnt really sure who Michelle the Mother was. The strongest feeling was that Id really lost my identity. I wasn't really sure who I was anymore, and the very together me felt dangerously close to falling apart.'

The obvious solution would be to connect with others who understood what she was going through, but Michelle quickly found that just because someone else is a mother it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to hit it off.

Michelle admits she felt constantly judged as a new mother who was struggling to find her feet

Michelle was desperate to reconnect with her pre-motherhood self but was was scared to talk about anything other than babies with the other women she met

'Not all women are the same. There are so many different types of women, who all have different interests, values, points of view,' she explained.

'Of course, not all mums are the same. That artificial coming together because "you're a mum, Im a mum, we need to hang out" can be awkward and forced, and make you feel lonely all over again.

'I was faking it, pretending to be someone I wasnt, just to be able to spend time with someone and not be on my own. What I really really needed was to find someone likeminded where I could be honest, and be myself, reclaim that part of my identity again.

'But I found no real way to communicate and meet with mothers who felt, well who I felt were on my wavelength.

As a new mother, Michelle felt she was faking it and acting like a different person as she struggled to connect with other people in the same boat

The turning point came for Michelle when her son was six-months-old and she returned to work and found two close friends who are mothers

'There was a lot of judgement and opinion flying around online and I became so terrified of being criticised, I felt the equivalent of tongue tied (with a keyboard).

'Even if I did get a rapport with someone responding to my questions - it happened once - it wasnt really the done thing to ask her about meeting up, that would just be awkward.

'Often, I would see groups of mothers, and I felt like I was back at school, constantly assessing the situation to see if I might "fit in".

'I felt it wasn't the done thing to talk about life outside of Fin, but I prayed for someone who would dare to interrupt breast feeding chat to discuss whether they also had weird pigmentation on their face, or they too felt that Scandal was just one series too much.'

Michelle was reluctant to speak to her husband or friends about her loneliness as she felt it was a taboo to admit motherhood wasn't everything she thought it would be

Naturally, Michelle also needed trusted friends to chat about her parenting questions with, but was scared of being judged.

'It can take a series of "dates" before you realise that you don't share the same values or outlook on life.

'For example, meeting up for a few coffees, before someone tells you that they cannot believe that X's daughter uses a dummy and you smile, and nod, but your own son uses a dummy at night, and you don't know how to broach it, because it's gone too far.

'Someone on your wavelength is someone who you can disagree with, but there is respect there, not judgement. I found the judgement flying around to be really intimidating.

Michelle quickly realised that not all mothers are the same and that true friendships can't be built without respecting each other's differing points of view

'I became a bit of a chameleon at times, not wanting to offend, not wanting to be judged.'

Although Michelle had the support of her husband and friends, she didn't feel it was 'socially acceptable' to admit how she was feeling.

'I would share snippets with my friends, or my husband, but I didnt really know how to articulate the feeling that I was lonely, and felt like I was faking it as a competent, together mother,' she said. 'Wherever I looked, I didnt see anyone who seemed to be feeling the same way as me.'

The turning point came when was Fin was six-months-old and she started to regain her confidence.

'Ive heard people describe it as a fog lifting, and yes, it was. I returned to work and I felt a little more connected to the Michelle I understood,' she said.

'And, I had made two wonderful friends who were mothers.'

The upside of Michelle's experience was that it inspired her to launch Peanut, which is about to launch on Android, for modern mothers to meet other like-minded people.

'I remember someone saying to me I am fed up of being treated like every other mum, not all mums are the same you know.

'I understood that so deeply, it was intuitive to build the antidote to that into the app. I really believe that amazing things happen when women come together and we just needed a product that helps us do that.'




If you're off to the races or have a wedding to attend this summer, you might think finding the perfect dress is the most important part, but in fact tracking down the perfect hat can often prove the trickiest task.

Statement millinery worthy of an elegant occasion isn't something most of us have casually hanging around in the wardrobe, so if you are going to invest your money, how can you be sure to get it right?

London-based Milliner Rosie Norman - whose brand Rosie Olivia has crafted bespoke pieces for Pippa Middleton, Zara Tindall and Princess Beatrice to name a few - has shared her top tips with Femail to ensure that you turn heads for all the right reasons on that special occasion.

And she says that, of all the royals, Sophie Countess of Wessex is the one to look to for inspiration.

Royal milliner Rosie Norman has made hats for the likes of Princess Beatrice and Pippa Middleton and has shared her top tips for nailing the perfect wedding or race day hat

According to Rosie, the Countess of Wessex always gets it right when it comes to her headwear

'In my view, Sophie always gets her hat and outfit spot on,' she said. 'I think she looks so chic and radiant and bang on trend,' said Rosie.

'The Duchess of Cambridge always looks sensational too and I would love to make a hat for either.

'They always seem to have their hair groomed and up, and I always tell my clients that if you put your hair up whilst wearing a hat it does make the hat stand out more and looks far more elegant.'

If you're reluctant to go down the road of a very formal hat that looks like it belongs on a member of the royal family heading to Ascot, then the fedora if your friend.

'I wear them all the time especially when having a bad hair day,' Rosie explained.

'They are more casual but it does completely depend on the trimming that adorns the hat.

'I have created a trilby with a small crown and large brim which is to be worn on an angle as I was getting clients who loved the trilby look, but wanted to wear it with a smart dress. The new trilby shape works with this look.'

Zara Tindall at a Service of Thanksgiving to mark Queen Elizabeth II's 90th Birthday in a bespoke hat by Rosie Olivia

Princess Beatrice wearing one of Rosie Olivia's creations to church at Sandringham

You should always wear your hair in an updo like the Duchess of Cambridge when you're donning a hat for that chic finishing touch, according to Rosie

In additional to the classic trilby, Rosie has also had her fair share of eccentric requests for millinery.

'I've had to make hats for horses for a photoshoot. Making the hats was the easy part but getting them on the horses is another story.

'I had to make a bridal headwear with a video camera built in so that the bride and groom were able to film their wedding day from their view and most recently Ive made a giant crown to celebrate a new range of Ford Fiestas.

'I wanted to create a crown that bought to life the details and attributes of the new Ford Fiesta so I designed a 90kg crown with a quilted leather headband and 200 handpainted crystals and used an actual gear stick as the centre piece along with 800m of seat belt arches.'

The milliner who runs the brand Rosie Olivia says that simple earrings, an updo and bold lip and eye make-up is the killer combo that will make any hat look great

PICK THE RIGHT SHAPE FOR YOUR FACE

Different hat styles suit different people and with a variety of shapes it is important to select the right one.

Large brim hats suit taller ladies, whilst smaller hats and pill box hats suit round faces.

For ladies with a fringe, it is best to cover the hair line so the fringe does not get squashed.

EXPERIMENT WITH POSITION OF YOUR HAT

Not all hats belong in the centre of our heads, some look best further forward or angled above the eyebrow.

For a stylish look, I recommend placing hats at an angle to match the angle of a jaw line or wear a Jackie O style pill box that sits at the back of your head.

The milliner is famed for her elaborate creations, but says that a fedora is the perfect style for anyone who is nervous about going too bold

PERFECT YOUR COLOUR SCHEME

A hat can make the perfect finishing touch  choose a complimentary base colour and a trimming that works with your chosen colour palette and textures.

I do love it when the hat is the same colour as the outfit or if the trimming on the hat reflects the detailing on the dress.

ACCESSORISE TO COMPLIMENT YOUR HAT

It is best to select subtle earrings if your hat has lots of detail.

Dont over do it! Pair with diamond studs or something simple and classic like a pearl.

When selecting makeup I recommend a strong eye and a good lippy!

FEEL CONFIDENT

A good hat should feel very comfortable to wear, look great and work with your outfit, but most importantly go for the hat that you feel confident wearing - this will be the right one.
Australian transgender model, Gemma Cowling, has been named as the face of Toni&Guy's new campaign, 'You Define You'.

The stunning blonde has featured in a number of candid images for the campaign, which is all about 'the desire to be whoever you want to be'.

It is the first time Toni&Guy has recruited an Australian model to front the campaign, with the South Australian model proud to be announced as the face.

'There is nothing more important than expressing who you truly are and working with Toni&Guy on the You Define You campaign has been really empowering,' Gemma said.

Australian transgender model, Gemma Cowling, has been named as the face of Toni&Guy's new campaign, 'You Define You'

The stunning blonde has featured in a number of candid images for the campaign, which is all about 'the desire to be whoever you want to be'

'I think it's so impressive that they have embraced the diversity of modern women with the You Define You campaign.

'I hope everyone feels as confident as I did rocking these three looks.'

Toni&Guy Marketing Manager, Anshika Grover, said Gemma was a natural choice.

'We believe nothing should get in the way of you defining yourself, your way. Gemma embodies that confidence and we are excited to be launching this campaign with a local Australian model to showcase the versatility of our products,' she said.

It is the first time Toni&Guy has recruited an Australian model to front the campaign, with the South Australian model proud to be announced as the face

'There is nothing more important than expressing who you truly are and working with Toni&Guy on the You Define You campaign has been really empowering,' Gemma said

The campaign sees Gemma embracing three different looks: The Chic You, a half up, half down style; The Slick You, with a sleek, dramatic centre parting; and The Glam You, a wavy faux undercut.

Despite Gemma's growing success, she recently admitted she's not entirely comfortable being a role model for other up and coming models.

'It makes me so uncomfortable, just because I am a very messy person,' Gemma told Confidential.

'I feel like there are so many better influences but I guess people are going to find solace in whoever and if that is me, then sick. I am just trying to do my thing.'

Despite Gemma's growing success, she recently admitted she's not entirely comfortable being a role model for other up and coming models

'I feel like there are so many better influences but I guess people are going to find solace in whoever and if that is me, then sick. I am just trying to do my thing,' she said

She also spoke of being a transgender model in the industry.

'It is such a hot-button issue at the moment, people are definitely curious about it and also don't really know how to handle it in a respectful way,' she said.

Gemma came out as a woman in late 2015.

Speaking to Daily Mail Australia seven months on, she said it was not until transgender women became accessible in mainstream media and modern society that she was able to put her own identity in to words.

'It was at a time when Laverne Cox was on the cover of Time Magazine and people like Caitlyn Jenner were starting to be an accepted reality,' she said.

The campaign sees Gemma embracing three different looks: The Chic You, a half up, half down style; The Slick You, with a sleek, dramatic centre parting; and The Glam You, a wavy faux undercut

After finally coming out as a woman in November 2015, Gemma began her transition almost immediately

'They gave me a word, a name and an idea behind what was going on in my life.

'Before that it hadn't been something I'd heard of or interacted with in anything but a negative way.'

After finally coming out as a woman in November 2015, Gemma began her transition almost immediately.

The eloquent model, who was then 19, said she had been interested in fashion from an early age, and was planning to break in to the fashion industry before she was scouted.

Since being discovered in 2016, Gemma's career has taken off

She debuted on the runway that same year at the Adelaide Fashion Festival and after moving to Sydney, her career has continued to grow

Since being discovered in 2016, Gemma's career has taken off.

She debuted on the runway that same year at the Adelaide Fashion Festival and after moving to Sydney, her career has continued to grow.

The move has seen Gemma walk at both VAMFF and MBFWA for some of Australia's most acclaimed designers including Christopher Esber.
They are blessed with enviable good looks: razor-sharp cheekbones, smouldering eyes and bountiful waves of long, glossy hair.

But as Kristen Stewart has found on the set of her latest movie, Underwater, the only way for any self-respecting thespian to be taken seriously these days is to adopt an altogether bolder  and balder  guise.

She has joined a host of other leading actresses who have allowed the hairdresser to slice off all their beloved locks.

For it seems that a buzz cut is now a must-have for any star seeking a grittier and potentially award-winning role.

No action movie is complete without a close-cropped female  note Mad Max, Guardians Of The Galaxy 2 and V For Vendetta.

Those who have joined the clipper crew include Cara Delevingne, Cate Blanchett, Kate Hudson and Natalie Portman, whose characters include everything from trained killers to cancer patients.

There is not a rom-com in sight.

Some actresses report that their new do opens up surprising off-screen benefits. Miss Stewart, who plays an engineer in Underwater, said: I just want to head-bang all day.

Certainly, the professional benefits are clear. Here, then, are the A-listers whose close shaves reveal hidden depths.

Caras bald ambition

British model and actress Cara Delevingne, 24, proves that her stubble is as razor-sharp as her cheekbones as she bravely takes on the role of cancer patient for Life In A Year, to be released in 2018.

Cate makes the head lines

Shes won plaudits galore for her serious acting endeavours. But Australian beauty Cate Blanchett, 48, pulled out the stops  and most of her hair  playing a widow dealing with the aftermath of her husbands death in the thriller Heaven.

Charlizes choice cut

Charlize Theron, 41, had no time for hair products as a kick-ass female soldier in Mad Max: Fury Road. She found the experience of removing her hair a liberating one, later saying: I highly recommend it. I think every woman should do it.

Mane event for Karen

Famed for her flame-coloured tresses, former Doctor Who companion Karen Gillan, 29, had a close encounter with a pair of clippers to play alien super-villain Nebula in Guardians Of The Galaxy 2.

Beyond the fringe with Kristen

Twilight actress Kristen Stewart took pale and interesting to a whole new level  even for a former vampire  with this ice-cool close crop. The 26-year-old took the plunge at the hairdresser as she prepared for her latest part as an engineer in Underwater.

Sheridans cutting edge work

British actress Sheridan Smith, 36, proved her hairline is as sharp as her acting in her role as journalist and cancer patient Lisa Lynch in the Bafta-nominated adaptation of Lynchs memoir The C-Word in 2015.

Natalies good hair day

Shes the Black Swan turned ugly duckling  Oscar-winner Natalie Portman, 36, had her head shaved in one take for 2005 thriller V For Vendetta and picked up a Best Actress gong from the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Film.

Kate's on a new wavelength

Blonde beach hair  and a whimsical rom-com  are her trademark, but A-lister Kate Hudson, 38, was unrecognisable while filming her new movie Sisters last week. Is she showing new depths?

Locks of luck for Anne

She shaved it all off to play Fantine in Les Miserables  and the new do made Hollywood star Anne Hathaway, 34, completely miserable. An Oscar and a Golden Globe must have cheered her up considerably.

PS: Stars who led the way with their shear style
Selfie queen Karen Danczuk is set to tie the knot with her toyboy lover after he popped the question while on holiday in Spain.

The former Labour councillor, 34, looked overwhelmed as Spanish waiter David, 26, went down on one knee during a romantic day out at the beach.

Wearing a racy leopard print swimsuit, the mother-of-two clasped her hands to her mouth before throwing her arms around her handsome beau. Living up to her reputation, Karen made sure to document the romantic moment with selfies.

It will be the second time down the aisle for Karen, whose four-year marriage to former Labour MP Simon Danczuk ended last year.

She said yes! Karen Danczuk is set to marry toyboy David after he proposed in Spain

Selfie queen: Living up to her name, Karen made sure to document the moment with a picture

Passionate: The newly-engaged couple were spotted kissing on the Spanish shore

Frolicking in the sea: Karen and David put on a very loved-up display after the proposal

Karen and David met in Spain last year and now live together in Rochdale. It is not known where the wedding will take place.

The couple were enjoying a romantic moment on the rocky shore when David seized the opportunity and went down on one knee to propose.

He held out the ring before taking his girlfriend's hand to place it on her finger.

The loved-up couple could not keep their hands off each other and embraced on the shore before sharing a passionate kiss.

Romantic day out: David pointed out to sea while exploring the rocks with his girlfriend

Seizing the moment: Holding out the ring to Karen, David asked her to marry him

Overwhelmed: The shocked mother-of-two clasped her hands over her mouth

Emotional: Karen appeared to wipe away a tear as David placed the ring on her finger

Romantic moment: Karen quickly reached up to give her handsome beau a hug

Celebration: The loved-up couple embraced as the waves lapped against the rocks

Time for a selfie: Karen stopped to pose for a photo, although she covered her ring

They later put on a very loved-up display as they frolicked on the sand and documented the moment with a selfie.

At one point David, who was wearing a pair of bright pink swim trunks, picked up his bride-to-be and gave her a piggyback ride through the surf.

Despite being a prolific social media user, Karen has yet to share a post about her upcoming nuptials.

Sealed with a kiss: Karen went up on her tiptoes as she shared an intimate moment with David

Racy: The mother-of-two showed off her figure in a daring leopard print swimsuit

Fun in the sun: The couple were spotted enjoying a light-hearted moment in the surf

Flirty: David grabbed his fiance's bottom as he lifted her into the air

Affectionate: Karen wrapped her legs around David as they embraced

There she goes! The former Labour councillor took a tumble and ended up in the sand

Her relationship with David hasn't been all plain sailing as Karen became embroiled in a furious row with her ex-husband Simon during a post-divorce holiday to Alicante with their children in August last year.

Earlier this year Karen announced she was toning down her image with a view to becoming the party candidate for Bury North in the General Election.

'I've overcome my demons and I'm living a new life,' she said.

Exploring: Earlier the couple were seen combing through rock pools on the Spanish coast

Look of love: His arm around Karen, David gazed into his lover's eyes as they walked

Strolling in the sea: David and Karen looked relaxed as they walked along the beach

Excitement: At one point Karen threw her arms into the air as David looked on

Love is in the air: David nuzzled his fiance's neck as they took in the sea view together

'I'm a new person. I'm really quite camera shy now, it's quite strange. I've completely stopped taking selfies and everything.

'I thought to myself, if I don't run for Parliament now, I'll never do it. This is my chance to stand up for fairness.'

But her bid failed and James Frith was chosen to take on Conservative David Nuttall who currently holds the seat.

Cheeky squeeze: David could not keep his hands to himself as he kissed his fiancee
It's understood to be something of a turbulent time in the Royal Household, after it emerged that the Queen's right-hand man is preparing to quit.

Sir Christopher Geidt, Her Majesty's Private Secretary, is reported to be preparing to stand down amid a dramatic shake up of Royal staff that is also expected to see 'two, maybe three more' senior figures leave before Christmas.

Despite the changes afoot the Queen, who is staying at Balmoral Castle for her annual Scottish summer break, did not veer from her holiday routine. She was seen arriving at Crathie Kirk to attend a church service today, just as she did this time last week.

The Queen was seen dressed in green to attend the Sunday service at Crathie Kirk during her annual holiday at Balmoral

Crathie Kirk, in Aberdeenshire, is the regular place of worship for the Royal Family when they are holidaying at nearby Balmoral Castle

Immaculately turned out as ever in a vibrant green coat dress with a co-ordinating hat, the Queen, 91, who was with a female companion, was the picture of composure as her car pulled up at the small parish church.

According to the Mail on Sunday Sir Christopher's unexpected departure is the first of a 'slew' of personnel changes set to take place within the Royal Household.

It comes as the Queen and Prince Charles attempt to impose greater unity on the households of the younger Royals, at what has been described as a watershed moment for the monarchy.

The Queen and Prince Philip, 96, are scaling back on official duties as they prepare to hand over responsibility to the younger generation.

The Queen was also pictured arriving at Crathie Church a week ago on the first Sunday of her annual Scottish holiday

The picturesque Crathie Kirk, where the Queen is a regular while in residence at Balmoral is a mere stone's throw from Balmoral Castle on Royal Deeside.

This time last week the Queen was also at the service, that time in a white coat and matching hat with pink accents.

The great-grandmother added a string of pearls to her outfit during her first Sunday of her summer break.

The Duke of Edinburgh was noticeably absent from the service last week, and did not appear to have joined the monarch for today's service.

Her Majesty was accompanied by a female companion as well as several staff members

Her Majesty typically arrives in Scotland August after Balmoral castle is closed to visitors and full security checks are carried out on the grounds.

However, according to the Balmoral visiting calendar, the building is still open to the public until Monday July 31.

Balmoral (pictured), which was bought by Prince Albert for 32,000 in 1852, is said to be the Queen's favourite home

In this case previously the Queen has stayed at Craigowan Lodge, about a mile away, until the castle doors are closed to the public.

Craigowan Lodge has been well-used by the Royal Family in the past. Prince Charles stayed there with Diana after their 1981 wedding, as did Prince Andrew and Sarah Ferguson after their marriage.

The Queen famously enjoys a more low-key existence while staying at the Scottish retreat - with her former royal protection officer Richard Griffin recently revealing that she had a conversation with unsuspecting American tourists visiting the estate while dressed in tweeds and a scarf.

Balmoral, which was bought by Prince Albert for 32,000 in 1852, is said to be the Queen's favourite home.

During her stay at the castle, she relaxes by going for walks on the Aberdeenshire estate, eating picnics and cooking barbecues.

Princess Eugenie has previously said of Balmoral: Its the most beautiful place on earth. I think Granny is the most happy there.

I think she really, really loves the Highlands.
When Lucille Lewin applied for a Masters degree, her first thought was: Can I really do this?

I hadnt actually done a BA before, she says. And the elephant in the room was my age.

A 67-year-old mother of two grown-up sons (ones a doctor, ones a lawyer), shed be some 40 years older than many of the students.

Its rare to relish starting a new career just as your contemporaries are winding down. And going to art college in your mid-60s is clearly a challenge  from coping with the super-confident, young millennials, to completing mountains of coursework  but the change is particularly shocking if, like Lucille, you once ran a legendary fashion empire.

Lucille, now a tiny, vibrant 69-year-old, says she remains endlessly curious and in fact everything in her life has happened organically

With her husband Richard, Lucille founded Whistles in 1976 and turned it into one of the High Streets biggest success stories.

Her own designs for the brand were sized for real women, and many of us are still wearing her jewelled knits, embroidered jackets and tailored suits 20 years on.

By the time the couple sold the business in 2002, to business partner Richard Caring, it had 40 stores across the country.

The funny thing is, she admits, none of her twentysomething fellow students knew about her history. All the brownie points I got in fashion were worth absolutely nothing. It was a new world completely.

Though, she adds, they did Google her half way through the course.

Lucilles decision to completely reinvent herself eight years ago happened by chance.

I walked into an evening class in Hackney, East London, by mistake. A good friend was going, and I wanted to talk to her, so I said: Ill drop you off.

I wandered into this little basement studio, where there were a few potters potting, and the smell of the clay hit me. I connected with it at once . . . its a very earthy smell.

She signed up for part-time evening classes, then decided to study ceramics full-time.

Anyone thinking of retraining mid-life, after a career, might take inspiration from Lucille. Now a tiny, vibrant 69-year-old, she remains endlessly curious. In fact, she says everything in her life has happened organically.

She married Richard on her 21st birthday and went to America after he got a place at Harvard Business School.

In 1972, they moved to the UK. Richard had a job with menswear company Burtons and, to her amazement, she landed a job as an assistant to the merchandiser at Harvey Nichols.

I only had ripped jeans to wear, so I went out and bought this fabulous suit and a pair of stacked heels for the interview. She was later promoted to buyer, but was eventually fired for being too outspoken.

So, in 1976, she decided to open her own shop on George Street in Marylebone. I wanted to occupy the space between designer and High Street.

She filled the tiny, 250 sq ft shop with black and white clothes  and it sold out.

She believes the sale of Whistles may have been a trigger for one of the most traumatic episodes in her life. In 2009, she was diagnosed with a non-cancerous brain tumour known as an acoustic neuroma.

The takeover was a very difficult time for me, she admits. The company was very much my baby.

It was a time of unbelievable, unrelenting shock and stress. I felt powerless, and that was one of the hardest things.

Its art, yes, but also a business. You dont make ceramics just to sit looking pretty in your garage  you do it to exhibit and sell the work - Lucille Lewin

The tumour was removed during a 12-and-a-half hour operation at Addenbrookes Hospital in Cambridge. Afterwards, she felt very weak for three months. She says: I could not shop, cook or care for myself. I was so grateful I had my family around me.

At first, smiling was impossible and eating was a challenge.

Many people retreat because they cant cope with whats happened to their faces.

You lose the ability to react, you lose your smile.

Following an intensive rehabilitation programme, her condition is barely visible  except in photographs. Having recovered, she was determined to have more pleasure in her life. She took a two-year part-time diploma in fine art and ceramics at Londons City Lit college (201214), after which tutors urged her to apply for a two-year postgraduate degree at the prestigious Royal College of Art.

To her delight, she won a place. As a fashion guru, she had lectured at the Royal College. Now she was a mere student. Im quite a relaxed person, so I didnt worry about status, thank goodness, she laughs.

Though she says wryly that young people master technology so much better, she made friends for life on the course.

At a time when the number of part-time and mature students has dropped significantly, because people are worried about running up debt, shes keen to stress its not an indulgence.

Its exciting. Ive got so many things I still want to say. And I think its just the start of this adventure - Lucille Lewin

The course cost 9,000 a year, but by selling her work, she can recoup the cost.

Its art, yes, but also a business. You dont make ceramics just to sit looking pretty in your garage  you do it to exhibit and sell the work.

In fact, Lewin has more than held her own alongside her classmates. In June, she won the 1,500 Young Masters Maylis Grand Ceramics Prize, after completing her MA in ceramics and glass.

The irony of being declared a young master at the age of 69 isnt lost on her. Since she won the prize, pretty much all of her exquisite white porcelain sculptures have sold. Now shes preparing for an exhibition in November. Husband Richard grumbles good-naturedly that they cant go on holiday.

I dont blame him, I should be calming down a little bit, smiles Lucille. But its exciting. Ive got so many things I still want to say. And I think its just the start of this adventure.

Lucilles work is on show at The Cynthia Corbett Gallery / Young Masters Art Prize at the Royal Overseas League until September 8, young-masters.co.uk, lucillelewin.com
The moment I walk into the mellow Somerset farmhouse, it's clear this is no ordinary retreat. A morning run is out of bounds. Yoga and meditation are forbidden. And there's homemade cake and chocolate on offer.

I am asked to surrender my phone and laptop. For five days, I will be completely unplugged. There must be no distractions. I won't even have a book to read.

We've all heard of physical detoxing; we've swigged back the kale juice and wallowed in Epsom salt baths. But what about emotional detoxing?

I am at The Bridge, an intensive retreat that aims to clear the backlog of unprocessed emotions from our systems.

'For 20 years of my life I thought I was suffering from depression, but really, I was suffering from unprocessed grief' says Jane Alexander

One of its biggest fans is actress Thandie Newton: 'It might just be the best time, effort and money you will ever spend,' she gushes in its promotional blurb.

But is emotional detoxing necessary? Apparently so. While scientists readily pour scorn on physical detoxing (our bodies can handle most toxins perfectly well by themselves), a broad range of research indicates we're not so adept at coping with our emotional debris.

Unexpressed grief, unprocessed anger and repressed fears are implicated in a range of conditions  from IBS and migraines, heart disease and certain forms of cancer, to anxiety and depression.

I know all too well how suppressed emotion can have a direct effect on health. I was ten years old when my father died of lung cancer. It was the early Seventies and back then, grief was something you did in private. I didn't go to my father's funeral. Nobody even spoke about him  it was as if he had never existed. Overnight I developed asthma and became depressed and withdrawn.

Donna Lancaster, co-founder of The Bridge, has first-hand experience of this battlefield. 'For 20 years of my life I thought I was suffering from depression,' she says. 'But really, I was suffering from unprocessed grief.

'I grew up with a violent alcoholic father and an exhausted mother. I wasn't allowed to express my sadness, anger or fear. Instead I became 'depressed'. I had to grieve the loss of my childhood.'

Following the split with her husband, the past few years have been tough on Jane's body as well as mind as she mourns her health, fitness and youth

Donna spent her early career as a social worker, specialising in child protection. She then worked in schools, prisons and women's refuges before qualifying in the Hoffman Process, an emotional release therapy created in America in 1967.

She started The Bridge more than two years ago and developed it with qualified counsellor Gabi Krueger and Frederique Bicker, a clinical psychologist who worked at London's Priory Hospital specialising in depression, anxiety, addiction and stress prevention.

Donna smiles encouragingly as I join a group of people sitting in a circle in a meeting room. There are 14 of us, 12 women and two men, ranging in age from about 20 to 60. One by one, these strangers are invited to share an experience of loss with the group.

People talk openly. One woman sobs as she relates how her mother abandoned her as a baby, another softly grieves her repeated miscarriages. It's heavy going, raw and emotionally draining, but that's exactly what it's meant to be.

'Loss is part of the human condition and some forms of it are more subtle than others,' says Donna. 'Loss of innocence is really common. Many people have had their childhoods robbed from them. You might have had to parent your mother or father, or maybe a parent treated you as a confidant instead of a child. You could have been abused, violated, hurt  dragged into an adulthood you're not ready for.'

I think about the other forms of loss in my life. My husband and I decided to separate in 2015 and our house was sold last year, so I think I'm still grieving the loss of marriage and home. Moving from Exmoor to Exeter meant I also lost my support network of close friends.

To overcome depression before the retreat Jane had previously tried hypnotherapy, but her mind wouldn't go there, the therapist told her it isn't uncommon for a child to block negative experiences

The past few years have been tough on my body, too. I'm probably mourning my health, my fitness, my youth.

'You won't process every single loss, but you will process many of them,' says Donna.

The Bridge uses several different tools, but at its core is a combination of cognitive and cathartic work. It's not enough just to understand what happened to you  you also have to feel it and release it deep in the body.

Is this, I wonder, why so many people end up having years of therapy?

'Therapy is great, but you can become addicted to your story,' says Donna. 'It's what we call 'neck-up healing'.'

In other words, if we only talk about our issues, as happens with most psychotherapy or counselling, they tend to stay stuck in our heads rather than being processed through the whole body.

Each day of the retreat involves a mix of sessions, including written explorations into your feelings, group sharing, visualisations and body work.

Everyone eats together and conversation is encouraged  providing it's about the process or your own feelings (gossiping is off the menu).

After lunch, you have around three hours to spend alone in silence. An hour is spent on written work and then you rest (napping is encouraged). Sessions run to 9.30pm or 10pm.

As part of the writing exercise I sit and pen a letter to my father. It starts simply: 'Dear Dad, I miss you so much. I wish I could have told you how much I loved you.'

Nothing earth-shattering, yet I feel the edge of a grief I haven't touched for most of my life.

She finds herself wishing everyone could experience an emotional detox, but at 2,400, it isn't cheap

Later that day, we split into smaller groups and I sit opposite a young woman. 'Imagine she's your father,' says Gabi Krueger.

It's one hell of a stretch, but I read the letter to her. Suddenly, I feel like a small child  my lip trembles and tears slide down my face. Gabi whispers in the woman's ear and she repeats the words: 'I am your father and you are my daughter. I am so sorry I left you.'

I'm out of the bubble in an instant, back in my adult and somewhat cynical mind. It all feels too pat, too simple, and I wince and shake my head.

Loud African music begins to pound. 'Shake your bodies,' Gabi shouts. 'Let it all out.'

I feel self-conscious and I'm clearly not the only one. Yet as the music continues, I find myself letting go. It feels good to move after the sitting and sobbing.

But it's not only about having a good bop, there's strong evidence that shaking can help release trauma from the body.

I go to bed exhausted, yet I can't sleep. My mind is churning. I realise that while my feelings towards my father are straightforward (I loved him, I lost him too young), my feelings towards my mother are more complex.

She died nine years ago after a period of psychosis and repeated suicide attempts. Her mind had turned rogue as the sexual abuse she'd suffered as a child came back to haunt her. I felt huge compassion for her  but also disbelief and hurt.

As a child, I'd often been made to share a room with my grandfather  the man who had abused her  when I'd stayed with my grandparents in the summer holidays. For some reason my nan slept alone while my grandfather and I shared the twin room.

I can't remember him abusing me, but I do remember I hated going to bed. As an adult I tried hypnotherapy, but my mind wouldn't go there  the therapist said it isn't uncommon for a child to block such experiences.

I sit opposite Gabi, who looks like my mum  slim and blonde with cool blue eyes. As I start reading the letter, I'm shocked at the venom that comes out. I don't really 'do' angry. And apparently I'm not the only one

However, I realised that whether I was abused or not wasn't the issue  it was that I had been put into a situation where I was in danger. As I toss and turn, my emotions smash into one another and my body follows. I feel nauseous, my bones ache, my throat is sore. It's like emotional flu.

The next day, I write another letter, this time to my mother. It's long and complicated, a snarled up mix of love and bitterness, hurt and sadness.

I sit opposite Gabi, who looks like my mum  slim and blonde with cool blue eyes. As I start reading the letter, I'm shocked at the venom that comes out. I don't really 'do' angry. And apparently I'm not the only one.

'If we see anger as destructive and that people will get hurt, we swallow our rage and turn it inwards,' says Donna. 'We do depression or anxiety instead.'

That makes sense; I've spent years of my life feeling depressed and I would get a gold star for anxiety. Maybe it's time to change the song.

For the next activity we are split into groups of three. I'm standing on a mat in front of two people, shaking in anticipation because I haven't a clue what's going to come up.

Music starts playing  it's loud and aggressive, clearly chosen to stir up strong emotions.

I look at the man and woman in front of me and they stare back, impassive, as instructed.

This works. It's about trust and faith. Some parts might not touch you  and that's fine  but it's like a piece of art, it will get you one way or another

Something inside me gives way. I feel furious for the little girl in me who was betrayed. 'How could you?' I snarl. 'How could you leave me with him when you knew what he had done to you? How could you?'

I'm yelling at my dead mother. Logically it makes no sense  emotionally, it feels totally real.

I double up in pain. There's a solid block in my belly. As I shout and scream, it starts to loosen. It feels insane, but also a relief.

I glance warily at my witnesses, ashamed at the poison I poured out. But they are looking back with nothing but compassion. I unravel a little further.

When I look round the group, I find myself being seen, truly seen, without any judgment. It's terrifying, it's humbling, it's beautiful. I feel a rush of energy as if something deep inside me is coming back to life.

'When we shut down from unprocessed emotions, we suppress everything,' says Donna. 'You can't be selective. If you suppress fear, anger and grief, you also suppress passion, joy, peace. It's exhausting carrying a pain backpack.

'This works. It's about trust and faith. Some parts might not touch you  and that's fine  but it's like a piece of art, it will get you one way or another.'

We're constantly being told we should love ourselves, but The Bridge teaches that it's nigh on impossible to feel good in yourself until you've processed your emotional baggage.

By day five, my cynicism is gone. It sounds like a cliche, but I feel lighter. I have shed a burden of grief over my father and feel closer to resolution with my mother.

My husband and I are good friends, and while I may not see as much of my old friends as I'd like, it's not the end of the world. I feel more accepting of myself.

So why have I been beating myself up about my body, judging it against those of younger women? I have always known this rationally, but now I actually feel it in my body.

When the time comes for the last ritual, I dance ecstatically, cheered on by the others, and I feel like a total goddess quite regardless of my age and shape.

As I leave The Bridge, I find myself wishing everyone could experience this emotional detox. But at 2,400, it isn't cheap, something Donna is keen to change with a special bursary.

It's important work. Nobody teaches us how to release blocked emotions at school. Bottom line, says Donna, it's about growing up.

'We're fed fairy stories, told that we need someone to fix us. But you don't need a prince or princess  you can do it yourself.'

thebridge.events
The call came at 2am. I was deep in a happy French holiday sleep. Theres a fire. It was a neighbour. Were being evacuated. I struggled towards the surface. We have to go now.

I went to the window. There was no smoke, no flames. The phone rang again: my daughter, out clubbing across the bay. Mum, theres a fire. Its behind you.

I threw on clothes, woke the house and all five of us fled.

From the safety of the beach in the South of France last week, we watched the flames roar around the landscape, destroying livelihoods, charging towards our house on the hillside.

Gill Hornby picked Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise and a Steinbeck American classic to distract herself in troubled times

We consoled ourselves: at least we were all safe and together. Then, at dawn, the planes came and stopped the fire in its tracks. The village and our house were saved. We were so lucky and grateful.

Fleeing from danger and abandoning your way of life has an elemental horror to it. The Joads in John Steinbecks The Grapes Of Wrath are a farming family in Oklahoma in the Thirties, so their lives are hard enough. But, hit by drought and the Great Depression, theyre forced to leave.

Selling their possessions should pay for the journey. They expect at least $150; they get $18. Its devastating. And it turns out its not only their things, but also their past and  terribly  their dignity that are gone.

In The Age Of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker, mankind is under threat. The rotation of the Earth is slowing and days are getting longer.

Every week bestselling author Gill Hornby suggests key novels to help you through the trickier times in life

Seth is sickening with the syndrome, caused by changes in radiation, and fleeing to Mexico is his one chance to feel better.

Finally, Irene Nemirovsky brilliantly depicts the flight of citizens from Paris in 1940 in Suite Francaise. As people run from that gracious city, many values and standards are swiftly abandoned.

So thank goodness for the example set by the noble Michauds: they, too, lose the trappings of their civilised existence, but their own civilised standards remain intact.
Bloating is such a usual symptom for women that many take it for granted. But it is also the most common symptom of ovarian cancer, warns the ovarian cancer support charity Ovacome (ovacome.org.uk). Women often dismiss it as being something less sinister and dont go to their doctor, says Louise Bayne, CEO of Ovacome.

The trouble is that even if women do consult their doctor, a recent survey of 324 patients for Ovacome suggested that a significant number are treated for irritable bowel disease or the menopause. Persistent bloating is an important indicator of ovarian cancer but GPs will typically see just one case of ovarian cancer every five years so they may not link it to the disease.

Bloating is such a usual symptom for women that many take it for granted. But it is also the most common symptom of ovarian cancer

Patients in the survey who had gone to their GP with bloating had waited an average of 22 weeks for a referral to a gynaecological specialist. If they complained of abdominal pain, the second most common symptom of ovarian cancer, they waited an average 17 weeks.

Although ovarian cancer is the fifth most common gynaecological cancer in the UK, with 7,300 new cases every year, nearly 60 per cent of cases are not diagnosed until the disease has advanced to stage 3 or 4, where the cancer has spread and is difficult to treat effectively. Ovarian cancer needs to be ruled out early on, instead of wasting time, says Louise Baynes.

OVACOME ADVISES Be vigilant if bloating  a swollen tummy  persists for three weeks with no explanation, such as a stomach bug. Other symptoms include abdominal pain, and/or eating less and feeling fuller more quickly; you may also have bladder problems and find sex painful.

If symptoms do not improve, discuss tests with your GP. A CA125 blood test detects levels of a protein that may indicate ovarian cancer (or endometriosis or ovarian cysts). If this is high, the next step is a transvaginal ultrasound to look closely at the ovaries.

If the CA125 level is normal but you continue to feel unwell, go back to your GP within a month with a list of symptoms. See Ovacomes online checker, beatonline.info, where you can input your symptoms and get advice. You can also rate ongoing symptoms, then show the printout to your GP.

Tell the GP that you are concerned and remind them if you have a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. Advertisement

A summer picnic is huge fun but it can also be a big cause of food poisoning as bacteria multiply in the heat. The Food Standards Agency (food.gov.uk) advises always putting perishable food in a cool box, with frozen gel packs distributed through the items  not all at the bottom. Use a separate cool box for drinks. Pack food away once its served; food should not be out for longer than an hour when its hot. If dishes are not kept cool, food may be unsafe to eat so throw it away when you get home.

A summer picnic is fun but it can also be a big cause of food poisoning as bacteria multiply in the heat

Website of the Week

GBSS.org.uk

One in four pregnant women unknowingly carry the bacterium group B streptococcus (GBS), according to the charity Group B Strep Support. Usually harmless, GBS can cause life-threatening infection (meningitis, sepsis or pneumonia) in babies, usually newborns. This website offers information and support, plus details of Strepelle, an inexpensive test that is not routinely available on the NHS. (NB No test for any condition is 100 per cent accurate.)

Benecos Natural Lip Balm Classic has been named overall winner in the FreeFrom Skincare Awards 2017. Awards coordinator Alex Gazzola says, This vegan product is free from fragrance, traces of nuts and all other food allergens and is also great value at 2.45 [from pravera.co.uk]. Testers agreed about its moisturising benefits  far superior to other mainstream brands, said one, who found that cracked areas at the corners of her mouth disappeared almost immediately. For other prizewinners and information about skin problems, visit skinsmatter.com.

Benecos Natural Lip Balm Classic has been named overall winner in the FreeFrom Skincare Awards 2017

Email your questions to sarah@sarahstacey.com
My children are obsessed with these tacos, perhaps because theyve eaten so many of them with me at Wahaca. They cant believe that they are encouraged to get their hands dirty and make their own, any way they want. At home I use whatever fish looks good in the market: monkfish tails, cod fillets, haddock or gurnard have all worked well (as long as you pick the bones from the last). You will be amazed at how fast this food can go down; it works a treat when you have a gang of children over for lunch.

FEEDS 4-6 DEPENDING ON AGE & APPETITE

FOR THE TACOS

600g line-caught cod, monkfish or other firm fish

100g mayonnaise

100g creme fraiche

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

2 limes, for squeezing

8-12 corn or corn and flour tortillas (2-3 per child)

150g grated Cheddar

fresh tomato salsa (for homemade see the book)

shredded lettuce or the Apple Slaw from the book

FOR THE GUACAMOLE

 red chilli, finely chopped, depending on your childrens taste

 red onion, very finely chopped

1 small garlic clove

1 tsp salt, or to taste

3 ripe Hass avocados

juice of 1-2 limes, or to taste

small handful of coriander leaves, chopped, or to taste

1 very ripe tomato, deseeded and chopped

1 First make the guacamole. Check the heat of the chilli by nibbling the tip furthest from the stem. Most generic supermarket chillies are quite mild but if it is hot, remove the seeds, or leave it out entirely if your children are totally heat-averse.

2 Put one-quarter of the onion, the garlic, the chilli and salt in a pestle and mortar and mash to a rough paste. Cut open the avocados, remove the stones and scoop the flesh into a large bowl, adding the onion, garlic and chilli paste. Roughly mash the flesh with a fork, adding half the lime juice as you go. When you have a rough guacamole, stir in the remaining lime juice and onion with the coriander and tomato. Season with plenty of black pepper. If it doesnt taste delicious at this stage, think whether it might need seasoning with more salt, lime juice or coriander. When you are happy put it in a bowl on the table.

3 Season the fish with salt and pepper. Mix the mayonnaise and creme fraiche together and put it in a bowl on the table.

4 Heat the olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat and fry the fish for a few minutes each side until cooked through. Season with a squeeze of lime juice.

5 Heat the tortillas in a microwave or a dry frying pan and put them on the table in a basket, wrapped in a tea towel to keep them warm. Place the grated cheese and salsa in separate bowls and add to the table with bowls of lettuce or Apple Slaw. Invite your children to fill their tortillas with whatever they want, then to roll them up into tacos and tuck in.

KITCHEN NOTE If we are eating en famille we have exactly the same tacos but I put extra hot sauce on the table for us, homemade or shop-bought. They are also great with the Chipotle Mayo from the book.
India beware! Cyber extortionists are on the prowl and they may have an eye on your latest Facebook photographs.

Criminals are demanding money to delete morphed pictures of social media users or are hacking into their accounts to fleece friends connected to them through these sites.

A Mayur Vihar resident recently lost Rs 20,000 (240) to anonymous cyber crooks.

Criminals demand money to delete morphed pictures of social media users (file pic)

The victim says that her profile photo from Facebook, in which she was standing on a beach, was copied, edited and a slideshow of her morphed nude images was put up on a porn site.

The criminals contacted the victim and demanded money. But despite paying the amount, the pictures were not deleted.

Experts say social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have also made it easy for cyber criminals to track and target high net worth individuals and their family members.

An 18-year-old student from south Delhi was shocked to find a pornographic video online featuring her.

The link was shared by an anonymous user on chat and he demanded money to delete it.

A preliminary investigation revealed that her photograph was copied from a social media site and was later distorted to extort money.

Cyber experts say that apart from blackmailing with morphed photos, other cases of financial fraud on social networking sites are also becoming rampant.

A Noida-based woman has approached the police alleging that an anonymous hacker stole Rs 15,000 from her relative by taking control of her Facebook page.

'This week, I got a link and a message from another Facebook user who said that my nude pictures are uploaded on the site.

'I got scared and clicked on the link but my account got hacked and the criminal got control of it,' said the victim in her complaint.

Now, the hacker sent a message to all her friends on the site, asking for money.

'As the criminal had access to my account, he started sending messages to all the contacts that I was in an emergency situation and need money for help.

'One relative also paid Rs 15,000 through PayTM,' the woman explained.

According to the police, previously jilted lovers or bitter acquaintances used such means for revenge, but now organised gangs commit these crimes as they consider them a source of easy money.

Victims in such cases refrain from filing complaints as they do not want to make the matter public. It is feared that more innocent-minded family members do not understand Photoshop-like technology and might be easier to convince that the images are real.

There is also an issue of such images being used to compromise marriage plans in India.

A preliminary investigation revealed that her photograph was copied from a social media site and was later distorted to extort money (Picture for representation only)

'A user needs to be very cautious while making personal data public. There are people waiting to misuse it in the web. Software are available that can help in manipulating the pictures and videos which may be further misused,' said a senior Delhi Police officer.

'Many organised gangs are extorting money by scaring vulnerable users and once they get the money, they deactivate their social media account to avoid getting caught,' the officer added.

'Many fall prey to extortion, in fear of social stigma and also victims are not keen to contact the police as the amount involved is often not too high.

Experts say social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram have also made it easy for cyber criminals to track and target high net worth individuals and their family members

'While investigating a similar case of a Delhi girl, I started tracking an IP (internet protocol) address but the criminals were tech-savvy as they kept changing their IPs and locations and the profile of the victim was accessed from multiple location indicating a team was working to make money,' cyber crime expert Kislay Chaudhary said.

Chaudhary says it is difficult for a user to contact an internet giant in getting such pictures, videos, pages or links deleted.

Mail Today reported that several Facebook profiles and pages are engaged in copying pictures of girls from the site only to misuse them.

Such groups are morphing pictures with explicit content to get more views on their page and earn money. But no extortion angle was found.

Last year, a foreign national contacted cyber security experts in India, complaining that an Indian youth had been blackmailing her with some morphed pictures of hers and demanding $100 (Rs 6,779 approx) per month.

Investigators tracked the crook to Kurukshetra and found nearly 1,800 photographs on his mobile phone that he used to blackmail his targets.

The man was eventually let free as the victim did not lodge an official complaint.

During interrogation, the accused revealed that he used a free mobile application to morph the pictures and then employed them as a tool to fleece the victims.
Rolls-Royce's results this week will be watched closely by investors keen to know if the aerospace giant is on track to generate enough cash to meet its 71billion backlog of orders.

The company aims to deliver more than 1billion in free cash flow by 2020 to help fund a massive expansion in its output.

The firm is in the throes of doubling engine production from 300 to 600 a year, the biggest increase since the Second World War, in a transformation programme led by chief executive Warren East. He has led the company for two years after it issued a series of profit warnings.

The firm is in the throes of doubling engine production from 300 to 600 a year

When Rolls unveils results on Tuesday, it is expected to report underlying profit up at 193million against 104million last year, but free cash flow is likely to be slightly worse.
A British toy maker has seen its annual profits soar 43 per cent after one of its cuddly animals appeared in photographs with Princess Charlotte.

Jellycat has revealed it made 14.15m in 2016, up from 9.9m the previous year.

Its successful year came after a photo of the giggling princess playing with the dog was released by her mother, the Duchess of Cambridge, just before Christmas in 2015.

Sell out: Jellycat's stock quickly sold out after this photo of giggling Princess Charlotte playing with the Fuddlewuddle Puppy

Stocks quickly sold out after Jellycat co-founder William Gatacre revealed the toy had been made by his London-based firm, saying: Thats our Fuddlewuddle Puppy. The pictures look lovely.

The Fuddlewuddle range is available as an elephant, dinosaur, donkey, lion, bunny and cat, and are available on the firms website.

Jellycat was started by brothers William and Thomas Gatacre in 1999 after the pair gave up careers in the oil industry.

Company chairman Thomas said it had seen revenues jump 34 per cent to almost 42m in 2016. This was driven by growth in the UK and rapid growth overseas  no doubt helped by the intense international interest in the young royals.

Other items in the picture, such as the princess clothes, also reportedly sold out, as has happened previously to items pictured with her brother Prince George.
Fears: Scotch Whisky Association has warned against any reduction

Fears have been raised that a post-Brexit trade deal with the US could see the UKs whisky standards watered down.

The issue is expected to come up in talks after being included on a list of trade barriers drawn up by American officials.

At present, European Union rules say products can be branded as whisky only if they have been aged for at least three years  far longer than the 12-month period in the US.

US officials have long urged the EU to loosen restrictions, arguing that the ageing requirement is unwarranted.

The trade barriers document adds: Advances in barrel technology enable US micro-distillers to reduce the ageing time for whiskey.

However the Scotch Whisky Association has warned against any reduction, which it argues could lead to cheaper American products flooding the UK market  currently worth 4bn to the Scottish economy.
A Nepalese student who could not convince a female Instagram 'friend' to attend Sydney's Vivid festival with him sent her a Facebook message threatening a terrorist act.

Frustrated by the woman's refusal to join him at the Opera House one night, Sandesh Bk sent her numerous Instagram messages followed by a troubling Facebook friend request.

'May isis [sic] bomb the opera house if you don't accept the request,' Bk wrote.

Student Sandesh Bk likes posting shirtless pictures of himself on his social media accounts

Nepalese national Sandesh Bk arrived in Sydney in February to study business administration

That message landed Bk in Downing Centre Local Court, where the 20-year-old from the south Sydney suburb of Rockdale, pleaded guilty to using a carriage device to menace, harass or offend.

While the Australian Catholic University (ACU) student cast his message as an inappropriate online joke, Magistrate Susan McIntyre said Bk's words could have had terrible consequences if uttered in public.

'Make that comment in an airport and you would have been arrested,' Ms McIntyre said.

'You would have had a gun to your head.'

The court heard Bk, who is in Australia on a student visa, met a fellow ACU student at the university's North Sydney campus sometime in May. He had approached the 21-year-old while she sat on the lawn with a friend.

Having spoken to the woman for five to 10 minutes, Bk asked her for her Instagram ID, which she provided.

Over the next few weeks Bk contacted the woman via Instagram and the pair exchanged a number of messages, according to a statement of facts.

They did not meet in person.

Nepalese student Sandesh Bk has been seeing the city since arriving in Sydney in February

Sandesh Bk suggested ISIS would bomb the Opera House if a woman declined his request

Instagram fan Sandesh Bk in transit on his way to live and study in Sydney in February this year

On Saturday, May 27, Bk was near the Opera House for Sydney's annual Vivid festival - billed as a celebration of light, music and ideas.

'The accused exchanged a number of messages via Instagram with the victim, during which he attempted to persuade her into coming out and meeting him,' the statement of facts said.

'The accused also asked the victim for her mobile phone number so that he could talk to her. The victim refused.'

At 9.57pm Bk sent the woman a Facebook friend request. Along with the request he sent the message: 'May isis [sic] bomb the opera house if you don't accept the request.'

The woman did not see the message until midday the next day, when she reported Bk's behaviour at her local police station.

'Upon viewing the message the victim became fearful and had genuine concerns about what the accused said, especially in light of the fact she had only met him for about 10 minutes and did not really know the accused,' the statement of facts said.

A picture taken of the Opera House on the night Sandesh Bk sent a threatening message

A magistrate warned student Sandesh Bk he had been stupid to jeopardise his stay in Sydney

The next day Bk attended Day Street police station in the city where he admitted sending the offending message from his mobile phone.

'The accused stated that the message was not intended to be serious and that he wanted to get the attention of the victim,' the statement of facts said.

Bk, from Kathmandu, arrived in Australia in February on a student visa to study business administration at ACU.

On Wednesday he admitted he did 'use a carriage service, namely Facebook via mobile phone, in such a way that reasonable persons would regard that sue as being menacing, harassing or offensive.'

Downing Centre Local Court heard that Bk had intended his message as a joke, rather than a threat, but he admitted it was in poor taste.

'He has no affiliation with ISIS,' his solicitor said. 'In this political climate making such a joke is highly inappropriate.'

Sandesh Bk at the ACU's North Sydney campus, where he met the young woman he frightened

Sandesh Bk, who faced Downing Centre Local Court on Wednesday, posing at Bondi Beach

Sandesh Bk's stupid message: 'May isis bomb the opera house if you don't accept the request'

'He is extremely remorseful for his actions. He did not intend to cause any fear. He is mindful not to joke about such a sensitive political issue in the future.

'He only made the comments as a joke. He did not intend for it to cause any fear.'

Accepting Bk's guilty plea, Ms McIntyre said the student's actions highlighted the complications of internet relationships. Bk, she said, had clearly misunderstood the woman's interest in him.

'Ultimately, this was a refusal,' Ms McIntyre said of the woman declining to attend Vivid with Bk. 'A knock-back.'

'Instagram relationships can be misinterpreted. It's not real. She is real. She is not something at the end of the phone.

'It is she who has suffered as a result of being alarmed.'

Ms McIntyre said Bk had an opportunity to further himself while studying in Australia.

'Why would you threaten it by saying such a stupid thing to this lady?' she asked.

'Don't do it again.'

Ms McIntyre put Bk on a six month good behaviour bond without recording a conviction.
Police say a rare gold replica of the lunar space module has been stolen from the Armstrong Air and Space Museum.

An alarm at the museum in Wapakoneta, Ohio - the birthplace of Neil Armstrong - was triggered on Friday night, and police arrived to find the five-inch high solid-gold replica missing from the display.

The replica is one of a handful that French jeweler Cartier crafted to the precise dimensions of the Apollo 11 lunar landing module and presented to the astronauts on the 1969 mission.

On that mission, Armstrong was the first human to set foot on the moon.

Police say this rare gold replica of the lunar space module was stolen from the Armstrong Air and Space Museum on Friday

The stolen replica was presented to Neil Armstrong at a ceremony in Paris three months after the first moon landing, with the other replicas going to fellow astronauts, Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins.

Police say the value of the replica cannot be determined.

All three replicas are embedded with a hidden piece of microfilm from the French newspaper Le Figaro, according to a 2013 exhibition listing.

The microfilm allegedly contains the names of donors who contributed money for the privilege of being included in the event.

A Texas attorney and retired federal agent with NASA said whoever stole the replica likely intends to melt it down for the value of the gold instead of trying to sell what could be a collectible worth millions of dollars.

Moon astronauts (left to right) Buzz Aldrin, Neil Armstrong and Michael Collins are seen at the October 1969 ceremony in Paris receiving the Cartier lunar landing module replica

That's because there's also a massive moon rock in the museum that would be worth millions to a collector, but was untouched in the heist, Joseph Gutheinz Jr told the Associated Press.

'Either they didn't have easy access to the moon rock, or they weren't into collectibles,' Gutheinz said of the thief or thieves.

'They were into turning a quick buck.'

It will be difficult to catch the thief if the replica is melted down, which Gutheinz said would be a 'damn shame.'

It's unclear how much gold the replica contains.

The FBI and the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are assisting Wapakoneta police in investigating the theft.

Armstrong died in 2012 at the age of 82.
An on-duty Washington, DC, police officer is under investigation for allegedly wearing a 'racist' T-shirt emblazoned with a white supremacy symbol while in court testifying in a criminal case.

The officer was assigned to desk duty Friday and ordered to have no contact with the public, pending an investigation.

In a photo, the officer is seen wearing a black shirt that shows the Grim Reaper holding a rifle under a District of Columbia flag.

Above the image is the word 'Powershift' with a cross embedded in the letter 'o'.

An on-duty Washington, DC, police officer is under investigation for wearing a T-shirt (pictured) that an advocacy group said beared the racist 'sun cross' symbol and other offensive images. Advocates identified the officer as Vincent Altiere

That image is a 'sun cross' or Celtic cross, which advocates say white supremacist groups use in their logos and imagery.

Though the officer was not identified by the Metropolitan Police Department, Stop Police Terror Project DC identified the officer as Vincent Altiere in an online petition.

The group Law 4 Black Lives DC filed a complaint against the officer and posted the petition demanding his firing.

Law 4 Black Lives DC officials wrote in the petition that there were three seperate occasions when Altiere allegedly wore the 'offensive, racist and threatening shirt'.

The groups says he was 'seen in the DC community and at the DC Superior Court, where he was present to testify in a criminal case' wearing the shirt.

According to the group, the shirt 'displays symbols of police harassment, hate, and death while prominently displaying the symbols and emblems of the Metropolitan Police Department'.

THE SUN CROSS The sun cross is believed to be the white supremacist version of the Celtic Cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle The sun cross is believed to be the white supremacist version of the Celtic Cross, which consists of a square cross interlocking with or surrounded by a circle. It's one of the most commonly used white supremacist symbols dating back to the pre-Christian 'sun cross' or 'wheel cross' in ancient Europe. Norwegian Nazis used a version of the symbol in the 1930s and 1940s. After World War II, a variety of white supremacist groups and movements adopted the symbol. Today, this version of the Celtic Cross is used by neo-Nazis, racist skinheads along with the KKK and others. The largest white supremacist prison gang in Tennessee calls itself Aryan Nations. The gang borrowed its title from the older neo-Nazi group of the same name, though the two are separate groups with few connections. The 'gang' Aryan Nations is also far larger than the 'neo-Nazi' Aryan Nations. The main symbol for this racist prison gang consists of a rounded Celtic Cross image with different symbols in each of the quadrants formed by the circle and the cross. Source: Anti-Defamation League Advertisement

The petition called for immediate disciplinary action against the officer and any other officers who have worn similar shirts.

The sun cross is a 'well-known and notorious white supremacist symbol adopted by the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist hate group,' the petition states.

In a tweet, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham called the content on the shirt 'disgraceful'.

The department also released a statement: 'The message conveyed on the T-shirt does not represent MPD's values.

'We understand the trust of the community is critical to our ongoing work and take seriously any incidents that may undermine the confidence the community has in our members,' the statement read.
More than 800 children in England  some as young as ten  are being given controversial drugs to help them change gender.

The NHS treatment, which halts the onset of adulthood, is aimed at young people who believe they are trapped in the wrong body.

Powerful monthly hormone injections stop the development of sex organs, breasts and body hair, making it easier for doctors to carry out sex-swap surgery later.

Until now it was thought that just a handful of children and teenagers were receiving the injections, known as puberty-blockers.

Pictured: Llyr Jones, from Aberystwyth, who said she would have killed herself without drugs

I had treatment last year  and it saved my life Pictured: Llyr Jones aged five. Llyr, who was born male, started living as a girl when she was 15 years old Teenager Llyr Jones has been taking puberty-blocking drugs for the past six months. The 17-year-old told how she was desperate to be prescribed the injections to end the agony she was going through as her body began to change into that of an adult man. Llyr, from Aberystwyth in Mid-Wales, said if the physical transformations that came with puberty had been allowed to continue, she would have been pushed to take her own life. In all honesty, if I hadnt been allowed to be on the blockers and start my transition, Im sure I wouldnt be here now, she said. The worst thing was starting to grow body hair. It felt like something was happening that wasnt me  I was so uncomfortable. Some days were worse than others when I would catch a glimpse of my body in the mirror and Id collapse on the bathroom floor for hours, frozen with distress. Llyr, who was born male, started living as a girl when she was 15 years old. Previously she had suppressed her desire to become female because of the bullying she endured for being different in the small Welsh farming community she grew up in. I didnt want to give my bullies yet another reason to go after me, she said. Llyr finally found relief in January last year when she was sent to Londons Tavistock gender identity clinic, which has seen a dramatic increase in referrals  from 94 in 2009/10 to almost 2,000 last year. After being psychologically assessed and diagnosed with gender dysphoria, she was then sent in November for medical treatment at University College Hospital in London. There she underwent a series of health checks, including blood tests and bone scans, before doctors finally prescribed the puberty-blockers that Llyr now believes saved her life. I thought thank God, because I knew they were stopping the puberty, she said. Since starting the blockers, Llyr said she has become more confident and at ease with her body. The next stage, she says, will be surgery, which can happen legally from the age of 18. She thinks the operations are unlikely before she is 19 because of the current waiting lists. Dressed fashionably in a colourful crop top and shiny black trousers, a carefree Llyr declared: Im just in such a great place now because I know after everything Ive been through, Im on the right track. Pictured left and right: Llyr Jones by the sea. The next stage, she says, will be surgery, which can happen legally from the age of 18 Advertisement

But The Mail on Sunday can reveal that more than 600 young people are undergoing treatment at the Gender Identity Development Service clinic at University College Hospital in London, and a further 200 at a clinic in Leeds. The MoS has been told that 230 of those 800 are under the age of 14.

The huge growth in the number of youngsters being prescribed the drugs came after the NHS scrapped the age limit in 2014, which was previously 16.

Now doctors can give the injections to children from the very early stages of puberty  meaning that in some cases, ten-year-olds are receiving them.

The MoS revelation comes a week after the Government announced plans to allow adults to legally change their sex without a medical diagnosis. In future, individuals who want to change gender are expected to simply make a statutory declaration that they intend to live in the sex they have transitioned to until death.

Last night Mary Douglas, a spokeswoman for Grassroots Conservatives campaign group, said: Adolescence is the age when youre in a turmoil because youre trying to work out who you are and gender is a big part of that.

Londons University College Hospital, above, is treating more than 600 children with puberty-blocking drugs

So to introduce such powerful medication into that is unwise.

This drastic notion that we should change our gender should be a last resort. Caution needs to be the watchword for everyone engaged in this, including doctors.

Stephanie Davies-Arai, of Transgender Trend, a parent group concerned about the rise of children identifying as the opposite sex, added: These kids are not old enough to make life-changing decisions that will affect them for the rest of their lives. Its unethical to pursue this line of treatment with children who cannot possibly understand what theyre doing.

Professor Gary Butler, the lead clinician for the gender identity service in London and Leeds, revealed how many youngsters are now taking puberty-blockers. He defended the use of the drugs and said critics did not appreciate the distress puberty can cause transgender young people or how much relief the blockers can give to these patients and their families.

Pictured: Prof Gary Butler, who defended the use of the drugs and said critics did not appreciate the distress puberty can cause transgender young people

However, other medical experts have questioned the safety of the treatment, warning that little is known about its long-term mental, psychological and physical effects.

Last month three top US doctors, Professors Paul Hruz, Paul McHugh and Lawrence Mayer, published a highly critical report on the use of puberty-blockers to treat gender dysphoria.

Writing in American academic journal The New Atlantis, they warned that the safety of this experimental treatment was unsupported by rigorous scientific evidence.

They further argued that the use of such drugs may be driving children to persist in identifying as transgender. Research shows that the vast majority of under-16s who are troubled about their gender do not go on to take the drastic step of surgery. Meanwhile, the three professors point to another study from a Dutch clinic  where all the adolescents prescribed puberty blockers had gone ahead with gender-reassignment surgery  as evidence that the drugs can solidify patients feelings they were born the wrong biological sex.

Pictured: How the Mail on Sunday has led the way in reporting this highly contentious issue

Pictured: How the Mail on Sunday has led the way in reporting this highly contentious issue

Concern has also been raised about the blockers long-term impact on bone health. But Prof Butler said the drugs have no permanent effects on the reproductive system or the body as a whole.

When you stop the blocker, the puberty hormone process just starts up again within a couple of months. If youve gone through puberty already, you start where you left off, he said. You dont go back to the beginning again. If you havent gone through puberty, you would just complete the full puberty development process.

You would go through it at the same rate as you would if you hadnt taken the blockers, but the timing will just have been delayed.

He also insisted that the drugs were safe because they had already been used for decades to treat other conditions such as fertility problems in women and prostate cancer.

Addressing fears about the effects the drugs can have on bone development, Prof Butler said there was no need to worry unduly. Our preliminary analysis suggests that the blocker just halts bone-calcium increases  it doesnt weaken the bones directly, he added.

Prof Butler said his gender identity clinic now routinely prescribes puberty-blockers to children diagnosed with life-long gender dysphoria  the belief that a person is inhabiting the wrong sex.

When the team feels the young person is genuinely transgender they welcome [the use of] puberty-blocking drugs right from the early stages, he said.

His clinic has treated more than 600 under-18s with the blockers and Leeds Gender Identity Service has prescribed them to a further 200, he said. Of these, he said about 230 were 14 or under  with the youngest being ten. His disclosure comes three years after The Mail on Sunday revealed how NHS doctors were set to give the puberty blockers to nine-year-olds  causing outcry from critics who accused them of playing God with childrens lives.

Explaining the process, Prof Butler said his patients were first carefully psychologically assessed by experts at the NHSs nearby Tavistock Clinic. We then do medical assessments to see if the young person has started puberty and how far they are into puberty, Prof Butler said.

If suitable, both physically and psychologically, they then advise GPs to prescribe the blockers.

He added: Were lucky in the UK that people dont miss out  they will get this treatment.

Experimental treatment endangers children, writes professor of psychiatry Paul McHugh

Advocates of puberty-blockers argue that it represents a prudent and fully reversible way to give young people with gender dysphoria and their families time to sort out the difficult issues surrounding gender identity.

Puberty-suppression as an intervention for gender dysphoria has been accepted so rapidly by much of the medical community, apparently without scientific scrutiny, that there is reason to be concerned about the welfare of children who are receiving it.

There remains little evidence that puberty-suppression is reversible, safe, or effective for treating gender dysphoria.

Psychologists do not understand what causes gender dysphoria in children and adolescents.

They also cannot distinguish reliably between children who will only temporarily express feelings of being the opposite sex from children whose gender dysphoria will be more persistent.

We frequently hear from neuroscientists that the adolescent brain is too immature to make reliably rational decisions.

But we are supposed to expect emotionally troubled adolescents to make decisions about their gender identities and about serious medical treatments at the age of 12 or younger.

For patients and doctors who are committed to the view that the young persons gender dysphoria represents a persistent and real problem that can best be solved by transitioning the patient to living as the opposite sex, puberty-suppression can seem like a desirable approach.

But most children who identify as the opposite sex will eventually come to identify as their biological sex.

Until much more is known about gender dysphoria, and until controlled clinical trials of puberty-suppression are carried out, this intervention should be considered experimental.

Regardless of the good intentions of the physicians and parents, to expose young people to such treatments is to endanger them.
The Queens top aide Sir Christopher Geidt is set to stand down from his key role at her side amid a dramatic shake-up of senior Royal staff.

The Mail on Sunday understands that Sir Christophers surprise departure is the first of a slew of personnel changes at a senior level in the Royal Household.

It comes as the Queen and her heir the Prince of Wales attempt to impose greater unity on the rival firms or households of the younger Royals. This is a watershed moment for the monarchy, as the Queen and Prince Philip step back from official duties and hand responsibility to the younger generation.

Sir Christopher Geidt (pictured receiving an Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath by Queen Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace in 2014) His surprise departure is the first of a slew of personnel changes at a senior level in the Royal Household

Sir Christopher, the Queens Private Secretary and a shrewd former Army intelligence officer, is a key figure in this transition, or operation handover as it is known.

Sources within the Royal Household say his departure will be followed by two, maybe three more senior figures, who are set to leave before Christmas.

Sir Christophers departure is just the beginning. Major changes are afoot. Yes, it is a shake-up, said a senior source. One of those who is understood to be considering his position is Prince Williams Private Secretary, Miguel Head.

Another said to be weighing up his options is Prince Harrys Private Secretary Edward Lane Fox, a former captain in the Household Cavalry.

Mr Head has served the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge loyally for a decade but has privately told friends he never intended be a palace lifer.

The privately educated former Ministry of Defence press officer has confided that he feels his time is up. If he does walk away it would be a huge blow to William and Kate who have relied on his counsel for a decade, although Kensington Palace last night insisted he has not quit.

It has been previously announced that Kates Private Secretary, newly married Rebecca Deacon, has already officially announced that she is leaving her job.

With Sir Christopher going, the next most senior Private Secretary will be Clive Alderton  the Prince of Waless top aide.

The impending departures are seen as part of a shake-up as the Queen and Charles move to take control of disharmony among the different Royal Households.

A senior source said: Sir Christophers departure is just the beginning. Major changes are afoot. Yes, it is a shake-up, said a senior source. One of those who is understood to be considering his position is Prince Williams Private Secretary, Miguel Head (pictured)

It follows Sir Christophers forceful plea to all the households in May this year to come together on message.

Cambridge-educated Sir Christopher, 55, will be a huge loss to Her Majesty as he has been her key adviser for a decade and a lynchpin at Buckingham Palace during the ongoing transition of the Crown.

In 2014, Sir Christopher was awarded his second knighthood for a new approach to constitutional matters [And] the preparation for the transition to a change of reign  and he has certainly earned it.

For now, the Palace insists publicly that the Queen will carry on as if nothing has changed.

It is expected that Sir Christopher will be replaced by his well-liked deputy Edward Young.

Mr Youngs promotion to the top could mean an elevation too for the Queens favourite, long-serving Samantha Cohen, to Deputy Private Secretary. This, however has not been confirmed.

Unifying the households of the Queen, Prince Charles and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge is something Sir Christopher has long championed, albeit with varying degrees of success.

He tried to bring the press office  now named Royal Communications  under one director, former Daily Mail reporter Sally Osman. This has not really worked out as planned and has been marked by squabbles, rivalry and high- level departures.

The Prince of Wales has preferred to maintain his autonomy and handle his own media affairs, led by his appointment of former BBC man Julian Payne.

It is a bit of surprise that Sir Christopher is going now, said one official. We all thought he had his hand on the tiller and would see through the transition of the monarchy.

But Sir Christopher has decided the time is right. He has bought a sheep farm in the Outer Hebrides and enjoys spending time there helping with the lambing.

His family has strong links with the Isle of Lewis where he now owns a 365-acre farm in South Lochs. His grandfather, Kenneth Mackenzie, was a fish curer and coal merchant before he established a Harris Tweed plant in Stornoway and became provost of the Outer Hebridean capital.

Some courtiers see his departure as a line being drawn  the beginning of a new era that might yet see the Queen accept Prince Charles as regent. Sources say she would seriously consider this once she reaches 95. It is widely acknowledged Her Majesty will never abdicate and the succession is rarely, if ever, talked about in official terms.

It is perhaps no coincidence that despite the upheaval at Buckingham Palace, there are no sudden changes at Clarence House, the Prince of Waless household.

He is understood to feel a little bruised over the recent official Diana documentary Diana: Our Mother sponsored by his sons, William and Harry and Kensington Palace in which there was no mention of his considerable contribution to their upbringing.

Add to that the forthcoming Channel 4 documentary Diana: In Her Own Words in which embarrassing and revelatory video tapes made by his late ex-wife ridicule him, and he is understandably upset.

It would be reasonable to expect some action. It would not be unreasonable if heads should roll over this, said one senior figure.

Significantly, when Sir Christopher called the must-attend meeting of royal courtiers to politely read the riot act, Charless Private Secretary Mr Alderton was not there. He was with the Prince out of town, and sent his apologies.

A close source added: This is a fascinating time with regard to the monarchy. The Crown is in transition, with Prince Philip retiring next week, with the Queen at 91 looking to hand over a number of patronages. The Prince of Wales is ready to step up to support Her Majesty in whatever capacity she should see fit. He has served her as the longest heir to the throne and he will of course continue to do so, the source added.

A Buckingham Palace spokesman made no comment about Sir Christophers impending departure or that of other senior members of the Royal Household. A senior source added: Any senior management changes or appointments across the institution are always notified in the appropriate way.

Jason Knauf, communications secretary to William, Kate and Harry, said Mr Head had no plans to leave. He made no comment on Mr Lane Foxs planned departure.
Passengers have been warned to expect lengthy delays at airports across Australia after a series of terror raids were uncovered and confirmed to be 'Islamic-inspired terrorism' plots in Sydney.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull advised travelers to arrive at the airport at least two hours earlier to allow for extra security measures.

'Travelers should be prepared for additional security at screening points while it's important Australians ... should be aware of an increased threat,' Mr Turnbull said.

Passengers are being warned to arrive at airports across Australia at least two hours early (stock image)

Extra security measures are in place at airports across country after police foiled a terrorist plot in Sydney Saturday night (pictured)

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull warned travelers to allow extra time for extra security measures at airports (stock image)

Four men were arrested (one pictured centre) after police uncovered their plans to bomb a domestic plane

Delays of at least two hours are expected at airports across the country after raids (pictured)

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said the extra safety measures were taken overnight at domestic and international airports across the country.

Virgin Australia released a statement saying the precautionary measures meant it may take 'a little longer' to get through the screening processes.

Delays will be caused by the extra screening measures on baggage as well as hand luggage where there is a limit on carry on to make the process as quick as possible.

Virgin Australia suggested passengers should arrive at least two hours before a domestic flight and at least three hours before an international flight.

Mr Colvin said the public needed to go about their business and give themselves more time at the airport.

'We've taken the threat very seriously ... sometimes the community will need to have patience with police,' Mr Colvin said.

The AFP foiled an Islamist plot to bring down a domestic flight with an explosive device that was found at a Surry Hills property at Cleveland Street Saturday night.

Four men were arrested overnight and the explosive device was deactivated by a bomb squad at the scene.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) said delays caused by extra luggage screening

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin (pictured) said the extra safety measures were taken overnight at domestic and international airports across the country

It is believed a material used for an explosive device was found at the properties in Sydney

It is believed the police found material suspected to be used for an improvised explosive device.

'There was a threat of a device and an aircraft,' an official told Daily Telegraph, but said they were yet to verify the credibility of the material.

The Prime Minister released in a statement confirming the police raids involved AFP, ASIO and NSW Police.

'These operations are designed to disrupt and prevent plans to undertake terrorist attacks in Australia,' the statement said.

'The public should be reassured that our security and intelligence agencies are working tirelessly to keep us safe.'

The Prime Minister said Australia's terrorist threat level remains at probable.
A new rift between Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and his deputy Tom Watson opened last night after an extraordinary intervention by Left-wing comedian Steve Coogan.

Leading Corbynista Coogan said his daughter Clare Coogan Cole, who works for Watson, told him the deputy leaders team seemed to hate Corbyn and wanted him to fall flat on his face in the Election.

TV star Coogan said Clare, 21, repeatedly rowed with Watsons team during the campaign over its lack of support for the Labour leader. When he did better than expected on polling day, West Bromwich East MP Watson apologised to politics student Clare.

Comic Steve Coogan, with his daughter Clare and Jeremy Corbyn in a picture from her Facebook page

In an interview with the New European journal, Coogan said: Clare was campaigning for Tom Watson in the Midlands and she kept ringing me to complain. She was upset because of the way people in the campaign were behaving. There were only two people who were pro-Corbyn in the whole campaign team.

Others seemed to hate Jeremy, and they were saying scornful things like: Oh! Hes on TV tonight  I hope he falls flat on his face.

Ms Coogan told her father she was getting really fed up with it and having arguments with them. She rang me up and said, Im really upset and I dont want to do this anymore. 

Coogan said he advised her to stick at it and stay true to your principles. He added: As the Election results came in, she saw her loyalty and determination had paid off. They were expecting loads of seats to be lost, and then the exit poll came in and the faces of the anti-Corbyn brigade were the epitome of mixed feelings.

The best part of the whole campaign for her was that Tom Watson was just about to go off to do his speech at his constituency count. In front of all the other campaigners, he turned and saw that Clare was smiling. He stopped. He made everyone listen and said: Clare, I just want to say, you were right and everyone else was wrong. 

Coogan said Corbyns crumpled wardrobe was key to his appeal. Twenty years ago, New Labour got in because they looked like a government, he said.

They all wore smart suits and combed their hair. But while Corbyns critics derided him, saying look at him in his crumpled cotton jacket that was the very thing people liked. Coogan added: Like him or loathe him, you dont feel he is lying. Corbyn is not a brilliant speech maker. But thats probably a good thing... Hes just bashing it out  its a bit uneven but thats the way most people talk.

Coogans claims of the Watson camps hatred of Corbyn follow reports that he faces a challenge as deputy leader from key Corbyn supporter, Shadow Foreign Secretary Emily Thornberry.

An ally of Mr Watson denied the claims.

Get off your soap box and save jobs

Britain is known for its common sense. We keep calm and carry on. But calm heads seem in short supply in Westminster. The referendum result was clear and Britain is leaving the EU.

But membership of the single market wasnt on the ballot paper. And it could be the best way to get us the Brexit we need.

Let me take you on a journey. A raw crankshaft is cast in France. It crosses the Channel to Warwickshire, where its milled into shape. Next stop Munich, where its fitted in an engine. Then back to Britain and the Mini assembly plant at Cowley in Oxfordshire, where my Dad once worked. Today, its a high-tech plant that provides jobs to skilled workers. And its excellent apprenticeship scheme gives young locals the chance of a secure future on good wages.

Thats what Britain needs from Brexit. A secure future with decent jobs and wages.

Workers spend those wages in other businesses, helping the economy grow. And the taxes they pay help all of us who rely on schools, hospitals, social care and state pensions.

Now imagine every time the crankshaft crosses the Channel theres a tariff to pay. Every time an inspection. More forms to complete and check.

Britain exports 240 billion of goods and services to other EU countries. How much of that would survive the red tape? How many of the three million UK jobs linked to those exports would be safe?

Nobody loves the EU single market. But we should love the jobs it supports. If theres another way of getting a frictionless trade deal that protects jobs and rights at work, trade unions would love to know.

But nobody has told us what the impact of crashing out of the single market would be or come up with a convincing alternative.

We dont want our workers rights falling behind those on the Continent and EU leaders tell me theyre ready to agree a level playing field with the UK.

Its time for Ministers to climb down from their soap boxes and focus on getting the best deal for Britain. A deal that protects our jobs and rights.
Political activists in Kenya have demanded a halt to the grotesque waste of ten of millions of pounds of British foreign aid which is funding a general election it is feared will result in a bloodbath.

Britain is helping to pay for the election through a 28.5 million programme known as Deepening Democracy.

But even Britains Department for International Development (DFID) admits there has been no significant improvement in the fight against corruption in Kenya in recent years.

Current President Uhuru Kenyatta  son of Kenyas first president Jomo Kenyatta  was accused by the International Criminal Court of inciting murderous riots between rival political supporters during 2007 elections, when he led the opposition. More than 1,000 people were killed. He protested his innocence but was never brought to trial due to the disappearance of key witnesses. He went on to become president in 2013.

Current President Uhuru Kenyatta (pictured) was accused by the International Criminal Court of inciting murderous riots between rival political supporters during 2007 elections, when he led the opposition

The lead-up to this years election on August 8, in which Kenyatta is standing, shows all the signs of another fatal outbreak of civil unrest. In January, UK High Commissioner Nic Hailey warned that, in a joint statement with 24 other heads of missions in Kenya: '...if these elections do not reflect the democratic choices of Kenyans, they could bring the country's progress to a halt or plunge it back into ethic conflict.'

In that election, accusations of vote-rigging triggered vicious tribal clashes throughout the country. Police used tear gas and live bullets to disperse rioters.

The Kenyan government is spending an astonishing 766.5 million of public money on this years poll in the face of fierce criticism from leaders of impoverished communities. Each of the ruling alliances 416 MPs has been given 80,000 towards campaigning costs. This has seen them using helicopters and four-wheel-drive vehicles to get them to far-flung constituencies.

Respected political analyst Professor Barrack Muluka, of the University of Nairobi, called for Britain to stop its grotesque waste of public money that is being thrown into a bottomless pit.

He told The Mail on Sunday: What possible good can come of a country like Britain using its peoples money to add to the chaos already going on here?

You cannot rationalise that spending to your taxpayers. I wouldnt encourage anyone to contribute to the use of good money in the futile mission this election is turning out to be.

We have politicians flying around the country in helicopters and motorcades, holding rallies where they dont address any issues of importance but use pure invective to stir up public sentiment. They are anyway preaching to the converted, going to their own heartlands to rabble-rouse in their predictable ways, whipping up hostility.

Violence: Kenyan riot police hit a man during the 2007 election

Total UK foreign aid to Kenya adds up to more than 131 million. Britain is committed to spending at least 0.7 per cent of GDP on overseas aid, an annual 12 billion.

A Mail on Sunday campaign over the past two years has exposed a catalogue of foreign aid scandals. Last week we reported how 64 million a year is being pumped into Rwanda despite intense criticism of the countrys regime, ruled by ruthless dictator Paul Kagame.

Among the many scandals in the country was an attempt to cover up the fact that mosquito nets provided at a cost of several million pounds were faulty, leading to a massive malaria outbreak which affected two million people.

In December our investigation revealed that charity chiefs handed millions to fight poverty in poor nations were creaming off salaries of up to 618,000, plus hefty bonuses. We also revealed that Palestinian schools named after mass murderers and Islamist militants, and which openly promote terrorism, get funding from the aid budget.

In January we reported how more than two-thirds of 25.4 million that was spent on an aid scheme to install water pumps and irrigation in some of Africas poorest areas had been soaked up by fat-cat consultants.

A UK Government spokesman said: We support free, fair and peaceful elections in Kenya to help to maintain security and stability, which is in all our interests. The election support referred to was allocated in 2015 and is overseen by the Foreign Office in Kenya.'

UK's foreign aid makes us safer... and richer

Comment by Andrew Mitchell MP

Whenever I am asked by my Sutton Coldfield constituents how on earth I can justify Britain spending so much on overseas aid, I always think of one of the most moving experiences of my life.

I was in Rwanda when I met Beata, who had given birth to eight children, only four of whom were still alive. She had tears in her eyes because she had come to a newly opened family planning clinic paid for by British taxpayers and had been offered contraception for the first time.

Next week I am returning to Rwanda with fellow Tories and volunteers who will join doctors, nurses and others as part of Project Umubano, the Conservative Partys social action project in Africa, now in its tenth year. We will be helping train 700 teachers and supporting others to develop business skills.

Our trip comes at a time when our international development policy is facing unprecedented attacks. For instance, Rwandas President Paul Kagame is often criticised over human rights.

But this is a country that just over 20 years ago suffered a genocide in which nearly one million people died in 90 days while the world looked the other way. Rwanda was rescued from unimaginable barbarity by Kagame. Under him, it has undergone an extraordinary transformation.

In the past five years more than a million of citizens have been lifted out of poverty. I am proud it has done so with support from British aid. Of course progress needs to be made on political freedom and human rights. But before those steeped in centuries of Parliament denigrate an emerging democracy, they should show humility. Our own record in respect, for example, of Iraq is open to question.

I understand voters anger when reports appear that suggest their taxes have been squandered or stolen by corrupt dictators. But those reports are not always true. It is an extraordinary irony that, while Britains aid programme is respected and praised around the world, it is viewed as controversial here. This does not mean taxpayer money spent on development should not face fierce scrutiny, with zero tolerance of waste or corruption. That is why in 2010, as International Development Secretary, I set up an independent watchdog. Every penny is spent in our national interest. Tackling conflict, misery and poverty makes Britain safer and more prosperous, too.

Had taxpayers not dug deep to help refugees from Syria and surrounding countries, millions more of these desperate people would have placed themselves into the hands of the traffickers and headed our way.

And the next time someone asks me what on earth am I doing wasting my time and money in God-forsaken Rwanda, I know I will be able to look them in the eye and tell them this Tory project has done a tiny bit of good in a country that has been to hell and back.
Anthony Scaramucci appears to have a passion for film.

The newly appointed White House Communications Director has invested in at least three films and for one of them, he told the director that he didn't want the money back.

Neil Drumming wrote and directed an independent film, Big Words, which was released in 2013.

Though Scaramucci didn't know Drumming well, he invested in the independent film and told Drumming he didn't need to pay him back.

Instead, he told him to put it into his next film, which Scaramucci also offered to invest in, though Drumming wasn't able to match his funds.

Newly appointed White House Director of Communications Anthony Scaramucci (pictured on Tuesday) has invested in at least three films

Neil Drumming (pictured) wrote and directed an independent film, Big Words, which was released in 2013. Though Scaramucci didn't know Drumming well, he invested in the independent film and told Drumming he didn't need to pay him back

Scaramucci, who is worth somewhere between $44.8million and $64.3million according to Fortune, also invested in George Tillman Jr's film, The Inevitable Defeat of Mister & Pete, released in 2013, as well as an upcoming HBO film directed by Barry Levinson and starring Al Pacino, called Happy Valley.

Drumming, who is now a producer at the public radio show, This American Life, posted Friday on Facebook about Scaramucci's investment, calling it 'one of those quirky, little twists of existence'.

Drumming's film is about a hip-hop group in their 30s as they struggle with regret, disappointment and change on the night of the 2008 election

He wrote: 'The White House Communications Director was a major investor in my film Big Words, probably to this day, the most rewarding achievement of my life.

'At first, I was just going to post this as a sort of, "Hey, isn't that weird?" But, then, the irony of it really hit me this morning. I'm not a particularly political person.

'And, if I have an agenda at all, it's near-perfectly embodied in Big Words; I wanted to see people like me represented as flawed, complicated, whole people.'

The film is about a hip-hop group in their 30s as they struggle with regret, disappointment and change on the night of the 2008 election.

In his post, Drumming continued: 'This is not at all intended as a defense of The Mooch.

'I've never been entirely sure of his intention when it came to investing in the film; we had some uncomfortable conversations around it. And, it certainly wasn't a lot of money to him.

Instead, Scaramucci (pictured in 2012) told the writer-director to put the money he made back into his next film, which the financier also offered to invest in, though Drumming wasn't able to match his funds

Drumming, who is now a producer at the public radio show, This American Life, posted Friday on Facebook about Scaramucci's investment, calling it 'one of those quirky, little twists of existence'. Pictured is a grab from the opening credits of Drumming's film, Big Words

'But, in the end, he gave me what I desperately needed - funds to finish the film... He did so on a handshake, having never met me before that day.

'Later, he said, if I ever made the money to pay him back, that I should, instead, roll it back into my next film. (He even offered to invest in that next film, but I couldn't match the funds.)'

After Scaramucci's financial disclosure was released and reported on by Politico on Wednesday, it was revealed that he also has a stake in a new film, 'Crazy for Boys', valued at $500,000, according to Variety.

Scaramucci has been embroiled in controversy since he was announced as the new White House Communications Director last Friday as former White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned.

Scaramucci has been embroiled in controversy since he was announced as the new White House Communications Director last Friday (pictured then)

Scaramucci's wife Deidre (second from the left), filed for divorce on July 6, with some sources saying it was because of her husband's 'political ambition', though her lawyer denied those claims and said she was filing for divorce because of a 'private matter'

The New York financier also made controversial statements in a phone interview on Wednesday night with a New Yorker reporter about former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, who later resigned Friday.

He reportedly called Priebus a 'f****** paranoid schizophrenic'.

To make the controversy worse, his wife Deidre filed for divorce on July 6, when she was eight months pregnant with their child, who was born premature on Monday.

Some sources said she filed for divorce because of his 'political ambition', but her lawyer later denied that claim, saying her reasons for filing are a 'private matter'.

Despite all the controversy surrounding Scaramucci, Drumming, who benefited from the financier's generosity back when he was trying to finish Big Words, said it just shows that Scaramucci is complicated.

He said: 'Whatever's going on with him and the White House at the moment, I write all this to say - as I have always believed - that the interesting thing about people is that they are complicated.'
An unvaccinated toddler may be the reason a mother-of-two died shortly after giving birth on the Gold Coast.

Imogen Petrak was 36 weeks pregnant when she suffered an ear infection that caused catastrophic brain swelling earlier this month.

Mrs Petrak, 35, had an emergency caesarean-section and gave birth to daughter Eleanor, four weeks premature, but didn't survive herself.

Imogen Petrak (pictured left with her husband and young son) tragically passed away this month after being taken to hospital with an ear infection

John Petrak has taken baby Eleanor home from Gold Coast University Hospital after the tragic loss of his wife

Mrs Petrak's toddler, 17-months-old, was not vaccinated and was unwell in the days leading up to her death, and blood tests have confirmed she died of pneumococcal meningitis, the Daily Telegraph reports.

The infection is covered by a vaccine that is on the National Immunisation Program Schedule and is recommended to be given to babies at two, four and six months.

There was 154 deaths from pneumococcal disease in 2004 which is passed on by touching infected people.

The numbers have decreased significantly after introducing the vaccination more than a decade ago.

Husband and widower John Petrak took baby Eleanor home from Gold Coast University Hospital last week.

The courageous father-of-two has opened up on his battle to come to terms with with his crushing loss.

'Imogen's biggest dream was to see our daughter and she didn't get to do that. We knew we were having a girl and she was just aching to see her. She had all her dresses picked out,' he told the Gold Coast Bulletin.

Ms Petrak's ear infection had travelled to her brain, causing severe swelling and she later suffered catastrophic brain damage

The courageous father-of-two has opened up on his battle to come to terms with with his crushing loss

Mr Petrak shed light on the bittersweet emotions that came when he welcomed his daughter into the world, hours before farewelling his wife.

'The only way I can explain it was feeling every emotion at the same time. Worry, sadness, happiness, joy - everything all at once,' he said.

Mr Petrak said he was grateful his eldest, 17-month-old JB, was too young to fully grasp the loss of his mother.

'He actually pointed at a photo of his mum with a happy smile yesterday but he doesn't know she's gone  our first night home together it was just me and him and we just chased each other around the lounge (having fun). We've still got to live.'

Mr Petrak thanked his friends and family who have helped him through the shattering period.

A GoFundMe page set up by family friend Renee King to support the family has raised $110,000

Ms King paid a touching tribute to Ms Petrak on the page, telling of how she was loved by all who crossed her path.

'She had the biggest heart and sweetest loving spirit, an incredible selfless mother and cherished wife,' she said.

You can donate to the family here.
Allies of Brexit Secretary David Davis say Philip Hammond is trying to undermine Theresa May by announcing plans for a transition deal after leaving the EU while she is on holiday.

Mr Daviss former deputy, Brexit Minister David Jones, accused the Chancellor of insulting the Prime Minister and said his three-year transition plan was deeply dangerous.

But pro-EU Tories rallied to the defence of the Chancellor, who favours a soft Brexit, claiming he had ended a Cabinet pub brawl.

The Conservative row flared after Mr Hammond said his plan would mean Britains relationship with Brussels would remain very similar for up to three years after formally leaving the EU in 2019.

Allies of Brexit Secretary David Davis say Philip Hammond is trying to undermine Theresa May

His intervention came days after Mrs May started a three-week summer holiday by Italys Lake Garda, leaving him in charge.

Writing in todays Mail on Sunday, Mr Jones lambasts Europhile Mr Hammond for going on manoeuvres the moment Mrs May went on holiday. All this agitation by the Chancellor and his allies is hugely discourteous to her and undermines her authority, said Mr Jones, a confidant of Mr Davis.

Mr Hammonds three-year Brexit transition plan was deeply dangerous and he was playing with fire by risking triggering another Election, which could put Jeremy Corbyn in No 10.

Mr Jones demanded Mr Hammond was silenced, adding: He should remember we have made a contract with the British people to deliver Brexit. If we do not do so, but consign the country to a constitutional no-mans land, the party will never forgive us.

Mr Jones , who insisted he had not spoken to Mr Davis about his remarks, was replaced as Brexit Minister after the Election by the even more hardline anti-Brussels MP Steve Baker.

Government sources insist Mr Davis, hitherto one of the chief advocates of a hard Brexit, backs the transition proposal, though another Davis ally accused Mr Hammond of pulling a fast one.

But leading pro-EU Tory Sir Nicholas Soames praised the Chancellors dignity and gravitas and praised him for winning agreement on a carefully thought-out Brexit transition period.

He has restored discipline to the political infant class who want Brexit at any cost, said Sir Nicholas. Instead of mindlessly criticising him, they should thank him for putting a stop to what was in danger of becoming a pub brawl.

No 10 stressed Mr Hammond had the full backing of Mrs May

Sir Nicholas was echoed by fellow Conservative MP Anna Soubry who said: Three cheers to the Chancellor for winning the day in the Cabinet with a sane and statesmanlike approach over those who act as though wrecking the economy and jobs comes second to securing their blind ideological goal of Brexit.

Downing Street played down the controversy, claiming Cabinet support for Mr Hammonds transition to stop the economy falling off a cliff in 2019 had been secured several weeks ago. And No 10 stressed Mr Hammond had the full backing of Mrs May.

Since the Election, Mr Hammond has had repeated clashes with pro-Brexit Cabinet colleagues over how quickly or slowly the UK breaks away from Brussels.

Prominent anti-EU Ministers like Michael Gove were said to want EU negotiations to come crushing to a halt to achieve a hard Brexit. International Trade Secretary Liam Fox claimed any transition deal could hinder his bid to win new trade deals and Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson was reportedly ready to walk away from talks without a deal. Mr Davis supporters said he was sceptical about a transition phase.

However, Mr Hammond received strong support from pro-EU Ministers like Home Secretary Amber Rudd and First Secretary of State Damian Green, who is effectively Mrs Mays deputy.

And in recent weeks, all four of the senior Cabinet Brexit cheerleaders appear to have changed their tone, marking what Mr Hammonds supporters are claiming is a significant victory for him.

Meanwhile, Labour divisions over Brexit last night deepened after London Mayor Sadiq Khan suggested it could be halted all together. Mr Khan said it would be possible to trump the referendum if Labour stood on a General Election manifesto of not quitting the EU or a promise to hold a second referendum.

The move caps a week of confusion within the party over Brexit, with Mr Corbyn saying the UK would leave the single market, only for Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell to say the issue was still open.

He's undermining Mrs May's authority

Comment by David Jones MP - Former Brexit Minister

This is a classic case of when the cats away, the mice will play.

No sooner is the Prime Minister on holiday and Parliament away for the summer, than europhile forces in Cabinet decide its a good time to go on manoeuvres.

All this agitation by the Chancellor and his allies is hugely discourteous to Mrs May  and undermines her authority.

But just as importantly, talk of a three-year transition deal  or longer  by Philip Hammond is deeply dangerous.

Dangerous because it makes the Government look disunited in the eyes of Brussels and so strengthens the EUs hands in already difficult negotiations. And dangerous because a three-year period of limbo after we formally leave the EU in 2019 would take us right up to the scheduled date of the next General Election.

'All this agitation by the Chancellor and his allies is hugely discourteous to Mrs May  and undermines her authority'

There would be no time to show voters how Britain can flourish free from the grip of Brussels for the simple reason we wouldnt properly have left. During that time, we would presumably still be subject to the European Court of Justice with all the restrictions and limitations on our sovereignty that entails.

And unless Mr Hammond knows something he hasnt yet shared with us, we would still be unable to negotiate the raft of free trade deals with countries such as the United States and Australia that will be at the very heart of Brexit and of the advantages that await us once weve finally left the EU.

Its also playing with fire to think that we can discount all possibility of an earlier, unscheduled Election. After all, weve just had one.

What would happen, for example, if Labour by then was led by a Brussels-friendly leader? He or she could seek to stop Brexit in its tracks.

It would be really helpful if Mr Hammond and other Ministers stopped debating in public about the UKs negotiating position. If ever there was a time to show a united front, its right now.

These developments will undoubtedly incur the displeasure of the bulk of the Conservative party, who are keen to see the Brexit referendum verdict fulfilled.

Mr Hammond should remember that we have made a contract with the British people to deliver Brexit.

If we do not do so, but instead consign the country to a constitutional no-mans land, we will break faith with the British people.

The party will never forgive us for that.

No, Chancellor deserves thanks for stopping Brexit pub brawl

Comment by Sir Nicholas Soames - Pro-Europe Conservative MP

By speaking out so clearly, Philip Hammond demonstrates that he represents the Cabinets voice of common sense.

We all know that, like me, he opposed Brexit. But like all patriotic Conservatives, he has accepted the referendum result and knows it is his duty to ensure it is carried out in a way that protects the national interest.

'By speaking out so clearly, Philip Hammond demonstrates that he represents the Cabinets voice of common sense'

In bringing order where there was growing disorder, the Chancellor should be congratulated for his clear understanding that as we tackle the hugely complex task of leaving the EU, we must do so in a carefully thought-out way that protects the economy and jobs.

In setting out calmly and cogently how a three-year transition is the best way to achieve that, he has restored discipline to the political infant class who seem to want Brexit at any cost. Instead of mindlessly criticising him, they should thank him for putting a stop to what was in danger of becoming a pub brawl. He has added dignity, gravitas and intelligence to what had become a totally self-indulgent and divisive debate at a moment when the country is at a great crossroads and must take the right course.
An airport worker struck a young father holding his nine-month-old baby with 'one hell of a punch' following a grueling 12-hour delay, a shocked witness said today.

A photograph appears to show the man, believed to be a special assistance provider at Nice Airport, attacking the easyJet passenger in the terminal on Saturday.

Arabella Arkwright, 49, who was with her two children at the time, told MailOnline of the chaos that unfolded as families waited to board flight EZY2122 to London Luton.

She was on holiday with her husband Johnnie, 64, her 16-year-old son Harry and 13-year-old daughter Violet.

This photograph appears to show the man, believed to be a special assistance provider at Nice Airport, punching a passenger in the face

Arabella Arkwright was at the airport and took the photograph of the man in the white polo shirt (pictured) appearing to punch the British passenger

Mrs Arkwright, a businesswoman from Warwickshire, said passengers were becoming more frustrated after being told the 11am flight was delayed.

Almost 12 hours later, a British father in his 'late 20s' was holding his baby and told an airport worker he had had a 'terrible day'.

Mrs Arkwright, who got finally got home at 4am this morning, said: 'The man was British, it looked like he was in his late 20s and was telling the worker that he had had a terrible day.

'He was standing there holding his nine-month-old baby. He didn't want to have a fight.

'The worker just smirked at him and he was the other side of the glass barrier so he reached over to hit him.

'It was one hell of a punch. It was a loud whack and there was no provocation.

'Everyone was having the most appalling day and then, all of a sudden, the man holding a baby gets whacked.

'My 64-year-old husband pulled the worker back which was very brave and unlike him but he was so enraged by what had happened.'

Mrs Arkwright said the man was holding his baby while his wife vented their frustration at the lack of baby food and seats to airport employees.

She said the alleged attacker, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, repeatedly smiled at the family before lunging at the father.

'He said nothing, smirked, showed no interest or concern for the family,' she recalled.

'Everyone was appalled. The man had a great big mark on his left eye when he finally got on the plane and everyone applauded him.'

EasyJet said passengers were given regular updates and refreshment vouchers but many claimed no one told them why their flight was delayed

EasyJet passengers were forced to wait at Nice Airport in France (pictured) after their flight was delayed

Police in Nice today confirmed that they had received a call about the incident, and that it was being investigated.

A police source said: 'We have seen the photograph and will be examining video footage in the airport terminal.'

Another passenger, called Carl, told MailOnline that the man was showing his concern regarding all of the people who were on the delayed flight.

He said: 'The gentlemen that was physically assaulted was showing his concern regarding all passengers that were told they were about to board and forced to the end of a corridor which was not air conditioned and fairly confined with all the passengers, elderly, children and families.

'People were feeling sick and unwell being kept in such conditions, to which he approached the desk to complain.

'Obviously things got out of hand and the airport staff employee lashed out and struck the man who was holding a child.

'From what I could overhear, the staff member was showing no sympathy or concern for all of us that have been suffering for such a long period of time.

'The gentleman holding the baby was not arrested, but taken away for a private conversation.'

An easyJet spokesperson said the airport employee does not work for the airline.

He is believed to work for French company Samsic which is contracted by Nice Airport to provide employees who help disabled passengers, including those in wheelchairs.

EasyJet said the flight was delayed due to a 'technical issue with the aircraft' and that a replacement jet and crew were being sent from London Gatwick.

But Mrs Arkwright claims their day from hell began when the plane they were in pulled away while a piece of equipment was still attached.

EasyJet said the flight was delayed due to a 'technical issue with the aircraft' and that a replacement jet and crew were being sent from London Gatwick (file photo of Nice Airport)

She said the passengers were offered a four euro voucher for food before being taken back into the terminal where their wait began.

Mrs Arkwright said: 'It was utter chaos at the terminal. There were bags all over the place, everyone was frustrated and we had no idea what was going on.

'Children were crying, they were exhausted, people were having to stand up for hours. I asked to speak to someone but they said no one was available.'

An easyJet spokesperson said passengers were given regular updates and refreshment vouchers but Mrs Ark claimed no one told them why their flight was delayed - nor when they might be able to fly home.

The airline's spokesperson said: 'EasyJet is very concerned to see this picture and can confirm the person in the photo is not an easyJet member of staff nor do they work for easyJet's ground handling agents in Nice.

'We are urgently taking this up with Nice Airport and their special assistance provider Samsic who we understand the person photographed works for.

'EasyJet is sorry that flight EZY2122 from Nice to London Luton on 29 July was delayed departing Nice.

'This was due to a technical issue with the aircraft and a replacement aircraft and crew were sent from London Gatwick to operate the flight.

'Passengers were provided with updates and refreshment vouchers during this time and the flight landed in London Luton on Saturday night.

'The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is always easyJet's highest priority.

EasyJet sincerely apologises for the delay and thanks passengers for their patience.'
Physics student Islam Mitat was a bright young woman with the world at her feet.

Aged 20, the pretty, fashion-obsessed brunette had been married for three months when her British husband, Ahmed, told her that he had a surprise for her.

He said he was applying for papers that would allow her to live in the UK.

Mitat was overjoyed. She couldnt wait to start a new life with 25-year-old Ahmed, the polite, charming businessman shed met on a dating website and who had visited her home in Morocco to ask her parents for her hand in marriage.

Islam Mitat, 23, has revealed the plight of teenage brides inside an ISIS 'Little Britain'

First, her husband explained, they would have to move to Turkey, where he had a new job that would keep things ticking over while they waited for the documents to arrive.

But what Mitat thought was her happy ever after turned out to be a journey into hell. Today, three years later, she is living in fear of her life.

There was no job. Nor was there any plan for the young couple to come to Britain. It was all a lie. Instead, Ahmed Khalil, who grew up near London, forced Mitat to accompany him to Syria, to the centre of the so-called Isis caliphate  a medieval-style religious state run by the terror group  where he became a jihadist fighter.

Terrified and cut off from her friends and family, Mitat had no choice but to set up home alongside other Isis brides, many of them British, including the notorious Terror Twins from Manchester, the White Widow from Kent, and the schoolgirl runaways from Bethnal Green, East London.

When Ahmed was killed in battle, Mitat was forced to marry twice more, giving birth to two children in the jihadi heartland. Food was scarce; there was often no electricity or water; outside, shed see the mutilated bodies of traitors strung up in the town square.

Miraculously, Mitat, whos now 23, managed to escape and is now caring for her children in a safe house in northern Syria. This week, she found the courage to speak to a Sunday Times reporter about what shes been through, in the hope of helping British intelligence officials and getting herself and her children to safety in the UK.

Her first-hand stories of life under Isis make for chilling reading  our first glimpse of the day-to-day reality of life in the terror state.

From taking tea with the most wanted female terrorist in the world to brutal sex slavery in the family home, here is Mitats horrifying account 

Mitat's husband forcibly took his new wife to a so-called Isis 'caliphate' in Syria. Terror twins' Zahra (right) and Salma (left) Halane, from Manchester, were Islam Mitat's neighbours in Syria

TRICKED INTO LEAVING HOME

The daughter of a member of the Moroccan security services, Mitat grew up in Oujda in north-east Morocco. She dreamed of a career as a fashion designer and wanted to see the world, so went online to find a husband who would help her escape her drab existence.

She met Ahmed Khalil, who was born in Afghanistan but was a British citizen living in London, on Muslima.com, a marriage website used by 4.5 million Muslims worldwide. After a few late-night Skype conversations, Ahmed, accompanied by a woman he claimed was his sister, travelled to Morocco to meet Mitats family. He even had with him bank statements to prove his intentions were serious.

He was a normal person, Mitat told the Sunday Times. I liked him. He was nice. She said he seemed kind and wasnt strict like other Muslim men, even allowing her to continue wearing her trendy dresses, jeans and T-shirts (though this wasnt to last).

In August 2014, he announced the plan to move to Turkey.

He told me: I have a surprise for you, but I will give it to you in Turkey, she explains.

On arrival in Istanbul, she was hustled onto another flight, to Gaziantep, on the border with Syria, and driven to a house filled with women and children. It was only there, by talking to the other women, that she learned Ahmeds real plans.

I told him, all our time together is just lies, she says. I just wanted to have a normal life with my husband and my kids.

But Ahmed told her: You are my wife and you have to obey me.

She decided to ask a border officer for help, but that chance never came as Ahmed made her enter the country illegally. She found herself running as bullets fired by Turkish border guards whistled past her ears.

Bethnal Green schoolgirls, Kadiza Sultana, Amira Base and Shamima Begum, were also regular visitors to their home

LODGING WITH TERROR TWINS

The couple settled in a guesthouse in the town of Jarablus in Syria, before moving into a house with Ahmeds brother, Walid, who was also a jihadi fighter, and his wife Salma, who spent much of her time with her sister, Zahra.

Salma and Zahra Halane are better known in Britain as the Terror Twins  academically-gifted sisters from Manchester who fled their family home in June 2014, aged just 16, having stolen 840 from their father.

In December 2013, Salma had been caught watching Isis propaganda at their sixth-form college, including images of a suicide vest and a boy with a machine-gun.

On the outside, though, they were ordinary teenagers. With 28 GCSEs between them, they had dreamed of becoming doctors, before being brainwashed online.

THE 'TERROR TWINS' In 2015 16-year-old 'terror twins' Zahra and Salma Halane from Whalley Range in Manchester moved to Syria to become jihadi brides - reportedly recruited by Raphael Hostey, who grew up a mile away and was killed last year. It is unclear whether they are still alive. Since arriving, they sent threatening messages to their brothers in UK. The sisters were married to ISIS fighters but both men have died in battle. Advertisement

The twins flew from Manchester to Turkey, where they posed with other runaways as a family on holiday, and later crossed the Syrian border. On arrival, one of them declared: I am 16 years old and among the warriors of Isis.

To Mitat, though, they were strangers. Then I realised these are the famous people  they are on the news, she said.

Salma and Zahra taught Mitat  who had now been forced by Ahmed to abandon her modern clothes and wear a black polyester face veil  to speak English and helped her settle in.

Mitat recalls how their mother, Somali-born Khadra Jama, came to the house in November 2014 to try to convince her daughters to return. She was arrested by Isis, who locked her in prison for 40 days, before sending her home.

Mitat says the twins  now hardened terrorists toting Kalashnikov rifles  have no plans to leave. They dont look anything like the pictures you have of them, she says. Theyve changed too much.

MY NEW LIFE IN LITTLE BRITAIN

But the Halane sisters were far from the only British women living under Isis. Mitat says her daily life there was like a Little Britain, where UK-born fighters and jihadi brides would pop in for tea and exchange pleasantries, or share their delight in seeing their names and photographs in the news.

Her next-door neighbours were London-born Muslim convert Grace Dare and her Swedish husband, known as Abu Bakr.

Grace, who converted to Islam at the age of 18 and travelled to Syria in 2014, appeared in a Channel 4 documentary last year extolling the virtues of her newfound religion. Im not oppressed. Islam has made me free, she declared.

Grace is the mother of four-year-old Isa  nicknamed Jihadi Junior after he was seen detonating a car bomb, killing four people, in a video uploaded to the internet last year. Wearing military fatigues, he also featured in a chilling execution video, saying: We are going to kill the kaffir [non-believers] over there. Mitat recalls Isa playing in her living room.

Kadiza, died in an airstrike last year at the age of 17. Aqsa Mahmood, a Scottish-Pakistani from Glasgow, lived in an apartment block adjacent

Sally Jones, a former punk singer from Kent  now known as the White Widow and one of the most wanted terrorists in the world  would come round for cups of tea.

Regular visitors, too, were the three straight A schoolgirls from Bethnal Green, in East London, who were photographed walking through Gatwick Airport in 2015, on their way to join Isis. One, Kadiza Sultana, whose wedding to a Swedish-Somali fighter Mitat attended, was killed in an air strike last year, aged just 17.

In an adjacent apartment block was Aqsa Mahmood, a Scottish-Pakistani from Glasgow, along with two extended British families whod all given up their lives in the UK for a spartan and often perilous existence in the caliphate.

They all knew each other, Mitat says. They all talked the whole time on their phones. As the region came under attack from anti-Isis forces, and the paradise many jihadi brides had envisaged began to crumble, the British-born women began to bicker  arguing over who was the most devout, or fighting over clothes.

I FEARED FOR THE SEX SLAVES

The Isis fighters believe it is their right to have two or more wives. Mitat says Salma Halane, one of the Manchester twins, clashed with her husband over his desire for a second wife.

Worse, she discovered that Yazidi women  from a Kurdish religious minority who were rounded up by Isis in Iraq  were being held as sex slaves and brutally raped by their captors.

One day, I saw a Yazidi woman and her son being beaten by her owner in Salma and Zahras house, she explains. I went to her when he left and said: Why is your husband beating you?

She told me: He is not my husband. Im a slave. I didnt even know what that meant.

White Widow Sally Jones, a 49-year-old mother-of-two from Kent, was another regular visitor

Mitat tried to help the woman, Waheida, whod been captured when Isis invaded her home town of Sinjar. The two of them became close friends.

I tried to buy her, but her owner said she cost 3,800, Mitat says. I only had 1,500. He sold her to someone else.

THE WHITE WIDOW Friends of Sally Jones, the Raqqa-based jihadi bride and terrorist recruitment officer, said is desperate to come home after her husband Junaid Hussain was killed in a drone strike. The Kent mother, 49, who took her son to Syria, was put on the Pentagon's kill list because the couple were responsible for planning a dozen terror plots. The failed punk rocker's extremist husband was a computer hacker from Birmingham. He was wiped out by an American drone strike in Raqqa in 2015. One foiled plot hatched by the pair involved kidnapping a former US soldier and beheading him on camera. Another plan was to be carried out by a teenager shooting at hundreds of people at a nightclub or concert. Jones, 45, who once played in a female punk band, ran away from her home in Chatham, Kent, to wage jihad with her toyboy husband in Raqqa, Syria, the terror group's de facto capital. It is believed that Jones recruited dozens of women to ISIS via social media before her accounts were shut down. Advertisement

Up to 7,000 Yazidi women are thought to have been abducted by Isis. Before being sold into slavery, they were subjected to brutal physical examinations to see whether or not they were virgins, and women found to be pregnant were forced to abort their babies.

They were sold via adverts on Facebook and WhatsApp, where buyers watch videos of the women before agreeing a price.

Mitat says the wives hated the sex slaves, while the fighters thought they were a bit of fun  to be played with and used.

Nasser Muthana, a Cardiff medical student who fled to Syria in 2013, was known to own one.

WIDOWED AND TERRIFIED

Two months after arriving in Syria, in October 2014, Mitats husband was killed in battle. Six months later, she gave birth to Abdullah, their son.

He was born by Caesarean section  an extremely risky procedure in the basic hospitals run by Isis. It was only thanks to the kindness of a British nurse that Mitat regained her strength.

Banned from talking to ordinary Syrians, she was forced to move in with Salma, her sister-in-law. Life was unimaginably tough as the town descended into a war zone. She saw mutilated bodies hung up in the town square.

It was hard to see someone next to you killed. Blood and all of this  it was terrible, Mitat says.

It was certainly no place to bring up a child. Today, aged two, Abdullah is prone to panic attacks. When he hears a plane, he runs to the bathroom to hide, she says.

Isis doesnt permit women to be unmarried, so Mitat was forced to wed a German-Afghan fighter who banned her from leaving the house. She managed to convince the authorities to let them divorce, but couldnt stay single for long.

A CCTV image of British teenagers Amira Abase, Kadiza Sultana and Shamima Begum walking with luggage at Gatwick Airport

Last year, she married again, this time to an Indian-Australian fighter, with whom she had a baby, Maria, now 10 months.

Food was hard to come by and power cuts grew longer. Its like youre dead  its not life, says Mitat. She says she was always scared, always hearing bombs.

FINALLY, A DEATH DEFYING ESCAPE

Mitats new husband was sent by Isis to defend a nearby town, and died during a battle. Finally, she saw a chance to escape.

Keeping her husbands death a secret, she sold her possessions and bought a car. She began talking about leaving her home for another Isis stronghold further east  a move that was being made by many foreigners who had flocked to Syria.

In March this year, with the help of a few trusted neighbours, she fled along with her Yazidi friend Waheida. Disguised as members of her neighbours family, going to a wedding, the women and children took a taxi out of the city.

Miraculously, they passed the Isis checkpoints without a second glance from the guards. After that came fields laced with mines: Mitat paid people-smugglers the remainder of her savings to escort them all across, knowing that any mistake could kill them.

Finally, they reached the lines of the anti-Isis troops.

BETHNAL GREEN SCHOOL GIRLS Kadiza was just 16 when she reached Syria in February 2015 after flying from Gatwick to Turkey with her 15-year-old friends Shamima Begum and Amira Abase. The pupils from Bethnal Green Academy in East London, who were radicalised by ISIS propaganda on the internet, initially embraced their new life and agreed to marry jihadi fighters. But Kadiza became disillusioned with life in the terror group's de-facto capital of Raqqa after her new husband died and told her family she was desperate to get back to Britain. Her sister Halima Khanom said Kadiza had been killed by a Russian airstrike in May last year. The three girls, who were all straight A students, were pictured by airport cameras before getting into a car in Turkey to cross the border into Syria. They were unprepared for the reality of life in a war zone and had little experience of living permanently veiled and under the strict regime. Little is known about Begum and Abase's wellbeing. Advertisement

I was so happy, says Mitat. Imagine. For three years, it was dark, like in a cave. Now its light.

She says shes been co-operating with British intelligence since her escape in the hope that her ex-husbands nationality may mean the family can get UK passports.

Whatever happens next, she says, nothing will ever be the same because my life is destroyed.

And while Mitat has escaped, in barbaric Little Britain, thousands more like her continue to fight for their lives.
Pictured: Baroness Scotland. One of her close allies has been stripped of a second knighthood following a Mail on Sunday investigation

Baroness Scotland was under renewed pressure last night after one of her close allies was stripped of a second knighthood following a Mail on Sunday investigation.

Anthony Bailey, a PR adviser, received the honour from Antigua in November 2014 in a ceremony attended by the Baroness  his dear friend and now the political head of the Commonwealth.

But Bailey was told last week by the islands Governor-General, Sir Rodney Williams, that the honour had been annulled due to irregularities.

At the time of the investiture, Lady Scotland was a prominent member of an obscure Catholic order led by Bailey, which promised the island 1.1 million in charitable donations.

Members of the order later received Antiguan knighthoods.

It was during this period that Lady Scotland was seeking support from Caribbean countries for her bid to become Commonwealth Secretary General. Our investigation found members of the religious order, the Sacred Military Constantinian Order of Saint George, made an astonishing 21 visits to the region in the months before Lady Scotland eventually took office.

Not only did the orders members receive honours, but top politicians in at least five island nations, which all had a vote in Lady Scotlands election, were given knighthoods or medals from the order in return.

It led to claims that Lady Scotland, a former Labour Attorney General, was using the Order in an opportunistic attempt to influence government leaders  and earned her the nickname Baroness Brazen. One politician claimed she was involved in an utterly corrupt process.

Lady Scotland categorically denied the allegations.

The controversy surrounding her administration shows no sign of abating. Earlier this year she complained about a series of Mail on Sunday and Daily Mail articles accusing her of bypassing Commonwealth rules on hiring consultancy firms and excessive spending. But the Independent Press Standards Organisation (IPSO) ruled against her  a decision that has led to speculation about her future. The resulting implications of her continuing in office for much longer are now of active interest in a growing number of Commonwealth capitals, reported the influential news website Caribbean News Now!

The Mail on Sunday has learned that an unofficial group calling itself Friends Of The Commonwealth, whose members are said to include diplomats and ex-members of Lady Scotlands senior team, has asked the Commonwealth board of governors to call an extraordinary meeting to discuss her position. We would hope that swift measures are taken for the Commonwealth Secretariat to rid itself of the scam-tainted reputation that has befallen upon it in the last one year, said the group in an email to the boards executive committee.

Those honoured by the Constantinian Order while Lady Scotland was a senior member included the Prime Minister and President of Dominica, who later officially nominated her as their countrys candidate for Secretary General. She has lived in Dominica, but only until she was two.

Pictured: Sir Rodney WIlliams 'knights' Anthony Bailey at a ceremony attended by Baroness Scotland

On her website, Lady Scotland claimed credit for introducing the Constantinian Order to Antigua but she has denied she was party to the granting of a knighthood to Anthony Bailey or anyone else. In a statement last year, Lady Scotlands spokesman said she was a member of the order for a decade but quit before she became Commonwealth Secretary General in April last year.

Sir Rodney launched his review after The MoS revealed that Lady Scotland was entangled in a row over Bailey using his title to masquerade as a knight in the UK. The honour is not bestowed by the Queen and the Palace ordered him to desist.

Baileys Antiguan knighthood has been revoked with immediate effect and he has been ordered to return his insignia. A knighthood given to Bailey by another Caribbean nation, Grenada, was revoked last year.

One of those also honoured by Antigua was Bulgarian businessman Spas Roussev. His spokesman said he was approached and offered an Antiguan honour in exchange for supporting local charitable projects. However, Mr Roussev had questions about the arrangement from the start, believing it to be irregular.

The Constantinian Order has influential and wealthy backers at home and abroad, including British MPs and the Archbishop of Westminster. Baroness Scotland was invested into the order in 2003.

In June 2015, at the height of her campaign to become Secretary General, she was promoted to the rank of vice-delegate, before stepping down in April last year.

Lady Scotland has insisted that she did not arrange for Bailey to meet Grenadas Prime Minister, Dr Keith Mitchell, who knighted him. But last October Dr Mitchell insisted she did introduce them, and that she was at the meeting when honours were discussed.

Last night Bailey said he was assured by the Governor-General that the decision to revoke his knighthood was due to an administrative and legal error on the part of the Antiguan government.

A Commonwealth spokesman said: Secretary-General Scotland is focused on working to deliver her reform agenda on which she was voted in unanimously by the then 53 member states as a servant of the 2.4 billion citizens of the Commonwealth.

Her achievements to date have won support and praise from Commonwealth leaders who have lauded them as innovative, progressive and game-changing.
President Trump furiously tweeted that China could 'easily' solve problems with North Korea but the country does nothing to help the United States except 'talk'.

Trump took to Twitter on Saturday night to call out 'foolish' past American leaders who he believes allowed China to make enormous profits in trade while not helping with North Korea.

Trump added that China could 'easily' solve the growing problem with the country, but instead all China does is 'talk'.

The tweets were a response to Kim Jong-Un's successful launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Friday, causing experts to warn leaders the country can now hit major American cities.

Hours later, the U.S. then flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force after the North Korean missile tests, the Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.

Trump took to Twitter on Saturday night to call out 'foolish' past American leaders who he believes allowed China to make enormous profits in trade while they didn't help with the growing problem of North Korea

Trump wrote that China could 'easily' solve the North Korea problem if past American leaders insisted on making them help and indicated he would no longer allow the behavior to continue

North Korea launched a missile (pictured) that came 'threateningly' close to Japan on Friday night, which has prompted concern from US and Japan leaders

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the missile test launch on Friday night, which was personally supervised by Kim.

The missile launch was intended as a 'stern warning' that the United States would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

The test was also aimed at confirming the maximum range and other technical aspects of the missile it says was capable of delivering a 'large-sized, heavy nuclear warhead.'

Had it been fired at a standard trajectory, the rocket could have reached Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago and would have even had New York and Boston within its sights, according to analysts.

The American B-1B flight, conducted on Saturday, was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the 'Hwansong-14' rocket, the U.S. statement said.

The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

In response to the North Korea's ICBM launch, the U.S. then flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force

The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise

'If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing,' according to Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy

The American B-1B flight was in direct response to the missile test on Friday and the previous July 3 launch of the 'Hwansong-14' rocket, the U.S. statement said

'North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability,' Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said in the statement.

'If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing'.

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's 'launch activities that run counter to Security Council resolutions and the common wishes of the international community.'

A foreign ministry statement added: 'At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate, to jointly protect regional peace and stability.'

Trump blasted China on Saturday night and tweeted: 'I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...'

'...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!' he said in a subsequent tweet.

Chinese President Xi Jinping inspects troops at a parade on June 1. China has urged all countries to act with caution to 'prevent tensions from continuing to escalate'

Trump, who railed against the huge U.S. trade imbalance with China throughout his 2016 election campaign, has been considering imposing broad tariffs on steel imports. These would be partly aimed at pushing China, considered the source of major global oversupply, to shutter excess steelmaking capacity.

The launch comes less than a month after the North conducted its first ICBM test in defiance of years of efforts led by the United States, South Korea and Japan to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Soldiers march during the parade on Sunday. Trump insists that China could 'easily' solve the growing problem with North Korea

Trump's evening thoughts came hours after the bombshell news that his new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, took five days to visit his newborn son at the hospital while going through a nasty divorce with his wife.

Critics of the president have claimed that he uses Twitter as a distraction in order to bury bad news.

In other tweets Saturday, Trump expressed dissatisfaction with Republican senators and their failed effort to repeal and replace Barack Obama's health care law.

He said that unless they are 'total quitters,' the effort isn't dead and concludes: 'Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!'

Soldiers take part in a flag-raising ceremony. President Jinping inspected troops, armoured vehicles and conventional and nuclear missiles

Trump labeled the Republican lawmakers as 'fools' for failing to pass the bill that would have repealed Obamacare.

He tweeted: 'Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the [Republican] Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!'

Trump was referring to the 60-vote threshold that is needed in the Senate to override a filibuster whenever discussion came up for a bill.
Its residents are renowned for their devotion to Great Britain, from painting union flags on the roofs of their houses to voting overwhelmingly to remain a UK overseas territory.

But even the patriotic citizens of the Falkland Islands say they can see no possible benefits to Brexit.

Rather than enjoying a proud independent future outside the European Union, its government says it will be left impoverished without its biggest markets for fish and wool as well of millions of euros in development money.

Roger Edwards, who served with the SAS in the Falklands war and is now a member of the islands legislative council, told the House of Lords earlier this month: We could sell all our fish into the United States, but currently the price in the United States is about half of what it is in Europe, so it would make the whole shebang uneconomical.

Even the patriotic citizens of the Falkland Islands say they can see no possible benefits to Brexit (file picture)

We have even looked at China but we discovered that China, for our wool exports, has an import tariff that is something in the order of between 50 per cent and 80 per cent.

Do we see any benefits of Brexit? Not really. At the moment, we have not been able to identify any benefits.

In a detailed briefing for peers on the EU select committee, the Falklands government states that 80 per cent of its exports go to countries in the trading bloc, despite their distance from the South Atlantic.

Fishing is its main industry and every year it exports 120m of fish to the EU, most to Spain, while 72 per cent of its wool goes to Italy, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.

If tariffs were imposed, it would not only devastate the Falklands exports but also damage the governments tax revenue and so hit public services.

The only realistic outcome for the sustainability of the Falkland Islands economy is a free trade agreement, the written submission states.

Residents also enjoy visa-free travel to the continent, and fear it may cause issues for business if travellers had to wait for applications to be processed before they could visit the EU.

And the Falklands even fear that Brexit may lead to Argentina gaining more support for its continuing claim over the islands, 35 years after its invasion.

With the UK being a full member of the European Union and a signatory to the Treaty of Rome, all of the rest of Europe is obliged to recognise and accept that the UK OTs are a part of the UK, Mr Edwards told peers.

Its government says it will be left impoverished without its biggest markets for fish (pictured) and wool as well of millions of euros in development money

Once the UK is no longer a member state or a signatory to the Treaty of Rome, the same obligations do not apply. We may well lose the support of the rest of Europe, and may well see Spain and possibly other members of Europe give greater support to Argentina over its mistaken and illegal claim to the Falkland Islands.

Other British overseas territories are concerned that they will be soon cut off from EU aid cash.

The volcanic Caribbean island of Monserrat says it will be left with a 20m black hole in its budget over the next few years and as of 2019, we are unaware of who will fill that gap.

Pitcairn, the tiny British colony famously settled by mutineers from HMS Bounty, also receives money from the EU and relies on agreements with France to access ports and hospitals in its overseas territories.

Tristan da Cunha, the most remote settlement on the planet, fears it will lose tariff-free export of its lobsters to high-end restaurants in Paris and Berlin.

The Turks and Caicos islands have benefited greatly over the years from EU funding, peers were told, including Euro 6 million to repair homes damaged by a devastating hurricane in 2008.

We need to ascertain if, post Brexit, DFID will fill that gap, Premier Sharlene Cartwright-Robinson said.

St Helena, the rocky South Atlantic outcrop that became notorious for a 285m UK taxpayer-funded airport that was deemed too windy for planes, told the House of Lords: St Helena Government recognizes that the consequences of the UKs decision to leave the EU are uncertain but wishes to maintain, as much as possible, the current benefits associated with the UKs membership of the EU. We wish to maintain economic and financial support.

Where such support will no longer be available from the EU we would wish the UK to fill the void such that we will retain the benefits both in the transitional period and immediately thereafter, maintaining alignment with EU policy makers.
The Rev Martyn Neale (pictured), 60, was found dead at his rectory in the village of Hawley, Hampshire

A senior Church of England vicar who was being investigated by police has died after unconfirmed reports that he set fire to himself.

The Rev Martyn Neale, 60, a member of the General Synod, was found dead at his rectory in the village of Hawley, Hampshire, on Tuesday. Friends described Father Neale, who was not married and lived alone, as a quietly-spoken but caring priest who had worked as the vicar for Hawley, in the Diocese of Guildford, for 20 years.

The diocese said he had been suspended as a consequence of an ongoing police investigation.

Father Neale became a member of the Churchs parliament, the General Synod, earlier this year and recently attended his first meeting in York. A prominent traditionalist, he was a council member of the pressure group Forward in Faith, which opposes women priests.

Two weeks ago his congregation at Holy Trinity was told that he had been suspended pending the outcome of the police inquiry, but no details were given.

He was made a canon of Guildford Cathedral in 2015. The diocese said yesterday: We were very sorry to be informed by police of the death of a man at the rectory in Hawley, believed to be Father Martyn Neale.

Hampshire police said the death was not being treated as suspicious and a file was being prepared for the coroner.
Record numbers of criminals had their jail terms increased last year after protests from their victims at soft sentences, the Government has disclosed.

Nearly 150 offenders, including a murderer, were given harsher punishments under a scheme allowing the victims and public to challenge leniency from judges.

After case reviews, some found guilty of crimes as serious as arson and child neglect were jailed after originally being given community sentences.

Record numbers of criminals had their jail terms increased last year after protests from their victims at soft sentences, the Government has disclosed (file picture)

Attorney General Jeremy Wright last night hailed the success of the Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme, claiming it was helping more crime victims and their families than ever before to get justice.

He said: The scheme allows victims of crime, their families and the public to challenge sentences that they believe are too low, and last year we saw a record number of sentences increased.

Mr Wright said that although in the vast majority of cases judges got sentences right, the scheme enabled him and Solicitor General Robert Buckland to independently review them. Where there may have been an error, they could then ask the Court of Appeal to reconsider the sentence.

In 2016, they referred 190 cases to the court, leading to 141 sentences being toughened  an increase of nearly 40 per cent on the previous years figure.

A rapist and an attempted murder convict had their original punishments replaced with life sentences and can now only be released with permission from the Parole Board.

Seventeen sex offenders who originally avoided jail terms are now behind bars. Other lenient jail terms extended last year after protests included 16 cases of robbery, 11 relating to firearms, three blackmail convictions and six kidnaps.

The Unduly Lenient Sentence scheme currently includes the most serious cases which go before crown courts in England and Wales such as murder, manslaughter and rape.

Next month it is being extended to include a raft of terror-related offences including supporting extremist organisations, encouraging acts of terror or failing to disclose information about a terrorist attack. The move aims to give terror victims the right to seek redress if they feel perpetrators have been let off too lightly. The appeal scheme was introduced after the public outcry over the 1986 Ealing vicarage rape case where one of defendants received a longer sentence for burglary than two got for the sex attack.

However, claims of the schemes success came days after it emerged that prisons were facing record levels of violence and assaults on guards and inmates.

The performance of almost one in two prisons in England and Wales was considered of concern, or of serious concern, in the latest figures. There were 7,159 assaults on prison staff in the year to the end of March  a rise of 32 per cent on last year, the Ministry of Justice said.

The figures led to Justice Secretary David Lidington raising concerns that prisons were not safe and secure.
A brawl has erupted with as many as 20 people after two young women got into a heated discussion on a busy street.

Blood covered the footpath outside a Melbourne apartment block as police used pepper spray to subdue the fight early Sunday morning.

A witness told the Herald Sun they believed the men, aged in their 20s or late teens, were fighting over a girl, with some men allegedly kicking a girl who was on the ground.

'I heard female voices screaming and panicking, using obscene language,' Dom Galante said.

A brawl has erupted with as many as 20 people after two young women got into a heated discussion on a busy street

Blood covered the footpath outside a Melbourne apartment block as police used pepper spray to subdue the fight early Sunday morning

At least one man was handcuffed and taken away by police from the scene outside the Main Point apartments in Southbank. Three men in total have since been arrested.

It is believed several other men fled the scene down Clarendon Street before they could be questioned.

A woman was being treated by paramedics with large amounts of blood on her dress and pepper spray in her eyes, which was deployed by police to stop the altercation.

Broken glasses and smashed bottles covered the area on City Road.

Police are collecting witness statements and CCTV footage from surrounding businesses.
Donald Trump is poised to order a military strike against North Korea within the next year after the communist state said it had successfully fired a ballistic missile capable of hitting the US mainland.

Senior military sources in Washington DC told The Mail on Sunday that Pentagon officials have laid out plans to obliterate a nuclear weapons facility operating deep within a mountain in the rogue state.

Donald Trump is poised to order a military strike against North Korea within the next year. The missile launched by North Korea could reach New York

The move, which could spark retaliation attacks from dictator Kim Jong-Un, would be a major step towards all-out war to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. It comes after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 6,500 miles on Friday night.

The Pentagon said the missile flew about 2,300 miles almost straight up before plunging into the sea off Japan about 620 miles from its launch site.

Experts in the US said the missile could have hit Chicago or even New York if it had been launched on a flatter trajectory.

Kim Jong-Un claimed the whole of the US could be hit at any place and time.

America responded with live firing exercises by US troops in South Korea yesterday. President Trump vowed to take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the US and its allies.
A Queensland man was charged after he allegedly crashed into a parked car while drink driving at more than six times the legal alcohol limit during a mid-morning cruise.

Police believe the 34-year-old man was driving his four-wheel-drive on Aegean Street, Waterford West, south of Brisbane, when he crashed into a parked car.

The Ormeau man is believed to have continued driving along Hadlow Street before he crashed his car into a tree at an intersection at about 10am Saturday morning.

A 34-year-old man was charged for driving more than six times over legal limit (stock photo)

The man crashed into a parked car and tree in Brisbane's south before a stranger took his keys and will face Beenleigh Magistrates Court (pictured) August 18

Queensland Police Services said a member of the public saw the crashes and then took the keys from the man's car and waited for police.

The 34-year-old man was charged with one count of driving under the influence after blowing a breath alcohol reading of .306 per cent.

He is expected to appear at the Beenleigh Magistrates Court on August 18.
Former Kerobokan inmate Shaun Davidson is now auctioning off his story to the highest bidder, taunting police with yet another Facebook post.

The Bali prison escapee has reached out to the media for those interested in his 'first phone interview' since tunnelling out of the notorious jail.

'Ok Reporters, Correspondents, and Broadcast News Analysts if you would like to be considered for my first telephone interview while on the run please email me at contact.sr1davidson@gmail.com with these details,' the post reads.

'1. The amount your offering $$ (payment would be paid to a secondary party and will be a payment to facilitate the phonecall and not a payment for the interview)

'2. Your name and the news company you are from.

'3. A list of all questions that you may want to ask during the interview (As I will not answer anything that has not had prior approval) and if there is an offer i like or is close i will email you back with conditions or counter offer.'

The Australian criminal, 33, tunnelled out of the prison with three other inmates in mid-June and has been on the run since.

Shaun Davidson is now auctioning off his story to the highest bidder, taunting police with yet another Facebook post

Davidson, 33, (pictured) climbed through sewage pipe mid June escaping overcrowded prison

The Bali prison escapee has reached out to the media for those interested in his 'first phone interview' since tunnelling out of Kerobokan jail

Davidson claims the payment will be to set up the interview rather than for his own benefit, but that is unlikely to matter to the Proceeds of Crime act and the Australian Federal Police.

The act became active in 2003 and states it has the power to 'confiscate the proceeds of crime against foreign law or the proceeds of crime against State law.'

'The Act also provides a scheme that allows confiscated funds to be given back to the Australian community in an endeavour to prevent and reduce the harmful effects of crime in Australia.'

The prison escapee has continued his taunt spree of law enforcement ages attempting to track him by posting mock wanted posters through his Facebook page.

The wanted poster has a black and white photo of a shirtless Davidson and advertises a 'huge reward'.

Prison escapee Shaun Edward Davidson posted his own wanted posters (pictured) online

The Bali prison escapee has been on run for a month but teases police with posters (pictured)

Since escaping, Davidson has been seen messaging police, cheekily asking them if they're close to finding him yet (pictured)

A missing persons poster was posted to Facebook which has a photo of Davidson and says his last known location was Kerobokan Prison.

His current possible location is 'not sure but we're close' - a reference to what Balinese authorities told media earlier this month.

The Perth man also messaged Interpol, the world's largest police organisation, asking them if they were close to catching him.

'Hey hows [sic] it going just wondering when you say close how close are you really?' Davidson sent to Interpol.

The escapee took to Facebook a week ago to display he had been a 'free man' for '30 full days'.

'I've left fans amazed police and governments dazed who wouldv thought I'd be ontop with my cheeky smarta** ways,' Davidson posted.

Davidson, and three other men, escaped Kerobokan Prison through a tunnel (pictured)

Two of the men were caught days later after escaping through the tunnel (pictured) but Davidson remains on the run

The criminal used Facebook to check in to different locations, teasing police (pictured)

Since escaping Kerobokan Prison (pictured) the escapee said wants to make light of his messy situation

The criminal said he wasn't taunting police and was instead 'having some fun and a laugh' with his life.

'I'm living my life just trying to make the best out of a bad situation,' Davidson posted.

Davidson escaped the Bali prison, the same jail Schapelle Corby spent nine years, through a 15 metre sewage tunnel which ended just outside the jail walls.

'I'm living my life just trying to make the best out of a bad situation,' Davidson posted Facebook

Davidson (pictured) spent four hours digging his way out of jail in the pouring rain in Bali

Davidson (top left, pictured with the three other escapees) had two months and 15 days left to serve of his sentence for immigration offences after using another man's passport

The escapees spent four hours in heavy rain using a bucket to scoop water out of the tunnel before crawling out.

Two of the escapees were caught days later in East Timor while Davidson remains on the run.

Davidson had two months and 15 days left to serve of his sentence for immigration offences after he was arrested in April 2016 for using another man's passport.
A homeless man was found dead after getting his head stuck in a donation box while trying to reach the items inside.

The unknown man in his 30s was cut free from the charity donation box after people in a South Los Angeles neighborhood noticed his motionless body Friday morning.

His head reportedly got caught in a small opening and paramedics tried to cut him out of the steel structure for 30 minutes, but it was too late by the time he was freed.

Locals said they recognized the man who they had seen going to the box for clothing items and collecting bottles off the streets.

An unknown homeless man in his 30s was found dead after getting his head stuck in this donation box in South Los Angeles on Friday morning

Officials were alerted to the incident when a woman who lives near the donation box noticed a man motionless and stuck halfway inside the bin, reported NBC Los Angeles.

Shirley Williams said to the news outlet: 'His head was caught in there with his legs out.'

Another woman who didn't want to be identified said to ABC 7: 'He wasn't moving so I said, "Oh, wow. Maybe I better call 911." So that's what I did.

'So by the time paramedics came, they tried to revive and get him out, but it took like 30 minutes to get him out.

'So they had to go and get these electric saws to get him out.'

By the time medics were able to get the man out of the box and tried to revive him, it was too late, according to reports.

The man's head reportedly got caught in a small opening and paramedics tried to cut him out of the pictured structure for 30 minutes, but it was too late by the time he was freed

Residents of the neighborhood near the box on Vermont and West Colden avenues said the box is illegally placed and want it removed.

Local Jackie Love told ABC 7: 'Everywhere, clothes are pulled out of there, that could have happened to anyone, not just this man.

'I guess they were trying to help the community, but all they did was add more junk to the community.'

This type of tragic accident has happened before.

In February, a Pennsylvania woman had her arm caught in a clothing donation drop-off bin and was left dangling for more than six hours through the night.

Judith Permar, 56, of Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania, was found dead when the step stool she was using collapsed underneath her.

Pemar was fishing bags out of the bin, some of which were found littering the ground.
A family of alleged Islamic extremists are accused of planning to bring down a passenger plane in an ISIS-inspired terror attack in Australia.

Two Lebanese-Australian father and son duos are reportedly the four men arrested over the alleged plot after dramatic raids across Sydney on Saturday afternoon.

While the full extent of the alleged conspiracy is not yet known, the men may have planned to detonate a homemade bomb on a flight from Sydney to the Middle East, possibly Dubai, Seven News reported.

A kitchen mincer is believed to be among the everyday items the alleged attackers used to form a lethal device, according to the Herald Sun.

The apparatus was reportedly 'ready to go' as counter-terrorism police stormed properties across the city's west and inner-east.

There are also reports they had allegedly plotted to gas passengers aboard an aircraft in a plan orchestrated by ISIS militants in Syria, according to The Australian.

The paper was told the four, who are all related by blood and marriage, allegedly made a 'non-traditional' device designed to kill passengers with a sulphur-based gas.

Scroll down for video

Two father and son duos are reportedly the four men accused of plotting to bring down a plane departing from Sydney with a homemade bomb. Pictured, one of the men is detained by police

One of the accused is pictured with a bandaged head following his arrest on Saturday night

Australian Federal Police at the check-in at Sydney Airport on Sunday as part of heightened security measures across the country

Police standing by at Sydney Airport on Sunday following the dramatic raids on Saturday afternoon

The accused, whose names are known to Daily Mail Australia but not yet confirmed by police, were arrested in the simultaneous raids.

Australian Federal Police, ASIO and NSW Police jointly carried out the operation on Saturday in Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl.

One of the men was reportedly dragged from his Lakemba home wearing only a towel, while his father was arrested at a property in neighbouring Punchbowl.

The other father and son duo are understood to have been arrested in separate raids.

Counter terrorism police (pictured) stormed four Sydney properties and arrested four men including one man (pictured) at Surry Hills after being alerted to an alleged plot to bring down an plane with a 'bomb'

Police are seen continuing their investigations in the aftermath of the Sydney terror raids

Long queues and waits were expected following a thwarted alleged terror threat on Saturday

The counter-terror raid in Surry Hills (pictured) took place just metres from the Redfern Mosque (pictured)

One man draped in a bed sheet with a heavily-bandaged head was seen being led into an ambulance outside a Surry Hills property.

The man appeared to be distressed and bleeding from the head as he walked to a waiting ambulance, Nine News reported.

He could be heard saying 'they bashed me.' When asked by who, he answered 'police.'

When asked why he was being arrested, the man mumbled 'I don't know nothing.'

Shocked neighbours have said the family living in the property were 'perfectly nice and normal people.'

'We knew them to say hello to and they seemed nice,' said one woman, who didn't want to be identified.

The woman, who lives at the back of the property, said an elderly couple lived in the home and had adult children.

AUSTRALIAN TERROR PLOT FOILED: THE ALLEGATIONS What was the plot? The group allegedly planned to use an improvised device to bring down an aeroplane in an Islamist-inspired conspiracy. Police say they have limited information so far about the date, location or specific strategy involved. What happened during the raids? NSW and Federal Police swooped on five properties in the Sydney suburbs of Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl on Saturday afternoon and found a 'considerable' amount of material. But police won't say if they discovered an actual explosive device. Could it have happened? AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said they treated the plot as credible and there was an intention and 'quite possibly a capability' to carry it out. However, he also said there was no reason to believe security at Australian airports has been jeopardised. What happens now? The arrested men haven't yet been charged. Police say their searches at four of the properties are ongoing and could take 'many more days' as they gather enough evidence to support charges. What's changing at airports? Travellers have been told to arrive two hours earlier to make allowances for increased scrutiny. They may notice "intensified" security procedures, but some bolstered arrangements will happen behind the scenes. Travellers have also been asked to limit baggage to make things easier. Advertisement

Forensic teams (pictured) and the bomb squad attended the scene during the Surry Hills raid

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told the public not to panic and to inform police (pictured) of any suspicious activity

Police said raids took place in the suburbs of Surry Hills, Lakemba, Punchbowl, and Wiley Park

Residents living near the Surry Hills home, just metres from the Redfern Mosque, were evacuated while the bomb squad worked to remove the 'explosive device.'

One neighbour of a man arrested in Wiley Park told The Daily Telegraph the accused would nurture stray cats in the area.

'He and his brother would feed about 15 cats and when we complained that they were bringing ticks and diseases into the block, they would walk off,' they said.

Relatives of two of the accused spoke out following the arrests, saying they 'love Australia.'

The four men arrested for their alleged role in the conspiracy can be detained for up to a week while investigators comb through evidence.

A magistrate ruled police can hold the men for an 'additional period of detention' under the Crimes Act while investigations continue.

'This recognises that terrorism investigations are inherently complex and that there can be legitimate reasons for extended periods of detention for suspects in such matters,' an AFP statement said.

Airports across Australia are experiencing long queues, with frustrated travellers vented their anger on social media

Passengers waiting after long queues formed following heightened security at airports

Police on the scene in the Lakemba area following the aftermath of the Sydney terror raids which resulted in four arrests

A number of 'items of interest' were seized in the raids and searches continued on Sunday, with AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin suggesting they may take 'many more days'.

The plan involved an improvised device and was Islamist-inspired, he added.

'We've taken this threat very seriously,' Mr Colvin said.

'You should infer that we think this was credible and there was an intention, and there was quite possibly a capability as well.'

Airports across Australia are experiencing long queues after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull warned of heightened security measures across the nation.

He said the raids were a 'major joint counter-terrorism operation' and reminded the Australian people 'the threat of terrorism is very real'.

'The office of transport security has advised security screening will take longer, and travellers should arrive at terminals at least two hours before flights to allow ample time for screening,' he said on Sunday.

Travellers turned to social media posting photos of massive queues leading into customs at Sydney Airport and passengers tweeting to not underestimate the wait.

'Not sure I agree with the ''creation'' of a mass gathering ''before'' security screening -closed screening stations,' one traveller tweeted.

Police officers continue their investigation in Lakemba following raids on Saturday afternoon

Police found an 'explosive device' and part of Cleveland Street (pictured) in Surry Hills was cordoned off

'Long queues at Sydney Airport - paranoid security state in full regalia,' another wrote.

Some passengers were warning others to add an extra 30 minute travel time onto the already extended period.

'T3 Sydney airport a mess. If you are flying come very early,' another social media user wrote.

Prime Minister Turnbull reiterated the raids were aimed at stopping an alleged terror plot to 'bring down' a plane and said security screening will take longer over the coming days.

'Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be - those travelling should go about their business with confidence,' Mr Turnbull said.

Police are pictured as they continue their investigations into the terror raids on Sunday

Australian Federal Police are pictured on Sunday in the aftermath of the Sydney terror raids

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin (pictured) said details of the alleged terror plot are still emerging

'The office of transport security has advised security screening will take longer, and travellers should arrive at terminals at least two hours before flights to allow ample time for screening.

'They should limit the amount of carry-on and checked baggage, as this will help to ensure that security screening is efficient.'

Virgin Australia released a statement on the extra security.

'Passengers should arrive at least 2 hours before domestic flights and 3 hours before international flights to allow time for security screening,' the statement read.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) said for those travelling on planes to allow extra time for heightened security measures on Sunday

Australian Federal Police are seen at a property in Lakemba in Sydney's west on Sunday

Cleveland Street was cordoned off and shouting and screaming was heard as a man was led away by police

'Passengers should limit the amount of carry-on and checked baggage they travel with as this will help to ensure security screening is efficient.'

New South Wales Police confirmed that the four men in custody were yet to be charged.

Australia's terror threat remains at probable.

Prime Minister Turnbull released a statement on the raids, confirming the involvement of the Australian Federal Police, ASIO and NSW Police.

Australian Federal Police on Sunday leaving a property after the dramatic terror raids

Cleveland Street (pictured) was closed between Elizabeth St and Young St, and Goodlet Lane was also closed

Residents living near the Surry Hills home were evacuated while the bomb squad worked to remove the 'explosive device' and forensics (pictured) examined the scene

'These operations are designed to disrupt and prevent plans to undertake terrorist attacks in Australia,' the statement said.

'My number one priority, and that of my government, is the safety and security of all Australians.

'The public should be reassured that our security and intelligence agencies are working tirelessly to keep us safe.'

Mr Turnbull urged people to call the National Security Hotline on 1800 132 400 if they see or hear anything suspicious.

Goodlet Lane in Surry Hills (pictured) was closed while police examined the scene of the raid

Police involved in the raid were acting to prevent an alleged plot to bring down a plane with a 'bomb'

An 'explosive device' was discovered at the Surry Hills (pictured) property and deactivated by a bomb squad that was called to the scene
A fun-filled day at Cincinnati Zoo turned to bloodshed when a man was slashed in the throat after an altercation.

The incident took place at about 4pm on a day where the zoo was expecting extremely large crowds because of the beautiful weather.

Two men got into an altercation with another man who was stabbed in the throat as a result.

A Cincinnati Police cruiser was parked outside the zoo Saturday after a man was stabbed in the throat

Police combed the scene for clues after a man's throat was slashed at the Cincinnati Zoo Saturday

Police say so many horrified zoo guests witnessed the slashing they were having a hard time getting an accurate description of the suspects.

'Right now there are too many... they are interviewing all the witnesses. It's going to take a brief period to get a good, accurate description, ' Cincinnati police Sgt. Eric Franz told WCPO.

The incident happened near a gift shop.

The Cincinnati Zoo remained open despite the two suspects at large

The suspects fled the scene. The zoo remained open despite the violence, and the suspects at large.

The stabbing victim has serious but non life threatening injuries, according to police.
A third person has been charged over an ugly road rage incident that saw a man punch a woman in the face while stopped in traffic on the NSW Central Coast.

Footage of the confrontation, captured by a nearby motorist, was uploaded to social media on Monday.

It showed a 41-year-old man approach the 21-year-old woman, who was standing next to a silver ute, before punching her in the head.

The young mother who was filmed being punched in the face by a burly man in a horrific road rage attack has been charged over her involvement in the incident

Ms Sams (pictured left) uploaded two images showing a bruised and bloody upper lip (right)

But the video didn't show the lead up to the violence, and police allege the woman had thrown objects at the man's car.

The man was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, while the woman was later charged with offences including malicious damage, being armed with intent to commit and indictable offence, and intentionally throwing objects at a vehicle.

Police have now arrested a 23-year-old woman, alleged to be the driver of the silver ute.

She was charged with driving in a manner dangerous to the public, malicious damage, not complying with 'P' licence and driving with an unrestrained passenger.

She was granted conditional bail and is expected to appear at Wyong Local Court on August 16.

The man is due to appear in Wyong Local Court on August 30.

Ms Sams was charged with a string offences on Thursday, including malicious damage, being armed with intent and intentionally throwing an object at a vehicle

The woman who was punched was also granted conditional bail, and is expected to appear at Wyong Local Court on September 6.

Ms Sams, who previously boasted about 'taking the hit better than a man', claimed she had 'been through worse' and warned she 'don't back down to no one'.

'I don't back down to no one. I never have, never will... I've been through worse, so it is what it is,' she told Channel Nine's A Current Affair program.

Bianca Lee Sams, 21, admitted to throwing nails at the man's car before he struck her in stopped traffic at Lake Macquarie, north of Sydney , on Monday

'I had to do what I had to do to protect me and my mate and her son... He's a b**** in my eyes if he can hit a female.'

Ms Sams said she threw objects at the man's car because he tried to run her vechile off the road with a five-month-old baby inside.

'I just grabbed a set of nails from a nail gun, I started breaking them up and throwing them at his car, hoping he'd leave us alone. But he didn't, he just kept coming,' she said.

Ms Sams said she launched nails and a chisel at the attacker's car before he got out of his ute at Lake Macquarie. Pictured, she displays a bruised lip

'I had to do what I had to do to protect me and my mate and her son... He's a b**** in my eyes if he can hit a female,' Ms Sams said

The 21-year-old mother is seen in the video getting out of the passenger seat and crossing her arms as a man in a yellow shirt approaches.

'I wasn't going to do nothing to him. People think it's an aggressive manner. I always cross me arms, I always have, anyone that knows me knows what I'm like,' she said.

'I just get out and I'm just like ''what's your problem, mate? You're driving like a d***head'' and that was it.

'He then just smacks me in the jaw. It still hurts. It's hard to talk sometimes, hard to eat.

'But it is what it is, I've got to deal with it... I threw a few nails at your car, whoopee mate. You tried running us off the road with a baby in the car.'

Police said the man (pictured) was charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm and granted conditional bail

'I smashed his window he should of hit me harder (sic),' Ms Sams wrote on Facebook

She admitted to throwing nails at the man's car before the incident was caught on a dash cam

On Tuesday, Ms Sams took to social media and shared a series of posts in response to the incident.

'Take a hit like that and then see if you're still standing I doubt it... I smashed his window he should of hit me harder,' she wrote.

'I don't give a f*** he hit me, don't put a babies (sic) life at risk.

'He tried running us off the road with a 5 month old baby in the car we tried getting away from (him but) he kept going so I got out and asked what his problem was.'

The driver of the car, Ms Sams' good friend, also took to Facebook to tell her side of the story.

'I tried letting him around me but no he wanted to tail gate me being an a*****e, so my friend decided to throw things at him to get him off my tail,' she wrote.

Ms Sams uploaded two images showing a bruised and bloody upper lip, and said she would be taking the matter to court.

But she now faces her own day before a judge on September 6.
A woman in Texas could face animal cruelty charges after she walked around with a baby deer on a leash.

The woman had picked up the white-tailed fawn at the side of the road and put a red collar and leash on it while she was on her way to the Alamo.

A Bexar County game warden was called by Alamo security and questioned the woman.

A woman in Texas could face animal cruelty charges after she walked around with a baby deer (pictured) on a leash at the Alamo

A Bexar County game warden was called by Alamo security and questioned the woman before the deer was taken away to a licensed rehabilitator with the Texas Parks and Wildlife

She told the warden she saw the deer and wanted to take it with her to the Alamo for Fourth of July family photos.

State law forbids the possession of game animals and the warden tried to explain that to the woman.

Instead, she 'would not listen' and 'became very upset' according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife.

The baby deer was then taken from the woman and brought to a licensed rehabilitator with the Texas Parks and Wildlife.

Charges against the woman are pending.

Texas Parks and Wildlife posted pictures of the deer on Facebook on Friday.

One commenter pointed out that the actress Audrey Hepburn kept a pet fawn.

Hepburn's fawn, which she met while shooting the 1959 film Green Mansions, was named Pippin.
A pair of sisters capped off a night of drinking by stabbing each other in front of three children, police said.

Jordan and Chelsea Pedro returned to Jordan's apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico, early Friday morning and got into a knife fight, leaving the apartment and at least one kid covered in blood, KRQE reported.

The sisters couldn't remember why the violent fight broke out once they sobered up, but the two appeared in court on Saturday morning to face child abuse charges.

Jordan and Chelsea Pedro went out drinking and returned to Jordan's apartment in Albuquerque, New Mexico, early Friday morning and got into a knife fight

The two had stabbed each other in front of three children in the home and were charged with child abuse as a result

The two sisters had gone out drinking on Thursday, and continued downing alcohol once they returned home.

By early Friday morning, one of the sisters called the police saying she had been stabbed, according to court documents.

When police arrived at the home, the two sisters were intoxicated, and the apartment was covered in blood.

Three children were in the apartment at the time, and one child ended up with his face covered in blood. They were not injured.

The two sisters have been charged with child abuse, and the kids are now in state custody.
A child has been rushed to hospital after being attacked by a kangaroo on a property in Victoria.

Emergency services were called to the farm in Yering just before 8am on Sunday morning.

The child was found with facial injuries and was treated by ambulance staff.

The victim was taken to the Royal Childrens Hospital in a stable condition.

More to come.

A child has been rushed to hospital after being attacked by a kangaroo on a property in Victoria

Emergency services were called to the farm in Yering just before 8am on Sunday morning
A Florida man had a fright when he arrived home and discovered a massive sleeping black bear on his front doorstep.

Warren Woodard came home, unaware of the bear, until his wife told him to come take a look at their snoozing guest in Longwood.

'I went around to the garage and my wife - we met at the garage door, and she said, "Come here a minute,"' Woodard told News4 on Friday.

'There's a bear laying at the door asleep,' his wife explained, but Woodard didn't believe her.

The enormous black bear was sleeping on Warren Woodard's front doorstep

At one point the bear even rolled over. It was sleeping so soundly Woodard was able to take a few great pictures

The quiet residential street (pictured left) saw a heavy downpour of rain the night before, leading Woodard (right) to believe the bear was looking for a dry place to nap

'Sure enough, he was laying there, looked like he was asleep,' Woodard said.

According to Woodard, their slumbering guest was around six-to-seven feet long. The bear seemed so comfortable that it had its big paw up in the air resting against their door at one point.

There were heavy storms the night before and the homeowner believes it was trying to escape the rain.

'I think the bear had got caught up in it, and here's a nice dry place,' Woodard said to News4. 'I guess if the door wasn't there, he probably would have gone in the house.'

The bear was sleeping so soundly that not only was Woodard able to take some pictures of it, but when a community officer came by, the bear wasn't roused by the officer's car either.

'A community police officer came first and that car wouldn't come in the driveway,' Woodard said.

The sleeping beast seen through the Woodard's front door, which was not going to be opened for a closer look

The homeowner describes the bear's size, which he estimates to be around six or seven feet tall

It wasn't until back-up arrived in the form of a second police car that the sleeping beast got up.

'She (the officer) must have made some kind of noise, because at that point, the bear jumped up and took off,' Woodard said.

He said he received a warning from the cop, who told him ''Look out!''

'He ran right toward me. So I ran back around and into the garage,' Woodard said.

He added: 'If I had walked around that corner, and the car was parked here and seen that bear laying there, it might have had me at the hospital.'
Sydney has set a new temperature record for July as residents flock to the beach to enjoy the stunning heat usually reserved for late spring.

The New South Wales capital registered 26 degrees celsius on Sunday, a temperature not reached until October in 2016.

Thousands headed to the iconic Bondi Beach with surfers and swimmers shedding the wetsuits to soak up the sun.

Sydney has set a new temperature record for July as residents flock to the beach to enjoy the stunning heat usually reserved for late spring

Thousands headed to the iconic Bondi Beach with surfers and swimmers shedding the wetsuits to soak up the sun

Family enjoy the balmy Winter weather at Bondi Beach

The New South Wales capital registered 26 degrees celsius on Sunday, a temperature not reached until October in 2016

People flocked to Icebergs on Bondi Beach to enjoy the record heat

The uncharacteristic weather is thanks to a warmer air mass that moved in on Thursday, combined with westerly winds pushing across the coast.

It follows a notably cold and dry start to winter for many parts, except across the tropical north which has posted record warm temperatures.

Brisbane saw a similarly Spring-like day, with clear skies and 25 degrees to finish the month of July.

Darwin typically topped all major at a sweltering 32 degrees.

Perth and Melbourne residents missed out on the stunning weather, with both cities experiencing minor rain.

Central and south-eastern Western Australia had 10-20mm of rainfall with strong winds.

Thousands flocked to Bondi Beach to enjoy weather normally saved for summer

Surfers flocked into the surf to take advantage of the warm winds

The warm temperatures clearly bringing out the creativity in people

The uncharacteristic weather is thanks to a warmer air mass that moved in on Thursday, combined with westerly winds pushing across the coast

Some people couldn't wait to hit the water as temperatures maxed out at 26 degrees in Sydney

People shed their winter layers to soak up the 26 degree Sydney heat

Forecasters warn that the balmy weather won't stay for long, with temperatures tipped to plummet six degrees to beneath 20C on Monday.

Melbourne will get slightly cooler, with possible showers and cold temperatures for the next few days.

Brisbane looks set to continue its steady run of balmy weather, with 25 degrees and sunshine predicted for next couple of days ahead.

Hobart and Canberra are to shiver through the week with temperatures topping out at 12 degrees for most days.

THREE DAY WEATHER FORECAST SYDNEY

Monday: Max 20 and rain Tuesday: Max 18 and mostly sunny Wednesday: Max 18 and mostly sunny BRISBANE Monday: Max 25 and mostly sunny Tuesday: Max 25 and mostly sunny Wednesday: 23 and mostly sunny CANBERRA Monday: Max 12 and rain Tuesday: Max 15 and frost then sunny Wednesday: Max 12 and frost then sunny DARWIN Monday: Max 32 and mostly sunny Tuesday: Max 32 and sunny Wednesday: Max 32 and sunny MELBOURNE Monday: Max 15 and possible showers Tuesday: Max 15 and mostly sunny Wednesday: Max 15 and mostly sunny ADELAIDE Monday: Max 16 and showers Tuesday: Max 16 and possible shower Wednesday: Max 15 and possible shower PERTH Monday: Max 18 and clearing shower Tuesday: Max 17 and windy Wednesday: Max 17 and mostly sunny HOBART Monday: Max 12 and possible shower Tuesday: Max 12 and mostly sunny Wednesday: Max 12 and mostly sunny Source: Weatherzone Advertisement

Beach chairs were empty as people flocked to the surf

Some people chose to just sit and soak the record temperatures in

Others lay in the shallows enjoying the sunshine at Bondi Beach

Sydney sweltered through its hottest July day on record Sunday

The uncharacteristic weather is thanks to a warmer air mass that moved in on Thursday, combined with westerly winds pushing across the coast
A joy ride for five teenagers who stole a luxury Merecedes Benz and drove it more than 500km across the country has come to an end.

A 16-year-old boy, two 15-year-old boys, a 13-year-old boy and a 14-year-old girl were arrested by New South Wales Police after the young children crashed the car and fled.

Police suspect the black Merecedes Benz sedan was stolen from a home in Amaroo, Canberra on Friday and was driven by the 16-year-old boy.

Five teenagers were charged after they stole a Merecedes (pictured) and crashed it

Police suspect a 16-year-old boy drove the car (pictured) with four young passengers

The teenagers drove 500km from Canberra to Dubbo and through NSW on Saturday

At about 7am Saturday, the car was spotted at a service station at Molong where the teenagers filled up the car and fled, no paying for fuel.

Police said they received a number of calls by people concerned about the driving manner of the luxury car which was driving faster than 150km/h along the Mitchelle Highway towards Dubbo.

Using lights and sirens, police attempted to stop the car at Dubbo where Orana Local Area Command began a pursuit but the driver did not stop and the pursuit ended because of public safety concerns.

Coonamble Police saw the car allegedly doing burnouts in the Coonamble township at about 1.30pm Saturday and tried to stop the Mercedes but it left at a high speed.

One of the luxury car tyres had blown, causing the car to crash which police found at Tooroweenah Road.

The five teenagers were taken to Coonamble Police Station where they were interviewed in the company of a support person.

The teenagers ignored police pursuit and crashed the car when the tyres blew (pictured)

The five teenagers were charged, refused bail and appeared in Children's Court Sunday

The alleged driver, a 16-year-old boy, was charged with take/drive conveyance, two counts of police pursuit not stop, driving in a dangerous manner, driving unlicensed and two outstanding warrants.

The four passengers were charged with being carried in conveyance.

The teenagers were all refused bail and appeared at a Children's Court on Sunday.
Labor leader Bill Shorten would push for a vote for Australia to become a republic in his first term if he were to become prime minister.

The Opposition Leader was speaking at a Labor press conference in Townsville, in far north Queensland, and claimed Australia needed to acknowledge its rich history and values.

Mr Shorten said Australians would still be able to binge watch The Crown on Netflix and adore the Royal family even if the country were to become a republic.

Mr Shorten said Australians would still be able to binge watch The Crown on Netflix and adore the Royal family even if the country were to become a republic

'We can vote for an Australian head of state and still respect Queen Elizabeth. We can vote for an Australian head of state and still win gold medals at the Commonwealth Games,' he said.

'We can vote for an Australian head of state and recognise that Will and Kate have two seriously cute kids.

'We can vote for an Australia head of state and patriotically binge watch The Crown on Netflix.'

The federal Labor leader has promised to take 'the first real steps' to make Australia a republic in his first term in government.

That would include putting a straightforward 'yes or no' question to the Australian people.

'We must seize the day and become a republic,' Mr Shorten told the crowd at the Australian Republic Movement's gala dinner in Melbourne on Saturday night.

'We can vote for an Australian head of state and still respect Queen Elizabeth. We can vote for an Australian head of state and still win gold medals at the Commonwealth Games,' he said

'We must seize the day and become a republic,' Mr Shorten told the crowd at the Australian Republic Movement's gala dinner in Melbourne on Saturday night

But cabinet minister Mathias Cormann said Mr Shorten was not proposing any way forward.

He was merely trying to distract from his lack of a plan for the economy and jobs.

'The truth is that what Bill Shorten's proposing won't actually lead to any outcome,' he told Sky News on Sunday.

'Here he's talking about yet another topic that doesn't actually relate to how we can make our economy more successful in the future.'

Senator Cormann said the more difficult question was not if the Australian people wanted a republic, but what system they wanted to change to.

Labor frontbencher Anthony Albanese dismissed suggestions there would be a need for two plebiscites - one to determine if Australians wanted a republic, then a second to approve a model - as well as a referendum to change the constitution.

Senator Cormann said the more difficult question was not if the Australian people wanted a republic, but what system they wanted to change to

A model would emerge by consensus during the debate to the first plebiscite about an Australian head of state, he said.

'It's a plan to achieve a republic by doing it in a two-stage process,' Mr Albanese told Sky News of the Labor proposal.

Mr Shorten, in his speech on Saturday night, used the current debate about dual citizenship - which has forced two senators to quit parliament and another to resign from cabinet - to note that Australia's current head of state is a 'foreign power'.

But government backbencher Eric Abetz said the fact a dual citizen can't serve in parliament debunked his argument.

'It shows beyond any doubt that Australia is a genuine stand alone nation with its own very rich heritage,' he told ABC TV on Sunday.

Australia was one of the most stable democracies in the world and people that came here were not clamouring for a change to the system, he said.
A sample question from a new critical thinking exam for high school students is stumping teenagers.

Year 11 students in New South Wales will soon have the choice to sit a new online critical thinking exam.

The test has been designed due to concerns current Higher School Certificate subjects are not preparing students for employment.

The HSC is awarded to NSW students who successfully finish high school and results help determine university admissions.

Year 11 students in New South Wales will soon have the choice to sit a new online critical thinking exam. Pictured above is one of the questions

Students who choose to sit the new exam will need to answer 60 questions and will receive feedback on their performance, The Sydney Morning Herald reported.

The sample question shows three square cushion covers of the same size.

Each light blue square is covered with dotted lines where ribbon is to be sewn.

Test-takers are asked to select the cover which needs the most ribbon.

There are four options to choose from but D is the correct answer - they all need the same amount.
Family and friends of the 18 people killed in the Thredbo landslide say they are still confronted by the tragedy as they gathered in the alpine village to mark the 20th anniversary.

Hundreds crammed into the Thredbo Chapel, in NSW's south-east, on Sunday for an emotional service to commemorate the victims two decades after a landslide crushed two ski lodges in the popular NSW ski resort.

Mourners wept as Euan Diver, brother of sole survivor Stuart Diver, and other community members read the names of the victims, followed by a moving rendition of Amazing Grace.

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A note a wreath remembers one of the Thredbo tragedy which claimed the lives of 18 people

Mourners ties cards shape of hearts to a fence at a memorial service at Thredbo Ecumenical Chapel at the Thredbo Alpine Village on Sunday

Heart shape cards appear tied up to the fence of the tragedy's memorial on its 20th anniversary

A bell was tolled and a candle lit for each of the victims before mourners lay flowers and wreaths at the nearby Thredbo Memorial Community Centre.

Annie Boward said emotions were still raw for those who lost loved ones in the tragedy.

She recalled how she had planned to call her friend Wendy O'Donohue before discovering she was trapped in one of the collapsed ski lodges.

'I had a letter on my kitchen bench signed by Wendy just to call her and let her know when I was coming down next,' Ms Boward said.

Annie Boward (pictured) said emotions were still raw for those who lost loved ones 20 years on

A mourner Ms Boward (pictured) lays flowers at the 20th memorial service for the victims

Mourners Donna Barlow (L) and Wendy Hukins (C) at the memorial service on Sunday

'I had it on the bench that morning ready to call - then I turned on the early news.'

Ms Boward said healing was about bringing people back to Thredbo.

But the loss always remained just under the surface, she said.

'I don't think it leaves you. It's always just there.'

Donna Barlow worked in customer service at Thredbo when the landslide occurred.

She returned this weekend to remember the friends and coworkers she lost in the tragedy.

'We're still a community and we support each other - it changed all of our lives,' she said.

'It's confronting how quickly 20 years goes by.'

Mourners wait to lay wreaths at a memorial service at the Thredbo Ecumenical Chapel

Mourners attending a church memorial service at the Thredho Ecumenical Chapel on Sunday

Local businessman Ian Foster insisted the community was stronger than ever but the pain was still present.

'It's something that's always there. It's not hard to feel that emotion come up,' he said.

Memorial services were held throughout the weekend in Thredbo, with a commemorative flare run on Saturday night led by Mr Diver, the tragedy's sole survivor.

He was joined by 300 skiers and snowboarders who blazed down Thredbo's Supertrail with red flares in memory of the victims, including his wife Sally.

The procession was followed by a pyrotechnics display featuring 18 separate fireworks - one for each victim.

Stuart Diver joined 300 skiers and snowboarded for a flare run (pictured) to remember the victims of the 1997 Thredbo landslide

Mr Diver, who lost his wife in the tragedy and was found trapped underneath concrete two days after the landslide, attended the memorial.

He spent 65 hours under the rubble and after being rescued his famous first words were, 'That sky's fantastic!'

The first face he saw was that of rescuer Warwick Kidd, a station officer with NSW Fire and Rescue and one of the first responders.

'I did apologise to him for that,' Superintendent Kidd said.

Two decades later, and having since attended disasters around the world, Superintendent Kidd still remembers the moment rescuers were told there was a survivor.

He managed to drill a hole big enough to lower a torch down to Mr Diver, enabling him to help rescuers find a way to get him out.

'I told him that we would get him out,' Superintendent Kidd recalls.

Thredbo resort said the flare run memorial (pictured) was a fitting commemoration for a group of people who loved the mountains and Thredbo

Members of the NSW Fire Service pay their respects at a memorial service for the victims

The names of the victims of the road collapse are seen on the plaque at a memorial service

'We sort of made a promise to him that he'd be out before the sun set and we did, we got him out before the sun set.'

Superintendent Kidd said rescuers had been hopeful they'd find more survivors within the crucial 100-hour period, but Mr Diver was the only one.

Thredbo resort said the flare run memorial was a fitting commemoration for a group of people who loved the mountains and Thredbo.

Friends and family of the victims will gather at Thredbo Chapel on Sunday for an ecumenical service followed by a wreath laying, ahead of a midnight vigil at the site of the landslide.
Two people have died and three others are fighting for their lives after a man armed with a machine gun opened fire in a packed German nightclub, according to reports.

Revellers fled from the Grey venue in the city of Konstanz near the Swiss border after the 34-year-old Iraqi attacker burst in and opened fire at 4.30am.

Special forces and a police helicopter were sent to the scene with the gunman 'put out of action' in minutes.

He is thought to have attempted to flee from the club after opening fire but he was tracked down by elite commando units.

The gunman was shot by police and later died - with an officer thought to have been hit by a bullet during the gunfight.

Two people have died and three others are fighting for their lives after a man armed with a machine gun opened fire in a packed German nightclub, according to reports. Police are pictured at the scene

Revellers fled from the Grey venue, pictured, in the city of Konstanz near the Swiss border after the 34-year-old attacker burst in and opened fire at 4.30am

The nightclub is thought to have been hosting a student night at the time of the incident.

The gunman is thought to have attempted to flee from the club after opening fire but he was tracked down by elite commando units

Police are pictured standing near the Grey club in Konstanz following the shooting

The gunman was shot by police and later died - with an officer (not pictured) thought to have been hit by a bullet during the gunfight

Witnesses described seeing victims covered in blood as they were taken to hospital where three people remain seriously injured.

Police have said that the shooter's motive is not yet known and it is not clear if he acted alone or with accomplices.

A spokesman added: 'There were casualties at the shooting. Visitors saved themselves by escaping into the open or hiding.'

The nightclub is thought to have been hosting a student night at the time of the incident.

A woman is comforted at the scene as police stand guard next to the Grey nightclub

Police said the incident was being treated as a 'possible relationship dispute' and not a terror attack

A police spokesman said: 'There were casualties at the shooting. Visitors saved themselves by escaping into the open or hiding'

Police said the incident was being treated as a 'possible relationship dispute' and not a terror attack.

They said the killer had been a long time resident of Konstanz.

On Friday, a failed asylum seeker killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg.

Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and he had was psychologically unstable.
A critically-injured pedestrian flown to hospital by Prince William on his final shift as an air ambulance pilot has died.

The woman, in her 50s, had been reported missing when she was hit by a police van in Hethel, about eight miles south west of Norwich, and was left fighting for her life.

Officers were responding to a 999 call "relating to concerns for the safety" of the woman, Norfolk Police said.

William's East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) crew was called to the scene at 11.13pm on Thursday and the critical care team treated her at the scene for complex serious head injuries.

Prince William was spotted in a park in Hertfordshire during his last night shift as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance - hours later he rushed to save a woman knocked down by a police van

The pedestrian was hit by a police van responding to a 999 call to find her on the B1135 Wymondham Road in Hethel, about eight miles south-west of Norwich. The scene is pictured following the incident

The woman was then taken by air ambulance to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Norfolk Police said the woman died on Saturday and the incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The Duke announced in January that he would be ending his career as an air ambulance pilot after clocking up more than two years flying medical crews to emergencies.

He joined the service in March 2015 and - after completing an initial period of job-specific training involving simulator, aircraft and in-flight skills - he began piloting his first operational missions in July 2015.

William, who will now take up royal duties full time, flew the unnamed victim to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge

Throughout his service, William has been based at Cambridge Airport as part of a team including specialist doctors, critical care paramedics and pilots providing emergency medical services across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

A statement issued by Kensington Palace earlier this year said William and Kate wanted, as they had in previous years, to increase their official duties on behalf of the Queen and their charity work, which would mean more time in London.

Earlier this week Prince William was spotted landing his helicopter in a park.

The Duke of Cambridge set down at the Templars Gate Estate in Royston, Hertfordshire to treat a patient on his last day with the charity.

William was seen sitting in the helicopter in a park in Royston at around 7.05pm after attending an emergency call out with the crew

The Duke of Cambridge landed in a park at the Templars Gate Estate in Royston to treat a patient on his last day with the charity

William was seen sitting in the helicopter at around 7.05pm after attending an emergency call out with the East Anglian branch of the charity.

The heir to the throne spoke about the horror of witnessing 'things that cannot be unseen' ahead of his final shift as an air ambulance pilot.

The Royal told of his pride at serving with a team who 'save lives across the region every day' but have experiences they will 'carry with them for life'.

He arrived ten minutes early for his 4.30pm night shift at Cambridge Airport and his final briefing as a pilot with East Anglia Air Ambulance.

The Duke (front left) poses with (left to right) Ccp Gary Spitzer, Dr Karen rhodes, Dr Adam Chesters, Cpt Matt Sandbach, Cpt Dave Kelly, Pilot Olly Gates, Dr Tobias Gouse and Ccp Carl Smith

During his two years with the service, based out of Cambridge Airport, William (pictured during his last shift) has responded to 'hundreds' of call-outs in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk

Dressed in a regulation blue flight suit with his name William Wales on the breast, he attended two hand-over briefings from the flying and medical day teams, who had just returned from a call-out.

He jokingly told colleagues: 'You're handing over to the A-Team.'

The prince joined the East Anglian Air Ambulance service in March 2015, after serving for nearly five years as a helicopter pilot with the RAF Search and Rescue Force.

He began piloting his first missions with a team of specialist doctors and critical care paramedics in July that year. He is thought to have responded to hundreds of call-outs, from road accidents and heart attacks to suicide attempts.

William gives his helicopter a final check before taking to the skies for the final time

Prince William begins his final shift working as an air ambulance pilot, and will return to his royal duties

In an open letter, he wrote: 'I have the utmost respect for the job that our emergency services carry out, without fuss, on a daily basis.

'As I hang up my flight suit, I am proud to have served with such an incredible team of people, who save lives across the region every day.

'I now know though that there are things that cannot be unseen and experiences that our first responders deal with on a daily basis that they will carry with them for life.'

Captain Dave Kelly, who was working with him last night, said: 'Prince William has made a fantastic contribution to the team. It's been an absolute pleasure to have him on board. He's been a hard working member of the team.'

The heir has been flying medical crews to emergencies such as traffic accidents for about two years

His departure closes a chapter for William, 35, who is leaving the skies to return to formal duties as the country's future king

William and Kate are reportedly hoping to expand their own Royal Foundation charity and want to focus more on causes like mental health.

The Duke and Duchess, along with Prince Harry, have lent their support to helping people battle mental health issues and launched the Heads Together campaign last year.

WILLIAM'S SERVICE William (pictured in the rescue helicopter) will now devote more time to his royal duties and will move his primary residence from Norfolk to London - The Prince graduated from Sandhurst military academy in December 2006 and was commissioned into the Blues and Royals, a regiment of the Household Cavalry - In 2008, William received his RAF wings from his father, the Prince of Wales - He was then transferred from the Army to the RAF and made Flight Lieutenant Wales - Two years later, in 2010, he joined the RAF's Search and Rescue Force - In 2012, he was deployed for a tour in the Falkland Islands 30 years after Britain fought a war with Argentina to reclaim them - One year later, his active service with the Air Force came to an end Advertisement

They will move from their primary resident at Amner Hall in Norfolk to an apartment in Kensington Palace in London with their two children.

It comes after the Queen announced she would be stepping down as the patron of 25 organisations in December last year.

William has been stung by criticism that he is 'workshy' and a 'reluctant royal'.

Sources close to Prince William spoke out in his defence last year, describing him as a 'modern working father and husband'.

A senior aide also revealed that the future king works an average of 80 hours a month so he can combine his royal and charity work with his job as an air ambulance pilot.

Claiming the Duke of Cambridge's hours were in line with Civil Aviation Authority regulations, the aide insisted he had the backing of both his grandmother and father.

Other full-time working royals - including William's grandmother, the Queen - will conduct 500-plus engagements each year.

The second-in-line to the throne said last year he was making the most of time to do another 'worthwhile job' while he could and his family was supportive.

He said: 'I take duty very seriously. I take my responsibilities very seriously. But it's about finding your own way at the right time and if you're not careful duty can weigh you down at a very early age.

'I think you have got to develop into the duty role.'
Ebony Curtis fell pregnant at 15 and gave birth to her daughter Ruby aged 16 (pictured)

At the age of 15, Tasmanian schoolgirl Ebony Curtis sat on the floor of her bedroom staring at a positive pregnancy test.

The night before, it had been negative.

The Year 9 student had been dating her boyfriend for just three months when she took a home pregnancy test in the dead of the night after missing her period.

'I had waited a minute, and was like, "oh thank God there's only one line", and went back to bed feeling relieved I wasn't pregnant,' she said.

'I was in shock - I obviously hadn't waited long enough.'

Now 21, Ms Curtis is a law student who hold a distinction average at the University of Tasmania and a proud mother-of-two.

She says teenage mothers are often painted with the same brush, but that many were finishing their education, working and thriving.

She says there was a lot of pressure to abort her pregnancy so she could finish her education, but the teenager decided to have her child, and still managed to finish school with her class

Halfway through year 12, Ms Curtis fell pregnant with her son Archer (pictured), and says while it was hard, she had wanted a sibling for her daughter

'People look at one teenage mother and everyone assumes we are all the same, but I think that's the same with a lot of things,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

'I think people need to be more informed about teenage parents. A lot of people's views are generalisations.'

Ms Curtis was encouraged to abort her first pregnancy by some of those closest to her.

She said some people at her school had told her they did not support sex outside of marriage or the termination of a pregnancy, which left her feeling isolated.

Ms Curtis was also told by friends she would never be able to graduate Year 10 if she chose to have the baby.

The teenager decided to take a year off in between finishing high school and starting university, and worked part time while raising her two children with her partner

Her mother, who Ms Curtis says was in complete shock when she found out, took the schoolgirl to the doctor and demanded another pregnancy test.

Despite the pressure to abort, she said it was 'never an option' for her - though Ms Curtis admitted it was a confronting situation.

'You don't expect this to happen [when you're] so young,' she said.

The teenager stayed in full-time classes until she was 38 weeks pregnant with her daughter, Ruby.

When Ruby was about eight weeks old, Ms Curtis returned to school full-time.

'I was still breastfeeding - it was very overwhelming and I had to drop back to three days a week, just doing the compulsory classes so I could graduate with my class,' she said.

'It was a good feeling to finish high school and get out of there.'

Ebony says her children have been a big driving force in encouraging her to keep working towards her dreams

The law student is working part time and maintaining a distinction average at University

Ms Curtis finished Year 10 and moved out into her own home with her daughter, who was then eight months old.

She attended Year 11 full time at a new school, using Government-funded daycare to help her finish her education without disadvantaging her daughter.

Halfway through her final year of schooling, Ms Curtis fell pregnant again. The conception of her son Archer was not planned, she says, but she had been thinking about having another child.

'At that point I really wanted another baby. Being one out of five siblings it was important to me that Ruby didn't grow up as an only child,' she said.

Ms Curtis married Archer's father Shane (pictured) on January 14 this year

Ms Curtis graduated Year 12 just two marks short of what she needed to gain entry into the law course she had wanted to study.

She applied for an Arts bridging course at the University instead, and deferred for a year to give birth to Archer.

'I started working part-time before I went to Uni, then I went back and did a year of Arts on the condition that if I kept up a distinction average I could transfer to law,' she said.

'It was super busy, and because I was also working a little bit [while I studied], it was hard.'

Ms Curtis achieved the marks to transfer into her law course, and has maintained her distinction average.

'My children are a big driving factor,' she said.

Despite their initial concerns over their daughter's decision, Ms Curtis says her parents (pictured on her wedding day) have been incredibly supportive

Ms Curtis is now an ambassador for the Brave Foundation, which helps teenage parents care for their children and finish their education

'I don't want them to have an upbringing that everyone talks about teenage mums giving their children - where they're just sitting on the dole or not doing anything with their lives.

'I want to set an example and go to school - I wanted to show my children no matter what life throws at you, you can achieve anything you want to.'

Ms Curtis married the father of her son this year, and has become an ambassador for the Brave Foundation, which works with teenage parents to ensure they can still complete their education and provide for their children properly.

She says she doesn't regret choosing to become a teenage mother, and that anyone in her position should be allowed to make their own decision on the path they take.

'[I would tell other girls to] make your own choices, don't do something you don't want to do,' she said.

'Your dreams can still be achieved, even if it takes longer, don't get

Ms Curtis will feature on SBS' Insight, Tuesday at 8.30pm on SBS One.
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Remarkable images from the First World War, showing soldiers laughing, smiling and taking time out from the horrors of warfare, have been restored into colour to commemorate the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele, one of the First World War's bloodiest conflicts.

The pictures show soldiers chatting to locals, washing clothes and smiling in the entrance of a German trench during the infamous battle, which claimed the lives of more than half a million men between July 31 and November 6, 1917.

Soldiers from Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Australia are all shown in the images, which have been restored by professional photo colouriser Tom Marshall.

At ease: The photographs, which have been transformed into colour for the first time, show a different side to the Battle of Passchendaele, which claimed the lives of more than 500,000 men and took place 100 years ago this week

The simple life: This photograph of a young soldier chatting to a local girl belies the true horror faced by the Allied troops

And Tom says he chose this particular set of shots as he wanted people to connect with the men in them.

'I decided to colourise these images as a tribute to the men pictured, because I believe that colour adds another dimension to historic images, and helps modern eyes connect with the subjects more than with a black-and-white photo,' he said.

'I have found that black and white images are too often sadly ignored, especially by younger generations, and by colourising the photos I hope that more people will stop to learn more about the subjects and what the men went through 100 years ago.'

The Battle of Passchendaele became notorious not only for the sheer number of casualties, but also for the horrendous fighting conditions the men were forced to endure.

British general Douglas Haig had long wanted the allies to launch an offensive on German positions in Flanders Fields.

Smiling at the trenches: One soldier looks happy, in spite of the deadful conditions the troops were forced to experience

A captured moment: Soldiers stand at the entrance of a trench and seem at ease ahead of one of history's bloodiest battles

Time out: Troops take a moment to relax in the milder weather, a far cry from the mud-ridden conditions of the battlefield

The allied troops, from Britain, New Zealand, Canada and Australia prepare for the notorious battle against the German forces

Horrendous conditions: Passchendaele became infamous for the terrible fighting conditions of Flanders Fields, where the soft clay soil had transformed into impassable mud because of heavy shelling and adverse weather conditions

His aim was to break through their lines and reach the Belgian coast, where the Germans had a significant base of submarines Haig hoped to immobilise.

On July 31, after two weeks of sustained shelling which had seen more than 4.5 million shells dropped on German positions, the allies launched their infantry attack.

But the plan was a disaster from the get-go. The only significant impact of the shelling offensive had been to destroy drainage systems and churn up the already soft clay soil, meaning the battlefield was susceptible to any adverse weather conditions.

Within a few days of the launch of the infantry offensive, some of the heaviest rains for 30 years had turned the battlefield into a quagmire, trapping thousands of men and horses and making it impossible to effectively operate any military equipment.

The attack resumed on August 16 but to little effect, with the inclement weather making any meaningful military manoeuvres nearly impossible.

Deadly: There were an estimated 325,000 allied casualties and 260,000 German casualties during weeks of fighting

Stalemate: The two sides remained locked in battle for weeks until an upturn in the weather helped Allies to eventual victory

The two sides remained at a stalemate until September 20, when an upturn in the weather allowed allied forces to win three key battles at Menin Road Ridge, Polygon Wood and Broodseinde in the space of two weeks.

These victories eventually led to British and Canadian forces taking what was left of the village of Passchendaele on November 6, but the capture came at a heavy price.

There were an estimated 325,000 allied casualties during the Battle of Passchendaele, with a further 260,000 German casualties, making it one of the bloodiest battles of the First World War.

Victory at a price: The troops had to endure terrible trench conditions and heavy casualties before taking Passchendaele

Most people agreed at the time it was launched that the offensive was a good idea, with the allies more able to sustain casualties than the Germans after America's entry into the war, but there was much controversy over General Haig's decision to continue the attack into November.
A wild food fight saw furniture and leftovers broken out at a Mediterranean restaurant in the early hours of Sunday.

Footage captured by restaurant patron Jason Raad shows close to 30 men throwing tables, chairs, cups and food leftovers at each other at the Le Rivage restaurant cafe at Sydney's Georges Hall.

Mr Raad said children and adults were screaming when the brawl broke out, 7 News reported.

Jason Raad (pictured) had filmed the brawl with his smartphone which occurred on Sunday

About 30 men were involved in the early morning brawl believed to have started over a girl

The fight was believed to have started over a girl, the television station reported.

Mr Raad used his smartphone to record the brawl and described the situation as 'intense'.

Two restaurant guards had to step in to break up the fight before the police arrived.

One man needed stitches after his hand was sliced with a glass jug.

By the time police arrived, all the brawlers had fled the scene.

NSW police in a statement to Daily Mail Australia said police were investigating the incident.

The brawl had taken place at the Le Rivage restaurant and cafe in the early hours of Sunday

One man needed stitches after his hand was sliced with a glass jug the TV station reports

'About 12am (Sunday 30 July 2017), police were called to the restaurant on Carysfield Road, when an altercation took place between a group of 15-30 males,' the statement said.

'When police attended the fight had been broken up by security and those involved had left the premises.

'Officers from Bankstown Local Area Command are investigating the incident.

'There were no reports of injuries.'

Daily Mail Australia has contacted Le Rivage restaurant for comment.
Liam Fox has insisted the Cabinet has not agreed a deal to allow free movement of labour for three years after Brexit in the latest sign of tensions within the government.

The International Trade Secretary said unregulated free movement of labour after 2019 would 'not keep faith' with the referendum result.

Philip Hammond has led a push that would mean Britain's relationship with Brussels would remain 'very similar' for up to three years after formally leaving the EU in 2019.

It followed claims 10 days ago that he had won the support of every cabinet minster for his transition plan that would allow EU citizens free movement for a number of years after Brexit.

Liam Fox has insisted there has been no Cabinet deal agreeing free movement after Brexit

Theresa May was pictured at church this morning after jetting back to Britain for the weekend during her European walking holiday. She is set to attend a memorial service marking 100 years since the Battle of Passchendaele in Ypres, Belgium, later today

However his comments put him at odds with Dr Fox, who has previously insisted Britain must be free to sign deals with non EU countries from day one after Brexit.

He told The Sunday Times: 'We made it clear that control of our own borders was one of the elements we wanted in the referendum, and unregulated free movement would seem to me not to keep faith with that decision.'

Amid the row, Theresa May was pictured at church this morning after jetting back to Britain for the weekend during her European walking holiday.

She is set to attend a memorial service marking 100 years since the Battle of Passchendaele in Ypres, Belgium, later today.

Dr Fox said he had not been involved in any Cabinet talks on extending free movement for up to three years after Brexit, stating: 'If there have been discussions on that I have not been party to them. I have not been involved in any discussions on that, nor have I signified my agreement to anything like that.'

In remarks that are likely to be seen as directed at Chancellor Philip Hammond, Dr Fox said: 'I am very happy to discuss whatever transitional arrangements and whatever implementation agreement we might want, but that has to be an agreement by the Cabinet.

'It can't just be made by an individual or any group within the Cabinet.'

Ministers have accused Mr Hammond of pursuing his agenda while Theresa May is away on holiday in Italy

Mr Hammond said there would be a registration system in place for people coming to work in the UK after Brexit, during the transitional period.

'If they come here to work after we leave the European Union, during that transitional period, the sensible approach will be to seek to register people so that we know who's coming and who's going,' he said.

Tory tensions were also on show as former Brexit minister David Jones, the former deputy of Brexit secretary David Davis, branded Mr Hammond's transition initiative 'deeply dangerous' as he accused the Chancellor of 'going on manoeuvres' while Prime Minister Theresa May was abroad in Italy's Lake Garda.

However Pro-EU Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames praised the Chancellor, saying: 'He has restored discipline to the political infant class who want Brexit at any cost.

'Instead of mindlessly criticising him, they should thank him for putting a stop to what was in danger of becoming a pub brawl.'

The war of words came as an ally of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson also criticised Mr Hammond's plans.

Gerard Lyons, Mr Johnson's former chief economic adviser at City Hall, said the transition period must be no more than two years.

He described concern about a 'cliff-edge' Brexit as 'alarmist talk' similar to the fear of the Y2K bug threat to computers at the turn of the millennium.

Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, he said: 'Many of the "risks" being highlighted about Brexit are perceived risks, not real risks. And a two-year transition would alleviate many concerns.'

He also criticised Mr Hammond for going public with his proposals when Mrs May was on a three-week vacation.

He said: 'Enough is enough. The leader is away so those in senior other roles seems to think they can play.'

He also raised fears that if a transition period is any longer than two years, it could allow those wanting a softer Brexit to win out.

'It has to be temporary, else the powerful elites who are sitting pretty will want it to be never ending', he said.

His intervention will fuel speculation Mr Johnson disagrees with parts of Mr Hammond's Brexit plan.

Gerard Lyons (pictured right), Mr Johnson's former chief economic adviser at City Hall, said the transition period must be no more than two years

Meanwhile, divisions in Labour over Brexit also emerged as senior figures urged Jeremy Corbyn to commit to staying in the single market.

The Observer reported that opponents of quitting the single market may provoke a showdown at the party's autumn conference by trying to force a vote on the issue.

Former leader Lord Kinnock told the newspaper: 'The only way to mitigate the dreadful instability that will be costly for communities and industry is to try to ensure that, at least for a transitional period, we retain participation in the single market or the customs union, or both.'

Ex-lord chancellor Lord Falconer also backed staying in the single market, and TUC general secretary Frances O'Grady insisted the UK should not quit.

She said: 'If there's another way of getting a frictionless trade deal that protects jobs and rights at work, trade unions would love to know.'

Mr Corbyn has said Britain would leave the single market on Brexit, while other leading party figures like shadow chancellor John McDonnell have said all options are on the table.
A city mayor and at least 11 others were killed in the Phillipines on Sunday in one of the bloodiest anti-drug assaults so far under President Rodrigo Duterte's crackdown.

Reynaldo Parojinog was the third mayor to be killed in the government's bloody war on illegal drugs.

Parojinog, the mayor of Ozamiz city, was killed during a gun battle with police serving a search warrant at his farm home.

Parojinog's brother and wife and nine others were killed during the raid when the group reportedly resisted arrest.

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Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor who was among the politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs and at least 13 others in gunbattles that erupted Sunday in the south

Duterte, a former mayor from the southern city of Davao, won presidential elections last May after pledging to slaughter tens of thousands of drug suspects

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs.

He was the third mayor to be killed under President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on narcotics.

Several high-powered firearms and an unspecified amount of methamphetamines were recovered, Timoteo Pacleb, chief of police of Northern Mindanao, told reporters.

He said: 'Police were met with a volley of fire...prompting police to retaliate.'

Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested.

'The Parojinogs, if you would recall, are included in President Duterte's list of personalities involved in the illegal drug trade,' Ernesto Abella, the president's spokesperson, said in a statement.

Commenting on Sunday's raid, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said: 'The administration vowed to intensify the drug campaign.'

Aside from the mayor's residence, three other houses were raided in the port city in Misamis Occidental province and resulted in the arrests of five suspects.

At least one police officer was wounded during the clashes, police said.

A woman weeps near the scene where her husband was killed in Quezon city as Duterte's crackdown on narcotics in the country continues

The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte.

Another mayor suspected of involvement in illegal drugs in southern Mindanao and nine of his men were killed in a shootout at a police checkpoint in Cotabato in October.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Relatives carry the coffin of Nino Maruso, who was killed by police in what they say was a drug buy-bust operation

Duterte won the presidency last year after promising to kill tens of thousands of criminals to prevent the Philippines from becoming a narco-state

Duterte, a former mayor from the southern city of Davao, won presidential elections last May after pledging to slaughter tens of thousands of drug suspects.

He has vowed not to stop until the last drug trafficker in the country has been eliminated.

He has called on police and even civilians to kill drug users.

Duterte said he would be 'happy to slaughter' three million drug addicts, and likened his campaign to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's efforts to exterminate Jews in Europe.

He later apologised for his Hitler reference, but said he was 'emphatic' about wanting to kill drug users.

Fisherman in the Philippines have said they have been dumping bodies of drug suspects on the orders of police, who human rights groups accuse of carrying out thousands of extra-judicial killings.

According to human rights groups, Philippine security forces and 'unidentified gunmen' have killed almost 8,000 Filipino drugs suspects, the largest number of civilian deaths in South-east Asia since the Khmer Rouge genocide in Cambodia in the 1970s.

They have accused 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.'
Dramatic footage has emerged of a burglar who tried to smash his way through a queue of traffic in a stolen Mini in Birmingham before he was caught by police.

The Mini driven by Martin Tolan is seen ramming into several cars at the city's Bristol Road traffic lights as he desperately tries to escape the fast-approaching officers.

Police then swarm around the vehicle, smashing in each window with batons.

The Mini driven by Martin Tolan is seen ramming into several cars in a failed getaway

In the final moments of the CCTV footage, officers drag Tolan, 28, out through the broken windows of the Mini.

The burglar, who targeted high-value cars at homes across the Midlands, was arrested for the theft of the Mini - along with two others - after the dramatic city centre police chase on April 12.

Tolan has since been jailed for a total of nine years and 11 months

The incident, in which eight stationary cars were ploughed into, sparked traffic chaos for road users across the city after Bristol Street and a number of other major roads were closed off.

Three people sustained minor injuries in the chaos.

Tolan, of Central Avenue, Northfield, was linked to a series of burglaries across Birmingham including the Solihull break-in in which the Mini was stolen from a driveway.

While he was on bail to give police more time to collected evidence and receive DNA results, Tolan committed three more burglaries in which door locks were snapped off.

Detectives recovered high-definition security camera footage from the home of a CCTV engineer in Northfield, showing Tolan breaking-in in the early hours of May 18, just half an hour after stealing a Nissan Qashqai from outside a Bartley Crescent home.

A policeman holds up his Taser as Tolan draws to a halt among traffic

Officers burst on the scene to smash open the stolen Mini's windows

He was also part of a group who struck at an address in Cofton Park Drive, Rednal on May 23 while residents were sleeping. They made off in a Mercedes C-Class and an Audi A5.

Tolan was arrested later that day after a wrench covered in his fingerprints was found on the sofa of a burgled home in Bromsgrove.

He admitted multiple burglaries, dangerous driving, handling stolen goods and theft at Birmingham Crown Court.

He was jailed for a total of nine years and 11 months.

West Midlands Police Detective Sergeant Toni Holl, said: 'Residents can sleep more soundly knowing Tolan is behind bars. We have proved he was responsible for at least five burglaries but it's suspected he was linked to more.

'Several of his victims were woken to find him intruding in their homes while others only found their cars gone in the morning.

'No-one was injured but I'm glad the court has recognised the prolific nature of Tolan's offending, plus the psychological impact burglary can have on victims, and jailed him for a long time.'
The sudden death of Princess Diana in 1997 sent shock waves around the world.

And 20 years on, it appears she is just as beloved, as Australians shared their grief online while watching HBO documentary Diana, Our Mother.

The Princess of Wales was celebrated by her sons in the intimate program, who discussed life with their mother and how they struggled to deal with her passing.

Many had tears in their eyes as Prince Charles and Prince Harry discussed their childhood memories with their mother while flicking through a photo album.

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Prince Harry and his brother have spoken out about their life with Princess Diana as a mother

The Princess of Wales (pictured) was killed in a car crash during a trip to Paris in 1997

Prince William flicked through an old photo album with his brother for a HBO documentary

'I should have some tissues ready, as I think I'm going to need them,' Christine McDonald wrote.

'Five minutes in, already tearing up,' wrote Emma Louise.

The men spoke of their mother's childlike nature and her dirty sense of humour, and told producers they felt 'incredibly loved' by their mother.

Prince Harry explained it had taken the brothers so long to speak about Princess Diana as it had been 'too raw up until this point'.

'It's still raw,' he said.

The men reminisced on their childhoods, including this picture of Princess Diana with Prince William while she was pregnant with Prince Harry

Prince Harry explained to the filmmakers his mother's death had previously felt 'too raw' to discuss

The brothers touched a nerve with viewers, who expressed their sympathy for the men as they discussed how it felt to find out their mother had died so suddenly.

'It's like an earthquake's just run through the house and through your life and everything,' Prince William said.

'It's just... It's... Your mind is completely split. And it took me a while to actually... For it to sink in.'

Many hypothesised the Princess of Wales would have been 'so proud' of her sons as they watched the documentary, and others said they longed to be able to comfort the Princes.

Australians watching the documentary on Channel 7 on Sunday said they were crying for the loss of Diana and the pain of the Princes

'I wish I could just reach into the TV and give William and Harry a big hug,' one woman wrote.

'So sad, feel for both of these young men,' Janet Goss said, who added: 'She'd be so proud of them.'

Prince William said losing his mother at the age of 15 sent him into a complete spin.

'You don't quite know where you are, what you're doing, and what's going on,' he said.

'Family came together, as best we could about it - and Harry and I tried to talk, but being so small at that age, it's very difficult to communicate or understand your feelings. It's very complicated.'

Princess Diana's death left Prince William feeling like 'an earthquake had run through his life'

One Twitter user remarked on how proud The Princess of Wales would be of her sons, who have tried to continue her charitable works

The raw conversation the brothers had with filmmakers wowed a lot of viewers, who applauded the men for being able to speak so frankly about losing their mother.

'Hats off to William and Harry for sharing this insight so publicly,' Mel Harris said.

'Such a tragic loss for these boys.'

Queensland man Brent Davidson recalled the heartbreaking footage of the Princes walking behind their mother as she was laid to rest.

'Making 12 & 15 year old boys who'd just lost their mother walk behind her coffin in front of thousands of people was very cruel,' he wrote.

Prince William revealed he tries to keep his mother involved in the lives of his children, Prince George and Princess Charlotte.

The family have photos of Diana around the house and the Prince tells the children stories about 'Granny Diana' at bedtime, he said.

'It's important they know who she was and that she existed.'

Prince William revealed his house has many photos of his mother, and his children refer to her as 'Granny Diana', despite never meeting her
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What better way to flaunt your eccentric taste in Gypsy style than by propping up a gigantic stiletto in your front room?

Travellers from all over the UK literally had a field day when they flocked to Kenilworth Horse Fair in Warwickshire.

The flashy fair was bursting with beautiful and bizarre items on display across the grounds of the annual event.

As hundreds of visitors poured in, vendors displayed their collections of prized paraphernalia.

Travellers from all over the UK literally had a field day when they flocked to Kenilworth Horse Fair in Warwickshire. Visitors poured into the grounds to browse the range of goods on sale

A giant stiletto was just one article in a range of eccentric furnishings on display at the fair in Warwickshire. Perhaps most garish of all, though, was a gold bejewelled telephone

Among the novelties was a shelving unit that resembled a giant stiletto, a range of diamante armchairs and flowers surrounded by 'blinged-up' vases.

And perhaps the most ostentatious article of all  a gold bejewelled telephone  beamed atop a disco-ball themed stand.

The familiar traditional Romany Gypsy bow-top caravans were also spread throughout the event grounds.

And travellers zipped around the well attended annual event in in horse drawn carts.

The flashy fair was bursting with beautiful and bizarre items on display across the annual event. Pictured is a very flamboyant armchair taking centre stage of one stall

Some of the flashy vases on display. As hundreds of visitors poured in, vendors displayed their collections of prized paraphernalia

Flowers are gorgeously arranged in vases at one of the stalls in front of a caravan.

Groups of travellers had caused problems with communities around the area in the run-up to the fair.

Two groups, which are believed to have been on their way to the Kenilworth Horse Fair in April, parked up on land in Coventry and Nuneaton.

One caused the temporary closure of a leisure centre and the other meant a primary school had to close for three days.

Another group pitched up on a green near Warwick on Wednesday (26/7) on their way to the fair.

Visitors are pictured inspecting the goods on offer strewn around the grounds of Kenilworth Horse Fair in Warwickshire

Travelling families zipped around the well-attended event in horse drawn carts. Visitors and came from all over the country for the popular fair

The traditional Romany Gypsy bow-top caravans were also spread throughout the event grounds, as well as more modern caravans

Two groups, which are believed to have been on their way to the Kenilworth Horse Fair in April, parked up on land in Coventry and Nuneaton

Three young boys traverse the site horse. An organiser said: 'Its a good chance for meeting friends and family and getting together with everybody'

They were moved on by Warwick District Council and a police traveller liaison officer.

A man known as 'Jims Videos' who has been running the fair for eight years, told the Coventry Telegraph at the time: 'We never have any problems, we never seem to have anything major.'

'Its a good chance for meeting friends and family and getting together with everybody.'

Cart horses taking a well-deserved break from pulling their owners around stand in a clearing while their keepers enjoy themselves elsewhere at the fair

A man known as 'Jims Videos' who has been running the fair for eight years said: 'We never have any problems, we never seem to have anything major'
Shocking footage has emerged of a Chinese restaurant owner armed with a meat cleaver charging into a neighbouring pizza shop and attacking employees.

The pizza shop owner claims the man lost his temper over a table placed outside his restaurant in Taylors Hill, in north-west Melbourne.

Two pizza shop workers suffered knife injuries in the alleged attack which happened at 9pm on Saturday.

The owner of a Chinese restaurant (pictured, in white) ran into a pizza shop and attacked workers with a meat cleaver

The violence erupted at Sevens Pizza Kitchen (pictured) in the Melbourne suburb of Taylors Hill on Saturday night

Salvatore Rizzo, the owner of Sevens Pizza Kitchen, told Daily Mail Australia that he 'pried the cleaver from his [the attacker's] hand' during the struggle.

Mr Rizzo said when the man was then told to leave the area in front of the pizza shop he asked asked for his cleaver to be returned.

The pizza shop owner also said he feared the incident was going to escalate out of control, 7News reported.

'I honestly thought it was going to get worse, I don't know what would have happened if I didn't get the knife out of his hand,' he said.

'He could have killed my workers.'

Video shows the man running into the pizza shop and scuffling with workers who eventually overpower him and chase him from the restaurant.

The pizza shop owner's father (pictured) was cut on his face and hands during the shocking attack

The man (pictured, left) brandishing a cleaver was angry over a table placed outside his restaurant

Mr Rizzo (pictured, right) managed to seize the cleaver, but the Chinese restaurant owner returned later that night to ask for it back

Mr Rizzo's father was wounded on the face and hands, and his sister was also cut on the hands.

'There was blood everywhere,' one of the staff members, John Habimana, said.

Mr Rizzo claims the dispute started over table placement, with the Chinese restaurant owner unhappy about a table placed in front of his shop.

This was the first time they had met the next-door restaurateur since moving in nine months ago.

Salvatore Rizzo (pictured) says he feared for the worst if he had not been able to disarm the attacker

During the scuffle (pictured) the pizza shop owner managed to take the cleaver out of the other man's (pictured) hand

The pizza shop owner is now considering hiring security, rattled by the violence which erupted on Saturday night.

'I'm very nervous. I don't know what he is capable of. If he is capable of bringing in a cleaver, what is he capable of bringing in next?" he said.

Mr Rizzo said the New Dragon Gourmet Chinese restaurant was closed on Sunday and they have not seen or heard from the owner.

Daily Mail Australia attempted to contact the owner of New Dragon Gourmet Chinese for comment.

Police said in a statement that two men are assisting them with their inquiries - a 49-year-old from Delahey, and a 48-year-old from Taylors Lakes.

The Taylors Lakes man suffered arm injuries and was taken to hospital, while the Delahey man suffered cuts to his face.

Police urge anyone who witnessed the incident to contact Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
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The world's superpowers have flexed their muscles in massive parades to showcase their military strength.

China put on an ostentatious show of military force in a parade to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army, overseen by President Xi Jinping.

Troops, nuclear missile launchers and new stealth aircraft all featured in the parade at the remote Zhurihe training base in China's remote Inner Mongolia region.

Zhurihe Training Base is Asia's largest military training centre and features life-size mockup targets, including Taiwan's presidential palace.

Xi, wearing military clothing, told troops that the 'world isnt safe at this moment' adding that 'a strong army is needed now more than ever.'

Among the terrifying display of weapons was China's Chengdu J-20 stealth jet fighter as well as its new DF-31AG intercontinental ballistic missile. The rocket is mounted on an all-terrain vehicle to make it harder to track.

China's party-run media said about 12,000 troops, more than 100 types of aircraft and 600 pieces of military hardware were put on display at the sprawling desert camp

A formation soldiers from the PLA's Rocket Force, which controls the nation's arsenal of nuclear and conventional ballistic missiles, shout pledges of loyalty during the parade, which are part of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army

Chinese Type 99 tanks parade, followed by elite airborne troops in helicopters above. The march took place at the remote Zhurihe training base in inner Mongolia, which is Asia's largest military training centre. The Chinese military said the parade had been planned for some time, and was not related to the current tensions in North Korea

The PLA rolled out some of its latest weapons at the parade, including the DF-31AG ICBM (pictured). The nuclear-capable ballistic missile has a reported range of 6,000 miles. President Trump has sharply criticized China for not doing enough to stem the nuclear ambitions of North Korea

Clad in military fatigues President Xi Jinping oversaw the massive show of force. He called on the PLA to transform itself into an elite fighting force and demanded that the troops pledge 'absolute loyalty' to the Communist Party. Xi's corruption purges have seen dozens of officers removed from the PLA

Clad in military fatigues President Xi inspected the 12,000 troops, repeatedly shouting 'Hello comrades!' and 'Comrades, you are working hard!' into microphones fixed on top of a jeep.

Troops shouted back: 'Serve the people!', 'Follow the Party!', 'Fight to win!' and 'Forge exemplary conduct!'

In a live address Xi, who commands the People's Liberation Army, called on the Chinese military to transform itself into an elite fighting force to bolster the country's rise into a world power.

He said the Chinese military had the capabilities to 'preserve national sovereignty, security and interests' and demanded the troops' show 'absolute loyalty' to the party

The PLA has undergone an extensive modernisation programme with the strategic aim of competing with the US for regional dominance.

Hundreds of thousands of troops have been cut, and an anti-corruption purge has removed dozens of officers, while also investing heavily in aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines and stealth fighters.

A trio of Chinese J-20 stealth fighters fly overhead during the parade. The newest generation fighter by the Chinese air force is the country's most advanced aircraft and designed to potentially rival the F-22 and the F-35 of the US Air Force

Divisions on display: Up to 12,000 troops, 570 vehicles and 129 jets participated in the parade. State media reported that it was the first time that 40 per cent of the vehicles had been presented, which highlighted China's massive military spending

Xi said the military must, 'Always listen to and follow the party's orders, and march to wherever the party points' and said that the world was not peaceful, however he did not specify any hot spots the Chinese military would intervene in

China's military has undergone an extensive modernisation programme, cutting thousands of troops while investing heavily in modern technology, including drones, stealth fighters, nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers

Unlike previous parades seen in Beijing, the troops in Inner Mongolia were clad in full combat gear, to further emphasis their readiness. It was also the first time that President Xi had reviewed troops in such a way

Missile launchers, self-propelled artillery and transport helicopters stand on display behind the formations of troops. Xi said the Chinese military had the capabilities to 'preserve national sovereignty, security and interests'

It has been decades since China last fought a war and the country insists it has no hostile intent, and simply needs to defend itself. However it's increasingly assertive stance in the South China Sea has rattled its neighbours

More than 100 planes flew overhead and almost 600 types of weaponry were on display for the occasion  nearly half of which were making their debut in public, according to the Defence Ministry

The Chinese flag is raised during a military parade at the Zhurihe training base in China's northern Inner Mongolia region

Since coming to power in 2012, the president has trumpeted the need to build a stronger combat-ready military, while leading efforts to centralise the Communist Party's control over it

Troops make preparation for a military parade 90th birthday celebration of the Chinese People's Liberation Army

Elsewhere today, Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a pomp-filled display of Russia's naval might as the Kremlin paraded its sea power from the Baltic Sea to the shores of Syria.

Some 50 warships and submarines were on show along the Neva River and in the Gulf of Finland off the country's second city of Saint Petersburg after Putin ordered the navy to hold its first ever parade on such a grand scale.

Putin told servicemen: 'Today much is being done to develop and modernise the navy. The navy is not only dealing with its traditional tasks but also responding with merit to new challenges, making a significant contribution to the fight against terrorism and piracy.'

The showcase event to mark Russia's annual Navy Day is the latest to be beefed up by Putin, with the Kremlin strongman also bolstering the traditional WWII victory parade in Moscow as he looks to flex the country's military muscles.

Russia has ramped up its military manoeuvres as ties with the West have slumped over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine, unnerving NATO and its members in Eastern Europe.

It came as Putin on Sunday said the United States would have to cut 755 diplomatic staff in Russia and warned of a prolonged gridlock in its ties after the US Congress backed new sanctions against the Kremlin.

Putin added bluntly that Russia was able to raise the stakes with America even further, although he hoped this would be unnecessary.

A US State Department official denounced the move as a "regrettable and uncalled for act," adding that Washington was now weighing a potential response.

Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw a pomp-filled display of Russia's naval might as the Kremlin paraded its sea power from the Baltic Sea to the shores of Syria

Russia staged its own show of force on Sunday with President Putin joining a naval display

Russian warships sail during the Navy Day parade in Kronshtadt, a seaport town in the suburb of St. Petersburg

A boat with Russian President Vladimir Putin onboard sails along the Neva river during the Navy Day parade

Some 50 warships and submarines were on displayed in the Gulf of Finland and on the Neva river around St Petersburg

Russia has ramped up its military maneuvers as ties with the West have slumped over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine, unnerving NATO and its members in Eastern Europe

Russian news wire Interfax reported that six vessels, including the latest generation 'Krasnodar' diesel submarine, were taking part in the parade

In response to Russia's display, Georgia and the United States launched their biggest ever joint military exercises today in the latest show of support for the tiny Caucasus nation that has squared off against Russia.

The start of the drills comes a day ahead of a two-day visit to Tbilisi by US Vice President Mike Pence during which he is expected to reiterate Washington's backing for Georgia's wish to join NATO.

Some 800 Georgian and 1600 US troops are taking part in the Noble Partner 2017 drills - the largest ever in the Caucasus nation since it fought a brief war with Russia in 2008.

Georgia's Defence Minister Levan Izoria called the scale of exercises 'unprecedented', insisting they will 'make clear the support for Georgia by the NATO member states, especially the US.'

The US has sent some of its M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks and M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles across the Black Sea for the drills, which will last until August 12.

The exercises also included 400 servicemen from Armenia, Germany, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom.

It comes a day after North Korea tested a ballistic missile that it claims can reach all of the United States, US President Donald Trump criticised China for not reining in Kim Jong Un and his missile program.

'I am very disappointed in China,' Trump wrote in a pair of Twitter posts. '...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!'

North Korea's test Friday of an intercontinental ballistic missile was its second of the long-range weapon in a month. The first on July 4 showed the missile had the range to reach Alaska.

Friday's test was designed to show the Hwasong-14 missile's maximum range with a 'large-sized heavy nuclear warhead,' a statement from Pyongyang's Korean Central News Agency said.

It said Washington should regard the launch as a 'grave warning.'

British servicemen gather before the official opening ceremony of the joint multinational military exercise 'Noble Partner 2017' at the military base of Vaziani, outside Tbilisi, in Georgia

Georgian servicemen line up during the official opening ceremony of the joint multinational military exercise

The exercises included 400 servicemen from Armenia, Germany, Slovenia, Turkey, Ukraine and the United Kingdom

US servicemen sit on a M1A2 Abrams Main Battle Tank before the official opening ceremony

Some 800 Georgian and 1600 US troops are taking part in the Noble Partner 2017 drills - the largest ever in the Caucasus nation since it fought a brief war with Russia in 2008
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A house that has been owned by the same family for nearly 100 years has finally gone under the hammer with two buyers willing to fork out more than $ 1 million for it.

Delmege O'Shea listing agent and principal Lynda White said the property has received two separate offers on Saturday.

'We are currently in negotiations and expect to finalise things in the next 24 to 48 hours,' she told Daily Mail Australia.

The Stanwell Street Melbourne home has been on the market since the start of July this year with two people showing interest

The dilapidated house has caught the attention of two buyers willing to pay big bucks for it says its listing agent Lynda White

The listing agent for the house expects to wrap the negotiations within the next 24 to 48 hours after its auction on Saturday

The house in Richmond has been in the same family for nearly one hundred years with one lady owning the home all her life

The home at Stanwell Street in Richmond, an inner-suburb in Melbourne, was owned by the late Ula McColl fondly known as Mrs Mac, 90, who had grown up and later lived in the same house all her life.

She passed away in February this year.

'All her children are aged between 50s to 70s and have their own houses,' she said.

Ms White said the family felt the best outcome for the home was to sell it.

The late Ula McColl (pictured) also fondly known as Mrs Mac lived in the house all her life from a young girl till the day she died

The house comes with two bedrooms and has many of its original features still intact and is close to public transportation

'I lived in the same street as this house when I was growing up and I went to school with one of her [Mrs Mac] daughters.

'She [Mrs Mac] was a lovely lady, down to earth and always had something nice to say about someone,' she said.

The two-bedroom cottage comes with many original features including the original claw foot bath and cast iron stove, all placed on approximately 217 square metres of land.

The property is also located nearby Bridge Road shops, Swan Street, Yarra River, and public transportation.

The property is located nearby the Bridge Road shops, Swan Street and the Yarra River and is nearby Melbourne city centre
President Trump put more pressure on Republicans to win the Senate healthcare vote on Sunday, tweeting that they should take the 'nuke option' to secure a majority because 'the world is watching'.

In his early morning Twitter blast, Trump urged the GOP 'not to give up' on the stand-off despite a week of crushing congressional defeats.

'Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace...and go to 51 votes (nuke option), get Cross State Lines & more,' he wrote shortly after 7.30am.

Republicans failed to secure a majority on their 'skinny' version of a previously unsuccessful bill to repeal and replace Obamacare in a late-night vote on Thursday.

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President Trump urged Republicans not to give up on the vote on healthcare in an early morning tweet on Sunday

The president spent the weekend in Washington DC where he was pictured leaving his Trump International Hotel on Saturday night after dinner (above)

Three Republican senators, including John McCain, sided with Democrats to reject the bill. The same three senators plus one other rejected the bill a day earlier.

The stand-off appears to be testing the president's patience.

At a speech in front of police officers in Long Island on Friday, he conceded: 'They should have approved health care last night. But you cant have everything  boy, oh boy.

Sen. John McCain is among three Republican senators who voted against the 'skinny' repeal late on Thursday night

'You know I said from the beginning, let Obamacare implode and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let Obamacare implode.'

Reverting to his campaign rally rhetoric, Trump continued: ''Theyve been working on that one for seven years can you believe that? The swamp. But well get it done.'

The speech immediately preceded the president's announcement bombshell announcement that he had replaced Chief of Staff Reince Priebus with the Secretary of Homeland Security, General John Kelly.

On Saturday, eager to steer the nation's focus back to the legislative difficulties being faced in the Senate, Trump slammed Republican senators as 'fools' who were being 'laughed at'.

In a flurry of somewhat repetitive complaints, he said: 'Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the R Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!'

'The very outdated filibuster rule must go. Budget reconciliation is killing R's in Senate. Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT'S TIME!

'Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don't go to a 51 vote majority NOW.

'They look like fools and are just wasting time...8 Dems totally control the U.S. Senate. Many great Republican bills will never pass, like Kate's Law and complete Healthcare. Get smart!'

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska (left) and Susan Collins of Maine (right) two other moderate Republicans, also voted against the bill

Later, he threatened to end bailouts for insurance companies before finally tweeting: 'Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!'

Sen. McCain, who began chemotherapy at the weekend to treat an aggressive form of brain cancer he was diagnosed with earlier this month, stood by his no-vote after Thursday's failed session.

'From the beginning, I have believed that Obamacare should be repealed and replaced with a solution that increases competition, lowers costs, and improves care for the American people.

'The so-called skinny repeal amendment the Senate voted on today would not accomplish those goals,' he said in a statement.

Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, two other moderate Republicans, also voted against the bill.

The president spent 20 minutes tweeting on the issue on Saturday, calling Republicans 'fools' for not being able to pass the bill

The 'skinny' bill was presented after an earlier, more comprehensive plan to repeal and replace Obamacare failed to take flight.

The lighter version of the bill seeks to remove three of the most unpopular components of Obacamare; the individual mandate that all Americans must have health insurance or face a fine, the employer mandate which forces companies with 50 employees or more to provide them with insurance, and the Cadillac tax which which applies an excise tax on high-cost employer-sponsored health plans.

Trump's tweets on healthcare formed part of a weekend Twitter binge in which he also slammed China for doing 'nothing' to help America in its feud with North Korea.

The president spent the weekend at the White House. He was spotted having dinner at his Trump International Hotel in Washington DC on Saturday night.

During the week, the administration endured one of its most turbulent weeks since he took office.

On Saturday, Trump took aim at China which he said he could 'easily' help in the US's feud with North Korea

New communications director Anthony Scaramucci set a fiery and at times obscene tone in his first week in the role since replacing Sean Spicer.

The New York businessman went on the offensive to lay down the party lines and pledge his allegiance to Trump and his agenda. He took part in several TV interviews before planting himself at the center of his first scandal on Wednesday.

After having details of his financial disclosure form published in the media, the Mooch, as he has become known, automatically presumed he was the victim of a leak.

He first appeared to point the finger at Reince Priebus, Trump's Chief of Staff, and also blamed him for leaking details of a dinner he attended with the president and first lady.

In a profanity-laced interview with The New Yorker, Scaramucci called Priebus a 'f***ing paranoid schizophrenic' and a 'c**k blocker'. He later said he'd made a 'mistake' in trusting the journalist who wrote the piece.

On Friday, Trump announced that he was replacing Priebus, the former chairman of the RNC, with General Kelly.

CNN reported afterwards that Priebus tendered his resignation a day earlier.
A 26-year-old woman in Oregon has pleaded guilty to killing and dismembering her 50-year-old boyfriend.

Sheyanna Lisa Ray pleaded guilty to murder and abuse of a corpse on Friday in Klamath County Circuit Court in relation to the death of David Lowell White, 50.

Ray told Judge Roxanne Osborne that she had an argument with White that led to them fighting in November of last year inside of the home they shared.

Sheyanna Lisa Ray (above), 26, has pleaded guilty to killing and dismembering her 50-year-old boyfriend in Klamath County, Oregon

Ray pleaded guilty to murder and abuse of a corpse on Friday in Klamath County Circuit Court in relation to the death of David Lowell White, 50

Ray told Judge Roxanne Osborne that she had an argument with White that led to them fighting in November of last year inside of the home they shared (scene above)

She claims she woke up to find White standing over her with a cord in his hand and that he was going to choke her.

'We were fighting and he had a cord in his hand and was going to choke me. I got a cord and choked him with it,' Ray said.

Ray cut up White's body and tried to burn it before fleeing to Redding, California where she was arrested on November 13.

Her boyfriend's remains were found at his residence on November 12 after police received a tip that he may have been dead.

Ray said: 'We were fighting and he had a cord in his hand and was going to choke me. I got a cord and choked him with it.' She then cut up his body and tried to burn it before fleeing to Redding, California where she was later arrested

An autopsy confirmed that White died of 'homicidal violence'.

Prosecutors allege that the 26-year-old tried to hide his remains and avoid prosecution.

The victim's parents told the Herald and News that the pair had been living together for roughly three months before White's death.

Ray will be sentenced on August 14 and she faces between 25 years and life in prison.
Catherine Loquias (pictured) had been living with Jason Spencer, 44, for two years and two months before he died

The de facto partner of a man who died in a plane crash in NSW has won the right to hold a funeral for him.

Catherine Loquias had been living with Jason Spencer, 44, for two years and two months before he died when the plane he was piloting crashed near Bathurst, west of Sydney, on June 16.

But the grieving woman was told she could not organise or even attend her partner's funeral by his family and has spent the past few weeks engaged in a court battle over the issue, The Courier-Mail reported.

On July 12, a court order said Mr Spencer's family could not hold a funeral which excluded her on July 13.

On July 20, Ms Loquias won the right to attend a service along with her late partner's family and to hold a private wake - which the family would not attend.

Ms Loquias had been living in a townhouse owned by Mr Spencer, along with her nine-year-old daughter for more than two years, court documents submitted on her behalf claim.

After the death of her partner, his family changed the locks on the premises and demanded she vacate the home in Brisbane's inner-city suburb of West End immediately.

When Ms Loquias found she could not get in to the home, she called a locksmith so she could enter and get her belongings.

Two days later, the family's lawyer contacted Ms Loquias' lawyer to say the woman could have 'no involvement whatsoever in the funeral'.

'Catherine is not welcome to attend the funeral,' the letter read.

'Catherine is to vacate the property at West End immediately.'

Ms Loquias had been living in a townhouse owned by Mr Spencer (pictured), along with her nine-year-old daughter for more than two years, court documents said

The July 12 court decision also reportedly stopped the Spencer family from interfering with Ms Loquias' living arrangements.

Under a decision made by Justice Daubney on July 20, the mother-of-one will organise a funeral service and the Spencer family will bury the 44-year-old at Mt Gravatt Cemetery.

All would be invited to the funeral service but the Spencer family would not attend the private wake, which would be organised and paid for by Ms Loquias.

Mr Spencer did not leave a will, which has caused further contention between Ms Loquias and the Spencer family.

The woman has applied to be the administrator of his estate and noted the pair were earlier in an on-off relationship for more than 10 years.

In her application, she filed receipts for what she claimed were promise rings.

Mr Spencer was found dead inside the wreckage of his plane near Bathurst in NSW's Central West on June 17.
The US military has successfully tested its missile intercept system in Alaska amid rising tensions with North Korea.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) was able to intercept a ballistic missile launched over the Pacific Ocean by a U.S. Air Force C-17 plane in the 'successful' test - meant to simulate a real missile fired by Pyongyang.

It comes after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of 6,500 miles on Friday night - far enough to reach major US cities.

The US military has successfully tested its missile intercept system in Alaska amid rising tensions with North Korea (file photo)

The exercise will help the U.S. 'to stay ahead of the evolving threat,' said MDA Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves in a statement.

'It's something we have confidence in,' added Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis of THAAD.

The system is designed to intercept and destroy short, medium and intermediate range ballistic missiles during the final phase of their flight. It uses 'hit-to-kill' technology where kinetic energy from the interceptor missile destroys an incoming target.

North Korea launched a missile (pictured) that came 'threateningly' close to Japan on Friday night, which has prompted concern from US and Japan leaders

In response to the North Korea's ICBM launch, the U.S. then flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force

Though such exercises are planned months in advance, this one comes after North Korea test-fired the intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the missile test launch on Friday night, which was personally supervised by Kim.

The missile launch was intended as a 'stern warning' that the United States would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

The test was also aimed at confirming the maximum range and other technical aspects of the missile it says was capable of delivering a 'large-sized, heavy nuclear warhead.'

Had it been fired at a standard trajectory, the rocket could have reached Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago and would have even had New York and Boston within its sights, according to analysts.

This graphic shows what the trajectory of the Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile would take, with some experts saying the North Korean rocket could reach Alaska

A U.S. missile defense system called Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, is seen at a golf course in Seongju, South Korea, Tuesday, July 4

Hours later, the U.S. then flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force after the North Korean missile tests, the Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.

The launch comes less than a month after the North conducted its first ICBM test in defiance of years of efforts led by the United States, South Korea and Japan to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

Lockheed Martin Corp, contractor for the THAAD system, said it can intercept incoming missiles both inside and outside the Earth's atmosphere.

'A medium-range target ballistic missile (MRBM) was air-launched by a U.S. Air Force C-17 over the Pacific Ocean. The THAAD weapon system located at Pacific Spaceport Complex Alaska in Kodiak, Alaska, detected, tracked and intercepted the target,' Lockheed said in a statement.

The US military this year began deploying THAAD to South Korea, a move that infuriated China, which has argued the deployment would further destabilize the situation on the Korean peninsula.

Today's test came amid news Trump is poised to order a military strike against North Korea within the next year.

The US intercept test comes after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching parts of the United States. Pictured: Kim Jong-Un celebrating the first successful test launch on July 4

Trump wrote that China could 'easily' solve the North Korea problem if past American leaders insisted on making them help and indicated he would no longer allow the behavior to continue

Trump wrote that China could 'easily' solve the North Korea problem if past American leaders insisted on making them help and indicated he would no longer allow the behavior to continue

Trump took to Twitter on Saturday night to call out 'foolish' past American leaders who he believes allowed China to make enormous profits in trade while they didn't help with the growing problem of North Korea

Senior military sources in Washington DC said that Pentagon officials have laid out plans to obliterate a nuclear weapons facility operating deep within a mountain in the rogue state.

The move, which could spark retaliation attacks from Jong-Un, would be a major step towards all-out war to stop North Korea from developing nuclear weapons.

The president also turned on China, tweeting yesterday the country could 'easily' solve problems with North Korea but the country does nothing to help the United States except 'talk'.

Trump took to Twitter on Saturday night to call out 'foolish' past American leaders who he believes allowed China to make enormous profits in trade while not helping with North Korea.

Trump added that China could 'easily' solve the growing problem with the country, but instead all China does is 'talk'.

Jong-un has previously warned Trump he was pushing his nation to the brink of nuclear war.
A pet cemetery in Illinois is being accused of deceiving their clients and giving them random ashes after the remains of dozens of animals were discovered decomposing in a freezer.

Investigators began looking into Katy's Pet Cemetery and Crematory in Tazewell County earlier this month after allegations emerged that they were giving away the ashes of animals that did not belong to their owners.

Animal rescue volunteer Richie Rich said he made the discovery while he was searching for a lost dog in South Pekin.

Animal rescue volunteer, Richie Rich (pictured), discovered a freezer filled with dead pets when he went searching for a missing dog

Clients told authorities they received the ashes of their deceased pets from the pet cemetery as police ran microchip checks

'We were out there searching for a dog named Cosmo, a great dane,' Rich told local CBS broadcaster WMBD on Thursday.

'When we were making our rounds, close to a pumpkin field where she was last seen, and Kayla noticed some standing water of the cemetery.'

Joe Abts (pictured), owner of the pet cemetery, committed suicide on Wednesday

Rich, who works with the Trap and Animal Rescue of Peoria (TRAP) organization, said he began searching the cemetery because it would have likely provided the right conditions for a domesticated animal, including water and shelter.

'We pulled in to check for paw prints, didn't see anything, we're immediately met with the smell of what we thought at the time was roadkill... There was a chest freezer outside, along the side of the building that, the closer we got to it, the stronger the smell.'

Tazewell County Chief Deputy Jeffrey Lower later told WMBD: 'There were three animals inside it that had been there for some time. One of those animals had a microchip in the animal. We were able to identify that animal and the owner had received ashes.'

The animal was a cat that was supposedly cremated in 2013 at Katy's Pet Cemetery and Crematory.

Lower said that another 15 were discovered, and '10 more in another freezer and we have 12 of them.'

Police say they had discovered one pet that died in 2001, evidence that the cemetery had been deceiving clients for almost two decades (Pictured: Officer Jeffrey Lower)

'We only took possession of those that had the microchip in them and the rest of them there's just no way for us to identify,' Lower added.

Lower said that they even found an animal from as far back as 2001.

Lower said that the owner had not done anything illegal 'as far as the disposal process' was concerned.

'The only part that was illegal was representing ashes of an animal that was not truly that animal,' the law enforcement officer noted.

Joe Abts, owner of the pet cemetery, committed suicide on Wednesday soon after authorities opened an investigation into the claims, hindering police from pressing charges.

Pet owners affected by the alleged scheme still have the option to file a civil complaint against Katy's Pet Cemetery and Crematory.

In remains unclear why the cemetery kept the animals in the freezer.

According to their website, the pet cemetery was opened in 1984, offering pet cremation and burial, as well as online obituaries for deceased pets.

An email seeking comment from Katy's Pet Cemetery and Crematory was not immediately answered.

An answering machine for Katy's Pet Cemetery and Crematory said that the establishment was closed on Sunday's after a phone call was placed.
A man accused of stalking Kate Beckinsale at Tampa Bay Comic Con is now facing a felony charge after appearing in front of a judge Sunday morning.

Terry Lee Repp, 45, was first arrested on Saturday at the Tampa Convention Center on a misdemeanor charge of stalking.

But due to his troubled history, a judge upgraded the charge to felony aggravated stalking.

Repp, who is originally from Iowa, has allegedly been following the 44-year-old actress across the country for the past year and even threatened to stab her, TMZ reported.

Close call: Kate Beckinsale was forced to postpone her appearance at Tampa Bay Comic Con after a man accused of stalking her was arrested

Authorities in Florida had been warned to keep an eye open for him encase he showed up, and Repp did just that.

He was found by police while awaiting a Q&A panel in the convention center.

Beckinsale postponed her appearance at the event after the incident.

According to TMZ, Repp allegedly made physical contact with her at an event in Salt Lake City in last year, touching her back before threatening to stab her.

He was detained and kicked out of another event in Houston she appeared at later in 2016 as well.

'The defendant appears to have an irrational obsession with the victim and has traveled across the country in an effort to harass her,' the police report said.

Authorities noted that Repp's actions have caused Beckinsale 'substantial emotional distress' and have caused her to fear for her safety.

Although he didn't manage to make contact with her this time, she had to go to the police station to file a report.

Obsessed: Terry Lee Repp, 45, has reportedly been following the actress across the country for the past year, and even threatened to stab her before

Convention spokeswoman Jamie Kautzmann confirmed to the Tampa Bay Times there was an incident involving an 'overzealous fan.'

'We did have him escorted from the building, off the property, far away from here,' she said.

The actress was scheduled top appear at 11.30am for a Q&A session.

However, the panel was moved back to 6pm to allow her time to file the report with police.

'We were able to reconfigure things so people will still be able to see her,' Kautzmann added.

Killer: The 44-year-old is most widely recognized for her turn in the Underworld series as the Death Dealer vampire Selene

The star, who has appeared in sci-fi and fantasy favorites Total Recall and Van Helsing, is most widely recognized for her turn in the Underworld series as the Death Dealer vampire Selene.

She was set to charge $80 - cash only - for autographs and photo ops.

Charmed star Rose McGowan is also appearing and charging the same, while Khary Payton who plays King Ezekiel on The Walking Dead and Cyborg on Teen Titans Go can be nabbed for $60.

Other celebs set to appear include Nichelle Nichols AKA Lieutenant Uhura in Star Trek and Wallace Shawn who played Vizzini in The Princess Bride and Rex in Toy Story.
A Florida woman was arrested after she brought her 10-year-old child along in the getaway vehicle she drove during an armed robbery.

Police say that Christina Gaud, 30, was driving the car Friday night when her accomplice, 33-year-old Rodney Snow, robbed a convenience store in Ocala.

Sheriff's deputies saw a masked man leave the shop at the intersection of State Road 200 and SW 80th Street, and run into a waiting car.

The car then fled from deputies before crashing less than a mile down the road.

Christina Gaud, 30 (pictured), was arrested on Friday night after she brought her 10-year-old child along in the getaway vehicle she drove during an armed robbery. She has been charged with robbery with a firearm, fleeing police and felony child neglect

According to police, Snow ran from the vehicle and shot himself in a wooded area. He is currently in the hospital in critical condition, reported the Orlando Sentinel.

It is currently unclear how Snow and Gaud are related. Deputies found the child, uninjured, inside the crashed car.

Gaud, of Summerfield, is being held at Marion County Jail on charges of robbery with a firearm, fleeing police and felony child neglect.

Sheriff's deputies saw a masked man leave the shop at the intersection of State Road 200 and SW 80th Street (pictured), and run into a waiting car. The car then fled from deputies before crashing less than a mile down the road. The child is now with state child protective services

The child is with state child protective services while the Florida Department of Children and Families works to find safe placement.

This is not the first time such a situation has occurred.

Asia Griffin, 26, was charged with theft and child neglect after police say she left her child behind when she tried to steal almost $200 in groceries.

When a store manager at a Publix in Tamarac, Florida, grabbed the shopping cart to stop Griffin and a friend from leaving, they ran off, leaving behind the groceries and the child.
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Young people seeking justice for the death of Rashan Charles will fight police on the streets if they are ignored by the authorities, a campaigner has warned.

A spokesman for the Charles family accused police officers of 'killing youths on the streets' and forcing them into gangs, during an impassioned speech at a vigil in the 20-year-old's memory, in east London, on Saturday evening.

Young father Mr Charles died during a struggle with a police officer in Hackney last week.

Protests followed with violence erupting in the area, as mobs of furious demonstrators set wheelie bins and mattresses on fire and attacked vehicles on Friday.

Retribution: Young people seeking justice for the death of Rashan Charles will fight police on the streets if they are ignored by the authorities, a campaigner has warned (Pictured, a speaker addresses the crowd at a vigil for Mr Charles on Saturday evening)

Speaking in front of a crowd of Mr Charles' loved ones and Black Lives Matter campaigners, the spokesman claimed police officers were discriminating against ethnic minorities.

He fumed: 'If you are black, you are already a suspect.

'If you are black and you are standing on a street corner and there are already more than two or three of you, you are seen as a gang.

'The police at the moment are acting in a way that is going to divide communities. It will be an us versus them thing... they are acting like a gang, operating like a gang.

'Killing our youths on the streets, the way they are doing... the only way the young'uns know how to retaliate now is with the riots, that's because they can't articulate themselves to bring the police to justice.

'Once these kids start getting together, using their sense and going against the police, that makes sense. As long as they are taking ours, we'll take theirs - that's the way they see it.

'It's not the family advocating that, that's just the way they see it.'

Standing alongside the 20-year-old's grieving father Esa (right), Diane Abbott (left), said: 'That is the call that every parent dreads. The call that tells you that your young child has died in those sorts of circumstances'

A large crowd gathered for speeches outside Stoke Newington Police Station early this afternoon, with Stafford Scott speaking on behalf of Esa Charles, the father of Rashan

One protester held a sign saying: 'Jail killer police, a badge is not a licence to kill. Justice 4 Rashan. Movement for justice by any means necessary'

Diane Abbott defended the 'understandable anger and upset' of the mob of rioters who lit bonfires and hurled petrol bombs at officers in Dalston, east London, on Friday night.

But speaking at the vigil, the shadow home secretary urged protesters to heed the wishes of Mr Charles' family who have called for peace following his death.

Standing alongside his grieving father Esa, she said: 'That is the call that every parent dreads. The call that tells you that your young child has died in those sorts of circumstances.

'I have been in contact with the police from the beginning but I thought it important to come here today to publicly show my support as a member of the community, as a mother and as your member of parliament.'

The Hackney North and Stoke Newington MP continued: 'Violence is not the answer but I am here to assure the parents and assure the community that I will stand by the parents in their fight for the truth.

'Most of us will have seen the video and there are questions to be answered and I will not rest until those questions are answered.'

A furious mob has lit bonfires and hurled petrol bombs at officers in Dalston, east London, after a protest over the death of a black father 'who was wrestled to the ground by police' turned violent

Riot police at a protest in Kingsland Road in east London, where people gathered in response to the death of 20-year-old Rashan Charles

Shadow Home Secretary Diane Abbott, pictured, earlier told MailOnline: 'The anger and upset at the death of Rashan Charles is understandable. But Rashan's family have explicitly spoken out against hostile actions. We must respect their wishes and any protests must be peaceful'

Mr Charles died after he was chased by an officer who attempted to remove an object from his throat, according to an initial probe by the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

Footage on social media appeared to show at least one police officer attempting to restrain the 20-year-old in a shop close to where the protest was held.

His death has sparked fury in the local community with Ms Abbott earlier telling MailOnline that the 'anger and upset' at the death of Mr Charles was 'understandable'.

She added: 'But Rashan's family have explicitly spoken out against hostile actions. We must respect their wishes and any protests must be peaceful.'

Mr Charles' father was joined by the family of Edson Da Costa who died last month - six days after being detained by police - for a vigil organised by Stand Up To Racism.

Stafford Scott, who stood next to Mr Charles and spoke on behalf of the family, directly addressed the young people who protested the night before, and said that they understand their anger and frustration.

At the scene this morning well-wishers stopped at an impromptu memorial to Mr Charles that has been set up on the street

Police were also patrolling through Dalston this morning and were spotted taking notes as they surveyed the scene of last night's riots

Among the tributes was one which read: 'Rest easy young King. Love Kay x'

He said: 'Don't feel that the family don't feel that anger and that frustration too. But what the family knows is that taking it to the streets doesn't give you justice.'

Mr Scott said the family have found the best legal support they can and are now asking the community to 'support them in their struggle' but with 'peace on the streets'.

'No justice, no peace doesn't mean violence - it means we will not watch this in silence,' he added on their behalf.

As violent riots erupted on Friday night, dramatic video showed more than a dozen officers retreating from protesters who launched objects at them.

They were also seen clinging to the front of a truck which ploughed through bins that had been set up as a barricade.

The violence has drawn parallels with the London riots in 2011, which were sparked by the police shooting of 29-year-old Mark Duggan in Tottenham.

As darkness fell, youths were seen setting fire to mattresses in the middle of the road and pelting police vans with objects.

Riot officers and police dogs were deployed to neutralise the violence in east London. Unverified footage on social media appeared to show at least one police officer attempting to restrain Mr Charles, who later died in hospital, in a shop close to where the protest was held today

The footage that sparked the riots: An officer appears to restrain Mr Charles on the floor of the shop, in Kingsland Road, east London, at 1.45am last Saturday

Riot police on horseback rush to where several youths protesting Mr Charles' death lit mattresses and wheelie bins in the middle of the road

The windows of several shops in Kingsland High Street were smashed as the violence extended beyond Dalston Kingsland Station.

With the aftermath of the riot cleared up this morning, a friend of Mr Charles' family told MailOnline that they had been left 'stricken with grief'.

Flowers have been left outside Yours Locally, the shop where the incident happened last weekend.

A Black Lives Matter placard lay outside, along with a photo of Rashan Charles with the words 'enough is enough' and 'it could be you next' on it.

And as night descended, worrying videos showed youths setting fire to mattresses in the middle of the road and pelting police vans with objects

Protesters take to the streets of Dalston, east London, and clash with police following the death of Rashan Charles

Protesters (pictured) take to the streets of Dalston and clash with police following the death of Rashan Charles

Two police officers were seen walking down Kingsland Road taking notes in pocket books.

Amid the chaos last night, local businesses, bars and restaurants pulled down their shutters - locking customers inside - as youths rode through the flame-lit streets on bicycles.

But today, convenience store Yours Locally closed ahead of the demonstration at Stoke Newington Police station out of respect for Mr Charles' grieving family.

Shopkeeper Okkas Tapki, 47, from nearby Haggerston, said: 'We have spoken to the family because they are our customers - his mum and dad.

'He was always coming to the shop. I knew him as a customer.'

The windows of several shops in Kingsland High Street were smashed as the violence extended beyond Dalston Kingsland Station

As night descended, police in riot gear confronted the protesters who had been setting fire to objects on the streets

Dramatic footage on on social media showed more than a dozen officers retreating from a crowd of demonstrators who launched objects at them

Discussing the protests, he said: 'I think it's important when they have a demonstration they respect other people, and respect all the shops here in the street.'

Father-of-one John Mullen, 32, who lives in Hackney Central, said: 'I can totally understand why the protests took place. You can also appreciate why they sometimes spill over into unfortunate incidents.

'My understanding is there has been three such incidents involving the deaths of young men at the hands of the police, that didn't really get reported as they should. So I can appreciate the community's anger.'

A large crowd gathered for speeches outside Stoke Newington Police Station early this afternoon, with Stafford Scott speaking on behalf of Esa Charles, the father of Rashan.

A lorry attempts to drive through makeshift road blocks at a protest in Kingsland Road in east London, where people gathered in response to the death of Rashan Charles

He said: 'Don't feel that the family don't feel that anger, and that frustration too. 'But what the family knows is that taking it to the streets doesn't give you justice.

'No justice, no peace doesn't mean violence - it means we will not watch this in silence.'

Afterwards, groups of community members and activists stood outside the police station with two officers stationed outside the front doors while a further four were in front of steel barriers.

A heated debate took place outside the station as a group of young men questioned two police liaison officers about stop and search tactics.

Tributes to Mr Charles were left at the scene of the riots, left. Pictured right, police officers on patrol in Hackney this morning

A local woman leaves a tribute to Mr Charles among flowers and candles that have been placed at the side of the road by well-wishers in Dalston

One officer said: 'I am not here to have a conversation about what is right and wrong about the police today.

'I am here to try and facilitate a peaceful demonstration which you are absolutely entitled to have.'

A young man said: 'Are you allowed to put somebody in a headlock? That's what happened in the video.'

The policeman replied: 'If you are trying to do something to potentially save someone's life.'

Officers on horses and others in riot vans were deployed as the police tried to contain the disorder and break up groups of protesters

The windows of several shops in Kingsland High Street were smashed as the violence extended beyond Dalston Kingsland Station

It is in sharp contrast to the events of last night, when officers on horses and others in riot vans were deployed as the police tried to contain the disorder and break up groups of protesters.

Several bins were set on fire before a mattress, thrown on top of the bonfire, sent plumes of black smoke spiraling into the dark sky above.

Helicopters could be heard circling above as protesters launched fireworks at riot officers and police dogs.

Scotland Yard said 'a number of items including bottles' were thrown at officers attending a 'planned protest' near Middleton Road at 3.40pm on Friday.

A local Tesco express in Dlaston locked several customers in the store as riot police clashed with protesters outside

Riot police at a protest in Kingsland Road in east London, where people gathered in response to the death of Rashan Charles

Protesters angry at the death of a black man 'who was wrestled to the ground by police' barricaded a London road and threw bottles at officers

Protesters told pedestrians, motorcyclists and cyclists not to travel through the barricade as shattered glass was strewn across the road.

One police officer sustained an injury to his eye but remains fit for duty. A member of the public was also knocked from his bicycle and assaulted as he attempted to pass through the protest and a number of parked vehicles were damaged.

Detective Superintendent Claire Crawley, from Hackney Borough, said: 'The disorder of last night was separate from the peaceful protest at Stoke Newington Police Station that was held earlier that day.

'Thankfully, nobody was seriously injured, but there was inconvenience to local residents and road users and damage caused to vehicles, a cash machine and a number of windows.

'We will always support the right to lawful protest but behaviour such as that seen last night cannot be tolerated.'

The police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), is investigating the events leading up to the death of Mr Charles, whose passing sparked protests in east London

A man appears to set fire to an object on the streets of east London after a protest over Mr Charles' death turned violent

Signs attached to traffic lights and lamp posts amid the violent protests bore pictures of Mr Charles alongside the words: 'Enough is enough'

It comes just days after as many as 150 people chanting 'no justice, no peace' while holding Black Lives Matters placards brought traffic to a standstill outside east London's Stoke Newington Police Station.

The vigil was organised by Stand Up To Racism, with campaigners saying they are 'enormously concerned and angered' over his death.

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 Esa Charles said at the time: '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.'

Dramatic footage showed protesters, who took to the streets over Mr Charles' death, setting fire to a mattress in the middle of the road

Shattered glass littered the roads in east London where a handful of protesters are holding Black Lives Matter placards

Scotland Yard said 'a number of items including bottles' were thrown at officers attending a 'planned protest' near Middleton Road

Police officers could no longer be seen at the site of the clashes this evening but dozens of protesters, some masked, are still lining the streets

The IPCC said in a statement on Friday: 'We understand the concerns raised following Rashan's death.

'We will independently examine the circumstances of this incident, we will follow the evidence, we will consider whether there is an indication there may have been misconduct or criminality.'

The IPCC added that it would 'seek to answer the questions that Rashan's family and the community of Hackney understandably have'.
The family of a woman murdered 23 years ago hopes justice is around the corner with all evidence pointing to her husband of three months as the prime suspect.

Anthea Bradshaw-Hall was strangled to death and her body stabbed repeatedly in July 1994 while she visited her husband - who has since come out as gay - in Brunei.

The high school sweethearts had only been married for three months when Ms Bradshaw-Hall's body was found in a pool of blood in her husband's apartment.

More than two decades after the slaying Ms Bradshaw-Hall's family are waiting for the Australian Federal Police to finish their investigation into her case, 60 Minutes reported.

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Jeff Hall (pictured, left) has been named as the only suspect in the murder of his wife Anthea (pictured, right) in Brunei 23 years ago

Hall (pictured) has been living in Toyko for the past 14 years and has never been charged over the death of his wife

The Brunei coroner released a report four years after the killing which shocked the Bradshaw family who were still close to Jeff at the time.

The report ruled out robbery and sexual assault, but named Mr Hall as the only suspect.

Surprising revelations Ms Bradshaw-Hall's husband had come out as gay also rocked the family, who had known him since he was a school kid.

Mother Ros Bradshaw says she just wants justice for her daughter.

South Australian police believe that evidence (pictured) points to Jeff Hall and the state's Director of Public Prosecutions says he thinks there is enough evidence to prosecute

'We can't turn back the clock, I just want someone to pay. It's not really revenge, it's just fairness - you can't do things like that. Whoever did it, you just cannot do it,' she said.

Police in South Australia have been looking into the case since 1994 and homicide detectives believe there is strong evidence against Mr Hall.

Detective Brenton Rowney says microscopic traces of low-velocity blood splatter found on Mr Hall's shirt are consistent with the puncture wounds on Ms Bradshaw-Hall's body.

'In fact my belief is that he went to work that day wearing the same shirt, not knowing that he had the blood on it,' he said.

South Australia's Director of Public Prosecutions Stephen Pallaras agrees the evidence is strong, and says if the case was in his state he would have prosecuted.

The AFP have been running their own investigation and Ms Bradshaw-Hall's family are eagerly awaiting their conclusions.

Thanks to the Bradshaw Bill - named for Ms Bradshaw-Hall's case - Australian police can now investigate and prosecute those suspected of murdering Australians overseas.

But they can only do so if local police do not investigate or do not investigate properly.

Mr Hall has been living in Japan for the past 14 years where he works for Toshiba in Tokyo.

He has not been in contact with the Bradshaw family since 2012.
An Australian man who was left fighting for his life following a bungled operation in Bali is being flown back to Australia accompanied by his tearful family.

Perth father-of-two Steven Didmon, 39, was admitted to Siloam Hospital on July 12 for a hernia operation, but went into cardiac arrest when doctors gave him epidural anaesthetic.

Mr Didmon's Australian family raised $27,000 to have him released from hospital and flown back to Western Australia, 7 News reported.

Perth father-of-two Steven Didmon pictured as he is prepared for a flight back to Perth following the bungled operation in Bali

Emotional family pictured with Steven Didmon as he is prepared for a flight back to Perth on Sunday

His family started a Gofundme page to help pay the medical bills, which they say reached to more than $50,000.

Jeffrey Didmon said his son went in for a routine hernia operation when his lungs and kidneys stopped functioning.

'Unfortunately things turned bad when they administered the epidural anaesthetic and my son Steven went into cardiac arrest,' he said.

'We have huge medical expenses in Bali as Steve did not have insurance and we have organised a medical evacuation Company Medical Air to bring him back to Perth as soon as possible the cost for this is 47,500 AUD.

'My son's wife, Lovia, has negotiated with the hospital and we have received a discount of 30K AUD leaving us with a 50K AUD bill, the hospital wants full payment of the 50K bill before Steven can be released.'

Mr Didmon has a three-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter- He had been living in Bali with his Indonesian wife when he became ill

Family of the father-of-two overcome by emotion as he is transported back to Perth - still on life support

Still hooked up to life support machines, Steven Didmon is pictured being prepared to fly back to Perth following the bungled hernia operation

With funds raised to transport the father of two back to Australia, he was released from hospital and put on a flight back with Company Medical Air on Sunday.

He was expected to arrive in Perth on Sunday night.

Mr Didmon's sister Fiona Vojnovic told PerthNow her brother's ventilator tubes were removed but he remained weak and confused.

Mr Didmon has a three-year-old son and a 10-year-old daughter.

He had been living in Bali with his Indonesian wife when he became ill.

Father of two- Steven Didmon, 39, was admitted to Siloam Hospital on July 12 for a hernia operation, but went into cardiac arrest when doctors gave him epidural anaesthetic

Mr Didmon (pictured with his wife) was then placed on life support because his lungs and kidney stopped functioning
Earlier this week Mark Dixie admitted to murdering 18-year-old aspiring model Sally Anne in 2005

The devastated mother of murdered Sally Anne Bowman has spoken of her heartbreak after her daughter's twisted killer revealed details of her death.

Earlier this week Mark Dixie admitted to murdering 18-year-old aspiring model Sally Anne in 2005

Her mother, Linda Bowman have now been told sickening details of her daughter's death by police.

Mark Dixie, 46, reeled off a string of reasons for murdering Sally Anne 12 years ago during three days of questioning.

He blamed the teenager, saying he did not like how she had shouted at an ex-boyfriend. He added that he harboured anger towards women in general.

Dixie stabbed Sally Anne to death before having sex with her and smoking a joint next to her body.

He then went to a cafe where he sat for hours and watched as police descended on the crime scene.

Dixie stabbed Sally Anne to death before having sex with her and smoking a joint adjacent to her body. The young victim is pictured on her 18th birthday in Kos with her former boyfriend Lewis Sprotson

Mark Dixie raped and killed 18-year-old Sally Anne (left) and her mother Linda Bowman (right) has only just learnt the horrific details of her daughter's death

Twisted Dixie also shared distressing details of how Sally Anne tried bravely to fight him off.

The details Linda's daughter's death were provided to her and her family before Dixie gave his confession last week.

'We all cried. Just the thought of what he did to her little body having seen all her injuries. We could only imagine before,' distraught Linda told The Mirror.

It comes after Dixie, a former pub chef, was jailed for life with a minimum of 34 years in 2008 for raping and stabbing model Sally Anne outside her home.

He only admitted to sexually assaulting the teenager  his lawyer claimed he had found Sally Anne dead or dying in the street.

Dixie said he was 'already angry' after attacking a woman earlier that evening

Years after her murder, police received notification that Dixie wanted to confess.

Sally Anne's family were later visited by Assistant Chief Constable Stuart Cundy.

'He asked us if we wanted to hear the detail. My heart was pounding but we took a deep breath and said yes. We had to.'

The family were told that Dixie said he heard Sally Anne and her ex-partner Lewis Sprotston arguing after a night out.

The killer said he was 'already angry' after attacking a woman earlier that evening, and became disturbed when her screams drew a taxi driver's attention.

Linda added: 'He said his adrenaline was still pumping. He could hear Lewis and Sally raising their voices, then Sally got out of the car. He said he attacked from behind, putting his left arm around her face.'

The murderer said Sally Anne struggled and tried to scream  at which point he began stabbing the teenager.

Dixie then left the crime scene in Croydon, South London, before returning to collect a bloodied knife and a screwdriver he had left behind.

Devastated Linda added that Dixie told police he was angry after having an argument with his ex-girlfriend and that he had been drinking and taking cocaine

The family were told that Dixie said to police he had heard Sally Anne and Lewis Sprotston arguing after a night out

Linda said that during his confession Dixie told police he had become aroused when returning to tidy up Sally Anne's clothing and having sex with her corpse, before smoking cannabis.

The devastated mother added that Dixie told police he was angry after having an argument with his ex-girlfriend and that he had been drinking and taking cocaine.

Linda said the family still suffered nightmares and that her daughter has to wake her to stop her screaming in her sleep.

Despite writing to Dixie asking him to meet with her on  so she can find out where her daughter's handbag, cardigan, underwear and phone are  Linda has had no reply.

It comes after Dixie last week pleaded guilty to rape, GBH with intent and indecent assault in connection with two vicious attacks in 1987 and 2002.

Dixie, who Linda believes has murdered before, is to be sentenced in September.
Police officers on motorbikes were hit by an explosion at a protest in Venezuela during a weekend of violence that has seen nine people, including two minors, shot dead.

Officers have been reported injured after the dramatic incident, which was caught on camera as opposition supporters clashed with security forces in the capital city of Caracas.

It is believed the explosion was the result of an improvised device detonated by anti-government activists.

It comes amid fury over a controversial election called by the country's beleaguered president Nicolas Maduro, who is attempting to bolster his power by creating a new assembly which will tear up the constitution and effectively create a one-party state.

Four months of protests against the leader have left more than 100 people dead amid fierce international criticism with soldiers firing on protesters.

An explosion injured a group of police officers during a protest in Venezuela

It is believed the explosion was the result of an improvised device detonated by anti-government activists

Police officers reacts after anti-government activists detonated an improvised explosive device as they rode past during a protest against the elections for a Constituent Assembly

The dramatic moment was captured on camera as opposition supporters clashed with security forces in the capital city of Caracas

Police motorbikes are left burning on a main road after the explosion

Election candidate who died from several gunshot wounds after assailants broke into his house in the southeastern city of Ciudad Bolivar.

At least nine people were killed overnight and into Sunday, according to prosecutors.

Among those killed was 39-year-old lawyer Jose Felix Pineda, who was a candidate to sit on the new assembly. He was shot by assailants in his home in the southeastern town of Ciudad Bolivar late on Saturday. Prosecutors said the motive of the slaying was unknown.

Shootings at protests on Sunday killed a 13-year-old and a 17-year-old in the western state of Tachira. A soldier was also shot dead there.

The death toll also included a 30-year-old regional leader of a youth opposition party in the northeast town of Cumana, two male protesters aged 28 and 39 in the western state of Merida, and a 43-year-old man in the western city of Barquisimeto.

A 38-year-old man was killed in Merida on Saturday in another demonstration.

Pineda was the second candidate to be murdered after the July 10 death of another, Jose Luis Rivas, as he was campaigning in the northern city of Maracay.

In the west of Caracas, national guard troops fanning out to put down any disruption to the election used armoured vehicles and fired shots to disperse protesters blocking roads.

Video posted on Twitter showed troops smashing down a metal gate and entering to the sounds of gunfire, and what appeared to be a flaming armoured vehicle.

Six people, including election candidate Jose Felix Pineda, 39, and several protesters, have died over a weekend of violence across the country

There have been months of protests against Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro, pictured right

Four months of protests against Maduro have left more than 100 people dead amid fierce international criticism

Opposition supporters run past a tear gas cloud as clashes broke out

Opposition supporters stand near a barricade they have set up in the middle of a road

Maduro decreed a ban on protests during and after the vote, threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for anyone violating the order

The opposition has called for a boycott and mass demonstrations against the election

A riot security forces member fires a tear gas grenade while clashing with demonstrators

A member of the national guard fires his shotgun at protesters

The opposition has called for a boycott and mass demonstrations against the election, which it calls a bid by Maduro to install a dictatorship with the backing of the military.

Maduro kicked off voting by casting his ballot in a west Caracas polling station.

'I'm the first voter in the country. I ask God for his blessings so the people can freely exercise their democratic right to vote,' the president said. He was accompanied by his wife, Cilia Flores, who is a candidate to sit on the new assembly.

Turnout will be key to determining the legitimacy of the election. But that will be difficult to ascertain as most voters will be able to vote twice, as candidates are drawn from social and industry sectors as well as geographically.

Surveys by Datanalisis, a pro-opposition polling firm, show more than 70 percent of Venezuelans opposed the idea of the new assembly - and 80 percent reject Maduro's leadership.

Fear of the violence worsening has rippled across the region and beyond

Members of the media work covering clashes between demonstrators and riot security forces

Maduro decreed a ban on protests during and after the vote, threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for anyone violating the order.

Fear of the violence worsening has rippled across the region and beyond.

The US, the EU and Latin American powers, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, have come out against the election, saying it would destroy Venezuelan democracy.
A street in the Sydney suburb of Wiley Park once again came under scrutiny when police raided a two-bedroom unit where a man suspected of plotting a terror attack lived.

The man and three others are accused of hatching a plot to bring down a plane with a homemade explosive device.

It is not the first time the residents of Renown Avenue have seen heavily armed police descend on a home on their street.

Renown Avenue in Wiley Park (pictured is a Google street view) has been the centre of dramatic anti-terror raids twice in 12 years. Daily Mail Australia is not suggesting any of the people who live in these homes are involved in any criminal activity

ISIS fighter Khaled Sharrouf (pictured) lived on the street when he was arrested in 2005

Twelve years ago, Islamic State fighter Khaled Sharrouf was also arrested following a raid on a home in the quiet street.

Sharrouf was arrested at his home in 2005 and convicted of conspiring to commit a terrorist act.

Following his arrest, some of Sharrouf's neighbours received letters advising them to move 'if they want to live', The Daily Telegraph reported.

The man arrested on Renown Avenue this week is yet to be charged as police continue to search their property as well as four more around Sydney.

It is believed the four men arrested were part of a plot to detonate an explosive device on a flight from Sydney to Dubai.

Sharrouf was arrested under Operation Pendennis more than a decade ago, which was investigating a conspiracy to blow up public spaces in Victoria and NSW.

Arrested with him were Khaled Cheikho (left), who is serving a 27-year jail sentence, and his nephew Moustafa Cheikho (right), jailed for 26 years.

After he was released from prison, Sharrouf fled to Syria with his wife and young children to join Islamic State

Arrested with him were Khaled Cheikho and his nephew, Moustafa Cheikho, who were both sentenced to more than 20 years behind bars.

Sharrouf was released early and fled to Syria to join Islamic State on his brother's passport.

He sent shockwaves around the world when he shared a picture of his seven-year-old son to Twitter, holding a human head. The image was captioned 'that's my boy'.

Amanda Jacobs, 20, who has lived in Renown Street all her life, said one of the men arrested in Saturday's raids was 'very quiet' and 'a good man.'

Another neighbour previously told the Telegraph one of the men had been taking care of local stray cats.

'He and his brother would feed about 15 cats and when we complained that they were bringing ticks and diseases into the block, they would walk off,' the neighbour said.

Police raided five properties across Sydney on Saturday. Pictured is Cleveland Street, Surry Hills

Four men were detained, but are yet to be charged. They are accused of having a 'ready to go' explosive device which they allegedly planned to detonate on a plane. Pictured is a raid in Surry Hills

The four men arrested on Saturday are yet to be publicly identified by police, and were arrested in simultaneous raids across Sydney's west and inner-east.

Police allege the men used a number of everyday items to create a lethal device which was reportedly on Cleveland Street in Surry Hills and 'ready to go', reported News Corp.

The raids were carried out in Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl by NSW Police, Australian Federal Police and ASIO.

Those arrested have not been charged, and police are still gathering evidence.

Police have applied to the Federal Court in Sydney to extend the amount of time the men can be detained for, which could allow officers to hold the men for up to seven days.
Tianna Rooney has already bought the poster board for the sign she'll wave when the 16-year-old refugee boy her family is taking in arrives in the United States.

Rooney, a 39-year-old family therapist and mother of two from suburban Detroit, knows the exact words of welcome she'll write on it, in the teenager's native language from the African country of Eritrea.

But Rooney's family is leaving the sign blank, for now. She and her husband, Todd, fear actually writing the words 'Welcome Home' could break her heart.

The foster son they're waiting for is part of a small, three-decade-old US program for so-called unaccompanied refugee minors that has been halted by a series of new refugee bans and travel limits imposed by the Trump administration in the name of fighting terrorism.

Tianna Rooney, a 39-year-old family therapist and mother of two from suburban Detroit, is hoping to foster a 16-year-old male who is fleeing violence in the African country of Eritrea

One of the last refugee foster children to enter the US before the ban, a 16-year-old from Eritrea, is seen hugging sponsor Julie Rajagopal in San Francisco's Dolores Park

By blocking the program, the US travel bans have stranded more than 100 refugee children who were already matched to waiting American foster families.

Without parents or other adult relatives, those kids are living on their own in countries of temporary refuge, in limbo while their US foster parents hope for a court ruling that will allow the children to finish their journeys.

Since the June day a refugee agency matched the Rooneys with their foster son, which turned out to be the same day of the first Supreme Court ruling barring him, 'we have experienced this very unexpected ride of grief in our family,' says Rooney.

Meanwhile, the boy who fled his home country at 13 to avoid widespread forced military conscription of children continues to fend for himself on the streets in his temporary refuge in another African capital, with no phone or internet for the Rooneys to reach him to explain the delay.

'There's part of me that really hopes he knows a family wants him,' Tianna Rooney says.

Since the 1980s, the program for unaccompanied refugee children has brought in more than 6,000 refugee children, including 203 last year.

'These are kids on their own, and struggling to survive,' said Elizabeth Foydel, policy counsel with the International Refugee Assistance Project, a Washington, DC, legal-aid group for refugees.

'How long do you feel comfortable with your child not having a caregiver?' Foydel says she asks other Americans. 'Trying to manage for themselves?'

Sharon Martin is waiting to host a 17-year-old couple from Myanmar and the baby they had together, under an unaccompanied refugee minor program that has now been halted

Martin, 64, has bought a crib for the young refugee family from Myanmar and says she looks forward to reading to their child, something she misses

The program for unaccompanied refugee children from around the world is different from one started by the Obama administration in 2014 for Central American children fleeing a surge in violence there.

In the program for unaccompanied refugee children, kids eking out a living by themselves in a refugee camp or elsewhere must first come to the attention of a UN agency, which may choose to refer them for the US foster program, especially if the children are deemed to be particularly vulnerable wherever they are now.

The children must then pass US security screenings and other requirements, and win a match with an American foster family or group home.

But a series of Trump administration orders, and court rulings interpreting them, are now barring refugees with no close family in the United States.

That requirement shuts out the refugee children in the foster program, who have no relatives they can turn to in the US.

The child refugees newly blocked from waiting American foster families include five Ethiopian sisters, ages 9 to 16.

The girls lost both parents in 2009, and have faced abuse alone in the war zone of neighboring South Sudan and in Sudanese cities, said Jessica Jones, policy counsel for the Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service.

Along with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Lutherans are one of two U.S. groups running the program on behalf of the US State Department.

Other waiting children include a 17-year-old couple and the baby they had together in a refugee camp, where they were fleeing attacks on their Rohingya religious minority in Myanmar.

In her home in a Detroit suburb, Sharon Martin, 64, has bought a crib for the young refugee family from Myanmar.

But the children's books she bought, Martin said, are really for her. 'If they come, I can finally read to a child again,' Martin says.

Refugee workers say the family faces forced return to Myanmar if their US arrangements fall through.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, web designer Julie Rajagopal and husband Mike Gougherty, a senior planner for a regional ferry system, are two of the lucky ones.

The 16-year-old boy they are fostering also fled a lifetime of forced military service in Eritrea, at 13.

When he landed in March, a slight youth coming off the plane in an ill-made tracksuit, he was among the last refugee foster children to make it into the US.

Web designer Julie Rajagopal and husband Mike Gougherty, a senior planner for a regional ferry system, were among the last to welcome a refugee foster child before the ban

Rajagopal, 35, often had stayed up through the night calling government workers and charity officials in the faraway African hub of Cairo to speed her new foster son's paperwork.

On a clear day this summer, the teen strolled with the couple at a park overlooking San Francisco.

In the city's hip Mission District, he wore a red sweater and shoes he carefully matched himself, and jeans he insisted on lovingly ironing with each wear.

Meanwhile, in Brighton, the Rooneys and their 10- and 12-year-old sons stack new socks and T-shirts in the bedroom they've set aside for the boy they nicknamed 'Five,' meaning the eagerly awaited fifth member of their family.

Tianna Rooney recently got out the poster board, thinking to work on the welcome sign. After a concerned look from her husband, she put it away.

'We want to think positive thoughts' that their foster son will come safely, Todd Rooney said. 'But without endangering ourselves. Without setting ourselves up for a heartache.'
Frightening footage has emerged showing a near-miss where a driver travelling at a high speeds almost crashes head-on into another car.

The footage from the driver's dashboard camera had been uploaded on Dash Cam Owners Australia Facebook page on Saturday.

'Everyone uninjured but I was in shock,' the person who shared the video said.

Scroll down for video

A lady driver almost misses a car from colliding into hers during a late night drive in Melbourne

The sedan can be seen here mounting the median strip onto the other side of the road

A near miss indeed, the lady driver screams for her life upon how close the other car is to hers

'No idea why the car was going so fast, didn't even think to ask I was beside myself.'

To date, the footage has been viewed 102,000 times with social media users identifying the area as Kangan Drive in Berwick, in Melbourne's south-east.

The clip shows the woman driver narrowly missing the vehicle from the other side of the road which ends up crashing into some trees.

As the car crosses the median stripe onto the other side, a woman can be heard screaming out of shock.

'Oh my god. Oh my f***ing god,' she said.

She quickly pulls over to the side of the road and gets out of the car possibly to investigate the well-being of the other driver.

Victoria Police told Daily Mail Australia they had not received any reports about the incident.

The sedan than moves on at high speed and crashes to some trees on the other side of the road
The U.S. State Department has slammed Russia's decision to expel hundreds of US diplomats, calling the dramatic move a 'regrettable and uncalled for act'.

The government agency announced it was 'assessing the impact of such a limitation' and how it will respond, following Vladimir Putin's shock announcement on Sunday.

Putin called for the ejection of 755 US diplomats by September 1, effectively cutting the US diplomatic mission of roughly 1,200 in Russia by more than half.

The order from Moscow comes in response to a sanctions bill that passed in Congress on Thursday, which President Donald Trump has said he will sign into law.

The Kremlin had on Friday seized two diplomatic properties and ordered the US to cut its mission to 445, the same size as Russia's in the US, but the new order from Putin is the first revelation of a headcount of expulsions.

Earlier on Sunday, a top Russian diplomat lambasted the United States Congress for voting to sanction Russia, and warned of further retaliation by Moscow.

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told ABC's 'This Week' that the US sanctions bill was 'weird and unacceptable'.

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Russian President Vladimir Putin is seen at a naval parade on Sunday. Putin announced the ejection of 755 US diplomats in retaliation for a new US sanctions bill, which the US State Department labeled a 'regrettable and uncalled for act' later on Sunday

President Donald Trump departs the White House on Sunday to travel to Trump National Golf Club in Virginia. Putin's response to a US sanctions bill cuts the US diplomatic mission by half

Trump and Putin met for the first time at a G20 summit in Germany this month. Russia's hopes for warmer relations with the US under Trump appear to be souring with the massive expulsion

Putin's move reduced the US diplomatic mission to Russia by over half. Pictured: US and Russian flags fly ahead of a May visit to Moscow by the US Secretary of State

In response to Putin's announcement, a State Department official called the move a 'regrettable and uncalled for act'.

The statement said: 'This is a regrettable and uncalled for act. We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it.

'We have no further comment at this time.'

However, Ryabkov didn't think the move was uncalled for. He added that if Trump signed the sanctions bill when it reaches his desk, it will be 'the last straw.'

'If the US side decides to move further towards further deterioration, we will answer. We will respond in kind. We will mirror this. We will retaliate,' Ryabkov said.

The diplomat added that his 'whole point is don't do this. It's to the detriment of the interests of the US.'

Ryabkov's comments came after Moscow ordered the United States on Friday to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two US diplomatic properties.

Those moves were a response to the new sanctions that were approved nearly unanimously by both the House of Representatives and the Senate.

Speaking on ABC's 'This Week' , Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov referred to a bill passed by Congress on Thursday to sanction his country as 'weird and unacceptable'

Ryabkov confirmed that the seizing of the properties was in response to the bill, but declined to say what other measures Russia is willing to take if the United States continues to apply pressure.

'We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal,' he said.

'It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen. We are not gamblers. We are people who consider things very seriously and very responsibly,' said Ryabkov.

'But I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.'

Russian President Vladimir Putin has announced the ejection of 755 US diplomats in retaliation for a new US sanctions bill

President Donald Trump waves to well wishers after dining at Trump International Hotel on Saturday night. Trump has said he will sign the sanctions legislation against Russia

The United States-Russia relationship has become increasingly strained in the wake of the US presidential election.

Several US intelligence agencies believe that the Kremlin interfered in the US election to discredit Hillary Clinton and help President Donald Trump win the election.

Russia has denied meddling in the US election.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller, the former director of the FBI, is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential race.

He is said to also be looking at whether or not Trump's campaign may have colluded with Russia - an allegation that Trump and his associates have staunchly denied.
Raquan Green, 17, and two minors are charged in a crime spree 'targeting whites'

The cops who responded to a call about a woman screaming for help in the middle of the road gave her an instant nickname after hearing her story of survival: 'James Bond'.

College student Jordan Dinsmore, 20, has spoken out about the horrifying ordeal she went through early Wednesday, when three attackers abducted her at gunpoint in Columbia, South Carolina.

The kidnapping was the culmination of an escalating crime spree specifically targeting whites for armed robbery and assault, said Richland County Sheriff Leon Lott.

'They made a statement that they did not like white people and they were only going to rob white people,' said Lott, according to WYFF.

Arrested in the kidnapping and at least six other violent crimes over the month of July were 17-year-old Raquan Dejoure Green and two 15-year-old males who cannot be named because of their age.

College student Jordan Dinsmore, 20, has spoken out about the horrifying ordeal she went through early Wednesday in Columbia, South Carolina

Dinsmore is seen in a vacation photo. The student was abducted at gunpoint early Wednesday morning after she finished a work shift at Buffalo Wild Wings

Dinsmore's ordeal began after her work shift ended at Buffalo Wild Wings around 12.30am on Wednesday morning.

The Midlands Tech student, who is majoring in criminal justice, drove home and parked in her apartment complex when three males jumped out from behind nearby trees wielding a gun.

The attackers forced her to the ground and took her purse and phone, threatening to shoot her if she screamed.

They then forced her to unlock her car, and motioned for her to get in the back.

'I was pleading with them to just take my stuff and let me go, but they said that I had to come with them,' Dinsmore told The State.

But the attackers were baffled by the manual transmission on her 2009 Scion, with none of them able to drive a stick shift.

The attackers were baffled by the manual transmission on Dinsmore's 2009 Scion, and were unable to drive the stick-shift. They forced her to drive, giving her an opening to escape

The attackers jumped out from behind the trees at Dinsmore's apartment complex (pictured)

In frustration, one of the males ran away, while the other two forced Dinsmore to take the wheel and drive them to an ATM.

There, she withdrew the maximum $300, hoping that her assailants would be placated.

Instead, they told her to drive them to their 'auntie's' house, and said their friends were going to rape the young student.

'I thought back to my mom,' Dinsmore said later at a news conference, choking back tears as she recalled the ordeal.

'She was almost a victim of sexual assault when she was a college student. But she fought back and fought the man off. And I thought, "Im gonna be strong like my mom, and Im gonna get myself out of this."'

Her mom's advice, which she'd drilled into Dinsmore as a teen: keep a cool head, don't let them get you out of a public space, and try to escape.

'If they get you out of the public eye, theyre going to do something worse to you and shoot you anyway,' Dinsmore recalls her mother saying.

Dinsmore (left) said that her mom Beth Turner (right) had talked to her about how to handle a sexual assault: keep cool and try to escape before they get her out of a public space

'I was thinking somehow I have to get out of this,' Dinsmore told The State. 'Can I crash the car? No, because it might knock me out and not them. Can I pull over or something? I have to get away from them.'

Dinsmore had unbuckled her seatbelt at the ATM and left it off, hoping the men wouldn't notice the alarm.

As she drove toward the 'auntie's' house, Dinsmore feigned confusion and intentionally missed a turn that the abductors told her to take.

As they shouted at her to pull over, she threw the car into neutral and jumped out at about 35mph.

Dinsmore did a roll on the asphalt and jumped up, sprinting away from the car as the confused criminals struggled to figure out how to stop the vehicle.

'I just screamed: "Call 911! Call 911! Someone just kidnapped me and threatened to shoot me!"' said Dinsmore.

Luckily the first car that passed was a woman who called police immediately and took Dinsmore to safety.

'The only reason I wasnt raped and most likely killed was because I kept my head and jumped out of my own moving vehicle on a busy street to get away,' Dinsmore said

'The only reason I wasnt raped and most likely killed was because I kept my head and jumped out of my own moving vehicle on a busy street to get away,' Dinsmore wrote in a Facebook post hours later.

'Thank you to the kind woman who heard my screaming and stopped her care for me and to Richland PD for responding instantly and giving me my new nickname, James Bond.'

Dinsmore says that she hopes to finish her criminal justice degree and one day become an FBI agent.

Sheriff Leon Lott said that the suspects in Dinsmore's abduction are also tied to a string of crimes in the area that he believes are racially motivated.

'This was a crime spree. They would not have stopped,' Lott said.

The incidents began targeting food delivery drivers for robbery late at night, and escalated to carjackings and kidnappings, according to Lott.

The sheriff said that one victim, who was African-American, told investigators she was released by the suspects when they found out she was not white
A former soldier and kickboxer has admitted raping and bashing a teenager so violently she was left brain damaged and eating through a syringe.

John Clayton Sims, 45, confessed to luring the 19-year-old victim outside a Parramatta nightclub, in Sydney's west, before attacking her in March 1996.

The horrific assault left the young woman needing multiple surgeries for a broken nose, jaw, and eye socket, and a traumatic brain injury.

John Clayton Sims (pictured, middle) confessed to raping and bashing the 19-year-old woman in 1996

The case was closed for almost 20 years until Sim's (pictured, middle) DNA was matched to blood found at the scene

More than 20 years later Sims told police, 'I just lost it. I dont know what happened. I just  turned into a devil or something', according to The Daily Telegraph.

He met the victim on the dance floor of Kicks nightclub at Parramatta Leagues Club, and told her he played for the St George Dragons rugby league team.

Claiming her boyfriend was cheating on her, the high-level kickboxer and probable steroid user led her outside into the carpark where he punched her in the face.

Sims, who was an ADF driver at the time, then dragged her to a grassy area where he sexually assaulted her.

Sims (pictured, right) punched the woman in the face in the nightclub carpark and sexually assaulted her

Sims (pictured, middle) was arrested after DNA matched him to blood found in the victim's underwear and he was extradited to New South Wales

The brutal March 1996 assault happened at Kicks nightclub which was located at Parramatta Leagues Club (pictured, stock image)

A police officer on patrol found her hours later, bruised, covered with blood, and in a state of undress.

According to court documents the brutal attack left the woman needing assistance to use the toilet and afraid to be on her own.

'She was unable to eat unassisted and was fed via a syringe, being unable to use a straw,' they stated.

Despite the gathering of forensic evidence no breakthroughs were made on the case until November 2015.

Sim's DNA was matched to a blood trail left on a leaf and twig where the assault took place and the case was reopened.

Sims was then arrested and extradited to New South Wales after DNA testing matched him to blood found on the victim's underwear.
A partner at a top Washington DC law firm was shot and wounded while vacationing in Turks and Caicos with his family.

Michael Jones, 57, was injured when two gunmen broke into a rented beachfront property on Providenciales, the main island of Turks and Caicos, at about 10.00pm Friday, and opened fire.

They managed to get past security by tying up one of the guards with shoelaces.

Jones then confronted one of the suspects when they invaded the property, prompting them to start shooting.

He was airlifted to Fort Lauderdale, Florida where rescuers transferred him to Memorial Regional Hospital in Hollywood.

A spokesperson for the law firm Kirkland & Ellis confirmed to ABC News on Sunday that Jones is a partner.

'Mike Jones, a partner in our Washington, D.C., office, was shot during a burglary while on vacation with his family,' the firm said.

Michael Jones, 57, was injured when gunmen broke into a rented beachfront property on Providenciales, the main island of Turks and Caicos, at around 10.00pm Friday

'Mike was treated successfully and is in stable condition and is expected to fully recover. Our thoughts and prayers are with Mike and his family, and we look forward to welcoming him back after his recovery.'

According to his profile he is an experienced trial attorney and has been named in America's Best Attorneys twice in the last two years.

He is also an adjunct law professor at Georgetown University.

'The victim received a single gunshot wound to his upper body,' police Commissioner James Smith told local ABC affiliate WPLG.

After shooting Jones, 'the suspects left the scene with possession of a laptop from the home, and nothing else,' the police commissioner noted.

Michael Jones, 57, was airlifted to a Florida hospital after burglars invaded his rented home in the Turks and Caicos Islands (Pictured: Jones on a stretcher 7/28/2017)

Two burglars tied up a security guard with his own shoe laces before shooting Jones in the home robbery

Friday's robbery comes on the heels of another violent attack on an American tourist in the British overseas territory.

On July 22, Kevin Newman, 38, of Smiths Station, Alabama was airlifted to a South Florida hospital after being shot in an armed robbery incident in the Turks and Caicos.

'I mean, it's not possible to completely link these,' said Smith.

Kevin Newman, 38, was shot just days before Friday's incident during a robbery attempt on the Islands (Pictured: Kevin Newman, right)

The US State Department has not issued a travel warning for the Turks and Caicos following the the robberies (Pictured: Kevin Newman right)

The US State Department has not issued a travel warning for the Turks and Caicos, yet noted that crime in the Islands are 'low but increasing.'

Authorities say that are investigating the incident, and the Ministry of Tourism and the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association has offered to assist the families affected by the shootings.

'The Ministry of Tourism continues to work together with the Turks and Caicos Hotel and Tourism Association to support persons who may have experienced criminal acts within our country,' the Turks and Caicos Ministry of Tourism said in a statement.

'Our thoughts and prayers go out to all that were affected by the events of last evening.

Turks and Caicos Islands is located near the Bahamas and is a British territory

'Rest assured,' the statement continues, 'that we are working together with the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands' Police Force and the community to triumph over these heinous acts of crime.

'The Ministry of Tourism encourages all persons to exercise vigilance as we seek to restore the Turks and Caicos Islands that you have come to know and love,' the statement added.

Turks and Caicos is an archipelago made up of 40 coral islands in the Atlantic Ocean, a British Overseas Territory located southeast of Mayaguana in the Bahamas.

The population as of 2012 was numbered at 31,458, of whom 23,769 live on Providenciales in the Caicos Islands.
The easyJet passenger who was punched by an airport worker appeared to push him in the face following a 13-hour delay at Nice Airport.

A photograph appeared to show the man, believed to be a special assistance provider at the airport, attacking the easyJet passenger in the terminal on Saturday.

But footage filmed by one the passengers shows the young father - who was holding his nine-month-old baby - push the French worker in the face, Sun Online reports.

Just seconds before, the footage showed the worker try and knock a camera phone out of the British father's hand when he attempted to take a picture.

New video footage shows the British man appear to push the worker in the face - before being punched

This photograph appears to show the man, believed to be a special assistance provider at Nice Airport, punching a passenger in the face

Police will now speak to both of the men in light of the new video and will analyse CCTV before taking action.

A source close to the investigation into the alarming incident told MailOnline: 'Both men have been caught on CCTV fighting.

'The passengers appears to be responsible for the first physical contact, but the matter is still under investigation.'

Neither of the men has been named, but they can be summoned at any time before an examining magistrate.

It is thought that the British man, who slapped the airport worker while holding a baby, has now returned to the UK,

He can be extradited if considered guilty of a crime, or he will also have the option of going back to France on his own accord.

The incident followed a gruelling 12-hour delay at the airport as families waited to board flight EZY2122 to London Luton.

Video released on the Internet shows him swearing loudly and complaining about the airport service as he clutches a baby in one hand.

It is then alleged that he approached the airport worker  who had been accused by other passengers of 'smiling' about their ordeal as he stood in a secure area  and attempted to take a picture of him.

Arabella Arkwright was at the airport and took the photograph of the man in the white polo shirt (pictured) appearing to punch the British passenger

Mrs Arkwright (pictured) said the punch was unprovoked and happened after the British man told an airport worker he'd had a 'terrible day'

This provoked the worker, who did not work for EasyJet, into knocking a smart phone out of the hand of the British man, who is in his 20s and wearing a baseball cap.

There are strict laws against photographing officials at airports in France, and attempts to do so are always treated with the utmost severity.

It is then that the British man slaps the worker around the head, apparently provoking him into punching back.

Just before the assault, a woman can be heard on the video shouting at the airport worker: 'This is a disgrace. We have children, babies, screaming, no nappies, no food,' and then she asks the worker: 'What are you smiling at?'

Despite the video evidence, another British passenger insisted that the punch by the Frenchman was unprovoked.

Arabella Arkwright, 49, was with her 64-year-old husband and children waiting for a flight from the Riviera city to Luton.

Ms Arkwright said: 'Everyone was having the most appalling day and then, all of a sudden, a man holding a baby gets whacked.'

She continued: 'He said nothing, smirked, showed no interest or concern for the family. Then out of nowhere, he just whacked him.

'My husband, who's sixty-four, had to pull the man off him and hold him against a glass door. 'Everyone was appalled. The [British] man had a great big mark on his eye when he finally got on the plane and everyone applauded him.'

Mrs Arkwright, a businesswoman from Warwickshire, said passengers were becoming more frustrated after being told the 11am flight was delayed.

Almost 12 hours later, the British father was holding his baby and told an airport worker he had had a 'terrible day'.

EasyJet said passengers were given regular updates and refreshment vouchers but many claimed no one told them why their flight was delayed

Mrs Arkwright, who got finally got home at 4am this morning, said: 'The man was British, it looked like he was in his late 20s and was telling the worker that he had had a terrible day.

'He was standing there holding his nine-month-old baby. The worker smirked at him and he was the other side of the glass barrier so he reached over to hit him.

'It was one hell of a punch. Everyone was having the most appalling day and then, all of a sudden, the man holding a baby gets whacked.

'My 64-year-old husband pulled the worker back which was very brave and unlike him but he was so enraged by what had happened.'

Mrs Arkwright said the man was holding his baby while his wife vented their frustration at the lack of baby food and seats to airport employees.

She said the alleged attacker, wearing a white shirt and black trousers, repeatedly smiled at the family before lunging at the father.

She added: 'He said nothing, smirked, showed no interest or concern for the family.

'Everyone was appalled. The man had a great big mark on his left eye when he finally got on the plane and everyone applauded him.'

Police in Nice today confirmed that they had received a call about the incident, and that it was being investigated.

But they said the version offered by Ms Arkwright was in dispute, and that both men faced criminal charges if found guilty of assault.

It is thought that the Frenchman is claiming that he hit back in self defence after the British man slapped him around the head.

EasyJet passengers were forced to wait at Nice Airport in France (pictured) after their flight was delayed

Evidence also includes a single photograph apparently taken by Mrs Arkwright, which has been distributed widely online.

'We have seen the photograph and will be examining video footage in the airport terminal,' said another police source.

Another passenger, called Carl, told MailOnline that the man was showing his concern regarding all of the people who were on the delayed flight.

He said: 'The gentlemen that was physically assaulted was showing his concern regarding all passengers that were told they were about to board and forced to the end of a corridor which was not air conditioned and fairly confined with all the passengers, elderly, children and families.

'People were feeling sick and unwell being kept in such conditions, to which he approached the desk to complain.

'Obviously things got out of hand and the airport staff employee lashed out and struck the man who was holding a child.

'From what I could overhear, the staff member was showing no sympathy or concern for all of us that have been suffering for such a long period of time.

'The gentleman holding the baby was not arrested, but taken away for a private conversation.'

An easyJet spokesperson said the airport employee does not work for the airline.

He is believed to work for French company Samsic which is contracted by Nice Airport to provide employees who help disabled passengers, including those in wheelchairs.

EasyJet said the flight was delayed due to a 'technical issue with the aircraft' and that a replacement jet and crew were being sent from London Gatwick.

But Mrs Arkwright claims their day from hell began when the plane they were in pulled away while a piece of equipment was still attached.

EasyJet said the flight was delayed due to a 'technical issue with the aircraft' and that a replacement jet and crew were being sent from London Gatwick (file photo of Nice Airport)

She said the passengers were offered a four euro voucher for food before being taken back into the terminal where their wait began.

Mrs Arkwright said: 'It was utter chaos at the terminal. There were bags all over the place, everyone was frustrated and we had no idea what was going on.

'Children were crying, they were exhausted, people were having to stand up for hours. I asked to speak to someone but they said no one was available.'

An easyJet spokesperson said passengers were given regular updates and refreshment vouchers but Mrs Ark claimed no one told them why their flight was delayed - nor when they might be able to fly home.

The airline's spokesperson said: 'easyJet was very concerned to hear about the incident in Nice between a passenger and an employee of a contractor of Nice Airport.

'The person is not an easyJet member of staff and also does not work for easyJet's ground handling agents in Nice. We took this matter up with Nice Airport and their special assistance provider Samsic and understand the airport has confirmed his suspension.

'We sincerely apologise for the delay in this flight departing Nice and thank passengers for their patience.

'The delay was due to a technical issue caused by a fueller at Nice Airport who drove away with part of the hose still connected once they had ceased fuelling the aircraft.

'This resulted in some damage and we had to source a replacement aircraft and crew. Whilst it was initially hoped a replacement aircraft and crew could position from Lyon to operate the flight this was not possible and a replacement aircraft and crew were sent from London Gatwick.

'We worked hard to arrange a replacement flight so passengers could travel to London Luton as soon as possible and appreciate how frustrating the delay would have been.

'easyJet's ground handling agents in Nice updated passengers with the information they had regarding the delay and our flight tracker app was updated seven times during the delay to keep passengers informed about the flight status. Our ground handling agents also provided refreshment vouchers to passengers.

'The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is always easyJet's highest priority.'

A Nice Airport spokesman said: 'Nice Airport confirms the altercation between a passenger and an agent of a subcontracting company.

'The police was called immediately and took in charge both of them. Whatever the circumstances, the airport management firmly condemns this incident and has immediately asked that this staff member to be suspended.

'The images of the CCTV cameras were transmitted to the DDPAF which will determine after investigation the exact circumstances and the follow-up to this incident.'
Angelina Jolie has hit back at critics who accused of her of using 'cruel' and 'exploitative' casting techniques for her upcoming Cambodian film First They Killed My Father.

The Vanity Fair cover story, which ran earlier this week, described a 'game' that was 'rather disturbing in its realism' where children were presented with a pile of money and allowed to snatch it, before being 'caught' by a producer.

They would then have to give a compelling reason why they needed the money. The girl who was ultimately chosen for the lead role of Loung Ung 'became overwhelmed with emotion' as she told the producers she needed the money for her grandfather's funeral.

Many reacted to the interview with horror and fury, branding Jolie 'cruel' and saying her casting was 'shocking' on Twitter.

But the Hollywood director insists there has been a misunderstanding and was 'upset' the audition scene had been taken out of context.

Angelina Jolie told Vanity Fair that in order to cast child actors for her film First They Killed My Father she offered poor children money, then took it away again if they couldn't convincingly lie about why they wanted to keep it

'I am upset that a pretend exercise in an improvisation, from an actual scene in the film, has been written about as if it was a real scenario,' she told the Huffington Post.

'The suggestion that real money was taken from a child during an audition is false and upsetting. I would be outraged myself if this had happened.'

Jolie, a UN ambassador for refuges, said that 'every care' had been taken for the welfare of the children, who had been cast from a diverse backgrounds including from 'orphanages, circuses and slum schools'.

She added that the 'point of this film is to bring attention to the horrors children face in war, and to help fight to protect them.'

First They Killed My Father producer, Rithy Panh, explained that the children auditioning, who were on set with their parents, carers and/ or non-governmental organization partners, were all informed about the premise of the improvised scene beforehand, and told to act out how they would feel if caught stealing.

Jolie said she chose eventual lead actor Srey Moch (pictured here, to her left) because when she went to take the money back 'she became overwhelmed with emotion'

'We wanted to see how they would improvise when their character is found 'stealing' and how they would justify their action,' Panh said.

'The children were not tricked or entrapped, as some have suggested. They understood very well that this was acting, and make believe.'

He added that the screen test related to a scene in the movie where Ung and her siblings were caught by the Khmer Rouge and accused of stealing.

Jolie said, in the original Vanity Fair piece, that Srey Moch, the girl who landed the role as Ung, had stood out because she 'was the only child that stared at the money for a very, very long time.

'When she was forced to give it back, she became overwhelmed with emotion. All these different things came flooding back.'

Through tears, Jolie added: 'When she was asked later what the money was for, she said her grandfather had died, and they didn't have enough money for a nice funeral.'

First They Killed My Father is set in Cambodia, a country where Jolie has honorary citizenship and where she adopted one of her children from.

Twitter users reacted furiously to the revelations, questioning Jolie's humanitarian credentials and her status as a UN special envoy

Others branded the director 'crazy' and called her casting a 'cruel psychological game'

It documents the horrors of the Khmer Rouge, the communist regime which ruled the country between 1975 and 1979.

Leader Pol Pot mercilessly persecuted what he deemed to be 'enemy' elements of society, which included but was not limited to, anyone connected to the old government, professionals and intellectuals, Christians, Muslims and Buddhists.

Experts believe that more than 2million people were killed as a result of the persecutions, around a third of Cambodia's population at the time.

First They Killed My Father is based on the memoir of Loung Ung

As a result virtually no family was unaffected by the slaughter, with whole households wiped from history and buried in the so-called Killing Fields.

Panh said that because the memories of the genocide is still so 'raw' for many Cambodians, the production had a team of doctors and therapists on set.

But certain scenes still appeared to bring back extremely painful memories for some on set.

'When the Khmer Rouge came over the bridge, we had a few people who really dropped to their knees and wailed. They were horrified to see them come back,' Jolie said.

The Vanity Fair article said that there was a powerful atmosphere on the film set brought about by an 'authentic connection to pain'.

Jolie told the journalist: 'There wasn't a person who was working on the movie who didn't have a personal connection.

'They weren't coming to do a job. They were walking in the exodus for the people whom they had lost in their family, and it was out of respect for them that they were going to re-create it.

'It completed something for them.'
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One hundred years on from the Battle of Passchendaele, the tens of thousands of soldiers who lost their lives in one of the First World War's bloodiest campaigns are being remembered with a series of events.

Prime Minister Theresa May, the Prince of Wales and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will attend services in Ypres, Belgium on Sunday.

One of the more unique commemorative performances involves a band of living history actors,'Tommy's Sisters,' who have recreated the battle over the weekend.

A set of stunning images has captured soldiers deep in the trenches and nurses patrolling the peripheries as viewers are transported back to a day in the bloody battle that took place from July 31 to November 6, 1917 in the West Flanders region of northern Belgium.

An actor skips over the trenches on July 30, marking the centenary year of the Third Battle of Ypres, also known as the Battle of Passchendaele

British troops sought to push back the Germans from a ridge, near the Belgian town of Ypres during the three-and-a half month campaign

The Battle of Passchendaele was fought by the Allies and the German Empire, with the Allies looking to push back the Germans from occupied Belgium

More than half a million troops - 325,000 Allied soldiers and 260,000 Germans - died in the battle, in the West Flanders region of northern Belgium in 1917. Among those to fight in the battle was the 'Last Tommy' Harry Patch, who died aged 111 in July 2009

Actors dressed in World War I nurse outfits during the re-enactment on Sunday. It was just one of the events to remember the battle and those who lost their lives there

The event attracted a good crowd who could walk around the area to observe scenes. The British and Commonwealth attacks were fought near Ypres between July 31 and November 10 1917, in battlefields that turned to liquid mud and were summed up in poet Siegfried Sassoon's line 'I died in hell, they called it Passchendaele'

An actor takes a photo of the scene. On Sunday, a ceremony will take place at the Menin Gate in Ypres, which is etched with the names of thousands of missing soldiers

A camp for the soldiers and nurses. The battle was important as the Germans had reached the gates of Ypres in 1914 until heroic defence by British, Indian, Belgian and French troops held them back, keeping a slither of Belgium in allied hands

An actor takes a phone call in the display. 'The Germans had captured nearly all the high ground, creating the infamous Ypres Salient. By 1917 the largely British troops holding the Salient were in awful, waterlogged trenches. On purely tactical grounds, the British should have abandoned the miserable place,' writes historian Dan Snow

The long battle drew closer to its end by early November when Canadian troops seized the village of Passchendaele, about 10km from where the front line had been four months before

The Prince of Wales, the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall, Prime Minister Theresa May and Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon will attend events in and around Ypres to commemorate the centenary of a battle which cost tens of thousands of British and Commonwealth lives
President Donald Trump posed for pictures with fans while having dinner with several cabinet members at his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night.

The 71-year-old Republican was joined by his newly minted Chief of Staff Ret. Gen. John Kelly, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his new wife, actress Louise Linton, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and his wife Hilary Geary.

Guests at the hotel were able to snap some photos with the president, who arrived at the venue around 8pm.

Throngs of people snapped photos of him on their cell phones and shared photos to social media.

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President Donald Trump posed for pictures with fans while having dinner with several cabinet members at his Trump International Hotel in Washington, D.C. on Saturday night

The 71-year-old Republican was joined by his newly minted Chief of Staff Ret. Gen. John Kelly, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and his new wife, actress Louise Linton, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (center next to Trump) and his wife Hilary Geary

Guests at the hotel were able to snap some photos with the president, who arrived at the venue around 8pm

Trump along with his guests sat in a banquette at the property's steakhouse, BLT Prime by David Burke.

As the president departed, he waived and even shook some hands of the well-wishers around 10pm.

His appearance at Trump Intentional Hotel on Saturday marks the 57th day he's spent at a Trump owned property since taking the oath of office as president in January.

Trump's night out comes one day after the White House was engulfed in a huge staff shakeup which saw Reince Priebus being dismissed as Chief of Staff following his highly publicized feud with Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci.

Trump wanted more discipline and structure in the West Wing, and expects to get that from the retired general taking over as the new chief of staff, a top White House official said Sunday.

Throngs of people snapped photos of him on their cell phones and shared photos to social media. As the president departed, he waived and even shook some hands of the well-wishers around 10pm

His appearance at Trump Intentional Hotel on Saturday (above) marks the 57th day he's spent at a Trump owned property since taking the oath as president in January.

President Trump urged Republicans not to give up on the vote on healthcare in an early morning tweet on Sunday

Kelly is among the military officers past and present, including Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Joseph Dunford and national security adviser H.R. McMaster, with prominent roles in the administration.

'You know that he enjoys working with generals,' White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said.

Kelly was announced Friday as Trump's second chief of staff and planned to begin work Monday, replacing Priebus, a former Republican Party chairman who held the job for six months.

The moved ended months of speculation about Priebus' fate and came among infighting and turmoil in the early stages of the Trump White House.

'I think Reince was terribly effective, but was probably a little bit more laid-back and independent in the way he ran the office,' Mulvaney said.

His appearnce Saturday comes as Reince Priebus (left) was replaced as the president's Chief of Staff on Friday. His departure from the administration coincided with the arrival of new Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci (right)

'And I think the president wants to go a different direction, wants a little bit more discipline, a little more structure in there.

On Sunday, Trump put more pressure on Republicans to win the Senate healthcare vote by tweeting that they should take the 'nuke option' to secure a majority because 'the world is watching'.

In his early morning Twitter blast, Trump urged the GOP 'not to give up' on the stand-off despite a week of crushing congressional defeats.

'Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace...and go to 51 votes (nuke option), get Cross State Lines & more,' he wrote shortly after 7.30am.

Republicans failed to secure a majority on their 'skinny' version of a previously unsuccessful bill to repeal and replace Obamacare in a late-night vote on Thursday.
A Belgian scout was saved from drowning in a major rescue operation after getting trapped underwater when a trailer flipped into a river.

The drama happened at Port Gaverne on the north Cornish coast on Saturday evening.

A vehicle and trailer carrying Belgian Scouts flipped into a river leaving some trapped under water.

A vehicle and trailer carrying Belgian Scouts (pictured) flipped into a river leaving some trapped under water

Rescuers (pictured) sprinted down the cliffs before emerging from a river bed carrying one injured male on the back of a farmer's buggy

Rescuers sprinted down the cliffs before emerging from a river bed carrying one injured male on the back of a farmer's buggy.

It's believed he suffered broken ribs and he and a second casualty found nearby were airlifted to hospital.

One eyewitness said: 'It was just starting to get dark and a group of Belgian scouts got in big trouble.

'A vehicle and a trailer overturned and someone was trapped underneath.

'The field was just full of emergency services and really was a full-scale operation.

'We thought there might have been 100 emergency service personnel there but maybe that's a bit of an exaggeration.

Firefighters, police, paramedics, coastguard and cliff rescue rushed to help. The injured boy is said to suffered broken ribs

The drama happened at Port Gaverne on the north Cornish coast on Saturday evening (pictured)

'There were firefighters, police, paramedics, coastguard, cliff rescue - the lot.

'They went running down the cliffs and got him up on the farmer's buggy.

'We heard the boy had broken ribs but seemed to get off quite lightly.'

South West Ambulance Service Trust said: 'We were called at 6.58pm to reports of two males trapped.

'There was an overturned vehicle and trailer. One male was in the river and another near the river.

'We took both patients to the emergency department at the Royal Cornwall Hospital in Truro.'
William Kenna, 39 (pictured) was arrested on Saturday for having sex with a 17-year-old girl. The two were found alone together in a room at 1.30am. They at first denied sexual contact before admitting to the relationship

A Florida police officer has been arrested on charges of having sex with a 17-year-old girl.

Winter Haven Police Officer William Kenna, 39, was taken into custody on Saturday after the department received a tip about the relationship.

Authorities found Kenna and the girl alone in a room together at around 1.30am, after which the Polk County Sheriff's Office was called.

Both the girl and Kenna denied any sexual contact. Eventually, the two admitted to the relationship.

The victim told police that she and Kenna had become close over the past year-and-a-half. She said they would discuss personal problems they we having and ask the other for advice, reported the Tampa Bay Times.

She later told detectives that she went to Kennas home in Winter Haven about four months ago and had consensual sex with him, according to the arrest affidavit. Kenna told deputies he and the victim only had sex once.

Upon arrest, Kenna resigned from the force in lieu of termination, police say. He was hired by the Winter Haven department in 2012.

Kenna is being held in Polk County Jail where he has been charged with one count of sexual activity with a victim 16 or 17.

He is expected to make his first court appearance on Sunday.

'Our officers are expected to conduct themselves with honor and dignity and provide professional service to our citizens,' said Charlie Bird, Winter Haven police chief, in a statement.

'The decision Kenna made goes against everything the men and women of our agency stand for.'
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Two US B-1B Lancer bombers flew towards the Korean Peninsula as relations with North Korea grew even more tense.

The aircraft were escorted by South Korean and Japanese fighters in a show of united defiance against Kim Jong Un and his most recent nuclear threat.

On Friday, the North Korean dictator relished in the successful launch of another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). It spooked US defense experts who now fear the blast from such a weapon could hit major US cities.

President Trump, bemoaning the apparent lack of support he is receiving from China on the subject, vowed to interfere in its trade deals with North Korea on Saturday.

A US B-1 bomber (top) flies over the Korean Peninsula escorted by South Korean F-15 fighters on Sunday

The two bombers are seen flying next to one another with a Japan Air Self Defense Force F-2 fighter escorting them

'I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.

'We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!' he tweeted.

In a statement on Sunday after the bombers' flight, Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said: 'North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability.

'If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.'

The bombers took off from a US Air Force base in Guam on Sunday morning.

After North Korea's missile launch on Friday, the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists shared its fears that the country's latest weapon had the capacity to reach major US cities.

When it launched the missile on Friday, North Korea aimed it on a high trajectory which allowed the weapon to crash in to the Sea of Japan.

The ground range of the test was 6,500 miles, according to multiple agencies, and it had a flight time of around 47 minutes.

The B-1B aircraft (left) took off from a US Air Force base in Guam on Sunday morning

The monstrous aircraft can hold up to 75,000 lbs of weapons and has a top speed of more than 900mph. It is seen above on Sunday

One of the bombers is pictured taking off from a US Air Force base in Guam accompanied by two South Korean fighters

THE ROCKWELL LANCER B-1B BOMBER The B-1B bomber is manufactured by Boeing and has been used by the US Air Force since 1985. It is a long range, multi-mission bomber which has been constantly deployed in combat zones since 2001. Under the Obama administration, the aircraft landed in Guam last September as the US's fragile relationship with North Korea teetered on the edge. The B-1B can carry 75,000 lbs in its weapons hold, has a wingspan of 137ft and can hold 24 cruise missiles. It has a top speed of more than 900 mph (Mach 1.2). The bomber is 146 ft long, 34ft tall, weighs 190,000 lbs and is nicknamed 'The Bone'. It carries the largest payload of guided and unguided munitions in the entire Air Force. Its first combat use was in 1998 with Operation Desert Fox. As part of it, the bomber penetrated Iraqi air defenses to destroy Republican Guard bases. Six B-1Bs were used in Operation Allied Force in Kosovo in the late 1990s. The aircraft dropped 20 percent of the total tonnage in the conflict. Advertisement

Had it been aimed on a flatter trajectory, it would have been within distance of Los Angeles (5,900 miles away), Denver (6,100 miles away) and Chicago (6,500 miles away). Previous missiles would have only reached Alaska.

The missile launch was intended as a 'stern warning' that the United States would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

The test was also aimed at confirming the maximum range and other technical aspects of the missile it says was capable of delivering a 'large-sized, heavy nuclear warhead.'

The launch comes less than a month after the North conducted its first ICBM test in defiance of years of efforts led by the United States, South Korea and Japan to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

On Sunday, US forces in Alaska performed a successful missile interception.

The Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system is designed to shoot down weapons that are fired from Pyongyang.

The exercise had been planned for months but became all the more significant after North Korea's latest test.

President Trump bemoaned China's lack of action on the matter in a string of tweets on Saturday afternoon

North Korea launched an intercontinental missile on Friday (above) which US experts fear could reach major US cities including Los Angeles and Denver

Trump's evening thoughts came hours after the bombshell news that his new communications director, Anthony Scaramucci, took five days to visit his newborn son at the hospital while going through a nasty divorce with his wife.

Critics of the president have claimed that he uses Twitter as a distraction in order to bury bad news.

In other tweets Saturday, Trump expressed dissatisfaction with Republican senators and their failed effort to repeal and replace Barack Obama's health care law.

He said that unless they are 'total quitters,' the effort isn't dead and concludes: 'Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!'

Trump labeled the Republican lawmakers as 'fools' for failing to pass the bill that would have repealed Obamacare.

He tweeted: 'Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the [Republican] Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!'

Trump was referring to the 60-vote threshold that is needed in the Senate to override a filibuster whenever discussion came up for a bill.
Police have arrested a man for carrying a huge meat cleaver close to a London Underground Station.

Around ten police vehicles were on the scene in minutes after responding to reports of man carrying a knife on Kensington High Street on Sunday afternoon.

Shocking video by MailOnline from the scene shows the man being detained while another holds a large meat cleaver.

A gloved police officers is pictured holding a large meat cleaver while the arrested man is detained by colleagues

The incident happened just streets away from Kensington Palace, the official London residence of Prince William, his wife Kate and their children George and Charlotte

A distressed woman can be heard shouting in the background as she is led away from the scene.

The incident happened just streets away from Kensington Palace, the official London residence of Prince William, his wife Kate and their children George and Charlotte.

A spokesman for the Met Police said in a statement following the incident that no one had been injured and that a man was taken into custody.

The statement said: ' Police were called shortly after 15:00hrs on Sunday, 30 July to reports of a man in possession with a knife on Kensington High Street, W14.

Police swooped on Kensington High Street today after receiving reports of a man carrying a large knife

'Officers attended. A man was arrested on suspicion of affray and possession of an offensive weapon.

'He has been taken to a west London police station where he remains in custody.

'There were no reported injuries.'

Police were seen putting the meat cleaver into a plastic container as they detained the man.

Meanwhile, it was revealed last week that Prince William was quitting his ambulance job and moving his family to Kensington Palace - just down the road from the arrest - to focus full-time on his royal duties.

While two officers detained the arrested man, another held a large meat cleaver while his colleague prepared to place the blade into an evidence container
Piers Morgan is calling out J.K. Rowling after she hit out at President Donald Trump in a series of tweets where she blasted his apparent refusal to shake the hand of a disabled little boy.

The 71-year-old Republican president had met with a group of 'victims of Obamacare' on July 24 before he gave a press conference about health care reform.

The 'victims' stood behind the president on stage as he gave his speech.

An edited video seemingly shows Trump taking the stage and avoiding shaking the hand of a a wheelchair-bound boy. That video has since been deleted from Twitter.

That clip sent Rowling on a Twitter rant about the 'stunning moment' where she alleged that the president avoided the little boy.

Scroll down for video

Piers Morgan is calling out J.K. Rowling after she hit out at President Donald Trump in a series of tweets where she blasted the president after seeing an edited video that attempts to show Trump refusing to shake the hand of a disabled boy

But in the real, unedited clip shared by the White House, Trump is scene greeting the little boy (above) before starting a press conference on Obamacare. That edited video clip sent Rowling on a Twitter rant where she alleged that the president avoided the little boy (pictured right)

Rowling sent a series of tweets blasting Trump after sharing an edited video that seemingly shows Trump avoiding shaking the hand of a a wheelchair-bound boy at a press conference last week. The edited video has since been taken off of Twitter

'Trump imitated a disabled reporter,' she tweeted to her 11 million followers. 'Now he pretends not to see a child in a wheelchair, as though frightened he might catch his condition.

'(Unless related to him by ties of blood, and therefore his creations) are tread with contempt, because they do not resemble Trump,' she continued.

The 51-year-old stated that her mother used a wheelchair before adding: So yes, that clip of Trump looking deliberately over a disabled child's head, ignoring his outstretched hand, has touched me on the raw.

'That man occupies the most powerful office in the free world and his daily outrages against civilised (sic) norms are having a corrosive effect.

Piers Morgan is now calling Rowling out for not apologizing or deleted her tweets, which are still on her account as of Sunday 1.30pm (EST)

'How stunning, and how horrible, that Trump cannot bring himself to shake the hand of a small boy who only wanted touch the President,' Rowling concluded.

The footage Rowling retweeted appeared to show Trump ignoring the child, but Morgan found the actual, unedited video that shows Trump greeting the child first.

The 52-year-old British journalist and host of Good Morning Britain took to Twitter to call Rowling out for failing to apologize for her tweets, which now seem to be based on incorrect information.

'So @JK_rowling's been back on Twitter but neither deleted, nor apologised (sic) for, this disgraceful lie. Her Trump-loathing knows no honesty,' Morgan tweeted.

The 52-year-old British journalist and host of Good Morning Britain even tweeted Rowling the photos of Trump greeting the little boy. He asked, 'Why won't she delete & apologise (sic)?'

He later tweeted that Rowling has been active on Twitter but 'neither deleted, nor apologised (sic) for this disgraceful lie. Her Trump-loathing knows no honesty'

He added: 'JK Rowling, in eight tweets, raged that Trump snubbed a disabled boy. This is Trump greeting that boy. Why won't she delete and apologise(sic)?'

Morgan also called out Chelsea Clinton on Twitter questioning why she hadn't undone her retweet of 'Rowling's lie'.

'Yes, good point. Why have you not undone your retweet of this lie, @chelseclinton?,' he tweeted along the a screen grab showing that she had retweeted Rowling.

Clinton replied back to Morgan on Twitter and wrote: 'Hello Piers-I hadn't seen the full video until now. I removed the retweet. And, the President should have shaken the boy's hand at the end.'

Morgan also called out Chelsea Clinton for retweeting Rowling's messages

Clinton responded to Morgan and removed the retweet before stating: 'And the President should have shaken the boy's hand at the end.'

Morgan fired back at Clinton with a screen grab of what the boy's mother thought of the situation

He responded to her and wrote: 'Thank you, Chelsea. That is the right thing to do. Over to you, @jk_rowling...'

Morgan added: 'As for your suggestion President Trump should have shaken the boy's hand in the 2nd clip, @chelseaclinton - Monty's mum says this:'

He then shared a screen grab of a Facebook post where a woman, who claims to be the child's mother said: 'Uummmmm.....If someone can please get a message to JK Rowling: Trump didn't snub my son & Monty wasn't even trying to shake his hand (1. He's 3 and hand shaking is not his thing 2. he was showing off his newly acquired secret service patch). Thanks.'

Morgan isn't the only one to call Rowling out over her tweets on Sunday.

CNN's Brian Stelter tweeted her and said: 'Why hasn't @JK_rowling corrected her bogus tweets about this?'
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The Duke of Cambridge last night led official commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele.

William spoke at the Menin Gate monument in Ypres, Belgium, as the daily Last Post was played ahead of today's centenary of the start of the bloody First World War British assault.

Flanked by the Duchess of Cambridge and Philippe and Mathilde, the King and Queen of the Belgians, he said Britain and Belgium 'stand together' to remember those killed during weeks of heavy fighting in the summer and autumn of 1917.

From left: Theresa May, Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, King Philippe (third right) and Queen Mathilde (second right) watch as the poppies fall from the roof of the Menin Gate

The British and Belgian royals chatted animatedly as they left the ceremony marking the centenary of the bloody battle

William arrived looking smart in a royal blue suit, poppy and medals, with Kate looking resplendent in an ivory coat dress with matching hat and grey suede court shoes

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge joined the Belgian royal family to mark 100 years since Battle of Passchendaele

Theresa May, who is currently enjoying a three week holiday, arrived at Menin Gate for the 100th Anniversary

The King and Queen of the Belgians, Philippe of Belgium and Queen Mathilde, arriving at the commemoration service

Watched by some 200 descendants of those who fought, he said: 'Today, the Menin Gate records almost 54,000 names of the men who did not return home; the missing with no known grave.

'Members of our families; our regiments; our nations; all sacrificed everything for the lives we live today.'

He added: 'During the First World War Britain and Belgium stood shoulder to shoulder. One hundred years on, we still stand together, gathering as so many do every night, in remembrance of that sacrifice.'

The Duchess of Cambridge arrived wearing a white Alexander McQueen coat-dress, and wore a white hat by Lock & Co with her hair in a chignon bun.

She accessorised with a pair of grey pumps and matching clutch bag, finishing the look with pearl earrings and a pearl brooch.

She first debuted the McQueen coat-dress at Princess Charlotte's christening, while the Lock & Co hat is a reprisal from her Trooping the Colour appearance in 2015. The Duchess wore a similar outfit when she met the Belgian King and Queen in 2014.

The Duchess of Cambridge arrived wearing a white Alexander McQueen coat-dress - which she first debuted at Princess Charlotte's christening in 2015 (right)

People were treated to the stunning sight of Cloth Hall in Ypres lit up during the evening performances

Testimony from Allied and German soldiers was also projected onto the side of the imposing Cloth Hall

At a performance in the Market Square of Ypres, Dame Helen Mirren gave a poignant reading

Secretary of State for Defence Michael Fallon arrived at Market Square in Ypres for the Cloth Hall Light Show

Theresa May with Queen Mathilde of Belgium in Cloth Hall for the event which told the story of the four years of war on the Salient

The Duchess of Cambridge and Queen Mathilde were talking animatedly as they left the Last Post ceremony

(First row, from left) Queen Mathilde of Belgium and King Philippe of Belgium arrive at the Last Post ceremony

William said Britain and Belgium 'stand together' to remember those killed during weeks of heavy fighting in the summer and autumn of 1917

The Duchess of Cambridge arrived wearing a white Alexander McQueen coat-dress, and wore a white hat by Locke with her hair in a chignon bun

Queen Mathilde dazzled in a silk grey dress with a lace overlay, teamed with grey suede gloves and a stunning hat

The Duchess of Cambridge and the Prime Minister beamed as they arrived before standing in solemn silence as they paid tribute to the tens of thousands killed in one of the First World War's bloodiest battles

Watched by some 200 descendants of those who fought, William said: 'Members of our families; our regiments; our nations; all sacrificed everything for the lives we live today'

Queen Mathilde of Belgium joined thousands of relatives of soldiers who fought at the Battle of Passchendaele

A sombrely dressed Prime Minister Theresa May went to Belgium to start the two-day commemoration of the brutal battle

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge pictured with Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence (right)

The Duke of Cambridge placed an arm on his wife's back as they left the ceremony following his moving speech

The congregation attend the Last Post ceremony, which has taken place every night since 1928

Some four thousand people listened to Sunday's poignant Last Post, the 30,752nd time it has been played since 1928

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, Belgium's King Philippe and Queen Mathilde make their way out of the Last Post ceremony

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Prince of Wales, Prime Minister Theresa May and Defence Secretary Sir Michael Fallon are to attend events in and around Ypres to commemorate the centenary of the 1917 battle

The Prime Minister wore a speckled blue blazer, a feathered hat and a dash of makeup, her skin appeared to glow. She returns from her holidays on August 14

Prince William and King Philippe: The Royals also later attended a performance in the Market Square of Ypres  with readings from stars including Dame Helen Mirren and War Horse author Michael Morpurgo

Vice Admiral Sir Timothy Laurence - a retired British naval officer and the second husband of Princess Anne, and Prince William, right, wore jackets emblazoned with their service medals

Kate stood between William and a more somberly dressed Prime Minister Theresa May.

They watched as thousands of paper poppy petals, one for every name on the Menin Gate, fluttered to earth from the roof above the gathered crowd.

They included some 200 descendants of those who fought at Passchendaele.

Four thousand people were chosen by a ballot to attend events in Ypres on Sunday and the larger event centres on nearby Tyne Cot military cemetery on Monday.

Sunday's poignant Last Post was the 30,752nd time it has been played since 1928.

The towering Menin Gate in the Belgian town is covered with the names of 54,391 British dead who have no known grave, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

In just over three months of conflict there were more than half a million casualties - 325,000 Allied soldiers and 260,000 to 400,000 Germans - in the Belgian battlefields.

It was fought between July 31 and November 10 1917 in battlefields that were summed up in poet Siegfried Sassoon's line 'I died in hell, they called it Passchendaele'.

Those who fought there included Harry Patch, the 'Last Tommy' who died aged 111 in 2009.

The Duke - wearing a poppy and his medals - told the crowd: With the sounding of this bugle call, the two hundred and fifty thousand British and Commonwealth soldiers who were killed on the Ypres Salient during the First World War are remembered'

The Duchess of Cambridge took the time to talk with descendants of those who fought in World War One

King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium were a picture of elegance as they arrived in Cloth Hall

Refreshed from her holiday, the PM she joined the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to mark the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium, and laid a wreath

A short walk away from Menin Gate, Ypres' medieval Cloth Hall, which was rebuilt from ruins after the war, was illuminated

Security personnel monitor the street below from a rooftop as the royal families made their way across the city

There was excitement and quiet contemplation among members of the public as they joined in the event

A specially written piece by War Horse author Michael Morpurgo told the story of the harrowing war, which cost the lives of tens of thousands

The wreath placed by Prince William at the Menin Gate, in which he paid tribute to those who fought for their country

The duchess also spoke to Scottish singer-songwriter Davy Holt, who found out 10 years ago that his great uncle John Kimm is remembered on the Menin Gate

William and the king of Belgium laid wreaths at the Menin Gate memorial in Ypres which bears the names of more than 54,000 fallen soldiers aged between 15 and 60 who have no known grave

The Duchess of Cambridge in her white Alexander McQueen coat-dress, and white hat by Locke with her hair in a chignon bun. She accessorised with a pair of grey pumps and matching clutch bag, finishing the look with pearl earrings and a pearl brooch

A sniper sat atop of the Menin Gate as members of the royal family and dignitaries from around the world arrived

Belgian Armed Forces are seen on the roof of the Menin Gate before the Last Post ceremony

In all, 325,000 Allied soldiers and 260,000 Germans were killed or wounded in the battle, officially known as the Third Battle of Ypres, in the West Flanders region of northern Belgium in 1917

The evening rounded off with performances in Ypres's Grote Markt square, which features Dame Helen Mirren and journalist Ian Hislop

Performances and music were set to a backdrop of incredible light projections on the grand Cloth Hall

The silhouettes of soldiers were beamed on to the hall, in remembrance of some 325,000 Allied troops who were killed

As events centred around the hall, there was quiet contemplation from the thousands who had gathered to pay tribute

The battle, fought near Ypres between July 31 and November 10, 1917, saw 325,000 Allied soldiers and 260,000 Germans killed or wounded

Later in the evening there was an outdoor performance telling the story of four years of war and the lives lost in battle

The royals and Mrs May later attended a brief reception at Ypres Cloth Hall, meeting relatives of those killed in the battle.

The duchess spoke to Scottish singer-songwriter Davy Holt, who found out 10 years ago that his great uncle John Kimm is remembered on the Menin Gate.

Mr Holt, from Inverness, who wrote a song about his relative called Hero Of Your Time, said: 'She asked me what his story had done for me.

'I couldn't really understand why my family has spent 90 years not talking about it.

'I decided I would talk about it, and do so by writing a song.'

The evening rounded off with performances in Ypres's Grote Markt square, which features Dame Helen Mirren and journalist Ian Hislop, who introduced a sketch from his First World War play The Wipers Times.

Testimony from Allied and German soldiers was also projected onto the side of the imposing Cloth Hall.
Police have shot dead an elementary school teacher armed with a knife, and accidentally shot a fellow officer in the chaos.

Brian J. Skinner's boyfriend had called the cops from the basement of their New York state home on Friday, to report a a 'domestic incident' involving a gun.

When police arrived at the property in Pashley Road, Glenville they saw 'movement in the house' before Skinner suddenly 'emerged from the front door and charged officers with a weapon', Glenville Police Chief Stephen Janik said.

The 32-year-old was gunned down and died at the scene. Cops later determined that weapon was a knife.

In the chaos, officer Benjamin Ferretti was shot and injured by a fellow cop. He was airlifted to a hospital where he underwent surgery but is expected to recover, News 10 reports.

In the chaos, officer Benjamin Ferretti (pictured) was shot and injured by a fellow cop

Brian J. Skinner's boyfriend had called the cops from the basement of their New York state home (pictured) on Friday, saying that Skinner was walking around with a gun

Emergency crews arrived at the scene after Skinner charged at police with a knife

The State Police said no one else was found in the residence. It is unclear where Skinner's boyfriend was at the time.

'There were no other individuals located at the residence at the time of the incident and no evidence was discovered to indicate a domestic dispute had taken place,' the State Police said in the statement late Saturday.

The 32-year-old was gunned down and died at the scene. Cops later determined that weapon was a knife

Officer Benjamin Ferretti was shot and injured by a fellow cop. Pictured officers blocked off the road after the shootings

Skinner, a fifth grade teacher at Orenda Elementary School, in the Shenendehowa School District.

'We are saddened to report that Orenda fifth-grade teacher Brian Skinner was killed last night in an engagement with law enforcement at his home,' the school said in a statement.

'The incident had nothing to do with his role as a teacher at Shenendehowa and is still under investigation by the Glenville Police Department.'

Friends and neighbors of Skinner were still in shock over the news.

'I'm just shocked because the guy was very quiet and he didn't bother anybody,' said John Flower, who's lived in the home across the street from Skinner for decades.
A man has taken slacklining to the extreme by performing a handstand between two cable cars.

Samuel Volery, 33, performed the stunt at the annual Highline Extreme event in Moleson, a tourist mountain in his home country of Switzerland.

Samuel, who attended the event with his friend Louise Lenoble, 25, a fellow slacklining enthusiast, said: 'It was always my dream to walk between cable cars, as it feels much more exposed than just walking normal highlines.

Daredevil: Samuel Volery, 33 does a handstand between two cable cars on the mountain of Moleson in Switzerland. He said: 'It was the first handstand and the steepest highline ever walked. It was great fun!'

Many people would have safety concerns about such a dangerous hobby but Samuel has no worries when it comes to stepping out on the line. Pictured: Samuel walking the slackline

'It is also an interesting challenge to deal with the additional movements of the cars.

'So once we got permission to do it I couldn't resist anymore.

'Louise didn't know anything about slacklining until a year ago, but from that moment on she knew that she wanted to walk in the skies.'

Samuel is so passionate about his hobby that he set up Slacktivity, a company that produces slack lines.

Samuel (pictured) said: 'It was always my dream to walk between cable cars, as it feels much more exposed than just walking normal highlines'

Samuel said: 'Louise didn't know anything about slacklining until a year ago, but from that moment on she knew that she wanted to walk in the skies.' Pictured: Louise Lenoble, 25 walks a slackline between two cable cars

Breathtaking: The stunning images were captured by Martin Knobel, a professional photographer from Switzerland. Pictured: Louise Lenoble walks the slackline

Many people would have safety concerns about such a dangerous hobby but Samuel has no worries when it comes to stepping out on the line.

He said: 'There hasn't been a serious accident in highlining in many years, so this sport is not considered to be very dangerous, as long as we are secured.

'It is much harder to walk that steep. I almost started sliding down at the end of the line. I have to be careful not to tumble backwards.'

The stunning images were captured by Martin Knobel, a professional photographer from Switzerland.
Seafood processed at Ngo Quyen Export JSC in Kien Giang for export to Australia. (Source: VNA)



The ASEAN-Australia- New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA), which took effect from January 1st, 2010, plays a key role in enhancing economic relations, trade and investment between ASEAN and Australia and New Zealand, Nam said.

Within the agreement framework, ASEAN countries can enjoy 90 to 100 percent tariff reductions in Australian and New Zealand markets, and Vietnamese firms should take full advantage of this potential, he said.

He noted that Australia and New Zealand were among the biggest importers in the world since both economies are largely dependent on imported products.

Vietnams chief exports to these two markets include agricultural products, seafood, coffee beans, cashews, electronics parts, textiles, footwear and construction material.

If the AANZFTA was utilized well, Vietnamese producers could enjoy all the privileges contained therein, boosting export turnover and earning handsome profits, Nam said.

Statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade showed that trade between Vietnam and Australia hit USD5.26 billion in 2016, up 6.5 percent year-on-year. Particularly, Vietnam enjoyed trade surplus of USD480 million with Australia in the year.

According to Phan Thi Dieu Linh, expert from the Department of Asia-Pacific Market, although Australian consumers are favoured of locals products, they are still open with imported ones, which have high quality, good looking and rational prices. This factor also facilitates Vietnamese exports, she underlined.

Meanwhile, Trinh Thi Thu Hien from the Foreign Trade Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, stated that there is large room for Vietnamese shipments to Australia as export revenue is still humble, standing at 1.6 percent of total export values in Australia.

Hien said that the AANZFTA is being carried out in the context of deeper regional and global integration which supports the development in Vietnam-Australia and New Zealand relations. Domestic businesses should apply international standards to meet increasing demands of foreign customers and become more competitive with foreign rivals, she highlighted./.
This is the astonishing moment highway robbers risk their lives to board a moving lorry in a daring raid of the kind seen in the first Fast and Furious film.

The Romanian gang used harnesses and chainsaws to force their way into the back of trucks after driving up to within inches of them and levering a daredevil acrobat onto the bonnet of their 4x4.

Footage of their raids in the Madrid region of Spain, show them speeding up right behind a vehicle so the driver can't see them in his wing mirrors and getting to work as he motors unawares along a busy main road with constant passing traffic.

Footage of their raids in the Madrid region of Spain, show them speeding up right behind a vehicle so the driver can't see them in his wing mirrors and getting to work as he motors unawares along a busy main road with constant passing traffic

One of the men appears to hold the lead robber as he perches precariously on the bonnet of the assault vehicle and at one point in the video it gets so close to the truck in front, it appears to bump it from behind.

The method they employed, calling 'surfing' by Spanish police, was the same one used by Vin Diesel's crew in the first Fast and Furious film starring late Hollywood star Paul Walker.

Detectives arrested the gang, composed of ten Romanians, at a villa in Becerril de la Sierra near Madrid.

Around 2,500 pounds, walkie-talkies and harnesses, slings, gloves, chainsaws and other material they used for their raids, were seized.

One of the men appears to hold the lead robber as he perches precariously on the bonnet of the assault vehicle and at one point in the video it gets so close to the truck in front, it appears to bump it from behind

More than 400 phones worth nearly 200,000 were taken in the first raid alone but later recovered by police. Pictured: CCTV footage shows the car approaching the truck

The gang has been blamed for two raids, one in February and one earlier this month, in which hundreds of mobile phones worth hundreds of thousands of pounds were stolen.

More than 400 phones worth nearly 200,000 were taken in the first raid alone but later recovered by police.

The criminals are said to have used the rural property where they were detained as a temporary base and are thought to have been planning to return to Romania after their second raid to avoid being detected.

A spokesman for Spain's National Police confirmed: 'We have arrested a gang specialising in robbing lorries using the so-called 'surfing' method.

'Ten people have been arrested in Becerril de la Sierra in the Madrid region.

The vehicles targeted were transporting mobile phones and always covered the same route, police said. Pictured: A gang member leans over the bonnet of the car to break into the truck

'The vehicles targeted were transporting mobile phones and always covered the same route.

'The investigation began at the end of February when a lorry was targeted on a road in the Madrid region while it was moving.

'The driver didn't stop at any point and only realised his load had been stolen when he reached his destination and prepared to unload.'

The other crime they have been accused of happened on July 22.

The police spokesman added: 'The modus operandi used by these criminals consisted of raiding lorries while they were still moving.

'Three cars are necessary, one of which had to have a sunroof.

'With this method, this vehicle goes up right behind the back of the lorry and the raiders climb out via the sunroof with the aid of harnesses and slings.

'Once the truck security seals have been broken, the criminals climb into the back of the lorry and empty its load without the driver realising.'
Three Tennessee deputies have been suspended for repeatedly tasering an 18-year-old suspect while he was restrained, according to the teen's lawsuit.

Jordan Elias Norris, now 19, claims he suffered more than 40 pairs of taser burns after he was arrested and held at Cheatham County Jail for drugs and weapons offences last November.

He has since filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court accusing the deputies of using excessive force, failure to protect and deprivation of civil rights.

Shocking footage appears to show one of the officers repeatedly using a taser on Norris while he was bound to a chair.

Scroll down for video

Three deputies have been suspended for allegedly, repeatedly tasering an 18-year-old while he was restrained (pictured, one officer holds the taser to Jordan Elias Norris's chest while the sound of the stun gun being discharged in audible on the surveillance video )

The lawsuit states that Norris was repeatedly tasered while in bound to the restraining chair

'I'll keep on doing that until I run out of batteries,' the officer is heard telling Norris in the jail surveillance footage.

The surveillance also shows the deputy telling him to 'stop resisting,' while stunning Norris, who automatically tenses in pain.

The deputy went onto to stun Norris 'four times totaling approximately fifty seconds on his stomach and legs,' according to the suit, obtained by the Tennessean.

The suit adds the deputy involved acted in a 'sadistic and malicious nature in repeatedly tasing Plaintiff Norris, such that the force was unreasonable.'

Three Cheatham County Sheriff's deputies - the one using the taser and two who stood by and failed to act - have now been placed on administrative leave. None have been named.

Cheatham County Sheriff Mike Breedlove says he is examining the office's Use of Force policy and has contacted the District Attorney General Ray Crouch Jr. to request an independent investigation.

Norris, (in his mugshot) now 19, claims he suffered more than 40 pairs of taser burns after he was arrested and held at Cheatham County Jail for drugs and weapons offences last November

'I'll keep on doing that until I run out of batteries,' an officer is heard telling Norris in the jail surveillance footage

'As Sheriff, I want our citizens to know that any inappropriate behavior that may have violated an individual's rights will not be tolerated,' he said.

'I have placed the employees involved on administrative leave while the investigation is conducted. We will work closely and cooperatively with the TBI and District Attorney's Office to ensure all facts are provided and all angles of this incident are thoroughly investigated.'

Norris was arrested November 3, 2016, for felony manufacturing/possession of marijuana for resale, possession of drug paraphernalia, theft under $500 and five counts of possession of a prohibited weapon, vandalism of over $1,000 and simple assault.

He was in jail for almost two weeks before he was bonded out on November 16.

When he was released, he had around 40 pairs of taser burns throughout his body, according to the suit.

Use of Force reports filed by deputies, report that Norris was first stunned while in booking. They claim he resisted efforts to cuff him, so he was stunned and taken to a restraint chair

The suit adds the deputy involved acted in a 'sadistic and malicious nature in repeatedly tasing Plaintiff Norris, such that the force was unreasonable'

'Most of the taser burns sustained by Plaintiff Norris are not accounted for by the Use of Force Reports and video clips received from the Cheatham County Sheriff's Office, raising further questions and creating a reasonable belief that Plaintiff Norris was also repeatedly tased on other occasions without proper justification,' said the suit.

Use of Force reports filed by deputies, report that Norris was stunned while in booking after they thought he might start a fight with another inmate. They claim he resisted efforts to cuff him, so he was stunned and taken to a restraint chair. The report reveals they stunned him again for resisting as he was put in the chair.

Deputies say he was in the chair for three hours, during which time he was shouting he wanted to die, the Use of Force report reveals.

A report reveals that officers stunned him multiple times that evening at 10.20pm, on November 5, for 'compliance' to transport him to a vehicle to take him to jail.

He was stunned 15 minutes later, for 'one second on the calf' in another attempt to transfer him to the vehicle, another report reveals.

The lawsuit, which is seeking unspecified damages, claims that these reports do not reflect the 'unreasonable, unnecessary, excessive' use of force used against a young suspect who was suffering a mental health episode.
General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy called North Korea 'the most urgent threat'

A top US general has called North Korea 'the most urgent threat to regional stability' following the rogue regime's second ICBM test.

'If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing,' General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, said Saturday.

'Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario,' O'Shaughnessy said.

The general's remarks came as the US flew two B-1 supersonic heavy bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un laughs as he reviews the results of a missile test earlier this year. The regime on Friday tested a missile apparently capable of reaching the US mainland

The Friday launch of a Hwasong-14 is believed to be seen in this photo from the North Korean government. O'Shaughnessy said the US is 'planning for the worst-case scenario'

The bombers were escorted by South Korean fighter jets as they performed a low-pass over an air base near the South Korean capital of Seoul before returning to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the US Pacific Air Forces said in a statement.

It said the mission was a response to North Korea's two ICBM tests this month.

North Korea on Friday tested a Hwasong-14 for the second time this month, reaching an altitude and distance in the test that defense experts believe indicate the missile could reach the continental United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago.

That would leave North Korea only the technical challenge of miniaturizing a nuclear warhead that could withstand reentry in order to back leader Kim Jong Un's incessant nuclear threats against the US.

A US Air Force B-1B Lancer is seen in a Friday show of force overflight of the Korean Peninsula

US Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday during a visit to Estonia that the US and its allies plan to increase pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear program.

'The continued provocations by the rogue regime in North Korea are unacceptable and the United States of America is going to continue to marshal the support of nations across the region and across the world to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically,' Pence said.

'But the era of strategic patience is over.'

'The president of the United States is leading a coalition of nations to bring pressure to bear until that time that North Korea will permanently abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile program,' Pence said.
British punk rocker-turned jihadi widow Sally Jones has desperately tried to flee Syria but has been stopped by her brainwashed 12-year-old son.

Jones, 50, from Kent, is said to be keen to run away from Raqqa as coalition forces prepare an assault on the ISIS-held area.

However, her son Jo-Jo has committed himself to the terrorists' cause and is refusing to leave.

An unnamed friend told the Sun: 'Jo-Jo was just an ordinary kid when she took him away from his home in Kent.

Punk rocked-turned jihadi widow Sally Jones has desperately tried to flee Syria but has been stopped by her brainwashed 12-year-old son Jo-Jo (pictured together)

Jones, a 49-year-old mother-of-two from Kent, is considered to be a 'high priority' for assassination in Syria

This young British boy was featured in the latest ISIS propaganda video believed to have been filmed in Raqqa which showed five children murder captured Kurdish fighters in cold blood

The youngster, pictured, was captioned on the horrific video as Abu Abdullah al-Britani - son of Abudullah the Briton - and security services are currently trying to identify the youngster

'She ruined all of that by fleeing with him.'

Jo-Jo is believed to be the blue-eyed British boy filmed murdering a captured Kurdish fighter last year.

The nine-minute horror show shows youngsters, including a blue eyed British boy believed to be Jo-Jo, shoot the men in the back of the head.

It was revealed earlier this month that Jones is desperate to come home after her husband Junaid Hussain was killed in a drone strike.

The Kent mother was put on the Pentagon's kill list because the couple were responsible for planning a dozen terror plots.

One foiled plot hatched by the pair involved kidnapping a former US soldier and beheading him on camera.

Another plan was to be carried out by a teenager shooting at hundreds of people at a nightclub or concert.

The mother-of-two, who lives on benefits while in the UK, was the lead guitarist in an all-girl rock band called Krunch during the early 1990s. The band played a series of gigs in the South East

The failed punk rocker's extremist husband Junaid Hussain (pictured), a computer hacker from Birmingham, was wiped out by an American drone strike in Raqqa in 2015

Jones, 50, who once played in a female punk band, ran away from her home in Chatham, Kent, to wage jihad with her toyboy husband in Raqqa, Syria, the terror group's de facto capital.

An ISIS video emerged of the mother-of-two leading members of the al-Khanssaa Brigade - the all-women army set up by ISIS - in a series of chants expressing the fighters' commitment to jihad.

Sally Jones (pictured) has shot up the Pentagon's kill list

The convert has previously hinted that she might fancy becoming a suicide bomber herself, writing earlier: 'I know what I'm doing. Paradise has a price and I hope this will be the price for Paradise'.

It is believed that Jones recruited dozens of women to ISIS via social media before her accounts were shut down.

She fled the UK with Jo-jo, who she now calls Hamza, while her 18-year-old son was left behind.

Since then, Jones has posted a series of chilling threats on social networking sites. She also posed for photos with an AK-47, while dressed in black with her face veiled.

After her husband's death, it is thought she received a monthly salary from ISIS of 520, plus a bonus of more than 200 every couple of months for being the widow of a 'shahid' or martyr.

According to one activist she is yet to remarry because 'she is considered old and ISIS fighters prefer young girls.'

The former lead guitarist - who spent a lifetime on state benefits while living in the UK - also ranted online about how she wanted to behead Christians with a 'blunt knife'.

Using the pseudonym Umm Hussain al-Britani, she also abused Jews and praised Osama bin Laden.

Her family has previously said they are deeply shocked by her conversion to radical Islam.

She has previously posted a series of chilling threats on social networking sites and posed for photos with an AK-47, while dressed in black with her face veiled

In charge: Sally Jones, 45, a former punk rocker who fled the UK to join ISIS militants, is believed to have been filmed leading an all-women brigade of terrorists in a hate-filled chanting session in Syria

In the footage, a woman thought to be the former lead guitarist is seen leading the female militia as they march single-file along a dusty road, waving their AK-47s in the air

In the early 1990s she was the lead guitarist in an all-girl rock band called Krunch who played a series of gigs in the South East.

A clip of one of her performances posted online shows her with a shock of blonde hair and wearing a leather mini-skirt.

Meanwhile, Jones's husband Hussain was the leader of a computer hacking group known as Team Poison.

He fled Britain while on police bail suspected of violent disorder in Birmingham.

He was also jailed for six months in 2012 for stealing sensitive information from an aide of Tony Blair and blocking a government anti-terrorist hotline with prank calls.

He was eviscerated by a drone two years ago.
Edward Hanania, 22, has been charged with animal cruelty after throwing two poodles off a fifth-floor parking garage

A man who posed as the owner of two small dogs, paid a reward to the person who found them and then threw them off the top of a five-story parking garage has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges.

Edward Hanania, 23, was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for felony aggravated animal cruelty in the Chicago suburb of Oak Lawn, Illinois.

Hanania will serve a concurrent six year prison sentence for violating his probation on an unrelated drug conviction, Cook County State's Attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.

'I would say that justice was served,' Oak Lawn police Chief Randy Palmer told the Daily Southtown in reaction to the verdict.

Prosecutors said Hanania pretended he was the owner of two poodles who were found wandering the streets in Chicago, Illinois in May.

Angel, the 14-month-old pooch survived as she fell on a grass patch but suffered a broken leg and bruised lungs

Investigators believe Hanania threw the dogs off the fifth floor of Advocate Christ Medical Center (pictured) after the real owner came forward

He claimed to be the dogs' owner after a Good Samartian posted pictures of the two poodles to say they had found them on a local Facebook page.

The 'troubled' student gave the woman who found them a $20 reward and snatched the dogs - but hurled them off the fifth floor of a hospital parking garage a day later.

Angel, the 14-month-old pooch survived as she fell on a grass patch but suffered a broken leg and bruised lungs.

The traumatized dog had a pin put in his leg in two places during surgery on Tuesday and is said to be recovering well, KFOR reported.

Her six-year-old father Garo sadly died after falling onto the concrete sidewalk.

Investigators believe Hanania threw the dogs off the fifth floor after the real owner, an older man, turned up a shortly after with official documents to claim them.

'Troubled' student Hanania pretended to be the owner of Angel (pictured) and her father Garo and gave the woman who them a $20 reward

The owner is now said to be heartbroken over what happened to his pets after they escaped from his home.

Prosecutors said hospital surveillance video shows a man pulling to the top of the parking deck, climbing from his car, looking over the ledge before walking back to the vehicle before the animals were thrown to the ground.

The case was closely followed by animal welfare advocates, who showed up to each of Hanania's court appearances and held a rally.

'I think our presence played a part in it, I really do,' said Peggy O'Leary, one of the activists.

'The state's attorney came out last time and talked to us and said the judge was aware we were here keeping tabs on this guy.'
A family of alleged extremists are accused of planning an ISIS-inspired plot to bring down a commercial plane by gassing passengers before detonating a bomb made out of a meat mincer.

Two Lebanese-Australian father and son teams were reportedly the four men arrested after dramatic raids across Sydney on Saturday afternoon.

While the full extent of the alleged conspiracy is not yet known, the men may have planned to detonate a homemade bomb on a flight from Sydney to the Middle East, possibly Dubai, according to Seven News.

They allegedly planned to gas passengers aboard an aircraft in a plan orchestrated by ISIS militants in Syria, The Australian reported.

The paper was told the four, who are all related, allegedly made a 'non-traditional' device designed to kill passengers with a sulphur-based gas.

A kitchen mincer is believed to be among the everyday items the alleged attackers used to form a lethal device, according to the Herald Sun.

The apparatus was reportedly 'ready to go' as counter-terrorism police stormed properties across the city's west and inner-east.

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Two father and son duos are reportedly the four men accused of plotting to bring down a plane departing from Sydney with a homemade bomb. Pictured: One of the men detained by police

One of the accused is pictured with a bandaged head following his arrest on Saturday night

Australian Federal Police at the check-in at Sydney Airport on Sunday as part of heightened security measures across the country

Police standing by at Sydney Airport following the dramatic raids on Saturday afternoon

The accused, whose names are known to Daily Mail Australia but not yet confirmed by police, were arrested in the simultaneous raids.

Australian Federal Police, ASIO and NSW Police jointly carried out the operation on Saturday in Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl.

One of the men was reportedly dragged from his Lakemba home wearing only a towel, while his father was arrested at a property in neighbouring Punchbowl.

The other father and son duo are understood to have been arrested in separate raids.

Counter terrorism police (pictured) stormed four Sydney properties and arrested four men including one man (pictured) at Surry Hills after being alerted to an alleged plot to bring down an plane with a 'bomb'

Police are seen continuing their investigations in the aftermath of the Sydney terror raids

Long queues and waits were expected following a thwarted alleged terror threat on Saturday

The counter-terror raid in Surry Hills (pictured) took place just metres from the Redfern Mosque (pictured)

One man draped in a bed sheet with a heavily-bandaged head was seen being led into an ambulance outside a Surry Hills property.

The man appeared to be distressed and bleeding as he walked to a waiting ambulance, Nine News reported.

He could be heard saying 'they bashed me.' When asked by who, he answered 'police'.

When asked why he was being arrested, the man mumbled 'I don't know nothing'.

Shocked neighbours have said the family living in the property were 'perfectly nice and normal people'.

'We knew them to say hello to and they seemed nice,' said one woman, who didn't want to be identified.

The woman, who lives at the back of the property, said an elderly couple lived in the home and had adult children.

AUSTRALIAN TERROR PLOT FOILED: THE ALLEGATIONS What was the plot? The group allegedly planned to use an improvised device to bring down a commercial plane in an Islamist-inspired conspiracy. Police say they have limited information so far about the date, location or specific strategy involved. What happened during the raids? NSW and Federal Police swooped on five properties in the Sydney suburbs of Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl on Saturday afternoon and found a 'considerable' amount of material. But police won't say if they discovered an actual explosive device. Could it have happened? AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin said they treated the plot as credible and there was an intention and 'quite possibly a capability' to carry it out. However, he also said there was no reason to believe security at Australian airports has been jeopardised. What happens now? The arrested men haven't yet been charged. Police say their searches at four of the properties are ongoing and could take 'many more days' as they gather enough evidence to support charges. What's changing at airports? Travellers have been told to arrive two hours earlier to make allowances for increased scrutiny. They may notice "intensified" security procedures, but some bolstered arrangements will happen behind the scenes. Travellers have also been asked to limit baggage to make things easier. Advertisement

Forensic teams (pictured) and the bomb squad attended the scene during the Surry Hills raid

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has told the public not to panic and to inform police (pictured) of any suspicious activity

Police said raids took place in the suburbs of Surry Hills, Lakemba, Punchbowl, and Wiley Park

Residents living near the Surry Hills home, just metres from the Redfern Mosque, were evacuated while the bomb squad worked to remove the 'explosive device'.

One neighbour of a man arrested in Wiley Park told The Daily Telegraph the accused would nurture stray cats in the area.

'He and his brother would feed about 15 cats and when we complained that they were bringing ticks and diseases into the block, they would walk off,' they said.

Relatives of two of the accused spoke out following the arrests, saying they 'love Australia'.

The four men arrested for their alleged role in the conspiracy can be detained for up to a week while investigators comb through evidence.

A magistrate ruled police can hold the men for an 'additional period of detention' under the Crimes Act while investigations continue.

'This recognises that terrorism investigations are inherently complex and that there can be legitimate reasons for extended periods of detention for suspects in such matters,' an AFP statement said.

Airports across Australia are experiencing long queues, with frustrated travellers vented their anger on social media

Passengers waiting after long queues formed following heightened security at airports

Police on the scene in the Lakemba area following the aftermath of the Sydney terror raids which resulted in four arrests

A number of 'items of interest' were seized in the raids and searches continued on Sunday, with AFP Commissioner Andrew Colvin suggesting they may take 'many more days'.

The plan involved an improvised device and was Islamist-inspired, he added.

'We've taken this threat very seriously,' Mr Colvin said.

'You should infer that we think this was credible and there was an intention, and there was quite possibly a capability as well.'

Airports across Australia are experiencing long queues after Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull warned of heightened security measures across the nation.

He said the raids were a 'major joint counter-terrorism operation' and reminded the Australian people 'the threat of terrorism is very real'.

'The office of transport security has advised security screening will take longer, and travellers should arrive at terminals at least two hours before flights to allow ample time for screening,' he said on Sunday.

Travellers turned to social media posting photos of massive queues leading into customs at Sydney Airport and passengers tweeting to not underestimate the wait.

'Not sure I agree with the ''creation'' of a mass gathering ''before'' security screening -closed screening stations,' one traveller tweeted.

Police officers continue their investigation in Lakemba following raids on Saturday afternoon

Police found an 'explosive device' and part of Cleveland Street (pictured) in Surry Hills was cordoned off

'Long queues at Sydney Airport - paranoid security state in full regalia,' another wrote.

Some passengers were warning others to add an extra 30 minute travel time onto the already extended period.

'T3 Sydney airport a mess. If you are flying come very early,' another social media user wrote.

Prime Minister Turnbull reiterated the raids were aimed at stopping an alleged terror plot to 'bring down' a plane and said security screening will take longer over the coming days.

'Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be - those travelling should go about their business with confidence,' Mr Turnbull said.

Police are pictured as they continue their investigations into the terror raids on Sunday

Australian Federal Police are pictured on Sunday in the aftermath of the Sydney terror raids

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin (pictured) said details of the alleged terror plot are still emerging

'The office of transport security has advised security screening will take longer, and travellers should arrive at terminals at least two hours before flights to allow ample time for screening.

'They should limit the amount of carry-on and checked baggage, as this will help to ensure that security screening is efficient.'

Virgin Australia released a statement on the extra security.

'Passengers should arrive at least 2 hours before domestic flights and 3 hours before international flights to allow time for security screening,' the statement read.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull (pictured) said for those travelling on planes to allow extra time for heightened security measures on Sunday

Australian Federal Police are seen at a property in Lakemba in Sydney's west on Sunday

Cleveland Street was cordoned off and shouting and screaming was heard as a man was led away by police

'Passengers should limit the amount of carry-on and checked baggage they travel with as this will help to ensure security screening is efficient.'

New South Wales Police confirmed that the four men in custody were yet to be charged.

Australia's terror threat remains at probable.

Prime Minister Turnbull released a statement on the raids, confirming the involvement of the Australian Federal Police, ASIO and NSW Police.

Australian Federal Police on Sunday leaving a property after the dramatic terror raids

Cleveland Street (pictured) was closed between Elizabeth St and Young St, and Goodlet Lane was also closed

Residents living near the Surry Hills home were evacuated while the bomb squad worked to remove the 'explosive device' and forensics (pictured) examined the scene

'These operations are designed to disrupt and prevent plans to undertake terrorist attacks in Australia,' the statement said.

'My number one priority, and that of my government, is the safety and security of all Australians.

'The public should be reassured that our security and intelligence agencies are working tirelessly to keep us safe.'

Mr Turnbull urged people to call the National Security Hotline on 1800 132 400 if they see or hear anything suspicious.

Goodlet Lane in Surry Hills (pictured) was closed while police examined the scene of the raid

Police involved in the raid were acting to prevent an alleged plot to bring down a plane with a 'bomb'

An 'explosive device' was discovered at the Surry Hills (pictured) property and deactivated by a bomb squad that was called to the scene
Yaphet Kotto, the actor who faced a grisly death in Ridley Scott's 1979 film Alien, claims that he has been abducted by extraterrestrials in real life

The actor who faced a grisly death in Ridley Scott's film Alien claims that he has been abducted by extraterrestrials in real life.

Yaphet Kotto, who played the role of Chief Engineer Parker in the 1979 film, now says that he believes aliens really exist and are not just fictional monsters portrayed in sci-fi thrillers.

Kotto opened up in a VICE interview about his beliefs, his first sighting and his experiences.

'I've never talked to anyone about it, man, this is the first time,' said Kotto.

'I've only told my wife, my rabbi and a psychologist. This is the first time I'm talking about it.'

The 77-year-old actor claims to have even been abducted by aliens and that it's been happening for decades.

'It started when I was about nine or ten years old,' Kotto said.

'I remember being told I couldn't go outside, so I would look out at the streets of my neighborhood in the Bronx, watching the kids play stickball.

Kotto, who played the role of Chief Engineer Parker in the 1979 film pictured above), now says that he believes aliens really exist and are not just fictional monsters portrayed in sci-fi thrillers

The 77-year-old actor claims to have even been abducted by aliens and that it's been happening for decades. Kotto (pictured above in Alien) said: 'It started when I was about nine or ten years old'

'When I turned around, a figure was behind me, it was at least five or six feet tall with an elongated head. It appeared, then jumped to the back of me and disappeared.

'From that moment on, it was one experience after another which culminated into my sighting in the Philippines and during the filming of Alien.'

He added that some of those experiences also include seeing strange lights near his home.

Kotto, who also starred in television series Homicide: Life on the Street, said that the strange sightings seemed to follow him too.

'Every time I moved into a house, above it at some point, there would be a circle of what looked like smoke,' Kotto said.

'I'd wonder where it came from because it sure as hell didn't look like clouds.

'Those sightings continued for a good 10 to 15 years. I've also had time loss. I have a big loss of time between some of these moments, and I'd often wonder if I was taken.'

The New York native shared that things became stranger when he went to the Philippines.

'It was one evening in my office in the Philippines. I heard my wife and the waiters calling me to come outside in very anxious voices,' Kotto said.

Kotto (pictured above in Alien) refutes claims that he's mentally ill. He said: 'Absolutely not. I have an IQ of 196. Might as well say that the hundreds of other peopleincluding Canada's previous defense ministerwho came to the same conclusions about alien life had mental health issues too.'

'So I went out and when I got there, I saw the same huge circle of smoke over the house.

'When I asked them what they saw, they said they saw a UFO as big as the Yankee Stadium turned upside down.'

He continued, 'They were freaking out. Two or three nights later, I saw it. The thing blotted out the entire sky.

'The moon and everything, it was huge. I just remember saying, 'Jesus Christ.' I mean I got so nervous, man, because you don't see something like that without being vulnerable to becoming psychologically blown away.

'You get scared to put it quite frankly. That messed me up for a good three or four days.'

Koto, who also played the iconic role of Dr. Kananga in James Bond classic Live and Let Die, noted that in order to believe they are real, aliens are something that must be seen.

He refutes claims that he's mentally ill and said: 'Absolutely not. I have an IQ of 196. Might as well say that the hundreds of other peopleincluding Canada's previous defense ministerwho came to the same conclusions about alien life had mental health issues too.'

Koto, who also played the iconic role of Dr. Kananga in the 1973 James Bond classic Live and Let Die (file above), noted that in order to believe they are real, aliens are something that must be seen

For those who think he just wants his name back in the spotlight, Kotto said: 'I'm already famous so what possible purpose would I have to tell these stories except how it relates to the movie Alien?'

He added: 'This is the reason why I never talked about it after that movie because of course they'd say, 'oooh, he's trying to promote his movie.' Well I'm not promoting anything now.

'I've written no book and I have no movie that's about to be released.

'This is the time to reveal this because no one can connect it to anything that's a financial gain or form of media exposure.'

Kotto believes that he will soon be vindicated and that the aliens he has seen will reveal themselves to the rest of the world soon.

He claims that it will happen, since humans are destroying the planet.

'We need to take a serious look at what we're doing and [the aliens are] going to help us do that,' Kotto said.

'We're not alone, we're not alone in the universe. If you totally westernize the idea look at it from a supremacy viewpoint, then you'll say, everyone's imagining them when it comes to these things,'the actor said.

'We can say that, but much of the world would reject that premise. We're not alone.'
Sunrise host Natalie Barr fired up Justice Minister Michael Keenan after asking why Australian authorities reportedly had to be informed of an alleged terror plot by an overseas authority.

Four Lebanese-Australian men were arrested when officers swooped on five properties across Sydney on Saturday afternoon.

They are accused of plotting to bring down a plane with an 'improvised device' and the plot was 'Islamist-inspired,' police said.

On Monday, the Daily Telegraph reported the alleged plot may have involved a crude bomb disguised as a kitchen meat grinder that was to be carried in hand luggage onto a flight bound from Sydney to an unconfirmed destination in the Middle East.

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Sunrise host Natalie Barr fired up Justice Minister Michael Keenan after asking why Australian authorities reportedly had to be informed of an alleged terror plot by an overseas authority

Other media reports suggested it could have been a 'non-traditional' device that would have distributed poisonous gas within the plane.

In an interview on Sunrise, Mr Keenan refused to confirm those details due to the ongoing investigation but called it a 'sophisticated' plot that involved bringing down a plane.

Nevertheless, he insisted it was safe for Australians to travel.

He also refused to comment on reports that authorities in Australia were informed of the alleged plot by an overseas agency.

'Does it concern you that it doesn't sound like Australian authorities had any idea that these four men had any plans in place?' she asked.

Mr Keenan refused to confirm those details due to the ongoing investigation but called it a 'sophisticated' plot that involved bringing down a plane

'We only got the tip-off, didn't we, last Wednesday, by some kind of overseas authority?'

Mr Keenan replied: 'We have the best law enforcement and intelligence authorities in the world, and we have worked with them very diligently and very closely to change the way they can police this threat.

'The threats have changed significantly since 2014 and we have worked with them on what they need to address that.'

He also noted that it was the 13th time authorities had thwarted a potential terror attack on Australian soil.

'This is the 13th time that our authorities have stopped something from happening in Australia,' he said.

Police officers are seen at a crime scene in Surry Hills, Sydney, after four men were arrested

'They are very good at what they do. They are 100 per cent backed by the government and we have given them significant extra powers and resources for them to do their job.'

But while Ms Barr said she had no intention of undermining the authorities, she noted that the arrested were 'right under our noses' but only taken into custody following the apparent tip-off.

'I know they are good and I don't want to undermine our authorities at, but we did not know about these guys, did we?' she said.

'How much of a concern is it that we had to have someone overseas tell us, and they were right under our noses.'

Travellers are experiencing long delays at Australian airports after security was ramped up following a number of terror raids over the weekend

Mr Keenan responded by saying he refused to comment or speculate on details that are based on media reports.

He then doubled down on the assertion that authorities have been successful in keeping Australians safe.

'Those details are in media reporting and I'm not going to confirm or speculate on any of that.

'What I can tell you is that we are very good at stopping terrorist attacks happening in Australia and there is ample evidence of that,' he said.

'This is another in a long list of disruptions we have made. The police are very good at what they do.

New South Wales Police officers arrive at a crime scene in Surry Hills, Sydney, on Monday

'They work with the Australian Federal Police and are working very closely with their counterparts in New South Wales, working very closely with ASIO and the rest of the Australian law enforcement and intelligent community.

'The public really needs to be assured that we really have put in place measures to deal with this threat, and those measures have been very successful in keeping the Australian public safe.'

The four arrested are believed to be two groups of father and son who will remain in detention for up to a week while police comb through evidence.

On Sunday, a magistrate granted Australian Federal Police an additional period of detention, which can last up to seven days, to hold the men while a complex investigation continues.

The men were arrested when NSW and Australian Federal Police officers swooped on five properties in the Sydney suburbs of Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl on Saturday afternoon.

A number of items of interest were seized during the searches at four of the properties.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said airport security measures had been increased and reassured the public of their safety.
Police are searching for a woman who went missing while she was reportedly skinny dipping with her boyfriend off the Jersey Shore.

Zuzana Oravcova, 24, is believed to have been swept away from her boyfriend Thomas Kadlec, 23, after they took an early morning swim at Point Pleasant Beach.

The couple from Slovakia had entered the strong waters without any clothes on around 2.30am on Sunday morning, according to the local New Jersey reports.

After struggling in the high surf, Kadlec swam to shore alone and immediately told authorities that Oravcova was still out in the ocean, prompting the search.

Zuzana Oravcova, 24, is missing after going 'skinny dipping' with boyfriend Thomas Kadlec

Oravcova is a brunette student who worked at a nearby boardwalk, NBC New York reported.

Upon his return to shore, Kadlec immediately notified a Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk employee that his girlfriend was still in the water.

Witnesses said they saw Kadlec emerge from the water naked and there were several pieces of clothing left in a pile on the beach, according to ABC 7.

A witness told the station: 'We called some help, we called the police and said there's still a girl in the water.

'It's really sad for this community. I think she was a local person.'

Police, the US Coast Guard, dive teams and helicopters were thrown into action, searching the rough waters for Oravcova.

Witnesses said they saw Kadlec emerge from the water naked and there were several pieces of clothing left in a pile on the beach

Local New Jersey police, the US Coast Guard and dive teams searched all day on Sunday for the missing student from Slovakia

A statement from the Point Pleasant Beach Police Department said on Sunday afternoon: 'At this time, the female is still missing and the search is continuing.

'She has been entered NCIC as a missing person.

'Anyone with any information, contact the Pt Pleasant Beach Police Department.'

The National Weather Service issued a warning about strong rip currents along the Jersey Shore on Sunday morning.

The warning remained in effect throughout the day.
Rapping just became educational.

Studytracks, created by award-winning British songwriter and producer George Hammond-Hagan, is a program and smartphone app that sets coursework and study materials to music.

The program, which can be used by teachers in classrooms, or just by students trying to study for their courses, has become a huge hit in the UK and will be showing up in American classrooms this fall.

Hammond-Hagan came up with the idea while his son Paris, who is now 18, was struggling to concentrate while he was studying for his end-of-year exams.

As a music producer, Hammond-Hagan wondered what it would be like if there was music to help his son study. So he decided to write music using his son's physics book.

After his son's next physics class, he remembered everything and had so much fun with the music, he showed it to his friends, too. They also loved it.

'It was a really natural thing to say well actually, if it can help my son, it can probably help a lot more kids as well,' Hammond-Hagan told DailyMail.com.

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Studytracks, created by award-winning British songwriter and producer George Hammond-Hagan (pictured), is a program and smartphone app that sets coursework and study materials to music

Hammond-Hagan came up with the idea while his son Paris (pictured), who is now 18, was struggling to concentrate while he was studying for his end-of-year exams in 2014

'You know, because I know my son isnt unique in not learning in a traditional manner, so that was the initial thing that made me pivot from just having this as something that was just for my son to something that could be a lot broader.'

That was in 2014 and now Studytracks is an app that has had more than 150,000 downloads and covers subjects including biology, physics, chemistry, math, geography, history and literature.

High school students who download the app can pick courses and listen to songs or playlists that focus on a specific topic.

Teachers can also pick different songs or playlists to go along with their syllabus and even listen to those songs in the classroom.

Hammond-Hagan works with teachers at ten British schools to make sure the information in his songs is accurate and points to the more important bits of the lesson.

And because writing music comes so naturally to him, he writes almost all the songs and performs most of them. His son Paris has even stepped into the Studytracks game. He picks the tracks the lyrics will go to. And the music covers all genres.

As a music producer, Hammond-Hagan wondered what it would be like if there was music to help his son study. So he decided to write music using his son's physics book

After his Paris' next physics class, he remembered everything and had so much fun with the music, he showed it to his friends, too. They also loved it

This fall, Studytracks is coming to the US.

'We always thought the bigger picture for study tracks is something that can help a lot of kids beyond just the UK,' he said.

'And it turned out that a lot of content around maths and science were very similar, so it was a really natural progression to then go into the US.'

Hammond-Hagan has been working with two school districts in America and in September more than 20 American schools will be using the program on the West and East coasts, including Crenshaw High School in Los Angeles, where the hip hop group NWA started.

Though he does most of the writing and about half of the performances himself, Hammond-Hagan is handing over songwriting to a team of Americans.

He said the nuances of American English are too important and as a British song-writer, he doesn't want to confuse American students.

Though the American app has been available for a while now, Studytracks will more-fully launch in the fall, as school starts up again.

What makes Hammond-Hagan most excited about the launch is that he knows he's doing something right.

'We get feedback from kids who will email us on our social pages or whatever and say "oh my god, I didn't realize DNA was so easy to understand", or "thank you so much, you saved my history exam".

'When you start getting feedback like that, you know, the hairs on the back of your neck are going and you just think "We're doing something really really good. Let's keep going".'

Hammond-Hagan's son Paris (pictured) helps with Studytracks now that the program has become such a huge hit. While Hammond-Hagan writes almost all the lyrics for the UK program, his son picks the genre of music and track the song will go with

Hammond-Hagan works with teachers at ten British schools to make sure his songs are accurate and points to the more important bits of the lesson. Studytracks isn't only just a school program, it is also an app that students can download and use to take practice tests
Doan Thi Huong (blue) at the court in Sepang, Malaysia (Source: AFP/VNA)



After the trial concluded, the embassys representatives and lawyers discussed with Huong about following litigation procedures.

In the time ahead, the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs will continue close coordination with domestic agencies involved, the Vietnamese embassy in Malaysia and Malaysian lawyers to ensure Huong's legitimate rights and interests are protected.

Doan Thi Huong, 28, is one of the two women suspects in the murder of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) man named Kim Chol at Kuala Lumpur International Airport on February 13th.

Malaysia said Kim Chol was poisoned, but the DPRK insisted that he died of a heart attack, plus high blood pressure and diabetes.

At the court hearing on March 1st, the two women were charged with murder but they denied and said that they were cheated to take part in an innocuous prank.

According to the Malaysian law, they would face the death penalty if found guilty./.
A 49-year-old man has been charged with her murder and is before the courts

The schoolgirl disappeared as she walked to school from her Granville home

The search continues for the remains of murdered schoolgirl Quanne Diec (pictured)

The search continues for the remains of a murdered schoolgirl who was abducted as she walked to school 19 years ago.

On Monday morning police announced a new three-day search search for the remains of Quanne Diec, 12, in bushland off Appin Road at Cataract.

Quanne was kidnapped a few hundred metres from her Granville home on the morning of July 27, 1998.

In November 2016, a 49-year-old man charged with murdering the schoolgirl led police to an area of dense bush in Bulli Tops, near Wollongong, but her body was not found.

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On Monday morning police announced a new three-day search search for the 12-year-old's remains in bushland off Appin Road at Cataract

Quanne was last seen on her way to Strathfield Girls High School from her Granville home in July 1998.

Her school assumed she was at home sick and her parents thought she was at school, so she was not reported missing until that evening.

Police allege Quanne was lured off a street by the man, who planned to ransom her before killing her some time before 7.30pm the day she disappeared.

The 49-year-old was arrested last year after he went to Surry Hills police station and allegedly made admissions about the schoolgirl's murder.

He remains before the courts.

'Police remain focused on finding Quannes remains in hope of ending the Diec familys search for answers,' officers said in a release.

'This process has been an incredibly difficult experience for her family and we will continue to support them as the search continues.'
A former NBC employee filed a lawsuit in Manhattan Supreme Court claiming that she was contacted by a recruiter who told her NBC only wanted 'good-looking employees' and even asked to see her social media pictures before her interview.

Stephanie Belanger, 25, alleges the recruiter asked her to 'show her Facebook/Instagram profile to NBC before she could be interviewed', according to the New York Post.

Belanger, who applied for a job as an audio-visual coordinator, said her supervisor, John Carleo, even called her a 'whore' and bragged that he had the 'hottest coordinator in the office'.

Fired NBC employee, Stephanie Belanger (pictured), 25, claims a recruiter said the network only wanted 'good-looking' employees and that she was a victim of sexual harassment and termination retaliation

At one point, Carleo referred to himself as 'the boyfriend with no benefits', according to the suit.

Carleo allegedly told Belanger he had to fire her or risk his girlfriend breaking up with him, the suit claims.

Belanger's lawsuit alleges sexual harassment and termination in retaliation for her complaints that, she says, were overlooked by NBC bosses. But her suit also claims she was the victim of disability discrimination.

According to the Post, Belanger is epileptic and suffered two seizures at work. And after the second time, she claims her bosses demoted her and cut her salary.

Belanger's lawyer, Daniel Kaiser, told the Post that NBC's apparent desire for 'good-looking employees' created a toxic workplace.

He also said NBC 'wasn't shy' about requesting Belanger's social media photos.
Victims of the contaminated blood scandal will boycott the public inquiry into the disaster as long as the Department of Health is involved, they said yesterday.

Families and survivors said it was simply impossible to proceed with the inquiry because of the central role of the department and its staff in the tragedy.

In a letter to the head of the probe, Bishop James Jones, they said that nothing can proceed until Theresa May can assure them that the hearing will be independent.

Prime Minister Theresa May, has announced an inquiry into the appalling tragedy that killed 2,400 people infected with hepatitis and HIV in the 1970s and 1980s .

The Prime Minister has announced an inquiry into the appalling tragedy that killed 2,400 people infected with hepatitis and HIV in the 1970s and 1980s.

Thousands of people were infected after they were given with contaminated stocks of the clotting agent Factor VIII, used to treat patients with haemophilia.

The Daily Mail has uncovered evidence suggesting that patients were given the deadly substance for at least five years after health officials became aware of the threat.

The Department of Health is working on determining the exact form of the Hillsborough-style inquiry, which will be led by a judge.

But earlier this month, families and survivors refused to meet with the Department after it invited them to a meeting to determine the format and scope of the inquiry.

And in their letter, seen by the Mail, campaign groups representing victims said they could not participate.

It is now crystal clear that victims, families, MPs and others all agree that the Department of Health should not be involved in this Inquiry, with or without mediation, they wrote.

It is simply impossible.

Bishop James Jones (pictured) agrees with the families that the DoH should not be involved in establishing or setting the remit for the inquiry

They also demanded that the inquiry be given the statutory power to compel witnesses to give evidence under oath and to order the release of documents.

They accused health officials of being involved at every stage of the scandal, ignoring World Health Organisation warnings and using victims for unauthorised trials.

Staff also destroyed evidence, refused to give evidence to investigations and attempted to withhold evidence, the victims groups added.

The signatories include the Birchgrove Group, Contaminated Blood Public Inquiry, Factor 8 Campaign UK, Manor House Group, Positive Women, Tainted Blood, The Fatherless Generation and The Forgotten Few.

The letter was sent in response to a teleconference that took place on Thursday last week and was designed to get the inquiry moving.

Mrs May has said victims, relatives and campaign groups will be consulted about the form they wished the inquiry to take.

But the groups representing victims say they will not participate unless responsibility for the inquiry is transferred to a different Government department.

The letter also says that the Right Rev James Jones agrees with them that the Department of Health should not be involved in establishing or setting the remit for the inquiry.

Our position is that we believe you could yet be of great service to our campaign and we very much welcome your help, they said.

However we feel this is perhaps best placed in getting the message to Government now that nothing can proceed until the Inquiry is removed completely from any influence of the DoH and its staff.

The row will come as a major blow to Mrs May, who personally ordered the inquiry after months of escalating pressure over the scandal.

She will have hoped the announcement of the inquiry, just before Parliament rose for the summer recess, would reduce pressure on her to act over the summer.

A Department of Health spokesman said: We are absolutely committed to a thorough and transparent inquiry.

To establish the best format and remit, we want to hear as many opinions as possible. Our door is open for anyone who wants to discuss the Inquiry or raise any concerns.




Empire: Property mogul James Tuttiett

A property mogul has made millions of pounds through exploitative ground rent fees paid by up to 40,000 households, it has been revealed.

James Tuttiett, 53, has built a massive property empire of controversial freeholds, allowing him to charge homeowners for the land their house is built on.

Companies House records show he controls 85 companies that own the lucrative freeholds of huge developments in Newcastle, Birmingham, Leeds, Coventry and London.

He is often the sole director or employee of the firms.

Leaseholders must pay ground rents to his company E&J Estates. Some rents double every ten years, meaning they will reach thousands of pounds a year in decades to come.

The fee has already left some homeowners unable to sell their properties.

Last week the Government proposed a ban on new-build leaseholds, saying that ground rents should be restricted to as little as zero.

Launching an eight-week consultation, Communities Secretary Sajid Javid described the process as unjust. Its clear that far too many new houses are being built and sold as leasehold, exploiting home buyers. Enough is enough. These practices are unjust, unnecessary and need to stop, he said. He added ground rent had been used as an unjustifiable way to print money.

Mr Tuttietts companies also own freeholds of schools, health clubs and petrol stations.

In 2016 one of his firms, SF Funding, recorded an 80million increase in the value of its ground rents from the year before to 267.4million, according to the Guardian.

Andrew Henderson bought his house in Blackburn from builders Taylor Wimpey six years ago only to discover that the developer then sold his freehold to E&J. He said: We are currently paying around 145 every six months.

This doubles every ten years, so in 45 years, while enjoying retirement, Ill be paying E&J 10,000 per year to live in my own home that will be fully bought and paid for.

Linda Barnes, who also pays ground rent, said residents of a development in Heywood, Greater Manchester, are in sheer panic because they cannot sell their homes.

E&J acquired the freeholds of the development soon after it was completed.

In Ellesmere Port, Cheshire, Lindsay Lloyd said she was told that the freehold on her home would cost 2,635 to buy when the estate was first built.

After it was sold to E&J, the cost rose to around 32,000.

Taylor Wimpey has set up a 130million fund to help those trapped by spiralling ground rents that render their properties worthless.

Justin Madders, Labour MP for Ellesmere Port, said: While the Governments announcement of a ban is welcome, we now need to step up the fight for justice for those who have already been signed up to these unconscionable leases.

Little is known about Mr Tuttiett, who lives in a listed property surrounded by his own vineyard in Winchester. E&J Estates declined to comment.
I first came to Mexico when I was 19 on a gap year.

In my first week I was invited to a party and the food was incredible. I had absolutely no idea. I thought Mexicans all ate TexMex  greasy, heavy food with cheese and beans.

How wrong I was. The food was a revelation, and I ended up travelling all around Mexico eating everything I could see. I came back thinking I was going to eat tacos all the time and then realised there were none in the UK.

Tucking in: Thomasina with local chef Alejandro Ruiz, who runs food market tours in Mexico's Oaxaca City

Ten years later I was back. I visited Oaxaca City  and have been going there regularly ever since. Its where the idea for Wahaca, my chain of Mexican restaurants, was born, and where I still come to research our menus.

The Oaxaca region has its own distinct microclimate, which means it has amazing produce. Its best known as the Land of Seven Moles, special sauces which are made with all kinds of chillies.

Its there that I met Alejandro Ruiz, a great chef whos revitalised the restaurant scene in Oaxaca City. His Casa Oaxaca Cafe does the best traditional Mexican breakfasts: huevos rancheros  fried eggs with a Mexican herb called hoja santa  panes de nata, which are clotted cream cakes, and Mexican hot chocolate, made with water instead of milk and a special blend of cacao, almonds, sugar and cinnamon.

Round the corner is Itanoni Flor del Maiz, a corn restaurant. Whether you go for quesadillas, tacos or memelas, theyre all made from various varieties of corn sourced from a co-operative of different growers. Its a pretty spectacular place, where you can see everything made on the griddle in front of you.

Alejandro is an amazing guide to the citys markets. You can book a tour with him of the main wholesale market in the city, the Central de Abastos, through his hotel, Casa Oaxaca  and for 2,000 pesos (85) hell show you round the best places, such as Valentinas memela stand, then buy ingredients and give you a cooking class. All with wine, of course.

Alternatively, you can explore the Benito Juarez Market by yourself. Its the oldest in the city and more touristy, but lovely. Find empanadas de mole mario, which is a variation on a taco, loaded with yellow mole, shreds of chicken, and white onion relish.

She suggests wandering round Oaxaca's traditional food markets to sample their wares

They go on sale at about 11am because the corn is freshly ground first thing in the morning to make the dough for the tortillas. You can also buy ingredients like chorizo and steak and take it to be cooked to eat with the different tortillas. Its a very democratic way of eating.

Whether youre eating in a top restaurant or munching on street food, its impossible not to eat well

The chefs here take inspiration from whats going on on the streets, and now cooks such as Rodolfo Castellanos, who left Oaxaca years ago to work in fine restaurants, are coming back and bringing fabulous dining to the city.

The food at Rodolfos restaurant Origen is, I think, some of the best in the city.

Thats what I fell in love with  the laid-back style of eating and the freshness of the ingredients. Whether youre eating in a top restaurant or munching on street food, its impossible not to eat well.
The average price of a home in the UK is currently 234,466.

So how does yours stack up?

A new online tool allows you find out exactly how much the value of your home compares to the average in your area as well as the rest of the UK.

The average house in London's Clapham, for example, costs a whopping 881,671; whereas a house in Jaywick in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex - one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Britain, costs 142,697 on average.

The tool, formulated by Web Blinds, also (somewhat depressingly) lets you compare your home's value to that of the most expensive properties in Europe and the rest of the world.

The most costly street in Europe is Monaco's Avenue Princesse Grace, where the average home costs 27.8 million; and the world's most expensive street of all is Pollock's Path in Hong Kong, where a house will set you back a staggering 241.8 million.

A new online tool allows you find out exactly how much the value of your home (left) compares to the average in your area (right)

Compared to the average house price in the UK (left) a house in Jaywick in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex - one of the most deprived neighbourhoods in Britain, costs 142,697 on average (right)

The tool also (somewhat depressingly) lets you compare your home's value to that of the most expensive properties in London (pictured) and the world

The UK's most expensive street is Westminster's Eaton Square, where houses cost 16.9 million on average - 72 times pricier than the UK average (left)

The most costly street to live on in Europe is Monaco's Avenue Princesse Grace, where the average home costs 27.8 million
Kara Ryan, 31, and her husband Beau, 32, welcomed the birth of their second child on Saturday, which also marked her birthday.

The couple announced the birth of baby boy, Jesse Ryan, in a snap shared to Instagram on Sunday.

'Welcoming our beautiful Boy Jesse Ryan in to the world last night stealing our hearts and ...my birthday. We could not be happier @therealbeauryan,' the caption read.

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Baby joy! Kara Ryan and her husband Beau welcomed the birth of their second child on Saturday, which also marked her birthday

In the tender photo, little Jesse is pictured sleeping peacefully and wrapped in a baby blanket.

Both their hands are affectionately placed on the bub and a black and white filter is used.

In the comments, fans and famous friends of the couple shared congratulatory messages.

Thrilled: The couple, who have been married for four years, already share a four-year-old daughter Remi

'Congratulations mate! Future Rooster right there,' wrote former Bachelorette star Sasha Mielczarek.

Former NRL star Braith Anasta and actor Dan Ewing posted a series of heart symbols under the snap.

The couple, who have been married for four years, already share a four-year-old daughter Remi.

Wedded bliss! Speaking to Woman's Day recently, former rugby league player Beau said he and Kara are happier than ever in their marriage. The couple is pictured last week

United: 'We're really happy at the moment, things are good,' he said

Speaking to Woman's Day recently, former rugby league player Beau said he and Kara are happier than ever in their marriage.

The Footy Show co-host, who competed in the hit Australian Ninja Warrior this week, said that the couple were 'all excited for the future.'

'We're really happy at the moment, things are good,' he said.

Happy family: Beau and Kara are childhood sweethearts, who tied the knot in a lavish wedding in 2012. The couple are pictured with their daughter Remi

Beau and Kara are childhood sweethearts, who tied the knot in a lavish wedding in 2012.

Three years into their marriage, the pair were rocked by infidelity reports surrounding Beau and former Hi-5 entertainer Lauren Brant in 2015.

Despite having neither confirmed nor denied the reports, the couple stuck together and their union is said to be stronger than ever.

'Having another baby has made our relationship stronger,' Beau said adding that he now spends a lot of time at home with his wife.

Infidelity reports: Three years into their marriage, the pair were rocked by infidelity reports surrounding Beau and former Hi-5 entertainer Lauren Brant




Jenny From The Block is taking on the Windy City.

The diva, who just celebrated her 48th birthday, was in Chicago to accompany her boyfriend Alex Rodriguez for an autograph signing.

Lopez shared a sultry shot of herself gazing into the camera in front of a sign for the city as she showed off her famous cleavage in a low-cut white tank top.

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Not-so-shy-town: Jennifer Lopez shared this busty shot while making a stop in Chicago Saturday

Rodriguez just celebrated his 42nd birthday on Thursday, the couple have had a series of lavish celebrations during their shared birthday week.

Just as quickly as Jennifer announced her arrival in Chi-town, she uploaded a video of herself and her lover on the tarmac getting ready to jet out of the city.

Jennifer donned a pair of large reflective aviator shades as she told her 68 million followers that they were getting ready to leave.

In and out: The actress and singer, 48, announced she and boyfriend Alex Rodriguez, 42, were leaving on the same day they arrived

Business trip: A-Rod was in town for an autograph signing, fans reported that Jennifer sat next to him and rested her head on his shoulder as he signed

A-Rod was in town for an autograph signing, fans reported that Jennifer sat next to him and rested her head on his shoulder as he signed.

The day before the promotional appearance, Lopez shared a photo of her bea posing with her nine-year-old twins Max and Emme, from her marriage to Marc Anthony, as well as his two daughters Ella and Natasha.

The pair have been dating since at least March and have traveled with each other across the globe, hitting up Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Miami, the Domincan Republic and Paris during their courtship.
She's a writer, beauty expert and mother-of-two.

And taking to Instagram at the weekend, the media personality shared sweet throwback photos of herself as a curly-haired schoolgirl.

The star, now 37, shared three snaps to her Instagram story from her childhood and teenage years, looking barely recognisable.

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You'll never guess who this is! The media personality and beauty expert looks unrecognisable as a fresh-faced school girl with blonde hair and a curly fringe. The snaps were shared to Instagram on Sunday

The pictures are of Zoe Foster-Blake, the wife of comedian and radio star, Hamish Blake.

In one shot, Zoe appears to be in kindergarten and has curly blonde hair, which is styled in pigtails.

Zoe captioned the shot, saying her mother was showing her pictures from her childhood.

'Mum's visiting; brought all my school photos (This is Year 12 I think),' Zoe joked.

Looking back: Zoe is pictured last week, showing off her post-baby body just days after giving birth to baby number two

Just like his mummy! Pictured is her son, Sonny, three, as she wrote online about how quickly he's growing up. The tot bares a striking resemblance to his famous mum

In another shot, she's in primary school and has a curly fringe, and jokingly captioned it: 'Who said curls and fringes can't be friends. (Everyone, with good reason).'

In the final image, Zoe appears to be in high school and wears her long locks down and over one shoulder, wearing a crystal fish necklace.

'Homemade balayage,' Zoe captioned the shot, referring to her dark roots and lighter ends.

'Still waiting for the crystal fish trend to come back,' she added.

'Homemade balayage': In the final image, Zoe appears to be in high school and wears her long locks down and over one shoulder, wearing a crystal fish necklace

Adding to their brood: Zoe has just welcomed her second child with her radio star husband, Hamish Blake, 35

On Friday, Zoe celebrated her 37th birthday.

It was no doubt extra special for the personality, having just welcomed her second child with Hamish, 35.

The pair welcomed their daughter Rudy Hazel almost two weeks ago, with Zoe writing online at the time that she's 'morphed her parents into gooey love monsters.'

The pair - who have been married since December 2012 - are also parents to son Sonny Donald, three.
Model Jesinta Franklin (nee Campbell) wed AFL star Lance 'Buddy' Franklin, 30, in a lavish ceremony in November 2016.

And as she settles in to married life, the 25-year-old has revealed she and her sports star husband are bucking the trend when it comes to the stereotype of the first year of marriage being difficult.

Speaking to Stellar on Sunday, the statuesque beauty revealed she's been living in bliss for the eight months following the couple's lavish nuptials.

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'This is fun. It feels really good. We are like a team.' Jesinta Franklin (left) told Stellar on Sunday that she's loving life with husband-of-eight-months Buddy (right) despite the old adage that the first year of marriage is the hardest

'Everyone says the first year of marriage is the toughest, but if this is the toughest, sweet!' she gushed. 'This is fun. It feels really good. We are like a team.'

The former Miss Universe Australia added that their down-to-earth interests are part of the secret to their successful relationship.

'I would love to say we live a rock-star lifestyle, but we really are the most boring people on the plant,' Jesinta added.

'I think that's why we work so well together: we love nothing more than a home-cooked meal, sitting on the couch, usually in some daggy form of tracksuit, enjoying each other's company.'

'That's why we work so well together': Jesinta told the publication that she thought the key their relationship success was their down-to-earth interests and spending time together

'I remember that vividly': In an interview with Vogue Australia earlier this month Jesinta gushed about her first dance with her new husband

Earlier this month, Jesinta shared intimate details about her big day in an interview with Vogue Australia.

In the revealing interview, the brunette beauty spoke warmly of her first dance with the Sydney Swans star, explaining it was the moment she cherished most from that day.

'I remember that vividly. The song that played meant a lot to Bud and me and it felt like it was just us in the room. We didn't have dance lessons; we literally just held each other and swayed,' Jesinta gushed.

'Mr & Mrs Franklin': Jesinta and Buddy made the surprise announcement that they had tied the knot by posting a matching photo to their respective Instagram accounts in November 2016

The genetically blessed couple wed in a private ceremony with only 24 guests in attendance and made the surprise announcement of their union by taking to Instagram.

'Mr & Mrs Franklin,' Jesinta wrote alongside a picture of the newlyweds on their special day at Mount Wilson in the Blue Mountains.

Alongside the same photo, Buddy wrote on his Instagram page: 'My Love.'
Former Spice Girl Mel B has reportedly 'spent thousands of pounds' on legal fees in a bid to gag her former nanny.

The America's Got Talent host is said to have taken out five motions hoping to persuade a judge to dismiss the libel case against her, filed by Lorraine Gilles, according to the Mirror.

Mel, 42, made the claims that 25-year-old Lorraine was one of the main reasons her marriage to film producer Stephen Belafonte broke down.

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Former Spice Girl Mel B has spent thousands of pounds on legal fees in a desperate bid to gag her former nanny. She is being sued for libel

She alleged that the pretty blonde from Germany had an affair with Stephen and terminated a pregnancy after their secret trysts. The nanny heavily denied the allegations and filed a lawsuit against Mel for libel.

Mel's legal team now hope to convince Judge Dalila Lyons of Los Angeles Superior Court to rull the case null and void, saving her millions in fees.

An LA legal source told the paper: 'Mel has spent thousands of pounds on lawyers to try and shut down the nanny.

'She knows a full-blown trial could cost her vast amounts in legal fees alone. If she loses it would be unthinkable for her financial status.

'Mel has told the judge her accusations about Lorraine were no smear campaign as she did not act in reckless disregard'.

MailOnline has contacted a representative for Mel B for comment.

Rumours: Mel B alleged that the pretty blonde from Germany had an affair with Stephen and terminated a pregnancy after their secret trysts

Meanwhile the star is thought to want to return to Britain full-time once the legal drama has been put to bed to spend time with her family in Leeds.

The America's Got Talent judge filed for divorce from Belafonte, the father of her youngest child, in March after 10 years of marriage.

She successfully obtained a restraining order against him after alleging abuse.

The spousal support hearing is slated for the end of this month.

Debt: The Wannabe hitmaker is said to be battling debts having spent the 38million fortune she accumulated during her time in the Spice Girls

It is reported that the furore around the divorce has cost Belafonte half a million dollars in contracts. He is said to be seeking $200,000 for his divorce lawyers.

The Wannabe hitmaker is said to be battling debts having spent the 38million fortune she accumulated during her time in the Spice Girls.

While he was granted access to Madison, Stephen lost his battle to regain contact with Mel's daughter Angel, who was born three months before the pair's wedding in 2007.

Hometown girl: Deciding she wants to be nearer to her family in Leeds, particularly after her father's death this year, it is understood Mel wants clean start away from LA

Following the hearing in late April, Mel's lawyer Larry Bakman immediately opposed giving Belafonte visitation rights, as he branded him a 'convicted domestic violence offender' with an 'extensive criminal history'.

He went on to claim that Stephen had been 'involved in adult pornography' and the 'importation of women from other countries' to work in the industry as well as 'possible money laundering'.

Melfiled for divorce on March 20 and said in court papers that she was the victim of 'multiple physical beatings' at the hands of her husband.

She also claimed he threatened to 'destroy' her career by releasing sex tapes of her. Lawyers for Stephen have branded the allegations 'outrageous and unfounded', and 'nothing more than a smear campaign'
She may have gained U.S. fame with her starring role in Quantico, but she was already a household name in India's Bollywood.

And on Friday, Variety announced that Priyanka Chopra will executive produce a new comedy for ABC.

The series is based on the experience of Madhuri Dixit, a former Bollywood actress who moved to America for a decade.

In the works: On Friday, Variety announced that Priyanka Chopra, 35, will executive produce a new comedy for ABC. The star is pictured in Germany in May

On Saturday, Priyanka confirmed the news via Instagram.

'One of the favorite parts of my job, is to be able to tell stories across genres, languages and to a varied audience,' she began.

'Today Im happy to share with you another step Ive taken on that creative journey, in my role as a producer. This particular story is one of a few Hollywood projects that I am currently developing.'

The actress admitted that it was 'unchartered territory' for her, but was grateful for the team taking part in the projects, which included Quantico producers.

'One of the favorite parts of my job': On Saturday, Priyanka confirmed the news via Instagram

In 1999, Madhuri, 50, married Dr. Shriram Madhav Nene, a Los Angeles surgeon.

Following their union, the couple moved to Denver and became parents to two sons, Arin, 14 and Rayaan, 12. Eventually, the family of four returned to Madhuri's home of Mumbai.

The show will follow their lives in the Colorado town.

Madhuri, 50, also earn executive producer credit for the single-camera comedy.

Plot: The series is based on the experience of Madhuri Dixit, 50, a former Bollywood actress who moved to America for a decade. She is pictured in Morocco in December 2015

Sri Rao, a Hollywood and Bollywood writer, will pen the script, and Quanticos' Mark Gordon and Nick Pepper will also act as executive producers.

Adding to the lengthy EP list is Madhuri's husband.

A release date for the project has yet to be set, as it is still in the early stages.
She knows when it's time for a much-needed spa treatment.

And after attending a friend's baptism, Eva Longoria was seen pampering herself at a salon in Beverly Hills on Saturday.

The 42-year-old actress stunned in a form fitting blue dress as she enjoyed a manicure, pedicure, and neck massage.

Babe in blue: Eva Longoria, 42, was pampered herself at a salon in Beverly Hills on Saturday

The Desperate Housewife alum looked every inch the movie star as she stunned in the bright blue couture.

Her svelte arms and flawless skin tone were on full display as the sleeveless gown hugged her body tightly.

Daring to impress, the Texas-born beauty sparkled with neutral bronzer, light pink rouge, and a bright berry lip.

She kept her trademark brunette tresses long and loose with a part down the middle allowing her youthful face to take center stage.

Supportive friends: Eva and husband Jose Baston attended a friend's baptism to start the day

Special service: The couple attended the religious ceremony in support of a friend who was sharing the day with loved ones

Smiles: Eva got up close and personal with one of the children in attendance as they smiled and laughed together for the camera

Eva began the day with a Snapchat video of herself and husband Jose Baston attending a baptism in North Hollywood, CA.

The couple attended the religious ceremony in support of a friend who was sharing the day with loved ones.

Eva got up close and personal with one of the children in attendance as they smiled and laughed together for the camera.

Let it go: She was seen relaxing in a lounger as an one employee worked on her pedicure and the other worked on her neck muscles

I know, girl: As a friendly assistant laughed, Eva joined in with a smile and pulled out cash to tip the hard-working salon attendants

Afterwards, the Telenova star made her way to the salon to turn up the glamour meter by a tad.

She was seen relaxing in a lounger as an one employee worked on her pedicure and the other worked on her neck muscles.

As a friendly assistant laughed, Eva joined in with a smile and pulled out cash to tip the hard-working salon attendants.

To end the busy weekend excursion, the stunner chose hilarious filters to make her face seem animated.
He had his first taste of fame thanks to starring on the initial reboot of dating series Love Island on ITV2 in 2015.

And shortly after being dumped from the show, Jordan Ring claims he enjoyed a night of passion with actress Sheridan Smith.

The reality star, 34, recalled meeting Sheridan during a brief trip to London where he had spent the night with her at her flat, watching re-runs of his appearance on Love Island, before having sex.

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'I could tell she fancied me': Love Island star Jordan Ring, 34, has claimed he enjoyed a night of passion with Sheridan Smith following his exit from the show in 2015

Jordan was part of the original lineup of the first series of Love Island and fans watched on as the tattooed hunk found love with fellow contestant Zoe Basia Brown.

He and Zoe - who bares a similar resemblance to Sheridan - were notoriously known for getting steamy away from the cameras in the bathroom of the hideaway, with Jordan appearing to seduce his ex-flame by boasting about a 'big blue spider' that he had wanted her to see.

Speaking to The Sun about his tryst with Sheridan, Jordan claimed that the duo had watched scenes of him making a move on Zoe on the show, before retreating to The Moorside star's bedroom.

'That was when I made my move... I could tell she fancied me,' he insisted.

Steamy: He claims Sheridan had contacted him following his Love Island dumping and the duo met a month later at her flat where their dalliance took place

Remember him? Jordan found fame on Love Island's first series where he struck up a romance with model Zoe Basia Brown

Jordan claims he first made contact with Sheridan in July 2015 after she contacted him through social media.

He alleged they watched re-runs of his time on Love Island, and 'starstruck' Jordan had asked to watch a clip of Sheridan accepting her BAFTA in 2013 for her role in Mrs Biggs.

He claimed he was 'fascinated' with the star and eventually ended up sleeping with Sheridan, adding: 'We started to kiss and undress each other - we had sex just the once.

Notorious: He made a name for himself on the show after referring to his manhood as a 'big blue spider' to entice his ex-flame into an intimate moment in the bathroom

'I was just starstruck and a bit nervous talking to her as she's a big deal and I'm a fan.'

Despite their dalliance, he admits that while he had enjoyed a handful of phone conversations with Sheridan after meeting, their paths had never crossed again.

MailOnline have contacted a representative for Sheridan.

'I was starstruck': Jordan claims he and Sheridan ended up in bed together, after watching re-runs of Love Island and him asking to see a clip of her BAFTA acceptance speech from 2013

One night only: He admits he had been a 'big fan' of the actress and described their night together as 'surreal' - admitting they never crossed paths again

After striking up a romance with model Zoe onscreen, Jordan had dated her for just five months following their time together on Love Island before going their separate ways.

While she has stepped out of the limelight and removed her presence from social media, Jordan appears to have become a club promoter over in Marbella.

Sheridan, meanwhile, has been starring in West End musical Funny Girl, with the theatre production currently touring across the UK.

She appears as Fanny Brice in the show, but last month was forced to pull out of the hugely popular show as it landed in Bradford, following her mumps diagnosis.

Sheridan previously pulled out of shows during its West End run at London's Savoy Theatre in May 2016, with 'stress' and exhaustion' cited as causes for her absence, but had returned to the stage two months later on July 8.

The acting talent is next due to reprise her role in August at the Manchester Palace Theatre.

Reprising her role: Jordan now appears to be a club promoter in Marbella, while Sheridan is currently touring with Funny Girl the musical across the UK as Fanny Brice
She's hoping to crack Hollywood after leaving Neighbours.

And this week, Olympia Valance revealed she has a crush on Hollywood star Ryan Reynolds, 40, who she hopes to work with one day.

Speaking to The Daily Telegraph on Sunday, the 24-year-old younger sister of Holly Candy gushed: 'I love him.'

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'I love him': Neighbours star Olympia Valance (pictured) reveals Ryan Reynolds is her ultimate Hollywood crush and admits she'd like to follow in Margot Robbie's footsteps

'In a dream world, I would be his sidekick in Deadpool 2.

She continued: 'Stunts, explosions, action sequences, comedy  plus one of the two hottest Ryans in the world  who could ask for more?.'

The brunette beauty also gushed about former Neighbours actress, Margot Robbie, 27, who's found success in Hollywood.

her pick: 'In a dream world, I would be his sidekick in Deadpool 2,' Olympia said about Ryan (pictured)

Following in her footsteps: The brunette beauty also gushed about former Neighbours actress, Margot Robbie, 27, (seen) who's found success in Hollywood

After Olympia was called 'Australia's next Margot Robbie,' Olympia said she'd love to follow on in her career footsteps.

'What she is achieving is everything I could hope for and more,' Olympia said.

Olympia currently appears on the long-running Australian soap, Neighbours, playing Paige Smith.

Familiar face: Olympia currently appears on the long-running Australian soap, Neighbours, playing Paige Smith

Family: Her sister Holly Candy (pictured) first started out on the soap, playing Felicity Scully

Her sister Holly first started out on the soap, playing Felicity Scully, before finding success in the music industry, releasing hit single, Kiss Kiss.

Olympia recently revealed to News Corp that she'll be heading to Hollywood soon, after signing a deal with LA-based agency ROAR, which represents Chris and Liam Hemsworth.

Olympia - who is an ambassador for UK lingerie brand Gossard - has just enjoyed time in Mykonos.

Success! Olympia recently revealed to News Corp that she'll be heading to Hollywood soon, after signing a deal with LA-based agency ROAR

While there, the beauty was spotted partying with friends in a tiny bikini.

At one point, she twerked and got very close with another bikini-clad woman at a beach bar.

She is believed to be single, after splitting with Greg Cannell last year.
She's happily loved up with husband Eddie Cibrian.

So it's a mystery as to what the life changes LeAnn Rimes, 34, is referring to in her latest Instagram post.

The How Do I Live songstress flaunted her new shorter locks on Friday - and made a curious reference to change coming.

New hair do care: LeAnn Rimes flaunted her new shorter locks on Friday - and made a curious reference to change coming

As it was: She was sporting much longer hair and a darker hue previously (pictured 10 July)

She captioned: 'A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life - Coco Chanel

'Right on Coco! Loving the newness  @mateo_sifuentes thank you! It was time to feel a bit lighter on the outside to match what I feel on the inside. #summertime #newhair #shorthairdontcare #lighter''

It's not unusual for someone to shake up their hairstyle when they have a love split, but LeAnne's relationship appears to be as intact as ever.

She captioned: 'A woman who cuts her hair is about to change her life - Coco Chanel'

Her new tresses are a lighter hue as well as having several inches shorn from the length.

She's wearing a plunging halterneck and minimal make-up.

Her husband Eddie's ex-wife Brandi Glanville has been reportedly signed up to star in Celebrity Big Brother UK.

New look: She had longer hair when she was with husband Eddie Cibrian on 23 July

Rival: Eddie's ex Brandi Glanville is reported to be going onto Celebrity Big Brother UK - she is most famous for her furious relationship with LeAnn Rimes, after she alleged the country singer stole her husband (pictured 8 June)

The 44-year-old Real Housewives of Beverly Hills alum split with Eddie in 2009 after he had an on-set affair with his Northern Lights co-star, who was then married to Dean Sheremet.

The Love is Love is Love songstress will resume her 14-date Remnants Tour on Sunday in Owatonna, Minneapolis, in support of her 16th studio album.

Meanwhile, Eddie hasn't secured an acting gig since Fox canceled his police procedural Rosewood on May 9 after two seasons.
Last week she enjoyed a sun-drenched vacation in Saint-Tropez.

But on Saturday Nicky Hilton was back at home in New York City, which may have necessitated some retail therapy.

The 33-year-old hotel heiress, who recently announced she was expecting a second child with husband James Rothschild, 32, mixed casual and chic for some shopping at Barney's.

Retail therapy: Nicky Hilton, 33, who recently announced she was expecting a second child with husband James Rothschild, 32, mixed casual and chic for some shopping at Barney's in NYC on Saturday

The famous socialite struck out in a blue and white striped number that featured spaghetti straps and off-the-shoulder sleeves.

A swooping knee-length hemline and two side splits afforded a quick glance at her toned gams, while the overall bagginess of the garment hid her growing tummy.

Some brown heels with numerous criss-cross straps secured with gold hardware added a few inches to her 5ft7in frame.

She accessorized with a classic two-tone handbag and a pair of retro-style gold-framed shades.

Chic chick: The famous socialite struck out in a blue and white striped number that featured spaghetti straps and off-the-shoulder sleeves

Easy breezy: Her iconic blonde tresses were messily parted in the middle and fell down past her shoulders

Her iconic blonde tresses were messily parted in the middle and fell down past her shoulders.

It is understood that Nicky is around four months along with her pregnancy, and is still barely showing.

She is already mother to daughter Lily-Grace, one, who just celebrated her first birthday on the 8th of July.

Just a hint: It is understood that Nicky is around four months along with her pregnancy, and is still barely showing (couple pictured on July 23)

Nicky and husband James were overheard telling close friends about their happy news as they attended Princess Olympia and Prince Pavlos' joint 21st recently.

'It was a Marie Antoinette costume themed party so she was wearing a corset so no one could tell,' a source told DailyMail.com exclusively.

The insider claimed Nicky and big sister Paris, 36, both love being close in age, so they are very excited at the news.

The source revealed, '[James and Nicky] always wanted to give Lily-Grace a sibling close in age, like they both have.'
Michael Sheen and Sarah Silverman took in a bit of retail therapy on Saturday.

The couple were spotted on a casual shopping day together in New York.

Sarah, 46, dressed down in Adidas trainers and jeans, with a retro New York Giants blue tee.

Shopping trip: Michael Sheen and Sarah Silverman took in a bit of retail therapy on Saturday

Sheen, 48, rocking a full beard, matched her laid back look also in jeans and trainers, with a striped T-shirt and navy jacket.

The couple have been together since 2014.

Last month, Sarah described their relationship to Jimmy Kimmel, who just happens to also be her ex boyfriend of seven years.

'Hes my on-again, off-again lover,' she said. 'I call him my on-again, off-again lover because were apart by oceans  one ocean.'

Chill: Sarah, 46, dressed down in Adidas trainers and jeans, with a retro New York Giants blue tee

Silverman then explained that Sheen moved from Los Angeles to the U.K. after his daughter was accepted to college in New York.

'His daughter turned 18, he wanted to go home, she said. 'He was here to be near his daughter, now shes off, shes going to start her own life.'

'So hes there a lot, and then we just long for each other and we see each other and we love each other,' she added.

She also insisted she has no problem with the long distance arrangement: 'You know me, Im a loner, so its okay,' she laughed.

Sheen shares his daughter with Kate Beckinsale, his partner from 1995 to 2003.
He's the eccentric billionaire who considers some of the world's biggest stars among his closest friends.

And now, Sir Richard Branson has revealed that it was his idea to re-write Candle in the Wind in honour of his friend Princess Diana.

Speaking on his smoothfm show on Saturday, the 67-year-old said he wanted to make something positive come out of her tragic death.

Tribute: Sir Richard Branson has revealed that it was his idea to re-write Candle in the Wind in honour of his friend Princess Diana

Close: The late Princess holidayed with Branson on his privately-owned Necker Island with her sons Princes William and Harry in 1990, during the getaway the pair became firm friends.

The late Princess holidayed with Branson on Necker Island with her sons Princes William and Harry in 1990.

During the getaway at his privately-owned Caribbean hideaway, the pair became firm friends.

He said that following her death in 1997 he wanted to raise money for 'her good causes.'

He decided to launch an album on his music label Virgin Records to 'raise millions and millions.'

'I rang Elton John and said how about re-writing Candle in the Wind' Richard recounted how the remake in honour of Princess Diana came about

'I rang Elton John and said how about re-writing Candle in the Wind and I'll try to get the Archbishop to accept it into the funeral service, which he did,' he admitted on the radio show.

Hug hit: Candle in the Wind 1997, which Elton John performed at princess Diana's funeral, sold 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single since UK and US singles charts began in the 1950s

'The song was magical,' Branson said.

Candle in the Wind 1997 sold 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single since UK and US singles charts began in the 1950s.

Richard travelled around Australia with his wife of 26 years, Joan Templeman at the beginning of July.

The British entrepreneur spent some of his time holidaying in Makepeace, his own private island in the Noosa River.

Richard is currently guest hosting a show on smoothfm on Saturdays (4pm to 5pm).
She was spotted giving him an affectionate kiss on the shoulder last week.

And Bella Thorne headed to spend time with Blackbear again on Saturday.

The 19-year-old was spotted en route to the rapper's Los Angeles home for a party with an entourage in tow.

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Party: Bella Thorne headed to a party at rapper Blackbear's home on Friday

The actress rocked white flat soles with black skinny jeans, held up by cannabis leaf suspenders.

She flashed her toned midriff beneath a white cropped T-shirt that declared her 'anti social.'

Despite the sweltering temperatures, she opted for a black CUNTIE beanie, which looked rather risque depending on what angle in was viewed from.

The Blended star accessorized with a pair of red framed cat eye shades, and a bright yellow purse.

Weed: The actress rocked white flat soles with black skinny jeans, held up by cannabis leaf suspenders

Mates: The 19-year-old had a sizable entourage in tow

Careful: Despite the sweltering temperatures, she opted for a black CUNTIE beanie, which looked rather risque depending on what angle in was viewed from

One of her male companions showed his love for his gal pal, wearing a shirt that read 'Bella Donna.'

Another meanwhile displayed his affection by slinging an arm around her shoulder as they walked together.

Last week Bella arrived into LAX wearing an oversized hoodie with Blackbear's emblazoned on the front.

Fit: She flashed her toned midriff beneath a white cropped T-shirt that declared her 'anti social.'

Fan: Last week Bella arrived into LAX wearing an oversized hoodie with Blackbear's emblazoned on the front

Close: One of her pals displayed his affection by slinging an arm around her shoulder as they walked together

One day later, she was spotted with the rapper - whose real name is Matthew Musto - on a hotel balcony in LA, kissing his shoulder and caressing his arm.

Bella has been recently linked to Scott Disick, going on a number of dates with him in New York the week before.

That same week she told Sirius XM host Jenny McCarthy that she has 'never' been together 'sexually' with him.
They've come to blows multiple times live on air during their Channel Seven breakfast show.

And now, Sunrise's Natalie Barr, 49, has opened up about her fiery arguments with host David 'Kochie' Koch, 61.

Speaking to this week's The Sun-Herald, the newsreader revealed her clashes with Kochie are 100 percent authentic - and sometimes don't even stop when the cameras aren't rolling.

'We argue all of the time': Natalie Barr (left) confirmed to The Sun-Herald her clashes with David 'Kochie' Koch (right) are 100 percent authentic

'We argue all of the time and we have differences of opinion every day of the week,' she told the publication. 'Sometimes when we disagree it will still be going into the ad break.'

Natalie, who has been working alongside Kochie on the show since 2002, added that it was to be expected that not every moment shared between the two of them would be a barrel of laughs.

'We absolutely fight. Do you think we sit there and agree on everything? We are like a family and we argue like one too,' she explained.

However, the brunette added that the pair always debrief after any heated discussion to ensure no-one had overstepped a mark.

'We absolutely fight': The newsreader also added that sometimes their disagreements spill over into the ad break when the cameras aren't rolling

Last month, the two TV personalities went head to head as Natalie questioned the former accountant's expertise on the housing market during a Money Matters segment.

An awkward moment arose after Nat remained unconvinced of Kochie's financial advice in which he encouraged people to rent while owning investment property to lease in less desirable areas.

'Trust me, Nat, I actually know a bit about this,' Kochie hit back at his colleague after she questioned him.

'I know about this, I've done all the calculations, you can throw all the hand grenades you like, but it works.'

Close-knit colleagues: The pair have been working together on Sunrise since 2002 and Nat said it was only natural that they don't get along all the time (Pictured from left: Sunrise's David Koch, Samantha Armytage, Natalie Barr and Mark Beretta)

But money wasn't the only subject matter that the duo disagreed over in June.

When Natalie and Sunrise co-host Samantha Armytage joked about Amal Clooney's post-baby body and spoke about what they thought her parenting style would be, they were quickly scolded by Kochie.

'Now you girls. Give her a break,' he told them.

'You're being nasty. No, I think she'll be a lovely mother.'
He won the heart of Georgia Love, 28, in the Network Ten show The Bachelorette.

And it looks like Lee Elliott has developed a taste for reality television.

According to TV Week on Friday, Channel Nine has confirmed the 36-year-old will be back on the small screen - this time as a plumber on The Block.

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Getting his tools out! According to TV Week on Friday, Channel Nine has confirmed The Bachelorette's Lee Elliott (pictured) will appear on the new season of The Block

It's a role that Lee should excel at: before embarking on his TV love quest in 2016, Lee was spending his days working as a mechanical plumber.

He'll appear alongside the five new duos taking part in the renovation show: Melbourne's Josh and Elyse, Townsville's Hannah and Clint, NSW South Coast's Sticks and Wombat, Perth's Ronnie and Georgia and Melbourne's Jason and Sarah.

Season 13 of The Block, which premieres Sunday night, will see the teams of two battling it out to transform to a rundown property into a profitable dwelling.

Back for more! Season 13 of The Block will return to screens on Sunday night

Host with the most: Scott Cam (pictured) will back to front the Channel Nine reality series

The new season will also welcome back hosts Scott Cam and Shelley Craft.

Judges Neale Whittaker, Shaynna Blaze and Darren Palmer, foreman Keith Schleiger and assistant Dan Reilly will also return.

The gig on The Block is the first notable TV role Lee has scored since leaving The Bachelorette mansion last year.

Too cute: Lee Elliott rose to prominence after winning the heart of Georgia Love on The Bachelorette last year

Since meeting and falling in love on the second season of The Bachelorette, Lee and Georgia have been prolific in documenting their romance on social media.

Taking to Instagram, the enamoured twosome have flooded their respective accounts with loved-up couple selfies.

Meanwhile, Bachelorette Matthew 'Matty J' Johnson, whose heart was shattered by Georgia after being dumped in the finale, is currently appearing on The Bachelor with a bevy of beautiful women lusting over him.
He's the 1980s American soul icon who was one of the early innovators of the new jack swing sound.

And Keith Sweat, 56, has slammed modern R&B as sounding too much alike, admitting that most of today's artists sound like Chris Brown.

Speaking to the Herald Sun in the middle of a whirlwind Australian tour, Keith admitted that he struggled to differentiate between today's soulful hitmakers.

Cookie cutter: US Soul icon Keith Sweat, 56, has slammed modern R&B as sounding too much alike, admitting that most of today's artists sound like Chris Brown

'Most of today's artists sound alike to me,' he told the publication. 'It's hard for me to hear a difference.'

The I Want Her hitmaker went on to suggest that the similarities were down to the fact that a lot of artists share the same producers.

'When I'm hearing a record, I'm like "Is that Chris [Brown] or someone else? They all sound similar and that's probably because they're using the same producers.'

Who is this? 'When I'm hearing a record, I'm like "Is that Chris [Brown] (pictured) or someone else? They all sound similar and that's probably because they're using the same producers,' He told the Herald Sun

Keith went on to decry the modern sound, admitting that he feared for the future of the genre as he felt there were no standouts that would stand the test of time.

'I'll never knock what someone else is doing, but I hate the fact that I don't hear the next Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, or Keith Sweat.'

Keith first shot to super-stardom with his debut 1987 album Make It Last Forever which is widely considered a pioneer of the New Jack Swing sound.

Bleak future? 'I'll never knock what someone else is doing, but I hate the fact that I don't hear the next Luther Vandross, Teddy Pendergrass, or Keith Sweat,' he added.

New Jack swing is a fusion genre that incorporates elements of soul with hip-hop rhythms, samples and production techniques.

Of the twelve albums Keith has released throughout his career, six have peaked at the top of the US R&B charts while all of them have attained slots in the top ten.

Having already played a Melbourne show on Saturday, Keith will play Perth, Gold Coast and Sydney on August 3, 4 and 5 respectively.
She's one of the 24 contestants set to debut on Sunday night's episode of Australian Survivor.

And Joan Caballero, 29, revealed to News Corp on Saturday that she's relying on the strength gained from becoming a single mother at just 16 years, to get her through the competition.

'This seems like the most crazy and terrifying thing I can think of doing,' the personality, who is now a mother-of-three, told the publication.

'It's crazy and terrifying': Mother-of-three and Australian Survivor's Joan Caballero, 29, is relying on her inner strength to conquer reality series, according to a story published by News Corp on Saturday

'I guess through my life I've had some tarrying situations and I've come out of the other side,' Joan candidly told News Corp.

'This seems like the most crazy and terrifying thing I can think of doing,' the escape room owner said ahead of her debut in Australian Survivor on Sunday.

However showing her survival instinct, Joan said that her experience of becoming a single mother at just 16 years of age, will spur her on.

Reflection: 'I guess through my life I've had some tarrying situations and I've come out of the other side,' Joan candidly told News Corp

Challenging: 'This seems like the most crazy and terrifying thing I can think of doing,' the escape room owner said ahead of her debut in Australian Survivor on Sunday

'It wasn't planned (the pregnancy), but I just had to deal with it and that's exactly what I did.'

Joan, who is a proud mother to three children, son Jose, 13, and daughters Lily, eight, and Allegra, six, is set to debut on Sunday night's premiere episode of Australian Survivor.

The New South Wales-based personality will compete against the likes of brunette model Sarah Tilleke, 22, journalism student Anneliese, 23, and photographer Jarrad Seng, 29.

Brave: However showing her survival instinct, Joan said that her experience of becoming a single mother at just 16 years of age, will spur her on: 'It wasn't planned (the pregnancy), but I just had to deal with it and that's exactly what I did'

Australian Survivor, set in Samoa, will see contestants pushed to their physical and mental limits, with limited supplies of food, water, fire and shelter.

The contestants are to compete in physical challenges, until only one competitor is left remaining.

In a hope to entice viewers, fans have already been treated to a glimpse of what they can expect this season.

Premise: Australian Survivor, set in Samoa, will see contestants pushed to their physical and mental limits, with limited supplies of food, water, fire and shelter

Rival: Joan will feature on the series alongside journalism student Anneliese Wilson (pictured), 23

According to Friday's The Daily Telegraph, contestants will face a brutal challenge before they even touch foot onto the Samoan Island that they will be calling home.

'The first challenge sees the 24 contestants on a barge, and then thrown into the elements straight away,' they said.

Channel 10 network executives are hoping for repeat success when Survivor's second season kicks off on Sunday.
It was recently reported that her beau got down on bended knee.

And while excitement builds around them, Millie Mackintosh, 28, and Hugo Taylor, 31, looked a picture of relaxation as they took a break by their luxury resort's pool in Mykonos, Greece.

The former Made In Chelsea star sizzled in an eye-catching bikini that showcased her gym-honed figure while she soaked up the sun by the water's edge with her other half in tow.

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Relaxed: Millie Mackintosh, 28, and Hugo Taylor, 31, looked a picture of relaxation as they took a break by their luxury resort's pool in Mykonos, Greece

Celebrating her birthday week in style, Millie's racy bikini bottoms featured racy slash detailing which accentuated her slender hips and perky posterior as she stood by her cabana.

While her bardot bikini top showcased her golden glow with its slash detail nestled in the midst of her bust and her straps fell down her shoulders.

The style icon completed her poolside ensemble with an oversized straw hat with she teamed with a pair of statement sunnies while she worked her glossy tresses into a chignon.

Complementing his long-term love, Hugo donned vibrant-coloured floral swimshorts for the occasion, showcasing his many inkings during another of their many holidays abroad.

At ease: The former Made In Chelsea star sizzled in an eye-catching bikini that showcased her gym-honed figure while she soaked up the sun by the water's edge with her other half in tow

Wined and dined: Millie teased her fans by hiding her left hand as she dined during her envy-inducing trip

The appearance comes after she stripped down to pose completely NUDE while enjoying a spa trip during her break in Mykonos.

Taking to Instagram on Saturday, the former E4 reality star set pulses racing with her sultry snap that left very little to the imagination.

Making the most of her idyllic spa trip at luxury boutique hotel Kensho on the Greek island, Millie chose to ditch her bikini as she indulged in a spot of R&R.

Risque! The appearance comes after she stripped down to pose completely NUDE while enjoying a spa trip during her break in Mykonos

The starlet took a break from topping up her tan to kick back in one of the spa pools, but couldn't resist ridding herself of her swimwear to do so.

She let her naked frame take centre stage, as she stood side on to protect her modesty and strategically placed her hands over her assets.

Millie threw her head back while baring all and appeared to be sporting dampened tresses that fell down past her shoulders.

She is currently holidaying overseas with her boyfriend Hugo to celebrate her birthday and proved exactly what her former MIC co-star sees in her - with him undoubtedly acting as photographer.

Celebrating something? Millie's overtly revealing display comes while she and her boyfriend Hugo Taylor have found themselves at the centre of engagement speculation

Daring to bare: Millie had previously posed topless on a yacht in Mykonos on Thursday after flaunting a huge diamond ring on her finger

Choosing to playfully ignore her overtly revealing display, Millie simply captioned her photo: 'Spa time.'

It didn't go unnoticed by her legions of fans, however, and the brunette beauty found herself garnering nearly 6000 likes just an hour after uploading her saucy shot.

It's not the first time she has chosen to bare her naked frame on social media, as Millie was seen posing topless on board a plush yacht on Thursday.

She showcased her golden Grecian tan and peachy posterior in red and white star-printed bikini bottom.

What a dazzler! The fashion designer inadvertently offered fans a glimpse at her glittering new band when she was pictured applying sun cream during her yacht day

The couple had been enjoying a lavish day out with L'O Yachting Mykonos and posted snaps of a sumptuous spread on board their private vessel, looking as though they were making the most of their sun-soaked day at sea.

Millie's racy Instagram upload ensured all eyes were on her after finding herself at the centre of rumours she and beau Hugo are now engaged, as she was seen flaunting a huge diamond ring on her wedding finger.

But, continuing to play coy on social media, Millie had hid her ring finger at any given opportunity after being spotted with the dazzling sparkle and teasingly declared she'd had the 'best birthday ever'.

Sealed with a kiss: The couple certainly seemed to be celebrating as they enjoyed a lavish day out with L'O Yachting Mykonos

Tasty treats: Posting snaps of a sumptuous spread on board their private vessel, the pair looked as though they were making the most of their sun-soaked day at sea

Plenty to smile about: Sunglasses entrepreneur Hugo, 31, looked like the cat that got the cream as he enjoyed a Grecian break to celebrate Millie's 28th birthday

However, on board the yacht, Millie appeared to go make-up free and wore her light brunette locks scraped back from her face, ensuring her brand new prize possession was on full display as she applied sun cream.

Millie accessorised her new bling with gold hoop earrings and gold body jewellery with star detail to match her bikini.

Representatives for both Millie and Hugo declined to comment on engagement speculation when approached by MailOnline.

The couple went public with their rekindled romance in May 2016 when they travelled to the Monaco Grand Prix for Hugo's 30th birthday celebrations - the same week that Millie's divorce from rapper ex Professor Green, 33, was finalised.

Sea-ze the day! The former Made In Chelsea star showcased her golden Grecian tan in a red and white star-print bikini as boyfriend Hugo snapped away on his camera phone.

Hiding something? Millie continued to play coy on social media, hiding her ring finger at any given opportunity after being spotted wearing a dazzling sparkler

They previously dated back in 2011 when they met on E4 reality show, Made In Chelsea.

But the union was not to last and ended rather dramatically when Millie discovered Hugo had cheated on her with her friend, Rosie Fortescue.

At the time, Millie claimed she would always love Hugo, saying in an interview: 'I loved him - those feelings dont disappear  but I just always have to remind myself why were not together.'

'I do think that, for the rest of my life, every time I see him, Ill get that feeling in my stomach. I dont think I could ever not get that butterfly feeling

Millie and Professor Green, real name Stephen Manderson, announced their split in February 2016 after just over four years together.

Fun in the sun: The former reality star showcased her gym-honed figure in a barely-there white bikini as she kicked off her birthday week by posted a swimsuit snap

Bikini babe: The brunette looked happy and relaxed as she took some time out from her busy work schedule to enjoy a week of fun in the sun with her man

In a statement released at the time, they said: 'It is a mutual decision, we still care deeply about each other and would like it to be known that it is on amicable terms and we wish each other well.'

Their two-and-a-half-year marriage was dissolved in just 30 seconds in May 2016.

They were granted a decree nisi at Central London Family Court, with Millie citing 'unreasonable behaviour' as the reason for their split.

Millie and Stephen started dating in November 2011 after the rapper saw her on the cover of men's magazine FHM.

The rapper contacted Millie through her agent and they had their first date at the Groucho Club in Soho.

Coy: Millie noticeably disguised her ring finger as she tucked into a delicious dinner on Wednesday night, telling her followers she'd had the 'best birthday ever' on social media

Loved up: The couple went public in May 2016 when they travelled to the Monaco Grand Prix for Hugo's 30th birthday celebrations (pictured) - the same week Millie's divorce was finalised

They went public at the BRIT Awards in February 2012, with Stephen proposing on holiday in Paris just over a year later in 2013.

The couple tied the knot in a lavish ceremony at Babington House in Frome, Somerset, in September 2013.

Earlier this year, Pro Green lashed out at Millie in his new track Eye On The Door, rapping about their lack of sex life, drug use and hinting that cheating was to blame for their split.

But in spite of his very public bashing of his ex-wife, the musician admitted that splitting from Millie felt like experiencing a death.

He told the i newspaper earlier this month: 'Of course whether youre happy somethings finished or not, it doesnt change the fact that it does still feel like theres been a death.

The ex factor: Millie tied the knot with rapper ex-husband Professor Green, 33, in a lavish ceremony at Babington House in Frome, Somerset, in September 2013

'An energy thats always been in your presence is suddenly no longer there and youre an idiot if you think thats not going to affect you.'

The rapper has since moved on with model Fae Williams.

Millie discussed her divorce with Pro Green in the August issue of Red magazine, insisting it was completely amicable, despite the fact she ripped up her wedding dress and wore it as a blood-stained Halloween outfit last year.

She said: 'We just agreed to separate with kindness and as friends. You see so many people tear each other apart and if you support each other through it, remain dignified, that's really the way to do it.

'I'm a positive person and if it's not working then you move on. Everyone deserves to be happy.'

Red hot: Millie showcased her toned and tanned abs in a frilly scarlet two-piece as she sipped a green juice poolside at Kensho Boutique Hotel & Suites on Friday

The socialite also admitted her relationship with Hugo is completely different to when they dated during their Made In Chelsea years.

She told Red : 'I'm really happy and we have fun. Our relationship is a totally different thing now.

'We've known each other for ten years and dated when we were much younger [but] it was a different thing, a whirlwind.

'It was definitely weird dating someone when there was a camera there, but only there for half of what was going on.'

And Millie even hinted that she is eyeing a family with Hugo in the future, adding: 'I'd definitely like two kids, but I'm happy to be the baby-sitter for now.

'I'm a godmother and have three pregnant friends. I'm enjoying seeing them go through it.'
Her upcoming film That's Not Me is loosely based on a long-running friendly rivalry between herself and her old pal, Isabel Lucas.

But now Alice Foulcher has revealed she has overcome feelings of jealously towards her Hollywood megastar friend, who also makes a cameo appearance in the film.

Speaking with The Daily Telegraph, the 32-year-old said she wanted the movie, which she co-created with her husband, to be as realistic as possible.

Road to success: Alice Foulcher, 32, revealed she no longer compared herself to long-time friend, Isabel Lucas

Alice plays identical twins, Polly and Amy, with one becoming a breakout superstar and the other trying to ride the coattails of her sister's success.

One of the twins, Amy, in many ways emulates the skyrocketing career success of Alice's real-life pal Isabel.

After meeting while studying at the Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne ten years ago, Isabel went on to major Hollywood success following a stint on Australian soap, Home And Away.

Friendship: One of the twins, Amy, emulates the skyrocketing career success of Alice's real-life pal Isabel Lucas, who has enjoyed major Hollywood success

And much like Amy in the film, Isabel was rumoured to be dating American actor, Jared Leto.

Alice admitted she had previously believed she 'wasn't pretty enough' to parallel Isabel's success.

'Isabel's a wonderful actress but she's also incredibly beautiful, so she had this double whammo package. Seeing her start to achieve such success, I thought: I just don't think I'm pretty enough to be an actress.'

Helping a sister out: Alice called on Isabel to appear in her new film as LA-based actress, Zoe

'I don't necessarily think it's untrue now ... but for women in their 20s, a lot of it (acting) is based on what you look like,' she continued.

But with her new film bringing a new-found confidence, Alice's perspective on the industry has changed.

'The older I've got, the more I've felt comfortable in my own skin, enough to say I don't think what you look like is your full currency.'

That's Not Me is set to screen at Melbourne International Film Festival on August 4 and 19, and Brisbane International Film Festival on August 18, before opening on September 7.
She has had breast enhancement surgery, full body liposuction and a bum lift.

And Abigail Clarke flaunted her new body in a plunging black blouse and leggings as she partied in London on Saturday night.

The Essex reality star, 25, teased her cleavage in a tight-fitting black top, which was drawn into a bow.

Busty display: Abigail Clarke flaunted her surgically enhanced figure in a plunging black blouse and leggings as she partied in London on Saturday night

The self-styled nutritionist flaunted her flat stomach in her flesh-flashing outfit, which she paired with strappy nude heels.

Abi wore a pair of black leggings on her big night out, which she teamed with an embellished black handbag.

She partied with a full face of makeup and let her chestnut brown hair tumble over her shoulders.

The former TOWIE star walked hand-in-hand with her friend Junaid Ahmed.

Showing off her body: The former TOWIE star teased her cleavage in a tight-fitting black top, which was drawn into a bow

The personality, 22, wore a mustard T-shirt with holes ripped over his right shoulder and left hip.

He paired his ripped shirt with skinny white jeans, which were distressed over his knees.

Junaid, who is friends with Love Island star Malin Andersson, carried his iPhone as he partied late into the night with Abi.

Having a blast: The self-styled nutritionist flaunted her flat stomach in her flesh-flashing outfit, which she paired with strappy nude heels

Party girl: Abi wore a pair of black leggings on her big night out, which she teamed with an embellished black handbag

Out with friends: The former TOWIE star walked hand-in-hand with her friend Junaid Ahmed.

Abi, a self-styled nutritionist and an advocate of plastic surgery, travelled to Turkey in April for a full body liposuction procedure.

She has previously lashed out against online trolls who took aim at her breasts - which she has also gone under the knife to supposedly improve.

Not one to be shy about flaunting her busty cleavage, the ex-reality star previously spoke out about the hurt she felt after her breasts were called 'grotesque' and compared to 'a pair of grapefruits stuck on her chest' by social media users.

Night on the tiles: The personality, 22, wore a mustard T-shirt with holes ripped over his right shoulder and left hip

Surgical enhancements: Abi, a self-styled nutritionist and an advocate of plastic surgery, travelled to Turkey in April for a full body liposuction procedure

She told Closer magazine: 'It was horrible to hear and really hard to take criticism about your looks - it's hurtful.'

The former TV personality insisted she didn't realise her chest looked 'bigger than normal' or 'gappy', and doesn't understand why everyone attacked her for it.

However, she has always said she doesn't regret her decision to have breast implants in 2012.

Plastic surgery advocate: Abi has previously lashed out against online trolls who took aim at her breasts - which she has also gone under the knife to supposedly improve
They have bonded over their love of fashion, so it's no surprise Eva Longoria and Victoria Beckham wore matching white ensembles for their evening together.

The lovely ladies were sartorially in sync as they joined their husbands Jose Baston and David Beckham for a double dinner date at Giorgio Baldi in Santa Monica, California on Saturday evening.

Desperate Housewives star Eva, 42, showcased her svelte figure in the ethereal white midi dress, cinched at the waist with a striped belt.

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Dinner date: Eva Longoria showcased her svelte figure in a white midi dress as she enjoyed a double date with Victoria and David Beckham as well as her husband Jose Baston and David Beckham at Giorgio Baldi on Saturday

It's ladies night: Victoria Beckham, 43, dressed to match her best friend in a white ensemble

The Over Her Dead Body star looked effortlessly elegant as she strutted her stuff in nude skyscraper heels for their night at the Italian eatery.

Pulling out all the stops with her attire, the American actress tucked a striped cream clutch bag under her arm.

The Hollywood beauty swept her brunette tresses off her face into a half up-do hairstyle and accessorised with a simple necklace.

Woman in white: The Over Her Dead Body star looked effortlessly elegant as she strutted her stuff in nude skyscraper heels for their night at the Italian eatery

Perfect company: She brought David, 42, along to have dinner with Eva and her husband Jose

Eva complemented her beautiful features with heavy make-up and a slick of scarlet lipstick.

Victoria, 43, also opted for a white ensemble as she brought husband David, 42, along to the dinner date.

The Beckhams - who celebrated their wedding anniversary in recent weeks - have been putting on a united front amid claims they are leading separate lives.

Revealed: The Beckhams are putting on a united front amid claims they have been leading separate lives

Rumours are swirling the showbiz power couple - who have been married since 1999 - have built separate 'his and her' wings into their 5 million converted farmhouse.

A source told MailOnline last Sunday: 'There is a kids' barn and a grown up barn - no his and hers separate living accommodation. What a ridiculous suggestion.'

Their Chipping Norton Oxfordshire home is said to have been designed with separate living quarters.

Surprise: Their Chipping Norton Oxfordshire home is said to have been designed with separate living quarters

A source told The Mail On Sunday: The planning permission was pretty restrictive and stated the three barns had to stay separate.

It actually works out well for David, Victoria and the kids. If they are all driving each other mad, they can retreat into these wings like they are living in separate houses.

'It is handy for Soho Farmhouse, so David can escape for a party whenever he fancies it  and that seems to be one reason he chose to buy that property.

Trouble in paradise: Rumours are swirling the showbiz power couple - who have been married since 1999 - have built separate 'his and her' wings into their 5 million converted farmhouse

Quality time: In the Beckhams are investing in quality time together as they spend the school holidays with children Brooklyn, 18, Romeo, 14, Cruz, 12, and Harper, six, in LA

In the face of the reports, the Beckhams are investing in quality time together as they spend the school holidays with children Brooklyn, 18, Romeo, 14, Cruz, 12, and Harper, six, in LA.

Victoria is also using her time in America to catch up with her best friend Eva.

'We have sleepovers with pajamas,' Eva explained on a TV appearance during Loose Women late last year.

Meanwhile, Victoria has previously described her best pal as 'such a sweetheart' and 'good fun'.
He's the Australian television icon who celebrated his 79th birthday last week.

And, despite suffering recent health scares, Bert Newton looked the picture of health as he attended the Melbourne premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar on Saturday.

Bert beamed as he arrived at the event, cuddling close to his wife of 43 years, Patti.

Fighting fit: : Despite suffering recent health scares, Bert Newton looked the picture of health as he attended the Melbourne premiere of Jesus Christ Superstar on Saturday

The former Good Morning Australia host cut a dapper figure for the premiere, turning out in a stylish purple jacket over a light mauve coloured shirt.

He matched this with a pair of black pants and matching black leather shoes while adding an extra pop of colour with a patterned green scarf that hung loosely around his neck.

Patti, meanwhile, looked just as stylish in a black overcoat, matching leggings and a pair of black boots.

Debonair: The former Good Morning Australia host cut a dapper figure for the premiere, turning out in a stylish purple sports jacket over a light mauve collard shirt

She also appeared to be wearing a leopard print-style blouse and accessorised with some subtle earrings.

The pair looked overjoyed to be in each other's company as they waited with the throng of theatregoers outside Melbourne's State Theatre to see the iconic stage show.

Patti took to Instagram on Saturday to document the couple's trip to the theatre, which had her fans gushing over the loved-up snap.

Beloved: Patti took to Instagram on Saturday to document the couple's trip to the theatre, which had her fans gushing over the loved-up snap with the likes of: 'King and queen of oz.....luve to you both'

'King and queen of oz.....luve to you both,' one fan offered while another chimed in with a similar: 'Australia's favourite couple.looking good.'

Bert was also in good spirits last Saturday when he was joined by family and friends to celebrate his 79th birthday at swanky Melbourne eatery Georges.

Patti took to social media to document the auspicious occasion and the photos showed Bert, again, looking fighting fit as he was surrounded by loved ones including daughter Lauren, son-in-law Matt Welsh and grandchildren Sam, Eva, Lola and Monty.

Many happy returns: Bert was also in good spirits last Saturday when he was joined by family and friends to celebrate his 79th birthday at swanky Melbourne eatery Georges

The legendary personality 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.'
They've been busy enjoying the throes of their new found fame since leaving the Love Island villa.

And Montana Brown, Gabby Allen and Camilla all reunited for a girls' day out at Selfridges shopping centre in London on Saturday - with Montana even playing the public piano in the middle of the busy mall.

Documenting the day on their social media accounts, the trio had fun, despite Montana calling Camilla 'draining' towards the end of the show.

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Loving life: Montana Brown, Gabby Allen and Camilla all reunited for a girls' day out at Selfridges shopping centre in London on Saturday

Montana had originally shocked viewers on Love Island when she appeared to turn against her best friend in the last week.

The 21-year-old admitted she was 'losing her temper' with the Scottish bomb disposal expert, 28, in a secret chat with Georgia Harrison.

Viewers branded her comments 'two-faced and nasty' - as they came just hours after Camilla tearfully admitted she didn't feel 'good enough' for her Calvin Klein model beau Jamie.

Going hell for leather: Camilla looked sensational in racy leather trousers and boots as she was spotted outside a hotel in London on Sunday

All together: Documenting the day on their social media accounts, the trio had fun, despite Montana calling Camilla 'draining' towards the end of the show

Refined: Afterwards, the girls enjoyed a sophisticated evening of dinner and drinks

During a night-time chat with Georgia, student Montana muttered: 'I'm losing my temper with Camilla, I'm finding it f*****g hard.

'Being close with her is quite draining, she's someone that needs picking up. She's very sensitive compared to the average person.'

However, the girls had obviously put their differences aside for their outing, and were seen to film Montana as she gave a dramatic performance on the piano as bemused passers-by walked past.

Intense: However, the girls had obviously put their differences aside for their outing, and were seen to film Montana as she gave a dramatic performance on the piano as bemused passers-by walked past

Loved-up: Gabby was pictured leaving the hotel with boyfriend Marcel Somerville in a sexy floral two piece and flatform sandals

Afterwards, the girls enjoyed a sophisticated evening of dinner and drinks.

Camilla, who was famously close with Gabby and her boyfriend Marcel, also posted a hilarious snap of the three all in bed together captioning it 'Garcella'.

Montana took to the Loose Women panel on Friday to discuss why she went on to the ITV2 dating show, and revealed that she did it to become famous.

Montana explained: 'I just thought it could be a great platform do what I want to do, I dont know what yet. I thought it would open doors and opportunities, to be in the public eye and influence public in good way.'
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She has been busy reprising her role of as army medic Georgie Lane filming for the upcoming third series of BBC drama Our Girl.

And now Michelle Keegan, 30, continued to show her hard work on set in South Africa, clad in her army fatigues for her latest jaunt for the highly-anticipated show - which is set to air later in the year.

The former Coronation Street appeared in high spirits on location as she was pictured laughing and joking with her cast and crew members along a dirt track road.

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In character: Michelle Keegan, 30, continued to show her hard work on the Our Girl set in South Africa, clad in army fatigues for her latest jaunt for the highly-anticipated show - which is set to air later in the year

Enjoying a quick nibble in between breaks, the Stockport beauty munched on a slice of bread to replenish her energy as she prepared to give it her all for the active scene.

The actress - who is married to former TOWIE star Mark Wright - appeared laden down with bags and helmets for the shoot, while her trademark glossy locks were covered by her navy army beret.

Interacting with children from the area they were filming in, Michelle smiled and waved at them as she enjoyed a well-deserved breather while they set up the next shot.

In the depths: The beauty carried a gun while she filmed for the upcoming series

Our girl: Enjoying a quick nibble in between breaks, the Stockport beauty munched on a slice of bread to replenish her energy as she prepared to give it her all for the active scene

Having fun: The former Coronation Street appeared in high spirits on location as she was pictured laughing and joking with her cast and crew members along a dirt track road

Michelle is currently abroad in South Africa filming for the hit BBC drama where she is reprising her role as army medic Corporal Lane.

While Michelle is missing her husband Mark Wright back in the UK, she is said to be fully focused on filming: 'Michelle is incredibly focused and wants success; she doesn't want distractions on set.

'She obviously misses Mark but she knows that she has to give the part 100 percent,' the insider continued.

What a giggle! The former soap actress couldn't contain her laughter as she relaxed between takes

In character: The actress - who is married to former TOWIE star Mark Wright - appeared laden down with bags and helmets for the shoot, while her trademark glossy locks were covered by her navy army beret

Having fun: Michelle couldn't help but smile as she was surrounded by the crew - who she has been filming with for the past few months

Work it: She rubbed her eyes as she chatted away to her co-stars

Her role in the drama means that the spouses have been forced to spend much of the year apart.

Meanwhile, it was recently reported by The Mirror that Michelle's firm Rosia Promotions Limited has raked in 1.2 million after leaving Coronation Street.

An insider told the publication: 'Michelle works incredibly hard and the rewards have come in for her.'

The source added: 'It was a massive decision for her to leave Britains most popular show but she knew that she could make far more cash away from the Street  and she has been proven right. Now she is free to plug what she wants  and she is getting some good acting work, too.'

On the job: While Michelle is missing her husband Mark Wright back in the UK, she is said to be fully focused on filming: 'Michelle is incredibly focused and wants success; she doesn't want distractions on set

Missing: 'She obviously misses Mark but she knows that she has to give the part 100 percent,' the insider continued

Apart: Her role in the drama means that the spouses have been forced to spend much of the year apart

Bringing in the big bucks: Meanwhile, it was recently reported by The Mirror that Michelle's firm Rosia Promotions Limited has raked in 1.2 million after leaving Coronation Street

The actress was initially forced to turn down deals because of the nature of the contract she signed which didn't allow her to advertise while working for Corrie.

Michelle, however, has now reaped the financial rewards, hot on the heels of the decision to take her career in a different direction from her breakout role.

The beauty, who hails from Stockport, is said to be paid up to 250,000-a-year only to be the face of Lipsy clothing range.

She also makes 150,000 for Garnier's Ambre Solaire self-tanning promotions. In comparison, Michelle made a mere 60,000-a-year in her post as the troubled beauty on the cobbles.

The star slipped into the role in 2008 but she made the decision to quit for good in 2014. Despite her move away from Corrie, she has landed a number of envy-inducing roles including her Our Girl part.

Hard worker: An insider told the publication: 'Michelle works incredibly hard and the rewards have come in for her'

Strength-to-strength: The actress was initially forced to turn down deals because of the nature of the contract she signed which didn't allow her to advertise while working for Corrie

Different direction: Michelle, however, has now reaped the financial rewards, hot on the heels of the decision to take her career in a different direction from her breakout role

She has also starred in three-part ITV drama Tina and Bobby as well as six-part series Ordinary Lies.

Meanwhile, her appearance on set comes after it was reported that her bond with Our Girl co-star Luke Pasqualino's bond is reportedly closer than ever after spending weeks together in South Africa shooting scenes for the BBC One war drama.

The pair have been posing for sweet snaps together as they celebrated finishing work on series three, expected to return to our screens later this year.

A source told Now magazine: 'Their friendship off set just cements their ability to work so well together on screen. Luke rented a motorbike and he and Michelle have had some fun on rest days taking in the landscape.'

Business: She also makes 150,000 for Garnier's Ambre Solaire self-tanning promotions. In comparison, Michelle made a mere 60,000-a-year in her post as the troubled beauty on the cobbles

Savvy: The beauty, who hails from Stockport, is said to be paid up to 250,000-a-year only to be the face of Lipsy clothing range
She shot to fame as a star of The Real Housewives of Melbourne.

And now Pettifleur Berenger has been spotted mixing with Real Housewives Of New York star, Jill Zarin, after accepting an offer to attend her 'fifth annual luxury luncheon' in the Hamptons.

The 52-year-old looked ravishing as she posed on the event's red carpet alongside Jill on Saturday.

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Summer celebration: Pettifleur Berenger, 52, poses with Real Housewives Of New York star, Jill Zarin, on the red carpet of her fifth annual luxury luncheon in the Hamptons

Pettifleur put on an elegant display in a white midi dress with mesh detailing on the top.

Styling her blonde locks straight, she kept her look simple and classy with a pair of gold hooped earrings.

She added an edgy element to her ensemble with her pointed-toe gold and peach stilettos.

'I'm one of the only lucky ones from Australia who has been invited!' Pettifleur said she was 'fortunate' to have been invited to attend the exclusive event

The reality star looked to have already hit it off with Jill, with them both smiling happily for the cameras while embracing each other around the waist.

Jill's floral number provided a colourful summery contrast to Pettifleur's outfit, with it featuring bright pastel colours and a high-low hemline.

She opted for a set of nude platform wedged heals and also accessorised with a pair of hooped earrings.

Despite Pettifleur announcing her departure from the Melbourne show earlier this year, she has willingly accepted an offer to take part in a 'mini-series' alongside a line-up of international stars from the franchise.

New show: Pettifleur has willingly accepted an offer to take part in a 'mini-series' alongside a line-up of international stars from the franchise

She revealed to The Morning Show earlier this month how she had been invited as one of the few Australian housewives to take part.

'There's talks about us going into a share house, with some of the Housewives from around the world,' she said.

'I was told I was very loved in the States, I have a massive fan base,' she continued. 'I'm very fortunate.'
They are the unlikely couple who have shunned the media spotlight since confirming their relationship in May.

But rocker Daniel Johns and former lingerie model Michelle Leslie put on a loved-up display at Sydney airport on Saturday, as the pair prepared to board a flight to Los Angeles.

The couple, who looked happy to be in each other's company, packed on the PDA as they shared a kiss while waiting to board their flight.

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Rocker Daniel Johns and former lingere model Michelle Leslie put on a loved-up display at Sydney airport on Saturday, as the pair prepared to board a flight to Los Angeles

The pair, who looked happy to be in each other's company, put on a romantic PDA as they shared a kiss while waiting to board their flight

Both Michelle and Daniel were visions in black with the rocker sporting an overcoat, simple T-shirt, loose fitting pants and a pair of chunky boots.

Both Michelle and Daniel were decked out in black attire with the rocker sporting an overcoat, simple T-shirt, loose fitting pants and a pair of chunky boots.

Daniel's blonde locks were slicked back for the occasion while his neck tattoo was on full display.

Walking through the terminal sans luggage, Daniel also sported an oversized tan-coloured bag that he slung over his left shoulder.

Tatts nice: Daniel's blonde locks were slicked back for the occasion while his neck tattoo was on full display

Walking through the terminal sans luggage, Daniel also sported an oversized tan-coloured bag that he slung over his left shoulder

Looking good: Michelle, meanwhile, wore a stylish black leather jacket over what appeared to be a grey T-shirt

Michelle, meanwhile, wore a stylish black leather jacket over what appeared to be a grey T-shirt.

The one time resident of Bali's Kerobokan Prison also wore a pair of three-quarter length pants and a pair of suede boots

She accessorised with a fetching wide-brimmed Fedora and a black scarf which was wrapped around her neck and tucked into the jacket while her brunette locks flowed freely from underneath the hat.

The one time resident of Bali's Kerobokan Prison also wore a pair of three-quarter length pants and a pair of suede boots

Hat trick: Michelle accessorised with a fetching wide-brimmed Fedora and a black scarf which was wrapped around her neck and tucked into the jacket while her brunette locks flowed freely from underneath the hat

Respite: Before stepping inside the terminal, Daniel and Michelle took time to share a cigarette together as Michelle's phone seemed to be taking up a lot of her attention

Scrolling: Despite appearing to be glued to her phone, the pair seemed to be enjoying a conversation as they stood outside the terminal

Before stepping inside the terminal, Daniel and Michelle took time to share a cigarette together as Michelle's phone seemed to be taking up a lot of her attention.

Despite appearing to be glued to her phone, the pair seemed to be enjoying a conversation as they stood outside the terminal.

Whatever Michelle was doing on her phone seemed to resonate with Daniel who smiled broadly with his new flame as he leant in to look at her screen.

Let me see: Whatever Michelle was doing on her phone seemed to resonate with Daniel who smiled broadly with his new flame as he leant in to look at her screen

Relaxing: The pair looked at ease in each other's company outside the terminal as Daniel casually blew plumes of smoke from his mouth

Close couple: After finishing with her phone, Michelle engaged her new beau in the chat as they finished their cigarette

The pair looked at ease in each other's company outside the terminal as Daniel casually blew plumes of smoke from his mouth.

After finishing with her phone, Michelle engaged her new beau in the chat as they finished their cigarette.

With their pre-flight smoke over, Daniel and Michelle headed back into the terminal to check in for their flight.

All aboard: With their pre-flight 'smoko' over, Daniel and Michelle headed back into the terminal to check in for their flight

Mobile fun: The pair were in good spirits as they waited in line to check in with the pair appearing to share another joke as Michelle once again diverted her gaze to her phone

Can't wait: Clearly excited about her Stateside trip, Michelle also shared a laugh with airport staff as she reached the front of the line

The duo were in good spirits as they waited in line appearing to share another joke as Michelle once again diverted her gaze to her phone.

Clearly excited about her Stateside trip, Michelle also shared a laugh with airport staff as she reached the front of the line.

The waiting seemed to take its toll on Daniel who couldn't help but yawn as he meandered his way through the line.

Tired: The waiting seemed to take its toll on Daniel who couldn't help but yawn as he meandered his way through the line

Stateside trouble: While the Sydney leg of the trip went off without a hitch, it wasn't all plain sailing for the pair as Michelle was detained when the pair reached Los Angeles

Drama: When the pair landed at LAX Michelle experienced an issue at the automated passport kiosk, 7 News reported

Slight hitch: Video surfaced on Sunday showing Leslie escorted away by an officer soon after

While the Sydney leg of the trip went off without a hitch, it wasn't all plain sailing for the couple as Michelle was later detained when the duo reached Los Angeles.

When they landed at LAX, Michelle experienced an issue at the automated passport kiosk,7 News reported.

Video surfaced on Sunday showing Leslie escorted away by an officer soon after.

In the dark: No information has surfaced about why she was detained at the major US airport

Headline maker: Michelle was arrested in 2005 and jailed for possessing two ecstasy pills in Bali, Indonesia

Notorious prison: She was imprisoned in the notorious Kerobokan Jail in Denpasar, Bali for three months

No information has surfaced about why she was detained at the major US airport.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to representatives for comment.

Michelle was arrested in 2005 and jailed for possessing two ecstasy pills in Bali, Indonesia.

Happy snap: Michelle and Daniel appeared to confirm their relationship in May this year with a photo posted to Instagram

Happy together: The former Silverchair rocker appeared ecstatic in the photo which showed him sitting with a guitar as Leslie laughed beside him

She was imprisoned in the notorious Kerobokan Jail in Denpasar, Bali for three months.

Michelle and Daniel appeared to confirm their relationship in May this year with a photo posted to Instagram.

The former Silverchair rocker appeared ecstatic in the photo which showed him sitting with a guitar as Leslie laughed beside him.

Daniel has also made headlines recently after he was pictured stumbling through the streets of affluent Sydney suburb Double Bay, seemingly worse for wear.

The musician was pictured, shirtless with pink lipstick and black eyeliner smeared across his face.

He collapsed on the street after leaving the trendy eastern suburbs bar Mrs Sippy.

Concern: Daniel has also made headlines recently after he was pictured stumbling through the streets of affluent Sydney suburb Double Bay, seemingly worse for wear.

Bad look? The musician was pictured, shirtless with pink lipstick and black eyeliner smeared across his face.
She's no stranger to a bit of heated competition, having competed in the Olympics and represented Australia on multiple occasions for water polo.

And now Australian Survivor contestant Nicola 'Ziggy' Zagame has divulged some of her tactics heading into Samoa for the 55-day-long challenge.

Speaking with the Daily Telegraph this week, the 26-year-old said she was banking on her competitive spirit to help see her through to the end of the competition.

Embracing the challenge: Olympian Nicola Zagame, 26, has revealed how she hopes her fierce competitive streak will benefit her in Australian Survivor

Nicola also confessed to utilizing some rather interesting measures in an attempt to sustain her energy levels in the early stages of the contest.

She said she had 'purposely tried to put on weight' before setting off to Samoa where contestants would have limited access to food.

Having grown up in a highly competitive environment, she said she had begun training her mindset from an early age.

Preparations: Nicola said she had 'purposely tried to put on weight' before setting off to Samoa

'When I was a kid, I would race my parents and brother eating,' she told the publication.

Fighting spirit is clearly something that comes naturally to Nicola, and it's no surprise given that her parents are athletes in their own right.

She is the daughter of an Australian triathlete champion and a former lifesaver and ironwoman.

Strong competitor: She grew up in a highly competitive environment and began training her mindset from an early age

Nicola previously revealed she didn't have a game plan going into the show.

'I think definitely have to suss out what the people are like before getting too much into a strategy,' she said.

The Olympian is set to star alongside 23 other contestants with varied backgrounds including a female plumber, stunning model, professional poker player and a former special ops commander.
They're on a whirlwind European vacation.

And the fun continued on Saturday for Heidi Klum and her boyfriend Vito Schnabel.

The 44-year-old supermodel and her beau, 31, enjoyed a romantic outing in Venice, Italy - including a boat ride around the city.

Fancy: Heidi Klum and her boyfriend Vito Schnabel enjoyed a romantic outing in Venice, Italy - including a boat ride around the city

Just days earlier, they enjoyed the sunshine near St. Tropez on a large yacht.

The lovebirds, who have been together for almost four years, were caught lovingly gazing at each as they toured Venice.

Heidi flashed a hint of her flat stomach in her trendy ripped boyfriend jeans and black tank top combination.

The mother of four kept it casual, opting to tie a plaid shirt around her waist.

Looks fun: The 44-year-old supermodel and her beau have been together for almost four years

Vibes: Just days earlier, the lovebirds were enjoying the sunshine in St. Tropez on a large yacht

Heidi stepped out in leopard print sandals with layers of jewelry, adding aviator sunglasses.

The natural beauty, who began modeling at the age of 18, wore her long locks loose with no makeup on.

Vito, an art dealer, kept it simple in a T-shirt and jeans; he celebrated turning 31 on his birthday, July 27.

Sunshine: The natural beauty, who began modeling at the age of 18, wore her long locks loose with no makeup

Taking it all in: Vito looked to be enjoying himself; he kept it simple in a T-shirt and jeans (pictured on the middle right together)

Their trip to Italy comes after Vito allegedly kissed a mystery woman in London in early June.

He told People magazine in a statement that there 'was nothing more to this than I was simply saying goodnight to a family friend.'

Vito said that he and the woman 'went on our separate ways,' adding that the claims are a 'misinterpretation of an entirely innocent situation.'

Heidi and Vito spent time together just days earlier on a yacht in the French Riviera.

The stunning model flaunted her toned form in a swimsuit while rinsing off after a dip in the water; Vito later joined her in the outdoor shower on the yacht.

French Riviera: The stunning model flaunted her toned form in a swimsuit post swim while rinsing off; pictured on July 28

Having fun: Vito later joined her during her outdoor shower; seen on July 28

Despite taking some much-deserved time off, however, Heidi did manage to lend her support to a worthy cause while on her sun-soaked romantic getaway.

The supermodel took to Instagram on Saturday to share a gif that sees her sitting in a pile of stuffed tiger toys, which slowly disappear one by one, leaving Heidi, cross-legged, on a plain floor.

America's Got Talent judge Heidi explained in the caption that she was sharing the post in support of #ProjectCAT, an initiative started by the WWF and Discovery to try and raise awareness about the speed at which tigers are disappearing from the planet.

'Less than 4000 wild tigers left on the planet,' Heidi captioned her gif, before adding: 'Lets not allow tigers to disappear on our watch!'
Millie Mackintosh, 28, and Hugo Taylor, 31, are engaged, almost a year after rekindling their romance.

The couple confirmed the news to MailOnline on Sunday, following speculation that surrounded Millie sporting a new rock on her engagement finger in Greece.

The news comes 14 months after former Made In Chelsea star Millie's divorce was finalised with Professor Green, 33.

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Celebrating something? Millie Mackintosh and boyfriend Hugo Taylor have confirmed their engagement

A representative for Hugo Taylor told MailOnline: 'I can confirm that Hugo and Millie did get engaged whilst they were on holiday in Greece.'

Despite being spotted wearing a huge new ring, Millie had deliberately hidden her ring finger at any given opportunity on Instagram and teasingly declared she'd had the 'best birthday ever'.

The couple went public with their rekindled romance in May 2016 when they travelled to the Monaco Grand Prix for Hugo's 30th birthday celebrations - the same week that Millie's divorce from rapper ex Professor Green, 33, was finalised.

Fun in the sun: The former reality star has been enjoying the best birthday ever, after getting engaged during her 28th celebrations in Greece

Sealed with a kiss: The couple certainly seemed to be celebrating as they enjoyed a lavish week away to mark the occasion

What a dazzler! The fashion designer inadvertently offered fans a glimpse at her glittering new rock, when she was pictured applying sun cream during her yacht day this week

Risque! Though she hid her ring finger, Millie , 28, bared everything else in a completely NUDE and titillating snap on Instagram on Saturday

Daring to bare: Millie had previously posed topless on a yacht in Mykonos on Thursday after flaunting a huge diamond ring on her finger

Rock on: Millie has been trying to hide the jewellery on her Instagram but holiday pictures shown by MailOnline capture the rock

They previously dated back in 2011 when they met on E4 reality show, Made In Chelsea.

But the union was not to last and ended rather dramatically when Millie discovered Hugo had cheated on her with her friend, Rosie Fortescue.

At the time, Millie claimed she would always love Hugo, saying in an interview: 'I loved him - those feelings dont disappear  but I just always have to remind myself why were not together.'

'I do think that, for the rest of my life, every time I see him, Ill get that feeling in my stomach. I dont think I could ever not get that butterfly feeling

Millie and Professor Green, real name Stephen Manderson, announced their split in February 2016 after just over four years together.

In a statement released at the time, they said: 'It is a mutual decision, we still care deeply about each other and would like it to be known that it is on amicable terms and we wish each other well.'

Plenty to smile about: Sunglasses entrepreneur Hugo, 31, looked like the cat that got the cream as he enjoyed a Grecian break to celebrate Millie's 28th birthday

Sea-ze the day! The former Made In Chelsea star showcased her golden Grecian tan in a red and white star-print bikini as boyfriend Hugo snapped away on his camera phone.

Hiding something? Millie continued to play coy on social media, hiding her ring finger at any given opportunity after being spotted wearing a dazzling sparkler

Bikini babe: The brunette looked happy and relaxed as she took some time out from her busy work schedule to enjoy a week of fun in the sun with her man

Their two-and-a-half-year marriage was dissolved in just 30 seconds in May 2016.

They were granted a decree nisi at Central London Family Court, with Millie citing 'unreasonable behaviour' as the reason for their split.

In the wake of the engagement news, thoughts seemed to turn to Millie's ex, when it was claimed that the marriage news was being treated as 'sensitive'.

A source told The Sun on Sunday night: 'They're very happy together... but Millie only recently came out of her first marriage.

'It is still a sensitive subject and one she plans to handle delicately because she knows what some of the reaction is likely to be.'

Millie and Stephen started dating in November 2011 after the rapper saw her on the cover of men's magazine FHM.

The rapper contacted Millie through her agent and they had their first date at the Groucho Club in Soho.

Coy: Millie noticeably disguised her ring finger as she tucked into a delicious dinner on Wednesday night, telling her followers she'd had the 'best birthday ever' on social media

Loved up: The couple went public in May 2016 when they travelled to the Monaco Grand Prix for Hugo's 30th birthday celebrations (pictured) - the same week Millie's divorce was finalised

They went public at the BRIT Awards in February 2012, with Stephen proposing on holiday in Paris just over a year later in 2013.

The couple tied the knot in a lavish ceremony at Babington House in Frome, Somerset, in September 2013.

Earlier this year, Pro Green lashed out at Millie in his new track Eye On The Door, rapping about their lack of sex life, drug use and hinting that cheating was to blame for their split.

But in spite of his very public bashing of his ex-wife, the musician admitted that splitting from Millie felt like experiencing a death.

He told the i newspaper earlier this month: 'Of course whether youre happy somethings finished or not, it doesnt change the fact that it does still feel like theres been a death.

The ex factor: Millie tied the knot with rapper ex-husband Professor Green, 33, in a lavish ceremony at Babington House in Frome, Somerset, in September 2013

'An energy thats always been in your presence is suddenly no longer there and youre an idiot if you think thats not going to affect you.'

The rapper has since moved on with model Fae Williams.

Millie discussed her divorce with Pro Green in the August issue of Red magazine, insisting it was completely amicable, despite the fact she ripped up her wedding dress and wore it as a blood-stained Halloween outfit last year.

She said: 'We just agreed to separate with kindness and as friends. You see so many people tear each other apart and if you support each other through it, remain dignified, that's really the way to do it.

'I'm a positive person and if it's not working then you move on. Everyone deserves to be happy.'

Red hot: Millie showcased her toned and tanned abs in a frilly scarlet two-piece as she sipped a green juice poolside at Kensho Boutique Hotel & Suites on Friday

The socialite also admitted her relationship with Hugo is completely different to when they dated during their Made In Chelsea years.

She told Red: 'I'm really happy and we have fun. Our relationship is a totally different thing now.

'We've known each other for ten years and dated when we were much younger [but] it was a different thing, a whirlwind.

'It was definitely weird dating someone when there was a camera there, but only there for half of what was going on.'

And Millie even hinted that she is eyeing a family with Hugo in the future, adding: 'I'd definitely like two kids, but I'm happy to be the baby-sitter for now.

'I'm a godmother and have three pregnant friends. I'm enjoying seeing them go through it.'
It's a flesh flashing look more suited to the hot climate back in Spain - but that did not stop Love Island beauty Georgia Harrison from wearing a skimpy get-up to the reunion special filming on Sunday.

The 21-year-old blonde beauty wore a skimpy PVC crop top that showcased her impressive cleavage as she arrived at London's ITV studios, ahead of the special show.

And to complete her sexy look she added the ultimate accessory - fellow islander and romantic interest Sam Gowland, 21.

Lady in red: Georgia Harrison, 21, looked stunning as she arrived at ITV's London studio in a plunging crop top on Sunday

The pair, who coupled up during their time on the show, arrived hand in hand at the bash, hinting that they are still very much together.

To add to her wow-factor top, Georgia wore figure-hugging pinstriped red trousers and a black clutch handbag.

Geordie boy Sam donned a tight-fitting short sleeved shirt which showed off his tattoes and ripped denim jeans.

Double trouble: She arrived hand in hand with Sam Gowland, 21, who she coupled up with on the ITV2 series

The couple placed sixth during their run on the ITV2 show which concluded on Monday.

Although they have not revealed if they are officially boyfriend and girlfriend yet, they have been spending a lot of time together even though the cameras have stopped rolling.

On Saturday, they both shared a series of social media videos revealing Sam had stayed the night at Georgia's Essex home and had got so drunk the night before she'd had to carry him home.

Britney wannabe: Georgia's look was reminiscent of Britney Spears' PVC catsuit look from the noughties

Showing her shape: The blonde bombshell was certainly capturing attention

Sam kicked things off by confessing: 'I do not remember getting home last night.'

Georgia swiftly interjected: 'I remember carrying him home.

'You were sick in a bucket all night while I rubbed your back. You were naked on the floor in my bathroom.'

Tattooed hunk Sam gave a cheeky wink at the camera and tried to insist it was 'all lies' before they both burst out laughing.

The telly star later scooped major brownie points as she presented her lover with a tasty-looking breakfast in bed before they took to the bathroom for some shower banter.
They had sparked romance rumours following Jonny Mitchell's exit from the Love Island villa.

But the dark-haired hunk and Chyna Ellis found themselves at loggerheads over their relationship live on air during the Love Island reunion show that aired on Sunday night on ITV2.

Show host Caroline Flack quizzed the duo over the nature of their romance and when Jonny suggested the pair were 'keeping things open', his flame Chyna was left open-mouthed after what seemed like an on-air dumping.

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'What the hell?' Chyna Ellis was left open-mouthed during Love Island's live reunion show on Sunday night as Jonny Mitchell claimed their romance was being 'left open' much to her shock

While the couple hadn't struck up a romance onscreen, sparks appeared to fly away from the cameras and Jonny and Chyna caused a stir on social media, after photos emerged of the duo kissing.

Jonny had insisted on his exit that he would be 'waiting' for Tyla Carr on the outside, but appeared quick to go back on his word as he put on a flirty display with fellow islander Chyna instead.

And things seemed to be heating up between them, as Jonny had whisked Chyna off to Budapest, where she claimed she'd had the 'best weekend'.

Oops: The dark-haired hunk appeared to land himself in it as he played down his and Chyna's relationship status

Hitting back: Chyna was quick to question her beau and pointed out that he had whisked her off to Budapest for the weekend

Much to her surprise, however, Jonny was keen to play down their relationship and when quizzed over his relationship status, he told Caroline: 'We're keeping it open.'

A visibly shocked Chyna was quick to repsond: 'Keeping it open? What the hell?'

An awkward Jonny then stuttered in response: 'We're just very good friends... we're having a bit of fun.'

Chyna then pointed out that Jonny's idea of having a 'bit of fun' involved taking her overseas, prompting Jonny's Love Island nemesis Theo Campbell to remark: 'Can I be a good friend?'

With tensions clearly rising between Jonny and Chyna, Caroline was quick to move on from the showdown, quipping that things had suddenly got very 'awkward' in the studio.

'We're just very good friends': Jonny tried to reason, prompting host Caroline Flack to brand the exchange 'awkward' and just move on

Ouch: Tensions were clearly rising between the duo, with Jonny's nemesis Theo joking that he too wanted to be a 'good friend' of Chyna's

But it seems Chyna wasn't willing to let Jonny's slip up lie and took to Snapchat branding her beau a 'pr**k'. Adding three gun emojis across a photo of Jonny, she added in a second snap: 'Can't deal.'

During the reunion show, that saw all 32 islanders come together to mark the end of the series, fans got to hear what the stars of Love Island's third series had been getting up to since their exits from the villa.

Montana Brown and Alex Beattie yet again denied recent rumours that they have 'secretly split' and insisted the claims were 'definitely not true'.

Alex hit back: 'We're just [living] at opposite ends of the country, but we're making it work.'

Not happy: Chyna had hit out at Jonny via Snapchat during the show branding him a 'pr**k'

He and Montana had made their romance official while starring on the dating show, but Alex was left red-faced when he had told his girlfriend he loved her and she hadn't reciprocated his feelings.

Asked if Montana had dropped the L-word yet, a frustrated Alex quickly replied: 'No not yet,' through gritted teeth before bowing his head.

Tyla and Mike Thalassitis confirmed that their brief romance has come to a complete halt, with Mike focusing on enjoying himself and 'doing bits' instead and Tyla insisting she was after a man that, like her, wants to actually settle down.

The final four couples, meanwhile, revealed how their relationship were faring now they were back on home soil.

More than friends: Jonny and the blonde beauty had looked pretty cosy during their trip to Budapest that they documented all over social media

Romance: Jonny had hinted he and Chyna are now an item as he referred to her in a 'rocket' in his posts and quipped the duo were on a 'date night'

'Definitely not': Montana Brown and Alex Beattie made sure to hit back at rumours they have split once again, insisting they are very much together and making their romance work

Marcel Somerville and Gabby Allen once again confirmed that, after abstaining while on camera, they have finally done the deed and had sex. Gabby revealed: 'It was the first time we had a night on our own... oh my god, yes. It was worth the wait!'

Probed for the juicy details by Caroline, Marcel insisted a 'gentleman never tells', but was quick to confirm that he and Gabby had got hot and heavy with one another a 'few times' in just one night.

They revealed that they are looking forward to having a 'real relationship' on the outside and while they had no current plans to move in together, they have discussed potentially setting up home in a 'few months' time.

Olivia Attwood, meanwhile, was quick to leave her beau Chris Hughes red-faced, as she revealed that he had actually asked her for a key to his flat that morning.

All over: Tyla and Mike Thalassitis confirmed that their brief romance has come to a complete halt, with Mike focusing on enjoying himself and 'doing bits'

'We want different things': Tyla insisted she was after a man that, like her and unlike Mike, wants to actually settle down

'It was worth it': While Gabby and Marcel confirmed yet again they have finally had sex

Gabby revealed: 'It was the first time we had a night on our own... oh my god, yes. It was worth the wait!'

Chris was quick to insist it 'never happened' and the playful pair continued to embarrass each other as they discussed their turbulent relationship in the villa.

Making her boyfriend squirm, Olivia referred to her boyfriend's tendency to break down in tears and joked that he had cried since leaving Love Island - 'after sex'.

Her banter-filled remark, however, backfired when Chris hit back: 'Legit if anyone was crying after sex it was her,' prompting Liv to share slightly too much information, as she added: 'Yeah it was me, the next day. I was waddling.'

Much to fans delight, the duo were reunited with their faux son, baby Cash Hughes.

Camilla Thurlow and Jamie Jewitt, meanwhile, parted ways with the sultry chat as they discussed their plans to visit a refugee camp together.

Too much information? Chris and Olivia had been just as forthcoming about their bedroom antics, with Olivia joking her beau had cried after they'd slept together

Backfired: Her joke came back to her bite her though as Chris hit back: 'Legit if anyone was crying after sex it was her'

On Love Island, Jamie had told Camilla he wanted to whisk her away to Ibiza when filming came to an end, but the couple revealed their sun-drenched holiday has taken a back burner.

Jamie confessed that his romance with the blonde beauty is 'better than ever' and while they are yet to put an official label on their relationship, he teased: 'We are very close.'

Last but not least, Love Island winners Kem Cetinay and Amber Davies seemed just as besotted as each other and despite their tumultuous journey in the villa, they insisted they haven't had a 'bad day' since rekindling their romance after Kem's trip to Casa Amor with the boys.

'We're very close': Camilla and Jamie revealed they are on the way to becoming an official couple and explained their plans to visit a refugee camp together

Sweet: Jamie confessed that his romance with the blonde beauty is 'better than ever' since leaving the Love Island villa and having met each other's family and friends

The triumphant pair shed light on their plans to move to Essex together, but insisted they wouldn't be 'rushing' the move, as they hope to 'build on their relationship' before jumping into taking the next steps together - including marriage.

Although, having previously spoken with one another about tying the knot, they seemed to disagree when it came to when they would finally wed.

Kem joked he wouldn't marry until he was 30, prompting Amber to remark: '30? That's interesting. I thought we said before, five years and engagement.'

Squirming a little in his seat, Kem reassured Amber: 'Yeah so we'll think about it in five years time,' although he did add that he wasn't planning on marriage 'anytime soon'.

'No time soon': Love Island winner Kem brushed off talk of marriage to girlfriend Amber Davies, admitting he wasn't planning on tying the knot until he is 30

Instead, it seems he is focusing on his career as a rapper, teasing that he and Stormzy have teamed up together on an exciting new project.

Love Island Awards: The Muggys Most Romantic: Kem for his speeches to Amber Best Supporting Face: Jonny for his 'watching Theo jump in the pool face' Totes Awks: Stormzy for his tweet calling out Olivia - but recieved by Georgia for 'coupling up with Kem' Dry Your Eyes Mate: Tyla for 'crying over Jonny' Muggiest Moment of the Series: Mike for 'being muggy Mike' Advertisement

Tweets had been exchanged between the 'Big For Your Boots' hit-maker and Kem hinting at a collaboration, with Kem confirming live on air on Love Island's reunion show: 'There's definitely something going on.'

'Everyone is going to see it,' he promised. 'Man like Stormzy is coming through.'

While fans will have to eagerly wait for Kem's debut rapping track, they did find themselves witnessing a surprise performance from Blazing Squad.

Marcel's former band surprised him on the show and gave an impromptu performance of their hit Flip Reverse, with the reality star jumping up to join them on stage, much to his girlfriend Gabby's delight.

The show then wrapped up with its own award ceremony titled 'The Muggys', where Kem won a gong for his romantic speeches to girlfriend Amber and Mike won Muggiest Moment of the Series, as voted by fans, for simply being 'muggy Mike'.
The Bachelor's Jen Hawke has revealed she underwent a boob job a few years ago.

The busty brunette, who has been painted as the 'villain' on the show, opened up about undergoing the dramatic change in her physical appearance prior to signing up for the reality TV program.

The 27-year-old, who has said she has a 'tendency to intimidate people', spoke with Woman's Day about her breast augmentation surgery.

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Transformation: Jen Hawke has been open about undergoing a dramatic change in her physical appearance prior to signing up for The Bachelor

'I wasn't blessed with naturally great breasts, so I bought myself some three years ago,' she told the magazine.

She also hit back at critics who pointed to her acting background as an indication she was hired by the show's producers to 'cause trouble'.

'I don't intend to stir the pot and didn't go on the show to do that - it just so happens to be who I am,' she explained.

But in a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph, the Sydney-based reality star said she isn't afraid to be labelled the Bachie 'bad girl' and she relished the description.

'I absolutely love that I've been painted as a villainous character,' she declared.

'I wasn't blessed with naturally great breasts, so I bought myself some three years ago,' she described to the magazine

'I absolutely love that I've been painted as a villainous character,' she declared

'In my real life I have the tendency to intimidate people,' the marketing manager added.

Her fellow contestant Florence Alexandra Sophia attracted criticism on social media when she said Jen looked like a 'Jewish banana' during a group date on the show.

'I'm not worried about Jennifer. Dude, you look horrible! I mean, she looks like a Jewish banana,' stated the Dutch model in a video confessional, to the ire of fans.

'I'm not worried about Jennifer. Dude, you look horrible! I mean, she looks like a Jewish banana,' stated the Dutch model in a video confessional, to the ire of fans
A magazine report has claimed that Matthew Matty J Johnson may be an 'old flame' of Karl Stefanovic's girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough.

The New Idea magazine article, published Monday, alleges that Matty, 30, and Jasmine, 33, were 'really close' in the past after 'both attending private schools in Brisbane'.

'Nothing was ever definite, but let's just say they were very good friends back in the day,' a source reportedly told the publication.

Former flame? A magazine report has claimed that Matthew Matty J Johnson may be an 'old flame' of Karl Stefanovic's girlfriend Jasmine Yarbrough

Rumours: The New Idea magazine article, published Monday, alleges that Matty, 30, and Jasmine, 33, were 'really close' in the past after 'both attending private schools in Brisbane'

The magazine also claims that Matty was in the past, and remains, good friends with Jasmine's brother Josh Taffs Yarbrough.

Matty and Josh do appear to be in contact, with Josh making comments on Matty's Instagram images and the two men exchanging gags.

One such comment, made by Josh in August 2015, jokes that Matty has 'sex eyes' in a smouldering image where the Bachelor hunk is seen aboard a boat.

Matty also commented on an image of Josh posing alongside his other sister, Jade, with a heart eye emoji.

The New Idea report goes on to claim that the revelation that Matty and Jasmine we once linked is, 'sure to knock Karl around a bit'.

A Channel Ten spokesperson for Matty J told Daily Mail Australia in a statement: 'They are all friends. There is nothing to comment on'.

'Nothing was ever definite, but let's just say they were very good friends back in the day,' a source reportedly told the publication

This month, the Today host finally broke his silence about his relationship with shoe designer Jasmine.

'We have a really lovely relationship but it's got to be slow for a number of reasons,' the former Logie Award winner revealed to Stellar magazine.

The TV host also discussed his headline-making divorce from former ABC journalist Cassandra Thorburn in an interview with TV Week.

Pals: The magazine also claims that Matty was in the past, and remains, good friends with Jasmine's brother Josh Taffs Yarbrough (pictured centre). Josh is pictured with his sisters Jasmine (L) and Jade (R)

Comments: Matty and Josh do appear to be in contact, with Josh making comments on Matty's Instagram images and the two men exchanging gags

Jokes: One such comment, made by Josh in August 2015, jokes that Matty has 'sex eyes' in a smouldering image where the Bachelor hunk is seen aboard a boat

In contact: Matty also commented on an image of Josh (L) posing alongside his other sister, Jade (R)

Cheeky: The Bachelor commented on the image of the siblings with a heart eye emoji

'Look, it's sad and it's difficult, but it's a very normal part of life for many people,' the 42-year-old said of his failed marriage.

'As long as my children aren't plastered across everything, it's something I alone have to deal with,' the father-of-three revealed.

Daily Mail Australia has reached out to Karl Stefanonic for comment.
New White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci, a millionaire New York financier, has arrived at the White House vowing to serve Trump's interest and right a badly faltering administration

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci has launched a searing foul-mouthed attack on his most senior colleagues, describing one as a "paranoid schizophrenic."

In an eye-watering exchange with a New Yorker reporter late Wednesday, the fast-talking Scaramucci ranted about chief of staff Reince Priebus and chief White House strategist Steve Bannon.

Scaramucci was quoted as describing Priebus as a "paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac" in an expletive-filled tirade in which he accused the chief of staff of damaging information leaks.

"They're trying to resist me, but it's not going to work," he said, adding that Priebus would soon resign and using language that American television networks refused to repeat.

Turning his sights on Trump's chief strategist, Scaramucci made it very clear he believes Bannon is working in the White House to serve his own interests, using particularly offensive language.

"I'm here to serve the country," Scaramucci said, not "trying to build my own brand" on the back of the president.

- 'Colorful language' -

(From L) The White House advisor Steve Bannon; Anthony Scaramucci, named Donald Trump's new White House communications director; the White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus

Scaramucci, a millionaire New York financier, has arrived at the White House vowing to serve Trump's interest and right a badly faltering administration.

His appointment gives Trump not just a high-profile surrogate, but one cut from the same wheeling-dealing New York cloth as himself.

Since taking on the role, Scaramucci has run to the cameras, firing up the charm and enthusiastically hawking the administration's wares, breathing new energy into Trump's faltering White House.

The brash Long Island native also has vowed to root out the "leaks" that have infuriated Trump, threatened to fire anyone who fails to fall in line and signaled he is not afraid to mix it up with the big players in Trump's inner circle.

Before the revelations made by The New Yorker, he had already seemed to publicly accuse Priebus of leaking information, although that tweeted allegation was later retracted and denied.

But the revelations made by The New Yorker are likely to raise questions about how long Scaramucci -- a possible pretender to Priebus's throne -- can last in the West Wing.

Scaramucci did not apologize for the tirade, but said he would try to clean up his language in the future.

"I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump's agenda," he tweeted.

Later on, he added: "I made a mistake in trusting in a reporter. It won't happen again."

White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said Scaramucci "used some colorful language -- I don't think he will again."

For Scaramucci, his similarities to Trump may yet be his downfall.

In the billionaire president's White House, any misstep or slight -- real or imagined -- that irks the man in the Oval Office can be politically fatal.
Police arrested four people after raiding homes across Sydney Saturday in a major counter-terrorism operation

Australia has foiled an Islamist-inspired terrorist plot to bring down an aircraft with an improvised explosive device, authorities said Sunday, after four people were arrested in raids across Sydney.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the plot appeared to be "elaborate" rather than planned by a lone wolf, as security was strengthened at major domestic and international airports across the nation.

"I can report last night that there has been a major joint counter-terrorism operation to disrupt a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane," Turnbull told reporters.

"The threat of terrorism is very real. The disruption operation, the efforts overnight have been very effective but there's more work to do."

Officials did not specify if the alleged plot involved a domestic or international flight, but Sydney's Daily Telegraph reported that a local route had been the objective.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin described the plot as "Islamic-inspired" and said four men had been arrested in a series of raids across Sydney on Saturday.

"We do believe it is Islamic-inspired terrorism. Exactly what is behind this is something we need to investigate fully," he said.

Colvin added that local authorities had received "credible information from partner agencies" about the claims but would not elaborate further or say if the men had been on any watch list.

"In recent days, law enforcement has become aware of information that suggested some people in Sydney were planning to commit a terrorist attack using an IED (improvised explosive device)," he told reporters.

He added that several items "of great interest to police" had been seized in the raids but police did not yet have a great deal of information on the specific attack, the location, date or time. He said the investigation was expected to be "very long and protracted".

"However, we're investigating information indicating the aviation industry was potentially a target of that attack."

Colvin would not provide further details, but the Australian Broadcasting Corporation said police found items that could be used to make a homemade bomb in one of the raided homes Saturday.

Authorities believed they planned to smuggle the device onto a plane to blow it up, the ABC added.

- Airport security boost -

Airline passengers in Australia have been asked to arrive early for flights and to limit baggage after authorities said they foiled an Islamist-inspired "terrorist plot"

Four men were arrested Saturday after armed police stormed homes in at least four neighbourhoods, though their names and ages have not been released and they have not been charged by police.

A magistrate late Sunday gave police an additional seven days to detain the men without charge.

The Seven Network reported 40 riot squad officers moved on a terraced house in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Surry Hills. TV footage showed a man with a bandage on his head being led away by authorities, draped in a blanket.

Sections of surrounding roads remained cordoned off on Sunday as forensic officers and investigators wrapped up and removed items from the house.

Airline passengers have meanwhile been asked to arrive at least two hours early for domestic flights and three hours for international routes, and to limit their baggage.

"Australia has very strong safeguards in place at its airports; these changes are about making them even stronger," Australian carrier Qantas said.

Airline Virgin Australia stressed that the additional airport security measures were just "precautionary" and passengers "should not be concerned".

Turnbull said the national terror alert level, which was raised on September 2014 amid rising concerns over attacks by individuals inspired by organisations such as Islamic State, would remain at probable.

Canberra has introduced new national security laws since then, while counter-terrorism police have also made a string of arrests.

A total of 12 attacks, before the latest announcement, have been prevented in the past few years, while 70 people have been charged, Justice Minister Michael Keenan said.

"The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors, but there's still the ability for people to have sophisticated plots and sophisticated attacks still remain a real threat," he told reporters Sunday.

The prime minister added that the alleged plan appeared to be "more in that category of an elaborate plot".

Several terror attacks have taken place in Australia in recent years, including a Sydney cafe siege in 2014 that saw two hostages killed.
US Vice President Mike Pence, seen here shaking hands with Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite and with (far left) Estonia's President Kersti Kaljulaid at a Munich Security Conference in February. Pence will visit the Baltic region next week.

US Vice President Mike Pence on Sunday visits Estonia to reassure the three Baltic NATO members, concerned over neighbouring Russia's military activity, before continuing on to Georgia and Montenegro with the same mission.

Pence will meet with Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas on Sunday regarding the possibility of installing American anti-aircraft defence systems in the small country of 1.3 million people.

Relations between Moscow and Tallinn have been fraught since Estonia broke free from the crumbling Soviet Union in 1991, joining both the EU and NATO in 2004.

More recently Estonia and fellow Baltic states Latvia and Lithuania have been spooked by Russia's frequent military exercises near the region and its 2014 annexation of Crimea from Ukraine.

On Monday, Pence will meet Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid and her Lithuanian and Latvian counterparts, Dalia Grybauskaite and Rajmonds Vejonis.

He will then visit troops from the Enhanced Forward Presence programme, under which NATO has deployed four battalions to the Baltic states and Poland to bolster the western defence alliance's eastern flank.

- 'We are watching' -

Local analysts expect Pence to offer Estonians what they want to hear, including that "the US is a good loyal ally and that they appreciate Baltic sacrifices including their 2 percent of GDP spending on defence and their participation in military operations in Afghanistan," according to Tallinn University international relations specialist Matthew Crandall, as quoted by public television ERR.

Analyst Andres Kasekamp added on the same channel that "the timing, before Russia's Zapad exercises (in September in Belarus, near the Lithuanian border) shows that the US wants to say: 'We are watching what's happening here very closely and you can be certain of our support.'"

The Zapad exercises have triggered concern in Lithuania, since they will take place relatively close to the Suwalki gap, a land corridor crossing southeastern Poland which is critical to the security of the Baltic states.

The 80-kilometer (50-mile) stretch of border with Lithuania is sandwiched between the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad to the west and Moscow-friendly Belarus to the east.

This corridor of land is considered the potential Achilles heel of NATO's eastern flank, because a hypothetical Russian offensive there could easily isolate the three Baltic countries to the north.

Lithuanian authorities have said that up to 100,000 Russian and Belarussian troops could take part in the exercises. But Belarus Defence Minister Andrei Ravkov told the Russian TASS news agency that the soldiers will only number around 13,000.

- Russo-Georgian war memories vivid -

Pence is expected to make similar assurances in Tbilissi during talks with Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili on Monday night and with Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili on Tuesday.

US backing of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity will also be well-received in the country, especially since it is not a NATO member and memories of the 2008 Russo-Georgian war remain vivid.

To that end Pence will on Tuesday meet with US and Georgian troops who are taking part in the Noble Partner 2017 exercises.

He will then continue on to Podgorica to meet with Montenegro's leaders on Tuesday night. The tiny former Yugoslav republic has a population of 660,000 and lies on the Adriatic sea.

Montenegro joined NATO in June in the face of bitter opposition from Moscow, which says NATO's steady expansion into the former communist states of eastern Europe threatens its own security and cannot go unchallenged.

On Wednesday, Pence will attend the Adriatic Charter summit, which in addition to the US and Montenegro will bring together four other countries in the region (Albania, Bosnia, Croatia and Macedonia).

Kosovo, Serbia and Slovenia have observer status and should also be represented at the meeting of the alliance, which was created in 2003 in order to facilitate the region's integration into NATO. So far Albania, Croatia, Montenegro and Slovenia have joined.
Senegal is normally known for its peaceful democratic traditions

Senegal voted in a tense general election Sunday, with ex-president Abdoulaye Wade accusing his successor of engineering problems with the ballot to thwart an opposition victory.

The vote to elect a new parliament is seen as a test run for President Macky Sall ahead of a 2019 presidential election and follows a campaign marred by violence.

There was an estimated turnout of almost 54 percent, said public broadcaster RTS citing official sources.

The first results are due early Monday in the west African nation, where more than 6.2 million people are registered to vote.

Some complained of being left off the electoral rolls, and there were delays to voting in several places.

"I'm going home. I've checked at several polling stations and my name doesn't figure anywhere. However I normally vote here," complained Souleye Tine in Dakar's working-class Medina neighbourhood.

Wade pointed the blame firmly at the president after a campaign that at times saw violent clashes in a country normally known for its peaceful democratic traditions.

"Macky Sall arranged it -- he gave instructions so that in all the places where he thinks the opposition is going to win, there's no voting," Wade said.

"An election in which one of the candidates cannot find his ballot papers in the polling stations cannot be called an election," Wade said in reference to delays due to the absence of ballot papers for several electoral lists.

"I call on all voters who have voted to stay at their polling stations until the results are announced, to witness whether the results conform to reality."

- Angry voters -

At 91, Wade, who returned last month for the election campaign after two years abroad, is aiming to drum up support for his own list of candidates and his son Karim, who is not on the ballot but has ambitions for the presidency.

Sall, in power since 2012, is seeking to bolster his parliamentary majority as he eyes a second term.

Polling stations were due to close at 6:00 pm (1800 GMT) but in the central city of Touba the governor said people could vote until midnight after particularly long delays worsened by heavy overnight storms.

A polling station in the city was vandalised by voters angry that ballot papers for Wade's coalition were unavailable, official news agency APS reported.

A police statement said a total of 147 polling stations had been trashed and three people, all candidates on Wade's list, had been detained.

Sall's other main opponent, Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall -- no relation of the president -- is in jail awaiting trial for what supporters say are politically motivated embezzlement charges.

Former president Abdoulaye Wade is seeking to drum up support for his son, who has ambitions for the presidency

The mayor had been seen as a key contender for 2019 and a potential threat to the president in parliament until he was charged in March with allegedly misappropriating 1.83 billion CFA francs ($2.85 million, 2.7 million euros) in city funds.

Nevertheless early partial results and forecasts from the media put the mayor's electoral list significantly ahead in the capital and among Senegalese expats who for the first time have direct representation, with 15 of parliament's 165 seats set aside for them.

- Calls for calm -

Wade had accused the government during the campaign of seeking to prevent an opposition victory through selective delivery of the biometric ID cards needed to vote, with several hundred thousand failing to arrive on time.

The constitutional council eventually moved to relax the rules so that people without the cards could use passports or other forms of identification to cast their ballots, along with proof they had applied for the IDs.

The election has been complicated by the record 47 lists of candidates in the running, meaning 47 types of ballot paper needed to be available at polling stations.

Wade has accused Sall of "destroying" Senegal, while the president's side say Wade did not do enough to develop the nation while in power, boasting of their achievements in building a new airport and other infrastructure projects.
Revered by most Indians, cows are at the centre of political battles and 'lynch mob' attacks but are being abandoned in growing numbers

Revered by most Indians, cows are at the centre of political battles and 'lynch mob' attacks, but they are being abandoned in growing numbers and turned away by shelters that cannot cope.

The Sri Krishna Gaushala on the outskirts of New Delhi is typical of shelters for homeless cows across India -- struggling to keep up with demand.

Authorities in Uttar Pradesh and Haryana states are thinking of building cow shelters in prisons. At one Uttar Pradesh shelter, scores of cows are reported to have died from hunger in recent weeks.

Sri Krishna is spread over 38 acres (15 hectares) and is home to nearly 8,000 cows, bulls and calves -- mostly ageing, ailing, and no longer producing milk.

Rajendra Singh Shekhawat manages 110 bustling sheds where cows are fed, treated and even massaged after being rescued, bought from cash-strapped farmers, or donated.

The shelter is close to its 7,800 capacity. "We have 7,700 right now. All the other cow shelters in Delhi are facing the same problem, they're all overcrowded," Shekhawat told AFP.

Cows are worshipped as a mother figure by Hindus who make up more than 900 million of the country's 1.3 billion population.

Some people consider cows a one-stop-shop for their dairy and medical needs. Many believe that drinking cow urine can cure everything from arthritis and asthma to cancer and diabetes.

- Five million strays -

Cows are worshipped as a mother figure by Hindus who make up more than 900 million of India's 1.3 billion population

"The cow isn't an animal, it isn't an ordinary living thing. She is our mother and her place should be at a home," 55-year-old Shekhawat told AFP as a veterinarian hooked up intravenous drips to one ailing animal.

But a 2012 livestock census found there were more than five million strays across India and more than 12,000 in Delhi.

Cows hold up city traffic and graze on plastic bags, used sanitary napkins and corroded batteries on garbage dumps. One had to be rescued in Delhi last week after falling down a rain drain.

Courts have repeatedly ordered authorities to take action because of the safety and public health risk.

But since Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi's right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party stormed to power in 2014, cows have won a near-VIP status. Rumours of cows being taken for slaughter can spark murderous reprisals and religious riots.

The government tried to impose a nationwide ban on the sale of cattle for slaughter, triggering an outcry among Muslims and other minorities who eat beef.

The ban was suspended by the Supreme Court this month.

Every month, some 600 cattle are rounded up in Delhi and relocated to five shelters.

"Three of the five are packed. Currently we're deporting strays to the nearest less-crowded shelter," Jitendra Kumar Gaur, director of Delhi's animal husbandry department, told AFP.

Gaur said improved technology and health measures like vaccinations and deworming have boosted cows' lifespan.

But he also blames "the commercial mindset of farmers" who only keep cows while they provide milk.

"This is the first time we are facing this 'overcrowding' problem and the menace is mainly created by those who abandon their cattle."

- Overcrowding 'good news'? -

In India some consider cows a one-stop-shop for their dairy and medical needs, with many believing that cow urine can cure everything from arthritis and asthma to cancer and diabetes

Every day, the five shelters receive 40 rupees ($0.62) per animal from the government. Shekhawat says he spends more than 100 rupees ($1.55) for each cow.

Supporters of the shelter donate thousands of dollars each year to keep it going.

But space is also a problem.

Shekhawat said he has asked the Delhi government for more land so he can "house an additional 5,000, 7,000 or even 10,000 cows here."

Delhi does not have spare land, said Gaur, whose department wants to put a microchip in every bovine to help track and identify animals and their owners.

"We have long-term solutions. We won't let this problem get out of hand," he vowed.

Shekhawat maintains that the best way to lower the number of strays is for Indians to go back to their rural roots and "take care of cows at home".

With stray numbers rising, it is tough for Delhi residents to look after a cow in a city where the population is shooting toward 20 million.

And the problem is not limited to Delhi, according to animal rights activist Rima Anand, highlighting shelters bursting at the seams across India.

"There is a change in attitude towards cows thanks to this government. It has prioritised cow welfare," Anand, of the Delhi-based Dhyan Foundation that rescues and protects animals, told AFP.

"Shelters are full across the country," said Anand. But this, she maintained, was better than seeing the animals slaughtered illegally.

"Ask me? Overcrowded cow shelters is good news."
Palestinians celebrate as a truck removes the last of the new security barriers Israel installed at the entrances to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on July 27, 2017

Though it was well past midnight, as news filtered through that Israeli police were removing the remaining new security barriers from the Al-Aqsa mosque compound hundreds of Palestinians flooded the streets.

When one youth started to taunt Israeli police warily watching the gathering crowds early on Thursday, others angrily remonstrated with him.

This was a night for celebrating what the Palestinians saw as a rare victory.

For Israelis, the situation grew out of a horrible attack on July 14 that killed two policemen.

But many of them also viewed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's handling of the crisis as inadequate.

While Palestinians' joy at the removal of the security measures was somewhat tarnished by clashes inside the mosque compound later Thursday, Palestinians that night chanted and hugged each other, as car horns sounded incessantly.

A huge Palestinian flag was carried by young men onto one of the Old City's walls -- an extremely rare act in a city that Israel considers its undivided capital.

"We feel joyous. I live quite far away but I walked here for Al-Aqsa," said Nisreen, a young woman in the crowd.

"The Israelis think this is it. God willing this is just the beginning."

- Two weeks of tension -

The celebrations came nearly two weeks after the attack near the Haram al-Sharif compound, known to Jews as the Temple Mount.

Jerusalem Old City

Two Israeli police were killed, while the three Arab Israeli attackers were shot dead.

The site, which includes the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and the golden-topped Dome of the Rock, serves as a key unification point for Palestinians.

It is located in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

It is the third-holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for Jews as the site of the first and second ancient temples.

Israel responded to the attack by installing new security measures, particularly metal detectors and cameras.

They argued such measures were standard at major religious sites but Palestinians saw it as Israel trying to take further control of the compound.

The Waqf, the Islamic endowments authority that runs Al-Aqsa, refused to enter until the measures were removed.

Days of street protests followed, with thousands praying outside the compound as part of a boycott.

The situation came to the boil around the main weekly prayers on July 21.

Clashes between Israeli security forces and Palestinians erupted in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank, leaving three Palestinians dead.

Later that evening, a Palestinian broke into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and stabbed four Israelis, killing three of them.

Warnings grew that the unrest could spiral out of control.

A top aide to US President Donald Trump flew in for crisis talks, while King Abdullah II of Jordan, the official custodian of Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, urged Netanyahu to remove the security measures.

Israeli security forces remove metal detectors they had installed at the Lions' Gate entrance to Jerusalem's Al-Aqsa mosque compound on July 24, 2017

Early on Tuesday, the metal detectors were removed but barriers and other new structures remained in place. The boycott continued.

Two days later, police returned around 1:00 am to remove the rest, sparking the joyous scenes.

A poll of Israeli Jews found 77 percent thought the move constituted "capitulation", while even the normally pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom attacked his handling of the crisis.

- 'Cut across all lines' -

Netanyahu, who heads what is seen as the most right-wing government in Israel's history, has since called for the death penalty for the Palestinian who stabbed the Israelis in what some analysts saw as a move to please his right-wing base.

"There is a strong sense of humiliation, especially among the right wing," Ofer Zalzberg from the International Crisis Group think tank told AFP.

"They are pushing the government to reverse this humiliation by giving them something else."

The Palestinian movement was called to the streets by the Waqf but quickly took on a life of its own.

"This cut across all lines -- religious, not so religious, Muslim, Christian, rich or poor," Diana Buttu, a former Palestinian official turned analyst, said.

A Palestinian protester stands in front of a mural depicting Jerusalem's golden-topped Dome of the Rock during clashes with Israeli security forces outside the West Bank city of Nablus on July 28, 2017

According to Buttu and others, the Palestinian political leadership of all factions, including the internationally recognised leadership of the Palestinian Authority, had been mostly irrelevant, with the movement led largely by protesters.

"Palestinians have been very encouraged by what for them is one success within a sea of defeats," Zalzberg said.

He put the victory down to an "Israeli inability to stop the movement because of the sheer size and because it was around Al-Aqsa."

Al-Aqsa is a rare unifying symbol for all Palestinians and there is a risk they could fall back into political infighting now that the immediate threat has been defeated, he added.

But Zalzberg said the mostly young people who had taken part in the two weeks of protests will be keen to push their leaders.

"The next time there is a major issue, will they not go back to the same religious authorities and tell them: 'You were successful with the metal detectors. Why don't we do something?'"
The investment arm of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is the country's top private employer

Rwanda's ruling party has tightly controlled the political sphere for over two decades, but it is also accused of monopolising the economy via its very own conglomerate: Crystal Ventures.

The investment arm of the Rwandan Patriotic Front is the country's top private employer, with assets estimated at $500 million (426 million euros). It is present in almost every sector, from food processing to private security, building materials and real estate.

The company, formerly named Tristar, was born in 1995, a year after the then rebel RPF seized Kigali and put an end to a 100-day genocide which left 800,000 people, mostly from the Tutsi minority, dead.

With the country shattered and not a franc left in the treasury, the new authorities did not want to sit around and wait for a private sector to materialise and rebuild the nation.

"We wanted to see a difference made in our country where nobody was coming to invest," President Paul Kagame told a summit on investment in Africa in March.

The RPF delved into its war chest from the 1990-1994 civil war, built up with contributions from the Tutsi diaspora, to create the company and jump-start the private sector.

The precise ownership of the company is not clear. On its website it says it chooses investments to "make a significant impact on the socioeconomic landscape".

In 1998 Crystal Ventures partnered with South African telecoms giant MTN to put in place a mobile network in Rwanda.

In 2015 the investment company sold its 20 percent stake in MTN Rwandacell, but observers remain concerned about the stranglehold Crystal Ventures has on the economy and whether this could scare away private investors.

A western diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the economy was "dominated by the party (RPF) and interests surrounding the party."

He referred to another conglomerate attached to the defence ministry: Horizon. One of its branches is the country's leading construction company, building roads and focusing on infrastructure development.

As Rwanda tries to draw in foreign investors "we are not sure that the private sector is as free and transparent as it should be," he told AFP, adding that in some sectors, such as dairy which is dominated by Crystal Ventures, there is no place for competition.

Kagame insists there is no favourable treatment in awarding tenders.

"I would challenge anybody to bring any fact ... there has been good competition," he said.
Banjul has engaged in a charm offensive with Chinese businesses since President Adama Barrow took power in January

The Gambia is courting Beijing's attention after re-establishing diplomatic relations last year, but villagers and activists say Chinese investment is a double-edged sword as they fight a firm accused of dumping waste.

Chinese firms in Africa are frequently accused of polluting the environment to produce materials ready to export back home, in incidents recorded by experts across the mines of Guinea, oil fields of Chad and forests of the Congo basin.

The government is nevertheless keen to kickstart direct Chinese investment to turn around the stuttering economy, though its environment agency has made clear it will tackle abuses of the delicate ecosystem in this largely undeveloped west African nation.

The residents of Gunjur, a Gambian village an hour south of the capital Banjul had welcomed the opening of a Chinese fishmeal factory in September 2016, hoping it would bring new jobs to an area reliant on scant rewards from fishing and tourism.

"When the factory came here, a lot of people were happy, including me," said Badara Bajo, the director of the Environment Protection and Development Group of Gunjur (EPDGG), a charity.

"We felt that it would help create employment opportunities and perhaps sustainable income to local inhabitants," he explained, describing his impressions of the Chinese-run Golden Lead company.

- Future partner? -

Banjul recognised Beijing as the seat of China's government over former ally Taiwan in March 2016, but the Asian giant was already one of the diminutive African state's top trading partners, with the Chinese snapping up valuable rosewood timber exports.

Illegal to export in neighbouring Senegal, the prized wood was smuggled over the border into The Gambia from the southern Senegalese region of Casamance, souring relations with Dakar.

Since President Adama Barrow took power in January, Banjul has engaged in a charm offensive with Chinese businesses, seeking funding for the type of infrastructure and energy projects the government says were neglected under former leader Yahya Jammeh.

Barrow praised Trade Minister Isatou Touray last week for signing an agreement for duty-free trade with China, which he said would "make our goods more competitive, and boost our export potential."

Touray herself told Chinese media at a regional summit in Abuja in May that "quite a number of Chinese firms are currently engaging with the new administration and we are moving in the right direction."

- Streams turn red -

Within months of the factory opening in Gunjur, residents began to notice a bad smell, followed by local waterways turning red, and finally wave after wave of dead fish washing up on the shore. Swimmers in Gunjur's lagoon began to complain of skin problems.

"The factory is very close to the lagoon. The lagoon is also close to the nature reserve which we have managed for 22 years now," Bajo said.

Alerted to allegations of waste being piped directly into the sea and the destruction of some the area's mangroves, the National Environment Agency (NEA) filed a lawsuit against Golden Lead on June 14.

Bajo and his colleagues also organised a protest in late May in the neighbouring village of Kartong, where another Chinese firm has its sights set on a factory.

Lamin Jatta, a Kartong resident, said the community "would not allow the Chinese company to pollute our environment, as this will drive European tourists from our beaches."

Cases like Gunjur's are test sites for the new government's willingness to tolerate what experts have described as Chinese firms' frequent disregard for the environment and the rule of law in other parts of Africa.

In its charges against Golden Lead, the NEA alleged that the Chinese company was discharging waste water from their processing plant into the sea at Gunjur beach without permission.

Golden Lead was also failing to keep records of its activities and waste management as required by Gambian law, it said.

Nevertheless, both sides agreed an out-court-settlement, with the firm promising to clean up its act, said government spokeswoman Amie Bojang-Sissoho.

"The company will remove its pipes from the sea and will make a comprehensive ecological assessment and restore the damage done to the ecology," she said, adding Golden Lead would "pay for testing of the water to know how and why it was affected."

- 'The Chinese pay' -

Bakary Darboe, the managing director of the Golden Lead Company, said he "rejected the charges" despite the legal agreement, and noted that the firm employed 64 people in the area to make animal feed to be exported back in China.

After all, not everyone in Gunjur is incensed by the presence of Golden Lead.

"Unlike the local fishmongers who buy fish on credit basis, the Chinese pay in cash and take the fish," said Alieu Saine, a Senegalese fisherman who said the firm paid up to $2 million dalasi ($43,401) each time they purchased stock.

"The government should encourage the Chinese to set up more companies like this one as it will keep young people busy and discourage them from embarking on the risky 'back way' to Europe," Saine added, referring to a Gambian term for the cross-Sahara migrant route.

The villagers, he added, would "get used to" the smell, as he had.
A US Air Force B-1B Lancer prepares to take off for a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, into Japanese airspace and over the Korean Peninsula

US strategic bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula in a pointed show of force in response to Pyongyang's latest intercontinental ballistic missile, American officials said Saturday.

US B-1B bombers along with fighter jets from the South Korean and Japanese air forces participated in the 10-hour bilateral mission, practicing intercept and formation drills.

The maneuver followed Pyongyang's second ICBM test this month late Friday, with Kim Jong-Un saying the move demonstrated the country's ability to strike any target in the United States.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, in a statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."

The announcement coincided with another tweet storm from US President Donald Trump, who lambasted Beijing on the social media outlet for failing to rein in their North Korean allies.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk," Trump wrote.

"We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

Trump, who is at loggerheads with Beijing over how to handle Kim's regime, has repeatedly urged China to bridle its recalcitrant neighbor, but Beijing insists dialogue is the only practical way forward.

In a standard response to the test, Beijing urged restraint by all sides, after the US and South Korea conducted a live-fire exercise using surface-to-surface missiles.

Weapons experts said the altitude and flight time of Friday's missile suggested it was significantly more powerful than the earlier July 4 test, with a theoretical range of around 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) meaning it might be able to reach east coast US cities like New York, depending on the payload size.

South Korea said the test prompted it to speed up deployment of a US missile defense system, despite consistent protests from China that the program would destabilize the region.
China's President Xi Jinping says the People's Liberation Army must "unswervingly stick to... the (Communist) Party's absolute leadership" and "march to wherever the Party is pointing"

Chinese President Xi Jinping touted the need to build a "world-class" army capable of "defeating all invading enemies" at a military parade held Sunday to mark the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Since coming to power in 2012, the president has trumpeted building a stronger, combat-ready army, while leading efforts to centralise the ruling Communist Party's control over the PLA, the world's largest standing military.

Sunday's procession -- including 12,000 service personnel and about 700 aircrafts and pieces of ground equipment -- marked the first time Xi has observed a parade of this size staged in the field, according to the ministry of defence.

"The world is not all at peace. Peace must be safeguarded," Xi, wearing a camouflage military suit, said in a speech at the expansive Zhurihe training base in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous region.

"Today we are closer than ever before to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and -- more than any other time in history -- we need to build a strong people's military."

Chinese President Xi Jinping has touted the need to build a "world-class" army capable of "defeating all invading enemies"

Xi also ordered the PLA to "unswervingly stick to... the Party's absolute leadership," saying the military should "march to wherever the Party is pointing."

Defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said in a statement that the parade was intended to create a "good atmosphere" ahead of an important party congress later this year when Xi is expected to further consolidate his grip on power.

The president stood inside an open-top jeep that drove past lines of troops for his inspection.

"Comrades, thanks for your hard work," he said, to which the troops responded: "Serve the people!"

China said in March it would raise its defence spending by around seven percent this year, the slowest annual percentage increase since 1991.

Beijing is engaged in a decades-long build-up and modernisation of its once-backward armed forces, as it seeks military clout commensurate with its economic might and increasingly asserts its disputed territorial claims in Asian waters.

The PLA, originally called the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, was founded in 1927 when Communist soldiers seized the southern Jiangxi provincial town of Nanchang from Nationalist Party ("Kuomintang") armies in what is known today as the Nanchang uprising.
Kenyan security forces have killed a man who attacked the home of Deputy President William Ruto (L), shown standing with President Uhuru Kenyatta in June 2017

Elite Kenyan security forces on Sunday killed a man at the home of Deputy President William Ruto, ending a 20-hour siege that began with an attack in which a policeman was injured, police said.

Ruto and his family were not at the vast property in the northwest of the country during Saturday's attack, which came less than two weeks before the country votes in high-stakes elections.

Kenya's police chief Joseph Boinnet said Sunday morning that the assailant had just been shot and killed and "the situation is under control".

Further details and the motive for the attack remained unclear.

Boinnet said one assailant armed with a machete attacked and badly injured a police officer who was part of Ruto's security team, seized his gun and then entered the compound.

Police reinforcements arrived and the attacker fled into a building under construction near the entrance gate.

But several security sources told AFP on Saturday that the assault was staged by several people using guns.

"There are armed people who staged the attack and have shot the GSU officer and stolen his gun," one security official said, referring to the elite police General Security Unit deployed to guard Ruto's house.

- Tensions mounting ahead of vote -

Ruto had left the house shortly before the attack to attend rallies alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, his running mate who faces a tight re-election contest on August 8 against longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga.

The attack occurred despite the round-the-clock presence of GSU guards at the property, near the town of Eldoret, some 300 kilometres (200 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi.

The Daily Nation newspaper Sunday said "questions remained on how such a daring attack could be allowed to happen" on one of the best protected residences in the country.

Ruto's home sits in Kenya's western Rift Valley area, the flashpoint for an outbreak of election violence after the disputed 2007 polls that killed 1,100 people and tarnished Kenya's image as a regional beacon of safety and stability.

According to opinion polls, this year's election will be close and tensions have been rising.

Odinga has repeatedly claimed the government is scheming to steal the election, while Kenyatta has accused Odinga of trying to delay the polls.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of threats and voter intimidation in Naivasha, a flashpoint town in 2007 and one of the potential hotspots in this year's election.

In the Rift Valley, hate speech flyers have been circulating and some local residents have already left their homes.

The 2007 bloodshed haunted both Ruto and Kenyatta long after it ended, when the International Criminal Court put both on trial for orchestrating the violence.

Those charges were later dropped, with ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda blaming a relentless campaign of victim intimidation for making a trial impossible.
This file photo taken on July 6, 2017 in Qatar's capital Doha shows a wall bearing a portrait of Qatar's Emir, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani, which has become a symbol of Qatari resistance in the row between Doha and neighbouring countries

Top officials of four Arab states boycotting Qatar are scheduled to meet in the Bahraini capital Sunday, as a political crisis that has split the Gulf enters its second month.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt will meet in Manama in a bid to persuade Qatar to "end its support for extremism and terrorism, stop meddling in the affairs of neighbouring countries and change its policies," read a statement on state news agency BNA.

On June 5, the Saudi-led bloc cut diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar -- the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas -- over allegations the emirate supported Islamist extremism and had close ties to Shiite Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

The Saudi-led bloc recalled their ambassadors, ordered all Qataris to return home and banned Qatar from using their airspace.

Qatar has denied the allegations and accuses the bloc of imposing a "blockade" on the tiny emirate.

Qatar has also rejected the bloc's demands -- which include downgrading ties to Iran and closing both the Al-Jazeera news channel and a Turkish military base in the country -- as a violation of its sovereignty.

Bahrain's King Hamad on Saturday called for "the solidarity of all Arab countries in fighting terrorism and cutting off its financing... for the defence of our homelands" ahead of the meeting, which comes after the Saudi-led bloc held talks in Cairo earlier this month.

Kuwait is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, the worst to grip the region since the 1981 creation of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

Kuwait and Oman -- GCC members along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar -- have not joined the Qatar boycott.
Israeli soldier Elor Azaria is embraced by his mother Oshra at the start of a hearing in a military court in Tel Aviv on February 21, 2017 at which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant

Judges were expected to rule Sunday on an appeal by an Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting dead a prone Palestinian assailant, a case that has divided the country.

Elor Azaria, a sergeant and military medic at the time of the incident, was convicted in January and sentenced the next month.

He later appealed the verdict, while military prosecutors have asked for an increased sentence after having initially requested between three and five years.

Azaria arrived at a military court in Tel Aviv on Sunday ahead of the hearing scheduled to begin around 1:00 pm (1000 GMT).

The French-Israeli, who is 21, completed his mandatory three-year military service on July 20 and was moved from confinement to his base to house arrest.

His imprisonment has been postponed pending his appeal.

The March 2016 shooting in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron was caught on video by a rights group and spread widely online.

It showed Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, lying wounded on the ground, shot along with another Palestinian after stabbing and wounding a soldier, according to the army.

Azaria then shot him in the head without any apparent provocation.

He said he feared Sharif was wearing an explosive belt and could blow himself up, a claim judges rejected.

"His motive for shooting was that he felt the terrorist deserved to die," Judge Colonel Maya Heller said when reading out the verdict in January.

The trial captivated Israel and highlighted deep divisions in public opinion between those who decry the shooting and those who say he was justified.

Military leaders have sharply condemned Azaria's actions.

Right-wing leaders, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, have however called for him to be pardoned in an extraordinary public rift between politicians and the military.

Amnesty International has said Azaria's sentence does "not reflect the gravity of the offence," while the UN human rights office said it was an "unacceptable" punishment for "an apparent extra-judicial killing".
Chinese military helicopters fly in formation to make the number "90" during the parade

Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed the need to build a world-class military, capable of "defeating all invading enemies" and loyal to the ruling Communist Party, at a major parade Sunday.

The event -- featuring 12,000 service personnel and about 700 aircraft and pieces of ground equipment -- marked the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), now the world's largest military.

It was the first time Xi has observed a parade of this size staged in the field, according to the defence ministry.

Since coming to power in 2012, the president has trumpeted the need to build a stronger combat-ready military, while leading efforts to centralise the Communist Party's control over it.

"The world is not all at peace. Peace must be safeguarded," Xi, wearing a camouflage military uniform, said in a speech at the expansive Zhurihe training base in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

"Today we are closer than ever before to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and -- more than any other time in history -- we need to build a strong people's military," he said.

"I believe that our heroic army has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies."

Xi also ordered the PLA to "unswervingly stick to... the party's absolute leadership", saying the military should "march to wherever the party is pointing".

Defence ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said in a statement that the parade was intended to create a "good atmosphere" before a crucial party congress later this year, at which Xi is expected to further consolidate his grip on power.

At Zhurihe, a base extending more than 1,000 square kilometres (386 square miles), rows upon rows of soldiers marched in perfect unison and helicopters flew overhead in a "90" formation.

The president stood in an open-top jeep that drove past ranks of troops for his inspection.

"Comrades, thanks for your hard work!" he said, to which the troops responded: "Serve the people!"

China announced in March it would raise its defence spending by around seven percent this year, the slowest annual percentage increase since 1991.

Beijing is engaged in a decades-long build-up and modernisation of its once-backward armed forces, as it seeks military clout commensurate with its economic might and increasingly asserts its disputed territorial claims in Asian waters.

Xi announced in 2015 that he would cut China's military by 300,000 -- though at its reduced size of around two million, it will still remain the world's largest military.

The People's Liberation Army (PLA) also encompasses the navy and air force.

Soldiers applaud Xi during the parade

The PLA, originally called the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, was founded in 1927 when Communist soldiers seized the southern town of Nanchang from Nationalist Party ("Kuomintang") armies in what is known today as the Nanchang uprising.
People gesture as coverage of an ICBM missile test is displayed on a screen in a public square in Pyongyang

North Korea said Sunday its latest ICBM test was a "warning" targeting the US for its efforts to slap new sanctions on Pyongyang and threatened a counter-strike if provoked militarily by Washington.

The North conducted its second intercontinental ballistic missile test late Friday, with leader Kim Jong-Un boasting of his country's ability to strike "all the US mainland".

Technical details of Friday's launch suggested it was significantly more powerful than the first ICBM test on July 4, with a theoretical range long enough to reach the US east coast, according to experts.

The North's first ICBM test set off global alarm over the nation's weapons capabilities and a push by the US to impose more UN and bilateral sanctions, with the US Senate passing new bipartisan sanctions on Pyongyang on Friday.

But the US-led campaign only provided "further justification" for the North's resolve to maintain its weapons programmes, Pyongyang's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA.

"The... test-fire of ICBM ... this time is meant to send a stern warning to the U.S. making senseless remarks, being lost to reason in the frantic sanctions and pressure campaign against the DPRK," it said, using an acronym for the North's official name.

The statement came hours after US President Donald Trump warned that he would not allow China -- the impoverished North's sole major ally and economic lifeline -- to "do nothing" about North Korea.

Trump, who is at loggerheads with Beijing over how to handle Kim's regime, has repeatedly urged China to rein in its neighbour, but China insists dialogue is the only practical way forward.

The US also on Sunday had two powerful strategic bombers fly over the Korean peninsula for a joint drill with Japanese and South Korean forces, in a pointed show of force against the North.

But Pyongyang's foreign ministry urged the US to "wake up from the foolish dream of doing any harm to the DPRK."

"If the Yankees... dares brandish the nuclear stick on this land again ...the DPRK will clearly teach them manners with the nuclear strategic force," it said.

There remains doubts whether the North can miniaturise a nuclear weapon to fit a missile nose cone, or if it has mastered the technology needed for the projectile to survive re-entry into the atmosphere.

But since Kim came to power in 2011, there has been a series of technical advances, including three nuclear tests and a string of missile launches.

In all, six sets of UN sanctions have been imposed on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006, but two resolutions adopted last year significantly toughened the sanctions regime.
Iraqi merchants peddle their wares in the Gogjali market on the eastern edges of Mosul on July 28, 2017

Iraqi merchants and shoppers jostle in the lively open-air market of Gogjali on the eastern edges of Mosul, their voices often drowned out by the honking horns of cars.

"Mosul will never be the same again," sighs Yunes Abdullah, a 60-year-old former soldier who set up a stall to repair televisions and other electrical appliances.

Merchants and shoppers in Gogjali, one of the first areas to be retaken from the jihadists by Iraqi forces when they launched an offensive last October to recapture the country's second city, have mixed feelings about what the future holds.

Some people blame the authorities for not doing enough to tackle the mammoth task of reconstructing the city, while others pray that the international community will be generous with funding.

"The government isn't doing anything. It's the people who clean the streets. Nothing has been rebuilt, not roads and not buildings," says Abdullah.

Iraqi merchants and shoppers jostle in the lively open-air market in Gogjali on the eastern outskirts of Mosul, on July 28, 2017

His business partner Amar Akram agrees.

"My house was destroyed, and I don't have any money to rebuild it. I don't know who to turn to for help. Who should I speak to? There are thousands of people like me," he says.

"They (the authorities) don't help us because in their eyes we are all Daesh," Akram adds, using an Arabic acronym for the jihadist Islamic State group.

Similar accusations can be heard throughout the market.

"They say we helped Daesh, but they know very well who allowed them to enter" the city, says a young tea-seller.

In June 2014, IS seized Mosul and routed Iraqi forces from the area, after what a parliamentary inquiry later found was a gross mismanagement of the crisis by Iraqi officials, who ignored ample warnings of an impending attack on the city.

Three years later, tens of thousands of members of the Iraqi forces backed by Western warplanes and other international assistance retook Mosul after months of fierce fighting.

On July 10, victory was officially declared in the city, which is divided by the Tigris river into eastern and western parts.

- 'God willing' -

Iraqis gather at a market in Gogjali on the eastern edges of Mosul, on July 28, 2017

In a part of the Gogjali market where merchants sell mobile phones and spare parts for cars, Abdullah says he mistrusts the authorities and claims they "embezzle" government funds.

But he does admit that "they are good at security".

A client who overhears him jumps into the conversation with her own theory of how things should play out.

"The Americans must stay. They can influence things. When they speak we listen to them, unlike the Arabs who don't respect each other," says the seamstress in her 40s.

She says she had to "start back from zero" after fleeing the west side of Mosul, where Iraqi forces fought some of the fiercest battles before they could oust the jihadists.

Several kilometres (miles) away, life has also returned to the covered Nabi Yunis market in the city's eastern side.

A wide array of merchandise is available, from clothing to fruit and vegetables, cheap perfume, hair dyes and remedies for losing weight in packaging showing svelte female bodies.

"There are more products and the prices have become reasonable," says one male shopper. "Under IS, things were three times more expensive."

Iraqi women look at gold jewelry displayed at a market in east Mosul, on July 28, 2017

Behind mounds of grapes, apples and pomegranates, Mohammed Jassem says people must be patient.

"The government has a lot to do, and time is needed to reorganise things and for life to return to normal," he says.

"The priority should be to infrastructure: rebuilding hospitals, bridges and roads."

Everyone around him, merchants and shoppers, uses the same phrase: "Inshallah" -- "God willing" in Arabic -- security and reconstruction will work hand in hand to woo back hundreds of thousands of residents who fled Mosul.

"But financial aid from the international community will also be needed," says lingerie merchant Omar Hayani.

"The government does nothing" and is "letting people fend for themselves", says the 32-year-old, who however adds that life has improved since the jihadists left.

"I now feel free and happy," he says.

Under the brutal rule of IS, Hayani was sentenced twice to being flogged because in his shop window he displayed "unauthorised" dummies, which he now proudly exhibits -- draped in sheer dresses.

"We must hope," says Hayani.

"If things don't change, the war will return and everyone will leave."
A picture taken on an escorted tour by the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah movement shows a fighter planting the group's flag and the Lebanese national flag in the Lebanese border area of Jurud Arsal on July 26, 2017

Lebanon's Hezbollah movement and jihadist militants on Sunday started exchanging the bodies of fighters as part of a ceasefire deal for the restive Syria-Lebanon border.

The truce, announced by the movement and confirmed by Lebanon's General Security agency on Thursday, ended six days of a Hezbollah-led assault on Al-Qaeda's former Syrian branch in the mountainous Jurud Arsal border region.

Hezbollah's "War Media" outlet reported on Sunday that the "first phase of the deal" had begun.

"The bodies of nine Al-Nusra fighters will be handed over to the Lebanese General Security in exchange for the remains of five Hezbollah fighters who died in the Jurud battles," the outlet said.

It said the bodies of the Syrian militants had been transported to a hospital for medical examinations.

Their remains are then expected to be transported to Syria's northwestern province of Idlib.

Al-Nusra Front was Al-Qaeda's affiliate in Syria until mid-2016 when it broke off ties, before going on to found a new jihadist-led alliance called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which now controls large swathes of Idlib.

Hezbollah launched its offensive on Jurud Arsal -- a barren border area used by militants as a hideout for several years -- on July 21.

The group took media outlets on several guided tours of the territory it had secured, including an underground base allegedly used by militants.

Military-style vests were piled in one corner near stacked sandbags. Papers were strewn all over the carpeted floor in one room, and crates of ammunition were stored in another.

Hezbollah had cornered rival fighters in a small pocket of territory when it announced the truce.

Head of Lebanon's General Security agency Major General Ibrahim Abbas later confirmed the deal, which he said would also see the transfer "within days" of Syrian fighters and refugees to Idlib province with the help of Lebanon's Red Cross.

Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees live in the town of Arsal, adjacent to the border region, while an unknown number are also thought to have taken shelter in the surrounding mountains.

More than one million Syrians are registered with the United Nations as refugees in Lebanon, a country of just four million people.
A family walks through floodwater as Typhoon Nesat hits Pingtung county in southern Taiwan

Taiwan was hit Sunday by its second major storm in two days after Typhoon Nesat battered the island, leaving at least 111 injured while causing flooding and widespread power outages.

Much of the island came to a standstill on Saturday after Nesat made landfall in the eastern county of Yilan, whipping up massive waves of over 49 feet (15 metres) and dumping up to 23 inches (58 centimetres) of rain in the southern region of Pingtung.

It moved away from Taiwan Sunday as Tropical Storm Haitang churned towards the south of the island and made landfall in Pingtung in late afternoon, said the Central Weather Bureau.

It is the first time in 50 years that Taiwan has issued warnings for two such storms together.

"Even though Haitang is gradually weakening, it is expected to bring heavy rain in central and southern Taiwan from tonight to tomorrow and we urge people to be on guard," said forecaster Lin Ting-i.

The storm was 50 kilometres (31 miles) northwest of Eluanbi, the southernmost tip of the island, at 6 pm (1000 GMT).

More than 12,000 people have been evacuated since Saturday, with nearly 9,000 soldiers deployed for disaster relief.

Most train services were suspended and around 500 domestic and international flights cancelled or delayed during the weekend.

At least 111 people were injured, mostly by falling objects or car accidents while some slipped in the bad weather, according to the central emergency operation centre.

More than half a million households were without electricity as Nesat pounded the island with downpours and winds of up to 180 kilometres an hour.

Pingtung suffered the worst flooding as of Saturday night, with some 200 residents stranded but later rescued.

Images showed flooded homes and motorcyclists pushing their vehicles through water.

Around 60,000 households were still without electricity on Sunday though rail services had mostly resumed.

TV footage showed soldiers sending food to some homes in Pingtung, where streets remained flooded.

Two naval vessels anchored in the northern port of Keelung were damaged when they were rammed by a cruise ship whose mooring cable snapped in strong winds.

Although Nesat was Taiwan's first typhoon this year, the island was pounded by heavy rains last month.

Nesat made landfall at Fuqing city in China's southeastern province of Fujian early Sunday, according to state media, with authorities issuing a red typhoon alert -- the highest in China's colour-coded warning system.

Emergency response efforts have begun in neighbouring Zhejiang province, where more than 3,000 people have been evacuated, the China News Service reported.

Another typhoon, dubbed "Begonia", is expected to make landfall in Fujian either Sunday evening or Monday morning.
Deputy President William Ruto, left, with his running mate President Uhuru Kenyatta in June

Elite Kenyan security forces on Sunday killed a man at the home of Deputy President William Ruto, ending a 20-hour siege that left one officer dead and another wounded, security officials said.

Ruto and his family were not at the vast property in northwest Kenya when Saturday's attack began, less than two weeks before what are expected to be tightly-fought elections.

Ruto condemned the violence at a campaign rally on Sunday.

"Those who seek to frustrate our unity, undermine our progress or work towards destroying our nationhood will not succeed," he told supporters in the town of Murang'a.

Kenya's police chief Joseph Boinnet said one attacker was shot and killed in the assault, while a police officer was found dead after being taken hostage by the assailant in an armoury where he holed up.

"The situation is under control," Boinnet said, adding the attack began when an intruder stabbed a police officer guarding Ruto's house, wounding him and stealing his gun.

Regional security coordinator Wanyama Musyambo said the assailant then fled into an armoury on the compound's grounds.

"It was a very delicate operation because, being in the armoury, he was at an advantage and was firing various weapons, and this caused confusion because you would think there was more than one person firing," Musyambo said.

While Boinnet said there was only one assailant, several security sources had earlier told AFP that the assault was staged by multiple people using guns, raising the possibility that some of the attackers remain at large.

"There are armed people who staged the attack and have shot the GSU officer and stolen his gun," one security official said, referring to the elite police General Security Unit deployed to guard Ruto's house.

- Tensions mounting ahead of vote -

The deputy president had left the house shortly before the attack to attend rallies alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, his running mate who faces a re-election contest on August 8 against longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Kenyatta did not address the attack during appearances at multiple rallies on Sunday.

The weekend attack occurred despite the round-the-clock presence of GSU guards at the property, near the town of Eldoret, some 300 kilometres (200 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi.

Moses Wetang'ula, leader of one of five opposition parties in the coalition backing Odinga, called the incident "unfortunate" in comments to The Standard newspaper, but questioned if it could be an attempt to heighten security fears ahead of the vote.

"We hope it is not a ploy to play victim," Wetang'ula said.

Ruto's home sits in Kenya's western Rift Valley area, the flashpoint for an outbreak of clashes after the violence that followed the disputed 2007 polls, leaving 1,100 people dead and tarnishing Kenya's image as a regional beacon of safety and stability.

Opinion polls suggest this year's election will be close and tensions have been rising.

Odinga has repeatedly claimed the government is scheming to steal the election, while Kenyatta has accused Odinga of trying to delay the polls.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of threats and voter intimidation in Naivasha, a hotspot town in 2007 and one of the potential trouble spots in this year's election.

In the Rift Valley, hate speech flyers have been circulating and some local residents have already left their homes.

The 2007 bloodshed haunted both Ruto and Kenyatta long after it ended, when the International Criminal Court put both on trial for orchestrating the violence.

Those charges were later dropped, with ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda blaming a relentless campaign of victim intimidation for making a trial impossible.
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby and Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku take part in a ceremony installing Kuku as Sudan's first archbishop at Khartoum's All Saints Cathedral on July 30, 2017

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Sunday declared Sudan the 39th province of the worldwide Anglican Communion, six years after the predominantly Christian south gained independence from the north.

The Anglican church in Sudan, a majority Muslim country, has been administered from South Sudan since the 2011 split which followed a civil war that left more than two million people dead.

Sunday's ceremony in Khartoum added Sudan to the 85 million-strong worldwide Anglican communion's 38 member churches -- known as provinces -- and six other branches known as extra provincials.

Welby said that creating a 39th Anglican province with its own Khartoum-based archbishop was a "new beginning" for Christians in Sudan.

Sudanese Christians at a ceremony led by the Archbishop of Canterbury at Khartoum's All Saints Cathedral on July 30, 2017

He installed Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku as the country's first archbishop and primate at a ceremony in the capital's All Saints Cathedral attended by American, European and African diplomats as well as hundreds of worshippers.

"We welcome the new primate with jubilation," Welby announced to a cheering crowd as he handed a cross to Kuku.

- 'Autonomous church' -

Welby, spiritual head of the Church of England and of the global Anglican Communion, said it was a rare opportunity for an archbishop to declare a new primate.

"It is a responsibility for Christians to make this province work, and for those outside (Sudan) to support, to pray and to love this province," he said.

"The church must learn to be sustainable financially, to develop the skills of its people, and to bless this country as the Christians here already do."

The idea of a separate Anglican province in Sudan was first discussed in 2009 as it became clear that the south would secede.

Previously, the Episcopal Church of Sudan and South Sudan administered the region, Reverend Francis Clement of All Saints Cathedral told AFP.

"But after the split it was decided to have a separate, autonomous Episcopal Church of Sudan," he said.

"Today, we inaugurated that. It will have its own autonomous adminstration to take its own decisions."

There is no central Anglican authority such as a pope, with each member church making its own decision in its own ways guided by the Archbishop of Canterbury.

- Persecution -

Human rights and Christian campaign groups have regularly accused the Sudanese authorities of persecuting Christians and even destroying churches in the capital since the north-south split.

About three years ago two South Sudanese pastors, Yat Michael and Peter Yen, were arrested in Sudan on charges including spying and crimes against the state.

The two, arrested by agents of Sudan's powerful National Intelligence and Security Service (NISS), were released by a Khartoum court in August last year.

Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku, Sudan's newly appointed first archbishop, in Khartoum's All Saints Cathedral on July 30, 2017

Since the 1989 coup that brought Islamist backed President Omar al-Bashir to power, authorities in Khartoum have pursued Arabising and Islamising policies in a bid to unify the country.

This has stirred resentment and helped trigger a devastating civil war that ended with the secession of the mainly Christian south.

Later on Sunday, Welby met Bashir with whom he discussed issues concerning "protection" of Christians and churches in Sudan.

"We talked of how in England we seek to help mosques in ensuring that they are able to function well and freely," Welby said.

"In England, the Church of England often seeks to protect Muslims when they are under pressure," he said, indicating that he expected the same in Sudan when it came to protecting Christians.

Christian communities in Sudan today are mostly found in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan state. Experts say that between three and five percent of Sudan's about 25 million population are Christian.

US President Donald Trump is to decide on October 12 whether to permanently lift sanctions imposed in 1997 over Khartoum's alleged backing for Islamist militant groups.

Several campaign groups have urged Washington to maintain the sanctions or formulate new ones to address concerns over human rights violations, including alleged religious repression.
Israeli soldier Elor Azaria is embraced by his mother Oshra at the start of a hearing in a military court in Tel Aviv on February 21, 2017 at which he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for shooting dead a wounded Palestinian assailant

A military court on Sunday rejected an appeal by an Israeli soldier convicted of manslaughter and upheld his 18-month prison sentence for shooting dead a prone Palestinian assailant, Israeli media reports said.

The reports said military judges also rejected an appeal by prosecutors to increase the 18-month sentence for Elor Azaria, a sergeant and military medic at the time of the incident.

Azaria was convicted in January and sentenced the next month.

The March 2016 shooting in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron was caught on video by a rights group and spread widely online.

It showed Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, lying wounded on the ground, shot along with another Palestinian after stabbing and wounding a soldier, according to the army.

Azaria then shot him in the head without any apparent provocation.

He said he feared Sharif was wearing an explosive belt and could blow himself up, a claim judges rejected.
Israeli soldier Elor Azaria, who shot dead a wounded Palestinian assailant in March 2016, stands between his mother Oshra and father Charlie at a military court in Tel Aviv, on July 30, 2017

A military court on Sunday upheld a manslaughter conviction and 18-month prison sentence for an Israeli soldier who shot dead a prone Palestinian assailant in a case that deeply divided the country.

In addition to upholding the conviction, military judges also rejected an appeal by prosecutors to increase the sentence for Elor Azaria, a sergeant and military medic at the time of the incident, according to of the ruling.

"Soldiers should not settle their differences with the terrorists once they are no longer in danger -- that's up to the judiciary," the president of the military court, Major General Doron Piles, said.

"The accused did not shoulder the responsibility of his actions and has not once expressed any doubt... The appeal was therefore rejected by all the judges," he said.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu immediately repeated his call for a pardon for Azaria, whose actions drew harsh criticism from the military's top brass.

"My opinion has not changed when it comes to granting pardon to Elor Azaria and remains consistent to what I said after the verdict," Netanyahu said on Twitter.

"When the subject is discussed concretely, I will give my recommendation to the competent authorities."

The 21-year-old French-Israeli was convicted in January and sentenced in February.

He later appealed the verdict, while military prosecutors asked for an increased sentence after having initially requested between three and five years.

Azaria arrived at the military court in Tel Aviv on Sunday in a white V-neck shirt, smiling and hugging family members as he has done at previous hearings.

He completed his mandatory three-year military service on July 20 and was moved from confinement to his base to house arrest.

His imprisonment had been postponed pending his appeal.

- Azaria to appeal -

His lawyer Yoram Sheftel said Azaria has until August 9 to appeal the verdict and that he would be preparing to submit such a request to the supreme court "within 10 days".

But Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman has argued against an appeal, which analysts said the top court would not examine.

"This is not an easy day, but it is the verdict, and the court must be respected," Lieberman said.

"I am asking the Azaria family not to continue the appeal process... and to bring an end to this matter as quickly as possible for the good of Elor, his family and the Israeli people."

He said Azaria could request a pardon from the military chief of staff.

The chief of staff, Gadi Eisenkot, said in a statement Sunday that he would "seriously" consider reducing the jail sentence "and taking into account all considerations" in the case.

Azaria can also ask for a pardon from President Reuven Rivlin. A source close to Rivlin said that no such request had yet been filed.

- Captured on video -

The March 2016 shooting in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron was recorded on video by a rights group and spread widely online.

The father of Palestinian Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, who was shot dead by Israeli soldier Elor Azaria in March 2016 sits next to a portrait of his son on July 30

It showed Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, lying wounded on the ground, shot along with another Palestinian after stabbing and wounding a soldier, according to the army.

Azaria then shot him in the head without any apparent provocation.

He said he feared Sharif was wearing an explosive belt and could blow himself up, a claim judges rejected.

"His motive for shooting was that he felt the terrorist deserved to die," Judge Colonel Maya Heller said when reading the verdict in January.

The trial captivated Israel and highlighted deep divisions in public opinion between those who decry the shooting and those who say it was justified.

Military leaders strongly condemned Azaria's actions.

However, right-wing leaders, including Netanyahu, have called for him to be pardoned in an extraordinary public rift between politicians and the military.

Rights group Amnesty International has said Azaria's sentence does "not reflect the gravity of the offence", and the UN human rights office said it was an "unacceptable" punishment for "an apparent extra-judicial killing".
Rhino poaching is rife in southern Africa

Zambian authorities on Sunday said they had arrested three Chinese nationals and two locals found carrying pieces of rhino horn at the border with Mozambique.

Parks and wildlife ministry spokesman Sakabilo Kalembwe said the five were arrested at the Chanida border post.

They were held for "illegal possession of 25 rhino pieces weighing 32.2 kilograms (71 pounds)," Kalembwe said in a statement.

The origins of the horns could not be immediately confirmed.

On Wednesday a 24-year-old Chinese woman flying from Zambia with 20 kilograms of rhino horn was arrested at South Africa's main airport on her way to Hong Kong.

But Kalembwe said no rhino has been reported poached in Zambia nor were any horns missing from its stockpiles in recent days.

Four decades ago, Zambia boasted a healthy rhino population of around 12,000 but by 1998 the animal was declared extinct due to rampant poaching. A few dozen have now been reintroduced into the country.

Rhino poaching is rife in southern Africa, especially in South African game reserves, fuelled by cross-border syndicates who are feeding an insatiable demand for their horn in Asia.

Rhino horn is mistakenly believed to have medicinal powers including being anti-carcinogenic.

Roughly a quarter of the world rhino population has been killed in South Africa, home to 80 percent of those remaining, in the last eight years.
Mexican police patrol in Veracruz State, where scores of Central Americans being smuggled to the United States have been rescued from an abandoned truck

Nearly 150 Central Americans being smuggled to the United States were rescued Saturday in Mexico after traveling tightly packed in a poorly ventilated truck.

The rescue was initially described by authorities in eastern Veracruz state as a near-tragedy with chilling similarities to an incident last week in Texas in which 10 would-be migrants to the US perished.

But Mexican federal authorities later clarified that these travelers were found not inside the truck but rather after they had been told to get out, and were then abandoned by the roadside, without food or water.

Authorities said a total of 147 people were found in the town of Tantima in Mexico's Veracruz state. Originally the figure had been given as 178.

The migrants were from Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, and 48 were minors, 14 of them unaccompanied, the National Migration Institute said.

The migrants were crowded into the back of a tractor trailer truck with poor ventilation. Eventually, the smugglers overseeing them told the travelers to get out and hide amid the brush beside the road until them came back for them. But the travelers were abandoned.

After being found the Central Americans were taken to a migration center, where they were given medical assistance before authorities began the process of returning them home.

Their rescue came less than a week after the horrific suffocation deaths of 10 migrants who were trapped in an 18 wheel truck and discovered last Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas.

Authorities said as many as 200 migrants may have been crammed into the trailer. Many of them had to be hospitalized. Some survivors fled the parking lot in waiting cars, according to witness accounts.

Officials in the United States say fewer migrants are making the perilous overland journey to America from Central American and Mexico in recent months, in large part because of harsh, anti-immigrant rhetoric from US President Donald Trump, who came to power in January.

Migrants from Central America and Mexico willing to make the dangerous trip risk being victimized by thieves, criminal gangs and unscrupulous traffickers who sometimes take their money and abandon them in desperate conditions on either side of the US border.

Veracruz and the surrounding area has become one of the most dangerous regions for undocumented migrants making their way to the United States, according to rights groups, in part because of drug cartels like the notorious Zetas, which often charges a fee before allowing travelers safe passage.
The African Union has a 22,000 strong force in Somalia dedicated to fighting Shabaab

Shabaab militants in Somalia on Sunday claimed they had killed 39 African Union troops in an ambush in the country's south.

The claim by the Al-Qaeda linked insurgents, made by the group's spokesman on an affiliated radio station, could not be immediately verified.

Local residents did confirm to AFP that fighting had taken place Sunday in the Lower Shebelle region, a hotly contested area where Shabaab's spokesman said they had staged their ambush.

"The mujahedeen fighters stood over the dead bodies of 39 soldiers, among them senior commanders", Abdiaziz Abu Muzab told Andalus radio.

The African Union has a 22,000 strong force in the country dedicated to fighting Shabaab and backing up the internationally backed government in the capital Mogadishu.

Residents said the AU troops were ambushed in the village of Golweyn some 120 kilometres (74 miles) as they escorted supplies along the road that connects Mogadishu to Lower Shebelle.

"Fighting broke out and continued for more than one hour", said Ali Osman, a witness to the battle.

In April, a minibus travelling through Golweyn hit a landmine, killing at least 14 people.

That attack was also blamed on Shabaab, which has fought successive governments in Mogadishu and also carried out attacks in Kenya and Uganda.
Local fire chief Time Card told the Chronicle Telegram firefighters used a pocket knife to cut the boa's head off, before disposing of its body in a garbage bin

US authorities have released a recording of an emergency call in which a woman said this: "I've got a boa constrictor stuck to my face."

The 45-year-old resident of Sheffield Lake in the Midwestern state of Ohio called authorities Thursday after the 5' 6" (1.67 meters) long snake she had rescued tightened its grip around her body and began biting her nose.

"I've never heard of this before," an amazed phone operator says as the woman relates her predicament in a terrified voice.

"He's got my nose and he's around my waste," the victim says as the reptile continues its attack, adding: "There's blood everywhere." The snake was one of two boa constrictors she "rescued" a day earlier, she explains, that joined her nine pythons.

"Don't move ma'am," the operator says.

"I can't," the woman replies.

Emergency vehicles arrived four minutes later.

Local fire chief Time Card told the Chronicle Telegram that firefighters used a pocket knife to cut the snake's head off, then disposed of the body in a garbage bin.

The woman was hospitalized but out of danger, according to local news network Fox 8 Cleveland.
England's Ben Stokes appeals unsuccesfully for the wicket of South Africa's Temba Bavuma on July 30, 2017

Ben Stokes took two wickets in two balls to leave England eyeing victory in the third Test against South Africa at The Oval on Sunday.

South Africa were 117 for four at stumps on the fourth day, needing a further 375 runs to reach a colossal target of 492 -- the most made to win in the fourth innings of a Test is the West Indies' 418 for seven against Australia at St John's in 2003.

One consolation for the Proteas was the fight shown by Dean Elgar (72 not out) and Temba Bavuma (16 not out), who kept England at bay after joining forces with their side in dire trouble at 52 for four.

"(Hashim) Amla and (Quinton) de Kock are probably the two wickets we look at as being the main ones for us to try and get on a roll, so it's nice to see the back of those two already -- theyre in form and two really good players," Stokes told Sky Sports.

"But weve got two fighters still at the wicket at the moment, in Elgar and Bavuma, so hopefully...we can get them out early on (Monday)," he added.

- 'Intimidating' -

England's Jonny Bairstow bats on the fourth day of the third Test match between England and South Africa at The Oval cricket ground in London on July 30, 2017

The 100th Test at The Oval is turning into a personal triumph for Stokes after he laid the platform for England's dominant position with 112 in a first-innings total of 353.

"Today, he bowled as quickly as I've seen him bowl," said Stuart Broad of Stokes, with the England new ball-veteran comparing a return of two for 29 in eight overs to the kind of fiery display he used to witness at first-hand from Andrew Flintoff.

"It felt like one of those intimidating spells that Flintoff used to bowl -- just heavy, and at the batsman," added Broad, who removed South Africa opener Heino Kuhn after England captain Joe Root declared his side's second innings on 313 for eight at tea.

- 'Fight' -

A draw on Monday -- which would ensure this see-saw four-match series remained level at 1-1 ahead of next week's finale at Old Trafford -- is not yet beyond South Africa, who thrashed England by 340 runs in the second Test at Trent Bridge.

Elgar has a badly bruised finger but Proteas assistant coach Adrian Birrell insisted the left-handed opener would be fit to bat.

South Africa's Dean Elgar bats on July 30, 2017

"It's not broken, and if it was broken it wouldn't make a difference," he said.

Birrell added: "Were in a bit of a hole but we will fight...It's quite a buoyant change room -- it's not doom and gloom. There is hope."

Earlier, Toby Roland-Jones's dream debut then continued when, for the second time this Test, he had star batsman Amla out in single figures.

Amla had made just five when, trying to withdraw his bat, he saw the ball fly low off the face to Root at second slip.

Replays confirmed the catch and Amla, caught behind off Roland-Jones for six as the Middlesex seamer took five for 57 in the Proteas' meagre first innings 175, was on his way.

It was a far cry from five years ago at The Oval when Amla, now 34, struck South Africa's Test-record score of 311 not out.

Dangerman de Kock only managed five before he was bowled by an excellent Stokes yorker.

Next ball South Africa captain Faf du Plessis was out for a golden duck after he padded up to Stokes.

South Africa's captain Faf du Plessis walks back to the pavilion after losing his wicket on July 30, 2017

Du Plessis, who'd fallen in similar fashion to James Anderson for just one in the first innings, reviewed but to no avail.

Durham all-rounder Stokes was on a hat-trick at the start of his next over. Bavuma denied him that prize before Elgar completed a 77-ball fifty.

The only thing missing for England on a great day was a wicket for birthday boy Anderson, their all-time most successful Test bowler, who turned 35 on Sunday.

At the other end of the experience spectrum, England debutant number three Tom Westley made a maiden Test fifty after resuming on 28 not out.

Stokes and Jonny Bairstow, with a run-a-ball fifty, then kept the runs coming against a tiring attack.
Lee Mi-Hyang of South Korea, pictured on July 13, 2017, won the Scottish Open

South Korean Lee Mi-Hyang birdied the final hole to grab a one-shot victory after a dramatic women's Scottish Open at Dundonald Links on Sunday.

The 24-year-old trailed Australia's Karrie Webb by one stroke with two holes to play, but a disastrous double-bogey on the 17th saw Webb slip out of the lead.

The seven-time major champion hit back with a birdie at the par-five last, but it was too little, too late after Lee had matched that to claim the title with a six-under-par final round of 66, as Webb finished in a tie for second with Hur Mi-Jung.

"It was really a surprise for me. My front nine was amazing, and then I think I got a good start from my first hole," Lee told ladieseuropeantour.com, after her second LPGA Tour title.

"The first and second round, I hit it really good, but just I missed a lot of putts, so I tried to practice my putting with the wind."

The world number 49 went into the day six shots adrift of pace-setters Webb and Kim Sei-Young on level par for the tournament.

But birdies at the first two holes helped her creep up the leaderboard, and despite a bogey on the fourth, she reeled off four birdies in five holes to reach the turn in five-under 31.

Solid pars from then on kept Lee in contention, as Webb led her and Hur going into the final stretch after chipping in for eagle on the 14th.

With Hur in the clubhouse at -5 for the tournament, Webb dramatically collapsed.

A three-putt at 16 saw the 42-year-old Webb's lead cut to one, before she found two bunkers en route to the costly six on the penultimate hole.

"I absolutely knotted my 3-wood exactly how I wanted and my caddie said it kicked into the bunker. I have no idea how it did that," said the Aussie great.

After Lee's birdie four on the 72nd green saw her post a target of six under par, Webb needed to hole another bunker shot for eagle to force a play-off, but had to settle for birdie and a closing effort of one-over 73.

In-form Spaniard Carlota Ciganda and American Cristie Kerr also threatened at various stages, but finished in a tie for fourth place on four-under.
French Defence Minister Florence Parly will tour three Sahel countries

French Defence Minister Florence Parly arrived in Chad on Sunday, at the start of a tour of three Sahel countries, assuring that French troops in the region will have the means to carry out their mission against jihadist insurgents.

"You can count on my determination that you will have the necessary means to carry out your mission," she told the head of Operation Barkhane -- a 4,000-man French mission to shore up fragile Sahel countries against jihadist bombings, shootings and kidnappings.

"It's my fight, it's less risky than yours, of course," she added.

Parly was beginning a two-day swing of the region, during which she will be joined by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen in a joint show of support for the initiative.

Parly "will reaffirm France's support for the emergence of a joint G5 Sahel force (...) tasked with playing a key role in fighting terrorism and trafficking which are contributing to instability in the region," the French defence ministry said in a statement ahead of her arrival.

After meeting Chadian President Idriss Deby in Ndjamena, Parly will heald for talks in Niger with head of state Mahamadou Issoufou and with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in Mali.

The planned G5 Sahel anti-terror force would gather Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in a 5,000-man joint unit.

France is trying to muster international support for the estimated 423 million euros ($480 million) it will cost, as the participating countries rank among the poorest nations in the world.

Newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron has won a commitment -- yet to be detailed -- from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to support the scheme.

Von der Leyen will join Parly in Niger and Mali where they will "seize the opportunity to show their support for providing equipment and training for the G5 force, as well as their active efforts to mobilise European and international partners to support their action," the French defence ministry said.
President Donald Trump provided assurances Monday that his administration will 'handle' North Korea following Kim Jong-un's latest act of aggression - an intercontinental ballistic missile launch last Friday.

'We'll handle North Korea. We're going to be able to handle them. It will be handled. We handle everything,' Trump said as he sat alongside Defense Secretary James Mattis during a cabinet meeting this morning.

The time for talk on North Korea is 'over', the United States said Sunday, spurning a UN response to Pyongyang's latest ICBM launch in favor of bomber flights and missile defense system tests.

Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the United Nations, said yesterday that there was 'no point' in holding a fruitless emergency Security Council session, warning that another weak council resolution would be 'worse than nothing' in light of the North's repeated violations.

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'We'll handle North Korea. We're going to be able to handle them. It will be handled. We handle everything,' Trump said as he sat alongside his Defense secretary, James Mattis, during a cabinet meeting this morning

This July 28, 2017 picture released from North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency shows North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile Hwasong-14 being launched at an undisclosed place in North Korea

North Korean leader Kim boasted of his country's ability to strike any target in the US after an intercontinental ballistic missile test Friday which weapons experts said could even bring New York into range -- a major challenge to Trump.

US strategic bombers on Saturday flew over the Korean peninsula in a direct response to the launch, and on Sunday American forces successfully tested a missile interception system which the US hopes will be installed on the Korean peninsula.

Under Kim's leadership, North Korea has accelerated its drive toward a credible nuclear strike capability, in defiance of international condemnation and multiple sets of UN sanctions. The US Senate passed new bipartisan sanctions on Pyongyang on Friday.

Haley urged China, Japan and South Korea to tighten the screws on Pyongyang after the missile launch.

'An additional Security Council resolution that does not significantly increase the international pressure on North Korea is of no value,' she said in a statement late Sunday.

'It sends the message to the North Korean dictator that the international community is unwilling to seriously challenge him.

'China must decide whether it is finally willing to take this vital step. The time for talk is over.'

Nikki Haley, the US envoy to the United Nations, said yesterday that there was 'no point' in holding a fruitless emergency Security Council session. She's seen speaking to reporters last week at the UN

Earlier, Trump warned that he would not allow China -- the impoverished North's sole major ally and economic lifeline -- to 'do nothing' about Pyongyang.

In two tweets Trump linked trade strains with the Asian giant -- marked by a trade deficit of $309 billion last year -- to policy on North Korea, after South Korea indicated it could speed up the deployment of a US missile defense system that has infuriated China.

'I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk,' Trump wrote.

'We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!'

Trump has repeatedly urged China to rein in its recalcitrant neighbor, but Beijing insists dialogue is the only practical way forward and rejects suggestions it has a special responsibility in the situation.

'The DPRK nuclear issue is not due to China, the settlement of the DPRK nuclear issue requires the concerted efforts of all parties and the parties should properly recognise this issue,' China's foreign ministry said in a statement, using the acronym for North Korea's official name.

Timeline of nuclear and major missile tests in North Korea since January 2016

A US Air Force B-1B Lancer assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, deployed from Dyess Air Force Base in Texas, prepares for a 10-hour mission from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, into Japanese airspace and over the Korean Peninsula

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reacts during the long-range strategic ballistic rocket Hwasong-12 (Mars-12) test launch in this undated photo released by North Korea's Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on May 15, 2017

Beijing also rejected Trump's linkage of trade and the North, with commerce vice-minister Qian Keming saying at a briefing Monday the issues 'are not related, and should not be discussed together'.

But Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of US treaty ally Japan, also urged Beijing to act -- along with Moscow -- after telephone talks with Trump on Monday Tokyo time.

The North has 'trampled all over' efforts to seek a peaceful solution to the situation and 'unilaterally escalated' tensions, he said.

'The international community including China and Russia must take it seriously and step up pressure,' Abe told reporters.

Russia's foreign ministry, however, said it was 'unjustified' for the US and other nations to try to blame Moscow and Beijing for the situation.

Pyongyang lauded the developers of the missile at the weekend, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported.

The US-led campaign only provided 'further justification' for the North's resolve to maintain its weapons programs, the foreign ministry said in a statement carried by KCNA.

The ICBM test 'is meant to send a stern warning to the US making senseless remarks, being lost to reason in the frantic sanctions and pressure campaign against the DPRK,' it said.

General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, said Saturday that the US is 'ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing' if it has to.

'Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario,' O'Shaughnessy said.

Analysts said the talking coming out of Washington, however, is evidence that the Trump administration has run out of patience with the diplomatic approach, and could consider military intervention.

The latest ICBM test 'poses a seemingly tangible threat to the national security of the US', said Jeung Young-Tae, director of military studies at Dongyang University in South Korea.

'Now the US will see no point in negotiation, which only helps Pyongyang earn more time to develop its weapons programmes,' he said.

'Whether we want it or not, the risk of unilateral military action by the US cannot be ruled out at this point.'
A young injured Syrian looks at United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent convoy trucks arriving in the rebel-held town of Nashabiyah in eastern Ghouta on July 30, 2017 to deliver aid packages for the first time in five years

A region besieged by the regime forces east of Syria's capital on Sunday received UN aid for the first time in five years, a UN source said.

Al-Nashabiye is in the Eastern Ghouta region, a rebel-held area on the outskirts of Damascus that has been ravaged during the six-year conflict.

On July 22, the government declared a ceasefire in parts of the enclave, one of four proposed "de-escalation zones" designated in a deal reached by its allies Iran and Russia and rebel backer Turkey in May.

"This is the first time that a humanitarian convoy has entered Al-Nashabiye in five years," a source involved in the UN aid delivery said.

The source said food and non-food aid was delivered to 7,200 needy people, days after further aid deliveries in Eastern Ghouta.

Russia said on Tuesday it had delivered more than 10,000 tonnes of humanitarian aid to the Ghouta area.

More than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since its conflict broke out in March 2011 with anti-government protests.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - Attorney General Jeff Sessions is eager to use his aggressive work against the MS-13 street gang to help mend his tattered relationship with President Donald Trump. "I hope so," he said Friday, trying to turn the corner from a week of sour performance reviews from his boss.

"It's one of many issues that we share deep commitments about," he told The Associated Press from a private room in the headquarters of El Salvador's national police force, where he had met law enforcement officials to talk about quashing the violent transnational gang.

That common concern about MS-13 was on display Friday as Trump spoke about the gang in Long Island, where MS-13 violence has resurfaced with a vengeance, and as Sessions toured a gang stronghold, motoring around El Salvador's graffiti-laced streets alongside rifle-wielding police officers who had tried to clear the neighborhood of gangsters before he arrived. MS-13 has roots both in Central America and Los Angeles.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions boards his plane before his departure from San Salvador, El Salvador, Friday, July 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

But in his speech vowing to crush MS-13, Trump never mentioned Sessions.

"These are animals," Trump told law enforcement officials and relatives of crime victims in Brentwood, in Suffolk County, New York, where MS-13 has been blamed for a string of gruesome murders, including the killing of four young men in April.

The president battered Sessions for days with a series of tweets calling him weak and ineffective, his discontent centered on Sessions' decision months ago to recuse himself from the investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia. Sessions said Thursday he won't resign unless Trump asks him to and spoke loyally of the president while saying he was right to take himself out of that investigation after acknowledging he had met the Russian ambassador during the campaign.

Though thousands of miles apart, Trump and Sessions seemed aligned in their message against MS-13. The gang has become a focal point in the national immigration debate, although it is in some respects a homegrown organization and it is unclear how many of its members are in the U.S. illegally.

"It is in a very expansive mode and we need to slam the door on that," Sessions said in the AP interview. "We need to stop them in their tracks and focus on this dangerous group."

The intense focus on gang violence is a departure for a Justice Department that has viewed as more urgent the prevention of cyberattacks from foreign criminals, international bribery and the threat of homegrown violent extremism.

But alarm about the gang has grown as it has preyed on largely suburban, immigrant communities. Several top officials in Sessions' office have experience prosecuting the gang in Baltimore, Alexandria, Virginia, and other cities.

MS-13, or the Mara Salvatrucha, is believed by federal prosecutors to have more than 10,000 members in the U.S., a mix of immigrants from Central America and U.S.-born members. The gang originated in Los Angeles in the 1980s then entrenched itself in Central America when its leaders were deported.

MS-13 and rival groups in El Salvador now control entire towns, rape girls and young women, kill competitors and massacre students, bus drivers and merchants who refuse to pay extortion.

One purpose of Sessions' trip was to learn more about how the gang's activities in El Salvador affect crime in the U.S. Officials believe major gang leaders are using cellphones from Salvadoran prisons to instruct members who have crossed into the U.S. illegally to kill rivals and extort immigrants.

Zach Terwilliger, who prosecuted gangs in the Eastern District of Virginia before taking a position in the deputy attorney general's office, found that to be true in some of his cases.

"We have to coordinate our intelligence," Terwilliger said. "I don't think you can understand MS-13 violence and the way they conduct themselves in the U.S. unless you come down here." He and leaders of the department's criminal division traveled with Sessions.

During his two-day trip, his first visit to El Salvador, the attorney general wandered through a crowded jail where members of rival gangs wearing white T-shirts sat side-by-side in large cells, their backs facing the curious onlookers. He met members of a transnational anti-gang task force and pledged his support for El Salvador's Attorney General Douglas Melendez, congratulating him on charges laid over the last two days against more than 700 gang members, many of them from MS-13.

Sessions recalled early conversations he had with Trump about the gang. "He saw the violent murders in Islip, New York, and he's asked about it personally," Sessions said. Trump then crafted an executive order in the first weeks of his presidency, directing the Justice Department to go after transnational gangs, and Sessions was eager to make it a priority.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions listens to Howard Augusto Cotto Castaneda, Director General of the National Police as they look over the city from the roof during a visit to the National Police Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador, Friday, July 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

President Donald Trump pumps his fist after speaking to law enforcement officials on the street gang MS-13, Friday, July 28, 2017, in Brentwood, N.Y. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks during his interview with The Associated Press, Friday, July 28, 2017, at the National Police Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, center, walks with Howard Augusto Cotto Castaneda, left, during a visit to the National Police Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador, Friday, July 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
BOSTON (AP) - A defrocked priest at the center of Boston's Roman Catholic clergy sex abuse scandal was released from prison on Friday and settled into an apartment across the street from a children's dance studio.

Paul Shanley, who had been convicted of raping a boy in the 1980s, moved to the town of Ware, about 65 miles (105 kilometers) west of Boston, after being released from the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, where he completed a 12-year sentence. Shanley, 86, used a cane and was helped by a man as he arrived in Ware, followed by a group of reporters and photographers.

His new home in a multiunit building is across from a recently opened dance studio that teaches children as young as 2. The studio's owner, Arielle Lask, said she plans to install "state-of-the-art" security systems and to make sure every child leaves the studio accompanied by an adult.

This undated identification photo released via the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board website shows Paul Shanley, released Friday, July 28, 2017, from the Old Colony Correctional Center in Bridgewater, Mass. Shanley, now 86, was a figure in the Boston Roman Catholic priest sex abuse scandal. He was released after completing a 12-year sentence for the rape of a boy in the 1980s. (Massachusetts Sex Offender Registry Board via AP)

"It's awful that he's even on the streets of Ware," Lask told The Boston Globe. "Whether it's across the street or down the road, there are children everywhere."

As a condition of Shanley's 10-year probation, he has been ordered to have no contact with children under age 16.

Ware police Chief Shawn Crevier said Shanley has registered as a sex offender and posters will be displayed around town notifying the public that Shanley is living in the area, which is typical procedure for the police department.

"We're going to do what we need to do to make sure the citizens are protected and his rights are also protected," Crevier said.

Shanley will be at least the third sex offender living on his street, he said.

Prosecutors sought to hold Shanley beyond his criminal sentence under a law that allows civil commitment of people deemed sexually dangerous. But two psychologists hired by the state found he did not meet the legal criteria to hold him.

A lawyer who represented Shanley in his criminal appeal said he's confident Shanley will not harm anyone. But attorney Robert Shaw Jr. said he understands the reaction from those who opposed Shanley's release from prison.

"I'm sure that law enforcement will ensure that the community feels safe, and I have every expectation that they are going to fulfill their obligation and be certain that Paul Shanley also remains safe," Shaw said.

The state's sex offender registry designates Shanley as a Level 3 offender, considered the most likely to reoffend. But the two psychologists cited Shanley's advanced age and his health issues and concluded his likelihood to reoffend is low.

Attorney Mitchell Garabedian, who represented dozens of men who say they were abused by Shanley, said the evaluations were incomplete because the psychologists didn't interview Shanley. Instead, they reviewed police reports, prosecutors' files and Shanley's church personnel file containing numerous sexual abuse complaints against him.

"Paul Shanley should be in a hospital being treated and not in the outside world where he can easily gain access to innocent children," Garabedian said.

Both psychologists found Shanley meets the psychiatric criteria for pedophilic disorder. But they said research suggests recidivism rates for people of his age are extremely low. They also cited Shanley's health issues, which were blacked out from the reports, and the fact his last reported offense was in 1990.

Shanley was a street priest who ministered to alienated youths in the 1960s and '70s. Dozens of men came forward decades later and said Shanley had molested or raped them. He was defrocked by the Vatican in 2004 and was convicted of raping a boy at a Newton parish in 2005.

The archdiocese said this week it will not provide Shanley with financial support or benefits. Republican Gov. Charlie Baker said he will review the standards for civilly committing convicted sex offenders who have served their prison sentences.

Reporting by the Globe's Spotlight team helped break open the priest sex abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002. The reporting uncovered how dozens of priests in the archdiocese had molested and raped children for decades while church higher-ups covered it up and shuffled abusive priests from parish to parish.

A movie about the Globe's reporting, called "Spotlight," won the 2016 Academy Award for best picture.

___

Associated Press writers Collin Binkley and Bob Salsberg contributed to this report.

A Ware Police patrol car passes the yellow house on Pulaski Street Friday, July 28, 2017, in Ware, Mass., which will be home for Paul Shanley, a priest in the Boston Roman Catholic priest sex abuse scandal who was released from prison Friday morning. (Dave Roback/The Republican via AP)

Robert M Hoatson and Ruth Moore protest the release of former priest Paul Shanley on Friday, July 28, 2017 at Massachusetts Old Colony Correctional Facility in Bridgewater, Mass. Shanley , anotorious figure in Boston's Roman Catholic priest sex abuse scandal was quietly released from the prison Friday morning after completing a 12-year sentence for the rape of a boy in the 1980s. (David L. Ryan /The Boston Globe via AP)
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka had a private lunch Friday with Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, and the White House said the U.N. chief invited her to follow up on her launch of a fund to help women entrepreneurs access capital.

U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq had no comment on the 90-minute meeting in Guterres' private offices. Ivanka, a senior adviser to her father, left U.N. headquarters without answering shouted questions on what was discussed. When she arrived, she smiled but also said nothing.

A White House official said the two discussed areas of common interest after the launch of the World Bank's economic facility to advance women's entrepreneurship that Trump's daughter supported.

Ivanka Trump walks with U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres to a meeting in his office at United Nations headquarters, Friday, July 28, 2017. (UN Photo by Eskinder Debebe via AP)

The official, who insisted on speaking anonymously, said Ivanka Trump coordinated her conversations with U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley. But Haley did not attend the lunch.

Ivanka Trump joined World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim earlier this month on the sidelines of the Group of 20 world leaders' summit to launch the Women Entrepreneurs Finance Initiative.

Kim said at the time that the fund had raised more than $325 million so far for projects and programs to support women and women-led businesses by improving access to capital and markets, providing technical assistance, training and mentoring, and pushing public policy.

The fund grew out of conversations between Ivanka Trump and Kim early in Trump's administration. The president announced a $50 million contribution from the United States at the launch.

While women entrepreneurs were one focus of their meeting, Guterres was also likely to have brought up the significant cuts to the U.N. budget proposed by the president and U.S. opposition to the 2015 Paris climate change agreement, which the secretary-general strongly supports.

Haley told CBS's "Face the Nation" earlier this month that she thinks Ivanka Trump considers herself "part of a public servant family" and wants to put forward "some effort to try and help the world."
BELLPORT, N.Y. (AP) - Some immigrant high school students are being unfairly swept up in a growing hysteria over the brutal MS-13 street gang, civil rights lawyers said.

At least nine students from Long Island's Suffolk County, east of New York City, have been sent to U.S. immigration detention facilities after being falsely labeled as gang members, the New York Civil Liberties Union said.

None of the teens had ever faced criminal charges related to gangs, and in some cases their alleged gang activity was wearing a black T-shirt or making a hand gesture, the NYCLU said.

"No child deserves to have his life upended or be ripped away from family based on flimsy allegations," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. "Children who in many cases came to America to flee gang violence are being disappeared to face deportation without adequate protections or investigation."

The organization wrote Thursday to the U.S. Office of Refugee Resettlement, which has jurisdiction over minors who enter the U.S. illegally unaccompanied by their parents, saying it believed the teens' detentions violated a federal court order and U.S. law.

MS-13 violence on Long Island began to get attention last summer, when two students at Brentwood High School - best friends Nisa Mickens, 15, and Kayla Cuevas, 16 - were beaten and hacked to death in a suspected gang attack. They were among 17 people believed to have been killed by the gang on eastern Long Island since the start of 2016. Most of the people arrested in those killings were in the U.S. illegally, law enforcement officials have said.

In a visit to Brentwood on Friday, President Donald Trump promised to use tough enforcement of immigration law to get gang members thrown out of the country.

"They butchered those little girls," the Republican president said. "They kidnap. They extort. They rape, and they rob. ... They shouldn't be here."

Immigration and civil rights lawyers, though, said a crackdown in some Suffolk County schools has gone too far.

The NYCLU said one student was suspended for wearing a Chicago Bulls shirt, a possible gang symbol, to school and another for posting an El Salvadoran flag on a Facebook page.

Attorney Peter Brill, who represents three students suspended from Bellport High School, said one was later detained by immigration officials. All three were from Central America and initially entered the U.S. illegally.

"They all vehemently deny being involved in gangs," Brill said. "They all fled their countries to get away from gang violence. This doesn't make sense."

Two students at Bellport High were among four people massacred in a park in Central Islip in April in a suspected MS-13 gang attack.

Joseph Giani, superintendent of schools in the district that oversees Bellport High, stood by the students' suspensions and denied disclosing student information to police.

Suffolk County police Commissioner Timothy Sini told The New York Times last month there were times when officers couldn't make criminal arrests so officers work with federal immigration officials to target known gang members "for violation of civil immigration laws, which is another way to remove dangerous individuals from our streets."

Children who enter the U.S. illegally, unaccompanied by their parents, are treated differently under U.S. law. They aren't immediately deported if caught at the border, like adults, and can be placed with relatives in the U.S. while they undergo a lengthy vetting process.

The NYCLU said a consent decree signed in 1997 and a federal law enacted in 2002 require juvenile detainees be placed in the least restrictive setting unless it's determined they pose a threat to themselves or others. Juveniles also must have the ability to contest the detainment.

"This is causing us concern, where labeling someone as gang affiliated is not enough to make a criminal arrest," attorney Philip Desgranges said. "But it's causing kids to spiral into this system where they're whisked away.
WASHINGTON (AP) - His White House in turmoil, President Donald Trump abruptly announced late Friday he was appointing Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly to be his chief of staff, ending the tumultuous six-month tenure of Reince Priebus.

After months of speculation about Priebus' fate, Trump tweeted his decision as he landed in Washington after a speech in New York in which he lavishly praised Kelly's performance at Homeland Security.

Priebus, the former Republican National Committee head, had been a frequent target of rumors about his job security amid infighting and confusion within the White House and a long whisper campaign by Trump allies. Then, on Thursday, he was assailed in a remarkable and profane public rebuke by Trump's newly appointed White House communications director, Anthony Scaramucci.

White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino, left, walks with former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus steps off Air Force One as they arrive Friday, July 28, 2017, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. Trump says Homeland Secretary John Kelly is his new White House chief of staff. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Priebus said he had offered his resignation on Thursday and the president accepted though those close to the president said the ouster had been in the works for weeks.

"I think the president wanted to go a different direction," Priebus told CNN just hours after his exit was announced. He added that he agreed the White House might well benefit from "a reset," and he said, "I'm always going to be a Trump fan. I'm on Team Trump."

Trump's announcement on Twitter said, "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 ... and a Great Leader. John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security. He has been a true star of my Administration."

He also saluted Priebus, the chief of staff he had just pushed out.

"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!"

Kelly is a retired Marine four-star general though he has little experience in civilian government or the legislative process. Trump had focused on him in recent days, telling those close to him that he loved the general's star power and that he believed military discipline was what his administration needed.

Priebus never could bring a semblance of order to the team of in-fighting rivals that populate Trump's West Wing, and questions about his future have long swirled around the office. Those questions sharply escalated this week with the arrival of Scaramucci, the hard-charging communications director who was hired over Priebus' objections.

Priebus' already tense relationship with Scaramucci took a darker turn over the past two days when the communications chief suggested in a late-night tweet that Priebus was one of the "leakers" that Trump has railed against. The New Yorker magazine published an interview Thursday in which Scaramucci called Priebus, amid an avalanche of vulgarity, a "paranoid schizophrenic."

Priebus, who hails from Wisconsin and has deep ties to House Speaker Paul Ryan, had grown increasingly isolated in the White House, as past Republican National Committee colleagues and other allies have left or been pushed out. Those who have departed include former deputy chief of staff Katie Walsh, former communications chief Mike Dubke, press secretary Sean Spicer and press aide Michael Short.

Another early departure from the Trump White House was National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and Trump ousted FBI Director James Comey early on. He has lobbed Twitter insults at Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently though Sessions is still in place.

Ryan, in a statement, said Priebus "has left it all out on the field, for our party and our country." Ryan added that he looked forward to working with Kelly.

Both Scaramucci and Priebus traveled to New York's Long Island with Trump on Friday for a speech in which the president highlighted efforts to crack down on the gang MS-13. The chief of staff took the return flight to Washington, his fate sealed in the tweets that were sent by the president just as Priebus stepped off the plane.

Shortly before the president deplaned, Priebus' black SUV pulled away, leaving the rest of the motorcade, including the president's vehicle, in the distance. The president eventually emerged, umbrella in hand, and delivered a brief statement on the runway as driving rain poured.

Rep. Peter King of New York sat across from the outgoing chief of staff on Air Force One's return flight to Washington and said Priebus "kept a poker face."

Priebus' term ends in fewer than 200 days, the shortest tenure for any president's first White House chief of staff since the post was formally established in 1946. From day one, his power has been limited compared with past officials with his title. In a highly unusual arrangement, Trump said at the outset that Priebus and chief strategist Steve Bannon would serve as "equal partners" in implementing his agenda.

Scaramucci was the latest top aide to be granted a direct line to Trump, and it became increasingly unclear who actually reported to Priebus. Though Priebus forged an uneasy truce with his former foe Bannon, powerful White House aides Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner, were both supportive of Kelly's hire.

Priebus was blamed by some within the White House for the failure of the Republican health care plan, with some Trump allies believing that Priebus' longtime relationships with Republicans on Capitol Hill should have ensured the bill's passage.

Though Priebus had told allies he hoped to stay, many around Trump had been working on his departure for quite some time.

The final go-ahead came during a meeting Thursday night in which Trump finalized that Kelly was his pick to replace Priebus, according to two people familiar with the discussion The president had considered others, including political operatives David Urban and Wayne Berman, for the job. But he decided on Kelly because he was impressed by the job he had done leading DHS and trusted him not to leak.

Priebus, a political operative and attorney, is expected to look for a corporate job or possibly write a book about his experience in the center of the Trump storm. One of the final establishment Republicans in the White House, he was a frequent target of barbs from Trump over not being an early backer of the celebrity businessman's candidacy.

As Homeland Security secretary, Kelly has taken the lead on some of Trump's most controversial policies, including his executive orders suspending the admission of refugees and temporarily barring visitors from several Muslim-majority nations. Those orders have been stripped down by courts pending a Supreme Court review this fall.

People who know Kelly told The Associated Press that he was not aware of the details of those initial orders until around the time that Trump signed them. Yet, just days after taking office, Kelly had to lead the agency as it dealt with the chaos and confusion that ensued at airports in the U.S. and around the world. He defended the orders to reporters and lawmakers and insisted that he indeed had been part of the decision-making process.

Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, a frequent Trump critic, welcomed Kelly as "one of the strongest and most natural leaders I've ever known."

___

Associated Press writers Catherine Lucey, Vivian Salama, Julie Pace, Steve Peoples and Laurie Kellman contributed reporting.

___

Follow Lemire on Twitter at http://twitter.com/@JonLemire and Colvin at http://twitter.com/@colvinj

FILE - In this May 17, 2017, file photo, President Donald Trump talks with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly during commencement exercises at the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in New London, Conn. Trump named Kelly as his new Chief of Staff on July 28, ousting Reince Priebus. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)

President Donald Trump speaks with reporters after firing Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and naming Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly as his new Chief of Staff, Friday, July 28, 2017, in Andrews Air Force Base, Md. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

FILE - In this June 6, 2017, file photo, Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. President Donald Trump named Kelly as his new Chief of Staff on July 28, ousting Reince Priebus. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Latest on President Donald Trump replacing Reince Priebus as chief of staff (all times local):

7:25 p.m.

Outgoing White House chief of staff Reince Priebus says that he formally resigned from his job after it became clear the president wanted to go in a different direction.

White House Director of Social Media Dan Scavino, left, walks with former White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus as they step off Air Force One as they arrives Friday, July 28, 2017, at Andrews Air Force Base, Md. Trump says Homeland Secretary Secretary John Kelly is his new White House chief of staff. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Priebus tells CNN that he resigned on Thursday. President Donald Trump announced the staff shakeup in a Friday tweet.

Trump has picked Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly as his new chief of staff.

Priebus says he supports the president and that he's "doing great" personally.

Priebus says he intends to continue working at the White House for a couple of weeks to ease the transition of his replacement.

Priebus calls Kelly a "brilliant pick" and says he himself remains a Trump fan.

___

7:05 p.m.

Outgoing Homeland Security Secretary and new White House chief of staff John Kelly is thanking the staff at DHS for the opportunity to serve as their secretary.

Kelly says in a statement that, when he left the Marines, he never thought he would find as committed, as professional, as patriotic a group of individuals. He says he was wrong.

President Donald Trump has picked the retired Marine general to replace Reince Priebus as his chief of staff. Kelly says that he is "honored to be asked" to take the job.

___

6:40 p.m.

House Speaker Paul Ryan says Reince Priebus served President Donald Trump and the American people capably, passionately and with class.

Trump tweeted Friday that he has replaced Priebus with retired Marine Gen. John Kelly, who is the secretary of homeland security. Kelly starts Monday.

Ryan says Priebus "left it all out on the field" for the party and the country and he could not be more proud to call Priebus a "dear friend." Both are from Wisconsin and are longtime friends.

Priebus was head of the Republican National Committee before joining the White House as chief of staff.

Ryan offered his congratulations to Kelly and said he looks forward to working with him.

___

5:30 p.m.

President Donald Trump says the aide he's replacing as chief of staff, Reince Priebus, is a "good man."

Trump made the comment to reporters after he tweeted the news that Priebus' successor as chief of staff is the secretary of homeland security, John Kelly.

He added of the retired Marine general: "John Kelly will do a fantastic job."

Priebus' hold on the White House job has long been in question, more so this week after Trump's new communications director badmouthed him to a reporter for the New Yorker. Trump hired Anthony Scaramucci over Priebus's objections and Scaramucci reports directly to the president.

Trump is calling Kelly "a true star" of the administration. Trump also tweeted his thanks to Priebus.

___

5:05 p.m.

President Donald Trump says Gen. John F. Kelly is his new White House chief of staff.

That means Reince Priebus is out.

Trump tweeted: "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."

Kelly is currently the secretary of Homeland Security.

Trump tweeted that Kelly "has been a true star of my administration."

Priebus traveled with Trump earlier in the day to an appearance in Brentwood, New York. Trump thanked him for his service and "dedication to his country."
LOS BANOS, Calif. (AP) - A teenage driver accused of causing a crash that killed her younger sister while livestreaming on Instagram will remain in jail after a California judge on Friday refused to lower bail.

Obdulia Sanchez, wearing yellow jail garb, sobbed as she entered the Merced County courtroom, and a bailiff handed her tissues.

Bail remains set at $560,000. Merced County Superior Court Judge David Moranda said it was on probation officers' recommendations, and that Sanchez had a prior reckless driving case as a juvenile.

FILE - This July 22, 2017 file photo provided by the Merced County Sheriff, shows Obdulia Sanchez, in Merced, Calif. Prosecutors charged Sanchez, a teenage driver on Wednesday, July 26, with vehicular manslaughter while intoxicated and other counts after she lost control of her car while livestreaming on Instagram and recorded a crash that killed her younger sister. Sanchez was driving the car on Friday when it veered onto the shoulder of a road about 75 miles northwest of Fresno, authorities said. (Merced County Sheriff via AP, File)

Defense attorney Ramnik Samrao asked the judge to either lower the bail or allow his client to go free pending the case. He said that she has lived in group homes and has no way of raising that large sum.

"That's just absurd to believe that she would be able to do that," Samrao said outside the courtroom. "I think this bail is excessive for her, and it should have been reduced."

Prosecutors say the video, which includes images of the 18-year-old bouncing to music while in the driver's seat and taking her hands from the steering wheel, will be a key piece of evidence in the case.

Sanchez has pleaded not guilty to six felony counts that include gross vehicular manslaughter and drunken driving resulting in injuries. She could spend more than 13 years in state prison if convicted of all the charges.

Authorities say the Stockton woman was driving one week ago when the car veered onto the shoulder of a road about 75 miles (121 kilometers) northwest of Fresno.

She overcorrected, causing the vehicle to swerve and overturn into a field, ejecting and killing her 14-year-old sister, Jacqueline Sanchez, authorities say.

Obdulia Sanchez also spit and hurled racial slurs at first responders on the scene, kicking a paramedic in the face, so they strapped her to a gurney, say police reports in her court file.

An officer reported that she gave off a strong smell of alcohol and refused an alcohol screening, so officers obtained her medical records from the hospital where she was treated, showing she was legally drunk, the police reports say.

Before entering the courtroom, Nicandro Sanchez said that he feels he has lost two daughters. "Now I don't have my daughters - the young one, and the other one I lost too because (she is) in jail," the father said in English.

He spoke briefly on his daughter's behalf in court, saying through a Spanish interpreter that he had no hard feelings against her. "We're asking that she be returned home or to the home where she was being taken care of," he said.

Samrao said that the video does not show his client calling for help immediately after the crash, refuting claims that she didn't try to assist her dying sister.

The attorney explained his client's belligerent behavior toward first responders as her emotional reaction to being pulled away from her dead sister.

After a gap in the livestreamed video, Sanchez is seen leaning over the girl's body, saying she was sorry. She said she expected to spend the rest of her life in prison but doesn't care.

"This is the last thing I wanted to happen, OK? ... Rest in peace, sweetie," the teen says. "If you don't survive, I'm so (expletive) sorry."

Samrao said the teen believes she killed her sister. However, the court hasn't yet determined whether Sanchez committed any crimes, he said.

Merced County Chief Deputy District Attorney Harold Nutt has called the behavior displayed on the video "disturbing and shocking." He said the judge's decision to retain the bail was appropriate.

"I think she is a danger to society," Nutt said in court. "She doesn't have a stable home environment or a stable place to go to."

Obdulia Sanchez, 18, middle, appears in a Los Banos, Calif., branch of the Merced County Superior Court on Monday, July 28, 2017, with her public defender, Ramnik Samrao. She's accused of causing a crash that killed her younger sister while livestreaming on Instagram. Sanchez will remain in jail after a California judge refused to lower bail. Woman at right is unidentified. (AP Photo/Scott Smith)
CHICAGO (AP) - Authorities say a 28-year-old woman was fatally shot and her 4-year-old son was wounded by gunfire in Chicago.

Officials say the shooting happened Friday evening on the city's West Side. The Cook County Medical Examiner's office identified the woman as Nikia Betts. Officials say she was shot in the head and taken to a hospital, where she died less than an hour after the shooting. Police say the boy was shot in the arm and was in good condition at a hospital.

A man who identified himself as Betts' cousin told the Chicago Tribune she was walking through an alley near her home when the shooting occurred. Ronnie Betts says he heard gunfire before the boy came running with a gunshot wound to his arm, saying "mom's been shot."
CINCINNATI (AP) - Authorities say a man suffered serious injuries after being stabbed at the Cincinnati Zoo during a fight.

Zoo spokeswoman Michelle Curley says that a fight involving three men happened around 4 p.m. Saturday. She says the two other men left the zoo afterward.

The victim was taken to a hospital for treatment of non-life-threatening injuries.

Police Sgt. Eric Franz tells WCPO-TV the man was cut on the throat.

Franz says police are working on getting descriptions of the other two men.

The zoo has remained open. Police say there's no danger to the public.
NEW YORK (AP) - The Rev. Al Sharpton on Saturday accused President Donald Trump of "encouraging police violence" during a speech this week on Long Island to an audience of uniformed officers.

The activist preacher tore into the Republican at the weekly gathering of his National Action Network in Harlem.

A day earlier, the president spoke to law enforcement professionals at Suffolk County Community College in Brentwood. Trump said violence and murder on U.S. soil by the MS-13 gang linked to El Salvador justify a strong police response.

FILE - In this April 27, 2017 file photo, The Rev. Al Sharpton points to Omarosa Manigault, assistant to President Donald Trump & Director of Communications for the Office of Public Liaison, as he delivers his remarks during the Women's Power Luncheon of the 2017 National Action Network convention, in New York. Sharpton is accusing President Trump of "encouraging police violence" during a speech this week on Long Island to an audience of uniformed officers. The activist preacher tore into Trump on Saturday, July 29 at the weekly gathering of his National Action Network in Harlem. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

The president said his administration is removing gang members who've been terrorizing communities on Long Island and other parts of the country from the United States. He added, "Now, we're getting them out anyway, but we'd like to get them out a lot faster, and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in, rough, I said, please don't be too nice."

That means, for instance, shielding their heads from being bumped while getting into a police vehicle, Trump said.

Sharpton responded on Instagram: "As if the reprehensible statement by President Donald Trump encouraging police violence wasn't enough, he used a slur against Irish regarding "Paddy Wagons."

That expression was used in 19th century New York, referring to impoverished Irish immigrants when they were arrested and placed in police vans.

Sharpton called Trump's comments "reprehensible." They were "a reckless disregard for the law, and set a tone that is dangerous and biased in this country."

The Suffolk County Police Department said in a statement after Trump's speech that it has strict rules and procedures about how prisoners should be handled. "Violations of those rules and procedures are treated extremely seriously. As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners."

James Burke, the department's former chief, was sentenced to nearly four years in prison last November for beating a handcuffed man in an interrogation room.
ZAMBOANGA, Philippines (AP) - Police in the southern Philippines said they fatally shot 15 people Sunday, including a city mayor who was among the politicians President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked to illegal drugs, in the bloodiest assault so far in Duterte's anti-drug crackdown.

Officers were to serve warrants to Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. to search his houses for the suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 14 other people, Ozamiz police chief Jovie Espenido said.

"He's a high-value target on illegal drugs," Espenido, who oversaw the simultaneous, post-midnight raids on the mayor's residence and three other houses, said at a news conference.

FILE - In this Monday, July 24, 2017, file photo, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses thousands of protesters following his state of the nation address outside the Lower House in Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines. Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor who was among the politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs and many others in gunbattles that erupted Sunday, July 30, in the south, police said, in one of the bloodiest anti-drug assaults so far under his crackdown. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)

"We enforce the law to protect the people who want peace in this country," he said. "How can we enforce the law if ... we're scared of the drug lords? That cannot be, they should be afraid of people who do good for all."

At least five people, including Parojinog's daughter, who serves as vice mayor of Ozamiz, a port city, were arrested during the raids. Policemen were approaching the mayor's house when his bodyguards opened fire and hit a police car and wounded a police officer, sparking a firefight amid a power outage, Espenido said.

A grenade held by one of Parojinog's bodyguards exploded during the clash inside his house and it remains unclear if he and his wife were killed by the blast or police gunfire or both, Espenido said, adding that assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids.

"The administration vowed to intensify the drug campaign," presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in connection with Sunday's raids in Ozamiz. "The Parojinogs, if you would recall, are included in (Duterte's) list of personalities involved in the illegal drug trade."

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects.

Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, regional police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said.

The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign.

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera town Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines.

Espenido was the Albuera police chief when the then-detained Espinosa was killed during a police raid in a jail in a nearby city in Leyte.

Duterte has vowed to defend policemen who would face criminal and human rights charges while cracking down on illegal drugs. He recently ordered a police officer charged in connection with Espinosa's death to be reinstated after briefly being charged and suspended following the jail killing.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug dealer in the country has been eliminated.

___

Associated Press writer Jim Gomez in Manila, Philippines, contributed to this report.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) - The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. The U.S. also said it conducted a successful test of a missile defense system located in Alaska.

The B-1 bombers were escorted by South Korean fighter jets as they performed a low-pass over an air base near the South Korean capital of Seoul before returning to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the U.S. Pacific Air Forces said in a statement.

It said the mission was a response to North Korea's two ICBM tests this month. Analysts say flight data from the North's second test, conducted Friday night, showed that a broader part of the mainland United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of Pyongyang's weapons.

In this photo released by Japan Air Self Defense Force, U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers, top, fly with a Japan Air Self Defense Force F-2 fighter jet over Japan's southern island of Kyushu, just south of the Korean Peninsula, during a Japan-U.S. joint exercise Sunday, July 30, 2017. Japan's Defense Ministry reported the U.S. supersonic bombers flown from the Anderson Air Force Base in Guam conducted a joint exercise with South Korean Air Force over the Korean Peninsula later in the day. The U.S. Pacific Air Forces said in a statement that the mission was a response to consecutive intercontinental ballistic missile tests by North Korea this month. (Japan Air Self Defense Force via AP)

Vice President Mike Pence said Sunday during a visit to Estonia that the U.S. and its allies plan to increase pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear program.

"The continued provocations by the rogue regime in North Korea are unacceptable and the United States of America is going to continue to marshal the support of nations across the region and across the world to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically," Pence said. "But the era of strategic patience is over. The president of the United States is leading a coalition of nations to bring pressure to bear until that time that North Korea will permanently abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile program."

"The time for talk is over," U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said in a statement. She denied reports that Washington would seek an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, saying that new sanctions that fail to increase pressure would be "worse than nothing."

Haley said a weak resolution would show North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that "the international community is unwilling to challenge him," and singled out China, the North's biggest trading partner, as a country that must change its approach.

Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said he and President Donald Trump spoke by phone Monday morning Asia time and have agreed to take further action against North Korea. Abe said Trump pledged to "take all necessary measures to protect" Japan and that Abe praised his commitment to do so.

Abe said Japan would pursue concrete steps to bolster defense system and capabilities under the firm solidarity with the U.S. and do utmost to protect the safety of the Japanese people.

Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, called North Korea "the most urgent threat to regional stability."

"Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario," O'Shaughnessy said. "If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."

Sen. Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, told CBS' "Face the Nation" that North Korea's latest test presents a clear and present danger to the United States.

"I've spent time on the intelligence and at the briefings, and done as much reading as I possibly could," said Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "And I'm convinced that North Korea has never moved at the speed that this leader has to develop an ICBM."

Feinstein said the situation shows the danger of isolating a country.

"I think the only solution is a diplomatic one," she said. "I'm very disappointed in China's response, that it has not been firmer or more helpful."

The United States often sends powerful warplanes in times of heightened tensions with North Korea. B-1 bombers have been sent to South Korea for flyovers several times this year in response to the North's banned missile tests, and also following the death of a U.S. college student last month after he was released by North Korea in a coma.

The Hwasong-14 ICBM, which the North first tested on July 4, is the highlight of several new weapons systems Pyongyang launched this year. They include an intermediate range missile that North Korea says is capable of hitting Alaska and Hawaii, and a solid-fuel midrange missile, which analysts say can be fired faster and more secretly than liquid-fuel missiles.

Gen. Lori Robinson, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and U.S. Northern Command, responsible for homeland defense, said in a statement that the ICBM launched Friday "served as yet another reminder of North Korea's continued threat to the United States and our allies." She said the command "remains unwavering in our confidence that we can fully defend the United States against this ballistic missile threat."

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system located in Kodiak, Alaska, was successfully tested on Saturday night, Alaska time. It said that a medium-range ballistic missile was air-launched over the Pacific, and that the THAAD system detected, tracked and intercepted the target.

FILE - This combination of file photos shows Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, in Tokyo, on May 1, 2017, and U.S. President Donald Trump in Washington, on July 27, 2017. Abe says he and Trump have spoken by phone Monday morning Asia time, July 31, 2017 and agreed to take further action against North Korea following its latest missile launch. (AP Photo/Shizuo Kambayashi, Evan Vucci, File)

In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber, left, flies with a South Korean fighter jet F-15K over the Korean Peninsula, South Korea, Sunday, July 30, 2017. The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)

In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber, top, flies with South Korean fighter jets F-15K over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Sunday, July 30, 2017. The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)

In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber, left, flies with South Korean F-15K fighter jets over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Sunday, July 30, 2017. The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)

South Korean army soldiers prepare their military exercise in Paju, South Korea, near the border with North Korea, Sunday, July 30, 2017. The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. (AP Photo/Ahn Young-joon)
PHOENIX (AP) - Authorities say a suspect in an arson that damaged a Phoenix LGBT youth center has been arrested.

Phoenix police say 26-year-old Darren Beach Jr. was booked into jail Friday afternoon on suspicion of arson of an occupied structure.

It's unclear if Beach has a lawyer yet.

The Phoenix Fire Department on Wednesday released video showing a man pouring liquid on the floor of the one.n.ten center on July 12 and then stepping outside just before a room goes up in flames.

Youth center officials say Beach was a participant in their program, but aged out of eligibility when he turned 25.

The one.n.ten center serves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth ages 14 to 24.

It lost electronic equipment, food, camping equipment and other items in the fire.
VIENNA (AP) - A disagreement in a German discotheque turned deadly Sunday after the disco operator's son-in-law left the club, returned with an assault rifle and started shooting, law enforcement officials said.

A security guard was killed and four other people were wounded, three of them seriously, during the rampage that started at the Grey club discotheque in the southwestern town of Konstanz. The suspect was fatally shot by a police officer.

Officials investigating the early-morning shooting identified the suspect as a 34-year-old who came to Germany from Iraq in 1991 as a child. They said they had no details of the dispute, but ruled out a terrorist motive.

A coffin is carried in front of a discotheque in Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. A shooting in a German discotheque claimed two lives Sunday, including that of the gunman, and wounded four people, three of them seriously, police said. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Police said the man was the son-in-law of the club's operator and had a criminal record that included assault and drug-related convictions. The suspect was not named in keeping with German privacy laws.

The dpa news agency cited police weapons expert Andreas Stenger as saying the weapon used was an M16 assault rifle of the kind used by U.S. armed forces. Other law enforcement officials said the gunman opened fire just inside the club's entrance, killing a security employee.

Police officers subsequently exchanged gunfire with the suspect on a nearby street. An officer sustained non-life-threatening wounds and the gunman died later in a hospital.

__

This story has been corrected to say that the police officer was wounded in an exchange of fire with the gunman.

A coffin is carried in front of a discotheque in Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. A shooting in a German discotheque claimed two lives Sunday, including that of the gunman, and wounded four people, three of them seriously, police said. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Police guard in front of a discotheque in Constance, at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

A visitor, center, waits to be questioned by police near a discotheque in Constance, at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Policemen guard in front of a discotheque in Constance , at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Ambulances and police cars stand near a discotheque in Constance, at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Police and witnesses wait in front of a discotheque in Constanc, at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

A policeman guards in front of a discotheque in Constance , at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)

Policemen guard in front of a discotheque in Constance , at Lake Constance, Germany, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Police say a shooting in Germany's Baden-Wurttemberg state has claimed two lives, including that of the gunman. They say the early-morning shooting Sunday at a discotheque in the town of Constance also left three guests seriously wounded. A tweet by Constance police says one person was killed by the shooter when he opened fire, also wounding the other victims. He then fled, was shot by police and died later in hospital. (Felix Kaestle/dpa via AP)
BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraqi intelligence officials said Sunday they foiled an attempt by the Islamic State group to attack revered Shiite shrines and the sect's spiritual leader.

The IS plan was to launch a series of suicide attacks in Karbala and Najaf that house the shrines as well as the home of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, two officers told The Associated Press.

The simultaneous airstrikes by Iraqi and Russian air forces two weeks ago hit gatherings of suicide bombers in the Iraqi town of Qaim and in Syria's Mayadeen area, both under IS control. They gave no details on casualties.

Recent meetings with the Russians yielded increased intelligence sharing between the two nations, they said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.

Early this month, IS suffered a major blow as U.S.-backed Iraqi troops captured the northern city of Mosul after nine months of highly destructive warfare. The militants now control small towns mainly near the border with Syria.

IS took over Iraq's second-largest city in in summer 2014 when it conquered much of northern and western Iraq. Along with territories in Syria, they declared a caliphate and governed according to a harsh and violent interpretation of Islamic law.
JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli police say they have arrested five antiquities dealers from east Jerusalem for large-scale tax offenses.

Police spokesman Luba Samri says luxury cars, some $200,000 in cash and various antiquities were confiscated Sunday in a raid on the suspects' homes and offices. The antiquities seized included ancient parchment pieces written in Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and Latin, as well as ancient weapons, sculptures from the Hellenistic and Roman periods, pottery and bronze, silver and gold coins.

Samri said the raid followed a joint investigation with American law enforcement agencies who were informed about Israeli antiquity dealers who had issued fake receipts and invoices over the past seven years.

That led to an undercover operation that exposed the scheme.

The suspects were being brought before a court.
SAN SALVADOR, El Salvador (AP) - America's top law enforcement officer wandered through a Salvadoran jail, sizing up the tattooed gang members who sat with their backs to him on the concrete floors of their cells. His soft voice was barely audible over the downpour pelting the tin roof as he spoke to the local police.

In the midst of a week when his role - and future - in President Donald Trump's Cabinet was in serious doubt, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions could be found thousands of miles away from Washington, surrounded by concertina wire and soldiers with rifles. Belittled by his boss back home, he vowed not to loosen his grip on the job that he loves.

For Sessions, leading the Justice Department is an opportunity to make tangible progress on issues he long championed, sometimes in isolation among fellow Republicans, during two decades in the U.S. Senate: hard-line immigration policies and aggressive prosecutions of gangs, drugs and gun crime. His priorities mark a departure for a department that, during the Obama administration, increasingly focused on preventing high-tech attacks from abroad, white-collar crime and the threat of homegrown violent extremism.

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions stops to look at cell conditions during a tour of local police station and detention center in San Salvador, El Salvador, Thursday, July 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Yet Sessions' policy focus is often overshadowed by the expanding investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia. Sessions, whose own campaign contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. have been questioned, has stepped aside from the investigation. That unnerved Trump, who subjected his attorney general to almost daily public humiliation this past week.

Sessions was trying to weather the storm in San Salvador, where on a balmy afternoon his attention turned to the notoriously brutal street gang MS-13, whose violence in the U.S. has become a focal point in the immigration debate. Here was the former Alabama senator, traveling El Salvador's streets in a motorcade alongside leaders of the Justice Department's criminal division, buoyed by reassurances from congressional Republicans in Washington after Trump's tirade.

The trip was planned before the firestorm, but Sessions hoped his work on MS-13 would help mend his tattered relationship with Trump.

"It hasn't been my best week for my relationship with the president," Sessions told The Associated Press. "But I believe with great confidence that I understand what's needed in the Department of Justice and what President Trump wants. I share his agenda."

Sessions cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the height of the drug war, an experience that has shaped his approach to running the Justice Department. Allegations of racially charged remarks cost him a federal judgeship, but he went onto become the state's attorney general.

He was elected to the Senate in 1996 and developed a willingness to break with fellow Republicans in ways that sometimes left him on the sidelines.

He fought against efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system last year, a rare area where conservatives and liberals had found unity. He also was a leading opponent of the 2013 bipartisan bill that sought to ease immigration restrictions.

That issue drew him to Trump. Sessions was the first senator to endorse the businessman-turned-politician. Trump rewarded that support by naming Sessions as attorney general. It was, Sessions has said, a job that "goes beyond anything that I would have ever imagined for myself."

"In the Senate, you get paid for your words. But in the Department of Justice, every now and then you can actually take action and set priorities and see it actually take effect," Sessions told AP in an interview from inside the headquarters of Policia Nacional Civil, El Salvador's police force, where he had gone to build rapport with the commissioner. "It's kind of a real adjustment. I was a federal prosecutor for 12, 14 years, really. This is coming home to the Department of Justice I so much loved and still do. You can make things happen in the Department of Justice."

In moving quickly to put his own stamp on the Justice Department, Sessions continues to find himself at odds with both Democrats and members of his own party.

His decision this month to revive a program that lets local American police seize cash and property with federal help prompted rebuke from conservative groups such as the Koch-backed Freedom Partners, which called it "unjust and unconstitutional."

Sessions told federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest charges against most suspects, a move that critics assailed as a revival of costly drug-fighting policies. He wants a crackdown on marijuana as a growing number of states work to legalize it. His escalating threats to withhold money from cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities have made city leaders only more defiant.

Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia who served under President Barack Obama, said the fast pace of Sessions' changes is disturbing.

"He came in clearly with an agenda to go back in time to a tough-on-crime and law-and-order approach," Heaphy said. "He's ignoring all the progress we made."

During his final years in the Senate, Sessions began to gain greater notice from the far-right. He was a favorite of Breitbart, the website previously run by Steve Bannon, who now serves as Trump's senior adviser. Other Sessions' aides also serve in top administration posts, including Stephen Miller, the architect of several of Trump's immigration proposals.

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said Sessions has a "warrior spirit" and is working on behalf of people whose voices haven't always been heard in Congress.

"He has had to take on battles before within his own party and against the opposition party, and he takes those on and he fights them," she said.

Sessions believes he is making progress.

"A number of things we've done are just beginning to ripen," he told the AP. "I'm pretty happy with the speed with which a lot of it is happening. Sometimes the American people may not know how effective that's been."

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions listens to Howard Augusto Cotto Castaneda, Director General of the National Police during a visit to the National Police Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador, Friday, July 28, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions gestures as he speaks during his interview with The Associated Press, Friday, July 28, 2017, at the National Police Headquarters in San Salvador, El Salvador. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions walks past a cell during a tour of local Police Station and Detention Center in San Salvador, El Salvador, Thursday, July 27, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
TALLINN, Estonia (AP) - U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has arrived in Estonia for meetings with the presidents of northern Europe's three Baltic nations.

The vice president and his wife, Karen Pence, arrived in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, on Sunday to kick off a four-day European tour that also includes stops in Georgia and Montenegro.

Pence is scheduled to meet with the leaders of the Baltics - Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania - on Monday. He is expected to pledge Washington's commitment to NATO's mutual defense, an important issue for the former Soviet republics that border Russia.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence wave as they arrive at the airport in Tallinn, Estonia, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Pence arrived in Tallinn for a two day visit where he will meet Baltic States leaders to discuss regional security issues as well as economic and political topics. (AP Photo/ Mindaugas Kulbis)

On Sunday, he plans to hold talks with Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas.

Issues include Estonia's current holding of the European Union presidency, trade, cybersecurity and the continuing tensions in the Baltic Sea region, where Russia and NATO have increased their military presence in recent years.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence arrive at the airport in Tallinn, Estonia, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Pence arrived in Tallinn for a two day visit where he will meet Baltic States leaders to discuss regional security issues as well as economic and political topics. (AP Photo/ Mindaugas Kulbis)

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence waves as he arrives at the airport in Tallinn, Estonia, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Pence arrived in Tallinn for a two day visit where he will meet Baltic States leaders to discuss regional security issues as well as economic and political topics. (AP Photo/ Mindaugas Kulbis)

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen Pence wave as they arrive at the airport in Tallinn, Estonia, Sunday, July 30, 2017. Pence arrived in Tallinn for a two day visit where he will meet Baltic States leaders to discuss regional security issues as well as economic and political topics. (AP Photo/ Mindaugas Kulbis)
NEW DELHI (AP) - A government official says lightning has killed 11 people in eastern India, with most of the victims dying while working in rice paddies.

Official Rajendra Panda says that one of those killed on Sunday was standing under a tree as a thunderstorm and monsoon rains lashed Orissa state.

The Press Trust of India news agency cited Panda as saying eight other people suffered injuries and were hospitalized in Bhadrak, Balasore and Kendrapara districts in Orissa.

Lightning strikes are common during India's monsoon season, which runs from June to September. Scores of people have been killed by massive flooding, electrocution and house collapses in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam, Uttar Pradesh and other states since June.

Tens of thousands of villagers have been evacuated to higher ground in those states.
(File photo)

BEIJING, July 29 (Xinhua) -- More and more Chinese students are putting overseas study tours on their agenda this summer.

Consisting of language courses, sightseeing and international communication, study tours meet the demands of Chinese parents and students for a long and fruitful holiday, despite high costs of around 4,000 to 6,000 U.S. dollars.

This year saw the number of students going abroad for study tours increase by nearly 40 percent, with reservations for tours starting almost a year ago, according to English First, a Swedish-English education company in China.

YOUNGER PARTICIPANTS

A recent report published by a Chinese tourism booking website showed most study tour participants were teenagers in middle school.

According to the report released by Tuniu.com in June, 73 percent of their participants in 2016 were middle school students, 11 percent primary school students and only 3 percent college students.

Students of a younger age seem to be the upward trend.

"The biggest growth of our clients in the past few years is among primary school students, over 50 percent," said Joe Chiu, Country Manager of China's EF International Language Center.

Unlike study tour participants in other countries who are at least 13 or14 years old, Chinese parents seem to be more willing to let their children go on tours at a very young age, Chiu said, noting that the youngest Chinese participant on his program was only five years old.

PURPOSES VARIES

According to a blue book on global study tours released by New Oriental Education & Technology Group, expanding children's horizons was the major goal for parents, while improving language skills, experiencing independence and exploring cultural diversities were also popular.

Zhan Fuman, a 14-year-old from Guangzhou, currently on a 15-day study tour in Australia with a price tag of 32,800 yuan (about 4,870 U.S. dollars), went to the United States for her first overseas study tour last winter.

"She has been much more confident and independent since her first tour in the U.S. and learnt to use knowledge from books and real life communications," said Zhu Wanxia, Zhan's mother.

Going on a study tour does not lead to going to a foreign university in the future, Zhu said, adding that they preferred their child to go to a top Chinese university instead.

According to Chiu, only half of students in their study tour programs went abroad for higher education.

"Some parents consider staying in China as a better choice for their children, and such overseas study tours are more about qualities beyond learning by the books," said Chen Jingjing, Joe's co-worker from English First.

According to China's Ministry of Education (MOE), over 80 percent of Chinese students who studied abroad returned to China in 2016.

CHINA'S NEED OF TALENTS

Being the world's second largest economy, China is hungry for talent in all aspects.

According to the "Outline of China's National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Education Reform and Development (2010-2020)" issued by the MOE in July 2010, China called for more international communication and cooperation in order to give the country's young men and women international horizons, making them better understand international rules, and join the world's competition.

The MOE also encourages primary and middle schools to put short study tours in student curricula.

Other than sending Chinese students abroad, China also welcome overseas professionals to visit the country.

In 2008, China launched a national recruitment program for top global talent, called the "Thousand Talent" program, as part of efforts to become an innovation-driven economy. The program encourages overseas Chinese and foreign professionals to work in China.
BEIRUT (AP) - The Latest on the developments in the Syrian civil war (all times local):

8:15 p.m.

A Syrian affiliate of al-Qaida says it has captured three fighters of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah in the Arsal region along the Syrian-Lebanese border.

The two sides exchanged the bodies of dead fighters on Sunday in the first stage of an agreement to restore order to the contested frontier zone. The al-Qaida-linked Fatah al-Sham Front is expected to leave the border region in the coming stages, following two weeks of battles with Hezbollah and the Syrian army.

It is unclear how the new development will affect the agreement. The Fatah al-Sham Front was already holding five Hezbollah fighters prisoner.

The al-Qaida-linked Ibaa news agency published a photo of the three fighters on Sunday.

Hezbollah said Saturday a group of its fighters had gone missing.

___

6:45 p.m.

The Russian broadcaster Russia Today says one of its correspondents has been killed in Syria.

The broadcaster says Khaled al-Khatib, 25, was killed Sunday covering battles between the Syrian army and the Islamic State group in the country's central desert. It said he was killed by an IS bullet. An accompanying photographer was also wounded.

RT's editor-in-chief Margarita Simonyan said in a statement that the journalist's death is "a very sad event for us all" and added that it was the first time that an RT contributor has died in a war zone.

Al-Khatib was a student at the University of Damascus, said the broadcaster.

RT is embedded with government forces in Syria, where President Bashar Assad is fighting a civil war against rebels and IS militants.

___

12:20 p.m.

Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station is reporting that the militant group is exchanging the bodies of dead fighters with al-Qaida along the Lebanese-Syrian border in the first stage of a settlement that would restore order to the border region.

Hezbollah says it is handing over the bodies of nine al-Qaida fighters in exchange for the bodies five of its own who were killed in two weeks of battles along the frontier. Al-Manar broadcast the report Sunday.

The fighting ended with a cease-fire Thursday to allow negotiations to proceed to send the al-Qaida fighters and their families to Syria's northwest Idlib province, where an al-Qaida affiliate is in control. It would leave the Lebanese and Syrian states and Hezbollah in control of this contested stretch of the border.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) - Iraq's influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr is on a rare visit to Saudi Arabia.

Al-Sadr's office released a statement Sunday saying he'd been invited to the Sunni kingdom.

Saudi Arabia is concerned about the influence of its rival Iran in Iraq, which backs Shiite militias fighting against the Islamic State group there. Al-Sadr is among those who've called for the militias to disband.

Pan-Arab newspaper Asharq al-Awsat posted a photo on its Twitter account of al-Sadr arriving in Saudi Arabia and being greeted by Thamer al-Sabhan, the kingdom's former ambassador to Iraq and its first to be assigned to Baghdad after a 25-year break.

Al-Sabhan was renamed minister of state for the Gulf region after tensions with the Iraqi government. He'd claimed that Iranian-backed militias were plotting to assassinate him.
IRVINE, Scotland (AP) - Mi Hyang Lee took advantage of Hall of Famer Karrie Webb's late double bogey to win the Ladies Scottish Open on Sunday for her second LPGA Tour title.

"I didn't believe I got a win today," said Lee, six shots back entering the round. "It was a really surprise for me."

A stroke ahead of Lee with two holes left at chilly Dundonald Links, Webb dropped a shot back with the double bogey on the par-5 17th after driving into a bunker and having to play out backward.

"I bent down, picked my tee up - thought I hit a perfect drive there," Webb said. "When I stood up, I went to tell (my caddie) Jonny (Scott) that I absolutely knotted my 3-wood exactly how I wanted and he said it kicked into the bunker. I have no idea how it did that."

Lee, playing in the group ahead of Webb, increased the margin to two with a birdie on the par-5 18th. Needing an eagle to force a playoff, Webb closed with a birdie to tie for second with Mi Jung Hur. Webb didn't know she was two strokes behind because of the lack of a leaderboard on the final hole in the tuneup event for the Ricoh Women's British Open next week at Kingsbarns.

"It's pretty bad to not have a leaderboard on the last," Webb said. "That's the first time I've ever been (at a tour event) that hasn't had a leaderboard on 18. ... We didn't know if Mi Hyang had birdied or not, because there wasn't like a loud cheer like she had."

The 42-year-old Australian reached the greenside bunker in two shots.

"Well, my bunker shot, I said to Jonny, 'I don't know if I need to hole this or get it up-and-down,'" Webb said. "Imagine if you went for it and overplayed it and you only had to get it up-and-down. I was trying to make it but also not being overly aggressive."

Lee shot a 6-under 66 to finish at 6-under 282. After playing the front nine in 5-under 31 with six birdies and a bogey, the South Korean player made eight straight pars before birdieing the last. She also was confused on 18 without a leaderboard, thinking she needed to an eagle to tie Webb.

"I thought she's going to win, so just I want to make the eagle," Lee said.

Webb, tied for the third-round lead with Sei Young Kim at 6 under, had a 73. She chipped in for eagle on the par-5 14th and bogeyed the par-4 16th before losing the lead on 17.

"Very gutted," Webb said. "I was on a high, making the eagle, and then I had a very nice up-and-down on the next. Obviously, there were nerves there, but there was a good calmness there."

She won the last of her 41 LPGA Tour titles in 2014 at the Founders Cup in Phoenix.

The 24-year-old Lee also won the LPGA Tour's 2014 Mizuno Classic in Japan.

Hur birdied the 18th for a 66.

Carlota Ciganda (70) and Cristie Kerr (72) tied for fourth at 4 under. Kim (75) tied for sixth at 3 under with Sun Young Yoo (71).

The LPGA Tour sanctioned the event for the first time, teaming with the Ladies European Tour.

"It was really good practice for the British," Lee said. "I take a lot of confidence from this win."
NEW DELHI (AP) - Indian coast guard authorities say they have seized a large amount of heroin from a ship off the country's western coast.

The 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) of narcotics was estimated to be worth millions of dollars, the agency said Sunday.

The ship was seized on Saturday.

In this Sunday, July 30, 2017 photo, Indian coast guard officials, in blue, stand next to a massive amount of heroin they claim to have seized from a ship off the country's western coast near Porbandar, India. The 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) of narcotics was estimated to be worth millions of dollars, and the vessel was believed to be registered in Panama, the agency said. (AP Photo/Kamlesh Samani)

Coast guard authorities said it was the country's biggest seizure of narcotics in recent years, the Press Trust of India reported.

The vessel had eight crew members and was heading for Alang shipyard in Gujarat state, the agency said. The crew was detained for questioning.

India lies on a lucrative drug-smuggling route because nearby Afghanistan is a major producer of opium, the main ingredient of heroin.

Details on where the heroin originated and who was involved in the smuggling were not immediately available. A joint investigation by the Indian coast guard, intelligence agencies, police and navy was underway.
YPRES, Belgium (AP) - Britain's Prince William and his wife, Kate, on Sunday joined Belgian royals and relatives of soldiers who fought in the Battle of Passchendaele to mark 100 years since the offensive that became a symbol of war's senselessness began.

More than half a million Allied and German troops were killed or wounded in the World War I battle in western Belgium, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres. The Allied campaign, fought by British and Commonwealth forces from July to November 1917 in swampy, rain-pummeled battlefields that turned to liquid mud, ended up barely moving the front line against the Germans.

William spoke at the Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres, a monument etched with the names of tens of thousands of soldiers killed in the months-long battle whose remains were never recovered or did not receive proper burials.

Britain's Prime Minister Theresa May, left, the Duchess and Duke of Cambridge, 3rd left, King Philippe, third right, and Queen Mathilde, second right, of Belgium, watch as the poppies fall from the roof of the Menin Gate in Ypres, Belgium for the official commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as the Third Battle of Ypres, Sunday July 30, 2017. More than half a million Allied and German troops were killed or wounded in the World War I battle in western Belgium. (Andrew Matthews/PA via AP)

"Today, the Menin Gate records almost 54,000 names of the men who did not return home, the missing with no known grave," he said. "Members of our families; our regiments; our nations; all sacrificed everything for the lives we live today."

The service ended with the Last Post, the mournful British Army bugle call that sounds at military funerals and ceremonies. The tune has been played at the Menin Gate almost every evening since 1928.

William was joined at the ceremony by British Prime Minister Theresa May, King Philippe and Queen Mathilde of Belgium, and some 200 descendants of those who fought at Passchendaele.

FILE - In this file photo dated Saturday, June 14, 2014, red poppies bloom around the World War I Scottish monument on Frezenberg Ridge in Zonnebeke, Belgium, from where three Scottish Divisions marched into the Battle of Passchendaele in 1917. Monday July 31, 2017, marks the centennial of the start of the World War I battle of Passchendaele which barely moved the frontline and thus became a metaphor for the folly of warfare. (AP Photo/Virginia Mayo, FILE)
MINNEAPOLIS (AP) - Police searched Sunday for a man suspected of killing a financial adviser inside a Minnesota business after he allegedly robbed a woman at gunpoint inside a home and forced employees at a nearby senior center into a closet while he tried to escape.

The Mendota Heights Police Department said on its Facebook page that investigators were working on several leads as they tried to find Lucifer Nguyen, 44. A news release said he is wanted for homicide and is considered armed and dangerous. He has not been charged.

Police Chief Kelly McCarthy said the victim was identified by family members as Beverly Cory of Maplewood, Minnesota. McCarthy said Cory worked in the office building where she was found. Her LinkedIn profile says she is a financial adviser at Edward Jones.

Several agencies were working on the search effort, and McCarthy said leads were "developing rapidly."

McCarthy said police believe Nguyen entered a house in Mendota Heights, a suburb of St. Paul, at about 9 a.m. Saturday, brandished a gun and demanded cash from a female. Police responding to the report found Nguyen driving down a nearby road. He crashed his vehicle and ran into the White Pine Senior Living Center.

"He then forced employees at gunpoint into a locked storage closet and we started receiving information that he had hostages," McCarthy said. Police and members of the SWAT team began operating under the assumption that it was a hostage situation - with the potential for a large number of victims - and they began methodically evacuating residents.

McCarthy said authorities now don't believe it was an actual hostage situation but that "he forced those people into the closet and then just fled the building."

She said police believe Nguyen went to a nearby business park and shot Cory, who was discovered hours later. Police say there is no known previous connection between Nguyen and Cory.

McCarthy said she believes Nguyen was out of the area before police had set up a perimeter.

No one in the senior center was injured.

"I'm so thankful we didn't have further loss of life," she said.

Recent court records list a New Hope address for Nguyen. In Minnesota, Nguyen has been convicted of misdemeanor theft and drunken driving. He's also been charged in Wisconsin.

The Star Tribune reports he's due to appear in a Superior, Wisconsin, courtroom next month on felony battery and drug charges, and he recently pleaded no contest in a hit-and-run there involving an unattended vehicle.
Charlie Gard has died just a week shy of his first birthday, with his heartbroken parents paying tribute to their beautiful little boy.

The 11-month-old, who had a rare genetic condition, was at the centre of a legal battle between his parents and Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) that attracted worldwide attention.

In a statement following his death on Friday, his mother Connie Yates said: Our beautiful little boy has gone, were so proud of him.

Pope Francis, who had shown his support for Ms Yates and Charlies father Chris Gard during their lengthy legal challenge, said he was praying for the family following the baby boys death.

He tweeted: I entrust little Charlie to the Father and pray for his parents and all those who loved him.

A court had ordered that Charlie be moved to a hospice, where his life support would be withdrawn.

Connie Yates and Chris Gard with their son Charlie (Family handout/PA)

The hospital where he spent most of his short life sent heartfelt condolences to the family, while Prime Minister Theresa May said she was deeply saddened by his death.

A GOSH spokeswoman said: Everyone at Great Ormond Street Hospital sends their heartfelt condolences to Charlies parents and loved ones at this very sad time.

Mrs May said in a statement: I am deeply saddened by the death of Charlie Gard. My thoughts and prayers are with Charlies parents Chris and Connie at this difficult time.

Chris Gard

Ms Yates and Mr Gard wanted to take their severely ill son to the US for treatment.

His plight saw hundreds of supporters  called Charlies Army  lending their voices and money for him to be given treatment, with 1.35 million raised on an online fundraising site.

On Thursday Ms Yates claimed the couple were denied their final wish when a High Court judge approved a plan to see Charlie moved to a hospice and have his life support withdrawn soon after.

Donald Trump

His parents had pleaded to be allowed more time with him, after their earlier request to take him home to die also failed.

Charlie, who was born on August 4 last year, had a form of mitochondrial disease, a condition that causes progressive muscle weakness and brain damage.

Described as perfectly healthy when he was born, Charlie was admitted to hospital at eight weeks and his condition progressively deteriorated.

Charlie Gard's parents Chris Gard and Connie Yates

Mr Gard gave an emotional speech on the steps of the High Court when he said: 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.

We had the chance but we werent allowed to give you that chance. Sweet dreams baby. Sleep tight our beautiful little boy.

At the time Charlies parents added they believed their son might have been saved if experimental therapy had been tried sooner.

Ms Yates said time had been wasted, adding had Charlie been given the treatment sooner he would have had had the potential to be a normal, healthy little boy.

Doctors at GOSH did not agree, with lawyers representing the hospital saying 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.
A Palestinian man who allegedly stabbed one person to death and injured six others in Hamburg was known to German authorities as a suspected Islamic radical but was also psychologically unstable, officials said.

The suspect, a 26-year-old who had no identity papers other than a birth certificate showing he was born in the United Arab Emirates, was quickly overwhelmed by passers-by and arrested after Fridays attack at a supermarket in Hamburgs Barmbek district.

He was not named by authorities, in keeping with Germany privacy laws.

An elderly woman is accompanied by a firefighter after the attack (Paul Weidenbaum/dpa via AP)

The mans motive remained unclear on Saturday, but he is believed to have acted alone and there are no indications that he had links to any network, Hamburg state interior minister Andy Grote said.

Police said the suspect grabbed a kitchen knife with an 8in (20cm) blade from a shelf at the supermarket on Friday afternoon and stabbed three men, one of them fatally.

He then left the shop and injured another three people outside, not all of them with the knife. Passers-by then pursued and overwhelmed the suspect, who was arrested by police.

Mr Grote said none of the wounded suffered injuries considered to be life-threatening, though some were seriously hurt.

A woman places flowers at a shrine near the supermarket (Markus Scholz/dpa via AP)

The man arrived in Germany in March 2015 after stops in Spain, Sweden and Norway. His request for asylum was rejected late last year and authorities were trying to secure new Palestinian papers to deport him  a process in which they said he had co-operated.

Officials said he was on their radar as a suspected Islamic radical, but not as a jihadist.

A friend had tipped off authorities about changes in the mans behaviour, telling them he had stopped drinking alcohol and started talking about the Koran, said Torsten Voss, head of the Hamburg branch of the domestic intelligence agency.

Officials interviewed the man and came away with the impression that he was a destabilised personality but not someone who posed an immediate danger, Mr Voss said.

Police search a refugee shelter in Hamburg (Bodo Marks/AP)

We evaluated him rather as someone who was psychologically unstable than had clear Islamic extremist motivations, he told a news conference. Authorities are not aware of any connections to Hamburgs Islamic extremist scene.

A search of the mans room at a centre for asylum-seekers turned up no weapons or weapon-like objects, prosecutors said.

The suspect has not yet talked about Fridays attack, prosecutor Joerg Froehlich said, though he has indicated that he acted alone.

Mr Froehlich said authorities intend to ask that he be held in custody on suspicion of murder and five counts of attempted murder, but may seek to have him held at a psychiatric unit instead.
Paris St Germain full-back Dani Alves has urged his fellow Brazilian Neymar to be brave when it comes to considering a potential world-record transfer to the Ligue 1 giants.

Barcelona striker Neymar has been linked with a 222 million euro move to PSG, a deal which would see him become the most expensive player in the world, but neither club has spoken on the matter.

Former Barca man Alves, who moved to Paris from Juventus earlier this month, scored in PSGs Trophee des Champions victory over Monaco on Saturday and afterwards he discussed Neymars situation.

Quoted in Marca, he said: Its an important decision for him and its the kind of decision men have to make. Hes one of my best friends and Ill always want him by my side, but I can not interfere.

I helped him come to Barcelona, I did not make the decision for him, but I told him what Barcelona was like and he decided to move there. Decisions are for the brave and I am the bravest of all.

I just want my friend to be happy wherever he is, although obviously if he were here that would be much better.

Its a decision you have to make carefully but you have to be selfish. If I could advise one thing it would be: be brave, the world belongs to the brave.

Neymar, 25, was heavily involved in Barcas 3-2 friendly victory over LaLiga arch-rivals Real Madrid in Miami on Saturday but speculation over his future has continued to intensify in recent days.

He was pictured storming out of training following an angry confrontation with new team-mate Nelson Semedo while another Brazilian playing for PSG, Thiago Silva, said details of a switch might emerge soon.

Barca defender Gerard Pique, who last week posted a picture of himself with Neymar on Instagram with the caption se queda, meaning he stays has admitted he is unsure whether the forward will remain at Nou Camp heading into the 2017-18 season, claiming his online post was a gut thing.

Following the Miami friendly at the Hard Rock Stadium new Barca boss Ernesto Valverde expressed his desire to keep Neymar on board as the Catalans look to reclaim their Spanish title from Real.

I try to talk about what is happening right now, he said in quotes carried by Marca. Neymar is here with us, we count on him and we think that he should help us out this year.

Real Madrid captain Sergio Ramos joins the Neymar transfer debate  pic.twitter.com/Qnu4zzITte  B/R Football (@brfootball) July 30, 2017

Real captain Sergio Ramos hopes he has faced Neymar  in a Barca shirt at least  for the last time.

I have a good relationship with him, the Spanish defender told Marca. We changed shirts at the end and I hope thats the last time I get a Barca one from him, that wouldnt be a problem for us at all!

He didnt tell me anything. Everyone is free to decide their own future.

I think he is a great player and a key man for Barcelona  its up to him to decide his future.
A disagreement at a German nightclub turned deadly after the disco operators son-in-law left the venue and returned with an assault rifle and started shooting, officials said.

A security guard was killed and four other people were wounded, three of them seriously, during the rampage in the south-western town of Konstanz.

The suspect was fatally shot by a police officer.

Officials investigating the shooting identified the suspect as a 34-year-old who came to Germany from Iraq in 1991 as a child.

They said they had no details of the dispute, but ruled out a terrorist motive.

Police said the man was the son-in-law of the clubs operator and had a criminal record that included assault and drug-related convictions. The suspect was not named in keeping with German privacy laws.

Police and witnesses outside the club (Felix Kaestle/AP)

The dpa news agency cited police weapons expert Andreas Stenger as saying the weapon used was an M16 assault rifle of the kind used by US armed forces.

Other law enforcement officials said the gunman opened fire just inside the clubs entrance, killing a security employee.

A policeman subsequently exchanged gunfire with the suspect outside. The officer received non-life-threatening wounds and the gunman died later in a hospital.
ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping mounted a field jeep to inspect troops at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region Sunday morning.

Han Weiguo, commander-in-chief of the parade and commander of the Central Theater Command of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), reported to Xi that the troops are ready.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, ordered the inspection to begin.

The parade is held in celebration of the 90th anniversary of the founding of PLA.
An explosive century from Alex Hales led Nottinghamshire to a thrilling victory over Yorkshire in their NatWest T20 Blast meeting at Trent Bridge.

Hales scored 101, his first format hundred for the county, as Notts completed a record run-chase to defeat the Vikings by five wickets with five balls remaining.

Yorkshire had posted 223 for five, with Adam Lyth scoring 59 after the visitors had been invited to bat first.

Alex Hales

WINNING MOMENT | From the first ball of the last over, Mullaney sends it straight back where it came from to secure a historic win #Outlawed pic.twitter.com/D9pf4zOvHa  Nottinghamshire CCC (@TrentBridge) July 30, 2017

Amidst the carnage Samit Patel maintained creditable figures of three for 29 but there was little joy for any of the other bowlers to celebrate as Yorkshire plundered 10 sixes in their 20 overs.

A sensational debut innings from Adam Hose lifted Birmingham Bears to a five-wicket victory over Lancashire Lightning at Edgbaston.

The Lightning amassed 174 for eight thanks mainly to Jos Buttler, whose unbeaten 80 (43 balls, six fours, two sixes) was the only contribution beyond 20.

But then Hose, making his debut after moving from Somerset on a three-year deal last week, smashed a dazzling T20-best 76 from 43 balls with seven fours and five sixes to put his side on course for victory.

After he perished, Grant Elliott saw his side over the line with just two balls to spare with an shrewd unbeaten 45.

Veteran Paul Collingwood scored his maiden T20 century but was upstaged by a player nearly half his age in Joe Clarke as Worcestershire Rapids overpowered Durham Jets by eight wickets at New Road.

Collingwood, 41, made the home side pay dearly for dropping him on four by reaching three figures off 57 balls with four sixes and nine fours in the final over of the Jets innings.

His 108 not out surpassed his previous best T20 score of 79 for England against the West Indies at the Oval a decade ago in June 2007.

But England Lions batsman Clarke gave another demonstration of his considerable potential as the Rapids chased down their target with 11 balls to spare.

The 21-year-old reached his first T20 ton off only 45 balls with six sixes and 10 fours and sparked a standing ovation as he helped to lift the gloom of a difficult start to the campaign. He finished unbeaten on 124 from 53 balls.

Corey Anderson propelled Somerset to a 32-run Duckworth-Lewis victory over Sussex in a rain-affected contest at Taunton.

We are now up to 2nd in the @NatWestT20Blast table!#WeAreSomerset pic.twitter.com/2YrGKNbHtE  Somerset Cricket  (@SomersetCCC) July 30, 2017

Put in to bat in a match reduced to eight overs-a-side, Somerset posted a competitive 102 for three courtesy of New Zealander Andersons 41 from 17 balls.

Required to chase down a revised target of 104 to win, Sussex failed to recover from the loss of early wickets and came up short on 71 for four, despite an unbeaten 42 from Stiaan van Zyl.

New Zealand fast bowler Matt Henry produced an impressive performance as Derbyshire secured a seven-wicket win over Leicestershire., taking three for 18 in his four overs as the Foxes were restricted to 104 for nine.

The winning moment 



Well played lads! Matt Henry (3-18), Imran Tahir (2-20), @yozza18 (36*) and Wayne Madsen (49*).#DERvLEI pic.twitter.com/bt91ElvnKd  Derbyshire CCC (@DerbyshireCCC) July 30, 2017

Wayne Madsen (49) and Alex Hughes (36) shared an unbroken stand to steer their side home with 37 balls to spare.

Half-centuries by Jacques Rudolph and Aneurin Donald helped Glamorgan extend their lead in the NatWest T20 Blast South Group with an emphatic 25-run win over Kent.
Romelu Lukaku scored as Manchester United beat Valerenga 3-0 in Oslo in the penultimate match of their summer tour.

Marouane Fellaini gave United a first-half lead before substitutes Lukaku and Scott McTominay netted in the second half.

Valerenga are deep into their domestic campaign and sit seventh in Norways top division but it was United who looked the sharper early on as Henrikh Mkhitaryan forced a blocking save and Paul Pogba saw an effort hit a post.

Romelu Lukaku

Jose Mourinho: I am satisfied. It was a good pitch and our opponents were well organised. Now, a little rest before the Sampdoria match." pic.twitter.com/HtUL11iBaF  Manchester United (@ManUtd) July 30, 2017

Marcus Rashford was next to go close but it was not until a minute before half-time that United made the breakthrough.

Reports of Nemanja Matics impending arrival could spell the end of Fellainis time at Old Trafford but the big Belgian served a reminder of what he is capable of by heading United in front from Mkhitaryans cross.

Manager Jose Mourinho made nine changes at the break and two of the newcomers combined after 48 minutes as Lukaku headed home a Joel Pereira cross at the far post.

Valerenga had a rare opportunity just after the hour mark but it was spurned by Ghayas Zahid, and shortly afterwards 20-year-old McTominay netted his first senior goal for United with a confidently-taken half-volley.

Lukaku nearly added a fourth goal late on after displaying great upper body strength to hold off his marker but he dragged his shot just wide.

United will head to Dublin next to play Serie A side Sampdoria before facing Real Madrid in the European Super Cup in Skopje on August 8.
South Koreas Lee Mi-hyang staged a remarkable comeback to win the Ladies Scottish Open.

Lee sat 39th and nine shots off the lead coming into the weekend but the 24-year-old posted rounds of 68 and 66 to finish six-under par at Dundonald Links in North Ayrshire.

Karrie Webb had looked on course for victory when she eagled the 14th for a two-stroke lead but the Australian bogeyed the 16th and double-bogeyed the 17th to allow Lee to snatch victory.

Lee Mi-hyang

When you realise you have won the @AberdeenLSO  pic.twitter.com/xo5v1ns9mJ  Ladies European Tour (@LETgolf) July 30, 2017

Webb finished one shot back on five-under and joint second along with another South Korean, Hur Mi-jung.

I didnt believe I got a win today, Lee said. It was really a surprise for me. My front nine was amazing, and then I think I got a good start from my first hole.

The first and second round, I hit it really good, but just I missed a lot of putts, so I tried to practice my putting with the wind.

Lee made seven birdies on the final day and watched from the clubhouse as Webb missed the eagle putt she needed to force a play-off on the 18th.

Mi Hyang Lee rolls in a birdie on the last for a stunning final round 66 (-6) & to take the @AberdeenLSO lead on -6  pic.twitter.com/4N7MwSRAtv  Ladies European Tour (@LETgolf) July 30, 2017

Im very gutted, Webb said. I was on a high, making the eagle, and then I had a very nice up-and-down on the next. Obviously there were nerves there, but there was a good calmness there.

Carly Booth was the highest Scottish finisher, finishing on five-over par after a final round of 73.
Tens of thousands of Ahmadi Muslims gathered in southern England over the weekend to disavow all forms of terrorism.

Caliph Mirza Masroor Ahmad  who represents tens of millions of Ahmadis across the world  led the assembled faithful of the minority sect in prayers at a farm in Hampshire.

The gathering, known as the Jalsa Salana, began on Friday with a sermon and the raising of the communitys black-and-white flag alongside the Union Jack.

Jalsa Salana

Concluding on Sunday, the Caliph told some 30,000 adherents from more than 100 countries: It is up to Muslims to stand up and reject all forms of extremism and terrorism.

It is the task of Ahmadi Muslims to show the true teachings of Islam which are of peace love, mercy and compassion.

On Saturday, the Caliph awarded prizes to women for academic achievements and delivered a sermon on the rights of women.

The Ahmadiyya Muslim Community was established in 1889 in India and is led by a spiritual caliphate, with tens of millions of adherents.

Many Muslims consider them heretics, and they often suffer from persecution.
The Duchess of Cambridge opted for understated elegance as she recycled her Alexander McQueen outfit at official commemorations marking the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele.

Kate next to the Prime Minister. (Andrew Matthews/PA)

Kate sported the sophisticated cream coat-dress for a third public occasion, with a colour-matching hat and hair in a chignon.

The hat matched the outfit. (Arthur Edwards/The Sun/PA)

She finished the look with oversized pearl earrings and brooch worn with a remembrance poppy.

A brooch and poppy completed the look. (Chris Jackson/PA)

Kate wore the same dress to her daughter Princess Charlottes christening, twinned with a Jane Taylor hat.

At Charlotte's christening in 2015. ( Mary Turner/The Times/PA)

At the Queens official birthday celebrations, the outfit was teamed with a striking pale pink hat with large floral decoration by Philip Treacy.
ELDORET, Kenya, July 30 (Reuters) - A gunman and a police officer were killed in an attack on Deputy President William Ruto's residence in the western Kenyan town of Eldoret, a senior administrator said on Sunday, adding the security operation was over.

Late on Saturday, police had initially said the attacker was armed with a machete and had injured one police officer.

"From the exchange of fire we thought it was more than one attacker, because he used different firearms, but after we subdued him, we found only one man dead, plus our officer who he had killed," Wanyama Musiambo, Rift Valley Regional Coordinator, told reporters at the scene on Sunday.

Ruto and his family were not at home during the attack, police said on Saturday. Ruto is the running mate of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking a second and final term in office in the Aug. 8 elections. (Writing by George Obulutsa; Editing by Keith Weir)
BEIRUT, July 30 (Reuters) - Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in Mecca this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year amid tensions with Saudi Arabia.

Around 800 pilgrims were due to leave Iran on three flights to nearby Medina on Sunday, the director of the haj at Irans Haj and Pilgrimage Organization, Nasrollah Farahmand told state media.

Approximately 86,500 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in total this year and 800 coordinators have travelled to Saudi Arabia to help Iranians during the pilgrimage, he said.

Iran boycotted the haj last year after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2015, and following a diplomatic rift between the two countries who are vying for power and influence in the region.

In a speech to haj organizers on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iranians would never forget the "catastrophic events" of 2015 and called on Saudi Arabia to ensure the security of all pilgrims.

"The serious and constant issue for the Islamic Republic is the preservation of the security, dignity, welfare and comfort of all pilgrims, particularly Iranian pilgrims," Khamenei said, according to his official site. "The security of the haj is the responsibility of the country where the two noble shrines exist."

Riyadh severed diplomatic relations last year after Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of a Shi'ite cleric in Saudi Arabia in January 2016.

In February this year Iran, which is predominantly Shi'ite Muslim, sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia, which is mostly Sunni, that initiated the process of Iranian pilgrims returning for the haj.

However, tensions between the two countries remain at an all-time high.

Last month Iranian officials pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia after Islamic State carried out attacks on the Iranian parliament in Tehran and the shrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that left at least 18 dead. Saudi Arabia denied any involvement.

Khamenei in his speech on Sunday also called on all pilgrims to show their reaction to the recent unrest at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and "Americas wicked presence in the region" at the haj, according to his official website.

He did not specify what kind of reaction he expected pilgrims to show. (Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Susan Fenton)
By James Pearson and Michelle Nichols

SEOUL/NEW YORK, July 30 (Reuters) - The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday and the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations said China, Japan and South Korea needed to do more after Pyongyang's latest missile tests.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from U.S. President Donald Trump.

Trump's ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley said on Twitter on Sunday that the United States was "done talking" about North Korea, which was "not only a U.S. problem."

"China is aware they must act," Haley said, urging Japan and South Korea to increase pressure and calling for an international solution.

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's missile launches, which it said violate UN Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang's banned nuclear and missile programmes.

"At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate," China's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Early in his presidency, Trump met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and had expressed hope Beijing would use its economic clout to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

But on Saturday, Trump said on Twitter that he was "very disappointed in China" which he said profits from trade with the United States but does "NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue," he said.

DIRECT RESPONSE

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

The missile test came a day after the U.S. Senate approved a package of sanctions against North Korea, Russia and Iran.

The B-1B flight was a response to the missile test and the July 3 launch of the "Hwasong-14" rocket, the Pentagon said. The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said in a statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."

Also on Sunday, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency announced the United States had successfully shot down a medium-range missile in the latest test of its THAAD missile defense program which is designed to protect the country against potential threats from countries such as North Korea and Iran.

The test was planned well before the rising tensions with North Korea and involved a medium-range missile, not the long-range types being tested by the North Koreans.

FAR REACH

The Hwasong-14, named after the Korean word for Mars, reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km (2,314.6 miles) and flew 998 km (620 miles)for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast, KCNA said.

Western experts said calculations based on that flight data and estimates from the U.S., Japanese and South Korean militaries showed the missile could have been capable of going as far into the United States as Denver and Chicago.

David Wright of the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a blog post that if it had flown on a standard trajectory, the missile would have had a range of 10,400 km (6,500 miles).

U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a leading Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, said she saw the test as "a clear and present danger to the United States."

"I think the only solution is a diplomatic one. I'm very disappointed in China's response, that it has not been firmer or more helpful," Feinstein told CBS television's "Face the Nation," urging the administration to begin talks with the North.

U.S. intelligence officials assess that even if North Korea does develop a reliable, nuclear-capable ICBM, which some say it remains several steps short of doing, the weapon would be almost useless except to deter the conventional attacks that Kim fears.

Intelligence experts have concluded that Kim will not abandon his pursuit of a deliverable nuclear weapon.

"Kim is determined to secure international recognition of the North as a nuclear armed state, for the purposes of security, prestige, and political legitimacy," says the National Intelligence Councils January Global Trends report. (Additional reporting by Sarah N. Lynch, Susan Cornwell, John Walcott and Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Sam Holmes and Phil Berlowitz)
By Ron Bousso

LONDON, July 30 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell suspended loadings of oil products from its Pernis refinery in the Netherlands following a fire at the plant, the company said in a statement to traders on Sunday.

Shell shut down most of its production at Pernis, Europe's largest refinery, after the fire at the 404,000 barrels per day plant late on Saturday caused a power outage.

The company said that no casualties were reported in the incident and the fire was under control, but it expected loadings to be suspended on Monday as well.

In a statement to traders in the region seen by Reuters, Shell said that "at this stage the extent of the damage is (being) investigated and we are unable to load product at the depot in Pernis."

"For now we work on the assumption that FCA (free carrier) loadings at depot Pernis will be interrupted until and including tomorrow so please take your necessary precautions."

The outage at the Rotterdam plant was likely to boost prices of oil products such as diesel, jet fuel and gasoline in northwest Europe, where refinery profits have risen in recent weeks due to other refinery issues in the region. (Reporting by Ron Bousso; Editing by Susan Fenton)
Of being Prime Minister of the country four times

Men of honour to their grand old party, the UNP

It is few who have had the rare privilege of being Prime Minister of any country four times. In this beautiful land of ours, blessed with the timeless beauty of natures magnitude, it is just two people who have achieved this honour.

Therefore it was fitting that one of them, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe, gave the 17th annual oration this year in honour of the late Dudley Senanayake, who was the other, several decades ago. Temple Trees was home to both of them, at one time or another and this being the venue this year, made it yet another cherished event, leaving their footprints once again, in the sands of time of our countrys history.

There has been an erosion of standards in many spheres of life including politics today. Both the late Dudley and Prime Minister Ranil stand out as men of honour, beacons of loyalty to their grand old party, the UNP. Even when Dudley withdrew from politics for a while, he never jumped a political fence to join another party, although invited to do so. Ranil Wickremesinghe too, despite the ups and downs which are invariably a part of a politicians life, has stayed loyal to his party through thick and thin. Both of them suffered countless insults, but took them in their stride, not deviating from their straight political walk. Both are known for their unwavering belief in a school of thought that transcends ethnicity, religion, race, language, class, caste, upcountry- low country divisions which have divided our country and hindered our progress.

"Ranil entered Parliament in 1977, when the UNP won a landslide victory and was the youngest Minister in the then Cabinet"



Dudley was a liberal democrat at heart, Ranils thinking too, is inclined in that direction. Both are respected for their respect for others, common sense, simplicity, integrity and belief in the rule of law and democracy. They also share a natural shyness, both lived in the homes their parents built, never made millions, never built vast luxurious mansions or squandered public funds to boost their images, preferring a simple lifestyle, unimpressed by the grandeur and pomp of power.



As Prime Minister Ranil mentioned in his oration, the world and politics have changed immeasurably, since Dudleys time. He recalled that as a child and a student, he had been fortunate to meet and learn from our past Leaders, who were frequent visitors to his parental home. The late Dudley and J.R. being among them. He also had the privilege of attending debates in Parliament in the sixties,listening to those parliamentarians who were experts at wit and humour. They were in a class of their own in the style and language of debate. He also recalled that the late Dudley had been against the Presidential system. He recalled how Dudley led the party from outside Parliament, when he returned to politics at the invitation of UNP stalwarts in 1958 as he hadnt contested at the 1956 election. He and the late President J.R. Jayewardene who had lost his seat led the struggle from outside, and there were countless protests, fighting for the freedom of the press and other issues affecting the masses. The late Dudley led the party to victory in 1965, and was Prime Minister till 1970. He spoke of the open economy which was President Jayewardenes brainchild, begun after Dudleys time and the political thinking that prevailed during that period.

Our country can be proud of both these leaders, Dudley Senanayake and Ranil Wickremesinghe. I believe these words of Gilbert Holland written in the late 19th century epitomize them both



Ranil entered Parliament in 1977, when the UNP won a landslide victory and was the youngest Minister in the then Cabinet. At the oration, Prime Minister Ranil spoke without a note, taking us back down memory lane, right through Sri Lankas political journey. I was amazed as all listeners were, at his elephantine memory and his vast reservoir of knowledge. The late Dudleys secretary, Joe Karunaratne told me that the oration was one of the best he had heard and I commented that this was because of the vast experience Ranil had and the knowledge he had gained through his forty years in politics. He spoke of the absolute power of the executive Presidency which had been abused in unprecedented fashion by the Rajapaksa government. The country fell into deep debt as a result of misrule, extravagance and the use of State funds to enhance personal glory. The debt which the country has to repay has exceeded Rs 4 trillion. The Chief Justice was removed without going through an impeachment process, without a resolution brought in Parliament to do so. Field Marshall Sarath Fonseka was thrown into jail and treated like a criminal, after his courageous service to the country which enabled us to win the war. Today, it is obvious that people want a change in the Constitution, some have even suggested a return to the Soulbury Constitution, he said they are looking at many options and systems which have been adopted in other parts of the world like the US, New Zealand and other countries. The UNP has accepted and is committed to democratic socialism as the style of government they believe in.



Our country can be proud of both these leaders, Dudley Senanayake and Ranil Wickremesinghe. I believe these words of Gilbert Holland written in the late 19th century epitomize them both. We need more of this calibre as future leaders.





A time like this demands strong minds, true faith and ready hands!

Men whom the lust of office does not kill,

Men whom the spoils of office cannot buy,

Men who possess opinions and a will,

Men who love honour, men who cannot lie.
(Photo/CGTN)

Chinese President Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the commemorations to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at the Zhurihe military training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region on Sunday.

It is the first time that Xi, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Central Military Commission, observed such a massive parade staged in the field.
The Convener of the students union attached to the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Ruhuna University had been remanded yesterday until August 11 by the Matara Magistrate.

He was remanded over an incident of an attack on two Police Sergeants during a protest organised in front of the University premises on last Sunday (23).

The Police said the suspect, Lahiru Weerasekara had allegedly assaulted the two Sergeants attached to the Crimes Investigation Unit of Matara and damaged their camera during the protest.

He was nabbed while he was on a trip with other students.

Police said the Sergeants Rajapaksa Pathirage (5244) and Indunil Padmakumara (55988), who videoed the protest who had been assaulted by the students were later admitted to the Matara General Hospital.

Three Police teams, including the Matara Divisional Intelligence Unit are conducting investigation. (Krishan Jeewaka Jayaruk)
Admiral Harry Harris, commander of the United States Pacific Command presenting Ms. Cooray the Distinguished Public Service Award at the U.S. Pacific Command Headquarters

Sri Lankas former honorary Consul in Hawaii, Kusuma Cooray, Professor Emerita was recently awarded the Distinguished Public Service Award. It is the highest award that a civilian could receive from the office of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) of the United States of America.

The award was presented to her by the Commander of the Pacific Command Admiral Harry B. Harris on 24th March, 2017 at the Pacific Command Headquarters, Camp Smith, Hawaii.

At the award ceremony Admiral Harry Harris said Kusuma during her 17 year tenure as honorary Consul of Sri Lanka has rendered service and assistance at considerable personal sacrifice motivated by patriotism, good citizenship and a sense of public responsibility.

In both her books she pays tribute to Sri Lanka in general and her town Moratuwa in particular

The following is the edited version of the citation accompanying the award: For the distinguished public service to the Department of Defence as the 2nd Honorary Consul for Sri Lanka in Hawaii, from February 2001 to January 2017, Consul Cooray diligently worked to strengthen solidarity between the United States military leadership stationed in Hawaii and all levels of the Sri Lankan Government.

During her tenure she played a pivotal role in improving bilateral, multilateral cooperation in support of the United States Pacific Commands mission with the clear purpose of enhancing the United States-Sri Lanka partnership. Consul Cooray was instrumental in further normalizing bilateral relations between the forces of the United States Pacific Command and the Sri Lanka Defence Force. She played a critical role in arranging the Commander U.S. Pacific Commands participation in the November 2016 Galle Dialogue, which marked the first visit to Sri Lanka by a four-star Officer since 2003. Her distinctive accomplishments are in keeping with the finest traditions of public service and reflect great credit upon herself and the Department of Defence.

Kusuma is an exceptional diplomat and a celebrated chef. She worked for the University of Hawaiis Culinary Institute of the Pacific and retired as Professor Emerita. She has won many prestigious awards, the most recent is the La Chaine des Rotisseurs Gold Star of Excellence for mentoring young chefs. She is consulted frequently by many hotels and restaurants. Her illustrious career in the field of hospitality spans over 40 years, during which time she taught and mentored 3 generations of young people who today make the backbone of the Food and Hotel Industry in Hawaii.

Kusuma generously volunteered to teach chefs in Sri Lanka as well. In 1998 she was the initiator and project director for the 2 year USAID funded Island Nation: Island State, a project in tourism development in Sri Lanka, a collaboration between the University of Hawaii, Kahala Hilton, Prince Hotels, Sheraton Waikiki and, Ceylon Hotel School, Chefs Guild of Sri Lanka and Ceylon Hotel Schools Graduates Association of Sri Lanka.

In 1999 the Ceylon Hotel School Graduate Association Sri Lanka awarded her Honorary Membership in appreciation of the contributions made towards the upgrading of the Hotel and Tourism Industry in Sri Lanka.

Kusuma is an author. Her first book titled Burst of Flavour  The Fine Art of Cooking with Spices published by the University of Hawaii, was awarded the Hawaii Book Publishers Association PoOkela Award Excellence in Cook Books- Award of Excellence 2002. Her second book From Ocean to Plate - Cooking Fish with Hawaiis Kusuma Cooray also published by the University of Hawaii and awarded the PoOkela Award of Excellence in 2015. Her 3rd book will be launched in 2018.

Kusuma is a product of Moratuwa, one of the populace towns in the country situated along the western seaboard that has produced men and women of stature, who left lasting impressions on the country. Moratuwa is well-known for its professionals, sportsmen, musicians, woodcraftsmen and the fisher-folkswho venture out to the sea to bring ashore their harvest of fish.

In both her books she pays tribute to Sri Lanka in general and her town Moratuwa in particular.

Kusuma left Sri Lanka in 1972 for culinary studies in Britain and thereafter left Britain in1975 for the United States where she met Ranjit Cooray and settled down in Hawaii. Ranjit a Fulbright Scholar from Sri Lanka was also from Moratuwa. He joined the University of Hawaii in 1971 where he completed a Masters degree in Botanical Sciences. He was attached to the University of Hawaii Lyon Arboretum when he passed away in January 2001.

(Russell C.Chitty)
Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Edappadi K Palaniswami thanked Prime Minister Narendra Modis intervention to secure the release of 75 fishermen and 42 fishing boats under Sri Lankan custody but urged the PM to ensure the release of 107 more fishing boats still in Sri Lanka.

After repeated efforts by the State government in India, Tamil fishermen and their boats detained in Sri Lanka will be released soon,Indian Express reported.

The detention of men and equipment is gradually becoming a political issue as it threatens the livelihood of lakhs of people, and the CM has been taking it up with the Centre repeatedly. On behalf of the people of Tamil Nadu, I thank you for your personal intervention and sincere efforts which have enabled the release of the fishermen and the boats, the CM said in his letter to Modi on Saturday.

The State received communication from the external affairs ministry about the release of 42 boats even before Prime Minister returned after inaugurating former president APJ Abdul Kalams memorial on July 27, said Palaniswami. Now information reaching here said a court in Lanka ordered the release of 75 men, he added. Palaniswami urged Modi to instruct Lanka to secure the release of the remaining 107 boats, which are languishing in Lankan custody to ensure there was adequate reciprocity to various measures taken by the Centre and State governments to resolve the vexatious issue.
Two Police Constables, attached to the Kopay Police Station had been hacked and assaulted by an unidentified sword gang in the Kopay area this afternoon, the Police said.

It was reported that the gang of had come on four motorcycles, while the former were attending to inquire a complaint near Nanthavil Amman Kovil in Kondavil.

The assailants, armed with swords and clubs, had fled the scene after committing the crime, the Police said.

Constables Surendran (6946) and Dhammika (60581) had sustained injuries. Both the officers were admitted to the Jaffna Teaching Hospital.

Their condition was not known to be serious.

The Kopay Police said that they had launched an inquiry and yet to identify the suspects in connection with the incident. (Thilanka Kanakarathna and Romesh Madushanka)

Video by Gobi Ranjan
ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 -- President Xi Jinping said Sunday China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) into a world-class military force.

Speaking shortly after a grand military parade at the Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to mark the PLA's 90th anniversary, Xi said enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army.

"The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people's military more than any other time in history," Xi said.

He urged the PLA to fully implement the CPC's thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPC's target on strengthening the PLA under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.
The story zipped across the Internet this month on a sensational two-part premise. A historic mansion-turned museum in New Jersey recently discovered 25 bottles of rare and valuable Madeira wine in its cellar, their labels boasting an import date of 1796. This much is true. The second part fits the category of what might be labeled fake wine news: the Madeira found at the Liberty Hall house, it was breathlessly reported, had been ordered to celebrate the election of America's second president, John Adams.

"Some of the original Madeira stock was shipped to the second generation who lived at Liberty Hall, in anticipation of John Adams' presidency," read the NJ.com article on July 9. The story - which offered no evidence for the John Adams claim - nonetheless lit a fire under the media's viral click-makers.

The New York Post followed with two articles about the Madeira-Adams connection, citing NJ.com. "Decant be serious!" read one Post headline, its piece saying that the wine "had been shipped to the Hall" for an Adams victory party. NPR, Town & Country magazine's website, and CNN's HLN network also aired or wrote versions of the story. "They say some of the wine cases were in anticipation of celebrating America's second president, John Adams! Whoahhhh!" the on-air HLN reporter said during her segment.

But is that true? No, not likely, rare wine experts say.

The mansion's longtime owners don't know how or when their ancestors acquired the 1796 Madeira. They have not yet found any receipts or letters detailing the reasons the valuable wine was purchased. The whole idea that their forebears got the wine to celebrate Adams's victory in late 1796?

"That's a supposition," acknowledged John Kean, 87, a retired utility executive and president of the Liberty Hall Museum.

Kean suspects that his widowed great-great-great-grandmother, Susan Livingston Kean Niemcewicz, bought the bottles in late 1796, following Adams's victory over Thomas Jefferson in the nation's first contested presidential election. Kean thinks that maybe the newly elected president was even Niemcewicz's guest of honor. After all, her late husband, also named John Kean, who died in 1795, was a member of the Second Continental Congress. President George Washington's appointed him to run the Bank of the United States. The couple likely knew Adams quite well.

"Certainly a widow would not have ordered a whole bunch of wine for herself, unless she was a closet drunk, and I don't think that was the case," said Kean, laughing. "If [my great-great-great grandmother's] husband was still alive in 1796, maybe they would have drunk this together. But it's our [belief] she was going to entertain at her home in Philadelphia for Adams. President Adams was known as a Madeira drinker and she would have obviously ordered a lot of it for him. But for some reason, she eventually took the wine back to New Jersey, and that's how we ended up with it at Liberty Hall."

But it's just his guess. To understand the history of the wine, you have to know the family's history at Liberty Hall.

In 1800, Susan Kean married a Polish aristocrat, Julian Ursin Niemcewicz living in exile in America. But he returned to Europe nine years later, and never came back. In 1811, her son Peter Kean bought the property for her, and they became the first Keans to move into Liberty Hall, which was originally built by her uncle, William Livingston, New Jersey's first governor, according to the family's history on the Liberty Hall website. Niemcewicz outlived her son, who died in 1828, and remained in the house with his widow and her grandchildren. Even though her husband abandoned her, Niemcewicz actually renamed the estate in his honor: Ursino.

When Niemcewicz passed away in 1833, her grandson, Col. John Kean, inherited the house. Under his stewardship, Ursino grew from a 14-room country house to a 50-room mansion. Plenty of room for his 11 children, two of whom went into national politics. The oldest - a third John Kean - became a member of the House of Representatives, and later the Senate. His younger brother Hamilton Kean also became a senator from New Jersey.

By family custom, the property was always passed down to the firstborn son. But Sen. John Kean died without any children. So Sen. Hamilton Kean's son - a fourth John Kean! - inherited the house in 1932.

His wife, Mary Alice Barney, eventually scrapped Ursino and restored the original name, Liberty Hall. The property was named a National Historic Landmark in 1974.

When she died in 1995, her oldest son - the current Liberty Hall museum president, and fifth John Kean - inherited it. He'd grown up in the house before going off to boarding school, Harvard, and then the Marines. He ran a public utility in New Jersey until his retirement in 1995, and later set up a family foundation to run Liberty Hall as a museum, which officially opened in 2000. Kean's four children are scattered across the country and had no interest in modernizing their ancestral home and living there, he said. In 2007, the family finally sold the house and its 11 acres of land to Kean University, named for the Kean family and Robert Winthrop Kean, a Republican congressman in the mid-20th century.

Though he'd owned the house for decades, John Kean said he never wandered down into the cellar to peruse his family's age-old collection of wine, liquor and ale.

"I knew the wine cellar was there and used to watch my father go into the basement with a big key and open the door. But I never went in there by myself because it was scary place," he said. "It was dark and gloomy and filled with cobwebs and dust. It was always locked, and I am not sure anyone knew where the key was. But I knew because I remembered my father always getting it from the right-hand cabinet next to the fireplace in the dining room."

Last year, amid ongoing renovations, the museum staff finally decided to open the cellar. The stone walls were falling apart. They began taking out each bottle and cataloging everything, eventually discovering 600 bottles and 40 demi-johns of wine. They came across some unlabeled wooden crates, opened them up, and picked through the straw, out of which peaked several bottles whose corks were covered in red wax seal.

"LENOX MADEIRA," the label read. "Imported by the late Robert Lenox, Esq., via Philadelphia, in 1796. Bottled, Summer of 1798. Re-Bottled, June 1888."

It didn't take long for one of the nation's foremost experts on Madeira wine to get wind of Liberty Hall's Madeira stash. Mannie Berk, president of the San Francisco-based Rare Wine Co., called up the museum and arranged to tour the cellar with a fellow Madeira connoisseur.

Berk was bowled over. Liberty Hall's collection of 1796 Madeiras is a rare find. For one thing, it's hard to locate Madeira that had been imported to the U.S. in the 18th century, when Madeira reigned as the drink of choice for affluent Americans. Each bottle, Berk estimates, is worth a minimum of $10,000. And they're still drinkable. All anyone has to do open the bottles, and let the wine air out in a decanter for several weeks. The longer the wine breathes in the open air, the better it tastes, he said.

But when Berk began reading the news stories this month about the bottles having been purchased for John Adams' election victory, the expert was dumbfounded.

"I was scratching my head. Who came up with that?" he asked. "There's nothing to corroborate the John Adams story."

Many of the clues to the wine's history are right there on the bottle itself and the label, Berk noted.

The very first date on the label, 1796: That's the year the wine was imported from Madeira, south of Portugal and to the west of Morocco. The Madeira was likely shipped in a barrel, and imported by Robert Lenox, a prominent merchant in New York City who specialized in the brandy-fortified wine.

The label's second date, Summer of 1798: That's when Lenox finally drew the wine out of the cask and bottled it for his personal collection, hence the custom-made seal, "R. Lenox," on the hand-blown bottle above the tattered label.

"These types of bottles were made for the private use of owners," Berk explained.

After Lenox died in 1839, the Madeiras were likely sold out of his estate, but it's not known when or to whom. A second merchant, probably.

The label's third date, June 1888: That's the year the wine was removed from the bottles to air out and to rejuvenate its taste. The wine was then re-bottled in the original "R. Lenox" bottles, likely by the new merchant. Then, the merchant created labels in Lenox's honor, calling the wine "Lenox Madeira." Eventually, they were sold. It's not certain when the Keans obtained the Madeira bottles.

According to Berk, the earliest the Keans would have acquired the bottles would have been the year of their re-bottling in 1888. Ninety-two years after Adams's victory.
This week  for the first time ever  the Charlottesville Police Department will join thousands of law enforcement agencies across the country in celebrating National Night Out.

From 6 to 8 p.m. Tuesday, the department will host block parties at Washington and Tonsler parks. National Night Out began in 1984 as a way for police officers to get to know the communities they serve. Close to 38 million people and 16,000 jurisdictions participate in the annual event nationwide.

When he took the helm of the police department last year, one of the first things Chief Al Thomas wanted to put together was a National Night Out celebration. Last year, city police teamed up with the Albemarle County Police Department to put together a huge event in the Target parking lot, complete with a dunk tank.

This year, however, Sgt. Robert Haney put together two separate celebrations in city parks to help officers get to know the people they serve in their own community. The events will feature food from Mission BBQ and Papa Johns Pizza, bouncy castles for children, K9 demonstrations and fire department equipment.

The department chose Washington and Tonsler parks for the space they provide, but to also take them back from crime, Haney said. Historically, police have had issues with vagrancy, alcohol and drug usage in the parks. By holding the events there, police hope it will encourage people to take back their parks from criminal activity.

Along with police and firefighters, the event will be a chance for the community to meet officials from different public service agencies, such as the citys parks and recreation department and Office of Human Rights, Region Ten Community Services Board and neighborhood businesses.

Its a community-police department partnership and everyone is coming together, Haney said. This event really signifies unity for this community.

Were super thrilled to be a part of this first annual National Night Out in Charlottesville, said Mindy Goodall, executive director of the Charlottesville Police Foundation. Its a really special event and people get to put a face with the badge and build personal relationships with the officers. And the officers get to know the community.

Its good for everyone, she said.

Emphasizing the importance of neighbors knowing neighbors, and communities knowing their police, Goodall said the event will help residents celebrate Charlottesville as they know it  despite recent controversial events in the city, such as the July 8 Ku Klux Klan rally.

Police are our public servants, but we sometimes forget theyre also individual people, she said. The reason they do their job is because they want to help people and keep the community safe.

The Albemarle County Police Department also will host a National Night Out celebration, from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday at Old Trail in Crozet. That event will feature live music, police equipment, K9 demonstrations and a silent auction to benefit Special Olympics Virginia.

The Fluvanna County Sheriffs Office will host a National Night Out event from 5 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Pleasant Grove Park. Their event will feature police equipment, safety demonstrations and a bicycle rodeo.

The Greene County Sheriffs Office will host their event from 6 to 9 p.m. Tuesday in front of the courthouse in Stanardsville. The event will feature bouncy castles and free hotdogs and shaved ice.
A number of elementary schools in Albemarle County have implemented multiage classrooms over the years, placing emphasis on student learning and what best fits the school.

Woodbrook Elementary soon will be the latest school in the division to use this model.

At the start of the 2017-18 school year, there will be one first grade and one second grade class combined, and all fourth and fifth grades combined.

Theres one classroom that will be used for multiage that is completely empty after a wall was knocked down to create a larger learning space, and theres another section of Woodbrook that is under construction.

The school is currently undergoing a $16.3 million expansion and modernization, thanks in part to a 2016 voter-approved bond referendum. The capital project will expand the buildings footprint, giving way to new instructional spaces that can be used for multiage.

The entire project is expected to be completed in fall 2018 with work going on during the upcoming school year.

The school divisions experience with multiage spaces in recent years is that it exposes students to more curricula, challenges some students to master higher-level academics at an earlier age and places an emphasis on social and emotional learning.

It does promote social and emotional development in children in a very natural context because theyre in a classroom community together, and we focus on community and we want to emphasize the students responsibility within that community, said Michele Castner, director of elementary education and former principal of Agnor-Hurt Elementary. And really what happens in that natural context is students begin to naturally help one another, ask questions to one another.

And for teachers, its given them more opportunities to work in teams and co-teach throughout the school day.

Currently, Agnor-Hurt and Red Hill elementaries have multiage learning spaces.

At Agnor-Hurt, a recent addition to the building allows for 100 students  by parent permission and request  to take part in a mixed-grade learning environment. Its broken down by kindergarten through second and third through fifth grades.

Outside of the addition, second and third grade classes were combined last school year. And at the start of the next school year, fourth and fifth grades will be grouped in a multiage model.

Red Hills multiage model is school-wide, and is divided by first and second grades, then third through fifth. Yancey Elementary, which the School Board closed in June, used a similar model.

Even though multiage puts two or more traditional grade levels together, its mission is student-centered in a way that allows students and teachers to personalize learning and let the children explore their interests.

Our aspiration is to differentiate, to know our students well enough or so well that I know what your interests are, I know what your academic achievement levels are, said Debbie Collins, assistant superintendent for student learning. I kind of know where your social, emotional needs are so when I start thinking about groups for you, Ive got those kinds of things over here and as I group and regroup students, Im going to put you in a situation where youre challenged academically, socially and emotionally  and sometimes Im going to put you in a situation where youre going to develop leadership over here.

The use of multiage classrooms has been growing nationwide in recent years.

As reported in The Atlantic in May, multiage learning spaces are popular in the country now and were common in the 1990s. But with the passage of No Child Left Behind, the push to more standardized testing at the grade levels shifted classroom makeups back to traditional models.

But moving to multiage does not exempt a school from the Standards of Learning tests administered each school year in Virginia. This model blends curricula from different grade levels but still aims to cover the standards, Castner said.

The standards are being taught at every level and the instruction is being differentiated to meet the needs of the individual child, she said. I would have no fear saying to any parent that your child is going to receive the standards and actually accelerate in standards because theyre being exposed to a greater curriculum.

School officials have drawn a parallel between elementary multiage spaces to the countys High School 2022 initiative, which is rethinking the high school structure and graduation requirements.

For Lisa Molinaro, Woodbrooks principal, multiage at Woodbrook and other elementary schools seems like a logistical transition to the evolving high school models.

Were building a school for the future and, most importantly, were building a school that will produce kids that will be going into our high schools of the future, she said.
An attitude has grown up among some Americans that free speech is only for opinions we agree with. Gone is the once liberal view that although I disagree with what you say, I will defend to the death your right to say it. That attitude is now seen as folly, though it actually comes from confidence and strength.

This new view of no free speech for fascists was expressed at a Charlottesville City Council meeting (Activists demand answers from city, The Daily Progress, July 18) when one of the protesters against Ku Klux Klan and alt-right demonstrations said, This brainless defense of free speech is killing us. If your speech is being used to promote that other human beings dont deserve rights, thats not a form of speech we have any obligation to defend or protect, at all. (The old view was that it is precisely the opinion that nobody likes that needs to be protected in order to protect everyones rights.)

A liberal from the 1970s might wonder how this change in attitude came about, but Peter Breggin, back in 1979, put his finger on it when he suggested that the reason why the American Civil Liberties Union famously defended Nazis was because the Nazis had no power and were regarded as underdogs. If the ACLU had thought the Nazis had real power, he opined, they would not have defended them.

By any objective analysis, the alt-right and KKK have no real power today. They are fringe groups that represent un-American ideologies. But they are not seen that way by self-identified resistance groups who fear an existential threat from people with different opinions.

Even mildly different opinions are seen as threats through this lens of insecurity. This need to defend against threats both real and imagined has become justification for disorderly conduct or, in some cities, even violence.

As the attitude becomes No free speech for fascists  and well tell you who the fascists are, the danger is that it will be too late by the time people with this attitude look into the mirror and see their enemy looking back at them.

Miles N. Fowler, Albemarle County
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In 2017, Chanel is celebrating the 30th anniversary of its watchmaking adventure, an anniversary that coincides with that of the watch that embodied this debut under the finest auspices. In three decades, the brand has engaged in all the crafts involved in Fine Watchmaking. This involves approaching horology as an object of pleasure, without making any compromises with regard to the technical and craftsmanship expertise required to create precious objects, ready to defy time. In October 1987, when Chanel introduced a watch, this launch was totally unexpected. It was named Premiere, a name with multiple meanings. It is the one that precedes others in time, space and rank. It is principal and superior. It is that which is made for the first time, that which takes top place. In the field of transport, it refers to the most comfortable class; and in Haute Couture, to the female director of the atelier. In watchmaking it is the Premiere watch exclusively created for women by Chanel. It echoes the shape of the N5 fragrance bottle stopper, as well as that of the Place Vendome. Contrary to everything that had been done before, this watch intended for women is not a miniature version of a mens watch.

Renewal

Personified by Ines de la Fressange, it is both an authentic timepiece and a fashion accessory. It is ready for everything and carries its name with aplomb and panache. The Premiere watch heralded the first chapter in the Maisons history with watchmaking. With it, Chanel literally gave pride of place to time, presenting it as a smooth, flat surface evoking every possibility. The watch thus became an authentic piece of jewelry, embodying the quintessence of femininity and far surpassing the pure functional aspect of its nature. Everything resides in this art of surprise and wonderment, in this inextinguishable desire to create. The icons of the Maison have inspired a wealth of timepieces: Pearls, Camellias, Comets, the Matelasse motif and the Ribbon have all encircled the wrist and contributed to the ceaseless renewal of feminine watchmaking codes. Right from the start, everything was designed, developed and produced in-house. No outsourcing, no licensing agreements. Chanel watchmaking is done by Chanel.

Originality

At Chanel, watchmaking techniques remain resolutely in tune with the Creative Studio, never the other way around. Everything is done with respect for Swiss traditions that adapt to the creative ambitions dreamed up in Paris. A Chanel watch is always entirely unexpected. It calibrates time, boldly giving new twists to design codes. In another vein, in 2012, to mark its 25th anniversary, the Premiere watch treated itself to a flying tourbillon. Chanel time took flight as the brand offered women the opportunity to enter a world of extreme mechanical complexity. Tourbillons of diamonds stylized in the form of a camellia or a comet, original horological complications With technology dedicated to serving creative momentum, Chanel literally knows no limits, expressed through a rapid-fire string of innovations. That year, the brand won its first prize, in the Ladies Watch category, at the Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Geneve, the prestigious annual awards for the finest creations and the most influential actors in the watch industry.

Creativity

1987-2017. Just 30 years, and the same relentless desire to go further, higher. A Swiss Manufacture, a steady stream of patents and inventions. Watches that exalt time. For 30 years, Chanel has been expressing its own unique vision of watchmaking, fired by the same desire to create: at the end of the year, Chanel will launch a new design, an authentic token of recognition to be worn on the wrist. In 2017, Chanel Horlogerie has a bright future ahead of it, with watches interpreting the aesthetic of time, year after year.

Since 2012, the rare models in the dreamy Mademoiselle Prive collection have been turning heads and time. Unbelievable dials, refined movements, revisited artisanal techniques such as gold thread embroidery, mother-of-pearl and diamond marquetry, glyptic techniques: nothing is impossible. Beneath the nimble fingers of the greatest enamellists, engravers and gemsetters, this collection is writing a whole new page in the creative history of Chanel watchmaking, and becoming a privileged field of expression for skills exercised with consistent excellence.

The Mademoiselle Prive Camelia Brode watch, featuring a dial embroidered from colored silk threads using the needle painting technique, enabled Chanel to win its second Grand Prix dHorlogerie de Geneve award in 2013, in the Artistic Crafts category.

Rose windows

In 2017, it was the stained-glass windows of Aubazine Abbey, a Cistercian monastery where Gabrielle Chanel spent part of her youth, that inspired the diamond-studded geometrical motif. Framed by a round white gold case, myriads of diamonds have been set, drawing all eyes towards the dial. Three models co-exist, featuring patterns every bit as complex as a gothic rose window. They are traced by black rhodium-plated white gold bands set with brilliant- baguette, rose- and triangle-cut diamonds. The eye follows them much as a pilgrim moves around a cloister. The rich symbolic Mademoiselle Prive universe pays tribute to absolute femininity, that of the curve, the counter-curve and the light that surges from darkness. It is an invitation to serene contemplation, like that extended by a stained-glass window.

Endearing tweed

In 2015, Chanel presented the Boy.Friend watch. This watch with its masculine look is entirely dedicated to women. Its octagonal shape recalls the emblematic and iconic Premiere watch, while setting itself apart at first glance. This creation is in keeping with the watchmaking vocabulary of the Maison, imbued with its understated sense of refined aesthetics. Its lines are powerful and its shape bears the unmistakable Chanel signature. The design is both contemporary and classic, while the angles are polished and satin-brushed. Everything is a matter of visual appeal, balance, proportions and details. When masculine touches reveal a feminine side Chanel embarks its first horological creation for women, the Premiere watch, on a journey to a territory of masculine codes, the better to divert them. The Boy.Friend watch embodies the art of giving a new twist to elements of the masculine wardrobe. Back in the day, this principle of reappropriation had marked the rise of an entirely new style, that of Gabrielle Chanel.

Diversion

The enigmatically named Boy.Friend overturns the classic design codes of feminine watchmaking, and yet it is clearly made with women in mind. It is not merely about size, since its broader versions adopt decidedly masculine dimensions. Its wristband comes as a classic alligator strap, as well as a metal bracelet coordinated with the case in steel or beige gold, and bearing the signature Chanel motif : tweed. The Boy.Friend Tweed models are fitted with metal bracelets featuring a stamped surface inevitably reminding one of the texture of Chanel skirt suits. Born of a distinctive steel mesh, this bracelet recalling the richness of a finely woven cloth represents a technical feat and this fabric naturally finds its place on the wrist.
The standoff between the armies of India and China at the trijunction with Bhutan and the war of words unleashed by Beijing suggests to a long-term preparation in the making not just for this sector but across Chinas borders with other countries. The tussle at the tri-junction goes beyond the 89 square kilometres of territory to the larger leadership issues in Asia and beyond.

Ever since President Xi Jinping took over the reins at the 18th Communist Party Congress in 2012, the leadership adopted policies different from the ones followed by Deng Xiaoping from 1978 onwards.

Deng suggested, against the backdrop of the chaotic situation in the country following the Cultural Revolution and the Gang of Four that the country needs to emphasise on reform and opening up and enhance material capabilities. Thus was born the slogan of keeping a low profile [tao guang yang hui]. Thirty years of reform catapulted China to the second largest economy and wetted its sense of lebensraum.

As China became the largest trading partner for over 130 countries, scholars like Yan Xuetong suggested that China revive the Middle Kingdom and its attendant dependencies such as vassal states. By 2012, Mr Jinping announced rejuvenation of the country with a road map to observe two centennials  the first hundredth anniversary of the birth of the Communist Party in 2021 and that of the Peoples Republic in 2049. Thus began the revival of the strategic policy of the country from low profile to that of accomplishing something [fenfa youwei].

As a follow up, China began imposing its version of the Monroe Doctrine on its neighbouring countries even as it began preparations for Belt and Road Initiative of connecting regions in Asia, Europe and Africa.

China began evicting the United States from the region with the USS Impeccable incident in 2009 when the American naval ship was nudged outside the South China Sea. At the same time, China began expanding its claims in East China Sea on Senkaku Islands with Japan and in South China Sea with Vietnam, the Philippines and other countries.

China has also deployed all other skills in maximizing its outreach. Chinas charm offensive towards South-East Asian countries, specifically the Philippines, against the backdrop of The Hague tribunal verdict on the South China Sea islands is instructive in this regard.

The Middle Kingdom of the yore considered the Korean Peninsula and South-East Asia as its primary area of influence with many states paying tributes. While China since joining the United Nations in 1971 suggests that it abides by the Westphalian world order of equality of nation-states in the UN and sanctity of the individual member-states, a new streak is visible in this recent revival of the Middle Kingdom.

The Doklam issue as well represents this urge to impose the Middle Kingdom across the region. Clearly, China has been expanding the envelope in Asia and beyond and Doklam incident is another new normal of late. More such border probing missions and military roads or other forms of soft or hard infrastructure are expected across the Line of Actual Control with India in the near future.

Likely areas of friction include Daulat Begh Oldi, Trig Heights, Pangongtso Lake, Chumar, Demchok, Samar-lungpa and other areas in the western sector of the border, while in eastern sector near Aruncahal Pradesh more Chinese probing missions are possible at Asaphila, Migyitun, Samdurongchu, Changtze and Fish Tails.

Specific to Doklam, by selectively applying provisions of the 1890 treaty between British India and Qing dynasty, China began altering the status quo with probing missions and military road construction. The understanding with Bhutan in 1988 on maintenance of status quo were thrown away, as was the understanding with India in 2012.

President Xi raised the bar in 2012 by suggesting that China should not sacrifice core interests (including perceived sovereignty claims) for the sake of developmental interests (that is trade, investments, etc). Today against the backdrop of the factional struggles before the 19th Communist Party Congress later this year, core interests have again become competitive propositions in garnering more seats in the Politburo.

Any aspiring leader in the next Politburo will be seen as not defending enough recent Chinas positions at Doklam could be castigated as another Li Hongzhang, the Qing imperial commissioner who signed the treaty with Japan after Chinas defeat in 1895 and gave up the Korean Peninsula and Taiwan. Mr Xi alluded to guarding against such loss of territories as recently as in his meeting with Taiwanese opposition Kuomi-ntang leader Hong Hsiu-chiu in November 2016.

The charged media coverage on Doklam has also spawned intense nationalist rhetoric in China. While Chinas ratcheting up on the disputed islands of Senkaku and South China Sea and missile defence deployment in South Korea had pitched the Chinese public against Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines and South Korea, a similar effort in the case of Doklam has fortunately not triggered street-side protests in China and against India or Indians, although such controlled activity cannot be ruled out in the near future.

This may be partly because while Japan has over 80,000 companies investing in China compared to a paltry 200 Indian firms. Also, other economic inter-dependence indicators between India and China  trade, investments, tourism and others  are relatively low as compared with other regions. However, this scenario may not last long due to globalisation and so India may also have to be prepared on this front as well in the future.

As Chinas ambitions have been tickled with its double digit growth rates (although declining of late) and is currently being exhibited in leadership tussle with other nations across Asia and beyond, a concert of these countries is necessary to restore peace and stability. Chinas imposition of any Middle Kingdom over Asia is anathema to the 21st century dynamics. India is well poised to take the initiative in restoring the much- needed balance in the region.



(The writer is Chairman & Professor in Chinese Studies Centre for East Asian Studies)
Shipments in the first quarter of 2017-18 rose by 10.57 per cent to USD 72.21 billion while imports surged 32.78 per cent to USD 112.2 billion.

New Delhi: India's exports of engineering goods to China saw a whopping 123 per cent growth at USD 629 million during April-June this fiscal, driven by an upsurge in shipments of non-ferrous metals, according to trade body EEPC India.

The country's shipments to China stood at USD 282 million in the April-June quarter of the previous fiscal.

The rise assumes significance as India has a massive trade deficit with China, which mounted to USD 46.56 billion last year as Indian exports continued to decline while the bilateral trade marginally slowed down by 2.1 per cent to nearly USD 71 billion, data released earlier showed.

India's overall exports grew by 4.39 per cent to USD 23.56 billion in June, according to commerce ministry data.

Shipments in the first quarter of 2017-18 rose by 10.57 per cent to USD 72.21 billion while imports surged 32.78 per cent to USD 112.2 billion, leaving a trade deficit of USD 40 billion. Shipments of engineering goods from India to China aggregated USD 234 million in June, against USD 94 million in the same month last year.

The sharp rise was on the back of a mammoth 971 per cent increase in the shipments of non-ferrous metals in June this year to USD 158 million from a mere USD 14.75 million in the same month last year, the analysis revealed. T S Bhasin, chairman of the Engineering Export Promotion Council (EEPC) of India, hopes that bilateral trade continues to flourish between the two neighbours.

For the April-June period, non-ferrous metals exports to China saw an increase of 344 per cent from USD 80 million last year to USD 355 million in the first quarter of the current fiscal.

"China is certainly a key trading partner for India. The two economies are among the fastest growing in the world and can complement each other. A pick up in the Chinese economy is also contributing to the rising consumption of the key metals," the EEPC India Chairman said.

China and South Korea were the leading importers of non-ferrous metals from India during April-June with 17 per cent and 14.6 per cent share respectively, Bhasin said.
Chennai: Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley ruled out rolling back the Goods and Services Tax (GST). He said this was launched in the nations interest after obtaining consensus from all the States and Union Territories in India. He admitted that the GST is not an easy reform to be implemented and that people will try to prevent this from taking place.

The Union Minister averred that the GST was based on the principle of congruence and that the switch over (from the previous tax regime) is smooth and there was no taxation on taxation, besides which the process of filing returns has been simplified. This would help to instil among the people a sense of ownership of the country.

The reform is in larger interest of the nation. So, we dont blink or pause. If you do, then you will go into reconsideration mode and people will not allow you to go into reform mode, Mr Jaitley said without naming anyone.

Aiming to explain the rationale of implementing the GST, he said, Lets be honest. The country needs more revenue. Our armed forces guarding the borders need arms and ammunition. Can anyone say we dont have money for the army or police who protect us? Dont you use highways or roads? The sense of ownership of the country needs to come to us, Mr. Jaitley said addressing a GST Conclave here on Sunday evening.

The Minister also assured that the GST Council would consider the representations made to him by the industry associations. The GST, he said, resulted in free flow of trucks across the country and 25 States and 7 UTs have dispensed with the system of Octroi check posts, thus saving time and spends on fuel.

As to the net impact he said the tax regime was designed by the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi by creating an environment which is business friendly and investor friendly while ruling out any interference by the government. This will transform the country into a developing economy and improve the (quality) of lives of the people. the resource can be invested in slum development, infrastructure or health, he said and added that GST can transform the image of the country.
New Delhi: The government is planning to facilitate the rollout of bike taxis on a bigger scale and is preparing to introduce an app that will also include the new and economical way of commuting, Union Minister Nitin Gadkari said.

Road Transport and Highways Minister Nitin Gadkari is confident that bike taxis will offer solutions not only for wading through severe traffic congestions in metropolises but can provide affordable transportation to people in far-flung rural areas. Bike taxis have been launched at a few places in the country, mostly initiated by private players.

"We are planning to facilitate launch of bikes as taxis. We are going to introduce a cab aggregator platform where commuters could choose any mode of transportation that also includes a bike taxi," Gadkari said.

He said a presentation for it has already been made by experts and policy planners were looking into the details and contours of it.

"Lack of employment is a major problem for this country. Our government's priority is to provide jobs. Today, India faces shortage of 22 lakh drivers," Gadkari said and added "bikes as taxis" can not only provide affordable rides to people but can generate employment for lakhs of youths.

"We are going to create an economy which is going to provide employment," he said and added that as many as 2,000 driver training institutes are on the anvil and local youths, after adequate training, would be encouraged to embrace bike taxi driving as profession.

In rural areas, poor people face problems commuting, he said and added, "The idea is that the nearest bike can be booked through aggregator. There will be competition for offering good services."

Elaborating, he said, suppose one has to travel short distances alone, one can easily book a bike taxi through app- based platform to be launched shortly by the government.

"This platform will not only be restricted to aggregators like Ola and Uber. It will be for all. Government will be a facilitator," he said.

Asked about lack of clarity on commercial bike taxi regulations, the minister said, "We are studying all aspects."

Besides, he added that there would be a system to track the movement of these taxis through GPS. The minister last week had made it clear that driverless cars will not be allowed in India as it will lead to joblessness.

He has said that instead, the government will focus on training drivers as adequate driving skills can provide employment to about 50 lakh people. He has also said that plans were afoot to transform public transportation in the country and replace 1.8 lakh buses across the states with luxury buses.

"Talks are on with World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) to help India to replicate the London Transport Authority Model where all the public transportation buses would be replaced by luxury buses and a common man can travel in them by paying about 40 per cent less price as compared to current fares," Gadkari has said.
Mumbai: Kajol is one such actress, who is known for not mincing her words and is brutally honest. She will not play with words, but keep it straight in front of you without any fabrication. For which, she also receives criticism, but the actress feels blessed because she thinks that despite being straight on ones face people forgive her, but husband Ajay doesnt spare her for this, as he has to face its repercussions at parties and events.

She says, "Huge cost. Ajay (Devgn) blasts me every other day. I can't take diplomacy seriously even though it lands my husband in trouble with people in the industry. At parties, he chides me for saying things as is. But believe me, I say things in the nicest of ways with the best of intentions. Fortunately for me, people forgive me a lot. It's difficult to be diplomatic. I'll forget what you lied about."

Speaking about actors, Kajol told a leading tabloid, "Actors have dehumanised themselves. We hold ourselves to these impossible standards because we've created them. Looking a certain way is an issue we've created. I wear regular stuff, clothes which are comfortable. It's not airport fashion. It's what normal people wear. I can't wear stilettos while travelling. Flats were created for a reason. What is size zero? I don't understand it. I can't allow critics to pressure me."

When asked about that one thing she hates about Bollywood, she quickly replies, "I hate airport looks. It's idiotic. It's ridiculous to look perfect all the time. I am not walking in heels with perfect lipstick. After long flights, everyone looks like they survived a calamity. It's fine."

Does the format of fashion police most often criticising her affects her?

On this, this is what she has to say, "I don't take the fashion police seriously. People have accepted me for who I am. On screen, there are requirements, which I understand. But beyond that, we need to draw the line."
Actor Bharath, who enjoys a good market as the lead hero in Tamil and given memorable movies like Kaadhal, Veyyil and Em Magan, surprised many, when he signed to play one of the hardcore antagonists in the Mahesh Babu-starrer Spyder, directed by AR Murugadoss. Though some of his Tamil movies were dubbed in Telugu and released, this is apparently the first time Bharath is acting in a straight Telugu film. The actor speaks to DC in an exclusive on the reason for essaying a negative role in his debut Telugu venture, on Mahesh Babu, the high octane stunts, Murugadoss quirky screenplay among others.

I got roped into the film after 10 days of shoot. I got a call from ARM sir from Ahmedabad, who said they are looking out for a powerful villain for Mahesh Babu and he needs to be someone who is popular as well. Murugadoss sir completely explained the script and the character, leaving me thoroughly fascinated. And I thought it was the right opportunity to enter ARMs school! Moreover, people know me in Telugu through my dubbed films like Premisthe. Making a direct entry in Ttown with someone like Mahesh Babu will have a very big reach. Hence, I gave my nod instantly.

Heaping laurels on Mahesh Babu, he said, Though I have met him a couple of times earlier, I have not gone up and close. Despite the stardom he enjoys, the kind of respect he gives to everyone is amazing. He neither overdoes or underplays his role.

The actor says that Mahesh was patient enough when he was taking time for his Telugu lines. Since it is a bilingual in Tamil and Telugu, each scene had to be shot in both languages. While Mahesh is fluent in Tamil, I could not speak Telugu. There were huge dialogues for me in Telugu, but he waited patiently for me to complete the scenes and that really helped me perform better.

On Murugadoss, he says, He knows exactly what he wants from each and everyone. He doesnt complicate things. And he is a master in screenplay narration. Though SJ Suryah plays a negative role, I also have a solid character and my scenes with Mahesh was shot for 25 days.

Reminiscing about a quirky fight sequence shot in Vietnam, he says, It was a high octane stunt between me and Mahesh which was shot on a moving roller coaster for about 15 days. It appears at a crucial segment. All credit goes to Peter Hein and of course Santhosh Sivan sir who made it possible (shrugs).

Finally, Bharath adds, Spyder will be one of the best action crime thrillers in Indian cinema and a big film in my career. If you ask me if I would continue to accept similar villain roles, my answer is no. I want to pursue my career as a hero only.
Kochi: The Special Investigation Team (SIT) probing the actor abduction case issued a notice to Sunil Raj aka Appunni asking him to be present before it at Aluva Police club for interrogation on Monday. The direction comes amid reports that the personal manager of actor Dileep who had gone into hiding after the actors arrest is already in police custody outside the state. The notice was issued to the address of Appunnis house at Eloor. The cops now suspect that Appunni too had a role in the conspiracy.

According to sources, the SIT plans to question Appunni and Dileep together to elicit more details about the conspiracy. Meanwhile, the SIT on Saturday interrogated Edavela Babu, actor and general secretary of Association of Malayalam Movie Actors (AMMA). Officials said during the questioning session that lasted over an hour, he was asked mainly about the rehearsal camp of a stage show organised by AMMA in 2013, during which actor Dileep had allegedly developed a grudge against the victim over some personal issues.

Meanwhile, Pulsar Suni, main accused in the case, told cops he worked as driver of Kavya Madhavan, Dileeps wife, for two months. The actor had stated to the police that she didnt even know Suni. The cops are in the attempt to collect details about Sunis presence at the shooting location of a movie in which Dileep and Kavya acted together.
Kolkata: A three-year-old girl, who was allegedly made a voodoo doll by a man practising black magic and had been inserted with seven needles in her body, died today at a state-run hospital here.

The Purulia-based girl, who was admitted to the government-run SSKM hospital had undergone a surgery on Wednesday and doctors had extracted seven needles from her body.

She died at around 2.40 AM today, hospital sources said.

"The child had a successful surgery and was recuperating at the ICU. She was under observation for 48 hours. But, it seems the trauma was too much for her to bear," a senior doctor of the hospital said.

The girl, he said, was suffering from severe trauma due to alleged sexual abuse and the torture by the man.

An autopsy conducted on the body revealed, besides infection in both of her lungs, the girl died because of multi-organ failure which were infected primarily because of the insertion of non-sterilised needles inside her body.

"It is quite surprising as to how the girl was surviving even after so many needles were inserted inside her body for so many days. It is confirmed that she died because of the infection caused from seven needles. We are also waiting for other reports which will take another three weeks to arrive," a senior doctor at the forensic department said adding, her body will be handed over to the district child welfare committee.

Meanwhile, the police have detained the girl's mother on charges of her alleged involvement in assisting the man in killing her own daughter.

"We suspect that the mother was having an illicit relationship with the man responsible for inserting the needles inside the body of the girl. We have to question her in connection with our probe into the matter," a senior officer of the district police said.

Primary probe revealed that the man was a friend of the woman's husband, who had left her after discovering their illicit relationship, he said.

The mother, who worked as a domestic help in the man's house, had initially taken the girl to Bankura Medical College and Hospital for treatment of cold and cough, but doctors after seeing the wounds on her body, informed the police.

She was then brought to SSKM hospital, where doctors found seven needles inserted in her body in such a way that they had pierced her organs.

Her tormentor, a former home guard, has been booked under POCSO Act and the police are on a look out for him, a senior police officer said.
KOCHI: A unique programme named ConsultCardio service has been launched by a private hospital based in India and Maldives which enables general practitioners and doctors to seek expert advice when they come across patients with cardiac symptoms. The service essentially targets to support medical professionals in rural and semi urban areas. The service will be offered free through email, phone call or instant messaging, subject to free pre-registration. Meditrina Hospital, with branches in Kerala, Jharkand and Maldives, has introduced the service for doctors at primary care centres and smaller clinics/hospitals who can reach out to senior cardiologists at Meditrina Hospitals across the country for immediate consultation.

Majority of patients with cardiac symptoms do not require surgical intervention, provided they are given necessary care under the supervision of a specialist, immediately after manifestation of symptoms. The consult cardio campaign helps doctors to reach out to the specialist for advisory and guidance for treatment. Our team of specialists with more than 25,000 interventional procedures to their credit will provide advisory free of charges to the doctor community practicing across the country. This will enable doctors to provide right care at the right moment and can save lives of patients, said Dr. N. Prathap Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director for Meditrina Hospitals. Cardiologists at Meditrina Hospitals and SIH Cardiac Centres at Kollam, Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad, Jamshedpur, Maldives would be available for consultation at the first phase while specialists from SIH Cardiac Centres at Ambala Cantt., Panchkula, Faridabad and Gurgaon will join the consultation panel in the second phase.
The statement by the president came shortly after a meeting of the National Defence Council, which was attended by the defence minister, the army chief of staff, and the heads of the navy and air force.

Egypts President Abdel-Fattah El-Sisi hailed on Saturday the armed forces for their efforts in foiling several terrorist attacks targeting military locations.

El-Sisi stressed in a statement the necessity of continued measures to preserve the security of Egypt, as well as the importance of maintaining a high level of training and readiness.

The statement by the president came shortly after a meeting of the National Defence Council, which was attended by the defence minister, the army chief of staff, and the heads of the navy and air force.

The meeting included a presentation of security measures undertaken by the military, especially in North Sinai, where El-Sisi was briefed on steps taken by the armed forces to purge Sinai of terrorist elements.

Over the past week, Egypts army thwarted two major attacks by militants targeting forces in North Sinai and Alexandria.

On Monday, an attack that could have killed 50-60 soldiers, according to the army spokesman, was foiled after a car laden with explosives was run over by an army tank before it could reach its target; an army checkpoint south of El-Arish in North Sinai.

The car exploded shortly after being run over, killing seven civilians.

On Thursday, army forces opened fire on a 4x4 vehicle loaded with over 1.5 tonnes of "highly explosive material" that was attempting to attack a military unit in the Northern Military Zone, located in Alexandria governorate.

The car's driver, who was wearing an explosive belt, was killed.

Egypt is battling an Islamist insurgency based in the northern part of the Sinai Peninsula, though militants have carried out attack in other parts of the country.

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Cases of twins born with their critical body parts joined together have been reported and treated through complex procedures in the past few years, and in many cases children are also risk of death due to such conditions.

As conjoined twins in Bangladesh are set to undergo surgery to separate the babies joined at their head, another similar case surfaced in Moscow. But while doctors were worried about carefully carrying out surgery to separate them, it turned out that it was only the skin that was connected.

The doctors were initially concerned about separating the bone structure in the head, but were relieved when they found out that under the skin the bones were not connected. They were separated in just 30 minutes and now the girls are recovering swiftly.

Other such cases have led to complicated procedures which can take up to 23 hours for safely separating twins joined at critical points in their anatomy.
Chennai: India, with 14.4 million obese children, has witnessed an alarming rise in the obesity cases in children as per the recent figures published by World Obesity Federation. Likewise, diabetes cases are also taking a toll among children with around five per cent of youngsters in its grip in the country.

A recent study at Okayama University in Japan reveals that these numbers could be eased if breastfeeding was practised till the age of two instead of formulas.

The study reports that breastfeeding can help prevent children from developing diabetes and becoming obese later in life. Children, who were only breastfed were less likely to be overweight or obese at ages seven or eight compared to kids who drank formula and substitutes, say doctors.

Though WHO and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend that mothers breastfeed babies exclusively for at least six months in order to avoid diarrhoea and infectious diseases, the study says that breast milk helps to provide the energy that it can prevent from developing diabetes.

Experts suggest that breastfeeding is ideal till the age of two to provide the new born with nutrients necessary to develop the immune system that is likely to be affected in young age. Changed lifestyle, consumption of junk food and reduced physical activity are reasons why children get prone to obesity and diabetes at a young age. Breastfeeding prevents that by avoiding early introduction of solids like cereal or dried baby food that increases the risk of obesity, said Dr Nithya Ramamurthy, head of Obstetrics at Fortis Malar Hospital.

Supporting the observations of the study, a report published in the journal JAMA Pediatrics encouraged mothers to breastfeed in order to combat diabetes among their kids.

Childhood obesity and diabetes are difficult for children to manage and have led children on the path to health problems that were once considered adult problems. Formula-fed children lack the nutrients they can get from breast milk, which can lead to different types of food allergies and if children lack physical activity, diabetes is sure to cause trouble, said senior diabetologist, Dr V Mohan.

As per WHO reports, if every child was breastfed within an hour of birth, given only breast milk for their first six months of life, and continued breastfeeding up to the age of two years, about 8,00,000 child lives would be saved every year as it provide lifetime immunities.

Breast milk provides your baby with food that is easy to digest and very nutritious. As the breast milk helps the child to develop healthy eating patterns, it reduces the risk of diabetes. Breastfed babies seem to be better able to regulate their food intake and are at lower risk for obesity, said Dr Janardan Dixit, a renowned paediatrician.

The study also highlights the theme of sustaining breastfeeding together for the World Breastfeeding week starting on August 1, as it links the benefits of breastfeeding for the mother. Breastfeeding helps mothers lose the extra abdominal fat they gain during pregnancy. If women breastfeed after pregnancy they do not retain the fat in the body, which prevents health of mother from being affected, cites the study.

Technologies to help manage diabetes

Diabetologists provided insights into latest advances and guidelines in diabetes prevention and management at the fourth edition of Dr Mohans Diabetes Specialities Centres Update 2017 held on Sunday.

The programme aimed at management of diabetes and its complications through newer drugs in diabetes, beta cell, artificial pancreas, newer insulin and trial methods.

The ICMR-India Diabetes Study, the largest in the country to investigate diabetes in India, after sampling all the states was presented at the Update.

Dr V Mohan, organising chairman of the Diabetes Update and chairman of Dr Mohans group of diabetes institutions said, Early diagnosis and strict management of diabetes have been shown to make a great impact in preventing and delaying complications of the disorder. Therefore, it is important for the medical and research fraternity to convene to discuss trends, best treatment standards and realistic means of prevention and alleviation of associated complications.

The programme, inaugurated by Dr Alvin C. Powers, president, American Diabetes Association and Dr NamHan Cho, president-elect, International Diabetes Federation, was attended by more than 2,000 delegates who participated in the scientific programme.
Going off to college can be a strange and exciting adventure in a young adults life.

Like a baby you become curious about your new surroundings. However, some of these new encounters may leave you puzzled and yearning for answers.

Thanks to Liberty Living, a student accommodation centre, the world gets to know what they've wanted to know after they posted it on its website.

A report by the Metro revealed the strange and bizarre questions UK university students are searching for online.

1 Why does my lecturer stare at me?

2 Why do I fancy my lecturer?

3 Are law students hot?

4 Is Sports Science a Mickey Mouse degree?

5 Why are art students pretentious?

6 Is university like Fresh Meat?
Do you love flaunting your new buys on social media platforms like Instagram and Facebook? You might now need to be more wary of what you post, as a picture of your lovely vacation home, glitzy jewellery or expensive car could land you in trouble.

Under the new Project Insight, the Modi government will keep a track of your wealth through your social media platforms, beginning next month. But how ethical is it to keep a track of someones wealth through social media?

Designer Amit Talwar, who is a social media regular, opines, First of all, the question to the government should be  have you actually cracked down on the real tax evaders? Huge corporations and billionaires, who are the real culprits, always escape the system. Vijay Mallya is a fine example of this and you can see his social media activity. And unlike him, there are many others who never made the headlines. What about these people? If someone buys a new car or has a property and they have worked for it, they have all the right to flaunt it.

He adds, They should look after big names, but that will not happen, will it? I have, at times, worked three different jobs to make some extra money. So after all that hard work over twenty years, if I buy a car or a house, it should be none of their business. I have paid my taxes and to sneak into someones social media accounts is totally unethical.

However, some believe that the government has already been tracking social media activity for sometime. Kartik, an avid Instagrammer, shares, To believe that this is a new policy is like pouring old wine into a new bottle. Of course the government is floating it around as a new decision, but the truth is all of our social media is already being monitored. So they could have used all the information without proclaiming it loud. The fact that they have said it out loud will in fact make people cautious. He believes that the purpose of this program is not as straightforward as the government is claiming it to be. This is something more than just related to tax-evasion.

Documentary filmmaker Mohan Kumawat believes the same. If you buy something like a car or a house, you already have some sort of documents for the same. To believe that the government is in the dark about it is being foolishly ignorant. This move, in fact, has another motive. By going public with such scheme, no one can sue the government for invasion of privacy. The government has a tool to track anyones social media accounts and be open about it. It is a way to monitor what people are exactly saying about the government on various platforms. It is a way to keep track of a lot of other things that they cant admit in public. Project Insight, I believe, has a bigger agenda. This way the government gets the legal right to keep track of you.

Belgium, Canada, Australia and UK are already using similar programs and these have also been successful to some extent. Could that be possible in India too? Lawyer Inayat Dhanda, who is an avid social media user, believes that this is a double-edged sword. Its a good move for a country whose politicians are honest and whose governments provide basic facilities like healthcare. I see this as another failed stunt like demonetisation just to keep the citizens busy and in fear, while the government easily messes up other important issues like foreign affairs.

Mohan Kumawat too questions the intent behind Project Insight. He says, There are so many other ways to find out who is involved in tax evasion. Pan card and Aadhar card are the easiest ways to track anyones expenses. One can anyway not make cash payments of more than two lakh rupees now. All your bank accounts are now connected to your Aadhar number. So in the midst of all these regulations, what is the need for another project like this?
New Delhi: Days after the National Investigative Agency (NIA) arrested seven separatists from the Valley in connection with a terror-funding case, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday said the arrests were just an administrative measure and will not solve the real problem.

"The NIA arrests do not solve any problems; they are just an administrative measure. An administrative measure can not help us to resolve the situation and cannot address the real problem of Kashmir. It is important to replace it with a better idea," she said at an event organised by the Bureau of Research on Industry and Economic Fundamentals titled 'Understanding Kashmir' here.

She also warned that any change in Article 35(A) of the Constitution, which gives a special state provision to Jammu and Kashmir and is being debated in the Supreme Court, would not be in favour of the people living in the Valley and would invite repercussions.

Article 35(A) of the Constitution empowers the state legislature to define permanent residents and accord special rights and privileges to the people of Jammu and Kashmir.

"Any tempering with Article 35(A) won't be acceptable. I won't hesitate in saying that nobody will even carry the corpse of the National Flag in Kashmir, if it happens. Let me make it very clear," she said.

On Monday, the NIA arrested seven separatists over money laundering charges, for funding terror in the Kashmir Valley.

Later, on Wednesday, another separatist leader and Democratic Freedom Party (DFP) chairman Shabir Shah was also arrested.

Altaf Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Mehraj Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam, Naeem Khan and Bitta Karate have been sent to 10-day NIA custody.

Shabir Shah was produced in the Patiala House Court and was sent to a seven-day Enforcement Directorate (ED) custody.

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.

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.
Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other affected regions should have stayed with the people in this difficult time. (Photo: Facebook/Vijay Rupani )

Ahmedabad: Stepping up attack on Gujarat Congress for shifting its MLAs to Bengaluru amid flood-like situation in the state, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani alleged the decision was taken by party leader Ahmed Patel out of his "greed" to win the Rajya Sabha seat.

Rupani alleged that just like Sonia Gandhi's affection for his son Rahul Gandhi sank the Congress in the country, Patel's "greed and desperation" to save his Rajya Sabha seat will eventually sink the party in Gujarat.

"Sonia Gandhi's affection for her son has drowned the Congress in the entire country. Though the citizens rejected Rahul Gandhi's leadership, Sonia's 'putra moh' sank Congress. Similarly, Ahmed Patel's greed to save his Rajya Sabha seat here will sink Gujarat Congress," he said.

The chief minister on Sunday reached the flood-affected Banaskantha district.

After interacting with the locals in Kankrej taluka and other affected regions, Rupani decided to stay in Banaskantha and Patan for the next five days to oversee the relief operations, a government release said.

According to Rupani, the Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other affected regions should have stayed with the people in this difficult time.

"Out of his greed to win the Rajya Sabha poll, he sent 40 Congress MLAs to Bengaluru. Some of them belonged to those districts which are badly hit by flood. Patel forced them to leave their constituencies, as he was only concerned about his Rajya Sabha seat," the chief minister alleged.

"The people of Gujarat are watching this. I believe that the Gujarat Congress will sink only because of Ahmed Patel," he said.

The Congress has re-nominated Patel, the political secretary to party chief Sonia Gandhi, to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.

Meanwhile, Ahmed Patel along with state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and former party chief Siddharth Patel also visited the flood-hit areas in Banaskantha and interacted with the locals to understand their problems, a party release said.

Talking to mediapersons in Palanpur, Patel refuted Rupani's allegation that leaving Gujarat and moving to Bengaluru shows the "insensitive approach" of the Congress MLAs, at a time when the state is facing flood-like situation.

He alleged that Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other flood-affected regions were forced to leave the state by the BJP-led state government.

"The allegations against our MLAs are baseless. Before leaving, they started relief camps and also gave instructions to local workers. They are still keeping a close watch on the relief operations from Bengaluru. Our MLAs took all possible steps to help the people," Patel said.

"Our MLAs were forced to leave Gujarat as they and their family members were being tortured by the state government," he alleged.

"Even now, many Congress workers and leaders are actively involved in helping people. We are also here to help people," he said.

Patel exuded confidence of winning the Rajya Sabha election, to be held on August 8.

"I am totally confident of winning the poll. Not just those (who are in Bengaluru), some other MLAs are also in my support and I have full trust in them," he said.

Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel on Satruday said that at the time when people of north Gujarat are facing problems due to excessive rains, the entire Congress has gone to Bengaluru to enjoy.
This comes after the CPM and the BJP in Kerala declared war on each other on the night of July 27th, as both sides went on an attacking spree on each other's party offices, resulting in major property damage. (Photo: File)

Thiruvanathapuram: The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a hartal in Kerala on Sunday to protest the killing of an RSS worker allegedly by a gang led by a history-sheeter near here.

Police said 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around at 9 PM last night. An investigation has been launched and search is on for assailants, they said.

BJP state president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleged that the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) was behind the attack, a charge denied by the district leadership of the Left party.

The BJP has called for a state-wide hartal on Sunday, the state BJP chief said.

Police are maintaining a strict vigil and have clamped prohibitory orders for three days from July 28 after BJP's Kerala unit office here was vandalised and the house of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri was attacked.

Earlier, 10 people, including four from the student and youth wing of the CPI-M, had been arrested in connection with the violence in the city.
Many Congress leaders, including party's state president MM Hassan and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala, are on a hunger strike in Kozhikode. (Photo: ANI)

Kozhikode: The Kerala unit of the Congress on Sunday staged a protest, demanding peace in the state following a spree of violence between the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) over the murder of an RSS activist.

Many Congress leaders, including party's state president MM Hassan and Leader of Opposition in the assembly Ramesh Chennithala, are on a hunger strike in Kozhikode.

A 34-year-old RSS leader was murdered in Kozhikode on Saturday night. The BJP has blamed the CPM for carrying out the attack.

However, CPM state secretary Kodiyery Balakrishnan has maintained that his party members were not responsible for the murder and castigated the BJP for creating law and order problems in the state.

"The probe shows the attack against RSS worker is not a political killing. The main accused Manikandan is not a CPM member. His father is an INTUC worker. Those who are in custody are from various political outfits, one is from BMS also," Balakrishnan said in a press conference.

"Within last two weeks two cases were registered against the victim and the main accused for personal rivalry. BJP is trying to create law and order problems in the state," he added.

According to police, Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack, which took place around 9 pm on Saturday.

Earlier, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh dialed Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan expressing concern over the prevailing law and order situation in the state.

He called on the Kerala Chief Minister to nab the perpetrators and bring them to justice expeditiously.

Rajnath took to his twitter handle to inform about the same and wrote that 'political violence is unacceptable in a democracy'.

"Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state," he tweeted.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers. No one sustained injuries in the incident.
This comes after the CPM and the BJP in Kerala declared war on each other on the night of July 27th, as both sides went on an attacking spree on each other's party offices, resulting in major property damage. (Photo: File)

Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala Police on Sunday detained eight people in connection with the murder of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in the state capital on Sunday.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

He also appealed to social media users to restrain themselves from spreading rumours and provocative messages, which would attract legal action.

Earlier on Saturday, a RSS worker was murdered in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam.

Police said 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around at 9 PM last night. An investigation has been launched and search is on for assailants, they said.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) workers behind it.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers.

No one was inside the office at the time of the incident.
A gang led by a history-sheeter had attacked the 34-year-old RSS 'karyavahak' Rajesh and hacked him to death. (File photo)

Thiruvanathapuram: Five people have been taken into custody in connection with the killing of an RSS worker in Thiruvanathapuram even as the BJP called for a dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal on Sunday to protest the incident.

A day after the incident, Home Minister Rajnath Singh voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala and said political violence was unacceptable in a democracy.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan's office in Thiruvanathapuram said Singh spoke to him on Sunday morning over phone.

"The Chief Minister informed him that the state government would take action against the accused, whoever they may be. Rajnath Singh expressed satisfaction on this stand," the CMO said in a Facebook post.

A gang led by a history-sheeter had attacked the 34-year-old RSS 'karyavahak' Rajesh and hacked him to death.

His left arm was chopped off and there were several injuries all over his body.

Police said the suspected main accused, a history-sheeter, was among those taken into custody from rural Kattakkada near Thiruvanathapuram this morning.

City Police Commissioner G Sparjan Kumar said interrogation of the accused was going on.

"Five persons are in police custody now. They were taken into custody from rural Kattakkada. A hunt is on for one more person. Only a detailed questioning will reveal the exact number of accused involved in the crime," he told PTI.

State Police Chief Loknath Behera has appealed to the people to restrain from spreading rumours and provocative messages, statements, photos and videos.

"Any such action would attract legal action," he said, adding that WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts are under the scanner of police.

As part of precautionary measures, adequate police force has been deployed in all sensitive spots across the city, the official said.

The dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal called by the BJP on Sunday in protest against the incident was almost successful with state-run and private buses keeping away from roads, and shops and business establishments remaining closed.

Sporadic incidents of stone pelting on vehicles were reported in some parts of the state.

People, who reached railway stations unaware of the hartal, had difficulty in getting vehicles to reach homes. City police has extended prohibitory orders for three more days till August 2 and banned processions in the state capital.

The ruling CPI(M) and the BJP traded charges against each other over the killing of the RSS functionary.

While BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan alleged that the CPI(M) was behind the attack, the CPI(M) district leadership denied any role of the party in the attack.

Opposition leader in the state Assembly Ramesh Chennithala and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president M M Hassan went on a fast in Kozhikode district to protest the "politics of violence".

Describing the murder as brutal, Kummanam said this is "annihilation politics" aimed at wiping off the RSS and BJP. The BJP would take up the matter with the Prime Minister, Home Minister and National Human Rights Commission, he said.

The incident comes close on the heels of the attack on the BJP's Kerala unit office and stone pelting at the house of CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri Thiruvanathapuram.
The outage at the airports vital Terminal 3 in the early hours of Friday morning caused flight delays for international and domestic planes as well as baggage delays

Egypts top Prosecutor Nabil Sadek ordered on Saturday that investigations be opened into a power cut at Cairo International Airport that disrupted flight schedules and left a vital terminal in darkness for over an hour, state-run news agency MENA reported.

The power cut took place at the airports vital Terminal 3 on Friday from 12:20am to 01:41am, and caused flight delays for international and domestic planes as well as baggage delays, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

The backup generators failed to operate during the outage.

Egypts civil aviation Minister Sherif Fathy formed a committee to investigate the causes the power cut.

The committee recommended that a number of engineers and technicians be referred to the general prosecution for questioning.

Cairo International Airport is the main airports in the country and serves as the main hub for the countrys airline carrier, EgyptAir.

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New Delhi: Expressing concern over the prevailing law and order situation in Kerala after the killing of another Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker, Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday called on Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to nab the perpetrators and bring them to justice expeditiously.

Rajnath took to his twitter handle to inform about the same and wrote that 'political violence is unacceptable in a democracy'.

"Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state," he tweeted.

Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state. 1/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

"I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy," he added.

I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. 2/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

He even requested the Chief Minister to curb the political violence in the state.

"I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously," he tweeted.

I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously. 3/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

Earlier in the day, the Kerala Police detained eight people in connection with the murder of a RSS worker which took place yesterday.

Three were nabbed early on Sunday, followed by five other accused being detained soon.

The State Police Chief said, the Police forces have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt to create violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

He also appealed to social media users to restrain themselves from spreading rumours and provocative messages, which would attract legal action.

Earlier on Saturday, a RSS worker was murdered in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has alleged Communist Party of India (Marxist) CPI (M) workers behind it.

On July 11, an RSS office at Payyannur in Kannur was attacked allegedly by CPI (M) workers.

No one was inside the office at the time of the incident.
Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 12:00 hrs on 29 Jul 2017. (Photo: ANI | Twitter)

Ahmedabad: In one of the largest single haul of narcotics till date, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has seized 1,500 kgs of heroin, valued at around Rs 3,500 crore, from a merchant vessel off the Gujarat coast, a defence spokesperson said on Sunday.

The ICG, Intelligence Bureau, police, customs, Navy and other agencies are further probing into the seizure.

"The Indian Coast Guard ship 'Samudra Pavak' intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel carrying approximately 1,500 kg of heroin valued at about Rs 3,500 crore off the coast of Gujarat," a statement by defence PRO Abhishek Matiman said.

"Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest single haul of narcotics seized till date," the statement said.

He said more details about the seizure are awaited as the ship is in high seas.

An official of the Porbandar Special Operations Group said the ICG has called them for a meeting regarding the drug haul at around 4 pm on Sunday.
Rameswaram: A wood-engraved Bhagavad Gita kept close to the statue of late President APJ Abdul Kalam in his memorial here has provided fodder for alert politicos demanding to know why there werent holy books of other religions placed there as well. MDMK chief Vaiko saw a Hindutva agenda in Gita getting prime place at the Kalam statue. It was a BJP conspiracy to besmirch Kalams fame, concluded state Congress president S. Thirunavukarasu.

Distressed by the unseemly controversy, Kalams grandnephew Sheik Saleem sought the help of the chief of the Kalam memorial project, Colonel Bishwajeet Choubey of DRDO, which built the memorial and is in charge of its maintenance. Col Choubey, who had enjoyed close rapport with Dr Kalam for several years, promptly pointed out to Saleem that the Quran and Bible used by the great man were also there displayed in glass boxes close by. Upon this, Saleem sought to douse the controversy by showing to the media persons the two holy books before putting them back in their glass boxes.

Two things happened even as Saleem and the rest of the Kalam kin, along with DRDOs Col Choubey, were trying their best to halt the unseemly controversy before it flared further. First, some Hindutva group lodged a complaint in nearby Thangachimadam police station saying that some Muslim called Saleem had smuggled in a Quran and a Bible to place them next to the Gita. Next, some others raised an alarm that the two holy books went missing afterwards, perhaps taken away by Hindutva people.

Col Choubey had to explain on phone to the Ramanathapuram SP that Quran and Bible were already in the memorial and Saleem had only taken them out of their glass boxes to show them to the media. He had subsequently put them back.

The SP was satisfied. This is an unnecessary controversy and this is very unfortunate. Thatha (Kalam) was totally secular and you cannot identify him with any religion. He loved all people. The world knows that, said Saleem, sounding very bitter. The DRDO officials and workers worked round-the-clock to bring up this wonderful monument for Kalam. Should we be putting them under stress now for such a fissiparous reason? he wondered. Green Man Abdul Ghani, closely associated with the Kalam Foundation, told DC that the statue was kept as a surprise by the DRDO until Prime Minister Modi unveiled it on July 27. It was kept covered by a cloth and that's why the media, which knew the other exhibits in the memorial, did not know about the statue. And the sculptor could have included the Gita as he had drawn inspiration for his work from a picture of Kalam playing on his Veena with a Gita nearby, said Ghani, adding, I have always found on Kalam's table the Gita, Quran, Bible and Thirukkural. He said Kalams favourite Thirukkural too was very much in the Museum along with the other things frequently used by the great man. Let the people see all these things, besides the inspiring pictures and sculptures that include the missiles he made. That would be the fitting tribute to Kalam, not these kind of controversies, he said.
NIA officials during the raid on the residence of Devinder Singh Behal, an aide of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in Jammu on Sunday. (Photo: PTI)

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agencys (NIA) probe into a case of terror funding in the Kashmir Valley gained momentum on Sunday with raids being conducted on the office and residence of a Jammu-based lawyer linked to hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani and the agency summoning Geelanis younger son Naseem for questioning.

The NIA is probing if lawyer Devinder Singh Behal, who is the chairman of the Jammu & Kashmir Social Peace Forum (JKSPF) that is part of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat headed by Geelani, has any role in diversion of funds to separatists in the Valley.

Behal is also a member of the legal cell of the Tehreek-e-Hurriyat and has been seen attending funeral processions of militants.

During the raids on Behals properties in Jammu, the NIA recovered documents, mobile phones and a tablet. These will be sent for forensic examination to collecting more evidence, officials said.

This is the second raid in Jammu in connection with the case of terror funding.

Earlier, the agency had raided a businessman.

Officials claimed that they were now probing the role of couriers who helped separatists in routing funds from across the border.

Meanwhile, the NIA has summoned Naseem, younger son of Geelani, for questioning on Wednesday.

Nayeem Geelani, elder son of Syed Geelani, who was also summoned by the NIA, is a surgeon who is tipped as the successor to Geelani. He had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years.

The NIA has arrested seven separatists, including Geelanis son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh, in the terror funding case.

Besides him, Geelanis close aides Ayaz Akbar, spokesman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, Nayeem Khan and Peer Saifullah were arrested.
KANNUR: A five-member delegation headed by Lieutenant Commander Mirza Rashadul and Lieutenant M. Merazul Islam Saimon is on a four-day visit to Indian Naval Academy, Ezhimala since Wednesday, a press release said. The aim of the visit was to build bridges of friendship between the two navies and exchange best practices. The visit also gave INA staff an opportunity to learn and understand the training processes and philosophy of their counterparts in Bangladesh.

The cadets were given ample opportunities to not only understand the functionality of INA, but to form bonds of friendship with INA Cadets. Towards this end, they were accommodated in the Cadets Squadrons, dined and played with the INA Cadets and also attended classes in the company of their INA counterparts. The delegation also visited the tourism destinations. The naval delegation would return after the interaction and familiarising sessions on Monday.
The National Highway running between Vijayawada and Rajahmundry. Both places have IAF airports.

Vijayawada: The Indian Air Force has cleared the Vijayawada-Rajahmundry National Highway for emergency landing of IAF flights.

A senior official of the National Highway wing of the Roads & Buildings department said that though the department has not received any official intimation from the IAF, the condition of the road between Vijayawada and Rajahmundry is suitable for emergency landings. NH-45 which is an eight-lane road with service roads and flyovers is considered good with a thickness of around six inches.

Retired Air Force personnel say that selecting roads for emergency landings is a common and regular process.

The IAF has carried out a huge exercise to identify emergency landing points. Priority is given to the quality of the road and it not having obstacles. Top priority is given to roads in Naxal affected areas and coastal areas, said J. Krishna Rao, a retired Air Force serviceman.
Lucknow: In an initiative to bridge the gap between the party and the government, BJP president Amit Shah has asked Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath to meet party workers without an appointment, at least two days in a week.

The chief minister has assured that he and all his ministers will now meet party workers every Monday and Tuesday without prior appointment.

Shah was addressing a meeting of party leaders from Kashi, Gorakhpur, Avadh and Kanpur regions after his arrival on a three-day tour of the state when several leaders complained that officers were not entertaining their complaints.

The party leaders said that the distance between the party and the government was increasing.

Also, some of them said that the new mining policy was creating problems in the rural areas because of the spurt in prices of sand and other construction material. The BJP leaders also lodged complaints about the Dial 100 services.

Shah is scheduled to address over 18 meetings during his three-day visit to Lucknow. During this tenure, he will meet office bearers of various frontal organisations, ministers and other leaders. Also, he will interact with the functionaries of the RSS.

According to BJP sources, Shah is also expected to resolve issues prevailing between chief minister Yogi Adityanath and deputy chief minister Keshav Maurya.
Mysuru: Denying that his government was attempting to cause divisions in society by endorsing the demand for a separate religious status for the Lingayat community, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Saturday said his intention was never to cause unrest but only to unite people and build society.

We have merely asked all the community leaders, who have proposed recognition of Lingayats as a separate religious community, to come together and promised to consider it, he explained, adding,  Have I proposed this anywhere? The Veershaiva Mahashabha gave a memorandum to recognise the Lingayat community as Veershaivas and Maathe Mahadevi and others gave a letter asking it to be recognised as a Lingayat dharma. We need to check if there is a provision in the Constitution to allow this, but have not yet begun the process.

Asked about the five Lingayat ministers planning to tour the state to collect views on the subject, he said, they are doing it on their own. I have nothing to do with it.

Asked if Mr Ramanath Rai would be made Home Minister, he said, Let us fill the three vacant portfolios first, and only then will this question arise. We will do it shortly.

The Chief Minister, who was speaking to reporters on arrival at Mysuru airport enroute to participate in the ceremony to mark the first death anniversary of his son, Rakesh at his farm house in Kaatur, revealed that an all- party meeting would be held on August 5 to discuss water issues, including release of Cauvery water for irrigation, and the Mahadayi dispute with Goa.

As for state Janata Dal (Secular) president H.D. Kumaraswamys proposed padayatra from Hunsur to Bengaluru on July 31, he said, Being a former Chief Minister he must behave responsibly. Most of the reservoirs have not filled up to even half their capacity due to the poor rainfall this year too. We need to have enough water for drinking before releasing it for irrigation. We are only releasing water to Tamil Nadu on the orders of the tribunal and the court.

On the status on the Mahadayi dispute, he said the irrigation minister of Goa had accused Karnataka of playing dirty politics in a letter to the Centre.

But it is not we but they are who are playing dirty politics as they first agreed to resolve the issue through mutual discussion, and are now saying no, he deplored.

On three languages being used on the Bengaluru Metro, he said he had written to the Centre on the issue.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi flagging off a new express train from Ayodhya to Rameswaram, via video conference, in Rameswaram, Tamil Nadu on Thursday. (Photo: PTI)

Hyderabad: The timing of the much-discussed Union Cabinet reshuffle is said to be linked to the AIADMK joining the NDA camp.

According to sources, the view of both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP president Amit Shah is that it would be unfair to leave the largest state in the south, and a party with 50 MPs, unrepresented in the Union Cabinet.

The AIADMK had joined the Vajpayee Cabinet before severing ties in 1999. The AIADMK has 50 members in both Houses of Parliament; it is the third largest party in the Lok Sabha after the BJP and the Congress.

Tamil Nadu parties, either with the UPA or in the NDA, used to get representation in the Union Cabinet  at one time the state had nearly 10 ministers at the Centre. Presently, Kanya-kumari Lok Sabha member Pon Radhakrishnan is the only minister of state representing Tamil Nadu at the Centre.

Sources indicated there would a major reshuffle of BJP central office-bearers and Parliamentary Board which would eventually be linked with the Cabinet reshuffle. The proposed changes in both Union Cabinet and the party committees will be the last one before the 2019 elections. It will be an election team, the source revealed.

The current office-bearers were appointed during the tenure of Mr Rajnath Singh as BJP president while Mr Shah has appointed a few persons so far, the sources said.
Soon after he was sacked the first time in 1993, Mian Nawaz Sharif asked his interviewer, What does the President have against me, except that he does not like my face? The judiciary more or less agreed, declared the Presidents action illegal, and restored Prime Minister Sharif. The second time Sharif was ousted, he was handed a life sentence by an anti-terrorism court for hijacking an airplane. Again the Supreme Court came to his rescue. Looking at the case from any angle, the court held nine years later, the charge of hijacking, attempt to hijack or terrorism does not stand established. It was unanimous and, irony of ironies, decided by five judges to zero. Twin threads run through the above: the apex court coming to the gentlemans rescue, and the gentlemans lack of reflection as to what necessitated a rescue in the first place. Granted, reflection was always a tough ask: the PM was dismissed by the icy Ghulam Ishaq the first time; he was overthrown by a usurper in a borrowed flak jacket the second. He was in the right in both instances.

Only this time, he was in the wrong. And this time, the apex court held he was in the wrong. As lawyer Faisal Siddiqi wrote in these pages, () in comparison with other political elites, the Sharif family has not been subjected to any serious legal accountability by the courts. That changed Friday. The lack of reflection, however, remained constant, and not just by the now ex-Prime Minister. The commentariat forgot the last quarter-century ever happened: the same judicial system that had absolved him, again and again, was now maligned as part of a shadowy plan. Yet in all this talk of conspiracy, no one denied ownership of Capital FZE. No one denied the existence of the London flats. And no objective observer could stomach the story: Qatari princes flying in on magic carpets; lawyers-cum-font-geeks typing up beta Calibri. After a while, we were in O.J. Simpson territory.

Those rightly citing Article 10-A and the right to a fair trial may breathe easy: they will get their trial. As to arguing that disqualification may only ensue from the said trial, the court has directly disqualified MNAs in the past, and will do so in the future. While the usual suspects try to tar the JIT with the same Masonic conspiracy brush, the fact is Pakistans state institutions have long been slammed as weak. Yet the JIT has set a standard for both the thoroughness of its investigation as well as its independence. The Panama Papers were leaked on April 3, 2016. Between then and now, Nawaz Sharif could have disclosed all his assets; he did not. He could have asked a former judge to form a commission; he did not. He could have sat down with the PPP and resolved this in Parliament; he did not. He could have emancipated state institutions to the point they would not fear investigating him; he did not. He could have resigned in the wake of the JIT report; he did not. Finally, if this is indeed a brave new world, what of the crime that started the Sharif era? In Asghar Khan vs Mirza Aslam Beg, the court ruled that generals Beg and Durrani rigged the 1990 polls, and that the state take steps against them. Justice Khosas decision in the Panama case held, with great courage, that a PM immune from accountability () would be a disaster. His words are as applicable to those in uniform  be it the gents that illegally got Nawaz Sharif elected PM in 1990, or the gents that removed him in 1999. Let justice be done.

By arrangement with Dawn
Foreign ministers of four Arab nations issued a joint statement after their meeting in Bahrain on Sunday, reaffirming their determination to ensure Qatar's compliance with their demands

The foreign ministers of four Arab nations  Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the UAE  said on Sunday that they will continue their boycott of Qatar and will not retreat on their demands, while stressing they would be ready for dialogue with the Gulf country if their demands are met.

At a joint press conference in the Bahraini capital of Manama on Sunday, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Khaled bin Khalifa read out a joint statement asserting that the four nations will not backtrack on their 13 demands.

"The four countries have expressed their readiness for dialogue with Qatar on the condition that Qatar announces its sincere willingness to stop supporting and financing terrorism and extremism and spreading hate speech and incitement, while committing to non-interference in other countries' domestic affairs, as well as carrying out the 13 fair demands that would ensure the general welfare and stability of the region and the world," the statement read.

The four boycotting countries also said that the measures taken against Qatar are considered an act of national sovereignty and are in compliance with international law.

Last month, the four countries cut ties and trade links with the oil-rich Gulf state over its alleged support for terrorist groups and its relationship with Iran.

Qatar denies supporting terrorists and has defended its close ties with Iran.

In their joint statement on Sunday, the four countries highlighted the principles announced earlier this month in Cairo, namely: a commitment to combating terrorism; stopping incitement and hateful rhetoric; full compliance with two agreements signed in Riyadh in 2013 and 2014 that outline how Qatar should end its row with the Gulf states; conforming to agreements reached during the Arab Islamic American Summit held in Riyadh in May; and non-interference in the affairs of other Arab countries or international efforts to fight terrorism.

At the meeting in Manama, the foreign ministers discussed the latest developments in the Qatari crisis, including regional and international discussions on the issue. They affirmed their close and continued coordination to support the national security of Arab states and eliminate terrorism in order to ensure security and stability in the region, according to the joint statement.

During Sunday's press conference, Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir said his country dismisses claims from Qatar that it's citizens will not be allowed into Saudi Arabia to peform pilgrimage.

Al-Jubeir said Qatar was seeking to "politicize" the pilgrimage season, adding that Qatari citizens are welcome to visit Muslim holy sites in Saudi Arabia.

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The uneasy military standoff between China and India in the Doklam plateau area of Bhutan, near the tri-junction between the three countries, will enter its third month by mid-August. A modus vivendi appears elusive as of now because the much hoped for breakthrough in the just concluded visit of national security adviser Ajit Doval to Beijing for a Brics-related meeting, did not materialise. But the silver lining to a dark bilateral cloud is that there has been no breakdown between Delhi and Beijing over Doklam. The standoff over Doklam has a complex genealogy and involves a large chunk of colonial history that includes the 1890 Anglo-Chinese convention and a subsequent iteration of 1906. However, Bhutan was not party to this convention at the time. After both India and China became independent in the late 1940s, they engaged in the 1962 border war over an opaque territorial dispute that is still unresolved. A status quo was arrived at over a 4,000 km Line of Actual Control that also acknowledged Bhutans claim over the disputed areas in the tri-junction near the Chumbi Valley. Over various meetings, the special representatives of India and China came to an agreement in 2012, that the status quo at the tri-junction would not be disturbed pending final settlement in consultation with the third country  in this case, Bhutan.

The Indian narrative on the sequence of events notes that China was engaged in road-building activity in the disputed Doklam plateau  which, if completed, would have altered the tactical military situation in Chinas favour. Delhi deemed this to be a serious security concern that would render vulnerable the critical Siliguri Corridor that connects the Indian mainland to the Northeast. India has a special relationship with Bhutan that is detailed in the Friendship Treaty of 2007. As per this, both nations are mandated to cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests and, furthermore, neither government shall allow the use of its territory for activities harmful to the national security and interest of the other. When Thimphu registered its protest at this Chinese incursion into Bhutanese territory  albeit disputed  and urged Beijing to restore the status quo, India stepped in to prevent the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) troops from continuing their construction activity. Since then the issue has festered, with Beijing claiming that the Doklam area, where they were constructing the road, was indeed Chinese territory; and that, in the event that there was a dispute, it was between China and Bhutan where India had no locus.

The legal claims by all three parties  Bhutan, China and India  lend themselves to detailed interpretation. Depending on where ones empathy lies on this issue, persuasive arguments have been advanced on both sides to buttress the Chinese claim or, well, that of India. Beijing has often invoked history in a selective manner to strengthen its position (three warfare tenets?) and disparaged other historical claims and international jurisprudence, as was seen in the South China Sea case and the tribunal award that did not go in its favour. However, Doklam cannot be viewed in isolation and it is instructive to review Beijings response since mid-June and seek to illuminate what may have fuelled Chinas current anxiety and deep insecurity over contested territoriality in relation to India and, by extension, Bhutan. The Doklam incident is distinctive, for it involves a third country and is hence not quite comparable to more recent bilateral events such as Depsang (2013) and Chumar (2014). The other strand about Doklam that goes beyond past precedent is the very angry and disparaging/offensive anti-India turn of phrase used by some media outlets in China. The flip side is that part of the Indian television spectrum which is equally shrill in denouncing China for its muscular assertiveness  and exhorts the Narendra Modi government to stay firm and give the PLA a bloody nose  if push comes to shove over Doklam.

Both China and India have been differently convulsed by the vicissitudes of history  both colonial and Cold War  and in the last 25 years they have acquired a self-image about their locus in Asia and, by extension, the world stage. Ironically, this self-image is not shared outside of their own constituencies, much less by each other. China under President Xi Jinping seeks to return to the imagined grandeur of the Middle Kingdom and an equally confident Prime Minister Narendra Modi is determined to steer India towards its destiny as a leading power. Mutual and empathetic accommodation of each others aspirations and anxieties has remained elusive since the early 1990s. Beijings decision to enter into a strategic relationship that included transfer of nuclear weapons and missile technology to Pakistans military to assuage its own deeply embedded post-Tiananmen insecurities lies at the core of the current Doklam tension in a non-linear manner. My assessment is that when India was accorded an exceptional nuclear status in the fall of 2008 by a US-led initiative, the seeds of Doklam were sown. Beijings Asia policy, it appears, is to constrain both India and Japan till they accept Chinese primacy. A former PM of India had once wryly observed that after the end of this nuclear ostracism, Beijings unstated objective has been to keep India in a state of extended disequilibrium.

In the last three years since Mr Modi assumed office, both nations have had a contradictory relationship, wherein cooperation in certain issues and fora  for instance climate change, Brics and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation  has been leavened with discord over the Nuclear Suppliers Group membership, support to certain terror leaders at the United Nations Security Council and, most recently, the One Belt, One Road summit in Beijing. The resolve that Delhi now exudes is new, and Doklam is a case in point. How prudent will it be in the long run to advance Indias comprehensive national interests remains moot. A.G. Noorani, one of Indias most rigorous China-watcher, has cautioned: At stake is something far more than the immediate crisis over the land in Doklam. What is at stake is the future of Indias relations with China. Doklam may well turn out to be the bellwether about the texture of the Asian century.
At an event in New Delhi on Friday, and then again in Srinagar on Saturday while marking her partys 18th foundation day, Peoples Democratic Party leader and J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has reiterated certain basic ideas practically in the form of a tutorial for the uninitiated in the mysteries of politics and governance in Kashmir. Evidently, these have not been to the liking of the Centre. Since it is New Delhi that determines the contours of security and politics in Kashmir, a mismatch of ideas and confrontation may develop in the governance of J&K between the PDP and BJP, the ruling coalition partners.

This will be unfortunate, as the situation in J&K has grown fragile under the Narendra Modi government. Therefore, Ms Muftis articulations deserve engagement, not summary rejection. The principles she highlights were accepted by former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, who ran the first BJP-led government, but the present regime appears dismissive. Since early 2015, when the PDP-BJP government came into being in Kashmir, Ms Mufti has faced double jeopardy. The BJP has not liked the idea of Kashmir being an integral and yet different kind of part of India (unlike the Chinese who treat the relationship of China with Hong Kong as one country, two systems). This has created massive alienation on the ground in the Valley. Since the CM has been helpless, she has found antagonism among her own people. And there is no one in Delhi who listens to her. Perhaps her public pronouncements since Friday are in part an attempt to regain her poise on her home turf. But she makes valid points along the way, which deserve our attention.

As an RSS-related outfit has gone to court urging the scrapping of Article 35A of the Constitution, the CM has rightly argued that this provision  which says that only the J&K legislature can define who is a permanent resident of the state  derives from Article 370. India will have no legal claim on Kashmir if Article 370 is removed. Policy-makers since 1947 have understood this. The specific conditions include the idea that those who are not permanent residents cannot own property in J&K. If 370 is deleted, the CM argues, the Indian flag will find no acceptance. Ms Muftis other key concerns are political engagement with those who speak of azadi or independence, and making borders with PoK irrelevant, an idea discussed in a positive spirit since Mr Vajpayees time. The CM has not argued against use of the law to deter individuals thought to be involved in terrorist-financing (in the backdrop of recent arrests of Hurriyat leaders), but in favour of dialogue to budge the naysayers in Kashmir from their idea of azadi. Whats wrong with that?
The American billionaire Elon Musk handed over the first batch of 30 Tesla Model 3 electric cars to employee-customers on Friday. It is an event that could hold the key to the future of automobiles as electric engines could dominate the roads. There are half a million orders on the books for the mass-produced $35,000 (about Rs 22.5 lakh) cars and how Mr Musk delivers them may define where his company, already valued far higher than traditional rivals General Motors and Ford, goes from here. However, the launch is not about Mr Musks Tesla and its share price and finances as much as the revolutionary idea he is selling to the world.

If an electric car (with a range of 350 km before recharging which can be done at home) can indeed be the suburban run-around for people, a world overtaken by global warming and pollution issues will be grateful for lesser use of fossil fuels. Other car-makers are promising to bring out all-electric SUVs while the old Swedish firm of Volvo, now owned by the Chinese, is soon to assemble and produce cars in India. The firm has also promised to go all-electric from 2019. The Indian government has a policy outlook by which it envisages all cars would be e-vehicles as it wants to cut oil imports by 50 per cent by 2030. Ours would be a better planet if automobiles ditch the internal combustion engine. With global trends coming at a fast clip to India these days, the problem wont be so much getting the technology but to convince the owners of smoke belching lorries, autorickshaws and two-wheelers to spare a thought for the air their children would be breathing.
The dramatic developments in Bihar saw a Grand Alliance government overnight changing political colours and transforming itself into a NDA government, albeit under the same Chief Minister. Indian politics has been witness to many such flip-flops in the past too. The CM used a pragmatic and powerful fig leaf of a fight against corruption to defend his actions and switch allies in his quest for taking care of the interests of Bihar. Whether the people of Bihar back his stance would be tested in the coming months and at the time of the 2019 LokSabha polls. The Bihar developments raised a range of important questions. Does the entry of Nitish Kumar into the NDA fold, mark the formal collapse of the Grand Alliance against the BJP? Would other important and powerful state based parties in different parts of India be similarly tempted or prevailed upon to align with the ruling alliance at the centre? Where do these developments leave the principal national opposition party  the Congress?

Let us examine the last question first. Ever since its rout in the Lok Sabha polls of 2014, the Congress has lost state after state and failed to bounce back. Wherever it has been in direct competition with the BJP, it has conceded defeat or lost the opportunity to form a government on account of mismanaging the political situation (Goa and Manipur). The only state where it was able to come to power since 2014 was in Punjab and here too it defeated a SAD-led coalition of which the BJP was a junior partner. The developments in Gujarat where they have lost a senior leader like Shanker Singh Vaghela and have to ferry their MLAs to Karnataka to keep them safe from being poached, again indicate the crisis the party faces. The battle in Karnataka in 2018 will be a crucial test of their capacity to retain power in a state where they are in direct competition with the BJP. A setback in Karnataka would be a sure indication of the party facing little hope for an immediate recovery.

The Congress has been in the position of the lead opposition at the national level on several occasions in the past. The defeat of the Congress in 1977, when for the first (and only) time a sitting Prime Minister was defeated from her own constituency in a LokSabha elections was an important turning point in Indias political history. Indira Gandhi awaited her opportunity and capitalized on the infighting in the Janata party, bouncing back to power in 1980. When the Congress under Rajiv Gandhi was defeated by a spirited Opposition led by V.P. Singh on the anti-corruption plank in 1989, it came back to power heading a minority government within two years. After five years of a Vajpayee-led NDA government, the Congress stitched together a UPA Coalition to come back to power in 2004. This time around, even after three years in the Opposition, the Congress is still struggling to come to terms with political reality and has let go off several opportunities to hold the ruling government to account. In the past, la

ding the recovery was a committed and motivated leadership which kept the momentum going and was proactive in seizing the initiative and placing its opponent on the backfoot. The inability of the Congress leadership to challenge the ruling government and put on the defensive is clearly visible. One also does not notice any clear change in strategy of empowering state level mass leaders to lead the political recovery.

With the Congress increasingly conceding the lead Opposition space to state-based parties, one notices that in the last three years, the only serious challenge that the BJP has faced has been from the strong regional satraps. AAPs victory in Delhi under Arvind Kejriwal, the Grand Alliance under Nitish Kumar keeping the BJP at bay in Bihar and Mamta Banerjee protecting her political turf in West Bengal were the only serious setbacks faced by the BJP. All these reversals for the BJP were at the hands of powerful state based parties with the Congress having a marginal role to play only in Bihar. With Nitish switching sides, the picture here too has now changed. It can also be persuasively argued that ever since it came to power at the national level, that the government and leadership at the centre has successfully targeted the opposition and its leadership and in the process fortified its position.

In the run up to the 2019 elections, one gets the impression that the approach and style of the BJP is very much like that of the Congress of the 1970s. It is benefitting from a hopelessly divided Opposition and has a clear game-plan to further weaken whatever is left of a few opposition pockets of influence. One recalls a slogan that was used to characterize the non-Congress Opposition of the 1970s and 80s: United We Fall Divided We Stand. This slogan could very well describe the Opposition to the BJP today! Given the fragmentation and divisions among the opposition parties that are challenging the ruling alliance at the centre, the advantage at the moment wrests clearly with the BJP.

In the two years prior to the 2019 elections, the way in which the central government takes forward and implements some of its key initiatives would be closely watched. While the slogans and rhetoric it has come up with are very catchy, the implementation on the ground and the visible impact on the people will be critical. One is also likely to see one or two big-ticket measures being announced by the government in the run-up to 2019. The elections in Karnataka in the middle of 2018 and the contest in the three BJP ruled states of Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan will be a critical test of strength. The Karnataka contest seems very close from all accounts and with every passing day one notices a surprising new twist and an unexpected turn. Will the Congress be able to retain the state and thus gain back some momentum or will BJP re-capture its southern bastion will have important implications for national politics. In the three BJP ruled states of North India, will the party be able to fend of anti-incumbency, especially given the fact that they have been in power in MP and Chattisgarh for three terms. Will Rajasthan preserve its tradition of always voting out the ruling party? Another defeat for the Congress in these three states would surely give new meaning to the Congress free India slogan.
When it comes to sycophancy, no one can beat politicians. Uttar Pradesh ministers are bending backwards to please Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and, in doing so, they make such statements that even the Chief Minister bursts into peals of laughter. Recently in the state Assembly, UP minister Dara Singh Chauhan claimed that there had been a bumper potato crop in the state because of the godly personality of Yogi. The potato crop this year had been harvested before the Yogi government came to power, but the minister made his point. The statement brought the House down and the Chief Minister was seen laughing uncontrollably too.

A day later, UP minister Suresh Rana stated that ever since Yogi became Chief Minister, the sugarcane cultivation had increased by over one lakh hectare in the state. The plantation of sugarcane in most parts of the state is yet to begin, but the minister was apparently keen to please the Chief Minister. UP minister for irrigation Dharampal, not to be left behind, announced in the state Assembly that though UP was witnessing heavy rains, there had been no loss of life and property because of a good and godly king like Yogi. What more can the Chief Minister want when he has such a loyal fan following in his government?

THE MALE MARIE ANTOINETTE

Let them eat cake (if they have no bread), a famous quote attributed to Marie Antoinette, the queen of France during French Revolution, seems to have found a match in the cynical one-line reaction by a Madhya Pradesh minister to the demand by people of a parched district to provide them drinking water. They will be provided Bisleri water, state agriculture minister Gouri Shankar Bisen quipped when his attention was drawn to serious drinking water crisis facing the villages in Gwalior district owing to the prevailing dry spell in the region.

The disparaging statement sparked strong resentment among the people in the region. Let him make provision of normal water for us first. If he cannot solve our problem, he should keep quiet. He has no business to rub salt on our wounds by making such statements, the villagers reacted.

Opposition Congress has also condemned the insensitive remarks made by the minister. The ministers statement, bordering on arrogance, has reminded us of the French queens famous quote... He along with the BJP will meet the same fate the French queen met, in 2018 Assembly elections, Congress spokesman in MP Pankaj Chaturvedy said. Its not unclear who the executioner will be.

A JOB FOR SPOUSE

The BJP is abuzz with rumours of how a certain party leader is trying hard to accommodate his spouse at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Now this leader, who has spent a considerable number of years in Himachal Pradesh until he was brought to the party headquarters at Ashoka Road, had made attempts earlier too to find his spouse a good job with a Union minister as well as one of the presiding officer of one of the two Houses of Parliament. Rumour has it that a post was created for the spouse at one of the Central governments autonomous bodies but somehow it didnt materialise. Despite all his efforts, it is unlikely to happen.

REMEMBER WHAT YOU SAID?

A certain parliamentarian of the BJP from Maharashtra is being constantly reminded of his famous remarks last year when he was nominated to the Rajya Sabha. Now this MP, who is at the forefront demanding reservation for his community, had last year famously said that if his community is not granted reservation within the specific period, he would not hesitate to resign.

But with more than a year gone since he made those remarks, he is now being reminded that the time has come either to fulfil what he had said or take up his communitys demand more seriously with his partys leadership, which is ruling both the state as well as the Centre. There is no word yet if that announcement will be honoured.
Google also announced plans to provide more than $3 million (roughly Rs. 19.2 crores) in equity-free funding, mentorship and working space access to more than 60 African startups over three years. (Representational image)

Alphabet Inc's Google aims to train 10 million people in Africa in online skills over the next five years in an effort to make them more employable, its chief executive said on Thursday.

The US technology giant also hopes to train 100,000 software developers in Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, a company spokeswoman said.

Google's pledge marked an expansion of an initiative it launched in April 2016 to train young Africans in digital skills. It announced in March it had reached its initial target of training one million people.

The company is "committing to prepare another 10 million people for jobs of the future in the next five years," Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai told a company conference in Nigeria's commercial capital of Lagos.

Google said it will offer a combination of in-person and online training. Google has said on its blog that it carries out the training in languages including Swahili, Hausa and Zulu and tries to ensure that at least 40 percent of people trained are women. It did not say how much the programme cost.

Africa, with its rapid population growth, falling data costs and heavy adoption of mobile phones, having largely leapfrogged personal computer use, is tempting for tech companies. Executives such as Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's chairman Jack Ma have also recently toured parts of the continent.

But countries like Nigeria, Kenya and South Africa, which Google said it would initially target for its mobile developer training, may not offer as much opportunity as the likes of China and India fortech firms.

Yawning wealth gaps mean that much of the population in places like Nigeria has little disposable income, while mobile adoption tends to favour more basic phone models. Combined with bad telecommunications infrastructure, that can mean slower and less Internet surfing, which tech firms rely on to make money.

Google also announced plans to provide more than $3 million (roughly Rs. 19.2 crores) in equity-free funding, mentorship and working space access to more than 60 African startups over three years.

In addition, YouTube will roll out a new app, YouTube Go, aimed at improving video streaming over slow networks, said Johanna Wright, vice president of YouTube.

YouTube Go is being tested in Nigeria as of June, and the trial version of the app will be offered globally later this year, she said.

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"Given Samsung's strength today in flash memory, I am not surprised Samsung surpassed Intel in semiconductor revenue," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy. (Representational image)

Intel's more than two decade reign as king of the silicon-based semiconductor ended Thursday when Samsung Electronics surpassed the US manufacturer to become the leading maker of the computer chips that are a 21st century staple much as oil was in the past.

Samsung reported record-high profit and sales in its earnings report for the April-June quarter, and while Intel's reported earnings beat forecasts, the US company's entire revenue was smaller than sales from Samsung's chip division.

Samsung said its semiconductor business recorded 8 trillion ($7.2 billion) in operating income on revenue of KRW 17.6 trillion ($15.8 billion) in the quarter.

Intel said it earned $2.8 billion (roughly Rs. 17,960 crores) on sales of $14.8 billion (roughly Rs. 94,927 crores). Analysts had expected the US chipmaker to report $14.4 billion (roughly Rs. 92,359 crores) in quarterly revenue.

"Given Samsung's strength today in flash memory, I am not surprised Samsung surpassed Intel in semiconductor revenue," said Patrick Moorhead, principal analyst with Moor Insights & Strategy, adding that Intel may be able to catch up Samsung when Intel's memory output is at full production capacity in about six months. "I think we will see a lot of back and forth between the two companies."

On an annual basis, Samsung's semiconductor division is widely expected to overtake Intel's sales this year, analysts at brokerages and market research firms say.

Mobile devices and data are the keys to understanding Samsung's ascent as the new industry leader, even as its de facto chief is jailed, battling corruption charges, and it recovers from the fiasco last year over the fire-prone Galaxy Note 7 smartphones.

Manufacturers are packing more and more memory storage capacity into ever smaller mobile gadgets, as increased use of mobile applications, connected devices and cloud computing services drive up demand and consequently prices for memory chips, an area dominated by Samsung.

Just as Saudi Arabia dominates in oil output, Samsung leads in manufacturing the high-tech commodity of memory chips, which enable the world to store the data that fuels the digital economy.

"Data is the new crude oil," said Marcello Ahn, a Seoul, South Korea-based fund manager at Quad Investment Management.

For over a decade, Samsung and Intel each ruled the market in its own category of semiconductor.

Intel, the dominant supplier of the processors that serve as brains for personal computers, has been the world's largest semiconductor company by revenue since 1992 when it overtook Japan's NEC.

Samsung is reaping the rewards of dominating in the memory chip market that is growing much faster than the market for computers that rely on processing units dominated by Intel, said Chung Chang Won, a senior analyst at Nomura Securities.

"Greater use of smartphones and tablet PCs instead of computers is driving the rise of companies like Samsung," Chung said.

Since 2002, Samsung Electronics has been the largest supplier of memory chips, called DRAMs and NANDs. But for years demand for memory chips was vulnerable to boom-and-bust cycles depending on output and on demand from the consumer electronics industry. At times, competition was brutal as supply gluts arose.

That changed in 2012 when Japan's Elpida filed for bankruptcy and was sold to Micron Technology, leaving only three major suppliers of DRAM, a type of memory chip used in servers, computers and handsets: Samsung Electronics, SK Hynix and Micron.

Tight supplies coupled with rock solid demand have pushed prices of memory chips higher, with average selling prices of DRAMs and flash memory chips doubling over the past year, bringing South Korea's memory chip makers record wide profit margins. Both Samsung and SK Hynix are expected to report all-time high profits this year.

Amid this boom that analysts call a memory chip "super cycle," global semiconductor revenue is forecast to jump 52 percent this year, reaching $400 billion (roughly Rs. 25,65,531 crores) for the first time, according to market research firm Gartner.

For the full year, Intel is expected to post $60 billion (roughly Rs. 3,84,829 crores) in annual sales, according to a market consensus polled by FactSet, a financial data provider. Samsung Electronics' semiconductor business is expected to report KRW 71.9 trillion ($62.6 billion) in full-year revenues.

Looking ahead, Samsung and SK Hynix, which control more than three quarters of the global DRAM sales, are raising their spending on semiconductor capacity and development in anticipation of robust future demand. SK Hynix raised its capital spending to KRW 9.6 trillion ($8.6 billion) this year, up more than 50 percent from last year. Samsung has said it plans to spend $18 billion in the next four years to expand memory chip production capacity at its South Korean plants.

Not just tech companies but also transport, retail, tourism, food and other industries are seeking ways to better use or manage data, to gain insights on trends or customer preferences and otherwise make money from "big data." The rising use of vehicle connectivity and the "internet of things" is expected to drive still further demand for the chips that have helped Samsung move ahead, at least for now.

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The slugs' trick is to generate a substance that not only forms strong bonds on wet surfaces but also has a matrix that dissipates energy at the point of adhesion, making it highly flexible. (Representational image)

Scientists have developed an experimental surgical glue inspired by the mucus secreted by slugs that could offer an alternative to sutures and staples for closing wounds.

While some medical glues already exist, they often adhere weakly, are not particularly flexible and frequently cannot be used in very wet conditions.

To get around those problems, a group of scientists from Harvard and other research centers decided to learn from slugs, which - as well as making slime to glide on - can produce extremely adhesive mucus as a defense mechanism.

The slugs' trick is to generate a substance that not only forms strong bonds on wet surfaces but also has a matrix that dissipates energy at the point of adhesion, making it highly flexible.

The man-made version of this tough adhesive is based on the same principles and in a series of experiments reported in the journal Science on Thursday it was shown to adhere strongly to pig skin, cartilage, tissue and organs. It also proved non-toxic to human cells.

In one test the new glue was used to close a wound in a blood-covered pig's heart and successfully maintained a leak-free seal after the heart was inflated and deflated tens of thousands of times.

In another case it was applied to a laceration in a rat's liver and performed just as well as a haemostat, a surgical tool often used in operations to control bleeding.

"There are a variety of potential uses and in some settings this could replace sutures and staples, which can cause damage and be difficult to place in certain situations," said researcher David Mooney, professor of bioengineering at Harvard.

Mooney and colleagues envisage the new adhesive will be made in sheets and cut to size, although they have also developed an injected version for closing deep wounds. The injection would be hardened using ultraviolet light, like dental fillings.

It is not the first time that scientists have taken inspiration from nature to devise a better medical adhesive.

Four years ago, another research group developed a glue inspired by the underwater sticking properties of mussels, but Mooney thinks slugs win hands-down in terms of stickiness and flexibility.

The scientists are applying for patents, although it will require a commercial company to then license the technology and take it into the next phase of human clinical trials.

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The attack caused internet outages for about 4.5 percent of Deutsche Telekom's 20 million fixed-line customers.

A 29-year old British hacker who confessed to committing a cyber attack last November which temporarily took down Internet access for nearly 1 million German consumers has been sentenced by a German court, according to news reports.

The 29-year old hacker, who used the online alias "Spiderman", among other names, also faces criminal charges in Britain, where authorities have requested his extradition.

The attack caused internet outages for about 4.5 percent of Deutsche Telekom's 20 million fixed-line customers.

"One can't say exactly what the damages for Telekom are," the presiding judge, Christof Wuttke, said in handing down the sentence, noting the costs to Germany's biggest telecom services operator were sizable, but not "lasting".

The court calculated Deutsche Telekom spent around 1 million euros ($1.2 million), mainly for setting up a national hotline for customer complaints and for weekend overtime pay for security staff.

The regional court in Cologne handed the man, named only as Daniel K., a suspended sentence of one year and eight months for attempted commercial computer sabotage. The maximum sentence was up to 10 years, and prosecutors had asked for two years.

Telekom estimated damages of 2 million euros (1.8 million pounds). A spokeswoman said the company was considering a civil lawsuit. "We will await the written judgment and weigh if we should go with a civil case," spokeswoman Alexia Sailer said.

During last November, Daniel K. had used a variant of the malicious Mirai botnet code to attack internet routers and turn them into remotely controlled bots for mounting large-scale attacks which disrupted websites and computer systems, police stated.

The botnet spread across the globe, laying internet router equipment useless for up to a dozen telecom operators around the world, with Germanys Deutsche Telekom the hardest hit.

British police arrested the hacker in February at Luton airport, north of London, acting upon a request from Germanys Federal Criminal Police Office (BKA) to charge him with selling his botnet to online criminals. He was the sent to germany on trial.

The malicious code had exploited unprotected ports which allow network technicians to fix customers routers from afar, but can also expose the equipment to outside attack. Both the attack and rapid recovery from it exploited this feature.

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Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, said on Thursday the company expected to ship 140 million-150 million smartphones for the full year compared to 73 million achieved in the first half. (Representational image)

China's Huawei Technologies forecast smartphone shipments of 140 million-150 million this year, a sharp slowdown in annual growth as the world's third-largest smartphone maker chases profits instead of volumes by selling more high-end phones.

Shenzhen-based Huawei's profit growth has been under pressure with its low margin smartphone business facing strong competition at home and abroad, forcing Huawei earlier this year to de-emphasise revenue growth.

Richard Yu, CEO of Huawei's consumer business group, said on Thursday the company expected to ship 140 million-150 million smartphones for the full year compared to 73 million achieved in the first half.

The full-year forecast would compare to the 139 million smartphones Huawei shipped last year, which was up 29 per cent compared to the year before.

And though its smartphone shipments surged by more than a fifth in the first half, Yu emphasised that Huawei was not aiming for volumes.

"We want to focus on the high-end and mid-range market. We give up the ultra low-end," he said, adding the average selling price of Huawei phones rose 28 percent in the first half.

Yu acknowledged intensifying competition at the high-end of smartphones from Apple Inc's planned release of the iPhone 8 but said Huawei was well equipped to hold its ground.

"We have the Mate 10 series that can compete head to head against the iPhone 8," Yu told reporters, referring to Huawei's next premium flagship that is expected to be released in the fall. According to Yu, it will be superior to Apple's anticipated smash-hit product with "much longer" battery life, "much faster" charging speed and better camera and photo-shooting algorithm.

Huawei plans to unveil this autumn an "AI processor" as it seeks to move from making smartphones to "intelligent phones", Yu said.

"Huawei will launch our own AI processor. We could be the first phone maker in the world to introduce AI processor for our products," he said, but declined to give more details or comment on whether that will be used for the Mate 10.

The company, which is also one of the world's largest telecom equipment makers, posted on Thursday a 15 percent rise in first-half group revenue to CNY 283.1 billion ($42.03 billion), compared with a 40 percent rise last year. That represented the slowest first-half revenue growth for Huawei since 2013.

Its operating margin fell to 11 per cent from 12 per cent a year ago. Huawei does not release half-year profits.

Yu forecast the consumer business group's full-year revenue at over $33 billion (roughly Rs. 2,11,825 crores), compared to about $26.7 billion (roughly Rs. 1,71,396 crores) last year.

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The Egyptian armed forces has foiled an attempt to smuggle a large quantity of explosive materials through one of the Suez Canal crossings to North Sinai, the army said on Sunday.



According to a statement released by the an army spokesman, the truck was stopped at one of the canal crossings, and it was found to be carrying equipment and materials used in manufacturing explosive devices, in addition to telecommunication devices.

There are three crossings to Sinai through the Suez Canal: El-Ferdan bridge, El-Salam bridge and Ahmed Hamdy tunnel.

The statement did not specify the crossing where the incident took place.

Egyptian security forces have been battling Islamist militants in parts of North Sinai in recent years.

Hundreds of security forces have ben killed in attacks by militants, while hundreds of militants have also been killed in security operations by the Egyptian armed forces and police.

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Parts of the THAAD defense system were brought into South Korea under the government of ousted president Park Geun-Hye. (Photo: AP)

Washington: American forces successfully tried out on Sunday a missile interception system the US hopes to set up on the Korean peninsula, military officials said following, just days after North Korea's second test of an ICBM.

In the American test of the so-called THAAD system, a medium-range missile was launched from a US Air Force C-17 aircraft flying over the Pacific and a THAAD unit in Alaska "detected, tracked and intercepted the target," the US Missile Defense Agency said.

It said this was the 15th successful intercept in 15 tests for the weapons system known as THAAD, which stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defence. South Korea said yesterday it will speed up deployment of a THAAD battery on its territory because of the latest North Korean test of an intercontinental ballistic missile.

Parts of the THAAD defense system were brought into South Korea under the government of ousted president Park Geun-Hye. But new leader Moon Jae-In suspended deployment of the programme last month, citing the need for a new environmental impact assessment.

However, South Korean Defense Minister Song Young-Moo said yesterday that Seoul will now begin consultations on the "tentative deployment" parts of the THAAD battery in response to the latest North Korean test.

The THAAD deployment has infuriated China, which has long argued it will destabilise the region.
Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday claimed that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies as he inspected a massive military parade at the country's largest military base to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the 2.3-million strong army.

President Xi also said that the People's Liberation Army should strictly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and "march to wherever the Party points to."

"I firmly believe that our gallant military has both confidence and ability to defeat all invading enemies," said Xi Jinping, who heads the Central Military Commission, which holds the overall command of the People's Liberation Army or PLA - the world's largest army.

While there was no reference in his speech to over a month-long India-China military standoff at Doklam in the Sikkim sector, his remarks came in the midst of shrill official media campaign and assertions by the Foreign and Defence Ministries in Beijing accusing Indian troops of "trespassing" into what China claims is part of its territory - a stand that Bhutan and India do not consider valid.

Clad in a camouflage military suit, 64-year-old Xi Jinping said that the Chinese military has the confidence and ability to safeguard national sovereignty, security and development interests. "Our military has the confidence and ability to write a new chapter in building of a strong military and make new contributions to towards realisation of the Chinese dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and safeguarding world peace," Mr Xi said in his about 10-minute address - an event aired live on state television and radio.

Earlier, Xi Jinping inspected the military parade at China's largest military base in Zhurihe in Inner Mongolia - the biggest parade since 2015 in which the army and air force displayed some of the most modern weapons including a new tank which reportedly held exercises in the high-altitude along the Indian border.

The other weapons included long range nuclear and conventional missiles, the new J-15 - the new aircraft based carrier.

In his address, President Xi asked the military to further improve its combativeness and modernise the national defence and armed forces. The Chinese military has the world's second largest defence budget totaling US $152 billion.

The People's Liberation Army was founded on August 1, 1927 when the ruling Communist Party of China 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 Communist Party of China and not the Chinese government.

"Officers and soldiers, you must unswervingly stick to the fundamental principle and system of the Party's absolute leadership over the army, always listen to and follow the Party's orders, and march to wherever the Party points to," said Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee.

People's Liberation Army officers and soldiers should firmly adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the people wholeheartedly, and always stand together with the people, Mr Xi said. He also said China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of the PLA into a world-class military force.

Enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army, he said. "The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," said Mr Xi, who is expected to get a second five-year term at the key meeting of the Communist Party of China later this year.

"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people's military more than any other time in history," he said.

He urged the People's Liberation Army to fully implement the Communist Party of China's thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPC's target on strengthening the People's Liberation Army under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.

About 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment were on display.

Dongfeng missiles which include short, long and medium rage of rockets, variety of armoury including light tanks, drones were also deployed. Helicopter borne troops demonstrated in quick landing and taking combat positions.
Kim Jong-Un boasted of North Koreas ability to strike any target in the US after a second ICBM test that weapons experts said on Saturday could even bring New York into range  in a potent challenge to President Donald Trump.

China condemned the test but US secretary of state Rex Tillerson said Beijing and Moscow bore unique responsibility for the growing threat posed by the reclusive North.

Under Kims leadership North Korea has accelerated its drive towards a credible nuclear strike capability, in defiance of international condemnation and multiple sets of UN sanctions.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un celebrates the test launch (Photo: AFP)

Kim said the test is meant to send a grave warning to the US and demonstrated the Norths ability to launch at any place and time, the official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

The leader said proudly the test also confirmed all the US mainland is within our striking range, it said. Mr Trump denounced the launch as reckless and dangerous and rejected Pyongyangs claims that such tests helped ensure its security. The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region.

Weapons experts said the altitude and flight time of Fridays missile suggested it was significantly more powerful than the July 4 test, with a theoretical range of around 10,000 km meaning it might be able to reach east coast US cities like New York, depending on the payload size.

North Korea seems to have made a logical step forward, as it tries to perfect the technologies to build and field an operationally-viable ICBM that can threaten the mainland US, said Michael Elleman, missile defence specialist at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.

Kim Dong-Yub, a defence analyst at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said the North may have succeeded in miniaturising warheads down to 750 kg.

If the missile carries a 750 kg payload, its range could be 10,000 kilometres. Taking into account the Earths rotation, it means it could reach not only the western cities but New York and Washington as well, he said.
The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign. (Photo: AP)

Zamboanga (Philippines): Police in the southern Philippines said they fatally shot 15 people Sunday, including a city mayor who was among the politicians President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked to illegal drugs, in the bloodiest assault so far in Duterte's anti-drug crackdown.

Officers were to serve warrants to Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. to search his houses for the suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 14 other people, Ozamiz police chief Jovie Espenido said.

"He's a high-value target on illegal drugs," Espenido, who oversaw the simultaneous, post-midnight raids on the mayor's residence and three other houses, said at a news conference.

"We enforce the law to protect the people who want peace in this country," he said. "How can we enforce the law if ... we're scared of the drug lords? That cannot be, they should be afraid of people who do good for all."

At least five people, including Parojinog's daughter, who serves as vice mayor of Ozamiz, a port city, were arrested during the raids. Policemen were approaching the mayor's house when his bodyguards opened fire and hit a police car and wounded a police officer, sparking a firefight amid a power outage, Espenido said.

A grenade held by one of Parojinog's bodyguards exploded during the clash inside his house and it remains unclear if he and his wife were killed by the blast or police gunfire or both, Espenido said, adding that assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids.

"The administration vowed to intensify the drug campaign," presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in connection with Sunday's raids in Ozamiz. "The Parojinogs, if you would recall, are included in (Duterte's) list of personalities involved in the illegal drug trade."

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects.

Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, regional police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said.

The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign.

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera town Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines.

Espenido was the Albuera police chief when the then-detained Espinosa was killed during a police raid in a jail in a nearby city in Leyte.

Duterte has vowed to defend policemen who would face criminal and human rights charges while cracking down on illegal drugs. He recently ordered a police officer charged in connection with Espinosa's death to be reinstated after briefly being charged and suspended following the jail killing.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug dealer in the country has been eliminated.
Sydney: Australia has foiled an Islamist-inspired terrorist plot to bring down an aircraft with an improvised explosive device, authorities said on Sunday, after four people were arrested in raids across Sydney.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the plot appeared to be elaborate rather than planned by a lone wolf, as security was strengthened at major domestic and international airports across the nation.

I can report last night that there has been a major joint counter-terrorism operation to disrupt a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane, Mr Turnbull told reporters. The threat of terrorism is very real. The disruption operation, the efforts overnight have been very effective but theres more work to do.

Officials did not specify if the alleged plot involved a domestic or international flight, but Sydneys Daily Telegraph reported that a local route had been the objective.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin described the plot as Islamic-inspired and said four men had been arrested in a series of raids across Sydney on Saturday. We do believe it is Islamic-inspired terrorism. Exactly what is behind this is something we need to investigate fully.

He said local authorities had received credible information from partner agencies about the claims but would not elaborate further or say if the men had been on any watch list.
One police officer was reportedly injured in the exchange of fire with the suspect. (Photo: Representational/AFP)

Konstanz (Germany): At least two persons were killed and three other injured in a shooting in a German nightclub in Konstanz, police said.

The 34-year-old suspect suffered life-threatening injuries in a gunfight with police officers outside the venue, near the Swiss border, reported the Independent. He later died in hospital.

The motive behind the shooting remains to be unclear. One police officer was reportedly injured in the exchange of fire with the suspect.

Local media reports suggest that the other person killed was a guest at the disco, and the police and prosecutors stated, the officer's wounds were not life-threatening.

Police said that special commando forces have been deployed in the city, as it was not clear, whether, the suspect had accomplices.
The long-delayed $1.1 billion sale of a 70 per cent stake in Hambantota port, which straddles the worlds busiest east-west shipping route, was confirmed by Sri Lankas ports minister Mahinda Samarasinghe

Sri Lanka on Saturday sealed a billion-dollar deal to let a Chinese state firm take over a loss-making port in a move that worries many, including its giant neighbour India.

The long-delayed $1.1 billion sale of a 70 per cent stake in Hambantota port, which straddles the worlds busiest east-west shipping route, was confirmed by Sri Lankas ports minister Mahinda Samarasinghe. The government used tough laws against industrial action to stop workers going on strike this week to oppose the sale to China Merchants Port Holdings. India is nervous about Chinas infrastructure moves into its traditional sphere of influence.

China has accepted that everything in this agreement will operate under Sri Lankan law, the minister said at a signing ceremony in Colombo.

Negotiations over the deal were held up for months amid opposition from trade unions and political parties. The minister said this week that several countries had raised fears about the sale. India and the US are concerned that China getting a foothold at the port could give it a military naval advantage in the Indian Ocean.
A 59-year old woman from the central Chinese city of Wuhan transformed her appearance through plastic surgery in order to avoid $3.71 million of personal debts, Xinhua said.

In a case highlighting the challenges facing China as it tries to establish a credit society, police were astonished after apprehending the woman, who fled to the southeastern Chinese city of Shenzhen after a court in Wuhan ordered her to pay off her debt. We were surprised at the scene, Xinhua news agency quoted a policeman as saying. She looked in her 30s and was different from the photos we had.

The woman, identified as Zhu Najuan, also confessed to using other peoples identity cards to travel across the country by train. She financed her plastic surgery using borrowed bank cards.

Representatives from more than 300 Chinese cities released a declaration earlier in July promising to make more credit available for consumer spending, part of the countrys efforts to find new sources of economic growth and reduce dependence on heavy industry and state-driven infrastructure investment. But as the country strives to make more credit available to individuals, it is also facing a surge in household debt.

As regulators try to establish a reliable nationwide credit rating system, authorities are exploring ways to crack down on people who do not pay their debts. A court in Jiangsu province has drawn up a blacklist of defaulters. Anyone who calls an individual on the blacklist will be forced to listen to a pre-recorded message saying please urge this person to fulfil their legal obligations.
A decade after it was first proposed, the state government has decided to scrap the Light Rail Transit (LRT) project.



The proposed JP Nagar to Hebbal light rail corridor, a 31.3-km stretch on the outer ring road, could now become part of the Namma Metro Phase 3, which is currently on the drawing board.



Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered shelving the LRT project during a recent review meeting of infrastructure projects, according to a senior official in the Chief Ministers Office. There is little difference between Metro rail and light rail. Also, the LRT does not fit the scheme of things because we want to have a standardised Metro rail network along the outer ring road, the official told DH, requesting anonymity.



While shedding the decade-old baggage, Siddaramaiah also ordered the Bangalore Airport Rail Link Ltd (BARL)  a special purpose vehicle that designed the LRT project  to wind up. The LRT project has been handed over to the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation, a BARL official said.



The LRT figured in the 2007 Comprehensive Traffic and Transportation Plan for Bengaluru. The project was formalised in 2010, when it was estimated to cost Rs 5,600 crore. The latest estimate stands at Rs 10,875 crore.



The JP Nagar-Hebbal light rail corridor was to pass through Bannerghatta Road, Kanakapura Road, Mysuru Road, eastern boundary of the Jnanabharathi campus, Dr Ambedkar Institute of Technology, Magadi Road, Peenya Industrial Area, BEL Circle and Lottegollahalli.



The project got a fresh lease of life when the chief minister announced it in his 2016-17 budget. Subsequently, the Cabinet approved innovative fundraising for the project.



Now, however, authorities say the LRT is out of place because Metro Phase 2A will connect Silk Board and KR Puram (with a possible extension till Hebbal) and Metro Phase 2B will connect Nagawara and the airport. The LRT does not have the same gauge, signalling and locomotive as the Metro. Why should we have the LRT when we can connect Hebbal and JP Nagar on the outer ring road with a Metro? This is our thinking, the official said.



Mobility expert Pawan Mulukutla hailed the decision to scrap the LRT project. We havent seen any successful implementation of the LRT anywhere in India. Even the Mumbai Monorail is facing issues. Buses and Metro are the best transport options for Bengaluru, he said.


Egypts prosecutor-general Nabil Sadek on Sunday ordered 11 electricity maintenance workers be detained for 15 days in connection to a power cut at Cairo airport on Friday that disrupted flight schedules, Al-Ahram Arabic website reported.

Investigations are also ongoing into a number of employees in North Cairos Electricity Company.

The power cut took place at the airports Terminal 3 on Friday between 12:20am and 01:41am, and caused delays to international and domestic flights, as well as baggage delays.

The backup generators failed to operate during the outage.

Civil Aviation Minister Sherif Fathy formed a committee to investigate the causes of the power cut.

Cairo International Airport is the largest airport in the country and serves as the main hub for the national carrier, EgyptAir.

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The Congress on Sunday paraded its Gujarat lawmakers before the media, claiming that it has sufficient numbers to ensure the election of its leader Ahmed Patel to the Rajya Sabha.



This was an effort to ending speculations on internal bickering among the Gujarat MLAs currently staying in a resort near Bengaluru.



AICC spokesperson and party MLA from Gujarat Shakthisinh Gohil told reporters that all the MLAs are living like a family and that there is no bickering among the them. Democracy is passing through trying times. I request the media to save democracy. You (media) can ask anything you want to any of the MLAs... he said at a press conference held at the resort.



Gohil was reacting to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupanis charges that Congress MLAs are quitting the party due to internal problems and hence, the party has kept majority of its MLAs at the resort. Gohil claimed that 44 MLAs were present at the conference.



The Congress has kept its legislators at the resort for the last two days, fearing poaching by the BJP ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls scheduled on August 8. Of the 57 Congress MLAs in Gujarat, six have already resigned. The BJP in Gujarat, which can win two seats comfortably, has fielded a third candidate. Victory of BJPs third candidate is possible if the Congress legislators defect and vote in favour of the saffron party in the election. Congress candidate Ahmed Patel is the political secretary to AICC chief Sonia Gandhi.



The point is the BJP does not have any number (to win the third seat). The Congress has 57 legislators. The support of 44 is enough to win the seat. Therefore, the BJP cannot even dream of winning the third seat, said Gohil.



Besides, three other MLAs, two from the NCP and one from the JD(U), are with us. Many of those who have defected to the BJP are also in touch with us, Gohil said, and denied reports that some Congress MLAs are insisting that they be allowed to return to Gujarat to respond to the call for assistance in their flood-affected constituencies.



The Congress MLAs attended to the woes of the affected people when it was actually flooding. There are no floods now... Our MLAs will resume work in their constituencies once they return to Gujarat, he said.



He accused BJP president Amit Shah of trying to bribe the Congress MLAs by offering Rs 15 crore each.



When the MLAs refused to yield, the ruling BJP tried to intimidate them.



Since Karnataka has a Congress government, we have come here to ensure safety of the MLAs...Where else can we go? he added.


Russia and India are holding negotiations for the supply of 48 Russian Mi-17 military transport helicopters, with Moscow hoping to seal the deal by the end of this year, a top Russian official has said.



Russian arms supplier Rosoboronexport's CEO Alexander Mikheev said India has more than 300 helicopters belonging to the Mi-8 and Mi-17 family, which are deployed in troop and arms transport, fire support, convoy escort, patrol, and search-and-rescue (SAR) missions. He said India knows their specifications well.



Mikheev said Russia and India are holding talks with a view to sign a contract for 48 (Mi-17V-5) helicopters and the techno-commercial negotiations are set to commence in August.



"We hope that we will reach an agreement before the end of this year," he told a select group of journalists here on the sidelines of Russia's premier air show MAKS 2017.



Last year, Russia had handed over to India the final batch of three Mi-17V-5 military transport helicopters under a previously signed contract with Rosoboronexport, a company of the Rostec State Corporation, that entailed a total of 151 units of the Mi-17V-5 helicopter, produced by the Kazan Helicopter Plant.



Designed to transport cargo inside the cabin and on an external sling, the Mi-17V-5 is considered to be one of the world's most advanced military transport helicopters.



Mi-17V-5, supplied to India, ranks among the most technically advanced helicopters of the Mi-8/17 type, incorporating the best engineering solutions of previous generations.



In 2008, Rosoboronexport signed a contract for the delivery of 80 Mi-17V-5 to India, which was completed in 2011 -2013. In 2012-2013, three additional contracts were signed to supply a total of 71 Mi-17V-5 helicopters to meet the needs of the Indian Air Force.



Talking about the S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile systems, Mikheev said Russia and India are holding "technical consultations" for their supply and Moscow aims to sign a contract "as soon as possible".



India and Russia have been in talks for over a year for the purchase of at least five systems of S-400 that could be a game changer for India's anti-aircraft defence capability.



India had announced on October 15 last year a deal on the Triumf air defence systems from Russia, worth over USD five billion.





"As of today, we are carrying out technical consultations with India. We have already shown our equipment - both in the field, testing, range-practice conditions and in conditions of production plant and design bureaus," Mikheev said.



"Rosoboronexport is performing all the works aimed at signing of the contract as soon as possible, based on the feedback from India," he said.



Talking about other projects that are under discussion between Russia and India, Mikheev said, "We are discussing a programme for modernisation of SU-30 with our Indian partners. The aircraft park is quite large."



"During a period of 15 years, we have fulfilled all our obligations to the Indian party, the HAL Corporation -- supplied quite a large aircraft park, over 200, under the license agreement -- and we are offering new developments of our design bureaus.



"Moreover, the Indian Air Force has some requirements for improvement of performance and operational characteristics, mainly with regard to avionics, electronic warfare systems, as well as updates of weapon systems by both Indian and Russian companies," he said.



Mikheev said Russia was already considering the capabilities of the Indian industry within the framework of the "Make in India" programme and noted that under it a well- known project was the joint venture for Kamov 226T helicopters.



Asked about the first Russian-Indian military-industrial conference in March where reports said some questions concerning the problem with spare parts was raised by India, Mikheev said the industrial conference was jointly held by Russia's Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Valentinovich Manturov and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley during which both sides reached an agreement on the issue.



"I think that it's actually a big plus in our relations. We have agreed that the programme of after-sales services will be participated by Russian dedicated holding companies, in order to ensure the operation of previously supplied equipment throughout its life-cycle. It's 20, 30, 40 years -- whether it be a submarine, a helicopter, a tank, etc.," Mikheev said.



"We have specified six companies that will carry out direct cooperation with both operators of Russian equipment and Indian companies that will be charged with operating this equipment and manufacturing its spare parts," he said.



Mikheev named the six companies that will carry out direct cooperation as -- the United Shipbuilding Corporation, the United Aircraft Corporation, Russian Helicopters, the United Engine Corporation, Almaz-Antey and Tactical Missile Corporation.



Mikheev also highlighted Rosoboronexport's growing business, saying in 2016 it executed the plan of supplies for USD 13.08 billion.



"This year, the plan of supplies under Rosoboronexport contracts is USD 12.9 billion. About 50 per cent are the equipment for air forces. And about 50 per cent fall on the Middle East and North Africa, as well as India and China are major customers," he said.



Rosoboronexport has cooperation with more than 100 countries and its contractual obligations are being fulfilled by 92 countries, he noted.



Rosoboronexport is the only state-owned arms trade company in the Russian federation authorised to export the full range of military and dual purpose products, technologies and services.
An engraved 'Bhagavad Gita' near the statue of late president A P J Abdul Kalam has kicked up a controversy, with his family seeking to end the row by placing a copy of the Quran and Bible near it.



However, in latest development, leader of a local Hindu outfit objected to the placing of Quran and Bible near the statue on the ground that "no permission was taken" for the same.



Hours later, officials manning the memorial, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on July 27, kept the Bible and Quran in a glass box in the vicinity of the statue.



Hindu Makkal Katchi leader K Prabhakaran filed a police complaint claiming that the two holy books (of Quran and Bible) were placed without permission from authorities.



"I respect all these books. But keeping them (in the memorial) without permission is wrong. Steps should be taken to see that such things are not done again," he told reporters.



Vaiko-led MDMK and the PMK have raised questions on the need for keeping the engraved 'Bhagavad Gita' alongside the wooden statue of Kalam playing the musical instrument 'veena' in the Rs 15 crore memorial, designed and built by the Defence Research and Development Agency with which Kalam was associated for a long time.



Meanwhile, Kalam's relatives Sheik Dawood and Salim told PTI earlier today, "An unnecessary controversy was raised by some people. DRDO officials worked tirelessly for the memorial construction and had not sculpted the Bhagavad Gita near the statue with any (ill) intention. Now we have left two books -- Quran and Bible near the statue".



They said they would also place a copy of Tamil treatise 'Thirukkural' near the statue soon.

They said Kalam was a leader to all Indians and no one should seek to politicise the issue.

An MDMK spokesperson said party founder Vaiko had already questioned the need for a Bhagavad Gita there, when Kalam used to refer only from 'Thirukkural'.



A PMK leader, who did not wish to be named, also questioned the need for sculpting the wooden piece with the name of 'Bhagavad Gita', saying Kalam was common to all citizens of India.



The memorial at Peikarambu, inaugurated on the second death anniversary of the popular scientist at his home town here, also has on display a replica of rockets and missiles on which the late scientist had worked.



Besides, about 900 paintings and 200 rare photographs of Kalam, who held the office of president from 2002 to 2007, are on display at the memorial.


Coin collectors and numismatists will have enough to celebrate this year as the Government Mint, Mumbai has kick-started sale of commemorative coins to mark the centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's return from South Africa and the Komagata Maru incident.



The coins have been made on the theme 'Centenary of Mahatma Gandhi's Return from South Africa' and will be available in denominations of Rs 100 and Rs 10.



The Komagata Maru incident dates back to May 23, 1914 when the ship carrying 376 passengers, majority of whom were Sikhs, Muslims and Hindus -- was denied entry into Canada after an immigration dispute. Some of the passengers were killed in protests on their return to India.



The government mint office in Mumbai has put up for sale these commemorative coins which can be booked from July 26 till September 26, both online and offline.



'Centenary of Komagata Maru Incident' themed coins are available in Rs 100 and Rs 5 denominations.

The proof coins cost Rs 3,225 each while uncirculated coins (UNC) carry a tag of Rs 2,644 each which are all inclusive of the goods and services tax (GST), the India Government Mint, Mumbai said in an advertisement.



"The coins will be delivered through India Post within six months from the date of closure of booking," it said.



The coin on Gandhi's return from South Africa in 1915 bears two images of the Father of the Nation -- a young man in western attire and the other is the legendary thinly clad old man wearing round-shaped spectacles.



The centenary completion year '2015' is engraved at the opposite corner to that of '1915'. The proof coin embossed letter M -- meaning printed at Mumbai -- have a frozen effect on the surface design with a mirror finish.



The coin commemorating Komagata Maru incident depicts a big ship named 'Komagata Maru' sailing in the sea, with year 1914-2014 printed at the periphery of the coin.



These types of coins commemorate events of historical and social importance as well celebrates achievements of public or private organisations.



These high quality coins hold great value for collectors and those who study currencies, tokens, paper money and related articles -- the numismatics.



The Mumbai mint, a unit of Security Printing & Minting Corporation of India Ltd (SPMCIL), has been manufacturing these commemorative coins apart from circulation coins.



The first commemorative coin was issued in 1964 in the memory of India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru.



In 2016, the mint had come up with only one commemorative coin themed on Centenary of Banaras Hindu University.





Year 2015 saw issuance of three commemorative coins on International Yoga Day, 125th birth anniversary of B R Amdebkar and Golden Jubilee of Indo Pak War 1965.



In 2014, coins were issued to commemorate the 125th birth anniversary of Jawaharlal Nehru. While in 1972, coins were issued to mark the 25th year of India's independence.



Also, 2010 was a dedication to '1000 Years Of Brihadeeswarar Temple' and birth centenary of C Sbramaniam as well as platinum jubilee of Reserve Bank of India.



The mint office has been issuing commemorative coins all through the years since 1964 on various themes.
Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is set to succeed his brother Nawaz Sharif as the Pakistan prime minister, may nominate his son Hamza Shahbaz as the new head of the second largest province in the country, according to a media report.



According to sources at Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), however, the final say on the decision on who gets to helm Punjab rests with ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is looking to consolidate the party's control in Punjab province.



The PML-N cannot afford to lose its grip on Punjab at this time, especially since the next general elections are barely a year away, a senior PML-N leader was quoted as saying Dawn News.



"Shahbaz wants his son, who is already acting as the deputy chief minister, to succeed him for the remaining term in Punjab. However, [it is up to] Nawaz Sharif to decide whether Hamza will be the right choice for the post or not," said a senior PML-N legislator from Punjab.



"Whoever is nominated for the post will follow instructions from Shahbaz...but his level of comfort with his son will be higher than with an 'outsider'. At the same time, Shahbaz wants to give his son the experience he needs to serve at the top level," the legislator, who was not identified, said.



The PML-N leader added that Shahbaz would continue to oversee matters in Punjab indirectly, while his elder brother Nawaz Sharif would govern the Centre from his Raiwind residence.



Sharif stepped down after the Supreme Court disqualified him for failing to declare "receivable" salary from a UAE- based company of his son in his 2013 nomination paper. The court termed the salary which was not paid to Sharif as an "asset".



Senior PML-N leader and former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will run the PML-N government as interim prime minister of Pakistan until Shehbaz is elected as a member of parliament.




And as part of its strategy to woo the community, BJP national president Amit Shah, who is currently on a three-day visit to the state capital, had lunch at the house of an ordinary party worker, who hailed from 'Yadav' community on Sunday.





Shah, who was accompanied by Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath, deputy chief ministers Dinesh Sharma and Keshav Prasad Maurya and other senior party leaders, had a frugal lunch at booth level BJP worker Sonu Yadav's residence in Badi Jugauli village on the outskirts of the city.





According to party sources here, the initial program of the BJP chief was to have lunch at a Dalit home but it was changed at the eleventh hour.





Shah had, while addressing party leaders here on Saturday, asked them to reach out to communities, where the BJP did not have enough support. He singled out 'Yadav' and 'Jatav' communities for this purpose, sources added.





While the SP enjoys almost complete dominance over the Yadavs, BSP supremo Mayawati wielded a near total influence on the 'Jatavs'.





''We have already penetrated into other backward communities.....we now need to reach out to the Yadavs and Jatavs...it will not only enable us to expand our support base but will weaken the support base of the rivals,'' said a senior state BJP leader here.





The leader said that in the future, more senior leaders of the party would be visiting the homes of 'Yadav' and 'Jatav' workers.





The saffron party was also trying to rope in disgruntled leaders of these communities from the SP and BSP, sources added.

In an apparent bid to expand its support base and make a dent in arch rival Samajwadi Party's (SP) vote bank, BJP has now set its eyes on the 'Yadav' community.
The Congress today demanded Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti's resignation over her flag remarks, saying nobody has the right to insult the tricolour.



The party said she has hurt the sentiments of the people and asked the BJP to explain what kind of freedom is being advocated by their coalition partner (PDP) in the Jammu and Kashmir government and the chief minister.



"Congress has taken strong exception to the utterances of Chief Minister. No one has right to insult the national flag as great sacrifices and nation's honour is attached with it," state Congress unit's chief spokesperson Ravinder Sharma said here.



"Mehbooba has no right to quote the example of national flag in any form and hurt the nationalist sentiments by insulting it, what so ever may be her reasoning or context," he said.



At an event in New Delhi on Friday, Mehbooba had said, "Who is doing it? Why are they doing it? (challenging the Article 35-A). Let me tell you that my party and other parties who carry the national flag there (in Jammu and Kashmir) despite all risks.... I have no doubt in saying that there will be no one to hold it (national flag) (if it is tinkered)."



Sharma also hit out at the BJP and accused it of "surrendering their agenda (of alliance)" to remain in power in the state.



"We seek answers from the BJP over the statement and utterances of Mehbooba Mufti. She is even questioning the utility of NIA investigations as well propagating her illogical and highly objectionable agenda," he said.



"What kind of freedom of idea is being advocated by their coalition partner (PDP) and the chief minister. She (Mehbooba) has lost right to continue in office," he added.



Notably, the BJP yesterday expressed shock and surprise over Mufti's remarks and asserted that Article 35-A of the Constitution which grants special status to the state is "not a sacred cow that cannot be touched".



The state unit of the BJP said that while the party stands by the Agenda of Alliance with the PDP and wont seek alteration of existing constitutional position, "it is equally true that Article 35-A has done more harm to the State than any other provision of law".



Union minister Jitendra Singh yesterday said the tricolour is "sacrosanct" and termed the chief minister's remarks as "shocking and ridiculous"
A leader of Bangladesh's ruling party has been arrested along with three others for allegedly raping a teenager whose head was shaved as punishment by the accused's wife and sister, an incident that shocked the conservative Muslim nation.



Tufan Sarkar, 28, the convenor of Bogra district Sramik League -- the labour wing of the ruling Awami League -- raped the girl on July 17 and several times after that, promising her admission to a good college, B D News quoted Bogra Sadar Police Station in-charge Emdad Hossain said.



The others abetted the the crime, Hossain said, adding Tufan admitted to raping the girl in initial interrogation.





When Tufan's wife Asha and elder sister Marzia Hasan Rumki came to know about the incident, they along with some miscreants picked the girl and her mother from their house.



"They beat up the girl and her mother and later released them after shaving their heads," Hossain said, referring to the case files.



Asha, Rumki and the other miscreants are charged with abduction and assault of the girl and her mother.



Bogra district Sramik League has suspended Tufan over rape allegation.



"This is a heinous act and we are ashamed," said Rafiqul Islam, president of Bogra district Sramik League.



A three-member probe body led by Additional Deputy Magistrate Abdus Samad Pradhan has been formed to investigate the incident.
Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain, which have tried to isolate Qatar, will allow Qatari planes to use air corridors in emergencies, the Saudi state news agency SPA said on Sunday.

The four countries severed ties with Qatar on June 5, closed borders - in the sea, land and sky - and imposed economic sanctions, accusing it of supporting terrorism, which Doha denies.

"Nine corridors have been identified including one in international air space over the Mediterranean sea that will be monitored by the Egyptian authorities," SPA reported, citing a statement from the Saudi aviation authority (GACA).

International aviation organisations have been informed, it said, adding that the corridors will be open from Aug. 1.

The U.N. International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), held special hearings at Qatar's request to discuss reopening Gulf airspace. The air corridors were identified under ICAO supervision, the Saudi statement said.

ICAO's 36-state governing council could act to settle the overflights row presented by Qatar, but such interventions are rare and time-consuming because the U.N. agency usually negotiates disputes through consensus.

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Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has suggested legalising marijuana, a psychoactive drug, in India for medical purposes on the lines of the practice adopted by some developed countries like the US to curb drug abuse.



The suggestion was made by Gandhi at a meeting of a group of ministers (GOM), which examined the draft cabinet note National Drug Demand Reduction Policy, according to the minutes of the second meeting, a copy of which is with PTI.



The GoM approved the draft national policy with minor modifications suggested in the meeting.

Gandhi informed that in "some of the developed countries like the US, marijuana has been legalised which ultimately results in less drug abuse".



She said that "the possibility of the same maybe explored in India", as per the document.

When asked to elaborate, Gandhi told PTI that "marijuana should be legalised for medical purposes, especially as it serves a purpose in cancer".



During the meeting of the GoM, which was chaired by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Gandhi also stressed on the need for regulating the sale and availability of pharmaceutical drugs such as codeine cough syrups and inhalants among others which are being abused.



Prime Minister Narendra Modi has directed the GoM to examine the draft policy for drug demand reduction which seeks to address the problem of drug and substance abuse in the country.



Referring to the national survey on drug abuse, conducted by the Ministry of Social Justice in collaboration with AIIMS, which covers students, transgenders and sex workers among others, Gandhi said children especially those living in and around major railway stations should also be covered.



She also suggested exploring the possibility of setting up de-addiction centres near these railway stations.



On the issue of legalising drugs in the country, the Social Justice and Empowerment Secretary G Latha Krishna Rao said "it may not be appropriate to legalise such drugs" in view of the large population and low level of literacy in the country and added that the possibility could be explored in future.



As per the document, Minister for Chemicals and Fertilisers Ananth Kumar observed that drugs were easily available outside schools and colleges and said that an action plan needs to be drawn to create awareness and sensitise students against drug abuse in schools, colleges and universities.



Singh, who is also the minister of parliamentary affairs, said that the role of home ministry should also be well defined in the proposed policy.





The GoM also recommended the projected budget estimate of Rs 125 crore annually for implementation of the policy.



In an earlier meeting, the GoM had proposed preparing an action plan for controlling over the counter sale of sedatives, pain killers, muscle relaxants among others and preparing treatment modules for different age groups, including the subject of treatment of drug addicts as part of MBBS curriculum.

It also sought setting up of de-addiction centres in all prisons, juvenile homes, factories and industries.
BJP chief Amit Shah today targeted the Congress over dynasty politics and said lack of internal democracy in a political party results in it being dominated by caste or family.



Addressing a meeting of intellectuals here, Shah drew parallel between the BJP and the Congress over who will be the next chief of the two parties.



He asked the audience that who will succeed Sonia Gandhi in the Congress, to which the people responded saying Rahul Gandhi.



He then posed the same question about the BJP.



"Can anyone tell me who will be the next president of BJP?, No one knows. A person with nirmal charitra (pious character) will head the BJP. The president of BJP is not elected on the basis of dynasty, caste or religion, but on the basis of merit," Shah said.



"Internal democracy provides an opportunity for talent to develop naturally. In the absence of internal democracy in any political party, it ends up being run by gharanas (families). Among the 1,650 political parties in India, very few have internal democracy, and BJP is one of them," he said.



He said in the absence of internal democracy, a party cannot serve the purpose of democracy and incompetent heirs are chosen to head them.



"...Then these political parties become family-based or caste-based. Talent is not given any importance there, and talented people are sidelined. Parties like the SP and the BSP decide their waaris (heir). Sometimes there is a mistake in deciding the heir as well," the BJP chief said, apparently hinting at the falling out of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.



He said principles and development should also be two vital characteristics of a political party.



"In absence of principles in a political party, casteism and family politics take over," Shah said.

He said the BJP is a party which follows "cultural nationalism", both in letter and spirit, and also believes in Antyodaya - a model which touches all sections of the society, and aims to disseminating the benefits of development to the last strata of the society.



"Since 1950 to 2017, in the journey from Jan Sangh to the BJP, the basic principle has been Antyodaya, integral humanism and cultural nationalism," Shah said.



He claimed states without a BJP government have been "taken over by scams, corruption and dynasty politics.



Talking about Uttar Pradesh, he said the BJP will script history in terms of development.



"Owing to financial indiscipline, a term Bimaru (laggard) states was coined in the 1980s for Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and UP. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have come out of the Bimaru bracket. Bihar had shed the tag, when we were in government. There were some roadblocks, but day before yesterday things have moved in the right direction.



"We want to promise that UP will be out of the Bimaru bracket in the next five years. I assure you that under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, we will script a new story of development of UP and make it the best state," Shah said.



He also claimed that the country's growth came down to 4.4 percent under the previous Congress-led UPA government. However, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it went up to 7 percent.



Taking a jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the BJP chief said his government suffered from "policy paralysis".



"Every minister assumed himself to be the prime minister and no one considered him as the PM. Today under Narendra Modi, the BJP has completed three years in government, but even the rivals could not level allegations of corruption against us," Shah said.



"Wherever the BJP forms the government, it works for the welfare of the people, is transparent and decisive," he said.



Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya also addressed the meeting.
Domestic airlines will see "varying effects" on their profits in the coming years as they will be required to show all aircraft leases on their balance sheets under a new accounting standard, according to experts.



Leasing of aircraft rather than outright purchase is a common practice in the airlines industry worldwide. Once the new accounting standard is in place, the carriers would have to show all such leases on their respective balance sheets which would result in "substantial new assets and liabilities".



The Indian Accounting Standard 116 (Ind AS 116) -- which sets out the principles for recognition, presentation and disclosure of leases -- is proposed to be effective from April 2019.



Implementation of this standard is expected to have significant impact on the financials of airlines.

At present, many airlines keep the leasing expenses off the balance sheet and under the new standard, all leasing contracts would be reflected in it.



Besides, experts opined that it would make aircraft sale and lease back practice less attractive as airlines would have to recognise assets and liabilities arising from the lease back.



"Airlines industry will now be required to recognise all the leases on the balance sheet. As a result, airlines' industry will account for substantial new assets and liabilities.



"... the standard (Ind AS 116) is expected to have varying effects on each airline entity based on number of aircrafts taken on leases by that particular entity," ICAI President Nilesh Shivji Vikamsey told PTI.



Most carriers are already seeing wafer thin margins as deeply discounted fares and rise in aviation fuel prices along with staff costs take a toll on their overall profitability. Against this backdrop, the new accounting standard is likely to further trim their bottomline on account of leasing costs.



The objective of the Ind AS 116 is to ensure that lessees and lessors provide relevant information in a manner that faithfully represents those transactions, the ICAI (Institute of Chartered Accountants of India) said in its draft exposure on the standard.



Ind AS 116 is the equivalent of IFRS (International Financial Reporting Standards) 116.

The standard would impact the reported assets and liabilities of airline industry depending on the nature and significance of former off balance sheet leases, Vikamsey said in a detailed response on queries related to Ind AS 116.



Those airlines having almost all the aircraft on leases are expected to change significantly in contrast to others having few planes on lease, he added.



Pratiq Shah, Partner at consultancy Deloitte Haskins & Sells LLP, told PTI that the standard can be expected to have a significant impact, particularly for entities that have previously kept a large portion of their financing off-balance sheet in the form of operating leases.



Under this standard, the operating lease-style accounting treatment would be available only for short-term leases or those that have less than 12 months tenure and those for low value assets.

To a query on if there would be an immediate impact on the financials of Indian carriers after Ind AS 116 implementation, he said those airlines that have chosen the option to lease aircraft with an intention to keep them off- balance sheet would see a change in the financial statements.



When asked about the possible impact of Ind AS 116 on its balance sheet, a senior Air India official said all future lease rentals would have to be shown as liabilities and the aircraft as assets.
The last date for filing of Income Tax Returns (ITRs) for the financial year 2016-17 will not be extended beyond Mondays deadline, a top official said on Sunday.



The last date for filing of ITRs remains July 31. There are no plans to extend this deadline. The department has already received over two crore returns electronically. The department requests taxpayers to file their return in time, the official said.



On reports of the e-filing website facing some glitches, the official said that no major glitches have been reported with the departments e-filing website, barring a few times when the portal was interrupted for maintenance.



The department has also issued advertisements in leading national dailies in the last few days stating that taxpayers should disclose their income correctly and file their ITRs on or before July 31.



The linking of Aadhaar number with the PAN (Permanent Account Number) of a taxpayer has also been made mandatory for filing of an ITR, beginning July 1.



The department has also asked taxpayers to declare cash deposits made in bank accounts aggregating to Rs 2 lakh or more, post demonetisation between November 9 and December 30 last year, in the ITRs.



The I-T department is also considering setting up a centralised cell for scrutiny of income tax cases as part of efforts to reduce personalised interface between the taxmen and taxpayers with a view to curb corrupt practices.



The proposed cell will be on the lines of the Central Processing Centre (CPC) that the department currently has in Bengaluru for processing income tax returns.



A senior revenue department official said the department wants to reduce interface between taxpayers and the department officers and is planning to set up a CPC.



E-mails sent out from the CPC would not bear the name of the assessing officer, he said.



It is in discussion stage. This will be as part of the departments drive to go faceless and reduce interface, the official, who did not wish to be quoted, told PTI.


Ahead of the Supreme Court hearing on GM Mustard, anti-GM activists have made fervent pleas to Prime Minister Narendra Modi against giving the nod for its commercial cultivation.



A group of doctors, including two union health ministers  Anbumani Ramadoss and Vallabhbhai Kathiria and an anti-GM advocacy group have written to the Prime Minister over the past few days cautioning against the inherently unsafe transgenic mustard developed by a group of Delhi University researchers.



...we write to you now to request you to urgently reject this GM mustard commercialization application. This is an unsafe and unneeded GMO and Indias citizens and environment should not be forced to face the risks and dangers of this GM mustard, according to the letter signed by 35 doctors.



The Coalition for GM-Free India said it has learnt that the GEAC and its sub-committee, which undertook the safety appraisal of GM mustard crop, are proposing that it should be allowed for commercial planting in India but with certain conditions.



The regulators have ignored all valid scientific evidence presented to it with regard to the lack of benefit and safety of GM mustard crop, Kavitha Kuruganti, co-convenor of the coalition said in the letter to the Prime Minister.



The Supreme Court had on July 24 asked the government to apprise it by Friday of any adverse impact of the commercial release of GM mustard crop. The apex court is expected to hear the matter on Monday.



The apex regulator, GEAC, appears to be couching its "faulty and dangerous" decision in the garb of laying down certain conditions for permission to commercialise GM mustard crop, Kuruganti alleged.



India has already witnessed a farcical conditional approval in the case of Bt cotton, Kuruganti claimed, adding there was no basis on which we can depend on either the pesticides regulators or gene technology regulators in this country to create and implement a sound regulation that fulfils the very mandate of regulation.



In the case of both insecticides, including herbicides, under the Insecticides Act 1968, as well as GMOs under the Environment Protection Act 1986, the mandate of regulation, is to protect citizens from risks posed by these technologies, she said.


Living at the crossroads of uncertainty for the past 27 years, displaced Kashmiri Pandits' fervent hopes of returning to their homes in the Kashmir Valley have been dashed as militancy has again reared its ugly head with rising violence.



Thousands of Pandit families are putting up here in the winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir, after their mass migration from the valley following outbreak of militancy in early 1990 which forced them out of their homeland.



Their hopes for a return to Kashmir was rekindled after formation of PDP-BJP government in March 2015 as the two parties had talked about "protecting and fostering ethnic and religious diversity by ensuring the return of Kashmiri Pandits with dignity based on their rights as state subjects and reintegrating as well as absorbing them in the Kashmiri milieu".



General Secretary of All State Kashmiri Pandit Conference T K Bhat said the growing radicalism in Kashmir and government policies to deal with the situation are the biggest hurdle in the way of return of the Pandits to the valley.



"The situation is not ideal right now for our return to the valley as even the policemen are unsafe. They are being killed and their weapons looted. The present (Central) government is pursuing the same policy (on Kashmir) as that of Congress. Those who don't know the ABCD of Kashmir are being consulted (on Kashmir) while we, the real stakeholders, are being ignored," he said.



Bhat also took a dig at the PDP-BJP government and said it miserably failed to restore the confidence of the Pandits.



"There was no move on part of the government to invite the Pandits, organise round table conferences, or reach out to the community to discuss and deliberate the issue of their return," he said.



However, he said his organisation would continue to fight for their return to Kashmir.



"How can we return to the valley in such a situation. A police officer is lynched, al-Qaeda is making inroads, dreaded militants are changing loyalties and openly threatening even the separatists. This situation coupled with unrest is so scary," All Party Migrant Coordination Committee (APMCC) president Vinod Pandit said.



Kashmiri Pandit Samaj president K K Khosa blamed the separatists for obstructing the return of Pandits to the valley, saying "they are not sincere since they are attaching conditions for our return".



"Initially, they said Kashmir is incomplete without Pandits but later said they will not allow separate colonies for us in the valley. It shows that they are not sincere," said Khosa, who unsuccessfully contested Lok Sabha elections from the valley in 2004.



He said the government dropped the proposal for separate colonies due to pressure from the separatist forces.



"Instead of redoubling efforts, the government gave up and shelved the plan," he said.



He said properties of 70 per cent of displaced Pandits from the valley have changed hands over the years leaving only 30 per cent who still have their houses and properties there.



"Where will they go if these 70 per cent choose to return?" he asked, adding "the desire to return and live there was inherent and embedded in each and every Kashmiri Pandit".
A parliamentary panel asked the Centre to organise regular surprise inspections of the elementary schools to detect instances of untouchability and other caste biases in cooking and serving the midday meal in the areas dominated by scheduled caste (SC) and scheduled tribe (ST) communities.



In its report to Parliament, the panel has rejected the Human Resource Development Ministry's (HRD) claim that not a single instance of untouchability was detected in the country during the inspections carried out by the Central government teams.



The committee apprehend the likelihood of leaking of information of the visits in advance and are of the view that (inspection) teams or monitoring institutes should make regular surprise visit to the schools in SC/ST dominated districts of Odisha and other parts of the country to detect instances of untouchability in the mid-day meal scheme, parliamentary committee on the welfare of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes noted.



It will also send out a strong message that such acts will not be tolerated, it added.



Non-government organisations in such areas may be involved in the process of investigation, the panel recommended.



Taking note of some reports about instances of untouchability in Odisha and some other States, the panel had asked the HRD Ministry in its previous report to depute special teams to probe into such reports.



As directed by the committee, two teams from the school education department of the Ministry were sent to five coastal districts of Odisha in 2012 to investigate the cases of untouchability. The teams visited 76 schools in these districts but could not come across a single case of discrimination, the HRD Ministry told the parliamentary committee.



Later in January 2015, the HRD Ministry said, special teams were again constituted and sent to visit Banka and Sitamarhi districts of Bihar as well as Banda, Badaun and Bahraich districts of Uttar Pradesh as to enquire into the reports of caste discrimination in the implementation of the mid-day meal scheme.



The central team observed there was no caste-based discrimination in sample schools visited by them, the Ministry told the panel.
Somalia's al Shabaab insurgents and troops from the African Union peacekeeping mission clashed on Sunday, a senior military officer said, while the group said it had killed 39 soldiers.

The incident took place in Bulamareer district in Lower Shabelle region about 140 km southwest of Mogadishu.

The al Shabaab fighters ambushed a convoy carrying troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), Col. Hassan Mohamed told Reuters.

"The ambush turned into a fierce fight between al Shabaab and AMISOM. We understand fighting is still going on but we do not have the figure of casualties," he told Reuters.

Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaabs military operation spokesman, said: "We have in hand 39 dead bodies of AU soldiers including their commander."

The casualty figure could not be immediately independently verified.

Government officials were not available for immediate comment.

Al Shabaab, which wants to force out the peacekeepers, oust the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam in Somalia, has targeted the peacekeepers in the past.

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Gopalkrishna Gandhi's nephew Shrikrishna Kulkarni has written an open letter protesting his uncle's nomination as the joint opposition candidate for the election of the vice president.



Kulkarni, a robotics engineer, expressed his dismay at Gandhi choosing to be a candidate of the present day Gandhi family who have re-institutionalised dynastic succession and made a mockery of all that the Mahatma stood for in his living life.



I saw with dismay the TV images of you going to file your nomination for the Vice President  flanked by this family of dynastic politics. In that one instant you tore apart the principles you espouse  those of Mahatma Gandhi or Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar, both of who were fearless and selfless leaders and who were dead against entitlements of birth, he added.



He also questioned Gopal Gandhi's silence over the many scandals over so many years.



So many scandals over so many years, and not a single comment from you. Do you really believe all these are political vendetta? Do you really believe the citizens are fools? But you still went ahead and endorsed them, Kulkarni, the son on Sumathi, the daughter of Mahatma's son Ramdas, said.



But as one small member of Gandhiji's large family, I must register my protest. And therefore I say  NOT IN GANDHIJI'S NAME! I am sorry Gopu mama, but this decision of yours doesn't build confidence, at least not in me. Rather it is confidence betrayal, he said.
The Janata Dal (United) will support the opposition vice presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the August 5 elections notwithstanding its joining hands with the BJP.



A seniro party leader said that the commitment to support Gandhi was made by party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar prior to joining hands with the BJP.



"Nitish Kumar ji had made the commitment to support Gopalkrishna Gandhi prior to joining hands with the BJP and will fulfil it. There is no going back on it and we have not changed our stand," senior party leader K C Tyagi told PTI.



The JD-U moved out of the 'grand alliance' with the RJD and the Congress and decided to join hands with its old-time ally the BJP to form the new government in Bihar. It had split from the NDA in 2013 after a 17-year-old alliance.



Party leaders, however, say that it has to fulfil its promises made earlier.



The decision of the JD-U will not alter the result of vice president's election as the ruling NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu has a big majority in his favour and is likely to sail through easily.



On whether its lone MLA in Gujarat would support the BJP or the Congress in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, they said since he is opposed by the BJP, he is free to take his own decision.



In the wake of its own legislators switching sides and resigning after Shankarsing Vaghela quit the party, Congress heavyweight Ahmed Patel needs the support of the NCP, the JD-U and other MLAs to win the third Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat.
The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) workers on Sunday launched a padayatra simultaneously from Kunigal and KB Cross to Tumakuru, demanding the release of Hemavathi river water to the waterbodies in the district.



A hoard of party leaders including former minister R Ashoka, Sureshkumar, Tumakuru Rural MLA B Sureshgowda and party leader D Krishnakumar flagged off the padayatra at Kunigal.



Addressing the party workers, D Krishnakumar said, "Chief Minister Siddaramaiah has shown that he has a soft corner for Tamil Nadu by providing all luxury to AIDMK leader Sasikala, who is undergoing jail term at Central Prisons, Parappana Agrahara, in DA case. Tamil Nadu has always been taken a tough stand against Karnataka in Cauvery river water-sharing row. But here we have a government who is going all out to provide all comforts to a convict who is portrayed as next CM of Tamil Nadu. By doing so, the Congress government in the state is cheating the people," he alleged.



"Most of the reservoirs in the state are not filled owing to poor monsoon. The situation in Cauvery basin is pathetic. In such scenario, the state government is releasing water from KRS and Kabini to Tamil Nadu. Water Resources Minister M B Patil is busy trying to divide Veerashaiva-Lingayat community. The Congress government is busy playing divisive politics and have no time and will to address the water woes. The people in the state will teach them a lesson in 2018 Assembly polls," he said.



Krishnakumar took a dig at the local MLA and MP for their lack of commitment to get Hemavathi river water to the taluk and the district.



He warned of intensifying the struggle if the elected representatives of the taluk fail to fill waterbodies.



Former minister Sureshkumar said, "The politicians from Hassan and Sira are doing gross injustice to Kunigal taluk by denying its share of Hemavathi water. The local MLA and MP have failed to get river water to the taluk. The BJP has launched this agitation to get Kunigal taluk its share of river water."



Tumakuru Rural MLA B Sureshgowda, addressing the agitating party workers, said, "Hemavathi river water flowed to Tumakuru district and Kunigal taluk because of the struggle spearheaded by former ministers Y K Ramaiah and Huchchmastigowda. Tumakuru district was allocated 25 tmcft of Hemavathi water. But the district has never got its share due to the conspiracy by the politicians from Hassan district and the indifference of Tumakuru district in-charge minister. Agitation is the only option left before the people of the district to get their share of Hemavathi river water, he said and called upon the people of Tumakuru district to put up an united struggle for water.



Former deputy chief minister R Ashoka also addressed the protesters. Party leaders Narayanagowda, Balaram, Krishna, Rajesh Gowda, Dinesh, Arunkumar, Gopi, Devaraj among others led the agitation.



Jayachandra indifferent



Hundreds of BJP workers took part in the padayatra that was launched from Kibbanahalli Cross. The padayatra passed through Harenahalli, Kodlicross, Doddaguni, Kundaranahalli, Nittur and reached Gubbi town in the evening.



The agitating workers raised slogans against Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, District Minister T B Jayachandra and the state government.



Former Tiptur MLA B C Nagesh said, "The storage level at Hemavathi reservoir at Gorur in Hassan district has increased following copious rain in its catchment. The state government should have released water, to the Hemavathi canal, to fill waterbodies in Tiptur, Chikkanayakanahalli, Turuvekere, Gubbi and Tumakuru taluks.



But District Minister T B Jayachandra is not bothered to safeguard the interests of the farmers in the district. Last year, the district administration failed to fill most of the lakes and the tanks in the district. The water table in the region has gone down considerably."



He demanded the government to release water to the district so that the farmers could save whatever crop they could.



BJP district vice president Sagaranahalli Vijaykumar, general secretary Hebbak Ravi, state vice president Shivaprasad, former MLAs K S Kirankumar, J C Madhuswamy, SC Morcha district president G N Bettaswamy, taluk president A N Lingappa, former president H T Bhairappa, Benachigere Panchakshari, P B Chandrashekarbabu, Nanjegowda among others were present.

District president G B Jyotiganesh said that the party workers and the farmers from Madhugiri will also join the padayatris from Kunigal and Gubbi in Tumakuru. On Monday, the agitators will gather at Tumakuru Town Hall.



A procession will be taken out from Town Hall to Deputy Commissioner's office, where they will submit a memorandum to the deputy commissioner.


The district administration has invoked the Essential Services Maintenance Act (ESMA) against the owners of private tankers who have suspended water supply demanding payment of their bills. Cases were registered against 90 tanker owners on Saturday.



The tanker owners have been staging dharna since July 25 parking their vehicles on the premises of the city municipality, demanding payment of bills to the tune of Rs 6.30 crore pending since June 2016. This has affected water supply to the residents, affecting normal life of citizens. Kolar has been facing acute water scarcity owing to successive drought. Though the president, members and officials of the city municipality attempted to convince the protesters, they had not withdrawn their dharna.



Deputy Commissioner Dr K V Trilok Chandra had released Rs 1.65 crore towards the arrears for three months. However, the tanker owners were insisting that money be released towards whole of the pending bills. Since all the attempts to convince and pacify the protesters failed, the deputy commissioner had directed the municipal commissioner to register cases against tanker owners under the Essential Services Maintenance Act.



Accordingly, municipal commissioner S R Ramprakash issued final notice to the tanker owners and lodged a complaint with Gulpet police on Friday. The police, registered a case against them on the charge of causing trouble to citizens by not supplying water through tankers under the ESMA. The protesters, as soon as got to know of this, fled the dharna spot along with their vehicles, fearing arrest.



The district administration has blacklisted 90 tanker owners and has even cancelled the work order issued to them for supplying water. It has also been ordered that tender should not be awarded to such contractors in future.



Since the old contract with the tanker operators has been scrapped, the deputy commissioner has asked the officials of the municipality to call short-term tenders for supply of water to the town.



Till the time the tender process is completed, water should be suppled through tankers from other operators.



Accordingly, the officials of the municipality have begun supplying water through tankers from contractors other than those blacklisted.


In hindsight, one could argue that the raison detre of Indias Look East Policy found its relevance in the partnership that India took forward in establishing a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the Asean. It was a vision that resulted in forging a significant strategic, trade and economic partnership.



Since 1992 many bilateral meetings, summits and ministerial meetings have taken place on a wide range of sectors, so much so that the prime minister and President of India have visited a majority of the Asean countries.



Indias kickstart in implementing the FTA between Asean and India in 2010 resulted in further tariff liberalisation and trade expansion. In addition, the services, trade and investment agreement signed in 2015 also represents major achievements in AseanIndia integration.



India completed its tariff liberalisation obligations in December 2016. Investment flows have started coming into the country in a miniscule form, but they tend to contribute to the activity Make in India programme.



India is also a partner of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which is a comprehensive free trade agreement being negotiated between the 10 Asean members and its six FTA partners.



By becoming a partner of the RCEP, India would be in a position to deepen integration among member countries, while promoting goods and services trade, investment, the IT sector, competition and dispute settlement.



Given that the possibility of India joining the TPP is still a long way off, being a member of the RCEP will help India prepare itself to better engage with mega FTAs in the future. The RCEP itself will also benefit India. The RCEP is an ambitious mega FTA that covers 16 countries, a third of the worlds economy and 45% of the global population.



Last couple of years however have witnessed dismal growth as far as trade relationship goes between India and Asean but 2016-17 is showing some signs of improvements. Countries like Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore are emerging as Indias top three trade partners in Asean.



Total trade increased to $70.68 billion in 201617, from $65.12 billion in 201516. During this period, Indias exports to Asean increased to $30 billion from $25 billion. While traditional import sources are yet to stabilise, India is gaining industrial, technological and digital production linkages with Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore.



To take this trade and economic activities forward, India needs to sharply focus on the issue of connectivity which is just not about a strategic priority for both India and the Asean countries.

Connectivity can evolve great source of trading activities which can connect India to a great extent with Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, which are the main emerging and powerful trading destinations for India. Improved connectivity can also help in facilitating cross-regional production networks.



India has announced a line of credit worth $1 billion to promote projects that support physical and digital connectivity with Asean, and a Project Development Fund with a corpus of $77 million to develop manufacturing hubs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. India contributes to three major cooperation funds with Asean, namely the AseanIndia Fund, the Asean-India Science and Technology Development Fund and the AseanIndia Green Fund.



Value chains



Further advantage for the India-Asean partnership will provide India to connect itself with global value chains. Asean has been a great region in establishing international production network (IPN). India can gain from such experience and help micro and small-and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs) into regional value chains.



The Ministry of External Affairs has taken initiative to provide project development fund to encourage integration of Indian producers into the groupings regional value chains. This initiative plans to help create manufacturing hubs in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam leading to the establishment of a new regional economic order within Asean.



The growing strategic partnership between India and Asean needs to be further strengthened by consistent engagement with the Asean member countries. Both Asean and India need each other. For the bloc, India not only offers a huge domestic market with a growing aspirational middle class, but also a growing working population.



Given that India is a world leader in IT sector and an attractive destination for foreign direct investment, there are huge opportunities for the grouping to forge a deep relationship with India. Focusing on trade in services with Asean will give India an opportunity to use its competitive strength to become the regionss services export hub.



Being a part of the RCEP and having strong relations with Asean through its existing FTA will facilitate further economic reforms in India. And, more significantly, it will allow India to establish itself as a growing economic power in Asia.



(The writer is Professor, Lal Bahadur Shastri Institute of Management, New Delhi)

Year 2017 occupies a special place in India-Asean partnership, as exactly 25 years ago, in 1992, India inked a sectoral partnership with Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean).
Clashes between the police and Gorkhaland supporters on Sunday resulted in injuries to several people on both sides at Jaigoan in Alipurduar district, bordering Bhutan.



The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) and the other hill parties took out a rally at Jaigaon on the 46th day of an indefinite strike called by the GJM in the hills.



According to the police, clashes broke out between the securitymen and the Gorkhaland supporters after the participants in the rally, carrying kukris (Gorkha knives), hurled stones and petrol bombs at the police personnel.



The police tried to convince the GJM supporters to refrain from attacking, but the agitators remained defiant and broke the first two barricades. They kept hurling stones at the police, who then resorted to water cannons and firing tear gas shells, besides batons to disperse the crowd.



At this, the protesters turned violent and set afire a few vehicles, including those of the police. Several police personnel and Gorkhaland supporters were injured in the clashes, the police said.
A sub-inspector attached to Soladevanahalli police station suffered fracture in his right leg after he was knocked down by a speeding biker in the early hours of Sunday.



Naveen Kumar (30) was on duty to check cases of vehicle thefts. When he tried to stop a two-wheeler, the rider identified as Punith Rao (30), a call centre employee, instead of stopping the vehicle, increased the speed in a bid to flee and knocked the sub-inspector down.



The impact of the collision left the sub-Inspector fractured in his right leg. The SI has been admitted to a private hospital.



Soladevanhalli Inspector said that Naveens condition is stable and that he will undergo a surgery on Monday. The Jalahalli Traffic police have arrested Puneeth Rao and registered a case against him.



Nigerian national held



The Kothanur police have arrested a Nigerian national for attempting to sell banned substances on Saturday. The suspect Dennis Kalu Eme, (30), is a resident of Yelahanka. The police have recovered 2.5 kg ganja, passport, mobile phone and a bike from the suspect.



On a tip-off, the police nabbed Dennis from Yelahanka. The police are ascertaining if the suspect is overstaying in the city.


Islamist militants on Sunday killed five members of a force led by military strongman Khalifa Haftar in the country's east, a pro-Haftar news agency reported.

"Terrorist groups attacked at dawn Sunday three sites under the control" of Haftar's forces south of the eastern city of Derna, it said.

Four of Haftar's forces were also wounded, it added.

Derna was known for being a bastion for Islamist militants even before the 2011 uprising that toppled and killed longtime dictator Moamer Ghaddafi.

Haftar's forces are waging a campaign against Islamist militants groups, including efforts to capture the eastern city from the "Revolutionary Shura Council of Derna", a coalition of militias close to Al-Qaeda.

On Saturday, a pro-Haftar fighter group died as he took part in a mission to try and rescue a pilot whose plane had crashed in the same area.

The pilot who died in the crash, had been carrying out a raid against militants positions when his fighter jet was hit by a missile, the news agency said.

Haftar's forces have lost several aircraft in recent months.

The controversial strongman supports an administration based in the country's east that has refused to recognise the UN-backed Government of National Accord based in Tripoli.

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A Chinese national sustained a deep gash on his face when a gang of five slashed his face with a knife after he resisted their robbery bid in Indiranagar on Saturday night.



The police have arrested the suspects - Mani (23), Manikantha (20), Vijay (22), Arun Kiran (20) and Sharath (25). All the five are habitual offenders and have cases against them for mobile snatchings. The victim has identified all the suspects, the police said. According to police, the victim identified as Yan had come to the city on a business trip, and was waiting for a cab near an ice-cream shop in Indiranagar. A five-member gang confronted him and demanded his valuables at knifepoint. When Yan resisted, they attacked him with knife slashing his face before fleeing from the spot after a few passersby rushed to his help. A Hoysala patrol vehicle rushed to the spot and shifted the victim to a hospital.



The police said the suspects wanted to snatch the victims mobile phone. The Indiranagar police, based on the CCTV footage, arrested the gang of five and seized a two-wheeler from them used for the crime. The jurisdictional police have registered a case of attempt to robbery and dacoity, and investigations are under way.
As part of the global Gorkhaland Unity March, a peaceful rally was held in the city on Sunday to support the cause of a separate state for Gorkhas.



The march was held in several cities across the country and even abroad to show solidarity with Gorkhas in West Bengal.



In Bengaluru the event was organised by Gorkha Youths of Bangalore and NEP India Foundation. Hundreds of Gorkhas from the city marched from Mysuru Bank Circle to Freedom Park, holding placards.



Once at the Freedom Park, the group discussed the ongoing agitation in West Bengal. They observed a few minutes of silence in the memory of those who lost their lives in the struggle.



The rally today was not affiliated to any political party and no political banners were used. The intention was just to unite all Gorkhas in the city for our cause. Even Gorkhas from different tribes came together as one to support the Gorkhaland movement, said Siddarth Bhitrikoty, who founded Gorkha Youths of Bangalore.



The purpose of the rally was also to raise awareness among non-Gorkhas about their movement and their identity.



We are humble people who want to live peacefully in the hills but we want our identity to be recognised.



Many of us have moved to different cities in search of work and educational opportunities but we want to contribute to the movement in some way. This rally is a way of doing that, one of the participants at the rally said.



They condemned the West Bengal government for conducting lathi charges against peaceful protesters, including senior citizens.



The organisers hope to conduct more events in the city to keep the movement alive, involving Gorkhas and non-Gorkhas in it.




With financial aid from the Centre dwindling each year, the Education department is drawing up a plan to tap into funds from the Rural Development and Panchayat Raj (RDPR) for the upkeep of government schools.



The share of the Central government in the annual outlays of the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan (SSA) has been dipping the last three years, making it inevitable for authorities to explore other sources for funds, especially in the area of construction and maintenance of school infrastructure such as classrooms.



We are putting together a framework where the education department will bear the cost of materials and the labour cost is taken care of under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, Additional Chief Secretary (primary and secondary education) Ajay Seth said. It has been tried at local levels, but not on a large scale. The plan seems more feasible given that decision-making in government schools of rural areas lies with gram or zilla panchayats, Seth pointed out.



As many as 78,932 classrooms in the state are in need of repair, according to the latest data of the District Information System for Education.



Central funding has been drying up the last couple of years, SSA state project director P C Jaffer said. For 2017-18, the Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) has approved an outlay of about Rs 1,800 crore for Karnataka.



Of this, the Centre will give around Rs 400 crore. For the rest, we have to look for other avenues, he said, adding that preliminary meetings have been held with the RDPR department.



Till 2014, the Centre provided 65% of the total outlay. Karnataka, along with Bihar, Odisha, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, raised concerns when the Centres share was reduced to 50%. Based on a Niti Aayog report, the Centres share was fixed at 60%.



The Centres share towards construction of school infrastructure has gone down by 30% since 2014, according to the data.



Earlier this year, the MHRD urged the state to explore mechanisms for convergence with other departments such as RDPR. Additional Chief Secretary and Development Commissioner T M Vijay Bhaskar lauded the idea. Community toilets are being built for schools under MGNREGA. Further convergence is possible, he said.



The Education department is also pushing legislators to prioritise school buildings under their local area development funds. Were taking this up with the planning department, Seth said.






On Saturday, the committee chaired by former judge of High Court of Karnataka Justice Anand Byrareddy had ordered that the Consortium of Medical, Engineering and Dental Colleges of Karnataka (ComedK) allow candidates who have accepted seats in the second round to take part in the new round.



Justice Byrareddy passed the order after several students and parents approached him saying that as they had not known there would be an extended round, it would be unfair if they could not participate.



On Sunday, ComedK withdrew its earlier notification which allowed only those who had not been allotted seats to take part in the round. It said that it would follow the committees order and all those who took part in the second round were eligible to participate in the extended round.



Candidates who had accepted the allotted seat in the second round will be allowed to reorder, delete or add new options. They can only change higher order options, above that allotted to them. If they have already paid the fee in the college allotted in the second round, it will be adjusted towards the newly allotted college.



In the case of candidates who have not been allotted any seats in the second round, they can enter any number of options. Allotment in this round will purely be based on general merit. The schedule for option entry and further process will be uploaded on the website on Monday evening. The Committee has allowed ComedK time until August 5 to complete the procedures.

Parents complain



However, some parents are dissatisfied that even reserved seats will now be filled on basis of general merit.



For my daughter, we applied through the Hyderabad-Karnataka quota. The provision exists for better representation from these regions. Now, all of a sudden, how can they say that there will be no reservation categories? one parent asked.



Justice Byrareddy said that he would be holding a meeting with officials from ComedK on Monday to discuss this matter.





Following the orders of the Admission Overseeing Committee, ComedK has announced a revised procedure on its website for the second extended round.
Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in Medina this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year amid tensions with Saudi Arabia.

Around 800 pilgrims were due to leave Iran on three flights to Medina on Sunday, the director of the haj at Irans Haj and Pilgrimage Organization, Nasrollah Farahmand told state media.

Approximately 86,500 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in total this year and 800 coordinators have travelled to Saudi Arabia to help Iranians during the pilgrimage, he said.

Iran boycotted the haj last year after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2015, and following a diplomatic rift between the two countries that are vying for power and influence in the region.

In a speech to haj organizers on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iranians would never forget the catastrophic events of 2015 and called on Saudi Arabia to ensure the security of all pilgrims.

"The serious and constant issue for the Islamic Republic is the preservation of the security, dignity, welfare and comfort of all pilgrims, particularly Iranian pilgrims," Khamenei said, according to his official site. "The security of the haj is the responsibility of the country where the two noble shrines exist."

Riyadh severed diplomatic relations last year after Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of a Shia cleric in Saudi Arabia in January 2016.

In February this year Iran, which is predominantly Shia Muslim, sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia, which is mostly Sunni, that initiated the process of Iranian pilgrims returning for the haj.

However, tensions between the two countries remain at an all-time high.

Khamenei in his speech on Sunday also called on all pilgrims to show their reaction to the recent unrest at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and "Americas wicked presence in the region" at the haj, according to his official website.

He did not specify what kind of reaction he expected pilgrims to show.

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A Saudi police officer was killed and six others wounded when a patrol came under attack in the town of Awamiya in eastern Saudi Arabia on Sunday morning, the interior ministry said.

Several policemen have been killed in the Shia Muslim town since May when authorities began tearing down the old part of the town to deny suspected militants a place to hide.

At least five people were killed over two days last week when security forces began an operation to flush out suspected militants in Awamiya, in Qatif province, part of the oil-producing region, according to local activists and a relative of one of the deceased.

On Sunday, the police patrol came under a "terrorist attack using an exploding projectile" near the walled part of Awamiya known as al-Musawara, the interior ministry said in a statement carried by state news agency SPA.

The six wounded were in stable condition in hospital, it said.

The area has seen unrest and occasional armed attacks on security forces since the 2011 "Arab spring" protests. Residents of Awamiya complain they are marginalised by the Sunni-led Saudi government, something Riyadh denies.

Authorities say they intend to replace the dilapidated 200-year-old al-Musawara with a modern district.

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A youth opposition leader was killed in Venezuela on Sunday in a protest against a contentious election organized by President Nicolas Maduro, prosecutors said.

Ricardo Campos, 30, died in the northeastern town of Cumana in circumstances that had yet to be investigated, the prosecutors' office said.

An opposition lawmaker, Henry Ramos Allup, said Campos, a regional secretary for the youth opposition party Democratic Action, was shot dead.

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Rose McGuire was born on October 9 1932, in Tullygrevagh a few miles from Cashel in County Fermanagh.

Joe Johnny Maguire and Teresa Ward were her parents, and she had one brother John McGuire, who is still alive.

Like her father Joe Johnny, she loved learning, was a little queen of the land of books, a sensitive and sensible child whose world was shattered when she lost her beloved mother Teresa in 1939.

Her mothers death meant there would be no secondary school in Mount Lourdes to develop her gifts and life was hard on a hill farm.

Rose went barefoot to school to Lattoone, she called it the academy on the hill and she worked on the farm, loved nature and clearly recalled the US airmen coming to west Fermanagh.

She also remembered the noise of the planes over Tullygrevagh in the war years, the rationing and the smuggling.

Her memories were clear and accurate, and she wrote a moving account of those years in recent years.

In the early 1950s she went to work in the Carlton Hotel Belleek, where one evening she spotted a man called Willie McLaughlin swinging from a lamp- post at McManuss Corner.

Love blossomed between two very different, but complementary people. They married in 1954 in Garrison and had their wedding breakfast in the Melvin in Ballyshannon.

Willie was and is a GAA fanatic, so they spent part of their honeymoon watching Meath beating Kerry in the All-Ireland Final in 1954.

Their early years of marriage took them to the famed Rosses and Gaoth Dobhair where they lived until 1960.

Rose had crosses to bear here, after having two miscarriages and her daughter baby Rose died.

Their first son Gerard was born in Meenaleck 1958 which brought her and Willie great joy. Liam came in 1959 in Dungloe while Catherine (1964), Maurice (1966) and Martin (1970) were all born in Ballyshannon.

Despite periods of serious illness, Rose never lost her faith or her wonderful droll sense of humour or her love and total devotion to her family.

Rose was determined that her children would have the education she was denied and took a great interest in all their activities.

She always tried to answer all their questions but had a neat riposte for one particularly inquisitive child when she asked;

Do you think I am a walking encyclopaedia? but still answered the question.

Rose was quiet and reserved by nature, but was a fount of wisdom in the wonderful home she made for Willie, Gerard, Liam, Catherine, Maurice and Martin in Cloghore.

Like her mother, Teresa, she was a great cook and could make a little go a long way.

She loved all of her children unconditionally, had a deep and genuine faith and lived by the old Indian adage that before criticizing anyone, you should think what it would be like to walk in their moccasins.

Rose had a deep and genuine love for small children and animals, for the wounded, the bruised and the broken.

But she never judged, and instead prayed because she really believed that this life was no lasting city and no abiding stay.

She never had much of the worlds wealth but gave what she could to the Missions, and those in need.

Rose had a lovely smile of welcome, disliked gossip and always saw the good in everyone.

She treated all with respect and courtesy and was a great favourite with all of her grandchildren as well.

Rose always taught her family that while it was good to be clever it was much better to be kind.

And her family thinks it was no accident that she died exactly one year after another great lady called Rose Gallagher who was one of her finest friends.

Two lovely Roses forever blooming in our hearts in Ballyshannon, on the edge of the Atlantic.

Her husband Willie, Gerard, Liam, Maurice, Martin (sons), Catherine (daughter), John (brother) grandchildren, Andrew, Brian, Bianca Rose, Stephen, Conor, Cliodhna, Emily, Caitlin, Mitchell, Lisa, Jeanette, Ayeisha, great grandchildren, Laila, Evan, Anna, Aisla Rose, Bradley, daughters-in-law, nieces and nephews survive her.

G McL
Enterprise High School officials met with representatives from some of the areas top employers last week in an effort to match curriculum with workforce needs.

Businesses and economic organizations represented at Thursdays meeting at EHS included Enterprise State Community College, HS Automotive, Medical Center Enterprise, Wayne Farms, Enterprise City Schools, Alabama Vocational Rehabilitation, Wiregrass Economic Development, and Southeast Alabama Works.

EHS Principal Matt Rodgers told The Ledger on Friday that there is a huge need to better train and retrain our workforce in Alabama, and that flexibility and adaptation to changes are keys.

What we do, were in constant evaluation of our programs and we want to make sure were doing a good job of preparing our graduates to be successful for, whether it be going directly into the workforce or going on to college, Rodgers said. And (the meeting) was more of a listening session to hear from our employers for specific skill sets and needs that they may have so that we can better align our curriculum to meet the needs of an ever-changing workforce in our community and state.

Thursdays meeting focused on bridging the gap between K-12, community college and industry, as well as breaking down stereotypes of a worker needing to go to a four-year college to get a high-paying job, Rodgers said.

During Thursdays meeting, fundamentals, industrial skills and soft skills were brought up as an aspect that is desired in the business community, with typing was brought up as an example of what some employers are looking for these days.

Mike Lawson, director of human resources and labor relations at Army Fleet Support, said his company has jobs such as in records keeping and production control that require typing and administrative work. He said that out of the qualified candidates they receive for some jobs  Lawson estimated that as being 10 percent out of 100 applications received  about half of those candidates struggle with the typing test, which requires a candidate type at least 30 words a minute.

Ryan Richards of Southeast Alabama Works said that could be a difference in textile preference with a new generation of workforce members.

Theyre not used to actual keys. Theyre used to digital touch, Richards said.

Rodgers said the school system offers a program called The Wildcat Way, a nine-week course each ninth-grader is required to go through that includes a soft-skills or employability week, which focuses on job aspects such as promptness.

Ive got kids who show up late to orientation, Lawson said.

Richards praised Thursdays meeting, saying that meetings such as that are not happening everywhere else in our region in the state.

Having business and education at the same table, its going to make a difference, he said.

Rodgers was pleased with how Thursdays meeting went, calling a sign

I think its a great start, and I know we look forward to continuing these conversations to better understand the needs of our business and industry, our workforce needs in our community, so we can align our curriculum that will meet those demands, he said.
The race for Dothan City School Board chairman pits the sitting mayor of the city against a local man with a longtime beef against the city who sees the office as a means of taking on larger social problems.

Dothan Mayor Mike Schmitz will face off against businessman Sam Tew in the Aug. 1 election. The two men are vying to replace current chairman Harry Wayne Parrish, who has opted not to run for re-election.

Schmitz came from humble beginnings to become a successful owner of several car dealerships. Tew is a former firefighter who works as a painter and inventor. Tew has a long-running grievance against the city regarding the circumstances of his dismissal from the fire department. He has been a fierce critic of the mayor and the local police department. Tew has been ejected from several city meetings and claims he was injured as a result of police brutality.

Schmitz said hes seeking the office because he feels that its where he can do the most good for the community. Schmitz said that he feels the most pressing need the school system has at present is recruiting a new superintendent. Schmitz said he hopes to provide some guidance to that process.

I think the most important qualities were looking for in a superintendent are an understanding of this community and a love for this community, he said.

Tew said he hopes to bring fairness and transparency to the school system. Tew said he feels that the biggest issue the system faces is how it disciplines African American students. Tew said he feels African American students are subjected to harsher punishments and more frequent disciplinary action by officials.

Tew said he wants police less involved in student discipline at schools and wants to implement a stricter review of the systems disciplinary policies.

If youre punishing African-American students more than white students, you need to be punished yourself, he said.

Schmitz said one of his primary goals as school board chairman would be creating a system that prepared students for college or career paths. Schmitz said Dothan Technology Center was an underutilized resource that could be better employed to prepare students to enter careers upon graduation.

Schmitz said that his travels as mayor throughout the U.S. and overseas to recruit industries to Dothan has given him insight into what companies are searching for in a workforce. Schmitz hopes to apply those lessons to guide the school system in implementing policies that would result in producing students capable of doing the jobs industries have to offer.

Tew said he also felt job skills development was important, and offered to mentor students in painting and mildew removal.

Im not going to be a suit and tie guy thats going to tell people what to do, he said. Im a blue collar team player.

With regard to the perennially-discussed consolidation of Dothan High School and Northview High School, the two candidates agree that consolidation is a moot issue.

There are a lot of larger priorities we are facing, Schmitz said.

Tew said he felt merging the two schools was a poor idea because it would result in fights between the two student bodies.

With regard to funding, Schmitz said it was important for the school system to work within its budget, but also to appeal to the business community for support.

If they see what we are doing and we build up some trust, Im sure they will pitch in to help, he said.

Tew said he was open to exploring merging the Dothan City School system with the Houston County Schools to increase efficiency.

I might not be able to change that by myself, but I might find someone that could, he said.

Tew admitted that he may be at a disadvantage in the race against Schmitz, but feels he has the chance to make a difference.

I may not beat him, but hes going to know Ive been there, Tew said.
Alabama is not immune from the crime of human trafficking.

According to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, more than 40 human trafficking cases were reported to law enforcement in Alabama during 2016.

Human trafficking is known as modern-day slavery, said Alabama Law Enforcement Agency Trooper Kevin Cook. All law enforcement agencies statewide are joining forces to educate everyone on the dangers associated with human trafficking. Alabama is also home to the Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force. This agency is designed to educate everyone on human trafficking.

According to END IT Alabama, the Human Trafficking Task Force for the state, human trafficking is the second largest criminal industry in the United States, behind illegal drugs.

Falling victim to human trafficking can happen to anyone, Cook said. We have noticed many individuals are not familiar with the actual meaning of human trafficking. Human trafficking is used for slave labor, sex, and anything that involves the use of force, fraud, or coercion to obtain some type of labor or commercial sex act. Human trafficking is estimated to be a $32 billion industry.

Human trafficking is known as the hide-crime. Many cases go unreported due to fear of traffickers and fear of law enforcement.

Many human trafficking victims stay victims due to the fact they believe everything their traffickers have said, including threats that have been made, Cook said. There is no need to fear law enforcement and law enforcement will do what is necessary to keep them safe.

According to statistics provided by the Alabama Human Trafficking Task Force, 80 percent of human trafficking victims are females and the average age of entry into sex trafficking is 11.

Many people are not aware that human trafficking victims can give warning signs, Cook said A few of those signs include inability to make eye contact, will not speak to anyone alone, presence of an older male with a younger female, not attending school and many have distinguishing tattoos such as Daddys Girl, Daddys Princess, Money Maker, etc. If anyone notices any of these signs, pay close attention and notify your local law enforcement. Remember, victims may not admit they are victims and they may not ask for your help, but if they do, help them.
Egypt will lower its customs exchange rate to 16.25 pounds per dollar from 16.50, effective from Tuesday, Finance Minister Amr El-Garhy told Reuters on Sunday.

The new rate will be set for one month, he said, in what is the first such drop in four months.

Egypt began setting a monthly fixed customs exchange rate in January following the flotation of its pound currency in November. It has since set it each month.

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Sanctions imposed by three other Gulf states and Egypt slashed Qatar's imports by more than a third in June while exports excluding its vital shipments of liquefied natural gas (LNG) were also disrupted, official data showed on Sunday.

Imports shrank 40.0 percent year-on-year and 37.9 percent from the previous month to 5.87 billion riyals ($1.61 billion), Ministry of Development, Planning and Statistics figures showed.

In May, imports fell just 0.3 percent year on year.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt cut diplomatic and transport ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism, which it denies.

The closure of the Saudi border, over which much of Qatar's imports of food, dairy products and construction materials came, as well as a halt to shipping services from the United Arab Emirates, delayed shipments for some days as Doha arranged other routes through centres such as Oman.

Now that alternate shipping routes and suppliers have been arranged, analysts believe Qatar can function fairly well even if the sanctions continue, and still expect it to be one of the Gulf's best-performing economies this year.

The ministry's figures suggested Qatar's exports of LNG - the key to its financial health - were not hurt in June.

June exports of petroleum gases and other gaseous hydrocarbons climbed 15.8 percent from a year earlier to 11.88 billion riyals. They rose 21.6 percent in May.

However, exports of petroleum oils including crude oil fell 22.4 percent after rising 8.3 percent in May. Non-petroleum exports fell 15.1 percent.

Among exports hit by the sanctions were helium, which used to be shipped overland across the Saudi border.

Qatar is one of the world's top producers of the gas. Officials say alternative ways to export helium have now been found.

Qatar's June trade surplus jumped to 12.51 billion riyals, up 63.6 percent from a year earlier and up 15.3 percent from May, the data showed.

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Foreign investors have bought a net 11 billion Egyptian pounds ($615.90 million) worth of shares since the country floated its currency last November, the stock exchange's chairman Mohamed Omran said on Sunday.

The central bank floated the Egyptian pound in November to attract foreign capital after years of political instability drained the country's reserves, and the currency has since more than halved in value.

Foreign currency flows have also been boosted after Egypt signed a $12 billion, three-year loan programme with the International Monetary Fund. The programme calls for radical economic reforms, including energy price increases and the introduction of a value-added tax.

Egypt's stock exchange has attracted a total of 15 billion Egyptian pounds in foreign investment since 2013, Omran told a news conference.

Omran told Reuters that the stock exchange expected to start trading in bonds in the first quarter of next year.

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(Image: Philippine Presidential Communications)Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.

At least two Catholic bishops have expressed outrage over Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte's plan to abolish the country's Commission on Human Rights and the controversial leader has also faced accusations of ethnic cleansing at hearing in the U.S. capital.

Bishop Arturo Bastes of Sorsogon was the first to chastise the president saying he was "out of his mind," Vatican Radio reported July 28.

The bishop said Duterte's threats to close down the independent body only shows he has "no knowledge" about how governments should operate in a democratic society.

Duterte, at a press conference after his state of the nation address on July 24, said he wanted to shut down the commission, which has been critical of his sexist jokes and the killings associated with his brutal war on drugs.

The president said that rather than solely targeting government men, CHR should speak out against killings perpetrated by suspected drug addicts and the atrocities committed by terrorists locked in an urban combat with the military in Marawi City.

"My God, Duterte is getting out of his mind!" Bishop Bastes exclaimed, said Vatican Radio adding, "his desire to abolish CHR is a sign that he has the dangerous tendency to be a dictator. Heavens forbid!"

The CHR is an independent office created under the 1987 Constitution of the Philippines tasked with investigating all forms of human rights violations involving civil and political rights in the country.

Retired Bishop Teodoro Bacani of Novaliches said the president cannot just abolish the CHR because it was "created and protected" by the Philippine Constitution.

The 77-year-old bishop is one of the authors of the Constitution, and he called on Filipinos to pray for Duterte to regain his "good sense."

Bacani said that the commission can only be abolished through a constitutional amendment.

At the July 24 press conference, Duterte said he would not allow members of the military to be investigated for possible human rights violations, arguing that the human right's commission should go through him before getting to his men.

'REIN OF TERROR'

In a Jan. 30 pastoral letter, the Philippine bishops had issued a strong statement against the increase in extra-judicial killings, referring to it as a "reign of terror."

Duterte had during his presidential campaign promised to rid the country of illegal drugs in three to six months and repeatedly threatened traffickers with death.

On June 30 the president marked his first year in office, declaring he would fight the drugs menace until his last day in office.

More than 5,200 suspects have died so far, including more than 3,000 in reported gunbattles 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 Duterte's possible role in the violence.

Earlier in July Duterte and government officials were accused of being guilty of "social cleansing" under the guise of a war on drugs, advocates testified in Washington DC's Capitol Hill, Catholic News Agency reported.

"Duterte and other high officials of the land, having had to find a particular section of Philippine society worthy of elimination, have effectively put in place a de facto social cleansing policy whereby police and vigilantes are not only encouraged, but rewarded and forced to commit extrajudicial killings," witness Ellecer Carlos told members of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on Thursday.

The hearing on "The Human Rights Consequences of the War on Drugs in the Philippines" featured Carlos and two other witnesses from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

They testified on reports of extralegal killings in the Philippines as part of President Duterte's "Operation Plan Tokhang," the war on drugs.

The witnesses alleged that high-ranking officials in the Philippine government are complicit in human rights abuses where police officers and vigilantes, who may be working for and paid by the police, track down and kill those involved in the drug trade, with evidence present of other abuses like torture.
Following summer break, Zawya will return to film screenings on 2 August

Cairo's art-house cinema will resume film screenings on Wednesday 2 August, with an Italian 2016 comedy drama Perfetti sconosciuti (Perfect Strangers).

Directed by Paolo Genovese, Perfect Strangers talks about "seven long-time friends who decide to share with each other the content of every text message, email and phone call they receive. Many secrets start to unveil and the equilibrium trembles," IMDb synopsis reveals.

The film won best screenplay award at the Cairo International Film Festival (2016) as well as numerous awards and recognitions in Italy and internationally, including: jury award at the Tribeca Film Festival (2016), audience awards at the Norwegian International Film Festival (2016) and the Vilnius International Film Festival (2017).

Programme:

Startng Wednesday 2 August

12pm, 2:30pm, 5pm, 7:30pm and 10pm

Zawya, Odeon Cinema, 4 Abdel-Hamid Said Street, off Talaat Harb Street, Downtown, Cairo

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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ICMAI CMA December 2022 exam form submission date extended The candidates who have not applied yet will have the opportunity to fill the application form for the ICMAI

NAAC accreditation will now be in binary terms, check details here Individual programmes offered by a college or an individual department of any university will also have the

President Murmu launches AICTE Engineering books in Odia language The Odia language translated books are available at called e-KUMBH portal




One person was killed and several injured when a knife-wielding man went on a rampage Friday inside a supermarket in the northern German city of Hamburg, according to reports.



The assailant entered the store in the Barmbek district shortly after 3 p.m. local time, randomly attacked people and fled but was caught moments later, according to the Die Welt newspaper..
40 women of Al-Nour Wal Amal Chamber Orchestra will give three concerts moving between cities in mainland China and Hong Kong

In their first trip to China, Egypt's Al Nour Wal Amal (Light and Hope) Chamber Orchestra  consisting of blind and visually impaired women musicians  will perform three concerts on 2, 5 and 6 August.

The orchestra will tour cities in China and the country's administrative region known as Hong Kong.

In the few decades of their existence, Egypt's only orchestra that embraces visualy impaired women has performed extensively in the country and toured the world.

"The orchestra played to the audiences on five continents and countless countries. However, it will be the first time for them to perform in China and Hong Kong," Amal Fikry, vice president of Al-Nour Wal Amal Association and the main dynamo behind the orchestra, told Ahram Online.



She added that though the orchestra will visit China for the first time, in the past the musicians have already performed in other Asian countries, including Japan, Thailand and India.

Many of those tours were under late maestro Ali Osman (1958-2017) who for many years also trained the musicians. Since Osman's death in February, leadership has been given to conductor and composer Mohamed Saad Basha, who has already had many years of experience of working with younger blind musicians from the same association, representing the Junior Orchestra.

Fikry also revealed that the programme prepared for China includes the best from the orchestra's repertoire, which consists mainly of Western European classical music compositions, in addition to "a special surprise for our audiences."

Al-Nour Wal Amal association is an NGO for Egyptian blind girls founded in 1954 by a group of volunteers led by the late Istiklal Radi, with the aim of educating visually impaired girls and helping them integrate into society.

In 1961, seven years after the establishment of the association, Al-Nour Wal Amal Music Institute was founded by the late Samha El-Kholy, former dean of the Cairo Conservatory.

Receiving international acclaim, the orchestra has been decribed as a human miracle, the fourth pyramid on the Giza plateau, and an orchestra with no peer in the world.

For more arts and culture news and updates, follow Ahram Online Arts and Culture on Twitter at @AhramOnlineArts and on Facebook at Ahram Online: Arts & Culture

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A candidate in a controversial election taking place in Venezuela on Sunday was shot dead by assailants who broke into his home, prosecutors said.

Jose Felix Pineda, a 39-year-old lawyer on a ticket to become part of a Constituent Assembly tasked with rewriting the constitution, was murdered overnight in his home in the southeastern city of Ciudad Bolivar, the prosecutors

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Beamline scientist Mahmoud Abdellatief is the first staff member from the Synchrotron-Light for Experimental Science and Applications In the Middle East (SESAME) to come to the ESRF in the framework of the OPEN SESAME programme. The initiative promotes interaction among personnel from various synchrotrons and SESAME to assist in the construction phase of the machine.

This experience will help me to figure out the best design for our beamline so that we can exploit it to the maximum with the scientists in the community, says Mahmoud Abdellatief, beamline responsible at SESAME. He is at the ESRF during three weeks to exchange views with ESRF scientists on the specifications of the diffraction beamline at SESAME, thanks to the EU programme OPEN SESAME. He will then stay at ALBA, the Spanish synchrotron source. His goals for his stay include finishing the technical specifications for the diffractometer and defining what set-ups and techniques the experimental station will enable. He is on ID22, the beamline led by Andy Fitch, but he will be meeting up with other scientists during his stay.

SESAME is the new synchrotron currently being built in Jordan for the Middle East scientific community. The facility is in its early days, so there are some hurdles to overcome: The beginings of a project like this one are always tough, and it wont be until we have the first results that non-scientists will start believing in it, he says.

The challenge is big: there is no other synchrotron source in the Middle East, there are sometimes delays in the arrival of material and there are many cultural differences between the member states. Abdellatief explains that this situation is relatively common in almost all synchrotrons, which are places where many different scientists work towards the same target: to let knowledge lead to a better future. Our countries are close to each other but we are very different. I think we have to embrace diversity because at the end of the day it brings up good ideas to the table.

Mahmoud Abdellatief and Andy Fitch have worked together to define the specifications of the diffraction beamline at SESAME. Credits: C. Argoud.

Text by Montserrat Capellas Espuny
Hello my friend



Adnoc has a long process , coz it is considered to be one of the government organization's( they need to get many approvals) so what i recommend u to do is to contact the hr officer to give u a breif idea of how many steps left )



Even me ( being a local citizen ) when i got hired ( in a goverment sector) it took them 2 interviews and 4 months

For me to start my actual job ( the security check takes the most of it)



Best of luck
I had researched the same thing here in the States. I started by going to the US Dept. of State website under the visa programs section, a tremendous volume of information to glean thru. For you, I suggest you research the Canadian Government website along with the suggested Embassy counterpart. Here in the States, its a complicated process for just a non-immigration visa for a vacation visit and according to the "Official" State Dept website... if someone is granted a travel visa to this country from another country thru our Embassy, there is no guarantee they will be able to enter the States once they arrive here. that is up to the discussion of the officials at the point of entry. I am speaking directly regarding the US. Canada may be very similar in policy also. Your work has just begun.

The US State Dept has what is called an Affidavit of Support declaration to be filled out by the sponsor, and submitted to the Government that they use to determine if the sponsor has the ability to support their foreign visitor during their stay, if the visitor has no self ability to financially provide for themselves while here. Again, policy may be similar there in Canada.



Just food for thought. Good Luck in your endeavors!
Advice on moving to Thailand

I relocated to Phuket, from the U.S., in 2009. I sold everything I had in America and came here with 6 suitcases and a large duffel bag. Its cheaper to pay the airline than it is to actually ship it. My biggest error was selling my excellent motorcycle helmets in the U.S.



Visas: Tourist and O

TOURIST VISA

This visa type, as its name states, is issued to foreigners entering Thailand as tourists. It must be obtained abroad before traveling to Thailand. Upon arrival a stay of 60 days will be granted, which may be extended by another 30 days (1900 at local immigration office) for most foreign nationals. This type of visa, often called the Retirement Visa may be extended to long term stays of up to one year if you meet the retirement requirements.



"O" VISA

The "O" visa is good for 90 days. It costs a little more, but, you wont have to make a trip to immigration and pay to extend it, which cannot be done.

In both cases, you'll have to do the visa run a week or two before the visa expires.

You'll see many people say get the standard tourist visa because it's less expensive. This is true, but, it's good for 60 days. It can be extended ONCE for 30 days, but, it costs B1,900, so, it's not really cheaper. The "O" saves you extra trips to your local immigration office.



Visas O and Retirement extension, if applicable.

Thai visa rules by your country of origin.

But, to get a retirement visa you must be 50 and have some sort of provable income, whether it's retirement income, or $800k in a Thai bank.



First, get an "O" visa. This is the only one you can then convert to a Retirement Visa, which is a misnomer. It's not a visa, per se, it's a one year extension on your original Thai "O" visa. You have to renew this extension yearly with the same proof you used the first time.



Visa Runs. If your visa is due to expire, you have to go on a "Visa Run" to a Thai embassy or consulate in another country. You will usually get the same type of Visa you had originally. Visa runs are not required if you have the "O" Visa retirement extension. I did visa runs for many years. The last on was 3 years ago to get an "O" visa that I could use from then on for the extension. Visa runs in a van are scary. The drivers all speed and drive recklessly. They seem to believe it's smart to go even faster and tailgate even closer, when it rains. All Thais seem to do this.



If you're eligible for the Visa Extension, come here on an "O" Visa obtained from the Thai Embassy in your country. After 60 days, you can get the extension by supplying bank/income proof, and residence information i.e. lease, bills in your name with your Thai address, internal and external photos of your address.



If you aren't eligible, still get the "O" visa because it's good for 90 days. You'll have to do the visa run every 90 days. You'll see many people say get the standard tourist visa because it's less expensive. This is true, but, it's good for 30 days. It can be extended twice for 30 days, but, it costs B1,900 each time, so, it's not really cheaper. The "O" saves you extra trips to your local immigration office.



The biggest problem with getting advice about Thai visas is: 1-Different rules for different home countries. As a result, advice provided can be inaccurate if they come from a different place. There's a ton of misinformation passed around by people who heard how someone else did it. Almost always wrong. 2-Inconsistencies between Thai embassies and consulates as to what the law is. If you go to the one in Scotland, you may get conflicting stories with different people.



Thai bank accounts + ATMs

Open an account at a major bank using your current address. I used BoA, but, most are fine. Get an ATM card (and a 2nd if you can). Sign up to do everything electronically. Direct deposits, transfers, communication, bill pay ... everything. If you do this, the bank will have no reason to use a snail mail address.



Most banks will charge a 3% on any ATM withdrawal. The Thai ATM you use will charge $5-10. Usually, the max you can withdraw at a time is 30,000 baht. I use Krunsri and Siam banks. You should open an account at a Thai bank and get their ATM card. This will save some of their fees. It's very easy to open an account at a bank branch in Phuket. Bring passports and B5000. When you have account #, bank will give you all the information you need to transfer the rest.



Writing a check on an American bank for depositing here is a real headache. The charge is more than an ATM withdrawal and it take around two weeks for the check to clear.



International money transfers between banks, while fast, is also more expensive than the ATM 3%.



Riding cycles + Helmets.

You will probably be riding a scooter or motorcycle during your stay.

If you have no experience on one, start practicing now in the U.S. Don't try to learn here. It's a no man's land.



Bring with you a good motorcycle helmet for each in the family. They run around $300 each (Bell, Arai, Shoei). You can't get bigger sizes in Thailand because Thai heads are small so a good helmet that fits is difficult to find. In Thailand, theyll cost 3-4 times as much because of the high import tariff. Most Thai helmets are $15-30. They'll do nothing in a head impact. That's why they're called "Brain Buckets." Pack them in a sizeable duffel bag. You can then pack smaller items in the helmets.



Moving to Thailand

Actually ship as little as absolutely necessary. Very expensive.

Bring as many suitcases you can handle. Much cheaper to pay the airlines.

Set up someone in the states who will ship U.S. purchases you make on the internet, package them (USPS offers a reasonable 20 pound max rate of about $100.), and ship them to you. There will be things that you'll need.



If you need any further help, let me know.



Good luck!
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Despite record-breaking heat Saturday, a crowd of nearly 10,000 reveled in the all-day music festival of the Vans Warped Tour as it raged on outside the AT&T Center with acts including American Authors, Beartooth and Watsky.

The Vans Warped Tour was ready for the weather. Tour organizers and the AT&T Center teamed up for the third year with First Medical Response of Texas, which provided medical attention on site with 21 medics and three ambulances. First aid stations as well as cool-down areas and hydration tents were available.

As of 3 p.m., Edwin Reyes, supervisor of First Medical Response, didnt have numbers for how many had been treated, but he said his team was being kept busy.

The heat, that is the biggest impact, Reyes said.

The bands playing at the festival acknowledged the intense heat, which reached 104, breaking the record of 103 set in 1946. Shattered Sun, a metal band from Alice, was on stage when the record was reached after 3 p.m.

Only wear your stage clothes when youre about to get on, Shattered Sun guitarist Jessie Santos joked in an interview before the bands performance.

Other bands performing early Saturday included Silverstein, a rock band from Canada, which acknowledged the Spurs fan base. Between songs, lead vocalist Shane Told shouted to the crowd to jump like they were Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobli.

At times, the festival became a stage for political discussion. One tent had the activist group Refuse Facism, which handed out stickers and shirts that spoke out against President Donald Trump. The group also had a sign-up sheet for those interested in future peaceful protests, according to volunteer Coco Das.

Performers also got into the mix. Members of Los Angeles punk group Bad Cop / Bad Cop introduced their song Im Done by telling the audience the performance was for those who were sick and tired of whats happening in the Oval Office.

Rapper Watsky received some backlash while on stage. Before performing Brave New World, Watsky asked the audience how they leaned politically. Some in the front booed. Watsky returned the favor by saying: We can all agree our world is weird as (expletive) right now.

Shattered Sun and its lead vocalist, Marcos Leal, dont talk much politics on stage, guitarist Daniel Trejo said. While they respect others for doing what they believe is in their best interests, the band was more focused Saturday on rocking the crowd.

We love coming back to Texas. We have the best fans here, Trejo said.

osanchez@express-news.net
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The folks at Friedrich Air Conditioning got an odd call a few years ago when a local woman tried to persuade the San Antonio company to take her old unit back.

She found herself in an extended game of phone tag, bouncing around from one Friedrich employee to another. Friedrich doesnt take back old air conditioners, but she persisted. She had a hunch the company would want this particular hunk of metal.

We get probably 60, 70 thousand calls a year in our call center, Friedrich CEO Chuck Campbell said. So somebody calling us saying, Hey, would you like an old unit?  What a bizarre call. I dont even know how it filtered up the chain of command to somebody who listened.

She eventually persuaded someone to lend her an ear, and her hunch proved correct. She explained that the unit wasnt just old  it was really, really old. Even now, cleaned and shined, it is still the color of rust. But peering through the vents on the front of the machine, one can see the serial number: 0004.

This was one of the first air-conditioning units Friedrich ever made, back in 1952, and it still works.

Ugly as sin, weighs a lot, nothing good about it  but (after) 65 years, (it) still blows cold air, Campbell said.

It is fitting that the Alamo City, baking under the South Texas sun ever since it was founded three centuries ago, would be home to key pieces of air-conditioning history. The Milam Building, located at 115 E. Travis St., became the first skyscraper in the United States to have air conditioning in 1928, though the towers manufactured weather was provided by Carrier. 1935 saw the St. Anthony Hotel become the first hotel with a fully functional air-conditioning system. The patent for the air conditioner for the iconic Volkswagen van of the hippie era was filed by San Antonio resident Don Dixon in 1968.

Friedrich, which started as a furniture company in the 1880s and began to make ice-block coolers in 1923, joined the air-conditioning world with window units in 1952.

The Friedrich name is not limited to air conditioning in San Antonio lore. Ed Friedrich, the companys founder, was the brother of Albert Friedrich, who opened the famed Buckhorn Saloon in 1881. But it was the air conditioners, which adorn the windows of buildings across the country, including the Flatiron Building in New York City, that made Friedrich a household name. The company even had stars advertise for the company, with actor Peter Graves of Mission: Impossible and Airplane! fame serving as a spokesman for the company and delivering the slogan Friedrich: the Energy Economiser in a 1976 television ad.

At one point, when Friedrich was manufacturing multiple types of products in San Antonio, the company employed about 1,200 people in the Alamo City. In addition to window units, the Friedrich name has been attached to the large, open air coolers found in grocery stores and the larger room units found in hotels. Developers have been trying to turn the site of one old factory on Commerce Street into apartments and retail space.

Friedrich transitioned from its downtown presence to a new location on the Pan Am Expressway in the 1970s and stayed there until 2011. Friedrich then moved into its new headquarters, located on Reunion Place near the San Antonio International Airport.

However, the last local factory closed in 2008, and all manufacturing is now done in Monterrey, Mexico. Today, Friedrich has about 120 employees based in the United States, most of them in San Antonio, said TJ Wheeler, the vice president of marketing and product management.

Though Friedrich no longer manufactures its units in San Antonio, it does perform its engineering work here. There was some thought given to moving the companys headquarters to New York several years ago, Wheeler said. However, the deep ties to San Antonio easily won out.

We are San Antonio. We are very San Antonio-based, Wheeler said. Its very true to our brand and who we are.

In addition to the new corporate offices, there is also an engineering facility a few blocks away. The facility, which is about 20,000 square feet and opened in 2014, tests potential innovations for the air conditioners by monitoring their ability to operate in extreme temperatures, among other measures. Lionel Lopez, the engineering lab manager, said his team will run hundreds of tests before they feel comfortable with an innovation.

Friedrich will also test competing products in the lab. They invite potential customers who claim the system they are using is quieter than Friedrichs to come compare the product with a Friedrich model in the companys sound room.

Well test it exactly the way we test ours, in an apples-to-apples environment, at this test condition, Lopez said.

The testing facility also contains a training room, outfitted with operational versions of Friedrichs product, allowing salespeople, installers and repair technicians to get comfortable with how Friedrichs products work.

We are going to be much more customer-centric as well, not only product-centric, Wheeler said.

In that training room, surrounded by the newest and shiniest products Friedrich offers, sits the old machine from 1952, a not-so-subtle reminder of Friedrichs staying power  for customers, and for San Antonio.

jpound@express-news.net

Twitter: @jesserpound

COMING MONDAY in MySA: The Eyes of Texas penned by UT student from San Antonio.
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WASHINGTON  When retired Gen. John Kelly was named to head the Homeland Security Department last December, the Marine Corps veteran was viewed as a potential moderating influence in an administration likely to be packed with hard-liners on immigration.

Now, in a major White House shake-up Friday, President Donald Trump, who has developed a close relationship with Kelly, appointed him as the new chief of staff to replace Reince Priebus, who stepped down after only six months on the job. Some analysts say Kelly will bring more discipline and order to the West Wing.

Kelly previously had led the U.S. Southern Command until last year and knew well the violence and economic suffering that drove families in Central America to attempt to enter the United States, legally or otherwise.

He was respected in many quarters and, immigrant advocates hoped, could bring a realistic approach to border security after a presidential campaign laden with harsh rhetoric about people entering the United States illegally.

But, by most accounts, Kelly quickly embraced the combative border security policies that helped Donald Trump win the White House. He has aggressively promoted deportation efforts and implemented the presidents travel ban, along the way irritating Democrats in Congress and telling his critics to stop complaining.

Earlier this month, he left members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sputtering when he refused in a closed-door meeting to offer support for Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, the program that has given nearly 800,000 undocumented immigrants protection from deportation and access to work permits.

Instead, Kelly told the U.S. House members that the program was at risk from a legal challenge threatened by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and nine other state attorneys general.

Now, as White House chief of staff beginning Monday, Kelly, 67, joins an administration replete with aides known for inflexibility on immigration. Foremost among them are Attorney General Jeff Sessions, chief strategist Stephen Bannon and Steven Miller, senior adviser for policy.

Kelly, who becomes White House gatekeeper and disciplinarian, has left the impression of holding moderate views. He has said that he personally supports DACA. On occasion he expressed sentiments counter to the White House. Two weeks ago, he asserted at an Aspen Security Forum that intelligence findings about Russias efforts to influence U.S. elections were accurate  even as Trump continues to cast doubt.

Nonetheless, Kelly's appointment has critics of new immigration curbs concerned.

U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett, D-San Antonio, said Saturday that he salutes Kellys distinctive military record, climbing to the ranks of a four-star general in four decades in the Marine Corps.

But, Doggett added, He has showed complete insensitivity to the plight so many families face. And when some of us spoke critically of ICE activities right here in the San Antonio and Austin area, rounding up people with no criminal record, people who just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, Kelly's response was to just shut up.

Doggett added: I think he joins people around the president who are sending a signal of continuing to tighten what in my view is a misguided immigration policy. I feel we have a tough road ahead of us on immigration.

Frank Sharry, who heads Americas Voice Education Fund, an umbrella organization of immigrant advocacy groups, was among those who six months ago viewed Kellys oversight of military operations throughout South America, Central America and the Caribbean in a positive light.

But Sharry said in an interview that he has been disappointed, referring to Kelly as spokesperson for one of the most radical immigration strategies in modern American history.

He is sophisticated enough to come off as the adult in the room. But he has become a front man for the hard-right approach of Bannon and the others. I dont know how hes going to survive in the craziness of this White House; he is a man who likes clean lines and giving orders.

Kelly and Trump have seemingly forged a bond in the early months of the new administration, a relationship that could give Kelly influence on immigration and other matters. Kelly has been at the helm of what the presidents supporters regard as one this administrations handful of successes - more border security.

Neither Kelly nor Trump is known for expressing warmth. But the relationship between the two may have tightened when, at Arlington National Cemetery on Memorial Day, Kelly took the president to the grave of his son, Marine Lt. Robert Michael Kelly, who died in Afghanistan in 2010 while leading a patrol.

Supporters of stricter immigration policies look hopefully on Kellys arrival at the White House. They see what appears to outsiders as a bond between Kelly and the president as the path to implementing the border security measures that Trump has talked about since beginning his presidential quest in 2015 - including long stretches of new wall separating the United States and Mexico.

Up to now, advocates for more security have applauded the much-publicized deportations under Kellys command and the decline of Border Patrol apprehensions along the Southwest border; last month, they were down 53 percent over the same time a year ago.

The restrictionists have been heartened by what they see as Kellys willingness to stand up to Congress, evident in an April speech at George Washington University in which Kelly asserted that he was fed up with complaints about ICE.

If lawmakers do not like the laws theyve passed and we are charged to enforce, then they should have the courage and skill to change the laws. Otherwise they should shut up and support the men and women on the front lines, Kelly said.

Andrew Arthur, a resident fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies - which advocates limiting immigration - praised Kelly for running Homeland Security like the Marine Corps. He expects people to do their jobs. He expects the law to be enforced. Hes been working behind the scenes to bring order to the chaos that was the Department of Homeland Security. And I expect that he will run the White House like a marine general.

U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Austin, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement that Kelly has been laser-focused on border security and enforcing immigration laws. On Friday, McCaul introduced border legislation that includes the physical barriers that the Trump administration has demanded amid what is shaping up as a protracted fight with Democrats over constructing the order wall.

McCaul also tipped his hat to Kelly, who has little experience with Congress, calling him a dedicated ally in Congress in the first reauthorization of the 14-year-old Homeland Security agency and supporting other security-related bills on Capitol Hill.

U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, R-San Antonio, another advocate of strengthened border security, said he was confident that Kelly will be an excellent chief of staff.

"Secretary Kelly has the ability to serve our country in many ways as he has done for many years, Smith said by email.

blambrecht@express-news.net
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From the border wall to the U.S. Senates failure to pass a health care plan, Congressman Beto ORourke, D-El Paso, told the crowd of supporters gathered in northwest San Antonio on Saturday afternoon that continued activism is the only way to stop President Donald Trumps legislative agenda.

Throughout his address, ORourke, who is running in 2018 against U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, kept returning to health care.

If you needed a reminder of what is at stake for this country, then look at what just happened this week, ORourke said. Here I was, watching Democrats in shock with how a bill was introduced stripping millions off their health care.

RELATED: Beto O'Rourke claims near-uniqueness in not taking corporate or PAC contributions

For months, Senate GOP leadership have tried to pass some form of a health care bill. Their attempts failed in the middle of the night on Thursday, when three senators  Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona  voted against a last-ditch effort to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act.

This skinny repeal bill, crafted just hours before the vote, was intended to force both chambers of Congress to come together in a conference committee to work out a better plan.

Its totally reckless, ORourke said later. To say Im just going to vote for something in the hopes that it will be better down the road, is a reckless way to work.

RELATED: Texas border congressmen propose 'smart' wall at fraction of the cost

ORourke told the room full of more than 200 supporters that the repeal efforts failed because of their activism. He also reiterated his support for a universal health care system, where no one has to worry about being able to see a doctor.

I think its criminal to try and take away peoples health care, said Emily Bourgeois, 19, a student at Trinity University. I think health insurance should be a right not a privilege, and its really easy for people in offices to think economically and say what is financially best for our country.

RELATED: California official challenges Texas, other oil states

For things to change in this country, ORourke said, the Democrats need to retake the Senate majority and learn to work with the opposing party. Democrats are at a three-seat disadvantage in the Senate and eight Republicans are up for reelection in 2018, including in Texas.

There has to be some check on the president, ORourke said. The only way thats going to happen is if we win in Texas  really, the fate of the country hinges on what happens in Texas. This election could not be more important.

FMilburn@express-news.net
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AUSTIN  The sanctuary cities law hasnt yet taken effect, but San Antonio Police Chief William McManus said it already has taken a toll on his departments relationship with the Latino community.

I will tell you that I have noticed that there are members of the community now who shy away from the Police Department, McManus said. Im sure I dont have a full grasp of the amount of folks that feel that way. But I can tell you from being on the streets for 42 years as a cop that that is happening, and it will continue to happen.

Its the kind of thing McManus and other police chiefs warned could occur if the sanctuary cities bill passed.

They fear that an erosion of trust will impede their efforts to fight crime, largely because of a provision ensuring that police officers can ask people they detain about their immigration status regardless of whether their chiefs want them to do so. Critics say it will lead to profiling.

But some top Republicans who tout their support for law enforcement  including Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick  shrugged off the chiefs concerns about the law, which takes effect Sept. 1.

Theyre again dismissing the chiefs worries when it comes to the bathroom bill.

This bill is impossible to enforce. It takes officers away from more pressing duty, whether responding to an assault, a burglary, drunk drivers or a whole host of other public safety issues. As chief of police of one of Americas 10 largest cities, Im asking legislators, dont do this. Dont pass this unnecessary bill that does nothing to make us safer, that targets thousands of transgender Texans and that makes our job more complicated, said McManus, among top cops who spoke out against the bill at the Capitol.

McManus said hate crimes against transgender people havent risen as an issue in San Antonio. But he said the bill very well may stir up such problems. I think that the adverse effects of this bill outweigh by a ton anything thats good that could come out of this bill, he said.

The Senate under Patrick nonetheless voted to require that multi-occupancy restrooms, showers and changing facilities of political subdivisions including schools be designated for use by people based on the sex designated on their birth certificates. Backers in the Republican-dominated Legislature call it a matter of privacy and safety.

Law enforcement officials have a better chance of stopping the bathroom bill in the House. Speaker Joe Straus, R-San Antonio, opposes the bill, worried about targeting transgender people and the economic effect of boycotts if the state passes a law viewed as discriminatory.

Chairman Byron Cook of the State Affairs Committee, the first House stop for the bathroom bill, isnt for it, either. He cites opposition from law enforcement and business as crucial, fearing that the proposal would cause safety issues. (In describing his concerns, he refers to transgender men as females and transgender women as men, meaning whats on their birth certificates.)

You will have females that have full beards and wear cowboy hats and look just like men, and then you have men that have long hair and makeup and wear dresses and look just like women, and putting them in the bathroom of their birth certificate is going to create conflict, said Cook, R-Corsicana. Truthfully, itll be unnerving to everybody in there. I think thats a safety issue that people need to understand.

Patrick and Abbott are firm. The lieutenant governor said there was no increase in Houston policing costs after voters there rejected a nondiscrimination ordinance in 2015.

Ask any rank-and-file police officer, and he or she will tell you that the real problems will come if there is no way to stop men from entering womens restrooms, locker rooms or showers  and there wont be without a privacy protection bill, Patrick said. There is no one in the Legislature with a stronger relationship with law enforcement than me, but these chiefs are wrong about this, just as some are wrong in opposing the law to ban sanctuary cities.

Abbott spokesman John Wittman pointed out that under the proposal, the attorney general  not police officers  would be responsible for following up on bathroom complaints.

This bill has nothing to do with police enforcement. The authority to take any action with this law is vested with the attorney general and is classified as a civil action. This is just the latest example of how people are worried about something without really knowing what is in the law itself, Wittman said.

Officer Jimmy Rodriguez, legislative director of the San Antonio Police Officers Association, said police will nevertheless be called by people if the law takes effect, overtaxing a department already stretching to fulfill its duties.

Were always the first step. Were always the first phase of what happens. Theyre going to call us whenever somebody is found in a bathroom, Rodriguez said. Were the first one that theyre going to call, no matter what.

pfikac@express-news.net

Twitter: @pfikac
It is in recognition of the fact that data is rapidly becoming the critical element that can either be used to accelerate industry consolidation and the harmful effects that can have on competition, or to limit the potential anti-competitive effects of market consolidation.
As a result of the purchase, Tiarri will be increasing its sale numbers to about 200 rams and incorporating Landmark into the sale to cater for the Uralla clients wanting to continue with their Prime SAMM program, while also increasing the available selection for existing Tiarri clients.
Premier Li Keqiang urged resolutely rooting out the production of substandard steel products and continuing to resolve excessive production capacity in an instruction made on July 29.

The production and sale of substandard steel products should be strictly investigated and dealt with in accordance with laws and regulations, and the government departments that fail to conduct effective supervision should be held accountable, the Premier said in the instruction.

The production and sale of substandard steel products would result in serious pollution to the environment and quality and safety hazards. The central government has been resolutely cracking down on the illegal production of substandard steel, and asked for a complete ban before June 30.

However, the fourth nationwide inspection by the State Council found that two steel enterprises in Tianjin were producing substandard steel, and a company in Hunan province tried to resume the production of nonstandard steel.

The governments in Tianjin and Hunan have strictly investigated and held accountable these companies and launched comprehensive inspections to root out such illegal acts.
New measures should be introduced to remove or relax restrictions on the share ratio of foreign investment in some sectors such as manufacturing and service to further open up the market, Premier Li Keqiang said at the State Council executive meeting on July 28.

This will send a strong signal of increasing the inflow of foreign capital, and stimulate zest for competition among domestic enterprises, Premier Li added.

The meeting decided to further attract foreign investment and create a more open business environment.

Its of great significance to build an international business environment governed by law and further boost foreign investment, in a bid to promote the supply-side structural reform and maintain the medium-to-high speed of economic growth, said the Premier.

He stressed that the management model of pre-establishment national treatment with a negative list, already in trial in the countrys 11 free trade zones to draw foreign investment, should be introduced nationwide as soon as possible.

We must make sure the policies of cutting fees and taxes are fully implemented. Selection of enforcement inspectors and market players for checks should be random and open, which is an effective international practice of government supervision, he said.

During his inspection of a service center in China (Liaoning) Pilot Free Trade Zone (FTZ) in Dalian, Premier Li said registration procedures for both domestic and foreign enterprises should be unified and treated on an equal basis.

At the executive meeting on July 28, the Premier said that foreign enterprises registration and filing records should be at the same single window and single form with domestic companies.

At the end of meeting, Premier Li asked that, in principle, the measures determined at the meeting should be fully implemented by the end of September.

Government departments should come up with plans as soon as possible to implement these measures, and put them into quick action. We should seize time to take the lead with a new round of opening-up and investment policies, said the Premier.
Kierston Wareing didn't realise how famous Ken Loach was when she starred in 'It's a Free World...'.

Kierston Wareing

The 38-year-old actress starred as Angie in the 2007 film and has thanked the 'I, Daniel Blake' director for giving her her first big break on the big screen.

Speaking exclusively to BANG Showbiz, she said: "At the time I didn't know any different as I had only done one-liners.

"But now obviously he is an iconic director. Ken Loach massively stands out for me. I completely see that now.

"It was an honour working with Ken and not only is it an honour, how can I forget him. He gave me that break and the confidence in himself to take an unknown actor and give me that opportunity."

Loach is renowned for documenting the struggles of the British working class communities and has never succumbed to the temptation of Hollywood.

In 'It's a Free World...' Wareing was nominated for a BAFTA and was pitted against Hollywood legends such as Dame Judi Dench.

Most recently, the former 'EastEnders' actress nabbed a role in the highest-grossing Irish film of 2017 so far, 'Cardboard Gangsters' by Mark O'Connor, which follows several Irish lads who try to take over a drug trade.

The blonde beauty knew from the start that it would be a success.

She said: "I just thought it was great. I loved the character and the script. I flew out to Dublin and had a quick chat with John Connors (co-star and writer) and Mark about the character and then the next day got on with it.

"It was all kind of quick. But while I was filming it, I had a good feeling it was going to be a good one.

"It all felt so natural. I didn't realise how well it had done. You never think like that. Never think something will be that big.

"I thought it was going to be big but not as big as it is. I am really pleased and proud to be part of it."

'Cardboard Gangsters' will be released in the UK on August 4, with limited release in London, Manchester, Liverpool, and Glasgow.
Metallica's Lars Ulrich says his Beats 1 radio show will bring them closer to their fans.

Metallica

The 53-year-old drummer has promised they'll reconnect with their supporters through the forthcoming pre-recorded episodes of the Apple Music show, in which he interviewed the group's frontman James Hetfield, guitarist Kirk Hammett and bassist Robert Trujillo.

He said: "I listened to Kirk's episode yesterday, and it's definitely unlike anything that Metallica fans have ever heard. Each of them put together a playlist that reflects certain elements of their past - stuff from back in the day and stuff that helped shape who they are musically - and I learned a lot."

Recorded during the band's 'WorldWired' tour, one hour has been dedicated to each member and they'll air on Sundays at 6 p.m. EST on Apple Music's Beats 1 radio.

Hammett's episode will air today (30.07.17), Trujillo on August 6 and Hetfield on August 13th.

Speaking about Hammett, Ulrich said he has enjoyed learning about his musical influences.

He told Rolling Stone: "He has a very analytical mind about music. His cast the net very wide with his playlist, so it goes from Iron Maiden to the Beatles to John Coltrane to Radiohead.

"I'm not gonna b******t you. We don't sit around and necessarily have conversations about John Coltrane on a day-to-day basis. So it's fun for me to reconnect with all the fellas again ... "

But he was also keen to shine a light on unknown bands.

He added: "There's an awful lot of great music out there - much more than I thought - that doesn't really get a chance to be highlighted, because of the demise of the music business.

"I've been playing Brutus, who are great, from Belgium. There's a fantastic band out of Denmark called Baby in Vain. There's Counterfeit from England, who we've been playing a bunch. And there's an amazing band who reside in the Bay Area but are from Afghanistan called Kabul Dreams, who I just love. Their story is unbelievable. So to get a chance to push that out to people is a really special thing."
Welcome to our Focus On series where we will bring you articles on the many wonderful places there are in Turkey. Well take a look at everything from tourist areas, culture, food, getting off the beaten track and much more.

The first article in our series on Istanbul was written for Fethiye Times by Ola Khamitsevich

I love Istanbul with all my heart. And if it was legal to marry a city, without hesitation Id marry Istanbul (or as it called in Greek  the City).

It makes me sad knowing that a lot of visitors end up hanging around Sultanahmet or Taksim. There is so much more to the City! Here you can find everything you want, everything you are interested in! So dont lock yourself up in touristy areas. Its time to forget about Sultanahmet! Yes, Hagia Sophia is great but Istanbul is stunning!

Let me be your guide during our discovery trip of the Citys non-touristy neighbourhoods, starting with the, more popular among tourists, European side.

Karakoy

In Turkish Karakoy means Black village. Sounds a bit gloomy I know, but trust me theres nothing gloomy about this neighbourhood. It is bright and colourful with a vibrant atmosphere, thanks to local artists who occupied the, once boring, industrial area and sprayed some of their creative vibes around.

Karakoy has many things to offer: colourful cafes and restaurants with gorgeous decor as well as interesting shops, like The House of Paper, where everything is made out of easy-to-guess-what. So feel comfortable to get lost in Karakoys narrow streets during the day time.

The area is also lively during night hours. After sunset, Karakoy transforms into one of the most popular night spots. Turkish and foreign music stream from every corner.

On hot summer nights, the neighbourhood hosts a street festival where everyone drinks, dances and socialises right on the streets.

Ortakoy

One of the fanciest seaside neighbourhoods with a stunning view from its cafes and restaurants. Dont forget to visit Ortakoys mosque right on the waterfront and its identifying landmark.

In old times the area was inhabited by the Greeks and, as everything Greek, it was a very expensive place to be. Nowadays Ortakoy isnt the most lavish area in the city but still quite pricey. Despite this it bustles with people during sunny weekends, so better visit the area on workdays to enjoy a quiet stroll on the shore. If the sea air and Turkish sun make you feel hungry here is something to note: among locals Ortakoy is famous for Kumpir (jacket potato). As for me, theyre the same everywhere but you never know till you try it, right?

Nightlife in Ortakoy is considered to be luxurious. Anjelique is a waterfront club that has a private jetty for customers. It doesnt get much fancier than that!

Most of the clubs have a dress code so you do have to say goodbye to good old shorts and T shirts!

At the beginning of this year, the popularity of Ortakoy decreased as the New Years tragic event took place in one of its clubs. But as summer is marching towards us, the area gets more and more crowded. Nothing can beat the courage of Turkish people, in fact, that of people everywhere.

Bebek, Arnavutkoy and Emirgan

These are seaside districts located north of Ortakoy. All have amazingly beautiful sea views and are the best places to enjoy a walk along the shore. Be aware that on sunny weekends you may see more traffic there than at the Bosphorus. The sea side road that leads to these areas is really narrow and as everyone wants to enjoy fresh air well, you can imagine.

When warm weather finally arrives in Istanbul, Emirgan park plays host to a tulip festival where you can fully enjoy all the colours of spring. There is no entrance fee.

So there you go, a brief introduction to must-visit areas on the European side. And those are only seaside districts. Of course, theres much more than this. Its one of the biggest cities in the whole world were talking about! Let me leave the rest of the City for you, dear visitors, to explore, to discover, to be surprised, to get lost and to be found.

Coming up next: Exploring the Asian side

Ola is a passionate traveller with almost 10-year experience of backpacking around the world. She loves Middle Eastern culture. Istanbul, in particular, has always fascinated her and even though she lives there no longer, theres a hope that one day they will be together again. She currently resides in Alexandria, Egypt

Featured photograph by Zeeshan Malick
AECI LIMITED

Incorporated in the Republic of South Africa

(Registration number: 1924/002590/06)

Share code: AFE

ISIN: ZAE000000220

("the Company" or "the Group")

FULFILMENT OF CONDITIONS PRECEDENT TO THE ACQUISITION OF SCHIRM

Further to the Company's announcement released on the Stock Exchange News Service of the JSE Limited on 8 November 2017 regarding the acquisition (i) by AECI Mauritius Limited of 100% of the share capital in Schirm GmbH and shareholder loan claims; and (ii) by Schirm GmbH of (A) the contract manufacturing service business of Imperial Chemical Logistics GmbH; and (B) a property in Wolfenbuttel, Germany (together "Schirm") ("the Transaction"), shareholders are advised that all conditions precedent to the Transaction have now been fulfilled.

Accordingly, the Transaction has become unconditional.

In terms of the agreement governing the Transaction, the closing of the Transaction shall take place on 30 January 2018. From this date, the financial results of Schirm will be consolidated under the Group's Plant & Animal Health strategic pillar and presented on a consolidated basis.

Woodmead, Sandton

17 January 2018

Investment Bank, Corporate Advisor and Transaction Sponsor

The Standard Bank of South Africa Limited

Legal Advisors to AECI

Webber Wentzel and Linklaters LLP
Paris, 23 November 2017 - Atos, a global leader in digital transformation, today held the Scientific Council of "Atos Quantum", the first industrial quantum computing program in Europe.

Marking the first anniversary of the launch of the program, the members of the Scientific Council - assembled under the chairmanship of Thierry Breton - reviewed the first commercial successes of the Atos Quantum Learning Machine (Atos QLM) as well as the new technological horizons of Atos Quantum.

A transatlantic commercial success for the Atos QLM, less than six months after launch

After having presented the Atos QLM, the world's most powerful quantum simulator, in Brussels last July, Atos delivered less than six months later - on November 13 2017 - a copy of its machine to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, the Department of Energy's largest multi-program science and energy laboratory. Installed on-site, the Atos QLM offers US researchers and engineers the opportunity to develop and test the quantum applications and algorithms of today on the computer of tomorrow.

Since its launch, the machine - capable of simulating up to 40 quantum bits (Qubits) - has been the subject of permanent innovations by Atos quantum teams.

A simulation of physical Qubits made even more efficient by integrating "quantum noise"

Among these innovations, researchers at the Atos Quantum laboratory work in particular on the integration of "quantum noise" models, a particularly useful improvement for researchers working on Qubit architectures.

New "Quantum-safe" algorithm standards to anticipate future critical needs in cyber security

In parallel with its quantum simulation work, the Atos Group also participates in the development of new standards of so-called "quantum-safe" algorithms, i.e. those capable of withstanding quantum attacks in order to make current applications (the Internet, e-commerce, personal data) inviolable by quantum methods. As such, the Atos Group has responded to a recent call for proposals launched in the United States by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

Ile-de-France region supports the Atos Quantum laboratory located in Clayes-sous-Bois (Yvelines)

The highly innovative nature of the Atos Quantum program is recognized not only at an international level but also at a regional level. For example, at the presentation of the Smart Region Initiative Plan (2018-2021) on November 21, which is aimed at making the Ile-de-France the first smart region in Europe, Valerie Pecresse, president of the Ile-de-France Regional Council, stressed the immense technological and industrial contribution that quantum computing embodies. It is within this framework that the Ile-de-France region will donate up to 5 million euros in research and development to the Atos Quantum laboratory located in the clays-sous-Bois in Yvelines.

Following the meeting of the Atos Quantum Scientific Council, Thierry Breton, President and CEO of Atos, said:

"We are delighted of the tremendous progress that the Atos Quantum program has made as of today. In only 12 months, our teams have been able to translate the advances of our research laboratory to industrial use. The first commercial successes of the Atos QLM demonstrate the need to advance the quantum computer and exceed the current limits of physics. Thanks to their work in R&D, the Atos Quantum teams, supported by a unanimously recognized scientific Council, and sustained in particular by the Ile-de-France region, enable researchers worldwide to test today the specific algorithms that will give future quantum computers their power, especially in applications related to artificial intelligence."

Quantum computing should make it possible, in the years to come, to deal with the explosion of data, which Big Data and the Internet of Things bring about. With its targeted and unprecedented compute acceleration capabilities, notably based on the exascale class supercomputer Bull Sequana (https://atos.net/fr/2016/communiques-de-presse/communiques-generaux_2016_04_12/pr-2016_04_12_01), quantum computing should also promote advances in deep learning, algorithmics and artificial intelligence for areas as varied as pharmaceuticals or new materials. To make progress on these topics, Atos intends to also put in place several partnerships with research centers and universities around the world.

Atos Quantum Programme in 3 dates

November 2016: Atos launches "Atos Quantum", 1st Industrial Quantum Computing program in Europe

On November 6, 2016, Atos launches "Atos Quantum (https://atos.net/en/2016/press-release_2016_11_06/atos-launches-atos-quantum-first-quantum-computing-industry-program-europe-2)", the first quantum computing industry program in Europe, which aims to develop quantum computing solutions, offering unprecedented computational powers, as well as algorithms and applications Quantum, especially for Big Data, artificial Intelligence and cyber security.

July 2017: Launch of the Atos QLM, the world's most powerful quantum simulator

On 4 July 2017, Atos launched the Atos Quantum Learning Machine, the world's first commercially available machine-system capable of simulating up to 40 quantum bits (Qubits). Combined with a universal quantum programming language, the Atos QLM enables researchers, students and engineers to develop and test today the quantum applications and algorithms of tomorrow.

November 2017: Delivery of the Atos QLM to the US Department of Energy (https://atos.net/en/2017/press-release/deals-contracts-press-releases_2017_11_13/oak-ridge-national-laboratory-acquires-atos-quantum-learning-machine-support-us-department-energy-research)

Less than six months after the launch of the Atos QLM, Atos delivers a copy of its machine to Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Tennessee, the Department of Energy's largest multi-program science and energy laboratory.

***

About Atos

Atos is a global leader in digital transformation with approximately 100,000 employees in 72 countries and annual revenue of around  12 billion. European number one in Big Data, Cybersecurity, High Performance Computing and Digital Workplace, the Group provides Cloud services, Infrastructure & Data Management, Business & Platform solutions, as well as transactional services through Worldline, the European leader in the payment industry. With its cutting-edge technologies, digital expertise and industry knowledge, Atos supports the digital transformation of its clients across various business sectors: Defense, Financial Services, Health, Manufacturing, Media, Energy & Utilities, Public sector, Retail, Telecommunications and Transportation. The Group is the Worldwide Information Technology Partner for the Olympic & Paralympic Games and operates under the brands Atos, Atos Consulting, Atos Worldgrid, Bull, Canopy, Unify and Worldline. Atos SE (Societas Europaea) is listed on the CAC40 Paris stock index.

Press contact:

Terence Zakka | terence.zakka@atos.net (mailto:terence.zakka@atos.net) | +33 1 73 26 40 76 | @Mr_Zakka (https://twitter.com/Mr_Zakka)





Click here for PDF (http://hugin.info/143359/R/2151642/826057.pdf)



This announcement is distributed by Nasdaq Corporate Solutions on behalf of Nasdaq Corporate Solutions clients.

The issuer of this announcement warrants that they are solely responsible for the content, accuracy and originality of the information contained therein.

Source: ATOS via Globenewswire


SEOUL (dpa-AFX) - President Donald Trump has expressed disappointment after a South Korean newspaper reported Chinese ships have been spotted illegally selling oil to North Korea. Trump claimed in a post on Twitter that China has been 'caught red handed,' although it was not immediately clear if the president was referring to the report or information from U.S. intelligence. 'Caught RED HANDED - very disappointed that China is allowing oil to go into North Korea,' Trump tweeted. 'There will never be a friendly solution to the North Korea problem if this continues to happen!' The tweet from Trump comes after a report from The Chosun Ilbo claimed U.S. reconnaissance satellites have spotted Chinese ships selling oil to North Korean vessels on the West Sea around thirty times since October. China has denied the sales, which would violate a U.N. Security Council resolution that seeks to block nearly 90 percent of refined petroleum exports to North Korea. 'The situation you have mentioned absolutely does not exist,' Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said at a briefing, according to Reuters. (Photo: Michael Vadon) 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.
LAS VEGAS, NV, July 30, 2017 - (ACN Newswire) - Trillium Inc, a leading automotive cybersecurity solutions provider, today announced its acquisitioon of the assets of cybersecurity consulting firm CanBusHack, Inc. Established in 2010, CanBusHack is the oldest automotive cybersecurity consulting and penetration testing company in the world. It is widely recognized as an industry leader thanks to its broad portfolio of successful projects with major OEM and Tier1 customers around the world.Trillium made the announcement during the annual DEF CON hacker convention, being held at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas, Nevada, from July 27 - 30. Trillium's automotive cybersecurity technology is under attack in the Car Hacking Village by the hacker community, who were offered the challenge of compromising Trillium's BrainBOX and SecureCAR Server platform -- as part of the Car Hacking Village's "Capture the Flag" competition. (https://dc25.chvctf.com)"The addition of CanBusHack's Red Team and penetration testing expertise is a perfect fit for Trillium, and adds to our already robust range of cybersecurity products, services and training capabilities," says Trillium President and CEO, David M. Uze. "Now, in addition to providing customers with tools and systems to ward off cyber-attacks, we can also help identify weaknesses early to reduce network vulnerabilities prior to commercial system deployment."The combination of CanBusHack's sophisticated "Red Team" and Trillium's advanced "Blue Team" expertise is expected to deliver a 100% IP accretive environment for developing advanced vehicular cybersecurity systems.As a result of the acquisition, CanBusHack President and Founder Robert Leale will join Trillium as its Global Consulting Practice Director, and be deeply involved with Trillium's cybersecurity product development roadmap. He will also assume responsibility for building Trillium's worldwide capabilities in cybersecurity consulting and penetration testing.Mr. Leale and his team will proactively work with Trillium's IoT and automotive customers on an on-going basis to identify and prevent "Zero-Day" exploits, ensuring that Trillium's customers remain among the safest on the planet. "I'm thrilled about this opportunity to join Trillium's world-class team and contribute to making it the global leader in automotive IoT penetration testing and vehicular cybersecurity consulting," said Mr. Leale.Trillium at DEF CONMeet Trillium at DEF CON in the Car Hacking Village, where professional and hobbyist car hackers will work together to provide hands-on, interactive car hacking learning, talks and interactive contests. Trillium will be offering private demonstrations by request in its suite at Caesars Palace, so please contact us at demo@trilliumcyber.com to learn more and schedule a session.About Trillium Inc.Trillium Inc. was founded in 2014 with a team of executives and engineers from Japan, Europe and the U.S., with extensive experience in automotive networking, cybersecurity, embedded systems and IoT. Trillium provides a multi-layered suite of cybersecurity tools - SecureCar, SecureIXS and Secure OTA - and data-mining capabilities to protect automobiles and IoT connected devices around the globe from cyber-attacks. Trillium is backed by lead investor Global Brain, a Tokyo-based venture capitalist. For further details, visit: http://www.trillium.co.jp. To arrange executive interviews, contact: pr@trillium.co.jp.About CanBusHack, Inc.Established in 2010, Orion, Michigan-based CanBusHack, Inc., focuses on assessing and compromising automotive embedded controller systems. Its specialists employ a variety of hardware and software skills to understand how those systems operate. For further details, visit: http://canbushack.com(c) 2017 Trillium Inc. All rights reserved. Trillium, Trillium logo, BrainBOX, CanBusHack, Car Hacking Village and SecureCar are trademarks of Trillium Incorporated. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.Source: Trillium IncCopyright 2017 ACN Newswire . All rights reserved.
What happens when you Google images of Urdu poets? Not much, you'll find.

That's where New Delhi based multidisciplinary visual artist Shiraz Husain comes in.

Husain's love for the Urdu language prompted him to come up with a way in which the great poets could be reintroduced to a new generation.

He created a Facebook page  Khwaab Tanha Collective  which literally translates to 'a lonely dream'. The aim is to present the stalwarts of Urdu literature for people who might have not heard about their work. He says about the choice of name, "I believe that the very initial stage of a dream starts or is conceptualised within a single person and than later joined by others."

"The world's second-worst crime is boredom; the first is being a bore," he adds. "And I didnt want to commit either of them. The cliched visual imagery of Urdu and Hindi Poetry is something which I wanted to not only break, but also celebrate literary icons in a way that hadn't been done before. Hence, Khwaab Tanha Collective."

Husain, who is an assistant professor at the Faculty of Fine Art at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New Delhi, says about his passion for languages, "Not just Urdu, I love most of the regional languages. I love how they sound and the visual presence of words, how they are imbibed in our culture."

"My Urdu teacher in school told me that 'Shayar aap beeti ko jag beeti banata hai'. I totally agree... Khwaab Tanha has expanded the 'Ganga Jamuni tehzeeb' and influenced people beyond my imagination," he adds.

While Khwaab Tanha has been a solo endeavour thus far, Husain does have plans for how he wants to expand on it in the future. "I have planned to collaborate with musicians and actors. Conceptual artist Shea Hembrey, who creates artwork through fictional characters, has also inspired me a little."

He has also started working on regional poets to widen the scope of the page. "I have already started working on few Bangla poets," Husain tells us. "My friends from Manipur have asked me to cover their regional poets. I do want to work on the Malayalam writers VM Basheer and Kamala Surayya... See Khwaab Tanha  is about celebrating our literary legends not just from Urdu and Hindi (literature) but initiating a conversation with other regional languages as well."

Does he have a favourite from among the literary greats he's sketched? Husain says, "When it comes to favourites, the list is endless. Akhtar ul Iman, Khumar, Pash, Sahir, Faiz, Mirza Ghalib to Rabindranth Tagore, VM Basheer, and recently Vinod Kumar Shukla are among the writers and poets I truly adore."
Abhay Deol has done a variety of roles over the years  something that is becoming increasingly rare in Bollywood, with actors playing the same characters over and over again, just under different names. The actor will now be seen in JL- 50, a sci-fi film which is reportedly being shot in Kolkata, as reported by Mumbai Mirror. He is going to get into the shoes of a CBI detective who transcends space and time, to get to the bottom of a mystery.

There's no denying the fact that there is a dearth of sci-fi films in Bollywood. Deol says it is because they require more funds, which is seen as a shortcoming. He also maintains that the concept, however, does not need exorbitant amounts of money to be put across.

JL-50 is going to be replete with real-life situations, and there will not be any larger than life superheroes flying around with capes on. Deol says that his character will be that of an ordinary person, whose life changes after he solves a mystery.

Sci-fi films in India started with Anil Kapoor's Mr India which went on to become a massive hit and set a benchmark for films of the genre. In terms of VFX, according to Deol, the film that truly reflects cutting edge technology is Baahubali.

The makers of JL-50, however, are not aiming to set a standard with their film. Deol hopes they have good special effects wherever required. The film will also star Piyush Mishra and Pankaj Kapur.

The actor had taken to Twitter to reveal his look in the film. Here's the tweet:

A still from my new film "JL-50". A sci-fi adventure drama. Started shoot only a few days back! pic.twitter.com/acQv7YsgvB  abhay deol (@AbhayDeol) July 27, 2017

The whole interview can be read here.
Former President of India and scientist APJ Abdul Kalam's life story is nothing short of inspiring. Now, Telugu producer Anil Sunkara and Abhishek Agarwal will be making a film based on it; the pre-production of this biopic began in 2016 itself, and the shoot commenced in March this year.

The first poster of the film was launched by the chairman of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on 27 July, which marks the second death anniversary of Abdul Kalam. The event took place in Rameshwaram, which is his birth place.

Biopic on Dr APJ Abdul Kalam launched by ISRO Chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar... Produced by Anil Sunkara and Abhishek Agarwal... Poster launched: pic.twitter.com/0RUvSIxNlS  taran adarsh (@taran_adarsh) July 29, 2017

The film will chronicle his upbringing, his career as a scientist, and how he managed to keep India's nuclear secrets safe. It has been made in English. It will feature an entire sequence on the Pokhran nuclear test.

Titled Dr Abdul Kalam, this film has been written by Raj Chengappa, who has also authored a book on him.

"Since the past year, Anil [Sunkara] has been researching extensively on Dr Abdul Kalam for the film. He has not only visited Kalams house, but has also met many of his family members," said a source speaking to Deccan Chronicle.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) that has been investigating the abduction and molestation of a popular Malayalam actress, is now reportedly questioning Malayalam actor Edavela Babu, as reported by Manorama Online.

In another development, the bail plea of the prime accused, Pular Suni, was also rejected by the Angamaly Judicial First Class Magistrate Court. The prosecution contested his dismissal, stating that letting him out could hamper the pace of the investigation and that the accused might destroy some important evidence, such as a mobile phone and sim card, which has not been recovered yet.

This move comes soon after the Kerala High Court rejected Dileep's bail plea after it was found that there was enough evidence against the actor. The actor's wife, Kavya Madhavan is also being questioned, as there are doubts about her involvement in the case.

Edavela Babu is currently the acting General Secretary of the Association of Malayalam Movie Actors (AMMA), a report in the New Indian Express mentions. According to the same report, the actor was called to the Aluva Police Club and interrogated for over an hour.

The police revealed that the interrogation was around the rehearsals of a show that had been conducted by AMMA in 2013. During this time, Dileep was allegedly conspiring against the survivor.

Babu was also asked to submit a dossier on the financial transactions that occurred between him and Dileep.

The Malayalam actress in question, who has worked in some Tamil and Telugu films, was abducted and molested inside her car for two hours by the accused, who had forced their way into the vehicle and later escaped.
R. Madhavan and Vijay Sethupathi starrer Tamil gangster drama Vikram Vedha, which struck gold at the box-office domestically as well as outside India, will soon be remade in Telugu, a source said."Talks have been initiated with Rana Daggubati and Venkatesh for Telugu remake. They were the first choice even before the release of Vikram Vedha. However, nothing has been finalised yet and the process might take a few more months," a source from the film's unit told IANS.

Directed by Pushkar-Gayatri, the film has grossed over Rs 40 crore worldwide in its first week in cinemas. Released in cinemas last week, the film has turned out to be a blockbuster, earning praise from critics and audiences alike.

Inspired from the popular folklore Vikram Betaal, its morality riddles are applied to a police-gangster backdrop. While Madhavan plays an encounter specialist, Vijay essays the role of a gangster, whose role unanimously won over audiences. Vikram Vedha producer Sashikanth told IANS, "Too early to talk about the remake. But yes, talks are on for the remake. But nothing has been confirmed yet."

The film also stars Shraddha Srinath, Varalaxmi Sarath Kumar and Kathir.
The family of Samajwadi Party leader Abu Azmi has alleged that he received threat calls, police said on Sunday.

Based on a complaint filed by his son, the police have registered a case against an unidentified person.

The man, who claimed to be a member of a religious outfit, allegedly made phone calls to Azmi, an MLA from Maharashtra, four to five times over the past few days and threatened to kill him, police said.

Acting on the complaint filed by the Maharashtra SP unit chief's son, Farhan Azim, a case was registered under IPC sections dealing with "deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace" and other relevant provisions on Thursday, a senior police official said.

Farhan, in his complaint, which was also addressed to Mumbai Police Commissioner Dattatray Padsalgikar and Joint Commissioner of Police (law and order) Deven Bharti, alleged that the caller threatened to harm him and his family. Efforts are underway to trace the caller, the police official added.
Srinagar: Six people were on Sunday injured as protesters clashed with security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district after two militants were killed in an encounter.

A police official said clashes erupted soon after the encounter in the Tahab area ended in the killing of two militants.

Security personnel lobbed tear gas shells and fired a few shots in the air to restore law and order in the area, he said.

The official said one person, whose identity is being ascertained, was hit by a bullet in the shoulder and rushed to a hospital.

Five other persons suffered minor injuries during the clashes, which were going on intermittently till reports last came in, he added.
Aurangabad: A joint team of CRPF and police on Sunday arrested three naxal militants from Bihar's Aurangabad district.

Acting on a tip off that naxalites are pasting posters in different areas to terrorise people to make their proposed 3 August Bihar bandh a success, a joint team of CRPF and local police raided Sahajpur and Kalidi villages of the district and arrested three naxals who had come to paste posters, Superintendent of Police, Satya Prakash said.

The arrested naxals have been identified as Ramlagan Singh Bhokta, Kamlesh Singh Bhokta and Mahesh Bhuiya, SP said adding that police are conducting raids to nab their accomplices on the basis of information received from them.

These naxalites have been indulging in various naxal activities, he said and added that Kamlesh Singh Bhokta had been in jail for his involvement in naxal activities but at present he was on bail.

These naxalites were trying to influence and motivate local youths to join the local naxal outfit, SP said.
Ruling BJD in Odisha on Saturday demanded resignation of Union minister and BJP leader Jual Oram accusing him of submitting false affidavit on poll expenditure before the Election Commission (EC).

Oram, who was elected to the Lok Sabha from Sundergarh in Odisha, has denied the charge. BJD's accusation against the Union Tribal Affairs Minister comes at a time when the BJP is demanding Odisha

Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik's resignation charging him with discrepancies in election expenditure.

"The allegation against me is false, fabricated and politically motivated. I challenge them (BJD) to take the matter to the court," Oram told PTI over phone.

The BJD said it would move the EC and the court seeking action against Oram. "Oram in the abstract of source of funds raised by candidate said that he spent nil amount from own fund for the election campaigning. But in the Schedule-9 format, he stated that he spent about Rs 2.68 lakh from his own fund," BJD MP Pinaki Mishra and Pratap K Deb alleged in a press conference.

"Isn't it a discrepancy in election expenditure? Oram should resign," the two BJD leaders said.

The press meet was held within hours of the BJP seeking Odisha Governor S C Jamir's intervention into the alleged misuse of official machinery by the BJD government to defend the poll expenditure case against Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, who is also the BJD president.

BJP candidate from Hinjili Devadanda Mahapatra, who was defeated by Patnaik, has moved the Orissa High Court alleging that there were discrepancies in Patnaik's election expenditure document submitted to the EC. The high Court is scheduled to hear the case on July 31.

Mishra, also a lawyer, said BJP's allegation against the chief minister "has forced us to bring the matter (allegation against Oram) to the fore".

The Puri Lok Sabha MP claimed several other BJP MPs have committed similar discrepancies in their election expenditure statements submitted to the EC. "People living in glass house should not throw stones at others," Mishra said.
New Delhi: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has asked the Defence Ministry to trace and share with it all missing files related to the Bofors scandal, according to its two members.

The six-member sub-committee on defence, headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, is looking into the long-pending non-compliance of certain aspects of the CAG report on the Bofors guns deal.

The PAC strongly objected to the ministry's suggestion that certain paragraphs of the CAG report may be dropped as some files related to it are missing, according to the minutes of the parliamentary panel's meeting, a copy of which is with PTI.

The meeting was held earlier this month.

During the meeting, both PAC chairman Mahtab and BJP MP Nishikant Dubey stressed on the need for top ministry officials to trace and share missing files and notings related to the deal.

According to the minutes of the meeting, top defence ministry officials agreed that the ministry will share all the required details with the PAC.

When contacted, two MPs who are members of the committee confirmed that the ministry has agreed to share the details with them.

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 CAG report on Bofors is the oldest "pending" report before the PAC, which examines audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India after these are tabled in Parliament.
Raipur: Security forces have arrested three lower rung Naxals during two separate search operations in Chhattisgarh's Narayanpur district.

A joint team of Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), District Reserve Guard (DRG) and Special Task Force (STF) was out on a search operation when it nabbed two of the rebels in Sargipal village on Saturday, Narayanpur's superintendent of police Santosh Singh told PTI.

The two cadres were identified as Sonu Netam (40) and Shankar Hemla (20).

Based on Netam's statement, a muzzle loading gun was also recovered from a nearby forest, he said.

The duo was allegedly involved in setting ablaze a passenger bus after asking its occupants to alight near Sonpur village in the district in June, he said.

They were also tasked with arranging commodities of daily use and meetings of the senior ultras, the SP said.

The security personnel also nabbed another Naxal, Suresh Markam (24), in Devgaon village on Saturday, he said.

Markam was allegedly involved in several offences, including attacks on police parties, he added.
China: Chinese president Xi Jinping touted the need to build a "world-class" army capable of "defeating all invading enemies" at a military parade held Sunday to mark the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Since coming to power in 2012, the president has trumpeted building a stronger, combat-ready army, while leading efforts to centralise the ruling Communist Party's control over the PLA, the world's largest standing military.

Sunday's procession  including 12,000 service personnel and about 700 aircrafts and pieces of ground equipment  marked the first time Xi has observed a parade of this size staged in the field, according to the ministry of defence.

"The world is not all at peace. Peace must be safeguarded," Xi, wearing a camouflage military suit, said in a speech at the expansive Zhurihe training base in the inner Mongolia autonomous region.

"Today we are closer than ever before to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation, and -- more than any other time in history -- we need to build a strong people's military."

Xi also ordered the PLA to "unswervingly stick to... the Party's absolute leadership," saying the military should "march to wherever the Party is pointing."

Defense ministry spokesman Ren Guoqiang said in a statement that the parade was intended to create a "good atmosphere" ahead of an important party congress later this year when Xi is expected to further consolidate his grip on power.

The president stood inside an open-top jeep that drove past lines of troops for his inspection.

"Comrades, thanks for your hard work," he said, to which the troops responded: "Serve the people!"

China said in March it would raise its defence spending by around seven percent this year, the slowest annual percentage increase since 1991.

Beijing is engaged in a decades-long build-up and modernisation of its once-backward armed forces, as it seeks military clout commensurate with its economic might and increasingly asserts its disputed territorial claims in Asian waters.

The PLA, originally called the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, was founded in 1927 when Communist soldiers seized the southern Jiangxi provincial town of Nanchang from Nationalist Party ("Kuomintang") armies in what is known today as the Nanchang uprising.
In one of the largest single haul of narcotics till date, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) has seized 1,500 kgs of heroin, valued at around Rs 3,500 crore, from a merchant vessel off the Gujarat coast, a defence

spokesperson said on Sunday.

The ICG, Intelligence Bureau, police, customs, Navy and other agencies are further probing into the seizure. "The Indian Coast Guard ship 'Samudra Pavak' intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel carrying approximately 1,500 kg of heroin valued at about Rs 3,500 crore off the coast of Gujarat," a statement by defence PRO Abhishek Matiman said.

"Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest

single haul of narcotics seized till date," the statement said.

He said more details about the seizure are awaited as the ship is in high seas.

An official of the Porbandar Special Operations Group said the ICG has called them for a meeting regarding the drug haul at around 4 pm on Sunday.
Darjeeling/Alipurduar: Clashes between the police and Gorkhaland supporters on Saturday resulted in injuries to several persons on both sides at Jaigoan in Alipurduar district, bordering Bhutan.

The Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) and the other hill parties took out a rally at Jaigaon on the 46th day of an indefinite strike called by the GJM in the hills.

According to the police, clashes broke out between the security men and the Gorkhaland supporters after the participants in the rally, carrying kukris (Gorkha knives), hurled stones and petrol bombs at the police personnel.

The police tried to convince the GJM supporters to refrain from attacking, but the agitators remained defiant and broke the first two barricades. They kept hurling stones at the police, who then resorted to using water cannons and firing tear gas shells, besides using batons to disperse the crowd.

At this, the protesters turned violent and set a few vehicles, including those of the police, afire.

Several police personnel and Gorkhaland supporters were injured in the clashes, the police said.

The GJM claimed that the police resorted to indiscriminate firing. The police, however, denied the allegation.

Similar processions were taken out at Kalchini.

GJM supporters took out rallies at the Chowkbazar area of the hills, carrying black flags as a mark of protest against police action on Gorkhaland supporters.

Shouting slogans against the West Bengal government, they demanded an immediate intervention by the Centre.

Gorkhaland supporters, armed with knives, swords and kukris, had tried to forcibly enter Siliguri on Saturday, demanding that the town be included into the separate state of Gorkhaland.

In the Naxalbari area of Darjeeling, the locals took out a rally against the GJM and their demand for Gorkhaland and set tyres on fire as a mark of protest against the ongoing agitation in the hills.

In the Sukna area of the hills, which is close to Siliguri, the ruling Trinamool Congress (TMC) in the state took out an anti-GJM rally.

The GJM and the other hill parties held an 'Anna Dan' (rice donation) rally during the day as a mark of protest against vehicles, carrying food supplies to the hills, being set ablaze in Siliguri.

Each participant in the rally carried a handful of rice and other grains and donated it in a box, which will be handed over to the district administration and, in turn, will be sent to the West Bengal secretariat as a mark of protest.

The police and security forces patrolled the streets of the hills and kept a tight vigil at all the entry and exit routes.

Barring the medicine shops, all other business establishments, restaurants, hotels, schools and colleges remained closed.

The workers of the GJM and various NGOs of the hills were seen distributing food among the people as the food supply has been severely hit due to the ongoing shutdown.
Shiv Kunal Verma, author of highly acclaimed books like 1962: The War That Wasn't and The Long Road to Siachen: The Question Why and a trilogy on the Northeast, is intimately aware of the ground situation in both Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Speaking about the stand-off between India and China at the tri-junction border, he said, "If you are familiar with the terrain around the tri-junction, there is no way the Chinese can try and cut off the Siliguri Corridor from that axis."

Here's the full interview.

Do you see any similarity between what happened in 1962 and the situation presently unfolding vis-a-vis China?

The answer is both yes and no. Let's be very clear about one thing: The army even in 1962 was quite capable of taking China on. In fact, wherever they were allowed to fight  Rajput Regiment at Nam Ka Chu, Sikh Regiment at Bum La, Garhwal Rifles at Nuranang, Kumaon Regiment at Walong, and Jat Regiment in DBO and the Galwan Valley  they gave an excellent account of themselves. It was the senior leadership, both civilian and military, that imploded. Also, had the Indian Air Force come into play, it would have been a different story. In my mind one thing is quite clear: This army is no pushover. I filmed the Kargil war and the thing that impressed me the most was the fact that every man was moving forward, going about his job with no panic or fear. Not just soldiers, even civilian truck drivers, Ladakhi porters, everyone. It was fantastic.

But yes, there are similarities. We still continue to play around with our military leadership and at times we are too passive in our approach. The Chinese for a long time had been playing the probing game. And this time they probably cut too close to the bone. The way I see it, we had to react. Fifty-five years ago, when USSR started installing missile sites in Cuba, everyone was freaked. In this case, the tri-junction virtually overlooks the corridor. The Chinese wanting to push the road up to the tri-junction was uncalled for; India had to put its foot down.

You had said earlier that it's like putting your hand in a hornet's nest.

It most certainly is. It's imperative that we are prepared for all eventualities. The Chinese have always been unpredictable and you cannot make the same mistake twice. It would be ridiculous to assume that they will not do this or that. But if they do push for a border engagement, I think they are in for a shock. It may be a hornet's nest, but at the end of the day, you should make sure you are the guys who get to eat the honey.

So you think a border clash is a possibility? Would the Chinese follow up on their threat to throw the Indian Army out of the Doka La plateau?

They are welcome to try, but that would be suicidal in my opinion. Firstly, the Doka La plateau is purely an ego issue for them; in reality, it serves no actual military purpose. If you are familiar with the terrain around the tri-junction, there is no way the Chinese can try and cut off the Siliguri Corridor from that axis. It would mean an all-out war and it would require a major logistic exercise to do something like that. If they have to do something to save face  since they have been making a lot of aggressive statements  they'll try and spook you by moving troops in other areas and hope the Indian public and the media panic.

On the other hand, I don't think India has a choice. Strategic value or not, we simply cannot allow the road to be built. How this plays out will also decide how the India-Tibet border issue is eventually settled. Equally importantly, it will also impact the future defence of the subcontinent. And it's important for us as a people to understand that Nepal and Bhutan, by virtue of being on the southern side of the watershed, are also key players in the overall defence of the subcontinent.

China can be expected to do the unexpected, but just what do they gain by actually getting into a border scrap with India? The trade equation is extremely lopsided in their favour. Not only is India a huge emerging market, we are also an emotional people. Already, comments on social media and other networks about boycotting Chinese products are giving them the heebie jeebies. The moment the first shots are fired in anger across the border, be it at Ladakh, Himachal, Garhwal, Kumaon, Sikkim or Arunachal, I think there will be a tsunami of anti-Chinese sentiment which could result in massive economic losses for them. And plus, let's not forget the rest of the world still views China with suspicion and most countries would become even more wary. As time passes and the matter lingers, the danger for the Chinese leadership is that the Doka La issue may become more and more internalised.

There is talk of the US not sitting idle if there is indeed a clash between India and China. The Malabar exercise's timing was interesting in that regard.

Frankly, even though the general impression is that we have been getting rather cosy with the Americans of late, let's not be under any illusion. They are nobody's friends. In the build up to 1962, they played a fairly provocative role. Take the supply of weapons through Sikkim, the CIA's not so covert role in helping the Dalai Lama escape, and U-2 flights over Tibet. Bottom line is, we shouldn't need anyone else to fight our battles for us. And I think it's time our politicians developed a spine and trusted our own army, air force and navy.

Of late, if you listen to various think tanks, one would get the impression that they are getting carried away with the so-called improved geo-political ties between the US and India. So long as Pakistan with its umbilical cord intact exists as a key ally of the Pentagon, it does not really matter if Donald Trump has this mad desire to hug Prime Minister Modi and everything 'Hindu' or not. In fact, Russia still remains the key player as far as we are concerned and it saddens me to see so many of our experts turn their backs towards Moscow. Vis-a-vis China, Russia will always be India's greatest counter-balance and the fact that the Russians are the immediate northern neighbours of the Chinese certainly puts them in a far better position to deal with Beijing than the United States does.

So how do you see this play itself out? What should India do?

Nothing really. Doka La is Bhutanese territory and the standoff costs us nothing in real terms. China has to give an undertaking that they will not build roads, be it for sightseeing or for military purposes. The day they revert to the standstill status which they had earlier agreed upon with Bhutan, the impasse will end.

At least in the case of Doka La, we have the ability to stand up and say enough is enough. The Malabar exercise was probably aimed at sending out a message to China by the Americans and the Japanese, but there is nothing much happening in the Indian Ocean to stop China from doing what it jolly well wants to do. Take the case of Sri Lanka for example. After getting into a hole where it borrowed recklessly from China, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe is now having to brush aside all opposition and consider handing over the Hambantota Port on a 99-year lease. Though India along with the US and Japan and the people of Sri Lanka are protesting, the Sri Lankan government is caught on the horns of a dilemma. I think it's important for all countries in Asia and Africa to see for themselves just how China is operating.

This has been China's modus operandi for decades. From India's point of view, Hambantota isn't any different from the Doka La plateau. The security of South Asia is already in tatters, with Pakistan virtually being a province of China. It is therefore vital that all countries  Nepal and Bangladesh in particular  keep the security of the subcontinent in mind and watch each other's backs.

What about the land border between India and China?

The border with Tibet is what you mean. China has been playing games since 1949 and it's a pity that no one ever challenged their interpretation of history. Mao made the biggest landgrab of all time when he annexed Sinkiang and Tibet in 1949 and 1950. Suddenly India had the Chinese on our entire northern frontier and all existing treaties with Tibet went out of the window. Someone needed to challenge Mao's narrative. But nobody did it then, and we seem to hesitate to take the subject head on even today, for reasons I cannot understand.

If you really see how things developed in the first and second decades of the 20th Century when the border between India and Tibet was being drawn up, be it the Morshead-Bailey expedition or the Simla Agreement of 1914, everything is there in black and white. What's more, the Chinese have none of the original documents, for they went with the Kuomintang government to Taiwan. We also have the Dalai Lama sitting in India for five and a half decades. He may be a man of peace who does not want to ruffle Chinese feathers, but he can easily ratify what the Tibetan Kashag and Lon-chen Shatra agreed to in Simla vis a vis Tawang.

Much the same can be said for the existing boundaries with Kashmir. India has to aggressively put out the counter-narrative for its own people, and also for China and for the world. If you don't do that, the Chinese will continue to dispute every grazing ground and tree in the Himalayas.

I come back to the importance of developing the counter-narrative. The exaggerated China-centric version of history doled out ever since Mao came into being has a basic flaw; a lot of it is simply not true! There have been times when Chinese emperors have bowed their head before the Mongols and the Tibetans and paid tribute. But that means nothing in today's context. The McMahon Line for example was drawn up based on a physical survey of the watershed, backed up by a demographic and historical analysis of the entire belt extending from Burma to Nepal. That the Southern Himalayas have nothing to do with Tibet is a fact and I see absolutely no reason to be defensive about it.

I've been moving around quite a lot on the eastern sector and it's obvious that our road infrastructure is far from adequate. The other side has excellent communication network as well. Does that put our army at a disadvantage?

The northern side of the Great Himalayan Range  call it the Trans-Himalaya if you like  on the map looks more daunting because of the height. However, the watershed acts as a massive rain shadow and the Tibetan plateau in comparison to the southern side is a lot more stable geographically. The terrain on our side is far more complex, but over the years our defence planning has vectored all those factors in. The advancement in rotor wing and fixed wing technology has also changed the equation quite a bit. I personally think we do not have to try and match the Chinese road for road, rail for rail. Ecological factors must be kept in mind and at the end of the day, the Himalayan belt has to be protected. Look at what happened in Kedarnath? In fact, the maniacal need to develop the areas on our side is killing the Himalayas. We may even need to learn from Bhutan and restrict entry into these areas completely.

You've also been critical of the Indian media in the past. You even told Maroof Raza on Latitude that the Chinese probably looked at Indian television channels as force multipliers.

In this case, I think the Indian media has been a lot more restrained and I'm happy to see that. The Doka La story was kept under wraps for nearly two weeks, and it was eventually the Chinese who broke the news, and they have been getting shriller and shriller. Having said that, whichever way the Doka La story plays out, I think it's important for the Indian side to not get carried away. There are no brownie points to be scored here. We have to just do what we have to do, and that's to stand our ground and if necessary, fight to protect it. What is absolutely vital is for every soldier manning the bunkers facing either China or Pakistan to be secure in the knowledge that every man, woman and child stands firmly behind him.

In the middle of the standoff, Eastern Command is seeing a change of guard. With General Pravin Bakshi retiring in the next 24 hours, there will be a new army commander holding the baton.

To me it seems that the man who has been the army commander for the last two years and who knows the ground situation better than anyone else should stay there for a while. At least until the situation on Doka La steadies out. It is unfortunate that games being played at the top level continue to be played and appointments today are seen to be more and more political. I think Doka La should also sound an alarm pertaining to the state of our armed forces. You actually have CAG in the middle of all this going on record to say we have ten days' ammunition reserves.

I think that was the main reason for all the hullabaloo, around a former army chief's khulasa in 2012. At a very basic level, Doka La underlines the fragility of geopolitics. Here are two nuclear armed countries ready to go to war over a desolate, godforsaken plateau that borders Bhutan. To me, it brings to mind what President Roosevelt is quoted to have said: "When you walk alone, just carry a big stick". And it's up to our politicians and bureaucrats to ensure that the danda isn't hollow.
Darjeeling: A bunch of pro-Gorkhaland activists on Sunday clashed with the police near the Bhutan border in West Bengal's Alipurduar district.

According to the Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) leadership, the clash occurred after the activists were stopped from rallying in Jaigaon on the day of the 'global rally for Gorkhaland' organised by the Gorkha communities at various parts of the world in solidarity with the Gorkhaland movement.

"Our activists were stopped from rallying in Jaigaon on the day of 'Global rally for Gorkhaland'. We will not be oppressed by the administration any more. The Gorkhas all over the world are with us," GJM Assistant General Secretary Binay Tamang told IANS.

"Global rally for Gorkhaland is being observed throughout the day in solidarity with the Gorkhaland movement. Rallies were taken out in England, various parts of Europe, Australia, Thailand and in all the major cities in India," he claimed.

Accusing the central government of acting like a "silent spectator", the GJM leadership on Saturday decided on a 10-day deadline and threatened to intensify the agitation even in the plains if there was no intervention.

"We have decided to give the Centre a 10-day deadline to take some concrete steps. If they continue to be a silent spectator even after August 8, we will further intensify our agitation and spread it in the Terai and Dooars region more rigorously," Tamang said.

Sunday's clash comes a day after pro-Gorkhaland activists had engaged with the police at Sukna in the foothills of Darjeeling, that left six police personnel and several activists injured.

Condemning the police role during the clash in Sukna, Tamang said one of their activists is still in critical condition after he was hit on the head by a tear gas shell.

"He is still very critical. Four other activists were also severely injured and are still hospitalised," he added.
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Srinagar: Police have arrested three men from Kulgam district of Jammu and Kashmir for allegedly raping two minor girls five days ago.

One of the girls filed a police complaint in Kulgam, alleging she and her friend were abducted by three men while returning home, a police official said on Sunday.

The girl alleged that they were then taken to some unknown building by the men and raped there.

"During the course of investigation, three culprits  Mujeeb-u-Rehman Sofi, Ashiq Ahmad Shah and Towseef Ahmad Zargar  were arrested," the official said.

He said medico-legal formalities of the victims were conducted and the statements have been recorded.

"More arrests are expected in coming days and every possible effort is being made to ensure that strict punishment is awarded to the culprits under law," he added.
Mumbai: In an embarrassing development, Maharashtra Governor CV Rao, in his capacity as Chancellor of universities, on Saturday terminated the services of Dr Raviprakash G Dani, Vice Chancellor (VC) of Dr Panjabrao Deshmukh Krishi Vidyapeeth (agricultural university), on grounds that he is not a citizen of India.

Dani - the VC of the prestigious university based in Akola, eastern Maharashtra, 575 kms from Mumbai - has been sacked "with immediate effect", barely 15 days before his retirement after a five-year term. He was known to keep a picture of former US President Barack Obama in his cabin.

"The decision to remove Dr Dani from the post of Vice Chancellor was taken after obtaining the opinion of the Law and Judiciary Department of the Government of Maharashtra, the Advocate General of Maharashtra and the Ministry of External Affairs," a terse statement from Raj Bhavan said in Mumbai this evening.

The issue of Dani's citizenship was raised over two years ago when some top university officials found that he displayed a photo of former US President Obama prominently on his table.

When objections were raised, he had removed the photograph and of his felicitation by the former US President at a function in the USA.

Appointed to the coveted post on 14 August 2012, Dani was due to remit office on 13 August (next month), but now that it had been confirmed that he was a US citizen and hence not entitled to hold the post of a university VC, official sources explained.

Dani is a world-renowned biologist who has worked with the Texas Tech University, USA and was appointed to the post of VC by former Governor K Sankaranarayanan in 2012.

Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Akola - a technocrat-cum-farmer - Randhir Sawarkar had raised the issue of Dani's citizenship in various fora, written to the state government and also apprised the governor, after he (Sawarkar) was appointed to the university's powerful executive council.

"It was shocking that a person who is not an Indian citizen could be appointed to such a crucial post in the first place," Sawarkar told IANS, adding that he had even apprised Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis of these issues.

Kishore Tiwari, a prominent farmer activist and Chairman of Vasantrao Naik Sheti Swavalambi Mission, said in the past five years, Dani merely promoted "bio-technology" (BT) - a technology which was largely responsible for the farmers' distress in the country.

"He was highly connected with various agriculture multinational corporations and there should be a CBI probe to ascertain out if he has leaked sensitive information on Indian agriculture to outsiders," Tiwari told IANS.

Official sources revealed that during his tenure, the ousted VC spent very little time on the university campus which has a land bank of around 10,000 acres for agro-research purposes.

However, little or no research programmes were carried out in the region where the chief crop is Soyabeans, which could have benefited the farming community, they said.

The university's regular affairs were overseen by his team of aides who interacted with all other top officials and took decisions on his behalf, the sources said.

The university has 33 affiliated degree colleges of different categories including private and aided, a post graduate institute, 54 private and aided agriculture polytechnics.
New Delhi: Women and child development minister Maneka Gandhi has suggested legalising marijuana, a psychoactive drug, in India for medical purposes on the lines of the practice adopted by some developed countries like the US to curb drug abuse.

The suggestion was made by Gandhi at a meeting of a group of ministers (GOM), which examined the draft cabinet note national drug demand reduction policy, according to the minutes of the second meeting, a copy of which is with PTI.

The GoM approved the draft national policy with minor modifications suggested in the meeting.

Gandhi informed that in "some of the developed countries like the US, marijuana has been legalised which ultimately results in less drug abuse".

She said that "the possibility of the same maybe explored in India", as per the document.

When asked to elaborate, Gandhi told PTI that "marijuana should be legalised for medical purposes, especially as it serves a purpose in cancer".

During the meeting of the GoM, which was chaired by home minister Rajnath Singh, Gandhi also stressed on the need for regulating the sale and availability of pharmaceutical drugs such as codeine cough syrups and inhalants among others which are being abused.

Prime minister Narendra Modi has directed the GoM to examine the draft policy for drug demand reduction which seeks to address the problem of drug and substance abuse in the country.

Referring to the national survey on drug abuse, conducted by the ministry of social justice in collaboration with AIIMS, which covers students, transgenders and sex workers among others, Gandhi said children especially those living in and around major railway stations should also be covered.

She also suggested exploring the possibility of setting up de-addiction centres near these railway stations.

On the issue of legalising drugs in the country, the social justice and empowerment secretary G Latha Krishna Rao said "it may not be appropriate to legalise such drugs" in view of the large population and low level of literacy in the country and added that the possibility could be explored in future.

As per the document, minister for chemicals and fertilisers Ananth Kumar observed that drugs were easily available outside schools and colleges and said that an action plan needs to be drawn to create awareness and sensitise students against drug abuse in schools, colleges and universities.

Singh, who is also the minister of parliamentary affairs, said that the role of home ministry should also be well defined in the proposed policy.

The GoM also recommended the projected budget estimate of Rs 125 crore annually for implementation of the policy.

In an earlier meeting, the GoM had proposed preparing an action plan for controlling over the counter sale of sedatives, pain killers, muscle relaxants among others and preparing treatment modules for different age groups, including the subject of treatment of drug addicts as part of MBBS curriculum.

It also sought setting up of de-addiction centres in all prisons, juvenile homes, factories and industries.
New Delhi: The Congress today said Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks of eradicating corruption during his 'Mann ki Baat' programmes but has remained silent on the Panama Paper leaks.

Congress leader Pawan Khera asked Modi what action had been taken against Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh over the Panama Papers issue, citing the case of Nawaz Sharif who quit as Pakistani prime minister.

"The prime minister speaks at length on corruption, but ignores Panama paper leaks. (Yesterday Congress vice-president) Rahul Gandhi mentioned about Chhattisgarh chief minister Raman Singh's son and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek. His (Abhishek) name appeared in the Panama papers, (but) what action have you taken in this regard," Khera asked, suggesting that Modi should take a cue from Pakistan on this.

The Pakistani Supreme Court on 28 July disqualified 67-year-old Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the embattled leader out of office.

The Congress leader said the BJP cannot keep "subverting democracy" and "yet come out holier than thou and talk about political integrity". He was referring to Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar dumping the grand alliance in the state to come into the NDA fold, and the recent defections of Congress MLAs to BJP in Gujarat, ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.

"Where is the money coming from in Gujarat? Our MLAs said they were offered money (to defect). We are not getting any answers to this in the prime minister's Mann ki Baat," he said.

Khera also attacked the prime minister for not doing enough to curb the menace of cow-vigilante groups and "those spreading hate". The Congress leader said Prime Minister's 'Mann ki Baat' appears to be "disconnected" from ground realities as it has failed to address issues like unemployment and agrarian crisis.

In his radio programme on Sunday, Modi spoke on varied topics ranging from how the new tax reform GST has transformed the economy to extensive relief being provided to the flood-hit states.

"The prime minister's speech was irrelevant as it did not touch the fundamental issues faced by the country. We did not get answers to several of our questions and it was completely disconnected with what people are thinking," Khera said
Nigeria is adamant that the sailors should be tried in court. The charges against them will be slapped once they reach the country.
Srinagar: Naeem Geelani, the elder son of Hurriyat Conference chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was Sunday admitted to the SKIMS Hospital after he complained of chest pain.

"Naeem has been kept in the ICU (Intensive Care Unit," a Hurriyat spokesman said. He said Naeem Geelani, who is under the NIA scanner for alleged terror funding, is a heart patient and suffered a massive heart attack in 2009.

Naeem Geelani was scheduled to visit New Delhi on Monday for the NIA investigation and had also booked a flight ticket, the spokesman said.

"He has been under regular medical care. Repeated psychological pressure may have had adverse effects on his health," the spokesman added.

On Sunday, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday raided the house of a businessman considered close to Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani in Jammu.

Informed sources said the NIA carried out the raid on Devender Singh Behl in Baskshi Nagar area in this winter capital of Jammu and Kashmir.

Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmad Shah is presently in NIA remand in connection with allegations of terror funding in the Kashmir Valley.

Six other separatist leaders are also on remand with the NIA for custodial interrogation in this case.

A Delhi court on 25 July remanded seven Kashmiri separatists, arrested a day earlier on charges of taking funds from Pakistan to sponsor terror activities and stone pelting in the Valley, in National Investigation Agency custody for 10 days.

During the in-camera proceedings, district judge Poonam Bamba allowed the NIA to quiz Nayeem Khan, Altaf Ahmad Shah, Aftab Hilali Shah alias Shahid-ul-Islam, Ayaz Akbar Khandey, Peer Saifullah, Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal and Farooq Ahmad Dar alias Bitta Karate till 4 August.

Allowing the NIA plea to quiz them, the court said they needed to be taken to Jammu and Kashmir and other places for investigation.

Six of the separatist leaders were arrested from Srinagar on Monday and later flown to Delhi. Farooq Ahmad Dar was held in Delhi. They have been booked on charges of criminal conspiracy and waging war against India.
New Delhi: The army has conveyed its serious concerns to the defence ministry over the Ordnance Factory Board's (OFB) "failure" to punish officials responsible for last year's massive blast at an ammunition depot in Maharashtra in which 19 army personnel perished, an official document says.

Over 19,325 defective anti-tank mines had exploded primarily due to leakage of explosives from some of the mines stored at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon.

In a letter to defence production secretary Ashok Kumar Gupta, the army headquarters has sought fixing of responsibility for the blaze at the depot on 31 May, 2016.

Separately, the army has taken up the issue with Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra, official sources said.

Two army officials, four defence security corps personnel and 13 defence fire safety staff were killed in the fire at the depot, the largest ammunition and weapons store in the country and said to be the second largest in Asia.

In the letter, seen by PTI, the army said a court of inquiry has attributed the cause of the accident to exudation of highly explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) from some of the defective anti-tank non-detectable mines.

No reaction was available from the OFB.

The army sought "fixing of responsibility" and "traceability of lapses" on the part of officials by the Ordnance Factory Board.

The OFB operates 41 ordnance factories across the country and functions under the department of defence production of the ministry of defence.

The mines were manufactured by the Ordnance Factory Chanda.

"A detailed Court of Inquiry, which was conducted by the army, attributed the cause of the defect (exudation of TNT) to lapses both by manufacturing (OFB) and quality assurance agencies.

"These agencies are under the control of department of defence production under the defence ministry and suitable action needs to be taken by them," the army said in the letter.

It further said, "Fixing of accountability and traceability for the said accident is yet to be established by the OFB and the director general of quality assurance (DGQA) even one year after the accident."

Official sources said there was criminal negligence on the part of certain officials as cited by the probe and sought immediate action against them.

The sources said the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune in 2012 had clearly called the quality of TNT in the anti-tank mines as safety hazard but the OFB stated it to be a world-wide phenomenon.

The CoI had recommended disposal of defective ammunition in a time-bound manner to prevent recurrence of fire at the depot, the sources said.
Srinagar: Two militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Pulwama district of Kashmir on Sunday, police said.

Security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Tahab area of Pulwama district last night following information about presence of militants in the area, a police official said.

Police said a gunfight broke out between the two sides early on Sunday, in which two ultras were killed.

The identity and group affiliation of the slain militants was not known immediately as the search operation was still in progress, the official said.
Thiruvananthapuram: A day after an RSS worker was hacked to death in Thriuvananthapuram, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and state police chief Loknath Behera on Sunday met Governor P Sathasivam in response to a Raj Bhavan summons to ascertain the action taken by the government in the case.

A Raj Bhavan statement said the chief minister and police chief were summoned in the wake of recent incidents of violence in the state capital, including the murder of an RSS functionary on Saturday.

"Summoned chief minister and state police chief to know about action taken by state govt on law and order issues in Trivandrum," Sathasivam tweeted.

Summoned Chief minister @CMOKerala and State Police Chief to know about action taken by State govt on law and order issues in Trivandrum  Kerala Governor (@KeralaGovernor) July 30, 2017

"Chief Minister informed that culprits in murder of RSS worker in Trivandrum arrested & that lawbreakers will be sternly dealt with," he said.

Chief minister @CMOKerala informed that culprits in murder of RSS worker in Trivandrum arrested &that lawbreakers will be sternly dealt with  Kerala Governor (@KeralaGovernor) July 30, 2017

The governor said the chief minister assured that law breakers would be sternly dealt with, "irrespective of status or political affiliation".

Vijayan met the governor around 11.30 am, while the DGP met Sathasivam at 12.30 pm, the governor's office said.

The Raj Bhavan statement also said the chief minister would soon make a public appeal to maintain peace.

Vijayan also informed that he would be meeting state BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan and state RSS Chief, it said.

The governor asked the DGP to take all possible measures to book the culprits and maintain peace in the southern state.

Sathasivam also spoke to Kummanam Rajasekharan about the incident and the attack on the BJP party office in Thriuvananthapuram.

According to the statement by the Raj Bhawan, the governor also spoke to CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan to enquire about stone pelting at his son's residence in Thriuvananthapuram.

Sathasivam also had a word with Union home minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him of the situation and measures taken by the state government.

Police have so far taken six persons into custody in connection with the slaying of the RSS worker in Thriuvananthapuram even as the BJP called for a dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal on Sunday to protest the incident.

The hartal has so far been incident free.

A gang led by a history sheeter had attacked 34-year-old RSS 'karyavahak' Rajesh and hacked him to death. His left arm was chopped off and there were several injuries all over his body.
In an unprecedented move, Kerala Governor P. Sathasivam on Sunday summoned Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan to discuss the law and order situation in the state after an RSS worker was killed overnight.

Sathasivam quoted Vijayan as saying that law-breakers would be dealt with sternly and that he would meet both state BJP President Kummanam Rajasekharan and the state RSS chief and make a public appeal for peace.

The Chief Minister promised that action would be taken against law-breakers irrespective of their status and political affiliation.

The Governor said Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra also told him about the law and order situation.

Sathasivam also spoke on the phone with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, Rajasekharan and CPI-M Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan about the stone pelting at his son's house.

Meanwhile, police on Sunday arrested all the six persons who took part in the hacking of Rajesh and arrested two others who helped the six. Two men are on the run.

The six arrests took place from a rubber estate in the capital's suburbs.

Balakrishnan told reporters here that the CPI-M had no role in the RSS man's murder. Police probing the crime say this was the outcome of political and personal rivalry.
Kolkata: A Trinamool Congress leader was shot dead in South 24 Parganas district's Bhangar in West Bengal on Sunday, causing the political temperature in the region to soar again.

Panchayat leader Asikur Rahman, 48, died after being hit by a bullet on the head. "We are investigating how and why was he shot," a police officer said.

The area had been on the boil over the state government's land acquisition for a power sub-station.

While the Trinamool Congress blamed activists of a group called Jami, Jibika, Paribesh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee (Committee to Protect Land, Livelihood, Environment and Ecosystem), which has been spearheading the ongoing land agitation at Bhangar, for the killing, the Committee claimed the death was caused by Trinamool's faction fight.

The incident happened on the day when the Committee along with the Left Front leadership were to hold a rally in Bhangar demanding that the acquired land be given back to the villagers.

Stating that armed Trinamool cadres gathered in the region to disrupt their rally, the Committee claimed that Rahman was killed by a bullet fired from the gun of one of his own party men.

Refuting this, the local Trinamool leadership accused the Committee activists of spreading tension in the area and shooting Rahman.

"Rahman was a devoted TMC activist...We think he was shot by someone from the Committee," party leader Kaizar Ahmed alleged. "There is no faction fight between our party activists. The party is united."

South 24 Parganas district's Bhangar, known for its history of political violence, was on the boil during January over 'forced' acquisition of 16 acres of farmland spread over Khamarait, Machhi Bhanga, Tona and Padmapukur villages by the government for the Power Grid Corp of India Ltd (PGCIL).

Protesters fought a pitched battle with police when they tried to enter Padmapukur village. The agitators attacked the police. Two persons were shot in the clash.

Following the incident, the government officially announced the cancellation of the power grid project and said no land would be taken from the villagers if they are unwilling.
New Delhi: The Janata Dal (United) will support the Opposition vice-presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the 5 August elections notwithstanding its joining hands with the BJP.

A senior party leader said that the commitment to support Gandhi was made by party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar prior to joining hands with the BJP.

"Nitish Kumar ji had made the commitment to support Gopalkrishna Gandhi prior to joining hands with the BJP and will fulfil it. There is no going back on it and we have not changed our stand," senior party leader KC Tyagi told PTI.

The JD (United) moved out of the 'grand alliance' with the RJD and the Congress and decided to join hands with its old-time ally the BJP to form the new government in Bihar. It had split from the NDA in 2013 after a 17-year-old alliance.

Party leaders, however, say that it has to fulfil its promises made earlier. The decision of the JD-U will not alter the result of vice-president's election as the ruling NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu has a big majority in his favour and is likely to sail through easily.

On whether its lone MLA in Gujarat would support the BJP or the Congress in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, they said since he is opposed by the BJP, he is free to take his own decision.

In the wake of its own legislators switching sides and resigning after Shankarsing Vaghela quit the party, Congress heavyweight Ahmed Patel needs the support of the NCP, the JD-U and other MLAs to win the third Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat.
The sloganeering may have died down in the Not In My Name protests, but a stark motif lingers on, like a persistent battle cry. The poster for the multi-city protests, created by artist and activist Orijit Sen, appears frequently both on social media and in offline published accounts of the activism that uncoiled its pent-up rage on the streets of India on 28 June. Its primary visual  an illustration of a blood-spattered chappal, with an iron rod by its side  evokes the desolation of a street after the carnage, the moments of uncertainty after a rioting mob has retreated and all that is left of the mayhem is a piece of footwear stained with blood. It also brings to mind several agonising questions: Did the wearer of the chappal escape the riot? Did he die in its midst? Was the iron rod used to disperse the crowd or to beat the wearer of the chappal to death?

Art, when it intrudes upon the political conversations of the day like an uninvited interlocutor, becomes an engaging, and often, shocking, dissenter. It becomes the medium through which seething collective anger finds a visual vocabulary to express the type of dissent described by civil rights activist and the first African-American US Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall: We must dissent from the fear, the hatred, and the mistrust. The online poster for the Not In My Name protests is perhaps the most recent example of arts vital role as a challenger of bigotry and dogma, as the vanguard of a new order, as a non-conformist of remarkable eloquence.

A photograph by Kishor Parekh, from his series Bangladesh: A Brutal Birth, sparked-off the idea for the poster. The photograph is that of a boot on an empty street. We have become immune to images of death and violence, says Sen, of the origins of the poster. But the footwear told the story of the riot more powerfully than images of dead people. The chappal on the Not In My Name poster became Sens rendition of Parekhs photograph, and an insignia of the citizens protest. Protests are a form of public art, Sen emphasises, they operate at the same level of symbolism as performance art, and the blood-stained chappal became a strong motif of this particular movement.

Historically, protest art has found its fiercest mien during wars. In fine art, Picassos Guernica is perhaps the most rousing example of an artistic condemnation of the bombing of the Spanish village Guernica, by Nazi Germans and Fascist Italians. The mural-sized oil painting, completed in June 1937, is a monochromatic narrative that rages against the causal bombing of the village.

Mexican muralists like Diego Rivera and David Alfaro Siqueiros painted frescos in the 1920s that were vivid chronicles of the lives of Mexican peasants and Spanish conquistadores, in the wake of the Mexican Revolution. The 1960s and '70s were when pop culture influenced the artists of the milieu, in particular American artist Peter Saul, who used bright Dayglo colours and acrylics to paint his own interpretations of the Vietnam War.

Contemporary guerrilla street artists like Banksy have painted murals that decry everything from capitalism to the treatment of refugees in host countries. Banksys mural of Steve Jobs at a refugee camp in Calais addresses the deplorable condition of Syrian refugees in the French port city and elsewhere in Europe. It is a stencil of the Apple founder as a refugee, wearing his signature turtleneck, carrying the original Apple computer, and holding a black garbage sack across his shoulder. The piece is a startling reference to Jobs lineage  he was the son of a Syrian migrant who moved to the United States after World War II.

Despite the popularity of murals and the use of outdoor spaces like building facades as vast canvases, it was the poster  traditionally, printed paper with text and graphics  that was the favoured medium of announcements by advertisers, playwrights, political parties and other propagandists. Shakespeares plays were advertised on textual posters. The development of lithography as a method of creating images with oil, fat or wax on a smooth lithographic limestone plate, in 1796 by German author and actor Alois Senefelder, made the mass production and printing of posters possible. They came to represent cheaply printed samples of every artistic movement: Symbolism, Cubism, Art Nouveau and Art Deco. In recent times, hastily printed posters on walls and pillars have become the subversive, counter-establishment voice of the people, asking uncomfortable questions, refusing to couch their words or illustrations in politeness, resurfacing when torn down from public spaces.

In India, collectives of artists, writers, scholars and activists, like Sahmat  The Safdar Hashmi Memorial Trust and Committee  have used the poster to challenge the dominant discourse around political events, particularly the demolition of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya on 6 December 1992. Sahmats posters for a Sufi-Bhakti performance, titled Anhad Garje , or the silence reverberates, a phrase used by the medieval poet, Kabir, were 32 x 23 inches of silkscreen that responded to the razing of the mosque with a simple line printed at the bottom: Come to defend our secular tradition.

In 1993, Sahmat produced a series of posters, In Defence of Our Secular Tradition, which had poetry from the Sufi-Bhakt traditions accompanied by contemporary art. Lines from Bulle Shah, Kabir, Guru Amar Das were combined with images by artists like Arpita Singh, Haku Shah, Manu Parekh, Nalini Malani, Shamshad and Nilima Sheikh. In a catalogue titled: The Sahmat Collective: Art and Activism in India since 1989, curated by Jessica Moss and Ram Rahman, Ram Rahman, one of the founders of Sahmat elaborates upon why Sahmat picked the poster as the medium to disseminate its message of communal harmony: But we decided to use the poster format here with a double meaning. We used images by contemporary artists, many of whom were very well known, but whose work is relatively inaccessible to the general public, because we dont have a lot of art magazines or art books in India. We decided to combine the work of many of these artists, who had already been using themes of Sufism, in their work, with Sufi-Bhakti poems, which evoked the art and gave it a different layer of meaning.

The digitisation of technology led to the digitisation of the poster, and a proliferation of graphic art that inquired into the nature of state-orchestrated atrocities with schoolboy audacity and playfulness. Sens own work, which appears frequently on his Facebook page, is increasingly a reaction to the politics of the day. His online poster Modi Antoinette has the Prime Ministers face superimposed on a portrait of famed lavish spender and the last queen of France before the French Revolution, Marie Antoinette. A speech blurb emanating from Narendra Modis head states, If they dont have Paper, let them use Plastic! A satirical comment on recent demonetisation measures that also brings to mind a remark frequently attributed to Marie Antoinette, who, upon being told that her peasant subjects had no bread to eat, allegedly said, Let them eat cake.

Contemporary cartoonists, particularly those from Kashmir, also have prominent online profiles, apart from day jobs at newspapers that print their work. The cartoons of Suhail Naqshbandi, who works for the Kashmir daily Greater Kashmir, are popular on social media for their scornful and sometimes (unavoidably) melancholic reflection of the unrest in Kashmir. Theres one in which a Kashmiri man is shown holding up an intravenous drip, attached to the arm of presumably a dying son. This part of the sketch is titled Fact. Adjoining it, in a section titled Fiction, a TV grab shows the same Kashmiri, with his arm raised. The IV drip is cut off from the screen, and the words Stone pelter, Terrorist appear on the scroll below the image of the Kashmiri. A scathing observation of how the media projects the people of Kashmir to the world. Yet another sketch is of chief minister Mehbooba Mufti ushering a group of children, whose eyes are bandaged as they have been blinded by pellets, towards a dark future. The cartoon is titled Unpelletable truth.

Naqshbandi, who started working as a political cartoonist in 1998, remarks that he usually picks a theme or subject that is challenging to visualise or draw. My sketches force people to think about Kashmir in different ways, and maybe, find a solution to its problems, he says of his work. He does hint at attempts to muffle his voice. There are some unspoken rules that I have to follow. I cant directly show authority figures in a bad light, but I can, in indirect ways, present sensitive issues with wit, he admits.

Mir Suhail, a 28-year-old political cartoonist from Kashmir, also faces a predicament similar to that of Naqshbandi. On 9 February, one of Suhails cartons was removed by Facebook, for violating community standards. The cartoon depicted roots growing from the grave of Afzal Guru, who was hanged in 2013, joining under the soil with the roots of a tree labelled Kashmir.

Suhail, who grew up in Kawdara, Srinagar, recalls how, as a child, he was not allowed to play with a toy gun gifted to him by an uncle, for fear of arrest and torture by the police. That sense of insecurity; the reality of death looming close-by stayed with me, and influenced my cartoons, he reveals. Apart from cartoons, Suhail has also digitally altered famous paintings, photographs and posters, to depict the pain and disfigurement caused by being hit by a pellet. For instance, he has placed a bandage on one eye of the Mona Lisa painting and on a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi. He has also altered the iconic Kashmir ki Kali poster, by bandaging the eyes of a bleeding Sharmila Tagore, and altering Shammi Kapoors expression to one of shock.

Despite the constant fear of being thwarted and persecuted, artists continue to create silent emblems of rebellion against the state. For, one can muzzle a people, but who can gag bold strokes of ink on paper that articulate an incoherent rage?
The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didnt exist.  Kevin Spacey, The Usual Suspects

In part one of this essay, I mentioned how I quit my job selling chai in Bengaluru to unravel the grand story of what could be called Indias fifth most populous religion: Engineering. In this concluding part, I tell you about my biggest finding: Indias deadliest terrorist organisation that has deviously missed the attention of every government over the years.

In the last four years, a combined total of 1,524 civilians and security force personnel have lost their lives to terror related activities at an average of roughly one fatality per day. What if I told you, there is an organisation that has been responsible for killing 20 unsuspecting teenagers out of sheer terror every day and is not even a recognised terror outfit? Let me acquaint you with the calamity that is the Indian education system.

The country that takes pride in its sophisticated ancient civilisation is today perhaps the biggest human resource tragedy on planet. A student commits suicide every hour mostly due to academic pressure. Twenty-five percent of public school teachers are absent on any given day and among those present, only half indulge in teaching related activities. Half of our Class V kids cant read or write text from Class II. These kids will grow up to vote or worse, contest elections. A natural question to invoke is, how do we fix this? The answer is simple: There is no fix or at least we are a decade or two late in trying to fix this mess. To understand the rationale behind this seemingly bizarre assertion, let us allow Sugata Mitra, the winner of TED prize in 2013, to explain the origin of our schools.

The schooling system as it is today goes back to 400 years of an empires colonisation and this empire needed three kinds of people: Soldiers to protect their land interest, clerks to run their offices and, after the industrial revolution, assembly line workers to make things. So for 400 years we produced millions and millions of people like them and what are the properties of those people? They should be able to understand instructions, follow them and most importantly, they should not ask questions and they should not be creative. Imagine if an assembly line worker started being creative!

To produce millions of such people, what the empire basically needed was a system that kind of worked like a factory. You take raw materials, subject all of them to exactly the same processes and conditions and finally test them. The finished products that clear the test are ready to be sold and the remaining products are simply passed off as defects. The empire managed to build such a system and a very efficient one that: The schooling system.

So, if you belong to Batch 2011 or "Batch 1985 depending on when you graduated, you are only acknowledging that you are a proud factory product.

You can only fix something that is broken. Our education system is not only broken but also obsolete. There is no point fixing it. We need to re-imagine an entirely new system. Let me tell you why. As we lose our collective mind over chat show gossip in India, in the not-so-secret corridors of the world, Artificial Intelligence is slowly preparing to render humans useless by taking away our jobs. Its being called the Fourth Industrial Revolution and Professor Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum thinks it could be a time of greater promise or greater peril. What may sound like a dystopian science fiction future, in fact has its grips firm in todays reality.

Look at your own life. Web or app based algorithms have replaced traditional matchmaking aunts to help you custom find a partner (my favourite matrimony portal is one which is solely dedicated to graduates of IITs and IIMs to help hook up their tribe). Some thinkers of the west believe that with no jobs, only drugs and video games can keep humans happy in the future. Now, why should we Indians worry about something that clearly comes across a first world problem, right? Cant we go back to dealing with pressing issues like a stand-up comedians Snapchat story? The World Bank chief cautions otherwise and reckons automation is likely to wipe off 2/3rd of all jobs in developing countries. India particularly stands to lose 68 percent of her jobs. In its 36th annual general meeting, IT giant Infosys admitted to releasing 11,000 jobs due to automation.

Humans have a compulsive urge to add meaning to life when there is possibly none. The current meaning weve added to our lives is to get up in the morning, go to work, contribute to the economy, pay bills, and eventually die. In a wicked joke, robots are going to render this meaning obsolete. Half of India is below 25 years of age. Thats 600 million people with raging hormones who stand a risk of getting up every morning and having nothing to do: with or without a degree. If you are a young Indian reading this, I want you to sleep very scared tonight and have nightmares of robots. If you are willing to rise, what is today a deadly terrorist outfit can be transformed into an army to combat the rise of machines.

The author can be reached at adhi@adhi.in
Walter Benjamin prophesied that mans self-alienation would at one point rise to a degree where he would consume his own destruction as aesthetic pleasure. There is little doubt, that a majority of our Art is created by people who alienate themselves and in turn, trying to interpret what shape or colour this negotiation between life and its purpose should take.

In a sense, Art is in no way devoid of a story, however plain or flat it may seem to the eye. It can at times struggle to find a language. But the clearest sign that a language does exist can be found in its disagreement with another. A mix of artists, some masters and some lesser known, together under one roof exemplifies that we need not necessarily read Art through a homogenous, universal language. Akar Prakars Synchrome  Masters is evidence, and it brings together some of the most well known Indian artists alongside some who should be.

Synchrome works like an aesthetic ambush of force. It is perhaps a visual oration of Descartes philosophy of each entity entitled to a unique agency. Here in this exhibition, there are plenty. Nikhil Biswas On Defeat (1965), shows a lone chariot dwarfed by the instrumental forces of nature, of mountains, of figs and trees, the sheer resplendence of colour. Biswas water colours attenuate the motion of the chariot by relaying all movement, with abandon, to nature. While the colours evoke freshness, perhaps the arrival of a lively, fertile season, the chariot becomes the anchor of our reading that must point to lifes many ironies.

Departing from context, Bikash Bhattacharjee channels Salvador Dali in Woman (1961). Odd, fiercely rhetoric and some would say, distinctly unpleasing, Woman is a bizarre play on shape that purveys grotesqueness as an aesthetic in itself. This mangled, morbid figure can be our view into uncivil histories like the holocaust or a clever critique of the cosmopolitanism taking over the cities, and most evidently the human form. Coming from the '60s it is perhaps reflective of a modern shift, both in our culture and living.

In contrast Paritosh Sens untitled painting from 1992 depicts a nude woman, relieved in the company of a cold shower, the hidden joys perhaps of letting go. There is general progress here, both in our response to the period and the cultural decay of the country. In Bhattacharjees work there is a prima donnish exuberance that manifests as queer and horror. Almost 30 years on, in Sens painting, all that is left is cold, naked, yet personal refuge.

Synchrome brings together a host of the masters that we have come to adore, and are still trying to grasp. From Nandalal Boses bold sketches to Souzas minimalist nudes, to the utterly mysterious Gaitonde, there is a splash across the landscape of both the heavy and trusted hand. To stretch things, literally, to another dimension there are also sculptures by the likes of Himmat Shah and Meera Mukherjee. Shah is unique in every sense of the word. His bronze statues have always been tethered to the idea of vertical journeys. Here it is similar and represents, perhaps, the chaos of that upward movement.

For viewers who connect with the manipulation of light and colour from everyday life, Ganesh Haloi and Gopal Ghose embody the seamless transition into frame of things that though ordinary, give humanity its waking pledge (defending nature)  by leaving it out. For those in search of the eccentric, the ink and brush works of Jagdish Swaminathan would be a start. Swaminathan dissects, as if from the inside, a grotesque bird or animal. Here he perhaps inverts the quasi-optimism of a distanced view to the microscopic study of organisms that reveals something else. Is this his view of hell? That things arent what they seem from a distance. In contrast, perhaps, K G Subramanyan looks from considerable distance at an ailing woman, a picture of contemplation, perhaps re-evaluating her trust in her own faith. While Swaminathan remains abreast of context, Subramanyan talks with it.

Synchrome does not arrive without its challenges. While figurative energy (bodies of people and animals) lurks throughout the exhibition, and can be easily related to, there are a fair number of knee-twisting intervals that demand your attention. While some artists accentuate our interest in everything inhuman, others find a way of dissecting it through language that can be demanding. SH Raza, who only passed away in 2016, for example, deals largely with states (emotional and mental), to which his paintings usually point, while in the hands of someone like Gaitonde, these states are continually under transaction and at the mercy of a larger flux. Then there is the direct, almost digital-era, critique of Dharmanarayan Dasgupta who paints through a societal scope, at each point underlining the brutality of our choices, that only manifest when we face consequences.

In all, Synchrome, is both challenging and engaging. It may frustrate at times, because it asks a lot of the minds reset button. But there is a renewed sense of discovery at every turn. Even if you consider yourself lost after a point, youd have made it to the other side.
Lucknow: The victory in Uttar Pradesh Assembly elections was the result of hard work of BJP workers and the government's aim is to take welfare-centric measures of the Centre to the people, which had been stagnated in the previous regimes, party president Amit Shah said on. Shah made the remarks while addressing the ministers of the UP government in Lucknow.

At the meeting of the government and organisation held at the Uttar Pradesh BJP office, it was pledged that various welfare-centric measures of the Centre and state government will be taken to the doorstep of the public, an official statement issued by the party said.

"The government is working to verify the BPL cards and this work has largely been completed. This will help in providing government ration to the deserving and actual beneficiaries. The government is committed for the betterment of people of Uttar Pradesh. The ministers in the government are also contributing in this regard," Shah said, according to the statement.

At the meeting, a roadmap was also prepared for fulfilling the promises mentioned in the 'Sankalp Patra' (manifesto) at the earliest.

Uttar Pradesh chief minister Yogi Adityanath said, "Ministers have been made in-charge for various districts, and assigned with the responsibility of carrying out developmental activities in the district. This will also help in review of various schemes."
As the BJP swiftly picks up state after state, the Congress response has been fear and panic.

Bihar slipped away from the Congress despite having, according to Rahul Gandhi, prior knowledge of Nitish Kumar's defection. If they knew, why were they helpless? It is difficult to understand.

Goa went similarly and though Congress was better placed there, having won more seats, it waited to form the government. And waiting while facing a party with the talent, energy and hunger of the BJP was a fatal error.

In Gujarat, the exit of Shankarsinh Vaghela has triggered another round of chaos: Six Congress MLAs have quit, jeopardising Ahmed Patel's Rajya Sabha election.

As the BJP swiftly picks up state after state, the Congress response has been fear and panic.

The party response has been to suspect all its remaining MLAs and send them to Karnataka, one of the few states it controls. The strange thing is that Gujarat is a state where the BJP has performed really poorly, according to Gujaratis and it is the BJP that should be concerned about losing its popularity.

In the last couple of years, Gujarat has seen the following major agitations under which lakhs of people have been mobilised: The Patidar agitation for reservations led by Hardik Patel, the counter agitation of OBC Kshatriyas led by Alpesh Thakor, the Dalit revolt after the Una episode led by Jignesh Mewani, the anguish of diamond merchants and textile workers after demonetisation and rallies by lakhs of traders in Surat after the imposition of GST.

Though these issues have been the direct result of BJP policies, all these agitations have happened without Congress leadership. They have thrown up new leaders such as the three young men above, or they have been leaderless. This shows that the Congress has forgotten how to mobilise people on political issues. This is strange because some of Gandhi's most successful agitations, like the Bardoli Satyagraha, were in Gujarat.

The Congress party in Gujarat has consistently got over 30 percent of the vote. However it cannot get that extra three or four percentage points that is the crucial difference between victory and defeat. And that can happen if it is able to capitalise on one of the issues by mobilising people around it. Its inability to mobilise despite all the agitations is the reason the Gujarat BJP remains comfortable.

The BJP is thought to be invincible but no party can be in democratic politics. In Karnataka, the BJP is actually on the defensive. The wily Congress chief minister Siddaramaiah has used Indian-style political tactics to keep the Hindutva party busy. He is using an anti-Hindi agitation in Bangalore, a subject on which BJP is vulnerable because of the RSS preference for Hindi. The local BJP must stay silent or suffer damage.

The other issue is that of the Lingayat community's internal demand that it be treated as a separate religion outside Hinduism. Siddaramaiah has offered to send a recommendation of separation of the faith to the Centre, if the Lingayats want him to. This seemingly innocent offer has set the cat among the pigeons. The problem the BJP faces is that the community strongly backs the BJP (party leader BS Yeddyurappa is a Lingayat) but the BJP-RSS will not give Lingayat separatism legitimacy. Once again, the BJP must remain silent or suffer damage.

Siddaramaiah has also disarmed the BJP's nationalism by turning the focus to sub-nationalism: A flag for Karnataka. All of this tells us that it is possible for Congress, and other parties, to offer a political challenge to the BJP.

How can political parties in India mobilise their supporters in a time of trouble? The Congress might be about to receive a lesson from one of India's sharpest politicians. Bahujan Samaj Party supremo Mayawati has resigned from the Rajya Sabha after claiming she was not allowed to speak. Whether her anger is real or not, the action is deliberate. She will go to the ground and try to build back the support she lost.

According to those who follow local politics, the BJP succeeded in breaking up the unified Dalit identity into jatis and sub-castes and pursuing Dalit groups Mayawati ignored. Her party has been getting about 20 to 25 percent of the vote in Uttar Pradesh.

In a multiple cornered fight so long as all parties were in that zone she had a reasonable chance of victory. But Amit Shah's superb ability to build caste alliances has given the BJP overwhelming numbers that neither the Samajwadi Party (which is stuck at 29 percent of the vote) nor the BSP can match.

The only way to change that is to mobilise people. Mayawati knows that. The Congress, after this moment of panic has passed, should take a deep breath and think about how to go forward.
Shimla: The BJP on Saturday launched an attack on the Congress government in Himachal Pradesh for a spurt in heinous crimes and the "virtual collapse" of law-and-order in the state and alleged that political interference and the "government giving protection" to criminals were responsible for the situation.

"There is no government worth its name in the state. Mafias and anti-social elements are active and crimes like rape and murder have shot up in the recent past due to the careless attitude and eroded credibility of the police," a resolution adopted at a meeting of the BJP state executive said.

Talking about the resolution, former chief minister and Kangra MP Shanta Kumar said heinous crimes, like the Kotkhai rape-and-murder case, had not only put a question mark on the credibility and fairness of the state police, but also soiled the image of the state, known as the 'Dev Bhoomi' (The Land of the Gods). He said two years ago, the World Bank had lauded Himachal Pradesh for its pace of development, but the Gudiya case and other crimes had "shamed" the state and it would take a considerable time to "erase the stigma".

Asking Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh to quit on moral grounds in the wake of corruption cases against him and his "utter failure" as far as governance was concerned, Kumar said if he did not resign, the people would show him the door in the state Assembly polls, due later this year.

Expressing surprise over the silence of the Congress high-command on the corruption cases against Singh, who is on bail and frequently visiting Delhi in connection with the cases, the BJP leader said it appeared that there was neither any "high" nor "command" as the party's top leadership was also "out on bail in the National Herald case".

Meanwhile, Mangal Pandey, the BJP in-charge for Himachal Pradesh, who was here for the three-day meeting of the party's state executive, left for Patna after he was informed that he had been inducted into Nitish Kumar's cabinet in Bihar.

Before leaving, Pandey said Bihar had been rid of the "mafias, corrupt politicians and those amassing benami properties" and the "unnatural alliance" between the JD(U) and RJD had died a "natural death".
New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday asked the BJP to make its stand clear on the remarks by its ally and Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti that "you cannot imprison an idea", seen in the context of the arrest of separatist leaders in the Valley.

The Congress also attacked the BJP-PDP government in the state over the deteriorating situation, saying it has "failed at

every level".

Mehbooba had on Saturday said, "You cannot imprison an idea, you cannot kill an idea". This is being seen as her comment on the arrest of the separatist leaders.

"The BJP has a lot of answering to do. They have joined hands with PDP. Now it's their own alliance partner. Where does the BJP stand now?" said Pawan Khera, one of the Congress's spokespersons.

The National Investigation Agency (NIA) since last week has arrested seven Kashmiri separatist leaders in connection with its probe into the funding of terror and subversive activities in the Kashmir Valley.

Last week, the Enforcement Directorate also arrested separatist leader Shabir Shah in connection with a decade-old money laundering case against him for alleged terror financing.

Holding Pakistan responsible for the unrest in the Valley, Khera said political failure is also partly the reason behind the ongoing crisis in the state.

The Valley has witnessed rising violence and stone-pelting recently, especially after Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani was killed by security forces last year.
Bengaluru: The Congress on Sunday said it would parade its all legislators from Gujarat before the media this evening in an effort to put to rest all speculation, including internal bickering in the party, as charged by BJP.

The party has sent 44 of its legislators to a resort outside this city. Of the 57 Congress MLAs in Gujarat, six resigned from the party in the last two days. Three of them joined the BJP on Saturday.

"Democracy is passing through trying times. I would request media owners, channels and newspapers to save democracy. This responsibility lies with them too. We will bring all the legislators before you (media) and you can ask anything you want," AICC spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil told reporters at Eagleton Gold Resort at the city's outskirts.

"I am here since last night with my colleagues. We are living like a family. You (BJP) are talking about internal problem? Just see how we respect each other. There is no internal problem or bickerings between us," he said.

Gohil was reacting to Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani's charges of internal problems in Congress triggered by the quitting of its leaders, including Shankarsinh Vaghela and Balwantsinh Rajput.

"They have taken their MLAs to Bangaluru as they do not have faith in their MLAs," Rupani had said.

The Congress had sent the 44 legislators to the resort to fend off "poaching" attempts by BJP ahead of 8 August Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat.

Gohil claimed that Congress has 60 legislators with it and ruled out BJP winning the third Rajya Sabha seat, polls for which are scheduled on 8 August in Gujarat.

"The question is BJP does not have any number. Congress has 57 legislators therefore BJP cannot even dream of winning the third seat. There are three other colleagues also  we are now 60," he said.

Congress has re-nominated Patel, political secretary to party chief Sonia Gandhi, to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.

In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, the strength of the Congress has gone down to 51 from 57.

The desertions have cast a shadow on the fate of Patel in the coming Rajya Sabha polls.

Countering criticism of bringing the legislators to the resot to Bengaluru when North Gujarat is reeling under heavy rain and floods, Gohil said the MLAs were brought here after party leaders came to know about BJP's attempt to poach their MLAs using "money and muscle" power.

However, on 25 July, all Congress legislators had visited their constituencies in North Gujarat to be among the affected people, he said.

BJP has fielded party president Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and former Congress MLA Balwantsinh Rajput who joined the BJP on Thursday.

Of the total of 11 RS members from the state, the term of three Smriti Irani and Dilipbhai Pandya (both BJP) and Ahmed Patel  will end on 18 August .
For that day we all must labour,

Though we die before it break;

Cows and horses, geese and turkeys,

All must toil for freedoms sake

So sang Major, the old boar, in George Orwells Animal Farm. Cows, hens, sheep, horses, donkeys and cats heard him in delight. Orwell writes: The cows lowed it, the dogs whined it, the sheep bleated it, the horses whinnied it, the ducks quacked it. Then they prepared to fight for freedom.

And when the animals trounced the humans who attacked them later, they sang the same song to celebrate their victory in what they called the Battle of the Cowshed.

The sordid story of the Congress herding its Gujarat MLAs to Bengaluru on Friday and virtually locking them in a resort to keep them safe from poachers in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections reminds me of the two delightful scenes from Orwells novella.

Make no mistake, MLAs are elected representatives of people and honourable individuals who must be treated with respect. They are not chattel to be collared and corralled in safe hideouts when a Rajya Sabha election or a no-confidence motion is around the corner. Why must party leaders conduct themselves like the nervous farmer who counts his sheep and locks them in a barn when he hears the distant growl of a prowling tiger?

Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani is bragging about his partys concern for people suffering from floods in his state and mocking Congress MLAs relaxing in Karnataka resorts.

Unfortunately, our friends in the Congress are insensitive about peoples suffering. They are instead relaxing in resorts in Karnataka.  Vijay Rupani (@vijayrupanibjp) July 29, 2017



Nobody should be fooled by this display of injured innocence by Rupani and his colleagues. In Karnataka, the BJP has a history of treating its own legislators the way erstwhile KGB stashed suspected spies and alleged criminals in fortress-like dachas where copious vodkas flowed at the cost of freedom.

So its not just the Congress. Other parties too have been treating their legislators with utter contempt and with a venality that brings to our mind visions of animal fairs and auctions.

But unlike Orwells creatures, our MLAs have had no luck in unshackling themselves from the chains of their leaders. At the slightest fear that rivals will lure them away with offers of cash and kind, party leaders ship their flock to faraway resorts and escort them back to the floor of the House just in time to vote not how MLAs want to but how their masters want them to.

Bengaluru excels in resort politics

Long before Bengaluru earned the fame of being Indias pub capital and IT hub, it became notorious for turning into an epicentre of resort politics.

My first experience with cattle class politics came in October 1983, when Indira Gandhi decided to topple the Janata Party government of Ramakrishna Hegde in Karnataka by enticing his MLAs with power and pelf. Hegde alleged at the time that the Congress (I) was offering Rs 10 to Rs 25 lakh to each MLA. (The rupee had more value then.) What he didnt say was that he had concealed them in all sorts of places to protect them from Congress vultures. I remember trying to track down the "missing" MLAs but with little success.

Professing to practise value-based politics, Hegde attached a certain value to each of his MLAs, took care of them pretty well and ultimately saved his government.

With valuable experience thus gained, Hegde offered his MLA-protection services next year to NT Rama Rao whose Telugu Desam government in Andhra Pradesh was threatened by an intra-party revolt. Desam's MLAs were brought to the Karnataka capital and kept in protective custody of the workers of Janata Party and its ally BJP. This time, there was no need for reporters to chase them. We knew where they were lodged.

I found that Desam MLAs were being treated to plenty of malt whiskey and mutton biryani and whatever else they wished to quench their thirst and satisfy their palates with but were denied the freedom to use the telephone to talk to their near and dear ones. Not all the MLAs looked cheerful. It was tough to say how many of them were there on their own free will and how many had been kidnapped, as Raos rivals in Hyderabad alleged.

Questions have often been asked not only about the way party leaders treat their MLAs as sub-human species, committing offenses ranging from kidnapping to illegal confinement but also about the political hygiene of legislators themselves.

Or is it the case that our legislators are mere weathervanes in human flesh, willing to bend in whichever way the political winds blow? Or are they men and women with negotiable loyalties, so vulnerable to offers of money and posts that they need to be quarantined? Your mileage may vary on that one but there's enough blame to go around.

Meanwhile, as Tennyson might have said, parties and governments may come and go, but resort politics go on forever. In 2002, Maharashtras ruling Democratic Front flew about 40 MLAs, including three ministers to Bengaluru by a special aircraft to save the Vilasrao Deshmukh government from a no-confidence motion and lodged them in a plush spa on the outskirts of the cit.

In October 2010, when Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa faced a trust-vote, both the BJP and the Opposition Janata Dal (Secular) hid their respective supporters in five-star luxury. A year later, when Yeddyurappa had to resign over mining and land scams, rival factions contending for the leadership shepherded their supporters into the safety of resorts. In the case of the Hegde government in 1983 and the BJP government in 2010, audio tapes were produced to support allegations of horse-trading but nothing came from the evidence.

Before the ongoing Gujarat drama, the most recent case was that of VK Sasikala who, on 8 February, kept her AIADMK MLAs under virtual house arrest at a swank Chennai beach resort to stop them from being poached by the Panneerselvam camp.

A cash-for-votes scam is difficult to prove. But resort politics  its political face  isn't. Perhaps it's time to think of a way to make it mandatory for a speaker to postpone voting when credible reports of legislators being whisked away to hideouts emerge.

Author tweets @sprasadindia
The Gujarat Congress addressed the media on Sunday, parading its 44 MLAs from the state, in an attempt to put an end to speculations about internal rifts within the party.

While addressing the media at Eagleton Resort in Bengaluru, Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil urged the media to "save democracy".

He also blamed the BJP of using CBI and Enforcement Directorate to target MLAs from their party.

I request media to support us. Gujarat is not safe.We all know.Even media cannot write what they want.Pl support democracy, not dictatorship https://t.co/cVkuA2MjaJ  Shaktisinh Gohil (@shaktisinhgohil) July 30, 2017

"BJP is using CBI and ED to target Congress MLAs. BJP threatened our families back in Gujarat, and that is why we came to Bengaluru of our own accord," he said during the meeting, He further blamed BJP of bidding Rs 1,500 crore as bribe money and claimed that the party had tried to "buy" MLAs from the Congress ahead of the Rajya Sabha election.

Ask these MLAs the way they are threatened, they chose to stand by party even when offered Rs 15 crore: Shaktisinh Gohil,Senior Congress MLA  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

Meanwhile, BJP protested against the Congress MLAs in Bengaluru and said that while flood was wrecking havoc in Gujarat, the legislators were sitting in a resort far away.

Bengaluru: BJP protest against Gujarat Congress MLAs, say Congress MLAs are in a Bengaluru resort even as floods wreak havoc in the state. pic.twitter.com/nXWMXmcr25  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

Countering this, Gohil said the MLAs were brought to the southern state after party leaders learnt about BJP's attempt to poach their MLAs using "money and muscle" power. He added that the legislators would be shifted back if there were no threats from the BJP.

Have required numbers. Theres no need for us to stay here(Bengaluru) for even a minute if they say they won't threaten:Shaktisinh Gohil,Cong pic.twitter.com/5VOLlI7eWw  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

In the run up to Assembly polls, which are due in Gujarat later this year, Congress' main leaders Shankarsinh Vaghela and Balwantsinh Rajput left the party, creating a power vacuum. Gujarat chief minister Vijay Rupani then claimed the Congress was suffering from "internal rifts". The party would also rue their loss ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections, due on 8 August.

But Gohil said the party was confident of winning the Rajya Sabha elections. He further claimed that the party has 60 legislators with it and ruled out BJP winning the third Rajya Sabha seat from Gujarat, polls for which are scheduled on 8 August.

"The BJP does not have the numbers. Congress has 57 legislators, and BJP cannot even dream of winning the third seat. There are three other colleagues also  we are now 60," he said.

With inpus from PTI
Bhubaneswar: Union Tribal Affairs Minister Jual Oram on Sunday said he was ready to step down if the allegations of discrepancies in poll expenditure statement levelled by the Biju Janata Dal (BJD) were found to be true.

Oram said Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik must resign first as the preliminary investigation against him proved that he had filed false poll affidavit during the 2014 elections.

"I am prepared to face any probe. The allegations levelled by the BJD are politically motivated. If the allegations are found true, then I would step down as a minister," Oram said in a statement.

The Minister said the Odisha ruling party was trying to mislead the people after discrepancies were found in their poll expenditure details.

Notably, the BJD on Saturday showed documents claiming that Oram furnished a false affidavit to the Election Commission of India. The party alleged that there was a mismatch in the poll expenditure details.

The BJD claimed that Jual Oram, the Lok Sabha member from Sundargarh, the lone BJP MP from Odisha has misrepresented facts in his election expenditure statement submitted to the Election Commission after 2014 polls.

The party also threatened to move the Election Commission to seek action against the Union tribal affairs minister.
Acts of political violence involving cadres of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) outside Kannur district of Kerala were considered exceptions rather than a rule as in the northern district, where internecine killings have become the order of the day.

But the situation is fast changing with several other places emerging as hotspots of political violence in the last two years. The state capital of Thiruvananthapuram is closely following Kannur if the recent incidents of violence involving the cadres of both the outfits are any indication.

While the political murders in Kannur are explained away as part of a long tradition of revenge killings, which have been glorified in local lore, the rationale behind the political rivalry in Thiruvananthapuram where the BJP won its first seat in the state legislature in its six-decades-old history in the 2016 elections, is still to be understood.

A section of political observers feel that the spectre of violence haunting the state capital in the last couple of years may have strong connections with power politics. Noted political analyst NN Pearson told the Firstpost that the recent clashes could be the result of attempts by the Sangh Parivar to extend their foot print in the district and that of the CPM to counter it.

BJP Thiruvananthapuram district president S Suresh said that the casualties in their side showed that the CPM was the main culprit behind the violent incidents in the district. He told the Firstpost that they had lost three men and scores injured in the political clashes since the Assembly polls.

The latest to fall prey to the violence is E Rajesh (34), a key RSS functionary in the Sreekaryam area of the capital city. Suresh alleged that he was hacked to death by a gang led by Manikuttan, a CPM worker whose name figured in the goonda list of Kerala police.

He said that five men detained by the police in connection with the brutal murders were members of either CPI (M) or its youth or trade union wings. Suresh said that the attack on Rajesh was hatched as part of an operation being carried out by CPI (M) district secretary Anavoor Nagappan and former legislator V Sivankutty to prevent the march of the BJP in the district.

Nagappan has denied the charge. The CPM district secretary claimed that neither the party nor its members had anything with the murder. He said that the murder was the result of disputes over some local issues. The police, who have launched a high-level investigation into the case, are yet to confirm the motive behind the murder.

The BJP district president termed Rajesh as a victim of CPMs politics of violence. He said that the CPM was using muscle power as it was not able to counter the BJP politically. The party is afraid of the BJP growth in the district, he added.

The CPM has been targeting us since the local body polls, in which we won 33 seats in the 100-member city corporation and became the main opposition. There have been over 160 clashes since then. Many of our councillors, party offices and homes of party men were attacked. Our party headquarters were attacked twice, Suresh said.

In fact, the murder of Rajesh came two days after the BJP state committee office came under the second attack. The attack on Friday followed a series of clashes involving the cadres of the two parties in different parts of Thiruvananthapuram for two days.

Members of both parties vandalised party offices and homes, and damaged vehicles belonging to opponents. The house of Bineesh Kodiyeri, son of the CPM state secretary, was among those that came under the attack unleashed by the RSS.

The chain of violence started after students belonging to BJPs student wing, the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), damaged a flag hoisted at MG College in the city by the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student wing of CPM, as part of their attempt to end the hegemony of the Sangh Parivar at the college.

The SFI tried to breach the ABVP control over MG College after the latter made a similar move at the University College, which is dominated by the CPM students' union. Both ABVP and the SFI do not allow other students unions to enter the respective colleges controlled by them.

CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan said that the violence was triggered by the BJP after various corruption scams, including medical college admission scams, involving party leaders came to light. He alleged that BJP had launched the attacks to divert the attention of the media and the people from the scams, which have tarnished Narendra Modi governments anti-corruption image.

Political observers like Pearson do not rule out the possibility since they feel that all political parties in the state were in mad race for power. Pearson said that these parties were ready to do anything for the sake of power.

There is no politics in the politics practiced by the current crop of political parties. They believe in combating their rivals physically rather than ideologically. This is why political violence is spreading in the state. Every party have their gang of goondas, who are ready to do anything for the sake of money, he added.

Pearson said that the attempt by the parties to end the political killings in Kannur have not been succeeding because the goondas nurtured by the parties had gone out of their control. This is happening in other places, including Thiruvananthapuram, too.

If this goes unchecked politics in Kerala will fall in the hands of goondas. This is a very sad thing for the politically enlightened people of Kerala. I think they will rise against this and show the political parties their places, said Pearson.

BRP Bhaskar, a senior journalist based at Thiruvananthapuram, believes that political violence was spreading in Kerala because the hit men in both camps might be feeling emboldened by the fact that their leaders are now ruling parties, one at the Centre and the other in the state.

According to a report in India Today, over 400 cases of political violence were reported from Kannur, which is the epi-centre of political violence in Kerala, since the assumption of power by the CPM-led Left Democratic Front in May 2016.

The report said that the incidents of political violence had seen an increase of about 30 percent in over the last three years. More than 600 CPM workers, nearly 300 RSS-BJP activists and over 50 Congress members are reported to have been arrested in the cases of violence.
Calling the Goods and Services Tax (GST) an unprecedented feat in India's economic history, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his 34th Mann ki baat address on Sunday said that the implementation of the new indirect tax system has brought positive changes in the economy.

Lauding all stakeholders including citizens, government officials and state governments for the smooth transition to GST, Modi said, "I extend my heartiest felicitations to each & every ministry, every dept. and all employees of central and state governments."

"GST is more than just a tax reform as it also ushers in a new culture. GST rollout is an example of cooperative federalism as states are partners in the decision making process," Modi added while talking about the benefits of the tax system which came into effect on 1 July.

The prime minister added that the successful implementation of the GST will be studied by top economists of the world one day, claiming that the implementation of such a tax regime in a vast country like India is testimony to its success story.

"GST is a fine example of the collective strength of the people of India. This is a historic achievement as it will not usher in economic prosperity but also effect change in India's social fabric," Modi said. Modi said that he received letters from the countrymen and felt "very happy and satisfied when a poor person writes to say how because of GST prices of various items essential for him have come down, and commodities have become cheaper".

From the topic of GST, Modi then switched to the upcoming 75th anniversary of the Quit India movement and India's 70th year of independence.

Praising India's freedom fighters for their sacrifice during the independence movement, Modi called August a "revolutionary month".

"My dear countrymen, the month of August is the month of revolution. There are many events in the month of August that are closely associated with the history of our freedom movement. Heroes of freedom struggle endured hardship, made great sacrifices and laid down their lives," Modi said.

Urging youngsters to learn more about the freedom movement, especially the Quit India and Non-Cooperation Movement, the prime minister announced that the government will come out with a Quit India Quiz to educate the youth about India's freedom movement.

Modi said that just as the freedom fighters took the pledge to drive out the British in 1942, Indians on 15 August, 2017, should resolve to transform India by 2022, when India celebrates its 75th year of independence. "Just as the five years from 1942 to 1947 were decisive for the country's independence, these five years from 2017 to 2022 can and must play a decisive role for the future of India," Modi said and continued, "In 2022, marking 75 years of freedom, we will certainly transform that resolve into siddhi or attainment," Modi said. Modi identified communalism, casteism, corruption, terrorism, poverty and dirt as major problems plaguing India and asked people to work for their removal in the same spirit of "Quit India". "Filth - Quit India; Poverty - Quit India; Corruption - Quit India; Terrorism - Quit India; Casteism - Quit India; Communalism - Quit India," Modi said.

We should celebrate 15th August 2017 as the Sankalp Parva or the Day of Resolve. #PMonAIR #MannKiBaat (File Pic) pic.twitter.com/XCHhCeCmdS  All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) July 30, 2017

I can see that 2017 to 2022 presents itself as a new time segment of five years for attainment through resolve. #PMonAIR #MannKiBaat  All India Radio News (@airnewsalerts) July 30, 2017

Interestingly, Modi said that he has heard about "complaints" that his previous Independence Day addresses were long and that he will try to keep it short this time. "I will try to finish it in 40-45-50 minutes. I have tried to make a rule for myself. I don't know whether I will be able to do it or not," he added.

Modi also addressed the nation on the floods in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam and other parts of India. Modi reiterated how several agencies and volunteers have been contributing to allay the distress.

"During the floods governmental agencies, Indian Army, National Disaster Response Force, paramilitary forces, everyone gets down to help others", Modi said during his radio address, which is broadcast on the last Sunday of every month.

Modi also said the farmers are primary flood victims and that his government is endeavouring to get them the compensation speedily in case of crop loss through insurance. Modi also added that because of technological advancement, weather can be predicted with near-perfect accuracy now.

Modi spoke about Indian women's cricket team for reaching the final of the World Cup and said, "Our daughters are bringing laurels to the country in all the fields  be it education, economic activities, social spheres or in sports".

"Our daughters performed brilliantly in the Women's Cricket World Cup. This week I had the opportunity to meet our daughters, the members of our Women's Cricket team. I felt happy talking to them, but I had a feeling that they felt burdened by the fact that they could not win the World Cup."

Modi said he urged them to look at the way India supported them and take pride in their accomplishment. "Look, this is the age of the media. So expectations get hyped up to such an extent that if corresponding success is not achieved, these turn into despair and even resentment. We have seen during many such events where if the Indian players fail, the anger of the country is vented towards the players."

The prime minister said the 1.25 billion people "took this defeat on their own shoulders, never letting the burden weigh down these daughters of ours. I view this as a healthy and pleasant change and I told these daughters that only they were blessed with such good fortune, and hence they should banish any thought of not having been successful".

Modi also referred to the upcoming season of festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Janmashtami, Ganesh Chaturthi and Diwali and urged the people to use the items made by the poor people of the country as it is relates to their economic empowerment.

"Our festivals are not only for celebrations. Our festivals are also an instrument of societal improvement. Also, it has direct relation to the economic condition of the poor people," Modi said.

"This is the time when the poor people get an opportunity to make an earning," Modi said. Giving the example of Diwali, he said the people should use environment-friendly 'diyas' (small oil lamps) only. Such things, he said, will give work to the poor people and help in their empowerment.

With inputs from agencies
Ahmedabad: Stepping up attack on Gujarat Congress for shifting its MLAs to Bengaluru amid flood-like situation in the state, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani alleged the decision was taken by party leader Ahmed Patel out of his "greed" to win the Rajya Sabha seat.

Rupani alleged that just like Sonia Gandhi's affection for his son Rahul Gandhi sank the Congress in the country, Patel's "greed and desperation" to save his Rajya Sabha seat will eventually sink the party in Gujarat.

"Sonia Gandhi's affection for her son has drowned the Congress in the entire country. Though the citizens rejected Rahul Gandhi's leadership, Sonia's 'putra moh' sank Congress. Similarly, Ahmed Patel's greed to save his Rajya Sabha seat here will sink Gujarat Congress," he said.

The chief minister on Sunday reached the flood-affected Banaskantha district.

After interacting with the locals in Kankrej taluka and other affected regions, Rupani decided to stay in Banaskantha and Patan for the next five days to oversee the relief operations, a government release said.

According to Rupani, the Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other affected regions should have stayed with the people in this difficult time.

"Out of his greed to win the Rajya Sabha poll, he sent 40 Congress MLAs to Bengaluru. Some of them belonged to those districts which are badly hit by flood. Patel forced them to leave their constituencies, as he was only concerned about his Rajya Sabha seat," the chief minister alleged.

"The people of Gujarat are watching this. I believe that the Gujarat Congress will sink only because of Ahmed Patel," he said.

The Congress has re-nominated Patel, the political secretary to party chief Sonia Gandhi, to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.

Meanwhile, Patel along with state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and former party chief Siddharth Patel also visited the flood-hit areas in Banaskantha on Sunday and interacted with the locals to understand their problems, a party release said.

Talking to mediapersons in Palanpur, Patel refuted Rupani's allegation that leaving Gujarat and moving to Bengaluru shows the "insensitive approach" of the Congress MLAs, at a time when the state is facing flood-like situation.

He alleged that Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other flood-affected regions were forced to leave the state by the BJP-led state government.

"The allegations against our MLAs are baseless. Before leaving, they started relief camps and also gave instructions to local workers. They are still keeping a close watch on the relief operations from Bengaluru. Our MLAs took all possible steps to help the people," Patel said.

"Our MLAs were forced to leave Gujarat as they and their family members were being tortured by the state government," he alleged.

"Even now, many Congress workers and leaders are actively involved in helping people. We are also here to help people," he said.

Patel exuded confidence of winning the Rajya Sabha election, to be held on 8 August.

"I am totally confident of winning the poll. Not just those (who are in Bengaluru), some other MLAs are also in my support and I have full trust in them," he said.

Gujarat deputy chief minister Nitin Patel on Saturday said that at the time when people of north Gujarat are facing problems due to excessive rains, the entire Congress has gone to Bengaluru to enjoy.

The Congress earlier sent 40 of its legislators to a resort outside Bengaluru to prevent desertions from its ranks ahead of the crucial Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat.

In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, the strength of the Congress has gone down to 51 from 57 after six of its MLAs tendered their resignations, casting a shadow on the fate of Patel in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.

Of the total 11 RS members from the state, the term of three--Smriti Irani and Dilipbhai Pandya (both BJP) and Ahmed Patel--is ending on 18 August.
Thiruvananthapuram: The Kerala unit of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has called for a statewide shutdown on Sunday in protest against the killing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist allegedly by Communist Party of India (CPM) loyalists.

The 34-year-old RSS worker, who was hacked on Saturday night in the state capital, breathed his last at a private hospital. The deceased has been identified as E Rajesh, who was a "Karyavahak" attached to the RSS unit at Sreekariyam near Thiruvananthapuram.

State BJP president Kummanem Rajasekheran, who visited the hospital, told reporters that this was a result of state-sponsored violence.

"The CPM led government has become a mute witness to the violence going on in the state capital district. Even our state party headquarters was attacked. But we exercised restraint.

"But now, we are left with no other option but to call for a statewide shutdown tomorrow (Sunday) to protest the killing (of Rajesh). The state government has not even called for a peace talk to resolve issues," Rajasekheran said.

According to the BJP, Rajesh was hacked by four suspected youth wing activists of the CPM people, who came on two motorcycles.

He suffered serious injuries in his face, hands and legs, and according to the BJP, his left hand was severed and thrown away.

The killing comes a day after a group of CPM workers led by local councillor I P Binu smashed six vehicles parked in the state committee office of the BJP.

After the attack at the BJP headquarters, the residence of the son of CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was stoned.

For the past two weeks, an uneasy calm has been prevailing in the capital district, with the activists of the BJP and the CPM attacking each other every now and then.

Thiruvananthapuram district CPM Secretary Anavoor Nagappan in a statement issued here on Saturday night said that the CPM had no role in this incident.

"There were some local issues in the area and in this incident, the CPM has no role," Nagappan's statement read.

Earlier, 10 people, including four from the student and youth wing of the CPI-M, had been arrested in connection with the violence in the city.
Kozhikode (Kerala): The Congress on Sunday asked the BJP and CPM in Kerala to immediately end violence that the two parties are engaged in, as peace and tranquillity have vanished in the state.

The Congress came down heavily on both the parties after the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) called for a shutdown on Sunday, following a 34-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) leader's murder in Kozhikode on Saturday night.

The police have taken into custody five suspected Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) activists and the two vehicles used by them.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Sunday began a day-long fast in Kozhikode to protest the bloodshed that the BJP and the Left party have been engaged in.

"Both the parties (BJP and CPM) should lay down arms immediately as annihilation politics practised by them has reached very dangerous levels," said Chennithala.

The dawn-to-dusk state-wide shutdown, announced by state BJP President Kummanem Rajashekeran, has paralysed life in Kerala.

Normal life has been hit in the state, with public transport off the roads and very few private vehicles moving around, as the BJP and RSS activists are out on the streets.

The political violence between the two parties in the past two weeks had been limited to Kannur and an uneasy calm prevailed in the district.

On Friday night, CPM councillor IP Binu attacked the state BJP headquarters in Kozhikode, following which BJP activists stoned the residence of CPM state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son.

"The need of the hour is to end the violence. Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Rajashekeran should sit and talk. The police under Vijayan have been a dismal failure," Chennithala said.

"The BJP, caught in a medical scam, and the incompetent one-year rule of Vijayan are the root cause of the violence as both the parties want to cover up their failures," he added.

The police have directed citizens to ensure that they do not engage in activities like spreading false messages on social media, and warned of strong action against those indulging in violence.
New Delhi: JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav does not approve of Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar's move to dump the "grand alliance" and form a government with BJP, CPI leader D Raja, who met him on Sunday, has revealed. Raja said Yadav is "upset and disturbed" over the developments in Bihar.

In a sudden development, Kumar had quit as chief minister on Wednesday, dumping the 'mahagathbandhan' with RJD and Congress. He formed a new government on Thursday with the BJP. "I understand he (Yadav) was kept out of the decision," the CPI leader told PTI.

Raja said he met Yadav after the latter called him up when he was in Chennai on Saturay. Yadav, former JD(U) president, hasn't publicly commented on the Bihar developments.

Describing Kumar's action as "betrayal of the people's mandate" in Bihar, Raja said, "In this moment of crisis, Yadav should stand up and lead the fight against evil designs of BJP-RSS and communal forces."

The CPI leader said Kumar's actions amounted to "subversion of democracy and secular fabric of the nation". He also objected to Kumar being allowed to form the new government, saying it is not a proper democratic practice.
Beijing: Chinese president Xi Jinping on Sunday said the People's Liberation Army (PLA) is capable of vanquishing "all invading enemies" and praised its combat readiness as he reviewed a massive military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the world's largest armed force.

Dressed in camouflage, Xi inspected 12,000 troops in various formations from an open-top military jeep at the parade held in Zhurihe - Asia's largest military training centre in the middle of a desert in Inner Mongolia.

Over 100 fighter jets flew overhead and almost 600 types of weaponry were on display for the occasion - nearly half of which were making their debut in public, according to the Chinese defence ministry.

In his address to the soldiers, Xi said the PLA should strictly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China and "march to wherever the Party points to."

"I firmly believe that our gallant military has both confidence and ability to defeat all invading enemies," said Xi, who heads the Central Military Commission, which holds the overall command of the PLA - the world's largest army.

While there was no reference in his speech to over a month-long India-China military standoff at Doka La in the Sikkim section, his remarks came in the midst of shrill official media campaign and assertions by the foreign and defence ministries in China accusing Indian troops of trespassing into Chinese territory at Doka La.

The Chinese defense ministry spokesman said Zhurihe was selected to highlight the PLA's combat readiness, but he emphasised that war-zone trainings had been long scheduled.

"They have nothing to do with the current situation in the region," Colonel Ren Guoqiang said in a statement.

Clad in camouflage military suit, 64-year-old Xi said the Chinese military has the confidence and ability to safeguard, national sovereignty, security and development interests.

"Our military has the confidence and ability to write a new chapter in building of strong military and make new contributions to towards realisation of the China dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and safeguarding world peace," Xi said in his about 10-minute address - an event carried live on state television and radio.

The military parade was the biggest since 2015 in which army and air force displayed some of the most modern weapons including a new tank which reportedly held exercises in the high-altitude along the Indian border.

The other weapons included long range nuclear and conventional missiles, the new J-15 - the new aircraft based carrier.

In his address, Xi asked the military to further improve its combativeness and modernise the national defence and armed forces. The Chinese military has the worlds second largest defence budget of $152 billion next to the US military.

The PLA was founded on 1 August, 1927 when the ruling 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.

"Officers and soldiers, you must unswervingly stick to the fundamental principle and system of the Party's absolute leadership over the army, always listen to and follow the Party's orders, and march to wherever the Party points to," said Xi, the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

PLA officers and soldiers should firmly adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the people wholeheartedly, and always stand together with the people, Xi said.

He also said China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of PLA into a world-class military force.

Enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army, he said.

"The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," said Xi, who is expected to get a second five year term at the key meeting of the CPC later this year.

"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people's military more than any other time in history," he said.

He urged the PLA to fully implement the CPC's thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPC's target on strengthening the PLA under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.

About 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment were on display.

Dongfeng missiles which include short, long and medium rage of rockets, variety of armoury including light tanks, drones were also deployed.

Helicopter borne troops demonstrated in quick landing and taking combat positions.

Xi Jinping presided over the military parade, hours after US president Donald Trump renewed his criticism over Beijing's failure to rein in North Korea.

North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on last Friday which it claims could reach all of the US.

President Trump has been piling pressure on China, Pyongyang's only major ally that provides an economic lifeline to the reclusive regime, to use its leverage to make North Korea halt its nuclear and missile programs.

"I am very disappointed in China," Trump had said in a tweet on Saturday, adding that Beijing could have easily solved the problem posed by North Korea.

China is also concerned by the tense situation in the Korea Peninsula and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by US in South Korea to counter threats from North Korea.
Jerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday defended his decision to remove metal detectors from the entrance to a Jerusalem holy site after deadly unrest, saying it was in the best interest of security.

Israel installed metal detectors and security cameras after a 14 July attack near the Haram al-Sharif, known to Jews as the Temple Mount, in which gunmen killed two policemen.

Israeli police said the metal detectors were needed because guns were smuggled into the site and the assailants emerged from it to carry out the attack.

The move sparked Muslim protests and deadly unrest, and the government removed the detectors on Tuesday as well as the cameras.

That, however, brought fierce criticism from the far-right flank of Netanyahu's own conservative coalition.

A poll of Israeli Jews found 77 percent thought the move constituted "capitulation", while even the normally pro-Netanyahu newspaper Israel Hayom attacked his handling of the crisis.

"I listen to the sensitivities of the public, I understand their feelings, I know that the decision we took is not an easy one," he said at the start of Sunday's Cabinet meeting  his first public comment on the removal of all the security measures.

"At the same time, as prime minister of Israel, as the one who carries the burden of Israel's security on his shoulders, I am obliged to take decisions in a calm and considered way. I do that with a view to the big picture," he said.

Palestinians saw the new security measures as Israel asserting further control over the holy site, which houses the revered Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock.

It is located in east Jerusalem, seized by Israel in the Six-Day War of 1967 and later annexed in a move never recognised by the international community.

It is the third-holiest site in Islam and the most sacred for Jews as the site of the first and second ancient temples.

Muslims refused to enter the shrine and prayed in the streets outside for more than a week.

Protests and deadly unrest erupted in the days after the measures were installed, with clashes breaking out around the compound in Jerusalem's Old City, in the occupied West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Seven Palestinians were killed in clashes.

A Palestinian also broke into a home in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank and stabbed four Israelis, killing three.
Nanterre: An MP from French president Emmanuel Macron's party was punched in the face by a government critic at a market on Sunday, the second such attack on a female MP in as many months.

Laurianne Rossi, one of the scores of young lawmakers from Macron's Republic on the Move party who made their parliamentary debut in June, was handing out leaflets on a market in Bagneux, south of Paris when the man struck.

Rossi, 33, told AFP that the man was "obviously hostile to the government's policy" and accused the ruling party MPs of being the president's "stooges".

"I started to respond but I did not have the time to finish. He landed a strong punch on my right temple and fled," she said.He was quickly overpowered by party activists and traders, who handed him over to the police.

He was quickly overpowered by party activists and traders, who handed him over to the police.

Rossi, who filed a criminal complaint about the attack, admitted to being "a bit shocked" by the incident in her constituency.

"No political disagreement justifies violence, against elected representatives and women to boot," she wrote on Twitter.

Macron tweeted his support for the lawmaker, saying she was attacked for "defending her convictions."

"Respecting lawmakers is respecting the Republic," he wrote.

Several opposition politicians also condemned the attack, which comes in a year which has seen growing hostility towards politicians.

During campaigning in June's parliamentary election, a man attacked Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet of the centre-right Republicans party by shoving a handful of election pamphlets in her face, causing her to fall and hit her head.

Kosciusko-Morizet, who failed to win re-election to the National Assembly, was briefly hospitalised over the incident for which her attacker received a suspended four-month sentence and a fine.

During the presidential campaign, several candidates were targeted in more innocuous strikes using eggs or flour. On a visit to a farm fair Macron received an egg on the head.
At least one person was killed and four others were wounded after a gunman shot up a German nightclub on Sunday, according to an AFP report.

According to Deutsche Welle, a 34-year-old suspect was killed in shootout with the police in Constance city in southern Germany.

Police, issuing a statement, said the attacker was critically injured in a shootout with officers as he left the disco and later succumbed to his wounds in hospital.

"The motive of the man, who probably acted alone, are not known yet," they added.

Police said the man shot up the nightclub around 4.30 am, terrified party goers fled the building or hid. The shooting came just two days after Germany was shaken by a knife attack in Hamburg in which a 26-year-old Palestinian killed one and injured six. He was a known Islamist with psychological problems, and investigators say his motives remain unclear, according to AFP.

On 13 June, several people were wounded during a firing at a commuter rail station near Munich.

A Munich police spokesman, Marcus da Gloria Martins, later told reporters there was no indication of a "political or religious" motive behind the incident. "The sole male perpetrator was motivated by personal reasons," he said.

Martins said that the unidentified man had tried to push at least one police officer in front of an incoming train, leading to a scuffle during which he took the female officer's gun and fired.

"The police officer was shot in the head and critically injured," Martins said.

Two other people at the station were seriously injured but their lives were not believed to be in danger. They were being treated in local hospitals.

In July 2016, an 18-year-old, David Ali Sonboly, shot dead nine people at a Munich shopping mall before turning the gun on himself, having spent a year planning the rampage.

Police said the German-Iranian teen was "obsessed" with mass murderers such as Norwegian right-wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the Islamic State group.

In March, an axe-wielding attacker wounded nine people in a bloody rampage at a railway station in the western city of Duesseldorf.

The 36-year-old Kosovan national had been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic with a history of high anxiety and self-harm, police said, ruling out a terrorist motive.

Instead, they suggested he might have carried out the attack at the station to end his own life. The suspect was taken into custody after jumping off a bridge.

German authorities have been on high alert since a series of attacks claimed by Islamic State. The most deadly came in December 2016 when a Tunisian rejected asylum seeker rammed a truck into a crowded Berlin Christmas market in an attack that killed 12 people and wounded dozens of others.

With inputs from AFP
Tehran: National Security and Foreign Policy Commission of Iran's Majlis (parliament) on Saturday passed the general outlines of a motion to reciprocate the United States sanctions on the country.

The motion, if ratified in the Majlis open meeting, will "counter the terrorist and adventurous measures of the United States in the region," Xinhua quoted Press TV as saying.

It also envisages measures to support the Iranian armed and security forces as well as those Iranians who would be affected by the United States actions, Iranian Deputy Foreign Ministers Abbas Araqchi, who had attended the meeting of the commission, was quoted as saying.

Araqchi described the motion as an appropriate measure in response to the "hostile and malicious" policies of the United States.

The United States sanction measures would have adverse effects on the implementation of the landmark nuclear agreement, also known as JCPOA, which was signed between Iran and six world powers in July 2015, he said.

The United States imposed on Friday new ballistic missile sanctions on Iran in response to what it called Tehran's "continued provocative actions", including a recent rocket launch, said United States Treasury Department.

Iran launched a space vehicle on Thursday which used technologies "closely related to those of an intercontinental ballistic missile", representing a "threatening step by Iran", said the United States statement.
Tehran: Iran's communications and information technology minister was quoted on Sunday as saying the widely used Telegram messenger service has transferred some of its servers into the country, but the encrypted application's founder swiftly denied the claim.

The report from Iran's semi-official ISNA news agency quoted Mahmoud Vaezi as saying, "As a result of meetings with Telegram managers, some of its servers have been moved to the country."

But Telegram CEO Pavel Durov said that's not so, reiterating the company's previous position in a Twitter message to The Associated Press on Sunday.

"No Telegram servers will be moved to Iran," he wrote, while providing a link to an earlier post.

Vaezi said Telegram planned to use third-party systems known as content delivery networks, or CDNs, in Iran.

But Durov said CDNs, which internet-based services like Telegram use to make data available faster, "have nothing to do with relocating Telegram servers or complying with unreasonable local laws."

Durov later released a statement saying the claim about servers in Iran was "probably another piece of fake news or incorrect translation" and may have referred to a CDN node that his company rents from an unnamed network provider.

He said the company relies on CDNs in countries including Turkey, Iraq, Iran, India, Indonesia and Argentina where it does not want to install servers of its own.

Those nodes are not able to decipher encrypted messages sent by Telegram, he said.

"CDNs only get encrypted data and they never have the keys," he wrote. "Even if they are accessed by hackers or third parties, the attacker won't be able to decipher the files," he added.

Telegram allows users to send text messages, pictures and video over the internet. The service touts itself as being highly encrypted and allows users to set their messages to "self-destruct" after a certain period, making it a favorite among activists and others concerned about their privacy.

Iran has informed foreign-based social networks that they must move their servers into the country if they want to continue operations in the country.

Iran blocks social media websites like Facebook and Twitter and censors other websites. While top officials have unfettered access to social media, Iran's youth and tech-savvy citizens use proxy servers or other workarounds to bypass the controls.
Tehran: Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday urged Muslims worldwide to take a stand against the US and Israel's "villainy" during the imminent annual Haj ceremonies.

One of the topics related to the Islamic world is "the issue of Al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Aqsa Mosque, which is in focus," Xinhua news agency quoted Khamenei as saying.

He said the US interference in the affairs of Muslim countries and its creation of terrorist groups is another important reason for the Muslims to take stand against these countries during the Haj ceremonies to be held in late August in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia.
Baghdad: Iraqi intelligence officials say they have foiled an attempt by the Islamic State group to attack revered Shia shrines and the sect's spiritual leader.

Two officers spoke to The Associated Press on Sunday on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media. They said the Islamic State plan was to launch a series of suicide attacks in Karbala and Najaf that house the shrines as well as the home of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

The officers added that simultaneous airstrikes by Iraq and Russian two weeks ago hit gatherings of suicide bombers in the Iraqi town of Qaim and in Syria's Maydeen area. Both towns are under Islamic State's control. They gave no details on casualties.
Beirut: Hezbollah and a Syrian affiliate to Al-Qaeda exchanged the bodies of dead fighters along the Lebanese-Syrian border on Sunday in the first stage of a settlement to restore order to a contested frontier zone.

The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah handed over the bodies of nine Al-Qaeda fighters in exchange for the bodies of five of its own, following two weeks of battles along the rugged border, according to the Hezbollah's Al-Manar TV station.

Lebanese Red Cross spokesman George Kattani says a woman and child were also handed over to the Al-Qaeda affiliate, known as the Nusra Front and recently rebranded as Fatah al-Sham Front.

The exchange, like the battles that preceded it, underscores Hezbollah's clout in regional affairs as it clears the border of Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group militants, with the Lebanese government largely a bystander.

US president Donald Trump credited the Lebanese government with standing up to Hezbollah, last week, but the Lebanese Army assumed a defensive position behind Hezbollah lines in the course of the battles in the Arsal badlands. Hezbollah is also a member of Prime Minister Saad Hariri's government.

The US classifies Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The Syrian military provided air support to Hezbollah's ground operations around Arsal. Hezbollah's Secretary General, Hassan Nasrallah, said in a speech Wednesday his fighters fought "shoulder to shoulder" with Syrian soldiers on the Syrian side of the border.

Twenty-six Hezbollah fighters and between 47 and 90 Al-Qaeda fighters were killed in the fighting, Hezbollah media officials told reporters on a tour of the Arsal badlands on Saturday.

The fighting ended with a cease-fire Thursday for negotiations to allow refugees, fighters, and family members to leave to Syria's northwest Idlib province, leaving Hezbollah and the Lebanese and Syrian states in control of this corner of the border. Up to 9,000 Syrians could be seeking resettlement, al-Manar reported.

Lebanon has been buffeted by the fallout and occasional spillover of the civil war next door. It has taken in 1 million refugees, according to the UN, and suffered a number of bomb blasts claimed by the Islamic State group and Al-Qaeda affiliated groups.

The border town of Arsal was overrun by Al-Qaeda and Islamic State militants in 2014 before Hezbollah and the Lebanese army sent them back. They have remained ensconced in the rugged hills east of Arsal ever since.

Around 80,000 refugees live near Arsal. Many of them were displaced by fighting between rebels and Hezbollah in 2012 and 2013.

Syria is fractured after six years of civil war, and an Al-Qaeda affiliate controls Idlib. The war broke out after President Bashar Assad government cracked down on demonstrations for reforms in 2011. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group estimates some 475,000 people have been killed, and Assad remains in power in Damascus.

In other news, the Russian broadcaster Russia Today said one of its Syrian correspondents was killed Sunday covering battles between the Syrian army and Islamic State militants in the country's central desert. RT is embedded with government forces.

The Syrian army is steadily recapturing oil, gas and mineral fields from the Islamic State group in the Homs province.

The broadcaster identified the correspondent as Khaled al-Khatib, 25. He was a student at the University of Damascus, it said.
Seoul: North Korea said on Sunday its latest ICBM test was a "warning" targeting the US for its efforts to slap new sanctions on Pyongyang and threatened a counter-strike if provoked militarily by Washington.

The North conducted its second intercontinental ballistic missile test late on Friday, with leader Kim Jong-Un boasting of his country's ability to strike "all the US mainland".

Technical details of Friday's launch suggested it was significantly more powerful than the first ICBM test on 4 July, with a theoretical range long enough to reach the US east coast, according to experts.

The North's first ICBM test set off global alarm over the nation's weapons capabilities and a push by the US to impose more UN and bilateral sanctions, with the US Senate passing new bipartisan sanctions on Pyongyang on Friday.

But the US-led campaign only provided "further justification" for the North's resolve to maintain its weapons programmes, Pyongyang's foreign ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run KCNA.

"The... test-fire of ICBM ... this time is meant to send a stern warning to the US making senseless remarks, being lost to reason in the frantic sanctions and pressure campaign against the DPRK," it said, using an acronym for the North's official name.

The statement came hours after US president Donald Trump warned that he would not allow China  the impoverished North's sole major ally and economic lifeline  to "do nothing" about North Korea.

Trump, who is at loggerheads with Beijing over how to handle Kim's regime, has repeatedly urged China to rein in its neighbour, but China insists dialogue is the only practical way forward.

The US also on Sunday had two powerful strategic bombers fly over the Korean peninsula for a joint drill with Japanese and South Korean forces, in a pointed show of force against the North.

But Pyongyang's foreign ministry urged the US to "wake up from the foolish dream of doing any harm to the DPRK."

"If the Yankees... dares brandish the nuclear stick on this land again ...the DPRK will clearly teach them manners with the nuclear strategic force," it said.

There remains doubts whether the North can miniaturise a nuclear weapon to fit a missile nose cone, or if it has mastered the technology needed for the projectile to survive re-entry into the atmosphere.

But since Kim came to power in 2011, there has been a series of technical advances, including three nuclear tests and a string of missile launches.

In all, six sets of UN sanctions have been imposed on North Korea since it first tested an atomic device in 2006, but two resolutions adopted last year significantly toughened the sanctions regime.
Islamabad: The Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz nominee for the post of interim prime minister on Sunday challenged the opposition to prove irregularities in his finances, saying "whoever wants to file a reference against me should feel free to do so".

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi was speaking to the media following his meeting with Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman in the capital, the Dawn reported.

Speaking on Nawaz Sharif's disqualification by the Supreme Court, the former petroleum minister said: "To my understanding of legal matters, there is no harm in possessing an iqama  it's just a visa  but nowadays, laws are being interpreted in ways that are stranger than ever."

"I have disclosed all my assets and their details are published in the Pakistan Gazette. So those levelling baseless allegations (against me) should check their own acts first," he said.

When asked about speculations regarding the involvement of the military in the prime minister's ouster, Abbasi said, "There are no two sides in this country; we all are one and work for the betterment of this country in a united way."

PML-N leaders, in a parliamentary committee meeting on Saturday headed by ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had decided that Sharif's younger brother, Shahbaz Sharif, should take over as the party's leader in Parliament.

Additionally, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who was until Friday the petroleum minister, would take over as interim prime minister till the time Shahbaz is elected to Parliament, and then to the prime minister's office.

Abbasi, during the meeting, said the party had made a decision and everyone had acted on it. "There is no conflict in the party. We may have given in, but history will not accept this decision (to disqualify Nawaz Sharif) -- the nation has not accepted this decision."
The United Nations (UN) has asked Pakistan to review the legislation relating to military courts that gives them the authority to impose the death penalty, reform military courts to ensure fair trial and to ensure that coerced confessions are never admissible in legal proceedings, after a recent, first-ever UN review of the countrys record of implementing its civil and political rights.

The UN Human Rights Committee notes with concern, that since Pakistan lifted the moratorium on death penalty in December 2014, it has been one of the states with the highest rate of executions, and that the death penalty is given for crimes such as drug trafficking and blasphemy  even to juveniles and persons with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities  which do not fall under the category of most serious crimes.

Additionally, a policy of blanket refusal of clemency applications is allegedly in placeand that executions are allegedly carried out in a manner that constitutes torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading punishment. Also, Pakistani migrant workers under death sentence overseas have reported insufficient consular and legal services provided to them.

The UN Human Rights Committee is the body of independent experts that periodically monitors implementation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) of the state parties. The ICCPR is a crucial multilateral treaty that came into force in 1976 and commits its ratifying parties to respect rights such as the right to life, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, right to due process and fair trial, among other rights.

Initially, a government has to report to the UN within a year of acceding to the covenant after which its record is typically reviewed every four years by independent experts working under the aegis of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. The most recent review was held between 3 July and 28 July in Geneva where seven countries, including Pakistan, were reviewed. Though Pakistan ratified the treaty in June 2010, its initial report to the committee was reviewed only this month.

Though the UN Committee notes the need for Pakistan to take measures for combating terrorism, but is concerned that the current definition of terrorism under the Anti-Terrorism Act is very broad and that confessions made in police custody are admitted as evidence in courts.

It recommends that Pakistan review the legislation relating to the military courts with a view to abrogating their jurisdiction over civilians as well as their authority to impose the death penalty; reform the military courts to bring their proceedings into full conformity with Articles 14 and 15 of the covenant to ensure a fair trial.

Also, it asks Pakistan to ensure that coerced confessions are never admissible in legal proceedings; take all measures necessary to prevent torture including by strengthening the training of judges, prosecutors, the police and military and security forces.

Recently, a Pakistani military court awarded death sentence to an Indian national, Kulbhushan Jadhav, over alleged spying and has denied consular access to India despite many requests by New Delhi for the same. This resulted in New Delhi dragging Pakistan to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the ICJ has put a stay on Jadhavs hanging pending its final decision. The case has strained the already-troubled relations between the neighbours.

The UN body states that there are various lists that control the entry or exit in Pakistan, including the infamous Exit Control List (ECL), but the UN has no information on such lists, including the criteria or grounds for the listing, the process for listing or delisting names, and the safeguards available to prevent misuse of these lists.

A joint submission to the UN Committee by IFEX (a global network of 110 organisations to promote the freedom of expression), Pakistan Press Foundation (PPF) and the International Network of Human Rights (RIDH), states in its report that in reality the ECL is an effective tool to suppress dissent. The report cites the example of Cyril Almeida, assistant editor of the daily Dawn, who was placed on the ECL in October last year, which barred him from travelling outside the country, in retaliation for a story published the same month titled Act against militants or face international isolation, civilians tell military, that reported on a meeting of senior military officials and government leaders where concerns on connections between intelligence agencies and some militant organisations were raised. Almeidas name was removed from the ECL four days later after intense pressure from the media and civil society groups.

The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) and its authorised officers have overbroad powers without sufficient independent judicial oversight mechanisms, observes the UN committee. Also, the mandatory mass retention of traffic data by service providers for a minimum of one year, unduly restrictive licensing requirements of service providers; and the sharing of information and cooperation with foreign governments without judicial authorization or oversight, are all issues of concern to the global body.

The IFEX-PPF-RIDH submission cites the instance of Islamabad High Courts (IHCs) order to the PTA on 27 February to block social media sites that are deemed to be blasphemous. Similarly, on 31 March 2017, the IHC ordered PTA to remove all blasphemous content from the internet and requested extradition of the blogger who left the country.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority (PEMRA) exercises its powers over the content of media outlets, including suspending over 20 programmes in the past four years, the lack of clarity on procedural safeguards and oversight mechanisms to ensure that PEMRA exercises its powers consistent with the principle of freedom of expression and the broad and vague grounds for cancellation of registration of these organisations, is a matter grave concern to the UN human rights experts.

Article 295- A of the Pakistani Constitution stipulates imprisonment of up to ten years, and/or fine for whoever, with deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of the citizens of Pakistan, by words, either spoken or written, or by visible representations insults the religion or the religious beliefs while Article 295- B stipulates life imprisonment for whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Qur'an.

In March 2017, Pakistan launched a media campaign cautioning people to exercise self-restraint in their online activities, states the joint international NGOs submission. The recently-deposed former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif directed the state machinery to find those responsible for putting blasphemous content on social media and bring them to justice without delay, it further adds.

It also mentions the tragic case of Mashal Khan, a Muslim student at the Abdul Wali Khan University Mardan in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, who was killed by an angry mob in the premises of the university in April over false allegations of posting blasphemous content online.

Examples of website blocking, mentioned in the joint submission include the July 2013 case of Al-Jazeeras website being blocked after it published a document called Pakistans Bin Laden Dossier detailing the findings of a commission of inquiry established by Pakistans military and intelligence branches into the Bin Laden raid.

It also mentions the shutting down of the queer website: queer.pkwhich was the countrys first Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender website. The UN Committee regrets the absence of information from the Pakistani delegation, which was led by the Pakistani Minister for Human Rights Kamran Michael, on effective measures to prevent and punish all forms of discriminations against lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex persons.

While the UN treaty-monitoring body welcomes the establishment of Pakistans National Commission for Human Rights in 2015, it is concerned that the commission was not given authorisation to travel to Geneva to meet the UN committee members, giving indications that the commission is not fully independent.

The UN is also concerned that the Constitution and federal laws as well as the jurisdiction of highest courts do not apply in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

Among other recommendations, the UN Committee asks Pakistan to ensure that no juvenile or person with psychosocial or intellectual disabilities is executed or sentenced to death, to repeal all blasphemy laws, that the execution protocol is brought in line with international human rights standards, to criminalise enforced disappearance and put an end to the practice of enforced disappearance and secret detention, to review its legislation on data collection and surveillance, to carry out the registration of undocumented Afghan refugees, to decriminalise defamation and to review legal provisions relating to the freedom of expression and PEMRA.

The committee has asked Pakistan to submit its next periodic report by 28 July, 2020 and to include in that report information on the implementation of the present concluding observations.
Islamabad: A leading Pakistani newspaper on Sunday accused the Supreme Court of ousting Nawaz Sharif as prime minister on "troublingly narrow legal grounds" and called for a review of the judgment.

"Out of necessary respect for the Supreme Court and abundant caution in a matter where a hasty or premature assessment could trigger controversy, the initial response by sensible and responsible quarters to the Panama Papers judgment was to emphasise the need for immediate political and legal acceptance of the court's orders," the Dawn said in an editorial.

"Now that the short but final judgment has been analysed by the legal community, the political class and the citizenry in detail, the implications of it for politics in Pakistan need to be forthrightly addressed," it said.

"The consensus in expert and independent circles is two-fold and clear: Nawaz Sharif has been stripped of the prime ministership on troublingly narrow legal grounds and the judgement has the undesirable potential to upend the democratic process in the country.

"In the circumstances, Chief Justice Saqib Nisar ought to consider, following an appropriate petition, convening the full court to review the five-member bench's final judgment in the Panama Papers case."

The Dawn said that if Pakistan's democratic project was to be sustained and strengthened, "the rules of the system must be clear, fair and transparent".

"It had been hoped that the Supreme Court would deliver a well-argued and well-reasoned judgement that would create a desirable and easily implementable legal precedent.

"Instead, the one that now holds sway in the application of disqualification criteria for elected officials is staggeringly wide and could become the source of chaos in the parliamentary realm," it said.

Dawn said: "Sharif, both as a citizen and as the legitimately elected prime minister, had a justifiable expectation of fair and proportionate justice.

"That does not appear to be the case in the five-member bench's final judgment and it has profound consequences for the future of the office of the prime minister and of Parliament itself."

On Friday, the Supreme Court disqualified Sharif from holding the post of prime minister, saying he had been dishonest to the judiciary and Parliament about financial details of his family as revealed by the Panama Papers.

Sharif is expected to be succeeded by his brother, Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif.
Even though Nawaz Sharif has resigned as prime minister, nothing has really changed in the Pakistani political set up.

Playing out scenarios of what things may come is a pointless exercise.

The very fact that Nawaz's successor will be his younger brother Shehbaz, who is clearly marking time until he is elected to the national Assembly, indicates that when it comes to Pakistan, all is still very much in the family. This entire brouhaha is more of an ornamental fluff rather than a true changing of the guard.

For those that argue that the removal of Nawaz Sharif is indicative of the ascent of the Pakistan Army, I say thus: The Pakistani Army has no need to ascend or descend. It owns the elevator of power and can decide which floor to sit on and for how long as it selects Sharif's replacement.

If it was truly hostile to the Sharifs, the army would have just simply dismissed the clan and no one would have been able to lift a finger. Instead, Nawaz was eased out through legal means and allowed to remain in the tent.

Nawaz may find solace yet in his dismissal being delinked from charges of corruption. He may also display bewilderment at his unceremonious send-off but he knows in his heart that the deal was for him to take the fall  to put on a show for the public and cleanse the stables  while maintaining the status quo.

To the common Pakistani citizen, the Panama Papers revelations are no big deal. To a certain extent, corruption or a certain political expediency are integral to politics. Let's not read too much into it. There's been no major policy shift. If we applied the same yardstick to Indian politicians, swathes of leaders would be wiped out.

Interim Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is an old buddy of Nawaz. He is unlikely to create any drama in the few days he enjoys office. Like Banquo's ghost in Macbeth, Sharif's influence will be felt long after his "departure" from the stage. Much like Lalu Prasad Yadav handing over the reins to his wife Rabri Devi.

As for India expecting a sea change in relations with its neighbour, especially with reference to 600 terror camps maintained by Pakistan, that is wishful thinking indeed. Pakistan is enjoying Indias uneasy face-off with China. General Bajwa is unlikely to reduce the pressure by extending flowers and friendship. Expect no concessions.

On the contrary, a certain caution is called for. Governments often divert attention from domestic crises by creating incidents on the border. High-profile issues such as the Kulbhushan Jadav case and even heavy exchange of fire at LoC gives the "new" regime (which is actually the old regime: Shaken, not stirred) to consolidate its power and ride in on the enemy's coattails.

It would not be surprising if we see some contained adventurism in the coming days. Extra vigilance may be necessary.
Dubai: Top officials of four Arab states boycotting Qatar are scheduled to meet in the Bahraini capital Sunday, as a political crisis that has split the Gulf enters its second month.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt will meet in Manama in a bid to persuade Qatar to "end its support for extremism and terrorism, stop meddling in the affairs of neighbouring countries and change its policies," read a statement on state news agency BNA.

On 5 June, the Saudi-led bloc cut diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar  the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas  over allegations the emirate supported Islamist extremism and had close ties to Shia Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival.

The Saudi-led bloc recalled their ambassadors, ordered all Qataris to return home and banned Qatar from using their airspace.

Qatar has denied the allegations and accuses the bloc of imposing a "blockade" on the tiny emirate.

Qatar has also rejected the bloc's demands  which include downgrading ties to Iran and closing both the Al-Jazeera news channel and a Turkish military base in the country  as a violation of its sovereignty.

Bahrain's King Hamad on Saturday called for "the solidarity of all Arab countries in fighting terrorism and cutting off its financing... for the defence of our homelands" ahead of the meeting, which comes after the Saudi-led bloc held talks in Cairo earlier in July.

Kuwait is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, the worst to grip the region since the 1981 creation of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

Kuwait and Oman  GCC members along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar  have not joined the Qatar boycott.
Saint Petersburg: President Vladimir Putin on Sunday oversaw a pomp-filled display of Russia's naval might as the Kremlin paraded its sea power from the Baltic Sea to the shores of Syria.

Some 50 warships and submarines were on show along the Neva River and in the Gulf of Finland off the country's second city of Saint Petersburg after Putin ordered the navy to hold its first ever parade on such a grand scale.

"Today much is being done to develop and modernise the navy," Putin told servicemen after surveying the military hardware from his presidential cutter.

"The navy is not only dealing with its traditional tasks but also responding with merit to new challenges, making a significant contribution to the fight against terrorism and piracy," he said.

The showcase event to mark Russia's annual Navy Day is the latest to be beefed up by Putin, with the Kremlin strongman also bolstering the traditional WWII victory parade in Moscow as he looks to flex the country's military muscles.

Russia has ramped up its military manoeuvres as ties with the West have slumped over Moscow's meddling in Ukraine, unnerving NATO and its members in Eastern Europe.

Smaller naval parades were also taking place from Russia's European exclave Kaliningrad on the Baltic Sea to the annexed Black Sea peninsula of Crimea and Vladivostok in the far-east.

For the first time Moscow also showed off its naval hardware at its Syrian base of Tartus in the eastern Mediterranean, where Russian ships have played a prominent role backing up a bombing campaign in support of leader Bashar al-Assad.

Russian news wire Interfax reported that six vessels  including the latest generation "Krasnodar" diesel submarine  were taking part in the parade.

Moscow and Damascus in January signed a 49-year deal for Russia to expand and modernise the facility at Tartus, further cementing the Kremlin's influence in the region after its game-changing military intervention.
Lahore: Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is set to succeed his brother as the Pakistan prime minister, is looking to his son Hamza Shabaz as his replacement in Punjab, the media reported on Sunday.

Shahbaz Sharif is known to enjoy "a degree of comfort in dealing with his son", the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting insiders in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

According to the insiders, however, the final say on who gets to helm Punjab would rest with ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is looking to consolidate the party's control in Punjab, the Dawn said.

The PML-N cannot afford to lose its grip on Punjab since the next general elections are barely a year away.

"Shahbaz wants his son, who is already acting as the deputy chief minister, to succeed him for the remaining term in Punjab," a PML-N legislator from Punjab told the Dawn.

"However, (it is up to) Nawaz Sharif to decide whether Hamza will be the right choice for the post or not."

The PML-N leader added that Shahbaz Nawaz would continue to oversee matters in Punjab indirectly while his elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, would continue to govern the Centre from his Raiwind residence, the report said.

A Punjab minister may keep the chief minister's seat warm for Shahbaz Nawaz's son for 45 days.

On Saturday, the deposed prime minister formally announced that Shahbaz Nawaz would be his successor and petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will be premier for 45 days till Shahbaz Nawaz contests a by-election to enter the National Assembly.

Rumours of Hamza Shahbaz's political tiffs with Nawaz Sharif's family and children abound.

He had not openly defended his uncle (Nawaz Sharif) in the Panama Papers case, choosing not to comment too much on the issue. But both families have often denied rumours of any political disagreement.

The Dawn said the names of three others  law minister Rana Sanaullah, information minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and food minister Bilal Yasin  were also being considered for the post of Punjab chief minister.
Caracas: Venezuela planned a vote Sunday to elect a controversial new legislative body whose creation has triggered international alarm and deadly street protests against the nation's beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro.

Maduro, who is struggling to shore up his regime, predicted a "big victory" in the election of the 545-member citizens' Constituent Assembly empowered to dissolve the opposition-controlled parliament and rewrite the constitution.

But the opposition has urged a boycott, saying the vote was a move towards "dictatorship" by an unpopular president desperate to cling to power with the backing of a loyal military.

The US, the EU and Latin American powers, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, have come out against the election, saying it would destroy Venezuelan democracy.

Surveys by the Datanalisis polling firm show more than 70 percent of Venezuelans opposed the idea of the new assembly  and 80 percent reject Maduro's leadership.

Four months of street protests against Maduro have left more than 100 people dead, and exposed deep political divisions in this oil-rich nation reduced to economic calamity.

Demonstrations tapered off just before Sunday's vote after Maduro decreed a ban threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for protesters.

But fear of the violence worsening has rippled across the region, and beyond.

US sanctions

Several foreign airlines, including Air France, Delta, Avianca and Iberia have suspended flights to the country.

Families of US diplomats there have been ordered to leave following the imposition of American sanctions on 13 current and former Venezuelan officials.

Maduro  who described the Constituent Assembly as a "card that will win this game"  on Saturday said the vote was "the most important election held in Venezuela's political system."

Authorities on the eve of the vote said all was ready for the nationwide balloting, although the head of the electoral council acknowledged some voting machines had been burned in attacks on polling stations.

Freddy Guevara, an opposition lawmaker, said further demonstrations would take place on Sunday.

"There will not be calm as long as the people don't have peace," he said.

'Nervous' Venezuelans

Colombia and Panama  refuges for tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the chaos at home -- have said they will not recognize the results of Sunday's election in Venezuela.

At an overnight protest in Villa del Rosario, a Colombian town on the Venezuelan border, hundreds of Venezuelans taking shelter there decried the election.

"We don't know what's going to happen in this situation created by this president," said one of them, Bella Buitrago, 48. "We're all extremely nervous."

"We don't want Maduro... he should leave the country," said another, Sindry Borges.

Some in Maduro's administration have broken ranks with him, most prominently his attorney general. Two diplomats resigned this week in dissent: one at the United Nations and another at the embassy in Panama.

The Venezuelan leader has blamed the mounting unrest against him and his policies on the United States, working hand-in-hand with the Venezuelan opposition to wage an "economic war."
Dhaka: The World Bank has approved a total of $570 million for two projects in Bangladesh to improve health, nutrition, and population services and strengthen the country's public procurement. "The World Bank and the (Bangladesh) government have been working together for years to improve the health sector and public procurement performance," Qimiao Fan, World Bank director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal said in a statement.

"The $515 million Health Sector Support Project will strengthen the country's health system and improve quality and coverage of essential service delivery, with a focus on the Sylhet and Chittagong divisions, where key health indicators are below national average," he said in the statement.

"It aims to increase the number of mothers receiving quality delivery care in public health facilities to at least 146,000 annually in Sylhet and Chittagong divisions. It will also provide basic immunisation to nearly 5 million children," Fan said.

As Bangladesh experiences demographic changes, the project will help address emerging health challenges, such as non-communicable diseases. In Sylhet and Chittagong divisions, it will support school-based adolescent health and nutrition services, the statement said.

The project will also help improve Bangladesh's financial management and procurement in the sector and develop a robust health information system. It will enable over 7,000 community clinics to provide complete essential data on service delivery, and ensure at least 150 health facilities to each have two accredited midwives on staff.

The financing will contribute to the government's $14.7 billion health sector program between 2017 and 2022. It includes a $15 million grant from the Global Financing Facility to improve service delivery for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition.

The other financing approved, the $55 million Digitising Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project, will help Bangladesh improve public procurement performance, including its capacity to monitor implementation of development projects and programmes using digital technology, the World Bank statement said.

According to concerned officials, Bangladesh spends over $7 billion yearly on public procurement, which constitutes about 70 percent of the annual development programme.

The World Bank helped Bangladesh roll out electronic procurement (e-GP) in four key public procuring entities in 2011, and establish a high capacity data centre in 2016 to accommodate increasing demand for electronic procurement. The new project will expand e-GP to all 1300 government procuring organisations, the statement said.

The project will help the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division effectively monitor the execution of annual development programs by establishing a single online platform connecting all public sector organisations.
The Latest on Britain's plans to leave the European Union (all times local):

11:45 a.m.

Malta's prime minister says he is starting to believe that Britain's divorce from the European Union will not happen as doubts creep in among voters who backed the Brexit.

In an interview with Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant, Joseph Muscat said, "For the first time, I am beginning to believe that Brexit won't happen."

Muscat, whose country held the EU's presidency for the first half of 2017, said he sees signs that British public opinion is turning and he hopes a politician will offer a new referendum on the final Brexit deal.

In the interview published Thursday he said: "It would be good if a political leader in Great Britain would stand up with the courage to address this new situation and say: 'We will put the final Brexit deal to the people.'"

____

11:15 a.m.

Britain's Treasury chief says the country will abide by some European Union rules for up to three years after it officially leaves the bloc in March 2019.

Philip Hammond says a transition period is needed "to get from the status quo today to the new normal." He says the transition should end before Britain's next election, scheduled for 2022.

Many businesses accuse the government of sending mixed signals about Brexit. Officials say Britain will leave the bloc's single market and customs union, and end free movement from EU countries.

But officials also say the changes, which have huge economic implications, won't happen overnight.

Hammond told Sky News on Friday that a transition period will let businesses "go on operating normally" while Britain works out its post-Brexit relationship with the EU.
Even for couples who get along very well, money can be a point of contention.

Sometimes one person spends more than the other; in other cases, there are disagreements as to how money should be spent. Perhaps one member of the couple believes in saving and caution, while the other leans toward instant gratification.

All of those issues can be solved via communication and negotiation. It can be harder, however, for couples to deal with issues of income disparity. If one person starts making a lot more than the other, it can cause resentment and lead to problems that are harder to talk about.

If you end up being the person in the relationship making more money, there are ways you can head off any problems. But doing so requires discipline and the self-awareness to never pull out the "I make more money than you" card in a fight. Slip up even once on that, and you'll have a recurring problem it's very hard to move past.

Know your financial plan

Both during times when my wife had a higher income and now, when I make more, we always had clear rules on spending. We put our paychecks and other earnings in a joint bank account and agreed on a general understanding of our budget.

At times, such as right after buying a house, we've both understood that spending needed to be kept to essentials. At other times, when we lived below our means and had money left over after recurring bills, we've had a more open approach to spending.

Through financial ups and downs, no matter how much each of us contributed, we enjoyed equal financial freedom. Sometimes that means we can buy a new TV or piece of furniture without consulting the other. During leaner periods, perhaps that freedom only extended to books or meals out with friends.

No matter where our bank-account balance stood, we communicated about the broad issues. That put both of us in a position to feel comfortable. And it has enhanced the teamwork aspect, because we accept that no matter who earns what, we both contribute equally.

Have a non-work plan

If you make more money than your spouse, you might feel entitled to contribute less work to the household, especially if the reason you make more money is that your significant other spends fewer hours in an office. However, he or she may be spending less time at an office job in order to care for your child or children, which can be a full-time job in itself. Ultimately, a couple should jointly make any decisions on who stays home part- or full-time and have complete respect for the various ways in which each person contributes.

In other cases, where both members of the couple work for pay, but one makes more money, it's important to have a negotiated division of household tasks. In my case, because I work from home, I handle most of the cooking and many of the various work-hours things that come up.

My wife, who works 9 to 5 (more like 8:30 to 6 most days) in the nonprofit world, tends to do more of the household cleaning and the bulk of the grocery shopping. She does more of our son's laundry, along with her own, while I mostly do mine.

There are times when we trade tasks because one of us needs to work more, but there is never a time where I ask her to do something because I make more money. Sometimes she works at night or on the weekends, and I support that; when I work off-hours, she gives me the same support.

I'm always careful not to make my work needs more important than hers just because my job pays better. That's sometimes a challenge because I get paid based on production while she gets a salary, so extra work by me directly pads our bank account.

Despite that, it's important to value what your partner does. In my case, that's easy because her work helps people in need. But even if she had a less noble profession, as a partner I'd have to support my significant other's pursuits.

Be open and honest

Valuing what my wife does and keeping open financial communication do not mean always pretending everything is equal. She understands that more time I spend working means more money for both of us. She also understands that I have my limits and need to not work sometimes.

For us, that has meant her taking on a little more at home when I have the opportunity and the desire to bring in more money. The same has been true in reverse when she's been offered freelance projects that would bring in extra cash.

As the higher earner in a couple, it's important to remember that your significant other also contributes to your success. If you view your income, his or her income, and his or her successes as joint accomplishments, it can keep both parties from feeling resentment or a lack of appreciation.

Communicate your needs and desires. If I want to buy something and plan to take on extra work in order to do it, I discuss that with my wife, because the impact on our life may go deeper than our bank balance. It's about communication, partnership, and mutual understanding. Those are not always easy, but they're essential if you don't want financial success to undermine your relationship.

The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.

The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Alaska Air (NYSE: ALK) faced some major challenges in the first half of 2017. The company's recent acquisition of Virgin America has given it a big presence in overcrowded airports such as those in San Francisco and Los Angeles, leading to a decline in on-time performance. Meanwhile, Horizon Air, Alaska's regional affiliate, has been forced to cancel numerous flights because of a pilot shortage.

Nevertheless, Alaska Air was able to give its shareholders two pieces of good news last week. First, the company reported a strong second-quarter profit. Second, management announced that it had been able to accelerate a critical merger integration milestone by about six months.

Reaping the benefits of the Virgin America deal

While many airlines are on pace this year to post weak earnings growth -- or even earnings declines -- Alaska Air's profit growth is being boosted by the addition of Virgin America. Last quarter, Virgin America contributed more than $30 million of profit for Alaska Air, net of interest costs related to financing the deal.

As a result, adjusted earnings per share reached $2.51 in Q2, up from $2.12 a year earlier. On a combined basis -- i.e., including Virgin America's results from Q2 2016 -- revenue per available seat mile increased 3.5% year over year, offsetting a 3.3% increase in non-fuel unit costs and part of a roughly 12% increase in jet fuel prices.

For the third quarter, Alaska expects to face a similar 12% year-over-year increase in jet fuel prices. However, non-fuel unit cost growth should moderate to just 1.5%. With Alaska Air continuing to face less competitive capacity growth than some of its rivals, the company is well positioned to post another strong increase in EPS during Q3.

Merger synergies could come a bit sooner than expected

While Alaska Air is enjoying some incremental profit from owning Virgin America this year, the real value from the merger will come from unlocking revenue and cost synergies. Back in March, management raised its synergy target to $300 million but disclosed that it would take a little longer than originally expected to get there.

The main reason is that Alaska Air and Virgin America need to move to a single reservation system to unlock most of the revenue synergies. The "cutover" was originally scheduled for Q4 2018. However, the company has been able to move that event up to early in the second quarter. If everything goes as planned, this move will boost Alaska's earnings by about $20 million next year.

The move to a single reservation system can be tricky. Five years ago, United Continental (NYSE: UAL) botched its reservation system integration, as numerous reservations were "lost," flight delays spiked, and wait times for United's call centers spiraled out of control.

Recalling that incident, some airline analysts questioned Alaska's decision to move up the cutover date. However, management is confident that it can execute a seamless IT transition.

The company is using the lessons learned from United's 2012 meltdown and other airlines' more successful reservation system integrations to guide its planning. It recognizes that combining a massive amount of data from two systems was the weak point in United's process. Instead, Alaska will follow American's example to ensure that all, or nearly all, of its bookings are in the new reservation system at the time of the cutover.

Ramping up growth in a tough environment

Alaska Air will begin one of the first big steps toward capturing its expected revenue synergies next month. Between August and December, it will add a slew of new routes in San Francisco, Virgin America's largest market. By the end of the year, it will offer nonstop flights to most of the places within North America where people want to go from San Francisco.

Alaska Air will be competing with United Continental in all of these markets. United is adding capacity on many of these routes in response. It has also demonstrated that it will vigorously match competitors' prices.

As a result, these new routes may be money-losers at first. However, Alaska Air has a long track record of successful growth -- even in the face of tough competition. This is a point that management likes to repeat again and again. By the time the merger integration process is completed a few years from now, Alaska Air is likely to have a strong market position in San Francisco, notwithstanding the aggressive competition from United.

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"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time." -- Steve Jobs

Steve Jobs was quite right that money can't buy you everything -- including some of life's most important things. But money is still rather important, and if your favorite things include a roof over your head and food in the pantry, then you will need money -- now and in retirement.

Social Security is a critical income source for most retired Americans, and how much you will receive from it each month depends in large part on when you start collecting -- at your "full" retirement age, before it, or after.

Timing matters

The full retirement age for Social Security used to be 65 for everyone, but it has been increased for many of us. For those born in 1937 or earlier, it remains 65, for those born in 1960 or later, it's 67, and for those born between 1937 and 1960, it's somewhere in between.

No matter whether your full retirement age is 65, 66, or 67, you can claim and start collecting your benefits as early as age 62 and as late as age 70. For every year beyond your full retirement age that you delay starting to receive benefits, you'll increase their value by about 8% -- until age 70. So delaying from age 67 to 70 can leave you with checks about 24% fatter. If your full retirement age is 67 and you start collecting benefits at age 62, they will be 30% smaller.

Here's the kicker, though: The system is designed so that total benefits received are about the same -- a difference of $0 -- no matter when you start collecting, if you have an average life spans. Checks that start arriving at age 62 will be considerably smaller, but you'll receive many more of them. So for most people, it's close to a wash.

The average monthly retirement benefit was recently $1,368. That amounts to $16,416 per year. If your earnings have been above average, you'll collect more than that -- but the overall maximum monthly Social Security benefit for those retiring at their full retirement age in 2017 is still just $2,687 -- or about $32,000 for the whole year.

Average benefits by age

You may be wondering, though, just what kind of income beneficiaries receive by age. Below is an answer, in the form of average benefits paid by age as of the end of 2015, from the most recent (2016) Annual Statistical Supplement of the Social Security Administration (SSA):

It's worth noting that if you were to drill down into the SSA's data, you'd see that women's average benefits are significantly lower, on average. That reflects the fact that women often earn much less than men (often for the same work) and they are much more likely than men to be out of the workforce for some years, caring for children or parents.

Bigger and smaller benefits

The table above might not be as useful to you as you would think, though, because the amount that, say, a 65-year-old is collecting now isn't likely to be close to what you'd be collecting when you turn 65. So let's look at some other tables. Here's how much smaller your checks will be if you start collecting them before your full retirement age. (Again, remember that you'll be collecting many more checks if you start early, and for those who live an average-length life, it will be a wash.)

How much bigger can your checks get? It depends on how long you delay starting to collect benefits. For each year you delay from your full retirement age, your benefits will increase by a certain sum -- depending on your birth year. Check out the table below:

Of course, the best way to estimate what you'll receive from Social Security is to get the information from the horse's mouth, by checking with the Social Security Administration. Set up a "my social Security" account and you can get a lot of information on your estimated benefits.

When you start to collect your benefits will have a big influence on how big your checks are, but there are other ways to maximize your Social Security benefits. The more you learn, the better off you may be in retirement.

The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.

The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Fifty years after actress Jayne Mansfield died in a Buick that slammed underneath a tractor-trailer, auto safety advocates say regulations inspired by that gruesome crash need updating to prevent hundreds of similar deaths annually.

"We're asking Congress to pass a bill that would mandate comprehensive underride protection, not only on tractor-trailers but on single-unit trucks," such as dump trucks, said Marianne Karth, who lost two teenage daughters, AnnaLeah and Mary, when her Crown Victoria crashed beneath a tractor-trailer in Georgia in 2013.

After two cars skidded under a jackknifed milk tanker truck in northern New York on July 6, killing four people, U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer called on federal regulators to order big trucks to be equipped with side guards that would prevent cars from sliding beneath them in a crash.

"The devastation of crashes like these  a result of a gap in truck safety standards  could be reduced," Schumer, a Democrat, said.

According to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, 301 of the 1,542 car occupants killed in collisions with a tractor-trailer in 2015 died when their vehicle struck the side of the rig. Another 292 died when their vehicle struck the rear. The institute's researchers estimate that half the fatal crashes between large trucks and passenger vehicles involve underride, which makes air bags and other crash protection ineffective because the top half of the car is sheared off.

Under regulations enacted following Mansfield's death, big rigs are required to have rear underride guards to keep cars from traveling beneath the back of a trailer in a collision. Known as "Mansfield bars," they consist of two vertical steel bars supporting a horizontal bar less than 2 feet (61 centimeters) from the ground.

Side guards aren't required by federal regulations, but at least three cities  Boston, New York and Seattle  mandate them on city-owned trucks to eliminate deaths and injuries, particularly among pedestrians and bicyclists.

The Insurance Institute for Highway Safety says side guards could prevent hundreds of deaths per year in the U.S. This spring, the institute crashed a car into a trailer equipped with a side guard called AngelWing, a steel rail covered with fiberglass. The car's front end crumpled but the test dummy was protected by the air bags and seat belt. Without the guard, the passenger compartment was sheared off, causing devastating head injuries to the dummy.

Karth and Lois Durso, whose 26-year-old daughter Roya died in a side underride crash in Indiana in 2004, have been working together to lobby Congress and the Department of Transportation for a side guard requirement as well as stronger rear guards. Their proposed legislation has no sponsor yet.

"They talked about side underride protection in 1969, but nobody has pursued it relentlessly," Karth said. "I wish somebody would have done it so maybe our daughters would still be here."

Before it issued is last set of regulations for rear-impact guards in 1996, the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said it had determined that side-underride countermeasures were not cost-effective.

The trucking industry supports other efforts to avoid crashes, such as automatic emergency braking and collision warning systems, said Sean McNally, spokesman for the American Trucking Associations. But the industry is looking to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to address questions about the effectiveness of side underride guards, he said.

The Truck Trailer Manufacturers Association said in comments submitted to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in May 2016 that there are no side impact guards commercially available for installation on trailers. The trade group said "customer demand is non-existent" due to the "relatively low frequency of side underride accidents," the significant added cost and weight per trailer for designs that had been evaluated, and "many unresolved technical challenges."

One consequence of adding the extra weight of side guards to trailers would be displacement of cargo onto additional trailers, which would add more heavy trucks to the highways and increase the risk of all types of accidents, said John Freiler, engineering manager of the manufacturers association.

In the northern New York crash, a milk tanker truck jackknifed across both lanes of Interstate 81 when the driver swerved to avoid hitting deer. Two cars skidded beneath and beyond the tanker, killing a doctor in one car and three workers riding in another car after their ambulance broke down.

R.B. Lawrence, owner of the ambulance company that lost three employees, said he'd like to see safety measures to prevent similar tragedies, but he's not sure if the best solution is underride guards or improved braking technology to prevent jackknife crashes.

"I'm all about saving lives," Lawrence said. "I'm just terribly upset by what happened. This has been an absolute nightmare."
It's not a secret that most Americans are behind on retirement savings. And that's a problem, because the typical retiree needs more than just Social Security to stay afloat financially.

But a recent study by Bank of America Merrill Lynch reveals a bit of good news: It seems 401(k) participation rates are on the rise. Specifically, last year saw a 6% increase in new 401(k) plan enrollments, and a 20% increase in contributions.

Just as importantly, 401(k) participation increased among all age groups. Of those eligible for a 401(k), 82% of workers aged 21 to 34 made contributions, as did 77% of workers aged 35 to 49 and 75% of workers aged 50 to 68.

Given the need for retirement savings, the fact that more people are getting wise to the importance of building a nest egg is an extremely positive trend. On the other hand, let's not overlook the fact that a good 18% of younger workers, 23% of thirty- and fortysomething workers, and 25% of older workers aren't taking advantage of their employers' retirement plans despite being eligible. And that's a mistake that could cost them big time.

The benefits of 401(k)s

Though IRAs offer their fair share of benefits as well, 401(k)s have their own distinct advantages -- namely, the fact that participation is virtually seamless. All you need to do to contribute to a 401(k) is tell your employer how much to deduct from your paycheck each month, and voila -- your account is consistently funded. Want to increase your contribution rate? It's usually a simple matter of filling out a form or changing your election online.

Another benefit to saving in a 401(k) is that you get the option to sock away much more cash than you would with an IRA. Currently, IRA savers under 50 can contribute up to $5,500 per year, while those 50 and older can contribute up to $6,500 annually. But with a 401(k), you get to put up to $18,000 a year away if you're under 50, and $24,000 a year if you're 50 or over. And that's huge, because if you manage to max out your 401(k) for the bulk of your career, you stand to retire a millionaire many times over.

Here's how the numbers shake out. Say you contribute $18,000 a year to your 401(k) for 35 years -- technically, you'd eventually reach the point where you'd be able to increase that contribution to $24,000, but for our example, we'll keep things simple. If your plan investments generate an average annual 7% return, which is more than doable with a stock-heavy portfolio, you'll wind up with nearly $2.5 million by the time you're ready to retire. Increase your savings window to 40 years, and you'll be looking at a cool $3.6 million.

Of course, not everyone has the ability to max out a 401(k), but even if you only manage to put away a few hundred dollars a month, if you start early enough, you can still retire a millionaire. The following table shows much you stand to accumulate if you start contributing $500 a month to your 401(k) at various ages:

If You Contribute $500 a Month to Your 401(k) Starting at Age... Here's What You'll Have by Age 65 (Assumes a 7% Average Annual Return) 25 $1.2 million 30 $829,000 35 $567,000 40 $379,000 45 $246,000

The more time you give your money to grow, the more you'll get to take advantage of compounding and boost your nest egg. Saving just $6,000 a year consistently over a 40-year period, for a total of $240,000 in out-of-pocket contributions, will leave you with well over $1 million by time retirement comes along. Even if you don't manage to start saving until age 30 (say you're working on paying off student debt and aren't earning as much), as long as you set aside $500 a month consistently from that point forward, you'll come away with a pretty respectable $829,000 nest egg.

On the other hand, the longer you wait to start funding that 401(k), the less you stand to gain in the long run. So if you're lucky enough to have access to a 401(k), be sure to contribute something starting now, and aim to ramp up your savings rate over time. Your retirement truly depends on it.

The $16,122 Social Security bonus most retirees completely overlook If you're like most Americans, you're a few years (or more) behind on your retirement savings. But a handful of little-known "Social Security secrets" could help ensure a boost in your retirement income. For example: one easy trick could pay you as much as $16,122 more... each year! Once you learn how to maximize your Social Security benefits, we think you could retire confidently with the peace of mind we're all after. Simply click here to discover how to learn more about these strategies.

The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Ford Motor Company (NYSE: F) said earlier this year that it will move production of the next-generation Focus compact, due in about two years, overseas -- mostly to China. Now we know the price tag for that move: $248 million.

Ford said this past week that it took one-time charges totaling $248 million against its second-quarter earnings to cover the costs of its decision to move production of the next-generation Focus out of North America.

Now, we should keep that in perspective: That's likely just a fraction of what Ford will save by making the upcoming all-new Focus in China. But here's why the decision to move the Focus cost Ford so much money.

Why Ford is moving the Focus to an overseas factory

First, some backstory. The current Focus is built in Michigan, but we've known for about two years that the next Focus would be built somewhere other than the United States. (That Michigan factory isn't closing. In fact, it might get busier: It'll build the new Ranger pickup and Bronco SUV instead.)

Ford had originally hinted that the next Focus would be built in Mexico, possibly in its existing factory in Hermosillo, where the Fusion sedan is made -- and possibly in a new factory it planned to build in the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi.

But then two things happened: First, the market for small sedans in the U.S. began to shrink, with more buyers favoring SUVs instead. Second, Donald Trump got elected as president of the United States -- on a platform that promised to strongly encourage (to put it mildly) U.S. companies to build in the United States.

The upshot: Early this year, Ford canceled that planned factory in San Luis Potosi and said that it would move some products originally intended for Mexico back to its U.S. factories.

But those products don't include the next Focus: Ford said last month that the upcoming all-new Focus will be built in China instead. Why? Because U.S. sales of the Focus have been declining for years, and it doesn't make sense for Ford to commit a high-cost factory to making it for North America (or South America, as it turns out).

Why that decision cost Ford $248 million

So why did all of that lead Ford to take a $248 million charge? I asked Ford's chief financial officer, Bob Shanks, to explain:

Long story short: Ford had begun ordering new tooling or doing some work at the Hermosillo factory to build the Focus, and some of that work and tooling is now being written off, as is a small amount of work that had been done in South America. Those write-offs are the reason for Ford's $248 million second-quarter charge.

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A tax reform bill could reach President Trumps desk by year end, House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Kevin Brady said Sunday.

Were on that timetable to do it, Brady, R-Texas, told Maria Bartiromo on Sunday Morning Futures. I know theres been a lot of distractions in Washington; we dont have that luxury of getting distracted. And within President Trumps team, Senate Republicans and Speaker [Paul] Ryan and ourselves -- theres a seriousness of purpose within these efforts to come forward this year.

On Thursday the Big Six, top GOP tax reform leaders in Congress and the Trump administration -- including Brady, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Senate Finance Committee chairman Orrin Hatch from Utah, National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin -- issued a joint statement on their strategy for changing the U.S. tax code. Most notably, the group agreed to drop the proposed border adjustment tax -- which would have allowed the government to slap fees on companies importing goods -- from the new plan.

Thursdays unifying statement was an important step in the timetable going forward, Brady said.

More on this... Brady: Families should be able to file taxes on postcard

In April, the White House announced it wanted to lower the corporate tax rate to 15 percent from the current 35 percent. It also said the goal would be to simplify the individual tax code by reducing the number of brackets from seven to three -- 10 percent, 25 percent and 35 percent -- allowing Americans to fill out their taxes on a postcard.

Though the Texas Republican wouldnt specify how low the corporate tax rate could go, he did reiterate the push for making the nations tax code more competitive among other countries.

We want a tax code built for growth of wages and paychecks in the economy, and the way you do that is to take less of what people earn at every income level. Let them keep more, invest more in the economy, become competitive again, Brady said. What we want for local businesses is a tax code thats a green light, not a directional signal that says go right, go left, do this. We really want those low rates and low expensing so we can grow.
The man who police arrested for allegedly stalking a famous actress at Tampa Bay Comic Con appeared before a judge on Sunday morning.

During his first court appearance, the judge upgraded the criminal charge for 45-year-old Terry Repp. He's now facing one count of aggravated stalking, a felony.

According to investigators, Repp has been stalking and harassing actress Kate Beckinsale for the last year. Before coming to Tampa, he allegedly traveled to Houston and Salt Lake City in attempts to make contact with Beckinsale.

While in Salt Lake City, authorities said Repp touched Beckinsale's back and made a statement about stabbing her.

Repp is being held at the Hillsborough County Jail on a $5,000 bond.

More from Fox 13 News
A woman in Japan who died from a tick-borne illness after being bitten by a stray cat is believed to be the first case of a human being infected with the disease without being directly bitten by a tick.

The woman died 10 days after being bitten by a presumably sick stray cat, health ministry officials told The Japan Times last week. Health officials have said the cat apparently was infected from a tick bite, and transmitted the disease when it bit the woman last year.

TICK-BORNE DISEASE ON THE RISE

The woman became infected with a disease called severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, or SFTS, a relatively new infectious disease confirmed in Japan, China and South Korea, The Japan Times added.

The tick-borne illness causes mostly flu-like symptoms: fevers, drowsiness and nausea, and has reportedly infected 266 people and killed 57 since being confirmed in 2013.

There have not been any documented cases in the U.S., but according to LiveScience.com, the virus is similar to the Heartland virus, another tick-borne disease which does have documented cases in the U.S.

DEADLY TICK DISEASE MAKES LYME DISEASE LOOK LIKE CHILD'S PLAY

An expert at the National Institute of Infectious Diseases told The Japan Times that there is very little possibility of humans contracting SFTS because its rare.

However, Japanese health officials are warning people against interaction with pets who are kept outside and who show signs of illness.
Its the middle of July, and President Trump still doesnt have a chairman for his Council of Economic Advisers. His nominee, Kevin Hassett, is a world-recognized expert on taxation, but he has been stuck on the sidelines despite tax reform being one of the administrations big goals this year. He is the one person who could explain how the different parts of the tax bill fit together.

White House advisor Gary Cohn has reportedly told associates that time is running out for tax reform. He worries that if tax reform doesn't get done by the end of the year, it likely wont happen at all. Missing key players such as Hassett doesnt help.

The delay reflects only Democrats unwillingness to confirm any Trump nominee. Hassett is not a controversial pick.

The Senate Banking Committee very easily advanced Hassetts nomination last month, with only Elizabeth Warren opposing. Other liberal Democrats such as Sherrod Brown (Ohio), Jack Reed (R.I.), Robert Menedez (N.J.), and Brian Schatz (Hawaii) all voted in Hassetts favor.

According to organizations such as the AFL-CIO, the League of Conservation Voters, and Americans for Democratic Action, these Senators have perfect or near-perfect liberal voting records. Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was the only committee member who opposed Hassett.

The economists who know Hassett best also support him. Forty-four prominent economists, liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans alike, signed a letter supporting Hassetts confirmation.

It read, in part, as follows: While the signers of this letter hold a range of views on President Trumps policies, we all believe that the formulation of economic policy would be advanced by the analysis and advice that Dr. Hassett would bring to the table. They also noted Hassetts record of serious scholarship. The signers included all of President Obamas Council Chairmen (Jason Furman, Alan Krueger, Christina Romer, Austan Goolsbee), President Clintons chairs (Laura Tyson, Martin Baily), Vice President Joe Bidens chief economist Jared Bernstein, and Obama economic advisor Mark Zandi.

Going back to 1980, the average time to confirm a Council Chairman was 25 days. For incoming administrations such as Trumps, which are already short-handed, the average confirmation period is 13 days, with the longest lasting 25 days.

Hassetts confirmation stands at 76 days and counting. For past incoming administrations, the chairman would have officially started his job by around February 26.

Not a single nomination to this position has ever taken anywhere near as long as Hassetts. Some of the responsibility lies with the administration, but Democrats have done everything they can to slow down all of President Trumps nominees. Demanding cloture filings for every single nominee, no matter how uncontroversial, means two days of debate before cloture can even be voted on, and then an additional 30 hours after that.

So far, only 24 percent of Trump's nominees have been confirmed. At this point in their administrations, Obama had 57 percent of his nominees confirmed and George W. Bush had 59 percent. And the low confirmation rate isnt because Trump has clogged up the system with nominees. Trump has made just 206 nominations, compared to 355 for Obama and 313 for Bush.

Not only does this mean that the administrations chief economist is sidelined, but it also slows down the hiring of other economists on the presidents council. Until he is confirmed, Hassett cant start filling positions under him. The economists who would be working on health care, education, the environment, and infrastructure arent in positions to help push through the administrations policies.

People in the White House have told me that the current Council of Economic Advisers has been useless, staffed as it is with only Democrats who are hostile to Trumps policies. As a result, others in the White House have had to do the research and put together the analyses that would normally be done by the Council.

Few seem to understand that Democrats unwillingness to confirm nominees slows down the appointment of other, lower-level members of the administration.

President Trump runs an efficient ship. Under Melania, the first ladys staff is 4. Under Michelle Obama, there were 22 people doing the same job. For Laura Bush and Hillary Clinton, there were 18 and up to 19 respectively. The whole Trump administration is making do with less, but the Democrats wont even let him fill those positions.

With the demise this week of the health care bill, getting tax reform accomplished becomes even more crucial to the administration.

Many liberal economists endorsed Hassett because he has a long history of reaching out to work with them. They know him as an intelligent person who cares about getting the policy right, not as someone who holds partisan grudges.

Democratic Senators, on the other hand, who are delaying all of Trumps nominations, are engaging in rank partisanship. If they want anyone to believe that they care about bipartisanship, they need to stop delaying non-controversial nominations such as Hassetts.
On July 4, North Korea test-launched a missile at an extremely high angle that proved it could fly a distance of at least 6,700 kilometers (nearly 4,200 miles). On Friday the rogue nation launched an intercontinental ballistic missile that can fly much farther and apparently reach the U.S. West Coast  and perhaps cities in our Midwest  carrying a nuclear weapon that could cause horrific casualties.

Fridays missile was probably a variant of the system launched on our Independence Day. While the July 4 missile was capable of reaching Alaska, the newer missile flew higher and several minutes longer. The weight of a warhead would determine exactly how far beyond the western U.S. it could travel.

There is no ambiguity here. Pundits and even government officials (largely in South Korea) have made efforts to downplay the accomplishments of the first successful launch on July 4, but the truth is that the threat North Korea poses today to the United States has taken yet another important step forward.

Recent media coverage has confused the picture for Americans concerned about our national security. For example, a headline in the Washington Post on July 25 begins: North Korea could cross ICBM threshold next year.

The test Friday proves that the North Koreans now also appear to have the technology to target major cities such as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles  at a minimum.

My response to that is: Look at the tests recently conducted. The North Koreans crossed that threshold on July 4. The test Friday proves that the North Koreans now also appear to have the technology to target major cities such as Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles  at a minimum.

There are folks  even now  debating atmospheric re-entry, although North Korea has already proven its missiles are capable of atmospheric re-entry twice in one month.

There are also still folks debating the accuracy of the missile, even though (to give one example) the city of Anchorage spans more than 1,900 square miles and contains more than 40 percent of Alaskas population  and is well within the range of both missiles North Korea tested. So consider: how accurate does a missile armed with a nuclear warhead need to be to easily take the lives of at least 80,000 people in Alaska with a single strike?

There are a high number of reports that tend to confuse the picture when it comes to North Korean ballistic missiles. There are in fact three key families of missiles that exist in the North Korean ballistic missile program  the Scud family, the Musudan family and an unidentified solid fuel missile launched both underwater as a submarine-launched ballistic missile and from land.

The original Scud was acquired from Egypt. The Musudan familys genesis came from rogue Russian scientists. And the solid-fueled family of land-sea missiles looks very much like the Chinese JL-1 system  though there is no proof, and no evidence pointing to where North Korea actually acquired this system. The North Koreans also have their own indigenously produced version of the SS-21 (a tactical battlefield missile), which they acquired from Syria.

So what is the North Korean threat? There is the threat to Asia, the threat to the United States, and the threat to key regions in the Middle East and Africa from the instability and violence created with North Korean proliferation of a variety of weapons, including missiles.

There is also the threat of the collapse of North Korea that could possibly unleash a variety of North Korean military systems into the black market for sale to countries like Iran and Syria. North Koreas missiles are a part of all of these threats.

This leads to the key question: How do we contain or stop this threat? There are actually two important ways to do so  tactical and strategic.

The best tactical way to stop North Koreas ballistic missile threat is not a preemptive strike. Such a strike likely would create a second Korean War, resulting in what all analysts agree would be a minimum of hundreds of thousands of casualties, many of them civilians.

Consequently, ballistic missile defense is the best tactical option. Unfortunately, this was largely neglected under the Obama administration. It must be beefed up, fully funded, tested often, and robustly deployed in order to provide a realistic umbrella of defense against North Korean (and Iranian) missiles.

Let there be no doubt. Ballistic missile defense is not yet where it needs to be and this is a vital national security capability that needs to be strengthened immediately and with a sense of urgency.

The best strategic way to address this issue is by going after the finances that support North Koreas weapons development. This means going after banks and front companies all over the world where Pyongyang launders the dirty money it uses (much of it gained from military proliferation).

There has been a lot written and talked about in the media lately about this action against North Koreas illicit financial networks. It is important to note that when it comes to targeting North Koreas dirty money, it is not just the banks and it is not just China.

The United States must use its resources, personnel, and willing allies to squeeze North Koreas Mafia-like illicit financial networks in places like Singapore, Malaysia, Africa and yes, China. This would, put strong pressure on the lifeline for North Koreas weapons of mass destruction programs.

Sanctions and initiatives associated with the Patriot Act, Section 311, have worked in the past (yet were abandoned in favor of negotiations), and can work again.

It is time to stop talking about when the North Koreans can threaten us. The time is now.

We must take this threat seriously, and we must take the actions necessary to maintain our national defense and that of our allies.

Not to do so leaves the potential to encounter the most catastrophic military scenario since World War II.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff John Kelly plans to bring in one of his deputies from the Department of Homeland Security when he begins his new job Monday.

Kirstjen Nielsen, who has served as chief of staff under Kelly at DHS, will follow her boss to the White House, a Trump administration official told Fox News.

Nielsen will be White House deputy chief of staff, the source said.

"Shell be the one person Kelly brings with him, an administration official told Politico.

Kelly was named Friday to replace Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff. Priebus, a former chairman of the Republican National Committee, told reporters Friday that he had officially resigned a day earlier.

With Kelly leaving DHS, Washington has been crackling with speculation about who President Trump might pick to head the nations key security agency.

Candidates being mentioned, according to Politico, include Thomas Homan, acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, an outspoken opponent of illegal immigration, and U.S. Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Some have also raised the idea that Attorney General Jeff Sessions could move to DHS, Fox News reported.

According to the Hill, Nielsen was most recently president of Sunesis Consulting and served as a senior fellow and member of the Resilience Task Force at the George Washington Universitys Center for Cyber and Homeland Security.

She previously worked in the White House under former President George W. Bush, where she was a special assistant to the president for prevention, preparedness, and response on the White House Homeland Security Council.

The most recent White House deputy chief of staff was Katie Walsh, who left the position in March to take a job with the non-profit America First Policies, the Hill reported.

Fox News' Jake Gibson contributed reporting to this story.
President Trump lashed out at the Chinese government in a pair of tweets Saturday evening over Beijing's failure to slow down North Korea's nuclear weapons program.

"They do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk." Trump posted on the social network, before vowing, "We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

There was no immediate response from the Chinese government.

Trump posted the message hours after North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un said his country had developed an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking the mainland U.S. North Korea's official propaganda outlet said the Hwasong-14 missile reached a maximum height of 2,314 miles and traveled 620 miles Friday night before accurately landing in waters off Japan.

The launch has led analysts to conclude that a wide swath of the United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of North Korean weapons. Observers had estimated that the North's first ICBM on July 4 could have reached Alaska.

Following the test, the Chinese government urged Pyongyang to abide by United Nations Security Council resolutions and halt any moves that could escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Washington and its allies have watched with growing concern as Pyongyang has made significant progress toward its goal of having all of the U.S. within range of its missiles to counter what it labels as U.S. aggression. There are other hurdles, including building nuclear warheads to fit on those missiles and ensuring reliability. But many analysts have been surprised by how quickly leader Kim Jong Un has developed North Korea's nuclear and missile programs despite several rounds of U.N. Security Council sanctions that have squeezed the impoverished country's economy.

Trump has said he will not allow North Korea to obtain an ICBM that can deliver a nuclear warhead. But this week, the Defense Intelligence Agency reportedly concluded that the North will have a reliable ICBM capable of carrying a nuclear weapon as early as next year, in an assessment that trimmed two years from the agency's earlier estimate.

The French Foreign Ministry condemned the launch and called for "strong and additional sanctions" by the United Nations and European Union. "Only maximal diplomatic pressure might bring North Korea to the negotiating table," the ministry said in a statement.

"This is a 4G threat: global, grave, given and growing," France's U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told The Associated Press. That's why we call for a firm and quick reaction including the adoption of strong additional sanctions by the Security Council."

A spokesman for Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that Dunford met at the Pentagon with the commander of U.S. forces in the Pacific, Adm. Harry Harris, to discuss U.S. military options in light of North Korea's missile test.

The spokesman, Navy Capt. Greg Hicks, said Dunford and Harris placed a phone call to Dunford's South Korean counterpart, Gen. Lee Sun Jin. Dunford and Harris "expressed the ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance," Hicks said, referring to the U.S. defense treaty that obliges the U.S. to defend South Korea.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Political consultant Roger Stone was every bit his controversial self Saturday night at the Politicon event in Pasadena, California.

During a session titled Weed Nation, Stone threw verbal bombs at the Trump administration, accusing it of wanting to re-fire up the war on drugs.

But during a separate session on Watergate -- which was really about the Trump-Russia probe  Stone seemed more ready to defend the president and his team.

For example, Stone said there was one key difference between the scandal that brought down Richard Nixon and the current media frenzy surrounding the White House.

Watergate started with a crime, Stone said, referring to the burglary that launched the case. But he said he saw no evidence of crime in contacts between Trumps team and Russians.

In fact, Stone said he saw more parallels between the Nixon era and the Obama years than between Nixon and Trump, asserting the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on tens of thousands of Americans.

He also said the charge that Russians had hacked computers of the Democratic National Committee was entirely unproven.

What was Stones answer for the media lynch mobs and others going after Trump and Co.?

You dont have any evidence to impeach Trump, Stone said, and your motivation is entirely political.

"You dont have any evidence to impeach Trump, and your motivation is entirely political.  Roger Stone, political consultant

Stone said Russia lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya had entered the U.S. without a visa and had posted photos online from an anti-Trump rally and from inside the office of Republican Sen. John McCain, a frequent Trump critic.

I find that troubling, Stone said. I smell a set-up.

Other Stone barbs:

On Sean Spicer: He shouldnt let the door hit him in the ass on the way out.

On George W. Bush: Bush snorted so much cocaine, he had a personal thank-you note from Pablo Escobar.

On Trumps military transgender ban: I disagree with that entirely.

Regarding marijuana, Stone said Trump needed to stick to his campaign position of leaving pot policy to the states, adding he didnt think the president was truly aligned with the drug warriors on his team anyway.

Stone warned that Trump could lose voter support by taking a hard line on marijuana. Medical marijuana, for example, was a consensus issue, he said, with lots of voter support.

The war on drugs, meanwhile, was largely an expensive racist failure, Stone said. He charged that the Clinton administration had incarcerated an entire generation of young black men for mostly small amounts of pot.

Politicon, billed as an independent forum, unaffiliated with any political organizations, parties or political action committees, was scheduled to conclude Sunday at the Pasadena Convention Center.

Newly hired White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci had been scheduled to appear at the event, but canceled following his recent interview with the New Yorker magazine, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Fox News Daniel Gallo contributed to this story.
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Sunday again dismissed assertions that she should resign her long-held leadership post, saying, I am a master legislator.

Pelosi, who has been the Houses top Democrat since 2007, has faced repeated suggestion that she step down since 2010, when Republicans took control of the chamber in a wave election.

Self-promotion is a terrible thing, but somebody has to do it, the California lawmaker told Fox News Sunday. I am a master legislator. I know the budget to the nth degree ... I feel very confident about the support I have in my caucus."

Other House Democrats have tried unsuccessfully to replace the 77-year-old Pelosi, most recently after modest House gains in the 2016 elections, largely the result of Democrats failing to articulate a message of economic prosperity to the middle class, particularly those in middle-America.

And rumblings among Democrats resurfaced this year after the party failed in four special House elections to take a Republican-held seat.

Pelosi acknowledged that the candidates largely anti-President Trump message had some influence on the losses but insisted that Washington Democrats new A Better Deal message, unveiled last week, will help the party going forward.

I dont want to go into that, Pelosi said Sunday. I want to go into our new plan.

She suggested that congressional Democrats, not the partys presidential nominee, control the message in so-called midterm elections.

Democrats would need their own wave elections to win more than 40 GOP-held House seats to retake control of the chamber. However, Pelosi also dismissed questions about whether her party would win enough seats and her running for House speaker.

Thats so unimportant, she said. What is important is that we have a better deal. We have unity in the party. We are proud of the fact that the party has diverse thinking and we can accommodate that.
Senate Republicans ended July in humiliating and seemingly final defeat over repealing and replacing ObamaCare, but relentless pressure this weekend from President Trump and reports of yet another potentially winning bill have sparked renewed hope of success within the party.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., reportedly has a new overhaul plan for the Senate, where senators will return Monday because Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has revoked the first two weeks of their traditional August recess.

Trump also met privately with several Senate Republicans on Friday, according to Politico, which also first reported about the Graham proposal.

The president then launched into a very public Twitter rant this weekend in which he said Senate Republicans look like fools for trying and failing for essentially the entire month to pass an overhaul plan.

Its time to move on, McConnell, R-Ky., said Friday, after the last repeal attempt failed.

The president -- sounding desperate to fulfill a major campaign promise in ending ObamaCare -- also suggested McConnell lower the vote threshold from 60 to 51 votes and that he might yank the subsidies that members of Congress receive to pay for their ObamaCare policies.

The world is watching, Trump said in a final, chiding tweet Sunday morning.

Beyond taking away Congress subsidies, Trump also hinted at ending subsidies to insurance companies that offer policies under ObamaCare.

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway told Fox News Sunday that Trump will make that decision this week.

She also called the subsidies received by congressional members and their staffers a really sweet deal and argued, This is exactly what so many Americans hate about Washington, D.C.

The president will not accept those who said it is, quote, time to move, she also said.

Trump said Friday after the failed votes, as he has before, that he aimed to let the 2010 health care law implode under its own weight of rising premium costs and few insurance policy options.

However, he and essentially every Washington Republican have been elected on a promise to repeal and replace ObamaCare.

The GOP-led House passed its overhaul measure this spring, but not without the same kinds of problems faced by the Republican-led Senate, include how to get support from all wings of the party.

They are divided on such key issues as whether Medicaid should be expanded and whether subsidies should continue to be provided to insurance companies, apparently for low-income families to pay for policies.

The Senate has 52 Republicans and 48 Democrats and Independents who vote, or caucus, together.

Democrats say they are willing to work on solutions to ObamaCare but so far have not participated in the process.

The GOP-controlled House and Senate for the past several years have passed dozens of either full- or partial-repeal measures. But they have failed to do so since Trump, a fellow Republican, took office in January.

Several GOP senators have balked at the recent measure and amendments, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins.

Collins said Sunday that the ObamaCare issue remains unsettled and that the Senate must get back to work.

Our job is not done, she told CNNs State of the Union. There are serious problems with (ObamaCare.) ... And I certainly hope the administration does not do anything in the meantime to hasten that collapse.
This is a rush transcript from "Your World," July 28, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

NEIL CAVUTO, "YOUR WORLD" HOST: And I talked to one Republican strategist who said, you know, Neil, it always looks darkest before the dawn. Well, things can change, which is true technically. But right before the dawn, it's still very dark.

All right, meanwhile, this from Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer earlier today right after the vote.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHUCK SCHUMER, D-NY, MINORITY LEADER: I would is to my dear friend, the majority leader, we're not celebrating. We're relieved.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CAVUTO: Wait a minute. You said you're not celebrating. Then how do you explain this? I don't know if you caught this picture. But it's a pretty interesting one. Do we have that, guys? We don't have. All right, take my word for it.

OK, with Elizabeth Warren, they're taking a selfie over this congratulatory rallying point for Democrats that the Republicans had failed.

So, for some, it certainly did give the impression that this was a big victory for them. And, of course, they were whooping it up in the middle of the morning last night or very early morning after this to do just that.

So, West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin on what signal that sends.

Now, if I'm a Republican, Senator, I'm looking at that. I'm saying, wait a minute, you said don't get celebratory about it and all, but you're getting celebratory about it.

Can you hear me, Senator? What do you think of that?

SEN. JOE MANCHIN, D-WEST VIRGINIA: Oh, I -- oh, Neil, I sure can.

I didn't see a senator last night. There's nothing to celebrate about. Nobody won or lost. If we don't get this fixed, we all lose. These markets will collapse. As we know, the private market is in a heck of a shape right now. And we have got to do something to stabilize that.

But, also, there needs to be reform. We have said that. You can't have these premiums going up the way they are with people that are out in the marketplace, and then have no restrictions whatsoever on the expansion that we did.

I think, if you want to be -- look at something that has happened, look at around the country and find out which states have tried different things. Alaska has the re-insurance. Indiana has done something great as far as the managed Medicaid expansion to control costs, but show people how to be more responsible, but use it in a more productive manner. A lot of good things can be done.

But, John, everybody is saying about John McCain. Let me tell you, John came in there and John voted to proceed. Let's get on the bill. If anybody has ever sat in a committee with John McCain -- I have been on Armed Services -- John has his markup on the NDA, national defense authorization bill. And he does it every year.

We get there for days. And we get sitting there, and everybody gets their chance. Everybody can put an amendment in. Everybody can debate it. And he gives everybody a vote on it. John believes in democracy. And he exercises it, because he works harder. He just cannot...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: But were you surprised, whatever your view...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Were you surprised? And no one doubts the maverick that he is, and he's his own man, and certainly he's a hero in certainly my book, but that he did campaign in reelection to repeal ObamaCare, which has been a real onerous issue for his state and had championed that as a campaign theme.

And as tentative as this measure was, it was a vehicle to do just that.

So, did it look hypocritical?

MANCHIN: I didn't -- I didn't look at it as hypocritical, because John wants to fix it and repair it.

He just says, fine, repeal it, but at least give everybody a shot at it. If that is where everybody is going, then give them a shot. John just -- John rebuffed basically the process, or the lack of the process, I believe, Neil.

CAVUTO: I see.

MANCHIN: The patriot -- the patriot that he is, he just -- you weren't going to budge John when he says, this is not fair. And that's really what it was about.

CAVUTO: Well, it is what it is. To your point, this is where we stand now.

MANCHIN: Yes.

CAVUTO: Now, what bothers me is when I -- there's a little bit of lecturing now going on, on the part of both sides blaming the other for the collapse of this.

But when the Democratic leadership, Senator, is saying that it's not trying to essentially rub the opponent's noses in the ground on this, and yet they're taking selfies and whooping it up and all of that, how are Republicans going to be disposed to be working with them if they don't trust them?

MANCHIN: John, I'm sure that -- or, Neil, I'm sure they did the same thing, you know, back in 2010. I wasn't there.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: No, by the way, you're right on this. Everybody does this. I'm not minimizing -- the hypocrisy knows no bounds or party loyalty.

But it's going to make it tough to work, right?

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: I can just tell you this. Chuck Schumer -- Chuck -- well, not for me, it's not, because I understand human nature.

And the people that might have thought they won something last night, let me tell you one thing. That's ill-advised. You didn't win anything. And we're all going to lose if we don't fix it.

Quit being Democrats and Republicans, and be an American. It's time for us to come together. And the Republicans, God bless them, they tried everything they could to fulfill the promise they made to repeal. They couldn't get there. OK?

Let's sit down and work through it. Let's work through it. Don't just throw it out. Don't let it implode. I hope the president didn't really mean that. I'm sure he's upset. But I want the president to know we want to work and fix the thing. I don't want runaway costs. I don't want...

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Well, you know, Republicans say that Democrats have a funny way of showing that.

In other words, maybe there are guys like you who want to work with the other side. I know we live in a very polarized environment, Senator. I get that. I got it when it was that way when they were coming up with ObamaCare.

But the fact of the matter is, there does seem to be an unwillingness now to get anything done on a consensual basis.

MANCHIN: Well, that's -- I'm sure -- I can't tell you. I'm not used to this environment. It's frustrating as can be.

And I got -- I came there to do things.

CAVUTO: All right.

MANCHIN: When I was governor of West Virginia, my great state, we brought everybody together. We got things done, because the people counted on us. And the people are counting on us tremendously now.

So, I'm going to work with everybody. If you look at my voting record, Neil, sometimes, I'm the only Democrat voting with my Republican friends if I think it's right.

CAVUTO: All right.

MANCHIN: If I can come home and explain it, I will vote for it.

But, right now, we're working with the -- we have a group of former governors. We have a group of senators. Democrats and Republicans have been talking.

(CROSSTALK)

CAVUTO: Maybe something can get done. Maybe something gets done.

(CROSSTALK)

MANCHIN: A couple of weeks.

CAVUTO: All right, Senator, thank you very, very much.

MANCHIN: It's going to get done. We have got to do it. We have got to do it.

CAVUTO: All right, I apologize for some of the audio delay and problems here.

MANCHIN: Thank you, Neil.

END

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This is a rush transcript from "Fox News Sunday," July 30, 2017. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.

CHRIS WALLACE, FOX NEWS HOST: Im Chris Wallace.

Tough times for President Trump, with a stunning defeat on a top legislative initiative and another shakeup of the White House staff.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Reince is a good man. John Kelly will do a fantastic job.

WALLACE (voice-over): Well discuss the presidents decision to replace Reince Priebus as chief of staff with retired General John Kelly, when we sit down for an exclusive interview with counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway.

(on camera): Then, with the collapse of Republican efforts to repeal and replace ObamaCare, what happens now?

SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL, R-KY, MAJORITY LEADER: Its time for our friends on the other friends on the other side to tell us what they have in mind.

WALLACE (voice-over): Well discuss the possibility for bipartisan compromise and what the other side is willing to give with House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

And with dysfunction in the nations capital, the worse its been in years, well get a view from outside the beltway, when we talk with Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio. Conway, Pelosi and Kasich, only on "Fox News Sunday."

Plus, explosive obscene comments by the new White House communications chief shake Washington. Well ask our Sunday panel whether the latest White House shakeup will save the Trump agenda.

All, right now, on "Fox News Sunday."

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And hello again from Fox News in Washington.

Donald Trump ended one of the worst weeks of his presidency, putting a new man in charge of his White House staff, the secretary of homeland security, retired Marine General John Kelly.

With open this disarray in the administration, and Republicans failing to keep one of their biggest campaign promises to repeal ObamaCare, is another staff shakeup enough.

In the moment, well talk with counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway. But, first, let's bring in Kevin Corke at the White House with the latest -- Kevin.

KEVIN CORKE, FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT: Chris, clearly the elevation and the appointment of General Kelly is intended to calm the seas for a White House that despite its best efforts has been rocked by turbulent seas throughout the Trump ministration, especially when you think about what has been happening here politically.

Now, sources do tell Fox News that the new chief of staff will have control, full control in fact, over the Oval Office and schedule, though we have also learned that some key staffers, at least for the time being, will continue to have whats being described to me as casual access to the president, with Kushner, Bannon, Conway, Scavino and Scaramucci being among the names most often mentioned.

Priebus ouster just the latest in a series of departures and seeing (ph) this administration marked by unrest and upheaval at the highest levels, including the loss of national security adviser Mike Flynn, the firing of FBI Director Jim Comey and the departure of key White House figures, Dubke, Spicer and now Priebus.

As for Kelly, to be effective, he will need control over a team that has had competing factions and a president whos own lack of message discipline has made it exceedingly difficult at times to effectively and coherently shepherd his message. Sources tell Fox News General Kelly will have that control and that was one of the major selling points to get him to come to the White House after several overtures.

His first day on the job, Chris, is Monday, and given that explosive and profanity-laced interview by the communications director last week and, of course, the latest setback on healthcare, it's a safe bet he will have his hands full -- Chris.

WALLACE: Kevin Corke, reporting from the White House -- Kevin, thanks for that.

Let's drill down on what we can expect from the new chief of staff. We are joined now by counselor to the president, Kellyanne Conway.

Kellyanne, I want to start with a question that my colleague Martha McCallum asked you on Friday, whether or not all of the White House staff will now report to the new chief of staff, General Kelly. Heres your answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KELLYANNE CONWAY, COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT: Thats just a pecking order question. I think its beside the point, and heres why. We all serve the president and this country.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Respectfully, Kellyanne, I dont think it is beside the point. An awful lot of people in and out of this White House say the problem is, theres the lack of discipline. Theres an absence of chain of command.

So, Im going to ask you again: will all of the White House staff report to the new chief of staff?

CONWAY: So, I will do whatever the president and our new chief of staff, General Kelly, ask me to do. And yesterday, I was on "Fox & Friends" and said very clearly that if we can have protocol, pecking order, order, discipline, and the chief of staff that empowers the staff to succeed, I know that General Kelly has done that on the battlefield, I know that hes done that as a chief military aide to former cabinet secretary, I know hes done that as a cabinet secretary.

And so, we have great faith that that will be done, and that is nothing about our outgoing chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who should hold his head high, as he exits. Many great things happen in the first six months during his tenure and I think that Reince will go down as one of the most successful and certainly longest serving RNC chairs were as chair, they were able to raise a great deal of money and improve the digital and grassroots operation that allowed the Republican Party to succeed by getting the House, the Senate, the governorships, the state legislatures.

So, Im always a protocol and pecking order kind of gal and Im very deferential person. Ive never addressed the president even when he was a candidate and as close as we are as boss and employee, Ive never addressed him by his first name. I always address people like General Kelly as sir, and I, also with Reince Priebus, was happy to do what I was asked to do, as a member of his staff.

But I think so much of the chief of staff role also occurred outside of the building. Theres a little too much going on right now in terms of acting like he is the personnel chief inside the building only. This is somebody who regularly interfaces with the cabinet. And General Kelly is coming from the cabinet. He will be talking to his peers about their different concerns, their different deployment of issues.

WALLACE: But, look --

CONWAY: We've got a very active cabinet. It often doesnt get covered. Hell also be interfacing with Capitol Hill where a lot of the legislative agenda has stalled. I think the chaos this week really was on Capitol Hill and in the Senate. Why after 7-1/2 years nobody jumped out of a cake and gave us healthcare reform on a silver platter, I don't know.

WALLACE: Were going to get to health care in a moment. I do want to talk, though, about the disarray inside the White House. You had Anthony Scaramucci and a profanity-laced attack on another -- other members, not just one, of the administration, of the White House staff. And so, I just want to ask you directly, has Scaramucci, who said that he reports directly to the president, has Scaramucci, have you, have you now been told you to report to John Kelly?

CONWAY: I will speak with General Kelly and the president about that, as Im sure Anthony Scaramucci will. We are very -- I think were all very curious and very excited to have our first formal meeting with our new chief of staff tomorrow. I had a very brief conversation with him this weekend.

And again, getting -- being able to solve the problems of this nation and doing it in an orderly and rapid fashion is really why we were sent to Washington. Its why the two people who are elected, Donald Trump and Mike Pence, and no one else are there. So, to the extent that we can do more and do it more quickly in a disrupted fashion in which we're accustomed to with Donald J. Trump, I think that having the tools in place is very important.

But I talked to Anthony this weekend. I talked to Reince this weekend. Everybody is on the same team into terms of were on the side of freedom and democracy, repealing and replacing ObamaCare, lowering taxes, putting ISIS in retreat, cracking down on these gangs, sanctions on Russia --

WALLACE: Right.

CONWAY: -- North Korea and Iran. You know, there's just so much thats happening and Ive got to say, the swamp includes many people, many institutions, individuals, and I think calcified ideas that need disruption. It includes folks also on Capitol Hill who I don't know what they were expecting, Chris, were they not expecting Donald Trump to make good on his campaign promise and the moral imperative of getting the 20 million-plus Americans who have no health care coverage the relief they need, the 6.5 million who we're willing to fork over money, $3 billion worth, to the IRS rather than get simple ObamaCare coverage where -- do they not expect this president to go ahead and do what he said he was going to do?

WALLACE: Kellyanne, youve got to allow -- you've got to allow me to ask some questions here. I want to ask you about one more question on the administration and then well move on to healthcare. This week, the president continued to attack his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. And when he was asked whether or not he's going to keep Sessions in the job or fire him, here was his answer.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Im very disappointed with the attorney general, but we will see what happens. Time will tell. Time will tell.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Does the president want Sessions to continue as attorney general or has been suggested, is he considering him moving over to replace General Kelly as the secretary of homeland security?

CONWAY: Again, thats a personnel question and only the president can answer. So, just on Friday, you had -- Thursday and Friday, you had Attorney General Sessions in El Salvador and you had President Trump on Long Island, both working toward the same goal, which is to stop these vile groups, these MS-13 gangs, who are murdering innocent Americans and bringing drugs and violence and to our community.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: I understand that. Does that mean --

CONWAY: At the same time -- well, he's working.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: No, but I understand hes working. The question is, is he considering him moving over, if youre going to -- if the immigration part of this is so important, to be the secretary of secretary of homeland security?

CONWAY: I won't comment on that, but I will tell you that the president has expressed frustration about the recusal. So much has flowed from that recusal and so much of President Trumps agenda flows from the Department of Justice. Many of the primary issues and the program he won successfully on goes to the Department of Justice.

And look whats happened with this ridiculous Russian collusion delusion. You see all these journalists who built entire TV sets and lower thirds and screaming graphics and breathless coverage now slinking away this week, Chris, from Russian collusion coverage, why, because you have everybody from Jared Kushner giving his -- meeting with the Senate and giving his public statement.

You have no there there whatsoever. Its completely -- we were promised the next Watergate. We don't even have water polo. We dont even have watermelon. Its so ridiculous and the only thing I can see happening with Russia right now is this Fusion GPS matter as the Senate witnessed who said everybody should go look over there and whats happened. Somebody being paid by the Russians to compile a damaging dossier on Donald Trump, again, filled with falsities and lies.

You know how much time has been wasted away from the victims of ObamaCare?

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: OK, lets not waste any more time. Lets talk -- Kellyanne, let's talk about ObamaCare.

The president put out a new tweet today. I want to put it on the screen. He wrote: Dont give up Republican senators, the world is watching, repeal and replace, and go to 51 votes, nuclear option, get cross state lines and more.

Is that the presidents plan, stay on repeal and replace, change the Senate rules and legislative filibuster so that you can pass a fuller repeal and replace, including selling insurance across state lines?

CONWAY: The president will not accept those who said it's, quote, time to move on. He wants to help the millions of Americans who have suffered with no coverage. They were lied to by the last president. They couldn't keep the doctor. They couldn't keep their plan.

Weve met with the ObamaCare victims at the White House several times now. Theyre real people, theyre suffering.

And when he talks about the 51 votes, the president is basically making the case that so many of the components of real healthcare reform, Chris, requires 60 votes -- the drug pricing, the selling of insurance across state lines, the associated health plans that allow those who don't get their health insurance to the employers like you and I do, or to government benefits, who have been left out because the premiums are too high.

Premiums have doubled. We see in some states that there are no insurers --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Let's talk about that. Kellyanne --

CONWAY: So, he will. He will stick with it.

WALLACE: OK, failing it, and fail -- and then we should point out that both Republicans and Democrats say that theres no chance theyre going to change the Senate rules.

Heres what the president says his plan is.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode and then do it. I turned out to be right. Let ObamaCare implode.

(APPLAUSE)

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Failing repeal and replace, is that really what the president intends to do? Does he intend to cut off what are called cost-sharing reductions which lower the out-of-pocket expenses for people, lower income people? And what about -- you talk about real people, what about the millions of people while ObamaCare is imploding that are going to lose healthcare coverage?

CONWAY: So, Chris, I saw the comment from Mr. Schumer, Senator Schumer, about this. What is their plan to help? The CSR payments are being made and we've already got an opinion by one court because you have members of Congress who sued to say that under ObamaCare, this money was never authorized through the Congress. And so, they would like an opportunity to do that, which is, of course, the normal course of business.

Can I just ask Senator Schumer --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Is the present going to cut off the CSR payments, the out-of-pocket payments? He can do it starting next month, this week.

CONWAY: Yes, he can. He can -- he's going to make that decision this week, and thats the decision that only he can make.

But let's go back to what we are really talking about here. When he said yesterday in the same tweet, I believe, about the bailout -- the insurance companies bailout from members of Congress, hes talked about the CSR payments. Hes also talking about this really sweet deal that members of Congress and their staffers have where they are not beholden to the same health healthcare that so many Americans say is unaffordable and unsustainable and untenable.

And this is exactly what so many Americans hate about Washington, D.C. They feel like they have their nose pressed up against the glass, peering into the special interests, the swamp, these lobbyists, the folks on Capitol Hill. They want people to live under the same rules they do. And, frankly, if people had the same rules on Capitol Hill, maybe they would have a stronger taste of what it feels like to be in a short -- what it feels like --

WALLACE: Kellyanne --

CONWAY: -- to have to choose between paying your premiums and paying your grocery bill.

WALLACE: Kellyanne --

CONWAY: But the president will make that decision. But, look, the Democrats have a big stop sign up. They're obstructing everything.

WALLACE: All right. Wed love to continue. We've got to move on.

Thank you so much. Thank you for your time. Always good to talk with you.

CONWAY: Thank you, Chris.

WALLACE: When we come back, well discuss the Trump White House and well try to answer the question: what are Democrats willing to give to get a compromise on ObamaCare?

House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi joins us next, only on "Fox News Sunday."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: It's now back to the drawing board for health care reform after the Republican plan to repeal and replace imploded on the Senate floor. Is the solution to ObamaCare bipartisan compromise?

Joining me now is House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Leader Pelosi, welcome back to "Fox News Sunday."

REP. NANCY PELOSI, D-CALI., MINORITY LEADER: Good morning. My pleasure to be here.

WALLACE: Thank you.

How much trouble is this president in? And do you think that putting General Kelly in there is going to make a difference?

PELOSI: Well, let me take the second part -- I hope so. I look forward to working with General Kelly. Ive worked with him as -- with Secretary Kelly at the Department of Homeland Security. So I will be speaking with him today and look forward to working with him. Its a very important position, the president -- the chief of staff to the president of the United States. And it has to be recognized that he is the chief of staff.

WALLACE: Well, I was going to ask you about that. You've been in Washington. You (ph) see a lot of White Houses, the way they operate. Does this White House need more discipline?

PELOSI: Well, the -- I can just say from my experience working with the Bush I White House, Andy Card, had a great rapport. Everybody knew he was the chief of staff and he had -- and that was recognized on Capitol Hill, that he really was the chief of staff. And with Josh Bolten, highly respected, we also work closely with him with our differences. But nonetheless respectful of getting results.

WALLACE: With the defeat of repeal and replace this week in the Senate, do you think that the Republican effort to repeal ObamaCare is dead?

PELOSI: Well, the American people have spoken. I think what you saw was just an outpouring of stories of how the Affordable Care Act affected their lives. So, where do we go from here?

WALLACE: But let me just say, you say the American people have spoken, they put Republicans in charge of the House, Republicans in charge of the Senate, Republicans in the White House, all running on repeal and replace -- you could argue that they spoke and Washington didn't listen.

PELOSI: Well, they -- no, Im talking about since the election, they have seen what the replace might be and they have rejected that overwhelmingly. People see what it means in their lives. I think it's really important for us to recognize the facts here, that what the Republicans are putting forth put 17 million, 20 million, 22 million, or 23 million people off the rolls and diminish the benefits, increased the costs, had an age tax, undermined Medicare, and really was not a good proposal.

I think that there is -- in Senator McConnells, one of his bills that he had, the repeal and replace, he had a provision that we can all embrace. And it was a provision to cover the cost-sharing that is in -- cost-sharing reduction to extend the range of reinsurance, which is very important. It has about short-term stability, long term stability, and I fully support that and hope that he would advance that.

WALLACE: All right. Lets -- because this gets in the weeds and I dont what to get too technical here for folks. You sent a letter to Republican congressional leaders on Friday in which you said, I want to extend my hand, I want bipartisan compromise.

One of the things that you very much want and you just referred to it, I talked to Kellyanne Conway about it, is what are called sharing reduction payments. These are payments to insurance companies that lower the out-of-pocket costs to things like deductibles and co-pays for lower income people who are on the exchanges.

PELOSI: And middle income, and middle income.

WALLACE: Let me just say, President Trump tweeted this yesterday: If a new healthcare bill is not approved quickly, bailouts for insurance companies, hes talking about the CSRs, and bailouts for members of Congress will end very soon.

Heres my question, Leader Pelosi -- to keep those CSR payments, what are you as Democrats willing to give to get a real compromise?

PELOSI: Lets go -- let's back up on it. The Affordable Care Act is a market-oriented proposal, doing the cost-sharing, the reductions, a way to have it be in the free market, in the marketplace as opposed to having everyone say -- have many more people on Medicaid or something. So, you -- theres governors of states had said, give me the money. Ill buy insurance for these people.

So, this is not bailing on insurance companies. This is about having stability in the private sector in order to provide healthcare.

WALLACE: With a huge government subsidy. Heres my point --

PELOSI: But its not --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: Heres my point, Republicans -- compromise means both sides give, not one side gives and the other side takes. Republicans want to cut back on ObamaCares mandates, on ObamaCares taxes, on some of ObamaCares regulations. What are you willing to give? What are you willing to agree to as part of that that would allow a true bipartisan compromise?

PELOSI: Well, heres the thing -- first of all, you will remember that the Affordable Care Act as we passed and as we call it, the Affordable Care Act is something that was very modeled after Romneycare, and that said no free riders. Everybody has to have insurance, so that if your neighbor's not buying insurance and you are, you are paying more because he or she is not. So, this is about enlarging the pool, making it healthier, younger, and having more benefits in the --

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: I understand the reason and I understand the history. But it doesn't sound like you're willing to give anything.

PELOSI: Nobody is (ph) -- the question is that: what did they have to offer? In other words, you have to have a big pool, and in order to do that, you have an employer and the -- and the --

WALLACE: How about, for instance, you talk about free market, instead of mandating that people have it, what the Republicans were saying, forgive me, was of you don't have it, and now you want to buy insurance, you got to wait for a while, or you got to pay a premium to get it. In other words, instead of saying, Im the government, you have to buy insurance, why not say, theres going to be a penalty if you don't buy it?

PELOSI: Well, heres the thing. When the president went into office, there really was an opportunity to say you, you have -- if you don't like this, how would you do this? But instead, they said, were repealing the whole thing, 22 million people off, cost will go up, benefits will go down. Thats not a way to go down a path.

So, what I say in the letter is, as a first step, let us accept what Senator McConnell has in his bill, let us accept that and talk about other --

WALLACE: Yes, but you want other changes. Let me -- let me switch --

PELOSI: But -- and then let's talk about what other changes are.

But you cannot say that were going to have -- I do believe as I saw one of your staff (ph) this morning, that healthcare is a right, not a privilege. And the more people who are involved in it, the lower the costs are for everyone. Theres some things we can do right away, lower the cost of prescription drugs, a very -- something I think would have bipartisan support.

(CROSSTALK)

WALLACE: OK. I want to a move to another subject. The Democratic leader in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, said something interesting the other day and I want to ask you about it. Were going to put it on the screen.

When you lose to somebody who has 40 percent popularity, you don't blame other things, Comey, Russia, you blame yourself. So, what did we do wrong? People didn't know what we stood for, just what that we were against Trump, and still believe that.

Were going to get to your new agenda in a minute, but I want to ask you the specific questions, do you agree with Senator Schumer that Russia and Come were not what beat Hillary Clinton?

PELOSI: Well, I think that they had influence. Theres absolutely no question about that. But when you have a campaign, youre responsible for your campaign.

I don't even want to go in to that. I do want to go in to our better deal. Let me --

WALLACE: OK, Im going to ask you about it because Democrats put out a new agenda this week called "A Better Deal". Let's put some of it up on the screen.

You call for higher wages, lower prescription drug costs, as you said, job training, infrastructure.

Leader Pelosi, Im not saying anything, any of that is wrong.

PELOSI: Right.

WALLACE: What I am saying is that none of it is new. We've been hearing it for years. We heard it from the Democrats and Hillary Clinton in 2016 and you lost.

PELOSI: Now -- well, we're going to hear with more clarity. For the first time since 2006, the House, the congressional Democrats are in charge of the message. In 06, we were in charge, we won. We had a Democratic president after that in 08, and that time line, a very successful presidency.

Now, it's our turn to win the Congress for the American people. But elections are more about -- than about winning election. Theyre about having a discussion to how we go forward.

WALLACE: But theyre all about winning the election. Thats what an election --

PELOSI: No, no. No, its about winning on the issues. I mean, in other words, if the American people can hold all of us, Democrats and Republicans, accountable, for what is in their interest, instead of a trickle-down agenda that really benefits the high end at the expense of working families. Thats why a better deal is important and it is entrepreneurial in its thinking. Its fresh in terms of what it suggests.

WALLACE: But let me ask you this -- there were four special House elections in this spring in which there were Republican seats that were opened because they put jobs in the Trump administration -- let me finish -- in the Trump administration.

PELOSI: No, Im agreeing with you.

WALLACE: And you lost all four of them. Some of your own Democratic colleagues in the House say part of the problem is that you and your leadership team are, frankly, too old. And the question I have is: does -- do Democrats need new leaders with new ideas?

PELOSI: But let me just say this, self-promotion is a terrible thing, but somebody has got to do it.

WALLACE: Exactly. I agree with you on that.

PELOSI: And I think that the situation that we are in, I am a master legislator. I know the budget to the nth degree. I know the motivation of people. I respect the people who are in Congress.

I think this is a great moment for those of us who understand what is stake with the Affordable Care Act, what our possibilities are in terms of working together with the Republicans as has been our experience in the past. So, I feel very confident about the support I have in my caucus.

WALLACE: Let me just ask you one --

PELOSI: Ive never -- I have never not been opposed within my caucus, and it had nothing to do with support. Suppose you became president and you were a Democrat, and you appoint your cabinet, one from San Francisco, one from Berkeley, one from Brooklyn, one from Santa Monica, do you think that the Republicans could have ever won one those seats? These seats were not seats --

WALLACE: OK. I got 30 seconds and the question is, what are the chances Democrats win back the House in 2018? And if so, will you run for speaker?

PELOSI: Its so unimportant. What is important is that we have a lively debate on a better deal, better pay, better jobs, and a better future. And thats what we look forward to having. We have unity in our party. You saw with the fight on Affordable Care Act in the House and in the Senate.

WALLACE: Right.

PELOSI: We are very proud of the fact that our party has diverse thinking in it. We can accommodate that.

WALLACE: Leader Pelosi, thank you. Thanks for coming in. Please come back.

PELOSI: Thank you. My pleasure, Chris. Nice to be with you again. Thank you for being a guardian of our democracy, the press.

WALLACE: Well, thank you for that.

Up next, well get a view from outside the beltway when we sit down with Ohio Governor John Kasich. How do Washington's problems look from there?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: Coming up, President Trump caps off a tough week with a major staff shake up.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Reince is a good man. John Kelly will do a fantastic job.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Well ask our Sunday panel about the state of the Trump White House.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: A look outside the beltway of the statehouse in Columbus, Ohio.

At the end of a rough weekend here in Washington, we what to find out how things look some distance from the nation's capital.

Joining me now, Ohio's Republican Governor John Kasich.

Governor, let's start with -- with President Trump. When you look at the events of just recent days, the public humiliation of Jeff Sessions, the -- the shocking interview by Anthony Scaramucci, the open infighting in the White House, sitting there in Columbus, Ohio, what do you think?

GOV. JOHN KASICH, R-OHIO: Well, I'm worried about our country, obviously, Chris. And here's the thing. You know, the White House is an amazing institution. It has great power. But when I think about the people who have been able to lend voice to amplify that power, you know I think about FDR, nothing to fear but fear itself, I think about JFK, you know, it's not what you -- what your country can do for you, what do you do for your country, or Ronald Reagan, you know, the city on a -- on a -- a shining city on a hill.

What we need -- and I think perhaps the president can get there, I sure hope so, is sort of the sense of unity, of hopefulness, not of division but of lifting. And -- and I think we're not seeing enough -- we're not seeing that right now. And so you take the powerful institution of the White House. You combine it with a voice that is power and uplifting. And that's what people loved about Roosevelt. That's what they loved about -- about Kennedy. It's what they loved about Ronald Reagan. And that's what we need. That needs to be thought about.

BLITZER: And -- and other than just belief and optimism about this country, what makes you think that we're going to get that from this White House?

KASICH: Because I'm basically a glass half-full guy. And, you know, we've had six months, but we have -- you know, we've got a long way to go. I just hope we're going to get it. And I -- I would also tell you, Chris, it's also Congress. If we're not going to get this direction out of the White House, then we need to get it out of the Congress.

And in Congress we need people to get along. And, you know, I listen to the leaders talk and I -- I don't actually think the answer is with the leaders in the Congress. I think the answer is with the rank-and-file, people who know that that city is now dysfunctional. And I think, furthermore, we need to realize that it's not just the political leaders that are showing dysfunction, it's the people in the country, the partisans, who demand certain things, as John McCain said in a very bombastic way.

And that's not America. America is give-and-take. America is compromise without giving up your principles. That's -- that's what our country is, Chris, finding solutions to difficult problems, not while tearing each other down, but figuring out how we can get along. And I've been involved in so many of those things.

Let me tell you, at the end of my term in Congress, I was having a conversation with Pat Schroeder, the former Colorado woman who tried to run for president. Kind of a polarizing figure in a way. She was a friend of mine. And I had these Republicans say, what are you talking to her for? And I said, what do you mean what am I -- I gave -- I read them the riot act. I said, you don't have to agree with somebody to respect them, to see if there are areas where you can get along, where you can work together.

That's all kind of gone. And I blame a lot of it on the leadership. And they allowed these people, who were in their rank-and-file, to become partisans too. We don't make it as a country when we spend our time fighting all the time and denigrating people we don't agree with.

WALLACE: So how do you explain -- and we should point out, you're now the governor in your second term in Ohio, but you spent 18 years here in Washington as a member of Congress. How you explain the GOP's failure after seven years of promising to repeal ObamaCare, but also to come up with a replacement, how do you explain that collapse of the bill in the Senate this week?

KASICH: You know, Chris, I'm -- I'm going to say, I actually think it's a good thing for this reason, because I think Republicans looked over the cliff. And I think they saw that there were going to be a lot of people who were going to be hurt, particular people who don't have much of a voice, who the machine in the system grinds down, and they pulled back.

I don't think that this is done. I don't think it ought to be done. I understand there will be hearings in the U.S. Senate on what we can do about the exchanges. I mean, so, to -- to a degree, I'm glad that they didn't fulfill this -- this pledge right now, but they have to work on it. And -- and this is where they should call the Democrats in and they should demand Democratic participation.

And, remember, Republicans are in the majority. They get to call the tune. But when they call the tune, they've got to have a few Democrats singing in the choir. It's just that simple.

So I don't think we're done with it yet. We can't be done with it yet. And we can't be done going after the underlying, rising costs of health care, the problem of entitlements, which is going to, you know, kill our economy in the country. Address the issues of the division between rich and poor. You've got to work together.

I did it when I was there, even when we went through a government shutdown. We balance the federal budget by working together and understanding one another and caring about one another, even when we disagreed.

WALLACE: But -- but let me ask you about that. There's a lot to unpacked there. You say, let's work together. We just had Nancy Pelosi on and she made a very strong case for her side. But when I asked her, what are you willing to give on taxes, on regulation, on mandates, she said nothing.

KASICH: Well, look, my friend Tom Carper from Delaware is willing to give a lot. My friend from Colorado --

WALLACE: But that -- let me get -- but he's a Democratic senator. Go ahead.

KASICH: Yes. And -- and John Hickenlooper, the governor of Colorado, he and I are working together with, you know, ten other -- 9 other governors.

Look, you don't do this in front of a national television audience. You sit in a room, you sit together, you talk but each other's kids, you go out, you have a little dinner and you start saying, what is the area of common agreement. In '97, Bill Clinton and the Republicans had a -- had a feud and a war that led into a government shutdown. You know what happened? The -- the Democrats in the White House came to see me and -- and Senator Domenici, and we had private conversations and we opened up a dialogue of discussions. We balanced the federal budget, paid down debt, the economy was doing great and no one was left behind. You don't do this in front of the TV camera.

But, again, you know, Chris, this is one of the things, everything's not on the leaders. Forget the leaders. Why don't we get the rank and file members who were there hopefully to serve the country and not their party or some ideology? Stick to your principals but figure out how to give and stop asking the leaders for permission. You're not in the fifth grade where you've got to ask the teacher if you can use the bathroom. Go out and talk to people on the other side.

Here's the other thing, Chris, have some guts. You know, all these politicians run around worried about, well, you know, I'm going to get killed by the Tea Party or I'm going to get slaughtered by the left. Who are you surveying? We've got the stop listening to all the yelling and screaming. Those are the people who should be released listen to.

WALLACE: All right.

KASICH: And -- and get to the middle of our country.

WALLACE: All right, finally, because there running out of time, I'm going to pursue a line of questions that my guess is you're going to hate, but here we -- here we go. And that is that you didn't endorse Donald Trump, you say you didn't vote for him. You wrote in John McCain instead. Would you consider running against Donald Trump in the 2020 primaries?

KASICH: No, I don't think about that, Chris. And, frankly, you don't -- you know, you've got a Republican president. We don't know what the future's going to hold. And I don't do these things because I'm worried about my political future. Let me tell you, if I answered a question and said I was even thinking about it, I couldn't go home tonight. My wife would lock the doors on me.

Look, here's the most important thing for me. I've got to serve the country. I've got to be honest inside. I cannot have, you know, just media appearances so I can be on television. I've got to be a good guy. I've got to -- I've got to be a man of faith and I've got to -- you know, it's -- so I don't know what the future's going to bring, but I'm not preparing anything along those lines.

But I want my voice to be out there, because I think my voice and the voice of my colleagues made a difference in this health care debate.

WALLACE: Governor -- Governor Kasich, thank you. Thanks for sharing part of your Sunday with us. Always good to talk with you, sir.

KASICH: Come to Columbus, Chris. We need you to come out here. Let's spend a lot of time talking about all of this. We can heal this country. Thank you.

WALLACE: That's a -- that's a deal.

Up next, we'll bring in our Sunday group to discuss where things stand for President Trump at the end of another wild week.

Plus, what would you like to ask the panel about the state of the Trump White House. Just go to Facebook @foxnewsunday and we may use your question on the air.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LEON PANETTA, FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY: I think it could be one of the most important personal changes that President Trump has made, assuming that he's willing to accept the discipline and a stronger chain of command.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: That's former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta talking about the new White House chief of staff, General John Kelly, who was Panetta's senior military advisor in the Pentagon.

And it's time now for our Sunday group. Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume, Mo Elleithee of Georgetown University's Institute of Politics and Public Service, former Democratic Congressman Jane Harman, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center, and GOP strategist Karl Rove.

Karl, how much trouble is this president in and is General Kelly the man to get him out of it?

KARL ROVE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Well, he's in a lot of trouble this week. It was the most tumultuous week we've seen of a tumultuous presidency. And Kelly faces for challenge. First of all, the decision-making process inside the White House had broken. It is not disciplined. It's not focused. It's not deliberate. And he was one of the first victims of it in the very first week of this administration when he raised objections which were not taken into account with the first travel ban.

He's got this issue of access. This president is not going to end the practice of allowing people to flow in and out of the White House. Most presidents allow that. The question is, is Kelly going to be able to stop people from using their access to the Oval Office to end run the policy process, to cause things to happen that have not gone through the normal -- normal range. He's going to have to deal with a couple of staff members who can't be fired, the son-in-law and daughter, and maybe a couple of other protected people inside the White House, Scaramucci, for example.

And, finally, he's going to have to reduce the drama, reduce both the sniping within and reduce the leaks and bring some discipline to the relationships between this White House, which is at war with itself. I've never seen anything like it in my life of a White House so eager to -- to leak on itself.

WALLACE: Congresswoman Harman, you have worked with General Kelly on several projects. I don't think anybody questions his competence and his qualifications but -- and his command, but doesn't know enough about politics? Does he know enough about domestic policy, tax reform, health care, do be an effective chief of staff?

FMR. REP. JANE HARMAN, D-CALIFORNIA: I think he knows enough to be an effective chief of staff if this president in tweet allows him to use the process that Karl is talking about to solve our problems. But the first answer is, North Korea launched an ICBM yesterday capable of hitting the continental U.S. It might not happen. A warhead might be too heavy. Reentry might be a problem. But this is a real problem. And if he can focus this White House and this president at a careful answer to the North Korean problem that will be the first test.

Second point is, Congress proved itself capable, not incapable, last week. No one talks about the fact that the sanctions package against three countries passed overwhelmingly --

WALLACE: Russia and North Korea and Iran.

HARMAN: Yes, veto-proof. And Trump is about to or did sign it yesterday. And the point of that is, that was a good piece of legislation. All three countries are screaming about it, which means that Congress and the president acting together sent a tough message. That's a challenge. It's also an opportunity. Congress can authorize the use of military force in the Middle East and around the world in ways it hasn't acted in 16 years. So I think Kelly is well-equipped to deal with those two things, and that would be a phenomenal start.

WALLACE: We asked you for questions for the panel and on this issue of the state of the Trump White House, people seem to be getting fed up. Take a look.

Nick tweeted this, "is there a plan other than 'shock and awe'? Reasonable Americans want to support our" president "but this reality TV nonsense has got to stop."

And we got this on Facebook from Charlette Yared. "How can this White House possibly recover respect after this past week's Sessions/Scaramucci/Boy Scouts/Priebus and other histrionics? Why the drama and the antics?"

Brit, how do you answer them?

BRIT HUME, FOX NEWS SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, the first thing I'd say is that Reince Priebus is not the one to blame for such behavior. This all comes down to the president and his behavior and its way of doing things and the casual way that he ran his business in New York where -- where he really kept a very loose schedule and people came and went and he picked up the phone and called different people at different times depending on what he was focused on at the moment.

White Houses can't operate that way. This staff structure that exists in the White House traditionally, which was developed over many years and many administrations, is there -- is that way for a reason. And the question really is not whether John Kelly has the ability to be an effective chief of staff. I think he manifestly does. The question is whether Donald Trump will permit that. Whether he will allow that. Whether when somebody wonders into the Oval Office the first words out of his mouth will be, does Kelly know you're here? And I think that's in doubt.

So what happens, for example, Chris, when -- when they have a date planned with events and so forth and a policy strategy and sir tweets-a-lot blows it all up in the middle of the night with some rant on Twitter? What happens then? Does -- does General Kelly has some say over that? Those are all the unanswered questions. And I think we'll know the answer to them pretty -- answers to them pretty soon.

WALLACE: Wouldn't you assume that he would have gotten some at least assurances?

HUME: Of course (INAUDIBLE).

WALLACE: Because supposedly he was asked about this as -- as far back as May --

HUME: Yes.

WALLACE: And he resisted taking the job.

HUME: Right. I think -- I suspect he does have verbal commitments to the president to that effect. The question is, will the president stick to them? Not will Kelly, will the president? It's all about the president.

WALLACE: Senator John McCain, after his diagnosis of brain cancer, came back to Washington, very dramatically, seized the spotlight. Here he was calling for his colleagues in the Senate to go in a different direction.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, R-ARIZONA: I hope we can again rely on humility on our need to cooperate, on our dependence on each other, to learn how to trust each other again. And by so doing, better serve the people who elected us. Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet. To hell with them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Though it was a powerful moment, but what are the chances that it will actually happen in both parties?

MO ELLEITHEE, FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR: Yes. As one of those bombastic loudmouths on television --

WALLACE: No, you're not.

ELLEITHEE: I -- you know, he's right. But what at the chances? I'm not optimistic right now. I think that there are too many factors at play that I hope we can get past. But everything from a White House that seems determined to blow up every institution it can, from the judiciary to the media to its own party, to Congress, to congressional representation that is to driven on both sides -- on both sides of the aisle, that is to driven by the way district lines are drawn now, and the -- the importance of -- of the base for each side, it is incredibly difficult to see a path right now out of the entrenched silos that both sides are living.

John McCain leaving the Senate is going to be a huge loss for -- for that institution because of the fact that he seems to be one of those people -- and there are still some on both sides that are willing to try to get past some of these fissures, but they're dwindling in numbers. And until we start getting more people who will look that way, we're going to be in trouble.

WALLACE: Karl, we've got a couple of minutes left. That's all.

You travel the country. You talk to a lot of Republicans. How do they -- I'm not talking about politicians. I'm talking about businessmen, community leaders. When you talk to them, how do they feel about what they see. I'm not talking just about Trump, the Congress, the Democrats, the Republicans. How do they feel about what they see going on here?

ROVE: Well, among sort of people who are active in politics, party leaders, business leaders, community leaders, I hear an increasing, you know, scratch their head, why can't this thing get done? Why can't the Republicans govern? Why can't the president lead? Why do we have to put up with this drama?

More damaging, I'm starting to hear from ordinary Americans as I travel who say, you know what, it's too much. I'm turning off. I'm turning out. And the problem for the president, when ordinary people start to say, you know what, I've had enough of all of this, is that he's going to be stuck where he's stuck at that moment. And what I'm afraid of is, is that he's had a honeymoon, a ragged, rugged, not normal honey -- political honeymoon with the American people. He's not seized the opportunities given to him on it. And I think a lot of people are starting to say, you know what, I'm done. I've had it. He's had plenty of time to demonstrate to me whether or not he's got an ability to -- to get it down.

Now, maybe General Kelly will get it done. Maybe General Kelly will help turn it around. But I think Brit was absolutely right, this depends upon the willingness of the president to change his behavior.

WALLACE: Thank you, panel. See you next Sunday.

Up next, our "Power Player of the Week, from Navy SEAL to the governor's mansion in the show me state.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WALLACE: For most people, being a Rhodes Scholar or a Navy SEAL would be a crowning achievement. But as we told you earlier this year, for one young politician, it was just the beginning. Here is our "Power Player of the Week."

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GOV. ERIC GREITENS, R-MISSOURI: I come as a conservative, an outsider, a Navy SEAL. And we're taking on politics as usual.

Thank you. God bless you.

WALLACE (voice-over): Meet Eric Greitens, elected in November as Missouri's governor. And at age 43, the nation's second youngest.

GREITENS: So help me God.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Congratulations.

WALLACE: But what really sets him apart is his path to public office.

Back in 2000, he was a Rhodes Scholar, who also worked with humanitarian groups in war-torn countries like Bosnia and Rwanda. One day at Oxford, he looked at a memorial for Rhodes Scholars who died in the two world wars.

GREITENS: If they hadn't have made that decision, then I wouldn't be standing here. And I realized at that moment that I wanted to do my part and I wanted to serve.

WALLACE: Greitens did four tours as a Navy SEAL, serving in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

GREITENS: You know that at every moment there's somebody to your left and somebody to your right and that they're counting on you. I can stay strong for them for ten more seconds. I can fight for them for one more minute. If I can make it for one more minute, I can make it for ten more minutes.

WALLACE: When Greitens returned to Missouri, he started a non-profit called The Mission Continues to help veterans with disabilities recover by serving others.

GREITENS: Continue their mission of service in communities and start their own businesses and get quality, private sector jobs and to live as contributing citizens again here at home.

WALLACE: The Ferguson riots in 2014 where the turning point that led Greitens into politics.

GREITENS: Ferguson was a tremendous failure. If we'd had a leader who'd show up with any kind of command presence and courage and calm and clarity, we could have had peace by the second night.

WALLACE: Greitens ran as an outsider and he wasn't subtle about it.

GREITENS: Well, I'm no career politician. I'm on a Navy SEAL and I'll take dead aim at politics as usual.

WALLACE: As governor he has kept aiming at the same target.

WALLACE (on camera): You talk about ethics reform before issues. Why?

GREITENS: Well, because we have to have people who trust their leaders. You know, people want to have leaders who they can have confidence in.

WALLACE (voice-over): His first act was to ban gifts from lobbyists to members of the executive branch.

GREITENS: The people of Missouri are ready to work, so let's get to work today.

WALLACE: But he's also signed a right to work law to boost Missouri's economy. And on public safety he's worked out with local police and gone to poor neighborhoods to hand out sandwiches.

GREITENS: We need to have leaders who are willing to go to the front line, and that what -- what too many politicians have just failed to do.

WALLACE: When Greitens and his wife Sheena, held their first event in the governors residences, they were told it's usually a cocktail party for political insiders. Instead, they invited three foster families for dinner as a symbol of the 13,000 kids in state foster care.

GREITENS: As governor, we can make a difference in those kids' lies. As governor, we can keep our promises to the people of Missouri and make their lives better, get results for them. That's what's so satisfying.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

WALLACE: And the governor has been busy since then signing legislation to tighten regulations on abortion clinics. And more recently, an executive order creating a prescription drug monitoring program to help deal with the opioid crisis.

And that's it for today. Have a great week. And we'll seek you next "Fox News Sunday."

Content and Programming Copyright 2017 Fox News Network, LLC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright 2017 CQ-Roll Call, Inc. All materials herein are protected by United States copyright law and may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without the prior written permission of CQ-Roll Call. You may not alter or remove any trademark, copyright or other notice from copies of the content.
University of California, Irvine officials have rescinded hundreds of admission offers for the upcoming fall semester.

The Los Angeles Times reported that offers to 499 UC Irvine students were withdrawn  290 of them for transcript issues and the rest for poor senior-year grades, according to campus data.

KABC-TV reported Friday that the universitys Student Government Association has since demanded officials apologize to impacted students, reimburse all fees and guarantee future admission.

A university official says administrators will meet with the student leaders to discuss the matter.

I acknowledge that we took a harder line on the terms and conditions this year and we could have managed that process with greater care, sensitivity and clarity about available options, Thomas A. Parham, vice chancellor of student affairs, said in a message sent to all students whose admissions were revoked. For those who felt ignored or mistreated, I sincerely apologize.

The Associated Press contributed to this story
Authorities in North Carolina announced Saturday that they had arrested three people accused of hiding a fugitive believed to have kidnapped a missing 68-year-old man.

Buncombe County Sheriff Van Duncan told local media that 40-year-old Jennifer Hawkins, 45-year-old Franklin Badgero Jr., and 23-year-old Larry Jay Hawkins are charged with harboring Phillip Stroupe II in Hawkins' Barnardsville home Wednesday night.

Stroupe was arrested Thursday after a manhunt that closed parts of the Pisgah National Forest for days. He faces drug, weapons and fleeing police charges in McDowell County, with more charges likely to be filed.

At the time of his arrest, Stroupe was driving a truck that belonged to Thomas Bryson, of Mills River. Investigators believe that Stroupe kidnapped Bryson Wednesday morning, and the search for the missing man is ongoing.

Bryson was last seen Wednesday morning on a surveillance camera driving away from his home to pick up a family member for a medical appointment. He never made it there.

The manhunt for Stroupe began last week, when he stole a mountain bike and pedaled into the Pigsah National Forest. He was fleeing deputies in Transylvania County who wanted him on a break-in charge.

Henderson County Sheriff Charles McDonald said Stroupe was in good shape and likely had been able to find food and water after he slipped into the woods.

Stroupe also had relatives near where he was arrested, including an aunt who was taken into custody after refusing to leave a law enforcement barricade, authorities said.

Stroupe was a "product of an enabling family and that's been a problem for us," McDonald said. He declined to give further details.

Stroupe had just been released from the Yancey County jail July 20 and has spent most of the past two decades behind bars, according to North Carolina prison records.

In 1999, Stroupe was sentenced to more than 18 years, the maximum allowed, for felony robbery with a deadly weapon and as well as breaking and entering and false imprisonment. He was released from prison in April 2015.

Last month, Stroupe was named as a suspect in the armed robbery of a store in Weaverville. A few days later, he was attempting to flee authorities when he rammed a stolen car into a Buncombe County sheriff's deputy's vehicle, authorities said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Click for more from FoxCarolina.com.
A former airman in the U.S. Air Force was sentenced to more than three years in prison for possessing child pornography.

Stephen Wyzatecki, 25, pleaded guilty to one charge of possession of child pornography. He's set to serve three years and two months in jail.

CALIFORNIA DEPUTY AG FACING CHILD PORN CHARGES

Law enforcement officials found almost 900 pornographic images and 69 videos on Wyzateckis computer at the Air Force base, according to documents from the case.

After the airman offered child pornography files to other users on a file sharing website, investigators tracked him down, the Fairbanks Daily News-Miner reported.

Wyzateckis attorney argued that the former airman is a good citizen and did not victimize anyone directly.

"Wyzatecki's involvement with such material was limited to his personal viewing and downloading. He has never engaged in a contact offense, nor does the case evidence or his possession of the contraband material suggest in any manner, possession with the intent to actually make contact with or groom minor victims for sexual purposes of any kind," his lawyer said.

MARYLAND SCHOOL AIDE WITH HIV ARRESTED ON CHILD PORN, ASSAULT CHARGES

Wyzatecki had been stationed at Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska since 2015 before he was discharged in connection with the case.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The package had sat alongside the concrete stoop of a Queens two-family home for about a week before the landlord  a kind and generous man, 72 years old  made the fateful decision to bend down and look inside.

It was cylindrical, and rather large, as if a cardboard can of Quaker oats had doubled in size.

Someone addressed it with a single handwritten word, Mac, before tying it inside a clear plastic trash bag.

On Friday, landlord George Wray untied the bag, and pried open the top.

The cylinder exploded immediately, engulfing Wrays head, arms, torso and legs in flames.

Now, as Wray fights for his life at Nassau University Medical Center in East Meadow, police are hunting whoever put the bomb there  trying to determine whom it was meant for, and why.

A police source told The Post on Saturday the target is believed to be a Bloods gang member who lives at the Brookville property.

It wasnt supposed to be for him, a detective at the scene said of Wray, who lives nearby with his wife.

Tenant Cornelius Freeman, 34, was asleep when the bomb went off at 4:15 p.m. Friday. He was awakened by firemen banging on his door, shouting, You gotta come out of the house!

When I came through the fence, my landlord was right there, on his knees, Freeman said, pointing to the side of the stoop, which on Saturday was still blackened by explosives powder.

It just looked like he just  like all the skin had come off him, the shaken tenant said.

It burned all his hair off his head.

Even then, the landlord, whod once given Freeman $180 out of his pocket, was generous.

He was asking me, Is yall alright? Yall alright?  Freeman remembered.

Thats all he was saying. We shouldve been asking him, Is you alright?, right?

Whatever had been inside that plastic bag had looked suspicious from the start, Freeman added.

Nobody named Mac even lives at the address, he said.

I was like, Somethings just not right about this. 

This story originally appeared in The New York Post.

Read more from FOX 5 New York.
A fire that engulfed a Georgia home Saturday morning, killing a mother and her son a day after, was caused by a lit cigarette that was tossed into a trash can, officials said.

The home in Spalding County went up in flames about 9:30 a.m., according to Fox 5 Atlanta. Firefighters tackled the blaze that quickly spread to the roof of the home.

Christie Lewis, 44, was found unresponsive inside the home. Her son, Zachary Shavers Tobias Sevenstar, 6, was also discovered in the home suffering from severe burns.

Firefighters performed CPR on the boy and rushed him to the hospital. However, he succumbed to his injuries and was pronounced dead Sunday afternoon, according to Fox 5.

HOMELESS WOMAN SET ON FIRE DIES; MAN NOW FACES MURDER CHARGE

Fire officials said the blaze was caused by a cigarette that was "improperly discarded" into a trash can in the home's kitchen, Fox 5 reported.

"I just can't believe this has happened. We are all taking it really hard... she was loved by a lot of people, and ministered to a lot of people," family friend Dianne Miller told Fox 5.

Lewis' husband, Jimmy Lewis, told the Atlantic Journal-Constitution that his wife attempted to save their son by shielding him during the fire.

"She was a good person and a beautiful person and she loved life," Lewis said.

Click here for more from Fox 5.
An Indiana doctor who would not prescribe opioids to a female patient was shot and killed Wednesday by the woman's husband, who later killed himself, the South Bend Tribune reports.

Dr. Todd Graham, 56, was shot by Michael Jarvis of Mishawaka, St. Joseph County Prosecutor Ken Cotter told reporters Thursday.

The shooting took place in a parking lot at Saint Joseph Rehabilitation Institute, which was near where Graham worked at South Bend Orthopaedics, according to the newspaper.

Jarvis' wife had a 10:45 a.m. appointment Wednesday with the doctor, Cotter said. Graham said "that he was not going to prescribe any opioid drugs," the prosecutor explained, saying that "Jarvis became upset with that and an argument ensued."

Jarvis, 48, returned, and while Graham was going from an orthopedic building to a rehab building, "came in contact with Jarvis again; there was again an argument," Cotter said. Jarvis followed Graham as he went to the other building, he said.

Jarvis told two witnesses to leave before shooting the doctor, according to the prosecutor. He said that Graham was shot shortly before 1 p.m. Wednesday.

Jarvis went to the home of a friend, "gave indication that he was no longer gonna be around," and the friend contacted police, Cotter said. Jarvis took his own life before police showed up, he said.

ATTORNEY SEEKS NEW TRIAL AFTER OPIOID PILLS GO MISSING

Jarvis' wife didn't know what her husband was up to, Cotter said.

"There's some indication that Jarvis may have also had his own issues," he told reporters. "We're still investigating that."

An online obituary for Graham says that he is survived by his wife and three children.

A Notre Dame University spokesman said in a statement to the South Bend Tribune that Jarvis was "an on-call, part-time parking attendant and groundskeeper," and that Graham was a consulting physician at the school.

"Make no mistake, this is a person who made a choice to kill Dr. Graham," Cotter said. "This is not a fallout from any opioid epidemic or any opioid problems."
It all began, and ended, on this day 43 years ago.

It was a hot July afternoon, nearly 92 degrees, when Teamsters president and labor icon Jimmy Hoffa is said to have opened the rear door of a 1975 maroon Mercury in the parking lot of the Machus Red Fox restaurant, in Bloomfield Hills, Mich., and climbed in.

He was never seen again.

The FBI has expended countless resources in the ensuing decades in the hopes of finally solving this enduring American mystery with no success.

But I believe, based on my 2004 investigation, that Frank Sheeran did it.

WATCH MORE ON FOX NATION'S 'RIDDLE: THE SEARCH FOR JAMES R. HOFFA'

"Suspects Outside of Michigan: Francis Joseph "Frank" Sheeran, age 43, president local 326, Wilmington, Delaware. Resides in Philadelphia and is known associate of Russel Bufalino, La Cosa Nostra Chief, Eastern Pennsylvania," reads the 1976 HOFFEX memo, the compilation of everything investigators knew about Hoffa's disappearance that was prepared for a high level, secret conference at FBI headquarters six months after he vanished.

Sheeran, known as "The Irishman," told me that he drove with Hoffa to a nearby house where he shot him twice in the back of the head. Our investigation subsequently yielded the corroboration, the suspected blood evidence on the hardwood floor and down the hallway of that house, that supports Frank's story.

No one who has ever boasted about knowing what really happened to Jimmy Hoffa has had their claims tested, scrutinized, and then corroborated by independently discovered evidence... except Frank.

He is also the only one of the FBI's dozen suspects who has ever come forward and talked publicly about the killing, let alone admit involvement.

Every other claim that you have ever heard about, from Hoffa being buried in the end zone of Giants Stadium to being entombed under a strip of highway asphalt somewhere, came from people who were never on the bureau's list of people suspected of actual involvement.

For that reason, Frank stands alone.

Six weeks after Hoffa disappeared, Frank, along with the other suspects, was summoned before the Detroit grand jury investigating the case. He took the Fifth.

When I met him in the spring of 2001, Frank freely talked.

My meeting with Frank was arranged so that I could take his measure, and he mine, for a possible in-depth investigation, interview and news story about his claims. He was accompanied by his former lawyer Charlie Brandt, the author of Frank's then-proposed biography, which tells the Hoffa story. Charlie had been able to spring Frank from a Mafia-related federal racketeering prison sentence, and for that reason was taken into Frank's confidence.

It would be three years before the book, "I Heard You Paint Houses: Frank 'The Irishman' Sheeran And Closing The Case On Jimmy Hoffa" would be published by Steerforth Press, and before the first of my many news stories about Frank, and our investigation, would air on television.

His story is this: He and others were ordered by the Mafia to kill Hoffa to prevent him from trying to run again for the presidency of the Teamsters union. Hoffa had resigned after serving prison time for jury tampering, attempted bribery and fraud convictions. Frank picked Hoffa up at the restaurant, accompanied by two others, to supposedly drive Hoffa to a mob meeting. When they walked into the empty house together, with Frank a step behind Hoffa, he raised his pistol at point-blank range and fired two fatal shots into his unsuspecting target, turned around and left. He said the body was then dragged down the hall by two awaiting accomplices, and that he was later told Hoffa was cremated at a mob-connected funeral home.

Frank had an imposing, old-school mobster way about him that even his advanced years -- he was 80 -- did not betray. His menacing aura was not diminished by a severe case of arthritis that crippled him so badly that he was hunched over when he slowly walked with two canes, struggling to put one foot in front of the other.

I found Frank tough, determined, steely.

As I listened to his matter-of-fact recounting of what he said went down at that house, and giving such detail, I remember thinking what he was saying could actually be true.

Here's why:

There is no doubt that Frank was a close confidant of Hoffa, someone who Hoffa trusted. And Hoffa didn't trust very many.

Frank was both a long-time top Teamsters Union official in Delaware as well as an admitted Bufalino crime family hit-man and top aide to the boss himself.

The FBI admits that Frank was "known to be in Detroit area at the time of JRH disappearance, and considered to be a close friend of JRH," as the HOFFEX memo states.

Hoffa's son, current Teamsters President James P. Hoffa, told me in September 2001 that his father would have gotten into the car with Frank. He said that his father would not have taken that ride with some of the other FBI suspects whom I mentioned.

Frank, in the book, says that he sat in the front passenger seat of the car as a subtle warning to Hoffa, who habitually sat there. He felt a deep friendship and loyalty to Hoffa, yet knew what his own fate would be if he failed to carry out the lethal order from his mob masters. So he sat in the front seat hoping Hoffa would realize something was wrong. He did not.

The FBI did find "a single three-inch brown hair . . . in the rear seat back rest" of that car that matches Hoffa, and three dogs picked up "a strong indication of JRH scents in the rear right seat."

I asked Frank if he remembered how to get to the house. I thought finding where Hoffa was killed, and investigating everything about the house, could be key to the case. Frank rattled off the driving directions from the restaurant and described the house's interior layout.

Killers may not remember an exact address of a murder scene, but they never forget how they got there and what they did when they arrived.

"Sheeran gave us the directions," Charlie wrote in the book. "This was the first time he had ever revealed the directions to me. His deepened voice and hard demeanor was chilling, when, for the first time ever, he stated publicly to someone other than me that he had shot Jimmy Hoffa."

A year after our meeting, Charlie and Frank drove to Detroit to try to find the house, and when they did Frank pointed it out to Charlie. They did not go in.

Three years later, in 2004, I, along with producer Ed Barnes and Charlie, first stepped foot into the foyer where Frank said he shot Hoffa, looked around the first floor and as it turned out, Frank's description fit the interior to a tee.

Ed and I arranged with the homeowners to actually take up the foyer and hallway floorboards and remove the press-on vinyl floor tiles that they had put down over the original hardwood floors when they bought the house in 1989.

We hired a forensic team of retired Michigan state police investigators to try to find any blood evidence. They sprayed the chemical luminol on the floors, which homicide detectives routinely use to discover the presence of blood.

We found it.

The testing revealed a specific pattern of blood evidence, laid out like a map of clues to the nation's most infamous unsolved murder. Little yellow numbered tags were placed throughout the first floor foyer and hallway, to mark each spot where the investigators' testing yielded positive hits.

The pattern certainly told the story of how Hoffa was killed.

The greatest amount of positive hits were found right next to the front door, where Hoffa's bleeding head would have hit the floor.

Seven more tags lined the narrow hallway toward the rear kitchen, marking the drops that perfectly mimic Frank's story of Hoffa's lifeless body being dragged to the kitchen by the two waiting accomplices, who then stuffed it into a body bag and carried it out the back kitchen door.

We arranged for the Oakland County prosecutor's office to remove the floorboards for DNA testing by the FBI, though Oakland County Prosecutor David Gorcyca cautioned that it would be "a miracle" if Hoffa's DNA was recovered.

I knew those odds. A DNA hit was beyond a long shot.

Experts told me that such tiny samples of genetic material, degraded by the passage of 29 years and exposure to air and the elements under a homeowner's heavily trafficked floor, would likely not provide enough material to result in a DNA match.

The FBI lab report says that chemical tests were conducted on 50 specimens; 28 tested positive for the possible presence of blood, and DNA was only recovered from two samples.

The FBI compared what was recovered to the DNA from a known strand of Hoffa's hair. One sample was found to be "of male origin," but it was not determined from whom. The other result was "largely inconclusive."

Was I disappointed that a DNA match was not possible? Yes. Was I surprised? No. Did I think this disproved Frank's claim? No.

Think about it.

What are the chances of any random house in America testing positive for blood traces from more than two dozen samples, in the exact pattern that corroborates a man's murder confession?

What would luminol reveal under your home's floor?

There are other reasons to believe why Frank's scenario fits.

The house was most likely empty on that fateful summer day. It was built in the 1920s and owned for five decades by a single woman, Martha Sellers, a teacher and department store employee. By the summer of 1975, Sellers was in her 80s, and not even living there full time. Her family told The Detroit News and Free Press that she had bought another home in Plymouth, Mich., where she would move permanently the next year.

Frank says that a man he called "a real estater" lived in the house. The Sellers family remembered that boarder, who they recalled resided in an upstairs bedroom. He was described as "a shadowy figure . . . who would disappear. He never said more than a few words and they know nothing about him, not even his name."

It is quite possible that "the real estater," was the link between the house and the Detroit mob, providing an empty house as needed, when Sellers was absent, for whatever purpose...including using it as a Mafia hit house to murder Jimmy Hoffa.

The FBI clearly believed Sheeran had credibility. Agents visited him in his final years, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure his cooperation.

While we were conducting our investigation in Detroit in 2004, the FBI, I was told, tried to find the house even before we aired our story. To this day, the FBI refuses to comment about its investigation.

The views of those closest to Jimmy Hoffa, his son and daughter seem especially relevant when assessing Frank's credibility.

Not only did James P. Hoffa confirm that his father would have driven off with Frank, but his sister, Hoffa's daughter, Barbara Crancer, wrote Frank a poignant letter begging him to come clean about their father's fate.

In the one-page heartfelt note, handwritten to Frank on March 5, 1995, she wrote:

"It is my personal belief that there are many people who called themselves loyal friends who know what happened to James R. Hoffa, who did it and why. The fact that not one of them has ever told his family -- even under a vow of secrecy, is painful to me..."

She then underlined: "I believe you are one of those people."

Crancer confirmed to me that she wrote that letter.

Sadly for the Hoffa family, Frank never directly honored her request. When I sat with him, he said that his No. 1 priority was not to go back to "college," meaning prison. He decided that the best way to avoid that possibility, while also revealing his story, was to share his secrets for the book and my reporting.

Frank died on Dec. 14, 2003. He was 83.

While authorities no doubt will continue to respond to more tips, as they should, I believe that we already know what happened to Jimmy Hoffa.

Frank described the most precise and credible scenario yet to be recounted, and the evidence that we found from the floor backs up his confession.

In the more than four decades since, Hoffa's life and legacy as a pivotal part of the American labor movement has been somewhat overshadowed by his disappearance. But it seems clear that organized crime bosses did not want him to resume the mantle of the Teamster's presidency, and went to the ultimate length, through Sheeran, to prevent his return.

Today Hoffa's union, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, represents 1.4 million workers and continues to be headed by his son. Three years ago a milestone was marked in the attempts to shed any specter of possible organized crime. In 2015, Federal Judge Loretta Preska approved the Department of Justice and union agreement that ended the U.S. government oversight of the Teamsters that had lasted for more than 25 years.

The U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York at the time, Preet Bharara, said that the union had made "significant progress" in "ridding...the influence of organized crime and corruption," though he cautioned that "the threat...persists."

Hoffa called it "an historic agreement...our union is committed to the democratic process, and we can proudly declare that corrupt elements have been driven from the Teamsters."

Sadly, it was those corrupt elements that took the life of his father as he tried to take back his union.

"Jimmy Hoffa raised millions of workers and their families out of poverty and into the middle class, noted the Teamsters Union in a statement to Fox News.

He gave his life while fighting to remove corrupt elements from the union and return power to the members. This tragic anniversary is particularly difficult on his family who lost a father and grandfather much too soon. They want nothing more than to have the closure that they so deserve."

I am now working on a two-hour Fox News special about Jimmy Hoffa and Frank Sheeran, including the claims of others about Hoffas fate, as well as reporting on Hoffas contributions to the American labor movement and his legacy. Watch for the program, Riddle: The Search for James R. Hoffa, later this year. Riddle is Hoffas middle name.

Franks story will be told in a major motion picture, The Irishman, starring Robert De Niro as Frank and directed by Martin Scorsese. Tribeca Films and Sikelia Productions, in association with Netflix, will bring this story to the big screen and the streaming service in the fall of 2019. Al Pacino, Joe Pesci and Harvey Keitel are said to also have roles, uniting the legendary actors of the genre in one last mob movie. I am proud of pushing the film idea, which will no doubt become an iconic motion picture.
A man was stabbed in the throat at the Cincinnati Zoo during a weekend fight, according to investigators there.

The fight involving three men broke out around 4 p.m. Saturday, zoo spokeswoman Michelle Curley said. The other two men took off, she added.

The stabbing victim suffered serious injuries but was hospitalized and expected to survive, Fox 19 reported.

POLICE: STABBING ON BOSTON COMMON LEAVES 2 INJURED

He was stabbed in the throat, Sgt. Eric Franz told WCPO, which said authorities were working on a suspect description.

"Right now there are too many  they are interviewing all the witnesses," Franz said. "It's going to take a brief period to get a good, accurate description."

Security guards were searching trash cans and recovered "a black pocket knife," Corey Bramel told the station.

The zoo remained open, and police said there's no danger to the public, WCPO reported.

Click for more from Fox 19.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
An MS-13 gang member who is also an illegal immigrant in the U.S. was captured in Virginia on Saturday in connection with two separate murders in Texas, officials said.

Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez, also known as "Terror," was arrested while walking in Arlington, according to Fox 5 DC. Texas Department of Public Safety issued an all-points bulletin for Herrera-Hernandez's arrest last Wednesday.

TRUMP VOWS TO DESTROY 'VILE' MS-13, 'LIBERATE OUR TOWNS' FROM GANG'S GRIP

Herrera-Hernandez is wanted in connection with separate murders that occurred in June 2016 and July 2017 in Houston, according to Texas Department of Public Safety. He was named as one of Texas' 10 Most Wanted Fugitives.

Herrera-Hernandez is from El Salvador and in America illegally, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced.

The 20-year-old man is pending extradition to Texas where he will face criminal charges for the two murders.

ICE will facilitate Herrera-Hernandez's removal to El Salvador.

Click here for more from Fox 5 DC.
Dangerous heat will build across the western United States, putting all-time record highs in jeopardy across the I-5 corridor of the Northwest at midweek.

An abnormally strong ridge of high pressure will bring record-shattering heat to the Pacific Northwest, AccuWeather Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski said.

The heat dome will build over the majority of the West from California to Washington, Idaho and British Columbia.

Temperatures will climb 5 to 15 degrees Fahrenheit above normal with multiple days in the 100s from Fresno and Redding, California, to Reno, Nevada; Boise, Idaho; and Pendleton, Oregon.



However, communities west of the Cascade Mountains will endure the greatest departures from normal.

The heat will peak at midweek, around Wednesday and Thursday, Pydynowski said.

Daily record highs will be shattered these days as triple digit-heat is expected to engulf most of the I-5 corridor in Washington and Oregon.

More typical highs as July transitions to August range from the upper 70s in Seattle to the lower 80s in Portland, Oregon, to the lower 90s in Medford, Oregon.

Medford may break its daily record high by around 10 degrees on Wednesday, Pydynowski said.

Medford will join Portland and other communities in flirting with an all-time record high on Wednesday and Thursday. This corridor should also turn hotter than Phoenix these days. Monsoonal thunderstorms and clouds will keep temperatures in check across the Desert Southwest.

During the extreme heat wave, people should wear light-colored clothing, stay well-hydrated with water and try to limit time outdoors to the mornings and evenings, Pydynowski said.

If you have to be outside during the day, take as many breaks as possible in the shade or indoors in air conditioning.

Residents without air conditioning will want to crank up fans or seek cooling in a basement or local shopping center. Be sure to check in on the elderly without air conditioning to make sure they are following these precautions.

The increased energy usage could lead to power blackouts.

As sizzling sunshine sends temperatures soaring, remember to never leave children or pets locked in a car even for a short amount of time.

Residents should also use care with cigarette butts or campfires as an elevated fire danger will accompany the extreme heat.

Those looking to beat the heat can head to the cooler mountains or the immediate coast. However, an offshore flow may be enough to minimize the cooling effect from the ocean and cause temperatures to still soar along the Washington coast on Thursday.

It will take until next weekend approaches for the heat to finally release its grip on the Northwest.

The ridge should begin to weaken heading into Friday and Saturday, Pydynowski said. So while it will still be very warm with above-normal temperatures, the record-breaking heat should come to an end.
A Portland man accused of brutally attacking a 65-year-old woman has a history of arrests, at least 20 deportations and was released by local authorities in defiance of a federal immigration hold.

Sergio Jose Martinez, 31, was taken into custody Monday night on charges that include robbery, kidnapping, burglary and sexual abuse involving two victims.

Martinez allegedly assaulted a woman in the basement of a parking garage while armed with a knife, police said. The woman kicked him in the stomach and pressed the panic button in her car, and Martinez fled when authorities arrived.

The suspect has been a transient in the Portland area for more than a year and has five probation violations for re-entering the United States.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) lodged an immigration detainer against Martinez in December 2016, asking local authorities to notify them before releasing Martinez. However, he was released into the community and ICE was not notified.

It is illegal for cities in Oregon to use their resources to help enforce federal immigration laws; in March, Portland declared itself a "sanctuary city" for undocumented immigrants.

Multnomah County leaders and Sheriff Mike Reese wrote a letter to the community earlier this year saying, The sheriffs office does not hold people in county jails on ICE detainers or conduct any immigration enforcement actions, reports KGW Portland.

Detectives also were able to connect Martinez to another assault that occurred blocks away.

Martinez allegedly entered the womans home through an open window, used scarves and socks to blindfold her, then tied her up, gagged her and sexually assaulted her -- slamming her head into the wood floor, reports Fox 12.

The woman told police that Martinez left with her keys, cellphone, credit cards and stole her car. She was able to reach a neighbors home to call 911.

Prior to being admitted into jail, Martinez was treated for meth-induced psychosis, according to court documents.

Click here for more from Fox 12.
Authorities say a suspect in an arson that damaged a Phoenix LGBT youth center has been arrested.

Phoenix police say 26-year-old Darren Beach Jr. was booked into jail Friday afternoon on suspicion of arson of an occupied structure.

It's unclear if Beach has a lawyer yet.

The Phoenix Fire Department on Wednesday released video showing a man pouring liquid on the floor of the one.n.ten center on July 12 and then stepping outside just before a room goes up in flames.

Youth center officials say Beach was a participant in their program, but aged out of eligibility when he turned 25.

The one.n.ten center serves lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender youth ages 14 to 24.

It lost electronic equipment, food, camping equipment and other items in the fire.
A woman was found dead on Saturday at a Minnesota business center following a police lockdown after an armed robbery suspect barged into a nearby assisted living residence, law enforcement authorities said.

Police were searching on Sunday for Lucifer Vincent Nguyen, 44, in connection with the woman's death, Fox 9 reported.

The woman found dead has been identified by her family as Beverly Cory, according to CBS Minnesota.

Officers were called to the scene in Mendota Heights for an armed robbery about 9 a.m. Saturday, police said. Nguyen was seen driving his car into a swamp and running into White Pine Senior Living.

"He entered in there and said something to the employees, but how long that was, exactly what he said . . . I don't know," Mendota Heights Police Chief Kelly McCarthy told reporters.

MS-13 GANG MEMBER WANTED IN 2 TEXAS MURDERS CAPTURED IN VIRGINIA

The building, with more than 45 people inside and some in wheelchairs and walkers, was evacuated through the afternoon. About 2:30 p.m., police discovered the woman's body in an office building across the street from the senior living home, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

"You had a lot of people here who were really hoping that we would find that suspect and be able to take him into custody, and it's a tragedy and demoralizing for everybody," McCarthy said.

People in the senior living home returned to the building later in the day. Gail Okeson told Fox 9 the incident left her 93-year-old mother, who lives at White Pine, scared and confused.

"She was OK. She was very frightened and teary, but she was OK," Okeson told the news station.

"The staff at White Pines did a great job," McCarthy said. "It was very difficult and we're glad they're safe. However, we will work on this homicide."

MANHUNT UNDER WAY AFTER BODY IS FOUND IN TRUNK AT HOSPITAL

Nguyen is wanted in connection with Cory's death. Police said Nguyen is believed to be "armed and dangerous" and no longer in Mendota Heights. He was last seen wearing a black T-shirt. The department said Nguyen didn't know Cory, therefore the murder "appears to be random," according to CBS.

Mendota Heights police also apologized late Saturday for not releasing information on the suspect immediately.

"We understand peoples frustration when we dont immediately release information such as possible suspects or descriptions," the department wrote on its Facebook page.

"We have to ensure that the information we are putting out is correct, and it takes time to validate these things. We also have to take into consideration the timing of our information and contamination of witness descriptions," it said.

Click here for more from Fox 9.
Crews were searching Sunday for a 24-year-old woman reported missing after she went for a swim with a friend off the Jersey shore, authorities said.

The woman, reportedly from Slovakia, vanished just before 2:30 a.m. after a swim at the beach in Point Pleasant, the United States Coast Guard told NJ.com.

She apparently was nude when entering the water, a witness told WABC.

The woman's 23-year-old friend made it out of the water and alerted a boardwalk worker who contacted police, the Asbury Park Press reported.

The Coast Guard and Point Pleasant police are conducting a boat and air search for the woman.

The National Weather Service issued high-risk rip current warnings along the Jersey Shore, advising swimmers to stay out of the water due to "potentially life-threatening conditions."
A Tanzanian poacher who was a subject of a documentary co-produced by Leonardo DiCaprio has been acquitted of several wildlife trafficking charges, though he is in prison for a related crime.

Authorities in Tanzania say Boniface Methew Malyango, nicknamed "The Devil Has No Mercy," was acquitted of illegal possession of elephant tusks and other charges. However, he was sentenced in March to 12 years in prison for organized crime linked to wildlife trafficking.

The 2016 Netflix documentary "The Ivory Game" partly focuses on Malyango's activities.

Separately, a conservation group says the leader of an East African ivory poaching ring has been arrested in Mozambique.

The Wildlife Conservation Society said Thursday that Mozambican authorities detained Mateso Albana Kasian, wanted for the killing of possibly thousands of elephants, on July 11.
Philippine police say a mayor who has been listed by the president as among politicians linked to illegal drugs and six others have been killed in a raid in the country's south.

Police say officers were to serve warrants for the arrest of Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr., his daughter, who is the vice mayor, and four other officials of Ozamiz city early Sunday when the suspects allegedly opened fire.

Police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb says an ensuing gunbattle killed Parojinog and six relatives and bodyguards in his house.

Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested.

Parojinog had denied any links to illegal drugs.

Thousands of mostly poor suspects have died in President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs that has been criticized by Western governments and human rights groups.
Fighters with the al-Shabab extremist group ambushed an African Union convoy in southern Somalia on Sunday, killing at least eight soldiers, a Somali military officer said.

The al-Qaida-linked al-Shabab fighters attacked the convoy near Bulo-Marer town in Lower Shabelle region, Col. Muhyadin Yasin said. The attack came hours after a car bomb in the capital killed at least five people, most of them civilians.

Uganda's defense ministry confirmed the attack on the multinational force, saying an unknown number of troops were killed. "A lot of damage was inflicted on the enemy," a statement said.

Al-Shabab claimed that the attack killed 39 soldiers.

Despite being forced out of many cities and towns across Somalia, the extremist group continues to launch lethal attacks in the capital, Mogadishu, and elsewhere. Al-Shabab wants to oust the central government and install a strict version of Shariah law.

The extremist group maintains a presence largely in rural areas and continues to pose immense challenges to the allied Somali and African Union forces travelling between remote towns. Al-Shabab also attacks their military bases as well as neighboring countries that have sent troops to support Somalia's fragile central government.

Hundreds of African Union soldiers have been killed in recent years.

Earlier Sunday, a car bomb blast near a police station in Mogadishu killed at least five people and wounded at least 13 others, police said. The explosion shattered a month of relative calm in the capital, often a target of the extremist group al-Shabab.

The blast near Waberi police station along the busy Maka Almukarramah road may have been a suicide bomber, Capt. Mohamed Hussein said. Most of the victims were civilians.

Al-Shabab often carries out deadly bombings in Mogadishu against high-profile targets such as hotels and checkpoints.

Sunday's blast occurred amid a traffic jam while soldiers were searching cars at a nearby intersection.

Somalia's Prime Minister Hassan Ali Khaire said no such blast had occurred in the capital for a month.
Brazil's defense minister is promising to have the military take an increasingly aggressive role in fighting drug trafficking in Rio de Janeiro.

Defense Minister Raul Jungmann said at a news conference Thursday that troops will not just patrol, man checkpoints and help recover caches of automatic weapons. He said they will now be used in police operations against drug traffickers.

Rio, which hosted in the 2016 Summer Olympics, has been plagued with increasing violence in the last year. That is particularly the case in hundreds of slums that are often controlled by drug gangs.

Jungmann said 800 slums in Rio are controlled by traffickers, a rare acknowledgement by authorities about a loss of control.

He did not provide details on plans for deployments of troops.
Just hours after bomber jets from the U.S., South Korea and Japan swarmed the skies over the Korean Peninsula in a show of strength message to North Korea, Chinas President Xi Jinping on Sunday reviewed an elaborate military parade in Inner Mongolia.

The event was designed to show that China has the confidence and capability to rise into a world power, Xi said, as state television showed him dressed in fatigues and speaking to troops from an open-top jeep.

Xi said China needed a strong military more than ever as it moved closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

The parade at the Zhurihe military base marked the 90th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army, which Xi commands.

The Chinese leader has frequently spoken of his China Dream, a vision of restored international leadership for the country of nearly 1.4 billion people.

But on Saturday, Chinas leadership was called into question by U.S. President Donald Trump, who asserted that Xis Beijing government wasnt taking necessary steps to thwart North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

I am very disappointed in China, Trump tweeted.   they do NOTHING for us in North Korea, just talk.

China could easily solve this problem! Trump wrote, referring to North Koreas two test launches in July of intercontinental ballistic missiles, as Fox News reported.

Chinas military has long been viewed as a corrupt and bloated bureaucracy with little actual combat experience. But since Xi took command, it has shed thousands of troops and invested heavily in modern weapons  with a goal of surpassing the U.S.

However, Xis 2015 announcement of plans to cut 300,000 troops was not received well within the military, sources told Reuters.

Xis plan has included extracting televised vows of loyalty from top generals and holding frequent events to showcase his support for the military.

He again issued a demand for loyalty Sunday.

Always listen to and follow the partys orders," Xi told his assembled troops. And march to wherever the party points to.

This story includes reporting from the Associated Press.
As the Islamic State terror network loses territory across Iraq and Syria, analysts and experts assert that the terrorist outfit is increasingly capitalizing on the chaos of Libya, positioning the country as its point of resurgence.

The black-clad jihadist outfit is believed to be regrouping and recruiting in the rural regions south of the main east-to-west coastal highway and in the far-west town of Sabratha, which is poised just 60 miles from the Tunisian border, since being run out of its Libyan caliphate capital of Sirte late last year.

The majority of their fighting force comes from Tunisia, so Sabratha is also a growing center, prominent terrorism analyst Robert Young Pelton told Fox News. ISIS in Libya can regenerate quickly.

Col. Ahmed Almesmari, spokesperson for the self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA), told Fox News that ISIS first appeared in Libya at the end of 2013, even before its dominance in Iraq, borne out of Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated militias and Al Qaeda dissidents in Libyas eastern port city of Derna near the Egyptian border.

But over time, ISIS has seemingly moved its operatives from the eastern Egyptian border and now appears to be clustering closer to the western Tunisian side. According to Almesmari, the terror faction has recently established camps around 25 miles east of the town of Bani Waleed, as well as south of Sirte.

Mohamed Ghasri, spokesperson and senior commander of the Mistrata-based al-Bunyam al-Marsous militia, which waged bloody battles with ISIS fighters in Sirte, stated last week that they too have observed movements by the group south of Sirte, where they are trying to regroup and break through our forces lines in the south.

Joseph Fallon, Islamic Extremism expert and U.K. Defense Forum research associate, concurred that ISIS has retreated south of Sirte to regroup and that its global threat cannot be underestimated.

Here, it can jeopardize western interests through guerrilla warfare sabotaging Libyas oil facilities and ports and through calculated use of terror to unleash a mass migration of people to destabilize neighboring countries and Europe, he said.

A prominent portion of Libyas oil fields and reserves are located south of Sirte, along with major refineries. The country is home to Africas largest reserves, and its optimum quality of light crude is highly sought. Despite its ongoing political crisis, production in Libya last week climbed to around 885,000 barrels per day  triple its production this time a year ago  making the region ever more important to the global oil equation, and ISIS's presence there ever more troubling.

The terrorist army has, in Iraq and Syria, used oil fields as a means to fund its barbaric reign.

While more fighters are now expected to flow into Libya as the pressure on Iraq and Syria mounts, exactly how big the ISIS ranks in Libya are at present, remains largely contested.

ISIS DEFEATED, BUT NOT DESTROYED, AS TERROR GROUP STILL HOLDS STRATEGIC SWATHS OF IRAQ

In March, Marine Corps. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser, head of the U.S militarys Africa Command, told Pentagon reporters that their fighter numbers had fallen below 200 from an estimated five to six thousand a year earlier. But a spokesperson for Africa Command told Fox News this week that their strength has been assessed to be around 500.

In sharp contrast, LNAs Almesmari said ISIS numbers are far larger  around five to seven thousand people of different nationalities.

INSIDE AFGHANISTAN'S WAR HOSPITALS: CHILDREN LEFT FOR DEAD AMID ESCALATING VIOLENCE

The terrorist group, Pelton indicated, is well positioned to survive territorial losses such as Mosul, Raqqa and Sirte as its savvy propaganda promotion ensures ongoing recruitment.

ISIS is a transnational franchise that comes with funding, trainers and PR packages, Pelton noted. They seek out groups who will re-brand themselves and project the image of an international organization by standardizing logos, messaging and even design criteria for tweets and videos.

ISIS BODIES PILING UP IN LIBYAN MORGUE, REPORT SAYS

Since the death of its longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi  who was killed in 2011 following then-U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the Obama administrations alleged maneuvers to back rebels in the quest for regime change  Libya as a country remains in a protracted state of conflict and a breeding ground for violent militias to emerge. Its flushed with radical militias, weapons, human traffickers and two main  although there are many  competing factions.

There is the U.S. and U.N.-supported Government of National Accord (GNA) led by Prime Minister Fayez Serraj in Tripoli, at odds with the LNA which is helmed by the Egypt-endorsed, Benghazi-based Gen. Khalifa Haftar. One U.S official affiliated with the GNA, who requested anonymity, told Fox News that the political and security vacuum that existed in the country post 2011 allowed ISIS to take root.

ISIS still poses a threat not just to Libya, the U.S official added, but to its neighbors, Europe and the United States.
An Israeli military court has upheld the 18-month sentence of a soldier convicted of fatally shooting in 2016 a Palestinian attacker who lay wounded on the ground.

The court Sunday found no reason to accept Elor Azaria's appeal and overturn the sentencing handed down after his conviction on a manslaughter charge.

It is unfortunate that such an excelling soldier found committed such a terrible error, the court said as it explained its rationale on the sentence. For almost four hours, the court has laid out its reasoning and explanations. The punishment is modest, the court added, even noting it is on the lower edge of available sentences.

In the end, in a 3-to-2 decision, the court upheld the 18-month sentence, to begin when Azaria enters prison. During the last part of the reading, when the five-judge panel reached the verdict, family and friends of Elor Azaria put on black T-shirts, and started shouting at the court. Several military policemen entered the courtroom, and the judge stopped reading the ruling, asking Azaria's mother to be quiet or she would be forced to leave.

The act, the appeals judges said, is forbidden, severe, immoral. The appellant had an intent to kill the assailant.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and two other cabinet ministers called on Sunday for Sgt. Elor Azaria to be pardoned, after a military court denied the appeal of his manslaughter conviction for killing an incapacitated Palestinian attacker last year in Hebron. The military appellate court upheld Azaria's conviction, but also denied a prosecution appeal seeking a harsher sentence.

"My opinion hasn't changed about pardoning Elor Azaria," the prime minister said. "When the issue is brought up for consideration, I will submit my recommendation for a pardon to the relevant officials."

Earlier, Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman and Education Minister Naftali Bennett asked the public and the Azaria family to respect the appellate court's ruling. They also called on Azaria to submit a request for a pardon.

I ask the Azaria family not to file another appeal and to turn to the [IDF] chief of staff with a request for a pardon," Lieberman said in a tweet. "I have no doubt the chief of staff will take all the difficult circumstances and his being an outstanding soldier into consideration.

Unless Azaria appeals to the Israeli Supreme Court, he will be imprisoned on August 9.

Sgt. Elor Azaria, an army combat medic, was recorded on a cellphone video as he fatally shot a badly wounded Palestinian who had previously attacked a soldier with a knife, wounding him. The Palestinian, Abdel Fattah al-Sharif, was lying on the ground unarmed when Azaria shot him in the head.

The 2016 incident occurred in the volatile West Bank city of Hebron at a time of frequent Palestinian attacks.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Two opposing sides in Italy were brought together on Wednesday when Emma Bonino, a former Italian foreign minister who is pro-abortion rights, spoke at a Catholic church despite strong protests from pro-life supporters.

Bonino spoke at the church of San Defendente in San Rocco di Cossato about Italy's immigration laws, National Catholic Register reported. At the event, sponsored by a local branch of Caritas Italiana, Bonino pushed for overturning the 2002 legislation that tightened the country's immigration.

Pro-life Catholic churchgoers were reportedly shut out of the event. A group of protesters gathered outside of the church, where they prayed, according to the National Catholic Register. Some activists who attended Bonino's speech were also shot down when they asked questions.

Bonino, who has been previously praised by Pope Francis for her refugee worked, argued during her speech that Italy had "no choice" but to regularize illegal immigrants flooding in from Africa and the Middle East. She added "unless we want to drown them all in the Mediterranean."

Bonino also said she came to speak at the church because she comes from "a practicing Catholic family, but one that taught [her] to respect the opinion of others."

Bonino was appointed Italy's foreign minister in 2013 and vehemently fought to achieve women's rights in Italy.

"It's always the same, everywhere in the world," Bonino told Newsweek in 2016. "Gender issues, empowerment, equality -- they are all a process. They can go backward for a while and then they can move forward."
Pakistan's parliament will meet Tuesday to elect a new prime minister after the disqualification of three-term prime minister Nawaz Sharif.

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League party enjoys a comfortable majority in parliament. The party nominated Sharif's longtime loyalist Shahid Khaqan Abbasi for the top slot on Saturday.

The opposition is expected to name a candidate to challenge Abassi in a vote in parliament. But the six-time lawmaker is expected to win.

Sharif proposed Abbasi as interim prime minister until his brother Shahbaz Sharif, who is the chief minister of Punjab province, can contend in a by-election for the seat left vacant by his brother's disqualification.

Pakistan's Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif from office on Friday for not being honest and concealing assets.
Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor who was among the politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs and at least 13 others in gunbattles that erupted Sunday in the south, police said, in one of the bloodiest anti-drug assaults so far under his crackdown.

Officers were to serve warrants to Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. of Ozamiz city to search his houses for suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen allegedly opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 11 other people, police Senior Superintendent Jaysen de Guzman said by phone.

Aside from the mayor's residence, three other houses were raided in the port city in Misamis Occidental province and resulted in the arrests of five suspects. At least one police officer was wounded during the clashes, police said.

"We have reports that armed bodyguards are carrying unlicensed weapons," regional police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said, adding that an undetermined number of assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids.

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects.

The police officers were "met with volleys of fire from (the mayor's) security, prompting the Philippine National Police personnel to retaliate," Pacleb said in a statement. Parojinog, his wife and a brother were among the dead, police said.

Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, Pacleb said.

The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign.

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug trafficker in the country has been eliminated.
Pope Francis is urging the world to show a greater commitment to fighting human trafficking, which he called "a form of modern slavery."

The pope made the appeal during his traditional Sunday prayer on the U.N.'s world day against trafficking.

Francis said "every year, thousands of men, women and children are innocent victims of labor exploitation, and sex and organ trafficking." He added: "This is ugly. It is cruel. It is criminal."

He called on the world to renew its commitment to battling "this abhorrent plague, a form of modern slavery," and to pray that the traffickers "change their hearts."

The International Labor Organization estimates that 21 million people around the world are victims of forced labor, including victims of human trafficking for labor and sexual exploitation.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that 755 U.S. diplomats will be expelled from Russia by Sept. 1, according to an interview on Russian television.

The expulsions had been announced Friday in response to a new law passed in Congress that expanded sanctions, but Sunday's statement was the first time a large number of Americans were confirmed as involved.

It was "a regrettable and uncalled for act," a State Department official told The Associated Press. Earlier, a State Department official told Fox News, "It is our policy to not comment on the number of individuals serving at our missions abroad."

Russia's Foreign Ministry said it is ordering the U.S. Embassy to reduce the number of embassy and consular employees in the country to 455.

"I decided it is time for us to show: We do not intend to leave U.S. actions unanswered," said Putin, according to Interfax News Agency.

The U.S. has taken an "unprovoked step towards worsening bilateral relations," Putin added.

He also said that Russia could consider other options in response to the U.S., but that he hoped it would not come down to that.

Putin noted the recent creation of a de-escalation zone in southern Syria as one example of how the countries have worked together.

However, in terms of general relations, Putin said: "We have waited long enough, hoping that the situation would perhaps change for the better. But it seems that even if the situation is changing, it's not for anytime soon."

The new American sanctions were in retaliation both for Russia's takeover of Crimea in 2014 and Russian interference in the U.S. 2016 presidential election.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
The U.S. and its allies are prepared to use rapid, lethal and overwhelming force, if necessary, against North Korea, the commander of the U.S. Pacific Air Forces warned Saturday night.

The statement from Gen. Terrence J. OShaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander, came after the militaries of the U.S., South Korea and Japan spent 10 hours conducting bomber-jet drills over the Korean Peninsula.

The training mission was a response to North Koreas recent ballistic missile launches and nuclear program, and part of the U.S. regular commitment to defending its allies in the Asia-Pacific region, the generals statement said.

"The time for talk is over. The danger the North Korean regime poses to international peace is now clear to all," said United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in a statement.

North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability, OShaughnessy said.

SLIDESHOW: U.S., SOUTH KOREA AND JAPAN CONDUCT BOMBER-JET DRILLS OVER THE KOREAN PENINSULA

Diplomacy remains the lead, he said. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario.

If called upon, he added, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.

North Korea conducted test launches of ICBMs on July 3 and July 28, and has claimed that its weapons can now reach the U.S. mainland.

The countrys recent actions have drawn condemnation from President Trump, and prompted U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to confer with counterparts from South Korea and Japan to develop a response, Fox News has reported.

Both Trump and Tillerson have criticized China, saying the Beijing government has failed to use its influence to discourage North Korea from developing its nuclear program, Fox News reported.

On Saturday, two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers, under the command of U.S. Pacific Air Forces, joined counterparts from the South Korean and Japanese air forces in sequenced bilateral missions.

According to the Pentagon, the U.S. bombers took off from Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, then flew to Japanese airspace, where they were joined by two Koku Jieitai (Japan Air Self Defense Force) F-2 fighter jets.

The B-1s then flew over the Korean Peninsula, where they were joined by four F-15 fighter jets from the South Korean air force.

The B-1s then performed a low-pass over Osan Air Base, South Korea, before leaving South Korean airspace and returning to Guam.

Throughout the approximately 10-hour mission, the air crews practiced intercept and formation functions, enabling them to improve their combined capabilities and strengthening the long-standing military-to-military relationships in the region, the Pentagon said.

U.S. Pacific Command maintains flexible bomber and fighter capabilities in the Indo-Asia-Pacific theater, retaining the ability to quickly respond to any regional threat in order to defend the U.S. and its allies, the statement said.
The U.S. military on Sunday conducted a test of its THAAD anti-ballistic missile system, two days after North Korea launched its second intercontinental ballistic missile.

This test was expected after a warning from the U.S. Coast Guard last week. Earlier this month, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it would be conducting two THAAD tests this month from Kodiak, Alaska. This is the second of the two tests.

The test comes as Gen. Terrence J. OShaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander, warned North Korea that U.S. and its allies are prepared to use "rapid, lethal and overwhelming force," if necessary against the rogue nation.

"The U.S. Missile Defense Agency and U.S. Army soldiers of the 11th Air Defense Artillery Brigade from Fort Bliss, Texas, conducted a successful missile defense test today using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system," the Missile Defense Agency said in a statement on Sunday.

The medium-range target ballistic missile (MRBM) was launched over the Pacific Ocean and the THAAD weapon system tracked and intercepted it in Kodiak.

"In addition to successfully intercepting the target, the data collected will allow MDA to enhance the THAAD weapon system, our modeling and simulation capabilities, and our ability to stay ahead of the evolving threat," MDA Director Lt. Gen. Sam Greaves said.

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 of launches, hitting 15 out of 15 targets, the Pentagon said.

The latest launch comes in the wake of North Korea's latest ICBM test. Analysts said flight data from the North's second ICBM test, conducted Friday night, showed that a broader part of the mainland United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of Pyongyang's weapons.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," O'Shaughnessy said.

"Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario," O'Shaughnessy added.

Fox News' Lucas Tomlinson and The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Whats a person to do when he needs to see a doctor whom he knows and trusts, but that doctor isnt available for weeks?

A member of my family recently faced that dilemma. When he realized he wouldnt be able to get into his doctors office immediately, he asked the receptionist what he should do if his pain worsened.

Visit the emergency room?

No, came the response. Thats too expensive, but you might consider an urgent care facility.

The family member decided to wait it out, but not after ranting about whats the point of having health insurance if you cant get the care you need when you need it.

He had tried making an appointment with his primary care physician, who couldnt see him for a week, then a specialist, who wasnt available for five weeks. He figured his primary doctor would refer him to a specialist anyway, so he settled on a fellow doctor in the specialists practice who had a open slot in two weeks.

My family member opted against an urgent care facility, not because of its nickname as a doc in the box, but because he didnt want to see someone he doesnt know. And, he would rather be examined by a doctor well-versed in a specialty rather than a professional who might see dozens of different ailments in a day.

My family members scenario came to mind this week, along with an interesting graphic about hospital and office visits.

The graphic pointed out how much money could have been saved if patients had gone to a doctors office, like the one my family member was trying to get into, rather than a hospital emergency room.

The data came from Virginia Health Information and included avoidable visits. Theyre so named because patients could have avoided the more expensive visit to the emergency room by seeing a primary care physician instead.

The five most common avoidable visits to emergency rooms across Virginia in 2015 were for upper respiratory infections, urinary tract infections, headaches, earaches and back problems.

Had patients scheduled an office visit with their doctor, the treatment would have cost $10.9 million, the VHI stated.

Because patients went to hospital emergency rooms instead, the total for treatment was $79 million.

These visits have a large impact on the cost of health care for all Virginians, stated the graphic.

The VHI went on to say that 14 percent of the 1.3 million visits to Virginia hospital emergency rooms in 2015 could have been treated at a doctors office. Of those 180,890 potentially avoidable emergency-room visits, almost 80 percent were for the infections and various aches listed.

Clearly, none of those ailments are life-threatening conditions, but as my family member came to realize, they certainly make for uncomfortable situations.

TRUE EMERGENCIES

Even though hospital emergency rooms end up treating stomach aches and back problems, they clearly werent set up for that.

Theyre really meant for true emergencies, said Eric Fletcher, senior vice president for strategy, marketing and business development for Mary Washington Healthcare. Were all better served if we can make sure that the strep throats and the earaches are served closer to home, in a lower-cost environment.

But if the pain starts after 5 p.m. or on the weekends and immediate relief is sought, whats a person to do? A study by the National Center for Health Statistics found that almost half of the people who visited a hospital emergency room, but werent admitted, did so because their doctors office wasnt open.

Another option is urgent care clinics. There are 19 such facilities within a 20-mile drive of Fredericksburg, and as in other communities nationwide, they help fill a vital gap when you become sick or injured, but your regular doctor is not available and you cant wait for an appointment, according to a March 2016 story by Scripps Health Media.

The average urgent care visit costs patients $71 to $125 for basic care, with additional costs added for shots, X-rays and labs. Thats compared to the average emergency room visit, which costs $1,318, according to the Urgent Care Locations website.

WHO YA GONNA CALL?

When should you make an appointment with your doctor, visit an urgent care clinic or head straight to the emergency room? As always, decisions depend on an individuals situation, but here are some general guidelines culled from several sources.

A 2016 article in Forbes magazine suggested that patients can get similar treatment for minor problems such as sore throat or poison ivy if they go to their doctor or an urgent care clinic. Determining factors may be when the problems occur or how difficult it is to make an appointment with your regular doctor.

The Forbes story also stated that walk-in clinics may be OK for people who are relatively healthy, except for whatever minor issue theyre having. If clinicians recommend a specialist, patients should check with their regular doctor.

For chronic conditions such as high blood pressure or diabetes, its recommended that patients see their own doctor, someone who knows their family history and has monitored the treatment over time.

A provider who knows your health history, your habits and your personality can more easily recognize signs that indicate a potential change in your health, states the One Medical Group website.

But no matter what the time of day or night, there are some conditions that demand an immediate visit to the hospital emergency room.

They include: chest pain, difficulty breathing or speaking, severe abdominal pain, high fevers in babies, broken bones, bleeding, head injuries or seizures.

Thats any condition that could cause loss of life, limb or eyesight.

Were all better served if we can make sure that the strep throats and the earaches are served closer to home, in a lower-cost environment. Eric Fletcher, Mary Washington Healthcare
From the front porch of his grandfathers house in the Mayfield neighborhood, Fred Mercer has a clear line of sight into the park where on Thursday night he checked the pulse of an 18-year-old woman to see if she was still alive.

I thought she was dead, Mercer said Saturday. She had a bullet in her head.

Its sad, he continued. Not to say we have a lot of shootings here, but no shooting is justified, and any shooting is too much.

Mercer was one of the first on the scene of the shooting that occurred in a covered pavilion at the Dr. W.L. Harris Neighborhood Park on Tyler Street about 8:50 p.m. Thursday night. The victim, who had family living in the Mayfield community, remains in critical condition at Mary Washington Hospital.

The suspect, who police have described only as a black male, has not been located, and police have not released information about a possible motive.

On Saturday, the same covered pavilion was set to host the fifth annual Peace in the Paint, a free community event opposing violence.

Paul Chewning, the community police officer for Mayfield, arrived at the park Saturday morning to make sure the crime scene had been cleared.

Noticing that some blood stains remained on the pavement, he got a mop and a bucket of bleach and scrubbed them out with the help of fellow Fredericksburg city police officers.

Later that morning, Peace in the Paint organizers decided to cancel the event due to rainy conditions.

In the Larry D. Silver Mayfield Community Center next to the park, the Armstead family of Spotsylvania County was preparing for their family reunion to be held that evening. One family member said he has a concealed carry permit and would be acting as security guard during the party.

But Mayfield residents wanted to push back against the notion that their community is violent.

People want to look at the community in a negative sense, but this is not a bad neighborhood, said Mercer, who is 58 and has lived in Mayfield since he was a child.

He said police have done a great job keeping the neighborhood safe, but he understands that they cant be everywhere all the time. He pointed out that when violence does occur, its often perpetrated by people from outside the community. He also said he thinks its too easy for young people to get their hands on guns.

Its a sad, sad situation, he said. Generations just kill themselves. Its just very sad.

Mayfield Civic Association President Trudy Smith, 78, agreed that the incident doesnt diminish what the neighborhood is all about.

I grew up here, she said. These things are isolated incidents. They happen. In America, they happen. And I understand the person had out-of-state tags.

She pointed at the covered pavilion, which is across the street from her house.

I would still put children on that playground, she said. Thats why we built this house where it is. I chose to live here then and I still choose to live here.

Smith said she knew the victims grandmother and, as a former director of the Fredericksburg Regional Head Start, she had probably met the victim herself when the young woman went through the program as a child.

Everybody here is just heart-broken, she said. Were so sorry. Ive been praying that she will recuperate. And I understand she was on her way to school.

Mercer said hed also heard that the victim had been accepted into college and was trying to make something of herself.

I hope she still gets to go to college, he said.

Lisa Simms Reynolds, 50, lives in a white house next door to the park where the shooting occurred. Her mother, who is in hospice care, sleeps in a bedroom with a window overlooking the park and Reynolds fears her mother could have been struck by the bullet.

A bullet dont have anybodys name on it, she said.

Reynolds is another lifelong Mayfield resident and she knew the victims mother, aunts and grandmother.

Ive been praying so hard because I know shes fighting for her life, she said.

She asked those who might know something about the shooting to communicate with police.

Somebody knows something and they need to speak up, she said.

Anyone with information can contact police at 540/373-3122. To provide an anonymous tip, send a text to 847-411 and text FPDtip followed by your tip. Tips can also be sent by using a free FPD Tip app available for Android and iPhones.
Jason Heil, a first grade teacher at Parkside Elementary School, is the grand prize winner of Autobell Car Washs Teachers That Shine contest for the metro Washington, D.C., market. Launched this year during Mays National Teacher Appreciation Week, the contest was open to current pre-K through college teachers at accredited public and private schools who live within 50 miles of an Autobell Car Wash location. Nominations were accepted from students, parents, peers and principals who acknowledged the positive, lasting impression the teacher has made. One grand prize winner of $1,000 was chosen in each of the companys eight markets, with one second prize per market of a $100 Autobell gift card.
Friends since seventh grade, Joseph Altorfer and Connor Weed received their Eagle Scout Awards recently in a combined court of honor held at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on Boscobel Road in Stafford County.

Altorfers project was the restoration of a local historic cemetery that had fallen into disrepair for Hulls Memorial Baptist Church. Weed installed cabinetry in the recreation room of the local YMCA, giving the group much needed storage space.

Both Scouts are recent graduates of Mountain View High School as well as their churchs early morning scripture study program which met every morning before school during their four years of high school. In school they were involved in sports, school organizations and employed part time.

Altorfer, an honor graduate participating in Stafford County Public Schools STAT Program for Engineering, recently placed at the state level with his MVHS Technology Student Association team. The team advanced to nationals where they performed well in the area of architecture. As a MVHS wrestler, Altorfer was a team captain during his junior and senior years and placed 4th at conference, regionals and states. He had more than 25 pins his senior year and won 146 matches throughout his four-year varsity career.

Weed ran varsity cross country and track all four years of high school. He won All-Conference, Regions and made All-State numerous times. He is a region champion and holds two regional records in the 4x800 relay. He competed and placed in national competitions twice. He always challenged himself to improve his own time and push himself to go faster.

Their plans for the future are just as industrious as their high school careers. Altorfer will continue his engineering studies at Old Dominion University. He intends to study mechanical engineering and law in order to become a patent lawyer. Weed has chosen to postpone college in order to serve a two-year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He has been called to serve in the Brisbane, Australia Mission.
Serving in the U.S. military is a privilege, not a right. Not everyone who wishes to serve can be allowed to do so, for a variety of reasonsage, physical and mental fitness, education, and legal status, to name a few. The purpose of the military is not to advance a social or political agenda but to defend the nation. These simple truths seem to be lost in the debate stirred by President Donald Trumps clumsy and ill-timed announcement via Twitter that transgender individuals are no longer allowed to serve in the U.S. armed forces.

The decision to allow transgender people to serve in the military in the first place was barely 2 years oldunthinkable even a decade ago. In 2015, President Barack Obamas secretary of defense, Ashton Carter, announced that the Pentagon would move to allow transgender individuals to serve openly in the military. But perhaps the most controversial aspect of the Obama administrations stance was the announcement in June 2016 that the military would provide medical treatment for those service members seeking hormone treatment and plastic surgery to change their sex.

According to the American Psychiatric Association, gender dysphoria is not in itself a mental disorder. The critical element of gender dysphoria is the presence of clinically significant distress associated with the condition. It seems fair to say, however, that those who choose to undergo the painful surgeries and lifelong hormonal treatments necessary to transition their sex dont do so lightly but are indeed experiencing significant distress. The question isnt whether transgender individuals have the right to live as they choosethey dobut that does not mean they have a right to serve in the military.

All sorts of physical and mental conditions preclude military service. The reasons vary, but the underlying assumption is that any condition that might make deployment and combat readiness more difficult justifies excluding certain individuals. Everything from asthma to plantar fasciitis may be disqualifying, depending on when the individual experienced the condition and its severity, and some medical conditions, such as diabetes, are automatically so. But so are common mental conditions. People who suffer from depression or other mood disorderseven adults with attention deficit disordercan be excluded.

The military rejects these individuals not out of prejudice but because their conditions complicate the mission of the military. Individuals who require medication on a daily basis are more difficult to deploy in a wartime situation. Someone who has diabetes quickly becomes a liability on the battlefield when there isnt access to proper food or insulin or other medication. Transgender individuals require hormone treatments for the rest of their lives after transitioning. What happens when a transgender soldier runs out of male or female hormone replacement treatments while deployed? How long would a transsexual be unable to deploy while recovering from surgery?

Those who are expressing outrage that the Trump administration is reverting to the policy barring transgender individuals from service that existed prior to two years ago seem more than a little disingenuous. Some 29 million Americans have diabetes; another 25 million have asthma. But I dont remember anyone suggesting that these individuals are being discriminated against because they cannot serve in the military.

President Obama lifted restrictions against transgender people in the military, and President Trump has decided to impose those restrictions again. These are policy decisionsand both presidents were within their authority to make them. President Trump bungled the decision to change course. He did it as he does everything, impulsively, without proper consideration for its implementation or how it affects individuals who are already in the military. Twitter is no way to issue orders as commander in chief.

It is certainly fair to ask why he did it now. Was it a way to distract from other issues? With this president, who knows? He says he talked to the generals, but few of them are coming forward to confirm any discussions, and the Pentagon was left flat-footed.

Once again, the president is setting up the dynamics for failure. Perhaps this is a bone thrown to those in his base in anticipation of disappointing them on another front. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, stay tuned.

Linda Chavez is the author of An Unlikely Conservative: The Transformation of an Ex-Liberal. To find out more about Chavez, visit the Creators Syndicate.

The military rejects these individuals not out of prejudice but because their conditions complicate the mission of the military. Individuals who require medication on a daily basis are more difficult to deploy in a wartime situation.
Out of the blue, with no new data and the same team of generals, President Donald Trump has decided that he wants to reinstate the ban on transgender people in the military, reversing Obama administration regulations allowing all men and women, regardless of gender identity, to serve their country.

This is the same man who, when running for office, claimed to be a friend of the LGBT community. Perhaps hes forgotten that the T stands for transgender.

Make no mistake, the presidents anti-transgender offensive is an attack on the entire LGBT community and on our core American belief in equality of opportunity.

The commander in chiefs early morning tweets on Wednesday calling for reinstatement of the ban laid out a bogus argument, leaving out the most important point: This is a political move intended to appease Trumps base and to push Democrats to take complete ownership of this issue, according to an unidentified Trump administration official quoted by Jonathan Swan, a national political reporter for Axios.

Heres what the president had to say:

After consultation with my Generals and military experts, please be advised that the United States Government will not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military. Our military must be focused on decisive and overwhelming victory and cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail. Thank you.

Who are these generals and military experts? I posed that question to Matt Thorn, executive director of OutServe-SLDN, an organization that represents the LGBT community in the military. Your guess is as good as mine, he said. Thorn pointed out that the current service chiefs signed off on the Obama policy last year and that those individuals havent changed. There have been no replacements.

He also reminded me that it was a 2016 study by the Rand Corporation (commissioned by the Pentagon) that led Obama defense secretary Ashton B. Carter to lift the ban. No new study has been conducted or published since then, meaning that theres no new data.

Whats also deeply unsettling, to say the least, is that Trump tweeted this intended policy change only a few weeks after Defense Secretary Jim Mattis gave military chiefs a six-month extension, until Dec. 1, to determine whether transgender service members would affect the militarys readiness and lethality.

Is Trump undermining yet another of his Cabinet members? Curiously, Mattis is apparently on vacation, according to numerous news reports. If youre going to consult your experts, shouldnt the defense secretary be one of the top voices in such an important and far-reaching decision?

As for the tremendous medical costs that would result if transgender people were allowed to continue serving, the Rand study is the gold standard on that question as well. The think tank estimated that between 30 and 140 new hormone treatments a year could result, as well as 25 to 130 gender transition-related surgeries. The estimated impact on the militarys health care costs would fall between $2.4 million and $8.4 million, or a tiny bump of 0.13 percent, which is hardly tremendous. (And thats for all medical costs, not just transition-related ones.)

What about the disruption supposedly caused by allowing openly transgender men and women to serve? Theres no there there. Service members have been serving openly with no issues to readiness, Thorn said. Theyre serving in elite units, like SEAL Team 6 (and) in the Joint Chiefs of Staff office. Theyre leading commands and leading battalions. Its not true.

The same claims were made of gay and lesbian service members during the dont ask, dont tell era; its fearmongering, plain and simple.

With no rationale, and no new data or studies, the president has thrown the LGBT communityand notably transgender peopleunder the bus. Conservative groups such as the Family Research Council, long opposed to LGBT equality, applauded the presidents move, especially his termination of what they called a social experiment.

Its an interesting footnote that on the same date in 1948, President Harry S. Truman issued Executive Order 9981, which abolished racial discrimination in the military. He called for equality of treatment and opportunity in the military.

My question for Trump: Why does that same principle not apply to transgender Americans who want to serve their country?

Steven Petrow writes for The Washington Post.

The same claims were made of gay and lesbian service members during the dont ask, dont tell era; its fearmongering, plain and simple.
Political rhetoric, partisanship part of problem, not solution

U.S. Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., reportedly said that Donald Trump Jr. has potentially committed treason [Kaine says Russia probe moving into possible treason, July 12, 2017].

Kaine was referencing a meeting Donald Trump Jr. had with a Russian lawyer in June of last year during the feverish heat of the presidential campaign. Other administration meeting attendees were campaign director Paul Manafort and adviser Jared Kushner. Accompanying the Russian lawyer was a Russian American lobbyist.

Donald Trump Jr. agreed to the meeting because the Russian lawyer, in an e-mail to him, said that she had information that would be injurious to Hillary Clintons campaign. Quite simply Donald Trump Jr. was intrigued by the potential of gaining information that would benefit his fathers campaign.

Many political campaigns engage in opposition research, so responding to the Russian lawyers offers should not be interpreted as an unusual occurrence.

However, being a neophyte politician, Donald Trump Jr. was naive and did not suspect the dangerous political waters into which he was walking. Recall in June 2016 Russian computer hacking was not then the huge issue it has now become.

Apparently, Donald Trump Jr. and the other administration attendees quickly realized the Russian lawyer had no verifiable information and terminated the meeting. According to Donald Trump Jr., no actionable decision resulted. And to date no evidence contradicting his statement has surfaced.

Do his actions warrant the overwrought claim by Senator Kaine that Donald Trump Jr.s participation in the meeting was tantamount to potential treason?

Its an absurd, unbalanced statement made by a seasoned politician.

On several occasions, Senator Kaine has opined that the loss of civility in political discourse is damaging to democracy. Clearly, his political rhetoric and partisanship makes him part of the problem and not part of the solution.

Charles Tuck

Spotsylvania
There currently are 93 Fisher Houses in the United States and in Europe with plans for more.
The known dangers of glyphosate warrant extensive investigation before Californians are exposed to any amount

 Pedram Esfandiary, Attorney representing cancer victims suing Monsanto corporation

Meanwhile, back in your backyard, the glyphosate saga continues. You remember glyphosate, right? Its the active ingredient in Monsantos herbicide Roundup, the most widely used weed killer in the world. And, guess what? Roundup is so safe, a neighbor once informed me, you could drink the stuff. (Who informed him of this fact is unclear.)

Well, it turns out that glyphosate might not be so safe after all. In March 2015, the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a division of the World Health Organization, classified glyphosate as a probable carcinogen. In the IARCs five-level classification scheme, probable is one notch down from the top level of definite, so the label is to be taken seriously.

So far, the principal fallout from the designation has been threefold. First, Monsanto and other companies that sell glyphosate-based products predictably have tried to delegitimize the classification and attack the messenger, the IARC itself, for bias. Second, based largely on the IARC classification, more than 1,000 individuals in the U.S. who have developed non-Hodgkins lymphoma, a type of cancer, have filed lawsuits against Monsanto for exposing them or their family members to glyphosate.

Third, on July 7, 2017, the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment (COEHHA) classified glyphosate as a carcinogen, known to the state to cause cancer. Under California law, businesses must inform the public, usually by labeling, if they sell products that contain known carcinogens.

While many environmental and consumer groups consider Californias classification a huge step toward protecting the public, the labeling fight is far from over. Which products are labeled, and how theyre labeled (on the packaging itself or just with signs on store shelves) depends on the COEHHAs assessment of the exposure risks for glyphosate  how much of the chemical your system can tolerate.

Credible scientific studies have pegged that amount at zero. For example, a 2015 study published in Environmental Health shows that liver and kidney damage afflicted lab rats that were exposed to chronic ultra-low doses (0.05 parts per billion) of glyphosate.

That level of exposure can occur not just by using glyphosate, but by eating food grown in fields where Roundup or similar products are used for weed control. For example, the Nation of Change website reports that tests by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have revealed levels from 3,000-6,000 parts per billion on garbanzo beans and wheat. Eating 12 ounces of those foods daily would expose one to 15,000 times the amount of glyphosate that damaged the rats livers in the Environmental Health study.

So, the COEHHA could require that not only glyphosate products, but also some glyphosate-exposed foods carry the carcinogen label.

Naturally, Monsanto and other glyphosate product manufacturers are resisting any and all labeling by taking the issue to court, where, so far, they have been ruled against; by meeting with officials of the COEHHA; and by arguing their case in the court of public opinion through ongoing advertising campaigns and tactics such as feeding cherry-picked statements from legal depositions to sympathetic journalists.

Who should you believe? While the evidence against glyphosate keeps piling up, you dont have to wait until you have definitive proof of its dangers (until you have cancer?) to take the better safe than sorry approach with your home weed control. Instead, mix regular household vinegar with a little liquid dish soap (for stickiness) in a spray bottle and apply it to your weeds. Theyll die in a few days. Then you can further minimize your exposure to a probable carcinogen by encouraging your neighbor to use vinegar, not glyphosate, at his ecological house.
John Appleyard of Lake Tapps, Washington, planned to take a romantic getaway with his wife, a train trip to celebrate their 33rd anniversary and watch the eclipse on Aug. 21.

They found a room for less than $100 a night, including taxes, at what is now the Econo Lodge Inn & Suites in Albany, he said.

But in May, Appleyard said, after seeing media reports of shady business practices regarding the eclipse, he called the hotel and discovered that it had canceled his reservation.

The parent company for the hotel offered him a $109 per night voucher, but wanted him to pay $700 per night for a room in Eugene, 40 miles away and outside the path of totality for the eclipse, Appleyard said.

They tried to tell us that the hotel was sold in March and that the old owner didnt give them all the reservations for the new place, he said.

Im just disheartened by the whole thing. Its just saddening, Appleyard added. Its a big black eye on Oregon, and I know that the Oregon people arent like that. It isnt consistent with the values of the Northwest. You just dont screw people over.

The Appleyards don't know what they're going to do for the unique event, as they don't have a place to stay.

The Econo Lodge, 251 Airport Road SE, is among 12 hotels in the state that have generated consumer complaints about business practices related to the eclipse, according to the Oregon Department of Justice.

The department has seen an increase in complaints from people who have had hotel reservations canceled or have had their room rates double  or even triple  in price, states a July 14 news release.

Kristina Edmunson, communications director for the Oregon Department of Justice, said via email that the Econo Lodge in Albany was the subject of two complaints. One was from Appleyard and the other came from Wolfgang Reissnegger of San Jose, California. The cases are still open.

An employee of the Econo Lodge, contacted last week, said a manager for the establishment would not be available for comment until Monday.

But Appleyard provided an email from a representative of the company to a state investigator. In the email, the hotel representative wrote that Appleyard had called the hotel and harassed employees for days. The representative added that the hotel has new computer software for its reservation system, and some reservations failed to transfer.

Appleyard responded to the state investigator that the previous owner said he turned over all the reservations, and the Econo Lodge dumped them for a higher price.

Reissnegger, who filed the other complaint against the hotel, couldnt be reached for comment on Friday. According to state paperwork, he said that he booked a room for approximately $110 a night at what was then the Albany Inn & Suites on Aug. 21, 2016.

He added that when he called on June 9 this year to confirm his reservation, now with the Econo Lodge, he was told it didnt exist and he would have to sort out the situation with the previous owner.

Hotels in the area are booked for Aug. 20 due to the solar eclipse and any rooms that still are available are priced at roughly $1,000, Reissnegger wrote.

Appleyard said that he and his wife, Tobi, won train tickets as well as tickets to a Seattle Seahawks game from a local radio show. They chose to use the Amtrak trip to visit Oregon for the eclipse.

We saw the train stopped in Albany, and Albany was a nice little town, Appleyard said.

After canceling his reservation, the Econo Lodge didnt offer him transportation from Albany to Eugene and back, he added.

If it wasnt for us calling them, then we wouldnt know and we would be in Albany late at night with no place to stay, probably at the train station, Appleyard said.

He also said he complained with the Better Business Bureau about the situation, but the hotel did not respond to the nonprofit organization.

The Department of Justice is working with the hotels to resolve specific complaints. As of mid-July, seven of these businesses have agreed to provide the originally booked rooms at the original price.

The state also sent letters warning of Oregons consumer protection laws to all hotels within the eclipse path and to all hotels that have been the subject of a consumer complaint. In the letter, hotels that may have increased the price of hotel rooms or canceled reservations were told to give the customers their originally booked room for the original price, or at least give $500 to each customer.

Oregon Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum urged visitors and Oregonians who have booked hotel rooms within the 90-mile path of total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 to confirm their hotel reservations immediately.

Travelers need to be able to trust that hotels will keep their reservation and honor the original price, Rosenblum said in the news release. We want to make sure travelers know that hotels must honor their advertised prices, regardless of whether the prices are advertised directly by the hotel, or with a third party.

Booking a reservation for a consumer at a certain rate, followed by the hotel either canceling or increasing that reservation rate is a deceptive practice under Oregons Unlawful Trade Practice Act. Businesses could face a $25,000 fine for each violation of the act, according to Oregon law.

Estimates indicate as many as 1 million people could visit Oregon for the eclipse.

The other hotels the Oregon Department of Justice had received complaints about are: America's Best Inn & Suites, Liberty Inn, Palace Inn and Suites, and Sailor Jack Oceanfront Motel, all in Lincoln City; Cascade Lodging in Bend; the Motel 6 in Madras; Quality Suites Hotel in Keizer; Rodeway Inn in Sublimity; Stafford Inn in Prineville; Super 8 Motel in Baker City; and the Grand Hotel in Salem.

Visitors who encounter problems with hotel reservations should contact the Oregon Department of Justices consumer hotline by calling 877-877-9392 or by filing a complaint online at https://justice.orgon.gov/complaints/.
Corvallis defense attorney Jennifer Nash had been representing a client in a custody battle when the man was indicted last year by a grand jury on sexual abuse charges.

Nash was shocked. She knew the police had been investigating the case. But she also knew officers had received a report from the crime lab citing inconclusive evidence of abuse.

The attorney wasnt sure how a grand jury had determined her client should be charged for sexual abuse. So she called Benton County District Attorney John Haroldson. Upon consideration, Haroldson dismissed the charges against Nashs client. Nash later learned that the assistant prosecutor and detective in the case had presented the crime lab report without explaining the inconclusive evidence to the grand jury.

Im absolutely convinced that if those proceedings had been recorded, we would have known what the DA was presenting, Nash said.

Nash and other defense attorneys across Oregon were among the proponents of a new law that will require all grand jury proceedings, which are held behind closed doors, to be recorded. If the proceedings result in an indictment, a defendants attorney will be able to review the recordings to learn what evidence had been presented and how it had been posited to the grand jury. Proponents argued that the recording will add transparency to the judicial process and provides a check on prosecutorial powers. They say itll also help them better decide whether to take a plea agreement or go to trial.

District attorneys have vehemently opposed the law. Prosecutors say the cost to record such proceedings will be onerous, while adding extra steps to an already encumbered process and creating more opportunities for litigation.

I dont see this as a situation where we have anything to hide, Haroldson said. Its really more a matter of whether were creating a more litigious environment or were creating one that is efficient and a responsible use of taxpayer resources.

Linn County District Attorney Doug Marteeny said the suggestion that grand jurors may not be given all the evidence during the jury's proceedings impugns the integrity of the jurors.

I trust our jurors, Marteeny said. So its nice for the defense to have word-for-word recordings, but at what cost for that little bit of nicer?

Legislative action

Senate Bill 505 was passed by the state Legislature earlier this month. It is awaiting the governors signature. The law requires district attorneys in Oregon counties to create and maintain digital recordings of the seven-person, closed-door sessions used by prosecutors to obtain an indictment against a person accused of a criminal act.

The bill requires Deschutes, Jackson and Multnomah counties to begin recording next year, and will require the remaining counties, including Linn and Benton, to begin recording the proceedings in 2019.

The change is significant: Such proceedings always have been conducted in secrecy, with only the prosecutor providing evidence and witnesses to the jury, and without the defendant or a defense attorney present.

Under the former law, grand jurors were allowed to make handwritten notes during testimony. Defendants did not have an automatic right to the pretrial notes, but they could request access to them and a judge would make a decision. Supporters of the new law say itll create a more genuine account of the grand jury testimony. Defense attorneys will be able to access the recordings following the defendants arraignment. Grand jury deliberations, during which the jurors make their decision, will not be recorded.

Under the law, the prosecutor in a case could ask that parts of the recording be redacted to protect things like the anonymity of a confidential informant. But Marteeny believes that part of the bill is nothing more than a placation.

Thats a window-dressing measure, he said, suggesting no prosecutor would really be able to show cause to deny access to the testimony.

More litigation?

District attorneys say the law will create a more litigious environment as defense attorneys and prosecutors argue over what occurred during the grand jury proceedings and what information in the recordings should be redacted.

Were going to litigate those recordings, I guarantee it, Marteeny said. The defense already litigates all kinds of statements that are made by victims, defendants and police.

Haroldson said its a defense attorneys responsibility to scrutinize the prosecutions case.

And even if we do things properly there may be arguments that they can make to advance their clients case, he said.

Instead of going through that litigation, Haroldson and Marteeny speculate more felony cases will use preliminary hearings to establish probable cause, rather than grand juries. Preliminary hearings are held before a judge and the defendant and defense attorneys may cross-examine witnesses.

That is a far more transparent process, Haroldson said. But it can take longer than a grand jury  because its a more adversarial process.

Benton County Circuit Court Judge Matthew Donohue declined to say whether he is for or against the new law. But the judge said he worries it will create more labor for the courts staff, which will have to manage and redact the recordings. Extra litigation could also increase the time it takes for cases to be resolved, he said.

It could be a big slowdown in the ability of the court to move cases through in a timely manner, Donohue said.

The judge said more staff may be needed for the increase in the workload, but hes concerned the court wont have the necessary funding.

The Legislature appropriated $10 million for the first three counties to establish and implement the recordings. About $2 million is set aside for the recording equipment, while $8 million is going to the state Emergency Board, which can allocate the funds to counties that demonstrate a need.

Officials in Linn and Benton counties do not yet know what it will cost them to carry out the new law. Haroldson worries the law will become an unfunded mandate, with the costs falling on local jurisdictions.

For defense lawyers, however, any increased cost or change in process will be a small price to pay.

Albany attorney Kent Hickam has been a defense lawyer for 37 years. He said recording grand jury testimony will provide a more complete record for a case.

If there is a discrepancy between witness testimony during a grand jury and the testimony given at trial, defense lawyers will be aware, he said. Also, because grand juries, unlike trial juries, are allowed to ask questions, the potential for new information to come out is very real.

Corvallis attorney Joan Demarest is a defense lawyer who worked for years as a prosecutor. She said more access to recorded testimony is essential to the process.

If getting to the truth requires more litigation, then so be it, she said. Thats our job.

Demarest said anyone accused of a crime has the right to access to all the evidence. But Marteeny argued that all the same evidence is available through police reports and affidavits.

That argument is flawed, Demarest said.

That assumes that police reports are written with 100 percent accuracy, she said. A Benton County sheriff's deputy once told me, Theres what we say happened and what they say happened. The truth is somewhere in between. At first I was so offended by that, but later when I became a defense lawyer I realized he was right.

Demarest also pointed to the fact grand jurors are allowed to ask questions, and that unlike a written police report, the answers to those questions are under oath.

Corvallis court-appointed attorney John Rich said the recordings will allow him to more thoroughly evaluate his cases and how to resolve them.

Without recording it was often difficult to discern what information was given to the grand jury to consider, Rich said. Did the witness testify consistently with the police reports or was the testimony different? Was exculpatory information withheld from the grand jury? These questions will be answered by reviewing the recordings.

Marteeny said prosecutors have a duty to inform the defense of any deviations in witness testimony. The same would be the case for exculpatory evidence, or evidence that could exonerate a defendant.

But, Nash said, the prosecutor may not interpret testimony in the same way a defense attorney might. And, without recordings, defense attorneys dont know that such evidence exists.

Rich also said the recordings will provide more transparency in the cases against police when theyre accused of killing someone. According to the bill, the recordings of grand jury testimony will not be public record, unless the case involves a public servant.

Public servants are held to higher standards, Marteeny said.

If a case against a public servant goes to grand jury and the jurors choose not to indict, the recordings could be released to the public.

Thats almost tailor-made for a police shooting, Donohue, the judge, said.

The NAACP Corvallis area branch lobbied the Legislature in favor of the bill. The organizations second vice president, Robin de La Mora, said the bill is about transparency in the justice system.

She recalled the case of Quanice Hayes. A Multnomah County grand jury found in March no criminal wrongdoing by the Portland police officer who fatally shot Hayes, a 17-year-old, one month earlier. The Multnomah County District Attorneys Office said it would release the transcripts of witness testimony given before the grand jury. Multnomah County is the only one in Oregon that has routinely recorded grand jury hearings that review officer-involved shootings and made them public if no indictments were made.

She said parents would want to know what transpired before the grand jury. I would want to, as a parent," De La Mora said. "What was the polices story? What questions were asked by the grand jury? How were they answered?

Marteeny worries that when a private citizen is accused of a crime but not indicted, the recorded grand jury proceeding could come out.

Victims' concerns

Some victims rights groups have opposed the law, saying the discretion in grand juries is required to protect not only defendants, but victims. They say the law could violate the victims' privacy and put them in danger of intimidation or harassment by defendants, according to legislative testimony.

Donohue isn't convinced by the argument. Having the grand jury testimony of that individual being disclosed, I dont think would create any peril to that witness or victim above or beyond what would be created by their testimony at a trial, the judge sald.

Many other states and the federal courts already mandate the recording of grand jury testimony.

"For other states, its just one of the routine costs of doing business," said Norm Pattis, a criminal defense attorney in Connecticut.

Pattis said the recordings are a cost-effective way of increasing public confidence in the judicial system.

"Someones life or liberty may be on the line and theyre going to pinch pennies on preservation of testimony?" he said.

The first three counties to start recording grand jury proceedings are required to submit a report to the Legislature in 2019 outlining how the implementation of the law is going. This may lead to legislative changes in the bill before the statewide implementation, Donohue said.
I didn't really know Peter Sears, the Corvallis writer and former Oregon poet laureate, who died July 20 at the age of 80.

I interviewed him briefly via telephone when he was appointed Oregon's poet laureate in 2014, and it wasn't a great interview: He was in the midst of a string of interviews, and I was in a hurry as well.

But even in the midst of that short interview, I got the sense that one of the reasons he was thrilled about the two-year appointment was that it gave him another pulpit from which to defend poetry against the very premature reports of its demise.

Look at how many people write and read it, he told me. There are an awful lot of them.

And, he added, they range from the very young (who naturally write poetry without necessarily calling it such) to older folks. People over 40 realize that there are things they want to work out in their souls and poetry is a good way to do that, he said.

And people who know Sears offer testimony about how serious he was about helping other writers, from the accomplished to the beginners, use poetry to work out what was in their souls.

"He had this really remarkable ability to help writers identify their own strengths," said Eric Wayne Dickey, of Oregon State University's College of Liberal Arts. "He was able to identify the core of a poem in a way that most writers themselves don't see."

Jennifer Richter, the poet and OSU instructor, concurs:

"Both on and off the page, he'd ask difficult, thought-provoking questions, he'd comment on details we'd overlooked, and he'd praise the everyday of our lives: rain and snow, dreams and dogs."

Richter said she admired how Sears was "a poet of equal parts head and heart."

I would add that a number of his poems also have a wicked sense of humor, even though it isn't always apparent until you read them aloud. (I've noticed this is frequently true in poetry.)

Consider, for example, "No Problem," which starts with this wicked curveball:

"Look, if my neighbor says he heard screaming last night

coming from here, no problem, officer, I believe him."

Or these opening lines from "Blue Meat Loaf," which cut right to the heart in just a few words:

"I would respect myself more

if I didn't talk to myself so much of the time."

Sears, a native of New York, came to Oregon in 1974 and taught at Reed College and at Pacific University.

In his interview with the Gazette-Times, Sears talked about how he started reading poetry: When he was in the Army, he said, he wasnt able to fit novels into the back of his pants for reading during the down times  those works of fiction were just too fat to fit.

But he could fit in a slender volume of poetry, and so he read poets: T.S. Eliot, say, or maybe Wallace Stevens.

And he started writing, too: Short, episodic things, he said. "I didnt think of them as poems.  I didnt take them seriously. But I kept writing.

And he eventually became, as Richter recalled, "a lifelong champion of poetry in Oregon, bringing his enthusiasm to elementary classrooms, community colleges and even Nike headquarters."

When Richter and her husband, the writer Keith Scribner, visited Sears at Stoneybrook in Corvallis at the end of May, he told the two that he still had students driving down from Portland, "to take him to Panera for soup and a Coke  to hear his wise words about their work, and to hear about the new poems Peter was still excitedly writing."

I'll give the last word today to Richter, so she can finish this lovely story:

"That last time we saw him, Peter knew he was dying. But instead of bring consumed by his failing body, he wanted to know about our own writing projects. As we spoke, Peter sat up straight in his chair, smiled, and smoothed his palms in circles across the table's glossy surface: clearing a sacred space for our short time together."
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.
Strikes Continue in Effort to Defeat ISIS in Syria, Iraq

From a Combined Joint Task Force Operation Inherent Resolve News Release

SOUTHWEST ASIA, July 29, 2017  U.S. and coalition military forces continued to attack the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria yesterday, conducting 19 strikes consisting of 26 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 15 strikes consisting of 19 engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Dayr Az Zawr, three strikes destroyed an ISIS headquarters, an oil storage vehicle, and a well-head.

-- Near Raqqah, 12 strikes engaged 10 ISIS tactical units; destroyed eight fighting positions, an artillery system, and a vehicle; and suppressed a fighting position.

Strikes in Iraq

In Iraq, coalition military forces conducted four strikes consisting of seven engagements against ISIS targets:

-- Near Al Qaim, two strikes destroyed an ISIS vehicle-born bomb facility, an roadside bomb facility, and a vehicle-born bomb.

-- Near Rawah, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed two ISIS-held buildings, a vehicle storage facility, and an armored vehicle.

-- Near Tal Afar, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and destroyed three ISIS command and control nodes and a supply cache.

Newly Reported Strikes

Additionally, 15 strikes were conducted in Syria and Iraq on July 14, July 24, and July 26-27 that closed within the last 24 hours.

-- On July 14, near Al Shaddadi, Syria, a strike suppressed an ISIS tactical unit and a fighting position.

-- On July 24, near Raqqah, Syria, a strike destroyed a supply cache and suppressed 14 fighting positions.

-- On July 26, near Raqqah, Syria, a strike engaged an ISIS tactical unit and suppressed eight fighting positions.

-- On July 27, near Kisik, Iraq, a strike illuminated an area.

-- On July 27, near Raqqah, Syria, 11 strikes engaged seven ISIS tactical units, destroyed an ISIS sniper position and an observation post, and suppressed four fighting positions.

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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Yemeni naval forces target Emirati vessel off Mukha coast

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 29, 2017 12:36PM

Yemeni naval forces, backed by fighters from Popular Committees, have reportedly targeted an Emirati military vessel in a missile attack off the coast of the country's southwestern province of Ta'izz.

A military source, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Arabic-language al-Masirah television network that the frigate was targeted with a guided missile in waters near the port city of Mukha, situated 346 kilometers south of the capital Sana'a, on Saturday afternoon.

Chairman of Yemen Naval Academy, Mohammed Ali al-Ghaderi, said the vessel was apparently transferring munitions from the Eritrean port city of Assab to Yemen.

The development came less than a week after Yemeni forces and their allies destroyed a gunboat of the Saudi-led coalition off the coast of Yemen's western province of Hudaydah.

An unnamed military source asserted that the Saudi vessel was carrying out radar jamming and deception against the Yemeni army when it was targeted with a missile on July 24.

On January 30, Yemeni army forces, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, fired a guided missile at al-Madinah warship in waters near the city of Hudaydah.

The Saudi-led coalition, which is assisting Riyadh in its war on Yemen, later confirmed the incident but claimed only five people had lost lives in the attack.

Yet, footage of the raid, provided by Yemeni forces, showed the enormity of the explosion and subsequent fire on the deck of the Saudi vessel.

On January 21, the Yemeni Coast Guard warned enemies' battleships against using the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait, which connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden, to bomb civilian targets, emphasizing that such a practice poses grave threats to international maritime navigation in the area.

In October 2016, Yemeni forces and fighters from the Popular Committees destroyed an Emirati HSV-2 Swift hybrid catamaran off the shores of Mukha.

Yemeni army forces had destroyed a Saudi warship in a missile attack in the southwestern coast of Yemen, in the Bab el-Mandeb, on October 10, 2015.

The development came only days after Yemeni forces managed to destroy another Saudi vessel in the area, with reports saying that the sunken ship had repeatedly fired rockets on residential areas in Ta'izz Province.

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Yemeni forces seize several Saudi military bases, outposts in Jizan region

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 29, 2017 12:30AM

Yemeni army troops, backed by fighters from allied Popular Committees, have managed to seize several strategic Saudi military bases and outposts in the Arab kingdom's southwestern Jizan region, inflicting casualties on Saudi forces.

According to Yemen's Arabic-language al-Masirah television network, the Yemeni forces captured al-Jaberi and al-Malhamah military bases as well as al-Fariza and al-Ghavieh military outposts on Friday, after launching a retaliatory offensive against the southwestern regions of Saudi Arabia.

The report added that dozens of Saudi troops were either killed or wounded in the offensive, without giving a specific number of the casualties.

The Yemeni forces, backed by Houthi Ansarullah fighters, also managed to destroy at least five armored vehicles belonging to Saudi mercenaries in Moze district in Yemen's southwestern province of Ta'izz.

Since the beginning of the Saudi war on Yemen in March 2015, which was carried out in an attempt to crush the popular Houthi Ansarullah movement and reinstall the former president, Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi, a staunch ally of Riyadh, Saudi warplanes have pounded the nation day and night, killing over 12,000 people, including many women and children, and displacing over three million others.

The Yemen war has also taken a heavy toll on the country's facilities and infrastructure, destroying many hospitals, schools, and factories. The humanitarian situation in Yemen has also dramatically deteriorated amid a Saudi blockade, which has put the impoverished country on the brink of widespread famine.

The Riyadh regime has, however, failed to reach its goals despite suffering great expense.

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'Marawi Should Be a Wake-Up Call': USPACOM Head Warns of Daesh Migration to Asia

Sputnik News

22:24 29.07.2017(updated 01:32 30.07.2017)

Though Daesh is slowly being crushed in the Middle East, the fight against the terrorist group and its ideology is not over: it's just moving to the Pacific, the head of US forces in the Pacific said Friday.

Speaking at the Japan-US Military Statesmen Forum in Washington, DC, head of US Pacific Command Navy Adm. Harry Harris said Daesh's spread to the Philippines is one of the three major threats the region faces (the others being China's military buildup in the South China Sea and North Korea's continued military development).

The violent occupation of the Filipino city of Marawi in May by Daesh-affiliated terrorist groups should be a wake-call that the Pacific faces a new threat, Harris stated.

"These terrorists [with the Maute and Abu Sayyaf groups] are using combat tactics that we've seen in the Middle East it's the first time [Daesh]-inspired forces have banded together to fight on this kind of scale in this region," he said.

"So it's clear that foreign fighters are passing their ideology, resources and methods to local home-grown next-generation radicals," he continued. "Marawi should be a wake-up call and a rallying cry for every nation in the Indo-Asia Pacific region."

The battle for Marawi, which is ongoing, has so far claimed nearly 650 lives, according to EFE, with more than 470 terrorist combatants killed, 114 soldiers and 45 civilians. Dozens more displaced civilians have died from disease.

As Daesh and other terrorist groups are pushed out of their home territory in the Middle East and North Africa by coalition efforts there, they will shift to other parts of the world, Harris warned, Military.com reports.

"Radicalized, weaponized and displaced terrorists will inspire new fighters in the Indo-Asia Pacific," Harris said.

And it won't be long before their presence is felt. He pointed out that Isnilon Hapilon, a former leader of the Abu Sayyaf Islamist group, was named "Emir to all Islamic State Forces in the Philippines" by Daesh in April 2016. A year later, Abu Sayyaf and Maute were strong enough, bold enough and well enough armed and trained to put up a bloody fight against the armed forces of the Philippines for control of an entire city.

"We were all reminded that [Daesh] is a truly global threat," Harris said.

As a global threat, it will require a global response, the admiral advised. He pointed to the US' ongoing support for the military of the Philippines and the recent delivery of two surveillance planes to the country to help spot terrorist group. He also advised that Japan, Australia, India and the US should maintain their cooperative military training regimes.

"Only through multilateral and multinational cooperation can we eradicate [Daesh] and other violent extremist organizations before they spread," Harris said.

 Sputnik

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Driving Force Behind China's Island Building in South China Sea is Xi Himself

Sputnik News

22:15 29.07.2017(updated 01:32 30.07.2017)

President Xi Jinping is himself is driving China's controversial island-building and other practices in the disputed South China Sea, according to a Communist Party publication.

"[President Xi] personally steered a series of measures to expand [China's] strategic advantage and safeguard the national interests," an opinion piece in the Friday Study Times, a paper put out by the premier academy of the Chinese Communist Party, the Central Party School.

The article claimed that Xi himself was behind measures supporting the expansion of China's infrastructure work in the sea, sections of which are also claimed by Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam.

"On the South China Sea issue, [Xi] personally made decisions on building islands and consolidating the reefs, and setting up the city of Sansha. [These decisions] fundamentally changed the strategic situation of the South China Sea," the article read, according to Hong Kong's South China Morning Post.

Analysts told the Hong Kong paper that Xi appears to be successfully taking over decision making on China's foreign policy, including giving the go-ahead to moves in the South China Sea and the East China Sea, where Beijing and Tokyo remain at a standoff over the Diaoyu or Senkaku Islands.

Xi, they say, is consolidating power ahead of the coming national congress in the fall, at which key leadership posts are expected to be shuffled and re-staffed.

China has been building military installations, including air bases, missile shelters, communications facilities and other infrastructure, on the Spratly Islands and associated reefs (parts of which are claimed by Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam, as well as China).

China's extensive infrastructure work in the disputed sea has caused rival claimants like Vietnam and the Philippines to take their territorial assertions to various courts. It even threatened to attack Vietnam's positions in the area if it did not stop oil drilling operations in what Vietnam considers its own territory but which China also claims.

But even when they win international court decisions, as the Philippines did in June 2016, less powerful nations have opted not to press China on the issue, but to merely try to stake their own claims to unoccupied islands first.

China, which wants control of the entire sea, has seen an opportunity in the South China Sea and taken it, Bill Hayton, a Chatham House associate fellow and South China Sea expert told the South China Morning Post.

"The Southeast Asian countries don't want to be sort of dominated by China; neither do they want to sign up for some kind of anti-China containment policy," he said. "But with the clearly weakened US position in the region China can just pick off the Southeast Asian countries."

However, Beijing has shown some willingness to work with its neighbors, other experts point out. It did work with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to finally establish this year a code of conduct for operations in the South China Sea.

Beijing claims essentially all of the South China Sea, through which a third of the world's maritime traffic passes.

 Sputnik

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Houthi Rebels Attack Yemeni Port With Boat Bomb - Reports

Sputnik News

21:25 29.07.2017(updated 21:26 29.07.2017)

Yemen's port of Mocha was attacked by Houthi rebels on Saturday be sending there a boat loaded with explosives, media reported citing the statement of the Saudi-led coalition.

DUBAI (Sputnik)  The boat collided with a naval pier near a group of ships and exploded, according to the statement cited by the Saudi Press Agency (SPA).

There were reportedly no casualties.

Yemen's civil war between the internationally recognized government of President Abd Rabbuh Mansur Hadi and the Houthi movement backed by army units loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh erupted in March 2015. Shortly after the outbreak of the conflict, the Saudi-led coalition of mostly Persian Gulf countries launched airstrikes against the Houthis at Hadi's request.

 Sputnik

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Yemeni General: Army Shot Down Coalition Plane Over Saudi Soil for 1st Time

Sputnik News

19:23 29.07.2017(updated 21:11 29.07.2017)

A representative of the Yemeni Army, brigadier general Aziz Rashid, told Sputnik about an incident involving a reconnaissance aircraft of the Saudi-led coalition that took place on July 25.

The general claimed that the army had shot down a plane on the territory of Saudi Arabia in the administrative district of Najran near the border with Yemen.

According to Rashid, the Yemeni Army managed "to restore its radar warning station" and can now efficiently detect the Arab coalition's aircrafts.

"This made it possible to effectively detect the coalition's jets even at low altitudes, what greatly limits the capabilities of the enemy. This is a big leap for the Yemeni Army," Rashid said.

He also noted that this is not the first military operation of its kind. Earlier, the Yemeni Army had shot down 15 foreign helicopters flying over the territory of Yemen.

However, this time the plane was shot down over the territory of Saudi Arabia, Rashid stressed.

"We had managed to collect the debris of the downed aircraft and received a lot of information obtained by the scout. They include pictures identifying the location of the military forces on the territory of Yemen and a map of planned attacks on our positions," Rashid concluded.

The Saudi-led coalition intervened in Yemen in 2015. Over the past two years, the Saudi Air Force has been involved with its Gulf Cooperation Council allies in airstrikes against Houthis in the country.

Since then the humanitarian situation in Yemen has worsened dramatically. The campaign has inflicted an estimated 10,000 civilian deaths, according to UN humanitarian officials.

 Sputnik

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Taliban Militants Blow Up Dam in Southern Afghanistan

Sputnik News

18:24 29.07.2017

Member of the Taliban terrorist group, banned in Russia, have blown up a dam in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar leaving a swathe of agriculture land without water, local media reported Saturday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  The incident took place in the district of Shorabak in Kandahar province, the Khaama Press news agency reported.

Farmers fear that the land and the plants will be damaged since the dam provided water for the local irrigation system, a policeman told the news agency.

Afghanistan has long been suffering from unstable political, social and security situation due to the activity of Daesh (banned in Russia) and the Taliban.

Taliban's activity, particularly in southern Afghanistan, has been on the rise recently. On Wednesday, 26 soldiers were killed in an assault launched by Taliban in Kandahar.

 Sputnik

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As Trump Ponders Afghanistan, Minerals Loom Large

By William Gallo July 29, 2017

What does a president who campaigned on an "America First" foreign policy do with the longest war in U.S. history? That is the dilemma for Donald Trump as the White House conducts a policy review of Afghanistan, where U.S. troops have fought for nearly 16 years.

With Trump skeptical of committing more troops to what some see as an unwinnable war, one idea has come to the forefront: using Western companies to extract Afghanistan's vast, untapped mineral deposits.

How much is there? A 2010 U.S. study estimated more than $1 trillion worth of untapped mineral deposits, but Afghanistan's violence, corruption and poor infrastructure would make mining extremely difficult.

That's part of the reason why, although U.S. officials have discussed using Afghanistan's mineral wealth to bolster the government and economy, the plan has not gone anywhere.

There are also concerns about whether such a move would feed into the Taliban narrative that the U.S. military is only in Afghanistan because it wants to plunder the country's natural resources.

Still, Trump appears to be interested in using Afghanistan's minerals as a selling point for continued U.S. military engagement.

A recent New York Times report said Trump had spoken about mineral deposits with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who is also open to the idea.

White House officials declined to comment on the story, citing the ongoing policy review. But Afghan officials confirmed to VOA they were expecting a U.S. envoy for talks on mines.

Means of attracting investors

"We have received information about the U.S. delegation," Abdul Qadeer Mutfi, a spokesman for the Afghan Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, told VOA's Afghan service. "We are working on an orderly mechanism of attracting foreign investments."

The idea is consistent with Trump's long-standing practice of linking U.S. military intervention to the exploitation of natural resources.

Trump has lamented for years that the U.S. did not "keep the oil" when it invaded Iraq in 2003.

After Islamic State seized oil fields in Iraq and Syria, Trump felt his views were vindicated, and his "take the oil" mantra eventually became a standard part of his presidential campaign speeches.

The rhetoric continued during his early days in office. In a speech to CIA employees a day after becoming president, Trump spoke positively of the phrase "to the victor belong the spoils."

It's not clear how to reconcile those comments with Trump's at times heated criticism of costly U.S. wars overseas, or his opposition at times to the U.S. conflict in Afghanistan.

More recently, Trump has been said to be skeptical of a proposal by U.S. military generals to boost the number of troops in Afghanistan in a bid to regain Taliban territory.

Sebastian Gorka, a deputy assistant to Trump for national security issues, declined to comment on whether the president was looking into mineral extraction in Afghanistan.

When asked more broadly whether the Trump administration intended to make foreign policy decisions based at least in part on the exploitation of natural resources, Gorka said that was a "gross oversimplification."

"Look, geopolitics are completely intertwined with geoeconomics," Gorka told VOA. "The idea that you can disconnect economics from national security in the age of a globalized market  that is a very dangerous assertion to make.

"The president can speak for himself, but would you prefer to have groups like ISIS profiting from things like oil wells in Iraq? We've seen the cost of that, which led to slave markets, mass destruction and hundreds of thousands of people killed in Syria," he said.

Challenges

If Trump did decide to prioritize the extraction of Afghanistan's minerals, the plan would face a dizzying number of challenges, including ongoing violence, regional competition from countries like Russia and China, and government corruption.

While Afghanistan has cleaned up its governance in recent years, it still ranks among the 10 most corrupt countries in the world, according to an annual index by Transparency International.

Without substantial governance reforms, any decision to press ahead with mining in Afghanistan "will likely backfire, possibly creating even more infighting in the Afghan government," according to Global Witness, a human rights group that has studied the issue.

The country also lacks the infrastructure needed to manage such massive projects, said Ahmad Shuja, a former Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch who now works at the American University of Afghanistan.

"There's very limited national grid. So you'll have to develop your own electricity, you'll have to create your own roads, bring your own security teams. All of those are essential barriers to entry issues," he said.

Ghani is aware of these obstacles, which is why he has paused many of the mining development projects and is reviewing the country's mineral law that would govern them, Shuja said.

"But in the short term, I think this is a really smart pitch to President Trump," he said. "It plays to his business sensibilities."

If it's done correctly, it could help the Afghan people, said Aimal Faizi, an aide to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"Generally, it is a good idea in the relations between the two countries," Faizi said. But in a country like Afghanistan, "where the government does not have control of its land or air," anything is possible, he said, "including looting."

Other ideas

Trump himself has been fairly quiet on Afghanistan. He barely mentioned it during the campaign.

Since becoming president, one of his most substantive comments on Afghanistan came this month, during a luncheon with U.S. service members who had fought in the country.

"I want to find out why we've been there ... how it's going and what we should do in terms of additional ideas," he said.

VOA's Afghan service contributed to this report.

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US, Iranian Ships Have Close Encounter in Persian Gulf

By VOA News July 29, 2017

The Pentagon on Saturday strongly countered Iran's claim that a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier had fired warning shots at one of its ships in an "unprofessional" manner.

Iran's official IRNA news agency quoted a statement from the Revolutionary Guard as saying the incident occurred Friday when the USS Nimitz approached an offshore oil platform in the Persian Gulf and a helicopter from the ship buzzed a boat carrying Iranian soldiers.

Navy spokesman Lieutenant Ian M. McConnaughey said Saturday, "While conducting a routine patrol in the international airspace of the Arabian Gulf on July 28, a U.S. Navy helicopter observed several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval vessels approaching U.S. naval forces at a high rate of speed. U.S. naval forces attempted to establish communications, with no response from the Iranian vessels. Shortly thereafter, at a safe distance, the U.S. helicopter deployed flares, after which the Iranian vessels halted their approach.

"Following communications, the Iranian vessels were observed conducting a gun exercise.

"U.S. Naval Forces Central Command assesses the interaction as safe and professional."

The confrontation was the second such incident this week. On Tuesday, a U.S. ship fired warning shots at an Iranian vessel in the Gulf after sailors on the ship said it had approached them in a threatening manner.

Iran denied approaching the U.S. ship Tuesday and said it was the U.S. ship that had been acting in a threatening way.

Dust-ups between U.S. and Iranian vessels have happened fairly regularly in recent months. In January, a U.S. destroyer fired warning shots at four Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz as they approached at high speed.

Rocket launch

This most recent confrontation between U.S. and Iranian militaries came just a day after Iran said it had successfully launched a rocket carrying a satellite into space.

State television in Iran claimed Thursday that the Simorgh rocket, which means "phoenix" in Farsi, was capable of carrying a 250-kilogram satellite as far as 500 kilometers above Earth, but did not elaborate on the kind of satellite.

The U.S., Britain, France and Germany issued a joint statement denouncing the rocket launch, calling it "destabilizing" for the region.

Prior to the launch of the satellite, the U.S. moved earlier this month to increase economic sanctions on Iran over its ballistic missile program.

The launch did not violate the 2015 nuclear agreement, which was signed by Iran and the P5+1 group of world powers  the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, plus Germany  although the U.S. has expressed concern that the rocket technology being developed by Iran could potentially be adapted to long-range missiles.

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Trump Replaces His Chief of Staff

By Steve Herman July 29, 2017

The White House chief of staff has been replaced with a retired Marine Corps general who has been running the Department of Homeland Security.

Reince Priebus had been increasingly sidelined in recent weeks by President Donald Trump and was referred to publicly this week by the new White House communications director as a "paranoid schizophrenic."

Speaking to reporters Friday evening White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said "the conversations about this started with the president and Reince about two weeks ago."

In an interview with CNN following his resignation, Priebus said "the president wanted to go in a different direction."

"It's a good time to hit the reset button," Priebus said. "It's something that I think the White House needs."

Priebus said he actually handed in his resignation to the president on Thursday, but it was not disclosed until Friday.

"We didn't even know it," said Congressman Pete King who accompanied Trump and Priebus on an Air Force One trip to and from New York on Friday. "We were sitting right across from him and [Priebus] kept a poker face," said the Republican lawmaker.

Initial public word came from Trump on Twitter as Air Force One landed at a rainy Joint Base Andrews.

"Reince is a good man. John Kelly will do a fantastic job," Trump told reporters at the military base in Maryland. "General Kelly has been a star, done an incredible job thus far, respected by everybody. He's a great, great American."

Kelly said Friday he is "honored to be asked to serve as the chief of staff to the president."

Homeland Security's Deputy Secretary Elaine Duke will become the agency's acting secretary Monday when Kelly assumes his new post.

Resignation Ends Tenure of Former RNC Chair

Priebus, whose tenure lasted little more than six months, was an establishment figure and the former chairman of the Republican National Committee. His links with Republican lawmakers were expected to help a White House filled with Washington outsiders to accomplish their legislative agenda. However Republicans have failed to pass major legislation despite holding majorities in both houses of Congress.

"We're going to continue working with the party and we're going to continue doing what we came here to do," Sanders told reporters.

Following his ouster Priebus thanked Trump, saying he "will continue to serve as a strong supporter of the President's agenda and policies." He also said "I can't think of a better person than General John Kelly to succeed me."

When he began his presidency Trump "clearly set up a weak chief of staff system," University of Akron political science professor David Cohen told VOA.

"Trump in his business career was used to a lot of people having privileges and being able to talk to a lot of people, and he wants to run his White House that way," said Cohen who is co-authoring a book at White House chiefs of staff. "And so he has granted walk-in privileges to a lot of people, most of whom should not have walk-in privileges to the Oval Office."

Priebus' fate seem sealed this week after Anthony Scaramucci was brought on as communications director, leading to the immediate resignation of Sean Spicer as press secretary, a Priebus ally. Later, Scaramucci disparaged Priebus in an expletive-filled interview with a reporter, and alleged Priebus had been leaking information.

The White House chief of staff is typically a gatekeeper for the president, controlling meetings and agendas and who meets with the commander in chief. But under Trump, the West Wing has been more chaotic. Numerous people have walk-in privileges to the Oval Office, giving them the ability to short circuit the power structure of the chief of staff position.

New Chief of Staff Brings Military Experience

Kelly, who originally enlisted in the Marine Corps, eventually became a four-star general, and has been the Homeland Security secretary in the Trump cabinet for the past seven months. He is to begin his new job on Monday morning, according to White House officials.

Kelly reportedly has negotiated more power and authority than Priebus had.

Trump is "not actually a guy that tends to stick to his bargains and so we'll see if John Kelly's actually given that kind of authority," said Cohen.

Kelly will become the second military general to be White House chief of staff. Former Army general Alexander Haig was in the position as the administration of Richard Nixon crumbled and in the early days of the Gerald Ford presidency after Nixon resigned.

Andrew Card, who was chief of staff in the George W. Bush White House, in a phone call to MSNBC, praised Kelly's appointment saying "I think he's a good choice. He's an adult. He has the ability to speak truth to power."

White House Press Secretary Sanders said in a statement that Kelly is "one of the true stars of the Administration." She said, "He has helped seal the border and reduced illegal immigration by 70 percent. ... The entire Administration loves him and no one is comparable."

Priebus goes down in history as having the briefest run as an initial White House chief of staff at 189 days.

The way Priebus was removed "was kind of tawdry, awkward uncomfortable, unfair," said Card.

Five major positions in the Trump administration have now changed hands in little more than six months.

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EU Launches Legal Action Over Poland's Court Reforms

By VOA News July 29, 2017

The European Union has launched an infringement procedure against Poland over reforms the country made to its judiciary, which the EU fears will affect the impartiality of Poland's courts.

EU commissioners decided to start the legal action Wednesday, prior to the publication of the new Polish law, with the main concern that the justice minister now can extend the mandates of judges, and dismiss and appoint court presidents.

"The new rules allow the minister of justice to exert influence on individual ordinary judges through, in particular, the vague criteria for the prolongation of their mandates thereby undermining the principle of irremovability of judges," the European Commission said in a statement on Saturday.

Also of concern to commissioners is that female judges are required to retire five years earlier than their male counterparts.

Poland's ruling Law and Justice Party wants to push forward with the court reforms because it says the courts are too slow and bogged down with communist-era thinking.

According to the EU statement, the Polish ruling party has a month to respond to the notice, which informed the country it is infringing on EU laws.

The Polish government has called the court reforms an internal matter. Poland's deputy foreign minister for European affairs, Konrad Szymanski, told the PAP news agency that the EU decision was "unfounded," and he said the new law met legal requirements.

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Senegal - Politics

Senegal is a presidential republic, with an elected National Assembly. The Senate was abolished in 2001, but reintroduced in 2007. The President is permitted to stand for two terms of 5 years, although President Abdoulaye Wade did one term of 7 years from 2000 to 2007, in line with constitutional provision in 2000.

Abuse by the security forces, including torture, arbitrary arrest, harsh prison conditions, and lengthy pre-trial detention, are problems. The government has taken steps to investigate, prosecute, and punish officials who have committed abuses, but impunity still exists. The government also announced a comprenhensive renovation and rehabilitation of prisons in 2018.

Senegal is one of the most politically stable countries in Africa. Free and fair presidential elections in March 2012, for which the EU deployed an Election Expert Mission (EEM), brought Macky Sall to the presidency. The regular organisation of legislative elections, political pluralism, a free press, and a vibrant civil society are all proof of Senegal's democratic culture.

Senegals history since independence is one of strong central government, due in part to the French Gaullist legacy and in part to the initial need for a strong central government to build the Senegalese nation-state. All of Senegals first three presidents used patronage politics to govern. Patron-client relationships with the Marabout leaders [religious scholars who, in some cases, may make amulets and tell fortunes] of the Sufi brotherhoods provided popular support for Leopold Senghor, Abdou Diouf, and Abdoulaye Wade. All three used enhanced executive power to practice presidentialist politics as heads of three successive dominant parties, the Union Progressiste Senegalaise (UPS), the Socialist Party (PS), and the Senegalese Democratic Party (PDS).

Then the period of democratic transitions stemming from the end of the Cold War saw the rise of an awakened citizenry in the 1990s, a trend that was amplified in 2011. In 2000, Senegals voters ended the Senghor/Diouf legacy of socialism in hopes of spurring economic growth, and in 2012, they ended Wades wild liberalism in hopes of starting an era of good governance.

Abdoulaye Wade won the Presidential elections in 2000 after a second round run off against Diouf. Diouf quickly conceded defeat and there was a peaceful transition to the country's first ever non-PS Government. Legislative elections were called in the following year. PDS centred coalition won convincingly.

On February 25, 2007 President Wade won 56% of the vote in a field of 15 candidates, with 73% of registered voters going to the polls. Twice-postponed parliamentary elections took place on June 3, 2007, but most of the major opposition parties boycotted them, allowing the ruling PDS and its allies to capture 131 of the 150 seats in the National Assembly. Wade won open, peaceful, and highly competitive elections in 2000 and 2007 due to a strong Senegalese national desire for change after nearly 40 years of Socialist Party governments. Having come under tough scrutiny and criticism for not realizing many of his campaign promises, he has undertaken major public works projects that benefited him politically. In the March 22, 2009 local elections held nationwide, the opposition made substantial gains, including the defeat of Wades own son, Karim, in Dakar.

President Wade advanced a liberal agenda for Senegal, including privatizations and other market-opening measures. He has a strong interest in raising Senegal's regional and international profile. The country, nevertheless, has limited means with which to implement ambitious ideas. The liberalization of the economy is proceeding, but at a slow pace. Senegal continues to play a significant role in regional and international affairs, including its successful brokering with the African Union of the June 4, 2009 agreement among the three main parties to Mauritanias crisis regarding a return to constitutional order in Nouakchott.

With Wade's dominance of the political scene confirmed, the political future of Idrissa Seck is uncertain. Tanor Dieng confirmed his strong base in the PS by being re-elected Secretary General of the party in October 2007. With a difficult economic context, especially in terms of oil prices, Wade had to deal with social unrest in the public sector. This was compounded in November when a march by unions coincided with riots caused by government attempts to clear street traders from some areas of Dakar.







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Rwanda - Politics

Presidents Dominique Mbonyumutwa 28 Jan 1961 26 Oct 1961 Hutu MDR-PARMEH Gregoire Kayibanda 26 Oct 1961 05 Jul 1973 Hutu MDR-PARMEH Juvenal Habyarimana 05 Jul 1973 06 Apr 1994 Hutu MRNDD Theodore Sindikubwabo 08 Apr 1994 18 Jul 1994 MRNDD Pasteur Bizimungu 19 Jul 1994 23 Mar 2000 Hutu FPR Paul Kagame 24 Mar 2000 ?? ??? 2024 Tutsi FPR

Rwanda is a small and linguistically homogeneous country and easy to control. Since pre-colonial times, Rwanda has always been politically highly centralised. Rwandans also tend to listen to their leaders, a social phenomenon that helped the genocide unfold in 1994.

The most important human rights problems are government harassment, arrest, and abuse of political opponents, human rights advocates, and individuals perceived to pose a threat to government control and social order; security forces disregard for the rule of law; and restrictions on media freedom and civil liberties. Due to restrictions on the registration and operation of opposition parties, citizens did not have the ability to change their government through free and fair elections.

There were reports military intelligence personnel employed torture and other cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment to obtain confessions in military detention centers. There were no reported prosecutions of personnel for torture. There were numerous reports police at times beat newly arrested suspects to obtain confessions. Unregistered opposition political parties reported authorities frequently arrested their supporters and party officials but released most after detention of one week or less, although several, completed longer detention.

Opposition leaders and government critics faced indictment under broadly applied charges of genocide incitement, genocide denial, divisionism, and incitement to rebel. Numerous individuals identified by international and domestic human rights groups as political prisoners remain in prison. Although the constitution and law prohibit such actions, there were numerous reports the government monitored homes, movements, telephone calls, e-mail, other private communications, and personal and institutional data. There were reports of government informants working within international and local NGOs, religious organizations, and other social institutions.

After its military victory in July 1994, the RPF organized a coalition government called The Broad Based Government of National Unity. Its fundamental law was based on a combination of the June 1991 constitution, the Arusha Accords, and political declarations by the parties. The government outlawed the MRND Party. In April 2003, the transitional National Assembly recommended the dissolution of the Democratic Republican Party (MDR), one of eight political parties participating in the Government of National Unity since 1994.

Human rights groups noted the subsequent disappearances of political figures associated with the MDR, including at least one parliamentarian serving in the National Assembly. On May 26, 2003, Rwanda adopted a new constitution that eliminated reference to ubwoko and set the stage for presidential and legislative elections in August and September 2003.

The seven remaining political parties endorsed Paul Kagame for president, who was elected to a 7-year term on August 25, 2003. Rwanda held its first-ever legislative elections September 29 to October 2, 2003. A ninth political party formed after these 2003 elections. In the spring of 2006, the government conducted local non-partisan elections for district mayors and for sector and cell executive committees. Elections for the Chamber of Deputies occurred in September 2008; the RPF won an easy victory in coalition with six small parties, taking 42 of 53 directly-elected seats. As provided in the constitution, 24 seats were also accorded to women candidates in indirect elections. Women now hold 45 of the 80 seats in the Chamber. The elections were peaceful and orderly, despite irregularities. A tenth political party formed in 2010.

Presidential elections were held in August 2010; the National Electoral Commission reported that President Kagame won re-election with roughly 93% of the vote. The presidential election was peaceful and orderly, with heavy turnout. However, the pre-election period was marked by events of concern, including waves of terrorist attacks using grenades in populous areas, the murder of a journalist, the unexplained murder of the vice president of the unregistered Democratic Green Party, an assassination attempt on a former high-ranking government official accused of fomenting attacks, and the suspension of two local-language newspapers. In addition, two political opposition figures were arrested on criminal charges, and a party that had been seeking to register for many months was unable to do so.

Local elections again took place in the spring of 2011, with indirect Senate elections following in the fall. Both elections were peaceful and orderly. RPF candidates again dominated the field.







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Lucius Aelius Sejanus

"The rise and fall of Sejanus," says Tacitus in one of his most characteristic sentences, "were equally disastrous to the commonwealth of Rome." Aelius Sejanus was a Tuscan by birth. He obtained in his youth a commission in the Praetorian Guard, and rose from post to post till he became chief-in-command, first as his father's colleague and then alone. It was he who made the Praetorians the formidable force that many a time in after years gave the Empire at its will. He collected its scattered regiments into one corps, and gave it a camp outside the walls. He spared no pains to make himself the idol of the troops, not only in Rome, but in the provinces, and he succeeded so well, that his bust was commonly placed beside the Emperor's at headquarters to be common objects of veneration.

During the consulship of Rubellius Geminus and Fusius, who bore the same surname, died, in an advanced old age, the emperor's mother Livia, styled Julia Augusta. Tiberias, from the day of his accession to the imperial dignity, considered his mother as a woman of a politic and artificial character, proud, fierce, and overbearing; in appearance, plotting to aggrandise her son; in secret, wishing for nothing so much as to gratify her own ambition. She lived three years after Tiberius retired to the isle of Capreie.

From this time may be dated the era of a furious, headlong, and despotic government. The rage of Tiberius knew no bounds. While his mother lived his passions were rebuked, and in some degree controlled. He had been from his infancy in the habit of submitting to her judgment; and to counteract her authority was more than Sejanus dared to undertake. By the death of Livia all restraint was thrown off. The prince and his minister broke out with unbridled fury.

The fathers sat in profound silence, covered with astonishment. At length that class of men, who by fair and honorable means had nothing to hope, seized the opportunity to convert to their own private advantage the troubles and misfortunes of their country. The leading members of the senate, particularly the magistrates, remained in a state of doubt and perplexity. They saw no ground for proceeding in a business of so high a nature, communicated indeed with acrimony, but wanting precision, and ending abruptly, without any clear or definite purpose.

The fathers, at all times pliant and obsequious, were in this juncture more willing than ever to debase themselves by every act of mean servility. Sejanus knew the inmost secrets of the prince, and the deep resentments that lay concealed, and nourished venom in his heart. Sure of a complying senate, he grew more aspiring, yet not bold enough to strike the decisive blow. His strength had hitherto lain in fraud and covered stratagem, and, having made an experiment of his talents, he resolved to proceed by the same insidious arts.

To the great loss of the literary world, the evil fate that attended the works of Tacitus is felt in this place, at a point of time when an important scene is to be opened; a scene in which Tiberius and Sejanus were the chief actors, each with the darkest policy contriving the other's ruin. The art of gradually unfolding the characters of men, in a course of action, was the talent of Tacitus, beyond any historian of antiquity; but the rest of the transactions of the present year of Rome 782, all of 783, and the greatest part of 784, perished in the confusion of barbarous times. It is to be lamented that Sejanus has been snatched away from Tacitus, that is, from the hand of justice.

Sejanus is represented without any principle of conscience, ambitious, and a contemner of all religion, with the power and providence of the gods. His fall, therefore, considered as a punishment for his neglect of the gods, must naturally insinuate, that obedience to them is the only foundation of happiness; and that lawless and irregular ambition is constantly attended with destruction.

Drusus and Caius (surnamed Caligula), as soon as their brother Nero was banished, were considered by Sejanus as the two remaining props of the empire. Drusus stood nearest to the succession, and for that reason was the most obnoxious. Seduced by the arts of Sejanus, and farther incited by his own inordinate ambition, that unhappy prince had joined in the conspiracy against his brother Nero; but what he thought would contribute to his elevation became the fatal cause of his ruin.

Sejanus grew intoxicated with his good fortune: he saw the imperial dignity tottering on the head of an aged prince, and not likely to be better supported by Caligula, a young man as yet unequal to the cares of empire. He thought himself near the summit of his ambition; but, to ensure success, resolved to plan his measures with care and circumspection.

Honors, dignities, all employments and places of trust, were granted at his will and pleasure, and to none but men ready to co-operate in his worst designs. The minister, thus supported, stood but one remove from the sovereign power; but his elevation placed him on the edge of a precipice, from which his fall would inevitably be sudden and terrible.

Honors, dignities, all employments and places of trust, were granted at his will and pleasure, and to none but men ready to co-operate in his worst designs. The minister, thus supported, stood but one remove from the sovereign power; but his elevation placed him on the edge of a precipice, from which his fall would inevitably be sudden and terrible.

Tiberius conversed in private with Sejanus: he perused his countenance: he explored his secret thoughts, and from what he saw and heard drew his own conclusions. A penetrating observer of mankind, he knew that prosperity is the surest discoverer of the human heart. He resolved therefore to ply Sejanus with marks of the warmest affection ; he lavished his favors on him with unbounded generosity; he praised his unremitting labors in the service of his prince; and, to put him off his guard, determined to overwhelm him with a load of grandeur.

Sejanus, amidst all the dignities so liberally heaped on him, little suspected an underplot to work his ruin. He continued with every mark of a fawning spirit to ingratiate himself with the emperor; he was the sole fountain of court favor; he looked down with contempt on the young Caligula; and of the twinborn sons of Drusus, the one who still survived was too young to alarm his jealousy. He received the homage of his creatures; he distributed presents with magnificence, and still took care to keep the prince immersed in luxury. Tiberius saw, with inward pleasure, the towering spirit of the consul elect. Increasing honors, he had no doubt, would unprovide his mind, and in a short time produce the genuine features of his character. Tiberius had regular intelligence of all that passed; but the time was not arrived when the secrets of that dark designing mind were to transpire. He lay in wait for farther particulars.

Tiberius was willing to let Sejanus, by his acts of cruelty, provoke the ill-will of the people. Sejanus began to open his eyes, and to see at length a reverse of fortune. He found that he had been the bubble of a politic prince, who had been during his whole life exercised in the arts of dissimulation, and was grown a perfect master in the arts of deceit and cruelty. The young Caligula was, in appearance, high in favor with his grandfather; and the hearts of the people were at all times ready to espouse the family of Germauicus.

Jesus of Nazareth was crucified under the rule of Sejanus' prefect, Pontius Pilate, a fact which was known by the Roman historian, Tacitus.

Sejanus resolved to retrieve his loss, and by one vigorous effort to decide the fate of empire. He called together his friends and followers; he paid court to such as seemed disaffected; he held forth rewards and promises; and, having increased the number of his partisans, formed a bold conspiracy, resolved by any means to seize the sovereign power. A powerful league was formed with astonishing rapidity; and great numbers of all descriptions, senators, as well as military men, entered into the plot.

The fatal day arrived, namely, the fifteenth before the calends of November. Early in the morning, by order of Regulus, a report was spread that letters were arrived at Rome, in which the emperor signified his intention to associate Sejanus with himself in the tribuuitian power. The senate was summoned to meet in the temple of Apollo, near the imperial palace. Sejanus attended without delay. A party of the pretorians followed him. Macro met him in the vestibule of the temple.

Those who a little time before congratulated Sejanus on his new dignities began to shun him as they would a contagion. The conclusion of the letter was like a stroke of thunder. The emperor ordered two senators who had joined in the conspiracy to be put to death, and Sejanus to be thrown into prison. Sejanus kept his seat like a man benumbed, senseless, stupified with amazement. His friends deserted him on every side. He remained in confusion, pale and trembling; left in solitude.

The downfal of Sejanus filled the city with exultation. The populace, who worshipped him in the hour of prosperity, rejoiced to see the sad catastrophe to which he was now reduced. They followed in crowds, rending the air with shouts, and pouring forth a torrent of abuse and scurrilous language. With one voice Sejanus was condemned to die, and the sentence was executed without delay. He was strangled in the prison.

The populace were no less inflamed against the creatures of Sejanus. They seized on all who had been instruments of his cruelty, and, executing the summary justice of an enraged multitude, glutted their thirst of blood.

With respect to Sejanus, it is impossible to acquit Tiberius of blame. If he was deceived in his favourite he must have been willing to be deceived. He conferred on Sejanus a position as great as had been held by Agrippa during the reign of Augustus, and the minister was actually, and all but formally, joint emperor. Of the administrative ability of Sejanus there can be no question; but the charm and secret of his power lay in the use he made of those apprehensions of personal danger which seem never to have been absent from his master's mind. The growth of "delation," the darkest shadow that lies on the reign, was mainly a consequence of the supremacy and tht arts of Sejanus.





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Will IS Losses in Iraq, Syria Boost al-Qaida?

By Rikar Hussein July 29, 2017

As Islamic State militants continue to lose territory in their declared caliphate in parts of Iraq and Syria, officials and analysts are expressing concern that al-Qaida is making efforts to turn those losses into gains for itself.

Al-Qaida had been largely eclipsed by IS in recent years, with IS militants grabbing headlines by seizing territory in Iraq and Syria and carrying out attacks in the West. But there are signs that al-Qaida may be re-emerging as a regional power.

"Al-Qaida in Syria is using opportunities to seize additional safe havens, to integrate itself into parts of the local population, parts of other forces, and bumping into other forces as well," said Joshua Geltzer, a former senior director for counterterrorism at the U.S National Security Council.

Tahrir al-Sham, an offshoot al-Qaida group originally known as the al-Nusra Front, has recently emerged as the most powerful Sunni insurgent faction in Syria after consolidating its control over most of the northwestern province of Idlib.

"Idlib now is a huge problem. It is an al-Qaida safe haven right on the border of Turkey," Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the U.S.-led global coalition to counter IS, said at the Middle East Institute in Washington on Thursday.

McGurk blamed the flow of weapons and foreign fighters into Syria for al-Qaida's gradual strengthening in Syria.

Measures under way

McGurk added that the U.S.-led coalition intended to work with Turkey to seal the northern Syrian border to prevent more recruits from joining al-Qaida affiliates in the region.

Hailing the progress of the Iraqi forces and the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, McGurk said the coalition's priority was defeating IS. But now that priority also includes ensuring that foreign fighters do not leave the region to cause trouble elsewhere.

"We do not want any foreign fighters getting out of Iraq and Syria," he said during a panel discussion at the Middle East Institute on the Trump administration's counterterrorism policy.

Experts warn that as IS-controlled territory shrinks, the terror group's foreign fighters will inevitably be drawn to al-Qaida.

"You may see on a local level al-Qaida affiliates being opportunistic and pulling in ISIS units who kind of feel lost," Charles Lister, a Syria analyst for the Middle East Institute said, using another acronym for IS. "They [IS militants] don't have the same kind of grandeur, they don't have the same powerful leadership, and they don't have the same powerful brand that they had before."

IS-al-Qaida alliance?

Led by Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, IS was founded as an offshoot of al-Qaida in Iraq in 2004. But as IS gained influence in Iraq and Syria in 2014, the terror group split from al-Qaida, and the two groups engaged in acrimonious and at times bloody competition over the leadership of the jihadist cause. For years, IS has been siphoning off followers of al-Qaida. That trend seems to have begun to reverse.

Iraq's Vice President Ayad Allawi told Reuters in April that he had information from Iraqi and regional contacts that "the discussion has started now" concerning a "possible alliance" between the two terror groups.

Referring to IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahiri, Allawi said, "There are discussions and dialogue between messengers representing Baghdadi and representing Zawahiri."

While some analysts raise concerns about the possibility of IS and al-Qaida joining hands, others like Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute downplay it, arguing that an ultimate rapprochement between the two groups is unlikely, given the history of animosity and their fundamental differences on "global jihad."

Lister, however, highlighted that al-Qaida could take an opportunistic approach to draw IS members into its ranks as the terror group faces defeats on several fronts in Iraq and Syria.

Lister said Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, who has recently appeared as a new face of al-Qaida leadership, has been trying to ease tensions with IS in an effort to encourage the merger of IS fighters into al-Qaida.

"Hamza has very purposely, I think, not spoken out against ISIS in all of his recent statements," Lister said.

Al-Qaida in a blind spot

Experts warn that as the U.S-led coalition is cracking down on IS-controlled territory in Iraq and Syria, it should not allow al-Qaida to move to other areas and operate at ease. They say the group is trying to gain sympathy of the local Syrian population by showing itself as a moderate alternative to Islamic State.

"We continue to underestimate al-Qaida," said Jennifer Cafarella, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank. "While al-Qaida in Syria is currently not actively attacking abroad, they have built an army. It has consolidated control in Idlib, and is preparing to do the same underneath the U.S.-Russian cease-fire deal in Daraa to expand that model of first destroying the moderate opposition and then begin instillation of al-Qaida governance to transform population over time."

She said the strategy of the U.S.-led coalition after removing IS from Iraq and Syria needs to shift to the reconstruction of infrastructure destroyed because of war, and that should be coupled with addressing the grievances of Sunni residents who feel marginalized by Iran-backed Shi'ite militias.

"This is a very long war and we haven't won it yet. These tactical successes are important but can be temporary if we do not set adequate conditions, which is much more than a military requirement," Cafarella said.

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Global reactions to Iran space rocket test

IRNA - Islamic Republic News Agency

Tehran, July 29, IRNA -- Iran's launching of its newly-developed satellite carrier, nicknamed Simorgh, into the space has caused different reactions across the globe.

Many praised the forward-moving Iranian space programs while some claimed the experiment was a violation of the Iran-G5+1 nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).

Some media outlets considered US new sanctions on Iran and Russia in line with the Iranian missile program and warned against US-Iran confrontation.

Some referred to the US Department of State's reaction to the experiment.

'Iran has again demonstrated activity inconsistent with UN Security Council Resolution 2231', while Iran has only been 'called upon' not to conduct such rocket and missile tests in the resolution, The US Department of State wrote.

The US government has twice admitted that Iran's nuclear program is not military-oriented and the country has been committed to its JCPOA obligations.

Yet, Washington has recently put 18 Iranian individuals and companies on its new sanctions list.

America's Fox News television channel was among US news outlets that tried to portray a negative image of Iran's testfire of a new satellite carrier rocket.

Quoting two senior US officials, Fox News described the experiment as a failure and called it a 'dud'.

On Thursday, US Strategic Command, which monitors launches around the world, could only confirm 'a satellite was not deployed from the rocket'.

Claiming the Simorgh rocket is based on a North Korean design, Fox news wrote the technology used to put a satellite into space could also be repurposed to make a long-range ballistic missile.

While State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said that Iran's attempted rocket launch succeeded in violating United Nations Security Council Resolution 2231, the technology used for launching space rockets is different from the technology used for launching long-range missiles.

Washington Examiner, on the other hand, said the launch was 'a major warning sign', and suggested that Washington should have a clandestine plan to disrupt Iranian missile program.

'We consider that to be continued ballistic missile development,' State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert told reporters on Thursday.

'We consider this to be provocative action,' she said.

However, the New York Times seemed to take a different approach by saying, 'Such tests of what are essentially carrier rockets are not prohibited under the landmark 2015 nuclear agreement between Iran and a group of six world powers including the United States.'

Mac Thornberry, the Texas Republican MP told Fox News that Iran by doing such tests is doing the same thing North Korea did to improve its missiles.

'We saw this pattern with North Korea program; they would have launches that they said were peaceful space launches. What they were really doing was improving their missile program' and 'The Iranians have been doing the same thing,' he said.

The media in Europe also reacted to Iran's test of a satellite carrier.

Novosti and Peravdo newspapers in Belgrade, Serbia, wrote that it was a successful experiment. And Serbian TV channels, especially B92, vastly covered the event.

The Italian News Agency (ANSA) wrote that Iran has successfully tested a space rocket, while other Italian media also covered news on the issue.

Displaying the video of the rocket being shot, Sky News wrote that the US is not happy with the experiment and calls it provocative and against the UNSC Resolution 2231.

The media in the region, including those in Pakistan, Lebanon, Turkey and Algeria, also vastly covered the news and called it a success.

Permanent Representative and Ambassador of China to the United Nations and the current President of the UN Security Council Liu Jieyi said that the experiment was not 'within the scope' of the 2015 nuclear agreement.

'I think what's important is that the agreement continues to be implemented and all the sides make constructive efforts to resolve whatever issues that still exist, and to completely and comprehensively implement the agreement,' Jieyi said.

In southeast Asia, launch of the Iranian rocket, Simorgh also received coverage, with Channel News Asia writing, 'Iran on Thursday (July 27) 'successfully' tested a satellite-launch rocket, days after warning Washington of a response to new US sanctions over the Islamic Republic's ballistic missile program.'

Media outlets in Australia, New Zealand and Indonesia also covered the 'successful' launch of the Iranian space rocket.

9417**2044

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China urges ROK, U.S. to stop THAAD deployment

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 15:10, July 29, 2017

BEIJING, July 29 -- China on Saturday strongly urged the Republic of Korea (ROK) and the United States to respect China's concerns and stop the deployment of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system.

Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang made the remarks in response to reports that ROK President Moon Jae-in on Saturday ordered his aides to consult with their U.S. counterparts about the deployment of four more THAAD mobile launchers after the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) test launch of a ballistic missile.

"The Chinese side is deeply concerned about the situation," Geng said, noting that China's position on THAAD is clear and consistent.

The deployment of the missile system by the United States and the ROK will not address the security concerns of the ROK nor contribute to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Geng said.

The deployment will severely damage the regional strategic balance and harm the security interests of countries in the region, including China, Geng said.

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Allies follow suit day after US kicked up a fuss about Iran space launch

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 29, 2017 1:12AM

Three European allies of the US have engaged in rhetoric against Iran after the country successfully tested a satellite-launch rocket, urging Tehran to halt all its missile activities.

"We condemn this action," read a joint statement by Britain, France, Germany and the US on Friday, claiming the test is in breach of UN Security Council Resolution 2231, which was adopted in July 2015 to endorse Iran's nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Actions (JCPOA), with six world powers.

"Iran's program to develop ballistic missiles continues to be inconsistent with UNSCR 2231 and has a destabilizing impact in the region. We call on Iran not to conduct any further ballistic missile launches and related activities," the statement added.

Resolution 2231 calls on Iran "not to undertake any activity related to ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons, including launches using such ballistic missile technology."

Tehran insists its missile tests and rocket launches do not breach any UN resolution, because they are solely for defense purposes and not designed to carry nuclear warheads.

Earlier on Friday, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said "every word" of the nuclear deal has been carefully negotiated, adding, "Iran does not develop missiles that are designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons."

The statement by the US and its European allies came a day after Washington described the successful satellite-carrying rocket launch as "a provocative action," accusing Iran of violating UN Security Council resolutions.

Since his inauguration on January 20, US President Donald Trump has adopted a hostile policy towards Iran.

He has repeatedly vowed to cancel the nuclear agreement between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries, including the US. Trump's administration has also imposed new sanctions on multiple Iranian individuals and entities.

On Thursday, Iran launched its domestically-manufactured Simorgh carrier, whose mission is to put Iranian satellites into orbit.

The launch was carried out from the Imam Khomeini Space Center in the central Iranian province of Semnan. Simorgh, named after a bird in Persian mythology, is capable of placing a satellite weighing up to 250 kilograms in an orbit of 500 kilometers.

Designed and developed with the latest standards in mind, Iran's new space rocket can carry satellites weighing up to 250 kilograms (550 pounds) about 500 kilometers (310 miles) away, well within the Low Earth Orbit (LEO).

The rocket, Iran's largest to date, will be used to launch the domestically-built Earth observation satellite Tolou (Sunrise) in the near future.

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani hailed the successful test-launch, saying such scientific achievements boost the Islamic Republic's power and grandeur.

Iran's Defense Minister Hossein Dehqan, who accompanied Rouhani at the space center on Thursday, told reporters that the spaceport acted as a "command and control site" that could track and control satellites at all times.

He noted that the center was already capable of launching satellites to higher orbits of up to 1,000 kilometers.

Iran launched its first locally-built satellite, Omid (Hope), in 2009. The country also sent its first bio-capsule containing living creatures into space in February 2010, using Kavoshgar (Explorer)-3 carrier.

In February 2015, Iran placed the domestically-made Fajr (Dawn) satellite into orbit. The satellite is capable of taking and transmitting high-quality and accurate pictures to stations on Earth.

Simorgh's launch came as the US Congress passed new sanctions against Iran over its development of missiles for defensive purposes. The bill, which also includes sanctions against Russia and North Korea, awaits US President Donald Trump's approval.

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EU denounces DPRK's latest test-launch of ballistic missile

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 15:11, July 29, 2017

BRUSSELS, July 28 -- The European Union (EU) on Friday lashed out at the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) in the wake of the country's latest test launch of a ballistic missile, saying the move is in outright violation of its international obligations.

The European External Action Service (EEAS), the EU's diplomatic service, referring to a conclusion adopted at a meeting of EU foreign ministers earlier this month, said in a statement that the EU "is united in its assessment that these actions of the DPRK represent a serious threat to international peace and security."

"We expect the DPRK to refrain from any further provocative action that could increase regional and global tensions," the EEAS said.

The EU urged the DPRK to engage in a "credible and meaningful dialogue" to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula, saying the bloc is ready to support such a process in consultation with its key partners.

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, due to attend the ASEAN Regional Forum Ministerial meeting in Manila on Aug. 6-7, will address the DPRK issue with her international counterparts in the margins of the meeting, said the statement.

The Korean Central News Agency of the DPRK reported that the country "carried out the second test-fire of intercontinental ballistic rocket Hwasong-14 on July 28, 2017," the second time in one month.

The DPRK test fired its first ICBM on July 4, which it hailed as the final stage of developing its nuclear and missile capabilities.

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DPRK confirms successful test-firing of fresh ICBM, arousing wide concern

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 13:48, July 29, 2017

PYONGYANG, July 29 -- The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) Saturday confirmed the successful test-firing of a second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) simulating its maximum range, which it said can cover all the territories of the United States.

"The second test-fire of the ICBM Hwasong-14 was successfully carried out at night of July 28, 2017, under the supervision of (DPRK top leader) Kim Jong Un, who guided the test-fire on the spot," the Korean Central News Agency said in a report.

The report said the test-firing aimed to "finally confirm the overall technological specifications of the weapon system of Hwasong-14 capable of carrying large-sized heavy nuclear warhead, including its maximum range."

"The rocket (missile) that blasted off from the northwestern part of the DPRK reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km and flew 998 km for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the target waters in the open sea," it said.

The test-firing was carried out at the maximum angle launch system mocking maximum range, and had no adverse effect on the security of the neighboring countries, said the report.

Kim Jong Un congratulated the scientists and technicians in the field of rocket research and said the DPRK will develop "much more the most powerful strategic weapons," according to the report.

"The test-fire confirmed the reliability of ICBM system, demonstrated the capability of making surprise launch of ICBM in any region and place any time, and clearly proved that the whole U.S. mainland is in the firing range of the DPRK missiles," the report quoted Kim Jong Un as saying.

"The maximum range simulation test-fire of ICBM conducted by the DPRK today is meant to send a grave warning to the U.S. making senseless remarks, being lost to reason, that it would not go scot-free if it dares provoke the DPRK," Kim said.

This is the second time for the DPRK to have successfully launched its ICBMs, the first being launched on July 4.

South Korea's military said Saturday that the DPRK has fired a ballistic missile, which was believed to have been an intercontinental ballistic missile.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) said in a statement that the unidentified missile was fired at 11:41 p.m. (1441 GMT) Friday from the area in Jagang province, the central northernmost part of the DPRK.

Defense Minister Song Young-moo said in a statement that the ICBM test is a "grave provocation" that jeopardizes the stability of the Korean Peninsula and world peace.

The DPRK missile flew about 1,000 km and was lofted as high as around 3,700 km, according to the JCS. It was estimated to have been an advanced Hwasong-14, which was test-launched by the DPRK on July 4.

The July 4 launch lofted the missile as high as 2,802 km and made it fly 933 km.

The Pentagon said on Friday that an initial assessment showed the missile launched by the DPRK earlier on the day was an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The missile traveled about 1,000 km before splashing down into the sea, said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis in a statement.

The United States and South Korea have conducted a live-fire exercise after the launch of ICBM by the on Friday, said the U.S. Army.

United NationsSecretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned the DPRK's launch of another "ballistic missile of possible intercontinental range," saying "this is again a manifest violation of Security Council resolutions."

UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq urged the DPRK leadership to "comply fully with its international obligations and work together with the international community to resolve the outstanding issues on the Korean Peninsula."

China on Saturday urged the DPRK to abide by UN Security Council resolutions and stop any moves that could escalate tensions on the Korean Peninsula.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang made the remarks in response to reports that the DPRK had fired a second "Hwasong-14" intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday.

"The Chinese side is concerned about the current situation," Geng said, noting that relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council had explicit stipulations on launches conducted by the DPRK using ballistic technology.

He said the Chinese side opposed DPRK launches in violation of UN Security Council resolutions and the will of the international community.

China hopes that relevant parties can act prudently, avoid taking actions that could escalate tensions, and maintain regional peace and stability, Geng said.

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N Korea says whole US mainland within range of its ICBMs

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 29, 2017 2:22AM

Pyongyang confirms that it has launched another intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un saying the whole US mainland is now within the range of the newly-tested guided missile.

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reported on Saturday that what was launched the previous day had been an updated version of the Hwasong-14 ICBM, which flew as far as 998 kilometers for some 47 minutes at a maximum altitude of 3,724.9 kilometers.

It added that the North's leader had overseen the second ICBM test, quoting Kim as saying that the long-range missile demonstrated the country's surprise attack capability and sent a "serious warning" to the United States.

US authorities had earlier confirmed that the missile was an ICBM but downplayed claims that it could reach the US mainland.

However, the Russian Defense Ministry, in a statement, cast doubt on the declared nature of the missile, saying its characteristics appeared to be "those of a medium-range ballistic missile."

According to the statement, the missile reached an altitude of 681 kilometers (420 miles) and flew for 732 kilometers before landing in the Sea of Japan.

North Korea first tested an ICBM on July 4, with an estimated range of 5,500 kilometers and capable of hitting Alaska.

The Friday test-launch drew strong condemnation from North Korea's regional adversaries, including Japan and South Korea, and the United States, which has just commenced a live-fire military exercise, using surface-to-surface missiles, with South Korea in response to the missile launch.

The European Union also blasted the North for the missile test, saying the country posed "a serious threat to international peace and security."

The developments came some 10 months after Pyongyang carried out its fifth nuclear test. The North's nuclear and missile programs have drawn harsh sanctions from the United Nations and the West since 2006.

North Korea regards the US as its main enemy. The US has adopted a war-like posture vis-a-vis Pyongyang and has permanent military presence in the region.

North Korea sees its missile and nuclear capabilities as a strong deterrent against potential US aggression.

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Trump Criticizes China Following North Korean Missile Launch

By VOA News July 29, 2017

President Donald Trump is again criticizing China for failing to stop North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Following Friday's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed west of Japan, the U.S. president singled out China for blame on Saturday evening, saying the country could "easily solve this problem."

Trump's remarks echoed those made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who released a statement that blamed both China and Russia for North Korea's continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

"As the principal economic enablers of North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability," Tillerson said.

In April, Trump praised his first meeting with China's President Xi Jinping, later telling reporters that Xi had agreed to suspend coal and fuel shipments to pressure North Korea to stop its belligerent behavior. However, since then, the North has continued to threaten its neighbors and the United States, and Trump has grown more critical of Beijing.

North Korea's missile launch Friday was its second this month. Even though the missile landed west of Japan, experts said it would be powerful enough to reach much of the U.S. mainland. North Korea's official news agency said leader Kim Jong Un boasted that the latest test was "meant to send a grave warning to the U.S."

China condemned the launch, while Japan, South Korea and the U.S. vowed to work together on a new Security Council measure aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Word of Friday's missile launch came as a bill approved by Congress calling for tougher sanctions on North Korea, as well as Iran and Russia, landed on Trump's desk.

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Iran Condemns Sanctions, Says It Will Pursue Missile Program 'With Full Power'

RFE/RL July 29, 2017

Iran has condemned new sanctions passed by the U.S. Congress over its missile program and vowed to continue it.

"We will continue with full power our missile program," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi was quoted as telling state-controlled television on July 29.

"We condemn the hostile and unacceptable action," he said of the sanctions.

Ghasemi said Tehran considers consider the action by the United States as "hostile, reprehensible, and unacceptable," adding that "it's ultimately an effort to weaken the nuclear deal."

Under the 2015 nuclear agreement with the United States and other world powers, Iran has significantly limited its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.

Iran maintains that the missiles that it tests don't violate its nuclear agreement with world powers because they are for defensive purposes.

"The military and missile fields...are our domestic policies and others have no right to intervene or comment on them," Ghasemi said.

"We reserve the right to reciprocate and make an adequate response to the U.S. actions," he added.

The sanctions bill, which also targets Russia and North Korea, was passed by the U.S. Senate late last week, after being approved by the House of Representatives.

The new legislation would impose mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran's ballistic-missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure would designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and enforce an arms embargo against Iran.

White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said that President Donald Trump will sign the bill into law.

Separately on July 28, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six subsidiaries of an Iranian company that it said was "central" to Tehran's ballistic-missile program.

Treasury said the new U.S. sanctions announced were in response to Iran's "continued provocative actions," such as the July 27 rocket launch.

"The U.S. government will continue to aggressively counter Iran's ballistic-missile-related activity, whether it be a provocative space launch, its development of threatening ballistic-missile systems, or likely support to Yemeni Huthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on July 28.

Mnuchin said the sanctions "underscore the United States' deep concerns with Iran's continued development and testing of ballistic missiles and other provocative behavior."

Also on July 28, Britain, France, and Germany joined the U.S. in condemning Iran's launch of a satellite-carrying rocket and warned that it runs counter to a UN resolution carrying out the 2015 nuclear deal.

In a joint statement, they urged Iran to stop developing missiles and rockets that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and have "a destabilizing impact on the region."

With reporting by AFP and AP

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/iran-condemns-new-sanctions -full-power-missile-program/28646487.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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Iran's Revolutionary Guards Accuse US Warships of New 'Provocation' in the Gulf

Sputnik News

15:06 29.07.2017(updated 18:12 29.07.2017)

Iran's elite force, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) said on Saturday that a new "provocative" incident took place in the Persian Gulf as US Navy ships approached Iranian patrol vessels.

MOSCOW (Sputnik)  US aircraft carrier Nimitz and an accompanying warship approached Iranian military vessels on Friday at 4 p.m. local time (11:30 GMT) dispatching a helicopter, which flew near the vessels, the statement read.

"In a provocative and unprofessional action, the Americans fired flares to warn the Zolfaqar flotilla vessels," the statement of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) read as quoted by the Tasnim news agency.

The Iranian military noted that the incident took place just few days after another US ship fired warning shots at Iranian vessels in the Persian Gulf.

Earlier this week, the USS Thunderbolt patrol ship fired several warning shots at an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps ship in the Gulf. The Iranian boat sailed within 150 yards of US ships on Tuesday, according to the US Navy.

The Pentagon also released video footage of the incident.

The Iranian Navy said the US ship "fired two warning shots into the air with the aim of provocation and intimidation."

Earlier in July, the commander of the ICGC, Maj. Gen. Mohammad Ali Jafari, delivered an ultimatum to the US amid new anti-Tehran sanctions. He advised Washington to dismantle its regional bases within a range of 1000 kilometers (621 miles) from Iran's borders, if Washington plans to continue the policy of sanctions.

Jafari's comments come a day after the US departments of State and Treasury imposed sanctions against 18 entities and individuals tied to the Iranian military, IRGC and the country's ballistic missile program.

The incident is one of many times when US' and Iranian maritime forces have come dangerously near conflict and likely will not be the last. In June, Iranian lasers targeted a US Super Stallion chopper near the Strait of Hormuz. Max Abrahms from Council of Foreign Relations told Sputnik last week that he "foresee[s] bilateral tensions rising" between Washington and Tehran.

 Sputnik

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Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters to participate in liberation of Tal Afar: Abadi

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 29, 2017 5:25PM

Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi says pro-government fighters from the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), commonly known by the Arabic name Hashd al-Sha'abi, will take part in a planned offensive to recapture the northern city of Tal Afar from the Daesh terrorist group.

Speaking at a youth meeting on Saturday, Abadi said the government and security commanders have devised a plan to dislodge Daesh from Tal Afar, located 63 kilometers west of Mosul, which requires participation of security personnel as well as Hashd al-Sha'abi and tribal fighters, Arabic-language Nabaa news agency reported.

He added that the Iraqi nation, through complete commitment to its unity, could overcome sectarian and ethnic divisions.

"The entire world is breathing a sigh of relief now that Iraqis have chopped Daesh's head off. The international community threw its weight behind Iraq in the fight against terrorism, because it found the Iraqi nation full of determination to battle Daesh," Abadi pointed out.

The Iraqi prime minister further noted that Baghdad is after balanced relations with world countries, stressing that he will not compromise on his country's interests with anyone.

The victory over Daesh drew the ire of warmongers because peace prevents them from making fortune, Abadi said.

Last week, Abadi praised Hashd al-Sha'abi as the "integral" part of his country's security system, stressing that the Baghdad government is determined to protect the pro-government force.

"The Popular Mobilization Units is a basic and impartial force, which will remain a part of the Iraqi security system. Our duty is to protect it," Abadi said during a meeting with senior commanders of the force in Baghdad on July 22.

Hashd al-Sha'abi is an Iraqi state-sponsored umbrella organization composed of some 40 groups, which are mainly Shia Muslims. The force reportedly numbers more than 100,000 fighters. Iraqi authorities say there are between 25,000 and 30,000 Sunni tribal fighters within its ranks in addition to Kurdish Izadi and Christian units.

The fighters have played a major role in the liberation of Daesh-held areas to the south, northeast and north of the Iraqi capital Baghdad, ever since the terrorists launched an offensive in the country in June 2014.

Iraq has repeatedly condemned allegations of sectarian nature against Hashd al-Sha'abi.

Last December, Baghdad warned Riyadh of the ramifications of meddling in Iraq's internal affairs, after Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said Iraq cannot achieve unity with the presence of the Popular Mobilization Units.

Saudi Arabia has repeatedly labeled the PMU, which incorporates volunteer forces from different Iraqi factions and tribes, as a Shia movement and called for the dismantling of the group.

Last November, the Iraqi Parliament approved a law giving full legal status to Hashd al-Sha'abi fighters. It recognized the PMU as part of the national armed forces, placed the volunteer fighters under the command of the prime minister, and granted them the right to receive salaries and pensions like the regular army and police forces.

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Pakistan's ousted prime minister nominates younger brother as successor

Iran Press TV

Sat Jul 29, 2017 4:33PM

Pakistan's deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has nominated his brother to be his successor and a nominee to contest the 2018 general elections and his close ally to be interim premier, as hundreds of supporters of ousted Sharif held a demonstration in the capital Islamabad against a Supreme Court decision that disqualified him on corruption charges.

"I have quit my office, so someone has to take it, and after a lot of consultations... Shahbaz Sharif is nominated," Sharif said during a speech to his ruling party, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), on Saturday, a day after his office announced that he was resigning shortly after the Supreme Court issued a verdict, disqualifying him earlier in the day.

Pakistan's top court alleged that 67-year-old Sharif and his family had property and accounts overseas, which they hid from the tax authorities. It also accused Sharif of refusing to resign from the seat following the allegations. Sharif has persistently rejected the corruption charges leveled against him, criticizing the verdict.

Shahbaz Sharif, 65, is currently the chief minister of the vast Punjab province, which accounts for more than half of Pakistan's 190-million-strong population, and cannot become premier until he first becomes a lawmaker by winning a parliamentary by-election.

Nawaz Sharif also said he would like his close ally Shahid Khaqan Abbasi to be Pakistan's interim prime minister and to fill the vacuum. Abbasi, 58, was minister of petroleum and natural resources in the third Sharif ministry from June 2013 until Friday. He also has the strong support of the ruling party.

Meanwhile, pro-Sharif protesters marched on a key road in the capital and chanted slogans in favor of the deposed prime minister, before peacefully dispersing. Sharif's supporters also staged similar small demonstrations in the eastern city of Lahore, where he won the 2013 parliamentary elections.

Sharif's ouster has renewed concerns over Pakistan's democracy after a member of the PML-N party suggested that elements within the powerful military had influenced the high court's ruling against him.

The opposition Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, led by Imran Khan, has welcomed the Supreme Court ruling as a sign of progress and greater accountability in the country.

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Pakistan's Deposed PM Nominates Brother As Successor

RFE/RL July 29, 2017

Pakistan's deposed Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has named his brother, Shahbaz, as his successor and nominated former Oil Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as an interim premier.

"I support Shahbaz Sharif after me, but he will take time to contest elections, so for the time being I nominate Shahid Khaqan Abbasi," Sharif said on July 29 in a televised speech to his party, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

The move comes following the resignation of Sharif on July 28 that was announced shortly after the country's Supreme Court ordered his removal from office in connection with corruption charges stemming from the Panama Papers leak in 2016.

Abbasi is set to be rubber-stamped as placeholder in a parliamentary vote, with the ruling PML-N party holding a strong majority in the 342-seat legislature. Abbasi, 58, is seen as a staunch Sharif loyalist. It was not immediately clear when the vote would take place.

The interim leader would be in power for at least 45 days until Shahbaz Sharif steps down as the head of the Punjab government and contests a by-election to the National Assembly.

Shahbaz Sharif, 65, has been in charge of Punjab since 2008. He has built a reputation as a competent administrator and has so far been unscathed by the corruption allegations engulfing his brother's family.

Opposition leader Imran Khan, who spearheaded the corruption complaint against Sharif, condemned the ousted premier's choice of his brother to eventually succeed him.

Sharif "is insulting the nation's intelligence" and "making a mockery of democracy" by nominating his brother, Khan tweeted on July 29.

The Supreme Court court ruling came immediately after an investigative panel alleged that Sharif's family could not account for what it said was vast wealth in offshore companies.

Sharif has denied any wrongdoing.

The five-judge panel's unanimous decision, issued amid tight security in the capital, Islamabad, and Sharif's immediate resignation has plunged the nuclear-armed nation into a political crisis.

Raja Zafarul Haq, a top leader of Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party, said that the deposed prime minister will attend the meeting on July 29.

Geo TV reported that Sharif recommended his brother as his replacement as prime minister in a meeting held with senior party leaders after the Supreme Court's verdict.

Among possible allies to replace Sharif in the short term are members of his outgoing cabinet, including Defense Minister Asif Khawaja and Petroleum Minister Shahid Abbasi.

If elected, the interim leader would be in power for at least 45 days until Shehbaz steps down as the head of the Punjab government and contests a by-election to the National Assembly.

Shahbaz Sharif, 65, has been in charge of Punjab since 2008. He has built a reputation as a competent administrator.

Pakistani media report that Shahbaz has in recent years presented his country at several international forums, including the United Nations.

No prime minister has completed a full term in power in Pakistan since the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

Sharif, 67, is among the major political casualties of the Panama Papers leaks that brought offshore finance under the spotlight.

Documents from the Panama-based Mossack Fonseca law firm that were made public in April 2016 revealed that three of Sharif's four children owned offshore companies and assets not shown on his family's wealth statement.

Sharif's son Hussain Nawaz at the time acknowledged owning offshore companies but insisted they used legal money to set up businesses abroad.

In 2016, Icelandic Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson stepped down amid public outrage that his family had sheltered money offshore.

One of Sharif's two previous stints as prime minister was cut short by a military coup in 1999.

He returned from exile to win a convincing victory in parliamentary elections in 2013.

With reporting by Reuters, AP and Geo TV

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/pakistan-sharif- successor-prime-minister/28646476.html

Copyright (c) 2017. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.

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S. Korea to consult with U.S. on revised guideline to increase payload of indigenous missile

People's Daily Online

(Xinhua) 15:18, July 29, 2017

SEOUL, July 29 -- South Korea's presidential Blue House said Saturday that the country would consult with the United Stateson the revision of the bilateral missile guideline to increase the payload of the indigenous ballistic missiles.

President Moon Jae-in ordered his top security advisor Chung Eui-yong to consult with the U.S. side on the launch of negotiations about the amendment of the South Korea-U.S. missile guideline, senior presidential press secretary Yoon Young-chan told a press briefing.

It followed the DPRK's announcement of its second test-firing of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), which flew about 1,000 km and was lofted as high as over 3,700 km.

Chung held a telephone conversation with his U.S. counterpart H.R. McMaster at about 3 a.m. local time Saturday (1800 GMT on Friday) to propose the revised missile guideline.

McMaster sent the U.S. agreement on the negotiation at around 10:30 a.m. local time, according to the Blue House of South Korea.

Moon's press secretary said the negotiation would focus on an increased payload, rather than an extended range, adding that the two countries would launch the negotiation as early as possible.

The bilateral missile guideline was first adopted in 1979 to set ceilings on the range of South Korea's homegrown ballistic missiles at 180 km and the payload at 500 kg in return for the U.S. transfer of missile technology to South Korea.

Under the revised guidelines, the maximum range and payload were extended in 2001 to 300 km and 500 kg, and in 2012 to 800 km and 500 kg respectively.

Local media speculations said South Korea would demand the maximum payload of its ballistic missiles be extended to 1 ton.

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South Korea Leader Mulls Unilateral Sanctions on North After Missile Test

Sputnik News

06:52 29.07.2017

Moon Jae-in ordered state ministries to consider slapping Pyongyang with unilateral sanctions.

TOKYO (Sputnik)  South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Saturday ordered state ministries to consider slapping Pyongyang with unilateral sanctions after it fired off another ballistic missile overnight, local media said.

"I direct the foreign affairs and security ministries to ensure that our government can craft a stern response to the North's provocation I also call for a review of our stand-alone sanctions against the North if necessary," the Yonhap news agency quoted him as saying.

Defense Minister Song Young-moo said earlier the nation would prepare independent measures to respond to Pyongyang's alleged test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday night.

He warned Pyongyang that its actions had called further reconciliation efforts into question. The South's Foreign Ministry said in a statement that rather than being accepted as a nuclear power North Korea would only isolate itself by continuing its illegal missiles tests.

South Korea will also station four additional Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) launchers at a US military base in the country's south. China has objected to their deployment, which it regards as a threat to its defense capabilities.

 Sputnik

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White House Says Trump Will Sign Russia Sanctions Bill

RFE/RL July 29, 2017

WASHINGTON -- The White House announced late on July 28 that U.S. President Donald Trump has decided to sign legislation strengthening sanctions against Russia over its alleged meddling in the U.S. presidential election.

The surprise announcement came hours after Russia announced retaliatory measures over the legislation, ordering potentially deep cuts in U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia and the seizing some U.S. diplomatic property in Moscow.

Enactment of the legislation, which cements into law an array of strong sanctions against Russia for its alleged election meddling and aggression in Ukraine, dashes hopes of any immediate improvement in relations between Moscow and Washington as espoused by Trump during his campaign.

On July 25, the U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly backed the sanctions bill, 419-3, and the Senate rapidly followed their lead on a 98-2 vote.

In a statement on July 29, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the near unanimous votes "represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States."

Tillerson said he hoped for cooperation with Russia that would make the sanctions unnecessary.

Trump's decision acquiesced to the reality that Congress almost certainly could have overridden a veto of the legislation, fueled by bipartisan concern that media reports and investigations in Congress and the Justice Department recently have appeared to uncover some evidence of attempts by Russia to collude with Trump's election campaign.

But White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said that a deciding factor was Trump's satifaction that he was able to secure changes in some "critical elements" of the bill which she did not identify.

The White House had objected to a key provision that requires Trump to get approval from Congress to waive any of the bill's sanctions against Russia, and that provision was not changed.

But other provisions barring U.S. energy companies from participating in oil and gas projects anywhere in the world if Russian energy firms are participating were modified after lobbying by the White House and American oil companies.

Also, House leaders added sanctions against North Korea to the bill, in a move that pleased the White House, officials said.

Another factor may have been Russia's offer to try to keep cooperating with the administration and improving relations, despite what Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described as the "hostile" measures in the bill.

In a phone call with U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, "Lavrov confirmed that our country is still ready to normalize bilateral relations with the United States and to cooperate on the most important international issues," the Russian Foreign Ministry said on July 28.

"However, this is possible only on the basis of equality, mutual respect, and a balancing of interests," it said.

The ministry said the two top diplomats "agreed to maintain contact on a range of bilateral issues." The State Department did not provide a reading on the conversation.

Russia's new envoy at the United Nations also extended an offer of cooperation on July 28 even as he said the sanctions legislation has plunged U.S.-Russian relations to "rock-bottom" levels lower than those reached during the Cold War.

"We will continue to cooperate," Russian UN ambassador Vasily Nebenzya said in New York. "The Americans cannot do without us and we cannot do without them. Such is reality. Certainly, we will be working to resolve those unprecedented problems that have emerged in the world before our very eyes," he said.

Russia earlier in the day directed the United States to reduce the size of its diplomatic staff in the country and said it will seize a U.S. Embassy dacha and storage warehouses in Moscow, hitting back at the sanctions bill passed overwhelmingly by the U.S. Senate and sent to the White House on July 27.

The bill cements into law existing sanctions on Russia over its alleged election meddling and aggression in Ukraine and adds new measures penalizing Russia's military intervention in Syria while requiring Trump to secure Congress' approval to ease or waive those sanctions. It also contains tough sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

"The passage of the new law on sanctions shows with all obviousness that relations with Russia have become hostage to the domestic political battle within the United States," Russia's Foreign Ministry said, adding that "the latest events show that in well-known circles in the United States, Russophobia and a course toward open confrontation with our country have taken hold."

Russia directed the United States to reduce diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people by September 1, saying that is the number of diplomats and other personnel at embassies and consulates in the United States after former President Barack Obama's administration expelled 35 Russian diplomats in December in his response to alleged Russian meddling in the U.S. election and ill-treatment of U.S. diplomats in Russia.

The current number of U.S. personnel in Russia was not immediately clear. Russian news agency Interfax cited a source it did not identify as saying the United States would have to cut "hundreds of diplomatic and technical staff," while state-run RIA Novosti cited a source it did not identify as saying the number was 200 to 300.

Russia also said that as of August 1, the United States would be barred from using warehouses that it has used in Moscow and from a modest property in the capital's leafy Serebryanny Bor district that is used by the U.S. Embassy, mainly for events such as parties and barbecues.

With reporting by AP, AFP, Reuters, TASS, Interfax, Bloomberg, and The New York Times

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/white-house-says- trump-sign-russian-sanctions-bill-iran -north-korea-/28646180.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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Trump to Approve Sanctions Bill; Russia Imposes Its Own

By VOA News July 29, 2017

The White House says President Donald Trump approves of Congress' new sanctions against Russia and he intends to sign the bill.

In a statement Friday, the press secretary said the president had reviewed the final version of the bill, which outlines additional sanctions against a wide range of Russian industries. The bill also gives Congress the ability to block the president from lifting the Russia sanctions.

The Trump administration had opposed the sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for interfering in last year's U.S. presidential election. The White House argued that it needed flexibility in trying to improve relations between the two countries. But after months of investigations into contacts between Russian officials and members of Trump's campaign team, there was broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress for more stringent measures.

Russia responds with sanctions

Russia responded earlier Friday to the sanctions with new measures targeting U.S. missions in the country. Moscow said Washington must reduce the number of diplomatic and technical staff working in U.S. missions in Russia to 455 by September 1. That's same number of Russian diplomats and technical staff Moscow said are working in the United States. It is unclear how many Americans that would affect, but it could be in the hundreds.

In addition to the reduction in U.S. diplomatic personnel, Russia also said it would block the U.S. Embassy in Russia from accessing its warehouses in Moscow and a vacation compound in Serebryany Bor.

"We also reserve the right to take other measures according to the principle of reciprocity, which may affect the interests of the United States," the ministry said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a statement Saturday on the U.S. sanctions legislation, a day after a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"The near-unanimous votes for the sanctions legislation in Congress represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States," he said. "We hope that there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues and these sanctions will no longer be necessary.

"We will work closely with our friends and allies to ensure our messages to Russia, Iran and North Korea are clearly understood."

Putin approves decision

President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian leader had personally approved Friday's Foreign Ministry decision.

"The form in which the sanctions bill emerged from the Senate had greater significance," Peskov said.

The Russian retaliation was celebrated in Moscow as a long-overdue response to actions from the previous U.S. administration.

In December 2016, former President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and seized Russian Embassy compounds in Maryland and New York as punishment for Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections.

At the time, Putin chose not to respond, a move many saw as a gesture of goodwill to the incoming Trump administration, which had expressed a desire for improved relations with Moscow.

Yet Friday's move reflected growing Russian frustration that the Trump White House, besieged by multiple investigations into its ties to Russia during the campaign, had not delivered on its campaign promises.

"We did everything in our power to save relations from disaster, but the Americans did just the opposite," wrote Konstantin Kosachev in a post to Facebook. Kosachev, a Russia politician, went on to call the retaliation "long overdue."

Sergey Markov, a political analyst close to the Kremlin, also cheered the Kremlin's decision as inevitable, writing on Facebook that "hopes that the president of the United States could change relations with Russia for the better are over."

The bill U.S. senators approved Thursday also imposes new sanctions on Iran and North Korea. For Russia, the measures are designed to affect a wide range of Russian industries, hitting the country squarely in the pocketbook.

The European Union has expressed concern about the new sanctions, saying they could affect the European energy sector.

Praise on Capitol Hill

Daniel Fried, an Obama-era official who coordinated the administration's sanctions policy, told VOA he didn't think the move by Congress to block Trump from altering sanctions would affect a bilateral settlement, but rather was meant to stop Trump from lifting the sanctions "for no good reason."

"I think if there were a settlement and if this were generally acceptable to all the parties, including Ukraine, I think that Congress would not stand in the way of the administration lifting the Ukraine-related sanctions," he said.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers praised the group effort to pass the bill quickly. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a California Republican, said in a statement: "I am pleased the Senate has acted overwhelmingly to give the administration much-needed economic and political leverage to address threats from Iran, Russia and North Korea. This bipartisan bill is about keeping America safe, and I urge the president to sign it into law."

Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said, "This bill passed with overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and the House, sending a strong message to Vladimir Putin that attacks on our democracy will not be tolerated. President Trump should sign this bill as soon as it hits his desk. Otherwise, he risks encouraging Russia's interference in future elections."

VOA's Charles Maynes, Michael Bowman and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.

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Think back to September 2014. Gov. Terry McAuliffe was nine months into his term as governor, having made economic development and jobs creation the cornerstones of his 2013 run for governor against Republican Ken Cuccinelli. The early months of his term had met with mixed success in Richmond, mainly because the Republican-controlled House of Delegates refused to consider his calls for Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act. The economy was still sluggish, and big jobs announcements were few.

But then came the big one: Dominion Resources, one of the most powerful players in the capital, announced its plans to construct the Atlantic Coast Pipeline through West Virginia, Virginia and North Caroline. At 600 miles in length, the 42-inch pipeline would bring natural gas from the Utica and Marcellus shale fields of northern West Virginia through Virginia (with a spur off to Chesapeake and terminating in Robeson County, N.C.)

It was huge news. Construction was estimated to cost $5.1 billion, generating 17,000 jobs during the build phase. In Virginia alone, analysts predicted $2.7 billion of economic activity in the areas through which the pipeline would pass.

Almost from the start, the ACP and the Mountain Valley Pipeline (a shorter pipeline that would run down through West Virginia, veering into Virginia to connect to the Transco pipeline near Chatham in Pittsylvania County) have been the targets of environmentalists and landowners in pipelines paths.

The opposition to both has been fierce. The pipelines would run through two national forests, cross the iconic Appalachian Trail and, in the case of the ACP, would be built karst-laden ground. (Karst is a porous, unstable type of rock prone to collapse and sinkholes.) Hundreds of streams and wetlands would have to be traversed. A wide swath of forest would need to be cut for the pipelines paths.

Earlier this month, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued its final environmental impact statement for the ACP. While there would be adverse environmental impacts, FERC said, on water resources, animal habitat and forests, most could be successfully mitigated to less than significant levels. Theoretically, now that FERC has released its final environmental report, the commission could give its approval at any moment  the holdup is that there is only one commissioner serving while four Trump administration nominees are waiting on Senate confirmation. Once federal approval is granted, the states are next in line to grant their OKs.

Foes have argued that regulators should examine whether the two pipelines indeed are necessary, whether existing pipelines, of which there are thousands of miles in Virginia alone, can handle the demand. The fact that the ACPs daily 1.5 billion cubic feet was contracted for with months of the projects announcement, though, would argue not. Opponents also have argued against extracting the gas at all in an effort to combat global warming. The fact remains that natural gas-generated electricity is infinitely cleaner than coal generation, and with more and more utilities in our own region switching to gas for their generation facilities, demand for natural gas will only grow.

A modern, technology-driven economy the size of the United States needs power. That power should come from a variety of sources  including renewables such as solar and wind. Thats irrefutable. A modern nation such as America also must do all it can to protect the environment. Thats irrefutable, too. The challenge comes in balancing these two goals. Can that balance be achieved? We believe so.
12:05 a.m. Sunday update:

Officials with Goodyear and the United Steelworkers reached a tentative agreement on a new five-year master labor contract late Saturday night in Cincinnati.

The previous contract was set to expire at midnight.

The contract covers nearly 7,000 workers at five plants, including Danville, the company announced on its negotiation website shortly before midnight.

We believe we have crafted a new labor agreement that positions both Goodyear and the United Steelworkers for success in the future, Jim Allen, Goodyears vice president of global labor relations, said in a statement.

Goodyear expects local unions will schedule ratification votes within the next few weeks.

Details of the contract were not disclosed.

ORIGINAL STORY:

Officials with Goodyear and the United Steelworkers were continuing negotiations Saturday in Cincinnati as a midnight deadline loomed for the current contract to expire.

Our goal is to reach an agreement that positions both the United Steelworkers and Goodyear for success by the contract expiration date of July 29, Barbara Hatala, communications manager with Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. in Akron, Ohio, said in an email Saturday afternoon to the Register & Bee.

Goodyears Danville facility employs about 2,200 workers, making it the largest private employer in the city. The plant manufactures aviation and specialty tires, and operates on three shifts. About 2,000 employees are represented by Local 831 of the United Steelworkers of America.

USW has a total of about 800,000 members.

When asked if the contract would be extended if a deal wasnt reached by midnight, Hatala declined to comment.

We prefer to keep discussions private and therefore, cant provide details, she said.

She referred the newspaper to updates online at www.goodyearnegotiations.com. However, the last update was posted on June 29.

Hatala also declined to comment when asked if a strike was possible if a deal wasnt reached by midnight.

In a speech when negotiations first opened on June 15, Steve McClellan, president of Goodyear Americas, made reference to four fatalities at Danvilles Goodyear plant in a one-year period.

I dont have to remind you of the tragedies at Danville and Topeka  you all shared in the sorrow, and your plants are actively working to learn from those incidents to make sure they never happen again, McClellan said in the speech posted online.

From August 2015 to August 2016 four workers were killed in accidents at the local plant.

The Virginia Department of Labor and Industrys Virginia Occupational Safety and Health program announced a joint settlement agreement in February for $1.75 million against Goodyear.
Paul di Resta is now in reigning world champions Mercedes' sights.

It comes after the former Force India driver performed admirably as he stood in for the unwell Felipe Massa in qualifying in Hungary.

It is believed Massa is suffering from Labyrinthitis, a virus that is sweeping the F1 paddock and struck down British commentator Martin Brundle at Silverstone.

"He's having vertigo and has some problems with his ears but I don't know the medical terminology," said Claire Williams. "He (Massa) will have some more tests after the weekend."

What the Massa case has highlighted is that many F1 teams do not have a reserve driver on standby.

Indeed, although Williams' official reserve, di Resta does not seem an obvious choice, as he has not raced in F1 for years and was in Budapest as a commentator for British television.

One issue is the F1 super license system, with many younger but more appropriate potential stand-in drivers unable to get FIA permission to race.

Red Bull's Dr Helmut Marko said the current system is "not user friendly" and McLaren's Eric Boullier said the di Resta situation is even a "safety risk".

Boullier said: "Technically we still have Jenson Button, but we would probably have to ask Ferrari if we needed someone at the last moment."

Indeed, Ferrari reserve Antonio Giovinazzi has a super license, with even reigning champions Mercedes not having an official reserve at races on standby.

"We would put Niki (Lauda) in the car," Toto Wolff joked.

"We would probably use Paul (di Resta)," he added. "He did an incredible job, having never driven that car and only being seven tenths slower than Lance Stroll.

"Perhaps he has revived his F1 career today," said Wolff.

(GMM)
Carlos Sainz will not comment on rising speculation about a change of engine supplier for Toro Rosso.

Rumours suggest that after the Sauber-Honda split and continuing talk of a McLaren-Honda divorce, it could be the second Red Bull team that gets Japanese power for 2018.

"It is a rumour and so I will not comment," Toro Rosso driver Carlos Sainz told Marca.

"If it happens I will give my opinion without any problem."

Recently, there has been tension between the 22-year-old Spaniard and the Red Bull camp, after Sainz hinted that he might leave Toro Rosso at the end of the year.

"It was a strange moment," Sainz said, "and an episode of my career that I'm sure I will learn from.

"I still think a fourth year at Toro Rosso is not normal, but if it is the case, I do it with a smile on my face and regard it as a reward not punishment."

(GMM)
A new class of materials which are suitable agents for displacing oil in enhanced oil recovery operations has been developed by scientists at Swansea University (UK) and scientists at Islamic Azad University in Iran. The new nanoparticle-surfactant complexes, composed of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) surfactant and fumed silica nanoparticles (Si-NPs) improve oil recovery to 58% compared to 45% in the presence of the surfactant alone.

The researchers led by Goshtasp Cheraghian and Professor Andrew R. Barron reported their find in the ACS journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

Fabrication and testing of these materials were carried out by Goshtasp Cheraghian (Member of Young Researchers at Azad University) and Sajad Kiani, (a PhD student at the Energy Safety Research Institute at the Swansea University Bay Campus).

There, they used a 5-spot glass micromodel to evaluate the suitable agents for oil displacing in EOR. Such micromodel experiments have been used to investigate the mechanism of the fluid flow on porous mediums via flow visualization, pore space geometry, topology and heterogeneity effects, which are not possible to assess using traditional core-flood experiments.

It is a surprise that the addition of silica nanoparticles, essentially nano-sand, to the surfactant solution leads to such a large ow modification. The changes are due to an alteration of the viscosity as well as effective wettability alteration, which effects the sweeping of the oil towards the recovery point. Prof. Barron

The results of this work support an improved insight into the role of NPs and surfactants in enhanced oil recovery and future use in EOR formulations.

Co-authors of the papers are Dr Shirin Alexander a Ser Cymru Research Fellow at Swansea University and Dr Nashaat Nassar an Associate Professor in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada. Barron is the Charles W. Duncan Jr.Welch Professor of Chemistry and a professor of materials science and nanoengineering at Rice University (Houston USA), and the Ser Cymru Chair of Low Carbon Energy and Environment at Swansea.

This research was carried out with support from the Robert A. Welch Foundation, the Welsh Government Ser Cymru II Fellowship Program, and FLEXIS, which is part-funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) through the Welsh Government.

Resources
By Karen PerryGood fiction writing can touch the heart of readers in many ways, helping them understand the lives of other people, and introducing empathy for the circumstances of others. Three new fiction titles bring that type of writing to the audience of young adults and children.

Tonya Bolden is an African-American author of histories for children and young people. So it was no surprise when she turned to historical fiction for her latest book, published in May by Bloomsbury. Crossing Ebenezer Creek is set in 1864, when Shermans troops are crossing Georgia.

Boldens two characters, Mariah and Caleb, are freed slaves who fall in with the Union soldiers on the march. Both characters harbor secrets, but their hopes and dreams blossom as they move through the countryside. However, when the column arrives at Ebenezer Creek, Confederate forces descend. The Union Army escapes and the freed men and women are abandoned to their fate. Boldens powerful storytelling of a lesser-known historical incident helps bring the cost of human life during the war to the forefront. As are many of her nonfiction titles, Boldens novel is written for young adults (grades 8-12) and has received excellent reviews.

From Patricia Giff, the author who wrote Newbery Honor book Lilys Crossing (Delacorte, 1997,) comes a companion historical novel about the indirect and direct effects of war on children. Genevieves War (Holiday House) is a middle-grades novel set in the beginning of World War II. An American girl named Genevieve is in France in the summer of 1939 visiting her grandmother. At the point of leaving, she decides she must stay to help her grandmother on her farm in Alsace, even though she doesnt love the brittle older woman. This is an impulsive decision that turns out to be a very dangerous one.

When the war erupts around them, a German officer requisitions a room in the farmhouse. No one feels safe. Genevieves friend Remy must hide from the Germans with a burned arm from an explosion he helped to set. She goes to the doctor for medicine and finds out from her grandmother that this is the absolutely wrong thing to do. So she doesnt know whom she can trust.

Genevieve puts Remy in the attic above the German officers room and struggles to keep him fed when their own food is running out. In a childs impulsive way, Genevieve reveals her secret to her friend Katrin, which has devastating effects in the world turned upside down by war. Genevieves War is recommended for middle-grade readers.

One Good Thing about America by Ruth Freeman and published by Holiday House, is a novel about immigrants who move to America to escape war in the Congo. A mother and two of her three children arrive in America. They speak French and only a little English. Nine-year-old Anais reads and writes the best English in her old class but it doesnt prepare her for the rapid speech of Americans.

The story is told through letters in English 9-year-old Anais writes to her grandmother Oma back in the Congo. Her older brother Olivier and her papa are also still in the Congo, but they end up in hiding and move to Kenya for safety. Anais writes in English to Oma so soldiers searching for her father cannot read the letters, although Oma has to ask the local teacher to read them for her.

The book slowly reveals how Amais family sold their home and all their belongings, and how Oma also secretly sold her home to obtain enough money for the move. But only enough for three, not for all. As Anais struggles to adjust to her new school and new living situations, she tries to find one good thing about America that she can tell her grandmother in every letter. Readers follow Annies journey through a first school year. Humorous and heart-rending, Freemans novel comes out of her work as an English as a second language teacher in South Portland, Maine. One Good Thing About America will be enjoyed by students in grades 3-6.
GREENSBORO  When an Austrian furniture and flooring supplier said last week that it will open its first U.S. factory on 200 acres in Davidson County, the news might have come as a surprise to a generation of workers used to seeing foreign companies move jobs out of the U.S.

But with foreign trade policies uncertain in Washington and energy costs at historic lows in the U.S., international business is again taking a serious look at a country that didnt seem competitive a few years ago.

That enhances the chances of smaller industrial parks in the Piedmont Triad landing other industries, and it opens up more options for developers of the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, who hold out hope that a prized auto maker may choose to build a new plant here.

But theyre keeping other options open.

The tables have turned, said Michael C. Randle, editor and publisher of Southern Business & Development magazine. It is now cheaper to manufacture (in the U.S.) for foreign companies than it is to manufacture in their own countries, including all of Europe, Japan and most of China. The U.S., especially the South and, of course, Mexico, are the low-cost leaders for manufacturing in the world.

Without any clear direction from the White House on its future trade policies, foreign companies are not taking chances that new tariffs or trade deals will limit their ability to sell into the U.S. market.

If youre an executive with an international company and you sell into the U.S., then youre going to be hedging your bets, said Christopher Chung, chief executive officer of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, the public-private agency that leads industrial recruiting for the state.

Taiwanese and technology giant Foxconn placed a big bet on the U.S. economy last week when President Donald Trump said the company will invest $10 billion to build a plant in Wisconsin that will initially employ 3,000 and could eventually employ 13,000. Foxconn had reportedly considered North Carolina, including the 1,500-acre Greensboro-Randolph Megasite in northeastern Randolph County.

If Foxconn delivers on its promise, it may change how economic developers in North Carolina and the Triad view the megasite.

Stan Kelly, president and chief executive officer of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, which is in charge of economic development for the region, said leaders still hope a car company will locate at the megasite, but that concept may now be only the starting point for a look at a broader range of industries.

I think early on automotive was something people could understand, Kelly said. It helped people envision something major and bigger.

For now, the central focus for the states biggest industrial sites will be recruiting a marquee operation. A company suitable for a megasite would still be larger than Egger, one of the Triads largest economic development announcements ever.

It is a site that is ideal for a particular industry, said Brent Christensen, chief executive officer of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce.
GREENSBORO  Water-supply managers here are battling a chemical contaminant from the same family of man-made compounds as the GenX substance that made headlines recently by infiltrating the drinking water in North Carolinas southeastern region.

During the past three years, scientists have found water from Greensboros Mitchell Water Treatment Plant with relatively high levels of an industrial chemical known as PFOS  short for perfluorooctane sulfonate  which is suspected of causing human health problems and damage to developing fetuses when consumed over time in large enough doses.

PFOS is on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agencys watch list for unregulated contaminants, so called because they may be harmful but there are no nationwide safety standards governing their release into the environment.

The compound belongs to a family of similar chemicals, including GenX, with commercial uses that go back decades and range from waterproofing to protecting carpet from stains and lining bags of microwave popcorn to prevent hot butter or oil from soaking through the paper.

Sister chemical GenX has been in the news recently after researchers linked very high levels of that substance in Wilmingtons water supply to releases from a chemical plant in Fayetteville into the Cape Fear River.

Greensboro Water Resources Director Steve Drew said city officials and two private consultants have been looking for the local source of PFOS without success.

Were basically doing a CSI-type investigation in the upper reaches of the watershed upstream of Lake Higgins and Lake Brandt, Drew said.

Environmental regulators persuaded chemical manufacturers to voluntarily phase out production of PFOS starting about 15 years ago, but it is still in use in some products and it is a resilient compound that persists in the environment indefinitely once it has been set loose.

The city first tested its drinking water for PFOS during 2014 in line with a nationwide EPA directive, finding traces at concerning levels only in treated water produced by the Mitchell plant at Battleground Avenue and Benjamin Parkway that is supplied by lakes Brandt and Higgins to the north of town, Drew said.

Water from the Townsend treatment plant, to the northeast and near the lake its named after, contained much lower levels of PFOS that were not concerning, Drew said.

Levels fluctuate

Continued testing at the Mitchell plant has shown fluctuating PFOS levels that seem to increase after periods of rain, suggesting that the contaminant is being carried off the landscape by storm water that runs into a lake or feeder streams at one or more sites, Drew said.

But he added that since PFOS was detected at the relatively high level of 90 parts per trillion in Mitchell plant water during the October quarter of 2014, continued testing there has consistently found PFOS below the 40 parts-per-trillion threshold at which water departments are supposed to report the finding to federal and state authorities.

Last year, the EPA established a health advisory level of 70 parts per trillion for PFOS in drinking water. The agency believes PFOs below that level wont harm people over a lifetime, based on the rate of water consumed by women who are breastfeeding. Lactating women were chosen as the standard because they tend to drink more water and because they can pass along contaminants to nursing infants.

Three other rounds of Mitchell plant testing during 2014 detected no PFOS in the January quarter, 44 parts per trillion in the April quarter and 64 parts per trillion in the July quarter, Drew said.

By contrast, the last time Greensboro tested its drinking water for PFOS two months ago, samples from the Mitchell and Townsend plants registered at similar levels  30 and 28 parts per trillion, respectively.

Treated water from the Mitchell plant was never unsafe to drink, Drew said.

But Drew said he is still troubled by the continuing presence of PFOS because the man-made compound does not belong there and city officials cannot figure out exactly where it is coming from.

We remain concerned and aim to remove it at the source in the watershed once there is enough data to analyze and evidence to draw some conclusions so as to narrow down and identify a site or sites with a high level of certainty, he said in a Friday email.

But its not an easy task, he said.

We have no industrial dischargers upstream like there is for the good folks in Wilmington, he said, referring to the Cape Fear chemical plant behind the GenX releases. They were able to go right to a discharger and that was where it was coming from.

EPA directly involved

Among North Carolina communities, EPA flagged only two cities for elevated PFOS levels in nationwide testing from 2013 through 2015  Greensboro and Pinehurst, said Sarah Young, spokeswoman for the state Department of Environmental Quality.

DEQ communicated with both systems. Pinehurst took the well with perfluorinated compounds offline permanently, Young said, referring to the chemical class that includes PFOS and its siblings.

Greensboro knew it had a problem before DEQ contacted it and acted well before the release of EPAs health advisory, Young said of the water departments sleuthing efforts.

EPA is directly involved in tracking Greensboros efforts to reduce levels, Young said of PFOS. The city has proactively provided periodic updates to the department and EPA.

Young and Drew both noted that the city also has hired consultants to examine alternative treatment methods to remove the offensive chemical if the citys detective efforts fail to identify where the PFOS is coming from and eliminate the source.

High Point water administrators also checked for PFOS in drinking water from that communitys Oak Hollow and City lakes as part of EPAs recent testing initiative and came through unblemished, said Terry Houk, that citys public services director.

It was non-detect for us, Houk said, meaning either that the chemical was not there at all or it was present in amounts too small for testing equipment to identify.

Drew said Greensboro officials also tested drinking water they distribute locally from Randleman Reservoir and that the incoming stream from the Piedmont Triad Regional Water Authority also had low quantities of PFOS  10 parts per trillion.

The waters of Greensboro, High Point and the regional water authority also were tested for PFOA  another potentially harmful sibling of PFOS and GenX. That compound was present in drinking water from both Greensboro and Randleman Reservoir, but not in worrisome amounts.

Greensboros water has not been tested yet for GenX, Drew said.

Foam to parking lots

The culprits behind Greensboros PFOS problem could be anything from one or more locations that use flame-retardant foam containing the chemical  such as a fire station or airport  to some long forgotten and abandoned industrial landfill, to people dumping waste illegally in watershed areas, to parking lots where workers wash down the pavement with cleansers that include PFOS as an ingredient, Drew said.

PFOS numbers at Mitchell vary depending on weather patterns, so its water has peaks and valleys of concern, Drew said.

Readings go up for a while after significant rainfall, then you go for a spell and dont see it at all, he said.

The detective work required to sort through the possibilities and narrow them down to a probable cause is tedious and time-consuming, said Pete DAdamo, a Raleigh-based consultant who is helping the city.

Were still months away from seeing if we can pinpoint it and be able to say whether this is something current or something that happened a long time ago, said DAdamo, national water treatment director for HDR.

Greensboro also has hired N.C. State University professor and water expert Detlef Knappe to help track down the source, Drew said. Knappe was part of the research team that recently uncovered the Lower Cape Fears problem with GenX.

Efforts to reach Knappe for comment about Greensboros PFOS situation were unsuccessful last week.

Water safety

The EPAs 70 parts-per-trillion advisory protects the health of a person who drinks water with that concentration of PFOS every day, year after year. But agency literature also raises caution flags about shorter-term exposure for women who are pregnant or breast-feeding because of PFOSs potential to cause developmental lapses in children exposed to it in the womb or in mothers milk.

Large-scale population studies implicate PFOS as a possible trigger for adult health problems that include high cholesterol, thyroid disease, immune suppression and such reproductive problems as reduced fertility, the EPA said in a report last year. The agency added that evidence is weaker linking it to bladder, colon and prostate cancer.

But the developing fetus is particularly sensitive to PFOS-induced toxicity, the EPA said in its 2016 report, citing such possible outcomes as lower birth weight, decreased survival rates, learning deficiencies and susceptibility to cancers of the thyroid or liver.

Meanwhile, GenX readings in Wilmingtons drinking water dwarfed even the highest PFOS levels locally  samples from the New Hanover County communitys Cape Fear Public Utility system averaged 631 parts per trillion.

GenX is a newer chemical composition so EPA does not have a health advisory for it to put such high readings in context. But state health officials noted in a statement after the Wilmington crisis erupted that European researchers recently completed a lab-based cancer study that suggested it was safe at concentrations 100 times greater than found in the coastal citys drinking water.

The situation involving PFOS, GenX and their close relative PFOA illustrates the topsy-turvy nature of environmental pollutants and the rules created to govern them under the nations Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974.

PFOS and PFOA are longstanding industrial chemicals that fall into the unregulated category because they were not known to be problems when the act was put into effect or for years afterward.

But they are under federal review now because it has become generally accepted that they are harmful at certain levels of exposure. So they are on a list of such chemicals that the EPA directed public water systems to test for several years ago, with an eye to possibly setting strict limits on their presence in drinking water.

GenX is not on the EPAs radar yet in that regard because of its more recent development specifically as a better alternative in such applications as Teflon manufacture.

Nonstick surfaces

PFOS and its sister chemical PFOA were popular for much of the 20th century because they are resistant to both water and fatty acids, making them useful in altering the surface properties of everything from frying pans to raincoats.

But PFOS does not readily break down biologically so it remains intact for an eternity, resisting a variety of chemical and other forces that would destroy less stable compounds in days, months or years.

People encounter it not only in their water, but in food as well as the air they breathe.

Water sources contaminated by PFOS have been associated with releases from manufacturing sites, industrial fire/crash training areas, and industrial or municipal waste sites where products are disposed of or applied, the EPA said in its health advisory last year.

PFOS is not the first chemical on the watch list of federal regulators that Greensboro water officials have tangled with in recent times.

Last year, they confronted hexavalent chromium, another occupant of EPAs unregulated contaminant file that was turning up in drinking water treated at both city plants.

They spent weeks last summer studying the problem before tracing it to a lime slurry used at both plants to control the drinking waters acidity and alkalinity.

The fix was just a matter of changing to another additive that didnt include that chemical.

Drew and his colleagues can only hope the PFOS cure should turn out to be so simple, inexpensive and effective.
Police leaders across the country moved quickly to distance themselves from  or to outright condemn  President Donald Trumps statements about roughing up people whove been arrested.

The swift public denunciations came as departments are under intense pressure to stamp out brutality and excessive force that can erode the relationship between officers and the people they police  and cost police chiefs their jobs.

Some police leaders worried that three sentences uttered by the president during a Long Island, N.Y., speech could upend nearly three decades of fence-mending since the 1991 Los Angeles Police Department beating of Rodney King ushered in an era of distrust of police.

Its the wrong message, Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told Washington, D.C., radio station WTOP while speaking of the trust-building work that departments have undertaken since Kings beating. The last thing we need is a green light from the president of the United States for officers to use unnecessary force.

Trump made the comments at a gathering of law enforcement officers at Suffolk County Community College in New York.

When you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Trump said, miming the physical motion of an officer shielding a suspects head to keep it from bumping against the squad car.

Like, dont hit their head, and they just killed somebody  dont hit their head, Trump continued. I said, you can take the hand away, OK?

Trumps remarks came after he spoke about local towns ravaged by gang violence.

Across the country, police department leaders said the presidents words didnt reflect their views.

The Suffolk County Police Department has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners, and violations of those rules and procedures are treated extremely seriously, the department said in an emailed statement. As a department, we do not and will not tolerate rough(ing) up prisoners.

Trumps comments also drew a rebuke from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In a statement Friday, the group did not specifically mention Trump by name but appeared to respond to his speech by stressing the importance of treating all people, including suspects, with respect.

Mike Lopez, a Los Angeles police spokesman, told CNN that the department will treat everyone with integrity and respect.

We work with partnerships in our community and continue to do that to keep our communities safe and secure from crime, he told the news network. With the help of our community we will continue to do this.

Darrel Stephens, a former police chief who is now the executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, told The Washington Post that the presidents words were a step back for police departments.

Over the past two or three years, police departments have worked very, very hard to restore the loss of confidence and trust that people, particularly in the African-American community, have in the police, based on what happened in Ferguson and the other high-profile shootings, Stephens said. Maybe not just what the president said, but the reaction of the police officers standing behind him, I think that complicates that.

It sort of reinforces that theres sort of a wink and a nod about these things, when thats simply not the case.

Statements from other police leaders followed.

In a statement to Patch.com, Seattle Police Chief Kathleen OToole said:

Seattles police officers have embraced reform and have worked incredibly hard to build community trust. We do not intend to go backward. It is truly unfortunate that in todays toxic environment, politicians at both ends of the spectrum have sought to inflame passions by politicizing what we do. We remain committed to our principles and reject irresponsible statements that threaten to undermine our relationship with the community.

A Boston Police Department statement obtained by CNN said the departments priority has been and continues to be building relationships and trust with the community we serve. As a police department we are committed to helping people, not harming them.

In New York, Police Commissioner James ONeill told the network that to suggest that police officers apply any standard in the use of force other than what is reasonable and necessary is irresponsible, unprofessional and sends the wrong message to law enforcement as well as the public.

But the group Blue Lives Matter insisted that the presidents remarks were a joke, tweeting:

Trump didnt tell police to go out & brutalize people as the media would have you believe. It was a joke.

Jim Bueermann, who heads the nonprofit Police Foundation, told CNN that the organization welcomes Trumps support for law enforcement but we cannot support any commentary  in sincerity or jest  that undermines the trust that our communities place in us to protect and serve.

Police departments are under increased scrutiny for violent, often fatal interactions with suspects. So far this year, 574 people have been shot and killed by police, according to The Washington Posts Fatal Force database. Last year, police shot and killed 963 people.

This years killings included the Minneapolis police shooting of Justine Damond, an Australian woman who called 911 to report a possible rape in the alley near her home and ended up shot dead by the responding officers.

The departments missteps  neither officer had activated his body camera, so theres no video evidence of the fatal encounter  resulted in international criticism and the ouster of Minneapolis police Chief Janee Harteau.

She was the fourth chief in recent years to lose her job after a controversial fatal shooting.
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By Jeff PaschalGrowing up the 1960s and 70s, I vaguely recall practicing nuclear war drills at school. When the alarm sounded, we were supposed to duck and cover. So we either got under our desks or the teachers herded us into the hallways, where we sat with our backs against the walls and our heads between our knees until it was time to go back to the classroom.

The routine was about the same for tornado drills.

I suppose U.S. schoolchildren dont do nuclear war drills anymore. After all, theyre pretty busy with active shooter lockdown drills.

Back in the 1960s and 70s, we kids were also given pamphlets with pictures and instructions about what to do if we just happened to see a nuclear bomb go off. As I recall, there was a number of suggestions that might increase our likelihood of surviving an attack:

Dont look directly at the explosion; it could blind you.

If you can, get below ground level to a fallout shelter; if you cant, at least get down behind a sturdy building, wall, or big tree.

After the explosion, stay inside for several days. Only venture out when radioactivity has dropped and youre certain its safe.

Make sure only to drink fluids and eat foods uncontaminated by radiation. Once you go outside, make sure to brush away any fallout that lands on you.

Reasonable instructions.

Of course, what the pamphlets never said was, And you can kiss your life goodbye.

Despite the fact that the U.S. and Russia still have thousands of nuclear weapons pointed at each other, held back by the threat of MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction), and a number of other nations also have acquired their very own nuclear arms, nuclear war has largely evaporated from our consciousness. Science fiction novels such as Cormac McCarthys The Road and movies such as the Terminator and The Day After remind us just how dreadful a nuclear war might be.

But with the rising tensions between the U.S. and North Korea, the specter of nuclear war is once again rearing its mushroom cloud-shaped head. And the stakes not just for the U.S. and North Korea but for the planet could hardly be higher.

North Korea, of course, is run by a brutal, repressive regime that treats its citizens with a remarkable blend of savagery that includes torture, starvation, rape and murder. Its leader, Kim Jong Un thrives on aggression and threats.

Despite years of sanctions, talks and our own threats, North Korea has nuclear weapons and the ever-growing capacity to deliver them to nearby countries and even the United States. What should we do?

Elise Hu, international correspondent for NPR, says policy experts believe we have three options:

Further isolation with economic sanctions and pressure from regional neighbors.

Military moves.

Diplomatic engagement, which would require accepting Pyongyang as a nuclear-armed state.

Many years of sanctions and pressure have not worked and seem unlikely to work in the future. Thus, some people argue that the U.S. should pursue a military option.

There are at least two problems with this approach. One, so-called pre-emptive war is immoral and against the Christian principles of Just War Theory. Its simply wrong to attack another country, because they have armed themselves with weapons that we also possess.

Two, no matter how fast and unexpected the attack, civilian and military casualties would be horrific. As Hu points out, 24 million people live in the Seoul metropolitan area and 28,000 American troops are stationed in South Korea.

And who knows how the situation might spin out of control into all-out nuclear war? Duck and cover and fallout shelters wont be enough if the world is on fire.

The best of the three options is diplomacy and accepting that North Korea is a state with nuclear capability. Yes, this is unpalatable, but it seems to be the most hopeful of three difficult options.

Wont constructive change come to North Korea as it has positive interactions with other countries? And wont the people transform their government as they are exposed to truth, not propaganda?

In the meantime, lets contact President Trump and Congress and urge them to find a diplomatic solution, not a military one. And it would help the situation if our president stopped answering North Korean threats with aggressive tweets.

In a commencement address years ago, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, We must all learn to live together as brothers  or we will all perish together as fools.

Brothers and sisters, lets find a way to live together.
WASHINGTON  Eventually, everyone in this town seems to wind up with the word poor in front of his or her name.

Such a fate is especially likely if one has associated with Donald Trump. As in, Poor Attorney General Jeff Sessions. He is latest to the firing line that has included such formerlys as FBI Director James Comey, national security adviser Michael Flynn and acting-Attorney General Sally Yates, as well as the voluntarily resigned  press secretary Sean Spicer, and Communications Director Michael Dubke.

Trump has begun making inquiries about firing Sessions, barring a resignation prompted by the presidents tweeted attempts at shaming him into resigning. His crime? A perceived lack of loyalty. Having recused himself from involvement in the FBIs Trump-Russia investigation  and, therefore, from defending the president, as Trump sees it  Sessions is no longer useful. (For the record, Sessions did reportedly offer to resign at one point.)

Speaking of loyalty, Trump offers little of what he expects from others. Way back in early 2016, when few were willing to sidle up to the Republican front-runner, Sessions bet the farm on this reality-show celebrity. He was the first sitting senator to endorse Trump, trading his legacy for the near-certain promise of a top position in the new administration.

Whatever Sessions hopes for the job, Trump apparently assumed that the attorney general would serve at his pleasure, regardless of what inconvenient ethics might preclude Sessions from also acting as the presidents personal defense attorney  that is, should any pre-emptive measures prove inadequate to thwart unwanted scrutiny.

Sessions recusal wasnt only correct but probably unavoidable. It was revealed the day before his announcement that he had twice met with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, in July and September of 2016, despite having said during his confirmation hearing that he hadnt. Like so many others who joined the Trump White House, Sessions seemed to have forgotten the meetings.

Kislyak must be one forgettable fellow. Everyone he meets from Trump World suffers amnesia, recalling not so much as a handshake. Though Ive not had the pleasure, Kislyak looks like a jovial sort who enjoys a hearty chuckle. His sides must be splitting these days as Trump repeals and replaces officials who are investigating Russia or who deny knowing any Russians.

Testifying before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Sessions has said that his meetings with Kislyak, come to think of it, were routine and part of his activities as senator, not as a campaign operative. Except for the fact that Sessions was part of the campaign at the time of those meetings, theres no reason to doubt him.

Trump seems less bothered that Sessions, Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner all have contradicted his claims that none of his campaign people had ever met with any Russians associated with the government than by the realization that Sessions isnt protecting his backside.

To the nations chief executive, the latter spells kaputzkah. In recent tweets, the president called the attorney general beleaguered, accused him of being very weak on Hillary Clinton (why now?), and questioned his competence, saying: Ukrainian efforts to sabotage Trump campaign  quietly working to boost Clinton. So where is the investigation A.G. (Say this for Trump: He has resisted servitude to punctuation and grammar.)

Sure, Trump must know that Sessions vowed during his confirmation hearing that, if confirmed, he would recuse himself from any matters concerning Hillary Clinton. After all, the hearing was televised. But why mention Clinton in this episode of Trumps reality presidency? Because when the heat is on, Trump always sprinkles a little Clinton in the mix. How better to turn his supporters against Sessions and create momentum for him to resign than to remind Republican voters that Sessions let Clinton get away with (fill in the blank).

In the latest off-the-cuff true confession, Trump told The New York Times that he never would have nominated Sessions as attorney general had he known hed recuse himself. Recall that he also said he fired Comey because of the Russia investigation. Nobody ever accused the president of subtlety. The question now is, whos next?

Well know soon enough, but Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price might want to keep his medical license current.

As the Senate was preparing to vote again on the Obamacare repeal bill, Trump gave a rousing speech, saying he knew Price would get those votes. If not, Trump quipped, Youre fired! Poor Price.
By Melissa BoughtonN.C. Attorney General Josh Steins most important job is to keep people safe.

For the N.C. Department of Justice, which he heads, that can mean helping to keep criminals behind bars, protecting residents drinking water, going after health care providers engaged in Medicaid fraud and protecting consumers from unfair business practices.

DOJ attorneys also work with and represent numerous state agencies in contentious legal battles. They help district attorneys with complicated cases or conflicts of interest in special prosecutions.

That may soon change. In a last-minute surprise move, the General Assembly slashed the DOJs budget by $10 million.

This amounts to roughly 37 percent of the DOJs legal and administrative budget  the area that legislators specifically said the cut must be made. It is, in short, a big cut that will have even bigger consequences for the DOJ and every North Carolinian remotely interested in public safety.

Theres no way for this office to absorb $10 million in cuts without it affecting the work we do keeping people safe, Stein said in a recent interview.

Stein, a Democrat elected in 2016, and others at the DOJ are trying to come up with a responsible plan to minimize the impacts on the people they serve, but its no easy task. He has started asking agencies the DOJ provides services to for money to help with the massive budget cut.

The bulk of what the DOJ does involves providing legal services to state agencies to serve the people of the state, Stein said. The department handles, among many other things, all criminal appeals for district attorneys, all special prosecutions for district attorneys and all prisoner petitions to help the N.C. Court of Appeals. It also represents the N.C. Department of Labor in hearings held by its Occupational Safety and Health Division.

We provide these legal services and were asking the agencies and entities who benefit from our legal services to help us try to fill this gap, Stein said. Either we find some new (funding) or we eliminate positions.

He estimated that dozens of employees would lose their jobs but said he hopes it wont be more than 100.

If we just absorb the cut, it will be about 120 people, but our hope is that some of our client agencies will step up, he said.

There are about 407 positions in the DOJs legal services division, according to spokeswoman Laura Brewer. That figure counts attorneys, paralegals, clerical workers, consumer protection specialists and investigators, and includes any vacancies that exist.

Peg Dorer, the director of the N.C. Conference of District Attorneys, said she could not say yet how prosecutors across the state could be affected.

Dorer did say they received notice from Steins office letting them know that the DOJ will: 1. Be unable to continue handling all criminal appeals; 2. Be limited in the number of conflict cases they can accept for prosecution; 3. Be unable to defend prosecutors in civil suits against them; and 4. Be unable to continue representing the State in any pending or future motion for appropriate relief proceedings in the Superior Court for capital cases.

Since they handle all the appeals for the state and all of the post-conviction for capital cases, we are not sure how this is going to get done, Dorer said in an email. We do not have additional resources to put toward this work.

In addition to all its other duties, the DOJ handles really big, complicated matters for the state. One example of that is a pending lawsuit in which retired teachers and state employees, including former N.C. Supreme Court Chief Justice I. Beverly Lake Jr., are suing the State Health Plan and N.C. Treasurer Dale Folwell.

Stein represents both the State Health Plan and Folwell in that matter, and there is more than $100 million at stake.

Folwells office declined to comment about how the DOJ budget cut would affect it.

Thats not the only major case with a lot of money involved. Stein said a recent report shows that the DOJ is handling active cases valued at more than $300 million.

Obviously were going to still be able to do those big cases, but are we going to be able to do them as well? he asked. Are we going to be able to provide the level of representation that the taxpayer deserves to protect their wallet? And thats the risk that the General Assembly has put on the people of this state.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger and House Speaker Tim Moore did not return an email requesting a comment about the DOJ budget cut.

The Democratic leader in the Senate, Dan Blue, said in a radio interview with NC Policy Watchs Chris Fitzsimon that the budget cut was not only a surprise, it was a shock.

In taking $10 million out of the attorney generals office, they have determined that fighting crime is not as important a priority as it was before, Blue said.

He said that kind of cut is impossible for Stein to make up in other ways.

He cant adjust the workload on the other attorneys in the office to the extent that would be necessary for him to continue providing the service to the DAs around the state, Blue said.

Stein and Blue both speculated that the budget cut was politically motivated.

It was a spite move against the AG because they didnt like the fact that hes being a lawyer, Blue said.

Stein said he has heard that legislators are unhappy with him carrying out the duties of the office.

My job as attorney general is to protect the people of this state and thats what Im doing, thats what the lawyers in this office are doing, Stein said, and I think its unfortunate when people of different political parties allow their differences of opinion to undermine the public interest.

He said DOJ employees are nervous and have reason to be, but theyre also professionals who are working hard.

People come to work here because they want to help the people of this state; they want to serve the public, Stein said. Most of these folks could go work for private law firms and go make more money, but they made a choice in their career that they wanted to be a public lawyer, not a private lawyer, and its really demoralizing when the legislature, rather than valuing them and thanking them for their dedicated public service, jeopardizes their ability to do the work that they care about.
STOKESDALE  In the wake of police shootings, a 9-year-old boy is delivering food and drinks to area police departments to show his love for them and his appreciation of their service and dedication.

In the past two years, Jaxon Wilson has visited 28 departments with items ranging from doughnuts to fruit and snacks to water for the officers.

It makes me feel good and proud, said Jaxon, who hasnt decided if he wants to be an officer when he grows up.

His mother, Crystal, drives Jaxon to all the law-enforcement agencies in Rockingham County, as well as to High Point, Winston-Salem and Archdale.

The proud mother said her son got the volunteering bug when he was 6 and helped serve meals at Lot 2540 with fellow members from Ellisboro Baptist Church in Madison.

Seeing so many hungry children show up there to eat opened Jaxons eyes, she said.

That first day, Jaxon served spaghetti to anyone who was hungry. He was there for about six hours, and a lot of children came for a meal, Crystal said, adding, on the ride home, Jaxon was quiet for a while.

Then he said, Mama, I cant believe how many little kids are hungry in our town.

A short time later, Jaxon came up with the idea to collect food for Lot 2540. In nine months, he accumulated 1,240 cans of vegetables, soups, fruits and meats. Each week, Jaxon gathered the food and took it to Lot 2540s pantry on South Second Avenue in Mayodan.

Food came from their church, family, neighbors and strangers who saw it on Facebook.

People were calling from everywhere, she said.

Jaxons father, Ryan, is a member of the National Guard Unit out of Salisbury, so fellow guardsmen collected food there.

As more food came in, Jaxon was amazed at the response.

He did most of the work himself. All I did was drive the car, Crystal said. He loaded it, bagged it, and took it to the Lot and stocked it in the pantry.

Then, about two years ago, Jaxson saw on TV that some police officers had been shot.

He started crying, Crystal said. He knows his daddy is in the Army, and it could happen to him, too, Crystal said. It really affected him.

I was just heartbroken when I saw people shooting police officers on TV, Jaxson said. It made me real sad. I asked my mom if we could start giving out things to police.

Jaxon wanted police officers to know they were loved and appreciated, so he came up with the idea of taking them water and doughnuts.

He was anxious and excited because he loves the officers, Crystal. I was so proud and elated that he thought of this on his own. He didnt want to just sit home and play video games. He wanted to get out and help somebody.

He wrote a Bible verse and Jesus Loves You, or God Is With You on those first boxes before leaving the house.

The first place Jaxson visited was the Madison Police Department. He walked into the building alone, bearing his gift of doughnuts. The officer on duty was so impressed, he accompanied Jaxon back to the car, shook Crystals hand and said, Wow, what good young man.

Jaxon gave him the case of water he had also brought the officers.

That was the beginning. Each week, Crystal drives her son, a fourth-grader at New Vision Elementary School, to area departments to deliver his gifts.

His parents finance his project, but Jaxon repays with chores. Crystal works as a logistics supervisor for Target; Ryan is a helicopter repairman for the National Guard.

On vacation recently in Myrtle Beach, Jaxon surprised the officers there with fruit and cases of water. In Kernersville, Jaxson was excited to meet the canine handlers and their K-9 officers.

A special result of the visits has been the friendships Jaxon developed with some of the officers.

Mayodan Chief Charles Caruso said Jaxon comes to his department about every month.

Ive gotten to know him and went to have lunch with him at school. Hes a great young man, an outstanding young man Caruso said, adding the Mayodan Town Council recently recognized Jaxon for his outstanding service to the community.

We are very happy to have him in our community, Caruso said.

Mayodan Officer Landon Fellows met Jaxon last year, in the second week of his police career. Since then a special friendship has developed, and Jaxson often makes special trips just to give Fellows an energy drink or gift. They also exchanged gifts at Christmas.

He looks up to me, and I feel like I have a bigger role to play now, so I am trying to be the best example I can be, Fellows said.

Last week, Jaxon introduced his little brother, Max, 3, to the officers in Stoneville. Now Max is learning to be compassionate and caring for others. Baby sister, Kennedy-Jo, is only 1, but shell probably help her brothers when she is older.

You never know what little thing can change somebodys mood or spirit, Crystal said.

He just makes me proud every day. He made me a momma and Im so proud of him.

I think it is an awesome thing that his little boy is doing, said Stoneville Police Chief Frank Ward. I think it is a great gesture for our children to do these things. You dont expect it, and for a kid to want support law enforcement like that is a great example.
A day after a years-long effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act collapsed on Capitol Hill, President Donald Trump castigated Republican senators for their inability to pass legislation.

"They look like fools," Trump wrote Saturday morning on Twitter. He also renewed his demand that the Senate abolish a rule requiring 60 votes for some bills, despite the fact that the filibuster had nothing to do with the health-care bill's failure on Friday.

Trump's multi-chaptered and occasionally self-contradictory rant kicked off early Friday morning, shortly after three Republican senators joined every Democrat to sink the GOP's last-ditch effort to overturn Obamacare, 51 to 49.

At first, Trump seemed resigned to let the Affordable Care Act, also referred to as Obamacare, take its course, convinced that the program will fail and force Congress to replace it.

But shortly after the sun rose on Friday, Trump began pushing for new bills, which he argued could not pass unless the Senate abolished the legislative filibuster, which had nothing to do with last week's failure on the Obamacare repeal.

The filibuster lets a minority party block legislation that would ordinarily pass with a simple majority of votes.

Trump acknowledged in his tweets that "parts of health care could pass at 51" votes - as Friday's repeal bill could have.

But "so many great future bills & budgets need 60 votes," Trump wrote, before digressing from health care to post a #FlashBackFriday tweet, and then to announce that he'd replaced his White House chief of staff.

As he continued his tweet storm into Saturday, Trump offered examples of bills that could not abide a filibuster - along with heaping new demands, threats and insults on Republican senators.

His tweet: "Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW! It is killing the R Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!"

He insisted that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., eliminate the filibuster immediately, al though McConnell dismissed the idea when Trump raised it months ago.

By way of persuasion, apparently, Trump wrote that Republican senators "look like fools and are just wasting time," and will "NEVER win" until they kill the rule.

It's worth noting that while Trump now attacks the filibuster as antiquated, four years earlier he defended it as a venerable tradition dating back to Thomas Jefferson. Once used rarely and memorably (as when a senator spoke and sang for 15 hours to block a vote in 1992), the filibuster has become an almost routine tactic for minority parties to impede bills and Cabinet and judicial nominees they can't defeat in a straight-up vote.

On Saturday, Trump blamed the filibuster for hypothetically allowing Democrats to block "complete Healthcare," though so far Republican senators have not been able to unite around even a narrowly tailored bill like Friday's attempt to pass a so-called skinny repeal.

Trump also wrote that "Kate's Law," a bill that would increase punishments for criminals who illegally reenter the United States after being deported, would never pass with the filibuster in place.

To attempt a summary of his arguments so far: Trump knows that some health-care bills could pass through the Senate with a simple majority of votes. Friday's repeal bill could have, for example. But Republicans need to kill the filibuster anyway, Trump argues, lest it allow Democrats to block a more sweeping health-care reform bill, which does not yet exist but will be supported by a majority of senators (but not 60 of them) once it is written.

If that logic strikes you as confusing, you're not alone:

Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., tweeted: "If McCain had just voted yes they would have had those 60 votes required under reconciliation! No, wait...."

And yet Trump was not nearly done. Shortly before 8 a.m., he tweeted: "If the Senate Democrats ever got the chance, they would switch to a 51 majority vote in first minute."

And also: "They are laughing at R's. MAKE CHANGE!"

And while Democrats were laughing at his party, Trump wrote, "the people of our great country are still being forced to live with imploding ObamaCare!"

At the beginning of his rant - if you recall - Trump had wanted Congress to let Obamacare implode. Now, midway through, implosion was a bad thing.

Things are so bad, Trump wrote, that "if a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!"

He then digressed again to talk about the stock market - up since his election, he wrote. But Trump returned to his health-care monologue in the late afternoon, with another dig at Republicans who have spent years trying and failing to reform the nation's health-care system.

Try again, the president told the senators, or you're "total quitters."
Police leaders across the country moved quickly to distance themselves from - or to outright condemn - President Donald Trump's statements about "roughing up" people who've been arrested.

The swift public denunciations came as departments are under intense pressure to stamp out brutality and excessive force that can erode the relationship between officers and the people they police - and cost police chiefs their jobs.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 3 1 of 3 Spencer Platt/Getty Images Show More Show Less 2 of 3 Alex Brandon/Associated Press Show More Show Less 3 of 3





Some police leaders worried that three sentences uttered by the president during a Long Island, New York, speech could upend nearly three decades of fence-mending since the 1991 Los Angeles Police Department beating of Rodney King ushered in an era of distrust of police.

"It's the wrong message," Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told Washington, D.C., radio station WTOP while speaking of the trust-building work that departments have undertaken since King's beating. "The last thing we need is a green light from the president of the United States for officers to use unnecessary force."

Trump made the comments at a gathering of law enforcement officers at Suffolk County Community College in New York.

"When you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?" Trump said, miming the physical motion of an officer shielding a suspect's head to keep it from bumping against the squad car.

"Like, don't hit their head, and they just killed somebody - don't hit their head," Trump continued. "I said, you can take the hand away, OK?"

Trump's remarks came after he spoke about local towns ravaged by gang violence.

Across the country, police department leaders said the president's words didn't reflect their views.

"The Suffolk County Police Department has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners, and violations of those rules and procedures are treated extremely seriously," the department said in an emailed statement. "As a department, we do not and will not tolerate 'rough(ing)' up prisoners."

Trump's comments also drew a rebuke from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In a statement Friday, the group did not specifically mention Trump by name but appeared to respond to his speech by stressing the importance of treating all people, including suspects, with respect.

Mike Lopez, a Los Angeles police spokesman, told CNN that the department will "treat everyone with integrity and respect."

"We work with partnerships in our community and continue to do that to keep our communities safe and secure from crime," he told the news network. "With the help of our community we will continue to do this."

Darrel Stephens, a former police chief who is now the executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, told The Washington Post that the president's words were a step back for police departments.

"Over the past two or three years, police departments have worked very, very hard to restore the loss of confidence and trust that people, particularly in the African-American community, have in the police, based on what happened in Ferguson and the other high profile shootings," Stephens said. "Maybe not just what the president said, but the reaction of the police officers standing behind him, I think that complicates that.

"It sort of reinforces that there's sort of a wink and a nod about these things, when that's simply not the case."

Statements from other police leaders followed.

In a statement to Patch.com, Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole said:

"Seattle's police officers have embraced reform and have worked incredibly hard to build community trust. We do not intend to go backwards. It is truly unfortunate that in today's toxic environment, politicians at both ends of the spectrum have sought to inflame passions by politicizing what we do. We remain committed to our principles and reject irresponsible statements that threaten to undermine our relationship with the community."

A Boston Police Department statement obtained by CNN said the department's "priority has been and continues to be building relationships and trust with the community we serve. As a police department we are committed to helping people, not harming them."

In New York, Police Commissioner James O'Neill told the network that to "suggest that police officers apply any standard in the use of force other than what is reasonable and necessary is irresponsible, unprofessional and sends the wrong message to law enforcement as well as the public."

But the group Blue Lives Matter insisted that the president's remarks were a joke, tweeting:

"Trump didn't tell police to go out & brutalize people as the media would have you believe. It was a joke."

Jim Bueermann, who heads the nonprofit Police Foundation, told CNN that the organization welcomes Trump's support for law enforcement but "we cannot support any commentary - in sincerity or jest - that undermines the trust that our communities place in us to protect and serve."

Police departments are under increased scrutiny for violent, often fatal interactions with suspects. So far this year, 574 people have been shot and killed by police, according to The Washington Post's Fatal Force database. Last year, police shot and killed 963 people.

This year's killings included the Minneapolis police shooting of Justine Damond, an Australian woman who called 911 to report a possible rape in the alley near her home and ended up shot dead by the responding officers.

The department's missteps - neither officer had activated his body camera, so there's no video evidence of the fatal encounter - resulted in international criticism and the ouster of Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau.

She was the fourth chief in recent years to lose her job after a controversial fatal shooting.
Home computers went through a megahertz war and smartphone manufacturers did not learn from that mistake. As early as January 2009 the pocket rockets crossed the 1GHz mark - the Toshiba TG01 got there first. It had a single Scorpion core in its Snapdragon S1 chipset paired with 256MB RAM. It seemed downright excessive at the time.

Even feature phones had climbing clock speeds, the Samsung Jet got up to 800MHz that same year, later phones like the Nokia C3-01 (from 2010) got up to a full gigahertz.



Toshiba TG01  Samsung S8000 Jet  Nokia C3-01 Touch and Type

As with Intel's NetBurst, physics got in the way of progress - high clock speeds use up too much power. On the desktop side, that resulted in 100+ W TDP chips that needed leaf blowers to cool. On the mobile side, it just killed the battery.

So makers chose another number to increase each year - the number of processor cores. LG produced the first dual-core phone in 2011, the LG Optimus 2X. This time it was Nvidia that supplied the chip, a Tegra 2 AP20H with two Cortex-A9 cores.

They were clocked at 1GHz again, even though the Motorola DROID 2 Global breached the 1GHz barrier in late 2010 (with a single Cortex-A8 core).

We'll ignore Instructions Per Clock (IPC) - if you're interested in real world performance, then check out our mobile chipset guide. We're focusing on bragging rights here - who reached a specific milestone first.

Also, keep in mind that we're not counting baseband processors. At one point, makers (like Nokia) were claiming dual CPUs, but the truth is that neither the OS nor apps could use that other processor. In fact, the baseband processors ran a completely separate OS (it's why the modem firmware is a separate file from Android when you're flashing a custom ROM).

It wouldn't be until late 2012 when phones clocked up to 2GHz - another Moto, the RAZR i XT890 (one of the early superminis). It was Intel, a veteran of the megahertz wars, that got there with a single Atom core.



LG Optimus 2X  Motorola RAZR i XT890

As proof that increasing clock speed is an uphill battle, the first quad-core phones came out before the first 2GHz phone. The HTC One X (Tegra 3) and Samsung Galaxy S III (Exynos 4412) came in May 2012.



HTC One X  Samsung I9300 Galaxy S III

We're yet to see the first 3GHz mobile, though with ever-improving manufacturing nodes, we're getting close - the 20nm Helio X27 promises up to 2.6GHz, as does the 10nm Helio X30. We'll revisit Helio in a moment, but first, on to the octa-core phones.

Samsung continued to pump up the specs and in March 2013, the Samsung Galaxy S4 came out with eight CPU cores - four Cortex-A15 and four Cortex-A7. Yes, the age of big.LITTLE was upon us.

Interestingly, the Snapdragon variant of the phone had only four cores - Krait 300s - but they were clocked higher (1.9GHz vs. 1.6GHz) than the A15s, which made the performance fairly equal.



Samsung I9500 Galaxy S4  Samsung I9505 Galaxy S4

After a long gap came the next jump - in April 2016, the LeEco Le 2 Pro launched with the Helio X25 (told you we'd come back). It had a 10-core (deca-core) processor - two big Cortex-A72 cores, plus two groups of four A53s.

The Helio X30 mentioned above swaps the second little cluster with even tinier Cortex-A35 cores. That makes the Helio X30 the only chipset so far to use three different kinds of cores (and the only phone chipset to use the A35).



LeEco Le 2 Pro

Will we see a 12-core processor soon? Perhaps. The A53 (not to mention A35) core is tiny and you can cram a lot of them on a 10nm or even a 14nm process. Not that it would make much sense, but we're not sold on the idea that 10 or even 8 cores make sense either.

You see, Apple's in-house chipsets have very few cores. We said we won't talk about IPC, so let's just say that Apple's custom cores destroy both Cortex and Kryo there. That's how it can get away with so few cores.

Still, Apple went up from 2 to 3 cores for the iPad Air 2. Apple is the only chipset maker to use an odd number of cores, by the way. We have other oddities like the 6-core (hexa-core) chips - an Exynos 5260 in the Galaxy Note 3 Neo (February 2014) or the Snapdragon 808 in the LG G4 (April 2015).



Apple iPad Air 2  Samsung Galaxy Note 3 Neo  LG G4

Recently, hexa-core designs became very popular in the mid-range. They offer a couple of big cores for fast single-thread performance, plus four little cores for low-power operation and multi-threaded boost. We think it offers a great balance of price, power and battery life and we'd love to see more of those.

After years of dual and quad Core i-something processors, Ryzen rekindled AMD's rivalry with Intel. It's now fairly easy for an enthusiast to grab an octa-core processor. Threadripper goes up to 16 cores and the latest Core i9 has 18! In short, we don't expect mobile chip makers to curb core counts and 6/8 cores will be standard for quite a while... unless you're Apple, of course.
Another week another new champion in our top 10 trending list. The Samsung Galaxy J7 Pro is the second J7 device to lead the pack in the past three weeks and the fourth different winner in as many editions of the chart.

Nokia 6 slipped to second, while the Samsung Galaxy S8 retained the last spot on the rostrum.

Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 climbed to fourth, edging out the Samsung Galaxy J7 Prime, while the smaller Redmi 4 also gained a couple of spots and is now sixth.

In seven we have a new name on the chart - the Xiaomi Mi 5X debuted this week and immediately made it to the top 10.

The Samsung Galaxy J7 Max is eight, while the OnePlus 5 lost quite a few positions and took ninth. Samsung Galaxy J5 (2017) snatches the last available spot to make it four members of the J series among the 10 most popular devices in our database this week.
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Haiti - Politics : Moise launches the work of the Caravan in the city of Les Cayes





Friday, as part of the Caravan of Change in the South, President Jovenel Moise, accompanied among others of Mayor Jean Gabriel Fortune, Senator Pierre Francois Sildor, and Deputy Clauvy Robas, proceeded to Cas Cie, to the launch of infrastructure works in the city of Les Cayes in the presence of a large number of residents.



This work, which includes paving the streets of the city, clearing irrigation canals, clearing the banks of all the rivers in the south, building decent habitats for the population, will enable the third City of the country to gradually recover from the heavy damage caused by the passage of Hurricane Matthew in October 2016 and the populations to improve their living conditions.



In his speech, the Head of State called on everyone to support the efforts of his administration, which wants to print a new imprint on the Haitian State in order to become truly at the service of the Haitian people. Moise gave assurances that all steps will be taken to ensure that the reconstruction of the city of Les Cayes becomes a reality affirming "All my promises will be fulfilled".



Friday evening, at Rue Toussaint Louverture, the Head of State attended the launch of the paving works of the streets of the city of Les Cayes.



HL/ S/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - Social : First Lady pays tribute to women Mayors





Friday, at the Hotel Karibe Convention Center, at a Gala organized by the Ministry of the Interior, First Lady Martine Moise, paid tribute to the 143 women Mayors and deputies Mayors of Haiti.



In the presence of the Minister of the Interior Max Rodolphe Saint Albin, the Minister for Women's Affairs and Women's Rights, Eunide Innocent, parliamentarians and members of the Government and the Mayors and deputies Mayors of the country, the First Lady welcomed the sacrifice of these women who had to overcome the obstacles to be candidates and congratulated the political groups that have framed them during their campaigns.



"You are heroines because you made the difference. I am proud of you, as well as all the Haitian women who are watching you. You are role models for them and you can count on me !" stressed Martine Moise, who took the opportunity to welcome the election of these women and promise to be their advocate along with her husband, the President of the Republic.



Minister Saint Albin thanked the First Lady for her support to the realization of this evening of tribute and asked the mayors and their deputies mayors not to give up "History expects a lot from you" reminding the important role they have to play in the development of the country, he reiterated the unconditional support of his Ministry to the struggle of the mayors of Haiti and announced a partnership of solidarity between them, his Ministry and the Office of the First Lady.



The Minister for the Status of Women Eunide Innocent praised the support of the presidential couple in the struggle for respect and promotion of women's rights in Haiti. She recalled that this tribute to these women elected participates in the recognition of their contributions to the building of a more just and egalitarian society.



The Mayor of Arcahaie, Rosemilla Petit-Frere Sainvil, also President of the Federation of Women Mayors of Haiti, welcomed the initiative taken by the Office of the First Lady and its artners "The homage is yours, Firest Lady, as well as women and women's organizations in the country who are constantly struggling, sometimes at the risk of their lives. It is thanks to these battles that we will have the chance to have all these women today within the Municipal Administrations in Haiti."



HL/ HaitiLibre


















Published on 2017/07/30 | Source

A Korean woman who was forced to serve as a sex slave to Japanese troops during World War II died on Sunday. With the death of Kim Kun-ja at the age of 91, the total number of survivors has now dwindled to 37.

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Born in Pyeongchang, Gangwon Province in 1926, Kim was forced into sexual slavery in 1942 and sent to a military brothel for troops stationed in China's Jilin Province.

She tried to escape several times but failed, only to suffer horrendous assaults by Japanese soldiers that led to the permanently loss of hearing in her left ear.

She returned to Korea after Japan's defeat at the end of World War II and made a living as a street vendor. She moved to the House of Sharing, a shelter for former sex slaves, in Gwangju, Gyeonggi Province in 1998.

Kim donated more than W250 million to charitable causes and pledged to give away the rest of her money, except W5 million for her funeral expenses, gathered from donations by supporters. (US$1=W1,121). Around 700 people donated W1.1 billion to help support Kim.

The Korean government listed a total of 238 sex slavery victims.
By Vasia Orion | Published on 2017/07/29

South Korea was shaken quite badly by last year's political scandal and the absurd nature of its cult element has been widely discussed. It is only a matter of time before Dramaland takes a bigger dive into the dark side of religion after occasionally dipping its toes in it and "Save Me" might take that plunge.

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Four young men struggling to get by in their challenging lives reunite with an old acquaintance who asks for their help. The woman and her family are being held captive by a religious cult. The four young men band together in order to save her and expose the cult's true face.

The Worrying

Lead Actors

The two leads are what originally put me off this series, as my experience with them has been quite negative. While I enjoy Ok Taecyeon and Seo Yea-ji's work choices, both have been barely watchable on the acting scale for me. Admittedly, my experience is limited and I so I hope that both have improved enough to carry what seems like a challenging work.

Unknown Writer/s

With a cast which I cannot yet trust carrying a fresh premise for Korean drama in a channel rarely stepping outside of their crime-related comfort zone, a writer without a track record is yet another worrying unknown. Quite a lot of articles and some databases have two writers on board, but it will be a challenge regardless and I hope they are up for it.

The Reassuring

Cult Theme

The topic of religion's darker underbelly has been rarely featured in Korean drama. The mudang case in "God's Quiz" and the "exorcist" in "Vampire Detective" are two examples. The industry has received pressure from the censorship body acting on complaints from religious groups in the past and so I understand their hesitation. Even so "Save Me" is here, it is fresh and exciting.

Citizen's Arrest

Crime shows often rely on the suspense and action of the chase, which is for the most part handled by law enforcement. This is why most leading characters in such shows are detectives, prosecutors and other members of the law. A series where rescue is the focus and struggling young adults the heroes is a welcome change and frankly a more suspenseful approach.

Closing Thoughts

I always try to curb my expectations when a drama's promotion and premise are exciting. I know better by now, but it is a testament to the quality of that promotion when I struggle and "Save Me" has me struggling. I want this to be good very badly, but I will be prepared for anything.

"Save Me" begins its run on August 5th and will air every Saturday and Sunday at 22:00, on OCN. It is directed by Kim Seong-soo, written by Jeong Sin-gyoo and Jeong I-do-I and features Ok Taecyeon, Seo Yea-ji, Cho Seong-ha and Woo Do-hwan.

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Written by: Orion from 'Orion's Ramblings'
By William Schwartz | Published on 2017/07/29

You've probably heard that Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, their originally having had a nation state there a few thousand years ago. What tends to get less press are the people who have been living there ever since the Jews left. And who are, somewhat awkwardly, still living in the area as the Israeli government slowly tries to take over their territory, while still paradoxically agreeing that, on the private level, much of this land has been owned for generations by Palestinians who are not Israeli citizens.

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That's the Kafkaesque situation depicted in "All Live, Olive" wherein olive farmers must apply for passes to go to their own land and harvest their olives, which are then processed into products with the label "made in Israel" attached. I imagine everyone's quite familiar now with the human rights issues in Palestine. If nothing else, "All Live, Olive" definitely brings something new to the discussion just by emphasizing the pointlessly inconvenient bureaucracy that seems specially designed to bully the landowners into selling their olive farms to Israelis.

But wait, you might be asking, isn't there a legitimate security risk, what with Palestinian terrorists? That's an obvious question although directors Ju Ro-mi and Kim Tae-il never get around to asking it. That's mostly because such a question is redundant. While the community members we see in "All Live, Olive" are bitter and angry, they're mostly bitter and angry about the looming possibility that they won't be able to leave anything to their children.

When that motivation is kept in mind, there's really no benefit for them to get into a war where their possessions will be lost. We only see one scene of immediate violence in "All Live, Olive", and it's prompted by the appearance of a bulldozer- a machine that exists for the sole purpose of destroying property. Considering the camera constantly focuses on the aftermath of such violence in the past, it's little surprise that mere bitterness turns into rage when the prospect of more violence should reappear right in front of them.

To people like this, distinctions about whether the Israeli government has the technical legal right to enforce checkpoints, seize territory, and tear buildings down are meaningless. Indeed, they dislike the Palestinian Authority for these same reasons- as far as they can tell it's just another pointless bureaucracy that makes life inconvenient. At best the Palestinian Authority just makes international headlines, usually in unhelpful ways.

"All Live, Olive" is the latest in an increasing trend of Korean documentary directors taking their cameras and traveling worldwide in search of solidarity, and other oppressed peoples, so that they may listen to their stories. One analogy I rather liked, if unelaborated, was a man asking the filmmakers how they would feel if Japan was still in Korea, pushing Koreans around and telling them what to do. It's distressing to think that the West Bank occupation has managed to last longer than the Japanese occupation of Korea, with no end in sight.

Review by William Schwartz

"All Live, Olive" is directed by Ju Ro-mi and Kim Tae-il.
Published on 2017/07/30 | Source

Job applicants head for an interview at a company in Seoul on July 14. /Yonhap

More than half of young jobseekers spend at least W200,000 a month to pad out their resumes and improve their chances in an increasingly competitive employment market (US$1=W1,122).

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For many young jobseekers, who have no stable income, that is very expensive.

Job portal Saramin polled 500 jobseekers last week, and 51 percent said they spend more than W200,000 a month to boost their skills and stand out in the job market. Some spend W500,000 to W1 million and a handful more than W1 million.

The respondents estimated that they have spent an average of W3.56 million to prepare to land a job -- mostly to learn skills at private crammers, get certificates and to improve their appearance for job interviews.

As competition grows red-hot, spending is soaring.

Some 79.8 percent said their expenditure on padding out their resumes is a burden, and 84.1 percent of those who have been looking for jobs for more than a year said the amount is taking a serious toll on their finances.

They turn to various sources to come up with the money. Some 52.2 percent said they use their own funds, 41.2 percent ask their parents, 35.6 percent work part-time jobs, and 10 percent said borrow money from banks or friends.

But 59.8 percent feel they are wasting their money. Some 42.8 percent said the money they spend learning new skills has no direct correlation to their careers, and 39.1 percent that the new skills are not helping them land jobs.

Some 52.5 percent regretted spending money on TOEIC or other English proficiency tests. But 51.8 percent also said they have no choice but to spend the money because not doing so made them feel too anxious.
Chris Gillispie Old Colony

I am a licensed, full time Realtor with Old Colony of Huntington in OH and WV. I have been helping buyers and sellers for over 15 years. I have experience in all aspects of Real Estate including residential, commercial, multi-family, investment, property management and short sales. I find it very rewarding helping first time home buyers through the process. As a Chesapeake High School Alumni and lifelong resident of the Tri-State, I am knowledgeable about the area and connected to the people of the communities in which I serve.
BRISTOL, Tenn.  Dozens of comic book, game and movie characters swarmed Viking Hall Saturday for Rob-Con, an annual comic book convention in the Tri-Cities.

One couple, Brian Osborne and Tyrah Green of Abingdon, Virginia, had returned for a special occasion. They met for the first time at last years comic book convention.

A year ago today, this is where we met, said Osborne, 31. Weve been together ever since. This is a special event for us.

Like many others attending Rob-Con, the pair dressed in costume. They arrived as Mario and Luigi, from the classic Nintendo video game franchise, wearing green and red outfits and mustaches. Osborne said they both have played Mario games since they were children.

We were going to go as Shaggy and Velma [from "Scooby Doo"], but we couldnt find the material, Osborne said. This was the easiest to make.

And last year, Green, 22, dressed as Buttercup, a character from The Powerpuff Girls, a popular animated cartoon series.

We love looking around, meeting the different people, the costumes and the old-school gaming systems, Osborne said of attending the convention.

While talking about their costumes, the couple met Logan Tindell, 39, of Johnson City, who has a Mario tattoo on his forearm.

Me and my papaw used to play Mario when I was younger, and when he passed away, I got that in remembrance of him, said Tindell, who attended Rob-Con with his wife, Michelle Tindell, 34, and niece, Amber Byrge, 21.

Michelle Tindell excitedly showcased a copy of The Batman Adventures that she found at Rob-Con. The issue features the first appearance of Harley Quinn, Michelle Tindells favorite character.

Ive been looking for this one for years, she said.

Robert Pilk, the events namesake, said he expected about 2,000 people to attend the two-day event, which ends today at 5:30 p.m. Various comic book vendors, artists and authors were on hand.

The event regularly draws people from around the region and surrounding states.

Ron Ramey, 47, of Johnson City, Tennessee, was looking for Swamp Thing comics.

Swamp Thing is a huge comic for me, said Ramey, who attended the event with his friend, Allen Ramsey, 43, of Jonesborough, Tennessee.

Ramey was a first-time guest Saturday at Rob-Con.

I always try to support local stuff going on in the area, Ramey said. I love comic books. I like to check out the cosplay [costume play].

Ramey said he grew up in the 70s and enjoyed comics.

I took a break from it. I kind of picked it back up about 10 years ago, Ramey said.

His friend, Ramsey, also recalled buying comics when he was a child with his father.

I started to collect them, said Ramsey, who has been to Rob-Con multiple times. Over the years, Ive gotten 5-6,000.

Both men said they enjoy the horror comics, including Swamp Thing. Ramey also said he enjoys Vampirella, House of Secrets and House of Mystery.

I think this is great, Ramey said of Rob-Con. Its really cool. Its a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I like all of the cosplay.

Author Timothy Zahn of Oregon was the guest of honor at the convention. The New York Times best-selling author of Star Wars books had a continuous line of fans waiting for selfies and autographs.
Enchanting, reminiscent, fascinating: However you choose to describe todays stories on the history of downtown Bristol, it will likely relate to one of these descriptions.

By refinishing and repurposing those old, previously unoccupied buildings, weve transformed these brick-and-mortar eyesores into a vibrant, busy downtown thats exactly the picture others imagine when they think of old Main Street, U.S.A.

And its the kind of history and achievement we  both Bristols  should capitalize on.

The Twin Citys collaborative visioning project, similar to the 1997 Ignite! project, would involve some discussion about continued downtown revitalization but has taken a back seat for the foreseeable future. In March, Bristol Tennessee City Council chose to focus on their citys comprehensive plan, and Bristol, Virginia, is bluntly not in the right place financially to participate.

But lets keep talking about it. Keeping our downtowns integrity on the cities agendas allows that postponed item to maintain visibility, especially for Bristol, Virginia. Wed like to see more involvement from Bristol, Virginia, on our downtowns transformation, but we realize the pervasive demands of their situation.

With the addition of banners emblazoned with the redesigned city logo and slogan, downtown Bristol is looking quite charming and cohesive. But that effort was championed by Bristol, Tennessee; the other half of the city backed out due to budgetary limitations.

The current fiscal years budget for both Bristols is already in place, and Bristol, Virginia, is already facing new challenges with the new rush to find a city animal shelter. Remember also that City Council voted to reduce funding for tourism in this years budget. Regarding Exit 5, the financial stakes are quite high, candidly, and Bristol, Virginia, cant afford to lose focus on that recuperating project.

This proposal, then, does not intend to add to that weight but instead suggests a citywide effort to keep revitalization of downtown Bristol both within scope and as a shared priority. If Bristol Virginia City Council can create more enthusiasm for downtown among residents, we might see an increase in involvement and furthered support for the work already accomplished by our dedicated historical societies and groups like Believe in Bristol.

The idea of downtown is making a comeback nationwide, and now is the time to take the opportunity to help ours flourish.

Weve previously bemoaned the weed-like growth of mega shopping centers in our region versus exploring other business opportunities. An unexpressed part of those complaints is the lack of character apparent in those facades.

The appeal of downtown Bristol is inherent in its architecture, but part of it is also the variety of offerings that have potential to build on. Reading todays stories on downtown Bristols history elaborates on that more than we need to here.

Improving the walkability of downtown by attracting additional, new and unique businesses in and around State Street also offers an economic return. Various studies suggest that revenue from small businesses offers a greater return of investment and recirculation in the community than revenue from chain retailers and stores. The effort thus far has been successful at attracting business owners who have also created competition, leading to a better market.

The respect for local history also accompanies the effort. The impressive work done to restore the art deco designs and even the intention (as noticed with the presence of three labeled post offices) contrasts nicely with the fanfare and energy of Bristol Motor Speedway just down Volunteer Parkway. The package both Bristols can currently advertise shows an appreciation of the eclectic and the modern that we need to continue building on.

We dont mean to romanticize the endeavor. After all, its not just preservation of material buildings. Its self-preservation: Its part of what makes Bristol unique and contributes to our economic sustainability. Investing in our downtown means we invest in ourselves  our history and our future.

While obviously constricted for various reasons, conversation about Bristols welfare that is lively, realistic and foundational needs to be maintained for the moment when both cities decide they can fruitfully reconvene.

Lets keep this in focus  for our history and for both sides of us.
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.
#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...
HICKORY  Im excited to announce that Kim Dahlsten, IOM, joined our team this week as vice president of operations.

Dahlsten will serve as the administrative officer for the organization and will oversee the organizational development and programming functions of the organization from overseeing staff, establishing benchmarks and performance goals, planning and executing chamber programs and special events and fostering relationships with our volunteers, event sponsors and top Investors.

Kim most recently served as the associate director of membership for the Kansas State Alumni Association. She was responsible for directing the associations membership program, affinity business partnerships, program sponsorships and merchandise vendors for more than 41,000 members around the world.

Prior to her role at K-State, Dahlsten was vice president, director of membership at the Manhattan Area Chamber of Commerce in Manhattan, Kansas for 10 years. During this time, she developed programs, created events and nurtured relationships which resulted in a five-year retention average of 90.27 percent (accounts); member engagement of 84 percent and average retention of 93 percent (dollars) for 814 business members in and around Riley County.

When asked about her new position, Dahlsten stated, Im excited to join the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce and venture back into a profession that is my heart and passion. I look forward to bringing my determination, focus and grit to this organization, our Shareholders and Investors and the community. I desire to continue to empower and develop our already talented team and add value to this organization that will ultimately make a difference in Catawba County.

Dahlsten is a 2011 graduate of the U.S. Chamber Institute for Organization Management (IOM), has served as a class adviser for the Southeast Institute in 2012 and 2013 and just completed her term as chair of the Southeast Institute Board of Regents for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation.

Im thrilled to welcome her not only to our organization, but to Catawba County as her new home. To meet her in person, I encourage you to register to attend our chamber-wide mixer on Tuesday, Aug. 1, from 5-7 p.m. at Cafe Rule & Wine Bar at www.eventbrite.com. I would like to thank Cafe Rule & Wine Bar for sponsoring this event in full.

To extend a personal welcome to Kim, please email her directly at kdahlsten@catawbachamber.org. Thank you in advance for your hospitality.

Lindsay Keisler is president and CEO of the Catawba County Chamber of Commerce.
On July 20, Catawba Regional Hospice honored Dave Clarke, president and CEO, for 20 years of astute leadership and robust program development.

Clarke, who joined Catawba Regional Hospice in March of 1997, spearheaded the health care agency as it grew from a small location in downtown Hickory to a two-campus organization with locations in the Foothills and Lake Norman. The nonprofit organization currently serves patients and families in 10 counties and is highly regarded for its clinical innovation, exceptional care, and breadth of service.

In addition to his hospice leadership, Clarke has been instrumental in developing programs to serve senior populations and people challenged by advanced illness. These programs include Life Transitions, a palliative medicine practice with clinics in Hickory, Newton, and Morganton, and PACE@Home, a program of all-inclusive care that helps seniors remain independent at home and that was created with the support of Lutheran Services of the Carolinas and Catawba Valley Medical Center.

At the reception, Clarke relished visits from community leaders, staff, friends, and both present and past board of director members.

Seeing the faces of all these partners and colleagues, its rewarding to remember so many of the plans weve embarked on and successes weve enjoyed at Catawba Regional Hospice, Clarke said. Im gratified that weve had the opportunity to make such an impact on the community during these past two decades.

Prior to his tenure at CRH, Clarke served as a captain in the Army Medical Service Corps at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC; as an assistant administrator at St. Lukes Hospital in Cleveland, Ohio; as director of provider reimbursement at Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina; and as executive vice president of business development at Coastal Healthcare Group in Durham.

Clarke chairs the board of directors for PACE@Home and is a member of the Rotary Club of Newton-Conover. As a longstanding supporter of Rotary, he has been recognized by the Rotary Foundation as a Paul Harris Fellow.

He has also been a prominent figure in health care-related state and national committees. Clarke served on the board of directors for the Carolinas Center for Hospice and End of Life Care (2001-2006, 2008-2013) and as its treasurer (2003-2005). In 2001, he was honored with the Peter G. Keese Award for outstanding leadership achievements from The Carolinas Center.

A native of Asheville, Clarke holds a masters degree in health care administration from the School of Business Administration at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis. His bachelors degree in business administration/accounting is from Elon College.

Clarke lives in Newton with his wife, Jan.
HICKORY  For school counselors, the job is all about building relationships and getting out and knowing the kids  starting as early as kindergarten  Hickory Public Schools Student Services Director Angela Simmons said.

Its about knowing their school community and the families in it.

These seemed to be missing elements in the recent Netflix series, 13 Reasons Why, which follows the story of a teen suicide told through a series of audio tapes she leaves behind.

The initial shock factor when some people first saw it, they were taken aback by it, and theres mix reviews out there, Simmons said. Some folks are saying its an awareness tool, and it helps people understand it is an issue. There are some kids who are seeing it without support so its just a tricky situation.

Simmons was even prompted to get in touch with families concerning the series with a letter she sent in May, discussing the possible impact of the series on students.

The 13 Reasons Why series is gaining popularity, and we have concerns it may increase thoughts of suicide among students, she said in the letter.

While the show highlights the importance to talk about suicidal thoughts, it portrays situations where youth are dealing with serious issues, from bullying to sexual assault, without getting support from adults, according to the letter. Our social workers and school counselors are trained in suicide prevention and support, and unlike some of the adults in 13 Reasons Why, take all reports seriously.

In 2016 in North Carolina, suicide was the second leading cause of death in teens, according to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. Its the same trend nationally for teens, and overall in the country nearly 43,000 people die by suicide every year.

Simmons recently attended QPR (question, prevent, referral) training by Michael Smith from Partners Behavioral Health that discussed suicide prevention. It provides laypeople the tools to know what questions to ask and how to handle a potential suicidal situation. Simmons would like to have all HPS staff undergo the training beginning with next school year.

In April, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction (DPI) adopted a school-based mental health initiative.

According to the initiative statement at stateboard.ncpublicschools.gov, each public/charter school shall develop and implement a plan for assessing and improving upon the effectiveness of existing support for the mental health and substance use needs of its student population.

The DPI also will support all public and charter schools by creating and helping implement a state-wide training plan.

The training plan will provide for all LEA and charter school personnel, including licensed/certified personnel, to receive mental health and substance use awareness training within the first six months of employment and at least every three years thereafter, according to the statement. Licensed and certified personnel also will receive prevention and early intervention training.

Simmons is reviewing what HPS provides and seeing how it connects with what DPI is looking for in districts.

We do have lots of discussion at the end of the school year, Simmons said. Our middle school counselors will communicate with our high school counselors about any particular kids to watch to just make sure theyre focused on them when they start the new school year.

Those discussions can cover a wide range of issues related to students from academic problems to those who may be more shy than others and making sure they arent overwhelmed by a high school setting.

Northview Middle School Counselor Miriam Starnes said she hasnt had many direct questions from students about the series, but shes heard references to it.

Theres a running joke, when kids get aggravated with each other, they say, Theres your tape, Starnes said. There are issues with it, but I dont think they get down to the core of it, the deeper meaning of what its really about.

Fellow Northview Counselor Cynthia Parrish said in the community shes involved in, kids are more anxious when the issue comes up.

Both counselors admit students are under more stress every year with the world becoming a faster-paced place for them and both were shocked at how graphic the series was depicting issues, including the subject of rape.

There is so much pressure put on them now and still developmentally they have to figure out how to deal with that, and thats the importance of having school counselors being proactive, Starnes said. Were getting to know the kids and working with them so we can help them before it gets to that point.

Counselors have to work at deciphering whether a troubled student is dealing with a mental health issue versus a slight depression because of bad grades or a bad day.

We help support that student and that students friends to ask what are we really dealing with, lets talk about it, Parrish said. Talk therapy is a great avenue to understand whats really hurting.

Social media in some ways is the place most teens seem the most comfortable talking, Starnes said. The students dont have to feel the pressure of face-to-face interaction, which is another barrier counselors work at breaking down.

When they get to the face-to-face, they dont communicate as well, Simmons said. Everything now is, instead of saying youre laughing about something, its LOL or OMG, whatever their slangs are. Kids are more comfortable behind the screen than they are sometimes face to face in things they say to and about others.

Understanding the different meanings of words between the generations is another key job for counselors.

When a kid says theyre going to kill themselves then they say they didnt mean it, to us as mental health professionals its a shock, Parrish said. For them, its every day words and they say it to each other, and they dont mean it.

Starnes said shes heard some of the eighth-grade students she works with talking about the Netflix show and commenting there is never a reason to kill yourself.

They recognized what the main character gave up, and I thought that was insightful for them, Starnes said.

It still comes down to students feeling comfortable and willing to talk to an adult.

Our goal as counselors is to build those kind of relationships, Parrish said. Its amazing how many times that pays for both parties. We can go to them and ask questions, and they can come to us and theres no judgment. Its a judgment free zone, and it makes it easier to have a conversation.

Overall, Starnes said she was saddened 13 Reasons Why was something students were watching. She doesnt feel most kids have the tools to help them understand what it is theyre watching.

The Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology made a statement about this issue with the series back in May.

There are effective, evidence-based treatments available for depression and suicide, the society said in a press release at clincialchildpsychology.org. While the show has started many conversations about mental illness, it is time for those conversations to lead to information about effective mental healthcare.

Netflixs latest decision to add a warning before the first episode and to strengthen the messaging and resource language for episodes with graphic subject matter doesn't go far enough, according to the release.

Simmons said some groups have turned the impact of the show around and are using it as 13 reasons why not.

Theyre focusing on positives and things you can do differently. Some are using it as ways to be proactive or if youre starting to have these kind of feelings, go to a safe adult, Simmons said.

I think if anything out of this is a learning tool is for people to be able to say, if youre getting to this point please go find help, because there is help out there for you.

Her concern is for those teens who may be watching the series without any support and theyre already in a low spot, theyre not going to seek out help.

I think it got slid in there so quickly and half the kids probably watched it before I even knew it existed, Starnes said.
Madhya Pradesh police are on the trail of a 52-year-old woman from Bhind who allegedly tried to kill her two-and-a-half-month-old granddaughter by stuffing tobacco in her mouth.

Whats more, her son told police she killed six of her daughters just after they were born.

The accused, Moharshree Yadav, is on the run, said police. Her husband, Prakash Yadav, was arrested. Both were booked under sections 308 (attempt to commit culpable homicide) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC), police added.

Bhind district, about 500 km north of state capital Bhopal, has a highly skewed sex ratio (the number of females per 1,000 males). The accused is from a village in Bhinds Mau block, which has an even worse sex ratio.

Using a mixture of tobacco and lime to kill infant girls is a notorious practice in Bhind and other areas in Chambal division. The mix chokes the infant. Many such cases have been reported from the region, said Bhopal-based child rights activist Prashant Dubey.

Bhind superintendent of police (SP) Anil Kushwaha told HT on Sunday, The woman (Moharshree) has no daughter and two sons. We have been told that she killed her daughters. As of now, we have booked her under section 308 of IPC as we didnt find tobacco in the mouth of the child. Appropriate sections of IPC will be added in the FIR if the charges regarding the woman killing her daughters are found true.

The accused woman allegedly went into hiding after her son, Pavan Yadav, and daughter-in-law, Reema Yadav, complained to the Bhind SP on Saturday that she tried to kill their infant daughter a day earlier.

In her complaint, Reema alleged that her mother-in-laws behaviour towards her changed completely after she gave birth because she wanted a grandson.

Madhya Pradeshs skewed sex ratio Indias sex ratio is 940 females per 1,000 males Madhya Pradeshs sex ratio is 931 females per 1000 males, while that of Bhind district is 837 and of Mau block is 834 (Source: Census 2011)

Reema said she told her husband about his mothers act and a fight broke out in their house at Lotharpura village. She alleged that her father-in-law supported his wife and threatened them.

She (Moharshree) asked me to abandon my baby. When I refused, she tried to kill her, Reema stated in her complaint.

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The National Law Institute University (NLIU), Bhopal on Saturday suspended six second year students and expelled them from the hostel till the completion of an inquiry into ragging complaints which were lodged with the National Anti-Ragging Helpline (NARH) by the victims.

Juniors were allegedly forced to watch porn clips and even imitate the acts.

In the complaints to NARH against 14 senior students of NLIU , some first year students alleged that senior students forced them to watch porn clips, simulate sex with trees and dance to vulgar tunes earlier this month.

NLIU director SS Singh said the matter was being probed by anti-ragging committee of the institute.

Out of 14 students, six have been identified and suspended from the hostel till filing of final report by anti-ragging committee. If NARH is not satisfied with the punishment, they can enhance it, said the director.

Read more: Bhopal institute orders probe after juniors allegedly forced to watch porn, dance to vulgar songs

The institute is still trying to get the information about the complainants who had approached the NARH.

Earlier, Raj Kachroo, the founder of University Grants Commission-recognised NARH, had criticized the institutes lackadaisical attitude and also slammed the institutes administration for insisting that the identity of the complainants be disclosed to enable it to take action on the complaints.

Kachroos 19-year-old son Aman, a first-year student at a medical college in Himachal Pradesh, was persistently ragged and beaten to death by his seniors in March 2009, prompting him to open the helpline.

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Actor Emraan Hashmi has been in the Hindi film industry for almost 14 years, but the one film which he considers a career-changer was Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai (2010). The multi-starrer featuring actors Ajay Devgn, Kangana Ranaut, Randeep Hooda and Prachi Desai was a hit with both the audiences and critics.

The experience of working with Ajay was great. I had worked with Kangana before this film, and Prachi and Randeep were amazing too. People had never imagined me in this kind of cinema, considering the serial-kisser tag I had, says Emraan. He is appreciative of the fact that the makers had confidence in the subject. He says, The director Milan Luthria and the producers dared to take the risk, and had belief in the potential of the film. Facing the camera in the character was a huge change for me.

Ajay Devgn played the role of Sultan Mirza, while Emraan Hashmi was his nemesis Shoaib

Emraan played the role of the rebellious Shoaib based on a real-life underworld don. His character locks horns with the smuggling overlord of Mumbai, Sultan Mirza, played by Ajay Devgn. Emraan reveals what appealed to him about the film. Before this, there had been landmark gangster films like Vaastav (1999), Company (2002) and Satya (1998), and I myself had rejected a lot of films based on the underworld, he says.

When Milan started narrating the script, I realised he had done something fresh and new with the concept. It was a ten minute narration, and the story focused on the vulnerabilities of the two characters Sultan and Shoaib. He didnt even have a full script, but I was sold on the narration. And of course, there was the visual aspect- the cars of that era, the clothes, complete with the bellbottoms! Emraan adds.

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Mandakini will forever remain the perfect example of a one-hit wonder. She was immortalised on screen when filmmaker Raj Kapoor selected her to play the lead role in his ambitious film Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1987), in which he launched his youngest son Rajiv Kapoor. But what stunned everyone was Raj deciding that his heroine will bare it all- and thus ensured that Mandakini will always be remembered by the iconic scene where she takes a bath under a waterfall. But what about it?

On her birthday today, we bring you seven lesser-known facts about the mystery that is Mandakini:

1. Born in 1963 in Meerut as Yasmin Joseph, she was spotted by director-actor Raj Kapoor when she was 22. He changed her screen name to Mandakini.

The controversial scene where Mandakini bared her bosom on-screen in the film Ram Teri Ganga Maili (1985)

2.How director Raj Kapoor managed to get the waterfall scene passed by Censors is still not known. Mandakinis bosom was featured in the scene, veiled behind a wet white cloth.

Mandakini shot to superstardom with her role of a village belle in Raj Kapoors last film

3. In 1994, her photographs with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim created a sensation. Rumours were rife that the two were a couple and even had a son together, which Mandakini denied.

4. Mandakini, in an interview to a leading daily, however did admit later that she was only friends with Dawood, as she had went to Dubai for shows as a film-star and met him a couple of times.

Actor Sonakshi Sinha played a role modelled on Mandakini in the film Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Dobaara! (2013)

5. Actor Sonakshi Sinhas character Jasmine in the film Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai Dobaara! (2013) was based on Mandakini. In the film, actor Akshay Kumar essays the role of a dreaded gangster who falls in love with a beautiful film actor.

6.Though she later did films such as the superhit Dance Dance (1987) with dancing star Mithun Chakraborty, and even played a pivotal role in the Madhuri Dixit starrer Tezaab (1988), but none of them managed to recreate the same magic as Mandakinis debut film.

7. Mandakini quit acting in 1996, after directors and producers stopped offering her work- mainly because her films in the past few years hadnt done well, and also due to her alleged relationship with Dawood. She is now settled in Mumbai with her daughter Rabze and husband Dr. Kagyur T. Rinpoche Thakur, who was a former Buddhist monk and the famous face of Murphy Radio as a baby.

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Actor Sonu Sood is a shy guy when it comes to celebrating birthdays. And ever since his parents death, he hasnt celebrated it with much vigour either.

I miss my mom and dad. They brought me into this world and I wish they were with me on my birthday. So I dont celebrate it much. Id go out with my family and my close ones, who have been by my side through the years, but I am not the one who will throw parties on his birthday, says Sonu who rings in his 43rd birthday today.

Born in Moga, Punjab, in 1974, Sonu moved to Nagpur to pursue a degree in electrical engineering. The admission earned him a bike as a reward and a birthday gift from his father. That one birthday will always be special, he adds.

Sonu says that his friends used to be more excited about his birthday than him because there used to be lavish and big parties on his birthday. My parents really made sure that it was a special day for me. They used to plan a lot of things. I think my memories of celebrating it as a child will always be special, he adds.

It's always fun shooting with my brother @munnasphotography #dubai#westindubaiahc A post shared by Sonu Sood (@sonu_sood) on May 24, 2017 at 7:35pm PDT

Having made his debut in 2000, Sonu admits he never thought that he would survive in the industry for so long. I am very shy by nature and I wont even have told people about my birthday, had I not been an actor. When I came to Mumbai, I had no idea I will be able to survive or do so many films. But for an outsider to do more than 70-80 films, in different languages as well is a big deal. I remember, in 2009, I had said in an interview, who knows I might work with Jackie Chan one day. Seven years later I actually did. Thats what I mean. I never had formal training in this field, but I was always ready to learn and work hard. However, As my mom used to say, I still have miles to go before I sleep, he says.

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As an actor, Anushka Sharma, who essays a Gujarati girl in Jab Harry Met Sejal, says she enjoys playing a character that has different beliefs from her own. She says essaying such a character gives her a creative high and adds to her perspective.

Asked if the process of convincing oneself to believe in a character that one has to play on screen gives her creative growth, Anushka said, Yes, it does. I enjoy when my philosophy is challenged by my onscreen character. Then I start analysing the mindset, the values and beliefs of the character... why is she like that. I start looking at things from a different perspective. As an actress, if I manage to do that on screen convincingly, I feel good.

The story of Jab Harry Met Sejal, which features Shah Rukh Khan as Harry, revolves around how Sejal (Anushka) sets out on a journey with tourist guide Harry.

Giving a little insight into her character Sejal, Anushka said, She is very superficial, doesnt have any depth as a person. There is no similarity with me. But her morals and values of self-respect are something that I can relate to. But otherwise, the character is quite impulsive by nature.

The shooting of the film took place in different places like Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Lisbon and Budapest. Sharing her experience of shooting films abroad, Anushka said meeting fans there is one of the best things to experience. I met some African fans, people from Italy and a girl from Spain who was so excited to see me and was talking about how she liked my films, dance and all... It is not individually about me, but knowing the fact that they watch Bollywood cinema and I am one of the members of Bollywood is a great feeling, said Anushka.

Jab Harry Met Sejal marks the third-time collaboration of the two actors who first appeared together in Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi. They also featured in Jab Tak Hai Jaan. There is a certain respect and comfort we share... He is special. While on set, even though we are not talking to each other all the time, we know there is no communication gap. There is comfort in silence. Perhaps that comes from a mutual respect between two artists.

And what has she taken away from working with Imtiaz Ali, who has directed the forthcoming film. Our process of understanding and building a character is same -- knowing the back story of the character. That apart, yes, of course, it was wonderful to work with Imtiaz. His writing and narration are very nuanced and I like that, Anushka said.

Jab Harry Met Sejal is set to release on August 4.
Though model-turned-actor Vaani Kapoor debuted in Bollywood in 2013 with a well publicised Shuddh Desi Romance, it took her another three years to arrive in the Hindi film industry, with Befikre.

The film, which also featured Ranveer Singh, made people turn and notice Vaani Kapoor and her sharp features. But she again went missing from the spotlight after the film completed its run in cinemas. That is until she started trending online on Sunday!

And then we headed straight to her Instagram account for some amazing pictures.

From a colourful Cosmopolitan India shoot to carrying a golden sari, Vaani has been doing everything right on social media.

Here, we take you through best pics from her Instagram account:

A post shared by VK (@_vaanikapoor_) on Jul 28, 2017 at 10:28pm PDT

A post shared by VK (@_vaanikapoor_) on Jul 10, 2017 at 10:46pm PDT

A post shared by VK (@_vaanikapoor_) on Jul 17, 2017 at 11:39pm PDT

A post shared by Cosmopolitan India (@cosmoindia) on Jul 23, 2017 at 1:13am PDT

A post shared by Cosmopolitan India (@cosmoindia) on Jul 20, 2017 at 12:01am PDT
No steps have been taken for the introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said.

Replying to an RTI application filed by a PTI correspondent, the central bank said the Government of India had sought its comments on the launch of Sharia-compliant mutual funds by State Bank of India in December 2014.

The RBI submitted its reply the same month, it said.

The Islamic or Sharia-compliant financial system is based on the principles of not charging an interest on deposits, as it is prohibited under Islam.

The Reserve Bank of India has not taken any step for introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in India, the reply said.

The RBI was asked to provide details on the introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in the country.

The SBI had in 2014 announced the launch of the same. However, it was deferred to make it a better and more attractive fund in the future, according to an official communication.

H Abdur Raqeeb, general secretary, Indian Centre for Islamic Finance -- an NGO trying to introduce members of the Muslim community to the Sharia-compliant banking system, said the initiation of such special mutual funds for a select group of people would be a much-desired and welcome step.

It is a misconception that Sharia-compliant mutual funds are beneficial to a particular community. These funds will benefit the economy and ensure financial inclusion of those who avoid such investment for religious reasons, he said.

Raqeeb has been coordinating with various government and regulatory authorities for the introduction of the Sharia- complaint banking system in India.

When the launch of Sharia mutual fund was announced by SBI, some of the gulf countries were very enthusiastic for investment. It is high time the RBI and the finance ministry instructed SBI to relaunch the same, he said.

SBI had rejected an RTI application seeking details on the relaunch of Sharia-compliant mutual funds, saying the query is vague and not specific.

The RBI had earlier proposed opening Islamic window in conventional banks for the gradual introduction of the Sharia- compliant banking.

On the instructions of the RBI, an Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) has examined legal, technical and regulatory issues for starting interest-free banking in India and has submitted its report to the government.

The RBI had in February last year sent a copy of the IDG report to the Finance Ministry.

A committee on financial sector reforms, headed by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, had in late 2008 stressed on the need for a closer look at the issue of interest-free banking in the country.
Tata Motors chairman N Chandrasekaran has said turning around domestic business of the company is the need of the hour as it has suffered from delays in new product launches, lack of adequate response to competition and an unsustainable cost structure.

Addressing shareholders in the companys Annual Report 2016-17, he said Tata Motors standalone net revenues increased by 3.7% to Rs 44,777 crore for the 12 months ended March 31, 2017 but standalone loss before tax for the year fell to Rs 2,421 crore, compared with Rs 67 crore in the prior year.

In the domestic business segment, business turnaround is the need of the hour and management is working with renewed focus and energy to improve our market share, reduce our cost base, streamline the supply chain and ensure launch of products on time to delight our customers, he said.

The companys market share in commercial vehicles (CV) segment has fallen to 44.4% from a high of 59.4% in FY2011-12, while market share for passenger vehicles (PV) declined to 5.2% from 13.1% in the same period, he added.

Overall, delays in new product launches as well as lack of adequate responsiveness to the competitive environment and an unsustainable cost structure have contributed to this performance, Chandrasekaran said.

Consolidated net revenues declined by 1.2 per cent to Rs 2,69,850 crore for the 12 months ended March 31, 2017 and consolidated profit before tax for the year fell sharply to Rs 9,315 crore, compared with Rs 14,126 crore in the prior year, he added.

Chandrasekaran, however, expressed confidence that a series of actions taken by the management team would succeed and show an improved performance in both the commercial vehicle and passenger vehicle segments in India and deliver better financial results.

Expressing similar views, Tata Motors managing director Guenter Butschek said: Our immediate priority now is on execution - to address the top concerns of supply constraints, to advance the launch time of some of our new products.

He further said: In full alignment with the board, we have finalised a business turnaround plan through which we take upon ourselves to deliver a robust bottom-line improvement in FY17/18.

Butschek said one of the most important initiatives in 2016-17 was the Organisational Effectiveness (OE) exercise, with the objective of bringing the much needed empowerment and accountability within the business unit, strong functional oversight based on the key principles of speed, simplicity and agility.

Due to its magnitude and complexity, the transition of the new management structure w.e.f. from April 1, 2017 faced some challenges, which in the meanwhile is getting addressed on a case to case basis, he added.

While challenges such as demonetisation and transition to BS IV affected business, Butschek also admitted that Tata Motors did not adequately react to the changing environment.

Due to the unexpected and unprecedented changes in the market, he said, we faced a rather hostile business cycle with headwinds in the form of demonetisation, the famous Supreme Court ruling on BS4 transition.

As a matter of fact, Butschek further said, it was not only the market volatility which affected our performance, but mainly our sluggishness in reading the market in time, as we were effectively late to respond.

Tata Motors ImpACT (Improvement by Action) projects with full time senior leaders and dedicated teams having ownership at executive committee level helped the company focus on four areas  intense top-line focus, cost optimisation, customer centricity and structural improvements in processes, he said.

These projects have started to payback and have created a great change of momentum in the entire organisation. We have built a very strong savings potential with positive effects in FY17/18 and the years to come, Butschek said. PTI RKL MR SRK
I do not know how many of you have read the directions issued by the of the Reserve Bank of India recently to all banks on limiting the customer liability in case of unauthorised electronic banking transactions. If you havent, I would suggest that you read it, because its a very crucial document vis-a-vis your rights as consumers of banking services and you will need to be fully conversant with it, in order to deal with unauthorised debits in your account!

In these directions issued on July 6, RBI makes it clear that a customer has no liability when an unauthorised transaction happens on account of fraud, contributory negligence or deficiency on the part of the bank. Similarly, even where neither the customer nor the bank is at fault, but the problem lies elsewhere in the system, the customer does not have any liability, provided she or he notifies the bank about the illegal operation within three days of receiving an alert from the bank. And the bank shall credit the amount involved in such transaction to the customers account in 10 days, says RBI.

However, in cases where such fraud takes place on account of the negligence of the customer, the entire loss, until the date of reporting the unlawful transaction, will be borne by the customer, says the banking regulator. Well, it is only fair that the customer pay for any negligence on his/her part, but the problem is, even where there is no negligence on the part of the customer, banks blame the customer for divulging the password or such security information to a third party, thereby leading to unauthorised transaction! In fact, if you look at such cases decided by the consumer courts as well as the banking ombudsman, you will find that banks never admit their negligence or even third party breach. In many cases, they do not even bother to investigate, as they find it convenient to point a finger at the customer!

In order to circumvent this problem, the RBI says that the burden of proving customer liability in cases of unauthorised electronic banking transactions shall lie on the bank. In other words, earlier, bank customers had the extremely difficult task of proving the negligence of the bank and their innocence, in order to get the bank to make good the loss suffered by them. Now, banks can escape liability only if they prove that the customer was responsible for such fraud.

The RBI has also emphasized the need for banks to not only send immediately and without fail, SMS and e-mail alerts, but also ensure that such messages are enabled to carry the customers reply too, so that a consumer can report any such fraud immediately.

This is extremely important because in a number of complaints resolved by the Banking Ombudsman on fraudulent transactions in 2015-16, for example, it was found that the customer had not received the SMS alert at all. In fact, in a recent case decided by the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, it was found that the customer got two messages about unauthorised use of his debit card  for Rs 976 and Rs 769. Even though he immediately brought it to the notice of the bank, the latter did not take any action. So, the consumer electronically transferred the money from his ATM-linked account to another, to safeguard it. And while doing so, he realised that there was another debit of Rs 28,949 for which he had not even got the SMS alert! (SBI Vs Dr JCS Kataky, RP No. 3073 of 2016)

So hopefully at least now, banks will not only put in place robust and adequate measures to detect and prevent fraud, but also comply fully with the RBI directions.

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DEHRADUN: Chief minister Trivendra Singh Rawat on Sunday hit out obliquely at the previous Congress government for Uttarakhands slow economic growth rate recorded in the last fiscal.

The economic growth rate has slowed down because (those who helmed the state) recently paid more attention on their personal interests instead of focusing on its development, he said, a day after the

Directorate of Economics & Statics (DES) released the data pertaining to the states income for the last fiscal.

The DES data show a marginal rise in the per capita income from Rs1,46,826 (2015-16) to Rs 1,60,795 in the

last fiscal 2016-17. Conversely, the data indicate a down slide in economic growth from 7.71% in 2015-16 to 7% in (2016-17).

He said the economic growth would go up as his government was committed to keep the states interests above everything else. We will keep the states interests above everything else, which will automatically boost the economic growth.

Rawats statement drew a sharp reaction from the opposition Congress. Have they got anything to show in terms of development since coming to power four months ago? asked Surendra Kumar, a Congress leader and the media in-charge of former chief minister Harish Rawat.

Daring the BJP government to identify anything in terms of its achievement, Kumar claimed Uttarakhand had made rapid progress under the Congress. Not only was the state ahead of the rest of the country in terms of per capita income, it made tremendous progress in both industrial and agricultural sectors under our government, he Kumar said, adding that the finance minister had admitted this fact in the assembly last month.

They are now blaming us That clearly means that this government doesnt stand by its own budget speech, he said, adding that the high rating of economic growth and growth in other sectors was projected by several national agencies.

Earlier, Rawat and inmates of orphanage Apna Ghar listened to PM Narendra Modis radio address Mann ki Baat. About Mann ki Baat, Rawat said the radio programme had brought about a revolution. It reflects from the way the Prime Ministers radio broadcast programme has changed the course of millions of youths in the country, he said. In his latest programme, for instance, he made a fervent appeal to the youth to launch a countrywide movement like the Quit India Movement against poverty, unemployment, untouchability and communalism.

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Three women and a man, all foreign nationals, were on Saturday arrested at Terminal 3 of Delhis Indira Gandhi International airport with different quantities of the party drug pseudoephedrine.

The narcotics control bureau nabbed them when they were trying to flee the country with the consignment.

Available cheaply in India, pseudoephedrine once smuggled out of the country is mixed with other substances to make Ice, a common party drug.

Over the past one month, investigation into most cases of pseudoephedrine use revealed that the drug is smuggled from the north-eastern states via Myanmar or Delhi.

In all the cases, the four arrested people were couriers, who were promised a fee for successfully evading law enforcement agencies and transporting the drug.

Taj Hasan, deputy director general, NCB said that on Saturday, they received intelligence about a woman who was carrying pseudoephedrine.

Our offices from the Delhi zone, who were at the airport, spotted a woman coming to the airport in a taxi. On checking, we found around 17 kilograms of the drug in 12 different womens wallets, Hasan said.

The woman, a Zambian national, was flying to Addis Ababa and then to Zambia. NCB officers said they were on the lookout for the womans contact who delivered the drug to her in a city hotel.

Around 11.30 pm, a South African woman carrying around 5 kilograms of the drug was also intercepted by the airport.

The woman had built a special cavity in the base of her luggage, hoping it would pass undetected. NCB officials said the woman, who runs a saloon in SA, had come the country on July 13 to earn a few bucks by transporting the drug from India to South Africa.

In the third case, a woman from South Africa and a Nigerian national, a man, were arrested with around 10.4 kilogrammes of the same drug.

The woman, who had come to India on July 25, was a courier who was promised a cut for transporting the drug.
A road in the Capital received a different kind of high on Sunday afternoon, after a truck carrying whisky bottles overturned at the Delhi Noida Direct flyover.

The mishap caused a massive traffic at the usually traffic-free DND. Police said the incident took place around 2pm, when the rear tyre of a truck carrying whisky bottles burst, causing it to overturn. At the time of the incident, the driver was transporting the consignment towards a liquor shop owners warehouse in New Ashok Nagar. Police said two cranes were used to remove the truck and clear the broken whisky bottles from the road. It took the police around 3 hours to clear the mess from the road.

Meanwhile,, six people were reportedly injured in three separate accidents across the city. The first incident was reported from Madhuban Chowk in Rohini, when a truck hit a Santro car, causing it to hit another truck in front of it. A woman trapped in the Santro car had to be rescued by firefighters, who used gas cutters to remove her from the vehicle. In the second accident, reported from Mangolpuri, a speeding Honda City car rammed into a Maruti Eeco at the West Enclave crossing. Police said the Eeco car had jumped a traffic signal and the Honda City coming from Peeragarhi rammed into a side of the vehicle. Police say that the impact was such that the Eeco rolled over to its side. The Eeco car driver and his passenger were injured in the incident.

In the third accident, two trucks carrying sand from Peeragarhi rammed into a third stationary truck near the Madhuban Chowk underpass. Both truck drivers were injured in the accident.
Former Bharatiya Janata Party legislator from Bawana, Gugan Singh, joined the Aam Aadmi Party along with his supporters on Sunday in presence of chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and other senior party leaders.

The development is a major setback to the BJP as bypoll in the assembly constituency is scheduled for August 23. The assembly segment is one of the 12 reserved seats in the city for Scheduled Castes and Singh is a prominent Dalit face of the saffron party in the outer Delhi areas.

Singh won the seat in 2013 assembly elections while he emerged second in 2015 polls, losing to AAP legislator Ved Parkash  a former BJP leader who switched sides ahead of the assembly polls.

The bypoll has been necessitated after AAP legislator Ved Parkash quit the assembly to rejoin the BJP just ahead of the municipal elections in April. The BJP has named Parkash as its candidate for the bypolls.

Sources in the BJP said Singh was unhappy with the partys decision to deny him ticket and field Parkash in the fray.

Singh tried to raise the issue with the top leadership. However, he failed to impress. It will surely impact partys poll prospects, a senior Delhi BJP leader said.

Realising the importance of the big catch, the top leadership of the party including chief minister Arvind Kejriwal, health minister Satyendar Jain and Sanjay Singh were present at Singhs residence for his formal induction in the party.

Party sources said it was one of the conditions laid by the former BJP leader.

He holds lot of clout in the villages where such symbolisms are considered part of the culture of granting respect. The optics was important in that sense, a senior party leader said.

AAP leaders said Singh has joined the party unconditionally. AAP has already named Ramchandar as its candidate for the bypoll.

The party is fortunate that a leader like Gugan Singh has joined AAP as he is very popular in villages and the colonies. The only condition he has laid is ensuring development in Bawana assembly. We has assured him on that front, said Kejriwal.
She fought back bravely. But I am scared for her now, said the father of the 20-year-old woman who fought off her abductors in Vasant Kunj on Saturday evening. He fears what would have happened if there were no people around and if the accused had managed to abduct her.

He said his daughter did not know the accused.

The woman, however, was unfazed by the incident. I cannot stop stepping out of the house just because of some people. I want to earn money for my family and myself. I am not scared of anyone. If anything happens again, I will fight back, she said. She had been working in the beauty parlour for the past two years and aims to open her own one day.

Recalling what had happened, the woman said, He stopped me and asked me for someone. I told him she left early today. Since I did not know him, I did not tell him that it was me. He wanted to talk but when I ignored him and went ahead, he came from behind, held my hand and tried to push me inside the car. There was another man sitting inside. I pushed him hard and started shouting calling out for help. It is then when he got scared and fled, she said.

I have never seen him before but I later found out that he was friends with a woman who works in our parlour as a help. I am not sure if he mistook me for her but his intention did not seem right, she added.

The womans father said they were under pressure to withdraw the case. They are calling it a mistake. Maybe they were looking for someone else and not my daughter but how can that justify this behaviour? If it were not my daughter, it may have been someone else. That does not change their intention. I told their family that no father would tolerate what they did to my daughter, he said.

The woman agreed. We will not withdraw the case. Why should we? Someone needs to raise their voice. If I keep quiet today, they will have the audacity to do this to someone else tomorrow, she said.

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The incident of two boys being allegedly forced to recite the Quran and espouse the cause of Islam at a Mewat school came to light after they applied for a School Leaving Certificate and a transfer.

On the face of it, it was a simple transfer application. But the devil was in the details. The deputy commissioner immediately sent a team to the school and appropriate action was taken, Shamim Ahmed, project officer of the Mewat Development Agency (under which the school is run), and one of the members of the inquiry committee who would look into the issue, said.

Officials said they further got to know later that not only the teachers, against whom action was taken on Friday, but also some students of school in Madhi village, allegedly forced the students to offer namaz with them, and follow Islam.

When I complained on July 22, I didnt name any of the teachers. I said that the boys were being forced and threatened in the school, and more particularly in the hostel, said 40-year-old Pushpa Bhardwaj, mother of Sagar Bhardwaj, a class 9 student.

Only three out of the 207 students in the school were Hindus - two of whom are cousins Sagar Bharadwaj and Kaushal Vashisht (class 8 student).

Kaushals father, Mohan Sharma, added that the only solution he could think of was getting his son out of the school.

Kaushal and Sagar had joined the school from this session and wanted to stay at the hostel, so we let them, Kaushals father said.

The third Hindu student, a Class 9 student, filed a complaint to the school principal on Saturday, a day after the district officials inspected the school.

Sagars mother said that the complaint of the third student, mentions even more grievous charges.

I am troubled by the teachers and the students who force us (Hindu students) to offer namaz, follow Islamic norms. The teachers often say bad things about other religions, the complaint reads.
A Delhi-based environmentalist is moving the National Green Tribunal to stall the felling of 1,713 trees in the heart of the city.

Activist Verhaen Khanna, the founder of New Delhi Nature Society, who has been trying to raise funds for printing costs, lawyers and court fees, says all residents, school children, people working in offices or commute around this area are at great risk without these healthy trees.

More people need to take action without imagining that everything will be okay and somebody else will come save us. The most polluted months of the year are approaching and we need all the greenery possible while spreading maximum awareness against burning waste, against fireworks, understanding about air and weather, he said.

More than 1,700 trees may be felled to give way to the integrated exhibition-cum-convention centre at Pragati Maidan, as revealed by an RTI query.

The Union environment ministry has given the green approval to the proposed project with some riders after taking into account the recommendations of its expert panel. A letter granting the environment clearance was issued on Saturday to the implementing agency India Trade Promotion Organisation (ITPO), agency reports stated.

Among conditions specified, the ITPO has been asked to obtain all necessary clearances from all relevant agencies, including town planning authority before commencement of work.

It has been told to redevelop Pragati Maidan as per the local building bylaws and also barricade the construction site before work begins, besides taking measures to prevent dust, smoke and other air pollution.

It has been asked to ensure disposal of muck during the construction phase does not create any adverse effect on the neighbouring communities. It has been told to plant minimum one tree for every 80 square metres of land.

Any appeal against this clearance will lie with the National Green Tribunal (NGT), the ministry has said.

Forest officials had earlier issued permission for cutting down the 1,700 trees around Pragati Maidan as per Delhi Preservation of Trees Act and the required fee has also been deposited.

Khanna had earlier started a separate crowd funding campaign to raise funds for the cause.

We are still raising funds, the website impact guru had a scheme that NGOs which collect over R50,000 before August 15 with more than 20 donors will not have to pay the tax and the commission amount. We have managed to cross that requirement with the help of amazing people in Delhi, the activist said, adding that he along with other environmentalists were in the process of getting the documentation together before moving the court.

More than 15,000 trees have already been felled in the Capital over the last three years. While more than 6,000 were cut in 2014-15, around 4,600 and 4,700 trees were felled in 2015-16 and 2016-17.

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Drastic increase in population, disorderly construction of houses and factories, traffic congestion, water shortage, filthy waste dumping sites and pollution  the city of Yokohama in Japan has seen nothing less than what Delhi has in the past few decades.

But while the national capital continues to struggle in ideating sustainable projects, Yokohama has emerged as the biggest Smart City in Japan with the help of a unique public-private participation model.

It was in 2010, when Yokohama, Japans second-largest city and once known as the bedroom town of Tokyo, formulated the Yokohama Smart City Project (YSCP). It was conceptualised as a five-year pilot for three of its districts  Minato Mirai 21 Area (urban centre), Kohoku New Town Area (residential) and Yokohama Green Valley Area (industrial). Having developed these three smart districts way ahead of the deadline, the YSCP was later expanded a project area covering about 435 square kilometres.

How did Yokohama become a Smart City?

The USP of Yokohamas Smart City project is the smooth collaboration the city government had with the private sector and the citizens. Companies such as Accenture, Tokyo Gas, Toshiba, Nissan Motor, Panasonic, Meidensha and TEPCO were asked to work on projects such as introduction of renewable energy, energy management of households, buildings and local communities and next generation transportation systems.

The city representatives repeatedly held meetings with the citizens for all its projects. Public participation has been important to us as it makes citizens act and behave responsibly, said Toru Hashimoto, executive director at Yokohamas development cooperation department.

However, the highlight of the YSCP is the smart grid system it laid for energy management of households and all other buildings including factories and commercial. Introduction of the system in 4,000 homes alone has resulted in 20% reduction in power consumption, said officials working on the project.

In transportation, while a robust subway and bus system exists, 2,300 electric vehicles and charging stations were introduced throughout the city.

Solar power generation of a total of 37 MW has been set up at 249 locations. We are also generating wind power, hydropower, biomass power in over a dozen locations, said a Y-PORT (Yokohama Partnership of Resources and Technologies) official.

While cleanliness is a facet of this Japanese city, one gets to know the secret behind it on visiting its waste-to-energy incinerators. The Kanazawa plant, located along the sea, has a capacity to burn 1,200 tonnes of garbage a day for heat and electricity, while getting rid of daily waste produced by city residents.

Toshihide Abe, the director of the plant, said that the focus has been on reducing solid waste generation in the city. The city has strict waste regulations which we have to follow. Only combustible household waste is incinerated. We used to have seven waste-to-energy plants in Yokohama in 2005 but three of them were closed by 2010 due to the reduced amount of waste, he said.

However, more than these waste-to-energy plants, it is the awareness campaigns that have worked in the citys favour. As many as 3,300 campaigns and 11,000 seminars were conducted across the city to make people understand best waste management practices, Abe said.

The result was astounding, from being just another large city generating over 1.5 million tonnes of trash annually, waste generation in Yokohama was cut down to 1.1 million tonnes by 2005, which was five years ahead of the 2010 deadline.

The foundation

According to Hashimoto, a smart city cannot be developed in isolation. It has to be in sync with the areas urban development projects, which is what Yokohama did.

Yokohamas smart city mission hinges on the six strategic projects that were launched way back in 1965.

First to showcase Yokohamas urban sprawl, Minato Mirai 21 was developed by shifting factories and industries out. A city centre with energy efficient skyscrapers was built to make it the citys commercial and business hub. The New Delhi City Centre that is being planned for the 550 acre area around Connaught Place in Delhi is going to be similar to this.

Second was the Kanazawa reclamation project where city officials negotiated with private players to shift factories from densely populated areas to this site.

Third, the Kohoku New Town was built as a residential area where private developers were asked to build sewage systems of their areas and give up a portion of their land for public use such as parks, schools and health centres.

The subway system was enhanced to link residential areas to the city centre. A 124 km expressway was built, the last part of which is under construction, to decongest the city and finally an iconic 860 metre Bay Bridge, akin to Delhis upcoming Signature Bridge, was built to divert heavy traffic and create a direct link to Tokyo.

Apart from infrastructure, Yokohama also set guidelines for community development that embraces its historical heritage. In 2004, a creative city policy was implemented, under which the city preserved historical sites through adaptive reuse. Most notable was the Red Brick Warehouse, the old port customs building which has been converted into a commercial area.

Having achieved its Smart City targets, the city of Yokohama is now faced with new urban challenges of an ageing population, building a support system for womens participation, childcare and climate resilience  all of which it hopes to address in its ongoing project of creating a Future City.

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Delhi Police special cell on Saturday arrested a woman in connection with an arms trafficking racket and recovered 14 semi-automatic sophisticated pistols of 7.65mm with 14 magazines from her possession.

Mobai (45), police said, is a proclaimed offender with many cases of arms act registered against her. The recovered weapons are engraved with Made in England and Made in USA markings.

A mother of five children, she earlier worked as a labourer in the fields but her income was not sufficient to meet her basic needs. Being unable to make her ends meet, she came in contact with arms traffickers in MP and started supplying illegal arms.

It had come to notice that arms manufacturers and suppliers from MP are supplying sophisticated firearms in Delhi-NCR and adjoining areas of UP. A team was deputed to identify the gang in Delhi. The team deployed informers in and around Delhi-NCR, MP and UP to gather leads about the gang and the racket, DCP special cell, PS Kushwah said.

Police recovered 14 semi-automatic sophisticated pistols of 7.65mm with 14 magazines from Mobais possession.

Last Wednesday, we received an information that one woman supplier of illegal arms, who is also a proclaimed offender, would come near Shastri Park, between 6pm and 7pm to deliver a huge cache of semi-automatic weapons and meet her contacts, Kushwah said.

A trap was laid and the woman was spotted. She was carrying a black and a red bag on her right shoulder. She started waiting there for someone. After some time when no one turned up and as she was about to leave, she was apprehended with the help of woman staff, Kushwah said.

Mobai told police that she collected the weapons from a manufacturer in Gandhwani, MP, and supplied them to contacts in Delhi and Western UP. During interrogation, she said she had supplied weapons in Delhi-NCR and UP West to different persons on many occasions in the last 15 years, police said.

She was found involved in cases of arms supply. Her other involvements are being verified, Kushwah said.

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It cannot be denied that there are several instances of women misusing Section 498A of the Indian penal code, under the aegis of which a man and his family, if named in a dowry harassment case, will be immediately arrested. A Supreme Court bench has now ruled that a family welfare committee in every district will scrutinise dowry harassment cases before the local police can arrest the accused.

There is evidence that the misuse of the law is not minuscule enough to be ignored. Data from a National Crime Records Bureaus 2012 report shows that while charge-sheets were filed for 93.6% of registered dowry cases, only 14.4% ended in convictions. The report projected that out of the 3,72,706 cases pending trial in 2012, as many as 3,17,000 were projected to lead to acquittals. Data also shows that about 25% of all arrests under Section 498A are women  mothers and sisters of husbands. There has been much discussion on the subject of women described as disgruntled misusing the Section to punish or exact revenge from their spouses and his family.

But while this issue is being addressed, it must be kept in mind that there are many, many cases still in India of dowry harassment, and many that even lead to the death of the woman. In a deeply patriarchal society, even in the higher economic strata, eligible men are seen as potential earners in the transaction of marriage. Fathers of daughters are forced to gift money, gold, cars, etc for the favour of a man agreeing to marry their daughters. It must also be noted that the conviction rates for other crimes such as murder are also very low (some estimates suggest that murder convictions are less than 20%).

Therefore, it would be prudent to be careful before assuming that every woman complaining about an abusive family or dowry harassment is disgruntled or wishes to exact revenge. It takes a lot of courage, in a very toxic set up, for a woman to muster up the courage to complain to the authorities. Such women find it very difficult to even move on from the trauma of their lives; and society must take steps to ensure that these women have the support and legal help they need to escape the abuse that they face at home.
The Hizbul Mujahideen leader, Syed Salahuddin, and the Lashkar-e-Taiba commander, Mehmood Shah, have in the past several days come out publicly against Al Qaeda and the Islamic State (ISIS), arguing that neither of them have a role in the Kashmir separatist cause. While there is irony in two terrorist leaders calling out two other terrorist groups for excessive violence, their statements seem to reflect concerns of the Pakistani deep state that the Kashmir insurgency is becoming merged with the larger global Islamicist terror problem.

When it came to Kashmir, Salahuddin pointedly said, Neither there is need nor space for any international organisation.

The immediate reason was the declaration, recently confirmed by Al Qaeda, that a former Hizbul fighter, Zakir Musa, has been declared head of Al Qaeda in Kashmir. Musa, by most estimates, has barely 10 men under him and Al Qaeda has no ability to support him other then lend him their brand.

There is a deeper hypocrisy in the statements of Hizbul and LeT. Hizbul regularly provides assistance to groups like Jaish-e-Mohammad to fight in Kashmir even though the latter organisation was founded with the direct blessings of the late Osama bin Laden, founder of Al Qaeda. LeT camps in Pakistan are known to have been used by Al Qaeda fighters for training purposes. And the LeT and Al Qaeda fighters have worked side-by-side in attacking government forces in Afghanistan. The LeT has been more than happy to join hands with Al Qaeda when it has suited its needs.

Underneath all this one can detect the designs of the Pakistani military. The Hizbul and LeT are the two terrorist groups with the closest relationship with the clandestine wing of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). They have served as the Pakistani militarys primary instruments in keeping Kashmir on the boil.

At a time that most indicators are showing a renewal of the United States military commitment to fighting in Afghanistan and a greater emphasis on preemptive military action against ISIS and Al Qaeda, Pakistans generals wish to keep a distance between the US target list and the militant groups they use to keep India off balance. This is the primary motive behind the statements of Salahuddin and Shah.

What Rawalpindi needs to remember, is that once one decides to ride the tiger of terrorism it is more or less impossible to control its direction. Pakistan-backed terrorist groups may have begun with Kashmir on their mind, but their ideological spawn now target half the world including Pakistan itself.
The Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) may soon discontinue some courses, with an increasing number of students refusing admission after counselling in the most sought after institutes.

Of the 10,998 seats in the 23 IITs, the number of vacancies after seven rounds of counselling stood at 121 this year, up from 96 last year, and 50 in 2015, and three in 2014.

A concerned Human Resource Development (HRD) ministry has asked IITs to look at ways to address the situation, including the option of scrapping unpopular courses.

The issue will be taken up at a meeting of the Joint Admission Board (JAB) on August 20.

This is something we will see growing over a period of time  students will not run after IITs, said Pradipta Banerji, professor at IIT Bombay, stressing that there is certainly a shift in the culture.

For instance, students may take the JEE Advanced exam to satisfy their parents and are likely to get good ranks, but they may then opt for something else, say English literature, which they want to do, he said.

However, experts believe that the decline in admissions results from the unpopularity of certain courses due to their value in the job market.

For instance, IIT Varanasi, which has the most vacancies (32), was found wanting 15 students in pharmaceutical engineering and technology, and eight in ceramic engineering.

The vacancies in IITs in Bombay (1), Delhi (2) and Kharagpur (9) this year were for chemistry, biochemical engineering, bio-technology, architecture, physics and mining engineering.

Banerji suggested the IITs should reduce the intake in such courses rather than completely do away with them.

A senior IIT official attributed the loss to students desire for popular courses in other institutes.

As a special round counselling is going on in NITs, students prefer to opt for a good course, say in computer science, in NITs than an ordinary one in an IIT, he said, requesting anonymity.

There were over 6,000 vacancies in the National Institute of Technology/IIITs and other government-funded technical institutes at the end of the seventh round of counselling.

While admissions have ended in IITs, for NITs, a special round is being conducted till Sunday to fill up all the vacancies following which admissions will close.

One of the major reasons behind the vacancies in NITs and IIITs is due to the 50% state quota, according to official sources.

The HRD ministry has relaxed the eligibility criteria for admissions in eight NITs based in north-eastern states. Under the new criteria, 75% mandatory marks in Class 12 for general and OBC categories have been reduced to 45% in the same categories.

Also, as per the new rule, if any home quota seats are left in NITs, they can be converted into all-India quota. For instance, if in Jammu and Kashmir, seats under the home state quotas are left after offering it to eligible candidates from the state, they can be given to eligible students from other states.

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Attention women, if you are trying to conceive a baby naturally, then a study has found that artificial insemination may increase the chance of successful pregnancy by 22%. The study also indicated that artificial insemination, also known as intrauterine insemination (IUI), raises a couples likelihood of have a successful pregnancy from nine to 31%, if they have been trying to conceive for three months.

The researchers stated that when combined with female fertility drugs, IUI can be more cost effective and less invasive than IVF. This comes despite the UKs NICE stating couples who have been unsuccessfully trying to conceive for more than a year should bypass IUI and start IVF.

Roy Homburg from Homerton University Hospital in London argues that skipping IUI and proceeding directly to IVF is like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. The results suggested that IUI can increase a womans chance of having a live birth from nine percent to 31 percent, a rise of 22%. In a separate study, researchers from the Fertility Clinic Isala in Zwolle, the Netherlands, analysed 602 couples and found that, after six rounds of treatment, IUI has similar success rates to drug-free IVF.

The success depends on the extent of the womans fertility problems, the womans age, if medication is used to enhance ovulation, and the mans sperm count and quality.

Follow @htlifeandstyle for more.
Its been a couple of weeks we learnt that Priyanka Chopra is going to act with Liam Hemsworth and Adam Devine in Hollywood film Isnt It Romantic.

This isnt the only Hollywood film in her kitty as she will also be shooting for A Kid Like Jake also starring Jim Parsons, Claire Danes and Octavia Spencer.

There are strong chances that her TV series Qunatico will be returning for its third season soon. In short, she is very busy with multiple projects in Hollywood.

After playing the villain in Baywatch, Priyanka will be seen as a yoga ambassador in Isnt it Romnantic. She is shooting for the film on the streets of New York City and her look has become the talk of the town. Well, she is flaunting blonde hair and the new colour looks stunning on her.

She has posted a new photo on Instagram:

A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Jul 29, 2017 at 1:12pm PDT

Here are some more pictures of Priyanka shooting for different projects in Hollywood.

A post shared by Perfection is ?! PeeCee (@priyanka.news) on Jul 29, 2017 at 5:37am PDT

A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Jul 27, 2017 at 1:25pm PDT

A post shared by Priyanka Chopra (@priyankachopra) on Jul 20, 2017 at 8:54am PDT

A post shared by Perfection is ?! PeeCee (@priyanka.news) on Jul 29, 2017 at 2:49pm PDT
The Congress on Sunday asked the BJP and CPI(M) in Kerala to immediately end violence that the two parties are engaged in, as peace and tranquillity have vanished in the state.

The Congress came down heavily on both the parties after the state unit of the Bharatiya Janata Party called for a shutdown on Sunday, following a 34-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh leaders murder here on Saturday night.

The police have taken into custody five suspected Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activists and the two vehicles used by them.

Leader of Opposition Ramesh Chennithala on Sunday began a day-long fast here to protest the bloodshed that the BJP and the Left party have been engaged in.

Both the parties (BJP and CPI-M) should lay down arms immediately as annihilation politics practised by them has reached very dangerous levels, said Chennithala.

The dawn-to-dusk state-wide shutdown, announced by state BJP president Kummanem Rajashekeran, has paralysed life in Kerala.

Normal life has been hit in the state, with public transport off the roads and very few private vehicles moving around, as the BJP and RSS activists are out on the streets.

The political violence between the two parties in the past two weeks had been limited to Kannur and an uneasy calm prevailed in the district.

On Friday night, CPI(M) councillor IP Binu attacked the state BJP headquarters here, following which BJP activists stoned the residence of CPI(M) state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnans son.

The need of the hour is to end the violence. Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Rajashekeran should sit and talk. The police under Vijayan have been a dismal failure, Chennithala said.

The BJP, caught in a medical scam, and the incompetent one-year rule of Vijayan are the root cause of the violence as both the parties want to cover up their failures, he added.

The police have directed citizens to ensure that they do not engage in activities like spreading false messages on social media, and warned of strong action against those indulging in violence.
The Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Saturday arrested an agent of a Chandigarh-based company and seized assets worth Rs 4.18 crore in connection with its money laundering probe in a Rs 600-crore Ponzi scam.

The ED had conducted searches in Delhi, Gurgaon, Faridabad and Ambala in Haryana, and Ghazipur in Uttar Pradesh in this case on Friday.

The central probe agency, in a statement issued on Saturday, said an absconding agent of the alleged chit fund firm under scanner  Kamal K Bakshi  has been arrested under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA) and was produced in the trial court in Chandigarh.

The court has sent Bakshi to judicial custody. The next date of hearing is August 11.

Kamal K Bakshi hails from Ambala. He later shifted to Gurgaon, an ED officer told HT. He was arrested on Friday evening during raids conducted by the ED. His name is also registered as a proclaimed offender in one of the FIRs registered at the Sector-36 police station. The officer said Bakshi had sold off his property in Ambala in 2014 before shifting to Gurgaon.

There are cases registered against him in Gurdaspur and Panipat as well.

The case, the ED said, pertains to thousands of investors who were systematically lured and cheated to the tune of more than Rs 600 crore by floating Ponzi or pyramid schemes assuring exorbitant returns.

Fixed deposit receipts, immovable property papers, jewellery and high-end cars estimated to be valued at Rs 4.18 crore have been seized after the searches, the ED said.

Mastermind in Malaysia

The ED said the alleged mastermind of the scheme is a Malaysian identified as Mugundhan Gangam who floated two firms  Ms Unipay 2U Marketing Private Limited and Unigateway2U Trading Private Limited  in India.

The man is suspected to be hiding in Malaysia now, after he slipped out from the country, the ED said.

Describing the modus operandi of the alleged cheating in this case, the agency said the early investors of the Ponzi schemes floated by the firm were paid exorbitant returns in order to win over their confidence.

When thousands of people across the country invested crores of rupees in the schemes, the companies stopped the payouts or monthly returns (since October 2010) and gradually siphoned off crores of rupees of investors, it said.

The company made manipulations using a web of bank accounts and layering of money through a plethora of such accounts, the ED alleged.

Assets worth Rs 1.63 crore have also been attached in this case under PMLA, it said, even as the agency is probing the role of another agent of the two firms identified as Arvind Kumar Singh.

The agency had registered a criminal FIR in the case, based on an earlier complaint of other central investigative agencies.

FIR in city led to ED probe

A case registered in 2012 by the cyber cell of the Chandigarh police led to the ED investigations into the matter.

A handful of complaints  four from tricity  had initiated the investigations into the scam, which is now being estimated to be worth Rs 600 crore.

Sources in the police said that in 2012 about four complaints were lodged for online fraud. The complaints had claimed to have lost Rs 50 lakh. They had later even moved the Punjab and Haryana high court seeking probe by a central agency.

The cyber cell was investigating the matter, following which an FIR was registered for cheating, forgery and under the Information Technology (IT) Act at the Sector-36 police station. Kamal K Bakshi was later declared a proclaimed offender.

The cyber cell case was registered at our station, said Sector-36 station house officer Naseeb Singh. We have made formal arrest of the accused, who was a PO. He has been sent to judicial custody. Intimation about his arrest has been given to the cyber cell.

(With PTI inputs)
BJP chief Amit Shahs lunch on Sunday at a booth-level worker who belongs to the Other Backward Castes (OBC) group in Lucknow effectively conveyed the partys continued focus on politically dominant OBCs.

Until Sunday morning, there were speculations that Shah would have lunch at a Dalit party workers residence  something he regularly had in the run up to the 2017 UP assembly polls.

But the last-minute selection of a Yadav man has its own symbolism in highly caste dominated UP politics.

That is why more than the simple curd, butter milk, rice and pulses meal that Shah had while sitting on the floor at 32-year old party worker Sonu Yadavs Gomtinagar residence, the focus was more on the visible shift in BJPs OBC outreach plan.

Overwhelmed by Shahs visit, an emotional Sonu said, He liked butter milk, a drink available in most Yadav homes.

Prior to 2017 UP polls BJP had focused mainly around non-Yadav OBCs and that was a main reason why Shah appointed Keshav Prasad Maurya, an OBC, as the state BJP chief. Maurya is also the states deputy chief minister.

The backwards, with Yadavs being the most prominent, constitute about 40% of the states population. A sizeable chunk of them voted for the BJP in the 2014 Lok Sabha election and then again in 2017 UP polls. BJP sources say Shah has asked the party to capitalise on the trend ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.

After the near-decimation of Bahujan Samaj Party, Akhileshs Samajwadi Party that traditionally prospered due to the unflinching support of Muslims and Yadavs is the states main opposition party.

RJD chief and former Bihar chief minister is pushing the SP and BSP to be part of the stop-BJP grand alliance of which Congress and other opposition parties could be a part.

Read more: Samajwadi Party MLCs resign, clear path for Yogis induction into UP legislature

Shah wants to disturb the arithmetic by rattling SP with defections and resignations. The idea is to confuse the SP and BSP to the extent that their leadership doesnt know who is with them and who isnt, a BJP leader told HT.

During his meetings that he separately held with ministers and party workers, Shah made it clear that the party wont hesitate to welcome big leaders from other parties into the BJP.

The BJP is closely watching Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadavs uncle Shivpal Yadavs next move as the two SP MLCs who resigned on Saturday to help the BJP are from Shivpal faction. More resignations are expected from the SP as Shivpal Yadav has openly warned Akhilesh to hand over the partys reins to his father Mulayam Singh Yadav or be ready to face the consequences. There is a buzz about Shivpal, who met his brother and SP patron Mulayam in Delhi on Sunday, floating his own secular morcha to support the BJP.

Saffron strategists are also tuned into another possibility of Shivpal joining Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumars JD (U) and being made the partys UP chief.

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The Army has conveyed its serious concerns to the defence ministry over the Ordnance Factory Boards failure to punish officials responsible for last years massive blast at an ammunition depot in Maharashtra in which 19 army personnel perished, an official document says.

Over 19,325 defective anti-tank mines had exploded primarily due to leakage of explosives from some of the mines stored at the Central Ammunition Depot in Pulgaon.

In a letter to Defence Production Secretary Ashok Kumar Gupta, the Army headquarters has sought fixing of responsibility for the blaze at the depot on May 31, 2016.

Separately, the Army has taken up the issue with Defence Secretary Sanjay Mitra, official sources said.

Two army officials, four defence security corps personnel and 13 defence fire safety staff were killed in the fire at the depot, the largest ammunition and weapons store in the country and said to be the second largest in Asia.

In the letter, seen by PTI, the Army said a Court of Inquiry has attributed the cause of the accident to exudation of highly explosive trinitrotoluene (TNT) from some of the defective anti-tank non-detectable mines.

No reaction was available from the OFB.

The Army sought fixing of responsibility and traceability of lapses on the part of officials by the Ordnance Factory Board (OFB).

The OFB operates 41 ordnance factories across the country and functions under the department of defence production of the ministry of defence.

The mines were manufactured by the Ordnance Factory Chanda.

A detailed Court of Inquiry, which was conducted by the Army, attributed the cause of the defect (exudation of TNT) to lapses both by manufacturing (OFB) and quality assurance agencies.

These agencies are under the control of department of defence production under the defence ministry and suitable action needs to be taken by them, the Army said in the letter.

It further said, Fixing of accountability and traceability for the said accident is yet to be established by the OFB and the director general of quality assurance (DGQA) even one year after the accident.

Official sources said there was criminal negligence on the part of certain officials as cited by the probe and sought immediate action against them.

The sources said the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) in Pune in 2012 had clearly called the quality of TNT in the anti-tank mines as safety hazard but the OFB stated it to be a world-wide phenomenon.

The CoI had recommended disposal of defective ammunition in a time-bound manner to prevent recurrence of fire at the depot, the sources said.
A 14-year-old rape survivor who gave birth to a child last year after being denied permission to abort her foetus has got married to her alleged rapist following intervention by village elders.

The girls plight had hit the headlines as she ran from pillar to post to get her pregnancy terminated. She initially maintained she did not want the child, but once the baby was born, she refused to give him up.

The courts denied her permission to abort as she was in an advanced stage of pregnancy and doctors felt the procedure might endanger her life. Abortions are allowed till 20 weeks under law.

The child is now 10 months old and both the mother and son moved to the accused mans home last fortnight. My parents cannot feed me and my child. Here, we at least get two meals a day, the girl told HT.

The heartrending story of the girl from a small village near Bareilly, some 250 km northwest of state capital Lucknow, captured the challenges faced by teenaged rape survivors. On Friday, the Supreme Court rejected the abortion plea of a 10-year-old rape survivor and asked the central government to consider setting up a permanent medical board in every state to quickly decide on pleas from pregnant women asking for terminations beyond the 20-week period.

My parents cannot feed me and my child. Here, we at least get two meals a day.

The Bareilly girl claimed that her alleged rapist, hailing from the same village, had repeatedly raped her on the false pretext of marriage. She filed a police complaint and the accused was jailed for several months before being freed on bail.

The rape case is still pending and AK Bhatnagar, the lawyer for the accused, said the couple will move the court soon with their marriage certificate to quash the case. The duo has already applied to register their social marriage before the local sub-divisional judicial magistrate. It wasnt immediately clear if the marriage of the minor girl will pass legal muster.

Though the cause of their sufferings, the accused has been forgiven by the girls family. Samaaj se akele kab tak ladai karte... dar dar bhatakne se to achha hai ki uske ghar chali gayi (How long can one fight against the society...it is better that she has gone to his house), the girls father, who is a daily wage earner, said. I married off my child only on the assurance of the village elders and the boys family that they will take care of her, he added.

How long can one fight against the society...it is better that she has gone to his house. -- Girls father

Village elders oversaw the marriage after the family of the accused agreed to take the mother and child home. It was a mistake on my part for which Allah will never forgive me. I want to correct that mistake by accepting her and my child, the accused said.

The girl had stumped many with her motherly instincts despite her young age. The day her son was born, dozens of childless couples seeking to adopt had landed up at the Bareilly hospital, offering her cash. She spurned all offers, insisting she would not give up on the child.
Forty-five-year old Paresh Mondal had seen people clinging to a rope dangling from a helicopter in movies, but never imagined that someday he would do the maneuvering himself to save his life.

On Saturday morning, Mondal and eight others marooned inside a two-storied house at flood-hit Pratappur village in the Ghatal area of West Midnapore were winched up by a rescue team of the Indian Air Force.

Seven children were among those airlifted from the flood-ravaged village using winch in a heart-stopping rescue operation.

The villagers moved into the building on Wednesday when rest of the houses in Pratappur got inundated following a breach in embankment on the Silabati river.

Thirteen persons have died since July 21 and more than 23 lakh people are affected in over 165 villages in the 11 flood-hit districts of the state.

Nearly 45,000 people have taken shelter in over 2,000 relief camps set up in the affected districts.

The West Midnapore district magistrate sought help from the air force on Friday to evacuate villagers trapped in the Pratappur building after speedboats deployed by the local administration failed to reach the building because of strong current in the flood water.

The Russian Mi5 V5 helicopter from Barrackpore air force station in the North 24 Parganas district was used in the first-of-its-kind rescue operation in Bengal.

Since there was no place to land and the house was surrounded by tall trees, the pilots had to hover over the old building at the fixed spot and altitude.

IAF personnel made their first rescue attempt on Friday. But completely alien to such rescue operations, people trapped inside the building wanted to wait for boats.

To build their confidence, the rescue team demonstrated the whole process winching up a policeman and a local youth but still nobody was coming forward. Since it was getting dark the helicopter returned to Barrackpore, said an Eastern Command spokesperson.

I am still shaking at the thought of hanging so high. But ultimately we made it. There are more people in the house and some of them were very old. They refused to leave. Probably they were too scared to hang in mid air, said Mandal.

We spent sleepless nights in the house, fearing that it would collapse any moment. The waves kept hammering its old walls, he added.

Some people are still trapped in that house in Pratappur. They refused to be airlifted like the others. Apparently they are too scared, said Bharati Ghosh, police chief of West Midnapore.

Arpita Mondal, another rescued villager, was in a state of shock. All I can say is I am alive. Nothing else matters, she exclaimed.

They were taken to a safe place near Ghatal town, about nine km from Pratappur. People from flood-hit Manoharpur, Rasulpur and Harisingpur were also taken to safe areas.

A second helicopter was used in the afternoon to airdrop food and provisions.

(With agency inputs)
The Congress legislators from Gujarat staying at a resort outside Bengaluru are willing to return home if state chief minister Vijay Rupani promises their safety, party spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said on Sunday.

The party shepherded 44 lawmakers on Friday night to the holiday retreat in Karnakata after a spate of resignation of its MLAs amid allegations that the ruling BJP in Gujarat were bribing and coercing them ahead of the August 5 vice-presidential election.

We have been threatened, offered money to defect and some have done so, Gohil, the Congress MLA for Abdasa in the Kutch region, told reporters.

The BJP denied the charges and criticised the Congress legislators for leaving the state when it was reeling under floods. Chief minister Rupani visited flood-affected districts in northern Gujarat during the day.

Union minister Prakash Javadekar said in New Delhi that the opposition lawmakers were having fun at a resort when their BJP counterparts were busy providing relief to the flood-hit people.

Gujarat Congress leaders are making allegations against the BJP in Bengaluru. It is like a thief attacking a cop. If their leaders are leaving them, it has nothing to do with us, he said.

The Congress responded that its MLAs have not abandoned their constituencies, but were compelled by the BJP to move out.

There is an attempt by the BJP to steal our legislators. But we will fight to save democracy, Govil said.

Dhirubhai Chunilalbhai Bhil, a five-time legislator, alleged that as much as Rs 20 crore was offered to defect. But I am proud to say that none of the tribal leaders have fallen for this gimmick.

Rejecting the Congresss charge, the BJP countered tongue and cheek whether the rival lawmakers were purchasable.

The Congress took the MLAs to the southern state, which it rules, after six of its 57 lawmakers in the Gujarat assembly resigned on Friday and Saturday.

The defectors are believed to be close to former chief minister Shankersinh Vaghela, who quit the Congress on June 21, his 77th birthday, alleging that some party leaders were conspiring against him.

The defections reduced the partys strength in the assembly to 51, but its Rajya Sabha nominee Ahmed Patel still has the numbers to sail through.

Patel, the political secretary to Congress president Sonia Gandhi, will need the votes of 45 lawmakers. The party hopes two Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) lawmakers will vote for him. Besides, rebel BJP lawmaker Nalin Kotadiya could switch sides.

We have the support of a legislator from Janata Dal (United) and two from the NCP, Gohil said.

(With inputs from Hiral Dave in Ahmedabad and PTI)

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The ongoing standoff between India and China at Doklam, Sikkim, has taken a toll on the Sino-India cross-border trade in Himachal Pradesh. The cross-border trade that generally starts at the end of June every year, is yet to commence. The local administration has asked 52 traders to wait for the Central governments nod, even though they have been issued trading passes.

Trade between the two countries is carried out through the Shipki pass in Kinnaur district. Of the 86 traders who applied for the passes, 52 have been given security clearance.

Passes have been allotted to some traders but we are yet to receive directions on allowing them to carry the cross-border trade, said Rajiv Verma, tehsildhar of Pooh.

Meanwhile, the delay in clearance has left traders worried. Traders are waiting for the governments nod. There is no clarity so far, said Hishey Negi, president of Kinnaur Indo-China Trade Association.

We dont want to take any risk. Traders and mule owners are apprehensive to travel to the zero point midst the standoff at Doklam, said Ishwar Negi, a resident of Tashi Gang village along the Sino-India border.

How the trade is conducted

Traders apply for passes at the tehsildhars office in Pooh. These are then scrutinised by central agencies. Once the applications are cleared, traders travel by road to Namgya, 22 kilometers from Pooh, and then to the border village of Chuppan. Once here, they then head to the zero point on the international border. A six-hour trek takes them to Shipki, a village in China-controlled Tibetan Autonomous Region.

Border trades history

Trade through the Shipki pass commenced in 1994 after India and China signed a bilateral treaty. Himachal Pradesh shares a 280-kilometre-long border with China.

Some of the products that Indians trade here include agricultural implements, blankets, copper products, clothes, textiles, cycles, coffee, tea, barley, rice, flour, dry fruit, dry and fresh vegetables, vegetable oil, jaggery and tobacco.

Traders have been repeatedly urging the Centre to create more facilities at the Namgya trading point in India. Traditionally trade with Tibet was carried out under the barter system. In 2013, the Centre expanded the trading list which enhanced the trades volume and the cross-border trade recorded a turnover of Rs 7.32 crore. Trade was at its peak in 2015 when the turnover exceeded Rs 9.38 crore. The demonetisation move announced by the Modi government had its impact on the cross-border trade as well.

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A 28-year-old drunken policeman allegedly shot his senior in Meghalayas West Jaintia Hills district early Sunday morning and went underground along with his service rifle.

Constable Lusen Sangma allegedly fired six times at havildar Litsingh Inghi, 50, from point blank range before escaping with his self-loading rifle.

The incident happened in Meghalaya Polices 3rd battalion at Sahbsein, about 15 km from district headquarters Jowai.

West Jaintia Hills superintendent of police R Muthu said the assailant was in an inebriated state when the incident took place.

Inghi was in his room on the top floor of a building along with two of his subordinates when constable Sangma entered and fired six rounds, causing fatal injuries to Inghi. He fired another 15 rounds while fleeing with the weapon, Muthu told HT.

The havildar succumbed to his injuries on the way to the hospital. The two other policemen who were with Inghi escaped unhurt.

Muthu said the motive behind the killing was yet to be ascertained, however, it was likely that Sangma might have turned violent under the influence of alcohol.

There have been deserters in Meghalaya police in the past, though not all the cases were related to alcoholism. One of the deserters was Champion Sangma, a deputy superintendent of police, who formed the Garo National Liberation Front in 2009. He was later arrested.

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A Muslim cleric on Sunday issued a fatwa against newly appointed Bihar minister and Janata Dal (United) leader Khurshid alias Firoz Ahmad for chanting Jai Shri Ram, saying his marriage would be terminated for his mistake.

An MLA from Sikta in West Champaran, Ahmad shouted the slogan, normally associated with BJP supporters, outside the Bihar assembly on Friday after chief minister Nitish Kumar won the trust vote he faced after breaking ties with the RJD-Congress alliance and joining hands with the BJP.

The fatwa, or a decree, against the only Muslim minister in Kumars new cabinet was issued by Mufti Sohail Quasmi of Imarat Shariah, which describes itself as a socio-religious organisation active in Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha.

Islam teaches respect for all religions. If by saying Jai Shri Ram I can do some good for the Muslims, why is there such a hue and cry, Ahmad, who has been given charge of minority welfare and sugarcane industries, told mediapersons.

He would not be cowed down by such threats, he said.

The minister later apologised for his statement, while talking to a TV channel.

The CM told me if anybody felt hurt by my statement, I should apologise. My intention was not to hurt anyone. I have come to serve the people. My statement was distorted, he told the channel after coming out of a review meeting of the minority welfare department with chief minister Nitish Kumar.

However, his phone was switched off when HT tried to contact him

Upset over the slogan hailing Hindu god Ram, Quasmi said Ahmads marriage would be terminated and he would have to perform the nikah again after accepting his mistake.

Imarat Shariah general secretary Anisurrehman said the organisation had not issued a fatwa but it could be a personal opinion of Quasmi.

I have not talked to him. I will try to find out what made him speak like this, he said.

HT tried to reach Quasmi for comments but his phone was switched off.

A Muslim is honest to his conscience. What wrong have I done? I have not divorced my wife. I dont know how the fatwa was issued and for what, said the minister.

The BJP came out in his defence. Any fatwa on such issues is against the spirit and rich tradition of India, which has always epitomised diversity and respect for each others religion, Bihar BJP spokesman Azfar Shamshi said.

Ahmad had taken forward the Indian tradition while the fatwa was against it. The days are gone when Muslims were waylaid on sentimental issues. Now, they want solutions to their core issues, he said.

Maryada Purushottam Ram was known as Imam-e-Hind (an ideal person), he said, adding Indonesia, which has the worlds highest number of Muslims, had named its national carrier named Garuda while several building were named Ramayan.

In Hindu mythology, Garuda is the mount of Lord Vishnu. Ram is an incarnation of Vishnu.

It is the spirit of Ram that is important and there is no need to fan sentiments, Shamshi said.

India has always been as a country of Ram and Raheem and there should not be any effort to create a divide, JD-U spokesman Neeraj Kumar said.

Gandhi ji talked of Ram and Raheem in the same breath. Former president APJ Abdul Kalam observed both Ramazan and Navratra. Ahmad has just reflected the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb of the country, he said.

As part of the so-called grand alliance, Nitish Kumar had worked hard to woo the Muslim community and his decision to join hands with the BJP is unlikely to go down well it.

His decision to go with the RJD and the Congress to oppose the communal agenda of the BJP saw the minority community support him in 2015 state election. Kumar had betrayed people of Bihar and joined hands with communal forces, his former allies have said.

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Dr Naeem Geelani, the elder son of Hurriyat chairman Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was taken to a hospital on Sunday after he complained of chest pain, a party spokesman said.

The spokesman said that Naeem Geelani was scheduled to visit New Delhi for the NIA investigation into alleged terror funding by him and others, and had also booked a flight in this regard.

The spokesman claimed that repeated psychological pressure may have had adverse effects on his health.

He was admitted in Soura Medical Institute, where he has been kept in ICU, the spokesman said, stressing that the junior Geelani was a heart patient and has suffered a massive heart attack in 2009 and was operated with two cardiac stents.

Meanwhile, the Hurriyat Conference said it will take legal action against the National Investigation Agency (NIA) and Indian media about the character assassination of its leaders and their family members.

Denying the reports of NIA about properties allegedly amassed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani and other leadership, the Huriyat statement said it was considering the details and will come up with the actual figures to make people and the world community aware about the misinformation campaign and malicious propaganda of Indian authorities.

Denying reports of having unauthorised, illegal or disproportionate property, the Hurriyat hawk said his daughters are married and his two sons Dr Naeem Gilani and Naseem Gilani have no illegal assets.

Authorities foil Geelanis press conference

The statement also said that Syed Ali Shah Geelani had called an emergency press conference at his Hyderpora residence to refute the allegations, but the police and the state administration prevented media from entering his residence.
Darjeeling hills continued to be on the boil on Sunday following several rounds of clashes between police and Gorkha Janmukti Morcha (GJM) activists spearheading the movement for separate Gorkhaland state.

The epicentre of the clashes was Sukna, about 12 km from Siliguri, where clashes broke out on Saturday after police disallowed a GJM rally. On Sunday, GJM supporters, alleging police atrocities, took out rallies throughout the hills.

GJM leaders like Durga Sharma had a tough time pacifying Morcha activists at Sukna, which at times virtually turned into a battlefield in different phases throughout Sunday.

Although the hills had been on the boil over Gorkhaland agitation since the last two months, situation at Sukna had remained by and large peaceful. Matter turned worse since Saturday after police arrested five GJM activists at Sukna. Agitators gheraoed the police station demanding the release of the five.

Leaders like Sharma wanted to convince them that the police had assured release of the five arrested, provided GJM activists cleared their role. However, she was unable to pacify agitated activists who also blocked the National Highway 55 leading to Sukna with stone boulders. They claimed that the police was torturing innocent local people and even vandalising several residences.

Soon after, the locals took out a small rally in which they declared that they did not need any leader to lead the movement.

Basudev Sharma a retired army personnel, who fought the Kargil War against Pakistan in 1999, said that the way police behaved on Saturday after the clashes made local people insecure.

Most youths have left their homes and are sleeping outside. The police broke window panes of buildings nearby and arrested innocent people including a deaf and mute person, Sharma added.

Police had stopped the Saturday rally as activists were carrying khukris, the traditional Gorkha knives, leading to clashes, during which police used water cannons, tear gas shells to disperse the mob. Two Gorkhaland supporters were critically injured.

Tension also broke out at Jaigaon in Alipurduar district where Gorkhaland supporters clashed with police at two places in which one policeman and five agitators were injured.

Rohit Thapa, GJMs organising secretary in the Dooars, said that on Sunday they had planned a rally at Jaigaon as part of global Gorkhaland unity march. But police did not allow us, he said.

At Jaigaon, Gorkhaland supporters broke barricades at two places and clashed with police.

Authorities are now concerned over the spread of the Gorkhaland movement to the plains in Terai and Dooars regions, where it is likely to face stiff opposition from anti-Gorkhaland forces and parties.

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Hizbul Mujahideen commander Riyaz Naikoo was spotted at Sundays funeral of an operative of the outfit who was among two militants killed in a shootout with security forces in south Kashmirs Pulwama district.

Naikoo, a 30-year-old postgraduate, is said to have told the crowd at the funeral that the Kashmiri separatist movement has nothing to do with global terrorist groups, al-Qaeda and Islamic State.

Thousands of people gathered at the funeral of Shariq Ahmad Sheikh, a resident of Takuna in Pulwama. The other slain militant was Shabir Ahmad Mir of neighbouring Anantnag district.

An army officer said the two were asked to surrender after a cordon-and-search operation on Sunday morning but they rejected and fired at the troopers.

They tried to escape and were killed in retaliation. An INSAS and an SLR rifle were found on them, he said.

The killings triggered protests in Pulwama and an unaccounted number of people were wounded in police action to disperse the crowds.

Valley newspaper Greater Kashmir on its website published a picture of Naikoo addressing the mourners and cautioning them about efforts being made to defame the Kashmir freedom struggle.

The Pakistani flag is our flag. Linking our struggle with al-Qaeda and IS is a ploy to defame it, the news daily quoted Naikoo saying.

His statement came after Zakir Musa, who quit Hizbul in May, was allegedly chosen as the head of Ansar Ghazwat-Ul-Hind by an al-Qaeda-affiliated propaganda channel.

In May, Musa threatened to behead separatist leaders if they create any hurdles in the path of turning Kashmir into an Islamic state.

Naikoo, holding a gun and a microphone, said all the people holding the flag of Islam are not necessarily our own.

Thereafter, he shouted pro-Pakistan slogans and disappeared.

Naikoo is a contemporary of Hizbul commander Burhan Wani, whose killing last year triggered unprecedented unrest in Kashmir and left more than 80 people dead in clashes with security forces.

The Valleys separatists as well as Pakistan-based militant groups aiding the decades-old insurgency have rejected the al-Qaedas alleged attempt to hijack the movement.

The Hurriyat Conference said the freedom movement is indigenous.

Terrorism and the freedom movement are poles apart, said a joint statement of Hurriyat leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq and Yasin Malik last week.

The Pakistan-based Hizbul chief, Syed Salahuddin, who was declared a global terrorist this June by the US, had rejected any role of al-Qaeda in Kashmir. He also heads the United Jihad Council, an umbrella organisation of militant groups.
India and Russia hope to conclude a contract to purchase an additional 48 Mi-17 V5 medium lift helicopters by the end of this year, an official in Moscow said.

Aleksandr Mikheev, CEO of Rosoboronexport, the state agency for exporting defence equipment from Russia, said price negotiations are to start by August.

We are holding negotiations with a view to sign a contract for 48 Mi-17 V5 helicopters. In July-August, we are starting price and contract negotiations within the framework of the applicable Indian procedure and we hope that we will reach agreement before the end of this year, Mikheev told this visiting IANS correspondent.

Our Indian partners know the programme very well. They have more than 300 helicopters belonging to the Mi-8 and Mi-17 family, he added.

India at present has more than 150 Mi-17 V5 helicopters, the last of which were delivered in January 2016. Most of the Mi-8s have, however, been phased out while some of the Mi-17s are still flying.

The Mi-17 V5 is based on the Mi-8 airframe and is one of the most advanced aircraft of the Mi-8/17 family.

The helicopters are equipped with night vision technology, all-weather radar, a new PKV-8 autopilot system and a KNEI-8 avionics suite.

The sturdy choppers have been the mainstay of the Indian Air Force in a number of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief operations.

The choppers were also deployed during the 2008 Mumbai terror attack when it enabled commandos of the National Security Guard to rapel down to the Chabad House in Colaba where a few of the attackers were holed up. They are also said to have been pressed into service during the surgical strikes carried out on Pakistani terror launch pads across the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir in September 2016.

The choppers TV3-117BM turboshaft engines are rated at 1,900 hp each, giving it a greater service and hovering ceiling, and have proved efficient in the tough mountain terrain of the Himalayas.

Mikheev added that India and Russia are also discussing the modernisation of the Sukhoi SU-30MKI fighters.

During a period of 15 years, we have fulfilled all our obligations to the Indian party, the HAL. We have supplied about 200 aircraft under the licence agreement and are offering the new developments of our design bureaus, Mikheev said.

Moreover, the Indian Air Force has some requirements for improvement of performance and operational characteristics, mainly with regard to avionics and electronic warfare systems, as well as updates of weapon systems by both Indian and Russian companies, he added.

Asked about the S-400 Triumf long range air defence missile system, a contract for which was signed during Russian President Vladimir Putins visit to India last year, Mikheev said negotiations were on.

As of today, we are carrying out technical consultations with the Indian party. We have already shown our equipment in both the field-testing, range-practice conditions, he said.

Rosoboronexport is performing all the work aimed at signing of the contract as soon as possible, based on the feedback from the Indian party, he said, adding: Id like to note that today the Indian party does not have any such systems as the S-400.

The deal is estimated to be worth over $5-billion (over Rs 32,000 crore).

The missile system, which has been deployed in Syria, where Russia is targeting the Islamic State, can destroy incoming hostile aircraft, missiles and even drones at ranges of up to 400 km and will prove to be a game changer for India, experts said.
Guwahati businessman Bibek Patowary took his family during this summer vacation on a 550 km road trip to see Bhupen Hazarika Setu, Indias longest bridge inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in May.

He was not alone. Located in the easternmost point of the state, an area ravaged by annual floods, the strategically important bridge connecting Assam and Arunachal Pradesh has become a tourist hotspot.

We visited on a weekday but were surprised to find hundreds like us who had reached Dhola in Tinsukia district to see the bridge, ride across to the other side, click photos and more, Patowary said.

The 9.15 km long bridge over Lohit, which will make it easier to transport military logistics close to the border with China, has literally transformed both places located on the northern and southern banks.

The media hype surrounding its inauguration by Modi on May 26 and the bridges entry into the record books has led to a heavy influx of tourists from across Assam, northeast and other parts of India.

On weekends thousands of people throng to the structure over river Lohit, a major tributary of the Brahmaputra. The sudden rush to the area, where very few ventured earlier, has led to tea-stalls, eateries, paan shops mushrooming to cater to the tourists.

Locally produced organic vegetables, crafts and clothes have also found a new market enabling locals in the area both in Assam and Arunachal Pradesh see a surge in their earnings.

Sensing a business opportunity, Aghi Mihu, a local Idu-Mishmi youth from Roing in Arunachal Pradesh has started a venture allowing tourists to get photos clicked wearing the traditional attire of the sub-tribe of the Mishmis.

But the sudden surge of tourists and hundreds of vehicles to the area is creating administrative problems that never existed before the bridge became operational.

There is chaos on the bridge and nearby areas especially on weekends. We have deployed more personnel to manage and set up check gates, said Sanjay Kumar Sain, superintendant of police of Lower Dibang Valley district in Arunachal Pradesh.

Since outsiders visiting Arunachal Pradesh need to procure an inner line permit, the administration has set up a check point along the road, which is creating further traffic snarls.

Earlier this month, Arunachal Pradesh police seized 8000 kgs of illegally procured explosives from a truck on way from Meghalaya during a routine check-up of vehicles.

The explosives were meant for road construction, but officials say there could be the possibility of such contraband landing in the hands of terror outfits which operate in the area.

The bridge has benefitted local economy due to surge of tourists but has created management problems for us. We are planning to create no-parking zones in some areas, Oinam S Singh, deputy commissioner Tinsukia district in Assam told HT.

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An Indian Navy band will participate in the worlds largest military tattoo -- 2017 Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo -- from August 1 to 26 in the United Kingdom, an official statement said on Sunday.

The military tattoo is an international event of military music performances by the armed forces of various countries.

It is held at the sprawling stretch of Edinburgh Castle Esplanade in Scotland.

The statement said the invite to the naval band is a matter of pride and befitting recognition of its professional prowess and would further cement bilateral ties, more so when the governments of India and the UK have announced 2017 as the India-UK Year of Culture to celebrate cultural ties and the 70th year of Indian Independence.

The Indian Navy band, comprising one officer and 65 musician-sailors, will perform under the baton of Commander Vijay Charles DCruz, director of Music (Navy), who would be the principal conductor at the event.

The team would depart from Mumbai on Sunday evening.

Nearly 2.5 lakh people are expected to attend the military tatoo over 26 days, in which over 50 bands will participate.
Japan is already extending financial aid to major infrastructure development projects in India, and is ready to support more ventures in various fields, a diplomat has said.

Japan is very much ready to support India in achieving its 21st goals in various fields, said Japanese Consul General Ryoji Noda.

The two Asian economic giants have exchanges in a host of fields like culture, business and education, he said.

To boost the relationship between the two countries, our prime ministers are meeting annually. As part of the initiative, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit India later this year.

During the meeting of prime ministers of both the countries in 2014, it was decided to double Japans foreign direct investment (FDI) into India to Rs 2.1 lakh crore in five years timeframe, he said.

Japan is expected to provide Rs 1.2 lakh crore for the high speed rail project (bullet train) between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, Noda added.
Raped at by her fathers relative, she gave birth at the tender age of 12. She did not have a choice because by the time her pregnancy was detected, she was a week past the 20-week limit allowed for abortion. The child was given up for adoption. Now, 14 years old, the teen is studying hard with her mothers support to reshape her life.

My daughter is very intelligent. She used to top her class. I want to make her an IAS officer as I want to give her a dignified life, said the teens mother, who is unable to make peace with the law. Once a law is made, can no one go beyond it? Was it fair to make a 12-year-old girl give birth just because her pregnancy was a week above the permissible limit? she told HT.

Read more: Bareillys 14-year-old rape survivor, who gave birth to a child last year, married off to accused

The scars are deep. My daughter has stretch marks on her stomach. This is Haryana. In this state, they dont even let daughters get born. Who will marry her? she added.

She is still so weak that she cant even walk to school and complains of pain in her legs at night. Earlier, I used to give her sleeping pills. Even a womans body takes years to be normal after delivery. My husband is in jail in an unrelated case. I do odd jobs. I cannot take up a regular job because I will never be able to leave her alone, she said.

The woman said she had to leave home and shift to her brothers house to avoid the prying eyes in her neighbourhood.

Read more:Chandigarh 10-yr-olds rape: Is media rush over a pregnant childs trauma simply sinister?

She added that her fight started the day she went to a police station to register a case. They asked me how I did not know my daughter was being raped. It was winter and my daughter used to wear jackets. I did not get to know about the pregnancy till I saw her changing clothes one day.

To know the stage of pregnancy to file an abortion plea, she had to fight at government hospitals too.

They do not accept ultrasound reports of private hospitals. So we went to a government hospital, where the doctor was not available, and then to another in Chandigarh. After the ultrasound showed the pregnancy was beyond 20 weeks  it was 21  they put my daughter in the general ward. The doctors treated her like a woman not a child. I moved the court again and she was allotted a private room.

While staying with her daughter for three months in the hospital, her fight for justice went on.

The accused, who was married, claimed he was a juvenile. We were able to produce documents to show he was an adult. He got 12 years in jail, said the teens mother.

Is it the job of a mother whose daughter is going through such horror to prove that documents are fake? I was dealing with panchayats, threats and media glare... she added.

Read more: As early as possible and as late as necessary

The woman gets Rs 2,000 as monthly allowance for her daughter, whose medical and school bills are reimbursed by the education and health departments. Except my brothers family, I did not tell anyone about what we suffered, not even my son. I have never asked my daughter if she has any memories of the delivery. She does not speak much and studies for hours.

The woman said, I fought back as I am at least educated till Class 12. In the court, I saw uneducated parents of another girl, younger than my daughter, who was brutally raped. Her parents used to sit in the court for hours, helpless and clueless.

The womans lawyer, Pardeep Sharma, who never charged her any fee, said her fight may bring some relief for other victims of sexual crimes in Haryana. There should be both prevention of crime and care of survivors. The relief and reimbursements from health and education departments should be structured. Not everyone comes to the courts. And no victim should need to fight for states care, added Sharma.

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Several parts of Kerala were tense on Sunday where the BJP has called a shutdown to protest against the killing of a Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS) worker, who was allegedly stabbed by CPI(M) workers a day earlier.

E Rajesh, 34, was stabbed 40 times and his left hand chopped off by a group of men at around 9pm on Saturday. He died in a city hospital.

The murder is the latest in the fresh round of violence between the RSS, the ideological parent of the BJP, and the Communist Party of India (Marxist) supporters.

Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state. 1/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. 2/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously. 3/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

Two days ago BJPs state office in the city and the house of CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan son were vandalised.

BJP state chief Kummanam Rajasekharan sought immediate intervention of the Centre, where the party is in power, but the ruling CPI (M) denied its cadre were involved in the murder.

The ruling CPI(M) cant get away with these killings. It is nothing but state-sponsored terrorism, said Rajasekharan. CPI(M) district secretary A Nagappan blamed personal rivalry for the killing.

The assailants had been identified and would be arrested soon,

Thiruvananthapuram range inspector general of police Manoj Abraham said.

Police were keeping a close watch on trouble-torn Kannur district, notorious for the clashes between the two sides.

The Opposition Congress has asked chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan to call a peace meeting to end the recurring cycle of violence.

Clashes between the BJP and the CPI (M) are on the rise as the RSS makes inroads in the southern state where politics has been dominated by the Left parties.

The BJP managed to bag its first assembly seat  Nemom, a Thiruvananthapuram suburb -- during last years state election.

The violence that was once limited to the north is now spreading to others parts of the state, including the capital city of Thiruvananthapuram in the south.

.

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Patna Dumped and still seething, Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad is looking to get back at chief minister Nitish Kumar whose decision to go with the BJP has reportedly upset senior party colleague Sharad Yadav.

Prasad invited the Janata Dal (United) co-founder Yadav to lead the fight against the BJP and Kumar, who, he said, had joined hands with communal and fascist forces and betrayed the peoples mandate.

Nitish has tarnished the image of Ambedkar. I urge Sharad Yadav, whom we consider the true leader, to travel to every corner of the country and come to Bihar and join our fight against the BJP and Nitish Kumar, Prasad told ANI on Saturday.

On July 26, Kumar resigned as the chief minister and ended two-year alliance with the RJD and the Congress over corruption charges against his deputy and Prasads son Tejashwi Yadav.

The 66-year-old leader returned as chief minister for the sixth time in less than 18 hours with the support of the BJP, the party he had broken ties with in 2013 after it picked Narendra Modi as the PM candidate.

I talked to Sharad Yadav over phone. I appeal to him that come and go to every corner of country, and take command of this fight, Prasad said.

Yadav is not the only party leader unhappy with Kumars decision. Members of Parliament Ali Anwar and Veerendra Kumar have voiced their displeasure publically over JD (U)s return to the NDA.

Yadav has not spoken to media but conveyed his misgivings through party leaders. Kumar and finance minister Arun Jaitley spoke to Yadav and tried to mollify him, sources said.

The RJD chief said they would launch a Desh bachao, BJP bhagao (save the nation, throw out the BJP) movement.

Kumars decision to end the so-called grand alliance not only altered dramatically the political scenario in Indias third most populous state but also dealt a blow to the opposition parties looking to replicate the Bihar model to take on the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

Kumar sailed through the trust vote on Friday, getting the support of 131 members in 243-strong Bihar assembly.

A 27-member cabinet -- 14 from the JD(U), 12 from the BJP and one from the Lok Janshakti Party (LJP)  was sworn in the next day. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi had taken oath as deputy chief minister along with Kumar on Friday.

Rumblings in NDA

The cabinet is the latest sticking point within the NDA.

Former chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi expressed disappointment over his Hindustani Awam Morcha (Secular) nominees being left out.

Though he is the only MLA from his party, Manjhi wanted three cabinet berths, a demand that didnt go down well with the JD(U) and the BJP.

Manjhi is upset that while his claims were overlooked another NDA ally, the LJP, managed to get a place in the cabinet.

He accused LJP leader and Union minister Ram Vilas Paswan of being power hungry. The LJP chiefs political greed is not yet satisfied. He took his family to the chief ministers residence and demanded a cabinet berth. Is this the state of politics today? Manji told news agency ANI after the oath ceremony that he stayed away from.

Paswans brother Pashupati Kumar Paras was sworn in as the animal husbandry and fisheries minister.

Manjhi declined the offer to join the cabinet, saying after having served as chief minister he couldnt be a minister. There were also indications that Union minister Upendra Prasad Kushwaha was unhappy over his Rashtriya Lok Samta Party going unrepresented in the cabinet.

Kushwaha pushed for Harlakhi MLA Sudhanshu Shekhar but Kumar turned him down, sources said.

The CM is reportedly upset over some remarks made by Kushwaha.

(With agency inputs)

QUOTE

Nitish has tarnished image of Ambedkar. I urge Sharad Yadav, whom we consider true leader, to travel to every corner of country, then come to Bihar and join our fight against BJP, Nitish

Lalu Prasad, RJD president
Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar was under pressure from RJD chief Lalu Prasad and his decision to walk out of the grand alliance was a big step towards clean politics, Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy has said.

The senior BJP leader, who is a member of Parliament from Bihars Saran, said Kumars decision to go with the BJP was in peoples interest and Bihar would change for better.

... This alliance should have taken place much earlier. With this decision, Bihar is heading towards big transformation, the minister of state for skill development and entrepreneurship said on Saturday, as Kumar picked a 27-member ministerial team in Bihar.

Indias third largest state was hit by a political earthquake on July 26 when Kumar resigned and ended his Janata Dal (United)s two-year alliance with the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Congress over corruption charges against his deputy Tejashwi Yadav of the RJD.

The 66-year-old returned as the chief minister within 18 hours but with a new partner, the BJP, the party he snapped ties with in 2013 for choosing Narendra Modi as the prime ministerial candidate.

The RJD and Congress have accused Kumar of opportunism and betraying peoples mandate, which was against the BJP.

Kumars move not only altered the political landscape in the state but dealt a big blow to opposition parties efforts to forge a Bihar-like coalition to take on the BJP in the 2019 Lok Sabha election.

I feel Nitish Kumar was under huge pressure from Lalu Prasad Yadav during the alliance, but now he is relieved and I think this decision is a big step in the direction of clean politics, Rudy said.

The minister was speaking to media on the sidelines of the launch of a skill development programme initiated by CREDAI Pune Metro.

On Prasads allegations that the new alliance was fixed, Rudy criticised the RJD chief over his alleged involvement in various scams.

He was found guilty in fodder scam and cannot contest elections... Now things are coming out that when he was the railway minister, he sold hotels and created shell companies in the name of his family members and now looking at the trail of all these scams, the amount of scam may go up to Rs 10,000 crore, the minister said.

He was talking about the land-for-hotels scandal, the latest corruption charge to hit Prasad and his family. Prasad and his son, Tejashwi, are were early this month named in a case for allegedly acquiring wealth through dubious deals, including prime land in Patna as a quid pro quo for hotel maintenance contracts to private firms when the RJD chief was the rail minister. All of them deny the charges being investigated by the CBI.

In his speech, Rudy said the mindset of people in India had always been to make their children engineers or provide good education to them so that they could get better jobs.

Post-independence, even at the government level, we have never focused on skill development. There are 18 lakh seats in engineering colleges across India, out of which eight lakh seats are empty. If we focus more on skill development, we can really become the leading country in providing the skilled workforce to the world, he said.
Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi has said singing Vande Mataram was a matter of choice and those refusing to sing it could not be dubbed as anti- nationals.

Singing Vande Mataram is absolutely an individuals choice. Those who want to sing can sing it, those who dont, may not. Not singing it does not make one anti-national, said the Union minister of state (independent charge) for parliamentary affairs and minority affairs, who was in the city for an event, speaking to PTI.

He added that however, if someone deliberately opposed the singing of the national song, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, it was in bad taste and not in the interest of the country.

Sparks flew in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly on Friday as the ruling BJP MLAs slammed Samajwadi Partys Abu Asim Azmi, who opposed a demand for making the singing of Vande Mataram mandatory in the schools and colleges of the state.

Citing a recent Madras high court order, which made singing of Vande Mataram mandatory in the Tamil Nadu schools, BJP MLA Raj Purohit said it should be followed by the schools and colleges in Maharashtra as well.

Azmi said he would not sing Vande Mataram even if he was thrown out of the country, while AIMIM MLA Waris Pathan said he would not sing it even if a revolver is put to my head.

Speaking at Shirdi, state PWD minister Chandrakant Patil on Saturday said no one should have a problem saying Vande Mataram and Bharat Mata Ki Jai.

Meanwhile, commenting on Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumars return to the NDA-fold, Naqvi described the JD(U) chief as a natural ally of the BJP.

It does not matter whom he (Kumar) had criticised (when he had parted ways with the NDA). The BJP will support anybody who is against corruption and interested in good governance, the Union minister said.
Five people have been taken into custody in connection with the killing of an RSS worker in Thiruvanathapuram even as the BJP called for a state-wide strike on Sunday to protest the incident.

A day after the incident, home minister Rajnath Singh voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala and said political violence was unacceptable in a democracy.

Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayans office said Singh spoke to him this morning over phone.

The Chief Minister informed him that the state government would take action against the accused, whoever they may be. Rajnath Singh expressed satisfaction on this stand, the CMO said in a Facebook post.

Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state. 1/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. 2/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously. 3/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

A gang led by a history-sheeter attacked 34-year-old RSS karyavahak E Rajesh on Saturday and hacked him to death. His left arm was chopped off and there were several injuries all over his body.

Police said the suspected main accused was among those taken into custody from rural Kattakkada near in the morning.

City police Commissioner G Sparjan Kumar said the interrogation of the accused was underway.

Five people are in police custody now. They were taken into custody from rural Kattakkada. A hunt is on for one more person. Only a detailed questioning will reveal the exact number of accused involved in the crime, he told PTI.

State Police Chief Loknath Behera has appealed to the people to restrain from spreading rumours and provocative messages, statements, photos and videos.

Any such action would attract legal action, he said, adding that WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts are under the scanner of police.

As part of precautionary measures, adequate police force has been deployed in all sensitive spots across the city, the official said.

The dawn-to-dusk hartal called by the BJP appeared to be successful, with state-run and private buses keeping off the roads and shops and business establishments remaining closed.

Sporadic incidents of stone pelting on vehicles were reported in some parts of the state.

People, who reached railway stations unaware of the hartal, had difficulty in getting vehicles to reach homes.

The city police have extended prohibitory orders for three more days till August 2 and banned processions in the state capital.

The ruling CPI(M) and the BJP traded charges over the killing of the RSS functionary.

While BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan alleged that the CPI(M) was behind the attack, the CPI(M) district leadership denied any role of the party in the attack.

Opposition leader in the state assembly Ramesh Chennithala and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president MM Hassan went on a fast in Kozhikode district to protest the politics of violence.

Describing the murder as brutal, Kummanam said this is annihilation politics aimed at wiping off the RSS and BJP.

The BJP would take up the matter with the Prime Minister, home minister and the National Human Rights Commission, he said.

The incident comes close on the heels of the attack on the BJPs Kerala unit office and stone pelting at the house of CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnans son Bineesh Kodiyeri.
Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was sent back from the airport here to Mumbai after protests by a group of people against her visit to the city, police said on Sunday.

Nasreen landed at the Chikalthana Airport last evening by a flight from Mumbai.

Police stopped the author from stepping out of the airport, where a crowd had gathered shouting slogans like Taslima Go Back.

Deputy commissioner of police (zone-II) Rahul Shrirame said Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai by the next flight to avoid any law and order problem in this city in central Maharashtra.

The author was advised to abandon her visit to the city and she agreed to go back, the police officer said.

Protesters had also gathered outside a hostel where Nasreen was to stay during her three-day visit.

Police said they had come to know that the writer was planning to visit the world heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora besides other tourist spots in Aurangabad.

The protest at the airport was led by Imtiyaz Jaleel, the AIMIM legislator from the Aurangabad central constituency.

Jaleel said her writings have hurt the religious sentiments of Muslims across the world. We will not allow her to step on the soil of our city, he said.

Last month, the Union home ministry has extended her visa for one year, with effect from July 23, 2017.

Nasreen, a citizen of Sweden, has been getting Indian visa on a continuous basis since 2004. The author is living in exile since she left Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of threats to her by fundamentalist groups.
Two militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in south Kashmirs Pulwama district on Sunday, officials said.

The encounter started after police and army launched a cordon and search operation in Tahab area of Pulwama around 5 am, police control room Pulwama said.

Army spokesman Rajesh Kalia said that two militants have been killed so far. The operation is still in progress, he said.

Director General of police SP Vaid also confirmed the killings of two militants on his Twitter handle.

Encounter started at Tahab, #Pulwama. 2 militants down.  Shesh Paul Vaid (@spvaid) July 30, 2017

Neither the police not the army have yet revealed the identity of the militants but local reports said that both were Kashmiris.

It was also not immediately clear whether the encounter was in a house or in open.

Read more: Three militants killed as army foils infiltration bid in Gurez

The encounter comes after three militants were killed when security forces foiled an infiltration bid on the Line of Control in Gurez sector of north Kashmir on Thursday.

Three militants were killed in an encounter after security forces stormed a forest area in south Kashmirs Tral in Pulwama district on July 15.
The shooting of a local Trinamool Congress leader in Bhangar in South 24 Parganas district of West Bengal on Sunday has raised tension in the area that had been simmering on the back of an agitation against land acquisition.

The victim, Asikur Rahman (48), was killed after he was hit on the head by a bullet allegedly fired by a land protester when he was returning from the residence of another Trinamool leader, Arabul Islam.

When contacted additional director general (law & order), Anuj Sharma told HT, that the police is investigating the matter. We are yet to arrest anyone or pin point anyone responsible for the shooting. However, we are investigating the matter and enough police personnel have been deployed in the area to avoid further tension, Sharma said.

Rahman was the office bearer of Bhangar II panchyat samiti. Local Trinamool leaders claimed that he was shot by the activists of a protest group called Jami, Jibika, Paribesh O Bastutantra Raksha Committee (committee to protect land, livelihood, environment and ecosystem), which had been spearheading the land agitation at Bhangar which is about 33 km south of Kolkata.

Floated by Naxal outfit, CPI-ML (red Star), the committee and its land movement at Bhangar rare backed by the CPI(M)-led Left Front, CPI-ML (Liberation), Majdoor Kranti Parishad and Association for Protection of Democratic Rights (APDR).

The situation at Bhangar was quite tense since Sunday morning following the preparation of a rally by the committee. Rahman went to Arabul Islams residence to discuss some panchayat related matters. While returning as he reached Notunhat area he was hit by a bullet on his head. The bullet was fired from the Machidnaga side, where activists of the said committee assembled for the rally. Later I heard that bullets were fired towards Arabul Islam, said local Trinamool Congress leader, Hakimul Islam.

Read more: Bhangar farmers prepare for fresh land movement as leaders get bail

Members of the said land agitation committee flatly denied the allegations and said that Rahmans killing was result of internal rivalry between two factions of Trinamool.

There are two rival groups in Trinamool at Bhangar, one lead by Arabul Islam and the other by Kaizar Ahmed. Clashes between these two groups are nothing new at Bhangar and Rahmans killing is a fallout of that internal rivalry, said an office bearer of the committee.

Hakimul Islam, however, rubbished allegations of internal rivalry and said that the committee members were resorting to falsehoods to hide their own misdeeds. Maoists are actively involved with the committee affairs and they are responsible for Rahmans killing, he said.

The agitation in Bhangar was launched last year and the villagers there stalled completion of a Power Grid Corporation of India (PGCIL) project citing suspected environmental and health hazards. Police arrested several leaders of the committee like Pradip Singh Thakur, Sharmistha Chowdhury, Shankar Das and Kushal Debnath and booked them under Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.

However, all of them were granted bails, which gave a boost the committee to renew land agitation at Bhangar.

Sundays rally was supposed to have been addressed by leaders of all constituents of the committee.

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi has set October 2, 2019, as the deadline for the country to become open defecation free but Rajasthans cabinet minister Surendra Goyal, whos in charge of Barmer, set a different deadline for the border district for the ODF tag. When he was in Barmer earlier last week, he said the district should become ODF by December 2017.

However, considering the progress of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBM), the national sanitation programme for construction of household latrines, in Barmer, the new deadline looks unachievable.

SBM data shows that only 28% households in the districts have toilets now.

According to a 2012 survey, there are 4.5 lakh households in the district; 3.61 lakh of them didnt have toilets in 2012. In four years, 108,848 household constructed toilets but this is just 28% of the household which were without latrines until 2012.

In terms of villages, out of 1,970 villages in Barmer, only 523 have become free of open defecation. This is just 27% of the total villages.

There are 489 gram panchayats in the district. Out of them, only 173 are ODF, which is again only 29%.

So, in all respects, around 70% of the target remains to be met for the district to become ODF.

Considering the situation and to fulfill the targets Barmer district collector Shivprasad Madan Nakate has taken an initiative and announced a Cleanliness Award. Under this collector will invite village Sarpanch on coffee whose panchayats will get ODF tag.

Nakate said that he is expecting that this initiative will motivate the village sarpanches to personally look after the Swachh Bharat Abhiyans progress in their area. We are also expecting that this initiative will help us to achieve the ODF target at the earliest, says collector.

On the other villagers have alleged official apathy for legging behind in the Swatch Bharat Abhiyan. They alleged that authorities are not serious towards the campaign. Hemraj Choudhary, a local resident said that people in this region are belongs to backward section and financially they are not able to ensure such facilities.

According to Hemraj when government announced to support them with motivational amount rupees 12 thousand on construction of toiled people come forward and constructed toilets. Hemraj claimed that thousands are there who have constructed the toilets but now they are waiting for the motivational amount.

Sometimes in the name of physical verification or other times in the name of budget crunch they were avoided for the payment. It is limiting their participation, he added.

Countering such allegation authorities claimed that earlier they have faced budget crunch but now they have sufficient budget for the campaign and soon who have constructed the toilets will paid.

M.L.Nehra, chief executive officer at Zila Parishad in Barmer said that minister in-charge of the district Surendra Goyal has directed them to achieve ODF tag by December 31, 2017. He said that considering the topographical situation of the area though it seems difficult but also maintained that as people are now aware about the program and are supporting them, they are hopeful that they will achieve the tag by the deadline.
The delay in selecting a male tiger has stalled the relocation of a big cat to the Sariska Tiger Reserve, officials said on Sunday.

The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) and Rajasthan government have given its nod to bringing a sub-adult male tiger from the Ranthambore Tiger Reserve to Sariska to increase the tiger population in Sariska.

Following the NTCAs nod for relocation, the Ranthambhore reserve administration has been trying to identify a suitable tiger for the past three months.

State forest minister Gajendra Singh Khinwsar said due to the delay in identifying a suitable male tiger for Sariska Tiger Reserve (STR), the process is taking time.

Deputy conservator of forest (STR) Balaji Kari said forest ranges within the reserve are populated with tigers except the Ajabgarh forest range, where a big cat is yet to a mark its territory.

The area is extremely suitable environmentally and it is relatively undisturbed. So we are planning to bring a tiger in the range, he said.

Chief conservator of forest (STR) Govind Sagar Bhardwaj has written a letter to state principal and chief wildlife warden GV Reddy, seeking permission for relocating the tiger in the range and also to send a team of experts from Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun, to study and survey the range before relocating the animal.

If all parameters are met, the new tiger will be brought to the range, officials said.

A new male adult tiger is necessary for the male-female ratio in the STR to be maintained. As the male tiger population in the Ranthambhore has gone up, the reserve authorities have decided to relocate one to STR.

The sex ratio in Ranthambhore has gone up to 1:1, where the Ideal male-female tiger ratio ranges between 1:2 and 1:3.

At present there are 14 tigers -- two males, nine females and 3 cubs-- in the STR.
The Rajasthan government has collected 151.60 crore in 2016-17 for gau seva by imposing 10% surcharge levied on stamp duty for cow conservation and propagation in the year 2016-17.

Of the total income earned from the surcharge, until now the state government has spent 138.67 crore on conservation of propagation of cow and its progeny and maintenance of cow shelters.

Rajasthan is among the leading state, which has taken innovative steps for the development and maintenance of bovine and cow shelters. The state is the first to constitute a gaupalan or cow protection department in the country.

A government release states that under the Cow Protection and Promotion Fund Rule, 2016,  126.89 crore has been provided for fodder, water and cattle feed to 4, 71,800 bovines at 1,036 cow shelters across the state.

The state government has spent 21 crore from the fund on 196 cow shelters at Jalore, Sirohi and Pali districts, where bovines are in abundance.

A sum of Rs 5. 03 crore was given to cow shelters including Sri Gopal Govardhan, Pathmera, Hanuman Nandi and Golasan in Jalore district as financial, according to the data.

In Barmer and Udaipur districts, Rs 4.46 crore were given to 44 cow shelters for fodder and water. In the year 2015-16, state government spent Rs 1.8 crore for nurturing 4,449 bovines rescued from smuggling and slaughtering, the release said.

Subsequently, in the year 2016-17, Rs 1.6 crore were provided for 4611 bovines, it added.

In 2015-16, the state government saved 4,449 bovines from smuggling and slaughter, and spent 1.8 crore for the animals upbringing. Similarly, in 2016-17, assistance of 1.6 crore was given for 4,611 rescued bovines. This year, the government has sanctioned 1.7 crore.

In 2015-16, the state government started a separate scheme for rescued bovines from smuggling and slaughter, under which it sanctioned 32 every day for the upkeep of a big bovine and 16 for smaller ones for a year.

Earlier, Rajasthan Congress chief Sachin Pilot had expressed concern over rain-related death of bovines due to infection in government and private cow sheds, especially in Jalore and Sirohi district.

I have got to know about the death of 536 bovines in Pathmera Gaushalas and several others are on death bed. The BJP government talks a lot about cow protection but the talks are far from reality. State government should take immediate steps to save bovines, Pilot had said.

Office incharge of Shree Manorama Golok Tirth Nandgaon, a subsidiary of Pathmera Gaushalas, Khetesh Rajpurohit said that due to heavy rainfall in Jalore and Sirohi, more than 800 cows/bovines had died.

With PTI inputs
Law colleges in the city are taking legal education beyond the confines of classrooms. The colleges have launched a variety of community outreach initiatives aimed at educating people about the laws concerning their day-to-day lives, while also providing practical exposure to budding lawyers.

Last week, KC College of Law, in collaboration with Western Railways, set up two LED screens at the Churchgate railway station premises, displaying information regarding the rights and responsibilities of commuters. The screens also beam a power point presentation on relevant provisions of the Railways Act, Indian Penal Code (IPC), Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO) and Constitution of India in English, Hindi and Marathi.

"The presentation will aid in creating legal awareness for the common public. The commuters can read the information scrolling on the screens while moving in and out of the station terminal. The information is presented in small bytes so as to be readable while passing along. This feature of the presentation makes it very useful for the public," read a statement from the college. Sunita Khariwal, in-charge principal of the college said that they plan to install such screens at other public places as well.

Six months ago, students at University of Mumbai Law Academy at Fort started a legal literacy programme named 'Law at Your Doorstep', under the mentorship of the institute's in-charge director Ashok Yende. As part of this programme, the law students conduct lectures on human rights as well as the rights of consumers and children in various slum areas of the city. So far, they have held lectures at five places - Poisar, Boisar, Chembur, Koparkhairne and Dharavi.

"We first do a survey of a locality before starting the awareness drive. We also rope in the local member of legislative assembly (MLA) or member of parliament (MP) to ensure the presence of a large number of people in the lecture," said Metanshu Purandare, a student at the institute. He added that the attendants found the lectures to be very useful and asked that such events be held regularly.

Other colleges have also undertaken similar activities. For example, once or twice every year, Thane Law College holds legal literacy drives for children in nearby schools. The college students use cultural tools such as street plays to raise awareness on children's rights. During elections, the college conducts campaigns to urge people to exercise their franchise. Meanwhile, students from New Law College, Matunga have also held lectures on maintenance laws, marriage laws, and workings of a police station at various places in the city.

Many law colleges in the city run legal aid cells which provide free-of-cost legal assistance to the people who can't afford a lawyer. "We guide the poor people who approach us, after taking into account facts of their case", said Srividya Jayakumar, principal, Thane Law College.

Jayakumar added that the legal aid cell helps law students cut their teeth in practical aspects of the law. "They learn how to talk to clients and handle cases," she said.

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Although the Maharashtra education department brought in a policy to reduce the weight of school bags two years ago, students in Mumbai continue to stoop. Activists, educators and parents complain that the weight of the bags is still one kg to two kg above the prescribed limit owing to the introduction of heavier textbooks, lack of checks by the education department and emphasis on short-term solutions.

The government framed the policy on July 22, 2015, after Swati Patil, an activist from Pune, filed a Public Interest Litigation in the Bombay high court.

On February 13, 2015, state education minister Vinod Tawde weighed schoolbags in some schools and found them heavier than the permissible weights of 1.75 kg to 3.65 kg, set by the government earlier. The government then formed an expert panel to suggest solutions on how to unburden students.

The panel recommended 43 steps to be taken by the government and schools. It among others recommended that the weight of the bags should be less than one-tenth of the childs.

But activists complain that children are lugging heavy bags because the policy has been poorly implemented.

In an ongoing hearing, Patil informed the high court that the government did not accept major recommendations of the expert panel, which offered long-term solutions. One of the suggestions was to divide textbooks into four terms. It also encouraged 100-page notebooks against 200 pages.

While most of the schools have now unanimously switched over to thinner books, the government is still to come up with a plan to break-down the contents. Worse, the new textbooks for Classes 7 and 9 are heavier and contain more pages. This has increased the weight of the bag by approximately one kg, said activists.

The new textbooks are much bigger, said Father Francis Swamy, principal of St Marys School (ICSE) at Mazgaon, and joint-secretary of the Archdiocesan Board of Education, which runs 150-odd schools in Mumbai.

Routine checks in schools to ensure that they abide by the prescribed limit were conducted in the first year with much gusto, but the department lacked the manpower to continue them.

Although a government resolution was issued last month directing education officials to conduct monthly checks from this academic year, they have not yet begun. We do not have enough officials to visit schools daily. For two to three months, our staff are engaged in conducting centralised admissions for Class 11, said BB Chavan, deputy director of education, Mumbai region. We can send officials on a case-by-case basis if we receive complaints from parents, said Chavan. Ironically, there is no grievance redressal system for parents.

While the policy directs all education boards to provide online version of their textbooks, educators say this is not practical. Firstly, not everyone can afford devices to access e-books; secondly, they cannot entirely replace textbooks, said Rakhi Mukherjee, principal of Utpal Shanghvi Global School at Juhu.

Schools, too, admit they have failed to curtail bag weights because of various factors. Mukherjee said her school had installed lockers for international board students and introduced books with perforated sheets, but bags continued to be heavy.

Unless, there is a change in students and parents attitude, this drive cannot be successful, said Mukherjee. Although schools have taken many proactive steps to reduce bag weight, students continue to carry books and material for after school tuition classes and other activities, said Mukherjee.

Lax implementation and schools apathy undermine bag policy

The sight of her children carrying heavy school bags moved activist Swati Patil from Pune to file a public interest litigation in the Bombay high court, seeking a directive to the government to make the bags lighter. Patil, head of the NGO Lok Jagruti, told HT how the government and schools have failed to bring down the weight of school bags. Here are the excerpts from an interview:

Q What made you take up the case for lighter school bags?

Being a parent, I see my children stooping under the weight of school bags. They were studying in Classes 4 and 6 when I realised the seriousness of the situation. Their school bags weighed six to eight kilograms and were getting heavier every year. They carried their bags up three-four floors in the school and at home. It caused chronic neck and shoulder pain, and a hunched posture. This prompted me to moved the Bombay high court in 2014 against the state government.

Q Following your petition, the state framed the school bag policy in 2015. How far has it succeeded?

The issue of heavy school bags came into the limelight after my PIL in the HC. This put the pressure on the government to come up with a plan. The school bag policy received wide attention at the time. But two years later, it has been forgotten. The government is not implementing the policy strictly, and as a result, schools too have stopped taking it seriously. Today, few schools are actively taking steps to keep the weight in check. The rest have shirked from their responsibility and shifted the blame on parents .

Q Have school bags become lighter?

The state recently announced that the bags have turned 80% lighter after the implementation of the policy. But our surveys show that the weight has actually dropped by one to two kg, which does not meet the prescribed weight limit. The policy mandates that the bags must weigh less than 10% of the child. For instance, a Class 1 student weighs around 20 kg so the bag should be of 2kg. But in reality, it is still four to five kg.

Q How many of the recommendations suggested by an expert panel have been implemented?

None of the long-term solutions suggested by the expert panel have been worked upon. One of the most important suggestions was to divide textbooks into four semesters. Instead, the government has now introduced heavier books. The new Class 7 and 9 textbooks are bigger. This is going against the spirit of the policy. The government is also silent on publishing term-wise textbooks. Their focus has shifted to e-books, but not all students and schools can afford devices to access them.

READ

Maharashtra edu dept starts checks on weight of school bags

Expect random checks by Maharashtras education department on weight of school bags this year

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Apart from Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis, not a single minister has a 100% attendance record for the cabinet meetings that were held from July 2016 to May 2017. Agriculture minister Pandurang Fundkar tops the list of absentees.

As per the states reply to a Right to Information (RTI) application filed by activist Anil Galgali, of the 35 cabinet meetings held in the past 11 months, Fundkar has missed 11.

He said, I could not attend three meetings, as I had to be present at other government and statutory functions. I missed a few because I was on an official foreign tour, as part of the states delegation. I sought the CMs permission to remain absent for these meetings. There were only two meetings I could not attend due to personal reasons  one when my son got married and the other when my daughter got married.

Besides Fundkar, finance minister Sudhir Mungantiwar, energy minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule, social justice minister Rajkumar Badole, women and child development minister Pankaja Munde and labour minister Sambhaji Nilangekar also made it to the list of absentees.

As per reply given by the chief secretarys office, Mungantiwar and Bawankule were absent for nine cabinet meetings. While Badole, Munde and Nilangekar skipped eight meetings.

Other than CM Fadnavis, all 22 ministers have been absent in some or the other cabinet meeting. These meetings are held to discuss important issues to properly govern the state. Hence, it is important for every minister to attend every single meet, Galgali said.

On the other hand, education minister Vinod Tawde, transport minister Diwakar Raote, tribal development minister Vishnu Savra and dairy development Minister Mahadev Jankar missed just one meeting each. While water resources and medical education Minister Girish Mahajan was absent from two meetings. The Maharashtra cabinet has 23, including Fadnavis, following its expansion in July 2016.

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Following allegations of corruption and irregularities, the Maharashtra government has asked the Slum Rehabilitation Authority (SRA) to introduce an online system for slum redevelopment projects to bring in transparency and weed out delays. The system is likely to be ready in a month, said a senior official from the housing department.

From submitting application to SRA to handing over documents to final approval for project, everything will be done online, said the official.

Slum redevelopment projects in the city are under cloud after a social activist alleged that a bribe of Rs11 crore was offered to him to prevent him from revealing a slum revamp scam. Before this, state housing minister Prakash Mehta allegedly interfered in a slum project in Tardeo. Vishwas Patil, former chief of SRA, was accused of clearing at least 120 files in the last month before he retired.

Under the slum redevelopment scheme, slum residents choose a developer who use their land to build a rehabilitation units and a saleable units. The latter are sold in the open market to fund the rehabilitation units and earn a profit. The developer also gets incentive in the form of buildable area to make the project sustainable. With crores of rupees at stake, SRA projects are mired in corruption and irregularities, thanks to a nexus among builders, bureaucrats and some politicians. The SRA scheme was launched with an aim to clear Mumbai of slums. In the past 21 years, it managed to rehabilitate only 1.53 lakh people. Only 3 lakh houses have been constructed under the scheme.

Apart from the governments move to go online, it has told all developers to mandatorily register SRA projects with the Real Estate Regulation Authority (RERA), newly-formed housing regulatory authority.

The integrated system will be connected to all government department so that they can verify documents submitted by developers.

Our objective is to end human intervention and subsequently weed out irregularities and make people accountable for any wrongdoing. This will be achieved by introducing systematic procedure provided by a deadline for issuing each and every permission, the official said.

The system will verify documents on its own and issue approvals without any human intervention. We are also in the process of making software for the same, said a senior official of SRA.

The documents being used for the online process have to be self-attested, which means that the parties will have to take the onus for any wrong doing, he said.

Earlier, there was no mechanism to check the veracity of the submitted documents. Now everything will be in public domain as the entire set of documents and the status of every project will be made available on the SRA website for the public, the officer added.

However, three things will be done manually as they cannot be completed online. These include area measurement, slum plan and head count of tenants (tenants verification) by the authorities.

The housing activists have welcomed the development but are also sceptical about its implementation. Santosh Daunkar, a housing activist, who has exposed several scams, said, Bringing such a process is a good move but the government needs to ensure there are no loopholes. There are instances where senior officer put pressure on their subordinates to cleare a file. I hope the online system will prevent this.

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The University of Mumbai (MU) was nowhere near its assessment deadline on Sunday after just 939 teachers of the 13,000 appointed turned up to correct papers.

Around 3.25 lakh answer sheets of more than 17 lakh are yet to be evaluated. The bulk of pending answer sheets, over 2.64 lakh, belong to the commerce faculty, while the assessment of science, technology and management is nearly complete, with just a few thousand papers remaining.

Assessment work is still going on, but we have time to meet the deadline, MA Khan, MU registrar told HT on Sunday evening.

This year, MU adopted an on-screen marking process for the assessment process, in place of traditional pen-and-paper evaluation. The decision caused a major delay in results because MU did not appoint an agency in time and technical glitches continued to plague the system. Governor Ch Vidyasagar Rao, who also serves as chancellor of the university, asked the varsity administration to declare all the results by July 31.

Read: Mumbai university vice-chancellor must resign for assessment mess, says Ex-vice-chancellor

While the varsity had requested the governor to extend the deadline for another week, the governor refused to do so. If the university doesnt meet the deadline, the governor will take a call on Monday, said a spokesperson from Raj Bhavan.

On Sunday, the varsity assessed around 11,000 papers, moderated another 14,000 answer sheets and declared 10 results. So far, 151 out of 477 examination results have been declared, but none of them belong to any of the major courses. The varsity was hoping to declare third-year BSc results late on Sunday night.

In a rush to meet the deadline, the varsity had requested all the teachers to work through the weekend, but only a fraction of them showed up. Many commerce teachers came for assessment work at our centralised assessment process (CAP) centre, but the turnout was lower than usual. Many teachers have already evaluated more papers than what was expected of us. So they must have decided to take the day off, said Jitendra Jha, a teacher at Jhunjhunwala College, Ghatkopar.

The University of Mumbai (MU) has enlisted around 13,000 teachers for the current cycle of evaluation.

The delay in results has affected admission to various post-graduation courses and likely to affect their academic calendar. Many students were unable to secure admission in foreign universities. The state common entrance test (CET) cell was forced to push the deadline to register for law admissions.

Read: Mumbai university mess: Shiv Sena demands resignations of education minister Tawde, V-C

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Lack of parental supervision and awareness are among the reasons why school bags in Mumbai continue to weigh more than the prescribed limit  10% of students weight  say educators. Schools say that parents allow children to carry fancy bags, extra books, heavy bottles, tiffin boxes etc, which increase the weight.

After the state introduced a school bag policy in 2015, many schools banned heavy bags. They implemented bag checks and altered timetables to ensure that students carry fewer books. Some even installed drawers and lockers for students to store extra material.

Despite these steps, however, schools admit they have not succeeded in reducing the weight of the bags.Students dont follow the timetable, said Suresh Nair, principal, Vivek Vidyalaya, Goregaon. If both parents are working, the students carry two to three tiffin boxes to school every day to eat before going for tuitions. Nair admitted their school started checking bags last year after the policy was introduced, but they stopped it because students were not complying with it. We have adjusted the timetable so that they dont have to carry too many books, but they still bring tuition books and other extra material.

Similarly, St Josephs Convent School at Bandra has been struggling to make the bags lighter for the past two to three years . We changed our timetable, allotted double periods and implemented checks, but it has not discouraged children from carrying heavy bags, said sister Blanche Rodrigues, school principal.

Rodrigues said children carry fancy bags, which are heavy. These bags have many pockets, extra cushioning, and heavy buckles. Often the empty bag is heavier than the books, said Rodrigues.

Sacred Heart School at Kalyan has provided cloth bags to students to ensure they do not carry heavy ones.

Some schools said the prescribed limit is impossible to achieve. We are unable to meet the 10% limit set by the government, said Rohan Bhat, chairperson, Childrens Academy Group of Schools, which has its institutes at Oshiwara, Kandivli and Malad.

On the other hand, parents say teachers do not follow the timetable. Close to exam time especially, teachers are in a rush to complete the syllabus and hold classes randomly. Children are forced to carry all books as they do not know which subject will be taught that day, said Aarti Gosavi, a parent from Andheri.

READ

Maharashtra edu dept starts checks on weight of school bags

Expect random checks by Maharashtras education department on weight of school bags this year

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The Gautam Budh Nagar police said they nabbed three Ghaziabad-based contract killers from Devla village of Greater Noida. The police confiscated two countrymade pistols, three cartridges, illegal knives and stolen motorcycles from the possession of the accused.

According to the police, the trio was involved in the murder of Brijeshewar Tyagi, the father of the headman of Nauraspur village in Ghaziabad. The assailants allegedly shot dead Tyagi in March.

The police said that they had agreed to eliminate Brijeshwar Tyagi and his son Lalit Tyagi for Rs5 lakh.

Following Tyagis death, Ghaziabads senior superintendent of police, in the first week of April, suspended the entire staff of Mandola police post. The station house officer and sub-inspector of Tronica City police station were attached to police lines for laxity in duty.

These three men killed Brijeshwar Tyagi for which they received Rs3 lakh from Deepak Tyagi, with whom Brijeshwar had a rivalry. The village headman of Nauraspur village, Lalit Tyagi, was also a target, but they could not eliminate him, Manish Saxena, the station house officer of Surajpur police station, said.

The police arrested the trio on Saturday evening from Devla village along with two stolen motorcycles, which they had allegedly used in several crimes.

The criminals were identified as Anil alias Paina, Pradeep Baisoya and Arun alias Banki, all Ghaziabad residents. They have many cases registered against them in Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar districts.

Saxena said, Anil is a history-sheeter from Pachara village of Ghaziabad. He has 24 cases registered against him in Ghaziabad and Gautam Budh Nagar since 2013, including murder, extortion, and robbery. Pradeep has six cases against him and has been taking part in criminal activities since 2015. Arun is a resident of Chirodi village in Loni, and is the newest member of this group. He has three cases against him.

The police said the two motorcycles were stolen in March and May. The criminals had changed registration plates of the vehicles and used them in crimes, the police said.

We have seized two countrymade weapons, three cartridges and three knives and live ammunition from their possession, the police officer said.

The trio was produced before the district court in Surajpur and sent to judicial custody. Questioning could reveal more names in connection with Brijeshwar Tyagis murder and other crimes, Saxena said.
A vice president (human resource) of global electronics giant, LG, has filed a complaint with the Noida police that his phone sim has allegedly been cloned and he was receiving more than 250 international calls every day on his number. He also claimed that somebody stole Rs 6 lakh from his credit cards.

Police said the complainant, Subrato Mukherjee, 57, a resident of Noida Sector 44, has been receiving calls since June 27. The calls were suspected to be made from Bhutan, Russia, and some African countries. The calls allegedly continued for weeks.

Mukherjee took up the matter with his mobile phone service provider. They put his SIM card on surveillance through department of telecommunications (DoT). Mukherjee said he was alarmed when his credit card statements showed several fake transactions.

I called the service provider and it took them a lot of time to check the problem. Later, they informed me my number has been cloned and I should report the matter to police. On Friday, I took up the matter with SSP Gautam Budh Nagar after which a case was registered at Sector 39 police station, he said.

Mukherjee, a retired flight lieutenant from Indian Air Force (IAF), said the accused used his card for online shopping. The statement came in the mid of July, thereafter I reported the matter to the police, he said.

He said the calls were automatic in nature and whenever he would attend a call; there was another call in waiting.

Senior superintendent of police Love Kumar said, Prima facie, it seems the accused have cloned the credit cards and Mukherjees phone SIM. This has been done to ensure they get the one-time password for required transactions.

He said that a case was registered at Sector 39 police station. The Cyber Cell has been also asked to check the details of hacking and cloning, SSP Kumar said.

The matter has been reported to the cell phone providers and the private banks, the SSP said.

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On entering Noida, be it from Ashok Nagar, Sector 11 or Jhundpura village, the stench of garbage is the first thing that one experiences. Residents have raised concerns about their health as drains and garbage have not been cleared over the last few days.

While residents blamed the Noida authoritys inefficiency for the situation, authority officials cited the strike by contractual workers, which was called off on Saturday evening.

Residents said that the situation has increased the risk of vector diseases. They said that even in the absence of such a situation last year, thousands had fallen ill.

It has been more than a week but the garbage has not been picked from the service road behind our sector that leads to the newly built elevated road. There is always a constant threat of viral diseases, Shalini of Sector 29 said.

Dr Anurag Bhargav, chief medical officer, also expressed his concern over garbage accumulation and clogged drains. He appealed to residents to avoid using plastic.

Residents and shopkeepers must avoid using plastic and dumping it in drains. Vector-borne diseases are caused due to mosquito breeding in still water, said Dr Bhargav.

The industrial pockets, sectors 5, 6,7,8,9, and the residential areas, sectors 26,27,28, 37 and 39, are choked with garbage. At many spots, such as B block of sectors 6 and 8, almost half of the main road is filled with garbage, on which stray animals can be seen feeding.

At several spots in sector 6,8 and 9, drains have been clogged with plastic to the extent that dirty water and waste have overflowed on to the road. In Sector 28, a service lane has been blocked completely due to the problem, rendering it inaccessible to vehicles and causing jams during peak hour.

Noida authority officials blamed the week-long strike by contractual workers for the mess.

Our machinery has been lying idle for the last three to four days due to the strike. Now that the strike has been called off, we will do the needful across Noida, said Raghunandan, engineer for water drains, Noida authority.

However, residents have accused the authority of inefficiency, claiming that the drains have not been cleaned in the last fortnight. Workers had cleaned the drains almost 15 days ago and the drains get clogged in just a week. There is a high chance that people might fall ill, said Mohammad Sayyad, a shopkeeper in Sector 5.

Almost 10 days ago, some workers had approached our sector to clean the drains. Before that, I cant recall when the workers had cleaned the drains, said Randheer, a shopkeeper in Sector 6.

The drains were cleaned a fortnight ago after the district magistrate BN Singh wrote a scathing letter to the chief executive officer of Noida authority on the issue.

However, engineer Raghunandan claims that the drains have been cleaned on a regular basis.

People throw all kinds of plastic in the drains and even after cleaning the drains, they get clogged in within two-three days due to this. We also got the Harola drain cleaned recently, Raghunandan said.

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Bihars new minority welfare minister Khurshid alias Firoz Ahmad, who courted controversy by chanting Jai Shri Ram slogans after chief minister Nitish Kumar sailed through the trust vote in assembly on Friday, faces at least two criminal cases of serious nature.

In a case lodged with Bettiah town police station (PS) in 1995, Ahmad was charged with cheating, criminal breach of trust, theft, and forgery with valuable documents. Besides, he has also been accused of stealing railway property in another case lodged with Mainatand PS.

Apart from Ahmad, half a dozen ministers in the revamped Nitish cabinet face criminal charges in which various courts have taken cognizance.

According to the affidavit filed with the election commission, even Nitish has been charged under sections 302 (murder), 307 (attempt to murder) of IPC and section 27 of arms act (possession of illegal arms) in a protest-cum-complaint case lodged in a Barh court. The court had taken cognizance of the case, but proceedings were stayed by the Patna high court.

Citing the presence of many tainted ministers, senior Congress leader and AICC media panellist Prem Chandra Mishra asked the chief minister to clarify his stand on induction of leaders, who were charge-sheeted by the police and are being tried by the courts, in the cabinet.

Will it not be a double standard if Kumar inducts leaders being tried by various courts for serious criminal offences, while Tejashwi Prasad Yadav, former deputy CM, was asked to resign merely on the basis of an FIR against him? asked Mishra.

Mishra said that the local court of Rohtas had taken cognizance of at least two cases against industries minister Jai Kumar Singh in cases pertaining to attempt to murder, possession of illegal firearms and rioting.

Revenue minister Ram Narayan Mandal too faces cases of criminal conspiracy (120 B) and joining unlawful assembly with deadly weapon (144 of IPC). Local courts of Banka had taken cognizance of the cases and framed charges against them.

Agriculture minister Prem Kumar faced two criminal cases which the local courts had taken cognizance. The Patna high court has stayed proceedings in one of the cases. Prem Kumar, a BJP leader, has been accused of leading protests against the police in Gaya town in 1991.

A local court of Bhabua has also taken cognizance of a case against backward and EBC welfare minister Braj Kishore Bind under section 3 of Bihar Prevention of Defacement of Property Act.

Road construction minister Nand Kishore Yadav is also facing a case under section 188 of IPC (disobedience to order duly promulgated by government officer).

The Congress leader said that the way Nitish resigned as CM had raised hopes among the people that he would not induct tainted leaders as ministers.

He (Nitish Kumar) is known to maintain probity in public life. But induction of tainted ministers in his cabinet has exposed that he can compromise on any ideology for the craving of power, said Mishra.

QUOTE

He (Nitish Kumar) is known to maintain probity in public life. But induction of tainted ministers in his cabinet has exposed that he can compromise on any ideology for the craving of power

Prem Chandra Mishra, senior Congress leader

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The 10-year-old Chandigarh girl, whose plea for termination of pregnancy was rejected by the Supreme Court on Friday, was raped about seven times at her house by her maternal uncle, who is now in jail.

This has been revealed by the investigations so far, on the basis of which the police will file the chargesheet against the accused.

All our investigations are over and we will file the challan in court by next week, said deputy superintendent of police (DSP, south) Deepak Yadav.

The challan, which will be filed under Section 376 (rape) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and relevant sections of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act, will initiate the fight for justice for the minor rape survivor.

The accused, who is lodged at Burail jail, is married, and his wife and children live in Nepal. One of the kins has alleged that he had even tried to molest a niece in Delhi.

The challan will be accompanied by statements of the victim and her mother before the magistrate, which subsequently turned into the first-information report. Along with the challan, the police will also file medical reports, confirming the victim is pregnant.

Though the DNA report is awaited, it can be filed with a supplementary chargesheet later, said DSP Yadav.

Police had already given a request for preserving samples for the DNA test when the victims medical examination was carried out. Preparation of a DNA report usually takes up to three months, but in special cases, the agencies can obtain it within 30 days.

The accused, who worked as a security guard at a Sector-35 hotel, was arrested on July 14, after the girl was found to be pregnant during medical checkup. The victim is a Class-6 student.

Stomach ache brought crime to fore

Even though the child was about 30-week pregnant, the family came to know about it only on July 14, after she was taken to hospital on complaining of stomach ache.

The girl told her parents that she was being raped by her maternal uncle. She, in her statement, said the accused used to lure her with chocolates and had even threatened her not to talk to anyone.

The accused had told her that if she complains to anyone, her parents would scold her.

Shattered mother is the complainant

The case was registered on the complaint of the mother.

The mother, in her statement, said that the girl told her that the accused had raped her six-seven times.

The accused was a regular visitor to their house. The victim used to alone at home after returning from school as her elder sister used to go to a friends house to study.

The mother works as a domestic help, while the father is a security guard.

The family stays in the servants quarters in a government bungalow in one of the southern sectors of the city.

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Chandigarh officials on Saturday said a class 12 student was selected by internet giant Google for a special icon designing programme, during which he is expected to receive a Rs 4 lakh per month stipend.

However, the government ordered an inquiry on Tuesday after several media reports quoted Google as saying it did not have the boy on their records.

The official release by the Union Territory administration said Harshit Sharma, who completed Class 12 from the Government Model Senior Secondary School (GMSSS), Sector 33, was expected to leave for the US in August.

Selected for Googles special programme, he will be trained initially for a year, it said. On completing the training, Sharma is expected to receive Rs 12 lakh per month, it added.

Hailing from Mathana in Kurukshetra, Haryana, the 16-year-old had taken up information technology in Class 12.

I kept searching for jobs online, Harshit said. I applied for this job in May, and was interviewed online. I have been interested in graphic designing for the past 10 years. I was selected on the basis of the posters I designed.

Harshits parents are teachers. His younger brother studies in Class 10. During his time at the school, he stayed with his uncle at Dera Bassi.

Deep Kiran, one of his teachers at GMSSS-33, described Harshit as a brilliant student.

School principal Indra Beniwal said: Harshit is an all-rounder. He has brought laurels to our school.

Beniwal said Harshit also received an award of Rs 7,000 under the Prime Ministers Digital India scheme.

Our school got the smart school status in 2016. Harshit helped the teachers in various programmes, as he has a knack for technology, she said.
The weather department on Saturday issued a warning of moderate to heavy rainfall in the next 48 to 72 hours in the tricity ( Chandigarh, Mohali, and Panchkula).

The next 72 hours are crucial, said Surender Paul, director, Indian Meteorological Department, Chandigarh. Heavy rainfall is also likely at isolated places in Punjab and Haryana between July 30 and August 1. After that there will be lull for the first two weeks of August.

The monsoon reached the tricity on July 12. After heavy rainfall the first day, there was a long lull before the city received 121-mm rain on Thursday.

Monsoon deficit dips to 25%

Meanwhile, the rain deficit this monsoon, which had reached 50%, dipped to 25%. So far, the city has received 286.2-mm rainfall this monsoon, as compared to normal rainfall of 383.8mm.

The deficit is updated every day during the monsoon period, which begins on June 1 and ends on September 30.
Busting the myth, a study has found that after a sleepless night, males may prefer to sleep while sleep deprivation has no affect on mating behaviour of females. The findings indicated that sleep-deprived males showed little interest in courtship while a lack of shut-eye had no effect on the mating behaviour of females.

An organism can only do one thing at a time, said corresponding author Michael Nitabach from Yale University in New Haven, US. What we have discovered is a neuronal connection that regulates the interplay between courtship and sleep, Nitabach added.

The study was conducted on Drosophila. Nitabach  in collaboration with scientists from Janelia Research Campus of the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Southeast University in China, and University of San Diego  investigated neuronal activity involved in both behaviours.

Sexually aroused males got little sleep, while aroused females slept more. The male flies behaviour is easily explained as an adaptive behaviour, say the scientists: Falling asleep during sex is not a good way to pass on your genes. It could be that females cannot afford to pass up an eligible suitor no matter how tired they are, Nitabach stated.

It appears that whichever behaviour has the highest biological drive suppresses the other behaviour, he said. In addition to identifying this sex-specific behaviour, the collaborative team also revealed that underlying functional connections between the distinct neural centres that mediate sex and sleep.

The researchers noted that humans could possibly have a similar mechanism for adjudicating when the drives for sleep and sex collide. The results appear in the journal Nature Communications.

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Pakistans parliament will elect a new prime minister on Tuesday to replace the ousted premier Nawaz Sharif.

The Supreme Court on Friday disqualified 67-year-old Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the embattled leader out of office.

President Mamnoon Hussain has summoned National Assembly, the lower house of parliament, on Tuesday at 3:00 PM to elect the new leader of the house.

Separately, the National Assembly Secretariat has announced schedule for election of the new prime minister.

According to a notification, nomination papers can be obtained from the office of the Secretary National Assembly from 3:00 PM on Friday.

The papers will be received till 2:00 PM tomorrow and the Speaker National Assembly will scrutinize the papers at 3:00 PM the same day and announce the list of final candidates.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) has nominated Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as prime minister for now but later he would make way for Shehbaz Sharif as Prime Minister.

Pakistan has seen such arrangements in the past too.

During former military dictator Gen Pervez Musharras time, politician Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain was appointed as an interim prime minister until Shaukat Aziz, who was nominated by Musharraf, got elected by the ruling Pakistan Muslim League Quaid-e-Azam (PMLQ).

Opposition parties including Pakistan People Party (PPP) of Asif Ali Zardari and Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) of Imran Khan are having consultation to bring a joint opposition candidate with the help of smaller parties.

Abbasi is a veteran party worker and hails from the famous hill resort of Murree which is part of Rawalpindi district in Punjab province.

His father Muhammad Khaqan Abbasi was a minister in the 1980s and was killed on April 10, 1988 when his car was hit by a missile after Ojhri Camp arms depot disaster in Rawalpindi.
Australia has foiled an Islamist-inspired terrorist plot to bring down an airplane with an improvised explosive, authorities said on Sunday, after four people were arrested in raids across Sydney.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said the plot appeared to be elaborate rather than planned by a lone wolf, as security was beefed up at major domestic and international airports across the nation.

I can report last night that there has been a major joint counter-terrorism operation to disrupt a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane, Turnbull told reporters.

The threat of terrorism is very real. The disruption operation, the efforts overnight have been very effective but theres more work to do.

Officials did not specify if the alleged plot involved a domestic or international flight, but Sydneys Daily Telegraph reported that a local route had been the objective.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin described the plot as Islamic-inspired, saying four men had been arrested in a series of raids across Sydney on Saturday.

We do believe it is Islamic-inspired terrorism. Exactly what is behind this is something we need to investigate fully, he said.

Colvin added that local authorities had received credible information from partner agencies about the claims but would not elaborate further or state if the men were on any watch list.

In recent days, law enforcement has become aware of information that suggested some people in Sydney were planning to commit a terrorist attack using an IED (improvised explosive device), he told reporters.

He added that several items of great interest to police had been seized in the raids but police did not yet have a great deal of information on the specific attack, the location, date or time. He said the investigation was expected to be very long and protracted.

However, were investigating information indicating the aviation industry was potentially a target of that attack.

A policeman refuses to let members of the public walk onto a street that has been blocked to the public. (Reuters)

Police storm Sydney homes

The men, whose ages have not been released and have not yet been charged by police, were arrested Saturday when armed police stormed homes in at least four neighbourhoods, including in the inner city.

The Seven Network reported 40 riot squad officers moved on one inner city home before an explosives team found a suspicious device, although police would not confirm this.

TV footage showed a man with a bandage on his head and draped in a blanket being led away by authorities.

National broadcaster ABC quoted a woman as saying her son and husband were arrested in the raids, but denied they had links to terrorism.

Turnbull said the national terror alert level, which was raised on September 2014 amid rising concerns over attacks by individuals inspired by organisations such as Islamic State, would remain at probable.

Canberra has introduced new national security laws since then, while counter-terrorism police have also made a string of arrests.

A total of 12 attacks, before the latest announcement, have been prevented in the past few years, while 70 people have been charged, justice minister Michael Keenan said.

The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors, but theres still the ability for people to have sophisticated plots and sophisticated attacks still remain a real threat, he told reporters Sunday.

The prime minister added that the alleged plan appeared to be more in that category of an elaborate plot.

Several terror attacks have taken place in Australia in recent years, including a Sydney cafe siege in 2014 where two hostages were killed and the murder of a Sydney police employee in 2015 by a 15-year-old boy.
The Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has the capability to defeat invading enemies and protect the countrys sovereignty, President Xi Jinping told Chinas armed forces on Sunday amid the Sino-India military standoff at the Donglang area near the Sikkim border.

Addressing a military parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the PLA at the Zhurihe combat training base in Inner Mongolia, Xi in camouflage military fatigue, said, The PLA has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies and protect Chinas national sovereignty, security and development interests.

The PLA also has the confidence and capability to build a stronger military and make new and greater contribution to realising Chinas two centenary goals and the Chinese dream of national rejuvenation, and safeguarding world peace, Xi was quoted as having said by the official media.

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops perform a flag raising ceremony for the parade. (AP)

There was no direct reference to India or any mention of the ongoing military standoff in the Donglang (Doklam) area in the excerpts of Xis speech released by the official media but the reference to invading enemies seems to be clear indication who the Chinese President was talking about.

Chinas officials and media have repeatedly alleged that Indian troops had invaded and illegally trespassed into Chinese territory in Donglang by crossing an established border in Sikkim.

It was the first time that Xi presided over such a large military parade in the field, official news agency, Xinhua reported.

The Xinhua report added that Xi stood in an open-roof vehicle that drove slowly past troop formations to a backdrop of military music.

In this photo released by China's Xinhua News Agency, Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) troops march in formation as they arrive for the military parade. (AP)

The report said: Every few moments, Xi called out Salute to you, comrades, to which assembled troops responded Hail to you, chairman.

Xi alternated the greeting with Comrades, thanks for your hard work, to which soldiers replied Serve the people!

Follow the Party! Fight to win! Forge exemplary conduct! Servicemen and women exclaimed to Xi.

China has blamed India for the ongoing impasse, accusing Indian soldiers of trespassing and preventing Chinese soldiers from building a road in the region which is also claimed by Bhutan.

Beijing wants India to withdraw its troops from Donglang before the two sides can open talks.

New Delhi says the road, if built, will have serious security implications for India.

Chinese foreign minister, Wang Yi has so far been the highest ranking Chinese politician to have directly blamed India on the military impasse.

Wang told reporters in Bangkok last week that the problem was very straightforward and that even Indian officials publicly said that Chinese soldiers didnt enter the Indian territory. In other words, Indian side admitted (crossing) into Chinese territory.

The resolution of the problem is very simple, he said: Indian troops have to go out.

Xis mentioning of invading enemies is very significant as he is both general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) and chairman of the Central Military Commission.
More than 40 troops and rebels have been killed in several days of clashes between Yemens Saudi-backed army and insurgents allied with Iran near the Red Sea port of Mokha, officials said Sunday.

Fighting has intensified around the Khaled Ibn al-Walid military base east of Mokha since government forces backed by a Saudi-led coalition seized it from the Huthi rebels last week.

Sixteen Huthis and seven soldiers were killed in overnight clashes and air raids outside Mokha, according to military officials and witnesses at hospitals in the area.

Twenty Yemeni soldiers were also killed in a rebel strike on the Khaled base in Taiz province, around 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of Mokha, on Thursday, a military official there said.

The port of Mokha on the Red Sea, a key waterway for international trade and imports, is under army control.

The Saudi-led coalition, which includes the United Arab Emirates, on Saturday said the Huthis had attacked the port with a remote-controlled boat carrying explosives.

No casualties were reported in the attack, which the Shiite rebels claimed hit a battleship from the United Arab Emirates.

The coalition also said a ballistic missile fired by the Huthis was shot down on Thursday near Mecca in Saudi Arabia, the site of the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage that falls next month.

Backed by the coalition, the government of President Abedrabbo Mansour Hadi has battled the Huthi rebels for control of the impoverished country for two years.

More than 8,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in the conflict, which has pushed the country to the brink of famine.

A cholera outbreak has also claimed the lives of more than 1,800 people since April, with 400,000 suspected cases across the country, according to the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross.

The United Nations last week warned 80 percent of Yemens children were in desperate need of aid in what the organisation has described as the largest humanitarian crisis in the world.
The Georgian army began two weeks of military exercises with the United States and other partner countries on Sunday, a day before US vice president Mike Pence visits the ex-Soviet nation.

About 2,800 soldiers from the United States, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Slovenia, Armenia and Georgia were taking part in the manoeuvres, with Washington dispatching an entire mechanised company including several Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks.

Georgias Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said the drills were an important event for the South Caucasus republic.

These exercises will help Georgia to get closer to Nato standards and to strengthen stability in the whole region, Kvirikashvili said at the opening ceremony on Sunday.

The Noble Partner exercises are being held in Georgia for the third time. Russian officials had not commented on the event yet, but in previous years Moscow warned that drills could destabilise the region, a charge denied by Georgian officials and US diplomats.

This exercise is not directed against any country. Its about to help Georgia to grow its capacity to interoperate in international operations, US ambassador Ian Kelly told Reuters.

Russia and Georgia fought a war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Moscow continues to garrison troops there and to support another breakaway region, Abkhazia.

The exercises were being run out of the Vaziani military base near Georgias capital, Tbilisi.
China could launch a limited scale military operation against Indian troops to ouster them from the Donglang region near the Sikkim sector, a Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) military expert has said, adding that the unprecedented nature of the current dispute could make Beijing look for a strong resolution.

Both the Communist Party of China (CPC)-led government and the PLA are under huge pressure to take strong action against the invasion, Maj Gen (retd) Yao Yunzhu from PLAs top research institution, the Academy of Military Science (AMS) told HT.

China and India are unlikely to go to war, depending how you define war. If it is very small, if it is a limited-scale military operation against an aggression, it is possible, she said, about ending the standoff in Donglang, now into its second month.

So, we are talking about very specific military operational issues. What I want to say is that for this Doklam (Donglang) event, Indians have intruded, invaded Chinese territory. That is something that has to be corrected. That is what I have been stressing, she said, adding that to the military, the trespass is intolerable.

Yao, who served in the PLA for 45 years and is now director emeritus at AMSs Centre on China-America Defence Relations, said: I am not going to be talk about war or military operations, limited or unlimited without a context. The context is this  not only India, any country that has invaded China (or) Chinese territory and stayed on would have to be dealt with whatever means we have, because we cannot accept Chinese territory to be invaded and occupied.

She indicated that in case of a limited military operation, China will try not to escalate to other parts of the border.

Let us be specific. We are talking about Doklam (Donglang) incident, not generally along the border. Because on the border we have other mechanisms (to resolve disputes). We should analyse them case by case. But Doklam is an unique case, it is an established border line, uncontested territory, she said.

Maj Gen (retd) Yao Yunzhu from PLAs top research institution, the Academy of Military Science. (HT Photo)

Yao did not specify what kind of operation it could be or didnt elaborate on the impact of the operation on the PLA.

I will not say surgical operation, or missile strike or whatever. I will not specify.with whatever means, It has to be correctedyou have an invasion, you have to defeat that invasion, Yao said.

President Xi Jinping on Sunday said China needs a strong military more than ever, urging building the PLA into world-class armed forces with confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies and safeguard world peace.

According to Yao, both the CPC-led government and the PLA are great pressure not to back-off from the military impasse with Indian border troops.

Both the military and the government are under great pressurenot to back-off , backing off is not an option, she said.

Comparing the armed forces of China and India, Yao said China has a far stronger military.

We are stronger. The Chinese military is stronger compared to the Indian military... not only in numbers of aircraft, warships, artillery pieces, tanks, we have a much stronger defence industrial base, she said.

On the aggressive propaganda launched by the PLA and the Chinese defence ministry on releasing information about military exercises, she said the reason is both the 90th anniversary and the Donglang standoff.

We are celebrating the 90th anniversary of the PLA. It has to do with the celebrations. It also has to do with the Doklam (Donglang) standoffbut troops on the border areas will be in high-readiness because of the standoff, she said.
An influential segment of the Indian community in Canada is attempting to forge a coherent strategy to target politicians pandering to separatist elements espousing the pro-Khalistan viewpoint.

The effort, both at the federal and provincial levels, marks the first time the broader Indian community is trying to make its presence felt in the nations politics. Sikhs in Canada have already had significant success in the arena.

This initiative has been precipitated by a number of developments in recent months, including the passage of a resolution in the Ontario Assembly this April, which termed the 1984 anti-Sikh riots in India a genocide. With elections in the Ontario due next year, the initiative will provide an opportunity to try and counter politicians who have fostered the Khalistani narrative.

Ajit Someshwar, one of the prominent figures behind this effort, said, We are going to, during the provincial elections, single out those active anti-India campaigners and support their opponents regardless of party, referring to the Ontario elections.

Someshwar, who is also chair of the Canada India Foundation (CIF), said, We have decided, at least for the short term, not to promote politicians who are active in this effort to pass the genocide provincially and also their backers federally.

Businessman Ramesh Chotai, considered among the leading people of the Indian community, said, Were proud have a large representation of the Indo-Canadian community in politics, but we also just want to remain united. We dont want politicians to cause a fracture.

Chotai refused to comment further on the matter except to say the effort is a work in progress.

A slate of measures in this regard include funding for candidates who do not support separatists and withdrawing funds from those that do. The preferred candidates, regardless of political party, may also be assisted in other ways, including help with staffing campaigns.

However, none of those backing this effort are willing to discuss those details on the record. They did make it clear that neither the Indian Government nor its representatives are involved in this plan in any way.

Also on the agenda is informing the Indian community about these issues, which may include a mail blitz aimed at the nearly 20,000 voters of Indian origin.

This situation is akin to that prevailing in the United States in the 1980s and 1990s, when many American politicians constantly attacked India. But, with the Indian-American community coming together as a significant lobbying bloc, that narrative has evolved and in recent years, that has led to a consensus cross-party support for enhanced engagement between India and the US.

This is the first time a similar endeavour is being witnessed in Canada, as the Indian community attempts to broaden the base of participation in politics in the country, which has often been held hostage to an extremist fringe.

As Someshwar said, It is not our role to get behind any one party. Our role is to create the right kind of environment for good public policy advocacy, that leads to the betterment of India and Canada relations. In that role, we will be supporting and encouraging more young people from our community to come forward and engage in the political process. For sure, we will be encouraging that with money and we will be encouraging that with access.

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Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the nominee for the post of interim Pakistan Prime Minister, on Sunday denied possessing illegal wealth and challenged his critics to prove irregularities in his finances.

Abbasi, 58, was speaking to the media here after meeting Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Speaking on Nawaz Sharifs disqualification by the Supreme Court, the former petroleum minister said, To my understanding of legal matters, there is no harm in possessing an iqama- its just a visa - but nowadays, laws are being interpreted in ways that are stranger than ever.

I have disclosed all my assets and their details are published in the Pakistan Gazette. So those levelling baseless allegations (against me) should check their own acts first, he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

When asked about the speculations regarding the involvement of the military in Sharifs ouster, Abbasi said, There are no two sides in this country; we all are one and work for the betterment of this country in a united way.

Responding to a question on whether Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan would be included in the next cabinet or not given the recent rifts, Abbasi said that the decision had not been taken as yet, the newspaper reported.

Chaudhry Nisar has always been a part of PML-N and it will always be that way for us, he said.

Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) has nominated Abbasi, a loyalist of Sharif as prime minister for now but later he would make way for Shehbaz Sharif as Prime Minister.

Abbasi is a veteran party worker and hails from the famous hill resort of Murree which is part of Rawalpindi district in Punjab province.

Abbasi, during the meeting, said the party had made a decision and everyone had acted on it.

There is no conflict in the party. We may have given in, but history will not accept this decision (to disqualify Nawaz Sharif) - the nation has not accepted this decision, he said.
Scotland has called for Scotch to be defined in UK law so its vital whisky industry can be protected after Brexit.

Scottish economy secretary Keith Brown has written to officials asking for strong legal protections for the industry, which is worth around 4 billion pounds ($5.3 billion) in exports.

A European Union definition of whisky currently protects sales from substandard products  but EU laws will no longer apply to Britain after the country exits the bloc in 2019.

Browns comments on Sunday came after Britains international trade secretary Liam Fox visited the US this week for trade talks.

Brown said the US has voiced support for relaxing the definition of whisky, which he said would open the market to products that dont meet the current standard.
The foreign ministers of four Arab states boycotting Qatar said on Sunday they would make no compromises in their demand that Doha change its policies, as a political crisis that has split the Gulf approaches its third month.

Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates and Egypt broke ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing the emirate of fostering Islamist extremist groups and of ties to Saudi arch-rival Iran. Qatar has denied the allegations.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt, who met in the Bahraini capital Manama on Sunday, said they were open to talks with Qatar on condition it stops its support and financing of terrorism.

We reiterate the importance of Qatars compliance with the 13 demands outlined by the four states, said a joint statement released on Sunday.

The Saudi-led bloc in June issued the list of demands for the lifting of sanctions, including the termination of regional news giant Al-Jazeera, the downgrading of ties to Iran and the closure of a Turkish military base in the country.

The four Arab states have recalled their ambassadors from Doha, ordered all Qataris to return home and banned Qatar from using their airspace.

Qatar accuses the bloc of imposing a blockade on the tiny emirate and has rejected the demands as a violation of its sovereignty.

Qatar has also accused Saudi Arabia of restricting Qatari pilgrimage to Mecca, the site of the annual Muslim Hajj pilgrimage that falls next month.

Saudi Arabia and its allies on Sunday accused Qatar of complicating Hajj for its citizens, who cannot take direct flights from Doha to Saudi Arabia under the sanctions.

Kuwait is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, the worst to grip the region since the 1981 creation of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain and Qatar.

The two other GCC members, Kuwait and Oman, have not joined the Qatar boycott.
Amid intense lobbying, a ruling Conservative MP considered close to Hindu groups has called British legislation to outlaw caste-based discrimination as ill thought-out, divisive and unnecessary, for which a public consultation is on until September 18.

Campaign groups such as the Anti-Caste Discrimination Alliance allege that Dalits face discrimination in the UK, while Hindu, Sikh and Jain groups deny it. Some Sikh groups are likely to go to court on the ground that Sikhs, not being Hindus, do not believe in the hierarchical caste system.

Bob Blackman, MP for Harrow East  which has a large Indian community  told the House of Commons on the eve of recess: It is vital that the message goes out from this House that British Hindus have an opportunity to input to the Government consultation, so that the Government have the evidence they require to ensure we remove this ill thought-out, divisive and unnecessary legislation.

Keith Vaz (Labour) responded to Blackman: I share his concern about that part of the legislation, which is causing concern among the Hindu community, as Harrow and Leicester are very similar in terms of their Hindu population, and I pledge my support for the campaign he has launched.

Blackman hoped that Vaz would be able to persuade members of his party in both houses of Parliament to support the government on doing what we want to see happening for British Hindus up and down the country.

The ruling Conservative party is seen to be closer to the influential Hindu-Sikh-Jain lobbies.

Prime Minister Theresa May told Hindustan Times before the June 8 election: I recognise the sensitivity on the caste issue; there is a consultation taking place. There was wording put into the relevant legislation in the House of Lords by Labour and Liberal Democrats working together on that, but I realise how sensitive this issue is.

India has objected in international fora in the past to the notion that caste is an aspect of race.

Caste-based discrimination is not expressly prohibited under Britains equality legislation, but Section 9 of the Equality Act 2010, as amended, requires the government to introduce secondary legislation to make caste an aspect of race, thereby making caste discrimination a form of race discrimination.

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The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday after Pyongyangs recent tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), the US and South Korean Air Forces said.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike Americas mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump.

The B-1B flight was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the Hwansong-14 rocket, the US statement said. The South Korean air force said the flight was conducted early on Sunday.

The bombers took off from a US air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability, Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. OShaughnessy said in the statement.

If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.

The US has in the past used overflights of the supersonic B1-B Lancer bomber as a show of force in response to North Korean missile or nuclear tests.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a stern warning for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the Norths official KCNA news agency said.

North Koreas state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

China, the Norths main ally, said it opposed North Koreas missile launches, which it said violate United Nations Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyangs banned nuclear and missile programmes.

At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate, Chinas foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
Amid rising tensions over North Koreas continued and provocative testing of missiles and the Chinese failure to rein it in, the United States flew bombers over the Korean peninsula on Sunday and followed it up with successfully testing its missile defence system.

After condemning North Koreas test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, President Donald Trump zeroed in on Beijing on Saturday, saying, in a series of tweets, he was very disappointed in China for its failure to match its assurances with action. Its been just talk, he fumed.

Hours later, two supersonic B-1 bombers of the US air force flew low over the Korean peninsula on Sunday, escorted by fighters piloted by South Koreans, which, the Americans said in a statement, was a response to the Friday missile test and the one earlier in the month.

This was followed a few hours later by successful testing of THAAD Terminal High Altitude Area Defense which was conducted in the Pacific using a missile defence system based in Alaska. The US installed one such system in South Korea in January ignoring objections from China, which believes the systems powerful radars can monitor its own missile systems.

Tensions between North Korea and the United States have been escalating with Pyongyang conducting a series of tests, with mixed results, since Trump took office, including and exacerbated by the death of American student Otto Warmbier who had been held in custody by North Korea for 17 months.

I am very disappointed in China, the president tweeted on Saturday, Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.

We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!

Trump had sought Beijings help to force North Korea to comply with a UN-mandated ban against it testing missiles and advancing its nuclear weapons programme, hoping it will leverage its clout as Pyongyangs largest trading partner and patron. At one stage, Trump seemed satisfied China had done its bit, even if it did not yield the desired results.

But the US president seems to have evolved since, and feels let down clearly. He threatened to put an end to Chinese prevarications on trade, which he indicated but did not spell out clearly.

And the White House had not followed up on his tweet with specific details on future actions.

The immediate cause of Trumps irritation was North Korea successfully testing an ICBM that, according to defence experts, can hit the US mainland.

This was a second test of an intercontinental missile by North Korea in July.

The missile stayed on air for 47 minutes, and went 2,300 miles high across 621 miles. Taking a flatter trajectory, it could have potentially reached Los Angeles and Chicago, according to experts.

In a statement issued by the White House hours after the test on Friday, Trump had called it the latest reckless and dangerous action by North Korea, but had not blamed Chine for not doing enough.

Secretary of state Rex Tillerson, however, had held not only China but also Russia responsible. As the principal economic enablers of North Koreas nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development programme, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability, he had said in a statement.

While Beijing condemned the test and said it opposes North Koreas violations UN resolutions, it did not respond to Tillersons finger-pointing this time.

Earlier this month, it was less diplomatic. Recently, certain people, talking about the Korean peninsula nuclear issue, have been exaggerating and giving prominence to the so-called China responsibility theory, Geng Shuang, a foreign ministry spokesman, had said in Beijing.

I think this either shows lack of a full, correct knowledge of the issue, or there are ulterior motives for it, trying to shift responsibility.
Deadly violence erupted around a controversial vote held in Venezuela on Sunday, with a candidate to the all-powerful assembly being elected shot dead and troops firing weapons to clear protesters in Caracas and elsewhere.

The unrest highlighted the tensions over the vote called by beleaguered President Nicolas Maduro in defiance of months of demonstrations and fierce international criticism.

He is gambling his four-year rule on the 545-member citizens Constituent Assembly empowered to dissolve the opposition-controlled congress and change laws as it reforms the nations constitution.

A candidate for the new body in Venezuelas southeastern town of Ciudad Bolivar, 39-year-old lawyer Jose Felix Pineda, was killed from multiple shots fired by assailants who broke into his home overnight, prosecutors said.

He was the second candidate to be murdered, after the July 10 death of another, Jose Luis Rivas, as he was campaigning in the northern city of Maracay.

A man casts his vote to elect a Constituent Assembly in Caracas on July 30, 2017. (AFP)

In the west of Caracas, national guard troops fanning out to put down any disruption to the election used armoured vehicles and fired tear gas to disperse protesters blocking roads.

Video posted on Twitter showed troops smashing down a metal gate and entering to the sounds of gunfire.

Troops also violently moved against protesters in the cities of Maracaibo, in the west, and Puerto Ordaz in the east.

The opposition has called for a boycott and mass demonstrations against the election, which it calls a bid by Maduro to install a dictatorship with the backing of the military.

Four months of protests against Maduro and the new assembly have left more than 100 people dead.

Maduro kicked off voting by casting his ballot in a west Caracas polling station.

Im the first voter in the country. I ask God for his blessings so the people can freely exercise their democratic right to vote, the president said. He was accompanied by his wife, Cilia Flores, who is a candidate to sit on the new assembly.

Turnout will be key to determining the legitimacy of the election.

But that will be difficult to ascertain as most voters will be able to vote twice, because candidates were drawn from social and industry sectors as well as geographically.

Surveys by Datanalisis, a pro-opposition polling firm, show more than 70% of Venezuelans opposed the idea of the new assembly -- and 80 percent reject Maduros leadership.

Maduro decreed a ban on protests during and after the vote, threatening prison terms of up to 10 years for anyone violating the order.

Fear of the violence worsening has rippled across the region, and beyond.

The US, the EU and Latin American powers, including Argentina, Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, have come out against the election, saying it would destroy Venezuelan democracy.

US sanctions

Several foreign airlines, including Air France, Delta, Avianca and Iberia have suspended flights to the country over worries about security.

Families of US diplomats have been ordered to leave following the imposition of American sanctions on 13 current and former Venezuelan officials.

Maduro has described the election as the most important Venezuela has seen, and the Constituent Assembly a card that will win this game.

One voter on Sunday, Ana Contreras, said: I have come to vote to tell the gringos and the opposition that we want peace, not war, and that we support Maduro.

An opposition leader, Henrique Capriles, said the government wants to sell the Constituent Assembly as a solution to the problems. But its only aggravating them.

The head of Datanalisis, Luis Vicente Leon, said the Constituent Assembly was being formed because the uncharismatic Maduro -- whose term is meant to finish next year -- cant win elections.

Nervous Venezuelans

Colombia and Panama -- refuges for tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing the chaos at home -- have said they will not recognize the results of Sundays election in Venezuela.

The US has suggested further sanctions could follow. The oil industry is worried they could target Venezuelas crude exports, 40% of which are bought by the United States.

Some in Maduros administration have broken ranks with him, most prominently his attorney general. Two diplomats resigned this week in dissent: one at the United Nations and another at the embassy in Panama.

The Venezuelan leader has blamed the mounting unrest against him and his policies on the United States, working hand-in-hand with the Venezuelan opposition to wage an economic war.
I nstagram has long been a source of interiors inspiration. All that endless scrolling lures 'grammers into many a homeware splurge and, as the social media platform continues picking up users, the bloggers, stylists and editors with thousands of followers are increasingly influencing the next big trends.

Fashionistas posting about their wardrobes are doing so in the comfort of their own homes using their new rugs, flooring and crockery as backdrops. Now, instead of commenters merely asking where they bought their shoes from, they are enquiring about those cushions and that wallpaper, too.

The marble obsession owes much to Instagram, with countless flat lays of emptied make-up bags strewn over kitchen worktops, while interest in pineapple-themed accessories, succulents and copper light fixtures spiralled out of control as they began popping up in many a #interiorgoals snap.

But which home decor hits are currently dominating key trendsetters feeds?

1. Marble is refusing to relinquish its crown as Instagrams favourite material, but look out for it in new hues from greens to blacks. Danish stylist Pernille Teisbaek drew thousands of likes for a photo of her standing next to a beautiful dark marble side table, while marble-effect wallpaper is being championed by other Scandi bloggers, especially when teamed with pink-hued soft furnishings.

A post shared by Pernille Teisbaek (@pernilleteisbaek) on Jun 29, 2017 at 8:53am PDT

2. Geometric patterns, with striking rugs in dark greys, dusty terracotta, deep yellow and blush pink, are taking centre stage in living rooms and kitchens. Fashion editor and self-confessed decor junkie Erica Davies has been fawning over the exotic Rhombus Kilim rug from La Redoute, below, which she has matched with chairs painted in Calamine by Farrow & Ball.

A post shared by E R I C A D A V I E S (@erica_davies) on Jul 14, 2017 at 11:37pm PDT

3. Coloured velvet upholstery is still proving popular, especially in jewelled tones, though leather is starting to creep up in the must-have stakes. New York blogger Danielle Bernstein regularly posts shots of her posing on a tan leather sofa, which can be easily brightened up by woolly throws and textural scatter cushions.

A post shared by Danielle Bernstein (@weworewhat) on Jul 7, 2017 at 6:42am PDT

4. Copper has been giving way to bronze when it comes to the metallic touches seen everywhere, while polished silver is also making waves. This trend is easy to jump on board with regardless of budget, with many industrial-inspired accessories hitting high street stores. Influential blogger and model Lucy Williams has been showing off the bronze light fixtures in her kitchen this summer.

A post shared by Lucy Williams | Fashion Me Now (@lucywilliams02) on Jul 14, 2017 at 9:26am PDT

5. London blogger Jazmine Marie Rocks is a huge fan of 19th century textile designer William Morris and has over 70 items printed with his timeless designs in her home. If full-on Morris wallpaper is too much for you, it is easy to incorporate bits and pieces, from pottery to table cloths.

A post shared by Jazmine Marie Rocks  (@jazzabellediary) on Dec 24, 2016 at 4:24am PST

6. Transforming your home into a mini jungle with numerous indoor plants is also all the rage, tied into the trend for all things green  Pantones colour of the year. The big-leafed Mexican Monstera plant features heavily on Instagram, including in designer Emily Katz's snaps. Faux plants are great if you think youll struggle to keep your botanical babies alive  many even come with fake roots and soil. Failing that, tropical print wallpaper is everywhere.

A post shared by Emily Katz (@emily_katz) on Jul 12, 2017 at 9:41am PDT

7. Tiles are enjoying their moment in the spotlight, featuring in many a bathroom selfie and holiday snap. Muted pink tiling, retro patterns and natural ceramic tiling are hits, as are tile inlay fireplaces like the one in fashion editor Alex Stedmans north London home.

A post shared by Alex Stedman (@thefrugality) on Jun 28, 2017 at 11:46am PDT

Best of the rest: Elsewhere, foodie Instagrammers have been sharing shots of delicious dinners served up on Jackson Pollock-style crockery known as splatterware, while wicker furniture, navy walls, deconstructed lighting, whimsical watercolours and Seventies-style shag rugs all remain on the interiors hot list.
The 17-year-old Dallas rapper known as Tay-K is currently in prison due to a capital murder charge. He recorded his breakout hit, The Race, while he was on the run from the feds, and the song (and video  currently with over 6.5 million YouTube views) is blowing up while Tay sits behind bars. In an effort to maximize his buzz and to spread awareness for the fight for his innocence, Tays team has released his new mixtape, entitled Santana World.

Its unfortunate that much of Tays notoriety stems from the violent charges against him and his precarious legal standing, but there is a great deal of talent to behold on Santana World. Indeed, The Race is an irresistible rush of youthful adrenaline, and the other seven tracks showcase more layers of Tays charisma. It could be a long time before Tay gets to record another track, but his spirit will live on through Santana World.
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Of the many traditions that define Texas barbecue, one of the oldest and most ingrained is drinking Big Red soda with your plate of smoked meats.

Twenty years ago, long before the craft beer and cocktail revolutions, drink options at barbecue joints were limited. If you wanted an alcoholic beverage, you drank a bottle of Shiner Bock, the flagship dark lager made by the Spoetzl Brewery in Shiner. For kids and workers on their lunch hour, soda was the order - Big Red, specifically.

For those unfamiliar with Big Red, it's a carbonated and caffeinated soda notable for its bubble-gum flavor and bright red color. Along with Dr Pepper, it's probably Texas' most famous contribution to the soda industry. Invented in Waco in 1937 and originally marketed in South and Central Texas, Big Red would eventually become the preferred drink to wash down barbecue at meat-market-style joints in Central Texas.

Though I rarely order a Big Red with my barbecue - it's way too sweet for me - you can still find it on barbecue restaurant menus throughout the state. One place I will occasionally order it is at Louie Mueller Barbecue in Taylor.

"We began serving it in 1974 when my father took over the restaurant and my mother accepted an office manager position with Big Red Bottling Co. in Austin," says current owner Wayne Mueller. "We've been serving it ever since."

Nowadays, Big Red has been ousted as the traditional beverage of choice by innumerable other options.

However, the characteristics that made Big Red so popular are still reflected in contemporary barbecue beverages.

First, there's carbonation. There's something about the fizzy quality of a drink that helps cut through the richness of brisket or the spiciness of sausage.

Instead of Big Red, I usually order an ice-cold bottle of Topo Chico - the addictive, highly carbonated mineral water from Mexico. It's a great way to stay hydrated while neutralizing the heavy salt and fat of typical barbecue meats.

Second, there's sweetness. The smoke and salt of barbecue are best complemented with a slightly sweet beverage, and today's selections of craft beers offered at many barbecue joints are my choice. I'll grab a Saint Arnold Fancy Lawnmower or Art Car IPA when available. I'll occasionally order a Shiner Bock for old-time's sake, too.

More recently, wine is showing up on barbecue joint menus. In general, slightly sweeter wines, like a red grenache or a white riesling, are good bets. The Pit Room has an extensive selection of wine (with notes on how to pair them with the barbecue), and Pinkerton's BBQ features a carefully selected list of wines as well as craft cocktails.

Cocktails are popping up at barbecue restaurants more often these days, especially at places open for both lunch and dinner, like Pinkerton's. Bourbon-based drinks are especially popular, as they incorporate the subtle smokiness that infuses some bourbons.

We've certainly come a long way from the days when Big Red was the go-to beverage to accompany our smoked meats. Barbecue technique has changed dramatically over the past 10 years, and traditions are changing with it. I certainly don't order Big Red as much as I used to, but it's good to know that at many barbecue joints, it's still on the menu.

LISTEN: Hear J.C. Reid, Alison Cook and Greg Morago discuss the history of Houston barbecue on this week's BBQ State of Mind podcast.
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On a recent Thursday night, a crowd gathered at the new Seva Clinic, a nonprofit facility in Pearland offering free medical care from physicians.

"It was crowded," said Hita Dickson who, along with her husband, Jim, serves on the clinic's board. "They had people lined up all the way down the hall and around the corner and even waiting outside.

"I think they had 30 people show up and they serviced them all," she said. "They stayed late and put in a team effort to see everyone. The need is huge."

That's why a cardiologist, Dr. Periyanan Vaduganathan, says he founded the clinic. He is former chief of staff at Memorial Hermann Southeast Hospital and is commonly known as "Dr. Nathan."

As a practicing physician for 20 years, Vaduganathan is aware of the need for quality care for uninsured and underinsured area residents.

"I've seen the need firsthand," he said. "I'd say that there's 10 (percent) to 20 percent of people who don't have insurance or are underinsured; so when they get sick they end up coming to the emergency room. If we can take care of people earlier, we can treat them before they need to come to the ER."

Vaduganathan worked for two years soliciting Memorial Hermann, fellow physicians and friends to raise $25,000 in start-up money for the clinic.

The group established a board of directors, including Pearland Mayor Tom Reid, rented a small space in Pearland Neighborhood Center at 2335 N. Texas Ave. and enlisted a team of 10 doctors and nurses. The clinic is open every Thursday from 5:30-7:30 p.m. The goal for now is to see 15 patients a week.

Vaduganathan doesn't want to stop there.

"Right now, we only have two rooms, but we will have to do something in the future to make extra space and open more days each week," he said.

"The support has been really encouraging," he said. "Many of the people I ask are happy to help, but in the beginning we wanted to start small and keep it manageable."

Dickson agreed about the need for space to grow.

"We're going to need a space the size of a hospital in a year," she said.

She is encouraged by the early enthusiasm for the clinic.

"I meet people who are willing to give monetary support and that will be very important moving forward," Dickson said.

In addition to free health care, the clinic has partnered with a local pharmacy that fills patients prescriptions for free. Because all the services come at no charge, Vaduganathan stressed he only hopes to treat those who are underinsured or who have no insurance.

"We want to make room for the people who are really in need, people who are on a tight budget and don't have an extra $100 to go to a clinic when something comes up," he said. "I don't want this to be used by people who have insurance."

Vaduganathan, who is of Indian ancestry, said his desire to help people is expressed by the clinic's name, Seva, which means "selfless service" in Sanskrit.

Said Dickson: "Part of the Indian culture is that you work very diligently, you raise your family and then there's a time in your life when you give back, and if you don't give back the culture really frowns on it. I think it's a very good thing for the community, and I'm happy to be a part of it."

Vaduganathan said the clinic, which operates as a walk-in facility, can accommodate most patients needing general care. He is working with Memorial Hermann to set up a system of lab testing so he and the other volunteer doctors can treat patients with conditions such as diabetes and hypertension.

But for now he is encouraging anyone in need living in or even outside of Pearland to visit the clinic.

"There's no paperwork or appointment needed," he said. "We just need you to come in."

For more information call 281-942-7382.
Addressing hundreds of people at a rally in the District of Columbia on Saturday evening, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called on Americans to continue pressing for the updating and improvement of the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare.

Her speech in Freedom Plaza came in the wake of the failure last week of a Republican effort to partially repeal the act. The effort was to be the Senate Republicans' first step in replacing President Barack Obama's signature legislation.

Speakers at the rally told of how valuable the ACA had been to them and their families. People in the crowd held placards with messages such as "Save Lives, Save ACA."

The D.C. rally - and others like it nationwide, including Annapolis, Maryland, - had been planned before the early morning vote in the Senate that doomed the Republicans' effort.

Exhorting her listeners not to be satisfied with last week's Senate action, Pelosi, D-Calif., urged them to keep the pressure on.

What had developed through the lobbying against the Republicans' plans, she said, is a widely shared belief "that health care is a right for all, not a privilege for just a few."

"We have to improve and update the Affordable Care Act," she said. Moreover, she added, "We want to do so in a bipartisan way."

That, she said, could be done only "with your continued involvement."

Like the D.C. rally, the Annapolis protest also heard from people who said they had benefited from the ACA. They included Chrissy Holt, 50, and her husband, Art, 55.

They said they have been to about 10 marches in the past six months in hopes that someone will hear them. The couple's 22-year-old son has severe hemophilia A, and they fear that he might not get the medication he needs. Holt said she believes universal health care is a "human right."

"It's scary because there's not a lot of people here," she said after the rally on Lawyers Mall. "I wish more people cared and [would] stop voting for people who don't care."

Four of the five declared gubernatorial candidates spoke before the small crowd in Annapolis on Saturday morning, cheering whenever a speaker criticized the state's Republican governor, Larry Hogan, for what they viewed as his overly measured response to congressional Republicans' efforts to repeal and replace the ACA.

Gubernatorial candidate and Baltimore technology entrepreneur Alec Ross (D) told the crowd about his 10-year-old son's experience with a potentially life-threatening thyroid condition, for which he was able to receive treatment because of the family's health insurance plan.

Prince George's County Executive Rushern Baker III (D), who is also running for governor, talked about his wife's struggles with Alzheimer's disease, which left her without her memory and the ability to talk and walk.

Benjamin Jealous, former NAACP president and gubernatorial contender, told a story about a friend who came to him crying after a rally in Montgomery County.

That friend, he said, recently lost his girlfriend when she had a seizure and could not afford health care.

"This is about all of us. This is about all of our families. It's about all of our circles of friends," Jealous said to cheers.

State Sen. Richard Madaleno Jr., D-Montgomery, who spent nearly 15 years as a state lawmaker and would be the state's first openly gay governor, lambasted Hogan for refusing to either sign or veto a bill that reimburses Planned Parenthood clinics in the state if they are defunded by Congress.

"He hid," Madaleno said. "Don't believe his rhetoric about wanting to work together, because he really doesn't want to work with us."

Gubernatorial candidate James L. Shea, an attorney and former chair of the University System of Maryland Board of Regents, did not attend.

About a dozen people stood behind the rally's speakers, holding signs in support of the ACA and Planned Parenthood.

The speakers emphasized that the existence of the ACA is made possible by constituents making their voices heard at events across the country.
MOSCOW - Your geopolitical nemesis is suffering a political meltdown and says you're partly to blame. Angry legislators have slapped you with new sanctions, which their president says he will sign. What's a resurgent autocracy to do?

In Moscow, it's time for some game theory.

Regardless of whether the Kremlin believes its own denials of interfering in the 2016 elections, there is one undeniable truth: Russia is now Washington's greatest political foe. Understanding that President Donald Trump is "tied hand and foot," as one foreign policy hawk here put it, Moscow is weighing options for retaliation.

After a dalliance on the Trump train, Russia is once again channeling the ruthless realism that drives its political id, and embracing its role as antihero.

"OK, you think we're bad guys, we're going to be bad guys, and we'll see whether you like it or not," said Konstantin Eggert, a television political commentator, describing the Kremlin thinking.

Russia's decision on Friday to expel dozens, perhaps hundreds, of American diplomats and other embassy staff marks the first salvo in retaliation to American sanctions that promises to be unpredictable and fraught with emotion. It is built on the frustrations of a Russian leader who perhaps thought that a Trump presidency could change everything, and then watched those hopes dissolve in scandal and recriminations.

The Russian establishment has been angry with the West before but rarely so filled with contempt. It is far worse than several years ago, when tensions rose to fever pitch over a pro-Western revolution in neighboring Ukraine, sold on Russian television as a nationalist uprising with echoes of fascism.

"No one was scared by the first [2014] sanctions, it was almost fun," said Andrei Kolesnikov, a veteran member of Vladimir Putin's press pool, who co-wrote a 2000 book of interviews with the Russian president and traveled with him to Finland recently. "Now there's a sense among Russian officials that everything is very serious. And they're all looking at Vladimir Putin to see what to do."

A common adage about Putin is that he is a canny tactician but a poor strategist. He has taken the upper hand in conflicts with neighbors such as Ukraine and Georgia, and in so doing, surrounded himself with enemies. With Trump's growing political impotence, Russia's cyber-intervention in the 2016 elections now seems similarly pyrrhic. "I don't think he knows how this ends," Kolesnikov said. "The rules are now being made up on the fly."

Predictions for autumn are frank: economic war. "If the bill is approved and most probably it will be adopted, then we will inevitably enter the stage of what we call the Cold War," said Andrei Sidorov, an expert on international politics at Moscow State University and one of several hawkish Russian analysts who sat down for a roundtable discussion at a state news agency recently. "And the Cold War means various responses."

Putin has said they will depend on the version of the bill signed by Trump. Kommersant, a Moscow daily plugged into Kremlin and foreign policy circles, suggested some options: cutting titanium or enriched uranium exports to the United States,which could harm the American airline and uranium industries; blocking U.S. diplomatic initiatives such as a U.N. vote on new North Korea sanctions and cooperation in Syria; and seizing corporate property or even kicking out U.S. companies such as Google or Microsoft.

Moscow knows it's outgunned in a trade war. It generally fights back by using its own market as a weapon, whether by imposing sanctions on European food imports in 2014 or, in a more cynical moment in 2013, by banning Americans from adopting Russian children (Trump discussed the adoption ban, and probably the associated sanctions, with Putin during an after-dinner meeting at the G-20 summit in Hamburg this month).

"Of course it's very difficult for Russia to do anything to harm the U.S. interests unless Russia is ready to take steps which will harm ourselves," said Fyodor Lukyanov, chairman of the Council for Foreign and Defense Policies, an influential group of Russian foreign policy experts.

Hawks poring over the U.S. sanctions say Moscow needs to break the rules. "It says that by no means shall sanctions apply to NASA projects," said Nikolay Platoshkin, a former Russian diplomat and professor at the Moscow University of the Humanities, referring to the bill passed by the Senate. "Here we go, a perfect tip, let them apply [to NASA], let American astronauts ride horses to the International Space Station."

One idea voiced by the Kremlin is to expand cooperation with Europe, and possibly with China, to counterbalance U.S. power. European leaders have expressed anger over the planned U.S. sanctions, saying they could backfire, dealing a blow to transatlantic efforts to curb Russian aggression against Ukraine and sparking a trade war between Europe and the United States.

"Of course for our entire lives we've held onto the hope that Europe is close to us and will align in its interest with us against the Americans," said Sidorov. But he was doubtful that the current crisis would bring about this schism.

Meanwhile, dialogue between the countries is minimal. American diplomats can't get their Russian diplomats to agree on facts about Moscow's participation in the election hack, and expect Russians to accept the testimonials given by American intelligence chiefs as evidence of Russia's complicity. The Russians have demanded evidence, which the Americans say would compromise sources and methods of intelligence gathering. The impasse is total. Conflict is assured.
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WASHINGTON - The most consequential piece of legislation that the Republican-led Congress has delivered to President Donald Trump after seven months is a new package of financial penalties against Russia that he didn't want to sign into law.

But he's going to. He would have faced a political firestorm if he rejected the legislation.

The House overwhelmingly backed the bill, 419-3, with the Senate rapidly following their lead on a 98-2 vote. Those massive margins guaranteed that Congress would be able to beat back any possible attempt by Trump to reject the measure.

The legislation, which also punishes Iran and North Korea, takes aim at Moscow for meddling in the 2016 U.S. election and for its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

Provisions backed by Republicans and Democrats would handcuff Trump on the Russia sanctions because of worries among lawmakers that he may ease the financial hits without first securing concessions from Russian President Vladimir Putin. Republicans refused to budge even after the White House complained that the "congressional review" infringed on Trump's executive authority.

Russia as the enemy

But as Trump faced the embarrassing possibility of being overruled by his own party, the White House announced late Friday that he "approves the bill and intends to sign it." The statement from press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also said Trump "read early drafts of the bill and negotiated regarding critical elements of it."

She didn't specify the "critical elements," and lawmakers have said the White House was largely absent as they crafted the legislation.

In a statement Saturday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said the near unanimous votes "represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States." He said he hoped for cooperation with Russia that would make the sanctions unnecessary.

That a bill to hit back at Russia would be the singular accomplishment so far underscores how the angrily contested 2016 election continues to reverberate on Capitol Hill. But it's also a product of Trump's own making - and one he failed or refused to see developing in Congress.

Instead of looking for a way to retaliate against Moscow, Trump openly challenged the findings of his own intelligence agencies, which concluded Russia had interfered with the intention of tipping the election in his behalf. And he pursued a warmer relationship with Putin, convinced that Washington and the Kremlin could work together on shared interests, such as counterterrorism and Syria.

But a vast majority of congressional Republicans have long viewed Russia as the enemy. House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., spoke for a large swath of his caucus when he recently declared himself a "Russia hawk."

Running out of patience

Their misgivings were reinforced by Trump's defense secretary, retired Marine Corps Gen. Jim Mattis, who said during his confirmation hearing in January that "history isn't a straitjacket," but a guide for dealing with Moscow. He said there have been many attempts by the United States over the years to try anew with Russia, but the list of successes was short.

Mattis' opinion hadn't shifted several months later when he told the House Armed Services Committee that he'd yet to see "any indication that Mr. Putin would want a positive relationship with us."

Still, House and Senate leaders had agreed to give Tillerson time to, as Sen. Bob Corker said, "change the trajectory of the U.S. relationship with Russia," especially in Syria, where the Kremlin backs President Bashar Assad. But Corker, the Tennessee Republican who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and his GOP colleagues ran out of patience in late May.

"I see no difference whatsoever," Corker said, signaling he would throw his support behind legislation to penalize Russia.

A bill to punish both Russia and Iran cleared the Senate on June 15 with 98 votes. Yet Trump remained bullish on the prospect of working with Putin.

At an international summit in Germany this month, Trump met several times with Putin, but the American president declined to publicly give the kind of condemnation that his staff insisted he deliver to the Russian leader over Moscow's election interference. And he let a challenge from Putin, who said Trump accepted his denial of Russian involvement in the 2016 election, go largely unanswered.

Congressional review

A team of House and Senate negotiators late last week resolved several lingering issues with the sanctions bill and also agreed to add the North Korea penalties.

The sanctions against North Korea took on added urgency after the North on Friday test-fired its second intercontinental ballistic missile, which flew longer and higher than its first ICBM launched earlier this month.

Sen. Ben Cardin of Maryland, the top ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said after the latest test that he expects Trump to sign the legislation "without delay."

Left intact, however, was the congressional review section of the bill. Trump had privately expressed frustration that Congress was demanding the ability to limit or override the power of the White House on national security matters.

Yet no one emerged in Congress to be Trump's champion.

The House easily backed the sanctions on Tuesday, and two days later, in the midst of health care, the Senate cleared the bill and sent it to the president.
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Ten evangelical leaders issued statements of support for President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, many of them lauding his character and dismissing stories of his alleged ties to Russia on the eve of his closed-door testimony Monday before Senate investigators about his contacts with Russian officials.

Evangelical leaders often issue statements about policy issues such as abortion, same-sex marriage and religious freedom, but they don't often comment on specific administration officials. The leaders who sent statements come mostly from those who were on Trump's evangelical advisory council, which operated during the campaign and is no longer official but whose members still stay in touch.

The group praising Kushner included Southern Baptist pastors David Jeremiah, Robert Jeffress, Ronnie Floyd and Jack Graham; Maryland pastor Harry Jackson; Liberty University president Jerry Falwell Jr.; former Liberty chaplain Johnnie Moore; Florida megachurch pastor Paula White; Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference; and George Wood, general superintendent of the Assemblies of God.

"I deplore that politics in this country has descended into blood-sport wherein good people like the Kushners, in order to serve the country they love, must endure unfounded attacks on their character, honesty, and trustworthiness," wrote Wood, who added that he had dinner with Kushner and Ivanka Trump several weeks ago.

Rodriguez wrote that Kushner has been "a great gift" to evangelicals. "We have always found him to be 'an ever-present help in time of need,' " Rodriguez wrote, a reference to Psalm 46, which refers to God as an ever-present help in time of need.

Falwell and White both openly doubted the Russia stories in the news media. "Clearly, this Russian story is nonsense and it must end, enough is enough," White wrote.

The statements supporting Kushner were released to the public by Moore, who handles media relations for many pastors and ministries. Moore said that it was his idea to share the praise of Kushner and that the White House did not suggest it.

Kushner has "been a real friend to us. He's opened doors for us," Moore said. "It's like if I have a family member that's accused of something and I know that's absurd, I'm going to raise my voice. That's how we feel."

Moore said that although evangelicals have been courted during previous Republican presidential campaigns, they generally do not enjoy the same level of access with GOP administrations post-election. Kushner is attractive to evangelicals, he said, because he's an outsider like them, a businessman first and not a politician.

During Trump's administration, Kushner has met with evangelical leaders several times, Moore said, including when pastors prayed with Trump earlier this month, when they gathered at the White House in April for an executive order on religious freedom, and earlier in the presidency when Trump's Supreme Court nominees were being floated.

The leaders' statements are an unusual display of support, said Rob Schwarzwalder, who has worked in conservative Christian politics for many years and now teaches at Regent University. He believes that it may stem from conservatives' beliefs that the news media wants to derail Trump's efforts.

"There's a circle-the-wagons effect, and it might be resulting in the unqualified support from leaders," he said. "The only person we should give unqualified allegiance is the Lord Jesus Christ. Anything other than that is a form of idolatry."

While there is a deep divide in the Southern Baptist Convention over whether pastors should continue to vocally support Trump, several Southern Baptist pastors continue to support the president. Jeremiah, a pastor of a Southern Baptist megachurch in California, said that Kushner and Ivanka Trump, who are Jewish, may have been chosen by God to help Christians.

"It's just like God to use a young Jewish couple to help Christians in the United States, defend their rights, and secure their religious freedom for now, and for subsequent generations," Jeremiah wrote in his statement.

Moore said that many evangelicals feel "a connectedness" to Kushner's Orthodox Jewish faith because it's so "seamlessly integrated in his life. "

Many white evangelicals have warm attitudes toward Jews because they believe God has set them apart as chosen. White evangelicals rate Jews more positively than any other non-Christian religious group, but Jews rate white evangelicals least positively among Christian groups, according to the Pew Research Center.

Graham, pastor of Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, wrote that Kushner has been evangelicals' key liaison.

"I've never known him not to take seriously any question or issue we've raised with him," Graham wrote.

Bishop Harry Jackson, who pastors a church in Maryland, said he was motivated to support Kushner because he has connected with him during a small group dinner on the issue of criminal justice reform and believes they can do "powerful things" together.

"I feel like there's just character assassination and vilification," Jackson said. "I have a heart for people who are being double-teamed, the underdog."

Many people who represent faith-based groups have been critical of the access given primarily to evangelicals and not to members of other faith traditions, said Michael Wear, an evangelical who handled faith outreach for President Barack Obama's 2012 campaign and worked in his faith-based office.

"In many policy disagreements, the [Obama] White House didn't go the conservative evangelical way, but that's totally different from being shut out," Wear said. Trump, he said, has given access primarily to a select group of evangelicals instead of finding people who represent other kinds of Christians, including leaders of black Protestant denominations and Catholic institutions.

Under President George W. Bush's administration, evangelicals who wanted to communicate their policy issues usually went through liaisons or White House officials such as Mike Gerson or Peter Wehner, who are evangelicals.

Obama's faith team reached out institutionally to faith leaders, including heads of denominations and faith-based ministries who had people working on policy in Washington. Many of Trump's supporters, however, are Pentecostal or Southern Baptist pastors who don't have formal constituents outside their own churches.

"Who does Paula White represent? What policy expertise does she have?" Wear said. "Who has empowered her to speak on behalf of their policy recommendations ... unlike Trump's hand-picked supported people who will put a collar on defending Jared Kushner."

The group of evangelicals from the campaign is not formally connected to the White House, so it's unclear, Wear said, what advice is being directed to agencies and staff members. But some of them are given access to the White House, and many of them have been given a tour of Trump's private quarters.

"It's mutually beneficial for both sides to say they're talking all the time even if they're not talking all the time," Wear said. "We don't know how meaningful whatever interaction there actually is, or if it's just let me show you the Lincoln bedroom so you can tweet it out."
Cruz Velazquez Acevedo began convulsing shortly after he drank the liquid methamphetamine he'd brought with him from Tijuana, Mexico.

The 16-year-old had just crossed the U.S.-Mexico border to San Diego and was going through the San Ysidro Port of Entry. He was carrying two bottles of liquid that he claimed was apple juice. U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers told him to drink it to prove he wasn't lying, court records say.

A surveillance video published by ABC Friday, about 3 1/2 years after Acevedo's death, shows the teen taking a sip of the liquid after one of the two officers, Valerie Baird, motioned for him to drink. He took another sip after the other officer, Adrian Perallon, made a gesture with his hand, appearing to tell him to drink more.

The teen took four sips.

Then, he began sweating profusely. He screamed and clenched his fists.

In a matter of minutes, his temperature soared to 105 degrees, his family's attorney said. His pulse reached an alarming rate of 220 beats per minute - more than twice the normal rate for adults.

"Mi corazon! Mi corazon!" Acevedo screamed, according to court records - "My heart! My heart!"

He was dead about two hours later.

The United States has since agreed to pay Acevedo's family $1 million in a wrongful-death lawsuit brought against two border officers and the U.S. government.

The family's attorney, Eugene Iredale, acknowledged that the teen did something wrong when he tried to bring drugs into the United States on Nov. 18, 2013.

"But he's a 16-year-old boy with all the immaturity and bad judgment that might be characteristic of any 16-year-old kid," Iredale told The Washington Post. "He was basically a good boy, he had no record, but he did something stupid. In any event, the worst that would've happened to him is that he would've been arrested and put in a juvenile facility for some period of time. . . .

"It wasn't a death penalty case. To cause him to die in a horrible way that he did is something that is execrable."

Iredale said he does not know where or how Acevedo got the drugs, or why he brought them into the United States.

"It's typical for people who are drug smugglers to approach kids and offer them $150 to smuggle drugs across the border," he said. "We're never going to know in this case because Cruz died. He knows it's something he shouldn't be bringing."

Acevedo crossed the border through the pedestrian entrance at the San Ysidro Port of Entry at about 6:40 p.m. on that November night. Iredale said the teen was carrying his passport and his border crossing card, which allows Mexican citizens to enter the United States and travel within a certain distance for tourism purposes. In California and Texas, the distance is up to 25 miles from the border; New Mexico and Arizona allow noncitizens to travel for up to 55 miles and 75 miles, respectively.

The two Border Protection officers believed the teen was carrying a deadly controlled substance, but they "coerced and intimidated" him into drinking the liquid, according to a complaint. The boy was taken to a hospital almost an hour after he had sipped the methamphetamine.

He was pronounced dead just before 9 p.m.

Iredale called the officers' treatment of Acevedo "the most inhuman kind of cruelty."

"I'm not prepared to say they knew for certain that it was going to kill him. . . . It's obvious that they suspected from the beginning that it's meth," Iredale said. "Playing a cruel joke on a child is not something that's justifiable in any way. They have test kits available that would've given results in two to three minutes."

Iredale said the officers did test the liquid for drugs, but only after the teen started overdosing.

He also cited testimony by another border officer who said Baird confessed minutes after the incident.

"I asked him what it was, he said it was juice," Baird told the other border officer, according to Iredale. "I said to him then, 'prove it.' "

Perallon and Baird are still employed by the Customs and Border Protection in San Diego, the agency said in a statement.

"Although we are not able to speak about this specific case, training and the evaluation of CBP policies and procedures are consistently reviewed as needed," the statement said.

Iredale said Acevedo's death prompted an internal affairs investigation, but neither officer was disciplined. When asked about the internal affairs investigation, a Customs and Border Protection spokeswoman said the agency had no further comment.

Richard Tolles, an attorney for Baird, said his client and Perallon had sought a summary judgment on the case and were waiting for a hearing on their requests when the government decided to settle.

Perallon's attorney did not return a call from The Washington Post.

The U.S. attorney's office for the Southern District of California declined to comment.

The complaint alleged violations of constitutional rights, including the right to not be subjected to punishment without due process. It also accused government officials of not adequately training border officers. Tolles said there was no misconduct on his client's part "that would've risen to the level of denial of due process."

"There is no violation of any clearly established constitutional right," he said.

In a motion to dismiss filed on behalf of Baird in 2015, her attorneys said Acevedo wasn't a U.S. citizen and had no connections with the United States that entitled him to any constitutional rights.

"Nonresident aliens are entitled to constitutional protections only if they have substantial voluntary connections with the United States," the attorneys argued.

Iredale said the settlement was the result of several conversations between the parties. The money has been paid to Acevedo's parents, Iredale said.
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PALO ALTO EL LLANO, Mexico - Adan Lara Vega's work as a master bricklayer netted him a better salary than the farmhands in this rural town, but he struggled to put food on the table for his wife and two children.

Work was intermittent, family members said as they stood outside his one-room house facing the pigsty, chicken coops and small fruit trees behind his parents' house. When he could find jobs, the pay was meager.

Lara Vega enjoyed playing volleyball in the citywide tournaments, but he was consumed with worry about his children's future, his family said.

"He wanted to eat better, to buy a better house," said his aunt, Rosalva Vega Tiscareno, "There are days we don't eat."

This month, Lara Vega boarded a bus and began what is a rite of passage for many young men in this region of central Mexico: The trip to the United States.

Illegal immigration from Mexico has plummeted in recent years, driven by a variety of factors, but that didn't stop Lara Vega and at least 13 other men from the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes from taking buses to the border and crossing the Rio Grande, where they boarded a tractor-trailer that would take them to San Antonio.

Smugglers there were supposed to take them to other destinations, in his case Florida.

Instead, Lara Vega and 28 others ended up in San Antonio hospitals. Ten others died in the oppressive, suffocating heat in the unventilated trailer, which was stuffed with as many as 100 immigrants.

The smugglers picked up some of them before police arrived at the Walmart parking lot on the southwest side where the truck parked.

The truck driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, was charged with smuggling immigrants and faces up to life in prison or the death penalty.

Origins in the 1940s

Aguascalientes, population 1.3 million, is disproportionately represented in the number of people who leave Mexico for the U.S. each year, driven in part by the poverty here and in part by the state's history of exporting labor abroad, going back to a World War II program that legally imported labor.

In the towns surrounding the state capital, also called Aguascalientes, the impact of this decades-long chain of migration are easy to see. In Palo Alto el Llano, population about 5,000, nicer homes of those with family members in the U.S. rise above the squat concrete and adobe houses lining the mostly dirt roads.

In Calvillo, a historic city of 60,000 about 50 miles west where the center is crowded with tourists even on a weekday, the legacy of family members in the U.S. can be seen every Monday, when families line up at the bank for remittances, or during the December guava festival, when the large, American-made trucks of the nortenos home for the holidays can be seen on the city streets, officials said.

News of what happened after Lara Vega and the 13 others from Aguascalientes crossed the border sent a shock through this region because of how many here were affected.

Maria Guadalupe Rodriuez Macias, 42, said her husband has been in Florida for 13 years. Her sons, who are 18 and 24 years old, want to join him.

"They want to go look for their father," she said. "I'm afraid because of what happened" in San Antonio.

But stories of tragic deaths on the trip to the U.S., whether while crossing the cartel-controlled territory near the border, swimming the Rio Grande or hiking through the inhospitable landscape in the American Southwest, are commonplace.

"If we don't create opportunities, people will continue risking their lives to get a life of dignity they are looking for," said Gabriel Hernandez, Palo Alto el Llano's city manager who himself crossed to the U.S. illegally, became a legal resident, lived there 20 years and graduated college before returning to his home town last year. "There have been so many tragedies in the past, and people keep doing it."

Border crossings down

Border Patrol agents caught fewer than 200,000 people from Mexico crossing illegally into the U.S. last year, down from nearly 1 million in 2006. In that time, the U.S. housing market collapsed, the Border Patrol doubled, 650 miles of border fencing were constructed, Mexico's birth rate continued a decades-long decline, and economic opportunity increased in Mexico.

Yet Aguascalientes is in the midst of a region, including the states of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Jalisco and Zacatecas, that has a long history of sending young men abroad to work. Many here go to the U.S. and Canada on temporary visas that allow them to work seasonal jobs. Many more take the dangerous journey to the U.S. illegally.

The migration began in the 1940s with the Bracero Program that was enacted by the U.S. government to replace the millions of workers who left their jobs to serve in the military during World War II.

Arnulfo Silva Rodriguez, 79, said he went to the U.S. nearly a dozen times as a bracero, or manual laborer, starting in 1958.

After the program was canceled in the 1960s, he came as many times illegally.

Back then, he could cross the river unmolested and walk until he could catch a ride to whatever city needed willing hands.

"Now there's a lot of crime," he said. "There weren't cholos (gang members), there weren't sicarios (hit men). Now they charge you for crossing the river."

Those who can't afford the fee are often kidnapped and sometimes tortured until their families pay ransom.

What started with the bracero program morphed into a co-dependence between the two countries. Families in Mexico relied on jobs north of the border, and U.S. employers became accustomed to the steady supply of cheap labor, said Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the now-defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute. When the bracero program ended, the relationship continued illegally.

Meanwhile, the opportunities to come to the U.S. legally are limited. The wait times for some family visas stretch back decades - in June the State Department was issuing visas for the Mexican citizen children and siblings of U.S. citizens who had applied in the 1990s - and employers complain of an onerous process to bring in legal laborers when they can't find U.S. citizens and legal residents willing to do the work.

"Today's historically low levels of illegal border crossings are a significant accomplishment," Meissner wrote in an email. "But it is unrealistic to expect zero illegal crossings. Enforcement must be combined with a modernized immigration system that makes legal entry more widely available to meet legitimate labor market demands."

Perilous journey

In Calvillo's quiet outskirts, just a few minutes' drive from the hubbub of the city center where tourists from around Mexico eat guava ice cream and pose for pictures in a well-kept plaza, Mario Ramirez Mendez, 24, took the same path as the men from Palo Alto el Llano, ending up on the same tractor-trailer to San Antonio.

Like Lara Vega, Ramirez was hospitalized after police were called to the Walmart parking lot early on the morning of July 23, then held in a detention facility by U.S. marshals as a material witness against Bradley.

Tears streamed down the face of Jesus Ramirez Gutierrez, Ramirez Mendez's father, as he explained that he'd had no word from his son for days and knew only that he'd been released from the hospital.

His son worked in bricklaying. Other young men who work in the surrounding ranches, dairy farms and terraced guava orchards are called peones, a term with feudal connotations.

"Here, they have very little, so they go looking for a better life," Ramirez Gutierrez, 74, said.

Closer to the central square, Jose Antonio Gonzalez de Loera, 44, made a decent life for his three children with a family-run business that buys milk from nearby farms and produces cheese they sell wholesale. He has a two-story house with a carport for his Ford pickup. That didn't stop his son Antonio, whom he wanted only identified by first name because the 20-year-old was not detained by immigration authorities, from leaving for the U.S.

On the night of July 22, Antonio called his family frantically from inside the trailer, describing the heat and the lack of air. He later told his mother that he lost consciousness, woke up in a stranger's house in San Antonio and made it to Colorado with another man who had been in the trailer with him.

Antonio had enjoyed working with cattle since he was a young man, and his family was better off than most, but he was frustrated with the lack of opportunity in Calvillo.

"He didn't want to do any more than work and have a house here," Gonzalez said. "But all he could find was work in the countryside."

Calvillo city officials noted that with the money immigrants raise and borrow to be smuggled into the country, as much as $7,000, they could open a business and take on something more than farm labor.

Rural areas suffer

Aguascalientes, one of the safest states in the country, doesn't have the same security problems as some of those nearby, and the capital is home to new manufacturing jobs, including two Nissan plants. But investment in the city has passed over rural areas suffering from agricultural reforms in the latter part of the 20th century and industrialized farming brought on by NAFTA, said Maria Eugenia Perea Velazquez, a professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes who has studied migration in the region, including in Calvillo.

The return on the investment can be much greater for those who make it to the U.S. She called the decades-long history of migration in the area "cultural," and said few here want to open a small store or work six-day weeks of 12-hour shifts at the local factories to make in a week what they could make in a day north of the border.

As Hernandez, the city manager in Palo Alto el Llano put it: "Companies from other countries move into our territories because the payment they offer our workers is low. That's the reason they move into Mexico."

A good-paying factory job offers 1,500 pesos, a little less than $85, a week, he said.

"I love my country," Hernandez said. "If I could make the same amount of money here, I wouldn't have to move to the U.S."

He said it doesn't make sense for the U.S. to spend so much money enforcing its borders when its farms and factories are encouraging foreign labor to enter the country illegally.

"The U.S. and Canada, they need people to work in their fields," he said. "Why not do it legally?"

The cycle of migration has its negative impacts, Perea said. Areas with high emigration to the U.S. are reliant on remittances and lack young adults who would contribute to the economy. Many children grow up in single-parent homes, and as soon as young men come of age they follow their fathers to the U.S. She said two-thirds of the population in Calvillo lives in poverty, but emigration to the U.S. isn't limited to the poor.

"There are middle-class families in Calvillo that have a tradition of emigrating to the United States," Perea said. "For them, the dream is to go to the United States, buy a truck, send back dollars, meet a girl and marry her."

Part of the blame, she said, goes to Mexico's government, which tolerates human smuggling and trafficking, and does little to help communities stuck in the cycle of migration. In some states, nongovernmental organizations have found success creating cooperatives, often involving the women who are left behind, to create economies not reliant on emigration to the U.S., Perea said.

But new government administrations are too quick to throw out their predecessors' programs and start anew.

Bob Owen/Staff

Outdated visa quotas

For groups that advocate for allowing more legal immigration, the answer is expanding visas to address what they say is a humanitarian issue of those in nearby countries and an economic issue in the U.S., where labor is needed. Today's visa quotas were set in 1990, and both immigration patterns and the economy have changed immensely since then, said Michelle Mittelstadt, the Migration Policy Institute's director of communications.

"MPI has long been on the record that there must be flexibility in the system that allows for the upward or downward adjustment of visas based on actual labor market needs," Mittelstadt wrote in an email. The institute advocates "creating a permanent, nonpartisan commission staffed with labor market and immigration experts, economists, and other specialists that would advise Congress and the administration annually on what employment-based immigration needs are, based on deep review of labor market sectors at U.S. and local levels."

Congress hasn't reformed immigration for nearly two decades, and President Donald Trump used immigration enforcement as a major campaign platform, allying himself with organizations that want to decrease all immigration to the U.S., legal and illegal.

"Even if we doubled or tripled or quadrupled legal immigration or guest-worker programs, which is a highly unlikely change to the law, still we would not be able to accommodate all the people in the world who would want to come here," Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, one such restrictionist groups, wrote in an email. "The demand would not be satisfied, so people would still pay smugglers.

"Illegal immigration is not a force of nature that cannot be controlled.

"We will never stop it completely, but we can reduce it dramatically by forcing more employers to stop hiring illegal workers, by investigating and prosecuting the smugglers, by controlling the physical border and doing a better job screening people coming through the ports of entry, by having robust interior enforcement, by denying access to benefits like driver's licenses and welfare programs."

For Lara Vega in Palo Alto el Llano, the nuances of Mexico's struggles to address poverty in rural areas and the failure of the U.S. immigration system boiled down to something more basic.

"They want dollars," Vega Tiscareno, the aunt of Lara Vega, said of the young men who leave for the U.S. "There's plenty of work. It's the American dream. To improve your life. To eat."
The body of a 55-year-old woman was found early Saturday after she went missing Friday allegedly during a hike with her husband in Sam Houston National Forest.

The family of Theresa Kirkpatrick found her body about 10:30 a.m., according to Montgomery County Sheriff's Office.

Her brother, Michael Kiser, described Kirkpatrick, who suffered from diabetes, as a loving person always willing to help. However, he said she would not have "been out here in these woods" with her medical conditions and that she didn't hike.

Her husband, Allen Kirkpatrick, told relatives where to find her body, he said.

"Somebody took my sister from me. There is no reason; she never hurt anybody," Kiser said. "She was loved by many friends and her family. She didn't deserve what happened to her."

Kiser is hoping to learn what happened in the woods that led to his sister's death.

The Walker County Sheriff's Office has taken over the investigation since the body was found in Walker County. Montgomery County Sheriff's Office and Texas Parks and Wildlife helped with the search.

A cause of death has not been determined.

Authorities said Theresa Kirkpatrick was hiking in the forest with her 51-year-old husband when the two were apparently separated around 8:30 a.m. Her husband searched for her until about 4 p.m. when he reported her missing to another person.

Allen remains hospitalized after suffering from heat exhaustion Friday.

No other details were available.
Partnerships between federal immigration agents and local law enforcement are booming so far in 2017 - growing to at least 59 agencies in 18 states, according to a large batch of contracts posted as of Friday on Immigration and Customs Enforcement's website.

Seventeen Texas sheriff's offices are now approved to partner in ICE's so-called 287(g) program - by far the most agencies of any state. By comparison, only three Texas departments were ICE partners in 2016 - and Harris County, the largest agency, dropped the program earlier this year citing costs and civil rights concerns.

Officers from the new partner agencies, which include Galveston, Montgomery and Waller county sheriff's offices in the Houston suburbs, will receive additional training and computers they can use to cross-check immigration databanks for people who are arrested and processed in local jails for anything from a traffic ticket to murder.

Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said his agency may send as many as 10 officers to get training and tools needed to "confirm who individuals are before we release them" and to determine whether they're wanted by federal immigration agencies or by anyone else.

Other newly approved Texas partners include rural sheriffs whose turf runs along a major highway corridor that stretches south from Houston to the U.S.-Mexico border.

The 287(g) partnership program had declined under President Barack Obama. Under the program, named for section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE provides training to local officers on how to use its databanks and how to question detainees about their immigration status in local lock-ups.

ACLU lawyers and other civil rights advocates have argued that ICE's detainer program, even without additional local law enforcement participation, already leads to civil rights violations and wrongful detentions and deportations through data mix-ups and errors.

But the partnerships have attracted renewed interest, particularly from Texas agencies, under pro-detention and deportation policies announced by President Donald Trump.

Local sheriffs who applied for the program in 2017 have expressed interest in getting additional help to screen inmates for potentially dangerous immigrants or fugitives and to better protect public safety. Texas now has by far the most ICE 287(g) partnerships of any state. By comparison, just four Arizona law enforcement agencies have them. In California, only the Orange County Sheriff's Office partners with ICE.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez still honors ICE detainer requests but no longer dedicates 10 deputies to the county's jail-based ICE partnership full time at an annual cost of $675,000.

Nationally, the program has grown from 38 departments in February to 59 as of Friday, based on the latest ICE contract postings.

Earlier this year, the ACLU had urged ICE via letters not to approve the applications of most of those Texas departments. Civil rights attorneys have raised concerns about Texas jail conditions and noted that several of the proposed partners - including Montgomery County - separately earn income from housing ICE detainees through detention contracts, giving agencies a profit motive to find reasons to detain people longer.

Astrid Dominguez, immigrant rights strategist for the ACLU, said Friday she doesn't believe that having local law enforcement do ICE work will make communities any safer.

She said she worries the partnerships "will divert resources from essential public safety."
After President Obama took office in 2009, his administration floated two names for the position of ambassador to the Vatican: Caroline Kennedy and law professor Doug Kmiec. But members of the conservative wing of the church complained, Kmiec said, because the two supported a politician who backs abortion rights. Kmiec was sent as an ambassador to Malta instead.

But that controversy took place under Pope Benedict XVI.

Now, Kmiec said, Callista Gingrich, who is married to a twice-divorced man, probably will be welcomed by a pope who is seen as very open to people of different backgrounds.

"Mrs. Gingrich, as a conservative, ends up benefiting from the blessing of inclusiveness that Pope Francis has exhibited to the entire world," Kmiec said. "I know there have been objections raised. From the church's standpoint, it'll be consistent with the new attitude of the Holy Father, which is one of hospitality and welcome."

She is married to Newt Gingrich, whose former wife Marianne said in 2012 that Newt wanted an "open marriage" as he had carried on a six-year affair with then-Callista Bisek when she was a congressional aide. He reportedly requested annulments of his earlier marriages, and Monsignor Walter Rossi, rector of the basilica and who prepared Gingrich to join the Catholic Church, said in 2011, "His [current] marriage is valid, so everything else is OK."

Debates shifted

During her confirmation hearings, Senate leaders asked Callista Gingrich several questions about issues where the pope and the president tend to diverge. The heated debates over abortion, contraception and gay marriage during the Obama administration have shifted under President Trump to issues like the environment, immigration, refugees, health care and poverty.

Gingrich is unlike previous ambassadors who have been mostly politicians or academics, and the Vatican is hoping for someone who can coherently express the Trump administration's viewpoint on international affairs, said John Thavis, author of "The Vatican Diaries" who was a longtime correspondent for the Catholic News Service.

"[Gingrich's appointment is] not going to be something that would shipwreck Vatican relations at all, but ... I'm a little skeptical," Thavis said. "The Vatican counts on the U.S. Embassy to give not just a brief soundbite answer to, but they want position papers."

Observers say Gingrich is an interesting choice primarily because she's married to a former speaker of the House and an early supporter and close ally to Trump, so she should have good White House access. She sung in the choir at the Basilica of the National Shrine for the past two decades and helped to convert Newt Gingrich, who was raised Lutheran, to Catholicism in 2009.

Callista Gingrich's nomination proceedings take place as a confidant of the pope published an article last week condemning Trump's religious supporters.

"It's clear there are tensions," said Miguel Diaz, who was ambassador to the Vatican under Obama's first term. "Her challenge is going to be to bridge the clear differences between the Trump administration and Pope Francis's vision."

When Diaz was ambassador to the Vatican, he said he was faced with questions about abortion and contraception when Obamacare debates were raging. He expects Gingrich to especially face challenges of Trump's policy positions on the environment and immigration.

He said if the Vatican had any complaints about her nomination, leaders would have voiced them by now. "For us to go back and try to second guess whether this person or this other person should've been nominated, it's not going to do us good," he said.

Diaz, who is a theologian at Loyola University Chicago, said Gingrich has strengths that he as an academic didn't have when he was ambassador.

"She has the strengths of the political world," he said. "I couldn't pick up the phone and talk to the speaker of the House and I certainly wasn't married to the former speaker of the House."

Surrounded by staff

Diaz said he met with Vatican officials on a weekly basis and worked with the State Department and other ambassadors around the world. He said what she lacks in experience in working with the Vatican will be made up by the staff around her.

"I quickly realized ... it is not just what you know and how qualified you may be for a particular assignment that can make a difference, but also who you know in the world of Washington and Vatican relationships," he said.

Trump and Francis have clashed on issues in the past, especially on immigration. "I appeal not to create walls but to build bridges," Francis said in February. The two leaders met in May and the pope gave the president a copy of his major document on the environment.

During the confirmation hearings, Gingrich said she was unsure whether Trump has read Pope Francis's encyclical on the environment, saying she had read some of it.

"I think we're all called to be stewards of the land," she said, echoing a common Christian phrase for people to care for the environment.

Gingrich said she believes climate change exists and that some of it is due to human behavior. "But I think as the president pursues a better deal for Americans, we will, indeed, remain an environmental leader in the world."

Rep. Francis Rooney, R-Fla., who served as Vatican ambassador under President George W. Bush, said Gingrich will find common cause from Vatican leaders on issues like fighting Islamic terrorism and poverty around the globe. Her challenge, he said, will likely be related to environmental issues.

"Any American that goes to Europe in this era of 'climate change religion' is going to face the European all-or-nothing approach to climate change," Rooney said.

"We have felt we can be good stewards of the environment ... without wrecking our economy. That's a fundamental difference we have."

During her testimony, Gingrich said she would try to work with the Vatican on issues related to religious freedom, terrorism, human trafficking and diseases like HIV-AIDS and Ebola. She has been the CEO of Gingrich Productions, which produces documentaries often focused on religious themes. She authored "Rediscovering God in America" and a children's series called "Ellis the Elephant."

Sharp difference

Trump's pick of Gingrich as ambassador signals a sharp difference from the Obama administration's approach, said Christopher Hale who led national Catholic outreach for Obama's 2012 campaign.

"Obama wanted impeccable credentials and understanding of the Catholic Church and then someone who didn't cause any controversy," he said. He said Gingrich represents the position of a lay Catholic and will likely not be challenged.

The Vatican will not comment on her nomination since the process is not complete yet, said Thomas Rosica, a spokesman for the Vatican.

The Vatican has played middleman in international disputes both publicly and behind the scenes. During Obama's administration, Pope Francis took a visible role in the thawing of relations between Cuba and the United States.
Has C-SPAN ever won an Emmy Award?

Might we nominate Thursday night's failed partial repeal of the Affordable Care Act for Outstanding Drama after midnight.

If they were awake, viewers were hooked to their screens as they tried to divine the vote by reading lips and interpreting body language on the Senate floor.

The Lead Actor nomination of course goes to U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who once again claimed his maverick mantle by casting the deciding vote a week after being diagnosed with brain cancer. Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine earn a place on the award shortlist for holding the line against repeal.

As McCain told reporters before the vote: "Watch the show." He didn't disappoint.

Besides, viewing Congress through the lens of a television show is certainly easier than confronting the sad reality in Washington D.C. - we were one vote away from stripping health insurance coverage from millions of Americans.

Members of groups like National Nurses United and Adapt, a disability rights organization, didn't commit acts of civil disobedience and risk arrest in our nation's Capitol for the glitz and glamor of it all. The AARP and American Cancer Society weren't writing letters to Congress to help raise the stakes before the dramatic climax. Americans weren't flooding the phones of their representatives with the hopes of talking to a celebrity on the other end.

They were all fighting to stop us from backsliding to a time when a medical emergency could mean bankruptcy and life-and-death decisions were based on pocketbook interests.

It is time to stop acting like healthcare is some television show, and there should be no patience for a horror story ending where the seemingly dead repeal bill comes back to life.

The moral question of health care in America has been settled: Everyone deserves coverage. Our elected officials need to refocus on the basics of making that happen.

So if Congress wants to watch something on TV, might we recommend reviewing those old Schoolhouse Rock videos on how a bill becomes a law. Bipartisan committee hearings are the starting point.

The White House, too, must help reestablish a normal order in Washington. So far, Donald Trump's threats to deny cost-sharing subsidies have only succeeded at scaring insurance companies out of risky markets. The buck stops with the president and he hasn't once articulated a vision of what healthcare policy should look like. At no point either on the campaign trail or in office has he demonstrated a working knowledge of Obamacare, Medicaid or the basics of health insurance beyond a general message of universal coverage. If Trump supports Medicare-for-all, then we welcome him to come out and say it.

Closer to home, the continued existence of Obamacare means that Texans can once again call upon our state Legislature to expand Medicaid. Too many fall through the gap that exists between subsidized private insurance and single-payer Medicaid. Expansion also means federal dollars to fund public hospitals. This takes the burden off property taxes and opens the door to lower rates for homeowners.

Finally, the Republican Party has to reckon with its inability to govern. For the past seven years, Obamacare has been maligned as a radioactive policy and voters have been promised repeals, replacements and everything under the sun if Democrats were only driven from power. The Grand Old Party finally got its wish.

So where's the repeal? Where's the replacement? Turns out that Republicans were unable, after seven years, to craft a better health care plan than the status quo.

Responsibility now falls on the Republican-led Congress to do the difficult and boring policy work of improving the Affordable Care Act and ensuring that each American has access to health care.

It won't make for gripping television, but the award for a job well done will rest in voting booths and history books.
WASHINGTON - Donald Trump had his worst day since he was elected president - we'll just call it Friday - and his worst week since the last one.

Things can only get worser and worser, as the Bard would permit me to say.

Let's start with the vote-a-rama and the "skinny repeal," which puts me in mind of a state fair ride and placing an order at Starbucks.

I'd like a skinny repeal, please - venti, with mocha.

As all know by now, Sen. John McCain didn't get the skinny on repeal and shocked the chamber by voting no with a thumbs-down. Not even with a Republican majority could Trump dump Obamacare in its slimmest version yet. McCain, who postponed treatment for aggressive brain cancer and flew to Washington to cast his vote, joined fellow Republicans Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, as well as all the Democratic members, to put the kibosh on any real hope of repeal this year, much less replace.

In most ways, McCain's seemingly last-minute maneuver should have surprised no one. Always the maverick, McCain, who has defied death before, is no one's wingman. If he thought this vote might be his last stand in the arena, he would make it worthwhile and memorable.

Back at the Ponderosa, Trump at least had a soul mate in whom to confide, Anthony Scaramucci, the White House's new communications director. "Mooch" or "Mini-me" to Washington insiders, Scaramucci is Trump's knee-capper. Good cop, meet seriously bad cop.

Scaramucci is the personification of Trump's deep brain. To the extent that the president ever withholds a thought, Scaramucci is there to express it for him. He's his human Twitter feed. Thus, we may assume that what Scaramucci says, Trump thinks. Thanks to The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza, we're privy to enough premium quotes to entertain ourselves for months.

As you may have heard, Scaramucci called Lizza Wednesday in a rage over his "leaked" financial records and Lizza's reporting of an intimate Trump dinner to include Fox News' Sean Hannity and Kimberly Guilfoyle, who, sources say, told Trump that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus is a leaker.

When Scaramucci demanded that Lizza divulge his source, Lizza, a polite, erudite fellow, declined and did what reporters sometimes do: He taped the conversation, capturing a hailstorm of profane tirades against leakers and, specifically, Priebus - "a (expletive) paranoid schizophrenic." He also made foul reference to senior adviser Steve Bannon performing Ripley-esque acrobatics that can't be described further here.

Next, we visit El Salvador, where, strangely, we find Attorney General Jeff Sessions. We know Trump wants to get rid of Sessions, but sending him into the maw of the beastly MS-13 gang seems excessively aggressive even for this president. While Poor Sessions (see previous column) was practicing Spanish for "I have nothing against tattoos, but seriously?" Trump was making a play in Ohio for tighter immigration by focusing on the gang's murderous record.

And, lest we ignore the gold coin Trump magically pulled from his ear, the president randomly ordered transgender people out of the military. What, no women bleeding this week?

Health care, schmealth care, in other words. As buffer to the inevitable, Trump made sure to create a little sidebar drama - expelling thugs and transgender people, rooting out leakers and traitors, and threatening to fire anyone who says Russia in his presence.

So many shiny objects, so few left to fool.

A few Trump loyalists may wait for the last lifeboat, but it's only a matter of time before this administration capsizes, titanically. Trump's first-year agenda is DOA along with health care reform. Going after Sessions has hurt him with conservatives. His chaotic White House operation is a constant reminder that no one's in charge. The cumulative effect of all of these affronts to normalcy, decorum and democracy is to reveal the profile of a deadly iceberg off the ship of state's bow.

Light shifts to a small lifeboat off in the distance

Rowing slowly is an old man whose posture betrays a straight spine despite obvious injury to his arms and shoulders. A smile creases his face as moonlight catches a twinkle in his eye. A deep scar above it imitates a wryly arched brow. He chuckles at the memory of Trump saying he was a war hero only because he was captured and turns to make yet another final gesture.

This time, he doesn't use his thumb.
"I need to explain why this expense makes sense for a family in Grand Rapids, Michigan," said Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's budget director. He was attempting to justify why the administration's 2018 budget request slashes foreign aid by more than 30 percent.

Fair enough. As someone who has worked for more than two decades in international development, let me help.

The U.S. spent $33 billion on foreign aid in 2016. That's only 0.7 percent of the federal budget, but it's still a lot of money that could be used for other things. For Central America, a focus of my work, Congress appropriated $750 million, double the amount spent in 2014.

Here's what I'd tell the family in Grand Rapids about why that money advances their interests: Central America's problems affect us directly.

When drug cartels can co-opt local governments and 95 percent of crimes in these nations go unpunished, criminals can more easily transport drugs into the U.S. Instability also drives migration to the U.S.

When the "Northern Triangle" of El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras became one of the world's most violent regions (with El Salvador's 2015 homicide rate reaching levels about 20 times that of the U.S.), migration surged, especially by unaccompanied children. The Center for Global Development calculated that a sustained increase in one homicide per year in Central American neighborhoods leads to 3.7 unaccompanied children apprehended at the border.

Conversely, a secure and stable region will continue to import goods and services from the United States. In 2015, U.S. manufacturing exports to these three countries reached $14 billion. Over 40 percent of the Northern Triangle's imports come from U.S. manufacturers, with these imports exceeding their exports to the United States.

Whether in dealing with illegal drugs or illegal migration, the U.S. can address Central America's problems more cost-effectively at their roots rather than trying to stop them at the border. A back-of-the-envelope calculation shows that the U.S. spends anywhere from $29,000 to $52,000 per detained migrant at the border, with many attempting more than one crossing. For that amount, you could fund several outreach centers in Central America, each providing skills training and a safe after-school refuge to hundreds of youths in crime-ridden neighborhoods.

Sustaining foreign aid in Central America could reap increasing dividends. Unlike many low-income countries, those of the Northern Triangle are at a unique tipping point, with per capita gross domestic product at $6,000 to $8,000. Above that level, the incentives to stay outweigh the benefits of leaving. The region has also achieved a dramatic reduction in fertility rates, which means that fewer young people are expected to enter the workforce in the coming years. This combination of forces points to a sweet spot in history, where helping these countries over this economic hump - creating opportunities for a smaller number of youth - would lead to lower illegal migration flows.

Americans are entirely justified in asking whether U.S. aid actually works, or worse, whether our good intentions cause harm - questions I have asked myself as I traveled the region looking at USAID programs. I know of no assistance program that can't somehow be improved. Even more importantly, I have learned that dispensing dollars alone is no answer to the region's deep-seated problems.

What works is when the U.S. brings to bear not just money but know-how, political pressure and close coordination with local governments.

I saw the impact that can have during a visit to Rivera Hernandez, one of the most violent neighborhoods in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, where gang violence overtook the community, where food delivery trucks couldn't even cross gang borders without permission, and where in 2013 alone there were 193 murders in a 10-block radius.

There are no proven best practices to tackle this degree of violence. Yet a tailored, U.S.-supported strategy of police re-training, gang mediators, youth programs, accessible courts and many other on-the-ground programs have helped to stabilize the region. Most important, the host nation is taking over the costs and logistics of running these programs, homicides have gone down in all three countries and crime networks are being dismantled. In Rivera Hernandez alone, homicides are down to less than half in two years. Even if these efforts reduced illegal migration from the region by 10 percent, it would provide savings at the border of more than three times the cost of the whole Northern Triangle program.

These points drive home why U.S. foreign aid is necessary and why, done well, it is comparatively cost-effective. War is expensive. Combating terrorism from failed states is expensive. Foreign aid is the cheapest insurance policy we can buy as a country.

Continuity and commitment are crucial. The vagaries of annual federal budgeting lead to waste, at a minimum by setting up and dismantling programs, and at worst, by disrupting the local institutions we sought to strengthen. A proposed 40 percent budget cut to funding for the Northern Triangle and the mixed messages about U.S. assistance at a recent meeting between the U.S. and the three Northern Triangle presidents risk both.

To the family in Grand Rapids: Know that foreign aid is helping you stay safe and tackling messy challenges at their roots. Keep asking tough questions about government spending and demanding accountability. You deserve a full and nuanced explanation, not snippets or slogans. Even if you don't believe spending U.S. taxpayer dollars to assist Central America is our obligation, it is undoubtedly in our best interest.
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
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The policy direction of the Liberal Party of Canada and its leader Justin Trudeau, as evidenced by the speeches, motions, and debate at the recent national party convention seem to indicate that the party is rejecting the successful pragmatism of the 1990s. Instead, the federal Liberals favour a more interventionist and activist government, much like that of the current Ontario Liberal government. If such policies are enacted, the results would be ruinous for Canada.

One of the central themes repeated consistently at the convention was the need for the federal government to incur more debt in order to finance infrastructure and other long-term spending. Mr. Trudeau and his policy advisers seem to have been influenced greatly by U.S. economist Larry Summers. Mr. Summers, who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, is a vocal advocate for more expansive government spending using debt as a method by which to stimulate the economy.

One problem of many for this approach is that it belies history, both in the U.S. and Canada. Bill Clinton and Jean Chretien enjoyed enormous economic and political success by doing the opposite. U.S. President Obama and the Ontario Liberals have struggled with a weak economy by doing exactly what Mr. Trudeau now proposes for the entire country.

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Beginning in 1995, the Chretien Liberals cut program spending by almost eight per cent in just two years and continued to constrain spending even after balanced budgets were achieved for the following three years. Federal program spending as a share of the economy declined from over 17.1 per cent in 1992-93 to just under 12 per cent by the end of the decade. Federal debt was reduced from 67.1 per cent in 1995-96 to roughly 30 per cent by the time the Tories took over. And critically, the Liberals enacted a series of tax cuts and reforms aimed at making our economy more efficient and competitive.

The results, contrary to the rhetoric of Mr. Summers, were stunningly positive. Over the decade spanning 1997 when the federal budget was first balanced to roughly 2007, Canada led the G7 in both economic growth and business investment. Our record on job creation was unparalleled, more than doubling the U.S. rate and higher than any G7 country. And poverty rates fell by more than 40 per cent.

These actual results stand in stark contrast to the predictions of Mr. Summer: "To start, this means ending the disastrous trend towards less and less government spending and employment each year and taking advantage of the current period of slack to renew and build out our infrastructure."

Of additional concern is the naivete that Mr. Summers continues to display and has apparently now infected Mr. Trudeau with in terms of the actual ability of governments to do the things he advocates. Mr. Summers was front and centre in advocating for and shepherding through the Obama stimulus, which contained hundreds of billions of dollars for "shovel-ready" projects. Mr. Summers insisted that the mark of success of such policies were that they were timely, temporary, and targeted. The reality of what happened is that, not surprising, politics affected the program. High priority projects were shelved for more politically expedite ones. Projects were delayed and hung up in red tape and bureaucrat infighting. The assumption that government can simply flick a switch and spend efficiently is both conceptually and historically false.

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Mr. Summers can be forgiven for not being aware of the actual experience in Ontario. The same cannot be said of Mr. Trudeau. The large and continuing deficits in Ontario, despite economic growth, coupled with heavy-handed interventionism in a host of sectors has placed Ontario on a path of decay, not prosperity. Economic growth in the province has remained sluggish despite large-scale deficits and debt accumulation. (As a measure of the province's problems -- Ontario is markedly worse on every measure of indebtedness compared to California.)

It's not at all clear how the country will benefit from Ontario-style policy when such policies have been an abject failure. The country would benefit from a return to the sound policies of the Chretien era in the 1990s -- balanced budgets, reducing debt, decentralization of responsibility and authority for services to the provinces, better value-for-money focused spending by the federal government, and incentive-based tax relief and reform. That's a recipe for success for any government, or government in waiting. The Trudeau Liberals should look back to this period rather than down south for their policy ideas.

This piece was co-written by Milagros Palacios, Senior Research Economist, Fraser Institute.

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Period poverty has existed for generations across the United Kingdom. Yep, that's right. Women and girls everywhere have been without sanitary products because they cannot afford them or do not have adequate access to them. What that means is that girls have been missing school to deal with their period within the confines of their own homes, and women have been using alternative materials, including "newspapers" and "socks", which pose a serious threat to their health. Yes, it is shocking. Here's what you can do about it:

1. Fight tampon tax

The 5% tax rate we pay on period products will end in 2018. Or so the Chancellor of the Exchequer has promised. We need to make sure this actually happens. Join our fight to end tampon tax, a sexist levy that upholds the period taboo that silences women and accelerates period poverty. We've already made history in pushing tampon-tax-ending legislation through parliament. But our job isn't over until the tax is finally axed. Period!

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Join our campaign! Tesco have just launched a scheme that will absorb the 5% tampon tax rate - they have decided to pay this rate before their products go on sale so that we don't have to! That's amazing. Let's make sure other stores follow suit...

2. End the period taboo. Period

The period taboo underpins all of the problems that we face in terms of tampon tax and period poverty more widely. The reason these issues haven't been tackled is because we feel as though we cannot talk about them. We can't fix what we cannot see publicly. So, let's get period talk out into our streets, on our social media feeds and in our news streams. The more we talk, the more effectively we can tackle the issues we face; the issues that have effected women for so many generations in silence.

To help us tackle the period taboo, PLEEEEASE add a period story to our kickass period blog! Take a look here, add your own period story and become a HERO! You will help us talk about the issues of sexism and injustice surrounding menstruation. Period.

3. Get local

There are many amazingggg campaigns across the country dedicated to tackling period poverty in their local areas. There are three main ways you can help them.Firstly, you can join an existing local 'homeless period' campaign to help them collect donations for local food banks and homeless shelters. They do really brilliant work! You can find these campaigns on twitter or contact me at lauracoryton@hotmail.co.uk if you need any help finding your nearest campaign. It's always brilliant to connect period campaigners!

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Secondly, you can support the amazing 'Bloody Good Period', an organisation dedicated to widening the access of sanitary products to asylum seekers, homeless women and refugees, with the click of a button!

Thirdly, if you don't already have a 'homeless period' project in your local area, you can start your own! To do this, you will need a group of amazing local people to help you, however big or small. Together you can collect donations of sanitary products from your kickass community. You can ask fellow heroes to plant donation points in their community centres, workplaces or universities to start making a big impact!

4. Sign, sign sign!

Sign and support our amazing sister petitions tackling multiple forms of period poverty. Here are just a few:

Schoolgirl Amika George set up her petition to tackle period poverty faced by girls and trans boys on free school meals.

Fourth Wave's petition hopes to address period poverty in schools more widely.

The Homeless Period is a fantastic project set up to help homeless women access the period products they need.

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5. Lobby Government

Support our central petition and lobby the Government into ending period poverty, here:

www.change.org/homelessperiodproject. Scotland recently introduced a pilot scheme that hopes to help 1,000 women on low incomes in Aberdeen access period projects. It's a groundbreaking scheme that made history. If it's deemed a success, it will be rolled out across the whole of Scotland. If Scotland can do it, so can the rest of the UK!
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With so much talk around the rise of automation and artificial intelligence, it's easy to picture an army of Terminator-style bots in a workplace war. Throw in the number of different research reports claiming the 'rise of the robots' will drive unemployment, and it's no surprise we're worried about safeguarding jobs against our mechanic counterparts.

The not so glamourous reality is that robots are in fact just data driven pieces of software, programmed to do exactly what we tell them. The other reality is robots aren't going to steal our jobs, but actually take away the tedious, manual tasks that we'd rather not spend our time doing anyway!

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Recently, the Chief Executive of Siemens UK, Juergen Maier, claimed the likes of robotics, additive manufacturing and AI will deliver better productivity and higher paid jobs, and he's right. By using technology to automate repetitive jobs, we're free to do all of the strategic activities that drive the bottom line.

Rather than waste time doing exactly the same tasks day in, day out, employees can focus on areas of the business that require something robotics can't offer - the human touch. Whether it's thinking up creative ideas, building relationships or even back-to-basics customer service, these are the things that will drive real value to the business. By eliminating some, or even all, of the boring back office processes, businesses can consider where employee strengths lie and make sure they're being used in the right way.

For those claiming certain jobs and professions will be influenced by robotics - you're not wrong, but that still doesn't mean in five years' time an I, Robot look alike is going to be handing you a P45. What it actually means is people's roles will change, making it possible to completely re-invent the 'ideal workplace'. While some jobs will likely become automated, others will be created.

Remember the industrial revolution? The uproar around job losses due to developments in technology isn't a new phase, but a misunderstood one. In the end, not only did productivity rise, but also massive opportunities for jobs were generated all across the UK. We have a love-hate relationship with tech in the workplace - when it's assisting us, it's seen as a friend, and when it could replace us it's seen as foe. However, it's important to remember that its technology that drives the economy forward, and produces innovations like driverless cars and virtual assistants.

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With or without the rise of the robots, employment rates will continue to change. Robotics is just another technology that will change the way we work, but as long as we remain fixated on the idea that robots will replace us, the true potential of the technology will continue to be overlooked. It's not a case of every business across the UK simply swapping their human employees for a mass of machines, but about finding the right balance between the two.
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Just as the saying goes: 'it takes a village to raise a child,' it takes a community to support mothers to breastfeed. During World Breastfeeding Week 2017 we look at how we can build a village of support around our mothers, helping them to breastfeed for as long as they wish.

We know that many women and new parents in the UK do not have a 'village' behind them and in many instances they do not even have one person to turn to who believes in them and their ability to succeed at breastfeeding. Many women live in an environment where bottle feeding is the cultural norm; where three or four generations of families have bottle fed, where friends in their street bottle feed and the idea of breastfeeding can be considered unnecessary and sometimes even taboo. It just doesn't happen.

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On the other hand, travel to another 'village' and for the women living there, breastfeeding is the norm; their mother and grandmother both breastfed, and they have grown up with women in their community; friends, sisters and cousins breastfeeding around them - where breastfeeding cafes thrive and mothers confidently breastfeed in public - almost without thinking about it. It happens every day.

Why does this matter?

Breastfeeding saves babies' and mothers' lives, reduces obesity, improves mother's mental health and helps them to form close and loving relationships with their baby. Whilst more women are starting to breastfeed their baby in the UK, there are large social and demographic variations. Recent data from Public Health England demonstrates how women's experiences in England are at two polar opposites of the spectrum. For example, if you travel to one area of England you will find only 22% of women breastfeeding their baby at 6 weeks, but if you travel to another you can find 77% of babies being breastfed. With 8 out of 10 mothers in the UK stopping breastfeeding before they want to, we need to look carefully at the reasons for these disparities.

It's a complex, emotive and profoundly sensitive subject. Talking about the challenges and trying to explore what can be done differently can sometimes lead to mothers and families in both 'villages', breast or bottle feeding, feeling hurt, upset and bruised at the implication that they didn't do the best for their child. We must acknowledge this pain before talking about how we can improve mothers' breastfeeding support and experiences.

How can we build a supportive 'village' for every mother?

So for this World Breastfeeding Week let's think about what the 'ideal village' might look like and how it could enable more women to breastfeed. It takes a whole community to support mothers; governments, healthcare providers, breastfeeding counsellors, families, friends and employers can all play a role in changing the culture of infant feeding in the UK.

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At a macro level, Unicef UK is calling on UK governments to put systems in place to help remove the barriers to breastfeeding. For example, governments could start to create a 'big village' of support for new parents by ensuring that all hospital and community services are required to implement and sustain the Unicef UK Baby Friendly Initiative Standards. This action alone would provide a strong foundation and ensure that all babies are born into a Baby Friendly environment where families are given the opportunity to develop a close, loving relationship with their baby and get feeding off to a good start.

Building on this, local authorities could then implement support programmes such as peer support groups, breastfeeding friendly spaces and back-to-work schemes, helping mothers to keep breastfeeding going beyond the early days and weeks. This will maximise the benefits of breastfeeding and create a breastfeeding cultural norm, where children grow up familiar with breastfeeding and expecting to breastfeed their own children.

In addition, governments should adopt in full, monitor and enforce the International Code of Marketing of Breastmilk Substitutes and subsequent resolutions ("the Code"). This will protect parents from harmful commercial interests by ensuring that formula feeding parents receive clear, impartial and accurate information about products, and that breastfeeding is not undermined by the UK formula industry, now the 11th largest in the world.

At a micro level, women need to be helped to build 'a village of support' around them. During pregnancy the mother needs to be helped to explore what her support network could look like; be it a partner, a friend, her mum, dad, cousin, stepmum, a childminder or another local mother who is breastfeeding or has breastfed. With the help of someone who believes in her, as well as ongoing, face-to-face, predictable support from a trained health professional and a local breastfeeding peer supporter, a mother is more likely to start and continue to breastfeed. Once she becomes confident in her own ability and in her transition to motherhood, she will be able to share her story and help the next mother on her breastfeeding journey.

Knowing the benefits that breastfeeding can bring to the mother, her baby, her family and wider community means that we all have a social responsibility to create a supportive UK village that values the needs of the baby to be breastfed and of the mother to be supported to breastfeed. It is the responsibility of us all to make this happen, and we all have a role, each and every one of us.
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The Mozambique channel washes ashore on the soft, sandy beaches of Maintirano, a town on the west coast of Madagascar. You could be forgiven for thinking this must be paradise for the people who make their living here fishing. The locals know better.

Fishing is dangerous, but I have to feed my family, confesses Vernon, a 33-year-old fisherman, and father of five, who makes around 5-a-day heading out into the ocean on a Pirogue  a tiny wooden sailboat that resembles a canoe. Sometimes very far away from the shore. Sometimes into hazardous conditions.

The community estimates that at least 30 fishermen died in this village in 2016.

The small boats used by fishermen in coastal communities provide little protection from dangerous conditions (Vestability)

The World Health Organisation (WHO) released a report in 2014 highlighting that Africa has an intolerable death toll through drowning. The continent has the highest rates of drowning in the world. It accounts for around 7 per cent of every 100,000 deaths (compared with just 0.44 per cent here in the UK). The numbers might be far higher but there is a lack of available data. Most of these deaths result from fishing accidents. People from impoverished communities are not properly equipped to deal with strong currents and hazardous weather.

Recommended The startup selling organic tampons in ice cream tubs

On a trip to a remote fishing village in Madagascar in 2014, graduate Alex Sanderson noticed the lack of affordable marine safety equipment. I spoke to a lot of single mothers  families that had lost husbands, sons and brothers in fishing accidents. The reality to them was that these instances were unavoidable  the chances of fishermen, armed with just an oar, returning if their boat capsized at sea was low.

Even a small wave can break up a boat in half.

Vestability launched its jackets on the west coast of Madagascar, enlisting locals to help test them (Vestability)

You cant get away from life jackets in Europe. They are everywhere. It felt so strange to think that this sort of basic provision wasnt being provided everywhere.

For these communities life-jackets are a luxury. In Africa, life jackets cost around 60 times more than a fisherman's daily income and many villagers must make the journey to larger cities to buy one. Alex believes this is why NGOs and local authorities seem to overlook drowning as an issue. There just wasnt a straightforward, cost-effective solution.

The way we currently make jackets makes the final product far too costly, and as most are made in Europe or Asia, transporting them to remote fishing villages pushes the price up further.

Alex and Pritika Kasliwal founded Vestability while studying at Bristol. They are looking to expand their programme into other parts of Africa (Vestability)

Alex and Pritika needed to find a way to provide affordable lifesaving buoyancy vests. They started to look at cheap materials that were available in fishing communities  nets, local plant varieties, plastic bags  even rum bottles. "We decided on a rice sack and four plastic bottles."

And develop they have. Their buoyancy vest mimics the design of a standard life jacket which provides enough flexibility during fishing and swimming, whilst also being comfortable. Their jackets provide 60 newtons of upward force, enough buoyancy to keep a conscious human afloat. Alex and Pritika headed to Maintirano to launch their sustainable design, realising that the easiest way to distribute vests would be teaching fishing communities to make them themselves.

Workshops were attended by fishermen as well as the women and children (Vestability)

They ran two, two-hour workshops (taught in English and Malagasy), not only attended by fishermen, but also women and children and community leaders. Attendees created their own life jackets and the know-how to repair them  ensuring skills will be transferred to family, friends and future generations. We want fishing communities to benefit from the jackets for generations to come says Alex.

The aim of the project is to ensure villagers can pass on the know-how to future generations (Vestability)

One of the fishermen they taught, Bonina, is the breadwinner of his family and the dangerous nature of his work had created an uncertain future. For families in poverty, the death of a household earner can not only be an emotional tragedy, but may lead to the rest of the family struggling to survive. Bonina and his wife attended workshops run by Vestability in Maintirano. Everyone should have one of these life jackets, he grins, strapping on his vest, with his daughter in-tow.

Thirty fishermen died in Maintirano in 2016. Since Vestability began operating in the area, there have been no reported deaths. After successful testing of the product in the region, Vestability aims to continue expansion across Madagascar with marine charity, Blue Ventures, and further test their product with the RNLI in the UK. Back in Bristol, the university has helped them to grow Vestability into a self-sustaining business. We have had so much help along the way, comments Alex. Bristol has loads of societies that encourage entrepreneurs. I was helped by Enactus Bristol, but also the university staff in the Bristol Basecamp.

So what's next for Vestability? This has the potential to save lives all over Africa  so were going to concentrate on getting jackets to as many fishermen as possible says Alex.

Pritika and I have just graduated university, so we can focus our time on Vestability. We will to continue to provide communities with access to vests  but also other forms of lifesaving equipment.

The hope is they will expand throughout Madagascar and East Africa.

Vernon, who has five children, previously had to choose between risking his life, or allowing his family to go hungry (Vestability)

When we left Maintirano we were just so pleased with the success of the project, and the foundations we have laid. Were just filled with plans for the future right now.

For more information on Vestability, you can visit www.vestability.co.uk
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Japans biggest bank is reportedly set to move its European investment operations from London to Amsterdam because of the uncertainty posed by Brexit.

MUFG could move hundreds of its 2,100 London employees to the Dutch capital, sources told the Financial Times.

Other banks are also looking to set up new offices in various European cities because of Brexit.

The UKs withdrawal from the EU is likely to have a significant effect on the financial services industry in the UK  along with numerous other areas  as companies in Britain will no longer be able to operate within the EU framework.

This could potentially block access to clients and significantly interfere with business.

Amsterdam is already home to MUFGs retail and corporate banking operations.

The Netherlands has strict bonus caps but, under new proposals, these would be exempt for companies which employ at least 75 per cent of their staff outside the country.

The proposed move separates MUFG from other large Japanese banks based in London, which are eyeing moves to Frankfurt, the German financial capital.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 12 November 2022 The City of London Pride Group take part in the parade during the Lord Mayor's Show PA 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 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Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. 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The Bank of England has been pressuring financial institutions to outline their post-Brexit plans in recent weeks, the FT reported.

Frankfurt was also the choice of Citigroup, Morgan Stanley and Standard Chartered for their post-Brexit locations.

HSBC chose Paris and the Bank of America and Barclays opted for Dublin.
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Authorities failed to stop the radicalisation of two teenage boys who were killed while fighting for al-Qaeda in Syria despite monitoring them for years, an investigation has found.

Abdullah Deghayes, 18, and his 17-year-old brother Jaffar were killed within months of each other in 2014 after joining Jabhat al-Nusra.

Their elder brother, Amer, is believed to remain in Syria, having told ITV news he would continue on the path of jihad until I get killed.

A serious case review published by the Brighton and Hove Local Safeguarding Children Board found there had been no recognition that the brothers and their three siblings were becoming vulnerable to radicalisation and exploitation, with a series of missed opportunities leading up to their disappearance.

Their family, which is originally from Libya but fled Muammar Gaddafis regime, had been known to local authorities in Brighton for decades over domestic abuse and as the victims of racist attacks.

The Deghayes brothers are the nephews of Omar Deghayes, who was imprisoned without charge at Guantanamo Bay between 2002 and 2007 after being arrested in Pakistan.

Jaffar Deghayes died fighting in Syria, six months after his brother was also killed in the war-torn country (Facebook)

Anti-Islamic graffiti was reported in the area in Brighton, where the brothers lived from 2007 onwards, including a 12-inch high daubing stating Behead all Muslims in 2009, and four years later far-right protesters gathered outside their home.

In 2010, the boys told staff at a youth club that they were being forced to wake up at 4.30am to study the Quran and whipped if their father felt that they were not studying properly, causing all five siblings to be put under child protection plans.

The scheme ended after their father left the UK in 2012 but the review found that Abdullah and his elder brother Amer were spiralling out of control and becoming embroiled in anti-social behaviour and crime  a pattern frequently seen among European jihadis.

After an arrest in 2012, Jaffar shouted at officers that they would die as they did not follow Allah, that they would burn in hell on judgement day, while his brother had claimed: Allah will seek revenge for me.

The review said that comments made by siblings to police officers would not have been perceived at the time as particularly significant, but radicalisation training has since improved.

The next year, one of their schools raised the alarm after hearing that some young people were converting to Islam and some had been paid by one of the brothers relatives to attend a gym behind a place of worship.

Timeline: The emergence of Isis Show all 40 1 /40 Timeline: The emergence of Isis Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2000 Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (pictured here) forms an al-Qaeda splinter group in Iraq, al-Qaeda in Iraq. Its brutality from the beginning alienates Iraqis and many al-Qaeda leaders. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2006 Al-Zarqawi is killed in a U.S. strike. Al-Zarqawis successor, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, announces the creation of the Islamic State in Iraq (ISI). Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2009 Still al-Qaeda-linked ISI claims responsibility for suicide bombings that killed 155 in Baghdad, as well as attacks in August and October killing 240, as President Obama announces troop withdrawal from Iraq in March. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2010 Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi becomes head of ISI, at lowest ebb of Islamist militancy in Iraq, which sees last U.S. combat brigade depart. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2012 In Syria, protests (pictured here starting in Daree) have morphed into what president Assad labelled a real war with emergence of a coalition of forces opposed to Assads regime. Syria group Jabhat al-Nusra are among rebel groups who refuse to join, denouncing it as a conspiracy. Bombings targeting Shia areas, killing more than 500 people, spark fears of new sectarian conflict. Sunni Muslims stage protests across country against what they see as increasingly marginalisation by Shia-led government. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2013 Al-Baghdadi renames ISI as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or Isis, as the group absorbs Syrian al-Nusra, gaining a foothold in Syria. In response, al-Qaeda chief Ayman al-Zawahiri (Bin Ladens successor) concerned about Isis expansion orders that Isis be dissolved and ISI operations should be confined to Iraq. This order is rejected by al-Baghdadi. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - January Isis fighters capture the Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi, giving them base to launch slew of attacks further south. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis declares itself the Caliphate, calling itself Islamic State (IS). The group captures Mosul, Iraqs second largest city; Tal Afar, just 93 miles from Syrian border; and the central Iraqi city of Tikrit. These advances sent shockwaves around the world. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Around the same time Isis releases a video calling for western Muslims to join the Caliphate and fight, prompting new evaluations of extremists groups social media understanding. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - June Isis take Baiji oil fields in Iraq - giving them access to huge amounts of possible revenue. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August James Foley is executed by the group as concerns grow for second American prisoner, fellow reporter Steven Sotloff. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - August Obama authorises U.S. airstrikes in Iraq, helping to stall Isis along with action by Kurdish forces following the deaths of hundreds of Yazidi people on Mount Sinjar. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release video showing Steven Sotloffs murder prompting Western speculation his executioner is same man who killed Mr Foley. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Obama tells us that America will hunt down terrorists who threaten our country EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Isis release a video appearing to show David Haines, who was captured by militants in Syria in 2013, wearing an orange jumpsuit and kneeling in the desert while he reads a pre-prepared script. It later shows what appears to be the aid worker's body. Rex Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - September Peshmerga fighters scrabble to hold positions in the Diyala province (a gateway to Baghdad) as Isis fighters continue to advance on Iraqi capital. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Aid worker Alan Henning is killed. Self-imposed media blackout refuses to show images of him in final moments, instead focuses upon humanitarian care. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - October Isis raise their flag in Kobani, which had been strongly defended by Kurdish troops. The victory goes against hopeful western analysis Isis had overextended itself, while alienating much of the Muslim population through the murder of Henning. Victory causes fresh waves of Kurdish refugees arriving in Turkey. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2014 - November American hostage, who embarced values of Islam, Peter Kassig and 14 Syrian soldiers are shown meeting the same fate as other captives. But intelligence agencies will be poring over the apparently significant discrepancies between this and previous films. Seramedig.org.uk Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis has released a video revealing the murder by burning to death of a Jordanian pilot held by the group since the end of December 2014. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have released videos which appear to show the beheading of Japanese hostages Haruna Yukawa and Kenji Goto. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February American aid worker, Kayla Mueller was the last American hostage known to be held by Isis. She died, according to her captors, in an airstrike by the Jordanian air force on the city of Raqqa in Syria, though US authorities disputed this. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February Isis militants have posted a gruesome video online in which they force 21 Egyptian Coptic Christian hostages to kneel on a beach in Libya before beheading them. Egypt vowed to avenge the beheading and launched air strikes on Isis positions. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - February The British Isis militant suspected of appearing in videos showing the beheading of Western hostages has been named in reports as Mohammed Emwazi from London. Rex Features Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - March Isis triple suicide attack has killed more than 100 worshippers and hundreds of others were injured after the group members targeted two mosques in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa. AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Iraqi forces have claimed victory over Isis in battle for Tikrit and raised the flag in the city. EPA/STR Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis has claimed responsibility for a suicide bomb attack in Afghanistan that killed at least 35 people queuing to collect their wages and injured 100 more. EPA Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - April Isis media arm released a 29-minute video purporting to show militants executing Ethiopian Christians captives. The footage bore the extremist groups al-Furqan media logo and showed the destruction of churches and desecration of religious symbols. A masked fighter made a statement threatening Christians who did not convert to Islam or pay a special tax. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of Isis has been "incapacitated" by a spinal injuries sustained in a US air strike in Iraq. He is being treated in a hideout by two doctors from Isis stronghold of Mosul who are said to be "strong ideological supporters of the group". Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis has also claimed responsibility for killing 300 of Yazidi captives, including women, children and elderly people in Iraq AP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis attack on Prophet Mohamed cartoon contest in Texas was its first action on US soil. Two gunmen were shot and killed after launching the attack at the exhibition. Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi have been named as the attackers at the Curtis Culwell Centre arena in Garland. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isiss deputy leader, Abu Alaa Afri, a former physics teacher who was thought to have taken charge of the deadly terrorist group, has been killed in a US-led coalition airstrike. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May US special forces have killed a senior Isis leader named as Abu Sayyaf in an operation aiming to capture him and his wife in Syria. Getty Images Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Iran-backed militias are sent to Ramadi by the Iraqi government to fight Isis militants who completed their capture of the city. Government soldiers and civilians were reportedly massacred by extremists as they took control and the army fled. Charred bodies were left littering the city streets as troops clung on to trucks speeding away from the city. Ramadi is the latest government stronghold to fall to the so-called Islamic State, despite air strikes by a US-led international coalition aiming to stop its advance in Iraq and Syria. AFP Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May Isis rounded up civilians trapped in Palmyra and forced them to watch 20 people being executed in the historic citys ancient amphitheatre. The Unesco World Heritage site was overrun by militants, threatening the future of 2,000 year-old monuments and ruins. Thousands of Palmyras residents fled but many are still living within the city walls, while the UN human rights office in Geneva said it had received reports of Syrian government forces preventing people from leaving until they retreated from the city. Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - May A group of Isis-affiliated fighters have captured a key airport in central Libya. The militants took control of the al-Qardabiya airbase in Sirte after a local militia tasked with defending the facility withdrew from their positions. Affiliates of Isis, already control large parts of Sirte, the birthplace of former Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and a former stronghold of his supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June The US Air Force has destroyed an Isis stronghold after an extremist let slip their location on social media. According the Air Force Times, General Herbert "Hawk" Carlisle, commander of Air Combat Command, said that Airmen at Hulburt Field, Florida, used images shared by jihadists to track the location of their headquarters before destroying it in an airstrike. Reuters Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Kurdish forces captured a key military base in a significant victory in Raqqa as well as town of Tell Abyad. YPG fighters, backed by US-led airstrikes and other rebels, consolidated their gains, when they seized the key town on the Syria-Turkey border. They are now just 30 miles to the north of Raqqa and have cut off a major supply route deep inside Isis-held territory. Ahmet Silk/Getty Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has released gruesome footage claiming to show the murder of more than a dozen men by drowning, decapitation and using a rocket-propelled grenade as it seeks to boost morale among its fanatical supporters. Timeline: The emergence of Isis 2015 - June Isis has begun carrying out its threat to destroy structures in the ancient Syrian city of Palmyra, blowing up at least two monuments at the Unesco-protected site as Syrian government troops made advances on the Islamists positions. AFP

Teachers also reported anti-Semitic content on one of the boys phones, including comments on Israel, Palestinians and how disgusting the Jews were.

Another opportunity to intervene came in the same year after Jaffar was referred to a panel following an emotional comment he made about Americans after returning from Libya in the grip of its brutal civil war.

But the panel concluded Jaffar was not at risk of being drawn into terror-related activities and the brothers continued to be counselled by social workers.

No further information was obtained about activities at the gym, the report said, but added: Both these instances were missed opportunities to learn more about the activities of the young people and to understand the links between young people in Brighton.

Moreover, at that time there was little local or national knowledge or understanding of the risks to children from being exploited into radicalisation to go and fight in wars elsewhere in the world.

In January 2014, the brothers left the UK and were initially said to be visiting relatives, before police discovered they had travelled to Turkey and onwards to join Amer and one of his friends in Syria.

Local practitioners do not know how, when or why the siblings decided to travel to Syria, the report concluded.

Abubaker Deghayes said his sons went to Syria of their own free will and without their parents consent (PA) (PA Video/PA Wire)

Whatever their motives for travel, the police understood that the boys died participating in the conflict in Syria.

Following news of Abdullahs death just days after his 18th birthday, their father told The Independent his son was a martyr who died for a just cause.

Abubaker Deghayes insisted the brothers had gone to Syria of their own free will and without their parents consent, adding: The cause is to help those who are being bombed daily by Assad and killed by his bombings and air raids and soldiers for nothing except to ask for their freedom.

I hope this was his intention, I hope he is rewarded and I hope he is in peace now.

Graham Bartlett, independent chair of the safeguarding review, said the case had a major impact on local authorities understanding of the risks of exploitation through radicalisation for children.

It is important to stress that this review has found that prior to the siblings travelling to Syria, the national intelligence and threat assessment did not suggest that people were going abroad to fight, he added.

Locally, professionals had not identified that the brothers were at risk of radicalisation or at risk of fighting overseas. There was and remains no evidence to indicate how they were radicalised.

Mr Bartlett expressed hope that the reviews findings would help professionals dealing with children suffering trauma who may become vulnerable and inform policies and practices elsewhere in the UK.
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The uncle of Charlie Gard, a baby who died after his parents fought a high-profile court battle to keep him alive, has written a touching poem in his memory.

Andy Gard posted the tribute on Instagram, hours after the family announced the boy had died.

I know inside youll always know how much they fought for you, he wrote.

Recommended Pope Francis leads tributes to Charlie Gard

But now they both need you from heaven to watch over them now, too.

The poem has been liked on the social media platform close to 17,000 times.

The case of Charlie Gard, who died shortly before his first birthday after suffering a rare brain disorder, caught the attention of major political and religious figures around the world.

Pope Francis tweeted after Charlies death: I entrust little Charlie to the Father and pray for his parents and all those who loved him.

US Vice President Mike Pence, who is strongly pro-life, tweeted: Saddened to hear of the passing of Charlie Gard. Karen and I offer our prayers and condolences to his loving parents during this difficult time.

President Trump had previously tweeted about the case, offering to help the baby and his family.

His parents lost a five-month legal battle to take their son to the US to receive experimental, unproven nucleoside therapy from a specialist as courts ruled it would have little chance of success.

 Tributes flow in for Charlie Gard

An end-of-life plan was approved on Thursday by High Court judge Nicholas Francis. Charlie was kept on life support at Great Ormond Street Hospital, and then moved to a hospice where the artificial ventilator was switched off.

Prime Minister Theresa May also paid tribute to Charlies family.

I am deeply saddened by the death of Charlie Gard, she said. My thoughts and prayers are with Charlies parents Chris and Connie at this difficult time.

After the baby died on Friday, Connie Yates said: Our beautiful little boy has gone, we are so proud of you Charlie.

Andy Gards full poem is below:

From ever since your daddy phoned me to say that you were here.

Right up until you were driven home and me and daddy had some beers.

I know inside youll always know how much they fought for you.

But now they both need you from heaven to watch over them now, too.

For Ill never know in my own lifetime how life could be so cruel.

All I know for certain is that Im the worlds proudest Uncle.

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While we stay in this ugly world, your spirit now has freedom.

Rest assured our beloved Charlie, in this fight we will not be beaten.

At the moment all we do is feel pain, feel sad we sob and cry.

But we always hold out the belief that theres no such thing as goodbye.

So Ill leave this poem here just for now, but just to clarify... All my love, my hope the fight I need will be inspired by your eyes.

I love you Charlie. Thank you for being you.

Uncle Andy.
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Journalists at the Financial Times are reportedly preparing to go on strike over the newsrooms gender pay gap following the huge row at the BBC.

Women at the FT are said to be furious after discovering they are paid on average 13 per cent less than their male colleagues.

The newspapers union called a meeting this week after deciding the issue was being brushed under the carpet by senior management, according to Sky News.

The gender pay gap in FT editorial is nearly 13 per cent - the biggest shortfall in a decade - and the company's 'ambition' to reach equality by 2022 is worse than the BBC's present target of 2020, said Steve Bird, father of the FT's National Union of Journalists chapel, in an email to 600 staff at the organisation.

Working for a private company where even the salaries of the editor and CEO are not disclosed does not inspire confidence in the FT's commitment to transparency.

"And recent corporate statements seem more concerned about the commercial implications of gender bias than bringing women's salaries into line with those of male counterparts.

"After a recent leader in the FT stated: 'Women are right to be angry at the pay gap', it's time for the Financial Times to put its money where its mouth is.

Senior women at the BBC wrote an open letter to protest at gender inequality at the corporation after it was forced to reveal that two-thirds of its highest earners were men.

Tony Hal, the BBC's Director General, has pledged to have parity of pay by 2020, although several of the corporation's well-known female presenters and journalists are currently renegotiating their contracts following the revelations.

The FTs internal audit showed that 70 male members of staff earned more than 80,000, while just 20 women were paid more than that sum.

Recommended BBC actor defends men earning higher salaries in gender pay row

The FT said in a statement to Sky: We take the matter of gender pay seriously and welcome the Government's move to make all large UK companies report on the issue.

We have a 50/50 female-male split among our workforce and there are more women in senior roles across the newsroom and commercial teams than ever before. We have a long list of active initiatives in place to further that progress.

We will be reporting on pay in due course, in line with the UK government timetable. From benchmarking we have seen we compare favourably to the industry.

Women in various different media organisations are expressing their discontent at the gender pay gap which exists in most newsrooms.

One told the Independent: Its bitterly ironic that we write so many stories on gender equality and sexism while being paid less than our male colleagues  even when we have the same or a very similar level of experience and competence.

Its high time something was done about it, because our bosses  who are mostly men  have been getting away with it for far too long."

The reporter added: Its good to hear union action is on the cards at the FT and that the men there are being supportive of their female colleagues because thats the only way to move forward, with the men recognising that this is unacceptable and standing with us.

The FTs union was expected to put out a statement on further action in the coming week.
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An independent review into the response to the Manchester Arena bombing will look at what lessons can be learned for the future.

Andy Burnham, the citys mayor, has promised an open, honest and independent review after suicide bomber Salman Abedi killed 22 people after an Ariana Grande concert. Lord Kerslake, the former head of the civil service, will chair the review.

The trained accountant, who is currently chairman of Londons Kings College Hospital, told the BBC the review would focus on the preparedness of Greater Manchester for such attacks and their response in the period, the week-and-a-half or so in which they had to respond.

He added: The issue of whether it could have been prevented is a different review process.

 Ariana Grande breaks down singing 'Somewhere Over The Rainbow' at Manchester benefit

There were thousands who were affected in some way by this terrible, terrible event. I see that as a key part of role as chair to make sure that their voices are heard as part of this review.

They will have insights and ideas that wont necessarily be available to the emergency services, good though they are.

Announcing the appointment at a meeting of the Greater Manchester Combined Authority on Friday, Mr Burnham praised the stature and considerable experience of the former head of the Civil Service.

The Mayor of Greater Manchester said people in the region are still coming to terms with the enormity of what happened. This atrocious attack on our city was an unprecedented incident, he said.

The bravery and professionalism shown by the emergency services and many others that night was outstanding.

The leaders of our public services had run planning exercises only weeks before the attack and, thanks to their actions, our city was ready to respond.

One Love Manchester Show all 12 1 /12 One Love Manchester One Love Manchester Concert goers queue outside Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester Music fans embrace outside the Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester A woman sunbathes as police officers patrol around Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester Manchester residents cheer as survivors walk to Old Trafford cricket grounds for the concert @AlexScapensMEN/Twitter One Love Manchester Women wearing I Love MCR T-shirts arrive at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert in Manchester. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester Armed police look-on as fans begin to arrive at the Old Trafford Cricket Ground ahead of the One Love Manchester tribute concert. AFP/Getty Images One Love Manchester One Love Manchester Benefit Concert fans. One Love Manchester One Love Manchester Benefit Concert. One Love Manchester The crowd at the 'One Love Manchester' benefit concert. One Love Manchester AP One Love Manchester Gary Barlow has tweeted a picture of Take That backstage with Ariana Grande. Grande said she wanted to return to the "incredibly brave city" to spend time with her fans and to "honour and raise money for the victims and their families". One Love Manchester Take That with Robbie Williams - Music fans have said they had to attend the Manchester benefit concert to show they were determined to "stay strong and carry on", despite recent attacks.

But, as with any major incident, it is right to take an honest look at what happened so that the right lessons can be learned for the future, and this review will help us be even better prepared in the future and allow us to share our learning with other parts of the country.

The review is expected to start in September after individual organisations have carried out their own reviews, and an interim report is expected to be completed by Christmas.
Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter from The Independent's Race Correspondent Nadine White Sign up to our free fortnightly newsletter The Race Report Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

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A Sunday Times article headlined Sorry ladies  equal pay has to be earned has been criticised for its anti-Semitic and sexist content.

The article, by holocaust denier Kevin Myers, pointed to Claudia Winkelman and Vanessa Feltz, who are among the top-earning women at the BBC.

Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity, he wrote.

I wonder, who are their agents? If theyre the same ones that negotiated the pay for the women on the lower scales, then maybe the latter have found their true value in the marketplace.

"Yet even using that word 'marketplace' in the absurd world of the BBC is like putting 'common sense' and 'egalitarian feminism' in the one sentence without a negative, or collapsing with laughter."

He added that men tend to be paid more because they "work harder, get sick less frequently and seldom get pregnant" and are "more ambitious".

The article has been removed.

Martin Ivens, editor of the Sunday Times, said the comments "were unacceptable and should not have been published. It has been taken down and we sincerely apologise both for the remarks and the error of judgement that led to publication.

UK news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 UK news in pictures UK news in pictures 12 November 2022 The City of London Pride Group take part in the parade during the Lord Mayor's Show PA 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 during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA

Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of the Sunday Times in Ireland, said he apologised "unreservedly for the offence caused by comments in a column written by Kevin Myers and published today".

He added: "It contained views that have caused considerable distress and upset to a number of people. As the editor of the Ireland edition I take full responsibility for this error of judgement. This newspaper abhors anti-semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people.

The columnists name became a top trend on Twitter. Social media users were quick to take pictures of the piece and share it online, questioning why the article was given the green light by editors.

Cookbook writer and activist Jack Monroe commented: "It all becomes clear. Decent people of Britain, meet Kevin Myers. Holocaust denier, anti Semite, sneering white man."

Curtis Brown joint-CEO and literary agent Jonny Geller added: "This is unacceptable from the Irish version of Sunday Times. Why tolerate casual anti-semitism like this?"

Guardian journalist Marina Hyde said: Amazed this disgrace made it into the paper. But instructive that it did.

 Andy Murray calls journalist out for 'causal sexism'

Myers has a controversial history, including a piece in 2008 where he wrote: Africa is giving nothing to anyone  apart from Aids.

Myers 2009 article that denied the Holocaust, published by the Belfast Telegraph, was taken down following the furore on Sunday.

There was no holocaust, (or Holocaust, as my computer software insists) and six million Jews were not murdered by the Third Reich, he wrote. These two statements of mine are irrefutable truths [].

In 2005, the Irish Times came under fire for publishing his column, which called children of single mothers bastards.

It is not clear whether Myers has been reprimanded or will continue to be employed at the newspaper.
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Boris Johnson has accused Sir Vince Cable of "peddling lies" about him after the Liberal Democrat leader made reference to rumours the Foreign Secretary may be about to resign.

The heated response came after Sir Vince seized on apparent differences between International Trade Secretary Liam Fox and Chancellor Philip Hammond over plans for a post-Brexit three year transition period for migrant workers in order to brand the Cabinet as being in a state of "civil war".

The Lib Dem leader added: "There is no Cabinet consensus for moderation. And the rumours of Boris Johnson being about to resign fuel the uncertainty."

Responding to the claims, a spokesman for Mr Johnson said: "Vince Cable is making his stuff up and maybe he should take more time to think up some policies rather than wasting his time on peddling lies.

"Boris and Philip Hammond are working closely to take the the UK out of the EU and are not going to be diverted from that important task."

The war of words erupted after Dr Fox insisted unregulated free movement of labour after Brexit would "not keep faith" with the EU referendum result.

Dr Fox insisted the Cabinet has not agreed a deal on immigration after withdrawal from the EU.

This appeared at odds with Mr Hammond's signal that free movement would continue for a limited period in all but name with an added element of migrants having to register in the UK.

Mr Johnson has yet to comment publicly on Mr Hammond's transitional plans.

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

Sir Vince hit back.

"If the Foreign Secretary is working so closely with the Chancellor, can he confirm that he supports the Chancellor's call for a three-year transitional deal with continued free movement of labour? So far he has been uncharacteristically silent on the subject," he said.

"It is a simple question: does he support the position of Philip Hammond or Liam Fox? Because he can't support both.

"And if Philip Hammond secures a three year transitional deal, can Boris Johnson confirm he will stay in the Government and support the policy?

"I have a policy: it is to stay in the single market and customs union to protect British jobs and living standards."

Press Association
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The UK could be hit with post-Brexit customs chaos that would cost the economy more than 1bn a year, a report has warned, fuelling fears of what the port of Dovers boss termed an Armageddon-style scenario.

Theresa May has promised to maintain the frictionless transport of goods between the UK and the EU despite her plan to leave the Customs Union  although she has more recently amended this pledge to as frictionless as possible.

The Europe-wide economic consultancy Oxera said that if no trade deal is reached when the UK leaves the EU, customs checks would cause lengthy border delays, resulting in slower trade.

The report, authored by Oxeras head of transport and entitled, Brexit: The implications for UK Ports, suggested huge lorry parks would have to be built in south-east England to cope while longer motorway queues would be an inevitable consequence of greater customs control.

Recommended Kinnock urges Corbyn to retain single market membership

We estimate the impact of such a scenario to be at least 1bn per year. This is an extremely conservative estimate  it does not account for the economic costs of the uncertainty involved, the extra staff needed (for hauliers, ports and customs officials), the congestion associated with calling Operation Stack [which would see the M20 used as a makeshift lorry park], the land required for the additional customs checks [in the form of lorry parks], or of the wider economic impacts of jobs moving overseas due to uncertainty over the operation of just-in-time logistics," it said.

The full cost is likely to be much higher.

The EUs chief Brexit negotiator, Michel Barnier, has warned the UKs hopes of securing frictionless trade are unrealistic.

Speaking last month, he said: Some in the UK say you can leave the customs union and build frictionless trade. That is not possible.

Some in UK say you can leave the single market and keep all of the benefits. That is not possible.

UK goods trade with the EU is valued at 466bn. Since the single market was established in 1993, goods leaving the UK for the EU and vice versa have not been subject to customs checks on either side.

The report warns that the event of no deal between the UK and the EU on a customs union would have extremely serious economic consequences.

Business in both the UK and the EU needs to know very soon the customs rules under which they will be trading. The decision cannot be part of a last-minute deal on the eve of Brexit, due to the time it will take to get trade moving under the new arrangements. The costs to logistics businesses and their customers, users of the road network and, eventually, jobs in the UK of a relatively limited increase in friction will be considerable.

And no deal on an alternative customs union would have extremely serious consequences for the UK economy. Providing a policy direction in this area should be a priority for the government when Parliament returns from recess.

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

A statement from the Government said the post-Brexit relationship being sought with the EU had been set out in its White Paper and the Lancaster House speech made last year by the Prime Minister.

A prominent group of Conservative MPs last week called on Cabinet Ministers to take urgent action to avert post-Brexit gridlock at the ports.

A report entitled Ready on Day One, endorsed by the European Research group of Tory backbenchers and written by Charlie Elphicke, the MP for Dover, calls for proper planning for the event of no deal and for an expanded treaty with France to cover customs.

We have got less than two years: that is why we need to be ready on day one, and this report offers blueprint of the sort of steps we should be taking, it said.

Everyone hopes for a trade deal but we have to be prepared for every eventuality, and for customs checks.
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Karen Bradley, the Culture Secretary, has said homes and businesses across Britain will soon benefit from high-speed broadband amid warnings that millions are receiving poor connectivity.

Revealing that BT has put forward an offer to voluntarily provide the service  delivered through Openreach  Ms Bradley said her final decision will be about making sure we get the best deal for consumers.

Her comments come after dozens of MPs released a report calling for the urgent introduction of an automatic compensation scheme for broadband consumers.

The MPs wrote that while broadband is increasingly considered to be as essential as utilities such as water or gas, the quality of customer service has simply not caught up with demand.

In the report  Broadband 2.0  it is claimed that as many as 6.7 million UK broadband connections may not receive download speeds above the Governments proposed minimum of 10 megabits per second (Mb/s).

Less than half of all UK connections are thought not to receive superfast speeds of 24Mb/s, according to the groups research. The Digital Economy Act defined a minimum broadband download of 10 megabits per second earlier this year.

But the Government has said that BTs proposal means many premises would receive substantially more speed and connections quicker than through a regulatory approach.

Considering the two options, Ms Bradley said the Government is taking action to ensure that people everywhere in the UK can get a decent broadband connection as soon as possible.

We warmly welcome BTs offer and now will look at whether this or a regulatory approach works better for homes and businesses, she said.

Whichever of the two approaches we go with in the end, the driving force behind our decision-making will be making sure we get the best deal for consumers.

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 during the Diwali on the Square celebration, in Trafalgar Square, London PA UK news in pictures 8 October 2022 Timothee Chalamet attending the UK premiere of Bones and All during the BFI London Film Festival 2022 at the Royal Festival Hall, Southbank Centre, London PA UK news in pictures 7 October 2022 Two young male fallow deer lock antlers in Dublins Phoenix park as rutting season begins PA UK news in pictures 6 October 2022 The Princess of Wales during a cocktail making competition during a visit to Trademarket, a new outdoor street-food and retail market situated in Belfast city centre, as part of the royal visit to Northern Ireland PA UK news in pictures 5 October 2022 Greenpeace protesters interrupt Prime Minister Liz Truss as she delivers her keynote speech to the Conservative Party annual conference PA UK news in pictures 4 October 2022 Prime Minister Liz Truss and Britains Chancellor of the Exchequer Kwasi Kwarteng wearing hard hats and hi-vis jackets, visit a construction site for a medical innovation campus in Birmingham AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 3 October 2022 British artist Sam Cox, aka Mr Doodle, reveals the Doodle House, a twelve-room mansion at Tenterden, in Kent, which has been covered, inside and out in the artist's trademark monochrome, cartoonish hand-drawn doodles PA UK news in pictures 2 October 2022 Erling Haaland celebrates after scoring Manchester City's second goal against Manchester United at Etihad Stadium. Haaland went on to score a hattrick, his third of the season in the Premier League. City beat United 6-3. Manchester City FC/Getty UK news in pictures 1 October 2022 Protesters hold up flags and placards at a protest in London. A variety of protest groups including Enough is Enough, Don't Pay and Just Stop Oil all demonstrated on the day AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 30 September 2022 British Prime Minister Liz Truss, who has not been seen in days, leaves the back of Downing Street after a meeting with Office For Budget Responsibility following the release of her governments mini-budget Getty UK news in pictures 29 September 2022 The Virginia creeper foliage on the Tu Hwnt i'r Bont (Beyond the Bridge) Llanwrst, Conwy North Wales, has changed colour from green to red in at the start of Autumn. The building was built in 1480 as a residential dwelling but has been a tearoom for over 50 years PA UK news in pictures 28 September 2022 Criminal barristers from the Criminal Bar Association (CBA), demonstrates outside the Royal Courts of Justice in London, as part of their ongoing pay row with the Government PA UK news in pictures 27 September 2022 David White, Garter King of Arms, poses with an envelope franked with the new cypher of King Charles III 'CIIIR', after it was printed in the Court Post Office at Buckingham Palace in central London AFP/Getty UK news in pictures 26 September 2022 A gallery staff member poses next to a painting by Lucian Freud - Self-portrait (Fragment), 1956 - on show at a photocall for the Credit Suisse exhibition - Lucian Freud: New Perspectives at the National Gallery in London PA UK news in pictures 25 September 2022 Labour leader, Sir Keir Starmer is interviewed by Laura Kuenssberg in Liverpool before the start of the Labour Party annual Conference which he opened with a tribute to Queen Elizabeth II and sang the national anthem PA UK news in pictures 24 September 2022 Handout photo issued by Buckingham Palace of the ledger stone at the King George VI Memorial Chapel, St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle PA UK news in pictures 23 September 2022 A climate change activist protests against UK private jets while lighting his right arm on fire during the Laver Cup tennis tournament at the O2 Arena in London EPA UK news in pictures 22 September 2022 Woody Woodmansey, Lee Bennett, Kevin Armstrong, Nick Moran and Clifford Slapper attend the unveiling of a stone for David Bowie on the Music Walk of Fame at Camden, north London PA

BT chief executive Gavin Patterson said: We are pleased to make a voluntary offer to deliver the Governments goal for universal broadband access at minimum speeds of 10Mbps.

This would involve an estimated investment of 450m to 600m depending on the final technology solution. This investment will reinforce the UKs status as the leading digital economy in the G20.

We already expect 95 per cent of homes and businesses to have access to superfast broadband speeds of 24Mbps or faster by the end of 2017.
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Xavier Bettel, the Prime Minister of Luxembourg, has warned Britain could face a Brexit divorce bill of more than 50bn.

Comparing the EUs stance to Margaret Thatchers battle to get a major rebate from the bloc for Britain in the 1980s, Mr Bettel added: It is now time for the European Union to make an analogy with the famous quote of Mrs Thatcher, We want our money back.

On the financial settlement, Mr Bettel, who succeeded Jean-Claude Junker as the Prime Minister of Luxembourg in 2013, added: Concerning the exit bill, it is important to underline that the British Government took this commitment in the past and needs to honour it. It is not a penalty. The sum ranges between 36bn and 54bn.

While no official figure has been placed on the divorce bill  one of the most contentious issues in the negotiations  some speculation has placed the financial settlement as high as 100bn (89bn).

Mr Bettel accused Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, of bragging when he claimed Britain could have its cake and eat it over Brexit and when he told EU officials to go whistle over reports of a substantial divorce bill.

"It is not possible to have your cake and eat it too  Boris Johnson knows that, Mr Bettel added.

The comments from Luxembourgs Prime Minister come after the second round of Brexit talks between David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, and Michel Barnier, the EUs top negotiator, failed to produce any substantial breakthroughs on issues including the financial settlement, citizens rights and the Irish border.

But the Department for Exiting the European Union said: As the Secretary of State said, it is important that both sides demonstrate a dynamic and flexible approach to these negotiations. Government officials are working at pace and we are confident we will have made sufficient progress by October to advance the talks to the next phase.

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 financial settlement, we have been clear that we recognise the UK has obligations to the EU and that the EU also has obligations to the UK.

Just last week, it emerged, Mr Barnier had also threatened to delay any talks on a post-Brexit trade deal  Theresa Mays priority  unless negotiations over the exit settlement progressed significantly in the immediate months.

He said the likelihood of starting the future relationship talks in October appeared to be decreasing, one EU official present at a meeting with Mr Barnier told Reuters news agency.

The official added: Barnier expressed concerns that sufficient progress in October looked difficult now. Mainly because Britain has no position on finances, but also because they dont have positions on other issues as well.
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Cabinet splits have emerged over the Governments plan for a post-Brexit deal after a series of briefings appeared attacking the Chancellors transition strategy of retaining free movement of labour until 2022.

It comes after Mr Hammond suggested there was a broad acceptance at Cabinet level for many of the current arrangements with the EU remaining very similar for a period lasting up to three years after Britain formally leaves the bloc in March 2019.

But his plans were criticised by Liam Fox, the International Trade Secretary, who told the Sunday Times the Cabinet has not yet agreed a deal to allow free movement of labour for three years after Brexit, adding that any such move would not keep faith with the referendum result.

"If there have been discussions on that I have not been party to them. I have not been involved in any discussions on that, Dr Fox said.

He continued: I am very happy to discuss whatever transitional arrangements and whatever implementation agreement we might want, but that has to be an agreement by the Cabinet. It cant just be made by an individual or any group within the Cabinet.

We made it clear that control of our own borders was one of the elements we wanted in the referendum, and unregulated free movement would seem to me not to keep faith with that decision.

Dr Foxs comments also appeared as the Chancellors plans for a post-Brexit deal were criticised by a close ally of Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. Gerard Lyons, a former economic adviser to Mr Johnson while he was London Mayor, said a two-year transition agreement with the EU would work better than a three-year one.

He told the Sunday Telegraph: Many of the risks being highlighted about Brexit are perceived risks, not real risks. And a two-year transition would alleviate many concerns.

Mr Johnson has not yet commented publicly on Mr Hammond's plans, his ally continued: Enough is enough. The leader is away so those in senior roles seem to think they can play.

The trouble is, new ideas for Brexit should not be floated in public in the way they currently are, as if government policy is being made by whoever can occupy the news agenda that day. There is a need to return to some Cabinet collective responsibility on this, the most important issue of our day: Brexit.

And despite Theresa Mays plea to keep discussions between Cabinet ministers confidential, the Mail on Sunday quoted allies of David Davis, the Brexit Secretary, suggesting the Chancellor was attempting to undermine the Prime Minister while she is on holiday in Italys Lake Garda.

In an article for the newspaper David Jones, a former Brexit minister, said: No sooner is the Prime Minister on holiday and Parliament away for the summer, than Europhile forces in the Cabinet decide its a good time to go on manoeuvres.

All this agitation by the Chancellor and his allies is hugely discourteous to Mrs May  and undermines her authority. But just as importantly, talk of a three-year transitional deal  or longer  by Philip Hammond is deeply dangerous.

But the Chancellor, who is thought to have backing in the Cabinet from the Home Secretary Amber Rudd, and First Secretary Damian Green, received praise from the pro-EU Conservative Nicholas Soames.

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

"He has restored discipline to the political infant class who want Brexit at any cost, Mr Soames said. "Instead of mindlessly criticising him, they should thank him for putting a stop to what was in danger of becoming a pub brawl."

On Friday Mr Hammond claimed: I think theres a broad consensus that this process has to be completed by the scheduled time of the next general election, which is in June 2022.

So a period of at the most three years in order to put these new arrangements in place and move us on a steady path without cliff edges from where we are today to the new long term relationship with the European Union.

He also added that literally nobody wants a post-Brexit migration cliff-edge as he outlined his plans for a two-phase Brexit during which Britain will retain access to the single market before new permanent arrangements are in force by the next election.
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Aliya Shagieva, the youngest daughter of the president of Kyrgyztan, has spoken out after she criticised for posting a picture on social media of herself breastfeeding,

Taken from above her, Ms Shagieva appeared near naked in the image as she fed her one-month-old son Tagir.

Posted on Instagram in April, it ran alongside the caption: "I will feed my child whenever and wherever he needs to be fed."

But after she was attacked on social media and accused of "immoral behaviour", she took the image down.

In an interview with the BBC, Ms Shagieva said a culture which over-sexualises the female body caused the outrage, rather than the image itself.

"This body I've been given is not vulgar, it is functional, said the 20-year-old artist. "Its purpose is to fulfil the physiological needs of my baby, not to be sexualised."

"When I'm breastfeeding my child, I feel like I'm giving him the best I can give. Taking care of my baby and attending to his needs is more important to me than what people say about me."

A post shared by   (@chestnayaaa) on Jun 29, 2017 at 5:13pm PDT

Kyrgyzstan, a former Soviet republic, has a socially conservative, majority Muslim society.

President Almazbek Atambayev and his wife Raisa disapproved of their daughters picture, Ms Shagieva said.

"They really didn't like it. And it is understandable because the younger generation is less conservative than their parents. My mum received messages from her 'friends' about me.

Ms Shagieva is known for her progressive behaviour. She gave birth to son six-months after her marriage to Russian husband Konstantin.

The young family live as vegetarians in a traditionally meat-eating country.

A post shared by   (@chestnayaaa) on May 16, 2017 at 1:24pm PDT

Ms Shagieva frequently posts images of her and her son on Instagram.

Breastfeeding in public is a matter of debate across the world.

Former Australian senator Larissa Waters was praised when she breastfed her baby in parliament in May.

"It's frankly ridiculous, really, that feeding one's baby is international news, Ms Waters said at the time. Women have been breastfeeding for as long as time immemorial.

"I had hoped to not only be able to feed my baby but to send a message to young women that they belong in the parliament."

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Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. 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. 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There have been calls to allow breastfeeding in the House of Commons, after a 2016 independent review recommended it.

It is illegal in the UK to ask a breastfeeding woman to leave a public place, such as a cafe, park or public transport.

However, breastfeeding rates in the UK are among the lowest in the world, according to a 2016 study in The Lancet.
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A doctor about to give birth leapt out of her bed to help bring another womans child into the world instead after her baby became distressed.

Dr Amanda Hess rushed to the rescue of Leah Johnson in Frankfort Regional Medical Center, Kentucky, when her own doctor was on a break.

She acted after overhearing nurses saying that Ms Johnson, who was fully dilated, needed to give birth immediately.

Dr Hess said: I just put on another gown to cover up my backside and put on some boots over my shoes to keep from getting any fluid and all that stuff on me, and went down to her room.

She recognised Ms Johnson, whom she had performed a check-up on days before, and delivered her healthy baby daughter.

Ms Johnson afterwards described Dr Hess as pretty amazing, and added: I feel very lucky she was there and the type of person she is and stepped up to do what she did.

Dr Hess, a doctor in obstetrics and gynaecology, later gave birth to her second child, Ellen Joyce.

Both mothers and babies were reportedly doing well  and Dr Hess was expected to take eight months for her maternity leave.

Health news in pictures Show all 40 1 /40 Health news in pictures Health news in pictures Coronavirus outbreak The coronavirus Covid-19 has hit the UK leading to the deaths of two people so far and prompting warnings from the Department of Health AFP via Getty Health news in pictures Thousands of emergency patients told to take taxi to hospital Thousands of 999 patients in England are being told to get a taxi to hospital, figures have showed. The number of patients outside London who were refused an ambulance rose by 83 per cent in the past year as demand for services grows Getty Health news in pictures Vape related deaths spike A vaping-related lung disease has claimed the lives of 11 people in the US in recent weeks. The US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention has more than 100 officials investigating the cause of the mystery illness, and has warned citizens against smoking e-cigarette products until more is known, particularly if modified or bought off the street Getty Health news in pictures Baldness cure looks to be a step closer Researchers in the US claim to have overcome one of the major hurdles to cultivating human follicles from stem cells. The new system allows cells to grow in a structured tuft and emerge from the skin Sanford Burnham Preybs Health news in pictures Two hours a week spent in nature can improve health A study in the journal Scientific Reports suggests that a dose of nature of just two hours a week is associated with better health and psychological wellbeing Shutterstock Health news in pictures Air pollution linked to fertility issues in women Exposure to air from traffic-clogged streets could leave women with fewer years to have children, a study has found. Italian researchers found women living in the most polluted areas were three times more likely to show signs they were running low on eggs than those who lived in cleaner surroundings, potentially triggering an earlier menopause Getty/iStock Health news in pictures Junk food ads could be banned before watershed Junk food adverts on TV and online could be banned before 9pm as part of Government plans to fight the "epidemic" of childhood obesity. Plans for the new watershed have been put out for public consultation in a bid to combat the growing crisis, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said PA Health news in pictures Breeding with neanderthals helped humans fight diseases On migrating from Africa around 70,000 years ago, humans bumped into the neanderthals of Eurasia. While humans were weak to the diseases of the new lands, breeding with the resident neanderthals made for a better equipped immune system PA Health news in pictures Cancer breath test to be trialled in Britain The breath biopsy device is designed to detect cancer hallmarks in molecules exhaled by patients Getty Health news in pictures Average 10 year old has consumed the recommended amount of sugar for an adult By their 10th birthdy, children have on average already eaten more sugar than the recommended amount for an 18 year old. The average 10 year old consumes the equivalent to 13 sugar cubes a day, 8 more than is recommended PA Health news in pictures Child health experts advise switching off screens an hour before bed While there is not enough evidence of harm to recommend UK-wide limits on screen use, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health have advised that children should avoid screens for an hour before bed time to avoid disrupting their sleep Getty Health news in pictures Daily aspirin is unnecessary for older people in good health, study finds A study published in the New England Journal of Medicine has found that many elderly people are taking daily aspirin to little or no avail Getty Health news in pictures Vaping could lead to cancer, US study finds A study by the University of Minnesota's Masonic Cancer Centre has found that the carcinogenic chemicals formaldehyde, acrolein, and methylglyoxal are present in the saliva of E-cigarette users Reuters Health news in pictures More children are obese and diabetic There has been a 41% increase in children with type 2 diabetes since 2014, the National Paediatric Diabetes Audit has found. Obesity is a leading cause Reuters Health news in pictures Most child antidepressants are ineffective and can lead to suicidal thoughts The majority of antidepressants are ineffective and may be unsafe, for children and teenager with major depression, experts have warned. In what is the most comprehensive comparison of 14 commonly prescribed antidepressant drugs to date, researchers found that only one brand was more effective at relieving symptoms of depression than a placebo. Another popular drug, venlafaxine, was shown increase the risk users engaging in suicidal thoughts and attempts at suicide Getty Health news in pictures Gay, lesbian and bisexual adults at higher risk of heart disease, study claims Researchers at the Baptist Health South Florida Clinic in Miami focused on seven areas of controllable heart health and found these minority groups were particularly likely to be smokers and to have poorly controlled blood sugar iStock Health news in pictures Breakfast cereals targeted at children contain 'steadily high' sugar levels since 1992 despite producer claims A major pressure group has issued a fresh warning about perilously high amounts of sugar in breakfast cereals, specifically those designed for children, and has said that levels have barely been cut at all in the last two and a half decades Getty Health news in pictures Potholes are making us fat, NHS watchdog warns New guidance by the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), the body which determines what treatment the NHS should fund, said lax road repairs and car-dominated streets were contributing to the obesity epidemic by preventing members of the public from keeping active PA Health news in pictures New menopause drugs offer women relief from 'debilitating' hot flushes A new class of treatments for women going through the menopause is able to reduce numbers of debilitating hot flushes by as much as three quarters in a matter of days, a trial has found. The drug used in the trial belongs to a group known as NKB antagonists (blockers), which were developed as a treatment for schizophrenia but have been sitting on a shelf unused, according to Professor Waljit Dhillo, a professor of endocrinology and metabolism REX Health news in pictures Doctors should prescribe more antidepressants for people with mental health problems, study finds Research from Oxford University found that more than one million extra people suffering from mental health problems would benefit from being prescribed drugs and criticised ideological reasons doctors use to avoid doing so. Getty Health news in pictures Student dies of flu after NHS advice to stay at home and avoid A&E The family of a teenager who died from flu has urged people not to delay going to A&E if they are worried about their symptoms. Melissa Whiteley, an 18-year-old engineering student from Hanford in Stoke-on-Trent, fell ill at Christmas and died in hospital a month later. Just Giving Health news in pictures Government to review thousands of harmful vaginal mesh implants The Government has pledged to review tens of thousands of cases where women have been given harmful vaginal mesh implants. Getty Health news in pictures Jeremy Hunt announces 'zero suicides ambition' for the NHS The NHS will be asked to go further to prevent the deaths of patients in its care as part of a zero suicide ambition being launched today Getty Health news in pictures Human trials start with cancer treatment that primes immune system to kill off tumours Human trials have begun with a new cancer therapy that can prime the immune system to eradicate tumours. The treatment, that works similarly to a vaccine, is a combination of two existing drugs, of which tiny amounts are injected into the solid bulk of a tumour. Nephron Health news in pictures Babies' health suffers from being born near fracking sites, finds major study Mothers living within a kilometre of a fracking site were 25 per cent more likely to have a child born at low birth weight, which increase their chances of asthma, ADHD and other issues Getty Health news in pictures NHS reviewing thousands of cervical cancer smear tests after women wrongly given all-clear Thousands of cervical cancer screening results are under review after failings at a laboratory meant some women were incorrectly given the all-clear. A number of women have already been told to contact their doctors following the identification of procedural issues in the service provided by Pathology First Laboratory. Rex Health news in pictures Potential key to halting breast cancer's spread discovered by scientists Most breast cancer patients do not die from their initial tumour, but from secondary malignant growths (metastases), where cancer cells are able to enter the blood and survive to invade new sites. Asparagine, a molecule named after asparagus where it was first identified in high quantities, has now been shown to be an essential ingredient for tumour cells to gain these migratory properties. Getty Health news in pictures NHS nursing vacancies at record high with more than 34,000 roles advertised A record number of nursing and midwifery positions are currently being advertised by the NHS, with more than 34,000 positions currently vacant, according to the latest data. Demand for nurses was 19 per cent higher between July and September 2017 than the same period two years ago. REX Health news in pictures Cannabis extract could provide new class of treatment for psychosis CBD has a broadly opposite effect to delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), the main active component in cannabis and the substance that causes paranoia and anxiety. Getty Health news in pictures Over 75,000 sign petition calling for Richard Branson's Virgin Care to hand settlement money back to NHS Mr Bransons company sued the NHS last year after it lost out on an 82m contract to provide childrens health services across Surrey, citing concerns over serious flaws in the way the contract was awarded PA Health news in pictures More than 700 fewer nurses training in England in first year after NHS bursary scrapped The numbers of people accepted to study nursing in England fell 3 per cent in 2017, while the numbers accepted in Wales and Scotland, where the bursaries were kept, increased 8.4 per cent and 8 per cent respectively Getty Health news in pictures Landmark study links Tory austerity to 120,000 deaths The paper found that there were 45,000 more deaths in the first four years of Tory-led efficiencies than would have been expected if funding had stayed at pre-election levels. On this trajectory that could rise to nearly 200,000 excess deaths by the end of 2020, even with the extra funding that has been earmarked for public sector services this year. Reuters Health news in pictures Long commutes carry health risks Hours of commuting may be mind-numbingly dull, but new research shows that it might also be having an adverse effect on both your health and performance at work. Longer commutes also appear to have a significant impact on mental wellbeing, with those commuting longer 33 per cent more likely to suffer from depression Shutterstock Health news in pictures You cannot be fit and fat It is not possible to be overweight and healthy, a major new study has concluded. The study of 3.5 million Britons found that even metabolically healthy obese people are still at a higher risk of heart disease or a stroke than those with a normal weight range Getty Health news in pictures Sleep deprivation When you feel particularly exhausted, it can definitely feel like you are also lacking in brain capacity. Now, a new study has suggested this could be because chronic sleep deprivation can actually cause the brain to eat itself Shutterstock Health news in pictures Exercise classes offering 45 minute naps launch David Lloyd Gyms have launched a new health and fitness class which is essentially a bunch of people taking a nap for 45 minutes. The fitness group was spurred to launch the napercise class after research revealed 86 per cent of parents said they were fatigued. The class is therefore predominantly aimed at parents but you actually do not have to have children to take part Getty Health news in pictures 'Fundamental right to health' to be axed after Brexit, lawyers warn Tobacco and alcohol companies could win more easily in court cases such as the recent battle over plain cigarette packaging if the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights is abandoned, a barrister and public health professor have said Getty Health news in pictures 'Thousands dying' due to fear over non-existent statin side-effects A major new study into the side effects of the cholesterol-lowering medicine suggests common symptoms such as muscle pain and weakness are not caused by the drugs themselves Getty Health news in pictures Babies born to fathers aged under 25 have higher risk of autism New research has found that babies born to fathers under the age of 25 or over 51 are at higher risk of developing autism and other social disorders. The study, conducted by the Seaver Autism Center for Research and Treatment at Mount Sinai, found that these children are actually more advanced than their peers as infants, but then fall behind by the time they hit their teenage years Getty Health news in pictures Cycling to work could halve risk of cancer and heart disease Commuters who swap their car or bus pass for a bike could cut their risk of developing heart disease and cancer by almost half, new research suggests  but campaigners have warned there is still an urgent need to improve road conditions for cyclists. Cycling to work is linked to a lower risk of developing cancer by 45 per cent and cardiovascular disease by 46 per cent, according to a study of a quarter of a million people. Walking to work also brought health benefits, the University of Glasgow researchers found, but not to the same degree as cycling. Getty

She added: I had actually taken a call the day before, so I thought really that I was working up to the last minute but this was literally til the last second.

It came just weeks after a newborn was saved by paramedics who battled to get her mother admitted to her nearest hospital after being told there was no room.
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US Vice President Mike Pence is preparing for Donald Trumps impeachment, a congresswoman from their rival Democratic Party has claimed.

Mike Pence is somewhere planning an inauguration, Maxine Waters wrote on Twitter.

Priebus and Spicer will lead the transition she added, referring to the two latest members of Trumps White House to resign.

Former chief of staff Reince Priebus stepped down and Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary both stepped down from their roles in recent weeks.

A long time critic of Mr Trump, Ms Waters was the first US politician to claim that the salacious sex acts alleged in the unverified Russian blackmail dossier against the US leader were absolutely true.

The document, alleged the Russian state has compromising sexual and financial information on the President.

She has also repeatedly called for his impeachment.

Hes someone that Im committed to getting impeached! Mrs Waters told a Washington bookshop audience in May. Hes a liar! Hes a cheat! Hes a con man! Weve got to stop his ass.

Two Democrat congressmen, Al Green and Brad Sherman, filed the first impeachment articles against Mr Trump on 12 July.

They claimed Mr Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey during his investigation into Russian interference in the election.

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 for an impeachment trial to go ahead, a majority in the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority in the Senate must approve it.

With both the House and Senate under Republican control until at least the mid-term elections in November 2018, this is unlikely.

Mr Pence has distanced himself from the recent scandals rocking the White House, including revelations of Donald Trump Jrs meeting with a Russian lawyer during the election campaign.

The Vice President is "not focused on stories about the campaign - especially those pertaining to the time before he joined the campaign" said Mr Pence's spokesman in a statement, shortly after they emerged.

Donald Trump is someone that found his way to the presidency of the United States of America  I still dont know how.

Only two American presidents have been impeached, and in neither case did it lead to their removal from office. Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were both exonerated by the Senate and completed their term in office.

Richard Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal before Congress could impeach him.

Fourteen vice presidents have later become president - eight of those because of the death of the sitting president. Five became president during a following term and one following the resignation of the sitting president.
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A Finnish ship has set the record for the earliest crossing of the notorious Northwest Passage, the Arctic route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Icebreaker MSV Nordica was at sea for 24 days, travelling more than 6,214 miles to make the record.

It arrived at Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, on 29 July, having set off from Vancouver, Canada on 5 July, the Associated Press reported.

The previous record was set by Canadian Coast Guard ship Louis L. St-Laurent in 2008. It arrived in Point Barrow, off Alaska, on 30 July, having also set off on 5 July from Newfoundland.

But the route the Nordica travelled, in the opposite direction, was even longer.

Passengers on board the Nordica reported seeing sea birds, seals, whales and a polar bear.

Ships have been able to make the journey earlier in recent years because of a reduction in Arctic sea ice, which scientists believe is one of the clearest symptoms of climate change on the planet.

Icebreaker-type ships tend to be the only vessels which can make the journey, with conventional crafts struggling in the Arctic environment.

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

While the ice has reduced because of climate change, significant amounts still remain, making it near impossible for normal vessels to make the journey.

The route retained a mythical status among seafarers  with some perishing in the process of trying to navigate it  until 1903, when Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen reached Alaska from the Atlantic.

There have been just 411 recorded Northwest Passage transits since then, including the Nordica.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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Plans to drill for oil near the newly discovered Amazon Reef  one of the largest in the world  have been attacked by leading scientists, conservationists and explorers.

The reef extends for about 600 miles off the north coast of Brazil, near the mouth of the mighty Amazon river, and covers an area about half the size of Wales.

Oil companies BP and Total plan to drill for oil in the area and there is concern that any spills would damage the precious and unique ecosystem.

Now a group of scientists and others have signed a statement calling the reef, the existence of which was only revealed last year, to be protected.

The signatories include Sylvia Earle, the former head of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, as well as other scientists from the US, Brazil, Colombia, the UK, Spain, Australia and the Philippines.

Explorers Sir Ranulph Fiennes and Bruce Parry, and wildlife broadcasters such as Michaela Strachan, Bill Oddie and Ben Fogle, have also put their name to the statement.

Plans to drill for oil in nearby waters pose significant pressures and risks, whether from drilling itself or from the threat of significant oil spills, which even the companies own oil-spill modelling give up to a 30 per cent chance of reaching the reef, said the statement, organised by Greenpeace.

A spill here could negatively impact the reef and the wider basin: an area home to vulnerable species including the Amazonian manatee and leatherback sea turtle, among many others.

The priority should be to protect the reef and surrounding waters in order to conduct further research  to provide greater insight into its species diversity, structure and function, as well as the interconnections it has with other surrounding ecosystems, before any decisions are made concerning further human exploitation of the area.

It stressed just how unusual the reef is.

Where the Amazon River pours into the ocean, the surrounding waters are initially dark and silty  a very unusual environment for a rich carbonate reef ecosystem to exist, the statement said.

Home to pink corals, coralline algae, more than 70 species of reef fish and more than 60 species of sponge, the Amazon Reef is a thriving and dynamic ecosystem that has barely been explored, but may already be under threat.

Indeed, there is already some drilling underway, while oil giants BP and Total have acquired licences to explore the sea bed nearby.

Dr Ronaldo Francini Filho, one of the researchers who discovered the reef, stressed its importance to the region.

The Amazon Reef is one of the largest reefs in the world and a corridor connecting Brazil and the Caribbean, he said.

It is a critical piece of the mega-biome composed by the huge Amazon forest, the second largest mangrove in the world, and the reef itself.

Thousands of people depend on the resources and ecosystem services provided by the Amazon Reef.

Animals in decline Show all 8 1 /8 Animals in decline Animals in decline Harbour seal (Phoca vitulina) Where: Orkney Islands. What: Between 2001-2006, numbers in Orkney declined by 40 per cent. Why: epidemics of the phocine distemper virus are thought to have caused major declines, but the killing of seals in the Moray Firth to protect salmon farms may have an impact. Alamy Animals in decline African lion (Panthera leo) Where: Ghana. What: In Ghanas Mole National Park, lion numbers have declined by more than 90 per cent in 40 years. Why: local conflicts are thought to have contributed to the slaughter of lions and are a worrying example of the status of the animal in Western and Central Africa. Animals in decline Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) Where: Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, Costa Rica. What: Numbers are down in both the Atlantic and Pacific. It declined by 95 per cent between 1989-2002 in Costa Rica. Why: mainly due to them being caught as bycatch, but theyve also been affected by local developments. Alamy Animals in decline Wandering albatross (Diomedea exulans) Where: South Atlantic. What: A rapid decline. One population, from Bird Island, South Georgia, declined by 50 per cent between 1972-2010, according to the British Antarctic Survey. Why: being caught in various commercial longline fisheries. Alamy Animals in decline Saiga Antelope (Saiga tatarica) Where: Kazakhstan, Mongolia, Russia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan. What: fall in populations has been dramatic. In the early 1990s numbers were over a million, but are now estimated to be around 50,000. Why: the break up of the former USSR led to uncontrolled hunting. Increased rural poverty means the species is hunted for its meat Animals in decline Swordfish (Xiphias gladius) Where: found worldwide in tropical, subtropical and temperate seas. Why: at risk from overfishing and as a target in recreational fishing. A significant number of swordfish are also caught by illegal driftnet fisheries in the Mediterranean Animals in decline Argali Sheep (Ovis mammon) Where: Central and Southern Asian mountains,usually at 3,000-5,000 metres altitude. Why: domesticated herds of sheep competing for grazing grounds. Over-hunting and poaching. Animals in decline Humphead Wrasse (Cheilinus undulatus) Where: the Indo-Pacific, from the Red Sea to South Africa and to the Tuamoto Islands (Polynesia), north to the Ryukyu Islands (south-west Japan), and south to New Caledonia. Why: Illegal, Unregulated and Unreported (IUU) fishing and trading of the species

Sara Ayech, an oil campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said that it was known from painful experience how damaging an oil spill could be, and referred to the Deepwater Horizon explosion which killed 11 people and created the largest spill in US history.

This project is in deeper water than Deepwater Horizon, and BP and Total have yet to demonstrate that they have the ability to adequately deal with a spill in this precious eco-system, she said.

In addition to the threat to the largely unexplored Amazon reef, coastal communities could have their livelihoods destroyed for the sake of oil we dont need and cant afford to burn.

We need to stop sacrificing our natural heritage to fossil fuel interests and start preparing for a future beyond petroleum.

BP said the work would only go ahead if Brazilian officials agreed.

A spokesman for the company said in a statement: BP operates one exploration block in the Foz do Amazonas basin, around 160 kilometres (100 miles) offshore Brazil.

Under the terms of our licence, we have a commitment to drill one exploration well on the block by August 2018. Operations on the blocks will only proceed when fully approved by the Brazilian regulators.
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White House communications director Anthony Scaramuccis wife filed for a divorce just two weeks before she gave birth to their son  amid claims she had branded him a Trump sycophant.

Deirdre Scaramucci was said to be tired of her husbands obsession with US president, who appointed him to his new role just last week.

She was also mad because her husband had taunted her, with sources telling a gossip website that Mr Scaramucci tells her shes not that smart, that hes out of her league.

 Trump spokesman compares attempt to repeal Obamacare to abolition of slavery

Ms Scaramucci, 38, gave birth to the former couples baby boy James just over two weeks after she had filed for divorce on 6 July in Nassau County Supreme Court.

Mr Scaramucci, 53, was in West Virginia accompanying Donald Trump to a Boy Scouts Jamboree.

A source close to Mr Trumps aide told US gossip website Page Six: When James was born, he sent her a text saying, Congratulations, Ill pray for our child.

He reportedly only visited his new son James on Friday night, four days after the birth.

The source added that there were talks between the couple so Mr Scaramucci could be present while his estranged wife gave birth to James  but the planning fell through.

He said: There was discussion between him, her and the divorce attorneys about Anthony going to the hospital and unfortunately  the delivery was sudden.

Ms Scaramuccis anger with her husband was a factor for the split. Shes mad. They arent really speaking right now, the source said.

The [pain] runs deep. [Anthony] tells her shes not that smart, that hes out of her league.

Another insider close to Mr Scaramucci claimed he was actually the victim of his wifes verbal abuse: She would say, Youre a grifter, youre this. She would mock him for being a Trump sycophant.

Others in close contact with the former couple dismissed suggestions another person was involved in the split. Arthur Schwartz, Mr Scaramuccis spokesman, told The Washington Post: Theres absolutely zero truth in that.

The only one hes dating right now is the West Wing of the White House.

Mr Schwartz said the couple separated five or six months ago.

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 big shift began came when Deirde went from being arm candy to [being a mother] and being unavailable for nights out, another source told Page Six. Thats when [Anthonys] decision to just continue his life as it was and leave her behind really started to take hold.

Another contact said: Anthony had been planning to divorce her for some time and he had told other people he planned to announce it after the baby.

Jill Stone, Ms Scaramuccis attorney, said her client refused to speak publicly on the divorce. She said she is not making this into a circus. She has children to protect and thats what shes concerned about.

On Twitter, Mr Scaramucci has pleaded with the media to not report stories about his family affairs.

"Leave civilians out of this. I can take the hits, but I would ask that you would put my family in your thoughts and prayers & nothing more," he first wrote.

"Family does not need to be drawn into this. Soon we will learn who in the media has class and who doesn't. No further comments on this."

After less than a week on the job, Mr Scaramucci criticised his new colleagues in a foul-mouthed tirade to a reporter from The New Yorker.

He called Reince Priebus, the White House chief-of-staff who resigned on Friday, a f***ing paranoid schizophrenic.

Mr Scaramucci also said he did not like Steve Bannon, Mr Trumps chief strategist, because Im not trying to suck my own cock.
Sign up to our Evening Headlines email for your daily guide to the latest news Sign up to our free US Evening Headlines email Please enter a valid email address Please enter a valid email address SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. Read our privacy notice Thanks for signing up to the

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Police chiefs have rebuffed President Trumps call to rough up suspects.

Officers can stop protecting suspects heads when they lower them into patrol cars, Mr Trump said during a speech to law enforcement officers, who clapped and laughed.

But dignity and respect are the bedrock principle" behind "procedural justice and police legitimacy, said the International Association of Chiefs of Police in a statement.

Issued just hours after his speech, the statement does not make reference to President Trump or his remarks.

The ability of law enforcement officers to enforce the law, protect the public, and guard their own safety, the safety of innocent bystanders, and even those suspected or apprehended for criminal activity is very challenging" said the statement.

For these reasons, law enforcement agencies develop policies and procedures, as well as conduct extensive training, to ensure that any use of force is carefully applied and objectively reasonable considering the situation confronted by the officers.

Law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect, or defendant, with dignity and respect.

This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of procedural justice and police legitimacy.

Mr Trumps speech focused on measures to counter violence by a notorious street gang, MS-13.

Linking gang violence to immigrant communities, he repeated his administrations commitment to speeding up deportations of illegal immigrants, enforcing immigration laws and building the wall on the Mexican border.

When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon  you just see them thrown in, rough  I said, Please dont be too nice, he said.

Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody  dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, okay? he added.

The audience of law enforcement officers laughed and clapped.

For years and years, [laws have] been made to protect the criminal, Mr Trump said.

Totally protect the criminal, not the officers. You do something wrong, youre in more jeopardy than they are. These laws are stacked against you. Were changing those laws.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Trump called MS-13 members animals who have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful quiet neighborhoods into blood-stained killing fields.

The gangs members have allegedly committed 17 murders in Sussex County since the start of 2016, according to USA Today.

The police force for Sussex County, where Mr Trump spoke, wrote on Twitter immediately afterwards that it has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners.

Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously."

"As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners."

Human rights advocates have also condemned the presidents remarks.

Innocent until proven guilty? Our president would rather not bother with that, expanding the role of the police officer to include judge, jury, and executioner said American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director Jeffery Robinson in a statement.

And if the police happen to make a mistake and arrest an innocent person? Well, the pain and humiliation they endure is just a small price to pay for our return to being tough on crime. Just remember which communities will pay.

This country is weary of the type of policing that Trump espouses, having seen over and over again that it only makes it harder for police to investigate and solve crime."

"We must increase the trust between police and civilians, not decimate it.
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A two year-old girl and her newborn siblings have been orphaned after their mother died on the same day as their fathers funeral.

Relatives of the youngsters from Florida are scrambling to respond to the flurry of events that have suddenly left the children parentless.

Reports said 26-year-old Jevaughn Suckoo was found shot and dead earlier this month in an apartment in West Palm Beach where he lived with his two-year-old daughter and his girlfriend, Stephanie Caceres, who was pregnant.

Jevaughn Suckoo and Stephanie Caceres died within days of each other (GoFundMe)

Three days after he was fatally shot, Ms Caceres give birth to twins Jevaughn Jr and Lailah. But the Palm Beach Post said that Ms Caceres died last week as a result of an infection after she underwent a C-section.

The day she passed away, was the same that relatives of Mr Suckoo held his funeral service.

This week, friends and relatives gathered outside the hospital where Ms Caceres had worked for four years to speak about the two people who had been lost and how they were now trying to determine what to do for the youngsters.

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

Were just trying to figure out how to move forward from here, Mr Suckoos aunt, Joni Saunders, told the newspaper.

Office Manager Lina Niemczyk said they were seeking to come together to make sure the children, including two-year-old Kailanie, were cared for.

Our goal is to secure their future, Ms Niemczyk said. Its a promise to their mom and dad.

A day after Ms Caceres gave birth to the twins, she wrote on Facebook to talk about what had happened.

More than 300,000 orphans at risk in Mali

I just dont understand how someone can have the heart to leave three kids without a father especially two that never got the chance to even meet him, she said.

They didnt deserve this! Im trying I really am to stay strong but this has to be the toughest battle Ive ever had to fight.

A GoFundMe page has been established to help the youngsters.

We are all devastated, heartbroken and at a loss for words for all 3 of these children who will grow up never having gotten to truly know their parents, says a posting on the page.

In an effort to provide health, education, maintenance and support to these three little ones, a GoFundMe account has been established in the children's name. Thankfully Stephanie and Jevaughn were raised by a beautiful family that have accepted the challenge set forth by God. The grandparents are going to start over, now raising their grandchildren.
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Donald Trump has said he is "very disappointed" that China has failed to rein in a belligerent North Korea despite making "hundreds of billions of dollars in trade".

The US President has long accused China of profiting at the expense of America, while he and his senior officials have warned Beijing they expect it to exert pressure on the Kim dictatorship over its nuclear and missile programmes.

Pyongyang, which this week held another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missilethat analysts said could mean the US mainland is now within rangecounts China as its sole major ally.

Mr Trump accused "our foolish past leaders" of allowing the situation to unfold and tweeted that "we will no longer allow this to continue".

It is the latest in a series of similar outbursts.

Mr Trump has in the past caused diplomatic strife with China by communicating directly with Taiwan's president, Tsai Ing-wen, and calling into question the longstanding "one China" policy, though he later rowed back.

He said on Twitter, late on Saturday night: "I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.

"We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

When Chinese premier Xi Jinping visited Washington in April, Mr Trump admitted his counterpart gave him a history lesson on China's relationship with North Korea.

"After listening for 10 minutes, I realised it's not so easy," he said.

"I felt pretty strongly that they had a tremendous power over North Korea. But it's not what you would think."

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 US and South Korea carried out a live-fire missile training exercise in response to the latest launch by the North.

Kim Jong-un claimed the test, a breach of UN resolutions, was a "stern warning" to Mr Trump.

A senior North Korean defector claimed in December that Mr Kim aims to complete his nuclear weapons programme by the end of 2017, and that Mr Trump's shock election win provided an "opportune" moment.

Thae Yong-ho, 55, the North's former deputy ambassador in London, said Mr Kim will pursue the bomb "at all costs" and will not relinquish its weapons "even if the country is offered $1 trillion or $10 trillion in return".

Mr Thae later said be believed Pyongyang would fire a nuclear missile at Los Angeles if the regime was threatened.
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Police departments across the US have criticised Donald Trump after he told officers not to be "too nice" with suspects in a speech which seemingly encouraged police brutality.

Law enforcement authorities from New York to Los Angeles have slammed the President's comments and experts have warned the remarks could encourage inappropriate use of force among officers.

The backlash came after Mr Trump gave a speech to police in Brentwood, New York, which was intended to support police in the fight against the MS-13 gang, which has been accused of numerous murders across the US.

During his speech, Mr Trump suggested officers should not protect suspects' heads when pushing them into police vehicles and his comments were greeted with loud applause and laughter by the audience of law enforcement officials.

He said: When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon  you just see them thrown in, rough  I said, Please dont be too nice."

Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody  dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, okay? he added.

But New York police commissioner James O'Neill told the The New York Times the department's training and policies about the use of force "only allow for measures that are reasonable and necessary under any circumstances, including the arrest and transportation of prisoners".

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

He said: "To suggest that police officers apply any standard in the use of force other than what is reasonable and necessary is irresponsible, unprofessional and sends the wrong message to law enforcement as well as the public."

The department which covers the easternmost part of Long Island was quick to respond after the department's former chief James Burke was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for beating a handcuffed man in an interrogation room last year.

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck also criticised Mr Trump's comments on Twitter. Responding to another tweet by a law enforcement officer named as Deon Joseph, who said he would not start roughing up suspects because of a "dumb remark by POTUS", Mr Beck wrote: "If an officer acts outside the law, it serves only to undermine the hard work and sacrifice they make to keep this city safe."

He was joined by Steve Soboroff, one of the civilian commissioners who oversees the police department told the Los Angeles Times that Mr Trump's remarks stood in sharp contrast to the departments' philosophy on the way to treat suspects.

"What the president recommended would be out of policy in the Los Angeles Police Department. It's not what policing is about today," he said, before adding: "I have faith that any one of our officers would not take their hand off someone and bang their head into a car because that's what the President of the United States recommends."

The Suffolk County Police Department also responded within hours on Twitter saying: "As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.

"The SCPD has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously."

Both the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Police Foundation also hit back at Mr Trump's remarks.

In a statement the IACP said treating all individuals including suspects, complainants and defendants with dignity and respect was "the bedrock principle behind the concept of procedural justice and police legitimacy".

The Police Foundation added "we cannot support any commentary - in sincerity or jest - that undermines the trust that our communities place in us to protect and serve".

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans echoed the importance of building trust with communities law enforcement officers serve.

"The Boston Police Department 's priority has been and continues to be building relationships and trust with the community we serve. As a police department we are committed to helping people, not harming them," he told local radio WBZ.

Ben Tobias, a spokesman for the Police Department in Gainesville, Florida, also drew huge attention after he tweeted that he disagreed with Mr Trump's remarks and that those who "cheered should be ashamed".
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Russia has retaliated against sanctions by ordering the US Moscow embassy staff to cut its staff by 755 - a move that will create a fresh crisis in the relationship between the two countries.

Days after both houses of the US Congress voted almost unanimously to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow, Vladimir Putin said he was responding to unlawful behaviour by Washington.

The American side has made a move which, it is important to note, hasnt been provoked by anything, to worsen Russian-US relations. [It includes] unlawful restrictions, attempts to influence other states of the world, including our allies, who are interested in developing and keeping relations with Russia, Mr Putin told the Rossiya 1 TV channel.

 Trump and Putin shared second undisclosed meeting at G20

Weve been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, its not going to change in the near future... I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.

The US sanctions bill also included measures against Iran and North Korea and was passed over Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea and its alleged interference in the 2016 US election.

The move by politicians on Capitol Hill has pushed Donald Trump into a corner. The White House had made clear it was against the measure, but the President has said he will sign the bill, rather than use his veto power and risk fresh accusations that he is soft on Moscow.

Russia had warned on Friday that it intended to expel the diplomats and to seize two properties used by US diplomats. However, Mr Putins comments on Sunday were the first to make clear the number of US envoys he intends to force to leave.

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

An official at the US Embassy in Moscow said there were about 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in Russia, including US citizens and Russians, Reuters reported last week.

A US State Department official called Russia's decision to expel US diplomats "a regrettable and uncalled-for act". The Russians would lose their jobs.

"We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it," the official said on condition of anonymity.

Earlier on Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the vote for the sanctions was the last drop and said Moscow would retaliate in kind".

We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen , Mr Rybakov told ABC. I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.

The move by Russia takes place against ongoing controversy in the US about Mr Trumps relationship with Moscow and possible collusion between his campaign and Russia over its alleged effort to interfere in the presidential election. Earlier this month, it was revealed Mr Trumps eldest son, his campaign manager and his son-in-law, had met with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin after they were told she had compromising material about Mr Trumps rival, Hillary Clinton.

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller is currently heading a federal probe into possible collusion and there are several investigations underway on Capitol Hill. Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any such collusion and said he and his officials are the victims of a political witch hunt.

Last December, Barack Obama ordered 35 Russian diplomats to leave the US and the seizing of two compounds, one in New York and the other in Maryland, that had been used by the diplomats. He said the actions were being carried out in response to Moscows alleged attempt to interfere in the election.

Many observers had expected that Mr Putin would respond in kind. However, apparently assuming that relations between the two countries might improve once Mr Trump office, he held off from doing so.

Mr Trump had spoken enthusiastically of his wish to have better relations between the two countries and to seek Russias help in countering Isis in Syria. Earlier this month at the G20 in Hamburg, the two men met for several hours and hatched a ceasefire deal for a small part of Syria.

Critics of Mr Trump say he has repeatedly refused to criticise Mr Putin and that he has been in denial about Moscows attempt to influence the election
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A Venezuelan opposition activist has been shot dead in protest against controversial elections.

Ricardo Campos, who worked as a youth secretary with the opposition Accion Democratica party, was killed during the protest, the head of the national assembly said, according to the BBC.

Last night, Jose Felix Pineda, one of the candidates running in the election, was shot and killed in his home.

 Man suffers violent beating from police in Venezuela

The country's president, Nicolas Maduro, widely disliked for overseeing an economic collapse during his four years in office, has promised the constitutional assembly will restore peace after months of opposition protests during which more than 115 people have been killed.

Opposition parties are boycotting what they call a rigged election while their sympathizers plan demonstrations across the country during the day.

Critics say the assembly will allow Mr Maduro to dissolve the opposition-run Congress, delay future elections and rewrite electoral rules to prevent the socialists from being voted out of power in the once-prosperous South American nation.

In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Show all 22 1 /22 In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela A girl scavanges for food in the streets of Caracas Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela A man scavenges for food next to girls in the streets of Caracas. Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro is resisting opposition efforts to hold a vote on removing him from office. The opposition blames him for an economic crisis that has caused food shortages Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuelans line up to get the 'Fatherland's Card' at Bolivar Square in Caracas Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela The mother of Venezuelan Rebecca Leon, who scavenges for food in the streets of Caracas, feeds her grandson at their house in Petare shantytown. Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuelan Rebecca Leon, who scavenges for food in the streets of Caracas, with her two-year-old son at her house in Petare shantytown Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Members of a pro-government community organisation work in an expropriated bakery in Caracas. Supported by popular militiamen, Venezuelan government inspectors oversee bakeries as bread comes out of the oven, to undermine an alleged plot to induce scarcity of this staple food Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Forensic police stand next to the body of a man outside a supermarket, where he died of a heart attack after waiting in a long line to buy food, in Caracas Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuelan opposition activists take part in a protest against the government of President Nicolas Maduro at the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela National guard throws a tear gas canister during a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Opposition supporter shouts at a police officer during a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Opposition supporters clash with national guards during a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela A boy wearing a t-shirt with the colours of the Venezuelan national flag, during a demonstration against President Nicolas Maduro's government at Foreign Affairs Ministery, in Buenos Aires, Argentina AP In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Protesters cover themselves from tear gas fired by the Venezuelan National Guard officers during a protest in Caracas AP In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Opposition supporters clash with national guards during a rally against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuelan opposition activists take part in a protest -blocked by the National Guard- against the government of President Nicolas Maduro at the Francisco Fajardo highway in Caracas Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela A Venezuelan national guard reacts to the effect of pepper spray during a protest of opposition supporters against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Opposition supporters holding a Venezuelan flag protest against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government during a rally in Caracas Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Opposition supporters clash with riot police during a protest against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government in Caracas, Venezuela Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Opposition supporters protest against Venezuela's President Nicolas Maduro's government during a rally in Caracas Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuela's Supreme Court abandoned measures to seize power from the opposition-controlled legislature after the moves drew international condemnation and raised pressure on President Nicolas Maduro. The president of Venezuela's National Assembly Julio Borges dismissed the court's gesture and told reporters that nothing had changed and the coup continued Getty Images In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuelans living in Peru and other protesters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government, outside the Venezuela embassy in Lima, Peru Reuters In pictures: The crisis in Venezuela Venezuelans living in Peru and other protesters take part in a rally against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's government, outside the Venezuela embassy in Lima, Peru Reuters

Polls suggest a large majority of Venezuelans oppose the assembly.

The opposition says that more than seven million voters - from a population of around 32 million - overwhelmingly rejected the proposal in an unofficial referendum it organised this month.

Voters will not have the choice of whether to proceed with the assembly, only to select its 545 members from more than 6,100 candidates representing a broad array of Socialist Party allies.

More follows
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China has put on a show of massive military might, just hours after US President Donald Trump launched a fresh tirade at Beijing for doing nothing to rein in North Koreas nuclear and missile program.

Chinese leader Xi Jinping presided over the war zone training at the remote Zhurihe military base in Inner Mongolia as part of the celebrations of the 90th anniversary of the Peoples Liberation Army.

Dressed in camoflauge, he rode in an open top military jeep as he inspected 12,000 troops lined out in various formations and marches in a training base in the middle of a desert.

More than 100 fighter jets flew overhead in the show of force and almost 600 types of weaponry including heavy duty tanks were on display as Mr Jinping saluted Chinas heroic military.

Beijing flexed its muscles on Sunday just hours after Mr Trump criticised Beijing in two explosive tweets for not using their leverage to halt North Koreas nuclear and missile programs.

I am very disappointed in China, the US leader said. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk.

We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!

He spoke out after Pyongyang conducted its second intercontinental ballistic missile test late on Friday in what it called a warning to the beast-like US imperialists.

Mr Xi travelled in a military jeep past a long strip in a training zone lined with tanks, missile launchers and other military vehicles as tensions flared in the region.

Vehicle-mounted nuclear-capable missiles and other equipment were also on show as military aircraft flew above, including H-6K bombers, which have been patrolling near Taiwan and Japan recently. J-15 carrier-based fighters and new generation J-20 stealth fighter were also on display.

Mr Xi later greeted troops and shouted, Hello comrades! and Comrades, you are working hard! into four microphones fixed atop his motorcade as martial music blared in the background.

The troops bellowed back: Serve the people!, Follow the Party!, Fight to win! and Forge exemplary conduct!.

The war zone training came complete with a mock-target of Taiwans presidential palace.

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. 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Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. 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In a brief speech, Mr Xi expressed his pride in the military and demanded the troops continued absolute loyalty to the party.

The Chinese leader alluded to an increasingly important role for the PLA as tensions flare around the globe.

The world is not peaceful and peace needs to be defended, he said. Our heroic military has the confidence and capabilities to preserve national sovereignty, security and interests... and to contribute more to maintaining world peace.

He made no reference to Mr Trumps tweets but an analyst pointed out that Beijing was the US Presidents only option to tackle North Koreas nuclear and missile program.

Trump has cornered himself on the North Korea issue, said Zhang Baohui, a professor of political science at Hong Kongs Lingnan University told CNN.

North Korea defies him  the only action he can take now is with US-China relations, he added. I think we might see some kind of unilateral measure on trade, but China may be ready for this.
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Police in the southern Philippines have said they fatally shot 15 people, including a city mayor who was among the politicians President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked to illegal drugs, in the bloodiest assault so far in the government's anti-drug crackdown.

Officers were to serve warrants to Ozamiz Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr to search his houses for the suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 14 other people, Ozamiz police chief Jovie Espenido said.

"He's a high-value target on illegal drugs," Mr Espenido, who oversaw the simultaneous, post-midnight raids on the mayor's residence and three other houses, said at a news conference.

"We enforce the law to protect the people who want peace in this country. How can we enforce the law if ... we're scared of the drug lords? That cannot be, they should be afraid of people who do good for all."

At least five people, including Mr Parojinog's daughter, who serves as vice mayor of Ozamiz, a port city, were arrested during the raids. Police were approaching the mayor's house when his bodyguards opened fire and hit a police car and wounded a police officer, sparking a fire-fight amid a power outage, Mr Espenido said.

A grenade held by one of Mr Parojinog's bodyguards exploded during the clash inside his house and it remains unclear if he and his wife were killed by the blast or police gunfire or both, Mr Espenido said, adding that assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids.

"The administration vowed to intensify the drug campaign," presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in connection with Sunday's raids in Ozamiz. "The Parojinogs, if you would recall, are included in (Duterte's) list of personalities involved in the illegal drug trade."

Mr Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under Mr Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects.

Mr Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, regional police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said.

The drug killings have been widely criticised by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign.

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera town Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a fire-fight on a road in the southern Philippines.

Mr Espenido was the Albuera police chief when the then-detained Mr Espinosa was killed during a police raid in a jail in a nearby city in Leyte.

World news in pictures Show all 50 1 /50 World news in pictures World news in pictures 30 September 2020 Pope Francis prays with priests at the end of a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 29 September 2020 A girl's silhouette is seen from behind a fabric in a tent along a beach by Beit Lahia in the northern Gaza Strip AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 September 2020 A Chinese woman takes a photo of herself in front of a flower display dedicated to frontline health care workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in Beijing, China. China will celebrate national day marking the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1st Getty World news in pictures 27 September 2020 The Glass Mountain Inn burns as the Glass Fire moves through the area in St. Helena, California. The fast moving Glass fire has burned over 1,000 acres and has destroyed homes Getty World news in pictures 26 September 2020 A villager along with a child offers prayers next to a carcass of a wild elephant that officials say was electrocuted in Rani Reserve Forest on the outskirts of Guwahati, India AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 September 2020 The casket of late Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg is seen in Statuary Hall in the US Capitol to lie in state in Washington, DC AFP via Getty World news in pictures 24 September 2020 An anti-government protester holds up an image of a pro-democracy commemorative plaque at a rally outside Thailand's parliament in Bangkok, as activists gathered to demand a new constitution AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 September 2020 A whale stranded on a beach in Macquarie Harbour on the rugged west coast of Tasmania, as hundreds of pilot whales have died in a mass stranding in southern Australia despite efforts to save them, with rescuers racing to free a few dozen survivors The Mercury/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 22 September 2020 State civil employee candidates wearing face masks and shields take a test in Surabaya AFP via Getty World news in pictures 21 September 2020 A man sweeps at the Taj Mahal monument on the day of its reopening after being closed for more than six months due to the coronavirus pandemic AP World news in pictures 20 September 2020 A deer looks for food in a burnt area, caused by the Bobcat fire, in Pearblossom, California EPA World news in pictures 19 September 2020 Anti-government protesters hold their mobile phones aloft as they take part in a pro-democracy rally in Bangkok. Tens of thousands of pro-democracy protesters massed close to Thailand's royal palace, in a huge rally calling for PM Prayut Chan-O-Cha to step down and demanding reforms to the monarchy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 September 2020 Supporters of Iraqi Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr maintain social distancing as they attend Friday prayers after the coronavirus disease restrictions were eased, in Kufa mosque, near Najaf, Iraq Reuters World news in pictures 17 September 2020 A protester climbs on The Triumph of the Republic at 'the Place de la Nation' as thousands of protesters take part in a demonstration during a national day strike called by labor unions asking for better salary and against jobs cut in Paris, France EPA World news in pictures 16 September 2020 A fire raging near the Lazzaretto of Ancona in Italy. The huge blaze broke out overnight at the port of Ancona. Firefighters have brought the fire under control but they expected to keep working through the day EPA World news in pictures 15 September 2020 Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny posing for a selfie with his family at Berlin's Charite hospital. In an Instagram post he said he could now breathe independently following his suspected poisoning last month Alexei Navalny/Instagram/AFP World news in pictures 14 September 2020 Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga, former Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba and former Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida celebrate after Suga was elected as new head of the ruling party at the Liberal Democratic Party's leadership election in Tokyo Reuters World news in pictures 13 September 2020 A man stands behind a burning barricade during the fifth straight day of protests against police brutality in Bogota AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 September 2020 Police officers block and detain protesters during an opposition rally to protest the official presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus. Daily protests calling for the authoritarian president's resignation are now in their second month AP World news in pictures 11 September 2020 Members of 'Omnium Cultural' celebrate the 20th 'Festa per la llibertat' ('Fiesta for the freedom') to mark the Day of Catalonia in Barcelona. Omnion Cultural fights for the independence of Catalonia EPA World news in pictures 10 September 2020 The Moria refugee camp, two days after Greece's biggest migrant camp, was destroyed by fire. Thousands of asylum seekers on the island of Lesbos are now homeless AFP via Getty World news in pictures 9 September 2020 Pope Francis takes off his face mask as he arrives by car to hold a limited public audience at the San Damaso courtyard in The Vatican AFP via Getty World news in pictures 8 September 2020 A home is engulfed in flames during the "Creek Fire" in the Tollhouse area of California AFP via Getty World news in pictures 7 September 2020 A couple take photos along a sea wall of the waves brought by Typhoon Haishen in the eastern port city of Sokcho AFP via Getty World news in pictures 6 September 2020 Novak Djokovic and a tournament official tends to a linesperson who was struck with a ball by Djokovic during his match against Pablo Carreno Busta at the US Open USA Today Sports/Reuters World news in pictures 5 September 2020 Protesters confront police at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne, Australia, during an anti-lockdown rally AFP via Getty World news in pictures 4 September 2020 A woman looks on from a rooftop as rescue workers dig through the rubble of a damaged building in Beirut. A search began for possible survivors after a scanner detected a pulse one month after the mega-blast at the adjacent port AFP via Getty World news in pictures 3 September 2020 A full moon next to the Virgen del Panecillo statue in Quito, Ecuador EPA World news in pictures 2 September 2020 A Palestinian woman reacts as Israeli forces demolish her animal shed near Hebron in the Israeli-occupied West Bank Reuters World news in pictures 1 September 2020 Students protest against presidential elections results in Minsk TUT.BY/AFP via Getty World news in pictures 31 August 2020 The pack rides during the 3rd stage of the Tour de France between Nice and Sisteron AFP via Getty World news in pictures 30 August 2020 Law enforcement officers block a street during a rally of opposition supporters protesting against presidential election results in Minsk, Belarus Reuters World news in pictures 29 August 2020 A woman holding a placard reading "Stop Censorship - Yes to the Freedom of Expression" shouts in a megaphone during a protest against the mandatory wearing of face masks in Paris. Masks, which were already compulsory on public transport, in enclosed public spaces, and outdoors in Paris in certain high-congestion areas around tourist sites, were made mandatory outdoors citywide on August 28 to fight the rising coronavirus infections AFP via Getty World news in pictures 28 August 2020 Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe bows to the national flag at the start of a press conference at the prime minister official residence in Tokyo. Abe announced he will resign over health problems, in a bombshell development that kicks off a leadership contest in the world's third-largest economy AFP via Getty World news in pictures 27 August 2020 Residents take cover behind a tree trunk from rubber bullets fired by South African Police Service (SAPS) in Eldorado Park, near Johannesburg, during a protest by community members after a 16-year old boy was reported dead AFP via Getty World news in pictures 26 August 2020 People scatter rose petals on a statue of Mother Teresa marking her 110th birth anniversary in Ahmedabad AFP via Getty World news in pictures 25 August 2020 An aerial view shows beach-goers standing on salt formations in the Dead Sea near Ein Bokeq, Israel Reuters World news in pictures 24 August 2020 Health workers use a fingertip pulse oximeter and check the body temperature of a fisherwoman inside the Dharavi slum during a door-to-door Covid-19 coronavirus screening in Mumbai AFP via Getty World news in pictures 23 August 2020 People carry an idol of the Hindu god Ganesh, the deity of prosperity, to immerse it off the coast of the Arabian sea during the Ganesh Chaturthi festival in Mumbai, India Reuters World news in pictures 22 August 2020 Firefighters watch as flames from the LNU Lightning Complex fires approach a home in Napa County, California AP World news in pictures 21 August 2020 Members of the Israeli security forces arrest a Palestinian demonstrator during a rally to protest against Israel's plan to annex parts of the occupied West Bank AFP via Getty World news in pictures 20 August 2020 A man pushes his bicycle through a deserted road after prohibitory orders were imposed by district officials for a week to contain the spread of the Covid-19 in Kathmandu AFP via Getty World news in pictures 19 August 2020 A car burns while parked at a residence in Vacaville, California. Dozens of fires are burning out of control throughout Northern California as fire resources are spread thin AFP via Getty World news in pictures 18 August 2020 Students use their mobile phones as flashlights at an anti-government rally at Mahidol University in Nakhon Pathom. Thailand has seen near-daily protests in recent weeks by students demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Prayut Chan-O-Cha AFP via Getty World news in pictures 17 August 2020 Members of the Kayapo tribe block the BR163 highway during a protest outside Novo Progresso in Para state, Brazil. Indigenous protesters blocked a major transamazonian highway to protest against the lack of governmental support during the COVID-19 novel coronavirus pandemic and illegal deforestation in and around their territories AFP via Getty World news in pictures 16 August 2020 Lightning forks over the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge as a storm passes over Oakland AP World news in pictures 15 August 2020 Belarus opposition supporters gather near the Pushkinskaya metro station where Alexander Taraikovsky, a 34-year-old protester died on August 10, during their protest rally in central Minsk AFP via Getty World news in pictures 14 August 2020 AlphaTauri's driver Daniil Kvyat takes part in the second practice session at the Circuit de Catalunya in Montmelo near Barcelona ahead of the Spanish F1 Grand Prix AFP via Getty World news in pictures 13 August 2020 Soldiers of the Brazilian Armed Forces during a disinfection of the Christ The Redeemer statue at the Corcovado mountain prior to the opening of the touristic attraction in Rio AFP via Getty World news in pictures 12 August 2020 Young elephant bulls tussle playfully on World Elephant Day at the Amboseli National Park in Kenya AFP via Getty

Mr Duterte has vowed to defend police officers who would face criminal and human rights charges while cracking down on illegal drugs. He recently ordered an officer charged in connection with Mr Espinosa's death to be reinstated after briefly being charged and suspended following the jail killing.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Mr Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Mr Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug dealer in the country has been eliminated.

Associated Press
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The United States is "done talking about North Korea" and China must decide if it is willing to back imposing stronger United Nations sanctions on North Korea over its two long-range missile tests this month, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, has said.

In a statement, Ms Haley said that any new UN Security Council resolution "that does not significantly increase the international pressure on North Korea is of no value".

The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers as a show of force after Pyongyang fired a second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday.

"China must decide whether it is finally willing to take this vital step. The time for talk is over," she said.

The Chinese mission to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The United States has been in talks with North Korean ally China on a draft UN Security Council resolution to impose stronger sanctions on North Korea. Ms Haley gave China a draft text after North Korea's July 4 ICBM test.

Ms Haley said last Tuesday that the United States had been making progress with China.

Some diplomats had expected the United States, Japan and South Korea to ask for the 15-member UN Security Council to meet on Monday over the test. However Ms Haley said that the United States saw "no point in having an emergency session if it produces nothing of consequence".

Such a meeting would have set the stage for a likely showdown between the United States and Russia over whether Friday's launch was a long-range rocket test. It was unclear if any other Security Council members, such as Japan, planned to request a meeting.

Diplomats say China and Russia only view a long-range missile test or nuclear weapon test as a trigger for further possible UN Security Council sanctions.

The Pentagon and South Korean military believe Friday's test was an ICBM. However, a Russian Defense Ministry official said Moscow's data indicated it was only a medium-range missile.

The United States and Russia have waged rival campaigns at the Security Council over the type of ballistic missile fired by North Korea on July 4. Western powers said it was an ICBM, while Russia said it was medium-range.

North Korea has been under UN sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programmes and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and two long-range missile launches.

Ms Haley has said some options to strengthen UN sanctions were to restrict the flow of oil to North Korea's military and weapons programmes, increasing air and maritime restrictions and imposing sanctions on senior officials.

Traditionally, the United States and China have negotiated sanctions on North Korea before formally involving other Security Council members.

Reuters
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Pakistan's lawmakers will elect a new prime minister on 1 August to replace ousted leader Nawaz Sharif, with ruling party stalwart Shahid Khaqan Abbasi expected to become interim leader until Sharif's own brother is eligible.

The confirmation from parliament came after Pakistan's President Mamnoon Hussain convened a special session following Sharif's decision to put forward his ally Abbasi as interim leader and named his brother Shahbaz, 65, as long-term successor.

Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party holds a majority with 188 seats in the 342-member parliament, so it should be able to swiftly install its choice, barring any defections from its own ranks.

A quick hand over could ease political upheaval sparked by the Supreme Court's decision on 28 July to disqualify Sharif for not declaring a source of income. The court also ordered a criminal investigation into him and his family.

Abbasi vowed to continue Sharif's work.

"I hope that God will help me in furthering Nawaz Sharif's policies," Abbasi told reporters in Islamabad, adding to speculation that Sharif will continue to run the show behind the scenes.

The turmoil and the premature end to Sharif's third stint in power has also raised questions about Pakistan's democracy as no prime minister has completed a full term in power since independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

"We wanted to make sure there is a smooth transfer of power, and no constitutional crisis," said Miftah Ismail, a senior PML-N official and Sharif ally.

Sharif has lashed out against the court's decision and opponents who used the Supreme Court to topple him but vowed his party would continue to focus on economic development, touting a faster-growing economy as proof of his success.

"Wheel of development is moving and may God keep it rolling and may it never stop," he told members of PML-N on Saturday night.

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

On Sharif's arrival, supporters chanted: "The Lion is here".

But his foes slammed PML-N's plans as dynastic and undemocratic, while opposition leader Imran Khan called it a form of "monarchy".

Khan's Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party, which held street protests until the Supreme Court agreed to investigate Sharif, planned to hold a rally in the capital Islamabad on Sunday to celebrate his removal.

Sharif said the plan is for former petroleum minister Abbasi to stay in power for less than two months until Shahbaz, who is the chief minister of the vast Punjab province, wins a by-election to the national assembly and becomes eligible to be prime minister.

Abbasi and Shahbaz will have to hit the ground running to tackle Pakistan's worsening ties with the United States, frayed relations with India, and persistent attacks by Islamist militants including the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State.

They will also need to boost economic growth above the current rate of 5.3 percent to find employment for millions of young people entering the job market every year in a nation of nearly 200 million people.

Economists say this will prove tricky at a time when the current account deficit is ballooning and an overvalued currency is hurting exports.

Sharif, whose (PML-N) party won elections in 2013, said he was shocked by Friday's Supreme Court ruling disqualifying him from office over unreported income from a company owned by his son in Dubai. Sharif said the monthly salary - equivalent to 2,072 - was nominal and he never actually received any of it.

The Supreme Court employed little-used Article 62 of the Constitution, which calls for the dismissal of any lawmaker deemed dishonest, to dismiss Sharif. His allies believe the verdict smacks of judicial overreach, while others privately say elements of the military had a hand in the process.

"People of Pakistan haven't accepted the decision," said Abbasi.

The army has not commented on Sharif's departure, or on allegations they were involved. It has also dismissed claims in the past that they were behind the Supreme Court's push.

Sharif's two previous stints in power were also cut short, the second ending in a military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999.

Shahbaz Sharif, who has been in charge of Punjab since 2008, has better relations with the military than his brother. He has built a reputation as a competent administrator focused on building infrastructure.

Reuters
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Australian security services have disrupted a plot to blow up an aeroplane, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has announced.

Police arrested four people in connection with the alleged plan.

Counter-terrorism raids took place took place in Sydney on Saturday afternoon.

Mr Turnbull said they were "designed to disrupt and prevent plans to undertake terrorist attacks in Australia".

It is not known what the specifics were or when the attack was scheduled to take place, but is believed an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) was the intended weapon.

The operation was carried out by the Australian Federal Police, the New South Wales state police and the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation, the country's domestic spy agency.

"Four men have been taken into custody and are assisting police with their enquiries," a police statement said.

Seven Network television reported that 40 riot squad officers stormed an inner-Sydney house before an explosives team found a suspicious device.

Mr Turnbull said he was briefed on the progress of the operation by security agency chiefs.

"My number one priority, and that of my government, is the safety and security of all Australians, and the public should be reassured that our security and intelligence agencies are working tirelessly to keep us safe," the prime minister said in a statement.

Security at airports across the country has been increased after the operation, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. Mr Turnbull advised travellers to get to airports earlier than usual.

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

At least 70 people have been charged with terrorism since 2014, said Justice Minister Michael Keenan.

He added: "The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors, but the events overnight remind us that there is still the ability for people to have sophisticated plots and sophisticated attacks still remain a real threat.

"In light of this information, it's very important that everyone in Australia remains vigilant."

Australian Federal Police commissioner Andrew Colvin said the investigation was likely to be very long and protracted.
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Dozens of passengers, including children, had to be rescued after they became trapped inside cable cars dangling above the German city of Cologne.

Dramatic images shared on social media showed people being winched to safety, including a man with a baby in his arms.

Authorities said that 32 of the cars were operating on the line over the River Rhine when two of them collided, bringing the line to a shuddering halt.

Transport and fire department officials said that as many as 100 passengers of all ages were left stranded.

Witnesses reporting fire crews were using a mobile crane to lift people down.

Martina and Hans-Peter Rieger, aged in their 60s and from Dortmund, were among the first to be rescued.

The couple were celebrating their 41st wedding anniversary  and ended up trapped for an hour.

Mr Rieger told local media: That will always be in our memory.

Fortunately, we were also given direct hand signals that we should remain calm and there is nothing bad.

Colognes mayor, Henriette Reker, praised the passengers for their patience.

She said: They are in the best hands in Colognes Fire Brigade. Something like this has never happened before.

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 cableway over the Rhine has been operating since 1957 and is a popular tourist attraction, as well as being used by locals as a means of transport over the river.

Some reports speculated high winds may have caused an auxiliary cable to wrap around one of the cars.

The cable car company issued an apology for the mishap and said the cause was under investigation.
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French President Emmanuel Macron has announced his intention to set-up hotspots to handle asylum requests in Libya, where thousands are fleeing fighting in the country.

He said he hopes the plan will deter people from taking crazy risks and attempting the perilous journey across the Mediterranean.

He made the remark on the sideline of a visit to a refugee centre in Orleans this week, before he presided over a citizenship ceremony.

The idea is to create hotspots in Libya so people avoid taking crazy risks when they are not eligible for asylum. Well go to get them, Mr Macron told reporters.

His comments followed a speech to a group of new citizens in Orleans, in which he said that France wanted to create ways for Africans to seek asylum in safe countries on African soil to avoid dangerous journeys across the sea to Europe.

He said that for many, Europe from the start is impossible to attain, adding: I hope that the European Union, and at least France, will be able to treat asylum seekers as close to their country of origin as possible.

As I speak to you, between 800,000 and one million women and men are waiting in camps in Libya.

However, he later downplayed the plans, saying there were no question of hotspots in Libya if security conditions are not met  and that currently they were not.

A source in Mr Macrons entourage later told the Associated Press the plan included advance points in Libya, as well as neighbouring Niger and Chad.

They added that the work would be overseen by French and international organisations.

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

A recent report from the UN refugee agency noted that 90 per cent of the 181,400 people who irregularly reached Italy by sea in 2016, departed from Libya.

By mid-May this year, an 30 per cent increase from the same period last year had already been reported.

It also found that as of April this year, more than 531,000 people of concern including refugees and internally displaced people were deemed to be living in Libya.

French President with Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj (L), and General Khalifa Haftar (R), commander in the Libyan National Army (Reuters ) (REUTERS/Philippe Wojazer)

Mr Macron wants France to play a bigger role in persuading Libyas factions to end the countrys political crisis and armed conflict that has has allowed Islamist militants to gain a foothold, and migrant smugglers to flourish in the absence of a strong central government.

Earlier his week, the French President also welcomed Libyan Prime Minister Fayez al-Sarraj, leader of the UN-backed government in Tripoli and General Khalifa Haftar, commander of the Libyan National Army, which controls the eastern part of the country.

They saw both men commit to a conditional cease fire and to work towards holding fresh elections next spring.

Additional reporting by agencies
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Around 22,000 people have been evacuated from the Tomorrowland Unite festival in Barcelona after a fire broke out on the main stage.

No injuries have been reported, according to Spanish newspaper El Pais.

The blaze apparently broke out after a pyrotechnic element malfunctioned went wrong.

Social media images showed huge flames climbing up the side of the stage.

Eyewitnesses said the stage "exploded".

The inferno was later extinguished.

The Tomorrowland Unite festival was taking place at the Can Zam Park in Santa Coloma de Gramenet on Saturday evening when the left-hand side of the stage went up in flames.

The director general of civil protection in Catalunya tweeted that 22,143 people had been evacuated from the event, but no injuries had been reported so far.

It is not yet known what the cause of the fire was, although local media reported that it appeared to be related to the pyrotechnics, and it was quickly brought under control.

DJ Steve Aoki had been due to perform on the stage at the event, which was an outpost of the Tomorrowland electronic music festival that usually takes place in Belgium.

Festivalgoers posted dramatic videos and photos of the blaze.

The line-up for the evening had also been set to include DJs Ingrosso and Afrojack.

Additional reporting by agencies
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An Israeli military court has upheld the sentence of a soldier who was convicted of killing a wounded Palestinian attacker.

Elor Azarias appeal was overturned after he was convicted for manslaughter in March. He will serve 18 months.

Abdul al-Sharif, 21, was shot by Azaria as he lay wounded on the ground, unarmed. Sharif had just stabbed a soldier in Hebron.

Azarias attack on Sharif was caught on video.

The shooting occurred in January 2016, in Hebron, the occupied West Bank.

The trial split the countrys opinion. The verdict was hailed as a victory for the military and its code of ethics, while hard-line politicians said Azaria was a persecuted hero.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he would support any decision to pardon Azaria.

Azaria, also 21, argued he had shot Sharif as he feared the man might be wearing an explosive vest.

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 court declared Azarias version of events had been "unreliable" and that he had killed Sharif out of revenge.

Azaria's shooting was not motivated by fear of the terrorist's future action, the judges said.

The judges added that Azaria did not express remorse and was reportedly defensive if someone questioned his character, as reported by Haaretz.

Attack was caught on film in January 2016

The case has raised questions over how Israeli soldiers can use lethal force against attackers.

Sharifs death came during a series of Palestinian attacks that killed 29 Israelis over five months to January 2016.

The court rejected the prosecutions request for a harsher sentence. Azaria came to court from his home near Tel Aviv, where he had been living under house arrest since being released from the army two weeks ago.

Azarias lawyers might decide to take their appeal to the Supreme Court and ask for Azarias sentence to be postponed for a second time.
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The four Arab states of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain are reportedly set to consider fresh economic sanctions on Qatar at a meeting in Manama, Bahrain's capital.

The foreign ministers of the four countries are expected to impose sanctions that will gradually affect the Qatari economy, al-Hayat newspaper said, citing unnamed Gulf sources.

However, in a conciliatory move, Bahrains foreign minister said the countries involved in the boycott were open to fresh talks with Qatar  if the country agreed to certain terms.

"The four countries are ready for dialogue with Qatar with the condition that it announces its sincere willingness to stop funding terrorism and extremism and its commitment to not interfere in other countries' foreign affairs and respond to the 13 demands," Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa, Bahrains foreign minister, said.

His comments were made during a TV news conference in Manama after meeting his counterparts to discuss the boycott.

In the two-day meeting, the four countries will press Qatar to comply with their demands, which include stopping interference in their internal affairs, Egypt''s government said in a statement.

The Gulf Times reported that the talks were part of the continued consultation between the four Arab states to review their position since the blockade on Qatar began on 5 July.

King Hamad bin al-Khalifa of Bahrain praised cooperation between the four territories in the battle against terrorism, according to BNA, Bahrains state news agency.

Kuwait, the United States and Turkey have been involved in diplomatic efforts to mediate between Saudi Arabia and Qatar, but this has resulted in little progress.

Air and sea links to Doha have been cut by the four Arab states. Qatar has been receiving fresh produce from Turkey and Iran, while Oman has provided alternative ports to the UAE.

A further 18 groups and individuals reportedly supported by Qatar have been added to a list of "terrorist" supporters by the four Arab countries, according to Reuters.

Qatar has hit back, calling the accusations baseless. The Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim Hamad al-Thani, said he was keen to discuss the crisis which is the worst between Arab states for many years. We are open to dialogue to resolve the outstanding problems [so long as Qatars] sovereignty is respected, he said in his first televised appearance since the crisis began.

The reason behind the boycott was about outsourcing our foreign policy so that decisions are not made in Qatar, and that is something that will never be acceptable, Sheikh al-Thani told AFP.

Ali Shareef al-Emadi, Qatar's finance minister, called for the blockade to end, saying that his country had continued supplying 40 per cent of the UAE's daily liquid natural gas consumption.
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A pair of US supersonic bombers have flown over the Korean Peninsula, less than 48-hours after North Koreas successfully tested an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Flanked by South Korean fighter jets The B-1 bombers carried out a low-pass over the Osan Air Base, near South Korea's capital Seoul.

The military aircraft took off from the Andersen Air Force Base in Guam and flew to Japanese airspace where they were joined by Japanese F-2 fighter jets, the US Pacific Air Forces said in a statement. They then returned to base.

The US Missile Defense Agency also said a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system located in Kodiak, Alaska, was successfully tested on Saturday night, Alaska time.

It said that a medium-range ballistic missile was air-launched over the Pacific, and that the THAAD system detected, tracked and intercepted the target, the Associated Press has reported.

US officials have refused to rule out a tough military response to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability, General Terrence J OShaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander said. Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario.

He added: If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.

The military said the exercise was a direct response to the ICBM tests. The aircrews "practised intercept and formation training" during the 10-hour mission, according to NBC News.

Analysts said that flight data from North Koreas second ICBM test showed that a larger part of the US mainland is now in range of the missiles. Experts said the weapons had the capability to hit Alaska.

North Korea's Kim Jong-un claimed the ICBM test was a "stern warning" to US President Donald Trump.

In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test Show all 15 1 /15 In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test A lab employee from the Korea Institute of Nuclear Safety's regional office in Gangneung, east of Seoul, checks for radioactive traces in the air, in Gangneung, soon after North Korea announced it successfully conducted a hydrogen bomb test. The office in Gangneung is the closest one to the site of the North's claimed test. Officials said it will take three to four days to analyze air samples in detail for any traces of radioactivity, the Yonhap news agency reported EPA In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un signing a document of a hydrogen bomb test in Pyongyang In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test People watch a TV news program showing North Korea's special announcement at the Seoul Railway Station in Seoul, South Korea AP In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test Getty Images In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test Getty Images In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test South Korean people watch TV news at Seoul station EPA In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test Japan's meteorological agency officer Yohei Hasegawa displays a chart showing seismic activity, after a North Korean nuclear test, at the agency in Tokyo Getty Images In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test Ko Yun-Hwa, administrator of Korea Meteorological Administration, briefs reporters showing seismic waves from the site of North Korea's hydrogen bomb test, at his office in Seoul Getty Images In pictures: North Korea hydrogen bomb test North Korea's border county of Kaepoong is seen from a South Korean observation post in Paju near the Demilitarized zone dividing the two Koreas as North Korea announced it had successfully carried out its first hydrogen bomb test Getty Images

The United States would not be safe from destruction if it tried to attack North Korea, the country's state run KCNA news agency claimed.

The test-fire reconfirmed the reliability of the ICBM system, demonstrated the capability of making a surprise launch of the ICBM in any region and place any time, and clearly proved that the whole US mainland is in the firing range of the DPRK missiles, (Kim) said with pride, KCNA, Pyongyang's state-run news outlet stated.

There have been several occasions when the United States sends warplanes out on sorties to the Korean Peninsula. B-1 bombers were flown out in response to North Koreas banned missile tests.

Another flyover occurred when Otto Warmbier, an American college student died just days after being released from a North Korean prison.
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The busiest-ever summer for holidays abroad is putting unprecedented strain on airlines, airports and passengers, research by The Independent has shown.

Thousands of travellers remain stranded after their weekend flights were cancelled, with easyJet alone grounding at least 28 flights.

The budget airline is blaming congested airspace, particularly in the London area, adverse weather and air traffic control delays.

 Chaos at Heathrow as passengers queue for hours to leave airport

Heathrow and Gatwick airports are handling far more passengers than their design capacities. Airspace over France, used by more than 1,000 British flights every day, has too few staff to handle the growth in traffic. And tougher passport checks at European airports mean passengers face queues of up to four hours to pass border controls, with thousands of flights delayed as a result.

Among the first cancellations on Sunday morning was easyJets flight from Gatwick to Marseille. The airline blamed lengthy air traffic control delays meaning that the crew due to operate the previous nights service were unable to do so after reaching their maximum working hours.

One passenger, Miki Maskell, tweeted: @easyJet Thanks for cancelling my flight to Marseille with just 7 hours notice, Lost 3 days. Customer Service disgusting, Shame on you.

It follows an incident on Friday night when a worker at Nice airport punched an easyJet passenger in the face. The member of staff is said to have hit the man, who was holding a nine-month old child, after he complained about the lack of care during the 13-hour delay for a flight to Luton.

While a decision is awaited on building another runway in the London area, both Heathrow and Gatwick are handling record numbers of flights and passengers. They are the busiest two-runway and single-runway airports in the world, and have very little slack in the system.

When the runway at Gatwick was temporarily closed following a blown tyre on an Air Canada jet two weeks ago, dozens of flights were diverted, cancelled, or heavily delayed.

The Sussex airport is gearing up for its busiest day in history: on Sunday 13 August, 168,000 passengers are expected to arrive or depart, an average rate of two people per second.

Heathrow forecasts its busiest day in the main summer holiday will be Sunday 6 August, with 257,893 passengers.

A leading aviation analyst said Britains aviation system is operating at or near 100 per cent capacity and has no resilience. Laurie Price, a former British Airways executive and aviation adviser to the Transport Select Committee, has called for a 20 per cent margin for recovery to be mandatory.

He told The Independent: There is no contingency capacity built in, be it runway, terminal, airspace, or road and rail access, so any delay or disruption anywhere in the system compounds very quickly.

It may be good for airport bottom lines to squeeze the last gram of capacity out of their assets, but wholly unacceptable for passengers and the airlines who suffer the financial consequences of over-scheduling.

Airspace capacity across the Channel is also under strain. An easyJet spokesperson said: This weekend easyJet, like other airlines, saw delays through French air space of up to 100 minutes with two-thirds of easyJet's flights routing through French airspace.

If alternative routes are required these are often over the Atlantic or through Germany, which are typically longer and dont have the same capacity as French routes.

The SNCTA, the French air-traffic control union, said: French air traffic controllers are now facing a very high traffic growth, more than 10 per cent in some areas, with insufficient staff.

Airlines are blaming a new EU regulation on passport checks for delaying thousands of flights. The rules, which took effect this summer, require each passenger from outside the Schengen area (covering most EU countries) to have their arrival and departure recorded. Previously British passengers were often waved through with only a cursory inspection.

Thomas Reynaert, managing director of the airlines association A4E, said: Queuing for up to four hours has been the top record these days; airports like Madrid, Palma de Mallorca, Lisbon, Lyon, Paris-Orly, Milan or Brussels are producing shameful pictures of devastated passengers in front of immigration booths, in lines stretching hundreds of metres.

At some airports, flight delays have increased by 300 per cent compared to last year.

British passengers arriving at Palma in Mallorca had to queue for 90 minutes yesterday. On Friday, the Spanish airport had its busiest-ever day, with almost 1,100 flights and more than 180,000 passengers.

The aviation analyst Laurie Price warned flying could get even more stressful after the UK leaves the EU: If we are experiencing problems now, what is going to happen post-Brexit when more rigorous immigration controls and procedures are brought in?

They will be grafted into already congested terminals. It can only worsen service standards, increase queues and passenger frustration with more frayed tempers.
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After 13 hour delay of an easyJet flight, a Nice Airport employee punches a man with a baby in the face for complaining about the delays  that was the alarming tweet by Leo Gupta.

Sent shortly before midnight on Saturday, it was accompanied by a picture of an employee striking a passenger who was holding a baby, while shocked travellers looked on.

The event took place at the end of a day of stress for more than 150 passengers. They had been due to travel on flight EZY2122 from Nice-Cote dAzur airport at 11am. The airline says it was delayed departing Nice due to a technical issue with the aircraft.

The original aircraft had arrived from Luton slightly behind schedule. Then there was a fuelling issue, which required another aircraft to be flown out to Nice. So instead of arriving at Luton noon, passengers were obliged to spend the entire day at Nice airport.

Accounts on social media suggest that a man holding a nine-month old child was talking to an employee of the special assistance provider, Samsic.

Witnesses said that the apparent victim of the assault had complained about the lack of baby food and places for passengers with special assistance needs to sit.

Anna McCrum tweeted: absolute chaos - member of staff just punched a passenger in the face at Nice airport. Waited for 12 hours for this.

The airline said: We are urgently taking this up with Nice Airport and their special assistance provider Samsic who we understand the person photographed works for.

The easyJet statement continued: Passengers were provided with updates and refreshment vouchers during this time and the flight departed for London Luton this evening.

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 safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is always easyJet's highest priority.

Violence against airline passengers is an infrequent occurence. The most notorious recent case was In April when Dr David Dao was dragged off an overbooked United Express plane at Chicago.

Two weeks later an American Airlines member of cabin crew was featured on social media apparently challenging a passenger to a fight after an incident involving a mother of baby twins.
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The stage of the Senate floor was set on Friday morning to repeal Obamacare. Donald Trump was tweeting encouragement, or a warning  Go Republican Senators, Go!  and John McCain told reporters to wait for the show.

The show had been started by men, and would end that way.

All eyes were on McCain, the war hero with brain cancer who had come back to Washington DC to cast the deciding vote. When the Arizona Senator dropped his thumb at close to 2am, there was an audible gasp in the room. Several people clapped, and were promptly told to stop. That was it. The Republican Partys second major attempt to bin the Affordable Care Act had been quashed.

But what of the two Republican women who voted no?

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 faces of Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska were not dominating Twitter on Friday morning, but their votes against the bill have to be recognised for what they were: astonishing bravery.

On the Senate floor, groups of male Republican Senators had crowded around the two rebel women and McCain, isolating their targets one by one. But the female duo remained strong, and just as they almost threatened to halt the confirmation of Betsy DeVos as education secretary, they have now voted three times in the past few days against the total erasure of Obamacare.

We all know what happens to politicians when they dont toe the party line. They are talked about, ostracised and, in this case, metaphorically challenged to duel. In the boys club of the Capitol Hill with its arcane procedures, it is hard enough to be a woman in a position of power, let alone be a woman whose dissent has the power to humiliate the party and anger the President.

Since the vote, Murkowski said she received a not very pleasant phone call from Secretary of State Ryan Zinke, who told her the President was disappointed. She vowed to continue working on health care in good faith and put Alaskans ahead of the party.

The fact that two women arguably saved Obamacare speaks volumes about a male-led effort to scrap a law which funded Planned Parenthood and provided women with no co-pay access to contraception.

As Senator Collins wrote, Millions of women across the country rely on Planned Parenthood for family planning, cancer screening, and basic preventative health care services. Denying women access to Planned Parenthood not only runs contrary to our goal of letting patients choose the health care provider who best fits their needs, but it could also impede timely access to care.

 John McCain draws gasps and applause as he votes no on Obamacare repeal

Of course, repealing Obamacare without a replacement would have affected millions of young and old people, regardless of their gender. But it would have also had a disproportionate impact on women, who are generally paid less than men, who make up the majority of single parents and of workers who earn minimum wage or less than minimum wage in America.

After Paul Ryan told Trump he did not have enough votes to push through the American Health Care Act in March, Trump blamed the Democrats and said: We learned a lot about loyalty.

Loyalty is the Presidents prized quality. Breaching it has destroyed the careers of multiple high-profile figures, from close aides to the former Director of the FBI. Murkowski, for one, already knew before Friday morning that she was in the firing line.

Senator @lisamurkowski of the Great State of Alaska really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad! Trump wrote earlier this week.

Trump has targeted many women and men, either directly or in front of more than 32 million Twitter followers. His ire has been provoked by McCain for being captured in Vietnam, crocodile tears Chuck Schumer and beleaguered Jeff Sessions. But being on the end of Trumps wrath as a woman must be an even more frightening experience, given the high levels of anonymous trolling, death and rape threats that they receive online, as well as the lack of female allies at the very top.

Collins has released a statement to explain her no vote. In essence, the skinny repeal was not good enough and defunding Planned Parenthood was harmful.

These problems require a bipartisan solution, she wrote.

Under her statement, there were hundreds of comments.

Most of them were simple: Thank you.
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Just when it seemed that a consensus was emerging in the Cabinet over what Brexit really might mean, Liam Fox has characteristically popped up to show that the truce is fragile at best, and non-existent at worst. The International Trade Secretary, a Brexiteer, dismissed the idea that the Government has agreed free movement will continue in all but name for up to three years when the UK formally leaves the EU in March 2019. This was suggested last week by Philip Hammond, the Chancellor, and Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, who backed Remain last year and who are now trying to ensure that the hard Brexit planned by Theresa May does not inflict economic self-harm.

Dr Fox told The Sunday Times that continued free movement would not keep faith with the referendum decision. In a warning shot at Mr Hammond, he said any transitional deal has to be an agreement by the Cabinet and cant just be made by an individual or any group within the Cabinet.

Dr Fox is chomping at the bit to conclude trade deals with non-EU countries and wary of anything that would delay or prevent that, since he might then in effect be out of a job. That puts him at odds with Mr Hammond, who is sceptical that a bonanza of free trade deals could compensate quickly for the market of 500 million people on our doorstep, and so wants us to stick close to the EU. Mr Hammond is right; as he has argued, people did not vote Leave in the referendum to become poorer or less secure.

The International Trade Secretary had no need to quibble about the Hammond-Rudd approach; the Chancellor made clear on Friday that the UK will leave the single market and customs union in 2019. Dr Fox, like his fellow Brexiteers David Davis and Michael Gove, has accepted that a transitional deal will be needed, saying it would be worth waiting another two years to achieve something he has wanted for more than 40.

This latest skirmish between the Cabinets pragmatists and ideologues will almost certainly not be the last. But it will not help the UKs cause in the already difficult negotiations with the 27 EU members. Nor will it reassure British business, which is desperate for some clarity on Brexit after a wasted year since the referendum. Companies such as airlines will soon need to finalise their plans for 2019. Others will be making decisions on investment and jobs. They and the important financial sector will have to assume the worst unless they have any reason to prepare for a better outcome. The whole point of Mr Hammonds welcome and long overdue initiative was to offer some certainty to business and individuals that life would continue as normal after Brexit day. Dr Foxs loose talk has undermined his efforts.

The Government needs to speak with one voice on Brexit and there is only one person who can ensure that. Since her election disaster eight weeks ago, Theresa May has been virtually silent on the most crucial question facing the country. When she returns from her holiday, she needs to get a grip. There is no point in stamping out leaks from Cabinet meetings if her ministers parade their differences in public.

The contradictory messages will continue unless the vacuum of our Brexit strategy is filled when the Prime Minister makes a speech on the issue in September. The time for meaningless slogans and nods and winks by Cabinet ministers is over; clarity and certainty are needed urgently.
Molly Owens is believed to be with her father Brian (North Wales Police/PA Wire)

The search for a missing five-year-old girl believed to be with her father, who is wanted by police, has moved to the Republic of Ireland.

Molly Owens is thought to be with Brian Owens, 26, who has a warrant out for his arrest.

Owens failed to turn up at Caernarfon Magistrates' Court in North Wales on Friday for sentencing. North Wales Police have not said what offences he had committed.

Police now say they believe father and daughter are in Ireland with 31-year-old Elaine Doutch.

Superintendent Jane Banham of North Wales Police said: "Our investigation is ongoing and we are still appealing for information from anybody who may have been in contact with Brian Owens to get in touch with us.

"From our inquiries we believe they are in the Republic of Ireland with a woman by the name of Elaine Doutch, and we are in close contact with our colleagues at the Garda who are assisting us.

"We just want to ensure that Molly is safe and well and are issuing a direct appeal for her to be returned home."

Molly is described as having collar-length blonde hair and blue eyes. She sometimes wears pink glasses.

It is now known that she was last seen wearing a dark blue T-shirt with a light pattern on the front, blue jeans and trainers. She is also believed to have been carrying a toy similar to a teddy bear.

Brian Owens is described as being 5ft 9in and of slim build. He has short brown hair and blue eyes.

He was last seen wearing a white top, dark trousers and trainers and was carrying a blue jacket.

Ms Doutch was seen wearing a black top, grey cardigan, dark trousers and white trainers.

Anyone with information is asked to contact North Wales Police quoting reference number V113559.
Comments made by Eoghan Murphy, pictured, earlier this year were interpreted as a thinly veiled criticism of Luxembourg

The head of Luxembourg's financial lobby group has accused Irish politicians of making "false accusations" against the Duchy as the battle to snare London-based firms looking for a new home after Brexit intensifies.

Nicolas Mackel denied suggestions the Duchy is allowing so-called "brass plate" operations that would give firms token access to the single market.

He was responding to comments made by former Irish finance minister Eoghan Murphy earlier this year which were interpreted as a thinly veiled criticism of Luxembourg.

The chief executive of Luxembourg for Finance told the Press Association: "As long as we can get those sorts of false accusations out of the debate, I think all the other competitive elements are just a normal occurrence of business."

"We make it a point never to talk negatively about our competitors, unlike some of them. I think it's just like in politics - you resort to that sort of communication if you really don't have anything to say about yourself and your strength."

Mr Mackel believes the inflammatory remarks made by Mr Murphy in a Reuters interview - complaining that other European cities were being "very aggressive" and taking part in "creeping regulatory arbitrage", referring to lax rules - were made for "internal political needs".

He added: "Since then, the circumstances in Ireland have changed with a new government and they themselves having been able to make some announcements on companies (choosing Dublin after Brexit).

"So there will be no more need to resort to this sort of communication."

A spokesperson for the Irish Department of Finance said the comment by Mr Murphy "was not a criticism of Luxembourg or any other member state".

They added Mr Murphy had raised a number of issues during a scheduled meeting with European Commission VP Valdis Dombrovskis earlier this including " ensuring there is consistency across EU member states" in applying regulatory standards for financial services.

Mr Mackel acknowledged there was competition to draw business among rival EU financial centres, including Frankfurt and Dublin "to a certain degree", but said Luxembourg felt no pressure to offer special terms and firms were weighing a raft of criteria when choosing their post-Brexit hubs.

In recent months Barclays, Legal & General and Bank of America have revealed plans to base EU-focused operations in Dublin, while the Duchy has gained commitments from the likes of US giant AIG, Northern Trust and insurers RSA and Hiscox.

The Luxembourg for Finance chief said having a dedicated insurance regulator has been a draw for the sector, while most asset managers have boosted activity in the country without fanfare in preparation for Britain's divorce from the EU.

He expects the city to attract approximately 2,000 jobs in the next one to two years as a result.

Mr Mackel said Luxembourg made a conscious decision to hold back from running international roadshows in a bid to win business, eschewing a tactic employed by the likes of Paris and Frankfurt.

He added: "We felt we would not necessarily need to and I think we were actually right.

"Many of the asset management companies that operate out of London have a Luxembourg platform, and were going to very naturally use that Luxembourg platform to consolidate their activities on the European continent.

"The same goes for banks."

However while Luxembourg was gaining business, Mr Mackel said Brexit is still being viewed as a "lose-lose proposition overall".
Foreign Affairs Minister Simon Coveney has ramped up the war of words with Britain by branding its Brexit plans for the Northern Ireland border as "neither imaginative nor flexible".

Mr Coveney pointedly said he does not believe Theresa May's government is in the right "mental space" to address the political sensitivities of the border following the UK decision to leave the EU.

"The last thing I want to do is pick a fight with Britain - but at the same time we will not allow being brushed aside what are genuine and very real concerns," Mr Coveney told the Sunday Independent.

The minister sparked a row with Unionists after he suggested the UK's custom checks with the EU should be in ports and airports rather than the Northern Ireland border. Yesterday, Mr Coveney said Britain made the decision to leave - and now the onus was on Mrs May and her Cabinet to find solutions to the consequences it posed for other countries.

"We need a unique solution for Northern Ireland. Saying we are going to put cameras on the border and make this as seamless as possible is neither imaginative nor flexible," he said. "Ireland needs to be very clear on that, so the British government understands the real sensitivities here and the political priority of this issue for Ireland," he added.

He insisted Ireland would not accept a "compensation package" in exchange for reintroducing of a border. He said he would "not lecture" Mrs May - but added that political frictions in the Tory Party were impacting on Brexit talks.

His comments follow those of Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, who last week told Britain that Ireland would not help design a border which they do not believe should exist. He added that Ireland, not the UK, should feel angry about Brexit.

Former Northern Ireland First Minister David Trimble later weighed into the debate and told Mr Varadkar to "calm down". Former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said Britain had not proposed a realistic solution to deal with the border issue.

Yesterday EU Agriculture Commissioner Phil Hogan said he was "very disappointed" by Britain's reaction to Brexit.

"It beggars belief to see the type of inconsistency and lack of co-ordination that we see at the moment from the UK side," Mr Hogan said.

Northern Ireland is being examined carefully by EU officials and it will be discussed during the next round of Brexit talks.

EU officials are seeking to find a solution to maintaining Ireland's common travel area with Britain while also ensuring the terms of the Good Friday Agreement are maintained. The terms include EU peace funds and cross-border health service arrangements.
AIB chairman Richard Pym has said the bank intends to publish proposals in the autumn to assist with the delivery of new housing. Pym revealed the AIB's intention to make what he described as a "serious contribution" to efforts to address the housing crisis in the course of an address to the MacGill summer school, which took place in Donegal recently.

"It is housing though that is still stalled and new home completions fall well short of demand and I think that is something where AIB can make a serious contribution," he said.

Pym told his MacGill audience of a dinner he had hosted for a number of the country's major property developers recently at AIB's Bank Centre headquarters in Ballsbridge where issues affecting the delivery of housing were discussed.

He said: "We had a chairman's dinner in Bank Centre a month or two ago. We got the main residential constructors and commercial constructors [together] for a dinner and we talked about some of the problems; and we are going to work on some proposals we hope to publish in the autumn. It's something that the private sector can contribute to if we organise ourselves properly."

While a spokesman for AIB declined to comment on Pym's contribution to the MacGill summer school, the Sunday Independent understands the event he referred to was attended by a number of the biggest names from the commercial and residential development sectors. Among those present for the dinner and discussion were Chartered Land and Castlethorn chief Joe O'Reilly, Cairn Homes chairman John Reynolds, Green Reit director Stephen Vernon, O'Flynn Group chairman and managing director Michael O'Flynn, and John Mulryan, a son of Ballymore Properties chief Sean Mulryan and managing director of the group's UK operations.

It is understood their discussion took in a range of issues affecting the delivery of residential and commercial developments. Those issues included the availability of finance, planning regulations, construction costs and project viability.

AIB's determination to support the country's real estate sector was evidenced last week with its Real Estate Finance division providing a 155m loan to refinance the Jervis Shopping Centre in Dublin. The seven-year loan facility has been extended to a company controlled by the centre's owners and developers, the Belfast-born property investor Paddy McKillen and Padraig Drayne.

AIB Real Estate Finance is understood to have secured the financing mandate in the face of significant competition from international funders.

In a statement, Colin Hunt, AIB's managing director of wholesale, institutional and corporate banking, said: "We are committed to deploying our capital and expertise to support the real estate finance sector in Ireland. Our multidisciplinary real estate finance team is dedicated to providing customer-focused solutions to the sector."

A spokesman for the owners of the Jervis Shopping Centre, JSC Properties, meanwhile said they were proud to have been able to complete the refinance with an Irish institution.
'It's all about the craic -that is what racing is all about and we're going to have plenty of that in Galway next week."

Josh Sheahan, the proud owner of a horse, can't wait for the Galway Races and his enthusiasm is an absolute breath of fresh air. Racing needs more of him these days.

"It's all gone too serious to be honest," he said. "Racecourses need to welcome syndicates with open arms. It's my horse but we get a gang together every time he runs, and win, lose or draw we always have a good laugh."

In case you missed it, Limerick native Josh gave the interview of the year to At The Races presenter Kevin O'Ryan minutes before Top of the Town ran at Limerick a few weeks ago.

The horse lost, but his young owner was gracious in defeat and the post-race post-mortem was even more entertaining, so much so he was getting calls from Australia and America for days afterwards.

"I had people calling me from all over the place. I even had young lads wanting to get involved in the horse with me. It was only mad," he said.

As a relative newcomer to horse ownership, 25-year-old Josh sees his association with racing as nothing more than a hobby.

It is also a clever way of bringing business to his pub of the same name in Askeaton. Every time the horse runs, the pub is packed.

"I took over the pub when I was just 19 years old. Our family always had businesses in the town and I jumped at the chance to have my own when it came up for lease in December 2011."

With regard to his early days in horses, he added: "We never had them at home but I always loved them and had my first ever bet on Beef or Salmon all those years ago. I lost four quid on him that day and was disgusted. But from then on I was hooked."

By his own admission his stint at UL studying Equine Science didn't go too well either. "I can tell you I didn't learn much other than how to drink. You could say I studied the pub trade there instead."

Taking over the running of a pub as a teenager was no mean feat, but Josh has his mother Ita to thank for keeping him on the straight and narrow.

"She's my financial advisor, and keeps me in check. Sure I'd need it."

It seems his mother might have been watching over his shoulder too when he made his first and only racehorse purchase to date back in 2013.

"We got him unraced from Michael Manning and he cost me the small sum of 1,500. He runs in my sister Mary Rose's name. It is very much a family interest."

First put in training with Patrick Neville, the nine-year-old gelding was then sent to Ballingarry-based Charles Byrnes, where he has remained ever since.

While Josh and his team of supporters had no choice but to drown their sorrows after Top of the Town failed to bring home the money in Limerick, there have been plenty of great days out over the years.

"Charles is just brilliant and has gotten such a good tune out of him. He has won four races for me so far and over 30,000 in prize-money."

"People often think racing is too expensive for them. That is not the case if there's a few lads involved. You could get 10 guys involved, for say 1,000 each to buy a horse, and then a few hundred a month between them to train it. I can tell you it is worth every penny."

With the Galway Festival next on the agenda for Top of the Town, Josh has been planning this big trip to Ballybrit now for weeks.

"I think we've about 70 going so far, and it's going to be some craic. We're going to rattle the place. Hopefully the horse runs on the Sunday. If he wins it will be only mental," he added.
The rainfall late last week was a welcome arrival at Lyons farm as the hill had become particularly dry and grass growth had really stalled.

The soil depth on the hill ground, the main sheep grazing area, is exceptionally shallow and even three or four days without rainfall results in a soil moisture deficit.

I am hoping to see a significant jump in grass growth when we complete this week's farm walk.

Lambs have continued to perform well after weaning. We slaughtered 49 lambs on July 14 giving an average carcase weight of 20.6 kg and returning 111 per head. This is a significant and welcome increase in price on this time last year.

Lambs remaining on the farm have been treated with Clikzin as we were seeing some fly strike in the lambs.

While the period of coverage with this product is shorter at eight weeks than some others on the market, the short withdrawal period is important for lambs close to finish. Some products, while offering extended periods of cover, have a withdrawal period of six weeks.

Care should be taken with the withdrawal periods for all veterinary products used on finishing lambs as lambs can very quickly become overweight or over fleshed waiting for withdrawal periods to expire. Even at a modest growth rate of 150 grams per day, a lamb will gain almost 6.5kg of live weight during a six week period.

The weaned ewes are now being used to clean out paddocks behind the lambs. The lambs graze paddocks down to between 5 and 5.5cm and then the ewes come in and take this down another cm to 4.5cm or so.

Ewes were in reasonable condition at weaning so this is no penalty on them at the moment.

Ewes are 11 weeks from breeding and where ewes have a body condition score of less than 2.5 we would look at remedial action at this stage.

One message that has really been borne out over the last two or three breeding seasons across the country is having ewes in good (the correct) body condition score at breeding will increase scanned litter size, number of lambs born and the number of lambs weaned.

While all three are intrinsically linked the latter in particular is a key driver of profitability on sheep farms.

Michelle McManus, who is looking at novel ways of measuring feed intake and feed efficiency in grazing sheep, presented some of her findings at the Precision Grassland and Grazing Livestock conference held in Edinburgh last week.

This conference highlighted the multitude of new technologies on the market or close to the market to support the livestock sector.

These ranged from well established technologies like the 'MooMonitor', to the more recently announced virtual fencing. Also on display were more experimental technologies like Michelle's work on InfraRed Thermography to predict feed intake and feed efficiency in grazing livestock.

Whatever about the type of technology that is available, there must be a financial return on the farmers investment if these technologies are to gain traction at industry level.

The next few weeks will see preparation for the breeding season ramp up, ewes and rams will be monitored to control any foot issues or lameness, which thankfully have been few given the dry summer, but complacency cannot be allowed to set in on this particular front.

Factory weights

Lambs will be continually monitored and drafted for slaughter, with cognisance for factory weight cut off limits. Worm control will be carried out in response to faecal egg count levels and trace element status will be monitored also.

We administer cobalt routinely, but in recent years have also had intermittent issues with selenium and iodine deficiency.

Both of these will be continually tracked and our first check will be routinely measuring lamb growth rate. If this drops below what we deem acceptable for the grass supply available then further interrogation using blood and liver samples from the factory will take place.

Professor Tommy Boland is a lecturer in sheep production at Lyons Farm, University College Dublin. @Pallastb tommy.boland@ucd.ie
Ryanair unveiled its first quarter results last week. These showed that it had increased the number of passengers carried in the three months to the end of June by 12pc to 35 million and after-tax profits by 55pc to 397m. Even allowing for the fact that the first quarter 2017 results were flattered by the fact that there was no Easter in the same period last year, these were still seriously impressive results.

Ryanair now expects to increase the number of passengers it carries in the year to March 2018 by 8pc to 131 million and after-tax profits also by 8pc to 1.4bbn-1.45bn.

Expand Close Alitalia was tipped over the edge into bankruptcy after its 11,000 staff rejected a 2bn cost-cutting plan / Facebook

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Whatsapp Alitalia was tipped over the edge into bankruptcy after its 11,000 staff rejected a 2bn cost-cutting plan

Italian flag carrier Alitalia effectively went bust in May when special commissioners were appointed to run the airline, which lost 199m in 2015 - the last year for which it has published financial results - and a total of 5.9bn over the past decade. The special commissioners have put Alitalia up for sale. Ryanair is one of a number of airlines to have submitted non-binding bids for Alitalia.

Is the bid for Alitalia an acknowledgement by Ryanair that it has grown so large that at least some of its future growth will have to come from acquisitions rather than, as has been the case up to now, being generated organically?

"It [the 200 million passengers target] will be easily met by overall growth in the market and market share wins. Ryanair is targeting Germany. It could add 20 million passengers there with another 10 million in Spain, 10 million (before Alitalia) in Italy and 15-20 million in Eastern Europe. Between organic growth and its fleet expansion programme, 200 million passengers is an achievable target", says Goodbody Stockbrokers aviation analyst Mark Simpson.

Long-time aviation-watchers will remember that this is not the first time that Alitalia has flirted with insolvency having previously gone bust in 2008. This time it was the rejection of a 2bn cost-cutting plan by Alitalia's 11,000-strong workforce that tipped the airline over the edge.

In fact, if the Italian Government had not allocated the most lucrative slots for flights between Rome's Fiumicino Airport and Milan's Linate Airport to Alitalia, where it has a de facto monopoly, it would probably have folded years ago.

So what does Ryanair see in Alitilia? Isn't it one of those over-manned, over-unionised, inefficient airlines that Michael O'Leary has spent most of his 23 years as Ryanair boss railing against? Just for good measure there is Ryanair's previous history of failed acquisitions with the EU having blocked not one but two Ryanair bids for Aer Lingus on competition grounds. Why should it be any different with Alitalia?

"There will always be an Italian solution to Alitalia", predicts Davy Stockbrokers aviation analyst Stephen Furlong.

"There could be an interim deal where there wouldn't be the competition issues that would arise if Ryanair took over the whole of Alitalia".

Furlong believes that the most likely resolution of the Alitalia saga is a break-up of the airline with a shrunken Alitalia retaining its long-haul routes and Ryanair picking up some or all of its short-haul routes. Would this give Ryanair access to some of the lucrative Fiumicino-Linate routes currently controlled by Alitalia?

Not alone would an Alitalia break-up, which hived off its short-haul routes, minimise possible competition issues, it would almost certainly have other advantages for Ryanair.

"Somebody will have to pick up the tab for Alitalia's debts and other liabilities. You can be fairly confident that somebody won't be Ryanair", predicts Davy's Furlong.

The plight of Alitalia and many other flag carriers is testament to the success of Ryanair and other low-cost carriers in completely reshaping the European aviation market.

Since 2004 the European aviation market has grown at an annual average rate of 4.2pc. However, the low-cost carriers have achieved average annual growth of 13.4pc while the flag carriers have grown at less than 1pc a year. What this means is that the low-cost carriers' share of the total market has grown from 13pc to 40pc since 2004. And the low-cost airlines' market share will continue to grow, with Furlong pointing out that they account for most of the new aircraft being delivered by manufacturers.

Ryanair is the largest of these low-cost airlines with 15pc market share. In terms of passenger numbers carried, it is now just ahead of Germany's Lufthansa as Europe's largest airline and almost six times larger than Alitalia, which last year carried just 22.6 million passengers.

In addition to its near-dominant 48pc share of the Irish aviation market, Ryanair is also the market leader in a slew of other European countries including Poland (30pc), Belgium (29pc) and Spain (19pc).

It has also overtaken Alitalia as the market leader in Italy with 28pc share. Ryanair occupies the number two slot in the UK with 18pc and is growing strongly in Germany where it currently has an 8pc share.

The only major European aviation market that Ryanair has yet to crack is France.

Driving the growth in Ryanair's passenger numbers to 200 million is a series of huge aircraft orders with Boeing. In 2013 Ryanair ordered 183 Boeing 737-800s, to be delivered during the five years to the end of March 2019.

It has followed this up with an order for 110 of the new 737-Max-200 aircraft, with options for another 100, to be delivered in the five years ended March 2024.

At list prices these orders will cost Ryanair up to a gross $36.7bn (31.3bn at current exchange rates). However, these gross figures will be significantly reduced by the discounts Ryanair receives from Boeing for ordering in bulk. Ryanair will also dispose of some of its older aircraft as the new ones are delivered.

Ryanair expects its total fleet, which stood at just under 400 aircraft at the end of June 2017, to increase to as many as 585 aircraft, including some leased planes, by the end of March 2024. Underpinning this fleet expansion are the lowest costs in the business, just 27 per passenger in the first quarter, which in turn allow Ryanair to offer passengers the lowest fares.

Ryanair's average fare in the first quarter was just 41 compared to 51 at Hungarian low-cost airline Wizz, 77 at Easyjet and 78 at Norwegian. This cost advantage will widen further when the first of the Boeing 737-Max-200s are delivered in two years time.

Not alone does the 737-Max-200 carry eight more passengers than the 737-800, 197 vs 189, it also burns 16pc less fuel per seat.

A modern efficient fleet, low costs, low fares and soaring passenger numbers. What could possibly go wrong for Ryanair?

In a word: Brexit. Ever since last year's referendum vote, the company has been issuing ever more strident warnings about the possible consequences of Britain leaving the EU without an interim aviation agreement being put in place first.

Ryanair has been one of the major beneficiaries of the EU's "open skies" policy, which allows airlines registered in one member country to fly to and between other member countries. At last week's results presentation, Ryanair chief financial officer Neil Sorahan held out the prospect of a suspension of flights between the UK and the EU in March 2019 if Brexit goes ahead without an interim agreement.

In practice it probably won't come to that. If Ryanair is excluded from the UK market it will concentrate on mainland European markets instead. This would result in fare wars erupting in those markets.

"If you are Lufthansa you could see Ryanair squeezing five years of growth in the German market into one year", says Furlong.

Air France could also be hit by a hard Brexit - London is the second-biggest route of its Dutch KLM subsidiary. The prospect of Ryanair seeking to recoup lost UK business on mainland Europe will serve as incentive to EU governments to be flexible on the aviation issue in the Brexit talks, he believes.

All of which points to some sort of interim agreement being put in place. However, time is of the essence. Airlines plan their schedules up to a year in advance.

Ignoring Brexit in the hope that something will be cobbled together at the last minute in March 2019 won't cut it. Even if passengers could somehow be persuaded to buy them, no airline would knowingly sell tickets that it wasn't sure it could honour. Ryanair and its competitors will need to have a clear indication of the likely outcome by early 2018.

A far more likely casualty of Brexit are Ryanair's three UK domestic routes, which account for less than 1pc of its total business. O'Leary held out the possibility of these being either closed or transferred to a minority-owned UK-registered company that would operate them on Ryanair's behalf.

Not even Brexit it seems can halt Ryanair's growth to 200 million passengers and beyond.
The Irish franchise holders of global footwear brand Skechers, Paul Gallagher and Sunil Shah, have warned that expansion plans have stalled.

Gallagher said that the US owners of the brand have flagged a number of concerns about the Irish retail environment.

While the uncertainty around Brexit is one issue, other concerns relate to high rental rates and increases to the minimum wage.

"We are planning another five stores across the island in the next 12 to 18 months on top of 17 stores we have already," he said. They first brought the franchise to Ireland seven years ago.

"But there is a nervousness - and it's not my view - among Skechers. They analyse each market and there is a nervousness because we can't give them an accurate three-year plan.

"If we're rolling out stores, we don't know what the labour costs are going to be," he added.

Retailers have been critical of a recent 30 cent increase in the minimum wage, bringing the wage to 9.55.

One of the complaints is that the knock-on effect will be a demand for pay increases across the board.

Gallagher said the question was being asked in the US is 'why do you have the second highest minimum wage in Europe when you don't appear to be the second most productive?'.

In relation to property costs, Gallagher claimed that footfall or shopper numbers, was down in most Irish shopping centres. He said that there was a concern that trends from the US - where shopping malls are failing - would be mirrored in Ireland.

He also criticised rent increases at a time when revenues in many chains were falling.

While the Irish expansion plans have stalled, Gallagher and Shah are expanding the franchise into other markets. He said that it was expanding in Hungary, Switzerland and Austria and weighing up a move into the Czech Republic.

Although the brand is available in larger stores, the Cork-based company would like to introduce stand-alone Skechers stores into these markets.

Gallagher said he and his business partner are in talks with other US brands with a view to bringing the franchise operations to Europe.
Sullivan's Brewing Company, based in Kilkenny, has been pulling in some international investment (as mentioned in this column last week) and one of its US backers was in Dublin last week.

John Brown, who is based in San Francisco, recalled that one of his earlier visits to the city was when he was there to announce the opening of Merrill Lynch's first operations in Dublin.

Brown, a first generation Irish-American whose father hailed from Co Mayo and mother is from Co Wexford, has held several senior roles at Merrill Lynch and UBS, including ceo and coo positions across a number of divisions.

Much of his early time with Merrill was as a trader. "The stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason," he told me. "It wasn't so much The Wolf of Wall Street but The Bonfire of the Vanities wasn't far off."

His wife, Anita Sands, hails from Drogheda in Co Louth and has quite an impressive CV herself - she is the former chief operating officer of UBS Wealth Management Americas, where she served as group managing director and head of change leadership.

Since leaving the highest levels of the US financial sector, Brown has teamed up with his wife to form Sands Point Consulting Management where they work with entrepreneurs to develop new technology ventures. Brown has invested in several tech startups and is also part-owner of a restaurant chain in New York.

He has poured $200,000 into Sullivan's, which is being backed by members of the Smithwick's family and led by Alan Quane, and said he would invest again. Smithwick's was sold to Diageo in 1965.

Brown (who sipped on a pint of Smithwick's during our lunch in the Shelbourne) has very high hopes for Sullivan's red ale. Launched 12 months ago, it is already stocked in pubs in New York, as well as several in Ireland and the company is targeting the Canadian market.

"There's revenues, a sales pipeline that's being managed and we're entering new markets," said Brown. "But the key to it is a great beer."

Wind of change at Eir with new regulatory head Healy

Eir has had a few clashes with ComReg of late and so it will fall to a new head of regulatory affairs and public policy to fight the communications groups corner.

Staff were told on Friday that Gary Healy, who is currently chief executive at the Irish Wind Energy Association, would take up the role from September.

Healy is well experienced  he was head of external relations and regulation at Vodafone and has served for five years as a non-executive Director of EirGrid. He was also head of public policy with Telefonica Ireland and director of market development with ComReg. As the incumbent, Eir must comply with a range of universal service obligations and falling foul of the telecoms watchdog can be an expensive business.

In June, Eir was fined 1.5m for breaching fault repair times, while in April it was also hit with a 3m fine. Sounds like Healys phone will be ringing off the hook.

* * * * *

We are clearly in the depths of silly season by the looks of a note circulated by a Credit Agricole analyst earlier this week.

Louis Harreau, an ECB strategist at the French bank, circulated a celebratory quiz marking five years since ECB President Mario Draghi famously said the bank would do whatever it takes to preserve the euro within its mandate, a moment Harreau calls the most important act of the Eurozone as a political union.

Analysts notes are often pretty dry affairs but Harreaus effort certainly is not. Ergo loves quizzes but we have to admit that despite the multiple-choice format we were a bit stumped by Who did (Bundesbank president) Jens Weidmann compare to Justin Bieber? and What is Mario Draghis favourite joke?

Some monetary policy experts no doubt got 23 out of 23 on the quiz. Harreaus advice to them is the following: It is our duty to inform you that there are other things in life than the ECB, but personally we have no concrete examples.

Greg Kavanaghs LinkedIn and the Limerick high-speed rail

Since parting ways with Pat Crean last year, property developer Greg Kavanagh has been making far fewer headlines.

But he has maintained an active presence on business-focused social media site LinkedIn and boasts more than 2,000 followers on the platform.

In a recent post Kavanagh mused about bulding a high-speed rail line between Dublin and Limerick  a prospect previously mooted by former Department of Finance secretary general John Moran, who happens to be a Limerick man.

Moran told an event in Limerick last year that funding could be sourced from the European Investment Bank  an organisation on whose board Moran sits.

Kavanagh reckons that, with one of these in place, you could get from Dublin to Limerick in 45 minutes or less, with similar enough times for journeys from Galway and Cork.

And it would, of course, provide plenty of opportunity for those in the building trade.

* * * * *

Remember UTV? It may be gone from most TV screens in the Republic, but I see new owner ITV is investing in the business in Northern Ireland.

It has just appointed engineers to fit out the new UTV studios at City Quays 2 at Belfast Harbour Estate.

According to local reports, the new facility will involve a multi-million pound investment by ITV.

UTV will vacate its Havelock House premises on the Ormeau Road after nearly 60 years. The work, starting next month, should take 16 weeks and will be complete with all broadcasting mod cons such as HD studio and the latest in editing technology.

Terry Brennan, head of news and programmes at UTV, said: By the summer of 2018, UTV will be broadcasting from one of the most modern news centres in Europe.

TV3 has also recently upgraded studios and technology, so little wonder that RTE is pining for some capital investment in facilities after its redundancy programme and restructuring is completed.
The Grenfell fire tragedy could now see an investigation for corporate manslaughter AFP/Getty

An estimated 80 people were killed in the Grenfell tower block fire last month in London. The local authority and the tower management organisation have now been identified as suspects in an investigation for corporate manslaughter.

It is unlikely that this offence could be prosecuted in Ireland if a similar disaster happened here, because successive Irish governments have consistently refused to legislate for corporate manslaughter.

This lacuna exists despite the Irish Law Reform Commission noting in its 2005 Report that the existing law in the area was inadequate. It appended draft legislation on corporate killing to its report but it was never enacted.

By contrast, the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 in the UK created a new homicide offence a decade ago.

This is even broader in scope than the more modest proposals advanced in Ireland, because the UK offence can be committed not only by companies, but also governmental bodies and public bodies.

Curiously, the failure of successive Irish governments to legislate for this crime is not for lack of parliamentary interest.

Various attempts were made to deal with this offence in the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2001; via an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill 2004 which was ruled out of order; the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2007; the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2011; the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2013; and the Corporate Manslaughter Bill 2016.

Remarkably, some of these initiatives were produced as private members bills by members of the opposition who subsequently did not think fit to secure this legislation while in government.

The failure to introduce legislation is also not for a lack of suitable cases.

In fact, the failure to address corporate homicide has a long trajectory in Ireland. On January 7, 1979, 50 people were killed when an oil tanker, the Betelgeuse, exploded while discharging fuel in Bantry Bay, Co Cork. It was the highest number of people to be killed in a single incident in the history of the State.

The Costello Inquiry subsequently concluded that the owners of the oil terminal had failed in numerous ways to maintain adequate safety measures, and that had even some of these deficiencies been remedied, then "the lives of the jetty crew and those on board the vessel would have been saved".

The company that owned the ship had also failed to adequately maintain it, ostensibly "for reasons of economy".

In other words, adequate safety conditions for employees were not a financially sound investment for the company.

This is not an isolated case. The inquiries into the train crashes in Buttevant in 1980 and subsequently in Cherryville in 1983 also revealed that 25 people were killed and 125 people were injured when adequate safety precautions and procedures had not been implemented.

Similarly, 48 people died and 214 were injured as a result of the fire in the Stardust disco in 1981 when fire safety laws were breached. However, no one was ever charged with any offences.

Instead, public inquiries remained the standard response to potentially criminal and quasi-criminal instances of wrongdoing in the public and private sector.

Of course, corporate homicide is not merely historical. The issue assumes modern resonance when it is considered that there are almost as many workplace deaths as there are homicides in Ireland.

Nevertheless, while there is at least some possibility that a violent assailant will be caught, prosecuted and convicted, there has never been a prosecution for corporate manslaughter in Ireland. This is likely to remain the case unless legislation is enacted.

If the State continues to drag its feet in this area, justice delayed may be justice denied.

Dr Joe McGrath is law lecturer at UCD and the author of Corporate and White Collar Crime in Ireland: A New Architecture of Regulatory Enforcement (Manchester University Press).
'We need to be able to compete for talent and tax is a protagonist in this economic war and there will be winners and losers' (stock image)

The soundtrack to Jackie Chan's movie Rush Hour includes Edwin Starr's "War, what is it good for, absolutely nothing, say it again" Granted Starr was singing about a very different conflict. Right now there is a war for talent and in business few things speak louder than money. Culture may eat strategy for breakfast, but talent ensures that there's a strategy-hungry culture in the first place. No talent, no nothing.

We need to be able to compete for talent and tax is a protagonist in this economic war and there will be winners and losers. We need to make sure we are the former when enticing businesses here.

This was recognised by the European Commission's July economic brief on personal income tax for Ireland where it spoke, among other things, about the future of the Universal Social Charge (USC).

The paper refers to the USC as a "purposeful, but unloved tax". I've been working in tax for a long time and I've yet to see a "loved tax" unless the word "refund" is attached but I don't think that's what the EU commission was getting at.

It's now understood that USC may morph into PRSI so we may see different types of tax payable on income shrink but unless the effective rate decreases then it's a case of so what?

The bottom line is cash in employees' hands and that's where the marginal rate (or the highest rate payable by the person on their income) matters.

The EU brief notes that "single earners in Ireland face among the highest marginal tax rates in the EU [and] a very high marginal tax rate in Ireland is reached at a relatively low point in the income distribution ... while marginal tax rates for couples at the average wage (with or without children) remain below the EU21-OECD average, they sharply increase with income". So it's official, we have a rate problem - and it's one that the Government has said it will look at.

But why not add to this? Why not try to change how people are remunerated as well as taxed so as to reduce employers' costs while increasing employee benefits.

Share-based remuneration has long proven to be an effective tool for rewarding employees and a new share SME scheme was referenced in last year's budget which would be subject to State Aid approval.

Such regimes can incentivise employees as the performance of their company impacts their return and the value of any shares they hold.

I mention this because of Sweden's very recent (June) and good State Aid story; good because the EU gave the green light for its proposed tax effective share-based remuneration regime saying that it wasn't an unacceptable State Aid.

The response from the EU authorities said that the Swedish "Employee share tax regime" is designed to enable "young and small companies" to recruit and retain the key employees they need to achieve their growth potential.

It continues that such companies often do not have enough capital or financial resources to offer/pay a market wage, which makes it difficult for them to attract and retain key talented or skilled personnel crucial for the company to develop innovative ideas and expand their businesses. Currently an employee who is granted a share option is deemed to receive a taxable benefit at the time the option is exercised.

Our law operates similarly and this up-front tax charge must be self-funded by the employee and can act as a disincentive if he or she doesn't have the cash flow at that time.

The newly approved Swedish system ensures that the employee will be taxed at a later point in time, being the sale of the shares, ie exercising a share option is not considered taxable remuneration.

When selling the shares, the employee will be taxed at a lower tax rate on the difference between the income realised from the sale of shares and the total price paid for them at the exercise date. The employer will not have to pay any social security contributions on the value of this benefit.

Indeed, the UK has a similar regime in its Enterprise Management Incentive which is designed to help small, higher-risk companies recruit and retain employees who have the skills to help them grow and succeed albeit higher limits apply. There's a common theme here.

The incentive applies to companies that have fewer than 250 employees and gross assets not exceeding 30m.

Coming back home and as noted earlier, the former Minister for Finance indicated his intention as part of last year's budget to develop a new, SME-focused share-based incentive scheme to be introduced in Budget 2018. This intention was referenced in the Government's recent Summer Economic Statement by the current minister - so game faces people.

In the past, certain aspects of our law looking at tax implications for SMEs referenced companies employing fewer than 250 persons with an annual turnover not exceeding 50m, and/or an annual balance sheet total not exceeding 43m.

This would appear an appropriate template although it would of course be preferable if it could be extended to larger companies.

Daryl Hanberry, tax partner, and I responded to the Government's consultation on share-based remuneration around this time last year.

We noted that the tax treatment of share awards imposed an immediate charge on the employees when the shares are vested or the options are exercised. One of our recommendations was that any tax due on share awards should be deferred until the shares have been disposed of, or for a fixed period of time.

This mechanism isn't a million miles from what the Swedes suggested to the EU in their State Aid application in December 2016.

Budget 2018 is fast approaching. Right now we are in harm's way in the war for talent, business and investment. In such a war, unlike that mentioned by Starr, there are winners and losers and we need to be the former.

It's timely that I'm writing this piece in July because to paraphrase Bill Pullman in the original Independence Day movie from the nineties: Will Budget 2018 be the one where "we declare in one voice, we will not go quietly into the night, we will not vanish without a fight, we're gonna live on" to change how we tax and remunerate work and reap the benefits for all?

Tom Maguire is a tax partner in Deloitte and current author of Irish Income Tax
Two of the greatest ever Morning Ireland interrogators - Cathal MacCoille and David Hanley - had very different sitting postures.

David squeezed himself into his chair, sat motionless and always stared at his interviewee like a cat eyeing a half-minced mouse. Cathal could never sit still. He was probably more of a stool-man than a chair-man so his chair would be raised, with his buttocks barely on the edge of the seat and his legs straight to the floor.

Directions from the control room were responded to by Cathal with the most overt and dramatic hand signals. In this half- standing, half-sitting position, he was fully primed, ever ready to bolt.

He spent as much time out of the studio as in it, checking something with the editor or running all the way back to his desk in the newsroom, in those days, about 300 metres away. He was an early adopter, if not the inventor, of Just In Time Delivery as he was always back in studio, just, placing his posterior on his seat as the politician being interviewed by David expired.

In the Eighties, slaying politicians and all too frequently breaking the news of sectarian murders overnight, of how a father was shot in front of his screaming children, were very serious and grave matters. So, when the very rare fit of the giggles caught us unaware, we laughed uncontrollably.

There had been a dodgy chair in the studio for weeks. In those early years, it wasn't actually a studio, it was a news booth and somehow they had squeezed four chairs into it.

At 9.13am 'Just in Time' Cathal arrived back in the studio. Back then Morning Ireland ran from 8am to 9.15am. There was always only one of the two presenters there at this time for the closing of the programme and that morning on the running order, Cathal was to sign off. However, David was still in his seat, engrossed in yet another crossword.

I was opposite David in the chair with my back to the control room dutifully reading the last minute of a What It Says In The Papers script. There was no room for Cathal to squeeze by either of us to get to the chair on my right. I could now peripherally see him pulling the chair from the far corner into the desk. Minutes earlier, I had just pushed that chair away because it had finally broken.

Though I tried hard to concentrate on my script, Cathal was now in full propeller mode responding to, and clearly not understanding, David's sign language, trying to warn him. I dropped my pace and slowed my final sentences in the hope that David would have time to gesticulate to Cathal not to use that chair. But the man was on a mission and the chair unfortunately held together as he dragged it to the desk just as I finished and Cathal's red light went on.

But as soon as he put his full weight on the chair it totally collapsed and crashed. Cathal's chin loudly hit the edge of the desk before he hit the floor - and though he was one of the greatest, calmest broadcasters, David, to the rescue, trying to stifle the giggles, chuckled a "that's all from Morning Ireland" and was doing surprisingly well when Cathal, in true 'the show must go on spirit', raised his head above the desk to join David in the sign-off and in that moment we all burst out laughing uncontrollably.

We only recovered after RTE Radio 1 control sensibly took us off air and it was halfway through Tico's Theme, the music intro' to The Gay Byrne Show, before we recovered. Just then boss Kevin Healy appeared and exasperatedly asked "what would listeners have made of that?" It wasn't disrespect but inexplicably this caused us all further convulsions of laughter and even Mr Healy smiled.

I will sorely miss Cathal as I still do David. Some interviewers cut through the guest's waffle by bluster but Cathal's style was a calm, forthright, intellectual analysis of your position. We listeners will be without the tightest interviewer RTE has produced.

By 'tightest' I mean, listen to any MacCoille interview and there will be zero superfluous words and actually a lot less interruptions than in most other broadcast interviews.

He is the master of sharp interviewing, chess-like computing your next answer and asking the subsequent question, thus getting double the value and doubling the pressure from his question. Classic MacCoille, "but surely Minister if you do X won't the consequence be Y?" The truth is outed because Cathal has quietly and deftly outmanoeuvred the interviewee because he is the faster thinker.

His secret weapon is pace of thought, rather than tempo of talk as it is with most interviewers.

That such a talent is retired off because a German chancellor, Bismarck, back in the 1800s picked 65 as the age to retire is, just, silly! Cathal was good for another 10 years but I know too he deserves to finally escape the tyranny of the alarm clock. Thank you, sir, for all the years of great listening.
A flurry of foreign investors spending big on small properties is fuelling rapid bidding wars and price growth in Dublin's plush, leafy suburbs.

The price rises saw a townhouse in the 'Embassy Belt' area of Ballsbridge break the 1,000-per-square-foot threshold when it sold last week for more than 1m.

A 19th-century cottage nearby sold for 605,000, more than 100,000 above the asking price, after a three-week bidding war.

Experts have warned house prices will continue to grow robustly for another three years and expect a 12pc rise nationally by Christmas 2018.

Glenn Burrell, associate director at Finnegan Menton property consultants, said price increases were being fuelled because supply could not keep up with demand. He warned this upward trend would continue, with very few new homes coming to the market.

"There is a lot of talk about supply but no action. There are not that many houses being built and it is a perfect storm. It is not too long ago since people were talking about knocking down houses and ghost estates in Ireland.

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"This is the start of a property cycle. Roughly, they go for seven to 10 years - from boom to bust. This is the start of a new one. Will it crash again? Inevitably - but this looks like the start of something new."

Selling at 1.075m, Church Mews on Elgin Road cost 1,064 per sq ft when it was snapped up by a foreign-based cash buyer. It is located in one of Dublin's most affluent addresses, with neighbours including the American, Belgian, Turkish and Ukrainian embassies. A smaller cottage nearby, just off Northumberland Road, was sold after 22 bids were lodged over three weeks. Seven would-be buyers lost out after another foreign-based cash buyer eventually walked away with the keys. Renovations will see another 200,000 spent on it before the buyers move in.

"With the currency fluctuation, many people are looking to come back when they can get more bang for their buck," said Mr Burrell. "Many of them are selling in London for cash and coming back here as cash buyers."

Recent data from the Central Statistics office shows prices for Dublin residential property have increased 72.5pc since 2013. This compares to a 50.2pc increase in the same period for the rest of the country.

Savills' director of research John McCartney said despite the homes selling in "the most prime address in Ireland", the bidding frenzy and cost of the properties demonstrated a dysfunctional market. "This is pretty spectacular growth and spectacular movement from the opening of that auction until the hammer finally fell," he said.

"I don't think it is particularly healthy for the economy or for society but that is not to say these trends will not be sustainable for a significant period into the future.

"When you look at the barriers to addressing the supply shortage, there is reason to think property prices will continue to rise rapidly for the next three or four years."
Orla McCabe, director of sales and marketing, and Dee Nix, general manager, at The Killashee House Hotel in Naas, Co Kildare. Photo: Tony Gavin

From The Wild Atlantic Way to Ireland's Ancient East, Failte Ireland has created wonderful stories to make Ireland a memorable destination for tourists and staycationers. This has presented opportunities for almost every hotel, B&B, restaurant and pub in Ireland to grow sales.

Killashee House Hotel on the Naas to Kilcullen Road is one hotel that stands out from the crowd. For a period in its long history it was home to the La Sante Order of Nuns and is now one of the most reputable destinations in Ireland.

When the market rebounded after the downturn, Killashee came out of the traps with a very strong proposition. With a level of service more like a five-star hotel, Killashee is a four-star hotel punching above its weight.

It is a diversified destination with 141 bedrooms, a flagship spa, ballroom, leisure centre and an excellent restaurant and bar. It also has a world-class conference centre that supports the needs of many international organisations, including the Kerry Group headquartered nearby.

During the tough years, hotels in Ireland needed to be very versatile. Because the market was so difficult, they fought for every guest, whether it was a tourist, business traveller, domestic guest, a wedding party, or a conference group.

But the needs of all of these customer groups vary and present challenges for any business to satisfy fully. Yet Killashee and others did to the best they could at the time.

Looking ahead, Killashee is delighted to now have a spread of customer types so as not to be totally dependant on one sector exclusively. But it also respects the value in being focused on customer segmentation. For most hotels, the margin is in accommodation, more than restaurants and bars. So any customer segment that drives overnight accommodation has to be an attraction.

Recent Challenges

Although there is a shortage of beds on the east coast, there is still a lot of competition.

When booking ahead, guests have lots of choice. The challenge therefore for any hotel is differentiation and how to stand out from the crowd in the market.

Also, while Killashee has a very effective central sales team that drives footfall to the property, the sales effort should be supported by the wider team on the ground.

How to do this in a soft, non-pushy yet effective way is an essential consideration for any business, including Killashee.

Change Tips

In discussions with Dee Nix (general manager), we focused on where practical and commercial changes have already been made.

In my work with iconic retailers like Brown Thomas, Fortnum & Mason and Selfridges, I regularly hear them talking about giving five-star service. That of course is a term borrowed unashamedly from the hospitality sector.

Those world-class retailers know that if they give customers an excellent shopping experience, it drives sales.

Yet for some reason, I have found that hotels in Ireland, UK and Middle East don't use that sales lever quite as effectively.

While service is definitely foremost in their minds and in their culture, I believe that they could maximise those strengths to drive even more revenue.

Whether a customer is spending money in a hotel, store, bank, hair salon, or wherever, they make a judgment based on the overall experience, such as the quality of the 'product', the behaviours of their 'people' and the standards of the 'place' (environment).

As with a three-legged stool, all three need attention or the experience will 'fall over'.

Killashee has made lots of improvements in all three.

Product Development

My challenge to any organisation is to ask what makes you different? What category or market segment can you 'own' in terms of being the authority on, be best at and make money doing? Killashee has cracked that by majoring in the Mice (meetings, incentives, conferences and events) market with great success.

That doesn't mean that it does not get guests from other markets such as domestic, tourists, weddings etc. It just means that the staff concentrate a lot of their attention on the in-bound conference tour operators.

They're enjoying particular success with domestic and international corporates because their facilities are tailored for that audience.

People and Sales

While the corporate Mice market is attractive, it is also quite challenging.

These client organisations are not just spending on the facilities but they are taking their executives away from the front line for a number of days.

That is a big cost to them, so they have very high expectations. Coffee at 10.30am means coffee at 10.27am. Projectors that work instantly with no fuss, fresh markers, natural daylight ... are a collection of micro details that make a big impact. Particularly if they go wrong!

But the personal touch and close attention to detail by the various managers is also critical. Being available 24/7 on WhatsApp to attend to all needs is the new normal in Killashee.

It's not just about conferencing however. There are opportunities for all hotels to drive revenue at every touchpoint, from check-in to departure - and beyond.

They might invite a guest at check-in to book a table for dinner or suggest a treatment in the spa. Restaurant and bar team members might up-sell a meal or drink.

The list goes on. But of course that requires training on how to do it nicely.

Summary

Every organisation across industry wants the same three outcomes. They want customers to buy today, to come back again and thirdly, to recommend that organisation to a friend.

My experience is that organisations which give customers a great customer experience achieve all of that. It's deeply rooted in their corporate culture.

In association with RGON, specialists in Employee Engagement Surveys www.rgon.ie
If you're targeting North America, the chances are that your digital marketing budget includes an allocation for advertising. Last year, US digital ad spending surpassed television for the first time. Fortunately, the adage about half the money in advertising being wasted - but no one knowing which half - applies less and less in the digital world. With online campaigns becoming easier to target, track and customise, a growing number of technologies can ensure your online ad spend delivers more bang for its buck.

During a Facebook earnings call in autumn 2016, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg referenced a Celebrity Cruises campaign powered by Irish company StitcherAds. Noting that the social network's new Dynamic Ads for Travel tripled Celebrity's online bookings, she said: "I think these kinds of results are made possible by more vertical-specific products, and we're going to continue to invest more here."

This type of technology allows businesses to serve unique-to-user advertisements, covering their entire product catalogue, to re-targeted website/app visitors or new audiences. It works by pulling product information direct from a feed into an ad template. StitcherAds was one of the first companies in the world to conduct feed-based advertising on Facebook. Its Dynamic Ads offering takes the concept further, helping advertisers automate, optimise and scale their campaigns to achieve a higher return.

In the Celebrity Cruises example, a pixel on the company's website tracked itineraries viewed by potential customers. Facebook advertisements then displayed available cruises, pricing, images and messaging, informed by the trips people had already viewed online. Facebook said sales from the ads brought in twice as much revenue as the cruise line's traditional, paid-search campaigns.

With results like this, greater investment in marketing technology is becoming the norm. A 2016 Gartner survey found chief marketing officers directed an average 27pc of their budgets towards technology, compared to 22pc for paid media. Another poll by Walker Sands Communications found that two-thirds of marketers expected their technology budgets to increase in 2017.

Such rapid spending growth has not been lost on Irish entrepreneurs. Five marketing technology companies were among the high-potential startups Enterprise Ireland selected for seed funding in the past year. Kong Digital, part of the startup class of 2015, offers an example of where those businesses might be headed. Clients include Universal Music Global, which uses the Irish company's marketing platform, Kongalytics, to manage over 450 of its artists' social media accounts.

It allows brands to manage, schedule and analyse all content shared across their social media platforms. Kongalytics integrates this data with online advertising in real time and tracks the impact of those campaigns on SEO performance. Kongalytics users have reported a 50pc reduction in wasted ad spend, a 10x increase in ROI and halved campaign management times.

While the latest marketing technologies differ, they're underpinned by the industry's desire to interact with consumers based more on what they do than what they're looking at.

Popdeem, another marketing-tech firm that originated in Ireland, gives businesses a plug-and-play tool for adding engaging social loyalty programs to their apps. In one case, a Kentucky-based coffee chain called Heine Brothers' Coffee rewards customers that check-in or share photos at their 14 locations.

Tempting customers with loyalty points, freebies or discounts or encouraging them to tell their friends is, of course, nothing new. The real promise of marketing in 2017 lies in the ability to deliver a promotion or a message to the exact people who will find it relevant. Soon, advertisers targeting international markets will be able to separate campaigns that work from those that are wasting money.

Sean Davis is Enterprise Ireland's Director for North America
Hundreds of Irelands young teachers are moving to the United Arab Emirates each August, as it offers better pay, working conditions and a better quality of life.

Teachers could make 1,000 more a month in Abu Dhabi on tax-free wages  all with free accommodation and medical insurance.

But not all teachers are thinking of making the move away from friends and family. Instead, other newly graduated teachers are prioritising getting a contract of indefinite duration (CID) which would secure their hours and pay.

Independent.ie spoke to five teachers about how they made their decision to stay or to go.

Primary school teacher Anne Marie Hall (34): "It's a really good way to get your foot in the door if you're not getting anything here"

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Anne Marie Hall is "back in Ireland for good" after a six year stint in Abu Dhabi.

There were so many Irish people in Abu Dhabi that it ended up feeling like a home away from home. The Irish community out there is unbelievable, such a good society and such a good GAA club. You didn't feel like you were somewhere unfamiliar.

I moved back home two years ago and I'm back for good. After six years it just happened that that was a good year to come home jobwise. There seemed to be more teaching jobs available.

"In Abu Dhabi you get such a wide range of experience, it's brilliant that way and you have loads to talk about when you come home in interviews. It's a really good way to get your foot in the door if you're not getting anything here.

Secondary school teacher Jason Hogan (28): "I have a nice lifestyle in Dublin but I can't save any money"

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Jason Hogan a metalwork teacher from Laois, is returning to the Emirates so he can save money for a mortgage in Dublin.

"I went over straight after graduating and I stayed four years. It was a no-brainer for me when I was 22. Coming out of university it's pretty daunting that you're kind of just waiting on somebody to finish their career. It was just kind of terrifying leaving college and thinking you might get four hours here and five hours there or subbing one week and having nothing the next.

Now, Ive been back two years and I've decided I'm going to stay one more year in Ireland so I'll be made permanent or CID (Contract of Indefinite Duration). CID is pretty big it's almost like being made permanent. The job security and stuff like that is huge.

Career breaks are at the discretion of the board of management but what it also does is make my position available next year and it gives new teachers or younger teachers a chance to get one-to-two years experience, so it does work out well. It feeds in, the system does come back around and create space for new teachers and they get experience and get their CV going.

My job in Ireland is really good and I really like it but it's hard getting by. Going back is definitely a financial thing. I have a nice lifestyle in Dublin but I can't save any money. I'm 28 now and I'm hoping in the next three-four years to put myself in a position where I might have a deposit for a house if that happens.

"What I could save in five or six years of really hard graft in Ireland I could save in one or two years out there. I could save 20,000 a year out there while having one or two holidays and coming home at Christmas and stuff. It's purely financial.

It's changing over there, there's way more teachers going out there now than when I first started going over. It's not as easy to get a job out there and they're being a lot more picky. So my advice would be to start the process very early and get in touch with different recruiters as early as they can.

John Macken (23): "As a new teacher were getting paid as much as most graduate programmes would be, so it's not as if we're poor in Ireland"

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John Macken moved to Dublin from Mayo after graduating and is happy to stay teaching in Ireland.

I haven't really thought about going over. I suppose the main reason I haven't gone over was I wanted to get my Dip done and out of the way. I know what the work is like here. I just get the impression that people over there are just telling you all the good things about it. I think that it can actually be quite difficult to work over there.

I'm happy here. The money isn't anything massive but it's still pretty comfortable. As a teacher coming out were getting paid as much as most graduate programmes would be so it's not as if we're poor.

There's a good bit of subbing out there for young teachers coming out. When you go to Dublin there's as much work as you could possibly do. If you can make up the rent for the first couple of months you'll be fine, you'll get loads of work.

I think a lot of newly qualified teachers panic if they don't get a job straight away. You're as well off subbing and getting known in a few schools and get a job out of that. I think people might be in a rush when they're going out to Abu Dhabi. If you want to stay in Ireland, there is work here and you will get a job. I don't know anyone from my year that didn't get a job as the year went on.

Newly married couple Declan (34) and Imelda Mc Larnon (33): "You can save up and go back for the mortgage, settle down and start a family"

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Declan and Imelda are teaching in Ajyal International School, Abu Dhabi.

"We were just married and we were trying to save for a mortgage and in a bit of a rut. So when the opportunity arose we decided to grab it with both hands. We both got granted the career break at the same time and we went over.

The break is what we needed and it gave us a whole new lease of life in terms of the teaching aspect of it. You're working with international children from a predominantly Muslim background. The different experience of working with those children is just incredible. We've learned a lot from them as they've learned about our culture. It's bringing society together and breaking down barriers and attitudes in terms of lifestyle.

Being there with my wife makes it that much easier. We're both embarking on that journey together in the early stages of our marriage. We want to have a family so we thought the best time would be to go now, travel, explore, get different experiences, and whilst there there's so many places that are far more accessible to travel to than from here.

"It's great in the short term. You can save up and go back for the mortgage, settle down and start a family. We do have definite goals. Other people might go out for the craic and spend their money but we're trying to do both. We would try and live off one wage and save the other so we're still getting those great experiences but at the same time we are saving money so we have a better lifestyle when we do come home."
A petition calling on the Minister of Justice to apologise to Brazilian woman on holiday in Ireland who was unfairly sent to Dochas prison by immigration officers has reached over 2,700 signatures.

Paloma Aparezida Silva-Carvalho (24) from Sao Paulo was travelling to visit friends in Ireland whom she had met in her work as an au pair.

She suffered a distressing 48-hour ordeal, including strip searches, while being detained by immigration officers who believed she was entering the country to work illegally.

Jane Xavier from Au Pair Rights Association Ireland has called for an apology from the Minister of Justice as well as a third-party review into how immigration cases are conducted.

Ms Xavier told RTE Radio One that this is not the first time this has happened and is not an isolated incident. She said this has also happened to people from other South American countries.

Its been happening for ages and something needs to be done, she said.

She said Palomas case has become a national story in Brazil.

I think Paloma is not a criminal. Anyone who is refused entry into a given country should not be sent to prison. She had return tickets, accommodation, money and the right to stay up to 90 days, she said.

Ms Xavier said the response to the petition has been great and has brought media attention to the issue.

She said people dont want to talk about their experiences because they are afraid of the potential consequences.

This case was really appalling. Most au pairs would be afraid of going on holidays because they are afraid of going through immigration on their way back. They will get their mobiles confiscated, they go through lots of questions. It can be quite intimidating, she said.

Every time someone comes over to visit me I would be very anxious and have butterflies in my stomach when my phone rings because Im just not sure. Irish immigration can be quite unpredictable even if you have everything right, Ms Xavier added.

Independent.ie has contacted the Department of Justice for comment.
The trial of a biker who shot dead a member of a rival motorcycle club is entering its final phase, with the jury asked to consider if the accused was acting in self-defence or seeking revenge.

Alan 'Cookie' McNamara (51), of Mountfune, Murroe, Co Limerick, has pleaded not guilty to the murder of Andrew 'AOD' O'Donoghue at Mountfune on June 20, 2015.

Over the course of the trial, the jury has heard that the accused was a member of the Caballeros motorcycle club while the deceased was a member of the rival Road Tramps club.

According to McNamara, tensions were high after he was assaulted outside a Road Tramps' pub. His waistcoat with a Caballeros patch sewn into the back was taken from him and he was punched in the face. He said three Road Tramps later came to his home and in front of his wife and children threatened to kill him and burn his house down.

The trial has opened up to scrutiny the previously veiled world of Irish bikers but for now the jury is concerned with McNamara's state of mind when he loaded a shotgun, drove to the Road Tramps' clubhouse and shot Andrew O'Donoghue.

If the jury accepts that he was acting in self-defence and used reasonable force, they must find him not guilty. If he was acting in self-defence but used unreasonable force then he is guilty of manslaughter. If the jury is satisfied that the prosecution has proven that he was not acting in self-defence and that he intended to kill or cause serious injury, then he is guilty of murder.

Closing the prosecution's case, Michael Delaney SC said the trial may have brought to mind American television dramas and Californian landscapes - but this shooting happened in Limerick and involved middle-aged Irishmen with health issues. He described the accused as a man "bent on revenge" who took the law into his own hands and murdered an innocent man.

Counsel questioned McNamara's statement that he was out of his mind with panic, telling the jurors that on that morning when he said he required four Valium to calm down, he made two phone calls to his insurance company for routine matters.

Mr Delaney said the accused saw an opportunity for retribution and went to the Road Tramps clubhouse with a loaded shotgun. McNamara told gardai that when he arrived, he saw Andrew O'Donoghue carrying what he thought was a gun - though CCTV footage showed that it was an iron bar - and so he grabbed his own gun.

Mr Delaney asked the jury why the accused man did not just keep going, and added: ""Because he saw an opportunity to shoot a Road Tramp and he wasn't going to pass that up."

The jury then heard from defence counsel Hugh Hartnett SC, who said his client was unlucky that he lived within three minutes of the Road Tramps' clubhouse, where members wanted to make him feel "unwelcome". He had been attacked by three Road Tramps and threatened by another three, one of whom was waving a gun.

Reminding the jury of the weapons found at the Road Tramps clubhouse, including firearms, bats, pick axe handles, pepper spray and knuckle dusters, he said McNamara knew what these men were capable of and rightly feared for himself and his family.

When he got a call from his stepson, who was in pursuit of a Road Tramp on the afternoon of June 20, McNamara was a "panicked and frightened man". Fear for his family, he said, led to the shooting.

The jury will return tomorrow.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar's latest intervention on Brexit is motivated by politicking for domestic purposes, the DUP has claimed.

Nigel Dodds insisted Dublin was positioning for a general election after the Fine Gael leader said Ireland will not help Britain design an economic border for Brexiteers.

The Government is unconvinced by the UK's plans to use technology to maintain the invisible land border between Northern Ireland and the Republic.

The DUP deputy leader said: "All of this can hardly be put down to inexperience. Rather, it seems to be deliberate positioning by the new team at the helm in Dublin in preparation and positioning for a coming general election.

"Dressed up as grand ideas, what's going on is pure politicking for their own domestic market. Let no one pretend otherwise.

"It's simply taking things backwards at a time when common sense co-operation between our two countries and between the Republic and Northern Ireland is what's needed."

Mr Dodds said there was already an economic border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic.

"For instance, does he (Mr Varadkar) not realise that every time you cross the border, you need to change currency?

"Or that each jurisdiction is subject to entirely different taxation and financial regimes?

"Since Enda Kenny and Charlie Flanagan departed the scene, confusion seems to be the order of the day."

Mr Varadkar also said he would try to find solutions that would "minimise the damage" to relations between Britain and Ireland, to the peace process and to trading links.
Minister Zappone: 'Ann Louise had an extraordinary sense of fearlessness that she always carried throughout her life'

Katherine Zappone has said that her life will "never be the same" following the death of her wife, Dr Ann Louise Gilligan, last month.

The Minister for Children described her heartbreak during an emotional interview with Miriam O'Callaghan on RTEs Saturday Night With Miriam last night.

Minister Zappone and Dr Gilligan were known for their activism in relation to marriage equality, with the minister famously proposing live on television following the 2015 marriage equality referendum.

Minister Zappone said that, while she was heartbroken by the death of her partner, she felt grateful for the life they shared.

She said: "Not only was I deeply in love with Ann Louise and had 36 blissful years together and supported each other in everything we did, we just had this extraordinary oneness, it was a great gift, we were very blessed.

"And it was that love that enabled us and drove us to work towards the referendum and the freedom for ourselves, as well as so many other people. So I will never be the same person."

Minister Zappone grew emotional as she described her late wifes character.

"She loved life and embraced every single moment. I know that she would want me to find a way to allow this extraordinary heartbreak I feel, and Im sure for many other people that have lost people they deeply love, because it really is physical, and to allow that to heal to the point that I can embrace and love life again.

Dr Gilligan taught at St Patricks College, Drumcondra and Dublin City University. The pair first met at Boston College in 1981, when they were both completing doctorates in theology and quickly fell in love.

"If Ann Louise were sitting here tonight she would say that the moment she met me, she was surprised by love. And I thought she was really gorgeous, she had beautiful green eyes. I had never met an Irish woman before," Minister Zappone said.

"But I suppose it was really six weeks and we had decided that we wanted to spend the rest of our lives together."

They married in 2003 in British Columbia, Canada, before embarking on a campaign for marriage equality in Ireland.

In 2006 they were involved in a landmark high court case, when they requested that their Canadian marriage be recognised by the Irish State. Though their case failed, they were active in campaigning for a referendum to amend the constitution, which ultimately passed in 2015.

Minister Zappone said the day the referendum passed was "an extraordinary moment" for the couple.

"It was the most special, joyous event for both of us," she added.

She described the illness that caused the death of her beloved wife last month.

"She had, previous to that, suffered a brain hemorrhage but recovered. She was blinded by that first hemorrhage but she was determined to recover, to heal herself, to be independent, to be creative. Part of the healing was to begin to write a book to help other people who had brain injuries and she spent a couple of years on that. And then in March of this year she had another hemorrhage," she said.

"She went into hospital and I can still remember her saying to me that day what a disappointment it was for her, because she had worked so hard to heal herself, but that she would recover again. And I said, yes you will Ann Louise. Anyhow it turned out that that was not to be."

Dr Gilligan spent the next three months in hospital, before passing away on June 14 at St Jamess Hospital.

"I wanted her to have the absolutely best moments of the last couple of weeks of her life as possible. And she was aware that she was dying. And we talked about it just once and I said Ann Louise, are you afraid to die? and she said I wasnt afraid coming into this life and I wont be afraid going out'."

"And I think that demonstrated the extraordinary sense of fearlessness that she always carried throughout her life."

A documentary about the couple will screen at the Gaze LGBT film festival at the Lighthouse Cinema, Smithfield. The festival will run from August 3-7.
Are Irish women ever going to be paid as much as their male peers?

Equal pay for equal work - The first time I heard this phrase was when I was 16-years- old. I was sitting at the back of my 5th Year Business Studies class and my teacher was drilling into us the conditions of employment that wed need to know for our Christmas exams.

I didnt really understand why she kept repeating it to us, the concept seemed like a no brainer and impossible to forget.

Six years on, Im beginning to think that maybe my teacher was sending the 20 girls that were sitting in front of her a subliminal message.

Maybe she wanted us to be aware that equal pay for equal work doesnt actually exist in Ireland and that she knew once wed leave those cosy classroom walls that wed be entering an unequal working world.

The time between me sitting in that classroom and today has mostly been a sorry memoir of mediocre working conditions. In fact, this is the first time in my life that Ive actually been paid minimum wage.

I endured endless part-time jobs in college where the employers always managed to use some small print or loop-hole to avoid paying me what I was owed.

Not forgetting the numerous unpaid internships I did to make myself more employable.

Since getting paid minimum wage has been a struggle for me, Im not surprised that the gender pay gap exists in Ireland.

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I have completed 17 years of education but somehow that still wont be enough for me to get equal pay for equal work, even though its been written in Irish law for almost 20 years.

Its downright depressing knowing that my male peers who graduated with me will more than likely earn more than me throughout our careers.

In Ireland today it doesnt seem to matter if a woman arrives in to work a half an hour before her male colleague or sacrifices her lunch hour to get a job done right, the male will still win.

Claudia Winkleman and Tess Daly are two BBC presenters who I hugely admire.

Yes, I sometimes question their outfit choices, but I never question their talent.

Whenever I watch Strictly Come Dancing I am always delighted that two strong women are at the helm of a prime TV slot every Saturday from September to Christmas.

Thats why I was shocked to discover last week that Winkleman and Dalys salaries are 450,000 and 350,000 respectively, almost 2 million lower than the highest earner Chris Evans. Now, while of course their salaries arent to be sneezed at and would be akin to winning the lottery for most people, once again we see that women are earning less.

The same story was repeated in RTE too. If large employers do not follow the basic principles of pay equality how can we expect smaller organisations to do the same? Are women just doomed when it comes to being paid equally?

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Irelands gender gap currently stands at 14.8pc, while PWC reckons that we can close the pay gap by 2032, I dont see why it cant be shut down for good right now.

By the time 2032 comes around Ill be 37-years-old and have spent 15 years in the workforce. I could be married and have children. Ill want to say to my kids that we as young women stood up and did something about the gender pay gap instead of pretending it didnt exist.

Feminism in Ireland has never been stronger but this isnt just a female issue. Non-nationals also get paid less than white males in Ireland.

What about trans-gender people? This is a gender issue after all and we cannot forget about this growing proportion of society who are in no doubt in danger of getting the short straw when it comes to pay.

The Gender Pay Gap Information Bill which was passed through the Seanad is a positive step in shutting down the gender pay gap as if passed in the Dail it will force employers to reveal the salaries that they pay each gender.

From universities to hospitals we can see that the gender pay gap is not a myth. Im calling on everyone, both male and female to protest together to banish the pay gap for once and for all and to not put it on the back burner.

If people wear jumpers and post Instagram pictures urging the government to repeal the Eighth Amendment, we should do the same in order to eradicate the gender pay gap.

Im not comparing the gender pay gap to an issue that affects a womans body, but it certainly has a huge impact on a woman. It affects her lifestyle, and mental health, from whether she can feed her children to if she can afford that weekend away or not.

As a young woman making her first tentative steps into the workforce Im frustrated that it has been nearly 30 years since Irish women rocked the cradle and voted Mary Robinson as our President and very little has changed.

In 2018 we will be celebrating the centenary of a womens right to vote, wouldnt it be nice for women, 100 years from now, to be marking 2017 as the year that the gender pay gap was stamped out in Ireland for once and for all?
Some of the pro-life campaigners at the event in Kilkenny

Pro-life activists have said they are "gravely concerned" they won't get a fair debate in the run up to the abortion referendum after gardai seized some of their campaign materials.

Gardai took posters of unborn and aborted babies from the Youth Defence Ireland demonstration on High Street in Kilkenny on July 22 after receiving complaints from the public.

Following a recommendation from the Citizen's Assembly, a referendum is set to be held next year on whether Ireland should keep the Eight Amendment, which prohibits abortion by giving equal rights to the mother and the foetus.

Youth Defence Ireland is campaigning for us to maintain the current regulations and alleges they could be discriminated against following the incident last weekend.

Spokeswoman Rebecca Roughneen said: We had just set up our Life Boards, which are 8-sided wooden boards, and are used to display pro-life information, such as the development of the preborn baby, medical facts, support helplines for women with crisis pregnancy and photographs showing the reality of abortion.

These displays are part of our educational outreach ahead of the referendum on the 8th.

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The gardai demanded that the photographs be covered up despite our letters from gardai explaining that the DPP had previously found the display to be legal.

They then returned, and to everyones shock, seized both wooden boards, and carried them to a nearby car and drove away.

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She said that the group received a lot of support from the public last weekend.

Ms Roughneen said: It was a very peaceful street event which was attracting a lot of support since the referendum is in the news so much these days, and everyone is very concerned in regard to what happened.

This has very serious implications for a free and fair debate ahead of the referendum on abortion expected in Spring.

Pro-abortion protesters were also in Kilkenny but their materials were not interfered with.

We had a lot of support from people in Kilkenny that day, with hundreds signing our pro-life petition and more signing up to the Save the 8th campaign. 

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A spokesman for An Garda Siochana explained they acted after receiving complaints about the display from people.

He said: "In response to a number of complaints from members of the public materials being displayed by a groups holding a roadshows on High Street Kilkenny on the 22/7/2017 were seized by Gardai.

"No arrests were made and the event was not being policed at the time.

"A file is being prepared for the D.P.P. who will make a determination in relation to the matter.

"An Garda Siochana fully supports and facilitates the right to peaceful protest."
A man who was sexually, physically and emotionally abused at an industrial school as a child has gone on a two-week hunger strike after he claims survivors are "ignored".

William Gorry (52) has claimed that survivors are made to feel like they should "be quiet and appreciate what they're given" by the State.

He also claims they are being failed by Caranua - a State body which gives financial support to people who were abused in residential homes to help with things like housing, education, medical needs or counselling.

There were thirteen children in William's family and he grew up near Daingean in Co Offaly, his life was turned upside down when his mother left when he was nine-years-old.

He told Independent.ie: "My parents were loving and did everything they could for us but eventually my mother just couldn't cope and left the house.

"I remember we had no running water, no electricity, my father was trying his best to keep us all together but instead of providing support the Midland Health Board took us into care."

Along with two of his brothers and three of his sisters, William was sent to Mount Carmel industrial school in Moate, Co Westmeath, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy.

He claims: "Sometimes it was okay but mostly it was Hell, I was emotionally, physically and sexually abused over the years.

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"We would get beaten by priests, lay staff and nuns who were supposed to care for us.

"We were screamed and yelled at, I was told that I was useless, stupid, blind and hopeless, nobody would love or want me.

"I was humiliated, the way I was spoken to or about. The way they spoke to my family visitors and about me to them.

"I was isolated to confined space and often punished severely.

"Many times I got slapped and boxed across the face, I remember being locked in a hot press in darkness for hours until I was bruised and blistered."



He has also spoken candidly to Independent.ie about allegedly being abused throughout his childhood by school staff, clergymen and other students.

William finished school when he was 16 but returned as he "couldn't cope with the outside world" for years of after-care and left for good when he was 20.

William, who now lives in Dublin, opened up about the devastating impact the abuse has had on his life.

He said: "It's affected me emotionally, I feel like it's stopped me from doing a lot of things and I've quite a lot of unhappiness in my life.

"I find it hard to form friendships, getting close to people and trusting them is hard, I feel like I'm always watching myself.

"I haven't been able to move on or have a life of love and happiness, it's like a tension inside of you and you're just supposed to be happy with what you have."

William has been unable to find work and survives on a blind pension as he has a severe vision impairment.

He said that he received help of over 36,000 through Caranua but is unhappy with how they are run, particularly with their CEO Mary Higgins, who referred to abuse survivors as "damaged" earlier this year.

Ms Higgins has since withdrawn her comments but William says he won't be happy until she steps down.

William said he was so hurt by her remarks that he returned his payment to them earlier this month by taking out a loan.

He said: "I find that Caranua can be judgemental to abuse survivors.

"Ms Higgins' remarks also felt too deep, yes we're damaged and even more damaged and re-abused, it brought up a lot of bad memories."

William went on hunger strike earlier this month to highlight how distressed he is with the level of support given to abuse survivors here.

He said: "I feel like you have to go through so much and I'm not able to move forward with my life.

"I've written to the Taoiseach to see if I can arrange a meeting with him about this, I haven't heard anything back and I think that shows the State doesn't care about me or survivors.

"I feel all my life I've been trapped by the State, I've been silenced and told to be grateful for what I get, people don't realise what mental torture this is.

"I feel I got forced to a point of having to go on hunger strike to show what I've been through."

He began his hunger strike on July 10 and called it off after two weeks after meeting with the Department of Education regarding his issues and suggests that survivors need to be able to meet each and to express their concerns in a safe and fair environment.

He said: "I want people to have somewhere that they feel comfortable talking about things, that would be good for them.

"I think survivors have been ignored for too long and it's about time we didn't feel gagged."

A Spokesman for Taoiseach Leo Varadkar told Independent.ie: "It's not appropriate to comment on individual cases due to client confidentiality.

"This Department has received correspondence regarding a particular case involving matters which fall under the remit of the Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection.

"The Department followed appropriate procedures and asked officials in the Department of Education and the Department of Social Protection to contact the individual concerned at the earliest opportunity.

"That contact has been made and an offer of further assistance has been made."

A representative for Caranua said that legislation "prevents Caranua discussing any details about an applicant or potential applicant with a third party without their written permission."
The deaths of three men in three separate motorcycle incidents overnight has been described as "absolutely shocking".

Three men were killed and one man left seriously injured following the three separate motorcycle accidents nationwide in just eight hours.

Two of the incidents occurred in Limerick, while one occurred in Dublin.

Limerick City Mayor Sean Lynch described the separate accidents as 'terrible' and 'absolutely shocking'.

"I want to offer my deepest sympathies to the families and everyone involved. Its terrible, absolutely shocking. There are no words that can describe that loss and tragedy. As mayor of the city my door is always open," Councillor Lynch said.

Speaking on the wider context of deaths on our roads this year, the former garda detective called for an increased presence of Gardai on our roads.

"There is a complete lack of garda visibility on our streets and people are taking risks and chances. When is the last time you saw a garda checkpoint? Our rules and regulations are not being enforced because there are no resources," Councillor Lynch added.

With the month ending tomorrow, the latest figures from An Garda Siochana show there have been 15 road deaths in July, with 92 deaths in total so far this year.

Last year, July was the worst month in terms of the sheer number of deaths on Irish roads with 21 of the 187 fatalities occurring that month.

Appeal

At around 7.30pm on Saturday evening in Limerick City a man in his 50s sustained serious injuries when his motorcycle struck a roundabout at Quinns Cross, Mungret.

He was treated at the scene by emergency services personnel and taken by Ambulance to University Hospital Limerick where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Meanwhile, a man in his 20s was seriously injured after his bike left the road at O'Malley Park in Limerick City at around 7.40pm.

He was rushed to University Hospital Limerick where he was pronounced dead a short time later.

Both scenes are closed for technical examination and gardai at Roxboro Road are investigating both incidents.

Anyone with information is asked to contact Roxboro Road Garda Station 061 214340 or the Garda Confidential Line 1800 666 111.

In the early hours of this morning, a motorcyclist in Dublin was killed and the pillion passenger was left seriously injured following a crash at 2.20am.

The incident occurred on the Old Cabra Road, Dublin 7.

The driver of the motorcycle, a man in his 30s, was pronounced dead at the scene. The passenger, a man in his 40s, was taken to the Mater Hospital, gardai confirmed.

The roadway at the scene has re-opened following an examination of the area by Garda Forensic Collision Investigators.
This building in Dublin has been repurposed as a 'family hub' for up to five homeless families to use as temporary emergency accommodation.

This Independent.ie footage shows inside the Swords centre, which is the third hub operated by homelessness charity Peter McVerry Trust.

The charity is planning to opened a fourth hub in September.

The Dublin region is set to have 19 such hubs, operated by different charities and private owners, by the end of the year.

The hubs are described as "temporary emergency accommodation" and come in response to the rising number of homeless families and the ongoing housing crisis.

"Its temporary emergency accommodation. At the end of the day we had a situation where we never had emergency accommodation designed for families because we never had homeless families. So, because we didnt have that we were pushing them into hotels and B&Bs," Head of Communications for Peter McVerry Trust, Francis Doherty, told Independent.ie.

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"Nobody wanted that and it got to the stage where it was just a huge number of people so obviously there was a response to try and do something better.

"The reason we need those is because we dont have social or affordable accommodation for people to move on to. So the best interim measure between hotel/B&B and social or affordable housing is family hubs."

Families living in the so-called hubs will have their own self-contained bedrooms and bathrooms, as well as access to shared living areas including a kitchen and dining area, large outdoor play area and picnic tables.

"This is their space. Its designed for them rather than being thrown into a hotel, living in a small room, where theres a stigma attached to what their situation is," Mr Doherty added.

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The rent charged is based on the families' ability to pay.

"Theres a standard fee, so everyone in emergency accommodation pays based on their ability to pay. We operate a policy where as a homeless provide nobody is going to be evicted if they cant pay.

"That charge is based on the fact that people have an income from social welfare and things like that and we incorporate that into a financial plan so that when they do move on to private rental accommodation its not a massive shock that theyre starting to pay out money."

The Trust also offer other services in their comprehensive support plan based on the families specific needs such as nutritional plans, financial planning, and homework help.

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"Were making sure that theyre getting everything that they should be getting from links to GPs and medical cards to transport to school."

There is a five year lease on the building from Fingal County Council.

"We sincerely hope that we dont need it as a hub for that time and there are other uses the building can be put to, be it after-care for kids coming out of the care system or something else," he added.

Mr Doherty said there is a 50-50 split on operators of the hubs between charities and private owners.

The hub has only just opened and the Trust is awaiting referrals from Fingal County Council, who provided the lease for the building.

He said one family has already taken up residence in the hub but within ten days had found a private rental solution which they will move into in two weeks.

"Were hoping families will be rapidly rehoused and were aiming to have an average stay of between 3-6 months. The bottom line is out as quick as possible. Everything is based on available housing and thats why were keeping pressure on the Minister and Department of Housing for social housing and affordable housing," he said.

"New families are presenting with homelessness all the time. The challenge is to make sure that were getting families in the hubs out to free up beds so that were not going back to relying on hotels and B&BS We dont want to get to a point where we have to open more hubs, what we want is a throughout," he added.

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Staff

He added that there are keyworkers and staff on site 24/7 to provide support and assistance to the families.

"Having private operators is less than ideal but it is probably reflective that there are only so many homelessness organisations with the capacity to continue to operate new services," he said.

"The private operators wont be able to provide the same level of support for families and I think thats the reason the Homeless Executive has asked the likes of Barnardos to come in and do drop-in supports like homework clubs. Those facilities are on the bigger end of the scale and Im sure the Homeless Executive will be closely watching any issues that arise."

Other charities operating hubs include Respond Voluntary Housing Association and Crosscare.

A representative for Respond said their two family hubs in High Park and Tallaght have the capacity for 39 families.

Brid McGrath said they have had 17 homeless families move on to their own homes already.

"The Family Hub is our humanitarian response to address the needs of homeless families in Ireland today. This is interim accommodation  with the aim that families leave Respond in a better position than when they arrived and move into homes of their own," said Respond CEO Declan Dunne.

In relation to the High Park facility, Minister for Housing Simon Coveney said it will offer a setting like a normal life.

"What this facility means is that we have a setting for families where they have a better chance to go about their daily lives with space to live and breathe, play facilities for your children, a place to sit and relax or watch television," Minister Coveney said.

"To lead something like a normal life and not be stuck on your own in a hotel room, with no on-site supports or other facilities that are available to families living in the community in their own homes, with their own front doors," he added.
A homeless woman is awoken during a raid by the Armed Response Unit of An Garda Siochana. Photo: Mark Condren

'Sorry if I woke you."

"It's okay guard," comes the reply from the homeless woman in a stairwell. She rolls her sleeping bag around herself, puts her arm around her partner. She will try to return to sleep in the wake of a noisy and disturbing raid in a north inner-city flat by the Armed Support Unit of An Garda Siochana. It's just another night in Dublin.

This new highly trained mobile team of gardai has been working in Dublin and its surrounding counties since December 2016. Based in Harcourt Street in the city centre, its specific brief is to tackle and confront serious violent incidents.

Launched by Commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan to great fanfare, the development marked a step change in how the force now deal with serious crime and vicious criminals. When first introduced, the unit was seen as an important public relations effort to deal with a growing concern about the vast increase in serious crime on our streets.

Over the course of the last six months I have accompanied this unit on several missions. At times this was tough, but the exercise provided a fascinating insight into the type of challenges and problems facing gardai.

The ASU are constantly called upon to respond to a variety of calls and incidents with speed and precision. So its members are impressively equipped with high-powered BMW and Audi cars and an arsenal of weapons. Their equipment includes hand guns, Tasers, semi-automatic machine guns, as well as ballistic vests and helmets.

For this unit, there is no typical work day. So, the job is not for the faint-hearted or inexperienced. ASU members Sergeant Paul Tallon and Garda Alan Roche are both from Dublin and have over 30 years' combined policing experience. Before joining the ASU they came through rigorous training. But both men are exceptionally experienced street cops who wear their knowledge and ability very lightly.

Each day as the shift begins, Sgt Tallon assesses the latest intelligence information and then briefs the unit about the various criminal and terrorist threats in Dublin. It's then time to check equipment and suit up. And we hit the streets.

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Before long we are moving at high speed in a flash of blue lights and sirens to the north inner city responding to a firearms call.

Weapons drawn, arms outstretched and eyes always searching, Tallon and Roche quickly make their way up the stairwell and advance cautiously to a door. They gain entry and scan the flat for any possible threat or danger.

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"Clear?"

"All clear!"

Once the area is deemed clear we are joined by uniformed gardai who quickly brief the ASU of a possible location where firearms are believed to be. Only now the follow-up investigation can safely begin.

Care and compassion

It is on our descent through the building that we encounter the homeless couple, who are treated with kindness and compassion.

Over the course of the past six months I been struck repeatedly by the care and compassion the unit collectively show to the public. It is easy for us to forget, but the unit are not just dealing with criminals. In the course of their duties they must comfort children, calm and protect people in violent domestic situations, and in a more general sense deal with distressed people who have suffered at the hands of criminals.

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It's after 11pm and the party is only starting in Temple Bar. In our car, the garda radio crackles to tell us that a man with two firearms is making his way through St Mary's Mansions, and urgent assistance is required. "Control to Romeo Sierra 34."

And we are off again.

@MarkCondren
Since its foundation, An Garda Siochana has prided itself on being an unarmed force. Throughout the intervening decades, it has come under strong pressure, both internally and externally, to arm its uniformed officers, often as a knee-jerk reaction to isolated incidents.

But successive governments and garda commissioners have resisted the calls, even during the 30-year terror campaign waged by the Provisional IRA, mostly in Northern Ireland but also resulting here in the murders of members of the garda and the Defence Forces.

The success of the garda as an organisation is due in large part to its base within the community where, despite its continuing problems in the senior ranks, it continues to enjoy public confidence that is unrivalled in most other European countries.

That is a position which is recognised by current commissioner Noirin O'Sullivan, who describes being an unarmed force as "something I am very proud of, it's a tradition and a legacy we will never give up".

But she is also aware that the garda must recognise the challenges of modern policing and draw up a commensurate response.

During the Provisionals' campaign, the armed strength of the Special Detective Unit, or Special Branch as it is more commonly known, was built up to combat the threat posed by the terrorists to the security of the state and also to dismantle the logistics network established by the IRA on this side of the Border to maintain its murderous activities in Northern Ireland, Britain and on mainland Europe.

But, even then, the presence of the local garda on the streets and byways of the nation was a key factor in providing vital intelligence on the activities of suspected terrorists and criminals as well as effecting arrests by acting as the eyes and ears of the force as part of their daily duties.

One spectacular example was provided on the morning of August 27, 1979, when Lord Louis Mountbatten, a second cousin of Queen Elizabeth, went lobster fishing on his boat, the Shadow V, in Donegal bay. He had been spending some time at his holiday home, Classiebawn Castle, in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo. But members of the Provisional IRA had planted a 50lb bomb on the boat overnight.

Prior to the bomb exploding, a local garda had set up a random checkpoint and was stopping cars when he became suspicious about the behaviour of two men. The garda summoned back-up and the two were arrested under the Offences Against the State Act. The two were in garda custody when the bomb destroyed the boat, killing Lord Mountbatten and three others.

One of the suspects, Tommy McMahon, was later convicted by the Special Criminal Court as a result of forensic evidence and sentenced to life imprisonment, but was released after 19 years under the Good Friday Agreement. After the IRA ceasefire, the plan was to reduce the Special Branch focus on terrorism and deploy more personnel to tackle organised crime.

But the growth of dissident republican groups forced a rethink.

Since then, the New IRA has emerged as the most dangerous dissident group since the ceasefire, and there is the worldwide jihadi threat. Although the likelihood of an attack here is regarded as low, has meant that branch resources have had to be augmented again.

In the meantime, the eruption of bloody warfare on our streets over the past 18 months as a result of the gangland feud between the Kinahan and Hutch factions meant an urgent review of the specialist units with the firepower capable of confronting the gangs.

The resources of the force's elite armed squad, the Emergency Response Unit, were overstretched despite the establishment of regional support units throughout the country to reduce their national workload.

Dynamic capability

Last summer the garda authorities held a competition, which attracted applications from more than 500 gardai and sergeants, to fill positions in a new 55-strong Armed Support Unit (ASU) for the capital. Its strength has since been increased to 75.

Its aim is to provide a new "dynamic capability" to the force to tackle the gangs and confront criminal as well as terrorist threats.

This unit has been allocated a fleet of high-powered Audi Q7 Quattro and BMW 530 estate vehicles, and its armoury includes HK MP7 personal defence weapons and Sig pistols as well as less than lethal weapons such as Tasers and pepper sprays.

Officers are also supplied with breaching equipment, ballistic shields and medical bags, including defibrillators, and are trained as emergency first responders.

The ASU, on the streets since mid-December, has already been involved in more than 1,500 incidents and assisted in 176 planned searches.

Similar ASUs will be operating by the end of the year with bases in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Waterford, Dundalk, Mullingar, Cahir, Claremorris and Ballyshannon.

The Special Crime Task Force, which was set up last July, operates under the strategic control of the Drugs and Organised Crime Bureau and together they have saved around 20 lives as a result of interceptions and interventions, mainly directed against members of the feuding gangs.

As a result of the creation of new armed units, the garda authorities are now establishing a national firearms command to oversee their activities and co-ordinate their deployment.

Similar command centres operate within London's Metropolitan Police as well as forces in some other European capitals.
The Narbonne coast may not be chic, but it is both beautiful and historic says Frank Coughlan. Try it as an alternative to the Cote dAzur

Set the Mood

The South of France conjures up images of skinny Vogue models and their pretty sculpted BFs promenading among the yachts and posh villas of Cannes and Nice. But if you dip your toe in the Med further west, you will actually find Frenchmen with farmer tans and women who look like nature originally designed.

That is how it is on the silver-sanded coast along and beyond Narbonne Plage, where families from Languedoc weekend and holiday without too much fuss or conspicuous displays of, well, Frenchness. But there is more to this secret Riviera than endless beach and blue skies that deliver what they promise. This region has a storybook history too, marinated in medieval tales of heresy witch-hunts and bloody crusades. The imposing castles are still there to prove it.

Guilty Pleasure

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We had a very nice but pricey lunch with friends in Dun Laoghaire on the day before departure and we found it hard to find anything as expensive when eating out in France.

We weren't looking for Michelin stars over the door, but we didn't eat in creperies or pizzerias either. We did bow out, however, with a wonderful meal in La Voile Blanche, a chic retro seaside shack at Les Aygades which was a gentle cycle from where we were staying.

The seafood BBQ was truly mouthwatering and it was accompanied by a glorious local vin blanc with the unfortunate name of La Clape. If they did doggy bags for memories, I'd have asked for one.

Cheap Kick

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We spent four nights in Carcassonne, a charming, if surprisingly, sleepy town which is dominated by Le Cite, the old fortress sitting imperiously above the River Aude (above).

The second most visited tourist attraction in France after the Eiffel Tower, this UNESCO World Heritage site is Mont Saint-Michel with attitude. Spellbinding.

On the fifth day, we boarded a SNCF for a 30 minute journey to Narbonne and then bused on the 11km to the coastal resort of Gruissan. We had taken the calculated risk of renting an Airbnb in both and our faith was rewarded with two charming homes averaging 65 per night.

Top Tip

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We hired two bicycles at 50 each for a week. Our ambitions were modest but we cycled as far as the iconic chalets where that raunchy classic Betty Blue was shot in 1986, on the far side of the old fishing port, to the thriving prom resort of St Pierre sur Mer beyond Narbonne Plage on the other.

This involved lazily peddling down dusty country lanes, skirting vineyards and freewheeling along seaside cycle paths. Bliss.

Glitches

The mercury soared to an unseasonal mid-30s Celsius in Gruissan (we had expected high 20s), and while our little seaside home with its shaded patio and quirky art collection was everything the photos suggested it would be, it did not have air-con.

The nights were sticky and the buzzards more than inquisitive. But we were a short stroll from a beautiful swimmers' beach, so we lived with it. You learn, though. Once bitten

Get me there

We flew with Ryanair (ryanair.com) from Dublin and return flights for both of us totalled 297. Our train tickets from Carcassonne to Narbonne were 13.20 each (single) and the 11km bus ride out to the coast was a whopping 1.40 each. Sacre bleu!

For more tourist info, see narbonne-tourism.co.uk.

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Gene Kerrigan Opinion Fr Sean Sheehy is the voice of Irelands dead and unmourned past

At first, it seemed a bit mad. A bishop and a priest squaring up for a bout of ecclesiastical fisticuffs. A turbulent priest in Listowel, Co Kerry, took to the altar and spouted out of him about gays, contraception, abortion and transgender matters. He left us in no doubt that he alone has the courage to denounce this sinful carry-on.
It was Sherlock Holmes who, investigating a tricky case, drew attention to the "curious incident of the dog in the night time".

"The dog did no thing in the night time," he was informed.

"That," Holmes replied, "was the curious incident."

It wouldn't take a great detective to figure out the mystery of why RTE was equally tight-lipped all last week about one of the biggest stories of recent days. It's because that story concerns itself.

Since the near simultaneous publications of the RTE and BBC annual reports a couple of weeks ago, the subject of presenters' pay has attracted a huge amount of comment, both for the inflated salaries being paid to certain individuals, and because of the disparity between the wages of male and female members of staff.

Two thirds of those earning more than 150,000 at the BBC are men, with the highest paid man, Radio 2 presenter Chris Evans (2.2m-2.49m), taking home more than four times as much as the highest paid woman, Strictly Come Dancing host Claudia Winkleman (450,000-499,999)

Similarly, only two of the 10 highest earners at RTE in 2014 (the last year for which figures are available) were women, namely Marian Finucane and Miriam O'Callaghan.

This disparity, decades after the passing of equal pay legislation, has still not been adequately explained, but it's certainly a stretch to imagine that the market rate for some of the male names on the rich list is really that much higher than that of female colleagues who didn't make it into the top 10.

RTE has promised to unveil the results of a review of the gender pay gap across the organisation. Its findings will be eagerly awaited, not least by Sharon Ni Bheolain - who confirmed to the Sunday Independent's Niamh Horan last weekend that she has at times earned up to 80,000 less than her Six One News co-anchor Bryan Dobson, and that her salary is "still considerably less" - and Martina Fitzgerald, the station's political correspondent, who also broke ranks last week to demand more transparency.

The implicit criticism of their own employer by two such high profile women in the media would be big news in any week, but one would scarcely think that it was an issue at all by listening to RTE radio over the past seven days.

The vow of silence began on Sunday's Marian Finucane Show on Radio One, where Marian herself (recipient of a 295,000 salary, according to those 2014 figures) could be heard talking to panellist George Lee, RTE's agriculture and environment correspondent (179,031 in 2014), about the big news stories of the day.

Both found plenty of time to express scepticism at a Sunday Independent poll revealing that Irish voters now want tax cuts. The panel also discussed at length which plastic bottles can be recycled. But on a story which was generating column inches across the print media? Tumbleweed. Part of the headline was read out but that was all.

Had word come down from on high that the subject of RTE wages was not to be discussed? Had an element of self-censorship kicked in? Or really was it just too boring? Whatever the reason, it's a pattern which was to continue all week.

News At One and Drivetime did both carry isolated new items on Monday about the row in RTE, but Morning Ireland, which is supposed to be the country's foremost radio news show, with more than 400,000 listeners a day, did not follow suit. Aside from a few passing mentions in the regular What It Says In The Papers segment, RTE's woes went unremarked.

If coverage on news programmes was notable by its absence, the silence on shows devoted to comment and analysis was even more pronounced. Today With Sean O'Rourke, home of the fourth highest paid presenter in 2014 (O'Rourke's salary back then was a hardly negligible 290,096), did not deem the story worthy of discussion on Monday at all.

On Tuesday, it seemed that the stopper would finally be pulled out of this particular bottle, as the subject of pay disparity did come up for debate; but aside from a cursory introductory reference to RTE, the item concentrated mainly on whether all companies should be forced to publish details of gender differentials in pay.

A trade unionist and business leader battled that one out. It was another opportunity missed.

It wasn't until Friday morning's regular "Gathering" slot that the mid-morning show finally acknowledged the story that dare not speak its name. "I've been on to Gary Lineker [the BBC's second highest earner (1.75m-1.799m)], he's lent me his tin helmet, we're going into dangerous territory," chuckled O'Rourke.

In the event, it wasn't that dangerous. Sean even prefaced the discussion by wondering whether there'd be all this fuss about gender equality if Niamh Horan had interviewed Prime Time's David McCullagh last weekend and he'd revealed that he was earning half as much as Miriam O'Callaghan.

He then added: "I checked upstairs. I don't think management accepts that there is necessarily a gender pay gap."

It was left to Ingrid Miley, RTE's industry and employment correspondent, to pick her way carefully through the minefield.

"I'm not here to speak for RTE," she began by saying, "I'm not here to speak for myself as a staff member of RTE, and I'm not here to speak for the staff of RTE."

She then outlined the difficulties of making accurate salary comparisons; but the week as a whole did little to correct the impression that RTE would rather leave this particular story well alone.

A National Union of Journalists meeting at RTE midweek also heard from one presenter who claimed she had been barred from speaking to the media about contentious pay issues. However RTE has denied that any presenter was barred from speaking but the NUJ has called for an "atmosphere of openness".

Even Liveline, which would have provided the perfect chance to throw the phone lines open and let listeners sound off about presenters' pay, thereby allowing RTE to cover its back from criticism, didn't, in fact, cover the topic. When Liveline has been challenged for not featuring certain stories in the past, the answer is invariably that the show can only deal with issues which the listeners themselves have raised. If there are no calls, then a story, however important, can't be covered. So despite the massive public debate, it is amazing that no one or not enough people called in all week to talk about RTE salaries?

One would have thought this was an issue on which licence fee payers would have strong views, one way or another. If they're not airing them on a station that they pay for directly, what does public service broadcasting mean?

No organisation likes its dirty laundry to be washed publicly. The issue is obviously awkward for RTE, not least because the presenters covering the story may themselves be central players in it. But that doesn't make the lack of accountability any less troubling.

When Stephen Nolan of Radio Ulster came under fire after his name appeared on a list of the BBC's top 10 earners, he solved the problem by allowing himself to be quizzed on his own show by an independent interviewer.

Similarly imaginative solutions may have to be found when RTE publishes its latest list of top earners in the next couple of weeks.

Ignoring the story and hoping it goes away not only erodes respect for RTE's impartiality, it's also bad business. Everyone else is talking about salaries. RTE should be too.
The UKs plan to replace all petrol and diesel cars with electric-powered vehicles by 2040 focused attention on our own puny efforts in this regard  about 400 electric vehicles sold here last year out of a total of about 150,000 new cars. Photo: PA Wire

The environment is everyone's concern. And like most things that are everyone's concern, it can often appear to be the concern of no-one. And then along comes a week like the one just gone where the headlines are dominated by tales of what we are doing to mess up the world in which we live, whether through unsatisfactory waste disposal, harmful emissions, or our totally irresponsible attitude towards the precious resource that is a dependable supply of clean water.

Suddenly it is easier to see how many issues are connected.

Earlier this summer, the Government moved to defuse the bin charges controversy by deferring price hikes, but there is a touch of desperation here, perhaps influenced by how easily something like this can be hijacked on to the streets by a vocal minority. And it looks like it will not work.

The UK's plan to replace all petrol and diesel cars with electric-powered vehicles by 2040 focused attention on our own puny efforts in this regard - about 400 electric vehicles sold here last year out of a total of about 150,000 new cars. Last week the Government launched a five-year national mitigation plan to tackle climate change. And indeed switching transport, both public and private, to electricity is desirable so long as we answer the hard questions - like where does the electricity come from? If it is powered by carbon fuels, what is the point?

John FitzGerald, chair of the Government's Climate Change Advisory Council, told us that already emissions in 2020 will be 15-20pc over target, and unless we see serious decisions and plans for action, we will still be a net contributor to the problems of climate change in 2050.

But it was the water debacle in Louth/Meath that really ought to have focused our minds. It reminded us that doing away with water charges was not the end of this sorry saga. We still have an antiquated system, with a 50pc leakage rate and miles of pipes throughout the country ready to disintegrate at any moment. Our water mains, sewerage pipes and water treatment plants are in such a state of disrepair, they need speedy remedial work. Irish Water reckons it needs to spend 5.5bn up to 2021, but where is the money to come from? It could have come from water charges but there was a popular revolt by those who pay little or no tax and so won't be affected if it comes out of general taxation. They made a lot of noise on the streets and first Sinn Fein and then Fianna Fail lost their nerve. So now the minister responsible, Eoghan Murphy, will have to go to his fellow Cabinet members and make a pitch in the annual Estimates. He will be competing for scarce resources against, for example, the Minister for Health pleading for the sick and the dying and the Minister for Justice needing to protect us from rapists and murderers. He will need a compelling argument.

Water charges are a "political dead cat" right now, according to the former Minister for Finance, Michael Noonan. But then Mr Noonan is now a kind of "political dead cat" himself and it may be time for a bit of a rethink. Could it be that that populist rush to abolish water charges was our Brexit? And when the ordinary people of this country have time to think rationally about the consequences of that decision, they might come to a different view?

In 2011, the then UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, said: "The imperative of the 21st Century (is) saving our planet, lifting people out of poverty, advancing economic growth - they are one and the same fight. We must connect the dots between climate change, water scarcity, energy shortages, global health, food security and women's empowerment" - another issue that arose last week - "The solution to one problem must be a solution for all." He was right. All these issues are connected.

And they are the concern of us all. We need the vision to see that, and the courage to implement the solutions.
I am going through a personal crisis. I used to love reading. I am writing this blog in my office, surrounded by 27 tall bookcases laden with 5,000 books. Over the years I have read them, marked them up and recorded the annotations in a computer database for potential references in my writing. To a large degree, they have formed my professional and spiritual life.

Books help define who I am. They have ushered me on a journey of faith, have introduced me to the wonders of science and the natural world, have informed me about issues such as justice and race. More importantly, they have been a source of delight and adventure and beauty, opening windows to a reality I would not otherwise know.

My crisis consists in the fact that I am describing my past, not my present. I used to read three books a week. One year I devoted an evening each week to read all of Shakespeare's plays (OK, due to interruptions it actually took me two years). Another year I read the major works of Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. But I am reading many fewer books these days, and even fewer of the kinds of books that require hard work. The internet and social media have trained my brain to read a paragraph or two, and then start looking around. When I start to read an online article, after a few paragraphs I glance over at the slide bar to judge the article's length. My mind strays, and I find myself clicking on the sidebars and the underlined links. Soon I'm over at some news site reading Donald Trump's latest tweets and details of the latest terrorist attack, or perhaps checking tomorrow's weather.

Worse, I fall prey to the little boxes that tell me, "If you like this article, you'll also like..." Or I glance at the bottom of the screen and scan the teasers for more engaging tidbits - like '30 Amish facts that'll make your skin crawl' or 'Top 10 celebrity wardrobe malfunctions' or 'Supermarket cameras captured these hilarious photos'. A dozen or more clicks later I have lost interest in the original article.

Neuroscientists have an explanation for this phenomenon. When we learn something quick and new, we get a dopamine rush; functional-MRI brain scans show the brain's pleasure centres lighting up. In a famous experiment, rats keep pressing a lever to get that dopamine rush, choosing it over food or sex. In humans, emails also satisfy that pleasure centre, as do Twitter and Instagram and Snapchat.

Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows analyses the phenomenon, and its subtitle says it all: 'What the internet is doing to our brains'. Carr spells out that most people - and young people especially - are showing a precipitous decline in the amount of time spent reading.

He says, "Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip along the surface like a guy on a jet ski."

A 2015 Nielsen report calculated that the average Irish person devotes three hours and 28 minutes each day to watching TV. That doesn't include time spent watching DVDs, online catch-up players or services like Netflix. I fear to think how much time is spent online - but you can be sure it's only going one way.

And that all leaves little time for the much harder work of focused concentration on reading.

In The Gutenberg Elegies, Sven Birkerts laments the loss of "deep reading," which requires intense concentration, a conscious lowering of the gates of perception, and a slower pace.

His book hit me with the force of conviction. I keep putting off Charles Taylor's A Secular Age, and look at my shelf full of Jurgen Moltmann's theology books with a feeling of nostalgia - why am I not reading books like that now?

An article in Business Insider studied such pioneers as Elon Musk, Oprah Winfrey, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg. Most of them have in common a practice the author calls the "five-hour rule": They set aside at least an hour a day (or five hours a week) for deliberate learning. For example:

Bill Gates reads 50 books a year. Mark Zuckerberg reads at least one book every two weeks. Elon Musk grew up reading two books a day. Mark Cuban reads for more than three hours every day. Arthur Blank, a co-founder of US retail giant Home Depot, reads two hours a day.

When asked about his secret to success, Warren Buffett pointed to a stack of books and said, "Read 500 pages like this every day. That's how knowledge works. It builds up, like compound interest. All of you can do it, but I guarantee not many of you will..."

Charles Chu, who quoted Buffett on the Quartz website, acknowledges that 500 pages a day is beyond the reach for all but a few people. Nevertheless, neuroscience proves what each of these busy people have found: It actually takes less energy to focus intently than to zip from task to task. After an hour of contemplation, or deep reading, a person ends up less tired and less neurochemically depleted, thus more able to tackle mental challenges.

If we can't reach Buffett's high reading bar, what is a realistic goal? Charles Chu calculates that at an average reading speed of 400 words per minute, it would take 417 hours in a year to read 200 books - less than the 1,000 hours a year the average Irish person spends watching TV.

"Here's the simple truth behind reading a lot of books," says Quartz: "It's not that hard. We have all the time we need. The scary part - the part we all ignore - is that we are too addicted, too weak, and too distracted to do what we all know is important."

Willpower alone is not enough, he says. We need to construct what he calls "a fortress of habits". I like that image. Recently I checked author Annie Dillard's website, in which she states, "I can no longer travel, can't meet with strangers, can't sign books but will sign labels with SASE, can't write by request, and can't answer letters. I've got to read and concentrate. Why? Beats me." Now that's a fortress.

I've concluded that a commitment to reading is an ongoing battle, somewhat like the battle against the seduction of internet pornography. We have to build a fortress with walls strong enough to withstand the temptations of that powerful dopamine rush while also providing shelter for an environment that allows deep reading to flourish. Spiritually-inclined people especially need that sheltering space, for quiet meditation is one of the most important spiritual disciplines.

Modern culture presents formidable obstacles to the nurture of both spirituality and creativity. As a writer of faith in the age of social media, I host a Facebook page and a website and write an occasional blog. Thirty years ago I got a lot of letters from readers, and they did not expect an answer for a week or more. Now I get emails, and if they don't hear back in two days they write again, "Did you get my email?" The tyranny of the urgent crowds in around me.

If I yield to that tyranny, my life fills with mental clutter. Boredom, say the researchers, is when creativity happens. A wandering mind wanders into new, unexpected places. When I retire to the mountains and unplug for a few days, something magical takes place. I'll go to bed puzzling over a roadblock in my writing, and the next morning wake up with the solution crystal-clear - something that never happens when I spend my spare time cruising social media and the internet.

I find that poetry helps. You can't zoom through poetry; it forces you to slow down, think, concentrate, relish words and phrases. I now try to begin each day with a selection from George Herbert, Gerard Manley Hopkins, or RS Thomas.

For deep reading, I'm searching for an hour a day when mental energy is at a peak, not a scrap of time salvaged from other tasks. I put on headphones and listen to soothing music, shutting out distractions.

Deliberately, I don't text. I used to be embarrassed when I pulled out my antiquated flip phone, which my wife says should be donated to a museum. Now I pocket it with a kind of perverse pride, feeling sorry for the teenagers who check their phones on average 2,000 times a day.

We're engaged in a war, and technology wields the heavy weapons. Rod Dreher's recent book The Benedict Option urges people of faith to retreat behind monastic walls as the Benedictines did - after all, they preserved literacy and culture during one of the darkest eras of human history. I don't completely agree with Dreher, though I'm convinced that the preservation of reading will require something akin to the Benedict option.

I'm still working on that fortress of habit, trying to resurrect the rich nourishment that reading has long provided for me. If only I can resist clicking on '30 Amish facts that'll make your skin crawl'.

 Washington Post
A plucky kitten getting stuck in a dangerous London drain sounds like the premise for Disneys next heartwarming film, but its actually something that happened IRL.

But dont worry: like all good Disney movies, this one has a happy ending  thanks to some helpful firefighters.

The four-week old kitten was first spotted perched at the drain opening at the top of a two-storey building in Willesden. Concerned office workers did the right thing by calling the RSPCA, and then the adventure really kicked off.

When RSPCA animal collection officer Jill Sanders arrived, it became clear that the poor kitten had slipped down the drain. Sanders called the fire service for help, and they soon realised there was only one way they were going to get the kitten out.

Sanders says: The fire service advised that the only chance of getting the kitten out would be to gently flush the kitten down the drain with the fire hose on a low pressure, and have someone ready in the drain in the ground outside the building, ready to catch her.

Yep  they had to flush the kitten down the drain in order to get her out. Tricky stuff, but luckily the mission was pulled off with style.

It worked an absolute treat  we listened carefully to work out which flow system the kitten has slipped down into, and once wed worked it out, I was ready with a net, Sanders says. Sure enough, the kitten came sliding down into my hands, completely unharmed, although a little bit confused!

The kitten  whos now been nicknamed Ace  is now safe and sound at the Putney Animal Hospital. If no one comes forward to claim her, the RSPCA will find her a new home.

Now thats the best kind of happy ending.
Unfortunately, Britains top universities arent exactly known for their diversity. Last year, only 50 black applicants were offered places at Cambridge University, compared with 2,130 white students.

Courtney Daniella is a student at Cambridge, and shes taken to Twitter to make some pretty powerful remarks about being a black woman at the prestigious university.

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First, she addresses the fact that so many people think that she was only accepted to the university because of a quota helping her.

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Understandably pretty offensive, as she is evidently an incredibly impressive student.

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Daniella then shared another galling story.

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And then she completely shuts down all the haters.

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People are absolutely loving how Daniella is speaking out.

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Many find her an inspirational example.

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Hopefully, her thread will make people think twice next time they bring up the quota.
North Korea said yesterday it had conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump and a rebuke from China.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un personally supervised the midnight launch of the missile last Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the US that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state TV broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

"The test-fire reconfirmed the reliability of the ICBM system, demonstrated the capability of making a surprise launch of the ICBM in any region and place any time, and clearly proved that the whole US mainland is in the firing range of the DPRK [North Korea] missiles," KCNA said.

The launch comes less than a month after the North conducted its first ICBM test in defiance of years of efforts led by the US, South Korea and Japan to rein in Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions.

"By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people," Trump said in a statement. "The US will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region."

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's "launch activities that run counter to Security Council resolutions and the common wishes of the international community".

A foreign ministry statement added: "At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate, to jointly protect regional peace and stability."

But it seems that for all its bluster and over-the-top propaganda, North Korea often does just what it says it will do when it comes to its weapons development.

So it goes with its lightning-quick push to perfect an intercontinental ballistic missile. The clear message is: Get used to this - it's the new normal.

But what does that mean?

From the West's point of view, it portends more and scarier missile and nuclear tests, each one more powerful than the last; a dogged determination by the North to ignore, as it has for decades, financial sanctions and other outside pressure, including a slightly more forceful clampdown from its biggest enabler, China; and an increasing likelihood that a determined, unchecked North Korea will soon turn its rhetoric about being capable of nuking America's heartland into a reality.

All this is meant to force the US to accept terms that Pyongyang favours: a formal end to the Korean War that would remove US forces from the Korean Peninsula, weaken ties between Seoul and Washington, and make it much more likely that the North's dream of a Korea united under its rule comes true.

Outsiders have long dismissed or ignored North Korea's atomic boasts and propaganda, even as they've failed through sanctions, threats and isolation to hinder the North's progress. It remains to be seen whether an effort led by a Trump administration distracted by political infighting can rise to the most serious challenge yet in what has been a decades-long nuclear standoff.

To see exactly what North Korea is aiming for, just read its propaganda.

The North promised a stream of missile "gift packages" for the US after its first ICBM test on July 4. Then on Saturday, hours after its second test of the Hwasong-14, Kim Jong-un, was quoted as saying that "the US trumpeting about war and extreme sanctions and threat against the (North) only emboldens the latter and offers a better excuse for its access to nukes."

Friday's test "is meant to send a grave warning to the US", Kim said, and "make the policy-makers of the U.S. properly understand that the US, an aggression-minded state, would not go scot-free if it dares provoke the North".

That does not mean North Korea is planning to attack the US with a nuclear missile. The country's leadership values its survival above everything else, including the welfare of its people. North Korea's huge artillery and missile armament along the North-South border could do serious damage to Seoul, but such an attack would spell the end of Pyongyang because of Washington's massive weapons advantage.

Nor is the North quite there militarily. It must still prove that its ICBMs can navigate the multitude of technical hurdles needed to accurately strike a faraway target.

Each new test, however, makes that more likely.

Having a working "nuclear strategic force" would also allow the North to introduce doubt into the US-South Korea alliance. If fighting broke out between the rival Koreas, the argument goes, would Washington really rush in knowing that Pyongyang could hit the US heartland with its nukes?

The latest test also does something that North Korea strives for in every word of its propaganda: It bolsters the dignity of the proud, authoritarian state, which has long seen itself as surrounded by hostile nations bent on its destruction. How many Third World US enemies, after all, have built ICBM programs?

The message is as much for the elite in Pyongyang as for the North's enemies, intended to solidify support for a leader who, despite massive external pressure, can stand up to the superpowers.

Unless Seoul, Washington and their partners can find a way to stop the North, the near future looks pretty clear.

More tests. More instability. More pressure to pursue indigenous nuclear programs among North Korea's other presumed targets, Seoul and Tokyo, as they lose faith in the US "nuclear umbrella."

And more possibility that a miscalculation in one of the world's most heavily armed regions could lead to fighting.

That's the new normal.

Reuters
Kim Jong-un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the Korean Peoples Army earlier this year. Photo: Reuters

A man in Seoul, South Korea, watches a TV news programme showing a file image of a missile being test-launched by the North (AP)

Missile: An undated picture provided by North Korea of a Hwasong-14 being test-fired. Photo: Reuters

The United States flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force after recent North Korean missile tests, the U.S. Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The B-1B flight, conducted on Saturday, was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the "Hwansong-14" rocket, the U.S. statement said. The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said in the statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing".

The U.S. has in the past used overflights of the supersonic B1-B "Lancer" bomber as a show of force in response to North Korean missile or nuclear tests.

Expand Close A man in Seoul, South Korea, watches a TV news programme showing a file image of a missile being test-launched by the North (AP) / Facebook

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Whatsapp A man in Seoul, South Korea, watches a TV news programme showing a file image of a missile being test-launched by the North (AP)

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's missile launches, which it said violate United Nations Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang's banned nuclear and missile programmes.

"At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate," China's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Expand Close Kim Jong-un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the Korean Peoples Army earlier this year. Photo: Reuters / Facebook

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Whatsapp Kim Jong-un watches a military drill marking the 85th anniversary of the Korean Peoples Army earlier this year. Photo: Reuters

However, Trump said he was "very disappointed in China".

In a message on Twitter, he said: "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet..."

"...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!" he said in a subsequent tweet.

The Hwasong-14, named after the Korean word for Mars, reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km (2,314.6 miles) and flew 998 km (620 miles)for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast, KCNA said.

Western experts said calculations based on that flight data and estimates from the U.S., Japanese and South Korean militaries showed the missile could have been capable of going as far into the United States as Denver and Chicago.

David Wright of the U.S.-based Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a blog post that if it had flown on a standard trajectory, the missile would have had a range of 10,400 km (6,500 miles).

North Korea refers to the United States as its sworn enemy in its propaganda, and has done so since the 1950-53 Korean War in which the Soviet and Chinese-backed North fought against the U.S.-backed South. The isolated country often shows mockup images of a missile hitting key U.S. landmarks in its media.
The scene of the car bomb attack in Mogadishu, Somalia (Farah Abdi Warsameh/AP)

Fighters with the al-Shabab extremist group have ambushed an African Union convoy in southern Somalia and killed at least eight soldiers, a military officer said.

The attack came hours after a car bomb in the capital killed at least five people, most of them civilians, shattering a month of relative calm in Mogadishu.

The al Qaida-linked al-Shabab fighters attacked the convoy near Bulo-Marer in the Lower Shabelle region, said Colonel Muhyadin Yasin.

Uganda's defence ministry confirmed the attack on the multinational force, saying an unknown number of troops were killed.

"A lot of damage was inflicted on the enemy," a statement said.

The extremist group claimed that the attack killed 39 soldiers.

Al-Shabab has become the deadliest Islamic extremist group in Africa. Despite being forced out of many cities and towns across Somalia, it continues to launch lethal attacks in Mogadishu and elsewhere.

The extremist group maintains a presence largely in rural areas and continues to pose major challenges to the allied Somali and African Union forces as they travel between remote towns, even as the AU force plans to pull out of Somalia in the coming years and leave security to national troops.

Hundreds of African Union soldiers have been killed in recent years as al-Shabab targeted their military bases as well.

The extremist group also carries out deadly attacks in neighbouring countries, notably Kenya, that have sent troops to support Somalia's fragile central government.

That threat has been a factor in rising security concerns around Kenya's presidential election next month.

Earlier on Sunday, a car bomb blast near a police station in Mogadishu killed at least five people and wounded at least 13 others, police said.

Al-Shabab often carries out deadly bombings against high-profile targets such as hotels and checkpoints in the capital.

The blast near Waberi police station along the busy Maka Almukarramah road may have been a suicide bomber, said Captain Mohamed Hussein. Most of the victims were civilians.

The blast occurred amid a traffic jam while soldiers were searching cars at a nearby intersection.

Somalia's Prime Minister, Hassan Ali Khaire, said no such blast had occurred in the capital for a month.

AP
Police stand in front of the disco Club Grey in the southern German town of Konstanz, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Police stand in front of the disco Club Grey in the southern German town of Konstanz, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

A woman is comforted as police stands by next to the disco Club Grey in the southern German town of Konstanz, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Policemen stand in front of the nightclub Grey in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017.OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Policemen stand in front of the nightclub Grey in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017.AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Policemen stand near the nightclub Grey in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. / AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Policemen stand near the nightclub Grey in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Forensics of the police secure evidences near the Grey nightclub in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. AFP PHOTO / dpa / Felix Kastle / Germany OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Forensics of the police secure evidences near the Grey nightclub in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

Forensics of the police secure evidences near the Grey nightclub in Konstanz (Constance), southern Germany, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017. OUTFELIX KASTLE/AFP/Getty Images

A gunman who killed one person and injured three others in a nightclub in southern Germany on Sunday was an Iraqi citizen who had lived in the country for a long time and was not an asylum seeker, police said, ruling out terrorism as a motive.

Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told the n-tv broadcaster that after an initial investigation into the events surrounding the shooting at the nightclub in Konstanz on the border with Switzerland investigators ruled out terrorism.

"The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear," he said. "We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background."
Anthony Scaramucci's wife has reportedly filed for divorce a week after he was named White House communications director, with friends claiming that her dislike of President Donald Trump and her husband's "naked political ambition" had forced them apart.

Deidre Ball, who worked as a vice president in investor relations for SkyBridge Capital, the firm he founded in 2005 and sold to ascend to the White House, has filed for divorce after three years of marriage, according to The New York Post.

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"She liked the nice Wall Street life and their home on Long Island, not the insane world of DC," a source told the paper.

"She is tired of his naked ambition, which is so enormous that it left her at her wits' end. She has left him even though they have two children together."

Mr Scaramucci responded to the news by tweeting: "Leave civilians out of this. I can take the hits, but I would ask that you would put my family in your thoughts and prayers and nothing more."

Mr Scaramucci (52) and Ball (38) began dating in 2011 and are believed to have married in 2014.

Mr Scaramucci is yet to confirm the news, which comes at the end of a tumultuous first week in Washington, in which he attempted to schmooze the White House press corps and ended up in a wild expletive-laced rant about his colleagues, published in The New Yorker.

The source said that Mr Scaramucci had been "hell-bent" on claiming his position at the White House after he was originally positioned for a senior role, and sold SkyBridge Capital in preparation in January.

He was blocked by Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, who was fired last Friday.

A second source told the Post: "Deidre is not a fan of Trump, and she hasn't exactly been on board and supportive of Anthony and his push to get back into the White House."

The friend added: "Anthony is focusing on his children, his work for the president and the American people. There is nothing more important to him.

"I don't know who Deidre thought she was marrying but anyone who knows Anthony knows he's an ambitious man."

The divorce is the second "Trump divorce" in two days.

Last Thursday, a former Miami Dolphins cheerleader announced that she and her state attorney husband were to divorce, with the president to blame.

Lynn and David Aronberg married two years ago after Mr Aronberg (46) proposed at the Eiffel Tower.

Mrs Aronberg's PR firm, TransMedia, issued a remarkably personal press release announcing their separation, describing it as a "Trump divorce". Mr Aronberg has yet to comment.

Telegraph

Telegraph Media Group Limited [2022]
Donald Trump will sign the Russia sanctions bill, despite being unable to ease any penalties (AP)

An attempt by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to portray Russian sanctions legislation as a sign Americans want Russia to improve relations with the US has been derided by Moscow.

In a statement released by the State Department on Saturday, Mr Tillerson said the overwhelming House and Senate votes in favour of the sanctions "represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States".

He added that he hoped potential future US-Russia cooperation would make the sanctions unnecessary at some point.

The legislation, which also punishes Iran and North Korea, takes aim at Moscow for meddling in the 2016 US election and for its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria.

The White House said on Friday that President Donald Trump will sign the legislation, which passed the House by a 419-3 vote and the Senate by a 98-2 vote.

"We will work closely with our friends and allies to ensure our messages to Russia, Iran, and North Korea are clearly understood," Mr Tillerson's statement concluded.

With respect to Russia, at least, the message did not appear to be understood, as the Russian Embassy in Washington said in a series of tweets that it was bewildered.

"The statement made by the @StateDept on July 29 regarding a new sanctions legislation approved by Congress cannot but raise eyebrows," it said. "Washington still doesn't get the fact that pressure never works against @Russia, bilateral relations can hardly be improved by sanctions."

AP
A US Air Force B-1 bomber, top, flies with South Korean fighter jets over South Korea (South Korea Defence Ministry via AP)

The United States has flown two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test.

The US also said it had conducted a successful test of a missile defence system located in Alaska.

The B-1 bombers were escorted by South Korean fighter jets as they performed a low-pass over an air base near the South Korean capital of Seoul before returning to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the US Pacific Air Forces said in a statement.

It said the mission was a response to North Korea's two missile tests this month.

Analysts said flight data from the North's second test, conducted on Friday night, showed that a broader part of the mainland United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of Pyongyang's weapons.

Vice president Mike Pence said on Sunday during a visit to Estonia that the US and its allies plan to increase pressure on North Korea to end its nuclear programme.

"The continued provocations by the rogue regime in North Korea are unacceptable and the United States of America is going to continue to marshal the support of nations across the region and across the world to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically," Mr Pence said.

"But the era of strategic patience is over. The president of the United States is leading a coalition of nations to bring pressure to bear until that time that North Korea will permanently abandon its nuclear and ballistic missile programme."

General Terrence J O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, called North Korea "the most urgent threat to regional stability".

"Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario," Gen O'Shaughnessy said.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."

Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, said that North Korea's latest test presents a clear and present danger to the United States.

"I've spent time on the intelligence and at the briefings, and done as much reading as I possibly could," said Ms Feinstein, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee. "And I'm convinced that North Korea has never moved at the speed that this leader has to develop an ICBM."

She said the situation shows the danger of isolating a country.

"I think the only solution is a diplomatic one," she said. "I'm very disappointed in China's response, that it has not been firmer or more helpful."

The United States often sends powerful warplanes in times of heightened tensions with North Korea.

B-1 bombers have been sent to South Korea for flyovers several times this year in response to the North's banned missile tests, and also following the death of a US college student last month after he was released by North Korea in a coma.

AP
Venezuelans appear to be abstaining in massive numbers in a show of silent protest against a vote to select a constitutional assembly giving the government virtually unlimited powers.

Associated Press journalists toured more than two dozen polling places in neighbourhoods across the capital, including many traditional strongholds of the ruling socialist party in southern and western Caracas.

Virtually all the polling places saw hours-long lines of thousands of people in past elections over the last two decades of socialist government.

One site, a sports and cultural complex known as the Poliedro, had several thousand people waiting about two hours to vote, many having travelled from opposition-dominated neighbourhoods where polling places were closed.

Of the dozens of others sites seen by the AP, two in the loyalist-heavy neighbourhood of El Valle had lines of approximately 200 to 400 people. All the others had at most a couple of dozen voters, and many had less than a half-dozen or were completely empty.

Opinion polls say more than 70% of the country is opposed to Sunday's vote.

"People aren't in agreement with this," said Daniel Ponza, 33, as he watched a few dozen people outside a polling place in El Valle. "People are dying of hunger, looking for food in the trash. And I think this is just going to make things worse."

In opposition-dominated eastern Caracas, riot police used tear gas to stop protesters from gathering for a march on the capital's main road.

At least three police were wounded when one of their motorcycles detonated in a powerful explosion.

After voting at dawn, President Nicolas Maduro called for international acceptance of what he called his government's fight against a violent opposition trying to sabotage his administration.

The run-up to the vote has been marked by months of clashes between protesters and the government that have left at least 116 dead and nearly 2,000 wounded.

A 61-year-old nurse was fatally shot by men accused of being pro-government paramilitaries during a protest at a church a few hundred feet from the school where Mr Maduro voted.

"We've stoically withstood the terrorist, criminal violence," Mr Maduro said. "Hopefully the world will respectfully extend its arms towards our country."

The opposition is boycotting the vote, contending the election has been structured to ensure Mr Maduro's socialist party continues to dominate.

So all 5,500 candidates for the 545 seats in the constituent assembly are his supporters and the vote's success is being measured by turnout.

The government is encouraging participation with tactics that include offering social benefits such as subsidised food to the poor and threatening state workers' jobs if they do not vote.

"I'm here because I'm hoping for housing," said Luisa Marquez, a 46-year-old hairdresser.

Others said they were there out of conviction that the constitutional assembly would help the government fend off what they called an international capitalist conspiracy to undermine Venezuela's socialist system with the help of the domestic opposition.

"The crisis, the shortages of food and medicine, that isn't the government's fault," said Luis Osuna, a 42-year-old private bodyguard. "Those who are attacking us to kill us with hunger and blame the government are the same enemies the government's always had."

Once one of Latin America's wealthiest nations, Venezuela has spiralled into a devastating crisis during Mr Maduro's four years in power, thanks to plunging oil prices and widespread corruption and mismanagement.

Inflation and killing rates are among the world's highest and widespread shortages of food and medicine have citizens dying of preventable illnesses and rooting through rubbish to feed themselves.

The special assembly being selected will have powers to rewrite the country's 1999 constitution but will also have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

While opinion polls say a vast majority oppose him, Mr Maduro made clear in a televised address on Saturday evening that he intends to use the assembly to govern without limitation, describing the vote as "the election of a power that's above and beyond every other".

AP
Russia has retaliated against new US sanctions by ordering 755 American diplomats to leave - a move than will create a fresh crisis in the relationship between the two countries.

Days after the both houses of the US Congress voted almost unanimously to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow, Vladimir Putin said he was responding to unlawful behaviour by Washington.

The American side has made a move which, it is important to note, hasnt been provoked by anything, to worsen Russian-US relations. [It includes] unlawful restrictions, attempts to influence other states of the world, including our allies, who are interested in developing and keeping relations with Russia, Mr Putin told the Rossiya 1 TV channel.

Weve been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like, its not going to change in the near future... I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered.

The US sanctions bill also included measures against Iran and North Korea and was passed over Russias 2014 annexation of Crimea and its alleged interference in the 2016 US election.

The move by politicians on Capitol Hill has pushed Donald Trump into a corner. The White House had made clear it was against the measure, but the President has said he will sign the bill, rather than use his veto power and risk fresh accusations that he is soft on Moscow.

Russia had warned on Friday that it intended to expel the diplomats and to seize two properties used by US diplomats. However, Mr Putins comments on Sunday were the first to make clear the number of US envoys he intends to force to leave.

An official at the US Embassy in Moscow said there were about 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in Russia, including US citizens and Russians, Reuters reported last week.

Earlier on Sunday, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said the vote for the sanctions was the last drop and said Moscow would retaliate in kind.

Read More

We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal. It would be ridiculous on my part to start speculating on what may or may not happen, Mr Rybakov told ABC. I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things.

The move by Russia takes place against ongoing controversy in the US about Mr Trumps relationship with Moscow and possible collusion between his campaign and Russia over its alleged effort to interfere in the presidential election. Earlier this month, it was revealed Mr Trumps eldest son, his campaign manager and his son-in-law, had met with a Russian lawyer linked to the Kremlin after they were told she had compromising material about Mr Trumps rival, Hillary Clinton.

Special prosecutor Robert Mueller is currently heading a federal probe into possible collusion and there are several investigations underway on Capitol Hill. Mr Trump has repeatedly denied any such collusion and said he and his officials are the victims of a political witch hunt.

Last December, Barack Obama ordered 35 Russian diplomats to leave the US and the seizing of two compounds, one in New York and the other in Maryland, that had been used by the diplomats. He said the actions were being carried out in response to Moscows alleged attempt to interfere in the election.

Many observers had expected that Mr Putin would respond in kind. However, apparently assuming that relations between the two countries might improve once Mr Trump office, he held off from doing so.

Mr Trump had spoken enthusiastically of his with to have better relations between the two countries and to seek Russias help in countering Isis in Syria. Earlier this month at the G20 in Hamburg, the two men met for several hours and hatched a ceasefire deal for a small part of Syria.

Critics of Mr Trump say he has repeatedly refused to criticise Mr Putin and that he has been in denial about Moscows attempt to influence the election.
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
According to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD) it has been observed that in 2016, total world beef exports in was 10.95 million tonnes and was expected to increase to 12.43 million tonnes by 2026.

India happens to be the worlds third-biggest exporter of beef and is projected to hold on to that position over the next decade.

representational image : AP

Released this week, the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2017-2026 report said that India exported 1.56 million tonnes of beef in 2016 and was expected to maintain its position as the third-largest beef exporter. India has alone accounted for 16 per cent of global exports in 2026 by exporting 1.93 tonnes that year.

represntational image bccl

The type of beef exported has not been specified in the report. However, the meat exported appeared to be mostly from buffaloes as the report specified the animal for imports by Myanmar from India. According to the OECD database, India had imported 363,000 tonnes of beef last year and the amount was predicted to stay the same over the next ten years.

The Outlook report ranked Brazil as the worlds top beef exporter, followed by Australia.
In one of the major rescue operations by the army in the flood-hit Jalore district, 540 girls were rescued on Friday night from Dr Bhim Rao Ambedkar Girls Hostel in Bhainswara of Ahor sub-division of the district.

twitter/ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY

The hostel was waterlogged on Friday night after the water released from Jawai dam flooded many parts of Jalore district. About 540 girls and teachers were stranded in the hostel and considering the situation, the administration sought the help of army.

twitter/ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY

"We evacuated 540 girls and teachers along with other staff from the hostel on Friday night and shifted them to a safer place where all of them were provided with the medical aid and food," said defence spokesperson Manish Ojha.

twitter/ADG PI - INDIAN ARMY

Meanwhile, amid the worsening flood situation in Jalore district caused by the incessant rain and rise of water after opening of the gates of Jawai dam to release the excess water, the army has roped in three columns for rescue and relief operations in Sanchore, Ahor and Jalore at South bank of the river Jawai.

Water released from Jawai dam has caused a major havoc on its way to Jalore city severing the road and rail link of the city with other towns. Railway station of the town is completely submerged in the water leading to suspension of all the rail services to the city.
We can't deny, but every time we look at someone who suffers from down syndrome, we pity them. We pity them for their condition and for never having the hang of 'normalcy'.

Meet the 22-year-old Aditi from Mumbai who's condoling the pity.

Aditi is the owner of Aditi's corner, a cafe she runs in Bhoomi Mall, CBD Belapur. The cafe serves light snacks, homemade meals and delectable cupcakes and chocolates; but what keeps this cafe lit is Aditi's hard-work and determination.

Hindu

She takes orders, wipes the table, manages accounts and if the place is running short on inventory, she will make a note.

"I used to get bored at home," says a proud Aditi when asked about why she enjoys coming here. "Here I can do whatever I want."

thebetterindia

The cafe was gifted by her parents who wanted to keep her busy and happy. They wanted to ensure that she becomes self-reliant. The cafe is now in good shape and achieved its break even within the first three months.

"Please dont take them as a problem. They are special people and they can do whatever else a normal person can do. If you have a special child, let him or her do what they want to with their lives. Dont stop them. reports The Better India.

Aditi's story is for everyone to feel inspired and thrilled about their passion. If she can do it, so can you.
Citing the example set by countries like USA, Canada and Australia, Union Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi has suggested legalising marijuana in India.

AFP

The suggestion was made by Mrs. Gandhi at a meeting of a group of ministers (GOM), which examined the draft cabinet note National Drug Demand Reduction Policy.

She suggested that such a move will help in curb drug abuse, something that countries where medical marijuana is legal has experienced.

AFP

"Some of the developed countries like the US, marijuana has been legalised which ultimately results in less drug abuse. The possibility of the same maybe explored in India", she told the GOM.

"Marijuana should be legalised for medical purposes, especially as it serves a purpose in cancer," the minister told PTI.

PTI

This is not the first time an Indian politician has batted for legalisation of cannabis in the country.

In December 2015, Lok Sabha MP from Odisha Tathagata Satpathy had suggested that weed should be legalised in the county as it could help fight alcohol addiction.

AFP

As of now countries like Uruguay, Chile, Australia, France, Romania, Colombia Czech Republic, Netherlands, Switzerland, Spain, Canada, United States and Jamaica have legalised use of cannabis for medical purposes legal.

Many other countries are on their way to legalise or relax restrictions on the weed.

AFP

In India weed has remained illegal despite the high rate of consumption, especially in interior areas. In 2015 Uttarakhand government had decided to allow farmers to cultivation of hemp plants to be used for industrial purposes like in the manufacturing of fibre.

India is home to some of the most sought after marijuana variants in the international market like Malana hash and Idukki Gold.
Mosul is modern Iraq's second-largest city. In 2014, it was sensationally captured by the ISIS, signalling the ascent of the extremist group. Recently, the jihadists have been steered out of the city with Iraqi forces reclaiming the old city. However, the devastation in the once flourishing city cannot be ignored. Take a look at these images which show the extent of destruction.

1. A member of Iraqi security forces holds an Islamic State flag on top of a building destroyed from clashes in the Old City of Mosul, Iraq

reuters

2. The destroyed al-Hadba minaret at Grand al-Nuri Mosque (L) is seen

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3. Military vehicles of Iraqi security forces are seen in the old part of the city.

reuters

4. Iraqi security forces walk along destroyed buildings from clashes in the Old City.

reuters

5. Members of the Emergency Response Division walk in a destroyed building at the Old City.

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6. The remains of al-Hadba minaret at the Grand al-Nuri Mosque are pictured in the Old City.

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7. The remains of vehicles are seen in the Old City.

reuters

8. Members of Iraqi Federal police carry suicide belts used by Islamic State militants in the Old City.

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9. Members of Federal police are seen in the Old City.

reuters

10. Destroyed buildings from clashes are seen in the Old City.

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11. Members of the Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) take a selfie in front of the ruins of Grand al-Nuri Mosque in the Old City.

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12. Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) personnel walk in a destroyed building in the Old City.

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13. An old bridge destroyed during clashes is seen in the Old City.

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14. A view of a part of the ruined Grand al-Nuri Mosque.

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15. A member of Iraqi Counter Terrorism Service (CTS) walks on rubble next to buildings destroyed from clashes in the Old City.

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16. Smoke billows from the ruined Grand al-Nuri Mosque after it was retaken by Iraqi forces in the Old City.

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17. A member of Iraqi Federal police walks among buildings destroyed from clashes in the Old City.

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18. A member of the Iraqi Federal Police runs for cover on the frontline in the Old City.

reuters
Main opposition New Democracy (ND) party on Sunday demanded explanations over what it calls relations between Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and, following a same-day front-page newspaper article alleging that the leftist Greek premier had asked for assistance from Caracas' radical socialist government as far back as 2013 in case Greece abandoned the Euro
The "honeymoon phase" in relations between Chinese multinationaland Greece's privatization fund (HRADF) regarding the Piraeus Port Authority (PPA), which the former assumed last August, appears to have encountered its first "hiccup", as the Greek agency has voiced objections to a proposal modifying PPA's charter.




The Nigeria Army has recovered 21 additional bodies in an operation to rescue oil exploration crew abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno.

Brig. Gen. Sani Kukasheka, Director Army Public Relations, who disclosed this in a statement released on Saturday, July 29, said he regrets earlier press release about the rescue of all NNPC Staff.

Full statement below:

The incident of 25th July 2017 where some Boko Haram Terrorists ambushed our troops including members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) escorting some staff of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as well as that of University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) on oil exploration in Borno Yesu District of Magumeri Local Government Area of Borno state is unfortunate and highly regrettable. Most regrettable also is my earlier release on the said incident about the rescue of all NNPC Staff. The error in the statement was not deliberate.

The Nigerian Army in this present dispensation is reputed for timely dissemination of information on activities of our troops in all theatre of operations. We have strived to keep the public informed on our activities with no intention of distorting any fact. Our troops have doubled efforts in the pursuit of the Boko Haram terrorists while search and rescue is still on-going to secure the safe return of the remaining civilians.

So far the search and rescue team has recovered additional bodies of 5 soldiers, 11 Civilian JTF and 5 members of the exploration team.

Contrary to reports in some media, 6 members of exploration team out of 12 that went out are still missing, while one of the NNPC staff returned to base alive.

On the other hand, our pursuit team also recovered 2 of our own Gun trucks and an additional Toyota Buffalo Gun truck from the insurgents. In addition, the team also made the following recoveries; 4 Rocket Propelled Grenade Bombs, 4 Rocket Propelled Grenade chargers, 6 AK-47 rifles, 1 Anti-Aircraft Gun, 1 General Purpose Machine Gun,1 Anti-Aircraft Gun Barrel, 1 Rocket Propelled Grenade Tube, 4 Dane Guns, 8 Tyres and 2 Tyre Rims.

Other items recovered include 1 Pumping Machine, 2 Tyre Jacks, 1 Super Battery, 5 Reflective Jackets, 3 Toyota Hilux, 4 Jerry cans filled with PMS, 1 Motorola Radio, 1 Geographical Positioning System (GPS), 21 empty Jerry cans, 2 Shovels and 3 Food Coolers. Troops also recovered 122 rounds of PKM ammunition, 213 rounds of 7.62mm NATO ammunition, 1255 Anti-Aircraft Guns ammunition, 4 boxes of API 12.7mm ammunition, 1 AK-47 Rifle Magazine, a Digger, 2 Bows and 13 Arrows, 2 LLG Bombs, assorted drugs and assorted working tools.

The Nigerian Army condoles with the families of all that lost their loved ones in this unfortunate incident. Search and rescue efforts are on-going. We are counting on the goodwill and support of the populace in volunteering valuable information that could help in the search and rescue operation.

What the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists are doing are pure criminal activities of kidnapping to gain funds. This has been noted and will be jointly addressed in conjunction with other Security Services.

The Nigerian Army remains resolute in the fight against terrorism and would not relent in its effort to safe guard lives of citizens, properties and the territorial integrity of the country.

Thank you so much for your kind support.

More photos below

Source: Linda Ikeji
The Nigerian Air Force said on Thursday that the Boko Haram terrorists were back to the Sambisa Forest area of Borno State, but said its fighter jets and attack helicopters had bombed the terrorists hideouts 108 times between April and July, 2017.

The Air Component Commander of Operation Lafiya Dole, the military operation in the North-East, Air Commodore Tajudeen Yusuf, disclosed this while briefing newsmen in Yola, Adamawa State.

Yusuf said some of the challenges with the air operations were thunderstorms and rainfalls, which impacted negatively on some air operations during the period.

He noted that there were days that flights had to be delayed or cancelled on account of poor weather.

He stated, Intelligence surveillance and Reconnaissance reports through the second quarter of 2017 indicated a gradual return of the Boko Haram terrorist activities to the Sambisa Forest. There have been sightings of a few Boko Haram activities in the Sambisa general area, particularly in Parisu.

Hence, the air component conducted significant ISR missions in the Sambisa general area. On July 3, an air interdiction mission was conducted on Alagarno Camp. Several solar panels were seen on buildings in the location, which indicated that it was being used as a Command and Control facility.

The NAF conducted air interdiction missions with the F-7Ni, Alpha jets, L-39ZA, Mi-17 and the Mi-35M attack helicopters to neutralise the Boko Haram terrorist targets within the theatre.

A total of 108 air interdiction sorties were conducted from April to June 2017.

Meanwhile, the Minister of Defence, Mansur Dan-Ali, on Thursday, regretted that the nations troops, fighting the Boko Haram sect, could not dominate the environment in the rainy season like they did during dry season.

Notwithstanding the challenge, Dan-Ali said efforts were ongoing to stop the ambushes regularly laid by the terror group.

The minister spoke with State House correspondents after a meeting which acting President Yemi Osinbajo had with security chiefs at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Dan-Ali said the service chiefs were directed to move back to the Command Centre in order to be abreast of what was happening there.

The minister stated that it was resolved at the meeting that the government should procure more surveillance devices that would be able to see potential attackers from a distance.

Dan-Ali added, We just finished a meeting with the acting President and the three service chiefs. We agreed that they should move back to the Command Centre and see what are the things happening there.

We have also agreed that we should get more surveillance devices, cameras that will be able to see distant attackers coming to the position of our troops.

Also, the rainy season is a difficult moment for us. We cannot dominate the environment like what we did during the dry season but effort is geared towards regaining our areas.

We assure Nigerians that all these ambushes that are happening regularly would be stopped.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
Former national chairman of the then All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Alhaji Yusuf Garba Ali, has exposed the reasons behind the actions of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. Former national chairman of the then All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), Alhaji Yusuf Garba Ali, has exposed the reasons behind the actions of the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.

According to Ali, the Igbos dont want to secede from Nigeria for any reason, Vanguard reports. Garba Ali said: I think even the people in the south east are no longer saying that they want to secede.

The Arewa youths also reacted based on what they thought was the decision of majority of the people of the south east. Kanu is still talking of Biafra but leaders from the region have told him that what they need is restructuring and not secession. The question of secession simply does not arise.

The Arewa youths also reacted based on what they thought was the decision of majority of the people of the south east. Kanu is still talking of Biafra but leaders from the region have told him that what they need is restructuring and not secession. The question of secession simply does not arise.

Despite the Boko Haram crisis in the north east, there are still Igbos living there. There is no part of this country you go to that you do not find another tribe settling there. How do you want to break up the country?

I do not believe that Nigeria is going to break. What we have is people blowing hot air. Some are using it for their economic interest. They want recognition. There are lots of people blowing hot air just because they want to be recognized.

Source: ( Naij.com )
Six students, Yusuf Farouk, Isiaka Ramon, Pelumi Philips, Peter Jonas, Adebanjo George and Judah Agbaosi were abducted from their hostels- Yellow and Green houses- on May 25 by gunmen clad in police uniform.

The six kidnapped students of the Lagos State Model College, Igbonla, Epe, were released on Friday through the combined efforts of the security agencies and Governors Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State, Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State and Ifeanyi Okowa of Delta State.

The abducted students revealed that they survived routine beatings, exposure to the elements, starvation, un-hygienic food and water in the kidnappers den.

In an interview with TheNation yesterday, one of the students (name withheld) told The Nation:

We were blindfolded, kept under the bridge with our legs tied. They fed us eba and crayfish soup. We were also given reddish water to slay our thirst.

The maltreatment soon took a toll on them and two fell ill: they bled from the mouth.

The victim said their abductors routinely beat them and left them in the open, day and night. He added that the only shelter was a bridge but they had no blankets or additional dresses to shield them from the cold.

He continued:

They were beating us. They fed us with eba and crayfish soup. They mixed the crayfish with pepper and water and then gave us to eat with eba.

They were giving us red water to drink. The water had a bad taste but no odour. It was polluted. They kept us under a bridge. They gave us no bed sheets or blankets.

Their only wears all through were the clothes they had on when they were abducted and the replica jerseys provided by the kidnappers.

They were the ones who gave us the replica jerseys, he said.

The student is now fine and happy to be back home with his family after all the trauma.

I have done my medical check up. I am fine and happy to be home with my family, he said and paused, his mood changing immediately.

That ended the conversation at the discretion of his interviewer.

A second victim (name withheld) said they changed camps thrice during their captivity, enduring starvation at some point.

One of the camps was made of cut trees and the kidnappers had to erect a tent to shield them from rain.

As time went by the kidnappers allowed the boys to prepare their food, and move around, he said.

His mother commended Lagos Police Commissioner Fatai Owoseni and the Commander, Rapid Response Squad (RRS) for standing by them throughout their ordeal.

Honestly, I do not want to expose my son to any danger. It is true he fell sick in the camp because we were told then, she said.

He was kidnapped while he was recuperating from an illness and so, I think the environment they were kept and the trauma made him sick again. He was examined on Friday night and the doctors asked that we return to the hospital. But he is okay now.
A hot and sexy internet slay queen, DC Queen has been murdered with her tongue and private parts cut off. The Ghanaian girl was reportedly killed at Dome Kwabenya on a night out to Just Torch pub with her body having been harvested for rituals.

Her friends and family members have taken to Facebook to express shock over the sad incident.

Nixon McNeilo wrote: 2000 likes all is vanity ..girls of today dont like debi debi ebeye yieslay queen slay queen,who gave you the crown, u want to pose in a range rover,u dont care how the person made his money..perhaps you dont even ask.he will tell you ooo im a scammer then u too junkie you agree meanwhile a genuine hustler is ib your inbox he has sent you 300 messages but you no reply one sefin this era which white man will u chat nor he will send you money just like that? They only use that as a cover upif u ppl dont wise up trust me every month we will type another rip for another slay queen ..u are jumping from one car to another,one mansion to another so u can pose for likes..me dier i go like,if u die too i go type ripthe so called nkoso gals dey love we slay queens go for ur slay kings

RIP QUEEN..
The Nigerian Air Force said on Saturday confirmed that it had deployed thermal imaging cameras to detect Boko Haram suicide bombers, ravaging Borno State and the North-East region.

The NAFs spokesman, Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya, confirmed the deployment, following the spate of suicide bombings that had recently been recorded in Maiduguri.

He said, The thermal imaging camera uses infrared and reads temperature differences up to an appreciable distance away; it can also identify a person at an acceptable distance. The cameras, which are mounted on NAF aircraft, can also penetrate obscurants such as smoke, fog and haze.

The NAF, in recent times, has stepped up its counter-insurgency operations to further decimate the ability of Boko Haram terrorists in the North-East. The focus has largely been on the conduct of intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions, as well as interdiction missions on identified terrorist targets.

Meanwhile, the militarys attack helicopter and Special Forces from the Nigerian Air Force are now combing the Kafanchan Local Government Area of Kaduna State, following recent fatal clashes between residents and Fulani herdsmen.

Our correspondent learnt that at least 15 armed airmen were aboard the Mi-17 attack helicopter deployed.

It will be recalled that 37 persons were killed in the latest clashes in the Kajuru Local Government Area in Southern Kaduna last Tuesday, July 18.

Adesanya said the deployment was to support the ground forces.

He said, The NAF deployed the armed helicopter with force protection elements and other logistics support to Kafanchan. The deployment, ordered by the Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Sadique Abubakar, is to complement the efforts of the ground forces.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Acting President, Yemi Osinbajo, on Sunday gave strict orders to operatives of the Nigerian Army to rescue all those abducted recently by the Boko Haram sect while carrying out oil exploration researches in the Lake Chad Basin Frontier Exploration.

The order was contained in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja by the Senior Special Assistant to the Acting President on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande.

Akande quoted the Acting President as saying that those who carried out the ambush which he described as a. unacceptable and criminal conduct must be brought to justice.

He said Osinbajo, after an emergency meeting with military chiefs on Thursday, issued fresh directives to the Nigerian military and all security agencies to immediately scale-up their efforts and activities in Borno State in order to maintain a strong, effective control of the situation and secure lives and property.

The statement read, While commending the military for the progress already recorded with the rescue of some of the abducted, Prof. Osinbajo has also ordered the continuation of search and rescue missions to locate and ensure the freedom of all remaining abducted persons as soon as possible, using all available and expedient means in the circumstances.

He adds that justice would be pursued for the victims and against those who engage in this kind of unacceptable, criminal and terrorist conduct.

Acting President Osinbajo pays tribute to the resilience, courage and bravery of officers and men of the Nigerian Armed Forces for their gallant endeavours and sacrifices for the peace, security and territorial integrity of our country.

He eulogises the Nigerian soldiers who have paid the ultimate price in this mission and others linked to the current insurgency, and gives a firm assurance that the welfare of the families of the soldiers will be prioritized.

He also commends the diligence of the management and staff of the NNPC, and the lecturers/consultants from the University of Maiduguri in pursuing Federal Governments resolve to grow our countrys current crude oil reserve base through potential exploration in the Lake Chad Basin, stressing that the government will by no means be dissuaded.

Osinbajo was further quoted as saying that the nation would never forget the sacrifice of the officials who he said put their lives on the line the current and future generations of Nigerians would the resources of the land.

He noted that the objective of the patriotic exercise carried out by the victim was to open up new areas for oil exploration for the common good of all Nigerians.

He regretted that the terrorist attack resulted in a number of deaths of hardworking and innocent Nigerians, and the abduction of some.

Osinbajo commiserated with the families, relatives and associates of those who lost their lives in the onslaught and wished the injured speedy recovery.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
The Enugu State Police Command on Saturday released emergency telephone numbers and social media contact addresses for residents to use to reach the police in their collaboration in the battle against crimes.

The commands spokesman, Mr. Ebere Amaraizu, told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Enugu that members of the public should collaborate with the police to sustain the tempo of peace in the state.





The commands control room numbers are: 08032003702; 08075390883; 08086671202 and 08098880172 for prompt and necessary action.





Amaraizu urged residents of the state to be law abiding by not taking laws into their hands, but endeavour to report any issue regarding threat to peace in their environments to the nearest police station.





The command is also advising members of the public to report any suspicious person, groups and gathering in their neighbourhoods through the distress call numbers or the social media platforms.





Members of the public should not tamper with any suspicious object discovered anywhere, either in the farm, house or road, but should report promptly to the nearest police station, he advised.

The spokesman said that the command would continue its partnership with sister security agencies to keep the tempo of crime and criminality at its lowest ebb in the state.

-NAN
Spainish La Liga chief Javier Tebas, is set to file a complaint with UEFA for financial fair play breaches against Paris Saint-Germain over their pursuit of Brazilian superstar Neymar.

PSG are rumoured to be weighing up a bid for the Barcelona forward at more than 200 million euros, enough to trigger the 25-year-olds transfer release clause.

La Liga will file this complaint because its a problem for La Ligas competitiveness. Today its happened to Barca, tomorrow it could happen to Real Madrid, its happened to Atletico Madrid, Tebas, the La Liga chairman, told Mundo Deportivo.

Should PSG bid, and then pay, the 222 million euros needed to prise Neymar from the Catalan capital, they would struggle to meet UEFAs financial fair play conditions that limit a team to losses of no more than 30 million euros over a three-year cycle.

And that is despite a mega-money sponsorship deal with the Qatar tourism board.

According to Tebas, no-one believes the commercial revenue figures presented by PSG to justify their spending.

PSG cannot have figures in which PSGs commercial rights exceed those of Real Madrid and Barcelona, said Tebas.

No-one believes that. Weve carried out economic studies and its impossible.

It means that the Qatari state is injecting money and that violates UEFAs financial fair play rules and the European Unions norms of economic competition, and were going to file a complaint.

In 2014, PSG were fined 60 million euros and handed transfer spending restrictions by UEFA for breaching financial fair play rules.

UEFAs Club Financial Control Body has also stated that PSGs 200 million euros a year image rights contract with the Qatari tourist board is inflated and double its true value.

PSG are owned by Oryx Qatar Sports Investments.

Source: ( AFP )
The President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Yakubu Dogara, are ready to visit President Muhammadu Buhari.

A source, who declined to be quoted on the matter because he was not authorised to speak on it, said the two National Assembly leaders did not make any request before their previous visit to Buhari in London, United Kingdom.

Only the Presidency can determine who sees the President. Saraki and Dogara can only be invited; they wont lobby to see the President, the source said.

It was gathered that some top leaders of the National Assembly had tried to visit the President, but it was unsuccessful.

Following the recent visits to the President in London, some of them have however been hopeful that they might be invited to see Buhari.

However, SUNDAY PUNCH gathered in Abuja on Saturday that there was no plan by the Presidency to invite leaders of the National Assembly to visit Buhari in London, where he has been receiving medical attention since May 7.

Some leaders of the ruling All Progressives Congress, including the partys National Chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun; Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi; and three state governors, Tanko Al-Makura (Nasarawa), Nasir El-Rufai (Kaduna), and Yahaya Bello (Kogi), had visited the President in the British capital last Sunday.

On Wednesday, seven state governors also visited the President on the platform of the Nigeria Governors Forum.

The governors, who were led by their forums chairman, Abdulaziz Yari of Zamfara State, included Dave Umahi (Ebonyi), Umar Ganduje (Kano), Kashim Shettima (Borno), Samuel Ortom (Benue), Udom Emmanuel (Akwa Ibom) and Abiola Ajimobi (Oyo).

When asked by Punch Correspondence on Saturday if leaders of the National Assembly would also be allowed to visit the President in London, a Presidency official who spoke on the condition of anonymity said, there is nothing to prove.

Is it a carnival or a jamboree? There is nothing to prove. Even the lawmakers themselves have gone on recess for eight weeks, the source said.

The official added that the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki; and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, had earlier visited the President.

When he was reminded that the two National Assembly leaders visited only during the Presidents first medical trip earlier in the year, the source said, it is the same health saga. There is no difference.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
An herbalist identified as Adekunle Oseni, has been arrested by the Enugu Police Command for allegedly preparing a concoction for the detection and arrest of thieves, which allegedly killed a 30-year-old woman.

Police Public Relations Officer, Enugu Command, Ebere Amaraizu, in a statement on Saturday in Enugu, said the incident took place at Ugbodogwu area of Trans Ekulu in Enugu city on Friday.

He said the woman, Ukoro Onyinye, a resident of Ugbodogwu Trans Ekulu, had taken the concoction which was prepared with a goats heart, to enable her detect and arrest thieves that had persistently broken into her shop.

Investigation into the womans death revealed that she took some herbal concoctions prepared by Oseni.

From our findings, the deceased met the suspect through a neighbour identified as Alesinloye Nuru, after she (deceased) complained of constant burglary of her shop.

On July 2, the deceased contacted the suspect who, after listening to her complaint, prepared a concoction which he promised would enable her detect and arrest the thieves.

In the early hours of July 28, she (the deceased) started vomiting and was rushed to Colliery Hospital, Enugu, where she was confirmed dead, the statement said.

The PPRO said the corpse had been deposited at the hospital mortuary for autopsy, while the suspect was helping the police in their investigation.

Source: (NAN)
A 23-year-old identified as Sunday Jamilu Abubakar of Babako village in Wushishi Local Government Area has been arrested by the Niger State Police Command for an alleged murder.

Abubakar was reportedly trailed and arrested by a team of policemen, the Police Public Relations Officer in the state, Bala Elkana, told SUNDAY PUNCH at his office in Minna.

According to Elkana, the suspect was arrested for killing one Ibrahim Gyagyah, who prevented him from stealing two fowls that did not belong to him.

The suspect, amid the heated argument, was said to have used a cutlass to hit the victim on the head leading to instant death, before the body was dumped in a river.

The PPRO said the operatives discovered the victims body at the bank of the river and arrested the suspect, who was said to have confessed to the crime.

Elkana said, We have had enough of these wicked acts in the state. We will continue to deal with them till they change to better people in the society.

Elkana stated that the suspect would be charged to court upon conclusion of investigation.

Source: ( Punch Newspaper )
On Friday, July 28th, six students of the Lagos Model Scool Igbonla in Epe, Lagos state were rescued by police in Ondo state. They were kidnapped on May 25th and spent 64 days in the kidnappers den. Some of the students have recounted their ordeal to The Nation. According to one of them, the kidnappers blindfolded them and subjected them to routine beating

We were blindfolded, kept under the bridge with our legs tied. They fed us eba and crayfish soup. They were beating us. They mixed the crayfish with pepper and water and then gave us to eat with Eba. They were giving us red water to drink. The water had a bad taste but no odour. It was polluted. They kept us under a bridge. They gave us no bed sheets or blankets.

The student said they had only the dresses they were kidnapped in and some fake jerseys provided by the kidnappers as their clothes for the period they were kidnapped. He said he was happy he has reunited with his family.

I have done my medical check up. I am fine and happy to be home with my family, he said and paused, his mood changing immediately.

Another of the student who was kidnapped said they had to change camps thrice during their stay with the kidnappers and that they endured starvation at some point. He revealed that one of the camps was made of cut trees and the kidnappers had to erect a tent to shield them from the rain. He said that after sometime, the kidnapped loosened up and allowed them to move around as well as prepare their own meals.

His mother commended Lagos Police Commissioner Fatai Owoseni and the Commander, Rapid Response Squad (RRS) for standing by them throughout their ordeal.

Honestly, I do not want to expose my son to any danger. It is true he fell sick in the camp because we were told then. He was kidnapped while he was recuperating from an illness and so, I think the environment they were kept and the trauma made him sick again. He was examined on Friday night and the doctors asked that we return to the hospital. But he is okay now.

Source: Linda Ikeji
The leader of Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, on Friday, said that the secessionist group will send the governor of Imo State, Rochas Okorocha, back to Jos in 2019, Punch has reported.

The report stated that Kanu revealed this after he arrived the state where he was welcomed by hundreds of thousands of his supporters. He insisted that there would be no election in Anambra State in November and in the other four the South East States in 2019.

According to Kanu, a Sovereign State of Biafra was the only solution to the problem facing the country and not power devolution to States nor restructuring. He urged the relevant authorities to call for a referendum before it is too late.

According to Kanu We are in the land of Biafra. I have come to Owerri to spread the good news of the coming of Biafra Republic. I dont want you people to be deceived. Restructuring does not have any meaning and I want you people to go and tell Ohanaeze Ndigbo.

There is no freedom in Nigeria. All their children are abroad studying and enjoying good environment.

Only referendum can solve the problems of Nigeria. Power devolution is not the solution. Resource control is not our problem. What we need is Biafra. They are going about deceiving our people in the name of restructuring.

I want to say it again. There will be no election in Anambra and there will be no election in 2019, in Igboland. And there will be no election in Imo state.

Go and tell Rochas Okorocha that I am a child of God. I want you people to tell him that he will leave Government House in 2019 and go back to Jos where he came from. Let him get ready. 
Elon Musk is one of the most forward-thinking innovators of our time, so its particularly troubling to hear him fear-mongering about the future of artificial intelligence (AI). At the recent National Governors Association meeting in Washington, D.C., Musk renewed his call for the federal government to actively regulate AI research. A deregulation-minded Washington is unlikely to create a new federal AI agency, as Musk would like, but his comments could damage AIs enormous potential for social good.

And to be clear, his words are not half-hearted. At the governors meeting, he warned that AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization, justifying proactive regulation to make sure that we dont do something very foolish. And, a few years ago, he compared AI research to summoning the demon, where the certainty that the guy with the pentagram and the holy water can control the demon doesnt work out.

Musk is not alone in sounding an alarm. In 2014, Stephen Hawking, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark and Frank Wilczek said, Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. For years, that same doomsday message has been delivered by other high-profile thinkers, including back in 1965, when computer scientist I. J. Goode warned that  the first ultra-intelligent machine is the last invention that man need ever make, provided that the machine is docile enough to tell us how to keep it under control.

At a high level, the dream of AI is the development of a single system or linked group of systems that not only perform a range of disparate tasks, but autonomously reprogram to learn new tasks. From there, it is easy to imagine a system that can improve in a self-directed way, and in virtually any field. And when it eventually applies its learning capacity to self-improvement, it wont be long before it far surpasses anything that humans have been able to do.

Fears of losing control to machines are not entirely unreasonable, particularly as smart technologies become everyday parts of our lives and specially designed computing systems become more capable, and in more fields. They recognize speech and spam, detect fraudulent transactions, select military targets, make educational recommendations, diagnose diseases, drive our cars, and beat humans at chess and Go. And increasingly, they perform jobs that were previously reserved for humans.

But in reality, todays predictions of imminent human-level intelligence remain as speculative as they were at the dawn of the computer age.

Andrew Moore, Dean of Carnegie Mellons School of Computer Science, throws cold water on the potential for self-directed machines, saying,  no one has any idea how to do that. Its real science fiction. Its like asking researchers to start designing a time machine. He estimates that 98 percent of AI researchers are currently focused on engineering systems that can help people make better decisions, rather than simulate human consciousness.

Cutting-edge companies like IBM say clearly, Cognitive systems will not realistically attain consciousness or independent agency. Rather, they will increasingly be embedded in the processes, systems, products, and services by which business and society function  all of which will and should remain within human control.

Of course, research precautions should be taken, as scientific institutes such as The Future of Humanity Institute and the Future of life Institute have urged. Their recently developed Asilomar Principles urge researchers to design AI systems so that their goals and behaviors can be assured to align with human values throughout their operation. And the government should not shy away from using federal research dollars to encourage the development of AI research with the right approach, such as the human-compatible AI design philosophy recently advanced by AI scientist Stuart Russell.

In addition, task-specific AI systems can raise special issues that policymakers should monitor. For instance, many technologists, including Musk, think the development of autonomous weapons systems is immoral and have asked national and international governments to ban them. And, at some point, they may need to consider legislation to promote the development of specific AI applications. For instance, legislation to create a uniform national regulatory scheme for autonomous cars is on the Congressional agenda this year  with strong support from the technology and automotive industries.

But speculative fear shouldnt lead us into creating an omnibus regulatory structure to oversee all AI research. Theres simply no evidence that truly self-directing machines are around the corner, and a regulatory agency to supervise AI research is clearly a solution in search of a problem.

Whats worse, a fear-driven policy approach could significantly slow the development of AI systems that will make our homes and roads safer, cure deadly and costly illnesses, drive economic progress, and lead to many other societal advancements. Government should be looking for ways to promote AI rather than creating regulatory roadblocks.
From August 2-8, 2017, ASEAN leaders and their dialogue partners, including rivals China and the United States, will have a series of key security meetings in the Philippines. Casting a shadow upon these meetings and haunting the corridors will be recent developments regarding the South China Sea. Indeed, it is no coincidence that tensions are flaring and diplomatic lobbying is intensifying as the meetings draw nigh. Their result may indicate whether China or the US has the diplomatic upper hand, and if ASEAN can unite and play a serious role in the mitigation of these issues or is becoming increasingly irrelevant.





While there will be other important issues on the agendas, the focus of many observers will be on ASEAN countries positions on the South China Sea issues, with the US-China dialectic being the proverbial elephant in the room.





Chinas recent behavior regarding the South China Sea is likely to be front and center. Last week, it was reported that China threatened to attack Vietnams military installations on features it occupies there if Vietnam did not halt its lessee Repsol from drilling in Block 136-03, which China also apparently claims. This has not been confirmed by either Repsol or any Vietnamese official. Nevertheless, when asked if China had pressured Vietnam on this matter, Chinas Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lu Kang seemed to confirm the report by saying that China urges the relevant party to ease the relevant unilateral infringing activities and with practical actions safeguard the hard-earned positive situation in the South China Seas. He did not define practical actions but this could mean sharing, such as joint development.





This report came on the heels of Philippine President Rodrigo Dutertes revelation that Chinese President Xi Jinping told him regarding planned Philippines sanctioned oil exploration on the disputed Reed Bank: If you force the issue, well go to war. This could have been an observation rather than a threat. But the history of that dispute indicates otherwise. In 2005, oil companies in the Philippines, China and Vietnam signed a joint maritime seismic undertaking in an area that included Reed Bank. But that arrangement foundered on Philippine domestic politics and constitutional concerns. It was not extended and Philippines-China relations rapidly went downhill. In 2011, Chinese vessels harassed an Anglo-Filipino consortiums seismic survey ship at the Reed Bank. In 2015, the Philippines suspended exploration there while awaiting the ruling on its complaints filed against China with the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. On July 12, 2017, it was announced that Philippines-sanctioned drilling on Reed Bank might resume before the end of the year. President Xis observation followed.





In both instances, these apparent threats to use force involved what China sees as unilateral exploration for and eventual production of petroleum in disputed areas. Indeed, Chinas Foreign Minister Wang Yi warned that In waters where there are overlapping of maritime rights and interest, if one party goes for unilateral development there the other party will take the same actions.





It is true that precedential international arbitration rulings prohibit unilateral actions in disputed areas that change the nature of the area, such as drilling. However, in both these cases, the only rationale that China might have for claiming the areas in question has already been rejected by an arbitration panel. Nevertheless, it would appear that despite the arbitration panels ruling, Chinas nine-dash line historical claim to sovereignty over the resources and features encompassed by it  or alternatively, a potential claim to 200nm Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) around some of these features, which was also rejected  is still very much alive.





This fundamental security dilemma has now become plain for all to see  an increasingly aggressive China eroding a US-led status quo with a divided and increasingly irrelevant ASEAN.





If this is truly the position China is taking  that it still claims the nine-dash line or EEZs and will use force to enforce its claim  it will have serious implications for China-ASEAN and China-US relations. Indeed, the US will argue that this is a violation of the existing international order  which it helped build and still leads. Moreover, the US, Japan and Vietnam are likely to use these actions to attempt to unite ASEAN against China  at least on this set of issues. Contributing to the increased tension, the US has resumed its Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPs) against Chinas claims there and US FONOPs are now likely to become more frequent and provocative under the Trump administration  much to Chinas chagrin.





Chinas actions have already exacerbated tensions between some ASEAN members and China at a particularly sensitive time. China is trying to prevent interference by outside parties (the US and Japan) in the run-up to, and at the ASEAN and ASEAN-Plus meetings. On July 26 in Manila, Wang Yi warned that If there are still some non-regional forces or forces in the region that dont want to see stability in the South China Sea and they still want to stir up trouble in the South China Sea, we need to stand together and say no to them together. Also in play is Xis desire to appear patriotic, steadfast and strong to bolster the likelihood of his reappointment at the 19th Chinese Communist Party meeting this coming fall.





A confrontation with the Philippines, particularly involving the use of force, would drive it and much of ASEAN into the US camp. China is hopeful of avoiding such by forging a joint development agreement in the disputed area with the Philippines. Duterte is so inclined and negotiations are ongoing. But a serious obstacle is that the Philippines Constitution prohibits a 50:50 sharing of resources under Philippine sovereignty. Such joint ventures must be at least a 60:40 split in favor of the Philippines. Agreement by China to such a split could be interpreted as a de facto recognition of Philippine sovereignty over the resource. Duterte has promised to consult all other ASEAN members before proceeding. This could be a stalling tactic.





The meeting of ASEAN Foreign Ministers and China will also consider the proposed Framework for a Code of Conduct of Parties in the South China Sea (COC). The draft framework has been agreed by the representatives of ASEAN and China and is likely to be approved by their Foreign Ministers. However, it is very thin. It does not mention the legal nature of the COC, the area it will apply to, how to settle disputes, and how to ensure compliance. All are major stumbling blocks to agreement on a COC. Indeed, there are likely to be many a slip twixt the cup and the lip before a binding COC is ever agreed.





These are some of the issues that will be debated and shape the outcome of the upcoming meetings in Manila. They are important in themselves but one should always be aware of the context in which they are embedded  the contest between China and the US for dominance in the region. This fundamental security dilemma has now become plain for all to see  an increasingly aggressive China eroding a US-led status quo with a divided and increasingly irrelevant ASEAN. At these meetings, the South China Sea issues will be the superficial and symbolic foil for this titanic geopolitical struggle.




A gangster who hid a gun linked to two murders and stashed hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of cocaine has been jailed for a decade, Scotland Yard said.

Andre Chambers, 34, of Woolwich in south-east London, had evaded detectives for three years before his capture, and admitted the charges at Croydon Crown Court on Friday July 28, according to the Met.

Chambers, of Harlinger Street, had earlier pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm, possessing ammunition without a certificate and two counts of having class A drugs with intent to supply.

In September 2013, officers found a hidden 9mm Glock handgun, eight bullets and hundreds of grams of high-purity cocaine at a property in Southwark that Chambers was living in.

Forensic analysis found it was used to murder 24-year-old Errol Davis at a nightclub near London Bridge in 2008. It was also linked to the murder of 25-year-old Larry Safie in East Dulwich in 2009.

It was further found to have been used in two attempted murders in both 2007 and 2009.

Scotland Yard said Chambers did not commit the killings, but was holding the gun for other gang members.

A man was arrested and charged over the murders of Safie and Davis but was acquitted following a trial. Inquiries continue in both investigations, the Met said.

Chambers was caught in a minicab near Woolwich Ferry in October last year, more than a year-and-a-half after a 20,000 reward was offered for information on his location.

Acting Detective Inspector Martin Thorpe said a "dangerous man" was off the streets following the three-year hunt.

He added: "Chambers did everything he could to evade capture and no doubt got complacent and thought he had got away with the offences committed in 2013.

"I hope his sentence serves as a warning to those intent on concealing weapons and dealing drugs, we will continue to pursue you no matter the length of time."
A leading activist and an opposition candidate have been killed as voting gets underway in Venezuela for a controversial new assembly.

Jose Felix Pineda, a 39-year-old lawyer running in the election, was shot in his home while Ricardo Campos, a youth secretary with the opposition party, was shot dead during a protest.

The deaths are the latest result of violence in the country as President Nicolas Maduro seeks to set up a new assembly with powers to re-write the country's constitution following today's vote.

Venezuela's leader casts vote for 'super power' assembly

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro asked for global acceptance as he cast his vote for an all-powerful constitutional assembly that opponents fear will replace the country's democracy with a single-party authoritarian system.

Accompanied by close advisers and state media, Mr Maduro voted at 6.05 am local time, far earlier and less publicly than in previous elections.

The run-up to the vote has been marked by months of clashes between protesters and the government, including the fatal shooting of a 61-year-old nurse by men accused of being pro-government paramilitaries during a protest at a church a few hundred feet from the school where Mr Maduro voted.

The president and his socialist administration deny links to violent paramilitaries and say the political opposition is responsible for the violence that has left at least 113 dead and nearly 2000 wounded in four months of protests.

Nicolas Maduro

"We've stoically withstood the terrorist, criminal violence," Mr Maduro said. "Hopefully the world will respectfully extend its arms toward our country."

The opposition is boycotting Sunday's vote, contending the election has been structured to ensure Mr Maduro's socialist party continues to dominate. All 5,500 candidates for the 545 seats in the constituent assembly are Mr Maduro's supporters and the vote's success is being measured by turnout.

The government is encouraging participation with tactics that include offering social benefits like subsidised food to the poor and threatening state workers' jobs if they don't vote.

Opinion polls say more than 70% of the country is opposed to the vote.

The special assembly being selected on Sunday will have powers to rewrite the country's 1999 constitution but will also have powers above and beyond other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.

While opinion polls say a vast majority oppose him, Mr Maduro made clear in a televised address Saturday evening that he intends to use the assembly to govern without limitation, describing the vote as "the election of a power that's above and beyond every other. It's the super power!"

He said he wants the assembly to strip opposition legislators of their constitutional immunity from prosecution and indicated he is eager to prosecute many more members of the opposition parties that control a handful of state governments along with the National Assembly, providing one of the few remaining checks on the power of the socialist party that has ruled this OPEC nation for nearly two decades.

"The right wing already has its prison cell waiting," the president said. "All the criminals will go to prison for the crimes they've committed."

Saying the assembly will begin to govern within a week, Mr Maduro said its first task in rewriting the constitution will be "a total transformation" of the office of Venezuela's chief prosecutor, a former government loyalist who has become the highest-ranking official to publicly split from the president.

AP
Three people have died in protests at a controversial vote that opposition leaders fear will trigger the end of democracy in Venezuela.

Two men died in Merida whilst a third, 30-year-old Ricardo Campos, was killed in a separate incident in Sucre.
Sunday, July 30th, 2017 (8:18 am) - Score 5,177

After a lot of negotiation the Government and BT have today proposed a deal that could see the operator fund a new Universal Service Obligation (USO), which will aim to ensure that everybody can request a broadband download speed of at least 10Mbps by 2020. Now for the caveats.

At present fixed line superfast broadband (24Mbps+) connections are already estimated to cover around 93% of homes and businesses in the United Kingdom and the Governments Broadband Delivery UK programme predicts that this could reach 97% by 2020, which leaves around 3% of premises in predominantly rural areas (plus some disadvantaged urban spots) to suffer from slow connectivity; this is where the USO will focus.

Catering for the final 3% by delivering universal fixed line coverage of superfast broadband would be hugely expensive (the BSG estimated up to 1.4bn) and so the cash-strapped Government initially proposed a slower Universal Service Obligation (USO) to fill the gap, which pledged to provide an affordable connection that can deliver Internet speeds of at least 10Mbps (estimated to cost anything from 180m and up to 1bn).

The proposal was a significant step up from the current USO, which is delivered exclusively via fixed lines and only requires KCOM (Hull only) or BT (Openreach) to deliver, following the reasonable request of any End-user (i.e. demand-led), a telephone service that includes the ability to offer data rates that are sufficient to permit functional internet access (here); this was such a low bar that even slow dial-up lines could hit it.

The new rule forms part of the Governments Digital Economy Act 2017 and weve included an extract from that below.

DEAct 2017 Extract (2A) The provision made under subsection (1) is referred to as the universal service order. (2B) The universal service order may in particular say that broadband connections and services must be provided to any extent, but may not do so unless  (a) it specifies the minimum download speed that must be provided by those connections and services, and  (b) the speed so specified is at least 10 megabits per second. (2C) The universal service order may contain  (a) guidance about matters relating to the speed or other characteristics of broadband connections or services that it says must be provided (as well as or, except in the case of the minimum download speed, instead of setting out any of those characteristics); and  (b) guidance about any other matters relating to those connections or services.

Oddly the Government has chosen Sunday to launch a major consultation on the USO design, which is perhaps a reaction to yesterdays cross-party Broadbad 2.0 report from Grant Shapps MP (here). As part of todays announcement the Government has also confirmed that BT have offered to voluntarily fund the 10Mbps USO and the operator claims this would involve an estimated investment of 450m  600m (depending on the final technology solution).

The new USO would be considered a minimum performance level that BT, upon request from an end-user, must deliver (i.e. most properties will get much faster speeds than 10Mbps). BT proposes that they would fund this investment and recover its costs through the charges for products providing access to its local access networks, albeit only if Ofcom factors this in when setting future regulation (i.e. Ofcoms plan to cut the cost of Openreachs 40Mbps [10Mbps upload] FTTC product (here) may need to be softened).

Gavin Patterson, BTs CEO, said: We are pleased to make a voluntary offer to deliver the Governments goal for universal broadband access at minimum speeds of 10Mbps. This would involve an estimated investment of 450m  600m depending on the final technology solution. This investment will reinforce the UKs status as the leading digital economy in the G20. We already expect 95% of homes and businesses to have access to superfast broadband speeds of 24Mbps or faster by the end of 2017. Our latest initiative aims to ensure that all UK premises can get faster broadband, even in the hardest to reach parts of the UK.

BT is expected to reach most of those in the final 3% by using their modified Fibre-to-the-Cabinet (FTTC / VDSL2) technology, which is called Long Reach VDSL (details here, here and here); this would be sold like normal FTTC packages via ISPs. Other technology solutions like FTTP, FTTrN, WTTC and G.fast may also have a role to play.

Openreach has previously indicated that LR-VDSL could enable their fibre broadband network to cover 99%+ of homes in the United Kingdom by the end of 2020 (i.e. the 99% figure is likely to support speeds of 24Mbps+), but that would still leave a question mark over the final 1% and this is where the deal includes a few caveats.

The USO Caveats * BT expects to complete the build of this fixed network by either December 2021 or December 2022 depending on the mix of technologies used, some of which are subject to trial and industry consultation. This is obviously later than the 2020 date and so a few changes are required (see below). * BT plans to launch the fixed wireless broadband service so that the UK will have 10Mbps coverage to around 99% by the end of 2020. Fixed wireless will be made available at an affordable price for hard to reach premises. At this stage its unclear whether BT will harness EEs 4G network for this (makes the most sense) or adopt a different approach, such as White Space wireless (they trialled it some years ago). * The expectation is that around 0.3% of UK premises will still be un-served by a 10Mbps fixed line USO come 2022 and so inferior Satellite technology will be used to cater for these, which is unlikely to go down well with those affected. * All of these technologies will come with quality standards and requirements to minimise delays from contention and latency, although sadly upload speeds would only be required to deliver a minimum performance of 1Mbps and that is already starting to look very slow by modern standards. * The Government also appears to be considering data cap of at least 100GB per month for their USO (Ofcoms data from 2016 suggested that the average broadband connection already uses 153GB and this will no doubt be a lot higher by 2020).

The other catch is that Openreachs LR-VDSL technology works best when older ADSL broadband services are disabled, which complicates the roll-out because ISPs then need to be convinced to play ball and vested interests can make that tricky. Encouraging consumers to swap from ADSL to LR-VDSL lines could also be made more difficult if Ofcom is required to soften their proposal for a cheaper 40Mbps FTTC tier (see our earlier comment).

On the upside the new deal wont require the Government to commit any additional public investment towards the USO and they wont need to force a complicated industry levy upon fixed line connections, which are already suffering under a weight of new regulations and associated implementation costs.

However the Government are keen to stress that they have yet to make a decision on whether or not to adopt BTs voluntary USO proposal or enforce one of their own and they promise to work with BT to develop its proposal over the coming months, which suggests that they have yet to reach full agreement on some details (this may be a reference to the demands that BT are making of Ofcom and / or other issues).

Karen Bradley MP, UK Culture Secretary, said: The government is taking action to ensure that people everywhere in the UK can get a decent broadband connection as soon as possible. We warmly welcome BTs offer and now will look at whether this or a regulatory approach works better for homes and businesses. Whichever of the two approaches we go with in the end, the driving force behind our decision making will be making sure we get the best deal for consumers.

We should point out that what the Government are proposing broadly appears to reflect Scenario 2 in Ofcoms earlier USO cost analysis (here). The cost of serving the most expensive premises is estimated to be around 45,000 in all three of their scenarios and as a result Ofcom suggested that a Reasonable Cost Threshold (RCT) be introduced to limit the upper bound of the costs.

The Governments consultation notes that the final USO proposal will include a cost threshold of 3,400 per premise. We note that the existing USO, which only caters for basic copper telephone lines, already has a cost threshold of 3,400 but this should not be used as a comparison because, as the Broadband Stakeholders Group said, the benefits derived from network use for voice and for broadband are different.

Whatever the decision, the Government has confirmed that in all cases they will expect that costs should be met by industry through a cost- sharing mechanism which will be established by Ofcom once the specification for the USO has been set in secondary legislation. The cost threshold will also support demand aggregation, which means that several home owners could demand the USO and the cost threshold would have to adapt (rise) accordingly (this creates more flexibility to deploy better infrastructure).

The new USO is also expected to include a review clause, which would enable the performance level to be revised in the future as networks improve. At this point its worth remembering that USOs are intended to define the minimum level of service, not a maximum. Critics of todays proposal will no doubt call for a faster minimum than 10Mbps (Labour and the Liberal Democrats both wanted a 30Mbps USO), although this would cost significantly more.

The closing date for responses is 9th October 2017.

UPDATE 31st July 2017 (8am)



Weve had a few emails asking (i.e. raising concern) about a related report in one of the newspapers, which suggests that broadband bills could rise by 20 if the proposed USO were introduced. However the figure of 20 appears to be an oversimplification with regards to how the cost of BTs USO might be apportioned or managed and it doesnt consider a time-scale for balancing that cost.

Assuming the figure of 20 is even correct (looks like a rough guesstimate) then its obviously not a monthly increase and instead the cost is more likely to be recouped over a number of years, which could easily be conducted via one-off setup fees for new services or smaller increases / changes in any number of different areas at wholesale.

By the sounds of it BT appear to be using their proposal as more of a bargaining chip to reduce the expected impact from some of Ofcoms recent proposals, such as the forthcoming reduction (charge control) to 40Mbps FTTC prices at wholesale (see above). Assuming the regulator were to compromise then its conceivable that end-users may not see any increase above the usual level of annual price rises.

UPDATE 31st July 2017 (11:01am)

The Country Land and Business Association, which represents 30,000+ land owners and rural businesses from across England and Wales, has vowed to fight any attempt to water down the USO by BT and the Government. However so far the USO is still in a design stage and so technically nothing has been watered down, yet.

Ross Murray, CLA President, said: We will fight any attempt to water down the hard won legal right to broadband for rural homes and businesses. For too long, rural areas have been at the back of the queue when it comes to investment in infrastructure and that is why this legal principle is not something to compromise on. The Universal Service Obligation is necessary because it creates an inalienable right that can be enforced by the premise owner. It cannot be replaced by a cosy deal with just one company allowing it to deliver connection how it sees fit. Accountability for delivering the rollout of broadband has been a closed shop discussion between the industry and the regulator for too long. It is this that the USO would end, making the consumer the enforcer. Its no wonder BT Group doesnt want that.

The CLA suggests that the USO cannot be replaced by a cosy deal with just one company allowing it to deliver connection how it sees fit. On the other hand Ofcoms earlier consultation found that nobody else (ISPs) wanted to take on the financial and legal responsibility of a USO and indeed Openreach controls the biggest national network, so there isnt a magic multi-operator fix for this one.

On top of that the USO deal proposed by BT probably wouldnt cover the Hull area of East Yorkshire, where wed expect KCOM to continue holding responsibility unless Openreach plan to over-build their network.
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Close
Nicandro Durante, the top executive of British American Tobacco PLC, came to Winston-Salem occasionally during his 2008-10 term on Reynolds American Inc.s board of directors.

Fridays visit was different, not just because it was his first as chief executive of the merged companies. BAT on Tuesday completed its $54.5 billion purchase of the 57.8 percent of Reynolds it didnt already own.

Durante, BATs CEO for 6 years, took the time to venture from the boardroom through the hallways and onto the Tobaccoville plant floor to celebrate with Reynolds employees what he considered to be the consummation of a marriage made in heaven between two extremely successful companies.

BAT paid $54.5 billion for total ownership. Legacy Reynolds shareholders now own 19 percent of BAT.

The merger formed the worlds largest publicly traded tobacco manufacturer with combined fiscal 2016 revenues of $30.55 billion  $18.8 billion from BAT and $11.75 billion from Reynolds.

That revenue line is likely to become significantly higher once BAT takes Newport, the top-selling menthol cigarette brand, and Vuse, the top-selling electronic-cigarette brand, into more than 200 global markets.

That business possibility alone was enticing enough for the BAT and Reynolds boards.

However, Durante said gaining full access to Reynolds cutting-edge next-generation innovations compelled BATs decision to purchase the company even though some analysts questioned the need to buy the cow when a vapor technology-sharing agreement finalized in December already offered the milk.

At the end of the day, our business is made up of talent, and Reynolds has great talent, Durante said. This deal gives BAT the ability to move forward with the best of both companies to form an even stronger company with talent pools and ideas being exchanged both ways.

Product decisions

Durante said BAT will explore what products from its traditional-cigarette portfolio would be appropriate to bring to the U.S. market, whether Dunhill, Kent, Lucky Strike or Rothmans, going along with the theme of combining the best of the best from their portfolios.

Debra Crew, Reynolds chief executive, said the timing will depend in part on how U.S. Food and Drug Administration industry regulations evolve when it comes to new-market entrants, whether well-established brands of traditional cigarettes or next-generation products.

Durante confirmed that glo, BATs heat-not-burn cigarette being sold in Japan, will be submitted for FDA regulatory review.

Its hard to speculate on what Washington is going to do right now, Crew said. We are working very well with the FDA on developing next-generation products.

Whatever we do, Durante said, we would want to complement the brands you have here.

Debra will have the ability to decide which of our combustible cigarette products will work here and complement its products to strengthen the business in the United States.

Durante smiled when he began discussing the introduction of two very innovative products in Brazil, our vapor cigarettes Vype and Vype Raptor.

BAT markets Vype Raptor as vapor technology that releases nicotine into the bloodstream faster, giving a more traditional smoking-like experience than other vapor products.

Given how complex it is to introduce a combustible cigarette in the U.S. market, we may put more effort into the next-generation products, Durante said.

Crew said Reynolds board of directors understood that selling Newport and Vuse on a global basis would be challenging financially and logistically, with a dependable supply chain needing to be put in place.

For Reynolds, its quite exciting to see the global potential for these products become a reality, Crew said.

Smooth integration

BAT said in a Jan. 18 regulatory filing that it has no plans to close or move the head office in Winston-Salem, nor make any significant changes to the current high-quality manufacturing facilities in North Carolina and Tennessee, nor to the trade marketing team. Reynolds has an American Snuff Co. production plant in Tennessee.

Reynolds is estimated to have between 2,000 and 2,200 employees locally, the majority of whom work at its plant in Tobaccoville. Overall, it had 5,500 full-time and 50 part-time employees as of Dec. 31, 2016. The total includes 3,700 employees at Reynolds Tobacco, 500 at Santa Fe Natural Tobacco Co. and 600 at American Snuff.

Durante stressed that the beauty of this deal is there is very little overlap of the companies, which will make integration much simpler and give us really no reason to change things here.

With our previous representation on the Reynolds board (through its then-42.2 percent ownership stake), if we had had any concerns about how Reynolds was being run, we would have addressed them before now, he said.

We were so happy with the 42 percent ownership that we decided to buy the other 58 percent and keep the management in place, Durante said with a chuckle.

There will be changes as the business evolves, such as there have been in Brazil, in Russia, but not because of this deal. It will be business as usual.

When asked about what to expect from a community and philanthropic perspective, Durante said BAT has a deep history and engagement in the communities in which we operate  similar to what you have seen here at Reynolds.

Crew said that Reynolds merging with a global tobacco-manufacturing power will bring a greater level of local employment and community stability in an industry experiencing tremendous change, whether FDA regulation or product innovations.

It offers opportunity for expansion in the community, so were quite excited about it, she said.

Durante said that as BAT explores which BAT products to bring to the United States, it is likely those products will be made domestically, as they are in other major BAT markets.

I have found it is very difficult to sell product in the U.S. that isnt made in the U.S., he said.

The reverse could be true, at least in the short term, in terms of ramping up local Newport and Vuse production once BAT decides how and where it wants to sell those products globally.

Strategic decisions

Durante said it made sense for BAT to take its time, both financially and strategically, on acquiring full ownership of Reynolds after the 10-year moratorium on buying more stock ended on July 30, 2014.

He said the financials had to work to make the deal work, and the financials began to get there last fall.

One part was Reynolds decision, with BATs blessing, to spend $29.25 billion in June 2015 to purchase Greensboro rival and No. 3 U.S. tobacco-manufacturer Lorillard Inc., who was the owner of the Newport brand.

Durante stressed, however, that neither he nor the BAT board lobbied Reynolds to buy Lorillard in hopes of BAT gaining access to Newport through BAT later buying Reynolds.

Our independent directors on the Reynolds board were to vote for the benefit of the best strategic decisions for 100 percent of Reynolds shareholders, and not just the 42 percent of BAT, he said.

There was not a master plan from BAT that you had to buy Lorillard, and then we buy Reynolds. We are smart, but were not that smart Durante said. We also had 200 other global markets to run at that time as well.

Reynolds presented a case to us to buy Lorillard, just as they did to the other 58 percent of shareholders at that time, he said. We thought it made a lot of financial and strategic success.

Another factor in BATs decision to purchase the rest of Reynolds was the lower cost of borrowing the money needed to make a $54.5 billion transaction work. BAT plans to pay for the purchase through $24.4 billion in cash, much of which is being borrowed, and $30.1 billion in the new BAT shares.

The Brexit influence on the British economy made a U.S. investment, rather than a European investment, make more sense in terms of where to invest BATs increased equity value, Durante said.

We also thought Reynolds had progressed to a strong position in the U.S. market with the top-selling menthol, super-premium (Natural American Spirit), e-cig and moist snuff (Grizzly) brands, he said.

Its a natural process, and in this instance, one plus one here is more than two.
After a quarter-century of extolling the virtues of operating a business in Davidson County, Steve Googe experienced the economic-development industrys version of a walk-off homer before his retirement, planned for this Monday.

Googe, president and chief executive of the countys Economic Development Commission, stressed he didnt time his departure to coincide with announcing July 24 Davidson Countys largest-ever capital-investment project.

Googe, 70, had been working with Egger Wood Products since May 2016 on a planned $700 million particle-board production plant that could have up to 770 employees by 2032 in the I-85 Corporate Center industrial park.

To choose its location, Egger reviewed 50 sites in seven states and picked finalists in Georgia and South Carolina  states that have eaten North Carolinas recruitment lunch in recent years.

Yet, Googe couldnt help but let loose some sly grins as he graciously accepted attaboys and pats on his back  including from Gov. Roy Cooper  while sharing his retirement reception with Egger officials.

Although Coopers presence was to officially welcome the Austrian company to Davidson and the state, he recognized Googes recruiting prowess by presenting him with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine, the states highest civilian honor.

This award states that Steve is now an ambassador for the state, but truth is, he has been one for many, many years, Cooper said.

Egger could have gone anywhere in the seven states it reviewed. It chose Davidson County because there are people here who understand the furniture industry, who understand hard work and being industrious, and have a can-do attitude.

Theres nobody better to symbolize all that in Davidson County than Steve Googe, Cooper said.

Googe agrees theres a satisfaction in going out on your own terms, whether as a professional athlete, a corporate executive or an economic development recruiter.

I did not feel this project would be the last one because weve worked on other projects since the initial talks, Googe said

Part of the clients requirement we met was to have all commitments signed by July 24, a date Egger had picked for his retirement reception.

Although greatly appreciated, I wanted the focus to be on the client and the project, but it worked out very nicely to have both on the same day.

Old-school recruiter

As most people who have negotiated with Googe readily testify, he is old school to his core.

In an era in which companies pursuing economic incentives typically are identified at the legal notice step, Googe kept their name secret, sometimes yielding only with a signed incentive agreement.

He gives a nickname to each project, some that give the community a hint to the companys identity, and some that try to throw media and others off the trail.

The Lexington Dispatch teased Googe about his departure last week with the tagline Project Retirement.

Although Googes close-to-the-chest approach has spurred its fair share of frustration with county and city elected officials, and occasional head butting with the media, his track record built over time a reservoir of trust in his process.

Michael Egger, co-chairman of Egger, shared it was a little challenging at first negotiating with Googe given that it was two hard-headed individuals coming with their agendas.

But our discussions led to understanding, and understanding led to compromise that led us to today. It was a hard job, but a fantastic job, and were very happy to be in North Carolina.

For his part, Googe said, I learned a lot about Egger in the process, which helped me to convey to them how Davidson was such a good fit for them with our workforce.

As such, even as I prepare to retire, I look at the Egger process as not an end, but a foundation for future projects and the development of a friendship for years to come.

Tenacity pays off

Tommy Hedrick, long-time chairman of the Davidson economic commission, joked during Googes retirement reception that if I open the door to everyone here who wanted to roast Steve, wed be here until midnight.

Tony Copeland, the states Commerce secretary, said the Egger negotiations demonstrated one final time that when it comes to Steve Googe and a project, its always bolt down the hatches and full steam ahead.

Rep. Larry Potts, R-Davidson, and former county commissioner chairman, said the Egger recruitment epitomizes Googes legacy as a tireless, hard-nosed recruiter.

In the early 2000s, our county lost more than 13,000 jobs in furniture, textiles and supplier jobs, Potts said.

That includes the closing of every Lexington Home Brands and Thomasville Furniture plant, as well as those with Stanley Furniture Co. and Councill Craftsman.

Steve Googe became president of our EDC during that period (2002) and has literally traveled the world recruiting industry and selling Davidson County and North Carolina, Potts said.

He is tenacious in his efforts to lure industry here. Our county is in excellent industrial shape, and that is in part to his efforts.

Lexington Mayor Newell Clark said I had been hearing for years from people growing a little tired about wanting to see progress with the I-85 Corporate Center project.

I kept telling people were going forward and to have faith in Steves work behind the scenes.

This agreement with Egger is just one more example of his ability to help the community, and we hope to set a foundation with the Corporate Center for future success, Clark said.

Kelly Craver, Thomasvilles city manager, cited Googes efforts to breathe new life into vacant manufacturing plants by assisting local governments in securing grants to reuse and revitalize those facilities.

Loren Hill, president of the High Point Economic Development Corp., credited Googe with recognizing that collaborating on some projects  particularly in the post-Dell plant period  was often the better recruitment course to take since companies often dont pay attention to county and city boundaries when reviewing available workforce.

We have worked on projects together because we are not only next-door neighbors, but also since we share territory  the part of High Point that extends into Davidson County, Hill said.

Whether being with him locally or traveling with him in Europe on a N.C. business development mission, I found him to be a fighter for Davidson County, a tough negotiator, a knowledgeable professional, and a fun guy to be around socially.

Mary Rittling, president of Davidson County Community College, said Googe is motivated by his desire to do right by the community, including promoting the role that education, technology and job training plays in moving our community forward.

She added with a smile that Steve does enjoy the competition of selling what we have to offer to a company.

Big job losses

When asked to name which project showed Davidson would recover from the devastating job losses from 2001 through 2009, Googe and Rittling both pointed to the recruitment of the Unilin Flooring NC LLC project in 2005 that included a 700,000-square-foot plant.

Even though Unilin, a Belgian company that specializes in laminate flooring, has experienced the ebbs and flows of the home furnishings industry the past 12 years, it had found a stable level of production in Thomasville with about 300 employees.

Michael Egger cited Unilin having success in Davidson as giving his company confidence that they could thrive here as well.

This project will always stand out as a great success due to the size and the fact that we were able to beat out what we then thought were very formidable competitors for the project, Googe said.

The project gave the community, as well as me, the confidence to know that the re-engineering of our community was possible and achievable.

His quest to replace those more than 13,000 home furnishings, textiles and supplier jobs kept him a world traveler at an age when many economic officials are getting cozy with their couches.

Googes recruitment travels had him pursuing projects in at least 22 countries.

The more the merrier job-recruiting approach helped Davidson show a net gain of jobs by 2011 even when the rest of the Triad and country still was struggling to emerge from the Great Recession.

In looking at a 2001 manufacturing manual I found, when we relocated from DCCC in 2013, I noticed that 71 percent of the companies listed in 2001 did not exist here in 2013, Googe said.

We have announced a little over 25,000 jobs since Ive been here. Weve announced about $2.2 billion worth of investment.

Googe said it became clear in the early 2000s that the fertile area was Europe, mainly due to the sinking value of the U.S. dollar.

Many of these countries that arrived are small in population and area, and have survived for many centuries due to their very astute and tenacious ability to negotiate...

Sitting across the table from these very capable projects certainly honed my inferior negotiation skills. I would credit any success we had to this schooling. For me, this was a skill developed by losing a lot of projects.

Googe said negotiations showed him how individuals can aggressively argue for hours, then stop for lunch and walk arms over shoulders to the diner.

That instilled the idea that work is work and friendship is friendship, and both can function together as long as they are structured separately.

That said, Googe admitted that being focused or single-minded could look like being hardheaded, but Im sure Im guilty of all three.

Understanding your clients

Googe acknowledged that his work ethic of best effort all the time, while very fruitful, has worn on him since early 2016.

As I age, it is clear I have less time, which I believe creates a subconscious effort to enhance performance and the time commitment I spend on any project, Googe said.

This effort has caused me to prioritize (my job), normally leaving personal (needs) and family second, something I plan to correct.

Googe was succeeded by Craig Goodson as the commissions top executive on Friday. Googe will provide some consulting assistance as the Egger project aims for a December 2018 construction start and early 2020 beginning of production.

I wanted to see a stable switch with a leader that had the experience and the personality to quickly be accepted and create successes in stride, Googe said.

Getting this person in place took a strong commitment and some time, but with Craig in place, we all feel this has been accomplished. Craig brings experience and ability to the commission, and has developed several projects that are currently in process which will be announced shortly.

Googe said retirement will include managing several personal investment properties.

When asked about his legacy, Googe said I think it is mandatory to get away from the idea a project is jobs and investment  notches on your gun.

You have to humanize the client, understanding who they are, what they need  not the same as what they want  have an understanding of their family, their history, their goals and how you can help deliver their needs.

Once you get to that stage with the person, then you have an understanding as to when to push and when to back off.

I really have never thought about that question but I hope if my name comes up, folks will think I tried, I was a good steward of the citizens money and I left it better than I found it.
RALEIGH  For decades, the modern conservative movement, and Republicans as an increasingly conservative party, dedicated themselves to the proposition that government was too large, too costly and too intrusive into matters best left to voluntary associations to address. With this unifying principle, American conservatives were largely in consonance with American voters, who have usually (but not always) told pollsters theyd prefer a government that cost less and did fewer things to a government that cost more and did more things.

But for both the general public and conservatives as a subset, advocating a smaller government is easier in general than in specific. They exhibit higher levels of support for particular functions of government, such as education or Social Security, even as they disdain governments overall size and expense.

This isnt inherently irrational. You can believe that, say, preschool or immigration enforcement ought to be a higher priority and get more funding, even as you believe that governmental budgets as a whole ought to be smaller. You can also favor a government function in general  such as assisting the disabled and destitute who truly have no other means of support  while believing that programs ought to be run more efficiently, or targeted more narrowly to the neediest populations.

Still, there are tensions to be reconciled. Those who step forward to run for public office are, whether they realize it or not, taking on the responsibility to resolve and reconcile those tensions as much as is possible. If the problem were easy to solve, it wouldnt still be a problem. And if leadership consisted of nothing more than polling every issue and plugging the results into legislative voting machines, it would be more properly called followership  and could easily be automated, freeing up politicians to find more gainful employment elsewhere.

When it comes to acting on fiscally conservative principles, there are important differences between Republican lawmakers in Raleigh and Republican politicians in Washington, D.C.

Since the GOP won majorities in the North Carolina General Assembly in 2010, theyve enacted a series of budgets that, while expanding programs in high-priority areas, have consistently held spending growth below the growth rate of the overall economy. A new report from the progressive North Carolina Budget & Tax Center projects that by 2019, state General Fund spending will fall to 4.9 percent of total personal income, down substantially from 2010 and below the 45-year average of 6 percent of personal income.

Conservative analysts have observed the same trend. The difference, obviously, is that we think its good news while the Left thinks its bad news.

As it happens, federal expenditures have also fallen since 2010, as the Great Recession-era bailouts and stimulus came and went. But according to official estimates, the federal budget will average about 22 percent of Americas gross domestic product through the end of the decade  still higher than the pre-Great Recession average of 20 percent.

Its certainly true that Americas total government spending of about 38 percent is below the likes of Italy (50 percent), France (57 percent), and the Euro zone as a whole (44 percent). But all industrialized countries are headed for grave fiscal problems in the coming years as their populations age. Their politicians have all promised government benefits that simply cant be financed at current tax rates.

In America, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are unsustainable in their present form, and yet dominate federal budgeting. The federal government has become an insurance company with an army, as a former Bush administration official once memorably put it. If Republicans cant manage to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act  which was mostly about expanding Medicaid, not creating private insurance exchanges  then its hard to see how theyll ever be serious about the measures, such as means-testing pension and Medicare benefits, that will be needed to balance federal budgets in the long run.

In some states, such as North Carolina, conservative legislators have shown great courage in acting on their fiscal principles. Washington should follow their lead.
When U.S. Sen. John McCain of Arizona rose to speak on the floor Tuesday, part of his face stitched up from the surgery that revealed he has a particularly aggressive form of brain cancer, I was hoping the Republican known for his contrarian stances would shock the country by standing up for Obamacare.

Kris Kristofferson sings in Me and Bobby McGee that freedoms just another word for nothin left to lose. The freedom-loving McCain had nothing left to lose in reversing his earlier stance and coming out for an Obamacare overhaul.

It didnt quite work out that way. But a vote McCain made early Friday morning made clear to me that there is still room for dreamers like me to dream and heroic leaders like McCain to act. Cancer, usually considered the province of nightmares, also leaves room for dreams and changes, both in those it hits and those who surround them.

I think of a phone call from a cancer patient I received in February 2014. Ann Marie Ingram of Lexington was upset about political cartoons and columns wed run critical of Obamacare. She and I quickly figured out she was part of a Thomasville family that contains three members I count as good and longtime friends. She calmed down. I encouraged her to write a letter to our Readers Forum. She did so, including these lines:

It makes me feel bad to see those cartoons and articles saying people with Obamacare are less likely to work. You see, I am one of those people, and I work.

I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer last year. I started back to work as a physical therapist a month after finishing chemo. My medical bills totaled $130,400 last year. My share was $11,000; Blue Cross/Blue Shield paid the rest. Now my pre-existing condition is still covered, my deductible went down, and the subsidies are helping me pay the premiums while I get back on my feet ... There are a lot of people like ... me, and we have names and faces. Heres mine.

We ran her photo with her letter. She was bald from chemotherapy. She was beautiful. And so was her letter. Shed worked hard as a physical therapist, a book editor, and as a rescuer of countless abused and neglected dogs and cats.

Her words caused me to be more careful about the cartoons and columns we choose to run on Obamacare and its severely awkward rollout. Im not saying it was a road to Damascus moment for me. Personally, I liked Obamacare. Then and now. I believe the best plan for all the uninsured would be for Republicans and Democrats to finally join and majorly tweak it.

Thinking back on Anne Maries call and McCains current situation, I realize that, as with so many social justice fights, talking to people who stand to lose the most can change hearts the most.

McCain has the same type of cancer that killed his friend Sen. Ted Kennedy and the son of his friend, former senator and Vice President Joe Biden, all Democrats.

Tuesday, the 80-year-old McCain, that iconic hero of the Vietnam War and fine candidate for president in 2008, made a dramatic entrance to the Senate floor to the adoration of Republican and Democratic colleagues. He gave a rousing speech, lashing out at the bitter partisanship that divides our land as well as the autocratic antics of his fellow Republican, President Trump. He included himself in the blame for the divide. He blasted the process under which Obamacare was conceived, as well as the process by which the Senates bill has proceeded.

The Associated Press reported that Arizona is one of 31 states that expanded Medicaid under President Barack Obamas health-care law, and Republican Gov. Doug Ducey is worried about tens of thousands losing their health insurance. That has to be addressed, said McCain. McCain himself campaigned heavily on the Obamacare repeal issue last year as he won re-election to a sixth and almost certainly final Senate term.

McCain joined his GOP Tuesday in voting for a motion to proceed, allowing a process that could ultimately take down Obamacare.

But early Friday morning, McCain cast the decisive vote that defeated the skinny repeal of Obamacare. His is a profile in courage.

Hell likely catch heck from The Right. Earlier in the week, haters had sprung out from The Left, calling McCains vote to proceed a sellout, especially considering that he, just as all members of Congress, will continue to have great health care, no matter the outcome of this fight.

Anne Marie Ingram died on May 28 from cancer. Her sister Sarah Sue Ingram of Holden Beach, one of my first and favorite editors, who was also on Obamacare, had died of cancer on March 14, 2016. Their surviving sister, Kay Walker, told me that Obamacare eased the last times of their lives.

I think about Anne Marie and Sarah Sue and all those still living with cancer and other illnesses on Obamacare, as well as those just being protected from future illnesses.

And I think about McCains cancer and his courage.

Regardless of his political positions, nobody should ever hate that hero. America, which McCain rightly called Tuesday this big, boisterous, brawling, intemperate, restless, striving, daring, beautiful, bountiful, brave, good and magnificent country, should be bigger than hate and petty politics.

Sen. John McCain showed early Friday morning that it can be.
About 55 rising first- through sixth-graders marched over a mile in 85-degree heat on July 19, from Kimberley Park Freedom School on Cherry Street to Samaritan Ministries on Northwest Blvd., to raise awareness of childhood hunger, the Journals Sarah Newell reported recently.

Along the way, they chanted: Empty bellies, empty minds, feed our children, it will save their lives.

This is both a lesson in civic engagement and a lesson in compassion.

We have food, but other people dont, Cornell Kersey, 8, told the Journal. They should get food. ... I hope all people who dont have food get it.

Well said.

Kimberley Park is one of several schools across the nation that took part in the national day of social action. Maybe next year more will join in.

Around 50 students from Kimberley Park also benefit from the Second Harvest Food Banks backpack program, which gives students food to keep them going through the weekends and over extended breaks. Some of them otherwise might have nothing, or very little, to eat.

Morning Star Baptist Church and the Forsyth Backpack Program have partnered with Second Harvest to feed the children, Mia Parker, the parental involvement and community coordinator for the school, told the Journal. It takes about $10,000 to feed the students in the program during the year, the Journal reported.

Overall, 33 county schools currently have backpack programs. Its a stop-gap measure that needs a more permanent solution, but for now, were grateful for the volunteers and supporters who help.

Twenty-three percent of Forsyth Countys children dont have regular access to nutritious food, the Journal has reported. Many of these children dont qualify for government assistance.

When the students arrived at Samaritan Ministries, their principal, Amber Baker, was there with encouraging words.

Little voices can make big things happen, she told the students. Many of you benefit from the backpack program on the weekend. Thats what were fighting for today. When we all come together for a cause, we can affect it.

Thats true of all of us when we come together for a cause.
Vancouver research assistant/receptionist Nora Watts technically isnt a detective  though she works for a private investigating firm  but her skills at finding people and detecting liars is almost peerless. She also barely holds her life together. She lives, unknown to her bosses, in the firms basement with Whisper, her rescue dog and her one lifeline to humanity. Whisper brought to Noras life a kind of fullness and peace that was missing.

Nora believes her meeting with Lynn and Everett Walsh is a simple case of trying to locate their daughter Bonnie. But this is no ordinary case of a missing child. The 15-year-old recently learned that Nora is her biological mother and the Walshes believe Bonnie is trying to find her. The emotionally distant Nora wants nothing to do with the case, or finding Bonnie. The girl was the result of a brutal rape that put Nora in a coma for six months. Still, almost against her will, Nora thinks about the child she has tried to put out of her mind for years. She and Whisper roam the streets of Vancouver at night searching for Bonnie. It soon becomes clear that someone else is also looking for her.

The plot of The Lost Ones by Sheena Kamal occasionally veers into the unrealistic and meanders a bit before getting back on track. This almost loosens the impact of the unusual  and believable  twist. But Kamal never loses her focus on social issues that she expertly weaves into the novel, such as the treatment of Canadas indigenous people.

What makes The Lost Ones work is the enigmatic Nora, who is realistically explored. Kamal employs several tropes familiar to the private detective novel  Nora is a loner, a recovering alcoholic, moody  but avoids cliches in using these characteristics. As a child, Nora had been bullied for her biracial background. She has trouble trusting anyone, or believing in happiness, having grown up in foster homes. She considers herself a survivor, not a victim, of a horrendous crime, though her solace has often come from alcohol. Noras loneliness is heart-wrenching, as is her transient nature. But Whisper gives Nora a reason to get up in the morning and choose to be a part of society.
If anyone has the talent to write an innovative narrative about the realities of working at a popular cable-news station, its Alisyn Camerota. As a correspondent and anchor for multiple major news outlets throughout her career, Camerotas experience enables the reader to enjoy an eye-opening behind-the-scenes look at broadcast journalism in her debut novel, Amanda Wakes Up.

Amanda Gallos dream is to be a hard-hitting journalist at a legitimate cable news station. When media mogul Benji Diggs notices her spunk and gumption, he invites Amanda to leave her local station to join him for a coveted morning co-anchor slot at FAIR News. In a matter of weeks, Amanda has the salary, the wardrobe and the respect shes always wanted.

What Amanda didnt expect was a reality check on her willingness to substitute integrity for ratings. With an election year coming up, Amanda swells with pride that FAIR News is the only morning show that tackles issues from both sides.

Unfortunately, the producers have a different viewpoint.

Former Hollywood wild-card presidential candidate Victor Fluke is a right-wing joke. Hes also ratings gold. Amanda understands her boss affinity for the obnoxious man, but shouldnt the left-wing candidate also be allowed to have her voice heard on FAIR? And why is her co-anchor, the annoying yet incredibly handsome Rob Lahr, incapable of challenging any of the guests from Flukes political party?

Amanda decides to take matters into her own hands. As her personal life and career begin to unravel around her, Amanda faces the biggest story of her life. Will she do what she knows is right in her heart? Or what is easy in order to expand her career?

Amanda Wakes Up is an energetic and sometimes surprising look at the life of an ambitious news anchor. Readers loyalties will swing back and forth as different characters perspectives are introduced into the story line. At its core, the novel offers a lot of comedy, a touch of romance and a healthy dose of what it means to weigh ambition against truth.
Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif [BBC profile] resigned from office [LA Times report] on Friday after the Supreme Court of Pakistan [official website] issued a unanimous ruling [order, PDF], earlier the same day, disqualifying him from office. Sharif was before the Court due to allegations of corruption surfacing after the Panama Papers [BBC backgrounder] leak. The leaked documents suggested that Sharifs children had offshore assets that were not disclosed in the familys wealth statement and led to further investigation by a Joint Investigation Team (JIT), comprised of officials from the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA), National Accountability Bureau (NAB), the State Bank of Pakistan, and the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan [official websites], among others. Based on the results of that investigation, the Court found that the assets of Sharif and his children were disproportionate to their reported sources of income, which disqualified Sharif from holding public office under the NAB Ordinance [materials, text]. The Court ordered:

It is hereby declared that having failed to disclose his un-withdrawn receivables constituting assets from Capital FZE, Jebel Ali, UAE in his nomination papers filed for the General Elections held in 2013 in terms of Section 12(2)(f) of the Representation of the People Act, 1976 (ROPA), and having furnished a false declaration under solemn affirmation respondent No. 1 Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif is not honest in terms of Section 99(f) of ROPA and Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan [text, PDF], 1973, therefore, he is disqualified to be a Member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament)  The Election Commission of Pakistan shall issue a notification disqualifying respondent No. 1 Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif from being a Member of the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parliament) with immediate effect, whereafter he shall cease to be the Prime Minister of Pakistan.

Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Pakistans petroleum minister and a loyalist of the Sharif administration, has currently assumed office as interim prime minister [WP report].

Pakistan has been under intense scrutiny in recent months, both at the domestic and international level. The Supreme Court ruling and Sharifs subsequent resignation follows calls for Sharifs removal [JURIST report], earlier this month, by opposition parties in Pakistan after the JIT report was released. In April, a Pakistan military court sentenced Kulbushan Jadhav [The Hindu backgrounder], an Indian naval officer who was detained in Pakistan for the past year, to death. The court handed down [JURIST report] the death sentence after finding Jadhav guilty of espionage and sabotage. However, in May, the International Court of Justice [official website] instructed Pakistan [JURIST report] to withhold the execution until the international court reaches its final decision. In March, the Pakistan National Assembly [official website] voted [JURIST report] to renew an amendment to the countrys constitution that allows military tribunals to oversee civilians accused of terrorist-related crimes.
In a 98-2 vote [vote count, text], the US Senate [official website] on Thursday passed H.R. 3364 [text, PDF], a bill that imposes new sanctions on Russia. This development comes two days after the House of Representatives [official website] overwhelmingly passed [JURIST report] the bill. The sanctions imposed on Russia are for, among others, human rights abuses, malicious cyber-hacking and undermining cybersecurity, providing weapons to Syria, and undermining the democratic process and threatening peace, security, sovereignty and territorial integrity of Ukraine. Additionally, the bill includes a provision that would require President Donald Trump [official profile] to obtain the approval of Congress [official website] before he would be able to ease sanctions against Russia. Speaking in favor of the bill, Republican Senator John McCain [official website] stated [Reuters report]: The United States of America needs to send a strong message to Vladimir Putin [official website] and any other aggressor that we will not tolerate attacks on our democracy. Putin has threatened retaliation [Reuters report] in response to the bill, stating that the sanctions are absolutely unlawful from the point of view of international law. However, Russia is not the only member of the international community concerned about this legislation. The EU expressed its own concern [Reuters report] that the sanctions might affect its energy security, and some expressed concern that the sanctions could impact the Nord Stream 2 natural gas pipeline from Russia to Germany. The bill also imposes sanctions against North Korea and Iran. It will now proceed to Trumps desk for his signature or veto. The White House [official website] has indicated that Trump will sign the bill [NYT report].

US and international sanctions on the three countries mentioned above have been on ongoing subject in the last several months. In March, the European Court of Justice [official Website] ruled [JURIST report] that EU sanctions against Russia were valid. The situation involving Russia and Ukraine has been a source of conflict since Russias annexation of Crimea [Reuters backgrounder] in March 2014. In January, the US expanded [JURIST report] sanctions against North Korea for human rights violations. In March 2016, the Obama administration also issued sanctions [JURIST report] against North Korea for its continued nuclear and ballistic missile testing. In December 2016, a US bill renewing sanctions against Iran for an additional ten years was enacted into law [JURIST report], without then president Barack Obamas [official website] signature.
Ahrensburg Youth Symphony Orchestra

The leading youth orchestra in Northern Germany

2:30 p.m., Sunday, July 30, CL Hoover Opera House in Junction City

7:30 p.m. Monday, July 31, McCain Auditorium





The Ahrensburg Youth Symphony Orchestra will spend 4 days in Manhattan from July 29-August 2, 2017. Recognized as the leading youth orchestra in Northern Germany, the 63 member ensembles schedule will include performances at the CL Hoover Opera House in Junction City on Sunday, July 30 at 2:30 p.m. and KSUs McCain Auditorium at 7:30 p.m. on Monday, July 31.

In addition to their performances, which are free and open to the public, the orchestra will be interacting with students from the Manhattan and Junction City Public School Orchestra Programs and the Manhattan based Gold Orchestra. According to Gold Orchestra Founder David Littrell, who is also director of the Kansas State University Orchestra and Distinguished Professor in the KSU School of Music, Theater and Dance, this is a unique opportunity for orchestra students from our community to meet and play with their counterparts from another country. One of the highlights will be an open side-by-side rehearsal with American student musicians sitting next to German student musicians  two to a part.

Under the musical direction of Michael Klaue, the Ahrensburg Youth Symphony Orchestra, with ages ranging from 14  24, travels to a foreign country each year. Recent tours have included stops in China, Estonia, Finland, Scotland, the Czech Republic, and Poland. Their tour is being arranged by the Blue Lake International Exchange Program, dedicated to promoting peace and understanding through the universal language of the arts. In addition to Manhattan, the orchestra will make stops in Memphis, Chicago, and Lansing, Michigan. While in Michigan, they will also perform at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, the nations largest summer camp for the arts with over 5,000 students studying music, theater, visual arts and dance in Manistee National Forest.

The performance program in Manhattan and Junction City will be selected from the groups diverse repertoire including Anton Dvoraks Symphony No. 8, Ralph Vaughn Williams English Folk Songs Suite, and a series of Broadway and movie themes. They are touring with 17 year old harp soloist Julia von Grebmer, 5 time winner of the prestigiousJugend Musiziertin competition, who will perform the Camille Saint-Saens Morceau de Concert for Harp and Orchestra, and professional soprano soloist Sabrina Laney-Warren, who will perform select arias from Giacomo Puccinis Madame Butterfly and La Boheme.

The Ahrensburg Youth Symphony Orchestras residency in Manhattan is supported in part by BBN Architects Inc, Bramlage Family Foundation, Chuck and Susie Grier, Rock-a-Belly Deli, S&N Design and the Kansas State University School of Music, Theater and Dance.
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A lot of things have changed since Marine Sgt. John Peck, formerly of Antioch, Ill., was in Kenosha.

He got married in December and shared how he is doing since receiving a double-arm transplant last summer.

He lost three limbs and had to have his other arm partially amputated after stepping on an explosive during his second tour in Afghanistan in 2010.

I wanted to make myself 100 percent independent, said 31-year-old Peck of deciding to have the transplant. Its improved my life. I want to become a chef and I cant do that with prosthetics.

Peck and his wife, Jessica, flew in from Maryland Saturday and were escorted by the American Legion Riders to the 9th annual Fecs pig roast and fundraiser. The event, held at Moose Lodge #286 on 30th Avenue and sponsored by Fecs Place, was held in support of the Southern Wisconsin All Airborne Chapter (SWAAC), 82nd Airborne Division Associations Wounded Warriors Project.

The independent association, (not associated with the project of a similar name), is all volunteer and donates 100 percent of funds raised to help wounded veterans.

We were sending care packages overseas and found out a lot them were being pilfered so we decided to help severely wounded veterans, said Nick Pulera, chairman of the SWAAC. We heard a lot of these wounded veterans are under a lot of financial strain.

The group raised over $13,000 at its last pig roast, and also holds other events throughout the year.

Donations are given to veterans whom group chairman Dan Boring meets at the military hospitals in Texas or Maryland. As a retired American Airlines employee, he flies to the locations at no charge, saving the organization additional costs.

Veteran Bob Morgan, 77, of Sheboygan calls the groups efforts fantastic. This is why we all volunteer. The work we do goes where it pays off.

The group continues to give donations small and large to veterans in need throughout the year. They presented an additional $3,000 to Peck, whos had 27 surgeries and 81 blood transfusions, and who now has twice-daily occupational therapy, along with physical therapy. He and his wife live in a specially equipped apartment near the military hospital in Maryland.

Since the transplant, hes had three rejection episodes, including one for three months. He now

has about another year of therapy to go.

Its very humbling, Peck said of the support the group has given to him. There was a guy standing at the road saluting when he saw our motorcade. Its very nice to see.

We cant do enough for these guys, said SWAAC Chairman Jack Gibbons of Kenosha, a former teacher at the Kenosha Military Academy. Theyve given so much for our country.

The groups next event will be the 15th annual car show at 8 a.m., Sept. 3 at Simmons Island Park. For information, see www.facebook.com/82ndSWAAC/ or their website, www.82ndswaac.com.
Last month the U.S. Supreme Court announced that they would hear Wisconsins gerrymandering case this fall. Expected to be a landmark decision, the case is about whether or not Wisconsins 2011 voting districts were purposely drawn to heavily favor Republicans over Democrats. Perhaps more important to you, this endless case is costing Wisconsin taxpayers millions of dollars.

Voting districts are redrawn every ten years after the U.S. Census. Historically, when Wisconsins legislators split among opposing parties, a panel of judges often ended up drawing districts.

However, in 2011, the Republicans held full control, so they took charge. Curiously, Republican legislators hired the law firm Michael, Best and Friedrich to assist them with the drawing of these legislative maps. In fact, the law firm received $431,000 from taxpayers for their work. That is a lot of money to pay lawyers to solve what it is, essentially, a math problem.

Then again, it does depend on how one wants the problem solved, but its not especially hard. One looks at a map and a spreadsheet of ward voting totals. Those wards are grouped together into voting districts. But do these districts end up favoring one party?

I cannot say conclusively what happened. The U.S. Supreme Court will now decide. However, it is noteworthy that, in the 2012 election, Assembly Democrat candidates had 174,000 more votes across Wisconsin than Republican candidates, yet the Republicans ended up with 60 Assembly seats to the Democrats 39. This seems pretty weird.

Plus, look at what happened to the voting districts in Racine and Kenosha Counties. Two highly competitive Senate districts were redrawn to create two very safe districts.

Now, instead of covering most of Kenosha County, the 22nd Senate District carves out the city of Kenosha, a bit of Somers, Elmwood Park, Mount Pleasant, and southern Racine. It is a predominantly Democratic district. Meanwhile, the 21st Senate District consists mainly of heavily Republican wards in western Racine and Kenosha Counties. Thus, they both become safe.

Personally, I would love to see districts drawn by a non-partisan commission. I would put mathematicians and statisticians on it (not politicians) and have them work blind, meaning they would have numbers but not know which party the numbers favored. The goal would be to create as many competitive districts as possible without drawing bizarre geometric shapes.

To me, competitive districts create more diligent politicians, like Senator Bob Wirch, who, as a fiscal conservative and consistent supporter of sportsmens rights and conservation, is a bit of an anomaly these days. I will never forget the 2004 election when he was outspent 3 to 1 by an ambitious, well-funded opponent. He still won the 22nd Senate seat. As a legislator in a competitive district, he never took voters for granted or stopped knocking on constituent doors. His willingness to consistently step into the hornets nest of opposition made him tough to beat. Of course, the new maps conveniently drew him out of his district. He had to move to retain his seat, and he continues to visit neighborhoods and hold regular listening sessions.

Without competition, politicians can easily take voters for granted. They have an R or a D after their names and know they will win, whether or not theyve accomplished anything of merit. Maybe they will only speak with people holding invitations and address friendly crowds. Knocking on doors may even be beneath them once they are elected. They might even forget that they work for all constituents, taxpayers who pay their salaries, regardless of party.

With all these safe, boring districts, I encourage you to talk with any politicians who knock on your door. It may be your only chance to speak with them one-on-one. Besides, it takes courage to knock on a constituents door not knowing what youll get. Dont we want politicians who are willing to listen to anyone?

Wisconsin taxpayers have now spent over $2 million defending these voting districts. Even though a federal court ruled that the districts must be redrawn, Republican legislators will continue to spend our tax dollars for their Supreme Court appeal. Perhaps if fair, fiscally responsible decisions had been made in the first place, Wisconsin could have avoided this expensive debacle.
By Davide Barbuscia

DUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's Islamic Development Bank (IDB) has asked banks for proposals to arrange a U.S. dollar-denominated sukuk, banking sources said on Sunday.

The Jeddah-based multilateral development bank is a regular issuer of international Islamic bonds, which it raises to fund its business activities but also to promote the international sukuk market by building a liquid sukuk yield curve.

The new sukuk, which is likely to have a five-year maturity, could be issued in September or October, bankers said. The request did not indicate a specific size for the deal, but it is expected to range between $1 and $1.5 billion, they said. Banks were given a deadline of July 26 to respond to IDB's request.

Islamic Development Bank did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

IDB, a triple A rated issuer, sold its latest sukuk last April, raising $1.25 billion in senior unsecured five-year notes with a 2.393 percent profit rate. Last November, it issued another $1.25 billion five-year Islamic bond with a 2.263 percent profit rate.

IDB was founded in 1973 to back development in accordance with the principles of Islamic finance.

(Reporting by Davide Barbusia. Editing by Jane Merriman)
DUBAI, July 30 (Reuters) - Disappointing second-quarter results from large cap Saudi Arabian companies were the main drag on the local index in early trade on Sunday while neighbouring bourses were mostly weak.

Shares in Saudi Basic Industries (SABIC) lost 1.8 percent after 20 minutes of trade after it reported a second- quarter net profit of 3.71 billion riyals ($989.33 million), below analysts' estimates of 4.6 billion riyals and down by a quarter from the year ago period. Analysts at NCB Capital said lower than expected margin was due to losses in SABIC's steel business.

Shares in Alawwal Bank shed 2.2 percent after the country's oldest bank reported a 40 percent drop in second quarter net profit to 322 million riyals ($86 million). NCB Capital and EFG Hermes had forecast profit of 369 million riyals and 368.6 million riyals respectively. The bank said its operating expenses jumped 48.4 percent because of higher impairment charges for credit losses, depreciation and amortisation, and higher rent expenses.

Most other banks have reported earnings with mixed results.

Shares in Saudi Cement dropped 0.6 percent to 50 riyals after reporting a second-quarter net income of 94 million riyals ($25.07 million), declining by almost two-thirds from last year's result and well below analysts' estimate of 131 million riyals. NCB Capital said this was due to lower than expected selling prices. The company reported 269.5 million riyals in total revenue for the period, almost half of that made in the second quarter of 2016.

The Saudi stock index was down 0.3 percent.

In Doha, the stock index was down 0.5 percent as the largest listed petrochemical maker Industries Qatar fell 1.6 percent; the company has not yet reported second quarter results.

In the United Arab Emirates, the Abu Dhabi index was down 0.2 percent as natural gas explorer Dana Gas fell 1.6 percent and heavyweight telecommunications operator Etisalat lost 0.8 percent.

Dubai's index was up 0.2 percent because of gains in small and mid-sized companies. Gulf General Investment was the most active stock, up 2.8 percent.

($1 = 3.7500 riyals)

(Reporting by Celine Aswad; Editing by Saeed Azhar and Jane Merriman)
RIYADH, July 30 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's unemployment rate rose to 12.7 percent in the first quarter of 2017, continuing its steady climb as the economy grapples with the fallout of low oil prices, official data showed on Sunday.

The rising number of unemployed highlights the immense challenge Riyadh faces in meeting pledges to create jobs for its nationals amid a protracted economic slowdown.

The jobless rate is now more than a full percentage point above where it stood in the same quarter of last year, when Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman announced his Vision 2030 reform plan to diversify the economy beyond oil.

The plan aims to cut the unemployment rate to 7 percent by 2030, among a raft of other targets.

Authorities are also introducing new fees and sector restrictions to encourage the employment of Saudis while reducing the kingdom's reliance on its 11 million foreign workers.

"The data shows the economy is not creating enough jobs for the new entrants into the labour market. Job creation is going to be the main challenge for the reform programme," said Monica Malik, chief economist at Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank.

"The private sector is suffering from fiscal reforms and government spending is down. Despite the pressure on expatriates, we're not seeing enough job growth among nationals to make up for their departure from the market."

The Saudi economy has added about 433,000 jobs per year on average over the last 10 years, but non-Saudis have taken up most of those new jobs, according to research by Jadwa Investment.

(Reporting by Katie Paul; Editing by Susan Fenton)
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A researcher from Campden BRI explains the company during a workshop at the Korea National Food Cluster, or Foodpolis, in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, Tuesday. The cluster organized the event for local food firms and invited the 100-year-old U.K. food research institute to share its knowhow and expertise with them. / Courtesy of Foodpolis



By Lee Hyo-sik

The Korea National Food Cluster, or Foodpolis, has been organizing workshops and other events for local food companies as it begins to take shape.

The government is investing 452 billion won ($403 million) to build the food industry complex on a 2.32 million-square-meter site in Iksan, North Jeolla Province, for both Korean and non-Korean companies aiming to export value-added, processed foods.

Foodpolis is projected to generate annual output worth $14 billion and create 22,000 new jobs by 2020 once it houses over 150 businesses and 10 research centers.

It has so far signed contracts with 36 Korean and non-Korean firms to build plants and other facilities there, 10 of which have already begun construction. The cluster wants to increase the number to 80 by the end of this year.

From July 25 to 27, Foodpolis held a technical workshop in cooperation with Campden BRI during which the U.K.-based food research institute shared its advanced knowhow and expertise with researchers and other employees of domestic food firms.

Founded in 1919, Campden BRI has been providing scientific, technical and legislative information support to food and beverage makers across the globe, such as Kellogg, Heinz and Danone.

In March, the institute became the first foreign research body to set up a lab in Foodpolis, which aspires to emerge as a globally competitive food industry complex like the Netherlands' Food Valley.

"Ahead of the three-day workshop, Campden BRI contacted each food firm scheduled to locate to Foodpolis and found out their difficulties," an official at the Agency for the Korea National Food Cluster said. "During the workshop, Campden BRI researchers offered tailored technical support to each individual company. This hands-on and customized consulting approach was well received by participants."

The institute will continue to share its knowhow and knowledge with food companies operating in Foodpolis, the official said, adding that Fraunhofer IVV, an international food research firm based in Germany, plans to open a lab in the cluster in 2018.

"We will continue to attract many more global research bodies to turn Foodpolis into a food research and manufacturing hub," she said.

The agency has also begun offering global market trends and other information to businesses setting up in Foodpolis.

"Besides market trends, we also provide customs and other administrative information in China and other countries. We will update our database on a regular basis and make it easier for companies to export to foreign markets," the official said.

In addition, the Food Venture Center, which opened last September, has been drawing many promising startups in the fields of food and beverage. The center, capable of accommodating 50 entities, has already attracted 23.

Newly established small businesses making food products and food-related research bodies are eligible to apply for space in the three-story building. Those selected can lease offices for five years at rents much lower than market rates. They also can extend leases for another five years.

Foodpolis also operates three main state-of-the-art R&D centers, each dedicated to ensuring food safety, quality and packaging, to help companies improve existing products or develop new ones.
A North Korean Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile is launched in this photo released by the North's state-run Korean Central News Agency, Saturday. The missile was launched from Chagang Province, northern North Korea, at 11:41 p.m., Friday. / Yonhap



President seeks deployment of 4 THAAD launchers

By Jun Ji-hye

President Moon Jae-in is apparently shifting his policy on North Korea from appeasement toward a hawkish approach following Pyongyang's continued launching of ballistic missiles with intercontinental range.

The large-scale provocations are seen as the Kim Jong-un regime's answer to the Moon government's recent offer to hold military talks to ease tensions on the Korean Peninsula as well as to the international community's moves to impose harsher sanctions.

Friday night's missile test marked the second time for the North to launch the Hwasong-14, which it claimed was an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) capable of striking targets on the U.S. mainland, following the first one fired July 4.

The North fired the missile into the East Sea from the vicinity of Mupyong-ri, Chagang Province, at around 11:41 p.m. Friday, according to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS).





The Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) fires an Eighth U.S. Army surface-to-surface ballistic missile during a Seoul-Washington combined live-fire exercise near the East Sea, Saturday. The drill took place six hours after North Korea fired an improved ballistic missile with intercontinental range. / Courtesy of South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff

The North's state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the Hwasong-14 reached a maximum altitude of 3,724.9 kilometers and flew about 998 kilometers for 47 minutes.

So far, the Moon government has pursued a two-track policy in dealing with the North, seeking dialogue and imposing sanctions at the same time, despite repeated provocations.

But an official from the presidential office, asking not to be named, said, "If the missile were confirmed as an ICBM, it would mean the North is close to crossing the red line."

He added President Moon is keeping all options available as the latest provocation could bring about a "fundamental change" to the security landscape of Northeast Asia.

Most notably, Moon ordered his aides to immediately begin consultation with the United States to "temporarily" deploy four additional launchers of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) system. The order was issued during an emergency National Security Council (NSC) session, presided over by the President, Saturday.












State inspectors check beef imported from the U.S. at a refrigerated warehouse in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, on July 20. After the detection of mad cow disease in the U.S., the government increased the ratio of U.S. beef inspections from 3 percent to 30 percent. / Yonhap



By Park Jae-hyuk

The Korean government should suspend the import of U.S. beef by amending terms of trade, a group of experts said Wednesday.

Amid growing concern on the safety of U.S. beef after an outbreak of mad cow disease, or bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE), in Alabama, the experts refuted the government's argument, presenting scientific evidence at a press conference in Seoul.

"The Korean government groundlessly claims, without any epidemiological survey by the U.S. government, that an atypical case of BSE is not dangerous to humans," said Prof. Woo Hee-jong of the Seoul National University College of Veterinary Science. "The terms of trade are unfair as well."

The professor urged the Moon Jae-in administration to confidently request a renegotiation of the deal with the U.S. government if it really respects the will of the candlelit protestors who played a big role in ousting the scandal-laden former President Park Geun-hye.

"An atypical case of BSE may be more dangerous to people, as it also contaminates a cow's lean meat, not only its brain or spinal cord," said Woo Seoc-kyun, vice representative of the Center for Health and Social Change.

"Under the U.S. inspection system, the infected 11-year-old cow might have been sold to consumers, if it had not died before slaughter."












Prosecutor General Mun Moo-il, second from right, extends a hand to National Police Agency Commissioner General Lee Cheol-seong, left, in front of the police agency headquarters in Seoul, Friday. Yonhap

By Lee Kyung-min

The much-touted drive for prosecutorial reform is showing signs of slowing down due to apparently differing stances held by top power holders.

President Moon Jae-in has been pressing for the reform. But his drive seems to have met barricades as the newly appointed Prosecutor General Mun Moo-il has been maintaining a lukewarm attitude over key points.

Mun has shown an "uncooperative" stance as a means to secure the prosecution's autonomy amid its tainted reputation following repeated scandals.

However, it could end up derailing efforts by President Moon who has advocated prosecutorial reform as a top priority of his five-year term.

Mun was officially appointed last Tuesday following a confirmation hearing at the National Assembly a day earlier. He opposed the reform plan under which the prosecution retains only the right to indict and hands over investigative rights to police.

Currently, both police and the prosecution can investigate criminal cases but the former always has to be under the latter's supervision.

"A prosecutor cannot determine whether to indict a suspect without investigating the case, just as a judge cannot make a ruling without conducting a trial," he said.

The prosecution can correct mistakes made by the police during an investigation, Mun added, also saying the prosecution's direction can help the police conduct more thorough investigations.

Mun also refused to clearly state whether he agreed to set up an independent body that can investigate corruption of high-ranking officials and their families including prosecutors, another major reform plan of the President.

"I am aware of the growing public demands that the prosecution should serve the public, unfettered by politics. However, I think there are better ways than pushing ahead with setting up the body. We should weigh the costs and benefits before making a big decision," Mun said.

Those stances drew criticism for failing to recognize the calls for the long-stalled, major reform of the powerful government organization.

Mun said he would find ways to "reform from the inside," by standing firm against temptations for political favors in exchange for arbitrary discretion exercised. He was criticized for "being stubborn."

In response, President Moon told him that setting up the independent body is part of the efforts to root out corruption among all high-ranking public officials. "The true meaning of setting up the body is to increase monitoring against corruption, not particularly to stifle the prosecution any more than other high-ranking public officials," Moon said.

However, what was intended as a consoling remark did little to allay Mun, who is facing growing pressure to lead the organization amid continued government measures seeking to diminish its power.

Last Thursday, President Moon reduced the number of vice-ministerial-level prosecutors to 44, down five from the previous year at 49. The reduction reflects long-held criticism that the prosecution had too many such posts compared to a government ministry which typically has no more than two vice ministers.

Mun visited the National Police Agency in Seoul Friday, to meet with high-ranking officials there. The first-ever visit by the country's top prosecutor to the police, it was considered a move seeking cooperation ahead of what could be a long, conflict-ridden process over the next few years.

This week, the justice ministry will announce the personnel reshuffle of mid-level prosecutors, which is expected to further demonstrate the President's reform initiative.

Meanwhile, criticism has arisen that the prosecution under the Moon administration is intensifying investigation into Korea Aerospace Industries (KAI) to crack down on corruption within the defense industry, to suit the President early in his five-year term. The probe was launched following the President's remarks that defense ministry corruption was "the act that benefits the enemy undermining national security."

The ongoing probe renewed criticism that the prosecution "voluntarily kowtows" to the incumbent administration, a practice that ended up giving the highest investigative body the nickname, "the maid of the powerful."
By Kim Rahn



Social media has become an important tool in work and communication, and it is no exception with lawmakers proposing bills.



When a lawmaker wants to submit a bill and collect fellow lawmakers who would join the move, his or her aides used to visit other lawmakers' offices with a bunch of documents and explain the bill. It requires at least 10 lawmakers to propose a bill.



These days, they don't need to do that and instead use the group chat feature of KakaoTalk or other mobile chatting apps.



The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) has a KakaoTalk chat room exclusively for "bill proposal," and all party lawmakers using the app are registered on it.



If a lawmaker wants to propose a new or revised bill, he or she uploads the idea and the related documents in the group chat, and then other members review them and make replies such as "I'm in," if they want.



In that way, the lawmakers can check bill ideas any time and anywhere and give their feedback immediately, according to DPK officials.



"We can check who will join the bill proposal easily and promptly, so it is very efficient. Thanks to the tool, we aides do not need to visit all the lawmakers' offices," an aide to a DPK lawmaker said on condition of anonymity.



Rep. An Min-suk also recently recruited 102 DPK members via group chat for his bill to confiscate the illegal assets of Choi Soon-sil, the longtime friend of former President Park Geun-hye, both of whom have been jailed for bribery charges.



"Recruiting participants of a bill in the chat room is gaining activity ahead of the beginning of the National Assembly's regular session in September," the aide said. "Even if some lawmakers do not join in on a specific bill, they can still share fellow lawmakers' ideas."



Even though the lawmakers agree on the app to participate, the bill still requires "offline" signatures from the participants. So when a swift submission is needed, some lawmakers prefer the traditional way of recruiting participants because having "too many" participants through the online tool will rather keep the aides busy collecting signatures.




Seongju County residents in North Gyeongsang Province chant slogans, Sunday, in protest of President Moon Jae-in's order to consult with the U.S. over the temporary deployment of four more launchers of a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery in addition to the currently operating two, following North Korea's ballistic missile launch late Friday night. / Yonhap



By Kim Hyo-jin



Korea's political circle is embroiled in fresh controversy after President Moon Jae-in's decision to proceed with the stalled deployment of the U.S. anti-missile shield here.



At a National Security Council meeting hurriedly convened at 1 a.m. Saturday after Pyongyang's late-night ballistic missile launch on Friday, Moon ordered his aides to consult with the United States over the temporary deployment of four additional launchers of the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) battery.



The order comes a day after the government said it would conduct a full-scale environmental assessment of the deployment site in Seongju, North Gyeongsang Province, before installing the four launchers.



"The government will deploy them temporarily, and at the same time, continue the ongoing environmental impact assessment as a separate procedure," a Cheong Wa Dae official explained.



He said a final decision on full deployment would depend on the assessment, which is expected to take more than a year.



The U.S. THAAD battery consists of six interceptor missile launchers. Only two of the six were installed and operational, with the additional four having been kept at a U.S. military base here.



The ruling Democratic Party of Korea (DPK) supported Moon's decision, calling the plan the best possible solution considering relationships with the U.S. and China.



Beijing has opposed the deployment, which it claims will be used to spy on its military activities, taking economic retaliation against Korean businesses.



"It is a rational measure that would strengthen coordination with the U.S. and enable the government to seek understanding from China," DPK spokeswoman Rep. Back Hye-ryun said.



Woo Won-shik, the party's floor leader, stressed the inevitability of Moon's decision, saying, "It is an understandable order because the security of the Korean Peninsula and Northeast Asia is now at risk following the North's missile launch."



The ruling party has remained ambiguous about whether the country needs to operate the U.S. anti-missile system here, mindful of China's strong opposition.



But Woo added that a final decision about the deployment should be considered carefully after the environmental survey, keeping in tune with Cheong Wa Dae.



But opposition parties denounced Moon's order, saying the government had only made a stopgap measure and failed to respond properly to the growing security threat.



Liberty Korea Party spokeswoman Jun Hee-kyung called it a mere "trick" to avoid public opposition and claimed the government should withdraw the environmental study and push for "immediate and complete" deployment of the THAAD system.



People' Party spokesman Son Kum-ju urged the government to take a consistent and clear position on the anti-missile unit. Party leader Park Joo-sun even called on Moon to reconsider his conciliatory approach to the North, saying his peace overture presented in his Berlin speech was only an "illusion."



"It can't make any progress if Moon keeps holding onto both options of seeking dialogue and imposing sanctions," he said.



"It is likely to fail as there is a grave change in circumstances (with North Korea's improved missile technology)."



Park said the government should prioritize strengthening the alliance with the U.S. when dealing with the North Korea issue.



"The firm Korea-U.S. alliance should be the pillar when seeking peace on the peninsula and economic cooperation with the North," he said. "It is not easy to win U.S. trust with the government's flip-flopping attitude on the THAAD issue."



Moon's decision also brought more protests from China.



China expressed "serious concerns" over the deployment in a statement issued by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang.



"China's position on the THAAD issue is clear and consistent and is subject to no change," the statement said, adding that THAAD deployment would not resolve South Korea's security concerns but would make the situation more complex.



"We strongly urge both South Korea and the U.S. to acknowledge China's concerns, stop the deployment process and withdraw the system."
By Kim Sun-ae





Sometimes I think of him. In the autumn at the age of 21, I took a theatre course. At that time, I was studying at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada as an exchange student.

Professor Peter Loeffler, who taught the course, pursued the essentials in life. Materially, he lived very simply without a car, a computer, or a TV, in the same blue jeans and blue shirts throughout the semester. However, his mental life was rich with his love for his students and his passionate teaching.

Our classroom was a theatre in the college. The professor invited a director and actors to our class so that we could see actors act directed by the director. One day, Professor Loeffler gave us an opportunity to create a short scene by groups, handing out scripts. He, himself, also showed us on the stage various ways to say the line in Hamlet, "To be, or not to be? That is the question." Every class was interesting.

In the middle of the semester, each student met with the teacher. I too visited his office and talked about my term paper and so forth with him. He gave me warm advice. To go to his office, I passed the stage of the theatre, and the hallway inside. The office was small like Keating's office in the movie, "Dead Poets Society."

At the end of the term, the professor gave us each a piece of paper, saying that he prepared a present. On the paper was a list of "Five Theatres You Should Not Miss," with pictures of masks, the Swan Theatre in the Shakespearean era and so on. The list consisted of the Theatre of Epidaurusin Greece and theatres in Italy, Brazil, Sweden, and Belgium.

After the semester ended, I wrote a thank-you letter to Professor Loeffler and went to the theatre. Passing an aisle in the auditorium, and the stage, I arrived in front of his office and knocked. There was no answer inside the closed door. I left my letter under the door.

Later, I heard that he had passed away from disease. I do not know when he knew about his illness. But not showing it to us at all, he left quietly after giving us the best love he could give.

Before long, the school held a service celebrating his life. Students and friends who loved him gathered, shared memories of him, and listened to the songs students sang. It was a snowy winter day with an all white sky. I attended the service with a friend who had taken the theatre course together with me, and celebrated our teacher's life.

One day, after a long time has passed, I suddenly missed my teacher. Nevertheless I was not sad. Although over 10 years have passed since he died, the love he gave is alive as ever in the hearts of people who remember him. Like a Tibetan saying, "Everyone dies, but no one is dead." After his death, I realized more clearly what is important in life and what is not.

I haven't been to the five theatres in the world that he recommended. Nonetheless, as all the places in our lives are the stage, we will have no regret if we live as protagonists of our lives wherever we are. And if I visit one of the five theatres some day, I will begin anew there once again, remembering the teacher: To be devoted to the essence of life.





Kim Sun-ae is writing a book, "A Journey to Myself." Her blog address is blog.naver.com/dancinglf
Belated as it may be, there is a great need to take issue with the recent visit of United Arab Emirates (UAE) Energy Minister Suhail Mohamed Faraj Al Mazrouei for a meeting with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha.



The UAE minister went against protocol and potentially embarrassed the host country by using his visit as a platform for a diplomatic war against Qatar. He came here for the purported agenda of boosting the two countries' energy sector cooperation, but ended up asking for Seoul's support. A week earlier, Qatar and Korea had an energy ministers' meeting but no moves against the UAE or any of its three allies in the ongoing row came out of it.



During his meeting with Kang, Al Mazrouei called Qatar a source of extremism and terrorism. The UAE minister also called a news conference to pour venom on his Middle Eastern neighbor. He blamed Qatar for sabotaging a diplomatic effort to solve their differences by leaking a 13-point demand that called on Qatar to close its global news network, Al Jazeera.



Al Jazeera has been critical of the region's kingdoms for their autocratic kings, especially the House of Saud. The network is lauded as a beacon of free press in the region after the BBC bureau was kicked out.



No state-level pressure or attack against a media outlet with the purpose of influencing its editorial policy should be condoned. The UAE minister's behavior may well reflect his country's anti-press freedom tendency. Minister Kang could have been firmer with her message that the visitor should keep his domestic politics off the agenda.



The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Bahrain have been trying to isolate Qatar diplomatically and economically as part of a struggle for power between Saudi Arabia and Iran.




Preconditions are verification, protocol observation



North Korea Friday night test-fired a long-range rocket that experts say could bring most of the United States mainland within striking distance. This has triggered condemnation from South Korea, the U.S. and Japan. China, the rogue state's only benefactor, criticized Pyongyang. But Beijing criticized in stronger terms Seoul's decision to deploy temporarily a U.S. anti-missile interceptor, which China has opposed vehemently.



With near certainly, it can be predicted that the matter will be passed to the United Nations but a split will prevent any unified action because of opposition from China and Russia. Meanwhile, tension will likely go up another notch, presenting the U.S. with a stronger case for military action.



The one way to preclude this vicious cycle is to call a spade a spade.



The North has exploded nuclear devices five times. It has tested numerous missiles. On Friday and on July 4, it proved it can deliver a projectile up to 10,000 kilometers. In terms of flight distance, it has reached the level of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Judging that it takes 15 to 20 years to attain related technologies, there is little doubt that the North is close to becoming a nuclear weapon state, if it has not already done so.



So far, the countries involved have been using sanctions to stop the North from being able to launch nuclear-tipped long-range missiles. Sanctions upon sanctions have been imposed on Pyongyang with little effect.



The alternative is to give the North what it wants _ status as a nuclear state. But that recognition should be given in a way that the North is brought back into the international nuclear control regime so Pyongyang will act responsibly with its nuclear arsenal.



For the North to join the "nuclear club," Pyongyang should have its nuclear capabilities verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The North would have to submit multiple warheads for inspection.



Simultaneously, the North would be asked to rejoin the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and abide by the pertinent rules.



Recognizing the North as a nuclear state would require a change in international mindset.



It may be worth the trouble. Above all, it would defuse the rising tension over Pyongyang's nuclear and missile tests. Then, China and Russia, which have opposed penalizing the North, would be given an incentive to work together with Seoul, Washington and Tokyo.



It could set a precedent for other countries in pursuit of nuclear status. Currently, the U.S., Russia, China, Britain and France are declared nuclear states in the post-World War II system. However, Britain and France as well as Russia have lost much of their previous power, with their nuclear arsenals doing little to enhance their international status. South Africa has given up its nuclear weapons development, while Israel maintains its neither-confirm-nor-deny policy. Two foes, India and Pakistan, are undeclared nuclear states.



True, possessing nuclear weapons is a great status symbol, but none of these countries has actually used them in war since World War II. They are weapons of last resort, meaning that using or threatening to use one can invite self-annihilation. So it is time to let the North have what it wants and see whether it can handle the heat that comes with it.








By Tong Kim





North Korea defied an outsider's prediction again. It did not test-launch another ballistic missile on July 27, marking the 64th anniversary of the Korean armistice, on the contrary to the widely reported warnings that it would according to officials in Washington and Seoul.

But it test-fired an ICBM on July 28 after the one conducted on the Fourth of July. Although the armistice is claimed by the North as "the Day of Victory," the North Koreans know, it does not have the significance of the Fourth of July for Americans. They can send "gifts of bad news" to America  in Kim Jong-un's word -- on their own schedule "at a time and a place" of his choice.

In the wake of its ICBM test, Pyongyang has demurred the South's proposal of military and humanitarian talks, without an outright rejection of the proposed talks. It accuses the Moon government of maintaining "fundamental hostility." Pyongyang intensifies its belligerent rhetoric against the U.S., which in turn retches up its own rhetoric against the North.

The North claims that it now has strategic nuclear capability to strike the continental United States; Washington should end its hostile policy towards them. Apparently, President Trump has instructed his national security agencies, including CIA, to explore all possible options, including military action and covert operations to remove Kim Jong-un from the leadership of a nuclear North Korea.

Bad news for the North came from an Aspen Institute's meeting last week.

CIA Director Mike Pompeo said that the Trump administration is developing "a range of options" including "a way to separate that regime from their nuclear weapons." He stopped short of advocating regime change that would directly contradict Secretary of State Tillerson's pronouncement to the contrary.

At the same Aspen forum, Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff said, "It is not unimaginable to have military options to respond to North Korean nuclear capability." He added that the administration would try diplomacy "a few more months."

Writing for The Hill, Bob Manning, a well-recognized policy expert in Washington, branded these incendiary comments as "irresponsible and reckless rhetoric". Manning wrote: "loose talk of pre-emptive strikes and regime change are not exactly incentives for Kim Jong-un to surrender his nukes. Precisely the opposite: It feeds his portrayal of the U.S. as a grave, imminent threat."

Speaking of Pyongyang's ICBM capability, an assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) was reported by The Washington Post on July 26. The assessment said Pyongyang will have a "reliable" ICBM that can reach the U.S. by next year, not in three or four years that most analysts had said. It may not represent a consensus among the U.S. intelligence community, comprising 17 independent agencies.

However, the accuracy of the DIA's report is being questioned by several experts of North Korea's weapons development, including analysts at the South Korean ministry of defense. They believe that the North has yet to overcome the technical difficulty for atmospheric re-entry and miniaturization of a nuclear warhead to mount on an ICBM. Accuracy of targeting is another unproven issue.

Recently, Gen. Paul Selva, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that Pyongyang's missile test lacked "the capacity to strike the United States with any degree of accuracy or reasonable confidence of success."

Tough talk of a preventive strike seems to be resurfacing, as no breakthrough is seen in the current approach, through either China's cooperation or inter-Korean relations. However, reasons against a military strike or a commando type of operation to remove the DPRK leader, overt or covert, remain the same. These are not viable options. They would lead to a catastrophic consequence, causing an all-out war that will kill millions of people.

Trump says he does not want to say what he is going to do beforehand. He does not respect experts' views. His unpredictability can have a deterrent effect on Kim Jong-un from taking a suicidal path, but it will not stop him from continuing to develop his nuclear and missile capability.

Despite increasing sanctions that will make it harder for him to advance his WMD programs, he will keep the deadly weapons that he believes are the only protection of his regime. With or without him, the North Korean nuclear weapons will not go away, unless there is a political reconciliation between the North and the South, and between North Korea and the United States. What's your take?





Tong Kim is a Washington correspondent and columnist for The Korea Times. He is also a fellow at the Institute of Korean-American Studies. He can be contacted at tong.kim8@yahoo.com.
By Oh Young-jin





Bruce Bennett

North Korea insists on demonstrating its capabilities to deliver a nuclear-tipped missile over the Pacific to the mainland of the United States. Friday's rocket test is one example.

The international community is concerned about Pyongyang getting close to succeeding at this but is not ready to take its word as true.

"Why don't we verify North Korea's claim?" Bruce Bennett, a Korea expert at the Rand Corp., the U.S. think tank, suggested as a way of finding a compromise between the ongoing tit-for-tat between the rogue state and other countries.

"North Korea would submit nuclear warheads to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for inspection," Bennett said in a telephone interview Saturday.

He has two reasons for this suggestion. First, as far as he is concerned, the North's claim of having developed a working inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM) remains porous.

He had trouble believing that the North had developed a shield strong enough to protect its payload. Once, Kim Jong-un, the North's leader, had a crystal ball or the warhead with him in a photo release.

Bennett said that for that payload to hit the designated target, it would survive the stress of reentry into the atmosphere. After the Friday test, the North claimed that the payload not only survived reentry but traveled afterward to the designated target.

Although the North may have followed the trajectory from its control center, Bennett said that it requires checks with the debris _ especially how the shield bore the impact.

For that, the North should hurl a rocket with a payload over Japan into the Pacific east of the Japanese archipelago. "Such an attempt would make the U.S. and Japan very angry and may destroy airplanes or ships in the area," Bennett said. "Without it, the North's claim of having an ICBM is an unverified boast."

India and Pakistan got their status of undeclared nuclear weapons states without independent verification after their nuke abilities were talked about in the media.

Bennett dares the North to turn over nuclear devices if it wants that status. Bennett says that at least five devices should be inspected to tell for sure of Pyongyang's capacities. Pyongyang is estimated to have nuclear materials enough to make dozens of nuclear weapons.

Bennett fell short of saying that the North should be allowed to join the nuclear club, if it passes the IAEA inspection. But certainly his method could defuse tension on the Korean Peninsula due to Pyongyang's latest missile tests, one of the key purposes of which is it to prove its nuclear capability.
By Lee Min-hyung



Samsung Electronics' operating profit this year is expected to be around 50 trillion won ($44.6 billion).



The world's largest maker of smartphones this week announced second-quarter operating income of 14.06 trillion, making the first-half total 24 trillion won.



As its second-half performance is likely to be better thanks to rising demand for memory chips and mobile phones, the consensus is that Samsung's second-half profit will be more than 26 trillion won.



Some analysts even suggested that the figure will top 30 trillion won, approaching North Korea's gross domestic product (GDP).



According to the Bank of Korea, North Korea's GDP last year was 32 trillion won in real terms.



North Korea does not release economic data. But the South's central bank publishes GDP data on North Korea yearly, based on information from agencies such as the Ministry of Unification.



North Korea's GDP is a small fraction of South Korea's, whose national output stood at 1,508 trillion won last year.



"Samsung chalked up 29.24 trillion won in operating profit last year, which fell short of North Korea's GDP," a Seoul analyst said.



"But this year, its annual profit would surely surpass North Korea's GDP for the first time ever. In fact, its second-half profit alone might be higher than the North's GDP."



Kiwoom Securities analyst Pak Yu-ak also presented a rosy outlook for Samsung's businesses this year.



"The operating income from the semiconductor division is likely to be about 20 trillion won in the second half," Pak said. "Adding profits from other segments like smartphones, home appliances and flat-panel displays, Samsung's overall profit would be much bigger."




/ Graphic by Cho Sang-won



Middlemen rapidly disappear across board



By Yoon Sung-won



The introduction of technologies from internet to artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating changes to the roles of middlemen and even their existence, according to industry sources, Sunday.



As renowned U.S. economist Todd Buchholz first described in his 1999 book titled "Market Shock" through a concept he called "scissors economy," middlemen have already been losing ground in industries, replaced by technology.



In the 1990s, the internet was rapidly penetrating not just into businesses but also all aspects of life. Online technologies triggered and boosted e-commerce, enabling manufacturers and providers of services and products to reach end-users directly.



"Technology has permitted Americans to cut out the middleman from many purchases. Who needs a stockbroker or an insurance agent if the internet allows people to comparison shop? You can buy a sockeye salmon direct from Alaska within seconds or an airplane ticket to Timbuktu," the economist wrote in his 2007 book, "New Ideas from Dead Economists: An Introduction to Modern Economic Thought."



"Consumers have more control than they have ever had before. Even the old monopolistic utilities have broken down, as cable, satellites, fiber optic and wireless technologies compete for your television, telephone and computer business."



As Buchholz said, stockbrokers at securities firms were among those affected most by the arrival of the scissors economy. In the past when there was no internet, people usually called stockbrokers or directly visited securities companies to trade stocks. But now they can access home trading systems provided by securities firms to sell or buy stocks, saving on paying commissions.



Similarly, the role of the middleman has retreated rapidly in diverse areas such as insurance product sales and travel sales as well as the book industry.



"Almost all transactions can be done on online platforms. First it was the internet and more recently e-commerce is all about mobile," an industry source said. "In the process, enterprises don't need human middlemen to sell their products and services to customers. Instead, they need engineers, network technology experts and online marketing strategists to run their connected marketplace."



Expectations are that the phenomenon of the scissors economy will gain more strength as industries expedite introducing AI technologies in actual businesses.



For instance, financial institutions such as banks, brokerage houses and insurance companies have started to use AI-based technologies not just to recommend optimal financial products to their clients but also to make decisions such as whom to grant loans to and where to invest. In the process, less and less human intervention is needed.



Online shopping malls are also rushing to adopt new type of services, also based on AI technologies. Upon the customers' agreement, online shopping platform operators collect information on their preferences to recommend products for customers to purchase. Internet and gaming service providers also use AI technologies to analyze their users to understand consumption patterns.



Advanced medical institutions such as cancer centers are also tapping into AI technologies. In Korea, multiple hospitals including Gachon University Gil Medical Center have introduced IBM's Watson AI system to give medical advice.



"Not many industries have started firing employees to replace them with AI systems yet. But it can only be a matter of time as it did with the introduction of robots in manufacturing industries," an industry source said.



"What is more concerning is whether we will be able to understand the work AIs do and the decisions they make once humans who work as middlemen in diverse areas lose their ground."
A Volkswagen Korea mechanic maintains a vehicle at the carmaker's official service center under its customer service campaign, "We Care." / Courtesy of Volkswagen Korea



By Jhoo Dong-chan

Volkswagen Korea has carried out various campaigns jointly with its dealerships to recover customer trust, looking for a successful return after it wins back sales certifications from the government for 80 banned vehicles.

The German carmaker's local affiliate in Korea opened four new service centers in the first half of this year while moving one center to a larger facility to make preparations for its return to the market. As another measure to recover customer trust, Volkswagen Korea has also carried out its new customer campaign, "We Care," since February. Volkswagen dealerships, which emptied their showrooms after the government's sales ban for affected vehicle models, have also used the venues for the company's corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities.

A Volkswagen Korea official said it is expanding its service network to enhance its competitiveness in the Korean market long term. It has completed building new service centers in Ulsan and Busan, South Gyeongsang Province, in March.

It also opened other centers in Guri, Gyeonggi Province, in April, and in Pohang, South Gyeongsang Province, in May.

Volkswagen Korea also moved its Seocho service center into a larger facility in Yangjae-dong, Seoul. Located near the nation's major motorways, including the Gyeongbu Expressway, the service center is the largest center among foreign car makers in Seoul, the official said.

Along with its expanded network, Volkswagen Korea also started carrying out the We Care campaign in February. The campaign provides not only specialized maintenance service but also standardized and improved customer service quality at any Volkswagen center across the country.ly customet only customer ustomer are, in February. a new ands in Seoul. r to larger facility

"The We Care campaign is a campaign for Volkswagen Korea employees to provide top-quality service for customers," said the official.

"We educate and learn from each other to improve customer experiences to recover our brand trust."

Volkswagen Korea also donates its showrooms as art galleries for the company's CSR activities.

Since the government banned the carmaker's 80 vehicle models last year, Volkswagen Korea showrooms have been emptied. The German carmaker's sales unit here, however, decided to use the venues for local talented artists.

The Bangbae showroom in Seoul is showcasing the Kim In-soo exhibition until July 31 while the South Daegu showroom held an RC car race in December.
Kumho Petrochemical employees check facility safety at one of its factories in this file photo. / Courtesy of Kumho Petrochemical

Kumho Petrochemical has improved its facility safety and monitoring systems to provide eco-friendlier workplaces. Its factories in Yeosu, South Jeolla Province, and Asan, South Chungcheong Province, have renewed their accident-free records in line with company-wide efforts.

"We have made safer and eco-friendlier working environments by improving our management system and educational program," a Kumho Petrochemical official said. "As a petrochemical firm dealing with various chemicals, our management system is fully aware of and prepared for safer management of raw materials used for our products."

The Seoul-based firm adopted a stricter chemical management system last year to monitor and approve its chemicals in every stage of distribution  purchase, storage, usage and sales.

To obey the revised act concerning registration and evaluation of chemical substances, it has submitted information on its chemicals to the Ministry of Environment and registered them on the government's list as well.

In particular, Kumho P&B Chemicals, a joint venture between Kumho Petrochemical and Nippon Steel Chemical Company of Japan, is cooperating with other chemical firms to register Bisphenol-A, a raw material of synthetic resins. It also joined seminars and forums last month at KINTEX in Ilsan, Gyeonggi Province, to talk about risk evaluation of chemicals with officials from the government, academic fields and civic groups.

Kumho T&L, a logistics unit of Kumho Petrochemical, added social media to the company's management system, so that all workers can immediately respond to environment and safety issues. Its 5C Campaign  standing for Correctness, Clearance, Cleaning, Checking and Concentration  is expected to improve workplace safety and cleanliness as well.

Recently, Kumho Petrochemical has begun to reduce emissions of harmful substances.

Kumho Polychem, a joint venture between Kumho Petrochemical and Japan Synthetic Rubber, adopted the nation's first mechanical vapor recompressor to its whole product line in its Yeosu plant. The recompressor allows the reuse of steam emitted from the product line. The company expects to reduce up to 160,000 tons of greenhouse gases a year at the facility.

"Our affiliates are preparing for new and renewable energy, such as wind and solar power," a Kumho Petrochemical official said. "Our 12 factories will change their lights to LED by the end of 2019. We expect to reduce carbon emissions significantly after the process."

(Advertorial)
This is the first of the two-part series highlighting business models of Amway and Herbalife.  ED.





Amway, Herbalife's business model draws controversy

By Park Jae-hyuk

Since the Fair Trade Commission (FTC) recently unveiled information on 124 multi-level marketing companies in Korea, controversy has sprung up again over such firms as Amway and Herbalife.

Although the companies have continued to claim their legal basis, critics are still suspicious about their revenue model.

Recent FTC data showed the payment gap between the top and bottom layers of recruits is widening.

The so-called sponsor allowances  incentives for sales  were given to 1.64 million salespeople among 8.29 million who are registered with the 124 firms as of last year. The antitrust watchdog noted that the number of 8.29 million may include those who do not sell products and those who have registered with several companies.

Among the 1.64 million, 16,370 salespeople who accounted for less than 1 percent of the top level received an average of 57 million won ($51,000) in sponsor allowances, up 11.8 percent year-on-year.

The remaining 99 percent got 470,000 won on average, an 11.3 percent drop from a year earlier.

The top 10 companies in terms of revenue gave allowances to 1.22 million salespeople. Each of the salespeople got 1 million won on average. The 10 firms include Amway Korea, Atomy Korea, Nu Skin Korea, Unicity Korea, Herbalife Korea, BOM Korea, Seacret Direct Korea, ACN Korea, Afull and Aphrozone.

Business bellwether Amway's top 1 percent of salespeople received 53.46 million won on average, while its overall salespeople got 780,000 won. The runner-up Atomy gave 55.85 million won to the top 1 percent and 950,000 won to its overall salespeople.

Such a huge gap has provoked complaints among salespeople registered with the firms.

Uncertain about the amount of allowances paid to their colleagues, Amway salespeople have grumbled about the gap reported by the press. To receive bigger incentives, suspicions have it that some of them even reduced prices of items they sold without the company's permission.

"If you are considering joining multi-level marketing companies or buying products from them, you should check details on the firms that are revealed by the FTC every year," a commission official said.

"You should also know that the total amount of sponsor allowance should be less than 35 percent of sales, according to the law."

Amway Korea refuted the criticism, saying the data fell into the trap of false statistics.

"Because consumers are categorized as salespeople in the data, the amount of allowances per person seemingly gets lower," an Amway Korea spokesman said. "It is impossible for us to accurately distinguish consumers from salespeople."

Ongoing conflict

The size of the multi-level marketing business in Korea has grown into a 5.13 trillion won industry, the third-largest in the world.

However, it still seems to have a poor reputation among most people here.

An internet community named Anti-Amway is full of negative opinions and stories on Amway and other multi-level marketing firms. Most of the stories are written by husbands who worry about their wives working for the companies.

They criticized the companies for raking in profits in Korea, while their salespeople earn less than the minimum wage. The members said the firms are trying to avoid their responsibility by being vague about the distinction between salespeople and consumers.

Some of them even liken the firms to a pseudo-religion.

"Joining multi-level marketing firms may not be bad in itself," a community member wrote. "However, most salespeople tend to spend a huge amount of money to get more allowances, eventually losing money."

An Amway Korea spokesman emphasized that "our method of direct selling is different from illegal pyramid schemes."

Industry experts have also demanded the deregulation of multi-level marketing, or direct selling.

"The multi-level marketing business must be regarded as a competitive industry sector from now on," Prof. Kwak Kwan-hoon of Sun Moon University said in a symposium in March. "Unlawful acts should be prevented in advance, rather than being regulated afterwards."

Prof. Han Sang-lin of Hanyang University said the term should be changed, so as to address negative perspectives on the business model. "We should adopt the term, direct selling, instead of multi-level marketing," he said.

In fact, the controversy is no exception in other countries.

Mary Kay, a U.S. direct sales company specializing in cosmetics, has also faced criticism, accusing the firm of setting up a pyramid scheme.

The firm, however, ingeniously avoided the trap, by allowing bottom level recruits to earn 50 percent of profit margins, even if they never bother to find down-line recruits, according to "New Ideas from Dead CEOs" by Todd G. Buchholz.

"In a pyramid scheme, a recruit must bring in yet more recruits to stay afloat," the book reads. "The bottom layer of recruits sends its profits upstream and must recruit a new layer or else they go broke."

Buchholz said Mary Kay's 50 percent profit margin for beauty consultants was a significant leap from the typical 35 percent commission at the time.

Given the lower layer of salespeople in Korea statistically fail to earn such a fat profit, however, the controversy over multi-level marketing companies will seemingly continue here.
Five chairmen fail to attend meetings with Moon



By Lee Min-hyung



President Moon Jae-in invited leaders of the country's top conglomerates to Cheong Wa Dae for separate meetings on Thursday and Friday, the first time since his inauguration in May.



Ten of the invited companies sent their heads, while five opted to send their deputies.



In the case of business bellwether Samsung, it is understandable because its Chairman Lee Kun-hee remains bedridden after collapsing three years ago. His only son, Vice Chairman Lee Jae-yong, is behind bars, embroiled in the corruption scandal involving former President Park Geun-hye.



Samsung sent Vice Chairman Kwon Oh-hyun, the CEO of its major affiliate Samsung Electronics, to the convention.



The tycoons from Hyundai Motor, LG, Hanwha and Hanjin groups also did not attend.



According to a source, Hyundai Motor Chairman Chung Mong-koo, 79, was sick. Hanjin Chairman Cho Yang-ho, 68, and Hanwha Chairman Kim Seung-youn, 65, were under treatment.



Instead, Chung's son, Hyundai Motor Vice Chairman Chung Eui-sun, and Cho's son, Korean Air President Cho Won-tae, represented their groups. Korean Air is the flagship unit of Hanjin.



Hanwha's Kim has three sons and they all work for Hanwha subsidiaries. But the group didn't send any of them, possibly because they are still young, in their early 30s or late 20s. Vice Chairman Keum Chun-soo attended instead.



"The organizers of the meetings asked for practical discussions," a Hanwha official said. "Hence, we decided that Vice Chairman Keum would be a perfect fit for that because he is well versed in detailed issues."



Cheong Wa Dae, with the Korea Chamber of Commerce and Industry, prepared for the events, at which the President talked with businesspeople over beers.



LG Chairman Koo Bon-moo did not attend because he delegated most of his work to his brother, Vice Chairman Koo Bon-joon, at the beginning the year.



"Vice Chairman Koo accompanied President Moon as an economic delegate to the United States last month," an LG official said. "That's why he visited Cheong Wa Dae this time around, too."







Creating more jobs



In the meantime, President Moon asked event participants to help create more jobs to invigorate the economy.



The new head of state has vowed to boost the economy by increasing the incomes of people and expanding welfare services.



He has stressed the significance of generating more quality jobs and he plans to create many public service positions during his five-year term.



His administration also is set to increase the corporate tax rate to finance rising welfare costs, affecting mostly chaebol.



Chaebol refers to Korea's sprawling conglomerates in which founding families exercise almost unchecked control. The interlocking families of companies typically buy from and supply one another.




Chinese J-15 fighter jets are launched from the deck of the Liaoning aircraft carrier during earlier military drills in the Yellow Sea on December 23.



Show of military might ahead of PLA anniversary aimed at demonstrating Beijing's resolve amid heightened tensions over Pyongyang, analysts say



By Kristin Huang





China is flexing its military muscle in a high-profile naval exercise in the Yellow Sea, off the western coast of the Korean peninsula, days ahead of the PLA's 90th anniversary.

Beijing has so far released scant information about the three-day live-fire drill, which is expected to last through Saturday, but analysts say it is also aimed at demonstrating China's resolve amid heightened tensions over North Korea's nuclear provocations.

The PLA Navy's North Sea Fleet and the Shandong Maritime Safety Administration announced in the past two days that the central part of the Yellow Sea would be cordoned off to all marine traffic from Thursday for military purposes.

An area of about 40,000 square kilometres off the coastal city of Qingdao, where the North Sea Fleet is headquartered, was expected to be affected by the drill, which would involve live ammunition, Weihai Evening Postreported on Wednesday.

Military experts said the drill was part of celebrations marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the People's Liberation Army, which falls on August 1.

Beijing has yet to unveil details of the celebrations, but sources familiar with the matter told the South China Morning Post that President Xi Jinping would go to Asia's largest military training base in Zhurihe, Inner Mongolia to watch war games involving cyberwarfare, special troops and army aviation.

"It's very likely linked to the 90th anniversary. It's more of a show of military might to [demonstrate] the recent PLA achievements," said Collin Koh, a maritime security expert from the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Singapore's Nanyang Technological University.

Analysts also believed the drill was designed to send a warning to both Pyongyang and Washington as concerns grow over North Korea's accelerated nuclear and missile programme.

Ni Lexiong, a Shanghai-based military affairs commentator, said the drill would send "a very subtle message to North Korea" as the defiant hermit nation refused to give up its nuclear ambitions despite US threats of a military strike.

The US and Australian governments have said they believe Pyongyang could be preparing for another intercontinental ballistic missile test to be conducted within days.

Ni said the naval drill could also be sending a message to the US at a time when tensions have resurfaced over a slew of issues including the South China Sea dispute.

"The US has been quite active in the region recently," he said, citing its joint naval exercises with Japan and India and recent maritime and airspace patrols in disputed waters of the East China Sea and South China Sea. Two Chinese fighter jets intercepted a US Navy surveillance plane over the East China Sea at the weekend.

Zhou Chenming, a military observer, said Russian ships may join the exercise in the Yellow Sea, in a sign of closer Sino-Russian military and security ties.

Shi Yinhong, an international relations specialist from Renmin University, agreed that Beijing and Moscow appeared to be edging closer as Washington threatened tougher sanctions against North Korea and Russia. "Russian-US relations were strained over Moscow's annexation of Crimea and ties between China and the US have been frayed in recent weeks. This is the fundamental reason behind the growing military ties between China and Russia," he said.

China, which has been conducting joint sea exercises with Russia since 2011, is conducting its first naval drill in the Baltic Sea alongside Russian warships.

Meanwhile, State Councillor Yang Jiechi vowed to boost strategic cooperation and military ties with Russia on Wednesday at a bilateral strategy and security dialogue in Beijing.

China's defence ministry could not be reached for comment.
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Hello! Im Mark Olsen, and welcome to another edition of your regular field guide to a world of Only Good Movies.

What is happening? There have been a lot of movies for a while now (obviously), but it seems like recently, this summer, theyve been good. Like on aggregate, mostly good!

This week, for example, there were more good movies being released than we could really spotlight in the newsletter. So we are making extra room for The Incredible Jessica James, starring Jessica Williams. The movie premiered earlier this year at Sundance and Williams gives a playful, powerhouse performance.

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Weve got a screening this week of The Only Living Boy In New York, starring Callum Turner, Kate Beckinsale, Pierce Brosnan and Jeff Bridges. Director Marc Webb will be there for a Q&A. To find out more and for updates on future events, go to events.latimes.com.

Detroit

The latest collaboration from director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, Detroit is both a sweeping look at the Detroit riots of 1967 and a terrifyingly small-scale look at a single incident within that broader context. After being held by police at the Algiers Motel, three young black men died under still-contested circumstances.

In his review for the Los Angeles Times, Justin Chang wrote, Is this grueling, bruising, hard-to-watch movie something anyone needs to sit through? Its a question that reveals less about the films ostensible agenda, I think, than it does about the inquirers default complacency . What makes Detroit vital is not that its images are new or revelatory, but rather that Bigelow and Boal have succeeded, with enviable coherence and tremendous urgency, in clarifying those images into art.

The Times Steve Zeitchik attended the movies premiere at the historic Fox Theater in Detroit. He also spoke to Bigelow and Boal and some of the actual people who were there at the Algiers.

As Boal said, Im not trying to be authoritarian and tell people how to feel, but anger is an appropriate response. This is something meant to be grappled with.

The film has already stirred incisive writing both praising and criticizing its depiction of the events surrounding what happened at the Algiers. For the Daily Beast, Ira Madison III wrote, Detroit is actually a fictional account of the Algiers incident gathered from source materials and interviews. Its the fatal flaw in an otherwise excellent, terse, and enthralling film. I dont find Bigelow at fault for approaching this story as a white woman, at least in the scope of the Algiers episode, but when the film attempts to make a political statement about the incident and the riots, both she and the film falter.

At RogerEbert.com, Angelica Jade Bastien, in a powerful counter-argument to the film, wrote that Detroit is presented as a valuable portrait of a bloody, violent, and important moment of American history . But Bigelow, Boal, and their collaborators are unable to meaningfully parallel this event to the present-day happenings they mirror. Watching Detroit I didnt see a period drama, but a horror film. The horror of white filmmakers taking on black history and the violence perpetuated upon black bodies with an unwavering eye yet nothing to say.

Atomic Blonde

Atomic Blonde is an action-packed spy thriller, with Charlize Theron as an international agent tearing her way through Berlin right around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Directed by David Leitch, the movie contains some of the most explosive, engaging action sequences seen this year.

Reviewing the movie for The Times, Justin Chang wrote, Atomic Blonde may be a delirious exercise in outre nonsense, but it can also be a brutally effective action picture when the inspiration strikes.

I spoke to Leitch as well as some of the creative team behind the film about its hyper-stylized look, what he called a protracted 80s music video version of a spy movie.

You have to make the world compelling, said Leitch. This super-agent is in this seedy rock n roll underworld in Berlin. There was a standing order that we want an aggregate 80s cool and we want to make it sort of a fantasy 80s, what you remember the 80s to be.

Personally, I always enjoy when New York Times critic Manohla Dargis writes about screen performers or action filmmaking, and with this movie she got to do both. As she says, Plenty of pretty people slide right off the screen. Ms. Theron, by contrast, holds you partly because she doesnt seem eager to let you in, keeping you curious as she keeps you at bay with reserve and sphinxlike smiles. This distance adds to her mystery and it also makes the eruptions of violence more electric . shes a natural warrior, but its interesting here that each exertion and exhalation, each meaty, pulpy thump, also seems to be battering the fortifications that she has built around her.

Director Dave McCary, left, and star/co-writer Kyle Mooney of the film Brigsby Bear. (Mel Melcon / Los Angeles Times)

Brigsby Bear

Directed by Dave McCary and starring and co-written by Kyle Mooney, Brigsby Bear is a difficult movie to talk about without giving too much away. What can be said is that its about a young man who tries to re-create a childrens television show he has long been obsessed with. The cast also includes Mark Hamill, Jane Adams, Claire Danes, Greg Kinnear and Kate Lyn Sheil.

Reviewing the film for the Los Angeles Times, Justin Chang called it a disarmingly sweet comedy before going on to note, the filmmakers keep a lot of offhand ideas and metaphors in play: childhoods end, the therapeutic power of art, the endearing, exasperating nature of fan culture. To that end, its fitting that one of the movies best performances is given by Mark Hamill, whose two brief appearances here are so grounded, and so cleverly scaled to the story, that you almost dont recognize him.

I spoke to McCary and Mooney, friends since fifth grade, as well as Hamill, about crafting this ode to friendship, imagination and creativity.

Tonally throughout the film, every time a scene feels like its reaching for a joke it would take away from the realism we were trying to capture and the emotional journey of James, said McCary. With any fish out of water story, its so easy to pile on, what sort of high jinks can he get in? And naturally we hopefully found some more subtle moments of humor, but with the understanding that our approach from Day 1 was always, how can we tell the most earnest version of this story?

Person To Person

Among my personal favorites at Sundance this year was Dustin Guy Defas Person to Person, a gently affecting look at a group of New Yorkers all struggling in their own way to connect with others. The movies fantastic cast includes Bene Coopersmith, Abbi Jacobson, Michael Cera, Tavi Gevinson and many more

Reviewing the movie for the Los Angeles Times, Kimber Myers wrote, The low-key dramedy focuses on the citys less picturesque locales . Its a slight film, but its populated by enjoyable moments and wry observations

At the New York Times, Nicole Herrington called it, a movie loosely about authenticity and the little absurdities that abound in New York City.

I spoke to Defa, as well as actors Coppersmith and Jacobson, for a story Ill be publishing soon. I definitely wanted to explore the real invisible interconnectedness of New York City, where its a place where somehow you feel like youre connected to everybody. Youre not, obviously, but there is a feeling that the butterfly effect is condensed and you dont know how youre being affected.

Email me if you have questions, comments or suggestions, and follow me on Twitter@IndieFocus

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As an election loomed earlier this year, Los Angeles politicians were eager to prove that moneyed interests had not bought City Hall.

Five City Council members called for a ban on campaign contributions from real estate developers seeking city approvals, saying it would address the perception that L.A. engages in pay-to-play politics. One of them went even further, pushing for full public financing, a system that would bankroll campaigns with taxpayer money instead of checks from wealthy donors.

Six months later, neither proposal has had a hearing at City Hall.

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Although both were referred to a council committee headed by council President Herb Wesson, no meetings have been scheduled so far. The effort to overhaul campaign funding did not come up last week, when Wesson laid out an ambitious agenda for the next 2  years.

City leaders say they are still committed to reviewing the proposals. But neighborhood leaders and activists have been voicing doubts about whether they are serious.

Look, its gone nowhere, said Walter Hall, who serves on the board of the Greater Valley Glen Council. Nothing has come out of the process since it started in January.

The neighborhood council recently endorsed the developer donation ban, partly to prod city officials. Hall said his group also took action in response to a Times investigation into a real estate project known as Sea Breeze. The Times found more than $600,000 in contributions from donors linked directly and indirectly to the developer of that project, which was approved despite planning department opposition.

The proposals from city lawmakers to overhaul campaign finance laws were unveiled in January, when L.A.s elected officials were fighting Measure S, a ballot proposal that would have imposed sweeping restrictions on real estate development. Measure S backers argued that wealthy developers use campaign contributions to persuade city politicians to approve out-of-scale building projects.

Developers spent millions to defeat the proposal, and voters rejected it in March.

Since then, backers of Measure S say City Council members have failed to follow through on their promises of reform. The proposed ban on developer donations is completely dead as far as we can see, said Jill Stewart, director of the Coalition to Preserve L.A., which pushed for passage of Measure S. It was a lot of talk.

City officials, in turn, say the proposals are very much alive  and will have a hearing at Wessons rules committee before the end of the year.

I dont kill anything. I dont bury anything, Wesson said. But right now, Ive got a rollout of an agenda that I think takes some priority.

That agenda includes efforts to form a municipal bank, build more affordable housing, draft legislation to protect immigrants and hold a series of events aimed at improving race relations. Wessons committee also has been under the gun to finish crafting regulations for marijuana businesses before January, when licensed sales of recreational cannabis become legal across California.

The proposal to ban developer donations was co-authored by Councilman David Ryu, who was elected in 2015 after pledging not to accept such contributions. Nick Greif, a Ryu policy aide, said his boss wants a ban in place before fundraising begins for the 2020 city election  which leaves council members with time to deliberate.

That said, we dont want things to linger, Greif added.

Councilman Paul Krekorian, who also sponsored the proposal, said he remains committed to keeping campaign finance reform at the top of this years agenda.

We need to find solutions that build greater trust with the people we represent and make the entire system fairer and more transparent, he said in a statement.

Three other politicians who backed the proposed ban on developer donations were running for reelection at the time  and faced challengers who had pledged not to accept donations from real estate developers needing city approvals.

Councilman Mike Bonin, who signed on to the developer donation ban, also brought forward a separate proposal for full public financing. Under such a system, candidates seeking public funding would have to get a minimum number of small donations from their constituents to demonstrate their campaigns are viable, then forgo any more fundraising.

Bonin spokesman David Graham-Caso said the plan is still being worked on. The councilman, he said, has not yet decided exactly when it would go to voters  in June or November of next year.

The public financing proposal will probably face opposition, said Michele Sutter, co-founder of the activist group Money Out Voters In, which supports the move.

The folks who profit from this system and who get to wield greater influence as a result of it are not that interested in relinquishing that advantage, she said.

A previous push for public financing in L.A. was abandoned after years of scrutiny. During those discussions, a city analyst warned public financing could be very costly.

If the system becomes too expensive, Angelenos may be reluctant to put additional public funds into political campaigns, said Jessica Levinson, president of the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission, which could be asked to vet the two campaign finance proposals.

It can be tagged as welfare for politicians, she said.

Levinson said that, even with a public financing system, wealthy donors could continue pouring unlimited amounts of money into independent committees that spend lavishly to support candidates. She also questioned whether a donation ban targeting developers would withstand a legal challenge. Other critics have argued that such a ban unfairly demonizes builders of much-needed housing.

In Valley Glen, however, the neighborhood council wants L.A. to go further by also prohibiting donations from developers who are likely to submit plans for projects in the future.

Why would an out-of-town developer, or any developer, whose only business is to make money, give money [to a campaign] unless he thinks its going to be to his benefit? said Hall, the neighborhood council member.

emily.alpert@latimes.com

Twitter: @latimesemily

david.zahniser@latimes.com

Twitter: @davidzahniser
Dubbed the 9,250-ton greyhound of American military power and high-tech wizardry, the $1.5-billion guided-missile destroyer Rafael Peralta was commissioned Saturday at Naval Air Station North Island, within gunshot of the carriers it will protect for the next four decades.

The warship bears the name of Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Marine who posthumously received the Navy Cross  the nations second-highest award for battlefield bravery.

Our allies will see the name of this ship in ports around the world, said Gen. Robert Neller, the 37th Commandant of the Marine Corps. And our adversaries, if they so wish to test it, may learn the power of this ship and the spirit and confidence of its crew.

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Saturdays formal commissioning ceremony officially placed the warship into active service. It was the culminating event in a string of maritime rituals  ship naming, keel laying, christening and launching  that hark back to 1775, when the Continental Navy commissioned the Alfred for combat duty against the British.

The event drew not only Neller but three members of San Diego Countys congressional delegation  Reps. Scott Peters, Darrell Issa and Susan Davis  plus San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Navy Vice Adms. Nora Tyson, commander of the Third Fleet, and Tom Rowden, commander of Naval Surface Forces.

Each of the 2,400 white seats set out for the commissioning was filled, and hundreds more stood behind the rows, including the ranks of the Peraltas crew.

In halting English, Rosa Maria Peralta, the San Diego mother of the destroyers namesake, ordered the crew to Man our ship and bring her to life!  a command that sent the crew of 290 sailors dashing aboard the vessel. Above them, radar dishes spun, horns blared and the gun at the bow turned, signaling that it was ready for duty in the spirit of Rafael Peralta.

Born in Mexico City in 1979, Peralta was brought to the United States as a child by his parents. A graduate of Samuel F. B. Morse High School, he enlisted in the Marines the day he received his green card in the mail.

Assigned to the Lava Dogs of A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, Peralta volunteered on Nov. 15, 2004, to lead a scout team as it cleared buildings of insurgents during the brutal Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq.

In the seventh house his team stormed, a barrage of enemy bullets hit him. Wounded, he fell to the floor.

A fleeing militant tossed a grenade. It skittered to a rest near Peraltas head.

The Marine snatched the grenade to his body, absorbing the brunt of the blast to spare the lives of his fellow Marines, according to his Navy Cross citation.

He is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma.

Echoes of both his combat valor and story from immigrant to American hero rang throughout the commissioning ceremony.

Cannons fired a thunderous salute to the warship and the dignitaries who boarded it, the smoke curling silver and black through the packed crowd, a reminder of the din of battle Peralta faced in Iraq  and what the warship might sail toward in the future.

The color guard toting the flags of the United States, Navy and Marine Corps for the national anthem came from Camp Pendletons Wounded Warrior Battalion. The headquarters building there is named after Peralta and his portrait hangs on its wall. Every year at the units ball, the guest of honor is Rosa Peralta.

During the commissioning, she sat near her daughters Icela and Karen and son Ricardo, who also served as a Marine.

In his speech, Faulconer remembered Peralta as a hometown hero whose message  courage to the end  will be carried across the globe by the warship that bears his name. Where it sails, so sails his story.

In his address, Peters (D-San Diego) focused on the new warships vital role in the American militarys pivot to the Pacific Rim, while noting that San Diego boasts the nations largest concentration of veterans who served after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The Peralta is ready for combat, just as her namesake was when he stepped into battle in Fallujah 13 years ago, he said.

carl.prine@sduniontribune.com
A lawsuit brought by former detainees held at CIA black-site prisons overseas will indeed go to trial  the first such proceeding in the post-Sept. 11 era and one that aims to hold two civilian psychologists responsible for helping to develop harsh interrogation techniques.

The government and attorneys for the two psychologists have attempted to halt the trial, and even the federal judge hearing the case, Justin Quackenbush, urged the plaintiffs and defendants to consider a settlement instead.

If you want to go on and try this case before a jury, you may, he told attorneys for the ex-detainees, who are suing for unspecified monetary damages.

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But I caution you, Quackenbush added, the litigants and the CIA, which has been an interested party in the case, would be better off to sit down and reach a reasonable conclusion.

The litigants were unmoved, and on Friday, after almost three hours of arguments in the last of a series of pretrial hearings, Quackenbush decided the historic case was trial-ready. The hearing was held in Spokane, Wash., with audio of the proceedings carried on a call-in telephone line.

Though earlier attempts by others to sue the CIA for alleged torture were derailed by the governments claim of threats to national security, a partially released Senate report in 2014 exposed much of the history of renditions and harsh interrogation methods, and the CIA agreed to comply with most document requests in this case.

The American Civil Liberties Union brought the suit on behalf of Suleiman Abdullah Salim, a Tanzanian fisherman abducted by the CIA in Somalia in 2003, allegedly tortured, and released five years later with a document stating he posed no threat to the United States.

Another ACLU plaintiff, Mohammed Ahmed Ben Soud, a Libyan also abducted in 2003, was tortured in Afghanistan, then rendered to Libya and held by authorities there after the Kadafi regime was overthrown.

The ACLU also represents the Afghan family of Gul Rahman, who was abducted and died after two weeks in CIA custody, chained up, in diapers, and suffering from hypothermia. Rahman was held at a facility in Afghanistan called Cobalt prison, also known as the Salt Pit.

The defendants, former Air Force psychologists James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, were hired after Sept. 11 by the CIA to design a program of enhanced interrogation techniques used to force terrorism suspects to give up useful intelligence.

Their war on terror methods included waterboarding, beatings, forced rectal feeding and experiments with glaring lights and incessant music. The aim was to break the will of uncooperative prisoners.

Mitchell and Jessen earned $81 million through a series of government contracts from 2003 until President Obama ended the arrangement, and torture tactics, in 2009. The pair contended that because they were contractors, the ultimate blame for any failures belonged to their employer, the CIA.

In court, the psychologists attorneys argued that their clients couldnt be held responsible for simply doing business with the CIA pursuant to their contracts. In a last-ditch effort Friday to get the case dismissed, the defendants compared their situation to that of World War II manufacturers who supplied the Nazis with poison gas, and who later argued they werent responsible for how the gas was used.

ACLU attorney Dror Ladin thought the comparison was a stretch, and noted that the postwar Nuremberg tribunals found that private contractors were in fact responsible if they chose to provide unlawful means that allowed them to profit from war crimes.

In the same case that Mitchell and Jessen cite, Ladin said, the military tribunal found the owner of a chemical company that sold Zyklon B to the Nazis guilty, even though only the Nazis had final say on which prisoners would be gassed.

Barring a settlement, the trial is slated to begin Sept. 5.

Anderson is a special correspondent.

ALSO

Lawyers believe Mississippi man shot by police was executed

Mother pleads with police at fatal Chicago shooting: I need to touch my son

What do booty shorts, classical music and whiskey have in common? President Trumps great again slogan
Lawyers for the family of a Mississippi man fatally shot by police called Friday on the Justice Department to investigate, saying they believe the mans death was an execution.

Murray Wells, the attorney for the wife and son of Ismael Lopez, said officers involved in Lopezs death last weekend in the Mississippi city of Southaven should face criminal charges.

Earlier this week, Dist. Atty. John Champion of northern Mississippis DeSoto County said that two officers were present Sunday evening when Lopez was shot at his home in Southaven. According to Champion, police said they fired their weapons after a dog burst out of the house as they searched for a suspect  and after a man pointed a gun at them through an open door.

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But Wells is disputing the account given by authorities. The lawyer said he has hired investigators and has spoken to neighbors of Lopez, an auto mechanic originally from Veracruz, Mexico, who came to the U.S. two decades ago and had never been in trouble with authorities.

Wells has said recently that police didnt have a warrant for Lopez and were at the wrong address. He also has said Lopez was shot through a closed front door. And Lopez, though a gun owner, didnt have a gun in his hand when he was killed, according to the attorney.

We think it was an execution, Wells said at a news conference Friday at his Memphis office. Now, when youre firing through a door, we think it complicates things. Physical evidence says their story isnt true.

Local media organizations have reported that a sheriff of a neighboring county said his agency had requested that Southaven police look for a domestic violence suspect who was not Lopez.

Wells said a lawyer from his firm has looked at the body with permission of the mans family and it appears Lopez was shot in the back of the head. He acknowledged that the determination of where Lopez was shot was that of his firm and doesnt come from any coroner or doctor. An autopsy report hasnt been released and authorities said a final autopsy report could take up to eight weeks.

This man died running away from people who were trespassing on his premises, Wells told reporters.

The Mississippi Bureau of Investigation is investigating and will turn its findings over to the district attorney, Champion, who can decide whether to pursue charges.

Police have referred questions to the bureau, which did not immediately return a call seeking comment. The DeSoto County coroner also didnt immediately return a call seeking comment.

Wells said police and city officials are covering up facts in the case. He also called for the resignation of the Southaven police chief as well as the officers involved in the shooting.

Wells said he would send the Justice Department a letter asking federal investigators to step in.

In a statement read in English and Spanish by two of the firms lawyers, Lopezs family said he was a loving husband and father, a hard worker and a mentor in the community.

There is no reasonable explanation about why or how this happened to our Ismael, but we believe his memory demands answers, accountability and justice, the family said.
Mitch McConnell is helping the Trump presidency fail. Thats not the outcome the Senate Republican leader intended, of course. But thats what he achieved last week when he presided over the apparent collapse of his partys seven-year campaign to repeal Obamacare.

Presidents succeed when they deliver on their core campaign promises, and tend to fail when they dont. A president who thinks strategically tries to begin his tenure with a legislative victory, to bolster an image of competence and strength.

Instead, President Trumps first big legislative effort just ended in a stinging loss. Theres plenty of blame to go around, but McConnell, the owlish Kentuckian with a now-dented reputation as a legislative wizard, was the man in charge.

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What went wrong?

First, McConnell and his Republicans had no plan  in part because they never expected Trump to win the presidential election. That meant many GOP senators had never done the hard work of figuring out what kind of Obamacare replacement they wanted, and what compromises they might accept if they ever had a chance to negotiate. There was no consensus about the kind of policy outcome they were seeking, beyond something they could call repeal.

He was mourning more than merely the failure of one attempt to repeal Obamacare. He was seeing an entire legislative program heading into danger.

Second, McConnell didnt use the regular legislative process. Instead of sending healthcare to Senate committees for deliberation, he assembled a panel of 13 GOP senators, all white men, to write a bill behind closed doors.

That had two effects. It locked Democrats out of the process. And it offended Republicans who werent included.

There was a pragmatic reason for the backroom process. McConnell and House Speaker Paul D. Ryan decided to make Obamacare part of a budget bill that would need only 51 votes to pass. That, they thought, meant they wouldnt need any Democratic help, so they didnt even try to take a bipartisan approach. The strategy would also allow them to make the bill a vehicle for cutting taxes.

But the strategy backfired. Sen. John McCain of Arizona complained that the leadership produced a proposal behind closed doors in consultation with the administration, then [sprang] it on skeptical members, trying to convince them its better than nothing  a direct rebuke to McConnell.

Finally, the process went from bad to worse, culminating in a grotesque proposal  the skinny repeal  that McConnell promised would never become law. He asked Republican senators to ignore its substance and vote for it as an act of pure party loyalty. Three of them  McCain, Lisa Murkoswki of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine  refused.

McConnell was not the only architect of this failure. Trump helped. Although the president exhorted Republicans to pull together behind something, it was clear he didnt really care what the something was. His lobbying effort consisted largely of warning GOP dissidents that hed punish them if they didnt fall in line. And the bluster didnt sway the three holdouts.

Indeed, its hard to avoid believing that McCain relished the chance to defy a president who had not only derided him for being captured during the Vietnam War, but accused him of neglecting veterans.

The impact of this failure is bigger than just Obamacare. It hampers the prospects for the rest of Trumps ambitious legislative agenda  including the centerpiece of the administrations economic program, a massive tax cut.

On the coming tax bill, just as on healthcare, Trump and GOP legislators havent settled on specific goals. Just as on healthcare, they hope to pass the measure with only Republican votes. In other words, they plan to try the same strategy over again, hoping for different results.

Right now, that doesnt seem likely to work. For one thing, Democrats have been emboldened to resist. And Democratic base voters, energized by the Obamacare fight, will demand that they do.

For another, as the Trump administration careens sideways, Republican legislators are feeling freer to push back. Last week, for example, they passed a bill imposing new sanctions on Russia that the White House initially opposed.

Who can blame them? Theyre dealing with a chaotic White House that cant seem to manage internecine staff squabbles, much less a legislative strategy. They seem less enthusiastic than before to defer to the wishes of a president whose popularity may still be sinking.

McConnell is famous for rarely displaying emotion. But on Friday, as he announced at nearly 2 in the morning that his effort to repeal Obamacare had failed, the Kentuckians voice wavered and nearly cracked.

This is a disappointment, he said. A disappointment indeed.

He was mourning more than merely the failure of one attempt to repeal Obamacare. He was seeing an entire legislative program heading into danger.

Without a victory somewhere, McConnell, Ryan and Trump wont have much to show voters in 2018. Theyll rail at Democrats for obstruction, of course. But theyll have only themselves to blame.

doyle.mcmanus@latimes.com

Twitter: @DoyleMcManus

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
One of the toughest military enlistments in the Civil War was served by a woman who dressed as a man. Private Albert D.J. Cashier, born Jennie Hodgers in Clogher Head, Ireland, marched thousands of miles and fought in dozens of battles and skirmishes with the 95th Illinois Infantry.

Cashier joined the regiment at the beginning of the war for a three-year term, and continued fighting until after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox Courthouse. After mustering out, Cashier lived out the next half-century as a man, spending three years at the Soldiers and Sailors Home in Quincy, Ill., until, nearing 70, he suffered the onset of dementia and was sent to a state mental hospital. There, hospital staff discovered Cashiers secret and forced him to wear a dress.

As I watched the news unfold last week in response to President Trumps Twitter declaration that he would not accept or allow transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. military, I couldnt help but think of it as an act of regressive abuse, and also as an exercise in futility.

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No matter their gender identity, people have served our country honorably and willingly since the early days of this republic. During the American Revolution, Deborah Sampson took on the identity of Robert Shurtleff and joined the Fourth Massachusetts Regiment. She fought for a year and a half as a man, and it was a busy time: scouting territory, storming British fortifications, digging trenches at the siege of Yorktown. Her sex was only discovered when she got sick and was sent to a hospital.

There have been times in American history when, despite the strictures of the day, we showed that we could embrace the variety of human experience.

Was she punished? Far from it. She received an honorable discharge and, eventually, a full military pension from the state of Massachusetts.

Before transgender was a word, hundreds of women posed as men to serve in the Civil War. They did so capably and, in many cases, without ever being found out. Medical exams were cursory  show them your hands and feet, and you were handed a musket  and both the Union and Confederate armies desperately needed warm bodies at the front. Like other soldiers, many of these women fought for love of cause and country, and for the paycheck.

We cant pretend to know how each of them identified from a gender perspective. Some soldiers returned home and resumed life as women, marrying and raising families. Some, like Cashier, continued after the war to live on quietly, privately as men.

But the point is that it didnt matter: They served, and served well, and served the same as the soldiers who were born as men.

And for all the women who fought under male identities, there were many more who pushed Victorian gender boundaries by acting boldly in military capacities as spies, nurses and vivandieres  also known as daughters of the regiment  who bore the flag in battle, rallied troops and cared for the wounded. The pioneering Civil War nurse Clara Barton, who traveled to the battlefield under fire to aid the sick and dying, would later go on to found the Red Cross. An ardent suffragist, she believed that opportunities in the war advanced the social position of women by decades.

Though we think of our modern moment as a time when identity is at its most open, there have been times in American history when, despite the strictures of the day, we showed that we could embrace the variety of human experience.

Heres how one newspaper reporter described Albert Cashiers service not long after his past was revealed: During the war Cashiers comrades noted that the handsome young Irishman was rather inclined to be offish, but overlooked the soldiers exclusiveness in their admiration for his military bearing and reckless daring Owing to the soldiers rigorous health and apparent abandon Cashier was always among those chosen when dependable men were absolutely necessary.

Post-war, Cashier lived a low-key life in Saunemin, Ill., working odd jobs around town that included handyman, farmhand and janitor, for 50 years. At the Soldiers and Sailors Home, before he was moved to the state hospital, Cashier was treated with respect as a veteran. The staff at the home kept his secret for years.

When Cashiers fellow soldiers found out he was born a woman, they were surprised. But many of them rallied to protest his treatment at the state hospital. When he died, in October 1915, he was dressed in his Union blue uniform and buried with full military honors. The tombstone was inscribed with the details of his military service  and his male identity, Albert D.J. Cashier.

Clara Barton once wrote a poem to honor the women who went to the field. But the words she chose could just as easily be used to honor anyone who wishes to serve in the military, no matter how high the barrier. Above all, bravery and service make us equal in commanding dignity and respect:

But later, it chanced, just how no one knew

That the lines slipped a bit, and some gan to crowd through;

And they went,  where did they go?  Ah; where did they not?

Where did they go? Where they were needed.

Bonnie Tsui is a writer in Berkeley and the author of She Went to the Field, a history of female soldiers in the Civil War.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
A 19-year-old woman in El Salvador, Evelyn Beatriz Hernandez Cruz, was found guilty of aggravated homicide this month after giving birth to a premature, most likely stillborn baby in the pit latrine of her family home. She was sentenced to 30 years in prison.

Hernandez Cruzs case is not unique. Since 2000, at least 35 Salvadoran women have been convicted of killing their newborns. They have all been imprisoned  not for violating El Salvadors draconian abortion law, the charge for which many of them were initially arrested, but for pumped-up charges of aggravated homicide, attempted aggravated homicide or manslaughter.

All of these women gave birth unexpectedly, often prematurely, and without medical support. All reported that their newborns were either born dead or died shortly after delivery due to circumstances beyond their control. The women who were convicted of aggravated homicide received sentences of 25 to 40 years in prison. The few convicted of attempted aggravated homicide  because their babies survived  received sentences of 12 to 15 years.

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Activists offer competing explanations for why women like Hernandez Cruz are charged with homicide and imprisoned in El Salvador. On one side, abortion rights advocates and human-rights organizations such as Amnesty International argue that the countrys abortion law, which criminalizes abortion in all circumstances, is the main culprit driving the prosecutions. Get rid of the law, they imply, and you get rid of the problem. On the other side, antiabortion activists insist that Hernandez Cruz and the other women really did murder their babies  that the circumstances surrounding the alleged stillbirths are fabrications created by what they call the pro-abortion lobby as part of a campaign to change El Salvadors abortion law.

The Salvadoran authorities routinely and flagrantly disregarded evidence in order to pursue guilty verdicts  grist for the panic mill.

In my view, understanding these cases requires going beyond the debate about El Salvadors abortion law and grasping a larger phenomenon at play. As a sociologist, I have reviewed the court papers for 20 cases in which Salvadoran women were convicted of aggravated homicide of their newborns, soliciting expertise from forensic pathologists, obstetricians and legal scholars when needed. My analysis has uncovered extensive evidence of a sociological concept known as moral panic.

The South African sociologist Stanley Cohen introduced the idea of moral panic in 1972 to describe a collective hysteria that can erupt when societies undergo a period of upheaval that threatens to transform traditional power relations. Moral panic works to reimpose the traditional social order by targeting as villains, or folk devils, the marginalized group that appears to be gaining power. Such villains are often charged by the media and other powerful institutions with harming innocent, defenseless victims. States typically respond to moral panic by adopting punitive laws to punish the group.

In the 1990s, the decade before it started incarcerating women for stillbirths, El Salvador was in the early throes of such an upheaval. The country had recently emerged from a 12-year civil war. As a condition of United Nations-brokered peace accords, the political elite was required to share the Legislative Assembly with the same leftist insurgents it had fought in the war. Right-wing political groups seized on antiabortion rhetoric as a uniquely effective means of demonizing the newly powerful left as antifamily and antireligion.

Working with the local Catholic Church, these right-wing political parties eventually collaborated to pass the abortion ban in 1997, followed by a constitutional amendment in 1999 requiring the state to protect human life from the moment of conception.

According to Cohens theory, the media plays a crucial role in whipping up moral panic. In El Salvador, mainstream media outlets went into overdrive to foment the frenzy over abortion, calling on the state to do more to capture homicidal mothers and using the words abortion and homicide interchangeably. One newspaper article reported that the number of newborns being thrown into latrines, trash receptacles, or vacant lots by their own mothers is alarming. Often, such articles did not cite a single case to support their claims, yet offered provocative descriptions of the evil women who carried out the crimes. They are human beings who only lived the nine months that they were in their mothers wombs, reported one newspaper. Upon birth, they await the sweet hands of a mother, but what they find instead are the talons of soulless women.

It is in this larger context that these heavy prison sentences must be understood. In the 20 cases I examined, the Salvadoran authorities routinely and flagrantly disregarded evidence in order to pursue guilty verdicts  grist for the panic mill.

Police and government lawyers failed to acknowledge the possibility of an unanticipated birth and consistently argued that women like Hernandez Cruz launched or threw their newborns into the latrine. Forensic specialists used unreliable tests and flawed reasoning to conclude that the babies were killed, even when their own autopsies documented fetal anomalies that were likely to have caused natural stillbirths. In the few cases where an infant did appear to have been subjected to a violent death, officials investigated only the mother, ignoring evidence that pointed to other possible suspects. Most glaring, Salvadoran judges excluded information that would have supported the womens testimony, accepting unexplainable inconsistencies in the forensic reports or prosecutors arguments, and offering presumptions rather than evidence in determining guilt.

In the case of Hernandez Cruz, authorities flouted the defendants plausible account of events. Hernandez Cruz was only 30 weeks pregnant when she gave birth. She said that she had not realized she was pregnant because she had experienced regular vaginal bleeding and interpreted this as menstruation. When she began having painful stomach cramps, she went to the outhouse, expecting to have a bowel movement.

Legal and medical experts say there is no reason to doubt Hernandez Cruzs story. A surprising number of women do not realize they are pregnant until they have delivered, even in affluent countries. Moreover, vaginal bleeding in the second or third trimester is a universal sign of pregnancy complications. It could indicate an abnormal placenta, for instance, which can interrupt the flow of blood or oxygen to the fetus.

And yet, authorities disregarded Hernandez Cruzs story outright. They did so despite the fact that her infant was found to have inhaled meconium while in utero  another sign of fetal distress  and even though Hernandez Cruz was diagnosed with a bladder infection, a condition strongly associated with premature birth.

The judge concluded simply that Hernandez Cruz was lying when she said she did not realize she was pregnant, that she had not wanted anyone to find out that she was pregnant, and that she therefore had planned to get rid of the baby. This series of assumptions served as the sole basis for a guilty verdict.

A brazen presumption of guilt is evident in the handling of all 20 cases. In one especially egregious case, the autopsy reported at least three biological abnormalities that could account for a stillbirth. The report also stated explicitly that no signs of trauma were found on the infants body. Nevertheless, when indicating the cause of death, the forensic examiner simply wrote the word violent.

Salvadoran legislators are considering a bill that would legalize abortion in a few specific circumstances, such as when pregnancy endangers a womans life. This law would save many Salvadoran womens lives. But protecting teenagers like Hernandez Cruz from spending a lifetime in jail will require more than legislation.

Jocelyn Viterna is a professor of sociology at Harvard University.

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion or Facebook
To the editor: Thirteen years ago, I began to experience symptoms that led me to believe I had lymphoma. I visited several male doctors and they all dismissed my concerns. I was referred to a top ENT and dragged my husband along for support.

(Re Female patients: Its not all in your head Opinion, July 26)

After explaining my symptoms, I asked if he thought I had lymphoma. He looked at my husband, rolled his eyes and said you dont have lymphoma, you have allergies and if I treat them, you will be fine. My husband was shocked that a doctor would treat anyone in such an insulting manner.

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I finally saw a doctor who listened to me. He sent me for a scan and sadly, I had stage IV, non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

I sent a letter to the ENT explaining my diagnosis and that I hoped he would listen more respectfully to his female patients in the future.

Laurie S. Adami, Santa Monica

::

To the editor: Emily Dwass opinion piece repeats the charge that female patients complaints are ignored by doctors because of their gender.

Her impression is not supported by research into this issue. A large nationwide review, which examined 46,868 office visits, revealed that the care received by men and women was similar about two-thirds of the time. When the care was different, women overall received more diagnostic tests and treatment  more lab tests, blood-pressure checks, drug prescriptions, and return appointments.

In the United States, we spend twice as much on the healthcare of women than on that of men. Even if you exclude obstetrical care, females at every age receive more medical attention than males. The charge that the healthcare of women is neglected because of their gender needs to be evaluated in that context.

Andrew G. Kadar, M.D., Beverly Hills

Follow the Opinion section on Twitter @latimesopinion and Facebook
Heres a steamy little story: Round-trip airfares to Atlanta from LAX dropped by $100 this week.

Heres the steamy part: As you can see by this photo, shot Monday, thunderstorms are rolling in. Thats not unusual in areas where there is high humidity, especially in summer, when warm moist air rises and collides with cool air.

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The good news is that if youre headed to Atlanta this week, the humidity will drop to as low as 49%. Southern Californians may find that sticky, but it will feel like a relief to Atlantans.

The other good news is the lower fare may make it somewhat more bearable, unless youre leaving from Burbank, from which fares went up $73 from last week.

Otherwise, domestic fares were mostly stable.

The big surprise, as you can see on the chart above, was London, whose previous low fare dropped more than $600.

London was our airfare deal of the week. American, British Airways, Delta, United and Virgin Atlantic are offering a $598 fare through May 10. (Blackout days apply.)

The low fare here is Norwegian, which continues to put pressure on traditional carriers.

All of these fares are more than $500 less than last weeks. If youre planning to go, this may be the time to book.

Sources for these charts: Sabre reservation system, airlines and Web

These restricted round-trip airfares as researched on Thursday. Fares change daily, and availability is not assured. Fares, which may involve a change of planes, are for airlines serving Los Angeles International (LAX), Orange County/John Wayne (SNA), Burbank/Bob Hope (BUR), L.A. Ontario (ONT) and Long Beach (LGB). Domestic fares and international airfares include taxes and fees.

*These international fares vary because of differing fuel surcharges on different airlines.

ALSO

405 Freeway lane closures near LAX may delay evening drives to the ariport for the next three weeks

See the rugged riverside where Californias Gold Rush began

A weekend escape to Colorados deep, steep Black Canyon of the Gunnison

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
Shane was a strong, sure-footed horse, about 20 years old, raised in Texas. He had plenty of ideas about how an excursion into the Eastern Sierra should go, especially the grazing and drinking between meals.

I had different ideas, and the reins. Occasionally, there was friction.

But for four days in late June, we were a team clambering up switchback trails and crossing creeks full of rushing water that had surely been snow the day before.

Together, as part of a pack trip that began north of Bishop at Rock Creek Pack Station, we threaded through forests of lodgepole pine and quaking aspen into a world of jutting peaks, clear lakes, clean air, gullible trout and a few mosquitoes.

Id never felt as close to this rugged, pristine high country.

See more Sierra pack trip photos 

Pack stations, which spend their summers sending travelers into the wilderness with horses and mules, are in many ways a throwback to the 19th century. But a dozen still have licenses to operate in the Eastern Sierras Inyo National Forest.

The big melt of last winters massive snowfall has made their 2017 season a delicate enterprise. Though the peaks are snowier and the scenery is greener than they have been in years, the storms damaged many roads and trails.

Some of us were a little late getting open, but theyre open now, said John Summers, owner of Mammoth Lakes Pack Outfit. In fact, packers say conditions will be good for August and September guests, although luring them will be a challenge because many schools have resumed classes.

Hitting the trail

Guests and packers from Rock Creek Pack Station start their ride back to the station from Davis Lake. (Cristopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

I showed up on the morning of June 26 at Rock Creek Pack Station, 33 miles northwest of Bishop.

The station, run by the London family since 1947, uses about 130 horses and mules each summer. It offers trips, from a two-hour outing to a 30-day expedition, with themes that include fishing, photography, Mt. Whitney and wild mustangs.

I paid $840 (before taxes and tip) for my four-day, three-night trip.

Our traveling party consisted of three guides (traditionally known as packers), me and seven members of the Johanson-Palermo family, six from Los Gatos, Calif., one from Fargo, N.D.

We began with a leisurely ride to the banks of Davis Lake, about five miles up slope from the nearest road and about 9,800 feet above sea level in the John Muir Wilderness.

This was the first pack trip for all of us, and we were all novice or intermediate riders. But we had veteran packers Bryan Kaiser (17 summers in the Sierra), Hilary Bruegl (four summers) and Jackson Stoll (two summers) to keep us out of trouble as we trooped through the sometimes soggy forest.

ALSO: A weekend escape to Colorado's Black Canyon of the Gunnison 

Meanwhile, a second group of packers had loaded tents and other supplies onto the backs of six mules and headed up the same trail.

We typically like to keep them right around 150 pounds when were packing, Kaiser told me. But they can carry as much as 600 pounds.

We set up our tents about 100 feet from Davis Lake, one of nine strung along Hilton Creek, while the packers settled the horses at the edge of our camp and put together the kitchen.

Afterward, we flopped on rocks to gaze at the peaks that surrounded us, several of them named for railroad magnates, including Mt. Huntington (12,405 feet) and Mt. Stanford (12,838 feet).

I gradually became aware of a steady, mysterious roar, like an unseen interstate. At first I thought it was the wind, which was raising big ripples on the water. But, no, it was the waterfall across the lake, so tame most years that it hadnt been named.

Dinnertime brought more revelations. The good news was that when you have mules, you need not eat freeze-dried everything. By the time our trip ended, wed eaten chicken, pork, sausage, bacon, steak, potatoes, rice, salad, fruit, vegetables and a few fresh-caught trout.

The bad news  an old story among outfitters but unexpected for several of us customers  was that the Forest Service bans campfires at Hilton Lakes.

I know its for safetys sake, but nobody dreams of circling chairs at dinnertime and staring at the cold dirt where a fire should be while the temperature drops from about 70 to about 40.

The unconnected life

Lake Davis and surrounding mountains on a morning without wind. (Cristopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Olivia Palermo, 16, right, lands a trout at Davis Lake in the Eastern Sierra with her friends Kami Decker looking on. (Cristopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Kami Decker, 16, of Los Gatos, eats breakfast at camp. Her cowboy name: Scruffy. (Christopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times) Lake Davis and surrounding mountains, top, Olivia Palermo holding a trout with Kami Decker in back, left, Decker eats breakfast at camp, right.

Still, we adapted, especially the four teenagers, who began the journey with their thumbs almost visibly twitching from cellphone withdrawal.

Disconnected from the grid, they gave themselves cowboy names, whittled, hummed theme songs that nobody older than 20 had ever heard, and played cards.

Olivia Palermo, 16, caught her first fish (a trout of about 8 inches), named it Jimmy, and ate it, all in her first six hours on the lake.

Leo Palermo, Olivias 13-year-old brother, performed a circus-worthy horseback limbo maneuver to dodge a nasty branch on a ride up a steep, snowy slope.

Trevor Dales, 13, cut a deal to wash dishes after dinner so he could A) get an extra serving of sausage and B) get his hands into some wonderfully warm water on a cold, windy night.

Kami Decker, 16, chose the best cowboy name of the bunch  Scruffy  and kept riding even when her buddy Olivia bowed out to catch more fish.

Among the adults, David Johanson; his wife, Karen Johanson; and his brother John Johanson (who had come from Fargo) did a lot of fishing. I cast a few times but mostly took photos and collected pack-station vocabulary.

Dunnage pack: the bundle of your possessions that a packer loads onto a pack animal.

Spot trip: when a packer and animals deliver you and your gear (including food) to a campsite where youll fend for yourself until he or she returns to help with the trip back to civilization.

All-expense trip: what we did, with packers and animals always present, cooking and food included, and most gear provided.

Exploring on horseback

Guests and packers from Rock Creek Pack Station cross a creek near Davis Lake, in the Eastern Sierra. (Cristopher Reynolds / Los Angeles Times)

Every day we had a different expedition on horseback, beginning and ending with crossing the creek next to our campsite. The water was 2 to 3 feet deep, and there were plenty of loose stones under that cold, clear flow, but the animals chose their steps carefully.

We rode one to four hours a day. Our saddle-related aches and pains eased, and we got to know our horses better.

Later, pack station owner Craig London told me Shane had been broken in by a blind trainer.

A great guy  I dont know how he did it, London said, adding that Shane has always been a favorite. Doesnt jump, doesnt spook.

The water was always with us. One day, we tried to reach the third lake in the Hilton Lakes chain, but the slopes were so covered with snow and runoff that we had to turn around.

On the way back to camp, however, we got close to that roaring waterfall. Water giveth and water taketh away.

And then on Day 3, a little after sunset, the wind died. The lakes surface went glassy, and the landscape was reborn: Not only did we have twice as many mountains, thanks to new reflections on the water, but we also had the entire panorama cast in the bluish light of the moon.

Somehow, our campsite was now a vast Japanese wood-block print, impossibly still, harmonious and monochromatic.

On the fourth morning, the lake was still glassy, which made it hard to leave. But it was time.

We rolled up our sleeping bags, collapsed the tents, saddled up. Shane harrumphed a time or two, then carried me one more time across that swollen creek.

If you go

Rock Creek Pack Station, 9001 Rock Creek Road, Bishop, Calif.; (760) 872-8331. Prices vary by trip. Four-day trail rides to Hilton Lakes start at $695 per person.

Where to sleep before and after: Because many rides start early in the morning and end in the afternoon, its a good idea to spend the nights before and after the trip near the Pack Station. The closest rustic option is Toms Place Resort (8180 Crowley Lake Drive, Crowley Lake; [760] 935-4239), 25 miles north of Bishop. It has cabins ($75-$150 a night), private lodge rooms ($65-$75) and beds in dorm rooms ($30-$35 per bed).

One very comfortable option, with pool and dining room, is the Creekside Inn (725 N. Main St., Bishop; [760] 872-3044), where rooms for two typically are $140-$180 in summer.

christopher.reynolds@latimes.com

Follow Reynolds on Twitter: @MrCSReynolds
Question: We recently traveled to Spain and Portugal. When paying by credit card, we were given the option of paying in euros or dollars. It was unclear which was more advisable. I carry a co-branded airline credit card that doesnt charge a foreign transaction fee, so if you can pay in dollars and not incur a foreign transaction fee, then there is no reason for us to be paying $95 for a card that doesnt charge the fee. Are we missing something?

John Martin

Glendale

Answer: If youre paying in dollars, youre probably missing a chance to save money.

Here are the five words you never want to say when youre abroad and youre asked which currency you want to pay in: Ill pay in dollars, thanks.

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Thats because of a devilish little deception called dynamic currency conversion, which is not the same as a foreign transaction fee. Its another fee altogether.

Heres what happens, according to Kimberly Palmer, a credit card expert at NerdWallet, a personal finance website:

When you are asked whether you want to pay in dollars or euros or any other currency, you are allowing a dynamic currency conversion provider to set the exchange rate.

You pay its rate and, Palmer said, In most cases you will end up paying more  if you say yes. Its because the exchange rates [they offer] are not generally as favorable as the card networks (by which she means Visa, MasterCard or whatever credit card you carry).

The provider and the merchant generally split the profit from that conversion fee. It wont be much on any one charge, but you add up lots of transactions and it could be a pretty penny (or euro).

What theyre doing is not illegal. It is said to be a convenience: You know what 47.52 means in U.S. dollars. You may not know what 37 euros is immediately, so why not?

Heres why not: Youll generally pay 1% to 3% more for paying in U.S. dollars than you will if you pay in the currency of the country youre in, Palmer said.

And that is before foreign transaction fees, which are another add-on you can get stuck with when youre paying by credit card abroad.

Whats important to consider, in some cases, is that you might also be paying a foreign transaction fee, Palmer said. Add up those two fees, and you could be paying 7, 8 and even 10% over and above your purchase price.

But you dont have to get stuck with paying a premium abroad. You can avoid that pain by:

Carrying a credit card (or cards  Palmer suggested having two or three in your wallet) that does not charge foreign transaction fees.

There are increasingly more of these, thank goodness. Id like to say its because credit card companies realize how unethical it is to charge you for doing a calculation that takes less than a nanosecond, but Palmer attributed this to increased competition among cards.

OK, so the motivation gets an F but the outcome gets an A. To find cards that dont charge the fee, take a look at NerdWallets picks for the best travel cards.

Choosing to pay in the currency of the country youre in.

I did that on a recent trip to Ireland, and I trained my traveling companions (older sisters who are not only older but also usually smarter on most everything) to just say no to paying in U.S. dollars. I swelled with pride when I heard them say, Euros, please.

Watching the merchant like a hawk.

I did not swell with pride when one hotel assumed Id want dollars and ran my charge through accordingly. Not wanting to cause a scene, I didnt speak up.

Any merchant accepting a card is supposed to ask which you want. This hotelier did not. Id assume evil intent except she looked about 12 years old, which is not to say that scam artists cant be young, but Im giving her the benefit of the doubt.

Should I have said something?

I could have, Palmer said, but its just as easy to keep your receipts and contact your card company when you return home.

The difference, in this case, is not going to be huge so I may not invest the time. But at least now its my choice.

My final point wont help you avoid paying extra, but it may help you save significantly on travel:

Consider which cards to carry on a trip. We know you want one with no foreign transaction fee, but you also might want one that gives you double rewards for travel charges.

And you should consider whether you want a card that is tied to a brand (a hotel or an airline, for example, the latter of which Martin was using) or gives you convertible points  that is, reward points that can be used for any brand or any hotel and even merchandise.

Im a fan of both and carry both co-branded cards and convertible points cards. I enjoy playing the points collection game, although I am a novice compared with some of my colleagues.

On the other hand, I did get three tickets to Dublin from Washington, D.C., the starting point for the trip, for the grand total of nothing.

Given my amateur points-playing status, our tickets were economy class, but I still saved us more than $2,700. Plus I got kudos from the Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants and Blouses and Occasional Matching Scarf.

If youre the youngest, thats a pretty great feeling.

Have a travel dilemma or question? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.

travel@latimes.com

@latimestravel
Philippine police said they fatally shot 15 people Sunday, including a mayor who was among the politicians President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked to illegal drugs, in the bloodiest assault so far under Dutertes anti-drug crackdown.

Officers were to serve warrants to Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr. of Ozamiz city to search his houses for the suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor, his wife and at least 13 other people, Ozamiz Police Chief Jovie Espenido said.

Hes a high-value target on illegal drugs, Espenido, who oversaw the simultaneous, post-midnight raids on the mayors residence and three other houses, said at a news conference.

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We enforce the law to protect the people who want peace in this country, he said. How can we enforce the law if were scared of the drug lords? That cannot be, they should be afraid of people who do good for all.

At least five people, including Parojinogs daughter, who serves as vice mayor of Ozamiz, a port city, were arrested during the raids. Policemen were approaching the mayors house when his bodyguards opened fire and hit a police car and wounded a police officer, sparking a firefight amid a power outage, Espenido said.

A grenade held by one of Parojinogs bodyguards exploded during the clash inside his house and it remains unclear whether he and his wife were killed by the blast or police gunfire or both, Espenido said, adding that assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids.

How can we enforce the law if were scared of the drug lords? That cannot be.  Jovie Espenido, Ozamiz police chief

The administration vowed to intensify the drug campaign, presidential spokesman Ernesto Abella said in connection with Sundays raids in Ozamiz. The Parojinogs, if you would recall, are included in [Dutertes] list of personalities involved in the illegal drug trade.

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under Dutertes bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects.

Parojinogs daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, regional police Chief Supt. Timoteo Pacleb said.

The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign.

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera town Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down, apparently during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines.

Espenido was the Albuera police chief when the then-detained Espinosa was killed during the police jail raid in a nearby city.

Duterte has vowed to defend policemen who would face criminal and human rights charges while cracking down on illegal drugs. He recently ordered a police officer in Espinosas death to be reinstated after briefly being charged and suspended following the jail killing.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August as part of a shame campaign.

Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug dealer in the country has been eliminated.

ALSO

Youths protest violence, emerging dictatorship as the Philippines Duterte seeks to extend martial law

Charlie Gard, child at center of court battle over his end-of-life treatment, dies in London

Duck and cover 2.0: How North Korea is prompting new efforts to prepare for a nuclear attack
Nearly 150 Central American migrants packed into a tractor trailer and bound for the United States were rescued in the Mexican Gulf state of Veracruz after being abandoned by smugglers, Mexican authorities said Sunday.

The case comes a week after a truck ferrying scores of Mexican and Central American migrants without sufficient water and ventilation was found in Texas. Ten migrants died in that case.

The 147 people rescued in Veracruz  whose ranks included 48 minors, including 14 unaccompanied by adults  had been left without food and water and were found on Saturday in a rural zone of the municipality of Ozuluama, the Mexican National Institute of Migration said in a statement.

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Traffickers had directed the migrants to exit from a truck into which they had been packed in overcrowded conditions lacking ventilation, authorities said. They were told to hide in the underbrush and await the return of the smugglers, who never came back.

Mexican authorities provided medical care to the migrants, some of whom were dehydrated, officials said. None required hospitalization and all were taken to an immigration facility in Veracruz while officials attempted to clarify their status in Mexico.

They included citizens of Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador and Nicaragua, authorities said.

The migrants abandoned in Veracruz were likely following the same well-transited route as those who perished in Texas.

Central Americans destined for the United States regularly make their way via trucks, trains, buses and other vehicles to the U.S.-Mexico border area, seeking to cross illicitly into the United States. Texas Rio Grande Valley, adjacent to Mexicos Tamaulipas state, is a favored crossing zone. Many Mexican migrants take the same route.

Organized criminal gangs, including the ultra-violent Zetas cartel, control the trafficking corridors, charging migrants thousands of dollars each for the trip north, officials say. Smugglers often abandon their human cargoes en route.

Traffickers also seek to recruit some migrants for criminal activity and sometimes kill their charges for refusing to enlist or for being unable to pay smuggling fees, according to law enforcement officials.

In 2010, Mexican authorities discovered the bodies of 72 migrants, mostly Central Americans, on a ranch in Tamaulipas. All had been killed execution-style, Mexican police said. Authorities blamed the deaths on the Zetas.

Cecilia Sanchez of The Times Mexico City bureau contributed.

patrick.mcdonnell@latimes.com

twitter: @mcdneville
Every time he gets the chance, Ayham Hilal, an Internet cafe proprietor in the Syrian city of Saraqeb, squeezes into a small community center with about 200 fellow theatergoers and loses himself in a comedy show.

The sketches are productions of an all-volunteer performance troupe known as the Saraqeb Youth Group, which has been bringing its brand of satirical theater to the small city east of Idlib through the most brutal chapters of the countrys civil war.



For the record: An earlier version of this article carried a Saraqeb, Syria, dateline. The dateline should be Beirut.

Sometimes the players perform at a community center, other times at schools and at camps for internally displaced people, and even on the street.

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The troupe formed in 2006, five years before the Arab Spring uprisings swept into Syria. Protests metastasized into a prolonged and bloody conflict that has left hundreds of thousands dead and millions displaced.

At the time of the troupes founding, Ahmad Khatab and Walid Abu Rashid were a pair of artistically inclined teenagers. Khatab played the oud, a pear-shaped stringed instrument used in traditional Arabic music. Abu Rashid had ambitions of becoming an actor.

Ahmad Khatab, center, and Walid Abu Rashid, right, founders of the Syrian volunteer theater troupe Saraqeb Youth Group, perform in a sketch produced by the group, filmed in Saraqeb. (Ahmad Qadour / Saraqeb Youth Group)

Along with their love of performance, they shared a distaste for Syrian President Bashar Assad.

With three of their friends, the boys began writing and performing short plays poking fun at Assad.

Their audiences were amused, but the government was not. Soon after the troupe formed, Khatab said, security forces arrested him.

I was only 16 years old, and they hit me many times, said Khatab, now a schoolteacher and father of two. Every six months they took me to jail for four or five days, like, routinely.

Saraqeb  a primarily Sunni Muslim town of about 30,000 in northwestern Syria that is surrounded by farmland  became an early center of antigovernment protests during the Arab Spring. After the war began, it became a battleground between the Syrian army and Free Syrian Army rebels, but the troupe continued performing.

Sometimes plays were interrupted by the sound of planes overhead and the audience and performers ran to take cover. Two original members of the group were killed, Khatab said. A third joined the exodus of Syrians fleeing the country.

As the conflict escalated, the performers had to worry not only about the government but also about militant Islamist groups including Islamic State and the group then known as Al Nusra Front, which were fighting for control of the area and considered the performers to be unbelievers.

After one performance, as the group members were breaking down the stage, Khatab said, someone lobbed a hand grenade at them. The grenade exploded, but the performers scattered and no one was hurt.

We dont know who threw it  maybe Daesh, Khatab said, referring to Islamic State by its Arabic acronym.

For a while, the group went underground, performing without using its name or advertising its shows. It reemerged publicly in 2014 and began posting videos of its performances on Facebook and YouTube (links in Arabic), as well as shorts the troupe produced for the Web. The sketches offered comedic takes on the daily struggles of life in wartime, such as food shortages and rising prices.

In one sketch, Abu Rashid plays a man infuriated by the skyrocketing price of tomatoes. After the local produce seller tries to charge him $1,500 for slightly more than 3 pounds, the customer takes a potion hoping to travel back in time to buy the fruit at the old, lower prices, and return to sell them at the new price.

Ahmad Khatab, left, and Shaher Almuneera, members of the Syrian volunteer theater troupe Saraqeb Youth Group, perform in a comedy sketch produced by the group, filmed in Saraqeb. (Ahmad Qadour / Saraqeb Youth Group)

Instead, he mixes up the potions and finds himself transported to the future, where his village has been destroyed by bombs, Assad has been succeeded by his son, prices have risen even higher, and the now-ancient former produce seller informs him that he died 20 years ago. In an attempt to return to the past, he goes back too far and finds himself in a tent full of irate tribal warriors in the year 620.

The number of performers has grown to 12 from five. In addition to plays for adults, the troupe now puts on performances for children featuring players dressed as the cartoon cat-and-mouse duo Tom and Jerry. During the height of the fighting, when many schools closed, members of the troupe also began to run a makeshift informal school in Saraqeb.

Khatab said he sees the effects of the war in his daughters, ages 1 and 3.

My daughter, even if were frying potatoes and it makes a noise, she sometimes thinks its an airplane and she runs to the bathroom, because this is where we used to hide, he said.

With the plays, he said, we have an obligation to change their lives a little and also to give them hope, maybe put a little smile on their tired faces.

Theres another purpose for the performances, Khatab and Abu Rashid said  to fill the childrens free time so that they dont drift into armed groups, as many of their classmates did.

Meanwhile, adults find catharsis in the plays. Hilal first saw the group perform in 2012, a year after the war began, in a cultural center that would later be destroyed in an airstrike.

The play of the day was called Everything Is Fine. It was about a tribe of Bedouins who are visited by a television crew. The tribal leader, afraid of government security forces, tells the clan members to make no complaints and simply say, Everything is fine. Some of the tribe members instead demand electricity and water and sanitation and are taken to jail. Upon their release, the government promises they will get the things they asked for, but nothing changes. The play ends with a call to protest.

Hilal was hooked. Now he never misses a local performance and sometimes travels to see the group perform in other areas. On the third day of the Eid al-Fitr holiday, he and a group of friends from Saraqeb went to watch the troupe perform in Atarib, a town in the west Aleppo countryside.

What made it special was that they were dealing with sad topics like bombing and bloodshed and war  tragic topics  and at the same time they were presenting it in a satirical fashion, Hilal said. We used to laugh and cry at the same time.

The situation in Saraqeb has calmed  the latest cease-fire between the government and the rebel groups that control the area has held, and now, Hilal said, for the first time in six years, we dont hear planes.

But this month, clashes broke out between rebel factions in the Idlib area, including Saraqeb. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a pro-opposition monitoring group based in Britain, one activist was killed and others injured in Saraqeb when forces of the Organization for the Liberation of Syria  an alliance that includes includes the group formerly known as Al Nusra Front until it renounced ties with Al Qaeda  opened fire on a demonstration against the rebel group. Recently, the group and rival rebel faction Ahrar al Sham announced they had once again reached an agreement to end the fighting.

Over the years, Khatab said, he thought about fleeing the country, as some of his friends have done. But in the conflicts early days, when it was still relatively easy to get across the border to Turkey, he still hoped that the government would be toppled quickly and the war would end.

After Russia intervened in the war, Khatab said, he began to lose hope. But by then the border with Turkey had been closed and escape had become too expensive. To make the journey, he would have to sell his house and would not have a home to come back to.

Abu Rashid, for his part, said he didnt consider leaving.

Those who do similar work are very few, he said. If we all go to another country, who will be left?

Troupe members said there was never any question whether they would continue performing.

We believe in the power of the word, Khatab said. A rifle or a weapon can liberate a place, but the word can liberate the mind.

ALSO

A small town in Italy was losing population. Now Syrian refugees are key to its survival

Confused by all those groups fighting in Syria? We break it down with arm patches

Conflict among Syrian forces may draw U.S. into proxy fight

Sewell is a special correspondent.
The home improvement job should have cost $2,450. Authorities say only $1,200 was done.

But a Northampton County man allegedly convinced a senior citizen to sign an $18,700 contract, and actually collected $24,350 from the woman over about a month last fall, according to the Monroe County District Attorney's Office.

Now authorities are looking for Mark M. Harrison, 32, of the first block of North Country Club Road in Allen Township. He is wanted on charges of theft by deception, theft by unlawful taking and three counts of home improvement fraud -- all second-degree counts because the victim, a Kunkletown resident, was over 60 years old.

Harrison was not licensed as a contractor and used the name of a legitimate company without permission, the DA's office said in a news release.

Harrison previously resided in Beaver Spring, Pa.; Winfield, Pa.; and Seaford Del., the release says. Anyone with information on his whereabouts is asked to contact Chief Detective Eric Kerchner at 570-517-3052.

Steve Novak may be reached at snovak@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow him on Twitter @type2supernovak and Facebook. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
A man and his dog were rescued by crews Saturday afternoon after his sailboat capsized on the Merrill Creek Reservoir.

New Jersey State Police in Washington said the incident occurred at 1:40 p.m. near the main dam on the south side of the reservoir in Harmony Township. The man and his large dog then fell into the water; both were wearing life vests, police said.

Harmony Township firefighters worked to rescue the man and dog. The sail boat was towed back to the boat launch on the north side of the reservoir. Neither the man or dog were injured in the incident, police said.

Police said the area is typical for sailing. The scene was cleared by 3:25 p.m. Saturday.

Also responding were New Jersey State Police, the Franklin Township Fire Department's Emergency Medical Services Division and the Merrill Creek Owners Group.

The Merrill Creek Reservoir is a 650-acre reservoir surrounded by a 290-acre environmental preserve, as well as 2,000 additional acres of woods and fields. Its basic purpose is to provide stored water that can be released into the Delaware River to make up for evaporated water usage at certain electric generating units in times of low flow in the river, according to its website.

Pamela Sroka-Holzmann may be reached at pholzmann@lehighvalleylive.com. Follow her on Twitter @pamholzmann. Find lehighvalleylive.com on Facebook.
Does Ireland need another city?It's might seem an incongrous question, but nevertheless it was one that was discussed at the Cabinet think in meeting in Kildare last week.

The proposal was offered as a means of alleviating the so called choke on Dublin, or acting as counterweight to the growth of the capital.

The answer is no. And in any case, the possiblity is fairly remote.

The concept is even difficult to grasp, and there are few contemparaneous examples to look to for reference.

Last week's cabinet discussion took place amidst the framing of the sequel to the National Spatial Strategy, euphemistically titled 'Ireland 2040.'

And with this new plan, which is due to be produced by the end of this year, we may well again find ourselves back in the world of gateways and hubs.

The NSS itself could hardly be rated much of a success, due to a number of reasons, not least the needs of local politics.

The formation of the Athlone, Tullamore and Mullingar (ATM) axis,or hub, turned out to be a non-event, as one might have predicted it would be at the time.

The NSS perpetutated an injustice against Portlaoise by its outright ommission from this plan, though in retrospect this might have been no bad thing.

However, it should not have happened and it made a mockery of any notion of achieving regional balance.

And as is manifestly obvious from talk of a new city, no real regional balance has been created throughout the country.

The treatment of Laois and Portlaoise is a case in point.

Its central and strategic location has been ignored for decades now, when it comes to the location of industry and multinationals.

Limerick and Cork can rightly feel hard done by, but so equally can this area.

Population wise we are one of the fastest growing in the country, effectively a commuter satellite for Dublin.

This so called doughnut effect around Dublin could be tempered if there was more adherence paid to the development of this and other areas.

We have the people, space and location.

New cities are the stuff of fantasy. Developing what's there requires no leap of the imagination.
A young man who threw a box of ten eggs at a garda car was given a three months prison sentence at Athy Court on Tuesday.

Patrick Carty (18) with an address listed as 59 Castle Park, Athy came to the attention of gardai on 26 October 2016 at Castle Park after he threw eggs at a garda vehicle.

The court heard that the defendant was at home in bed when gardai called to his house to ensure he was abiding by his curfew.

After the gardai got the defendant up out of bed he proceeded to grab the box of eggs and pelt it accross the roof of the patrol car.

His solicitor Philip Meagher told the court that it was an act of complete tomfoolery and acting the blackguard. His family has since moved to Naas and the defendant no longer hangs out with the wrong crowd.

The defendant was also up on charges of unlawful possession of drugs, after a search was carried out by gardai on 5 February 2017 at his home. While there gardai found a small amount of cannabis worth 10 and the defendant admitted that it was for his own use.

His solictor told the court that it was the makings of one joint.

He was using cannabis for a number of months at that time, he said.

The defendant then told the court that he was 16 when he first started smoking cannabis.

He is to become a dad soon and he has a fiance, who was in court with him.

Judge Desmond Zaidan asked the defendant if he is going to mend his ways now that he is going to be a daddy.

The defendant, who is currently on remand in Clover Hill with an expectation to be out by November, on a circuit court matter, replied that 'yes he would mend his way and grow up' now that he is to become a father.

I won't be back here, he said.

He was given three months for criminal damage.
The screening of a new short film in which a young Kildare girl plays a lead role took place place in Dublin last Saturday.

Eight year old Isabel Connolly from Clane landed a role in the new short Irish film which was shot in a mill at Belmont, Offaly.

Isabel, who featured in an Expressway advert running across radio and television and other media and also in a Dublin Airport advertisement, spent around three days on set during the filming of A Timely Gift.

This is about a troubled artist struggling to come to terms with the loss of her identity who receives a mysterious gift from her late grandfather.

Last Saturday, cast, crew, friends and others gather ed for a showing in Brooks Hotel in Dublin.

Isabel (7), who lives with her sister, Ruby (5), and parents, Mandy and Peter on Kilcock road, Clane, is a pupil at Scoil Bhride.

Her mother, Mandy, has accompanied Isabel on her film travels,and helped out on the set.

Mandy told the Leader last week that it was planned to run the film on the film festival circuit.

Of Isabels participation, Mandy said: She absolutely loved it. Mandy said the team was very mindful of Isobels age.

For director Paireac Keane, from Tullamore, the 22-minutes film is his first. He had high praise for Isabel.

It is my first film. Im in the same boat as Isabel but I am not quite as cute.

She was brilliant. Shes going to be a future star, Ive no doubt.

She is easy to work with, he said.
Its been a disastrous week for Donald Trumps Presidency. I wont the list the cataclysms because there are endless articles cataloguing them. This article does a very good job in summing up the situation.

What struck me was that a situation which led to the Affordable Care Act (ACA  Obamacare) becoming law was repeated as the Republican Skinny Repeal of the ACA failed in the US Senate early on Friday morning.

In the December 2009, the late Senator Robert Byrd, then 92 years-old with fragile health, was instrumental in passing the Affordable Care Act through several late night voting appearances in his wheelchair.

This week, 80 year-old John McCain, suffering from a brain tumour, made the 2,224 mile air trip from Arizona to Washington DC to be the crucial swing vote to kill off the ACA Skinny Repeal.

Im not sure what this tells us about American democracy, but it is noticeable that these two pivotable moments were swung by Senators who had to make unusual efforts to get to the chamber.

We shouldnt forget the role of Republican Senators Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski, who also voted against the Skinny Repeal.

Given the circumstances, the most remarkable thing is that the bill nearly passed. Michael Grunwald sums it up very well:

Forty-nine Republican senators voted for legislation that many of them admitted was substantively flawed and procedurally absurdlegislation that only 17 percent of the public supported and every major medical interest group opposed; that had been shredded by a bipartisan coalition of governors, the Congressional Budget Office and their own hand-picked parliamentarian. After Trump promised to expand coverage, lower costs and block any cuts to Medicaid, he almost got to sign a bill that the CBO warned would do exactly the opposite, leading to a massive expansion of the insured rolls, higher premiums and deductibles for the old and the sick, and hundreds of billions of dollars worth of Medicaid cuts. After attacking Democrats for ramming Obamacare into law with only 60 votes after insufficient hearings, insufficient bipartisan outreach, and insufficient transparency, Republican senators nearly passed Trumpcare with only 50 votes after no hearings, no bipartisan outreach, and so little transparency that even most of them had no idea what would be in it until a few hours before their middle-of-the-night roll call.

* Paul Walter is a Liberal Democrat activist and member of the Liberal Democrat Voice team. He blogs at Liberal Burblings.
So, we are to be a party of the centre; open, tolerant and united. Four adjectives for the LibDems of the future. Given that we are currently polling around 7%-8%, I feel we need to take a long hard look at ourselves. So for what it is worth, here is my take on the first of these adjectives: party of The Centre.

The problems of being a party of the centre are well known. Suffice to say that barring a massive misjudgement on the part of the Labour or Conservative parties we will never hold the centre captive, un-contested and fertile. It is absolutely essential therefore, for the LibDems to find a political territory that is distinct and independent of the Tory Labour axis and effectively communicate that territory to the electorate.

I was recently advised in a dialogue on this site to revisit the preamble to our constitution and it seemed to me that written through it, like a stick of rock, was the notion of Social Justice. The more I reflected on this issue the more it seemed to offer explanations and possibilities, not only as a guiding principle but as a strong and powerful narrative for the public imagination. But for it to work, Social Justice cannot just be a brand or a slogan, it has to be defining, intrinsic and all pervading; a raison detre.

Our constitutional preamble talks about Social Justice rejecting discrimination on the grounds of colour, religion, age, disability or sexual orientation but Social Justice is about more than discrimination. It is about how we distribute the benefits of our society between areas as such as north/south, urban/rural, rich/poor, individual/organisational, young/old and others that we are probably not even aware of because the pursuit of Social Justice needs to diffuse up from our communities as well as down from our principles.

We need to listen and be pragmatic as well as talk, and in so doing, make our policies relevant and realistic. The LibDems have always commanded a sort of unarticulated public respect for being socially just but we have never put a name on that characteristic, an identity, something that people can say they identify with.

Then the 2010 coalition. How could the naturally social liberals get into bed with the Tories. On top of this we presided over one of the most blatant miscarriages of justice in our history and reneged on our public pledge not to increase student fees. In one act we had not been Social and we had certainly not been Just. We had betrayed the publics faith. Our failure to cling to our sense of Social Justice had left the Libdems diminished. Unless and until we address that miscarriage of Justice over student fees and explain our positive social influence on that government (and admitting our mistakes) we will never regain the publics faith.

As for the now, if we are to be true to Social Justice there can be no sacred cows.

Take Brexit, for example. We have never truly examined our EU membership in the light of Social Justice. If we had, then maybe we could have fought to mitigate some of the injustices felt by the 52%, either at EU level or via domestic policies. At least we would have understood them and tuned our message to reflect that. Instead we say were right, youre wrong and still we are in denial. We talk about the negative economic impact of Brexit but for a lot of people, they feel they have so little to lose that they prefer hope over what they currently have. All the economic benefits seem to accrue to others whilst they are left short of social housing, dealing with overcrowded schools, their wages undercut and feeling diminished in their own communities. It seems that we have not been sufficiently tuned in to their reality to have seen the dangers and our response has lacked empathy.

For the future, I want the party to have a serious think about Social Justice. Where does our drive for Social Justice emanate from and how does it find form within the party? How do our policies impact on Social Justice. Will they result in a more socially just and harmonious society? Its a mindset we need to develop and fine tune. But to change an institution there has to be a method of initiating and fixing that change via internal structures, institutions and procedures. Things like a Specified Associated Organisation (SAO) dedicated to Social Justice. This could start to offer a direction and meaning for the party and we can start to rebuild a case for the LibDems around a defining message.

P.S. Maybe somebody else can address our use of the words Open, Tolerant and United in separate articles.
A LEADING consultancy firm advised Irish Cement on its application to change process in Mungret  just months after assisting the council with the same project.

An Bord Pleanala is currently deciding whether to allow Irish Cement proceed with 10m plans  which will see the use of fossil fuels largely ditched in favour of used tyres.

It comes after Limerick City and County Council granted conditional permission  but still provided a submission to the environmental regulator.

The national planning authority has this week confirmed that it will hold an oral hearing into the scheme after it received dozens of objections from residents concerned about the impact of these plans on the local environment.

Irish Cement has always defended the plans, saying they are crucial for the future viability of the plant, and will not bring an increase in emissions.

Its anticipated this will take place in September or October.

Cllr Cian Prendiville, who received the disclosure about AWN Consulting, said the fact this firm had worked for both Irish Cement and the council raises serious questions about the way environmental protection is done in this country.

The reality is AWN consulting has supported pretty much every single incinerator ever proposed in Ireland, from the hugely controversial one in Cork, to the hated gasification plant proposed in West Limerick [Gortadroma], he said. The northside Solidarity member says he has previously been blocked from raising this matter at council  but will try for a third time.

AWN Consulting was hired by the City and County Council to provide a submission to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which will ultimately decide whether Irish Cement is given a licence to change process in Mungret.

The Leader understands the firm then switched its attention to helping Irish Cement to provide information on noise pollution levels around its vast plant at the end of the Dock Road.

Members of Limerick Against Pollution (LAP), the residents group set up in opposition to Irish Cements proposals were notified of An Bord Pleanalas decision to hold an oral hearing this week.

It will be held in public and allow objectors to make a more comprehensive case in favour and against the plans. Tim Hourigan of LAP welcomed the move.

He said: An Bord Pleanala have been cagey as to whether there would be an oral hearing or not. Our worry at the moment is whether we would be given sufficient notice. There are a lot of objectors on this appeal, and trying to organise time off work so we can make our presentations is a very time-consuming exercise.

Cllr Daniel Butler, Fine Gael, said he was not surprised to hear of the oral hearing.

An oral hearing is the least the local community deserves to ensure full accountability and due diligence in a hugely important local issue, he said.

A decision was due on Irish Cements plans by August 8  but that has now been put back in the wake of the oral hearing.
FINE Gael TD Tom Neville has reaffirmed his commitment to mental health issues, as the Government aims to strengthen the rights of mental health patients with a new legislation.

He said that the Governments recently-approved Mental Health Bill will provide greater consultation with patients being treated in local and national health services.

Attitudes to mental health in Ireland are changing. People are more open to getting help when they need it and the old stigmas are eroding, but we must strive to eradicate stigma altogether.

When I speak to teenagers, I take heart from their attitude and perception of mental health. Their openness to it is very different from generations before them, he said.

He said that the Governments support for extension and expansion of services, such as the new Jigsaw youth mental health programme in Limerick city, is another step in the right direction.

The Jigsaw project, which started taking referrals at its Arthurs Quay shopping centre in late June, is one of 13 regional hubs specialising in mental health supports amongst 12- to 25-year-olds.

The youth mental health service is free-of-charge.

In January 2016, the former Minister of State for Mental Health, Kathleen Lynch announced a 700,000 investment into the service.

Improving the provision of mental health services is so important. I want to send a message from the Dail to our younger people, you are our future.

Younger people, particularly teenagers, from their perspective have different ideas from mine because I come from a different generation and background.

I believe that we should leave no stone unturned when it comes to the provision of mental health services for younger people, he stated last week.

Deputy Neville added: The Government has committed to bring greater awareness of mental health problems for young people. I will continue to advocate this as I believe it is one of the most pressing issues affecting our country today.
THE ONLY damage done in a Limerick car accident was to the ditch, a solicitor said.

Denis ODonovan, aged 31, of The Stables, Ballykisteen, Limerick Junction, pleaded guilty to driving without insurance and failing to remain at the scene of an accident.

Sergeant Michelle Leahy said at 6.30pm on September 20, 2015, gardai received a report of a vehicle overturned at Raheenamadra, Knocklong.

It was in the middle of the road. The lights were on and the engine was running. It appeared it was coming from the Knocklong direction and collided with the ditch. It was blocking the left hand lane. Gardai found a driving licence in the vehicle belonging to Mr ODonovan, said Sgt Leahy.

Judge Marian OLeary said: He just left?. Yes, said Sgt Leahy.

The judge asked what time it happened at?

6.30pm in September, said Sgt Leahy, who added that ODonovan contacted Bruff garda station.

He was interviewed and admitted he was the owner and driver and to leaving the scene, said the sergeant. The court heard ODonovan has 22 previous convictions.

Brendan Gill, solicitor for ODonovan, said the only damage done was to the ditch.

He is a 31-year-old father of one. He works as a sub-contractor. He had group insurance through a company he set-up but due to various claims the policy increased. He was of the view that the vehicle was insured but he accepts it wasnt. He made contact with gardai, said Mr Gill.

ODonovan took the stand and said as the insurance premium had gone so high it was reduced to two jeeps.

I got a phone call that my partner had crashed so I took one of the jeeps. When I came around the bend, something went wrong - it was the tyre. I hit my head. I didnt have my mobile with me so I walked to the house of people I knew a quarter of a mile away to help me get the car off the road. If I didnt know the insurance wasnt transferred over I wouldnt have dreamed of taking it, said ODonovan.

Judge OLeary disqualified him from driving for two years and fined him 400 for no insurance, and 300 for failing to remain at the scene.
TWO men have died following separate road accidents in Limerick city this Saturday evening.

The first incident happened at Quinn's Cross Roundabout, Mungret at around 7.30pm.

According to gardai, a motorcyclist aged in his 50s was seriously injured when the bike he was driving struck the roundabout.

He was taken to University Hospital Limerick following the collision but died from his injuries a short time later.

No other vehicle was involved and road remained closed overnight with diversions in place.

LIMERICK: No access to Fr Russell Rd from Quinn's Cross R/A until further notice due to fatal collision. https://t.co/pdsEzJTRQr  AA Roadwatch (@aaroadwatch) July 30, 2017

In the second incident, a man aged in his mid 20's was seriously injured when the motorbike he was driving left the road and collided with bollards at O'Malley Park, Southill at around 7.40pm.

The man was treated at the scene by crews from Limerick Fire and Rescue service who were in the area at the time dealing with a fire at a derelict house.

He was taken to University Hospital Limerick (UHL) by ambulance but later died from his injuries.

Post mortems are to be carried out on the bodies of both men and gardai at Roxboro Road are investigating both incidents. Any witnesses are asked to contact them at (061) 214340.

The fatal crashes happened just a day after the funeral of Michael McNamara who died after he was knocked down at Kileely Road, Thomondgate last Sunday night.

Separately, another motorcyclist from Kilmallock died in a road collision in County Cork on Friday morning.
British Commonwealth and more headline Aug. 19-20 Rasdale auction in Chicago

Jul 29, 2017, 3 PM

A never-hinged example of the 1925 5 dull violet and black King George V stamp on chalk-surfaced paper is another British Commonwealth offering in the upcoming Rasdale sale.

The Aug. 19-20 public auction No. 433 by Rasdale Stamps Co. will offer an unused example of Australias most elusive postage due stamp, the 1908 20-shilling emerald.

By Michael Baadke

Rasdale Stamp Co. will conduct its public auction No. 433 Aug. 19-20 at its facility in the western suburbs of Chicago.

The Saturday session offers a large number of United States and worldwide collections, large lots, and accumulations, plus topical collections and cover collections, and individual lots of U.S. and worldwide postal history.

Also offered are four extensive Canada collections, two with complete Jubilee sets, according to Rasdale.

The second session on Sunday presents almost 200 lots of U.S. stamps, along with about 600 lots of worldwide issues.

The worldwide material includes Germany and area, Italy and area, the Netherlands, and much more.

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There is also a strong representation of Great Britain and the British Commonwealth.

Many of these single stamps and sets are offered by Rasdale with minimum bids far below the established Scott catalog values.

One rarity from this group is the 1908 20-shilling emerald postage due stamp from Australia (Scott J38), offered unused with original gum.

The 2018 Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalogue value of $29,000 for this single stamp is listed in italics, to indicate an item that can be a challenge to value accurately.

The perf. 11 20sh postage due stamp is a key item in the quest to assemble a comprehensive back-of-the-book collection of Australia.

This example is described by Rasdale as fine-very fine, and has been authenticated by the American Philatelic Expertizing Service.

The stamp is listed with an opening bid of $5,000.

On the other side of the world, the far smaller Commonwealth colony of Gibraltar began issuing stamps in 1886.

An elusive stamp in a collection of classic Gibraltar is the 1925 5 dull violet and black King George V on chalk-surfaced paper (Scott 93), which Rasdale is offering unused and never-hinged, described as fine-very fine.

Against a Scott catalog value of $1,750, this stamp will open with a bid of $375.

The United States stamps in the Sunday auction session include many classic and later issues, along with airmails (including unused Zeppelins in sets and singles) and a few other back-of-the-book items.

A 1917 pane of 30 1 green George Washington stamps from the A.E.F. booklet, position I, is offered never-hinged, with a 1988 Philatelic Foundation certificate identifying it as genuine.

Collectors in search of the 1926 Battle of White Plains 25-stamp souvenir sheet (Scott 630) will find six examples to choose from in this auction, all intact and never-hinged.

The Rasdale auction is presented here, with online bidding options available or through Stamp Auction Network.

Information about the auction also is available from Rasdale Stamp Co., 35 Chestnut Ave., Westmont, IL 60559.
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Passchendaele 100: William and Kate to join commemorations

BBC News30 July 2017The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will join Prime Minister Theresa May in Belgium later to mark the centenary of the Battle of Passchendaele - one of the bloodiest of World War One.Half a million Allied and German soldiers were killed, wounded or went missing in three months of fighting.Many drowned in the thick mud, caused by weeks of relentless rain.A service will be held in Ypres, where Belgium's King Philippe and Prince William will lay wreaths at the Menin Gate.They will hear the Last Post, which has been played at the gate by a bugler almost every evening since 1928.Dignitaries and the descendants of those who died will gather in Ypres's Market Square for an event to tell the story of the battle.Performances and music - which will include the National Youth Choir of Scotland, Dame Helen Mirren and a specially written extract from War Horse, narrated by Michael Morpurgo - will be set to a backdrop of light projections on to the historic Cloth Hall.Officially known as the Third Battle of Ypres, Passchendaele was fought between 31 July and 6 November 1917 in the West Flanders region of northern Belgium.About 275,000 Allied troops and 220,000 Germans died.British troops sought to push back the Germans from a ridge near the Belgian town of Ypres during the three-and-a half month campaign.Thick mud clogged up rifles and immobilised tanks and, ultimately, the fighting is believed to have won the Allied forces only small gains.On Monday, the anniversary of the start of the battle, commemorations will continue with a special service held at Tyne Cot cemetery, where thousands are buried and commemorated.
What is coolsculpting? How to get desired results? If you are confused about the treatment,
BEATRICE  President Abraham Lincolns signature scrawled across the Homestead Act of 1862 drew 38,000 people to the national park dedicated to the federal land giveaway when the document went on display in 2012.

Those record-breaking figures at Homestead National Monument could soon be eclipsed  so to speak  by the total solar eclipse that will black out the skies on Aug. 21, potentially drawing tens of thousands of people to the Beatrice area.

Near the path of totalitys center line, the total solar eclipse near Beatrice will span more than 2 minutes.

Theres a lot of excitement here, and the staff has been working very hard and very diligently to get the park ready, said Superintendent Mark Engler.

What to see

Events on Eclipse Weekend begin at 10 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 19, with storyteller Ryan Paul, who will trace Native American Starlore, or the stories tribes told to explain the constellations.

Since Homestead has been designated an official NASA viewing site, NASA scientists will be on hand to discuss the Solar Probe Plus spacecraft set to be launched in 2018, science laboratories in space, exoplanet studies and the GLOBE Observer, a citizen-scientist initiative to track climate change.

On Eclipse Day, activities begin at 8 a.m. with music by Chris Sayre and the String Beans before First Contact is announced at 11:30 a.m., prompting visitors to find their preferred viewing areas.

Bill Nye The Science Guy, the CEO of the Planetary Society, and Amy Mainzer of the PBS Kids show Ready Jet Go! will explain the phases of the eclipse before they announce glasses on at 1 p.m., just in time for the 1:02 p.m. beginning of totality.

NASA TV will be broadcasting live from a point near the Heritage Center throughout the day.

Hands-on activities will be available throughout the weekend at multiple sites throughout the park.

A complete list of events is available on the Homestead National Monuments website: nps.gov/home.

Watching the eclipse

Homestead National Monument intends to open up spaces to their maximum potential, Engler said.

Rangers will mark areas targeted for a controlled burn this fall where astronomers can set up telescopes and visitors can stake out a spot to watch the cosmic event.

Farming demonstration areas at the Education Center on the banks of Cub Creek on the parks west side and the Heritage Center overlooking the parks eastern border will also be cleared and made available for visitors.

Further west along Nebraska 4, at the one-room Freeman School, Engler said astronomers bringing larger telescopes can set up.

Engler said one amateur astronomer requested enough room for his telescope that requires the viewer to scale a 12-foot ladder.

Other space closer to Nebraska 4, which cuts through the park from the southeast to the northwest, may also serve as viewing grounds, Engler said. Homestead is working with the Nebraska Department of Transportation to open those areas.

When the moon moves in front of the sun, however, and the shadow approaches at 1,500 miles per hour, Engler said Homestead plans to let the spectacle speak for itself.

Basically, were going to go silent with our programming during totality, he said.

Getting to the park

A free shuttle service will operate from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday of Eclipse Weekend between Homestead and three sites in Beatrice.

The shuttle will also operate from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Eclipse Day.

Park visitors who plan to use the shuttle should park near the Gage County Fairgrounds at 321 Logan St.; Aunt Marys Cafe at 111 S. Eighth St.; and Jims Carpet at 308 Court St. and follow signs and directions to the pick-up and drop-off points.

The pick-up and drop-off sites will expand to a number of area hotels, as well as the Beatrice Municipal Airport on Monday, Engler said.

Homestead will close the Heritage Center parking lot at 6 a.m. on Eclipse Day.

Parking will be available on the gravel roads surrounding Homestead: Southwest 75th Road, Southwest 89th Road and West Hoyt Road. Signs and staff will direct vehicles to the parking areas.

Engler said Homestead will be staffed 24 hours a day for Eclipse Weekend  a first for the park in his tenure  both to accommodate extended hours and to assist visitors.
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A former TAMIU official has filed a lawsuit against the university on claims that he was retaliated against because he was vocal about the college's mishandling of a sexual assault case that occurred during a study abroad trip.

Gerardo Alva, who served as associate vice president of student affairs, says in the lawsuit he filed in a Laredo federal court that he was terminated for engaging in protected opposition to Title IX discrimination committed by the university.

Title IX, a federal civil rights law, guarantees protection against discrimination on the basis of sex in all educational settings. It compels colleges to investigate and resolve sexual assault reports or risk losing federal funding.

Shortly after his opposition to the handling of the sexual assault case, Alva was terminated on what he considers to be "false and pretextual" reasons, according to the lawsuit.

Alva said his hope is that a jury finds the outcome in his favor and the wrongs that were done to him and his family are made right.

He said he also hopes to shed a light on what occurs when employees work in "such a difficult topic as Title IX and sexual assault."

RELATED: Rape reports on the rise at Texas A&M International University

"You should, as an employee, expect to be safeguarded from retaliation and unfortunately that is not what happened," he said.

TAMIU said it is unable to comment on pending litigation. It had not filed a response to the lawsuit as of Friday. Court records indicate TAMIU was served with the lawsuit earlier last week.

Alva, who was employed at TAMIU for 15 years, acted as deputy Title IX coordinator before his termination. He was responsible for handling students' sexual assault reports as well as all study abroad programs.

Alva was also responsible for ensuring compliance with federal regulations regarding Title IX, ensuring complaint timelines were followed and ensuring timely and equitable resolutions of complaints of sexual misconduct, sexual harassment and protected-class discrimination involving all students on behalf of TAMIU, the petition states.

Rape report

In January 2016, Alva was leading a group of students as part of a study abroad program in India. During the trip, he was informed that a sexual assault had been reported during a study abroad trip in Cork, Ireland.

Alva claims he attempted to find out more information about the alleged incident and plan appropriate Title IX plans and responses, but was met with little response from TAMIU staff.

This resulted in Alva purchasing the first available airline ticket to return to Laredo to allow him to take appropriate action before the five-day deadline established by TAMIU to respond to an investigation of a Title IX student incident.

"(Alva) felt it was necessary for him to promptly return to Laredo to properly address the matter because a Title IX student incident was one of his specific duties," the lawsuit states.

Alva alleges proper protocols were not followed, with the alleged victim and the accused student being transported on the same bus, made to attend the same class and made to fly back on the same international flights.

He also said the accused nor the victim's parents were contacted  with or without their consent.

"All of the actions in violation of Title IX responsibilities could threaten Title IX funding for TAMIU and could lead to further sanctions," the lawsuit states.

According to the lawsuit, the student was arrested and detained in Ireland after a TAMIU official turned over an audio recording of an interview he conducted with the student.

RELATED: International Women's Day Walk set at TAMIU

A TAMIU handbook says that within five university business days of receiving the complaint, the Title IX deputy coordinator should notify and forward copies of the complaint to university officials and assign an investigative authority, according to the lawsuit.

Alva said he was attempting to perform these required duties and had he remained in India, he would have been "absent during a critical time in the Title IX process."

Alva says he requested an emergency meeting to gather facts about the alleged sexual assault after his return to Laredo. During the meeting with other TAMIU officials, he told them he wanted to send an interim suspension letter to the alleged assaulter, removing him from university premises while the investigation was conducted.

"All agreed to the recommendations made by the (Alva). He was vocal during the meeting regarding his concerns of deficiencies in how the situation was handled by university administration in Cork, Ireland," the lawsuit states.

Around mid-March 2016, Alva said he received the sexual assault investigation report, which concluded "the respondent responsible and his penalty was suspension from TAMIU for no less than one year," according to the lawsuit.

During a meeting in March 2016 with high-ranking TAMIU officials, Alva mentioned that the "established written university procedures were ignored, which also violated Title IX; no one in study abroad had any idea what was happening; although a 'release to notify emergency contacts' was in the possession of TAMIU, the university staff on the Ireland trip failed to take the form into consideration; the university staff on the Ireland trip failed to provide all vital information to the legal team (in violation of Title IX); as well as other frustrations and concerns."

On May 9, 2016, Alva received a phone call from TAMIU Police Department Capt. Sergio Moreno. Alva said Moreno wanted to speak to him about allegations of theft.

After being read his Miranda rights, Alva says Moreno accused him of theft for purchases made by Alva with university funds, including the flight change he made from India to Laredo.

Shortly thereafter, Alva was told to report to human resources, where he was given a letter stating his employment would be terminated effective May 23, 2016 after a two-week paid suspension.

VIDEO: U.S. border officers order Mexican teen to drink liquid meth that killed him

Alva says he was asked to resign in lieu of termination, but refused on the grounds that he did nothing wrong.

"On or about May 20, 2016, prior to the effective date of termination, (Alva) returned to the Human Resources Department. Because he was fed up with the unfounded accusations, (Alva) submitted his letter of resignation in lieu of termination, as requested. (He) later found out that TAMIU refused to accept his resignation," the lawsuit states.

Starr County District Attorney Omar Escobar was appointed by the Webb County District Attorney's Office to investigate the theft allegations filed against Alva by TAMIU.

In February, Escobar submitted a letter indicating all allegations against Alva were found to be "unwarranted and unsupportable."

Alva, who sought unemployment benefits, says he received a letter TAMIU's director of human resources submitted to the Texas Workforce Commission that said the reason for his termination was "unauthorized use of system resources," and specifically cited the purchase of the early return flight ticket from India to Laredo.

Court records indicate an initial court hearing has not yet been scheduled for the case.
By Paul Butler.

The New Press. 304 pp. $26.95

---

My first exposure to Paul Butler's writing was at a legal conference in 1995. I volunteered at the last minute to assess a law review article of his when the person assigned to the paper could not attend the meeting. In the now-famous piece, Butler detailed the harsh criminal sentencing blacks face. He reviewed the centuries-old practice of nullification -- in which juries vote not guilty because they think a law is unfair -- and boldly encouraged jurors to nullify in cases involving blacks accused of low-level drug offenses. When I finished, I scribbled, "Well done" and "Tenure?" on the first page. After publication, the article generated a firestorm of controversy, including calls for Butler's job.

With "Chokehold: Policing Black Men," his new book, Butler has hit his stride. This is a meditation, a sonnet, a legal brief, a poetry slam and a dissertation that represents the full bloom of his early thesis: The justice system does not work for blacks, particularly black men. With this performance, though, Butler, a law professor at Georgetown University, layers in statistics, quotes from academics, rap lyrics, research findings and personal narratives. It's a raucous mix, drawing on a range of voices, including Michelle Alexander, Susan Sontag, the movie "The Mack," Derrick Bell, James Comey, Black Star, Ronaldinho Gaucho, Michel Foucault, Langston Hughes and Toure.

In Butler's usage,the chokehold, the sometimes fatal neck lock police use to coerce submission, is a metaphor for understanding how racial oppression functions in the U.S. justice system. The chokehold is the invisible fist of the law, a shapeshifter that represents iterations of racial oppression, including slavery, Jim Crow, racial profiling and mass incarceration -- and all the other ways the law works to keep black men down. "Efforts to fix 'problems' such as excessive force and racial profiling are doomed to fail," Butler writes. The system works as it was designed to work: The chokehold persists, regardless of the century, the race of the president or good intentions. Butler's goal is to define, describe and ultimately dismantle the chokehold's grip.

To build his case, the former federal prosecutor begins by analyzing society's creation of the black man as thug and demonstrates how this image is used to support inhumane treatment. The harm caused by this linkage is underscored by empirical research indicating that people are more likely to associate negative words (such as "criminal") with black men than with white men. This association contributes to a sociological link between black men and menace. Butler unpacks the widespread fear of black men and shows that it is largely irrational and, therefore, a flimsy rationale for discriminating against black men.

A chapter called "Black Male Violence: The Chokehold Within" begins with Butler noting that many black men asked him not to include it in the book. They expressed fear that some people would use its references to the high black crime rate to argue that black men deserve the backhand of the law -- and a tightening of the chokehold. Butler says that black male violence has not received "sustained analysis in the new discourse about criminal justice reform." While this claim is debatable, he correctly decides to keep the chapter. He delves into the reasons some black men engage in crime and points out that because most crime is intra-racial, most victims of black offenses are also black.

Butler argues that the prevailing desire to "fix" black men has spawned social programs that miss the mark, and he cites President Barack Obama's My Brother's Keeper initiative as one that falls short. Butler argues that racial interventions designed to promote racial justice should not leave out black women. What's more, focusing on black male achievement will not solve the problem of violence against black men.

Two chapters stand out from the rest. "Sex and Torture: The Police and Black Male Bodies" is riveting. It exposes the sexual invasiveness of some stop-and-frisks, the dehumanizing searches for weapons and contraband police conduct that sometimes involve reaching into a man's underwear and touching his testicles and buttocks. Butler decries the unfairness that black men are more likely to be subject to frisks than white men. These incidents are experienced as sexual harassment and further marginalize, shame and keep black men in their place. Philadelphia police have recently faced allegations of such unlawful searches, with several black men reporting that the police use this method of stop-and-frisk to harass them, an indignity known as "stop and fondle." Butler writes that "stop and frisk can be seen as a 'badge and incident' of lynching." Like lynching, it is "expressive," meant to "destroy individual bodies" and "terrorize all blacks."

The chapter "If You Catch a Case: Act Like You Know" is compelling and heartbreaking. Its urgency and practicality bring to mind Abbie Hoffman's "Steal This Book" and "The Negro Motorist Green Book" -- the Jim-Crow era travel guide that listed businesses across the country that welcomed black customers. Here, Butler speaks directly to young black men, telling them what to do if they are stopped by police. He cautions them not to wear clothes that "stick out." The stop, Butler says, is a "masculinity contest between you and the police. You must let the cops win." Winning requires a show of deference, answering officers' questions, not raising your voice and saying as little as possible. If you are arrested, Butler says, "Shut the f--- up."

This is unsettling reading. The submission Butler recommends is soul-crushing. It requires behavior that is antithetical to free human beings. However, choosing a crushed soul over a crushed skull is a no-brainer. As any parent of a black child can tell you, she wants her child to do whatever is necessary to get home safely; everything else can be fixed.

Butler's book makes a solid case that the chokehold works systematically to deprive black men of humane treatment within the justice system. He concludes his incisive critique by calling for an end to prisons: "U.S. prisons are built for black men, and black men will be free, literally and figuratively, only when prisons are no more." After acknowledging that "prison abolition sounds crazy," Butler notes that fewer than 20 percent of all prisoners are serving time for homicide or sex offenses. At the very least, he urges, we should consider alternatives to incarceration for the other 80 percent. He bolsters his abolition argument with a report finding that in the past decade, 27 states have reduced both their rates of incarceration and their crime rates.

One down note in Butler's presentation is that he doesn't adequately address how to get more people to care enough about the chokehold to do something about it. There are no easy answers here. Awareness of the problem is necessary but insufficient to spur transformative change.

"Chokehold" is more than a critique of our justice system. It is a declaration of who we are as a country: We are a people who accept and support a justice system that treats people differently based on race, gender, skin tone, income, neighborhood and education. By the end of the book, it's clear that Butler is asking, "Are we really okay with this?" The chokehold is strangling all of us -- but its grip is indeed tightest on the throats of black men.

---

Russell-Brown, a law professor at the University of Florida and director of the university's Center for the Study of Race and Race Relations, is the author of several books, including "The Color of Crime."
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Despite the record-breaking heat Saturday, a crowd of nearly 10,000 reveled in the all-day music festival Vans Warped Tour, as it raged on outside the AT&T Center, including American Authors, Beartooth and Watsky.

Vans Warped Tour was ready for the weather. Tour organizers and the AT&T Center teamed up for the third year with First Medical Response of Texas, a standby service providing medical attention on site. This year, the team had 21 medics with three ambulances on the grounds. First aid stations as well as cool-down areas and hydration tents were also available.

RELATED: Photos: Fans catch rising R&B star Khalid at the Aztec Theatre

First Medical Response also worked another AT&T Center festival earlier this year: the River City Rockfest in May. Edwin Reyes, supervisor of the response team, said they treated nearly 900 people at that event. As of 3 p.m. Saturday, he didnt have numbers for how many had been treated at Warped Tour, but he said his team was being kept busy.

The heat, that is the biggest impact, Reyes said.

The bands playing at Warped Tour acknowledged the intense heat, which reached 104, breaking the record of 103 set in 1946. Shattered Sun, a metal band from Alice, was on stage when the record was reached after 3 p.m.

Only wear your stage clothes when youre about to get on, Shattered Sun guitarist Jessie Santos joked in an interview before their performance.

RELATED: Rising R&B star Khalid poses with woman's underwear backstage, thanks S.A. for wild show

Other bands performing early Saturday included Silverstein, a rock band from Canada, who took time to play to the San Antonio Spurs fan base. In between songs, lead vocalist Shane Told shouted to the crowd to jump like they were Tim Duncan and Manu Ginobli.

At times, Warped Tour became a stage for political discussion. One tent had the activist group Refuse Facism, who handed out stickers and shirts that spoke out against President Trump. The group also had a sign-up sheet for those interested in future peaceful protests, according to volunteer Coco Das.

Performers also got into the mix. Members of Los Angeles punk group Bad Cop / Bad Cop introduced their song Im Done by telling the audience the performance was for those who were sick and tired of whats happening in the Oval Office.

RELATED: Selena classic makes list of 20 best albums made by women

Rapper Watsky received some backlash while on stage. Before performing Brave New World, Watsky asked the audience how they leaned politically. Some in the front booed. Watsky returned the favor by saying: We can all agree our world is weird as (expletive) right now.

Shattered Sun and lead vocalist Marcos Leal dont talk much politics on stage, guitarist Daniel Trejo said. While they respect others for doing what they believe is in their best interests, the band was more focused that day on rocking the Texas crowd.

We love coming back to Texas, we have the best fans here, Trejo said.

osanchez@express-news.net
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A parade of vehicles riding along San Bernardo Avenue honored the memory of the late Jose Antonio "Tony" Sanchez on Saturday.

Sanchez, the founder of the Brown Impressions Lowrider Car Club, lived in Huntington Park, California, and worked as a shoeshiner outside a bar, said his sister-in-law Cindy Garza Valadez.

It was in California where Sanchez's love for the customized cars began.

"Lowriding is very famous in California," said Sanchez's brother Jerry, who lived with his brother in the west coast. "Everywhere you went there were lowriders."

RELATED: Jose Antonio Sanchez, Sr. Obituary

Sanchez returned to his hometown of Laredo in 1975 with his newfound passion and purchased his first vehicle, a 1971 Monte Carlo.

However, the Monte Carlo did not stay in its original state for long. With his own hands, Sanchez customized his new car and turned it into a lowrider like the ones he admired in California.

"He installed the hydraulic system himself. He fixed it up all on his own," his brother said.

In 1978, the Brown Impressions Lowrider Car Club was created. The group originally consisted of 44 members who shared an enthusiasm for lowriders and cruising down the streets of Laredo.

READ MORE: WBCA Car Show winners announced

"We all got together. Me and him and a bunch of other guys that came down from California. We would cruise in our cars from San Bernardo to the lake," Jerry Sanchez said.

Brown Impressions Lowrider Car Club quickly grew into a nationally recognized organization. The club was featured in Lowrider Magazine, and it has hosted various car shows in Laredo since its inception.

Saturday's tribute service honored the car enthusiast by bringing together what he loved the most. After a memorial celebration at Coyote Ugly, a procession of vehicles made their way through the streets Sanchez and Brown Impressions club members frequented over the years.

"My brother-in-law was a real nice, sweet person. He was full of life. People deserve to know who he was," Garza said.
Not soured by the politicking and the back-door dealing that takes place at the Texas Capitol, freshman State Representative Ernest Bailes (R - Shepherd) has announced he wants to return to Austin and represent Texas House District 18.

"When I was sworn in, with my hand on the Bible, I publicly vowed to uphold our Constitution. I gave my word and I take that responsibility very seriously," he said in a letter to supporters.

"I made a vow to conduct my work without compromise of strong moral convictions and to strive in preserving our individual liberty. It is my job to see that your interests are represented within the rule of law and to do so without creating undue burden," Bailes said.

The district, which encompasses Liberty, San Jacinto and Walker counties, elected Bailes to the state legislature overwhelmingly in 2016 replacing a retiring John Otto.

The freshman legislator, who just spent a good bit of his time back in the district prior to the called Special Session this summer, lamented on not only learning the process of the legislature, but the ramifications of angering political friends and foes.

"There are a lot of pieces that go into passing a piece of legislation," he told Dayton Rotary members in a recent meeting.

In this session, Bailes filed 13 bills and seven went directly to the governor's desk and were signed.

A company that offers a closed system for people in the legislature and lawyers ranked Bailes sixth in the top ten session ranking analysis of effective members of ratio of bills passed in the 85th session.

"We actually had 11 out of 13," Bailes said. "We had seven directly signed by the governor, two were the MUD and PID for River Ranch," and two others, a stand-alone bill and a senate omnibus bill.

The representative said he had a lot of voices giving him advice.

"In my decisions, my focus remains on what is best for all Texans and for HD 18, specifically. I am fiercely independent and have no need to be told what to think, what to say, or how to vote. I look to the people of HD 18 for their guidance," he said.

Bailes was also able to negotiate a better deal with the controversial developer in Plum Grove meaning county residents will not pick up the tab - only those who will live in those new districts will now absorb that cost.

He not only worked on the property rights but tax reform and the troublesome school finance issues.

"You can't address property tax reform without first addressing school finance," he said. Bailes continues to work with his colleagues for property tax reform, public education, and private property rights. Those issues are again before the legislature in the Special Session occurring now.

Bailes currently serves on the Land and Resource Management Committee, Small Business and Economic Development Committee, and Rules and Resolutions Committee. As a member of the House Rural Caucus, he works closely on issues important to rural Texas, ranging from ground water protections to alternative energy development.

Representative Bailes' conservative values and work ethic are deeply rooted in his upbringing on his family's dairy and beef cattle operations in San Jacinto County. As a successful small business owner and beef producer, he has a proven track record of personal and professional successes through hard work.

"I have a deep love for this district," he said.

"It is my home and has been my family's home for generations. I was born and raised here, attended public schools here, and have built my business here. The same holds true for my wife, Courtney. We both have deep roots in this East Texas soil and can't think of any place we would rather raise our two sons."

He and his wife, Courtney, have two sons, Cinco and Rigby, who both attend public school in Coldspring-Oakhurst CISD where Courtney is a teacher. They worship together as a family at First Baptist Church, Coldspring and are very involved in the community.

"Together, we can work united to keep HD18 a great place to live. As we experience growing pains, many of our communities as we know them are evolving and changing, though we must be forward thinking," he said.

"As your representative I am continually looking beyond the obvious to prepare for the unknown. Right now, we have a lot of unknowns. Although we have challenges, we have even more opportunities for practical, positive change and by being proactive we will be able to meet the challenges head on," Bailes said.

The freshman legislator said he is focused on the Special Session, but looks forward to visiting with the people of his district when he returns home.

The Republican Primary is in March 2018 and Bailes said there will be plenty of campaign events with dates and locations to be announced soon.

For more information on the Bailes reelection campaign, contact them at 936-653-2480.
WASHINGTON - Outnumbered but emboldened, progressive Democrats who watched Republicans fail to unwind the Affordable Care Act are thinking harder about passing major expansions of health-care coverage. For many younger activists and legislators, the push to undo the ACA with just 51 Senate votes is less a cautionary tale than a model of how to bring about universal coverage.

The ambitious idea, discussed on the congressional backbenches and among activists, is not embraced by Democratic leaders. In the hours after the repeal push stalled, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., suggested that Republicans "sit down and trade ideas" with Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., suggested that Republicans fully fund subsidies for current ACA exchange plans - money that President Donald Trump frequently threatens to cut off.

But for many younger Democrats and activists, the Republicans' near miss on repeal demonstrated boldness from which a future left-wing majority could learn. Democrats passed the ACA through regular order, with a fleeting, fractious Senate supermajority. Republicans proved that major health-care policy changes can be pushed nearly to the finish line in the reconciliation process, with just 50 supportive senators and a vice president ready to break a tie.

Rep. Ro Khanna, D-Calif., a freshman who favors universal Medicare coverage, said that Republicans have rewritten the playbook. "When we do have a Democratic president, and when we do have a Democratic majority, I'd support getting this through with 51 votes in the Senate," said Khanna of a universal coverage, single-payer plan."That will diminish the role of lobbyists and special interests in trying to get a few senators to block something that everyone in this country will want."

Democrats who endured previous efforts to expand health insurance had rarely considered a reconciliation strategy. In 2009, the Obama administration and Democrats in the House and Senate included veterans of the failed 1993-1994 health-care push, who remembered the insurance industry's effectiveness in sinking their bills.

The 2009 approach brought insurers on board; it adopted the mandate for individuals to obtain health insurance, an idea cooked up in conservative policy circles, and went into affect slowly to avoid piling up costs.

"How much time and effort did they spend in trying to make the ACA bipartisan?" asked Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a rising Democratic star elected in 2014. "It's never going to happen. Our bills shouldn't be about getting the most amount of Republicans on board; they should be about insuring the biggest number of people."

When Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, it taught party activists that there was little to gain from compromise. This year, the ACA policy that proved most intractable was not the mandate - a "skinny bill" to repeal it got 49 Senate vote - but instead the expansion of Medicaid, which up to nine Republican senators refused to roll back.

To progressives, this was proof that they'd been right to demand more in 2009 - from a public option to a Medicare buy-in for younger people to single-payer health care itself. Adam Green, the co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, recalled that Democrats had ridiculed the "professional left" for supporting a public option in reconciliation. In conversations since the start of the repeal debate, they've come to agree with him.

"In 2009, what we consistently got from Democratic senators was: Hey, reconciliation was a procedural can of worms. We don't want to go there," said Green. "Republicans have made very clear that you can go there and push your ideas into law. But our ideas will be more popular. It's pretty clear that the center of gravity has shifted."

Last week, as the Senate debated then waylaid the repeal bills, the PCCC held all-day training sessions for 2018 Democratic candidates in a hotel near the Capitol. Many swing-district hopefuls either said they embraced single-payer health care or described it as an obvious goal to work toward.

"The image I have in my head is that everyone who wants to see a doctor can see one, without going to the ER or going bankrupt," said Rick Neal, an international aid worker who was exploring a run against Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Ohio. "Health care doesn't fit in this free-market fantasy that people have, because people will do anything to see a doctor. The high premiums we're seeing right now are an indication of market failure."

Andy Kim, a former National Security Council staffer now running against Rep. Tom MacArthur, R-N.J., described the ideal process for passing a bill in now-common progressive terms - starting with what voters want, not what might win over Republicans.

"The way you start something that's bipartisan is by starting with the American people," he said. "Bipartisanship starts with them."

Democrats have not yet formed a consensus on how to approach health care again. On Thursday, as the repeal effort headed for the cliff, Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., needled Democratic senators - 10 of whom face re-election next year in states Trump won - by introducing the text of a single-payer bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr., D-Mich. For the first time, most House Democrats have co-sponsored Conyers's bill; 43 members of the Senate minority, including Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., voted "present," while five voted "no" on the Daines amendment.

Sanders did so because he intends - barring yet another jolt of life in the repeal campaign - to release a "Medicare for All" bill before the Senate's August recess. The bill will be designed to reframe single-payer, which enjoys tentative support in public polls, as cost-effective and sensible.

If Sanders' bill gets a favorable CBO score, it would become a starting point for Democrats in future health-care debates. Even some progressive Democrats worry about the story getting ahead of the storytellers.

"The reconciliation rules may allow you to squeeze through something, but it doesn't allow you to do lawmaking the way it's supposed to be done," said Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who was endorsed by the PCCC. "When it comes to repeal, reconciliation is the tool that they've used; there's every reason to think we'd use reconciliation to undo it. But it's not a path we should go down with enthusiasm."

Rep. John Yarmuth, D-Ky., who would chair the House Budget Committee if Democrats won control of Congress, was similarly cautious about reconciliation. In an interview with The Washington Post and the New York Times, taped for C-SPAN's "Newsmakers," Yarmuth said that he supports universal Medicare and could see it becoming law "in five to 10 years," as employers realized that they would gain flexibility if they were taxed slightly higher but could save on insurance costs. But he would not copy the process Republicans had tried to use for repeal.

"It's not good for the country, whether you're Democrat or Republican, when you pass a bill with only partisan votes," said Yarmuth.

Conyers, meanwhile, was trying to make universal health insurance the party's default position. On Friday, as most House members left town for their recess, Conyers joined Khanna at an event to launch a pledge for 2018 Democrats. Raising his right hand, the Capitol peering over his shoulder, Conyers said he would "stand up for 'Medicare for All.' "

"We're seeing a crumbling of the Republican legislative program," said Conyers. "We may not be in the minority much longer."
John Morris, a photography editor who shepherded Robert Capa's indelible images of the D-Day landing in 1944 into print at Life magazine and who later selected two shocking images from the Vietnam War for the front page of the New York Times, helping to turn public opinion against U.S. involvement in the conflict, died July 28 at a Paris hospital. He was 100.

His death was confirmed by a friend, Robert Pledge, the president of Contact Press Images photo agency. The cause was not disclosed.

Beginning at Life magazine in the 1930s and later as executive editor of the Magnum photo agency, Morris supervised such acclaimed photographers as Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt and W. Eugene Smith.

Morris was not a photographer himself - except for a few weeks in France in 1944 - but his editorial vision was instrumental in defining the craft and aims of modern photojournalism.

"A picture has to say something, has to have an idea," he told the photography magazine Black & White in 2014. "From my standpoint, it has to have passion, it has to have human feeling. It also should be well composed, because that's how the idea comes through. A photographer has to have a head, a heart and an eye."

One photojournalist who possessed all three qualities was the Hungarian-born Capa, who gained renown during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and was working for Life during World War II. Morris was Life's London-based photo editor and was nominally Capa's boss.

On June 6, 1944, Capa was aboard a transport ship in the first wave of the Allied D-Day assault on Normandy's Omaha Beach. Wading chest-deep through water and holding his camera above his head as bullets struck all around him, Capa shot the first images of the initial phase of the invasion.

He turned his back toward the German forces firing at him and U.S. troops to capture the face of a young soldier crawling through the water toward the shore. After 90 minutes, Capa boarded a medical transport boat and helped care for wounded soldiers on the return trip to Britain.

His film reached Morris at Life's London office on the night of June 7. Capa had hastily scrawled a note: "John, all of the action is in the four rolls of 35-millimeter."

Morris had less than 12 hours to develop the film, annotate the images and secure the approval of Allied censors. To meet Life's deadline, the photographs had to be in the hands of a courier no later than 9 a.m. the next day, June 8.

Morris shouted at a photo assistant to hurry. In the process of drying the film, the assistant closed the doors of a closet-like space in the darkroom, overheating the emulsion on the film.

"They're ruined! Ruined! Capa's films are all ruined!" the assistant said, running to Morris.

"I held up the four rolls, one at a time," Morris wrote in a 1998 memoir, "Get the Picture."

"Three were hopeless; nothing to see. But on the fourth roll there were eleven frames with distinct images. They were probably representative of the entire 35-millimeter take, but their grainy imperfection . . . contributed to making them among the most dramatic battlefield photos ever taken."

Morris had several sets of prints made and rushed to the censorship office, which examined the photos for several hours before approving them for release.

"I left the ministry at about 8:45 and drove like a maniac through the scattered morning traffic, down the little side streets, reaching the edge of Grosvenor Square at 8:59," Morris wrote. "I ran the last fifty yards and found the courier . . . about to padlock his sack. 'Hold it!' I shouted, and he did."

The courier took the photos to an airplane, which flew to an airfield in Scotland, where the photos would be put on a larger plane bound for the United States.

Capa's pictures were published in the next issue of Life. Blurred, shaken and practically echoing with bursting artillery shells and the shouts of dying soldiers, they showed the tumult of battle with heart-stopping intimacy.

"Their very crudeness gives a feeling of the struggle itself," Morris said in 2004.

Six weeks later, using a borrowed camera, Morris went to Normandy himself, joining Capa and other Life photographers - and eventually novelist Ernest Hemingway - as they accompanied Allied forces toward Paris as it was liberated from Nazi control. His images were published as a book in France in 2014.

For 70 years, Morris blamed himself for losing three rolls of Capa's images from Omaha Beach. Only in the past two years, as photographers and historians examined development processes and the nature of the film used by Capa, did a new consensus emerge. Most experts now believe there were never any usable images beyond the original "magnificent 11," as they are sometimes called. The prevailing belief is that Capa was under such intense fire that he had little chance to shoot other images or that his camera may have malfunctioned.

"I used to take the blame for the loss of Capa's D-Day film," Morris said in 2014. "In recent years I've learned to say that I'm the one who saved the 11 frames."

John Godfrey Morris was born Dec. 7, 1916, in Maple Shade, New Jersey, and grew up in Chicago. His father, who was born in 1869, founded a book publishing company and later worked for a Chicago-based college that provided extension courses, or what is now called distance learning.

At the University of Chicago, Morris helped launch a student publication modeled on Life, which was first published in 1936. He was the picture editor.

After graduating in 1938, he found a job in the mailroom of Time-Life publications before becoming Life's Hollywood correspondent and then London picture editor. He later worked for Ladies' Home Journal and as the top editor of Magnum, the agency started by Capa and other photographers.

In 1954, he sent Capa on an assignment to Vietnam (then Indochina), where Capa stepped on a land mine and was killed. Several other photographers who worked for Morris also died in the line of duty.

Morris worked for The Washington Post in the 1960s and, from 1967 to 1973, was the picture editor at the Times. In 1968, he insisted that a photo by Eddie Adams of the Associated Press, showing a South Vietnamese police official in the act of executing a Viet Cong prisoner with a shot to the head, be run on the front page of the Times.

Four years later, Morris selected another photo, this time by Nick Ut, showing a naked, screaming Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm attack. Both pictures won the Pulitzer Prize.

"I have always believed in showing how ugly war is," Morris told the Times in 2016, "and I have encouraged newspapers to take a realistic view of war."

Morris' first wife, the former Mary Adele Crosby, died in 1964. His second wife, the former Marjorie Smith, died in 1981. His third wife, photographer Tana Hoban, died in 2006. Two of his children predeceased him.

Survivors include his companion, Patricia Trocme of Paris; two children from his first marriage; two children from his second marriage; and four grandchildren.

Morris moved to Paris in 1983 and, for six years, was a correspondent and editor for National Geographic. He also headed the Democrats Abroad organization for many years. He completed a 600-page book about his life shortly before his death.

He often traveled to photography workshops, describing his approach to photojournalism and recalling his work with Capa and others.

"I am not a photographer," Morris told the Times last year. "They did the great work; I just put it in the magazine or newspaper."
A female suicide bomber killed 14 people, including herself, after detonating explosives in a building housing people displaced by Boko Haram violence in northeast Nigeria, according to a state rescue agency.

The bomber also injured 24 others in Friday night's attack in the town of Dikwa, Bello Dambatta, who heads the rapid response team of the Borno State Emergency Management Agency, said in a phone interview.
Indian Ministry of Tourism has undertaken various measures/initiatives to provide facilitation and make tourist places accessible to the differently abled and to provide safety and security to tourists as per following details:

24x7 Toll Free Multi-Lingual Tourist Info-Helpline in 12 Languages to provide support service in terms of information and guidance to tourists. All the infrastructure developed under the Schemes of Swadesh Darshan and National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual Augmentation Drive (PRASAD) are designed barrier free to provide easy accessibility to differently abled tourists. All State Governments/Union Territory Administrations are required to submit an undertaking along with the proposal before sanctioning of project certifying that barrier free environment for differently abled tourists has been incorporated in the design of the built-up areas of the project. Ministry of Tourism, under its voluntary scheme guidelines for classification/re-classification of operational hotels, has made it mandatory for hotels to earmark at least one room with suitable furniture and customized washroom facilities, ramp with anti-slip floors, wheel chair to be available on a complimentary basis in hotels of all categories, designated parking places etc. for the differently abled. Transport Operators Association has been advised to provide adequate facility in the tourist cars/buses for differently-abled tourists. Handing over Welcome Cards to foreign tourists on arrival to provide useful tips. Some State Governments/Union Territory Administrations have deployed Tourist Police, in one form or the other. Launching of Code of Conduct for adoption by the Indian Travel and Tourism Industry for Safe and Honourable Tourism with the objective to encourage undertaking of tourism activities with respect to basic rights like dignity, safety and freedom from exploitation of both tourists and local residents, in particular women and children. Advisories are issued from time to time to various State Governments and UT Administrations to ensure safety and security of the tourist.

Providing facilities at Siddhivinayak Temple in Mumbai, Ganesh Tekdi in Nagpur falls under jurisdiction of the State Government. Various tourist amenities are provided by Archeological Survey of India and State Archeology at the forts falling under their jurisdiction. In respect of Maharashtra, Ministry of Tourism has sanctioned an amount of Rs.82.17 Crore for the development of Sindhudurg Coastal Circuit under the Swadesh Darshan Scheme during the year 2015-16.
A 38-year-old San Antonio woman was arrested Wednesday after she allegedly posted revenge porn of her boyfriend on Facebook following their break up.

Traci Lorraine Aragon now faces a charge of publishing intimate material. She was booked into the Bexar County Jail on a $2,000 bond.
No taxation without representation is central to the American experience. War has been waged, lives lost, and treasure spent in pursuit of it. Gallons of ink have been spilled over it and transformational documents based upon it. And the worlds greatest nation was birthed because of it.

And yet, taxing people without their consent or counsel still happens in todays Americaand in the Lone Star State no less. Only these days it goes by another nameforced annexationand is defended as a tool of municipal management.

Texas is one of the few remaining states that still permits forced annexation, a practice that allows home-rule cities to unilaterally expand their boundaries and capture property owners living on the outskirts. Texans forcibly annexed by a city are subject to higher taxes, tougher regulations, and a lot more debt, whether they like it or not.

Property owners absorbed into a city face some potentially steep tax increases. In 2015, the city of San Antonios Department of Planning and Community Development published a controversial report estimating likely property tax bills resulting from full purpose annexation. Astonishingly, the report found that homeowners in the citys crosshairs could be socked with a 22 percent tax hike.

Similarly grim, double-digit tax increases await property owners in other areas too. In Central Texas, for example, residents of Hudson Bend, River Place, and Wells Branch have been fighting annexation by Austin for years out of fear of equally explosive tax bills.

None of this should sit well. Texans deserve better than to be conscripted by city officials they didnt elect, to pay taxes for things they didnt ask for, and to service debt they didnt authorize. A system like that is nothing short of tyrannical and it runs counter to who we are as a state and a nation.

If theres a silver lining in all of this, its that Texans may not have to suffer these circumstances much longer.

Earlier this month, Gov. Greg Abbott directed state lawmakers to tackle in a special session many important issues, including municipal annexation reform. The Senate has passed its version. With annexation reform having made the governors list of priorities, conservatives have a good shot at righting this terrible wrong.

Efforts to reform the system will center on giving Texans the right to vote before being annexed.

In the last regular session, big government advocates were able to stymie reform with some last minute political shenanigans, those tactics wont work as well this time around because therell be far fewer bills flying about the process and the media spotlight will be more intense.

Hopefully, this means that conservative policy solutions, like affording the annexed a chance to vote, will be debated on the merits. And if thats the case, then its hard to see how a system that perpetuates taxation without representation survives.

Supporters of the status quo will, no doubt, do their best to stop reform from happening, but forced annexation is indefensible. It denies people the right to participate in the democratic process. It ignores peoples prerogative to choose how and where to live. And it fosters a warped system of wealth redistribution, letting city planners funnel money from the suburbs to the urban core.

All of these reasons add up to mean that its time to end forced annexation by giving affected property owners a chance to vote. Only by giving them a voice in the process can we live up to our founding principles.

James Quintero leads the Think Local Liberty project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Kirbie Ferrell is a research associate with the Think Local Liberty project at the Texas Public Policy Foundation.
You have sacrificed nothing and no one.

These were the words that Khizr Khan, the father of a slain Iraq War soldier, spoke publicly to then-candidate Donald Trump, contrasting his sons national service with Trumps proposed ban on Muslim immigration to the United States in the name of national security.

The thousands of transgender people currently serving in the United States military could say the same. Trumps decision this week to bar transgender individuals from serving in the military in any capacity cites the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail but ignores the facts.

First, gender variant people are already serving and have done so since at least the American Revolution. Robert Shirtliff served for almost two years in the Continental Army but was wounded in 1783  thats when medics discovered female breasts under the soldiers masculine clothing. Born Deborah Sampson, the soldier was honorably discharged at West Point and eventually awarded a military pension.

Another fact President Trump tramples over: Health care for transgender people is not costing the military tremendous amounts. In fact, according to Business Insider, the Pentagon spends five times as much on Viagra as it does providing health care to transgender troops.

And readiness? The Pentagon investigation into the impact of trans people on military readiness, which Trump himself commissioned, is not due until December. His recent announcement  via tweet, not news conference  seems to have caught the military itself off guard. And the RAND Corp., a far-from-liberal research organization, recently found that trans service members posed no threat to military readiness.

But, of course, President Trump has never worried about the facts. His success and support have always relied on the crowd-pleasing tactics of the reality TV star and the demagogue: fear and hate. He seeks to appeal to the fears of so many Americans who are experiencing the loss of industrial jobs, the opioid epidemic and a tidal wave of gun violence, all of which grow every year.

Trumps strategy is to blame the insecurity of so many American lives on some kind of other who is taking what is yours: those Muslims, those transgender.

The cost of making transgender people and their families into the enemy is very real. The Southern Poverty Law Center called 2016 the deadliest year on record for transgender people, and 2017 is already on track to surpass that gruesome milestone. The majority of these victims of fatal violence are transgender women of color, which points to the brutal intersections of racism, sexism and transphobia.

The targeting of transgender people also has devastating consequences for mental health. A 2015 survey by the National Coalition for Transgender Equality found that 40 percent of trans-identified respondents had attempted suicide during their lifetime  nearly nine times the attempted suicide rate in the U.S. population. A 2016 study funded by the National Institute of Mental Health found that suicidal thoughts and attempts among transgender youths were significantly related to perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness. The authors language eerily foreshadows the presidents tweet about the burden of integrating transgender people in the military.

Trumps ban is not about keeping the American people safe. Investing in infrastructure and meaningful job creation, increasing access to health care, and stemming the tidal wave of gun violence in this country would have an immediate and palpable impact on our security. Doing so is complicated  and its also the presidents job. Thats the kind of national security wed like to see at the forefront of the presidents attention.

Lisa L. Moore is the Archibald A. Hill Professor of English and a professor of womens and gender studies at the University of Texas at Austin. Paige Schilt is a learning specialist in the Sanger Learning Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the author of the memoir Queer Rock Love.
House Speaker Joe Straus has famously likened this summers special legislative session to a pile of manure. Now Texans will learn if a majority of House members see it the same way.

This agenda is packed with unnecessary and controversial legislation, reflecting Lt. Gov. Dan Patricks and Gov. Greg Abbotts priorities. But it doesnt serve Texas well.

The senseless and degrading bathroom bill flirts with national scorn and a potential economic boycott.

The attacks on cities are unwarranted and potentially crippling. Its an invitation for controversy.

With the agenda out of the Senate and into the House, heres our take on how these items should be handled.

Bathrooms: Any transgender bathroom bill should be rejected. This is a nonissue. Local school districts are best equipped to address concerns about bathroom privacy, and existing laws adequately address safety. Passage could invite economic boycotts and harm transgender people, often the victims of violence.

Vouchers: This is a narrow school choice bill, but one House lawmakers should reject. The legislation would allow private school choice for students with disabilities. Fundamentally, this takes money out of public schools. Its also unclear if private schools can meet the needs of students with disabilities. And it is potentially just a steppingstone for broader voucher legislation down the road.

Anti-annexation: This is yet another bit of legislation that House lawmakers should reject because it robs cities of a key tool to help manage growth. That said, anti-annexation legislation easily passed the House in the regular session, only to be filibustered in the Senate. If the House passes this legislation, we strongly encourage lawmakers to grandfather in an existing agreement between the cities of Converse and San Antonio, and to provide adequate zoning buffers around military installations.

Capping city and county revenues: This has been billed as property tax reform, but it is not. It does not address the key driver of property taxes, which is school funding. Instead it caps revenues for cities and counties. It wont result in meaningful tax reform, and it could limit city and county services.

Teacher pay: This is an unfunded mandate that House lawmakers should reject. While the proposal calls for raising teacher salaries by $1,000, it provides no state funding to achieve this goal.

Local control: This includes bills that would limit local government spending, and eliminate local texting-while-driving bans and tree ordinances. Such state meddling is unnecessary. If residents are unhappy about spending or certain regulations, they can vote their elected officials out of office. In the case of the texting ban, we see no benefit to replacing strong local laws with a weaker state law.

Abortion: Lawmakers should reject two abortion proposals. One would make women pay more for health plans that cover abortion outside of medical emergencies. Another would require doctors to report key details about women who have abortions in which complications occur. These details include year of birth, race, marital status and county of residence.

School finance: Finally, an agenda item lawmakers should support. The state is not adequately funding schools, shortchanging our future while driving up property taxes. The Senate approved a commission to study the issue. But the issue needs no further study.

Mail-in ballot fraud: Unlike in-person voter fraud, this is a real issue. Any effort to decrease mail-in ballot fraud is welcome.

Maternal mortality: Between 2010 and 2014, maternal mortality rates in Texas nearly doubled. Its unclear why. Extending the Task Force on Maternal Mortality and Morbidity is crucial.

We share Straus view about the merits of this special session. It mostly stinks.

House lawmakers should do their best to avoid any unnecessary controversy and instead focus on addressing the real issues Texans face.
Thiruvananthapuram: Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan urged that culprit with power and money will never escape the hands of law. He was speaking at the Kerala Police Associations state meeting. He added that no culprit should escape and no innocent should be punished.

The CM also urged not to misuse the freedom. He cleared that corruption in police and third degree punishment will not be tolerated.
As per the information, actor Dileeps manager Appunni has been taken in to custody by the police in the actress abduction case. According to reports, he was caught from another state and has been taken for questioning to an unidentified location. Police doubt that the conspiracy was hatched by the trio-Appunni, Dileep and Pulsar Suni.

Police strongly doubt that Appunni has got a close connection with goonda gangs in Kochi. Police may question Appunni and Dileep together.
Mumbai: Aamir Khan has asked his fans and followers on social media to help flood-stricken states of Assam and Gujarat by contributing in the Chief Minister Relief Fund. The 52-year-old star on Sunday shared a video message on Twitter urging everyone to come together to support those affected by floods.

"Some areas of Gujarat and Assam are terribly affected by floods. People are facing a tough time. Many have lost their lives. We are helpless in front of nature, but can surely do something for our brothers and sisters. Let us come together and help the people in Gujarat and Assam. Let us contribute in the Chief Minister Relief Fund of both the states," Aamir said.

In Assam, as many as 79 people have lost their lives in the devastating floods, till Saturday.
Stock Market SPX Uptrending Again After Minuscule Correction

The week started at SPX 2473. With nothing more than a pullback to SPX 2466 on Monday, the market worked its way to a new all-time high at 2484 on Thursday. After opening at the high the market started to pullback, then sold off to SPX 2460 in the afternoon. After that the market rebounded to end the week at SPX 2372. For the week the SPX/DOW were mixed, and the NDX/NAZ lost 0.20%. Economic reports were mostly positive, with no rate increase at the FOMC meeting. On the downtick: existing homes sales, plus jobless claims rose. On the uptick: consumer confidence/sentiment, new home sales, durable goods, and Q2 GDP. Next weeks reports will be highlighted by the ISMs and monthly payrolls. Best to your week!

LONG TERM: uptrend

After a bull market has progressed for a while, whenever there is a large pullback or a correction, many come out calling the previous high the top. It seems to occur so consistently during bull markets it is nearly predictable. When traders cannot find reasons to satisfy themselves that the market is going higher, the end is always near. What is even more odd, is that you do not find this, in reverse, during bear markets. On every major rally hardly anyone suggests the previous low was the bottom. In fact, even after the bear market low occurs most continue to think it will sell off to new lows yet again. One can only conclude the general tendency for traders is negativity. Even though bull markets are underway 85% of the time.

The long term count remains unchanged. A new bull market started in February 2016 at SPX 1810. Since then the market has risen 37% to all-time new highs. The wave pattern suggests the advance has unfolded in three waves thus far, with a subdividing third wave. Int. waves i and ii in the spring of 2016, then a subdividing Int. iii. Minor waves 1 and 2 ended in the fall of 2016, and Minor waves 3 and 4 ended in the spring of 2017. Recently Minor 5 may have ended at SPX 2454 in June, to end Int. iii, and an irregular Int. iv correction has been underway since then. Or, Minor 5 may subdivide itself into five Minute waves. Since the SPX has not exceeded the 2479 pivot range (2472-2486) that debate continues.

MEDIUM TERM: uptrend

After the SPX/NDX/NAZ topped in June, then confirmed downtrends the most obvious count was that Int. iii had completed and an Int. iv correction was underway. The DOW, however, never confirmed an uptrend top in June or even the downtrend. It just kept working its way higher despite the reversals in the other indices. If you look at the DOW it still appears to be in Minor 5 as it continues to make new highs. If one looks at the NYSE chart it displays a very similar pattern: a 5th wave of a subdividing 3rd wave is underway. Since it takes five completed waves to end a bull market neither chart suggests that this bull market has topped.

With the DOW continuing to make new highs, with negative RSI/MACD divergences building across most timeframes. We can easily assume that the DOW in the process of completing Int. iii. Then when it enters a correction, the SPX/NDX/NAZ will head lower as well and complete their Int. iv waves too. This activity would then realign all four indices as they finished the 4th and enter the 5th wave of this bull market. Until this occurs there is the possibility that the DOW will continue to extend, and the SPX will break through the OEW 2479 pivot range, leading to a subdividing Minor wave 5. Either way it is quite clear this bull market has not topped yet.

SHORT TERM

Tracking this uptrend from the July SPX 2408 low has been somewhat tedious. Volatility is so low that the entire rise to SPX 2484 has hardly produced any quantified short term waves. It just looks like a steady grind higher for nearly the entire month. Our very short-term count displays five waves: 2432-2413-2478-2465-2484, then this weeks decline to 2460. This suggests this uptrend is impulsive and not a B wave after all.

Our simpler short-term count displays just three waves: 2432-2413-2484, then the decline to 2460. Suggesting the uptrend is a corrective B wave that may have completed at the high. A rally, however, to SPX 2484+ would suggest it is an impulsive fives waves. Plus, a rally above SPX 2486 would eliminate the B wave scenario too. It appears to be a good spot for bearish traders, with an identifiable stop, while investors await the outcome. Short term support remains at the 2456 and 2444 pivots, with resistance at the 2479 and 2525 pivots. Short term momentum ended the week around neutral. Best to your weekend!

FOREIGN MARKETS

The Asian markets were mostly higher and gained 0.3%.

European markets also gained 0.3%.

The DJ World gained 0.1%, and the NYSE gained 0.3%.

COMMODITIES

Bonds remain in a downtrend and lost 0.3%.

Crude is in an uptrend and gained 8.6%.

Gold appears to be in an uptrend and gained 1.1%.

The USD remains in a downtrend and lost 0.3%.

NEXT WEEK

Monday: Chicago PMI at 9:45, and pending home sales at 10am. Tuesday: consumer income/spending, the CPI, construction spending, auto sales and ISM manufacturing. Wednesday: the ADP. Thursday: jobless claims, ISM services and factory orders. Friday: monthly payrolls and the trade deficit.

CHARTS: http://stockcharts.com/public/1269446/tenpp

https://caldaro.wordpress.com

After about 40 years of investing in the markets one learns that the markets are constantly changing, not only in price, but in what drives the markets. In the 1960s, the Nifty Fifty were the leaders of the stock market. In the 1970s, stock selection using Technical Analysis was important, as the market stayed with a trading range for the entire decade. In the 1980s, the market finally broke out of it doldrums, as the DOW broke through 1100 in 1982, and launched the greatest bull market on record.

Sharing is an important aspect of a life. Over 100 people have joined our group, from all walks of life, covering twenty three countries across the globe. It's been the most fun I have ever had in the market. Sharing uncommon knowledge, with investors. In hope of aiding them in finding their financial independence.

Copyright  2017 Tony Caldaro - All Rights Reserved Disclaimer: The above is a matter of opinion provided for general information purposes only and is not intended as investment advice. Information and analysis above are derived from sources and utilising methods believed to be reliable, but we cannot accept responsibility for any losses you may incur as a result of this analysis. Individuals should consult with their personal financial advisors.

Tony Caldaro Archive

 2005-2019 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.




COLLINSVILLEA Meadows of Dan woman will serve a year in jail, after the child abuse charge she faced was reduced to one misdemeanor. In Henry County Circuit Court on Friday, Judge David V. Williams changed the original felony charge of causing or permitting serious injury to a child to a misdemeanor of causing a child to be abused.

The woman, 24-year-old Casey Lynn Rogers, had been accused of breast-feeding her 5-day-old son after she used drugs.

If you are going to use drugs, have you ever thought about using birth control? Williams asked Rogers, a mother of two children, both of whom are now in foster care.

Judge Williams told Rogers she wouldnt win a mother of the year award.

I am an addict, Rogers had told Williams moments before.

Rogers pleaded not guilty to the felony charge during her trial Friday in Henry County Circuit Court.

Lt. T.W. Compton of the Henry County Sheriffs Office testified that on July 1, 2016, he responded to a convenience store in the Bassett area where he saw Rogers, her baby and some other people. The baby had a rash or red marks on his body and was acting hysterically, Compton said. (According to the commonwealths summary of evidence, EMS also responded to the convenience store.)

Rogers was holding the baby, and Compton asked her what was going on with the child. He added that Rogers had difficulty answering questions and seemed spaced out.

An ambulance took the baby to Memorial Hospital in Martinsville, Compton said and he followed soon after. There, Rogers said she had smoked weed, and she had trouble answering questions and her conversation would wander off, Compton said.

Mellisa Brumfield, child protective services senior worker for the Henry County-Martinsville Department of Social Services, testified she saw the 5-day-old at the hospital, and he appeared to have a serious diaper rash and an infection around the umbilical cord area, but he had no specific injuries.

Brumfield said she Rogers told her the baby had been crying, she didnt know what was wrong with him, and she didnt know what to do.

Brumfield said she requested a urine screen be done on Rogers and told Rogers the result.

We petitioned for emergency removal of the child, Brumfield said, adding that the child was removed and placed in foster care.

Investigator J.D. Ayers of the Henry County Sheriffs Office testified that he went to the hospital. The baby was red in several places on his body, and was crying and shaking, Ayers said. He described Rogers as being spacey when she talked.

Sometime later, Ayers took out a search warrant and found Rogers at a residence on Graystone Road in the Bassett area. She was arrested and taken to the hospital in Martinsville for a blood draw and a breast milk sample.

Trista Wright, a forensic toxicologist for the Virginia Department of Forensic Science in Roanoke, testified that methamphetamine, amphetamine and an active agent of marijuana were detected in the blood sample from Rogers and methamphetamine and amphetamine were detected in the breast milk sample. (Amphetamine is a product of the metabolism of methamphetamine.) In the breast milk sample, the quantity was insufficient to test for an active agent of marijuana.

Wright said she could not speak about how methamphetamine affects a particular person, but she could speak generally about the effects of methamphetamine on people.

How methamphetamine affects people can be influenced by such things as tolerance for methamphetamine and how much methamphetamine has been consumed, Wright said.

Wright said, in terms of its effects on people, methamphetamine has two stages: a rush (or high) stage and a crash (or coming off) stage. During the rush stage, a person is stimulated and may be aggressive, talkative and sweating. During the crash stage, a person may be depressed, drug seeking, agitated and confused, Wright said.

There is very little literature on how methamphetamine and amphetamine into breast milk affect a baby, Wright said. She added that she did find one study, but only two breastfeeding mothers who used methamphetamine recreationally were studied. (According to an article on the U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health, website, that study recommended a 48-hour withholding period for breastfeeding following recreational use.)

Wright also said there have been infant deaths associated with maternal methamphetamine use.

After Wright testified, Henry County Assistant Commonwealths Attorney Awbrey Watts called Investigator Ayers back to the stand to testify.

Ayers said after Rogers was arrested, she requested to speak to sheriffs investigators. Rogers gave a written statement that on June 30, 2016, she went to an apartment on Grace Drive to visit friends, leaving the baby where his father lived in the Bassett area. Rogers stated that while at the apartment on Grace Drive, she snorted a line of meth. After leaving that apartment, she went to the baby fathers residence, where she and another female went into a room upstairs and smoked a bowl of meth, Rogers told investigators, according to Ayers.

After Rogers smoked meth, she went downstairs and at some point the baby started crying hysterically. Others at the residence told her the baby probably needed to be fed, so Rogers and the female she had smoked meth with went upstairs. Upstairs, Rogers tried to get the baby to latch on by placing her nipple in the babys mouth, but the baby wouldnt latch, so Rogers squirted milk into the babys mouth but was not sure if any actually got inside, Rogers told investigators.

Rogers told investigators that after that, she and the babys father started driving toward the hospital.

According to the prosecutions summary of evidence, they stopped at a convenience store in Bassett to get gas and once inside Rogers called 911 to get help for her child.

When the prosecution concluded putting on evidence, Rogers lawyer, Heath Sabin, made a motion for Judge Williams to strike, or disallow, the prosecutions evidence. Sabin argued that the prosecution did not prove that Rogers caused or permitted serious injury to the baby. He said no tests were done to see whether methamphetamine or amphetamine was in the babys body. He said there was no evidence Rogers use of methamphetamine caused injury to the life or health of the baby. He also said Rogers was on the way to the hospital to seek help for the child when she encountered law enforcement.

Watts argued, among other things, that Rogers forced breast milk into the babys mouth after Rogers used methamphetamine.

Judge Williams reduced the charge from the felony offense to the misdemeanor offense. He noted there was no blood sample showing whether or not there was meth in the babys system.

Before she was sentenced, Rogers apologized for all this. She described herself as an addict, coming off meth. She said she didnt recall writing a statement to investigators but does remember talking with them. She said she doesnt recall saying she force-fed the baby.

After the trial, when asked why the baby wasnt tested for the presence of methamphetamine or amphetamine, prosecutor Watts said because authorities did not want to cause the child more pain.
ATTLEBORO - An Attleboro police officer was injured late Friday night when the cruiser he was driving on I-95 was struck from behind.

The Attleboro Sun Chronicle reported that police were looking for a reported naked woman running in and out of traffic in the northbound lanes of I-95 just before midnight Friday. The Attleboro officer was one of several police cruisers involved in the search.

Police said that while the cruiser was pulled over into the breakdown lane it was struck by a second car traveling at highway speeds.

A police spokesman said the officer involved suffered head trauma and lacerations. The cruiser was extensively damaged.

The officer was transported to Providence Hospital in Providence, Rhode Island for treatment. Police said he was released later Saturday morning.

The driver of the car that struck the cruiser was arrested by Massachusetts State Police. The naked woman was found was taken to a local hospital for treatment.
TAUNTON - A Taunton man was seriously injured when he was struck by a pickup truck as he crossed West Britannia Street Friday afternoon.

Taunton Police said Nicholas Fabiano, 49, of airlifted to Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston after the 10:45 a.m. incident.

The Taunton Gazette reported that Fabiano was crossing the street in front of his apartment building when he was struck by the truck operated by Thomas Blackwell, 45, of Taunton.

A police reconstruction team was sent to investigate the incident.

Witnesses said they heard the screeching of brakes just before the sound of Fabiano's body hitting the ground. Lt. Paul Roderick, Taunton Police Department's accident reconstructionist said Blackwell's truck skidded for about 33 feet before striking Fabiano and continued to skid an additional 17 feet after.

Roderick said no charges have been filed agasint the driver at this time.
SANDISFIELD - Twenty two people were arrested at a staged protest of the construction of the Kinder Morgan pipeline extension in Sandisfield Saturday morning, police said.

The "Connecticut Expansion," an extension of an already extant Kinder Morgan pipeline that will stretch four miles through Berkshire County's Otis state forest, has been the site of repeated protests during recent months, including a recent incident involving the arrest of 98-year-old Northampton peace activist Frances Crowe.

Massachusetts State Troopers took the demonstrators into custody Saturday after they refused police orders to leave a restricted area of the construction, police said in a statement. The protesters were charged with trespassing, police said.

Arrests have been a common occurrence during recent protests, with activists commonly trespassing onto pipeline property as an act of protest.

Many protesters are members of the Sugar Shack Alliance, a Western Massachusetts affiliation of activists that pledges non-violent resistance to the fossil fuel industry.

Police noted that the arrests were made "peacefully and without resistance," similar to other trespassing arrests that have occurred in the vicinity of the pipeline project during recent weeks.

The activists arrested were taken for booking to a Berkshire Sheriff's Department facility, police said.

Afterward, they were released on personal recognizance pending a court appearance, police said.

Those arrested were listed as follows:
CHARLEMONT -- A couple running a Franklin County animal sanctuary have been ordered to vacate their on-site trailer within 30 days, or face charges in housing court.

Patrick and Claudine Veistroffer, along with their menagerie, left Greenfield in 2016 after a lengthy eviction process, and set up a camper in Charlemont at their newly-sited Cloa's Ark Animal Sanctuary, according to the Greenfield Recorder. Now they will have to move again.

About 150 "rescue animals" reside at the sanctuary, including birds, cattle, chickens, ducks and geese, rabbits, and sheep.

The Charlemont Board of Health last week told the couple that permanent campers are only allowed in the town's four licensed campgrounds. Temporary permits are available for non-commercial activity, such as family visits, for up to 14 days.

It's not about the animals, board members said. A health agent and a representative of the Massachusetts Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals inspected the premises on Monday and the facility passed muster.

The couple said they are exploring their housing options, and want to live close enough to care for the animals on a daily basis.
Idaho Power said Thursday it wants permission from state regulators to lump people who install rooftop solar panels starting next year into a new class of energy providers, and may ask later for permission to charge them more money than current solar producers pay to access the states power grid and buy electricity when their panels are not producing.

The utilitys request could significantly change the system that compensates users of rooftop solar panels and other renewable sources for their excess electricity. Idaho Power said it needs clearance from the commission to create a whole new customer class before discussing possible rate hikes.

BY KIMBERLEE KRUESI

Associated Press

Full Story: http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/business/article164073097.html
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A man sentenced to life in prison for the murder of an Old Fort man in 1986 has been granted parole.

Douglas Paul Olson, 62, has been in prison for more than 30 years after being convicted of murder in the death of 52-year-old James Suttles, of Old Fort.

The McDowell News received a notice from the N.C. Post Release Supervision and Parole Commission stating, (the Commission) is notifying you that it has approved (Olson) for parole via the Mutual Agreement Parole Program (MAPP)Under the agreement, the offenders parole release date is 7-20-2019.

The MAPP program is designed to prepare selected inmates for release through structured activities, scheduled progression in custody levels, participation in community-based programs and established parole dates.

While incarcerated, Olson has been an upstanding inmate, his supervisor told The McDowell News in 2014. He has never had any infractions, and has worked outside of the prison. He also earned his culinary degree from A-B Tech while behind bars, and took many other courses such as computers and horticulture.

In 1986, at the age of 32, Olson broke into Suttles home on Catawba Avenue and attempted to steal money and firearms. Olson and Suttles were not acquainted.

Suttles was returning home from work and startled Olson, according to court testimony. Olson said he grabbed the gun and started shooting, firing until the weapon was empty and then fled the scene.

In 2014, Olson was up for parole review but was initially denied. The McDowell News traveled to Troy where Olson was imprisoned to talk about what he would do if he was granted parole. He told the newspaper then there is no excuse for what he had done, but his life had taken a turn for the better.

I am very serious about my sobriety because (drugs and alcohol) destroyed my life, and I have destroyed other peoples lives, Olson said in 2014. Ive got a plan now and Im serious about it. I dont know what I can accomplish, but if I am given the opportunity, I am going to do my best to accomplish something.

According to the N.C. Department of Public Safety, Olson is currently being held in Orange County. He is expected to be released in 2019 if he meets the requirements of the MAPP program.

Click here to read a previous article about Doug Olson.

Click here to read an in-depth interview with Olson in 2014.

Click here to read about Olson's first parole hearing.
From meditation to physical activity, there are various things that we can do to regain control over our emotions during stressful times. But what if there was an easier way of doing that? New research investigates the effect of talking to yourself in third person on emotion management. Share on Pinterest New research shows that talking to yourself in the third person may help to relieve stress and anxiety. A team of researchers, led by scientists from Michigan State University in East Lansing and the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, set out to examine the neuropsychological effect of talking to oneself in the third person on controlling ones emotions. The researchers hypothesis was that talking to oneself in the same way that one would about others would provide some much-needed psychological distance, which may help to control emotions. The new study  which is published in the journal Scientific Reports  consists of two neuroscientific experiments that tested this hypothesis.

Using an electroencephalograph In the first experiment  which was conducted at the Clinical Psychophysiology Lab and led by Prof. Jason Moser, of Michigan State University  participants were asked to look at emotionally aversive images (for example, a man pointing a gun at their heads) and neutral images. They were asked to view these images in both conditions: the first-person condition, and the third-person condition. In the former, the participants asked themselves, What am I feeling right now? But in the latter condition, they asked themselves, What is [participants name] feeling right now? The participants brain activity was monitored using an electroencephalograph. Referring to themselves in the third person reduced the participants brain activity across the neural mechanisms that are known to be involved in emotional regulation  and it did so almost immediately, within 1 second. Interestingly, the brain activity  as recorded by the electroencephalograph  did not show an increase in cognitive control markers, which suggests that the strategy is effective at managing stress in a cognitively effortless way.
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Malaria was not eradicated on Sardinia until the 1950s. Until now, it has been assumed that the disease was only endemic on the island since the Middle Ages (500-1500 CE). Researchers at the Institute for Evolutionary Medicine of the University of Zurich have now studied the history of malaria on Sardinia in greater depth. Since antique DNA (aDNA) of malaria is very difficult to extract, they studied thalassemia and other genetic adaptations in its place. Thalassemias are genetic diseases that interrupt the development of red blood cells. These diseases, however, have the advantage that many people affected lead a healthy life and are bad hosts for malaria pathogens. They are therefore partially immune against infections with malaria. Even today, such thalassemias occur relatively frequently in former malaria regions, such as the Mediterranean.The Romans already suffered from malariaThe researchers headed up by Claudia Vigano and Abigail Bouwman of the human aDNA laboratory at the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine - the only laboratory of its kind in Switzerland - studied a thalassemia allele called cod39 -thalassemia, which is dominant on Sardinia. They were therefore able to prove that, contrary to what has been known until now, malaria was probably already endemic on Sardinia in the Roman period, long before the Middle Ages."This is the very first documented case of the genetic adaptation to malaria on Sardinia," Claudia Vigano says. "We also discovered that the person was genetically a Sardinian in all probability and not an immigrant from another area."Understanding the evolution of today's diseases"Our study shows the importance of a multidisciplinary approach to history," says Abigail Bouwman, head of the project and the aDNA laboratory. "We are researching the evolution of today's diseases such as malaria to explain why the human body becomes sick at all and how adaptations occur."Source: Eurekalert
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"110,000 new patients start dialysis each year in the United States," says Thakar. "Although dialysis affects less than one percent of Medicare beneficiaries, it consumes 9 percent of the Medicare budget. Hence, curbing the epidemic of dialysis and improving outcomes of patients on dialysis is beneficial to the patient as well as the health care system."The incidence of NRSOT has been increasing in the United States and, according to Thakar, NRSOT recipients are at risk of AKI in the short-term, and progressive loss of kidney function in the long-term, leading to end-stage renal disease.Thakar and the team looked at the Nationwide Inpatient Sample, (NIS), the largest publically available all-payer inpatient care database in the United States, containing data on more than seven million hospital stays each year. Using the NIS, researchers evaluated the yearly incidence trends (2002 to 2013) of the primary outcome, defined as AKI-D, in hospitalizations after cardiac and liver transplantation.The research showed that NRSOT patients who experienced AKI-D during hospitalization were nearly three times [2.85] more likely to die than patients who did not have AKI-D.The incidence of AKI-D in cardiac transplantation hospitalizations increased from 1.63 percent to 2.33 percent in the study period while the incidence of AKI-D in liver transplant hospitalizations increased from 1.32 percent to 2.65 percent. Investigating that increase, Thakar says the team found that as anti-rejection medicines and the ability to deliver complex care has improved, they saw a trend of older transplant recipients with an increased comorbid disease burden.The authors interpret this data to suggest one of the factors that may be associated with the increasing trend of AKI is the comorbid and chronic disease burden and severity of illness at the time patients receive heart or liver transplants.Thakar says that AKI associated death in liver or heart transplants is a "double hit" to the patient and the loss of the transplanted organ. "Here's a person who has received a precious organ in a liver or a heart, after going through high risk transplant surgery and the mental anguish that goes along with that," says Thakar. "Now within a few months of that, they get hospitalized and run a higher risk of getting AKI and if they do, there is more than double the chance they won't leave the hospital alive."Thakar says urgent strategies are needed to limit the risk of AKI and mitigate its consequences after heart and liver transplant."Our goal was to demonstrate how the AKI trends have changed over time in the United States and AKI continues to be a vexing and a serious problem faced by non-kidney transplant recipients," he says. "If you want to preserve the intended life expectancy of a heart or liver transplant recipient, you need to find ways to mitigate the risk of kidney injury. If you have NRSOT, you're already on a higher risk trajectory to suffer from chronic kidney disease, and if you get an AKI, that slope just got steeper."Source: Eurekalert
It's not a secret that actor Sidharth Malhotra is very particular about his fitness. In fact, Katrina Kaif also mentioned during 'Baar Baar Dekho' promotions that how she often got fitness inspiration from Sid and how he makes sure that everyone around him stays fit.

Looking at Sid's perfectly toned body, one can clearly see that he follows a specific workout routine to stay in shape. At present, the actor is busy shooting for Neeraj Pandey's 'Ayiaary' in London, where he plays a military person. Manoj Bajpayee, Mohammed Zeeshan Ayyub, Rakul Preet Singh, Anupam Kher are part of the film as well.

#AGentleman trailer out now ! #rishi #workout thanks to @rocky_bodytransformer A post shared by Sidharth Malhotra (@s1dofficial) on Jul 8, 2017 at 4:57am PDT

Well, we all saw how he was busy sweating it out during 'A Gentleman' but for 'Aiyaary', the actor has gone a step further and is undergoing professional training to get the proper physique and frame of an army officer.

Looking at his latest picture, we totally feel like hitting the gym and working out on our fitness as well. Sid is pumping his muscles as per his trainer Jozef Jurik's advice.

Flaunting his work, he posted a few pictures on Instagram and captioned them, Keeping #sidfit thanks to jozef @blacklinetraining in London #Shoot #train.

Keeping #sidfit thanks to jozef @blacklinetraining in London #Shoot #train A post shared by Sidharth Malhotra (@s1dofficial) on Jul 28, 2017 at 8:42am PDT

It wouldn't be wrong to say Sid is trying his level best to do what his character demands, inspiring all of us to do our bit amidst our busy schedule. After all, it is important to stay fit and healthy. Isn't it, Sid?

#shoot #train #shoot #london #sidfit @blacklinetraining A post shared by Sidharth Malhotra (@s1dofficial) on Jul 29, 2017 at 4:42am PDT

Apart from beefing up, Sid is also busy promoting his film 'A Gentleman' which is set to release on 25th August 2017, while Aiyaary releases on 26th Jan, 2018.
The News in Brief

European Parliament Members on Georgias EU Membership Perspective



The Parliaments of three Eastern Partnership (EaP) countries - Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine - released a joint statement on July 3, calling on the European Parliament to adopt a Resolution prior to the EaP Summit reaffirming its appeal to the European Council to opening the perspective of EU membership to the three Associated Countries.



Civil.ge reached out to some of the senior MEPs on the matter, asking them to comment on the upcoming Eastern Partnership Summit in Brussels in November, and the Summit expectations of Eastern partners.



Five MEPs responded to the query, including two from the European Peoples Party and one member from each of the following political groups: the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, the European Conservatives and Reformists Group and the Group of the Greens/European Free Alliance.



David McAllister, Group of the European Peoples Party (Christian Democrats), Germany



The Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has received the Joint statement of the Parliaments of Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine of July 3, 2017. We have taken note of their call on the European Parliament as regards the suggested resolution and the issue of EU membership perspective. We have also noted the emphasis on our common values, on the EUs support to our partners territorial integrity and sovereignty and on the importance of the implementation of the Association Agreements  which the European Parliament is keen to highlight at every available opportunity.



In the run up to the Eastern Partnership Summit scheduled for November 2017, the Foreign Affairs Committee will draw up a report to be adopted by the European Parliament and containing recommendations to the Council, Commission and the External Action Service (EEAS). The content of this upcoming resolution  including the issue of membership perspective  will be the subject of debates in the Foreign Affairs Committee in September and October 2017.



Gunnar Hokmark, Group of the European Peoples Party (Christian Democrats), Sweden



The perspective of EU membership is a central component of the Neighborhood policy and the Eastern Partnership.



Every European nation has this perspective and it is important for stability and the strengthening of democracy. Even if there may be different opinions of when a country can become an EU member, this is an important foundation of the European project.



Urmas Paet, Group of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, Estonia



The EU has been going through turbulent times in recent years. We have faced many crises such as the refugee crisis, Brexit, and terrorist attacks. Even though there is a strong focus on finding a solution to all these problems, we cannot forget our Eastern neighborhood and its efforts to further integrate with the EU. In this regard I am content that the EU finally approved visa-free travel for Moldova, Ukraine and Georgia. It is a step forward in tightening relations and also an important moral message of support.



As the Estonian foreign minister from 2005 until 2014 and now as a member of the European Parliament, I strongly support the further political association and economic integration of Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova with the EU and the implementation of association agreements. There are also many opportunities to further develop relations with Armenia, Azerbaijan and Belarus.



A clear perspective for EU membership is very important. Every European country which has fulfilled the necessary criteria may apply for EU membership.



One of Estonias priorities during its presidency of the Council of the EU is the Eastern Partnership. The objectives of the Eastern Partnership Summit should be ambitious and practical, reconfirming the EUs continued support for Eastern Partners. Attention should be put on sustainable public sector reforms, the development of transport and energy connections, digital society, entrepreneurship and civil society as well as people-to-people contacts. It is also clear that the EU continuously needs to focus on conflict resolution in the neighborhood.



Anna Elzbieta Fotyga, European Conservatives and Reformists Group, Poland



Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova have all signed Association Agreements (including DCFTA) with the EU and received a visa-free regime with the Schengen countries. These deliverables keep the populations of these countries hopeful that their countries will receive further benefits from EU integration.



Countries that will continuously pursue a reform agenda and stronger economic growth must also receive more integration mechanisms from the EU in order to keep these processes alive and create more leverages for reform and further democratization. The upcoming EaP Summit in November will be the best opportunity to lay out the strategic goals of EU-EaP relations. (Civil.ge)




MASON CITY | City officials and the Union Pacific Railroad continue to work toward creation of quiet zones at railroad crossings across the city.

On Tuesday, the City Council will be asked to set a public hearing for Aug. 22 regarding the vacating a public right-of-way to the railroad as part of the project.

Quiet zones are railroad crossings equipped with median strips and other safety devices preventing vehicles from crossing when crossing bars are down. This, in turn, would eliminate the need for use of noisy train whistles every time a train passed through.

The quiet zone in Mason City will include five at-grade crossings, extending from 15th Street Southwest to Ninth Street Northwest. The crossings are at 15th Street Southwest, Sixth Street Southwest, Fourth Street Southwest, First Street Northwest and Ninth Street Northwest. The crossings at Fourth Street Southwest and Ninth Street Northwest will be closed.

City Administrator Brent Trout said the railroad is preparing the final plans and agreement for the construction and relocation of railroad safety equipment which is currently being used at the Ninth Street Northwest crossing.

The council needs to approve vacating the public property to the railroad to allow for the relocation of the equipment.

High Line Bike Trail in the works for Mason City MASON CITY | City officials are working with a Des Moines-based foundation to buy five miles

Also Tuesday, the council will be asked to approve an application for a Resource Enhancement and Protection (REAP) grant of $150,000 to assist with costs to acquire the section of Union Pacific property from the Iowa Natural Heritage Foundation.

The city has been working with the railroad, the foundation and with BACKTRACK Inc. to purchase unused railroad property to complete the High Line, rail-to-trail project from 19th Street Southeast north ot County Road B20.
HAMILTON, Bermuda, July 30, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Two major new insurance-industry events highlighting innovation in the Bermuda market are headed to the island this fall, the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA) announced today.



The BDA has worked with two London-based organisations to bring both one-day events to Bermuda for the first time. Field Gibson Medias Insurance Risk & Capital Bermuda is scheduled for October 20 at Hamilton Princess & Beach Club; Newsquest Specialist Medias Global Reinsurance Innovation & Insurtech is slated for Rosewood Tuckers Point November 6.

One of our agencys major objectives is to bring quality industry events to the island to help attract investors and industry executives, including risk managers and insurance buyers, to explore opportunities in Bermuda, said Jereme Ramsay, BDA Business Development Manager. These events help to fulfill that goal, and also to bolster our fall tourism season.

Field Gibson Media is well-known for its InsuranceERM.com online publication, a leading source of information on risk and capital issues affecting insurance companies. InsuranceERM will host its inaugural Bermuda event, sponsored by Aon Benfield, Deloitte, EY and the BDA and expected to attract more than 100 risk professionals.

We are delighted to bring this conference to Bermuda in 2017, said Tony Gibson, the groups Managing Director. It is an honour for InsuranceERM to hold its distinctive take on risk, capital and asset management in the Worlds Risk Capital. The Bermuda industry has an enviable reputation for stability in the face of the worlds biggest catastrophesa testament to the strong ethos of enterprise risk management among the islands insurers, and to the islands solid regulatory framework.

Bermudas uniqueness comes in matching this constancy with an environment that encourages innovation, the titles Managing Editor Chris Cundy added. Helped by a responsive and agile supervisor [Bermuda Monetary Authority, BMA], Bermudas hotbed of insurance talent has pioneered opportunities and new business models that have been adopted worldwide.

The one-day conference will examine topics around innovation in the insurance industry, rigour and robustness around reporting and modelling, the changing role of the chief risk officer, Bermudas regulations for underwriters, new capital standards, cybersecurity, and group supervision in an uncertain geopolitical environment.

BDA CEO Ross Webber will be a speaker, along with Craig Swan, Managing Director, Supervision, BMA; Edward Mishambi, Head of Risk & Regulatory Affairs for RenaissanceRe; Elisabetta Russo, ERM Advisor for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC); and Dan Malloy, Chief Underwriting Officer of Third Point Re.

InsuranceERM joins three other industry events during a particularly busy 10 days in the islands global business sphere. The World Alternative Investment Summit (WAIS) Bermuda, produced by Radius Financial Education, comes back to the Fairmont Southampton October 1113. Hedge Connections Global Fund Forum also returns to the Fairmont Southampton for the third time October 1618. That will be followed by the annual ILS Bermuda Convergence event October 1819 at Hamilton Princess & Beach Club, now in its fifth year.

The following month, GR Innovation & Insurtech will examine disruptive global technology trends and how the risk industry can capitalise on these. BDA CEO Ross Webber will again be among top-level speakers and the event agenda is being lined up. Close to 100 delegates are expected to attend.

Were excited to be able to contribute to the conversation around innovation in insurtech and all the opportunities this can present to the Bermuda marketwe hope this new event can be a catalyst for new ideas in this fast-developing sphere, said Sophie Roberts, Associate Publisher of Global Reinsurance. Our event is designed to bring an international audience to the island to examine all aspects of insurtech and take lessons from those who are pioneering in this space on the island and around the world.

Scheduled during the week of the World Rugby Classic, GR Innovation & Insurtech happens the day before another big annual risk-industry event, the PwC S&P Global Bermuda Reinsurance conference, November 78, at the Hamilton Princess. That forum, now in its 12th year, attracts senior executives to reflect on transformative issues facing the reinsurance industry.

CONNECTING BUSINESS

The BDA encourages direct investment and helps companies start up, re-locate or expand their operations in our premier jurisdiction. An independent, public-private partnership, we connect you to industry professionals, regulatory officials, and key contacts in the Bermuda government to assist domicile decisions. Our goal? To make doing business in Bermuda smooth and beneficial.
New York State's replacement for the 421-a tax credit, a re-branded version of the program named Affordable New York, won't include any units set aside for local residents, the homeless, New York City employees, the disabled or military veterans, according to a new report.

The Affordable New York program is similar to the 421-a tax credit, except that this one offers a property tax abatement for 35 years instead of 25 years and keeps the percentage of affordable apartments in a building in the program for 40 years, up from 35 years. Another key difference, Crain's reports, is that developers won't have to include "community preferences," which usually meant half of the units set aside for locals who resided in the Community Board zone where a building went up, in addition to smaller percentages for people like military veterans and municipal employees.

The de Blasio administration also required developers receiving the credit to set units aside for residents who were recently homeless. It's unclear who removed the community preference rules surrounding the new tax credit programthe governor's office denied that they were behind the change.

Crain's noted that the Department of Housing Preservation and Development could still make their own rules about community preference under 421-a, and that this doesn't impact city-funded affordable housing developments, as 421-a is a state program.

Mayoral spokesperson Melissa Grace didn't comment directly on the missing community preference language but did tell Gothamist that the mayor's office "will continue to use the community preference as a critical anti-displacement measure in the affordable housing development that the City is financing at record pace."
The militaries of the U.S. and South Korea fired missiles into the territorial waters off South Korea's east coast early Saturday, apparently in response to North Korea's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile a short time earlier..

What the U.S. Army described as a "combined training event" also followed North Korea's claim that its weapons were now capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, as Fox News reported.

According to Stars and Stripes, the U.S. military usually refrains from disclosing details about its exercises, but a statement by the Eighth Army linked Saturday's drill directly with North Korea's ICBM launch. (The Eighth Army is the U.S. force based in South Korea.)

The North Korean missile was launched around midnight Saturday local time in the country's northwest, landing in the Sea of Japan about 620 miles east of the launch site, the Stars and Stripes report said, citing a Pentagon statement.

The Eighth Army claimed the exercise involved the use of a surface-to-surface Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and South Korea's Huynmoo Missile II.

"The ATACMS can be rapidly deployed and engaged and provides deep-strike precision capability, enabling the [U.S. and South Korea] to engage a full array of time-critical targets under all weather conditions," the Pentagon statement said.

Meanwhile, the U.S. military tracked the North Korean missile throughout its flight and determined it posed no threat to North America, Stars and Stripes reported.

"We assess that this missile was an [ICBM], as had been expected," the Pentagon statement said, adding that the U.S. remained committed to defending South Korea and Japan, two key allies in the Asia-Pacific region, "from any attack or provocation.
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...
MLive photo

By JOHN D. GONZALEZ and AMY SHERMAN | @mlive.com

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- On July 26, 2017 we announced our next Michigan's Best search:

Best Wings!

The reaction has been great! So far we have received more than 100 nominations and they're still coming in. Make sure to comment on our rececent story at:

Michigan's Best wings: We will find them and you can help

Or email us:

Amy Sherman is at asherma2@mlive.com.

John Gonzalez is at gonzo@mlive.com.

The deadline is 3 p.m. Monday, July 31.

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Edith Adams/used with permission

The Judges

Before we get to our ranking, let's meet the judges:

George Aquino, aka the Asian Sensation: He is the Vice President/Managing Director Amway Hotel Collection, and a popular food blogger, restaurant critic and general, all-around cool guy!

Ben Darcie, aka Chocolate Muscle: He is a craft beer educator, home brewer, and great fun to have at a party. He works at Gravel Bottom Brewery and Supply in Ada.

Freddy Shier, aka Chick Magnet: He is a business solutions specialist at Grand Rapids-based food supplier Gordon Food Service. And well-versed on Wings!

Amber Stokosa, aka Just Amber: She is the marketing manager at 20 Monroe Live in downtown Grand Rapids. She just moved to Grand Rapids in October, and she's loving it.

Amy Sherman, aka The Shermanator: Works at at MLive on the Michigan's Best team; she's not shy.

John Gonzalez, aka Gonzo: He also works at MLive, and on the Michigan's Best team. His job is to keep Amy in check. (He doesn't do a good job of it.)

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Who has the best Chain Chicken Wings? The taste test begins! Posted by MLive.com on Wednesday, July 26, 2017

The Judge's room.

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Criteria

We scored the wings on Appearance, Aroma, Sauce, Meatiness, Greasiness and Overall Taste.

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The Contenders

In Alphabetical Order:

Applebee's

Buffalo Wild Wings

Chili's

Domino's

Jet's Pizza

Kentucky Fried Chicken

Pizza Hut

Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen

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9. Chili's

Overall, the Chili's smokey wings scored at the bottom. George Aquinio and Amy Sherman said they left a lot to be desired. Not meaty at all and it tasted like liquid smoke. "Forget about it," George said.

On the flip side, Freddy Shier and Ben Darcie said they loved the smoked flavor.

Amber Stokosa and Gonzo both said: "Um, gross."

We also tried the regular Chili's Wings, which were much better.

Pictured: Chili's Wings far right; one regular, one with sauce and smokey.

Cost: 8 wings $9.99.

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John Gonzalez | gonzo@mlive.com

8. KFC

George Aquino summed it up best: "Will do, but nothing fancy."

Cost: $10.60 for 10 wings.

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7. Popeye's

"Very generic," "good for the road," was the general consensus. "A little dry."

Cost: 5 whole wings, $7.69.

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John Gonzalez | gonzo@mlive.com

6. Jet's Pizza

A little too fatty, but some overall nice flavors.

Freddy Shier called it the "Dutch Boy of Wings."

We tried both regular and hot wings.

Cost: $7.99 for 8 wings

Pictured: Jet's wings on the far left.

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5. Papa John's

Overall, our judges loved Papa John's, but it wasn't unanimous. Amber Stokosa said: Who decided this was a flavor?

Pictured: Papa John's at the top.

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4. Domino's

"Tender and awesome."

"Fatty and hot."

"Yummy."

Pictured: Domino's at the bottom.

Cost: 14 wings for $11.

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3. Buffalo Wild Wings

Overall, it scored well, but George Aquino noted: "Nice piece of meat, but lacking of memorable characteristics."

Freddy Shier said it was "well seasoned" and Ben Darcie said "flavorful and not too greasy."

We had them with a medium sauce.

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2. Pizza Hut

We ordered them medium, but they had a big kick, which most of the judges loved!

Cost: $12.44 for 10 wings..

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1. Applebee's

Surprise!

George Aquino said "I would order this at 3 a.m."

Jeff Shier said "This wing is what caused addiction."

All the judges agreed the flavor, meatiness and sauce all reminded us of what wings should taste like when you need a fix. Give them a try, folks.

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Blazin' Wings Challenge

Ben Darcie, Amy Sherman and Amber Stokosa test Buffalo Wild Wings' "blazin," wings, the hottest on the menu.

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DETROIT, MI - Called early Sunday to investigate a vehicle stopped on I-94, Michigan State Police troopers discovered the occupants had been shot and killed near Livernois Avenue.

At this time, it has been determined multiple shots were fired over a stretch of the eastbound highway, leading to where the vehicle came to rest, state police reported in a brief statement.

Troopers were first summoned about 2:45 a.m. July 30. A vehicle was reportedly on the median shoulder. Inside, were a man and woman, both 27 and from the Detroit area.

Upon the finding, police closed the highway and detectives from a special investigations unit, a crash reconstructionist, a dog, crime lab representatives and troopers from the Detroit attachment joined the inquiry, state police reported.

As of 11:20 a.m., the Michigan Department of Transportation was reporting all eastbound lanes were closed. They were expected to reopen by about noon.

No other details, including the names of those who died or from where the shots were fired, were released.

The investigation is continuing and additional information will be forthcoming as it is appropriate, state police reported.
GRATTAN TOWNSHIP, MI -- Lighting a paper lantern and watching it get carried into the night is a fun, meaningful summer activity for some.

Despite the growing popularity of large, organized events where people light and "send off" paper lanterns, some view it as a fire hazard with a negative environmental impact.

Both those viewpoints are being taken into account by organizers of a large-scale paper lantern festival is scheduled at 4 p.m. on Oct. 21 at Grattan Raceway, located at 7201 Lessiter Road NE.

The Grand Rapids Area Lights Festival offers attendees the chance to ignite a personalized lantern with Tiki torches before letting them drift off into the night sky, according to the event website.

Participants receive a packet containing a lantern, marker and keychain flashlight. Live music will also be included as part of the event.

Grattan Township has been working closely with organizers of the festival to address safety concerns. They are also taking the precaution of having medical services and fire trucks standing by during the event, said Grattan Township Fire Chief Lou Kirkbride.

"My opinion is it will be a totally safe event," Kirkbride said.

Similar events have taken place in West Michigan, including lantern festivals in Kalamazoo and one in downtown Grand Rapids as a 2012 Art Prize entry. The Grand Rapids event garnered a mix of positive and negative feedback.

The fire chiefs in both Belding and Grattan Township have already received calls from citizens concerned about the safety of the event scheduled in October.

Public safety and environmental concerns from residents about the upcoming festival were addressed during a township Planning Commission meeting on Feb. 1, 2017, said Commission Chairman Alan Rumbaugh.

A resolution was approved after the meeting to grant a special land permit for the festival. According to the resolution, those requirements include:

Health and sanitation facilities and estimated number of attendance

A food and water supply located on the site

Proof of notification made to fire and sheriff departments

Parking and traffic flow patterns along with directional signs in appropriate locations

A temporary food license

The fire chief reserves the right to cancel the event at his discretion

A clean up plan must be in place

Liability insurance must be provided by the event organizer with limits of no less than $1,000,000, and property damage insurance must also be provided with a limit of no less than $100,000

Sound suppression if unreasonably loud sounds are expected

Drugs and alcohol are not allowed on the site

Organizers must provide for police, fire, food and water, health and sanitation and medical services along with emergency vehicles and equipment

Ticket prices have not gone on sale yet, but will range from $25-$55, depending on when they are purchased. Children 4-12 years will be charged $8. Any child under 3 can attend for free.

The Lights Fest organizers hold lantern festivals across the U.S. and Canada, which are attended by thousands, according to Don Harwood, the Lights Fest director of operations. Harwood said he expects about five or six thousand people to attend the Grand Rapids festival.

One of the things that separates events organized by The Lights Fest is that the lanterns used are customized to manage burn time, and can only go a short distance, Harwood said. Lanterns planned to be used at Grattan Raceway in October are designed to go no further than 500 yards.

"We take fire very seriously and we've customized (our lanterns) so when they lift off, they will come down being completely burned out and the ember will be cool to the touch," Harwood said.

The lanterns are also built from bamboo and rice paper to ensure they break down quickly and are biodegradable, in case cleanup crews don't spot every lantern to dispose of after an event, Harwood said.

"They assured us that as far as the show goes it is absolutely safe and as far as fires go they don't expect anything," Kirkbride said.

If weather conditions make the vegetation surrounding the raceway extremely dry in the days leading up to the event, the chief said, it could shut down the vent because of a higher than usual fire risk.

If the event is postponed due to dry conditions or other unsafe weather, it could be rescheduled within a three month period or cancelled, according to the festival website.

Ticket holders will be contacted at the email address given when they purchased their ticket with new of any postponements or cancellations, Harwood said. Ticket holders who paid an entry fee in advance will be reimbursed in situations where an event is cancelled.

"We have a very good record and have not had any issues or spot fires anywhere in any of our landing zones because of the ways we've customized lanterns and customized landing zones," Harwood said.

All the same, a team of people are prepared with fire extinguishers in case of any spot fires that might occur in the landing zone or surrounding area during the event, he said.

Attendees are encouraged to remember the following when arriving at the lantern event:

Lanterns will not be lit until nightfall, so blankets and warm clothing are advised

Bring chairs and blankets to sit on

Food and drinks are prohibited, but food can be purchased from vendors inside the event

Alcohol is prohibited

Besides being a fun summer activity to enjoy with loved ones, it can also be an extremely moving experience, Harwood said. Markers are handed out with the paper lanterns so people can decorate their lanterns or write tributes, hopes or dreams before letting the luminary fly into the sky.

"Sometimes people lost a loved one and want to remember them," Harwood said. "There are many reasons people come and I hope they come, have a good time and are able to be respectful."
GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- When Timothy Volkema heard a few years ago that Schuil Coffee Co. might come on the market, he was willing to wait.

Volkema, 40, finally closed on that deal last month, acquiring the second-generation roaster from Greta Schuil.

Schuil, who has been Grand Rapids company's president for two decades, will assist with the transition. Terms of the deal were not disclosed

Her late parents, Garry and Gladys, launched the wholesale coffee roaster in 1981, after spotting the growing trend in specialty coffees. The business was an outgrowth of Garry Schuil's earlier career as a gourmet food broker for stores throughout the Midwest.

The company will begin its next chapter under Volkema, a West Michigan native and entrepreneur, who recently returned to West Michigan with his wife and three school-age children.

"I've always been a passionate coffee drinker myself," Volkema said. "This is my first time to learn the nuts and bolts."

The business's 10-person workforce will remain, as Volkema works to make the transition as seamless and transparent for customers.

He appreciates Schuil Coffee's legacy as one of the first Michigan companies to roast, package and sell specialty coffee beans.

It now supplies coffee and tea from around the world on a wholesale basis to retailers, coffee shops and restaurants throughout the Midwest. The coffee is carried locally by retailers Forest Hills Foods, Kingma's Market, Ken's Fruit Market and Meijer stores.

Schuil Coffee operates its own retail store selling freshly-roasted coffee beans and teas, baked goods, and brewing equipment at its Grand Rapids roasting facility and warehouse at 3679 29th St. SE. Products can also be ordered online through its website at schuilcoffee.com.

While Schuil Coffee products have been available online for decades, Volkema sees room to improve the company's e-commerce platforms.

The Calvin College grad's work experience ranges from working as a category leader for Amazon in New York City to co-founding Kasa Indian Eateries in San Francisco. He most recently served as an operating partner at The Windquest Group, where he handled board governance issues and stepped into the role of interim chief marketing officer of the biofeedback company, Neurocore.

The Grand Rapids holding company is owned by Amway heir Dick DeVos and his wife, Betsy. Earlier this year, she stepped away from the business to become the U.S. Education Secretary.
By Mike Clark | mclark10@mlive.com

Daredevil David Smith Jr., who goes by the Bullet, performed a death-defying stunt after Saturday's Whitecaps game at Fifth Third Ballpark. He shot himself out of a cannon positioned at second base and flew to a net set up over home plate. Smith said he has been performing as a human cannonball for 20 years and has achieved a Guinness World Record for the greatest height reached by being launched from a cannon, but he said he still gets nervous every time he performs the stunt.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. is shot out of his cannon while performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. climbs on top of his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. reacts after landing safely in his net while performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. runs in place to warm up before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. speaks to the crowd after performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. is shot out of his cannon while performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. checks his notebook before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017. Smith takes into account things such as the elevation and humidity when preparing for his stunts.

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Audience members look at their phones after David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. performed a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. drives his cannon onto the field at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. makes small adjustments to aim his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. warms up before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. smiles as he drives his cannon off the field after performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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The front cover of David "the Bullet" Smith Jr.'s cannon before he performs a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. works in the cockpit of his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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Players from the Whitecaps and the Lake County Captains watch as David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. prepares to perform a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. lands safely in his net while performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. speaks to a member of the grounds crew before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. prepares to perform a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr.'s helmet at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. jokes with members of the grounds crew before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. prepares to perform a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. reacts after landing safely in his net while performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. wipes down the top of his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. gets ready to perform at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. checks his notebook before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017. Smith takes into account things such as the elevation and humidity when preparing for his stunts.

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A fan watches as David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. takes the field at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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The grounds crew lays down plywood to prepare the field for David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. makes a final adjustment to one of the pylons holding his net before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. checks the ropes securing his net before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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Mike Clark | MLive.com

David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. checks his net before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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Mike Clark | MLive.com

David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. climbs on top of his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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Mike Clark | MLive.com

David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. climbs on top of his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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Mike Clark | MLive.com

David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. climbs on top of his cannon before performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.

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Don't Edit

Mike Clark | MLive.com

David "the Bullet" Smith Jr. reacts after landing safely in his net while performing a human cannonball stunt at Fifth Third Ballpark in Comstock Park on Saturday, July 29, 2017.
CALEDONIA, MI -- Police and firefighters worked to rescue a Caledonia man in his 50s from a grain elevator on Saturday afternoon.

The incident is still under investigation, but police think the man was cleaning the Caledonia Farmers Elevator and got stuck in some way, said Sheriff Lawrence Stelma of Kent County Sheriff Department. Stelma said he could not confirm if the man was dead or alive at about 4:30 p.m. on Saturday, July 29, just that he was stuck in the grain elevator.

About 30 people gathered around the farm elevator, located at West Main Street and Kinsey Street SE in Caledonia, as two fire fighters on a crane removed a portion of the roof off the elevator. Rescuers were still on the scene at 5 p.m. on Saturday.

The manager of the elevator was driving by the structure in the morning when he noticed something was off and called 9-1-1 at about 3 p.m., Stelma said. The man was the only one working at the time, Stelma said.

According to community members, the man stuck in the elevator lived just down the street from the incident and was known as "Lumberyard Dan."
GRAND TRAVERSE COUNTY, MI -- Golden Shoes, a fixture on Traverse City's Front Street, is well known to residents and tourists alike.

So is Bill Golden, the co-president with his brother Craig of the family-owned business, which succeeded a shoe store dating back to 1883.

Golden is also gaining a national reputation for his work advocating for independent retailers.

He is one of an elite group of five finalists for America's Retail Champion of the Year, an honor bestowed annually by the National Retail Federation.

The announcement came earlier this month at the NRF's Retail Advocates Summit, as small retailers from across the country were honored for their advocacy on behalf of the industry.

Retailers, including Golden, were in Washington to meet with members of Congress on a variety of public policy issues.

Trudy Trombley, owner of Truly Trudy's Boutique in Stowe, Vt., was named America's Retail Champion of the Year. She was selected from 75 nominees and the group of five finalists who included Golden.

The program honors retailers who make their mark on public policy debates.

"Going out and advocating for other retailers is satisfying," Golden said in a statement. "To get the recognition is nice and it's good to know there's a voice out there for me and my fellow retailers. We're all champions."

The longtime merchant was nominated by Michigan Retailers Association and serves as a director on the board of Michigan Retailers Services, an MRA subsidiary. Golden Shoes was honored as Michigan Retailer of the Year in 2005 in the small retail category.

"Bill Golden bleeds retail, and he's a longtime advocate for the independent retailer," said Jim Hallan, chief executive of MRA. "It's good to see him recognized for his many contributions."

In 2014, Golden was among a group of Michigan retailers who went to Washington, D.C. to lobby for Amazon and other online retailers to pay sales taxes like brick-and-mortar shops do.

A Traverse City native, Golden began working at his family's store at age 14. He is chair of the Traverse City Downtown Development Authority, a member on the Traverse City Area Chamber of Commerce Board of Directors and active with the Northern Michigan Chamber Alliance.

He has advocated on many state issues, including Main Street Fairness and support for Downtown Development Authorities. He is a proponent for MRA's Buy Nearby program, which urges residents to keep their shopping dollars in Michigan and celebrates I Buy Nearby Weekend on Oct. 7-8.
ADRIAN, MI - Two Jackson County students have earned Outstanding Undergraduate Student awards from Siena Heights University.

Madison Lane of Napoleon and Charles Ludlow of Jackson graduated from the university in May. They are the only students receiving these awards this year.

Lane, a Napoleon High School graduate, majored in business administration, and earned her bachelor's degree. She was a member of the Sigma Beta Delta business honor society, vice president of the student activities board and a member of the Greenlight Environmental Club.

Lane also received the Commitment to Excellence Award from the Michigan Campus Compact.

Ludlow, a Lumen Christi High School graduate, majored in business administration, and earned his bachelor's degree. He was a member of the Sigma Beta Delta business honor society, vice president of student government, a student ambassador and a peer mentor.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Democrat Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election to President Donald Trump, but some Republicans in Congress are intensifying their calls to investigate her and other Obama administration officials.

As investigations into Russian meddling and possible links to Trump's campaign have escalated on both sides of the Capitol, some Republicans argue that the investigations should have a greater focus on Democrats.

Democrats who have pushed the election probes "have started a war of investigative attrition," said GOP Rep. Steve King of Iowa, a member of the House Judiciary Committee.

Several officials from former President Barack Obama's administration and Clinton's campaign have appeared before or been interviewed by the House and Senate Intelligence Committees as part of the Russia investigation, along with Trump campaign officials. The GOP-led committees are investigating whether Trump's campaign had any links to Russian interference in last year's election.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has continued a separate investigation into whether Obama administration officials inappropriately made requests to "unmask" identities of Trump campaign officials in intelligence reports.

The House Judiciary Committee, which has declined to investigate the Russian meddling, approved a resolution this past week to request documents related to the FBI's now-closed investigation of Clinton's emails. In addition, Republican on that committee wrote the Justice Department on Thursday and asked for a second special counsel, in addition to Special Counsel Robert Mueller, to investigate "unaddressed matters, some connected to the 2016 election and others, including many actions taken by Obama administration."

"The American public has a right to know the facts -- all of them -- surrounding the election and its aftermath," the lawmakers wrote.

Republicans want to investigate the unmasking issue and also Clinton's email scandal that figured prominently in the campaign. They also frequently bring up former Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and former FBI Director James Comey's testimony that she told him to call the Clinton email investigation a "matter" instead of an investigation during the campaign.

Nunes wrote his own letter to Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats last week, saying that his committee has learned that one Obama administration official had made "hundreds" of the unmasking requests.

Even though he remains committee chairman, Nunes stepped back from the Russia investigation earlier this year after he was criticized for being too close to the White House. Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas, took over the leading role.

The committee has conducted bipartisan interviews of witnesses; Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner appeared on Tuesday, a day after talking to Senate staff. But partisan tensions have been evident.

GOP Rep. Pete King of New York, who's on the House Intelligence Committee, said after the Kushner interview that the committee investigation into Russian meddling is a "sham."

"To me there is nothing to this from the beginning," he said of his committee's own probe. "There is no collusion ... it's the phoniest investigation ever."
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From wandering the halls as a student, then a teacher, and now the principal, Brett Zantohas truly come full circle in his career at Capital High School.

Four years ago, Zanto was hired as the principal of his alma mater. Ever since, he has been hard at work building relationships, increasing academic success among students, and transforming Capital into a school that students and staff alike are proud to be part of.

After graduating from Capital in 1995, Zanto went on to become a teacher in the small Montana communities of both Outlook and Flaxville and later Bozeman. He later returned to Helena to teach at Capital High and served as the assistant principal of Helena High School for six years.

Upon transitioning into his current role as principal of Capital in the summer of 2013, one of Zantos primary goals was to instill a sense of pride in Capital High School and continue building upon the schools history of success.

We are continually trying to cast a positive light on Capital High, said Zanto. And I think thats something that weve been doing a really good job of.

This past spring, Capital High was honored with the Montana ACT College and Career Transition Exemplar Award for the 2016-2017 school year. The 2017 graduating class had the second highest ACT writing score in 2016 compared to other Montana AA schools.

In May, the Montana Behavioral Initiative (MBI) awarded Capital an MBI Exemplar School award and platinum status for meeting exemplary standards for promoting positive school climate and school safety.

Zanto attributes Capitals successes like these to the students and staff that breathe life into the school.

We have great, hard working staff that really care about the students and great students who genuinely want to excel both academically and in extracurricular activities they are involved with, said Zanto.

Joslyn Davidson, curriculum and instruction administrator for Helena Public Schools, added that Zantos leadership is another key factor in Capitals success.

Brett Zanto is an outstanding, selfless leader who has worked hard to maintain a sense of pride and community at Capital High School, Davidson said.

After experiencing the school system from so many vantage points, Zanto admits recognizing that there has been a real shift in student learning in recent years. The current focus is paying attention to both academics as well as student social and emotional needs. Such a balance is important, along with encouraging student involvement in the numerous clubs and activities found at Capital High.

Zanto went on to say that in todays academic world there are increased demands placed on students, teachers and the administration alike. Students arent just competing against other kids in their class anymore, but with students across the country and the world for colleges and jobs after graduation. Because of this, Zanto explained that there are plans to increase the element of writing across all curricula as well as the overall level of rigor in all departments.

We always have to be changing and trying to improve in order to do what is best for the kids in the community, said Zanto. We have to continue being competitive within this school and the greater community so students are adequately prepared for college and/or careers after graduation.

He is a humble, kind and respectful leader who maintains a deep compassion for students, said Davidson. Brett represents the best our community has to offer its students, and its educational community as an alum, a teacher and an education leader.

While the classrooms and hallways at Capital currently stand empty and silent, Zanto is still hard at work in his office during the summer months gearing up for the upcoming school year. According to Zanto, 1,315 students are currently enrolled for the 2017-2018 school year, along with approximately 120 staff that keep the school operating smoothly year-round. When the first day of school hits in August, Zanto will be right there at the helm steering Capital into what he believes will be another successful year.

It was my dream to return to Helena and give back to the school system that did so much for me, said Zanto. I still cant believe Im back here.
Gujarat-based Sheelpe Enterprises, known for its 'Aava' natural mineral water brand, today said it is investing Rs 100 crore for setting up another bottling unit in the state and is looking for strategic investors to expand its footprint.

"We are setting up another mineral water supplying unit having capacity of 1.5 lakh water bottles per day near our existing unit at Ahmedabad in Gujarat. The cost of the project is estimated at Rs 100 crore, of which Rs 25 crore will be invested in setting up of the plant and machinery.

"The company is planning to launch flavoured water as well as energy drinks at the new unit," Sheelpe Enterprises Managing Director Behram Mehta told PTI here.

"We are also seeking partnership with strategic investors who can invest and take the company to newer heights. A pan- India distribution tops our list of priorities. We are also inviting partners for global distribution to fill the vacuum for quality natural water," Mehta added.

Growing at 100 per cent per annum and with a confined aquifer capacity of 4.1 billion litres, it is the only natural mineral water provider centrally located with logistical advantages in Western India.

Its Ahmedabad unit has a capacity of 2 lakh mineral water bottles per day. It sources natural mineral water from hills of Taranga, part of the world's oldest mountain range, the Aravallis.

The company is presently selling 50 per cent of its products to leading domestic airlines and remaining to luxury hotel chains and retail channel.

In terms of international expansion, Mehta believes there is great potential for Aava in the Middle East, South East Asia and Eastern Europe.

"We have already expanded to foreign countries by exporting to developed nations like New Zealand, South Africa and have received enquiries from foreign airlines too," adds Mehta.

Talking about the bottled water segment on the global front, Mehta said, "While the bottled water market is facing slow growth vis-a-vis growth in the developed countries, in India it is growing at 40 per cent."

The company claims to be the first Indian winner at the global 'Bottlewaterworld' awards. Last month, it bagged two gold stars and the Superior Taste Award 2017 held by the International Taste and Quality Institute (iTQi) at Brussels in Belgium.
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India has proved to be a robust market for British luxury cars as latest figures released by the UK automotive industry this week indicate a spike in exports from the UK to India.

India is now the seventh largest Asian market for UK car exports, according to the latest figures.

Indian demand for UK's premium cars rose 8.3 per cent in the first half of 2017. Over the same period, the number of Indian-built models registered by British buyers rose by almost half (48.6 per cent) to 21,135 units.

"The demand in India tends to be in the premium segment and the latest figures reflect the growing attraction of Britain's luxury brands in the country," said Mike Hawes, Chief Executive of the UK's Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT).

"The UK and Indian automotive industries share a rich heritage of trade and investment and strengthening this relationship through mutually-beneficial trade deals in the future is of the utmost importance," he said.

Exports to India grew to 1,650 units this year, moving India up from eighth place in 2016 to seventh for the UK automotive industry as an increasing number of affluent buyers take advantage of a range of all new premium and luxury British-built cars, according to the membership-led trade body.

The upward trend vis-a-vis the Indian market contrasts with the overall picture for the industry, with UK car production falling by -2.9 per cent in the first half of 2017, attributed to the uncertainties triggered by Brexit.

The European Union (EU) remained the UK's biggest trading partner, accounting for more than half of all cars produced for export (54.6 per cent), with Germany and Italy the UK's second and third biggest single markets.

The SMMT found that EU countries make up half of UK automotive's top 10 export destinations, highlighting the importance of continued free trade.

"World class engineering and products, strong government collaboration and massive investment have helped UK Automotive become a global success story. At the heart of this has been the free and frictionless trade we've enjoyed with the EU  by far our biggest customer and supplier," Hawes cautioned.

"Given the deeply integrated European vehicle and component supply chain, we need Brexit negotiators on both sides to recognise the importance of barrier free trade for the European automotive industry. Any disruption to this risks undermining one of the EUs most valuable economic assets.

"The industry needs certainty so an interim deal, maintaining UK single market and customs union membership until we have in place the complex new agreement with the EU, must be a priority for the UK in its withdrawal negotiations."

Production for export continued to drive volumes in 2017 as global demand for British-built cars dipped by a marginal -0.9 per cent in the first six months, with 683,826 cars shipped overseas.

Although UK automotive exports eight out of every 10 cars it builds to customers in some 160 countries worldwide, it is also a major importer.

More than 85 per cent of the cars registered by British buyers in the first six months of the year came from overseas plants, and more than two thirds (67 per cent) from the EU, highlighting the importance of mutually beneficial tariff and barrier-free trade.
Looking to tap the growing rooftop solar market in the Middle East and South-East Asia, CleanMax Solar is eyeing up to 40 per cent of revenues from overseas business in the next 3 years, a top company official said.

"While we continue to grow in India in the rooftop and open access solar power segment, we are pursuing growth in international markets mainly the Middle East and South-East Asia. We are currently looking at the UAE market and soon we will spread our presence in the other countries," the company's Managing Director Kuldeep Jain told PTI here.

He said the company expects its international business to contribute nearly 35-40 per cent of its revenues in the next three years.

The company recently opened its first overseas office in Dubai

Jain further said the recent funding of USD 100 million it received from global private equity player Warburg Pincus would be partly utilised for this international expansion.

"We are already enjoying a 24 per cent share in the domestic market. Our aim is to garner a similar share in the international markets as well," he added.

With a portfolio of 90 MW of installed capacity, CleanMax is eyeing to reach 250 MW by the end of this fiscal.

"We are also expecting to touch revenues of up to Rs 800 crore in this financial year. Thereon, we expect to double our revenues year-on-year every year," Jain added.
Diversified conglomerate Indian Tobacco Company (ITC) is entering into the fruits, vegetables and other perishables segment as part of its drive to build an agri-based industry for the future, its chairman Y C Deveshwar said today.

The Kolkata-headquartered firm is also looking to invest in farming of aromatic and medicinal plants.

ITC has started working on creating the infrastructure for it and is investing in its supply chain.

"ITC has decided to foray into the fruits, vegetables and other perishables segment. This would help address India's massive agri-wastages that deprive farmers of a potentially large income source," Deveshwar said in his AGM speech.

The move is aimed at providing options to consumers and consumers alike.

"Such fresh, frozen and dehydrated agri-products will provide high-qualityy options to consumers, creating an agri- value chain that will help farmers diversify crop production as well as manage wastage," he added.

Addressing shareholders, Deveshwar said investments are underway to create climate-controlled infrastructure for an efficient supply chain to unlock the potential latent in this area.

The company, which has recently launched Frozen Prawns under its ITC Master Chef brand, will soon extend it to pan India.

"This high-quality 'Super Safe' prawns leverage ITC's 45-year legacy in exporting to the most exacting markets of the world," Deveshwar said.

The company is working in the rural areas with the farmers from the year 2000 through its network of e-Choupal and over 4 million farmers have benefited from this initiative so far.
Names and faces

Clearwater Properties has announced a new marketing team in Helena -- Darla Oropeza, marketing director, and Kevin Connolly, marketing coordinator.

Oropeza comes to Clearwater Properties with more than 19 years of business development, graphic design, marketing, public relations, management, sales and customer relations experience. Oropeza will be responsible for planning, development, and implementation of Clearwaters creative and marketing strategy, both at a corporate level and in service of over 80 agents across Montana, Idaho, Wyoming and Washington.

Connolly arrives at Clearwater Properties with more than a decade of experience in photography, graphic design, website development, television production (commercial, reality, narrative), and writing (technical, nonfiction). Connolly is responsible for designing and managing Clearwaters print, digital and social identity.

Shaun Lewis has been appointed chief operating officer at Clearwater Properties, a new position within Clearwater. Lewis previously served as a strategic adviser and will continue to report to Kevin Wetherell, Founder and CEO of Clearwater Properties.

Lewis joined Clearwater in 2016 and previously served in senior management roles with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and U.S. Department of Justice and as a strategy consultant for BoldIQ. Prior to his work in the public and private sectors, he served in the U.S. Navy as an aviation electronics engineer. Lewis is a recent graduate of the program for Leadership Development at the Harvard Business School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and holds an MBA from the Michael G. Foster School of Business at the University of Washington.

***

Kevin Braun has been appointed as vice president, general counsel for Montana State Fund. In this role he will oversee Montana State Funds legal department, including the special investigation unit and insurance compliance functions. In addition, Braun will provide advice and counsel to MSFs executive team, departments and the board of directors. He will also lead MSFs legislative duties and ensure compliance with the legal requirements applicable to MSF.

Braun is a graduate of Montana State University with a BA in political science and received his Doctor of Jurisprudence (JD) from the University of Montana Law School. He served as a law clerk for the Workers Compensation Court from 1992 to 1993, was a staff attorney with the Montana Department of Labor and Industry from 1993 to 1995 and served as chief legal counsel for the Department of Labor and Industry from 1995 to 2005. He joined MSF in 2005 as a claims attorney providing legal advice and training to MSF staff in addition to representing MSF before the Workers Compensation Court and Montana Supreme Court. In 2006, Braun was promoted to assistant general counsel.

***

Nathan Bilyeu has joined the law firm of Jackson, Murdo & Grant, P.C. Bilyeu joins the firm as a shareholder focused on business and employment law, general civil litigation, and municipal finance. He graduated with honors from the George Washington University Law School in 2013. Prior to attending law school, Bilyeu earned bachelors and masters degrees in political science from the University of Montana.

***

Abigail Abby Mertz has joined St. Peters Medical Group Broadway Family Practice. Prior to this position, Abby was a registered nurse case manager for the home health department at St. Peters Hospital. In her new position, she will work with Jessica Bailey, M.D. and Andrew Gilbert, M.D. Mertz's focus is in adult gerontology primary care and family practice. She earned her Masters of Science in Nursing (MSN), with a focus in Adult Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner (AGPCNP-BC) from Marquette University  Milwaukee, Wis. She obtained a Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) with a focus in Health Promotion and Health Behavior from Oregon State University, in Corvallis, Ore.

She is certified as an Adult Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner with the American Nurses Credentialing Center and a Certified Nurse Practitioner (CNP) with the Montana Board of Nursing.

***

Pediatric endocrinologist Alan Rice, M.D. has joined the staff at Kalispell Regional Healthcare. He joins Dr. Sharon Zemel at the Pediatric Endocrinology and Diabetes Center and specializes in the treatment of children and adolescents with conditions like diabetes, weight management, thyroid disease, bone metabolism disorders, adrenal disorders and other endocrine disorders.

After earning his medical degree from the University of Miami School of Medicine in Miami, Florida, Rice subsequently completed his residency with a focus on pediatric care at Tulane University in New Orleans. He followed this training with a fellowship in pediatric endocrinology at Yale-New Haven Hospital, part of the Yale University School of Medicine.

His home practice will be in Kalispell, however, Rice will see patients at outreach clinics in Polson, Missoula, Anaconda, Bozeman, Helena and Great Falls.

For more information, or to schedule an appointment, call 406-758-7888.

***

Montana Audubon has announced the appointment of Larry Berrin as its new executive director. An avid birder, Berrin has dedicated his career of more than 25 years to conservation science and environmental education in multiple states including Pennsylvania, Vermont and Oregon. Montana Audubon is a leader in wildlife conservation in Montana and one of the largest conservation organizations in the state.

Berrin comes to Montana Audubon from Asbury Woods Partnership in Erie, Pennsylvania. As president and CEO, he led a major acquisition of the 205-acre Asbury Woods and Nature Center, which included securing over $1.3 million in government grants, representing some of the largest acquisition grants ever awarded to Erie County. During his tenure, he helped launch a $4.5 million capital campaign with $3.6 million raised to date.

Berrin holds a Bachelor of Science in Natural Resources from the University of Maine and has completed the graduate level program in environmental education at Antioch University.

Berrin will begin his duties at Montana Audubon on Aug. 31.

***

Rich Aarstad, of East Helena, was elected recently as MEA-MFT secretary-treasurer. Aarstad is senior archivist at the Montana Historical Society. He is a member and leader of the Federation of Historical Society Workers, his local MEA-MFT affiliate.

MEA-MFT is the states largest union, representing 18,000 Montana k-12 teachers and support staff, state and local government employees, higher education faculty, Head Start, and health care employees. MEA-MFT is a merged affiliate of the National Education Association and American Federation of Teachers and is the largest affiliate of the Montana State AFL-CIO.

Awards and honors

GarageExperts of Montana recognized

GarageExperts announced that Greg Snortland with GarageExperts of Montana has been awarded a Gold Franchisee Badge for the second quarter of 2017. The award recognizes franchisees who have met certain benchmarks designed to help ensure success.

Snortland is one of six other franchisees to win the award.

GarageExperts of Montana, serves Helena, Missoula, Bozeman and beyond.

News and notes

Property damaged by wildfire may qualify for tax relief

The Montana Department of Revenue reminds Montana property owners whose businesses, homes or other property are damaged or destroyed during wildfire or other natural disaster that they can apply for property tax assistance.

A property or land owner whose home, business or office buildings, outbuildings or forest land are partially or totally destroyed by the natural disaster, making the property unsuitable for its previous use, may be eligible. Businesses equipment destroyed may also qualify.

The tax relief is prorated based on the number of days the property is unusable. The assistance is available for the current tax year.

To apply, property owners need to complete Form AB-25. Forest land owners should do Form AB-26.

Application forms are available at all Department of Revenue local offices and on the department's website at revenue.mt.gov. You can find the departments local office contacts, phone numbers and addresses for your area at revenue.mt.gov/property-assessment.

For more information, property owners can contact their local Department of Revenue office or the call center at 444-6900, or visit revenue.mt.gov.

Guidelines

The IR welcomes reports of hiring, promotions, awards, recognition, learning opportunities and other news from local companies and nonprofits. We accept press releases and photos (digital images at 300 dpi or more are preferred). Email your information to irstaff@helenair.com.

There is no charge for items appearing in the Business Briefcase. Items are run on a space-available basis, and we reserve the right to edit and use information as we see fit.

The deadline is Tuesday at noon to be considered for publication the following Sunday.
Japan is already extending financial aid to major infrastructure development projects in India, and is ready to support more ventures in various fields, a diplomat has said.

"Japan is very much ready to support India in achieving its 21st goals in various fields," said Japanese Consul General Ryoji Noda.

The two Asian economic giants have exchanges in a host of fields like culture, business and education, he said.

"To boost the relationship between the two countries, our prime ministers are meeting annually. As part of the initiative, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit India later this year."

During the meeting of prime ministers of both the countries in 2014, it was decided to double Japan's foreign direct investment (FDI) into India to Rs 2.1 lakh crore in five years' timeframe, he said.

"Japan is expected to provide Rs 1.2 lakh crore for the high speed rail project (bullet train) between Mumbai and Ahmedabad," Noda added.
Tomato_Vegetable_vegetable

Tomato prices, which have skyrocketed up to Rs 100/kg, are more likely to decline over the next fortnight as supplies from southern and other growing states are expected to improve, said a senior ICAR official.

Retail tomato prices have gone through the roof for more than a month now in most parts of the country and are still ruling high up to 100 per kg, as per the data maintained by the consumer affairs ministry.

Tomato prices in metros were ruling at Rs 95/kg in Kolkata, Rs 92/kg in Delhi, Rs 80/kg in Mumbai and Rs 55/kg in Chennai on June 29, as per the ministry data.

In other centres, tomato was sold at Rs 95/kg in Lucknow, Rs 90/kg in Bhopal and Thiruananthapuram, Rs 65/kg in Ahmedabad, Rs 60/kg in Jaipur, Rs 60/kg in Patna and Rs 55/kg in Hyderabad in the said period, the data showed.

The rates in producing centres have also gone up sharply. For instance, tomato is being sold at Rs 83/kg in Shimla and Rs 75/kg in Bengaluru.

The prices vary depending on the variety and quality.

In the year-ago period too, tomato rates had gone up to Rs 65/kg but it had not hit this high.

"As per personal assessment, I expect prices to come down in the next 15 days. Supplies from southern states and other growing areas are likely to improve," Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) Deputy Director General (Horticultural Science) A K Singh told PTI.

As rains recede, the supplies from southern states like Andhra Pradesh, Telangana and even Maharashtra will improve, that will ease pressure on prices, he said.

Singh said that heavy rains in Madhya Pradesh and Rajashtan and other growing states have caused some damage to the crop. Even the crop that is harvested has not been able to reach market on time due to transportation woes.

That apart, the cost of transporting the produce to the main mandis has gone up as trucks are taking more than the normal time due to rains and floods, he added.

The Delhi-based Tomato Merchant Association (of Azadpur mandi) Ashok Kaushik said transportation cost has gone up due to more time involved in getting the produce in rainy season. However, the supplies are expected to improve in next 2 weeks.

"We have talked to traders in Karnataka, Andhra and Maharashtra. Harvesting is in progress and we hope rains to recede and trucks reach on time," he said.

The supplies have been hit badly in the national capital as the crop in neighbouring states has been damaged due to heavy rains followed by heat.

The supplies from Haryana have stopped as the harvesting in the state has been completed early and the current arrival in the market is from Shimla, Himachal Pradesh, he said.

While the government has pegged the country's total tomato output to be higher by 15 per cent to 187 lakh tonnes in the 2016-17 crop year (July- June), but it is more likely that the output figures could be revised after assessing the current damage.
IPO

Realty major Lodha Developers is reviving its plans for an initial public offer (IPO) and will approach market regulator Sebi in the next 6-9 months with a draft prospectus, a top company official said.

The Mumbai-based company had filed draft red herring prospectus (DRHP) with Sebi in September 2009 to raise about Rs 2,800 crore. The company got the Sebi nod in January 2010, but later shelved its plan to launch the IPO due to bad market conditions post the global financial crisis.

"We are aiming for listing in calendar year 2018 and shall approach Sebi in the next 6-9 months," Lodha Group Managing Director Abhishek Lodha told PTI.

On funds to be raised through the IPO, he said it is too early to comment on the issue.

Lodha Group has about 30 real estate projects in London, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Pune and Hyderabad covering over 40 million sq ft of area. It has a land bank of 350 million sq ft for future development.

The group achieved a sales bookings of about Rs 8,500 crore last fiscal from both domestic market and London despite slowdown in the real estate market.

Earlier this month, Lodha had said it has achieved record sales bookings and collection of Rs 2,300 crore and Rs 2,600 crore, respectively, in the first quarter of 2017-18 fiscal.

The company launched two projects in the first quarter and plans to have 8-10 projects more by March next.

Lodha Developers invested Rs 1,100 crore on construction of ongoing projects during April-June and will invest over Rs 3,000 crore in the next three quarters.

The company reduced debt by Rs 400 crore during April- June period to Rs 14,500 crore for India business and targets to cut it further. Separately, the group has a debt of 300 million pounds.

In the UK property market, Lodha Group made an entry in 2013 with the acquisition of two prime sites in central London for an investment of about 400 million pounds.

The Lincoln Square project was launched last year and the second project No 1 Grosvenor Square, located in the heart of Mayfair, was launched last month.

Lodha UK is eyeing a sales revenue of 1.5 billion pounds (over Rs 12,000 crore) in the next three years from these two ongoing housing projects in central London.
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The initial public offering of Security and Intelligence Services (India) is set to open for subscription on July 31 and will close on August 2.

The issue comprises of fresh issue, and offer for sale by promoter group as well as investors.

Bids can be made for minimum 18 equity shares and in multiples of 18 shares, thereafter. The equity shares are proposed to be listed on BSE and National Stock Exchange.

SIS has a diverse portfolio of business support services which includes security services, cash logistics services and facility management services.

Axis Capital, ICICI Securities, IIFL Holdings, Kotak Mahindra Capital Company were global coordinators and book running lead managers, while SBI Capital Markets, IDBI Capital Markets are merchant bankers to the issue.

Here are 10 factors that you should know before subscribing the issue:-

About the Issue

Private security and facility management services provider Security and Intelligence Services has fixed a price band at Rs 805 to Rs 815 per share for the issue.

It aims to raise Rs 774.45 crore at lower end of price band and Rs 779.58 crore at higher end of price band.

The IPO comprises of fresh issue of shares worth Rs 362.25 crore and an offer for sale of upto 51,20,619 shares by existing shareholders.

Investors, who will sell shares, are Theano Private Limited and AAJV Investment Trust while promoters are Ravindra Kishore Sinha and Rituraj Kishore Sinha. There are 45 other selling shareholders who will also sell shares.

Objects of the Issue

Security and Intelligence Services (SIS) will receive fresh issue proceeds while offer for sale money will go to selling shareholders.

The funds raised through fresh issue would be used for repayment & pre-payment of a portion of certain outstanding indebtedness availed by company (about Rs 200 crore); funding working capital requirements (Rs 60 crore); and general corporate purposes.

Company Profile

SIS is the second largest security services provider in India in terms of revenue, as of March 2016. It provides a comprehensive range of security services ranging from providing trained security personnel for general guarding to specialised security roles in India and Australia.

It also provides cash logistics services (including transportation of bank notes and ATM related services), and electronic security services and home alarm monitoring and response services.

Other than security services, the company also provides facility management services including cleaning, janitorial services, electricians etc.

Its customers for private security and facility management services include private sector business entities operating in industries ranging from manufacturing and defense to mining, IT/ITeS, airports and aviation.

As of April 2017, it has branch network of 251 branches in 124 cities and towns in India. In Australia, it operates in each of the eight states and employed 5,754 personnel servicing 245 customers.

Brands - SIS offers private security and facility management services utilising the following brands and trademarks, including trademarks licensed from joint venture partners and licensors:-

Strategic Deals

In March 2008, SIS entered into an exclusive license agreement with ServiceMaster for the 'ServiceMaster Clean' brand, and associated proprietary processes, operating materials and knowhow in order to develop facility management business in India.

In August 2016, acquired 78.72 percent stake in Dusters Total Solutions Services Private Limited (one of the largest facility management services providers), with the agreement to increase its shareholding to 100 percent over the next three years.

It has entered into joint ventures with affiliates of Prosegur Compania de Seguridad, SA (a global player in cash management and alarm monitoring); and an affiliate of Terminix International Company, LP (a multinational provider of termite and pest control services).

In Australia, it has wholly-owned subsidiary MSS Security Pty Limited that provides security services. It entered in Australia by acquiring Chubb Security's security services business in August 2008.

In June 2017, SIS through its subsidiary SIS Australia Group Pty Ltd signed definitive agreements to increase voting rights in Southern Cross Protection Pty Ltd (SXP) from 10 percent to 51 percent, with effect from July 1, 2017.

With effect from July 2017, it, through 100 percent subsidiary, SIS Australia Group, acquired an additional 41 percent of the voting rights in SXP. As a result, SXP has become one of its subsidiaries.

Effective July 2017, SIS, through its subsidiary, SIS Australia Group Pty Ltd, acquired 51 percent equity for Rs 88.36 crore in Andwills Pty, the holding company of Southern Cross Protection Pty Limited (SXP). As per share purchase agreement, the company has a right to increase its shareholding in Andwills to 100 percent after three years.

Andwills is the holder of 85 percent of the equity share capital in SX Protective.

Strategy

SIS aims to grow its businesses across customer segments; use and upgrade technology to improve productivity and customer satisfaction; leverage existing branch infrastructure to achieve operational synergies; and to explore inorganic growth through strategic acquisitions.

While it renders security and facility management services at 11,869 customer premises in India, as of April 2017, the company believes that there is significant opportunity to further increase the services offered to existing customers.

Management

Promoters, Ravindra Kishore Sinha and his son Rituraj Kishore Sinha, have over three decades and one decade of experience, respectively, in operating this business. Ravindra's wife Rita Kishore Sinha is also a director on company's board.

Ravindra Kishore Sinha has over 30 years of experience in fields which company operate. He is a Member of Parliament (Rajya Sabha) from Bihar while his son has over 14 years of experience.

Company currently has 12 Directors on its board, including six independent directors:-

Management Organisation Structure

Financials

The company clocked revenues of Rs 4,600 crore in financial year 2016-17 employing 1.54 lakh people.

Total revenue grew at a CAGR of 14.56 percent to Rs 4,577.122 crore for fiscal year 2017 from Rs 2,657.7 crore for fiscal year 2013.

Revenue from operations for fiscal year 2017 from security services, cash logistics, electronic security and facility management businesses (including revenues from pest-control services) were, Rs 3,982 crore, Rs 165.13 crore, Rs 6.93 crore and Rs 394.98 crore, respectively.

EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation) has grown to Rs 223.38 crore for FY17 from Rs 125.51 crore for FY13.

Revenue from operations from security services business in India grew at a CAGR of 29.67 percent and revenue from operations from security services business in Australia grew at a CAGR of 7.7 percent in Australian dollar terms in FY13 and FY17.

Shareholding Pattern

Top 10 shareholders as on the date of this Red Herring Prospectus are as follows:

* 37,10,570 equity shares (comprising of 36,37,098 equity shares by Theano and 73,472 equity shares by AAJV) are proposed to be transferred to promoters (i.e. 18,55,285 equity shares to Ravindra Kishore Sinha and 18,55,285 equity shares to Rituraj Kishore Sinha) by the investor selling shareholders pursuant to the second amendment agreement and the letter amendment, as per company's prospectus.

Dividend Policy

In FY17, the company has not paid any dividend. The dividends declared by company in each of the fiscal years 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016 are given below:

Risks

Brokerage houses listed out some risks, which are:-

> Company is subject to several labour legislations and regulations governing welfare, benefits and training.

> Company recently acquired Andwills Pty Ltd and Dusters Total Solutions Services Private Limited. Failure to integrate the units remains the key risk.

> Political exposure of promoters

> Competition from the unorganised sector

> SIS is exposed to certain operational risk as it provide private security to sensitive sectors

> Less diversified business as significant portion of total revenue comes from security services
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By Dinesh Rohira

Despite a sluggish trade toward the weekend session, Nifty50 managed to hold above a mounting 10K mark indicating a strong sentiment in the market going forward.

On the weekly basis, the Nifty50 touched an all-time-high at about 10,110 mark but failed to cohere at that level.

However, Nifty breached its three-month ascending price channel on the daily chart, indicating another breakout if it manages to decisively breach above 10,160 mark to extend up to 10,350 level.

On the weekly chart, Nifty formed a bearish shooting star pattern, which indicates a weak conviction at the current level and is expected to witness a short-term reversal in the uptrend.

On the Moving Average Analysis, the EMA indicates an immediate support level at 9,950 and 9,920, while the resistance level will be tested at 10,090 & 10,110 level.

Regardless of closing with a negative bias in Fridays trade, which indicates a short-term consolidation at the sphere, the long trajectory is inclined towards to uptrend regime if it manages to break out through 10,110 level on a closing basis to trade above 10,350 mark.

Here is a list of top five stocks which can give up to 10 percent return in short term:

V-Guard Industries Ltd: BUY | Target Rs. 213 | Stop-loss Rs180 |Upside 10 percent

V-Guard took a reversal trend after persisting at consolidation phase decisively trade on positive trajectory thereon and made high of 197 this week.

The stock formed a bullish price pattern on the daily chart which suggests that an upward movement in the upcoming sessions, as price started to trade above its initial closing level.

The RSI of stock stood on positive cues at 67.6 which suggests a price trading a resistance level coupled with strong buying sentiment at this level.

Similarly, the crossover of MACD at 1.8 of stock from its signal line is giving a strong bullish outlook. On the basis moving average, the stock is currently trading above its 50-days SMA indicating a positive sentiment.

The stock will witness immediate support at 183 level while the upper circuit will test at 201 level. The breakout from this level will build next bull rally in next upcoming session to trade at 210-220 mark.

We have a BUY recommendation for V-Guard which is currently trading at 193.10

Deepak Fertilizers & Petrochemicals: BUY| Target Rs389 | Stop-loss Rs 330| Upside 10 percent

Deepak Fertilizer gained about 14 percent on the weekly basis and closed with positive trajectory on the backdrop of volume growth witnessed during Wednesdays session.

The stock traded on sideways direction despite gaining a volume in the earlier trading period but managed to decisively breach its resistance level on a closing basis.

The stock formed bullish chart pattern indicating uptrend momentum after registering a sharp rally which is expected to prolong given the volume support.

The RSI of stock stood at 70, which indicates a positive sentiment towards price coupled with a bullish crossover of MACD at 15.5 from Signal Line at 9.8.

Further, the EMA has strong support for the uptrend movement with next immediate support level seen at 337, while the upper resistance will be tested at 368 level. The breakout from this level is expected to catch hold of its peak at 369 level.

We have a BUY recommendation for Deepak Fertilizer which is currently trading at Rs. 355.75

Vedanta Ltd: BUY| Target Rs290| Stop loss Rs. 260|Upside: - 6 percent

After consolidating at lower regime towards 217 in the early period, the stock gained an upward reversal movement which contributed the broader momentum in price and volume in current trading session to trade on positive trajectory although it witnessed correction at a certain level.

On weekly basis, the stock gained almost 2 per cent despite closing on a negative bias as it failed to sustain early gain.

Technically, Vedanta is at uptrend regime with RSI at 62 suggesting a strong buying sentiment at current price band coupled with MACD trading above its Signal Line which supports the bullish regime.

Further, the moving average analysis suggests a strong support for upward movement as price started to trade above its 50-day EMA. The stock will witness major support level at Rs265 while the resistance level will be tested at Rs285.

The possibility of breakout remains inclined towards uptrend which supports the next leg of the trend.

We have a BUY recommendation for Vedanta which is currently trading at Rs. 274.60

Larsen & Toubro Ltd: BUY| Target Rs1220| Stop loss Rs1130|Upside: - 5 percent

Ahead of earnings disclosure on Fridays trade, a sell off pressure during the trading session retreated the price towards 1159.10 despite gaining a momentum on the previous session through volume uptick.

The stock continued on positive trajectory almost throughout the trading session after consolidating at a lower level during the earlier month.

On the daily chart, it is at the edge of forming a Cup & Handle pattern, which signifies a possibility of a major breakout from 1201 level which is an upper base.

The RSI at 59.7 indicates a price trading at favorable buy regime, while the crossover of MACD at 7.32 from its Signal Line at 5.1 indicating bullish regime in the upcoming session.

Based on EMA, the stock will witness a major support level at 1071, while the resistance level will be tested at 1193. The possibility breakout upon pattern confirmation is expected to lift the price towards 1210 level.

We have a BUY recommendation for L&T Ltd. which is currently trading at Rs. 1159.10

Dabur India Ltd: BUY| Target Rs. 325 | Stop-loss Rs295 |Upside: - 5 percent

Regardless of trading on consolidation mode over a month, the Dabur India gained its momentum after making low at Rs256 to register a 52-weeks high at a Rs313 level to move on uptrend regime.

Although the stock witnessed a marginal correction it gained about 4 per cent on weekly basis. On the daily chart, the stock formed like a bullish engulfing pattern which indicates an uptrend movement to prevail over a timeframe.

The technical outlook for stock suggests a strong upward trend with RSI at 70, indicating a strong buy regime, while the MACD at 4.7 shows a crossover just happened from its Signal-Line at 4.5 giving a bullish rally in coming session.

According to exponential moving average analysis, it indicates a strong uptrend with a major support level at Rs302, Rs290 with upper resistance level at Rs320.

We have a BUY recommendation for Dabur India Ltd which is currently trading at Rs. 310
manufacturer of Titanium alloys in India.

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With an aim to boost domestic steel consumption, state-run Sail has decided to hold a series of workshops in rural areas to create awareness among various stakeholders about use of quality steel products in construction activities, according to the company.

At the first of the 100 proposed workshops held last week in Haryana's Rewari, Sail officials urged masons and steel dealers to do quality check to avoid use of low-grade steel in building houses.

The country's largest steel maker Steel Authority of India (Sail) also encouraged elected representatives of villages such as gram pradhans and members of panchayats to raise awareness among villagers about the benefits of using steel in construction of homes.

"This effort is in line with the government's push for increasing per capita steel consumption in the country and the role of rural India will play a vital role in increasing the domestic consumption of steel," Rakesh Kumar Singhal, executive director (corporate affairs) Sail, told PTI.

"We have decided to hold 100 workshops in our four regions. After Rewari, the second conference of the northern region will be held in Badlapur, near Jaunpur, in Uttar Pradesh today. Two workshops will be held every month in all of the four regions," he said.

The rural awareness workshop like this will help in increasing production and consumption of steel in the country and also pave the way for rapid growth and modernisation, the company said.

India, the world's third largest steel producer, produced 100 million tonnes (MT) of crude steel in 2016 and is looking to overtake Japan to claim the second spot.

In this regard, the government is taking lots of measures to treble the steel output to 300 million tonnes (MT) and also increase finished steel per capita consumption of 158 kg by 2030-31, as against the current 61 kg.
Online interactive learning solutions platform Talentedge is looking to foray into the Middle East and South Asia, and is targeting Rs 100 crore revenues by the end of this fiscal, a top company executive said.

"Talentedge is operationally profitable as of 2017, and we are targeting revenues of Rs 100 crore by the end of this fiscal," Aditya Malik, CEO and MD of Talentedge told PTI here.

The company is looking to expand to the Middle East and South Asia, he added.

"We are targeting the Indian diaspora in these regions, and have also been getting enquiries from many of these places," he added.

He said the company has been seeing 50-70 per cent growth year-on-year since 2012.

Talentedge operates in Gurgaon, Mumbai, Delhi, Bengaluru and Pune with a team of 200 employees. The startup has tied up with institutes like XLRI Jamshedpur, IIT Roorkee, IIFT New Delhi, IIM Kozhikode, MICA and SMU for courses.

To accelerate its growth, the company is actively scouting for acquisitions, he added.

"We are looking at companies that are a strategic fit, which will help growth, and also with domain-based niche expertise," Malik said.

At any given point of time, the platform has about 10,000 people on its network.

Talentedge was acquired by Gurgaon-based private equity player Lumis Partners in 2012.
Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani

Stepping up attack on Gujarat Congress for shifting its MLAs to Bengaluru amid flood-like situation in the state, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani alleged the decision was taken by party leader Ahmed Patel out of his "greed" to win the Rajya Sabha seat.

Rupani alleged that just like Sonia Gandhi's affection for his son Rahul Gandhi sank the Congress in the country, Patel's "greed and desperation" to save his Rajya Sabha seat will eventually sink the party in Gujarat.

"Sonia Gandhi's affection for her son has drowned the Congress in the entire country. Though the citizens rejected Rahul Gandhi's leadership, Sonia's 'putra moh' sank Congress. Similarly, Ahmed Patel's greed to save his Rajya Sabha seat here will sink Gujarat Congress," he said.

The chief minister today reached the flood-affected Banaskantha district.

After interacting with the locals in Kankrej taluka and other affected regions, Rupani decided to stay in Banaskantha and Patan for the next five days to oversee the relief operations, a government release said.

According to Rupani, the Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other affected regions should have stayed with the people in this difficult time.

"Out of his greed to win the Rajya Sabha poll, he sent 40 Congress MLAs to Bengaluru. Some of them belonged to those districts which are badly hit by flood. Patel forced them to leave their constituencies, as he was only concerned about his Rajya Sabha seat," the chief minister alleged.

"The people of Gujarat are watching this. I believe that the Gujarat Congress will sink only because of Ahmed Patel," he said.

The Congress has re-nominated Patel, the political secretary to party chief Sonia Gandhi, to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.

Meanwhile, Patel along with state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and former party chief Siddharth Patel also visited the flood-hit areas in Banaskantha today and interacted with the locals to understand their problems, a party release said.

Talking to mediapersons in Palanpur, Patel refuted Rupani's allegation that leaving Gujarat and moving to Bengaluru shows the "insensitive approach" of the Congress MLAs, at a time when the state is facing flood-like situation.

He alleged that Congress MLAs from Banaskantha and other flood-affected regions were forced to leave the state by the BJP-led state government.

"The allegations against our MLAs are baseless. Before leaving, they started relief camps and also gave instructions to local workers. They are still keeping a close watch on the relief operations from Bengaluru. Our MLAs took all possible steps to help the people," Patel said.

"Our MLAs were forced to leave Gujarat as they and their family members were being tortured by the state government," he alleged.

"Even now, many Congress workers and leaders are actively involved in helping people. We are also here to help people," he said.

Patel exuded confidence of winning the Rajya Sabha election, to be held on August 8.

"I am totally confident of winning the poll. Not just those (who are in Bengaluru), some other MLAs are also in my support and I have full trust in them," he said.

Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel yesterday said that at the time when people of north Gujarat are facing problems due to excessive rains, the entire Congress has gone to Bengaluru to enjoy.

The Congress earlier sent 40 of its legislators to a resort outside Bengaluru to prevent desertions from its ranks ahead of the crucial Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat.

In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, the strength of the Congress has gone down to 51 from 57 after six of its MLAs tendered their resignations, casting a shadow on the fate of Patel in the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls.

Of the total 11 RS members from the state, the term of three--Smriti Irani and Dilipbhai Pandya (both BJP) and Ahmed Patel--is ending on August 18.
Poster of film Indu Sarkar

Renowned filmmaker Madhur Bhandarkar organised a special screening of his latest movie 'Indu Sarkar' with some ministers and other politicians gracing the occasion and praising it.

Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju, MP Amar Singh and Delhi BJP leader Satish Upadhyay were among those who attended the special screening in the Films Division Auditorium last evening.

"After 'Pink' I saw #InduSarkar on an invitation. Tempted to rate it high but I'm told a politician has reserved the right of reviewing a film," tweeted Rijiju after watching the movie.

In another tweet, he said, "What a film! Purely from the artistic point of view #InduSarkar is a masterpiece. I don't understand why Congress Party is threatening?"

Apparently commenting on the opposition to the film by the Congress, he added, "Emergency was a reality, #InduSarkar is a film. No need to politicize. 1975-77 remains the darkest period of Independent India."(sic)

Amar Singh also tweeted, "Saw #InduSarkar movie with @imbhandarkar wonderful amazing and touching performance of @IamKirtiKulhari playing Indu is more real than the reel."

The film, which depicts the Emergency period under the then Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, is being vehemently opposed by the Congress.

Bhandarkar has questioned the Congress opposition, saying he has not mentioned the name of any politician in the movie.

"Kudos @imbhandarkar 4 highlighting horrors of emergency in #InduSarkar so vividly. A mst watch performance especialy for d award wapsi gang," (sic) tweeted Upadhyay, former president of Delhi BJP.

Bhandarkar has earlier made a number of hit movies like 'Chandni Bar' which had won the National Film Award for Best Film on Social Issues.

He has also received the National Film Awards for the Best Feature Film and Best Director for 'Page 3' and 'Traffic Signal', respectively. 'Fashion' also was a major hit movie.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday said the People's Liberation Army is capable of vanquishing "all invading enemies" and praised its combat readiness as he reviewed a massive military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the world's largest armed force.

Dressed in camouflage, Xi inspected 12,000 troops in various formations from an open-top military jeep at the parade held in Zhurihe -- Asia's largest military training centre in the middle of a desert in Inner Mongolia.

Over 100 fighter jets flew overhead and almost 600 types of weaponry were on display for the occasion  nearly half of which were making their debut in public, according to the Chinese Defence Ministry.

In his address to the soldiers, Xi said the PLA should strictly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China and "march to wherever the Party points to."

"I firmly believe that our gallant military has both confidence and ability to defeat all invading enemies," said Xi, who heads the Central Military Commission, which holds the overall command of the PLA - the world's largest army.

While there was no reference in his speech to over a month-long India-China military standoff at Doklam in the Sikkim section, his remarks came in the midst of shrill official media campaign and assertions by the Foreign and Defence Ministries here accusing Indian troops of trespassing into Chinese territory at Doklam.

The Chinese Defence Ministry spokesman said Zhurihe was selected to highlight the PLA's combat readiness, but he emphasised that war-zone trainings had been long scheduled.

"They have nothing to do with the current situation in the region," Colonel Ren Guoqiang said in a statement.

Training in "realistic conditions" taken by thousands of Chinese troops before the massive parade is "not related to the country's neighbourhood situation"," Ren said, but did not elaborate what was meant by "neighbourhood situation".

Clad in camouflage military suit, 64-year-old Xi said the Chinese military has the confidence and ability to safeguard, national sovereignty, security and development interests.

"Our military has the confidence and ability to write a new chapter in building of strong military and make new contributions to towards realisation of the China dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and safeguarding world peace," Xi said in his about 10-minute address - an event carried live on state television and radio.

The military parade was the biggest since 2015 in which army and air force displayed some of the most modern weapons including a new tank which reportedly held exercises in the high-altitude along the Indian border.

The other weapons included long range nuclear and conventional missiles, the new J-15 - the new aircraft based carrier.

In his address, Xi asked the military to further improve its combativeness and modernise the national defence and armed forces. The Chinese military has the worlds second largest defence budget of USD 152 billion next to the US military.

The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927 when the ruling 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.

"Officers and soldiers, you must unswervingly stick to the fundamental principle and system of the Party's absolute leadership over the army, always listen to and follow the Party's orders, and march to wherever the Party points to," said Xi, the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

PLA officers and soldiers should firmly adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the people wholeheartedly, and always stand together with the people, Xi said.

He also said China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of PLA into a world-class military force.

Enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army, he said.

"The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," said Xi, who is expected to get a second five-year term at the key meeting of the CPC later this year.

"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people's military more than any other time in history," he said.

He urged the PLA to fully implement the CPC's thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPC's target on strengthening the PLA under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.

About 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment were on display.

Dongfeng missiles which include short, long and medium rage of rockets, a variety of armoury including light tanks, drones were also deployed.

Helicopter borne troops demonstrated in quick landing and taking combat positions.

Xi Jinping presided over the military parade, hours after US President Donald Trump renewed his criticism over Beijing's failure to rein in North Korea.

North Korea tested an intercontinental ballistic missile on last Friday which it claims could reach all of the US.

President Trump has been piling pressure on China, Pyongyang's only major ally that provides an economic lifeline to the reclusive regime, to use its leverage to make North Korea halt its nuclear and missile programs.



I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...

 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

"I am very disappointed in China," Trump had said in a tweet yesterday, adding that Beijing could have easily solved the problem posed by North Korea.



...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

China is also concerned by the tense situation in the Korea Peninsula and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by US in South Korea to counter threats from North Korea.
The state Department of Environmental Quality has approved exploratory drilling in a controversial gold-mining project in Emigrant Gulch, just north of Yellowstone Park.

Lucky Minerals, a Canadian company, has been interested in gold mining around Paradise Valley for several years. The company has bought up old claims and staked new ones covering a total of more than 2,500 acres. It says the acreage holds "a large-scale porphyry copper-gold-molybdenum system that could potentially host a multi-million-ounce gold deposit."

DEQ Director Tom Livers said Friday that Lucky Minerals had actually agreed to mitigations associated with the exploration that were above and beyond what the DEQ had the statutory authority to require.

"There are things we can require under the Metal Mines Act and other things we can't," he said. "But once further mitigations are agreed to, we can enforce them."

One of the things the company agreed to was to use Old Cemetery Road rather than driving trucks and equipment past Chico Hot Springs.

Also, the company agreed to monitoring water quality on Emigrant Creek. Lucky Minerals must also come up with a garbage-disposal plan to minimize impacts on wildlife.

Livers stressed that the approval is for exploratory drilling only and any expansion of mining activities would require a far more comprehensive environmental review and permitting process.

"The reality is we're required by law to consider only what's in front of us," he said. "We can't consider the impacts of an expanded operation in granting this approval. But any further work would require a separate application and a separate environmental review."

Local opposition to the project has been fierce.

Livingston, Emigrant, and Pray residents have vociferously objected to the project, saying a big mine in the area would risk environmental disaster at the gates of America's most treasured national park and also would have a negative effect on tourism, the lifeblood of the regional economy.

Colin Davis, owner of Chico Hot Springs, is leading the Yellowstone Gateway Business Coalition, a group of 360 businesses and landowners opposed to mining on the edge of Yellowstone.

"We're pro-private property rights and not anti-mining at all," Davis says. "We're against industrial-scale gold mining in the Paradise Valley."

Last year local writers and editors combined forces on a book, "Unearthing Paradise," encouraging political action to block gold mining near the park.

U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, in April introduced legislation, the Yellowstone Gateway Protection Act, to permanently halt mining on federal land surrounding Paradise Valley. At the time, Tester said with more people visiting national parks each year and the reliance of area businesses on the health of the environment, the legislation was needed to protect current and future generations.

The Lucky Minerals claims are partly on private land and partly on public land, but the buffer zones in federal land that would be withdrawn from mining under the bill would make industrial-scale mining all but impossible on the site.

While U.S. Sen. Steve Daines, R-Montana, has voiced support for protecting the area around the park, he has stopped short of supporting the bill Tester introduced. He is in a position, as a majority member of the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, to help push the bill forward.

"We need the help of our entire delegation," Davis said. "This isn't Jon Tester's bill, this is Montana's bill. Its language is pretty straightforward."

Davis added that the DEQ approval "points out the urgency for our congressional delegation to unify and act together to shepherd the Protection Act through."

On Friday, Tester said, "It makes no sense to mine at the headwaters of the Yellowstone River and on the doorstep of our nation's first national park. These mines will do irreversible damage to Montana's outdoor economy and the jobs it supports."

A Daines spokesman said Friday evening, "Sen. Daines opposes mining in this area, but he is still weighing the best way to achieve the withdrawal."

Daines said after a committee hearing on the bill, "I am committed to continue to work with Senator Tester and local stakeholders on this important legislation. ... It is important to me that, in any major land decision like this one, that the local community stands firmly behind it. The county commissioners, the other local elected officials, local businesses, and outdoor businesses like the fly-fishing industry support the withdrawal. I can say with confidence that, after the meetings I have had, that most of the community does stand with this mineral withdrawal."

DEQ will set a bonding amount for the exploratory work, which must be paid in cash before that work can begin.

"That's one hurdle done," Lucky vice president Shaun Dykes told The Bozeman Chronicle Thursday. Efforts to reach Dykes Friday were unsuccessful.

On its website, the company says that 10 "highly mineralized breccia-pipes and two porphyry targets exist within the company's property boundary." Breccia pipes are geological formations that can be hosts for metal ore deposits. Porphyry deposits often enclose copper, gold, and molybdenum.

A second proposed mine near Jardine, closer to the park's north entrance, has been stalled after DEQ twice rejected applications from a Spokane company, citing multiple deficiencies in its exploration plans.
Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif looks out the window of his plane after attending a ceremony to inaugurate the M9 motorway between Karachi and Hyderabad, Pakistan February 3, 2017. REUTERS/Caren Firouz - RTX2ZI70

Pakistan's ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif today vacated the official residence and shifted to the hill resort of Murree along with his family, days after he was disqualified by the Supreme Court

A five-member bench of the Supreme Court on Friday disqualified 67-year-old Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the embattled leader out of office.

Sharif left the PM House with his wife Kulsum Nawaz, daughter Maryam Nawaz and his son-in-law Captain (Retd) Safdar and shifted to his private residence in the hill resort of Murree near Islamabad.

He met the staff before leaving. The luggage of the former first family was already shifted, local media reports said.

Ousted finance minister and Sharif confidante Ishaq Dar also left for Murree with the Sharif family.

The PM House, nestled in the foothills of Margalla Hills overlooking the capital Islamabad, would be renovated for the new occupant, officials said.

It is not known for how long Sharif would stay in Murree, a place he likes a lot and has been visiting frequently since he was the chief minister of Punjab.

Sharif stepped down after the Supreme Court disqualified him for failing to declare "receivable" salary from a UAE-based company of his son in his 2013 nomination paper. The court termed the salary which was not paid to Sharif as an "asset".

Senior PML-N leader and former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will run the PML-N government as interim prime minister of Pakistan until Shehbaz Sharif gets set to succeed his brother Nawaz Sharif as the Pakistan prime minister.
US President Donald Trump has accused China of doing nothing on North Korea and said he was "very disappointed" with Beijing, a day after Pyongyang launched an intercontinental ballistic missile test.

Trump also said he will no longer allow North Korea to continue with its belligerent behaviour.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk," Trump said in two tweets yesterday.

On Friday, North Korea fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile that experts say has the potential to reach the US mainland.

"We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!" said the US President, expressing his deep disappointment over Chinese inaction while North Korea continues with its ballistic missile tests and going ahead with its nuclear weapons programme.

Meanwhile, in response to North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear programmes, two US Air Force B-1B bombers under the command of US Pacific Air Forces, joined their counterparts from South Korea and Japanese air forces in a sequenced bilateral missions July 29.

This mission is in direct response to North Korea's escalatory launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles on July 3 and July 28, the US Pacific Command said.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said Gen Terrence J O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander.

"Diplomacy remains the lead; however, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing," he said.

After taking off from Andersen Air Force Base, Guam, the B-1s flew to Japanese airspace, where they were joined by two Koku Jieitai (Japan Air Self Defence Force) F-2 fighter jets.

The B-1s then flew over the Korean Peninsula where they were joined by four Republic of Korea Air Force F-15 fighter jets.

The B-1s then performed a low-pass over Osan Air Base, South Korea, before leaving South Korean airspace and returning to Guam.

Throughout the approximately 10-hour mission, the aircrews practiced intercept and formation training, enabling them to improve their combined capabilities and tactical skills, while also strengthening the long standing military- to-military relationships in the Indo-Asia-Pacific region, a media release said.

US Pacific Command maintains flexible bomber and fighter capabilities in the Indo-Asia-Pacific theater, retaining the ability to quickly respond to any regional threat in order to defend the US homeland and in support of our allies, it said.
Rabbis installation at Keneseth Israel will get a boost of student creativity
July 30, 2017

Venezuela Coup "Could Blow Up Huge In Many Nations Of The Region"

by Debs is Dead

lifted from a comment

I see somebody has been blathering about the lack of 'democracy' in Venezuela as if it was the Chavezists who were to blame.

The president was elected by the people in a fair election and Chavezists also won the majority in the parliament/constituent assembly, the moment that happened the elitists financed opposition coups pushed out propaganda that was no more than libelous lies and began a programe of overt subversion.

They have continued this for the last 19 years and the irony is of course that if they hadn't done so and instead conducted themselves democratically they may have had a look in at government or coalition by now, but they chose what they thought was the easy way to gutting Venezuela's economy.

The result of the corporate capitalists activities has been the same as it always is when they push illegal acts of insurrection to try and force a reactive oppression - people lose and get hurt.

It is interesting to note that when the coalitions of street kids angry at everything and the sons and daughters of the once protected bourgeoisie hit the streets in their tiny bands to throw rocks and Molotov cocktails the police are very muted in their response - police in Venezuela don't normally carry sidearms but the riot police carry weapons that can only fire anti riot projectiles that are designed to hurt but not main or kill, they also have plastic shields but their actions have been much less violent than those of say the amerikan police - especially when you consider that more than 20 police have been killed in these riots.

I didn't get this info from RT news or any other oppositional news service I got it from the BBC who were desperate to find a shock horror story. They found a kid who had been arrested for throwing bricks at the police and he said that while he was locked up his interrogators demanded that he tell them the leadership or they would rape him "Did you tell them?" says Mr Beeb, "No" says the kid "so did they rape you?" asks Mr Beeb "NO but one of my cellmates had a black eye!" the kid responds.

Yeah right horrible oppression by those commies eh! The fact the beeb were in there trying on this story and running it on englander TV last night suggests that b may be correct when he says amerika is about to try and kick something off. The shots of protesters were all filmed up close - no wide views lest viewers see how few people were protesting, the entire piece could be regarded as a farce except that there is an undercurrent of amerikan violence.

As for the military - yes Cubans were brought in to train the army at the start of the Bolivaran revolution because the army was recruited from the ordinary people - not the usual younger sons of the bourgeoisie so outsiders were needed to train them. Some Cubans liked it so much they elected to stay on but the vast majority of Venezuelan military are local and if they seriously wanted to stage a coup it would be trivial to round up Cubans in a night and go in hard, but the military don't have any such intention, they are loyal to the head of state they swore an oath to.

I really hope that Trump and co don't decide that Venezuela be the victim of his need to divert attention away from his own travails - the result will be much worse even than the bloodthirsty contras of Nicaragua. The war will be long and bloody and it is highly doubtful that amerika could win without terrible violence. Even though the current governments in Central and South America are more 'sympathetic' to amerikan imperialism than those of a decade ago, it is highly unlikely that many if any will openly assist amerika because their own populations will go ape-shit if they do.

This (amerikan interference) could blow up huge and destroy the fragile agreements in place in many nations of the region.

For what? So that rich arse-holes can get richer?

Posted by b on July 30, 2017 at 10:39 UTC | Permalink

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I am hearing within the Christian community some scandalized comments to the effect that President Trump cannot be a Christian because he has expressed racist thoughts and bullies people. Others are strongly supporting Trump because of his political stance on things like pro-life, eliminating government regulations that are stifling businesses, building the wall to keep out illegal immigrants, etc. So IS Trump a Christian? He claims that he is.

The Bible defines a Christian as one who believes that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who came to earth to die for the sins of mankind and then rose again from the dead. The true believer commits his life to following Jesus and his teachings.

Do all who believe in Jesus go on to live perfect, holy lives immediately after they choose to follow him? No! We do not expect it from others who come to know Christ. We expect that there will be a lifetime of learning that follows conversion. Not one of us will "get it" immediately. Those who have problems with drugs or alcohol, for instance, may take years to overcome their addictions -- or, conversely, they could be miraculously delivered from the addiction. God does different things with different people for various reasons.

Within the Christian community there is a rumor that Donald Trump's commitment to Jesus has been recent. So I want to ask those who doubt Trump's Christianity this: Are you applying a standard of behavior to Trump that you would not ordinarily apply to a new Christian? Or are you going to show him grace and pray for God to give him wisdom, as you would for any other new believer?

I, for one, plan to reserve judgment on the subject of whether or not he is a true Christian. He has said that he is. He has confessed his belief in Jesus. I will pray for God to help him grow in Christ, in wisdom, kindness, charity -- and humility. I am not expecting instant miracles. But the Bible tells us to pray for those in authority, for our leaders, so that we may live peaceful lives. I am glad that God does not judge me every day for my own failures! I wish to extend the same grace to our new President.

Sheri Schofield

Helena
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A small, Mojave, California, aerospace start-up called XCOR Aerospace burst onto the commercial space scene in 2008 with plans to develop a vehicle that would rocket tourists into suborbital space.

XCOR won a few government and commercial contracts and, for a time, was seen as a rival to British billionaire Richard Bransons space tourism venture, Virgin Galactic.

But then the financial reality of the space business -- that its much more capital- intensive than other start-up ventures, such as building a smartphone app -- caught up.

Last year, XCOR announced it would suspend construction of its Lynx suborbital space plane and lay off about half of the companys workforce, which at the time numbered 50 to 60 employees.

In June, the company said adverse financial conditions forced XCOR to terminate its remaining employees -- 11 in Mojave and 10 in Midland where the company had relocated its headquarters in 2015.

As companies such as SpaceX, Blue Origin and small-satellite maker Planet are notching successes and have fueled interest in commercial space, XCOR must now weigh the options for its future.

Those include being acquired by a larger company, finding a financial investor that wants to take on either the companys engine development business or the Lynx, or securing a joint venture partner, especially to resume construction of the space plane.

Space always has been and will continue to be a deep-pocket game, said Luigi Peluso, a managing director in the aerospace, defense and airlines practice at New York consulting firm AlixPartners. Its a pretty short list of people that have both the technical chops and the financial depth to succeed.

XCOR had been a subcontractor on a propulsion project and thought it had a commitment for funding through the year and beyond, XCORs former chief executive, John H. Gibson II, recently told a Senate committee hearing.

The hearing was to confirm Gibson, who left XCOR in June, as President Trumps nominee to be deputy chief management officer of the Defense Department.

The technology we had, NASA and the Air Force were very, very high on it, he said. They felt like it was a long-term solution to upper-stage propulsion in a low-cost, high-reusability environment.

But with less than 30 days notice, XCOR was told the funding was terminated, Gibson said.

He did not name the prime contractor, but XCOR had been working with United Launch Alliance, a joint venture of Boeing Co. and Lockheed Martin Corp., on an upper-stage engine for the ventures next-generation launch system.

You do your best in a small business, Gibson told the committee. Sometimes external factors are beyond your control.

Founded in Mojave in 1999, XCOR had raised at least $19.2 million over the years.

But companies such as SpaceX and Blue Origin are backed by billionaires who havent been shy about pouring in their own money. In the case of SpaceX, the Hawthorne firm has also lined up several multimillion dollar contracts to launch national security satellites for the Air Force.

XCOR planned to slowly and incrementally develop the building blocks of cheaper access to space. The company started out by building rocket engines that could be easily reused, then performed flight tests by incorporating them into airplanes.

One of those was the X-Racer prototype, which flew dozens of times, including one instance when it flew seven times in one day.

By 2008, the company unveiled plans for the Lynx, a two-seat, reusable space plane with a composite body that would take off from a spaceport runway. It would eventually carry a single pilot and paying passenger into suborbital space, possibly as frequently as four times a day.

The plane was to use piston pumps in its engines, utilizing a simpler manufacturing process that XCOR said would make them easier to reuse than the more complex turbopumps employed in other rocket engines.

The company said tickets would cost at least $100,000 each.

It had the promise of reusability, significantly reduced cost than anyone else had ever thought of, said Chad Anderson, chief executive of Space Angels, a network of angel investors focused on early-stage space investments. The network didnt itself provide backing to XCOR, though some of its members were early investors.

All of this combined to build a lot of buzz, Anderson said.

In 2011, XCOR won a contract from NASA that did not provide funds, but indicated the agencys intent to purchase flights from the company to take experiments into suborbital space once it had built the necessary vehicle.

Over time, though, the company found it had underestimated the complexity of the project and the finances needed to develop the Lynx. XCOR failed to raise further funding.

The space tourism market has taken longer to develop than originally thought, said Peluso of AlixPartners. As a result, players such as Virgin Galactic and Blue Origin have expanded their portfolios to include other, non-tourism revenue streams such as launching commercial satellites.

XCOR had an engine business, but did not have a diverse customer base, he said.

Last year, the company suspended construction on the Lynx at its facility in Mojave, and chose to focus on the contract with ULA to develop an upper-stage engine for the ventures next-generation rocket. Executives saw that as the most promising source of near-term revenue.

The ULA contract ended in April. XCOR has suspended development work on that engine.

ULA declined to comment.

XCOR executives and co-founders began to trickle out of the firm two years ago. The most recent exit came last month when Gibson left.

During his Senate committee hearing, Gibson said that although he knew XCOR was high-risk he thought it had a tremendous opportunity in the market for unique propulsion and launch capabilities.

I was very happy to take the challenge on, Gibson said. Many of my friends asked me what the thinking was behind that. They said this thing may not make it six months, but I felt it was certainly worth the effort. We did good things in the company.

A handful of senior XCOR employees and executives have stayed on to create a road map of possible next steps.

Getting the Lynx to flight and into operation would take tens of millions of dollars, said Michael Blum, acting chief executive and a XCOR board member since April.

He said the company is still committed to the rocket ship, and early investors and the board of directors are intent on helping XCOR survive. The company is engaged in five to seven serious conversations with possible investors, venture partners or buyers both in the U.S. and abroad, he said.

Were hopeful that thats going to lead to a success story here, Blum said. But we have our work cut out for us.

Peluso of AlixPartners said the space industry is in a renaissance, with many great ideas and a tremendous amount of innovation emerging.

But unfortunately, he said, not everybodys going to make it.

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency
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Recent arrests for online solicitation has put into the spotlight the shifting nature of law enforcement in the digital age. Midland County District Attorney Laura A. Nodolf said agencies have responded because some individuals solicit sexual acts on the internet.

Theyve changed their game, so weve changed ours, Nodolf said Friday. And so we have to do everything that we can to try and keep up with them. But thats always part of law enforcement  law enforcement is ever-changing.

The district attorneys office was one entity that partnered this month for an operation involving potential online solicitation of minors and human trafficking in Midland County.

Nodolf said the operation serves as a way to educate parents about monitoring their childrens online activities. She also hopes it is a deterrent for potential offenders.

We certainly hope that individuals out there in Midland County who think that they want to commit this crime here in this community  we hope this deters them from even contemplating doing this in the future because we are out there, Nodolf said.

The operation involved undercover stings related to online advertisements, according to arrest affidavits provided to the Reporter-Telegram.

The Texas Department of Public Safety announced Friday the arrests of 37 people as a result of the investigation, according to a press release.

It is a significant operation for this area, Nodolf said. When you look at some of the larger jurisdictions  Dallas, Houston, Austin  they have entire units that are dedicated to do this all day long.

Offenses included online solicitation of a minor, prostitution  solicit person under 18 years of age, prostitution, promotion of prostitution, sexual performance by a minor and distribution of harmful material to a minor, according to a press release.

Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Investigations Division led the Human Trafficking Operation, which received assistance from the Midland County District Attorneys Office, FBI, Homeland Security Investigations and Midland Police Department. Nodolf said the 10-day investigation required manpower and advanced planning.

Based on prior operations that weve run, we know that there was a necessity to run a long-term investigation to be able to apprehend these individuals, Nodolf said.

Brendan C. Griffin, supervisory senior resident agent for the FBI El Paso Division in Midland, said the length of the operation made it different than previous collaborations between agencies.

You had charges for soliciting 13-year-olds to meet them for sex, and then you had the prostitution angle of it, Griffin said. So I think the fact that this was a ... long investigation speaks volumes of how we can cooperate together because there were no issues.

Future decisions will determine whether cases go to federal or state courts, Nodolf said. During the investigation, she said agencies showed dedication to serving the community.

We are blessed to have that here in Midland and to be able to have such a collaborative effort on all operations that we do, but especially to see such results as this one, she said.

Those arrested in the operation and their charges are:

-- Online solicitation of a minor (second-degree felony):

JAIME ADAM CORTEZ, 27, BRUCE ALAN GARAND, 57, EDUARDO JIMENEZ, 23, JUSTIN RYLEY MARTINEZ, 21, GABRIEL C. NATIVIDAD, 63, SHAWN ROY PLATERO, 28, HUGO CIRILO SANCHEZ CAMPOS, 27, JACOB ADAM JOSEPH SMITH, 21, GLENN CURTIS VINYARD JR, 57

--Prostitution  solicit person under 18 years of age (second-degree felony):

CHRISTOPHER DANIEL NUNEZ, 37, JOHN EDWIN OFFER II, 33, ARON JAMES DOBBINS, 20, CHRISTOPHER CARL DEARMIN, 50, EXIQUIO RAMIREZ, 31, OLUKAYODE OYEWOLE AKINTERINWA, 21, JASON ROBERT CHARRON, 36, DALTON MICHAEL HAWK, 22, DAVID GOMEZ MARTINEZ, 49, SEBASTIAN MENDEZ JR, 35, HECTOR JAVIER MONTOYA, 20, HECTOR PARRA, 36, COLIN JARED TAYLOR, 23, DANIEL TREVINO JR, 28, OSCAR ANTONIO URBINA, 32, EARL WAYNE WADE JR, 59, CHRISTOPHER ALLEN WADLE, 40, JOHNATHON LEE YOUNG, 24

-- Prostitution (Class B misdemeanor):

ADRIANNA ELENA CHACON, 19

-- Prostitution  enhanced (state jail felony):

ASHLEE ELIZABETH THORNTON, 25

-Sexual performance by a minor (second-degree felony): A

RON OLIVAS 24, JESSE DON CRAWFORD, 40, PAUL E. MACK, 42, JAVIER SANIEL SALCIDO, 28

-- Provide harmful material to a juvenile (Class A misdemeanor):

JESUS CRUZ, 19, JACOB SANCHEZ LARA, 33, ARON OLIVAS, 24, CHRISTIAN RAY WILSON, 31
INDIANAPOLIS  The new Roman Catholic leader for the Archdiocese of Indianapolis called on church members Friday to cultivate a culture of mutual respect, mercy and hope.

Archbishop Charles Thompson was installed as the sixth archbishop of Indianapolis during a two-hour Mass attended by several hundred clergy and lay people at Sts. Peter and Paul Cathedral.

Thompson, who had been bishop of the Evansville, Indiana, diocese since 2011, told parishioners that they must dare to counter a growing polarization and division that breeds fear, hatred, prejudice and radical ideologies.

"Our role as people of faith  and I especially hold myself accountable as bishop  is to be willing to stand in the breach of the divide, drawing people back from the ledges of extremism and self-indulgence and self-righteousness, by serving as bridges of unity, ambassadors of hope, instruments of peace," Thompson said.

Pope Francis named the 56-year-old Thompson last month to the Indianapolis position as the replacement for Cardinal Joseph Tobin, who became the archbishop of Newark, New Jersey, in January. Tobin; Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich; and Archbishop Christophe Pierre, the pope's ambassador to the United States, were among church dignitaries at Friday's Mass.

Thompson, previously a priest and the second-ranking administrator for the Archdiocese of Louisville, Kentucky, concluded the Mass by thanking the pope for his confidence and the people of the Evansville diocese for breaking him in as a bishop.

"Please, please pray for me," he asked the congregation.

The Indianapolis archdiocese includes about 225,000 Catholics across 39 counties in central and southern Indiana.
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 []
'The big truck is still on ...
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LOUISVILLE, Ky.  A burst of gunfire turned Luther Brown into an activist on May 18, 2006.

Two men shot up a house in Louisvilles West End neighborhood, killing Earon Harper, 41, and nearly killing her 2-year-old daughter, Erica Hughes. Bullets shattered the toddlers teeth and left her blind in one eye.

Brown, a retired construction worker who is active in his church, lived down the street, so the rampage literally struck home for him. He researched gun laws. He collected data from Louisville Metro police about the hundreds of shootings around his city and from area hospitals about the millions of dollars in medical costs from gun-related violence. He concluded that Louisville is awash in guns.

Were living in a community where theres a shooting every day, Brown, now 57, said recently. These kids know all about guns. They see guns on the streets. Their parents are dragging them to a different funeral every week.

Hoping to save the West Ends next generation from prison or early death, Brown created nonprofit educational programs to mentor children, particularly black males.

Browns leading effort, Little Hands Little Feet, warns kids to stay away from guns. It urges adult gun owners to use gun locks  a steel cable that threads through the guns chamber, preventing it from firing  if there are children in their homes. With grants from the city and other sources, he has given away more than 500 gun locks at block parties and other community events. He presses a gun lock on nearly everyone he meets.

There are 60,000 people in West Louisville, and we want a gun lock in every house, he said.

Not every dope dealer is gonna want to use a gun lock. But the mamas of the dope dealers sometimes insist on it. They know there are children in the house; they know how children are curious. Its the mamas who come back to me sometimes and ask for a lock. If we can get locks on even a few of the guns out there, then you know what? At least thats something.

People frequently ask Brown whether locks defeat the purpose of owning a gun. What burglar waits patiently for two minutes while the homeowner unlocks and then loads his pistol? In response, he refers them to statistics showing that guns in homes are more likely to be used against someone living in the home, accidentally or deliberately, than defending the home from criminals.

Let me tell you: It is far more likely that your little one is going to come across your gun than it is that someone is going to break into your house in the middle of the night. You need to be realistic in deciding what to worry about, Brown told WAVE-TV anchor Dawn Gee in a live on-air appearance in June to promote gun locks.

Statewide numbers show that guns are consistently the leading method of death when children are killed in homicides  well above other methods, such as maltreatment and neglect, stabbing, beating or strangulation.

From 2010 to 2014, counting homicides and suicides together, at least 86 Kentucky children  the equivalent of more than 3 1/2 kindergarten classes  died by gun, according to the Kentucky Department for Public Health.

Last August, Brown was invited to what he considered sacred ground.

Tremain Brown Jr., 12, no relation to him, was accidentally shot and killed by his 11-year-old brother, who was playing with a loaded handgun left accessible in their home. The boys grandmother asked Brown to attend Tremains funeral at New Zion Baptist Church so he could distribute his gun locks and gun-safety pamphlets to the crowd.

I didnt want this to happen to other families, said the grandmother, Monica LaPradd. It doesnt have to happen to other families. This is avoidable.

Mourners in the church silently lined up for him, Brown said.

Id never seen anything like that before in my life, he said. Youre in Gods house, and youre giving away gun locks and gun safety information, and right theres a 12-year-old boy lying in a coffin? Ill take that day with me to my grave.

By then, Brown had been personally devastated by gunfire.

On Jan. 9, 2016, his 8-year-old grandson Andre ONeal Jr.  Baby Dre to his family  was accidentally shot and killed inside a Louisville home. The young man who was responsible, Elgin Anders, said he unintentionally dropped his loaded handgun on the ground, where it fired.

We was grilling and everything. I came out to the grill. I had barbecue sauce on my fingers. I licked the sauce off my fingers. It just slipped right out of my fingers, Anders told WDRB-TV.

Anders, 21, is charged with reckless homicide, a charge that carries up to five years in prison. The case has dragged on for 18 months.

Brown gets agitated when asked about his grandsons death.

That man might go to prison for a year for killing Baby Dre, he said.

The problem is, we dont take these deaths seriously. People leave their guns out, bam, a child is dead, but its just an accident. People drop their guns, bam, a child is dead, but its just an accident. You were careless and now a child is dead, but hey, we wont charge you with a crime, we think youve suffered enough. If we charge you with anything, maybe you get a year.

Saving the children of the West End has started to feel to Brown like trying to empty a swimming pool with his two hands.

The same day in late May that he talked about losing his grandson, Louisville police were investigating the fatal shooting of yet another boy.

Dequante Hobbs Jr., 7, was struck in the head by a bullet that crashed through a window as he ate cake at his kitchen table. Police suspect that the shooter was involved in a fight outside the home that had nothing to do with the boy. Dequantes relatives said he was the third young male in the family to be shot to death in the previous year.

We just live in a waiting period now, Brown said. At any given time, were waiting to hear what terrible thing the next person with a gun has done to our community. It might be tonight. It might be tomorrow. But we know as sure as were sitting here that someone is going to pick up a gun soon, and as a result, someone is going to die.
DECATUR  Lester Morrison was home from the Vietnam War only a few days when he found out that his entire squad had been killed.

I felt so guilty, said Morrison, tearing up even all these years later.

A member of Charlie Company, the 501st, 101st Airborne, the Macomb man was in Decatur this weekend for the 30th anniversary of Charlie Company's every-other-year reunion. It was started in 1987 by the late David Schniederjan of Decatur, known to his buddies as Snatch. Schniederjan's wife, Sandy, has continued to attend the reunions even though he died 13 years ago.

It's a tribute to him, she said. We've lost six (men) that started (the reunions) with the group. This is our chosen family.

The Schniederjan children were raised military, she said, and grew up traveling all over the country for the reunions, which are held in different locations each time to accommodate the fact that members of Charlie Company are scattered all over the country.

This year, one of the events was a gathering at David Schniederjan's grave in Mount Gilead Cemetery for a memorial service. On Saturday, the group gathered in the grassy park behind the Decatur Conference Center and Hotel to have a picnic, and a table was set up with photos of the members who have passed away.

When the reunions started, Morrison said, there was no email and no cell phones, and Schniederjan ran up a $4,000 phone bill tracking everybody down and organizing the event. The bill was so high he couldn't pay it and his phone was shut off.

We got together and raised the money to pay it off and got it turned back on, Morrison recalled with a chuckle.

Nowadays, of course, the men stay in touch for much less cost via email, and some of them talk to each other regularly between reunions.

Two of those are Charles Williams, known to his buddies as Daddy Rabbit, who lives in Georgia, and Darrell McCurry of North Carolina.

We talk to each other all the time, Williams said.

Through the years, the veterans have brought their spouses, kids and now their grandkids along to the reunions. Keeping in touch with the men they fought next to and lived with during the war, Morrison said, is therapeutic.

A lot of the groups it's just the guys who get together, Sandy Schniederjan said. With us, it's the families, too. Family's always been important to us.
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Partnerships between federal immigration agents and local police have boomed in 2017 - growing to a whopping 60 agencies in 18 states, according to a large batch of new contracts recently posted on Immigration and Customs Enforcement's website.

Eighteen Texas sheriffs departments are now approved to partner in ICE's so-called 287(g) program - by far the most agencies of any state. By comparison, only three Texas departments partnered with ICE in 2016 - and Harris County, the largest of the three, dropped the program earlier this year citing costs and civil rights concerns.

Officers from all of the new partner agencies - including Galveston, Montgomery and Waller County sheriff's offices in the Houston suburbs - will receive additional training and computers they can use to cross-check immigration data banks for people who are arrested and processed in local jails for anything from a traffic ticket to murder.

Story continues below ...

Other newly-approved Texas partners include rural sheriffs whose turf runs along a major highway corridor that stretches south from Houston to the US-Mexico border.

The 287(g) partnerships, a program under which ICE provides training to teach local officers how to consult its data banks and how to question detainees about their immigration status in local lock-ups, had declined under President Barack Obama.

But the partnerships have attracted renewed interest particularly from Texas agencies under pro-detention and deportation policies announced by President Donald Trump.

ICE held a ceremony in Grapevine, Texas Monday to mark the milestone. Acting ICE Director Thomas Homan shared the stage there with several Texas sheriffs signing new contracts.

"I'm proud to stand alongside these sheriffs who are taking decisive action to join ICE in an important effort to enhance the safety of their communities," Homan said. "By partnering with ICE's 287(g) program, each of these counties will be able to identify criminal aliens in their jails and turn them over to ICE, once their criminal process is complete. It is common sense partnerships like these that help law enforcement achieve our mutual goals, and I'm encouraged by the increased interest from law enforcement professionals who seek to join this program and protect public safety."

The partnerships get their name from section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act that authorizes them. Local sheriffs who applied for the program in 2017 said they were excited about getting additional help to screen inmates for potentially dangerous immigrants or fugitives and better protect public safety. In an interview, Galveston County Sheriff Henry Trochesset said his agency may send as many as 10 officers for training and tools needed to "confirm who individuals are before we release them" and determine whether they're wanted by federal immigration agencies or anyone else.

Texas now has by far the most partnerships of any state with 19, including Carrollton Police Department, which already had an older ICE contract. By comparison just three Arizona law enforcement agencies currently have 287(g) partnership. Only the Orange County Sheriff's office currently partners with ICE in California. Copies of the contracts can be found online.

Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzales still honors ICE detainer requests, but no longer dedicates 10 deputies to the county's jail-based ICE partnership full-time at an annual cost of $675,000.

Nationally, the program has grown from 38 departments in February to 60 as of Friday, based on ICE contract postings. By comparison, ICE noted in a press release that only six new agreements had been added between 2012-2016 and more expansion is planned.

The ACLU had urged ICE not to approve the applications of many of those Texas departments. ACLU lawyers and other civil rights advocates have argued that ICE's detainer program even without additional local law enforcement already leads to civil rights violations and wrongful detentions and deportations through data mix-ups and errors.

Civil rights attorneys have raised concerns about Texas jail conditions and noted that several of the 287(g) partners - including Montgomery County - separately earn income from housing ICE detainees through detention contracts, giving agencies a profit motive to find reasons to detain more people longer.

Astrid Dominguez, immigrant rights strategist for the ACLU of Texas, said Friday she doesn't believe that having local law enforcement do ICE work will make communities any safer.

She said she worries the partnerships "will divert resources from essential public safety."

This story has been updated to reflect information released by ICE after it was first posted.
GREENWICH  The General Assemblys action to make Greenwich and other towns eligible for a moratorium on state affordable housing requirements will not affect plans for a controversial development planned for Sound Beach Avenue, officials said.

The recently revamped proposal for a 60-unit apartment complex at 143 Sound Beach Ave. was submitted in late June, before the new moratorium will take effect.

Pending applications would not be impacted by this change, because applications are subject to the rules that are in place at the time of submission, Greenwich Planning Director Katie DeLuca said Friday afternoon.

The Legislature last week voted to make municipalities including Greenwich eligible for a five-year extension on a reprieve from state affordable housing law  Section 8-30g of the Connecticut General Statutes  which makes it difficult for any municipality that has less than 10 percent of its housing stock set aside as affordable housing to deny applications to build housing. If a proposed development includes affordable housing, such a town can only deny it if it can prove that it poses a substantial public health or safety risk.

Gov. Dannel Malloy had vetoed the extension, but the General Assembly narrowly overrode the veto last week.

The developers behind the Old Greenwich proposal want to build a four-story apartment complex of more than 50,000 square feet to replace the one-story medical building that now sits on Sound Beach, just up from the railroad bridge heading into the village. The proposal falls under Section 8-30g because the developers  143 Sound Beach Associates  have promised to reserve 30 percent of its units for affordable housing for 40 years.

Local opponents of 143 Sound Beach Associates say the builders are the type of developers the moratorium bill was written to stop.

This vote emphasizes that (143 Sound Beach Associates) is exactly the type of predatory developer that Sen. Slossberg is referring to, said Potter Street resident Adam Tooter, part of the grass-roots Stop143SoundBeach organization. And their abuse of this law is exactly why this was overridden.

He was referring to state Sen. Gayle S. Slossberg, D-Milford, who led the effort to override the veto.

She contends developers take advantage of the law to build dense housing complexes contrary to local zoning laws.

No other state in the nation gives private developers this ability, Slossberg said last week.

Others who support the moratorium bill say it will help towns form their own affordable housing plans that are a better fit.

In doing so our towns will continue to further their affordable housing inventory, said Rep. Mike Bocchino R-Greenwich. We will no longer be at the mercy of developers using potential affordable housing units as a strategy to construct oversized developments that are out of character in so many of our quiet neighborhoods.

About 4.9 percent of Greenwich housing stock is considered affordable.

The attorney for 143 Sound Beach Associates, Chip Haslun, said his clients project would fill a long-unment need in town.

The town of Greenwich has not appreciably increased the number of affordable housing units in town since passage of Connecticut General Statutes Section 8-30g by the Legislature in 1989, Haslun said. If the town is genuinely committed to creating affordable housing, it is hard to find a location better suited for it and in keeping both with (town and state regulations) than that which is proposed  in a commercial transitionary zone, close to the railroad station and within walking distance to the village, parks and other recreational facilities.

Town officials and service agencies have talked about the need for more affordable housing in Greenwich for years. But Greenwich has never approached the 10 percent state threshold.

Affordable housing, and housing diversity in general has been noted as something to work towards in every Plan of Conservation and Development dating back to the 1960s, , said DeLuca. And rightfully so, as that diversity is a pillar for a healthy and prosperous community.

Chris Collibee, Malloys press secretary, issued a statement last week saying the governor will not stop working toward increasing the amount of affordable housing in the state.

Make no mistake, Collibee said, Governor Malloy is undeterred by todays developments and remains resolute in increasing access to affordable housing in all of our communities, because every person  regardless of race, ethnicity or socio-economic status  deserves the opportunity to live in the communities in which they work.

143 Sound Beach Associates application for final coastal site plan and special permit will be discussed at the Planning and Zoning Commissions meeting in Town Hall Tuesday at 7 p.m.

E: JTuriano@greenwichtime.com; T: @jturianoGT; IG: @greenwichgreen
China is betting that President Donald Trump won't make good on his threats of a military strike against North Korea, with Beijing continuing to provide a lifeline to Kim Jong Un's regime.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson singled out China and Russia as "economic enablers" of North Korea after Kim on Friday test-fired an intercontinental ballistic missile for the second time in a matter of weeks. While Tillerson said the U.S. wants a peaceful resolution to the tensions, the top American general called his South Korean counterpart after the launch to discuss a potential military response.

China on Saturday condemned the latest test while calling for restraint from all parties, a muted reaction to Pyongyang's progress on an ICBM capable of hitting the U.S. mainland. Despite Kim's provocations, analysts said Beijing still sees the collapse of his regime as a more immediate strategic threat, and doubts Trump would pull the trigger given the risk of a war with North Korea that could kill millions.

"The military option the Americans are threatening won't likely happen because the stakes will be too high," said Liu Ming, director of the Korean Peninsula Research Center at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences. "It's a pretext and an excuse to pile up pressure on China. It's more like blackmail than a realistic option."

Relations between the world's biggest economies have soured after an initial honeymoon between Trump and President Xi Jinping. The U.S. last month sanctioned a regional Chinese bank, a shipping company and two Chinese citizens over dealings with North Korea, which could be a precursor to greater economic and financial pressure on Beijing to rein in its errant neighbor.

Trump has expressed periodic public frustration with Beijing over the pace of its efforts to curtail Kim. On Saturday he again linked China's actions to the broader U.S.-China trade relationship.

"I am very disappointed in China," he said in a series of Twitter posts. "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

Hours later, Xi called on China to speed up its military modernization, telling troops at an army parade that "the world isn't safe at this moment."

"A strong army is needed now more than ever," he said, without specifically addressing North Korea or Trump's comments.

Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, weighed in with a Twitter posting on Sunday about being "done talking about" North Korea and that "China is aware they must act" with increased pressure from Japan and South Korea as part of an international solution.

Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, said she was "very disappointed in China's response" and that it wasn't firmer or more helpful.

"I think the only solution is a diplomatic one," Feinstein said on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. She called North Korea's threat "a clear and present danger" to the U.S. and said she hoped new White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general, will be able to help negotiate to stop the nuclear program.

China's biggest fears related to North Korea remain a collapse of Kim's regime that sparks a protracted refugee crisis, and a beefed-up U.S. military presence on its border.

It has repeatedly called for both sides to step back, proposing the U.S. halt military drills in the region and North Korea freeze weapons tests. The U.S. has dismissed that proposal, saying North Korea must first be willing to discuss rolling back its nuclear program. On Saturday, the U.S. announced that two Air Force B-1B bombers conducted bilateral exercises with South Korean and Japanese fighter jets in response to the ICBM test.

North Korea is "probably correct" in its view that it can survive sanctions long enough to build its arsenal to the point where the world has to accept it as a nuclear state, according to Andrew Gilholm, director of North Asia analysis at Control Risks Group. The U.S. is likely to make a "dramatic move" this year against China in a bid to stop that from happening, he said.

"If the U.S. really loses patience and moves against major Chinese banks or firms it will certainly impact North Korea's financing, but I don't see Beijing making a radical policy change under that kind of pressure," Gilholm said from Seoul. "It'll likely harden China's insistence that Washington has to deal with Pyongyang, not coerce China into strangling it."

China's relations with its neighbor and ally have become more fraught, though China still accounts for about 90 percent of North Korea's trade. North Korea warned China of "grave consequences" earlier this year after it banned coal imports, while Beijing's Communist Party media stepped up criticism of Kim's regime.

The latest ICBM test also risks boosting tensions between China and South Korea over a missile shield.

Seoul has partially installed the U.S.'s Terminal High Altitude Area Defense missile shield despite Chinese protests. It had halted that roll out under the new administration of President Moon Jae-in, but after the ICBM test Moon called for talks with the U.S. on temporarily deploying more launchers. China warned on Saturday that Thaad would disrupt the region's strategic balance.

The U.S. carried out a test of Thaad on Sunday, the Pentagon said in a statement. A medium-range target ballistic missile was launched from a plane over the Pacific Ocean, then tracked and intercepted by a system located in Alaska.

Despite the disagreement over Thaad, on the whole China probably prefers Moon to the conservative government he replaced in May. Since taking office, Moon has sought to engage North Korea, calling for peace talks and saying he'd meet Kim under the right conditions.

Moon's dovish views on North Korea make it likely he'll oppose a U.S. missile strike on North Korea. U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also warned in June that an armed conflict with North Korea would leave Seoul facing casualties "unlike anything we've seen in 60 or 70 years."

As relations with the U.S. cool, China has boosted ties with Russia. The countries blocked U.S.-led efforts to expand penalties against North Korea in a draft UN Security Council resolution condemning its first ICBM test on July 4. Those ties are likely to strengthen after Trump said he'd tighten sanctions on Russia for meddling in the U.S. election and aggression in Ukraine.

To placate Trump, China will likely take some moderate measures against North Korea without doing anything that could collapse the regime, said Gilholm from Control Risks.

"China has a lot of room to step up pressure on Pyongyang while staying well short of a really destabilizing 'cut-off,'" he said. "Personally I don't think North Korea is going to roll over and give up its nuclear survival card even under a life-threatening level of economic pressure."

---

--With assistance from Keith Zhai, Heesu Lee and Kanga Kong
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Philippine police fatally shot more than a dozen people, including a mayor whom President Rodrigo Duterte publicly linked to the drug trade, during an early morning raid Sunday.

Reynaldo Parojinog, mayor of Ozamiz City in Mindanao in southern Philippines, and at least 14 others, including his wife, are the latest casualties in Duterte's brutal drug war. It has killed thousands of suspected drug users and dealers. Parojinog was the third mayor killed in the government's crackdown on narcotics, specifically methamphetamine, locally known as shabu.

Authorities said Parojinog and others were killed in an exchange of gunfire with police. Ozamiz police chief Jovie Espenido said officers went to search Parojinog's house for illegal firearms when they were met with gunshots and were forced to fire back, the Associated Press reported. A grenade held by one of the mayor's bodyguards exploded during the confrontation, Espenido said.

"He's a high-value target on illegal drugs," Espenido said, according to the AP.

At least five were arrested, including Parojinog's daughter, Nova Parojinog Echavez, who's also the city's vice mayor.

Echavez told reporters Sunday that no one from their side fired a weapon.

"I am asking President Duterte to investigate this and the Senate of the Philippines," she said, as family members stirred her away from reporters.

She also said that she's in fear for her life. Asked what message she has for Duterte, she said, in Tagalog: "Look at this closely. He knows my father. He knows my father."

Espenido said during a news conference that police used necessary force during the raid.

"There's no extrajudicial killing here," he said in Tagalog, adding that the officers in the field made the right call.

Among those killed were the mayor's brother, Octavio Parojinog, a provincial board member, GMA News reported. Police seized several weapons, bags of suspected methamphetamine and cash after raiding the mayor's home and three other residences, according to media reports.

Espenido said that Parojinog's family is the main trafficker of drugs in Ozamiz and that drugs that reached the city came from the New Bilibid Prison in Muntinlupa city, Metro Manila. Duterte said last year that the majority of drug transactions happen inside the prison.

The drug trade has become so rampant that it prompted the resignation of Bureau of Corrections Chief Benjamin Delos Santos this month, the Philippine Inquirer reported. He told reporters that the "resurgence of drug trade has made me irrelevant."

Reynaldo Parojinog's name gained national spotlight last year after Duterte accused him and more than 150 politicians, judges and other public officials as being involved in the drug trade.

The president read their names during a news conference in August as part of a shame campaign.

In November, Rolando Espinosa Sr., mayor of Albuera in the Leyte province in the Visayas region, was reportedly killed in his jail cell during a gunfight with police. Espinosa and another inmate allegedly fired at officers raiding their cell for suspected illegal firearms, according to the Philippine Inquirer.

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon questioned the circumstances surrounding the deaths of Parojinog and Espinosa, both of whom were killed during predawn raids.

"Why are search warrants, served before dawn as in the cases of Mayor Espinosa and now, Mayor Parojinog, result(ing) in the deaths of the persons being searched? Both are tagged as drug lords. Too much of a coincidence?" Drilon said in a statement, according to Rappler.

Just a week before Espinosa's death, another small-town mayor, Samsudin Dimaukom, was killed in what authorities said was a gun battle with law enforcement. Police said Dimaukom and his men fired at officers who had set up a checkpoint after receiving reports that the mayor and others were on their way to transport illegal drugs, according to CNN Philippines.

Duterte has publicly linked all three mayors to the drug trade.

The controversial president, known to use expletives during interviews and speeches, ran on a promise to eradicate his country's long-standing problem with drugs. More than 7,000 deaths have been reported from July 1, 2016, after Duterte took office, to Jan. 21, according to police. Many of the deaths reportedly occurred during police confrontation, but thousands were carried out by vigilantes.

Human rights groups and Western governments have strongly criticized the drug war, citing lack of due process and killings that largely targeted the poor.

"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. No arrest. no warrant. No judge. No jury. Simply, murder," Rep. Jim McGovern, D-Mass., said during a recent hearing in Congress on Duterte's drug war.

McGovern also said that someone with Duterte's abysmal human rights record should not be invited to the United States. President Donald Trump stirred controversy in the spring when he invited Duterte to the White House.

In response, Duterte lashed out at McGovern, as he has often done at his critics, including former president Barack Obama.

"There will never be a time that I will go to America during my term or even thereafter. So what makes that guy think I'll go to America? I've seen America, and it's lousy," Duterte told reporters, referring to McGovern.
MOSCOW - Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere in the country will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people, signaling a significant escalation in the Russian response to American sanctions over the Kremlin's intervention in the 2016 presidential election.

The United States and Russia have expelled dozens of each other's diplomats before - but Sunday's statement, made by Putin in an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel, indicated the single largest forced reduction in embassy staff, comparable only to the closing of the American diplomatic presence in the months following the Communist revolution in 1917.

In the interview, Putin said that the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel will be capped at 455 - equivalent to the number of their Russian counterparts working in the United States. Currently, close to 1,200 employees work at the United States' embassy and consulates in Russia, according to U.S. and Russian data.

"More than a thousand employees - diplomats and technical employees - have worked and are still working in Russia these days," Putin told journalist Vladimir Solovyov on a nationally televised news show Sunday evening. "Some 755 of them will have to terminate their activity."

Putin's remarks came during a 31/2-day trip by Vice President Pence to Eastern Europe to show U.S. support for countries that have chafed at interference from Moscow - Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro.

"The president has made it very clear that Russia's destabilizing activities, its support for rogue regimes, its activities in Ukraine are unacceptable," Pence said, when asked by reporters in Tallinn, Estonia, whether he expects Trump to sign the sanctions. "The president made very clear that very soon he will sign the sanctions from the Congress of the United States to reinforce that.

"As we make our intentions clear, we expect Russian behavior to change."

On Sunday night, a senior State Department official said, "The Russian government has demanded the U.S. Mission to Russia limit total Mission staffing to 455 employees by September 1. This is a regrettable and uncalled for act. We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it."

The Kremlin had said Friday, as the Senate voted to strengthen sanctions on Russia, that some American diplomats would be expelled, but the size of the reduction is dramatic. It covers the main embassy in Moscow, as well as missions in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

The U.S. Embassy in Russia has been unable to provide exact numbers on the number of staff it employs in Russia. But according to a 2013 review by the State Department, of 1,200 employees of the American Mission in Moscow, 333 were U.S. nationals and 867 were foreign nationals, many of them probably local Russian support staff, including drivers, electricians, accountants and security guards. That would suggest that the majority of the 755 who must be cut would not be expelled from the country.

"This is a landmark moment," Andrei Kolesnikov, a journalist for the newspaper Kommersant who regularly travels with Putin and has interviewed him extensively over the past 17 years, told the Post in an interview Friday. "His patience has seriously run out, and everything that he's been putting off in this conflict, he's now going to do."

The Russian government is also seizing two diplomatic properties - a dacha, or country house, in a leafy neighborhood in Moscow and a warehouse - following the decision by the Obama administration in December to take possession of two Russian mansions in the United States.

The move comes as it has become apparent that Russia has abandoned its hopes for better relations with the United States under the Trump administration.

"I think retaliation is long, long overdue," deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Sunday on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

"We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal," Ryabkov said. "After the Senate . . . voted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation, it was the last drop."

Hours later, Putin said during his evening interview that he expected relations between the United States and Russia to worsen and that Russia was likely to come up with other measures to counter American financial sanctions, which were passed by the House and Senate last week and which President Trump has said he will sign.

The reduction in U.S. diplomatic and technical staff is a response to President Obama's expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in December in response to the alleged Russian hacking of the mail servers of the Democratic National Committee. The United States also revoked access to two Russian diplomatic compounds on Maryland's Eastern Shore and on Long Island. American officials said they were used for intelligence collection.

It is not yet clear how the State Department will reduce its staff in Russia. Some of the local staff were hired to help with a significant expansion of the U.S. embassy compound in Moscow.

After the State Department, the next largest agency presence in Moscow in the 2013 review belonged to the Defense Department, which had 26 employees working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (20 of them U.S. nationals) and 10 working for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (of whom nine were U.S. nationals).

The Library of Congress had two U.S. staff and two foreign staff, and NASA had eight U.S. staff and four foreign staff members.

There were 24 Marine security guards.

The move increases the likelihood of new, perhaps asymmetrical reprisals by the United States in coming days.

Michael McFaul, former ambassador to Russia, tweeted Sunday: "If these cuts are real, Russians should expect to wait weeks if not months to get visas to come to US."

---

Ashley Parker in Tallinn, Estonia, and Madhumita Murgia in Washington contributed to this report.
Devastated family members remained on scene after the body of a 55-year old woman who went missing Friday morning on a hike with her husband in Sam Houston National Forest was found.

The family of Theresa Kirkpatrick found her body about 10:30 a.m. Saturday, according to Montgomery County Sheriff's Office Capt. Bryan Carlisle.

Michael Kiser, Theresa's brother, described his sister as a loving person always willing to help. However, he said his sister would not have "been out here in these woods" with her medical conditions.

"So don't go out in the woods, she don't go hiking, so don't go out of her yard," Kiser told media adding Theresa's husband Allen told him where they could find her body. "Somebody took my sister from me. There is no reason, she never hurt anybody.

"She was loved by many friends and her family. She didn't deserve what happened to her."

Kiser is hoping to learn what happened in the woods that lead to his sister's death.

The Walker County Sheriff's Office has taken over the investigation since Theresa was found in Walker County. MCSO and Texas Parks and Wildlife are continuing to assist with the search.

A cause of death has not been determined, but Carlisle said the woman suffered from diabetes.

Kirkpatrick was hiking in the forest with her 51-year-old husband Allen Kirkpatrick when the two were separated around 8:30 a.m. Her husband searched for her until about 4 p.m. when he reported her missing to another person, authorities said.

Allen remains hospitalized after suffering from heat exhaustion Friday.

No other details were available. The incident remains under investigation.
"Am I strong enough to beat this cancer?"

I wonder if Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., asked himself this question when he was diagnosed recently with a deadly glioblastoma brain tumor.

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 1984, that question was certainly at the top of my own list. Just 26 at the time, I was pretty much untested: My greatest challenges so far had been taking the SATs and coming out as a gay man.

I certainly was no John McCain, who has survived five years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, three bouts with melanoma (one of the deadliest of cancers) and three decades in the Senate. If anyone has the strength to prevail over cancer, it's McCain. But is strength, or toughness - or any personality trait - really what it takes?

At the time of my diagnosis, a friend gave me a best-selling book, "Getting Well Again," that asked this hard question: "Why do some patients get well and others die when the prognosis is the same for both?" I found the answer deeply upsetting: The authors had identified a "cancer personality (that) can contribute to the onset and progress of cancer." In other words, the onus was on me. If I failed, I had no one to blame but myself.

This theory of personality has been much on my mind since McCain's diagnosis became public. Emerging from the outpouring of tweets and statements that followed was the notion that the senator is a warrior par excellence who will surely win his latest battle.

For example, Vice President Mike Pence tweeted, "Cancer picked on the wrong guy" because he is "a fighter." Pence's comment reminded me of another book, "The Type C Connection: The Behavioral Links to Cancer and Your Health,"which argues that the personality traits of some people make them prone to cancer. Typically, "Type C" individuals are the antithesis of warriors: They are unassertive people-pleasers who repress their emotions.

Warrior or people-pleaser, these character-driven approaches suggest that you are responsible for your outcome. Both are just wrong.

"There's been pushback against the idea that this warrior mentality is necessary for a successful outcome," Rohan Ramakrishna, a neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who specializes in brain tumors, told me in a phone interview.

Putting it bluntly, Ramakrishna said, "Your response to treatment is a biological one, not a psychological one."

Instead of focusing on McCain's character traits, Ramakrishna prefers that we take notice of his highly supportive family and that he is being treated by a top team at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, one of the country's best cancer facilities. (McCain's generous congressional health plan is also a likely factor in securing top treatment, which is correlated with longevity.)

People use warrior metaphors with good intentions, Ramakrishna explained, but the unfortunate flip side is the implication that it's your own fault if the cancer comes back, or if you die. Those who triumph over more-curable diseases, such as cancers that have effective treatments, aren't tougher than those facing glioblastoma - it's just that the odds are more in their favor.

"You don't want people to think that their outcome is in their hands," he said. "If someone's cancer progresses, it's a failure of our treatments, plain and simple."

Ramakrishna's assertion reminded me of my friend Jacqueline Zinn, who at 55 was diagnosed with the same kind of brain cancer as McCain's. A wife, a mother of four and a triathlete, Jacquie left no stone unturned in her quest to beat glioblastoma. Over 18 months, she underwent brain surgery, two rounds of radiation, two courses of chemotherapy, and the Gamma Knife's virtual "slice and dice." After the cancer recurred, as glioblastoma almost always does, Jacquie summoned a remarkable inner power - a strength - as she canceled credit cards, gave away her clothes, taught her husband how to pay the bills, wrote future letters to all her kids and planned her memorial service.

Jacquie was tough, determined and hopeful - yes, a warrior. But still, she lost the battle against her brain tumor. Ramakrishna's words echo: "If someone's cancer progresses, it's a failure of our treatments, plain and simple. ... Ultimately, the response of cancer to our treatments is biological and not psychological."

John McCain, like Jacquie, may be a fighter, but the biological process will play out as it will. And nobody will think any less of his warrior spirit if this usually fatal cancer prevails.
Stepan Shakaryan is a famous jazz and classical composer who studied at conservatories in Yerevan, Moscow and Leningrad (St. Petersburg). Shakaryan is the only Armenian student of Aram Khachatryan. Theres a star in his name on Yerevans Teryan Street.

Regardless of the weather, you can meet the 81-year-old composer walking briskly down the streets in the center of Yerevan. He strikes an imposing figure with his Caucasian eagle nose, large eyeglasses and inviting smile. If he sees a smiling face, he greets them like an old acquaintance and keeps on strolling.

Shakaryans gait reminds one of the Vinik penguin, from the famous Armenian Pingvinashen cartoon, walking in the cold Antarctica. Shakaryan wrote Vinik's song.

Stepan Shakaryan is frank, like a child in a conversation. He recounts, in all humility, that he wrote one of his famous works, Retro Quintet, for just $500.

I agreed to meet the composer at Yerevans Mashtots Avenue, not far from his home. He comes 3 minutes earlier the agreed time and jokes, "I want to become a German."

We talked about the following topics.

Yerevan

"The past-present-future ties are broken in Armenia. Our nation survived in the USSR; Yerevan became a city.

When my mother brought her three children from Baku to Yerevan, there were only three streets here - Astafyan, Alaverdyan and Nalbandyan. There was no city as such. There were separate buildings - the Opera House, the current National Assembly building, the Matenadaran, and so on.

Tamanyan was building a museum town from Armenian tuff stone. Foreigners were impressed. They were coming from different countries to see what the tuff stone was.

Then everything changed. I dont want to criticize, but. Theres too much noise in the city now. The buildings are heaped one atop another. The yards are filled with cars. Walking has become difficult.

90% of the citys residents, with their mentality and perspective, are villagers. And the real residents of the city - the educated and intelligent ones - have emigrated. "

Self-Education

"I have received an excellent academic education. At the same time, I believe that self-education has given me more. Today, the youth is being preached about academic education.

To get a real education, you need to learn the history and find yourself there. In Moscow, there was a library named after Lenin, formerly the house of Count Razumovsky. There were books that were not given to anyone. Then, they saw that I was a crazy person and allowed me to take those books. I gave chocolate bars to the library staff as gifts. They allowed me to enter the library on my own to study those forbidden books.

I dont say that today's youth isnt educated. But times have changed, and we live in the 21st century with the approaches of the 19th century. Its unacceptable. "

The Homeland

Emigration is similar to genocide. It's not the same thing, but it's just as sad.

When I told Aram Khachatryan that I was coming back to Armenia, he got enraged and said I couldnt do that. Because he was  clairvoyant. He could foresee the present. [Khachatryan was born inTiflis, Shakaryan in Baku]

Today's students are still young, but after receiving their diplomas, they have to make a living and survive. Many people want to leave Armenia. But I think artists should live in their homeland. They shouldnt become captives of another country. Many have gone, living in different ways, just to survive.

I have been invited to many different places - Washington, London, Luxembourg. I was even invited to lead the Georgian jazz band. I refused. I have my own country.

Josef Strzygowski was a famous Polish-Austrian art historian who wrote a few volumes about Armenian architecture. He has an article in which he says that the influence of the Armenian architecture on the world architecture is infinite. Now we are like a patchwork.

Honorifics

I am surprised that I still bear the title of Distinguished Artist. Those having a level far below me have that title too. I dont care about titles. The continuation of art traditions; thats whats important to me.

I feel bad when I visit Yerevans Vernisage open-air market. Our artists resolve their financial issues there. Isnt it dreadful? For years, our culture ministers have ignored art.

Penguin Vinik's Song

In 1970, the director of the cartoon, Stepan Andranikyan, called and asked me to go to their house. He lived next to the Pioneer Cinema.

When I went there, he said he needed a song for Pingvinashen. He showed me the words. I took out my notebook and immediately wrote down the notes. That was 47 years ago. Children still sing it.

The Creator

Every morning I approach the window and say thank you to the Creator. People call him God - let it be so. The Creator gives me oxygen every day, he solves the issue of survival. I have become a religious person, because when a window closes, another one opens up. I am grateful. Do you know how many kind telephone calls Ive received today? Im grateful for that kindness.

What Fascinates Stepan Shakaryan

Village women fascinate me. They boil the milk, add some starter culture, and it turns into yoghurt. This is a philosophy, you know. Adding some yeast turns the milk into yoghurt. This is a symbol of solidarity. I wish we had some starter culture in our country to make yoghurt.

Kindness

People even dream about money. If we have no more oxygen tomorrow, what will happen to us? We hear about catastrophes taking place every day.

There are silver and gold mines everywhere.

Evil destroys the world. Jesus Christ says, But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also. This is a philosophy, not a religion. Only kindness will save us. Nothing else.

From Stepan Shakaryan's works:

"The Moon on the Mountains"

From Bingyol to Kansas City

"On the Wave of Blues"
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On the morning of July 30, 2016, Patricia Morgan was enjoying a stream of text messages from her daughter and granddaughter, Lorilee and Paige Brabson, who were gleefully taking photos of a giant hot air balloon that was about to ferry them across the Texas sky.

Their balloon ride with pilot Alfred Skip Nichols was a bucket-list adventure the family had always dreamed of. I wish I could be there, Morgan told them.

But within hours, Morgans pleasant day became a nightmare of panicked phone calls about a balloon crash in Texas, a growing sense of dread as she tried to find out what happened, and the devastating realization that her precious daughter and granddaughter were killed with fourteen others when their balloon struck power lines near Lockhart.

An arc of 345,000 volts of electricity had severed the balloons metal cables. The wicker gondola plummeted to the ground and burned in a rural field.

Sixteen people. Gone. It was the deadliest balloon crash in U.S. history.

RELATED: Investigation into balloon crash shows FAA did nothing to improve safety

A year later, relatives of the victims are still grappling with the horrific tragedy as they deal with grief, raise orphaned children who will never see their parents again, and try to make sure no one else suffers the same fate on a balloon ride.

Something has to be done so that other families do not have to endure the pain that we have had to, Morgan said.

Family members of the victims have become harsh critics of the hot air balloon industry and the Federal Aviation Administration. Morgan is among the most outspoken.

A retired purchasing manager and supervisor with Colorado Springs Utilities, Morgan, 68, launched a White House petition calling for greater federal oversight of balloon pilots and sought help from Texas lawmakers. She praised Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for responding to her concerns and filing a bill that would require medical exams for commercial balloon pilots.

Unlike other pilots, balloon pilots dont have to undergo medical exams, take drug tests or carry accident insurance. Yet balloons arent any safer than other aircraft.

An investigation of the hot air balloon industry published earlier this year by the San Antonio Express-News found that hot air balloons suffer similar fatality rates compared to privately owned planes and helicopters.

And the overall crash rate was twice as high for balloons  15 crashes per 100,000 flight hours compared to seven crashes per 100,000 flight hours for other types of general aviation aircraft.

In the past year, Morgan and other family members have been shocked by revelations about Nichols, and they blame the FAA for failing to stop him from flying.

At a Dec. 9 federal hearing in Washington, the National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the crash and plans to present its findings in October, released documents that show Nichols suffered from a long list of ailments such as depression and chronic pain that should have raised red flags at the FAA  but the agency didnt know about his illnesses.

On the day of the crash, the pilot had a cocktail of prescription medications in his system that included Prozac, Valium and the painkiller oxycodone. Warning labels on several of the drugs warn users not to operate heavy machinery.

RELATED: Heartbreaking selfies emerge of worst hot air balloon crash in U.S. history

Nichols had moved to Texas after being arrested for a string of DWI and drug offenses. Legally, he couldnt drive a car because his drivers license was revoked. Yet the FAA allowed him to keep a commercial pilots certificate.

I was beyond flabbergasted, said Sue Rowan, whose son, Matt, and his wife, Sunday, were killed in the crash. The newlyweds from San Antonio had married five months earlier. Matt Rowan was a professor at Trinity University and chief of clinical trials at Brooke Army Medical Center overseeing burns and trauma research.

They were aware of this man and his problems, and they just turned their back on it, Rowan said of Nichols and the FAA. I think 15 people lost their lives because the FAA turned their back on it.

Rejected recommendations

The FAA resisted years of efforts to strengthen oversight of commercial balloon operations, saying their risk to the public is minimal. Officials havent budged from that position after the crash near Lockhart.

The responsibility for aviation safety does not rest entirely with the FAA, the agency wrote in an April 19 letter to the NTSB that offered lessons learned from the crash. No regulations can completely ensure the safety of balloon passengers, the FAA says. Safety also depends on honest, diligent pilots.

Pilots who consistently demonstrate willful noncompliance with federal aviation regulations pose a safety risk that cannot be controlled through additional regulations, the agency told the NTSB.

More than three years before the crash, Wayne Phillips, an FAA inspector in Detroit, had proposed greater oversight for commercial balloon operators. Balloons were getting larger and larger, he said, which meant more passengers were at risk.

The balloon Nichols piloted was more than nine stories tall and featured a gondola that could fit 16 passengers and the pilot  enough to fill a small commuter plane.

It may be of some surprise that the largest balloons carry more passengers than a Beech 1900 airliner, Phillips wrote in his proposal, which was circulated internally at the FAA but wasnt made public until after the crash near Lockhart.

RELATED: Pilot was told conditions were dangerous before flight

Meanwhile, the NTSB began to grow concerned about commercial balloons as well. Officials at the agency learned of Phillips and compared notes with him. In 2014, the NTSB recommended to the FAA that it should require letters of authorization for commercial balloon operations.

The letters trigger the possibility of more FAA inspections and they mandate random drug tests for pilots and crew members. Known as LOAs, such measures are required of helicopter and aircraft tours  but not balloons.

The NTSBs recommendations are nonbinding. The FAA rejected it.

Orphaned children

At 5:45 a.m. on July 30, 2016, Nichols and his ground crew met the 15 passengers in a Walmart parking lot and drove to Fentress Airpark in Caldwell County where they were scheduled to take off.

Six passengers were from the San Antonio area: The Brabsons, the Rowans and Brian and Tressie Neill, of Helotes.

They all had children back at home. The youngest was Paige Brabsons baby girl, Marylee, who was nearing her first birthday. Lorilee Brabson had two children in addition to Paige: a teen-aged daughter, Grace, and an adult son, Andrew.

Sunday Rowan had a 5-year-old son, Jett. Matt Rowan adored his stepson. The balloon ride was a present Sunday had bought her husband to celebrate their new life together.

The Neills had two daughters: Sarah, 16, and Shelby, 20. The couple doted on the girls and enjoyed taking family vacations with them.

Brian Neill wasnt a big risk-taker  he didnt ride motorcycles or speed in traffic. But he worked up the courage to take Tressie on the balloon ride because he knew it would make her happy.

Up early heading out for the anniversary surprise Brian's had planned for months! Tressie Neill wrote on Facebook that morning. I'm super excited!

RELATED: Tributes pour in for San Antonio couple killed in balloon crash

That morning, Nichols had called Lockheed Martin Flight Service for the weather forecast, which called for low-level clouds and the possibility of fog.

Those clouds may be a problem for you, the weather briefer said. I dont know how low you want to stay but 

Well, we just fly in between them, Nichols replied. We find a hole and we go.

Not one balloon expert who testified at the Dec. 9 safety hearing held by the NTSB said they would fly under such conditions.

Other local balloon companies opted to stay put that day. But Nichols took off with the 15 passengers at 6:59 a.m.

As predicted, fog started to roll in. One member of the ground crew later told NTSB investigators that he could see the gondola hanging under the low clouds  but couldnt see the balloon itself.

The ground crew lost sight of the balloon and started panicking. They tried calling Nichols and other passengers.

No one answered.

Faulty data

The balloon traveled eight miles, drifting north with the wind. Passengers took photos of the stunning view.

You see our shadow, one of them wrote in a text message with a photo of the balloons shadow falling on a cloud.

Through a hole in the clouds, a tall, metal tower with power lines could be seen on the ground.

At 7:42 a.m., for reasons that still arent clear, the balloon struck the power lines. Based on global positioning system data obtained from Nichols iPad, the balloon had been descending at 7:41 a.m., then began to climb just before impacting the power lines.

A March 7 NTSB report about the balloons flight path noted there were inaccuracies in the GPS data  some altitude readings on the balloons journey showed it was traveling below ground level.

A conclusion cannot be made as to whether the balloon was in a climb or decent trend just prior to the accident, the report notes.

But the Balloon Federation of America, the leading trade group for balloon pilots that opposes stricter federal regulations, used the flight data to conclude that Nichols was trying to climb over the power lines  a dangerous maneuver.

What Nichols should have done was follow the industry-standard practice of ripping out, or opening the deflation system to come to a hard landing and avoid the power lines at all costs, the federations president, Dean Carlton, wrote in a letter to the NTSB.

This pilot was a free spirit who shunned advice and offers of support, Carlton told the NTSB. There is no record of him participating in safety seminars, joining industry organizations, or otherwise seeking additional knowledge, training, mentoring, or consultation with peers.

The balloon had three propane burners, all of which were operable after the crash when NTSB investigators tested them.

NTSB officials havent offered a definitive explanation as to why the crash happened. But the boards acting chairman, Robert Sumwalt, has repeatedly said its clear Nichols shouldnt have been allowed to fly.

It really is alarming that this pilot was able to hang out a shingle and fly people for hire, Sumwalt told Senator Cruz at a senate hearing in June.

On the morning of the crash, Margaret Wylie, who lives about a quarter mile way from the power lines, said she heard loud popping sounds and went outside to see why her dog was barking. She saw a column of flames in a nearby field and called 911. The Maxwell Volunteer Fire Department and Caldwell County sheriffs deputies were dispatched to what they thought was a vehicle on fire.

It was a horrific scene, said Martin Ritchey, chief emergency management coordinator for Caldwell County. Once firefighters extinguished the flames, they initially counted 14 bodies but couldnt make sense of what happened  the debris was unrecognizable at first. They finally realized it was an aviation crash when a sheriffs deputy spotted the remaining section of the balloon in another field.

This was the single largest loss of life in Caldwell Countys history, Ritchey said.

A nightmare

That morning, Morgan was in Colorado, enjoying life as a retiree with her husband. She had seen the texts from her daughter and granddaughter that morning showing the giant balloon decorated with a smiley face with sunglasses. She wished she could have been there.

But hours later, Morgan received a troubling phone call from Lorilees daughter, Grace. She was worried. No one had heard from Paige or Lorilee, and Paige was scheduled to work that day.

They tried texting. They tried calling. No response.

Then Grace called again, upset. There had been a balloon crash in Texas. But no one could tell them who was on board. There was no information  just a growing sense of panic.

Im really afraid, please dont hang up, Grace told her grandmother. I think its them.

Morgan never got a knock on the door with official word that her loved ones had died. She finally pieced it together when she saw a CNN story with images of the downed balloon  and the smiley face symbol with shades.

Morgan checked her text messages to make sure. She saw the smiley face in the pictures Paige and Lorilee Brabson had texted her hours earlier.

It was the same balloon.

Over the past year, Morgan has mourned the loss of her daughter and granddaughter and worried about the children they left behind. And shes worried about the possibility of other balloon pilots like Nichols who might be flying passengers with little scrutiny from the FAA.

He did everything that he shouldnt have been doing because he wasnt being monitored, Morgan said. How many pilots are out there like that?

jtedesco@express-news.net
PALO ALTO EL LLANO, Mexico  Adan Lara Vegas work as a master bricklayer netted him a better salary than the farmhands in this rural town, but he struggled to put food on the table for his wife and two children.

Work was intermittent, family members said as they stood outside his long, one-room house facing the pigsty, chicken coops and small fruit trees behind his parents house. When he could find jobs, the pay was meager.

He wanted to eat better, to buy a better house, said his aunt, Rosalva Vega Tiscareno, There are days we dont eat.

Earlier this month, Lara Vega boarded a bus and began what is a rite of passage for many young men in this region of central Mexico: The trip to the U.S.

Illegal immigration from Mexico has plummeted in recent years, driven by a variety of factors, but that didnt stop Lara Vega and at least 13 other men from the central Mexican state of Aguascalientes from taking buses to the border and crossing the Rio Grande, where they boarded a tractor-trailer that would take them to San Antonio.

Smugglers there were supposed to take them to other destinations, in his case Florida. Instead, Lara Vega and 28 others ended up in San Antonio hospitals. Ten others died in the oppressive, suffocating heat in the unventilated trailer, which was stuffed with as many as 100 immigrants. The smugglers picked up some of them before police arrived at the Walmart parking lot on the Southwest Side where the truck parked.

The truck driver, James Matthew Bradley Jr., 60, was charged with smuggling immigrants and faces up to life in prison or the death penalty.

Tiny Aguascalientes, population 1.3 million, is disproportionately represented in the number of people who leave Mexico for the U.S. each year, driven in part by the poverty here and in part by the states history of exporting labor abroad, going back to a WWII program that legally imported labor.

In the towns surrounding the state capital, also called Aguascalientes, the impact of this decades-long chain of migration are easy to see. In Palo Alto el Llano, population about 5,000, nicer homes of those with family members in the U.S. rise above the squat concrete and adobe houses lining the mostly dirt roads.

In Calvillo, a historic city of 60,000 about 50 miles west of here whose center is crowded with tourists even on a weekday, the legacy of family members in the U.S. can be seen every Monday, when families line up at the bank for remittances, or during the December guava festival, when the large, American-made trucks of the nortenos home for the holidays can be seen on the city streets, officials said.

News of what happened after Lara Vega and the 13 others from Aguascalientes crossed the border sent a shock through this region because of how many here were affected. Maria Guadalupe Rodriguez Macias, 42, said her husband has been in Florida for 13 years. Her sons, who are 18 and 24 years old, want to join him.

They want to go look for their father, she said. Im afraid because of what happened in San Antonio.

But stories of tragic deaths on the trip to the U.S., whether while crossing the cartel-controlled territory near the border, swimming the Rio Grande or hiking through the inhospitable landscape in the American Southwest, are commonplace.

If we dont create opportunities, people will continue risking their lives to get a life of dignity they are looking for, said Gabriel Hernandez, Palo Alto el Llanos city manager who himself crossed to the U.S. illegally, became a legal resident, lived there 20 years and graduated college before returning to his home town last year. There have been so many tragedies in the past, and people keep doing it.

Border Patrol agents caught fewer than 200,000 people from Mexico crossing illegally into the U.S. last year, down from nearly 1 million in 2006. In that time, the U.S. housing market collapsed, the Border Patrol doubled, 650 miles of border fencing were constructed, Mexicos birthrate continued a decades-long decline and economic opportunity increased in Mexico.

Yet Aguascalientes sits in the midst of a region, including the states of Michoacan, Guanajuato, Jalisco and Zacatecas, that has a long history of sending young men abroad to work. Many here go to the U.S. and Canada on temporary visas that allow them to work seasonal jobs. Many more take the dangerous journey to the U.S. illegally.

The migration began in the 1940s with the Bracero Program that was enacted by the U.S. government to replace the millions of workers who left their jobs to serve in the military during WWII.

Arnulfo Silva Rodriguez, 79, said he went to the U.S. nearly a dozen times as a bracero, starting in 1958. After the program was canceled in the 1960s, he came as many times illegally. Back then, he could cross the river unmolested and walk until he could catch a ride to whatever city needed willing hands.

Now theres a lot of crime, he said. There werent cholos (gang members), there werent sicarios (hit men). Now they charge you for crossing the river.

Those who cant afford the fee are often kidnapped and sometimes tortured until their families pay ransom.

What started with the bracero program morphed into a co-dependence between the two countries. Families in Mexico relied on jobs north of the border and U.S. employers became accustomed to the steady supply of cheap labor, said Doris Meissner, a former commissioner of the now-defunct U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service and a senior fellow with the Migration Policy Institute. When the bracero program ended, the relationship continued illegally.

Meanwhile, the opportunities to come to the U.S. legally are limited. The wait times for some family visas stretch back decades - in June the State Department was issuing visas for the Mexican citizen children and siblings of U.S. citizens whod applied in the 1990s - and employers complain of an onerous process to bring in legal laborers when they cant find U.S. citizens and legal residents willing to do the work.

Todays historically low levels of illegal border crossings are a significant accomplishment, Meissner wrote in an email. But it is unrealistic to expect zero illegal crossings. Enforcement must be combined with a modernized immigration system that makes legal entry more widely available to meet legitimate labor market demands.

The lure of the North

In Calvillos quiet outskirts, just a few minutes drive from the hubbub of the city center where tourists from around Mexico eat guava ice cream and pose for pictures in a well-kept plaza, Mario Ramirez Mendez, 24, took the same path as the men from Palo Alto el Llano, ending up on the same tractor-trailer to San Antonio.

Like Lara Vega, Ramirez was hospitalized after police were called to the Walmart parking lot early on the morning of July 23, then held in a detention facility by U.S. marshals as a material witness against Bradley.

Tears streamed down the face of Jesus Ramirez Gutierrez, Ramirez Mendezs father, as he explained that hed had no word from his son for days and knew only that hed been released from the hospital.

His son worked in bricklaying. Other young men who work in the surrounding ranches, dairy farms and terraced guava orchards are called peones, a term with feudal connotations.

Here, they have very little, so they go looking for a better life, Ramirez Gutierrez, 74, said.

Closer to the central square, Jose Antonio Gonzalez de Loera, 44, made a decent life for his three children with a family-run business that buys milk from nearby farms and produces cheese that they sell wholesale. He has a two-story house with a carport for his Ford pickup. That didnt stop his son Antonio, who he wanted only identified by first name because the 20-year-old was not detained by immigration authorities, from leaving for the U.S.

On the night of July 22, Antonio called his family frantically from inside the trailer, describing the heat and the lack of air. He later told his mother that he lost consciousness, woke up a strangers house in San Antonio and made it to Colorado with another man whod been in the trailer with him.

Antonio had enjoyed working with cattle since he was a young man, and his family was better off than most, but he was frustrated with the lack of opportunity in Calvillo.

He didnt want to do any more than work and have a house here, Gonzalez said. But all he could find was work in the countryside.

Calvillo city officials noted that with the money immigrants raise and borrow to be smuggled into the country, as much as $7,000, they could open a business and take on something more than farm labor.

Low pay in factories

Aguascalientes, one of the safest states in the country, doesnt have the same security problems as some of those nearby and the capital is home to new manufacturing jobs, including two Nissan plants. But investment in the city has passed over rural areas still suffering from agricultural reforms in the latter part of the 20th century and industrialized farming brought on by NAFTA, said Maria Eugenia Perea Velazquez, a professor at the Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes whos studied migration in the region, including in Calvillo.

The return on the investment can be much greater for those who make it to the U.S., She called the decades-long history of migration in the area cultural, and said few here want to open a small store or work six-day weeks of 12-hour shifts at the local factories to make in a week what they could make in a day north of the border.

As Hernandez, the city manager in Palo Alto el Llano put it, Companies from other countries move into our territories because the payment they offer our workers is low. Thats the reason they move into Mexico. A good-paying factory job offers 1,500 pesos, a little less than $85, a week, he said.

I love my country, Hernandez said. If I could make the same amount of money here, I wouldnt have to move to the U.S.

He said it doesnt make sense for the U.S. to spend so much money enforcing its borders when its farms and factories are encouraging foreign labor to enter the country illegally.

The U.S. and Canada, they need people to work in their fields, he said. Why not do it legally?

The cycle of migration has its negative impacts, Perea said. Areas with high emigration to the U.S. are reliant on remittances and lack young adults who would be contributing to the economy. Many children grow up in single-pare homes, and as soon as young men come of age they follow their fathers to the U.S. She said two-thirds of the population in Calvillo lives in poverty, but emigration to the U.S. isnt limited to the poor.

There are middle-class families in Calvillo that have a tradition of emigrating to the United States, Perea said. For them, the dream is to go to the United States, buy a truck, send back dollars, meet a girl and marry her.

Part of the blame, she said, goes to Mexicos government, which tolerates human smuggling and trafficking, and does little to help communities stuck in the cycle of migration. In some states, nongovernmental organizations have found success creating cooperatives, often involving the women who are left behind, to create economies not reliant on emigration to the U.S., Perea said. New government administrations, however, are too quick to throw out their predecessors programs and start anew.

Reform needed

For groups that advocate for allowing more legal immigration, the answer is expanding visas to address what they say is both a humanitarian issue of those in nearby countries and an economic issue in the U.S., where labor is needed. Todays visa quotas were set in 1990, and both immigration patterns and the economy have changed immensely since then, said Michelle Mittelstadt, the Migration Policy Institutes director of communications.

MPI has long been on the record that there must be flexibility in the system that allows for the upward or downward adjustment of visas based on actual labor market needs, Mittelstadt wrote in an email. The institute advocates creating a permanent, non-partisan commission staffed with labor market and immigration experts, economists, and other specialists that would advise Congress and the administration annually on what employment-based immigration needs are, based on deep review of labor market sectors at U.S. and local levels.

Congress hasnt reformed immigration for nearly two decades, and President Donald Trump used immigration enforcement as a major campaign platform, allying himself with organizations that want to decrease all immigration to the U.S., legal and illegal.

Even if we doubled or tripled or quadrupled legal immigration or guest-worker programs, which is a highly unlikely change to the law, still we would not be able to accommodate all the people in the world who would want to come here, Jessica Vaughan, the director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, one such restrictionist groups, wrote in an email. The demand would not be satisfied, so people would still pay smugglers.

Illegal immigration is not a force of nature that cannot be controlled, Vaughan added. We will never stop it completely, but we can reduce it dramatically by forcing more employers to stop hiring illegal workers, by investigating and prosecuting the smugglers, by controlling the physical border and do a better job screening people coming through the ports of entry, by having robust interior enforcement, by denying access to benefits like drivers licenses and welfare programs.

For Lara Vega in Palo Alto el Llano, the nuances of Mexicos struggles to address poverty in rural areas and the failure of the U.S. immigration system boiled down to something more basic.

They want dollars, Vega Tiscareno, the aunt of Lara Vega, said of the young men who leave for the U.S. Theres plenty of work. Its the American dream. To improve your life. To eat.
A VIA bus crashed into a downtown medical building Saturday morning after being hit by a vehicle, officials said.

VIA spokeswoman Rachel Benavidez confirmed the accident occurred at about 10 a.m. at the intersection of Quincy and Lexington streets.
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Police on Thursday arrested a 21-year-old San Antonio man in connection with the fatal shooting of a man in the parking lot of a South Side motel.

Michael Paul Reyes, faces a charge of murder. He remains in the Bexar County Jail on a $100,00 bond.

RELATED: Converse teen began sexually assaulting relative when victim was 6-years-old, police say

Reyes is the second suspect to be arrested in the murder case. According to his arrest affidavit, an accomplice, Phillip Munoz, was previously arrested in connection with the murder.

The two are accused of fatally shooting Albert Lynn Callahan, 21, around 10:45 p.m. on Jan. 28, at a Days Inn in the 13800 block of Interstate 37.

Police say Reyes shot Callahan during a drug deal gone bad. The pair had gone to the motel to allegedly sell Callahan two ounces of weed.

Munoz, who has also been charged with murder, later told police that Callahan attacked him as he sat in the passenger seat of Reyes' Chrysler 300. Reyes, who was in the driver's seat, then shot Callahan, according to the arrest affidavit.

The two fled the scene, and Callahan was later pronounced dead, police said.

RELATED: Suspect shot after opening fire on 3 police officers on West Side

Police said they were able to tie Munoz to the scene through his Facebook profile and his cell phone data. According to Reyes's arrest affidavit, Munoz and Callahan had communicated through Facebook messenger to set up the alleged drug deal.

Police tried to interview Reyes about the shooting on March 26, but he refused to talk and requested an attorney. Officers later arrested Munoz, who named Reyes as the shooter during an interview on July 12.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

cdowns@mysa.com

Twitter: @calebjdowns
A vehicle came crashing into the yard of a West Side home after the driver's brake pedal became obstructed by a high heel, San Antonio police report.

Officers responded to the corner of West Cesar Chavez and Nueces streets around 9:10 a.m. where they found an SUV had crashed into the yard of the home.
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A San Antonio man accused of stealing paintings from a neighbor left them lying around in his parents' backyard, according to police.

Javier Martinez, 29, was arrested Wednesday evening by San Antonio police in a tent in his parents' backyard. He was held on a $10,000 bond.

RELATED: S.A. man allegedly involved in drive-by that killed 4-year-old has lengthy criminal history

A resident in the 900 block of Rivas Street told police their home was burglarized twice, first on July 20 and again on July 23, authorities said.

In the first break-in, a pressure washer and table saw were taken from the garage. The second time, the residents lost skateboards, paint supplies and paintings valued at more than $3,000, according to an affidavit.

One of the burglarized residents told police she could see one of the stolen paintings in a nearby backyard, the affidavit said.

When officers checked out the home, they reportedly found the stolen property and found Martinez in the tent. His mother told police he has been living there, despite her filing a criminal trespassing warning against him.

Martinez told police he did not commit the burglary, but accepted the stolen goods from someone else.

Text "NEWS" to 77453 for breaking news alerts from mySA.com

fsabawi@mysa.com

Twitter: @FaresInSA
The events of 9/11 inflicted a terrible injury on our nation, and many years later, that wound has festered with terrible infections: hate, intolerance, suspicion and xenophobia. As a turban-wearing Sikh, Ive seen and experienced a lot of this firsthand  and so have my friends and family.

Five years ago, the Sikh community was pushed into the national spotlight when a white supremacist  a domestic terrorist  killed six Sikhs in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. They were killed because they looked different. Racial and religious hatred has a long history in this country, and its as big a problem now as ever.

The 2012 attack on the Sikhs stemmed from ignorance, which grew into fear, which escalated into hate. Instead of seeing his targets as the innocent American Sikhs they were, the attacker saw them as the enemy simply because of their appearance. We all agree it is never OK to attack someone based on their looks or beliefs  whether Muslim, Sikh or otherwise. And we can all see the dangers arising from not knowing about one anothers diverse cultures and backgrounds.

Lets combat hatred by attacking the root of the problem: ignorance.

As Americans, we should all know Sikhism is the worlds fifth-largest religion with its own traditions, prophets and places of worship. Maintaining uncut hair is a religious mandate for Sikhs, and the uncut hair is typically covered by a turban. This unique identity reflects a devotion to Sikh values, including equality, service and compassion.

Its part of a physical identity that makes us stand out, so you can find us if you need help. For example, after the Oroville Dam Flood near Sacramento, Sikhs were the first to provide shelter, comfort and food while the victims started putting their lives back together.

San Antonios diversity is its greatest strength, and our recognition of that helps keep us all safer and stronger. I credit this to entities such as the University of Texas at San Antonios Institute of Texan Cultures, which champions diversity and offers a forum where the voices of all immigrants can be heard. Those who pass along the stories have contributed to battle against ignorance. Those who attended events such as Cultural Conversations and the Texas Folklife Festival have learned about immigrant and minority communities, and come to appreciate and respect them.

Sikhs have been part of the American fabric for more than a century, and we have been in Texas for about as long. We love being part of these communities. And we have one request for all of you. In a context where people around the country are being attacked for looking or being different, lets all work together in San Antonio to set an example for the rest of the nation, helping ensure that nothing like the 2012 massacre of Sikhs in Oak Creek ever happens again.

GP Singh is the former CEO of Karta Technologies. He is president of the Sikh Dharamsal, a Sikh community center in northern San Antonio.
By Jerri-Lynn Scofield, who has worked as a securities lawyer and a derivatives trader. She now spends much of her time in Asia and is currently working on a book about textile artisans.

The chair of the Securities And Exchange Commission (SEC), Jay Clayton, who assumed his position in May, has lost no time in signing onto a deregulatory agenda, as I discussed most recently in Doubling Down on Deregulation: SEC Extends JOBS Act Benefit in Elusive Quest to Goose IPO Market.

As its website spells out, the SEC has a tripartite mission: to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly, and efficient markets, and facilitate capital formation, according to this basic summary, What We Do, and Clayton pledged in his confirmation hearings to focus on the third, capital formation objective.

Regulatory Priorities

Like other federal agencies, the SEC is required to submit its regulatory agenda to the Congressional Budget Office twice each year. The WSJ reported earlier this month in Regulators Drop Pursuit of Banker, CEO Pay Restrictions:

Several regulators have dropped pursuit of a long-running plan to restrict bonuses on Wall Street, as part of a wider effort to stop working on unfinished rules put in place after the financial crisis.  The six agencies delivered a new proposal in April 2016, but that was too late to push through a final version of the rule before President Donald Trump took office in January. New regulatory agendas unveiled Thursday by the SEC and others show leaders excluded any mention of the restrictions, including longer deferment periods for bonuses and the amount of time payouts are subject to potential clawbacks. The proposal had targeted executives at some of the nations largest financial firms, including investment managers and mortgage-finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but the stiffest rules were reserved for big banks.

Now, this doesnt exactly come as news to anyone whos been paying attention, as I wrote last year in Mary Jo White Leaves Behind a Weakened SEC for Trump to Weaken Further. The ability to pursue a firm deregulatory agenda  including ignoring or punting on incomplete initiatives would be seriously complicated if the SEC under previous chairs Mary Shapiro and Mary Jo White had been more vigorous in pressing the agency to make rules. Its far easier not to make rules than it would be to rescind those already in place.

Instead, failure to complete regulation in a timely way has handed off an unfinished agenda fto a Clayton-headed SEC. And even before that, I should point out that according to the WSJ account:

The SECs updated agenda was crafted in the spring, when an acting executive, Michael Piwowar, ran the commission. Mr. Piwowar, who is back to serving as an SEC commissioner, said earlier this year that he wouldnt prioritize Dodd-Frank rules.

The WSJ article also mentions some other significant omissions from the SEC regulatory agenda as set forth when Piwowar was de facto in charge:

The newly released SEC agenda also dropped mention of a rule that would require public companies to disclose a standardized metric comparing executive pay with stock performance. It also omits any mention of other unfinished Dodd-Frank rules that govern trading of swaps, a type of contract that allows investors to bet on asset prices without owning the underlying stock or bond. The global swaps market is dominated by large banks such as Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and Citigroup Inc. . The list also dropped two measures that began under former SEC Chairman Mary Jo White, who was appointed by Mr. Obama. One rule would make it easier for shareholders to vote on board candidates nominated by investors, as opposed to the slate backed by the company. Another would have required companies to disclose more about the racial and gender diversity of corporate boards. Ms. White urged businesses to do more to recruit women and minorities to their boards, saying the low level of board diversity in the United States is unacceptable.

What Will Clayton Do?

Now, I admit that Im not sure exactly what the scope of the agenda will be that Clayton et al will pursue, going forward. Despite his record thus far, he might intend to take up some of these issues (or, for that matter, other pending or long-deferred issues, or even an entirely different set of issues entirely).

In fact, I have written that though I myself wouldnt have chosen Clayton as my first choice candidate to head the agency, he certainly was much more qualified to hold his position than many other Trump appointees (see my posts, Taking on Trumps Agenda: Nine Tough Questions for SEC Chair Nominee Jay Clayton on the Eve of His Confirmation Hearings andTrump Selects Jay Clayton, S & C Partner, to Head SEC).

As the WSJ points out:

Mr. Clayton took office in May, so the agenda could further change in the fall when he issues an update.

Lets assume for the sake of argument that Clayton does try and pursue some of these overdue rule makings (of course, as an aside, I must mention that to do this, Trump would likely need have to nominate other commissioners to fill the two empty SEC slots, and each would need to be confirmed, as Piwowar would almost certainly vote against any stringent new rules).

But indulge me in my hypothetical: what if Clayton succeeded in getting the agency to make any tough new rules? Well, these would be vulnerable to being overturned by a hostile Congress, using the authority available under the Congressional Review Act (CRA). Just last week, the House of Representatives passed a CRA resolution of disapproval repealing the the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau s (CFPB) mandatory arbitration ban, as I wrote in House Votes to Overturn CFPB Mandatory Arbitration Ban. Companion legislation has been introduced in the Senate, and once that is approved, as expected, Trump has pledged to sign the final bill, thus overturning the agencys ban.

Once that happens, as Ive written in Trump and Congress Use Congressional Review Act to Roll Back 14 Midnight Rules; More to Follow?:

Crucially and importantly, once the regulation has been successfully voided, the regulatory agency is barred from reviving the rule in substantially the same form foreverin the absence of new legislative authority.

CRA authority is the gift that keeps on giving a sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of any regulators who choose to pursue any tough regulatory agency.

Enforcement Agenda

Its still too soon to expect the two new SEC co-directors of enforcement Steven Peikin and Stephanie Avakian to blaze a clear enforcement trial (although readers might want to refer for more background to my earlier post on this issue, Two Questions for the Next SEC Director of Enforcement).

I did want to note, however, that the SEC announced two whistleblower settlements this week. In the first, made public on Tuesday, as reported by the FCPA.blog, SEC announces $2.5 million whistleblower award to government employee, announced Tuesday, the agency made its first ever award to an employee of a domestic agency which is elaborated on in the agencys award order

In the second, announced on Thursday, the FCPA blog reported, SEC awards whistleblower $1.7 million; this award went to a company insider. The SEC usually takes a noisy victory lap whenever it makes an award and with the most recent award, has now awarded $158 million to 46 whistleblowers since the first award was granted in 2012. Readers wont be surprised to find that the full potential of the whistleblower program hasnt been tapped no doubt a feature, not a big, as I previously discussed in SEC Takes Victory Lap for Pathetic Performance of Whistleblower Program.
Body&Kind is the only Health and Fitness event for women in Ireland, focusing on self care, fitness & food.

A high energy inspiring one day event packed with nutritional and motivational talks, back to back fitness classes, cooking demo with expert nutritional therapist Sinead Bradbury, nourishing lunch and snacks, spot prizes, free goodie bag, free nutritional guide and more.

Nutritional therapist favourite, Sinead Bradbury, together with her sister former Galway camogie All Star, Aislinn Connolly, have come together to create this event.

Body&Kind will be taking over the Fitzgerald's Woodlands House Hotel in Adare, Limerick on 17th September and will feature a stellar line up of fitness and nutrition master classes.

You can expect - Food & Self Care master classes; Motivational health talk from Joe O'Connor of Ireland's Fittest Family; Back to back fitness classes; HIIT, strength classes, TRX, Barbell Burn, Ab & Core workouts, Power Pilates, Yoga, Spinning & Post Natal workouts; Live cooking demo; and Nutritious lunch and snacks.

Body&Kind is a celebration of women! Our strength, power and unique bond. Body&Kind is about kindness to the bodies we own and to each other.

Come along to this full day special health and fitness event. Alone or with your girlsquad.

All levels of fitness welcome.

Tickets cost 75 and are available now. You can purchase them by logging on to eventbrite.ie.

Don't miss out on a great day!
(Natural News) Fake science guru Neil deGrasse Tyson will have his voice featured in a new documentary film entitled Food Evolution that claims to provide an independent analysis of the facts on modern food. But a closer look reveals that the entire project is more of an advertising campaign for the chemical industry than it is an honest look at the science. On top of that, it embodies a silent partnership with convicted felon and domestic abuser Jon Entine of the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH).

Directed by Academy Award-nominated director Scott Hamilton Kennedy, Food Evolution claims to be objective when, in truth, its the exact opposite. Its intended purpose as an industry-messaging media vehicle is hardly a secret for anyone paying attention, as the film was devised back in 2014 by the Institute for Food Technologists (IFT), an industry trade group that profits from the cultivation and sale of genetically-modified organisms (GMOs) and their corresponding crop chemicals like glyphosate.

As a matter of fact, IFT is funded in large part by big food corporations, and its president at the time when Food Evolution was first hatched in the idea lab was former DuPont and Monsanto executive Janet Collins. Collins has since moved up the corporate ladder even further, and now works for the pesticide trade association CropLife America. IFTs new President-Elect is Cindy Stewart, an employee at DuPont.

While IFT hired Kennedy to direct the film, it maintained full control over its direction, which is unabashedly pro-GMO and pro-chemicals. Any science that deviates from this message is omitted from the films content, while anything and everything that might suggest that biotechnology and chemical poisons are necessary to produce food is lauded and praised as truth in the film.

The films credibility suffers from their choice to embrace only the science and scientists who side with the chemical industry players who profit from GMOs and the chemicals used on them, while ignoring science and data that doesnt fit that agenda, writes Stacy Malken in an article published by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK).

Jon Entines pro-chemical escapades shine throughout Food Evolution propaganda film

The film ignores all sorts of pertinent facts, including the inherent dangers of Monsantos Roundup (glyphosate) herbicide, which is sprayed on upwards of 90 percent of all GMO crops. Not only does the film ignore the dangers of Roundup, but it even goes so far as to deny them, quoting an alleged farmer who states that the chemical poison has very, very low toxicity; lower than coffee, lower than salt.

As far as Entines involvement with the film, his Genetic Literacy Project (GLP) is credited as having spearheaded the transition from the idea phase to production phase. In a 2014 planning call meeting, the minutes of which were obtained by USRTK, Entine stated that he would be able to garner a personal pledge of $100,000 from a private business person if the rest of the funding could be obtained from elsewhere.

Entine is the same corporate propagandist and pseudo-journalist who on numerous occasions has blatantly shilled for Monsanto and other key players in the chemical industry. He also works for ACSH, a known industry front group that SourceWatch describes as holding a generally apologetic stance regarding virtually every other health and environmental hazard produced by modern industry, accepting corporate funding from Coca-Cola, Kellogg, General Mills, PepsiCo, and the American Beverage Association, among others.

Entine was also caught up in a lengthy and bitter divorce with his former wife, where he was accused of abusing her as well as threatening his young daughters therapist. Entines ex-wife has pleaded with the court to force Entine into a psychiatric evaluation over his extreme and violent behavior.

Sources:

USRTK.org

TruthWiki.org

TruthWiki.org

NaturalNews.com
(Natural News) Last December, Washington D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser officially signed into law the Death and Dignity Act of 2016, which essentially allows doctors and physicians to give terminally ill patients above the age of 18 life-ending medication. Now, roughly seven months later, that law is finally being implemented.

Of course, there are some regulations. In order for a person to legally commit suicide in Washington D.C., that individual must be working closely with licensed doctors and pharmacies that are morally okay with the idea of giving one of their patients life-ending medication.

In addition to this, patients are required to speak with their doctor and ask for permission to end their life two times, with fifteen days between each request. Before the second request, the patient must fill out an official city form confirming that they do in fact wish to commit suicide.

The program, which will be overseen by the Department of Health in Washington D.C., will also not allow a person to take his or her life in public for obvious reasons. To do so would not only be unnecessary, but also very disturbing for those who would be forced to witness it.

The debate over assisted suicide has been going on for many years now, and needless to say, there are some significant ethical problems with it. Just because something is legal does not necessarily mean it is moral  abortion is legal in all fifty states but it is quite possibly one of the most immoral practices our society takes part in. And if theres one thing that our Founding Fathers made clear during the time of Americas birth, its that our society simply cannot go on unless the people and those who govern them are moral in nature.

Human beings should not play God. They shouldnt be the ones that determine how and when someone dies, nor should they support laws that legalize that kind of a process. It is impossible to know with one hundred percent certainty what someones fate will be, even if they are terminally ill and expected to die. That being said, what gives someone the right to prematurely take the life of another human being, regardless of whether or not they are asking for it?

In the year 1994, Jeannette Hall of King City, Oregon, voted to legalize physician-assisted suicide in the United States. I thought, hey, I wouldnt want anyone to suffer, Hall said in an interview back in 2015 with The Daily Signal. So I checked it. Then it became legal.

Jeanette would never have thought that just six years after voting to legalize assisted suicide, she would be diagnosed with inoperable colon cancer. After hearing the bad news, Hall said that the doctors asked her to choose between chemotherapy and ending her life with a lethal dose of barbiturates, a drug that is most commonly used as a central nervous system depressant.

I wasnt going to do it, Hall said of the chemotherapy. I looked for the easy way out. However, Dr. Kenneth Stevens, one of Halls two cancer doctors, was determined to convince her to choose life over death. He believed that Jeanette, who was only in her mid 50s at the time, had so much more to live for.

Stevens eventually found out that Jeanette had a son who at the time was going through training to become a state trooper. Wouldnt you like to see him graduate? Wouldnt you like to see him get married? Stevens asked Hall in one last attempt to save her life.

Hall later explained to The Daily Signal how the thought of never being able to see her son grow up and live a happy life ultimately deterred her from going through with the assisted suicide. Hall instead chose to fight the cancer with chemotherapy and went on to live for another 15 years.

Assisted suicide is not something that our society should be embracing. Instead, we should be encouraging people to live their lives to the fullest and to never give up hope, because as long as there is hope, anything is possible  even beating the odds against a terminal illness.

Sources include:

WTOP.com

DailySignal.com
(Natural News) Backers of marijuana use for recreational purposes won another court victory this week as a state court ruled that police cannot stop or arrest someone just because they smell pot in a suspects vehicle.

As reported by The Grand Junction Sentinel in Colorado, indications by drug-sniffing police dogs that there are controlled substances in a vehicle is in and of itself not sufficient probable cause for officers to then search the vehicle, the state Court of Appeals ruled on Thursdays.

The case, which observers said will set a precedent, perhaps beyond Colorados borders, involved a resident of Moffat County. The three-judge appeals panel agreed with the defendant that police need more of a cause to search a vehicle without the owners permission.

Why? Because, the court ruled, there could be legal marijuana in the car.

Because Amendment 64 legalized possession for personal use of one ounce or less of marijuana by persons 21 years of age or older in Colorado, it is no longer accurate to say, at least as a matter of state law, that an alert by a dog which can detect marijuana  but not specific amounts  can reveal only the presence of contraband, said Judge Daniel Daily for the panel, a ruling joined by Judges Jerry Jones and Michael Berger.

A dog sniff could result in an alert with respect to something for which, under Colorado law, a person has a legitimate expectation of privacy, the court noted further. Because a dog sniff of a vehicle could infringe upon a legitimate expectation of privacy solely under state law, that dog sniff should now be considered a search for purposes of (the amendment) where the occupants are 21 years or older.

Recreational and medical use of marijuana in any amount remains against federal law, but neither the Obama administration nor the Trump Justice Department, so far at least, intervened when Colorado and Washington State voters approved measures legalizing its recreational use a few years ago. At the time Obama told ABC News the administration had bigger fish to fry. Thus far, President Donald J. Trump has not given any indication what he will do on the matter, nor has Attorney General Jeff Sessions. And Congress has yet to take up the issue of whether to change the law legalizing recreational pot use in all states. (Related: Could marijuana help fight obesity in America?)

As for the Colorado case, the local paper noted further:

In this February 2015 case, Craig Police Cpl. Bryan Gonzales had followed a truck driven by Craig resident Kevin McKnight that was leaving a home that had been searched for drugs nearly two months earlier.

Gonzales testified that he pulled the truck over because McKnight allegedly made a turn without using a turn signal. He later called in Sgt. Courtland Folks with the Moffat County Sheriffs Office and his drug-detection dog, Kilo.

Kilo is trained to detect cocaine, heroin, esctasy, methamphetamine and marijuana.

After Kilo detected something in the vehicle, it was searched by police, revealing a glass pipe commonly used to smoke meth.

McKnights attorney had filed a motion to suppress the search, but Moffat County District Judge Michael OHara nevertheless allowed the evidence to be entered into the court proceedings. McKnight was later convicted of possessing drug paraphernalia as well as possession of a controlled substance.

However, the paper noted, the appeals court ruled that due to state law legalizing a certain amount of marijuana, and since the dog was not able to indicate to officers just what substance he detected, police, therefore, did not have sufficient probable cause to conduct their search of McKnights vehicle.

Though Berger and Jones concurred, they each wrote separate opinions in the case. Berger said in his opinion that Amendment 64 handed state residents an enforceable expectation of privacy. However, Jones said the amendment has really added a level of ambiguity for police as they attempt to gather evidence to make drug cases.

What really needs to happen is one of two things: 1) The Justice Department should enforce federal law as written, so there is no ambiguity; 2) Congress should pass legislation overturning the current federal marijuana ban and defining how it can be used recreationally.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

CannabisCures.news

GJSentinel.com
(Natural News) Chessington World of Adventures, a theme park, zoo and sealife center at Chessington, U.K., was recently accused of lying to its customers and remaining mum about a recent fox attack that killed eight of its Humboldt Penguins. According to reports, the attack happened at the end of June when an urban fox infiltrated the penguins enclosure. Following the incidence, the zoo management allegedly decided to quietly close off the Penguin Bay and put a sign at the entrance, stating that the unfortunate animals where placed somewhere else as the zoo made alterations to the attraction.

The zoo was accused of covering up the attack by using the sign. It was also reported that theme park employees were warned against talking about the incidence. The attack happened at the end of June when the night security and zoo staff were not monitoring as they should have been. There is CCTV footage on site at the park. The male penguins can be seen trying to protect the babies from the attack, sadly all bar one of the males were killed as well as all the babiesNot only are these poor animals are now dead, but the customers are being lied to, a source said in an article on The Telegraph website.

However, a spokesperson for the zoo defended the managements decision not to inform the public, stating that Chessington was not under any obligation to divulge the details of the animals. The reports also noted that the officer did not specify the preventive measures in place to protect the penguins. This, despite the zoo insisting that the Penguin bays enclosure met all specifications stated in licensing standards.

According to the spokesperson, the alterations on the enclosure were being carried out in order to prevent future incidents. The official also noted that investigations are underway to determine how the fox got inside the enclosure. The attraction was opened in 2015 in partnership with Dreamworks in celebration of the release of the animated film Penguins of Madagascar. (Related: Despite massive petition to free the animal, worlds saddest polar bear remains imprisoned in Chinese shopping mall, longing for natural habitat.)

Zoo owns up to the penguin massacre

The zoo management eventually owned up to the incident. It is with great sadness that we have to announce the death of eight of our Humboldt penguins, which it is apparent were killed by an urban fox that infiltrated their home at Penguin Bay overnight at the end of June. We are investigating why this happened, as Penguin Bay, only built in 2015, had special measures put in place specifically to deter foxes and therefore we are shocked and saddened at this news. The eight Humboldt penguins, five adults and three infants, were part of a group of 28 here at the resortOur remaining penguins have been moved to a secure area while we take additional measures to secure Penguin Bay, which we hope to reopen as soon as possible, Lisa Britton, assistant zoo manager at Chessington World of Adventures Resort, said in an article on The Guardian website.

According to Britton, the health, safety and welfare of the animals are a top priority for the zoo. The official also stressed that Chessington is a member of the European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA) and the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquariums (BIAZA), both of which maintain strict protocols and ethics in animal conservation, management, operations, and education research.

The recent attack was not the first reported incidence of animal deaths inside the zoos parameters. Early this year, a spate of animal killings at Delhi Zoo in India was also blamed on illegal animal capture and negligence by zoo officials.

Sources include:

Telegraph.co.uk

TheGuardian.co.uk
(Natural News) There is no question about it: The academic far-Left has lost their collective minds and is now actively trolling for things to be upset/angry/offended about, and this is especially true for many of todays college and university campuses.

As reported by Campus Reform, a pair of feminist professors who teach geography  yes, geography  recently wrote in an actual academic journal that certain citations in scholarly articles do nothing but contribute to white heteromasculinity because they ignore research by minorities and women.

You just cannot make this stuff up.

Carrie Mott of Rutgers University and Daniel Cockayne made the claim in an article published last month in the Feminist Journal of Geography (I know  I couldnt believe there was such a publication, either), noting also that citing works can be a feminist and anti-racist technology of resistance if they are specifically chosen with the intent to promote those authors and voices we want to carry forward.

So in other words, scholarly findings by white males are not to be advanced as vigorously as similar scholarly findings by persons of color and women, because if they are, then the author is somehow contributing to the oppression of both.

Campus Reform noted further:

Mott and Cockayne say citation practices are an issue of scholarly concern because whether a professors work is cited by other scholars has strong implications for hiring, promotion, tenure, and how certain voices are represented over others in academia.

To cite only white menor to only cite established scholarsdoes a disservice to researchers and writers who are othered by white heteromasculinism, they actually wrote, further defining white heteromasculinism as an intersectional system of oppression describing on-going processes that bolster the status of those who are white, male, able-bodied, economically privileged, heterosexual, and cisgendered.

They also claimed that this oppression only contributes to the marginalization of women, people of color, and those othered through white heteromascline hegemony, further asserting that particular voices and bodies are persistently left out of the conversation altogether.

In an interview with Campus Reform, Mott said she and her co-author wrote their piece after they observed that white men tend to be cited in much higher numbers than people from other backgrounds. She said, we started looking into research that had been done in other fields about similar topics, and wanted to write something specifically for geographers to think about the relationship between knowledge production and identity.

Mott claimed that women and minorities have contributed a lot to geographic research, but they have mostly been ignored by other researchers. That not only holds individual scholars back but it also leaves their potentially unique perspectives out of the larger body of research.

When it is predominantly white, heteronormative males who are cited, this means that the views and knowledge that are represented do not reflect the experience of people from other backgrounds, she said. When scholars continue to cite only white men on a given topic, they ignore the broader diversity of voices and researchers that are also doing important work on that topic. (Related: Brown University Students Claim The First Amendment Doesnt Include ALL Speech, Only Views They Agree With.)

As someone who has done graduate-level research, I can say with honesty that I didnt pay any attention to the ethnicity or gender or sexual preference of the researchers I cited; rather, I looked for the quality and appropriateness of research as it pertained to my thesis topic.

But beyond that, I am also well aware that for some fields of study, maybe most of the research has been done by white heterosexual males, and that if thats the case, so what, so long as its accurate?

To suggest that certain research should not be cited just because it was performed by someone with a specific political view, ethnicity, gender and sexual preference is absurd beyond belief. Worse is to assume that citation of white heterosexual males is racist or bigoted.

J.D. Heyes is a senior writer for NaturalNews.com and NewsTarget.com, as well as editor of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

CampusReform.org

CampusInsanity.com
A traffic stop conducted by the San Diego Police Department (SDPD) led to the discovery of a Chinese citizen within a locked compartment of a car Saturday.

At approximately 1:55 a.m., an officer ordered the impoundment of a 2016 Toyota after a traffic stop on Interstate 15 near Clairemont Mesa Boulevard, according to SDPD.

Road One Towing took the vehicle to an impound lot at 4955 Ruffner Street, where a tow yard employee reportedly heard screaming coming from the car.

The employee found the noise coming from a locked compartment, and San Diego Fire Department officials and San Diego police officers were notified to investigate.

At approximately 4:45 a.m., SDPD called U.S. Customs and Border Protection to take the man into custody. The driver of the vehicle was also arrested, according to SDPD.

The driver, identified as Salvador Vera, Jr., faces charges of human smuggling according to a federal complaint. Shulin Zheng of China will likely be processed for deportation, according to a statement.
The State Bar Court of California announced Friday it has temporarily suspended a former Contra Costa County district attorney who pleaded no contest to perjury over his personal use of campaign funds.

The association is also investigating whether Mark Peterson merits further punishment, including disbarment, the East Bay Times reported Friday.

Peterson resigned from office in June and pleaded no contest to perjury for filing a false campaign disclosure statement. He was placed on probation.

A county grand jury recommended in May that Peterson be removed from his post after he acknowledged spending more than $66,000 of campaign cash on movie tickets, clothes and other personal expenses while serving as treasurer of his re-election campaign.

Peterson has said he considered the withdrawals to be loans.

Peterson's attorney, Doron Weinberg, was not immediately available for comment Friday.

The California Supreme Court will have to sign off on any disciplinary action taken against Peterson.

The interim suspension takes effect next month.
A man on Saturday was injured in a shooting that led to his SUV plunging into the Berkeley Marina.

Officers responded to reports of gunshots on University Avenue near the Berkeley Pier around 3:40 a.m. They found the victim with multiple gunshot wounds and took him to Highland Hospital in Oakland.

Police did not specify the man's condition, but said that he is not a Berkeley resident.

The man's car had careened off the road and onto the San Francisco Bay seawall.

A witness told NBC Bay Area that the white SUV had landed in the water and had been pulled to the shore by a couple of tow trucks.

No additional passengers were believed to be in the water, according to police.

Officers found numerous shell casings along Seawall Drive, forcing them to shut down the road while they processed the crime scene.

"Another group aparantly shot him out because that car was riddled," said witness John Vicars. "All of the windows were taken out, and there were bullet holes  at least 30 bullet holes to the car."



The investigation also led police to a man who is considered a person of interest in the shooting. This person is also not a Berkeley resident, and was arrested on unrelated charges.

Police kept the shooting scene cordoned off for a couple hours.

Anyone with information about the shooting are asked to call the Berkeley Police Department at 510-981-5900.


San Francisco police suspect that two separate groups of young people have assaulted and robbed Muni riders in the last two weeks.

The latest attack in what has now become a worrying trend occurred at Market and Kearney streets during Thursday evening's commute.

Young women allegedly surrounded a woman on the 8 Bayshore line, police said. When she tried to call 911, one of the suspects punched her and another stole her phone. The group then ran away.

"Thats surprising and concerning," said San Francisco resident and Muni rider, Emily Yu, who expressed surprise that women ganged up on another woman.

Yu admits that she is always on the lookout. She may put on her ear buds, but isn't actually listening to music.

Why?

So I can hear and I am aware of my surroundings, Yu said.

Last week, police say a group of 10 young men jumped a Muni rider at Market Street and Van Ness Avenue. They assaulted him and made off with his phone.

Investigators are reviewing video from the buses in both cases, hoping to identify suspects.

The SFMTA said it is working closely with the San Francisco Police Department.
A 4-year-old boy was among at least 36 people shot in Chicago this weekend as violence across the city left four dead and nearly three dozen others wounded.



The child was wounded in a shooting that also left a woman dead and a teen injured on the city's West Side Friday, marking the weekend's first homicide and bringing the city to more than 400 homicides so far this year.

The shooting occurred at about 5:19 p.m. in the 5200 block of West Kamerling Avenue in the city's Austin neighborhood. The child was shot in the arm and taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, police said.

A 19-year-old man was shot in the left arm and taken to Mt. Sinai in good condition and a 27-year-old woman was also shot in the head and taken to Stroger Hospital, police said. The woman was later pronounced dead.

Area North detectives were investigating and no one was in custody. Police said the 19-year-old has "gang affiliation."

A second fatal shooting happened just after midnight Saturday, when three people were shot in the 2500 block of West Lithuania Plaza. The victims told police they were standing on the sidewalk when they heard shots and felt pain.

An 18-year-old man was shot in the head and pronounced dead at Advocate Christ Medical Center. A 33-year-old woman suffered a graze wound to the head and was taken in serious condition to the same hospital. A 34-year-old woman was listed in stable condition with a gunshot wound to the left shoulder, police said.

At about 4:30 p.m. Sunday, a 20-year-old man was found unresponsive in a backyard in the 9800 block of South Peoria. The man was found with a gunshot wound to the back and was pronounced dead at the scene.

The most recent fatal shooting happened just after midnight Monday, when a 21-year-old man was shot in the abdomen while walking on a sidewalk in the 7600 block of North Ashland. The man was shot when a gunman opened fire from a passing black Dodge Charger, police said. He wsa taken to Loyola Hospital where he was later pronounced dead.

Friday

Just after noon Friday, two 24-year-old men were shot in the 1500 block of South St. Louis. The men told police they were standing on a sidewalk when an SUV drove up and multiple gunmen got out and opened fire. One man was shot in the chest and legs and was taken in critical condition to Mount Sinai Hospital. The other man was shot in the foot and wrist and listed in stable condition.

An 89-year-old man was shot sitting in front of a business when gunmen opened fire on another man around 6:30 p.m. in the 4200 block of West Cermak. the gunmen were in a gray van when they fired shots at another man fleeing from the area, police said. The 89-year-old suffered a graze wound to the arm and the business had gunshot damage. The elderly man was treated in good condition at the scene and refused to be taken to an area hospital. A 32-year-old man also wounded in the shooting later walked into Mount Sinai Hospital with a wound to the foot. He was listed in stable condition.

Just before 9 p.m., two men were was shot in the 10800 block of South Normal. The men were shot when a dark-colored sedan pulled up next to them and began firing shots, police said. A 20-year-old man was shot in the body and taken to Advocate Christ Medical Center in unknown condition. An 18-year-old man was shot in the right leg and left arm and transported in stable condition to the same hospital.

About three hours later, just minutes before midnight, a 16-year-old boy was shot while standing on a sidewalk in the 2400 block of West Jackson. The teen was shot in the legs and taken in serious condition to Mount Sinai Hospital, police said.

Saturday

Just after 3 a.m., a 23-year-old man walked into Stroger Hospital with a gunshot wound to the shoulder. The man told police he was walking in the 5000 block of West Madison when he heard shots and felt pain. He was listed in stable condition.

Less than an hour later, a 26-year-old man was seriously wounded in a shooting in the 1500 block of West 79th Street. The man, who police say is a documented gang member, suffered a gunshot wound to the leg and was taken to Mount Sinai Hospital. Further details on what happened weren't immediately known.

At 4:15 a.m., a 42-year-old woman was shot while sitting on a porch in the 1800 block of West 47th Street. The woman said she heard shots being fired from an unknown direction and realized she was injured, police said. She took herself to Oak Park Hospital and was treated and released with a graze wound to the hip.

Fifteen minutes later, a 33-year-old man was shot while walking to his vehicle in the 7400 block of South Phillips, police said. The man was shot in the groin and took himself to Jackson Park Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition, authorities said.

Roughly 12 hours later, a 29-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 7800 block of West Belmont Avenue. The man was taken by an acquaintance to Resurrection Hospital where he was listed in good condition, police said.

Just after 8 p.m., a 19-year-old man was shot while standing outside in the 5600 block of South Ashland Avenue, police said. The teen told police a vehicle approached and someone got out and opened fire. He was shot in the arm and taken to Stroger Hospital in good condition, according to authorities.

Around 10:30 p.m., a 28-year-old man was shot while sitting in the driver's seat of a double-parked vehicle in the 2800 block of West 57th Street. The man said a silver Jeep pulled alongside him and someone opened fire, striking him in the hip, police said. He took himself to Holy Cross Hospital, where he was listed in stable condition.

Less than an hour later, two people were shot in the 100 block of East 80th Street. Police said two 21-year-old men were walking eastbound on the street when they heard shots and felt pain. One man was shot in the leg and taken to Jackson Park Hospital in stable condition. The second man suffered a graze wound to the left foot and took himself to University of Chicago Medical Center in stable condition.

Sunday


A suburban Chicago man who posed as the owner of two small dogs, paid a reward to the person who found them and then threw them off the top of a five-story parking garage has been sentenced to prison after pleading guilty to animal cruelty charges.



The Daily Southtown 23-year-old Edward Hanania of Oak Lawn was sentenced Friday to five years in prison for felony aggravated animal cruelty and six years in prison for violating his probation on an unrelated drug conviction. The two sentences will run concurrently, Cook County State's Attorney's office spokeswoman Tandra Simonton said.

Prosecutors said Hanania obtained the dogs by responding to a Facebook ad from someone who had found the two toy poodles. They contend that Hanania, posing as the dogs' owner, paid the person who found the dogs a reward and then drove them to the top of a parking garage at Advocate Christ Medical Center in Oak Lawn and then threw them to the ground.

The paper reported that hospital surveillance video shows a man pulling to the top of the parking deck, climbing from his car, looking over the ledge before walking back to the vehicle before the animals were thrown to the ground.

One of the dogs was killed. The other suffered broken legs but survived after undergoing surgery.

The case was closely followed by animal welfare advocates, who showed up to each of Hanania's court appearances and held a rally.

"I think our presence played a part in it, I really do," said Peggy O'Leary, one of the activists. "The state's attorney came out last time and talked to us and said the judge was aware we were here keeping tabs on this guy."
Connecticut police say a 12-year-old girl who drove off in her mother's car with her 9-year-old sister has been found and brought back home safe and sound.

Hamden authorities say 12-year-old Rebecca Hernandez and her mom's car were found in neighboring New Haven on Friday. Her younger sister, Julianna, was dropped off at home Thursday night, hours after the girls went missing.

Police aren't saying how they found Rebecca. Officials say the younger girl had told them after she returned home that Rebecca still had their mother's car and was with three males.

Authorities issued statewide alerts for the girls and searched the area for them.

The girl's mother told police Rebecca had driven her car before without her permission.
Connecticut State Police have arrested two people accused of selling heroin from their home in Killingly.

Julia Valetin, 52, and Linda Eldredge, 46, of Prospect Avenue, were arrested after police served three search and seizure warrants at their apartment on Friday and found 60 bags of heroin and $600 in cash. Police said they also found 10 bags of heroin on Valentins person.

Both were charged with possession of heroin with intent to sell and possession of heroin. Valentin was held on a $75,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on July 31. Eldredge was released on a $25,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on Aug. 9.
The case of a former Connecticut police sergeant charged with stomping on the head of a handcuffed man is returning to court for pre-trial discussions.

The talks in the case of former Hartford Sgt. Sean Spell are set for Monday in Hartford Superior Court.

Spell has pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor assault and breach of peace charges in connection with an encounter last year with a suspect following a car chase that ended in West Hartford. He denies any wrongdoing.

Video from a police dashboard camera appears to show Spell stomping on Emilio Diaz's head as Diaz was on the ground in handcuffs. Spell told authorities he kicked Diaz because Diaz refused to stop spitting blood at him, which Diaz denies.

Spell retired last year amid an excessive force investigation.
The body of a 33-year-old man was pulled from the water at Millers Pond State Park in Durham on Saturday evening.

The Department of Energy and Environmental Protection said the man was last seen swimming in the afternoon.

NBC Connecticut spoke with the nephew of the victim, who identified him as Ramiro Bonilla, of Queens. Bonilla was also at the park with his wife.

Multiple agencies responded to the emergency call at 5:20 p.m., including State Police, Middletown and Haddam Fire departments and the State Environmenal Conservation (EnCon) Police.

The Middletown South District Department Dive Team found the victim's body just before 7:00 p.m.

The park is a popular spot for swimming in the summer. However, signs posted at the entrance specifically caution people that it is not a "designated swim area" with no lifeguards on duty.

EnCon Police is investigating the incident but no further information was available.
Tianna Rooney has already bought the poster board for the sign she'll wave when the 16-year-old refugee boy her family is taking in arrives in the United States. Rooney knows the exact words of welcome she'll write on it, in the teenager's native language from the African country of Eritrea.

But Rooney's family is leaving the sign blank, for now. She and her husband, Todd, fear actually writing the words "Welcome Home" could break her heart.

The foster son they're waiting for is part of a small, three-decade-old U.S. program for so-called unaccompanied refugee minors that has been halted by a series of new refugee bans and travel limits imposed by the Trump administration in the name of fighting terrorism.

By blocking the program, the U.S. travel bans have stranded more than 100 refugee children who were already matched to waiting American foster families. Without parents or other adult relatives, those kids are living on their own in countries of temporary refuge, in limbo while their U.S. foster parents hope for a court ruling that will allow the children to finish their journeys.

Since the June day a refugee agency matched the Rooneys with their foster son, which turned out to be the same day of the first Supreme Court ruling barring him, "we have experienced this very unexpected ride of grief in our family," says Rooney, a 39-year-old family therapist and mother of two from Brighton, a suburb of Detroit.

Meanwhile, the boy who fled his home country at 13 to avoid widespread forced military conscription of children continues to fend for himself on the streets in his temporary refuge in another African capital, with no phone or internet for the Rooneys to reach him to explain the delay.

"There's part of me that really hopes he knows a family wants him," Tianna Rooney says.

Since the 1980s, the program for orphaned refugee children has brought in more than 6,000 refugee children, including 203 last year.

"These are kids on their own, and struggling to survive," said Elizabeth Foydel, policy counsel with the International Refugee Assistance Project, a Washington, D.C., legal-aid group for refugees.

"How long do you feel comfortable with your child not having a caregiver?" Foydel says she asks other Americans. "Trying to manage for themselves?"

The program for orphaned refugee children from around the world is different from one started by the Obama administration in 2014 for Central American children fleeing a surge in violence there.

In the program for unaccompanied refugee children, kids eking out a living by themselves in a refugee camp or elsewhere must first come to the attention of a U.N. agency, which may choose to refer them for the U.S foster program, especially if the children are deemed to be particularly vulnerable wherever they are now. The children must then pass U.S. security screenings and other requirements, and win a match with an American foster family or group home.

But a series of Trump administration orders, and court rulings interpreting them, are now barring refugees with no close family in the United States. That requirement shuts out the refugee children in the foster program, who have no relatives they can turn to anywhere.

The child refugees newly blocked from waiting American foster families include five Ethiopian sisters, ages 9 to 16. The girls lost both parents in 2009, and have faced abuse alone in the war zone of neighboring South Sudan and in Sudanese cities, said Jessica Jones, policy counsel for the Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Along with the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Lutherans are one of two U.S. groups running the program on behalf of the U.S. State Department.

Other waiting children include a 17-year-old couple originally from the Asian country of Myanmar and the baby they had together in a refugee camp, after fleeing attacks on their Rohingya religious minority in Myanmar.

In her home in another Detroit suburb, Sharon Martin, 64, has bought a crib for the young refugee family from Myanmar. But the children's books she bought, Martin said, are really for her. "If they come, I can finally read to a child again," Martin says.

Refugee workers say the family faces forced return to Myanmar if their U.S. arrangements fall through.

In San Francisco, meanwhile, web designer Julie Rajagopal and husband Mike Gougherty, a senior planner for a regional ferry system, are two of the lucky ones.

The 16-year-old boy they are fostering also fled a lifetime of forced military service in Eritrea, at 13. When he landed in March, a slight youth coming off the plane in an ill-made tracksuit, he was among the last refugee foster children to make it into the U.S.

Rajagopal, 35, often had stayed up through the night calling government workers and charity officials in the faraway African hub of Cairo to speed her new foster son's paperwork.

On a clear day this summer, the teen strolled with the couple at a park overlooking San Francisco. In the city's hip Mission District, he blended seamlessly in a red sweater and shoes he carefully matched himself, and jeans he insisted on lovingly ironing with each wear.

Meanwhile, in Brighton, the Rooneys and their 10- and 12-year-old sons stack new socks and T-shirts in the bedroom they've set aside for the boy they nicknamed "Five," meaning the eagerly awaited fifth member of their family.

Tianna Rooney recently got out the poster board, thinking to work on the welcome sign. After a concerned look from her husband, she put it away.

"We want to think positive thoughts" that their foster son will come safely, Todd Rooney said. "But without endangering ourselves. Without setting ourselves up for a heartache."
Attorneys for SoCalGas Saturday filed a successful dispute to a Friday state appellate court ruling that temporarily halted plans to reopen the Aliso Canyon natural gas storage facility.

A day after it handed down the ruling blocking the re-start of gas injections at the facility, the 2nd District Court of Appeals reversed itself, calling off the decision in response to the SoCalGas challenge.

"The Request for Judicial Notice is granted. The temporary injunction issued by this court on July 28, 2017, is dissolved,'' the court said in a concise statement released Saturday evening.

Among the counterpoints made by SoCalGas lawyers in the 25-page filing obtained by City News Service, the utility argued that the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Department of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources both determined the location is safe to contain natural gas in limited amounts.

The decision capped a flurry of legal maneuvers that began early Friday afternoon.

That was when Los Angeles Superior Court Judge John Shepard Wiley Jr. refused a Los Angeles County request to block the re-start of gas injections at the storage site, which has been closed since the largest methane leak in U.S. history temporarily displaced dozens of Porter Ranch residents in 2015-16.

Wiley ruled that he did not have the authority to "interfere" in the operation of a facility governed by the public utilities commission.

The stay issued just hours later by the 2nd district court followed an emergency filing by attorneys for Los Angeles County.

Under that order, SoCalGas was "temporarily enjoined from injecting natural gas into the Aliso Canyon underground reservoir" pending further consideration of the issue.

SoGalGas was given until 6 p.m. Saturday to respond to the ruling, which it did by mid-afternoon, utility spokesman Chris Gilbride said.

Not long after receiving the response, the appellate court called off the previous day's temporary ban.

"(Saturday's) decision by the court of appeals is the right one," Gilbride said. "Aliso Canyon is safe to operate. This is not just our conclusion, but the conclusion of the only state regulators with lawful jurisdiction and expertise to oversee the safety of our operations."

According to Gilbride, the CPUC and the DOGGR have said delaying the resumption of injections could pose an energy reliability risk to the Los Angeles Basin.

"The CPUC has directed SoCalGas to maintain natural gas inventories at Aliso Canyon necessary to support the reliability of the region's natural gas and electricity systems,'' Gilbride said.

CPUC Executive Director Timothy Sullivan said the facility would 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 about the possibility of electrical shortages due to the lack of natural gas from the Porter Ranch-area facility to operate Southland 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.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Kathryn Barger called the now-defunct appellate court ruling "a victory for the residents of Porter Ranch and the northwest San Fernando Valley.

"This ruling recognizes that there are still significant issues that need to be considered by the court before re-injection is allowed at the Aliso Canyon facility," Barger said.

SoCalGas officials said the leak was discovered on Oct. 24, 2015 and continued emanating methane until a Feb. 11, 2016 announcement that the leak was capped.

At its peak, the escaping gas forced an estimated 15,000 Porter Ranch area residents to temporarily relocate.

A study by researchers at the UC campuses in Irvine and Davis determined the leak put enough methane into the air each day to "fill a balloon the size of the Rose Bowl'' and confirmed it was the largest in the nation's history.

County officials maintain that the facility should not reopen until a study is completed on the cause of the 2015-16 gas leak. They also contend further study is needed on the possible damage a large earthquake could cause to the storage field.

The Aliso Canyon site has been out of use since the nearly four-month leak placed an estimated 109,000 metric tons of methane into the air.

In court papers filed Monday, attorneys for the county argued that Aliso Canyon "cannot withstand" a major earthquake, and there is a 60 percent to 80 percent chance of such a temblor occurring in the Aliso Canyon area over the next 50 years.

SoCalGas officials said concerns about seismic safety were "carefully considered" by state regulators before they decided the facility is safe to resume limited operations.

"SoCalGas has met, and in many cases, exceeded the requirements of the state's year-and-a-half long review," Gilbride told CNS. "In fact, DOGGR says Aliso Canyon 'has undergone more safety and regulatory scrutiny during this period than any of California's 13 other underground natural gas storage facilities, and likely more safety scrutiny from a regulatory agency than any other gas storage facility in the United States.'"
An explosive device was detonated as a police convoy was making its way down a street in Caracas, Venezuela, according to the Associated Press.

Guardsmen were patrolling the streets of Caracas to stop anti-government protesters, who were clashing with security forces in the Altamira neighborhood.

Four police officers were injured in the explosion.

Officers were seen setting fire to several motorbikes belonging to journalists covering the clashes after the explosion happened.

Residents of Venezuela have started protesting in opposition to President Nicolas Maduros Constituent Assembly. If its assembled, they would then be tasked with rewriting the countrys Constitution.

The special assembly is being selected on Sunday. If selected, they would also have powers above other state institutions, including the opposition-controlled congress.
Detectives investigating fraud in North Miami Dade hit the jackpot when they executed a search warrant on a suspect's home: he was writing a fraud "to-do" list.

The Miami Herald reports that 19-year-old Phyllistone Termine was sentenced last week to 4  years in federal prison for aggravated identity theft and access device fraud after investigators found the list among other evidence.

Prosecutors say Termine admitted to collecting names and Social Security numbers and submitting fraudulent unemployment benefit claims.

When investigators traced the false claims to Internet Provider addresses from Termine's North Miami-Dade home, they executed a search warrant.

Termine was in his bedroom writing a list on a legal pad that included "buy 3 phones, 1 clean 2 dirty's" and reminders to buy credit card information from the "dark web."
A man was charged with murder after a man was found stabbed to death outside of a New Jersey restaurant Friday night, authorities said.

Police responded to a report of a disturbance at Rumba Cubana on Boulevard East at Guttenberg, and found Antonio Bouza, 28, lying on the ground outside of the restaurant with a stab wound to his chest, police said.

Bouza was taken to Palisades Medical Center where he was pronounced dead, police said.

The mexical examiner has yet to determine the cause of death.

Reidel Carrasco, 22, turned himself in for his alleged involvement in Bouza's death a short time after, police said.

Carrasco was charged with first-degree murder and unlawful possession of a weapon.

The Prosecutors Homicide Unit continues to investigate this case. Anyone with information is asked to contact the Office of the Hudson County Prosecutor at 201-915-1345.
Authorities have identified a woman who disappeared while swimming in the waters off the Jersey Shore early Sunday.

Point Pleasant Beach police say 24-year-old Zuzana Oravcova, from Slovakia, was reported missing around 2:25 a.m. Sunday. She had been swimming with a male friend when both swimmers started having problems and Oravcova was unable to make it to shore.

Officials say the 23-year-old man, also from Slovakia, sought help once he made it to shore.

The Coast Guard was notified about the disappearance and soon launched a 47-foot Motor Lifeboat crew from its Manasquan Inlet station and a MH-65 Dolphin aircrew from Air Station Atlantic City.

A massive search operation was launched and continued through the day. The Coast Guard called off the search before 10 p.m. Sunday.

The National Weather Service on Sunday issued a warning about dangerous rip currents along the Jersey Shore. It's due to remain in effect until Sunday night.

Forecasters said the currents could potentially be life-threatening, so they urged beachgoers to speak with lifeguards about any concerns they have and to follow all swimming flags and signs.

They also warned that a moderate risk for dangerous rip currents may also exist on Monday.
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An Oceanside-based minister detained two months ago by U.S. immigration authorities is now out on bail and is working toward a path to gain legal status.

Jorge Ramirez spoke to NBC 7 on Saturday  his first full day out of jail. He said he has a lot to do.

On May 31, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers detained Ramirez in front of his home as he was getting ready to head to work.

"It looked like five guys threw me on the ground, put on their knee, grabbed me, picked me up and threw me in the expedition and drove away," he recounted. "It was unreal, one of those things you see in movies."

Ramirez said his parents brought him to the United States when he was 11 years old. He also said he had legal status through a work visa in the 1990s but that status only lasted six months.

He admitted he's been living in the country illegally for more than 30 years, understanding the reality that he could be detained and deported at any time.

Since his arrest he said his initial hearing was delayed but all of his paperwork was submitted by his immigration attorney showing his record in the country  an entire life hes built here over the decades.

"Twenty years of tax returns, letters from community leaders, pastors from the places that I worked, pretty much everything," Ramirez explained. "I had report cards from when I was in 6th grade; my graduation; my diplomas; my perfect attendance."

When asked why he didn't apply for legal residency earlier, he said his lawyers offered a 50/50 chance of gaining legal status or being deported. Faced with the odds, he declined.

Ramirez said his path to legalizing his status is clearer now, and hes already started the process. His son can now apply to let Ramirez live in the U.S. legally.

"My son turned 21 on July 18," he said. "When he did that, I was able to file under him."

Ramirez said he wishes ICE officers wouldve reached out to him with a notice to appear in court rather than detaining him and putting him in jail. He said he wouldve showed up to court.

They could have called me; they could have sent a notice, he said. They know me. I live in the same place. I own a house; it's not like I'm going anywhere.

Despite prior reports that Ramirez was a supporter of President Donald Trump, the minister insisted that was never the case.
A gushing water main break in the heart of San Diego's Little Italy left many streets flooded, and nearby businesses closed, as crews worked to fix the break.

The 16-inch concrete pipe broke around 6 a.m. Sunday near Juniper and Kettner Boulevard, San Diego police (SDPD) said.

The gushing water blocked southbound Kettner Blvd. from West Kalmia to Juniper.

"I saw some of the water, thought maybe it was a water hydrant that busted open," said Manny Delaney, a nearby resident. "As I got closer, I could see the water shooting up from the road, and the water lifted, about a foot, and water gushed down."

Public transit in the area was also affected. The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System (MTS) reports the Green Line commute was impacted until about 6 a.m. Monday. Now its running on its normal schedule.

After the water was turned off, many streets were still flooded.

Joey Vaiasuso works on sculptures and furniture and shares his workspace with a group of artists. He said the damage is extensive to both the property and their work tools.

"Lots of machines under water ... lots of works in progress under water, so it's going to be a pretty big deal for all the tenants down here," he told NBC 7. "I know we're going to be put out of business for a good amount of time."

The streets were reopened Sunday after being closed for several hours.

The Crack Shack and Bird Rock Roasters say they will be open Monday.


Montgomery County, Maryland, police detectives are worried there might be more victims after arresting a man in connection with the alleged rape of a 13-year-old girl.

Police said Charles Ebenezer Berry Jr., 21, from Germantown, Maryland, was arrested on Thursday at his home. He is charged with one count of second-degree rape and being held without bail.

The girl was reported missing by her family in Washington County, Maryland on June 23. The next day, police said the victim contacted her family and said she was at a motel in Germantown.

Montgomery County detectives spoke with the girl and found out she and Berry corresponded with each other through social media, starting in 2016. She said Berry picked her up from her house in Washington County and took her to the motel, where they engaged in sexual acts.

Police said he was charged with second-degree rape, because the victim was under the age of 14, and the suspect was four or more years older.



Investigators are concerned there may be other victims that Berry allegedly contacted through social media. Anyone who believes that their child may have corresponded with or met with Berry Jr. is asked to contact the Special Victims Investigations Division at 240-773-5400.
Twitter has made it clear that it won't ban Donald Trump from its service, whether the president follows its rules against harassment or not.

That's no surprise: The president's tweets draw attention to the struggling service, even if tweets mocking reporters and rivals undercut Twitter's stated commitment to make the service a welcoming place.

The company has been cracking down on accounts that violate its terms, and Trump's critics say he has broken Twitter's rules multiple times.

Calls to ban Trump from Twitter, largely by liberal activists, writers and Twitter users, sounded even before he became president. They were renewed recently when the president posted a mock video of him "body slamming" a man whose face was covered by CNN logo. Groups such as the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press condemned the video as a threat against journalists (a White House aide said at the time that the tweet should not be seen as a threat).

The Case for Trump

Twitter does ban harassment and hateful conduct, but there is a lot of wiggle room as to what constitutes such behavior. For instance, though it may be crude to tweet that a TV host was "bleeding badly from a face-lift," they are at best in a gray area when it comes to violating Twitter terms.

When asked about Trump, Twitter says it doesn't comment on individual accounts. But CEO Jack Dorsey told NBC in May that it's "really important to hear directly from leadership" to hold people accountable and have conversations out in the open, not behind closed doors.

It also makes business sense: Trump's tweets are constantly in headlines, calling attention to Twitter and, ideally, getting more users to sign up.

For now, it doesn't appear to be helping. On Thursday, Twitter said its monthly average user base in the April-June quarter grew 5 percent from the previous year to 328 million, but it was unchanged from the previous quarter. Twitter's stock fell more than 9 percent to $17.75 in pre-market trading Thursday after the numbers came out.

Twitter has never turned a profit. On Thursday, the San Francisco-based company reported a second-quarter loss of $116 million, or 16 cents per share, compared with a loss of $107 million, or 15 cents per share, a year earlier.

Revenue declined 5 percent to $574 million from $602 million, inching past Wall Street's muted expectations.

Important Tweets

Free speech advocates agree it's better for Trump to stay.

Emma Llanso, director of the Center for Democracy & Technology's Free Expression Project, said Trump's tweets are "very clearly politically relevant speech" and are even being cited in court cases challenging the president's policies. For example, a U.S. appeals court used Trump's tweets in June to block his travel ban on people from six predominantly Muslim countries.

Llanso said it's understandable why there has been "so much pressure" on social media platforms to crack down on harassment. Long before Trump was elected, users and online safety advocates called on Twitter to do something about abuse on its service.

But when it comes to the president's outsized presence on Twitter, she'd rather have a private company avoid deciding what should and shouldn't be allowed. Rather, she said, "we should be looking to the instruments of our democracy as the appropriate place to hold the president accountable."

Surviving the Crackdown

Twitter appears to agree. Earlier this month, the company announced that it is now taking some action, including suspensions, on 10 times the number of abusive accounts than it did a year ago (though it did not give a number). Trump, of course, was not in trouble.

In June, the president defended his use of social media, tweeting that the mainstream media doesn't want him to get his "honest and unfiltered message out." The White House did not immediately respond to a message for comment on Thursday morning.

It Works Both Ways

Twitter provides a platform for the president to interact with the world directly, without intermediaries such as the news media. But if it's important for people to hear directly from Trump, free speech advocates say, it's also important for Trump to listen  and to allow people to see his messages.

His blocking of individual users on the service is the subject of a lawsuit.

Comedian Dana Goldberg, who says she has been blocked by the president but is not part of the lawsuit, likened it to him "giving the State of the Union and blocking out the TV sets of people who voted for (Hillary) Clinton."

Her offense? Goldberg, who has about 7,680 followers compared with Trump's 34.6 million, said it was her tweet calling Trump "a sad man" after he wished Sen. John McCain well following a cancer diagnosis, despite deriding McCain's war record before.

"The fact that I was blocked by the president of the United States, it's insane," she said.
One man was killed and another injured in a shooting early Sunday morning in Lawrence, Massachusetts.

Police were called to the area of Bailey Street around 2 a.m. for a report of shots fired.

When they arrived, officers found a crowd of about 15 to 20 people surrounding 25-year-old Jenssy Hernandez who was lying in the street, suffering from a gunshot wound. He was taken by ambulance to Lawrence General Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

A second gunshot victim - a 26-year-old male, was also transported to Lawrence General Hospital and later transferred to Beth Israel Hospital in Boston. He is expected to survive.

Police believe a house party in the area was breaking up at the time of the shooting.

The Essex County District Attorney's Office, Massachusetts State Police and Lawrence police are investigating. No arrests have been made.
The 8-year-old boy who was rescued Wednesday when a powerboat overturned off Wareham, Massachusetts, has died, according to officials with Sudbury Public Schools.

The superintendents office made the announcement in a letter on Sunday that Harry OConnor, a third-grader at Nixon Elementary, had passed away.

"Nothing compares to the grief and sadness of losing a child. While the family is the most impacted, many others share in the profound sadness of this tragic event," read part of the letter.

Coast Guard officials said nine children and three adults were rescued when a power boat near Stony Point Dike capsized.

Someone on a nearby private vessel had spotted the boat and called for help, then took people in the water on board.

O'Connor had initially been unaccounted for until professional diver Michael Margulis found him unconscious and pulled him to safety.

The child was taken to Tobey Hospital then by medical helicopter to Boston Children's Hospital where he remained in critical condition until his death.

The other 11 people on board did not suffer serious injuries.

Environmental Police are still investigating the exact cause of the accident.

Sudbury Public Schools plan to have grief counselors available between 1 and 3 p.m. at Nixen Elementary and Curtis Middle School.
The National Weather Service has issued a warning about dangerous rip currents on the North Shore of Massachusetts and in parts on New Hampshire.

At Hampton Beach, beach goers have already seen strong rip currents this summer. Last week, dozens of people had to get help from the water by lifeguards because of the currents.

Rips occur when a strong, narrow current of water move directly away from the shore. As a result, swimmers can be pulled out to sea.

Although it can be scary, experts say to not panic and don't try to swim against the current. Instead, swim parallel to the shore and when you're out of the current, you can swim back to the beach.
A teenager faces a manslaughter charge after a hit-and-run crash on July 18 that killed a Hartford woman.

Family members said 56-year-old Rosella Shuler died Saturday night. Shuler lost both of her legs when she was hit by Toyota Highlander full of teenagers while she was standing on the sidewalk on Ashley Street in Hartford. A man who was standing on the sidewalk was also hurt.

Shulers death was ruled a homicide by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner.

Police believe six teens were in the Toyota, which was stolen out of West Hartford, but they all fled the scene of the crash. Through surveillance video police identified the person behind the wheel as 18-year-old Deykevious Russaw.

Russaw was already behind bars on an unrelated case. Because he was juvenile at the time, police will not release the circumstances surrounding that arrest.

But a source close to the investigation said he was one of two teens arrested for the shooting death of 63-year-old Jeffrey Worrel of Hartford on July 16 in the Westland Street area. He faces a murder charge in that case.

Russaw was originally charged with first-degree assault, second-degree larceny, evading responsibility, reckless driving and operating without a license for the crash. Police said a new arrest warrant was issued Tuesday for charges of second-degree manslaughter, second-degree larceny, evading the scene of an accident, reckless driving, and operating a motor vehicle without a license. He was assigned a $1.5 million bond.
Police say that a Maine woman was driving under the influence when she hit a bicyclist with her car and left the scene.

WCSH-TV reports that 23-year-old Jonathan Menard, of Brunswick, suffered serious injuries late Saturday night and was brought to Maine Medical Center.

Law enforcement agencies looked for a car with front end damage and found 35-year-old Kristen Phillips, of Brunswick, in a 2001 Mercury Grand Marquis. Efforts to reach Phillips were unsuccessful.

Police charged the woman with operating under the influence, leaving the scene of an accident and violation of conditions of release. She was released on $1,440 cash bail and expected to be in court September.

The Portland Press Herald reports that Menard was in critical condition at Maine Medical Center Sunday morning.
Reporter Charlotte Booth looks back at the devastation caused by the flood waters

A DECADE ago last week West Berkshire was hit by devastating floods after months worth of rain fell in a matter of hours.

Thatcham was among the worst affected areas, but no part of the region escaped unscathed.

Stables and houses were under water in Lambourn, where 20 racehorses needed to be evacuated.

The River Lambourn burst its banks at Bagnor for the first time in living memory, turning the village into an island and forcing The Watermill theatre to close.

The Sulham brook in Pangbourne also flooded its banks, with additional concerns at the time that the River Thames would follow.

Elsewhere, 140 stranded schoolchildren and 25 staff had to be rescued from waist-high water at Aldermaston Primary School by boat.

They were taken to Aldermaston Parish Hall and provided with blankets and sleeping bags.

More than 2,000 staff were also evacuated at Vodafones head offices in Newbury.

They waded through deep water as their ornamental lake burst its banks, flooding the site.

Hundreds of homes across the region sustained thousands of pounds worth of damage and at least 400 homes had to be evacuated as the floodwaters closed in.

Such events always seem bring out the best of British and everyone rallied around to help.

Teenagers Melissa Dixon and Leigh Reed dived into floodwaters to rescue a drowning boy near The Swan pub in Station Road, Thatcham.

Miss Dixon, of Wordsworth Road, Thatcham, said at the time: Two boys waded in.

One of them managed to clamber back out, but the other boy got into difficulty and began screaming for help.

She and the then 17-year-old Mr Reed, of Mayfield Road, Thatcham, swam out to the boy.

Revellers on their way to the Glade Festival at the Wasing Estate didnt let the water dampen their fun  and many danced into the night, standing knee-deep in foul-smelling mud.

Leaving the festival, however, wasnt easy as many of the approach roads were flooded and cars at the venue were stuck in the mud.

Tractor drivers charged 5 to tow them out so they could get on their way.

Robin Crane, from Midland Fire & Protection, said: We arranged for specialised low-level pumping equipment to be sent to the festival, as our Berkshire colleagues were inundated with calls elsewhere.

To add to the chaos, the M4 was flooded and further exacerbated by a landslip, forcing the closure of two lanes which left traffic at a standstill.

Additionally, the A34 was shut for eight hours and the Chieveley junction with the M4 was closed after a pumping station flooded, creating three-hour delays.

Since then, precautions have been taken to ensure that flooding on this scale is not repeated.
President Donald Trump salutes as he arrives on Air Force One at Morristown Municipal Airport, in Morristown, N.J., July 1. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
By PTI

MUMBAI: Japan is already extending financial aid to major infrastructure development projects in India, and is ready to support more ventures in various fields, a diplomat has said.

"Japan is very much ready to support India in achieving its 21st goals in various fields," said Japanese Consul General Ryoji Noda.

The two Asian economic giants have exchanges in a host of fields like culture, business and education, he said.

"To boost the relationship between the two countries, our prime ministers are meeting annually. As part of the initiative, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit India later this year."

During the meeting of prime ministers of both the countries in 2014, it was decided to double Japan's foreign direct investment (FDI) into India to Rs 2.1 lakh crore in five years' timeframe, he said.

"Japan is expected to provide Rs 1.2 lakh crore for the high speed rail project (bullet train) between umbai and Ahmedabad," Noda added.

MUMBAI: Japan is already extending financial aid to major infrastructure development projects in India, and is ready to support more ventures in various fields, a diplomat has said. "Japan is very much ready to support India in achieving its 21st goals in various fields," said Japanese Consul General Ryoji Noda. The two Asian economic giants have exchanges in a host of fields like culture, business and education, he said. "To boost the relationship between the two countries, our prime ministers are meeting annually. As part of the initiative, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit India later this year." During the meeting of prime ministers of both the countries in 2014, it was decided to double Japan's foreign direct investment (FDI) into India to Rs 2.1 lakh crore in five years' timeframe, he said. "Japan is expected to provide Rs 1.2 lakh crore for the high speed rail project (bullet train) between umbai and Ahmedabad," Noda added.
M Sathish By

Express News Service

CHENNAI: Five persons, including four MTC staff, were arrested for selling fake monthly bus passes and siphoning off the fees paid by the bus passengers. It is believed that the gang had been carrying out the fraud for nearly last two years and making out nearly one lakh every month.

The fraud was unearthed when in May a ticker checker of the public transport corporation found that the Travel as you please ticket (Rs 1000 per month) bus pass carried by one of the passengers was a little different, though it matched all other features, including the hologram. As the ticket checker alerted senior officials, an internal enquiry was started.

We started collecting the passes when passengers come for renewals. Then we caught hold of about 25 fake bus passes, said a senior MTC official.

Then the officials started checking the sales figures of the various bus depots in the city when they noticed that the sales have dipped in Thiruvanmiyur and Anna Nagar bus depots.

We started finding out the people who were at the counters in these depots and zeroed in on a few suspects. The fake passes are exactly the same as the original and even the hologram was also the same. But they missed the serial numbers, said the official.

V Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director of MTC, lodged a complaint with the Chennai city police on July 20 and the Central Crime Branch started investigating the case. Four MTC staff  S Krishnakumar, M Jagedesh, D Suresh Kumar, T Prakash  and another person S Ramesh Babu were arrested.

Police said while Krishnakumar, who is posted in Adambakkam depot, and Jagedesh, posted in Tiruvanmiyur depot, were printing and selling the fake bus passes at the Tiruvanmiyur bus depot, the other three were selling them in the Anna Nagar bus depot.

Police said both Krishnakumar and Ramesh Babu were separately having colour xerox and printers to make the fake bus passes.

Jagedesh was posted in the counter at the Thiruvanmiyur bus depot and Prakash was posted in the counter at Anna Nagar bus depot. Suresh Kumar was also serving in the Anna Nagar bus depot as accountant and was in connivance with the other two in the fraud.

From the date of purchase of these printers, the police suspect that gang had carried the scam for the last two years.We estimate that they were making `1 lakh per month, said a police officer.

We constantly change the bus pass colour and also put 3D hologram as an additional safety feature, Krishnamoorthy told Express.All five were remanded and the police are further investigating.

CHENNAI: Five persons, including four MTC staff, were arrested for selling fake monthly bus passes and siphoning off the fees paid by the bus passengers. It is believed that the gang had been carrying out the fraud for nearly last two years and making out nearly one lakh every month. The fraud was unearthed when in May a ticker checker of the public transport corporation found that the Travel as you please ticket (Rs 1000 per month) bus pass carried by one of the passengers was a little different, though it matched all other features, including the hologram. As the ticket checker alerted senior officials, an internal enquiry was started. We started collecting the passes when passengers come for renewals. Then we caught hold of about 25 fake bus passes, said a senior MTC official. Then the officials started checking the sales figures of the various bus depots in the city when they noticed that the sales have dipped in Thiruvanmiyur and Anna Nagar bus depots. We started finding out the people who were at the counters in these depots and zeroed in on a few suspects. The fake passes are exactly the same as the original and even the hologram was also the same. But they missed the serial numbers, said the official. V Krishnamoorthy, Managing Director of MTC, lodged a complaint with the Chennai city police on July 20 and the Central Crime Branch started investigating the case. Four MTC staff  S Krishnakumar, M Jagedesh, D Suresh Kumar, T Prakash  and another person S Ramesh Babu were arrested. Police said while Krishnakumar, who is posted in Adambakkam depot, and Jagedesh, posted in Tiruvanmiyur depot, were printing and selling the fake bus passes at the Tiruvanmiyur bus depot, the other three were selling them in the Anna Nagar bus depot. Police said both Krishnakumar and Ramesh Babu were separately having colour xerox and printers to make the fake bus passes. Jagedesh was posted in the counter at the Thiruvanmiyur bus depot and Prakash was posted in the counter at Anna Nagar bus depot. Suresh Kumar was also serving in the Anna Nagar bus depot as accountant and was in connivance with the other two in the fraud. From the date of purchase of these printers, the police suspect that gang had carried the scam for the last two years.We estimate that they were making `1 lakh per month, said a police officer. We constantly change the bus pass colour and also put 3D hologram as an additional safety feature, Krishnamoorthy told Express.All five were remanded and the police are further investigating.
By IANS

LONDON: James Bond will battle a blind super-villain in Croatia in the upcoming 25th instalment, tentatively titled "Shatterhand", reports say.



The next film in the long-running franchise, which will see actor Daniel Craig fighting a blind antagonist, is based on the 1999 thriller "Never Dream Of Dying" by author Raymond Benson, who also wrote Bond books "Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day" and "The World is Not Enough", reports mirror.co.uk.



The novel opens with a police raid on a French movie studio that goes badly wrong, while an actress with a sordid past leads Bond to his final target.



"Bond scriptwriters feel it could be the perfect follow-up to 'Spectre'. They are hoping to film in Croatia next year," said a source.



The source added that the producers were furious when a local mayor revealed that they had been scouting for locations in the coastal tourist hotspot of Dubrovnik.



Craig, who has been playing the famous spy since the 2006 film "Casino Royale", has not yet been announced as being back as the British Secret Service agent.



But there are reports that the 49-year-old star is set to return for his fifth stint in the series despite declaring he would rather "slash his wrists than play the secret agent again".



The 25th James Bond film will hit cinemas in November 2019.



LONDON: James Bond will battle a blind super-villain in Croatia in the upcoming 25th instalment, tentatively titled "Shatterhand", reports say. The next film in the long-running franchise, which will see actor Daniel Craig fighting a blind antagonist, is based on the 1999 thriller "Never Dream Of Dying" by author Raymond Benson, who also wrote Bond books "Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day" and "The World is Not Enough", reports mirror.co.uk. The novel opens with a police raid on a French movie studio that goes badly wrong, while an actress with a sordid past leads Bond to his final target. "Bond scriptwriters feel it could be the perfect follow-up to 'Spectre'. They are hoping to film in Croatia next year," said a source. The source added that the producers were furious when a local mayor revealed that they had been scouting for locations in the coastal tourist hotspot of Dubrovnik. Craig, who has been playing the famous spy since the 2006 film "Casino Royale", has not yet been announced as being back as the British Secret Service agent. But there are reports that the 49-year-old star is set to return for his fifth stint in the series despite declaring he would rather "slash his wrists than play the secret agent again". The 25th James Bond film will hit cinemas in November 2019.
Gopinath Rajendran By

Express News Service

Film: Berlin syndrome

Director: Cate Shortland

Cast: Teresa Palmer, Max Riemelt, Matthias Habich, Emma Bading

Never get into a strangers car and never accept food offered by those you dont know about. These are warnings we have always heard growing up. However, in todays world, ordering food and cab service online has become commonplace. What if our worst fears came true? Thats what Berlin Syndrome is about.

Clare, a young tourist backpacking on her own, meets Andi, a puzzling yet charming English teacher in Germany. They hit it off, and in a while, she ends up in his apartment thats in a secluded neighbourhood. It only takes a while for her (and us) to realise that shes walked into a trap, as Andi has no plans of letting her go. The glass windows are reinforced, and anything she can use to escape is locked up.

As the film happens mostly within the four walls of Andis cloistered house, it makes the claustrophobe in us squirm. As it progressed I couldnt help but get reminded of the 2015 award-winning film, Room. But the similarities soon stop when we get to see Clare getting adapted to her new environment. She acts delusional, and even consoles Andi when hes down, as she develops Stockholm syndrome (hence the title).

Shortland, in order to make up for the scenes inside the apartment, balances it by showing us a good deal of Andis social life. Hes an introvert, who refuses offers from other women, and even considers a friendly touch by a female colleague to be so dirty that he ends up washing his hands. But that doesnt stop him from picking up the women he prefers, whore mostly foreigners as his father reveals. The mood of the film is maintained well with some wonderful music, and scenes like the one in which Clare tries to escape from Andis clutches.

These give a little shimmer of hope in an otherwise dark film. While the eerie tone, scenes of physical abuse and gory sequences make it an interesting watch, Berlin Syndrome does make the great performances of the leads no good as the character development lacks clarity. One moment, Clare tries to breakout and get away from her captor, and the next, we see them having consensual sex. We also never get to understand why Andi became an apathetic sociopath. Berlin Syndrome, for the most part, is still creepy and disturbing enough to be a treat for fans of the genre.

Film: Berlin syndrome Director: Cate Shortland Cast: Teresa Palmer, Max Riemelt, Matthias Habich, Emma Bading Never get into a strangers car and never accept food offered by those you dont know about. These are warnings we have always heard growing up. However, in todays world, ordering food and cab service online has become commonplace. What if our worst fears came true? Thats what Berlin Syndrome is about. Clare, a young tourist backpacking on her own, meets Andi, a puzzling yet charming English teacher in Germany. They hit it off, and in a while, she ends up in his apartment thats in a secluded neighbourhood. It only takes a while for her (and us) to realise that shes walked into a trap, as Andi has no plans of letting her go. The glass windows are reinforced, and anything she can use to escape is locked up. As the film happens mostly within the four walls of Andis cloistered house, it makes the claustrophobe in us squirm. As it progressed I couldnt help but get reminded of the 2015 award-winning film, Room. But the similarities soon stop when we get to see Clare getting adapted to her new environment. She acts delusional, and even consoles Andi when hes down, as she develops Stockholm syndrome (hence the title). Shortland, in order to make up for the scenes inside the apartment, balances it by showing us a good deal of Andis social life. Hes an introvert, who refuses offers from other women, and even considers a friendly touch by a female colleague to be so dirty that he ends up washing his hands. But that doesnt stop him from picking up the women he prefers, whore mostly foreigners as his father reveals. The mood of the film is maintained well with some wonderful music, and scenes like the one in which Clare tries to escape from Andis clutches. These give a little shimmer of hope in an otherwise dark film. While the eerie tone, scenes of physical abuse and gory sequences make it an interesting watch, Berlin Syndrome does make the great performances of the leads no good as the character development lacks clarity. One moment, Clare tries to breakout and get away from her captor, and the next, we see them having consensual sex. We also never get to understand why Andi became an apathetic sociopath. Berlin Syndrome, for the most part, is still creepy and disturbing enough to be a treat for fans of the genre.
By Express News Service

Filmmaker Mani Ratnam is eagerly looking forward to the release of upcoming Malayalam-Tamil bilingual drama Solo, directed by his erstwhile assistant Bejoy Nambiar.

Going by the first glimpse of the film, it looks very promising. Im looking forward to the film, Ratnam told IANS.Solo, starring Dulquer Salmaan in the lead, is an anthology of four stories with a mythical touch.Its a collection of four different stories on earth, water, fire and wind. I cant divulge more about the plot at this moment, Nambiar had told IANS, reiterating the film is a genuine bilingual.

We have shot every scene twice. Once in Tamil and the second time in Malayalam. It was like shooting two films at the cost and time of making one film, he added.Solo, gearing up for September release, also stars Arthi Venkatesh, Dhansikaa, Dino Morea, Neha Sharma and Sruthi Hariharan.The film is jointly produced by Getaway Films and Abaam Films.

Filmmaker Mani Ratnam is eagerly looking forward to the release of upcoming Malayalam-Tamil bilingual drama Solo, directed by his erstwhile assistant Bejoy Nambiar. Going by the first glimpse of the film, it looks very promising. Im looking forward to the film, Ratnam told IANS.Solo, starring Dulquer Salmaan in the lead, is an anthology of four stories with a mythical touch.Its a collection of four different stories on earth, water, fire and wind. I cant divulge more about the plot at this moment, Nambiar had told IANS, reiterating the film is a genuine bilingual. We have shot every scene twice. Once in Tamil and the second time in Malayalam. It was like shooting two films at the cost and time of making one film, he added.Solo, gearing up for September release, also stars Arthi Venkatesh, Dhansikaa, Dino Morea, Neha Sharma and Sruthi Hariharan.The film is jointly produced by Getaway Films and Abaam Films.
Fayaz Wani By

Express News Service

SRI NAGAR: An idea cannot be jailed, said Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti a day after she cautioned New Delhi against any move to alter the special status given to her state by Indias Constitution.

She went on to take a nuanced position on the current turmoil in the Kashmir Valley, arguing for more points of trade across the Line of Control (LoC), even nomination of individuals from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to the states legislature and joint sittings of the Assembly in this Kashmir and that Kashmir.

All this while keeping to the official line that India was incomplete without Kashmir. Kashmir is the crown of India and it needs to be respected, she said.

The speech came at a rally by her People Democratic party (PDP) to mark its foundation day. It was also the first public rally by any mainstream political party in Srinagar since the killing in July 2016 of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by security forces.

In a message that was meant as much for her party cadres as decision makers in New Delhi, she said, We have a different challenge today. Todays youth are not afraid of the police, the Special Operations Group and the Army. There is an idea due to which stones are pelted and guns have been taken up. In concrete terms, she appealed to Delhi to tread the path of former PM Vajpayee and revive the Lahore Declaration between India and Pakistan. Apart from an impassioned appeal for more people-to-people contacts between Jammu and Kashmir and PoK, the novel idea Mehbooba proposed was for a joint legislature for the two parts of Kashmir.

There are seats reserved in our Assembly for that Kashmir. We should decide together to make nominations for those seats. We should decide that this Assembly meets once in this Kashmir and once in that Kashmir every year so that we can talk about tourism, opening of the Sharda Peeth and travel, she said.

Mehbooba questioned why there cannot be more open points of trade on the line separating J&K and PoK. She said the plea that this would open up supply lines for drug trafficking was a specious one. Dont charas and ganja come through the Wagah border (in Punjab)? But nobody talks about closing that border crossing, she asserted

The latter was a dig at media reports that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has recommended closure of cross-LoC trade on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakote routes.

SRI NAGAR: An idea cannot be jailed, said Jammu & Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti a day after she cautioned New Delhi against any move to alter the special status given to her state by Indias Constitution. She went on to take a nuanced position on the current turmoil in the Kashmir Valley, arguing for more points of trade across the Line of Control (LoC), even nomination of individuals from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to the states legislature and joint sittings of the Assembly in this Kashmir and that Kashmir. All this while keeping to the official line that India was incomplete without Kashmir. Kashmir is the crown of India and it needs to be respected, she said. The speech came at a rally by her People Democratic party (PDP) to mark its foundation day. It was also the first public rally by any mainstream political party in Srinagar since the killing in July 2016 of Hizbul Mujahideen commander Burhan Wani by security forces. In a message that was meant as much for her party cadres as decision makers in New Delhi, she said, We have a different challenge today. Todays youth are not afraid of the police, the Special Operations Group and the Army. There is an idea due to which stones are pelted and guns have been taken up. In concrete terms, she appealed to Delhi to tread the path of former PM Vajpayee and revive the Lahore Declaration between India and Pakistan. Apart from an impassioned appeal for more people-to-people contacts between Jammu and Kashmir and PoK, the novel idea Mehbooba proposed was for a joint legislature for the two parts of Kashmir. There are seats reserved in our Assembly for that Kashmir. We should decide together to make nominations for those seats. We should decide that this Assembly meets once in this Kashmir and once in that Kashmir every year so that we can talk about tourism, opening of the Sharda Peeth and travel, she said. Mehbooba questioned why there cannot be more open points of trade on the line separating J&K and PoK. She said the plea that this would open up supply lines for drug trafficking was a specious one. Dont charas and ganja come through the Wagah border (in Punjab)? But nobody talks about closing that border crossing, she asserted The latter was a dig at media reports that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has recommended closure of cross-LoC trade on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad and Poonch-Rawalakote routes.
By Express News Service

Human body parts found on Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps on Thursday open up an intriguing possibility: are these the remnants of victims of one of the two Air India plane crashes that took place more than 50 years ago?

What was found?

A hand, the upper part of a leg, and the wreckage of a jet engine, which could be from one of the two Air India planes

Who found them?

Daniel Roche, an amateur airplane accident investigator who has spent years combing the Bossons Glacier in the Swiss Alps looking for remains of crash victims

How the crashes happened

November 1950: Air India Flight 245 from Bombay to London was flying over France on the morning of November 3 when it went off the radar while at an altitude of 4,700 m. The plane hit the side of Mont Blank

40 Passengers on board. No survivors found

January 1966: The pilot of Air India Flight 101 from Bombay to London thought he had passed Mont Blanc and descended to land in Geneva. The plane flew straight into the Mont Blanc massif

117 Passengers, including Homi Bhabha, the father of Indias nuclear programme, on board. All died

Homi Bhabha connection?

Indias nuclear pioneer was on the Boeing 707 that crashed near Mont Blanc in 1966. Many years later, a team of journalists claimed to have found the wreck and declared to have found debris of an aircraft other than a Boeing 707. Bhabhas mysterious death gave rise to several assassination theories

Whose remains are these?

The hand and the leg are probably not from the same person, say the local Swiss police. Its not known to which of the two aircrafts the jet engine belonged

What now?

Roches finds were taken down from the site and will be examined by experts

Human body parts found on Mont Blanc in the Swiss Alps on Thursday open up an intriguing possibility: are these the remnants of victims of one of the two Air India plane crashes that took place more than 50 years ago? What was found? A hand, the upper part of a leg, and the wreckage of a jet engine, which could be from one of the two Air India planes Who found them? Daniel Roche, an amateur airplane accident investigator who has spent years combing the Bossons Glacier in the Swiss Alps looking for remains of crash victims How the crashes happened November 1950: Air India Flight 245 from Bombay to London was flying over France on the morning of November 3 when it went off the radar while at an altitude of 4,700 m. The plane hit the side of Mont Blank 40 Passengers on board. No survivors found January 1966: The pilot of Air India Flight 101 from Bombay to London thought he had passed Mont Blanc and descended to land in Geneva. The plane flew straight into the Mont Blanc massif 117 Passengers, including Homi Bhabha, the father of Indias nuclear programme, on board. All died Homi Bhabha connection? Indias nuclear pioneer was on the Boeing 707 that crashed near Mont Blanc in 1966. Many years later, a team of journalists claimed to have found the wreck and declared to have found debris of an aircraft other than a Boeing 707. Bhabhas mysterious death gave rise to several assassination theories Whose remains are these? The hand and the leg are probably not from the same person, say the local Swiss police. Its not known to which of the two aircrafts the jet engine belonged What now? Roches finds were taken down from the site and will be examined by experts
By Express News Service

MUMBAI: In the biggest ever drugs seizure along the Indian coast, the coast guard, in a joint operation with Intelligence Bureau (IB) and local police, apprehended a Panamanian ship carrying 1500 kg of heroin valued at Rs 3,500 crore off the Gujarat coast, on Sunday.

As per reports, the ship MV Henry, was apprehended by Ship Samudra Pavak, a pollution control vessel of the coast guard.

Sources said, three days back, the coast guard received information from intelligence sources that a big consignment of narcotic drugs was likely to enter Mumbai via Gujarat.

According to the defence spokesperson, while patrolling in the area, Coast Guard ship Samudra Pavak intercepted a merchant vessel on the basis of an intelligence input.

"The Indian Coast Guard ship 'Samudra Pavak' intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel carrying approximately 1,500 kg of heroin.. valued at around Rs 3,500 crore, from a merchant's vessel off the Gujarat coast, a defence spokesperson said in a statement released on Sunday afternoon.

"Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest single haul of narcotics seized till date," the statement said.

CLICK BELOW TO WATCH VIDEO:

Accordingly, a fishing trawler MV Henry was kept under surveillance and was raided on Sunday off the Gujarat coast, the sources have said.

EXPLAINER: Why is Panama the go to place for registering ships?

IN PICS: Seven things to know about Panama cargo vessel Amber L involved in Kochi shipping collision

The vessel, which was found to be registered in Panama, had eight crew members onboard and no cargo. It said it was headed to Bhavnagar for breaking at the Alang yard when intercepted by the ICG ship in the Gulf of Khambat. The claims were denied by the Gujarat Maritime Board, the ICG said.

The development comes three days after the ICG was mobilised on intelligence input that an Iranian vessel Prince-II, carrying large amount of narcotics (heroin and chitta), was likely to enter Bhavnagar (Gulf of Khambat) or Jamnagar (Gulf of Kutch) in disguise. Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest single haul of narcotics till date, claimed the statement.

The vessel has been taken to Porbandar, and crew members have been detained for interrogation in the presence of intelligence agencies, police, customs, enforcement, narcotics, and the navy. Considered as the most crucial coast belt, Coast Guard has stepped up security across the 1,600-km long Gujarat coastline with deployment of patrolling vessels and Dorniers for aerial surveillance.

This is the second instance in two months that a Panama-registered ship has been embroiled in controversy. On June 13, Amber-L, another Panamanian-registered ship, hit a fishing vessel off the Kochi coast killing two fishermen.

Considered as the most crucial coast belt, Coast guard has stepped up security across the 1,600-km long Gujarat coastline with the deployment of patrolling vessels and Dorniers for aerial surveillance. On December 31, 2014, a hostile boat from Karachi, Pakistan, was intercepted by ICG about 365 km off the Porbandar coast, before the occupants set ablaze the vessel that later sank with them.

MUMBAI: In the biggest ever drugs seizure along the Indian coast, the coast guard, in a joint operation with Intelligence Bureau (IB) and local police, apprehended a Panamanian ship carrying 1500 kg of heroin valued at Rs 3,500 crore off the Gujarat coast, on Sunday. As per reports, the ship MV Henry, was apprehended by Ship Samudra Pavak, a pollution control vessel of the coast guard. Sources said, three days back, the coast guard received information from intelligence sources that a big consignment of narcotic drugs was likely to enter Mumbai via Gujarat. According to the defence spokesperson, while patrolling in the area, Coast Guard ship Samudra Pavak intercepted a merchant vessel on the basis of an intelligence input. "The Indian Coast Guard ship 'Samudra Pavak' intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel carrying approximately 1,500 kg of heroin.. valued at around Rs 3,500 crore, from a merchant's vessel off the Gujarat coast, a defence spokesperson said in a statement released on Sunday afternoon. "Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest single haul of narcotics seized till date," the statement said. CLICK BELOW TO WATCH VIDEO: Accordingly, a fishing trawler MV Henry was kept under surveillance and was raided on Sunday off the Gujarat coast, the sources have said. EXPLAINER: Why is Panama the go to place for registering ships? IN PICS: Seven things to know about Panama cargo vessel Amber L involved in Kochi shipping collision The vessel, which was found to be registered in Panama, had eight crew members onboard and no cargo. It said it was headed to Bhavnagar for breaking at the Alang yard when intercepted by the ICG ship in the Gulf of Khambat. The claims were denied by the Gujarat Maritime Board, the ICG said. The development comes three days after the ICG was mobilised on intelligence input that an Iranian vessel Prince-II, carrying large amount of narcotics (heroin and chitta), was likely to enter Bhavnagar (Gulf of Khambat) or Jamnagar (Gulf of Kutch) in disguise. Based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted at around 1200 hrs yesterday. This is the largest single haul of narcotics till date, claimed the statement. The vessel has been taken to Porbandar, and crew members have been detained for interrogation in the presence of intelligence agencies, police, customs, enforcement, narcotics, and the navy. Considered as the most crucial coast belt, Coast Guard has stepped up security across the 1,600-km long Gujarat coastline with deployment of patrolling vessels and Dorniers for aerial surveillance. This is the second instance in two months that a Panama-registered ship has been embroiled in controversy. On June 13, Amber-L, another Panamanian-registered ship, hit a fishing vessel off the Kochi coast killing two fishermen. Considered as the most crucial coast belt, Coast guard has stepped up security across the 1,600-km long Gujarat coastline with the deployment of patrolling vessels and Dorniers for aerial surveillance. On December 31, 2014, a hostile boat from Karachi, Pakistan, was intercepted by ICG about 365 km off the Porbandar coast, before the occupants set ablaze the vessel that later sank with them.
By PTI

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court collegium has recalled its recommendation, made a year ago, to transfer a Delhi High Court judge to the Andhra Pradesh & Telangana High Court, a senior functionary aware of the development has said.

The collegium had recommended the transfer of the judge over a year ago. But about four months ago, the government had returned the recommendation.

Now, the collegium, a body of top five judges of the apex court headed by the CJI, has recalled its recommendation. The recommendation was recalled in late June-early July, the functionary said.

The recommendation was made by the then Chief Justice of India T S Thakur, who had expressed anguish in an open court in August last year, over the delay on the part of the government in processing this and other transfers.

Yet another recommendation to transfer Uttarakhand High Chief Justice K M Joseph as Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana High Court is still pending with the government since May, 2016.

As per the established procedure, the recommendations of appointment, transfer and elevation of high court and Supreme Court judges are sent to the government. The government can return the file once, but usually agrees to it if the collegium reiterates its recommendation.

The Modi government has on a few occasions returned the recommendations despite being reiterated by the collegium.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court collegium has recalled its recommendation, made a year ago, to transfer a Delhi High Court judge to the Andhra Pradesh & Telangana High Court, a senior functionary aware of the development has said. The collegium had recommended the transfer of the judge over a year ago. But about four months ago, the government had returned the recommendation. Now, the collegium, a body of top five judges of the apex court headed by the CJI, has recalled its recommendation. The recommendation was recalled in late June-early July, the functionary said. The recommendation was made by the then Chief Justice of India T S Thakur, who had expressed anguish in an open court in August last year, over the delay on the part of the government in processing this and other transfers. Yet another recommendation to transfer Uttarakhand High Chief Justice K M Joseph as Chief Justice of Andhra Pradesh & Telangana High Court is still pending with the government since May, 2016. As per the established procedure, the recommendations of appointment, transfer and elevation of high court and Supreme Court judges are sent to the government. The government can return the file once, but usually agrees to it if the collegium reiterates its recommendation. The Modi government has on a few occasions returned the recommendations despite being reiterated by the collegium.
By PTI

GURGAON (HARYANA): At least 15 incidents of women's braids being mysteriously chopped off have been reported from the villages of the Mewat region in last two weeks, police said today.

These bizarre happenings have left the villagers in panic. Most women report having fallen unconscious when their braids were chopped off leading to the villagers blaming godmen, ghosts, witches and "cat-like" creatures.

Police, however, dismissed these claims and said it was the handiwork of anti-social elements.

Yesterday, one such incident was reported from Gurgaon.

Sunita Devi, a resident of Ashok Vihar phase-III area, approached the police, claiming that on the night of July 28 she was attacked by a strange-looking man, in his 60s, when she was alone in her house.

"While I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, I saw a thin man in a red and yellow outfit on the main entrance of my house. When I went to enquire, I saw he was carrying a trident. I told him to go away. He went away and disappeared only to reappear," she claimed.

Sunita said before she could comprehend anything she fell unconscious.

"When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor and my braid was chopped off," she claimed, adding her house, however, was not ransacked.

Police said they have made a Daily Diary entry of the incident and launched a probe into the matter.

Gurgaon Police PRO Ravinder Kumar said the perpetrator was yet to be identified and the woman has not complained of any external wounds.

The woman was in extreme trauma and still terrified.

She was admitted to a private hospital and discharged last evening, he said.

Another incident was reported in Malhaka village. Aseena had fallen unconscious and when she woke up she found her hair had been chopped off.

"I'm feeling scared," Aseena said.

A police complaint has been made in the matter.

To deal with the rising apprehension caused by these incidents, the village panchayats have asked women to tie their hair in buns instead of braids.

Living under a shadow of fear, women are venturing outside to get water and fodder only in large groups and patrol parties have also been formed to nab those responsible.

"We have assigned our male members or family heads to patrol on a daily basis in two shifts. They are to stay alert 24X7 in order to combat the gang, animal or ghost, whatever it may be, responsible," Ram Mehar Yadav, a resident of Punahana told PTI.

DSP Ferozpur Jhirka Yadram said police has received complaints of 2,3 incidents in Ferozpur Jhirka's Santhwari and Satras villages. They have also been reported from Malhaka village, Punahana, Dallawas, Jharpuri, Hamka, Padhen, Shikarpur, Mohammad Pur Aheer.

"Local villagers are saying that women's braids are being chopped off mysteriously. They say a cat-like animal appears and makes them unconscious. It then chops off their braids and disappears. They villagers claim that ghosts are behind it,"Yadram said.

It is suspected that a gang of anti-social elements was behind such incidents. They want to terrify villagers and violate law and order situation and harmony of the district, he said.

No FIR has been registered in the cases as of now, Yadram said.

While Mewat Superintendent of Police Nazneen Bhasin said, "An unknown gang is behind this chopping of women's braids in Mewat. We have earlier detained two persons from a group in Nagana at Barmer district but they were not involved."

She, however, cautioned that some cases may have been rumours.

Manisha of Haryana's Punahana also claims to have been targetted. She get her braid was cut off two days ago when she went to the jungle to get grass for cattle.

"My mother and I had gone to the jungle to get fodder.

She says she saw a person for a few moments and lost consciousness," she claimed.

Mewat Deputy Commissioner Mani Ram Sharma said the cases would be solved soon.

"There is nothing like ghosts...some anti-social gang or group is trying to create panic in the region. Police and administration have beefed up vigil and security and have urged residents and villagers not to spread rumours," he said.

This incident brings back memories of the 'Monkey Man'

scare in 2001 in Delhi when there were reports of a strange monkey-like creature attacking people at night.

GURGAON (HARYANA): At least 15 incidents of women's braids being mysteriously chopped off have been reported from the villages of the Mewat region in last two weeks, police said today. These bizarre happenings have left the villagers in panic. Most women report having fallen unconscious when their braids were chopped off leading to the villagers blaming godmen, ghosts, witches and "cat-like" creatures. Police, however, dismissed these claims and said it was the handiwork of anti-social elements. Yesterday, one such incident was reported from Gurgaon. Sunita Devi, a resident of Ashok Vihar phase-III area, approached the police, claiming that on the night of July 28 she was attacked by a strange-looking man, in his 60s, when she was alone in her house. "While I was preparing dinner in the kitchen, I saw a thin man in a red and yellow outfit on the main entrance of my house. When I went to enquire, I saw he was carrying a trident. I told him to go away. He went away and disappeared only to reappear," she claimed. Sunita said before she could comprehend anything she fell unconscious. "When I regained consciousness, I found myself lying on the floor and my braid was chopped off," she claimed, adding her house, however, was not ransacked. Police said they have made a Daily Diary entry of the incident and launched a probe into the matter. Gurgaon Police PRO Ravinder Kumar said the perpetrator was yet to be identified and the woman has not complained of any external wounds. The woman was in extreme trauma and still terrified. She was admitted to a private hospital and discharged last evening, he said. Another incident was reported in Malhaka village. Aseena had fallen unconscious and when she woke up she found her hair had been chopped off. "I'm feeling scared," Aseena said. A police complaint has been made in the matter. To deal with the rising apprehension caused by these incidents, the village panchayats have asked women to tie their hair in buns instead of braids. Living under a shadow of fear, women are venturing outside to get water and fodder only in large groups and patrol parties have also been formed to nab those responsible. "We have assigned our male members or family heads to patrol on a daily basis in two shifts. They are to stay alert 24X7 in order to combat the gang, animal or ghost, whatever it may be, responsible," Ram Mehar Yadav, a resident of Punahana told PTI. DSP Ferozpur Jhirka Yadram said police has received complaints of 2,3 incidents in Ferozpur Jhirka's Santhwari and Satras villages. They have also been reported from Malhaka village, Punahana, Dallawas, Jharpuri, Hamka, Padhen, Shikarpur, Mohammad Pur Aheer. "Local villagers are saying that women's braids are being chopped off mysteriously. They say a cat-like animal appears and makes them unconscious. It then chops off their braids and disappears. They villagers claim that ghosts are behind it,"Yadram said. It is suspected that a gang of anti-social elements was behind such incidents. They want to terrify villagers and violate law and order situation and harmony of the district, he said. No FIR has been registered in the cases as of now, Yadram said. While Mewat Superintendent of Police Nazneen Bhasin said, "An unknown gang is behind this chopping of women's braids in Mewat. We have earlier detained two persons from a group in Nagana at Barmer district but they were not involved." She, however, cautioned that some cases may have been rumours. Manisha of Haryana's Punahana also claims to have been targetted. She get her braid was cut off two days ago when she went to the jungle to get grass for cattle. "My mother and I had gone to the jungle to get fodder. She says she saw a person for a few moments and lost consciousness," she claimed. Mewat Deputy Commissioner Mani Ram Sharma said the cases would be solved soon. "There is nothing like ghosts...some anti-social gang or group is trying to create panic in the region. Police and administration have beefed up vigil and security and have urged residents and villagers not to spread rumours," he said. This incident brings back memories of the 'Monkey Man' scare in 2001 in Delhi when there were reports of a strange monkey-like creature attacking people at night.
Namita Bajpai By

Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Ten days after the 26-year-old student of Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, went missing on July 18, city police are yet to find any clues about the 26-year-old's disappearance.

The institute had lodged a complaint with the police in this regard on July 24. A FIR was lodged on Thursday after three days of search yielded no result. However, the cops are still groping in dark after tracing his last location in Himachal Pradesh.

According to police sources, Shubhodeep Das of Kolkata was a 2015-2017 batch student pursuing MBA (II year) at IIM Lucknow.

Shubhodeep had reportedly left the campus on July 18 after entering in the college register that he was going to his hometown Kolkata. However, he did not reach there, according to his parents. Shubhodeeps mobile phone was also going switched off and his location was traced to New Delhi on Friday.

Das's parents described him as a brilliant student who was suffering from depression because of a personal issue. Shubhodeeps father Uttam Kumar visited the hostel and met his sons friends and acquaintances to get some clues about him but to no avail.

We are trying to find the location of the boy but have not been able to succeed," said the SHO of local police station.

LUCKNOW: Ten days after the 26-year-old student of Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, went missing on July 18, city police are yet to find any clues about the 26-year-old's disappearance. The institute had lodged a complaint with the police in this regard on July 24. A FIR was lodged on Thursday after three days of search yielded no result. However, the cops are still groping in dark after tracing his last location in Himachal Pradesh. According to police sources, Shubhodeep Das of Kolkata was a 2015-2017 batch student pursuing MBA (II year) at IIM Lucknow. Shubhodeep had reportedly left the campus on July 18 after entering in the college register that he was going to his hometown Kolkata. However, he did not reach there, according to his parents. Shubhodeeps mobile phone was also going switched off and his location was traced to New Delhi on Friday. Das's parents described him as a brilliant student who was suffering from depression because of a personal issue. Shubhodeeps father Uttam Kumar visited the hostel and met his sons friends and acquaintances to get some clues about him but to no avail. We are trying to find the location of the boy but have not been able to succeed," said the SHO of local police station.
By Express News Service

LUCKNOW: Commenting on the developments in Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav called it political corruption of the highest order that the BJP was indulging in Its just four months since their government came to power in the state and they are shying away from facing the people. I would like to ask my partys MLCs who have quit why they want to help the BJP, he wondered.

Similarly, BSP chief Mayawati dubbed it as the BJPs boundless hunger for power. After Goa, Manipur, Bihar and Gujarat, now UP is the BJPs target. I will appeal to my legislators not to succumb to the temptations being extended by the BJP, she stated.

However, BJP leaders played coy: Please dont attach these resignations with Amit Shahs Lucknow visit. He has come here as part of his tour which he is undertaking across the country, said BJP spokesman Chandra Mohan, adding that it was a personal decision of the MLCs to defect at this point in time. Five BJP ministers, including Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, ministers of state Swatantra Deo Singh and Mohsin Raza need seats in the legislature to keep their posts.

As per highly-placed sources, the three defecting MLCs are likely to join the saffron ranks. Moreover, there were strong rumours afloat that certain other leaders  Ambika Chaudhary and Naseemuddin Siddiqui, an erstwhile BSP stalwart who was expelled from the blue brigade by chief Mayawati in May,  are also said to be in touch with the BJP leadership.

Bukkal Nawab, founder president of Rashtriya Shia Samaj, had been with the SP since 1992. He has been general secretary of the party twice and tried his luck in electoral politics twice but failed. He was sent to the Council in 2012 and again in 2016. Yashwant Singh, on the other hand, is supposed to be close to Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya who is believed to have a good equation with the present BJP dispensation. Both Bukkal Nawab and Yashwant Singh have terms in the Council till 2022. Immediately after tendering his resignation, Bukkal Nawab sang paeans of PM Modi And Yogi Adityanath, saying both were doing good work while following the ideal of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas. He also supported a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya. About joining the BJP, Nawab did not rule out the possibility, saying he had been feeling suffocated in the Samajwadi Party for the last two years as the organisation was reduced to a family akhada. As per SP sources, Nawab belongs to Mulayam faction in the party.

The SP has 66 seats in a Legislative Council of 100. That number will now dwindle to 63 and is likely to accrue to the BJP which has just eight seats. As per informed sources, some SP MLAs too may jump the fence soon. That doesnt seem to be out of the realm of possibility in view of Shivpal gravitating to Adityanath lately.

Glittering CVs

Bukkhal Nawab faces serious charges of land grabbing and has received notices from the Lucknow Development Authority. Yashwant Singh had been marginalized by Akhilesh Yadav of late for allegedly hobnobbing with Yogi Adityanath. Yashwant, despite being an SP MLC, invited CM Adityanath instead of Akhilesh to the launch of his book in the Assembly two months back.

LUCKNOW: Commenting on the developments in Uttar Pradesh, Akhilesh Yadav called it political corruption of the highest order that the BJP was indulging in Its just four months since their government came to power in the state and they are shying away from facing the people. I would like to ask my partys MLCs who have quit why they want to help the BJP, he wondered. Similarly, BSP chief Mayawati dubbed it as the BJPs boundless hunger for power. After Goa, Manipur, Bihar and Gujarat, now UP is the BJPs target. I will appeal to my legislators not to succumb to the temptations being extended by the BJP, she stated. However, BJP leaders played coy: Please dont attach these resignations with Amit Shahs Lucknow visit. He has come here as part of his tour which he is undertaking across the country, said BJP spokesman Chandra Mohan, adding that it was a personal decision of the MLCs to defect at this point in time. Five BJP ministers, including Yogi Adityanath, deputy CMs Keshav Maurya and Dinesh Sharma, ministers of state Swatantra Deo Singh and Mohsin Raza need seats in the legislature to keep their posts. As per highly-placed sources, the three defecting MLCs are likely to join the saffron ranks. Moreover, there were strong rumours afloat that certain other leaders  Ambika Chaudhary and Naseemuddin Siddiqui, an erstwhile BSP stalwart who was expelled from the blue brigade by chief Mayawati in May,  are also said to be in touch with the BJP leadership. Bukkal Nawab, founder president of Rashtriya Shia Samaj, had been with the SP since 1992. He has been general secretary of the party twice and tried his luck in electoral politics twice but failed. He was sent to the Council in 2012 and again in 2016. Yashwant Singh, on the other hand, is supposed to be close to Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias Raja Bhaiyya who is believed to have a good equation with the present BJP dispensation. Both Bukkal Nawab and Yashwant Singh have terms in the Council till 2022. Immediately after tendering his resignation, Bukkal Nawab sang paeans of PM Modi And Yogi Adityanath, saying both were doing good work while following the ideal of Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas. He also supported a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya. About joining the BJP, Nawab did not rule out the possibility, saying he had been feeling suffocated in the Samajwadi Party for the last two years as the organisation was reduced to a family akhada. As per SP sources, Nawab belongs to Mulayam faction in the party. The SP has 66 seats in a Legislative Council of 100. That number will now dwindle to 63 and is likely to accrue to the BJP which has just eight seats. As per informed sources, some SP MLAs too may jump the fence soon. That doesnt seem to be out of the realm of possibility in view of Shivpal gravitating to Adityanath lately. Glittering CVs Bukkhal Nawab faces serious charges of land grabbing and has received notices from the Lucknow Development Authority. Yashwant Singh had been marginalized by Akhilesh Yadav of late for allegedly hobnobbing with Yogi Adityanath. Yashwant, despite being an SP MLC, invited CM Adityanath instead of Akhilesh to the launch of his book in the Assembly two months back.
By PTI

AURANGABAD (MAHARASHTRA): Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was sent back from the airport here to Mumbai after protests by a group of people against her visit to the city, police said today.

Nasreen landed at the Chikalthana Airport last evening by a flight from Mumbai.

Police stopped the author from stepping out of the airport, where a crowd had gathered shouting slogans like "Taslima Go Back".

Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-II) Rahul Shrirame said Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai by the next flight to avoid any "law and order problem" in this city in central Maharashtra.

The author was advised to abandon her visit to the city and she agreed to go back, the police officer said.

Protesters had also gathered outside a hostel where Nasreen was to stay during her three-day visit.

Police said they had come to know that the writer was planning to visit the world heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora besides other tourist spots in Aurangabad.

The protest at the airport was led by Imtiyaz Jaleel, the AIMIM legislator from the Aurangabad central constituency.

Jaleel said her writings have "hurt" the religious sentiments of Muslims across the world. "We will not allow her to step on the soil of our city," he said.

Last month, the Union home ministry hs extended her visa for one year, with effect from July 23, 2017.

Nasreen, a citizen of Sweden, has been getting Indian visa on a continuous basis since 2004. The author is living in exile since she left Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of threats to her by fundamentalist groups.

AURANGABAD (MAHARASHTRA): Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was sent back from the airport here to Mumbai after protests by a group of people against her visit to the city, police said today. Nasreen landed at the Chikalthana Airport last evening by a flight from Mumbai. Police stopped the author from stepping out of the airport, where a crowd had gathered shouting slogans like "Taslima Go Back". Deputy Commissioner of Police (zone-II) Rahul Shrirame said Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai by the next flight to avoid any "law and order problem" in this city in central Maharashtra. The author was advised to abandon her visit to the city and she agreed to go back, the police officer said. Protesters had also gathered outside a hostel where Nasreen was to stay during her three-day visit. Police said they had come to know that the writer was planning to visit the world heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora besides other tourist spots in Aurangabad. The protest at the airport was led by Imtiyaz Jaleel, the AIMIM legislator from the Aurangabad central constituency. Jaleel said her writings have "hurt" the religious sentiments of Muslims across the world. "We will not allow her to step on the soil of our city," he said. Last month, the Union home ministry hs extended her visa for one year, with effect from July 23, 2017. Nasreen, a citizen of Sweden, has been getting Indian visa on a continuous basis since 2004. The author is living in exile since she left Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of threats to her by fundamentalist groups.
Ankur Sharma By

Express News Service

NEW DELHI: One vehicle is stolen every 15 minutes in the capital, according to the Delhi Police. In one day alone, as many as 109 vehicles go missing from Delhis streets.

Ever wondered where these stolen two-wheelers and four-wheelers end up? Take a drive to the hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh. And you will see machines known as jugaad (low-cost assembled vehicles) and generators that help electrify pockets facing acute power shortage. This is where your vehicles are going.

And now, with the high number of vehicles stolen from Delhi, more and more machines can be easily made available to people wanting to turn the machines into generators or jugaads. This in turn has drastically brought down the price of such machines. Areas such as Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Sambhal, which are famous for manufacturing such machines, are selling these for 40 per cent less than the original price. After being stolen, the vehicles are quickly dismantled on the Meerut Bypass. In January last year, a Delhi Police team raided a warehouse in Kaveri Colony, near Meerut Bypass and found parts of cars. Four persons were arrested.

In July this year, the Delhi Police busted a gang that used to steal vehicles as per demand and sell those to scrap dealers in Meerut. During interrogation, it was revealed that they sold stolen vehicles to scrap dealers in Meerut and to their counterparts in Nepal, DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said.

With that the Delhi Police claimed to have solved eight cases and recovered five two-wheelers and two four-wheelers. But the trade goes on unabated.

A dealer of local made generators and jugaad claimed that now heavy engines are in demand. Engines of Bullet, or any other 200 cc motorcycles can generate electricity for a larger area than a generator made from 100 cc bike, said the man on condition of anonymity. A local dealer said that now they manufacture generators and jugaad on demand as the engines needed for it are easily available. It takes a week to make one, he added.

The Delhi Polices ambitious e-FIR in motor vehicle cases have failed to curb the menace of vehicle theft. Union Minister Hansraj Ahir recently said that the Delhi Police have only managed to solve 27.7 per cent of the cases registered with it in 2016, and around 27.6 per cent cases registered this year as of June.

NEW DELHI: One vehicle is stolen every 15 minutes in the capital, according to the Delhi Police. In one day alone, as many as 109 vehicles go missing from Delhis streets. Ever wondered where these stolen two-wheelers and four-wheelers end up? Take a drive to the hinterlands of Uttar Pradesh. And you will see machines known as jugaad (low-cost assembled vehicles) and generators that help electrify pockets facing acute power shortage. This is where your vehicles are going. And now, with the high number of vehicles stolen from Delhi, more and more machines can be easily made available to people wanting to turn the machines into generators or jugaads. This in turn has drastically brought down the price of such machines. Areas such as Meerut, Muzaffarnagar and Sambhal, which are famous for manufacturing such machines, are selling these for 40 per cent less than the original price. After being stolen, the vehicles are quickly dismantled on the Meerut Bypass. In January last year, a Delhi Police team raided a warehouse in Kaveri Colony, near Meerut Bypass and found parts of cars. Four persons were arrested. In July this year, the Delhi Police busted a gang that used to steal vehicles as per demand and sell those to scrap dealers in Meerut. During interrogation, it was revealed that they sold stolen vehicles to scrap dealers in Meerut and to their counterparts in Nepal, DCP (South) Ishwar Singh said. With that the Delhi Police claimed to have solved eight cases and recovered five two-wheelers and two four-wheelers. But the trade goes on unabated. A dealer of local made generators and jugaad claimed that now heavy engines are in demand. Engines of Bullet, or any other 200 cc motorcycles can generate electricity for a larger area than a generator made from 100 cc bike, said the man on condition of anonymity. A local dealer said that now they manufacture generators and jugaad on demand as the engines needed for it are easily available. It takes a week to make one, he added. The Delhi Polices ambitious e-FIR in motor vehicle cases have failed to curb the menace of vehicle theft. Union Minister Hansraj Ahir recently said that the Delhi Police have only managed to solve 27.7 per cent of the cases registered with it in 2016, and around 27.6 per cent cases registered this year as of June.
Ejaz Kaiser By

Express News Service

RAIPUR: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh government for depriving tribal people of their rights over jal, jungle and zameen.

He blamed the BJP on fomenting unrest and a tussle among the Indians whether it is Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast, Haryana. It is the BJP and RSS who reaped mileage from the conflict in Kashmir where the violence is equally benefitting Pakistan and China, he said while interacting with tribal students and youth in Amcho Haque (My Rights) programme held in Jagdalpur.

While addressing a huge gathering of mostly tribals in Bastar on Jan Adhikar Sabha (peoples rights meeting), he trained guns on the BJP and RSS on outsourcing of jobs, unemployment and privatisation.

The scope of employment in Chhattisgarh has been outsourced. Why? The deprived poor tribals from Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand then move out to work in the homes of rich people in Delhi and big metros. Such is the future given by the RSS and the BJP. Development should be for all and everyone -- tribals, poor, dalits or OBCs should be entitled for employment in Chhattisgarh, he insisted.

Citing demonetisation, he said that in the name of curbing black money, PM Modi didnt think of the poor who carry only cash and consequently had to struggle a lot. Everyone knows that the black money stashed abroad either in swiss banks or invested in real estate. The RBI is still unsure how much money it got after demonetisation. So, all the black money (owned by crooks) in the country were changed (replaced) by the Modi government, Rahul Gandhi continued his tirade against the Centre.

RSS and BJP show only big dreams. Small traders who always supported BJP are now unhappy claiming that the BJP has ruined their business through demonetisation and Goods & Services Tax (GST), Rahul Gandhi said.

On the issue of land aquisition, Rahul Gandhi said that the villagers give their land for the growth of the country but after the project failed to take off the poor tribals didnt get back their land. He cited Tata Group that withdrew their mega steel project from Bastar.

RAIPUR: Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi on Saturday targeted Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the BJP-ruled Chhattisgarh government for depriving tribal people of their rights over jal, jungle and zameen. He blamed the BJP on fomenting unrest and a tussle among the Indians whether it is Jammu and Kashmir, Northeast, Haryana. It is the BJP and RSS who reaped mileage from the conflict in Kashmir where the violence is equally benefitting Pakistan and China, he said while interacting with tribal students and youth in Amcho Haque (My Rights) programme held in Jagdalpur. While addressing a huge gathering of mostly tribals in Bastar on Jan Adhikar Sabha (peoples rights meeting), he trained guns on the BJP and RSS on outsourcing of jobs, unemployment and privatisation. The scope of employment in Chhattisgarh has been outsourced. Why? The deprived poor tribals from Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand then move out to work in the homes of rich people in Delhi and big metros. Such is the future given by the RSS and the BJP. Development should be for all and everyone -- tribals, poor, dalits or OBCs should be entitled for employment in Chhattisgarh, he insisted. Citing demonetisation, he said that in the name of curbing black money, PM Modi didnt think of the poor who carry only cash and consequently had to struggle a lot. Everyone knows that the black money stashed abroad either in swiss banks or invested in real estate. The RBI is still unsure how much money it got after demonetisation. So, all the black money (owned by crooks) in the country were changed (replaced) by the Modi government, Rahul Gandhi continued his tirade against the Centre. RSS and BJP show only big dreams. Small traders who always supported BJP are now unhappy claiming that the BJP has ruined their business through demonetisation and Goods & Services Tax (GST), Rahul Gandhi said. On the issue of land aquisition, Rahul Gandhi said that the villagers give their land for the growth of the country but after the project failed to take off the poor tribals didnt get back their land. He cited Tata Group that withdrew their mega steel project from Bastar.
By PTI

JAMMU: The Pakistani army tonight violated ceasefire by resorting to firing on Indian posts along the Line of Control in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir.

"The Pakistani Army violated ceasefire by using light weapons and MMGs (medium machine guns) along the LoC in the Baba Khori belt of Naushera sector of Rajouri district at 2230 hours tonight", Deputy Commissioner Rajouri Shahid Iqban Choudhary said.

There have been 23 incidents of ceasefire violation, one BAT attack and two infiltration bids by Pakistan in June, in which 4 people, including 3 jawans, were killed and 12 injured.

In July, 11 people, including 9 soldiers, were killed and 18 injured in ceasefire violation by the Pakistani army along the LoC in J&K.

JAMMU: The Pakistani army tonight violated ceasefire by resorting to firing on Indian posts along the Line of Control in Rajouri district of Jammu and Kashmir. "The Pakistani Army violated ceasefire by using light weapons and MMGs (medium machine guns) along the LoC in the Baba Khori belt of Naushera sector of Rajouri district at 2230 hours tonight", Deputy Commissioner Rajouri Shahid Iqban Choudhary said. There have been 23 incidents of ceasefire violation, one BAT attack and two infiltration bids by Pakistan in June, in which 4 people, including 3 jawans, were killed and 12 injured. In July, 11 people, including 9 soldiers, were killed and 18 injured in ceasefire violation by the Pakistani army along the LoC in J&K.
Soli J Sorabjee By

Ram Nath Kovind was sworn in as the 14th President of India. The speech he delivered was excellent both for its content and its underlying spirit. Some extracts of his speech worth quoting are: I grew up in a mud house, in a small village. My journey has been a long one, and yet this journey is hardly mine alone. It is so telling of our nation and our society also. For all its problems, it (nation) follows that basic mantra given to us in the Preamble to the Constitutionof ensuring justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, and I will always continue to follow this basic mantra.

The President stressed, The key to Indias success is its diversity. Our diversity is the core that makes us so unique. In this land, we find a mix of states and regions, religions, languages, cultures, lifestyles and much more. We are so different and yet so similar and united Often we agreed, sometimes we disagreed. But we learnt to respect each other. And that is the beauty of democracy.

In the list of persons in the category of nation-builders, the President inter alia included the committed and driven public servant who works beyond the call of duty, whether on a flooded road, directing traffic, or in a quiet room, poring over details filed and the selfless teacher who equips young children and shapes their destinies. He emphasised, What must also bother us is our ability to enhance access and opportunity for the last person and the last girl-child from an under-privileged family if I may put it so, in the last house in the last village.

In the concluding part of his speech, he made a reference to Mahatma Gandhi and Deen Dayal Upadhyay and stated that these are integral to our sense of humanism. This is the India of our dreams, an India that will provide quality of opportunities. This will be the India of the 21st century. Unfortunately, an unnecessary controversy has erupted over his non-mention of Nehru in the context of his mentioning Deen Dayal Upadhyay. Apparently, some Indians are genetically prone to controversies.



Momentous Developments in Pakistan:

A five-judge bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court held that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is unfit to hold office, and has ordered his disqualification. Understandably, the Opposition in Pakistan has hailed the verdict. Opposition leader Imran Khan said, The Supreme Courts decision has given hope to the people of Pakistan today, and called the apex courts decision the beginning for a new Pakistan. Sharif promptly resigned after the Supreme Court verdict. His supporters are highly critical of the judgment and accuse the judiciary of political motivation.

According to former law minister Zahid Hamid, the judgment was based on weak arguments. In the opinion of former legal advisor Zafarullah, the judgment creates a new system of jurisprudence. General Musharraf is overjoyed. The Army is happy with the judgment.

The court ruling helps the military because it has sharply reduced Sharifs influence and serves to shift the balance of power back towards the generals. In my view, the judgment does not affect the vexed problem of Kashmir and Indo-Pak relations. In a sense, it testifies to the independence of the Pakistan judiciary.



President Trumps

Pardon Power: An interesting debate is raging in the USA on whether President Donald Trump can legally pardon himself or his family. One view is that he cannot; because the fundamental rule is that no one may be a judge in his own case. The pardon provision of the Constitution is to enable the president to act essentially in the role of a judge of another persons criminal case. Supporters of this view say that there is not a single instance of a self-pardon having been recognised as legitimate.

Even the Pope does not pardon himself. On March 28, 2014, in St. Peters Basilica, Pope Francis publicly kneeled before a priest and confessed his sins for about three minutes.

The critics pungently conclude by saying there is one thing we know that Trump cannot dowithout

Soli J Sorabjee

Former Attorney-General of India

solisorabjee@gmail.com

Ram Nath Kovind was sworn in as the 14th President of India. The speech he delivered was excellent both for its content and its underlying spirit. Some extracts of his speech worth quoting are: I grew up in a mud house, in a small village. My journey has been a long one, and yet this journey is hardly mine alone. It is so telling of our nation and our society also. For all its problems, it (nation) follows that basic mantra given to us in the Preamble to the Constitutionof ensuring justice, liberty, equality and fraternity, and I will always continue to follow this basic mantra. The President stressed, The key to Indias success is its diversity. Our diversity is the core that makes us so unique. In this land, we find a mix of states and regions, religions, languages, cultures, lifestyles and much more. We are so different and yet so similar and united Often we agreed, sometimes we disagreed. But we learnt to respect each other. And that is the beauty of democracy. In the list of persons in the category of nation-builders, the President inter alia included the committed and driven public servant who works beyond the call of duty, whether on a flooded road, directing traffic, or in a quiet room, poring over details filed and the selfless teacher who equips young children and shapes their destinies. He emphasised, What must also bother us is our ability to enhance access and opportunity for the last person and the last girl-child from an under-privileged family if I may put it so, in the last house in the last village. In the concluding part of his speech, he made a reference to Mahatma Gandhi and Deen Dayal Upadhyay and stated that these are integral to our sense of humanism. This is the India of our dreams, an India that will provide quality of opportunities. This will be the India of the 21st century. Unfortunately, an unnecessary controversy has erupted over his non-mention of Nehru in the context of his mentioning Deen Dayal Upadhyay. Apparently, some Indians are genetically prone to controversies. Momentous Developments in Pakistan: A five-judge bench of the Pakistan Supreme Court held that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif is unfit to hold office, and has ordered his disqualification. Understandably, the Opposition in Pakistan has hailed the verdict. Opposition leader Imran Khan said, The Supreme Courts decision has given hope to the people of Pakistan today, and called the apex courts decision the beginning for a new Pakistan. Sharif promptly resigned after the Supreme Court verdict. His supporters are highly critical of the judgment and accuse the judiciary of political motivation. According to former law minister Zahid Hamid, the judgment was based on weak arguments. In the opinion of former legal advisor Zafarullah, the judgment creates a new system of jurisprudence. General Musharraf is overjoyed. The Army is happy with the judgment. The court ruling helps the military because it has sharply reduced Sharifs influence and serves to shift the balance of power back towards the generals. In my view, the judgment does not affect the vexed problem of Kashmir and Indo-Pak relations. In a sense, it testifies to the independence of the Pakistan judiciary. President Trumps Pardon Power: An interesting debate is raging in the USA on whether President Donald Trump can legally pardon himself or his family. One view is that he cannot; because the fundamental rule is that no one may be a judge in his own case. The pardon provision of the Constitution is to enable the president to act essentially in the role of a judge of another persons criminal case. Supporters of this view say that there is not a single instance of a self-pardon having been recognised as legitimate. Even the Pope does not pardon himself. On March 28, 2014, in St. Peters Basilica, Pope Francis publicly kneeled before a priest and confessed his sins for about three minutes. The critics pungently conclude by saying there is one thing we know that Trump cannot dowithout Soli J Sorabjee Former Attorney-General of India solisorabjee@gmail.com
T J S George By

In his farewell speech, President Pranab Mukherjee highlighted Indias strong points and said they had become endangered. Multiplicity of culture, faith and language is what makes India special, he said. The soul of India is in pluralism and tolerance, he said. Then he referred to increasing violence in the country and warned: At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust. All true, very true. But the question arises: What did President Mukherjee do to use the Constitutional and moral power of his office to protect the soul of India against the forces of darkness?

The Bengali intellectual in Pranab Mukherjee paid laudable attention to the culture associated with Rashtrapati Bhavan. His focus during the period of his presidency was on bolstering the grandeur of the placeconverting the old stables into a museum, restoring the building housing the Presidents Body Guard and so on. Reports say that the complex now looks more magnificent than before. But the pluralism, the tolerance, the darkness, the mistrust? That story got lost in translation.

Not that the president has powers comparable to the prime ministers. But he has powers that can be usedpowers that come from perceived impartiality, from the exercise of checks and balances. Of the 12 presidents before Mukherjee, nine chose to remain safely inconsequential. (Zail Singh and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed went to the extent of declaring their servitude to the Prime Minister, while V V Giri and Sanjiva Reddy sustained servitude sans declaring itevidence of the overriding power Indira Gandhi ensured for herself).

Of the three presidents who dared to plough independent furrows, Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Republic, was a loner. Firstly, he became president despite PM Nehrus opposition. Nehru was against him because he was Sardar Patels choice and was religiously inclined (though not communally, in todays Hindutva sense). Secondly, he wanted powers the Constitution did not envisage. There was an exchange of letters between the President and the Prime Minister with Rajendra Prasad arguing that he must have the power, for example, to contact any government secretary directly for information and to function as a third arm of the legislature with discretion to sign bills passed by Parliament. He lost out in this argument because Nehru had the Constitution on his side.

It was K R Narayanan who brought out the full potential of the presidency. It was a turbulent period with Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral and A B Vajpayee successfully eroding Congress omnipotence. The hour found the man. Narayanan showed his individuality by becoming the first president to exercise his right to vote, and by using his Republic Day address to caution against growing discontent among the deprived sections of society.

Narayanan dissolved Lok Sabha twice. He was the first to establish that a person could be appointed prime minister only if he convinced the president, through letters of support, that he could secure the confidence of the House. Vajpayee was the beneficiary of this decision. The president underscored his non-partisan independence by declining the United Front Prime Ministers recommendation to dismiss the BJP government of UP, and later by declining the BJP prime ministers recommendation to dismiss the Rabri government of Bihar.

An interesting conundrum rises. The nations first Dalit president, an ardent Congressman, became so impartial as to help the nations first BJP government to power; will the nations second Dalit President, an ardent BJP leader, become impartial enough to decline a BJP governments recommendation? No prize for guessing the answer because there is no need to guess.

APJ Abdul Kalam had fewer challenges compared to Narayanan, yet the peoples president became admired for his independence. He demonstrated it when he declined to sign on the dotted line in the office-of-profit case. The government wanted various VIPs to be exempted, but the president would not agree.

But there was a more dramatic demonstration of his independence. He was proposed for the presidency by the BJP. But within days of his assuming office, he made the BJP jittery by deciding to visit Narendra Modis Gujarat, then reeling under the aftershocks of communal rioting. Prime Minister Vajpayee tried to dissuade him, but he said he had to go.

Pranab Mukherjee, the most political president in our history so far, steered clear of tricky situations in his own way. At least at the moment of saying goodbye, he addressed issues he could have addressed earlier. In the days ahead, even that is unlikely to happen. Where hearts unite, tongues are superfluous.

In his farewell speech, President Pranab Mukherjee highlighted Indias strong points and said they had become endangered. Multiplicity of culture, faith and language is what makes India special, he said. The soul of India is in pluralism and tolerance, he said. Then he referred to increasing violence in the country and warned: At the heart of this violence is darkness, fear and mistrust. All true, very true. But the question arises: What did President Mukherjee do to use the Constitutional and moral power of his office to protect the soul of India against the forces of darkness? The Bengali intellectual in Pranab Mukherjee paid laudable attention to the culture associated with Rashtrapati Bhavan. His focus during the period of his presidency was on bolstering the grandeur of the placeconverting the old stables into a museum, restoring the building housing the Presidents Body Guard and so on. Reports say that the complex now looks more magnificent than before. But the pluralism, the tolerance, the darkness, the mistrust? That story got lost in translation. Not that the president has powers comparable to the prime ministers. But he has powers that can be usedpowers that come from perceived impartiality, from the exercise of checks and balances. Of the 12 presidents before Mukherjee, nine chose to remain safely inconsequential. (Zail Singh and Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed went to the extent of declaring their servitude to the Prime Minister, while V V Giri and Sanjiva Reddy sustained servitude sans declaring itevidence of the overriding power Indira Gandhi ensured for herself). Of the three presidents who dared to plough independent furrows, Rajendra Prasad, the first President of the Republic, was a loner. Firstly, he became president despite PM Nehrus opposition. Nehru was against him because he was Sardar Patels choice and was religiously inclined (though not communally, in todays Hindutva sense). Secondly, he wanted powers the Constitution did not envisage. There was an exchange of letters between the President and the Prime Minister with Rajendra Prasad arguing that he must have the power, for example, to contact any government secretary directly for information and to function as a third arm of the legislature with discretion to sign bills passed by Parliament. He lost out in this argument because Nehru had the Constitution on his side. It was K R Narayanan who brought out the full potential of the presidency. It was a turbulent period with Deve Gowda and Inder Gujral and A B Vajpayee successfully eroding Congress omnipotence. The hour found the man. Narayanan showed his individuality by becoming the first president to exercise his right to vote, and by using his Republic Day address to caution against growing discontent among the deprived sections of society. Narayanan dissolved Lok Sabha twice. He was the first to establish that a person could be appointed prime minister only if he convinced the president, through letters of support, that he could secure the confidence of the House. Vajpayee was the beneficiary of this decision. The president underscored his non-partisan independence by declining the United Front Prime Ministers recommendation to dismiss the BJP government of UP, and later by declining the BJP prime ministers recommendation to dismiss the Rabri government of Bihar. An interesting conundrum rises. The nations first Dalit president, an ardent Congressman, became so impartial as to help the nations first BJP government to power; will the nations second Dalit President, an ardent BJP leader, become impartial enough to decline a BJP governments recommendation? No prize for guessing the answer because there is no need to guess. APJ Abdul Kalam had fewer challenges compared to Narayanan, yet the peoples president became admired for his independence. He demonstrated it when he declined to sign on the dotted line in the office-of-profit case. The government wanted various VIPs to be exempted, but the president would not agree. But there was a more dramatic demonstration of his independence. He was proposed for the presidency by the BJP. But within days of his assuming office, he made the BJP jittery by deciding to visit Narendra Modis Gujarat, then reeling under the aftershocks of communal rioting. Prime Minister Vajpayee tried to dissuade him, but he said he had to go. Pranab Mukherjee, the most political president in our history so far, steered clear of tricky situations in his own way. At least at the moment of saying goodbye, he addressed issues he could have addressed earlier. In the days ahead, even that is unlikely to happen. Where hearts unite, tongues are superfluous.
Prabhu Chawla By

Power and principles make strange bedfellows in the politics of negotiation. Show a leader a throne, and Presto!old principles are magically replaced by newly invented values. To stay on his seat, Bihars evergreen Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dumped the tainted Lalu Parivar last week to shake hands with the BJPa party he had vowed to bury just a few years ago. It was just another walk down the alliance aisle for him. For decades, Nitish has never been chair-less. In his hands, resignations turn into inimitable instruments of contradictory compromises to retain the very same job he threatens to quit each time there is a crisis of credibility.

He has created a record of sorts by becoming the first political leader to be sworn in six times for the same post in less than 12 years. Somewhere along the journey from a Union Minister in 1998 to chief minister of Bihar from 2005 until now, Nitish picked up the tentative tag of Potential Prime Minister. Today, he has humbled himself by accepting former bete noire Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his national leader. Perhaps, his survival instincts compel him to be reconciled to being just one of the many chief ministers in Indias history.

The man en route to becoming a maximum leader has chosen a meaninglessly minimum path, which is sure to degrade his political clout.

Unlike other regional satraps such as Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and DMK boss M Karunanidhi who have the clout and charisma to win elections on their own,

Nitish needs the crutches of either a regional outfit or a national party to stay in business. Hence he needed to rediscover the BJPs good side, thereby making it his ethically refurbished vehicle of polity. By stooping to conquer, he has allowed the saffron party to regain politically-sensitive Bihar, which it had lost three years ago.

The message from Patna is loud and clear. The new BJP, led by Modi and Shah, has mastered the art of expanding its saffron footprint countrywide by winning elections decisively or becoming a favourite destination for opponents. The two leaders have fully understood that every non-BJP leader (barring the Left) is in the market waiting for a political office.

Hence, they have made it their mission to convert the entire Indian political spectrum into a Congress-mukt Bharat as soon as possible. Beware! Those who come in the way, can fall in line or fall by the wayside. They dont perceive Lalu as just an obstacle in the BJPs future electoral success in Biharhe is also an instrument for a Congress revival in the country through a shaky Mahagadbandhan. Unfortunately, for the Congress, Lalus insatiable greed for dodgy money drove the image-conscious Nitish Kumar into the BJPs arms.

But Nitish is not the only leader to switch sides since NDA came to power. Many others from Indias political universe, mainly from the Congress, have chosen the BJP as their preferred habitat. From Arunachal Pradesh to Kerala, there is hardly a state from where senior and middle level BJP opponents havent abandoned their parent party to leap into the saffron embrace.

The majority of them are from the Congress party. Natch. Congress leaders across the country realise their party can no longer win elections. They feel Brand Gandhi has become a victim of the law of diminishing political returns. The partys ownership is closely held; it is unlikely to be listed on the political exchange. In trading jargon, the Congress neither has powerful brand value, nor the clout to acquire new assets. On the other hand, the indomitable Brand Modi leads the BJPthe party of now and forever. It also has the magnetism and goodwill to acquire new assets and persuade the merger of small parties.

The BJPs acquisition drive began in Arunachal Pradesh, where it encouraged the conversion of the Congress government into a BJP regime. Then, a dozen prominent Congress leaders in Uttarakhand crossed over, and the BJP won the state election with two-thirds majority. In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, defectors got over 30 tickets; some of them even got cabinet berths. According to a rough estimate, over 10 per cent of BJPs current MPs and MLAs are crossovers.

Even now, a large number of power-hungry saffron baiters are willing to hop over to the BJP to gain political calories. Some months ago, veteran Karnataka Congress leader S M Krishna, former chief minister and Union minister, defected to the BJP at age 85. In Gujarat, just before the Rajya Sabha polls, the Congress has lost its six senior MLAs to the BJP. To add insult to injury, one of them was made a BJP Rajya Sabha candidate. Over the weekend, three Opposition legislators quit their parties in Uttar Pradesh. No guesses to where their tickets are booked.

The BJP is not engineering a new law of desiccation through disloyalty. The Gandhisfrom Indira to Soniastarted the defection trend though ironically it was Rajiv who brought in the anti-defection law. Indira had the cynical capability to convert Opposition governments into her own. In 1980, she lured the chief minister of Haryana, Bhajan Lal of the Janata Party, into joining the Congress en masse, with all his cabinet and MLAs. From 1980 to the mid 1990s, the Congress provided offices of profit to its opponents through political seduction. It toppled Morarji Desais government by offering the prime ministership to Chaudhary Charan Singh in 1979. It pulled down V P Singhs government and installed vociferous Gandhi critic Chandrashekar in his place.

P V Narasimha Rao bought a majority for his minority government by encouraging defections and breaking regional parties. The Congress forced H D Deve Gowda to resign as PM and replaced him with Inder Kumar Gujral. Historically, Congresspersons have fallen prey to political munificence from the other side. The powerful Maratha leader Sharad Pawar, was conveniently cured of his allergy to the Gandhis when he accepted Indiras invitation to join her government. But now, the Congress is no longer a meal ticket party, which has goodies to distribute to its cadreslet alone to others. Now, many of its luminaries are flapping around like fish out of water, thirsting for sustenance. The BJP is now a great political ocean with enough oxygen to invigorate power-deprived whales and winnows to live happily thereafter.

Prabhu Chawla

prabhuchawla@ newindianexpress.com

Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla

Power and principles make strange bedfellows in the politics of negotiation. Show a leader a throne, and Presto!old principles are magically replaced by newly invented values. To stay on his seat, Bihars evergreen Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dumped the tainted Lalu Parivar last week to shake hands with the BJPa party he had vowed to bury just a few years ago. It was just another walk down the alliance aisle for him. For decades, Nitish has never been chair-less. In his hands, resignations turn into inimitable instruments of contradictory compromises to retain the very same job he threatens to quit each time there is a crisis of credibility. He has created a record of sorts by becoming the first political leader to be sworn in six times for the same post in less than 12 years. Somewhere along the journey from a Union Minister in 1998 to chief minister of Bihar from 2005 until now, Nitish picked up the tentative tag of Potential Prime Minister. Today, he has humbled himself by accepting former bete noire Prime Minister Narendra Modi as his national leader. Perhaps, his survival instincts compel him to be reconciled to being just one of the many chief ministers in Indias history. The man en route to becoming a maximum leader has chosen a meaninglessly minimum path, which is sure to degrade his political clout. Unlike other regional satraps such as Odisha Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and DMK boss M Karunanidhi who have the clout and charisma to win elections on their own, Nitish needs the crutches of either a regional outfit or a national party to stay in business. Hence he needed to rediscover the BJPs good side, thereby making it his ethically refurbished vehicle of polity. By stooping to conquer, he has allowed the saffron party to regain politically-sensitive Bihar, which it had lost three years ago. The message from Patna is loud and clear. The new BJP, led by Modi and Shah, has mastered the art of expanding its saffron footprint countrywide by winning elections decisively or becoming a favourite destination for opponents. The two leaders have fully understood that every non-BJP leader (barring the Left) is in the market waiting for a political office. Hence, they have made it their mission to convert the entire Indian political spectrum into a Congress-mukt Bharat as soon as possible. Beware! Those who come in the way, can fall in line or fall by the wayside. They dont perceive Lalu as just an obstacle in the BJPs future electoral success in Biharhe is also an instrument for a Congress revival in the country through a shaky Mahagadbandhan. Unfortunately, for the Congress, Lalus insatiable greed for dodgy money drove the image-conscious Nitish Kumar into the BJPs arms. But Nitish is not the only leader to switch sides since NDA came to power. Many others from Indias political universe, mainly from the Congress, have chosen the BJP as their preferred habitat. From Arunachal Pradesh to Kerala, there is hardly a state from where senior and middle level BJP opponents havent abandoned their parent party to leap into the saffron embrace. The majority of them are from the Congress party. Natch. Congress leaders across the country realise their party can no longer win elections. They feel Brand Gandhi has become a victim of the law of diminishing political returns. The partys ownership is closely held; it is unlikely to be listed on the political exchange. In trading jargon, the Congress neither has powerful brand value, nor the clout to acquire new assets. On the other hand, the indomitable Brand Modi leads the BJPthe party of now and forever. It also has the magnetism and goodwill to acquire new assets and persuade the merger of small parties. The BJPs acquisition drive began in Arunachal Pradesh, where it encouraged the conversion of the Congress government into a BJP regime. Then, a dozen prominent Congress leaders in Uttarakhand crossed over, and the BJP won the state election with two-thirds majority. In the Uttar Pradesh Assembly polls, defectors got over 30 tickets; some of them even got cabinet berths. According to a rough estimate, over 10 per cent of BJPs current MPs and MLAs are crossovers. Even now, a large number of power-hungry saffron baiters are willing to hop over to the BJP to gain political calories. Some months ago, veteran Karnataka Congress leader S M Krishna, former chief minister and Union minister, defected to the BJP at age 85. In Gujarat, just before the Rajya Sabha polls, the Congress has lost its six senior MLAs to the BJP. To add insult to injury, one of them was made a BJP Rajya Sabha candidate. Over the weekend, three Opposition legislators quit their parties in Uttar Pradesh. No guesses to where their tickets are booked. The BJP is not engineering a new law of desiccation through disloyalty. The Gandhisfrom Indira to Soniastarted the defection trend though ironically it was Rajiv who brought in the anti-defection law. Indira had the cynical capability to convert Opposition governments into her own. In 1980, she lured the chief minister of Haryana, Bhajan Lal of the Janata Party, into joining the Congress en masse, with all his cabinet and MLAs. From 1980 to the mid 1990s, the Congress provided offices of profit to its opponents through political seduction. It toppled Morarji Desais government by offering the prime ministership to Chaudhary Charan Singh in 1979. It pulled down V P Singhs government and installed vociferous Gandhi critic Chandrashekar in his place. P V Narasimha Rao bought a majority for his minority government by encouraging defections and breaking regional parties. The Congress forced H D Deve Gowda to resign as PM and replaced him with Inder Kumar Gujral. Historically, Congresspersons have fallen prey to political munificence from the other side. The powerful Maratha leader Sharad Pawar, was conveniently cured of his allergy to the Gandhis when he accepted Indiras invitation to join her government. But now, the Congress is no longer a meal ticket party, which has goodies to distribute to its cadreslet alone to others. Now, many of its luminaries are flapping around like fish out of water, thirsting for sustenance. The BJP is now a great political ocean with enough oxygen to invigorate power-deprived whales and winnows to live happily thereafter. Prabhu Chawla prabhuchawla@ newindianexpress.com Follow him on Twitter @PrabhuChawla
Foxconn Chairman Terry Gou, left, and Gov. Scott Walker hold the Wisconsin flag July 27 at the Milwaukee Art Museum to celebrate Foxconn's planned $10 billion investment in a display panel plant in Wisconsin.
By Express News Service

BENGALURU: The Suburban Rail Policy, announced by the Railway Ministry, does not consider the state governments suggestions and is skewed to the states disadvantage. Hence, it should be revised, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stated on Saturday.

In a letter to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, the CM stated that the state government had communicated its suggestions to the Ministry of Railways on January 12 on all important project parameters like funding (both loan and equity), land acquisition and operational losses/gains. The main issue, suggested across several parameters, was that there should be equal participation by the state and Railways.

The state had also suggested that creation of exclusive infrastructure may not be insisted upon as this would not only prevent leveraging of existing infrastructure where there is slack but also make the Suburban rail uneconomical. However, the new suburban rail policy has been announced on April 18 without considering these suggestions, the CM noted.

Siddaramaiah stated that the policy is skewed to the states disadvantage while referring to the clauses that operational losses are to be borne by state government in case the Special Purpose Vehicle is not able to bear it, whle the final authority on fare fixation has been retained with the Railways. I would request you to relax the provision pertaining to devolving of 100 per cent operational losses on the state government by making it joint responsibility of both equity holders and vest the freedom of fixing the fare with the SPV, he urged.

The CM also suggested that equal sharing of all financial burden and use of existing infrastructure, wherever feasible, in consultation with Railways be permitted and the guidelines revised accordingly. Metropolitan cities require multiple public transport solutions to deal with increasing commuting requirements and suburban rail systems play an important role as it complements other urban public transport initiatives in Bengaluru, he added.

Chief Public Relations Officer, South Western Railway, E Vijaya said, The letter pertains to the issue of bearing of operational losses and fixation of fare by the Special Purpose Vehicle. As the Suburban Rail Policy has been issued by Ministry of Railways, any changes shall be considered and decided by the Railway Board and approved by the ministry. She also said there is very little scope for using the existing infrastructure for additional services. Railways is already running about 55 pairs of commuter trains in Bengaluru area, the CPRO added.

It should be on the lines of Metro rail: Official

It is very difficult for the state to fund 80 per cent of the project cost. That, along with the land acquisition, will escalate the cost further for the state government, L K Atheeq, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister said. The Suburban Rail Policy mandates a 80:20 funding pattern between the state and Centre, respectively for suburban systems across the country. The Suburban Rail should be taken up on the lines of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd where both the state and the Centre have 50:50 equity. Even in the case of Metro, our actual contribution increases up to 70 per cent as the operating losses are borne by the state government, he said.

BENGALURU: The Suburban Rail Policy, announced by the Railway Ministry, does not consider the state governments suggestions and is skewed to the states disadvantage. Hence, it should be revised, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah stated on Saturday. In a letter to Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu, the CM stated that the state government had communicated its suggestions to the Ministry of Railways on January 12 on all important project parameters like funding (both loan and equity), land acquisition and operational losses/gains. The main issue, suggested across several parameters, was that there should be equal participation by the state and Railways. The state had also suggested that creation of exclusive infrastructure may not be insisted upon as this would not only prevent leveraging of existing infrastructure where there is slack but also make the Suburban rail uneconomical. However, the new suburban rail policy has been announced on April 18 without considering these suggestions, the CM noted. Siddaramaiah stated that the policy is skewed to the states disadvantage while referring to the clauses that operational losses are to be borne by state government in case the Special Purpose Vehicle is not able to bear it, whle the final authority on fare fixation has been retained with the Railways. I would request you to relax the provision pertaining to devolving of 100 per cent operational losses on the state government by making it joint responsibility of both equity holders and vest the freedom of fixing the fare with the SPV, he urged. The CM also suggested that equal sharing of all financial burden and use of existing infrastructure, wherever feasible, in consultation with Railways be permitted and the guidelines revised accordingly. Metropolitan cities require multiple public transport solutions to deal with increasing commuting requirements and suburban rail systems play an important role as it complements other urban public transport initiatives in Bengaluru, he added. Chief Public Relations Officer, South Western Railway, E Vijaya said, The letter pertains to the issue of bearing of operational losses and fixation of fare by the Special Purpose Vehicle. As the Suburban Rail Policy has been issued by Ministry of Railways, any changes shall be considered and decided by the Railway Board and approved by the ministry. She also said there is very little scope for using the existing infrastructure for additional services. Railways is already running about 55 pairs of commuter trains in Bengaluru area, the CPRO added. It should be on the lines of Metro rail: Official It is very difficult for the state to fund 80 per cent of the project cost. That, along with the land acquisition, will escalate the cost further for the state government, L K Atheeq, Principal Secretary to the Chief Minister said. The Suburban Rail Policy mandates a 80:20 funding pattern between the state and Centre, respectively for suburban systems across the country. The Suburban Rail should be taken up on the lines of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd where both the state and the Centre have 50:50 equity. Even in the case of Metro, our actual contribution increases up to 70 per cent as the operating losses are borne by the state government, he said.
By Express News Service

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala capital Thiruvananthapuram has been put under tight police cover with RSS and BJP workers planning to take slain RSS 'Karyavahak' Rajesh's body in a funeral procession.

Large numbers of party men, led by BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan, O Rajagopal MLA and district president S Suresh were present at the medical college in Thiruvananthapuram where the post mortem was underway. After it gets over, the body will be taken to Rajesh's home at Sreekaryam.

By 4 pm, the body will be taken to the Santhi Kavadam crematorium at Thycaud, a distance of nearly 10 km from Sreekaryam, in a funeral procession, the BJP said.

Thiruvananthapuram city police commissioner Sparjan Kumar said police personnel will be deployed to cover the entire route of the procession.

In view of the situation, the district administration has banned marches and processions in the city for the next three days. State police chief Loknath Behera said police have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt for violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots.

He said spreading rumors and provocative messages through social media would also attract legal action.

Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPM state secretary, denied that the CPM had any role in the murder. Balakrishnan said, the BJP was trying to stir up trouble by accusing CPM of the murder. He said, the murder was prompted by personal enmity and family issues but the BJP was trying to make political gains by calling a hartal.

On the other hand, the BJP district president S Suresh alleged that CPM district secretary Anavoor Nagappan was involved in the incident. CPM is trying to transform Thiruvananthapuram into another Kannur, he alleged.

Meanwhile, union home minister Rajnath Singh told the Kerala government that political violence was unacceptable in a democracy.

Responding to the brutal murder of RSS worker Rajesh, Singh tweeted that he had spoken to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan regarding the ''recent incidents of political violence'' in the state. ''I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy,'' he said, adding that he expected the political violence in the state was curbed and that the perpetrators were brought to justice expeditiously.

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala capital Thiruvananthapuram has been put under tight police cover with RSS and BJP workers planning to take slain RSS 'Karyavahak' Rajesh's body in a funeral procession. Large numbers of party men, led by BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan, O Rajagopal MLA and district president S Suresh were present at the medical college in Thiruvananthapuram where the post mortem was underway. After it gets over, the body will be taken to Rajesh's home at Sreekaryam. By 4 pm, the body will be taken to the Santhi Kavadam crematorium at Thycaud, a distance of nearly 10 km from Sreekaryam, in a funeral procession, the BJP said. Thiruvananthapuram city police commissioner Sparjan Kumar said police personnel will be deployed to cover the entire route of the procession. In view of the situation, the district administration has banned marches and processions in the city for the next three days. State police chief Loknath Behera said police have been instructed to strictly deal with any attempt for violence and adequate force have been deployed in all sensitive spots. He said spreading rumors and provocative messages through social media would also attract legal action. Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPM state secretary, denied that the CPM had any role in the murder. Balakrishnan said, the BJP was trying to stir up trouble by accusing CPM of the murder. He said, the murder was prompted by personal enmity and family issues but the BJP was trying to make political gains by calling a hartal. On the other hand, the BJP district president S Suresh alleged that CPM district secretary Anavoor Nagappan was involved in the incident. CPM is trying to transform Thiruvananthapuram into another Kannur, he alleged. Meanwhile, union home minister Rajnath Singh told the Kerala government that political violence was unacceptable in a democracy. Responding to the brutal murder of RSS worker Rajesh, Singh tweeted that he had spoken to chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan regarding the ''recent incidents of political violence'' in the state. ''I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy,'' he said, adding that he expected the political violence in the state was curbed and that the perpetrators were brought to justice expeditiously.
By Express News Service

BHUBANESWAR: The State-level Single Window Clearance Authority (SLSWCA) on Saturday approved three investment proposals worth `1,325 crore.

On implementation, the three proposals will create employment opportunity for 665 people. A meeating of the SLSWCA chaired by Chief Secretary AP Padhi cleared the proposal of North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) for establishing a 200 MW solar power project in the State.

The Mini Ratna central public sector enterprise of the Ministry of Power has proposed to invest `945 crore in the project which will create job opportunity for 205 people. The unit is likely to start operations from December, 2019, sources said.

Tamil Nadu-based Chettinad Cement Corporation has proposed to set up a cement factory at Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex in Jajpur district with an investment of `232 crore. The green field cement project with a capacity of 2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity will create employment opportunity for 385 people.

The business proposal from Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited was also approved. A leading provider of comprehensive environment management services, the company proposed to set up an integrated common hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility at Katikela in Jharsuguda district with an investment of `148.63 crore.

The company has another unit in Jajpur which is already operational in addition to 14 similar facilities with various capacities in different parts of the country.

The Chief Secretary also reviewed the progress of implementation of the projects of RSB Transmission, Aditya Aluminium, Odisha Power Generation Corporation, Odisha Coal and Power Limited, Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited, National Thermal Power Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited.

Issues relating to land acquisition, eviction of unauthorised occupants from land allotted to projects, direct land purchase by project proponents from land owners and timely approval of statutory clearances were discussed."It has been our endeavour to make Odisha a business-friendly destination by bringing in key business reforms, developing world class infrastructure and establishing sector specific clusters across the State," Industries Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said.

BHUBANESWAR: The State-level Single Window Clearance Authority (SLSWCA) on Saturday approved three investment proposals worth `1,325 crore. On implementation, the three proposals will create employment opportunity for 665 people. A meeating of the SLSWCA chaired by Chief Secretary AP Padhi cleared the proposal of North Eastern Electric Power Corporation (NEEPCO) for establishing a 200 MW solar power project in the State. The Mini Ratna central public sector enterprise of the Ministry of Power has proposed to invest `945 crore in the project which will create job opportunity for 205 people. The unit is likely to start operations from December, 2019, sources said. Tamil Nadu-based Chettinad Cement Corporation has proposed to set up a cement factory at Kalinga Nagar Industrial Complex in Jajpur district with an investment of `232 crore. The green field cement project with a capacity of 2 million tonnes per annum (MTPA) capacity will create employment opportunity for 385 people. The business proposal from Ramky Enviro Engineers Limited was also approved. A leading provider of comprehensive environment management services, the company proposed to set up an integrated common hazardous waste treatment, storage and disposal facility at Katikela in Jharsuguda district with an investment of `148.63 crore. The company has another unit in Jajpur which is already operational in addition to 14 similar facilities with various capacities in different parts of the country. The Chief Secretary also reviewed the progress of implementation of the projects of RSB Transmission, Aditya Aluminium, Odisha Power Generation Corporation, Odisha Coal and Power Limited, Odisha Power Transmission Corporation Limited, National Thermal Power Corporation, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited. Issues relating to land acquisition, eviction of unauthorised occupants from land allotted to projects, direct land purchase by project proponents from land owners and timely approval of statutory clearances were discussed."It has been our endeavour to make Odisha a business-friendly destination by bringing in key business reforms, developing world class infrastructure and establishing sector specific clusters across the State," Industries Secretary Sanjeev Chopra said.
By Express News Service

CHENNAI: BJP national president Amit Shah will be visiting Tamil Nadu for three days from August 22. During his visit, he is likely to come to Chennai and also go to Coimbatore, Madurai and, if possible, a few other places. The visit which should have taken place in May was cancelled at the last minute.

At a time the BJP is trying its best to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu using prevailing uncertain political atmosphere, Shahs visit is expected to serve as a morale booster to party cadre. Besides, one of the key aspects of his visit is to meet OBC leaders from various pockets of the State.

The BJP president will be visiting State headquarters and may address mediapersons here, said party sources. Shah will be reviewing organisational works in Tamil Nadu and will be meeting the rank and file of the State unit of the party in different meetings. However, the complete schedule of his visit is likely to be out in a day or two.

In his first ever speech made in Chennai on December 20, 2014, Shah exhorted party cadre in Tamil Nadu to end the cyclical misrule of Dravidian parties and to take Tamil Nadu on board with Prime Minister Modis Mission for Growth. However, the party could not open its account in the State Assembly in the 2016 elections.

During the past couple of years, the BJP had made many efforts to increase its cadre base and did membership drive through innovative methods.

CHENNAI: BJP national president Amit Shah will be visiting Tamil Nadu for three days from August 22. During his visit, he is likely to come to Chennai and also go to Coimbatore, Madurai and, if possible, a few other places. The visit which should have taken place in May was cancelled at the last minute. At a time the BJP is trying its best to gain a foothold in Tamil Nadu using prevailing uncertain political atmosphere, Shahs visit is expected to serve as a morale booster to party cadre. Besides, one of the key aspects of his visit is to meet OBC leaders from various pockets of the State. The BJP president will be visiting State headquarters and may address mediapersons here, said party sources. Shah will be reviewing organisational works in Tamil Nadu and will be meeting the rank and file of the State unit of the party in different meetings. However, the complete schedule of his visit is likely to be out in a day or two. In his first ever speech made in Chennai on December 20, 2014, Shah exhorted party cadre in Tamil Nadu to end the cyclical misrule of Dravidian parties and to take Tamil Nadu on board with Prime Minister Modis Mission for Growth. However, the party could not open its account in the State Assembly in the 2016 elections. During the past couple of years, the BJP had made many efforts to increase its cadre base and did membership drive through innovative methods.
Dia Rekhi By

Express News Service

The ambit and the number of persons detained under the Goondas Act have increased phenomenally in recent years. It has become a tool to put anyone in prison even without giving them an opportunity to explain their side of the story before the courts.

CHENNAI: A 23-year-old journalism student who was distributing pamphlets against oil extraction projects. A pro-Eelam activist who organised a candlelight vigil. A man who sold pirated CDs of a few movies. On first sight, there may seem like these people would have nothing in common but they do. They are all goondas.

The ambit and the number of persons detained under the Goondas Act have increased phenomenally in recent years just like the full form of the Act itself  The Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Forest Offenders, Sand Offenders, Slum-Grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982.

It was first enacted in 1923 in Bengal and lives on in some form or the other in several States in India, the law aims at a year-long preventive detention of habitual offenders. But the use of the Act is extended so much that now it has become a tool to put anyone in prison even without giving him an opportunity to explain his side of the story before the courts.

Preventive detention goes against the grain of a fair trial process, said Geeta Ramaseshan, a reputed Chennai-based advocate. It provides means for those who cant be convicted to be detained which is denial of liberty. Historically, the Act has been associated with detaining those who show political dissent and we could probably see more people being booked under this law for political dissent.

J Agnes Sasitha, head of the Sociology Department at Stella Maris College, echoes the sentiment. In a modern democracy, the emphasis should be on restorative justice rather than retributive justice. The Goondas Act which is a form of preventive detention infringes on human rights as well. Its use must be restricted to crises.

On July 16, Valarmathi, a journalism student, was detained under the Act for taking part in Kathiramangalams oil pipeline protests. Valarmathi was then accused of being a Maoist sympathiser by the police. The previous month, Thirumurgan Gandhi, the convener of the May 17 movement, was detained under the Act after his arrest for staging a candlelight vigil to commemorate civilian victims in the last phase of the Eelam war.

According to the law, a goonda is a person who, either by himself or as a member or leader of a gang, habitually commits or attempts to commit or abets the commission of offences. A perusal of the cases against these two persons clearly points out that all their protests were against the States policies. For example, the protests by Gandhi were on issues like demonetisation and other government policies. One of the cases against him was for waving a black flag during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Chennai. Valarmathis activism showed her leftist leanings.

While these two cases have abused the Act, statistics show that around 3,000 persons are detained under Goondas Act every year in the State. This means on an average seven to eight persons are detained every day. Detaining anyone on the basis of mere suspicion is unjustifiable, said A Marx, chairperson of the National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations. The problem with the Act is it can deny the basic rights of freedom of speech and expression and the right to protection of life and personal liberty. The law is a dated one and needs a relook.

Incidentally, Tamil Nadu was the first State to add the video pirate clause in 2004. In 2011, a Madras High Court bench ruled that even a single criminal case against a person is enough to detain him under the Goondas Act. With this verdict and the broad spectrum of the crimes covered in the legislation, all that is needed to detain a person in jail for a year is a simple FIR.

However, the effectiveness of this move has been questioned by those within the system itself. It is odd for a digital pirate to be termed a goonda, said a senior police officer working in the cyber crime wing, on the condition of anonymity. A goonda by definition is someone who creates unrest or a ruckus in society. I think it is not acceptable for a digital pirate to be clubbed in this category as they only cause financial loss but do not threaten other peoples lives in any way.

Bringing digital piracy under the ambit of the Goondas Act does not sit well with a number of activists and cyber law experts too. One must not forget the context in which the Goondas Act was implemented, explained Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court lawyer and cyber law expert. We should not enact the law beyond the scope of its context. Never in their wildest imagination would the drafters of the law have realised that it would be used in the context of activities in the digital and mobile ecosystem! It is important to interpret these laws logically.

There have to be checks and balances that should be established to ensure that such a law is not misused, said Duggal. There is also a lot of ambiguity when it comes to the law because with the digital space in particular, who is to determine what makes a person a goonda? Booking is simple but providing proof and getting conviction is a challenge.

There is also the question of how preventive detention laws provide very little room for legal recourse. The right to challenge the detention is limited, Ramaseshan said. The Act is meant to be used as a deterrent. However, it is questionable if it actually proves to be a deterrent. Effective investigation and certain punishment is the best way to look at dealing with people perceived as repeat offenders.

Despite the problems that plague the legislation, law enforcement officers feel that they are merely enforcing the law when they detain people under the law. They believe that they are only doing their job. Many even felt that the law, if used effectively, is an important tool that can come in handy for the police.

The Chennai police have been using the law effectively to maintain law and order in the city, said a senior police officer who did not wish to be named. There is a lot of deliberation that goes into figuring out who is to be detained. And that is only done by senior level officers and officials as responsibility is left to the person who is executing the detention.

Explaining the process of how things are done, the officer said that at the beginning of the year, a list of category A, B and C offenders is drawn up. He said it is generally the category A offenders who are detained and that most detainees are let off in 3-6 months rather than a year. The Act provides law enforcement agencies with the opportunity to ensure that anyone who has committed a heinous crime, like rape, is not let out, he said.

But if let unchecked, the Goondas Act could put an end to the need for courts and a fair trial since police can unilaterally decide who must be put in jail and who can go free.

1923

First enacted in 1923 in Bengal, the Act lives on in some form or the other in several States in India. It aims at a year-long preventive detention of habitual offenders

3,000

Statistics show that around 3,000 persons are detained under Goondas Act every year in the State. This means on an average seven to eight persons are detained every day

Rs 8,000

A police inspector has to spend nearly Rs 16,000 for paper work to detain a person under the Act. But the government reimburses only Rs 8,000

The ambit and the number of persons detained under the Goondas Act have increased phenomenally in recent years. It has become a tool to put anyone in prison even without giving them an opportunity to explain their side of the story before the courts. CHENNAI: A 23-year-old journalism student who was distributing pamphlets against oil extraction projects. A pro-Eelam activist who organised a candlelight vigil. A man who sold pirated CDs of a few movies. On first sight, there may seem like these people would have nothing in common but they do. They are all goondas. The ambit and the number of persons detained under the Goondas Act have increased phenomenally in recent years just like the full form of the Act itself  The Tamil Nadu Prevention of Dangerous Activities of Bootleggers, Drug Offenders, Goondas, Immoral Traffic Offenders, Forest Offenders, Sand Offenders, Slum-Grabbers and Video Pirates Act, 1982. It was first enacted in 1923 in Bengal and lives on in some form or the other in several States in India, the law aims at a year-long preventive detention of habitual offenders. But the use of the Act is extended so much that now it has become a tool to put anyone in prison even without giving him an opportunity to explain his side of the story before the courts. Preventive detention goes against the grain of a fair trial process, said Geeta Ramaseshan, a reputed Chennai-based advocate. It provides means for those who cant be convicted to be detained which is denial of liberty. Historically, the Act has been associated with detaining those who show political dissent and we could probably see more people being booked under this law for political dissent. J Agnes Sasitha, head of the Sociology Department at Stella Maris College, echoes the sentiment. In a modern democracy, the emphasis should be on restorative justice rather than retributive justice. The Goondas Act which is a form of preventive detention infringes on human rights as well. Its use must be restricted to crises. On July 16, Valarmathi, a journalism student, was detained under the Act for taking part in Kathiramangalams oil pipeline protests. Valarmathi was then accused of being a Maoist sympathiser by the police. The previous month, Thirumurgan Gandhi, the convener of the May 17 movement, was detained under the Act after his arrest for staging a candlelight vigil to commemorate civilian victims in the last phase of the Eelam war. According to the law, a goonda is a person who, either by himself or as a member or leader of a gang, habitually commits or attempts to commit or abets the commission of offences. A perusal of the cases against these two persons clearly points out that all their protests were against the States policies. For example, the protests by Gandhi were on issues like demonetisation and other government policies. One of the cases against him was for waving a black flag during Prime Minister Narendra Modis visit to Chennai. Valarmathis activism showed her leftist leanings. While these two cases have abused the Act, statistics show that around 3,000 persons are detained under Goondas Act every year in the State. This means on an average seven to eight persons are detained every day. Detaining anyone on the basis of mere suspicion is unjustifiable, said A Marx, chairperson of the National Confederation of Human Rights Organisations. The problem with the Act is it can deny the basic rights of freedom of speech and expression and the right to protection of life and personal liberty. The law is a dated one and needs a relook. Incidentally, Tamil Nadu was the first State to add the video pirate clause in 2004. In 2011, a Madras High Court bench ruled that even a single criminal case against a person is enough to detain him under the Goondas Act. With this verdict and the broad spectrum of the crimes covered in the legislation, all that is needed to detain a person in jail for a year is a simple FIR. However, the effectiveness of this move has been questioned by those within the system itself. It is odd for a digital pirate to be termed a goonda, said a senior police officer working in the cyber crime wing, on the condition of anonymity. A goonda by definition is someone who creates unrest or a ruckus in society. I think it is not acceptable for a digital pirate to be clubbed in this category as they only cause financial loss but do not threaten other peoples lives in any way. Bringing digital piracy under the ambit of the Goondas Act does not sit well with a number of activists and cyber law experts too. One must not forget the context in which the Goondas Act was implemented, explained Pavan Duggal, a Supreme Court lawyer and cyber law expert. We should not enact the law beyond the scope of its context. Never in their wildest imagination would the drafters of the law have realised that it would be used in the context of activities in the digital and mobile ecosystem! It is important to interpret these laws logically. There have to be checks and balances that should be established to ensure that such a law is not misused, said Duggal. There is also a lot of ambiguity when it comes to the law because with the digital space in particular, who is to determine what makes a person a goonda? Booking is simple but providing proof and getting conviction is a challenge. There is also the question of how preventive detention laws provide very little room for legal recourse. The right to challenge the detention is limited, Ramaseshan said. The Act is meant to be used as a deterrent. However, it is questionable if it actually proves to be a deterrent. Effective investigation and certain punishment is the best way to look at dealing with people perceived as repeat offenders. Despite the problems that plague the legislation, law enforcement officers feel that they are merely enforcing the law when they detain people under the law. They believe that they are only doing their job. Many even felt that the law, if used effectively, is an important tool that can come in handy for the police. The Chennai police have been using the law effectively to maintain law and order in the city, said a senior police officer who did not wish to be named. There is a lot of deliberation that goes into figuring out who is to be detained. And that is only done by senior level officers and officials as responsibility is left to the person who is executing the detention. Explaining the process of how things are done, the officer said that at the beginning of the year, a list of category A, B and C offenders is drawn up. He said it is generally the category A offenders who are detained and that most detainees are let off in 3-6 months rather than a year. The Act provides law enforcement agencies with the opportunity to ensure that anyone who has committed a heinous crime, like rape, is not let out, he said. But if let unchecked, the Goondas Act could put an end to the need for courts and a fair trial since police can unilaterally decide who must be put in jail and who can go free. 1923 First enacted in 1923 in Bengal, the Act lives on in some form or the other in several States in India. It aims at a year-long preventive detention of habitual offenders 3,000 Statistics show that around 3,000 persons are detained under Goondas Act every year in the State. This means on an average seven to eight persons are detained every day Rs 8,000 A police inspector has to spend nearly Rs 16,000 for paper work to detain a person under the Act. But the government reimburses only Rs 8,000
Richa Sharma By

NEW DELHI: Four years, 1,557 lives lost. These are the numbers of a different kind of war zoneone that is created by development and loss of habitat. According to data collated by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), between April 2013 and May 2017, West Bengal lost 367 people to man-animal conflict. The state is followed by Assam with 241 deaths and Jharkhand where 214 human lives were lost in fight for space.

Despite the government taking steps to tackle increasing incidents of man-animal conflict, in the last four years alone, at least one person has been killed every day on an average due to attacks from tigers and elephants. The shrinking habitat of these animals thanks to development and encroachment of forest land, has given rise to such unnecessary deaths.

What is perhaps more worrying is the fact that with the number of tigers and elephants increasing gradually, the man-animal conflict is also set to rise further.

India is home to the largest population of tigers in the world with the Tiger Census 2014 pegging it at a healthy 2,226. Elephant population is also on the rise and the 2012 Census said that 30,000 elephants live in the wild across the country.

The new Census is due in another month and conservationists are hoping that the numbers will rise.

Despite the number of human lives lost in attacks by animals increasing in last three years, the new National Wildlife Action Plan which was mooted to address and manage the conflict has been on the files alone. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests is deliberating over it for over a year now.

The draft action plan clearly outlines reasons for the conflict as loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitats. All these in turn increase the chances of wild animals moving out of their natural habitat and encountering cultivation and people.

Such conflict situations also lead to growing antipathy among people towards wildlife conservation, resulting in retaliatory killings.

Another important factor behind the conflict is imbalance of wildlife species. For instance, killing of big cats, such as deer, wild boar, in the forest results in human-wildlife conflict in the fringe areas due to decrease of prey species.

Environment minister Harsh Vardhan agrees that the situation is worrisome but emphasised that the ministry is taking measures.

Financial assistance is provided under Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) of Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH) and Project Tiger for voluntary relocation of villages from within Protected Areas to outside. This helps in moving people away from wildlife-rich habitats, said Vardhan.

He further said that a network of Protected Areas like national park, sanctuaries, conservation reserves, and community reserve covering important wildlife habitat has been created across the country under the provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. This aims to conserve wild animals and their habitats and also aids mitigation of man-animal conflict.

But wildlife experts feel that this is not enough. They stress that in case of tigers about 40 per cent live outside the 50 tiger reserves and the approach has to be aggressive. Conflicts also occur more outside Protected Areas and there is need for a human-wildlife conflict management plan.

Addressing wildlife human interface requires an aggressive and active co-occurrence agenda which will have pro as well as retroactive measures, based on landscape approach, in ongoing manner with an eye on specially Protected Areas in proximity to human-dominated settings, said Rajesh Gopal, former National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) chief and Secretary General of Global Tiger Forum.

The draft action plan recognises that man-animal conflicts are largely a human-induced phenomenon combined with the specific behavioural ecology of animals, and external environmental factors. Long-term conservation measures are only possible through peoples cooperation.

Explaining about steps taken jointly by the Centre and states, R K Srivastava, director, Project Elephant, Ministry of Environment and Forests says technology is being used and SMS alerts are sent to people by district committees in areas in vicinity of elephant corridors. Besides, innovative methods like chilly and honey fences are used.

Population of elephants in the country is slowly rising, while their habitat is reducing. There is a pressure to come out of the thick forest for food, water, mating. Government can reduce the conflict intensity but it cannot be eliminated, said Srivastava.

Apart from the obvious solutions, the government is also looking at out-of-the-box options. For instance, it has suggested using beehive fences and chilli fences to prevent elephants from entering crop fields. The draft plan also ponders the option of euthanasia. The government also has repeatedly suggested to states about importance of involving locals in conservation work.

Sandeep Kumar Tiwari, Programme Manager, IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group, says that one has to take both short-term and long-term approaches.

We should not look at band-aid approach and fire-fighting but work towards long-term mitigation measures like habitat management and protecting and securing wildlife corridors. Development activities through forest areas need to be planned, he said.

NEW DELHI: Four years, 1,557 lives lost. These are the numbers of a different kind of war zoneone that is created by development and loss of habitat. According to data collated by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), between April 2013 and May 2017, West Bengal lost 367 people to man-animal conflict. The state is followed by Assam with 241 deaths and Jharkhand where 214 human lives were lost in fight for space. Despite the government taking steps to tackle increasing incidents of man-animal conflict, in the last four years alone, at least one person has been killed every day on an average due to attacks from tigers and elephants. The shrinking habitat of these animals thanks to development and encroachment of forest land, has given rise to such unnecessary deaths. What is perhaps more worrying is the fact that with the number of tigers and elephants increasing gradually, the man-animal conflict is also set to rise further. India is home to the largest population of tigers in the world with the Tiger Census 2014 pegging it at a healthy 2,226. Elephant population is also on the rise and the 2012 Census said that 30,000 elephants live in the wild across the country. The new Census is due in another month and conservationists are hoping that the numbers will rise. Despite the number of human lives lost in attacks by animals increasing in last three years, the new National Wildlife Action Plan which was mooted to address and manage the conflict has been on the files alone. The Union Ministry of Environment and Forests is deliberating over it for over a year now. The draft action plan clearly outlines reasons for the conflict as loss, degradation, and fragmentation of wildlife habitats. All these in turn increase the chances of wild animals moving out of their natural habitat and encountering cultivation and people. Such conflict situations also lead to growing antipathy among people towards wildlife conservation, resulting in retaliatory killings. Another important factor behind the conflict is imbalance of wildlife species. For instance, killing of big cats, such as deer, wild boar, in the forest results in human-wildlife conflict in the fringe areas due to decrease of prey species. Environment minister Harsh Vardhan agrees that the situation is worrisome but emphasised that the ministry is taking measures. Financial assistance is provided under Centrally Sponsored Scheme (CSS) of Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH) and Project Tiger for voluntary relocation of villages from within Protected Areas to outside. This helps in moving people away from wildlife-rich habitats, said Vardhan. He further said that a network of Protected Areas like national park, sanctuaries, conservation reserves, and community reserve covering important wildlife habitat has been created across the country under the provisions of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972. This aims to conserve wild animals and their habitats and also aids mitigation of man-animal conflict. But wildlife experts feel that this is not enough. They stress that in case of tigers about 40 per cent live outside the 50 tiger reserves and the approach has to be aggressive. Conflicts also occur more outside Protected Areas and there is need for a human-wildlife conflict management plan. Addressing wildlife human interface requires an aggressive and active co-occurrence agenda which will have pro as well as retroactive measures, based on landscape approach, in ongoing manner with an eye on specially Protected Areas in proximity to human-dominated settings, said Rajesh Gopal, former National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) chief and Secretary General of Global Tiger Forum. The draft action plan recognises that man-animal conflicts are largely a human-induced phenomenon combined with the specific behavioural ecology of animals, and external environmental factors. Long-term conservation measures are only possible through peoples cooperation. Explaining about steps taken jointly by the Centre and states, R K Srivastava, director, Project Elephant, Ministry of Environment and Forests says technology is being used and SMS alerts are sent to people by district committees in areas in vicinity of elephant corridors. Besides, innovative methods like chilly and honey fences are used. Population of elephants in the country is slowly rising, while their habitat is reducing. There is a pressure to come out of the thick forest for food, water, mating. Government can reduce the conflict intensity but it cannot be eliminated, said Srivastava. Apart from the obvious solutions, the government is also looking at out-of-the-box options. For instance, it has suggested using beehive fences and chilli fences to prevent elephants from entering crop fields. The draft plan also ponders the option of euthanasia. The government also has repeatedly suggested to states about importance of involving locals in conservation work. Sandeep Kumar Tiwari, Programme Manager, IUCN SSC Asian Elephant Specialist Group, says that one has to take both short-term and long-term approaches. We should not look at band-aid approach and fire-fighting but work towards long-term mitigation measures like habitat management and protecting and securing wildlife corridors. Development activities through forest areas need to be planned, he said.
HYDERABAD: Much to the delight of Tollywood stars, being questioned in the drugs investigation, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is learnt to have hinted last week that drug addicts will be treated as victims and not criminals.

Highly placed sources said Rao told officials to treat only those as criminals who have supplied and sold drugs. Hence, the state is unlikely to register cases against addicts, unless they act as a liaison for peddlers. Criminals will be brought to book, while victims will not be harassed, the CM reportedly told excise officials at a review of the probe last week. Drugs were being supplied from Spain, Thailand, Portugal, Nigeria and Netherlands, he said. Government will not allow drugs into the State for supply. We will check supply of drugs at the origin, he said.

Meanwhile, leading Tollywood star Ravi Teja, who was grilled for his alleged links with drug peddlers in Hyderabad, denied having any acquaintance with Calvin Mascarenhas, who had supplied drugs to children. Also, the actor reportedly refused to give his blood, hair or saliva sample. During the 10-hour-long questioning by the SIT officials at Nampally last week, the actor denied the claims made by Zeeshan Ali, one of the arrested drug peddlers. The actor has been facing allegations of being a consumer of various kinds of narcotic and psychotropic drugs, along with 11 other film personalities.

Since July 19, the SIT has questioned filmmaker Puri Jagannadh, cinematographer Shyam K Naidu, actors P Subba Raju, Tarun Kumar and P Navdeep, actresses Charmi Kaur and Mumaith Khan, and art director Dharma Rao alias Chinna. A day before Teja was questioned, Kaur had also refused to give her consent for drawing the samples of body fluid, hair and nails when the Special Investigation Team grilled her for over six hours.

Few days ago, the two arrested drug peddlers Zeeshan Ali and Noah William had confessed that they had supplied drugs to Teja frequently. The actor was questioned about the claims made by Zeeshan and others. He was also asked about the links his brother had and his relationship with Calvin and other peddlers and also about other stars. The actor has given satisfactory answers to the officials, said sources.

The actors driver Srinivasa Rao, who reportedly acted as a courier, was also summoned along with the 10 other film personalities, said excise (enforcement) director Akun Sabharwal.

The sleuths of SIT, who arrested 22 people including the Holland national Mike Kamminga, have questioned 27 suspects besides two youngsters Taubeer Ahmed and Syyed Younis.

HYDERABAD: Much to the delight of Tollywood stars, being questioned in the drugs investigation, Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao is learnt to have hinted last week that drug addicts will be treated as victims and not criminals. Highly placed sources said Rao told officials to treat only those as criminals who have supplied and sold drugs. Hence, the state is unlikely to register cases against addicts, unless they act as a liaison for peddlers. Criminals will be brought to book, while victims will not be harassed, the CM reportedly told excise officials at a review of the probe last week. Drugs were being supplied from Spain, Thailand, Portugal, Nigeria and Netherlands, he said. Government will not allow drugs into the State for supply. We will check supply of drugs at the origin, he said. Meanwhile, leading Tollywood star Ravi Teja, who was grilled for his alleged links with drug peddlers in Hyderabad, denied having any acquaintance with Calvin Mascarenhas, who had supplied drugs to children. Also, the actor reportedly refused to give his blood, hair or saliva sample. During the 10-hour-long questioning by the SIT officials at Nampally last week, the actor denied the claims made by Zeeshan Ali, one of the arrested drug peddlers. The actor has been facing allegations of being a consumer of various kinds of narcotic and psychotropic drugs, along with 11 other film personalities. Since July 19, the SIT has questioned filmmaker Puri Jagannadh, cinematographer Shyam K Naidu, actors P Subba Raju, Tarun Kumar and P Navdeep, actresses Charmi Kaur and Mumaith Khan, and art director Dharma Rao alias Chinna. A day before Teja was questioned, Kaur had also refused to give her consent for drawing the samples of body fluid, hair and nails when the Special Investigation Team grilled her for over six hours. Few days ago, the two arrested drug peddlers Zeeshan Ali and Noah William had confessed that they had supplied drugs to Teja frequently. The actor was questioned about the claims made by Zeeshan and others. He was also asked about the links his brother had and his relationship with Calvin and other peddlers and also about other stars. The actor has given satisfactory answers to the officials, said sources. The actors driver Srinivasa Rao, who reportedly acted as a courier, was also summoned along with the 10 other film personalities, said excise (enforcement) director Akun Sabharwal. The sleuths of SIT, who arrested 22 people including the Holland national Mike Kamminga, have questioned 27 suspects besides two youngsters Taubeer Ahmed and Syyed Younis.
T Muruganandham By

CHENNAI: Karnataka governments recent proposal to have a separate flag for the state did not trigger much discussion in Tamil Nadu. Ironically, considering the state was among the first to raise such a demand nearly five decades ago.

In 1970, when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was in power, the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had wanted a separate flag for the newly christened state, Tamil Nadu. When he met the press in Delhi on August 27 the same year, Karunanidhi even had a design ready. The proposed Tamil Nadu flag had the Indian flag in one-quarter, while the main space featured the state emblem, a temple Gopuram as a symbol of Tamil culture. The then PM Indira Gandhi said she would consult the chief ministers of other states before arriving at a decision.

In Tamil Nadu, the TNCC (New) and Congress (O) opposed it. They argued that a separate flag for the state would amount to changing the present national flag as the national symbol. They feared, it would lead to the disintegration of India.

However, the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam, led by Ma Po Sivagnanam, welcomed the demand for a separate flag for the state, but suggested incorporating the symbols of three kingdoms that existed in the pastbow, tiger and fish belonging to Cheras, Cholas and Pandiyas respectively.

When the issue was discussed in the state Assembly, Karunanidhi had said, I can assure that the demand for a separate flag does not mean that there is a difference of opinion between the Centre and the state in regard to the integrity of India. The national flag will be used forever as we are using it now. There is not the slightest intention to disrespect the national flag.

He recalled that the state government had addressed the Centre in June, 1970, seeking approval for the model flag they had proposed as they wanted to include the national flag in it.

DMK leader K S Radhakrishnan recalled that when the issue came up for discussion in Rajya Sabha on August 20, 1970, Indira said, the entire question of the use of separate standards by the Union President, Governors and Army regiments would be looked into. Three months after this, when asked about the delay in replying to Tamil Nadu chief minister, Indira said, in India there were different parties in power and there was a delicate Centre-state relationship.

With time, Karunanidhis momentum was inexplicably lost. The discussion reached nowhere, and his suggestion remained only on paper. It is not clear as to why he backed out from the proposal for which he had even readied the design.

CHENNAI: Karnataka governments recent proposal to have a separate flag for the state did not trigger much discussion in Tamil Nadu. Ironically, considering the state was among the first to raise such a demand nearly five decades ago. In 1970, when the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) was in power, the then Chief Minister M Karunanidhi had wanted a separate flag for the newly christened state, Tamil Nadu. When he met the press in Delhi on August 27 the same year, Karunanidhi even had a design ready. The proposed Tamil Nadu flag had the Indian flag in one-quarter, while the main space featured the state emblem, a temple Gopuram as a symbol of Tamil culture. The then PM Indira Gandhi said she would consult the chief ministers of other states before arriving at a decision. In Tamil Nadu, the TNCC (New) and Congress (O) opposed it. They argued that a separate flag for the state would amount to changing the present national flag as the national symbol. They feared, it would lead to the disintegration of India. However, the Tamil Arasu Kazhagam, led by Ma Po Sivagnanam, welcomed the demand for a separate flag for the state, but suggested incorporating the symbols of three kingdoms that existed in the pastbow, tiger and fish belonging to Cheras, Cholas and Pandiyas respectively. When the issue was discussed in the state Assembly, Karunanidhi had said, I can assure that the demand for a separate flag does not mean that there is a difference of opinion between the Centre and the state in regard to the integrity of India. The national flag will be used forever as we are using it now. There is not the slightest intention to disrespect the national flag. He recalled that the state government had addressed the Centre in June, 1970, seeking approval for the model flag they had proposed as they wanted to include the national flag in it. DMK leader K S Radhakrishnan recalled that when the issue came up for discussion in Rajya Sabha on August 20, 1970, Indira said, the entire question of the use of separate standards by the Union President, Governors and Army regiments would be looked into. Three months after this, when asked about the delay in replying to Tamil Nadu chief minister, Indira said, in India there were different parties in power and there was a delicate Centre-state relationship. With time, Karunanidhis momentum was inexplicably lost. The discussion reached nowhere, and his suggestion remained only on paper. It is not clear as to why he backed out from the proposal for which he had even readied the design.
Prasanta Mazumdar By

GUWAHATI: After Darjeeling, the demand for a separate state is now gathering momentum in Left-ruled Tripura. A former director of All India Radio is spearheading the movement for a separate tribal state. The N C Debbarma faction of Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) is demanding that the Sixth Schedule areas, which constitute 70 per cent of the state, surrounded on three sides by Bangladesh, be carved out for the tribal state.

IPFT workers held the state to ransom for two weeks by enforcing a road and railway blockade. The protests made the Manik Sarkar government accuse BJP of whipping up communal tension.

Tribals in Tripura, comprising 19 tribes, are demanding Twipraland. The Gorkhaland movement has given a fresh impetus to this movement. By covertly supporting it, BJP is trying to score brownie points ahead of next years Tripura elections.

Our demand has been there since 2009 and it is being backed by 50 per cent tribals. Well intensify the movement through peaceful and democratic means. As the issue is about the creation of a state, the Central government has to address it. Well raise the demand in Parliament, Debbarma said. We are getting all-out support from our apex body, National Federation for New States, where Bimal Gurungs Gorkha Janmukti Morcha or the GJM is a constituent.

Earlier, militants in Tripura had waged an armed struggle demanding the sovereignty of tribals but the IPFT says its demand is a separate state within the Indian Union. Recently, an IPFT delegation had held a meeting with senior Central government officials in New Delhi.

While the Left Front government is opposed to the demand, BJP endorses a State Council for the tribals. There is no provision for a State Council in the Constitution of India. We have no idea what it is, Debbarma added.

GUWAHATI: After Darjeeling, the demand for a separate state is now gathering momentum in Left-ruled Tripura. A former director of All India Radio is spearheading the movement for a separate tribal state. The N C Debbarma faction of Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura (IPFT) is demanding that the Sixth Schedule areas, which constitute 70 per cent of the state, surrounded on three sides by Bangladesh, be carved out for the tribal state. IPFT workers held the state to ransom for two weeks by enforcing a road and railway blockade. The protests made the Manik Sarkar government accuse BJP of whipping up communal tension. Tribals in Tripura, comprising 19 tribes, are demanding Twipraland. The Gorkhaland movement has given a fresh impetus to this movement. By covertly supporting it, BJP is trying to score brownie points ahead of next years Tripura elections. Our demand has been there since 2009 and it is being backed by 50 per cent tribals. Well intensify the movement through peaceful and democratic means. As the issue is about the creation of a state, the Central government has to address it. Well raise the demand in Parliament, Debbarma said. We are getting all-out support from our apex body, National Federation for New States, where Bimal Gurungs Gorkha Janmukti Morcha or the GJM is a constituent. Earlier, militants in Tripura had waged an armed struggle demanding the sovereignty of tribals but the IPFT says its demand is a separate state within the Indian Union. Recently, an IPFT delegation had held a meeting with senior Central government officials in New Delhi. While the Left Front government is opposed to the demand, BJP endorses a State Council for the tribals. There is no provision for a State Council in the Constitution of India. We have no idea what it is, Debbarma added.
Pradip R Sagar By

NEW DELHI: A population of 2.96 lakh tribals living in five districts along the Arunachal Pradesh-China border is a major threat to national security at a time when the Indian Army and Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) are eyeball to eyeball on Doklam. Eighty-five per cent of males in the areathe majority from Mishimi tribesare drug addicts and traffickers. According to an Army report, Mishimis, who are hostile to India and had helped the Chinese Army in 1962 with information on Indian Army locations, may be aiding the PLA in the region in the same manner.

A new threat is that Chinese drug mafia, which is sending refined opium back into India to be sold on the streets, will expand its operations, aided by the Chinese government. The additional terror threat rising from the insurgency-sensitive region could make the state a tinderbox.

Intelligence inputs suggest that young Mishimis constantly share inputs with the PLA through relatives in China and Myanmar who are always on the move across the border. The military establishment fears that the vast number of drug addicts among Mishimis can be used by the Chinese against India. We have strong apprehensions that local drug addicts work as agents for the Chinese to get information on the Indian side, said an officer of the Arunachal Narcotics Department.

According to the state Narcotics Department, the four districts populated by Mishimis produced nearly 762 tonnes of poppy crop on 1,067 acres last year. This has gone into making Arunachal Pradesh the largest poppy producer in the country with 40 per cent of the total share. Intelligence reports note that commercial poppy farming is done even inside reserve forest areas making traffickers difficult to track and catch. Eighty per cent of poppy goes to Myanmar, where the trade is controlled by Chinese drug mafia. It returns to India as refined brown sugar through the porous Assam-Myanmar border, said a Narcotics Department official.

Agencies suspect that by flooding Indian markets with cheap opium, China will be able to strike deep into the heart of urban India. The Drug Enforcement Agency has noticed a surge in illegal poppy cultivation especially in Namsai, Lohit, Longding, Tirap and Anjaw districts sharing a border with Myanmar and China. The state Narcotics Department believes dense forests and low population makes the state a playground for traffickers of opium and heroin. As per NCB report, Large tracts in this state are now being cultivated commercially by the influential people for extraction of opium gum

and trafficking.

The border belt of Arunachal Pradesh is traditionally known for high-value medicinal plants and herbs. The local population sends the produce to China through Myanmar, since China is the biggest consumer. A recent report shared with the Union Home Ministry by the Arunachal State government cautioned that if the worrying trend is not checked promptly, the situation may take a serious turn not only affecting national security but also have an adverse impact on the health and existence of various other tribes in remote and inaccessible areas of Arunachal Pradesh. Both the Arunachal Pradesh government and the Ayush Ministry headed by Shripad Naik has proposed the utilisation of fertile land to cultivate herbs and medicinal plants.

State security and intelligence agencies also warn of a new terrorist threat from Arunachal Pradesh, clandestinely fomented by China as several border districts are prone to insurgency. The Naga faction of NSCN has reportedly recruited drug addicts from Changlang, Lohit and Anjaw. It is significant that poppy cultivation contributes to terror funding in Afghanistan.

Fatalities in terrorist violence in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016 were: 14 civilians, 88 security personnel and 165 terrorists. In 2017 till April, 10 civilians, 11 security personnel and 35 terrorists have been killed, according to information submitted by the state government.

NEW DELHI: A population of 2.96 lakh tribals living in five districts along the Arunachal Pradesh-China border is a major threat to national security at a time when the Indian Army and Chinas Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) are eyeball to eyeball on Doklam. Eighty-five per cent of males in the areathe majority from Mishimi tribesare drug addicts and traffickers. According to an Army report, Mishimis, who are hostile to India and had helped the Chinese Army in 1962 with information on Indian Army locations, may be aiding the PLA in the region in the same manner. A new threat is that Chinese drug mafia, which is sending refined opium back into India to be sold on the streets, will expand its operations, aided by the Chinese government. The additional terror threat rising from the insurgency-sensitive region could make the state a tinderbox. Intelligence inputs suggest that young Mishimis constantly share inputs with the PLA through relatives in China and Myanmar who are always on the move across the border. The military establishment fears that the vast number of drug addicts among Mishimis can be used by the Chinese against India. We have strong apprehensions that local drug addicts work as agents for the Chinese to get information on the Indian side, said an officer of the Arunachal Narcotics Department. According to the state Narcotics Department, the four districts populated by Mishimis produced nearly 762 tonnes of poppy crop on 1,067 acres last year. This has gone into making Arunachal Pradesh the largest poppy producer in the country with 40 per cent of the total share. Intelligence reports note that commercial poppy farming is done even inside reserve forest areas making traffickers difficult to track and catch. Eighty per cent of poppy goes to Myanmar, where the trade is controlled by Chinese drug mafia. It returns to India as refined brown sugar through the porous Assam-Myanmar border, said a Narcotics Department official. Agencies suspect that by flooding Indian markets with cheap opium, China will be able to strike deep into the heart of urban India. The Drug Enforcement Agency has noticed a surge in illegal poppy cultivation especially in Namsai, Lohit, Longding, Tirap and Anjaw districts sharing a border with Myanmar and China. The state Narcotics Department believes dense forests and low population makes the state a playground for traffickers of opium and heroin. As per NCB report, Large tracts in this state are now being cultivated commercially by the influential people for extraction of opium gum and trafficking. The border belt of Arunachal Pradesh is traditionally known for high-value medicinal plants and herbs. The local population sends the produce to China through Myanmar, since China is the biggest consumer. A recent report shared with the Union Home Ministry by the Arunachal State government cautioned that if the worrying trend is not checked promptly, the situation may take a serious turn not only affecting national security but also have an adverse impact on the health and existence of various other tribes in remote and inaccessible areas of Arunachal Pradesh. Both the Arunachal Pradesh government and the Ayush Ministry headed by Shripad Naik has proposed the utilisation of fertile land to cultivate herbs and medicinal plants. State security and intelligence agencies also warn of a new terrorist threat from Arunachal Pradesh, clandestinely fomented by China as several border districts are prone to insurgency. The Naga faction of NSCN has reportedly recruited drug addicts from Changlang, Lohit and Anjaw. It is significant that poppy cultivation contributes to terror funding in Afghanistan. Fatalities in terrorist violence in Arunachal Pradesh in 2016 were: 14 civilians, 88 security personnel and 165 terrorists. In 2017 till April, 10 civilians, 11 security personnel and 35 terrorists have been killed, according to information submitted by the state government.
Wisconsin taxpayers could pay a steep price for what state leaders call a transformational prize: a Foxconn manufacturing operation in southeast Wisconsin that the Taiwanese company says could eventually employ as many as 13,000.

Last weeks Foxconn news was the rare announcement that won plaudits from both parties at the Wisconsin State Capitol.

But the economic infusion promised by Foxconn carries an unprecedented pricetag: $3 billion over 15 years, or $200 million a year, in state tax incentives. That excludes local incentives to fund infrastructure improvements, details for which have not been released.

It marks Wisconsins biggest entry yet in the state-to-state bidding war for splashy economic-development deals, in which tax incentives are the chief currency.

The incentives would be paid only if the project materializes, which history suggests is not assured. Foxconn has a track record of delaying or failing to deliver on huge projects elsewhere.

The company pledged in 2013 to build a large plant in central Pennsylvania that never materialized. It also announced big plans in Vietnam and Brazil, only to build many years later with far-less-than-promised investments.

Of the $3 billion incentive package from Wisconsin taxpayers, $2.85 billion would come in refundable income tax credits for the company, according to terms disclosed by Gov. Scott Walkers office last week. The remaining $150 million would be for a sales tax exemption for materials used to build the facility.

Under the states manufacturing and agriculture credit, Foxconn  even before the credits  would pay almost no income tax, meaning the tax credits largely would be paid in cash to the company.

Walker has said the incentive package matches similar offers made to land mega-manufacturing projects in other states.

But the amount per job that Wisconsin is offering Foxconn dwarfs incentives given for large development projects in many other states, said Timothy Bartik, who has studied state tax incentives for three decades at the nonprofit W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research in Kalamazoo, Mich.

The amount theyre paying per job is very, very high, Bartik said. Im skeptical that the benefits justify the cost.

The package subsidizes Foxconn by between about $15,000 and $19,000 per job, per year, according to state figures. Bartik said his research shows the average state tax subsidy per job, per year, for large projects is about $2,500.

Potential drain

on state budget

Such incentives could be a drain on the state budget.

According to a study commissioned by Foxconn and provided by the states jobs agency, Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., the state could pay out as much as $74 million a year more in tax credits than it would collect in new tax revenues from the project. Thats based on the roughly $190 million annual cost of the income tax credits, compared to an estimated $116 million a year in new tax revenue the facilitys operations would generate, according to the study.

There would be other benefits to public coffers: $65 million in new tax revenue per year would flow to local governments, the study predicts. It says a one-time windfall of nearly $500 million in state and local tax revenue could come from the facilitys construction.

Other questions include how much of the projects benefits would spill over into Illinois  its expected to be located in Racine or Kenosha counties  and whether it could prompt homegrown businesses to demand their own lucrative tax breaks.

The Walker administration argues investing in Foxconn will bring a rich return. It envisions new jobs not just at Foxconn, but for construction workers to build the facility, for Foxconn suppliers and for businesses at which those workers spend their wages.

Including all those elements, Foxconn predicts the facilitys ongoing operations could support 35,000 new jobs. Such jobs also could remain long after the 15-year tax incentive period expires, project supporters argue.

The administration has stressed the incentives would not be paid unless the company delivers on creating as many as 13,000 jobs and investing $10 billion in the facilities construction.

Its not like theyre going to get $3 billion upfront, said Mark Maley, spokesman for WEDC, which would administer the incentives.

Theres little doubt state leaders swung for the fences to land what would be the biggest economic development prize in Wisconsins history  and what would be one of the largest manufacturing campuses on earth.

Walker, speaking Thursday in Milwaukee, called the project bigger than anything weve done before.

But if you want to play in the big leagues, its comparable with just about every other major financial incentive like this for a major project anywhere  not only in this country, but around the world, Walker said.

Chaaron Pearson, an expert on economic development tax incentives at Pew Charitable Trusts, said tax incentives are the most potent tool state officials have to woo potential businesses. But the complexity of such deals makes it virtually impossible to make an apples to apples comparison between them, Pearson added.

Broken promises

in Pennsylvania

Maley cited three projects as comparables for Foxconn:

The amount of tax incentives Wisconsin is offering could be the difference between Foxconns latest pledge and ones theyve broken before.

In an interview with the New York Times this week, the company said previous projects never came through because Pennsylvania and countries seeking projects had not given the company the incentives it considered necessary.

In 2013, Foxconn said it would build a Pennsylvania plant to employ 500 workers at an investment of about $30 million.

UW-Madison economist Steven Deller said its encouraging that Walkers office has pledged certain safeguards for taxpayers, including clawback provisions for the state to recoup tax credits if Foxconn stops operating or leaves the state.

But other questions remain, Deller said, starting with the facilitys expected proximity to Illinois. Many of its suppliers and workers may come from south of the state line, meaning the economic impact to Wisconsin could be significantly diluted, he said.

Deller also said a deal of this magnitude may cause manufacturers already in the state to seek their own incentive package to stay put.

I could see Mercury Marine, I could see Ashley Furniture, come in and say: Wheres ours?  Deller said.
By PTI

COATZACOALCOS: Scores of would-be migrants being smuggled from Central America to the United States were rescued from an abandoned truck, officials in the Mexican state of Veracruz said.

Authorities said 178 people were found in the tractor- trailer truck in the Mexican town of Tantima. Their rescue comes less than a week after the horrific suffocation deaths of 10 migrants who were trapped in an 18 wheel truck and discovered last Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas. Authorities said as many as 200 migrants may have been crammed into the trailer found in Texas, many of whom had to be hospitalized. Some survivors fled the parking lot in waiting cars, according to witness accounts.

Officials said occupants of the truck on Saturday narrowly averted tragedy realized at some point that they had been abandoned by the traffickers, and that a few managed to escape the vehicle and enlist the aid of local inhabitants of the town who gave them food and water. The Central Americans were then transported by police to a migration center, where they were given medical assistance before authorities began the process of returning them to their countries of origin.

A Mexican military source told AFP that most of the Central Americans were adults, although there were also a handful of minors found in the vehicle. Officials in the United States say fewer migrants are making the perilous overland journey to America from Central American and Mexico in recent months, in large part because of harsh, anti-immigrant rhetoric from US President Donald Trump, who came to power in January.

Migrants from Central America and Mexico will to make the dangerous trip risk being victimized by thieves, criminal gangs and unscrupulous traffickers who sometimes take their money and abandon them in desperate conditions on either side of the US border.

COATZACOALCOS: Scores of would-be migrants being smuggled from Central America to the United States were rescued from an abandoned truck, officials in the Mexican state of Veracruz said. Authorities said 178 people were found in the tractor- trailer truck in the Mexican town of Tantima. Their rescue comes less than a week after the horrific suffocation deaths of 10 migrants who were trapped in an 18 wheel truck and discovered last Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas. Authorities said as many as 200 migrants may have been crammed into the trailer found in Texas, many of whom had to be hospitalized. Some survivors fled the parking lot in waiting cars, according to witness accounts. Officials said occupants of the truck on Saturday narrowly averted tragedy realized at some point that they had been abandoned by the traffickers, and that a few managed to escape the vehicle and enlist the aid of local inhabitants of the town who gave them food and water. The Central Americans were then transported by police to a migration center, where they were given medical assistance before authorities began the process of returning them to their countries of origin. A Mexican military source told AFP that most of the Central Americans were adults, although there were also a handful of minors found in the vehicle. Officials in the United States say fewer migrants are making the perilous overland journey to America from Central American and Mexico in recent months, in large part because of harsh, anti-immigrant rhetoric from US President Donald Trump, who came to power in January. Migrants from Central America and Mexico will to make the dangerous trip risk being victimized by thieves, criminal gangs and unscrupulous traffickers who sometimes take their money and abandon them in desperate conditions on either side of the US border.
By Express News Service

NEW DELHI: With an aim to strengthen its multi-utility helicopter fleet, the Indian Air Force is negotiating with the Russian to supply additional 48 Mi 17 military transport helicopter. And according to officials, involved in the negotiations, if everything goes well, deal should be finalized by the end of 2017.

Indian forces presently operate more than 300 helicopters belonging to the Mi-8 and Mi-17 family, deployed for troop and arms transport, fire support, convoy escort, patrol, and search-and-rescue (SAR) missions.

Russia has already done an agreement to produce Kamov, light utility helicopters in India. And as per agreement finalized last year, , India is buying 200 Kamov 226 T helicopters of which 60 would be built in Russia and supplied directly to the forces while the remaining 140 would be manufactured in a joint venture between Kamov and HAL along with a private sector partner.

So far, for additional fleet of 48 Mi 17 helicopters, talks are at the initial stage to pave way for techno-commercial negotiations. Only last year, Russia had handed over to India the final batch of three Mi-17V-5 military transport helicopters under a previously signed contract with Rosoboronexport, a company of the Rostec State Corporation.

In 2008, Rosoboronexport signed a contract for the delivery of 80 Mi-17V-5 to India, which was completed in 2011 -2013. In 2012-2013, three additional contracts were signed to supply a total of 71 Mi-17V-5 helicopters to meet the needs of the Indian Air Force.

Mi 17 V5 is designed to transport cargo inside the cabin and on an external sling, considered to be one of the world's most advanced military transport helicopters.

Rosoboronexport is the only state-owned arms trade company in the Russian federation authorised to export the full range of military and dual purpose products, technologies and services.

Helicopter requirement of the Indian armed forces are increasing, as expected demand of over 900-1100 helicopters in next 15 years of timeframe, according to estimate of the ministry of defence.

NEW DELHI: With an aim to strengthen its multi-utility helicopter fleet, the Indian Air Force is negotiating with the Russian to supply additional 48 Mi 17 military transport helicopter. And according to officials, involved in the negotiations, if everything goes well, deal should be finalized by the end of 2017. Indian forces presently operate more than 300 helicopters belonging to the Mi-8 and Mi-17 family, deployed for troop and arms transport, fire support, convoy escort, patrol, and search-and-rescue (SAR) missions. Russia has already done an agreement to produce Kamov, light utility helicopters in India. And as per agreement finalized last year, , India is buying 200 Kamov 226 T helicopters of which 60 would be built in Russia and supplied directly to the forces while the remaining 140 would be manufactured in a joint venture between Kamov and HAL along with a private sector partner. So far, for additional fleet of 48 Mi 17 helicopters, talks are at the initial stage to pave way for techno-commercial negotiations. Only last year, Russia had handed over to India the final batch of three Mi-17V-5 military transport helicopters under a previously signed contract with Rosoboronexport, a company of the Rostec State Corporation. In 2008, Rosoboronexport signed a contract for the delivery of 80 Mi-17V-5 to India, which was completed in 2011 -2013. In 2012-2013, three additional contracts were signed to supply a total of 71 Mi-17V-5 helicopters to meet the needs of the Indian Air Force. Mi 17 V5 is designed to transport cargo inside the cabin and on an external sling, considered to be one of the world's most advanced military transport helicopters. Rosoboronexport is the only state-owned arms trade company in the Russian federation authorised to export the full range of military and dual purpose products, technologies and services. Helicopter requirement of the Indian armed forces are increasing, as expected demand of over 900-1100 helicopters in next 15 years of timeframe, according to estimate of the ministry of defence.
By PTI

ZAMBOANGA: Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor who was among the politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs and at least 13 others in gunbattles that erupted today in the south, police said, in one of the bloodiest anti-drug assaults so far under his crackdown.

Officers were to serve warrants to Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr of Ozamiz city to search his houses for suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen allegedly opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 11 other people, police Senior Superintendent Jaysen de Guzman said by phone.

Aside from the mayor's residence, three other houses were raided in the port city in Misamis Occidental province and resulted in the arrests of five suspects. At least one police officer was wounded during the clashes, police said.

"We have reports that armed bodyguards are carrying unlicensed weapons," regional police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said, adding that an undetermined number of assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids.

Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects.

The police officers were "met with volleys of fire from (the mayor's) security, prompting the Philippine National Police personnel to retaliate," Pacleb said in a statement.

Parojinog, his wife and a brother were among the dead, police said.

Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, Pacleb said.

The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign.

Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines.

All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.

Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug trafficker in the country has been eliminated.

ZAMBOANGA: Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor who was among the politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs and at least 13 others in gunbattles that erupted today in the south, police said, in one of the bloodiest anti-drug assaults so far under his crackdown. Officers were to serve warrants to Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr of Ozamiz city to search his houses for suspected presence of unlicensed firearms when gunmen allegedly opened fire on the police, sparking clashes that killed the mayor and at least 11 other people, police Senior Superintendent Jaysen de Guzman said by phone. Aside from the mayor's residence, three other houses were raided in the port city in Misamis Occidental province and resulted in the arrests of five suspects. At least one police officer was wounded during the clashes, police said. "We have reports that armed bodyguards are carrying unlicensed weapons," regional police Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said, adding that an undetermined number of assault rifles, grenades, suspected methamphetamine and cash were seized in the raids. Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which has left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and thousands of other unexplained deaths of suspects. The police officers were "met with volleys of fire from (the mayor's) security, prompting the Philippine National Police personnel to retaliate," Pacleb said in a statement. Parojinog, his wife and a brother were among the dead, police said. Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested and was to be flown to Manila for security reasons, Pacleb said. The drug killings have been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups that have called for an end to what they suspect were extrajudicial killings related to the anti-drug campaign. Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines. All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign. Duterte has vowed not to stop until the last drug trafficker in the country has been eliminated.
After crossing the finish line with heaving breaths and aching arms, first-time Paddle & Portage participant Betsy Wallace turned to her friend and partner, Melanie Jones, saying, We have to do this again.

As participants, rather than timed contestants, Wallace and Jones paddled and portaged their rented canoe in the 38th annual event Saturday just for fun. The journey took them on a 1-mile loop on Lake Mendota, a 1-mile portage across the Isthmus and 2.5 miles on Lake Monona to the finish line and party at Olbrich Park.

But Wallace and Jones didnt begin their trek at the beach at James Madison Park. It started in Atlanta, where they both work and have families.

Wallace, originally from Wisconsin and an alumna of UW-Madison, said shes wanted to participate in Paddle & Portage for years, and a trip home to visit her parents was a perfect opportunity to get her feet wet.

Jones agreed to compete with Wallace, and both made it family vacations  they spent Friday with their husbands and children at a water park in Wisconsin Dells.

I just got in a canoe for the first time about a month ago with her, Jones said. I didnt even know what portage meant.

Jones had never been to Madison, so her first experience of Capitol Square was hiking up Hamilton Street where spectators as well as Farmers Market visitors cheered them on as they portaged their canoe.

Its a beautiful city, and what a neat way to see it for the very first time, too, Jones said.

Wallace said the event was just as she expected it, and she said she was glad they participated in the mass start because of its more relaxing atmosphere.

We didnt worry about our time that much, Wallace said. People were being kind of silly and handing beer to each other out in the water, so that was fun.

Dima Llanos decided it would be fun to canoe the total of 3.5 miles and carry the boat 1 mile across the Isthmus. Shes just 11 years old.

It was a challenge, Llanos said after returning her canoe at Olbrich Park, but it was a challenge she said shes excited to face again next year.

I was kind of expecting it to be hard, but it turned out to be a little easier than I expected, Llanos said, quickly adding, But it was still really hard.

Llanos said that while she and paddling partner Jaime Reich, 41, live near lake Mendota, they dont canoe all that often, and she had never carried a boat over land.

Carrying the canoe wasnt the hardest part though, the last stretch was, Llanos said, but that was also her favorite part.

You just had a sense of like, Were almost there, were almost there, Llanos said. Were almost there. Weve just got to pull through.

Reich has competed in Paddle & Portage before and said she took it more seriously last year.

This is the first time Ive done it with a whole bunch of sets of friends all doing the canoe with our kids, so that was really a fun way to do it, Reich said. Before Ive tried to do it more competitively, but its just fun to be all together.

Asked if she would participate again next year, Llanos said, I sure hope so.

First-timer Alex Ostrem made the event a family affair. Ostrem brought along her father, Todd Ostrem, as her paddling partner.

The Ostrems decided to participate in the costume tradition of Paddle & Portage as well. Both wore tutus and scale-patterned leggings. Alex wore an Aquaman shirt, and her father wore a shirt featuring a seashell bra.

She says, Oh, theres a costume party element to this, Todd said. I said, Ill wear a tutu before I wear a bear costume. And look at me.

Although the Ostrems were encouraged by the compliments they got as they portaged up to Capital Square and back down to Law Park, they said it wasnt easy for them.

The portage part was hard because neither of us could really see anything because both our heads were in the canoe, Alex said. It was kind of difficult maneuvering that way when you couldnt see anything.

She asked her father, Should we do it again next year? to which he replied, Next year, baby.

This is the first time Ive done (Paddle & Portage) with a whole bunch of sets of friends all doing the canoe with our kids, so that was really a fun way to do it. Before Ive tried to do it competitively, but its just fun to be all together. Jamie Reich, Paddle & Portage participant
One of Editor & Publishers 10 That Do It Right 2021
Deb Nies of Waunakee is this weeks You Toon winner.

Congrats, Deb! Her caption about President Donald Trumps undisclosed dinner meeting with Vladimir Putin beat out more than 60 entries.

Nies wins publication of her line with todays finished cartoon. She also will receive a signed print by artist Phil Hands.

Runners-up and their suggested captions include:

Patrick Flannery

of Madison, with Trump saying: Hey, Vlad, hows my family? You seem to know more about them than I do.

Tammy Heath

of Madison, with Trump saying: I wish ketchup could cover everything.

Doug Leonard

of Waunakee, with Putin saying: Fake You Tooning! We exile Phil Hands to undisclosed Siberian Gulag.

Thanks to all participants. Well play again next Sunday with a fresh cartoon and empty caption.
Olga Boukrina, PhD, research scientist in Stroke Rehabilitation Research at Kessler Foundation, has received a three-year award from the American Heart Association(AHA) valued at $231,000. The grant funds a study exploring a potential neural mechanism that could explain the high incidence of delirium and spatial neglect after right-hemisphere stroke. Stroke survivors, representing 17% of the US population aged 65 and over, are at a major risk for developing delirium and/or spatial neglect, with up to 50% incidence for one or both disorders after right-brain stroke.

Neuroscience eBook Compilation of the top interviews, articles, and news in the last year. Download a copy today

"We know that individuals with right-brain stroke and spatial neglect are particularly susceptible to developing delirium," said Olga Boukrina, PhD. "This suggests that the neural mechanisms linked to spatial neglect -- arousal, attention, and spatial orientation -- may also play a crucial part in post-stroke delirium. This AHA award enables me to further cultivate and test the efficacy of novel attentional-behavioral therapies and potential diagnostic tools and treatments."

This study will relate behavioral data and functional magnetic resonance imaging in individuals with right-brain stroke to look for associations between the impaired activity and the structural integrity of the brain systems for arousal, attention, and spatial orientation. The findings of this study may help reduce hospital morbidity and loss of independence by providing a critical biomarker and behavioral profile for delirium and spatial neglect after right-hemisphere stroke.
New Delhi: No steps have been taken for the introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in India, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has said.



Replying to an RTI application filed by a PTI correspondent, the central bank said the Government of India had sought its comments on the launch of Sharia-compliant mutual funds by State Bank of India in December 2014.



The RBI submitted its reply the same month, it said.



The Islamic or Sharia-compliant financial system is based on the principles of not charging an interest on deposits, as it is prohibited under Islam.



"The Reserve Bank of India has not taken any step for introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in India," the reply said.



The RBI was asked to provide details on the introduction of Sharia-compliant mutual funds in the country.



The SBI had in 2014 announced the launch of the same. However, it was deferred to make it a better and more attractive fund in the future, according to an official communication.



H Abdur Raqeeb, General Secretary, Indian Centre for Islamic Finance -- an NGO trying to introduce members of the Muslim community to the Sharia-compliant banking system, said the initiation of such special mutual funds for a select group of people would be a much-desired and welcome step.



"It is a misconception that Sharia-compliant mutual funds are beneficial to a particular community. These funds will benefit the economy and ensure financial inclusion of those who avoid such investment for religious reasons," he said.



Raqeeb has been coordinating with various government and regulatory authorities for the introduction of the Sharia- complaint banking system in India.



"When the launch of Sharia mutual fund was announced by SBI, some of the gulf countries were very enthusiastic for investment. It is high time the RBI and the finance ministry instructed SBI to relaunch the same," he said.



SBI had rejected an RTI application seeking details on the relaunch of Sharia-compliant mutual funds, saying the "query is vague and not specific".



The RBI had earlier proposed opening "Islamic window" in conventional banks for the gradual introduction of the Sharia- compliant banking.



On the instructions of the RBI, an Inter-Departmental Group (IDG) has examined legal, technical and regulatory issues for starting interest-free banking in India and has submitted its report to the government.



The RBI had in February last year sent a copy of the IDG report to the Finance Ministry.



A committee on financial sector reforms, headed by former RBI governor Raghuram Rajan, had in late 2008 stressed on the need for a closer look at the issue of interest-free banking in the country.
There are two fake notifications dtd 27July being circulated in media about tax rates on branded foodgrains etc. please note they are fake.  Dr Hasmukh Adhia (@adhia03) July 29, 2017

Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia issued a caution on the tax rate on branded foodgrain on Twitter.The tax rate on branded food grains is 5% while on unbranded grain is nil. There has been confusion about the tax rates on various items ever since GST was implemented on July 1.Hashmukh Adhia, the bureaucrat most responsible for shepherding the GST, has used social media quite actively to clarify matters regarding GST. He has also held 'masterclass' on the new tax to dispel confusion among stakeholders.The goods and serves tax rolls 17 indirect levies into a single, multi-tiered rate. Most goods and services are now taxed at 4rates between 5% and 28%.
#BREAKING -- Indian Coast Guard apprehends a Panama registered ship MV Hennery in a well coordinated 3 day operation at sea pic.twitter.com/4s6XmCxNyI  News18 (@CNNnews18) July 30, 2017

The Indian Coast Guard has recovered 1,500 kg of heroin worth around Rs 3,500 crore from a merchant vessel seized off the coast of Gujarat. Eight crew members  all Indians  have also been taken into custody.The Panama-registered ship, named MV Hennery, was seized after a three-day operation based on intelligence inputs. It was taken to Porbandar on Sunday for further investigation, the Coast Guard said.The joint probe will be conducted by the Coast Guard, the Intelligence Bureau, Customs, Navy, police and other agencies.A Coast Guard official told CNN-News18 that the ship was coming from Iran and was bound for Alang in Gujarat. Conversation among the crew members picked up by intelligence agencies revealed the plan was to sneak heroin into the country via Alang.In a biggest ever haul of narcotics drugs, transported through sea routes in recent times, the Indian Coast Guard ships Samudra Pavak and Ankit intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel off the coast of Gujarat based on intelligence input, a statement by the Coast Guard said.The search operation for the suspect vessel at sea was commenced by the ships and aircraft of the Coast Guard on 27 Jul 17. A vast area of the sea was kept under continuous surveillance by ROC and ROS at Coast Guard Regional and District Headquarters located at Gandhinagar and Porbandar respectively (sic).The movements of all ships in area including the suspect vessel were minutely observed throughout till its apprehension along with eight crew members by ICG ships on pm 29 Jul 17. The information about the carriage of contraband by the suspect ship was shared by NTRO and other Intelligence agencies with the Coast Guard based on which the operation was planned and executed, the statement said.The apprehended ship has been brought to Porbandar on 30 Jul 17 and will be jointly investigated by the ICG, IB, Police, Customs, Navy and other agencies, it added.
Thane: The police have booked a 32-year-old man from Mumbra for cheating after it came to light that he had married five women and was planning to tie the knot for the sixth time.



An offence has been registered against the man and his mother under IPC sections 420 (cheating) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention), a Thane police official said on Sunday.



No arrest has been made so far, she said. The offence came to light when a Mumbra resident was looking for a suitable match for his daughter and came across the accused through an acquaintance, she said.



The man and the accused's family then met and discussed about the marriage. The accused claimed to the man he worked with a reputed company and also owned a travel agency, the official said.



Later, the man's daughter got engaged to the accused in December last year. However, the marriage could not take place then as the bride's family was facing shortage of money, she said.



In the meantime, a caller informed the bride's family that the accused was already married and had five wives, the official said.



When the bride's family asked about this, the accused flatly denied it, she said.



However, on July 22, four women claimed that the accused had married them and told about the same to the bride's family, the police official said.



The aggrieved family filed a complaint on July 28 after which the police booked the accused the same day, she added.
: On the terrace of the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, the owner's widow, Roubina Tashjian, sorted through old photographs of its happier past in a more peaceful Syria.Founded by an Armenian family in 1911, the Baron played host to adventurers, writers, kings, aviators, Bedouin chiefs and presidents until war forced it to close five years ago.Tashjian sees the Baron as part of a Syria that values religious and ethnic diversity, openness to the outside world, culture and respect for the country's great antiquities."A Syrian is a mixture of all these ethnic groups and cultures ... this is a big pot and it's all mixed up. But we cook the same kibbeh," she said, referring to a Levantine dish.Trying to revive that vision of Syria amid a war that has aggravated social fractures would involve reconciliation between political opponents, religious sects and economic classes.But with hundreds of thousands dead, more than half the country's pre-war population displaced and fighting ongoing, there seems little hope of that for now.A view shows the bar of the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria July 14, 2017. (REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki)For the Baron, whose business depended on stability, safety and the draw of Syria's cultural treasures, the 2011 uprising was a catastrophic assault on everything that allowed it to thrive.During most of the fighting, Aleppo's government-held western districts were subjected to shellfire, an influx of refugees and shortages of water, electricity and food.East Aleppo, held by rebels until December when the army swept through it after months of siege and air raids, was left all but a wasteland.The Baron, in west Aleppo near the front line, was hit by mortar bombs, including one that sprayed shrapnel across an upper floor and another that crashed through the window of its "Oriental Room" onto delicate floor tiles but failed to explode.The tail fin from that round now sits in the Baron's cabinet of curiosities alongside such relics as pottery given by visiting archaeologists and T.E. Lawrence's hotel bill.In the upstairs room she always took during her frequent stays in Aleppo stands the glass-topped wooden desk where Agatha Christie wrote part of Murder on the Orient Express.For supporters of President Bashar al-Assad it is the fault of rebels they describe as terrorists, viewing them as Islamist militants who despise diversity and criminal gangs who loot cultural treasures.Assad has cast his state as a secular protector of Syria's minorities and cultural heritage against Sunni rebels backed by hostile foreign states whose ranks include many hardliners.It was a view shared by some of the audience at a concert in an Old City church, fluttering fans in the summer heat of the open basilica, its roof ruined by shelling, as they listened to Mozart's Mass in C Minor.But any characterisation of Assad's Syria as diverse, secular, open and tolerant is rejected by the opposition, as well as some Western countries and rights groups. Critics say Syria's government has long been one of the most oppressive in the Middle East and this was a root cause of the war.A view shows the entrance of the Baron Hotel in Aleppo, Syria July 14, 2017. (REUTERS/Omar Sanadiki)The privileged position of Assad's Alawite sect under him and his father, the late President Hafez al-Assad, fed grievances among many in the Sunni Muslim majority even as other Sunnis including urban elites backed the government.While the government has promoted the idea of a secular Syria throughout the war, the conflict's sectarian edge has been hard to miss.As rebels rallied around Sunni Islamist slogans, Assad drew on allies including Shi'ite Islamist militias backed by Iran. They played a big part in the campaign to retake eastern Aleppo.In the city, the conflict's socio-economic dimensions are readily apparent. Areas where the rebellion was strongest included places bypassed by economic growth and poor quarters to which rural people flocked.One west Aleppo resident, who had driven through devastated eastern districts after the fighting ended, said the inhabitants had brought ruin upon themselves by consorting with rebels."Those people were the cause. Yes, it's sad, but..." the person said.In the Baron, the wood-panelled dining room, the bar stocked with antique bottles, the pink furniture of the high-ceilinged smoking room and the bedrooms all seem worn and tired.It stopped taking paying guests in 2012 - bar a few old friends - when Syria's civil war came to Aleppo and mortars and sniper fire began to plague the streets around.Tashjian, a 66-year-old former teacher, chases away street kittens that creep through broken french windows into the dining room and tries to keep the mostly deserted hotel from falling further into disrepair in a city with little electricity or water.Her husband, Armen Mazloumian, the grandson of the hotel's founder, died in 2016, two years after they married following a 30-year friendship. The Baron now belongs to his sisters, who left Syria years earlier, she said.On the terrace from which Egypt's nationalist leader Gamal Abdel Nasser once addressed a huge crowd, the boxes of old photographs were surrounded by other detritus recently hauled from a basement after the fighting abated.Kilims, antique sewing machines, a set of 1950s towels, and mouldering linen imported from Europe and embroidered with the hotel's name, cascaded from large rattan trunks.During the fighting, the hotel took in refugee families from east Aleppo. While they were there they used so much water cleaning the floors of their rooms each morning that the elegant geometric tiles were damaged, Tashjian said.In the late afternoon heat, the hotel is cooled by a breeze that drifts in through broken windows on the ground floor and up the grand staircase."Syria was the most comfortable, the most secular country in the Arab world," said Tashjian. "It was embarrassing if people asked if you were a Christian or a Muslim."
Bengaluru: The Congress on Sunday paraded its 44 MLAs lodged in a resort on Bengaluru outskirts before media to scotch reports of disunity in their ranks, and accused the BJP of trying to poach them by offering a bribe of Rs 15 crore each to cross-vote in the Rajya Sabha polls.



In a press conference, the 44 MLAs presented a united stand and said BJP had tried to buy off 22 MLAs and had even offered to pay Rs 15 crore to each of them, but they have not succumbed. "The BJP is trying to poach our MLAs for Rs 15 crore, but we resisted them. Our families are being threatened," Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil said.



Congress had on late Friday night moved 44 of its Gujarat MLAs to a resort in Bengaluru to guard them against "poaching" by the BJP ahead of the August 8 Rajya Sabha polls in the state. The BJP has denied reports of horse-trading and said the Congress' actions has exposed its desperation.



Gohil said they only need 45 votes to send Sonia Gandhi's political adviser Ahmed Patel to the Rajya Sabha and they are confident of victory even after the string of resignations. We only need 45 votes out of the 60 that we command. The MLAs had held a meeting on July 25 in Gujarat, where 53 had promised their support, he said.



He claimed that even the six MLAs who had resigned in the last few days and joined the BJP were reconsidering their decision. Their conscience is awakening. I request them to not fall for peoples tricky ways and stick to loyalties, the Congress leader said.



He also rubbished reports of a divided house and said there had been no disagreements among the legislators. We are like a family, if we would have been individuals we would have got separated, he said, assuring there would be no cross voting in the Rajya Sabha polls.



We were being threatened by BJP in Gujarat. The BJP has used the CBI, ED and other institutions to target our MLAs. We came to Karnataka since Congress is in power here, added the Congress leader.



Theres no need for us to stay here for even a minute if they say they wont threaten us. As soon as this crisis is resolved, we will all be back in our constituency working for our people, Gohil said.



He said the developments of the past few days had shown that the BJP government in Gujarat is not concerned about the flood situations and only Congress is working in the affected areas. BJP MLAs were not worried about the floods. They were busy trying to break the congress. BJP is nowhere to be seen, he said.




New Delhi: Speculation is rife that the politically sensitive Rs 64 crore Bofors pay-off case will come up for substantial hearing in the Supreme Court soon, amidst a fresh media report suggesting a financial quid pro quo for the Rs 1,437 crore Howitzer gun deal in 1986.



BJP leader and advocate Ajay Kumar Agarwal, who had challenged the Delhi High Court May 31, 2005 judgment quashing all charges against the Europe-based Hinduja brothers in the case, said the matter was listed in the weekly list earlier this month, but could not be taken up.



He said the apex court may list the matter after its constitution bench completes hearing on the right to privacy matter and that he was also contemplating filing an application for an early hearing.



The apex court had on October 18, 2005 admitted his petition which was filed after the CBI failed to approach the top court with the appeal within the 90-day deadline after the High Court verdict.



The hearing will assume significance in the wake of the demand in Parliament by ruling BJP MPs for reopening of probe into the Bofors kick-back scandal after the media reports quoting Swedish chief investigator Sten Lindstrom's suggested payment of alleged bribery at the top level.



Agarwal, who had contested the Rai Bareli Lok Sabha elections in 2014 against Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, said he will also draw the attention of the apex court that he has written a letter to the Enforcement Directorate seeking investigation into the trail of the kickback money under the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA), 1999 and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002.



In the July 28 letter to the ED, he claimed that the alleged crimes were committed continuously till the year 2006 when two London accounts held by Italian businessman Ottavio Quattrochi, who has been accused as one of the middlemen in the deal, were de-freezed.



The BJP leader said he is writing a letter to the CBI asking it to file an affidavit about the facts and course of investigation into the case, as during the brief hearing on December 1, 2016, the agency had told the apex court that the authorities had not permitted it to file an appeal against the May 31, 2005 verdict.



Agarwal said he will try to convince the apex court through his petition that the "High Court had quashed the charges against the accused persons on technical grounds and the order was totally perverse which is liable to be set aside."



Justice RS Sodhi of the Delhi High Court, since retired, had on May 31, 2005 quashed all charges against the Hinduja brothers  Srichand, Gopichand and Prakashchand  and the Bofors company and castigated the CBI for its handling of the case saying it had cost the exchequer about Rs 250 crore.



Before the 2005 verdict, another judge of the Delhi High Court, Justice JD Kapoor (since retired) on February 4, 2004, had exonerated the late Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in the case and directed framing of charge of forgery under Section 465 of IPC against the Bofors company.



The matter was last listed on February 28 this year when it was adjourned.



The apex court had on October 18, 2005 allowed Agrawal to file an appeal against the high court verdict in the absence of any appeal by CBI.



The December 1, 2016 hearing had taken place after a gap of almost six years since August 12, 2010.



The Rs 1,437 crore deal between India and the Swedish arms manufacturer AB Bofors for the supply of 400 155mm Howitzer guns for Indian Army was entered on March 24, 1986.



The Swedish Radio on April 16, 1987 had claimed that the company had paid bribes to top Indian politicians and defence personnel.



The CBI on January 22, 1990 had registered the FIR for the alleged offence of criminal conspiracy, cheating, forgery under the Indial Penal Code and other sections of Prevention of Corruption Act against Martin Ardbo, the then President of AB Bofors, alleged middleman Win Chadda and Hinduja brothers.



The CBI had alleged that certain public servants and private persons in India and abroad had entered into a criminal conspiracy between 1982 and 1987 in pursuance of which the offences of bribery, corruption, cheating and forgery were committed to the extent of Rs 64 crore in the contracts for the supply of Bofors guns.



The first charge sheet in the case was filed on October 22, 1999 against Chadda, Quattrocchi, then Defence Secretary SK Bhatnagar, Ardbo and the Bofors company. A supplementary charge sheet against Hinduja brothers was filed on October 9, 2000.



A special CBI court in Delhi On March 4, 2011, had discharged Quattrocchi from the case saying the country cannot afford to spend hard-earned money on his extradition which has already cost Rs 250 crore.



Quattrocchi, who fled from here on July 29-30, 1993, has never appeared before any court in India to face prosecution. He passed away on July 13, 2013. The other accused persons who have died are Bhatnagar, Chadda and Ardbo.
New Delhi: Has a Swiss expeditioner stumbled upon the remains of a mysterious 1966 Mont Blanc air crash that killed Homi J Bhabha, the father of Indias nuclear programme?

This question would interest many in India after reports said Swiss climber Daniel Roche, who has a hobby of combing the Alps for remains of old plane crashes, reported that he came across the remains of an Air India crash on Mont Blanc, either from 1966 or from 1950.

I had never found any significant human remains before, Roche told AFP. This time, however, he had found a hand and the upper part of a leg.

Roche said the remains he had found could be of a female passenger from the 1966 Boeing 707 flight, as he also discovered one of the planes four jet engines.

In January 1966, an Air India Boeing 707 from Bombay to New York crashed near Mont Blancs summit, killing all 117 people on board. Another Air India flight crashed on the mountain in 1950, killing 48 people.

If the remains are indeed from the Boeing 707 crash of the Bombay-Geneva Kanchenjunga aircraft, it means he has traced the crash that killed Indias pioneering nuclear scientist.

WHAT CAUSED THE CRASH

The official explanation for the crash has been a misunderstanding between the pilot and the Geneva airport about the aircrafts position. Conspiracy theories, however, including a CIA assassination plot, abound.

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A book titled Conversations with the Crow, which contains the transcripts of journalist Gregory Douglass interview with former CIA operative Robert Crowley, claimed the CIA got rid of Bhabha to paralyse Indias nuclear programme.

Crowley claims it was a bomb in the cargo section of the aircraft which brought it down in the Alps.

Reports in 2009 had quoted Roche as saying he believed that the Air India 101 was intercepted by either a military aircraft or a missile.

If Kanchenjunga had crashed in the mountain, there should have been huge fire and explosion as there was 41,000 tonne of fuel in the aircraft, but that was not the case. Just two minutes before the crash, the aircraft was at 6,000 feet above the ground. According to me, it collided with an Italian aircraft and as there is very little oxygen at that height, there was no combustion that could cause an explosion, this report quoted him as saying.

FATHER OF THE INDIAN ATOM BOMB

Homi Jehangir Bhabha, regarded as father of the Indian nuclear programme, was the founding director and professor of Physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research.

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Bhabha was the founding director of the pioneering research institutes Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Trombay Atomic Energy Establishment, later named Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).

Both institutes reportedly played the main role in Indias development of nuclear weapons, which Bhabha also supervised as its director.

The nuclear physicist was on his way to attend a seminar in Geneva when the plane crashed.

Experts will now confirm whether Roches findings were from the 1966 crash. What wouldnt immediately be known is why the plane carrying Homi Bhabha crashed. And whether the father of Indias atom bomb was cut down in the prime of his career.

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here
Seniority isnt what it used to be in many workplaces  even in one of the most august, the United States Senate.

Thats why were not surprised that John N. Kennedy, just about the least senior among the senators, is already causing trouble in the chamber he entered in January.

Kennedy was a longtime head of the Louisiana Treasury, an important office but one with a small staff and with relatively limited functions in state government. For Kennedy, who had started out in the reformist administration of Gov. Buddy Roemer, the office nevertheless gave him a platform to criticize state budgeting practices. His office was in charge of guarding the money, not budgeting, but that hardly phased him.

Now, he is almost dead last in seniority among 100 senators. Luther Strange, an Alabama Republican, is No. 100, having been appointed to fill the seat of Jeff Sessions, named attorney general in the new administration of President Donald Trump. Kennedy is just ahead of Catherine Cortez Masto, a Nevada Democrat. Though they entered the Senate at the same time, and neither has any previous federal service or was a governor, he ranks slightly above Masto because hes from the more populous state. That arcane pecking order follows the Senates honored traditions.

But as more senior senators have learned quickly, the new fellow from Louisiana is no respecter of traditions, having quickly joined with more senior colleagues to cut back the Senates prized August vacation.

I know Im new here and there are a lot of traditions, and people need to do things back home, but we cant pass things back home, Kennedy, a Republican from Madisonville, said during a news conference Tuesday. I dont know any working class Americans who get to take a whole month off.

Remarkably, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, of Kentucky, has agreed, and the Senate will work until Aug. 11.

Officially, the leader of the GOP majority blamed Democrats for slow-walking approval of Trumps nominees for courts and federal offices. This takes some nerve, given McConnells blocking for an entire year President Barack Obamas last nominee for the U.S. Supreme Court, Judge Merrick Garland. The fact is that neither party has an unsullied reputation in the confirmation process.

Less officially, the reality is the tangle over the GOP priority of a new health bill has created a backlog in a chamber  as well as the U.S. House across the hall  that is barely functioning anymore as a legislative body.

When it comes to traditions, were not surprised that Kennedy is willing to disrupt the stately processes in his new office. But we wish that the Senate as a whole would start paying attention to some traditions that the entire body has abandoned, starting with quick and judicious consideration of Trumps nominees. Garland deserved that consideration last year, from Republicans.

Another tradition thats gone out the window is the timely approval of federal budgets.

Kennedy is well aware of the Louisiana families still struggling with catastrophic flooding from last year, but the Congress and the administration have been mired in other matters, and the budget for federal agencies, including those administering flood relief, is approved only in short-term continuing resolutions and deals among the senators. ...

Some practices become traditions because they work. The Senates long history of compromise, the means by which it approved vital services, is an institutional tradition worth reviving.
Kolkata: The seizure of 1,500 kg heroin, touted to be the biggest narcotics bust in the country, was done after closely tracking the movement of the cartel members for over two months.



According to authorities, the captain of the merchant ship, Suprit Tiwari, came on the radar of the security agencies on May 21 after the arrest of a seaman, Parveen Kumar, from the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi for carrying a fake Continuous Discharge Certificate (CDC), also known as the Seaman Service Book (SSB). CDC is a must for seamen and is issued by the authorities in Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.



Kumar, according to agencies, was about to leave for Iran via Sharjah on an Air Arabia flight. He was to be a seaman with a Panama CDC that was valid till 2021. He broke down during questioning and told the investigators that the fake certificate was given by Tiwari, a captain based in Kolkata.



He also disclosed that Tiwari was involved in smuggling drugs into the country, sources said. Since then, various intelligence agencies were keeping a tabs on Suprit and finally he was arrested on Sunday, along with other crew members, police sources said. Suprits brother Sujit, who works with a private firm in Kolkata, has also been detained for questioning.



The Indian Coast Guard had seized the contraband worth Rs 3,500 crore off the Gujarat shoreline after intelligence reports. Eight crew members  all Indians  were taken into custody.



The Panama-registered ship, named MV Hennery, was seized after a three-day operation based on intelligence inputs. It was taken to Porbandar on Sunday for further investigation, the Coast Guard said.



The ship was coming from Iran and was bound for Alang in Gujarat. This is a biggest ever haul of narcotics drugs, transported through sea routes in recent times.



The vessel was spotted around 380km off Dwarka through surveillance mounted by the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO), a government intelligence-gathering agency.
In the electoral politics unfolding in Bihar, our constitutional values are being subjected to abuse, and secularism is one of the casualties. This episode in Indian politics, where the binary between secularism and corruption is being created, calls for a rewind to the genesis and creation of our constitutional secularism, which was developed as an idea for diverse India, and not as a party ideology in electoral democracy.



In Europe, secularism developed in response to the power of the church. After the breakup of Latin Christendom, each society became Anglican, Cavinist, Lutheran or Catholic. Church and state were very closely aligned in most European countries. But soon, the church was seen to become too politically meddlesome and socially oppressive. A movement for un-churching, for curtailing the power of the church, was set in motion. It was a battle between state and the church in predominantly single-religion societies.



In India, the situation was completely different because our society has always had deep religious diversity. Our secularism is based on the idea that we should allow all religious groups to coexist. The state should treat them non-preferentially. Under modern conditions, this developed into a defense of religious pluralism. The state had to respect all religions. But though there was no dominant church here to oppress individuals, quasi-religious institutions such as caste were socially oppressive, particularly to Dalits and women. The 19th century saw many movements of social reform in every religious community.



Respecting religions entailed the necessity of the state to keep off religion but oppression within religion demanded that the state intervened in those aspects of religion that were hierarchical and coercive. Our constitution makers wished the state to keep a principled, value-based distance from religion. And to interfere in religion only when freedom, equality, fraternity and justice demanded so. Thus we respected religion for the meaning it gave to peoples lives, for its ethics, but were critical of when it was oppressive. Hence, state interference to ban untouchability, or to reform personal laws for gender justice.



Our constitutional secularism gives citizens the rights to choose, profess, and move from one religion to another. It also gives rights to communities to establish educational institutions, seek funds from the state, etc. Our secularism helps religion grow but is not uncritical of religion. Critical respect for all religions is the hallmark of Indian secularism.



But in last 40 years or so we have developed another kind of secularism, which I call Party political secularism, an odd, nefarious, secularism practiced by political parties, particularly so called secular forces. To make sense of whats happening in Bihar, we have to understand this secularism. This secularism keeps an opportunistic distance from all religious communities; its idea of respect is to make deals with the loudest, most fanatical, aggressive sections of religious groups in society. Thus it keeps off religion or intervenes as and when it best suits its party or electoral interests. This has led to banning of Satanic Verses, unlocking the Ram Janmabhoomi Temple and curtailing of womens right to dignity in the Shah Bano Case. Instead of respecting the best in religious groups, political parties hobnob with those least deserving of respect. This, as I said, is not principled but opportunistic distance with religion. This is also a fertile ground for majoritarian Hinduism because when such deals are made, majoritarian Hindutva forces can easily question, You are doing deals with them and, in vote bank politics, ignoring us despite us being the majority.



In our practice of party political secularism, we have reached this point. Electoral politics has corrupted our constitutional secularism. Now to be fair, anyone in electoral politics can be tempted to be opportunistic. If your main aim is to win, you would be tempted to use unfair means. But its just here that we need institutions like the courts, a free press, and an alert citizenry to move in and show mirror to political parties. So I am not entirely blaming electoral politics. This is a collective failure. It is for all of us to stop the misuse and abuse of secularism that was fashioned collectively by Jawaharlal Nehru, Dr BR Ambedkar, Sardar Patel and Mahatma Gandhi.



In August 1947, when the creation of Pakistan was certain, one member of the Constituent Assembly, Mahavir Tyagi asked whether India should refrain from clarifying its stand on the minority rights till Pakistan decided its position. Ambedkars response was firm and decisive: whatever Pakistan does, he said, our own country should grant minorities unconditional rights. Our own judgment on this issue was not dependent on what Pakistan did.



It is sad to see, how in the hunt for votes, secularism is becoming a bad word. But such is the fate of many important values throughout the world. Remember how George Bush abused freedom and democracy when he lied, invaded Iraq, killed its people, all in the name of these values? In its aftermath, the credibility of democracy and freedom have been destroyed in many parts of the world. Here, the same is being done with secularism. If this continues, we will be destroying our civilizational heritage  we are a shining example of religious coexistence in the world. We should not destroy our credibility built over thousands of years of inter-religious equality.



 As told to Eram Agha



(The author is professor at the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. Views are personal.)
Jammu/New Delhi: Widening its probe in the terror funding case, the NIA on Sunday searched the office and residence of a lawyer linked to hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on suspicion of routing funds to separatists from their Pakistan-based handlers.



A spokesman for the National Investigation Agency (NIA) said the office and residence of Devinder Singh Behal, chairman, Jammu and Kashmir Social Peace Forum (JKSPF), a constituent of Tehreek-e-Hurriayat headed by Geelani, were searched in Jammu.



Behal is also a member of the legal cell of the separatist amalgam led by Geelani and a "close associate" of the Hurriyat hawk. Behal, the anti-terror probe agency said, also regularly attends the funeral processions of militants.



"The NIA is investigating his role as a courier as he is suspected to be involved in routing funds to separatist leaders from Pakistan-based handlers," the spokesman said.



He claimed several incriminating documents, four mobile phones, a tablet computer and a few other articles were seized during the searches, and Behal was being questioned.



In a related development, the NIA also issued summons to Naseem, the younger son of Geelani, asking him to appear before it on Wednesday. Geelani's elder son, Nayeem, who was asked to present himself at the agency's headquarters in New Delhi Monday, has been admitted to a hospital in Srinagar after he complained of chest pain, members of the Hurriyat faction said.



Nayeem, a surgeon, had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years and is considered Geelani's heir apparent. He was to be questioned in connection with the terror funding case which has named Hafiz Saeed, leader of Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba, as an accused.



The NIA has also named separatist organisations like the two factions led by Geelani and moderate leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and all-woman outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat in its FIR.



Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh has already been arrested by the NIA and was being interrogated. Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, spokesman for Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, and Peer Saifullah were arrested from the Valley last week.



Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman for the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' have also been arrested. All of them have been remanded in 10 days NIA custody.



The NIA had registered the case on May 30, accusing separatist and secessionist leaders of being in cahoots with terrorist groups.



The case was registered over raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including through hawala channels, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in the state and for causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.



The NIA conducted searches in several places in the state besides Haryana and the national capital. Electronic devices and valuables worth crores of rupees were impounded.



It is for the first time since the rise of militancy in the early 1990s that a central probe agency has conducted raids in connection with the funding of terrorist and separatist groups.
The Mumbai University Results 2017 have been delayed by more than 2 months now. Generally, the results of MU are announced in the month of May or June however this time they are expected to be out today i.e. July 31st 2017, however only time will tell if students get a breather or not. Change is good, but this definitely doesnt hold true in case of Mumbai Universitys change from manual correction of examination answer sheets, to the online assessment and checking of the same.



Earlier this year, Mumbai University took the decision to change the mode of assessment and checking of answer sheets to online or digital as opposed to the traditional pen and paper system. This seems like a very big step and at first was thought of as a remarkable change, until both the students and the teachers started to suffer.



The teachers who are supposed to assess the answer sheets online are suffering due to technical glitches and faulty management of the online assessment system and in turn the students are the ones who are paying the price for this in terms of delayed results due to which they cant appear in the counseling for admissions to their next course.



Out of the total 477 examinations conducted, the results of 427 have been delayed beyond 45 days with some delayed even by up to 60 days. MU has already crossed the 45-day deadline in declaring the results but now the deadline issued of declaration of results by July 31 by State Education Minister Vinod Tawde is also around the corner and seems highly unlikely. Protests are being held by students and teachers alike against Mr. Sanjay Deshmukh, VC  Mumbai University. The delay in results of MU 2017 has shaken both the houses demanding Sanjay Deshmukhs removal and Vinod Tawdes resignation.



Mumbai University had set up 142 assessment centres and they had invited other Universities too who have at least 50 computers in their lab to register as micro centres.



The new system required the answer sheets to be scanned and put up on a software which will display the answer sheet on the assessing teachers screen and he/she will be able to mark it and input the marks of the student in the common system. More than 22 lakh answer sheets were expected to be scanned and put into the system starting second week of May. The assessment started in the first week of June.



Considering the reality that more than 22 lakh answer sheets were to be scanned using 50 scan machines and 250 employees to scan a 1.50 lakh answer sheets per day, the result had to get delayed especially for streams like B.Sc., B.Com, B.A., etc which have a large number of students enrolled.



The inordinate delay is due to many reasons. Firstly, the agency that would set up the online assessment system was not finalized until the examinations got over, tenders sure were invited however the finalization and announcement wasnt done until the last week of April.



Once the system was set up, a one day training session was held for the teachers. A new system altogether was introduced but only 1 day of training was held, there was no clarity on the procedure and no instruction manual or any sort of instructions were given to the teachers.



A day-long session of teachers training was scheduled somewhere between April 24 to 28 and was held in 50 different centers across all seven districts under the jurisdiction of MU, however there were many teachers who werent called in for the training amongst these were many senior teachers as well and even those teachers who arent tech savvy, also MU didnt hold any further training sessions rather decided that rest of the training will be done on the go i.e. on the job itself while working with the new system.



When the system started working, many examiners who were supposed to check English scripts got the scripts answered in Marathi, examiners for the subject English got answer sheets for some other subject and so on. Many examiners were unable to download answer sheets due to low internet speed, they were required to evaluate answer sheets for 3 papers but some examiners have only got the requisite codes for one.



There are few problems with the software as well such as the software only allows to save and close the paper that is being assessed and so in the event of power failure, the work done is lost and the teachers have to re-open it all over again and assess it again not only a time consuming process but also double work.



In the earlier manual system of answer sheets assessment, teachers used to assess around 30 Answer sheets in a day, however with the online assessment system, they could initially check 8-9 answer sheets as they took time to get accustomed to this transition.



In all this chaos, the ones suffering the most are the students, because even when theyve cleared the written exams they cant appear in the counseling process unless their Mumbai University 2017 results are declared. However, MU has given Provisional Mark Sheets based on the results of first five semesters to these students.



And the worst part is that MU didnt think all this through and wasted not only time and money but also played with the future of lakhs of students studying in MU. This effort couldve been a remarkable transition however it failed miserably owing to lack of proper planning and mismanagement.
Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state. 1/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. 2/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously. 3/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

Home Minister Rajnath Singh spoke to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan over phone on Sunday and voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala.The phone call comes a day after an RSS worker was hacked to death in Sreekariyam area of state capital. The state unit of the BJP blamed the ruling CPI(M), which denied the allegations."I have expressed my concern over the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy," Rajnath Singh said in a tweet.The Home Minister said he expects that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously.Eight people have been taken in police custody since the killing of 34-year-old Rajesh on Saturday night. His left hand was chopped off in the attack.BJP state president Kummanem Rajasekheran, who visited the hospital, said the attack was state-sponsored violence and blamed the CPI(M)."The CPI-M led government has become a mute witness to the violence going on in the state capital district. Even our state party headquarters was attacked. But we exercised restraint, Rajasekheran said."But now, we are left with no other option but to call for a statewide shutdown tomorrow (Sunday) to protest the killing (of Rajesh). The state government has not even called for a peace talk to resolve issues," he said.Police had clamped prohibitory orders for three days on Friday after BJP's Kerala unit office here was vandalised and the house of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri was attacked.
Crates of beer are stacked up on the yard of Budejovicky Budvar (Budweiser Budvar) brewery in Ceske Budejovice, Czech Republic.
Response of the state administration has been very slow. Had the government been proactive the damage could have been minimized pic.twitter.com/J6Wg4w9QqS  Ahmed Patel (@ahmedpatel) July 30, 2017

: Amid mounting criticism of Gujarat Congress MLAs, currently lodged in a Bengaluru resort, over their in absence respective constituencies, Rajya Sabha MP Ahmed Patel visited flood relief camps in North Gujarat on Sunday.Patel, who is a political advisor to Congress President Sonia Gandhi, took to Twitter to share photographs of his visit, along with his entourage that accompanied him."Visited various flood relief camps in North Gujarat today," Patel wrote on Twitter.Patel also criticised the BJP-led government in Gujarat for its "very slow" response to a heavy rainfall battering several parts of the state."Response of the state administration has been very slow. Had the government been proactive the damage could have been minimized," he wrote.On the other hand, Congress MLAs holed up in a resort in Bengaluru claimed on Sunday they went to Karnataka of their own accord, as the BJP was using the state machinery in Gujarat to threaten them ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections.In a press conference, the 44 MLAs presented a united stand, saying BJP had tried to buy off 22 MLAs and had even offered to pay Rs 15 crore to each of them, but they have not succumbed. "BJP is trying to poach our MLAs for 15 crore rupees, but we resisted them. Our families are being threatened," Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil said.Gohil said they only need 45 votes to send Sonia Gandhi's political adviser Ahmed Patel to the Rajya Sabha and they are confident of victory even after the string of resignations. We only need 45 votes out of the 60 that we command. The MLAs had held a meeting on July 25 in Gujarat, where 53 had promised their support, he said.The Congress party had on late Friday night flown 44 of its Gujarat MLAs to Karnataka, alleging the ruling BJP in the Gujarat was "threatening and bribing" MLAs to join its ranks.Subsequently, a Congress-led delegation on Saturday submitted a memorandum to the Election Commission of India (ECI), alleging the usage of "money and muscle power" by the ruling BJP in Gujarat to "poach" its MLAs.Tensions in the Congress camp soared after six of its MLAs in the state resigned from the party and joined the BJP, prompting a swift response to shift them outside the state to Karnataka.
Patna: A day after he took oath as the Minister of Minority Welfare department in the Nitish Kumar cabinet, a fatwa was issued against Khurshid - alias Firoz Ahmad - for raising 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans. However, the minister has now expressed regret and apologised for the same.



The Mufti of Imarat-e-Shariah had earlier issued a fatwa against the minister for chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' and said Khurshid should be ostracized from the Muslim community. According to Mufti Suhail Kazmi, a person who chants Jai Shri Ram and believes in worshipping Ram or Rahim is ostracised in Islam.



Reacting to diktat, Khurshid said, "God knows the intention with which I raised 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans. My work will tell who I am... Imarat-e-Shariah should have asked my intentions (before issuing fatwa)."



He further said, "I will not hesitate in chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' for the sake of harmony and development of the state."



Khurshid, who had shouted 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans in the Bihar Assembly during a discussion over the confidence motion moved by Nitish Kumar, said, "I offered prayers at Manokamna temple for the break-up of Grand Alliance and I am happy that Bihar got freedom from Lalu's family."



Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday evening expanded his cabinet with twenty-seven ministers from JD(U), BJP and LJP taking the oath. No minister from Rashtriya Lok Samata Party (RLSP) and Hindustani Awam Morcha (HAM) was inducted into the cabinet.



Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi administered the oath of office to 14 ministers from JD(U), 13 from BJP and One from LJP. Nitish Kumar chose not to drop any of the ministers who were part of the cabinet in the previous government. He added two more ministers from his party  Dinesh Chandra Yadav and Ramji Rshidev  to the new government.



Khurshid, the JD-U MLA from Sikta constituency, West Champaran, was a minister in the Grand Alliance, too.
Pune: Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Saturday claimed that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was under pressure from RJD chief Lalu Prasad during the grand alliance rule in Bihar and described his step to walk out of the coalition as a "big step" towards clean politics.



Rudy, the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, also expressed confidence that under the new JD(U)-BJP government, Bihar would be transformed.



"Bihar's population is 11 crore and Nitish Kumar has forged the partnership with the BJP in the interest of these people and the state. This alliance should have taken place much earlier. With this decision, Bihar is heading towards big transformation," he said.



"I feel Nitish Kumar was under huge pressure of Lalu Prasad Yadav during the alliance, but now he is relieved and I think this decision is a big step in the direction of clean politics," he added.



Rudy was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the launch of a skill development programme initiated by CREDAI Pune Metro.



When asked about the allegations levelled by Lalu Prasad that the new alliance was "fixed", the MP from Bihar slammed the RJD chief over his alleged involvement in various scams.



"He was found guilty in fodder scam and cannot contest elections... Now things are coming out that when he was the railway minister, he sold hotels and created shell companies in the name of his family members and now looking at the trail of all these scams, the amount of scam may go up to Rs 10,000 crore," claimed the minister.



During his speech, Rudy said the mindset of people in India had always been to make their children engineers or provide good education to them so that they could get better jobs.



"Post-Independence, even at the government level, we have never focused on skill development. There are 18 lakh seats in engineering colleges across India, out of which eight lakh seats are empty. If we focus more on skill development, we can really become the leading country in providing the skilled workforce to the world," he said.



Rudy further said that the Narendra Modi government was the first in India to have created a separate ministry for skill development.



"On behalf of the government, I urge CREDAI to make skill development their mission since the construction industry is one of the largest employment generators and construction workers are the real assets to their business.



"CREDAI can train them across India. It has the potential to turn this dream of skilled India into reality," he said.



Stating that construction-related deaths was a serious problem, Rudy said something must be done about this.


About the Author

Marya Shakil

Marya Shakil is an award-winning Journalist with over 12 years of experience. Her show on the Muslims yearning to be part of the mainstream earned her ...Read More
CHICAGO  News headlines are screaming about how fearful Latinos are due to moves the Trump administration is making toward stepping up deportations. These are valid concerns for many Hispanics, a majority of whom have acquaintances or family members who could be at risk.

Yet Hispanics always seem to look on the sunny side of life when things are tough. Countless research studies have found they feel better about the economy, their potential to be healthy and their familys long-term financial health than either whites or blacks. This even when they are targeted for abuse or strident discrimination by people with hatred for anyone who they think could be an immigrant.

And theres plenty of those incidents, thats for sure. The very latest Ive found was in Lansing, Michigan, where a 47-year-old Hispanic man was allegedly beaten by two white men who stapled a note to his back. The incident is being investigated as a hate crime. These types of crimes  and lesser abuses, as evidenced by videos of Hispanics getting yelled at to go back to Mexico or to speak American that have gone viral in the past few months  have increased since Donald Trumps election as president.

Writing in The New Yorker, the novelist and journalist Hector Tobar nailed the zeitgeist this way: Today, Trumpism hangs over all things Latino. We seek to be, as [W.E.B.] Du Bois wrote of African-Americans, a co-worker in the kingdom of culture. But whether we like it or not, the accomplishments of our valedictorians, our mayors, and our veterans are weighed against the crimes that Donald Trump and Bill OReilly attribute to our alien fathers and sons.

And still, Latinos hold their heads high.

According to a new national survey by Pew Research Center, while most people find it stressful and frustrating to talk politics with those who differ politically, Democrats feel more negative than Republicans do about talking with people who hold opposing opinions about Trump.

Even more interesting, however, is that white Democrats and Democratic-leaners are more likely (74 percent) than black (56 percent) and Hispanic (61 percent) Democrats to say it is stressful and frustrating to talk to people with different opinions of Trump. Among Democrats and Democratic-leaners, whites, college graduates and liberals are among the most likely (40 percent) to say knowing a friend voted for Trump would strain their friendship. Only 28 percent of black Democrats and 25 percent of Hispanic Democrats said the same.

Incredibly, the people who are most affected by the ugly, abusive rhetoric Trump has inspired in some  and here I can only refer to Hispanics, since the Pew Research Center did not break out numbers for Muslims  are the least likely to carry around the fear and bitterness that can alienate those who dont share their politics. How can this be?

Its pretty simple, actually.

Immigrants from Latin America have, on the whole, escaped desperately poor or violent conditions cultivated by failing or corrupt governments that provide no hope for a decent future for themselves or their children. Here, if they get the worst, smelliest, grossest, most humiliating jobs but are able to eke out a living that includes a home with bare necessities and a decent education for their children, things are looking up.

Those who are U.S.-born have seen their parents overcome unbelievable hardships, work miserable hours and toil with little respect to provide the basics of the American dream. Mindful of their parents sacrifices, they know their lives amount to far more than the pettiness  and even evil  that occasionally comes their way from misguided souls who think Latinos are to blame for their own unrealized potential.

Hispanics have been a thriving part of the American tapestry since the country was founded. Weve served in wars, contributed to the economy and helped shape popular culture, so were not going to let post-election anti-immigrant rhetoric, the wall or Trumps executive orders get us down. Were looking forward.

According to Florida Atlantic Universitys most recent quarterly Hispanic Consumer Sentiment Index, more than three-quarters of Hispanics (78 percent) said they expect to be financially better off over the next year compared with 60 percent in the previous quarter. When asked about the economic outlook of the country in the next five years, 51 percent said they expect good times, up 8 percentage points from the previous quarter.

Sounds like old-fashioned American optimism, and that can-do spirit that is precisely what made our country great.
New Delhi: The Congress on Sunday said Prime Minister Narendra Modi speaks of eradicating corruption during his 'Mann ki Baat' programmes but has remained silent on the Panama Paper leaks.



Congress leader Pawan Khera asked Modi what action had been taken against Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh over the Panama Papers issue, citing the case of Nawaz Sharif who quit as Pakistani prime minister.



"The prime minister speaks at length on corruption, but ignores Panama paper leaks. (Yesterday Congress vice- president) Rahul Gandhi mentioned about Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh's son and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek.



"His (Abhishek) name appeared in the Panama papers, (but) what action have you taken in this regard," Khera asked, suggesting that Modi should take cue from Pakistan on this.



The Supreme Court on July 28 disqualified 67-year-old Sharif for dishonesty and ruled that corruption cases be filed against him and his children over the Panama Papers scandal, forcing the embattled leader out of office.



The Congress leader said the BJP cannot keep "subverting democracy" and "yet come out holier than thou and talk about political integrity".



He was referring to Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar dumping the grand alliance in the state to come into the NDA fold, and the recent defections of Congress MLAs to BJP in Gujarat, ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.



"Where is the money coming from in Gujarat? Our MLAs said they were offered money (to defect). We are not getting any answers to this in the prime minister's Mann ki Baat," he said.



Khera also attacked the prime minister for not doing enough to curb the menace of cow-vigilante groups and "those spreading hate".



The Congress leader said Prime Minister's 'Mann ki Baat' appears to be "disconnected" from ground realities as it has failed to address issues like unemployment and agraririan crisis.



In his radio programme today, Modi spoke on varied topics ranging from how the new tax reform GST has transformed the economy to extensive relief being provided to the flood-hit states.



"The prime minister's speech was irrelevant as it did not touch the fundamental issues faced by the country. We did not get answers to several of our questions and it was completely disconnected with what people are thinking," Khera said.




Neither black money slashed abroad returned, one of d main slogans of d ruling party nor anyone caught out of those named in Panama papers.

 SHARAD YADAV (@SharadYadavMP) July 30, 2017

Senior JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav took potshots at the BJP, his partys new ally, on Sunday, saying it was yet to fulfill its election promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad.Taking to Twitter, Yadav, who is said to be unhappy with Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumars return to the NDA, also questioned why no one named in the Panama Papers scandal has been caught yet.The tweet  Yadavs first reaction to the political drama  comes a day after Nitish Kumar formed the cabinet of his new NDA-backed government, giving Finance and Commercial Taxes portfolios to his deputy and senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi.The new cabinet has 27 ministers  14 from the JD(U), 12 from the BJP and one from the LJP.Two JD(U) MPs, Ali Anwar and Veerendra Kumar, openly criticised Nitish Kumars move to break away from the Mahagathbandhan and met Sharad Yadav, former chief of the JD(U).Anwar, who said his "conscience does not support" Kumar's action, told reporters that Yadav agreed with their "strong" views against the JD(U)-BJP alliance.Yadav, Anwar said, told them he would take a formal stand on the issue after speaking to other leaders.Kerala JD(U) president MP Veerendra Kumar expressed "shock" over Nitish Kumar's decision and said the state unit would not follow the chief minister into the NDA fold.He appealed to all JD(U) MPs to "denounce the decision and quit the party".Anwar said his reservations over the new coalition should not be seen as a rebellion against the party and he would present his views within the organisation. "He (Yadav) had called us to his residence. He agreed with our views against the alliance with the BJP," Anwar said.
Beijing: Chinese President Xi Jinping has claimed that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies. The premier was inspecting a military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the 2.3-million strong army.



"March to wherever the Party points to," said Xi, asking the PLA to follow follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC).



"I firmly believe that our gallant military has both confidence and ability to defeat all invading enemies," said Xi, who heads the Central Military Commission, which holds the overall command of the PLA - the world's largest army, reported PTI.



While there was no reference in his speech to over a month-long India-China military standoff at Doklam in Sikkim section, his remarks came in the midst of shrill official media campaign and assertions by the Foreign and Defence Ministries here accusing Indian troops of trespassing into Chinese territory at Doklam.



Clad in camouflage military suit, 64-year-old Xi said the Chinese military has the confidence and ability to safeguard, national sovereignty, security and development interests.



"Our military has the confidence and ability to write a new chapter in building of strong military and make new contributions to towards realisation of the China dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and safeguarding world peace," Xi said in his about 10-minute address - an event carried live on state television and radio.



Earlier, Xi inspected the military parade at China's largest military base in Zhurihe in Inner Mongolia - the biggest parade since 2015 in which army and air force displayed some of the most modern weapons including a new tank which reportedly held exercises in the high-altitude along the Indian border.



The other weapons included long range nuclear and conventional missiles, the new J-15 - the new aircraft based carrier.



In his address, Xi asked the military to further improve its combativeness and modernise the national defence and armed forces. The Chinese military has the worlds second largest defence budget of USD 152 billion next to the US military.



The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927 when the ruling 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.



"Officers and soldiers, you must unswervingly stick to the fundamental principle and system of the Party's absolute leadership over the army, always listen to and follow the Party's orders, and march to wherever the Party points to," said Xi, the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee. PLA officers and soldiers should firmly adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the people wholeheartedly, and always stand together with the people, Xi said.



He also said China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of PLA into a world-class military force.



Enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army, he said.



"The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," said Xi, who is expected to get a second five year term at the key meeting of the CPC later this year.



"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people's military more than any other time in history," he said.



He urged the PLA to fully implement the CPC's thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPC's target on strengthening the PLA under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.



About 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment were on display.



Dongfeng missiles which include short, long and medium rage of rockets, variety of armoury including light tanks, drones were also deployed.



Helicopter borne troops demonstrated in quick landing and taking combat positions.



The parade was held in the backdrop of over month long standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam in Sikkim section.



Besides Doklam, China is also concerned by the situation in North Korea and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by US in South Korea much to the opposition of the Beijing.



(With PTI inputs)
San Francisco: Tianna Rooney has already bought the poster board for the sign she'll wave when the 16-year-old refugee boy her family is taking in arrives in the United States. Rooney knows the exact words of welcome she'll write on it, in the teenager's native language from the African country of Eritrea.



But Rooney's family is leaving the sign blank, for now. She and her husband, Todd, fear actually writing the words "Welcome Home" could break her heart.



The foster son they're waiting for is part of a small, three-decade-old US program for so-called unaccompanied refugee minors that has been halted by a series of new refugee bans and travel limits imposed by the Trump administration in the name of fighting terrorism.



By blocking the program, the US travel bans have stranded more than 100 refugee children who were already matched to waiting American foster families. Without parents or other adult relatives, those kids are living on their own in countries of temporary refuge, in limbo while their US foster parents hope for a court ruling that will allow the children to finish their journeys.



Since the June day a refugee agency matched the Rooneys with their foster son, which turned out to be the same day of the first Supreme Court ruling barring him, "we have experienced this very unexpected ride of grief in our family," says Rooney, a 39-year-old family therapist and mother of two from Brighton, a suburb of Detroit.



Meanwhile, the boy who fled his home country at 13 to avoid widespread forced military conscription of children continues to fend for himself on the streets in his temporary refuge in another African capital, with no phone or internet for the Rooneys to reach him to explain the delay.



"There's part of me that really hopes he knows a family wants him," Tianna Rooney says.



Since the 1980s, the program for orphaned refugee children has brought in more than 6,000 refugee children, including 203 last year.



"These are kids on their own, and struggling to survive," said Elizabeth Foydel, policy counsel with the International Refugee Assistance Project, a Washington, D.C., legal-aid group for refugees.



"How long do you feel comfortable with your child not having a caregiver?" Foydel says she asks other Americans. "Trying to manage for themselves?"



The program for orphaned refugee children from around the world is different from one started by the Obama administration in 2014 for Central American children fleeing a surge in violence there.



In the program for unaccompanied refugee children, kids eking out a living by themselves in a refugee camp or elsewhere must first come to the attention of a UN agency, which may choose to refer them for the US foster program, especially if the children are deemed to be particularly vulnerable wherever they are now. The children must then pass US security screenings and other requirements, and win a match with an American foster family or group home.



But a series of Trump administration orders, and court rulings interpreting them, are now barring refugees with no close family in the United States. That requirement shuts out the refugee children in the foster program, who have no relatives they can turn to anywhere.



The child refugees newly blocked from waiting American foster families include five Ethiopian sisters, ages 9 to 16. The girls lost both parents in 2009, and have faced abuse alone in the war zone of neighboring South Sudan and in Sudanese cities, said Jessica Jones, policy counsel for the Baltimore-based Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service. Along with the US Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Lutherans are one of two US groups running the program on behalf of the US State Department.



Other waiting children include a 17-year-old couple originally from the Asian country of Myanmar and the baby they had together in a refugee camp, after fleeing attacks on their Rohingya religious minority in Myanmar.



In her home in another Detroit suburb, Sharon Martin, 64, has bought a crib for the young refugee family from Myanmar. But the children's books she bought, Martin said, are really for her. "If they come, I can finally read to a child again," Martin says. Refugee workers say the family faces forced return to Myanmar if their US arrangements fall through.



In San Francisco, web designer Julie Rajagopal and husband Mike Gougherty, a senior planner for a regional ferry system, are two of the lucky ones.



The 16-year-old boy they are fostering also fled a lifetime of forced military service in Eritrea, at 13. When he landed in March, a slight youth coming off the plane in an ill-made tracksuit, he was among the last refugee foster children to make it into the US.



Rajagopal, 35, often had stayed up through the night calling government workers and charity officials in the faraway African hub of Cairo to speed her new foster son's paperwork.



On a clear day this summer, the teen strolled with the couple at a park overlooking San Francisco. In the city's hip Mission District, he blended seamlessly in a red sweater and shoes he carefully matched himself, and jeans he insisted on lovingly ironing with each wear.



Meanwhile, in Brighton, the Rooneys and their 10- and 12-year-old sons stack new socks and T-shirts in the bedroom they've set aside for the boy they nicknamed "Five," meaning the eagerly awaited fifth member of their family.



Tianna Rooney recently got out the poster board, thinking to work on the welcome sign. After a concerned look from her husband, she put it away.



"We want to think positive thoughts" that their foster son will come safely, Todd Rooney said. "But without endangering ourselves. Without setting ourselves up for a heartache."
Tehran: A defiant Iran vowed on Saturday to press ahead with its missile programme and condemned new US sanctions, as tensions rise after the West hardened its tone against the Islamic republic.



In the latest incident, Tehran and Washington accused each other's naval forces of provocative manoeuvres in the Gulf that culminated in a US helicopter firing warning flares.



The US Navy said it had reacted to unresponsive vessels belonging to the Revolutionary Guards closing in on American ships at high speed, a charge denied by Iran which described the American move as unprovoked.



"At 4 pm (1130 GMT) on Friday, the supercarrier USS Nimitz and its accompanying warship, while being monitored by the Guards' frigates, flew a helicopter near the Resalat oil and gas platform and approached the force's ships," the Iranian paramilitary force said.



"The Americans in a provocative and unprofessional move, sent a warning message to the frigates and fired flares," it said. The Guards "ignored the unconventional move by the US ships and continued their mission".



The US Navy said its ships were on a routine patrol when an American helicopter "observed several Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps naval vessels approaching US naval forces at a high rate of speed".



"US naval forces attempted to establish communications, with no response from the Iranian vessels. Shortly thereafter, at a safe distance, the US helicopter deployed flares, after which the Iranian vessels halted their approach," it said.



The latest incident came after a US Navy ship fired warning shots at a Guards boat in similar circumstances on Tuesday, with each side blaming the other.



There have been a string of close encounters between US ships and Iranian vessels in the Gulf in recent months.



On the political front, Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi said Tehran condemned new US sanctions against its missile programme, which US President Donald Trump is set to sign into law, and vowed to press on.



"We will continue with full power our missile programme," he said. "We consider the action by the US as hostile, reprehensible and unacceptable, and it's ultimately an effort to weaken the nuclear deal."



Ghasemi was referring to the 2015 agreement between Iran and US-led world powers that lifted some sanctions on Tehran in return for curbs on its nuclear programme.



"The military and missile fields... are our domestic policies and others have no right to intervene or comment on them," Ghasemi said.



The sanctions bill, which also targets Russia and North Korea, was passed by the US Senate on Thursday, two days after being approved by the House of Representatives.



Separately yesterday, Washington imposed new sanctions targeting Iran's missile programme, one day after Tehran tested a satellite-launch rocket.



Iranian state television broadcast footage of the launch from the Imam Khomeini space center in the eastern province of Semnan.



The launch vehicle was capable of propelling a satellite weighing 550 pounds (250 kilos) into orbit at an altitude of 300 miles (500 kilometres), it said.



Western governments suspect Iran of trying to develop the technology for longer-range missiles with conventional or nuclear payloads, a charge denied by Tehran, which insists its space programme has purely peaceful aims.



In a joint statement, Britain, France, Germany and the US condemned Tehran's "destabilising" action, saying the test violated UN Security Council Resolution 2231 that endorsed the nuclear deal.



"We call on Iran not to conduct any further ballistic missile launches and related activities," they said.



Resolution 2231 called on Iran not to test ballistic missiles capable of carrying a nuclear warhead, and an arms embargo has remained in place.



The United States has had no diplomatic ties with the Iran since 1980, and Trump has halted the direct contacts initiated by his predecessor Barack Obama.



Tensions have mounted between Washington and Tehran since Trump took office six months ago vowing to be the best friend of Israel.



At UN headquarters in New York yesterday, US envoy Nikki Haley expressed mistrust of Iran.



"Iran's widespread support for terrorists tells us we can't trust them. Iran's breaking its obligation on missile testing tells us we can't trust them. Yesterday's launch proves that yet again," she said.



Despite his electoral promise to tear apart what he once called "the worst deal ever", Trump has so far respected the nuclear agreement.



The joint US-European statement said that Iran's latest test features technology related to "ballistic missiles designed to be capable of delivering nuclear weapons".



Iran insists it has "proven its compliance with the nuclear deal" as repeatedly confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency.


Seoul: Two US Air Force B-1B bombers have flown over the Korean peninsula in direct response to recent North Korean missile tests, the US Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.



North Korea has said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump.



The B-1B flight, conducted on Saturday, was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the "Hwansong-14" rocket, the US statement said.
Zamboanga: Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor, who was among politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs, and six others in a gunbattle that erupted Sunday when they reportedly resisted arrest, officials said.



Officers were to serve warrants for the arrest of Mayor Reynaldo Parojinog Sr, his daughter, who is the vice mayor, and four other officials of Ozamiz city when they allegedly opened fire.



Parojinog, who also faced corruption charges, had denied any links to illegal drugs. He was the third mayor to be killed under President Rodrigo Duterte's bloody crackdown on drugs, which left more than 3,000 dead in reported gunfights with police and has been widely criticized by Western governments and human rights groups.



The officers were "met with volleys of fire from (the mayor's) security, prompting the Philippine National Police personnel to retaliate," Chief Superintendent Timoteo Pacleb said in a statement. He said that Parojinog and six relatives and bodyguards died in his farm house. The mayor's wife was reportedly among the dead.



Parojinog's daughter, Vice Mayor Nova Echaves, was arrested, Pacleb said.



Last year, police officers shot dead Albuera Mayor Rolando Espinosa Sr. inside a jail cell in the central province of Leyte, and a week before that, another mayor and his nine bodyguards were gunned down allegedly during a firefight on a road in the southern Philippines.



All three mayors were among more than 160 officials Duterte named publicly as being linked to illegal drugs in August last year as part of a shame campaign.



Duterte has vowed not to stop until, he said, the last drug trafficker in the country has been eliminated.
New Delhi: Political uncertainty in Pakistan triggered by the ouster of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be advantageous to its military which may now back terrorism against India more aggressively, foreign policy experts said on Sunday.



They also felt that the prospect of Indo-Pak engagement became very dim as the Pakistani military would not like to see any improvement in ties with India.



"Political uncertainty and instability in Pakistan will be to the advantage of the military in that country," said G Parthasarathy, who was Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan from 1998 to 2000.



Meera Shankar, who was India's Ambassador to the US between 2009 and 2011, echoed similar views, saying internal instability will further consolidate the military's hold over the country.



Lalit Mansingh, who was foreign secretary from 19992000, too said political instability in Pakistan will further embolden the Army and in such a scenario, it will more aggressively push terror activities against India.



He said India's standoff with China in the Doklam area has further encouraged Pakistan to step up cross border terrorism against India and an internal political structure in Islamabad will be conducive for Pakistani military to pursue its goal.



Parthasarathy, too, said the military's domination will mean continuation of the policy to back terror groups against India.



Sharif was disqualified from holding public office by Pakistan Supreme Court over undeclared assets relating to Panama Papers scandal.



Ruling PML-N has named former petroleum minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the interim prime minister until Nawaz Sharif's younger brother Shehbaz is elected as a member of parliament to succeed him as his eventual successor.



Both Parthasarathy and Mansingh said they do not expect any movement in engagement between India and Pakistan after Sharif's resignation.



Ties between India and Pakistan nosedived after Pakistani terrorists attacked India's Pathankot air force base in January last year. Following the attack, India had said talks with Pakistan cannot take place unless it stops cross border terror.



"In Nawaz Sharif, at least you had a politician who wanted to improve relations with India," said Parthasarathy, adding the prospect of Indo-Pak engagement was dim under a weak government in Islamabad.



Mansingh said any kind of dialogue between the two countries was unlikely, adding Pakistani military giving full access to China including to its military personnel in Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir was a matter of concern.



"I see the state of freeze between India and China continuing until the forseeable future and we might even expect surge in cross border terror activities," said Mansingh, who was also India's envoy to Washington.



Shankar said the military was calling the shots even under Sharif's leadership and it used corruption charges against him to pull him down.



"It will be interesting to see whether the Army will allow Shehbaz Sharif to take over as the Prime Minister. The judiciary in Pakistan is playing an active role as some people are saying it was a constitutional coup," she said.



TCA Rangachari, India's former envoy to France and Germany, said Pakistan's policy towards India has been same irrespective of having internal stability or instability.



Rangachari, who had served in Islamabad as Deputy High Commissioner, said Pakistan's approach towards India has been guided by the armed forces and it does not change even though there is any change in the country's political complexion.



He also said there was political stability in Pakistan during the the 1965 war.



"We will have to wait and watch, how things unfold there. We should not make quick judgement," he said.



Mansingh said Sharif was advocating better economic ties between the two countries but the next government in Islamabad is highly unlikely to follow the line.



Shankar said though Sharif was for better relations with India, his views did not find space as the Army was influencing foreign policy decisions.
Islamabad: Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, who is set to become Pakistan's interim prime minister, is the former federal minister for petroleum and natural resources, and a businessman who launched the country's most successful private airline.



Considered highly intelligent and a long-time loyalist of Nawaz Sharif, the former prime minister who was ousted by the supreme court on Friday, the 58-year-old Abbasi will act as a placeholder for the Sharif dynasty.



He is due to be rubber stamped by in a parliamentary vote as prime minister until Sharif's younger brother Shehbaz, a provincial minister, can be elected to the national assembly and take over the leadership.



Abbasi was appointed oil minister when Nawaz Sharif won his third election in 2013.



Educated in the US at George Washington University, he was born in Karachi but is a member of the National Assembly from Murree  a hill station that is a favourite holiday destination for Sharif.



Abbasi worked in the US and Saudi Arabia as an electrical engineer before joining politics after his father, a minister in General Zia ul-Haq's government, was killed when an ammunition dump belonging to Pakistan's powerful ISI exploded in Rawalpindi in 1988.



Abbasi has been elected six times as a member of the National Assembly since then, and has previously served as minister for commerce and defence production.

He was the chairman of national flag carrier Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) from 1997 to 1999, until General Pervez Musharraf overthrew Sharif's second government.



Abbasi was arrested after the coup and imprisoned for two years before being released.



In 2003, he setup a private airline Air Blue, the country's most successful private airline and challenger to PIA.
Chinhoyi: Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Saturday said he was not stepping down nor dying and that there was no one with his political stature who could immediately take over from him.



The 93-year-old leader has been in charge in the former British colony since independence in 1980. His health is closely watched by Zimbabweans, who fear the country could face chaos if he dies without anointing a successor.



Mugabe told tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in the town of Chinhoyi, in his home province, that doctors were recently surprised by his "strong bone system."



He has travelled to Singapore three times this year for what officials say is routine medical treatment.



"There is the issue that the president is going. I am not going," Mugabe told supporters on the grounds of a local university, 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital Harare.



"The president is dying. I am not dying. I will have an ailment here and there but bodywise, all my internal organs ... very firm, very strong," Mugabe said as he leant on the lectern. Mugabe, who looks frail, had walked onto the stage slowly but without assistance.



The issue of who will succeed Mugabe has deeply divided the ruling party, with two factions supporting Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Mugabe's wife Grace.



On Thursday, Grace challenged Mugabe to name his preferred successor, to end divisions over the future leadership of ZANU-PF.



She repeated the call on Saturday, adding that Mugabe would lead the process to choose his eventual successor.



Mugabe said although some party officials wanted to succeed him, he saw no one among his subordinates with his political clout to keep the party united and fend off a challenge from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.



"A new man will not have the same stature and the same acceptance as I have managed to secure for the party over the years," said Mugabe.
Many words have been written about Dunkirk, the film by Christopher Nolan about hundreds of thousands of soldiers  most of them British  trapped on that long beach in Northern France with the German army coming to slaughter them.

Riveting and Oscar-worthy and stunning and so forth, and theyre all appropriate for this worthy film.

And because it is a great film, it should be seen in a theater. Dont wait for it to show up on your home TV. Youll only cheat yourself.

This one requires a theater screen to appreciate the span of it all, that long beach, the tiny men on it yearning for home, and that short ride across the English Channel; the rescue ships of the British Navy smashed by the German bombers, the British Spitfires knifing out of the sky.

So, there are many praiseful words for the movie, but after watching Dunkirk, I wanted to add another:

Decency.

Yes, decency is an odd word to pair with war. Nothing human beings have ever created and unleashed is more murderous than war, with death beyond measure, and so theres nothing decent about the cost of it.

And yes, as Dunkirk is a film about the war, there is death in it, death that comes randomly, or is delivered with surgical dispassion, which makes it all the more horrible.

But a great film always leaves me quiet and spent when its over, and in a quiet moment leaving the theater, I thought about the decency in what Id seen.

The decency of the young British soldiers waiting in impossibly long lines, quietly, standing out in the wind, searching the sky for enemy planes, praying for a chance at a boat to take them home.

The decency of their officers, who cared for them and who kept them calm.

The decency of British civilians, weekend sailors who answered the call and took their own fishing boats and pleasure craft, crossing the English Channel in a motley armada and approaching the murderous beach to save their soldiers, their countrymen, their boys.

The decency of a middle-aged father played by Mark Rylance, the owner of a small yacht Moonstone with his teenage son, played by Tom Glynn-Carney.

They crossed the channel because they had a job to do and they werent about to shirk responsibility. They didnt do a lot of talking. They made no big speeches. But they did share a look. And that was enough.

And the decency of a British fighter pilot, finally out of fuel, making one last desperate run in the hopes of knocking down a German plane to save more lives.

The pilot was played by actor Tom Hardy. The commander who kept them calm was played by Kenneth Branagh. Yes, they are great stars, but they were not the true stars in Dunkirk.

The star of Dunkirk is the character of the British people at that time, in the worst days of the war, long before America joined in, when the British Expeditionary Force was humiliated in Europe and almost destroyed.

And so it is a movie about a people of a certain time, a people who knew who they were, a people who firmly understood their culture and their obligations to it, and to their nation, and to each other.

You dont see or hear Winston Churchill in this film. You hear some of his words read by a soldier on a train, but you dont see his genius. All that happened after the troops were rescued.

The withdrawal at Dunkirk and what led to it was a terrible military defeat for the British Expeditionary Force. And yet, Churchill was somehow able to convince the British people they had won a great victory by rescuing their men on the beach. He rallied his people. And that kind of leadership is pure genius, indeed.

If you see Dunkirk, please dont go expecting a typical Hollywood formula war film, with plenty of character exposition and back story.

This is not a movie about cliched archetypes. You wont find a platoon of Brits passing around photos of their sweethearts. And you wont see the joker, the farmer, the ladies man or the upper-crust failure seeking to redeem himself. You wont see a Cockney urchin who teaches the lads to survive.

Dunkirk isnt built that way. It expects more of its audience. It does not condescend. It anticipates your intelligence and respects it.

And so it presents stories on the beach, and stories in the water, and stories in the air and expects you to follow without a guide book.

Though you wont get to know the men by what they say, youll know them by what they do. Actions, not words.

And youll see details as death comes, the sound of paper in the wind, sea foam on the beach, the scratching of chalk on the dashboard of a fighter plane, the ping of a bullet, the panic of those trapped on a ruined ship as it tips, the sound of bubbles underwater, and of boys breaking the surface to find a sea of fire.

Not many films are worth the price. This one is.

But please dont cram it into the end of a day when youre tired or rushed. See it when youre at your best. Respect it as much as it respects its audience.

And I know youll find the decency in it, too.
A few months after they were poised against each other as opponents in the race for governor, Republican nominee Ed Gillespie and Nelson resident Denver Riggleman met again Saturday.

This time, Riggleman welcomed Gillespie for a Whiskey Rebellion party in support of Gillespies campaign.

On the freshly manicured lawn behind Silverback Distillery in Afton, more than 100 people heard about some of Gillespies campaign priorities and promises. Guests also heard from Riggleman, co-owner of Silverback who sought the Republican gubernatorial nomination for about two months before suspending his campaign.

According to a Monmouth University poll released last week, Gillespie and his Democratic challenger, Ralph Northam, are tied with the support of 44 percent of likely voters. Libertarian Cliff Hydra had the support of 3 percent of likely voters with 12 percent undecided, the poll shows.

Saturdays Afton campaign stop was Gillespies fourth of five on the day. Before speaking in Afton, Gillespie visited Lynchburg and Moneta and was set to appear in Loudoun County later in the day.

According to Riggleman, attendees of the Afton event came from across the state, some from as far as four hours away.

A number of state legislators, all Republicans  Dels. Ben Cline (24th), Dickie Bell (20th) and Nick Freitas (30th) and Sen. Bryce Reeves, who represents the 17th district and was defeated by Jill Vogel in his bid to become the Republican nominee for lieutenant governor  also were in attendance.

During the 15-minute speech, Gillespie mentioned issues of taxes, education, energy, public safety and others.

These differences could not be more clear, and the stakes could not be more high for us, Gillespie said, referring to the contrast in positions between him and Northam. This next governors race, its not just about the next four years; it is about the next 20 to 30 years and what kind of commonwealth we are going to be and what kind of economy we are going to have.

Gillespie promised guests he would cut taxes 10 percent across the board and gave an impassioned defense of expanding school choice.

I will fight for children trapped in failing public schools, he said.

Gillespie bragged about his A rating from the National Rifle Association, saying hed fight to preserve Virginians second-amendment rights.

In his comments on the importance of public safety in the commonwealth, Gillespie specifically referred to a March incident that left Lynchburg teen Raymond Wood dead. Three undocumented immigrants, who Bedford County Sheriff Mike Brown said are associated with the international MS-13 gang, are charged with murder in connection to Woods death.

Gillespie used the incident to explain his view that Virginia must crack down on illegal immigration and the crimes he believes to be associated with the issue.

During a brief introduction of Gillespie, Riggleman  who has said he likely will run for governor in 2021  said he supports Gillespie for a number of reasons, including the fact he felt listened to by Gillespie during his short run for governor.

As a co-owner of Silverback Distillery, Riggleman explained hes been directly affected by what he views is government overreach and said Gillespies views on deregulation will help residents and entrepreneurs.

Gillespie promised attendees he will at a minimum repeal [or] modernize two antiquated regulations for every one we impose.

Hes talking about everything that Im for for small business creation, Riggleman said after Saturdays event.

Riggleman has said he pays what amounts to about a 50 percent tax on every bottle of whiskey he sells. The tax, Riggleman previously explained to The News & Advance, is part of the reason he plans to open another Silverback Distillery facility in Pennsylvania rather than Virginia.

Richard Averitt, a Nelson resident who said he supported Democrat Tom Perriello in the primary, said he came to Saturdays event to listen to and speak with Gillespie, hoping to hear his views on the multi-state, 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline slated to cut through Nelson County.

As a pipeline opponent, Averitt said he spoke with Gillespie on Saturday about his concerns regarding property rights and eminent domain associated with the ACP. He said Gillespie expressed sincere concern over the issue and was told Gillespie would work with other Republican leaders to get together  and look for a solution.

Im going to hold them to their word, Averitt said.  There is a place where Republicans and centrists like me and also liberals all meet, and thats on a property rights perspective. I think the Republican Party must address this issue.
Once named the unluckiest president in America by Fortune Magazine, University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan has been wrapped up  fairly or unfairly  in several nationally publicized crises since she took office in 2010. But going into the final year of her contract, the turbulence surrounding the university has mostly subsided, and relations with the Board of Visitors have improved since 2012, when the board voted to fire her before public pressure forced board members to reverse their decision.

On the eve of its bicentennial, the university is at a turning point in its history.

Under Sullivans leadership, the university  known especially for its strengths in the humanities and law  is attempting to rebrand as a center for health care and scientific research, investing in major technology upgrades and new research institutes. UVa is in the middle of a multi-year push to hire about 400 new faculty members to replace a wave of baby boomer retirees. After cutting financial aid in 2013 to stem out-of-control costs, the university has established a permanent endowment to ensure that AccessUVa, the aid program, can support itself in the future. But rising tuition costs also have drawn criticism from legislators and constituents.

The president  who has announced she will step down once her contract expires next summer  recently sat down with members of The Daily Progress editorial board to reflect on her time at UVa and look ahead to the universitys role in the future of the commonwealth.

On the qualities needed in the next president, who will be elected by the Board of Visitors:

You need to have a well-honed synthetic ability. You get information from many channels at once. You need to be able to filter out signal from noise. Then you need to be able to figure out how the signals correspond with one another and what the overall picture is. Really, no one can do this for you because everybody else has a partial view of the university compared to the president. That means that the president needs to be somebody whos curious. Somebody whos interested in what might seem kind of out of the ordinary.

Bob Bruner used to say  he was the dean of the Darden School [of Business]  he used to say, 'the faculty are not the employees; theyre the talent.' So the university is not a command-and-control kind of establishment. If you come in as a leader thinking thats how it works, you might be disappointed.

I think its also important to be able to synthesize across constituencies. The students will tell you they want something; the parents might want something totally different. The alumni have their point of view; so do the legislators, so do the donors. You need to be able to listen to all that and hear what is the most important underlying value here? And what is the most important thing you can do to help bring this about?

Survey respondents favor academic for next UVa president Albemarle supervisors wrote a memo about what they would like to see in the next president, and some potential projects for collaboration.

On the debate over whether the next president has to be a career academic:

I think lots of different backgrounds can be conducive to the presidency. But I will say this: The university is very different from any other organization because the nature of the employee base is many people who have a lot of expertise in their own area; not only expertise but recognition and standing. If they get angry with you, theyre walking out the door. Bob Bruner used to say  he was the dean of the Darden School [of Business]  he used to say, the faculty are not the employees; theyre the talent. So the university is not a command-and-control kind of establishment. If you come in as a leader thinking thats how it works, you might be disappointed.

A new way for UVa? Rise in private donations could change how the university makes decisions Legislators might have less influence in the future as UVa relies more on private donations to cover operating costs and less on state appropriations.

In 2013, a consulting company hired by the university, the Art & Science Group, said UVa was losing its competitive advantage and suggested the university leverage its strengths as an undergraduate institution and focus less on research. Youve gone in a different direction. Why? Do you think that was the right decision?

I do think it was the right choice to make, in part because research universities do something different for students. Youre not abandoning the students by being a research university  youre giving them opportunities they would not have otherwise. Jonathan Kipnis is the neuroscientist who discovered [in 2015] that the brain has a lymphatic system; amazing discovery that could bring a lot downstream for the 12 undergraduates working in his laboratory. Imagine being one of his undergraduates in that lab. Thats really extraordinary. Thats an experience you cant have if youre not at a school thats doing the cutting-edge research were doing.

On researchs role in driving the economy:

I think its important for Virginias future. The Virginia economy is not going to be able to rely, long run, on just the federal government. Its going to have to diversify. And the way we diversify will make a big difference in terms of whether this is a prosperous state or a not-so-prosperous state. It is not, in my opinion, a big economic coup to bring in a company from another state who will hire 40 people at minimum wage. But to have a startup here thats going to provide good jobs with benefits  and, hopefully, additional jobs every year, as the company grows  thats the kind of thing that really helps economic development. Thats the promise and the hope, and I think were beginning to capitalize on it.

Author calls on federal prosecutors to investigate UVa admissions UVa spokesman Anthony P. de Bruyn said the university strongly objects to Thomas accusations, which he called unfounded.

The universitys fundraising office  known as the advancement office  kept a list of VIP applicants whose parents are donors or alumni. Emails show the office was meeting with Sean Jenkins, one of Sullivans staffers. Were you aware of this?

It is true that Sean in my office serves as a kind of collecting point because he hears from all sorts of people about applicants. We get lots of volunteered advice about students who are in the applicant pool. And Sean makes sure that that information gets fed to the dean of admissions, [Gregory Roberts]. But [the dean] makes the decisions.

I get lots of letters from people that say, so-and-so is my constituent and Id like to bring them to your attention, and so on. We send those letters to the file of the student. We do a holistic review. We look at lots of different things. Well look at that letter in the file, just like well look at anything.

But that doesnt mean that just because Sean says something, that Dean Roberts automatically does it. In fact, [its] quite the contrary. This year in particular I had lots of conversations with lots of angry and disappointed people whose nominee didnt get in. Its not surprising because a lot of people want to go to UVa.

Has anything changed, procedurally, since then? Have you made it clear that theres supposed to be a barrier between admissions and fundraising?

There already is. Thats why they go to Sean. But weve also told them we dont want any more lists.

On her most memorable achievement in office:

First of all, Ive still got 12-and-a-half percent of my term ahead of me [laughs]. So I might give you a different answer next June. But all in all Id have to say Ive loved ever moment of it. Even the times that were turbulent  I kind of enjoyed the challenge that represents. I like problem-solving, and I get to do a lot of it in this job.

I think we honored the universitys past and traditions in some important ways, including the restoration of the Rotunda, which looked like a pretty daunting project, but the result has been beautiful.

But we may have done it in some unexpected ways, too. Im thinking about the Presidents Commission on Slavery and the University. We learned a lot about our university that we didnt know before. And what weve tried to do is present that information in a way that tells visitors to the university a fuller story about who we were and how we got to be where we are.

UVa building named for former slave, stonemason When I started reading these letters  I stopped everything I was working on and I realized this was a story that needed to be told.

On the controversy over public memorials to the Confederacy in Charlottesville:

Im not going to try to second-guess the City Council. They spent a lot of time studying this  they had their Blue Ribbon Commission [on Race, Memorials and Public Spaces], and so on. I do think its a difficult situation. ... I hate seeing Charlottesville going into the crosshairs as the conflicted grounds on which this gets settled.

What can the city learn from UVa about confronting its own history, which is tied with slavery? What can they take away from the process UVa used to plan the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers?

We spent a lot of time on it. I think that was important, to give all the people who wanted to talk about it an opportunity. It also wasnt the only thing we did. Weve named two new buildings after people who were enslaved at the university. Weve also found a slave cemetery. Weve created an African-American walking tour of the university. Weve changed the information given on tours by the university guides. Were just trying to recover our history. If its just about the symbols, I dont think its as effective. Not to say that symbols dont matter  they do.

But I am pleased at how people seem to have come together around the Memorial to Enslaved Laborers. One of the reasons they proposed the location [the space between the Corner and the Rotunda] they did is because it is close to the Corner and therefore closer to the city. They saw it as a kind of symbolic link between the city and the university. And I hope it will be seen that way.
Dayo Bejide: New Wisdom Through Music

Natures Cry, the opening rendition, set the tone for the rest of the groups performance. In a sense, it could be read as an invocation to nature  the natural sounds conjured in the music  and the natural material  calabash, bamboo, seeds  out of which the organic instruments were fashioned.

It was a sound that sent us back to roots, a pristine sound that invoked all of nature under a night sky surrounded by all the modern amenities of Fiesta Plaza.

Rainstick, calabash owls and calabash birds invoked the spirit and the sounds of the forest.

It was an appropriate start to a set that would take the audience on a journey that combined nature and technology, a seamless and harmonic merging of two sides of our modern lives that are sometimes at war with each other, sides of our lives that we are constantly struggling to harmonise.

The music is not just about music. Its the story of the African people and its about environmental awareness as well, says Baba Onilu, one of the leaders of the band.

He and his brother Modupe Onilu are carrying out the legacy of their late father Jajah Oga Onilu, a man who was respected among the music community for his spirituality and his musical innovations.

Today, his sons move with the times without losing the philosophy underlying the music  the knowledge of self and a rootedness in their own ethnic and spiritual traditions.

In the world of the Internet and social media, many get lost in the vast supply of available information while some use it to their advantage. As Baba notes, the music is also about creating new wisdom. Its an important point.

No longer is wisdom dispensed only from books. And no longer is it set in stone.

Social media and Google searches could bring up any number of motivational ideas and images.

We can now take from these, the data that we need to enhance ourselves. Constantly refreshing the store of wisdom that will aid our earthly travels.

Dayo Bejides music is based on this ideal. Combining their legacy of organic music with more modern sounds, Modupe and Baba now bring together the sound of a modern generation  a combination of jazz, rapso, metal, and the organic.

Vocalist John John, with his mesmerising and intriguing song Freedom, an item that combined metal and rapso, joined the group onstage. The heavy guitar of John Hussain combined with the African drums merged as if they belonged together.

The idea of bringing in other musicians and vocalists was to give the music some variety. We are an instrumental band and while we are Afro- centric we are also creating music that everyone will appreciate, Baba says.

The goal is not lost.

The originals like Behind the Bridge, a rhythmic number, and Empowerment followed by an Ella Andall cover Black Woman, rendered by Patrice Inglesbert; the Fela Kuti medley comprising Shakara, Water Get No Enemy and Zombie with accompanying vocals by John John and Ingelsbert, provided a truly captivating experience.

The instrumentation, comprising keyboard (Kadeem Alleyne), flute (Mark Brewster), saxophone (Daniel Ryan), electric guitar (John Hussain), bass guitar (Clint Harewood) and organic instruments (Baba and Modupe Onilu), was in no small measure, a perfect harmony of musical colours.

The group is certainly on its way to creating a sound that can stand firm on the national and international circuits.

Dayo Bejide will perform at Freedom.

com - the legacy of Lancelot Layne in commemoration of Emancipation on August 31 at Big Black Box, 33 Murray Street, Woodbrook, Port of Spain.

The show features new music from 3canal & cut + clear crew, Freetown Collective and Dayo Bejide.

Gates open at 8 pm.

See Freedom.com on Facebook for more details.
Two zebras arrive at Emperor Valley Zoo

The Zoological Society of Trinidad and Tobago (ZSTT), in a release yesterday, announced the safe arrival of the zebras. The animals landed at 8pm on Friday night and on hand to receive them were Agriculture Minister Clarence Rambharat and ZSTT president Gupte Lutchmedial.

Accompanying the animals on their journey was John Seyjagat, the ZSTTs international director, the release said.

Lutchmedial in a statement yesterday morning said: The zebras have adjusted nicely in its enclosure and our thanks to John for looking after their well being on the journey overland from Texas and by air from Miami. The ZSTT is committed to enhancing our guest experiences and this newest arrival to our African Exhibit is in keeping with our strategic thrust.
My music is my ordination from God

Sandra announced the initiative during an interview last week at her home at Carlsen Field in which she also discussed, her spirituality, crime and her being honoured by the Emancipation Support Committee (ESC).

Tomorrow, as part of the Emancipation Day celebrations the ESC will be holding a concert in her honour. She said she will be elated and it is another body of people who are saying thanks to her and recognising her contributions.

She thanked the entire ESC and whoever endorsed the idea.

I am forever grateful. She said there is not enough recognition of calypso stalwarts. She recalled at the recent funeral for Devon Matthews someone asked her about all the arrangements for Matthews compared to the arrangements for calypsonian Samuel Brigo Abraham. Sandra said she took offence at the statement and pointed out that it was the media who formed themselves into a body and ensured Matthews received the send off that he did and it was not the Government.

She said, for Brigo, calypsonians did not take up that mantle for his funeral. She predicted if certain calypsonians like Sparrow, Black Stalin and Calypso Rose got sick or died that the Government would get involved.

Sandra said she is up to date with social media and she uses WhatsApp and manages her Facebook fan page.

She said her fans are from all over the Caribbean, throughout America and from London.

She said in her 34-year career she has been able to travel and spread her wings to many places including England, Canada, the Bahamas, the Caribbean, the US Virgin Islands, a visit to Ghana courtesy of the National Joint Action Committee and a visit to South Africa courtesy the Peoples National Movement government.

Sandra said she is treated better in these countries than in Trinidad though she does not let it bother her.

She said a number of female calypsonians in the country and the region were singing calypso because of her. She explained as she mentors young female calypsonians, she urges them not to be like her but be themselves.

She said seeing female calypsonians like Karen Asche, Alana Sinnette and Makeda Darius she can pat herself on the back and say job well done. She also pointed out that Crystal Cummins-Beckles is called the Singing Sandra of Barbados and Singing Althea, who she considers one of her daughters as she worked with her personally, is considered the Singing Sandra of Antigua.

Sandra said she is working with the Grenada government to increase the number of female calypsonians.

She explained they do not have many in Grenada while in Trinidad we are safe in terms of female calypsonians.

She said her father was from Grenada and she views the initiative as her giving back. She said the initiative is on stream and a date has been set for her departure. Grenada provided her with a Masters of Calypso Award. SATURATED WITH INNOCENT BLOOD Sandra released her song Cleansing Fire earlier this year and participated in the preliminaries of the Calypso Monarch but was not selected for the Calypso Fiesta semi-final.

She said she was not working on any music presently and until December she is focusing on spiritual things.

Carnival 2018 aint nowhere close here right now. God first. She said she does not make Carnival and calypso and competition a big thing. I am out there to do what God has ordained me to do. I look at it as an ordination, not just a job. And I does tell God to use me. She said every time she is on stage she asks God to let her touch someone whether it is to help someone laugh or help change something in their life.

The task is mine; the glory belongs to God. In 1999 she won the National Calypso Monarch crown with the songs Voices from the Ghetto and Song for Healing and again in 2003 with For Whom the Bells Toll and Ancient Rhythm.

In Voices from the Ghetto Sandra lamented crime and poverty through the metaphor of voices crying out. Asked if the voices were crying even louder now she responded, Where do you live? You dont think its worse now? Its worse now. I do not see it getting better no time soon. She said fish does not rotten from the head and while blame is cast on the young men who are killing each other, she questioned where the guns and drugs are coming from.

She said it hurts her when people stigmatise young people. She stressed there were young people who were trying to make a difference in their communities and make a positive contribution but they were discriminated against by other young people. She said people are not looking at where the downward spiral started and she believes it is when they took prayers out of school. She pointed out that now churches were being desecrated and Fr Clyde Harvey, who has contributed so much to the youth in the country, was robbed this year.

She said some parents are children themselves and since they have not finished growing and learning, they have nothing to teach their children.

She said teachers want to teach but they are afraid of the students whose father is a bad man or are threatened by students. She recalled in her day she could not even steups in front of teacher.

She said half of the young boys in crime are involved because their fathers or uncles were involved first and they have to carry on the legacy. No value for life. No respect for God. On the young women, she said some of them were losing morals and dressing where they do not leave anything to the imagination.

She said they may tell her this was for her time but she would wonder aloud if they will reach her age and where she is.

She revealed she had to leave school to make money to pay for her education and she had to put in hard work, perseverance, fortitude and endurance.

She said the nation is very spiritual and that is what is saving us.

She pointed out there were many churches, mosques and mandirs in the country and we are a praying people. Sandra recalled when Tropical Storm Bret was coming to this country people created an ID card with a picture of Jesus to make the joke God is a Trini. However she asked if God is a Trini, based on how we are treating God what will happen when he is fed up? If he get fed up, we in serious trouble. She said the country needed Bret and that magnitude of water to wash away all of the innocent blood spilled.

Trinidad saturated with the blood of the innocent. She recalled the murder of 13-year-old Videsh Subar.

What this child do? she asked rhetorically.

She said some people made comments about race but she did not see a little Indian child, just a child. She said her children married Indian women and she has Indian relatives.

She said while she is of African descent, she is a Trinidadian.

Sandra explained she is Baptist and Orisha and she asks God to fill her mouth with good things so she can help people.

If we could unite as a people spiritually we could save the nation. Asked about her health, Sandra said she is good after God. In early 2015 she was in the Intensive Care Unit after hernia surgery. She said after that experience, her course is set by God.

If I complain I will be wicked and ungrateful. God is good to me.

I wake up in the morning, even if it is with a pain, I am still breathing. I am grateful and thankful.
ASP Michael Pierre: 1990 was like being in a war movie

Acting Assistant Superintendent of Police Michael Pierre was a traffic officer with a little more than two years experience as a constable.

Pierre, now the Police Services public information officer, related to Sunday Newsday the role he had to play in the events of 1990.

I was assigned to the San Fernando Police Station, Pierre said. When the take over of TTT (Trinidad and Tobago Television) was happening, I was getting ready to report to duty, so I was getting ready to leave my home in Princes Town. Little did Pierre know he would be instructed to carry out one of the most dangerous missions of his law enforcement career - escorting Anglican canon Reverend Knolly Clarke to the Red House where he would act as a negotiator for the release of hostages.

When I saw it (on television) I was alarmed because I realised this was a serious thing and I rushed to work. While I was there, the Assistant Commissioner of Police was Norton Regis.

He came to the traffic section where I and Constable Patrick were and asked us if we were armed and who was the driver.

He said we would have to escort Mr Knolly Clarke to the Red House. So, based on the little information that I heard through the grape vine, I felt a chill.

I was thinking that I had no kind of warfare training and here it is Im going to escort Mr Clarke to the Red House. Pierre said while he was fearful, his sense of service as an officer of the law prevailed.

In my heart thats my duty and I took an oath to serve TT as a police officer and if that was a part of it, well then I intended to do my duty. He said while he was aware of the gravity of the situation, the sight of looters along the highway put the situation into context for him.

I can recall when we reached the Churchill Roosevelt Highway in the vicinity of Sea Lots I saw this guy with a fridge on his back running across the road.

I saw a hub of activity in that area, people running with microwaves, but the size of the fridge was almost the size of the man and here he is running with it.

The chill I felt never left because I didnt know if Im driving into my death, but I was very aware of the seriousness of the situation because the looting meant things went topsy turvy. He said he, his colleagues and Clarke arrived at the army base in Chaguaramas from where Clarke would be taken to the Red House. However, this was not the end of his experience as the base fell under siege from insurgents later that evening.

I can recall whilst being in the barracks it was like actually being in a war movie. We were hearing gunshots and explosions. I remember at the time I was wearing a standard police-issued tunic and it had these silver buttons coming across like a cross. A soldier came up to me and he said, You crazy! You setting yourself up as a target with a big cross on your chest! Boy take off them buttons or open up the tunic. Pierre explained due to the strict regulations at the barracks in the wake of the siege, he did not hear from his family or colleagues.

I was at the army base from the Friday till Sunday evening.

I wasnt able to communicate with my family until Sunday when I got a call from a resident over at Flagstaff, so I didnt know what was the state of my family, they didnt know what my state was, whether Im alive or dead. Later on I found out that the people on work were praying for us because they thought since they had no communication with us that something went wrong and we were dead or something. Pierre said while he has gone on to lead a long and eventful career, his involvement in the coup has stood out to him as the most terrifying.

Sunday Newsday also spoke with Fuad Abu Bakr, son of the leader of the Jamaat Al Muslimeen, Imam Yasin Abu Bakr.

Bakr said while he was only a child at the time, he remembered seeing his father on television announcing the overthrow of the government.

I was five-yearsold.

All I remembered was seeing my father that evening but then I didnt see him again until he was on television.

I was at my maternal grandparents house. At the time, I didnt grasp the seriousness of what was going on. It was only later on after the coup played out I realised how serious this was.
Mugabe has resisted calls for reform but we will continue (with the calls). The Constitution says the army should be apolitical and remain in the barracks only to work for the security of all citizens and defence of the country.
ZIMBABWE AIRWAYS  the new debt-free airline rising out of the ashes of Air Zimbabwe  is in advanced talks with a Brazilian company to lease five aircraft to service underserved regional routes, it has been learnt.





Government said last negotiations were ongoing but would not name the lessor. However, sources told The Sunday Mail Business that the firm in question could be ECC Leasing, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Brazils Embraer.





Embraer established ECC in 2002 to manage and market its pre-owned aircraft. The Brazilian aerospace conglomerate is the worlds third largest civil aircraft manufacturer, and supplies companies like Fastjet with equipment ideal for budget and low-cost services.





The 48-year-old Embraer raked in more US$6 billion in revenues in 2015, and produces the EMB (suitable for the military), ERJ 145 (50 passengers), Legacy 600 (263 passengers), Lineage (21 passengers), LR and Phenom.





In 2013, Air Zimbabwe leased its first 50-seater Embraer jet from Johannesburg-based Solenta Aviation and used it for domestic routes.





On April 4 the following year, Government announced its intention to lease two more Embraer jets for local and regional destinations.





But last week Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo said Government had not spoken to Embraer.





The issue at hand is that the planes that I think we may lease are Embraers because they are small and they carry about 50 passengers.





I cant afford long-haul aircrafts for the region. I am in the middle of negotiations to lease planes; that is a fact. I realised that partnerships may give use headaches . . . I want to keep the national flag (on the planes), so leasing would be ideal . . . The negotiations are very advanced at the moment, he said.





ECC Leasings director corporate of communications for Europe, the Middle East and Africa Mr Guy Douglas would neither confirm nor deny any deal.





Thank you for contacting me with your questions. However, we do not comment on speculation or rumour. Sorry I am unable to help further, said Mr Douglas.





Government indicated last week that it was also looking at long-haul planes.





Dr Gumbo said: I am looking for long-haul planes. I want the long-haul planes to do long distance routes such as London-Harare, Harare-Dubai, Harare-Kuala Lumpur, Harare-Cape Town and Harare-Lagos.





But as I look for those long-haul planes, I am looking for a minimum of six smaller planes to ply regional routes. These smaller planes would feed passengers into the long-haul aircrafts that would be plying long distance routes.





For four years, Air Zimbabwe was considering re-introducing a milk run  an air service that includes Harare, Bulawayo, Hwange, Victoria Falls and Kariba  to facilitate efficient services. Government has also wants to fly to regional routes like Angola, the DRC, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia and Zambia; and international destinations the UAE and Singapore.





When our flights brought passengers at Harare International Airport, (long haul planes) would carry them to London, Dubai, Singapore, Nigeria and Cape Town.





That is what I am trying to do because I cant just have beautiful airports and fail to have a good plan for them. So those are my plans, explained Dr Gumbo.





In November last year, Government commissioned the refurbished Victoria Falls International Airport and plans are underway to spruce up Harare International Airport.




No One Will

Ever Smash

Stuff Quite

Like He Did
The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. The B-1 bombers were escorted by South Korean fighter jets on a low pass over an air base near Seoul before returning to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the US Pacific Air Forces said, in a response to consecutive ICBM tests by North Korea. Analysts say flight data from the North's second ICBM test Friday night showed that a broader part of the mainland United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of Pyongyang's weapons. "North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said Gen. Terrence O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, per the AP.

He continued: "Diplomacy remains the lead. However ... If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing." The United States often sends powerful warplanes in times of heightened tensions with North Korea. B-1 bombers have been sent to South Korea for flyovers several times this year in response to the North's banned missile tests, and also following the death of a US college student last month after he was released by North Korea in a coma. The Hwasong-14 ICBM, which the North first tested on July 4, is the highlight of several new weapons systems Pyongyang launched this year. They include an intermediate range missile that North Korea says is capable of hitting Alaska and Hawaii, and a solid-fuel midrange missile, which analysts say can be fired faster and more secretly than liquid-fuel missiles. (Read more North Korea stories.)
Scotland has found one more thing to fret about as Britain drags it toward a breakup with the European Union: Its precious whisky. Scotland has called for Scotch to be defined in UK law so its vital whisky industryworth about $5.3 billion in exportscan be protected after Brexit, reports the AP. "Aside from being a key part of Scottish culture and identity, our whisky industry supports around 20,000 jobs," Scottish Economy Secretary Keith Brown has written to officials, per Sky News. A European Union definition of whisky currently protects sales from substandard productsbut EU laws will no longer apply to Britain after the country exits the bloc in 2019.

Further, per Brown, "the US made clear in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership discussions that they would support a relaxation of the definition of whisky, which would open the market up to a number of products which do not currently meet that standard. Brown's comments Sunday came after Britain's International Trade Secretary Liam Fox visited the US this week for trade talks. Responds a UK government rep, per the BBC: "Scotch is a UK export success story and we will support the industry so that it continues to thrive and prosper post-Brexit." (Read more Scotland stories.)
When 49-year-old widower Craig Sullivan decided to dive back into the dating pool, he went with what he thought was a grand romantic gesture over swiping right on Tinder: The Scot took a week in mid-July and tossed 2,000 message-carrying bottles into waters around the United Kingdom, in the hopes that "you might open one and read a message," he says. But rather than the romantic missives he'd hoped for, many of the responses he received were upset that he was littering, reports CBS News. "Please reconsider putting all of these into the sea, lots of us spend hours picking up beach," read one woman's letter, while another suggested he join "a big beach clean, you may pick up a hobby & meet someone there too?"

"The abuse was not very good," says Sullivan. "In several instances it got out of hand. It was never my intent to harm the environment." And though one complainant asked that "we get this half-wit arrested," Scottish environmental officials tell the BBC that Sullivan has stopped and that they have no plans to take action. And all is not lost, as Sullivan says he's actually gotten 50 responses from women more interested in dating him than giving him an environmental lecture. And "Bottle Man" has gotten no small amount of publicity out of the controversy, notes the Scottish Sun, which chortles about Sullivan's quest for a "missus in a bottle." Sullivan writes on Medium that, yes, he was inspired by the Police songalong with this piece a dying woman wrote about her husband. (Read more message in a bottle stories.)
One day after North Korea tested a missile that experts say has the range to hit major cities in the United States, President Trump took to Twitter to express his disappointment with China for doing "NOTHING for us" when it comes to the rogue country, CBS News reports. "I am very disappointed in China," Trump tweeted around 7:30 on Saturday night. "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk." Two weeks earlier a spokesman for the Chinese foreign ministry said that China does not "hold the key to resolve" the Korea issue, the Atlantic reports.

Experts in the US, South Korea, and Japan say the intercontinental ballistic missile launched from near North Korea's border with China on Friday flew about 2300 miles high and for a distance of 621 miles, CNN reports. All told the missile was in the air for about 45 minutes. Had the missile been fired on a flatter trajectory, major US cities like Los Angeles and Chicago would have been in its range, possibly even New York City and Boston. In response to the test the US flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force Sunday, Reuters reports. The US also hopes to set up an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council this week to discuss the issue. (Read more Donald Trump stories.)
A 55-year-old family mystery was finally solved this week just hours after the story appeared on Canadian television, the CBC reports. In 1962, a woodsman searching for timber in the forest of Lutes Mountain in New Brunswick, Canada, found a large white box hanging from a tree by a parachute. Inside the box, David McPherson Sr. and his family found two cameras. A few days later, the Canadian military took the box away, and despite promises from the government and two access-to-information requests to the Department of Defense over the next decades, the McPhersons never saw the box again. Then the CBC reported on the socalled "thing in the woods" on Tuesday, and within hours tips began coming in from viewers, and soon the mystery was solved.

Viewers pointed the CBC to the Military Communications and Electronics Museum in Kingston, Ont., and to declassified documents on the CIA website, both of which had photographs of an AN/DMQ-1 gondola, part of American surveillance equipment used in the 1950s to conduct reconnaissance of Soviet Russia and Communist China as part of an operation called Project Genetrix. The project was run alongside a "front" operation involving weather balloons, and the National Reconnaissance Office explains that of the 516 camera-carrying high-altitude balloons launched as part of the program, most weren't recovered by the US; "useful intelligence" was gleaned from just 34 of them. Though the discovery marks the end of a half-century of wondering for the McPherson family, it came too late for the man who found the mystery box in the first place. David McPherson Sr. died 18 months ago. (Read about another mystery that's been solved.)
As Senate Republicans go back to the drawing board on the proposed Obamacare repeal, Sen. Bernie Sanders has swung the national healthcare debate to the other side of the pendulum. The Vermont Independent says hell absolutely introduce a single-payer bill to the Senate, reports the Hill. Sanders didnt give a timeline for the proposed bill, but told CNNs Jake Tapper on State of the Union that, Were tweaking the final points of the bill and were figuring out how we can mount a national campaign to bring people together. According to CNN, the senator admitted that the Republican-controlled Congress wouldnt be the only obstacle in passing such a bill. Special interest groups all but sank Vermonts bid to enact a single-payer system, he said, and would make such a proposal difficult to pass.

"Taking on the insurance companies and the drug companies, taking on Wall Street, taking on a lot of very powerful forces that make billions of dollars a year from the current health care system is not going to be easy, he said, and it's not going to take place until millions of people get involved in this struggle. Per the Hill, a spokesperson for Sanders called a single-payer amendment attached to the ObamaCare repeal Wednesday a sham. President Trump tweeted support for repeal Sunday morning, writing, Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replace...and go to 51 votes (nuke option), get Cross State Lines & more. But Sanders isnt taking the bait: "If people don't like the private insurance that they're getting, they should have a Medicare-type public option available in every state in this country. (Read more health care stories.)
The office of Nashville Mayor Megan Barry said Sunday that her only child has died of an apparent drug overdose. The office released a statement from Barry and her husband, Bruce, saying 22-year-old Max Barry died Saturday night in Denver. "Early this morning, we received news that no parents should ever have to hear," the couple said. "Our son Max suffered from an overdose and passed away. We cannot begin to describe the pain and heartbreak that comes with losing our only child. Our son was a kind soul full of life and love for his family and friends." Max Barry graduated in June from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma, Washington, reports the AP.

"Our family would greatly appreciate your thoughts and prayers, and would respectfully ask for privacy as we mourn the loss of our child and begin to understand a world without his laughter and love in our lives," the statement said. Megan Barry was sworn in as Nashville's first female mayor in September 2015 with her husband and son by her side. Investigator Melinda Rose of the Jefferson County Coroner's Office in Denver told The Tennessean that an official cause or manner of death would not be declared until after the results of an autopsy, which was planned for Sunday. The newspaper reported Max Barry had recently moved to Denver. Condolences for the Barry family poured in on social media. "No parent should ever live to see the passing of a child," Nashville Sheriff Daron Hall said on Twitter. (Read more drug overdose stories.)
Nawaz Sharif ousted: How the global media reacted on political turmoil in Pakistan

Islamabad : A day after the Pakistan Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif for being "dishonest" in its decision on the Panamagate case, the global media on Saturday came out with mixed reactions about the political turmoil in the South Asian nation.

Ever since the joint investigation team (JIT) submitted its report to the Supreme Court on July 10, both national and international media had speculated about the fate of Nawaz Sharif and his family.

Following are a few reactions published in the media around the world.

The Guardian in an editorial said that though the court verdict "leaves Pakistan's politics in turmoil, it (Panama Papers) is a very international affair.. Efforts must not stop there. The public register for beneficial owners of UK companies must be extended to British tax havens; it must include trusts; and a proper means of checking it must be introduced. Accountability should not depend on leaks, however effective they have proved this time."

The New York Times, in an op-ed article titled "Pakistan's Court Sets a Dangerous Precedent", said the "verdict came as no surprise. Even though Sharif was not named in the Panama leaks, and there is no evidence that he abused public office for private gain, the judges disqualified him for hiding assets, and therefore, not being "honest", (...) Pakistan's politicians are not paragons of probity, but corruption is not the main reason for Sharif's predicament (...) The judges have clearly undermined the perception of justice by deposing Sharif without due process or trial to prove his innocence."

The Hindustan Times in an editorial titled "Nawaz Sharif's conviction leaves a political vacuum in Pakistan. This is not good news for India", said Sharif's "departure from the political scene is almost certain to herald a period of volatility within Pakistan and, therefore, greater risk in relations between India and Pakistan".

Bloomberg in an op-ed titled "Pakistan's Politics Fail Again", said: "Nobody should be above the law, but the circumstances surrounding the judgement are troubling Pakistan's courts shouldn't do the work of voters. Its anti-graft bodies could use more resources and greater independence, but politicians should resolve their political differences in Parliament and through the ballot box. Removing Sharif may have been the right thing to do, but it's no remedy for what ails Pakistan."

The Times of India in an op-ed titled "India keeps close watch as verdict on Nawaz Sharif puts Pakistan in a flux", said: "The (Indian) government has stayed silent, refraining from even categorising this as an "internal matter", which is a stock response by the foreign ministry, but the unseating of the Pakistani leader is not a surprise to South Block.

"The possibility of political instability deepening in Pakistan cannot be ruled out and, if that happens, India will take on a more defensive posture."

The Gulf News in an editorial, "Nawaz Sharif's ouster will strengthen democratic norms in Pakistan", noted: "It is very unfortunate for the people of Pakistan that none of their country's prime ministers has ever completed a five-year term. But this verdict will go a long way to strengthen democratic norms in the country and pave the way for honest politicians and officials to run the state. Sharif has also responded wisely by announcing to step down even before the Election Commission issued a notification to remove him from his post, following the court verdict."
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New Delhi:

In a heart-wrenching incident, a three-year-old girl on Sunday died at a Kolkata hospital after being pierced with needles by a man practising black magic.

The man allegedly made the girl a voodoo doll, inserted seven needles in her body and abused her sexually. Due to the torture and sexual abuse, she went into severe trauma.

The girl was admitted to SSKM government hospital where doctors performed a surgery on her to extract seven needles from her body.

"The child had a successful surgery and was recuperating at the ICU. She was under observation for 48 hours. But, it seems the trauma was too much for her to bear," a senior doctor of the hospital said.

It is confirmed that she died because of the infection caused by seven needles. We are also waiting for other reports which will take another three weeks to arrive," a forensic department official said.

Mother of the girl took her to Bankura Medical College and Hospital where doctors after seeing needle wounds informed the police.

The girl was then shifted to SSKM hospital where doctors found her organs pierced with needles.

Police have arrested mother of the girl on suspicion of her involvement and one more person who is on the run has been booked under POCSO act.
New Delhi:

Days long wait came to an end as The Indian Institute of Management has already announced the date of India's biggest MBA entrance test, the Common Admission Test 2017 (CAT 2017).

Latest media report suggests that IIM, Lucknow is all set to conduct the examination on November 26, 2017 in two sessions. They have also released the notification in newspapers on Sunday, July 30 all over India.

The registration process for the same will start from August 9 and will continue till September 20, 2017.

"The duration of the test will be 180 minutes," Prof Neeraj Dwivedi, convener, CAT 2017 was quoted while talking about the same.

"We will allow use of basic onscreen calculator for computation. Candidates will be allotted exactly 60 minutes for answering questions in each section and they cannot switch from one section to another while answering questions in a section," he said.

"We will try our best to assign candidates to their first preferred city. In case it is not possible, they will be assigned a city following their given order of preference. In the rare case that a candidate is not allotted any of the preferred cities, he/she will be allotted to an alternate city," added professor Dwivedi.

For further assistance and help students may also go for the registration guide and online tutorial which is going to be released soon.

Apart from 20 IIMs institutes around hundread non-IIM B-schools also consider CAT scores to offer admissions to students in various management courses across the country.

Also Read: AIIMS paper leak: Delhi HC asks Centre to reply on plea for probe

Here we bring you Some important dates and informations students should keep in mind:

1.Graduates with 50% marks or above are eligible only to apply for Common Admission Test 2017 (CAT 2017) while the required percentage is way below for reserved categories which is 45%.

2.Candidates interested for Fellow programmes in management (FPM) also need to hold a valid rank in CAT for which a seperate advertisement will be released soon.

3.Admissions in PGP-FABM & ePGP of IIM Ahmedabad, PGPEM & PGPPM Programmes of IIM Bangalore, EPGP of IIM Indore, EFPM & EPGPM of IIM Kashipur, PGP-ABM & PGP-SM of IIM Lucknow, PGPWE of IIM Raipur, PGDHRM of IIM Ranchi, EPGP of IIM Rohtak, PGPEX of RGIIM Shillong and PGPBM of IIM Tiruchirappalli are also offered through the Common Entrance Test 2017.

4.Registration fee need to be submitted only for once even if they are applying for several institutes in the country.

5. While filling the form, candidates need to mention name of four cities of their choice out of 140 exam cities chosen for CAT 2017.

6.To check the list of non-IIM institutions which also consider a valid rank in CAT students may log in to iimcat.ac.in

7.CAT 2017 scores will be valid till December 31 2018

8.Candidates are allowed to download their admit card online from October 18 to November 26.

9.'Performance in CAT 2017 examination is an important component for consideration in the selection process. IIMs may also use previous academic performance of the candidates, relevant work experience and other similar inputs in short-listing of candidates at various stages of the selection process.'

10.About reservation norm, the official notification reads, 'For the purpose of being considered for reservations, the applicable Central Government list as on the last date of CAT registration shall be binding. No subsequent changes will be effective for CAT 2017 and any subsequent selection process of the IIMs.'

Also Read: CU extends date of undergraduate admission till July 31

About The Common Admission Test (CAT):

The Common Admission Test (CAT) is a computer based test held in India. The test scores a candidate on the bases of Quantitative Ability (QA), Verbal Ability (VA) and Reading Comprehension (RC), Data Interpretation (DI) and Logical Reasoning (LR). The Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) started this exam and use the test for selecting students for their business administration programs.
New Delhi:

Niti Taylor has confirmed her exit from Life OK's popular show 'Ghulaam' and said that it is a teary-eyed moment for her. The actress plays the role of Shivaani in 'Ghulaam' and has been associated with the show from the beginning.

While the news of her exit from 'Ghulaam' has left her fans disappointed, Niti said it was an amicable decision as per the demand of the script. "Yes, my character is all set to exit from the show Ghulaam. All good things come to an end first and so is my character. As per the demand of the script, the makers and I have decided to amicably part ways," Niti said in a statement.



The television actress further asserted that she had a great time being a part of the show and called it a wonderful journey. "I have been associated with the show right from its inception and obviously it's a teary-eyed moment. It has been a wonderful journey for me and I have thoroughly enjoyed being a part of the show. I hope my fans will continue to support me in my future endeavours," Niti added.



Reportedly, Niti's character will be killed in the show. According to a report published in India Today, "In the upcoming sequence, Rangeela (Param Singh) and Shivani will be seen fighting a war against the atrocities taking place at Berehampur and will be on a mission to change the fate of the fictional city. Shivani's character will be seen paying the price for fighting against the odds of Berehampur."



The media reports also suggest that 'Ghulaam' will have a new female lead in the upcoming episodes and the makers are planning to rope in a fresh face for the show. While the quest for the leading lady is on, the makers are yet to announce the new female lead of 'Ghulaam'.
New Delhi:

Bihar minister Khurshid alias Firoz Ahmad on Sunday apologised for shouting slogan of "Jai Shree Ram" after swearing-in ceremony which drew fatwa from Imarat Shariah.

The minister said, "I apologize to anyone who was hurt. I didn't abuse anyone. No one asked me what's in my heart." He said none has asked him that what was in his heart and jumped to a conclusion on their own.

Mufti Suhail A Qasmi who issued fatwa said that Islam does not accept his version as he worships both Rama and Rahim.

I apologize to anyone who was hurt. I didn't abuse anyone. No one asked me what's in my heart: #Bihar minister Khurshid alias Firoz Ahmad pic.twitter.com/naZaS7tckn  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

"He raised slogans of 'Jai Shri Ram' and says he worships both Ram and Rahim. Islam doesn't tolerate this," he said.

He raised slogans of 'Jai Shri Ram' & says he worships both Ram & Rahim. Islam doesn't tolerate this: Mufti Suhail A Qasmi who issued fatwa pic.twitter.com/lG7PY2V1Db  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

Also Read: Imarat-E-Shariya suggests to outcaste Bihar Minister Khurshid Alam from Islam for chanting Jai Shri Ram

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New Delhi:

The Congress on Sunday questioned Prime Minister Narendra Modis silence over the issue of Panama Paper leaks saying that the PM speaks of eradicating corruption during his Mann ki Baat programmes but no action has been taken against Raman Singh whose name appeared in the case.

Citing the case of Nawaz Sharif who was forced to quit as Pakistani prime minister after countrys apex court found him guilty in the Panama Paper leaks.

The prime minister speaks at length on corruption but ignores Panama paper leaks. (Yesterday Congress vice-president) Rahul Gandhi mentioned about Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singhs son and Lok Sabha MP Abhishek.

His (Abhishek) name appeared in the Panama papers, (but) what action have you taken in this regard, PTI quoted Congress leader Pawan Khera as saying.

Did you miss? After Nawaz Sharif's ouster, his brother Mian Shehbaz set to become next Pakistan Prime Minister

Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif was on Friday, July 28 disqualified from office by the Supreme Court which sent his case to an anti-corruption court for trial in the Panama Papers case.

The Congress leader said the BJP cannot keep subverting democracy and yet come out holier than thou and talk about political integrity.

Where is the money coming from in Gujarat? Our MLAs said they were offered money (to defect). We are not getting any answers to this in the prime ministers Mann ki Baat, he said.

Khera also attacked the prime minister for not doing enough to curb the menace of cow-vigilante groups and those spreading hate.

The Congress leader said Prime Ministers Mann ki Baat appears to be disconnected from ground realities as it has failed to address issues like unemployment and agrarian crisis.



(With PTI Inputs)

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New Delhi:

A violent protest broke out between Gorkhaland Janmukti Morcha (GJM) supporters and police personnel in Alipurduar's Jaigaon. Several police personnel and protesters got injured in the incident.

The police personnel fired rubber bullets and used tear gas to contain the mob.

Earlier, GJM supporters took out rallies at Chowkbazar area of the hills carrying black flags in protest against the police action on pro-Gorkhaland supporters.

Shouting slogans against the state government, the protesters demanded the Centre's intervention in the matter.

WB: Violent clash b/w GJM supporters & Police in Jaigaon.Police fire rubber bullets & use tear gas. Many protesters,police personnel injured pic.twitter.com/fCPHwOn1uS  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

Pro-Gorkhaland supporters had yesterday clashed with the police during which, the GJM had claimed, one of its supporters suffered a bullet injury.

#WATCH West Bengal: Violent clash b/w GJM supporters & Police in Alipurduar's Jaigaon. Many protesters &police personnel injured #Gorkhaland pic.twitter.com/lYNPcLJb2W  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

The charge was, however, denied by the ADG (Law and Order) who had termed it as "completely baseless". Several protestors and police personnel were injured in the clashes that took place in Sukna area of the hills on Saturday.

Also Read | Darjeeling: Army deployed after violence by GJM supporters

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New Delhi:

An IAF Cheetah helicopter rescued a kidney patient in critical condition, needing to undergo an urgent dialysis, from Abiyana village in Santhalpur Taluka of Gujarats Patan district.

A distress call concerning an immediate rescue of the kidney patient was received by HQ SWAC Gandhinagar on Saturday morning. Immediately after which IAF Cheetah helicopter was engaged for the patients rescue.

According to a written statement released by Defence Wing, Government of India, Gujarat state read, On arriving overhead the site, the pilot  Wing Commander Gautam Narain saw the patient on top of the roof of a house completely marooned amidst flood-waters on all sides.

The statement further read that the pilot hovered the Cheetah lower and gently rested the helicopter on the the boundary walls of the rooftop.

Also Read: Wreckage of missing IAF chopper found in Papum Pare District in Arunachal Pradesh

Also Read: IAF MiG-23 trainer aircraft crashes near Jodhpur, 2 pilots eject safely

The patient assisted by the family members was lifted up over the wall and was finally carefully pulled aboard the aircraft, read the statement.

The patient was flown to the district headquarters Patan from where he was handed over to civil administration awaiting with an ambulance at the Patan University helipad.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The Indian coast guard on Sunday morning intercepted Panamanian ship carrying around 1500 kilograms of heroin off the Gujarat coast.

Indian Coast Guard officials said that they have apprehended a Panama registered ship MV Hennery carrying 1500 kilograms of narcotics in a well coordinated 3 days operation.

Indian Coast Guard officials said that the Sunday's intercept is the biggest drug haul seize in the Indian water.

According to officials the narcotics seized by the Indian Coast Guards is worth Rs3500 crore.

Officials said that the Indian Coast Guard ship Samudra Pavak intercepted and apprehended a Merchant Vessel carrying the narcotics shipment off the coast of Gujarat.

Also Read: Pakistan smugglers construct novel ideas to smuggle drugs in India



The official added that the interception was based on intelligence inputs.

Also Read: 15 Tollywood stars including Ravi Teja, Puri Jagannath involved in drug scandal



The vessel was intercepted at around 1200hrs, said the official.

A joint investigation has been launched by the Indian Coast Guard, police, Customs department, Navy and other investigative agencies to learn the origin and final destination of the shipment.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

Kerala state BJP on Sunday called for a statewide strike over the murder of an RSS worker in Thiruvananthapuram's Sreekaryam on Saturday.



The RSS worker, identified as Rajesh, was hacked to death allegedly by a gang led by a history-sheeter near here, police said. They said 34-year-olds left hand was chopped off in the attack around at 9 pm.



Police has detained eight people in connection of the murder. BJP state president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleged that the CPI-M was behind the attack, a charge denied by the district leadership of the left party.

UPDATE:

#I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously: HM Rajnath Singh



#Spoke to Kerala CM regarding recent incidents of political violence in the state, expressed my concern with the law and order situation: HM



#Kerala: Five more accused taken into custody in connection with a RSS worker's murder in Thiruvananthapuram. Total 8 accused in custody now.

Suggested read | CPI (M)-BJP clash in Kerala: Several councillors' houses attacked; vehicles damaged in Thiruvananthapuram

The BJP has called for a state-wide hartal tomorrow, the state BJP chief said.



Police are maintaining a strict vigil and clamped prohibitory orders for three days from Friday after BJPs Kerala unit office in Thiruvananthapuram was vandalised and the house of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnans son Bineesh Kodiyeri was attacked.



Earlier, 10 people, including four from the student and youth wings of CPI-M, had been arrested in connection with the violence in the city on Friday.



(With PTI Inputs)

Suggested read | RSS office attacked in Kannur after 9 CPIM workers injured in blast

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Aurangabad:

A joint team of CRPF and police on Sunday arrested three Naxalites from Bihar's Aurangabad district.

Acting on a tip off that Naxalites are pasting posters in different areas to terrorize people to make their proposed August 3 Bihar bandh a success, a joint team of CRPF and local police raided Sahajpur and Kalidi villages of the district and arrested three naxalites who had come to paste posters, Superintendent of Police, Satya Prakash said.

The arrested naxalites have been identified as Ramlagan Singh Bhokta, Kamlesh Singh Bhokta and Mahesh Bhuiya, SP said adding that police are conducting raids to nab their accomplices on the basis of information received from them.

These naxalites have been indulging in various naxal activities, he said and added that Kamlesh Singh Bhokta had been in jail for his involvement in naxal activities but atpresent he was on bail. These naxalites were trying to influence and motivate local youths to join naxal outfit, SP said.

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Thiruvananthapuram:

A day after an RSS worker was killed in Kerala, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Director General of Police Loknath Behera were on Sunday summoned by Governor P Sathasivam.

They apprised the governor of the steps taken inconnection with the brutal killing even as the police saidseven persons were arrested.

In another incident, an RSS worker was injured tonightwhen he was attacked by some unidentified persons at Pandalamin Pathanamthitta district, the police said. The man, who received "minor injuries", was taken to a hospital, they added.

Vijayan and Behera met the governor separately after they were summoned by the Raj Bhavan this morning to ascertain the action taken, following the recent violent incidents, including the killing of RSS worker Rajesh (34).

The state has been witnessing a cycle of violenceinvolving the BJP-RSS and CPI(M) workers with the capitaldistrict rocked by incidents of attacks on houses of the rivalpartymen in the last few days. The state BJP office was also vandalised on July 28.

Rajesh was hacked to death by a gang, allegedly led by ahistory-sheeter, here last night. His left arm was chopped offand there were several other injuries all over his body. A Raj Bhavan statement said the governor soughtinformation from the chief minister and the DGP in the wake ofthe recent incidents of violence in the state capital and thekilling of the RSS functionary.

"Summoned Chief Minister and State Police Chief to know about the action taken by State govt on law and order issues in Trivandrum (sic)," Sathasivam tweeted, adding that Vijayanassured him that the law-breakers would be sternly dealt with, irrespective of their political affiliation.

The police said seven persons, including prime accusedManikandan, the history-sheeter, had been arrested inconnection with the killing of the RSS worker. They added that the attack was due to a "personal enmity" between Manikandan and the victim, which had been going on for the last one-and-a-half years.

In a related development, Union Home Minister RajnathSingh spoke to Vijayan, voiced concern over attacks onpolitical workers in Kerala and said political violence wasunacceptable in a democracy.

Meanwhile, the statewide dawn-to-dusk 'hartal' called bythe BJP in protest against the killing of Rajesh evoked a neartotal response with state-run and private buses keeping offthe roads and shops and business establishments remainingshut. It by and large passed off peacefully, barring some minorincidents of stonepelting, destruction of flag masts anddamage of vehicles.

A scooter, which was parked in front of the UniversityCollege here, a bastion of the CPI(M)'s students' outfit, the SFI, was found burnt shortly after the funeral procession of Rajesh passed through the city in the evening.

The chief minister met the governor at around 11.30 am, while the DGP met Sathasivam at 12.30 pm, the Raj Bhavan said.

It also said the chief minister would soon make a public appeal to maintain peace.

Vijayan also told the governor that he would be meetingKerala BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan and the state RSSchief, the Raj Bhavan statement added.

The governor asked the DGP to take all possible measuresto book the culprits and maintain peace in the state. Sathasivam also spoke to Rajasekharan about the incidentand the attack on the BJP office here.

CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan claimed thatthe RSS worker's killing was a fallout of a personal rivalryand his party had nothing to do with it.

He alleged that the BJP was trying to put the blame onthe Left party as part of their "secret political agenda". Rajasekharan, on the other hand, alleged that the rulingCPI(M) in Kerala was trying to "eliminate" its politicalopponents and urged it to refrain from perpetrating violence. Opposition Congress leaders observed a fast in Kozhikode to protest against the "politics of violence" in Kerala.

















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New Delhi:

Congress is going through the worst in Gujarat as a number of party MLAs are joining BJP ahead of key Rajya Sabha polls. Frightened Congress alleging BJP of horse trading has flown 40 of its MLAs to Bengaluru, the capital of party ruled Karnataka.

Now speaking on the issue, Gujarat CM Vijay Rupani has held Congress President Sonia Gandhis love for her son Rahul Gandhi responsible for the current crisis.

"Sonia Gandhi is immersed in the affection towards her son, which has drowned the Congress party in the entire country, news agency ANI quoted Vijay Rupani as saying."

Rupani said the condition of Congress party is getting worse and people of this country dont want to accept its rule.

Rupani also criticised the party for sending its MLAs to Bangalore in greed of sending its senior leader Ahmed Patel to Rajya Sabha while the state is being hit by floods.

Also Read: Cong accuses BJP of destablising grand old party in Gujarat, says will fight to protect democracy

"Out of greed to send their senior leader Ahmed Patel in Rajya Sabha, the Congress has sent their 40 MLAs, including those who are from the districts which are being hit the most by floods, to Bengaluru," Rupani said.

The Chief Minister of Gujarat accused Congress and its leaders of not caring for the state when it is facing the problem of floods.

Soon, the Congress party will also be drowned in the floods," he added

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

The National Investigation Agency on Sunday morning raided several places in Jammu in connection to terror funding.

The investigative sleuths grilled Devinder Singh Behl at his residence over his suspected connection with Separatist elements. Behl is said to be associated with Hurriyat

The NIA is investigating if funds from Pakistan have been used to fuel unrest in the Kashmir Valley that left 100 people dead in 2016.

In the past few weeks, the NIA raided places across Kashmir, New Delhi and Haryana searching for evidence of separatist leaders and businessmen receiving funds from the Jamaat-ud-Dawa group, and other Pakistan-based militant outfits.

Earlier, on July 24, the NIA had arrested seven separatists over money laundering charges, for funding terror in the Kashmir Valley.

The seven arrested have being identified as Altaf Shah, Ayaz Akbar, Peer Saifullah, Mehraj Kalwal, Shahid-ul-Islam, Naeem Khan and Bitta Karate. The separatist leaders were later sent to 10-days NIA custody.

The NIA first visited Srinagar in May to probe the alleged funding by Pakistan for illegal activities in Kashmir and questioned several separatist leaders on transferring funds via the Hawala route.

For all the Latest India News, Download News Nation Android and iOS Mobile Apps.
New Delhi:

A group of NASA researchers, including an Indian-origin scientist, said a small asteroid that is expected to fly close to Earth in October this year will help National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to test its network of observatories.

The asteroid flyby which is estimated to be between 10 and 30 metres in size would also benefit scientists who work with the planetary defence.

According to a press release published on NASAs website, asteroid TC4 will safely fly past the Earth on October 12, and scientists are convinced that it will not come closer than 6,800 km from the surface of the Earth.

The asteroid has been out of range of telescopes since 2012 when it sped past the Earth at about one-fourth the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

Indian-origin scientist Vishnu Reddy, a Professor at the University of Arizona said, this is a team effort that involves more than a dozen observatories, universities and labs across the globe so we can collectively learn the strengths and limitations of our near-Earth object observation capabilities."

Scientists believe that asteroid 2012 TC4 may be slightly larger than the space rock that hit the Earth's atmosphere near Chelyabinsk, Russia, in February 2013.

NASA will use large telescopes to detect and re-establish the asteroid's precise trajectory. The new observations are expected to help refine knowledge about its orbit, narrowing the uncertainty about how far it will be from the Earth at its closest approach in October.

"Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close approach to and safely pass the Earth because they can make preparations to collect data to characterise and learn as much as possible about it," said Michael Kelley, Programme Scientist and NASA Headquarters lead for the TC4 observation campaign.

"This time, we are adding in another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work together in response to finding a potential real asteroid threat," Kelley added.

Scientists from NASA's Centre for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in California, have determined that while at closest approach, asteroid 2012 TC4 will pass no closer than 6,800 km from the Earth -- it will more likely pass much farther away, as far as 270,000 km, or two-thirds of the distance from the Earth to the Moon.

(With agency inputs)

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New Delhi:

Peoples Liberation Army (PLA) has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies, said Chinese President Xi Jinping after inspecting a military parade to celebrate the 90th founding anniversary of the PLA at the countrys largest military base, Zhurihe in Inner Mongolia.

The Chinese president, who heads the Central Military Commission, which holds the overall command of the PLA  the world's largest army, stated that the PLA should strictly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China and "march to wherever the Party points to."

Xi in his speech gave no reference to the month-long-China military standoff at Doklam in Sikkim section in his address to the chinese soldiers.

The PLA displayed some of its most modern weapons in the parade. Around 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment including newly built tanks which reportedly held exercises in the high-altitude along the Indian border, J-15  the new aircraft based carrier long range nuclear and conventional missiles were also on display.

Also Read: Chinese jets intercept US Navy plane over East China Sea



Dongfeng missiles which include short, long and medium rage of rockets, variety of armoury including light tanks, drones were also displayed in the parade. Helicopter borne troops demonstrated in quick landing and taking combat positions.

The 64-year-old Xi clad in a camouflage military suit said that the Chinese military has the confidence and ability to safeguard, national sovereignty and security.

In a 10-minute long address to the PLA soldiers the Chinese president said, Our military has the confidence and ability to write a new chapter in building of strong military and make new contributions to towards realisation of the China dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and safeguarding world peace."

Also Read: India and China should work together for peace, says US



Xi asked the military to further improve its combativeness and modernise the armed forces. He added China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of PLA into a world-class military force.

He asked the PLA officers and soldiers should firmly adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the people wholeheartedly, and always stand together with the people.

The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927 when the ruling CPC under the leadership of Mao Zedong carried on with his national liberation movement and has the worlds second largest defence budget of USD 152 billion next to the US military.

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A traditional summer festival featuring samurai on horseback has begun in the Soma region of Fukushima Prefecture.

A procession of people dressed as samurai warriors was held for the first time in 7 years in the Odaka district of Minamisoma City.

Authorities last year lifted evacuation orders for the district that were issued after the 2011 nuclear accident. Spectators included former residents who had evacuated.
Transparent kayaks are exploding in popularity in Tottori Prefecture, with tourists describing the experience as akin "to flying in the sky."

Visitors to Tottori, a coastal area along the Sea of Japan known for its jagged coastline and caves hollowed out by waves, can glimpse schools of Japanese horse mackerel, squid and sea anemones through their kayaks while paddling off Uradome Beach in the town of Iwami, where the water is as transparent as the famously clear seas off Okinawa.

Visitors can take the 4-meter-long polycarbonate boat through the marine area, which is part of a U.N.-designated global geopark.

The local kayaking service is attracting growing numbers of visitors, particularly from Asia, who rave that the experience leaves them feeling as if they had been "swimming with the fish and lying on a carpet of seaweed."

The transparency of the water off Uradome beach allows people to see as far down as 25 meters, matching the water off the main island of Okinawa, according to Koji Hasegawa, 55, who heads a group promoting the use of local nature spots for leisure and education.
Even holy places have bills to pay, and with traditional sources of income rapidly shrinking, temples in Japan are looking to tourism to make ends meet.

To cash in on the recent surge in overseas visitors to the country, a number of temples are offering experiences and amenities tailored to foreign tastes.

On a recent summer day, at a temple located in the forest of the famous Koyasan holy mountain area of Wakayama Prefecture, 20 or so people sat meditating, legs crossed, on the tatami mat floor. "This particular breathing method can help reduce your anger and sadness, and calm you down," a priest told the participants.

It is the sort of scene anyone would think of when imagining Buddhist temples in Japan. What is unique is that the priest was speaking in English, and most of the practitioners were foreigners staying in the temple's lodging facility.

Some struggled to maintain their cross-legged posture, while others seemed to grow a trifle bored with just sitting still, but in the end, they all seemed to enjoy the rare experience of staying in a temple. "I like being here, surrounded by quiet, rich nature and having shojin ryori (Buddhist cuisine)," said a 60-year-old American who came with his wife and their son.

According to the Ekoin temple, 60% to 70% of its guests come from overseas. While the entire Koyasan area is seeing a sudden boom in foreign visitors, this particular temple is proving especially popular. A big reason is the temple's focus on making foreign guests feel welcome, with a range of services provided in English.

Ekoin runs an English website, and reservations for lodgings can be made through travel websites such as Expedia. Overnight guests can participate in a number of activities unique to temples -- from the morning service to a fire ritual called Goma to meditation sessions. A night tour takes visitors to the cemetery at the back of the temple where the holy area's founder, the priest Kukai, also known as Kobo Daishi, is worshiped. Explanations and guidance during these activities are provided in both English and Japanese. Guests also have free access to WiFi and complimentary coffee.
One million illegals managed to get drivers licenses in California and of course they illegally VOTE, too

The success of Assembly Bill 60 (AB 60) is astounding, with reports suggesting that nearly a million undocumented immigrants would have a drivers license in California by the end of this year. AB 60, which only requires applicants to prove their true identity and California residency without checking for their legal presence, was lobbied for by advocates for more than 15 years before being passed in 2013. It was intended to improve public safety by teaching undocumented immigrants how to drive, thereby reducing penalties and potential accidents made by uneducated drivers. It would also allow undocumented immigrants to be able to apply for a car insurance within the state.

When the law took effect in 2015, the response was so immense that the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) had to hire 1,000 temporary workers to keep up with the applications. The DMV was also forced to open four additional processing centers and extend working hours to include Saturdays.

The pace has slowed down, with the DMV now operating at normal hours and only employing 200 temporary workers. Around 11,000 AB 60 licenses were issued last June, which the department said was the lowest number recorded since the Bill was passed. Nearly 83,000 such licenses have been issued since the first half of this year.

California joins 12 states and the District of Columbia that allows immigrants to receive a drivers license without any proof that they arrived in the country legally. Other states include Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Vermont, and Washington. California, however, remains to have the largest percentage of immigrants in our country, accounting for almost 22 percent of the estimated number according to Pew Charitable Trusts.

Critics of the Bill say that immigrants should not be rewarded with a government document even as they are consciously breaking the law by being in this country illegally. States like California are only encouraging such ridiculous behavior, regardless of the warning of federal limits apply printed on these licenses. This means that law enforcement outside of California is not obligated by law to accept these documents as valid. That said, supporters of the plan say that the introduction of bills such as AB 60 has lessened the number of hit-and-run accidents in the state.

A recent study by Stanford University showed that since Assembly Bill 60 took effect, the number of hit-and-run accidents decreased by around seven percent. This has saved the state an estimated $3.5 million in repair costs. The authors of this research say that this indicates that AB 60 has improved public safety and saved lives. Additionally, as an AB 60 license is considered a legal document in the state, law enforcement officers cannot report carriers of this license to immigration officials. Researchers at Stanford found, unauthorized immigrants with a valid form of in-state driving authorization have weaker incentives to flee the scene after an accident because they are less likely to fear deportation. Moreover, they say that AB 60 makes sense in California, where most workers rely on the cars to go to work. Losing their vehicles because of it being impounded or uninsured would cost the state millions of dollars as well as incentivizing immigrants to flee accidents.

According to the DMV, AB 60 applicants need to only submit one document proving they live in California, as well as pass the driving and visual tests.

The states of Florida, New Jersey, and Georgia are now considering passing laws that allow immigrants to receive a drivers license.

Californias automatic registration law

In 2015, the state was in the spotlight again for its new voter registration law which would allow applicants of drivers licenses in the state to be automatically registered as a voter. This was intended to streamline the electoral process and encourage participation. The process was simple. When people would go to the DMV, they would be asked the usual information such as name, date of birth, etc. In addition, they would be asked to affirm their eligibility to vote, with the choice to opt out of registering. Unlike Oregon which also uses automatic registration, Californians could choose not be registered as a voter. Nevertheless, the automation caused a wave of concern, given the enactment of AB 60 back in 2013. (Related: Leftists already organizing illegal immigrant families to skew 2016 election for Democrats, pushing national gun confiscation, open borders and total socialism.)

Secretary of State Alex Padilla said these fears are baseless, telling the Los Angeles Times, Weve built the protocols and the firewalls to not register people that arent eligible. Were going to keep those firewalls in place.

You can read more stories like this on Liberty.news.

Sources include:

SacBee.com

MercuryNews.com

LATimes.com 1

LATimes.com 2

Immigration.ProCon.com

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It was a development that went mostly unnoticed when Entrepreneur released its annual Franchise 500 list, topped this year by 7-Eleven and followed by usual suspects McDonalds and Dunkin Donuts  but there was a conspicuous omission high on the page.

Where was Subway?

Down below, as it turned out  and well behind the newest sandwich franchise darling Jimmy Johns Gourmet Sandwiches, which placed fifth after leading the list in 2016. Subway ranked fifth among sandwich shops and 35th among all franchises, looking up at 15th-ranked Firehouse Subs, Jersey Mikes Subs at 21 and McAlisters Deli.

It was only the second time in a generation Milford-based Subway failed to make the top five on the Franchise 500. It placed ninth in 2011 and was the runaway leader among sandwich shops when Champaign, Ill.-based Jimmy Johns barely cracked the top 40. And for the decade prior, under its legendary, late founder Fred DeLuca, Subway was a fixture at the top of the Entrepreneur list.

If not a big thing to the lunch crowd trying to make a snap decision between an Italian B.M.T. or Sweet Onion Chicken Teriyaki, Subways standing on the Franchise 500 matters no small amount for a company with cash flow pegged to royalties paid by franchisees.

For years, entrepreneurs jumped on board Subway for several advantages  a McDonalds-like familiarity promising steady, recurring business from its regulars, relatively low startup costs compared to many franchises, massive ad visibility, innovations like baking bread fresh on the premises and keeping its fresh ingredients in full view, and the ability to squeeze shops into tight storefronts, holding down rent.

That success had a direct impact on the economic vitality of Milford. The town reported a Subway workforce of between 900 and 1,000 people the past few years, up from 700 five years ago. Subway lists about 75 open jobs in Milford.

They want to try it

But two years ago, Subway was buffeted by the July 2015 raid on the Indiana home of former Subway guy pitchman Jared Fogle, which helped lead to his conviction that November for having sex with minors and possessing child pornography.

In September 2015, DeLuca died of leukemia that had been diagnosed only two years before, only a few weeks after the 50th anniversary of his launch of the company in Bridgeport with backing from co-founder Peter Buck.

With DeLuca ailing, in June 2015 Subway had promoted his younger sister Suzanne Greco to president. Greco is a Sacred Heart University graduate who worked her way up the chain, starting in 1973 as a counter sandwich artist and moving through operations and marketing jobs.

Under Greco, Subway is attempting to refresh its image for customers and franchisees, first with a major digital initiative launched in June 2016 at its Milford headquarters, and this past June unveiling a redesign of its restaurants signature architecture meant to evoke the Tuscany region of Italy, the first major change to its look in 15 years.

Contacted this week by Hearst Connecticut Media, Subway did not make an executive immediately available to share the companys early results from its digital and design initiatives and how it may evolve over time as it gets early feedback from franchisees and customers.

From a customer-service perspective, the biggest change will be fixed tablets allowing customers to punch in orders themselves. Subway also plans to update its menu with new sauces and condiments such as pico de gallo.

Both initiatives echo efforts by McDonalds to update its menu and order flow in to draw in new customers. According to CEO Steve Easterbrook in a Tuesday conference call, the McDonalds initiative is working. Guest counts are up 3 percent in the second quarter from a year ago, and same-location sales have risen 6.6 percent from the spring of 2016.

When weve invested the amount we have  and our owner/operators investing the amount they have in the business  whether its in core recipe improvements, whether its in the service experience, whether its in technology, its great just to have more customers visit your restaurant to actually notice the investments weve made, Easterbrook said last week. Its  getting more people back into our restaurants and seeing the changes were making.  Theyre curious, and they want to try it.

Good for the

whole system

Subway restaurants had revenue totaling $17.1 billion last year, the company told Hearst Connecticut Media. The companys primary revenue stream is an 8 percent royalty it levies on weekly gross revenue after sales taxes, with franchisees chipping in another 4.5 percent of that weekly total as their contribution to Subway advertising.

Dating back to 1974 when Subway began selling franchises to entrepreneurs  $15,000 each today  cash flow has not been an issue for Subway. With Greco approaching retirement age and Fred DeLucas son Jonathan not involved in the business, the question remains on whether she, the Deluca family and Buck could cash out of the business by selling it or via an initial public offering of stock. The pace of U.S. IPOs has doubled in the second quarter, according to Stamford-based Renaissance Capital.

It is a question Fred Deluca was used to fielding over the years. He said on multiple occasions he preferred to focus on running the business rather than deal with the complexities and distractions of running a publicly traded company.

We werent quite sure that the goals of public shareholders would be the same as ours and of the franchisees, DeLuca said during a 2010 interview with Nations Business News. Franchisees goal is to make money at the store level, which is simultaneously good for the whole system. Shareholders may think differently from time to time, so we decided against it.

 Due to a reporting error, an earlier version of this article incorrectly stated Suzanne Grecos relationship to Jonathan DeLuca, who is her nephew.

Alex.Soule@scni.com; 203-842-2545; www.twitter.com/casoulman
Peter Frampton Storms Off Stage After Two Fans Get More Attention Than He Does

Guitar legend Peter Frampton irritated some fans after he walked off stage during a concert in Minnesota on Sunday. According to the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Frampton was opening for Steve Miller Band during a concert at the Treasure Island Casino in Red Wing, MN.

______________________________________

At a Peter Frampton concert with Steve Miller in Minneapolis, a fan held up the cover from Frampton Comes Alive, and was featured on two large display screens flanking the stage, drawing a cheer from the crowd. Unfortunately, the cheer came in the middle of a guitar solo, apparently irritating Frampton, which was then compounded by the cameras catching a second fan holding up one of the guitarist's albums.

As the Star Tribune reports, Frampton expressed his displeasure in expletive form to the camera operator and then left the stage entirely, only returning later after the displays had been shut off.

Casino spokesman Kevin Smith told the Star-Tribune on Monday that Frampton apparently didnt like what was on the video board for one reason or another. That was obvious.

Fans took to social media after the show to express their views on Frampton's reaction.

"Lost all respect for what you did at last nights concert in Minnesota! Grow up and lose your big ego!" one fan, Sue Hutner, wrote on Facebook.

"Saw you last night at Treasure Island Casino in Welch, MN. Your music is better than ever. You stormed off stage because the camera man showed a gal holding her Frampton album instead of showing you during a guitar solo. Your reaction was really unfortunate. He got the crowd going. It was awesome to see that! Didn't you hear everyone cheering? Then you cut the camera all together. This didn't punish him but it did punish your paying audience. We couldn't see a thing then. And that's too bad. We love to see the technique and the expressions and the play between musicians. But you choose to take that away from your paying audience. If we were at a concert hall I might understand your actions better. But an outdoor concert at a casino?" said another Frampton Fan, Tracy Heinze, on the social media service.

via CelebrityAccess

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A federal grant awarded Friday will allow low- and middle-income families in Brookfield and New Fairfield to apply for interest-free loans to make improvements to their homes.

The towns, which received $400,000 each, were two of 20 Connecticut municipalities awarded a total of $11.5 million under the Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Small Cities program. In each town, the grant will be used to set up a loan program that low- and middle-income homeowners can use for housing rehabilitation projects.

Both Brookfield and New Fairfield, who applied for the money earlier this year, had received the two-year grant in previous years, most recently in 2013. Brookfield First Selectman Steve Dunn said the new money will allow residents who didnt get a chance the first time around to apply for the loan.

We had used up our entire first program and we still have residents who need help, Dunn said. (The grant) is no cost to the town and we can help our neighbors, so its really one of those few things that is a win-win for everyone.

Dunn said about 20 families participated in the 2013 program and the town already has a waiting list of several families interested in applying for the latest grant.

The grant is administered by the Connecticut Department of Housing with funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

To qualify, applicants must meet the HUD income limitsa maximum $54,250 for one-person households and $77,500 for four-person households. They also must have at least 10 percent equity in their homes and be up to date on all local taxes. The loan is repaid interest-free upon the sale of the house or the death of the homeowner.

New Fairfield First Selectman Susan Chapman said the town didnt receive the grant in 2015 because there was still money left over from the 2013 program. This year, though, she said the town needs the $400,000 to continue offering the loans.

The timing is perfect because we have very little money left in the program, Chapman said. Recently Ive had residents calling...so obviously theres a big need in town for the program and Im happy we got it this round.

Chapman said residents have used the money to improve septic systems, repair roofs, update heating systems or make their home handicap-accessible.

Both Brookfield and New Fairfield administer the program on a revolving basis, meaning if the loan is paid back to the town it can be used to offer more families a loan.

That money comes back to the town so we can keep the program going, Chapman said. If (the house) changes hands, or sometimes people pay it back even without it changing hands, we can use it to help other residents.

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who announced the grant awardees in a release, said the program was also a topic of conversation at a Hartford event hosted Friday by the Connecticut Housing Coalition, where lawmakers urged President Donald Trump not to cut housing programs.

Trump has proposed eliminating the $3 billion program in his budget for the coming fiscal year.

If the federal budget is enacted as proposed, it would have a drastic impact on this and other housing programs, impacting so many individuals who rely on this funding for safe and affordable housing, Malloy said. We must raise our voices to protect and expand access to decent, accessible, and affordable homes - the future of our communities depend on it.

HUD gives more than $13 million each year to the state, which then distributes the funds to towns. Since 1982, more than $325.7 million has gone to Connecticut municipalities.

aquinn@newstimes.com
WATERBURY  State police charged a Waterbury man with several driving- and drug-related offenses after they said he drove erratically on Route 8.

Jamarle Hill, 34, of Waterbury was charged with operating a motor vehicle under the influence of drugs/alcohol, failure to drive in a proper lane, illegal possession of narcotics, possession of narcotics with intent to sell and possession of drug paraphernalia, state police said.

Connecticut State Police Troop A received calls of a vehicle driving erratically on Route 8 near exit 30 in Waterbury on Friday around 2:20 a.m.

Troopers responded to the area and conducted a traffic stop after they noticed the vehicle driving recklessly. Troopers believed Hill may have been intoxicated and asked him to perform a series of field sobriety tests.

State police said he did not perform those tests to the set standard.

During the course of an investigation, troopers found narcotics and drug paraphernalia in Hills vehicle, state police said.

Hill was released on a $2,000 surety bond and is scheduled to appear in Waterbury Superior Court on August 8.

State police remind drivers to call 911 if they see a reckless, dangerous or suspected DUI driver. State police said Connecticut law allows for 911 calls while operating a vehicle as long as it is done safely.

When reporting something to the 911 dispatcher, state police said to remember to provide an accurate location, direction of travel, vehicle description, explanation of the driving and license plate number if possible.

State police emphasize the importance of gathering information and descriptions at the callers safety.

They also remind residents that not every seemingly dangerous or reckless driver is under the influence of drugs or alcohol and may be a driver having a medical emergency. Regardless, state police said to call 911.
Twice this month  at least  law-abiding Connecticut residents reported to federal immigration officials, as required, only to be slapped with electronic monitoring bracelets and told they had just weeks to buy one-way tickets to their native country and say goodbye to their families.

The crimes that led to such harsh treatment of Nury Chavarria, 43, of Norwalk and to Joel Colindres, 33, of New Fairfield, who separately fled violence in Guatemala, were living in this country illegally. Since Chavarria left in 1993 and Colindres in 2004, they established careers, created families and contributed to the local economies.

They have sought ways to become legal. They are not threats to anyone.

But, shamefully, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in Hartford have no compunction about breaking up families and, in the case of Chavarria, leaving the children to become wards of the state. What good is accomplished?

Colindres married a U.S. citizen, Samantha Colindres, and has a 6-year-old son and 2-year-old daughter who are citizens. He supports the family with his carpentry skills.

Chavarrias four children, aged 21 to 9, are U.S. citizens; the oldest has cerebral palsy. The mother has supported her family as a housekeeper.

There likely are more immigrants like them who face the same dire fate. An unintended consequence of ICEs sudden crackdown could be that illegal immigrants will hesitate to report annually for fear of deportation. Otherwise law-abiding people will be forced to live in the shadows.

Reaction to the treatment of the Norwalk mother and New Fairfield father is mostly a mixture of anger and compassion.

We agree with Gov. Dannel Malloy, who said the Trump administration is lying that it would focus on deporting only criminals. He was personally assured in meeting with top adminstration officials that those who obeyed the law would not be targets. The heartbreak of Chavarria and Colindres and their families prove otherwise.

Compassion, while clearly on shortage in the Trump administration, has been abundant in Connecticut. Hundreds have rallied for Chavarria in New Haven and on Thursday for Colindres in Hartford.

A New Haven church and its congregation gave sanctuary to Chavarria on July 20 when she was supposed to return to the country she escaped from long ago. Understandably, she could not leave her children.

Now Chavarria has a glimmer of hope. Based on a motion by student lawyers at the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School, a judge on Wednesday agreed to stay the deportation order temporarily and open her case. The eventual outcome is uncertain.

A similar opportunity should be given to Colindres, who ICE ordered to leave on Aug. 17.

This is the time for people to show support for decency by contacting political leaders, by rallying, by speaking out.

This is not the time for silence while families are ripped apart and productive longtime residents are sent off to dubious fates. Silence indicates acceptance of the inhumane treatment by our government.
The Nigeria Army has recovered 21 additional bodies in an operation to rescue oil exploration crew abducted by the Boko Haram insurgents in Borno.Brig. Gen. Sani Kukasheka, Director Army Public Relations, who disclosed this in a statement released on Saturday, July 29, said he regrets earlier press release about the rescue of all NNPC Staff.Full statement below:The incident of 25th July 2017 where some Boko Haram Terrorists ambushed our troops including members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) escorting some staff of Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as well as that of University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) on oil exploration in Borno Yesu District of Magumeri Local Government Area of Borno state is unfortunate and highly regrettable. Most regrettable also is my earlier release on the said incident about the rescue of all NNPC Staff. The error in the statement was not deliberate.The Nigerian Army in this present dispensation is reputed for timely dissemination of information on activities of our troops in all theatre of operations. We have strived to keep the public informed on our activities with no intention of distorting any fact. Our troops have doubled efforts in the pursuit of the Boko Haram terrorists while search and rescue is still on-going to secure the safe return of the remaining civilians.So far the search and rescue team has recovered additional bodies of 5 soldiers, 11 Civilian JTF and 5 members of the exploration team.Contrary to reports in some media, 6 members of exploration team out of 12 that went out are still missing, while one of the NNPC staff returned to base alive.On the other hand, our pursuit team also recovered 2 of our own Gun trucks and an additional Toyota Buffalo Gun truck from the insurgents. In addition, the team also made the following recoveries; 4 Rocket Propelled Grenade Bombs, 4 Rocket Propelled Grenade chargers, 6 AK-47 rifles, 1 Anti-Aircraft Gun, 1 General Purpose Machine Gun,1 Anti-Aircraft Gun Barrel, 1 Rocket Propelled Grenade Tube, 4 Dane Guns, 8 Tyres and 2 Tyre Rims.Other items recovered include 1 Pumping Machine, 2 Tyre Jacks, 1 Super Battery, 5 Reflective Jackets, 3 Toyota Hilux, 4 Jerry cans filled with PMS, 1 Motorola Radio, 1 Geographical Positioning System (GPS), 21 empty Jerry cans, 2 Shovels and 3 Food Coolers. Troops also recovered 122 rounds of PKM ammunition, 213 rounds of 7.62mm NATO ammunition, 1255 Anti-Aircraft Guns ammunition, 4 boxes of API 12.7mm ammunition, 1 AK-47 Rifle Magazine, a Digger, 2 Bows and 13 Arrows, 2 LLG Bombs, assorted drugs and assorted working tools.The Nigerian Army condoles with the families of all that lost their loved ones in this unfortunate incident. Search and rescue efforts are on-going. We are counting on the goodwill and support of the populace in volunteering valuable information that could help in the search and rescue operation.What the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists are doing are pure criminal activities of kidnapping to gain funds. This has been noted and will be jointly addressed in conjunction with other Security Services.The Nigerian Army remains resolute in the fight against terrorism and would not relent in its effort to safe guard lives of citizens, properties and the territorial integrity of the country.Thank you so much for your kind support.More photos below...




Former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode, has weighed in on the call made by Arewa Youths to the Presidency to order the re-arrest and detention of the national leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu.Hide quoted textAccording to the ex-Minister, the youths of Northern extraction need to be stopped and scolded for making such a demand.He stressed that what Arewa Youths are doing is tantamount to stoking a fire that may end up consuming the country.Fani-Kayode said on Saturday: The Arewa Youths that demanded that the Igbo must leave the North by October 1st and that have now given the federal government, an ultimatum to arrest Nnamdi Kanu in the next 10 days are stoking a fire that may end up consuming Nigeria.They must be gagged, put in chains and spanked hard!It could be recalled that the Speaker of the Arewa Youth Assembly (AYA), Mohammed Salihu, while addressing a news conference in Abuja accused the federal government of aiding and abetting Kanu to breach his bail conditions. He said: The Leadership of Arewa Youth Assembly has observed with keen interest the high level of lawlessness exhibited by Nnamdi Kanu since he was granted bail in June this year and the conspiracy of silence displayed by the federal government and its security agencies in the face of such affront by the IPOB leader. No doubt, this lawlessness is capable of disintegrating this country.The most surprising and amazing of this is that the Federal Government is watching while Nnamdi Kanu is creating a state within a State, threatening to stop Anambra State gubernatorial election by holding rallies in South South and South East states and using provocative and inciting words, granting interviews to the press, which pose a threat to national unity and security.We therefore, wish to advise the Acting President to sit up and be in firm control of the government of Nigeria and begin to address the myriads of issues threatening the unity of this great nation, the Arewa youths said.
AS part of the initiative towards tackling militancy and youth restiveness in the, the acting president,, would be presiding over the first) summit slated for Monday, July 31.The summit, which will hold with the theme,  at the(PTI) Conference Centre, Effunrun in Uvwie Local Government Area (LGA),, is being organised by the NDYPD in partnership with theA statement signed by Comrade Fuludu Raphael Peremene, Vice President of NDYPD/Convener of the programme, Comrade Enujeko Mayor and Comrade Kingsley Okes Idisi, Chairman and Secretary of the Local Organising Committee, respectively, stated that Osinbajo would be charting a model for achieving development, empowerment, peace and social stability in theregion at the event.Peremene noted that the peace dialogue would provide opportunity for youths to express themselves and make meaningful contributions towards restoring peace and development in the Niger Delta region.According to the statement,  Round Table Dialogue is the high point of the Warri 2017, which brings together all the major youth groups, ex-militants, youth entrepreneurs and scholars alike on a round table to chart the course towards a new model of achieving development, empowerment, peace and social stability in the Niger Delta region.TheCommissioner of Police,, who spoke through the state Police Public Relations Officer, Andrew Aniamaka, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP), urged Niger Delta youths to embrace peace and support the programme, stressing that violence would not solve the problems of the region.




The Northern Governors Forum at the weekend met with key leaders of coalition of Arewa groups that issued eviction notice to Igbos.The coalition had asked Igbos to vacate the nineteen States of Northern Nigeria before October 1, 2017.Chairman of the Northern Governors Forum and Governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, led the talks on behalf of his colleagues.The coalition was represented by its leaders including their spokesman, Abdulazeez Suleman who read the eviction notice in June, tagged the Kaduna declaration.Others were Balarabe Rufai, Yerima Shettima, Ashir Sherrif and Aminu Adam.Shettima said the dialogue option was chosen because a political problem often requires a political solution.It is only a fool that doesnt change his mind to review decisions and strategies. There is never a limit to who should be engaged in dialogue no matter what the situation is.After all, even armed conflicts of deaths and destructions often end through dialogue with persons who took up arms against a State.Some people may think the withdrawal of eviction ultimatum by the coalition wouldnt mean so much but to us as leaders and from our experiences, it is always dangerous to underestimate the capacity of any group of youths especially when youths come together and seem determined.There are millions of other youths that might have been following and supportive of the activities of the coalition of Arewa groups and as we know, issues relating to ethnicity and religion mostly get out of control.The youths held prior meeting with His Eminence, the Sultan in previous time. Yesterday (Saturday) and today (Sunday) We had a very fruitful discussion and I believe in the coming days, there will something positive from them.In our dialogue they explained their position and I also explained the position of the Governors and why we differed. They demonstrated patriotism and commitment to the unity of Nigeria and progress of the country Shettima said.Abdulazeez Suleiman, spokesman of the coalition, said the meeting with the Northern Governors was a sign of respect for their leaders.We have listened to Governor Kashim Shettima. This is the first time we are meeting any leader in Government and doing it before the media.It is a major development and we are going to make some consultation with other representatives of different groups in the north after which we will make our resolution known by addressing the media.




Two senators from Kaduna State, Shehu Sani and Suleiman Hunkuyi, were on Sunday attacked in Kaduna.The senators were about to address newsmen when a mob stormed the venue.The incident occurred at the Press Centre of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, in Kaduna, Kaduna State.Sani and Hunkuyi were rushed to safety by their security aides and journalists.The assailants destroyed the vehicle that conveyed the senators to the Press Centre.They also damaged properties, including midgets, cameras, tripods for cameras and chairs, at the Press Centre.Last week, the Senate Committee on Foreign Loans, which Sani chairs, deferred the approval of a loan request by the Kaduna State Government.
Without Deeper Output Cut, Crude Projected to Fall Below $40/bbl in Q1 2018

Crude Oil, Brent Crude in particular, is projected to fall to $40 per barrel or below in the first quarter of 2018, except the Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) implements a deeper cut in oil production. This is according to the prediction of an oil analyst at JBC Energy GmBH as reported by Bloomberg.JBC Energy GmBH provides consulting, research, and training services for businesses, governments, and organisations operating in the energy sector in Austria and internationally. The company offers analytical and unbiased information, commentary, and advice on current and future developments in oil, gas, and alternative fuel markets; market analysis in a range of regular reports.This is coming on the heels of rise in the cartels output by 340,000 barrels per day in June to 32.6 mbd, which has been described as the highest level in 2017, after Saudi flows increased and Libya and Nigeria, spared from supply cuts, pumped at stronger rates. According to Oil Market Report (OMR) for July, released by International Energy Agency (IEA) higher output from members bound by the production pact knocked compliance to 78 per cent in June, the lowest rate during the first six months of the agreement.According to the analyst, Richard Gorry, who is the Managing Director at JBC Energy Asia, with the momentum of supply flows globally and weak demands months later, additional cut in output may be required to consolidate the earlier ones that had been implemented to avoid the price of Brent crude dropping to $40/bbl or below in the first quarter of 2018. OPEC was reported earlier by Bloomberg to have quietly opened the tap. According to the report, OPECs resolve to stick to promised supply cuts stumbled in June, the sixth month in its long-haul gambit to erode a world oil glut and boost prices. Total compliance within OPEC slipped below 100 percent, back to levels seen in February, dragged down by rising production in Angola, Iraq and Saudi Arabia.The 21 nations participating in supply cuts are collectively trying to reduce output by almost 1.8 mbd, in most cases using October levels as the starting point. Iran was given a target that allowed a modest increase while two other OPEC nations, Libya and Nigeria, are exempt and have steadily ramped up production this year. However, just few days ago, Nigeria agreed to cap its oil production at 1.8m barrels per day after an extensive meeting of OPEC and Non-OPEC members. By so doing, Nigeria cutting off 400,000 barrels per day from its budget benchmark of 2.2 mbd.In his analysis, Gorry estimated that,the benchmark for more than half the worlds oil might end 2017 between $45 and $47/bbl, after which the market might turn very tricky, He posited that, while prices were being supported by recent U.S. inventory draws amid the summer driving season when fuel demand typically peaks, that trend will reverse from early-September as consumption weakens.Brent crude extended gains on Wednesday, trading up 0.4 per cent at $50.39/bbl at 6:32 a.m. in New York, riding a rally as industry data showed U.S. stockpiles plunged last week, Bloomberg reported.Brent could go to $40 and even below, Bloomberg quoted Gorry to have said in an interview in Singapore recently. Thats not necessarily what were forecasting, but we dont know where exactly the market is going to trade and how bearish its going to be.JBC is flagging the risk of a drop in prices as the OPEC and some partner nations grapple with the implementation of output curbs aimed at easing a global glut. At a meeting earlier this week in St. Petersburg, Saudi Arabia promised deep cuts to crude exports next month, emphasising its commitment to eliminating the oversupply even as fellow OPEC members Libya and Nigeria were told they are free to keep increasing production.If OPEC stays the same and we have the same output restrictions even in the first quarter, were looking at a lot of surplus in the market, Gorry was quoted to have said. To really tighten the market, OPEC will have to cut more, and I dont know if they want to do that.Oil slumped into a bear market last month, after giving up most of the gains it made following OPECs agreement late last year to begin cuts from January. Beyond the renewed focus on exports, the St. Petersburg meeting made no changes to the supply deal to correct that underwhelming performance.Still, crude has climbed about 10 per cent over the past month as U.S. inventories have shown signs of declining. Demand may slow after September, while oil output from producers in Brazil, Kazakhstan, West Africa and central Europe is set to rise in the first half of next year, Gorry said.U.S. output is continuing to ramp up, with the nation pumping 9.4 million barrels daily, close to the record 9.6 million barrels levels seen in 2015. American production may again rise to 9.6 mbpd by the end of 2017, according to Gorry. Asia-Pacific is the only region that will see output declines as China shuts wells, he said.According to the July OMR, global oil supply rose by 720,000 bd in June to 97.46 mbd as producers opened the taps. Output stood 1.2 mbd above a year ago with non-OPEC firmly back in growth mode. The report noted that the substantial recovery in Libya and Nigeria diluted OPECs actual supply cut of 920,000 bd in June to just 470,000 bd. If Libya can sustain still higher flows during July and Nigeria posts even a slight improvement, OPECs cut could be eroded to less than 300,000bd.The OMR also pointed that, The call on OPEC crude is forecast to rise steadily through 2017 and reach 33.6 mbd during the final quarter of this year, up 1 mbd on June output. Provided there is strong compliance with OPECs cuts, that would imply a hefty stock draw, even if Libya and Nigeria recover further.For the Non-OPEC, their supply rose by 380,000 bd in June on seasonally higher biofuels output and as Canadian oil production recovered after outages, the OMR revealed. At 58 mbd, non-OPEC supply was 1.3 mbd above a year earlier, with gains stemming primarily from the US and Canada, but with significant contributions also from Brazil and Kazakhstan.According to the report, Compliance with agreed non-OPEC output curbs improved to 82 per cent in June, overtaking compliance from OPEC for the first time since the cut took effect in January. Over the first six months of output cuts, compliance for the group of ten, now excluding Equatorial Guinea who joined OPEC from 1 June, has averaged 61 per cent.Nevertheless, non-OPEC supply is seen expanding by 0.7 mbd in 2017 and 1.4 mbd next year, largely unchanged from last months report. Growth will primarily come from the US, which is forecast to expand by 610,000 bd and 1. 045 mbd over 2017 and 2018, respectively. Other notable gains come from Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan, while Mexico and China are expected to see the largest declines, OMR noted.
At least 69 people are known to have died in a Boko Haram ambush of an oil exploration team in northeast Nigeria, as three men kidnapped...

At least 69 people are known to have died in a Boko Haram ambush of an oil exploration team in northeast Nigeria, as three men kidnapped by the jihadists made a video appeal.Experts said the attack  Boko Harams bloodiest this year  underscored the persistent threat it poses, despite government claims the group is a spent force.So far the death toll stands at 69, said an aid agency worker involved in the recovery of bodies after the attack in the Magumeri area of Borno state on Tuesday.The worker, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said 19 soldiers, 33 civilian militia and 17 civilians were killed.The last body was recovered Friday in the bush in the Geidam district of neighbouring Yobe state, which is several kilometres from the scene of the ambush, he told AFP.It shows the victim, who had gunshot wounds, died after trekking a long distance. There could be more such victims in the bush.Another source with knowledge of the rescue operation gave the death toll as 70 or more and also said it was unclear whether all the victims had been accounted for.The attack hit Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation staff.Its a confirmation of the boldness and reassurance that Boko Haram has managed to gain over the last six weeks, said Yan St-Pierre, from the Modern Security Consulting Group.They have been attacking more and more military outposts and more military convoys. For them to go after NNPC personnel just shows they dont fear any military reprisal.Basically they have managed to gain enough resources, enough material, to plan ambushes targeted towards high value targets. Video appeal News of the rising death toll came after Boko Haram published a four-minute video in which three men identified themselves as being from the University of Maiduguri.The trio were part of a NNPC team on a mission to find commercial quantities of oil in the Lake Chad basin.I want to call on the acting president professor Yemi Osinbajo to come to our rescue to meet the demand, one of the men says in the video, which he said was shot on Friday.He attributed the attack to the Islamic State-supported Boko Haram faction headed by Abu Musab Al-Barnawi, which has vowed to hit military and government targets.They have promised us that if their demands are met they will release us immediately to go back to the work we were caught doing, the man added.There was no indication of where the video was shot but Magumeri is some 50 kilometres (31 miles) by road northwest of Maiduguri.University of Maiduguri spokesman Danjuma Gambo confirmed the identities of the three kidnapped men in the video.They are our staff but one more is yet to be accounted for, he told AFP.Five members of staff from the university  two lecturers, two technologists and a driver  were killed, vice-chancellor Ibrahim Njodi said on Friday.He told reporters the university had been hesitant to send staff with the NNPC team but had been assured about security.Nigeria is searching for oil in the northeast to try to reduce its reliance on supplies from the Niger delta, where militant attacks have slashed production. Suicide bombings Kidnapping has been a feature of the Boko Haram insurgency, which has killed at least 20,000, displaced more than 2.6 million and left millions of others on the brink of famine.Thousands of women and girls have been seized, to be married off to fighters, used as sex slaves or suicide bombers, while men and boys have been made to fight in the Islamist ranks.The al-Barnawi faction differs from fighters loyal to Boko Harams long-time leader Abubakar Shekau in that it disagrees with the indiscriminate targeting of civilians.On Friday, two suicide bombers struck a camp for displaced people in Dikwa, 90 kilometres (56 miles) east of Maiduguri, killing five.Civilian militia member Babakura Kolo said the men disguised themselves as traders wanting to buy grain.In Bama, 70 kilometres (45 miles) southeast of Maiduguri, three young female suicide bombers were killed when their explosives detonated prematurely on Thursday, he added.A fourth bomber, an 11-year-old girl, was too frightened to pull the trigger. She succeeded in removing her vest and sneaked into town. She was found and taken into custody, he said.AFP
American news network, CNN, has mocked Nigeria, asking where is President Muhammadu Buhari . WATCH VIDEO BELOW

WATCH VIDEO BELOW The Nigerian president has not been in the country for over two months and the news television in a query on its website on Sunday asked which head of state from which country has not set foot in his homeland in over two months?The mockery came in the latest edition of CNNs The Global Public Square (GPS) show anchored by Fareed Zakaria. In an apparent mockery of Nigeria and her President Muhammadu Buhari, CNN, on its programme displayed at 4:59pm local time on Sunday, asked,The head of state from which country has not set foot in his homeland in over two months?It went ahead to tick an option with the name Nigeria as the correct answer. The options were given as Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Nigeria and Syria. A screenshot of the mockery tweeted by Chidi Odinkalu, Former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission asked What do you say Nigerians?Recall that President Muhammadu Buhari has been in London since May 7 on a medical follow-up. Some political delegations including the Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo have been visiting President Buhari in London and have told Nigerians that the president is doing just fine and will soon return to continue his presidential duties.
The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai has condemned the attack on Journalists by hoodlums at the state secretariat of the Nige...

The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir Ahmad El-Rufai has condemned the attack on Journalists by hoodlums at the state secretariat of the Nigerian Union of journalists in Kaduna.

In a statement in Kaduna, the state government also directed security agencies to beef up security at the NUJ secretariat.

The statement which was signed by Samuel Aruwan, the spokesman of governor said that nobody will be allowed to stifle freedom of expression.



Having been briefed on the situation, the governor expressed sympathy with The NUJ and the persons that were harassed by the hoodlums. The Governor directed that the security agencies should investigate and take necessary action against the hoodlums. The Governor also directed security agencies to beef up security at the NUJ secretariat to protect journalists doing their duty.

The media must not be hindered from carrying out their constitutional and professional obligations. The government of Kaduna State upholds the principles of free speech and respects the freedom of expression.



Politics should not be a desperate game. And desperation should not be visited on journalists or any citizen.

The government of Kaduna State will not tolerate any attempt to muzzle the press and innocent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights he said.




Igbo Civil Society Coalition, ICSCO, a group made up of Igbo activists, civil society organizations, professional bodies, faith based organ...

Igbo Civil Society Coalition, ICSCO, a group made up of Igbo activists, civil society organizations, professional bodies, faith based organizations and town unions have accused Arewa youths of allegedly driving Nigerians into another civil war with their hate speeches.





The group, therefore, urged the Federal Government to avert the ugly situation.

They also appealed to the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, to withdraw its threat to scuttle the November 18 governorship election in Anambra State.

These were contained in a communique issued after its general congress in Enugu weekend.





The communique jointly signed by its National Coordinator, Prof Obasi Igwe and Convener Mazi Ikechukwu Bismarck Oji, read, The Igbo Civil Society Coalition, a coalition of Igbo activists, civil society organizations, professional bodies, faith based organizations, town unions, among others, held its monthly general congress in Enugu and after due deliberations resolved as follows:





Constitution Amendment: that ICSCO is dismayed at the National Assemblys inability to align itself with the obvious wishes of Nigerians cutting across partisan, ethno-religious and socio-economic lines, which is that Nigeria should be restructured so that there will be devolution of powers from the Federal Government to federating units.

Therefore, in the interest of national stability and socio-economic advancement of the country, ICSCO appeals to the National Assembly to re-consider its stand on devolution of powers from the Federal Government to the federating units (regions).





Unless that is done, Nigeria will never be able to attain economic advancement or political stability since the feeding bottle federalism practised in Nigeria today is an aberration and does not make room for the development of the federating units based on areas of comparative advantage.

Arewa Youths Ultimatum to the Acting President to Arrest Mazi Nnamdi Kanu: ICSCO observes with dismay that Arewa Youths have refused to withdraw the Quit Notice they issued to Ndigbo despite interventions of well-meaning Nigerians, even from their region.





Rather, they have continued to issue hate speeches, threats and ultimatums. The other time, they asked the Federal Government to declare IPOB a terrorist organization.

Last time, they descended heavily on the Acting President- Prof Yemi Osibanjo, who despite all his humility and loyalty; they claimed was plotting to unseat his principal-President Buhari.

Now, they are giving the same Acting President an ultimatum to arrest Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the IPOB leader.

It is obvious that these youths want to force Nigeria into war at all cost. If not, what is the rationale behind asking for Kanus arrest because he is asking for referendum when they insist that there will never be restructuring.





They should realize that IPOB has the sympathy of a vast majority of Ndigbo as a group, which has stoutly challenged President Buharis policy of Igbo exclusion (no longer marginalization).

Anambra Governorship Election: ICSCO is appealing to the IPOB to re-consider its stand with regards to boycotting the election. Secondly, we appeal to all parties involved to come together as Ndigbo in order to build consensus on the issue to engender peace and unity of purpose in Ala-Igbo (Igbo land).




The Nigerian Army is to deploy 230 personnel, including 19 officers and 211 soldiers to Liberia, Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Bura...

The Nigerian Army is to deploy 230 personnel, including 19 officers and 211 soldiers to Liberia, Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai has said.Speaking in Kaduna at the end of a a four-week intensive training on leadership and peacekeeping for the personnel, Buratai, charged them to shun acts that could tarnished Nigerias image.You must observe human rights, and respect the cultural and religious sensitives of Liberians, he said.The army chief said that since 1960, Nigeria has deployed over 20, 000 troops to 40 peacekeeping missions in Africa and across the world.Earlier the Nigerian Army Peacekeeping Centre, Jaji was renamed Martin Luther Agwai International Leadership and Peacekeeping Centre, in recognition of his commitment to peacekeeping efforts and excellent service.The centre was established in 2004 by Agwai as a Wing, when he was the Chief of Army Staff.Speaking, Agwai noted that peacekeeping was gradually becoming an intra-country issue with the military at the centre stage following internal conflicts such as ethnic, religious other crises.He, however, noted that Nigeria has been involved in peacekeeping operations in Africa and world at large, but had not repeat the economic and diplomatic benefits of such venture.Agwai, who was also a Chief of Defence Staff, called on government and private-owned organisations to partner the centre in leadership training on conflict prevention and management in the quest to achieve enduring peace.He thanked current and past leadership of the army for the honour done him by naming the centre after him.NAN reports that Agwai, was former Deputy Force Commander, United Nations Peacekeeping Operation in Sierra Leone (UNAMSIL), Chief of Army Staff Nigerian Army, Force Commander of African Union/United Nations Mission Hybrid Mission in Darfur (UNAMID).He was later Special Adviser to Secretary-General of the UN. NAN)
The Nigerian Army has admitted feeding the public with bareface lies over the abduction of NNPC staff by a faction of Boko Haram in the ...

The Nigerian Army has admitted feeding the public with bareface lies over the abduction of NNPC staff by a faction of Boko Haram in the Lake Chad Basin on Tuesday, 25 July.The Army had claimed in a statement on Wednesday through its spokesman, Brigadier-General Sani Usman that all the abducted staff of NNPC had been rescued by soldiers during a search and rescue operation in the area. He added that only nine soldiers died during the ambush.To counter the lies, the Abu Musab al-Barnawi led faction of Boko Haram released a video on Saturday showing some of the abducted NNPC staff begging the Federal Government to negotiate with the sect for their freedom.Also, forty-eight corpses of persons killed by the terrorists during the ambush on Tuesday were brought to the Maiduguri Teaching Hospital in the Borno State capital on Thursday.The corpses brought include 18 soldiers, 15 Civilian JTF, five university staff and four NNPC drivers.But in a rare show of remorse after the Boko Haram video hit the air waves, Brigadier-General Usman in another statement on Saturday said his initial statement that all the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) workers abducted in the ambush had been rescued was wrong.He added that six members of the NNPC exploration team out of 12 that went out are still missing, while one of the NNPC staff returned to base alive.Usman revealed further that the death toll from the July 25 ambush of oil workers and staff members of the University of Maiduguri in Borno by Boko Haram has risen with the recovery of more bodies.According to him, 21 more bodies of those on the team that was ambushed by the terrorists had been recovered with some persons still missing.So far the search and rescue team has recovered additional bodies of 5 soldiers, 11 Civilian JTF and 5 members of the exploration team, Usman stated.Describing the ambush as as unfortunate and highly regrettable, Usman said his initial statement that all the NNPC workers abducted in the ambush had been rescued was wrong.According to him, the pursuit team also recovered two of armys gun trucks and an additional Toyota Buffalo Gun truck from the insurgents.In addition, the team also made the following recoveries; four rocket-propelled grenade bombs, four rocket propelled grenade chargers, six AK-47 rifles, one anti-aircraft gun, on general purpose machine gun, one anti-aircraft gun barrel, one rocket-propelled grenade tube, four Dane guns, eight tyres and two Tyre Rims, it added.Other items recovered include one pumping machine, two tyre jacks, one super battery, five reflective jackets, three Toyota Hilux vans, four Jerry cans filled with PMS, one Motorola Radio, one Geographical Positioning System (GPS), 21 empty Jerry cans, two shovels and three food coolers.The troops also recovered 122 rounds of PKM ammunition, 213 rounds of 7.62mm NATO ammunition, 1255 Anti-Aircraft Guns ammunition, 4 boxes of API 12.7mm ammunition, 1 AK-47 Rifle Magazine, a Digger, two bows and 13 arrows, 2 LLG bombs, assorted drugs and assorted working tools.Boko Haram insurgents had on July 25 ambushed troops, including members of the Civilian Joint Task Force, escorting some staff members of the NNPC as well as that of the University of Maiduguri who were carrying out oil exploration activities in Borno Yesu District of Magumeri Local Government Area of Borno state.
Arsene Wenger has reiterated his determination to hold onto Alexis Sanchez and slammed claims the unsettled Arsenal stars dose of the fl...

Arsene Wenger has reiterated his determination to hold onto Alexis Sanchez and slammed claims the unsettled Arsenal stars dose of the flu was part of his plan to engineer a transfer.Sanchez has just one year left on his Arsenal contract after refusing to sign the clubs offer of a new deal and it is believed the Chile forward wants to move to a team in the Champions League.Manchester City, Paris Saint-Germain, Bayern Munich and Juventus are all interested in the 28-year-old, who has yet to return to pre-season training with Arsenal as he recovers after playing for Chile at the Confederations Cup.Sanchez was due back at Arsenal on Sunday, but his return to England has been delayed by at least 48 hours after he caught the flu, revealing the illness with an social media picture of himself huddled under a blanket with the caption sick.Some cynical Arsenal fans fear Sanchezs failure to report on time is part of his plan to leave the Premier League club.But Gunners boss Wenger, speaking after his sides 5-2 thrashing of Benfica in the Emirates Cup on Saturday, made it clear Sanchez will not be sold.No development, always the same, He is staying, of course, Wenger said.Asked how he read Sanchezs delayed arrival, Wenger refused to criticise his player.He has flu. He texted me to say he will come back as soon as possible. We are in touch with him and his doctor, he said.Your job is to be suspicious, your job is built on mistrust and mine is built on trust, that is why I prefer my side.There is no basic problem. He would have come back tomorrow but he will be here on Tuesday. He is flying back as soon as he is in a position to.Wenger insisted the uncertainty over Sanchezs future wouldnt prove a distraction in the same way speculation over the managers contract caused such chaos before he signed a new deal at the end of last season.Its not the same. Its different with a manager who has to take a global view of the club. I think the players who have one year on their contract have to respect their contract and play under it, he said.Probed on whether Sanchez had personally told him whether or not he wanted to stay, Wenger added: I cannot reveal to you what he says to me always. It is a secret conversation. I speak to all the players.Wenger also refused to say if he would make another bid for 50 million-rated ($65 million, 56 million euro) Monaco winger Thomas Lemar after having several offers rejected.We dont speak about how our negotiations go. We come out once its done or not done, he said.We are active in the transfer market in general. At the moment there is nothing special to say on this case.
MAIDUGURI (Reuters)  A suicide bomber killed 14 people in northeast Nigeria, the state emergency agency said on Saturday, in an attack ...

MAIDUGURI (Reuters)  A suicide bomber killed 14 people in northeast Nigeria, the state emergency agency said on Saturday, in an attack that bore the hallmarks of Boko Haram, days after a resurgence in the jihadist groups activities prompted a shift in military tactics.The attack in the town of Dikwa in Borno state came days after suspected members of the group kidnapped an oil prospecting team, prompting a rescue bid that ended in the deaths of at least 37 people including members of the team and rescuers from the military and armed vigilantes, officials say.Three kidnapped members of the oil team appeared in a video seen by Reuters on Saturday, which was provided by suspected members of the militant group.Boko Haram, which seeks to create an Islamic state in the northeast, has stepped up the frequency of attacks in the last few months. The insurgency has killed 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes in the last eight years.A suicide bomber detonated the explosives in Dikwa on Friday night, after entering a building housing people who had previously fled the insurgency and since returned, the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) said. We have so far evacuated 38 victims comprising 14 dead and 24 injured, said SEMA spokesman Bello Dambatta. Dikwa is around 90 kilometres east of Maiduguri, the capital of Borno state. The attack brings the number of people killed by insurgents in northeast Nigeria since June 1 to at least 113.After the kidnapping of the oil workers, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo on Thursday sent military chiefs to the northeast to help regain control of the situation.The move was a change of tactics since the government and military have repeatedly said Boko Haram  which also carries out cross-border attacks in neighbouring Cameroon and Niger  was on the verge of being defeated. President Muhammadu Buhari said in December that Boko Harams stronghold in the northeasts vast Sambisa forest had been captured.
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.
Soon, milk and other nutritious foods may not be the only things that do your body good at the West Broadway Hy-Vee Food Store.

A new CHI Health Quick Care clinic has an appointment to open Monday at the supermarket at 2323 W. Broadway, CHI Health announced.

Weve been looking at that area for quite some time, said Matthew Hazen, director of service excellence for CHI Health Clinic. We have a very busy physicians clinic just down the street, and weve noticed that a lot of the cases coming into urgent care could be treated in a Quick Care setting.

Care can be provided at a lower cost in a Quick Care setting than in a regular or urgent care clinic, Hazen said, and that could help people who are uninsured or underinsured.

The walk-in clinic, located next to the stores pharmacy, will be staffed by a physician assistant or nurse practitioner and will provide minor medical care to patients 18 months and older, according to a press release from CHI Health.

Services available will include sports, day care or camp physicals (private pay only); testing for influenza and other illnesses; immunizations; and diagnosis and treatment of minor conditions. Visits will take an estimated 20 minutes or less.

The clinic will not provide emergency care. For patients age 18 and younger, a parent must provide consent for care in person.

If a patients primary physician is a CHI Health Clinic provider, he or she will have access to records on a Quick Care visit, the press release stated. If the provider is not with CHI Health, a note can be sent to him or her.

Quick Care will have its own waiting area but can also share a few seats with the pharmacy, Hazen said. Patients will also be able to sign in, leave their cell number and wait in the cafe or start shopping.

Patients who need to have a prescription filled will not have to leave the store to get their medication, he noted.

It will be CHI Healths eighth Quick Care clinic in the Council Bluffs-Omaha metro area, Hazen said. In Nebraska, CHI Health also has two Quick Care locations in Lincoln and clinics in Grand Island and Kearney. Two more sites are in the works in Omaha, he said.

CHI Health has been working with Hy-Vee Food Stores for 10 to 12 years, Hazen said.

Weve had a really good relationship with Hy-Vee, he said.

Most major insurances are accepted. Co-payments  or full payment, for those without no health insurance  are due at the time of service.

Quick Care is open from 7 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. on weekdays and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. For more information, visit chihealth.com/quick-care.
Once vibrant and teeming with activity, the food court at the Mall of the Bluffs boasted fast food choices for nearly every appetite along with a more traditional sit-down restaurant.

Today, the food court consists of five coin-operated vending machines, four of which are filled with drink choices and the fifth with snack items.

Dearborn Realty Properties LLC, a subsidiary of Namdar Realty Group based in Great Neck, New York, and a partner, Z.E.A. Capital Realty Holdings LLC, purchased the Mall of the Bluffs from General Growth Properties of Chicago in 2013. Public records now showed the purchase price was $8.5 million.

The Mall of the Bluffs, which offers 730,000-square-feet of retail space, is located just off Madison Avenue near the Interstate 80 junction. It opened in 1986 to much fanfare, but the mall has struggled in recent years.

The mall lost two of its anchors to newer developments across town: J.C. Penney moved to the Marketplace in 2008 and Target moved to Metro Crossing in 2009. Barnes & Noble Booksellers closed in 2011. In 2012, then-owner General Growth Properties reported that the mall was more than one-quarter vacant.

Andrea Leinen, property manager at the Mall of the Bluffs, said she and her staff are doing everything they can to keep the mall thriving. That includes their ongoing effort to find tenants to lease the available spaces in the malls food court.

Leinen said there are a couple of potential food-court tenants who have expressed interest in the mall location, but they have not yet signed contracts for the spaces.

She said for food vendors, especially those starting new businesses, there are a number of advantages to a Mall of the Bluffs location, each of which is set up with a commercial kitchen.

There are a lot of perks for a business locating here. Vendors dont have to have the staff to bust tables and clean the dining area, Leinen said. There is ample parking, and things such as snow removal are taken care of by the mall.

The issues facing the food court at the Mall of the Bluffs are not uncommon at malls throughout the country.

The ease of mobile shopping and two-day delivery is really pushing time-strapped consumers to forgo trips to the mall, said Ken Perkins, president of Boston-based Retail Metrics Inc., which was founded by Perkins in 2004 to provide the institutional investment community with independent research on the retail industry.

Declining mall traffic is adversely impacting food court tenants, making it increasingly difficult to turn a profit, Perkins said. Strong food court offerings at the nations malls simply cant stem the tide of declining traffic.

Restaurants that draw in people on their own tend to do better.

More successful malls seem to have quality restaurant offerings such as a Cheesecake Factory, Legal Seafood, Capital Grill, etc., that are attached to the mall but not enclosed in it, he said. These seem to generate traffic to the mall as they are destination restaurants.

While the GGP-owned Mall of the Bluffs was in a state of decline before the sale to Namdar, two other GGP-owned malls in the Council Bluffs-Omaha metro area  Westroads Mall and Oak View Mall  have remained viable.

Jim Sadler, Westroads senior general manager, sees Westroads food hall, Flagship Commons, as an essential element in the malls continued viability. But it has taken a somewhat different approach to the traditional food court model.

Opened in late 2015, Westroads Flagship Commons offers sushi, ramen, a bar and other upscale food  offerings Sadler terms fast casual  compared to the fast food offerings of a typical food hall or food court.

The more typical food court featuring fast food doesnt really promote mall traffic, Sadler said.

We built a non-traditional food hall, fast casual as opposed to fast food, and people do come to Westroads for the food, he said. We have people coming here for business lunches, to hold club meetings here.

While not located within the mall, Sadler, like Retail Metrics Perkins, said he thinks the adjacent locations of two destination restaurants, the Cheesecake Factory and Granite City Food & Brewery, have helped generate traffic at the Westroads Mall.

The occupancy of the Westroads Mall currently stands at slightly more than 95 percent.

Amber Bakken, general manager of the Oak View Mall, said she was new to the position and unable to comment on the food courts overall role in the viability of the mall, which is currently more than 85 percent occupied.

Bakken said, however, that all but two of the food courts spaces are filled, and the two end positions that are vacant have been vacant for some time.
OMAHA  Sioux City-area farmer BJ Hayes is tired of seeing rain in the forecast only to end up with a few tenths of an inch on his corn crop. There are cracks in his soil, and his corn plants are producing smaller ears and ears with fewer kernels.

A deepening drought has become a stressful situation for many western Iowa and Nebraska farmers, made worse by the fact that the price for corn  down by about half since it soared in 2012 and 2013  isnt budging.

As you see your yields drop, you want that bigger price to make up for that, said Hayes, who farms in Iowa and Nebraska. But hes looking at the one-two punch of less-productive acres and low prices.

The picture worsened Thursday with the release of the latest weekly drought map from the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Severe drought now covers 6 percent of Nebraska, concentrated in the northeast and north-central parts of the state, and the only areas with no dry conditions are parts of southeast and south-central Nebraska, and the far northwest corner of the Panhandle.

Iowa is faring better, with less than 2 percent of the state in severe drought, about 35 percent in moderate drought and 64 percent abnormally dry.

Nearly 11 percent of the continental United States is in moderate drought or worse, said Richard Heim, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, in this weeks drought summary. The report is compiled weekly using data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and NOAA.

About half of the nations spring wheat, 13 percent of winter wheat, 15 percent of corn and 14 percent of the soybeans are in drought, the report said.

Consumers could see the price of bread at the grocery counter rise, said Doug Goehring, agriculture commissioner for North Dakota, the nations largest producer of spring wheat and second largest grower of wheat generally after Kansas.

There have been people in this business for five decades who have said they have never seen conditions like this, Goehring said.

The situation locally is still far better than this week five years ago, when the entire state of Nebraska was in severe drought and more than half was in extreme drought  a situation that only got worse from there. Nebraska in 2012 faced the kind of drought conditions that come around only every 25 to 50 years, said associate state climatologist Al Dutcher.

The Nebraska Department of Agriculture said its monitoring conditions. It offered some options to help cattle ranchers, whose pastures are hit by drought, to source hay to feed their cattle.

The rains that fell Tuesday and Wednesday, followed by cooler temperatures, wont make much of a dent in the problem because the rains fell mostly in areas that werent very dry to begin with, Dutcher said. It would take above-normal rains in drought-affected areas to see relief.

There is going to be very limited improvement in areas currently depicted (on the map) in drought, Dutcher said.

Rains of about a half-inch or less wouldnt do much to help a corn grower, especially now, the part of the growing season when crops water demands are the highest, Dutcher said. All a sprinkle does is get the surface wet and offset a small amount of irrigation. Some of the areas corn crop is too far gone, he said, for rain to make much difference now.

Farmers generally would have planted corn in mid-May for harvest in October, and corn has narrow windows of time when the amount of rain influences the size and number of kernels. July conditions are especially critical.

The situation wouldnt be so bad for farmers who are facing big declines in yields  the amount of corn theyll produce per acre  if they could look forward to a run-up in corn prices to make up lost revenue.

But only 15 percent of the U.S. corn crop is in drought conditions, the U.S. Department of Agriculture estimated in a Thursday report. The big corn-producing areas of eastern Iowa, Minnesota, Illinois and Indiana are largely untouched by drought.

With supply still left in the market from last years huge corn crop, the drought is just not big enough to push prices up much, said Cory Walters, UNL ag economist.

Corn markets have been vacillating with weather reports but arent showing big gains, he said. December corn futures traded Thursday around $3.87 a bushel; those contracts have traded as low as $3.59 and as high as $4.17 since August 2016.

And farmers hit by drought this year wont make up much ground with insurance payouts because of the way crop insurance programs calculate payments, based on spring market prices, which were under $4 a bushel this year, Walters said.

Farmers will react by spending less money on equipment purchases and less on family living expenses, Walters said, affecting their local communities. Those are the kinds of decisions that ripple through Nebraskas wider economy.

Its just another low-income year, Walters said.

This is projected to be the fourth year in a row of falling profits for the nations farmers.

Iowa farmer Matt Chambers, whose corn is suffering in the drought, is looking for profits by selling a portion of his crop at a time, taking advantage of small rallies.

Chambers farms with family about 80 miles northeast of Omaha in Audubon. Hes still hopeful for a price boost after this harvest season, expecting lower yields on average throughout the industry.

Will he make money this year?

Were probably right at the line between red and black, he said.

 The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Thank you veterans

Vietnam Veterans Day was this past Thursday. They fought long and hard for our freedom and earned less respect from all of us here in the great United States.

It was a dirty war and our men deserve much praise and recognition. Among our many heroes is a prominent citizen and chiropractor, Dr. R.C. Dahlgaard on East Broadway in Council Bluffs.

I have worked with him almost 30 years and he is extremely kind and generous and shows everyone great respect in the almost 50 years he has been in practice.

There are many veterans among us and everyone needs to make a special effort to show respect and appreciation for them. Put out your flags and let them know you remember their bravery and the sacrifice they put forth for all of us at home. Our city should make an effort to support gratitude.

Thank God for their safe return.

Patricia Witthauer, Council Bluffs

Exira fire chief thanks community

On behalf of the Exira Fire Department, I want to express my gratitude for the outpouring of help on the morning of the downtown fire that ended up claiming four of the buildings on our main street. Heartfelt thoughts go out to the people who lost their business, possessions and/or home in this devastating fire.

When paged out early that morning I knew that it was not a good situation. We started paging area fire departments, as we knew that we would need manpower, aerial trucks, pumper trucks, tankers and a lot of water.

A big thank you must be given to all the towns that responded with the help and equipment that was needed to fight this fire. Also this could not have happened without the understanding of employers that allow fire volunteers to leave the job or self employed that take time off from their own business. Words cannot express the gratitude that we felt when everyone came rolling in to town that morning to help.

Thanks for the help from the Audubon County dispatchers in paging or calling out other departments and the officers from the area and state law enforcement that helped with traffic control.

When the call went out to the public for food and water to feed the fire personnel, we were overwhelmed with what was brought in and the people that were there to help anyway they could. This was not just from Exira but came from the many surrounding towns.

It is hard to describe what I felt when I saw all the food, water, power drinks, ice, cookies, bars and fruit that was delivered to the volunteers helping to coordinate this task.

The two words, Thank you, are not adequate for the feelings I felt at the end of the day for all the volunteers and fire personnel that stepped up to help Exira in time of need.

Fire Chief Mike Bintner, Exira

Share My Smile thanks community

On behalf of Share My Smile, a local nonprofit organization with a mission to help strengthen foster families, I want to thank the community on a couple levels. First, thanks to the entire community for its support of our organization through Pottawattamie Gives on May 24. Those grassroots donations are much appreciated. Secondly, we want to thank the Pottawattamie County Community Foundation for not only initiating Pottawattamie Gives, but for also awarding us a community grant of $500 for family events that we will hold during the holidays later this year. To learn more about us go to sharemysmile.org and get more information on PCCF visit ourpccf.org. We are blessed to be part of this community.

Chelsea Taggart, President, Share My Smile

Dont let the government test drugs

Too many people feel comfortable about drugs being tested by the federal government. They may know of no alternative. Government is a terrible choice for drug testing.

When people want something done  and they certainly want their drugs tested, at least for safety  theres an opportunity for entrepreneurs. Each testing company would value its work by expanding its revenues and limiting its costs, resulting in profits. If a testing company performs poorly, the pharmaceutical company that hired it would turn to a competitor.

Profits and competition are not part of the governments world. Government officials value their work by limiting what they can be blamed for, how much power they have over the public, how large their staff, and how big their budget. The bigger the better.

Lets say that drug testing is privatized. Pharmaceutical companies arrange for private companies to perform the testing. Some would do a thorough job, charging high prices (but lower than government costs). Others would offer mid-level testing, with modest prices. Still others would do minimal testing, at minimal cost. For each drug, the pharmaceutical company could choose the level of testing it prefers, recognizing that the higher the risks, the higher the liability insurance premiums for the pharmaceutical company.

The consumers of drugs and their doctors, working through the courts, would ultimately decide about drug safety. After privatization, the pressure to cut costs would probably reduce the peoples desire for ideal testing. The new standard would be reasonableness, which applies to the testing of most other products.

To make sure it cant be blamed, government testing keeps effective drugs off the market for years and years. The delays have caused far more lives to be lost than have been saved by the government making certain that drugs are safe and effective.

To perform any service, government is the worst choice.

Archie M. Richards Jr., Concord, New Hampshire

States get it right on voter information

Im 100 percent behind the states that declined to send voter information to the Trump administration; that information could very well be forwarded to Russia.

By the way, does Vladimir Putin have something so bad on Donald Trump that Trump is speculating firing Jeff Sessions (Attorney General), Rod Rosenstein (Deputy AG) and Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and also thinking of pardoning everyone?

Alfred Waddell, Hyannis, Massachusetts

Oversight needed for missile defense

In order to make the ground-based missile defense system effective against attacks by North Korea or whoever, we should probably have rigorous Congressional oversight (as well as any extra funding that is needed.). At the very least, we should work on the performance of small thrusters attached to the interceptors, and we should have rigorous testing on those interceptors.

Alex Sokolow, Santa Monica, California

The time is now to cut out nuclear weapons

We have been living with nuclear weapons for 72 years, so that must make them safe and sustainable, right?

Wrong.

Nuclear weapons are the only way we have of killing most humans on Earth in the space of a few hours  far more immediately than global climate chaos, which is itself a dire threat. Reliable astroscientists assure us that they predict no giant meteor collisions nor anything else that can wreck life on Earth for at least millennia, except a self-inflicted nuclear apocalypse.

Most of humankind understands this, most of humankind is not defended in any conceivable fashion by the weapons in the arsenals of just nine of the 200 nations on Earth.

That is why we are witnessing a political showdown between the overwhelming majority of the planets countries and the nine nuclear powers.

Oh, you hadnt heard about this conflict? That is hardly surprising in our strange media and political atmosphere of random bellicose presidential tweets, votes on whether to slash healthcare for our most vulnerable citizens, and narcissistic speeches to the bewildered Boy Scouts. Not to mention the deranged cockfight environment we are witnessing inside the inner circle in the oddest, most dysfunctional White House in history.

Far more meaningful in the long arc of human history and certainly in our hopes for future generations is the recently passed treaty to ban all nuclear weapons on Earth.

We have seen successful treaties to outlaw both biological weapons (1972) and chemical weapons (1992), neither of which have ever been capable of the immediate and long term threat to life locked and loaded in the arsenals of just nine nations.

The 72 years since the atomic annihilation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki is nothing more than a quick eyeblink in the long span of human history and prehistory. Nukes are a single incident away from wrecking your life, your great-grandchildrens lives, and those of everyone else. They are now officially criminal and have always been evil.

Now is the most opportune time ever to let your federal elected officials know that we stand with the vast majority of people on planet Earth. Its time. Sign that treaty and get it ratified. Save the world, literally.

Tom Hastings, director of the Oregon Peace Institute, Portland, Oregon
Like a lot of outdoor enthusiasts, Ive been looking for ways to stay out of the heat. With fishing curtained over much of the region it is not that difficult to think of an excuse to stay out of the sun. I was sitting in the shade trying to keep cool and trying to figure out what I was going to write about this week.

The idea for this column popped into my head while thinking back to a question I got while conducting a fishing seminar at a Bass Pro Shop in Missouri awhile back. I touched on the topic of bobbers and an individual in the audience asked, You mean it really makes a difference in what type of bobber I use?

The type of bobber you use can make a big difference. It literally can mean the difference between catching a fish and going home empty-handed.

The use of fishing floats, or what became known as bobbers, is credited to the Norwegians back in the 1840s. I cant help but think that someone long before that used something that would float on a fishing line, but this is what the bobber historians say. The Norwegians used small glass, egg-sized floats that they tied on their fishing lines above a hook and some bait.

As the use of fishing nets increased, the Norwegians made bigger floats to hold the nets up. As would be expected, many other Europeans began using glass floats. There were soon markings and what we would call trademarks today being used on the floats to identify the owners or the manufacturers of the floats.

Around 1910, Japan began making glass floats for their fishing industry. The Japanese experimented with many different sizes of floats to meet the needs of their fishing fleets, from 2-inches in diameter up to 20-inch spheres.

With the Japanese floats, most were made from green glass recycled from sake bottles. Other colors like amber, blue, purple, yellow, orange and even clear floats were produced. Red is the most prized color for a collector today because gold was used to produce that color. Original antique floats are quite rare and quite valuable as collector items.

Cork and aluminum floats made their appearance in the market in the 1920s. It wasnt long before they began to replace glass floats because of their more durable design, plus they could be made easily with ways to attach the nets to the float, rather than be woven in as was the practice with glass floats. After World War II, plastic floats virtually took over the market.

The Boys Book of Sports, published in 1886, has a description of a unique float in it. It was made like a Jumping Jack, and a figurine would dance when a fish took the bait and pulled on the line. In the chapter Odd Methods of Fishing, there is a description of this Jumping Jack bobber:

This little figure is fastened to a stick, which is secured in an upright position on a float made of a piece of board. Through a hole in the float is passed the string attached to the figure, and tied securely to this there are the hook and line. After the hook is baited, the float is placed on the surface of the water and the little man, standing upright, is left to wait in patience. Presently a fish, attracted by the bait, comes nearer the surface, seizes the hook quickly, and darts downward, pulling the string and making the little figure throw up its arms and legs, as though dancing for joy at having performed its task so well.

I think everyone who has ever fished has used one of the big plastic round bobbers. Most of them you see are red and white, but red and yellow is another common color combination. They are easy to use and very inexpensive, but have one major drawback. There is so much resistance when a fish tries to pull one of these under that they will often drop the bait before the hook is set. If you want to set up a quick experiment to prove this theory, try pushing a beach ball under water. Tough to do, right? Now try one of the long noodle floats kids use. You can pull these under water much more easily.

For fishing, a longer, thinner float, generically called a pencil bobber, has much lees resistance when it is pulled under water so the fish is less likely to feel it. Based on my experiences and testing, I would say that an angler using a pencil bobber probably catches 30-40 percent more fish. That is enough to make most anglers take notice.

The next time you go fishing, for whatever species you go after, try a pencil bobber and see what you think.

FNRA Banquet

The date is getting closer. Sept. 9 will be the next Friends of the National Rifle Association. The event will be held in Ogallala at the Platte River Inn, 201 Chuckwagon Road, in Ogallala.

Doors will open at 4:30 p.m. MDT, dinner will be about 7 p.m. and an auction will begin about 8 p.m. This years dinner will be a rib eye steak cooked to your preference, a salad, corn, green beans, a baked potato, dinner roll and dessert.

All the money raised by the FNRA goes to promote and support the shooting sports. Tickets for the event are $35 per person. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 308-660-1937 or 308-284-8997.

Enjoy your time outdoors!
Nebraskas state government is in a curious budget situation, with major negatives but also major pluses.

The government is going through a troubling financial pinch at present, with revenues falling short of projections. The state closed out its fiscal year on June 30 with $34 million less in tax revenue than projected, stemming from ongoing challenges in the agricultural economy. In the past two years, the state forecasting board reduced its forecasts five times. This year the board lowered its tax revenue projections twice, by $80 million in February and then by $15 million in April.

State leaders have a supremely difficult challenge. On the one hand, lawmakers and the Ricketts administration need to try to hold off on increasing the tax burden at a time when the farm and ranch sectors are stressed and as lawmakers are hearing loud complaints about the property tax burden.

At the same time, the state must fund a range of important public needs, including schools, prisons, child welfare and the University of Nebraska.

In terms of the big picture, Nebraska is getting a lot of the budget fundamentals right  a comprehensive new report on the 50 states ranks Nebraska No. 6 for overall state fiscal management.

In addition, the report  by the Mercatus Center, a free-market think tank with George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia  ranks Nebraska No. 1 in long-run solvency (ability to meet its long-term financial obligations) and No. 3 in trust fund solvency. Those scores are in line with Nebraskas rankings in past years by the Mercatus Center.

Nebraskas long-term position is especially favorable, the report concluded after studying how all states handled their budgets for fiscal year 2015.

Nebraskas state pensions are 90 percent funded overall, compared with a 50-state average of 74 percent. Financial experts recommend funding of at least 80 percent to be fiscally sound.

Nebraskas unfunded state pension obligations are 18 percent of total personal income in the state, well below the 50-state average of 35 percent. The unfunded pension liability figures for some states with the most severe problems: New Mexico, 64 percent of total personal income; Ohio, 62 percent; Mississippi, 58 percent; Illinois, 54 percent.

The state Constitution requires Nebraska to hold its state government debt to a modest level. That gives it a boost in the Mercatus Center rankings. Nebraska has a debt per capita of $8, compared with the 50-state per-capita average of $1,804.

Total annual expenditures by Nebraskas state government are 9 percent of residents total personal income. For the average U.S. state, the figure is 13 percent. The figures for some other states: 19 percent in Vermont, 14 percent in New York, 11 percent in Colorado, 10 percent in both Kansas and South Dakota.

As for Nebraskas neighbor to the east: Iowa ranked 28th overall. The states long-run solvency ranking was high (No. 10) and its trust fund solvency was judged average (No. 25).

Iowas state pensions are 83 percent funded, compared with the 50-state average of 74 percent.

Iowas government spends above the 50-state average when matched against residents total personal income: 15 percent in Iowa, compared with 13 percent for the average state.

As the new report shows, Nebraska benefits from important budget advantages, long term. Pensions are well managed. Debt is low. The states ability to meet its long-term obligations is high.

In addressing the short-term budget challenges, Nebraska leaders need to maintain that strength, keeping the state on a positive long-term course.

 The Omaha World-Herald
When it comes to the fastest-growing industries in the U.S., few, if any, can top legal marijuana. According to Marijuana Business Daily's newest report, "Marijuana Business Factbook 2017," legal sales of the drug -- including medical and recreational weed -- are expected to grow by approximately 300% between 2016 and 2021 to perhaps north of $17 billion. Depending on your source, legal pot sales are set to grow by around 25% annually in the U.S. and/or North America over the next five-to-10 years.

A big reason why legal-marijuana sales are soaring has to do with changing public perception. Back in 1995, the year prior to California becoming the first state to legalize medical cannabis for compassionate use, just 25% of respondents favored the idea of legalizing marijuana across the country. In 2016, that same Gallup poll showed that 60% of Americans now favor legalizing pot nationally.

This substantial shift in opinion is a big reason why so many states have been able to push legalization efforts forward over the past 21 years. Today, 29 states have legalized medical cannabis, and eight have given the green light to recreational weed.

Five states where a recreational marijuana initiative or bill went up in smoke

However, a pretty steady improvement in favorability toward marijuana for two decades doesn't mean cannabis initiatives or marijuana legislation has passed in every instance. Since 2010, five states have seen their efforts to legalize recreational marijuana go up in smoke. Of course, a few of these failures turned into a passed recreational-marijuana initiative a few years later. Let's have a look at five states where voters, or legislators, struggled to get the green light for adult-use pot.

California (2010), but it's now legal

Though 2012 is often viewed as the defining moment for the recreational-marijuana industry, with residents in both Colorado and Washington state voting to legalize recreational cannabis, California attempted to do the same thing two years prior. California's Proposition 19 wound up falling short of the needed majority, with 46.5% of voters in favor of the measure. The Los Angeles Times pegged weaker-than-expected young adult voter turnout and the inability to sway more moderate voters for the measure's defeat. Mind you, if it had passed, California would have become the first state to have legalized adult-use pot.

However, California's pot proponents got their reason to cheer in the Nov. 2016 elections, with Proposition 64 overwhelmingly passing with 57.1% of the vote -- a nearly 2 million vote margin. Pundits have suggested that legalizing recreational weed could generate an additional $1 billion in tax revenue a year for the state. Considering the state's history of having a cash-strapped budget, that dollar figure proved too alluring to ignore last November.

Oregon (2012), but it's now legal

Oregon, which is often viewed as a progressive haven for the cannabis industry, had a chance to join Colorado and Washington in legalizing recreational pot in 2012, but it was the lone state where voting came up short. Ballot Measure 80, officially known as the Oregon Cannabis Tax Act, garnered just 46.6% of the vote in favor of its passage.

How on Earth did a marijuana initiative fail in Oregon? Aside from having fewer big donors in support of Measure 80, the bigger issue is how the initiative was written. Rather than following in the path of Colorado and Washington, which issued grow licenses and collected tax revenue from businesses, Oregon's measure would have issued licenses, allowed the state to purchase marijuana from growers, and then let the state sell that product to consumers for a profit.

In effect, the state would have been the dispensary. Oregonians didn't seem to care much for that idea, and it was shelved. And it's a good thing, too, because Oregon overwhelmingly passed Measure 91 in 2014, which followed the recreational-marijuana licensing model implemented by Colorado and Washington.

Ohio (2015)

In 2015, Ohio attempted to do something that no other state had ever tried: legalizing medical and recreational marijuana at the same time. Usually, states pass and establish a medical cannabis presence to "learn the ropes" of how to regulate the industry. Not Ohio. It went for the gusto, and it came up laughably short. The final tally showed the measure, known as Issue 3, losing in a landslide, with only 36.4% support.

Considering how popular marijuana has become with the public, the magnitude of the defeat shocked proponents. But the issue wasn't with the drug itself, so much as the way the law was written. Had Issue 3 passed, just 10 growers would have been apportioned licenses, and these growers would have barriers put in place to keep competition out for at least a couple of years. In effect, it would have set up a veritable cannabis oligopoly within the state, which could have had a negative impact on pricing. Voters recognized this and clearly pushed back.

Since this vote, Ohio's legislature has passed a medical cannabis law, but recreational marijuana is, for now, off the table.

Arizona (2016)

If not for Arizona, the 2016 elections would have been a "green sweep" for the cannabis industry. All four medical-cannabis measures wound up being approved last November, and four-out-of-five recreational initiatives got the green light. The exception was Proposition 205 in Arizona, which narrowly missed the mark by 67,000 votes, or a little more than 1.3%.

Why no love for cannabis in Arizona? It likely had nothing to do with the way the law was written, which was the issue in Ohio and Oregon. Instead, demographics look like the easy answer. Arizona has a relatively high percentage of seniors over the age of 65 compared to other states. It also has tended to lean toward the Republican vote in recent elections. As Gallup's data has shown, just two groups, as of 2016, oppose the expansion of marijuana: senior citizens and Republicans. The state's demographics appears to be to blame for Prop 205's defeat.

However, given how narrowly the measure was defeated, I'd venture a guess that a new proposal with focused support from proponents could have a decent chance at passing in an upcoming election.

Vermont (2017)

Last but not least, Vermont has joined the list of failed attempts to legalize recreational marijuana. Unlike the aforementioned four states, which offer the initiative and referendum (I&R) process that allows residents to vote in favor or against measures, Vermont is not an I&R state. Essentially, this means all bills are introduced and voted on at the legislative level.

Just a few months ago, Vermont's House voted 79-66 in favor of a measure that would have legalized recreational marijuana, and the state's Senate followed with a 20-9 vote in favor. Since Vermont's neighboring states of Maine and Massachusetts legalized recreational weed, its legislators thought it best to move forward with a legalization of its own to avoid possibly losing tax revenue.

Unfortunately, Gov. Phil Scott (R-Vt.) didn't see it that way, and he vetoed the bill. Specifically, Scott was concerned about underage access to marijuana, and that the bill didn't go far enough to punish those who drive under the influence of cannabis. As long as Scott remains governor, it looks unlikely that recreational cannabis will be legalized in Vermont.

Though expansion is likely within the U.S. in the near term, these states also remind proponents and marijuana-stock investors that it's not a guarantee.

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Porter Physician Group recently welcomed two new medical oncologists. Janet Retseck and Tareq Braik both specialize in hematology and oncology.

Retseck, a Michigan City native, is a graduate of the Ohio State University College of Medicine and has worked in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. She has a special interest in patient-centered care and advances in immunotherapy.

Braik earned his medical degree from the University of Baghdad and has worked in the United Kingdom and most recently in Chicago. He treats all types of cancers, but takes a special interest in breast, lung, gastroenterology, and prostate cancers.

Valparaiso Police Officer Philip Spence has been promoted to the rank of patrol lieutenant. Spence is a 23-year veteran of the department. He is a graduate of Olivet Nazarene University, Northwestern University Crash Reconstruction School and Police Executive Leadership Academy.
The appropriations committees of both houses of the U.S. Congress produced 2018 transportation budgets in July that left South Shore Line officials optimistic about funding for the West Lake Corridor and Double Track NWI projects.

The South Shore is counting on funds from the Federal Transit Administration's Capital Investment Grant program to pay half the design and construction costs of the $615 million West Lake extension and the $290 million Double Track upgrade.

"The Capital Investment Grant programs have tremendous bipartisan support in Congress," South Shore President Michael Noland said at Friday's meeting of the Northern Indiana Commuter Transportation District's board.

The Senate committee's bill, in particular, offered railroad officials hope that President Donald Trump's effort to discontinue transit grants would not be successful.

The Trump administration's funding recommendation included $1.2 billion for CIG projects, funding only those that have already entered "full funding grant agreements" between the local agency and Federal Transit Administration. It would zero-out the program as those projects were completed in subsequent years.

"Future investments in new transit projects would be funded by the localities that use and benefit from these localized projects," according to the administration's funding recommendation.

But the Senate bill provides just over $2.1 billion to the CIG program, which includes the New Starts grants that would help fund West Lake and the Core Capacity grants that would help fund Double Track.

The $2.1 billion is intended to cover the $1.2 billion for projects already underway, but also provide funding for projects expected to enter full funding grant agreements in fiscal 2018.

While the Senate's bill nearly matches previous years' funding level, the Appropriations Committee in the House of Representatives came much closer to following the president's lead. It issued a budget allocating about $1.8 billion for the CIG programs, only $600,000 more than the administration had recommended, much of that tabbed for a New York and New Jersey bridge and tunnel rail project.

The House version also follows the administration's lead in eliminating the Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) program, which has provided $500 million annually to a variety of road and transit projects.

The Senate committee included the TIGER program, at $550 million.

Noland said TIGER funding could come into play with the South Shore's plan to reroute its tracks into South Bend International Airport. "That's a source of potential federal funds for that project," Noland said of TIGER.

The South Shore plans to ask for West Lake and Double Track funding in the fiscal 2019 budget.
ROCKVILLE  Think of the county seat of Parke County as Crown Point South  with covered bridge instead of brewpub tours as one of the county's leading attractions.

Antique stores ring the courthouse square in Rockville just as they do in Crown Point. There is a winery in the Old Jail Inn instead of an artisan brewery, but the 36 Saloon is also a popular food and beverage spot on the square's northeast corner.

Both municipalities, of course, benefit from their proximity to local parks that beckon boaters, campers, hikers, bikers, canoeists, fishermen and nature lovers as well as those in the market for nostalgia and kitsch.

But it is a testament to the popularity of the Parke County Covered Bridge Festival, celebrating "The Covered Bridge Capital of the World," that Parke County's vintage wooden spans have been listed among the state's top attractions for the 60 years since the festival's inception.

The county's 31 covered bridges  the two oldest of which were built in 1856  have kept it on the map as well as kick-started its tourism industry. Festivals have drawn anywhere from 1 million to 2 million visitors depending on the weather for 10 days each October, according to Kelsey Canfield, executive secretary of Parke County, Inc. Her agency promotes the event featuring homemade, hand crafter vendors and nonprofit food shacks on the square.

Bus tours of the bridges leave from a nearby tourism information center during the event.

How many other tourists view them on self-guided tours, which are possible year round for motorists and bicyclists along five color-coded routes, is anyone's guess. Travel & Leisure magazine once voted the 24- to 36-mile long routes an American Best Winter Drive.

Jim Meece, president of the county Convention and Visitors Commission as well as a Parke County commissioner, ensures visitors can reach them along the many blacktop roads and trails. Infrastructure, he says, ranks high among the county's priorities not only for transportation, but tourism.

When the 245-foot covered bridge spanning Raccoon Creek in Bridgeton was destroyed by arson in 2005, Meece helped establish a fundraising campaign to rebuild it a year later. He's also overseen construction of new spans at five sites, so aging covered bridges could be bypassed by vehicle traffic in favor of foot.

Similarly, he and others have been refurbishing an abandoned railroad bridge near Montezuma to provide a concrete walkway for bicyclists and hikers on the Gateway Trail Association route into Vermillion County.

Meece is well aware of the Covered Bridge Festival's economic impact over the decades. His mother, Martha Presslor, was among the first vendors selling maple syrup at the inaugural fest in 1957. She added sassafras candy at the first Maple Syrup Festival three years later (the 2018 event is Feb. 24-25 and March 3-4) as the family business, Sweetwater Farms, continued to flourish.

Three other maple syrup camps participate in the fair, and Sweetwater Farms sells literally a ton of sassafras candy in 6-ounce bags for $2 to the thousands who annually attend, Meece says.

Being near Turkey Run State Park in nearby Marshall, Shades State Park and the Raccoon State Recreation Area helps attract visitors, Meece says, but the county holds its own despite an annual tourism budget of only $125,000 and the lack of a "sizable, name hotel with someone who could organize events."

Parke County is not a destination, but we are doing a better job of becoming a destination, Meece said.

Similar rural counties, such as Brown, known for its artist colony and fall foliage, can rely on interstate travelers, Meece noted, but Parke is some 40 miles from the nearest interstate.

A living history museum, Billie Creek Village near Cecil Harden Lake (aka Raccoon Lake), which once hosted the largest Civil War re-enactment in Indiana, has struggled to stay afloat. Re-enactors were unable to co-ordinate their annual participation, for instance, and such sites have to have programs going all the time, Meece added.

Billie Creek Village's future is uncertain, and plans for a round barn "convention center" there were scrubbed, but Meece hopes a new owner might one day revive the 70-acre site which features 38 historical structures.

Meanwhile Raccoon State Recreation Area provides beachfront RV sites as well as boating and fishing. The 36 Saloon is a destination for motorcyclists (You mention Rockville to any motorcyclists and they all say 'Oh, yeah, that's where the 36 Saloon is,' Meece says), and the Heirloom Traders Association has 11 member antique stores in and around Rockville.

Shopping, recreation and journeys into the past  if Parke County hasn't quite made it as a year-round tourist destination, it's not from lack of trying.
HAMMOND  City officials in partnership with the local police department are seeking applicants for the new Hammond Academy Bound sponsorship program for individuals aspiring for a career in law enforcement.

The $4,500 scholarships are being offered to eligible residents to cover all costs to attend the Northwest Indiana Law Enforcement Academy, according to a news release.

Applications will be accepted beginning Monday, according to a news release from the Hammond Police Department. Aug. 11 is the deadline to apply, the release stated.

Applications can be dropped off by 4 p.m. Aug. 11 at the police chiefs office at the Hammond Police Department, 509 Douglas St.

Interested candidates must be a U.S. citizen, between the ages of 21 and 25 and have a high school diploma or GED. They must also have been a Hammond resident for at least the past three years and possess a valid Indiana drivers license.

To be eligible, applicants must have no felony convictions on their record, domestic battery offenses or a dishonorable discharge from the U.S. military. They must also be able to pass the Indiana Law Enforcement Academy entrance standards for physical agility.

Applicants must also meet all other requirements established by the Hammond Police Department and the Northwest Indiana Law Enforcement Academy.

Police departments across the nation are struggling to fill their ranks with qualified applicants, Police Chief John Doughty said in an earlier news release. It has especially been difficult to improve diversity under standard test and hire protocols. We want our Police Department to reflect the cultural diversity of our city. We need to offer our citizens a first-chance opportunity to work here with us.

Upon academy graduation, the applicant will be hired into the department and will be required to maintain residency in Hammond for three years after the hire date, officials said.

Questions should be directed to Candace Porter at 219-852-6329.
VALPARAISO  The citys advisory Human Relations Council soon will be taking on a more visible role as it attends local events and makes presentations to various community groups.

The council, whose members are appointed by Mayor Jon Costas, plans to educate residents about its work, the citys Human Rights Ordinance and the need for a proposed director of housing and community relations.

At its recent meeting, the council discussed having a presence at several upcoming events and making a PowerPoint presentation to organizations, students and churches.

Members agreed to staff a table at the Unity Day event hosted by the Northwest Indiana African American Alliance on Aug. 6, and to participate in the World Cultural Festival on Sept. 16.

The council also plans to become a sponsor of the Valpo Reads a Book program, which promotes conversations about social justice, race and socio-economic issues.

The council also is seeking to launch a cultural arts grant program in January 2018, chair Heath Carter said.

The grants would support initiatives that promote diversity and traditionally underrepresented groups in the community. Eligible initiatives could be events, speeches, exhibitions, classes or workshops.

In other business, the council appointed member Roxanne Mendez Johnson to serve as its representative on the Investigation and Reconciliation Committee, which adjudicates matters pertaining to the Human Rights Ordinance and seeks to bring parties together through mediation or other dispute resolution.

Mendez Johnson joins other IRC members who were appointed by the Valparaiso City Council, Valparaiso Community Schools, Valparaiso University and Costas.

Mendez Johnson also is working with HRC member John Albers and resident Elizabeth Lynn to research the structure, staffing and funding of various city boards, commissions and councils.

This includes learning how the panels are organized, members appointed and terms of service. Also of interest is how the boards derive their authority, whether by state statute or city ordinance.

Mendez Johnson said the goal is to identify a model that will help organize the future work of the HRC.

Were looking at how the HRC compares with other boards and how best to construct ourselves. Were not trying to recreate the wheel here, she said.
CEDAR LAKE  The Town Council has agreed to hold a public forum on the new stormwater fee schedule after a Chamber of Commerce official said business owners and chamber members were "shocked" by the bills theyll be facing.

The Town Council approved a hike in stormwater fees this past spring. Residential fees doubled, from $5 to $10 per lot. Business stormwater fees are calculated on a more complicated formula. Fees are levied in part per a measurement called an equivalent residential unit (ERU). A business with a lot of pavement on-site may be determined to incur a number of ERUs. Most residential lots incur one ERU.

The fee hike was all part of a package meant not only to shore up stormwater infrastructure but to fund three upcoming road reconstruction projects. The fee hike will ensure increased revenue, which will in turn fund the laying of stormwater lines along those roads.

The paving will be funded by a lease agreement upon which the council also bestowed final approval in May. The lease is between Cedar Lakes Redevelopment Authority and Redevelopment Commission. It also allows the RDC to collect a special benefit tax in certain commercial areas that will go toward the paving portion of the road construction.

Diane Jostes, executive director of the Cedar Lake Chamber of Commerce, said she came to last week's Town Council meeting on behalf of chamber members and business owners, some of whom were in the audience.

These changes did not get out to these people, she said. Some business owners are facing bills triple what they paid in the past, she said, and many will face hardship.

Jostes came with a list of questions, several of which the council could not answer because of they were technical in nature, Council President Randy Niemeyer said. The public forum, the date of which will be announced, will include the towns engineer, who fill be able to answer the questions, Niemeyer said.

Jostes said the chamber fears the fee hikes could be the death knell for some local businesses. Many (local business owners) live here, she said, and the town shouldnt be making the business climate more difficult for them.

Councilperson Julie River said that in retrospect its a shame stormwater fees werent raised gradually and incrementally. But a fee hike was necessary and better than the alternatives. We didnt want to (implement) a wheel tax, she said. We didnt want to go to the county and ask (to raise) property taxes.

Niemeyer and other council members pointed out that commercial properties, like those owned by businesses, can apply for credits that may lower their stormwater bills. For example, if the business has a stormwater retention pond on-site it may be eligible for credits.
CROWN POINT  A new trail at the city's Sportsplex that will begin at North Street and head toward U.S. 231 is planned for construction next year.

The Board of Works recently approved consulting services to redesign the trail and prepare for construction with civil engineers BF&S, of Indianapolis, for $20,600. BF&S previously developed plans for the trail in 2015. The funding source for the trail is the Redevelopment Commission.

The trail project involves the construction of a new 10-foot multi-path from North Street to 113th Avenue, following Indiana Avenue and the southerly boundary of the SportsPlex. The trail will be called the Veterans Memorial Trail, and it will eventually lead to Hebron.

The trail will run alongside the planned Lake County World Wars I & II Veterans Memorial that will occupy about five acres at the intersection of U.S. 231 and 113th Avenue, adjacent to the Sportsplex fields.

Mitch Barloga, president of the Veterans Memorial Parkway Commission, said the group is pleased the city is partnering with their organization on "this long overdue memorial to our World War I and II veterans."

"They are agreeing to install the trail on our property, which is a boon to our project," he said. "We thank Mayor (David) Uran and his staff immensely for helping us out."

Barloga said he considers it the first leg of the Veterans Memorial Trail, which will run southwest along U.S. 231 to Hebron for nine miles.

The Veterans Memorial Parkway Commission is developing a series of memorials along a 15-mile section of U.S. 231, passing through St. John, Crown Point and Hebron, now designated as the Veterans Memorial Parkway.

For more information on the project visit www.facebook.com/VeteranMemorialParkwayCommission or email Mitch Barloga at mbarloga@gmail.com.
VALPARAISO  Porter County Fairs school bus demolition derby Saturday evening looked like a scene dreamed up by school kids everywhere as several retired buses raced around a figure-eight track.

Fire engines hosed down the dirt just after 5 p.m. as the grandstands filled to the brim with families eager to see the derby.

While some of the buses featured the standard yellow with additions of color, others were nearly unrecognizable as school buses. One bus was painted entirely pink, one was painted all black and another resembled an American flag, patriotically painted red, white and blue.

Ryan Sandberg, of the derby's sponsor, Sandberg Towing in Valparaiso, took the top prize with his all-red bus, winning the final crowd-favorite feature round where nine of the 10 participating buses competed at once.

The derby was split into three separate rounds or heats before the final round, with four, three and three buses competing in each.

The Steelhorse Motors-sponsored bus won the first round in which another striped bus became stuck in the center of the figure eight early on, making it difficult for the others to maneuver around and leading to several collisions.

Crashes were met with the loudest cheers and applause, while the more uneventful second round  also won easily by Sandberg  incited the crowd to egg on drivers to hit each other.

The third round saw a more strategic race, as bus 22 Tee edged in between her two competitors for the win.

Between the third and final rounds, the buses took a break while the track was hosed down. The intermission saw a race with bombers, cars that participated in the fairs earlier demolition derbies.

The bombers race featured six cars making 20 laps, though only three were able to finish. Though much smaller and faster in comparison to the buses, the cars saw far less-visible damage than the final round of the school bus derby.

The last, crowded race got off to a slow start with the buses jostling together, their sheer size making it difficult to gain the lead.

But the round soon gave way to mayhem and destructive collisions, with one causing the hood to tear straight off Sandbergs winning bus and bus R22s hood to dangle and later fall off. The derby was shortly paused so payloaders could come in to remove the first fallen hood.

Becky Lockett, of Wanatah, came with her family to watch the fairs school bus derby and said she enjoyed the school bus derby more than typical demolition derbies featuring cars.

I think it was better, the 53-year-old said. Its exciting with the buses. Its something different to see.
Can you hear the Gippers voice from the wayback machine?

Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican.

It was former California Republican Chairman Gaylord Parkinson who coined the phrase, and it became President Ronald Reagans mantra.

What were seeing on an almost hourly basis, from the emerging Indiana U.S. Senate primary between U.S. Reps. Todd Rokita and Luke Messer to the White House, is a complete abrogation of the concept. The Grand Old Party and its big tent are being replaced with virulent fratricide.

Messer announced this past Wednesday he would enter the Senate race and pose a challenge to Democratic U.S. Sen. Joe Donnelly next year. It came after weeks of needling by Rokita, who conducted a whisper campaign against Messer that he actually lives in an affluent Washington suburb and took aim his wifes lucrative legal work for the city of Fishers, where she makes about $20,000 a month.

The rumor mill spun that Messer might skip the race to stay on a House leadership track where he is fifth in ranking.

In turn, Messer has accused Rokita of planting the Associated Press story of Jennifer Messers part-time income, though my sources tell me the divisions within the Hamilton County Republican Party have become a fountain of innuendo and spite.

Tim Edson, a campaign consultant for Hoosiers for Rokita, explained last week, Todd had nothing to do with the Associated Press reporting, and neither Todd nor the campaign has attacked Luke Messers family. Luke Messer is pounding the table and feigning outrage in an effort to distract from an embarrassing fundraising quarter and the negative stories dogging his campaign.

Greg Pence, Messers finance chairman and brother of the vice president, told me last week, I am disappointed we have two Republican congressmen, one is attacking the others family and no one has announced anything yet. I think its inappropriate. Todd Rokita has gone ahead and attacked a fellow Republicans wife. I understand once people are in primaries, but nobodys announced anything. So why is he attacking Luke Messer?

Asked if Reagans 11th Commandment is now moot, Pence said, All the rules have changed. I cant answer that.

Would Messer attack Rokitas family once everyone has declared entry? Hes never mentioned anything like that. I hope not, Pence said. I hope he never goes that way.

With the congressional approval 23 percent in a Reuters Poll and 10 percent in an Economist Poll, the rancor between Reps. Messer and Rokita could allow other declared candidates  Atlanta, Indiana, businessman Terry Henderson, New Albany educator Andrew Takami, and Kokomo attorney Mark Hurt  to make the case that Capitol Hill is the Reagan antithesis, a stinking, belching smudgepot.

Attorney General Curtis Hill hasnt ruled out running, noting he launched his statewide campaign from Elkhart and not the Indianapolis power center.

I think people are looking for bold, fresh leadership in all areas of government, including the United States Senate, Hill said.

And theres state Sen. Mike Delph, of Carmel, and State Rep. Mike Braun, of Jasper, who might jump in. Delph told me in June that a conservative lane exists in the race and added, The U.S. Senate race is wide open. I dont think being a sitting member of Congress is the best advantage. The public is very dissatisfied with Congress.

This dissonance is firmly rooted in the White House and Capitol Hill inside the Republican Party. It doesnt get any weirder than the White House weve seen over the past couple of days. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence are openly antagonizing the presidents most loyal early supporter, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with their time will tell job security quotes.

New Communications Director Anthony Mooch Scaramucci is targeting White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Twitter over leaking his publicly accessible financial disclosures.

Folks, you just cant make this stuff up.

Are there political ramifications from all this dysfunction? Gallups Trump approve/disapprove numbers from Indiana  47 percent approve, 48 percent disapprove  in a survey of 1,596 likely Hoosier voters reveals an erosion of support just eight months after Trump carried the state with a 20-percent plurality.

That contrasts with a poll conducted for Messers Senate campaign, which reported an 83 percent job approval, but that poll included only likely Republican voters, who now have a front row seat to the coming civil war.
Two well-known columnists  Ben Shapiro and Walter Williams  criticize the left's love affair with Islam this week. In his column, Shapiro says the left aligns with Islam because both want to destroy western civilization. Williams defends the west's values against those on the left who claim all cultures are equally valid, and he points to slavery, female genital mutilation, anti-Semitism, the stoning of women and the murder of homosexuals in Islamic countries as proof.

Both men warn multiculturalism is a threat to the west. That's true, but it's important to understand why multiculturalism has become so destructive.

First, multiculturalism has devolved to the point where other human beings are viewed as exotic pets. Some years ago, I attended an academic conference in which scholars discussed the fate of indigenous peoples in South America. Unsurprisingly, speakers denounced the "western patriarchy" that forces our value structure and economic system on these tribes.

But their proposed solutions sounded more like "forced" than "permitted." There was to be no cultural exchange with these people  including such basics as infrastructure or medicines. As it happened, I had just read articles in National Geographic in which native Amazonians explained their need for paved roads to get crops to market and praised eyeglasses for improving their vision for hunting and fishing. Yes, they wanted to preserve certain aspects of their culture. But they wanted to decide what the best mix of "old" and "new" would be.

I asked my colleagues, "Isn't it patriarchal for us to decide how and whether these peoples should advance?"

In fact, condescension is behind much of what passes for multiculturalism today. It takes a special kind of cruelty to watch other human beings suffer with afflictions and under conditions that have been solved elsewhere  and to call such detachment "cultural sensitivity."

Behind the current flavor of multiculturalism for some hardcore leftists is hatred of Judeo-Christianity and rejection of its God. This is evident not only in their treatment of observant Christians and Jews (especially their views on Israel, as Shapiro notes), but in their attack on science and truth.

In the absence of an absolute, there is no "truth"; there is only "power" and "personal narrative." Thus does good become bad, wrong become right, ugliness come to be hailed as beauty. A human baby in utero is "just a clump of cells." Killing it becomes a "human right." Teaching small children how to perform sex acts becomes "education."

Anyone who says otherwise is the enemy.

Why the deference to Islam, then? While there are notable exceptions (Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens and Bill Maher, for example), Islam is often insulated from criticism by the left out of cowardice. Others, as Shapiro notes, see fellow travelers in Islam's battle with the west. But there are many who afford Islam protection under the label of "multiculturalism" because Allah is no more real to them than are Zeus or Cupid.

This is not a godless worldview as much as it is a worldview in which every man is his own God. The Book of Psalms tells us, "The fool says in his heart, 'There is no God.'"

And we wonder why so many in our culture are so foolish.
A city council member wants to update a little-known law, which technically makes pet sitting illegal.

Apps like Rover and Wag are coming under fire because they allow users to charge customers for services like dog boarding.

But the Health Department requires anyone operating a commercial pet sitting business to get a license.

City officials sent warning letters to several of these companies.

But City Councilman Corey Johnson, chairman of the health committee, says the law is a bit outdated.

"These guidelines and Board of Health regulations that exist right now are not workable and are not really realistic given what we know is happening in New York City," Councilman Johnson said. "So we should take a few months, look at the issue, find some appropriate manageable guidelines and enshrine those into local law. That's my plan."

A spokesperson for the Health Department released a statement saying:

"Commercial boarding of animals in homes is illegal. These regulations do not apply to the average New Yorker who may pet sit for friends, family, and neighbors."
Update 10:17 p.m.: The girl has been found.

The Macon County Sheriff's Department is asking the public's assistance in locating Neisha Howard, a 9-year-old black female.

She was last seen around 4 p.m. Saturday, according to information provided by the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency.

She may be with her non-custodial mother, Jerlean Octavia Scott and an unknown white female who may be en route to the Clear Water, Florida area, according to the information provided.

They may be traveling in a Red SUV, make and model and Florida tag unknown.

If anyone has information regarding the whereabouts of Neisha Howard they are asked to contact the Macon County Sheriff's Department at 334-727-2500.
Arshaan and Jahan Adam led the way Saturday morning, the two young brothers setting a speedy pace for the more than 100 people who attended the Jansens Foundation Awareness and Fundraiser Walkathon.

The superhero-themed walk around Zorinsky Lake Park was the nonprofits first event. Neena Nizar, the organizations founder and president and the boys mother, got choked up when she saw the crowd of supporters.

Im at a loss for words, she said as 9-year-old Arshaan and 6-year-old Jahan comforted her.

Moments later, 11-year-old Levi Krystosek from Mississippi stood to join them, followed by 25-year-old Michel Straley. And there, in an Omaha park, were all five of the people in the United States with confirmed Jansens metaphyseal chondrodysplasia.

Nizar started the Jansens Foundation earlier this year to raise awareness and funds for researching a treatment for the extremely rare form of dwarfism that affects both her and her two boys. There are fewer than 30 people with confirmed cases of Jansens around the world, and through Nizars work, many of them have started to reach out to one another.

The disease, which isnt terminal, causes bones to fray and bend, meaning chronic pain and several corrective surgeries.

This disease is gruesome in the fact that it just slowly strips the boys of what they want to do, Nizar said in May, when The World-Herald wrote about her family and her efforts.

For Levis mom, Dona Krystosek, seeing the turnout at the walkathon and giving the boys a chance to hang out as Jansens brothers was well worth the trip from Ocean Springs, Mississippi.

Its huge to see this many people coming out in support of just five people in America, Krystosek said.

Straley traveled from St. Louis for the event after connecting with Nizar online about four months ago.

To come and meet someone else with Jansens, let alone four others, is pretty amazing, Straley said.

Earlier last week all five Jansens Heroes Skyped with Dr. Harald Jueppner, the researcher leading the way toward a treatment to stop the progression of the disease.

Nizar said shell keep hosting events like the walkathon to spread awareness and raise money to support Jueppners work.

We are so close, she said, fighting tears. And we are only getting stronger.
When federal Judge Warren K. Urbom received a national award for professionalism and ethics in 1995, the presenting organization cited his ability to separate his personal feelings from the law.

Urbom, a U.S. District Court judge for Nebraska, was selected to receive the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Award for Professionalism and Ethics. A spokeswoman for the American Inns of Court Foundation of Alexandria, Virginia, said Urbom was selected as a consistent advocate of enhanced professionalism, civility and ethics in the practice of law.

The judge had drawn attention from legal scholars the previous year for his candor in a death penalty case. He opposed capital punishment but ruled that the state did not violate the civil rights of Harold Lamont Otey during a clemency hearing. Otey later was executed.

I do not like the death penalty; I would abolish it if I could, Urbom wrote in the Otey ruling. But I am sworn to apply the law as it is, not as I wish it were or as it may become. I have done and shall do as my mind tells me the law is, whatever feeling follows.

Urbom, 91, died peacefully Friday in Lincoln, his family said.

A memorial service will be held on Tuesday at 11 a.m. in Lincolns Trinity United Methodist Church, 7130 Kentwell Lane. He is survived by daughters Kim Rager, Allison Raich and Joy Taylor and a son, Randall Urbom. He was married to his wife, Joyce, for 58 years, until her death.

He conducted himself with unparalleled dignity coupled with a gentle spirit, Urboms family said in a statement.

Urbom was appointed to the U.S. District Court on May 5, 1970, and served for 44 years  longer than any other federal judge in state history. He retired in 2014, although he has been on senior judge status since the start of 1991.

Upon his retirement, Urbom was lauded for remarkable service.

Bob Kerrey, a former Nebraska governor and U.S. senator, said of him: No one has sat for more important trials than Judge Warren Urbom. And no one has meted out justice with more wisdom, wit and seriousness of purpose.

A native of Atlanta, Nebraska, Urbom grew up in Arapahoe and served in the Army during World War II. He used the GI Bill to earn a bachelors degree and graduated with highest distinction from Nebraska Wesleyan University in Lincoln.

After getting a law degree from the University of Michigan, Joyce and Warren Urbom settled in Lincoln, where they raised four children.

Urbom worked as a trial lawyer until being elevated to the bench in 1970 by President Richard Nixon. He was the chief judge for the District of Nebraska from 1972 through 1986.

His career included presiding over a string of trials arising from the armed occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, by members of the American Indian Movement. The trials have been termed among the most significant of the 20th century.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers, who has served more than 30 years on the Legislatures Judiciary Committee, praised Urbom upon his retirement.

The judiciary will be diminished without Urbom on the bench, Chambers said. He was an excellent judge.
KEARNEY, Neb.  A Kearney, Nebraska, teen is being held at the Northeast Nebraska Juvenile Services Center in Madison after allegedly shooting into a crowd Thursday night at the Buffalo County Fair.

The 16-year-old male is accused of shooting a handgun into the ground near a crowd of about 10 teenagers and young adults at about 10:30 p.m., said Doug McCarty, a Kearney Police Department investigator. The incident happened as a fight seemed to be starting between some of the teens north of the exhibit center.

A handgun was produced, McCarty said, and a single shot was fired. No one was injured in the incident.

The teen was taken into custody on suspicion of attempted felony first-degree assault and using a firearm, a handgun, to commit a felony, and the unlawful discharge of a firearm within the city limits, a misdemeanor. He was transported to Madison where he will be held until a hearing is scheduled.
A 27-year-old man went to the Nebraska Medical Center by private vehicle after a shooting early Sunday in north Omaha.

Wyman Batiste was seriously injured, but the wound didnt appear to be life-threatening, according to an Omaha Police Department spokesman. Police have not announced any arrests.

Police were called to an area near 16th and Locust Streets at 3:18 a.m. and located a shooting scene but no victim, the spokesman said. Officers were notified a short time later that Batiste had arrived at the hospital.

Anyone with information is urged to contact Omaha Crime Stoppers at 444-STOP, at www.omaha

crimestoppers.org or on the P3 Tips mobile app. Any tip leading to an arrest is eligible for an enhanced reward of up to $10,000.
Mid-Plains Community College leaders cut the ribbon last week on a new building in Valentine, Nebraska.

More than 20 donors provided $2.7 million for the Valentine campus.

Mid-Plains, based in North Platte and McCook, will hold a wide range of courses there. Many are academic transfer classes, such as English, American government, business, psychology and human anatomy, and others will provide continuing education opportunities. Courses also will include quilting and photography.

Before opening the new building in March, Mid-Plains had operated out of a storefront in Valentine.

6 NU grad students receive presidential fellowships

Six students last week were awarded University of Nebraska Presidential Graduate Fellowships.

The graduate students, who receive stipends that allow them to pursue their studies full time, were named by NU President Hank Bounds.

The students: Jenny Kent of Enfield, England, a doctoral student in exercise science/biomechanics at the University of Nebraska at Omaha; Kristine Langley Mahler of Ralston, a masters student in English at UNO; Fei Yu of China, a doctoral student in pharmaceutical sciences at the NU Medical Center; Brandon Griess of Hartington, a doctoral student in biochemistry and molecular biology at UNMC; Brandi Woodell of Vivian, Louisiana, a doctoral student in sociology at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln; and Aileen S. Garcia-Avanzado of Philippines, a UNL doctoral student in child, youth and family studies.

UNMC, UNO Chancellor Jeffrey Gold to tour three cities

Dr. Jeffrey Gold, chancellor of UNMC and UNO, will visit Columbus and Norfolk on Tuesday and West Point on Wednesday.

Gold will head a group of administrators from UNMC and UNO. They include Juliann Sebastian, dean of nursing at UNMC, and Dan Shipp, vice chancellor for student affairs at UNO.
LINCOLN  On Friday, the developer of the Keystone XL pipeline said what more and more people in the oil industry have been saying: that the Keystone XL pipeline might be unnecessary.

Some opponents of the controversial tar sands pipeline have suggested this, but more and more people inside the oil industry are saying time has passed by the project.

Consider this:

 A column on oilprice.com questioned whether the Keystone XL had become obsolete due to low oil prices and cheaper sources of oil than Canada.

 A New Problem for the Keystone XL: Oil Companies Dont Want It was the headline in a Wall Street Journal story last month about the shortage of oil producers willing to sign long-term contracts to finance the XL.

 Jeff Share, editor of Pipeline & Gas Journal out of Houston, wrote that the revival of the pipeline by President Donald Trump was the biggest fake news story of the year.

As much as I would like to see it get built, I have serious doubts that it ever will, Share said in an interview with The World-Herald. Too much time has passed, too much controversy, the economics no longer work, and the need is far less.

TransCanada, the company seeking to build the pipeline, acknowledged Friday that the project might be abandoned.

Paul Miller, TransCanadas executive vice president and president of liquid pipeline, told shareholders a decision is expected by December. He said it will be based on demand for oil shipments  whether shippers sign long-term contracts to use the pipeline  and whether Nebraska approves the pipeline.

Nebraskas consideration of the Keystone XLs route across the state is entering the stretch run. The legal courtlike hearings to determine whether the 275-mile route will be approved by the Nebraska Public Service Commission are scheduled from Aug. 7 to 11 in Lincoln. By Nov. 23 the five-member elected commission must decide if the pipeline route is in the public interest.

State law doesnt appear to require a consideration of the economic viability of the pipeline by the commission.

Officials with TransCanada, which is seeking contracts to finance the $8 billion project, have been pushing back against the doubters.

They say that oil refineries on the U.S. Gulf Coast  the end point of the Keystone XL  need heavy crude oil, like that steamed and processed out of sticky tar sands in northern Alberta, because of expected reductions in their current supplies from Mexico and Venezuela.

A company spokesman said he could not say whether oil producers are turning away from the XL, as is being reported, because the information is proprietary. But Matt John of TransCanada said that talks with producers continue and the company remains optimistic the 36-inch pipeline from Alberta to a junction at Steele City, Nebraska, will be built.

If the market says theres no need for this project, then there wont be a need for the project, John said. However, were fairly confident, based on the ongoing demand for this heavy oil.

Much has changed since the Keystone XL was first proposed in 2008. Gasoline was selling for record-high prices back then, more than $4 per gallon, about twice todays cost. Oil prices were also peaking, at $147 per barrel in July of 2008, which is about three times todays price ($49 on Friday).

Oil prices are predicted to hover around $50 a barrel for the next five years, and theres concern in the industry about slowing demand in the longer term because of the development of electric cars and the growth of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

Meanwhile, U.S. production of oil has taken off, rising 77 percent between 2008 and 2016 due to the advent of fracking.

And other pipelines have been proposed and built to transport oil.

TransCanada completed the southern leg of the Keystone XL  considered the more critical leg  in 2011 to link Steele City to an oil tank farm at Cushing, Oklahoma. And its Keystone pipeline, which crosses eastern Nebraska, has been hauling crude since June of 2010.

At one time the XL was going to haul 100,000 barrels of U.S. oil a day from fields in Montana and North Dakota. But pipeline capacity from North Dakota has increased 500 percent in the past decade. An official with the North Dakota Pipeline Authority said last week that another pipeline isnt needed now, though it might be in the long term.

Three other pipelines from Canada have been proposed, and some analysts think that, given the opposition in the U.S. to the Keystone XL and the expected legal battles, at least two of them are on a faster track than the nine-year-old XL, and will fulfill any need for new pipelines.

One, Kinder Morgans Trans Mountain, which heads to the Canadian west coast, could be operating by 2020; another, Enbridges Line 3 replacement project, could be pumping oil across northern Minnesota by 2019.

TransCanada also is proposing Energy East, a pipeline to Canadas east coast, that could be ready by 2021.

Some oil analysts say that leaves the XL as the odd pipeline out, since it wouldnt go into service until 2020 or 2021 if it gets approval for its Nebraska route and overcomes the expected lawsuits.

The CEO of a competing pipeline company, Al Monaco of Enbridge, says that only two of the three leading pipelines proposed  Trans Mountain, Keystone XL and Enbridges Line 3 project  are needed, though youd expect Monaco to tout his pipeline over competitors.

One Canadian oil analyst, Mark Oberstoetter of Wood Mackenzie, threw a bit of cold water on the XL not needed bandwagon. He said that while there could be an oversupply of pipelines to the mid-2020s, there is a need for heavy crude oil on the Gulf Coast. He added that of the three leading pipelines, the Trans Mountain likely had the most upside, since it would service new markets in Asia.

For almost six years, Paul Blackburn, a Minneapolis environmental lawyer, has been arguing that more pipelines arent needed from the tar sands region of Canada, not only because other pipelines can fill the need, but also because of less interest in the high-cost tar sand oil.

Both Shell and Exxon divested their tar sand holdings earlier this year. With a worldwide glut of oil, there are just cheaper and easier sources of oil elsewhere.

They pulled out because tar sand oil is an economic dog, Blackburn said. You need (oil prices of) $60 a barrel or $70 a barrel to pay off your debts and youre getting $45. It doesnt work.

Forecasts for oil production in the oil sands regions have fallen dramatically since oil prices plummeted in 2014.

XL critics, including in the oil industry, point out that TransCanada has bet on some losers in the past.

The company was picked by then-Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin to build an 800-mile natural gas pipeline there. But by 2014, natural gas was cheap and plentiful and the project was dead.

The same thing happened to TransCanada with the proposed $8 billion Mackenzie Valley Pipeline from Canadas Northwest Territories.

John, the TransCanada spokesman, said those projects were different, and the company still sees customer need for the Keystone XL.

If the controversial pipeline isnt built because it isnt needed, it wouldnt be the first time such a change has happened in Nebraska.

Remember the low-level radioactive waste repository? Nebraska dropped out of the multistate compact that was determined to build the dump in Boyd County. It cost Nebraska $141 million when it lost a lawsuit, but ultimately, the waste repository wasnt built. The reason? Time had passed it by, and other repositories were sufficient.

Of course, things could change, oil analysts said. If the worldwide supply of oil is disrupted, particularly the flow of heavy crude oil from strife-torn Venezuela, oil prices would skyrocket, brightening the outlook for the Keystone XL.

But right now, observers like Share, the oil industry magazine editor, say that oil producers are shying away from signing up the 20-year contracts required to use and, more importantly, finance the pipeline.

Frankly, I dont see it getting built, Share said. The best odds Id give it is 50-50, and that would be very optimistic.
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear a case this fall that has the potential to dramatically change how political redistricting is handled by the 50 states.

If a majority on the Supreme Court upholds the lower-court ruling in the case, redrawing political boundaries in partisan elections could become more of a mechanical process, decided by computations, rather than the result of partisan skirmishing and political give and take. Such a change would understandably sound appealing to many; partisan politics is self-serving and often ugly.

The central consideration, though, isnt whether such a change in redistricting would be nice to have. Its whether its constitutional.

Such a change, after all, would step far beyond what the court has allowed before in regard to redistricting. The Supreme Court should tread carefully in deciding this issue.

The matter involves redistricting in Wisconsin, where the Republican majority in the state legislature crafted a redistricting map that resulted in big gains for GOP candidates running for Wisconsins lower house, the State Assembly. In the 2012 elections for the Assembly, Republicans won 48.6 percent of the vote but took 61 percent of the seats.

Several Wisconsin residents sued, and in a 2-1 vote, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin concluded that the redistricting maps had violated the U.S. Constitution by deliberately diluting the strength of Democratic voters through invidious discrimination.

A key to the courts decision was the judges positive reaction to a mathematics-based concept developed by a University of Chicago law professor to measure wasted votes and the efficiency gap in each political district following an election. The efficiency gap is calculated in this way: First, identify the two parties wasted votes  votes beyond those needed by the winning side, and the votes cast by the losing side. Calculate the difference between the two. Then divide the result by the total number of votes cast.

In the Wisconsin example, the more wasted votes by Democrats compared to those of Republicans, the greater the efficiency gap. When the efficiency gap for a political map is 7 percent or higher, the redistricting plan warrants scrutiny by courts, it was argued to the Wisconsin court.

The efficiency gap for Wisconsins 2012 State Assembly election was 13 percent; in 2014, it was 10 percent.

The U.S. Supreme Court has been split for decades over whether courts should intervene in cases of partisan redistricting that put a political party at a disadvantage. Some justices have said the courts should intervene, as they do when redistricting maps violate requirements under the 1965 Federal Voting Rights Act. Other justices have disagreed, saying the courts should stay out of the political thicket of partisan redistricting. Still other members of the court have said intervention is inappropriate so long as courts lack a standard by which political maps could be analyzed.

If the high court embraces the efficiency gap as a judicial tool, Democrats would have a major new opportunity to challenge some Republican-drawn maps for state legislatures and Congress, while Republicans would have opportunities in politically blue states.

Its not clear what effect, if any, an efficiency- gap approach would have in Nebraska.

How the Supreme Court will rule is unclear. A five-member majority on the court last month stayed the Wisconsin courts ruling to strike down the current State Assembly map and redraw a new one by this fall.

Among the constitutional questions the Supreme Court will examine in the case:

Would the courts be overstepping proper authority by intervening in what is by definition a partisan political process? Should members of a political party be classified as a legally protected class, in the same way that racial minorities are?

Would such intervention violate the ample sovereignty the U.S. Constitution gives states over the type of redistricting process they adopt? Is the efficiency gaps relevance exaggerated, given that in many states Democrats tend to be packed in major urban areas, making it difficult to create competitive partisan districts in many cases?

Its a complicated legal matter, requiring responsible, careful deliberation by the court. There should be no rush to judgment.
The writer, of Gothenburg, represents District 36 in the Nebraska Legislature.

Our state is navigating a challenging period. Nebraskas weakened economy requires almost all of us  and certainly those of us in elected roles  to make difficult choices as we chart a course for the future.

Our challenges create a sense of urgency for us to look forward, set priorities and articulate a comprehensive plan to grow Nebraska. Im excited to work with my colleagues in the Legislature and Gov. Pete Ricketts on a vision that will build our states competitiveness in the global economy.

One major player in Nebraskas future is our public university  a $3.9 billion economic engine that enrolls 52,500 students and has a presence in all 93 counties. The University of Nebraska has a critical role as we join with partners in the public and private sectors to grow a skilled workforce, create high-paying jobs and attract people and companies to our state.

My wife and I recently hosted Dr. Jeffrey Gold, chancellor of the University of Nebraska Medical Center and University of Nebraska at Omaha, and members of his leadership team on a visit to Gothenburg. Our community was impressed by what we saw and heard about UNMCs momentum, particularly as it relates to serving rural Nebraskans.

We toured one of four emergency medicine training and simulation trucks that will allow rural first responders, nurses and doctors to receive the same training as their urban counterparts.

We learned about UNMCs efforts to provide more health care professionals for rural areas.

We shared in the excitement about a cancer center that puts Nebraska in the most elite company in the world.

Clearly, UNMC and the entire University of Nebraska are focused on what they need to do to meet the pressing needs of our state.

The university educates the future workforce. Almost 600 NU students come from my district alone. Many are enrolled at UNMC  the next generation of physicians, physician assistants, nurses, pharmacists, dentists and medical researchers who will someday improve and truly save our lives.

As Gold told us, workforce development is one of the issues he and his colleagues hear about most when they travel the state. Health care in particular is a fast-growing sector in the job market. In rural areas, the needs are especially acute.

Consider nursing. Nebraska faces a projected shortage of 4,000 nurses by 2020. All but 20 of our states counties have an RN-to-patient ratio that is lower than the national average. We have similarly high needs for physical therapists, radiographers and other allied health professionals.

Thats to say nothing of the agricultural producers, engineers, computer scientists, teachers and entrepreneurs well need as well. Our public university must rise to the challenge.

NU is doing just that, graduating 11,000 students each year who power our economy forward. Initiatives like the UNMC- UNK Health Science Education Complex in Kearney  a partnership between the Legislature, university, private donors and citizens that has greatly expanded our capacity for educating nurses and allied health professionals  will allow the university to grow its impact on our workforce even further.

In medical care and research, our university is in the big leagues. The Fred & Pamela Buffett Cancer Center, the most ambitious public-private partnership in Nebraskas history, is transforming the way we treat cancer for the one of every two Nebraskans who will be diagnosed. The newly established Global Center for Health Security will solidify Nebraskas international leadership in fighting highly infectious diseases like Ebola.

Life-changing research is taking place across the university system. Nebraska scientists are on the front lines in feeding the growing global population and improving safety for men and women in uniform, among other areas.

From the food we eat, to the education our children receive, to the medical care we receive, the university touches our lives daily. An excellent and accessible University of Nebraska will be increasingly vital to the continued strength of our state and economy.
Nebraskas parks, museums, art galleries and other attractions drew more than 20 million visitors last year.

Once again, state parks and Omahas Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium were the most popular places to visit in 2016, according to the Nebraska Tourism Commission. The agency collects annual attendance data from tourism destinations across the state.

Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium attendance topped 2 million visitors for the first time  an increase of 22 percent from 2015. The zoo opened its African Grasslands exhibit last spring.

Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area near Ogallala had more than 1.3 million visitors. Branched Oak State Recreation Area near Raymond had nearly 1.3 million. Five destinations each recorded attendance of more than 1 million.

The top 10

1. Omaha's Henry Doorly Zoo & Aquarium

2. Lake McConaughy State Recreation Area

3. Branched Oak State Recreation Area

4. Eugene T. Mahoney State Park

5. CenturyLink Center Omaha

6. Wagon Train State Recreation Area

7. Ponca State Park

8. Fremont State Recreation Area

9. Platte River State Park

10. Pawnee State Recreation Area

Only attractions that reported attendance to the Nebraska Tourism Commission are listed.
Central team roped in as dengue cases in Bihar rise to over 5000

Bihar's Gopalganj by-poll to see a tough fight between BJP and RJD

Bihar: Over 200 students sick, claim they saw 'dead lizard' in mid-day meal

Bihar minister Firoz Ahmad apologizes for chanting Jai Shri Ram

India

oi-IANS

By Ians English

Patna, July 30: Bihar Minister Firoz Ahmad on Sunday apologised for chanting 'Jai Shri Ram' slogans in Bihar Assembly, following which he faced criticism from his community and a fatwa was also issued against him.

"In case I hurt people by shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' I apologise for it," said Alam of the Janata Dal-United.

Taking an U turn from his earlier stand, he said he did not shout it for a religious purpose.

A Mufti of the influential Imarat-e-Shariya here issued a fatwa against Khurshid Alam for shouting 'Jai Shri Ram' deeming him ostracised.

Mufti Suhail Ahmad Qasmi however said that it was his personal fatwa against Alam, not of the Imarat-e-Shariya.

Alam, who had loudly chanted 'Jai Shri Ram' in the assembly premises on Friday, had earlier told media here that he hardly bothers about any kind of fatwa against him.

"I am not at all worried or take it (fatwa) seriously. I am not afraid of such a fatwa... I am true Mussalman and there is nothing wrong in my faith," he said, adding that there is nothing wrong if he has chanted 'Jai Shri Ram' for the sake of harmony and development of the state.

"I will chant Jai Shri Ram again if I think it is necessary for peace and harmony," he had added.

According to JD-U leaders, Alam's apology came after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar asked him to do so in view of growing controversy.

IANS

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 22:24 [IST]
SC notice to Centre on plea against supply of electoral roll to candidates

Congress exodus in Gujarat, EC seeks report from govt

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Election Commission of India has sought a report from the Gujarat government over allegations made by the Congress that the BJP was poaching their MLAs ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls. The polls are scheduled to be held on August 8.

An EC spokesperson said the Gujarat Chief Secretary has been asked to furnish a report to the poll panel in this context by the evening (5 pm) of July 31.

"The report has been sought on the allegation made in the memorandum submitted by the delegation of the Indian National Congress today (to the Commission)," the spokesperson said.

He added that the EC has also directed the state government to "ensure proper security to all the MLAs and their family members.

The poll watchdog's action came in the backdrop of the Congress party petitioning it and demanding free and fair election to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat as it accused the BJP of misuse of power and authority.

A delegation of top Congress leaders met Chief Election Commissioner Achal Kumar Joti and demanded setting up of a high-powered committee to enquire into charges of money power and muscle power and blatant abuse of government machinery to engineer defections and give a time-bound report.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 7:12 [IST]
Gorkhas all over the globe march united for Gorkhaland

India

oi-Amitava

By Amitava

July 30, 2017: Gorkhas in over 100 cities and towns across the globe marched for Gorkhaland on Sunday in a first of its kind event "Global Gorkhaland Unity March."

Gorkhas have been agitating with the demand of carving out a separate state of Gorkhaland from West Bengal. A violent 28 month long violent agitation is the 1980s had left 1200 dead.

With the resurrection of the Gorkhaland demand in North Bengal followed by an agitation since June this year, the movement has earned immense support from Gorkhas residing not only in India but throughout the globe. Events specially rallies have been held in the recent past worldwide in support of the demand.

"Rallies were being organized worldwide along with other events worldwide. It was more of group or organizational efforts. It is then we decided that we should do a rally globally on the same day. This would ensure that we would make a loud noise and be heard" stated Siddarth Bhitrikoti, an global coordinator for the march from Bangalore.

The main aim of such a rally is to stress on unity and sustainability. "The main mantra now is unity and sustainability to carry the movement forward and not let it die down. The global march is a step in this direction. In future too such global programmes will be organized. Gorkhaland movement is a people's movement now and does not bear the signature of any political outfit" added Bhitrikoti.

The idea of the global rally evolved in the United States when Manish Chettri, a Gorkha residing in North Carolina had to drive for hours to participate in a Gorkhaland rally in Washington DC. He then had floated the idea of having a unity rally in different cities of USA on the same day. Others from across the globe pitched in and it was then decided that a global rally would be held on July 30.

" The primary objectives of the rally are to unite the Gorkha populace globally; condemn the human rights violation in Darjeeling and Kalimpong districts and raise a united voice for Gorkhaland" stated Smriti Rael Philip from Darjeeling.

The march also invited supporters from outside the Gorkha community. "We welcomed all who believe in the Gorkhaland dream and want to raise their voice against the human rights violation in the Hills" added Philip.

Rallies are being held in Australia, New Zealand, Belgium, Myanmar, Canada, China, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Israel, Kuwait, Tanzania, Scotland, Thailand, UAE, USA and other parts of the globe along with cities and towns in India.

Owing to the sporadic clashes between security forces and Gorkhaland supporters in Sukna near Siliguri in North Bengal, the organizers have called off rallies in Salugarah, Salbari, Sukna and Mirik in North Bengal.

" It was a herculean task to coordinate between different countries in different time zones. It would have not been possible without social network sites. The rallies were perfectly synced through social network sites. Most of the global coordinators are not known to each other in person but only through these social networking sites stated Bhitrikoti.

As a database has been created for the global march, in future there will be many such events worldwide. " We are planning different types of innovative protests and programmes, " stated Bhitrikoti. Bangalore has already hosted "Fight with Art" (protests through various art forms along with three rallies.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 14:05 [IST]
Gujarat Floods: CM Vijay Rupani assures financial help within two days

India

oi-Madhuri

Every affected will get financial help within two days, we will conduct survey of damaged houses and agricultural land," Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani said on Sunday.

#GujaratFloods: CM Vijay Rupani conducts aerial survey of the flood-hit Banaskantha pic.twitter.com/GzP34iUykM  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

Addressing a press conference here, Rupani said the government is working towards bringing things back to normal in flood hit Banaskantha area as soon as possible.

Earlier, Rupani visited the flood-hit Banaskantha district to oversee the relief and rescue operations by the administration. He will be camping in the flood-hit districts of North Gujarat for the next five days to ensure faster action.

The Chief Minister interacted with the flood victims and the family members of the deceased in Banaskantha and assured them of government support. Over 2 million food packets were distributed in the two districts.

Till now during the monsoon season, 145 people have lost their lives, while 1,12,878, were shifted to safer locations during the floods. More than 17,800 people have been rescued so far with the help of Army, Indian Air Force, NDRF, and SDRF, besides police and fire personnel, reports The Hindu.

While the Government has ensured faster relief and rescue operations, cleaning and disposal of carcasses has assumed top priority. More than 4,100 animals were dead following the floods.

Last week Prime Minister Narendra Modi had rushed to Gujarat and conducted an aerial survey of the flood-hit regions and announced Rs. 500 crore as immediate relief to Gujarat.

OneIndia News
People of Himachal have decided to go with Modi; all other factors irrelevant: CM Thakur

In tweets, Sharad Yadav targets Modi government over black money

India

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

Senior JD(U) leader Sharad Yadav on Sunday took a scathing attack at the BJP, his party's new ally in Bihar, for failing to deliver on its promise of bringing back black money stashed abroad.

"Neither black money stashed abroad returned, one of the main slogans of the ruling party, nor anyone caught out of those named in Panama papers," Yadav tweeted without taking any names.

He also questioned why no action had been taken against those whose names had appeared in the infamous Panama Papers.

Neither black money slashed abroad returned, one of d main slogans of d ruling party nor anyone caught out of those named in Panama papers.  SHARAD YADAV (@SharadYadavMP) July 30, 2017

Sharad Yadav's tweet comes days after Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar quit the grand alliance and aligned with the BJP, ostensibly over the corruption charges against RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav's son and deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav.

It is said that Yadav was upset with Nitish Kumar's decision to pull out of Grand Alliance and join hands with the BJP.

Meanwhile, Lalu Prasad urged Sharat Yadav, who was reportedly upset over Kumar's decision to side with BJP, to lead the fight against "communal forces".

On Wednesday, Nitish Kumar had resigned as Chief Minister, citing Lalu's son and his Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav's refusal to step down despite facing a corruption case. But in a span of 14 hours, he was back at the head of a new government, formed in alliance with the BJP.

OneIndia News
In UP 166 criminals killed in encounters in past five years: Yogi

One Jaish-e-Mohammad terrorist gunned down in Jammu and Kashmir

J&K: Two terrorists killed in encounter by security forces in Pulwama

India

oi-Madhuri

Two terrorists were killed on Sunday during an encounter between terrorists and security forces in Tahab area of Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir.

A counter-operation is currently underway. Forces from Jammu and Kashmir police and army cordoned off Tahab village in Pulwama on specific input about presence of militants in area.

Internet services snapped in Pulwama district after two Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorists were gunned down in Tahab area.

On July 12, three terrorists were killed in an overnight encounter with security forces in Budgam district in Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

The police official said security forces launched a cordon and search operation in Redbug area of Budgam last evening after receiving specific intelligence inputs about the presence of terrorists in the area.

The search operation turned into an encounter as the search party of the security forces was fired upon by the terrorists.

OneIndia News
People of Himachal have decided to go with Modi; all other factors irrelevant: CM Thakur

JD(U) to support Gopalkrishna Gandhi in Vice-Presidential polls despite BJP alliance

India

oi-PTI

New Delhi, Jul 30: Despite change in political equation, the Janata Dal (United) will support the opposition vice presidential candidate Gopalkrishna Gandhi in the August 5 elections.

A senior party leader said that the commitment to support Gandhi was made by party president and Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar prior to joining hands with the BJP.

"Nitish Kumar ji had made the commitment to support Gopalkrishna Gandhi prior to joining hands with the BJP and will fulfil it. There is no going back on it and we have not changed our stand," senior party leader K C Tyagi told PTI.

The decision of the JD-U will not alter the result of vice president's election as the ruling NDA nominee M Venkaiah Naidu has a big majority in his favour and is likely to sail through easily.

On whether its lone MLA in Gujarat would support the BJP or the Congress in the upcoming Rajya Sabha elections, they said since he is opposed by the BJP, he is free to take his own decision. In the wake of its own legislators switching sides and resigning after Shankarsing Vaghela quit the party, Congress heavyweight Ahmed Patel needs the support of the NCP, the JD-U and other MLAs to win the third Rajya Sabha seat in Gujarat.

The JD-U moved out of the 'grand alliance' with the RJD and the Congress and decided to join hands with its old-time ally the BJP to form the new government in Bihar.

PTI

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 23:08 [IST]
BJP shuts down Kerala after RSS man's murder

India

oi-Madhuri

The dawn to dusk strike called by the BJP on Sunday, in protest against the murder of an RSS worker, has come to an end across the state.

After being summoned by Governor P. Sathasivam, Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan promised that action would be taken against law-breakers irrespective of their status and political affiliation. Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also told him to curb political violence.

An RSS worker was hacked to death by alleged CPM workers in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday. Assailants chopped off Rajesh Edavakode, an RSS worker's hand in Sreekaryam. Rajesh succumbed to injuries hours after the attack.All shops and markets across the state were shut and all public vehicles went off the roads, residents and officials said. The few private vehicles which plied faced angry BJP and RSS activists.

Kerala Police chief Loknath Behra told reporters that all but one of those involved in the crime has been arrested."Their questioning has started. Preliminary indications are that there was political and also personal rivalry," he said.

In another unprecedented development, the Governor, a former Supreme Court Chief Justice, summoned Vijayan and Behra to know the law and order situation in the state.

In the last two weeks, there was an attack on the state BJP headquarters and the residence of the son of CPI-M state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan before Rajesh was murdered.

Sathasivam quoted Vijayan as saying that he would meet both state BJP President Kummanam Rajasekharan and the state RSS chief and make a public appeal for peace.

OneIndia News (with agency inputs)
Lack of development in J&K for decades was one of the reasons behind rise of terrorism: Rajnath Singh

His contributions ignored: Why Rajnath Singh said Netaji was first PM of India

Rajnath calls up Kerala CM, raises concern over political violence

India

pti-PTI

New Delhi, Jul 30: Home Minister Rajnath Singh voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala and said political violence was unacceptable in a democracy. His remarks came against the backdrop of the deadly attack on an RSS worker in the state.

During a telephonic conversation with Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Singh discussed with him the recent incidents of political violence in the state. "I have expressed my concern over the law and order situation in the state of Kerala.

Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy," he said in a tweet. The home minister's phone call to the Kerala chief minister came a day after an RSS worker was hacked to death by a gang led by a history-sheeter near Thiruvananthapuram.

The home minister said he expects that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously. Police said 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around 9 pm last night.

An investigation has been launched and search is on for assailants, they said BJP's Kerala unit president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleged the CPI-M was behind the attack, a charge denied by the district leadership of the left party. The BJP has called for a state-wide hartal today.

PTI
West Bengal Government provides financial relief to the Hills of North Bengal

Saffron ally Gorkha Janmukti Morcha issues deadline to BJP led Union Government

India

oi-Amitava

By Amitava

July 29, 2017: Saffron ally Gorkha Janmukti Morcha has issued a deadline to the BJP led Union Government to break their silence on the Gorkhaland issue by 6pm of August 8 or face a "Bhayanak" (fearsome) agitation from August 9.

Facing flak from other pro Gorkhaland forces over BJP's calculated silence on the Gorkhaland issues, the GJM has finally decided to pull up the BJP. "Despite 45 days of bandh; Gorkhaland supporters shot dead by security forces; many supporters injured; the food blockade by the State Government along with the internet ban the Centre has preferred to remain silent. This is not a good sign" stated Binay Tamang, Assistant General Secretary, GJM.

Backed by the GJM and riding piggyback on the Gorkhaland issue BJP heavy weights Jashwant Singh and SS Ahluwalia had won the Lok Sabha elections from Darjeeling in 2009 and 2014 respectively.

However there is a lot of resentment from different pro Gorkhaland camps regarding BJP's silence on the Gorkhaland issue and MP Ahluwalia's absence in Darjeeling during the ongoing crisis.

"If the Central Government fails to speak up on the Gorkhaland issue by 6pm on August 8, we will intensify our agitation from August 9. It is the final battle for Gorkhaland" stated Binay Tamang, Assistant Secretary, GJM.

GJM President Bimal Gurung held a meeting with the central committee, frontal organizations, GJM MLAs and Municipal Commissioners at Patleybash. Though the GJM is yet to announce the agitation programmes for an intensified agitation, Gurung asked all to follow instructions regarding the agitation programmes when issued.

On Sunday rallies will be brought out be the women's wing all over the Hills. "Mushtiddan" (collection of fistful of food grains and vegetables) will be carried out at Motor Stands in Darjeeling and Kurseong; Dambar Chowk at Kalimpong and Krishnanagar at Mirik on Sunday.

"The collected food grains will be handed over to the DMs of Darjeeling and Kalimpong along with the SDOs as a symbolic protest against the State Government's food blockade to the Hills from the plains added Tamang.

Meanwhile Sukna near Siliguri was a witness of multiple flashpoints with security forces and GJM supporters locking horns on Saturday over a Khukuri (traditional Gorkha sword) rally.

Gorkhaland supporters from Tindharia, Rongtong, Mahanadi, and Garidhura took out a rally at around 11am brandishing Khukuris. They were scheduled to march to Darjeeling More on the outskirts of Siliguri.

At around 11.45 am police checked the rally's advance at the Rongtong bridge near Sukna. The protestors forced through the police barricade. Police vehicles were vandalised along with stones and bottles were allegedly pelted on the security forces.

Police officers including Assistant Commissioner of Police Pranab Sikdar and Sanjay Ghosh, Officer in charge, Pradhannagar police station were injured along with other police personnel. Police resorted to bursting of tear gas shells and firing rubber bullets.

30 year old Ajay Chettri, a GJM supporter from Garidhura received injuries allegedly from a tear gas shell burst. The injured police personnel along with Chettri were rushed to the North Bengal Medical College and Hospital at Matigarah near Siliguri. Arrests were also made.

At around 3:30pm the protestors made another attempt to march to Siliguri. As the situation turned volatile water cannons were used along with tear gas shells and rubber bullets fired to disperse the crowd.

Police claimed that petrol bombs were hurled at them by the protestors. As the Siliguri Metropolitan Police led by Commissioner Neeraj Kumar Singh faced jurisdiction problem, a large police contingent led by ADG Siddhinath Gupta and IG Jawed Shamim rushed to the spot from Darjeeling.

However by evening the protestors had dispersed. A large police contingent led by police top brass has been deployed in that area.

OneIndia News
Came to Bengaluru to save democracy and ourselves: Gujarat Congress MLAs

India

oi-Anusha

Congress legislators from Gujarat addressed the press for the first time after being flown down to Bengaluru. The legislators denied being held against their wishes at a resort. Gujarat Congress MLA and party spokesperson Shaktisinh Gohil said that Rs 15 crore was being offered in bribes by the BJP to lure Congress MLAs.

"This press conference is not just to parade the MLAs. We intend to answer all your questions and put to rest any doubts you may have," Gohil told the press. He claimed that the Congress MLAs from Gujarat were fighting for democracy. "There was a conspiracy to buy Congress MLAs for Rs 15 crore each and to defeat the party even before the elections (Rajya Sabha). CBI is being used to threaten our MLAs. Democracy is under threat," Shaktisinh Gohil said.

The legislator also rubbished reports of mobile phones being taken away from MLAs. "All our MLAs have their phones with them. It was a united decision to save democracy and protect ourselves. We will not be bought no matter what. We decided to come to Bengaluru to protect ourselves," he added.

Gohil claimed that the party was united and even those MLAs who had resigned were in touch with the party. "We are like a family. We are not individuals. BJP's plan was to get 22 Congress MLAs to resign. We could have gone to Singapore or any other country but we decided to come to Karnataka because of the love we have received here," Gohil added.

Lashing out at the BJP for accusing Congress MLAs of deserting flood-struck Gujarat, the Congress said that it was the BJP that lacked concern for the state and its people. While Gohil kept telling the media that all MLAs were ready to talk, the press conference only saw the Congress spokesperson speaking.

OneIndia News
What are the Lingayats demanding in Karnataka ahead of crucial assembly polls

India

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

The Lingayats in Karnataka have demanded that they be categorised as a religious group separate from Hindus. Though they worship Shiva, they say that the concept of Ishta Linga or personal God, they cannot be attributed to the Hindu way of life. They cite the rules prescribed by the 12th century social reformer Basaveshwara who had defied the caste system and vedic rituals.

A 40 year old demand has been raked up once again in Karnataka. It is significant in a lot of ways considering the assembly elections are round the corner. On July 20 a massive rally of Lingayats had been carried out in Bidar to make this demand. While the centre had earlier rejected this demand, the Akhila Bharata Veerashiva Mahasabha has petitioned the Chief Minister of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah. The CM said that if all representatives submit a representation burying their differences, then he would forward the demand to the centre.

This demand is significant politically as well. The Lingayats comprise around 17 per cent of the population and their votes matter in over 100 constituencies. The BJP had come to power in 2018 with the backing of the Lingayat votes. In 2013, the BJP lost after B S Yeddyurappa who had broken away from the party took with him most of the Lingayat votes.

This is a crucial issue for the BJP. If it gives in, then it would divert from its Hindutva agenda. Not giving in would mean angering a large section of its voters. The BJP would now be faced with the challenge of tiding over this demand. It cannot remain a mute spectator to the issue. The party would have to offer something to keep the Lingayats happy. However for the BJP ignoring the issue is not the solution.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 7:17 [IST]
755 US diplomats must leave Russia, says Vladimir Putin

International

oi-Oneindia

By Oneindia

The Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday said 755 US diplomats must leave his country. This follows from the earlier announcement that Russia is to cut off US access to certain storage facilities the US Embassy uses in Moscow.

"The American side has made a move which, it is important to note, hasn't been provoked by anything, to worsen Russian-US relations, Putin told in an interview with the Rossiya 1 TV channel.

"More than a thousand people were working and are still working" at the US embassy and consulates. They must stop their activities in Russia, Putin said.

"Putin added that an upturn in Russia's relations with Washington could not be expected any time soon. We have waited long enough, hoping that the situation would perhaps change for the better," he said, reports PTI.

On Thursday, the US Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill to toughen sanctions on Russia for allegedly meddling in the 2016 US presidential election and for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

OneIndia News
Imran Khan discharged from hospital, to resume long march from same point where he was shot

Can Nawaz Sharif make another comeback?

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Is there a possibility of Nawaz Sharif making a comeback. Several experts are confused about for how long Sharif has been disqualified from electoral politics.

When the question about the duration of the 67-year-old veteran politician's ouster from Pakistan's active politics was put to seasoned lawyers, most seemed confused. Some said the question needed to be addressed since it has remain unanswered for far too long, Dawn reported.

A five-member bench disqualified Sharif under articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution, which state that a member of the parliament should be "truthful" and "righteous".

Tariq Mehmood, former president of the Supreme Court Bar Association, told the newspaper that a larger bench of the Supreme Court was seized with a number of cases, including those of Samina Khawar Hayat and Mohammad Haneef, in which the moot point was to determine whether disqualification under Article 62(1)(f) of the Constitution was perpetual or not.

Former chief justice Anwar Zaheer Jamali, hearing one of such cases, had wondered how anyone could be disqualified from participating in elections forever on the basis of articles 62 and 63, saying people could reform themselves to be qualified under the provisions at some point of time.

Senior lawyer Raheel Kamran Sheikh recalled that former Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was disqualified on June 19, 2012, from parliament for committing contempt of court under Article 63, which specified disqualification for five years.

Unfortunately under Article 62(1)(f) no period of disqualification has been specified, he said, but endorsed what Mehmood observed.

Sheikh said some cases were pending to determine should the application of Article 62(1)(f) be restricted to the current election or to all times to come.

He said the Supreme Court was in a "catch-22 situation", since by citing the reasons for disqualification of Sharif, it lowered the threshold for ineligibility of elected members to such an extent that too many heads might roll in future.

Through the Panama Papers judgement, he feared, the balance of power had been tilted in favour of the Supreme Court and the qualification of lawmakers had been threatened.

He said if the judgement was implemented across the board, the parliamentarians, feeling threatened, might react by getting together for a constitutional amendment aimed at curtailing or restricting the scope of powers under Article 62 of the Constitution.

One the other hand, vice chairman of the Pakistan Bar Council Ahsan Bhoon said the disqualification of Sharif was forever.

To support his observation, he cited the 2013 Abdul Ghafoor Lehri case in which former chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry had held that under Article 63, there were certain disqualifications which were of temporary nature and a person disqualified under Article 63 could become qualified after the lapse of a certain period, whereas the disqualification under Article 62 was permanent.

Thus, Article 62 did not provide any period after which a person, who had been disqualified under the provision, could be eligible to contest elections of parliament, he said.

Former additional attorney general Tariq Khokhar also said that Sharif had been disqualified for life since ineligibility for not being sadiq and ameen was forever.

But a senior lawyer, who did not want to be named, said that Article 62 was a qualifying provision and, when originally enacted in 1973, it had qualifications which were all objectively determinable.

Later Gen Zia-ul Haq brought in nebulous qualifications in Article 62, which were open-ended and highly subjective.

No one has articulated its limitations better than Justice Asif Saeed Khosa, who observed in one of the cases that no one should be disqualified on that basis.

The provision was largely dormant till it was dusted and brought out by Iftikhar Chaudhry and used to knock out parliamentarians, Khokhar said, adding that even Justice Chaudhry did not disqualify anyone directly, except in the dual nationality cases and that too on the basis of admissions.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 7:04 [IST]
Capable of defeating any intruder, Jinping says amidst Doklam standoff

International

oi-IANS

By Ians English

The People's Liberation Army is capable of defeating any intruder, Chinese President Xi Jinping said. Jinping who is also the chairman of the Central Military Commission said that he firmly believed that the PLA has the confidence and capability to defeat any intruder.

Jinping made the remarks while addressing the 90th anniversary of the PLA, at Zhurihe training base in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. The statements come in the midst of the Doklam standoff.

Without making a direct reference to the Doklam standoff, Jinping said that the world is far from peace and needs to be safeguarded. Today, we are closer than ever to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. And more than any time in history we need to build strong armed forces of the people," he also said.

He indicated that the China plans to expand the international role of the PLA. Our heroic PLA has the confidence and capability to safeguard the nation's sovereignty, security and development interests," Jinping also said.

OneIndia News
Pak's withdrawal from Gilgit-Baltistan will help resolve Kashmir issue: US

Talking Baloch should go beyond Red Fort speech, says ex-RAW spook

India will not let go off any part of its territory: Sushma Swaraj

Gilgit-Baltistan locals protest against China and CPEC

International

oi-Madhuri

A large number of protesters gathered on Sunday to protest the exclusion of Gilgit-Baltistan from the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor project.

#WATCH People in Gilgit-Baltistan protest against China & CPEC which passes through Gilgit, fearing it will create huge ecological imbalance pic.twitter.com/XKdeuYvo3k  ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

According to ANI, Locals in Gilgit took to streets protesting against against China & CPEC which passes through Gilgit, fearing it will create huge ecological imbalance.

People got together and took out a march raising slogans portraying an elevation in resentment over the situation.

CPEC, a part of China's broader One-Belt-One-Road (OBOR) initiative, is widely hailed in Pakistan as a game-changer that is destined to bring considerable economic benefits.

OneIndia News
Why Shahbaz Sharif as Pak PM is good news for India

International

oi-Vicky

By Vicky

Ousted Pakistan Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif picked hs brother Shahbaz Sharif to succeed him. Until Shahbaz Sharif contests and wins a by-election for parliament, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi would be the interim PM. Shahbaz is currently the Chief Minister of Punjab.

India is keenly watching the developments in Pakistan and in certain quarters officials have expressed relief over the junior Sharif being picked as the PM candidate.

Like his brother Shahbaz has always wanted Pakistan to be de-militarised. He has said back in 2014 that the military was blocking Pakistan-India trade. He had last October pulled up the DG ISI for promoting terror as a result of which Pakistan was facing global isolation.

Shahbaz had always been seen as the de-facto foreign minister on Indian affairs. He has conducted diplomatic missions to Delhi on behalf of his brother. He has always distrusted the security agencies and said that they were the main reason why liberalised trade between two countries were blocked.

He had told the Guardian that security agencies on both sides need to understand that in today's world, a security-led vision is obviously driven by economic security. Unless you have economic security, you cannot have general security he had said.

Both the Sharif brother have for long advocated peace with India. However the military has been wary and has ensured that peace is blocked. For Shahbaz there are several challenges ahead. While the internal rift with the military poses the biggest challenge, he would also have to strike a balance on the Kashmir issue.

Indian officials say that the biggest challenge for him would be to reign in the military in Pakistan. His brother too had not had much success in doing so. However when it comes to dealing with the military, the junior Sharif has been seen as more assertive in nature, experts point out.

Sharif understands that the jihadis, ISI and the army have ensured that Pakistan is isolated by the international community. For now the only friend that Pakistan has is China. However Sharif would want better ties with the rest of the world including India. For this he has a major balancing act to carry out which would include keeping the ISI, army and the jihadis quiet.

OneIndia News

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Story first published: Sunday, July 30, 2017, 8:42 [IST]
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Global Novaluron Market Research Report 2017

Novaluron

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This report studies Novaluron in Global market, especially in North America, Europe, China, Japan, Southeast Asia and India, focuses on top manufacturers in global market, with capacity, production, price, revenue and market share for each manufacturer, covering MSC Restek Corporation Walterwood XiteBio Cerilliant New DisasterMarket Segment by Regions, this report splits Global into several key Regions, with production, consumption, revenue, market share and growth rate of Novaluron in these regions, from 2011 to 2021 (forecast), like North America Europe China Japan Southeast Asia IndiaSplit by product type, with production, revenue, price, market share and growth rate of each type, can be divided into Type I Type IISplit by application, this report focuses on consumption, market share and growth rate of Novaluron in each application, can be divided into Application 1 Application 2Get a free sample copy @Table of ContentGlobal Novaluron Market Research Report 20171 Novaluron Market Overview2 Global Novaluron Market Competition by Manufacturers3 Global Novaluron Capacity, Production, Revenue (Value) by Region (2012-2017)4 Global Novaluron Supply (Production), Consumption, Export, Import by Regions (2012-2017)5 Global Novaluron Production, Revenue (Value), Price Trend by Type6 Global Novaluron Market Analysis by Application7 Global Novaluron Manufacturers Profiles/Analysis8 Novaluron Manufacturing Cost Analysis9 Industrial Chain, Sourcing Strategy and Downstream Buyers10 Marketing Strategy Analysis, Distributors/Traders11 Market Effect Factors Analysis12 Global Novaluron Market Forecast (2017-2022)13 Research Findings and ConclusionGet access to full report @24MarketReports is the marque of market research industry which identifies massive database of market research reports. We are having a numerous sectors market research gathering which covers diverse verticals around the Earth. Our central focus to make it trouble-free for decision makers to find applicable information and locate right Research reports which can save their time and assist in what they do best.New York City Zone 01, United Stateshelp@24marketreports.comInt'l: (+1) 646 781 7170UK(Toll free): +44 800 088 5734
HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market Research, New Study and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market: OverviewThis report provides forecast and analysis of the HIV/AIDS diagnostics market on the global and regional levels. It provides historical data of 2016 along with forecast from 2017 to 2025 in terms of revenue (US$ Mn). The report also includes macroeconomic indicators along with an outlook on HIV/AIDS diagnostics globally. It includes drivers and restraints of the HIV/AIDS diagnostics market and their impact on each region during the forecast period. The report also comprises of the study of current issues with end users and opportunities for HIV/AIDS diagnostics manufacturers in the global market.In order to provide users with comprehensive view of the market, we have included detailed competitive analysis and market players with unique selling propositions. The competitive dashboard included in the report provides detailed comparison of HIV/AIDS diagnostics manufacturers on parameters such as product offerings, revenue, key strategies, and recent developments. The study encompasses market attractiveness analysis, by product type, by test type, by end users and region.Get The Sample Copy of This Report :Global HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market: Research MethodologyMarket value for global HIV/AIDS diagnostics have been estimated based on utility of HIV/AIDS diagnostics for all product types. The revenue is forecasted through regional pricing trends. Market size and forecast for each segment have been provided in the context of global and regional markets. The HIV/AIDS diagnostic market has been analyzed based on expected demand. Most of the key end users have been considered and potential applications have been estimated on the basis of secondary sources and feedback from primary respondents. Regional demand patterns have been considered while estimating the market for various end users of HIV/AIDS diagnostics in different regions.Bottom-up approach has been used to estimate the HIV/AIDS diagnostics market size, and top-down approach has been used to validate the market number. The market has been forecasted based on constant currency rates. A number of secondary sources consulted during the course of the study include Factiva, NCBI, Google books, company annual reports, websites, white papers, and publications.Global HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market: SegmentationThe report includes revenue generated from sales of HIV/AIDS diagnostics in all regions and important countries in the regions. By product type, the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market has been segmented into kits and reagents, instruments and others. On the basis of test type the HIV/AIDS diagnostics market is segmented into rapid tests (POC), ELISA, nucleic acid tests and others. On the basis of end users, the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market is segmented into hospitals, private diagnostics laboratories, academic and research institutes and others. Geographically, the market is segmented into regions viz. North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America and Middle East & Africa.Send An Enquiry :Global HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market: Competitive AnalysisThe report provides detailed competitive dashboard and company profiles of key participants operating in the global market. Some of the key players in the global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market include Alere, Hologic, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd., Bio-Rad Laboratories, Abbott Laboratories, Siemens Healthineers, OraSure Technologies, Inc., Chembio Diagnostic Systems etc.The global HIV/AIDS diagnostics market is segmented as follows:Global HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market  By Product TypeKits and ReagentsInstrumentsOthersGlobal HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market  By Test TypeRapid Tests (POC)ELISANucleic Acid TestsOthersGlobal HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market  By End UsersHospitalsPrivate Diagnostics LaboratoriesAcademic and Research InstitutesOthersGlobal HIV/AIDS Diagnostics Market  By RegionNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.K.FranceItalySpainRest of EuropeAsia Pacific (APAC)ChinaJapanIndiaAustralia & New ZealandRest of Asia PacificLatin AmericaBrazilMexicoRest of Latin AmericaMiddle East & Africa (MEA)Saudi ArabiaSouth AfricaRest of Middle East & AfricaMRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository.Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Security Market Analysis and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Chemical, Biological, Radiological. And Nuclear Security Market: OverviewChemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) security is principally responsible for effective combat against CBRN weapons for mass destruction from various external or internal anti national organizations. CBRN incidents can occur accidentally, intentionally, or naturally. Accidental CBRN incidents are the events caused by human error or technological errors, such as factory spillage, accidental release or leakage of poisonous gas or liquids. Intentional CBRN incidents are those that occur when CBRN materials are released into the environment with the intention of terrorism or war. The deliberate accumulation or discharge of hazardous materials to avoid fulfilling regulatory requirements also counts as intentional CBRN incidents. A natural CBRN incident would be the outbreak of an infectious disease such as Ebola, swine flu, severe acute respiratory syndrome (S.A.R.S.), pandemic influenza, etc.Owing to the global increase in terrorist activity and the procurement of mass destruction weapons by anti-state organizations, it has become highly essential for governments, armed troops and civilians to be involved in a strategic recognition, preparation, and prevention of fatal threats. Governments across the world are adopting enhanced technology for the prevention of CBRN attacks by anti-national or terrorist organizations. For example, the recent evidence of the procurement of chemical weapons for mass destruction by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram, and Al-Qaeda, signifies a major threat to the international community. Military organizations across the world are demanding special devices, systems and training for CBRN attack response operations.Get The Sample Copy Of This Report :Global Chemical, Biological, Radiological. And Nuclear Security Market: Market DynamicsIncrease in the terrorist activities across the world is one of the key factor driving the demand of CBRN security market during the forecast period of 2017  2025. In December 2016, 145 terrorist incidents were reported. Several countries across the globe the invested in defense for adopt enhanced technology for the prevention of CBRN attacks by anti-national or terrorist organizations. For Instance, the recent evidence of the procurement of chemical weapons for mass destruction by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Boko Haram, and Al-Qaeda, signifies a major threat to the international community. According to Central Intelligence Agency, Al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups have a lots of agents to choose from for chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) attack. Due to this factor, government of different countries are modernizing their defense and buying new equipment for CBRN security.Additionally, growing unfavorable geopolitical issues between countries also indicate potential threat of CBRN attacks. Repetitive clashes between Russia and Ukraine, India and Pakistan, China and Taiwan, and Saudi Arabia and Iran are a few of the geopolitical issues at present. On the other hand, the economic crisis in Europe has also given rise to various political conflicts among the European nations lately. These unfavorable geopolitical issues also pose threat of CBRN attacks and can affect national economy and security. Growing need for early detection of CBRN incidents and immediate response for protection are the primary concerns for governments worldwide. Owing to these factors, the demand for CBRN security is increasing at a substantial pace globally. The impact of the threat from terrorists and unfavorable geopolitical issues is currently high and is expected to reduce to medium over the forecast period.Send An Enquiry :Global Chemical, Biological, Radiological. And Nuclear Security Market: Market SegmentationBased on the type, the global CBRN security market has been segmented into chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security. In 2016, among various types, nuclear segment is expected to dominate the market followed by chemical. Based on the function, the global CBRN security market has been segmented into protection, detection, decontamination and simulation. In 2016, among various functions, protection segment is expected to dominate the market followed by detection.By geography, the market has been segmented into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa and Latin America. Based on the type, the market has been categorized into chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear security. Additionally, the market has been segmented on the basis of functions which include protection equipment, detection equipment, decontamination equipment and simulation equipment. The market size and forecast from 2017 to 2025 have been provided in the report.Browse More Details :Global Chemical, Biological, Radiological. And Nuclear Security Market: Competitive LandscapeKey players profiled in this report include Survitec Group (United Kingdom), Tingley Rubber Corporation (United States), W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc (United States), MKU GmbH (United States), Blucher GmbH (Germany) and Supergum International (Israel) for CBRN boots. AVON Protection Systems, Inc (United States), Scott Safety (United States), 3M Company (United States), AVEC CHEM s.r.o (CZECH REPUBLIC) and Respirex International Ltd (United Kingdom) for CBRN filters. HDT Global (United States), Alaska Structures (United States) and Air Shelter USA, LLC (United States) for CBRN shelters. W. L. Gore & Associates, Inc (United States), Blucher GmbH (Germany), Paul Boye Technology SAS (France), Supergum International (Israel) and Dharma Magna (Indonesia) for CBRN fabric gloves. Honeywell International Inc. (United States), Survitec Group (United Kingdom), Respirex International Ltd (United Kingdom), ISOVAC Product LLC (United States) and GOETZLOFF GmbH (Austria) for CBRN ISOPOD. AVON Protection Systems, Inc (United States), Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (Germany), 3M Company (United States), Honeywell International Inc (United States), ILC Dover (United States) and Micronel Safety USA, LLC (United States) for CBRN PAPR. AVON Protection Systems, Inc (United States), Scott Safety (United States), Shalon-Chemical Industries (Israel), MSA (United States), Dragerwerk AG & Co. KGaA (Germany) and Supergum International (Israel) for CBRN mask. Honeywell International Inc (United States), REX-Gummitechniken GmbH Co.KG (Germany), Ansell Ltd (Australia) and Guardian Manufacturing (United States) for CBRN rubber gloves.The segments covered in the Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Security market are as follows:Global Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Security Market, 2016 - 2025: By TypeChemicalBiologicalRadiologicalNuclearGlobal Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Security Market, 2016 - 2025: By FunctionProtectionDetectionDecontaminationSimulation SystemsGlobal Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Security Market, 2016 - 2025: By GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.Rest of North AmericaEuropeUKFranceGermanyRest of EuropeAsia PacificAustraliaNew ZealandJapanRest of APACMiddle East and Africa (MEA)Saudi ArabiaUAERest of MEALatin AmericaBrazilRest of Latin AmericaMRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository.Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Single-use Bioprocessing Sensors and Probes Market Analysis, Growth and Forecast 2017 - 2025

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Global Single-use Bioprocessing Sensors and Probes Market: OverviewThis report on single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market studies the current as well as future prospects of the market globally. The stakeholders of this report include companies and intermediaries engaged in the manufacture, commercialization, providing services of single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes products such as pH sensor, valve, bench top control system, spectroscopy, optochemical DO, temperature, pressure as well as new entrants planning to enter this market.This report comprises an elaborate executive summary along with a market snapshot providing overall information of various segments and sub-segments considered in the scope of the study. This section also provides the overall information and data analysis of the global single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market with respect to the leading market segments based on major applications segment, products segment, and geographies.The market overview section of the report explores the market dynamics such as drivers, restraints, and opportunities that currently have a strong impact on the single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market and could influence the market in the near future. Market attractiveness analysis has been provided in the market overview section in order to explain the intensity of competition in the market across different geographies. The competitive scenario among different market players is evaluated through market share analysis in the competitive landscape section of the report. All these factors would help market players to take strategic decisions in order to strengthen their positions and expand their shares in the global single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market.Get The Sample Copy Of This Report :Global Single-use Bioprocessing Sensors and Probes Market: SegmentationBased on the product type, the single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market has been segmented into: pH Sensor, valve, bench top control system, spectroscopy, optochemical DO, temperature, pressure, and others. Each of the market segments have been extensively analyzed based on the market related factors such as increasing demand of single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes worldwide, and technological advancement. Moreover, historical year-on-year growth have been taken into consideration while estimating the market size. The market size and forecast in terms of US$ million for each segment has been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025. The report also provides the compound annual growth rate (CAGR %) for each market segment for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025, considering 2016 as the base year.Single-use Bioprocessing Sensors and Probes Market: Regional AnalysisGeographically, single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market has been segmented into five major regions: North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and Middle East & Africa. The market size and forecast for each of these regions has been provided for the period from 2015 to 2025, along with their respective CAGRs for the forecast period from 2017 to 2025, considering 2016 as the base year. The report also provides with market size and forecast for major countries in the respective regions. A detailed qualitative analysis of factors responsible for driving and restraining the market growth and future opportunities has been provided in the market overview section. This section of the report also provides with market attractiveness analysis, Porters five forces analysis, and market share analysis by key players, thus presenting a thorough analysis of the overall competitive scenario in the global single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market.Send An Enquiry :Single-use Bioprocessing Sensors and Probes Market: Competitive AnalysisThe key findings section included in the report would assist existing market players in expanding their market shares, and new companies in establishing their presence in the global single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market. The report also profiles key players operating in the single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market which are Sartorius Stedim Biotech S.A., Eppendorf AG, Thermo Fisher Scientific, Inc., Hamilton Company, Honeywell International, Inc., Broadley-James Corporation, GE Healthcare, PendoTECH, LLC, Polestar Technologies, Inc., PreSens Precision Sensing GmbH, and Parker Hannifin Corporation.The global single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes market is segmented as follows:Global Single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes Market, Product TypepH SensorElectrochemicalOpticalSolid-stateValvePneumatic Pinch ValveElectrically Actuated Pinch ValvesOthersBench Top Control SystemDCS - Decentralized Control SystemPLC - Programmable Logic ControllersOthersSpectroscopyRaman SpectroscopyNIRScattering SpectroscopyOptochemical DOTemperaturePressureOthersBrowse More Details :Global Single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes Market, by Application TypeBiotechnology IndustryPharmaceutical IndustryAcademic ResearchOthersGlobal Single-use bioprocessing sensors and probes Market, by GeographyNorth AmericaU.S.CanadaEuropeGermanyU.K.FranceItalySpainRussiaRest of the EuropeAsia PacificChinaJapanIndiaAustralia & New ZealandRest of Asia PacificLatin America (LATAM)BrazilMexicoRest of LATAMMiddle East & AfricaSouth AfricaRest of MEAGCC CountriesMRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository.Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
IPTV Market Size, Analysis and Forecast 2014 - 2020

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The global IPTV market lately has witnessed proliferation in number of subscribers, primarily influenced by enhanced user viewing experience as delivered by IPTV and development of supporting infrastructure in emerging markets. IPTV (Internet Protocol television) is a technique of distributing television content over IP which offers an additional customized and interactive user experience. It delivers video stream encoded as a series of IP packets and is distributed by a service provider to deliver either stored video or live TV. IPTV services can be bundled with other IP services such as VoIP and high-speed Internet access. It enables integration of TV, PC, home phone and wireless devices offering high quality of viewing experience to the end-users.The report includes extensive analysis of the industry drivers, restraints, market trends and market structure. The market study provides comprehensive assessment of stakeholder strategies and imperatives for succeeding in the business. The report helps in understanding driving forces behind the popularity of IPTV services across different geographies, such as North America, Western Europe, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific excluding Japan (APEJ), Japan and RoW (Rest of the World). It includes a detailed analysis of the prevalent market situation, company profiles, and current industry trends for IPTV market prevalent among the various end-users such as small size enterprise, mid-size enterprise, large size enterprise, and residents. The chapter on market positioning analysis points out the leading players across the ecosystem of IPTV market. It provides detailed understanding of the leading players in the market, their business strategies, recent developments, and financial overview.Get The Sample Copy Of This Report :The report includes cross-segment analysis of the global IPTV market and provides estimates in terms of revenue (US$ billion) for years 2012 and 2013, along with market forecast for the period 2014 to 2020. The estimates for the years 2012 and 2013 are actual values, while market size estimates for period 2014  2020 are forecast numbers, assuming market dynamics remain unaffected during the term. The end-users segment includes in-depth analysis and forecast of IPTV market across the different geographies. The high level analyses, such as value chain analysis and Porters five forces analysis helps market competitors to formulate their business strategies at every stage of their business. Moreover, the market estimates have been analyzed keeping in mind different factors including but not limited to technological, economical, social, environmental and legal factors. The market attractiveness tool estimates the attractiveness of this technology across different geographies where they are benchmarked based on their market scope and growth rate.The report also provides company positioning of the various industry participants. Market participants profiled in this report include AT&T, Inc, Bharti Airtel Limited, CenturyLink, Inc., Deutsche Telecom, ARRIS Group, Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc, Broadcom Corporation, Ammino Corporation, MatrixStream Technologies, Inc., and Orange S.A.Send An Enquiry :The IPTV Market Segmentation:IPTV Market, by TypeEnterprisesSmall EnterpriseMedium EnterprisesLarge EnterprisesResidentialIPTV Market Revenue, By GeographyNorth AmericaEuropeWestern EuropeEastern EuropeAsia PacificAsia Pacific (excluding Japan)JapanMiddle East and AfricaLatin AmericaMRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository.Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Insurance Company Profile: Vitality

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Insurance Company Profile: VitalitySummary"Insurance Company Profile: Vitality", company profile provides a comprehensive review of Vitality and its UK business. This includes its structure, its performance in both the commercial and personal lines markets, as well as its marketing and distribution strategy.Owned by Discovery Holdings, Vitality is a health and life insurer that has approached the UK market in an innovative way by utilizing wearable tech to offer policies to those consumers adopting a healthy lifestyle. Launched in 2015, the Vitality brands offer rewards to customers for meeting their individual health goals. This profile explores Vitalitys approach and offers a review of the company, its business structure and strategy, its financial performance, and a SWOT analysis.Get The Sample Copy of This Reports :Key Questions Answered- What are Vitalitys key differentiators?- What are Vitalitys strengths and weaknesses?- What opportunities and challenges does the company face going forward?Scope- Discovery joined the UK market in 2007, in a joint venture with PruHealth and PruProject. In 2015 Discovery bought 100% of the shares and became VitalityHealth and VitalityLife. Collectively, VitalityHealth and VitalityLife cover close to 1 million lives.- Vitalitys success in using wearable technology to create sophisticated pricing structures based on a policy holders wellbeing is likely to pave the way for much greater use of wearable technology in the health insurance industry.Send an Enquiry :Reasons to buy- Learn about Vitalitys organizational structure and its core business segments.- Gain insight into the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats Vitality faces going forward.- Understand the group's strategy.MRRbiz supports your business intelligence needs with over 700,000 market research reports, company profiles, data books, and regional market data sheets in its repository.Albany, NY 12207United StatesToll Free: 866-997-4948(USA-Canada)Tel: +1-518-621-2074E: sales@marketresearchreports.biz
Rakhi.giftalove.com Expands its International Delivery Network

Rakhi Online

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https://rakhi.giftalove.com/

Rakhi.giftalove.com is planning for a global sales campaign this Raksha Bandhan. The website announced earlier that it is looking forward to reaching out to a wider consumer base and is more than prepared to provide much better worldwide delivery services. The company, which is a venture of Giftalove.com, has the ability to expand globally as its popularity knows no bounds. Online shoppers are expecting for a grand celebration of Raksha Bandhan as they can send Rakhi gifts to USA or to any foreign land they want to.The online Rakhi business is booming in India. The E-commerce industry has made way for many companies to put up their products online. Gifting services on the Internet are already a peoples favourite. As the unique festival of Raksha Bandhan has been a special occasion for many in the country since ages, it was just a matter of time before Rakhi gifts went online as well. Rakhi.giftalove.com is a company founded on a firm base. By delivering as it promises year after year, the online store for Rakhi gifts has garnered widespread admiration. Its customers dont only belong to India but are also from many other countries around the world.When asked about the speedy expansion taking place in the company, Mr. Mrityunjay Kumar, the official spokesperson for Rakhi.giftalove.com, said, Many critics thought that this initiative to provide a separate website for Rakhi products would fail in the long run. The opposite has happened. Now this company is making its presence known on the global stage. Fulfilling our customers demands and regularly adapting to the changing marketing environment has helped it grow in such a manner. It does not seem that the progress of this store is about to slow down anytime soon.Rakhi.giftalove.com aims to achieve greater heights by continually performing at its very best. The range of gifts that it maintains has played a major role in providing customer satisfaction. The collection it has contains Rakhis of various different kinds. Pearl Rakhi is one among the many popular Rakhis that it displays. The ornamentation and embroidery on these Rakhis give them a distinct yet beautiful design. The store also has separate sections dedicated to other kinds of Rakhis like Golden Rakhi, Silver Rakhi, Kids Rakhi, and Mauli Rakhi to name a few. All of them make for a perfect gift from sisters to their brothers.Not just the Rakhis but also the gifts at Rakhi.giftalove.com can brighten up the day of the recipients. Exchanging gifts is what Raksha Bandhan is all about. When a brother gifts his sister something in return of the Rakhi thread that she tied on his wrists, it symbolises the strengthening of their bond. At this website, brothers can find the best gifts for their sisters.There are plenty of options for sisters to gift their brothers too. Keeping in mind the variety of items Rakhi.giftalove.com offers, Mr. Kumar commented, It is not a common occurrence for a Rakhi gift store to provide customers with so many different kinds of options. Online shoppers love to spend their time her for this very reason.Rakhi Gifts to USA:Rakhi.giftalove.com is among the best Rakhi gift stores in India. It also caters to the Rakhi shoppers of other countries. Its delivery network spans worldwide, delivering thousands of Rakhis around the world.For more Rakhi Gift ideas visit:Primo Gifts Pvt. Ltd.Mayur Vihar phase-1, New Delhi 110091Mr. Mrityunjay Kumarmritunjay@giftalove.comCall: +91-888-200-1155
You'll never forget your work badge if it's implanted in your flesh.

That's the thinking at Three Square Market, a Wisconsin vending machine software firm offering to inject microchips into employees so they can open office doors, log in to computers, share business cards and even buy snacks with just of a wave of the hand.

Chief Executive Todd Westby spoke with the Los Angeles Times about his embrace of Radio Frequency ID chips and his company's entirely voluntary Aug. 1 implanting "chipping" event. This interview has been edited for clarity and continuity.

Q: How does one get 'chipped'?

A: It's like an ear piercing. The procedure isn't surgical; the chip is injected. A licensed professional puts it in the skin between the pointer finger and thumb. If you don't want it anymore, you can remove it like a sliver.

Q: Tweaking the human body seems like a big departure from vending machines. Why is your company experimenting with biohacking?

A: It wasn't something we went looking for. We were working over in Europe and one of our operators had the chip technology. ... And then the idea of bringing that technology to our company grew from there. We are a tech company so I don't think anyone was surprised by it  especially because it can be used with our technology.

Chipping is like self-driving cars, who'd have thought 15 years ago those would be around?

Q: Do employees have to get chipped?

A: It's totally voluntary, the only incentive is we are picking up all the costs associated. There are around 55 people wanting to get chipped next week, but I think with all the buzz around it, it will grow to 100.

Q: Will you be able to track employees' whereabouts? Are there concerns about privacy?

A: No, absolutely not. It's a passive chip, it isn't like a chip in your dog. There is no GPS tracking. We can't track when you go to the restroom, we can't track when and where you are coming and going  it's purely for convenience.

Q: Is hacking a risk?

A: It's really nonexistent. It's 100 percent encrypted so it's more secure than other things connected to RFID readers, like phones or credit cards. There is 256-bit encryption and the only way you could get close to hacking would to be within six inches of the chip  but even then the data would be scrambled.

Q: What does your company's health insurer think of this?

A: The insurance company doesn't know because it's like getting a piercing. The chip is FDA-approved and so there isn't really a need to involve them.

Q: What happens if an employee gets fired or quits the company?

A: We would inactivate the person's account. It's no different than a credit card. We won't require people take out the chip because it can be used with different things but it won't grant them access to our building or computers.

Q: Do you plan on getting chipped?

A: Yes, I do. Actually, my whole family does. My wife, my son who is a junior in college and my daughter who is in high school are all going to get them next week with me. I'm going to use it to turn the lights on in my house  our whole house is automated. So when I scan my hand coming in the front door it'll turn on the lights I'll need and turn on my favorite TV station.

-- Los Angeles Times
Defending integrity: As disappointing as it is that another Oregon law enforcement officer has broken faith with the public by committing official misconduct, there is a silver lining in the case of Woodburn detective Timothy Cobos.

Cobos was sentenced in Marion County Circuit Court last week to 18 months of probation and 40 hours of community service after pleading guilty to three counts of official misconduct. The detective, who also surrendered his police certification, had sex on duty multiple times and was also accused of using a law enforcement database to benefit a girlfriend, according to a story by The Oregonian/OregonLive's Carli Brosseau.

So where exactly is the good news? It comes in the statement made by Woodburn Police Chief Jim Ferraris at Cobos' sentencing. Ferraris did not mince his words in condemning Cobos' actions. Noting that he was representing the "40 sworn and professional staff men and women who are the Woodburn Police Department," Ferraris observed that "holding Mr. Cobos accountable for his betrayal and the disrespect of our badge and the law, and seeing that he never, ever wears a police uniform again is exactly how I should back my officers."

That's a telling statement that shows the chief recognizes that the integrity of his department and his employees depends on their willingness to call out and hold accountable those few individuals who compromise the professional and ethical standards that they hold dear. Giving Cobos a pass for his years of service would only bring down the reputation of the others who represent the Woodburn Police Department.

Clackamas County Sheriff Craig Roberts and his top command staff might want to reflect on Ferraris' message. Their relative silence regarding the criminal misconduct by former Det. Jeff Green, who failed to conduct the most basic of investigations on dozens of cases, has been disheartening. It also stands in stark contrast with the strong call for accountability from the Clackamas County Peace Officers Association, the union representing sheriff's office employees. The union knows what its members stand for. Hopefully, Roberts will also figure it out.

Fossil fuel ban overturned: The Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals recently rejected Portland's ban on building new fossil fuel infrastructure within the city, ruling it violates the U.S. Constitution.

The ruling wallops the ordinance that was considered former Mayor Charlie Hales' legacy. It's good that both are out.

While Portland leaders should seek ways to soundly address public safety and environmental concerns, creating sweeping, anti-business legislation that bans entire industries doesn't do the city or its economy any favors.

In fact, the fossil fuel ban was born after the Canadian company Pembina Pipeline Corp., proposed a $500 million propane export facility on Port of Portland property near West Hayden Island. Hales originally loved the proposal, which would have created jobs, added property taxes to the rolls and increased the city's environmental cred by exporting a cleaner fuel to help Asian markets ease out of coal. Portland could have used all three - and still could.

Mayor Ted Wheeler spoke out against the ruling and said the city is "exploring our options," including an appeal of the decision. He went on to say city leaders will "continue to work with environmental, energy, and resiliency experts to ensure Portland remains a leader on these issues."

Those are good, tough goals. They're a lot tougher if the city tries to reach them without business partners by their side.

- The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board

Oregonian editorials

Editorials reflect the collective opinion of The Oregonian/OregonLive editorial board, which operates independently of the newsroom.

Members of the editorial board are Laura Gunderson, Helen Jung, Mark Katches and John Maher.

To respond to this editorial:

Post your comment below, submit

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If you have questions about the opinion section, contact Laura Gunderson, editorial and commentary editor, at 503-221-8378 or lgunderson@oregonian.com.
Reading the letters in The Oregonian, it is obviously time for many Democrats in this state to accept Clinton was so terrible a candidate she could not beat a man with several faults and no political experience. They need to let the current administration try and improve the lives of all Americans. Sure, there was collusion in the election: For example, the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign worked to rig the primaries against Sanders. Or what about the DNC, the Clinton campaign and most of the media trying to defeat Trump? If you want collusion with Russia, how about President Obama in March 2012 telling then President Medvedev during a meeting in Seoul to tell Putin "After my election I have more flexibility."

To me, that seems worse than anything Trump is supposed to have done. I also remember during a debate in 2012 with Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, Obama ridiculed Romney for saying Russia was the USA's major strategic adversary, comparing it to 1980s foreign policy. Why is it the Democrats go in-and-out of love with the Russians so easily?

Michael Beard, Northwest Portland
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By PTI: Srinagar, Jul 30 (PTI) Six people were today injured as protesters clashed with security forces in Jammu and Kashmirs Pulwama district after two militants were killed in an encounter.

A police official said clashes erupted soon after the encounter in the Tahab area ended in the killing of two militants.

Security personnel lobbed tear gas shells and fired a few shots in the air to restore law and order in the area, he said.

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The official said one person, whose identity is being ascertained, was hit by a bullet in the shoulder and rushed to a hospital.

Five other persons suffered minor injuries during the clashes, which were going on intermittently till reports last came in, he added. PTI MIJ GVS

--- ENDS ---
DECATUR  The Super Bowl of agriculture is coming back to Central Illinois.

Crews are readying nearly 90 acres and more than 2.9 million square feet north of Richland Community College for the three-day Farm Progress show starting Aug. 29. More than 600 exhibitors are expected, along with as many as 150,000 visitors from around the globe.

The event  billed as the Nation's Largest Outdoor Farm Event  combines elements of an international trade show, technology conference and demonstration site. In a maze of tents and buildings known as Progress City USA, vendors show every agricultural and livestock product imaginable, from weed control to gleaming $400,000 combines, often with eye-catching three-dimensional displays.

Outside, past the International Visitors Tent, entire fields are dedicated to seeing equipment in action, showing off tillage techniques and the latest in global-positioning systems.

Companies like ADM, Caterpillar and Monsanto to smaller agribusinesses exhibit the latest wares and hint at the future of agriculture. Farmers and business executives walk exhibits to climb into the sleek tractors, view what vegetables the newest seeds can grow and learn about advancements to improve yields.

The show, which alternates between locations in Decatur and Boone, Iowa, started in Armstrong, Illinois, in 1953 as a way for farmers to see firsthand the progress being made in farming equipment, seed varieties and agricultural chemicals.

The parcels near Richland since 2005 have housed the show, produced by London-based Informa Global Events. The site includes permanent structures that are used for each show, as well as various access roads.

Greg Florian said work is on schedule to have the grounds ready for exhibitors and visitors.

Its gotten easier to prepare as the site has evolved, said Florian, vice president of finance and administration at Richland, which oversees the Progress City site.

The last show had visitors from 50 countries.

Farm Progress generates an estimated $10 million for the local economy, according to Florian.

A big economic driver is in the hospitality field, with hotel rooms across Central Illinois. According to a report put together by the bureau for the 2015 show, Decatur/Forsyth-area hotels had 5,468 room nights for Farm Progress, making $1.3 million on the three-day event. Springfield had a total of 5,800 room nights, also bringing in $1.3 million.

That number does not count those that come to Decatur more than a month in advance to start setting up their exhibits and weeks after the show to help tear down.

Were talking several extra million there for the local economy, she said.

Nearly $500,000 also was spent this year on hiring Decatur-based Dunn Co. to improve roads, fix drainage and shoulders, and patch potholes. It was funded by grant dollars, Informa, money in the county highway fund left over from the sites original construction and Brush College LLC, created by the college to help operate the site.

Theyll have the roads all fixed up by the time exhibitors start to set up, said Macon County Highway Engineer Bruce Bird.

In 2015, crews expanded the site, added three streets and built 100 more exhibit spots on the southwest side of the venue.

Florian said roadwork has not gotten a lot of attention since the first show on the grounds, in 2005.

After 12 years of being out there, the vehicles are getting bigger and the exhibits are getting bigger, he said. The roads were really starting to show their age.

Some exhibitors have started to begin preparations on plots.

Florian says everything will be place for the start next month. The clock is ticking.
BLOOMINGTON  For some inmates working to reverse their criminal convictions, the legal challenges can outlast their sentences.

Donald Whalen, one of three McLean County men whose murder cases are being handled by attorneys with an exoneration organization, is determined to continue to fight his 1991 conviction for killing his father even if the legal battle goes beyond his 2021 release date.

Whalen's attorney, Elliot Slosar with the University of Chicago's Exoneration Project, recently filed a request for access to evidence as part of Whalen's ongoing legal challenge. Recent forensic test results excluded Whalen as a contributor to DNA found on knives at the murder scene.

The Exoneration Project is also representing Jamie Snow, who is serving a life term for the 1991 killing of gas station attendant Bill Little. Snow claims witnesses at his trial lied in exchange for help with their own pending criminal cases.

Bart McNeil's legal team headed by the Springfield-based Illinois Innocence Project is working to gain his release in the 1998 suffocation death of his daughter. McNeil alleges police ignored evidence of a second suspect, his former girlfriend Misook Nowlin, and prosecutors successfully argued that information about Nowlin should be barred from his bench trial.

A fourth case involves Alan Beaman, who served more than a dozen years  the average for most exonerees in the U.S.  before his conviction was reversed in the 1993 strangulation death of his former girlfriend in Normal.

Karen Daniel, one of Beaman's lawyers, said "innocent people who spend several years, or decades, in prison before they are freed can never be made whole, although they can and should be assisted.

Researchers estimate that as many as 100,000 innocent people may be in prison, said Daniel, "so the need is great for resources not only to assist innocent individuals in obtaining justice, but also to figure out how to prevent wrongful convictions in the first place, because the reality is that most wrongful convictions will never be corrected."

Beyond their common representation by teams of pro bono lawyers, the four McLean County cases also share the same prosecutor who oversaw the prosecutions.

Reynard declined to specifically comment on the three cases under review, or Beaman's exoneration.

The former prosecutor said he supports the concept of Conviction Integrity Units, special teams used by prosecutors in about 30 jurisdictions across the country to review convictions.

"All prosecutors are obligated to look skeptically at their own work and not seek to convict the innocent," said Reynard, who handled 35 murder cases during his tenure, 33 resulting in convictions.

New technology and the ability to expand forensic testing comes with a balancing act, said Reynard, of protecting the rights of the defendant and the victim.

"It's a tight rope that all those players are walking," said Reynard.

Four other murder convictions returned under the tenure of former State's Attorney Bill Yoder, now a judge, also are in some stage of post-conviction review. Each allege inadequate assistance by defense counsel. One, the appeal of Misook Nowlin's conviction in the 2011 murder of her mother-in-law, Linda Tyda, is scheduled for a hearing Aug. 15 in Springfield.
BLOOMINGTON  A dozen years into a 100-year sentence for killing his daughter, Bart McNeil had lost contact with the world and given up any hope that his conviction would be reversed, despite his repeated claims that police ignored evidence pointing to another suspect  his former girlfriend, Misook Nowlin, who was later convicted of murdering her mother-in-law.

At the time, my life was at a low point. I hadnt had a single visit from anyone in seven years and hadnt made a phone call in over a year. All I had to look forward to was a hopefully early completion of my sentence of death by prison, McNeil said in an interview with The Pantagraph.

But now represented by the Illinois Innocence Project, McNeil is encouraged that an expanded team of lawyers is working on potential new evidence that he hopes will exonerate him and reopen the investigation into the 1998 suffocation death of his daughter, Christina McNeil.

The new evidence includes the opinion of a defense expert who challenges the conclusion of former McLean County pathologist Dr. Violette Hnilica that Christina was sexually abused before her death. Authorities considered the molestation a motive for the killing.

A hair detected through new DNA tests on a pillow case from the child's bed links Nowlin to the crime scene, contends McNeil's team, and is expected to be part of a post-conviction petition  the next step in McNeil's exoneration effort.

McNeil contends that the bed linens had been freshly laundered and Nowlin had not been at the apartment for several days.

Illinois Innocence Project lawyer John Hanlon said McNeil's legal team now includes three Chicago lawyers who will assist with the complex case that involves extensive review of the conviction and possible implication of another suspect.

"You can't have enough good minds and enough people to do all the work that's involved in cases that involve thousands of pages of documents," said Hanlon, noting the unique nature of McNeil's case has attracted inquiries from national media.

"It's a very compelling story where the alternative suspect has already been convicted of an extremely similar murder. To this date, 19 years later, no trier of fact has ever heard the Misook defense," said Hanlon.

Citing a lack of any pending matters in court, McLean County State's Attorney Jason Chambers said he had no comment on McNeil's conviction that has been upheld by the Fourth District Appellate Court.

The efforts to revive McNeils long-held claim that Nowlin was responsible for smothering 3-year-old Christina were rekindled in 2011 when Nowlin was charged with the choking death of Linda Tyda, her husbands mother.

McNeil, now 58, recalled his reaction when he read about the arrest.

Theres Misook staring at me. I thought, 'Oh my God, if this isnt the cats meow here.'

Failed connections

Shackled to a table in an interview room at Menard Correctional Center in southern Illinois, McNeil talked about the connections he thinks prosecutors and police failed to make during their investigation into his daughter's death, including looking at Nowlin as a suspect.

Christina McNeils lifeless body was found in her bed by her father on June 16, 1998 after he went to wake her after an overnight visit to his apartment on North Evans Street in Bloomington. Authorities arrested McNeil the next day, following autopsy results that indicated the girl had been sexually abused.

Hours later, McNeil contacted Bloomington police and insisted that detectives return to his home to examine evidence of a potential break-in, namely cuts to a window screen in his daughters bedroom.

He also told police he believed his daughter was the victim of a homicide and identified a suspect during several interviews: Misook Nowlin murdered my daughter. Go get her.

Police spoke with Nowlin, whose three-year relationship with McNeil had ended in a contentious break-up at a restaurant the night before the childs death. But the focus stayed on McNeil.

In an unusual investigative tactic, Bloomington police brought Nowlin to the police station and watched as McNeil confronted her. Nowlin denied any involvement in Christinas death. (Serving 55 years for murder, she did not respond to a recent written request from The Pantagraph for comment on McNeils accusation against her.)

McNeil was convicted by now-retired Judge Michael Prall after a three-day bench trial in which defense lawyer Tracy Smith was barred from introducing evidence of a second possible suspect.

The judge did not consider Nowlins history of violence against McNeil and his daughter. According to McNeil, Nowlin was angry that he was planning to testify against her at a sentencing hearing the day after Christinas death on unlawful restraint charges related to Nowlin's refusal to leave her apartment after police were called to a dispute between the couple.

The judge also ruled that child abuse allegations made against Nowlin two months after Christinas death were not relevant to McNeils case. Court records indicate that Nowlins 9-year-old daughter was beaten with a wooden rod. A school official testified the child also accused her mother of pinching her nose and covering her mouth with her hand.

Former Heyworth grade school principal Aissa Frasier told Prall that Nowlins daughter relayed a threat she received from her mother: She needed to behave or the same thing that happened to her sister would happen to her, according to a transcript of the February 1999 hearing. The two girls were not related, but shared a bond similar to sisters, according to the Department of Children and Family Services.

My trial was a lightning quick 2 days. I was muzzled because I could not speak of Misook murdering my child, said McNeil.

Giving up

By 2011, McNeil was ready to throw away thousands of documents he had accumulated in his prison cell when the charges accusing Nowlin of killing Linda Tyda sparked new interest in his case.

Armed with a new tip from a Bloomington woman who claims she saw Nowlin in a storage closet outside Nowlin's apartment on Croxton Avenue around 3 a.m. the night Christina was killed, two Bloomington police detectives visited McNeil in prison. The information was not deemed important at the time of the childs murder, the woman told police, because all evidence seemed to point to Barton McNeil, according to a police report.

McNeil said he is disappointed that BPD did not reopen its investigation at that time. The BPD said last week that the case remains closed.

But McNeil gained an important new ally  his cousin Chris Ross with whom he had not spoken to in two decades. The Illinois Innocence Project in Springfield agreed to take McNeils case after reviewing records compiled by Ross who also developed a website, freebart.org, to chronicle the murder case.

"This is about saving a man's life," Ross said of his efforts. "Our family hopes and prays for our cousin's freedom so he can live out what remaining years he has left in peace, good health and happiness, and that final justice can one day come about for the other victim in this case, his daughter and our relative Christina McNeil."

As he approaches two decades in prison, McNeil clings to his double-sided view of justice that goes beyond possible exoneration.

"I'm tired of excuses being made  This is about Christina. I'm not going to let justice be denied my daughter any longer."
BLOOMINGTON  An anniversary, now more than a half century old, is marked by the mayors of Bloomington-Normal and Asahikawa, Japan, traversing the Pacific Ocean every five years to honor a sister cities bond between the communities.

It is the Twin Cities' turn to make the trip.

Mayors Tari Renner of Bloomington and Chris Koos of Normal are leaving on Sunday to attend a weeklong celebration of the 55th anniversary of the Bloomington-Normal Sister Cities Program with Asahikawa.

"It is likely the oldest, continuing sister city relationship under the Sister Cities International Program," said Koos.

Former Bloomington Mayor Judy Markowitz was Bloomingtons first "emissary of good will" to Asahikawa in 1962. At the time, she was Judy Stern and a teacher at Naganoshi, Japan. The sister city program later was expanded to include Normal. The municipalities contribute money to the program.

"I think these trips are important. In my mind it makes the world a little smaller," said Koos. "It helps us to understand other cultures and the issues they face; things we may not face and things we share in common."

Koos first visited Asahikawa in 2007 when he and then-Bloomington Mayor Steve Stockton and several Twin Cities residents traveled there for the 45th anniversary of the sister cities program.

Renner, who in 2013 succeeded Stockton as mayor, has never been to Asahikawa, or Japan.

"It's not so much the trip, it's the relationship," said Renner. "We want to let them know that we want to continue the relationship of educational and cultural understanding. Possibly some economic arrangements are the things that we can work on.

"As I understand, in getting the (former) Mitsubishi factory (in Normal), one variable that helped us was that we had a sister city relationship that at that time was 15 years old with a Japanese city," added Renner.

Koos noted the importance of the Bloomington-Normal Asahikawa Sister Cities Committee's focus on annual student exchanges at the high school and junior high levels.

"Those exchanges have been incredibly successful," he said.

In 2012, the Twin Cities hosted a 50th anniversary celebration of the Bloomington-Normal Sister Cities Program with Asahikawa. About 40 residents from the Japanese city, including such dignitaries as Asahikawa Mayor Masahito Nishikawa, the chiefs of the international affairs division, chairman of the city council and vice chairman of the Chamber of Commerce & Industry, came for the weeklong event.

A variety of activities are planned for the Twin Cities mayors and a delegation of about 17 local residents, who include former exchange students and members of the Sister City committee and their spouses.

With a population of about 360,000 people, Asahikawa is the second-largest city on the northern island of Hokkaido, Japan. It's located in a mountainous area along the Ishikari River.

The mayors' airfare is being paid by local government, which Renner estimated at between $1,600 and $1,800 apiece. Asahikawa is paying for the mayors' hotel lodging, meals and other expenses. Asahikawa residents will provide lodging in their homes and meals for other delegation members.

Koos does not see a recent disagreement between Twin City elected officials over Bloomington's decision to end the Metro Zone revenue-sharing pact causing any strain for the mayors on the trip.

"Tari and I have a very good relationship," said Koos, after having lunch with Renner on Thursday. "We're not 100 percent in agreement on everything, nor should we be. We talk freely and candidly with each other, and it's for the betterment for both communities."
Is this a deleted scene from Groundhog Day?

Didnt we just endure a special session in Springfield, an imminent deadline over our heads, and days of partisan bluster and bickering?

Didnt we allow ourselves to think, after a belated budget was finally hatched over the July 4 weekend, perhaps there was a lesson learned about looming cliffs? That we werent going to let this happen again?

Didnt we rationalize it, perhaps, was a fluke?

Last week shows it wasnt.

Were right back where we started from.

This time, were being held hostage by questions over school aid, which seems like a powder keg not worth messing with after a two-year budget impasse. But here we are a few weeks before the start of school.

Legislators descended on Springfield to address Senate Bill 1 that would overhaul the archaic state school funding formula so poorer districts would get money first.

The current calculation used by the state means districts are relying largely on property taxes, and poorer communities suffer. The bill takes into account enrollment, class sizes, the number of students in poverty and other factors to figure out how much money would come from the state.

Its a logical solution. No longer would property taxes be the primary determining factor if a student received the resources he or she deserves.

The General Assembly endorsed the plan in May, but it came with an explosive stipulation: the state would cover $215 million in teacher pension costs each year for Chicago Public Schools.

Such an arrangement successfully turned discussion about equality in education into a classic Chicago-downstate political tussle, framed around longstanding resentment over pension costs being shoved off to taxpayers statewide, amid a tableau of a stubborn GOP governor and the Democrat-controlled Legislature not working together.

Gov. Bruce Rauner, elected on a reform and pro-business platform and facing re-election next year, says the language amounts to a poison pill and he will veto that part of the bill. So the Senate never sent him the legislation, setting up a rather Gary Cooper-esque moment in which the governor ordered lawmakers back to Springfield if they didnt meet a deadline of noon Monday.

Theres pressure because the budget deal lawmakers approved over Rauners veto says funding for education has to be distributed through a new formula that addresses the disparity. At the same time, Republicans are smarting over the budget increasing the personal income tax rate from 3.75 percent to 4.95 percent and corporate income tax rate from 5.25 percent to 7 percent.

So, that's where we are now. A special session costs state taxpayers $48,000 a day. Property-poor districts are eyeing reserves in case the money dries up, maybe as soon as mid-November. The State Board of Education will have to start processing school aid payments Aug. 1.

It's another sad commentary about our state. This may sound Pollyannaish, but we think education should be a political no-mans land a topic untouched by partisan overtones. We think adults who have the best interests of our children at heart should prevail in coming up with logical solutions. We also think the property tax system is fundamentally unfair.

Whats the better solution? Remove the Chicago pension funding proviso from the legislation. That would meet Rauners satisfaction while preserving the core mission to fix the backwards funding formula.

Its easy for us to say, but Chicago pensions shouldnt doom this legislation.

Remove the pension rule. Sign the bill. Lets get back to school. End this deja vu.

Havent we said this before?
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) At least seven people were injured in three separate road accidents in outer Delhi, the police said today.

A car rammed into a truck from behind in Mukarba Chowk last night and was dragged for a kilometre without the truck driver realising that a vehicle was stuck to it, they said.

He came to know about the incident only when an another car driver alerted him, they added.

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Two persons, including a woman, were injured in the accident. They were rescued after their car was cut open using gas cutters, police said, adding they are undergoing treatment at a hospital.

In another incident, three persons were injured when four trucks ended up ramming into one another in the vicinity of Mukarba Chowk last night, police said.

In the third incident, two occupants of a Maruti Eeco were injured when it overturned after colliding with a Honda City car in Mangolpuri last night, they said.

It is suspected that the drivers of both the vehicles were either drunk or had fallen asleep, the added. PTI SLB AQS

--- ENDS ---
Patently Apple posted three reports mid-month regarding new laws proposed by the Australia government compelling companies like Apple and Facebook to provide access to encrypted messages. Australia's Attorney-General met with Apple Officials to discuss the topics of Cyber Security and Decryption while Apple flew in top brass to lobby against the proposed laws. Australia's Prime Minister spoke about the encryption problem with the Australian press and it sounded as though a showdown on this issue was on the horizon. The heat will now likely be turned up as the Australian authorities foiled a terror plot overnight that was aimed at bringing down a plane. Four individuals associated with the plot have been arrested according to new reports published today.

The UK's Telegraph reports that "Police disrupted a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane and arrested four men on Saturday in raids on homes in several Sydney suburbs, the prime minister said.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said on Sunday that security had been increased at Sydney Airport since Thursday because of the plot. The increased security measures had been extended to all major international and domestic terminals around Australia overnight.

'I can report last night that there has been a major joint counterterrorism operation to disrupt a terrorist plot to bring down an airplane,' Turnbull told reporters. 'The operation is continuing.'"

The report further noted that Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin stated that 'There was no evidence that airport security had been compromised. We believe it's Islamic-inspired terrorism.

New South Wales Police Commissioner Mick Fuller said police agreed they had to act on Saturday night because the threat was imminent.

"The reality with terrorism, ... (is) you can't wait until you put the whole puzzle together," Fuller said. "If you get it wrong, the consequences are severe."

Other reports covering this today include: the Weekend Australian, the BBC and France 24 (English video).

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull will more than likely use this incident as yet another case as to why they need tech companies to understand that encryption for communication apps are the enemy of law enforcement that must be addressed once and for all.

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.
News and commentary on organized crime, street crime, white collar crime, cyber crime, sex crime, crime fiction, crime prevention, espionage and terrorism.
Iranian Public May Be Turning More Skeptical, Hostile Toward US

07/29/17

By Derek Davison & Jim Lobe (source: LobeLog)



The Ramifications of Rouhani's Re-election: A public opinion study





The election and subsequent actions of the Trump administration appears to have provoked much greater skepticism, if not hostility, regarding U.S. intentions among the Iranian public, according to a major new poll released here Friday by the Center for International & Security Studies at the University of Maryland (CISSM).

The poll, the latest in a two-year series conducted by CISSM on Iran, found growing support for the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) between the so-called P5+1 and Iran, despite the belief by a 63% majority of the 1004 respondents who were interviewed in mid-June that the deal has not yet resulted in hoped-for improvements in the country's economy.

The poll, which focused particularly on the dynamics of Iran's May election, also found that some eight in 10 respondents agreed that President Hassan Rouhani's re-election results more from general approval of his foreign policy and the JCPOA in particular than his performance in improving the economy or upholding the ideals of the Islamic revolution.

With respect to international relations, however, perhaps the most significant findings included growing popular support for the JCPOA and strong opposition to any possible demands by Washington that the deal be renegotiated in ways that could disadvantage Tehran or its ability to defend itself.

Indeed, Iranians do not appear inclined to renegotiate its terms with the Trump administration, nor are they prepared to accept anything that might look like a U.S. violation of the agreement. A large majority-61.6 percent-say that if President Donald Trump attempts to renegotiate the JCPOA, as he has expressed interest in doing, the Iranian government "should not agree" to any increase in the duration of the deal's limits on Iran's nuclear program.

Most Iranians are similarly uninterested in making additional concessions to Washington in exchange for additional sanctions relief. One of Rouhani's major campaign promises was to pursue the complete removal of all U.S. and Western sanctions against Iran, but majorities of Iranians say they would reject limiting Iran's missile program (62.6 percent), recognizing Israel (66.3 percent), ending aid to "groups like the Hezbollah of Lebanon" (59 percent), and ending aid to Bashar al-Assad's government in Syria (58 percent) in return for sanctions relief.

The prospects of renegotiation aside, there's strong reason to believe that the Iranian public already believes the United States is in violation of the nuclear accord. In the June survey, 49.3 percent of Iranians said that new U.S. sanctions related to Iran's missile development program would be "against the letter and spirit of the JCPOA agreement," while another 23.7 percent said such sanctions would be "against the spirit" of the deal. The Trump administration announced new sanctionsrelated to Iran's missile program in mid-July, and is reportedly considering additional penalties in the wake of a new Iranian missile test on Thursday. Moreover, both houses of Congress this week passed a bill that, unless vetoed by Trump, will impose more punishment against Iran over its missile program. The Iranian public has strong views about how their government should handle any perceived U.S. violations of the nuclear deal.

Majority Ready to Abandon Agreement

Perhaps the biggest change in results between the May and June surveys revolved around the question of how Iran should respond to any American violation of the JCPOA. In May, 45.3 percent said that Iran should resume parts of its nuclear program that the deal limited while 43.1 percent said that Iran should continue to abide by the agreement and pursue grievances against the U.S. in an international context. But in June, 55.4 percent of Iranians said that they were in favor of resuming a full-scale nuclear program against 41.4 percent who said that Iran should maintain compliance with the JCPOA.

This point is particularly salient right now, because a recent flurry of activity from the Trump White House suggests that it is preparing to take drastic steps that could trigger some kind of Iranian response. On July 17, the administration certified Iran's compliance with the JCPOA's terms for the second time since Trump took office in January. But reports quickly emerged that President Trump himself had argued vociferously in favor of decertifying Iran. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal this week, Trump seemed to suggest that he will not certify Iranian compliance when the issue comes up again in 90 days. Although it is unclear on what basis Trump has decided to take this step, he's reportedly tasked a group within his White House with coming up with a justification for decertifying.

One step the administration is reportedly about to take involves "testing" the JCPOA by pushing for inspections of sensitive Iranian military sites. Though the administration will need to provide some justification for requesting access to those sites under the terms of the nuclear deal, if it is successful that could challenge the deal's support among Iranians. As Ebrahim Mohseni, one of the co-authors of the CISSM/IranPoll survey, said at a Friday's rollout of the report at the Atlantic Council:

The perception of the [nuclear] deal in Iran is somewhat different than the deal itself. People perceive the deal to include all sanctions, not just nuclear-related sanctions. People perceive the deal as blocking any new sanctions in the future. A lot of these misperceptions have been corrected, but there is one that remains, probably because every Iranian official has said "we are not going to do that," and that's allowing inspection of Iranian military sites. The perception in Iran is that the deal doesn't allow inspection of military sites. If that misperception is corrected, I don't know what the support for the JCPOA would be.

Of course, the poll was conducted June 11-17, shortly after the June 6 terror attacks on the Iranian Parliament and the shrine to the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. As such, it reflects public attitudes that preceded the Trump administration's more aggressive statements against Iran of the last few weeks. Mohseni did not speculate on how they may have affected the Iranian public attitudes toward Washington's intentions or the willingness to renegotiate the JCPOA.

But they are unlikely to help. CISSM's penultimate survey conducted just before the May 19 elections in Iran, found a distinct lack of confidence in the U.S. to comply with the JCPOA. Nearly three in four respondents in that poll (which accurately predicted the final elections results within two percentage points), said that they were not confident that the U.S. "will live up to the obligations toward the nuclear agreement; only 24% expressed confidence that Washington would." That was a dramatic change from the 45% plurality that expressed confidence in Washington's compliance in September 2015. Trump's latest statements have no doubt cast even greater doubt on Washington's future compliance.

Despite continued confidence (53%-41%) that the other P5+1 countries would continue to live up to their obligations under the JCPOA, 55% of respondents in the June poll said that they believed that Tehran should retaliate against Washington's non-compliance by restarting its nuclear program rather than seeking a resolution of the dispute through the United Nations (41%).

Growing Pessimism

According to Paul Pillar, a veteran CIA analyst who served as National Intelligence Officer for the Near East from 2000 to 2006, the latter finding was "striking." Although he had previously believed that Iran would continue to comply with the JCPOA while seeking redress through its dispute-resolution mechanism if Washington violated the agreement, the poll results gave him pause.

"This is the political milieu in which Rouhani and the Supreme Leader will have to make decisions," he told attendees at the Atlantic Council. "You can't just brush that off. The calculation may be they want to stand up to the Americans, and (this is) how they may do so." He said he was "extremely pessimistic" about Trump.

"The majority [of Iranian respondents] is right to be very skeptical about this administration," he added. "When you get to the inspection gambit, most of the public would correctly see it as precisely that-a gambit-part of an effort to try to get Iran to make the first move ...or declare the agreement dead."

Much depends, according to both Pillar and Mohseni, on how the Europeans in the P5+1 respond to any US violation or provocation. If their reaction to Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate accord is any indication, Pillar said, the Europeans may very well stick to the JCPOA and leave Washington Isolated.

Significant hostility toward Washington was made evident by some other findings in the latest poll. Asked, for example, who they thought was behind the June 7 terror attacks, 52% named the Islamic State (ISIS or IS), which took credit for the attacks, but nearly one in five respondents (19%) named the United States. Another 17% named Saudi Arabia. Sixty-one percent of respondents said it was "very likely" that the U.S. "provided guidance or support for the perpetrators"-just behind Saudi Arabia (67%) and Israel (65%).

In the wake of the terror attacks, two thirds of respondents (68%) said that Iran should increase its support of groups fighting IS-that was up from 56% last December. But 55% said that they would disapprove of "collaborating with" the US to help the government of Iraq fight IS. In CISSM's August 2015 poll, 59% said that Tehran should collaborate with Washington if fighting IS in Iraq.

Asked their views about each of the P5+1 countries, 60% of respondents said that they held "very unfavorable views" of the United States, the worst ratings of all six countries. Of the six, China, Russia, and Germany were seen most favorably in that order.





About the Author:



Derek Davison is a Washington-based researcher and writer on international affairs and American politics. He has Master's degrees in Middle East Studies from the University of Chicago, where he specialized in Iranian history and policy, and in Public Policy and Management from Carnegie Mellon University, where he studied American foreign policy and Russian/Cold War history. He previously worked in the Persian Gulf for The RAND Corporation.


Iran's IRGC reports 2nd US naval provocation in Persian Gulf in less than a week

07/29/17

Source: Press TV

Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) has reported a second provocation by US warships in the Persian Gulf waters less than a week after a similar incident in the same region.





"At 4 p.m. local time (1130 GMT) on Friday, the supercarrier USS Nimitz and its accompanying warship, while being monitored by the IRGC Nay's missile frigates, flew a helicopter near the Resalat oil and gas platform and approached the IRGC's ships," IRGC Navy said in a statement on Saturday.



"The US made a provocative and unprofessional move by warning the Iranian vessels through firing flares," but the Iranian forces continued with their mission "in disregard of the unconventional and unusual behavior of American vessels" that later left the region, the statement read.



It came a few days after a similar incident in the northern Persian Gulf, where a US Navy ship sailed toward an IRGC Navy ship, which was patrolling in international waters, and fired two shots into the air.



The IRGC said in a statement following Tuesday's incident that it had neutralized the US Navy move, which was made "with the aim of provocation and intimidation."



Speedboats belonging to Iran's Islamic Revolution Guards Corps

(Source: Sobh No daily)



Iranian naval forces are tasked with guaranteeing security within the country's maritime borders, where they have been involved in a series of face-offs with US vessels for intrusion into Iranian territorial waters.



Iran has repeatedly warned that any act of transgression into Iran's territorial waters would be met with an immediate and befitting response.



Another news story about an American warship firing warning shots near an Iranian boat in the Persian Gulf. Here's a useful diagram. pic.twitter.com/huWxOK0eCJ  Reza Marashi (@rezamarashi) July 25, 2017



In recent years, Iran's Navy has increased its presence in international waters to protect naval routes and provide security for merchant vessels and tankers. It has also conducted major drills to enhance its defense capabilities.
EU Foreign Policy Chief to attend inauguration of Iran's President Rohani

07/29/17

Source: Press TV

EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini plans to travel to Tehran to take part in the inauguration ceremony of Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Mogherini will arrive in Tehran on August 5 in her capacity as the head of the Iran-P5+1 Joint Commission, which oversees the implementation of the landmark nuclear agreement, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), signed between Iran and the P5+1 group of countries in July 2015.





EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini meets Iranian President Hassan Rohani

Tehran, October 2016 (photo by Islamic Republic News Agency)



On the sidelines of the inaugural ceremony, the EU foreign policy chief is scheduled to hold bilateral meetings with Iranian dignitaries.



The sides will review the JCPOA implementation and discuss issues of bilateral and regional relevance.



Rouhani, who was reelected Iran's president in May, is to be officially inaugurated for another four years as the country's chief executive on August 5.



Many senior Iranian and foreign dignitaries will attend the swearing-in ceremony for Rouhani at the parliament.



Before the ceremony, a decree by Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei will be handed to the Iranian president to officially assign him his duties.



Rouhani, first elected Iran's president in 2013, re-ran for office in the May 2017 election, garnering 57 percent of the popular votes to defeat his main rival Ebrahim Raeisi, the current custodian of the Holy Shrine of Imam Reza (PBUH).
Iran Condemns Sanctions, Says It Will Pursue Missile Program 'With Full Power'

07/29/17

Source: RFE/RL

Iran has condemned new sanctions passed by the U.S. Congress over its missile program and vowed to continue it. "We will continue with full power our missile program," Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Ghasemi was quoted as telling state-controlled television on July 29. "We condemn the hostile and unacceptable action," he said of the sanctions.



"The reentrance of refreshing Sanctions"

Satire by Iranian daily Ghanoon



Ghasemi said Tehran considers consider the action by the United States as "hostile, reprehensible, and unacceptable," adding that "it's ultimately an effort to weaken the nuclear deal."



Under the 2015 nuclear agreement with the United States and other world powers, Iran has significantly limited its nuclear activities in exchange for sanctions relief.



Iran maintains that the missiles that it tests don't violate its nuclear agreement with world powers because they are for defensive purposes.



"The military and missile fields...are our domestic policies and others have no right to intervene or comment on them," Ghasemi said.



"We reserve the right to reciprocate and make an adequate response to the U.S. actions," he added.



The sanctions bill, which also targets Russia and North Korea, was passed by the U.S. Senate late last week, after being approved by the House of Representatives.



The new legislation would impose mandatory penalties on people involved in Iran's ballistic-missile program and anyone who does business with them. The measure would designate the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization and enforce an arms embargo against Iran.



White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said that President Donald Trump will sign the bill into law.



Separately on July 28, the U.S. Treasury Department imposed sanctions on six subsidiaries of an Iranian company that it said was "central" to Tehran's ballistic-missile program.



Treasury said the new U.S. sanctions announced were in response to Iran's "continued provocative actions," such as the July 27 rocket launch.



"The U.S. government will continue to aggressively counter Iran's ballistic-missile-related activity, whether it be a provocative space launch, its development of threatening ballistic-missile systems, or likely support to Yemeni Huthi missile attacks on Saudi Arabia," Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said on July 28.



Mnuchin said the sanctions "underscore the United States' deep concerns with Iran's continued development and testing of ballistic missiles and other provocative behavior."



Also on July 28, Britain, France, and Germany joined the U.S. in condemning Iran's launch of a satellite-carrying rocket and warned that it runs counter to a UN resolution carrying out the 2015 nuclear deal.



In a joint statement, they urged Iran to stop developing missiles and rockets that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads and have "a destabilizing impact on the region."

With reporting by AFP and AP
Former Deputy Minister of Lands and Natural Resources in the erstwhile President Mahama administration, Hon. Kwabena Mintah Akandoh has alleged that the ransack carried out by the police in the house of former Energy Minister, Hon. Kwabena Donkor was orchestrated by President Akufo-Addo.



According to the Juaboso lawmaker, President Akufo-Addo is to be blamed for the raid which took place in the house of Hon. Kwabena Donkor as the police CID acted on the orders of the Executive power to go for court order to search the former Energy Ministers house.



Speaking on Okay FMs 'Ade Akye Abia' Morning Show, Kwabena Mintah Akandoh claimed it is the hallmark of the ruling New Patriotic Party (NPP) to hide behind group of people and state institution to carry out their crimes and then pretend to be innocent and unsupportive of the act which was carried out.



He cited "Delta Force" saga as a clear example of how the NPP is deceiving Ghanaians; thus, President Akufo-Addo coming out first to abhor the act of "Delta Force" is a trick the NPP is playing on the minds of the citizens.



The NPP is carrying out some tricks in the country. Whenever they commit crime through vigilante groups and the state security, they come out to disassociate themselves from the crime. They tell their communicators to come out to play the innocent and even say they are not in support of the crime whereas they are behind it, he asserted.



In the case of former Energy Ministers house raid, Hon. Mintah Akandoh insisted the police CID did not carry out that exercise without the backing of the Presidency; however the NPP communicators are quick to condemn the police for the raid.



 . . no police can carry out that exercise without authorization from the Presidency; no police can act without instruction and so I will not go and blame the Police for the raid but I blame Nana Akufo- Addo, he accused.



He maintained that the court did not out of the blue decided to issue court order to raid the former Energy Minister's home; thus no court searches for a case to adjudicate but rather arbitrate on a case brought before it. Someone sent the motion to court for that order.



He said on authority that it is the mindset of the Executive arm of government to send the motion to court for an order; reiterating that the court can also not be blamed for the issuance of the order to the police to act upon it.



We have 3 arms of government; the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature. The police service takes orders from IGP and the IGP answers to the Interior Minister and then the Minister represents the President; so the bus always stops at the doorstep of the President, he elaborated.



He was of the view that as a Member of Parliament, the police should have written to the Speaker of Parliament before making such a move to raid Hon. Kwabena Donkors house to confiscate his laptop and other things.



The Criminal Investigations Department (CID) of the Ghana Police Service raided the house of former Power Minister Dr. Kwabena Donkor in connection with investigations into the controversial $510million Ameri deal.

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.

Featured Video
Pressure is mounting on the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC), Charlotte Osei, to reinstate a senior officer she asked to proceed on leave over alleged misappropriation of the commissions staff welfare fund.



Joseph Kwaku Asamoah, ECs Director of Finance, has vowed to sue the commission if Mrs Osei does not rescind the decision, claiming that hes being wrongly accused.



He has caused his lawyer, Akoto Ampaw of Akufu-Addo and Prempeh Chambers, to write to Ms. Osei demanding his re-instatement, otherwise he would resort to the court of law for redress.



Before the ongoing scandal at the commission in which Mrs. Osei stands accused of abuse of office and corruption by some concerned EC staff exploded, the topical issue at the commission was the purported misappropriation of staff welfare fund.



Georgina Opoku-Amankwah, a Deputy Commissioner in-charge of Corporate Services, together with Kwaku Owusu Agyei-Larbi, Chief Accountant and Joseph Asamoah, Finance Officer, were asked to proceed on leave over reported missing GH480,000 belonging to the workers.



The decision to interdict the officers commenced when the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) wrote to the commission that it had taken over the case and that the suspects are assisting investigations.



However, the suspended Finance Officers lawyers said their client demonstrated before the EOCO with ample documentary evidence that he had nothing to do with the subject matter.



Our client, Dr. Joseph Kwaku Asamoah, has absolutely nothing to do with the matter and should not be made a scapegoat of any boardroom struggles engulfing the commission.



We are accordingly instructed to demand you to recall our client from the imposed leave to enable him continue his normal work as Director of Finance of the Commission. Should you fail to do so, we would be compelled to initiate legal proceedings against you to protect our client against any form of victimization and injustice, Mr Akoto-Ampaw stated.



The lawyer then attached documents, including letters that showed that their client was innocent, a letter from the Controller and Accountant General to the Bank of Ghana, as well as the ECs Audit Report on the Endowment Fund, which they say were ample evidence clearing Mr. Asamoah.



Welfare Schemes



The EC Staff Welfare Schemes were inaugurated on 5th June, 2009 to cater for the welfare of those working for the commission and a 13-member board of administrators was set up to administer the management of the Schemes.



According to the EC, the schemes included ?Endowment, ?Retirement and ?Funeral and the Board, under the Chairmanship of the Deputy Chairman (Finance and Administration) and assisted by commission members, had its first meeting on 17th June, 2009 and members were appointed to serve on the various schemes.



The EC said the Board has a representation from the commission, the directors, Senior Staff Association, the Local Trade Union and two other co-opted members.



It said the schemes had been composed such that the ?Endowment Fund has the Director (Finance), Chief Accountant and Local Union Representative as the members while the ?Retirement Scheme has Director (Human Resource and General Services), Senior Staff Representative, Local Union Representative and a Co-opted Member as its composition.



According to the commission, the ?Funeral Scheme has Director, Senior Staff Representative, Local Union Representative and a Co-opted Member as its composition and that the commission invested their contributions with NDK Financial Services.



According to the EC, the Endowment Committee was supposed to receive monthly deductions of members of staff contributions from the cash office of the commission, for onward submission to NDK Financial Services for investment.



The audit team identified during the audit that there was non-release of funds (i.e. staff deductions) by the commission to the Fund Managers for onward submission to NDK Financial Services for the period covering March 2014 to October 2014, and this amounted to Four Hundred and Eighty Thousand, One Hundred and Seventy-Seven Ghana Cedis and Eighty-Seven Pesewas. This denied existing members and also retirees of interest on funds if it had been invested for the period stated, an internal audit report revealed.



Additionally, those on retirement received their benefits, excluding the interest, on the un-invested funds and this left gaps in the computation of individual staff members contribution.



The report said that the audit team noted that monthly cheques issued to the Fund were released very late and in some cases were never released at all.



For example, a cheque of GH47,754.54 with cheque No. 922744 meant for payment into the Fund for the month of November 2012 was issued on 31/12/2012, being one month after its due date. Such late submission of cheques denied contributors to the fund the opportunity to earn any interest income had the monies been received and invested earlier.

Source: Daily Guide









Disclaimer : Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority.

Featured Video
Vladimir Putin confirmed that he had ordered Washington to cut its diplomatic staff strength in Russia, a move sparked by the American Congress approving new, tougher sanctions against Moscow.

By India Today Web Desk: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Sunday said that 755 US diplomats must leave his country, Russian media reported. The move is in direct retaliation to the United States Congress unanimously approving new, tougher sanctions against Russia.

Putin's comments about the 755 diplomats came in an interview with the state-owned Rossiya 1 TV channel and followed Moscow announcing that it would expel hundreds of US diplomats in retaliation to the US Congress's new sanctions.

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According to a Russia Today report of the interview, Putin said, "The American side has made a move which, it is important to note, hasn't been provoked by anything, to worsen Russian-US relations. [It includes] unlawful restrictions, attempts to influence other states of the world, including our allies, who are interested in developing and keeping relations with Russia."

"We've been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change," Putin reportedly said. "But it looks like, it's not going to change in the near future... I decided that it is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered."

"More than a thousand employees - (US) diplomats and technical workers - have worked, are still working in Russia, 755 will have to cease their activities in the Russian Federation," Putin added.

The number of cuts ordered by Putin would reduce the US's diplomatic strength in Russia to 455 people - the same number of personnel that Moscow currently has in the US.

Notably, the sanctions, which also target Iran and North Korea, passed by US Congress are yet to be approved by President Donald Trump.

Ties between Russia and the US became increasingly fraught ever since Washington accused Moscow of meddling in its presidential elections last year. Former President Barack Obama even expelled 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian compounds in the US that American agencies claimed were being used for espionage.

US President Trump has often indicated that he wants to improve Washington-Moscow ties, but in his interview Sunday, President Putin suggested that it was unlikely to happen any time "soon".

Putin also went on to indicate that he is "against" any further measures against the US for now.

(With inputs from agencies)

ALSO READ |

For Donald Trump, the honeymoon with Vladimir Putin may finally by over

Russia did not meddle in US election: Putin to Trump at G20 summit

US Senate slaps new sanctions on Putin's Russia, putting Donald Trump in corner

--- ENDS ---

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O.J. Simpson's release from prison is helping one Pennsylvania business sell more doughnuts - or at least that's the hope.

A new billboard from York-based Maple Donuts says "O.J. is FREE! with every dozen donuts" and you can see it below.

The play on words is a reference to Simposon's recently granted parole from a Nevada prison after serving nine years for armed robbery.

READ MORE:

So far, the new ad is getting positive reviews from Maple Donuts fans.

"OJ IS FREE!.... with every purchase of a dozen donuts" okay maple donuts u got me there  cassie (@Cassie_H12) July 27, 2017

Maple Donuts had a "free O.J." campaign during the landmark trial when Simpson was acquitted in the 1994 murder of his ex-wife Nicole Brown Simpson and her boyfriend Ronald Goldman. The doughnut company also had a big ad push in 2007 when Simpson was arrested, charged and found guilty in Las Vegas for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
In any presidential administration there's infighting, jockeying for position and struggles over the levers of power. How skillfully those tensions, the "palace intrigue" of American politics, are handled is the difference between success and failure.

Republican strategist Charlie Gerow (PennLive file)

If those tensions are handled internally, at the staff level, and with deft managerial practices, they become non-stories.

When they are allowed to spill into full public view with sharp elbows flailing in every direction they can have a chilling effect internally, causing paralysis in the daily functions of government.

They can also result in real difficulties in staffing the administration with the brightest and best, as folks on the outside become reluctant to be part of dysfunction.

As Morton Blackwell has often observed, "Personnel is policy" so the prospect of the best people for a job looking away is troubling for any administration.

To advance an agenda requires the most talented people working in as close to harmony as possible. It may not always be possible to get eagles to fly in formation, but they can be kept from attacking each other.

Last week, President Donald Trump addressed the Boy Scouts of America. Borrowing from the Boy Scout Law, the president intoned, "As the Scout Law says, a Scout is trustworthy, loyal--we could sure use some loyalty, I will tell you that..."

It's not coincidence that the first two laws for the Boy Scouts are trustworthiness and loyalty.

Trust and loyalty are inextricably linked. They are vital to any healthy relationship. They are especially vital in the bruising business of government and politics.

When members of any team are honest with and loyal to each other the team wins. Knowing that others will look out for you just as you look out for them is essential to the cohesiveness necessary to effectively govern.

Loyalty is too rare and trust too easy to lose. Both require daily commitment. Merely mouthing the words isn't sufficient. Actions speak much louder.

Conspicuous by his absence at the Boy Scout Jamboree was Attorney General Jeff Sessions, himself an Eagle Scout.

For days, Trump had been taking public shots at the Attorney General in his tweets, leaving many to wonder why he was marginalizing and publicly humiliating a man who was his first supporter in the Senate, a key ally and advisor throughout the campaign, and one of his staunchest defenders.

Sessions was and is a true believer in both Trump and the Trump agenda. He championed hard-line policies on immigration and trade long before Donald Trump rode them to victory last year.

Moreover, he's a solid conservative who has earned the loyalty and trust of the conservative base that is both vital to Trump and restless over his actions.

There's wide speculation that the President wants to push Sessions into resigning. That doesn't appear likely to happen. Sessions has made it pretty clear that he intends to stay. The only thing that would cause him to leave is if he was actually fired.

Firing Sessions would be the worst possible move for Trump. "If Jeff Sessions is fired there will be holy hell to pay," warned Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., earlier this week.

The media's reaction to a Trump firing would be only a part of the equation. Coupled with the Washington, D.C. establishment there would be a firestorm that might rival hell's.

The larger problem for Trump wouldn't be the fires of the media or the Establishment.

His bigger problem would be the fury from the conservative base, which is already increasingly vocal in its criticism of Trump's approach to Sessions. Sessions has been loyal to conservatives and their agenda. They will be fiercely loyal to him.

The treatment of Sessions is unprecedented. It's not simply because Twitter is now available to make caustic comments about his service to our country.

Other high-ranking officials in previous administrations have been fired or simply left with empty portfolios. The tack taken with Sessions is far beyond that.

Loyalty is, of course, a two way street. In the case of a presidential administration it's not only the personal loyalty to the president, which is required of any good administration, but also the reciprocation of that loyalty. It's also loyalty to the Constitution, to which the oath of office is sworn, and the rule of law.

What is getting lost in the internal squabbling is the president's own agenda. The American people want a replacement for Obamacare, tax relief and reform and a safer and more reliable roads and bridges. None of those lofty goals has been achieved yet.

In any administration, the departments of Justice ands State are at the top of the "here's where things get done" list. The upheaval surrounding Jeff Sessions has potentially devastating implications for the Trump Administration's ability to move its policy agenda and get things done.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has not been pleased with the internal machinations of the administration, either.

He's another Eagle Scout.

Charlie Gerow, the CEO of Quantum Communications in Harrisburg, is a PennLive Opinion contributor. His "Elephants & Donkeys" column appears weekly opposite liberal commentator Tony May.
FILE Ai In this Aug. 3, 2014, file photo, the water intake crib for the city of Toledo, Ohio, is surrounded by an algae bloom on Lake Erie, about 2.5 miles off the shore of Curtice, Ohio. Researchers are working on creating an early warning system that can spot when algae begins showing up on hundreds of lakes across the U.S., using real-time data from satellites that already monitor harmful algae hotspots on Lake Erie in Ohio and on the Chesapeake Bay along the East Coast. (AP Photo/Haraz N. Ghanbari, File)
A Canadian flag flaps in the wind behind migrant worker Henry Aguirre of Guatemala during a demonstration in Montreal, Sunday, July 23, 2017. Activists and migrant workers say Canada's Temporary Foreign Worker program doesn't adequately protect the rights of vulnerable workers despite the laws in place. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Graham Hughes
Striking workers are seen picketing at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Friday, July, 28, 2017. The union for 700 striking workers at Canada's busiest airport says the strike caused significant baggage handling delays Friday evening. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christopher Katsarov
FILE - In this Monday, July 24, 2017, file photo, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte addresses thousands of protesters following his state of the nation address outside the Lower House in Quezon city, northeast of Manila, Philippines. Philippine police fatally shot a city mayor who was among the politicians the president publicly linked to illegal drugs and many others in gunbattles that erupted Sunday, July 30, in the south, police said, in one of the bloodiest anti-drug assaults so far under his crackdown. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez, File)
BJP MP Ravindra Kishore Sinha, expressed his disappointment over the recent Bihar cabinet reshuffle, as he feels there is no representation of members from the Kayastha community.

By Ilma Hasan: Reinstated Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Saturday expanded his cabinet including 12 new members from the BJP. Even though the party got its highest share in the cabinet, many BJP legislators were disappointed with the decision made by the top brass of BJP and JD(U).

One such legislator was the BJP MP Ravindra Kishore Sinha, who said, he was upset that the Kayastha community was not given any representation.

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Speaking to India Today, RK Sinha said, "I am disheartened to see that the Kayastha community did not get representation in the new cabinet. I have been a dedicated worker of the party, the community has stood by the BJP"

The cabinet reshuffle and induction of the BJP leaders in Bihar was approved by the party president Amit Shah. Sinha said he has sought a meeting with the party chief to express his disappointment.

Sinha said, "I have asked for Amit Shah to meet me and talk about this. I have dedicated decades of my life to the BJP, the Kayastha community deserved some representation".

Alleging that Shah was misled, Sinha said, "He was misguided and fed incorrect information. Don't know who is responsible for this, but I feel disheartened"

While Nitish retained Home and Personnel, Monitoring Division portfolios; Sushil Modi was in-charge of Finance, Economics, Forest and IT departments. The new arrangement emerged after Nitish Kumar snapped ties with the grand alliance partners, the RJD and the Congress over corruption charges against former Deputy CM Tejashwi Yadav.

Also read:

Amit Shah in Lucknow: 2 Samajwadi MLCs quit, 3 MLAs 'waiting' to join BJP

LIVE: Nitish Kumar wins Bihar Assembly floor test with 131 votes

Also Watch:

Nitish's ghar wapsi: India Today's extensive coverage of Bihar politics

--- ENDS ---
FILE- In this March 10, 2013 file photo, a glass of whisky is held up in front of the Diageo Claive Scotch Whisky collection in Edinburgh, Scotland. Scotland has called for Scotch to be defined in U.K. law so that the whisky industry can be protected after Brexit. (David Cheskin/PA via AP, file)
In this photo provided by South Korea Defense Ministry, a U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber, left, flies with South Korean F-15K fighter jets over Osan Air Base in Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Sunday, July 30, 2017. The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. (South Korea Defense Ministry via AP)
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.




Madrid has said that such a referendum is wholly illegal and that should it be held and if the majority votes in favor of separation it will be given no credence whatsoever.





ON THE POLITICAL FRONT we have written from time to time about the separatist movement in Catalonia, which obviously Madrid abhors and finds anathema. The Catalan government is preparing to hold a referendum on separation October 1st. Madrid has said that such a referendum is wholly illegal and that should it be held and if the majority votes in favor of separation it will be given no credence whatsoever.

As one leading member of the Spanish Cabinet said over the past weekend Not a single euro of the Catalans will be directed toward an illegal referendum that is wanted by a few. What the Rajoy Cabinet means is that taxes paid by the Catalans and sent to Madrid will not be transmitted back to Catalonia if this referendum is held.

The Generalitat... the name for the Catalan regional government... has said that within 48 hours after a successful vote for separation Catalonia will declare itself wholly independent! Madrid has said that it intends to hold Mr. Artur Mas, the former Catalan First Minister, and others in Mr. Mas' coterie, "responsible" for the vote.

This we take as a threat that Madrid will move immediately to jail Mr. Mas, and perhaps will even move against the current First Minister, Mr. Charles Puigdemont.

Just when one thinks that all things political in Europe are working well and shaping up nicely, along comes an old problem once again.



Dennis Gartman/ The Gartman Letter / June 25 , 2017
The government was applauded for the memorial but it was also criticised for putting the Bhagavad Gita next to the statue of Kalam playing a 'veena'.

By Pramod Madhav: After a controversy started over authorities leaving a copy of the Bhagavad Gita next to the statue of former President APJ Abdul Kalam at the memorial built for him at Rameswaram, a Bible and Quran were also placed to end the row.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had inaugurated the memorial at Peikulam, Rameswaram, the birthplace of Kalam, on July 27.

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The government was applauded for the memorial but it was also criticised for putting the Bhagavad Gita next to the statue of Kalam playing a 'veena'.

When questioned, an official explained that Kalam loved the veena and that he often quoted from the Bhagavad Gita, but no official came forward to prove the claim.

The controversy began when MDMK leader Vaiko questioned if Bhagavad Gita is more sacred than the Tamil book 'Thirukural' written by Thiruvalluvar, and alleged that the Centre is trying to saffronize even the legacy of Kalam.

Not wanting the controversy to grow bigger, Kalam's grand nephew Sheik Saleem placed a Bible and a Quran next to the Bhagavad Gita, to prove that Kalam was a man who was beyond religion who has a grand dream of a better India.

The next controversy waiting to happen is the vast usage of saffron like color in his memorial which can anytime be picked up by Tamil politicians.

Also Read:

PM Modi inaugurates 'missile man' APJ Kalam's memorial on his 2nd death anniversary

Watch Video: Bible and Quran placed at Abdul Kalam's statue following Bhagavad Gita controversy

--- ENDS ---
When I was younger, I asked my mother if I could add a vowel to the end of my name. "Why," she said, not particularly surprised that her quirky eldest child would make a bizarre statement like that. "Because," I answered, "I want people to know that I'm Italian and with a name like Flowers they won't."

The former Lucy Fusco just looked at me and shook her head, which was Italian for "If God made us perfect, we'd have nothing to pray for." I suppose it's also why she named me after the patron saint of the mentally diseased. Really, look it up.

I tell you this because I want you to know how proud I am of my heritage. While only 50 percent of my DNA is from the bel paese, I feel completely Italian, despite the freckled white skin which refuses to tan, the inability to cook anything that doesn't come with reheating instructions and an aversion to homemade wine. These are all part of the stereotype of the paisano, along with the certainty that somewhere along the genealogical trail I would have tripped over piano wire.

You see what I did there? I made what some would consider an ethnic slur, and what others (the kind of Italians I grew up with) would notice as self-deprecating humor. I was surrounded by relatives who probably knew Mafiosi, and might even have invited them to social events, but who looked at that part of the heritage as an infamia, a disgrace, albeit one that you could joke about.

All of this to place what I am about to say next in context: I love my origins. I may not be able to cook, but I know that God created every other cuisine just so that people would realize you can't beat pasta Amatriciana and a Caprese salad. I will never be mistaken for a Mediterranean beauty, but I can explain to you why Sophia Loren and Gina Lollobrigida couldn't stand one another. I have a mediocre voice, but I actually know what Violetta is saying while singing her tubercular lungs out in "La traviata."

That's why I'm disgusted with Anthony Scaramucci, Donald Trump's newest hire. As I said on my Facebook page, a communications director who uses four-letter words like a street fighter is good if your boss is the capo of the Genovese family. It is not so good if you work for the President of the United States.

And let me be clear. This has absolutely nothing to do with politics. I would say the same thing if Tony the Mooch worked for Hillary Clinton (and he did: John Podesta.) I would say the same thing if he worked for Barack Obama, and in fact, number 44 also had a rank embarrassment in his cabinet. Rahm Emanuel was one of the most profane, obscene, and arrogant people to ever inhabit the White House, and I don't remember the media being particularly hard on him for his rough edges.

But two wrongs do not make a right, as Connie Corleone could tell you (if you need a refresher, check out the baptismal scene of "The Godfather.")

Anthony Scaramucci has been an obnoxious party crasher from the beginning, using his stiletto-sharp elbows to barge into D.C.'s inner sanctum. Some people think that's dandy, and liken him to Trump's Mini-Me. They share a lot in common in their origin stories, their New York brashness, their absolute inability to feel shame.

They are not gentlemen.

And yet, I think it was a big mistake for the president to bring this viper into his political family, because he is very clearly interested in making a name for himself at the expense of the cohesiveness and reputation of the White House. Granted, this White House has a very big image problem, one that is not helped by the media's obvious hostility toward Trump. I swear we're one step away from CNN posting "Breaking News: Trump Breaks Wind on Front Lawn."

But as I said before, two wrongs don't make a right, and Scaramucci is very, very wrong.

He embodies the worst stereotypes of the loud, slick, con man who is as adept with guns as he is with cannoli, a pompous pompadour infected with "Saturday Night Fever," a guy who thinks that you can intimidate with four-letter words. Here is what he said, on the record, to a reporter: "I want to fing kill all the leakers and I want to get the President's agenda on track so we can succeed for the American people."

Italians are not the only ones who use the "F" word, not by a long shot. But that kind of Trumpfellas arrogance is disgusting.

Some might wonder why Scaramucci's ethnicity is at all relevant. If he were black or Jewish you say, I wouldn't dare write this column.

True, but then it wouldn't be my column to write. This one is.

I descend from Michelangelo, Da Vinci, Marconi, Vespucci, Verdi, Manzoni and the Medicis. My people are war heroes like John Basilone, sat on the Supreme Court, like Scalia, and revived dying industries, like Iacocca.

That future caricature on SNL doesn't represent any of us.
Norristown's Maria Bello is joining the most-watched show in the world, CBS' NCIS.

The Villanova grad, whose most recent TV gig was playing the lawyer ex-wife of Billy Bob Thornton's character in Amazon's dark Goliath, will make her NCIS debut in the fourth episode this fall.

The hit show returns for its 15th season at 8 p.m. Sept. 26.

According to CBS, Bello will play an NCIS agent  am I the only one who's forgotten that NCIS stands for Naval Criminal Investigative Service? who formerly was commissioned as a U.S. Army second lieutenant and served two tours in Afghanistan. Now she's reputed to be NCIS' top forensic psychologist, someone who "can second-guess and challenge" Mark Harmon's character, Special Agent Leroy Jethro Gibbs.

"We have always been big fans of Maria Bello's work and are excited to be introducing her as an agent who not only has distinct talent, but also a unique relationship with Gibbs," said NCIS executive producers George Schenck and Frank Cardea in a prepared statement released by CBS.

Bello, who's also a writer, has long moved freely between movies  The Cooler, Lights Out  and TV  ER, Prime Suspect, Touch  while maintaining a busy life as a social activist and supporter of relief efforts in Haiti.

In an interview last summer, Bello talked about the difference of working on a show like Goliath, compared to her previous broadcast network work:

"We don't have to worry about how many times we say [expletive] or showing a [breast]. But it's so much more than that. I think on network shows, they want people to be likable. On cable and streaming, they don't need to be."

Read more: Maria Bello stars in NBC's Prime Suspect
Meghan Blickman, here with her dog Buddy, lost her job, but with the help of a Special Enrollment Period and a skilled navigator, she found good health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace. Read more

When she was the training director for a nonprofit that helps educate people about their health coverage options, Meghan Blickman's own insurance was covered by her employer.

So when her job with Enroll America ended last month, one of her first priorities was finding new insurance that she could afford, but that would also cover her needs.

"I'm not an expert in health care and it's complicated, so I sought out an expert," said Blickman, 29, from Point Breeze. Two days after contacting a health-care advocate, Health Federation of Philadelphia, by phone, she met with a navigator, and together they filled out her Marketplace application, at no charge to Blickman. Now, with premium credits, she has a plan that costs her about $225 a month.

"Hopefully, this will be a temporary thing, but the idea of going without health insurance, even to save money, is not an option for me. Having health insurance is the law of the land, and I take that seriously."

The national debate about "repealing and replacing" the Affordable Care Act is causing confusion, uncertainty, and misinformation, though even if Congress does agree to changes, they would not affect 2017 policies. President Trump has suggested he will let Obamacare, as the ACA often is known, fail. And even if Congress does nothing, his administration can cut participation in the program, through such steps as shortening enrollment periods, tightening enrollment rules, and ending consumer outreach.

But the ACA is still the law. And if, like Blickman, your life has changed recently in a way that affects your health insurance coverage, it may offer you access to needed coverage, provided you follow the rules (more on that later).

Losing or changing a job, moving to a new town, getting married or divorced, having a baby, and aging out of your parents' insurance coverage are all life events that entitle you to what is called a special enrollment period, a 60-day window to get new insurance through the ACA marketplace. (You can enroll in Medicaid and the Children's Health Insurance Plan  CHIP  any time of year.)

But not everyone knows about special enrollment periods, or understands why it's critical to act quickly.

"People call us every time there's a headline in the newspaper and say, 'Oh no, I just lost coverage,' " said Antoinette Kraus, executive director of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, a statewide advocacy coalition that runs a helpline (877-570-3642) for people seeking services. "Folks don't know when the Special Enrollment Period is, if the ACA still exists, if they're eligible or if it's even worth it."

Working with new rules

A typical comment Kraus has been hearing as politicians debate various overhaul schemes: "If this passes I won't have health insurance in a couple months anyway, so why bother?' "

But as Hilary Young knows, the need for medical care is unpredictable. That's why she insisted on getting a basic insurance plan that cost her $300 a month back in 2011 when she moved to Philadelphia from New York to be with her boyfriend.

"I was barely making enough money to cover that and had to dip into my savings," recalled the Queen Village woman. But a few years before her move, she needed emergency surgery for a painful ovarian cyst, and knew she wouldn't risk being uninsured. "It could bankrupt you or put you into debt when you're starting out in your life and career," said Young, who is relieved to now be on her husband's employer plan.

Kraus said she fears that more people may risk going without insurance both because of the overall "repeal and replace" debate, and because of two specific revisions the Trump administration made in the ACA. The first, cutting the open enrollment period for coverage in 2018 in half from what it was in the past. So this year, consumers have only from Nov. 1 to Dec. 15 to purchase coverage for next year if you don't qualify for a special enrollment period.

The second revision is aimed at those special periods.

"To be able to enroll in a plan, you have to provide documentation that you are indeed eligible," Kraus said. It used to be that you could choose a plan and enroll first, and submit documentation about your job loss or divorce or marriage later.

When eligibility changes were made during the Obama administration, there was a 20 percent reduction in enrollment around those life changes, according to Kraus. "This is tightening it up even further, so we can expect the reduction will go down at least that amount, if not even further," she said.

She provided clarity

Another reason to act quickly: Most people need expert guidance to make this complicated purchase, and finding the right help can take time.

About a year ago, when Jody Applebaum's divorce was finalized, she needed to find her own insurance plan. A self-employed musician on a low income, she went to the Marketplace website and found that "most of the plans were way above what I could afford," she recalled. "I was frustrated because time was running out and it was very difficult to speak with anybody on the Marketplace phone lines. I was sitting and waiting forever."

More troubling was the fact that none of the plans she found covers a costly injectable drug she relies on for knee pain from osteoarthritis.

"They may not deny you coverage, but they certainly are limiting your access to the things that would make you feel better," said Applebaum, 59, of Queen Village.

Blickman said she has had to rearrange her budget to afford her $225-a-month share of the premiums, but believes that the cost is reasonable for what she's getting.

She didn't even try to figure out the program herself, preferring to rely on an in-person meeting with a navigator. You can find navigators, agents, and brokers near you by going to the HealthCare.gov site and clicking on the "Find Local Help" link at the bottom of the home page.

Her navigator helped her compare available plans, and understand her tax credit eligibility.

"She provided me a lot of clarity between the metal levels: bronze, platinum, and silver," Blickman said, referring to how plans are ranked according to how much coverage they provide. "Ones that you would think were better might not actually be the best for you."

Blickman also wanted to ensure that her antidepressant medication would be covered, so the navigator helped to call the insurer and confirm that they were.
Lawyers for senior Municipal Court Judge Jimmie Moore (right) and U.S. Rep Bob Brady (left) have denied that their clients did anything wrong. Read more

In Philadelphia, a mayoral candidate dropped out of the race, handed his campaign operation to the eventual winner, and later landed a lucrative no-bid contract from the administration.

In New Jersey, a Democratic governor appointed a Republican senator to a government agency, helping flip Senate control to Democrats.

And in Virginia, Republicans persuaded a Democratic state senator to resign, dangling a lucrative job offer on a state tobacco commission and a judgeship for his daughter  and leading to a GOP takeover of the Senate.

Prosecutors' allegations last week that U.S. Rep. Robert Brady's 2012 campaign paid a challenger $90,000 to drop out of the race may seem like a particularly brazen power play. But it's all part of the art of the political buyout  sometimes illegal, sometimes just politics.

When candidates seek exit strategies or see the writing on the wall, they often seek some kind of help from the candidate they endorse. Such transactions may look like backroom dealing, but campaign-finance experts agree that the line between the simply unseemly and the outright illegal can be difficult to determine.

The losing candidate's friend might get appointed to a government board, for example. "Those discussions are not uncommon," said G. Terry Madonna, director of the Center for Politics and Public Affairs at Franklin and Marshall College.

"Sometimes you give people a job to shut him up," Madonna added. "All that stuff is commonplace."

The documents unsealed last week showed a campaign aide for Jimmie Moore, then a former municipal judge and Brady's rival in the 2012 Democratic primary, pleaded guilty to falsifying Moore's campaign-finance filings to hide the source of the $90,000 payment.

For weeks, prosecutors had sought to keep their plea deal with Moore's campaign manager, Carolyn Cavaness, under wraps, citing an alleged attempt by Brady to influence the testimony of another potential witness, whom three sources familiar with the investigation have identified as former Philadelphia Mayor W. Wilson Goode Sr. Documents say that witness brokered the 2012 meeting between Brady and Moore that led the challenger to drop out of the primary race.

Neither man has been charged with a crime. Lawyers for both say they have done nothing wrong.

Authorities have signaled that their investigation continues and have indicated in court filings that Cavaness is cooperating with the probe.

Brady's attorney, James Eisenhower, says Brady's campaign paid the $90,000 for valuable polling data and to hire Cavaness as a subcontractor.

"Rarely are these situations an explicit quid pro quo: 'I'll give you money so you'll drop out,' " said Kenneth A. Gross, who heads the political law practice of the Washington-based firm Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. "But there are many shades of gray. There are often agreements to help a candidate retire [campaign] debt."

Even the White House can get involved.

In the 2010 Pennsylvania Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, for example, the Obama administration dispatched former President Bill Clinton to try to persuade Rep. Joe Sestak to drop his campaign against Sen. Arlen Specter, the longtime Republican who had just switched parties to keep his seat. Clinton offered Sestak a seat on a presidential advisory board. The congressman declined the offer and defeated Specter in the primary before losing the general election.

Democrat Joe Torsella briefly ran in that same primary, dropped out early, and was later appointed by President Obama to a job at the United Nations. Torsella is now Pennsylvania state treasurer.

Political buyouts aren't limited to campaigns. Savvy operatives pull the levers of government to advance an agenda or eliminate potential threats.

In 2003, New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, a Democrat, appointed Republican State Sen. John Matheussen as CEO of the Delaware River Port Authority, then a $195,000 post. State officials also ensured Matheussen would be able to stay in the New Jersey pension system, even though he was moving to a bistate agency.

The Senate was split 20-20, and Democrats won Matheussen's old seat in November to take control of the upper chamber. But it was a close race, and when it appeared to be headed for a recount, the McGreevey administration began publicly considering the Republican candidate for a judgeship.

More recently, in 2014, Virginia Republicans sank Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe's plan to expand Medicaid to 400,000 low-income individuals under the Affordable Care Act by persuading a Democratic state senator to resign and taking control of the Senate.

The GOP's leverage? A job on the state tobacco commission for the senator, Phillip Puckett, and a judgeship for his daughter.

For their part, Virginia Democrats tried to persuade the senator to keep his seat with similar enticements. Puckett resigned but withdrew his name from consideration for the tobacco job amid a public backlash.

After Puckett left the Senate, the legislature approved his daughter's appointment to the bench.

Federal prosecutors investigated the matter but did not file charges. But some think these kinds of deals are ethically dubious.

"When you talk about holding up a job that somebody might want for their livelihood as a way of getting partisan gain, that seems a little bit less like regular how-the-sausage-is-made and a little bit more like appealing to people's self-interest and material gain, which is I think more of a problem," said Noah Bookbinder, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, which tries to reduce the influence of money in politics.

Philadelphia has had its share of questionable arrangements, too.

Former City Solicitor Ken Trujillo ran a brief campaign for mayor in 2015. He endorsed then-Councilman Jim Kenney; a political action committee affiliated with Trujillo gave a research book valued at $4,200 to Kenney's campaign, as well as $10,000 to a PAC that supported Kenney; and Kenney scooped up some of Trujillo's campaign staff. Kenney entered the race shortly after Trujillo dropped out.

Last year, the Kenney administration awarded Trujillo's law firm an $800,000 no-bid contract to defend the city's sweetened-beverage tax. Mayor Kenney said at the time that the contract wasn't a political favor, calling Trujillo a "great lawyer." The mayor also said that some of the city's big law firms had conflicts of interest, and that the contract was awarded by the Law Department, not him.

Trujillo defended the contract, saying he hadn't personally contributed to Kenney's campaign.

Then there's Brady. In addition to his campaign allegedly paying his 2012 primary challenger, a former Moore supporter says Brady offered her a job to silence her.

Paula Brown, the former mayor of Darby Borough and a current candidate for that office, said she received the unexpected offer in a call from Brady in 2012, shortly after she had posted her support for Moore's campaign on Facebook.

When she declined Brady's offer, she said, the congressman pressed: Did anyone in her family need work?

"I said, 'No, everyone in my family is fine.' So I turned him down," Brown said in an interview last week.

Eisenhower, Brady's attorney, didn't dispute the phone conversation with Brown occurred but said the congressman didn't offer any jobs. He said that Brown actually apologized for having distributed Moore's petitions and that she offered to throw away those petitions and to collect signatures for Brady (the congressman said that wasn't necessary).

Told of Brady's account of their conversation, Brown laughed. "Alternative facts," she said.

 Staff writers Tricia L. Nadolny and Chris Brennan contributed to this article.

A previous version of this story incorrectly stated when Democrat Joe Torsella was appointed to a United Nations job.
The search continues for a 24-year-old woman who went missing swimming off Point Pleasant Beach early Sunday morning. Read more

Update: A body believed to be that of a 24-year-old Slovakian woman who disappeared while swimming early Sunday in Point Pleasant Beach has been found in Lavallette, about eight miles to the south. This story will be updated as information becomes available.

Earlier Story:

The U.S. Coast Guard has suspended its search for a 24-year-old Slovakian woman who disappeared in the the Atlantic Ocean off Point Pleasant Beach in Ocean County, N.J., early Sunday.

"Suspending a search is always a difficult decision and it's something we don't take lightly," Capt. Scott Anderson, commander of Coast Guard Sector Delaware Bay, said in a statement. "We extend our deepest condolences to the family and loved ones during this extremely difficult time."

The Point Pleasant Beach Police Department identified the missing swimmer as Zuzana Oravcova, 24.

She had been swimming with a fellow Slovakian, Thomas Kadlec, 23, when they got into trouble in the water about 2:30 a.m.

Kadlec made it to shore, but Oravcova did not, and he immediately notified a boardwalk employee, who called police.

At least six other people have drowned at the Shore since Memorial Day.

WNBC Channel 4 in New York reported that Oravcova had been working at Jenkinson's Boardwalk, a large amusement attraction in Point Pleasant Beach.

A massive search involved the Coast Guard, the New Jersey State Police Marine Unit, the Bay Head and Mantoloking fire companies and police, and dive teams from Point Pleasant Beach and four nearby communities.

The Coast Guard launched a 47-foot motor lifeboat crew from its Manasquan Inlet station and an MH-65 Dolphin helicopter crew from its Atlantic City air station.

The National Weather Service had issued a warning about dangerous rip currents along the Jersey Shore over the weekend. The advisory had spurred many towns to ban swimming at their beaches. But a Coast Guard spokesman said Sunday there was no indication that rip currents played a part in the Point Pleasant Beach swimmer's disappearance. "That would be pure speculation at this time," he said.

The weather service issued a rip current warning for Monday.
NH-37 ensconces the park on the southern side while the mighty Brahmaputra river forms the tiger reserve's northern frontier. And when floods hit Kaziranga, they create serious problems.

Fleeing animals try to get to the highlands, which lie on the other side of NH 37

By Baishali Adak: A terrified female hog deer with its baby in tow crossing a highway with cars and trucks zooming past makes for nerve-wracking pictures.

But anxiety turns to agony when the animal is crushed by a vehicle and is left lying in a pool of its own blood.

That's because while rains and flood can be dismissed as routine "natural" events, building a road through a national park with no safety features for animals screams murder.

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Welcome to Kaziranga National Park (KNP) in Assam - a UNESCO World Heritage Site, residence of our unique single-horned rhinoceros and a famed tiger reserve.

But when it comes to protecting its over 60,000-strong population of big and small wild animals, it seems to have one villain still to deal with - the National Highway 37. The route - a popular one that connects parts of Assam with neighbouring Nagaland and Manipur - ensconces the park on the southern side while the mighty Brahmaputra river forms the tiger reserve's northern frontier.

But that also routinely leads to the problem of wild fauna being stranded and endangered when floods hit the park every July-October. Fleeing animals try to get to the highlands of Karbi Anglong hills, which lie on the other side of NH 37, and get bludgeoned under the careless wheels of loaded trucks and cars.

DEATH TOLL RISES

This year, the toll is 13, up from six in 2016. Though built long back by the British, and said to have been widened in the 1970s, experts have since vocally opposed its expansion owing to the spate of deaths every year. Currently, it runs from Jakhalabandha to Bokakhat along KNP.

Rohit Choudhary, an RTI activist who has been working alongside the park authorities, says, "We filed a case in the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on the issue in 2013. As per its order, Section 144 has been imposed along NH-37, according to which vehicle speeds are to be controlled at 30 km per hour. The park authorities are doing their bit."

But he is clearly unhappy with the conduct of the state's transport and public works department (PWD), which is not helping to mitigate the issue. "No interceptor vehicles were deployed by the transport department to check the speeding vehicles this time. Rumble strips were not put in by the PWD here. Had interceptor vehicles been deployed round the clock and rumble strips been installed, the casualties would have been far fewer," he complained.

Concerned by the issue, a bench headed by NGT chairperson justice Swatanter Kumar also recently asked the Assam government about installing "speed sensors" to alert vehicles when an animal is approaching. So far only one such speed sensor has been installed at a phenomenal cost of Rs 1.21 crore, that too for only a 300-metre stretch of the NH 37.

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In fact, Director of KNP, Satyendra Singh, says, "If we were to instead engage people instead of the sensors, we could have employed 12 people for 10 years at the Rs 1.21 crore cost, and we would have achieved the aim."

MIGRATION

But clearly, there are more problems than just that. Dr Rathin Barman, Deputy Director of the Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), who also closely works with the KNP authorities, says, "In the rainy season, when Brahmaputra inundates KNP's low grasslands, wild animals are forced to migrate to the Karbi Anglong hills by crossing NH 37 using specific 'corridors.' There are four - Panbari, Haldibari, Kanchanjuri and Amguri."

"But encroachment and tourist facilities have blocked them to a large extent," he says. Activists rue that there are also several stone crushing units, limestone quarries and saw mills, which form a wedge between them and the corridors, leading them to either drown in water or run in unsafe directions where poachers await them.

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"It is essential that animals can freely move in a crisis time like flood or it is triple trouble for them," Barman says. More so, the park authorities are yet to build more 'highlands' within the park so that the animals can take shelter within its safe arms.

There are 111 such artificial 'peaks' here currently, but most have worn out over time. As a result they do not provide the requisite height or space. Director of KNP, Satyendra Singh, told Mail Today, "This is a requirement and we are looking forward to fulfilling it very quickly using the extra silt taken out of KNP's own wetlands. At least 33 are in the procedure now."

ALSO READ

Assam: Kaziranga National Park to close for visitors due to increased rainfall and heat

Devastating Assam floods put wildlife in peril

Assam: Locals protest, block NH 37, after Kaziranga National Park recruitment shuns them

ALSO WATCH

UK's Royal couple receive traditional welcome at Kaziranga

--- ENDS ---
The ongoing feud between White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci (left) and former chief of staff Reince Prebius continued Sunday, through a friend of Scaramucci. Read more

A man who has been labeled a "publicist" and "spokesman" for new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci deleted several pointed tweets directed at Reince Priebus.

Arthur Schwartz, who denied being either in a contentious back-and-forth with CNN's Jake Tapper Sunday morning, accused the former White House chief of staff of having an affair in an angry tweet that also mocked him for losing his job in the Trump administration.

"Keep pushing this crap & I'll start dropping oppo on you. Mistress much, ?" Schwartz's deleted tweet said.

Schwartz also appeared to admit he was behind other anonymous attacks of Priebus in the press.

"Remember when people told you that it was me that was trashing you in the press?" Schwartz asked, directed at Priebus. "They were right. Happy to start again."

Despite denying he was working for Scaramucci, Schwartz himself said on Twitter earlier this week that he was his spokesman.

Schwartz also admitted to the New York Daily News that he wasn't sure if his allegation about Priebus was even true. "It's just rumors that have been going around for a while," Schwartz told the newspaper.

After deleting the messages, Schwatz said Priebus accepted his apology for the incident. Priebus did not respond to a request to comment.

The tweets were in response to a Huffington Post story written by newly-appointed editor-at-large Vicky Ward that reported Priebus blocked Scaramucci from being hired by the White House due to concerns over his business dealings.

According to the report, an "adviser to the White House" said Priebus was aware of email traffic that suggested Scaramucci sold his company, SkyBridge Capital, for an inflated price to a Chinese conglomerate that might expect favors from the administration in return.

"I sold SkyBridge. I don't work there anymore," Scaramucci said on CNN's New Day on Thursday morning in response to the scrutiny over his personal financial holdings. "There's residual profits that once the sale occurs I am going to receive, but I am not on salary. I do not have a W2 there. What do you want me to tell you?"

Schwartz's tweets were noticed by Tapper, and the two got into a heated back-and-forth where Schwartz denied working for Scaramucci and at one point threatened legal action against the Philadelphia native and CNN anchor.

Schwartz shared a screenshot of text messages with New York Post reporter Dana Schuster where he denies that he's a client working for Scaramucci. "I'm just a friend helping him out," the message says.

Scaramucci has been the center of news attention since accepting the job as White House communications director, replacing Sean Spicer. His profane interview with The New Yorker's Ryan Lizza dominated news coverage last week just as Republicans were attempting to pass a "skinny" repeal of the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

During the interview, Scaramucci called former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus " a f paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoid" and claimed chief strategist Steve Bannon was trying to build his own personal brand off "the strength of the president."

After the interview was published, Scaramucci said he'd refrain from using "colorful language," but stopped short of apologizing for his comments.

On Friday, Priebus was replaces as White House chief of staff by Gen. John Kelly, who has been serving as Trump's Homeland Security secretary.

Over the weekend, Scaramucci blasted the "class" of the media after the New York Post reported that his second wife has filed for divorce.

Scaramucci didn't deny the Page Six story, which reported that 38-year-old Deidre Ball is ending her 3-year marriage with Scaramucci, 52, over his successful quest to get close to President Trump, whom she reportedly despises. Instead, he called out the coverage of the report, which he said will reveal "who in the media has class and who doesn't."

"Family doesn't need to be drawn into this," Scaramucci wrote in a Saturday morning tweet.
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Donald Trump and his cohorts of the GOP are malevolently complicit in a political assassination attempt, that leaves American citizens as collateral damage. Republicans have engaged in a universal effort to erase the legacy of Barrack Obama and will stop at no cost including the lives of the people that they serve.

From the moment that Obama took office the intentions of Republicans were clear. They wasted no time in laying down a political gauntlet conceived to undermine the newly elected POTUS. GOP resident wolf in sheeps clothing, Sen. Mitch McConnell, publicly declared the goal of the GOP when he said The single most important thing we want to achieve is to make Barack Obama a one term president, almost immediately upon Obama being elected.

McConnells words were an unprecedented public sign of disloyalty and disrespect to a newly chosen president. It also signaled open season on Barack Obama from all sides, in and out of government. McConnells declaration served as the impetus for the creation of the Tea Party, a political abomination that was determined to submarine Obama and his administration. Additionally, Obama was forced to endure the disrespect of the Birther Movement, spearheaded by none other than Donald Trump. The Liar in Chief propagated a conspiracy theory, claiming Obama wasnt an American citizen and therefore was exempt from serving as POTUS. The striking irony of this bombastic attack is that Barack Obama appeased the blatant racist accusers, unlike Trump, by releasing his birth certificate. Trump has been dogged by his insistence on keeping his tax returns private and refusing their release for public scrutiny to date. The genesis for these unthinkable actions by the GOP and its supporters? Obamacare stands as the inciting incident for GOP unrest.

Republicans from day one of the implementation of the ACA, have resolved to repeal and replace it, in its entirety. The GOP was offended by Obamas audacity and determination to provide the comprehensive health care package. Republicans were instructed to disparage the package via television, radio, print and across the internet. This was done in a concerted effort to demean the legislative competency of Obama. Once again, the difference between Obama then and Trump now is revealing.

The ACA was met with more than its fair share of naysayers and detractors. However, Obama took those concerns into consideration and traveled across the country, to address the questions of Americans in town hall meetings. In doing so, Obama submerged himself in the details of the package and took ownership of the legislation. Obama stood front and center and answered all the questions with dignity and grace, accepting the ultimate accountability for its failure or success. This is in stark contrast to the truly unqualified and cowardly Lying King Trump, who at the first sign of trouble relinquishes responsibility of his administrations repeal and replace mission.

Donald Trump campaigned long and hard on HIS ability to provide affordable healthcare for ALL Americans. He boasted about his business sense and skill at making deals. A large contingent of his support was based on his promise to make a better deal. The truth is Trump knows NOTHING about healthcare and what it entails. Just like every other task in the White House, Trump is inept to serve as a leader in the creation or streamlining of legislation.

After promising to lead the way in the repeal and replace agenda, Trump remarkably lays blame at the feet of Democrats, who are the minority and his own sad sack administration. Trump has made no headway in the construction of repeal and replace because hes ignorant to the machinations of government. Once again he has conned simple minded Americans, who foolishly believed that he could lead the country in any meaningful way.

The agenda to dismantle the legacy of Barack Obama is backfiring on the Republican party. They are led by a political atrocity, who doesnt possess the intellect, skill or diplomacy to unite both parties for the greater good. Remember the hypocrisy of the GOP and lack of vision, in a plan that centered on hubris and left Americans out in the cold. Make your voices heard in 2018 and beyond.
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Trump wants a political win so badly that he is begging Republican Senators to take away health care from millions as the impotent president can do nothing but watch his presidency collapse.

Trump tweeted:

Don't give up Republican Senators, the World is watching: Repeal & Replaceand go to 51 votes (nuke option), get Cross State Lines & more.  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 30, 2017

What the President still doesnt understand is that the reconciliation process was easier than going to 51 votes. Under reconciliation, Republicans only needed 50 votes plus the Vice President to break the tie. Trump is asking Republicans to adopt a process that would leave them two votes short of passage instead of one. Trumps idea would make it more difficult for Republicans to pass a health care bill.

Trump can whine about the process all he wants, but the inescapable truth is that Senate Republicans only had 49 votes of support, and McConnell had to scrape and struggle to get to 49. The problem isnt the 60 vote rule. The problem is that not enough Republicans support taking health care away from tens of millions of people.

Donald Trump has gone from tantruming and threatening war on the Republican-controlled Congress to weakly begging Republican Senators to pass a health care bill.

As a candidate, Trump promised so much winning. As president, all Donald Trump does is lose.
By India Today Web Desk: A Bulgarian woman successfully gave birth to a baby boy on board LH543 on July 26, 2017. The birth took place at 39,000 feet over the Atlantic at a latitude of 49 degrees North and a longitude of 21 degrees West.

As the Airbus A340-300 took off from Columbia at 11pm local time, a woman started experiencing premature labor pains. The crew sprung into action and the flight was immediately turned into an emergency delivery room.

This week, baby Nikolai was born at 49 N, 21 W, flight level 390. Interested in more infos? Here you go. https://t.co/G2p3GhyiOy #LH543 pic.twitter.com/yHXAe3QnCB- Lufthansa News (@lufthansaNews) July 28, 2017

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Several passengers were moved to the seats at the front while the rear part of the plane was transformed into a labour room covered with a privacy screen as well. The cabin crew and three doctors who were present on board then assisted with the delivery.

To make sure the baby and the mother are provided proper care, the captain decided to make a stopover in Manchester. When the plane landed in Manchester the baby and the mother were handed over to the paramedics after which the plane took off for Frankfurt.

"I've never experienced anything like that in my 37 years of professional experience. The entire crew did an extraordinary job. This was great teamwork, with everyone doing their part," said Kurt Mayer, the captain of flight LH543, "after landing, I immediately went to the mother and the newborn child to welcome him to the world. Aside from the birth of my own son, this was the most moving moment of my life", said Mayer.

"We were incredibly happy, hugged each other & shed tears!" says #LH543 crew about the moment when little baby Nikolai was born on board. pic.twitter.com/vH7t9Yrmbh- Lufthansa News (@lufthansaNews) July 28, 2017

This is the 11th birth on board a Lufthansa plane since 1965. "This has been the eleventh birth on a Lufthansa flight since 1965. The cabin crew is regularly given first aid training, which also includes initial measures and instructions in the use of medical materials and instruments for a possible birth on board", Lufthansa said in a statement regarding the incident on their website.

--- ENDS ---
The Rev. Anthony Thompson's newly created One New Humanity Charleston Foundation will launch its inaugural revival Nov. 19, a two-day event invites people to pray for unity, peace and healing in the Holy City. Read moreHusband of Emanuel AME victim to host prayer walk, revival focused on healing
A photo posted on Facebook of Cordelia Wallace, who last lived in Charleston area, after she was found sitting along side an Upstate interstate. Wallace, who says she's been homeless since the start of the year, is now in Columbia seeking shelter. Photo courtesy of Breanna Gillian
Language teachers at high schools in Dorchester District 2 are putting on a March Madness-style competition in which students vote for music videos from around the world, all with the goal of promoting Spanish and other languages and cultures. Read moreDD2 teacher encourages learning foreign languages through 'music madness' tournament
The main value of Veterans Day is, unlike Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, not so much in our participating in a particular event or tradition but in our remembering at least once a year the debt we all owe to those who have served our country in uniform. Read moreEditorial: Remember our veterans today  and every day
We noted here a couple of months back the obvious truth that Chelsea Clinton is a nitwit. Who knew, however, that a leftist would stumble across this fact?

Prof. Corey Robin of Brooklyn College, author of a book popular among leftists called The Reactionary Mind that purports to explain conservatism (gee: I wonder if we can figure out the thesis from the title), got into an argument recently with Chelsea. On Twitter. About banality. No, you cant make this up.

Chelsea tweeted a link to a story about an arson fire at an LGBT center in Arizona with her coda about how it is an example of the banality of evilthe phrase made famous in Hannah Arendts controversial book Eichmann in Jerusalem. Prof. Robin thought this a gross misuse or misunderstanding of Arendts phrase, and naturally defaulted to the usual mode of progressives everywhere, hectoring Chelsea for her superficiality. And Chelsea responded!

You can read the whole delicious saga at Corey Robins website, but here are a few lowlights:

I didnt think Clinton was using Arendts concept of the banality of evil correctly. I retweeted her with some snide commentary.

There follows a lot of explication about Arendts phrase, but twice Robin describes Chelsea thus: author of a best-selling book; vice chair of a powerful global foundation; former special correspondent to NBC; possible congressional candidate, with a net worth of $15 million; daughter of the former president of the United States; daughter of the former Secretary of State and almost-president of the United States, adding that We have in this country a really weird ruling class.

Theres lots more here in the whole post, and Chelsea does not come out well in the exchange. I do especially like this initial response from Chelsea:

Thankful to have read Arendt at Sidwell & Stanford is a nice touch, another sign of the total lack of self-awareness of entitled elitist mediocrities of the left. It takes something for me to side with Corey Robin on anything, but thats what makes the ongoing left-on-left action so much fun to watch. Popcorn please!
A Chinese national who was on a business trip to Bengaluru was attacked by unknown assailants. The victim has sustained injury on his face.

By Rohini Swamy: A Chinese national was attacked in the city of Bengaluru by five assailants. The incident took place on Saturday night.

The man identified as Yan, arrived in the IT capital to finalise a business deal.

Yan was in Indiranagar waiting for his cab, when five men on bikes came towards him and attacked with knives. The assailants tried to loot Yan, and when he resisted, they stabbed him on the face.

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Luckily, Yan escaped with a cut on his face and yelled for help. A police van nearby rushed to his rescue.

However, the accused had managed to fled by then.

Yan was taken to a nearby hospital and administered treatment in the emergency room. He had sustained a deep cut on his face.

All the five miscreants were later arrested by the police.

The attack on the Chinese national has once again raised questions about the law and order situation of Bangalore.

Also read:

Another Bangalore jail official shunted after Sasikala-whistleblower cop Roopa's exit

Bengaluru jail atrocities: Human rights commission slaps notices on Karnataka prison officials

--- ENDS ---
President Trump has decided not to veto the Russia sanctions legislation passed by Congress. The decision was probably an easy one inasmuch as (1) a veto would easily have been overridden, resulting in embarrassment for the president and (2) it would have added fuel to Trump-Russia connection stories.

Naturally, Russia is angry about the sanctions. Europe is also unhappy, which is ironic because some European leaders have criticized Trump for being soft on Russia.

Lets start with Russia. The Kremlin has announced that, in response to the sanctions, it will expel U.S. diplomats. The U.S. will have to reduce its diplomatic and technical staff in Russia to 455 people. In addition, U.S. personnel no longer will be able to use a posh dacha for parties and vacations.

These actions are, at best, symbolic. I doubt that we need 455 diplomats and technicians in Russia and the dacha, though Im sure its nice, is surplus to requirements.

The Washington Post reports that, in addition to the response just discussed, Russia is likely to become less cooperative with the U.S. in matters such as Syria, North Korea, and combating terrorism. This concern seems overblown.

We can expect the Russians to continue to cooperate with us when its in their interest to do so. For example, it was in Russias interest to reach a deal whereby the U.S. abandoned Syria fighters opposed to Russian interests in exchange for a cease fire that was also in its interest, and which it could break the moment that ceased to be the case. This is the kind of deal Russia will agree to, sanctions or not. Similarly, Putin will not agree to deals that dont advance Russian interests, sanctions or not.

The Posts article does not discuss the most serious potential consequence of the U.S. sanctions  their implications for Europe. The sanctions allow the U.S. to impose heavy fines on European companies involved in energy infrastructure with Russia. They thus threaten several major projects now in progress.

As Noah Daponte-Smith at NRO says:

The Continent has long been dependent on Russian oil and gas, and potential stoppages in the westward flow of Russian oil have long caused headaches in European capitals  a 2009 dispute between Russia and Ukraine, for instance, caused serious crises in much of southeastern Europe, which relies heavily on Russian gas, and touched even central and western Europe.

Of particular concern is the proposed Nord Stream 2 pipeline, a project, controversial within Europe, that would traverse the Baltic Sea on the way from Russia to Germany. The project would be led by Gazprom, which is owned predominantly by the Russian government, and thus within the scope of the new sanctions.

EC Commission chief Klaus Juncker recently warned:

The U.S. bill could have unintended unilateral effects that impact the EUs energy security interests. If our concerns are not taken into account sufficiently, we stand ready to act appropriately within a matter of days. America First cannot mean that Europes interests come last.

What actions might Europe deem appropriate? Daponte-Smith cites the possibility of the same sort of trade-war retaliation that Trump has publicly considered since the beginning of his administration. Alternatively, Europe might invoke its law to prevent the enforcement of U.S. law extraterritorially. A general diplomatic rift between the EU and the U.S. is another possibility.

The benefit to Russia of these scenarios seems to outweigh the pain our sanctions undoubtedly would inflict on Russia. Thus, Daponte-Smith argues that we should craft the application of our sanctions around European interests as the Europeans perceive them.

The Trump administration should be able to accomplish this. However, efforts to do so will lead to charges from the presidents enemies that he is soft on, or even colluding with, Russia.

Republicans ought not join that chorus. The president needs some flexibility. His conduct regarding Russia has caused him to lose a considerable amount of the flexibility a president should normally enjoy in dealing with a foreign adversary. However, with Americas relations with Europe on the line, its important that Trump retain sufficient flexibility to accommodate European concerns regarding the sanctions Congress has passed.

Otherwise, Russia will be the winner.
Luke Rosiak of the Daily Caller reports that Debbie Wasserman Schultz seemed prepared to pay cyber-probe suspect and IT aide Imran Awan even while he was living in Pakistan, if the FBI hadnt stopped him from leaving the U.S. This is only the latest indication of Wasserman Schultzs immense loyalty to Awan.

As we noted here, the IT scandal involving the Awan family broke in February. It centered around the theft of the IT equipment and the serious, potentially illegal, violations of House IT policies. Yet, Wasserman Schultz kept Imran Awan on her payroll until last week.

This raises questions. The obvious one is: Why?

Wasserman Schultzs explanation is that the Capitol police would not show her the evidence against him. She therefore assumed he might be victims of anti-Muslim profiling. Only after Awan was arrested at Dulles Airport and accused of bank fraud was Wasserman Schultz willing to drop her assumption that he was a victim, and fire him.

Wasserman Schultzs explanation rings hollow. According to Rosiak, all other House members who employed Awan or members of his family fired them after the February revelations. This includes Andre Carson of Indiana, who is Muslim. Carson has criticized Wasserman Schultz for blocking police from examining a laptop tied to Imran.

Moreover, the fact that she blocked the police undercuts her explanation. If Wasserman Schultz really wanted to know whether the police had a basis, other than bias, for suspecting Awan of wrongdoing, she probably would not have worked to prevent the police from obtaining evidence that would help make this determination.

But suppose we take her explanation for continuing to pay Awan at face value. Surely, as a precaution, Wasserman Schultz would have denied Awan access to her computers after House authorities banned him from the network in early February. After all, it would be reckless to assume that anti-Muslim bias was the only plausible explanation for the Houses ban.

Yet, Rosiak says that Wasserman Scultz not only kept Awan on staff after the ban, but also had no other IT person to perform necessary work that presumably would have arisen during a months-long period, according to payroll records. This suggests that Awan might well have maintained access to Wasserman Schultzs computers.

The congresswomans office did not answer the Daily Callers questions about this. It has said only that Imran Awan was working in an advisory role providing advice on technology issues. It has not said who performed the offices computer work after the ban, if not Awan.

Another question is whether Wasserman Schultz would have kept paying Awan while he was in Pakistan for six months, the length of time between his departure and scheduled return date. Her office wouldnt say.

However, Awans lawyer says his client told the House that he planned to visit his family in Pakistan, and Wasserman Schultz must have been so informed. Yet, he remained on the payroll until his arrest.

This much is clear. Debbie Wasserman Schultz stood by her man  a man in a position to know her secrets. Did she do so out of loyalty, out of concern for social justice, or for some darker reason?
The Republican Congresss failure to repeal and replace Obamacare is of course embarrassing, and may well be a political blow to the GOP, as most expect. Still, we shouldnt lose sight of the fact that Congressional Republicans actually set out to save Obamacare, and not a single Democrat was willing to join in the effort.

The future of Obamacare could be grim. Having run a victory lap or two, the Associated Press now acknowledges that Obamas health care law still needs some patchwork.

The health care law of the land has survived for now, but it needs help  and it needs it soon. Soaring prices and fewer choices may greet customers when they return to the Affordable Care Acts insurance marketplaces this fall, in part because insurers are facing deep uncertainty about whether the Trump administration will continue to make key subsidy payments and enforce other parts of the existing law that help control prices. Assurances dont look to be coming anytime soon. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch! President Donald Trump tweeted early Friday, soon after the Senate narrowly rejected the latest push to dismantle the Obama-era health care law. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price said in a statement after the Senate vote that the Trump administration would pursue its health care goals through regulation.

President Trump is threatening to bring Obamacare down administratively:

President Donald Trump on Saturday threatened once more to end required payments to insurance companies unless lawmakers repeal and replace the Obama-era health care law. In apparent frustration over Fridays failure by the Senate Republican majority to pass a bill repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act, Trump tweeted: If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon! No Democrats voted for the GOP bill.

It should be noted that the subsidies created by rule by the Obama administration are likely illegal:

The Obama administration used its rule-making authority to set direct payments to insurers to help offset these costs. Trump inherited the payment structure, but he also has the power to end them. The payments are the subject of a lawsuit brought by House Republicans over whether the Affordable Care Act specifically included a congressional appropriation for the money, as required under the Constitution. Trump has only guaranteed the payments through July, which ends Monday. Trump previously said the law that he and others call Obamacare would collapse immediately whenever those payments stop.

Chuck Schumers response to the presidents threat was surprisingly lame:

If the president refuses to make the cost sharing reduction payments, every expert agrees that premiums will go up and health care will be more expensive for millions of Americans, Schumer said Saturday in a written statement. The president ought to stop playing politics with peoples lives and health care, start leading and finally begin acting presidential.

The fact is that the Democrats need Republicans to prop up their failing, Rube Goldberg-like health care scheme. Congressional Republicans tried to oblige them, but Democrats preferred the presumed political gain that would result from the GOPs failure. Now, the Democrats need the Trump administration to bail out their pet project. I find it hard to see any reason why the administration should oblige them.
The lone Muslim leader in the Nitish government faces the Islamic decree for chanting Jai Shri Ram.

By India Today Web Desk: The Nitish Kumar-led government finds itself in a controversy again- this time on religious faultlines, after Imarat-Sharia today slapped a fatwa against cabinet minister Khursheed Ahmed.

The lone Muslim leader in the Nitish government faces the Islamic decree for chanting Jai Shri Ram.

On the fatwa, Ahmed said, "God knows what my intention was behind chanting Jai Shri Ram."

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The fiery leader added that he would chant the same slogan 100 times for the sake of Bihar and its development.

He further said that the Imarat-Sharia should have cleared the misconception around his intention before issuing the fatwa.

The JD(U) MLA from Sikati seat also preached Islam over tolerance and brotherhood. "Islam teaches us to love not hate our brothers," he added.

Khursheed Ahmed was sworn in the Bihar cabinet on Saturday and has been assigned the Ministry of Minority Affairs and sugarcane development.

Also read: Nitish Kumar inducts 27 new ministers into Bihar cabinet, including 12 from BJP

Also read: With Bihar in kitty, will PM Modi oblige Nitish with promised special package?

Also read: Nitish resigns, but not really: Bihar Game of Thrones starring BJP isolates Lalu?

--- ENDS ---
Chronic pain may be added to the list of ailments that qualify for medical marijuana treatment in New Jersey.

Alex Bekker, an anesthesiology professor who chairs a state panel thats looking into the issue, made the pronouncement during a hearing Tuesday in Trenton.

Bekker feels theres sufficient evidence to add chronic pain, migraines and fibromyalgia  all under the umbrella of chronic pain  to the states list of ailments eligible for medical marijuana treatment.

The meeting marked the first time the state has considered expanding its medical marijuana program since it became law in 2010. Critics say the states list is far too limited.

The panel eventually will make its recommendations to state Health Commissioner Cathleen Bennett, who has the final say over what ailments get added.

Army child-care cuts a mistake: The Pentagon said Tuesday cuts to military child-care programs at two Army bases may have been unnecessary.

The bases said they were suspending the services because of the federal hiring freeze President Donald Trump announced Jan. 23. But a Defense Department official said a memo issued this month made clear that child-care workers are exempt.

On Tuesday, parents with children enrolled in part-day child-care programs at the U.S. Army garrison in Weis-baden, Germany, were notified the programs will close March 1. Parents were told the closing results from a staff shortage created by the freeze.

A Feb. 1 Pentagon memo, sent to the heads of all military departments, listed the many categories of workers who are exempt from the freeze. They include positions providing child care to the children of military personnel.

Court victory for service dog: Wonder the goldendoodle will get another shot in court.

The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday unanimously ruled the U.S. 6th Circuit Court of Appeals should reconsider whether Ehlena Fry and her family can sue a Jackson County, Michigan, school district for its decision years ago to tell Ehlena, who has cerebral palsy, that she couldnt bring her service dog to school.

In Fry v. Napoleon Com-munity Schools, Ehlenas parents and their lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union argued in October that they shouldnt be required to exhaust ad-ministrative remedies under the federal Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) before suing under a separate law involving access to public institutions, as the school district argued.

The eight-member court largely agreed  not deciding whether the Frys had fully proved their argument but sending it back to the lower court with instructions on a two-pronged standard that could help decide such cases in the future. The Supreme Court said while Congress made clear that disputes over appropriate educational requirements needed to work through the IDEA process, that was not the case in claims involving public access under the ADA, such as the Frys appeared to be.

Harrison Fords plane flies over jet: Newly released video shows a small plane piloted by Harrison Ford flying low over an airliner with 116 people aboard mo-ments before he mistakenly landed on a taxiway at a Southern California airport.

Authorities have not said how much distance separated the two planes, but Fords aircraft came close enough that its shadow distinctly passed over the jet last week at John Wayne Airport in Orange County.

The 74-year-old actor was told to land his single-engine plane on Runway 20L, but he instead landed on a parallel taxiway on Feb. 13.

Ex-cop rejects plea in wrong-way crash: A former New Jersey police officer charged with a drunken driving crash that killed a fellow officer and another man has turned down a plea deal and will face trial.

Pedro Abads lawyer said after a court hearing Wednesday that prosecutors offered a deal for up to 21 years in prison. He faces up to 25 years if he is convicted. Abads attorney, Mario Gallucci, had sought a prison sentence of five to 15 years.

Abad crashed while driving the wrong way on a highway in Staten Island in 2015. Linden Police Officer Frank Viggiano and Linden resident Joseph Rodriguez were killed. Another officer was seriously injured.

Authorities say Abad had a blood-alcohol level of .24, three times the legal limit.

Second man arrested in Rutgers killing: A second man has been arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of a Rutgers University student last year.

The Essex County Prosecutors Office said U.S. Marshals arrested Fraynned Ramirez on Tuesday in the Dominican Republic. Authorities say extradition proceedings are underway.

Ramirez and another man, 25-year-old Marcus Feliz, are charged with murder, felony murder, robbery and weapons offenses in the April 10, 2016, death of 21-year-old Shani Patel. Authorities say Patel was shot to death at his off-campus apartment near the universitys Newark campus.
Manjhi, who once rebelled against the Bihar CM, is now lobbying for ministerial berth in the Nitish Kumar government.

Manjhi was made the chief minister of Bihar by Nitish Kumar after he had resigned from the post.

By Anindya Banerjee: Life seems to have come full circle for former Bihar Chief Minister Jitan Ram Manjhi. Manjhi, who rebelled against Nitish Kumar, is now lobbying for ministerial berth in the Nitish Kumar government.

In an interview to India Today, Manjhi said, "I am not upset but I am putting forth a demand just how a family member would. After 20 months a new government has been formed in Bihar followed by much lawlessness and corruption. I congratulate the alliance for that".

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He has made a case for himself by saying, "You have given a seat to a person from the Paswan family who is not even an MLA or MLC. Hence, there's nothing wrong if I seek a role. I am disappointed but hopeful".

Manjhi was made the chief minister of Bihar by Nitish Kumar after he had resigned from the post owning to responsibility for the party's poor performance in 2014 General Election. However, he tried to establish his own authority and challenged Nitish. After being thrown out of the party, Manjhi formed his own party Hindustani Awami Morcha (Secular) and joined the BJP-led NDA.

But ever since the growing animosity between Nitish Kumar and PM Narendra Modi turned into bonhomie with the Bihar CM extending support to BJP on various grounds including demonetisation, it became tough for Manjhi to remain close to BJP.

After the Mahagathbandhan divorce, Manhji's view of Nitish has changed from being a cruel to an honest person. "Nitish Kumar is an honest person. He got into wrong friendships and couldn't handle it," Manjhi told India Today, referring to Nitish's erstwhile alliance with Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) and Congress.

"Cabinet roles are not finalised and I will keep demanding that they consider me," said a brazen Manjhi.

ALSO READ |

Jitan Ram Manjhi is out to win friends to stay in the chief minister's chair

Rahul says he knew about Nitish Kumar's plans to join hands with BJP, but what did he do?

BJP woos Nitish, credits his image for the rise of RJD in Bihar from 22 to 80 seats

ALSO WATCH | Jitan Ram Manjhi disappointed over being left out of Bihar Cabinet expansion

--- ENDS ---
When Gov. Chris Christie leaves office Jan. 16, he will take his unbending attitude toward legalizing marijuana with him.

Christies departure opens the door to expansion of the states current medicinal marijuana program, decriminalization or even a ballot initiative to have Atlantic City serve as a test case for legalization.

South Jersey lawmakers are open to having marijuana handled in a less drastic manner, but they are cautious.

A study by the Cato Institute, a public policy research organization, examined changes in the rates of marijuana consumption per month in three states where it was legalized: Colorado, Washington and Oregon. The rate of increase in marijuana use didnt change significantly after legalization.

The Drug Police Alliance led the campaign to pass legislation that created the states medicinal marijuana program.

It is currently working on the New Solutions Marijuana Reform Campaign to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana like alcohol for adults in this state.

Roseanne Scotti, state director of the Drug Policy Alliance, said her organization has been building a coalition within New Jersey while Christie has been governor to have marijuana legalized after his term ends.

I think its very possible. ... A bipartisan delegation of legislators went to Colorado, one of the first two states to legalize marijuana, Scotti said.

Most candidates running for governor this fall have a more tolerant view of marijuana than Christie.

Phil Murphy, the Democratic candidate, wants to legalize marijuana, so police can focus resources on violent crime.

Independent candidate Gina Genovese has called for a voter referendum. Libertarian Party candidate Pete Rohrmans platform includes legalizing marijuana.

Even Kim Guadagno, Christies lieutenant governor and the Republican candidate, has separated herself from Christie on this issue  but she doesnt believe in outright legalization of marijuana, either.

Our energy is better spent by improving our medical marijuana program and decriminalizing it in some form or fashion so young people arent thrown in jail for possessing a small quantity, Guadagno said.

David Knowlton is the chairman of the Compassionate Care Foundation, the marijuana dispensary in Egg Harbor Township.

Compassionate Care is paying attention to what it can do now instead of focusing on what might happen next year, Knowlton said.

The state Department of Health has expanded the conditions for which medicinal marijuana can be used.

We have been a part of that, and we are expanding to accommodate that, Knowlton said. I guess, we will let the chips fall where they may with a new governor and a new Legislature.

Bills have been introduced in the state Senate and Assembly to legalize marijuana.

Assemblyman Reed Gusciora, D-Mercer, Hunterdon, introduced a bill last year to place the question on a ballot that would allow Atlantic City to adopt a resolution to legalize marijuana within the resort.

Legalization is just a matter of time, said Gusciora, who added a simple marijuana possession arrest can result in six months in jail, a $1,000 fire and loss of driving privileges. We still equate it with heroin in this state.

Among South Jersey legislators, state Sen. Jim Whelan, D-Atlantic, has views on marijuana that closely align with Guadagnos.

Whelan was a co-author of the original medicinal marijuana bill and supports program expansion, spokesman Michael Suleiman said.

Whelan supports some form of decriminalization, but does not yet support legalization, Suleiman said.

State Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, Cumberland, Atlantic, said he doesnt think he could vote for legalization, but he would evaluate a bill that dealt with decriminalizing small amounts of marijuana.

Van Drew said he believes the states medicinal marijuana program is run well, and it is worth evaluating whether to expand it.

Assemblyman Vince Mazzeo, D-Atlantic, supports expansion of medicinal marijuana and decriminalization, but would like to see some studies in states that already have approved recreational marijuana use for adults before he could support legalization.

I know its great for the states financially  but at what cost? Mazzeo said.

Assemblyman Chris Brown, R-Atlantic, said he understands the desire to tax marijuana for new revenue and believes it is important to remain open-minded.

At a time when we are dealing with widespread opioid addiction, we need to make sure we truly understand all of the implications legalizing marijuana may have on our society, such as those thoughtfully considered by Patrick Kennedy in his book, A Common Struggle, Brown said.

Those consequences could include increased substance abuse, an added strain on the health-care system and increased underage use, when childrens brains are still developing and most vulnerable to long-term damage, Brown said.
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MARGATE  City residents say they are concerned for their beachfront homes due to an overflow of water created by heavy thunderstorms that rolled through South Jersey.

(Sunday) was an overflow and a problem with the flow of the water, said Allen Auerbach, who complained the problem was the result of the ongoing Army Corps of Engineers dune project. It was rushing towards our property in excessive force.

Auerbach, who lives on the 100 block of Exeter Avenue, complained to police and eventually got in contact with someone from the Army Corps to stop the flow of water.

The water comes right up to the bulkhead, Auerbach said. If we get any more water, its going to go up over it. Theres no drainage. Everything is just laying there.

Auerbach, 68, said he paid to have a private bulkhead put in prior to the dunes project.

The beach-protection project began July 17, according to the Army Corps of Engineers website. It is expected to last two months.

The dune-building and beachfill operation is proceeding south about 100 feet a day in a rolling fashion toward Longport at a cost of about $100,000 a day. About 1,000 feet of beach will be closed as the project moves down the beach. To remain economically feasible and minimize impact on residents, the project must go 24/7, Army Corps officials have said.

Margate initially challenged the need for the dunes project. Some residents argued the seawall built in the 1940s has done a better job than dunes would protecting the beachfront properties and roads from flooding and storms.

Margate voters approved a ballot question in a nonbinding referendum in November 2013 to stop the project, and the city spent more than $300,000 in attorney fees but eventually lost the challenge in Superior Court last year.

A group of homeowners also sued saying dunes would create large lagoons of standing water on the beach that could contain a mixture of trash, oil and other contaminants, providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes.

But a judge ruled that any puddles or ponding that might occur following construction of the dunes would not likely to be worse than what is already there without the dunes.
OCEAN TOWNSHIP  No one has to tell David Mitchell about the positive effects medicinal marijuana can have on a persons quality of life.

Mitchell has seen it work wonders for his 7-year-old son, Ashton, who has epilepsy and cerebral palsy, is blind and nonverbal and uses a wheelchair.

Prior to the introduction of medical marijuana in the summer of 2015, my son was hospitalized every month in the ICU for a week to two weeks because of seizures. The seizures were uncontrollable once they started. The last one in (August) 2015 lasted over 10 hours, said Mitchell, 63.

The 10-hour seizure tweaked something in Ashtons brain, so when he enters the deepest part of his sleep cycle, his brain forgets to tell his lungs to breathe  so he is on oxygen and a ventilator, Mitchell said.

Ashton has gone into cardiac arrest due to the intensity of his seizures, and his father has had to perform lifesaving CPR on him several times.

It was at this point that David Mitchell and his wife, Dana, Ashtons mother, decided to give medicinal marijuana a try.

The pharmaceuticals were not working. We talked about it. We talked to his doctors about it. We registered in the (New Jersey Medicinal Marijuana) program. My wife had to register as his caregiver, David Mitchell said. A person with epilepsy, its a struggle every day of their life.

The closest marijuana dispensary to where they live is the Compassionate Care Foundation in Egg Harbor Township.

The Mitchells had to decide what strain of marijuana to give their son. They picked a strain called Shark Shock, which has medical uses for pain, stress and muscle spasms.

Mitchell buys the marijuana as buds. He uses a device called the Magical Butter Machine to extract the essence of the cannabis into coconut oil. He combines the cannabis and coconut oil with chocolate pudding to feed to his son.

When Mitchell makes a batch of medicinal marijuana, he ends up with 600 milliliters, which lasts about five weeks.

Ashton receives three doses a day: once at breakfast, a smaller dose at 3 p.m. and a nighttime dose at 7 p.m.

Ashton has been on medicinal marijuana since August 2015, but he also is still on pharmaceuticals, Mitchell said.

From 2015 until now, he still has breakthrough seizures. ... But he has probably had (only) a half-dozen since that time, said Mitchell, who added only two of the half-dozen seizures lasted more than 5 minutes.

Mitchell said he has noticed he has been able to sometimes talk his son out of a seizure since he has been taking the medical marijuana, and he could not do that previously.

Ashton can hear. He has learned about 40 language signs, using his sense of touch. He can crawl. He can say hi, bye and Mom and Dad.

The medical marijuana truly works. It keeps it (the seizures) at bay, said Mitchell, who added his son has the worst type of cerebral palsy. He used to sleep in the fetal position. Three days after introducing medical marijuana, he slept with his legs straight.

The Mitchells have a Facebook group page dedicated to their son called givingourallforashton, which chronicles his triumphs and his lulls.

The medical marijuana has helped him tremendously, Mitchell said. It (cannabis) is an amazing medicine. Thats what people have to understand.
Ocean County residents are being encouraged to drop off their outdated or unused medications Tuesday for safe disposal in Manahawkin.

The county is hosting its second Ocean County Prescription Take-Back Day in an effort to combat prescription drug abuse, according to a statement from the county.

The event will take place from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Tuesday at the Ocean County Southern Service Center, 179 S. Main St. in Manahawkin. It will include health screenings, information tables and refreshments.

Ocean County Prosecutor Joseph Coronato will be the guest speaker. He, along with other experts in the field, will discuss the opioid crisis.

The Ocean County Prosecutors Office is making every effort to prevent pill abuse and theft by not just encouraging residents to get rid of old medications but also by providing a means to properly purge their homes of potentially dangerous expired, unused and unwanted prescription drugs, Freeholder John P. Kelly said in the statement. Prosecutor Coronato is making an effort to reach out to all Ocean County residents by raising awareness and educating them on the hazards of unused and outdated medications.

The release encourages residents to look through their medicine cabinets and to bring medication to the service center for disposal. Flushing medications down the toilet or throwing them in the trash can pose a hazard to local waterways, according to the release.

In the past three years, the Prosecutors Office has collected and destroyed 22,380 pounds of prescription drugs. Prescription Take-Back Day complements programs run by local police departments, the release said.

For more information, call the Ocean County Prosecutors Office at 732-929-2027 or your local Police Department.
EGG HARBOR TOWNSHIP  Part of the township was turned into a war zone Saturday as rifles and other firearms were aimed, fired, reloaded and fired again along West Jersey Avenue.

Soldiers, in full uniform, marched and followed orders, while others set up camp and took time to clean their weapons.

The authenticity of the scene was precisely what the members of the Greate Egg Harbor Township Historical Society had hoped for in hosting the annual Call of Duty on the grounds of its museum. The military timeline re-enactment was organized to honor the historical contributions of the American soldier through conflicts including the Revolutionary War, World War I and the Korean War.

Call of Duty offers a chance to share the stories of these soldiers through the tradition of oral history, said Ed Davenport, of Tabernacle, Burlington County, who portrayed a Korean War soldier from the Armys 224th Regiment in an encampment on the museum grounds.

We think it is important for people to remember the hardships and efforts that our veterans have gone through in preserving our country and keeping us free, said Davenport, whose father served in the same conflict.

Inside his cloth tent, pieces of his uniform were set out on a rudimentary cot. Next to the sleeping area was a table with a typewriter and some cooking supplies, authentic artifacts he said help open conversations between the re-enactors and the public.

They allow people to get comfortable and to ask questions, Davenport said. It may be something they never saw before that they had wanted to see, and we can have a nice conversation then.

The event also included a question-and-answer session with real veterans such as Tony Musarra, 85, of Egg Harbor Township, who stopped into Davenports tent to check out the encampment. Musarra served in the Korean War, and his uniform is on display at the Atlantic County Veterans Museum in Estell Manor.

Summer nor'easter brings minor flooding to low-lying areas of Jersey Shore A rare summer nor'easter dropped more than 5 inches of rain over the region Friday into Satu

He first joined the National Guard when he was just 16.

I lied about my age, and then they drafted me in 1952 for the Korean War, he said. Once there, he was stationed in North Korea with a heavy artillery unit, where he spent 17 months living in a bunker.

When youre young, you can live through anything, he said. I was only 18 then.

Musarra said he attends the historical societys event every year and enjoys watching the public learn from the presenters.

Its very interesting to see people put things together between World War II, the Korean War and Vietnam War, he said. World War II and the Korean War were very close together, only five years apart. Most of the men that I knew when I first went there were World War II transfers from Germany and Japan. They were the first ones in battle in Korea.

The event also offered the public a chance to get to know why re-enactors put the effort into presenting accurate details of the soldiers, from the type of tent that was used to the style of footwear.

City officials fend off rumors in federal prescription fraud investigation MARGATE  The flow of new information on a federal prescription-drug investigation among cit

Donald Maley, 80, an Atlantic City native who now lives in West Deptford, Gloucester County, said he was just there to enjoy the displays as a spectator, but he used to participate in Civil and Revolutionary war re-enactments.

I enjoy this hobby, said Maley, who said he appeared as a member of the Union Army in the 1989 Civil War movie Glory starring Morgan Freeman and Denzel Washington.

People dont understand us, he said of re-enactors. They have no idea that we are doing something historic. War is hell. I would never promote war. Its not a good thing. But we are historians, not warmongers. We love history. We hate war, but we like to portray what happened. We feel it is important to preserve that information.
BEACH HAVEN  A group of volunteers is working to save a small island in Barnegat Bay using recycled clam shells and oyster larvae.

If somethings not done, it will eventually disappear, said Jack Duggan, 72, of Brant Beach.

For three years, ReClam the Bay has used old clam shells to grow oysters, then transfer those oysters to the bay, where they are building the states first living shoreline at Mordecai Island. The 46-acre marsh island that runs parallel to the bay side of Beach Haven is eroding at a rate of 3 to 6 feet per year, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which is also in the midst of a wetlands restoration project there.

Mordecai Island is home to many species of wildlife, including endangered birds. ReClam the Bay hopes to help stabilize the wetlands through its project.

ReClam the Bay is a grass-roots organization with a focus on education. It was started about a decade ago by a group of people interested in helping save the environment. The name came from a phrase used by the Rutgers Cooperative Extension of Ocean County: The best way to reclaim the bay is to re-clam the bay.

In addition to its Mordecai Island project, ReClam the Bay works closely with the Barnegat Bay Shellfish Restoration Program to help repopulate the bay with oysters and clams.

The clams and oysters, were growing them here to plant them in the bay, Duggan said. Its called aquaculture.

Stockton Universitys Field Marine Station is also helping to restore the oyster population. In June, 150,000 spat that had been started by partners Parsons Mariculture were planted in the Tuckerton Reef.

Changes in the water quality, disease and overharvesting caused the New Jersey oyster population to drop significantly.

According to Stockton, the spat used were a combination of whelk shells that were purchased and the first batch of recycled clam and oyster shells from the Old Causeway Steak and Oyster House and Mud City Crab House in Manahawklin. Restaurant owner Melanie Magaziner started a shell recycling project in 2015.

Long Beach Township Mayor Joseph Mancini took notice of the oyster harvesting project and reached out to Stocktons Marine Field Station to see how his town could help. Township sustainability coordinator Angela Anderson helped recruit six restaurants to provide discarded shells, and township employee Joe Mangino collects and sorts through 50-pound bushels of shells.

These shells should not spend their life in a landfill, Anderson said. They have too important a role here.

On a recent Friday afternoon, Duggan met fellow ReClam the Bay volunteers Albert Nitche, 75, of Beach Haven and Roselle Park, Harry Patrick Befumo, 52, of Beach Haven, and Dominic Tumas, 71, of Beach Haven and Little Egg Harbor Township, at the old Coast Guard station at Pelham Avenue.

The all-volunteer group gets oyster larvae  about 2.5 million in just a small drop  from the Rutgers University Aquaculture Innovation Center in Cape May and places them in a 15-by-6-foot tank of water called an upweller. They add several bags of recycled clam and conch shells, giving the larvae three days to attach to the old shells and develop into spat.

Duggan said the clam shells come from a clam-processing plant in North Jersey. The group also uses conch shells shipped from Cape May.

After two to five weeks, the volunteers move the bags of shells with oyster spat to the bay.

Those oysters can be used to build structure, Duggan said.

In addition to the bagged shells, the living shoreline is made up of 12-by-12-by-8-inch oyster castles created from cinderblocks with spat attached.

ReClam the Bay is completing this project in conjunction with the Mordecai Island Trust. The shoreline, also called a breakwater, will enable tidal exchange, promote sediment transport and support aquatic habitat. Duggan said the project also helps protect homeowners.

The bay is very much open here, and when the storms come, theyll be a strong fetch that will rush up against the island, he said. If that island isnt there, Beach Haven gets pounded.

For more information, visit reclamthebay.org.
By PTI: Patna, Jul 30 (PTI) A Muslim JD(U) MLA of Bihar got so carried away by the new-found bonhomie between his party JD(U) and BJP that he chanted Jai Sri Ram, drawing the ire of a senior cleric who said he stood "expelled from Islam" for his action.

Khurshid alias Feroz Ahmad enthusiastically made the chant, a favourite of the Hindu far right that wants a Ram temple at the place in Ayodhya where the Babri mosque stood before being razed down in 1992, after Chief Minister Nitish Kumar won the trust vote on July 28.

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Khurshid was later inducted into the ministry and now holds the minority welfare portfolio.

"I worship both Ram and Rahim. I dont have any hesitation in saying Jai Sri Ram if it is in the interest of the people of Bihar and benefits them," Khurshid later told journalists, proudly displaying the red Hindu sacred thread called Kalawa or Mouli on his wrist.

Khurshids secular protestations did not go down well with the Muslim clergy and some politicians but his own party backed him.

Sohail Ahmad Qasmi, the Mufti of Imarat Shariah, Patna, said,"Any person who says he worships both Rasul and Ram, bows his head before every faith, then shouts Jai Sri Ram, that person is automatically expelled from Islam."

"I have seen his statements in newspapers and also circulating on Whatsapp. In this background I have expressed my opinion ... It is not a fatwa which has been issued by the Imarat Shariah. Considering my responsibility as an Aalim and Mufti, I have expressed my opinion," he said.

Khurshid also drew criticism from senior RJD leader and former minister Abdul Bari Siddiqui, who said it appeared that the minister had got the "badshahat" (kingdom) somewhere.

NCP leader and former union minister Tariq Anwar said it showed that the minister can stoop to any level to grab power. "People will teach a lesson to such people," he said.

As criticism mounted, Khurshid tendered apology. "If my statement has hurt anyone, then I tender my apology. My statement has been distorted."

Khurshid said Nitish Kumar asked him to reconsider his statement if it hurt sentiments of people and tender an apology.

JD(U) spokesman Neeraj Kumar defended Khurshid and said the slogan raised by him was not intended to hurt anyones religious sentiments.

"This is the country where great personalities like Mahatma Gandhi used to take the name of Ram and Rahim in the same breath. This a conspiracy to finish the Ganga-Jamuni (inclusive) tradition," he said. PTI AR KK SRY SK SK

--- ENDS ---
ASPEN, Colo., July 30, 2017 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Aspen Institute and Anne Welsh McNulty announced the tenth annual John P. McNulty Prize Laureates, four extraordinary leaders from across the world who felt the moral imperative to act, and who have used their entrepreneurialism and professional expertise to address seemingly intractable challenges in their communities.

From training Syrian journalists in objective, reliable reporting on the conflict; to giving Palestinian and Honduran youth experience in governance and holding elections; to extending training and access to markets for formerly displaced Ugandan farmers; to creating a national platform for civic engagement in Panama, the 2017 Laureates are changing the world in innovative, scalable and replicable ways.

"These individuals have each used their specific expertise and skills to build world-changing organizations, but what really unites them is that their ventures all put agency, opportunity and self-determination in the hands of the individuals and communities they benefit," said Anne Welsh McNulty, President of the John P. and Anne Welsh McNulty Foundation and Trustee of the Aspen Institute.

The McNulty Prize is given annually to honor the visionary work of Fellows of the Aspen Global Leadership Network and their social ventures. The 2017 Laureates were announced on July 29 at the Resnick Aspen Action Forum, and each Laureate will receive $25,000 to further his or her venture. An international jury, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, international statesman Olara Otunnu, development expert Brizio Biondi-Morra, and President of the Ford Foundation Darren Walker, will select the winner. The winning venture will receive $100,000, and will be announced in November in New York City.

The 2017 Laureates:

SYRIA DIRECT | AMJAD TADROS

Jordan

By training new generations of Syrian reporters, entrepreneur and award-winning journalist Amjad Tadros is ensuring that Syrian perspectives are heard, and that the world has access to objective, truthful in-depth reporting on the region.

TRAIL (Transforming Agriculture for Improved Livelihoods) | BRUCE ROBERTSON

Uganda

Following the Lord's Resistance Army's devastation of Northern Uganda, agriculture executive Bruce Robertson is rebuilding the region's economy and the livelihoods of smallholder farmers through agronomy training, financial literacy, and access to markets and capital.

VOLUNTARIOS DE PANAMA | CAROLINA FREIRE

Panama

Uniting a broad network of private, public and nonprofit stakeholders, public policy specialist Carolina Freire is shifting the national culture around civic engagement, and propelling citizens to address community challenges by spearheading Panama's first national volunteer platform.

YOUTH LOCAL COUNCILS | LANA ABU-HIJLEH

Palestine with global replication

Building the next generation's experience and faith in peaceful democracy, development expert Lana Abu-Hijleh is enabling youth in places like Palestine and Honduras to hold democratic elections, serve constituent communities, and practice good governance in full-fledged councils.

The announcement was celebrated on July 29 at the Resnick Aspen Action Forum. Watch the Laureates pitch their bold ideas: http://agln.aspeninstitute.org/live

About The John P. McNulty Prize

Founded by Anne Welsh McNulty in honor of her late husband John, the McNulty Prize celebrates the boldness and impact of individuals who are using their exceptional leadership abilities, entrepreneurial spirit and private sector talents to address the world's toughest challenges.

Each year, the winner is selected by a jury that has previously included Mary Robinson, Bill Gates, Sr. and Sir Richard Branson. The winner receives $100,000 and each Laureate receives $25,000 to further his or her venture. The Prize is given in partnership with the Aspen Institute, and recognizes exceptional leadership ventures undertaken by Fellows of the Aspen Global Leadership Network.

For more information, visit www.mcnultyprize.org. Follow @McNultyPrize on Twitter and join the conversation using #McNultyPrize.

The Aspen Global Leadership Network (AGLN) is a growing, worldwide community of more than 2,500 high-integrity, entrepreneurial leaders from over 50 countries who share a commitment to enlightened leadership and to using their creativity, energy and resources to tackle the foremost societal challenges of our times. Fellows convene annually at the AGLN's flagship event, the Resnick Aspen Action Forum. For more information, visit agln.aspeninstitute.org.

The Aspen Institute is an educational and policy studies organization based in Washington, DC. Its mission is to foster leadership based on enduring values and to provide a nonpartisan venue for dealing with critical issues. The Institute is based in Washington, DC; Aspen, Colorado; and on the Wye River on Maryland's Eastern Shore. It also has offices in New York City and an international network of partners. For more information, visit www.aspeninstitute.org.

SOURCE The Aspen Institute

Related Links

http://www.aspeninstitute.org


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Gandhinagar, July 26 : Congress President Sonia Gandhi's political secretary and senior Congress leader Ahmed Patel on Wednesday here filed his nomination for the August 8 Rajya Sabha elections, with the party exuding confidence of his victory.

Flanked by state Congress president Bharatsinh Solanki and party national General Secretary in-charge of Gujarat affairs Ashok Gehlot, Patel submitted his papers at the state Assembly in the presence of a majority of the 57 Congress MLAs and one each of the Nationalist Congress Party and Janata Dal-United.

The 67-year-old Congress leader, who hails from Bharuch in south Gujarat, first became a member of the Upper House in 1993. If he wins, this will be his fifth term.

There were apprehensions in the party about Patel being able to get the required 46 first preference votes, given the cross-voting during the July 17 presidential poll when as many as 11 legislators cast their votes for NDA nominee Ram Nath Kovind.

On July 21, Leader of Opposition and veteran party leader Shankersinh Vaghela resigned. He is believed to have the backing of at least a dozen MLAs. Significantly, though Vaghela quit as Leader of Opposition, he announced he will resign as MLA only after the Rajya Sabha polls.

Ashok Gehlot and Bharatsinh Solanki allayed any fears of Patel losing, and claimed the party has the support of two legislators of the NCP and one of JD-U.

Solanki added that a whip has been issued to all the MLAs to vote for the official nominee Ahmed Patel, and if any of them fails to do so, he or she could invite disqualification for six years for defying it.

Three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat have fallen vacant.

The term of two others, Union Minister Smriti Irani and Dilip Pandya of BJP, also ends on August 18 along with that of Patel.

However, they are yet to file nominations. A decision regarding the BJP members is expected on Wednesday evening during the party's Election Committee meeting.

The last date for submitting papers for the elections is July 28.
Bangkok, July 26 : A mobile application on the comprehensive history of the Khmer Rouge has been launched in Cambodia to ensure that Cambodian citizens, 70 per cent of whom are less than 30 years old, do not forget one of the darkest chapters in the country's history.

The free app, developed by the Bophana Audiovisual Resource Centre, was launched on Tuesday and tells the story of the Pol Pot-led regime since its inception as a Communist guerrilla group in the 1950s, Efe news reported.

Around 1.7 million people died between 1975 and 1979 during the reign of the Khmer Rouge in the country from forced labour, disease, starvation and political purges.

The Khmer Rouge disintegrated after Pol Pot died in 1998 in a jungle in northern Cambodia. The app, funded by the European Union and the Rei Foundation, will be presented in 80 schools and 20 universities in October.

The release of the app, only available on Android devices for now, comes at a time when an international court is prosecuting the last two surviving top leaders of the Khmer Rouge regime.

One is the second-in-command and chief ideologist of the regime, Nuon Chea, and the other is its former head of State, Khieu Samphan -- both were sentenced to life imprisonment during the first part of the trial in 2014.

The trial was divided into two phases due to the complexity of the charges and fears that the accused, both aged over 80 years, would die before the ruling was delivered.

In June, during the second part of the trial, the Cambodia Tribunal adjourned for sentencing the two leaders, indicted for genocide and crimes against humanity.

The international court passed its first sentence in 2010 against Kaing Guek Eav, alias Duch, who managed the S-21 prison and torture site, where between 14,000-16,000 people died.

Duch was initially sentenced to 35 years in prison, but the judgement was later changed to life imprisonment.
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 28 (PTI) BJP president Amit Shah will be in Uttar Pradesh on a three-day visit from tomorrow to hold a series of meetings with local leaders and state government ministers, as part of his nationwide tour to strengthen the party.

Shah is on a 110-day non-continuous tour across states, and UP holds special significance for the BJP ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha election, as it had won an unprecedented 71 of the total 80 seats in the 2014 polls. Its ally Apna Dal had won two seats.

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A party statement said Shah will hold meetings with leaders drawn from the state tomorrow in Lucknow followed by interactions with different groups from society and then with allies and other party leaders, including ministers of the UP government.

He will continue to have meetings with various party groups to take stock of their work, and will speak at an intellectual summit in the state capital.

Shah has undertaken the drive in the birth centenary year of the partys ideologue Deen Dayal Upadhyay and the party has deployed over four lakh workers across the country to strengthen its organisation at the booth-level, the statement said.

The BJP had swept to a thumping majority in the state following the Assembly election held in March but the possibility of regional outfits, BSP and SP, coming together in the future can make the road ahead more challenging for the saffron party. PTI KR KUN

--- ENDS ---
New Delhi, July 26 : Finance Minister Arun Jaitley on Wednesday refused to reply to opposition queries whether the government is going to demonetise Rs 2,000 notes or whether it is planning to issue coins of bigger denominations such as Rs 1,000.

The issue was raised by Samajwadi Party leader Naresh Agrawal during the Zero Hour as soon as the House met for the day.

"It's been a tradition that when Parliament is in session, the government has to inform the House of any policy decisions it makes. Now the government has decided to stop printing Rs 2,000 notes," Agrawal said.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad also took up the issue, demanding to know if the government is coming out with high denomination coins.

"I would like to know from the Finance Minister who is here. We read in newspapers that the government is going to introduce Rs 1,000, Rs, 100, Rs 200 coins. What is the actual (position)? Are we to go by the media reports or the Minister would enlighten the House?" he said.

"We must know what is the truth behind these reports," he added.

Tiruchi Siva of DMK and Sharad Yadav of Janata Dal-United too demanded to know the government's position on the issue.

"Such reports will give birth to rumours. People may stop transacting in Rs 2,000 notes. The government must put these rumours to rest," Yadav said.

Deputy Chairman P.J. Kurein, who was presiding over the House, asked Jaitley if he would like to respond to the queries, but he refused.

"The Finance Minister does not want to respond. What can I do?" Kurien said.
Patna, July 26 : RJD chief Lalu Prasad on Wednesday said Nitish Kumar's resignation as Bihar Chief Minister was "pre-planned" as he has not ruled out the possibility of joining hands with the BJP.

Addressing reporters after Nitish Kumar resigned over the corruption allegations against Deputy Chief Minister Tejashwi Yadav, Lalu Prasad called for a meeting of the MLAs of the Grand Alliance - JD-U, RJD and Congress - to elect a new leader.

"Nitish is playing into the hands of the BJP. After resigning as Chief Minister he did not rule out the possibility of joining hands with the BJP. Everyone knows that Nitish is aligned with Modi," Lalu told reporters here.

Lalu also said that within minutes of Nitish Kumar's resignation Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted welcoming the move.

Lalu said that with the resignation of Nitish Kumar, the whole government including Tejashwi Yadav has gone.

"Now let Nitish Kumar and Tejashwi stay out and the MLAs of JD-U, RJD and Congress should elect a new leader. Since we are the single largest party in the Assembly so the claim of legislative party leader goes with us," Lalu Prasad said.

He said that Janata Dal-United President Nitish Kumar had asked for the resignation of Tejashwi Yadav.

"We were not at fault so why should we (Tejashwi) resign. As far as explanation was concerned, everything was explained to Nitish Kumar," he said.

Attacking the JD-U leader, Lalu Prasad said that the JD-U leader was facing "cases under the murder and Arms Act".

"He is facing charges of murder, which is bigger than the charges of corruption. He has accepted about the charges in his election affidavit," Lalu said.

"We were aware of the case since long but did not find it appropriate to disclose. Nitish Kumar knows about this so he tendered his resignation. He is aligning with the RSS. Everything was set," he added.
Patna, July 28 : RJD legislators staged protests outside the Bihar assembly on Friday ahead of the floor test of the Nitish Kumar government and described him as the "Chief Minister of the Sangh".

Nitish Kumar along with the BJP formed the new government on Thursday after dumping the RJD-Congress' Grand Alliance on Wednesday.

Shouting slogans and carrying placards, the Rashtriya Janata Dal legislators stood at the main entrance of the assembly, protesting against Nitish Kumar.

Former Deputy Chief Minister Tejashjwi Yadav also joined them.

He accused Nitish Kumar of cheating the people of Bihar and called him "Chief Minister of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)".

"He cheated and betrayed the people of the state who gave him massive mandate. He played dirty politics. He just looked for an excuse to defame us and join the NDA," Tejashwi Yadav said before entering the House.

"Everyone can see how he switched sides. Earlier he used to speak of Sangh-mukt Bharat and now he is the Chief Minister of the Sangh. He has changed his stand from 'Hey Ram' to 'Jai Shri Ram'," he said.

He also told reporters that he would raise the issue inside the House. He accused the BJP of corruption charges.

Some RJD legislators shouted slogans like "Nitish Kumar hai hai", "Nitish Kumar dhokhebaaz (unreliable).

According to party leaders, RJD planned to stage protest inside the state assembly and will walk out before Nitish Kumar proved his majority on the floor of the house.

Nitish Kumar and Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi have reached in the state assembly.
New Delhi : Nitish Kumar may have won the trust vote in the Bihar legislature, but he is now weaker than what he was during his earlier stint as the Chief Minister. At that time, he had become a larger than life figure because of his success in controlling lawlessness in the state and preparing the ground for development. As a result, he was even seen as a possible player on the national stage.

But that aura is gone. The reason is his journey from the "communal" to the "secular" camp and back. Had he moved in only one direction, he would have appeared more straightforward than at present. But trips back and forth tend to undermine a politician's credibility. He is seen then as an opportunist on the lookout for the best chance.

If he had wanted to retain his trustworthiness in the wake of the corruption charges against Lalu Prasad and his family, he should have called for fresh elections. That would have been a message to Lalu Prasad as well, for it would have shown him -- as well as other politicians -- that sleaze doesn't pay. As it is, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief is barred from contesting elections because of his conviction in the fodder scam.

But switching sides within two years of securing a mandate has put Nitish Kumar in the lowly category of the Congress MLAs in Gujarat who have been lured away to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) by the indefatigable Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo.

Nitish Kumar's latest manoeuvre may well turn out to be his third political mistake. The first was in 2013 when he hurriedly quit the BJP because he feared that Modi's rise will erode his Muslim support base. As long as Modi did not venture out of Gujarat, Nitish Kumar was happy in the BJP in the company of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. But Modi's entry into the big league unnerved him.

So he ran from the rock of a changing BJP to the hard place of his old friend of the days of the JP movement, Lalu Prasad. This was Nitish Kumar's second mistake, for he ignored the possibility that the hero/villain of the RJD's "jungle raj" in Bihar may ultimately be his nemesis.

And so it has proved to be. But the way out for Nitish Kumar was not to retrace his steps, for he has gone back to the same person from whom he ran away four years ago. If the Bihar Chief Minister was afraid in 2013 that Modi would scare away the Muslims, he should harbour the same fear now when the rampaging gau rakshaks have become a frightening menace for the minorities.

True, Modi of 2017 is not the Modi of 2002, when he was called a "modern day Nero" by the Supreme Court, because he has been speaking out against the cow vigilantes. Modi has also succeeded in putting an end to the ghar wapsi and love jehad campaigns. But how far the BJP has changed with its veneration for the holy cow and its belief in the therapeutic value of cow's urine is open to question.

Nitish Kumar is teaming up, therefore, with a party whose pursuit of Hindutva and ultra-nationalism is far more aggressive at present than in the time of Vajpayee and Advani.

Politically, too, the BJP believes that the future belongs to it mainly because of its spectacular success in UP. Now, Nitish Kumar's floor-crossing will convince the BJP that the Hindi heartland is firmly in its grip. It is unlikely, therefore, that it will allow Nitish Kumar to call the shots as before. Instead, the Modi dispensation may placate him with a special financial package for Bihar.

What the latest events have shown is that Nitish Kumar's destiny is to be a provincial politician, remaining confined like his friend-cum-foe-cum-friend-cum-foe again, Lalu Prasad, in Bihar. Any hope that he may have had of playing a larger role, which was possible if he had stayed with the opposition, is unlikely to be fulfilled.

Bihar itself may gain because of the centre's largesse and Nitish Kumar's administrative capabilities. But the future of his party -- the Janata Dal-United -- is uncertain because its Muslim and Yadav components may drift away. The fading out of the party will make Nitish Kumar even more beholden to the BJP.

The RJD, on the other hand, is likely to grow and fill the empty opposition space in Bihar in the absence of the Janata Dal-United and the Congress.

Nitish Kumar's well-wishers will hope that with his amiable personality, he will exert a moderating influence on the BJP and be on Modi's side in reining in the hardliners and turning the focus resolutely on development. That is the only way he can redeem himself.

(Amulya Ganguli is a political analyst. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached at amulyaganguli@gmail.com)
United Nations, July 29 : United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres on Friday condemned the launch of another "ballistic missile of possible intercontinental range" by North Korea.

The UN chief said that "this is again a manifest violation of Security Council resolutions," Xinhua quoted UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq as saying.

"The North Korean leadership must comply fully with its international obligations and work together with the international community to resolve the outstanding issues on the Korean Peninsula," said Haq.

The Secretary-General reiterated his call on Pyongyang to respond to the SOuth Korea's proposals to reopen communication channels, particularly military-to-military, to lower the risk of miscalculation or misunderstanding and reduce tensions, he said.

The Pentagon said that an initial assessment showed the missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile.

The missile travelled about 1,000 kilometres before splashing down into the sea, said Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis in a statement.
Washington, July 29 : President Donald Trump has planned to sign a bill approved by Congress which will impose new sanctions on Russia, the White House announced.

"President Donald Trump read early drafts of the bill and negotiated regarding critical elements of it," White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said in a statement late Friday.

"He has now reviewed the final version and, based on its responsiveness to his negotiations, approves the bill and intends to sign it," The Hill magazine quoted Sanders as saying.

The new legislation will effectively tie the President's hands when it comes to lifting sanctions.

The House passed their version of the legislation on Tuesday, while senators voted 98-2 on Thursday night to send the legislation to Trump's desk, The Hill reported.

The bill gives Congress the ability to block Trump from lifting the Russia sanctions and also includes new penalties against Iran and North Korea.

The new sanctions come as the White House grapples with several ongoing probes into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, which the President has blasted as unnecessary.

In response to the bill, Russia announced that it was expelling American diplomats and seizing property, reports CNN.

Moscow said on Friday that the US must reduce the staff at its embassy and consulates to 450, the same number Russia is allowed to have in the US.

Russia is also barring Americans from using two diplomatic facilities.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that while Moscow has been doing "everything possible" to improve the relationship, "recent events showed that US policy was in the hands of Russophobic forces, pushing Washington to the path of confrontation."
Seoul, July 29 : South Korea and the US conducted another round of combined ballistic missile drills on Saturday in a show of firepower against North Korea, their armed forces said.

The live-fire exercise held along the east coast involved the South's Hyunmoo-2 and the US Eight Army's ATACMS, Yonhap news agency quoted the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) as saying.

They fired missiles into the East Sea, where the North lobbed what's believed to be an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) hours earlier.

The Hyunmoo-2 is a road-mobile tactical ballistic missile with a range of 300 kilometers. The ATACMS, or the Army Tactical Missile System, is a similar-range guided missile.

The allies reaffirmed their capabilities for "precise strike on the enemy's leadership," the JCS said in a statement.

The US military unit stressed that the ATACMS can be rapidly deployed and provide "deep-strike precision capability."

It enables the allied forces to engage a full array of time-critical targets under all weather conditions.

The two sides held such joint ballistic missile drills early this month following the communist nation's firing of the Hwasong-14 ICBM.

Earlier in the day Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis told media that it has detected an ICBM launch by North Korea at about 10:45 a.m. eastern time.

The launch was first reported by the Japanese government which said that the missile flew for about 45 minutes and appeared to have fallen into Japan's exclusive economic zone (EEZ), Xinhua news agency reported.

According to Japan government spokesman Yoshihide Suga, no damage has reported to any vessel or aircraft.

He also said that the missile launch was in violation of the United Nations' related resolutions and Japan protests the move on strongest terms.

The South Korean media also reported the missile launch and immediately reported the move to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who convened an emergency security meeting early Saturday.

According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), North Korea fired the missile into its east waters.

Yonhap news agency cited JCS as saying that the missile was launched into the East Sea from North Korea's Jagang province.
Moscow, July 29 : Seven people from Central Asian countries were detained on Friday on suspicion of planning terrorist attacks on the rail transport system and crowded places in Russia's second-largest city of St. Petersburg, the Federal Security Service said.

"The identity of the detainees is not disclosed in the interests of the investigation," Xinhua quoted the security service as saying.

On April 3, several Central Asian nationals launched a bomb attack in St. Petersburg's metro system, killing 14 people and injuring more than 50 others.
Riyadh, July 29 : Forces of the Saudi Arabia-led coalition on Friday killed at least 40 Houthi militants in a Yemeni region near the Saudi border, the Al Arabiya TV reported.

The Saudi-led forces, supported by Apache attack helicopters and artillery, killed the Houthi militants in an area near the Saudi border city Jazan, after managing to lure them into a place within their target range, Xinhua cited the report as saying.

The coalition forces set up the ambush after getting intelligence that the Houthi militants and forces loyal to former President Ali Abdullah Saleh were mobilising in the region near the Saudi border, it said.

The four-hour operations were carried out opposite the Al-Khashl, Al-Fadna and Al-Malhama mountains.

Saudi forces also fired rockets at strongholds held by Houthi militants near the border of Saada province in Yemen, it added.

Yemen has been suffering from a civil war, which began in 2015 after the Houthi militants, with support from forces loyal to Saleh, ousted the UN-backed transitional government and occupied capital Sanaa.

The legitimate government controls the south and some eastern parts, while the Houthi/Saleh alliance controls other parts.

The Saudi-led coalition, which includes nine African and Middle East countries, launched a military intervention in Yemen since March 2015 to support the government led by President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi.
July 29 (IANS) A Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) leader was shot dead on Saturday by unidentified assailants in Bihar's Siwan district, police said.

"A group of armed unidentified assailants shot five bullets into Minhaj Khan's head while he was sleeping in his house in Sheikhpura village," district police officer Sanjit Kumar said.

According to the police, Khan was a popular leader among youths and he had nearly 5,000 followers on social media.

He is also said to be close to former Siwan MP Mohammad Shahabuddin who is currently in prison.
The city's civic bodies are planning to make discarding of waste in public places and even allowing mosquito breeding in households a criminal offence.

The MCDs have proposed to increase the fine for littering caused by 'langars' to Rs 5,000, while penalty for dumping construction material on roadside could be fixed at Rs 10,000

By Rakesh Ranjan: Trash the city and you may end up behind bars.

To deter litterbugs, Delhi's BJP-ruled civic bodies are planning to make discarding of waste in public places and even allowing mosquito breeding in households a criminal offence with appropriate jail terms under the Indian Penal Code.

The East Delhi Municipal Corporation has already issued orders in this regard and the two other agencies will follow suit, officials said. Municipal magistrates will keep a check on violators and ensure they are prosecuted. A person can get a maximum jail term of six months for such an offence.

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The Narendra Modi government last year directed states to start levying fines for littering, open defecation and public urination as the Prime Minister's flagship Swachh Bharat Mission failed to have the desired effect in urban areas.

'EXISTING PENALTY TOO WEAK'

According to MCD officials, the existing penalty on violating sanitation bylaws is too weak to deter people and so it was decided to slap criminal charges on them. The imprisonment would vary from one month to six months depending on severity of the violation.

"To keep Delhi free of littering and insanitary conditions, various provisions of IPC and the Delhi Municipal Corporation (DMC) Act may be invoked against the violators...departments may proceed accordingly," said an order issued by the chief law officer of the East Delhi Municipal Corporation.

Public spaces in the Capital often are eyesores full of rotting piles of garbage along the streets, in neighbourhoods, public parks and playgrounds, and outside fancy air-conditioned malls and five-star hotels.

HIGH COURT INSTRUCTIONS

The move from the corporations follows instructions of the Delhi High Court to maintain proper sanitation in the city. The court had recently pulled up the three civic bodies and had said that even citizens should take the responsibility of keeping their surroundings clean.

The HC directed that a time-bound garbage collection system be set up to prevent the piling of waste. A senior MCD official said mosquito breeding in households is a key concern of the civic body as this could result into the outbreak of vectorborne diseases like dengue and chikungunya.

"Cases of dengue in recent years have been on the rise, claiming several lives. The occupants of a house where dengue larva is found may be booked for endangering public life and causing health hazards. The provision attracts a fine and imprisonment of up to six months," he said.

Similarly, negligence by people that is likely to spread fatal diseases would also be dealt with strictly. The civic body has identified 14 provisions under IPC to deal with sanitation woes. Any pollution that may cause fouling of drinking water has also been put in the category of criminal offences.

'FAILED ATTEMPTS'

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Officials said repeated attempts by the MCDs to amend the sanitation bylaws for higher penalty have failed to yield results. The draft of the amendment is pending with the Delhi government for the last seven years. The modified rules would have provision for hefty penalties up to Rs 10,000 and five times higher for repeated offenders.

Apart from the fine, the civic bodies have also proposed widening the ambit of the law. Littering caused by distributing food material (langar), illegal burning of solid waste, improper storage of construction material and non-segregation of recyclable and nonrecyclable waste will attract fines.

These activities were till now undefined and so exempted from prosecution. The MCDs proposed to increase the fine for littering caused by langars to Rs 5,000, while penalty for dumping construction material on roadside was fixed at Rs 10,000.

The proposed amendment prescribed a fine of Rs 500 for littering, spitting and urinating in public places. It also empowers the municipal magistrates to order community services, like road cleaning, garbage and graffiti removal, in case a person fails to pay the fine.

The amendment in "Delhi Sanitation and Public Health Bylaws" was proposed by the erstwhile Municipal Corporation of Delhi (MCD) on June 23, 2010 and the civic body had adopted it through a resolution passed by the House.

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--- ENDS ---
New Delhi : It reflects on the delicate diplomacy involved that the principal issue in the China-India standoff at Doklam is being mentioned only in muted tones. The problem is the undemarcated boundary between China and Bhutan. This demarcation would require Bhutan and China to settle the matter. The two doing a pirouette is not a good sight for India, which has a special bond with Bhutan sanctified in a treaty signed in 1949. Clause 2 of the treaty amended in 2007 (on which later) stated that Thimpu would be "guided by the advice of the government of India in its external relations". How can Thimpu settle its border, independent of the Sino-Indian boundary?

Thimpu needed chaperoning when it took its first baby steps as a sovereign state. But once it came of age and made a formal debut at the UN's great ball (at India's initiative) in 1971, it began to feel the urge to dance with other partners, of course, without rupturing the special bond dictated by the 1949 treaty. India would remain more equal than others but others there shall surely be. India says "fine" but has palpitations when it fears that Bhutan may be groping for China's hand.

At the coronation of the present king's father Jigme Singye Wangchuk in 1974, Foreign Minister Dawa Tsering said something that was not honeyed music to New Delhi.

India's advice in the conduct of foreign affairs was welcome but "not binding" on Bhutan, he said. Indeed, among those invited to the coronation was China which turned up with a delegation, not a pleasing sight for the Indian contingent. A gentle, feather touch has marked Indo-Bhutanese diplomacy in both the capitals. Years 1978-79, when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the External Affairs Minister, were marked by considerable warmth in relations.

In August 1978, diplomatic missions in New Delhi received a circular note from the Bhutan mission that henceforth it should be addressed as the Royal Bhutan Embassy. The upgradation of the mission was not without considerable debate in South Block.

Prime Minister Morarji Desai downwards there was an entire hierarchy, principally Foreign Secretary Jagat Mehta, endorsing a more relaxed policy towards Bhutan freeing the Himalayan kingdom from the more restrictive interpretations of the 1949 treaty. But there were hawks too.

Desai's government fell in July 1979 making way for Charan Singh's five-month rule. More damage was done to New Delhi's relations with Thimpu during this brief period by the new, inexperienced External Affairs Minister Shyam Nandan Mishra than at any other period.

He led the Indian delegation to the Havana summit of Non-Aligned Nations where the King of Bhutan took a position on a key issue which was independent to the brief Mishra was carrying.

The cold war was at its peak. Indo-China was still at the centre of conflict. The two blocs were in fierce competition on who should occupy Kampuchea's seat at the summit. Pol Pot, backed by the US and China, or Heng Samrin, installed in Phnom Penh after Vietnam ousted Pol Pot. He set up sanctuaries on the border with Thailand.

It seems almost comical to reflect that the world was, in the late 70s, riveted on Phnom Penh, Pol Pot and Heng Samrin. But contemplate the global picture, and the chips fall into place.

In 1972, Nixon's visit to Beijing, creating a triangular strategic balance disadvantageous to Moscow. In 1978 Communists had come to power in Kabul, paving the way for the Soviet invasion. Next year, the Shah fell in Tehran. A pro-West Morarji Desai lost power in 1979. But in Pakistan, a pro-West Zia ul Haq held on to power.

After what I saw at the battle of Lang Son, it was clear as daylight who won, but American media dragged its feet conceding victory to Vietnam in the Sino-Vietnam war of 1979. Vietnam's ouster of Pol Pot, his genocidal record notwithstanding, was, on the global chessboard, a reversal for both China and the US. Their romance was in its 9th year.

It was in this tense global situation that Mishra, on his first mission as Foreign Minister, attempted to goad the King towards Heng Samrin (Soviet Union) while his own position was unclear. He must have made for a clumsy diplomat, because the King voted for Pol Pot much to the glee of the US, China and Pakistan.

So cross was the King by the indecorous way he had been handled in Havana that, on his way back to Thimpu, he sought me out for what turned out to be a controversial interview. This was the only interview the King of Bhutan had ever granted to the media. I was then the Special Correspondent of the Indian Express.

He clarified his vote in Havana. If Bhutan had not asked for Pol Pot's representative to be seated at Havana, it would have been tantamount to endorsing Vietnamese armed intervention in Kampuchea. He then made the allegation: "India took no position at all: Can you blame us if we took one and can our stand be described as being in opposition to India?" India's stand was neither here nor there: Let Pol Pot be seated but not participate -- a non-stand endorsed at an earlier NAM meet.

On the relevance of the 1949 treaty, he said: "If you want my candid reply and not a diplomatic one -- the treaty can certainly be brought up to date." The two countries have not had serious differences in the interpretation of Article 2 of the treaty. "But why should we retain a treaty which can lend itself to loose interpretations?"

The King was uncomfortable with the expression "close consultations" defining relations. He preferred "close understanding" -- consultations implied advice.

The spirit of what the King said in September 1979 influenced the language of the treaty when it was revised in 2007. The new words were, "India and Bhutan will cooperate closely with each other on issues relating to their national interests. Neither government should allow its territory for activities harmful to its national security."

What will be the upshot of the Doklam standoff? Well, the King's explosive interview (on which more later) did have a ripple effect which, in slow measure, resulted in an amended treaty, freeing Bhutan somewhat.

In the given situation, similar advantages will accrue to Bhutan post Doklam. These advantages will not displease China.

After his return from Beijing, the National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, must brief the diplomatic corps in New Delhi which so far has heard only from the Chinese here and in important capitals. To my knowledge, only the Americans have been briefed by South Block.

(Saeed Naqvi is a commentator on political and diplomatic affairs. The views expressed are personal. He can be reached on saeednaqvi@hotmail.com )
Pyongyang, July 29 : North Korea has confirmed that it has "successfully" test fired a second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and described it as a "stern warning" to the US, the media reported on Saturday.

A combination of US, South Korean and Japanese analyses of Friday's launch from Mupyong-ni, near North Korea's border with China, showed the missile flew about 47 minutes, going 3,700 km high and for a distance of 1,000 km before falling into the Sea of Japan, reports CNN.

If the missile were fired on a flatter, standard trajectory, it would have major US cities like Los Angeles, Denver and Chicago well within its range, with possibly the ability to reach as far as New York and Boston.

South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff said on Saturday that the latest ICBM is more advanced than one launched earlier this month based on the range it travelled. Experts had said that test showed Pyongyang had the ability to hit Alaska.

A statement from Pyongyang's state-run Korean Central News Agency on Saturday said in a statement that the latest missile launch was a Hwasong-14, the same missile tested earlier in the month.

Friday's test was designed to show the Hwasong-14's maximum range with a "large-sized heavy nuclear warhead", the statement said.

It said Washington should regard the launch as a "grave warning".

US President Donald Trump condemned the launch and said: "Threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people.

"The US will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region."

South Korean President Moon Jae-in in an emergency meeting on Saturday called for a "stern response" and warned that the latest test could bring about a fundamental change in the security landscape of the region.

He also asked his administration to study the possibility of imposing "strong and effective measures" and unilateral sanctions on North Korea "if necessary".

Meanwhile, Chinese Foreign ministry spokesperson Geng Shuang on Saturday asked North Korea to respect the resolutions of the UN Security Council and refrain from any actions that could escalate tensions in the region, reports Xinhua news agency.

Pyongyang has carried out 12 missile tests since February and conducted its first-ever test of an ICBM on July 4 -- which it claims could reach "anywhere in the world", CNN reported.

Less than six years into his reign, Kim Jong-un has tested more missiles than his father and grandfather combined, according to military experts.
Tokyo, July 29 : Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said early on Saturday that North Korea's missile launch on Friday underscores grave and real security threat to his country.

He also said that Japan will stay alert about possible further provocations by North Korea and Japan has no other option but to increase pressure on Pyongyang with the international community, Xinhua news agency reported.

Abe made the remarks after a National Security Council meeting convened following the missile launch.

Japan's top government spokesman Yoshihide Suga said that Japan's response to the missile launch would not be affected by Japanese Defense Minister Tomomi Inada's resignation on Friday and Japan will keep working closely with the US and South Korea over the issue.

Suga said that no damage has reported to any vessel or aircraft, adding that the missile launch was in violation of the United Nations' related resolutions.

Earlier in the day, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis told media that it has detected an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) launch by North Korea.

The South Korean media also reported the missile launch and immediately reported the move to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who convened an emergency security meeting early Saturday.

According to South Korea's Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), North Korea fired the missile into its east waters.

Yonhap news agency cited JCS as saying that the missile was launched into the East Sea from North Korea's Jagang province.

On July 4, North Korea announced a successful test-launch of an ICBM, dubbed Hwasong-14, which flew around 930 km and was lofted as high as about 2,800 km.
United Nations, July 29 : India is the world's third-biggest exporter of beef and is projected to hold on to that position over the next decade, according to a report by the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Organisation for Economic Cooperation (OECD).

OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2017-2026 report released here this week, said that India exported 1.56 million tonnes of beef last year and was expected to maintain "its position as the third-largest beef exporter, accounting for 16 per cent of global exports in 2026" by exporting 1.93 tonnes that year.

The type of beef exported was not specified, but the meat exported appeared to be mostly from buffaloes as the report specified the animal for imports by Myanmar from India.

According to the OECD database, India imported 363,000 tonnes of beef last year and the amount was projected to stay the same over the decade.

The total world beef exports in 2016 was 10.95 million tonnes and was expected to increase to 12.43 million tonnes by 2026, according to the FAO.

The Outlook report ranked Brazil as the world's top beef exporter, followed by Australia.

(Arul Louis can be reached at arul.l@ians.in)
Los Angeles, July 29 : Actor George Clooney is planning to sue paparazzi for taking illegal photographs of his newborn twins -- Ella and Alexander -- during their vacation in Italy.

A French magazine published the images of George and his wife Amal holding their children at their estate in Lake Como, reports aceshowbiz.com.

"The very first pictures of the twins in the arms of their parents. Do not miss all our exclusive photos," the cover of the magazine read.

"Over the last week photographers from Voici magazine scaled our fence, climbed our tree and illegally took pictures of our infants inside our home. Make no mistake -- the photographers, the agency and the magazine will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law," George said in a statement.

The statement added: "The safety of our children demands it."

In response to George's statement, a representative for the French magazine told said: "George and Amal Clooney have been very public personalities for the last few years. Their wedding in Venice, in September 2014, was a very mediatic event; the pictures of them smiling to the public were seen all around the world. The birth of their twins, Ella and Alexander, had also been commented a lot, by themselves and their families."

The representative added: "The images published in Voici this Friday are a response to a public demand. People love George Clooney and have been following his life story for years now. Those pictures do not put in danger Mr. Clooney, his wife or their kids."
Brasilia, July 29 : Brazilian President Michel Temer has signed an executive order authorising the deployment of 10,240 soldiers and federal law-enforcement officers in Rio de Janeiro state, where violent crime is on the rise.

The federal forces will be used primarily for specific operations targeting organised crime, Defence Minister Raul Jungmann told the media on Friday.

Even so, the federal contingent will also be available to provide support to the state police in carrying out their ordinary duties, Efe news quoted Jungmann as saying.

"The military will not take part in occupations of 'favelas' (shanties), as on previous occasions. They will be used as a last resort when necessary. But we don't rule out their also helping patrol the streets," Jungmann said.

The announcement of the federal deployment coincided with the appearance of armoured vehicles as the army established checkpoints on several highways leading into the city of Rio de Janeiro.

Published in a special edition of the official gazette, Temer's order authorizes the federal forces to remain in Rio state until Dec. 31.

Jungmann, however, said that the President is prepared to extend the employment as long as necessary.

Most of the federal troops and police will be concentrated in the Rio city metropolitan area, he said.

The federal contingent comprises 8,500 military personnel, 620 members of the elite National Security Force and 380 officers of the Federal Highway Police.
Lucknow, July 29 : In a jolt to the Samajwadi Party, three of its legislators quit the party on Saturday, alleging suffocation within the party, even as BJP president Amit Shah arrived here on a three-day visit.

The three lawmakers - Bukkal Nawaab, Yashwant Singh and Madhukar Jaitley -- all are members of the Upper House of the state Assembly.

Buqqal Nawaab was very close to former party chief Mulayam Singh Yadav and owed his prominence to him until he decided to side with then Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav in the turf war within the party earlier this year.

Yashwant Singh is a close aide of independent legislator from Kunda, Raghuraj Pratap Singh alias 'Raja Bhaiyya'. There is speculation that he may switch to the BJP.

Madhukar Jaitley, also a close aide of Mulayam Yadav, was a state minister level functionary in the Samajwadi Party government and was advisor to Akhilesh Yadav on externally aided projects, including Lucknow Metro.

Jaitley threw his weight behind Mulayam Yadav after his son overthrew him and took over as national president of the party. Jaitley was one of the few who openly rebuked and challenged Akhilesh Yadav in his hey days as Chief Minister and slammed him for the "shoddy treatment" meted out to the senior Yadav.

Buqqal Nawaab is facing many probes currently, specially of land grabbing. On Saturday, he praised the Yogi Adityanath government and said that a lot of good work was being done by the ruling BJP. He also rued that his mentor Mulayam Yadav was being humiliated in the party. He announced that many more SP members would be resigning from the party soon.

Nawaab had created waves some time ago by saying he would be happy to carry the first brick to Ayodhya for the construction of a grand Ram Temple in Ayodhya and that he would also financially contribute to it.

The resignations from the SP coincided with the arrival of Amit Shah in the state capital on a three-day visit to interact with party leaders.
New Delhi : The attack on two women in Mandsaur in Madhya Pradesh suspected of carrying beef (though it turned out to be buffalo meat) was the 25th in 118 days since 55-year-old Pehlu Khan died after a mob attack on April 1, bringing the count to 26 cases of cow-related violence in seven months this year.

This is the most in eight years, according to an IndiaSpend database that records such violence in India. We have now recorded as many as 70 cases of cow-related violence over eight years.

Created through a collection and content analysis of reports in the English media -- which tend to have the greatest spread of national news -- the database shows that 97 per cent (68 of 70) of such incidents were reported after Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government came to power in May 2014. More than half or 54 per cent of the cow-related violence -- 38 of 70 cases -- were from states governed by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), when the attacks were reported, revealed our analysis of violence recorded until July 27.

The data shows that Muslims were the target of 51 per cent (36 of 70) cases of violence centred on bovine issues over nearly eight years (2010 to 2017) and comprised 86 per cent (24 of 28) killed.

As least 136 people were also injured in these attacks, and more than half (54 per cent) of these attacks were based on rumours.

Despite the increase in violence related to bovine issues, particularly over the last three years, the Ministry of Home Affairs does not collect data on lynchings, said a government statement to the Lok Sabha on July 25.

National or state crime data do not distinguish general violence from cow-related attacks and lynchings, so the IndiaSpend database is the first such statistical perspective to a growing national debate over such violence.

In nearly half the attacks (49 per cent), police register cases against victims

Of 70 attacks over eight years, 68 (97 per cent) occurred, as we said, after Modi's government came to power (2014-2017), with most attacks within seven months in 2017. The year 2016 reported the second-most cases of cow-related violence at 25 incidents.

In nearly half or 49 per cent (34 attacks) of cases reported, police registered cases against victims/survivors -- as they did in Mandsaur.

On June 29, 2017, a day after protests in Indian cities, London and New York against the government's slow response and silence after nationwide attacks against mostly Muslims and Dalits, Modi, speaking at the centenary celebrations of Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat, said:

"Killing people in the name of gau bhakti (cow worship) is unacceptable. This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve of."

"No one has the right to take law into his/her hands. We belong to a land of non-violence. Violence is not the solution to any problem."

On July 16, the Prime Minister, in a series of Tweets, once again criticised cow vigilantes and put the onus on state governments to stringently act against them.

As many as 1,235 cases related to offences promoting enmity between different groups -- under section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, etc.) and 153B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national integration) of the Indian Penal Code -- were reported during 2014-16, according to a July 25 Lok Sabha reply to a question on lynchings.

"[Under sections 153A and 153B of the Indian Penal Code] the National Crime Records Bureau [NCRB] maintains data on offences promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth etcA However, it does not maintain data on cases relating to cow 'vigilantes', cow trade and trafficking," Hansraj Gangaram Ahir, Minister of State for Home, told the Lok Sabha in his reply.

"Offences promoting enmity between different groups" increased 41 per cent over three years to 2016, rising from 336 to 475. Uttar Pradesh, India's most-populous state, reported the most (202) cases, registering a 346 per cent increase, from 26 in 2014 to 116 in 2016. It was followed by Kerala (151), Karnataka (114), Telangana (104) and Maharashtra (103), among the top five states, over three years.

Cases in Uttarakhand increased at the greatest rate nationwide, 450 per cent, from four in 2014 to 22 in 2016.

With mob violence in the name of cow protection rising, the National Campaign Against Mob Lynching, a committee of civil society members, has proposed a new law. The Manav Suraksha Kanoon (MASUKA) suggests no bail for those accused of mob lynching, life imprisonment for those convicted and immediate suspension of the concerned station house officer. An online petition demanding MASUKA has received over 34,000 signatures.

IndiaSpend issued a correction later, saying the figure of cow vigilante attacks was 26 and not 27 as previously mentioned.

(In arrangement with IndiaSpend.org, a data-driven, non-profit, public interest journalism platform. The views expressed are those of IndiaSpend. Feedback at respond@indiaspend.org)
New Delhi : New Delhi, July 30 IANS) China may not have forgiven India for snubbing its mega trans-continent corridor initiative, but in what may rankle more is that New Delhi and Tokyo, Beijing's arch rival, are pushing ahead with a development corridor between Asia and Africa.

The announcement of the Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the African Development Bank (AfDB) meet in Gandhinagar in May, came days after China hosted with great pomp the first One Belt One Road (OBOR) summit in Beijing. The venture is expected to get further impetus in September during the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

India has been involved in Africa for many years, in trade as well as capacity-building activities. Japan, which has been working on infrastructure projects in Africa, can help with its advanced technology as well as funds for the AAGC. Japan is reportedly planning to commit $200 billion for the proposed growth corridor.

So, is the AAGC meant as a counter to OBOR?

"The two are completely separate. OBOR is different. Long before OBOR, India and Japan were individually working in Africa, and were talking to each other about Africa," Rajiv Bhatia, a former Indian ambassador, told IANS.

"India and Japan feel that by intensifying cooperation with Africa, they can help each other and Africa. We are working on the AAGC in our own way and at our own pace," said the former High Commissioner to South Africa and Kenya.

He said that China's engagement in Africa is extensive, while the India-Japan collaboration is beginning to take shape. The AAGC shows that India and Japan desire to take their cooperation beyond the bilateral sphere, he added.

China's OBOR, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, is an estimated $5 trillion connectivity corridor spanning over 60 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. It is meant to be a revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route and is expected to comprise building of roads, bridges, gas pipelines, ports, railways and power plants, besides SEZs.

India and Japan had begun a dialogue on Africa in 2010, a continent in which both have much stake. The main objective of the AAGC is to enhance growth and connectivity between Asia and Africa. According to the vision document, the corridor will focus on four areas: Development Cooperation Projects, Quality Infrastructure and Institutional Connectivity, Enhancing Skills, and People-to-People Partnership.

Agriculture, health, technology, and disaster management are the main areas of development cooperation. It will focus on boosting skills and research and development capacities in Africa.

According to a report by McKinsey, China is Africa's largest economic partner, with goods trade worth $188 billion in 2015 -- compared to $59 billion with India. Since the turn of the millennium, Africa-China trade has been growing at approximately 20 per cent per year, the report says, adding that there are around 10,000 Chinese firms in Africa, Three think-tanks -- India's Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), Indonesia's Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), and Japan's Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), prepared the vision document for AAGC. They have produced one report on the corridor and another report is due in a few months, said Bhatia.

He said that at the corporate level, companies of India, Japan and from Africa are looking at specified sectors of the growth corridor in order to execute projects. "There is seriousness and earnestness" behind the initiative, he added.

Bhatia, a former Director General of Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), also feels that giving too much importance to OBOR and China would help Beijing.

Speaking on the comparison between OBOR and the AAGC, Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, told IANS: "The OBOR, it seems, is visualised on the idea of economic corridors and infrastructure development with connectivity as the central focus, while the AAGC is a concept based on the theory of growth poles where several growth triangles and quadrangles are envisaged with different regional production hubs."

The proposed AAGC seeks to encompass and integrate Africa, India and South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania.

India's increased engagement with Africa comes in the backdrop of the third India-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi in October 2015 when all 54 African nations had sent their representatives. India has also made many high level visits to several African countries, as part of its outreach. India also held the AfDB annual meeting in Gandhinagar this May.

(Ranjana Narayan can be contacted at ranjana.n@ians.in)
New Delhi, July 30 : A woman member of an inter-state gang of gunrunners has been arrested and 14 semi-automatic pistols seized from her in east Delhi, police said on Sunday.

Mobai was arrested on a tip-off on Wednesday evening when she went to the Shastri Park area to deliver the consignment to one of her contacts, the police said.

Hailing from Umarti district in Madhya Pradesh, Mobai had entered the world of crime 15 years ago, according to the police.

"The sophisticated pistols of 7.65 mm calibre had 'Made in England' and 'Made in USA' markings," Deputy Commissioner of Police P.S. Kushwah said. Fourteen magazines were also seized.

Mobai told the police she collected these pistols from a manufacturer in Gandhwani district of Madhya Pradesh and supplied them to various contacts and criminals in Delhi, the National Capital Region (NCR) area and Uttar Pradesh.
The result of the CBI investigation will depend on the DNA fingerprinting. The samples collected from the arrested suspects are being tested in two different labs.

By Manjeet Sehgal: The CBI probe ordered by the Himachal Pradesh High Court to look into the Shimla gangrape and murder case, which took place on July 4, has entered its last leg. The Court had ordered the CBI to intervene in the matter after several discrepancies were found in police's theory.

The premier investigating agency during its week long probe has not only studied the police theory minutely, but also the media reports and the rumours doing rounds on social media .

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The CBI sleuths so far have questioned the police officials, parents of the victim, family members of the accused, locals including the victim's class mates and teachers.

The officials are also likely to question the digital media team which handles the Facebook page of chief minister in connection with the uploading and deletion of the photos of half a dozen suspects. The police has not yet shared any information on these men who were first named as suspects. However, their mobile phone location will likely establish their involvement.

The fire incident at Kotkhai Police Station has also left the investigators worried. The officials on Saturday, questioned some people about the custodial death of an accused, and the incident when the crowd set the police station on fire. There is a doubt that important evidences and documents may have been destroyed in the incident.

The result of the CBI investigation will depend on the DNA fingerprinting. The samples collected from the arrested suspects are being tested in two different labs. The reports are expected in a couple of days.

WOMEN'S COMMISSION SLAMS POLICE FOR SHODDY PROBE

Member of National Women's Commission Sushma Sahu has slammed the State police for shoddy treatment meted out in the entire case.

Sahu claimed, she personally collected some facts pertaining to the case which will be shared with the CBI's Special Crime Branch team. She said the facts were shared by the parents of the girl.

Sahu said, "The evidences produced by the police lack credibility. Mamta, wife of one of the accused Suraj (died in custody), told that he was at work from July 4 to July 6 and the attendance register will prove it. Other acused Raju, had gone to Shimla with his mother for a medical treatment. These facts should be examined".

"The police theory and post-mortem reports appear to be fictitious, as the report says the victim died on July 4 and her body was recovered on July 6 in intact condition. It appeared that the body was dumped on July 6 itself, as not even a single fly was on her body. Her clothes also did not bear any sign that the struggle took place in the forest. If the body was lying in the forest since two days then, how did it remain hidden from the wild animals", Sahu questioned.

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Sahu went on to say that, she also inquired about some other cases reported between 2013 and 2017, but the police seems to have turned a blind eye. The State has been rocked by this gangrape and murder case and the Director General of Police is out of town. The ADGP appeared on his behalf who parried questions pertaining to this incident.

Also Read:

CBI team looking at social media link to crack Shimla gangrape and murder case

Shimla rape case: CBI vows to crack case in 10 days as mystery deepens

Shimla gangrape: CBI sleuths reach crime spot, loopholes found in police theory

Shimla gangrape-murder case: Protests rock hill city, people accuse police of mishandling the case

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Kolkata, July 30 : The Democratic Socialist Party (DSP), that has been a part of the Left Front in West Bengal, on Sunday announced it was severing all ties with it.

In a letter to Left Front chairman Biman Bose, DSP General Secretary Probodh Chandra Sinha informed him that the party has unanimously decided not to be a part of the either the state or the district units of the Left Front.

"It has been unanimously decided in the party's working committee meeting that DSP would withdraw their association with the Left Front and would not be a part of any programmes organised by either the state or the district units of the Left Front," Sinha said in the letter.
Aptus Court Reporting, the west coasts premier deposition and court reporting service, announced today that it is expanding into the California Central Valley market. Aptus Fresno office, which is conveniently located at 516 West Shaw Avenue, Suite 200, will fulfill a need for quality court reporting and litigation technology services that has existed in the area.

Earlier this year, Aptus Court Reporting announced a new office in the Pacific Northwest, as well as the acquisition of the well-established Anaheim, CA firm, Barristers Court Reporting. Sandy Waite, Chief Operating Officer for the company, attributes the rapid growth to the continuing commitment to providing the legal community with the expansive services for which Aptus is known.

Joining the Aptus team and spearheading the companys new market launch is Jaime Gooch, Director of Business Development. Ms. Gooch served as a Regional Litigation Consultant and Regional Account Manager for Esquire Deposition Solutions prior to joining Aptus. She has years of additional account management experience, making her the top candidate to lead the Central Valley expansion efforts.

I didnt think companies like Aptus existed until I met the team. I fell in love with their passion for the industry, the white glove treatment they give all their clients, and the way they valued and respected their employees. The energy was also very contagious and Im so thankful to be a part of the Aptus family now.

Jaime exemplifies everything we stand for here at Aptus. The common shared interests will help propel the Aptus brand throughout the Central Valley of California and beyond. We are excited to enhance our footprint and bring on a talent like Ms. Gooch to our team, says President Derek Berg.

About Aptus Court Reporting:

Since launching in San Diego in 2011, Aptus has expanded its territory throughout the west coast of the US, with local offices in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Sacramento, Irvine, Riverside, and Seattle. The firm provides a wide range of services globally with clients on five continents.

Aptus Court Reporting is a full-service court reporting firm and a leading provider of court reporting services and litigation technology. They provide a one-stop solution for deposition and trial needs with services including court reporting, transcription, videography, video streaming, world-wide conference rooms, and more. The companys mission is to Connect Testimony with Technology. For more information about Aptus Court Reporting, please visit http://www.aptuscr.com.
Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation at Lake Arrowhead Thanks to the AS&F Foundation, the Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation will create lasting memories for generations to come. - Gerry T. Morton, Chairman of the Board and Council President

The Boy Scouts of America - Greater Los Angeles Area Council (GLAAC)] announced a historic $10 million gift from longtime supporter AS&F Foundation. The donation will endow GLAACs high adventure mountain camp near Lake Arrowhead named the Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation (formerly Forest Lawn Scout Reservation). The camp, offering outdoor opportunities since 1950 and currently serving over 10,000 youth annually, honors the generous and visionary legacy of AS&F Foundations founder, Hubert Eaton.

Over the past decade, the AS&F Foundation has given generous camp scholarships and capital improvement grants to GLAAC that have benefited thousands of children, youth, and families. We believe the camping experience provides opportunities for kids to make new friends, gain confidence, acquire new skills, and develop a sense of self that cannot always be learned at home. Weve seen first-hand the transformative impact of Scouting," said AS&F Foundation Chairman John Llewellyn. We are grateful for this incredible gift from the AS&F Foundation that that will ensure the long-term sustainability of this outstanding camp, said GLAAC Chairman of the Board and Council President Gerry T. Morton

Llewellyn added, As we sunset the foundation, our trustees wanted to ensure this outdoor laboratory and high adventure resource is available for all Scouts, including those from high-risk, inner-city neighborhoods. For many of our inner-city youth, our camps are their first exposure to a mountain, a lake or the ocean. This experience broadens horizons and empowers youth to explore new territories and take on new challenges, stated GLAAC Scout Executive Jeff Hunt.

GLAAC, committed to serving Scouts from all communities, is honored to be among the limited organizations to receive such a major gift from AS&F Foundation which has decided to distribute all its assets after more than 60 years of grant making. AS&F has been a long-time supporter of Scouting. Through their extraordinary investment, the Boy Scouts of America, Greater Los Angeles Area Council will continue to deliver a strong character building and leadership development program to a growing membership of youth. Thanks to the AS&F Foundation, the Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation will create lasting memories for generations to come, stated Morton.

AS&F Foundation

John Llewellyn is a Distinguished Eagle Scout and past Council President for the Los Angeles Area Council. His great-uncle, Hubert Eaton founded the AS&F Foundation (formerly the Forest Lawn Foundation), dedicated to "God and Humanity." Over the years, contributions to the Foundation were from Eaton's estate and from American Security & Fidelity Corporation (AS&F) and its subsidiaries. AS&F was a development corporation controlled by Eaton. After his death, his nephew, Frederick Llewellyn, assumed the role of CEO and he was followed by his son, John Llewellyn. The $10 million gift and renaming of the camp is in honor of Eatons great legacy and impact on youth. After more than 60 years of grantmaking, the AS&F Foundations trustees decided that the Foundation could have a greater impact by distributing all its assets in transformative grants to a limited number of organizations.

The Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation

The Hubert Eaton Scout Reservation (formerly Forest Lawn Scout Reservation) is a nationally accredited camp and one of the highest-quality and safest programs in the country. Located 5,300 feet above the San Bernardino Valley near Lake Arrowhead, this residential camp offers everything a Scout desires: 41 merit badges, swimming pool, shooting, trading post, hiking, fishing, zip lining, rock climbing, and a Challenging Outdoor Physical Education (COPE) course. More than 5,000 youth (ages 6  17) attend camp each year. The Foundations endowed gift provides ongoing support for the camps maintenance, operations, and capital improvements.

Boy Scouts of America, Greater Los Angeles Area Council

Since its founding in 1915, the Greater Los Angeles Area Council has brought the Boy Scouts of Americas purpose and values to millions of youth. The Council has over 26,000 youth members and engages over 11,000 trained adult volunteers. To support all communities, the Greater Los Angeles Area has developed strategic initiatives to serve at-risk, inner-city youth (60% of families live below the federal poverty line).

The Boy Scouts of America is one of the nation's largest and most prominent values-based youth development organizations. For over a century, the Boy Scouts of America has helped build the future leaders of this country. Through experiential learning opportunities, Scouting instills youth with the virtues of honor, respect, character, healthy living, and citizenship as well as a deep appreciation of the great outdoors, leadership, and team work. Scouting offers boys and girls, ages 6 to 21, activities that are fun and enagaging, based on age-appropriate interests, ability, and maturity through its Cub Scouts, Boy Scouts, Venturers, and Explorers programs.
Bay Area Discrimination Lawyers Pregnant women have enough to deal with and yet they often face on-the-job discrimination.

California Civil Rights Law Group, a law firm specializing in employment discrimination, including pregnancy discrimination, is proud to announce a new post to its website on the topic of pregnancy law. Many pregnant women, unfortunately, are not aware of their legal rights related to pregnancy discrimination and may be impacted when their employers take adverse conduct towards them because of their pregnancy.

"Pregnant women have enough to deal with and yet they often face on-the-job discrimination," explained Larry Organ, principal attorney at the Bay Area-based law firm. "As part of our outreach strategy, we are announcing a new blog post on the topic of pregnancy discrimination, but we caution any woman who may think she is facing issues to reach out for a consultation with a pregnancy discrimination lawyer either in our Oakland or San Anselmo offices, or over the phone."

To view the blog post, visit http://www.civilrightsca.com/2017/07/20/pregnancy-discrimination/. To learn more about pregnancy discrimination, visit http://www.civilrightsca.com/disability-discrimination-empty/pregnancy-discrimination/. Interested persons are urged to reach out to the law firm for a consultation with a pregnancy discrimination lawyer if they feel that they may be experiencing discrimination of any type. No two situations are alike, and only an attorney can give relevant legal advice.

Lawyers Focusing on Pregnancy Discrimination in the San Francisco Bay Area

A pregnancy should be a joyful event for any woman, even as she continues to work. In fact, pregnant women enjoy specific legal protections against discrimination and retaliation at work. Unfortunately, however, many pregnant women, even in the San Francisco Bay Area, face retaliation or discrimination from employers. The new blog post is a small but important step towards reaching out to the general public to educate them about their legal rights. In addition, the lawyers at the California Civil Rights Law Group stand ready to provide case evaluations to women who feel that they may be experiencing discrimination because of their pregnancies. After visiting the website, interested parties are urged to reach out for a case evaluation with an Oakland or San Anselmo pregnancy lawyer. Those living in San Francisco or on the Peninsula can avail themselves of phone case evaluations as well.

About California Civil Rights Law Group

Headed by renowned trial lawyer Larry Organ, California Civil Rights Law Group (http://www.civilrightsca.com/), is a leading employment law firm with San Francisco Bay Area offices in Oakland, Alameda County and San Anselmo, Marin County, California. Employees experiencing sexual harassment, race harassment, disability discrimination, LGTBQ discrimination, pregnancy discrimination, whistleblower retaliation and/or wrongful termination should reach out for an attorney consultation in either our Oakland/East Bay or San Anselmo/Marin County office.

Media Relations.

Tel. 415-453-4740
Welcome Guest! You Are Here:
By PTI: Mumbai, Jul 30 (PTI) Looking to tap the growing rooftop solar market in the Middle East and South-East Asia, CleanMax Solar is eyeing up to 40 per cent of revenues from overseas business in the next 3 years, a top company official said.

"While we continue to grow in India in the rooftop and open access solar power segment, we are pursuing growth in international markets mainly the Middle East and South-East Asia. We are currently looking at the UAE market and soon we will spread our presence in the other countries," the companys Managing Director Kuldeep Jain told PTI here.

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He said the company expects its international business to contribute nearly 35-40 per cent of its revenues in the next three years.

The company recently opened its first overseas office in Dubai

Jain further said the recent funding of USD 100 million it received from global private equity player Warburg Pincus would be partly utilised for this international expansion.

"We are already enjoying a 24 per cent share in the domestic market. Our aim is to garner a similar share in the international markets as well," he added.

With a portfolio of 90 MW of installed capacity, CleanMax is eyeing to reach 250 MW by the end of this fiscal.

"We are also expecting to touch revenues of up to Rs 800 crore in this financial year. Thereon, we expect to double our revenues year-on-year every year," Jain added. PTI PSK RSY ABM SRE

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Sam Altman, the 32-year-old president of Y Combinator, the most prestigious startup accelerator in Silicon Valley, has laid out this utopian vision over the years, and most definitively in a job listing posted on YC's blog in June 2016.

"We're seriously interested in building new cities and we think we know how to finance it if everything else makes sense," the post read. "We need people with strong interests and bold ideas in architecture, ecology, economics, politics, technology, urban planning, and much more."

Free houses, built by robots

Like many of his peers in Silicon Valley, Altman believes technology is the way to a better future. But his real-world ambitions are grander than most. He wants to investigate ways to build new cities, give people money for nothing, rethink voter registration, keep politicians accountable, and get new, Altman-approved leaders elected  all while running YC, which famously birthed startups like Airbnb and Dropbox.

Much like one of his notable colleagues, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Altman is set on turning the ideal into the practical. Both believe they have solid ideas for reshaping society. Sometimes this means executing plans within the next few months. Other times it means roadmapping projects decades down the line, and relying on phrases like "The math should work out" to assuage a wary public.

"I have a very strong vision of where I'd like to see the world go," Altman said. "And I don't think it gets there by startups alone."

In 2005, at age 19, Altman dropped out of Stanford to found the social-networking app Loopt, which he sold in 2012. In 2014, he replaced Paul Graham as YC president. These days, he says he spends 80% of his 65-hour weeks helping startups sort through their growing pains and get to market as fast as possible. The remaining 20% is dedicated to outside projects.

His baby is OpenAI, a nonprofit he cochairs with Musk that searches for benevolent ways to use artificial intelligence in daily life. Altman's vision for how OpenAI could be deployed sheds light on how he wants to help people in real ways.

"Let's imagine we get to a world where AI gets so good that robots can mine raw materials out of the ground, refine them, and build them into a house," he told Business Insider. (These robots, he clarified, are solar-powered.) "You can imagine a world where you own a small piece of land, you can say, 'Hey, robot. I would like a house here,' and you come back like a month later and there's a fully constructed house built for you for free."

Altman sees that kind of far-future scenario as a boon for towns and cities plagued by a shortage of affordable housing. He's seen the plight firsthand, from his home state of California to middle America.

In November 2016, shortly after Donald Trump won the presidency, Altman left YC's headquarters in Mountain View, California, in search of 100 supporters of the president-elect. He asked them about their political views, their fears, and their gripes with America's political landscape. He later published his findings on his blog for the world to see. "People don't believe they have an economic future," he said.

Over the past year, Altman has expressed a deep interest in resolving those economic concerns.

"[Fifty] years from now, I think it will seem ridiculous that we used fear of not being able to eat as a way to motivate people," he wrote in a January 2016 blog post on YC. "I also think that it's impossible to truly have equality of opportunity without some version of guaranteed income."

That blog post announced YC's intentions to launch an experiment in universal basic income (UBI), a system of wealth distribution that pays participants a set amount of money to use however they want. The premise, which is being tested in more than a half-dozen locations around the world, is that UBI can create a social safety net that reduces or even eliminates poverty.

Altman's own experiment is small, for now. It's running in Oakland, California, and involves about 100 people getting between $1,000 and $2,000 a month. The goal is to get some practice with delivering the money and collecting data. If that data come back showing basic income has left people better off, both emotionally and financially, YC will expand the project in a five-year, nationwide trial.

The same old Silicon Valley?

Society is poised to lose millions of jobs to AI, the prevailing research suggests. And it's propelled in part by Silicon Valley-types like Altman, who himself is researching how robotics can replace human labor on a grand scale with projects like OpenAI. In recognition of that responsibility, he believes the tech world should at least be trying something.

"I don't know if [basic income] is the answer or not to this massive technological revolution we're in the middle of," he said, "but it is something I'd like to study."

But for all his involvement in political issues, Altman doesn't consider himself a political person. He was raised in St. Louis to a pair of Democrat parents, with childhood memories of his time as a Boy Scout, tinkering with his Macintosh, and reading science fiction. He was interested more in computers than current events.

It's really only been since 2014, when he replaced Graham as YC's president, that he started to take a serious interest in how technology could improve the political process and the future of humanity. He began thinking of ways to broaden both his and YC's horizons to support more nonprofits, like the ACLU, and startups focused purely on hard science, which he sees as vital to humanity's progress.

Some have criticized Altman's larger-than-life goals, claiming they are ambitious to a fault. When news broke last spring that he wanted to build brand-new cities, Allison Arieff, editorial director of the San Francisco Bay Area Planning and Urban Research Association, wrote on Twitter, "Y Combinator Aims to Build a New City From Scratch Because No One Has Ever Tried That Before."

And writing for Gizmodo, Alissa Walker questioned why YC even felt the need to build a brand-new city, given all that's wrong with existing urban areas. "Why not simply focus on improving the city of Mountain View, California, where Y Combinator is already located," she wrote, "and which certainly needs to find solutions to many of these urban problems (some due to startups like Airbnb which Y Combinator has backed)?"

Anand Giridharadas, a writer and political analyst covering technology and society, has written that Silicon Valley in general is obsessed with what he calls "regressive innovation," or the act of creating solutions that don't actually make life better for people. Speaking with Business Insider, he referred to such VCs as "world-changer incubator-messiahs."

Altman, for his part, has said he prefers to use the phrase "change the world" only after he's already done so.

In most cases, he sees his role more as a facilitator than a doer. He understands the technology side of his projects, but he still relies on people more well versed in economics, public policy, and urban planning to inform them, he said.

"I don't think tech is the solution to all problems," he said. "And I certainly don't think startups are the solution to all problems. They're the solution to a lot, but if the tech industry doesn't think about how everybody wins and everybody benefits, then we've kind of failed."

Elizabeth Rhodes picked up on that mind-set in her first face-to-face encounter with Altman, earlier this February. Rhodes was wrapping up her doctorate in political science and social work at the University of Michigan and had applied to lead YC's nascent basic-income project. In May, YC announced she had been selected.

"He was definitely very passionate about people's struggles," Rhodes recalled of her first meeting with Altman. Now more than a year into the job, she said Altman's interest in solving social problems through policy has come more into focus. "He's able to see more systemic changes that we could make, and he's not afraid to say, 'Let's try testing it out.'"

It's easy to compare Altman's outsize ambitions to Elon Musk and his many projects. But Altman calls the comparison "ridiculous," since he considers the serial entrepreneur less of an equal as much as a singular, multi-industry titan. "Elon is in a class by himself," Altman said.

The basic similarities are there. Musk has said in repeated interviews that the future grips him so deeply, without a passion for it he would never get out of bed in the morning. Altman envisions far-off societies hiring robots to build houses and giving people free cash from the government. He also shares Musk's view that these kinds of mega-projects aren't crazy. At the 2015 Vanity Fair Summit, the two appeared onstage to discuss, in calm voices, how they might live on Mars or harness the sun for nuclear energy.

"I believe that most things I work on are practical and someday will be hugely important," Altman told Business Insider.

Rewriting the social contract

In May, rumors began to swirl that Altman's political interests had compelled him to run for California governor in 2018. He seemed to be making a familiar transition from the private world into the public spotlight  a move Carly Fiorina, Peter Thiel, and other prominent Silicon Valley names had made before him.

But Altman ultimately went a different route. In mid-July he put the rumors to bed by issuing an open call on his blog for similar-minded political candidates that he could support. He could offer money, connections, and tech to help them get into the governor's office.

His requirements for the candidate: They should believe affordable housing is one of the most pressing issues in the state, because, as Altman put it, "The high cost of living hurts poor people the most, and it's destroying our country." And they should believe in single-payer healthcare, clean energy, skills-based education, and rewriting tax codes that favor the middle class.

"It's this pro-growth, pro-innovation, and pro-distribution idea," Altman said, "where we're going to have  as we've had after every technological revolution  we're going to have to rewrite the social contract."

What we're going for is a few really big world-changing hits and a lot of failures along the way.

Altman's move into politics reflects the ways philanthropy has shifted in recent years, fusing entrepreneurship with social causes, according to Brooks Rainwater, the director of the City Solutions and Applied Research Center at the National League of Cities. "What you're seeing is the tech mentality of pilot projects being grafted onto the social space," he said. "And I think there's a lot of opportunity here."

Critics tend to see that opportunity more as a threat  that entrepreneurs have no business in government because they'll focus only on a small group of people, neglecting the masses. Even President Obama expressed doubt that leaders in the tech world could make the leap into the public realm.

Pivoting from certain projects or abandoning them altogether isn't a matter of if, but when, Altman said.

"We try to make the cost of failing super low," he said. "What we're going for is a few really big world-changing hits and a lot of failures along the way. I view that just as the overhead of doing business."

He applies the mentality equally to his day job of helping startups and to his societal-improvement projects.
In a suit, he said the continued function of the council was illegal. The court agreed with him and order the Akufo-Addo administration to constitute a new council.

READ MORE:Government to reconstitute UEW Council this week

Speaking at the 21st Congregation of the University of Education, Winneba on Saturday, the president said: I am aware of recent happenings at UEW.

Disturbing, as it were, it is noteworthy that it appears finality is being brought to beware on the matter.

The current challenges in my view can be best surmounted if all stakeholders act within the confines of the law and respect the rule of law.He continued: Court decisions are not always pleasant but they are in principle, the surest way to resolve disputes.

Let us not through our utterance, actions and inactions undermine the authority of our courts.

I am by this urging the newly constituted governing council to do all within its power to see to an amicable settlement of all matters pending before the High Court.

READ MORE: University of Education closure: Judge says he was misquotedIn the same vein, Chairperson of the governing council must urgently ensure that the council puts into place measures to seal all loopholes of waste and abuse of public funds.

Last month, the Winneba High Court ordered the Vice Chancellor of the univerity, Professor Mawutor Avokeh, to step aside until a case brought against him is determined.
Ekeh has admitted releasing the nude photos, saying"its my way of welcoming everyone to the new Christabel."

READ MORE: Actress gets family backing over nude photos

Her family has also backed her, saying they are not opposed to her actions and that the nude photos were shot for an advocacy project she is yet to unveil.

"Those pictures are for a self-employed project my sister intends to embark on. It is for advocacy against plastic surgery," her sister, Tabitha Ekeh,

Last week, Rashida Black Beauty, was picked by police in the Brong Ahafo Region for allegedly sharing her nude video online.

The 18-year old has denied releasing the video, saying it was hacked.
He also intends to venture into trading, and he considers all these a necessary step to having a fulfilled life.

I am interested in politics and I see myself becoming a politician in the future. One is not going to do music forever and I need to plan my life properly.

"I also love to engage in business, so I see myself doing a lot of that too, the rapper told Punch News in an interview.

Reminisce revealed in the chat that he does not believe in living an extravagant life like most of his colleagues do.

For him, having a private life is golden, that is why he prefers to keep things on the low and improve the lives of others.

I always keep my private life private as I believe that I have the right to my privacy. There is a very big difference between Reminisce, the artiste, and Remi, the family man.

"I thank God because Im comfortable and I dont need validation on social media. I dont have to put everything I own on social media so that people would know that I have arrived.

"Inasmuch as Im not begging anybody for food, its all good. Instead of flaunting material things, I prefer to invest in people.

ALSO READ: Rapper denies bleaching his skin

The husky voice music star already has three albums out, "Book of Rap Stories" (2012), "Alaga Ibile" (2013) and "Baba Hafusa" (2015).
He was convicted on his own plea.

READ MORE: Soldier arrested for blackmailing lover with nude photos

He said two months ago, the couple brought the victim from Enyan Brakwa in the Central region to live with the complainant.

Mr Toku said on July 10, at about 1500 hours(3:00 pm), whilst the convict was going to Agona Nkwanta to buy some drinks to stock his bar, the complainant told the victim to accompany him so he would buy meat and eggs for her.

The Prosecutor said after Essoun had finished buying the items, he took the victim through the Agona Town to show her around.

He said in the process the convict lured the victim to a guest house, bought Coca Cola drink for her and allegedly poured some substance into it.

Chief Inspector Toku said after the victim had taken the drink, she became drunk and Essoun forcibly had sexual intercourse with her.

He said when they returned home, the victim saw blood coming out of her private part and she informed the complainant.

The Prosecutor said on July 11 the complainant took the victim to the Nsueam police station and lodged a complaint.

He said a medical report form was issued to send the victim to the hospital for examination and report, whilst the convict was arrested for interrogation.

Mr Toku said during the investigations the victim accompanied by the convict, led the Police to the guest house and room where the convict defiled her.
1500 Kg of Heroine worth more than Rs 3000 crore was seized from the vessel named PRINCE 2.

1500 Kg of Heroine worth more than Rs 3000 crore was seized from the vessel

By Manjeet Negi: In the biggest ever haul of narcotics drugs, transported through sea routes in recent times, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships Samudra Pavak and Ankit intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel off the coast of Gujarat based on intelligence input. 1500 Kg of Heroine worth more than Rs 3000 crore was seized from the vessel named PRINCE 2.

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The search operation for the suspect vessel at sea was commenced by the ships and aircraft of the Coast Guard on July 27. A vast area of the sea was kept under continuous surveillance by Regional Operating Centre and Remote Operating Station at Coast Guard Regional and District Headquarters located at Gandhinagar and Porbandar respectively.

1500 Kg of Heroine worth more than Rs 3000 crore was seized from the vessel

The movements of all ships in the area including the suspect vessel were minutely observed throughout till its apprehension along with eight crew members by ICG ships on pm 29 Jul 17.

The information about the carriage of contraband by the suspect ship was shared by NTRO and other Intelligence agencies with the Coast Guard based on which the operation was planned and executed.

The apprehended ship was brought to Porbandar on 30 Jul 17 and will be jointly investigated by the ICG, IB, Police, Customs, Navy and other agencies.

In largest ever narcotics haul, Coast Guard Ship Samudra Pavak intercepted vessel with 1500 kgs of heroine ( ?3500 Cr) off Gujarat coast. pic.twitter.com/7AdJwYlX8m

- Manu Pubby (@manupubby) July 30, 2017

2 suspicious ships caught off Gujarat coast, terror link suspected

Coast Guard rescues 6 fishermen

--- ENDS ---
For Rev. Bempah, the special church offering has exposed Pastor Otabil who he accused of calling Prophets in Ghana as fake.

I respect Mensa Otabil a lot but I wont have him call all prophets fake, there may be some fake prophets but the same way there are fake bible teachers too, he cant put us all into one bracket, he said.

I wouldnt have said anything if Mensa Otabil had said some prophets are fake but putting all of us in the same bracket, I wont allow that.

Mensa Otabil has a branch of his church headed by prophet Annor, so is Mensa Otabil saying Christians in that church are foolish?"

On the special church offering, he said: Unless Mensa Otabil tells me that he takes money collected in his church to heaven, we all use the monies collected in the church for Gods work, I am asking him to apologise to Ghanaian Christians and prophets by Monday, if not he will have me to contend with."

Pastor Otabil has defended the offering, saying belief goes beyond logic.

"Believe goes beyond logic. Logic would tell you that if you have a GHC1000 in your account then you can expend a GHC1000 because that is logical. Believe would tell you that if you have five loads of bread, you dont feed five people. Believe would tell you that if you have five loaves of bread, you can feed 5,000. Thats not logical," he said speaking the mammoth congregation at Greater Works 2017.

He urged the congregants to believe what the scripture commands and receive their blessings thereof.
The request comes as part of Project 75I, a program worth over $12 billion, according to Defense News.

New Delhi asked shipyards in Russia, France, Japan, and Germany, among others, for information about six submarines equipped with air-independent-propulsion systems, which allow nonnuclear subs to operate without access to atmospheric oxygen, replacing or augmenting diesel-electric systems.

New Delhi is seeking "a proven, effective, state-of-the-art, electric heavyweight torpedo; a land attack missile, and perhaps even an underwater-to-air missile against enemy helicopters and mines," Anil Jai Singh, a retired Indian navy commodore and defense analyst, told Defense News.

Once a response is received from interested shipyards, India will issue a formal request for proposal, then put three or four of the shipyards on a shortlist.

It will be a multiyear process, in part because of New Delhi's Strategic Partner policy, under which a foreign shipyard will be paired with a domestic one in order to compete for the contract.

One contractor told Defense News that the strategic-partner selection should be done by 2019. Another analyst and retired Indian navy officer said it could be "a good seven to eight years after a deal is signed" before the first sub build under the P75I program hits the water.

India's interest in submarines comes as China's growth has increased traffic in the Indian Ocean and through the narrow Malacca Strait connecting it to the waters of East Asia, both above and below the water.

India has been tracking Chinese submarines entering the Indian Ocean since 2013, and a 2015 US Defense Department report confirmed that Chinese attack and missile submarines were operating there.

China has framed its activity in the Indian Ocean and along the African coast as focused on non-military operations, including humanitarian aid, emergency missions, and anti-piracy patrols.

Indeed, the 550-mile-long Malacca Strait, bordered by Indonesia's and Malaysia's jungle shorelines, has become a hotspot for pirates eyeing the 50,000 ships that pass through it each year.

But that activity  coupled with Beijing's growing economic activity in Africa as well as the numerous facilities and alliances it has established along the coast of South Asia  have made India and others wary.

India has already posted warships near the Malacca Strait to monitor maritime activity and has US-made P-8I Poseidon surveillance planes stationed on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, an archipelago northwest of the Malacca Strait where India plans to expand its security presence.

The US has agreed to sell New Delhi surveillance drones that could be paired with the Poseidons and used to track Chinese maritime movements in the area  including those of submarines. It is also working to build radar stations on islands in the Indian Ocean and an "undersea wall" of sensors between southern India and northern Indonesia.

China, which is heavily reliant on imported fuel, got about 80% of its oil imports and 11% of natural-gas imports from ships transiting the Malacca Strait. The Tribune of India reported in June that India's activity around the strait was "part of the target given to the Navy to ensure its dominance in the Indian Ocean by 2020."

India's growing focus on submarines and submarine warfare was underscored during the Malabar 2017 naval exercises, conducted with the US and Japan in mid-July. Anti-submarine warfare was one of the exercise's components.
Rounding out yet another tumultuous week for his administration, President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he would be replacing chief of staff Reince Priebus with retired marine Gen. John Kelly, who currently serves as head of the Department of Homeland Security.

A number of names have been floated to take over Kelly's role, like Rep. Michael McFaul, who chairs the House Homeland Security Committee, and Thomas Homan, the acting head of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Also in the running is Attorney General Jeff Sessions, according to speculation and some media reports.

Dana Perino, the co-host of Fox News' "The Five," said Friday that Kelly could have been named Trump's chief of staff to open up the Homeland Security position for Sessions, who has recently been in hot water with Trump over his recusal from ongoing investigations into the Trump campaign's possible collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.

"I think that this was all set up for a few weeks because the president has been so upset about Jeff Sessions and his recusal in the Russia investigation," said Perino, who formerly served as White House press secretary under the George W. Bush administration.

She added that if Sessions spearheaded the Department of Homeland Security, it would appease Trump's base, which favors the former Alabama senator's hardline position on immigration and border security.

"The Republicans and conservatives that came to Jeff Sessions' defense this week all said, 'But he's doing the best on the issue we care about most, and that is immigration,'" Perino said.

"Well, where can Jeff Sessions do even more on immigration? As the Secretary of Homeland Security," she added. "So I think what they're going to try to do is move Sessions over to DHS, and then how can conservatives complain?"

Homeland Security staffers have also privately discussed the possibility that Sessions could fill Kelly's position, two sources told Politico, although another source close to the administration told the website such an outcome was unlikely.

Trump has fumed, both privately and publicly, about Sessions' recusal from the Russia investigation. He called his attorney general "weak" and "beleaguered" last week, and he told the New York Times the week before that if he'd known Sessions was going to recuse himself, he would have nominated someone else for the position.

Rising tensions

A new attorney general would have one critical power Sessions does not: the ability to fire special counsel Robert Mueller, who took over spearheading the FBI's Russia investigation after Trump fired former FBI director James Comey in May.

But if he is contemplating moving Sessions to the DHS to open the door for an attorney general more favorable to his personal interests, Trump may be disappointed, because replacing Sessions may not have any effect on Mueller's status as special counsel.

If Sessions takes over as Secretary of Homeland Security, Trump would have to appoint an acting attorney general before he formally nominates a new attorney general. That acting individual could be deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein or someone else who has been confirmed by the Senate. Since Rosenstein himself appointed Mueller as special counsel shortly after Comey was fired, it appears highly unlikely that he would dismiss Mueller.

If someone else took over as acting attorney general, they wouldn't need to recuse themselves as Sessions did, absent any extraordinary circumstances. However, the regulations Mueller is operating under stipulate that he can only be fired with cause.

Regardless of who the attorney general is, "there needs to be a basis to fire Mueller," said Andrew Wright, who served as associate White House counsel to former president Barack Obama. If Mueller is removed without cause, "Rosenstein and others would object, and there would be massive backlash from the Hill," Wright said.

None of the dynamics of Muellers probe would change

If Trump does move Sessions over to the DHS, it's unclear who he would nominate to serve in Sessions' place. Trump has, in recent days, increasingly begun to favor those who have shown him the most loyalty, as demonstrated by his hiring of former Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci and the subsequent resignations of White House press secretary Sean Spicer and chief of staff Reince Priebus.

Trump had reportedly soured on both Spicer and Priebus long before they resigned, based primarily on what he saw as their lukewarm defense of him and his agenda.

In keeping with his tendency to lean on loyalists, Trump could bring on someone like former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani or New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, both of whom were strong Trump campaign surrogates, to take Sessions' place. But even in that case, the attorney general "would be under intense pressure not to communicate with the president  who is the subject of the investigation  about the nature of the investigation," Wright said. "So none of the dynamics of Mueller's probe would really change, even with a new attorney general," he added.

And if the Trump administration "engineers" an avenue through which to fire Mueller, "the president will buy himself an independent counsel statute," Wright said, referring to legal actions lawmakers would likely take to revive the US Office of the Independent Counsel, which reports directly to Congress.

Trump's attacks on Mueller began soon after Rosenstein appointed him special counsel. In addition to calling the investigation a "witch hunt," Trump also publicly warned Mueller against delving into his finances when it emerged that the special counsel was examining his past business dealings, which Trump said fall outside Mueller's mandate.

In appointing Mueller, however, Rosenstein gave him broad authoritynot only to investigate "any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated" with Trump's campaign, but also to examine "any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation."

Rosenstein also gave Mueller the power to investigate "any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R.  600.4(a)"  including perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses.

The mandate's scope is similar to that given by then-Acting Attorney General James Comeyto special counsel Patrick Fitzgeraldin 2003 to investigate who leaked the identity of former CIA operative Valerie Plame.

In the wake of Mueller's expanding investigation, Trump has reportedly considered the possibility of pardoning those close to him, as well as himself.
Business Insider spoke with Emma Stewart, chief business development officer at Impact Infrastructure to find out what could be done around an office building to increase productivity. Impact Infrastructure runs simulations to find out how a company can alter its offices in a way that benefits both the environment and worker productivity.

Impact Infrastructure uses Autocase software to customize recommendations for each company, because not every company has the same building size or materials to work with. Some suggestions might work for certain companies, but not other companies, which is why customization is so important.

We asked Stewart to run a few simulations of changes companies can make to yield higher productivity, using an average office building in San Francisco as her example.

Here's what she came up with:

1. "Is it just me or is it cold in here?" says everyone at some point.

2. Let there be light!

3. People like pretty views.

4. Get those wall-to-wall windows installed; it may just be worth it.

studyNeuroscience

5. Workers want to breathe easy.
Vanguard News reported that two accomplices named Emeka and Baba Eko have been arrested due to their connection with the suspect's shady business.

It was alleged that the pair supplied Evans with information that led to different attacks on Chief Obianodo, the owner of Young Shall Grow (YSG) transportation company and Chief Donatus Dunu respectively.

Meanwhile, the notorious kidnapper who has been slammed with 40 counts charges bordering on murder, armed robbery and other crimes, has pleaded with the police to be pardoned and have the list of charges reduced.

In return, he promised to be of a more responsible behaviour.
A statement signed by Brig. Gen. Sani Kukasheka, Director Army Public Relations, released in Maiduguri, said that the army recovered vehicles and various calibres of weapons in the operation.

So far the search and rescue team has recovered additional bodies of five soldiers, 11 members of the Civilian Joint Task Force (CJTF) and five members of the exploration team.

Contrary to reports in some media, six out of the 12 members of the exploration team that went out are still missing, while one of the NNPC staff returned to base alive, Kukasheka said.

Kukasheka, who described the incident as unfortunate, said that the error emanated from the statement issued by the army on the rescue mission was not deliberate.

The incident of 25th July 2017, where Boko Haram insurgents ambushed our troops including members of the CJTF) escorting some staff of the NNPC as well as that of University of Maiduguri (UNIMAID) on oil exploration in Yesu District of Magumeri Local Government Area of the state is unfortunate and highly regrettable.

Most regrettable also is my earlier release on the said incident about the rescue of all NNPC Staff. The error in the statement was not deliberate, he said.

It will be recalled that the Nigerian Army had earlier claimed to have rescued all the abducted universitys personnel.

However, the Vice Chancellor, Prof Ibrahim Njodi, said the army only rescued five dead bodies while four staff were still missing.

The army spokesman said the Nigerian Army was reputed for timely dissemination of information on its activities in the counter-insurgency operations.

He reiterated the readiness of the army to always inform Nigerians of its activities.

Kukasheka said the army had redoubled efforts in the pursuit of the insurgents to rescue the abducted personnel.

Search and rescue is still ongoing to secure the safe return of the remaining civilians.

The Nigerian Army condoles with the families of all that lost their loved ones in this unfortunate incident, the statement said.

According to him, the army has recovered three of its gun trucks from the insurgents, in addition to four Rocket Propelled Grenade (RPG), four RPG chargers, six AK-47 rifles, one Anti-Aircraft Gun, one General Purpose Machine Gun, one Anti-Aircraft Gun Barrel, one RPG tube, four Dane guns, eight tyres and two rims.

Other items recovered include one pumping machine gun, two tyre jacks, one super battery, five reflective jackets, three Toyota Hilux, four jerry cans filled with petrol, one Motorola radio, one Geographical Positioning System (GPS), 21 empty jerry cans, two shovels and three food coolers.

Troops also recovered 122 rounds of PKM ammunition, 213 rounds of 7.62mm NATO ammunition, 1255 Anti-Aircraft Guns ammunition, four boxes of API 12.7mm ammunition, one AK-47 Rifle Magazine, a digger, two bows and 13 Arrows, two LLG bombs, assorted drugs and working tools.
A press statement signed by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor Alhaji Hassan Mijinyawa in Jalingo on Saturday said the new date followed the governors consideration of the report submitted to him by the steering committee for the burial of the late governor.

Other activities lined up for the funeral ceremony will be announced soon, Mijinyawa said.

He quoted Gov. Ishaku as describing Suntai as a great leader who impacted positively on the lives of Taraba people and therefore, deserved to be honoured.

Ishaku also urged them to keep praying for the repose of the soul of Suntai and his family.
Fayose said this while commenting on the recent ambush launched by the terror group, which left many soldiers and civilians dead.

The Governor also criticised the All Progressives Congress (APC) government for telling Nigerians that it has won the battle against terrorism in the North-East.

Fayose said The battle is not over yet. In fact, it is raging fiercer than ever before. The gory killing of the oil workers confirms this. The wanton destruction of lives and property all over the place by Boko Haram also testifies to this fact.

Like the ostrich, this government is trying hard to cover what cannot be covered. Boko Haram ambushes and kills soldiers at will.

Gallant officers and men continue to fall in battle to the superior firepower and higher morale of the insurgents.

ALSO READ:Osinbajo mourns victims of Dikwa bomb blast

Boko Haram invades and sacks communities at will, carting away human beings and other resources.

The insurgents throw bombs with reckless abandon. Is this the evidence of a degraded or defeated Boko Haram?
The Congress today accused the BJP of trying to bribe its MLAs into switching loyalties ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls in Gujarat and said that it had to move its legislators to Bengaluru in order to save democracy.

By India Today Web Desk: Senior Congress leader Shaktisinh Gohil today accused the BJP of trying to break the party and said that its MLAs from Gujarat had to be moved to Bengaluru to fend of the Bharatiya Janata Party's poaching attempts.

Gohil paraded the Gujarat Congress MLAs before mediapersons in Bengaluru. The MLAs were flown to Bengaluru after six legislators resigned from the Gujarat Assembly just ahead of the Rajya Sabha polls.

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"Our legislators have not come here to enjoy. We brought them here to save democracy as they were being poached by BJP, using money and muscle power," Shaktisinh Gohil in response to the BJP's allegations that the MLAs are 'relaxing' in Bengaluru while their home state battles the aftermath of widespread flooding.

Gohil went on to slam the Vijay Rupani BJP government in Gujarat for ignoring the people affected by floods in the states, Shaktisinh Gohil said, "The BJP MLAs were not worried about the floods. They were busy trying to break the Congress."

Gohil further alleged that the BJP had tried to bribe its MLAs in an attempt to get them to switch over their loyalties. "Ask these (Congress) MLAs (present at the Bengaluru resort) the way they were threatened. They chose to stand by party even when offered Rs 15 crore (by the BJP)."

The BJP, however, rejected the allegation that it was behind Congress MLAs walking out of the party. Union minister Prakash Javadekar also wondered if Congress lawmakers quitting the organisation were "purchasable".

"Gujarat Congress leaders are levelling allegations at the BJP in Bengaluru. It is like a thief criticising a cop. If their leaders are leaving them, it has nothing to do with us," Javadekar told news agency PTI in New Delhi.

"The Congress should look inwards and think why such senior leaders are leaving it. The truth is that its only goal is to save Rahul Gandhi in the country and Ahmed Patel in Gujarat," he said, refering to the upcoming Rajya Sabha polls in which Congress loyalist Ahmed Patel is up for re-election.

'CONGRESS'S GREED'

Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani, who reached flood-hit Banaskantha today, too criticised the Congress decision to fly MLAs out of the state and said that the move was made by Ahmed Patel out of his "greed" to win the Rajya Sabha election poll.

"Sonia Gandhi's love for her son Rahul has drowned the Congress across the country. Similarly, Patel's greed to save his Rajya Sabha seat will sink Congress in Gujarat," Rupani said.

Rupani claimed Patel "forced" Congress MLAs from areas hit by floods to fly to Bengaluru.

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Patel, who also visited flood-affected Banaskantha district today, mounted a counteroffensive against Rupani, alleging, "Our MLAs were forced to leave Gujarat as they and their family members were being tortured by the state government."

The Congress heavyweight said before the MLAs from flood ravaged areas flew out of the state they had started relief camps and were still keeping a close watch on the situation from Bengaluru.

RAJYA SABHA ELECTION AND GUJARAT

Six of the Gujarat Congress MLAs had resigned last week following which the party sent 44 of its legislators to the Eagleton Gold Resort outside Bengaluru city. Of the six who quit the party, three have joined the BJP. In the 182-member Gujarat Assembly, the strength of the Congress has gone down to 51 from 57.

The resignation of the Congress MLAs came just ahead of August 8 election for three Rajya Sabha seats in Gujarat.

Shaktisinh Gohil claimed that Congress has 60 legislators including three "others" supporting it. Gohil ruled out that the BJP would win all the three Rajya Sabha seats from Gujarat.

BJP has fielded party president Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and former Congress MLA Balwantsinh Rajput who joined the BJP last week.

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Of the total of 11 RS members from the state, the term of three - Smriti Irani and Dilipbhai Pandya (both BJP) and Ahmed Patel- will end on August 18.

(With inputs from agencies)

ALSO READ |

Gujarat Speaker denies horse trading claims as Congress knocks Election Commission's door

ALSO WATCH | Gujarat MLAs exodus: Congress leaders approach Election Commission

--- ENDS ---
Speaking at the meeting in Yola, the state Chairman of the party, Alhaji Umar Bello said that the party was the new messiah for Nigerians.

Bello said that as a new political party that was committed to taking power at all levels, members must be ready to prove to Nigerians that it was committed to bringing the needed change.

The success of any brand lies in the strategic approach of its handlers to articulate a massive campaign programme aimed at creating awareness about its effectiveness, reliability and most importantly its quality which in turn leads to its acceptability.

As a new political party which strives to clinch power both at the centre and in most or all the Nigerian states, a concerted effort must be dissipated to convince Nigerians that APDA is their new messiah and the only viable alternative, Bello said.

He said that the party would commence mass mobilization and sensitization in Adamawa by going from ward to ward.

We are going to embark on mass mobilization campaign down to unit level across the state so that victory shall be ours in 2019 by the grace of God," Bello said.
This is contained in a statement issued by the spokesman to the Acting President, Mr Laolu Akande on Sunday in Abuja.

Akande said the acting President commiserated with bereaved families and victims of the attack and ordered immediate search and rescue of the persons abducted.

It will be recalled that Boko Haram insurgents attacked oil workers carrying out exploration activity in the Lake Chad Basin area and members of the civilian JTF providing security for them particularly around Jibi village situated between Magumeri and Gubio Local Government Areas of Borno state.

The attack left in its wake a number of innocent Nigerians dead with several others abducted.

According to Akande, the acting President also wished the injured speedy recovery.

He noted that the exploration activity was to open up new sources of oil for the common good of Nigerians.

NAN also recalls that after an emergency meeting with military chiefs on Thursday, the acting President issued fresh directives to the security agencies to strengthen security in Borno State to maintain strong and effective control of the situation and secure lives and property.

He commended the military for the progress already recorded in the rescue of some of the abducted persons.

He said that Osinbajo, however, ordered the continuation of search and rescue missions to locate and ensure the freedom of all remaining abducted persons as soon as possible.

According to Akande, the acting President urged them to use all available and expedient means in the circumstances.

He added that justice would be pursued for the victims and against those who engaged in this kind of unacceptable, criminal and terrorist conduct.

He also paid tribute to the officers and men of the Nigerian Armed Forces for their resilience, courage and bravery.

Akande said that the acting President commended the armed forces gallant endeavours and sacrifices toward maintaining the peace, security and territorial integrity of the country.

He eulogised the Nigerian soldiers who had paid the ultimate price in that mission and others linked to the current insurgency and gave the assurance that the welfare of the families of the soldiers would be prioritised.

Akande said Osinbajo lauded the diligence of the management and staff members of the NNPC and the lecturers/consultants from the University of Maiduguri in pursuing Federal Governments resolve to grow the countrys current crude oil reserve base.

According to him, the Federal Government will by no means be dissuaded in potential exploration in the Lake Chad Basin.

Some of these extraordinarily selfless Nigerians from the NNPC and the University of Maiduguri put their lives on the line that we and generations to come will enjoy the resources of this land.

We will never forget that sacrifice, he quoted the acting President as saying.

Although pockets of terrorists had launched attacks recently in Borno State, the Acting President assured the people of the State, the region and indeed Nigerians of triumph.
Osinbajo, who was represented by the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Mallam Muhammed Bello, commended the National Hajj Commission (NAHCON) and aviation agencies for the arrangement being put in place.

He said the inaugural flight was the beginning of the hard work to be done by the officials at the holy land in guiding the pilgrims to perform the hajj.

Osinbajo commended the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for ensuring that all obstacles to 2017 Hajj pilgrimage were removed as well as the aviation agencies for ensuring smooth flight operations during the exercise.

According to him, airlifting is the beginning of the tasks to be carried out by the officials during Hajj operation.

As you are all aware, what we are witnessing today is a culmination of intense hard work, dedication and commitment by Hajj officials.

The work commenced when the Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Hajia Khadija Abba-Ibrahim led a delegation to Saudi Arabia where the MoU for the 2017 Hajj was signed.

This inaugural airlift is the beginning of the intense hard work to be done because you cannot say that the work is done until the pilgrims going to Saudi have an acceptable hajj and return back safely.

So, I want to commend the agencies of government particularly the Ministry of Foreign Affairs for the effort in ensuring that Nigeria got back the 20 per cent quota lost years ago, he said.

He also commended the Ministry of Aviation and all its agencies for the support given to pilgrims.

The Acting President urged the pilgrims to pray for the peace and prosperity of the country while in the holy land.

Osinbajo also called on the pilgrims to represent Nigeria properly within the short period in the holy land.

So each and every one of you is an ambassador of this beautiful country and I urge you to conduct yourself and I pray that when you go you will have a rewarding pilgrimage.

Earlier, Sen. Hadi Sirika , Minister of State for Aviation, said that pilgrimage was a journey that encompassed all aspect of lives of Muslims.

Sirika called on the pilgrims to maintain peace and avoid rancour with their fellow pilgrims during the pilgrimage to enable them reap the benefits thereof.

The Minister also admonished them to ensure that they understood the practice of hajj before they arrived there, adding that there were books written in different Nigerian languages to guide them.

He also advised them to avoid carrying items that were prohibited on aircraft and in foreign land to avoid embarrassment.

Do not engage in things that would cause conflict between you and your fellow pilgrims,this is a command, so go to Hajj and return safely, it will be as if you are born newly.

This rancour that occur between you and your fellow pilgrim is what destroys your exercise. What makes your pilgrimage a success, is your ability to be in harmony with everybody, he said.

He gave assurance that the government had put in place adequate logistics that would ensure smooth transportation of all pilgrims to Saudi Arabia for the 2017 hajj.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), recalls that the Managing Director, Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria (FAAN), Mr Saleh Dunoma, has assured of adequate preparation for the airlifting of pilgrims across Nigerian airports.

ALSO READ: How Senate tried to impeach Osinbajo

Dunoma disclosed that the 2017 Hajj operations would commence in Abuja with FlyNas Airline, Azman Airline and Max Air, the three carriers that were licensed to airlift pilgrims from July 31.

He urged pilgrims to get to the airport early to avoid missing their flights, adding that every requirement aimed at ensuring the safety, security and comfort of pilgrims had been met.
This is following a Premium Times report alleging that Senators were given cash rewards and job slots to facilitate the passage of the Peace Corps bill.

According to the report, lawmakers openly accused each other of receiving bribes.

Akor, while reacting to the allegations, said it is false, and called on Nigerians to disregard the report.

The Peace Corps boss also said My attention was drawn to the article on social media that cast the PCN in a contemptuous light, but on a second thought, they may be referring to a rival organization, National Unity And Peace Corps led by one Mr. Chinedu Nneji, whose Bill was nipped in the bud by the National Assembly.

The Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN), as the largest youth organization in Africa, has a well-structured network of branches in all the States Capital in Nigeria, including the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja with current membership strength of over 157, 000 comprising of both regular members and volunteers.

PCN and its activities, established since 1998 in the ancient City of Kaduna, was accorded Federal Government recognition, under the Federal Ministry of Youth Development, since 2004 and is a member of the National Youth Council of Nigeria.

The Corps was in 2012 accorded a Special Consultative Status by the United Nations and assigned desk offices at the UN Headquarters in New York City, USA and regional offices in Geneva, Switzerland and Vienna, Austria.

The African Union, in the same vein, accorded PCN a special Conservative Status in 2016 on the occasion of its 18th Anniversary. Also, the Federal Ministry of Education granted PCN approval to establish its activities in all the Federal Government Colleges (Unity Schools) in the Federation since 2011. It is also affiliated to National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) to provide emergency relief and humanitarian services.

Akor also went ahead to talk about the achievements of the Peace Corps locally and internationally.

He said The Corps and its leadership has received over 70 Awards, Locally and Internationally. Does it mean this Organization bribed its way to have recorded all these achievements and recognition, including bribing its way to the hearts of African Union and United Nations.

From the foregoing, I wish to posit that it is most unfortunate that it has become a trade in stock for some individuals or groups, nowadays, to pre-occupy themselves with character assassination and distortion of obvious facts and figures against this noble objective.

We recall too that the two Chambers of the National Assembly, as part of the legislative processes, organized Public Hearings in their respective Chambers in respect of NPC Bill.

Over 570 Memoranda were received and 300 oral submissions made during the Public Hearings. In all of these, it was only 4 submissions and presentations that were against the passage of the Bill. Public Hearing is one of the most important part of Bill making processes.

Does it mean Peace Corps bribed its way into the hearts of all individuals and institutions, including Federal Government Ministries/Agencies, Traditional and Religious Institutions that all advocated for the passage of the Bill?

Former Military President, General Ibrahim Babangida once said, If our Lord Jesus Christ was misrepresented, Prophet Mohammed too misrepresented in Their days of ministrations, then to be misrepresented is to be great.

Certainly, NPC is on the part to greatness. The question now begging for answers from every rational mind is that can any youth based Organization has the financial capacity or wherewithal to bribe a single Senator or House of Representatives member, how much more of the entire National Assembly members and its leadership; some of whom where former Governors, Ministers, Business moguls, Retired Generals, e.t.c.

After the Passage of the Bill, we do expect deliberate and calculated campaign of calumny by those who want to truncate it being assented to by the Mr President.
This is coming after Fayose alleged that OBJ knew about former President Umar Yaradua's ill health, but insisted on fielding him because he wanted somebody he could control.

The Ekiti state Governor also accused Obasanjo of deliberately frustrating the presidential ambition of former Vice-President Atiku Abubakar.

He also said OBJ was angry with George, because the PDP chieftain wanted to become the PDP Board of Trustees (BoT) chairman, Punch reports.

In his reaction, George said My advice to my younger brother in Ekiti State is that it is time for him to forgive and forget and let sleeping dogs lie. He was impeached but God reinstated him as governor after eight years. What more can a man ask for?

I have always said that my imprisonment was nothing but persecution and I have been vindicated by the highest court in the land.

I never wanted to become BoT Chairman, so I doubt if that was the reason why I was treated that way. The BoT chairman is chosen from among the elders within the party and not by other organs.
Sagay had earlier told newsmen that the Bukola Saraki led Senate is theworst in Nigerias history.

The Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) also accused the lawmakers of passing laws that serve their personal interests.

In its reaction, the Senate, through the Chairman, Committee on Media and Public Affairs, Senator Aliyu Sabi-Abdullahi said He (Sagay) is entitled to his opinion. That people can make nonsensical statements is the beauty of democracy but to be totally irresponsible in denigrating state and democratic institutions is definitely unacceptable. He is not speaking as a private citizen, given his position in this government.

He needs to guard his utterances. He is in a democratically elected government brought about by the electoral victory of our great party made possible by the collective efforts of party members, including members of the Senate and House of Representatives.

ALSO READ:Sahara Reporters ordered to pay Senate President N4 billion

If he does not understand the decorum and values of democracy, let him go back to the classroom; if he is still needed there. His disdain for the National Assembly surely makes him anti-democratic. In the alternative, I challenge him to contest in 2019 or forever remain silent.
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! 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!
In addition to upholding the conviction, military judges also rejected an appeal by prosecutors to increase the sentence for Azaria, a sergeant and military medic at the time of the incident, Israeli media reported.

"My opinion has not changed when it comes to granting pardon to Elor Azaria and remains consistent to what I said after the verdict," Netanyahu said on Twitter.

"When the subject is discussed concretely, I will give my recommendation to the competent authorities."

The 21-year-old French-Israeli was convicted in January and sentenced the following month.

He later appealed the verdict, while military prosecutors asked for an increased sentence after having initially requested between three and five years.

Azaria arrived at the military court in Tel Aviv on Sunday in a white V-neck shirt, smiling and hugging family members as he has done at previous hearings.

He completed his mandatory three-year military service on July 20 and was moved from confinement to his base to house arrest.

His imprisonment had been postponed pending his appeal.

He can still appeal to the country's supreme court, though Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman called on him not to and to request a pardon from the military chief of staff.

Captured on video

Azaria can also ask for a pardon from President Reuven Rivlin. A source close to Rivlin said that no request had yet been filed.

"This is not an easy day, but it is the verdict, and the court must be respected," Lieberman said.

"I am asking the Azaria family not to continue the appeal process... and to bring an end to this matter as quickly as possible for the good of Elor, his family and the Israeli people."

The March 2016 shooting in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron was caught on video by a rights group and spread widely online.

It showed Abdul Fatah al-Sharif, 21, lying wounded on the ground, shot along with another Palestinian after stabbing and wounding a soldier, according to the army.

Azaria then shot him in the head without any apparent provocation.

He said he feared Sharif was wearing an explosive belt and could blow himself up, a claim judges rejected.

"His motive for shooting was that he felt the terrorist deserved to die,"Judge Colonel Maya Heller said when reading out the verdict in January.

The trial captivated Israel and highlighted deep divisions in public opinion between those who decry the shooting and those who say he was justified.

Military leaders have sharply condemned Azaria's actions.

However, right-wing leaders, including Netanyahu, have called for him to be pardoned in an extraordinary public rift between politicians and the military.
Ruto condemned the violence at a campaign rally on Sunday.

"Those who seek to frustrate our unity, undermine our progress or work towards destroying our nationhood will not succeed," he told supporters in the town of Murang'a.

There are differing accounts on how many attackers were involved but the incident appeared to have ended Sunday when Kenya's police chief Joseph Boinnet said one assailant was shot and killed.

"The situation is under control," he said, noting that the drama started when a machete wielding man attacked and badly injured a police officer guarding Ruto's home, before storming the compound.

Regional security coordinator Wanyama Musyambo said the assailant then took one officer hostage in a room used as an armoury by police guards.

"It was a very delicate operation because, being in the armoury, he was at an advantage and was firing various weapons, and this caused confusion because you would think there was more than one person firing," Musyambo said.

Both the officer taken hostage and the gunman were later killed, Musyambo said.

Several security sources had earlier told AFP that the assault was staged by several people using guns, raising the possibility that some of the attackers remain at large.

"There are armed people who staged the attack and have shot the GSU officer and stolen his gun," one security official said, referring to the elite police General Security Unit deployed to guard Ruto's house.

Tensions mounting ahead of vote

The deputy president had left the house shortly before the attack to attend rallies alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, his running mate who faces a re-election contest on August 8 against longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Saturday's attack occurred despite the round-the-clock presence of GSU guards at the property, near the town of Eldoret, some 300 kilometres (200 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi.

Moses Wetang'ula, leader of one of five opposition parties in the coalition backing Odinga, called the incident "unfortunate" in comments to The Standard newspaper, but questioned if it wasn't also an attempt to heighten security fears ahead of the vote.

"We hope it is not a ploy to play victim," Wetang'ula said.

Ruto's home sits in Kenya's western Rift Valley area, the flashpoint for an outbreak of election violence after the disputed 2007 polls that killed 1,100 people and tarnished Kenya's image as a regional beacon of safety and stability.

According to opinion polls, this year's election will be close and tensions have been rising.

Odinga has repeatedly claimed the government is scheming to steal the election, while Kenyatta has accused Odinga of trying to delay the polls.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of threats and voter intimidation in Naivasha, a hotspot town in 2007 and one of the potential trouble spots in this year's election.

In the Rift Valley, hate speech flyers have been circulating and some local residents have already left their homes.

The 2007 bloodshed haunted both Ruto and Kenyatta long after it ended, when the International Criminal Court put both on trial for orchestrating the violence.
The picture shows, presumably a Hindu CRPF officer standing guard for his fellow Muslim officer while he offers namaz during duty hours in Srinagar.

By India Today Web Desk: Captioned 'Brothers-in-arms for peace', the picture tweeted by the official CRPF handle on Saturday has Twitterati swooning over the humble comradery of two officers.

The picture shows, presumably a Hindu CRPF officer standing guard for his fellow Muslim officer while he offers namaz during duty hours.

The post went viral for all right reasons, with people hailing the harmonious sociability, religious coexistence and brotherhood between the two CRPF officers.

Photo tweeted by @crpfindia

heart filled with joy after seeing this pic...jai hind brothers ????- SaswataBiswas (@jewel_rimo) July 30, 2017

A J&K policeman offers Namaz while a CRPF Jawan stands guard. Together they fight terrorism.#BrothersInArms pic.twitter.com/NrgAascAgW- Sidharth Gehlawat (@GehlawatSid) July 29, 2017

Pic wid million of words n msg, it represnt what we're n real sprit of Harmony. Salute to armd force personal dat how dey save us @ any cost- Prateek Asthana (@prateekasthana) July 29, 2017

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It also assumes added significance as the Valley has been reeling under enormous unrest and bellicose sentiments for over an year now, with curfews being imposed regularly.

The post sits atop the garb of how Kashmir is polarised on religious lines- with a Hindu cop shielding his Muslim colleague while the latter offers his prayers.

Meanwhile, two militants were gunned down today in encounter with the security forces Tahab village in south Kashmir's Pulwama district.

Also read: 20 arrested for Kashmir police officer's lynching

Also read: CRPF draws inspiration from Punjab Police, builds its own bullet proof vehicles for Kashmir

--- ENDS ---
The four latest arrests were of dissidents who had previously served jail sentences for anti-state convictions. But the current charge they face is much more serious and can carry the death penalty.

Prominent dissidents Pham Van Troi and Nguyen Bac Truyen, freelance writer Truong Minh Duc and Protestant pastor Nguyen Trung Ton were all arrested at their homes on Sunday, their wives told reporters.

In an online statement the Ministry of Public Security said the four were arrested under Article 79 of the criminal code -- trying to "overthrow the people's administration".

They are connected to lawyer Nguyen Van Dai and activist Le Thu Ha, who have already been detained on the same charge.

"My husband fought against social injustice and China's invasion of the East Sea," Troi's wife Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang told AFP, using the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea.

"He did not have any move to try to overthrow the state."

Ton's wife Nguyen Thi Lanh said her husband was already recovering from a recent assault by plainclothes police when he was arrested.

"Voicing support for the people cannot be called trying to overthrow the administration," she told AFP.

Vietnam has competiting claims with China in the South China Sea but Hanoi is extremely sensitive to any criticism about how it handles the issue.

John Sifton, from Human Rights Watch, said 2017 has been "a terrible year" for human rights in Vietnam.

"More cases of government thugs beating up dissidents, longer and longer jail sentences, and now, more arrests," he said.

"Vietnam's allies and donors, especially the EU and Japan, need to speak up," he added.

Last month prominent blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as "Mother Mushroom", was jailed for 10 years for Facebook posts about politics and the environment.

Anti-China activist Tran Thi Nga, 40, was imprisoned for nine years for anti-state activities after a one-day trial last week in the northern province of Ha Nam, to which media access was restricted.
ALGONQUIN (AP)  Sandbags have been provided by local government to Illinois counties that have been affected by recent floods.

Sandbags are cheap to make thanks to economies of scale, the low cost of materials and the help of thousands of volunteers in Lake County, the (Arlington Heights) Daily Herald reported.

However, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency warns that once the sandbags have come into contact with floodwater, they can't be reused.

Floodwater can be contaminated with human and animal waste, oil and gasoline residue, and farm chemicals such as fertilizers, pesticides and herbicides. The IEPA said sandbags with visible signs of contamination should be disposed as waste at a landfill.

Sandbags are typically made of polypropylene plastic, while others are made of canvas. IEPA Spokeswoman Kim Biggs says the sandbags made with canvas can be burned with an open burn permit from the agency.

Local governments, such as Lake County, are allowing residents to return them by dropping them off at their public works facilities.

"The sand can be reused; public works can use it for backfill excavation. But the bags degrade over time, so we throw those out," West Dundee Public Works Director Eric Babcock said. "They can be stockpiled for future use if you keep them dry and out of the sun, tarped and off the ground."
Many people recognize the name of Jane Addams from high school history textbooks, but few know much else about this incomparable woman of 19th century Illinois history. And she was hardly the only one.

Few opportunities awaited Illinois women in the era. In 1900, only 16.3 percent of all Illinois women were employed, with the exception of housekeepers. Women were clustered in a handful of occupations, including teaching, which was 74 percent female.

Still, women made a noticeable impact. Social clubs to promote reading, art and education were common, and the Womens Christian Temperance Union, headquartered in Evanston, called for limits on alcohol. Monmouth is believed to have been home to the earliest women's political club in the nation. The Illinois Federation of Womens Clubs, established in 1894, called for free access to reading for all citizens and created small traveling libraries in storage trunks that were shipped to communities without public library service.

Despite these efforts, many women struggled in poverty and social degradation. Jane Addams, who was born in Cedarville in 1860 to a privileged upbringing, was one of the few to recognize this. On the second of two European excursions, she was drawn to the first settlement house in the world, which served the citys poor in London. On Sept. 18, 1889, Addams and a college friend, Ellen Gates Starr, acquired an 1856 mansion on Halsted Street on Chicagos immigrant-laden west side and established Hull House.

Over the next 20 years, Hull House grew into a 13-structure complex that included educational facilities, gymnasium, theater, cafeteria, nursery, and art and music studios. Hull House quickly became a national model, and one modern writer called Addams the most famous American woman of the 20th century.

Addams frequently lectured on the needs of the poor and wrote a string of books and articles, including her 1910 classic "Twenty Years at Hull House." In 1931, she won the Nobel Peace Prize. She also advocated better factory conditions and womens suffrage, which was nothing new. Female suffrage groups had dotted Illinois for decades, beginning with a club in Earlville in 1855.

Another suffrage advocate was Myra Bradwell, an attorney's wife who founded the Chicago Legal News, the first weekly Midwestern law journal and the largest in circulation of its kind. In August 1869, Bradwell was recommended for a law license, but the Illinois Supreme Court twice dismissed her attempt, finally asserting that God designed the sexes to occupy different spheres of action.

Bradwell appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which upheld the decision in 1873. However, a year earlier, Illinois passed a law preventing women from occupational exclusion. In June 1873, Alta Hulett, 19, became the first female lawyer in Illinois.

Meanwhile, Bradwell remained an active political and social activist and aided Mary Todd Lincoln in her insanity trials of 1875-76. In 1890, she was finally admitted to the bar.

Other influential Illinois women rose from Hull House, including Julia Lathrop, whose father, William, had been a mentor to Hulett. Julia Lathrop later helped write the state juvenile court law, the first of its kind in the world, and in 1912, she was appointed the first female chief of the national childrens bureau. She eventually was succeeded by another from Hull, Grace Abbott. Another Hull resident, Florence Kelley, became the states first factory inspector, while her assistant, Alzina Stevens, was also from Hull.

Mary McDowell, a former kindergarten teacher at Hull House, earned the nickname Angel of the Stockyards for establishing her own settlement house in that region of the city. Ex-Hull resident Dr. Alice Hamilton became the first female faculty member at Harvard.

Womens rights in Illinois, as elsewhere, still lagged, and the state would not elect a female representative to Springfield until 1922. But the work of a handful of remarkable women in the late 1800s put Illinois at the forefront of national reform.
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Currently, 85% smartphone users are using Android OS and Google Play Store is the home of all Android apps, games, movies, books. You can download almost anything from Play Store. Some items are free to use while some of them are paid. This is the biggest app market now and all Android smartphones come with Google Play Store pre-installed if you live outside China.

The Play Store app is getting better and smarter day by day with new smartphones. Three four years back the app wasnt as stable as it is now. Now we have so many good smartphones to use and some upcoming smartphones coming in later 2017 or in early 2018 will be beast in terms of performance. Alongside smartphones, the Play Store apps UI and UX are also better now. We have so many new features to use. Behind the app, developers are working hard to fix all the bugs and making it stable with every update.

Almost every week Google push new updates for Play Store but until theres any big update they dont disclose the changelogs. We have got a new update last week. You can download the updated APK directly from APKMirror or you can also update it through Google Play itself if any update is there.
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According to police, the woman belongs to Madhya Pradesh and has been allegedly trading in illegally acquired weapons for the last 15 years.

The woman arms smuggler was arrested by Delhi Police's special cell. Photo credit: India Today.

By Puneet Kumar Sharma, Chirag Gothi: Before Independence Day celebrations on August 15, Delhi Police's special cell today arrested a woman and seized 14 pistols and 14 magazines from her.

According to Delhi Police, these arms were meant for supply in Delhi-NCR area.

The woman, an alleged arms smuggler, was arrested from Delhi's Shastri Park area and has been identified as Mobai.

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According to police, the woman belongs to Madhya Pradesh and has been allegedly trading in illegally acquired weapons for the last 15 years.

The woman, along with an accomplice, would illegally buy weapons in Madhya Pradesh and sell them off to people in Delhi-NCR.

The woman has been arrested before and was declared absconding in 2014, according to officers of Delhi Police.

While travelling in a train or bus, she would always get down at the station prior to her destination to avoid getting arrested.

Delhi Police's special cell is questioning the woman to get information about people who have bought illegal arms from her.

ALSO READ:

Illegal arms racket: Indian shooter, Slovenian arms dealer arrested

Delhi: 2 arms dealers arrested with 18 sophisticated pistols, 25 magazines

Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi, linked to Rajiv Gandhi and Chandra Shekhar, dead

--- ENDS ---
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Chinese President Xi Jinping today said that the PLA was capable of defeating all invading enemies. Claiming Doklam as its own land, China earlier accused India of invading its territory.

By Prabhash K Dutta: What appeared as a response to Indian Army chief General Bipin Rawat's remark, Chinese President Xi Jinping today said that the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China was capable of defeating all its enemies.

The statement of Xi Jinping assumes significance in the backdrop of the references to 1962 war made by Chinese foreign office spokespersons over Doklam standoff with India.

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In an interesting development, the PLA soldiers called Xi Jinping "Zhu Xi Hao" meaning "Hail the Chairman" or "Salute to the Chairman."

XI JINPING NEEDLES INDIA?

Chinese President made the remarks at the military parade held to celebrate the foundation of the PLA. This was the first occasion since the PLA was set up in 1927 that the Army Day parade was held in China.

According to a Xinhua report, Xi Jinping said, "The People's Liberation Army has confidence and capability in defeating all invading enemies and protecting China's national sovereignty, security and development interests."

Earlier in June, as the Indian Army and the PLA soldiers jostled with each other at Doklam plateau in Bhutan, Bipin Rawat had said that his forces were "ready for a two-and-a-half front war."

On his party, Xi Jinping may just have betrayed China's nervousness over Doklam standoff. There is huge domestic pressure on Xi Jinping which stops him from asking the PLA troops to withdraw. Jinping does not want to show any sign of weakness ahead of the 19th Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Military parade at Zhurihe traning centre to mark 90th anniversary of the PLA. (Photo: AP)

THE ARMY DAY PARADE

The official foundation day of the PLA falls on August 1, when a grand celebration is planned for the 90th anniversary of the Chinese Army. It was the first time that a military parade was held at the Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

However, this is not the first time that China held a military parade. But, most of previous military parades of Chinese Army were at Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing. A similar parade is still expected in Beijing on August 1.

It was also the first time, when a Chinese President inspected the army at Zhurihe and was the guest of honour at the celebration. China has developed Zhurihe training centre as an answer to the Fort Irwin National Training Centre of the United States.

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CHINA SHOWS ITS MILITARTY MUSCLE

At Zhurihe, Xi Jinping rode a roofless military vehicle wearing a camouflage uniform while he inspected about 12,000 military personnel of the PLA. The original plan, as some Chinese media reports suggest, was to have greater participation of the PLA officials and soldiers, but number was curtailed down to 12,000 in the wake of Doklam standoff.

Military parade at Zhurihe traning centre to mark 90th anniversary of the PLA. (Photo: AP)

More than 3,000 soldiers each of the Indian Army and the PLA are in eyeball encounter at the Doklam plateau in Bhutan. China has accused India of challenging its sovereignty by sending its soldiers to Doklam.

India, in turn, has said that China has violated the 2012 understanding whereby the three countries of the region including Bhutan will not try to alter the status quo on the border unilaterally. The soldiers are staying put at about 150 metres from one another.

With this in background, Xi Jinping became the first Chinese President to wear PLA uniform during a military parade, where China showcased its latest military devices. One report suggests that about 40 per cent of the modern military devices of the PLA were displayed to the public at Zhurihe for the first time.

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XI JINPING, THE CHAIRMAN

Xi Jinping has been consolidating his power in the Communist Party of China and the Chinese government ever since he became the general secretary of the party in 2012 and country's President the next year.

In the party, Xi Jinping removed Sun Zhengcai, who was considered as a potential successor. Zhengcai was close to former premier Wen Jiabao and one the youngest members of the politburo of the Communist Party of China.

Jinping wants greater control over the party and is expected to get what he wants in the 19th Congress of the CPC later this year.

On military front, Xi Jinping carefully planned the transition from "Shouzhang" (core leader) to Zhuxi or Zhu Xi (the chairman). Today's was the third occasion when Jinping presided over an unusual military parade.

It started with a military parade in Beijing in September 2015 to mark 70th anniversary of China's victory against Japan. Back then, Xi Jinping was called 'Shouzhang'.

Jinping inspected another military parade in June in Hong Kong to mark the 20th anniversary of its handover from the United Kingdom to China. During this event, Jinping had conveyed the message that at the next military parade, he should be called Zhu Xi or the Chairman.

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No leader since Mao Zedong has been addressed as the chairman in China. The PLA soldiers today addressed Xi Jinping as the Chairman - an acknowledgment that he is the most powerful Chinese President since the founder of Communist China.

ALSO READ |

Xi Jinping urges army to forge elite force to win wars on PLA's 90th anniversary

Why India, China have failed to resolve Doklam standoff

ALSO WATCH | Chinese daily calls NSA Ajit Doval the villain of Doklam

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: New York, Jul 29 (PTI) Astronomers have found evidence for the first known moon beyond our solar system, orbiting a planet around a star about 4,000 light-years away.

Researchers from Columbia University in the US analysed the dips in light from exoplanets passing in front of their stars in data from the Kepler space telescope.

A second, smaller dip that appears ahead of or behind the planet could reveal a moon, they said.

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Researchers David Kipping and Alex Teachey of Columbia University have now found the first evidence for an exomoon candidate named Kepler 1625b i.

They analysed 284 planets that seemed like good candidates for hosting detectable moons, New Scientist reported.

"Out of those, this object popped out," Kipping said.

Researchers said if the object exists, it orbits a planet slightly larger than Jupiter around a star about 4,000 light-years away.

Since the potential moon is probably about the size of Neptune, the team nicknamed it "Neptmoon."

Researchers plan to check if the moon is really there by using the Hubble Space Telescope to watch for another transit on October 29. PTI SAR SAR

--- ENDS ---
Australian authorities have arrested four men as they foiled an Islamist-inspired terrorist plot to bring down an airplane.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull confirmed the development at a news conference Sydney on Sunday, reports the ABC news.

The arrest was made on Saturday after the authorities seized material that could be used to make an improvised bomb, which the perpetrators intending to smuggle onto a plane in order to blow it up.

Police said it was an Islamist-inspired plot, but they did not link the plan to a specific terrorist group.

Meanwhile, Turnbull said the 'major counter-terrorism operation' was ongoing.

The prime minister said extra security measures have been in place at Sydney Airport since Thursday and have since been put in place at the country's other major airports.

Transport security officials advised travelers to get to their airports two hours before their scheduled flight departures.

Last month, the Islamic State claimed responsibility for an attack at a suburban Melbourne apartment building where one man was killed and three police officers were wounded.

IMAGE: Australian Federal Police officers talk with passengers near the check-in counters at the Sydney Airport Domestic terminal in Australia. Photograph: David Gray/Reuters
The Congress today paraded all its legislators from Gujarat, who have been lodged in a resort near Bengaluru, before the media, in an effort to quell speculation of dissension in the party ranks.

Congress spokesperson Shaktisinhn Gohil claimed the Bharatiya Janata Party tried to 'buy' 22 of its MLAs by offering Rs 15 crore for cross-voting during the elections to Rajya Sabha from Gujarat, to be held on August 8.

"Our legislators have not come here to enjoy. We brought them here to save democracy as they were being poached by BJP, using money and muscle power," Gohil told reporters at the resort, as 44 Gujarat MLAs sat behind him.

Of the initial strength of 57 in Gujarat, six MLAs resigned from the party in the last two days. Three of them joined the BJP on July 28.

Seven other MLAs are not part of the group in the resort near Bengaluru but Gohil hoped they would listen to their 'inner voice' and not vote against the Congress.

The seven MLAs should not forget that they were elected on a Congress ticket, he added.

"We have 44 legislators here, and we are also in touch with seven legislators, who are not here with us, and a few others from other parties including NCP are also voting for us. All in all, we have 60 legislators voting for our candidate," he said.

Gohil rejected the charges of the BJP that the Congress legislators were enjoying their stay at the Egleton Golf Resort, neglecting their duties back home at a time when North Gujarat is reeling under floods.

All Congress legislators had visited their constituencies in North Gujarat on July 25 to be among the affected people on party leader Ahmed Patel's urging, the spokesperson said.

He also alleged the BJP was using the Central Bureau of Investigation to target Congress leaders.

Earlier, Gohil had said the legislators put up in the resort were living like a family and there was no disharmony or bickering within the party.

"I am here since last night with my colleagues. We are living like a family. You (BJP) are talking about internal problem? Just see how we respect each other. There is no internal problem or bickering between us," he had said.

Gohil was reacting to Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani's charges of internal problems in Congress triggered by the quitting of its leaders, including Shankarsinh Vaghela and Balwantsinh Rajput.

"They have taken their MLAs to Bangaluru as they do not have faith in their MLAs," Rupani had said.

The Congress has re-nominated Patel, political secretary to party chief Sonia Gandhi, to the Upper House of Parliament from Gujarat.

The desertions have cast a shadow on the fate of Patel in the coming Rajya Sabha polls.

The BJP has fielded party president Amit Shah, Union minister Smriti Irani and former Congress MLA Balwantsinh Rajput who joined the saffron party on Thursday.

Of the total of 11 Rajya Sabha members from the state, the term of three -- Smriti Irani and Dilipbhai Pandya (both BJP) and Ahmed Patel -- will end on August 18.

IMAGE: Congress MLA Shaktisinhn Gohil addresses the media in Bengaluru on Sunday. Photograph: ANI
Russia and India are holding negotiations for the supply of 48 Russian Mi-17 military transport helicopters with Moscow hoping to seal the deal by the year end, a top Russian official has said.

Russian arms supplier Rosoboronexport's Chief Executive Officer Alexander Mikheev said India has more than 300 helicopters belonging to the Mi-8 and Mi-17 family, which are deployed in troop and arms transport, fire support, convoy escort, patrol, and search-and-rescue (SAR) missions. He said India knows their specifications well.

Mikheev said Russia and India are holding talks with a view to sign a contract for 48 (Mi-17V-5) helicopters and the techno-commercial negotiations are set to commence.

"We hope that we will reach an agreement before the end of this year," he told a select group of journalists in Zhukovsky on the sidelines of Russia's premier air show MAKS 2017.

Last year, Russia had handed over to India the final batch of three Mi-17V-5 military transport helicopters under a previously signed contract with Rosoboronexport, a company of the Rostec State Corporation, that entailed a total of 151 units of the Mi-17V-5 helicopter, produced by the Kazan Helicopter Plant.

Designed to transport cargo inside the cabin and on an external sling, the Mi-17V-5 is considered to be one of the world's most advanced military transport helicopters.

Mi-17V-5, supplied to India, ranks among the most technically advanced helicopters of the Mi-8/17 type, incorporating the best engineering solutions of previous generations.

In 2008, Rosoboronexport signed a contract for the delivery of 80 Mi-17V-5 to India, which was completed in 2011-2013. In 2012-2013, three additional contracts were signed to supply a total of 71 Mi-17V-5 helicopters to meet the needs of the Indian Air Force.

Talking about the S-400 Triumf anti-aircraft missile systems, Mikheev said Russia and India are holding 'technical consultations' for their supply and Moscow aims to sign a contract 'as soon as possible'.

India and Russia have been in talks for over a year for the purchase of at least five systems of S-400 that could be a game changer for India's anti-aircraft defence capability.

India had announced on October 15 last year a deal on the Triumf air defence systems from Russia, worth over $5 billion (Rs 32,500 crore).

"As of today, we are carrying out technical consultations with India. We have already shown our equipment - both in the field, testing, range-practice conditions and in conditions of production plant and design bureaus," Mikheev said.

"Rosoboronexport is performing all the works aimed at signing of the contract as soon as possible, based on the feedback from India," he said.

Talking about other projects that are under discussion between Russia and India, Mikheev said, "We are discussing a programme for modernisation of SU-30 with our Indian partners. The aircraft park is quite large."

"During a period of 15 years, we have fulfilled all our obligations to the Indian party, the HAL Corporation -- supplied quite a large aircraft park, over 200, under the license agreement -- and we are offering new developments of our design bureaus.

"Moreover, the Indian Air Force has some requirements for improvement of performance and operational characteristics, mainly with regard to avionics, electronic warfare systems, as well as updates of weapon systems by both Indian and Russian companies," he said.

Mikheev said Russia was already considering the capabilities of the Indian industry within the framework of the 'Make in India' programme and noted that under it a well-known project was the joint venture for Kamov 226T helicopters.

Asked about the first Russia-India military-industrial conference in March where some questions concerning the problem with spare parts were raised, Mikheev said the industrial conference was jointly held by Russia's Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Valentinovich Manturov and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley during which both sides reached an agreement on the issue.

"I think that it's actually a big plus in our relations. We have agreed that the programme of after-sales services will be participated by Russian dedicated holding companies, in order to ensure the operation of previously supplied equipment throughout its lifecycle. It's 20, 30, 40 years -- whether it be a submarine, a helicopter, a tank, etc.," Mikheev said.

"We have specified six companies that will carry out direct cooperation with both operators of Russian equipment and Indian companies that will be charged with operating this equipment and manufacturing its spare parts," he said.

Mikheev named the six companies that will carry out direct cooperation as -- the United Shipbuilding Corporation, the United Aircraft Corporation, Russian Helicopters, the United Engine Corporation, Almaz Antey and Tactical Missile Corporation.

Rosoboronexport is the only state-owned arms trade company in the Russian federation authorised to export the full range of military and dual purpose products, technologies and services.
Chinese President Xi Jinping on Sunday said the Peoples Liberation Army has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies as he inspected a massive military parade at the countrys largest military base to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the 2.3-million strong army.

IMAGE: Soldiers of China's People's Liberation Army get ready for the military parade to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the foundation of the army at Zhurihe military training base in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, China. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters



Xi also said the PLA should strictly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China and march to wherever the Party points to.

I firmly believe that our gallant military has both confidence and ability to defeat all invading enemies, said Xi, who heads the Central Military Commission, which holds the overall command of the PLA -- the worlds largest army.

While there was no reference in his speech to over a month-long India-China military standoff at Doklam in Sikkim section, his remarks came in the midst of shrill official media campaign and assertions by the foreign and defence ministries accusing Indian troops of trespassing into

Chinese territory at Doklam.

Clad in camouflage military suit, 64-year-old Xi said the Chinese military has the confidence and ability to safeguard, national sovereignty, security and development interests.

Our military has the confidence and ability to write a new chapter in building of strong military and make new contributions to towards realisation of the China dream of great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and safeguarding world peace, Xi said in his about 10-minute address -- an event carried live on state television and radio.

Earlier, Xi inspected the military parade at Chinas largest military base in Zhurihe in Inner Mongolia  the biggest parade since 2015 in which army and air force displayed some of the most modern weapons including a new tank which reportedly held exercises in the high-altitude along the Indian border.

The other weapons included long range nuclear and conventional missiles, the new J-15 -- the new aircraft based carrier.

IMAGE: The Chinese military has the worlds second largest defence budget of $152 billion (Rs 9.7 lakh crore) next to the US military. Photograph: China Daily/Reuters



In his address, Xi asked the military to further improve its combativeness and modernise the national defence and armed forces.

The Chinese military has the worlds second largest defence budget of $152 billion (Rs 9.7 lakh crore) next to the US military.

The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927 when the ruling 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.

Officers and soldiers, you must unswervingly stick to the fundamental principle and system of the Partys absolute leadership over the army, always listen to and follow the Partys orders, and march to wherever the Party points to, said Xi, the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee.

PLA officers and soldiers should firmly adhere to the fundamental goal of serving the people wholeheartedly, and always stand together with the people, Xi said.

He also said China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of PLA into a world-class military force.

Enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the peoples army, he said.

The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded, said Xi, who is expected to get a second five year term at the key meeting of the CPC later this year.

Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong peoples military more than any other time in history, he said.

He urged the PLA to fully implement the CPCs thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPCs target on strengthening the PLA under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.

About 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment were on display.

Dongfeng missiles which include short, long and medium rage of rockets, variety of armoury including light tanks, drones were also deployed.

Helicopter borne troops demonstrated in quick landing and taking combat positions.

The parade was held in the backdrop of over month long standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam in Sikkim section.

Besides Doklam, China is also concerned by the situation in North Korea and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence missile by US in South Korea much to the opposition of the Beijing.
A day after a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh worker was hacked to death in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and state police chief Loknath Behera on Sunday met Governor P Sathasivam in response to a Raj Bhavan summons to ascertain the action taken by the government in the case.

A Raj Bhavan statement said the chief minister and police chief were summoned in the wake of recent incidents of violence in the state capital, including the murder of an RSS functionary on Saturday.

'Summoned chief minister and state police chief to know about action taken by state govt on law and order issues in Trivandrum,' Sathasivam tweeted.

'Chief Minister informed that culprits in murder of RSS worker in Trivandrum arrested & that lawbreakers will be sternly dealt with,' he said.

The governor said the chief minister assured that law breakers would be sternly dealt with, 'irrespective of status or political affiliation'.

Vijayan met the governor around 11.30 am, while the DGP met Sathasivam at 12.30 pm, the governor's office said. The Raj Bhavan statement also said the chief minister would soon make a public appeal to maintain peace.

Vijayan also informed that he would be meeting state Bharatiya Janata Party president Kummanam Rajasekharan and state RSS Chief, it said.

The governor asked the DGP to take all possible measures to book the culprits and maintain peace in the southern state.

Sathasivam also spoke to Kummanam Rajasekharan about the incident and the attack on the BJP party office in Thiruvananthapuram.

According to the statement by the Raj Bhawan, the governor also spoke to Communist Party of India-Marxist state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan to enquire about stone pelting at his son's residence in Thiruvananthapuram.

Sathasivam also had a word with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and apprised him of the situation and measures taken by the state government.

Police have so far taken six persons into custody in connection with the slaying of the RSS worker even as the BJP called for a dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal on Sunday to protest the incident.

The hartal has been incident free.

Earlier, the Kerala Police detained six people in connection with the murder of 34-year-old Rajesh allegedly by a gang led by a history-sheeters.

Police said Rajeshs left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around 9 pm on Saturday night.

Rajasekharan alleged that the CPI-M was behind the attack, a charge denied by the district leadership of the Left party.

"Probe shows the attack on RSS worker isn't political killing. Main accused isn't a CPI-M member," Kodiyeri Balakrishnan, CPI-M state secretary said.

"In last two weeks, two cases were registered against the victim and the main accused over personal rivalry. The BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) is creating law and order problems," Balakrishnan said.

Earlier in the day, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala and said political violence was unacceptable in a democracy.

During a telephonic conversation with Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan, Singh discussed with him the recent incidents of political violence in the state.

'I have expressed my concern over the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy,' he said in a tweet.

With inputs from ANI
IMAGE: NIA officials conduct a raid at the residence of Devinder Singh Behl, a close aide of separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, in Jammu on Sunday.

Photograph: PTI Photo

Widening its probe in the terror funding case, the National Investigation Agency on Sunday searched the office and residence of a lawyer linked to hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani on suspicion of routing funds to separatists from their Pakistan-based handlers.

A spokesman for the NIA said the office and residence of Devinder Singh Behal, chairman, Jammu and Kashmir Social Peace Forum, a constituent of Tehreek-e-Hurriayat headed by Geelani, were searched in Jammu.

Behal is also a member of the legal cell of the separatist amalgam led by Geelani and a 'close associate' of the Hurriyat hawk. Behal, the anti-terror probe agency said, also regularly attends the funeral processions of terrorists.

"The NIA is investigating his role as a courier as he is suspected to be involved in routing funds to separatist leaders from Pakistan-based handlers," the spokesman said.

He claimed several incriminating documents, four mobile phones, a tablet computer and a few other articles were seized during the searches, and Behal was being questioned.

In a related development, the NIA also issued summons to Naseem, the younger son of Geelani, asking him to appear before it on Wednesday.

Geelani's elder son, Nayeem, who was asked to present himself at the agency's headquarters in New Delhi on Monday, has been admitted to a hospital in Srinagar after he complained of chest pain, members of the Hurriyat faction said.

Nayeem, a surgeon, had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years and is considered Geelani's heir apparent.

Nayeem was to be questioned in connection with the terror funding case which has named Hafiz Saeed, leader of Pakistan-based Jamaat-ud-Dawa and banned terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Tayiba, as an accused.

The NIA has also named separatist organisations like the two factions led by Geelani and moderate leader Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and all-woman outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat in its FIR.

Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh has already been arrested by the NIA and was being interrogated.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, spokesman for Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, and Peer Saifullah were arrested from the Valley last week.

Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman for the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' have also been arrested.

All of them have been remanded in 10 days NIA custody.

The NIA had registered the case on May 30, accusing separatist and scessionist leaders of being in cahoots with terrorist groups.

The case was registered over raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including through hawala channels, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in the state and for causing disruption in the Valley by pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.

The NIA conducted searches in several places in the state besides Haryana and the national capital. Electronic devices and valuables worth crores of rupees were impounded.

It is for the first time since the rise of militancy in the early 1990s that a central probe agency has conducted raids in connection with the funding of terrorist and separatist groups.
Floods have thrown life out of gear in Gujarat, Assam, parts of West Bengal and Rajasthan. Prime Minister Narendra Modi today spoke on the same in his Mann ki Baat speech.

By India Today Web Desk: Expressing concern over the floods in Gujarat, Rajasthan, Assam and parts of West Bengal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today said that flood-affected areas are being closely monitored and relief operations are being undertaken on a massive scale.

"Wherever possible, my colleagues in the Council of Ministers are also personally visiting affected areas. State governments too are making maximum possible efforts to provide relief to the flood-affected people," Narendra Modi said in his Mann ki Baat address to the nation today.

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"A 24x7 control room helpline number 1078 is functioning continuously to deal with the flood situation," the Prime Minister said.

Yes, monsoon is enjoyable but this season also leads to floods. We are doing everything to help in relief & rehabilitation. #MannKiBaat pic.twitter.com/CUEoyWNGf5- PMO India (@PMOIndia) July 30, 2017

THE SITUATION IN GUJARAT

In Gujarat, Chief Minister Vijay Rupani will be camping in Banaskantha for five days and oversee the rescue and relief operations in the worst-hit district.

The Gujarat Chief Minister today conducted aerial survey of flood-hit Banaskantha district where the death cross has reached 60.

"I visited Dhanera which has suffered heavy losses. We are working on schemes to help farmers and traders," Vijay Rupani said.

On Saturday, three Union ministers visited Gujarat to take stock of the flood-hit areas. Union ministers Radha Mohan Singh and Parshottam Rupala visited Banaskantha district while Union minister Mansukh Mandaviya met officials to assess the damage caused to state and national highways due to floods.

As many as 80,000 people have been relocated to safer places, including 38,241 in Banaskantha and Patan, an official release said on Saturday. Till Saturday, the death toll in Gujarat floods stood at 142.

THE SITUATION IN OTHER STATES

Rajasthan Chief Minister reviewed the situation in the flood-hit areas on Saturday. She conducted aerial surveys of Pali and Sirohi districts and then held a meeting at her official residence in Jaipur.

Sixteen people have been killed in rain-related incidents in Rajasthan while another 12,000 people were relocated from flood-hit areas in the state till Saturday.

In West Bengal, the floods claimed 31 lives in the last 10 days. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said the flood situation has improved in the last few years.

Nearly 45,000 people are taking shelter in more than 2,000 relief camps set up in the flood-hit districts.

In Assam, the two waves of floods have affected 25 lakh people in 29 districts of the state this year.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit the state on August 1 following criticism from Opposition that he did not visit the flood-hit state even as he managed to conduct an aerial survey of Gujarat after floods.

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The floods have killed 79 people in Assam while 2,000 people are taking shelter in relief camps.

ALSO READ:

Help those affected in Gujarat, Assam floods, Aamir Khan appeals on Twitter

To check Assam floods, 800-mile highway embankment on Brahmaputra planned

Tale of two floods: Assam continues to wave for help while Gujarat gets Rs 500 crore

ALSO WATCH: Image of the day: Gujarat faces flood fury

--- ENDS ---
By India Today Web Desk: Former Bigg Boss contestant Nitibha Kaul is the latest victim of social media bullying. Nitibha recently posted a video on her Instagram account where she was dancing to few popular numbers but removed the post after people started posting nasty comments on her video.

Later, she reposted the video with a long note shutting down her haters.

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She wrote, "Had deleted this same post i'd made a few hours back owing to all the crappy comments I was getting. But then, I watched the third episode in Season 1 of the amazingly haunting @blackmirrorseries and realised- how social media perception is really messing our reality up. And then I realised- this is me, the real me. My expressions might seem like overacting to you, but they're me, MY expressions. You feel like I raise my tattooed wrist up a lot more than I should in pictures and videos- to show off, but that's my wrist, MY movement. You feel like i'm trying too hard, wearing too much makeup, MY body, MY face. Don't like it? I'm not here to please you, but I surely am here to not loose myself, my free spiritedness and my identity because of what YOU say. After all, its ME that matters for myself. Love me for that? I'll love you right back- why else would 350k of you want to know what i'm upto? Hate me for it? Too bad. It won't be enough to stop me. #saynotosocialmediabullying #berealinthisvirtualworld #hatersgonnahate #dontlooseyourself #unfiltered #loveyourself #morepowertoustosurvivethisdigitalage." (sic)

Nitibha rose to fame with Bigg Boss 10 and has 360K followers on Instagram. This is not the first time when Nitibha has been trolled by haters. Earlier, Nitibha had been body-shamed when she posted swimsuit pictures, where she looked gorgeous.

But we are glad that Nitibha stood up for herself.

Inner water baby happiest #waterwatereverywhere #oceanview #infinitypoolsaremything #soakinginthesun #poolside #travelmode #naturemeetsman A post shared by Nitibha Kaul (@nitibhakaul) on Jun 30, 2017 at 6:11am PDT

Also read: Nitibha Kaul to Aneri Vajani: It's a shame that these TV stars were body-shamed on social media

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Nashik, July 30 (PTI) The Maharashtra government is working on a three-point agenda that includes providing uninterrupted power, water and stable market to strengthen farmers in the state, Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said today.

"The state government is working to provide farmers electricity, water and stable market to strengthen them and bring positive changes in their life," the chief minister said after laying the foundation stone of a multi-purpose cold storage plant in Lasalgaon village in the district.

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Once completed, the 2,500-tonne capacity cold storage plant will be able to store 1,500 tonnes of onions and 1,000 tonnes of fruits and vegetable for export.

The plant is being jointly developed by the Railways and the Lasalgaons Cooperative Kharedi Vikri Sangh, said Nanasaheb Patil, Chairman of Kharedi-Vikri Sangh.

Railways Minister Suresh Prabhu, MoS for Defence Subhash Bhamare, Nashik district Guardian Minister Girish Mahajan, Tourism Minister Jaykumar Rawal were present on the occasion.

"Famers should store onions and other agri products in the cold storages so that their agri produce will fetch good rates," he said, adding that Central government will set up 227 cold storages across the country, of which 52 will be in Maharashtra.

Prabhu said the Centre and state governments are working together to ensure that farmers get benefited from their policies.

"The government has taken a string of important decisions, including setting up multi-purpose cold storage projects. The Container Corporation of India (CCI) would assist farmers by using a high technology so to as bring their agri produce in the market," he said.

Prabhu said Kamayani Express will stop at Lasalgaon stationas per demands of the local people.

Later, Fadanvis laid a foundation stone of the project that envisages modernisation of Mela Bus Stand in Nashik.

The project envisages development of the bus stand, owned by the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation, on the lines of an airport. PTI CORR NSK

--- ENDS ---
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With a buzzing sound like a swarm of bees, a flying device resembling a miniature helicopter lifted off from the ground at Luck Stone Corp.s Boscobel quarry one day this spring.

Piloted by Eric Warinner, an engineering technician at Luck Stone, the device  small enough to be held in a mans arms  hovered above the companys crushed stone operation, then zoomed like a hummingbird around a massive pile of crushed stone and the rail cars at the Goochland County quarry.

The purpose was to get the devices cameras to spots where it can be difficult for a person to go, such as the top of a towering conveyor machine that moves crushed stone near the quarry.

We can put our eyes on anything we need to put our eyes on, Warinner said.

Most people would call the device a drone. It is a popular term, said John Blackmore, a surveying and mapping supervisor for Luck Stone.

But its not the word he prefers to use.

Instead, Warinner and Blackmore, who manage the companys drone program, prefer the more technical term  unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV  when discussing the flying tools they deploy to gather all sorts of data from Luck Stones quarrying operations.

The Goochland-based company then analyzes that information for planning and to bring greater efficiency to its business.

The company, a major producer of stone, sand and gravel products for construction and other industries, has been using UAVs for about three years to do a variety of jobs at its quarries and distribution centers in Virginia and North Carolina.

To us, this is a tool and a way we are doing our job better, Blackmore said. It has really changed our business to have this technology.

For Warinner and Blackmore, an even better way to refer to the technology is UAS, for unmanned aerial system, because the aerial vehicles themselves are only part of the technology. It also includes the tools for programming the aerial devices and organizing, analyzing and sharing the data they collect. It is a system of aircraft, and software with very complex math computations, that makes this very useful for us, Blackmore said.

Luck Stones use of UAVs is one example of how drones, often thought of primarily as military tools or novelties for hobbyists, can be used in a commercial setting to improve business outcomes.

Dominion Energy, Virginias largest utility, is another example. The company has been using drones since 2013, mainly for transmission line inspections in hard-to-reach places such as water crossings.

We typically do a lot of these inspections with helicopters, said Steve Eisenrauch, the companys manager for transmission lines and forestry, who leads its UAV program. We have been able to offset some of that with drones. When we do that, there is a much smaller environmental footprint to be able to use a drone instead of a helicopter. There is an added level of safety.

Since 2015, the company has used UAVs to inspect nearly 5,000 transmission line structures, he said. To conduct its drone program, Dominion has partnered with Hazon Solutions, a Virginia Beach-based provider of small UAV inspection service operations.

At least for now, there remain some limitations to the commercial operation of drones imposed by the Federal Aviation Administration. Those include restrictions on flying the devices beyond the operators line of sight and restrictions on nighttime use.

David A. Culler, Hazon Solutions co-founder and CEO, said he believes that as the technology develops and safety concerns are addressed, those and other restrictions will be eased and UAVs can be put to use in a wider range of industries.

The FAA does not provide state-level information on how many commercial operations are using drones, a spokeswoman for the agency said.

***

In April, Luck Stone took another step to develop its use of aerial systems. It announced a partnership with Airware, a California-based company that develops software for businesses to digitize and analyze aerial data collected from UAVs.

Luck Stone is now using UAVs to create detailed, 3-D maps of its quarrying operations and to keep track of its product stockpiles.

The UAVs capture hundreds of images from different vantage points around a quarry, then computer software stitches the images together to create a 3-D map. Airwares technology enables the company to analyze the data and share it among managers.

They have a lot of analytic capabilities in their software, Blackmore said of Airware, and the company has customized it specifically for Luck Stones quarrying operations.

Aerial mapping of quarry operations previously was far more labor-intensive.

Before, we were actually flying an airplane  a manned aircraft  over our locations, Warinner said.

The aircraft would take numerous pictures that the company could use to calculate inventories of crushed stone, or to monitor quarries.

Now, we are just arriving on scene, putting a UAV in the air, and taking care of it there, he said.

Warinner and Blackmore regularly travel to Luck Stones 22 quarries and distribution operations and fly the UAVs.

Besides 3-D mapping, the devices can be used to inspect equipment, as well as to check whether there is any undesirable foreign matter in the stone material that is loaded onto rail cars at the companys sites.

We want to make sure that before we put our product in the rail cars, that there is not tree limbs or dirt, or some other contaminant, Blackmore said. A birds-eye view is useful for that.

The company has invested in several UAVs, including a small, fixed-wing device that flies like an airplane, rather than a helicopter. All the devices are FAA registered and have tail numbers, as the federal government requires for commercial use. Warinner and Blackmore are also licensed UAV pilots.

When flying the UAVs, they follow a list of safety protocols. For instance, if we are flying for mapping purposes, then 400 feet is our max, Blackmore said.

Warinner is an Army veteran who was working at Luck Stones Boscobel quarry when he first took up drone-flying as a hobby, then realized its potential use in the companys operations. Blackmore has training in engineering, geography, surveying and GIS mapping.

The biggest driver for UAVs for (Luck Stone) is that an operation like ours is changing so fast, it is really beneficial to have frequently updated imagery, Blackmore said. We can get imagery through the state of Virginia or Google maps and other places, but it might be a few years old, and that is not good enough.

We can go out now and fly a UAV and get the imagery on the same day, and it is as near as you can get to real time, he said.
Gujarat Assembly speaker Ramanlal Vohra today attacked the Opposition for not only blaming BJP for their resigning MLAs but also flocking them to Bengaluru when the state is facing a calamity.

By Mayuresh Ganapatye: Speaker of Gujarat Assembly Ramanlal Vohra today criticised the Opposition for pinning the blame on BJP after six Congress MLAs resigned this week just ahead of Rajya Sabha polls.

Speaking to India Today, Vohra said "I am performing my duty properly and before accepting the resignations of all 6 MLAs, I had word with them and asked them specifically is there any pressure on them? Or has someone offered them money to resign? I got answer from them that they are tendering resignation by their own will and not under any pressure."

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Vohra also added that he is getting unknown phone calls, "They are asking me to accept resignation whichever comes to me. I told them that I will follow my duties properly and will ask them few questions before accepting their resignation."

'NOT THE TIME FOR POLITICS'

No new resignation has been tendered since late Saturday, July 29, but Congress did send two more MLAs to the Bengaluru resort, joining the other 40 there.

MLAs Shaktisinh Gohil and Jitu Chowdhary are the latest entrants to the 'safekeeping' mission in Bengaluru.

Vohra furthermore slammed Congress for taking their MLAs to Karnataka when Gujarat is battling severe flood situation.

"You know what is the situation in Banas area. I don't know what MLAs are doing there in Karnataka. In such situations we should pay more attention to improve situation and not to play politics."

--- ENDS ---
(Editors note: The following was submitted by Hanover County Commonwealths Attorney R.E. Trip Chalkley III.)

As always, on July 1, 2017, new legislation took effect in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

The following article is a summary of new legislation that I believe is of interest to the citizens of Virginia. Not every piece of new legislation is addressed and those laws noted are only summarized. Please contact your local Commonwealths Attorneys Office should there be any questions.

A law enforcement officer or animal control officer may now determine if a dog is dangerous. The owner now has 30 days time to secure the dangerous dog registration certificate and comply with other provisions.

When a defendant owes restitution to a victim of a criminal offense, money collected from the defendant will be applied to restitution first, then to fines and costs.

To assist in combating the opioid problem, the Department of Health is permitted to distribute naloxone to drug treatment providers after training has been received. A pharmacist may dispense naloxone to one who has a standing order although there is no patient-specific prescription. A prescriber registered with Prescription monitoring Program (PMP) must check PMP prior to issuing an opioid prescription that will last more than 7 days (was 14). Opioid prescriptions must be submitted electronically.

No longer is the drivers license suspension mandatory for one convicted of 1st offense possession of marijuana unless the possessor was driving.

In response to the U.S. Supreme Courts decision in Burchfield v. North Dakota, wherein criminal penalties for a refusal of a blood test were found unconstitutional, amendments were enacted to Virginias D.U.I. laws that took effect on March 16, 2017. There is no longer a criminal penalty for refusal of a blood test. However, one may consent to the test or the officer may secure a search warrant to obtain a blood sample. The breath test is legally permissible as it is a search incident to the arrest and criminal prosecution is permissible for refusal to submit to a breath test. The refusal may be used as evidence in the D.U.I. trial.

A second offense of refusal of a breath test is reclassified to a Class I misdemeanor from a Class II. This increases the financial penalty and doubles the possible jail sentence. The loss of license for refusal of a blood or breath test, second offense in 10 years, remains at 3 years. Presumptive levels of intoxication will apply to blood obtained by a search warrant.

Search warrant applications for blood test are to be given priority by magistrates. All of the amendments to driving under the influence statutes will now be conformed with sections dealing with juvenile DUI, commercial driver DUI and boating DUI.

The business records hearsay exemption has been expanded to criminal cases. This change permits business records to be introduced by written certification as opposed to live testimony.

Government records may now be authenticated by digital signature.

Hunting licenses may now be carried by electronic or computerized means. A state junior bear hunting license was created for those under 16 years of age. A sling bow can be used to hunt deer and small game when the hunter is licensed to hunt with bow and arrow. Hunters may wear blaze pink instead of previously required blaze orange.

An individual who agreed to a first offender disposition on a domestic violence charge may no longer appeal a conviction resulting from violating the terms of first offender agreement. A defendant has 14 days to withdraw from his initial plea.

Protection for health care providers against assault and battery was expanded to include personnel of any clinic or facility rendering emergency care.

Persons with violent felony convictions are not eligible for first offender domestic violence disposition without the approval of the prosecutor.

Retained lawyers in criminal felony cases may withdraw within 10 days after charges are certified from the district court. Written notice must be provided to the client, the Commonwealths Attorney and the Circuit Court.

The court or the clerk is required to issue a transportation order for a defendant to be brought to court from a correctional facility upon request of the Commonwealths Attorney or counsel for the defendant.

Testimony in a preliminary hearing or sentencing hearing by an analyst for results in a certificate of analysis may be conducted via two-way video.

The requirement that a building be public has been removed for purposes of charging maliciously activating a fire alarm.

Sub-contractors are permitted to work without a license if the job is valued at less than $2,500 and does not require a specialized license.

It is a Class I misdemeanor (up to $2,500 fine and/or up to 12 months in jail) to use an electronic device to trespass on property to peep or spy into a dwelling or occupied building. This prohibits the use of a drone to perform what one cannot do in person.

It is permissible to use electric personnel delivery devices (robots) on sidewalks, shared-use paths and crosswalks unless prohibited by the locality. Virginia is the first state to pass such a law.

The fine for a second or subsequent farm use vehicle violation is now $250. Previously, it was up to $250 regardless of the number of previous violations.

Drivers are now required to move a vehicle to the side after a breakdown/accident/emergency that did not result in an injury and driver is capable to do so.

Failure to drive on the right side or observe traffic lanes will result in a set fine of $100. Purpose is to address left-lane bandits who drive too slowly in the left hand lane.

Maximum allowable distance to qualify for farm use registration exemption was increased to 75 miles. Law enforcement officer may require suspected violator to provide address or parcel identification number of qualifying farmlands.

License suspensions for failure to pay fines and costs shall run concurrent with any other license suspensions. License suspension for convictions of driving while suspended because of nonpayment of fines and costs are to run concurrent with the underlying suspension. Previously, the suspensions were consecutive.
Few local stories in recent memory are so tragic as the death of Herbert Ross.

Ross was headed to the hospital several days ago to visit his son Shawn, who was in intensive care after a fire that killed the three young children of Shawns fiancee. Ross didnt make it. He was killed when his Kia Sorento was struck by the vehicle of another man who was traveling the wrong way on I-95.

The second man, Wilber Lee Jr., also died. He was 75, and apparently suffered from a cognitive disorder severe enough to require his use of a caregiver.

That makes the story somewhat unusual. But the nature of the tragedy is not unusual at all. In Virginia, dozens of people die each year as the result of somebody driving the wrong way on a thoroughfare.

The numbers are surprisingly high. In 2013, 54 traffic fatalities were caused by wrong-way driving, out of a total of 741. In 2014, 46 out of 700 traffic fatalities were caused that way.

Perhaps that is not out of line with the rates nationwide. But the data  and the reasons behind them  merit looking into. Do Virginias wrong-way fatalities fit the national norm, or are they higher? Or lower? Either way, what can be done to reduce such deaths? Could better signage help? What about better designs for on- and off-ramps?
WASHINGTON

Looking, as prudent people are disinclined to do, on the bright side, there are a few vagrant reasons for cheerfulness, beginning with this: Summer love is sprouting like dandelions. To the list of historys sublime romances  Abelard and Heloise, Romeo and Juliet, Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy  add the torrid affair between Anthony Scaramucci and Donald Trump. The formers sizzling swoon for the latter is the most remarkable public display of hormonal heat since  here a melancholy thought intrudes  Jeff Sessions tumbled into love with Trump. Long ago. Last year.

Sessions serves at the pleasure of the president, who does not seem pleased. Still, sympathy for Sessions is in order: What is he to do? If dignity concerned him, he would resign; but if it did, he would not occupy a Trump-bestowed office from which to resign. Such are the conundrums of current politics. Concerning which, there is excessive gloom.

To see what is in front of ones nose, George Orwell wrote, needs a constant struggle. An unnoticed reason for cheerfulness is that in one, if only one, particular, Trump is something the nation did not know it needed  a feeble president whose manner can cure the nations excessive fixation with the presidency.

Executive power expanded, with only occasional pauses (thank you, Presidents Taft and Coolidge, of blessed memory), throughout the 20th century and has surged in the 21st. After 2001, The Decider decided to start a preventive war and to countenance torture prohibited by treaty and statute. His successor had a pen and a phone, an indifference to the Constitutions Take Care Clause (the president shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed) and disdain for the separation of powers, for which he was repeatedly rebuked by the Supreme Court.

Fortunately, todays president is so innocent of information that Congress cannot continue deferring to executive policymaking. And because this president has neither a history of party identification nor an understanding of reciprocal loyalty, congressional Republicans are reacquiring a constitutional  a Madisonian  ethic. It mandates a prickly defense of institutional interests, placing those interests above devotion to parties that allow themselves to be defined episodically by their presidents.

Furthermore, todays president is doing invaluable damage to Americans infantilizing assumption that the presidency magically envelops its occupant with a nimbus of seriousness. After the president went to West Virginia to harangue some (probably mystified) Boy Scouts about his magnificence and persecutions, he confessed to Ohioans that Lincoln, but only Lincoln, was more presidential than he. So much for the austere and reticent first president, who, when the office was soft wax, tried to fashion a style of dignity compatible with republican simplicity.

Fastidious people who worry that the presidents West Virginia and Ohio performances  the alpha male as crybaby  diminished the presidency are missing the point, which is: For now, worse is better. Diminution drains this office of the sacerdotal pomposities that have encrusted it. There will be 42 more months of this presidents increasingly hilarious-beyond-satire apotheosis of himself, leavened by his incessant whining about his tribulations (What dunce saddled me with this silly attorney general who takes my policy expostulations seriously?). This protracted learning experience, which the public chose to have and which should not be truncated, might whet the publics appetite for an adult president confident enough to wince at, and disdain, the adoration of his most comically groveling hirelings.

Speaking of Scaramucci, and in his defense: His love interest, the president, was elected for his persona rather than his principles. Hence there is a vacuum at the center of the person who is at the center of the countrys absurdly president-centric conception of government. Therefore, loyalty inevitably manifests itself as sycophancy. Nevertheless, the smitten Scaramucci is himself evidence of something encouraging: Upward social aspiration is still as American as Jay Gatsby.

When plighting his troth to Trump, Scaramucci repeatedly confessed his love for his employer, thereby exceeding Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchins comparatively pallid testimonial to the presidents superhuman health. Scaramucci grew up in Port Washington, the Long Island community that is East Egg in F. Scott Fitzgeralds The Great Gatsby. Gatsby lived in West Egg, yearning to live across the water, where shone the beckoning green light at the end of Daisys dock. Scaramuccis ascent to a glory surpassing even that available in East Egg shows that the light on the lectern in the White House press room is, at last, something commensurate to his capacity for wonder.
By Emma Ashford

As a presidential candidate, Donald Trump made waves when he publicly declared that the Iraq War had been a disaster for America, causing chaos in the Middle East. With the rise of ISIS, a refugee crisis, and substantial unrest across the region, its not hard to see why the majority of Americans now agree with him.

Yet the Trump administration appears poised to make many of the same mistakes in its increasingly belligerent approach to Iran, a strategy virtually guaranteed to increase tensions and worsen regional conflicts.

This months internal turmoil inside the Trump White House over whether or not to recertify Irans compliance with the 2015 nuclear deal is only the most recent example of the administrations steps towards a tougher approach against Iran.

In reality, Iran is complying with the terms of the deal. But administration officials have repeatedly sought to shift the goalposts, arguing that Iran is instead violating the spirit of the agreement.

Indeed, though the details are not yet clear, the administrations ongoing Iran policy review is widely expected to result in a more assertive and belligerent approach to Iran. In recent testimony, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Congress that the administration intended to support elements inside of Iran that would lead to a peaceful transition of that government.

And while others have refuted the idea that regime change is under consideration, the administrations Iran hawks  from Secretary of Defense James Mattis to CIA Director Mike Pompeo  have repeatedly described Iran as the single most enduring threat to stability and peace in the Middle East.

***

Whether it takes the form of ripping up the nuclear deal, adding new sanctions, or pushing back militarily against Iran in conflicts in Syria, Iraq, or Yemen, it seems likely that the new administration is headed for a collision with Iran. Yet the assertions and arguments made in favor of taking a harder line against Iran are profoundly misleading.

For starters, the idea that Iran is a threat to the United States comparable to that of the late Soviet Union  an idea expressed in several recent articles  is laughable. The Soviet Union was a suprastate of almost 300 million people with a massive army and civilization-ending nuclear arsenal. Iran, by comparison, has around 82 million citizens and no nuclear weapons.

Iran may be able to threaten American citizens abroad, but it is fundamentally unable to harm the U.S. through military means.

Another common misconception is the idea that Iran is the root of all regional problems.

It is certainly true that Irans regional influence has grown in recent years, particularly in Iraq. But that growing influence is due less to Iranian revisionism and more to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which removed a regime that acted as a check on Tehran.

And while Irans behavior in regional conflicts like Syria is reprehensible, it has not alone caused the chaos currently gripping the Middle East.

A variety of factors, including the failed Arab Spring revolutions, the U.S. War in Iraq, and malicious meddling by other regional states from Saudi Arabia to Qatar, have all contributed to todays turmoil.

Even the idea that the Iranian people seek external support for regime change is flawed.

Certainly, many Iranians are hungry for more democratic rights. But the leaders of Irans 2009 Green movement protests have been clear that they want to improve the system from inside, not overthrow it. There is no true domestic support for the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), the group most commonly presented as an alternative by regime-change hawks.

***

In the absence of domestic support, attempts to conduct regime change from within, as some administration officials have suggested, is a recipe for failure at best, and disaster at worst.

Ultimately, it remains baffling that the Trump administration  faced with historically high levels of unrest in the Middle East  would voluntarily seek to undermine one of the regions few relatively stable and semi-democratic states.

Donald Trump was right about Iraq during the campaign: the 2003 U.S. invasion was a massive, unforced strategic error. Yet it is a mistake his administration seems poised to make again, albeit on a smaller scale.

If the president forgets history, he is likely only to worsen the chaos in the Middle East.
By Mark J. Rozell

Using race as a political wedge issue is as old as the republic. In 1800, allies of John Adams scorned Thomas Jefferson as the son of a half-breed Indian squaw, sired by a Virginia mulatto father. In the modern age, Donald Trump, in a barely disguised appeal to white prejudice, falsely claimed for five years via his birther campaign that Barack Obama was not qualified to be president because Obama was not born in in the U.S.

Virginia, of course, has had its own sordid history of race-based politics. For much of the previous century, the Old Dominion enforced Jim Crow laws to subjugate African Americans, and Virginias Democratic establishment, led by the Byrd Machine until the late 1960s, enthusiastically embraced Massive Resistance to school desegregation.

In recent times, playing the race card openly here has become risky business for politicians. In 2006, then-U.S. Sen. George Allen saw his political future unravel after he off-handedly, but on-camera, mocked a Virginian of Indian descent as Macaca.

So it was noteworthy, to say the least, that during Virginias 2017 springtime statewide primary campaigns not one but two Virginia politicians openly seized upon the racially divisive question of how the Old Dominion should memorialize its Civil War history.

Both saw political advantage. One almost won. They had very different messages.

***

After the Charlottesville City Council voted to remove a statue of Robert E. Lee from a city park, Corey Stewart mounted an unapologetic defense of Virginias Confederate Civil War heroes. Despite his own Minnesota roots, Stewart became a vocal disciple of the Lost Cause version of history, which views the Civil War as an honorable struggle to preserve the southern way of life.

Stewart, the pugnacious at-large chairman of the Prince William County Board of Supervisors, came within a whisker of beating Ed Gillespie for the Republican nomination for governor.

The other Civil War candidate in the mix this spring was Susan Platt, a longtime Democratic political operative who unsuccessfully sought her partys nomination for lieutenant governor.

Late in the primary campaign, Platt argued Virginia should remove all public monuments honoring the Confederacy and rename all highways and buildings named for Confederates. Said Platt, Our taxpayer dollars should not be used to celebrate a rebellion against the United States of America, a rebellion intended to maintain slavery. She lost badly.

So, neither Stewart nor Platt will appear on the November ballot.

***

No doubt there are people who will regard their absence with a sigh of relief. Plenty of well-meaning Virginians believe history is history and tearing down statues doesnt accomplish anything. There are also Virginians who would admit being embarrassed by our past, but wish we could all just get along and get past it.

But theres another well-meaning crowd out there that feels Virginians are long overdue in facing up to some of the shameful aspects of our shared history, including government-sanctioned race discrimination, lynchings, persistent poverty, and disproportionate incarceration rates, just for starters.

The fact that Stewart and Platt were willing to wade intentionally into the tricky waters of Civil War commemoration should alert us that painful conversations about history and race relations still loom ahead.

Note also that Stewart has announced hell challenge Tim Kaine in Virginias U.S. Senate race in 2018, and who knows what Stewart might hang his political hat on next year?

Lets be honest with ourselves. Our troubled history tells us that racially charged issues will continue to poison our political life. Maybe thats just the way were destined to work things out.

But the heat of a political campaign hardly seems like the best venue to seek justice, especially knowing that politicians are so willing to use race to divide us for their partisan gain.

We deserve better. Leaders from both parties could get ahead of this issue by having a statewide commission on Confederate memorials, and on other aspects of Virginias racial past. The discussion will be painful, risky, and unpredictable in its result. But it will be preferable to letting this issue be decided in the white-hot heat of a political campaign, where racial wounds are far more likely to be inflamed than healed.

Truth and reconciliation-style commissions have worked, here and abroad. Virginia is due  actually, long overdue.
"I was lying on the floor for some time unconsciously. I don't know what happened to me at that time but when I gathered consciousness, I lost my hair," a victim said.

By Ajay Kumar: After at least 15 incidents in different parts of Mewat, a hair-chopping gang struck in Gurgaon's Ashok Vihar phase 3 area on Friday night and cut down the braids of a 50-year-old woman.

Victim Sunita Devi was alone at her home when she was attacked. "I was in the kitchen and preparing dinner. Suddenly, I realised that that someone standing at the main gate of my house. I went there and found a person in a red and yellow outfit, standing there with a trident in his hand. I asked him to go away," she said.

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After instructing him, she went inside the house. The accused disappeared for a while but he followed her mysteriously and somehow entered her house. The accused probably attacked her from behind and also made her unconscious and when she came back in her senses, her hair was chopped off.

The victim had no external wound. "I was lying on the floor for some time unconsciously. I don't know what happened to me at that time but when I gathered consciousness, I lost my hair," Devi said.

'POLICE TRYING TO FIND CONCRETE PROOF'

The victim was admitted in a private hospital after the incident and she was discharged on Saturday evening. When contacted, Ravinder Kumar, spokesperson of Gurgaon police, confirmed the incident in Ashok Vihar under Sector 5 police station.

"The victim's husband has filed a complaint in the police station but as there is no such criminal part appeared in this incident, we have registered it a daily dairy (DD) and enhanced the patrolling in night," Kumar said.

He added that the matter is quite complicated and no one has concrete proof about any such incident earlier in Gurgaon or parts of Mewat and other rural districts.

"In all the cases, the victims are getting unconscious at the time of chopping hair and all of them are claiming phantasm kind of people. Still, Gurgaon police are trying their best to find out concrete proofs," Kumar said.

MALE VILLAGERS ON PATROL IN MEWAT

In Mewat, the situation is more serious and hence the village head and male members are patrolling in the night to catch an accused.

"We have received complaints of two-three such incidents in Ferozpur Jhirka's Santhwari and Satras villages, Malhaka village, Punahana, Dallawas, Jharpuri, Hamka, Padhen, Shikarpur and Mohammadpur Aheer, where villagers have said braids of women being chopped off mysteriously. They said a cat-like animal mysteriously appears and makes women unconscious. It chops off their braids and disappears in seconds. They also claimed a ghost is behind it," said Yaad Ram, DSP Ferojpur, Jhirka.

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Prima facie, the ghost part is found to be a rumour but such incidents have been occurring, the DSP said, adding "We suspect, a gang of some anti-social elements behind such incidents to terrify villagers. No FIR has however been registered so far."

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Gurgaon: 6 held for raping girl in guest house

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From where I normally sit in France (Im currently visiting Canada), the ongoing Trump-Russia fever dream that has played out in the U.S. over the past year barely qualifies as background noise. I guess the world has more important things to worry about than whether Russian President Vladimir Putin zombified the nearly 63 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton in Novembers election. Not so here in North America, where up close it comes across as a form of psychosis.

All of this started last summer, when a collection of Democratic National Committee emails were published by WikiLeaks. Many of those emails exposed underhanded political maneuvering within the DNC to benefit Clinton in her primary campaign against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

Clinton beat Sanders for the Democratic nomination, then Trump beat Clinton in November, and both establishment and opposition critics accused Russia of hacking the election to benefit Trump. Former Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who served under former President Barack Obama, told the House Intelligence Committee last month: I know of no evidence that, through cyber intrusion, votes were altered or suppressed in some way.

The issue really should have ended there. But of course, it didnt. So now weve fallen down the conspiracy rabbit hole, with recent media coverage desperately trying to keep the Russia-Trump smear alive in the public conscience.

Trump has long been an international real estate magnate, and now were told that there are rich Russians in New York and Atlantic City who have lived in Trumps skyscrapers, some of whom might be shady. Yeah? At least one senior member of the Saudi royal family lives there as well  and Saudi Arabia funded the Islamic State. So why isnt there any investigation into Trump-Saudi collusion?

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that the Saudis and the CIA have collaborated on some projects, such as the attempt to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by arming and training local rebels, some of whom morphed into the Islamic State. Why is it perfectly acceptable to collude with the Saudis and other countries while Russia and the U.S. are expected to behave like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt during the 2005 press tour for Mr. and Mrs. Smith, standing apart from each other during photo ops to avoid any hint of closeness?

Jared Kushner, Trumps son-in-law and adviser, appeared before congressional investigators on Monday to explain why he failed to list Russians hed met with (and other foreign contacts, for that matter) on his SF-86 security clearance application. The form is 127 pages long and necessitates the detailing of all foreign contacts of both applicant and spouse going back seven years. An international businessperson could spend weeks filling out the foreign-contacts section of the application.

Silly Jared. Dont you know how Washington works? Of course no one wants to fill out these forms. Thats why establishment politicians typically hire expensive consultants to meet with foreigners  then they can safely say they havent met with any.

Donald Trump Jr. was also called on to explain a meeting with a Russian lobbyist last year. Trump Jr. had been invited via a third party to meet with a Russian attorney, Natalia Veselnitskaya, during the campaign because she supposedly had dirt on Clinton. (Veselnitskaya reportedly failed to deliver and was more interested in discussing adoption issues.)

When Washington elites say they never would have taken such a meeting, what they really mean is that they wouldnt have done so personally. They would have hired someone to take it for them  someone whos contractually obligated to keep their yap shut about it for eternity. Some might even retain a political event operative to create a customized international forum as a cover for any sensitive discussions.

If Trump wants to kill this Russia nonsense, he should threaten to sign an executive order making it a criminal offense for any elected official to engage with any domestic representative of foreign interests. Want to bet on how fast the establishment types would drop the Russia obsession? And if the criticism persists, Trump should sign the order. Then well quickly find out whos really colluding with foreign interests.
A Place for All Conservatives to Speak Their Mind.
Richard Beasons fax machine works pretty hard, spitting out documents regularly. One that came in July 13 was from a Roanoke cardiology office. He read part of that to me over the phone.

Patient has been complaining of fatigue and daytime somnolence, it reads. We have obtained nocturnal pulse oximetry.

That same day Beason received a report on a colonoscopy that was done at a surgery center in the New River Valley. It indicates the doctor found a polyp in a patient with a history of colon cancer, Beason said.

On July 17 came a prescription refill request from a local pharmacy. It was marked second request. Beason received the first request on June 24. Both were intended for a family practice doctor in Daleville.

And then there was the May 12 fax regarding medication changes for a resident at a Roanoke assisted living center.

It said epilepsy, hypertension and gastro something or other, Beason told me. He got another one July 21 listing the same patient.

Beason gazes at these papers with no small amount of wonder. To him, they all might as well be written in Greek. His business isnt medicine; its numbers. For 40 years, hes worked as a certified public accountant. His office is in his Botetourt County home.

I do taxes for businesses and individuals, consulting and accounting work, financial planning, he said.

Somehow, his fax machine number has wormed its way into certain elements of the local health care system. How and why is unclear, but its been going on for at least four years, Beason said. Since it started, hes received at least 100 medical-related faxes. Generally, theyre two to five pages.

The information in the documents gets pretty personal, Beason said. All the recent faxes hes received contain patient names. Some have birth dates and addresses. A few list medications patients are taking.

A couple of them are medical test results. One had a long list of diagnoses. Its not the kind of information anyone would want floating around.

Beason said he used to get them more frequently. For a while about two years ago, medical faxes were coming in weekly, occasionally daily, he said.

Back then, much of the traffic seemed to come from different Carilion Clinic offices, Beason told me. So he called Carilion.

The first four or five [calls], the lady I talked to sloughed it off, he said. Then, somehow, it got back to the attorneys for Carilion. Until the Carilion attorneys jumped all over it and said, you cant let this happen, they didnt do anything.

At that time, Carilion asked him to sign some documents promising he hadnt shared the information and that he would shred any more inadvertent medical faxes to his office. I asked him to show me the documents he signed, but he was unable to find them.

After that, I stopped getting stuff from Carilion, he said. It slowed down considerably.

But by then, medical entities outside Carilion had his fax machine number, so Beason continued to get occasional medical faxes.

In many of the instances, Beason has contacted the errant sender. But that can be time consuming. First, he has to figure out whom to call. Sometimes, but not always, thats clear from the fax cover sheet. On some occasions faxes have arrived with no cover sheet, he said.

When Beason calls, he usually gets an answering system that says, Dial 1 for this person, and 2 for that. And when you finally get somebody, you find out you should be talking to somebody else.

When he gets the right person on the line, he tells them, you all realize thats private information youre not supposed to be sending around? The typical response is oh, yeah.

It can easily be an hour, Beason said. Im busy. Im a solo practitioner. It gets irritating after a while.

On some occasions, he has not contacted health providers who mistakenly sent faxes. Thats because Beason spends about half his time at a home he owns in South Carolina. When hes there and medical faxes come into his Botetourt office, an aide shreds them, he said.

In recent weeks, Beason started getting documents from or intended for Carilion again. And he fears its going to snowball and become a regular thing, like it did last time.

Like a virus, it starts back up again, he said.

This time around, all the errant faxes seemed destined for Carilion Family Practice in Daleville. Most of them were addressed to the same physician. It turns out that the last four digits of fax numbers for Beasons office and the medical office are identical. The first three digits are different, though.

The cardiology report was from a Carilion cardiologist to a Carilion family practice doctor. The two prescriptions refill requests, from Kroger pharmacy in Daleville, were addressed to that same Carilion family practice doctor.

Two faxes regarded medication changes for a patient. They were from North Roanoke Assisted Living Center and were also addressed to Carilion Family Practice in Daleville.

Beason said he received no cover sheet for the colonoscopy report, so its unclear who was supposed to get that. It was sent by a Carilion surgeon in the New River Valley.

All of this is pretty important stuff because of a 1996 law known as the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, aka HIPAA. It sets nationwide privacy standards for health information and holds health care providers responsible for safeguarding such information. It also sets standards for protecting health information thats transferred in an electronic form.

Such as by fax machine.

According to the U.S. Health and Human Services website, the law holds violators accountable, with civil and criminal penalties that can be imposed if they violate patients privacy rights. It also sets standards for reporting breaches.

Christen Church, an attorney at Gentry Locke whose practice areas include intellectual property, health care regulation compliance and data privacy and security, said what I described seemed to clearly fall under the category of inadvertent breaches, rather than malicious ones. But either way, under the law it sounds like a breach, she said.

In the early days of HIPAA, its security rules included exemptions for information transmitted between two actual fax machines. The law considered such data telephonic, rather than electronic. And in that case, errant faxes were not necessarily a breach, particularly if there was little risk of harm to the patient, Church said.

But if the fax originated from a computer  which is more likely these days  the exemption doesnt apply. HIPAA breach notification rules, finalized in 2013, also removed much of the discretion health care entities have in determining the risk of harm to the patient, Church said.

Now, any unauthorized disclosure of protected health information, in paper or electronic form, is presumed to be a breach unless it meets limited exceptions, she added.

Health care entities covered by HIPAA are obligated to notify affected patients when breaches are discovered, Church said.

Both Carilion and Kroger said they were investigating the faxes to Beason, and he said Carilion has contacted him.

On July 21 and again on Thursday, I called North Roanoke Assisted Living to ask them about faxes they had mistakenly sent Beason. The administrator there, who identified himself only as Jaron, said he would pass my messages along to the facilitys owner. But no one got back to me.

In an emailed statement, Vicki Clevenger, Carilions chief compliance and privacy officer, said: Carilion takes its obligation to protect patient privacy very seriously. We have initiated an investigation of this issue, which is standard protocol whenever we discover or learn about a patient privacy concern.

Clevenger noted that federal law allows up to 60 days to conduct a thorough investigation. As needed based on the results of the investigation, we will follow the requirements in state and federal law related to reporting and disclosure. As you might expect, our commitment to our patients privacy precludes us from commenting on specific cases, she said.

Chris Turnbull, a Carilion spokesman, said the health care organization has reviewed its internal databases and had an outside contractor sweep its external websites. Those turned up no mistaken listing of Beasons fax number by Carilion entities.

We also continuously monitor our online listings to ensure that telephone numbers (and fax numbers, when appropriate) are up-to-date and accurate for anyone searching the internet for a number. This week, we double-checked 21 such sites and all of the numbers listed for the Daleville practice are accurate.

Theres also a potential the mix-up is the result of human error, he said.

Any number of scenarios could have resulted in Mr. Beason receiving misdirected faxes, and its premature to speculate on why without having all the facts, Turnbull said.

He added that Carilion fax cover sheets contain a confidentiality notice and a request that people who receive faxes sent in error contact the sender.

Or, Turnbull added, people who receive erroneous Carilion faxes can call the hospital corporations main phone number at (540) 981-7000 and ask for the Privacy Office.

Kroger spokeswoman Allison McGee said the grocery chain first learned of the issue when I called their Daleville pharmacy.

At this point, Kroger has no documentation of any error. Kroger is investigating the matter. Krogers facsimile form contains a confidentiality statement, asking any unintended recipient of a fax to notify us immediately and destroy the fax. Krogers Confidentiality Coordinators phone number also is listed, she said.

Beason just wants the errant medical faxes to stop.

Its been going on for years, he reminded me. Hes spent hours trying to get the attention of errant senders, and hes still receiving medical faxes.

All the calling weve done, and all the fooling weve done, nothing was happening, Beason said. So I called you, hoping to get their attention.

Beason hasnt yet notified any patients that hes receiving their confidential health information.

I guarantee you, if I did, theyd go crazy, he told me.
CHARLOTTESVILLE  Once named the unluckiest president in America by Fortune Magazine, University of Virginia President Teresa A. Sullivan has been wrapped up  fairly or unfairly  in several nationally publicized crises since she took office in 2010.

But going into the final year of her contract, the turbulence surrounding the university has mostly subsided, and relations with the board of visitors have improved since 2012, when the board voted to fire her before public pressure forced members to reverse their decision.

On the eve of its bicentennial, the university is at a turning point in its history.

Under Sullivans leadership, the university  known especially for its strengths in the humanities and law  is attempting to rebrand as a center for health care and scientific research, investing in major technology upgrades and new research institutes.

UVa is in the middle of a multi-year push to hire about 400 new faculty members to replace a wave of baby boomer retirees. After cutting financial aid in 2013 to stem out-of-control costs, the university has established a permanent endowment to ensure that AccessUVa, the aid program, can support itself in the future. But rising tuition costs also have drawn criticism from legislators and constituents.

The president  who has announced she will step down once her contract expires next summer  sat down with members of The Daily Progress editorial board to reflect on her time at UVa and look ahead to the universitys role in the future of the commonwealth.

On the qualities needed in the next president, who will be elected by the board of visitors:

You need to have a well-honed synthetic ability. You get information from many channels at once. You need to be able to filter out signal from noise. Then you need to be able to figure out how the signals correspond with one another and what the overall picture is.

Really, no one can do this for you because everybody else has a partial view of the university compared to the president. That means that the president needs to be somebody whos curious. Somebody whos interested in what might seem kind of out of the ordinary.

I think its also important to be able to synthesize across constituencies. The students will tell you they want something; the parents might want something totally different. The alumni have their point of view; so do the legislators, so do the donors. You need to be able to listen to all that and hear, What is the most important underlying value here? And what is the most important thing you can do to help bring this about? 

On whether the next president has to be a career academic:

I think lots of different backgrounds can be conducive to the presidency. But I will say this: The university is very different from any other organization because the nature of the employee base is many people who have a lot of expertise in their own area; not only expertise but recognition and standing. If they get angry with you, theyre walking out the door.

Bob Bruner used to say  he was the dean of the Darden School [of Business]  he used to say, The faculty are not the employees; theyre the talent. So the university is not a command-and-control kind of establishment. If you come in as a leader thinking thats how it works, you might be disappointed.

In 2013, a consulting company hired by the university, the Art & Science Group, said UVa was losing its competitive advantage and suggested the university leverage its strengths as an undergraduate institution and focus less on research. Youve gone in a different direction. Why? Do you think that was the right decision?

I do think it was the right choice to make, in part because research universities do something different for students. Youre not abandoning the students by being a research university  youre giving them opportunities they would not have otherwise.

Johnny Kipnis is the neuroscientist who discovered [in 2015] that the brain has a lymphatic system; amazing discovery that could bring a lot downstream for the 12 undergraduates working in his laboratory. Imagine being one of his undergraduates in that lab. Thats really extraordinary. Thats an experience you cant have if youre not at a school thats doing the cutting-edge research were doing.

On researchs role in driving the economy:

I think its important for Virginias future. The Virginia economy is not going to be able to rely, long run, on just the federal government. Its going to have to diversify. And the way we diversify will make a big difference in terms of whether this is a prosperous state or a not-so-prosperous state.

It is not, in my opinion, a big economic coup to bring in a company from another state who will hire 40 people at minimum wage. But to have a startup here thats going to provide good jobs with benefits  and, hopefully, additional jobs every year, as the company grows  thats the kind of thing that really helps economic development. Thats the promise and the hope, and I think were beginning to capitalize on it.

The universitys fundraising office kept a list of VIP applicants whose parents are donors or alumni. Emails show the office was meeting with Sean Jenkins, one of Sullivans staffers. Were you aware of this?

It is true that Sean in my office serves as a kind of collecting point because he hears from all sorts of people about applicants. We get lots of volunteered advice about students who are in the applicant pool. And Sean makes sure that that information gets fed to the dean of admissions, [Gregory Roberts]. But [the dean] makes the decisions.

I get lots of letters from people that say, So-and-so is my constituent and Id like to bring them to your attention, and so on. We send those letters to the file of the student. We do a holistic review. We look at lots of different things. Well look at that letter in the file, just like well look at anything.

But that doesnt mean that just because Sean says something, that Dean Roberts automatically does it.

In fact, [its] quite the contrary. This year in particular I had lots of conversations with lots of angry and disappointed people whose nominee didnt get in.

Its not surprising because a lot of people want to go to UVa.
Like any massive, opaque object exposed to full sunlight, the moon casts a shadow. In its case, its a very, very long shadow. It always stretches directly away from the sun, extending just over 230,000 miles across space, about the same distance the moon lies from Earth.

Its presence is not really of any consequence to us  unless the moon happens to move exactly between the sun and Earth, giving a total solar eclipse along a narrow path on our planets surface. This happens Aug. 21 when the moons 70-mile-wide shadow crosses the United States from Oregon to South Carolina.

NASA predicts that it will be the most viewed celestial event in history, with more than 100 million people personally witnessing some aspect of the moons three-hour trip across the face of the sun. From a cosmic skywatching perspective, why is this event so notable?

The relative sizes of the moon and sun, and their relative distances from Earth, make the sunmoonEarth alignment unlike any other in the solar system. Our moon is 400 times smaller, but 400 times closer than the sun. This means that for an observer on Earth, the silvery orb appears in the sky to be nearly the same size as the blinding sun.

It also means that when the moon moves exactly between the sun and Earth, it covers the sun exactly, revealing previously unseen red eruptions (called prominences) hugging the solar rim, and the suns pearly atmosphere (called the corona). No other sunmoonplanet relationship in the solar system allows such an incredible scene.

Venus and Mercury have no moons. Mars has two tiny moons, moonlets really, which cannot give a total solar eclipse on the surface of the Red Planet. (See NASAs website: https://go.nasa.gov/2v78VXO).

Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all have a bevy of similarly small moons not capable of giving anything close to a total eclipse. However, they have a few large, round moons, some of which cast shadows on those giant worlds. For an observer floating just above the planetary cloud-tops, those moons not only cover the sun, but do so many times over, easily blocking any spectacular solar features.

The path along a total solar eclipse on Earth is the only place in the solar system where you could see, without optical aid, feathery red prominences and the glowing corona portrayed in one dramatic scene that lasts, in this case, a short 2 minutes, 20 seconds.

Unfortunately for area skywatchers, the Aug. 21 lunar shadow misses the Roanoke Valley by 250 miles. It moves over Nashville at 1:27 p.m. CDT, then continues across eastern Tennessee and the Great Smoky Mountains, and sweeps through much of South Carolina, before it heads out to sea near Charleston at 2:49 p.m. EDT. (See NASAs https://eclipse2017.nasa.gov/)

Since Roanoke completely misses out seeing the corona and any prominences, what will skywatchers in our area see? The sun is more than 400,000 times brighter than the full moon, so any part of the solar surface is incredibly bright, and must be viewed with either number 14 welders glass or special solar eclipse glasses.

(Do not use these in combination with binoculars or a telescope, as they and your eyes will be quickly damaged.)

Never directly look at any portion of the sun without the proper eye protection!

The moons slow eastward progress can also be safely viewed simply by punching a small hole in the wall of a cardboard box and projecting the incoming sunlight onto the opposite wall. The shape of a small sun with a bite taken out of it can be seen. As before, never look directly at the sun while doing this.

Sequence of important eclipse times as seen from Roanoke, Aug. 21:

1. At 1:11 p.m., the moon starts moving across the sun.

2. By 1:20, a black bite will be noticed by most observers.

3. At 2:42 that bite will have taken away 90 percent of the sun. At this point, the brightness of the surrounding landscape will have dimmed, as if thin clouds have come over the sun. Daytime contrast will have increased and shadows will have grown sharper. Filtering through leafy branches, sunlight will be projected onto the ground showing numerous crescent suns.

4&5. As the moon continues creeping across the face of the sun, the bite becomes smaller, eventually disappearing at 4:03 p.m.

Of course, seeing this unique event depends on clear weather on this particular August afternoon!

Goss is president of the Astronomical League, www.astroleague.org, the nations largest federation of astronomical societies.
The public is still being warned to stay out of Tinker Creek after an herbicide spill on Saturday. The Virginia Department of Environmental Equality continues to test the water and assess the damage from the incident, which resulted in large fish kill.

The Virginia Department of Emergency Management was notified of foam on the water in the creek at Cloverdale in Botetourt County on Saturday morning. The spill was contained later that day.

However, DEQ is still surveying the damage and is expected to give an update later this week.

VDEM spokesman Jeff Caldwell said the spill has caused death of tens of thousands of fish at Tinker Creek. It stretches several miles long, with foam from the herbicide reported across eight to 10 miles.

So far there are no confirmed issues with wells or drinking water. DEQ is testing public water sources to make sure there is no infiltration, Caldwell said.

People are advised not to swim or fish in Tinker Creek and from the creek should not be used to water crops or animals, authorities said.

After being notified of the spill on Saturday, DEQ and VDEM tracked the trail of foam and dead fish to a company called Crop Production Services on Simmons Drive in Cloverdale.

They discovered an herbicide called Termix had spilled from a 275-gallon caged, plastic tank.

Caldwell said an estimated 150 gallons of Termix leached into the creek. DEQ is working to determine the exact amount that spilled in the water and how quickly it will dissipate.

Rain that fell Saturday could help flush the situation, he added.
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) Indias second largest software services firm Infosys is hiring more locals and investing heavily in Europe as it looks to tap into "greenfield" opportunities in its second largest market.

The company is yet to see any impact of Brexit on tech spends and is witnessing a broad-based growth across sectors in Europe, a market that accounts for over 22 per cent of its revenues.

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"We are continuing to invest fairly heavily in Europe in terms of local hiring, in terms of beefing up our hunting and our farming teams for our accounts," Infosys President and Head (Financial Services) Mohit Joshi said on an investor call.

He added that growth in Europe has been broad-based across all sectors and reasonably spread out.

Joshi, however, did not specify the quantum of investments for Europe.

On Brexit, Joshi said: "If you recollect about a year ago, people had concerns about what impact Brexit, for instance, would have on European technology spending, on our revenues. We have not seen that impact so far."

Highlighting the importance of the European market, Joshi said it does not have the same degree of saturation as the US market.

"We also have a lot of greenfield opportunity in Europe ...whether it is in the Nordics or in Southern Europe or even in the Benelux region, we still have a large number of prospects and the opportunity to mine existing clients very deeply...very optimistic about our long-term potential in this region," he said.

Europe accounted for 22.4 per cent of the companys USD 2.65 billion (Rs 17,078 crore) revenue during April-June 2017 quarter.

The US, which is the largest market for Infosys much like its peers, accounted for over 61 per cent of the topline.

Compared to the US that grew 1.3 per cent on a sequential basis, Europe expanded by 4.7 per cent during the June quarter.

IT firms, including Infosys, are hiring locals in foreign markets to ensure compliance with laws amid growing scrutiny by many countries on work visa usage.

There is a fear that foreign workers are taking away jobs from locals, and governments in countries like the US, the UK, Singapore and Australia have expressed concern on the matter and are seeking to tighten controls. PTI SR MBI ABM SRK

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CHARLOTTESVILLE  The limits of constitutionally protected speech and freedom of assembly are being put to the test in Charlottesville.

In less than two weeks, members of the National Socialist Movement, the pro-secessionist League of the South and hundreds of their allies in the Nationalist Front and alt-right movement will gather in Emancipation Park for the Unite the Right rally.

Arranged by self-described pro-white activist Jason Kessler, the rally is expected to also draw hundreds of confrontational counter-protesters who will be able to gather at McGuffey and Justice parks, per event permits recently secured by University of Virginia professor Walt Heinecke.

While the stage for Aug. 12 is nearly set, with massive demonstrations and protesters expected, questions regarding the enforcement of law and order remain.

City officials said they have been working with Kessler to relocate the rally elsewhere, because of the number of people the event is expected to draw to the downtown area. Kessler, however, does not want to change venues, according to authorities.

The director of the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression says the city is allowed to move the event in order to maintain public safety and prevent disruption to traffic and business downtown.

They should be able to relocate it to a more suitable location, said the centers director, Clay Hansen. As long as its for legitimate reasons and they dont try to minimize or hide the rally in some far-off corner.

An attorney supporting Kessler says the city is prohibited from doing so.

It would be ridiculously unconstitutional for the city to try to move the event elsewhere on that basis, said Kyle Bristow, an attorney and director of the Michigan-based Foundation for the Marketplace of Ideas, a self-described nonpartisan civil liberties nonprofit.

The groups board of directors includes Mike Enoch, a white nationalist commentator and podcaster. Enoch will be one of the featured speakers at the Unite the Right rally.

In an email last week, Bristow said his recently founded legal network is quickly becoming the legal muscle behind the alt-right movement.

The alt-right is a far-right movement that combines elements of racism, white nationalism and populism while rejecting mainstream conservatism and multiculturalism.

Earlier this year, according to Bristow, his organization helped coordinate the legal case that led to an Alabama court requiring the University of Auburn to let white nationalist Richard Spencer speak on campus. Auburn settled the case earlier this year with a $29,000 payout to cover the legal fees of the student who filed the suit, according to the universitys student-run newspaper, The Auburn Plainsman.

In recent weeks, business owners, activists and others have commented on the possibility of violence at the rally, sometimes comparing it to the melees between self-styled anti-fascist protesters and alt-right ideologues at protests in Berkley, California, earlier this year.

In a letter to city officials last week, Bristow said law enforcement officials could potentially deprive the right-wing activists of their constitutional rights if authorities do not prevent leftist thugs from attacking the rally.

If the Charlottesville Police Department stands down on Aug. 12, it would not be farfetched to postulate that the alt-right rally participants will stand up for their rights by effectuating citizens arrests or by engaging in acts of self-defense, Bristow said. It would be imprudent, reckless, unconstitutional and actionable for the Charlottesville Police Department to not maintain order.

Bristow alleged in his letter that Kessler recently was told that law enforcement officials would not have to intervene should left-wing protesters attack the rally attendees. A police spokesman refuted that claim Friday, saying that the department officials met with Kessler and a representative of his security staff earlier this month and discussed several security concerns.

At no time was Mr. Kessler informed officers would not take action against those that attempted or committed violence towards another, said Lt. Steve Upman.

Kessler did not reply to calls and messages last week.

Some suspect that the possible violence could be the result of intentional right-wing agitation, as local activists with Solidarity Cville have recently exposed posts on social media and far-right blogs in which supporters of Unite the Right rally seemed to revel in the possibility of violence and call on others to prepare for a fight.

Denounced by both parties

Republicans and Democrats alike have cast the hardcore conservatives and populists associated with the alt-right movement as racist for its provocative leaders explicit anti-Semitism and unabashed calls for a white-ethno state.

While their beliefs and activism have turned off many, the rallys primary goal of protesting the citys effort to remove a statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee has caused some Southern heritage supporters and political moderates to become sympathetic to Kesslers cause.

But the slow revelation that the events extreme far-right elements will be met by liberals, leftists and anti-racists has scared others away.

According to Albemarle County spokeswoman Lee Catlin, the organizers of the Patriot Movements planned 1Team1Fight event in Darden Towe Park, which was being relocated from Greenville, South Carolina, have called it off.

Catlin said the organizers reportedly canceled their event because of unknown variables with the opposition.

Earlier in the week, an organizer for the event, who goes by the name Chevy Love on Facebook, said the event was not affiliated with the Unite the Right rally, saying that she did not want to associate with any of the hate groups expected to attend, listing both left- and right-wing activist groups.

Earlier in the week, before the organizers canceled the event in Darden Towe Park, the National Socialist Movement announced that members will be in attendance at the Unite the Right rally to defend Free Speech and our Heritage at the Lee Monument.

In an interview, Butch Urban, the movements chief of staff, said the organization had been planning to attend the event after it was arranged by Kessler earlier this summer.

The event also will draw leaders and followers of other groups in the Nationalist Front, an alliance of groups such as the Traditionalist Worker Party and The League of the South  all of which are united in working toward the creation of an ethno-state for white people.

Although National Socialism is typically cited as the definition of Nazi ideology, Urban said his organization is not a neo-Nazi group.

Thats what everybody takes it to be. Thats not what it is, Urban said. National Socialism is about your country and your people come first. You dont support wars around the world and giving billions of dollars to other countries.

As for the calls for a white-ethno state, Urban said multiculturalism has only been pushed down everyones throat in the last 30 to 40 years. Thats not what everyone wants, he said.

Take a look at Chicago, theres a prime example of multiculturalism, he added, citing the citys reputation of having high murder and unemployment rates.

First Amendment

U.S. courts have grappled with the First Amendment questions involving Nazi demonstrations and displays. Many of those cases have determined that Nazi and white supremacist rhetoric is constitutionally protected.

And while many object to those ideals, authorities cannot justify restricting speech despite the threat of violence and public disorder  a principle known as the Hecklers veto. Both Bristow and local attorney Lloyd Snook recently mentioned the doctrine in comments about the upcoming rally.

In First Amendment theory, it is fundamental that a government cannot regulate speech based on its content, including on the fact that some people may be hostile to it, Snook wrote on his law firms website.

About two weeks after a North Carolina chapter of the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Justice Park to protest the planned removal of the Lee statue, Snook wrote that there has been a disturbing complaint about law enforcement being hand in hand with the Klan and white nationalists.

In fact, the city police department is required to preserve order to allow the demonstration to go forward, Snook said. This is not a matter of choice, but of constitutional law.

Snook cited the 1992 Supreme Court decision that invalidated an ordinance in Forsyth County, Georgia, that required fees for any parade, assembly or demonstration on public property. According to Snook, Forsyth County passed the ordinance after a violent civil rights demonstration in 1987 cost the county over $670,000.

Two years later, when the Nationalist Movement had to pay fees to hold a protest against the federal Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, the group sued the county.

In a 5-4 opinion, the Supreme Court decided that the countys ordinance violated the First Amendment.

In recent weeks, some opposed to the Unite the Right rally have called on the city to ensure Kessler pays the fees and obtains liability insurance of no less than $1 million that the city requires for special events.

In an email last week, city spokeswoman Miriam Dickler clarified that the city makes distinctions between demonstrations and special events, and that the two are not interchangeable under the citys regulations.

The differences are attributable to United States Supreme Court decisions involving the First Amendment, Dickler said.

According to the citys Standard Operating Procedure for special events, a demonstration is defined as a non-commercial expression protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution (such as picketing, political marches, speechmaking, vigils, walks, etc.) conducted on public property, the conduct of which has the effect, intent or propensity to draw a crowd or onlookers.

Regardless, she said, Kessler has voluntarily provided a certificate of insurance.

1977 Skokie decision

Looking at another Supreme Court case, Hansen, of the local Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, said the courts 1977 decision in the National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie case feels closest to what were dealing with here in the city.

The case centered on a planned National Socialist demonstration in Skokie, Illinois, which at the time had a large population of Jewish residents who survived detention in Nazi concentration camps or were related to Holocaust survivors.

Fearing violence would be directed at the demonstrators who were planning to dress in Nazi-era uniforms with swastika armbands, a local court prohibited the event, an action that the U.S. Supreme Court later found to be unconstitutional in a 5-4 opinion.

In particular, the litigation in that didnt have to do with the march and the gathering itself  it was more about symbols, Hansen said. The Supreme Court had to decide whether Nazi imagery could constitute fighting words, a legal distinction that prohibits some forms of speech that are likely to incite violence.

The court found that those symbols do not pass that threshold, which has in recent years largely fallen out of favor as doctrinal tool, Hansen said. Instead, the doctrine in recent years has morphed into a new rationale thats based on allowing authorities to stop speech that could lead to imminent lawless action, he said. Its useful if something goes wrong.

While the city could theoretically stop the Unite the Right rally as its happening, according to Hansen, its not a decision to take lightly.

Its a high hurdle to legally justify stopping a demonstration, Hansen said.

The city has an obligation to handle any crowds that are on site as a result of a lawful and protected speech activity, he said. In a public park, and given the proper permit  police are obliged to make sure that the event goes unimpeded.

Free-assembly zones

Concerned that people protesting the Unite the Right could be arrested for participating in an unlawful assembly, Heinecke earlier this month applied to hold demonstrations at McGuffey Park and Justice Park.

At the Klan rally earlier this month, 22 people were arrested on various charges. About half of the arrests occurred after the rally had ended and authorities declared that the hundred or so people still on the street were illegally gathered. Authorities used tear gas to disperse the crowd.

The best way to avoid that is to have some free-assembly zones at the parks, Heinecke said. He said the permits will allow the protesters to gather from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Aug. 12. The Unite the Right rally is scheduled for noon to 5 p.m.

Heinecke said there will be programming at the two parks. He declined to say which activist groups and organizations hes collaborating with to contend with Kesslers rally.

He said Charlottesville in particular has unfinished business in regard to racial justice.

I think the city will be the epicenter of a conversation about racial justice in a new era were going toward with changing racial demographics, he said.

Asked about the alt-right activists concern that the nations changing demographics are tantamount to a displacement of white people, Heinecke said it saddens him that they are so fearful.

I think theyre operating out of fear rather than seeing an opportunity to create a diverse and equal society, he said. Thats a sad thing when theres an opportunity to think about what the United States of America really means.
March 23, 1913 July 19, 2017 Alma Margaret Jordahl Boesewetter, 104, formerly of Radford, Va., passed away Wednesday, July 19, 2017 at her assisted living home in Danville, Calif. She was born on March 23, 1913 to the late Amund and Gertrude Jordahl at the family farm in DeForest, Wis. She leaves to cherish her memory her daughter, Dianne Temkin of Danville, Calif.; son, Carl Boesewetter and wife, Joan, of Tucson, Ariz.; seven grandchildren, eight great-grandchildren; and a host of relatives and friends. She was preceded in death by her husband, Chester Boesewetter; her parents; her daughter Jean Colburn; her sisters Sadie Blakely, Myrtle Scalissi and Sylvia Manthe; and brother Ivan Jordahl. She and her husband Chester married in Madison, Wisc. in 1936. They lived in Downers Grove, Ill., Erie, Pa., and settled in Radford, Va. in 1960 with the relocation of Inland Motors. She worked in tax preparation, was active with the bridge club and with many civic organizations. They were members of Christ Lutheran Church. Private services for the family will be held in Danville, Calif. She will be interred with her husband in Wisconsin. In lieu of flowers, memorial donations can be made to the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. On-line tributes can be submitted at www.chapelofsanramonvalley.com.
For Americans who lived in Europe or served there with the military since 1945, the Memorial Day headlines were startling: Merkel: Europe must go it alone (Washington Post); Wary of Trump, Merkel says U.S. is less reliable (New York Times). The German chancellor modified her remarks a day later, but her call for Europeans to take seriously President Trumps threat to limit Americas defense commitment to NATO resonated across Europe.

When Trump pledged a week later to disavow U.S. participation in the Paris Climate Accord, another headline proclaimed Europes view of U.S. ties darkens: Paris deal pullout jolts continent (The Washington Post).

How should we assess this rupture in U.S.-European relations?

Optimists suggest that NATO has been through other crises since its formation in 1949 and survived because all its members understood they could not go it alone in a dangerous world. They admit U.S. economic relations with Europe are contentious and think Trump was justified in criticizing Europe, specifically Germany, for promoting exports and building large trade imbalances with the U.S. However, optimists seem confident that a growing U.S. economy will ameliorate many economic problems with Europe.

Pessimists charge that Trump is destroying the liberal world order that kept the peace in Europe and held the NATO alliance together for seventy years. They fear that nationalist and populist pressures are driving the world apart and cite Britain decision a year ago to leave the European Union and Donald Trumps proclamation of America first as evidence. These events threaten the European Unions future, they argue, while conceding that Emanuel Macrons election as Frances new president provides some hope that the EU will hold together.

Trumps scolding of NATO allies for being laggards on defense captured the headlines, but his strong criticism of Germanys economic policies dominated the subsequent G-7 meeting in Sicily. Not only had Europe become complacent, he argued, under the U.S. defense umbrella, but Germany has emerged as an economic superpower at the expense of the U.S. and its EU partners.

In its gross domestic product (GDP), Germany clearly outdistances two European powers, Britain and France, and dwarfs those of Italy and Spain. In 2015, Germanys GDP totaled $3.36 trillion; Great Britains was $2.85 trillion, and Frances totaled $2.4 trillion. If Britain exits the EU as planned in 2019. the German economy will dominate continental Europe in economic output and trade.

Trump argues that Germanys unwillingness to alter its conservative economic policies makes it nearly impossible for some EU members to grow their economies. A few experts suggest that the euro, Europes common currency, is responsible for this situation and should be scrapped.

We are witnessing what some call a paradigm shift in U.S. international relations, a move away from globalism and multinational organizations and reliance instead on our national interests.

This shift was underlined in a recent Wall Street Journal op/ed by two of Trumps top aides: National Security advisor H.R. McMaster, and Gary Cohn, director of his National Economic Council. They argue that Trump doesnt believe the world is a global community. Instead, its an arena where nations, non-governmental actors, and businesses engage and compete for advantage. Rather than deny this elemental nature of international affairs. we endorse it.

If the world, according to Trump, is an arena in which nations compete continuously for advantage, America will pursue different foreign policy strategies than it has since the 1940s, when Franklin Roosevelt was president.

Nationalism, not internationalism and globalism, is the new Trump doctrine for dealing with the world. This defines U.S. interests narrowly, with emphasis on economic interests and military power, and less on international security and promotion of values. Like Richard Nixon, Trump places emphasis on great power politics, with Russia and China, But unlike Nixon, he gives less attention to relations with Europe

We wait for Congress to decide how far it should go to support Trumps nationalist policies. For the present, Capitol Hill will give the president leeway to decide U.S. foreign policy. But the 2018 elections may be a test.

Nuechterlein is a political scientist and author who lives near Charlottesville. Contact him at nuechtd@cstone.net.
The ceasefire violation began at Baba Khori in Nowshera sector of Rajouri around 10.30 pm to which the Indian Army responded in equal caliber.

By Ashwini Kumar, Shuja-ul-Haq : Pakistan violated ceasefire on Sunday by firing along the Line of Control (LoC) in Nowshera sector of Jammu of Kashmir.

The ceasefire violation began at Baba Khori in Nowshera sector of Rajouri around 10.30 pm to which the Indian Army responded in equal caliber.

Ceasefire violation using light weapons and MMG in Baba Khori area of sector Nowshera: DC Rajouri #JammuKashmir&; ANI (@ANI_news) July 30, 2017

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In an encounter earlier today, two militants were killed in an encounter with security forces in Tahab village of Pulwama district in South Kashmir. The local militants were identified as Irfan Ahmad Sheikh and Abid Magray.

Clashes erupted between protesters and security forces in Pulwama following the killing of two militants.

ALSO READ |

Kashmir: Encounter in Pulwama, 2 militants killed

J-K: Pakistan continues to violate ceasefire, Indian Army gives befitting reply

Pulwama encounter aftermath: Clashes erupt in Tahab village, youth injured

ALSO WATCH | Pakistan violates ceasefire in Balakote area along LoC, India retaliates

--- ENDS ---
The tailing dump was started in the early 1960s during the development of the Malyshevsky and Aulsky quarries. When mining was over, the wastes (middlings) formed at the beneficiation plant, waste rocks and substandard ores from the Malyshevskaya mine were dumped there.

Two dumps were made: one for waste rocks and the other for substandard ores (poor in beryllium oxide).

The sampling results and their appraisal showed the following inferred resources:

- the ore content in the waste dump is 6 mln tonnes; - crystal raw materials: emeralds  9,154 kg, alexandrites - 294 kg, phenacites - 435 kg; - the in-place reserves do not include the quantity of beryl that can be extracted and converted into the gem-quality raw materials using the up-to-date technologies.

It is an advantage that the ore-bearing rocks has already been unearthed to the surface and is ready to be processed.

As in the calculation of reserves, the extraction of crystal raw materials was carried out by crushing in a jaw crusher and a scrubber followed by handpicking, so in-place reserves show not the real content of the precious gem crystal raw material but its quantity actually extracted using the then existing methods.

In the early 1990s, an experiment was carried out to identify the beryl crystals labeled and placed in an sub-grade rock. After the crusher and scrubber, it was possible to find one half of a crystal and several small debris from 8 crystals. In total, about 12% of the initial amount.

Another example: the in-place reserves of emeralds in the waste dumps are 9,154 kg, and those of alexandrites are 294 kg. But according to the statistics related to the field, as per the data of GRP Uralkvartssamotsvety, the alexandrites account for up to 10% of the emeralds. That means they should be 915 kg.

It is the low efficiency of the existing methods used to extract the precious gems from the host rocks that were the main reason for the active search of alternative methods. Many various ways of crushing a host rock were studied  from hydrofracturing using high-pressure water jets to hydraulic impact techniques. After all, all the methods based on the rock destruction of the host rocks have one disadvantage: the minerals to be extracted are also crushed.

The first efforts to dissolve the host rocks were not successful because of chemical problems and the physical crystal disintegration due to Rehbinder effect. In spite of the fundamental unavoidability of the Rehbinder effect, the decision was taken to focus mainly on dissolving. Over several years of experiments, such chemical agents were found and procedures for their use were developed that allow the extraction of precious gems without losses, preserving 100% of their size, shape and weight.

These studies resulted in the following procedure.

At the very beginning of the beneficiation process, it is necessary to refuse from crushing the rocks. Crushing is used just to see what is inside the piece of rock. In all the cases of interest to us, we are looking for a beryl-containing mineral inside the piece of rock. But beryl can be diagnosed using a beryllometer without opening a host rock. This can be done automatically and much faster than doing it manually. It ensures 100 percent accuracy.

On top of that, since the beryllometer is based on radiation effects, the personnel cannot be present during the sorting process. It also means that no theft is possible at this stage. After the initial sorting, the waste rocks go to the dumps, and the ore containing crystal raw materials is packed into containers (that can be closed automatically) and is transferred to the storage.

Further, when the rocks are obtained that definitely contain crystal raw materials in each piece of a rock it is not necessary to crush those rocks to extract the crystal raw materials. It is much more practical to use the proven procedure to dissolve the host rocks and select the precious gem crystals that remained undamaged.

During the dissolving process, the personnel has no contact with raw materials, and this also prevents any theft.

Rare elements can be extracted from the spent solutions. It is easy and cheap as they would be already dissolved.

The raw materials obtained are sorted, sized, if necessary, cut or used to produce souvenir minerals.

On the basis of the waste dump processing, it is possible to set up a mineralogical and local lore tourism. In addition to tourism, it is possible to sell minerals specimens - both those from the concentrated raw material storage and ready-made ones produced at the factory. There are also great opportunities to make mineral collections: for amateurs, schools and academic institutions  collections can be of any level of complexity.

To sum up the technological part:

1. Identification of the beryl-containing crystal raw material in the source rock.

2. Storage of ore containing crystal raw material.

3. Ore goes from the storage to the dissolution workshop.

4. The extracted crystal raw material undergoes sorting as follows:

4a) fit for cutting; 4b) fit for sizing and cutting, if necessary; 4c) fit for color improvement/modification to remove 'beryl grey-yellow hues and make green and blue main colors more intensive, and then  for sizing and cutting.

Additional technological equipment

The standard equipment for loading, transportation and classification of the mined rocks can be added: a sorting machine with radiative light and the equipment for dissolving the host rocks.

Sorting lines for crystal raw material during the dissolution process can also be added, for sorting the selected crystal raw material, as well as for sorting the treated raw material (color improvement, sizing, etc.). Radiation backlighting is only necessary for the initial sorting of the incoming ore. The rest sorting lines use conventional lighters.

The equipment for the raw material treatment (color improvement, sizing, etc.) can be added as well.

What are the expected results?

While processing the waste dumps, it makes sense to expect exactly that quantity of crystal raw material that was specified in the inferred resources.

Using the existing technologies, there is no doubt that these quantities can be achieved, because the reserves were calculated using this very existing technological process comprising the crusher, scrubber and manual sampling. However, calculations can be made in a different way.

For example, the quantity of beryl stones is 100 times more than that of emeralds. It means that for every tonne of emeralds there are 100 tonnes of beryl stones, with 25% being the green beryl of various grades. The experiments carried out showed that up to 20% of the green beryls turn into emeralds after treatment. It makes 5 tonnes of additional emeralds per one tonne of the approved reserves.

Moreover, about 70% of the remaining 80% of green beryls have a beryl hue that significantly decreased their value  it can even exclude them from the commercial turnover. After improving the color and transparency, the average price of the green beryl stones is up to $100-plus and even up to $1,000 per one kilogramme. With the average price for the emeralds of $10/gr, the beryl price of $1/gr with the 20 tonnes available gives additional twofold sum to the value of the raw material mined. So, just due to improving the color and transparency, the value of the emerald and beryl raw materials increases by 8 times.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to accurately compare the yields of the crystal raw material during crushing and dissolving of the source rock. For obvious reasons, these experiments could not be carried out. However, by indirect evidence and based on the practical experience to date, it is possible to tell that in case of dissolving method the yield of the crystal raw material is at least two times higher than when crushing is used. without carrying out large-scale work it is not possible accurately take into account many important nuances influencing the cost of the ready products, such as the increase in the average size and weight of the raw material pieces and cut stones, color and transparency improvement and commercial use of the raw materials with various decorative features like moonshine effect, Venus hairstones, aventurescence, cats eye effect, etc.

But even taking into account the improvement of transparency and color enhancement in the treatment of emeralds and beryls, we finally get a 30-fold increase in the cost of extracted crystal raw material in comparison with the forecast one.

New technologies make it possible to manufacture various unique products that cannot be made with the current technology. The controlled dissolving of the run-of-mine ore also enables to extract mineral samples from the ore and make souvenir products. Their cost fully covers the expenses for the whole cycle of the crystal raw material production. It means that it allows to arrange the systematic operation of the enterprise and not hope for any occasional lucky discovery of very expensive crystals.

Legislation

As per the current russian legislation:

Under the effective Russian legislation, the treatment within the framework of the declared technological process - up to the final sorting and evaluation - is quite possible, but under the mining license only. The sale of the sorted-out and evaluated raw emeralds and alexandrites is only possible if the buyer is registered at the Assay Chamber.

It is not allowed to sell not open mineral samples;

It is not allowed to sell not open emeralds, alexandrites in the rock;

It is not allowed to sell mineral samples of emeralds, alexandrites;

It is not allowed to sell souvenir products containing precious stones.

It must be noted that the quantity of the alexandrite stones obtained as a result of dissolving the ore is hundred times higher than when using crushing. And it also ensures that the stone is practically not damaged. The Malyshevskoye deposit has a global monopoly on this product. So, the financial component of this statutory bar is rather significant.

The price for a small-size alexandrite stone (non-gem quality) starts from several hundred dollars. The value of unique stones can be higher - up to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Due to great rarity of alexandrite on the world market, the cost of a raw material stone in an intact rock is much higher than that of a crushed gem quality raw material or a cut stud. While alexandrites are found in insignificant quantities in several deposits in the world, the combination of an alexandrite and an emerald or a phenacite in one stone does not occur anywhere else in the world. And these are not uncommon at the Malyshevskoye field.

The situation with the sale of collections is vague. It is possible to sell collections without precious gems, but the price would be lower. It is not possible to sell collections with the precious gems. It is not allowed to sell the mineral collections to foreigners as this is governed by the state secret regulations. And how to differentiate them?

Alexander Bogolyubov, Viktor Bogolyubov and Oleg Sharovatov




After four years of discussion and deliberation, in May 2017 the European Council and European Parliament provided overwhelming approval to Regulation (EU) 2017/821, which will regulate minerals from conflict areas into the European Union. The new legislation will significantly impact the operating procedures of jewellery companies in the European Union, as well as companies that supply them from outside the EU.

On Sunday, September 24, 2017, CIBJO, the World Jewellery Confederation, and the Italian Exhibition Group, will present a seminar to provide members of the jewellery trade background on the new legislation and its impact, and present strategies for incorporating the new regulations in their businesses. The seminar will take place at Fiera di Vicenza on the second day of the VICENZAORO September jewellery show.

The new EU regulation imposes certain due diligence obligations upon companies importing gold, tin, tantalum or tungsten from conflict-affected and high-risk areas.

While the legislation has already been approved, the EU lawmakers provided a four-year phase-in period, which gives companies until January 1, 2021, to adopt the due diligence and other procedures that are part of its requirements.

"This is an extremely important seminar," said Gaetano Cavalieri, President of CIBJO. "The new EU regulations are going to affect a substantial number of the jewellery companies doing business in Europe, and it imperative that they be properly prepared. Our goal is to provide a them with an initial roadmap, and to present the various alternatives that they will have at their disposal."

Alex Shishlo, Editor of the Rough&Polished European Bureau in Brussels




Zimbabwes mines minister Walter Chidakwa has sensationally claimed that a group of suspected diamond looters once plotted to assassinate him when he stopped mining operations in Marange last year.

Its difficult to manage diamonds. There are some people, who benefited from diamonds. Some are Zimbabweans, he was quoted as saying by NewsDay.

Its not me who stopped diamond mining of companies in Chiadzwa. It is President Robert Mugabe. Even minister Mushohwe knows that we sat after a Cabinet meeting and the President asked me if I feared dealing with these mining companies and you know when the President says that, I had to take action.

Today, I want to make it clear that if you were part of the looting, please stop it. After I stopped them (diamond companies), they reported to other ministers, but the ministers referred them back to me. Some even cried in my office and I had to give them tissue paper (to wipe away tears). Some even suggested taking me out, but God protects us.

The Zimbabwe Consolidated Diamond Company (ZCDC) was currently mining diamonds in Marange after taking over from the firms that were removed amid revelations that they were involved in underhand dealings which prejudiced the State.

Mathew Nyaungwa, Editor in Chief of the African Bureau, Rough&Polished




By PTI: Mumbai, Jul 30 (PTI) Japan is already extending financial aid to major infrastructure development projects in India, and is ready to support more ventures in various fields, a diplomat has said.

"Japan is very much ready to support India in achieving its 21st goals in various fields," said Japanese Consul General Ryoji Noda.

The two Asian economic giants have exchanges in a host of fields like culture, business and education, he said.

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"To boost the relationship between the two countries, our prime ministers are meeting annually. As part of the initiative, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is expected to visit India later this year."

During the meeting of prime ministers of both the countries in 2014, it was decided to double Japans foreign direct investment (FDI) into India to Rs 2.1 lakh crore in five years timeframe, he said.

"Japan is expected to provide Rs 1.2 lakh crore for the high speed rail project (bullet train) between Mumbai and Ahmedabad," Noda added. PTI PSK RSY JMF

--- ENDS ---
(Agencia CMA Latam) - Argentina's YPF will start exploration in the Charagua area, in Bolivia, after signing an investment agreement with the Bolivian state-owned YPFB. The area could hold more than 2 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, according to the Bolivian oil ministry.

YPF CEO Ricardo Darr? said the Argentinean oil company is "very pleased to be able to work on this Charagua exploration project jointly."

"Through the next few years, we will have investments in the field, operational, seismic and everything needed to drill the well. Hopefully, this great venture will be successful for all Bolivians and YPF Argentina," added the CEO.

by Agencia CMA Latam

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

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(Agencia CMA Latam) - The Brazilian Congress will return from recess next week and could bring back political uncertainty fears to local , as lawmakers are set to decide on Wednesday if the Supreme Court should trial President Michel Temer for corruption.

Temer was formally charged with passive corruption by the prosecutor-general Rodrigo Janot at the end of last month.

However, the House of Representatives and the Supreme Court must accept the charges against the president before any trial can begin.

Earlier in July, a report from Sergio Zveiter, the congressman in charge of guiding the House of Representatives vote on Temer's corruption charge, said that lawmakers should allow Temer to be accused and trialed.

Temer's allies, however, replaced 17 of the 66 members of the committee that would vote on the report and managed to change that guidance today. Now, the report says that lawmakers should dismiss the charges.

Analysts believe that lawmakers would hardly confront their voters to save the president, whose approval rate is at 5%. Even so, the government seems confident that the opposition will not gather the 342 votes - from a total of 513 - required to advance with the corruption charge.

On Wednesday, two lawmakers allied to Temer will defend him on the House floor, while two opposition representatives will argue in favor of authorizing the Supreme Court to trial the president. After that, lawmakers will vote to end the debate.

The corruption charge against Temer is blocking votes on other legislation, like the pension system reform bill. Experts believe that the government could lose support for the reform if the political turbulence persists - particularly if new charges involving corruption target Temer.

Another bill waiting for a House vote would allow foreign companies to hold a controlling stake in Brazilian airlines. The current law limits the share of foreign companies in local airlines to 20%.

In the Senate, the end of the recess means the resumption of congressional investigations aimed at financing decisions from the National Bank for Economic and Social Development (BNDES) and potential corruption in the world-class meat packer JBS.

Senators are also set to debate the political reform bill, which intendeds to change the election's financing system, the functioning of parties and even the voting model.

by Agencia CMA Latam

For comments and feedback: editorial@rttnews.com

Economic News

What parts of the world are seeing the best (and worst) economic performances lately? Click here to check out our Econ Scorecard and find out! See up-to-the-moment rankings for the best and worst performers in GDP, unemployment rate, inflation and much more.
Activists, writers and pro-Kannada organisations have decided that they will protest across the state against imposition of Hindi in the guise of a third language option in schools.

By Rohini Swamy: The Kannada development authority (KDA) after having been a part of the campaign that demanded that Hindi signages be removed from the Namma metro, have now decided that they will write to the state government saying that there is no need for the imposition of Hindi in schools and they need to follow just the two langauge policy which includes Kannada and English.

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Activists, writers and pro-Kannada organisations have decided that they will protest across the state demanding the two language policy in schools.

The KDA chairman S G Siddaramaiah has said that they feel that Hindi is being imposed upon students in the guise of a third language option and that there was no need for a third language option at all. They also said that they will be impressing upon the government to do away with the need for Hindi language as the third option as many school provide only Hindi and not any other language, thus leading to forcibly making students learn the language.

Earlier the CM of Karnataka, Siddaramaiah had told India Today that he was not Anti-Hindi but against the imposition of hindi in the state.As of now, officially Hindi is an optional third language provided by several schools and they have to do so while providing choice of several other languages.

ALSO READ:

Bengaluru: Pro-Kannada group demands removal of Hindi boards, threatens to blacken them

Bengaluru: Pro-Kannada group blacken Hindi sign boards at metro stations

WATCH| Language war intensifies in Karnataka as pro-Kannada groups make fresh demands

--- ENDS ---
As the cordon and search operation continued from house to house, militants hiding in one of the house fired on the forces.

Two militants were killed in the encounter

By Ashraf Wani: Two militants were killed in an encounter between security forces and militants in Tahab village of Pulwama district in South Kashmir today morning. The local militants have been identified as Irfan Ahmad Sheikh and Abid Magray.

"The situation is under control, initial reports indicate that they (militates) are from Hizb-ul-Mujahideen," said Jammu and Kashmir DGP SP Vaid.

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Forces from Jammu and Kashmir police and army cordoned off Tahab village in Pulwama on specific input about presence of militants in area.

Two militants were killed in the encounter

As the cordon and search operation continued from house to house, militants hiding in one of the house fired on the forces.

Combing operations are on to flush out more militants who could be hiding in the region.

Security forces have cleared the area for civilians and operation is underway.

ALSO READ:

Anantnag encounter: Top Lashkar commander among 2 militants killed, 2 civilians die in clashes

Encounter to flush out 3 Hizb militants in Pulwama; stone pelters urged to 'save brothers'

WATCH | Jammu and Kashmir: 2 terrorists killed in Tahab village of Pulwama

--- ENDS ---
Two militants were killed on Sunday by the security forces in Jammu and Kashmir's Pulwama district, a defence official said here.

Defence Ministry spokesman Colonel Rajesh Kalia said: "Two militants were killed in an ongoing security operation in Tahab village."

According to the police sources, the two victims were identified as Irfan Sheikh and Abid.

The identity and group affiliation of the slain militants was not known immediately as the search operation was still in progress, the official said.
Dear Editor,

Mataafa Keni Lesa you are not a journalist. This piece is in reference to the title in your newspaper: THIS IS SAMOAS AWARD.

To be truthful, what follow this title does not address the meaning of it. You tell me in what way Samoa deserve this award? When I saw the title I thought it was because Samoa is the incest capital of the world, or that its rugby team does not win when it is needed. Lo and behold it was about just one man; not the whole country!

For those not familiar with the term food security (in Samoa), what it means, and what it entitles to be called a country with safe food; it makes them feel proud of Samoa wining something. Doesnt it? But the naked truth is- albeit it was not told. It is because Samoa, in plain words has the dirtiest and very unsafe food in the whole wide world. Not just lately, but way back as far as we can remember. Neither the Germans nor the New Zealanders cared what the Samoans were eating on a daily basis. That is something that Samoans as proud people as they are, should be tagged with that designation: A country that has the un safest food to feed its citizens. This worthless distinction is shared by Kenya, Africa in the person of journalist Zeynab Wandatis Food Friday TV program.

I say this with the authority it gives me by reporting (the only one) on the food safety in Samoa since 2007 (and all my 34 articles published in your newspaper for everybody to read and meditate about them.)

In fact, with my first article on 03.16.07: Food expert says: Unhygienic conditions widespread in Samoa. The sad truth was that those in charge of keeping the food clean were those who attacked me for telling the truth and shaming them for not doing their job-and still do not.

In reading the newspaper on 03.21.07: ACEO Pelenatete Stowers said; I was irresponsible and unfounded and I lacked evidence. The rest: the CEO Palanitina Toelupe, the General Mgr of N.H.S. Dr. S.Dean and Lemalu Dr. Limbo were conveniently busy to confront me and my article.

Nothing has been done ever since and the award given to the editor of the newspaper (even though the Award description says to a journalist) proves that I was right and will be until something is done to improve the security of our food in Samoa.

If indeed Samoa won the Award, those USD10,000 could have done nicely to provide a good sorely need of water tanks to our poor fellows up at the plantations. Wouldnt you think?

4 years back the unsafe condition is still the same. Why 4 years? because the condition given by F.A.O. to give an award have to be that bad for the 4 previous years. And Samoa was highly qualified for it. In fact, 10 years back.

Now here is the hardest part to swallow.

Sorry about that, but the truth must be told; unless proved that I am wrong, I usually am!

If you type in your computer F.A.O. Awards and click on A.H. Boerma Award it reads:

A.H. Boerma Award for JOURNALISTS (my capitals) who have successfully steered public attention toward food security topics blah, blah. (It does not say to EDITORS)

Further it reads referring to Mataafa  The award recognizes his work to address food securityhis strong ability as an Editor to communicate complicated issues through an ACCESSIBLE WRITING STYLE whose writing style may I ask? His or mine? As far as I know he has not written one article, like mine, about food security in Samoa, less 34 articles in 10 years.

By the way the Award consist of: an inscribed medal, a scroll describing the winners achievement and a cash prize 0f USD 10,000. None of these was reported in the newspaper. All the country wants to know what they won, they sure can use the USD 10,000 as explained above.

First and foremost I want to make absolutely clear, to everybody concerned with this topic, that I was and I am the only one who writes about the food insecurity in Samoa. If anybody else does, I would like to see his/her article(s)..

Here is also another part hard to swallow.

How did it happen that F.A.O. got hold of my articles about food safety in Samoa, specially in the las 4 years? A little bit of history here: In 2006, when Mr. Dirk Schulz left the F.A.O. Sub Regional Office in Apia, after 20 years here, he was replaced by Ms. Ann Hayman, from Australia. And for two years.

Being as she is a food technologist like myself, I wanted for her, and as a token of welcome, to present her with my memory stick containing my 34 articles dealing exclusively with food safety in Samoa up to that date, 2006.

To clarify this Mataafa says in his speech, while receiving the award. His words: I want to thank the F.A.O. Office in Samoa for the secret nomination. You sure did an excellent job in keeping it a secret

Sure, he is quite right in saying that. Because when nomination were asked worldwide from all the F.A.O. offices Ann was ready to nominate Samoa as an unsafe food country. I have asked Ann to clarify this sticky point. No answer, so far. Why? because to stick to the definition who is qualified to receive it, me as a journalist, who wrote all the articles my name was mysteriously vanished up in the air. By whom? I would like to know.But Ill find out. Ann could have said in nominating Samoa; Here are the articles in the last 4 years written (and published by the Samoa Observer editor Mataafa Lesa Keni) by Orlando Huaman, a retired American food technologist residing in Samoa.

But sad to say, neither Ann nor Dr. Graziano da Silva (F.A.O. General Director) have answered my question as how F.A.O. got hold of my articles.

Nothing was done in that regard. With the question mark in my mind or anybody else who is concerned about the safety of our food in Samoa: Who wrote the articles, was the editor himself  as is implied in: an accessible writing style. Whose writing style mine or Mataafas?

Mataafa in his acceptance speech proclaim his thanks to: God Almighty, his Samoan team, his parents, of course; his church, and everybody else BUT ME, who wrote all the articles.

Why I was left out? And, I am a collaborator for the newspaper for the last 10 years. Of course that didnt count when thanking everybody. Doesnt it Mataafa? Was it temporary amnesia, ignorance or selective forgetfulness, or all of the above.? Your bible says: Give to Caesar what belong to him and to God what belong to him.

If I (Orlando Huaman) did not write anything about food safety in Samoa, he would not have been in F.A.O.s Rome office to receive the A.H. Boerma Award. Is that true Mr. Mataafa Keny Lesa.? Of course it is! Well, acknowledge it. In so doing I will feel vindicated.

As an afterthought to the above, being myself always mindful of unsafe food. Would somebody rationalize for me-especially those at the M.O.H. who suppose to know about food safety, but dont. Why do I say that? Because if they did the editor of the Samoa Observer would never had been awarded the A.H.Boerma prize. For what? For the country having the unsecured food in the world, shared by Kenya, in the person of Zeynab Wandati, a journalist (not a editor, mind you) with her Food Friday TV program.

Here is the dilemma. Science tells us that COOKED FOOD IS PERISHABE. Period.

Why then the Samoan people eat cooked food at room temperature, 2 hours after they are supposed to be eaten? Tradition or what? Also how can you rationally justify washing your hand with a bowl of plain water and a rag AFTER a big meal at a village meeting? Obviously, they ate with their hands dirty. Would the MOHs Ministry do the same if invited there? Of course, he would. By not doing it would be against the villages protocol. The question is: Would he correct it?. i.e. wash your hands BEFORE eating.

The following cooked foods are supposed to be sold under refrigeration:

Cooked taro, cooked banana, cooked breadfruit, keke puua, German buns, roti, boiled eggs, sandwiches that contain cooked meat, even palusami. Why I include palusami? Because one time I was poisoned by eating palusami brought to me by my wife from her church. E.coli? of course. You know why? all those people that prepare food, like above mentioned, do not know how to wash their hands. Do they know about the 20 seconds rule? Water temperature? I doubt it. And that include all the high class restaurants and fast food outlets, bakeries and all. Luckily the infamous Food Court is gone.

Also, this what the M.A.F. does not understand regardless of my saying: that fish at the Savalalo fish market are supposed to be sold covered with crushed ice or brine water. Just like in any developed country. Would M.A.F. make a move and change it?

No wonder the main hospital looks like the town people doing their shopping before Mothers Day celebration or White Sunday. My wife and I after almost 4 hours wait were told that her scan of head and neck was not needed according to a second opinion by her principal doctor; and my 110 tala gone forever..

Those who are not sure that the country is going to pot, better think again and do something about it. Due to: Addiction to power (you know by whom), forgery (you know by whom), corruption, incest, mismanagement, white elephants, ineffective churches, unemployment at galore. Etc., etc. Hard to move forward, if you ask me.

Orlando Huaman

Malololelei

EDITORS NOTE: Orlando Huaman, of Malololeleis letter, has been published verbatim. God bless you, Orlando!
The Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries, Laaulialemalietoa Leuatea Schmidt, launched four major initiatives to boost the development of the Fisheries sector last week.

Held at the Fisheries Wharf, the initiatives included:

 Launch of Samoas Tuna Management and Development Plan 2017  2021

 Revival of the Fish Aggregating Devices (F.A.Ds) Project

 Dedication of the repair work of research vessel the FV Ulimasao

 Provision of 20 tablets to monitor soon to be deployed F.A.Ds

Speaking about the National Tuna Management and Development Plan, Laauli acknowledged that the industry is facing major challenges to realise its desired benefits and returns.

These challenges include increasing fishing effort throughout the tuna fishery uncontrolled fishing on the high seas and illegal, Unreporting and Unregulated, or IUU fishing operations having an impact on the vulnerable fishing industry, he said.

We have been experiencing fluctuations in catches over the past years with our Government providing support to the industry many factors contribute to the various levels of catches especially the amount of fish available in our small EEZ, and most importantly the biological and migratory nature of tuna stocks.

Changes in technology and the ability to apply more pressure on the stocks, initiated regional and global mechanisms to manage the tuna stocks. Our National Tuna Management and Development Plan 2017  2021 is our commitment to that course.

The Minister said the Plan outlines the governments commitment over the next five years to develop and manage tuna resources to maximize economic and social benefits.

The plan generally covers two key areas. Firstly the management of our tuna resources particularly the licensing arrangements for the tuna long line fishery. Secondly the future development of our tuna industry to sustain and maximize the economic benefits and participation of Our People in the fishery.

It provides a policy framework for sustainable development and effective management actions. For the first time, a harvest strategy is being developed as a management tool for our country to meet our regional obligations under regional arrangements and more importantly controls tuna catches for our country.

Also mitigation measures are being put in place to minimize incidental catches of sharks and species of special interest in ensuring they are safely released back into the ocean.

Our tuna fisheries are based on stocks that range widely through the Western and Central Pacific Ocean. Therefore, we must cooperate with other Pacific Island countries fishing in these waters, in managing tuna stocks so our hopes could be realized.

The F.A.Ds Project is equally important. F.A.Ds improve primary production leading to the coming together of tuna species around them.

Our government through the Ministry has been involved with the F.A.D. Programme supporting the artisanal fishing sector, mainly the alia fleet since 1980.

It served to increase the production and catches form the tuna fishing fleet at low operational costs

Despite the positive outcomes of F.A.D. deployments in our waters, the programme was costly and difficult to maintain as most F.A.Ds were lost due to poor designs and at most times destroyed by our own fishers.

The participation of our village communities in the management of our coastal fisheries resources with the creation of no take zones in adjacent waters is a great achievement for us.

To support these villages communities a new near shore and shallow water F.A.D. design is developed so fishers could reach by paddling canoes and smaller crafts. Equally important is the need to divert some of the fishing pressure from the heavily fished lagoons and reefs to offshore waters where F.A.Ds are anchored.

The Minister also commended the return of F.V. Ulimasao. The vessel was built in 2000 to conduct fisheries scientific and biological studies to train fisheries personnel and test new fishing gear and technology.

After 17 years since it was built, surviving few cyclones and many trips of research and fishing trials major repair and maintenance work was needed, said the Minister.

Today I wish to acknowledge with great appreciation the funding assistance provided by the World Bank through the Samoa Agriculture and Fisheries Cyclone Recovery Project, that has enabled us to bring the old fella back to life.

Lastly, the Minister said the procurement of 20 tablets will be used by the Fisheries Division to monitor and review the contribution and impact of the soon to be deployed F.A.Ds on food security and the livelihoods of our People.

I wish to acknowledge F.A.O. and especially my dear friend MS Eriko Hibi the F.A.O. Sub regional Coordinator for the Pacific Islands and F.A.O. Representative in Samoa for the technical assistance that realized the procurement of these 20 tablets for their intended purposes.

This technical assistance is part of an F.A.O. project Inking Sustainable Development Goals 1 and 2 through inclusive value chain development in the context of Small Island Developing States.
By PTI: Agartala, Jul 30 (PTI) Land acquisition for the 15 km long Agartala-Akhaura rail project to link Indian Railways with Bangladesh Railways, has started, officials said today.

"We have served notices to 257 families to acquire 66 acres of land for the rail project and the land would be handed over to the railways by August end", West Tripura District Magistrate and Collector Milind Ramteke told reporters.

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He said, the Central government has already released Rs 97.63 crore to acquire the land.

The process of laying the 15 km long railway tracks to connect Agartala with Akhaura in Bangladesh will be completed in two and half years time after laying of tracks begin.

Out of the 15 km track, 5 km would be on Indian side and the rest in Bangladesh.

Ramteke said that the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) is the nodal agency for implementation of the project in Indian side.

Bangladesh government has also started acquiring around 70 acres of land for the project, NFR officials said.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu and his Bangladesh counterpart, Majibul Haque had jointly laid the foundation stone here on July 31 last year.

A flyover of 3.7 km would be constructed on the Indian side to save cultivable lands and the entire project cost would be borne by the government, he said.

New Delhi is keen to establish the rail link as it would connect West Bengal and Tripura through Bangladesh.

During Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina?s visit to New Delhi, the two neighbours had agreed to lay the tracks between Akhaura and Agartala.

The Agartala-Akhaura railway route would connect Indian Railways with Bangladesh Railways which would improve connectivity and boost trade between the two countries.

The 1,700 km distance between Agartala and Kolkata which goes through the ?chicken?s neck? in Siliguri would be reduced by 350 km if passengers could move through Bangladesh, officials said. PTI JOY RG

--- ENDS ---
Faith and Prayers.

These words were Sister Palepa Alonius foundation in her 25 years of service as a Missionary Sister of Faith.

Families and friends gathered in honour of her long service to the Catholic Church, at a service led by Archbishop Alapati Lui Mata'eliga at the Sisters of the Missionary of Faith at Moamoa.

The celebration then shifted to Robert Louis Stevenson Museum where they were hosted by the family of Sister Palepa.

The audience was entertained with Samoan Siva performed by the Leauvaa Catholic Youth Choir, which is where Sister Palepas sister Sina and her husband Falanisisi are Catechists.

During her special remarks, Sister Palepa reflected back 25 years ago on the difficult path she undertook.

However everything was possible with God leading the way, she said.

Although my actual 25 years of service should have been celebrated in October, however due to other obligations, the celebration had to be conducted earlier.

My calling to Gods work is now 25 years. Its a lot of years faced with difficulties but at the same time, these years are blessings as well.

I want to give thanks to God for his guidance, otherwise I wouldnt have made it this far, said Sister Palepa.

She thanked for her Missionary Sisters of Faith, her Priest brothers for their prayers and most of all their words of encouragement.

This gave me strength to carry on with my calling, I cant thank you enough.

Sister Palepa also dedicated this milestone to her late parents, Aloniu and Aifai, who were her main supporters since the beginning.

She thanked her family for their never-ending love and support.

When times were tough, you never ceased to lend a hand for me, she said. Sister Palepa noted that while her 25 years of service is up, she ready for another 25 years in her journey as a Sister of the Missionary of Faith.
The Pacific Society for Reproductive Health (P.S.R.H.) successfully concluded its 12th biennial meeting in Port Vila Vanuatu last week.

The much-anticipated meeting ran a suite of six skills workshops for three days followed by three days of a scientific conference.

The meeting brought together doctors, specialists, midwives, nurses and health workers from all over the Pacific including stakeholders and partners from New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom.

It is the most important professional development event in the reproductive health calendar for the region. P.S.R.H. received funding assistance from the United Nations Population Fund, the Pacific Community and the Vanuatu government.

There were six clinician representatives from Samoa and leading the delegation was Salausa Dr John Ah Ching, the Associate Minister of Health.

Dr Ah Ching was invited to attend as he was being awarded the Societys Presidents Medal. The medal was awarded in recognition of Dr Ah Chings distinguished service to the Pacific Society and to honour his significant contribution in building leaders in reproductive health and for innovative services to improve patient care.

Only six other individuals have received the award which includes Prof Glen Mola of Papua New Guinea, Prof Rajat Gyaneshwar of Fiji and Dr Rufina Latu of the World Health Organization.

Dr Ah Ching presented a paper at the conference on his project in training midwives in the district hospitals in Samoa to do basic ultrasound scanning in order to detect problems early and effect timely referrals to the national hospital.

The President of PSRH, Dr Pushpa Nusair of Fiji, in congratulating Dr Ah Ching, said that the region watches such developments in Samoa with interest.
CITY COUNCILS

CARLSBAD

The Carlsbad City Council met July 18 for its final public hearing on the move to by-district elections. The council met Tuesday to give final approval, 4-1, on the resolution establishing the new election process. A proposal to allow distilleries and restaurants within Land Use District 6 (outside the Coastal Zone) of the Village Review Zone, and to permit distilleries downtown, failed. Staff was directed to bring back a consent calendar resolution allowing restaurant use in District 6. The council approved the establishment of an electric vehicle charging fee. Christy Randal was appointed to the Housing Commission, and Fred Muir and Chuck Hunter were appointed to the Traffic Safety Commission. An appeal hearing on permits for K1 Speed Indoor Kart Racing was moved to the Aug. 22 meeting.

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DEL MAR

The Del Mar City Council met in special closed session Thursday to discuss litigation. The council hired an outside firm to advise the council and oversee a confidential personnel investigation.

ESCONDIDO

The Escondido City Council met July 19 in closed session to discuss property negotiations. In open session, the council approved memorandums of understanding with the Escondido City Employees Association Administrative, Clerical, and Engineering Bargaining Unit and with the Escondido City Employees Association Supervisory Bargaining Unit for a three-year term starting July 1, 2017. The council also voted to amend the city zoning code to bring regulations for second dwelling units into compliance with state requirements.

OCEANSIDE

The Oceanside City Council met in special session Thursday to introduce an ordinance establishing by-district elections for city council members, and an election calendar for the newly created council districts.

SAN MARCOS

The San Marcos City Council met Tuesday and approved a resolution supporting the San Diego County Water Authoritys rate lawsuit against Metropolitan Water District to recover illegal rates and charges, and supporting the SDCWAs efforts to keep diversifying the countys water supply and making it independent of MWD. The council also held hearings and approved a resolution amending city code on transient lodging facilities to allow police to see a registry of guests, and one amending city code to align with state laws restricting sex offenders.

VISTA

The Vista City Council canceled its Tuesday meeting.

SCHOOL DISTRICTS

CARLSBAD

The Carlsbad Unified School District board met July 19 for a study session to focus on effective district communication. In regular session, the board held hearings and adopted the draft Green Map of proposed trustee district areas as it transitions to a by-district election process. The board also approved the 2016-17 tentative agreement with the Laborers International Union of North America.

DEL MAR

The Del Mar Union School District board met Wednesday and heard a report on lead testing of water at the districts schools. All values tested were under the states detection limit for reporting. The board also approved employment agreements with the superintendent and with the assistant superintendents of human resources, business services and instructional services.

ESCONDIDO

The Escondido Union School District board met in closed session July 20 to discuss personnel and labor negotiations. In open session, the board approved a revised contract for the superintendent through 2021, and extended contracts for assistant superintendents to 2020, and approved 2 percent raises for certificated and classified management employees, assistant superintendents, and classified supervisory and confidential employees. The council also agreed to give stipends of $1,500 to certificated and classified management employees and assistant superintendents for masters and doctoral degrees, and $500 stipends to classified supervisory and confidential employees for associate degrees.

OCEANSIDE

The Oceanside Unified School District board met in special session Tuesday and approved a resolution requesting a waiver from the state so it can begin the process of establishing districts for its new election process without holding an intermediate election. The board also approved the Long Range Facilities Master Plan and directed staff to select architects for modernization of the Garrison and Jefferson campuses. The board then went into closed session to discuss litigation and personnel.

SAN MARCOS

The San Marcos Unified School District board met in closed session July 18 to discuss labor negotiations and personnel. In regular session, the board held a hearing and approved requesting a waiver from the state board of education as part of its transition to a by-district election system. The waiver will exempt the district from having to hold an intermediate vote so that the new system can be in place by the 2018 election. The board also held a hearing for public feedback, and adopted the orange map plan of election districts. Tiffany Campbell, principal of San Marcos High School, was appointed as the districts director of secondary education.

laura.groch@sduniontribune.com
Twenty-eight years after inspiring the title character in Greg Evans long-running comic strip Luann, the San Marcos cartoonists daughter, Karen, is working by her fathers side as the strips co-author.

Although he has no immediate plans to retire, the 65-year-old Evans says he takes great comfort in knowing that Luann  a dreamy, overdramatic high school senior  will carry on without him one day in very safe hands.

I grew up with these characters, said Karen Evans, a 34-year-old San Marcos resident whose day job is dean of students at Magnolia Science Academy, a charter middle school in La Mesa. When I think of Luann and Brad and the others, they are like family members who I have known my entire life.

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Evans said he always dreamed of being a cartoonist, but couldnt find a buyer for his hand-drawn strips in his 20s and early 30s, so he bounced around in a series of jobs  high school art teacher in El Centro, TV news camera operator in Colorado Springs and talking-robot operator at the San Diego Zoo and Seaport Village. Then one day in 1984, he saw 5-year-old Karen, the youngest of his three children with wife, Betty, walking around their Twin Oaks Valley home dressed in her moms clothing and jewelry.

I saw her and I got the idea for a strip about a little girl, and for once it struck a chord because it wasnt a contrived subject. It was drawn from real life, said Evans, who decided to name the character Luann and aged her to 13, because teen angst would provide more fodder for storylines. On March 17, 1985, Luann launched and is still going strong. The syndicated strip now appears in 450 newspapers and websites

(gocomics.com), and it is read by more than 600,000 online visitors each week. In 2003, Evans won the industrys highest accolade, the National Cartoonist Societys Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year. And in 2006, Evans premiered a musical based on the strip, Luann: Scenes in a Teens Life.

In the early years of Luann, Evans said he drew plot ideas from teen magazines and, later, Karens own experiences getting her ears pierced, wearing braces and entering high school. Betty served as a constant sounding board for plot and character ideas, and Karen said she would occasionally see names of friends and funny stories from the dinner table end up in her fathers strip.

But Evans said he was always careful to give Luann and her cartoon family  goofy older brother, Brad, and parents, Frank and Nancy DeGroot  lives of their own.

Twelve years ago, Luann matured to the age of 16, and this year, she entered her senior year of high school and got her first steady boyfriend. Meanwhile, Brad became a fireman and, after a long, stormy courtship, is now engaged to fellow firefighter, Toni Daytona.

For several years, Evans said he had wondered what would happen to Luann when he eventually retires. He considered ending the strip as Charles M. Schulz did with Peanuts, or contracting an illustrator/writer to take over. He also considered having his children carry on the legacy, but Karen said she and her siblings  sister Rhonda, 44, of Texas, and brother Gary, 37, of Ventura  didnt inherit their fathers artistic talent.

I can do some pretty good stick figures, but the artist gene skipped a generation in our family, she said.

Then one day in June 2012, father and daughter hit on the idea of separating the writing and drawing of Luann and a partnership was born. Karen, who holds a degree in writing and literature, agreed to take an active hand in helping her father create the plots and character arcs in the story and he would carry on drawing the strip. On Sunday afternoons, they meet for story sessions, and, with Betty, they critique the drawn panels that Evans produces after each session.

Evans said he has found his wife and daughters input invaluable to both long-term planning and character development.

Before it was always just me and now its three of us and two of them are women, he said. They bring a whole other layer of detail, subtlety and nuance to the project. Luann has a lot more meat on her bones and complexity than she did before.

One recent plot development that Karen had a hand in was the return of Quill, Luanns exchange student boyfriend. Greg said hed sent Quill back to Australia last year because he (and some readers) were bored with the character. But Quills departure upset a multitude of fans who comment daily about the strip on Facebook and

gocomics.com. Karen said she liked the idea of Quills comeback because the relationship is a milestone for Luann.

Luann has always been dramatic and overemotional about boys, Karen said. Because shes a high school senior now, we feel like its time for her to start growing up and maturing, and having her first stable boyfriend is an important part of that process.

Where he used to map stories out just a few weeks in advance, Evans said he and Karen are now doing story projections as far as a year ahead. They wont divulge any future plot twists, though he said readers should prepare for some drama and trauma with Brad and Tonis wedding. He also said they have to figure out how to transition the strip after Luann graduates from high school and heads for college.

That might be an opportunity for us to retire some characters and introduce some new characters, he said.

Evans is still happily drawing the strip each day on a computer in his home office, but one day he would like to turn the job over to another illustrator, hopefully another family member. Jonathan Upchurch, Evans 27-year-old grandson by daughter, Rhonda, said he is excited about the prospect of one day following in his grandfathers footsteps.

Im definitely up for it, said Upchurch, who now works for United Parcel Service in Irving, Texas.

But fans who worry about change or the loss of Evans signature jokes and style can rest at ease for now. The artist said hes not going anywhere for a while.

I still enjoy it and I look forward to it every day, he said. Until that changes, Ill keep at it.
Dubbed the 9,250-ton greyhound of American military power and high-tech wizardry, the $1.5 billion guided-missile destroyer Rafael Peralta was commissioned on Saturday morning at Naval Air Station North Island, within gunshot of the carriers it will protect for the next four decades.

The warship bears the name of Sgt. Rafael Peralta, a Marine who posthumously received the Navy Cross  the nations second-highest award for battlefield bravery.

Our allies will see the name of this ship in ports around the world, said Gen. Robert Neller, the 37th Commandant of the Marine Corps. And our adversaries, if they so wish to test it, may learn the power of this ship and the spirit and confidence of its crew.

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Saturdays formal commissioning ceremony officially placed the warship into active service. It was the culminating event in a string of maritime rituals  ship naming, keel laying, christening and launching  that hearken back to 1775, when the Continental Navy commissioned the Alfred for combat duty against the British.

The event drew not only Neller but three members of San Diego Countys congressional delegation  Reps. Scott Peters, Darrell Issa and Susan Davis  plus San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer and Navy Vice Adms. Nora Tyson, commander of the Third Fleet, and Tom Rowden, commander of Naval Surface Forces.

Each of the 2,400 white seats set out for the commissioning was filled, and hundreds more stood behind the rows, including the ranks of the Peraltas crew.

In halting English, Rosa Maria Peralta, the San Diego mother of the destroyers namesake, ordered the crew to Man our ship and bring her to life!  a command that sent the crew of 290 sailors dashing aboard the vessel. Above them, radar dishes spun, horns blared and the gun at the bow turned, signaling that it was ready for duty in the spirit of Rafael Peralta.

1 / 14 USS Rafael Peralta crew members line the gangway the end of the commissioning ceremony at Naval Air Station North Island for the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 2 / 14 USS Rafael Peralta crew members man the rails of the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer at the conclusion of the commissioning ceremony for the ship at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 3 / 14 USS Rafael Peralta crew members run up one of the the gangways after Rosa Peralta, mother of Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta, for whom the ship is named, gave the traditional first order as an active Navy ship to: Man our ship and bring her to life, during the commissioning ceremony at Naval Air Station North Island for the Navys newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 4 / 14 Guests listen to the speakers at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy, at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 5 / 14 USS Rafael Peralta crew members lower their heads during the benediction as they man the rails of the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer at the conclusion of the commissioning ceremony for the ship at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 6 / 14 U. S. Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peraltas brother and mom, Ricardo and Rosa Peralta, along with others, place their right hand over their heart or salute during the singing of the national anthem at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy. Peralta was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 7 / 14 Guests at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy visit the ship at the end of the ceremony at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 8 / 14 Guests at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, at Naval Air Station North Island, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 9 / 14 USS Rafael Peralta crew members lower their heads during the invocation at the commissioning ceremony for the Navys newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 10 / 14 Some of the guests at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy, at Naval Air Station North Island, use the commissioning program to shield themselves from the sun. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 11 / 14 The commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy was held at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 12 / 14 Guests at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy, wait to go onboard the ship at the end of the ceremony at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 13 / 14 Guests at the commissioning ceremony for the USS Rafael Peralta, the newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the Navy, wait to go onboard the ship at the end of the ceremony at Naval Air Station North Island. Peralta, a U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. was killed in 2004, during the second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune) 14 / 14 Austin Cusack wears a USS Rafael Peralta ball cap during the commissioning ceremony for the ship at Naval Air Station North Island. (Howard Lipin / San Diego Union-Tribune)

Born in Mexico City in 1979, Sgt. Peralta was brought to the United States as a child by his parents. A graduate of Samuel F. B. Morse High School, he enlisted in the Marines the day he received his green card in the mail.

Assigned to the Lava Dogs of A Company, 1st Battalion, 3rd Marines, Peralta volunteered on Nov. 15, 2004, to lead a scout team as it cleared buildings of insurgents during the brutal Second Battle of Fallujah in Iraq.

In the seventh house his team stormed, a barrage of enemy bullets hit him. Wounded, he fell to the floor.

A fleeing militant tossed a grenade. It skittered to a rest near Peraltas head.

The Marine snatched the grenade to his body, absorbing the brunt of the blast to spare the lives of his fellow Marines, according to his Navy Cross citation.

He is buried at Fort Rosecrans National Cemetery in Point Loma.

Echoes of both his combat valor and story from immigrant to American hero rang throughout the commissioning ceremony.

Cannons fired a thunderous salute to the warship and the dignitaries who boarded it, the smoke curling silver and black through the packed crowd, a reminder of the din of battle Peralta faced in Iraq  and what the warship might sail toward in the future.

The color guard toting the flags of the United States, Navy and Marine Corps for the national anthem came from Camp Pendletons Wounded Warrior Battalion. The headquarters building there is named after Peralta and his portrait hangs on its wall. Every year at the units ball, the guest of honor is Rosa Peralta.

During the commissioning, she sat near her daughters Icela and Karen and son Ricardo, who also served as a Marine.

In his speech, Faulconer remembered Sgt. Peralta as a hometown hero whose message  courage to the end  will be carried across the globe by the warship that bears his name. Where it sails, so sails his story.

Peters address focused on the new warships vital role in the American militarys pivot to the Pacific Rim, while noting that San Diego boasts the nations largest concentration of veterans who served after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.

The Peralta is ready for combat, just as her namesake was when he stepped into battle in Fallujah 13 years ago, Peters, D-San Diego, said.

Issa, R-Vista, turned to the Peraltas crew and said that they and their warship were part of an idea that he died for, that he lived by, that he wasnt an American by birth but an American by choice.

Davis addressed Peraltas loved ones in her speech. A fierce advocate in Congress for military families, the San Diego Democrat said that while the sergeant made a split-second decision, you live with that sacrifice today.

We know that you served, Davis continued. I believe that all of our families also serve.

Davis fellow member on the powerful House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Duncan D. Hunter, R-Alpine, did not attend the commissioning.

His father, Duncan L. Hunter, took his place. A former U.S. Army Ranger who served in Vietnam, the senior Hunter chaired the powerful House Armed Services Committee during the Second Battle of Fallujah.

The elder Hunter castigated former President Barack Obamas administration, Pentagon bureaucrats and Navy leaders who cast doubt on the gravely wounded Peraltas ability to clutch the grenade to his chest. That triggered former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates to downgrade Peraltas proposed Medal of Honor to the Navy Cross.

Reading often from a note sent to him by his son shortly before the commissioning, the elder Hunter said his son would keep fighting to upgrade the commendation: Duncan closed his message to me with these words: When America has no more Rafael Peraltas, we will have no more freedom, he said.

Gen. Nellers keynote address reminded the audience that every Navy warship is sovereign American territory. Like any destroyer, however, it needed three things: A hull bearing its weapons, a name to give it the spirit of its legacy, and a crew to man it.

And when you put those three things together, you create more than just a ship, he said. Its, well, its a life form.

In the closing remarks, Navy Cmdr. Brian Ribota, the destroyers skipper, vowed to make his crew ready for any tasking we receive in the future  including swatting any missiles fired on behalf of a rotund child with anger management issues, a veiled reference to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un.

Ribotas warship is the 65th guided-missile destroyer in the Arleigh Burke class and the 35th built by the Maine-based Bath Iron Works division of General Dynamics.

The composition of the Peraltas crew mirrors the nation, the larger Navy surface warfare community and Sgt. Peraltas family. Sailors aboard the warship hail from 43 states, the District of Columbia and the American territory of Guam, plus six foreign nations.

Like Sgt. Peralta, the warships senior enlisted leader  Command Master Chief German Lira  was born in Mexico and raised in California.

Ribota told the audience that his warship would always solemnly and silently man the rails when passing near Sgt. Peraltas grave at Fort Rosencrans, an honor to the Marine hero.

But Ribotas crew told The San Diego Union-Tribune that they also bestow a similar nautical tradition of honors for Rosa Peralta whenever she departs the warship, much as they would for an admiral.

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cprine@sduniontribune.com
At a sensitive moment in U.S.-Mexico relationship, San Diego and Tijuana hosted a binational gathering of mayors last week.

The U.S.-Mexico Border Mayors Association brought together leaders of about 20 border communities for two days of meetings that touched on subjects such as trade, the environment, health, and border infrastructure. Four of the mayors came from Mexico, the remainder from the United States.

In separate interviews, a half-dozen U.S. border mayors participating in the conference spoke of their common concerns. A desire to improve the North American Free Trade Agreement. The need to upgrade ports of entry. And frustration over President Donald Trumps plans for a fortified border wall.

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James Darling, McAllen, Texas, population 150,000. Across from Reynosa, Mexico, the city in 2014 became ground zero for the surge of Central American immigrants.

Mayor Darling said that McAllen, a center for ecotourism, already has a natural boundary with Mexico  the Rio Grande  and said building the wall is going to separate some of our natural sites.

This week, theyre drilling sample holes for a new wall, said Darling. I dont particularly like the wall...Its not fair to the property owners of the city.

I think the Border Patrol does a good job. I would listen to them rather than listen to politicians.

As for NAFTA, its very important to us, Darling said. We have a very active trade zone in our city, and we realize the benefits. We want to tweak it and make it better.

Andres Ramos, Alpine, Texas, population 6,000. Located in the Big Bend region, a sparsely populated area about 80 miles from the Mexican border and the city of Ojinaga.

Wed like to see more trade with Mexico, Mayor Ramos said. We need to have a steady, aggressive income. He sees potential in importing produce from Mennonite farms in northern Chihuahua.

As for the border wall, Ramos said the funds could be better spent on local law enforcement agencies. I dont care for the border wall, and neither does our county sheriff.

The Rio Grande is a natural barrier with Mexico: We have some high cliffs and canyons which make it impossible to cut a wall there,: Ramos said. Leave it alone, just give us better equipment for our police force.

Javier Perea, Sunland Park, New Mexico, population 16,000. The community borders El Paso, Texas and Chihuahua, Mexico.

The symbolism (of a wall) is just terrible, Perea said. Where we live theres not a lot of cross-border immigration. Its desert, its mountainous, sparsely populated. its easy to cross the border, but theres nowhere to go.

Instead of investing money in a wall, they should invest money on technology and improve border security through technology, said Perea.

Gerardo Sanchez, San Luis, Ariz., population 35,000. Located near Yuma and San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora.

My biggest concern is infrastructure, economic development, Sanchez said. I think we need to unify, we need to use raw numbers, we need information, we need figures, to make a strong case to federal agencies.

Sanchez wants to upgrade the seven-lane port of entry, built in the 1980s. There is already a wall, and reinforcing it would not make his community safer, he said.

Do we want to isolate ourselves? No we dont. We have neighbors, we have families, we have business partners...this wall is creating more animosity against Mexico and I think more fear in the United States.

Jose Yepez, mayor of Somerton, Ariz., population 17,000. Located west of Yuma.

Expansion of the port of entry is a major concern for his city, which is part of an agricultural region that relies on labor from south of the border.

We have workers that live in Mexico, and they cross over to harvest our lettuce and stuff like that, he said. They get up at two or three oclock in the morning, for a two- or three-hour long wait in line, and then an hour to go to the fields, and work the whole day.

The border wall, thats not going to do anything, he said. They can build it as high as they want to, supply and demand, simple economics.

Maritza Hurtado, mayor of Calexico, Calif., population 40,000. Across from Mexicali, Baja California.

Born in Calexico, Hurtado is a U.S. citizen who also holds Mexican citizenship.

She said her city has a big problem as the presidents 2018 budget left out funding for the second phase of the Calexico West Port of Entry  a project that would add a pedestrian processing facility as well as six additional northbound vehicle inspection lanes.

She is totally against, plans for a border wall. It divides us, there is no need, we are one community divided by a wall.

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sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble
With his neck cranked back, Joshua Chavarria, 7, struggled to balance a 10-foot fruit picker about twice his size. Moments later, he broke into a smile.

I got one! I got one! he shouted, showing off the orange in the pickers net as his mother cheered.

Chavarria was one of about 130 volunteers who spent Saturday morning yanking Valencia oranges off trees at Cal State Northridges grove, which were then shipped to food charities throughout the county. Since 2010, the Universitys Institute for Sustainability has partnered with Food Forward, a food recovery nonprofit, to make use of the unpicked fruit from the more than 7-acre grove.

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On Saturday, volunteers collected 5,000 pounds of oranges, a smaller harvest than previous years due to a fruit fly quarantine that had been in place in the spring. According to Food Forward Executive Director Rick Nahmias, volunteers once collected over 22,000 pounds of oranges from the grove.

Before we had this partnership with Food Forward, the fruit was being unutilized, said Sarah Johnson, the Institutes coordinator. Now we found this great use of it where the campus benefits because were providing this service to the community and the community benefits.

When the University was built in the late 1950s, it inherited the grove, which is considered a relic of the 15,000 acres of citrus that once covered the San Fernando Valley. From the early 1920s to the late 1950s, citrus farms thrived until urbanization took over.

[It] pushed citrus out until there was no citrus at all, said Richard Barker, founder of Citrus Roots, an organization that educates about Californias citrus industry.

Today, most of the states approximately 30,000 acres of Valencia orange groves are in the Central Valley, according to Bob Blakely, the vice president of California Citrus Mutual, an industry advocacy group.

A lot of the growers who are farming in Kern, Tulare [counties], their parents came from L.A. County and started farming up here, said Blakely.

At one point, the university had considered building over its grove. Robert Gohstand, a retired CSUN geography professor and self-described daddy of the grove, fought to save it in the early 1990s when the university proposed constructing a parking structure in its place. Resolutions were passed to preserve the grove, and over the years, the university has replaced its dying trees with new ones.

Today, the grove contains a pond and two solar observatories. A new campus hotel will be built nearby.

My objective was, make compromises and save the bulk of the grove, said Gohstand. I think we preserved a bit of the agricultural past in the Valley.

Parents at the picking event used the outing to teach their children about volunteering. CSUN accounting student Stephanie Gonzalez, 25, teamed up with her 5-year-old daughter, Emily. Gonzalez handed the oranges off to Emily, who picked off stems and leaves before placing them in a box.

I thought it was a really good way to help out, Gonzalez said.

Over 50 boxes of oranges will go to MEND food bank in Pacoima, which will place the fruit in care packages to give to homeless next week.

We struggle to give our homeless clients something great and think that fresh oranges picked from the tree are as good as we can get, said its food bank director Richard Weinroth.

leila.miller@latimes.com

Twitter: @leilamillersays
The outcry in Escondido over the possible outsourcing of the 119-year-old citys public library system is new to North County.

In other parts of California and the rest of the country, however, its a familiar script.

Six years ago, for example, a few dozen librarians made a telegenic splash in Sacramento by reading from a handmade book titled The Privatization Beast Comes to Our Town. To draw attention, a yellow Sesame Street-like character played the part of the super-scary Privatization Beast.

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The librarians were demonstrating on the steps of the state Capitol in support of AB 438, a bill that made it more difficult for cities or counties to award library management contracts to private firms.

Specifically, involuntary employee displacement (a sweet euphemism) was discouraged in the legislation as well as private contracts based solely on savings from lower wages.

Unsurprisingly, 438, which Gov. Brown would sign into law, was backed by worker organizations like the Service Employees International Union and the California Labor Federation.

In opposition was the League of California Cities as well as conservative groups that look favorably upon outsourcing public services when it makes pragmatic sense, either in terms of lower operating costs or the avoidance of long-term pension obligations.

Up Interstate 15, Riverside County some two decades ago contracted with Maryland-based LS&S, which now manages 83 public library systems. Santa Clarita, a city nearly the same size as Escondido, made the switch seven years ago.

In a 2011 Union-Tribune editorial, this prediction was thrown out:

There may come a day when, for financial reasons, San Diego Countys various library systems are either consolidated or, possibly, outsourced. Such momentous decisions would not be undertaken lightly. The analysis would be intense. The public debate noisy. Thats as it should be.

Well, it appears that Escondido may be jumping into the hot water.

So why is a critical (very critical) mass of librarians and patrons so worked up?

Theres this American flag, apple pie kind of thing about libraries, an LS&S official told the New York Times. A lot of libraries are atrocious. Their policies are all about job security. Thats why the profession is nervous about us. You can go to a library for 35 years and never have to do anything and then have your retirement. Were not running our company that way. You come to us, youre going to have to work.

No wonder librarians resent the implication that they dont work hard for their paychecks and defined-benefit pensions. (Employees of LS&S receive a 401k.)

But theres something else going on in Escondido that adds a bellicose edge to the dog-eared conflict.

Councilwoman Olga Diaz, the lone Democrat on the council, is linking arms in solidarity with privatization resisters.

In an op-ed essay, Diaz pulls the scab off a sore point, the 2011 shuttering of a beloved branch library on East Valley Parkway.

The vote (to close the library) came about as part of a budget discussion, not a discussion about library services specifically. The topic was obscured by a tangential agenda item with little public scrutiny or opportunity for discussion. No other city in San Diego County closed a public library during tough financial times.

This bitter history heightens the suspicion that, once again, Escondido is engineering a change in library service without public debate.

Of the privatization strategy, Diaz writes this: Although I insisted on a public process, staff has already met several times with the vendor (i.e., LS&S), contending that the public does not need to be involved until the review is completed. Reference to this effort is tucked away in public documents where presumably no one would notice  all the more reason why you should be suspicious of how the city of Escondido navigates this issue.

Theres yet another unique factor that complicates the Escondido plot.

In her op-ed, Diaz notes that the old downtown library is scheduled for replacement.

A voter-approved bond will be necessary to follow through with the slow-moving vision of a new state-of-the-art library in an expanded Grape Day Park. If the City Council majority struggles to see the value of operating a public library, then I question how any taxpayer could trust city officials by supporting a large library bond measure for a private company to operate.

Assuming the city can navigate the fine print of AB 438, a bond election could be about a lot more than a new building. It could be about the soul of the library.

A public debate over privatization could be a healthy thing for Escondido, an instructive soul-searching.

LS&S may offer more hours, lets say, but what is the track record with culturally enriching programs, book circulation, attendance? Is LS&S at profit-driven heart an employment agency that hires X number of employees, as some critics contend? Or does it deliver the rich and diverse experiences that the best public libraries traditionally have?

But whats worrisome is that the focus on privatization and budgets could distract Escondido from a solution that would make history.

As Jose Aponte, recently retired director of San Diego County library system, has been saying for years, consolidation of ALL the regions libraries under one streamlined (and enlightened) management is the ultimate answer, financially and intellectually.

Why not have the county and library-owning cities form a joint powers authority and make ALL libraries equally great.

Now thats an ending to the story that would allow everyone to read happily ever after.

logan.jenkins@sduniontribune.com
Dr. Shawn Evans scrolled through the list of patients booked into the emergency department at Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla on a recent morning.

Of the 18 patients on the intake screen, a third were 65 or older. Three were over 80.

There is seldom a day when were not seeing five, 10 or 20 people over 90 years old in here. Its incredible, said Evans, who as a longtime emergency physician has a front-row seat to a dramatic shift in Americas demographics.

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As the nations population ages, hospitals in California and across the country are bracing for ever-increasing numbers of elderly people landing in the emergency room. These patients often require more complex care than younger adults, yet emergency departments are typically ill-equipped to handle their special needs.

In San Diego County, however, thats starting to change. In fact, San Diego-area hospitals are at the forefront of what amounts to a grand experiment to overhaul geriatric emergency care on the West Coast. Its an experiment because the trend of customizing ER treatment for older patients hasnt existed long enough for a comprehensive assessment, and the studies conducted so far have yielded mixed results in terms of whether such efforts boost recovery times, lower hospital readmission rates and ultimately save taxpayers money.

Within the past two years, local hospitals have launched multiple senior-friendly improvements to their emergency facilities and procedures. These include:

*Kaiser Permanentes San Diego Medical Center, which is the citys newest hospital and features nonslip floors, adjustable lighting and a computerized guardrail system to reduce the risk of falls and delirium, dangers common among older patients. Kaiser has also launched a hip-fracture program that uses high-tech ultrasound machines to pinpoint the fracture area in older patients and provide local anesthesia instead of delirium-inducing painkillers, helping to speed up recovery.

*Palomar Health, which serves communities has unveiled a new hip-fracture pathway for seniors as well. When hip-fracture patients arrive in the emergency department, a team of specialists works to provide local anesthesia (instead of narcotics) for pain relief and streamline the patients admission to the operating room. The goal is to help elderly patients recover faster from hip surgery and spend less time in the hospital. As part of its undertaking, the health system has created a 30-page informational booklet for patients and developed tools to measure the programs results.

*UC San Diegos medical campus in La Jolla, which is constructing the regions first emergency department specifically for geriatric patients, set to open in 2018. The university has already implemented new screening procedures for seniors and a program that allows some elderly patients to receive emergency care at home. Its also conducting research as part of a national push to find the most effective strategies for improving emergency department care for seniors.

*Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla recently opened a 33,000-square-foot emergency and trauma center designed with elderly patients in mind. The center has glass doors for its patients rooms (instead of open entrances) to reduce noise and maintain privacy, beds with extra-thick mattresses, alarms that alert staff of potential fall risk and a 16-bed clinical decision area where mostly older patients receive specialized support from staff members trained in geriatric medicine.

In California, San Diego is the leader in terms of geriatric emergency medicine, said Aimee Moulin, president-elect for the California chapter of the American College of Emergency Physicians. She said specialized geriatric emergency care is more common in the Midwest and on the East Coast, but progress has been slower in the west.

Theres a growing recognition of the special needs of the geriatric population (in California)  but certainly its not the majority, Moulin said. San Diego certainly is well ahead.

A demographic shift

San Diego-area hospitals bid to reshape emergency care for older patients is driven in large part by demographics.

People 65 or older made up an estimated 13 percent of the countys population last year  about 445,000 people. By 2030, that number is expected to increase to 724,000, according to the San Diego County Senior Heath Report.

The fastest-growing age group: residents 85 years or older. That population is forecast to jump to 84,000 within the next 15 years, up from 60,000 in 2012.

RELATED STORY

How seniors can avoid the emergency room  and what to do if they end up there

Older people tend to be heavy users of the emergency room. More than one in five people who visited a hospital E.R. in San Diego County last year were 65 or older. Thats higher than the state and national average.

These patients frequently require complex care. Seniors are more likely to have multiple chronic conditions, take a smorgasbord of potentially conflicting medications and frequently suffer from hearing loss, vision difficulties, dementia and mobility problems. They may be struggling to live independently and in need of caregivers.

Once in the emergency room, older patients are at greater risk than younger ones of falling and becoming confused and delirious because of bright lights, unfamiliar surroundings, noise, bustle and pain medications. If admitted to the hospital, days of bed rest and interrupted routines can lead seniors to deteriorate further, even if they recover from their original ailment. One-third of patients over 70 years old and more than half over 80 years old are more disabled at discharge than when they entered, research shows.

(Seniors) are not like older, middle-aged people, just like kids arent small adults, said Evans, who as a former Scripps chief of staff helped lead improvements in geriatric emergency care for that health system. Theyre the most vulnerable, the most sensitive, require the most input.

By providing senior-specific care in the emergency room, health providers hope to reduce the number of seniors who get admitted to hospitals, help them avoid having to return to the emergency department and support independent seniors in their desire to continue living at home instead of a care facility.

A new approach

Though a new geriatric emergency department for UC San Diegos La Jolla medical campus is still being built, some senior-specific protocols are already underway inside the new Jacobs Medical Center.

Since Dec. 1, Thomas Crisman has been filling the newly minted role of geriatric resource nurse. He tracks his patients by age, typically putting the oldest ones at the top. He pops into room after room to conduct a series of assessments that gauge patients mobility, nutrition and cognition.

On a recent day, one of those patients was 94-year-old Elnora Astor, who came to the hospital with abdominal pain. After reading through her chart, Crisman asked whether Elnora had fallen at home. Family members shared that yes, she had taken two or three tumbles at home, though none had resulted in an injury. That report, combined with accounts of vertigo, were enough for the nurse to move to the next level.

Elnora, could you get up and walk with me a little bit? he asked.

I could give a good try, couldnt I? she responded.

Soon nurse and patient were holding hands face-to-face, slowly moving past the exam rooms wide sliding glass door, out into the hallway then back to the bed. The process ended with cognitive tests that showed some signs of dementia.

The work-up spurred Crisman to order physical therapy for Astor once she returned home.

Back in her bed, Astor said she didnt mind the extra attention. They take an interest in you. They listen to what you say. They dont just say yes, yes and mark it down, she explained.

At Scripps Memorial Hospital La Jolla, the Barbey Family Emergency and Trauma Center feels more like a retreat than an emergency department. Soft music plays in the sunlight-filled waiting area. Photos of flowers, seashells and the ocean adorn cream-colored walls.

Inside, the 51-private-bed facility is disarmingly quiet. Glass doors shield each patient room from outside noise, and alarms alert nurses to a potential fall if a patient tries to get up without assistance.

The emergency department has nurses, pharmacists, a social worker and case manager trained to screen and work with geriatric patients. Are they at risk of falling? Do they show signs of dementia? Could they be taking too many or the wrong mix of medications? Are they physically able to take care of themselves outside the hospital? Do they have the necessary caregiving support at home?

If necessary, patients stay in the departments observation area for up to 48 hours so they can be fully evaluated and have necessary interventions set up, Evans said.

Sometimes we get patients who, for example, come in and have had a fall at home and there are no other issues. But one of the things in the examination is that you may notice that their nails are unkempt or  you look at their feet and you can tell that the self-care is not there, said Nancy Coleman, a clinical social worker who works in the emergency department. What that does is raise the red flags. Were able to assess that and begin to be proactive to provide services for them so that when they go back home, theyre not in a (bad) situation.

In North County, Palomar Health is trying to keep seniors time in the hospital as short as possible through its new hip-fracture pathway. The program fast-tracks the process of getting older hip-fracture patients admitted for surgery, and the local-anethesia protocol  instead of using narcotics  is meant to accelerate recovery times.

The health district is still collecting data to measure the programs effectiveness, but the impact seen so far has been encouraging, said Palomar Health medical director Jaime Rivas.

We know anecdotally from talking to a number of anesthesiologists that these patients are doing very well. Eighty-nine-year-old patients are coming out of the surgery just fine and up and about, Rivas said. Theyre recovering quicker, theyre awake, and when you start to get them out of the hospital sooner and they can begin their rehab sooner, theyll recover sooner.

From east to west

Specialized geriatric emergency departments are relatively new.

St. Josephs Regional Medical Center in Paterson, New Jersey built one of the first and most widely recognized in 2009. By 2013, a national survey of hospitals revealed that just 36 emergency departments were catering to older adults, mostly in the nations Northeast and Midwest regions.

Dr. Tess Hogan, director of geriatric emergency medicine at the University of Chicago and co-author of the 2013 survey, said the number could be as high as 150 today, although she doesnt have an updated count. Unfortunately, some hospitals claim to provide geriatric emergency care but in reality offer none of those services, she said.

To encourage best practices, the American College of Emergency Physicians, in collaboration with other medical and geriatric organizations, published guidelines for geriatric-friendly emergency departments in 2014. Theyre now working on an accreditation system for these facilities.

Kimberlee Roberts, senior director for clinical services at Scripps and a member of the hospitals design team, said the group came up with its own geriatric-friendly design by consulting the guidelines from the American College of Emergency Physicians, gathering staff input and amassing ideas from tours of 12 hospitals in California and one in Chicago. She said most of these sites didnt have emergency departments designed specifically for geriatric patients, but were newer hospitals with features that worked well to improve senior care, such as natural lighting and a separate observation area.

Does it work?

So far, research on geriatric-focused emergency departments is thin.

A 2014 study of one department in Michigan found geriatric-specific emergency practices did nothing to stop seniors from returning to the emergency room within 30 days or decrease their average time spent in the hospital.

In contrast, research out of Northwestern Universitys geriatric emergency department in Chicago has shown that hospital admissions of seniors receiving specialized emergency care decreased by almost half compared to a control group, and that readmissions to the emergency room within 30 days of discharge dropped dramatically. Mount Sinai Hospital in New York and St. Josephs geriatric emergency departments also report positive results, Hogan said.

UC San Diegos research is expected to contribute important data on the effectiveness of senior-specific emergency care, said Moulin with the American College of Emergency Physicians. Once other hospitals see quantifiable results, she said, the hope is that more administrators will want to invest in geriatric-friendly practices, especially if they can save money by reducing hospital admissions and readmissions.

Indeed, keeping seniors out of the hospital and improving their experience in the emergency room could benefit hospitals financially.

Medicare penalizes hospitals that fail to reduce the number of patients repeatedly returning to the hospital and alters reimbursement rates based on patient-satisfaction scores. There are also financial incentives for some hospitals that prevent patients from being admitted to hospital unnecessarily.

The idea is, if you give better care earlier, then it costs you less, Hogan said.

But could these senior-centric emergency facilities actually drive up the cost of care for patients?

Dr. Daniel Waxman, a UCLA emergency department doctor and health policy researcher, said reducing unnecessary hospital admissions would drive down health-care costs in general.

There are a substantial proportion of patients who are admitted to the hospital because other potential alternatives are not available, Waxman said. First among the top 10 priorities for controlling health-care costs should be keeping patients from getting admitted to the hospital, because everything else is chump change.

Hogan, who is part of the collaborative working on the geriatric emergency department accreditation system, said hospitals dont have to spend a lot of money to improve care for seniors. She said for a few thousand dollars, they could invest in geriatric training for staff members. And while implementing new senior-friendly policies requires time and discussion, theres essentially no other cost involved in the process, she added.

Regardless of the amount of investment, reimbursement rates from insurers wont change simply because a hospital has new facilities, said Evans at Scripps.

Were a slave to Medicare and third-party payers, he said. How this could benefit the hospital financially is well see more patients because weve got a bigger department and platform, but in terms of the rates or the fees for patients, none of that changed.

Ultimately, its up to hospitals to decide what kind of investment makes sense based on their location, budget and demographics, Hogan said. But given the rising tide of baby boomers hitting their older years, she said, health providers need to start making those decisions soon.

The huge demographic demand is now, and if it takes 20 years to get this up and running, there will be 20 years of older people that dont get the care that they deserve, Hogan said. We cant just let the wheels roll slowly.

Boyd-Barrett writes for the Center for Health Reporting at USCs Leonard D. Schaeffer Center for Health Policy & Economics. Sisson is a staff writer for The San Diego Union-Tribune.

*

EDITORS NOTE:

Journalists with the Center for Health Reporting, based at the University of Southern California, have for years partnered with media organizations statewide to highlight important trends and issues. Those partners have included The San Diego Union-Tribune, which co-produced several in-depth stories about efforts to provide food, housing and addiction-recovery services to serial users of emergency-room services so they dont end up in the hospital again.

The center currently concentrates on the health needs and concerns of older people. It receives funding from West Health in San Diego, a nonprofit underwriter of projects aimed at helping seniors and the elderly maximize their well-being as they age.

Mentioned in todays story is the geriatric-focused emergency department being developed at UC San Diego, a project thats receiving financial support from West Health.

Health Playlist On Now Video: Why aren't Americans getting flu shots? 0:37 On Now Video: Leaders urge public to help extinguish hepatitis outbreak On Now San Diego starts cleansing sidewalks, streets to combat hepatitis A On Now Video: Scripps to shutter its hospice service On Now Video: Scripps La Jolla hospitals nab top local spot in annual hospital rankings On Now Video: Does a parent's Alzheimer's doom their children? On Now Video: Vaccine can prevent human papillomavirus, which can cause cancer 0:31 On Now 23 local doctors have already faced state discipline in 2017 0:48 On Now EpiPen recall expands On Now Kids can add years to your life

paul.sisson@sduniontribune.com

(619) 293-1850

Twitter: @paulsisson
By PTI: Agartala, Jul 30 (PTI) Land acquisition for the 15 km long Agartala-Akhaura rail project to link Indian Railways with Bangladesh Railways, has started, officials said today.

"We have served notices to 257 families to acquire 66 acres of land for the rail project and the land would be handed over to the railways by August end", West Tripura District Magistrate and Collector Milind Ramteke told reporters.

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He said, the Central government has already released Rs 97.63 crore to acquire the land.

The process of laying the 15 km long railway tracks to connect Agartala with Akhaura in Bangladesh will be completed in two and half years time after laying of tracks begin.

Out of the 15 km track, 5 km would be on Indian side and the rest in Bangladesh.

Ramteke said that the Northeast Frontier Railway (NFR) is the nodal agency for implementation of the project in Indian side.

Bangladesh government has also started acquiring around 70 acres of land for the project, NFR officials said.

Railway minister Suresh Prabhu and his Bangladesh counterpart, Majibul Haque had jointly laid the foundation stone here on July 31 last year.

A flyover of 3.7 km would be constructed on the Indian side to save cultivable lands and the entire project cost would be borne by the government, he said.

New Delhi is keen to establish the rail link as it would connect West Bengal and Tripura through Bangladesh.

During Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina?s visit to New Delhi, the two neighbours had agreed to lay the tracks between Akhaura and Agartala.

The Agartala-Akhaura railway route would connect Indian Railways with Bangladesh Railways which would improve connectivity and boost trade between the two countries.

The 1,700 km distance between Agartala and Kolkata which goes through the ?chicken?s neck? in Siliguri would be reduced by 350 km if passengers could move through Bangladesh, officials said. PTI JOY RG SNP

--- ENDS ---
San Diego medical marijuana advocates joined a series of lawsuits Monday seeking an immediate stop to the federal governments statewide efforts to close dispensaries.

A coalition of patients, storefront collectives and their landlords began to file lawsuits Friday in all four federal judicial districts in California  Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento and San Diego  where U.S. attorneys have set various deadlines for dispensaries to shut down or risk criminal prosecution and forfeiture of their properties.

Briana Bilbray, the 25-year-old daughter of Rep. Brian Bilbray, R-San Diego, is among the plaintiffs in the suit filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego that, among other claims, accuses the Department of Justice of entrapping marijuana providers by reversing its own policy.

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That lawsuit names as defendants U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, Drug Enforcement Administration head Michele Leonhart and U.S. Attorney Laura Duffy of San Diego.

Briana Bilbray said she used medical cannabis after being diagnosed with Stage III melanoma. She said patients were being unfairly punished by having access to their medication cut off and added that federal prosecutors were infringing on their rights as Californians.

I am convinced completely that it works, she said, contrasting her personal experiences with federal statements questioning the medicinal value of marijuana. I really want to know how many people they talked to that have had chemo.  I feel like people are listening now. People are paying attention.

Asked about his daughters involvement, Bilbray issued the following statement: Karen and I raised our children to be strong individuals who think for themselves. I respect my daughters right to fight for what she believes in based on her personal experiences. We may not agree with our children on every issue, but Karen and I are very proud parents.

Bilbrays son, Imperial Beach City Councilman Brian Patrick Bilbray, recently cast the lone dissenting vote against a citywide ban on medical marijuana dispensaries, saying he supports marijuana access for patients but also was concerned about legal repercussions for the community.

The Justice Department and Duffys office declined to comment on the lawsuits Monday.

Other local plaintiffs in the 13-page lawsuit are Joy Greenfield, Light The Way, American Treatment Advancement Cooperative and Mother Earths Alternative Healing Cooperative, the first and only legally permitted dispensary in the region. An attorney for the El Cajon-based co-op referred questions about the case to P.J. Johnston, a San Francisco consultant speaking on behalf of the plaintiffs statewide.

Johnston said the lawsuit called on the courts to put an immediate stop to the crackdown, citing an agreement between federal prosecutors and a medical marijuana collective in Santa Cruz.

There, collective patients agreed to allow a federal judge to dismiss their case against the government after the Justice Department said it would not use federal resources against medical marijuana patients who complied with state law.

The conduct of the government officials and their statement led the nation to believe that the government had changed its policy in 2009, ensuring that those who comply with state medical cannabis laws would not be subject to federal prosecution, the lawsuit states.

In announcing the cases Monday in San Francisco, lead attorney Matt Kumin said his goal was to bring the federal government to the negotiating table to reach a compromise that allows a state medical marijuana program.

The cases claim that California has an entrenched cultivation and distribution network of medical cannabis supplying about 1 million patients. Advocates estimate its annual revenue at between $1.5 billion and $4.5 billion.

It is readily apparent, and there is no doubt, that the lawful medical marijuana program is a stimulus in an otherwise bleak economic picture, the lawsuit states.

In addition to claiming the government is reneging on its promise, the lawsuit asserts that:

 Prohibiting medical marijuana in California violates the U.S. Constitutions 14th Amendment guaranteeing equal protection under the law because the federal government allows it in Colorado and provides the drug to patients through its own Compassionate Investigational New Drug program.

 Plans to raid, arrest, prosecute, punish and seek civil or administrative sanctions against the plaintiffs and confiscate their marijuana and property violate states rights under the 10th Amendment.

 Interference with Californias regulation of the medical marijuana industry violates the commerce clause of the Constitution.

 Hampering patients ability to consult with their doctors violates the Ninth Amendment, which retains rights for citizens not spelled out in the Constitution.

The announcement came two weeks after the advocacy group Americans for Safe Access filed a federal lawsuit arguing the Obama administration was attempting to subvert state and local medical marijuana laws.

The 17-page lawsuit seeks an injunction barring the Department of Justice from interfering with collectives that meet state and local laws.

Californias four federal prosecutors launched their campaign last month to shut down profit-making marijuana dispensaries, accusing producers and distributors of using the states medical marijuana law as a cover for pushing illegal drugs.

Duffy mailed hundreds of letters beginning Oct. 4 warning collectives and their landlords to permanently close their doors within 45 days or risk criminal prosecution and property seizures. Her counterparts also fired off warnings to several municipalities targeting medical marijuana regulations that provided a path to legitimacy.

Duffy has characterized the states marijuana industry as pervasive and profit-driven.

Other local officials have waded into the federal-state conflict. Rep. Bob Filner, D-San Diego, and several congressional colleagues wrote to President Barack Obama on Oct. 28 urging him to reclassify marijuana as a legitimate controlled substance for medicinal purposes under federal law.

Californians voted in 1996 to allow patients with a doctors approval to use marijuana and receive it from their caregivers. The measure passed 56 percent to 44 percent statewide and 52 percent to 48 percent in San Diego County.

However, its use remains illegal under federal law, which also does not recognize the need for medical marijuana as a defense in criminal cases.
We are all to blame for Trumps Scout rant

Regarding Trump embarrassed himself and Boy Scouts (July 25): A Scout is: Trustworthy; Loyal; Helpful; Friendly; Courteous; Kind; Obedient; Cheerful; Thrifty; Brave; Clean, and Reverent.

Each of these traits is antithetical to the Trump persona. He might have taken the opportunity to learn something about Scouts honor, but he appears unable to hear anything that doesnt massage his delicate ego.

Shame on him for ranting such vitriol in the presence of our American youth. And shame on us for electing him to the highest office in the land.

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Emery J. Cummins

San Diego

Accepting pardon is an admission of guilt

Regarding President Trumps hiring of lawyers to research his authority to grant pardons to himself and family, I invite them to read United States v. Burdick. In Burdick, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that A pardon carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it. The Burdick case was decided in 1915 and has been cited and upheld in numerous subsequent cases.

By raising the possibility of pardons, he is implying guilt of his family and himself. According to Burdick, acceptance of a pardon admits guilt and arguably could lead to impeachment.

Frank V. Puglia

San Diego

Boy Scouts seemed to love Trumps speech

Kudos to President Trump for going to and speaking at the Boy Scout Jamboree in West Virginia on Jan. 24.

It is no surprise that the mainstream media found fault with his speech, but when you listen to it, it is apparent that the Boy Scouts, etc., loved it.

Daniel R. Collins

San Diego

Women being left out of Trumps agenda

While the military spends $41.6 million annually on Viagra, (our tax money), the Republicans with Trumpcare want to charge women for birth control, defund Planned Parenthood, make abortions illegal and charge extra premiums for maternity care.

Also, they would give little or no family leave and no subsidized child care. So, to Make America Great Again (for males only), women are heading back to being just sexual objects.

Val Gilhooly

Point Loma

Attack on transgender troops is shameful

Regarding How is Trumps new transgender troop policy sitting with Americans? (July 26): Duncan Hunters claim that transgender service members reduce the warrior culture of our military is so off base.

The Israelis have allowed transgender soldiers since 1998 and require all citizens to serve two years upon turning 18. Does the Israeli military lack a warrior culture? Hunter seems to forget that there are thousands of jobs in the military that may not require the warrior culture he so desperately clings to.

There are also front-line positions that transgender folks should be able to do if they meet the physical requirements. The fact that Hunter is a former service member, and cant see that there were thousands of non-warrior types that supported his service, speaks volumes of his ignorance.

If he is so gung ho on supporting the troops, he should support all of the troops, not just the ones he thinks are manly enough to serve. There is room for everyone who wants to serve this country, no matter their situation. Shame on Hunter.

Cory Fish

Chula Vista

Theres a long history of transgender service

Regarding transgender and gay service personnel, it is pertinent to remind Gary Gilbert (Trump made right call on transgender troops, July 28) that in World War II the percentage of American gay soldiers was around 3 percent to 4 percent.

By the way, we won that war. And I doubt our president has any knowledge of that, and I hope his bone spur, which kept him safe in the United States in Vietnam, has healed.

Robert Bridge

Carlsbad

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Prosecutors called their star witness Friday in the murder trial of a woman who claims she killed an Iowa neighbor in self-defense: a former close friend who initially believed her account but came forward a decade later to provide key evidence against her.

Farmer Mary Higgins provided critical testimony to back up the prosecutions claim that Tracey Richter killed 20-year-old Dustin Wehde in a plot to frame her ex-husband and then falsely claimed she was the victim of a home invasion.

Richter has insisted the shooting at her home in Early, a small town in northwest Iowa, was in self-defense after Wehde and another man broke into her home.

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Higgins described herself as a reluctant witness who once enjoyed Richters company but later saw her as a dishonest woman who treated her children poorly and could explode in anger.

She said she and Richter became friends after Richter and her second husband moved to Early in 1998. They often spoke on the phone, had coffee together and she drove Richters son home from school.

Richter flew to Australia for a planned family vacation days after Wehde was shot in December 2001. Higgins said they got together in January or February after she returned.

I wanted to let her know that I stand by her, Higgins recalled.

But she said Richter showed no emotion and acted like she was telling me her grocery list when she recounted her version of events: that two men broke into her home and one choked her with pantyhose before she broke free, unlocked her gunsafe - without her glasses in the dark - grabbed two guns and shot Wehde while the other man fled.

Police never found a second intruder. Defense attorneys have suggested the second man was an ice cream delivery driver who was having an affair with Wehdes mother. The man, Iraq war veteran Jeremy Collins, testified Friday afternoon he had nothing to do with any home invasion and did not know Wehde well. Richter cried during his testimony and left the courtroom in tears.

Higgins said that while Richter was retelling her story, her 11-year-old son walked in and banged his head on the table.

He said, `Why did you go back up there? Higgins recalled. You didnt have to shoot him. You didnt have to kill him. Richter screamed her sons name, and he left.

Higgins said Richter told her police found a pink spiral notebook in Wehdes car and it would prove that John Pitman did this. But two years later, in 2004, Higgins said Richter pointed her finger and told me that I needed to forget about the pink notebook, and it frightened me. Tracey could explode and then be calm.

Law enforcement officials have testified they kept the notebook a secret until this year because anyone who knew about it would have knowledge of the crime. Prosecutors say Richter, now 45, forced Wehde to write the notebook claiming Pitman, her ex-husband, hired Wehde to kill her and their son. They say she killed Wehde to keep him quiet and then planted the notebook in his car.

Pitman, a Virginia plastic surgeon, testified earlier Friday that he had nothing to do with the notebook. Richter and Pitman were fighting at the time over custody of their son, Bert Pitman.

Higgins said she didnt tell a detective who interviewed her in April 2002 about the notebook because she assumed investigators knew about it and they did not ask her. She said she was contacted in March 2011 after investigators re-examined the case and her husband had become church friends with the new Sac County prosecutor, Ben Smith.

Smith met with her at their home, and she told him, I didnt want any part of this. But when he asked if she knew about details, she responded, Do you mean that stupid notebook?

The blood drained from his face, she testified. Id never seen anything like that before. He just went on the ground and sat on the floor and leaned against the kitchen cupboards.

Division of Criminal Investigation agents then interviewed her, and Higgins said she told them about the notebook but not share the full details because she was afraid for herself and Richter.

She was my friend and I didnt know where it was going, she said. I didnt know what the notebook meant. I knew it wasnt good.

She said she went into more detail in a second interview with investigators. She said she asked Richter why a 20-year-old man would have a pink notebook and Richter responded that Wehde must have gotten it from one of his sisters. Higgins also recalled how, months before the shooting, Richter told her about buying Bert a pink notebook for school, and Higgins said her sons would never use one like that.

Her statements and other evidence were used to draft a complaint charging Richter with murder and leading to her July arrest in Omaha, where she was living. Higgins occasionally glanced across the courtroom at Richter, who looked away during her testimony.

Prosecutor Douglas Hammerand gave jurors photocopies of the journals five pages written in Wehdes sloppy handwriting, and they followed along as he read aloud. The journal said Wehde wanted to make a record of a mysterious fellow who asked me to work for him (John Pitman).

Pitman wants me to get/force Richter to kill Bert and then commit suicide, or make it appear as though T.R. had committed the murder of her son & then committed suicide, it said.

Pitman testified the journal described him accurately: a doctor from Virginia who wanted to follow in the footsteps of his father, also a surgeon, and take over his practice one day. The diary describes him as a white male in his 40s who was in the Army.

It named Pitmans divorce attorney, Stephen Komie. Only Richter and his family knew that much detail about his personal life, Pitman said, although he acknowledged on cross-examination that he had conflict with Richters second husband, who could have gotten personal information about him from her.

The doctor said that he never met Wehde, did not hire him and did not want his son dead.

Did your ex-wife Tracey Richter despise you? Hammerand asked.

I think so, Pitman responded with a laugh.
By PTI: New York, Jul 30 (PTI) Ladies, take note! Wearing lipstick may help you feel smarter and boost cognitive performance, say scientists who found that women who wear makeup are more likely to score higher academic grades.

Researchers, including those from Harvard University in the US, studied how academic performance were affected by the so-called "lipstick effect" - a psychological phenomenon in which wearing cosmetics can make an individual feel a sense of overall enhancement in self-esteem, attitude, and personality.

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Cosmetics have a well-documented effect on wearers psychology, in that the wearer feels more physically attractive and enjoys a consequent higher sense of self- esteem, researchers said.

However, a less well-known effect of this boost in self- esteem is that cognitive abilities may also be influenced, in that they are improved by positive emotions.

Researchers devised a psychological experiment in which female undergraduates were sorted into groups and given a series of tests.

The test comprised of answering multiple choice questions about a chapter from a general psychology textbook. Before each of the three groups took the test, they all undertook a different mood-influencing task.

One group applied makeup, another listened to "a positive music excerpt" and a third coloured a drawing of a human face.

The team found a significant increase in cognitive performance from the group who listened to positive music however, the makeup group performed the best.

Test scores were significantly higher compared to those obtained after listening to positive music and therapeutic colouring, researchers said.

The study was published in the journal Cogent Psychology. PTI APA MHN MHN

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: Mumbai, Jul 30 (PTI) The Maharashtra government is set to implement Streets With Cycle Track policy in 10 districts of the state on a pilot basis to provide alternate mode of transport to locals.

The project comprises cities Pune, Nagpur, Amravati, Chandrapur, Kolhapur, Solapur, Nashik, Latur, Aurangabad and Jalgaon, according to a GR (Government Resoltuion) issued by the government here yesterday.

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The GR stated that the concept would be implemented on a pilot basis, which would enable employees travelling around 7-8 km to their work place daily to use cycle as an alternate option of commuting.

There are no dedicated cycle tracks in most of the cities in Maharashtra. Hence, people do not dare to use cycle to commute to the work place, the GR said.

In many cities, the labour class travel some 7-8 kms to industrial towns. If the existing major roads get parallel cycle tracks, some of the load on roads can shift. It would also reduce traffic congestion and keep a check on pollution, it stated. PTI ND ARS

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: London, Jul 30 (PTI) Male infertility was recognised, diagnosed and treated as far back as the 13th Century, say scientists who found medieval texts describing medical tests and cures for childlessness for men.

Researchers from University of Exeter in the UK analysed popular medical and religious books from the 13th century, and found that widely-circulated medical texts recognised the possibility of male infertility, including sterility and unsuitable seed.

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A urine test to determine if a husband or a wife was to blame for the absence of children in a marriage was devised, and medical recipes drawn up as a treatment for men.

It has been widely assumed that women in medieval England were blamed for childlessness and religious discourse about infertility focused on women.

If men were deemed responsible for the failure of a couple to produce children, this was in cases of sexual dysfunction where it was obvious the man was unable to have intercourse.

Researchers found that in 13th-15th century England male infertility was viewed as a possibility, not only among those who had studied medicine at a university and could read Latin but among less-educated sections of society reading texts in English.

"Although medical texts tended to devote most space to female infertility, male infertility was nonetheless regularly discussed as a possible cause of childlessness in academic texts and by educated medieval medical practitioners," said Catherine Rider, a historian at University of Exeter.

Researchers found texts written in the vernacular contained references to male sterility as a possible cause of a woman failing to conceive.

Learned Latin texts were translated, adapted and added to, even influencing English recipe collections which included remedies for childlessness.

For example a 12th century gynaecological treatise entitled the Trotula, by an anonymous author, was circulated widely and translated into English and French. It states that "conception is impeded as much by the fault of the man as by the fault of the women".

This widely read book on womens medicine went on to describe male reproductive disorders as being about less visible forms of "sterility" as well as problems relating to erections and emission of sperm.

The book also includes a test to see if the defect lay in the man or the woman, which had also appeared in earlier medieval texts.

Both should urinate into a pot of bran and the pots should be left for nine or ten days. If worms appeared in one of the pots than he or she was the infertile partner, the book stated.

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"We cant fully understand what attitudes were like towards male infertility in the Middle Ages because we have so few records which describe the experiences of people who had reproductive disorders," Catherine said.

"It is hard to know whether men or women were more likely to seek treatment for infertility in practice. Most of our evidence comes from doctors who discussed what might happen and how to treat these problems," she added. PTI APA MHN MHN

--- ENDS ---
A man was caught with live bullets at Delhi's Kailash Colony Metro Station.

By Asian News International: A man was caught carrying 3 live (7.62 mm) rounds of bullets in Delhi Metro. The incident took place at Kailash Colony Metro Station.

The CISF personnel deployed at the station, caught the passenger during screening of the bags.

The recovery was made at 12.25 PM today, and the suspected passenger was handed over to the Delhi Metro Rail Police Okhla Vihar for further questioning.

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Also Read:

Big relief for commuters, Delhi Metro staff call off strike

Coming soon on Delhi Metro: Automated driverless trains

--- ENDS ---
Ferreira said newbuild World Explorer is the first of what could stretch to 10 expedition ships for Mystic Cruises, a division of his Portuguese company.

'Our aim is one per year for the next four years,' Ferreira told Seatrade Cruise News in a wide-ranging interview. 'We could go to 10. They are only 200-passenger ships, the perfect size for our management company.'

Ferreira isn't daunted by the fact that Hapag-Lloyd, Ponant and many others are building, too, since he doesn't think all the tonnage on order is enough to replace the older ships going out.

'There is huge demand,' Ferreira said, citing natural market growth and the fact that of the current fleet of 40 or so approximately 10,000gt expedition ships, the average age is 25 years. It will be too costly to update those for new safety and environmental standards.

The 9,300gt World Explorer, under construction at Portugal's WestSea Viana Shipyard, is set for a November 2018 crossing from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. Quark Expeditions has chartered the ship for the 2018/19 and 2019/20 Antarctica seasons.

The rest of the year World Explorer will sail for another Mystic Invest company, Germany's Nicko Cruises, to places like the Arctic, Norwegian Fjords and Mediterranean.

Ferreira hopes Quark will extend beyond its two-season charter but he's had inquiries from several companies for Antarctica and other destinations.

Another Mystic Invest division, DouroAzul, is the largest Douro River operator with 16 vessels and 500 crew sailing for companies like AmaWaterways, Avalon, Jules Verne, Riviera, Scenic, Uniworld and Viking. Four more newbuilds are coming by 2019.

Ferreira builds them at WestSea in Viana de Castelowhere World Explorer is under construction and he and the Portuguese navy are the top two customersand at Navalria in Aveiro. Both yards are part of the Martifer Group.

Nicko Cruises, which Mystic Invest acquired in its insolvency in 2015, fields another 20 river vessels around the world, from the Danube, Rhine and Elbe to the Yangtze, Mekong and Nile. Ferreira installed new management in Stuttgart, led by Guido Laukamp, a Viking River veteran, and Nicko is expanding with one newbuild each on the Danube and Rhine.

'I'm very happy. The company's doing very well,' Ferreira said. 'Bookings are going up and up and up.'

When the new World Explorer and any future expedition ships are not on charter they'll sail for Nicko, targeting Germans with departures from ports like Hamburg and Kiel. Per diems are expected in the 450 to 500 range.

Before landing on this concept, Ferreira poured several years into planning a vessel for the upper Amazon that would spend part of the year in Antarctica. Instead, what Mystic Cruises is doing will be 'much more interesting,' he said.

Branching out into the oceans wasn't driven by Quark's need, but his own ambition.

'The Douro cannot grow much more. We are almost at the limit due to the infrastructure of docks and locks,' Ferreira said.

Some 210 kilometers are navigable, all the way to Spain, so round-trips from Porto span 420 kilometers. But there are five locks that handle just one vessel at a time and navigation is permitted in daylight only. With 80 day cruise vessels and 22 hotel ships in service, the Douro is busy.

In expanding to the oceans, Ferreira is coming full circle. He began his career with Cunard, working in a variety of hotel positions and sailing the world on Vistafjord. Returning home to Porto, he bought a day cruise vessel on the Douro, then a historic chateau he turned into a hotel and winery. Next he converted a vessel into a 40-room hotel ship.

His business went international when he converted a vessel for Uniworld founder Serba Illich, a project Ferreira worked on with Uniworld operations chief Rudi Schreiner, who went on to co-found AmaWaterways.
The four-night Majesty voyage sails from the central Florida port on March 25, 2019, and spends a full day in Havana (8 a.m. to 8 p.m.), sandwiched between two sea days.

Fares start at $540 per person, double occupancy. Taxes, fees and port expenses are an additional $90.86. This is a nonrefundable deposit booking; cancellations prior to final payment due date will receive a future cruise credit in the amount of the deposit minus a $100 per person service fee.

Via Royal Caribbean's short 'Explore More Sale,' bookings by close of day on July 31 are eligible for a 50% discount for the second passenger and 25% off for third and fourth passengers sharing the same stateroom. Plus, passengers will get an on-board credit of $25 in inside and ocean-view rooms or $50 in balconies and suites.
By PTI: New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) The Ministry of Corporate Affairs will set up two committees to look at possible withdrawal of court cases related to it pending for 10 years or more.

The review would also be carried for cases pertaining to the Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO).

The ministry, which implements the companies law, said it has decided to constitute two committees here for "reviewing 10-year-old and above cases of different regions and in office of the SFIO for withdrawal of prosecutions".

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"The committees would review and recommend the details of cases in which prosecutions are required to be withdrawn, including the reports submitted by the regional directors," the ministry said in a circular dated July 25.

The Director General of Corporate Affairs would chair both the committees to be constituted at the headquarters here.

These panels can invite experts to discuss matters and are "free to meet on Saturday and Sunday to expedite and complete their task," it noted.

According to the ministry, the special arrears clearance drive has been initiated following a reference from Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad regarding reducing all pending court cases.

The ministry implements the companies law and there are more than 16 lakh registered firms in the country. The SFIO is a multi-disciplinary organisation that mainly probes white- collar crimes.

As per the ministrys administrative framework, there is a Registrar of Companies (RoC) for each state or union territory and that RoC reports to the regional director concerned. There are regional directors for seven regions. PTI RAM ABM SRK

--- ENDS ---
Press Release

July 30, 2017 Trillanes to review implementation of professional development law After getting a number of complaints from various stakeholders on the implementation of Republic Act 10912 or the Continuing Professional Development (CPD) Act, Senator Antonio "Sonny" F. Trillanes IV has filed P.S. Resolution 441 or the resolution seeking to conduct an inquiry on the law's implementation. According to Trillanes, chairman of the Committee on Civil Service, Government Reorganization and Professional Regulation, "More than a year after the said law took effect, numerous stakeholders have raised pressing issues regarding its implementation, foremost of which are the affordability and accessibility in acquiring CPD units." Trillanes explained that numerous professionals, especially those who are unemployed, underemployed or who receive low wages, and casual or contractual employees, may not be able to afford to pay the training, seminar, or courses needed to renew their licenses. He added that others have less access to Professional Regulation Commission (PRC)-accredited institutions, especially those assigned in far-flung areas who are compelled to travel to major cities just to process their applications and complete the required CPD units. The CPD law was enacted to upgrade the practice of Filipino professionals in line with the integration of economies of the member countries of Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as required by the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangements, the Philippine Qualifications Framework, and the ASEAN Qualifications Reference Framework. It mandates all professionals to take additional formal and non-formal training through CPD for the renewal of their Professional Identification Card every three years, effective July 1, 2017. Trillanes also pointed out other issues of various stakeholders such as: the PRC-accredited CPD providers are limited to current providers which are private institutions and the Accredited Integrated Professional Organizations (AIPO), allegedly offering expensive training and seminars; and the PRC does not recognize in-house training by government agencies such as the Department of Education (DepEd) and other companies, which are already instituted and are usually free. "Prior to the issuance of the General Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) by the PRC, I have proposed measures on how they can implement the law without it becoming a burden to our professionals. Among these are the offering of affordable online courses, so the professionasl won't have to travel in order to gain their units; inclusion of annual seminars of teachers and other professional annual conventions in their CPD units; and providing additional leaves to our professionals so they can attend training and seminars for their units. But to my dismay, I have been informed that the training and seminars they provide remain costly and limited to few accredited training institutions." "Obviously, these problems are not the intention of the CPD law. It was created to help our professionals cope with their respective globalizing field; thus, we want to call the attention of the PRC and Professional Regulatory Boards, so they can review and amend their implementing or operational guidelines, which should not be burdensome to our professionals," Trillanes further explained.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today met the Dalai Lama in a development that, though unconnected to the India-China Doklam standoff, is unlikely to go down well in Beijing.

By India Today Web Desk: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today met Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in Leh. Mufti attended a Buddhist function at the Himalayan desert city and vowed to make Leh one of the best tourist destinations in the

Mufti's meeting Dalai Lama, though unconnected to the ongoing Doklam border standoff between India and China, is bound to raise hackles in Beijing, which views the Tibetan spiritual leader as an extremist.

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China has always taken strong offence to any foreign leader meeting with the Dalai Lama, and just this week warned Botswana over the Tibetan leader's upcoming visit to the southern African country for a human rights conference.

Mufti's meeting with the Dalai Lama also comes as soldiers from the Indian Army and the Chinese People's Liberation Army continue their over-a-month-long standoff in Doklam. Armies of the two nuclear-armed countries have been engaged in a non-violent but volatile stand-off over disagreements relating to the trijunction point between India, China and Bhutan.

The Jammu and Kashmir chief minister made absolutely no reference to the border standoff while in Leh, choosing to talk about the need to strengthen the bond between various sections of the society. According to a statement released by the Jammu and Kashmir government, Mufti "praised Dalai Lama for his recent statement in which he had criticized the elements who were out to label Muslims as terrorists".

Mufti also advocated opening up a Mansarovar Yatra route through Leh, which she said would increase footfalls to the area. This is the same Mansarovar Yatra that was among the first casualties of the Doklam standoff.

Mehbooba Mufti and the Dalai Lama also had a one-on-one interaction (Photo: Facebook/Jammu and Kashmir information department) Click here to Enlarge Mehbooba Mufti and the Dalai Lama also had a one-on-one interaction (Photo: Facebook/Jammu and Kashmir information department)

STAND-OFF

Between June 19 and 23, China shut down the Nathu La pass on the Sikkim border, denying entry to a bunch of Indian pilgrims on their way to Kailash Mansoravar (located in Tibet). Beijing later confirmed that the Nathu La pass was shut down because of the military stand-off with India.

That stand-off was sparked after Indian Army soldiers intervened to help their Bhutanese counterparts prevent the PLA from constructing a metal road in Doklam. Ever since then China, which accused India of transgressing into its territory, and India, which demanded a return to status quo, have refused to back down in the high-altitude face off.

Simultaneously, Chinese media, which is state-controlled, has taken a particularly aggressive stand on the stand-off, with the Global Times being its hawkish best, at times hinting at a military escalation that may lead to war.

The Mehbooba Mufti -Dalai Lama meeting, while not connected to what is happening in Doklam, is unlikely to go down well in China.

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Beijing most recently took great offence to the Dalai Lama's April visit to Arunachal Pradesh. China had then warned of diplomatic consequences of India allowing the Tibetan leader to visit the state.

New Delhi had dismissed Beijing's objections saying that China had no right to interfere in India's internal affairs.

The Dalai Lama has been living in Dharamshala having exiled himself from Tibet in 1959. He was granted political asylum by the Jawarharlal Nehru government.

(With inputs from Ashraf Wani in Srinagar)

ALSO READ | Doklam border standoff: Will there be an India-China war?

ALSO READ | Doklam standoff: Did Chinese President Xi Jinping just call India an invading enemy?

ALSO WATCH | Chinese daily calls NSA Ajit Doval as the villain of Doklam standoff

--- ENDS ---
Anti-abortion protesters upset over the San Francisco Planning Commissions approval of a Planned Parenthood center on Bush Street used military-like precision in protests the other day in neighborhoods where four of the commissioners live.

In each case Tuesday, four vans pulled up to the commissioners homes. About 50 people piled out and, using chalk, scrawled such messages as, Life is a gift, Stop Planned Parenthood and Stop killing babies on the street and sidewalk.

Some of the graffiti called out the commissioners by name.

I can differ with you on opinions, but you dont have to come and terrorize my neighborhood about it  that steps over the line, said Planning Commissioner Dennis Richards, who was targeted along with Commissioners Rich Hillis, Rodney Fong and Christine Johnson.

Richards neighbor Paige Grey said that when she confronted a chalker who was writing, Dennis Richards kills babies, on the sidewalk outside her home, the woman got in my face about her First Amendment rights.

Then the main guy said, In the vans  lets go, and they were gone, Grey said.

But he did say goodbye and have a nice day,  she said.

It was all over within about five minutes.

Richards said he was upset that that the protesters included teenagers and that there were gay slurs among the scrawled messages, including, This car is gay and Richards kills gay babies.

They didnt break any laws, said Richards, who is gay. The thing for me is, this could escalate.

The protest was the work of a group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. We call it chalk and awe,  said organizer Jeff White.

The participants were part of an anti-abortion activism boot camp being held at a local church, White said. He declined to say which church.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

On Wednesday evening, the protesters returned to Richards neighborhood with a megaphone  and were met by the planning commissioner himself.

I said, Hey, lets talk  and we did, Richards said.

White said, It was an open discussion, and he was very professional. Group members also apologized for the antigay slurs, adding that they were the work of a younger teen.

I appreciated that, Richards said of the apology, This is what democracy is all about. One of the teens even told me they were bisexual. Wow!

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross
Army Maj. Charles McGrue barely blinked when he met Capt. Sage Fox near their post in Sacramento for lunch in 2012 after not seeing her for a couple of months, even though there was one big difference.

The Capt. Fox he had talked to a couple of months before was a man. Now she was a woman.

No problem, McGrue recalled last week. Male, female, transgender, whatever  if you are capable of doing the job youve been assigned, thats what matters. And Sage is great at her job.

In the wake of President Trumps tweeted declaration Wednesday that he intends to ban transgender people from serving in the military, interactions like McGrue and Foxs are at the center of national debate about whether serving alongside transgender people is an expensive distraction.

For Fox, who had transitioned from male to female not long before that lunch with McGrue, and several soldiers who have served with her, the answer to that question is an emphatic no.

Fox, a 44-year-old Army Reserve officer in her 14th year of service, realized she was a woman in a mans body while on deployment in Kuwait five years ago, and after taking a brief break to make adjustments including hormone treatment, she reported back to duty. Her commander told her it was fine to serve as a female officer, and her troops accepted her well, she said. It all seemed to fall in line with military tradition that what matters most is obedience and competence.

It was like, OK, youre an asset, and thats what counts, said Fox, who lives in Elk Grove (Sacramento County). And I have to say, I specialize in information technology, and Im good at my job.

Any possibility of continuing to do that job may soon end.

Trumps tweets carried no official weight, and though Defense Department officials have said any ban wont be enacted until they receive formal notice, transgender service members, veterans and their advocates are on high alert. They are braced for a return, for trans people, to what military life was like before the dont ask, dont tell policy that barred gays and lesbians from serving openly ended in 2011  and before last July, when then-Defense Secretary Ash Carter set policy allowing service members to transition genders in the military.

Fox said she is telling transgender active service members not to lose hope and to be patient and maintain their professionalism. But conservatives who have been pushing not only to bar transgender people from the armed forces but to return to a ban on gays and lesbians in the military say they hope Trumps tweets lead to a mass exodus.

The science doesnt back up the notion that if youre a man, you can suddenly decide to be a woman, said Brian Brown, president of the National Organization for Marriage. Everybody knows this policy of allowing transgenders in is not about military readiness, and were not going to stand for it.

Next, he said, the permission for gays and lesbians to serve needs to be readdressed.

Foxs experience to date speaks of both hope and caution for the transgender military experience.

This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 2 1 of 2 Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Show More Show Less 2 of 2 Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle Show More Show Less



On one hand, she was welcomed back to duty after openly transitioning to female in 2012. But on the other, that active duty only lasted about two weeks. Then her superiors suddenly put her on inactive status  not discharged, but in a holding pattern waiting to be called back  and have not answered her queries for explanation.

Army representatives didnt offer any comment in response to Chronicle requests for details of Foxs service.

My sexuality was never an issue in the Army except for one thing, Fox said. I had one woman tell me after I transitioned, Capt. Fox, Im not comfortable using the restroom next to a trans person. I said, Im not comfortable using the restroom next to a bigot, but were both going to have to suck it up and use the bathrooms the way they should be used. And that was the end of it.

Maj. McGrue, who outranks Fox, was joined by several of the captains subordinates in saying they didnt find her transition to be a disqualifying issue.

She was one of my squad leaders in the late 2000s, and she was very reliable, intelligent, trustworthy  everything youd want to see in a CO (commanding officer), said Master Sgt. Alan Shanahan, 47, of Sacramento. Her transition did not make her less competent. They dont take away your brains and your courage when you change your gender.

In one of his tweets, Trump cited the tremendous medical costs of transgender troops, but trans advocates dismiss that. The medical costs of her transition, Fox said, were carried by a civilian medical insurance policy  bolstering her contention that the idea of going to all the trouble of enlisting, putting oneself in harms way for ones country, purely to get medical costs of transition paid, doesnt reflect reality.

Estimates of the number of transgender people in the military range from 6,000 to over 15,000, and the nonprofit Rand Corp. determined that the cost of gender-transition procedures is relatively low. The total cost of medical care for transgender troops would increase annual health care costs by $2.4 million to $8.4 million, Rand said  a pittance by Pentagon standards.

Saying health care costs are a reason for banning transgender people from service is just ridiculous, Fox said. This is all purely based on discrimination. Twenty of our allied countries allow transgender soldiers  Britain, Argentina, Australia and more  but then Trump knows more than anybody, right?

Gabrielle Lurie/The Chronicle

She exhaled derisively. What do I know? Im just a soldier, she said. All I ever wanted to do was serve my country. I love the camaraderie of it, the esprit de corps. There are very few environments where you have this brotherhood, sisterhood, the Ive got your back mentality that exists in the military.

In the time since being put on inactive status, Fox has built a full civilian life. She expanded on her military expertise as an IT engineer and manager  a geeky computer nerd as a kid, she has a bachelors of science degree in technology  and is now a manager at an engineering firm in Sacramento.

She married 45-year-old Olga Evans a year ago, and they live in a spacious suburban ranch home in Elk Grove. With six children, they stay busy with the normal life you have with a big family.

I come home, take out the trash, play with the kids and our two dogs  do all those things, Fox said at home while she, her wife and their 10-year-old son prepared to go out for dinner. What do people think  that we have a dungeon or something? she said, laughing. No, we live a pretty quiet, nice life.

Whats missing, though, is the active military life she loved, the steadiness of its fellowship and service to country. Shes got a uniform in the closet with a chestful of commendations  two meritorious service medals and two expeditionary medals among them  that she would quickly put on again if the way back were warmly welcoming, she said. But thats not on the near horizon.

The Army has been grindingly bureaucratic about granting a medical review that could qualify her for disability payments for shoulder injuries unrelated to her transition, Fox said, and she is contemplating resigning my commission.

At this point ... if Im honest with myself, Ive been more effective in creating change out of uniform than I could have in uniform, said Fox, who has advocated for transgender rights at national conferences and gatherings of advocates and veterans over the past few years.

She stopped to look at a collage on a wall in the living room that shows the younger, rugged Fox with a motorcycle, sporting a beard, posing in camouflage. Its a sharp contrast from the Fox of today. She is still a black belt in karate and can bench-press hundreds of pounds, but her body contours, extravagantly colorful tattoos of a fox and an angel on her shoulders, and red hair stylishly swept to the left proclaim womanhood.

That feels like a million years ago, a different life, she said, touching the collage.

After transitioning, Fox said, suddenly I could feel more emotions, hear things and see things more clearly. I was so much more myself. I would describe it like, if youre in a house and you can hear a radio way in the back somewhere, hear the music but you cant quite make out the words.

That was my emotions before. And once I started on estrogen, it was like somebody suddenly cranked it up. And rather than listening to this scratchy little thing in the back room, Im now sitting in the middle of an orchestra and theyre playing this amazing thing  Beethovens Fifth. It was just so emotionally impacting.

The transformation cost Fox some old friends, triggered a divorce and chilled relations with some family members. But her 23-year-old daughter, Mystic Wells, said she appreciated the difference right away. And still does.

We talked when she was male, but she listens better as a woman, Wells said. Shes been in the military for so much of my life, Id have to say she would be a better soldier because she is more herself.

Anyone whos living in a different skin cant really be themselves.

Kevin Fagan is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: kfagan@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @KevinChron
Virtually all of BARTs 3,600 employees will get a $500 ridership bonus in their August paycheck  even though ridership is down systemwide.

BART employees have long been guaranteed bonuses of up to $1,000 under their labor contract if ridership exceeds expectations.

This year, ridership is down 3 percent from 2016. Still, the average weekday ridership total of 373,225 in what BART calls the core system  excluding some recent extensions  is 1 percent above what the agency predicted for 2017 in long-range plans that date back several years.

The upshot: Workers will get half the $1,000 bonus they received last year.

Its a lump sum payment called for in the contract, BART spokeswoman Alicia Trost said. And it is based on long-term ridership projections, which weve exceeded.

The only people who wont be getting the bonus are about a dozen executive managers who report directly to BART General Manager Grace Crunican.

Crunican wants the brass to do more to make stations clean, keep homeless people away, cut crime and reduce fare evasion  problems that have brought plenty of unwelcome scrutiny to BART in recent months.

If they make progress, Trost says, theyll get their $500.

The idea here is that she is holding her executive managers to task, she said.

Michael Macor/The Chronicle

Chalk it up: Antiabortion demonstrators upset over the San Francisco Planning Commissions approval of a Planned Parenthood center on Bush Street used military-like precision in protests the other day in neighborhoods where four of the commissioners live.

In each case Tuesday, four vans pulled up to the commissioners homes. About 50 people piled out and, using chalk, scrawled such messages as, Life is a gift, Stop Planned Parenthood and Stop killing babies on the street and sidewalk.

Some of the graffiti called out the commissioners by name.

I can differ with you on opinions, but you dont have to come and terrorize my neighborhood about it  that steps over the line, said Commissioner Dennis Richards, who was protested along with Commissioners Rich Hillis, Rodney Fong and Christine Johnson.

Richards neighbor Paige Grey said that when she confronted a chalker who was writing, Dennis Richards kills babies, on the sidewalk outside her home, the woman got in my face about her First Amendment rights.

Then the main guy said, In the vans  lets go, and they were gone, Grey said.

But he did say Goodbye and Have a nice day, she said.

It was all over within about five minutes.

Richards said he was upset that the protesters included teenagers and that there were gay slurs among the scrawled messages, including, This car is gay and Richards kills gay babies.

They didnt break any laws, said Richards, who is gay. The thing for me is, this could escalate.

The protest was the work of a group called Survivors of the Abortion Holocaust. We call it chalk and awe, said organizer Jeff White.

The participants were part of an antiabortion activism boot camp being held at a local church, White said. He declined to say which church.

On Wednesday evening, the protesters returned to Richards neighborhood with a megaphone  and were met by the planning commissioner himself.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

I said, Hey, lets talk  and we did, Richards said.

White said, It was an open discussion, and he was very professional. Group members also apologized for the antigay slurs, saying they were the work of a younger teen.

I appreciated that, Richards said of the apology, This is what democracy is all about. One of the teens even told me they were bisexual. Wow!

Buddy-buddy: Arnold Schwarzenegger was really enjoying himself at the cap-and-trade deal signing out at Treasure Island the other day, even spending a bit of personal time with San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee.

He was concerned about the impact of the new rules against sanctuary cities on us, Lee said. At first I thought it was a bit strange because Arnold is a Republican, but then I remembered that he actually supported sanctuary cities when he was governor.

The towering Terminator looming over the diminutive Lee looked like an outtake from Twins, the buddy movie that starred Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito.

At one point, Schwarzenegger gripped the mayor by the arm.

Hey, you seemed pretty pumped up, the former bodybuilding champ said.

Yeah, Lee replied, Ive been getting in shape for when we do a movie.

San Francisco Chronicle columnists Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross appear Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays. Matier can be seen on the KPIX-TV morning and evening news. He can also be heard on KCBS radio Monday through Friday at 7:50 a.m. and 5:50 p.m. Got a tip? Call (415) 777-8815, or email matierandross@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @matierandross
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The San Francisco Police Department must submit public reports twice a year documenting the agencys collection and analysis of rape kits, according to a resolution passed by the Police Commission.

Under the resolution, passed unanimously Wednesday night, police will be held to deadlines recommended by the state Sexual Assault Victims Bill of Rights, which calls for law enforcement agencies to submit forensic evidence to a crime lab within five days of collecting it and for the crime lab to finish processing and uploading the evidence to national crime databases within 120 days of receiving it.

The resolution came after the police force was criticized for a backlog of unprocessed rape kits. The civilian Office of Citizen Complaints, responding to a complaint made by a sexual assault victim, recommended the reforms after investigators found that the victim had received no follow-up on the results of her rape kit for almost two years.

The resolution is a way to give more transparency and to look through and make sure there is compliance with the deadlines and make sure the victims are notified, said Samara Marion, a policy attorney with the Office of Citizen Complaints who helped draft the resolution.

Under the shift, the police chief will be required to submit and post reports on the departments website in the first and third quarter of each year containing breakdowns of rape kits tested by the departments forensic services division.

Rape kits are the compiled evidence taken from victims. Hospital staff collect evidence such as the victims blood, fingernail clippings, hair, urine and swabs from the mouth, genitals and anus, with the hope that crime lab analysts can find a DNA profile of the assailant and spur an arrest.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

The Police Department announced in 2014 that the forensic services division had cleared a backlog of kits that could still be prosecuted under the states 10-year statute of limitations on sexual assault cases. But in January, a woman filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against police, saying she had not received the results of her rape kit six years after she reported her assault.

Police said in 2015 that there were an additional 437 untested kits, collected from before 2003 and thus beyond the statute of limitations. Chief Greg Suhr said the department would finish going through those kits by the end of 2015.

The first report on rape kits is to be submitted in July.

Vivian Ho is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: vho@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @VivianHo
In our Summer of Discontent, what can we learn from the Summer of Love?

Since the Summer took place before I was born, I have no nostalgia, passions or bad memories about anything that happened in San Francisco in 1967.

I can tell that for some people it was a seminal event, judging by the extent of attention Ive seen around the 50th anniversary. There have been at least 10 Bay Area museum exhibits celebrating some aspect of the Summer of Love this year. There have been endless free concerts, tours and tie-dyed public posters. Theres been even-more-extensive-than-usual glorification of the Grateful Dead.

I appreciate how all of this is an opportunity for a segment of Bay Area Baby Boomers to indulge in youthful memories of the good times. (Have fun, kids!)

But for those of us far too young to have been there, the Summer of Love has never felt as far away as it does in 2017.

On my way to the de Young Museums Summer of Love Experience exhibit, in Golden Gate Park, I traveled through the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood. My misgivings began there.

San Franciscos advanced state of economic inequality and neighborhood gentrification have led to strange street-level juxtapositions all over town. But the Haight is still a special place; these juxtapositions maintain a hard edge.

As I walked past the multimillion-dollar homes flanking Buena Vista Park, I passed a group of young people who appeared to be camping there. Their faces were red from substance abuse and sun exposure. Several large dogs were in their care. As these dogs snarled and strained toward passersby like myself, they laughed and mimicked them.

I crossed the street to avoid further confrontation, but I couldnt help thinking about them for the rest of the afternoon.

The Summer of Love is in a museum, I thought, but San Francisco still hasnt figured out what to do with the burnout children left behind. The answers as to why can be seen in the exhibit itself, if you look closely.

You do have to look very closely, though. The first thing I saw, walking in among a horde of foreign tourists, was a selection of hippie-child clothing against a flower-powered background.

Huh, I thought, looking around for context.

I found a little bit at the very beginning: a small display case of books, from writers like Thoreau and Allen Ginsberg, that supposedly inspired the Summer of Love. There was also a newsreel, offering one of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.s stirring speeches. (I know the good reverend dropped by the Bay Area during the summer of 1967, but I only counted one other image of an African American adult in all of the exhibitions photos, videos and documents, so it seems facetious to claim him as the Summers animating force.)

Still, the Summers animating force, according to the rest of the exhibition, wasnt peace at all. It was friction-free fun. When I walked into the next room, the wall text receded and the room decor turned increasingly psychedelic. The other exhibits were a kaleidoscope of drugs, concert photographs, music posters and plenty more wild-child clothing.

There was no indication that the United States was engaged in a war in Vietnam, or that cities were burning across the country, or even that the Black Panthers were massing across the bay in Oakland. All was gauzy and dreamy and aspirational for the other visitors, who happily snapped selfies of themselves among the paisley.

I get it. During tough political times, like, say, the United States in 1967 or 2017, we all want a little glamour and fun. I, too, am susceptible: I couldnt help but smile when I heard Timothy Leary exhorting me to drop out in one of the rooms. The idea of taking time for mind expansion in an era of $3,000-a-month rent  it seemed so innocent and hopeful. I wanted to be the kind of kid who could believe in the idea of free love and good times.

Alas, I live in the Summer of San Franciscos Discontent, and what enlightened me the most was not the music posters or the photographs of drug-enhanced concerts in Golden Gate Park.

It was, instead, a poem toward the end of the exhibit. It had apparently been pinned to a community board at the Psychedelic Shop in the Haight, and it was the only time I felt a connection between the kids left behind by the Summer of Love and the ones Id just left behind in 2017-era Buena Vista Park. There are no meth freaks, no speed freaks, no freaks, it read. We are not freaks. We are frightened.

Fifty years on, and some things about San Francisco havent changed one bit.

Caille Millner is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: cmillner@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @caillemillner
By India Today Web Desk: Nitish was under pressure from Lalu during alliance with RJD, says Rajiv Pratap Rudy

JD(U) Chief Nitish Kumar has found support from BJP and a vocal proponent in Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy who hailed his decision to break away from the Mahagathbandhan.

US bombers fly over Korean peninsula after North Korea's missile tests

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Two US Air Force B-1B bombers flew over the Korean peninsula in direct response to recent North Korean missile tests, the US Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.

On Sanjay's 58th birthday, Bhoomi first poster unveiled

The first look poster of Sanjay Dutt's Bhoomi is out. It marks the return of superstar Sanjay Dutt, who's loved by the masses across India.

Hardik Pandya can do for India what Ben Stokes does for England: Virat Kohli

Virat Kohli singled out Hardik Pandya for special mention, praising his second innings bowling apart from his debut half-century in the first Test against Sri Lanka at Galle.

--- ENDS ---
The children enrolled at Belvedere Montessori in San Francisco were probably the youngest members of the audience at the Iron Science Teacher competition at the Exploratorium on June 30. They were being shepherded by Barbara Alexander, who has been taking her charges to the event for a few years. Modeled after TVs Iron Chef contest, organizers present identical materials to four teachers participating in the Exploratoriums summer Teacher Institute, a three-week program that trains and inspires science teachers. The competition challenge is to use those materials to build something that will serve as the basis for a science lesson.

The event is a serious exercise, and its also a lot of fun, said Alexander, who contacted me after this years outing. She loves the Exploratorium, she said, because kids run around shrieking, using up all the equipment ... and nobody says Dont do that.

A few days before, the Iron Science Teacher competitors had been given piles of packing materials to work with: Styrofoam peanuts, cardboard tubes, newspaper, bubble wrap, tape, wooden shims. Construction took place in a workshop stocked with a few other materials, including wooden dowels and screws, and tools.

On competition day, the last teacher up was Alexandra Graham, 25, who is going into her third year teaching math and science to sixth graders at Creative Arts Charter School in San Francisco. She began by talking about the uses of feet  to stand and to balance  and then donned an eye patch to talk about pirates and peg legs. She talked about the challenges faced by amputees: A set of legs and feet costs about $50,000, she said, and for adults, they need to be replaced every three to five years.

Graham showed the audience how shed constructed a prosthetic leg and foot. A packing tube was the basis for the leg, which was reinforced with wooden splints and attached with a dowel to a movable foot. The leg went above the knee, had an adjustable top to be fitted to the remainder of the amputees leg.

She held up the completed leg. And then she rolled up one side of her blue jeans and removed the prosthetic leg she was wearing, replacing it with what she built. She walked out from behind the counter so the kids could see it being used.

All the participants projects were imaginative and resourceful, but she won the competition, judged on the basis of applause, easily. It was a dazzling display for an adult to watch. But Alexander, who was there with the youngest kids, said they didnt seem surprised at either Grahams disability or her ingenuity. They just accepted her situation and liked what she did.

A few weeks later, after Alexander called me to describe Grahams demonstration, I looked at the video (Graham is about 26 minutes into it) and talked with Graham.

Her gait, as shown during the introductions of competitors, is smooth. But as part of getting to know her students and them getting to know her, she said, she usually tells them about her amputations.

At 18 months, she contracted meningococcemia, a blood infection that resulted in the stoppage of circulation to her feet. When she was 2 years old, both feet and legs below the knee were amputated.

With the health care debate raging in Congress, I couldnt resist asking her about the economics of her situation. Until she reached her full adult growth, the prostheses needed to be replaced pretty much every year, which was done through a program at a Shriners Hospital for Children. Nowadays, she goes to UCSF, and I go through my insurance, and then I pay a portion out of my pocket, she said. We talked for a moment about proposed changes in insurance coverage. Hers is a preexisting condition.

At the end of her demonstration, she told the audience that shed built the leg for $10 to $20, in hopes of inspiring the making of cheaper prostheses. No matter how complex it is, she said, referring to every challenge, you can make it out of materials you have. Whatever you can think of, you can build it.

No big deal that we cant be firsthand witnesses to the solar eclipse on Aug. 21? Steven Short of KALW doesnt understand the disappointment. Anyone living in San Francisco regularly experiences an obstruction between us and the sun, he says.

As to the Millennium Tower and its problems, Richard Macias suggests that brokers put a large banner on its outside: Now listing.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

Ive looked everywhere. Theres nothing in this place I would ever put in my body.

Man to woman, overheard at Whole Foods Market in West Berkeley by Paul Dalmas
Russia's deputy foreign minister said Sunday that his country was poised to retaliate aggressively against any new U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

"I think retaliation is long, long overdue," Sergei Ryabkov said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos. "We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal."

His comments come as Russia announced Friday that it would seize U.S. diplomatic properties and expel scores of U.S. diplomats and other staff members.

The steps were described by Ryabkov as retaliation for the punitive sanctions bill passed by Congress on Thursday, an effort to address Russia's meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. On Friday, the White House said President Donald Trump plans to sign the legislation.

"After the Senate ... voted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation, it was the last drop," Ryabkov said. "If the U.S. decides to move towards further deterioration, we will respond in kind. We will mirror this, we will retaliate."

He added, "My whole point is - don't do this, it's to the detriment of the interests of the U.S."

When asked what sort of retaliation the United States could expect, Ryabkov wouldn't elaborate but added, "I can assure you different options are on the table, and consideration is being given to all sorts of things, both symmetrical and asymmetrical."

Experts predict it could lead to all-out economic war. "If the bill is approved, and most probably it will be adopted, then we will inevitably enter the stage of what we call the Cold War," Andrei Sidorov, an expert on international politics at Moscow State University, told The Washington Post last week. "And the Cold War means various responses."

In a statement on Saturday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, "The near unanimous votes for the sanctions legislation in Congress represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States.

Drought Map Track water shortages and restrictions across Bay Area Updated to include drought zones while tracking water shortage status of your area, plus reservoir levels and a list of restrictions for the Bay Areas largest water districts.

"We hope that there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues and these sanctions will no longer be necessary."

The Russian Embassy in Washington didn't seem to buy the attempt to make nice, tweeting, "Washington still doesn't get the fact that pressure never works against @Russia, bilateral relations can hardly be improved by sanctions."
Sorry, Utah.

Californias epidemic shortage of housing hasnt just sickened our own state  driving up prices, forcing residents into rentals and putting a $140 billion annual drag on our economy. The disease is spreading to our neighbors, too. Today, nearly every major Western city  from Seattle to Denver to Boise  is experiencing a minor-league version of the California housing crisis.

This regional housing crisis shares some causes: lack of water sources, shortages of skilled construction workers, and the rising price of scarce land near job centers. But our Western neighbors face an additional challenge: the influx of Californians who are unable to find housing in their own state.

I witnessed the California epidemics spread recently in Utah, where the housing shortage is considered historic. For the first time since the 1970s, Utah, growing because of births and the arrival of job seekers, is adding more households than housing units. So homeownership rates are falling, homelessness is rising, and the Salt Lake City Council has declared an affordable housing emergency.

Facing these challenges, some Utahns are seeking to learn from Californias mistakes so their crisis doesnt worsen. A recent assessment by the nonprofit Envision Utah found: Faced with rapid growth, many California communities, and even the state, imposed ever-more-stringent regulations designed to curb development, believing that if they slowed development it would put the brakes on growth.

But, said Envision Utah, Californias constraints didnt slow growth, so demand for housing stayed high. Instead, those regulations simply diminished the supply, and we know what happens next.

By the same token, Utah holds lessons for California. Most intriguingly, Utah and California are distinguished by their lack of housing. California is ranked 49th in the country in the number of housing units per person. Utah is 50th. But Utah, for its housing struggles, hasnt had a shortage as deep or long-lasting as ours, or prices that exceed the national average by 2 times. Why?

One part of the answer might sound obvious: Utah doesnt need as many housing units because it has the countrys largest families, a product of the prevalence of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. That suggests one wildly impractical solution to the housing crisis  California embracing Mormonism as its state religion. But its no more far-fetched than the 50-plus bills in our Legislature that offer minor or counter-productive changes to Californias housing markets.

Putting religion aside, the most serious difference between Utah and California housing involves local government. Utah is a place where state government defers to local government, and local communities retain control over their destiny. California is not.

Its hard to exaggerate how little control California communities have over their fate. For 40 years, the state government has continued to concentrate its power at the expense of locals, discouraging housing in the process. Environmental regulations make it slow and costly to build housing. State limits on local taxes, especially Proposition 13, create incentives that encourage retail and commercial development, not housing.

This state of affairs fuels NIMBYism. With their representatives having relatively little power, local officials cling to the power they do have: saying no to change in their communities.

Utah, a straitlaced place, has almost none of Californias restrictions on growth and local control. It takes years, even decades, for brave developers to navigate Californias antihousing rules and build something. In Utah, housing comes together in a matter of months.

We dont have the problem you have with widespread antigrowth sentiment, says economist Robert Spendlove, a member of the Utah Legislature.

That culture has made it easier for Utah to respond to its housing problems. Theres momentum to lift limits on housing density and streamline the permit process. Utah builders are also increasing production of more moderately priced homes.

In California, the response is very different. Gov. Jerry Brown and leading legislators want to impose even more rules on local governments, with the goal of forcing the construction of more housing. But local governments are already weary of state mandates. Might new housing ones only encourage more defiance and NIMBYism?

Of course, reforming Californias system of government to restore local control and eliminate antihousing incentives would be extremely difficult. But how easy is it to live under a miserable housing shortage that exports our people  and our housing challenges  to states like Utah?

Failing to address our housing crisis is bad for California. And it isnt very neighborly.

Joe Mathews writes the Connecting California column for Zocalo Public Square. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at www.sfchronicle.com/letters.
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Conservatives may bristle at the Golden States newfound vigor in standing against governmental action that it views as insufficiently progressive  but they shouldnt. In fact, they should encourage California to continue in its resistance and persistence.

While Californias opposition to the federal government is probably rooted in opposition to President Trump, that shouldnt stop conservatives from cheering them on. Yes, if a Democrat sat in the Oval Office, California would probably be much less inclined to oppose increases in federal power, as it was during the Obama administration.

But for the purposes of our system of shared governance, federalism, the motivation matters less than the effect.

Americas governing structure allows individual state governments to control all matters of health, safety and welfare policy that address their citizens. Under the tenets of federalism, the federal government should legislate only according to the limited grants of power provided to it under the U.S. Constitution. By protecting its policy goals against encroachment from both the federal government and its sister states, California is operating exactly as federalism intended.

Theres precedent for its approach as well: Texas adopted a similar approach during the Obama years, suing the federal government 48 times.

Agreeing that California may use its state power to forward its legitimate policy aims does not entail agreement with those aims. The wonderful thing about federalism is its allowance for states to serve as true laboratories of democracy, pursuing progressive and conservative policies that the national government would not stoop to favor.

Federalism dictates that if California bankrupts its state with astronomically high taxes, strict environmental regulation and $15 minimum wages, then California will rightly bear all responsibility for its debt. As harsh as that may sound, in such an instance California would serve as an oracle of caution for other states that might wish to adopt progressive policies.

The only way that the country will finally learn whether progressive policies lead to cultural ruin or advancement is to see them work in our own backyard. Perhaps Californias approach will work. We will never know until we allow California to try, without interference by other federal or state governments.

The same principle applies to the efforts of other, redder states. Last month a federal appeals court upheld a Mississippi law allowing business owners to refuse service to customers based on sincerely held religious beliefs. And despite strife in the state Capitol, Texas lawmakers are committed to lowering taxes, attracting jobs, reforming property taxes, and increasing family choice in education. Conservative policies can improve the lives of American citizens, and Texas can show other states how.

Conservative onlookers should, of course, try to persuade liberals that federalisms benefits extend beyond state-level opposition to Republicans in Washington and other states. Even if their arguments dont succeed, federalism is a net good regardless of the reasoning behind our left-wing friends pursuit of it.

States should govern themselves on matters of public welfare. They know their citizens better than the Washington monolith.

Erin Wilcox is an attorney with the Center for the American Future at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. Connor Mighell is a law clerk at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. To comment, submit your letter to the editor at www.sfchronicle.com/letters.

Californias record on federalism

Green-lighted an effort to put an initiative on the ballot that would require the governor negotiate more autonomy, including secession.

Hired former Attorney General Eric Holder to represent the states interests before the federal government.

Signed separate climate agreements with foreign countries after the U.S. pulled out of the Paris climate accords.

Sued the administration for withholding funding from sanctuary cities.

Texas record on federalism

Disputed federal directives to let transgender students use public bathrooms that corresponded to their stated gender identity.

Proposed and passed voter ID laws to combat voter fraud.

Challenged Obamas executive orders on immigration. Won when Supreme Court justices deadlocked, leaving lower court rulings in place.

Sued Obama administration for its refusal to fund a Texas womens health program. Funds were withheld because Texas bans spending on abortion.
By PTI: Washington, Jul 30 (PTI) NASA has released stunning dark images which show the movement of the trillion-tonne iceberg - one of the largest ever recorded - that recently broke off from Antarctica.

As Antarctica remains shrouded in darkness during the Southern Hemisphere winter, NASAs Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on Landsat 8 satellite captured a new snap of the 5,800 square kilometre iceberg that split off from the Antarctic Peninsulas Larsen C ice shelf on July 10-12.

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The satellite imagery is a composite of Landsat 8 as it passed on July 14 and July 21 and shows that the main berg, A-68, has already lost several smaller pieces.

The A-68 iceberg is being carried by currents northward out of its embayment on the Larsen C ice shelf.

The latest imagery also details a group of three small, not yet released icebergs at the north end of the embayment.

The calving of the iceberg left the Larsen C Ice Shelf reduced in area by more than 12 per cent, and the landscape of the Antarctic Peninsula changed forever.

Icebergs calve from Antarctica all the time, but because this one is particularly large, its path across the ocean needs to be monitored as it could pose a hazard to maritime traffic. PTI MHN MHN

--- ENDS ---
SACRAMENTO  San Francisco police collected 178 rape kits during the first six months of this year  an average of one a day  and sent all of them to be tested for DNA evidence. Its a high standard that lawmakers want to replicate statewide.

The push stems from public outrage over the thousands of untested rape kits found in police storage rooms across the country in recent years, many having languished for more than a decade as victims remained in the dark about the status of the physical evidence taken from their bodies. After years of unsuccessful or watered-down legislative efforts in California, advocates say the state has failed to make rape-kit testing a priority.

Now lawmakers are again pushing bills to make it happen  starting with a proposal to require law enforcement to track and report the number of rape kits they collect and test, similar to what the San Francisco Police Commission forced the citys Police Department to begin doing last year.

There are a lot of states that have been far more progressive than California on this, said Ilse Knecht, director of advocacy and policy at the Joyful Heart Foundation, a national victims-rights group and proponent of clearing the national rape-kit backlog. We think its time for California to step up and join the states that are doing something to address this issue.

The U.S. Department of Justice estimated in 2014 that as many as 400,000 rape kits sat untested in police evidence rooms. Some law enforcement agencies argue there are valid reasons for not testing kits  such as when the victim declines to pursue charges or the suspects identity is known. But departments that test their backlog of rape kits increasingly discover DNA from a known suspect that links to multiple cases.

Kentucky is an example of one state pushing reforms. In 2015, lawmakers there ordered an audit of untested rape kits sitting in evidence rooms. The audit showed the state had more than 3,000 untested rape kits, and helped Kentucky apply for grant funding to test the evidence. This month, the state brought new charges against a convicted rapist after police discovered his DNA in an old rape kit. That was Kentuckys first indictment from backlogged sexual assault evidence. Similar charges have been brought against suspects in states across the country, including California.

The Chronicle broke the story of a case last year in which Alameda County prosecutors filed charges against a career criminal accused of sexually assaulting two teens in Berkeley. In that case, a 15- and 19-year-old reported that a stranger abducted them at gunpoint in 2008 near Berkeley High School, raped one and sexually assaulted the other.

The Berkeley Police Department could not explain why it took six years to send the evidence to a laboratory to see if DNA in it could help identify the unknown assailant. The department tested the kit only after District Attorney Nancy OMalley began a county-wide audit of untested rape kits.

Peter DaSilva/Special to The Chronicle

Once tested, DNA evidence from the rape of the 19-year-old linked to Keith Kenard Asberry Jr., an Antioch man with a lengthy crime record. Asberrys DNA had been in the national and state databases of known and unknown suspects since a 2005 felony firearm conviction. Before his arrest in 2015, Asberry was accused of assaulting another woman in Berkeley, also discovered through DNA.

He has pleaded not guilty. A pretrial hearing is scheduled for September.

OMalley said her office has eight pending cases involving DNA evidence from previously untested rape kits. In 2014, when she first asked law enforcement agencies in Alameda County to inventory their untested rape kits, they found 1,900 stored in evidence rooms.

She said the final 200 rape kits will be sent soon to be tested. Now, she said, new rape kits are sent for testing within days.

Because of this, we are starting to identify serial rapists, OMalley said.

OMalley said that when a victim undergoes the lengthy and unpleasant exam needed to provide material for a rape kit  where blood, urine, fingernail clippings, hair and swabs from the mouth, genitals and anus are collected as evidence  they expect that evidence to be tested. Shes talked to victims who were angry that their rape kits werent tested for so long. Shes talked to victims whose rape could have been prevented if only an earlier case had been pursued.

This is about justice and fairness for them, OMalley said.

But laws to strengthen requirements for handling rape kits have fallen short in California, often because of pressure from groups such as the California State Sheriffs Association. They argue that the state shouldnt set new mandates without paying for the expenses that come with them.

In 2014  facing opposition from crime labs and the sheriffs lobbyists  lawmakers watered down a bill that would have required police to submit rape-kit evidence to a crime lab within five days of collection, and require the lab to process and upload the evidence to national crime databases within 30 days. To get the bill to pass, then-Assemblywoman Nancy Skinner, D-Berkeley, extended the timelines  20 days for police to send the evidence to crime labs and 120 days for crime labs to process it  and made it a recommendation-only deadline. Gov. Jerry Brown signed the bill into law.

Advocates say the bill has helped, even if it fails to require such deadlines. They also praised the state for eliminating its 10-year statute of limitations last year on new sex crimes. But they say more changes are needed.

Lawmakers are considering three new bills. One would expand services to victims and ensure their evidence cant be destroyed for 20 years. Another would ask taxpayers to contribute part of their state tax return to fund rape-kit testing.

And Assemblyman David Chiu, D-San Francisco, is trying for a second year to pass a bill to require law enforcement agencies to report how many rape kits they have collected and examined, then disclose why any kit is not being tested. AB41 applies only to new rape kits, and would not require agencies to do an inventory of their evidence rooms. A similar bill Chiu carried last year failed in a Senate fiscal committee, where AB41 is scheduled to be heard next month.

My bill is part of a long line of failed bills over the past decade to address this issue, Chiu said. Weve counted a half dozen bills attempting to address the rape-kit backlog that have stalled, been vetoed or been watered down.

The only opposition to AB41 is the California State Sheriffs Association, whose lobbyist Cory Salzillo said the bill is yet another unfunded state mandate.

For the sheriffs, this breaks down to a fiscal and workload issue, Salzillo told lawmakers at a hearing last month.

District Attorney OMalley brushed off those concerns, saying millions of dollars in grant money is available to help agencies offset the cost. Also, she said, literally, this would mean a few more keystrokes to create this data.

Last year, the San Francisco Police Commission required local police to publicly report twice a year how many rape kits they collect and send to labs, and how they notify victims about their case. The action followed criticism over the Police Departments backlog of unprocessed rape kits and its failure to notify victims about the results when evidence was tested.

As part of the commissions directive, the department also adopted a policy last year to send every rape kit to a lab within 24 hours. The crime lab averages 25 days to complete the cases, said department spokesman David Stevenson.

Two years ago, the Police Department reported having 437 rape kits that sat untested for more than a decade and were beyond the statute of limitations. Stevenson said last week that those have all been tested and the agency no longer has a backlog.

Melody Gutierrez is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: mgutierrez@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @MelodyGutierrez
Theres a prevailing belief in Silicon Valley that technology can improve almost anything. So in that spirit, some prominent tech leaders are launching plans to disrupt the Democratic Party, which has plenty of problems.

So far, theyre finding it may be easier to diagnose those problems than hack the party.

While many tech leaders agree with Democrats on social issues, some of them are tired of serving primarily as an ATM for politicians who cruise through the Bay Area for fundraisers.

Theyre frustrated that those politicians then march the same failed path that has led to minorities in Congress and in state legislatures across much of the country east of California. For some, the election of Donald Trump was the final insult, and they decided to take matters into their own hands. That means rebooting the party and the ideas it stands for.

I think disrupting Democratic Party politics  not just for the sake of disrupting, but to better represent its constituents  is a good thing, said James Rucker, the San Francisco co-founder of Color of Change, which works for racial justice. Rucker is advising Win the Future, which is described on its website as a peoples lobby and prefers the nickname WTF. Im not convinced that investing directly in the party will get us anywhere.

People are looking to get engaged, said Rucker, who also is a board member of MoveOn.org Civic Action, and the current infrastructure isnt capable of leading that.

Tech leaders including LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Zynga co-founder Mark Pincus and Sam Altman, leader of incubator Y Combinator, are starting to develop ideas on how they might offer better solutions than the political pros.

While these efforts are still largely in the formative stages, theyve already been ripped privately by partys establishment and publicly in the tech press. (Is Win the Future the dumbest idea in the history of Silicon Valley? a Venture Beat headline asked.)

But they have to be taken seriously, given the money and influence behind them. Plus, tech workers have been innovators of progressive ideas. MoveOn, the 5 million-member, liberal online organizing site, was started nearly two decades ago by the owners of a Berkeley software company who were frustrated with the political system. Rucker was a technology consultant who co-founded Color of Change with activist and now CNN commentator Van Jones.

To learn why Trump won the election, several of these executives have traveled outside the Bay Area bubble to talk to people. They got an earful about why Democrats have whiffed.

What I heard over and over was profound dissatisfaction with politics right now, said tech entrepreneur Adam Werbach, the former Sierra Club president who is a co-founder of Win the Future. During a tour of colleges around the country, Werbach regularly heard that the Democratic Party totally didnt serve them.

Altman, who has registered as both an independent and a Democrat over the years, has been traveling around California in recent months.

One of the things that surprised me, he said, was that (home) affordability was an issue everywhere. Thats not just a San Francisco thing.

The tech leaders returned home with big ideas and a lot more questions. Spurred on by what they heard from voters, they are even musing about finding and funding a challenger to Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who is up for re-election next year. But thats not their priority.

Armed with $500,000 in initial funding from Hoffman and Pincus, Werbach envisions Win the Future as a virtual political party thats there to help Democrats to win. Its website said it will be a peoples lobby where the members set the agenda thats within the parameters of being pro-social, pro-planet, and pro-jobs.

Nicole Boliaux/The Chronicle

Translation: Win the Future hopes to be an online platform to generate support for new ideas the Democratic Party might not generate.

However, there were several stumbles at the start this month. Pincus drew criticism for telling tech news site Recode that the group aspires to be pro-social (and) pro-planet, but also pro-business and pro-economy. Progressives howled, worried that a wealthy tech executive was overlooking working-class voters.

Rucker conceded that while the groups initial efforts may have been a little rough ... I think that would be a good conversation to have. What does it mean to be pro-business?

He added that Pincus would be a great person to lead that conversation.

Altman, through his new political venture United Slate, has fleshed out his policy goals more definitively. His top 10 priorities lean toward the Sen. Bernie Sanders side of the progressive spectrum. Among them: Move to a Medicare-for-all system over time by gradually reducing the age of eligibility and set a target of 90 percent clean energy in the country by 2050.

On taxes, Altmans plan prefers to tax wealth and not work.

We should also consider a nationwide land tax. Land ownership seems to be the fundamental way that inequality builds up over time; in general, Im in favor of taxing wealth, not work, he wrote. People like me should pay more taxes.

But is a 32-year-old Silicon Valley millionaire really the best person to talk about income inequality and affordable housing? Altman said some people asked him that during his statewide tour, but not as many as I thought would.

He said that hes only a few years removed from eating ramen. And as for affordability, Altman said two of his siblings are living with him in his San Francisco home, because theyre victims of this housing crisis, too.

Over the past several months, Altman said, hes met with more than 500 people from the political world  like 10 at a time, I have them over for dinner.

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Invariably during these meetings, Altman is asked if he wants to run for office, a question he shrugs off. Apparently he didnt shrug it off convincingly enough, as word spread that he was considering a run for governor next year when Gov. Jerry Brown is termed out.

Altman isnt running, but he is recruiting candidates to run for governor, lieutenant governor and Congress. He asks every candidate a simple question: Paint me your optimistic vision of the future, and how will you get there?

Hes been disappointed in the answers. And the political system that inspired them.

People just want to talk about, Heres my fundraising strategy. Heres my Excel spreadsheet, Altman said. Its like they havent thought about that question before.

Its pretty disappointing, Altman said, that the system has gotten so far away from what it should be.

Joe Garofoli is The San Francisco Chronicles senior political writer. Email: jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @joegarofoli
The death of a 54-year-old man whose body was found early Saturday is being investigated as a homicide, Milpitas police said.

Officers and fire crews responded to a medical aid call to a business on Winsor Street at 12:53 a.m., police said in a statement.
On Aug. 21, many lucky Americans will witness a total solar eclipse. In California, we'll get to see just a partial eclipse. But not to worry, Bay Area eclipsophiles  there are plenty of ways to see the total eclipse from home. It is, after all, the first total solar eclipse to cut across the continental U.S. in nearly a century.

The Exploratorium will be livestreaming the eclipse from two points on the so-called path of totality, a 70-mile-wide stretch of land that diagonally bisects the country and forms an arc from Oregon to South Carolina. Video feeds from the Exploratoriums telescopes in Madras, Ore., and Casper, Wyo. will be available on a shiny new smartphone app, which the museum developed for the occasion.

In addition to the eclipse itself, the Exploratorium will be broadcasting a sonification of the eclipse, as played live by the Kronos Quartet. Museum visitors will be treated to a piece of music arranged by data from the light of the sun (and by Bay Area composer Wayne Grim). The sonification process is described below:

The sun over our beloved bay will never darken more than 76 percent of the way, according to Googles eclipse simulator. Unless youre planning on trekking out to the Midwest, where most of the path lies  or youre willing to shell out $1,000 or more for an Airbnb in Oregon  youll have to settle for experiencing a partial eclipse. (Thats still enough to worry California energy regulators, who have been urging people to turn off their lights during the three-hour span of darkness.)

If you want to watch the celestial happenings yourself, youll need a pair of eclipse-viewing goggles. Theyre about as fashionable as the 3D glasses you might get at a movie theater, but looking at a partial eclipse without them can seriously harm your eyes. See what they look like in this news clip:

The Exploratorium will have glasses available as part of the museums eclipse-themed programming. Libraries around the Bay Area will also be distributing thousands of pairs to the masses, compliments of the nonprofit Space Science Institutes StarNet initiative. Notable locations include the Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco (Ortega branch) public libraries, though the glasses are first-come-first-serve, and library officials warn that the promotion looks to be a popular one.

If you want a better shot at getting a pair  or you just cant get enough eclipse hype  the libraries are also planning an assortment of pre-eclipse events. The Berkeley, Oakland and San Francisco libraries will all be hosting non-technical science talks with astronomer Andrew Fraknoi. The Oakland library will also hold a viewing party, and in San Francisco, little scientists and their parents can snag a pair at the Ortega branchs special storytime event.

If all else fails, eclipse glasses have become ubiquitous on Amazon. You can even get them in a flashy patriotic print.

UC Berkeley and Google have also teamed up to launch another eclipse app. The idea is to recruit smartphone owners to help make a megamovie of the darkened sun as it makes its way across the country. The project is only open to those who will be in the path of totality  which, alas, will never cross California. The California Academy of Sciences is getting in on the science app game too, inviting citizen-scientists to observe how animals respond to the solar event.
LOS ANGELES  Bruce Bochy did not hesitate a second when asked Saturday if Mark Melancon will be the closer as soon as he returns from his forearm injury.

Yes, Bochy said, scotching any notion that Melancons injury and Sam Dysons perfection in save chances would place Melancons role at risk.

Bochy did not say it, but the Giants paid Melancon $62 million to be their closer for four years and will not demote him to the eighth inning in his first season in San Francisco.

Melancon is almost ready to come back from his second disabled list stint, which has lasted a month. He is scheduled for a rehab appearance Sunday at Class A San Jose.

Dyson, who saved 38 games for the Rangers last year, has a 2.33 ERA and has converted all six save opportunities since the Giants acquired him from Texas in June.

Where the outside world sees a potential closer controversy, Bochy sees a bullpen strengthened all the way down the line, beginning with Melancon pitching the ninth and Dyson the eighth.

Its going to be good to see how that goes, Bochy said. It will put (Hunter) Strickland down into the seventh inning. This is going to tighten up the bullpen, strengthen us and give us a better idea of where were at for the future.

That future includes left-hander Will Smith, assuming hes back from Tommy John surgery in April as he hopes.

Bochy also has slowly raised rookie Kyle Cricks profile in the bullpen. He might get some more dangerous roles, for instance with runners in scoring position when a strikeout is needed.

Briefly: Catcher Nick Hundley was scratched because he was dizzy a day after taking a foul ball to the mask. After Saturdays game he said he felt better.  First baseman Brandon Belt missed his second consecutive game with right-wrist soreness and said he still did not feel great swinging a bat in the cage. But he still hopes to be available Sunday.  The Giants signed right-handed pitcher Casey Kelly to a minor-league deal. Kelly was a first-round pick for the Red Sox in 2008 but has thrown only 62 big-league innings with a 6.39 ERA.  The Dodgers won their 51st consecutive game when leading at any point, a big-league record.

Henry Schulman is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.

Leading off

Bullpen letdown: George Kontos allowed the Giants 58th and 59th inherited runners to score Friday. Entering Saturday, the team ranked last in the NL in inherited runners stranded at 61.9 percent.

 Henry Schulman

On deck

Sunday

at Dodgers

5:05 p.m. ESPN

Bumgarner (1-4)

vs. Ryu (3-6)

Monday

at As

7:05 p.m. NBCSBA

Cain (3-9)

vs. Gray (6-5)

Tuesday

at As

7:05 p.m. NBCSBA

Samardzija (5-11)

vs. Blackburn (1-1)
The National Investigation Investigation on Sunday continues its crackdown in he Hurriyat terror funding case, raiding the home and office of Devinder Singh Behal, a top Geelani aide believed to be a member of the legal cell of the Hurriyat.

By Kamaljit Kaur Sandhu: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) on Sunday conducted raids at the residence and office of Syed Ali Shah Geelani's close aide, Devinder Singh Behal. Behal was later detained, news agency ANI reported soon after news of the NIA raids first broke.

Devinder Singh Behal, a small time advocate, is believed to be a member of the legal cell of the Hurriyat. Behal, is a close associate of top Hurriyat leaders and regularly attends funerals of militants.

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A frequent visitor to the Pakistan High Commission in New Delhi, Behal is suspected to be involved in routing funds to the separatist leaders from their Pakistan-based handlers.

A DIG woman officer Sonia Narang, is said to have led the NIA team amidst sloganeering by locals supporting Agency's crackdown on separatists. The team has recovered 4 mobile phones, 1 tablet, electronic devices, incriminating documents, financial papers and some other articles. The recoveries will be sent to Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) which will analyse the forensic and technical data.

Behal is said to be the new rich, and lives a lavish life. Sources say he will be questioned regarding the source of income too.

Behal was once a National Conference supporter, but crossed over to the separatist faction to earn money. He then tried to form links with Mirwaiz Umar Farooq's Awami Action Committee, but found no takers. According to the sources, Behal then made himself useful to Geelani, who gave him a role.

Also Read:

Terror funding case: NIA finds evidence against Syed Ali Shah Geelani, action likely soon

Kashmir: Encounter in Pulwama, 2 militants killed

Terror funding in Kashmir: NIA conducts raids at more than 20 places

Also Watch:

NIA crackdown on separatists continues, Geelani's close aide Devinder Behl raided

--- ENDS ---
Firefighters temporarily evacuated homes along several rural roads Saturday after a fast-moving brush fire erupted near Jamestown in the Sierra Nevada foothills.

The fire began about 1:50 p.m. off Jacksonville Road just south of the Tuolomne County town, the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection said.
Nitish Kumar will seek a trust vote during a one-day special session of the Bihar Assembly convened at 11 am today after Bihar Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi asked him to prove his majority on the floor of the House.

By India Today Web Desk: Backed by the BJP, Nitish Kumar returned as the Bihar chief minister for the sixth time barely 16 hours after his dramatic resignation that dented Opposition's unity which could have a bearing on the 2019 Lok Sabha polls. Senior BJP leader Sushil Kumar Modi was also sworn in, and would be the deputy chief minister.

Kumar, 66, will seek a trust vote during a one-day special session of the Bihar Assembly convened at 11 am today after Bihar Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi asked him to prove his majority on the floor of the House on July 28.

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LATEST UPDATES:

Asked several questions in Assembly today, but BJP and Nitish Kumar had no answers to them: Tejashwi Yadav after Nitish Kumar won the floor test

Nitish Kumar wins Bihar floor test, 131 votes in favour, 108 against.

Secularism should not be used to justify corruption. Won't support people who make money through wrong ways: Nitish Kumar

Would like to thank Congress and RJD, if Tejashwi had resigned I would not have been here: Sushil Modi

Floor test begins in Bihar Assembly.

Yogi Aditynath and some BJP leaders have serious cases registered against them, Nitish ji will you ask all of them to resign: Tejashwi Yadav

Nitish Kumar never spoke to me about my resignation,I too was thinking that he does not want me to resign: Tejashwi Yada

We did not put any pressure on the Chief Minister ever: Tejashwi Yadav

Everything was completely planned, the way Nitish Kumar gave resignation is saddening: Tejashwi Yadav

People of Bihar have suffered immensely: Tejashwi Yadav

Ruckus inside Assembly.

Sushil Modi should be ashamed of what he has done: Tejashwi Yadav

Nitish Kumar got seven seats in 1995 when he fought alone and in 2014, he was reduced to two seats: Tejashwi Yadav

RJD and Congress tried to save the political image of Nitish Kumar: Tejashwi Yadav

Nitish Kumar has betrayed the 2015 mandate. Mandate was for 5 years and it was against the BJP: Tejashwi Yadav

All this drama to protect image of one person: Tejashwi Yadav

Stormy scenes being witnessed both inside and outside the Bihar Assembly.

Voting to happen through voice vote.

This is death of democracy. All that is happening is against the mandate: Tejashwi Yadav

Nitish Kumar presents trust vote.

Patna High Court said, on petition challenging formation of a new government by Nitish Kumar's JDU with BJP, hearing not possible before July 31st, Monday.

Lalu's RJD to seek ballot vote.

Tejashwi Yadav reaches Bihar Assembly, will speak before Nitish Kumar.

Bihar Deputy Chief Minister Sushil Kumar Modi reaches Bihar Assembly.

Nitish Kumar reaches Assembly.

RJD MLAs protest outside Bihar Assembly. Shouting slogans and carrying placards, the Rashtriya Janata Dal legislators stood at the main entrance of the assembly, protesting against Nitish Kumar.

JD-U's Ajay Alok said that no leader unhappy. Ali Anwar issued a statement but he has also said that this is not a revolt and that he will speak in party forum.

RJD may protest at Vidhan Sabha today.

According to sources, around 18 Congress MLAs could switch to NDA in coming days.

JDU is conffident that there will be massive cross-voting from opposition lawmakers in favour of Nitish Kumar.

Congress Bihar in-charge CP Joshi chaired a meeting of Congress MLAs in Patna.

Security tightened outside Bihar assembly as CM Nitish Kumar will face floor test shortly.

RJD: 80

JDU: 71

NDA: 58 (BJP- 53, LJP-2, RLSP- 2, HAM- 1)

Congress- 27

CPI: 3

IND: 4

JD-U's return to the NDA fold after four years by walking out of the Grand Alliance less than two years after being in power did not go down well with a section of the party with two MPs including MP Veerendra Kumar openly criticising Kumar's decision.

The halfway mark lies at 122 and the BJP-JD-U combine amounts to 124. But the slender margin, Nitish's party believes, will be turned into a massive support when MLAs from other parties break rank and back the new regime with the same chief minister "Mr Clean" at the helm.

Also Read

Bihar Assembly floor test at 11 am: There could be cross-voting in Nitish Kumar's favour, says JD-U 3 reasons why Nitish Kumar's swearing-in happened so quickly after resignation

Why Nitish Kumar has almost killed Opposition chances to challenge Modi with a Grand Alliance in 2019

--- ENDS ---
JD(U) Chief Nitish Kumar has found support from BJP and a vocal proponent in Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy who hailed his decision to break away from the Mahagathbandhan.

By India Today Web Desk: Union minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy on Saturday came out in support of JD(U) Chief Nitish Kumar's decision to break away from the grand alliance or Mahagathbandhan and join hands with the BJP.

Walking towards 'cleaner politics', Rudy added that the JD(U)-BJP coalition is a big positive step for Bihar and the Nitish-led party itself.

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He also exclaimed that Nitish Kumar was under tremendous pressure while in alliance with Lalu Prasad Yadav led RJD.

The Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship said, "Bihar's population is 11 crore and Nitish Kumar has forged the partnership with the BJP in the interest of these people and the state. This alliance should have taken place much earlier. With this decision, Bihar is heading towards big transformation."

"I feel Nitish Kumar was under huge pressure of Lalu Prasad Yadav during the alliance, but now he is relieved and I think this decision is a big step in the direction of clean politics," he added.

Rudy was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the launch of a skill development programme initiated by CREDAI Pune Metro. When asked about the allegations levelled by Lalu Prasad that the new alliance was "fixed", the MP from Bihar slammed the RJD chief over his alleged involvement in various scams.

RUDY FIRES SALVO AT LALU

"He was found guilty in fodder scam and cannot contest elections... Now things are coming out that when he was the railway minister, he sold hotels and created shell companies in the name of his family members and now looking at the trail of all these scams, the amount of scam may go up to Rs 10,000 crore," claimed the minister.

During his speech, Rudy said the mindset of people in India had always been to make their children engineers or provide good education to them so that they could get better jobs.

"Post-Independence, even at the government level, we have never focused on skill development. There are 18 lakh seats in engineering colleges across India, out of which eight lakh seats are empty. If we focus more on skill development, we can really become the leading country in providing the skilled workforce to the world," he said.

Rudy further said that the Narendra Modi government was the first in India to have created a separate ministry for skill development. "On behalf of the government, I urge CREDAI to make skill development their mission since the construction industry is one of the largest employment generators and construction workers are the real assets to their business. "CREDAI can train them across India. It has the potential to turn this dream of skilled India into reality," he said. Stating that construction-related deaths was a serious problem, Rudy said something must be done about this.

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With inputs from PTI

Also read: 5 reasons why Nitish Kumar will be called a weak chief minister

Also read: With Bihar in kitty, will PM Modi oblige Nitish Kumar with promised special package?

Also read: How will Modi and Nitish explain their past hatred, asks Shiv Sena

--- ENDS ---
Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav may follow the path taken by Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar and join the NDA camp. Shivpal Yadav is said to be weighing his options.

By Himanshu Mishra: Janata Dal-United chief Nitish Kumar's decision to snap ties with the Congress and the RJD and move away from the grand alliance seems to have set a trend in the Opposition ranks.

Uttar Pradesh may soon witness the ripple effect of Nitish Kumar's joining hands with the BJP and form NDA government in Bihar. According to informed sources, sulking Samajwadi Party leader Shivpal Yadav may join the NDA camp.

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Shivpal Yadav is said to be rethinking his political strategy in Uttar Pradesh in the aftermath of the JD-U's alliance with the BJP in Bihar following a rather prolonged crisis in the grand alliance.

Nitish Kumar, while walking away from the grand alliance, slammed the Congress for not setting any agenda for the Opposition parties to stay united and focused.

The Gujarat Congress has already seen open rebellion while Nitish took on the party leadership. At least six MLAs have left the Congress party at a time when political advisor to party president Sonia Gandhi, Ahmed Patel is seeking reelection to the Rajya Sabha from Gujarat. Another rebel Congress leader claimed that about 20 more party MLAs were ready to quit.

SHIVPAL CONSIDERING OPTIONS

Now, Shivpal Yadav is weighing his options, according to sources. Shivpal Yadav is said to have discussed his options with Samajwadi Party founder Mulayam Singh Yadav.

One of the options considered by the younger Yadav is to join the JD-U of Nitish Kumar and become part of the NDA. Shivpal Yadav, sources said, has already held preliminary talks with some of the JD-U leaders. The other option is to float a new party of his own and ally with the NDA.

Earlier in the day, Shivpal Yadav met Mulayam Singh in New Delhi today and discussed both the options. Both Shivpal and Mulayam Singh Yadav were engaged in a bitter fight with Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav ahead of Uttar Pradesh Assembly election.

Akhilesh Yadav firmly held control the party while Mulayam Singh Yadav was replaced as the SP president in national convention called by Ram Gopal Yadav, the cousin of party founder.

--- ENDS ---
North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday.

By Reuters: The United States flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force after recent North Korean missile tests, the US Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump.

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The B-1B flight, conducted on Saturday, was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the "Hwansong-14" rocket, the US statement said. The bombers took off from a US air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said in the statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing".

The US has in the past used overflights of the supersonic B1-B "Lancer" bomber as a show of force in response to North Korean missile or nuclear tests.

'STERN WARNING'

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's missile launches, which it said violate United Nations Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang's banned nuclear and missile programmes.

"At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate," China's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

TRUMP 'VERY DISAPPOINTED' IN CHINA

However, Trump said he was "very disappointed in China".

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!- Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

The Hwasong-14, named after the Korean word for Mars, reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km (2,314.6 miles) and flew 998 km (620 miles)for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast, KCNA said.

Western experts said calculations based on that flight data and estimates from the US, Japanese and South Korean militaries showed the missile could have been capable of going as far into the United States as Denver and Chicago.

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David Wright of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a blog post that if it had flown on a standard trajectory, the missile would have had a range of 10,400 km (6,500 miles).

North Korea refers to the United States as its sworn enemy in its propaganda, and has done so since the 1950-53 Korean War in which the Soviet and Chinese-backed North fought against the US-backed South. The isolated country often shows mockup images of a missile hitting key US landmarks in its media.

ALSO READ

North Korea threatens US of a 'merciless blow' in the heart if it tries to remove Kim Jong-un

Tour operators say US to ban citizens from travel to North Korea

North Korea issues stern warning, says US is in missile range

China urges North Korea to stop acts that could worsen tensions

WATCH

US, South Korea Test Missile As A Reply To North Korea

--- ENDS ---

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Amari Cooper is a man of few words, so his conditioning tips arent going to fill up a how-to book.

If you go to the gym every day, you are going to get stronger, the Raiders receiver said Saturday in Napa.

Six years ago, as a high school senior, the 6-foot-1 Cooper weighed 183 pounds. At Saturdays first training camp practice, he came in a rock-solid 217 pounds, up from 210 last season.

I always get bigger in the offseason because Im training, he said. Hopefully, it translates on to the field.

In 2016, Cooper and Michael Crabtree became the third Raiders duo to each record 1,000 yards receiving in one season, and this year Cooper seems poised to be a bigger red-zone target.

As a skill player on offense, you want the ball, Cooper said. Every play, if you can.

Alumni weekend: The Raiders claimed running back George Atkinson III off waivers from the Browns. Atkinson, the son of legendary Oakland safety George Jr., has spent parts of three seasons with the Raiders and led them in rushing last preseason. His only ticket on the 53-man roster would seem to be on special-teams coverage.

Briefly: Besides rookie cornerback Gareon Conley, guard/backup center Jon Feliciano and defensive tackle Jihad Ward also started out camp on the Physically Unable to Perform list. Feliciano injured his knee during offseason workouts, and Ward had offseason foot surgery.

Vic Tafur is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer.
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Oakland topped the list of worst cities for renters in the Bay Area, according to a new study.

A report by WalletHub analyzed 150 cities across the nation to determine the best and worst cities for renters. The six Bay Area towns included in the findings were among the worst U.S. cities, based on their scoring.

Each city was given an overall score of one through 150, where the No.1 ranking is the best and No. 150 is the worst. To determine their results, WalletHub looked at several factors that included narrowing down major U.S. cities based on 21 indicators of rental attractiveness and quality of life.

These included cost of living, safety, median rent growth forecast, vacancy rate, rent-to-price ratio, and affordability.

Oakland's score of 148 was so bad that it only topped two other cities, Cleveland and Detroit. San Francisco fared a little better  it was considered the No. 70 best city for renters, ranking higher than three other Bay Area cities.

RELATED VIDEO: These Are the Cities Where Millennials Can Actually Afford to Buy Homes

While nowhere near the cities that are the "best," Sacramento claimed the No. 53 spot, the highest of any Northern California municipality.

In fact, not a single California city was among the top 30 cities in America considered the "best."

San Diego was the first California city referenced in the report but it only made the No. 43 spot, followed by Bakersfield at No. 46 and Irvine at No. 49.

In March, SFGATE wrote about Bay Area cities that had year-over-year one-bedroom rent decreases that included Oakland. Still, despite a decline in rent, affordability is still an issue.

According to that report, the average Oakland rent is a little less than $2,250. Comparatively, Nerdwallet estimated that the average 3 bedroom, 2 bathroom home costs around $752,413.

Take a look at the slideshow above to see the worst cities for renters in the Bay Area, plus the best and worst cities for renters nationwide.
This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate 5 1 of 5 Tara Duggan Show More Show Less 2 of 5 Tara Duggan Show More Show Less 3 of 5 4 of 5 Tara Duggan Show More Show Less 5 of 5









Few tourists travel to Norway for the food, and yet the country has some memorable culinary traditions you shouldnt miss in between hiking its glacier-topped mountains and gazing at its fjords.

Scandinavia is famous for its herring and smoked salmon, but Norway has by far the biggest coastline among the neighbors, so of course seafood is a big draw. That includes some unusual stuff like cod tongues and whale meat  Norway is one of the few places in the world where its consumption is allowed. Most vegetables are imported, but the country makes up for that, in part, with its wild mushrooms and berries.
China appears to have received help Saturday from an unlikely source in its fight against tools that help users evade its Great Firewall of Internet censorship: Apple.

Software made by foreign companies to help users skirt the countrys system of Internet filters has vanished from Apples app store on the mainland.

One company, ExpressVPN, posted a letter it had received from Apple saying that its app had been taken down because it includes content that is illegal in China.

Another tweeted from its official account that its app had been removed.

A search Saturday showed that some of the most popular foreign virtual-private networks, also known as VPNs, which give users access to the unfiltered Internet in China, were no longer accessible on the companys app store there.

ExpressVPN wrote in its blog, Were disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding Chinas censorship efforts.

Sunday Yokubaitis, president of Golden Frog, a company that makes privacy and security software including VyprVPN, said its software, too, had been taken down from the app store.

We gladly filed an amicus brief in support of Apple in their backdoor encryption battle with the FBI, he said. So we are extremely disappointed that Apple has bowed to pressure from China to remove VPN apps without citing any Chinese law or regulation that makes VPN illegal.

We view access to Internet in China as a human rights issue, and I would expect Apple to value human rights over profits.

In a statement, Apple noted that the Chinese government announced this year that all developers offering VPNs needed to obtain a government license. We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations, the company said. These apps remain available in all other markets where they do business.

This is not the first time that Apple has removed apps at the request of the Chinese government, but it is a new reminder of how deeply beholden the tech giant has become to Beijing at a moment when the leadership has been pushing to tighten its control over the Internet.

Paul Mozur is a New York Times writer.
By PTI: Islamabad, Jul 30 (PTI) Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, the nominee for the post of interim Pakistan Prime Minister, today denied possessing illegal wealth and challenged his critics to prove irregularities in his finances.

Abbasi, 58, was speaking to the media here after meeting Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl (JUI-F) chief Maulana Fazlur Rehman.

Speaking on Nawaz Sharifs disqualification by the Supreme Court, the former petroleum minister said, "To my understanding of legal matters, there is no harm in possessing an iqama ? its just a visa ? but nowadays, laws are being interpreted in ways that are stranger than ever."

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"I have disclosed all my assets and their details are published in the Pakistan Gazette. So those levelling baseless allegations (against me) should check their own acts first," he was quoted as saying by the Dawn newspaper.

When asked about the speculations regarding the involvement of the military in Sharifs ouster, Abbasi said, "There are no two sides in this country; we all are one and work for the betterment of this country in a united way."

Responding to a question on whether Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan would be included in the next cabinet or not given the recent rifts, Abbasi said that the decision had not been taken as yet, the newspaper reported.

"Chaudhry Nisar has always been a part of PML-N and it will always be that way for us," he said.

Pakistan Muslim League (N) (PML-N) has nominated Abbasi, a loyalist of Sharif as prime minister for now but later he would make way for Shehbaz Sharif as Prime Minister.

Abbasi is a veteran party worker and hails from the famous hill resort of Murree which is part of Rawalpindi district in Punjab province.

Abbasi, during the meeting, said the party had made a decision and everyone had acted on it.

"There is no conflict in the party. We may have given in, but history will not accept this decision (to disqualify Nawaz Sharif) ? the nation has not accepted this decision," he said. PTI AJR NSA AJR

--- ENDS ---
1 Syria fighting: Hezbollah and a Syrian affiliate of al Qaeda began exchanging the bodies of dead fighters along the Lebanese-Syrian border on Sunday in the first stage of a settlement to restore order to a contested frontier zone. The Lebanese militant group Hezbollah was handing over the bodies of nine al Qaeda fighters in exchange for the bodies of five of its own, after two weeks of battles along the rugged border, its Al-Manar TV station reported. The Syrian military provided air support to Hezbollahs ground operations around Arsal. Twenty-six Hezbollah fighters and as many as 90 al Qaeda members were killed in the fighting. Lebanon has been buffeted by the fallout and occasional spillover of the civil war next door. It has suffered several bomb blasts claimed by the Islamic State group and al Qaeda-affiliated groups.

2 Qatar crisis: Four Arab states that cut ties with Qatar are refraining for now from imposing more punitive measures against the gulf state. The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain met in Bahrains capital, Manama, on Sunday to discuss the nearly 8-week-old crisis. The four cut diplomatic ties and transport links with Qatar in early June, accusing it of supporting extremists and interfering in the affairs of other Arab states. Qatar denies the charges and sees them as politically motivated.
MOSCOW  Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere in the country will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people, signaling a dramatic escalation in the Russian response to American sanctions over the Kremlins intervention in the 2016 presidential elections.

The United States and Russia have expelled dozens of each others diplomats before. But Sundays statement, made by Putin in an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel, indicated the single largest forced reduction in embassy staff, comparable only to the closing of the American diplomatic presence following the Communist revolution in 1917.

This is a regrettable and uncalled for act, the State Department responded in a statement late Sunday.

In the interview, Putin said that the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel will be capped at 455  equivalent to the number of their Russian counterparts working in the United States. Currently, close to 1,200 employees work at the United States embassy and consulates in Russia, according to U.S. and Russian data.

More than a thousand employees  diplomats and technical employees  have worked and are still working in Russia these days, Putin said on the nationally televised news show Sunday evening. Some 755 of them will have to terminate their activity.

The Kremlin had said Friday, as the Senate voted to strengthen sanctions on Russia, that some American diplomats would be expelled, but the size of the reduction is dramatic. It covers the main embassy in Moscow, as well as missions in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

This is a landmark moment, Andrei Kolesnikov, a journalist for the newspaper Kommersant who regularly travels with Putin, told the Post in an interview Friday. His patience has seriously run out, and everything that hes been putting off in this conflict, hes now going to do.

The Russian government is also seizing two diplomatic properties  a dacha, or country house, in a leafy neighborhood in Moscow, and a warehouse  following the decision by the Obama administration in December to take possession of two Russian mansions in the United States.

The move comes as it has become apparent that Russia has abandoned its hopes for better relations with the United States under a Trump administration.

Andrew Roth is a Washington Post writer.
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Former Milford Asset Management portfolio manager Mark Warminger has withdrawn his appeal against a High Court judgment in the country's first case of market manipulation, and the Financial Markets Authority won't pursue a cross-appeal.

"The judgment from March 2017 and penalty decision from June 2017 stand and this brings these civil proceedings to a close," the FMA said in a statement.

In March, Chief High Court Judge Geoffrey Venning found Warminger manipulated the market in two trades while rejecting eight other instances brought before the court by the FMA. The hearing was a civil case, meaning the judge had to decide on the balance of probabilities. Warminger was then ordered to pay $400,000.

As a result of the pecuniary penalty order, Warminger automatically received a five-year management ban. Had Warminger been prosecuted, the criminal penalty for his actions would have been a maximum fine of $300,000, or five years imprisonment for each contravention.

"This result demonstrates there are serious consequences for this type of misconduct. Market participants and the public want to know that the law is being upheld, and where there are instances of market manipulation and misconduct, those responsible will be held to account. We are satisfied that our regulatory objectives have been achieved in taking these proceedings," said Rob Everett, FMA chief executive.

Warmingers employer at the time, Milford Asset Management, settled with the FMA before the trial. It paid $1.1 million in lieu of a pecuniary penalty, along with $400,000 in costs.

(BusinessDesk)

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Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party holds a majority with 188 seats in the 342-member parliament, so it should be able to swiftly install its choice.

By Reuters: Pakistan's lawmakers will elect a new prime minister on Tuesday to replace ousted leader Nawaz Sharif, with ruling party stalwart Shahid Khaqan Abbasi expected to become interim leader until Sharif's own brother is eligible.

The confirmation from parliament came after Pakistani President Mamnoon Hussain convened a special session after Sharif decided to put forward his ally Abbasi as interim leader and named his brother Shahbaz, 65, as long-term successor.

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Sharif's Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) party holds a majority with 188 seats in the 342-member parliament, so it should be able to swiftly install its choice, barring any defections from its own ranks.

A quick handover could ease the political upheaval sparked by a Supreme Court decision on Friday to disqualify Sharif for not declaring a source of income. The court also ordered a criminal investigation into him and his family.

Abbasi on Sunday vowed to continue Sharif's work.

"I hope that God will help me in furthering Nawaz Sharif's policies," Abbasi told reporters in Islamabad, adding to speculation that Sharif will continue to run the show behind the scenes.

The turmoil and the premature end to Sharif's third stint in power has also raised questions about Pakistan's democracy. No prime minister has completed a full term in power since the country gained independence from British colonial rule in 1947.

"We wanted to make sure there is a smooth transfer of power and no constitutional crisis," said Miftah Ismail, a senior PML-N official and Sharif ally.

SUCCESSION PLAN

On Sunday evening, thousands of supporters of opposition politician Imran Khan held a celebration rally in Islamabad, waving flags and cheering Sharif's ouster.

Khan, who spearheaded a campaign for the Supreme Court case that removed Sharif, has said he expects to win the next general elections in 2018.

Meanwhile, Sharif loyalists incensed by his ouster cheered his arrival in the hill town of Murree.

Sharif has lashed out against the court's decision and opponents who used the Supreme Court to topple him. He has vowed his party would continue to focus on development, touting a faster-growing economy as proof of his success.

"Wheel of development is moving and may God keep it rolling and may it never stop," he told members of PML-N on Saturday night.

On Sharif's arrival, supporters chanted: "The Lion is here".

But his foes slammed PML-N's plans as dynastic and undemocratic. Khan called it a form of "monarchy".

Sharif said the plan is for former petroleum minister Abbasi to stay in power for less than two months until Shahbaz, who is the chief minister of the vast Punjab province, wins a by-election to the national assembly and becomes eligible to be prime minister.

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Abbasi and Shahbaz will have to work fast to tackle Pakistan's worsening ties with the United States, frayed relations with India, and persistent attacks by Islamist militants, including the Pakistani Taliban and Islamic State.

They will also need to boost economic growth above the current rate of 5.3 percent to find employment for millions of young people entering the job market every year in a nation of nearly 200 million people.

Economists say this will prove tricky, with the current account deficit is ballooning and an overvalued currency is hurting exports.

COURT RULING

Sharif, whose PML-N party won elections in 2013, said he was shocked by Friday's Supreme Court ruling disqualifying him from office over unreported income from a company owned by his son in Dubai. Sharif said the monthly salary - equivalent to $2,722 - was nominal and he never actually received any of it.

The Supreme Court employed little-used Article 62 of the Constitution, which calls for the dismissal of any lawmaker deemed dishonest, to dismiss Sharif. His allies believe the verdict smacks of judicial overreach. Others say privately elements of the military had a hand in the process.

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"People of Pakistan haven't accepted the decision," Abbasi said.

The army has not commented on Sharif's departure, or on allegations they were involved. It has also dismissed claims in the past that they were behind the Supreme Court's push.

Sharif's two previous stints in power were also cut short, the second ending in a military coup led by General Pervez Musharraf in 1999.

Shahbaz Sharif, who has been in charge of Punjab since 2008, has better relations with the military than his brother. He has built a reputation as a competent administrator focused on building infrastructure.

Also Read:

Nawaz Sharif was a liar, deserved to go: Pervez Musharraf to India Today

Story of Nawaz Sharif's ouster: From Panama Papers to Supreme Court, a timeline

No Pakistani PM has completed full term, Nawaz Sharif too failed to break jinx

Panama Papers case: How Nawaz Sharif was convicted in 50 hearings over 273 days

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Also Watch: It's a very good verdict, says former Pakistan PM Pervez Musharraf on Nawaz Sharif's ouster

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By PTI: By Natasha Chaku

Melbourne, Jul 30 (PTI) Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull today said that anti-terror raids carried out in Sydney yesterday "disrupted" an alleged plot to bring down an aircraft, even as four people were held in this connection.

According to media reports yesterday, four men were arrested during anti-terror raids carried out by Australian federal police, New South Wales police and ASIO at five properties in Sydney.

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"We face a range of terrorist threats. Some of them are lone actors, who activate very quickly with very little warning.

On other occasions you get quite elaborate conspiracies ? this appears to be in that category," Turnbull said.

Police allege the group of Sydney men were planning to use an "improvised device" to carry an attack to bring down aircraft butno details on a particular target, location, time or date were uncovered.

Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said they had no reason to believe airport security had been "compromised" but a heightened state of security has been implemented.

Police said that theyfound the material and items that could be used to make a homemade bomb, when they raided the house at Surry Hills yesterday.

Turnbull said the "major counter-terrorism operation" was underway and extra security measures had been put in place at major airports.

He said those with plans to travel should do so with confidence, but allow extra time for security screening because of the threat.

"Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be ? those travelling should go about their business with confidence," Turnbull said.

"Travellers should arrive at terminals at least two hours before flights to allow ample time for screening.

"They should limit the amount of carry-on and checked baggage, as this will help to ensure that security screening is efficient," he said.

Reports said that authorities had received an information on the alleged plot on Wednesday and beefed up security at Sydney Airport on Thursday.

NSW joint counter-terrorism team decided toraid last evening following whichfour men were in custody at the Sydney Police Centre in Surry Hills.

The men could be held without charge for around a week.

Five properties were raided were in Surry Hills, Punchbowl, Wiley Park and Lakemba.

Meanwhile, screening at all major Australian airports has been ramped up overnight and air travellers have been warned to expect delays.

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Virgin Airlines and its subsidiary Tigerair released a statement confirming the additional security measures.

"The travelling public can expect to experience an increased level of security scrutiny at the airport but they should not be concerned about these precautionary measures," the statement read.

"As the measures place an additional burden on the screening system, it may take a little longer than usual to get through the process," it read. PTI NC ARK

--- ENDS ---
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- Susan Raisch remembers the day she and her 16-year-old son Peter were watching live coverage of the Columbine High School massacre in their New Dorp living room.

"They must have been bullied," Peter said about the two Colorado shooters, who killed themselves after killing 13 others. "It happens all the time."

But investigators would later reveal that mental illness was behind the 1999 tragedy, not bullying as so many teens like Peter assumed.

Her son's assumption inspired Raisch to explore the root causes of bullying and help parents develop the awareness, empathy and skills needed to handle it.

"Bullying issues start young," as early as pre-school, she points out in her recently published book, "Superheroes Wear Mom Jeans: The Tangled Ball Guide to Anti-Bullying for Parents of Young Children."

Most initiatives are focused on middle and high school, but her research has found that bullying behavior can start as young as 4.

"We should be paying attention to this group and reaching out to the parents of young children," she insists.

UNRAVELING THE BALL

Raisch calls bullying a "tangled ball of unpredictable behavior - perpetually challenging for children and parents alike." In the book, written for parents, she unravels the bullying ball one string, or chapter, at a time with empathy, empowerment, education, communication, parent involvement and skill development.

Each chapter includes a worksheet with questions to stimulate discussion about the issue.

A mother of four and grandmother of two, Raisch points out that bullying can take many forms, from physical (hitting or kicking) to verbal ("You're ugly!") to exclusionary ("You can't sit here!").

Solutions to bullying come in different shapes and sizes, the author says. "There's no such thing as one size fits all." It's up to adults, the "superheroes" in her book, to be vigilant and responsive, to notice the warning signs and take action.

She describes a second-grader who was moody, constantly tired and not doing well in school, all signs of victimization. After his parents worked with his teacher toward a solution, the decision was made to transfer the boy to another class when the new school year started.

Raisch lauds the parents in this scenario for intervening when necessary, but points out a transfer is not always recommended.

"Whether you realize it or not, you are a role model for your children," she writes in the book, "and if you keep your cool and demonstrate some perspective, chances are your child will, too. So hike up your mom jeans and get behind the wheel."

LEFT ON THEIR OWN

More than 67 percent of students believe that schools respond poorly to bullying, Raisch points out. By the time they reach middle and high school, most kids being harassed are trying to handle abusive behavior on their own, she adds.

Adults are most often the advocates, but children can sometimes confront a bully on their own. She cites a fourth-grader who came to another student's aid by taking the tormentor aside.

"Stop that," she told the boy who was bullying her friend. "That's mean, and that will hurt her feelings."

A native of Michigan City, Indiana, Susan Raisch grew up bully-free but experienced the vulnerability of being the new kid in class. Her family moved to Puerto Rico when she was 13 and to Pensacola, Florida, when she was entering her senior year of high school.

She earned a bachelor's degree in communications from Marymount College in Tarrytown and moved to Manhattan for a job with CBS. Her public relations work with HBO, MTV, VH1, Sesame Workshop and Nickelodeon fueled her passion as an advocate for children.

With "Superheroes Wear Mom Jeans" - available on Amazon for $14.95 -- Raisch hopes to empower parents and teachers to be "go-to trusted adults" who can help bullied children. She is working with parents and teachers at Our Lady Queen of Peace School in New Dorp and St. Adalbert's School in Elm Park to incorporate the book's tenets into the curriculum, and plans to work with other Island schools this fall.

A companion website, TangledBall.com, offers resources and discussion points.

"No child should feel alone - and it's within our reach to help them feel valued, mentored and protected," Raisch emphasizes.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- New York City's Department of Administrative Services (DCAS) has released its examination schedule for August.

Open, competitive, computer-based tests will be administered throughout the month for positions, such as correction officer, environmental police officer, school safety agent, child protective specialist and traffic enforcement agent.

Applications for some positions begin July 26, and the the testing period runs through August 31.

New York City employs hundreds of thousands of people in its 80 agencies. Taking a test is the way to get started in the hiring process for most of these positions. Application fees range from $40 to $101.

For more information about registering for these and other tests, log onto the DCAS website.

The following is a list of things to know when taking an exam at a DCAS Computer-based Testing and Applications Center (CTAC).

Electronic devices, including cell phones, are not permitted in the testing areas.

Check the Notice of Examination for the test you will be taking to see if calculators are permitted.

If you are requesting a fee waiver, you must provide a copy of acceptable documentation. DCAS staff cannot make copies of your documentation.

Seating is limited. Once the CTAC is filled to capacity, no more candidates will be admitted.

You are encouraged to apply and schedule yourself to take a test earlier in the month since there is generally more seating available at these times.

You may not have any other person, including children, present with you while you are applying for, being processed for, and/or taking a test, and no one may wait for you inside a CTAC.

Testing centers are located at 2 Lafayette St. in Manhattan and 210 Joralemon St. in Brooklyn.
STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. -- With just 100 days until Election Day, Democratic candidate for the South Shore Council seat, Dylan Schwartz, celebrated the opening of his campaign headquarters on Sunday.

Schwartz, a 25-year-old Bay Terrace resident will be challenging Councilman Joe Borelli (R-South Shore) on Nov. 7.

"This day let's the community freely share their ideas," said Schwartz.

Several signs with the words, "People over Politics," were hung in each room in the new headquarters. An oversized map of the 51st district was placed on the wall, that was also filled with post-its indicating South Shore neighborhoods.

Residents from both the North Shore and the South Shore traveled to the new headquarters in Great Kills located at 55 Lindenwood Rd. Schwartz also filed 2,829 signatures with the NYC Board of Elections.

"I am humbled and honored to receive such strong support from the community, our campaign is powered by people who are tired of politics as usual and my strong filing is proof of that," Schwartz said. "I will be a full-time council member who will always put people before politics and I will fight for your family the way I fought for mine."

Some issues Schwartz is advocating for are:



* Dealing head-on with drug and opioid overdoses by creating the "Narcan Emergency Responder Volunteer" (NERV) program in the city. The program would alert first responders via text message when there is an overdose in their proximity so they can quickly get to the scene and administer life-saving treatment.

* Secure funding for a permanent South Shore ferry with a park-and-ride for residents commuting to lower Manhattan.

* Fighting back against overdevelopment by rezoning the community to protect family homes and work with community groups to stop unsafe non-union development.

* Advocating for more education funding for our public schools to reduce class sizes as well as to upgrade classrooms with the latest teaching technologies.

Schwartz spent time working with homeless LGBTQ youth in central Florida, is involved in local Democratic clubs and worked on Barack Obama's re-election campaign and those of local Democratic candidates. He is hoping the solidly Republican South Shore considers more than his party affiliation when voting months from now.

A native Staten Islander who attended college in Florida and returned to the borough after graduating, Schwartz founded Rose and Thorn Consulting and Election Technologies LLC, working mostly in the medical marijuana industry, an issue that hits close to home.

"I'm trying to help out any way I can," said Chepe Gonzalez of Arden Heights. "I'm an LGBT activist so I'm happy to see our community members run for some type of office."

The celebration offered refreshments, pizza and snacks to residents who stopped by to show support. Residents were also encouraged to write their name, phone number and email under their neighborhood to act as volunteers during his campaign.

"I came to support him and the democratic candidates on Staten Island," said Barbara Kent of Silver Lake.

For more information on Dylan Schwartz and his campaign, visit his website at www.dylanforcouncil.com.
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump speaks to law enforcement officials on the street gang MS-13, Friday, July 28, 2017, in Brentwood, N.Y.(AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Police leaders across the country moved quickly to distance themselves from - or to outright condemn - President Donald Trump's statements about "roughing up" people who've been arrested.



The swift public denunciations came as departments are under intense pressure to stamp out brutality and excessive force that can erode the relationship between officers and the people they police - and cost police chiefs their jobs.



Some police leaders worried that three sentences uttered by the president during a Long Island, New York, speech could upend nearly three decades of fence-mending since the 1991 Los Angeles Police Department beating of Rodney King ushered in an era of distrust of police.



"It's the wrong message," Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, told Washington, D.C., radio station WTOP while speaking of the trust-building work that departments have undertaken since King's beating. "The last thing we need is a green light from the president of the United States for officers to use unnecessary force."



Trump made the comments at a gathering of law enforcement officers at Suffolk County Community College in New York.



"When you guys put somebody in the car and you're protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over?" Trump said, miming the physical motion of an officer shielding a suspect's head to keep it from bumping against the squad car.



"Like, don't hit their head, and they just killed somebody - don't hit their head," Trump continued. "I said, you can take the hand away, OK?"



Trump's remarks came after he spoke about local towns ravaged by gang violence.



Across the country, police department leaders said the president's words didn't reflect their views.



"The Suffolk County Police Department has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners, and violations of those rules and procedures are treated extremely seriously," the department said in an emailed statement. "As a department, we do not and will not tolerate 'rough(ing)' up prisoners."



Trump's comments also drew a rebuke from the International Association of Chiefs of Police. In a statement Friday, the group did not specifically mention Trump by name but appeared to respond to his speech by stressing the importance of treating all people, including suspects, with respect.



Mike Lopez, a Los Angeles police spokesman, told CNN that the department will "treat everyone with integrity and respect."



"We work with partnerships in our community and continue to do that to keep our communities safe and secure from crime," he told the news network. "With the help of our community we will continue to do this."



Darrel Stephens, a former police chief who is now the executive director of the Major Cities Chiefs Association, told The Washington Post that the president's words were a step back for police departments.



"Over the past two or three years, police departments have worked very, very hard to restore the loss of confidence and trust that people, particularly in the African-American community, have in the police, based on what happened in Ferguson and the other high profile shootings," Stephens said. "Maybe not just what the president said, but the reaction of the police officers standing behind him, I think that complicates that.



"It sort of reinforces that there's sort of a wink and a nod about these things, when that's simply not the case."



Statements from other police leaders followed.





In a statement to Patch.com, Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole said:



"Seattle's police officers have embraced reform and have worked incredibly hard to build community trust. We do not intend to go backwards. It is truly unfortunate that in today's toxic environment, politicians at both ends of the spectrum have sought to inflame passions by politicizing what we do. We remain committed to our principles and reject irresponsible statements that threaten to undermine our relationship with the community."



A Boston Police Department statement obtained by CNN said the department's "priority has been and continues to be building relationships and trust with the community we serve. As a police department we are committed to helping people, not harming them."



In New York, Police Commissioner James O'Neill told the network that to "suggest that police officers apply any standard in the use of force other than what is reasonable and necessary is irresponsible, unprofessional and sends the wrong message to law enforcement as well as the public."

[enhanced link]

But the group Blue Lives Matter insisted that the president's remarks were a joke, tweeting:"Trump didn't tell police to go out & brutalize people as the media would have you believe. It was a joke."Jim Bueermann, who heads the nonprofit Police Foundation, told CNN that the organization welcomes Trump's support for law enforcement but "we cannot support any commentary - in sincerity or jest - that undermines the trust that our communities place in us to protect and serve."Police departments are under increased scrutiny for violent, often fatal interactions with suspects. So far this year, 574 people have been shot and killed by police, according to The Washington Post's Fatal Force database. Last year, police shot and killed 963 people.This year's killings included the Minneapolis police shooting of Justine Damond, an Australian woman who called 911 to report a possible rape in the alley near her home and ended up shot dead by the responding officers.The department's missteps - neither officer had activated his body camera, so there's no video evidence of the fatal encounter - resulted in international criticism and the ouster of Minneapolis Police Chief Janee Harteau.She was the fourth chief in recent years to lose her job after a controversial fatal shooting.

(c) 2017, The Washington Post. Cleve R. Wootson Jr. and Mark Berman wrote this story.
By PTI: Visakhapatnam, Jul 30 (PTI) Experts in the field of Nephrology have said that a research institute should be set up either in Uddanam region or in Srikakulam district to find out the exact cause of the prevalent chronic kidney disease.

Several cases of chronic kidney disease (CKD) known as Uddanam Nephropathy have been reported in Srikakulam district of Andhra Pradesh, particularly in Uddanam region, in the last 10-years.

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Joseph V Bonventre of Harvard Medical School (HMS), along with Venkata Sabbisetti of HMS and few other experts today visited parts of Uddanam region to take stock of the ground situation.

"As far as kidney ailments in the Uddanam region are considered several theories such as heavy metals in water, high usage of pesticides, silica in water, prolonged dehydration, heat stress nephropathy, genetically predisposed to developing kidney disease and few others have been considered.

"But, it is not so easy to come to a final conclusion without comprehensive study of the issue. We are learning and studying the prevalence of the disease and suggested to set up a world class research institute," said Bonventre speaking at the Symposium on Uddanam Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) organised by Jana Sena Party (JSP) here in Vizag.

Sabbisetti, a renowned instructor in medicine, said they will continue their study on the CKD in Uddanam region to find out the exact reason if the government funded and set up the world class research institute.

"We will suggest to the Andhra Pradesh government the need to set up an institute and we will have to do a lot of research and also study multiple dimensions to establish the cause of kidney disease in Uddanam region," Sabbisetti said.

Dr NTR University of Health Sciences vice-chancellor Dr T Ravi Raju said the prevalence of CKD is high in Uddanam region when compared to Goa, Odisha, Sri Lanka and few other countries.

In Uddanam region the prevalence of the disease was around 15 per cent where as in other regions in the country and around the globe it was around 5 to 7 per cent, Raju added.

Actor turned politician and chief of Jana Sena Party (JSP) Pawan Kalyan said the health crisis in Uddanam needs immediate attention.

"I tell others dont politicise, dont divert the Uddanam issue in the name of politics. I want to find a solution for the Uddanam issue," Pawan said.

Kidney disease in Uddanam region has officially claimed more than 4,500 lives in the past one decade and an over 35,000 people in the region are presently suffering from the serious ailment, Pawan added. PTI COR RMT

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The incident has led to the BJP calling for a statewide strike, with its state president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleging that the CPI-M was behind the attack.

By India Today Web Desk: Police have arrested 5 more people in connection with the murder of RSS worker Karyavahak Rajesh, who was hacked to death in Kerala's Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday. The total number of people arrested is now 8.

Among the arrested is Manikuttan, who police said has a criminal background and is a close neighbour of Rajesh. A case had earlier been registered against Manikuttan for allegedly hurling crude bombs at a CPI-M local committee member's house.

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The incident has led to the BJP calling for a statewide strike, with its state president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleging that the CPI-M was behind the attack.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh has spoken to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan on the recent political violence in the state and expressed his concern with the law and order situation.

"I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously," Rajnath said on the killing of the RSS worker.

According to the police, 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around 9 pm last night, and reports said there were over 20 wounds on his body.

Police are maintaining a strict vigil and have clamped prohibitory orders for three days from July 28 after BJP's Kerala unit office was vandalised and the house of CPI-M state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri was attacked.

Earlier, 10 people, including 4 from the student and youth wings of CPI-M, were arrested in connection with the clashes in the city on Friday.

CPI-M DENIES INVOLVEMENT

The CPI-M has in a press statement denied that the party had any connection with the incident.

It is pertinent to mention here that RSS and CPM workers have had a history of violent clashes in Kerala.

In the most recent of such confrontations, clashes broke out between workers of the two communities in Kannur district's Payyanur area on July 11 earlier this month.

Kannur district has been particularly volatile since the murder of CPM worker Dhanaraj last year.

Also Read:

Kerala: Payyanur tense after clashes between RSS, CPI(M) workers

Kerala: RSS leader, accused of murdering CPM activist, hacked to death in Kannur

Watch Video: Kerala: RSS worker hacked to death in Thiruvananthapuram

--- ENDS ---
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By PTI: to ICICI Pru

New Delhi, Jul 30 (PTI) Embattled Sahara group today said it will approach court of law against IRDAI order directing transfer of its life insurance business to ICICI Prudential and alleged that the insurance regulator has "wrongly concluded" that the promoter was no more fit and proper and a sum of Rs 78 crore was siphoned.

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In a statement following IRDAI (Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India) order dated July 28, the group said Sahara Life business is being "wrongfully" given to ICICI Prudential Life Insurance.

"Sahara Life is doing business since 2004 and since last 7 years running continuously in profit and has been in absolute and strict compliance of all regulatory norms and directions issued by IRDAI," the group said.

It further said Sahara Lifes asset is more than its liability and there is not a single complaint of non-payment by any policy holder.

"However it is unfortunate that IRDAI has handed over Sahara Life business to other insurance company ICICI Prudential," the group alleged.

Giving a point-wise rebuttal to the charges og IRDAI, the group said the main allegation talks about the promoter companys promoter shareholder Subrata Roy Sahara, having been incarcerated, which was a judicial custody, and therefore the promoter company of life insurance venture is no more "fit and proper".

This was also the reason of action against Sahara Mutual fund by another regulator SEBI. The group had challenged this SEBI order before the Securities Appellate Tribunal which last week upheld the regulators order but granted a stay of 6 weeks to allow the company file an appeal before the Supreme Court, which is already hearing a long running case regarding the group.

On IRDAI action, the group said the second allegation is that a sum of 78 crore has been siphoned, "which is wrongly concluded".

"In fact this amount was kept as security deposit to one entity Sahara India who has provided furnished, computerised office accommodation in around 150 places," the group said.

It further said the security deposit is there since Sahara India is not charging any rent, electricity charges etc and this arrangement is very beneficial for Sahara Life, whereas IRDAI has concluded in "such unwise manner".

"This security deposit amount is absolutely repayable to Sahara Life," the statement added.

The group further alleged, "On one hand IRDAI didnt give permission for branch expansion and now IRDAI is alleging that business is not increasing.

"IRDAI appointed administrator for the reason best known to them and the said administrator secretly submitted a report to the IRDAI for transferring the business of Sahara Life to any other entity," it added.

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The group further alleged that any copy of the administrator?s report was neither provided to Sahara Life, nor was it granted any opportunity of hearing on such report or before passing the order of transfer of business to any third entity.

"The company has never acted in any manner prejudicial to the interest of the policy holders. Sahara will pursue its remedy, against such approach of IRDAI, in the court of law," the statement added.

Insurance regulator IRDAI on Friday asked leading private sector life insurer ICICI Prudential Life Insurance (IPRU) to take over the business of beleaguered Sahara India Life Insurance with effect from July 31.

ICICI Prudential was asked to ensure that systems are integrated within a period of one year from the appointed date.

Sahara group chairman Subrata Roy had met IRDAI chairman to seek more time to resolve the crisis at his life insurance arm on July 24.

ICICI Prudential had submitted a valuation report to the regulator to take over the company on the same day.

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It was last month that IRDAI had appointed an administrator to run Sahara Life, alleging governance-related issues at the company.

Based on the administrator report dated June 22, IRDAI came to the conclusion that continuation of Sahara India Life to transact life insurance business is not in the interest of the holders of life insurance policies in general, and considered it to be a fit case to transfer the life insurance portfolio of Sahara India Life to some other insurer under section 52B (1) of the Insurance Act, 1938, the order said.

According to IRDAI, the report of the administrator indicated that there is total failure of the governance system of Sahara India Life and the interests of the policyholders are at stake.

Promoters of the company are no more ?fit and proper?, a sum of Rs 78 crore has already been syphoned off in name of security deposits, and the shareholders and board of directors are not keen on recovery plan, the report said.

Moreover, the IRDAI report said, the company is mainly surviving on release of reserves and the situation may not continue for long as the new premium of the company has come down significantly.

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ICICI Prudential has been asked to assume the insurance liabilities of Sahara India Life as per the valuation of the independent actuary as on the appointed date.

The order said Sahara India Life shall transfer the assets/investments to ICICI Prudential on irreversible basis.

ICICI Prudential Life on Friday said in a statement that it has received an order from IRDAI directing it to take over the assets and policyholder liabilities of Sahara Life Insurance.

The company clarified that this is not a merger between the two companies but purely a transfer of customers to ICICI Prudential Life.

?We are pleased to welcome the new customers to the ICICI Prudential Life family. We would like to assure them of high levels of service and commitment,? it said. PTI BJ JM

--- ENDS ---
When all was done and dusted, Mario Mola of Spain won a very predictable 4th WTS win in a row at Edmonton. But midway through the 5 kilometer run leg, Jacob Birtwhistle of Australia really shook things up.



For the first 1.66 kilometer run lap, 2016 WTS World Champion Mola, 2-time ITU World champion Jonathan Brownlee of Great Britain, Richard Murray of South Africa and 5-time ITU World Champion Javier Gomez of Spain broke away to a four-man lead pack 25 meters ahead of a chase group including Birtwhistle. Approaching halfway through the second of three laps of the run, Gomez started to fade a few meters and Mola edged a few meters in front of Brownlee and Murray.



Suddenly, Birtwhistle, a tall, up-and-coming super-runner who took 2nd at the WTS Hamburg two weeks ago, took off like a rocket. He passed a fading Gomez just as Mola surged ahead of Brownlee and Murray. Birtwhistle did not stop there as he slashed his way past Brownlee and Murray as if they were standing still. Shocking ITU online commentator Barrie Shepley, Birtwhistle continued his charge and passed the accelerating Mola  the fastest man in the sport.



Birtwhistle must have miscounted, exclaimed Shepley. Shepley said Birtwhistle must think this is the last lap and he still has a lap and a half to run.



Running as if possessed, Birtwhistle continued his adrenaline-fueled move and opened a 20-meter gap on the Spaniard.



If there was any question whether Birtwhistle miscounted, the Australian answered when he ran into the usual final lap lane straight to the finish line  then hurdled over the concrete barrier back into the proper lane for runners still approaching the final lap.



Cool as a cucumber, Mola continued on his steady state race pace and passed Birtwhistle on the final lap. Birtwhistle attempted to regain equilibrium as Murray came up hard. If history would script it, Birtwhistle very likely shot his bolt and Murray would roll on by for the silver.



Not so fast.



Birtwhistle gathered himself and held off Murray all the way to the line for his second straight silver medal performance at a WTS race.



Mola finished off the tough Edmonton run course  it included a gradual but grinding hill which rewarded strength runners  in a race-best 14:36 split which brought him to the line in 54:51 which gave him a 10 seconds margin of victory over Birtwhistle (14:45 run) and 15 seconds over Murray (14:50 run).



I saw Jake moving on the second lap and I thought it was the end of the world, but I could get back to win, Mola told ITU media.



I got to the front a bit too early, and suffered for another whole lap, I guess that it was a bit too much, said Birtwhistle. I gave anything I could at the end and managed to keep the second place



After a 14:59 run, Brownlee took 4th place, 9 seconds behind Murray and 4 seconds ahead of 5th place Raphael Montoya of France. Gomez took 6th in 15:08.



After his win, Mola stood atop the WTS points chase with 3,664 points, followed by Fernando Alarza of Spain (3,172), Gomez (2,990), Murray (2,512), Birtwhistle (2,132) and Kristian Blummenfelt of Norway (2,120 points).

WTS Edmonton

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

July 29, 2017

S 750m / B 21k / R 5k



Results



Elite Men



1. Mario Mola (ESP) 54:51

2. Jacob Birtwhistle (AUS) 55:01

3. Richard Murray (RSA) 55:06

4. Jonathan Brownlee (GBR) 55:14

5. Raphael Montoya (FRA) 55:19

6. Javier Gomez (ESP) 55:24

7. Pierre Le Corre (FRA) 55:28

8. Kristian Blummenfelt (NOR) 55:31

9. Fernando Alarza (ESP) 55:36

10. Grant Sheldon (GBR) 55:39
The U.S. Navy's Bahrain-based 5th Fleet said the incident happened while one of its helicopters was on a routine patrol in international airspace. The aircraft saw several Guard vessels approaching American ships "at a high rate of speed" and sent out flares after receiving no response when it tried to establish communications, the Navy said. That prompted the Iranian boats to halt their approach.
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I got links from the Weekly Standard, Hot Air and Instapundit yesterday - but SDA was running at least equal to those in visitors clicking through to my blog. Jeff Dobbs

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Canberra's drug and alcohol sector risks falling into a "policy vacuum", with the ACT's peak alcohol, tobacco and other drugs strategy now three years' out of date.

Despite extensive consultations to review the strategy in 2015, the key document the government and community sector uses to manage complex drug and alcohol patients has not been updated since 2010.

Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris, left, last week pledged to investigate a years-long delay to a review of methadone guidelines. Credit:Karleen Minney

It is one of a number of key health policies or guidelines years' out of date, with Health Minister Meegan Fitzharris last week pledging to address a years-long delay to a review of the ACT's methadone treatment guidelines.

Then-Health Minister Simon Corbell cited the rising tide of treatment episodes for methamphetamine use when launching the 2015 review of the drugs strategy.
Canberra's chess queens and kings battled it out at the Australian National University Chess Open at the weekend, marking the competition's 25th anniversary in style.

ACT Labor backbencher Michael Pettersson became the first politician to take part in the event, but Canberran Fred Litchfield was declared the overall winner on Sunday after scoring six points from seven games.

Labor MLA Michael Pettersson taking on 7-year-old Garran primary school student Hannah Ni on Sunday. Credit:Rohan Thomson

More than 40 players joined the competition at the ANU School of Art, played across seven rounds, with players given 60 minutes per game and 10 seconds per move.

Mr Litchfield defeated international master Andrew Brown in the sixth round, before drawing his final game against womens' international master Emma Guo.
"It's never too late to find your missing person."

That's the message Melissa Pouliot has for suffering families after her missing cousin, Ursula Barwick, was recently found following a 30-year search.

Crime writer Melissa Pouliot wrote a book loosely based on her cousin's disappearance - which sparked a new investigation by police and discovered the girl had been killed in a car accident. Credit:Karleen Minney

Ursula, aged 17, had died in a car accident on the Hume Highway, near Tarcutta, in 1987, only weeks after she went missing.

Ursula had been living in Sydney under a new name, Jessica Pearce, and it was that name her new friends provided to investigators after the crash.
The number of inmates at Canberra's adult jail with Hepatitis C has fallen more than 20 per cent in the past seven years.

But community health advocates have urged the territory to keep its eye on prevention as well as treatment.

New treatments have helped cut hepatitis c rates in Canberra's prison from 30 per cent to three per cent. Credit:Rohan Thomson

Justice Minister Shane Rattenbury on Friday released new figures showing how new drugs for the virus had helped reduce the number of Hepatitis C-positive inmates from 30% of the prison population in 2010 down to just three per cent this year.

He said in the year to March 2017, another 58 detainees had also started the expensive treatments, which were approved by the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme last year.
NSW Police have arrested and charged five teenagers after they allegedly travelled more than 600 kilometres in a car stolen from Amaroo in Canberra.

The black Mercedes Benz sedan was allegedly stolen from a home on Friday morning, before being driven by a 16-year-old boy, accompanied by two other boys aged 13 and 15 and a 14-year-old girl.

The five teenagers traveled more than 500 kilometres across NSW. Credit:NSW Police

About 7am on Saturday, the driver of the car refuelled at a service station at Molong and left without paying for the fuel.

Police received several calls from members of the public who saw the car travelling at speeds of more than 150km/h along the Mitchell Highway towards Dubbo.
Jan Cameron has worn many hats over the years: Kathmandu founder, philanthropist, conservationist  and more recently corporate agitator at Bellamy's.

Easy touch is not on her CV, just ask the casualties from Bellamy's board spill in February.

Or the 1000-plus staff who lost their jobs at the misadventure she had at Retail Adventures, which collapsed twice under her watch and cost the Kathmandu founder most of her fortune  roughly $200 million according to some counts.

And that figure does not include the $13.8 million she had to pay Retail Adventures' liquidators in August 2014 to settle claims of insolvent trading.
By India Today Web Desk: Sajan Re Jhoot Mat Bolo actor Manoj Goyal's wife Neelima Manoj Goyal committed suicide on Saturday by hanging herself from her bedroom's ceiling fan.

According to reports, Neelima was depressed and has left a note, which said that no one should be held responsible for her suicide.

Neelima was reportedly alone at her Kandivali home, when she took such a step. Manoj was out for work and their eight-old-daughter had gone for tuition. When her daughter returned and no one answered even after repeated knocking on the door, she took help from the neighbours and called police. The police broke the door and entered the house and found Neelima hanging from the ceiling fan.

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A case has been registered in Samta Nagar police. The police has started its investigation and will soon record Neelima's family's statement.

One of Manoj's co-star on the account of anonymity spoke to indianexpress.com and said, "One doesn't get to know the family too personally while working. Manoj and Neelima were a happy couple and it's shocking to hear the news. My condolence to the family and hope god gives strength to Manoj and his daughter to overcome the loss."

Manoj has been a part of shows like Sajan Re Jhoot Mat Bolo, Burey Bhi Hum Bhale Bhi Hum, Tu Mere Agal Bagal Hai and Khidki.

Also read: Parichay actress Kritika Chaudhary found dead in her apartment

--- ENDS ---
Bill Shorten says he will introduce a 30 per cent tax rate on discretionary trust distributions to people over the age of 18 if he wins power. Credit:Tracey Nearmy Clearly it matters quite lot for the living standards of a household with an income of $100,000 a year if that income is spread across a family of six, or just one adult. The bureau adjusts for this to get a measure of "equivalised disposable household income". The bureau conducts its survey every two years. The latest figures we have are for 2013-14. They show that the average equivalised household disposable income in 2013-14 was $998 a week. The median was somewhat lower  $844  thanks to the asymmetric shape of the distribution, that is, the relatively small number of households who have relatively high incomes, and the relatively large number of households who have relatively low incomes. The bureau's data allows us to consider the distribution of income and wealth between "quintiles". That is, if you ranked all households from lowest to highest, and then divided the population into five equal-sized groups.

Let's start with income. After taking account of the number and age of people in the household, households in the highest-income quintile in Australia received over 40 per cent of total income in 2013-14. By comparison, households in the lowest quintile received 7.3 per cent of total income. This pattern has remained relatively stable over the past 20 years. While the average household income is now close to $1000 a week, the average for the lowest quintile is just $375, and $2037 for the highest quintile. Since 1994-95, the average household disposable income has grown by 67 per cent in real terms. But, while income in the lowest quintile grew by 58 per cent, income in the highest quintile grew by 80 per cent. So the poor didn't get poorer, but the rich got richer a lot faster than the poor got richer, thus widening the gap between rich and poor and increasing inequality. But the bureau also measures the distribution of wealth, which is even more unequally distributed than income  as it is in most countries. Income, of course, is a flow. Wealth is a stock. For its measure of wealth, the bureau uses a measure of "net worth", being the sum of a household's assets (property, shares, superannuation) minus its liabilities (home loans and other debts).

In 2013-14 the average household had assets of $954,800 and liabilities of $144,900, giving an estimated average net worth of $809,900. When ranked by their level of wealth, the top 20 per cent of Australians owned 62 per cent of total household wealth in 2013-2014. By comparison, the bottom 20 per cent of households owned less than 1 per cent of all household wealth. Housing makes up 60 per cent of all assets owned by Australian households (split between owner-occupied housing at 43 per cent and investment property at 15 per cent), and superannuation makes up a further 15 per cent. Although declining rates of home ownership are deepening wealth inequality, Australians' growing superannuation nest eggs have helped to limit the increase in wealth inequality overall. Of course, different types of households have fared differently. Lone person households of prime working age fared particularly badly over the decade and a half to 2009-10.

This is due in large part to less generous increases to the Newstart Allowance relative to the age pension (Newstart is indexed to consumer prices, and pensions to the more generous measure of wages). Households in the 55 to 65 age bracket have fared the best. They are more likely to be working than previous generations, while also drawing an income from investment housing (rent) and dividends from share ownership. Another important indicator of inequality is a "Gini coefficient". Gini coefficients range from 0 (perfect equality  everyone has the same) to 1 (perfect inequality  one person has all the income or wealth). It is possible to construct Gini coefficients for the distributions of both incomes and wealth. The bureau's figures reveal that Australia's Gini coefficient for income has risen from 0.302 in 1994-95 to 0.333 in 2013-14.

The Gini coefficient for wealth in 2013-14 was 0.605  almost double the inequality of incomes. Inequality, on the Gini income measure, did not increase greatly from 1994-95 to 2003-04, as the Howard government's significant increases in the family tax benefit offset the effect of greater dispersion in market incomes. Between 2003-04 and 2007-08, however, income inequality worsened by almost 10 per cent, from 0.306 to 0.336, due to continuing dispersion in market incomes, plus a series of annual tax cuts favouring higher income earners. Between 2007-08 and 2011-12, in the aftermath of the Global Financial Crisis, the income Gini fell by about 5 per cent to 0.320. Unfortunately, this decline in inequality was almost entirely reversed in the latest survey for 2013-14, coming in again at 0.333. Overall, Scott Morrison is fairly correct to say that inequality of incomes has not changed dramatically since the GFC. Loading
They say no one on their deathbed ever regrets not spending more time at the office. Which is not to say we don't have other regrets, nor that we have to wait until we're drawing our last breath to have them.

This column will tell you nothing about the state of the economy, or business or the financial markets, but that's its attraction.

Maybe there are other things you should be paying attention to, so as the cut the number of unticked items left on your lifetime To Do list.

I can't tell you what you most regret  or will come to regret  but I can give you some big hints, using a study by two professors of psychology, Mike Morrison, of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and Neal Roese, of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in Illinois, which I learnt of through the PsyBlog website.
On Tuesday, the results of the largest ever student survey into sexual assault and sexual harassment on universities campuses in Australia will be published. . That survey has been run by the Human Rights Commission, commissioned by Universities Australia, but advocated for by our students who want to see real change.

For the first time, we will know the full extent of sexual assault and sexual harassment affecting young people at Australian universities.

The results will be shocking, and we should be shocked. They will tell us an ugly truth about how young people in particular are affected by sexual violence. It is not an issue that we can simply acknowledge, then move onto the next thing. It is an issue that we must deal with.

We know that for survivors and people who have been affected by sexual assault and harassment, the coming weeks will be very traumatic.
For all her talk of restoring democracy, Premier Gladys Berejiklian's council merger backflip revealed a dark truth about how politics in NSW now works: the best outcomes go to those with the deepest pockets.

Councils with substantial financial resources  mostly from affluent areas  were able to launch costly legal battles that eventually forced a policy reversal. Meanwhile, other communities across Sydney where working-class ratepayers didn't have the same financial resources have been told the forced mergers that occurred against their will are here to stay.

This is no outlier. The NSW government is increasingly having its policies driven by those with money, power and influence, while ordinary voters  the very people impacted by changes  are shut out of the process.

Premier Berejiklian defended her backflip by saying: "I want every single person, when they go to the ballot box on September 9, to have confidence that whoever they elect will be their local representatives." Yet just a year ago her government sacked hundreds of elected councillors across the state, replacing them with appointed administrators.
There are two choices. Taking the bashing, or losing your kids.

That's it, the choice for some Indigenous women in Australia, says the chief executive of the Aboriginal Family Violence Prevention and Legal Service, Antoinette Braybrook.

It is entirely understandable that many Indigenous Australians feel they have not been well represented in and consulted by the political system in the past. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

Indigenous women are so afraid their children will be removed they continue to endure violence just to keep their families together. They've seen what happened to their own mothers torn from their mothers. And they don't want it to happen again. Braybrook's been in this struggle for decades and can tell you that these women are too frightened to call for help. If they call the police, they know the police will end up notifying child protection.

"And then your kids will be taken from you, just like that," she says. "There are more kids being removed now from their mums and their families than at any time since settlement."
He made his commitment before a dinner of more than 800 republicans  the largest gathering of Australian republicans since the Eureka Stockade, all together in the building where Australia's first Parliament met. He far exceeded their expectations.

If Labor wins the next election, then Australians will be voting on an Australian republic by 2020.

Bill Shorten: 'First, he has transformed the politics of patriotism in this country..' Credit:Janie Barrett

First, he has transformed the politics of patriotism in this country.

In thedivisive debate about "Australian values" that has dominated Australian politics in 2017  and in some respects, in the 21st century  there is suddenly a new voice. What could be more "un-Australian" than the monarchical principle? Our political system enshrines inherited privilege at its highest point, in the head of state. What better way to share the ideals of citizenship and to ask everyone who lives here to 'sign up' than by saying the head of state is signed up too?

This is a big deal. Where 20 years ago the republic was seen as a distraction from bread and butter issues of jobs and the economy, today's daily politics and news is dominated by identity and nationhood as never before. By explicitly positioning the republic as an inclusive response to the deep anxiety in the community about how our society can remain cohesive in future years, Shorten turns the slightly abstract idea of an Australian head of state into an urgent social argument and a relevant political debate.

Second, this Labor leader has gone where Prime Minister Rudd at his most popular and Prime Minister Gillard at her most determined would not go.
In the post-9/11 era of tight security in which the so-called Islamic State has urged followers to grab whatever they can find as a weapon and just go for it, public attention has been diverted to low-tech, unsophisticated terrorism plots.

Knives, cars, trucks, small arms  in countries where they are relatively easily available, which thankfully does not include Australia  have been the trend. Capture it on a mobile phone and you get high impact for relatively little investment.

Yet authorities have been warning all along that this doesn't mean they've taken their eye off the threat of more elaborate plots.
Small business groups have rounded on the federal opposition for its proposal to tax discretionary trusts at a flat 30 per cent rate, saying it is vote-buying that will sweep up many legitimate small businesses using the facility for asset protection and income security.

Council of Small Business Australia head, Peter Strong, said the policy was a blunt instrument, and while it was appropriate for the tax office to "go get" wealthy individuals using the trust loopholes to avoid tax, it was wrong to hit everyone.

"What Labor's got to look at is stopping people rorting the system, not looking for votes by pretending that they dislike and hate rich people ... the trouble is this picking everybody up," he said.
The move to legalise gay marriage in Australia is gaining momentum and likely to happen before the end of the year, with another government MP signalling he is willing to cross the floor to support change, and a Liberal senator warning failure to recognise marriage equality would be "political suicide."

On Monday, the federal Liberal MP for Brisbane, Trevor Evans, said he supported a free vote. His comments are being interpreted by supporters of gay marriage as a coded signal that he would be willing to cross the floor to help bring on a vote and force the issue to be dealt with by Parliament.

Mr Evans - who is openly gay - told News Corp the Coalition should dump its policy to hold a plebiscite on the issue given it has been rejected by Labor and the Greens in the Senate.
A director of a tobacco company that is suspected of smuggling cigarettes has donated $400,000 to the Labor Party, possibly breaching NSW law and the ALP's own ban on taking tobacco industry funds.

Peter Chen, the sole Australian director of Sydney tobacco company ATA International, donated to the NSW and federal Labor parties via another of his companies, Wei Wah, which retails the cheap Chinese brand cigarettes ATA imports.

The revelations come as Labor's Senator Sam Dastyari, who oversaw one of Mr Chen's donations, has called for a ban on donations.

"I was one of the weapon suppliers in this [donations] arms race and responsible for fundraising  I'm telling you it needs to come to an end, and the time for that is now," Mr Dastyari told the ABC's Australian Story in an episode to be screened on Monday night.
By PTI: lacks it

Lucknow, Jul 30 (PTI) BJP chief Amit Shah today targeted the Congress over dynasty politics and said lack of internal democracy in a political party results in it being dominated by caste or family.

Addressing a meeting of intellectuals here, Shah drew parallel between the BJP and the Congress over who will be the next chief of the two parties.

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He asked the audience that who will succeed Sonia Gandhi in the Congress, to which the people responded saying Rahul Gandhi.

He then posed the same question about the BJP.

"Can anyone tell me who will be the next president of BJP?, No one knows. A person with nirmal charitra (pious character) will head the BJP. The president of BJP is not elected on the basis of dynasty, caste or religion, but on the basis of merit," Shah said.

"Internal democracy provides an opportunity for talent to develop naturally. In the absence of internal democracy in any political party, it ends up being run by gharanas (families). Among the 1,650 political parties in India, very few have internal democracy, and BJP is one of them," he said.

He said in the absence of internal democracy, a party cannot serve the purpose of democracy and incompetent heirs are chosen to head them.

"...Then these political parties become family-based or caste-based. Talent is not given any importance there, and talented people are sidelined. Parties like the SP and the BSP decide their waaris (heir). Sometimes there is a mistake in deciding the heir as well," the BJP chief said, apparently hinting at the falling out of SP patriarch Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son and former UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav.

He said principles and development should also be two vital characteristics of a political party.

"In absence of principles in a political party, casteism and family politics take over," Shah said.

He said the BJP is a party which follows "cultural nationalism", both in letter and spirit, and also believes in Antyodaya - a model which touches all sections of the society, and aims to disseminating the benefits of development to the last strata of the society.

"Since 1950 to 2017, in the journey from Jan Sangh to the BJP, the basic principle has been Antyodaya, integral humanism and cultural nationalism," Shah said.

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He claimed states without a BJP government have been "taken over by scams, corruption and dynasty politics.

Talking about Uttar Pradesh, he said the BJP will script history in terms of development.

"Owing to financial indiscipline, a term Bimaru (laggard) states was coined in the 1980s for Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan and UP. Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan have come out of the Bimaru bracket. Bihar had shed the tag, when we were in government. There were some roadblocks, but day before yesterday things have moved in the right direction.

"We want to promise that UP will be out of the Bimaru bracket in the next five years. I assure you that under the leadership of Yogi Adityanath, we will script a new story of development of UP and make it the best state," Shah said.

He also claimed that the countrys growth came down to 4.4 percent under the previous Congress-led UPA government. However, under the leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, it went up to 7 percent.

Taking a jibe at former Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, the BJP chief said his government suffered from "policy paralysis".

"Every minister assumed himself to be the prime minister and no one considered him as the PM. Today under Narendra Modi, the BJP has completed three years in government, but even the rivals could not level allegations of corruption against us," Shah said.

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"Wherever the BJP forms the government, it works for the welfare of the people, is transparent and decisive," he said.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath and his deputy Keshav Prasad Maurya also addressed the meeting. PTI NAV ASV SK ASV

--- ENDS ---
Former foreign minister Bob Carr has accused his erstwhile cabinet colleague Mark Dreyfus of an extraordinary attempt to "silence" him over his criticism of Israeli settlements on the West Bank.

Mr Carr says early in the 2016 federal election campaign, Mr Dreyfus, a former attorney-general and member for the Victorian seat of Isaacs, along with the member for Melbourne Ports, Michael Danby, sought a meeting with wealthy businessman Huang Xiangmo.

Mr Carr had left politics and was director of the Australia-China Relationships Institute, at the time funded by Mr Huang.

According to Mr Carr, the purpose of the visit "was to protest that I had the audacity to occasionally criticise Israel for spreading settlements on the West Bank", he told journalist and former Middle East correspondent John Lyons for his memoir Balcony Over Jerusalem.
A 15-year-old girl picked up a long glass shard from a shattered photograph frame and slashed her youth worker across the neck.

But in sentencing her for wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm, a judge has found the girl was not the only one to blame.

A 15-year-old girl living in a Guardian Youth Care house was allegedly sexually assaulted when she was allowed to go out at night. Credit:Louie Douvis

District Court Judge Martin Sides has found "significant moral culpability" on the part of the Sydney not-for-profit company providing the girl's full-time care on behalf of the Minister for Family and Community Services.

Run by former Wallaby Glen Ella, Guardian Youth Care has come under sustained scrutiny in recent months, facing accusations by the government of misappropriating nearly $20 million.
Opposition resources and energy spokesman Adam Searle says he "can't see a circumstance" where a NSW Labor government would subsidise new coal or other fossil fuel projects such as the proposed $1 billion federal loan for the controversial Adani mine in Queensland.

The comments come as a package of environment measures were passed by the weekend's NSW Labor conference including creation in government of a state-owned corporation, NSW Renewable Energy Futures.

The corporation, to be funded by the sale of NSW's share of the Snowy Hydro to the federal government and green bonds would "build, invest, own, and operate large-scale renewable energy and storage technologies, whilst modernising the grid".

The motion says the corporation "will maximise the speed and efficiency of the energy transition, reduce prices for consumers, maximise job opportunities in the future economy for regional NSW, and deliver dividends for the people of NSW in a shared and decentralised energy future".
The NSW Labor conference has passed what is being hailed as a "historic" motion that urges the next federal Labor government to recognise Palestine.

The motion, put by former foreign minister and NSW premier Bob Carr, passed the conference on Sunday night.

Bob Carr moves his motion at the NSW Labor conference on Sunday. Credit:AAP

The original motion had sparked opposition from some pro-Israeli members of the ALP right faction, prompting a meeting last week between Mr Carr, general secretary Kaila Murnain and others, including former NSW union chief Michael Easson.

Following discussions, the motion was extended to also support "the recognition and right of Israel and Palestine to exist within secure and recognised borders".
Police are searching an area of bushland south-west of Sydney in a bid to find the body of 12-year-old schoolgirl Quanne Diec, allegedly murdered almost two decades ago.

The three-day search of dense bushland off Appin Road at Cataract starts on Monday, following information about the potential location of her body.

On Monday, Quanne's father Sam Diec visited the bushland site, where police were digging for her remains.

Addressing reporters, Detective Inspector Glen Parks said the search was a difficult time for the family.
Travellers are being urged to limit the amount of baggage they take on flights to help speed up the screening process as security at Australian airports is intensified.

Passengers are now also being told to arrive at the airport two hours before a domestic flight and three hours for an international flight. There are no changes to what can and cannot be carried on-board an aircraft.

Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and law enforcement agencies announced screening at all major airports had been ramped up overnight following the discovery of a terrorist plot to bring down an aeroplane with a bomb.

Major airlines contacted passengers via text messages on Sunday morning to alert them that the government had now introduced "additional aviation security measures".
The Queens Wharf development and a high-rise crane caused significant traffic problems on Sunday, with congestion clogging inner-Brisbane roads.

Demolition works on the $3 billion complex saw the closure of the Margaret Street off-ramp on the Riverside Expressway during the weekend.

Inbound motorists on the Riverside Expressway hit almost nine kilometers of delays, created by Queens Wharf demolition work. Credit:Glenn Hunt

Australian Traffic Network reporter Olympia Kwitowski said throughout the morning, inbound congestion on the Riverside Expressway was back to the Pacific Motorway in Greenslopes - about seven kilometres of delays. However, these delays cleared just after 2pm.

She added that motorists were also trying to avoid the gridlock by using the Stanley Street off-ramp, however they were then hitting congestion on Vulture Street, caused by a construction crane being dismantled. This gridlock remained beyond 3pm.
Fire has engulfed an inner-Brisbane home on Sunday morning, sending plumes of smoke into the air and causing police to close the street.

Emergency services were called to the single-storey brick house on St Pauls Terrace about 7.20am, to find the building "well-involved".

Fire crews were battling the blaze at Spring Hill on Sunday morning. Credit:Dominic Geiger - Twitter

Six crews, about 20 firefighters in total, battled the blaze externally, due to concerns about structural damage to the property. They also managed to protect a neighbouring property, which was under threat from the fire at one point.

By 8am, the fire was under control and soon crews were dampening down hotspots. A search of the building, which was at least 29 years old, was later conducted and found the home was vacant.
The first time war veteran Victor Power shot at his enemy during World War II he cried.

The 98-year-old man served six months in the war and was on the beaches as German troops advanced into France in 1940, trapping Allied forces on Dunkirk beach.

Dunkirk survivor Victor Power. Credit:Amy Mitchell-Whittington

"I don't like war, I hated what I did," he said.

"To pick your rifle up and go 'bang' and shoot a man down, that is not normal.
The first time Kerry Moore heard about fragile X syndrome she was sitting in the developmental paediatrician's office with her 12-month-old son.

Her first-born, Oliver, had missed important milestones  he was slow to crawl, walk and speak  and Ms Moore had just learnt what was wrong.

"I had no idea. It came out of nowhere," Ms Moore said.

"I was in complete and utter shock and there were so many emotions that I was feeling. Guilt was a big one, because I passed it on to my baby."
By India Today Web Desk: A week after Linkin Park's frontman Chester Bennington committed suicide his wife Talinda Bennington has finally spoken up about her loss.

In a tweet posted on July 28, Talinda expressed grief over her husband's death and also thanked the world for the love, condolences and support she got.

One week ago today, I lost my soulmate and my children lost their hero-their Daddy. We had a (cont) https://t.co/hkutVhlJzR- Talinda Bennington (@TalindaB) July 28, 2017

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The full text of the long tweet reads:

One week ago today, I lost my soulmate and my children lost their hero-their Daddy. We had a fairytale life and now it has turned into some sick Shakespearean tragedy. How do I move on? How do I pick up my shattered soul? The only answer I know is to raise our babies with every ounce of love I have left. I want to let my community and the fans worldwide know that we feel your love. We feel your loss as well. My babies are so young to have lost their daddy. And I know that all of you will help keep his memory alive. He was a bright, loving soul with an angels voice. And now he is pain free singing his songs in all of our hearts. May God Bless us all and help us turn to one another when we are in pain. Chester would've wanted us to do so. Rest In Peace, my love. Always, Mrs. Talinda Bennington

FYI || Chester Bennington's suicide: Tributes pour in on Twitter for Linkin Park frontman ||

FYI || Chester tried so hard, but it didn't matter in the end: A rant on suicides ||

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Which countries, if any, should the UK focus increasing its trading links with? Credit:BMG Research Mr Turner said this showed how important people-to-people links and travel were to how voters think about foreign policy issues. "A lot of older people from focus groups that we conducted said that they spent time in New Zealand and Australia and much fewer younger say the same." Which countries, if any, should the UK focus increasing its trading links with? Credit:BMG Research "The young people go to Spain more and they're more likely to say that something's of a strategic importance to them if they've been there and they're familiar with it," he said.

"And actually what you really need to do to raise the Australian profile and the strategic importance is get more young people going to Australia. So that is clearly an effect." British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson met with his Australian counterpart Julie Bishop in Sydney last week. Credit:Rick Rycroft He said the debate about whether Britain should adopt an "Australian-style, points-based" immigration system during the EU referendum campaign would also be a factor driving pro-Australian sentiment amongst Leave voters. Other Commonwealth countries, Canada, India and New Zealand also featured in the top ten. The chair of the Commons International Trade committee Angus MacNeil, a member of the Scottish National Party which opposes Brexit, said the results showed the misguided nostalgia for a revival of the British Empire, driving Brexiters.

"There's a lot of nostalgic thinking going on with Britain's trading arrangement's at the moment because of this nostalgic view about recreating the empire," Mr MacNeil told Fairfax Media. "Perhaps this view exists among the older generation in England due to an inferior education system 60 years ago," he said. He said Britain leaving the common market would be the equivalent of "putting trade barriers up". In 2016, Australia accepted just 1.3 per cent of British exports and was ranked 21st in the list of top UK export destinations. The United States is ranked first and received 15 per cent of Britain's total exports. France and Germany accounted for 17 per cent of Britain's exports combined. Similarly, Australia is ranked 21st as an import source, with just 1.1 per cent of goods and services originating from Australia. Germany is Britain's largest supplier of imports into Britain, accounting for 14 per cent, followed by China and the United States. In 2015-16, two-way trade was worth around $27.0 billion, with Australian exports worth $12.1 billion and imports from the UK $14.9 billion. By contrast, in 2015, UK exports to the EU were valued at 223.3 billion ($367 billion), while UK imports from the EU stood at 291 million.

Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said in Sydney this week, that Australia would be "at, or near, the front of the queue for a new Free Trade Agreement with Britain". On his recent visit to London, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull said Australia would strike a free-trade deal with the United Kingdom "as soon as possible". Labour MP Ben Bradshaw, a member of Open Britain which is campaigning for a soft Brexit, said any trade deal with Australia would be welcome but would only be a "drop in the ocean" compared to Britain's trade with the EU. "As keen as Malcolm Turnbull is on a deal with the UK, he actually wants one with the EU first and before the UK leaves. So we are behind the EU in the queue for a deal with even our Antipodean allies." "This demonstrates the foolishness of betting the house on trade deals which may not happen for years," he said. But the chair of the British parliament's all-party parliamentary group for Australia and New Zealand, Andrew Rosindell, said the findings showed Britain had not forgotten its true friends.
Washington: North Korea says its successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile proves its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump and a rebuke from China.

However, later on Saturday Trump wrote on Twitter that he was "very disappointed" in China and that Beijing had done "nothing" for the United States in regards to North Korea, something he would not allow to continue.

North Korea's first launch of a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile, which took place in early July. Credit:Korean Central News Agency via AP

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.
The Tyne Cot Cemetery in Passchendaele, Belgium pictured in an undated photo taken either during or after the Passchendaele battle. Credit:Australian War Memorial The aim was to capture high ground of the Gheluvelt Plateau, east of Ypres, although the term high is relative  no point is more than 50 metres higher than another. Haig's plan was to cut German supply lines and swing to the coast, and, in conjunction with an amphibious assault, seize ports from where German U-boats were raiding allied shipping. Those ports could then be used to land supplies for future operations. Poppies  each with a personalised message from a member of the British public  are currently on display at Tyne Cot Cemetery to mark the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele in the fields near Ypres, Belgium. Credit:Getty Images Well before the battle proper, the allies undertook preparatory operations, with an attack on Messines Ridge on June 7, featuring the detonation of 19 huge mines in tunnels beneath German lines.

The movie Beneath Hill 60 tells of the role of Australian tunnellers in this multinational venture, which produced some of the then-biggest explosions in human history. German defences were devastated. Tourists visit World War One trenches in Ypres. Credit:Getty Images Haig's commander General Hubert Gough needed time to prepare and the offensive kicked off on July 31, with more than 250,000 British, French and Commonwealth soldiers attacking on a 13-kilometre front. Gough's "bite and hold" tactics proved effective. There was no thought of the great breakthrough  rather the idea was to seize a couple of kilometres of enemy territory, hold against inevitable counter-attacks, then repeat. Actors recreate the Battle of Passchendaeale for visitors. Credit:Getty Images

This required all objectives to be within range of massed allied artillery. After initial progress, the offensive stalled in August and Haig replaced Gough with General Hubert Plumer, who proposed step-by-step assaults with six-day pauses to allow artillery and supplies to be brought forward. The New Zealand memorial at the Tyne Cot Cemetery in Zonnebeke on the old Ypres Salient battlefields. Credit:Getty Images For the Anzacs, the first significant actions were Menin Road on September 20, followed by Polygon Wood on September 26 and Broodseinde on October 4. All were notable successes, though as always with significant casualties. But the night before Broodseinde, fine weather ended and what followed was the wettest autumn anyone could remember.

If that wasn't bad enough, months of shellfire had churned up the battlefield, destroying the drainage system which had kept this sodden area of northern Europe adequately dry for centuries. Australian War Memorial senior historian Ashley Ekins said as the front line advanced, mud made it progressively more difficult to bring forward the guns and the huge quantities of shells needed to obliterate German defences. Men and horses drowned in the quagmire. Evacuating a wounded soldier required multiple stretcher bearers and could take a day. Both sides had resorted to gas earlier in the war but for Passchendaele, the Germans employed a new horror: mustard gas. The attack on Poelcappelle on October 9 foundered in the mud, with 1250 Australian casualties for no gain. Then on October 12, Australian and New Zealand troops sought to seize Passchendaele, an attack which historian Chris Clark said had practically no chance of success.

In the mud, soldiers struggled just to remain on their feet, let alone keep pace with the advancing artillery barrage and assault German strong points. The result was 7000 dead and wounded, and the withdrawal of the battered Anzac force to recuperate. With 2700 dead, wounded and missing in a morning, October 12, 1917 remains New Zealand's darkest day. After five more costly attacks, Canadian troops finally took Passchendaele. With fighting bogged down and further objectives unattainable, Haig called off the offensive. He subsequently justified this as all about attrition  killing more Germans than they killed allies. The final toll remains disputed but current estimates suggest around a quarter million dead on each side. Official war correspondent Charles Bean wrote angrily at the time of what men were asked to do in these conditions.

"He was right. It was pushing soldiers beyond what they could possibly achieve," Ekins said. It's still asked why Haig insisted the battle continue. One reason is that high command never understood the conditions those at the front were confronting. British Prime Minister David Lloyd George, who had the ultimate authority, failed to act despite knowing the casualties. "They are all damned by the cost and futility of the campaign," he said. For the Australians, this was their lowest ebb. Units were depleted and exhausted, morale was low. Some thought the AIF could never again become an effective fighting force. Loading
New York: US President Donald Trump's admonition that police should not be "too nice" while transporting suspects drew laughter and cheers from a crowd of officers on Friday, but police officials swiftly made it clear that they did not find the words funny.

From New York to Los Angeles, law enforcement authorities criticised the President's remarks. Experts worried that his words could encourage the inappropriate use of force. A defence lawyer even signalled that he might use video of the speech in court.

Police departments have distanced themselves from US President Donald Trump's remarks at an event on Long Island in support of police fighting the MS-13 gang. Credit:New York Times

The criticism online started shortly after Trump's comments, which came at an event in Brentwood, New York, which was intended to support police in their fight against La Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13, a gang that has been accused of several killings on Long Island.

After calling for more immigration officers to help arrest the gang members, Trump told officers: "Please don't be too nice."
Washington, DC: Republicans are urging President Donald Trump's new chief of staff John Kelly to rein in the chaos within the White House but say the retired Marine Corps general will be challenged to assert control.

In his first six months in office, Trump has upended White House convention with a loose decision-making style and an open-door policy to his Oval Office for advisers, both internal and external. Infighting among his senior staff has become bitter and public.

"He's going to have to reduce the drama, reduce both the sniping within and reduce the leaks, and bring some discipline to the relationships," Karl Rove, a Republican strategist and former White House adviser to George W. Bush, said on Fox News Sunday.

Trump announced Kelly would replace his embattled chief of staff Reince Priebus at the end of a particularly chaotic week that saw his first legislative effort - healthcare reform - fail in Congress.
Dublin: The Sunday Times of London has fired the writer of an op-ed article denouncing the campaign by women of the British Broadcasting Corp. for equal pay after the column sparked widespread accusations that it was anti-Semitic and misogynistic.

The move came after the article, by Kevin Myers, an Irish journalist with a record of provocative right-wing statements, was pulled from its website and the editor of The Sunday Times and the editor of the paper's Irish edition apologised for the column.

Framing his piece as an attack on the push to close the pay gap at the BBC, Myers wrote:

"I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC -- Claudia Winkelman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted -- are Jewish. Good for them. Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity. I wonder, who are their agents? If they're the same ones that negotiated the pay for the women on the lower scales, then maybe the latter have found their true value in their marketplace."
Seoul: The United States has sent two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test.

The US Pacific Air Forces said the B-1 bombers were escorted by South Korean and Japanese fighter jets on Saturday as they performed a low-pass over an air base in South Korea before returning to Guam.

It says the mission was a response to the consecutive ICBM tests by North Korea this month.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence O'Shaughnessy said. "If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing".
PHILIPSBURG:--- The House of Parliament will sit in an urgent plenary public session on July 31, 2017. The Minister of Justice will be present.

This meeting was requested Members of Parliament, F.A. Meyers, F.G. Richardson, drs. R.E. Samuel, and P.F.M. Geerlings, is a continuation of the meeting that started on Monday, May 22, 2017, with a continuation on May 23, 2017.

The urgent plenary public meeting will reconvene on Monday, July 31, 2017, at 15.00 hrs in the General Assembly Chamber of the House at Wilhelminastraat #1 in Philipsburg.

The agenda point is:

Recent developments within the Justice Ministry including the installation of an Asset Recovery Team by the Minister of Justice and Public Prosecutor.

Members of the public are invited to the House of Parliament to attend parliamentary deliberations.

The House of Parliament is located across from the Court House in Philipsburg.

The parliamentary session will be carried live on St. Maarten Cable TV Channel 120, via Pearl Radio FM 98.1, the audio via the Internet www.pearlfmradio.sx and via www.sxmparliament.org.
The police stopped the controversial author from stepping out of the airport as there were several people protesting against her visiting the city.

Taslima Nasreen was sent back from Aurangabad airport after protests

By Press Trust of India: Controversial Bangladeshi author Taslima Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai from Aurangabad airport after protests by a group of people against her visit to the city, police said today.

Nasreen landed at the Chikalthana Airport last evening from Mumbai.

Police stopped the author from stepping out of the airport, where a crowd had gathered shouting slogans like "Taslima Go Back".

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Deputy Commissioner of Police (Zone-II), Rahul Shrirame said, Nasreen was sent back to Mumbai by the next flight to avoid any "law and order problem" in this city in central Maharashtra.

The author was advised to abandon her visit to the city and she agreed to go back, the police officer said.

Protesters had also gathered outside a hostel where Nasreen was to stay during her three-day visit.

Police said they had come to know that the writer was planning to visit the world heritage sites of Ajanta and Ellora, besides other tourist spots in Aurangabad.

The protest at the airport was led by Imtiyaz Jaleel, the AIMIM legislator from the Aurangabad central constituency.

Jaleel said her writings have "hurt" the religious sentiments of Muslims across the world. "We will not allow her to step on the soil of our city," he said.

Last month, the Union Home Ministry had extended her visa for one year, with effect from July 23, 2017.

Nasreen, a citizen of Sweden, has been getting Indian visa on a continuous basis since 2004. The author is living in exile since she left Bangladesh in 1994 in the wake of threats to her by fundamentalist groups.

Also read:

Taslima Nasreen: India needs uniform civil law. Muslim groups: She has got too much freedom

Self-censorship is worst form of censorship: Taslima Nasreen

Also Watch:

Protesters block Taslima Nasreen's entry into Aurangabad

--- ENDS ---
Everything you need to know about No. 20 Notre Dame's game vs. Navy Saturday in Baltimore
Georgetown, SC (29440)

Today

Sunshine and clouds mixed. High 77F. Winds SW at 5 to 10 mph..

Tonight

Partly cloudy skies early will give way to cloudy skies late. Low 56F. Winds WSW at 5 to 10 mph.
The NIA has found evidence against separatist leader SAS Geelani for instigating people against the security forces in the Kashmir Valley last year.

By Jitendra Bahadur Singh: The NIA sources have said that the agency has found evidence against separatist Hurriyat Conference leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani for instigating general public in the Kashmir Valley.

The NIA sources said that the incriminating evidence was found in the documents seized from the residence of Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Fantoosh. The NIA had conducted raid at Fantoosh's residence on June 3.

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This raid was part of the series of raids conducted by the NIA in the terror funding case after an India Today expose in which a number of separatist leaders admitted on camera that they received money from across the border to foment trouble in the Valley.

Among the documents seized by the NIA is a protest calendar signed by Syed Ali Shah Geelani, who planned to instigate the people in the Valley to taken on the security forces and government establishment.

WHAT IS IN GEELANI'S CALENDAR: THINGS TO KNOW August 4, 2016: Calendar talks about the conspiracy to instigate people against the government and stage protest against the Army and other security forces. August 6, 2016: People were asked to gather at the Lal Chowk in Srinagar and other places and stage protest. August 8, 2016: Geelani appealed his supporters to block all the roads leading to Srinagar, to stop the government officials from joining their duties and build pressure on working people not to attend their offices. August 9, 2016: Geelani asked women to stage protest from dawn to dust and play Islamic and pro-independence songs at various places and mosques. August 10, 2016: Geelani planned to send letters to all the security forces asking them to go away from the Valley. August 11, 2016: Geelani asked all the mainstream politicians and village heads (sarpanch) to resign from their posts and past copies of their resignation letter at public places. August 12, 2016: Geelani asked all the Imams to build public opinion in mosques in favour of independence of Kashmir and paste pro-independence posters on the mosque walls. SAS Geelani signed protest calendar. August 13, 2016: Geealni asked supporters to join the protests bearing black flags. August 14, 2016: Geelani gave a call to celebrate the Pakistan Day with special namaz and to play pro-independence song the whole day. August 15, 2016: Geelani asked his supporters to observe black day in Jammu and Kashmir. He asked his men to stage protest waiving black flags outside government buildings and to hoist the same above their homes, shops and at public squares. August 16, 2016: Geelani gave a call to include women in the protests and play pro-independence songs in mosques.

ALSO READ |

Kashmir: Encounter in Pulwama, 2 militants killed

Terror funding in Kashmir: NIA conducts raids at more than 20 places

ALSO WATCH |

--- ENDS ---
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By Srijani Ganguly/Mail Today: In the early stages of writing In The Name of God (Penguin Random House; Rs 299), author Ravi Subramanian had several worries weighing on his mind. And they all had to do with the setting of the story: the Anantha Padmanabha Swamy Temple in Thiruvananthapuram. The first was to do with the pace. Before the book's plot came into his mind, Subramanian was used to churning out a single book every year, so comfortable was he with his bank-themed thrillers. But then In The Name of God came along, and changed the entire working of his well-oiled storytelling machinery.

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"For me to do research and write about the temple," says the author, "and capture the essence of the temple was difficult. Also, when you write a story about a bank, and feel the pace slackening you know what to do to quicken it up. And with this book, I struggled. I had to work really hard at it to make sure the pace was fast." In a matter of a few pages, therefore, the reader jumps from a murder at the temple, a heist at a mall in Dubai to high-intensity explosions in Mumbai. In the midst of it all is Kabir Khan, additional director of the CBI, who must figure out the connections between these incidents - if there are any. The two other major worries had nothing to do with the imaginary plot but everything to do with the religious context of the novel.

Also Read: This award-winning artist draws inspiration from William Blake

"People take offense to everything these days," says Subramanian, "but they won't find anything wrong with this book in that regard. My conscience is clear." What was disturbing his conscience during the writing process instead, was the plausibility of a curse. "My wife will kill me if I tell you this," the author says, before going on to describe his fear. "But the fact is that God is supposed to be very powerful there (at the temple). Legend goes that anyone who goes against the will of the God suffers ill fate. I was worried if I write a story on the temple, will the same happen to me? There were instances when I had a shoulder ache and I thought I was having a heart attack."

Ultimately, all his fears turned out to be unfounded. And now Subramanian is extremely happy with the outcome. "My books in the past have received extreme reviews. But this one has got only four to five stars online," he reveals.

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Madrid, July 30, 2017 (SPS) - The Grand Canary City Council, headed by the political parties of the Canary Islands and the Socialist Party (PSOE), rejected during its plenary meeting on Friday the decision of Morocco to delimit its maritime borders off the Canary Islands by integrating the waters of Western Sahara, said the head of international solidarity, Carmelo Ramirez.

This decision "seriously affects the Canary Islands by the proximity of Western Sahara, about 100 kilometers, with the consequences it can have on the economy and the stability of the territory of the islands," Ramirez said. He also referred to the probable existence of rare hydrocarbons and minerals such as tellurium in the waters between the Western Sahara and the Canary Islands "which arouses interest in Morocco, He underlines.

The Government of Morocco seriously infringes international law since the territorial waters of Western Sahara do not fall under its sovereignty, as it is considered a non-autonomous territory illegally occupied by Morocco.

In its motion the Council of Grand Canary emphasizes that the Moroccan decision "violates several resolutions such as UN resolution 1514 which recognizes the right of self-determination of the Sahrawi people and several other resolutions of the UN Security Council which recognize the right of self-determination of the Sahrawi people in addition to the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union which has excluded trade agreements between the EU and Morocco which are not applicable to Western Sahara. "These repeated violations of international law," Ramirez said, "demand a response from the UN and the EU, which must force the Moroccan government to abide by the rules."

While rejecting in its motion this Moroccan decision, which includes the territorial waters of Western Sahara, which is not within its sovereignty, the Council of Grand Canary demands the Spanish government to "denounce this situation and force Morocco to comply with international law".

The approved motion also urges the Government of the Canary Islands to "monitor this issue closely" and calls for respect for the rights of the Sahrawi population, in particular its request for a referendum on self-determination. The text adopted by the Grand Canary Council also calls on Morocco to "stop violating the human rights of the Sahrawis living in the occupied territories and stop the plundering of the natural resources of Western Sahara".



At the beginning of July, the Moroccan government approved a bill and a decree to delimit the maritime border off the Canary Islands by integrating the waters of Western Sahara. This decision unilaterally initiated by Morocco has been strongly criticized and denounced by many personalities and Spanish political parties. (SPS)

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STAMFORD  Christa Forrest exhibited her oil and pastel paintings of local New England and Hudson Valley landscapes, including a large oil canvas depicting Cove Island Beach against the backdrop of a sunset.

Forrest, 47, of Stamford, who teaches at Stamfords Pinots Palette  a paint and sip studio at Harbor Point where students can learn to paint while drinking wine quit a career in finance three years ago to go professional as an artist.

I hated my job (in finance), said Forrest. Now when I get up in the morning I do art and I love it.

Forrest said the festival has been an opportunity to find new prospects who signed up for her newsletter.

Its a nice day out today, and Im getting to interact with people, said Forrest. It gets me out of the studio.

A steady stream of aficionados met artists and browsed a pavilion of tents showcasing the handiwork of more than 130 juried artists and craftspeople from up and down the eastern seaboard at the third annual Stamford Arts Festival at Harbor Point. Admission to the festival was free.

The roster of artists came as far north as Nashua, N.H., and south to Florida , including artists from Canada. Sue Brown Gordon, of Gordon Fine Arts Gallery in Stamford who coordinated the festival.

This years attendance was estimated by Brown to be several thousand, with the event running from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. both days, Brown said.

A growth in attendance since last year reflects the shows increasing presence on the radar of the regions art collectors, who are taking note of the opportunity to discover little or lesser known artists producing a high caliber of work, Brown Gordon said.

Under the rules of the festival, artists were also required to be on hand during the weekend to represent themselves and their work.

The reputation of the event is drawing strong patronage and people are waiting to spend on arts because they know they can come here and get something great that is original, Brown Gordon said. Some of the patrons collect these artists work seven or eight times

Artists paid a fee of $365 to occupy a booth for the weekend.

Under one of the tents, Amy Kaplan, of Westport displayed a diverse selection of her work including a 30-by-60 canvas of a shoreline scene of Treasure Beach, Fla., called Family Day which was on sale for $3,400. Kaplan studied Fine Art at Syracus University.

The 49-year-old also creates so-called dreamweaves,  geometric arrangements of slivers of her painting palettes encased in an epoxy resin.

I just loved the way my palettes looked so I started cutting them into strips, Kaplan said.  The land sea and sky are also really important to me and I often see in terms of landscapes when I am looking at things.

Jen Glover Riggs, a preschool teacher at Side by Side Charter School at Norwalk, said her journey as a self-taught artist creating abstract canvases using encaustic and acrylic paints about three years ago.

Riggs said she, hits, the canvas with various tools to create abstract patterns similar to artists like abstract Impressionist Jackson Pollock, one of the artists

While she often starts with a strong idea in mind, she re-evaluates the composition of paintings if they evolve in unexpected ways, Riggs said.

This has been a good show, said Riggs, 40. It is always great to get tips and ideas for how to do things differently.

Hillary Weinroth, 60, and her mother-in-law, Luba Weinroth, of Stamford, said the waterfront outdoor setting of the festival helped make it a pleasure.

There are a lot of very pretty things, Hillary Weinroth said. It is also nice down here.

I like it and you get to see a lot of different things, 85-year-old Luba Weinroth said.
T wo people have been killed and three seriously injured in a shooting in a German nightclub, police have said.

Panicked revellers at a nightclub in the lakeside city of Konstanz ran and hid after a gunman opened fire at about 4.30am.

German news agency DPA identified the venue as nightclub Grey, which lies close to the city's airport.

Several media reports in Germany claimed one of the victims was a club-goer.

Police dashed to the scene, shooting and injuring a 34-year-old suspected shooter.

The gunman was rushed to hospital but later died.

He was identified by police as an Iraqi citizen who had been living in Konstanz for some time.

The man, who has not yet been named, was known to the police.

A police officer was injured in the shoot-out but his injuries are not thought to be life-threatening.

Special commando forces and a police helicopter were deployed in the town, which lies close to the Swiss border, as police worked to establish if the gunman acted alone.

Police said the motive for the shooting is not yet clear.
A south London gangster who hid a gun linked to two murders has been jailed after a three-year man hunt.

Andre Chambers, from Woolwich, was sentenced to a decade behind bars for possession of a firearm and intent to supply Class A drugs.

He had evaded detectives for three years before his capture, finally admitting the charges at Croydon Crown Court on Friday July 28.

In September 2013, officers found a hidden 9mm Glock handgun, eight bullets and hundreds of grams of high-purity cocaine at a property in Southwark that Chambers was living in.

The handgun recovered from the property Chambers was living in / Met Police

Forensic analysis found it was used to murder 24-year-old Errol Davis at a nightclub near London Bridge in 2008. It was also linked to the murder of 25-year-old Larry Safie in East Dulwich in 2009.

It was further found to have been used in two attempted murders in both 2007 and 2009.

Drugs recovered from the home / Met Police

Scotland Yard said Chambers did not commit the killings, but was holding the gun for other gang members.

A man was arrested and charged over the murders of Safie and Davis but was acquitted following a trial. Inquiries continue in both investigations, the Met said.

Chambers admitted to intent to supply Class A drugs (pictured) / Met Police

Chambers was caught in a minicab near Woolwich Ferry in October last year, more than a year-and-a-half after a 20,000 reward was offered for information on his location.

Acting Detective Inspector Martin Thorpe said a "dangerous man" was off the streets following the three-year hunt.

He added: "Chambers did everything he could to evade capture and no doubt got complacent and thought he had got away with the offences committed in 2013.

"I hope his sentence serves as a warning to those intent on concealing weapons and dealing drugs, we will continue to pursue you no matter the length of time."
A teenager has been charged with attempted GBH after police officers were attacked when a protest over the death of Rashan Charles turned violent.

A gang of protesters - many of whom had their faces covered - clashed with riot police as tensions came to a head in Dalston on Friday night.

The group threw bottles and stones and set fire to mattresses as violence broke out in Kingsland Road following a peaceful protest earlier in the day.

It came after Mr Charles, 20, was chased into a shop by officers in Dalston last Saturday.

He was restrained on the floor and later died after apparently swallowing an object and being "taken ill".

The police watchdog, the Independent Police Complaints Commission, has since launched a probe into his death.

Following Fridays unrest, a 17-year-old boy from Islington was charged on Sunday with two counts of attempted GBH against two separate police officers and affray.

He will appear in custody at Stratford Youth Court on Monday, July 31.
By PTI: Ahmedabad, Jul 29 (PTI) Three Union ministers today visited Gujarat to take stock of the situation in the flood- affected areas and assess damage caused by the deluge in the state where 142 people have lost their lives.

Union Agriculture Minister Radha Mohan Singh and Union Minister of State for Agriculture Parshottam Rupala visited Palanpur and Deesa in Banaskantha, one of the worst-affected districts, and were briefed about relief measures being taken, an official release said.

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Union Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways Mansukh Mandaviya also met officials to assess damage caused to the state and national highways and action plan to restore them, it said.

Singh and Rupala were briefed about rescue and relief operations being undertaken in different parts of the state, including Banaskantha and Patan, the release said.

They were told that so far 142 people have lost their lives in flood-related incidents, including the 46 in Banaskantha alone, it said.

Army, Air Force and National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) personnel rescued 12,798 people, of which 825 were airlifted by the IAF, said the release.

As many as 80,000 people were relocated to safer places, including 38,241 in Banaskantha and Patan, it said.

Singh also visited Banaskantha to take stock of relief and rescue works going there, accompanied by Rupala and Gujarat Agriculture Minister Chimanbhai Sapariya, the Union minister informed on his Twitter handle later.

Mandaviya also assessed damages caused to highways. He was told that several state highways and nine national highways have been damaged, the release said.

Several of these affected roads are still under water which will delay the construction work, it said. The damage is assessed at Rs 10 crore for national highways and Rs 26 crore for state highways.

Mandaviya asked officials to ensure that all highways are immediately restored to a condition so that vehicular movement is not affected, and asked speedy construction of damaged roads, the release added. PTI KA PD RMT TIR

--- ENDS ---
B rexit is causing a crisis in the hiring of bar and restaurant workers, a top hospitality boss has warned.

Leslie Kwarteng, a senior general manager at three of central Londons most popular restaurants, said it is becoming increasingly difficult to hire waiting on and bar staff since the Brexit vote.

The 29-year-old runs the iconic Quaglinos restaurant in the heart of Londons Mayfair, rooftop venue Madison, which has terraces looking out onto St Pauls Cathedral, and swanky eatery and lounge bar 100 Wardour Street in Soho.

Mr Kwarteng, who started out in the hospitality industry as a waiter in his teenage years, told the Standard the UKs vote to leave the EU had made it more challenging for recruiting bar and restaurant workers.

Top hospitality boss Leslie Kwarteng

We are struggling to get staff in to fill the positions like waiters and waitresses and bartenders, he said.

Before, we would have lots of students from France and Italy as staff but that has changed. Its made it more challenging.

He said he believes the key to combatting the problem is ensuring his employees are given the right training and development opportunities to want to stay in their roles.

One thing we can do to combat it is making sure we are developing our teams and actually training them, Mr Kwarteng said.

The bar at 100 Wardour Street

We need to make sure we have very, very strong training programmes and that we are training them to a level where they see it as more of a career opportunity.

Mr Kwarteng started his career with restaurant group D&D in 2007 and believes that Londons hospitality industry can still offer young people the same opportunities that were open to him more than 10 years ago.

He said: It was never really the plan, when I was 16 or 17, I didnt know what I wanted to do.

I realised that I had a genuine passion for the hospitality industry. There is a lot of people within this business who have no passion and at the end of the day you are dealing with people. You have to like people. I deal with about 2,000 guests a week.

London's iconic Mayfair restaurant Quaglino's

You have to impress people. With the demands of this industry, you really need to love it.

I was 23 years old when I was first a restaurant manager. I have never been shy of taking on the big challenges. I think there are good opportunities for young people. London is one of the best cities in the world.

There are good opportunities for young people to progress but they need to be willing to put the effort in. You have to get your head down at the weekends.

Mr Kwarteng, who spent his childhood living between London and Ghana, said customers now have astronomically high standards when visiting restaurants in the capital compared to when he first started out.

He said: Ten years ago, people were happy to top up their own wine glass. Now, we have to try and achieve perfection from the minute they pick up the phone to make the reservation to the minute they walk out the door.

Customers need to be made to feel special. Its changed a lot. Londoners know a lot more about food than they did too.

Mr Kwarteng, who lives in Battersea, said the Night Tube had also made a huge difference to Londons hospitality industry and that he had seen an 80 per cent increase in revenue at Madison.

He said: What we have seen is more people staying later to the area until we close and until the early hours of the morning.

At 100 Wardour Street, we have seen a great uptake in revenue between the hours of 1am and 2.30am definitely.
A warning has been issued over fears intruders are plotting raids on peoples homes under the guise of fire officers checking safety measures in the wake of the Grenfell Tower inferno.

Notes were posted through the doors of residents of a tower block in Camden warning them they would need to make their homes available to a fire safety officer.

But the boroughs council and London Fire Brigade revealed the apparent checks had not been authorised by officials.

The notes - delivered after at least 80 people were killed in the Grenfell Tower fire  have been labelled despicable for targeting vulnerable people in a state of fear following the tragedy.

The suspects are believed to have been trying to prey on tower block residents concerns after it emerged many of the buildings may not meet fire safety standards.

Scam: A picture of the note posted through the doors of Camden residents

The note said: Dear Resident, as a precaution against fire, a fire officer has requested for access to all rooms and flats on Saturday 22nd July 2017.

Your cooperation in this matter would be greatly appreciated.

Moyra Samuels, one of the co-founders of Justice 4 Grenfell  a group representing survivors of the horrific fire  condemned the scam

She said: It is absolutely despicable to use an atrocity like Grenfell Tower to prey on vulnerable people when people are so scared.

Cladding: Since Grenfell Tower there have been cocerns over the safety of the buildings / Jeremy Selwyn

She added that she would be alerting people in other boroughs about possible confidence tricksters.

The local authority said it sent out alerts to housing companies and charities warning of the scam.

We alerted a range of partners to the fact that a suspected scam letter had been sent to a property in NW3, a statement said.

The alert list included colleagues in the police and fire services, as well as the likes of Age UK, and public and private housing providers.

Our Trading Standards service also provided guidance to some organisations, should they wish to issue it, in order to help residents identify whether doorstep callers are genuine.

The doorstep safety advice would be the lock, chain, check message.

Residents evacuated Chalcots Estate tower blocks in Camden after the buildings failed safety tests / EPA

Dial 999 if youre suspicious or the caller wont leave. Call the police non-emergency number 101 if youre not in immediate danger but want to report an incident.

Camden became the first authority in London to evacuate entire buildings after fears were raised about the safety of external cladding.

Camden Council has issued advice to residents around doorstep safety and urged them to ring London Fire Brigade on 0208 555 1200 if they were concerned someone may be posing as a fire officer or fire-fighter.
T he Sunday Times has apologised after a furious backlash against "anti-Semitic" comments contained in an article about women's pay.

In a column titled "Sorry ladies - equal pay has to be earned", Irish journalist Kevin Myers remarked that some of the BBC's best-paid women had Jewish roots.

He wrote: "I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC - Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted - are Jewish. Good for them.

He went on: "Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity."

The article, which appeared in the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, had been removed from the newspaper's website by mid-morning on Sunday.

Twitter users slammed Mr Myers's column as anti-Semitic.

"This is utterly disgusting," wrote one.

"Kevin Myers (writer) must be sacked. Any editors who let this get through must be investigated and asked how this was published. Disgrace," wrote another.

"Shame on @thesundaytimes for this vile anti Semitic rant," wrote another.

Mr Myers also commented in the controversial article that men were "possibly" more charismatic, hard-working and driven than their female counterparts.

He wrote: "Only one woman is among the top 10 best-paid BBC presenters. Now, why is this?

"Is it because men are more charismatic performers? Because they work harder? Because they are more driven? Possibly a bit of each."

The newspaper apologised for the article on Sunday morning.

The Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens said: "The comments in a column by Kevin Myers in today's Irish edition of The Sunday Times were unacceptable and should not have been published.

"It has been taken down and we sincerely apologise both for the remarks and the error of judgement that led to publication."

Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of The Sunday Times Ireland, said: "On behalf of The Sunday Times I apologise unreservedly for the offence caused by comments in a column written by Kevin Myers and published today in the Ireland edition of The Sunday Times.

"It contained views that have caused considerable distress and upset to a number of people. As the editor of the Ireland edition I take full responsibility for this error of judgment.

"This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people."

Kevin Myers, who has written for the Belfast Telegraph and Irish Times among others, has previously come under fire for an article entitled "Africa is giving nothing to anyone  apart from AIDS", as well as comments that there "was no Holocaust".

The Campaign Against Anti Semitism said it would report the "brazenly anti-Semitic" article to the Independent Press Standards Organisation and asked for confirmation that Mr Myers will not write again for any News UK title.

It said in a statement: It is clear that Kevin Myers should not have been invited to write for the Sunday Times, and his editors should never have allowed the article to be published.

"That they removed the article within hours of publishing it is proof that the decision was irrefutably wrong."

The Standard has approached Mr Myers for comment.
A critically-injured pedestrian flown to hospital by Prince William on his final shift as an air ambulance pilot has died.

The woman, in her 50s, had been reported missing when she was struck by a marked police van in Hethel, about eight miles south west of Norwich.

Officers were responding to a 999 call "relating to concerns for the safety" of the woman, Norfolk Police said.

William's East Anglian Air Ambulance (EAAA) crew was called to the scene at 11.13pm on Thursday and the critical care team treated her at the scene for complex serious head injuries.

Prince William pilots the helicopter during his final shift for the East Anglian Air Ambulance / AFP/Getty Images

The woman was then taken by air ambulance to Addenbrooke's Hospital in Cambridge.

Norfolk Police said the woman died on Saturday and the incident has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission.

The Duke announced in January that he would be ending his career with EAAA and has clocked up more than two years flying medical crews to emergencies.

He joined EAAA as a pilot in March 2015 and, after completing an initial period of job-specific training involving simulator, aircraft and in-flight skills, he began piloting his first operational missions in July 2015.

Throughout his service, William has been based at Cambridge Airport, as part of a team including specialist doctors, critical care paramedics and pilots providing emergency medical services across Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire, Norfolk and Suffolk.

A statement issued by Kensington Palace earlier this year said William and Kate wanted, as they had in previous years, to increase their official duties on behalf of the Queen and their charity work, which would mean more time in London.
T he editor of the Sunday Times has been forced to apologise personally to Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz over an anti-Semitism row.

The newspaper said journalist Kevin Myers would never write again for its Irish edition after it printed a column in which he suggested the two stars were well-paid because they were Jewish.

In a column titled "Sorry ladies - equal pay has to be earned", Mr Myers wrote: "I note that two of the best-paid women presenters in the BBC - Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz, with whose, no doubt, sterling work I am tragically unacquainted - are Jewish. Good for them.

He went on: "Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity."

Vanessa Feltz was also referenced in the widely criticised article

The article, which appeared in the Irish edition of The Sunday Times, had been removed from the newspaper's website by mid-morning on Sunday.

In a statement issued soon afterwards, editor Martin Ivens apologised, admitting that comments made in the column were "unacceptable and should never have been published".

Frank Fitzgibbon, editor of The Sunday Times Ireland, added: "It contained views that have caused considerable distress and upset to a number of people ... This newspaper abhors anti-Semitism and did not intend to cause offence to Jewish people."

But campaigners demanded the newspaper go further.

The Campaign Against Anti Semitism said it would report the "brazenly anti-Semitic" article to the Independent Press Standards Organisation and asked for confirmation that Mr Myers would not write again for any News UK title.

It said in a statement: It is clear that Kevin Myers should not have been invited to write for the Sunday Times, and his editors should never have allowed the article to be published.

"That they removed the article within hours of publishing it is proof that the decision was irrefutably wrong."

In response to the growing row, a spokeswoman for the newspaper said: "Further to our earlier statement we can confirm that Kevin Myers will not write again for The Sunday Times Ireland. A printed apology will appear in next weeks paper.

"The Sunday Times editor Martin Ivens has also apologised personally to Claudia Winkleman and Vanessa Feltz for these unacceptable comments both to Jewish people and to women in the workplace."

The bid to appease furious readers came after a backlash against Mr Myers's article unfolded on Twitter, slamming the column as misogynistic and anti-Semitic.

"This is utterly disgusting," wrote one Twitter user.

"Kevin Myers (writer) must be sacked. Any editors who let this get through must be investigated and asked how this was published. Disgrace," wrote another.

"Shame on @thesundaytimes for this vile anti Semitic rant," wrote another.

Mr Myers also wrote in the controversial article that men were "possibly" more charismatic, hard-working and driven than their female counterparts.

He wrote: "Only one woman is among the top 10 best-paid BBC presenters. Now, why is this?

"Is it because men are more charismatic performers? Because they work harder? Because they are more driven? Possibly a bit of each."

Mr Myers, who has written for the Belfast Telegraph and Irish Times among others, has previously come under fire for an article entitled "Africa is giving nothing to anyone  apart from AIDS", as well as comments that there "was no Holocaust".

The Standard has approached Mr Myers for comment.
T he Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have led official commemorations marking the 100th anniversary since the Battle of Passchendaele began.

Prince William spoke at the Menin Gate monument in Ypres, Belgium, as the daily Last Post was played ahead of Monday's centenary of the start of the bloody First World War British assault.

Prime Minister Theresa May and Philippe and Mathilde, the King and Queen of the Belgians, were also in attendance.

William said Britain and Belgium "stand together" to remember those killed during weeks of heavy fighting in the summer and autumn of 1917.

Britain's Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge makes a speech during the Last Post ceremony / REUTERS

The offensive, which comprised eight battles over three months, saw more than half a million Allied and German casualties.

Watched by some 200 descendants of those who fought, he said: "Today, the Menin Gate records almost 54,000 names of the men who did not return home; the missing with no known grave.

Queen Mathilde of Belgium and King Philippe of Belgium arrive / EPA

"Members of our families; our regiments; our nations; all sacrificed everything for the lives we live today."

He added: "During the First World War Britain and Belgium stood shoulder to shoulder.

Prime Minister Theresa May at the ceremony / EPA

"One hundred years on, we still stand together, gathering as so many do every night, in remembrance of that sacrifice."

Sunday's poignant Last Post was the 30,752nd time it has been played since 1928.

Prince William, Duke of Cambridge and Kate, the Duchess of Cambridge arrive / EPA

The towering Menin Gate in the Belgian town is covered with the names of 54,391 British dead who have no known grave, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

In just over three months of conflict there were more than half a million casualties - 325,000 Allied soldiers and 260,000 to 400,000 Germans - in the Belgian battlefields.

William and Kate are met by an official / REUTERS

It was fought between July 31 and November 10 1917 in battlefields that were summed up in poet Siegfried Sassoon's line "I died in hell, they called it Passchendaele".

Those who fought there included Harry Patch, the "Last Tommy" who died aged 111 in 2009.

Queen Mathilde of Belgium and King Philippe of Belgium / EPA

Kate, dressed in a cream Alexander McQueen dress, stood between William, who wore a blue suit with medals, and a more sombrely dressed Prime Minister Theresa May.

They watched as thousands of paper poppy petals, one for every name on the Menin Gate, fluttered to earth from the roof above the gathered crowd.

Four thousand people were chosen by a ballot to attend events in Ypres on Sunday and the larger event centred on nearby Tyne Cot military cemetery on Monday.
E asyJet has launched an investigation after a man holding a baby was apparently punched by a worker at Nice airport after complaining about a delayed flight.

A spokesman said the airline is "very concerned" after a picture was circulated online of the incident, which occurred as passengers waited for 14 hours for their flight to Luton airport.

Arabella Arkwright, who took the photograph, described the moment a man holding a nine-month-old baby was hit on Saturday.

"The man with the baby... went over and talked to the Frenchman and the Frenchman didn't reply, he just smiled and smirked and then whacked this guy on the left side of his face," she told BBC Radio 5.

She said her 6ft 4in husband pulled the man off the apparent victim and "frogmarched" him away before police were called.

Both men were taken away, but fellow passengers demanded the man with the baby was allowed to board his flight, Ms Arkwright said, adding: "When he arrived on the plane, all the plane clapped him."

An easyJet spokesman said the person in the photograph is believed to work for Nice Airport's special assistance provider Samsic.

A statement said: "EasyJet is very concerned to see this picture and can confirm the person in the photo is not an easyJet member of staff and they do not work for easyJet's ground handling agents in Nice.

"We are urgently taking this up with Nice Airport and their special assistance provider Samsic, who we understand the person photographed works for."

The airline apologised for the delay to flight EZY2122 from Nice to London because of a "technical issue with the aircraft".

The statement released on Sunday said: "Passengers were provided with updates and refreshment vouchers during this time and the flight landed in London Luton last night.

"The safety and wellbeing of our passengers and crew is always easyJet's highest priority.

"EasyJet sincerely apologises for the delay and thanks passengers for their patience."
A British man holding a nine-month-old baby was subjected to "proper whacking" by a member of staff at Nice Airport, according to a shocked witness.

The man was speaking to the airport worker about a 14-hour delay to his easyJet flight to Luton Airport when he was apparently punched in the face.

Arabella Arkwright, 49, who posted a photograph of the incident online, described the incident as completely unprovoked.

Mrs Arkwright was returning from holiday with her husband, Johnnie, 64, their son Harry, 16, and daughter Violet, 13, when the drama unfolded.

She said: "This guy literally smirked, smiled as if, excuse my French, basically 'f*** you,' and then whack. It was a proper whacking.

"My husband pulled him off. You can see my husband's face, he's absolutely appalled. He's the most unconfrontational man in the world."

She said her fellow passengers "couldn't believe it", adding: "They were yelling, 'get the police, how dare you."'

Mrs Arkwright said passengers' frustrations grew during the delay to their flight.

"These were people who had had a lovely family holiday, who will remember this and think, 'oh my God,' - children crying, no nappies, no formulas, nobody allowed out," she said.

"All the easyJet employees at the airport were perfectly nice, very young, perfectly nice, they were non-aggressive.

"It wasn't their fault. The structure does not work. Basically, they were cannon fodder."

EasyJet said the person in the photograph is believed to work for Nice Airport's special assistance provider Samsic.

A spokesman for the airline said: "EasyJet is very concerned to see this picture and can confirm the person in the photo is not an easyJet member of staff and they do not work for easyJet's ground handling agents in Nice.

"We are urgently taking this up with Nice Airport and their special assistance provider Samsic, who we understand the person photographed works for."

The airline apologised for the delay to flight EZY2122 from Nice to London Luton because of a "technical issue with the aircraft".

The statement released on Sunday said: "Passengers were provided with updates and refreshment vouchers during this time and the flight landed in London Luton last night.

"The safety and well-being of our passengers and crew is always easyJet's highest priority.

"EasyJet sincerely apologises for the delay and thanks passengers for their patience."

But Mrs Arkwright has penned an open letter to easyJet boss Dame Carolyn McCall, demanding she write personally to every person on the flight with an explanation.
By PTI: New Delhi, July 30 (PTI) Ahead of the 70th Independence Day, Prime Minister Narendra Modi today invoked the Quit India Movement and exhorted the countrymen to use the same spirit to expel problems of communalism, casteism, corruption, terrorism, poverty and dirt from the country by 2022.

He asked the people to take a pledge to contribute in some way or the other to create a "New India".

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In his monthly radio programme "Mann Ki Baat, Modi referred to the Quit India Movement launched on August 9,1942 by Mahatma Gandhi and the subsequent developments which resulted in the Britishers leaving India and the country getting freedom on August 15,1947.

"Just like five years between 1942 and 1947 became the decisive period, I can see another five-year period from 2017 to 2022 to make a resolve to end the problems of our nation," he said.

He identified these problems as communalism, casteism, corruption, terrorism, poverty and dirt and asked people to work for their removal in the same spirit of "Quit India".

"It is 70 years since we got Independence. Governments came and went, systems emerged and developed. Everyone contributed in own way to end the problems, raise employment, remove poverty and make the country progress. Successes were achieved but the expectations were also raised," the prime minister said.

He said this Independence Day should be celebrated as one of resolve to end the problems in next five years.

"If 125 crore people, remembering August 9, 1942, make a pledge on August 15 to contribute something as an individual, as a citizen, as a family person, as a person from a city or a village, as a member of a government department, there will be crores of pledges," Modi said.

He exhorted the citizens to use all kinds of fora to undertake this task, including through the online mode.

The prime minister also sought ideas from the public which could be incorporated in his Independence Day speech that he will deliver from the ramparts of the historic Red Fort.

Interestingly, he said he has heard about "complaints" that his previous Independence Day addresses were long and that he will try to keep it short this time.

"I will try to finish it in 40-45-50 minutes. I have tried to make a rule for myself. I dont know whether I will be able to do it or not," he added.

He also referred to the upcoming season of festivals like Raksha Bandhan, Janam Ashtami, Ganesh Chaturthi and Diwali and urged the people to use the items made by the poor people of the country as it is relates to their economic empowerment.

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"Our festivals are not only for celebrations. Our festivals are also an instrument of societal improvement. Also, it has direct relation to the economic condition of the poor people," Modi said.

"This is the time when the poor people get an opportunity to make an earning," he said.

Giving the example of Diwali, he said the people should use environment-friendly diyas (small oil lamps) only.

Such things, he said, will give work to the poor people and help in their empowerment. PTI AKK AKK

--- ENDS ---
President Xi Jinping urged the PLA to enhance its combat readiness and forge an elite force that is able to win wars whenever it is needed.

Soldiers of People's Liberation Army (PLA) get ready for the military parade to commemorate its 90th anniversary.

By India Today Web Desk: Inspecting the massive parade at the military base in Zhrurihe in Inner Mongolia as part of celebrations marking the 90th anniversary of People's Liberation Army (PLA), President Jinping today lionized the men for their valiant endeavours.

Clad in camouflage military suit, 64-year-old Xi stood in an open-roof jeep that drove slowly past formations of troops as military music was being played through loudspeaker.

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While moving past the fleet of jets and troops, Xi repeatedly shouted, "Hello comrades!" and "Comrades, you are working hard!" into four microphones fixed atop his motorcade.

And the troops bellowed back, "Serve the people!", "Follow the Party!", "Fight to win!" and "Forge exemplary conduct!".

'JUST BE BATTLE READY'

President Xi Jinping also urged the PLA to enhance its combat readiness and forge an elite force that is able to win wars whenever it is needed.

"History has proved that the PLA is a heroic force that has followed the Party's command, served the country with loyalty, and fought for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation," Xi added.

About 12,000 troops took part in the parade in which 129 aircraft and 571 pieces of equipment were on display.

It is the first time China has marked Army Day, which formally falls on August 1, with a military parade since the Communist revolution in 1949

The parade comes in the backdrop of over a month-long standoff between Indian and Chinese troops at Doklam in the Sikkim section.

China has not fought a war in decades and the government insists it has no hostile intent, but simply needs the ability to properly defend what is now the world's second-largest economy.

However, China has rattled nerves around Asia and globally with its increasingly assertive stance in the East and South China Seas and its military modernisation plan.

With inputs from agencies

Also Read:

Chinese Army strategist warns of Jammu and Kashmir intervention after Doklam

Now, China moves tonnes of military equipment to Tibet. Should India be scared?

Also Watch:

Chinese president Xi Jinping asks Army to be ready for war

--- ENDS ---
By PTI: By K J M Varma

Beijing, Jul 29 (PTI) President Xi Jinping will inspect a military parade at Chinas biggest base at Zhurihe in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region tomorrow as the country gets set to celebrate the 90th anniversary of the worlds largest 2.3 million-strong Peoples Liberation Army.

Xi, 64, who is also head of the military and the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC), will inspect the troops and also deliver an important speech.

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The event will be broadcast live by state-run TV and Radio, official Xinhua news agency reported.

The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927 when the ruling 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 holds the overall command of the PLA.

Earlier, the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported that PLA was planning to hold the biggest drills at the Inner Magnolia base which is also regarded as Chinas biggest military base.

The Xinhua report, however, did not refer to any such plans.

This years August 1 anniversary will be held amid an over a month long standoff with India at Doklam in Sikkim section.

Besides Doklam, China is also concerned by the situation in North Korea and the deployment of Terminal High Altitude Area Defence (THAAD) missile by the US in South Korea much to the opposition of the Beijing.

The biggest military parade in Chinas modern history was held in Beijing on September 3, 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the World War II.

More than 10,000 servicemen and servicewomen marched down Changan Avenue past Tiananmen Square, along with about 500 military vehicles, as nearly 200 PLA aircraft flew overhead. PTI KJV MRJ AKJ MRJ

--- ENDS ---
SCOTTSBLUFF  Mike Johanns has worn many hats.

He was governor of Nebraska, former Secretary of Agriculture, and a U.S. senator.

Johanns has now joined Houston-based tax consultancy firm alliantgroup, as its chairman of agriculture. The firm specializes in the area of government-sponsored credits and incentives, and in his new position, Johanns hopes to play a key role in guiding alliantgroups outreach on the various tax credits and incentives available for the benefit of the agricultural industry.

His main focus now is spreading the word to producers and ag innovators that they may be eligible for the Research and Development tax credit.

The R&D tax credit dates back to the early 80s, Johanns said in a phone interview Wednesday. It was put in place when Congress expressed concerns that we were losing ground to Japanese automakers.

Johanns said that the R&D tax credit used to require renewal by congress every year, where there was usually a bipartisan discussion about where the tax credit was needed. After Johanns left the U.S. Senate in 2015, Congress passed legislation improving and making the R&D tax credit permanent.

Although this has been overlooked substantially in agriculture, the R&D tax credit works for agriculture, Johanns said. In some respects, its nearly hand in glove in terms of how well its designed to cover some of the normal things that happen in the agriculture community.

It could be available to a sugar beet plant, which youd be familiar with in Scottsbluff, or to co-ops, Johanns said. Or it could be available to somebody in the cattle industry that is working with animal genetics, which is very common. Ranchers have been trying to improve the genetics in their cattle herd for a hundred years.

Johanns said that other applications of the R&D tax credit could be breweries, people who work with corn hybrids or people who work with precision fertilizer, planting and pesticide application.

If theyre investing money and time to do that, it really has a broad sweep across agriculture, Johanns said. Unfortunately, most people who are involved in agribusiness, if you ask them about the R&D tax credit; theyd say, Yeah that works for General Motors, but it doesnt work for me. Well, it does, and were trying to tell the story that its available.

Johanns also clarified that it is a tax credit, not a tax deduction.

Its a dollar-for-dollar credit against taxes, he said. And in some cases, typically where the company is less than five years old, once that dollar-for-dollar credit is exhausted on income tax, it can be applied to payroll taxes, so its really got some benefits for small and medium-sized businesses.

Johanns encouraged producers and agribusiness leaders to reach out to him through alliantgroup.com.

It doesnt cost anything to ask and we can get good information in peoples hands immediately, Johanns said. I want them to have this resource on their radar so that I can be that bridge between alliantgroup and agriculture.
Gering firefighter Jay Templar extinguishes hot spots on a porch at a fire in Scottsbluff Saturday evening. The cause of the fire, at 817 W. 24th St., had not yet been determined, according to Scottsbluff fire marshal Anthony Murphy. Scottsbluff Fire Chief Dana Miller said the residents were not home at the time that the blaze started. Arriving firefighters found the front of the home totally engulfed by flames. Carissa Smith, of Firefighter's Ministry said the organization is assisting the residents, who were renting the home, with hotel and food vouchers until they find another home to rent.
A Scottsbluff High School graduate Laura (Slater) Matisse, currently living in Los Angeles, will return to have a book signing at the Prairie Studio on Aug. 5 and showcase her artwork at West Nebraska Arts Centers upcoming art show.

Growing up, Matisse claims she had a premonition that she could become an artist and a writer. Matisse found inspiration and guidance in Scottsbluff High Schools art classes and from numerous teachers. After graduation, she also took numerous classes at WNCC. Growing up in the Scottsbluff community helped her build a foundation for herself and her work.

Now a successful author, artist, musician and architect, Matisse is excited to bring her work back to where she began to grow as an artist.

Its a real honor because living in Nebraska was such a great experience. ... It gives you a good sense of yourself growing up in a small town compared to living in a big city.

The gallery that Matisse will be debuting at WNAC is titled Mystik Earth and has been a work in progress for over a decade. Made up of mostly large oil paintings, sketches, water colors and etches, the gallery is described as unique, profound pieces that helped Matisse tap into another realm.

One of the oldest pieces of the collection was created in 2000. The piece depicted the Statue of Liberty in post apocalyptic world. Matisse said she didnt mean to take a dark twist on the piece, but she believes it was a premonition of 9/11. After 9/11 occurred, Matisse created her piece titled Rain in memoriam.

I encourage young people interest in art to come because they may see new techniques, said Matisse.

While each piece may have been displayed in other galleries, this is the first time the gallery has come together as a whole. It took a lot of effort to bring the entire gallery to Scottsbluff, and Matisse said she could not have done it without her sister and her mother, Bunni Slater.

Slater owned the art and book store, the Cats Meow in Scottsbluff, while Matisse was growing up. Matisse and her sister bought the building later and it is now known as Prairie Studio. From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., Matisse will be signing copies of her books, I was thinking of you: The Passion of Jesus and Eves Memoirs, at Prairie Studio.

Matisse describes her books as personal and uplifting as well as historical fiction.

The Passion of Jesus was written to give Jesus thoughts and perspective while he journeyed to the cross. Eves Memoirs gives a view of the life of Adam and Eve through her diary.

Along with her gallery and book signing, Matisse will be doing a live painting in front of Prairie Studio during Scottsbluffs National Night Out on Broadway. The profits from the live painting will be donated to the International Justice Mission, a charity to which Matisse often donates.

To have three major and profound works to be showcased in a place that was very important to me growing up make me feel very blessed.

A reception will be held at 5-7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 3 at WNAC to debut Matisses gallery. The Mystik Earth gallery can be viewed during WNACs hours from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday and 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Those interested in Matisses art can also view and purchase prints and art at the galleries and her book signing. Her art may also be seen, along with her other family members, at the WNCC Art Gallery Opening each fall.
SCOTTSBLUFF  Kaylee Gannon and John Spehar both describe riding horses as relaxing, though Saturday the two were competing in the Scotts Bluff County Fair horse show.

I feel like horses are therapeutic animals, Gannon said. I get on them and I relax, let everything go.

Spehar agrees and says he just enjoys riding. This is the 10th graders eighth year competing at the horse show.

Gannon, an 11th grader, is in her seventh year.

Both have a close bond with the horses they show.

Though Spehars family has 18 horse, Mayanna, is his favorite.

Mayanna listens to me, he said. If anyone else in the family tries to get him to do anything Mayanna will run away. However,

When I approach him he comes right to me.

He and Mayanna compete in most of the events together.

However, he does switch for a few events.

Gannon has two horses, the one she shows in the majority of the events is Ziggy.

Ziggy is his nickname, his real name is A Fantastic Addiction.

I have only had him since May, but I can say we have a bond, Gannon said. He follows me around and we get along pretty well

Gannon will also be showing a Guinea pig at this years fair.

I go from horses to a Guinea pig, she said with a laugh. Guinea pigs are cute.

Spehar will be showing a pig.

Both thought enjoy their time competing with their horses and their time with them in and out of the show ring.

Sometimes, I have some very long (unwinding) conversations with my horse, Gannon said.
I recently spent a week in Washington D.C. I saw a lot of what I wanted to see, like the Lincoln Monument and the Newseum. I saw a few protesters as expected, but what I didnt see as we took the Metro into the city was a flashing red sign that should have said, Caution, you are entering a war zone!

Make no mistake about it. Under the Capitol dome there is an all-out political war with Republicans and Democrats pitted against each other in a fight to gain or regain power. Is there a clearer example than the futile attempts to repeal and replace Obamacare? The Democrats passed Obamacare without a single Republican vote. Republicans tried to repeal it and failed, without a single Democratic vote. It is also very clear to everyone who is not working under that soundproof dome, that the people dont give a darn who passes this or who repeals that.

What we want is affordable access to quality health care. What we want are the folks we elected to work together to make this happen. What we dont want, and what Congress cant seem to understand, is a bunch of whiny partisan finger-pointing ding-dongs who put their party over the peoples wishes day after day, year after year. Its true what we hear, that Washington is broken, and we know who broke it, the bunkered-in, mentally challenged die-hard partisan leaders we got fooled into voting for.

Thank goodness we do things differently in Nebraska! Or do we? We have the nations only Unicameral, one-house legislature that is full of senators who run without party designation. This goes back to the George Norris days when he correctly believed we should vote person over party. It is a far cry from what we see coming from Gov. Ricketts these days who is spending his way to the best government money can buy with his thousands of dollars in campaign contributions he funnels into Republican candidates coffers.

But now, we see some refreshing news. Sen. Bob Krist, a Republican from Omaha is planning to leave the Republican Party to challenge Ricketts, and he plans on doing this independent from any party affiliation. Krist wants to restore a non-partisan attitude in Lincoln.

In an Omaha World Herald interview, Krist said, Back then, the Legislature was truly a nonpartisan body. But thats not the case today, he said. Its the party highway or no way.

Its divisive, Krist said. Its counter to everything we need to do right now. I believe the emphasis should be on working together.

Krist also said he would aim to restore a separation of power between the executive and legislative branches. The line between the two has blurred during Ricketts time as governor, he said.

Folks, we have a front row seat at our nations partisan wars. We see it every day and no one likes it. And why dont we like it? Because it doesnt work. Washington plays political games and we get caught in the wake of their war, only to be pushed off to the side until the next election, when they abandon Washington to campaign at home, telling us Washington is broken and only they can fix it if we reelect them. This must end.

I dont know Krist, but I would bet my next paycheck he feels much the same. He also probably knows the fastest growing party in the state are the non-partisans, who are increasingly getting fed up with the partisan stalemate of government.

I have never been more proud to be an independent than I am right now. I can look at candidates and issues without peering through shades of red or blue. It is in one way, the Nebraska way. We are independent and unique in the way we govern our state. Its too bad our governor doesnt see it that way.

Ricketts got upset when he lost his attempt to retain the death penalty. So what did he do? He dipped into his pockets filled with Ameritrade and Chicago Cubs money and forked out $300,000 to help fund a statewide ballot drive.

Or this past year when he contributed thousands to state senate candidates in hopes to turn the Unicameral more partisan. Can Ricketts not see what partisanship is doing to our nation? Why would he want to bring that war to Lincoln? Could it be because he too is a partisan zealot who contributes to this great divide?

We should elect folks on where they stand, not on the size of their campaign war chests. They should govern without stacks of political I.O.Us stuffed in their desks. It is with this in mind I salute Krist for doing whatever he can to pull us together, and I wish him luck.

Will I support Krist when he becomes a non-partisan? Not necessarily, because the comfort of being a non-partisan is being able to vote on the person, not the party. But, I will be watching his campaign closely, and listening to his ideas intently, as anyone who openly acts to disrupt the self-serving partisan political battles is already a rung up on my political ladder.

Now, heres an easy one this week. Should the Democrats and Republicans work together, or should they stay entrenched refusing to compromise? Your thoughts? Greg.awtry@starherald.com.
A white University of Kentucky student accused of physically assaulting a Black student worker while repeatedly using racial slurs says she will withdraw from the school. The decision announced Tuesday by a lawyer for 22-year-old Sophia Rosing came after hundreds of students rallied on campus the night before. News outlets report the students called for unity and for the university to quickly address the situation. Officials say Rosing has been charged with assault, public intoxication and disorderly conduct. She pleaded not guilty during an arraignment Monday afternoon. The altercation at Boyd Hall was captured on video and posted to multiple social media platforms.
History teaches us though that the longevity of any regime born out of violent conquest is ultimately short-lived.

The Iranian regime that was born out of a revolution overthrowing the Shah, which was in turn hijacked by the mullahs and turned into a religious oligarchy. The original aim of the revolution was the formation of a secular, pluralistic democracy. That dream still exists in the hearts and minds of the overwhelming majority of the Iranian people and resonates in the various forms of protest in Iran, despite the repressive measures by the regime. Therefore, the call for regime change is primarily the Iranian peoples demand.

Since the early days after the 1979 revolution, the mullahs have relied on the typical tools of oppression to keep their grip on power, including the creation of a paramilitary and judiciary system so vast, it touches nearly every sector of Iranian society. At the same time, the Iranian regime and its apparatus (including the regime lobbies and appeasers) have been quick in attacking any publication or personalities who dare speaking about the Iranian peoples quest for freedom and particularly regime change in Iran. It goes without saying that those more in line with the regime have targeted MEK/PMOI, since MEK/PMOI is the most dedicated and the organized opposition with extensive routes and support at home, that can materialize the regime change. The peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran, PMOI (usually referred to as MEK) has therefore been the subject of dubious propaganda campaigns by the Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS) at home and by the regime lobbies and appeasers abroad. The idea is to say that there is no democratic alternative to this regime. Hence, the only option is to put up with the dictatorship in Iran, otherwise there will be war!

A look at the back ground of the MEK/PMOI, Irans democratic opposition can be helpful in shedding light on the reasons for sometimes unprecedented campaigns against them. The Peoples Mojahedin of Iran (PMOI/MEK) is the oldest, largest, and contrary to the mullahs propaganda, the most popular resistance organization in Iran. The PMOI/MEK was founded in September 1965 by three Iranian engineers, who sought to replace the Shahs repressive monarchy with a democratic government.

The PMOI/MEK enjoys broad popularity in Iran because of its longstanding support for democracy and its modern interpretation of Islam. The MEK/PMOI believe Islam is inherently tolerant and democratic, thus fully compatible with the values of modern-day civilization. This vision is in fact the cure to the growing expansion of Islamic extremism funded and supported by the mullahs in Iran.

The MEK/PMOI participated in a united front against the Pahlavi monarchy, which violently opposed democratic reforms and had one of the worst human rights records in the world. After the Shah fled Iran, the MEK/PMOI worked to establish a democratic government, but Ayatollah Khomeini hijacked the Revolution and instead created an Islamic theocracy.

The MEK/PMOI shifted course and directed its opposition against the Ayatollah, continuing its struggle to restore democracy in Iran. In June 1980, the PMOI/MEK organized a rally in Tehran to protest Khomeinis escalating despotism. More than 200,000 people participated in the demonstration.

With each passing day, the PMOI/MEK gained strength and, in July 1980, Khomeini openly considered the possibility of defeat, stating, Never have I so much feared the Islamic Revolution end in failure. He lashed out at the PMOI/MEK, declaring the resistance organization as the main enemy. Khomeini said, Our enemy is neither the United States, nor the Soviet Union, nor Kurdistan, but sitting right here in Tehran under our nose [the PMOI/MEK].

Revolutionary Guards escalated their attacks on the PMOI/MEK, which continued to promote its pro-democracy campaign. The turning point came on June 20, 1981. The MEK/PMOI organized rallies across Iran to protest Khomeinis oppressive rule. More than a half million Iranians attended the demonstration in Tehran.

On direct fatwa by Khomeini, the Hezbollah blocked off streets and fired weapons into the growing crowds, killing hundreds of Iranians and injuring many more, with thousands arrested. The reign of terror had begun. The following day, Khomeinis henchmen executed hundreds of PMOI/MEK supporters who had been arrested, including young girls.

The bloodbath was unrelenting. In the months and years that followed, more than 120,000 PMOI/MEK members and supporters were killed by Khomeini and the ruling mullahs. In only one occasion in summer of 1988, over 30,000 political prisoners (mainly members and supporters of the MEK/PMOI) were mass murdered in Iran, based on a direct fatwa of the mullahs Supreme Leader, Khomeini. The savagery removed any legitimacy the Islamic Republic may have once had. The regime is now viewed by the people of Iran as fascist, maintaining power through fear and brutality.

Members and supporters of the PMOI/MEK have suffered greatly in their struggle to restore democracy to Iran. Iranians respect the many sacrifices made by the MEK/PMOI and revere its martyrs.

Through the years, the MEK/PMOI has been steadfast in its battle to rid Iran of the mullahs nightmare regime, overcoming severe hardships and setbacks. Contrary to the Iranian lobbys claim, the support by the Iranian people for the PMOI/MEK is also steadfast. The resistance organization has earned their respect and trust and it gives voice to their aspirations for a free and democratic Iran. This can be seen in the latest activities of the supporters of the MEK/PMOI, in Tehran and other major cities across Iran, during the election show and in solidarity with the Free Iran gathering in June and July 2017.

Hundreds of video clips and photos of banners and placards hanging from pathways over highways and auto routes on billboards, or in the shape of graffiti on walls in Tehran and other major cities, are published on various Telegram and YouTube channels, showcasing the vast magnitude of these activities. This is while activists have been prosecuted and some even executed for far less crimes in the past decades. To an extent that the regimes supreme leader had to change plans and give in to a second term for Rouhani as president to end the spreading protest and infightings in fear of a similar 2009 uprising that could sweep his regime, was the result of the MEK/PMOIs presence and their activities.

Activities seen in cities across Iran during the election season, were all following a call made by the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI/MEK), who spread the slogan My vote is regime change across the country. This brought the mullahs to the conclusion that the dangerous consequences of deepening divides amongst the regimes senior elite were paving the path for nationwide uprisings similar to those seen in 2009. As a result, the mullahs ruling elite decided to quickly bring an end to the election farce in the first round and prevent any further opportunities for protests and possible uprisings.

Dr. Rafizadeh, a leading Iranian-American political scientist, president of the International American Council on the Middle East, and best-selling author in an opinion piece in Huffington post publishing 8 video clips of MEK/PMOI activities inside Iran, wrote: The activists of the network of the Iranian opposition movement, the National Council of Resistance of Iran and its group the Mujahedin-e Khalq (MEK/PMOI), inside Iran have been engaged in an extensive campaign nationwide, calling on Iranians to boycott the elections.

Their activities involved hanging huge portraits of the Iranian opposition leader, Maryam Rajavi from overpasses or bridges in major freeways in Tehran and other cities, posting her pictures on walls in different streets and other public locations, such as in the bazaar or outside the paramilitary Bassji headquarters, or placing them on the windshields of cars, and distributing flyers and T-shirts with the MEK/PMOI emblem and calling for government change.

He concludes: Finally, from my perspective, it is critical to point out that Iranian leaders fear the soft power of oppositional groups more than the military and hard power of foreign governments. That is why Iranian leaders and media outlets normally react forcefully and anxiously to activities by the opposition, such as the recent critical move where Senator John McCain (R-AZ), Chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, recently met with Mrs. Maryam Rajavi, the President-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI), in Tirana, Albania. Irans oppositional groups can be a very powerful tool to counterbalance the Islamic Republic.

Some of the MEK/PMOI affiliates activities reflected on the opposition media outlets include:

In Tehran: Haghani cross section, activists of PMOI/MEK put up a poster in a major cross section reading: My Vote Overthrow, Big No of the People of Iran to Election Farce in Clerical Regime. Down With Khamenei, Hail to Rajavi (the leader of Iran opposition).

Iran, Tehran and Azarbaijan, in the run  up to the sham presidential election, activists of MEK/PMOI in the capital Tehran, and Azarbaijan province Notrh in Western Iran put up posters against Iran regimes sham election written: Our vote is for Maryam Rajavi.

Iran, Uremia , in the run  up to the sham presidential election, activists of MEK/PMOI in Uremia Azarbaijan province North- West Iran put up posters against Iran regimes sham election written: Our vote is for Maryam Rajavi.

Iran, Marvdasht, in the run  up to the sham presidential election, activists of MEK/PMOI in Fars province Central Iran put up posters against Iran regimes sham election: No to Rouhani the imposter , No to Raisi the murderer.

Supporters of the Peoples Mojahedin Organization of Iran (PMOI / MEK) have filmed and photographed themselves holding up photographs of Iranian Resistance President-elect Mrs. Maryam Rajavi and slogans in support of the Free Iran rally.

Another hallmark for understanding the extent of activities of MEK/PMOI and its popularity among youth, is the recent expressions of concerns followed by crackdowns on the youth under the pretext of cybercrimes. Recently, Abdolsamad Khoramabadi, regimes deputy public prosecutor said that cyberspace have become extremely worrisome for Tehran. Referring to Telegram, by far the most popular social media platform in Iran with over 20 million users, he said:

More than 30% of these Telegram channels are involved in criminal activities against the countrys security and disrupting the entire nation.

The MEK Telegram channel inside Iran is very active all the regimes opponents are providing the people all their books and written material through this online platform. If you sought to purchase them you have to pay huge amounts of money. If you wanted to publish a book, it would be very demanding, but on the Internet it is quite easy, added the regimes deputy public prosecutor.

The Iranian regime has time and again negotiated with Telegrams managers to block the MEK/PMOI website and associated channels, only to be rejected each time. This has left Tehran facing an impasse.

Either accept the MEK/PMOIs vast network with all its grave consequences or pay the ultimate price of blocking Telegram. The latter, however, will raise even more dissatisfaction that can even trigger a protest.

The 2009 uprisings and massive protests that were viciously put down sent shivers down the mullahs spines and served as a sharp reminder that their hold on power is tenuous at best. Hence, they actively repress a free press, continually arresting and imprisoning journalists, editors, photographers, and now bloggers, who voice, print, transmit or illustrate any hint of dissent.

Dictatorships that stand on fragile ground are always more oppressive. The Iranian regime fits that bill to a T.

In addition to using blunt force on people, the regime invests heavily in the massive propaganda effort it mobilizes through state-controlled media and via its lobbies and paid agents abroad, in order to discourage more support for the MEK/PMOI, which is the main driver for regime change in Iran. The extent of the anti MEK/PMOI propaganda has increased, particularly after the July 1, 2017 gathering in Paris, which had a clear message: Regime change in Iran is within reach. Some 100,000 Iranian diaspora and supporters of MEK/PMOI gave energy to it. A nightmare for the criminal mullahs that cannot be avoided.

This is why it serves the regimes purposes to continually dangle the threat of war over the heads of its people. It also helps the Iran lobbys PR efforts to cast Iran like some poor, defenseless nation under threat by the big bad U.S. and its allies, such as Saudi Arabia or the Iranian resistance movement, the MEK/PMOI.

Trita Parsi, the head of the National Iranian American Council and staunch advocate for the Iranian regime, appeared on Bloomberg to beat the war drum again, as well as attack the Trump administration for not living up to the Iran nuclear deal, even though Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced the renewal of the compliance certification for another 90 days.

But the Trump administration also is asserting that Iranian regimes development of ballistic missiles; support of terrorism and militancy; complicity in atrocities by the government of Syrian dictator, Bashar Assad; cyberattacks on the U.S.; and other actions severely undermine the intent of the nuclear accord.

Based on those actions, Trump is announcing an additional package of sanctions against 16 Iranian entities and individuals found to be supporting Tehrans activities in the region, according to the Washington Times.

The real threat to the Iranian regime though lies not within sanctions, but in the simple acts of defiance that the Iranian people undertake themselves, such as the hanging of banners on Tehran overpasses bearing the image of MEK/PMOI leader Mrs. Maryam Rajavi; an act punishable by death if the perpetrators were caught.

The regime is also threatened by every protest over low wages or unsafe working conditions. In many ways large and small, the process of regime change can happen slowly, methodically, and inexorably.

Mrs. Rajavi, in a recent speech at the annual gathering of the Iranian resistance movement and supporters of MEK/PMOI, opined that the movement did not require outside assistance from governments, such as the U.S., to succeed. It only needed the recognition by governments to be empowered.

The heavy lifting of pushing for regime change must come from within Iran from the Iranian people, said Mrs. Rajavi.

So long as the Iranian regime keeps trying to place a tight lid on the simmering pressure for change by the Iranian people, the harder it will be to prevent the inevitable.
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The Government will not reconsider the Ordinance 4/2017 for the amendment and completion of Law No. 227/2015 on the Tax Code, for which the National Liberal Party (PNL) has demanded the notification of the Constitutional Court of Romania (CCR), on Sunday said the Economy Minister, Mihai Fifor, in western Abrud.

Quizzed in a news conference how he comments the PNL stance toward "the taxation of the part-time labour contracts", Fifor denied an answer, saying that he is not that interested in the doings of the opposition's leaders, of whom he added that "they are very much bored during holiday."

Fifor stressed that the Social Democratic Party (PSD, main at rule) has a governing programme that it is enforced "by the letter", which he sustains "could be seen in the Romanians' pocket."

At journalists' persistency, who have readdressed the question, Mihai Fifor replied: "The answer is no."

PNL has submitted a notification to the Ombudsman to challenge at the CCR the Ordinance 4/2017 regarding the over-taxation of the part-time labour contracts, the Liberals' president, Ludovic Orban announced, adding that the piece of legislation violates five articles of the Constitution. Among others, the Liberals say that through this Ordinance, the right to work is hampered, because a discrimination among the employees and also between the employees and employers, is created.
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When Eric Greitens was seeking the Republican nomination for governor last year, he claimed to support transparency in the funding of political campaigns. He said in one interview, What Ive found is that the most important thing is that theres transparency around the money, continuing, Ive been very proud to tell people, Im stepping forward, and you can see every single one of our donors, because we are proud of our donors and we are proud of the campaign that we are running. 

Since that time, Greitens has turned his back on transparency, accepting millions of dollars from undisclosed donors and now disavowing donor disclosure altogether. With this reversal, he has betrayed the Republican Party and the people of Missouri. His new stance threatens the integrity of our republic.

In every republic, there have been those who would use the powers of their office to purchase political support, granting favors, reprieves and public funds to those who delivered them votes. Such corruption has at times led to enormous waste, stood in the way of justice and undermined the rule of law. Today, in this age of multimillion-dollar campaigns, the threat of such corruption looms large, and transparency around the money is our first line of defense.

Here in the Show-Me State, voters have long supported transparency, overwhelmingly approving ballot measures in 1974, 1994, and 2016 to create and then strengthen Missouris campaign finance disclosure laws. However, some in power oppose such transparency and have sought a return to secrecy. On their watch, political operatives have been allowed to use corporate vehicles like 501(c)4 nonprofits to bypass Missouris transparency laws, accepting and spending political donations without disclosing those donations sources and amounts.

Several of us in the Missouri Senate have fought to restore transparency, proposing common-sense legislation that Missourians widely support. However, those who prefer secrecy have blocked this legislation, and the governor has chosen to take their side, claiming that transparency can expose political donors to ill treatment by those who disapprove of their donations. He now calls supporters of transparency people who support donor intimidation, slandering the millions of Missourians who support transparency but obviously oppose donor intimidation.

Stories of donor intimidation in Missouri are few: I have yet to hear of even one from recent decades. Today, Missouri has strong safeguards against such intimidation. For instance, Missouri statute makes it a felony for employers and membership organizations to discriminate against employees and members on the basis of their political giving. Also, case law allows for anonymous donations to political groups whose supporters can be shown to be at risk of real intimidation.

All the same, Gov. Greitens insists that political donations must not be subject to disclosure  especially donations to groups like the ones that launder secret money for Greitens himself. Some of my colleagues and I have offered a compromise, proposing that small donations to such groups be exempt from disclosure and that only the largest donations to such groups be disclosed  those exceeding $5,000 per person per election cycle. Under this plan, at least those donations that most threaten to corrupt the political process would be disclosed. But Gov. Greitens refused to support even that most basic of measures. In his view, Missourians have no right to know who is bankrolling the careers of their representatives in government.

Instead of working to find a solution that restores Missourians faith in the political process, Gov. Greitens is further undermining that faith, collecting untold riches from secret donors and using those riches to advance his political career. And as he solicits potential donors, he wields in his hand the governors pen and, with it, the coercive power of the state.

Does he withhold government contracts from those who do not donate, granting them instead to those who do? Does he withhold his support from legislation favored by those who do not donate, supporting instead the legislation of those who do?

Such behavior would constitute true intimidation, and intimidation of a sort far more common than that of which our governor so vehemently warns. However, without disclosure, the public cannot monitor for such behavior among Missouri politicians, nor can Missouris voter-enacted contribution limits be effectively enforced. What results is a deluge of big money in politics, an onslaught of corrupt deal-making, and a loss of public trust in Missouri government.

State Sen. Rob Schaaf is a Republican from St. Joseph.
CB says further probe on leakage of HNB customer info View(s):

Sri Lankas Central Bank (CB) said this week that it was further investigating the leakage of confidential customer information by the Hatton National Bank and action is to be taken against those responsible.

The information, in which details of bank accounts of several high-net HNB customers were received by email to other customers, shocked the banking sector urging calls for better safeguards and stringent action against the leakage of confidential customer details.

In a statement on Thursday, HNB said the account details of some priority banking customers have inadvertently been compromised by a promotional mailer sent to the priority banking customers on July 12.

The CB, issuing a statement on Monday, said the matter is further investigated by the banking regulator and HNB.

The Central Bank wishes to inform the general public that a preliminary investigation was conducted by the CB and as per the information available at present, it appears that this incident had occurred inadvertently relating to certain banking information of 4,630 customers. It is also observed that this incident is attributable to internal lapses in managing and using customer information within HNB, it said in a media statement.

The CB said interim supervisory measures have already been initiated to take action against those who are responsible for the incident in terms of legal provisions as well as relevant supervisory standards.

HNB said that it has withdrawn the promotional e-mail (in question) and the Board of Directors and the management has initiated an internal investigation on this issue.

We are directly in touch with the customers and certain safety measures have already been taken to safeguard the interest of the customers. We have also kept the Central Bank informed of the measures taken. HNB allocates highest priority to this issue and regrets any inconvenience caused to its esteemed customers due to this inadvertent information release. The bank will do its utmost to safeguard the interest of the affected customers, it said.
SEC reopens eight pump & dump cases By Duruthu Edirimuni Chandrasekera View(s): View(s):

The Securities and Exchange Commission of Sri Lanka (SEC), has dealt a tough blow against pump and dump operators of the past, reopening eight cases. The regulator, under fire for not doing much during the past three years, is now flexing its muscle, according to the SEC Annual Report for 2016.

Amidst implementing and shoring up the capacity to implement structural changes, governance practices and many other changes, the regulator has completed three probes into market manipulations while 26 cases are in progress, it said.

Among these, eight previously concluded cases during the infamous pump and dump era were re-opened amidst further investigations into three cases which were reopened in 2015 are being conducted. As at end 2016 further investigations into these cases were in progress. Certain cases were awaiting the Attorney Generals (AG) opinion, the SEC report revealed.

We continued to upgrade our investigative skills in order to effectively detect and investigate potential securities law violations. During the year, the new investigation team was able to complete three investigation and four others are at different stages of completion, SEC chairman Tilak Karunaratne has said in his annual statement. Being a signatory to the International Organisation of Securities Commissions (IOSCO) Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding (MMoU), the SEC successfully sought assistance from several jurisdictions to conduct investigations, he said.

The SEC in 2016 revisited a number of recently concluded investigations, and, finding them to have been summarily assessed and prematurely concluded, decided to subject them to further scrutiny, the SEC Director General Vajira Wijegunawardane has said in his statement.

Our Investigations Division in now entrusted with a larger-than-usual caseload, the handling of which, to date, has been laudable, he has added.

Investigations of a criminal nature are often long-drawn and time-consuming, but these investigations are being duly conducted, he has said noting that with enforcement actions in several cases are imminent over the next year. We are well-prepared for the journey ahead and prevail upon regulatees and participants alike for their cooperation in ensuring that the capital market of Sri Lanka is at its safest-year for investors.

The SEC aims to install a technologically advanced system for market surveillance and regulatory reporting to ensure that transactions are carried out in compliance with the rules governing capital market activity, the report alluded noting that such a system would enable the regulator to detect and deter potential market abuse and enhance its ability to pre-empt the occurrence of disruptions in the market as a result of irregular trading activity.

Not only direct participants, but others in the periphery will also be scrutinised by SEC in the future. It is also proposed to cast duties on supplementary service providers including those hitherto unregulated by the SEC. This is to ensure that such persons remain accountable for the scope and quality of work performed in relation to the capital market. The SEC also hopes to extend its regulatory reach to encompass other hitherto-unregulated entities and instruments, the report said.

During the past year the regulator handled 52 complaints, conducted 93 On-site inspections, 2,347 off-site reviews, provided 13 analytical trading reports to law enforcement agencies, sought clarifications / cautioned 36 brokers / traders and 23 investors through market monitoring and compiled 7- surveillance referrals, the report added.
Sri Lanka designs aircraft solutions for the world By Sunimalee Dias View(s): View(s):

Sri Lanka is the proud home to AmSafe Bridport, one of the leading manufacturers and designers of complex aircraft solutions which has expanded continuously since starting in 2001 with an initial investment of Rs. 500 million.

Providing solutions from fueling an aircraft in-flight to fire containment covers that could resolve the issue of laptop bans on airlines in the US, this US owned company by Transdigm is today given autonomy in running its operations from Sri Lanka, AmSafe Bridport Sri Lanka General Manager Chandani Ekanayaka said in an interview with the Business Times.

All major aircraft manufacturers and a number of international airlines are customers of this company including carriers like British Airways, American Airlines, KLM, Air France, Japanese Airlines and All Nippon Airlines, she said. The company is located at the Wathupitiwala Export Processing Zone at Nittambuwa.

Aviation products like cargo pallet nets are manufactured here to hold a pallet including tie-down straps used to transport cargo, it was explained.

These products required European, American and Chinese regulatory bodies approvals that is obtained independent of the parent company to design these to the required international standards, Ms. Ekanayaka said.

This company has been able to provide solutions like fore containments that could help in using a cover that can hold 800 degrees Celsius inside the cover and with the recent ban people come to us for the solution that has gained approval from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) having entered the market after eight years of research, the Sri Lanka GM said.

Five years back they entered the market with the product as a result of which the market is growing, she noted.

Ms. Ekanayake said that while for some products they do have competitors on the other hand they work on giving customized solutions designed by their engineers working closely with the aircraft manufacturers understanding their complicated solutions.

In the case of certain aircraft manufacturers designing a new carrier, AmSafe would provide a new design solution to their varied requirements that would take from three to six years for project completion, the GM noted.

One particular aircraft manufacturer had required a design solution from AmSafe which is a Tier one supplier to them, for refueling an aircraft by another aircraft.

She noted that for this they needed to provide the required capacity to carry a lot of fuel and fire protection solutions between the pilots and the goods with a barrier net. The barrier net was designed in the UK and manufactured in Sri Lanka and that which could hold the moving load affecting crew. These were specifically for military aircraft that the aircraft manufacturer had taken a contract on producing.

They manufacture some of the products to do finishing and then gradually the company expanded taking over design and currently AmSafe is directly dealing with almost all customers.

She explained that in this respect, they have obtained aircraft manufacturers approval and the required regulatory approvals to deliver to airlines and can work independently.

AmSafe is built to design solutions to securely transport cargo and people by air, Ms. Ekanayaka said. The Sri Lanka unit is part of UK-based AmSafe Britport which is turn is owned by Transdigm based in the US.
Sri Lanka to clear Google Loon Project impasse with ITU By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s):

Sri Lankas ambitious Google Loon Pilot Project initiated almost two years ago to determine this innovation as a viable project for the increasing of the countrys Internet penetration is on the verge of clearing the hurdle of spectrum issue through negotiations with the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), official sources said.

Sri Lankan Ambassador/Resident Representative to UN has had several rounds of discussions with ITU authorities in Geneva to finalise the project Loon which was still in the testing phase for providing Internet access to the whole of the country, Information Communication Technology Agency (ICTA) CEO Muhunthan Canagey told the Business Times.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) has directed the Minister of Telecommunications and Digital Infrastructure Harin Fernanado to visit Geneva for further discussions and negotiations with ITU to finalise this pilot project by allocating the required spectrum.

Mr. Canagey noted that the ITU will have to take up the issue of allocating 700MHz spectrum for high altitudes enabling Sri Lanka to test the Loon project as the island is a member country of this union.

In Sri Lanka 700MHz spectrum is used by TV broadcasters, radio broadcasters and mobile operators. Mobile operators especially find the spectrum was important as it will be necessary in the future for high speed Internet.

Sri Lanka, a member country of the ITU, has to abide by the Geneva-based agencys regulations for the allocation of 700MHz spectrum for high altitudes such as used in the Google Loon project as it may interfere with telcos, TV and other signals operating in relatively low altitudes, he said.

Sri Lankas Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC), having sought clarification from the ITU, has already informed that the required spectrum cannot be allocated for the proposed pilot project testing of Google Loon, he revealed.

However, for Government projects, the TRC would have to give free spectrum without going for the auction process. So a project such as Loon should be given the spectrum, without going through the auction process, he claimed.

Sri Lanka announced plans in February 2015 to take a 25 per cent stake of the project which uses balloons to provide high-speed Internet connectivity, in exchange for the spectrum the government will allocate for the project.

On July 28, 2015, an MOU was signed between ICTA, Google Loon and two of its affiliates Lotus Flare Holdings Ltd and Rama Co for the purpose of formalising working relationships and facilitating pilot project implementation.

This project aimed at expanding Internet penetration in Sri Lanka to 50 per cent from 22 per cent over the next two years as Long-Term Evolution (LTE) a standard for high-speed wireless communication for mobile phones and data terminals will now have to be negotiated with the ITU for its spectrum clearance.

In the meantime, Sri Lanka would provide facilities for one million free Internet users by the end of this year through the Free Public WiFi programme, Mr. Canagey disclosed.

500 more free public WiFi Hotspots are to be set up by the end of this year and provide WiFi coverage to all Grama Niladhari divisions and 3,000 more schools countrywide during this period.

Under the Google Loon project, Google has offered their unique network of balloons which have the ability to extend 4G LTE data coverage throughout Sri Lanka in collaboration with local mobile networks.

Mr. Canagey noted that Google gave the Sri Lankan Government these balloons without any charge to conduct a test to confirm if Sri Lanka would provide an adequate environment for Loon and for their new innovations.
State intervenes to settle Dialog licence dispute with SLT By Bandula Sirimanna View(s): View(s):

The Sri Lankan Government has proposed a resolution for settling a dispute between the countrys two telecommunication giants ending long, dragging legal acrimony.

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) has directed Sri Lanka Telecom (SLT) and the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC) to settle the legal dispute regarding the renewal of a proposed integrated transmission network licence to Dialog.

SLT filed a fundamental rights case at the Supreme Court last year against TRC and Dialog Broadband Network with regard to the renewal of Dialogs operator licence.

Under Section 17 (3) (a) of the Sri Lanka Telecommunications Act, No 25 of 1991, the Commission has recommended to the President the renewal of Dialogs licencefor a further period of 1o years with effect from November 10, 2015.

However, the SLT FR petition alleged that its rights had been violated when the TRC recommended the renewal the of operator licence.

The petition had citied TRC, Dialog and the Attorney General as respondents in their fundamental rights petition.

The Supreme Court granted leave to proceed in this case for the alleged violation of the SLTs fundamental rights to equality by TRC and the second respondent Dialog Broadband Network (Pvt) Ltd.

The CCEM has directed the SLT and TRC to settle the Dialogs operator licence dispute amicably, in an out-of-court settlement. This follows a meeting with all sides of the conflict at the CCEM.

Meanwhile Dialog Broad band filed a case at the Colombo High Court recently against SLT for acquiring its confidential information containing the companys planned future services including comprehensive network architecture and service delivery architecture design specifications.

The court has ordered SLT to disclose the source of confidential information of Dialog and show cause as to why the interim injunction restraining SLT from using or disseminating this information contained in the request for proposals, pending the hearing and determination of the action, should not be granted.
Unfair pricing, claims Piramal over furnace oil sold by CPC View(s):

Unfair pricing, claimed Piramal Glass Ceylon PLC this week referring to unchanged furnace oil prices by the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) over the past few years.

In releasing its quarterly results for April-June 2017, the company reiterated earlier concerns that furnace oil prices have remained unchanged despite crude oil pricing crumbling overseas.

There is concern that the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation has not revised the rates of furnace oil for the past four years. Crude oil prices which hit a US$120 a barrel in 2011 is now hovering below $50 in the past four years and as at date is a more than 50 per cent reduction in the prices. However the corresponding furnace oil prices and the need for a reduction based on international prices hasnt been properly addressed. This state of affairs is affecting our competitiveness in the international market. The company has been requesting the government to introduce a pricing formula based on international crude oil price which will be a fair transparent pricing mechanism, the company said in a media release.

Meanwhile, its first quarter 2017-2018 earnings fell marginally with revenue recorded at Rs. 1,403 million and post-tax profit at Rs. 105 million.

Sales during the first three months (April to June) was Rs. 1,403 million, down by 17 per cent from the same period in the earlier financial year.

The company said there was a major decline in the export market as per sales to India due to the changes in the tax structure with the announcement of GST implementation country wide. However ,all other geographical locations  Australia, US and Canada showed positive growth figures during the period under review.

Increase in the operational profit margin was possible due to the reduction of trading sales. With the new facility now well stabilised the domestic market is being supplied mainly with in house manufactured bottles which has replaced the imported bottles. Last year due to capacity constraints a considerable portion of the domestic sale was done through imports, the company media release said.

Even though operating profit rose, post-tax profit fell, affected by the high interest cost resulting from the long term loan of Rs. 3 billion borrowed to fund expansion.
What ..airport in a port? View(s):

It was like watching a recent clip on cable TV where, during a programme titled Funniest moments, a baby is seen laughing uncontrollably, gurgling with glee.

Thats one way to describe Kussi Amma Sera who was in peals of laughter in the kitchen while reading the newspaper. It was so loud that I rushed into the kitchen to find her holding her hips and shouting, Mahattaya, buddu ammo through the fits of laughter.

Mokkak de  mokkak de? I ask. Mey balanna  mey balanna . Apita guwan thotupolawal dekkak balaganna be, dang thava ekak hadanawa. Searching the newspaper, I find an article about a proposal for a second airport in the Colombo district, this time within the perimeter of the Colombo Port.

It appears that the Megapolis and Western Development Ministry has issued a statement to local media that it has 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, the report goes on to say.

And whose hare-brained idea is it? Minister Champika Ranawaka!

He says that if the proposal is implemented within the next 10 years, people can get on a flight from Colombo Fort instead of going to the Bandaranaike International Airport (BIA) at Katunayake.

This proposal is not even worth examining if not for the fact that many hare-brained schemes of politicians often get implemented just like the Mattala International Airport, described as the loneliest airport on the planet.

Many people are on the same page as Kussi Amma Sera, I discovered, talking to others who too find this not only funny, but stupid and coming at a time when the Government has far more pressing needs than another airport.

Airport at the Colombo Port? Its beyond anyones imagination when you consider the kind of land area required for an international airport.

Consider this: The BIA is 438 hectares in extent, while the Mattala Airport is almost double that at 800 hectares. Both have just one runway. In the region, Bombay Airport with two runways has around 800 hectares, while Delhi International Airport with three runways is on 2,023 hectares. Dubai International, the worlds busiest airport, has two runways on 2,900 hectares of land space.

Now the total size of the Colombo Port is 550 hectares land area and 450 hectares (water area), while the under-construction Colombo Port city will have 233 hectares on completion.

The examples listed above show that a large land area is required to build an international airport. To take up Ranawakas proposal, is he inferring that the proposed airport  which would require at least a minimum 400 hectares  be built within Colombo Ports 550 hectares of land space or is he suggesting that Sri Lanka create another (costly in terms of not only money but ecological repercussions) island like the Colombo Port city?

While the suggestion to build a new airport (probably turning the BIA into another lonely airport with not a soul in sight like Mattala) is to help people in the city, the fact is that airports are never located near major cities for the simple reason that it needs a lot of space for landing, take-off and high-decibel sound impacts on residents.

Travelling distances of 30 to 50 km to board a flight is not a problem in todays technology-driven era of transport. In most cities, high-speed trains cover such distances in 10 minutes while expressways cover the distance in the same time. In Kuala Lumpur, you can board a train with your luggage and comfortably get to the airport rather than take the highway.

If Ranawakas concern for his fellow travellers is to reduce their travel time  from Colombo to Katunayake (in the first place why have an expressway?), then the best solution is to create the infrastructure in the city for a pick-up point and an airport transfer by train which should take less than 20 minutes, just like the temporary facilities created for the Commonwealth Heads of State or Government meeting held here a couple of years ago.

Having a high-speed rail service to the airport with a pick-up point in Colombo is a far less costly and more practical solution to reduce travel time than building an airport in the city. Imagine planes landing at the Colombo Port in the midst of towering new and old skyscrapers? Galle Face Green patrons will be swept off their feet while koththu sellers will have to run for cover!

On the other hand, why is the Minister only concerned about Colombos mega-class residents? What about thousands of others who travel distances of more than 100 km to get to the airport, like Sri Lankan migrant workers for instance? What about their rights and needs?

Thank heavens, the proposal was not presented to the Cabinet which ironically this week turned down a couple of proposals which bordered on nonsensical needs or ego trips of ministers, like the one by Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake to create an office of Chief of Staff (COS). The western-styled Chief of Staff (COS) concept was introduced by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe whose COS is Sagala Ratnayake. While President Maithripala Sirisena has a COS division, there is no COS position appointee as yet.

When Karunanayakes proposal was examined by the Cabinet, it was rejected but not before the President asked his ministers as to how many would like a COS. The response  all hands go up! Whether the President was trying to be funny or serious, one would never know.

Another silly comment came from Deputy Minister of Policy Planning and Economic Development Harsha de Silva. He told participants at a Colombo business gathering that he has never paid a bribe to a government or local government agency and faulted the business community for complaining about corruption when they were part of the problem (paying bribes).

The reality is that nothing moves in the city if businesses dont pay bribes and one company that learnt this the hard way is Hayleys. For years, while others got things done with a little something to get a contract, Hayleys stayed clear but wasnt getting the business it needed and deserved (based on merit). One fine day, the Hayleys annual report alludes to this bribe culture and raises alarm bells saying it was losing deals because it refuses to pay. Times have changed at this once, staid and ethically correct establishment which is now moving with the times after powerful and influential businesses took control.

The reality is also that the buck must stop from the top itself  the politician and the public servant. If these people are honest, everyone else would follow suit.

Back to the hare-brained idea of an airport within the Colombo Port, the Government is already struggling financially and politically to resolve the Mattala Airport and Port, two white elephants. Any new airport will become another white elephant (Mattala cost the country US$270 million in loaned cash), with generations called upon to pay through their noses to settle loans.

So, listen to Kussi Amma Sera, she has some good points on extravagant spending. Take a cue from the Perera family of Gypsies fame who, probably taking a lesson from Kussi Amma Sera, came up with a stunning new song titled Kussiya. At least, someone is listening to some good, old advice from the kussiya (kitchen).
Govt uses Joint Opposition theatrics to rush through Legislation By Chandani Kirinde- Lobby Correspondent View(s): View(s):

More and more people view the countrys Legislature with skepticism and that too, with good reason. This is mainly due to the lack of seriousness with which some of those elected to such high office, choose to conduct themselves, over and over again.

This week saw a repeat of some of the disruptive methods that the Joint Opposition (JO) group has now got accustomed to doing on a regular basis, to get their point across. This led to House proceedings winding up abruptly on two days.

But, what followed the sudden ending of sittings on Friday is what is more disturbing, than all the chaos that took place when the House was in session. JO members who remained in the Chamber, after Speaker Karu Jayasuriya adjourned the House, decided to conduct a mock session ridiculing the very institution they are members of. Mocking the Speaker and insulting the traditions on which the countrys Parliamentary democracy has been built upon. Among their rather juvenile actions were ringing the Quorum bell, occupying the Speakers chair, as well as the Chair reserved for the President.

While Opposition MPs have every right to be displeased with the Gazette issued, declaring work in the Petroleum sector an Essential Public Service, and the manner in which trade union workers were manhandled and detained by the Police, their actions to bring into disrepute the very institution of which they are elected members, cannot be excused. While all this can sound like lot of fun and games by such actions, Parliamentarians only pour scorn on themselves and make the public lose faith in them.

On the other hand, all disruptive activities in Parliament this week only deprived Opposition members of an opportunity to debate very important issues. On Wednesday, amidst chaotic scenes in the Chamber, the Govt rushed through seven Finance regulations and one Bill, in record time of less than 10 minutes, while on Friday, the Gazette notification on the Essential Services declaration too, was rushed through in a similar manner.

The end result was a lost opportunity to debate the economic situation in the country and more importantly, discuss the contentious Hambantota Port Agreement which was scheduled for debate on Friday. Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe tabled the Agreement in the House on Tuesday and a full day allocated to debate it on Friday, but it was not meant to be.

While its time for JO MPs, many of them senior Parliamentarians, to introspect, to see if their actions are actually helping the Govt escape scrutiny, the problems for the ruling side may just be starting.

For a Govt thats taking a beating from all fronts, the evidence unravelling before the Commission of Inquiry (CoI) looking into issues of Treasury Bonds couldnt have come at a worse time. And, at the centreof the political storm is former Finance Minister, now Foreign Affairs Minister Ravi Karunanayake who, despite summons to appear before the CoI, sounded defiant in Parliament on Tuesday, when he told Speaker Karu Jayasuirya that his Parliamentary Privileges have been breached by the CoI, which had summoned him to appear before it on a day that the Legislature was in session.

Everybody knows very well that I am a senior Cabinet member in the Govt and Cabinet meetings take place on Tuesdays. Furthermore, they also know it is a Parliament day Minister Karunanayake said. And while the Speaker, in his usual congenial manner said he would look into it, it is hard to see how the Ministers parliamentary privileges could have been breached by the CoIs summons.

Under the Parliament (Powers & Privileges) Act, what constitutes a breach is the willful obstruction of any member coming to or, going from Parliament, but a summons by a CoI to appear before it cant be construed as a willful obstruction.

He also took a dig at the former regime of Mahinda Rajapaksa, saying, those who robbed the country for 11 years are going scot free, and said he would appear before the CoI as soon as his parliamentary duties permit him to do. He is now slated to appear before the CoI next Wednesday.

What many in the Govt must understand is that, two wrongs dont make a right and, however corrupt those in the former regime were, that will in no way absolve this Govt from its wrongdoings.
Inland Revenue Bill: Higher revenue through progressive taxation View(s):

The proposed Inland Revenue Bill would increase government revenue, simplify the tax system, broaden the tax net and make it more equitable. Revenue would be increased by eliminating tax exemptions, reducing tax evasion and tax avoidance and increasing certain tax rates. The new tax regime is a step towards a more progressive tax structure in which direct taxes would become more significant.

Economic rationale

The fundamental economic rationale for this Inland Revenue Act is the vital need to garner adequate revenue for the countrys economic stability and development. There is a pressing need to increase government revenue through taxation for fiscal consolidation, macroeconomic stability and economic development.

Government revenue is inadequate to even meet its committed current expenditures. In certain years, government revenue has been inadequate to even meet debt servicing obligations, and in others, as much as 90 percent or more of revenue has been used for debt servicing alone. Consequently the government has had to borrow to meet its current and capital expenditure. This continuous need for the government to borrow to finance even its current expenditure is an underlying reason for the increasing public debt.

If the country is to resolve many of its fundamental macroeconomic problems, it requires to increase its revenue collection as well as enhance its expenditure on education, health and social and economic development. Reducing the fiscal deficit to 3.5 percent of GDP by 2020 as targeted by the government is imperative.

Inadequate revenue

Sri Lankas tax revenue has been well below what it should be at this stage of development. In fact tax revenue has decreased with increasing per capita income. In 1990, government revenue was 21 percent of GDP. At the turn of the century the tax to GDP ratio had fallen to 16.8 percent of GDP. By 2015 it had fallen further to 13 percent of GDP. In 2016 there was an increase in revenue to 14.3 percent of GDP. That is still much below other middle income countries with Sri Lankas per capita income that collects around 20 percent of GDP as revenue.

Features

Key provisions of the bill are the elimination of tax exemptions, introduction of a capital gains tax and new withholding taxes on income sources. Most corporate taxes have been increased. An important feature of the new law is that income tax exemptions are limited. Numerous tax exemptions have been a significant reason for the fall in government revenues. This move should enhance tax revenue.

Tax rates are streamlined with the present 10 sources of income regrouped under four sources: employment income, business income, investment income and other income. The progressive tax slabs for individuals have been revised. The tax free allowance of Rs.500,000 will remain the same for all citizens and residents. Capital gains tax has been introduced at 10 percent with some exemptions such as for share transactions.

Employment income

The present maximum tax rate of 16 percent on employment income has been removed and employed individuals will fall in line with the standard progressive tax slabs. However, qualifying payment relief on employment income of an individual has been increased from Rs.250,000 to Rs.700,000. Therefore employment income of Rs.100,000 per month is tax free.

Withholding taxes

The tax rate on interest of 2.5 percent on bank deposits for resident individuals has been increased to 5 percent and the exemption of interest income of senior citizens has now been deemed a qualifying payment subject to a ceiling of Rs.1.5 million. Rent, interest on loan and partners share of any partnership income would be liable to withholding tax.

The withholding tax on dividends and interest has been increased from 10 percent to 14 percent. Exemption granted to specific institutions have been removed. Withholding tax on service payments have been introduced at the rate of 5 percent and 14 percent subject to certain conditions. Tax rates have been revised under three tiers structure as, lower rate of 14 percent, standard rate of 28 percent and higher rate of 40 percent.

The 10 percent rate for non-corporate entities such as charitable institutions, employee trust funds, provident or pension funds and termination funds has been increased to 14 percent. The present threshold to Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) of Rs.750 million has been reduced to Rs.500 million.

Impact

Overall the incidence of direct taxes are likely to be heavier except in the case of employment income, where the income tax threshold has been increased to Rs. 100,000 per month or Rs.1 million a year. The enhanced taxation will no doubt attract much criticism. The opposition is likely to make a hue and cry about it to gain popularity. Government revenue is likely to increase owing to the higher rates of taxation, but the extent of the increase would depend on the efficiency of the tax administration.

Criticisms

Tax experts have pointed out that there are weaknesses in the legislations administrative procedures and have suggested that time tested procedures of the Inland Revenue administration be continued. The minister and state minister of finance, and officials have been very amenable to suggestions for the improvement of the bills provisions. The Finance Ministry has been in discussion with tax experts, chambers of commerce and professional bodies and their suggestions are likely to be incorporated. These discussions have already led to some needed changes, while some others are likely to be made.

In any event, this is a bill whose content and provisions would be discussed in parliament and suitable amendments made. It is therefore very likely that there would be some revisions in the new bill. On the other hand, most of the critique of the bill has been based on a lack of knowledge of the bill, ignorance of the broader economic perspectives and political opportunism.

One criticism of the bill has been that it is a carbon copy of the inland revenue legislation in Ghana. This is indeed correct. However what matters is whether the content of the bill is appropriate and adapted to Sri Lankas fiscal needs.

Conclusions

The new legislation should bring revenue collection in line with modern practices. Its objective of increasing tax revenue and reducing regressive indirect taxes is a move in the right direction. The increase in tax rates and elimination of tax exemptions should yield higher revenue. This in turn would assist in decreasing the fiscal deficit.

The success of the new tax law would depend very much on the efficiency, integrity and vigilance of the tax administration.
President wants to take control of economy through national council By Our Political Editor View(s): View(s):

Proposal placed before Cabinet, but deferred till talks are held between Sirisena and Ranil

Hambantota port deal signed yesterday; security matters will be strictly under the SL, says Govt.

Bombshell at bond commission hearings; Ravi vows to fight back, says interested groups want to make him fall guy

The ruling coalition, now in its mid-term rule, faced some of its worst moments this week. One that sent shockwaves countrywide were revelations before the Commission of Inquiry probing the Central Bank bond scam. A witness declared that the rent for the luxury apartment was paid by Arjun Aloysius until it was purchased by a company associated with Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayakes family.

Aloysius firm Perpetual Treasuries is at the centre of the Commissions inquiry where mounting evidence is unfolding about serious irregularities and the plunder of state funds. Petroleum sector trade unions went on strike urging the Government not to go ahead with the Hambantota Port project. State run hospitals came to a standstill as doctors also went on strike.

The Cabinet of Ministers, notwithstanding opposition, on Tuesday approved the controversial Concession Agreement with China Merchants Ports Holdings Company Ltd. The term of the Concession Agreement remains unchanged with 99 years. It is only at the expiry of 70 years that the Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) could purchase shares and transfer of majority (60%) ownership at the end of 80 years. The share composition has been worked out with the formation of two companies  Hambantota International Port Services Co. (Pvt.)  HIPS  Ltd. (SLPA 50.7 % directly and a further 8.7 % indirectly through the second company) and CM Port (the Chinese Company) holding 49.3 percent and Hambantota International Port Group (Pvt.) Ltd. for projects in the Port of Colombo. They cover the South Asia Gateway Terminals (SAGT) and the Colombo International Container Terminals where the SLPA will hold 15 percent as against CM Port 85 percent.

An equally important development this week came as further proof of the mounting tension between the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP) and the United National Party (UNP). President Sirisena now wants to set up a National Economic Council (NEC). Chaired by him, it will be an advisory body on economic policy in the country to further strengthen policy coherence in the present consensus government. According to one government source, this new body will be above the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) which is chaired by Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe.

When President Sirisenas proposal came up before the weekly Cabinet meeting last Tuesday, Premier Wickremesinghe sought to defer the matter. He said he wanted to discuss the subject first with President Sirisena. Hence, no discussion ensued and the source said the matter would be placed on the agenda after Wickremesinghes talks with Sirisena.

The Karunanayake saga

Muthukuda Arachchige Vinodhani (later identified as Anika Wijesuriya), a Director of East West Properties Ltd. testified before the Commission of Inquiry probing the bond scam last Monday. Here are edited excerpts where evidence was led by Additional Solicitor General Yasantha Kodagoda:

Q: Are you a Sri Lankan citizen?

A: Yes.

Q: Have you been educated in any Sri Lankan school?

A: Yes at Colombo International School and Buddhist Ladies College

Q: Where did you carry out your higher studies?

A: I studied in UK and graduated in Business Management studies. Thereafter I returned and joined my father who was involved in business. I was supervising a project in Weligama.

Q: Do you know Arjun Aloysius?

A: Yes

Q: How do you know him?

A: I came to know him through one of my close friends while studying at the Colombo International School during 20112012 period.

Q: Does that friendship remain?

A: No. That ended in 2012.

Q: Do you know the wife of Arjun Aloysius  Ms Natasha Anjali Mahendran?

A: Yes by October 2012 I knew her.

Q: Have you spoken to Arjun Aloysius?

A: Yes

Q: Have you spoken to Ravi Karunanayake?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you know Mr Karunanayakes daughter  Onella?

A: Yes, she too studied at the Colombo International School.

Q: Do you know Karunanaykes wife  Mela ?

A: I came to know her in February 2016.

Q: Do you have a house in the Monarch apartments, Kollupitiya ?

A: Yes at 5 P-H-2

Q: Did you purchase it?

A: Yes I purchased it from Susantha Ratnayake.

Q: Did you renovate it, after purchasing it?

A: Yes I spent one million rupees for renovation.

Q: Did you occupy it?

A: During that period around January 2010 I needed to visit the Weligama project regularly and therefore needed to lease it out. I told my elder brother about it.

Q: What happened thereafter?

A: He informed me that Karunanayake was looking for a house. His wife called me. Later she visited the place.

Q: Whom did she call from there?

A: She told that a friend will be visiting the apartment.

Q: Did he come and who was he?

A: He was Arjun Aloysius.

Q: Did he come on his own

A: Yes

Q: What was your response?

A: I was surprised

Q: What was his requirement?

A: He wanted to rent the place.

Q: Did you speak to him?

A: Yes, I informed him of my final decision.

Q: Does this mean it was a tripartite agreement?

A: Yes.

Q: What happened here?

A: Arjun Aloysius obtained this house on lease from me and gave it to Minister Karunanayake and his family to live there.

Q: For how long was this lease from you?

A: For six months.

Q: At what cost?

A: Rs. 10.2 million.

Q: Who were the lawyers who were party to this agreement?

A: F.J.&G. de Saram and Walt & Row Associates did the Lease Agreement.

Q: Who are the directors of Walt & Row Associates?

A: Geoffrey Joseph Aloysius, Arjun Joseph Aloysius and Suren Muthurajah.

Q: Isnt Geoffrey Joseph Aloysius his father?

A: Yes.

Q: Did Arjun Aloysius contact you after this agreement?

A: Yes he did. He told me there are social media reports that the rent on the apartment that Ravi Karunanayake lived in was being paid by him (Arjun).

Q: Did you also read them?

A: I got the stories that were in the Sinhala language websites translated to English and read them.

Q: Did you contact him again after that?

A: Yes. I asked him about the Lease Agreement.

Q: What did he say then?

A: He said that he had destroyed that Lease Agreement.

Q: Did you ask him why he destroyed the Agreement?

A: No I did not.

Q: Did you tell about this to Mela Karunanayake?

A: I asked her about the media reports .She said they have done no wrong.

Q: When did this happen, how long was this since the lease agreement had been signed?

A: By then the six month lease period had lapsed. There was two months rent left in lieu of the advance money.

Q: What did you do then?

A: I called Mela Karunanayake and asked her to purchase the apartment.

Q: What did she say in response?

A: She said to give some time for them to purchase the apartment.

Q: Justice Prasanna Jayawaradena: At this point did you extend the lease agreement by two more months?

A: Yes

Q: Did you discuss this matter with them?

A: Yes I did discuss it.

Q: Did you tell her how much the apartment would cost?

A: Yes I said I would need Rs 180 million for the apartment.

Q: Did she agree to that amount?

A: No .Finally we reached an agreement to sell it for Rs. 165 million.

Q: How did she find funds for it?

A: She said they would obtain a loan and pay for it.

Q: In whose name was this apartment purchased?

A: Global Star Logistics Private Limited

Q: Justice Prasanna Jayawardena: Who are the directors of this company?

A: Meralise Karunanayake, Onella Karunanayake

Q: When was it purchased?

A: September 6, 2016.

The witness was cross examined by Counsel Kalinga Indatissa who watched the interests of Arjun Aloysius at the Commission.

Q: Did you know Arjun Aloysius when you were studying in an international school in Colombo?

A: Yes he is three years older to me.

Q: Are Arjun Aloysiuss wife, Punchihewa, Jude Sharmantha Jayamaha your contemporaries in the international school?

A: Yes.

Q: Do you know about bond issues?

A: No I dont know.

Q: Do you know that this commission has been set up to inquire into bond issues?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you agree to give your apartment on lease to Arjun Aloysius?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you have faith in Arjun Aloysius at the time?

A: Yes.

Q: Did you know that Ravi Karunanayake was living in this place after it was leased from you?

A: Yes I knew it.

Q: Did you want money at that time?

A: Yes.

Q: Then you must be aware of the difference between lease agreements and sales?

A: No I am not.

Though expected to appear before the Commission on Tuesday, Karunanayake did not. He was reported as telling journalists, after meeting with his party leader Ranil Wickremesinghe, that he had to attend the Cabinet meeting and later Parliament on that day. His attorney Sadun Gamage conveyed this to the Commission. Karunanayake did take part in the ministerial meeting where some of his own proposals were to come up for discussion. One was a request for Visumpaya, former Acland House, to be released for use as the official residence of the Foreign Minister.

President Sirisena declared that the premises was once under him and was later brought under the Ministry of Megapolis and Western Development. They were now converting it into a state guest house, Minister Patali Champika Ranawaka pointed out. Striking a humorous note, Sirisena said going by the previous occupants of that residence, it was not a place that augured well for politicians. Sirisena was also not in favour of a proposal to appoint a Chartered Accountant as the Chief of Staff of the Foreign Ministry. He noted that his recommended salary of Rs 250,000 was even above a Secretary. However, ministers gave approval the previous week to a proposal by Finance and Media Minister Mangala Samaraweera to employ Razeen Sally, Associate Professor of Lee Kwan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore as Economic Advisor to his Ministry for one year on a monthly allowance of Rs 250,000.

On Wednesday, Rienzie Aresacularatne PC, now counsel for Karunanayake, appeared before the Commission and assured that his client would appear on August 2. He was unable to take part on Wednesday since he had to attend a meeting of the National Security Council.

Sources close to Karunanayake said he would lay bare before the Commission more details of the circumstances under which he came to rent the apartment and later purchase it. Karunanayake, however, declined comment. I cannot say anything about my appearance before the Commission of Inquiry or on what I am going to testify. All I can say is that I have done no wrong, he told the Sunday Times. He noted that some interested groups backed by some media were out to make me the fall guy for a long time now.

Whatever Karunanayake says before the Commission to exculpate himself will still do no good to the United National Party (UNP). The issue has come in the backdrop of the bond scam which the UNP leadership went to great lengths to defend and declare there was no wrong doing. The first parliamentary Committee on Public Enterprises (COPE) ended inconclusively due to the dissolution of Parliament. The second Committee was able to carry out what now seems a very limited probe paling into insignificance when compared to the revelations that have unfolded so far before the Commission of Inquiry.

Matters have been made worse by the testimony of B.R. Chinniah who testified before the Commission on Friday. He is Chief Financial Officer of Global Transportation and Logistics Private Ltd., the firm from whom the funds had come for the purchase of the apartment. He testified that Company Chairman Lakshmi Kanthan had come to Sri Lanka on two occasions and placed cash amounting to Rs. 145 million in his safe in the company office. These funds had been used though he was unaware from where it came.

The strike in the petroleum sector

Trade unions in the petroleum sector struck work at midnight Monday to protest against the Hambantota Port project with China. Their actions paralysed the distribution of fuel and saw long winding queues outside city fuel stations. The unions were aware that the subject would come up for discussion at Tuesdays cabinet meeting together with the Concession Agreement, a legal document that is binding on the Government. The strike continued until Wednesday when President Sirisena met representatives of trade unions. By then the petroleum sector had been declared an essential service.

Sirisena told the unions that a strike while an essential service order has been declared was illegal. As for the Unions request not to go ahead with the Hambantota Port project, Sirisena said he would await the outcome of the Parliament debate on the matter. It took place on Friday. Trade union representatives declared that Sirisena would meet them on Tuesday and the Concession Agreement would not be signed until then. However, Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe declared it would be signed on Saturday. It was in fact signed yesterday amidst contradictory remarks by the President and the Premier.

The unions were represented by D.J. Rajakaruna, secretary of the Ceylon Petroleum Common Workers Union. Thereafter, a second meeting was held with President Maithripala Sirisena later on the same day, Wednesday. Six unions took part in the discussions. They were the Petroleum Operators Union, the All Ceylon Petroleum Workers Union, the Executive Officers Union, the Engineers Union, the Sri Lanka Nidhas Sevaka Sangama and the Ceylon Petroleum Common Workers Union.

Trade unions opposed to the Hambantota Port project have now formed a new front. Joining them was the Government Medical Officers Association (GMOA) whose members struck work for a few hours on Tuesday. The GMOAs demand this time was an inquiry into the attempted White Van abduction of a student leader. The move reportedly by the Police received strong condemnation. In a related development, university students are planning for an anti-SAITM protest march starting from Kandy tomorrow and to reach Colombo on August 4.

The Hambantota Port project

On Tuesday, Ports and Shipping Minister Mahinda Samarasinghe sought approval from the ministers for the Concession Agreement (CA) with China Merchants Ports Holdings Company Ltd. (CM Port). Unlike during the previous cabinet meetings where proposals placed by then minister in charge, Development Strategies and International Trade Minister Malik Samarawickrema for a CA drew dissenting memoranda from different ministers, there was none this time. As one minister, who spoke on grounds of anonymity said, the CA had come from Presidents own man. Heaping praise on Minister Samarasinghe were Premier Wickremesinghe, Sarath Amunugama and Mahinda Amaraweera.

Sirisena then suggested a departure from the normal procedure  table the CA before Parliament and obtain approval before signing.

The Ministry of Ports and Shipping released a draft text of the CA together with a news release. Though some of the most salient features were given in the news release, there were also other aspects in the 119 page draft Concession Agreement. A provision declared that Strict prohibitions are included in the Concession Agreement to prevent engagement by the HIPG and the HIPS (the two companies) in any form of military related activities. The sole responsibility and authority for such activity and for National Security of the port of Hambantota is with the GOSL (Government of Sri Lanka).

Unlike in the previous drafts, there is an additional provision which reads that GOSL will have the right and authority to grant permission, clearance and approval to berth naval vessels in the port, on mutually agreed payment terms. In other words, China or for that matter any country accepted by the government could pay a fee and use the port for their militaries. This no doubt places China at a more advantageous position since the port was built by it and it is now the partner in a Public-Private Partnership. Sections of the government believe that all military activity should have been prohibited in the Hambantota Port. This is particularly in view of fears entertained by western powers of Chinas military intentions. Diplomats of at least two important countries have briefed many ministers in the government about these fears and their concerns.

According to Minister Samarasinghes memorandum, the Hambantota Port was constructed with an investment of around Rs 193 billlion

(US$ 1,519,893,773.44) primarily through commercial loans taken by the Government of Sri Lanka from the Exim Bank of China. Further investments of around US$ 600 million are needed to equip the said port and make the port fully operational. The annual loan repayment commitment for the Sri Lanka Ports Authority is around Rs 9.1 Billion. He notes that the restructuring will be done on the basis of a Public Private Partnership (PPP) where the GOSL (in this case the SLPA) becomes the public equity partner and the Investor becomes the private equity partner.

In terms of the CA, there will be an Oversight Committee convened by the Ports Authority and including the Sri Lanka Navy, Police and a representative of the Secretary to the Ministry of Defence to manage security within and outside the port. All personnel involved in security services and related matters by the two companies shall be Sri Lankan Nationals, according to the CA.

A National Economic Council

In what seems a significant political development, President Sirisena has said in a Note to the Cabinet! that he wants to set up a National Economic Council. This is what his note says:

I propose to establish a National Economic Council (NEC) as an advisory body on economic policy in the country in order to further strengthen policy coherence in the present consensus government, harness the existing talent of this country for national development and to meet the need for such a national body under the head of the Government in the Presidential Secretariat.

The NEC will be a professionally-managed, high-level, national advisory institution reporting directly to the President of Sri Lanka. This body will consist of various divisions in charge of key economic areas related to development plans and priorities of the Government. The NEC will make recommendations to the Cabinet of Ministers on economic policy.

The principle roles and responsibilities of the NEC, among other functions, include the following:

1. Advise and guide the Government on matters relating to economic policy, plans, programs and management.

2. Advise the Government on the formulation of economic policies and plans that are appropriate for the economic development in a holistic and fiscally-sustainable framework.

3. Co-ordinate economic policies across different institutions to ensure that they are consistent with the Governments economic plans and priorities.

4. Review and evaluate the institutional structures and quality of economic policy making across the Government ministries and institutions and advice on their appropriateness and changes needed to strengthen policy making across government institutions.

5. Advise on appropriate mechanisms to ensure that economic policy decisions and programs are implemented effectively in a timely manner by the responsible implementation agencies.

6. Compile and where appropriate make publicly available information on economic policies of the country.

The NEC functions as the Secretariat of the President responsible for economic policy formulation, co-ordination and monitoring of the implementation according to the economic and development priorities of the Government. The President may refer any economic matter to the NEC for its review and advice.

The NEC will be headed by the President. The other members of the Council will comprise the following nine members:

The Prime Minister

Minister of Finance

Secretary to the President

Secretary to the Prime Minister

Secretary to the Cabinet

Secretary-General of the NEC

Governor of the Central Bank of Sri Lanka

Secretary to the Treasury and Ministry of Finance

Secretary to the Ministry of National Policy and Economic Affairs

The NEC will be supported by competent and experienced staff under a Secretary-General appointed by the President. The Secretary-General represents the NEC in the Cabinet Committee on Economic Management (CCEM) and other relevant bodies in respect of economic and financial matters. The NEC will have a core group of people with expertise in relevant areas of economic policy.

Other than a representative of the proposed NEC sitting at proceedings of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Matters, there is no formal mention about the modalities that will link the two bodies. However, a source familiar with the proposal said the CCEM will function under the NEC and will be required to follow policy guidelines and other matters it may lay down from time to time.

The CCEM was established on September 23, 2015 through a Cabinet decision. The minutes of its meetings, more often sketchy in content, are later presented to the Cabinet of Ministers for covering approval. The two main movers in the CCEM are Charitha Ratwatte, an Advisor and close associate of the Premier and 80-year-old R. Paskaralingam, a retired state service officer. Most follow-ups as well as other action to be taken are directed to them. The latter served under late President Ranasinghe Premadasa. There has been criticism, particularly among SLFP ministers, that the CCEM has been functioning as a parallel cabinet where they seldom had a say. During recent discussions with President Sirisena, they raised the same issue and complained that it was difficult for them to have the Committee address their needs. Earlier, following criticism, President Sirisena declared that he would sit at an apex meeting every fortnight where discussions and decisions of the CCEM would be reviewed.

This weeks developments, particularly in respect of bribery and corruption, are bound to snowball as more details unfurl before the Commission of Inquiry. This is at a time when President Sirisena has publicly accused his coalition partner the UNP of stalling cases against former President Rajapaksa and members of his family. In that backdrop pressure is mounting on the UNP over new revelations before the Commission.

This comes at a time when relations between the two coalition partners  the SLFP and the UNP  are strained somewhat irrevocably as the move to set up the NEC reveals. Hence more decisive moments could be expected in the coming weeks. Needless to say, the new developments have won the government a bad image and made foreign investors think twice. Adding to the growing public discontent is the latest move  unannounced daily power cuts after a reported breakdown at Kerawalapitiya power installation. One is not wrong in saying the absence of governance or the lack of it is forcing the public to pay a heavy price.
The long and winding forty year quest to reach the elusive presidential door View(s):

Ranil Wickremesinghe was born on 24th March 1949 with the proverbial silver spoon awkwardly stuck between his toothless gums which his father carefully extracted and thus freed the new borns silver tongue for future use on the nations behalf; and which spoon was, thereafter, used by the family to dish out to him all the delicacies life had to offer.

They did a pretty good job of it; and Ranil Wickremesinghe could have supped life to the full, enjoying all the comforts and riches privileged birth afforded. But he didnt. Instead he chose to tramp the murky streets of politics where the spectator sport was to hurl rotten eggs and quashed tomatoes from the sidewalks to all who dared to take that road. Especially to rich upstarts on a public highway, willing to be exposed to the slings and arrows of mass outrage.

Like Siddhartha who renounced his worldly kingdom and wealth to trod the path of his ancestors, the twenty seven Buddhas before him, Ranil forsook a life of sloth and private indulgence; and, though diapered in a continent of great wealth and privilege which would have enabled him to remain cocooned in a world of endless pleasures and live the heady life of the lotus eater, took to the long and winding graveled road, as some of his illustrious forefathers had done before him, to answer the call of his genes and to discharge the inborn duty that beckoned to sacrifice his private idyll and sweat and tear and even become the target of scorn, ridicule and hate, to serve his fellow countrymen as best he could and to proffer them the leadership a civilised race with a recorded history of over 2000 years deserved.

Unlike Siddhartha, however, he did not embark on his chosen road leaving a kingdom behind him but only to gain the political kingdom of Lanka and to hold court thereat as the lord of all he surveyed.

Birth had given him a head start. His mother Nalini was the eldest daughter of Lankas first press baron D. R. Wijewardena who founded the Lake House Group of newspapers and was a key figure in the independence movement. Ranils father was Esmond Wicremesinghe; winner of the prestigious Golden Pen of Freedom awarded by the reputed International Press Institute and was a powerful member of the Working Committee of the United National Party from 1973 to 1985. He has been widely credited as being the brains behind the Brains Trust of the UNP to bring down the Bandaranaike regime from power in 1977.

As the Editor of the Sunday Times Sinha Ratnatunga described in an article written to commemorate the 25th anniversary of Esmond Wickremesinghes death:

In 1976, I found myself with the UNPs apex decision-makers of the time; the Brains Trust; the team that was plotting the return of the UNP to office. It was clearly Mr. Wickremesinghe who ran the meeting. My assignment was to do some research. All I recall JR saying was something profound like; We must convert the un-convinced and convince the converts. A man of few words, he seemed to sum it all up. Needless to say, the UNP won that by-election  Joseph Michael Perera going on to become a Cabinet Minister and Speaker of Parliament later in his political career. In a years time, the UNP was returned to the seat of Government  a landslide victory with a whopping 5/6th majority.

After Dudley Senanayakes death, Esmond Wickremesinghe worked solidly behind the scenes for JR Jayewardene and his plan to return to power and what the new government should do. A free economy had first been mooted in the Daily News in the late 1960s and was to be the model for the 1977 UNP government. Because Mr. Wickremesinghe had such an insight into UNP decision-making, Lake House had earned the reputation; what Lake House says today, the Government does tomorrow.

One of Ranils uncles was J. R. Jayewardene, the rising star at the time of Ranils birth, in the UNP firmament. He himself had patiently borne his time and waited till Dudley Senanayakes demise in 1973 to take over the reins of the UNP.

Thus in that summer of 1977 when Mrs. Bandaranaike finally decided to throw in the towel and give relief to the peoples ache for regime change, both his father Esmond  as the dynamic energy marshaled to create UNP resurrection from its seven year moribund state  and his uncle J. R. Jayewardene as the UNPs prime ministerial candidate were positioned to herald Ranils advent to the political road. It almost seemed as if the planets had been propitiously aligned to pave with gold Ranils pathway to the heady heights of Lankas political Everest.

Even as his birth had given him a head start to gain an honoured seat in J. R.s UNP Camelot, his own perseverance and inherent intelligence had rewarded him with the educational armour necessary to lance down any accusation that he had gained the opportunity to pursue his quest to find Lankas political Holy Grail through nepotism.

Having cut his teen teeth on the Learn or Depart anvil of his Alma Mater Royals motto, he had progressed to be tattooed with the LLB of a law degree from the Colombo University and thereafter had been called to the Bar as an Attorney- at- Law of the Supreme Court. He had earned his credentials on the educational battlements and emerged triumphant as a knight of the homeland before adventuring to take his deserving place at the privileged round table where his uncle JR  who wherever he sat at that round table all hailed him as Arthur  held supreme sway with the five sixth majority the masses endowed him with on election day 1977.

Ranil Wickremesinghe had just won his first election and was now a Member of Parliament. And his uncle JR was prime minister. What more could a young buck, with all the promise of a brilliant future before him, ask his household gods to render unto him?

Merit amassed in previous lives had blessed him with a privileged birth. Perhaps the samsaric practice of service to his fellowmen had subconsciously driven him to repeat the habit. At the age of 28, he was called to pledge his life in the cause of his people. To uplift them from their myriad woes and offer them hope to transcend the perpetual nights of darkness and witness a new dawn breaking with the rise of a new sun.

His uncle J. R. Jayewardene, billed the Twentieth Century Fox by his detractors, was a shrewd judge of character. Recognizing, perhaps, a star born, a new northern star to direct Lankas ship of state in the future, the wise wizard however did not rush to spoil the young political brat by adorning him with high political office.

Instead he chose, in the manner of a self made father of a successful private business concern to put him through the ropes, to make the son first sweep the premises floor clean; and, depending on his willingness to obey  for one must first follow orders before one can issue them to others  and his competence in ridding the place of dust, to expose him to see the world as the Deputy Foreign Minister and then return from his Sinbad Travels with a luggage of experiences to set Lankas world aright. Once he had done his devilling at the foreign office and traversed the world and the seven seas, JR appointed Ranil as the Cabinet Minister of Youth Affairs.

It was clear then that Ranil was being trained, brushed and groomed in the UNP stable to sit on the saddle when Uncle Dickie chose to dismount the rocking horse of political power. But the best laid plans of uncles and nephews can be disposed by unfolding events. And, perhaps the duo both realised it was premature to ride the UNP mare. And thus when Uncle JR ended his second year term and Premadasa rose from the grassroots to bag the UNP presidential nomination which JR endorsed, Ranil dutifully took a back step and remained in the wings, patiently waiting for his cue to be summoned to the stage.

Even when the senior UNP stalwarts Gamini Dissanayake and Lalith Athulathmudalie rose in revolt and broke away from the UNP to form their breakaway group the DUNF and sought thereafter to impeach President Premadasa in 1992, Ranil Wicremesinghe to whom the Gamini  Lalith camp would have been natural terrain and liberal habitat, chose not to stray but to stay put and stay loyal to the tempered way of his then leader Ranasinghe Premadasa.

It confirmed him as a team player, gifted with patience, one who will bide his time to reach his goal post when the moment was opportune and not stab his leader in the way Brutus plunged the knife into Caesars back.

Heavens malice grants ambitions prayers but unlike former President Premadasa who lost his life, unlike former President Chandrika who lost her right eye and nearly her life; and unlike like former President Rajapaksa who lost his throne and sceptre in his quest for a third term and earned instead the peoples opprobrium for reigning over a corrupt regime, Ranil Wickremesinghe, like his uncle Dickie, JR, did not pray at heavens gate for entry but patiently stood in line for his turn to gain entrance, in the belief that everything comes to he who patiently await.

That did not mean he was a nitwit or that he was shorn of ambition. Nay, he also possessed shrewdness in good measure. Perhaps he thought that the exit of the party seniors Gamini and Lalith from the UNP to form their own party, left the field wide open for him to stake his claim to the party leadership once President Premadasa finished his term of office. Even if Premadasa was to be reelected for a second term, Ranil would still be 50 when the Presidential elections had to be held. If that was his thinking, events were to upset his calculations. Fates held otherwise. And offered him the presidency on a platter at the age of 44. But such was the calibre of the man that he was in no hurry to pick the crown that had tumbled down into a wayside gutter down Armour Street in Colombo 13 on that momentous May Day 1993 when President Premadasa was killed in a Tiger bomb blast.

Ranil did pick it up. But ever the stickler to protocol, given to follow procedure to the letter and to place the nations welfare first before his own personal ambitions, and conditioned from birth to do the right thing, he did, indeed, pick it up. But not to place it upon his own head as he could easily have done as the undisputed heir to the UNP throne. Nay, he picked it up only to crown the then Prime Minister D. B. Wijetunge with the presidency, in the manner the constitution dictated and his own conscience commanded.

When he held in the palm of his hand the near absolute power to anoint himself as Lankas new president, what did the man do? Like Siri Sangabo in the Jatakas, he cut his own neck and offered it to D. B. Wijetunge who did not even ask him for it.

In that shining hour, Ranil proved his mettle and demonstrated that the strongest steel is that which had gone through the hottest furnace and emerged strengthened. And that was only for starters.

He was to prove his selflessness a year later  now he was the prime minister for the first time  when the presidential election came around. The then UNP president Wijetunga had announced his intention to retire with grace from politics and Ranil was the chosen one to contest it as the UNP candidate. But when Gamini Dissanayake who had returned to the UNP fold and turned up at his door step and demanded that he be appointed instead, Ranil graciously surrendered in the interest of the partys unity and placed the mantle of the UNP leadership on the fated head of Gamini Dissanayake. And when Gamini fell victim to an LTTE blast in the same manner both President Premadasa and Lalith had, Ranil acquiesced in the partys decision to make Gaminis widow Srima the UNPs presidential candidate.

This decision, of course, may have been prompted by the realization that the mercurial charismatic Chandrika was an unstoppable force and that not even the best of men could compete on equal terms with her winning smile and charm. If Chandrikas ivory was her fortune whenever she flashed her winsome smile with a twinkle in her eye, Ranils strength lay in his patience till the sun rose to dawn on his dwindling political hopes.

In the year 2001 the sun did rise and shed its rays indeed on Ranils political fortunes for the world to glimpse his second coming as Prime Minister, but, alas, only to set three years later when Chandrika opted to dance the kaffringa with the JVP and leave Ranil in the lurch, stranded in the midst of the waltz.

But her own two terms was up in 2005 and when she retired as President and the Rajapaksa orchestra started to play, it was clear  following the universal truism that no woman or man can ever forget their first love  that Ranil and Chandrika were destined to meet again. And their shaking a leg on the political dance floor had not been their last waltz. Their entwined fates to keep their tryst with their political destinies would happen again. But it would take another nine years. And the lady would take the first step to woo the hand of the man she had once spurned and dismissed with scorn and left power lorn.

Enter the monk Sobitha. With his crusade to abolish the presidency. And Chandrika to sate her justified craving to turn the tables on the Rajapaksas for all the humiliations she had suffered under their regime. The mascot came in the form of Maithripala Sirisena. But the entire game plan, the play itself could not be staged without Hamlet. The prince who had long remained in the wings to answer destinys call had to be courted to make the supreme sacrifice. And Ranil Wickremesinghe, having made a realistic assessment of the situation, was ready and willing to forego the opportunity and forfeit his right to become the executive president. And, in an act of humility, agreed to play second fiddle for the nations good and offered the entire UNP voter base to topple the Rajapaksas from their pedestals and to usher in a Maithri era of just governance.

Thus was it that on 9th January 2015, Ranil became Prime Minister for the third time. Even though the UNPs representation in Parliament was dwarfed by the number of seats the UPFA held, the newly elected Sirisena felt duty bound to repose his belief that the man who had just crowned him king had the confidence of the majority of the House to be the new prime minister.

In August, however, when the new general elections were held and the UNP garnered 109 seats  only five short of a commanding majority  Ranil became Prime Minister for the fourth time. Had he wished, he could have with some political horse dealing, gained the balance seats from all sides of the house. But he didnt. Always the gentleman, he extended his continued support to President Maithripala Sirisena and agreed to serve as his prime minister till the inevitable day dawns when their paths must cross and the parting of their ways must be enacted in public.

As Ranils childhood friend and classmate at Royal, Anura Bandaranaike wrote of him in 1999, As I see it the outstanding characteristics of his leadership is the ability he has of taking decisions at the right time. He is in no hurry or impatient for the realization of an objective. What I find is that many have not properly understood the ability he possesses of biding his time to arrive at a correct decision. I think that he decides at the correct time and that is a potent factor in arriving at proper decisions. It must be said that one of the most outstanding characteristics of Ranils leadership is his ability to look at any question before from all angles and in a balanced manner, understand it well and then come to a decision. Ranil does not have the habit unlike many others, of taking a decision on anything impulsively.

Ranil Wickremesinghe was blessed at birth as few men ever are. But thereafter, by his own efforts, he has achieved every goal he had set eyes on.

Except the elusive presidency. Apart from popping out on the political stage intermittently as prime minister like a Jack in the Box at a Punch and Judy show to briefly entertain the audience or like an avatar of Vishnu in Hindu mythology to grant relief to a trouble stricken world, the ultimate crowning glory of the presidency has eluded him.

That was something that lay in the hands of the Gods or etched in the fate line of his right palm. But if he didnt take his pocket pen knife and slash his fortune line in the manner old Sinhala King Vattagamani Abhaya, better known as King Walagambha, did 2000 years ago when, on the run as a fugitive hiding in many a cave, he was told by an astrological monk that he will never be king since his palm did not have the necessary line to rule the land . The king pulled out his knife and cut his palm with the line and then asked the monk, now do I have the line to be king?

And maybe that its to the good of this nation that he has so far not become president. Had he become president in 1993 when the going was good and it was up for grabs and he held it in the palm and power of his hands, he would have finished his tenure by now and be condemned to the knackers yard to graze the grass with Chandrika.

And even as the Prime Minister celebrated cutting his 40th political cake, holding the knife hand in hand with his present political stable mate President Sirisena, at least it must be to the nations relief to know that there are men of such character, such background, such breeding, possessed with such moral rectitude still left in Lanka to give the people leadership and bless them with the hope that from Ranil Wickremesinghe the best is yet to come.

Perhaps the time has come for Ranil to use his knife of many uses not only to cut his birthday cake but to do a Walagambha with it. For he has many miles to go and many promises to keep before he can afford his sleep.
The Octopus-Like Tentacles of High Corruption in Lanka View(s):

For decades since independence, Sri Lankans were wont to look over the Palk Strait and enviously compare the strides that the Indian legal system had been taking in regard to protection of the Rule of Law. True, serious blimps were evidenced on the radar in regard to practical implementation of good judicial decisions. Allegations of corruption were intermittently made against Indian judges themselves. However, despite these negatives and even notwithstanding the alarming undermining of a once vibrant public intellectual culture in recent times, the judicial system and the Constitution of that country still retain the respect of the teeming Indian multitudes.

A powerful lesson for the region

Now we can look equally covetously elsewhere as yet another neighbouring country holds out an example that we may justifiably yearn for. This week Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif resigned from office after the countrys Supreme Court unanimously declared him as not honest and disqualified him from elected office. Sharif was ruled to have been dishonest in not disclosing his earnings from a Dubai-based company in his nomination papers during the 2013 general election.

The 2016 disclosures in the Panama Papers that three of Prime Minister Sharifs children had used shell companies to buy properties in London were pivotal to the case. The former Prime Minister has refuted any allegation of wrong doing but stated that he will respect the Courts decision. Certainly the ruling will potentially wreak more havoc on Pakistans tumultuous political systems. And it is doubtful if a single ruling of this nature will suffice to cleanse the notoriously corrupt political culture in the country. Even so, the stark fact of a Prime Minister forced to a measure of accountability stands as a potent and powerful lesson for other political leaders in this region.

In contrast, what do we have in Sri Lanka? The dismal fate which has now visited the 2015 rainbow coalition as public disillusionment if not fury grows is clear. A core component of that anger is the complete inability of the unity alliance to bring previous corrupt politicians to justice as well as maintain minimum standards of anti- corruption by its own members. Both President Maithripala Sirisena and Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe appear to be engaging in typical party politics at the expense of their campaign promises to bring about a change from the past.

This is certainly not a simple matter

Soon after it came to power, the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe alliance announced that major anti-corruption bodies will be re-structured and current legislation will be amended. Amusingly it was claimed that the biggest challenge crippling anti-corruption investigations is the lack of expertise on the part of local officials, investigators and lawyers. One time corruption crusaders backing the Government declared with a flourish that anti-corruption investigations against the former leadership of the Rajapaksa Government were going just as they ought and that the people would see the results soon. This was, of course, not to be the case.

But the irony was that such sweeping promises were made at the very same time that the United National Party Government was embroiled in the Perpetual Treasuries bond controversy with its top leadership fighting tooth and nail to protect the former Governor of the Central Bank, Arjuna Mahendran whose son-in-law Arjun Aloysius was the owner of Perpetual Treasuries which benefited from the bond deal. Parliamentarians from whom one would have expected better standards of reticence such as Eran Wickremeratne and Harsha de Silva protested before the national media that if at all, what was in issue was a simple conflict not financial irregularities.

Now, as this scam disentangles itself into its several scandalous components before the Presidential Commission of Inquiry into the Perpetual Treasuries bond deal, we can see that this is not a simple matter after all. Rather, it is octopus-like with its tentacles extending into the highest reaches of the Government.

The appearance of impropriety

Recent testimony before the Commission has put on record that a massive sum of Rs.145 million, used for an initial payment and thereafter for a monthly loan installment to purchase a luxury penthouse for a company owned by family members of the current Minister of Foreign Affairs Ravi Karunanayake, had no source of origin nor was it accounted for. Previous testimony was to the effect that the lease of the penthouse occupied by the Minister and his family members had been paid by Arjun Aloysius, son-in-law of Mahendran and owner of Perpetual Treasuries.

No doubt, these allegations will be inquired into further once the Minister himself appears before the Commission as summoned in the coming days. But the appearance of impropriety is too high for many not to be shocked even when the level of shock was thought to have already been transcended.

In sum, a contemplative look back at the past two years shows that the gains of the 2015 peoples rejection of the Rajapaksa brand of non-governance were frittered away as a result of major mistakes made by this Government. Fundamental to this is the apparent thinking, born (it seems) of a deep cynicism at the highest levels of the unity administration, that nothing really needs to change all that much. What is needed is that the appearance of change is maintained and abuses of the law are adequately whitewashed. This reasoning is not singular to the fight against corruption. It is the same thinking which applies to other areas of reform, including transitional justice and constitutional reforms.

A complete betrayal

This is unforgivable. It is a complete betrayal of the trust and the hope placed by hundreds and thousands of courageous Sri Lankans who believed (against all expectations) that the country would take a turn for the better in 2015. As a result of this bitter betrayal, the possibility of another reform movement being accepted in the near future with sincerity and genuineness by ordinary people had dwindled to nothingness. This is the ultimate result of the political charade that was permitted to take place during the last two years.

If there is even a modicum of shame in the current political leadership, it will take serious measures towards reversing mistakes of the past. It will do so, in the minimum, with the understanding that if not, its own fate will be irreversibly sealed.
Bring in the Animal Welfare Bill View(s):

It was only last week we wrote in this space about the culture of torture prevailing in Sri Lanka. Just then, news broke out that there was cruelty to animals taking place as well following the extermination of stray cats and dogs within the premises of the University of Moratuwa.

The incident brought into focus, once again, the rights of animals and the attendant issue  the spread of disease, especially rabies. The World Health Organisation (WHO) and others have an alternative policy in CNVR (Catch-Neuter-Vaccinate-Release) where the need to eliminate stray animals is passe, a thing of the past. What is lacking, however, is the political will by successive Governments to get the necessary legislation into place, and put in place an administrative mechanism throughout the countrys local government councils to tackle these issues. The delay in holding local polls is only adding to the problem.

On the one side, the Government is still finding ways and means to find a solution to the garbage crisis, which is contributing to flies and mosquitoes and street dogs, cats and even elephants in rural areas, eating garbage and dying of polythene poisoning.

On the other, despite this island-nations rich animal friendly cultural heritage, from slaughterhouses to livestock farms, laboratories, zoos, homes, streets and even places of religious worship, animals are used and abused. While many nations without such a socio-cultural heritage recognise animals as sentient beings with a Right to Life by law and judicial determinations  and even Constitutional status, Sri Lanka lags way behind.The Law Commission drafted an Animal Welfare Bill and it was presented to President Mahinda Rajapaksa in 2006. Like the Right to Information (RTI) Law, this Bill too got stuck in the legislative pipeline during his tenure even though for the 2600 Buddha Jayanthi he introduced a No kill policy which had no legal effect.

Vested interests like those in the poultry business argued that poultry was not animal and lobbied politicians. In 2015, the new Government brought forth this Bill under its 100-day programme, but it took another year (2016) to get it approved by the Cabinet. Now yet another year (2017) is half gone and the draft Bill is yet to be presented to Parliament. So much for change from the Rajapaksa Administration.

It is the business lobby that is blocking this proposed law  not so much the issue of rabies control which itself is governed by an archaic Rabies Ordinance of 1893  reflecting an age when animals were considered chattel (moveable possessions). Local councils have been given the authority to catch street chattel and destroy them  by gassing.

Mans Best Friend is used by armies, customs, police and today, stray dogs are referred to as community dogs as they are very much part of the community in many ways. But when a Government wants to beautify a city for an international conference, local councils are ordered to take a different approach to these animals. Sri Lankas dog population estimated at three million in 2008 has reduced to 2.2 million and while a successful CNVR policy is in force, the number of rabies cases has declined. According to the Public Health Veterinary Department, deaths from dog bites came down to 51 in 2008 to 19 in 2014.

Neighbouring India has made vast strides in animal welfare legislation and effective mechanisms to implement laws. Indias Supreme Court last week allowed only irretrievably ill or mortally wounded street dogs to be eliminated but that too in a humane manner ordering all states and territories to comply with the ruling.

No doubt, the Government has many issues on its plate  but a Government is supposed to govern and enacting modern legislation is a prerequisite of governance. Bring in the Animal Welfare Bill incorporating the 1907 Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Law to replace the archaic laws and establish a National Animal Welfare Authority without any further delay.

Enlightened Constitutional-makers can even give these Rights to animals in the new Constitution they are drafting and bring to speed this country with the modern world given its rich heritage on the subject.

The LTTE is not dead  in Europe

A Luxembourg datelined news item ought to have caught the attention of the Government, surely. The item referred to the European Court of Justice (ECJ) de-listing the rump LTTE as a terrorist organisation.

While the 28-nation European Union (EU) was quick to say on Friday that its ban on the LTTE, first imposed following the assassination of the then Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar in 2005 continues to be in force, Europes highest judicial body kept the Palestinian Hamas group as a terrorist organisation, but not the LTTE.

While the quizzical judgment only illustrates the double-standards prevalent in Europe on terrorism, the Sri Lanka Governments almost pathetic efforts at challenging this case filed by the LTTE which retained top Dutch lawyers way back in 2010 (after its crushing military defeat), is inexcusable.

The Rajapaksa Government ignored this case till 2012 when it was too late to intervene as a Third Party. The General Council lifted the ban on the LTTE in 2014, and this Government tried to retrieve lost ground and lobbied the EU member states simultaneously with the GSP + trade concessions  lost by the former Government abandoning its ties with Europe. The EU member-states appealed on behalf of Sri Lanka, but the ECJ this week rejected that appeal. Fortunately, the EU member-states have adopted new reasons to ban the LTTE, which ban needs to be extended every six months.

It is time the Government realised that the LTTE is not quite dead. In Jaffna, Police reports that it was an un-rehabilitated LTTE cadre who shot at a judge last week. Abroad, the Diaspora is still at work retaining lawyers and funding politicians. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) has launched a commercial diplomacy campaign worldwide. But political appointees heading missions in Europe are at sixes and sevens, and career diplomats have been sidelined from the decision-making process by politicians in Colombo. A circular sent out just this week (on Thursday and after the ECJ order) to Sri Lankan missions abroad has no mention of monitoring LTTE activities abroad. Foreign Governments are preaching reconciliation in Sri Lanka while their judges are de-listing the LTTE as a terrorist organisation. The new statement of reasons that keeps the LTTE banned in Europe, if it is to be challenged, should be counter-challenged by Colombo.

Wake up the MFA and the MoD (Ministry of Defence) to these realities.
Cut for a cause By Oshani Alwis Ramani Fernando Salons partners with the Cancer Care Trust in an effort to aid cancer patients View(s): View(s):

We all know how a good hair cut can give you a boost. What if you could get a haircut for a good cause and rather than just letting the strands fall to the ground to be swept up and thrown away, donate it to someone in need? Your lovely locks could be turned into a wig for a woman battling cancer who is undergoing chemotherapy that can cause hair loss.

The Cancer Care Trust, an associate organization of Cancer Care Association has teamed up with Ramani Fernando Salons to aid cancer patients by providing them a wig free of charge. Anyone who has at least 8 inches of hair in length (if layered, the shortest layer should be 8 inches) can walk into any of the 14 Ramani Fernando Salons in Sri Lanka and avail themselves of a free hair cut and blow dry their cut hair would then donated for this cause. They will receive a certificate of appreciation on the day of the donation. The hair has to be clean, free of oil, hairspray, gel, mousse or any other material; all types of hair are accepted including coloured, straightened, permed or even grey.

The official launch of the hair donation campaign on July 20 saw 12 hair donors and volunteers from Cancer Care Trust leading the way by getting their hair cut for the cause. Also present were founder of Cancer Care Trust Dr. Samadhi Rajapaksha, CEO and founder of Ramani Fernando Salons Ramani Fernando, the only human hair wig manufacturer in Sri Lanka Lalith Dharmawardana, along with Dr Wasantha Jayasuriya and Dr. Lanka Dissanayake, wife and the eldest daughter of the Speaker of Parliament, Karu Jayasuriya. Dr. Jayasuriya and Dr. Dissanayake were representing the family, collaborating with the Cancer Care Trust in supporting cancer patients in Sri Lanka in memory of their daughter/ sister Indira Jayasuriya, who passed away from breast cancer.

The first wig of the hair donation campaign was offered to a 13-year-old from Pudalu Oya, Nuwara Eliya who had undergone chemotherapy. She attended the event with her family.

My staff has been very supportive and excited to contribute to the programme. Endless inquiries came in from volunteers who were willing to donate their hair right away, said Ramani Fernando, confident of the success of the campaign.

This hair donation programme is the greatest challenge he had to face in his 40 years in the field as a wig maker, said Lalith Dharmawardana. Under the special requirement of the Cancer Care Trust, I had to complete a wig in 2-3 days, which usually takes 14-15 days. Yet Im proud to be a part of a campaign where a woman would sacrifice her beauty on behalf of another, he says. He makes the wigs for a concessionary price of Rs. 25,000 instead of the normal cost of Rs. 190,000. This event would be an opportunity not only to donate hair but also to help cancer patients by sponsoring a wig.

Dushani Kodithuwakku, 20, who was bold enough to shave off all her waist length hair expressed her satisfaction in giving it away. Im glad that I could donate my hair for cancer patients. Its good to be able to donate something when you are alive rather than when you are dead, said Dushani, wrapping a scarf around her bald head.

The only male donor on the campaign so far, 25-year-old Mahesh Madushanka donated his long hair  more than 18 inches in length.

Women especially undergo psychological traumas over losing hair. The next target of the Cancer Care Trust would be to provide a wig to the patient who is diagnosed with cancer, before starting the chemotherapy treatments. Then she would not have to be worried about losing her hair while undergoing treatment and society would not notice anything strange in her appearance, said Dr. Samadhi Rajapaksha.

Sporting a sophisticated short cut after donating her hair, Nisansala Rajapaksha, trustee of Cancer Care Trust and wife of Dr. Samadhi Rajapaksha, spoke of her conviction in making the decision.

Lord Buddha is the teacher who taught us the happiness of giving and now I truly experience the feeling. This is a step ahead from giving materialistic things where you actually donate one of your body parts.

The hair donation campaign is an ongoing programme. Anyone interested in donating hair, in sponsoring a wig or in need of a wig, can call the HopeLine-0112363211 of the Cancer Care Trust or contact any branch of Ramani Fernando Salons for more information.
CEB, PUCSL wires cross over long term power generation By Sandun Jayawardana View(s): View(s):

Plans to avert an impending power crisis have been thrown in doubt after the Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) this week objected to the countrys Least Cost Long Term Generation Expansion Plan (LCLTGEP) approved by the nations power sector Regulator, the Public Utilities Commission of Sri Lanka (PUCSL).

The war of words between the PUCSL and the CEB comes at a particularly difficult time for the countrys power sector, with at least 300 Mega Watts (MW) of additional power needed for the national grid next year, according to PUCSL estimates. The Regulator has insisted on the speedy implementation of its approved plan, to avoid significant electricity shortfalls.

In the CEBs official response to the PUCSLs approved LCLTGEP 2018-2037, General Manager A.K. Samarasinghe on Tuesday (25) accused the PUCSL of exceeding the powers vested in it, under the Sri Lanka Electricity Act (SLEA), and of violating the Regulators own planning code.

The PUCSL last week approved the plan sans any coal power plants, and with emphasis on Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and renewable energy plants. The CEB, by contrast, had recommended its base case plan which included six coal power plants, to be built in the next 20 years.

The CEBs letter, sent in response to the PUCSL decision, seen by the Sunday Times, objects to the PUCSLs decision, alleging that, what has been approved was not the plan submitted by the CEB.

The CEB insists that, under the SLEA, the PUCSL cannot amend the LCLTGEP, except on the basis of submissions made by generation or distribution licensees. It further points out that, the PUCSLs own Least Cost Generation Expansion Planning Code notes that, what the PUCSLs role was to review the plan for compliance to guidelines provided therein and to request for clarifications and amendments.

With the CEBs insistence it cannot accept the PUCSLs decision on these grounds, the Ministry of Power and Renewable Energy has now stepped in to mediate. Ministry Secretary Dr. B.M.S. Batagoda told the Sunday Times he aims to arrange a meeting between the CEB and the PUCSL officials next week, in an attempt to resolve their issues.

Meanwhile, the CEB Engineers Union has written to Minister of Power and Energy, Ranjith Siyambalapitiya, urging him to intervene and get the CEBs long term generation plan approved. The CEBEU has warned it would have no option but initiate trade union action, if there was no such intervention.
Govt. calls tenders to build second refinery of 100,000 bpd View(s):

Tenders have been called for feasibility studies to build Sri Lankas second oil refinery with a capacity to refine 100,000 barrels per day, Minister of Petroleum Resources Development, Arjuna Ranatunga told the Sunday Times. The present oil refinery refines about 42,000 bpd. The Ministry intends to refurbish the refinery to operate at its full capacity of 50,000 bpd, while also building the second refinery, the Minister elaborated.

Already, firms from Iran, Russia and China have expressed interest, Mr Ranatunga revealed. The project, however, is expected to cost up to US$ 2 billion. We dont have the funds to build a new refinery and hence, we are negotiating with the parties interested in conducting feasibility studies to build the refinery, he added. The firms have proposed they build the refinery and for the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) to purchase crude oil exclusively from them, while sharing profits from the refinery, Minister Ranatunga further said.

If we start now we can finish building the refinery in three years, he said. The location of the new refinery is immaterial, he maintained, but added the Govt was insistent that the CPC have a majority stake in the refinery. Our condition is that majority control must be with the CPC.

Several such proposals were also explored to build an oil refinery in a port while he was the Minister of Ports and Shipping, the Minister revealed. But those companies wanted to export oil to other markets and not to Sri Lanka, so we rejected them.

He pointed out that the successful construction of such a refinery would enable the Govt to keep crude oil prices steady for some years, stating he intends to present the feasibility study selected after the tender process, to the President. We can then start on it very soon, he said.
Hambantota port deal signed; minority stake for SLPA in both new companies View(s):

The Concession Agreement for the controversial Rs. 193 billion Hambantota Port, the legally binding document for what is being promoted as a public-private partnership, was signed yesterday.

The event at the Ports and Shipping Ministry was telecast live over the UNP-controlled state run Independent Television Network (ITN). Ministry Secretary L.P. Jayampathy and Sri Lanka Ports Authority (SLPA) Chairman Parakrama Dissanayake signed on behalf of the Government while Vice Chairman Bai Jingtao signed for China Merchants Port Holdings Company Ltd.

The highlight of the Agreement is the setting up of two separate companies  HIPG (Hambantota International Port Group (Pvt.) Ltd.), which will oversee commercial operations and HIPS (Hambantota International Port Services (Pvt.) Ltd) to oversee Common User Facilities (CUF), including security operations.

In the port operator company HIPG, CMPort (the Chinese company) will have a majority stake (85%) and the SLPA will have a minority stake (15%). The CUF Company  HIPS, the SLPA will have 42% and the HIPG 58% of the stake. Thus, the SLPA is a minority shareholder in both these companies.

After last Tuesdays Cabinet meeting where Minister Samarasinghes memorandum was approved, a news release was issued on Wednesday. Both the Ministers memorandum and the news release create the understanding that the SLPA has the majority stakes in HIPS. It states the SLPA will have 50.7 percent of the shares and CMPort 49.3 percent.

Corporate Analysts, however, pointed out, that the SLPAs 50.7 per cent is made up of 8.7 percent stake in HIPS shares is not direct, but is represented through HIPG in a convoluted share-structure. The Agreement, which is a legally binding document, states that initial equity share capital to be comprised of 42% to be held by the SLPA and 58% to be held by the HIPG operator. The document signed yesterday does not mention SLPAs 8.7 percent stake to be held separately in HIPS. Instead, it says the HIPG would hold 58% stake in HIPS.

Analysts point out to the widely regarded commercial practice, in a corporate set up, that a majority shareholder decides the policies as well as controls the day-to-day decision making. The CMPort has a controlling stake in the HIPG, so all decisions of HIPG would be the decisions of the CMPort. The minority shareholding becomes irrelevant since they can be voted out.

Among the ministers who attended yesterdays ceremony were Malik Samarawickrema, Sarath Amunugama, Mangala Samaraweera and Mahinda Samarasinghe. Chinas envoy Yi Xianliang was also present.

Minister Samarasinghe claimed that further changes in the Agreement could be made even after yesterdays signing. He said the document would now go before the Cabinet for endorsement and would be tabled in Parliament thereafter. Earlier, President Maithripala Sirisena had said that the Concession Agreement would be signed only after Parliament debated the deal.

According to the news release issued by the Ministry of Ports and Shipping, the Hambantota Port which began commercial operations in November 2011 has an accumulated loss of Rs. 46.7 billion and that in from January this year it has handled only 10 ships if the car carriers which were forced to unload at the port instead of the Colombo Port are taken off.

The land area that will be gazetted to be leased out to companies wanting to invest around the Hambantota Port will be 1,115 hectares (and not 1,574 hectares), adds the release. The release also states, The sole responsibility and authority in relation to National Security is with the Government of Sri Lanka).
Intermittent daytime power cuts to continue View(s):

By Sandun Jayawardana

The Ceylon Electricity Board (CEB) will continue to impose intermittent power cuts, an official said yesterday. The power situation was aggravated after yet anohter power plant was shut down on Friday due to technical issues. The 163 Mega Watt (MW) privately owned Sojitz Kelanitissa power plant broke down on Friday adding to the existing breakdowns.

The CEB has been without one 300MW generator at the Lakvijaya coal power plant in Norochcholai for more than a week, while the prevailing drought has also placed severe limits on hydropower generation. Repairs to the 300MW Unit of the Lakvijaya plant were still ongoing and the CEB expects the plant to become operational again towards the end of next week.

At the moment, it is extremely challenging for us to manage during daytime peak hours, CEB spokesman Sulakshana Jayawardena told the Sunday Times. As such, the people will have to face daytime power interruptions when high demand makes it necessary to balance the national grid.

Mr Jayawardena, however, said the CEB would not announce a schedule for the power cuts as such interruptions would vary depending on which areas were experiencing the most demand. Hydropower generation was also at just 36 per cent. It was difficult to generate hydropower during the day as water had to be released for cultivation purposes, he said.

But we can manage the nighttime peak at the moment as some water is released to us during the night for hydropower generation, the spokesman said. However, the unannounced power cuts were causing severe inconvenience to the people, with some of them lasting more than two hours and happening twice a day.

The countrys nighttime peak electricity demand stands at 2,400MW and daytime peak demand between 2,000-2,100MW.

The CEB is encouraging those using self-generation schemes to generate their own electricity while also appealing to the people to conserve power.
Maldives seeks seat in UN Security Council, unseats its own MPs By Our Diplomatic Editor View(s): View(s):

The Maldives has launched a campaign at the United Nations in New York for a two year non-permanent seat in the Security Council but its government deployed troops this week to seize its Parliament  the Majlis  preventing MPs from taking their seats.

Maldivian President Abdulla Yameens military operation was to thwart a vote of no confidence against Majlis Speaker Abdullah Maseeh Mohamed by the increasingly vociferous opposition.

This is the first time in its 51-year post-Independence history that Maldives is seeking a place in the 15 member Security Council, the most powerful UN body. Only 20 percent of the UN membership is made up of Small Island Developing States (SIDS). In the past 25 years, only six such countries have served in the Security Council.

The deployment of troops has been condemned by many countries. British High Commission officials who convened a meeting of the diplomatic community in Colombo this week failed in their efforts to have a joint statement issued expressing concern over the political developments in the archipelago. Thereafter, they condemned the move in the Maldives separately.

Ousted President Mohamed Nasheed who was arrested by the present Government in Male and permitted to go to Britain for medical attention has remained there without returning to serve a jail term. Sri Lankas Foreign Ministry has been silent over recent events in the Maldives. There has been no statement articulating the Governments position. A ministry spokesperson told the Sunday Times it has no view on the closure of the Maldivian Parliament. Yet, the Foreign Ministry issued a statement yesterday, within 24 hours of North Korea firing an Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile. The Government condemned the move.

Meanwhile, Foreign Minister Ravi Karunanayake has called off a planned visit to the Maldives. His lawyers had asked for time from the Commission of Inquiry going into the Central Bank bond issue of 2015 and 2016, saying he was due to visit the Maldives. He is, however, expected to testify before the Commission on Wednesday.
Ocean-going jumbos possibly disoriented View(s):

Wildlife experts have not been able to adequately explain why a few elephants had been sighted in distress in the oceans closer to shore in the east and even in the deep seas. Some suspect they had been disoriented. Elephants are known to be able to negotiate lakes, reservoirs and rivers. Once again, this week, the navy helped to rescue two elephants seen in the waters off Trincomalee.

They had been detected by sailors on a patrol boat about one kilometre from shore near Round Island at about 6:30 am onSunday, July 30. A team of divers and three more fast attack craft were called in to guide the jumbos back to land. The divers secured a rope around the elephants to help drag them to shore.

The Department of Wildlife Conservation Trinco range office was also alerted to the incident. Around 11:40 am, the two elephants reached the shallow waters around Foul Point in Trincomalee. From there, the wildlife team took control and drove the elephants back to a nearby forest patch.

Trincomalee wildlife range officer, K A Srimal, said they were two young elephants and appeared to be in good health. Two weeks ago, the navy helped to pull to shore another elephant which had gone swimming.

On July 11, a lookout aboard a Dvora patrol craft saw an object about 8 nautical miles offshore from Kokkuthuduwai in Kokilai at about 9:00am, Lieutenant Commander MBC Perera later recalled. It turned out to be an elephant in distress. The rescue was complicated and dangerous and it took nearly 12 hours, ending only at late at night.

He recalled heavy rains at the time and rough seas.

Divers called to the scene took major risks trying to wrap a rope around the belly of the beast to help pull it to shore, slowly. Videos show that the creature appeared spent from struggling against strong currents and could not react aggressively to the human presence.

A navy diver did however recalled being struck by the struggling elephants foot and being pushed 10 feet under water as he attempted to cast a rope around the animal. It was about 4:00pmwhen the sailors began to haul the animal, stopping on occasions to allow it to catch up. When they reached the shallows, it was7:30 pm. Wildlife officers came in to help once the creature walked on to shore. The elephant was chased back in into the forest around Pulmuddai.

Wildlife ranger Mr Srimal said elephants had been seen in inland reservoirs such as Gal Oya, Udawalawe, and Maduru Oya.

There are also historical accounts of jumbos swimming on to islands in Trincomalee from the mainland.

Howard Martenstyn remembers seeing a swimming pachyderm back in the 1960s when one swam to Elephant Island from the Trinco dockyard area. Elephant researcher Dr Prithiviraj Fernando suspects that the elephant seen far from shore in the deep seas may have been disoriented and was dragged away by a strong ocean current.

He also remembers that in 2010, an elephant was seen in the seas near Norway Island off Sampur. It has been a translocated animal and had a radio collar. Dr Fernando believes it ended up in the sea in an attempt to find its way back to home. The elephant, named Brigadier was found dead, later, having fallen into an abandoned agro-well.
Petroleum unions hit out at President View(s):

Petroleum sector trade unions yesterday accused President Maithripala Sirisena of reneging on a promise that the signing of the Concession Agreement on the Hambantota Port would take place after Tuesday.

In a letter to the President, the Petroleum Joint Trade Union Alliance (PJTUA), which led this weeks petroleum strike to protest the deal, said the signing of the agreement before a meeting scheduled for August 1 between the President and trade unions breached the trust placed on the President by the unions.

The letter, sent by the Alliances Convener D.J. Rajakaruna, said the trade unions ended their islandwide strike on July 26 after the President promised them another meeting on August 1 at noon along with the three subject Ministers to take a final decision on the issue.

Your Excellency told us during the discussion that our proposal for the Ceylon Petroleum Corporation (CPC) to take over petroleum facilities at the Hambantota Port can still be considered as the Hambantota Port Concession Agreement regarding the hand over of the port to the Chinese firm had been approved by Cabinet subject to amendments, the letter said.

Given that the President had assured them a meeting on August 1, the subsequent statement made by the Prime Minister that the agreement would be signed on Saturday raised suspicions on whether the trust built between the President and the unions had been breached, the letter said.

The trade union alliance said it had briefed the President regarding how petroleum facilities at the port would help to sell oil to vessels coming to the Hambantota port and this would be a major boon to the countrys economy in the future. As such, we noted that to hand over such a national asset was an act of treachery.

The letter said the unions continued to believe that the agreement would contain provisions enabling the introduction of amendments into the agreement to meet their demands.

We hope that the trust placed in Your Excellency by the countrys people and by us will not be broken and that this issue will be resolved during discussions on August 1. However, in the event that this trust is broken, we inform Your Excellency that we will bring together all forces opposed to this act and work together to defeat these efforts, the trade union alliance added.
Roads end for major projects: RDA seeks Rs. 60b more By Damith Wickremasekara View(s): View(s):

The Road Development Authority (RDA) has appealed to the Treasury for additional urgent funds, amounting to Rs 60 billion, for road projects and warned that otherwise construction activities of major projects could come to a halt.

The funding has been requested for land acquisition, for proposed expressway projects, for elevated roads and for payments for work completed by contractors and sub contractors.

RDA Chairman Nihal Suriyaarachchi told the Sunday Times the request had been made from Treasury Secretary R.H.S. Samaratunga as funds were urgently required.

We will require the funds in the next few weeks to continue with the work. Some of the projects may come to a halt if the funds are not received, he said.

However, Dr. Samaratunga told the Sunday Times that only Rs 120 billion had been allocated to the Ministry of Highways for the year and it was expected to manage its budget within the allocation.

He said the Government would require an allocation of about Rs 40 billion for flood and landslide affected areas and funds were found by imposing a 10 percent cut on the allocation for ministries.

He said that in addition, funds would be needed to give compensation to tens of thousands of people affected by the Uma Oya project and by the drought.

It will not be possible to collect funds from ministries to provide for road projects. However, Parliament will have to decide if allocations could be made, he said.

The RDA Chairman said that at present work related to180 kms of expressway projects was underway in addition to the Rajagiriya elevated road, for which the deadline had been brought forward to December this year from December next year.

He said one of the proposals put forward was to allocate money from unutilised funds from various other projects of ministries. The Sunday Times learns that the Government is now paying compensation for land acquired for the Central Expressway project.
Nostalgic journey into colourful railway past View(s):

In time for the 150th anniversary of the day (August 1, 1867) when the first train steamed into Kandy, the National Trust of Sri Lanka has published Ceylon Railway Heritage. This magnificently produced book of 208 (A4 size) pages packed with rare photographs and full of fascinating, if arcane, facts, has been sponsored by the Browns Group. Its credentials as an authoritative volume are enhanced by the knowledge and reputation of its authors, K.A.D. Nandasena and Vinodh Wickremeratne.

Wickremeratne is known for his enthusiasm for the railways of Sri Lanka, the study of which has been his passion and hobby for 50 years. He turned his interest in trains into founding the Model Railway Club in 1983 and setting up the Ceylon Railways Enthusiasts Circle in 2009. In 2012 he started the semi-annual magazine, Lanka Railway Digest. Nandasena, the books co-author, joined the Ceylon Government Railway (CGR) in 1968, retiring 42 years later as the Bridge Engineer. He brings to this book a hands-on experience of the technical aspects of the railways throughout Sri Lanka.

The combined expertise of dedicated rail fan and astute rail man guarantee the authenticity of this book. But what, I wondered, about its readability? No need to worry! This is a book that can easily be enjoyed in a single sitting (perhaps on a train journey) or to dip into for sheer nostalgic pleasure. Its factual and serious but with occasional wry comments, such as the photo caption that reads: The present Rambukkana station unsympathetically painted in recent times.

Moreover, the authors quietly debunk one of the most famous legends of the CGR: the building of the Nine Arches Bridge at Gotuwela between Ella and Demodara.The tale is that there was no steel available for anchoring the bridges support columns to the ground so the British engineers gave up in despair. Folklore claims that a villager, P.K. Appuhami, the contractor for the lines local labour force, took on the job.

In a book I wrote about Sri Lanka Railways in 2014, I repeated the myth :Appuhami gathered all his labourers and villagers who began by manhandling large rocks and toppling them into the ravine until they filled up the bottom. He then followed the engineers designs, supervising the building of stone columns and arches on the rock bed.

Nandasena and Wickremeratne expose that as fiction. They have uncovered the plans and an engineering paper published about the building of the bridge, which was completed in 1919, by Harold Cuthbert Marwood, the Executive Engineer, Railway Construction. They point out that he designed and constructed the bridge intentionally without steel, using a method that was 200 years old.

The foundation of all nine arches of the viaduct rest on firm laterite (kabook) stones. The authors state that this magnificent engineering marvel designed by Marwood made with materials of limited strength and with uncommon materials compared with modern construction materials has stood for over 95 years and therefore needs to be declared a protected monument of Sri Lanka.

I mention this to illustrate the thoroughness of research as well as the depth of information in this book; its no surprise that it took four years to complete. The foreword, by Professor Nimal De Silva, President of the National Trust, states that the National Trust of Sri Lanka was set up in 2005 with the intention of providing a forum for professionals and the general public to subscribe to Sri Lankas heritage values. He adds: The authors, with their lifetime association with the railways, have tried to showcase in one volume the saga covering different facets of Ceylons railway to reveal the glorious and colourful past of a bygone era, memories and physical elements of which are rapidly fading in the context of modernisation.

In this, they have succeeded. Whatever ones views are about the British occupation of Ceylon, Sri Lanka benefits today from its inheritance of the railway network built by the British. With improved investment, upgrading and maintenance, the railways could play an even greater part in the future prosperity of Sri Lanka. Meanwhile, it is thanks to enthusiasts such as the authors of this book and the National Trust that efforts continue to record and preserve this islands railway heritage before it rusts into oblivion.

The book takes the reader on a trip not just through the history of rail travel before the railways came to Ceylon but also on a journey by train throughout Sri Lanka. The known facts are remembered, such as the main line ascends from almost sea level to the summit of 6,226 feet at Pattipola, the highest point reached by any 5ft 6in broad gauge railway anywhere in the world. Plus the information that the gradient of 1:44 from Nawalapitiya to Badulla is the steepest anywhere in the world on a broad gauge railway.

But there are forgotten facts too such as the original (1903 to 1948) Uda Pussellawa Railway of 2ft 6in narrow gauge track at Kandapola station, was 90ft higher than the railways elevation at Pattipola. We learn also that the trip by train to Kandy 150 years ago took four and a half hours with a fare of six shillings and three pence for Third Class travel; and three times that for First Class.

We are told that the present Colombo Fort station is not the original one, but the third, opened in 1917. (Any centenary celebration planned?) The station for Colombo Fort (to serve the coast line) was at the location of the present Secretariat Halt. It was a timber construction and operated from 1878 to 1883 before the second Fort station was erected behind Lake House and used until mid 1910.

The writing style conveys technical matters in an uncomplicated manner so the general reader quickly feels involved. At times the narrative is startlingly graphic, as when the authors write (about the mainline to Kandy after tunnel 9A): In contrast to the scenic view on the opposite side of the carriages is an unending canopy of a semi-curved ledge hewn out of the living rock to permit the train to crawl along the precipitous rock surface extending vertically with a thousand feet of natural walling.

This book has inspired me to try some rail journeys again, before they are modernised. The run from Kandy to Matale sounds intriguing as it is described as a living museum with columned stations and earlier-patterned semaphore signalsOn this line there are several halts serving old style hamlets as there are no other modes of access to these villages.

Like many rail buffs I am fascinated by steam locomotives and the authors obligingly explain just how a steam train works. Their enthusiasm for diesel locomotives, however, is so infectious they have stirred my interest in historical and current diesel engines as well.

The authors have undertaken a difficult task and done it well, presenting a true picture of Ceylons railway heritage. Chapters include Tea and the Railway, Engineering Feats, Films, Stamps and Literary Records on the Railway, Historical Railway Accidents and the revealing (and unexpected) Socio-Cultural Aspects Associated with the Railways.

The engrossing text is illustrated with some amazing photographs both of old rail scenes and impressive diesel locos. Its a book for anyone whos ever been fascinated by trains and will surely trigger new respect and appreciation for this countrys railway heritage.

Book Facts Ceylon Railway Heritage, by K.A.D. Nandasena and Vinodh Wickre-meratne.

National Trust, Rs 4,000.

Reviewed by Royston Ellis
Through the eyes of a pioneering forensic architect By Smriti Daniel View(s): View(s):

Today, Prof.EyalWeizman will deliver the 18th Neelan Tiruchelvam Trust Lecture at the BMICH. Its open to all, and you should go. From experience, I can tell you thatWeizmans work is both provocative and significant.

We met when the Israeli professor was a speaker at the Falling Walls conference in Berlin. The conference is held every year on November 9, to mark the fall of the Berlin Wall but in 2016, on the morning of the main sessions, the crowd was also anxiously awaiting the results of the US elections. This was an audience made up for most part of scientists, technology entrepreneurs and policy makersvery few of whom were likely to cheer a Trump victory.

As the news came in, the chairman of the Nobel Foundations board of directors, Carl-Henrik Heldin who was standing on the fringes of that crowd, expressed his frank dismay to a journalist from The Guardian: I see a movement towards right-wing populism and isolationism and anti-intellectualism. We move away from logical thinking and rationalism towards a very uncertain direction.

Amidst the prevailing anxiety, Weizmann offered a tempered response. As someone who had immersed himself in the evidence of the carnage wrecked by Obamas drone programme, Weizman was of the opinion all governments have some things in common. There is too much emphasis being put on good leaders versus bad leaders, he told the Sunday Times, in an interview given on the side-lines of the conference.

Experience has made Weizman something of a cynic on the subject of governments. The team at Forensic Architecturethe independent research agency Weizman founded in 2010often appear before international courts, political and legal forums, truth commissions and in human rights reports.

Weizman has never worked in Sri Lanka but he remembers January 2009, when he saw two conflicts in full swing: the end of the Israeli invasion into Gaza and the beginning of the last stage of the war in the north of this island.

I was following Gaza closely with dismay and concern for the Palestinian civilians under ruthless bombing there but was aware, through the international press, of the intensification of the war in Sri Lanka, says Weizman. He saw how each conflict was rooted in its own history and contingencies. They seemed to him to almost talk to each other. The conversation occurred in the language of bombs but also in the language of justification. From there emerged the Israeli and Sri Lankan options for counter insurgency.

When the dust settled on the ruins of Gaza, it revealed widespread damageand the need to investigate why and how it had been wrought. With no roadmap to guide them, Weizman and his colleagues had to develop their own tools, their own language as it were. It was the first time that human rights organisations started a systematic reading of buildings for traces of what happened around them, he says.

Weizman argues that forensic architecture is a contemporary form of archaeologyan archaeology of our present for a global era of urban warfare with the aim of holding actors to account for hurting civiliansan optics through which to see a world in conflict.

Since those early years, their work has included investigations into torture and detention in the Cameroon, the loss of lives as authorities left boats packed with refugees adrift in the Mediterranean and the deaths linked to environmental violence in Indonesia and Guatemala. They have catalogued the aftermath of multiple cases of covert drone strikes in Yemen, Syria, Somalia and Palestine. Says Weizman now:We can see that any way states are in the business of killing and in the business of denying those killings.

Based at Goldsmiths, University of London, Forensic Architectures teams vary greatly between assignments. Interdisciplinary units have included architects, coders, artists, scholars, journalists, sculptors, filmmakers, archaeologists, lawyers, and scientists.

Weizman himself is a trained architect. Growing up in the city of Haifa in Israel, he says he saw early on the injustice being done to his Palestinian neighbours, and it sowed the seeds of what would become his career. I was trained as an architect through a very long and expensive education, he says. I would have loved to have been a practising architect and to build beautiful things, but sometimes certain political realities force you to use the tools of your trade in a very different way.

In Gaza, the built environment is riddled with the evidence Weizman is looking for. For reports and documentaries, the Israeli professor looked out on surrounding urban landscapes to identify the elements of an architecture of occupation. He saw how Israeli homes in Gaza were like optical instruments, laid in rings on hilltops so as to better enable surveillance. Fences, blockades, highways, settlements and checkpoints were deployed to shrink and expand the terrain at will.

Weizman also studied how public space and private space could be turned inside out when state forces broke through walls and invaded private homes, using their new vantage points to monitor narrow streets and launch attacks on opposing soldiers. In such encounters, civilians were stripped of the protection of their homes and left vulnerable.

Forensic architecture, the discipline in which Weizman is a pioneer, works across a spectrum: there is the physical evidence such as the scorch marks of shrapnel or the rubble in the aftermath of a drone strike; there is photographic evidence collected through social media or satellite imagery and then there are witness testimonies that are collated through processes of memory reconstruction. Working with the team, witnesses have sometimes been able to recall details of even very traumatic moments through the use of 3-D architectural models and reconstructions.

Inherent in all these approaches is a kind of uncertainty. Weizman must contend with fake images online, and shaky witnesses and yet present a case that can stand up to trial. Often the team works by finding ways to anchor their evidencefor instance, by pairing social media footage of bomb strikes in Gaza with the clouds of smokes appearing from these same strikes in satellite imagery, Forensic Architecture were able to construct a timeline and even identify bombs used in the attack.

These findingswith their disquieting and sometimes heart-breaking implicationsonly fuel Weizmans determination to unearth what evidence he can, using whatever means are at hand. My understanding is of science and technology is that they have to come into being and mobilize from a political perspective, says Weizman. There is no point in my opinion, in being the objective, neutral scientist. We are working always on behalf of victims in trying to get accountability for them.

Lecture today The 18th Neelan Tiruchelvam Memorial Lecture titled Forensic Architecture: Space and Violence in Palestine and Beyond will be delivered by Professor Eyal Weizman, Professor of Spatial and Visual Cultures at Goldsmiths, University of London, UK today, Sunday, July 30, at 6 p.m. at the BMICH, Committee Room A (Jasmine). The lecture is open to all.
Chinese property mogul from Macau convicted for corrupting the UN From Kapila Bandara in Hong Kong View(s): View(s):

A Macau billionaire who is a high-profile political adviser in China and whose bribery case shed light on corruption at the United Nations was convicted this week for corrupting the global body with kickbacks to diplomats including former UN General Assembly president, John Ashe from Antigua and Barbuda.

Ng Lap-seng, a Chinese real estate mogul from the Chinese city of Macau, the gambling haven, turned the UN into his private band of profiteers, US prosecutors said after his conviction for bribery and money laundering on Thursday in a Manhattan court. He will be sentenced later and was denied bail.

Ng had cooked up elaborate schemes to bribe some of the most high profile UN figures. His bribes scheme included a setting up an NGO in the US, through which he funneled his own cash to UN diplomats to achieve his grand, personal ambitions.

The multimillion-dollar corruption took place during the tenure of the then UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Ban, a South Korean, held office from January 1, 2007 to December 31, 2016 and on June 21, 2011, was re-elected for a second term.

When the Macau tycoon Ng was escorted to court in December 2015 a few months after his arrest, he had the nerve to demand through his lawyers that the trial start immediately. His lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told court that Ngs businesses are beginning to suffer substantial setbacks. Its not fair. Were asking for an immediate trial, Reuters reported him as telling court at the time.

Ng was not going anywhere in a hurry. He was denied bail and confined to an apartment. But in his haste, Ng seemed to have changed his business suit into a prison jumpsuit.

Ng was convicted in the United States after a four-week trial on six counts of bribery of more than US$ 1.3 million (Rs 199.8 million) to UN diplomats.

After his conviction in a Manhattan court, acting U.S. Attorney Joon H Kim said in a statement: In his unbridled pursuit of even greater personal fortune, billionaire Ng Lap-seng corrupted the highest levels of the United Nations. Through bribes and no show jobs, Ng turned leaders of the league of nations into his private band of profiteers. Ngs journey from a Macau real estate mogul to convicted felon should serve as a cautionary tale to all tempted to follow his path.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Janis Echenberg said Ng corrupted the United Nations The Associated Press reported her as saying on Thursday.

Ng, who headed the Sun Kian Ip Group, conspired with and paid bribes to Francis Lorenzo, a former UN ambassador from the Dominican Republic, and John W Ashe, the late former permanent representative of Antigua and Barbuda to the UN and the 68th President of the UN General Assembly.

With the assistance of Jeff C Yin, an accountant and co-conspirator who worked with Ng and others and previously pleaded guilty, Ng orchestrated a scheme to get UN blessing for a multibillion dollar Macau Conference Centre that he hoped to build in Macau using the Macau Real Estate Development Company.

Ng wanted the centre to serve as a location for meetings, discussions, forums, and other events associated with the UN. In particular, he wanted it to serve as the permanent home of the annual Global South-South Development Expo, which is run by the UN Office for South-South Cooperation, and is hosted in a different country or city every year, the US Department of Justice said.

Ng agreed to and did bribe ambassador Ashe and ambassador Lorenzo in exchange for their agreement to use their official positions to advance Ngs interest in obtaining formal UN support for the Macau Conference Center.

Ng made the payment to the envoys in a variety of forms. He appointed Lorenzo as the president of South-South News, a New York-based organisation  funded by Ng  which described itself as a media platform dedicated to advancing the implementation of the UNs Millennium Development Goals, the US Justice Department said.

Ng handed out bribes to Lorenzo through South-South News, as well as, among other things, by transmitting payments from Macau to a company in the Dominican Republic affiliated with Lorenzos brother.

Through South-South News, Ng also made payments to Ashe, including to Ashes wife, who was paid in her capacity as a consultant to South-South News, and to an account that Ashe had set up, purportedly to raise money for his role as president of UN General Assembly.

Ng also gave bribes through cash and wire payments to Ashe and Lorenzo.

The UN diplomats who took the bribes agreed to advance Macau tycoon Ngs objectives to submit an official document to the then Secretary-General Ban in support of the Macau Conference Centre.

Ashe and Lorenzo submitted an official document to Ban in support of the Macau Conference Centre. The UN document claimed that there was a need to build the Macau Conference Centre to support the UNs global development goals. Ashe, aided by Lorenzo, submitted the UN document to the UN General Assembly in or about late February 2012, the US Justice Department said. More than a year later, at Ngs behest, the diplomats revised the UN document to refer specifically to Ngs company, the Macau Real Estate Development Company, as a partner in the Macau Conference Center project. The document requested that Ban circulate the document as a document of the sixty-sixth session of the General Assembly, under a specific item of the official UN General Assembly agenda. Ban followed this request and made the document an official part of the UN General Assembly record.

Ashe, who became UN General Assembly president in 2013, died last year. He was arrested but not charged. Lorenzo was charged and pleaded guilty to bribery, money laundering, tax fraud and illegal bank accounts. He then testified against the Macau tycoon Ng.

Another Chinese woman, Yan Shiwei, aka Sheri Yan, the co-founder and former chief executive officer of the Global Sustainability Foundation, was jailed a year ago to 20 months in prison for paying more than US$800,000 in bribes to Ashe. She pleaded guilty in January 2016. Chinese woman Heidi Hong Piao, aka Heidi Park also pleaded guilty.
Lankan-born Bala Gnanapragasam elected Vice President of the Methodist Conference for 2018/19 View(s):

The Methodist Conference has elected the Revd Michaela Youngson to serve as President, and Bala Gnanapragasam to serve as Vice-President, starting their year of office when the Representative Session of the Methodist Conference meets in Nottingham next year.

Sri Lankan-born Bala Gnanapragasam believes strongly in the mission and social justice. He serves on the board of Christian Aid and MHA (formerly known as Methodist Homes for the Aged). He is also a trustee of the London HIV/Aids Chaplaincy. He was the first Synod Secretary for the London District.

Bala came to the UK in the 1960s and has previously served as an elected councillor for the London Borough of Lewisham. He has also served as the Chair of University Hospital Lewisham.

Bala said: It is both humbling and an honour to be elected to this position. I look forward to serving our great Church.

Michaela has been Chair of the London District since 2012. With a passion for social justice and for developing strong ecumenical relationships, Michaela is committed to working within the diverse and rich context of the Connexion. She is a regular contributor to the BBC Radio 2 Early Breakfast Shows Pause for Thought.

The role of President of the Methodist Conference is reserved for presbyters (ministers) and Vice-President for lay people or deacons.
Vatican award for Lankan book View(s):

Gwen Herat has been honoured by the Vatican for a book she wrote, Pope Francis, Hope for Christian Unity. The award is one of three awards given annually to outstanding people who are recognised for artistic and literary works. She received a bronze medal, crafted and executed by the renowned artist, Alessia Di Giuseppe bearing the Vatican crest.

It came as a pleasant surprise to Ms. Herat as she never imagined an award for a book she wrote towards fostering Christian unity of a divided church when she saw Pope Francis as the only person who can do it.

The book, presented to Pope Francis by the Vatican Representative in Switzerland, was chosen as one among the ten outstanding books written on Pope Francis from around the world.

The book features a brief history of the Vatican along with contributions by different churches that make up the worlds Christian population and has colour photographs taken at different stages of the Popes life.
Whither Lankas strategy to become an ed. hub By Prof. Amal Kumarage and Prof. Nelson Perera View(s): View(s):

The vision of the Ministry of Highways and Higher Education is for Sri Lanka to be an international hub of excellence for higher education by 2020. Sri Lanka which seeks to build a knowledge-based economy should pursue this vision with all its vigour. The spin offs in technological innovation and industry collaboration have knock-on effects on the economy as a complementary industry such as in Dubai and Qatar which in fact refer to them as knowledge or innovation hubs.

Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Qatar as well as Dubai and Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates have succeeded in creating education hubs over the last two decades. Many others aspirants such as Sri Lanka, Mauritius, Taiwan, South Korea, Bhutan and Bahrain are yet to succeed. The distinction between success and failure depends on how vision is aligned to government policy, regulation and the strategic plan.

Education as a global industry

There are globally over four million international students with UK, USA and Australia being the three leading destinations. All these countries have well-established universities, some dating back to the 19th century, attracting high performing students from around the world. Most such universities were state sponsored or were set up under charitable trusts as non-profit seeking institutions.

In Asia, modern universities began replacing traditional academic institutions mostly in the early 20th century. As countries like Sri Lanka with extremely competitive education sectors and socioeconomic inequity issues started introducing quotas and restrictions for state university placements, parents with financial means began to consider sending their children to private or foreign universities. Many such students however have continued to work and live in those countries such as Australia, Canada and the UK enriching their talent base and contributing to education sector earnings exceeding five percent of the GDP. However this has also turned education from a public service to a profit-making business thus challenging the deep-rooted and sacred image of education in society.

Potential for Sri Lanka

Sri Lankas potential to become an international education hub arises from opportunities and attributes it possess, the most important of which are: a) Geographic location, market size and accessibility

Singapore used its location between India and China to attract students from both countries. The hubs in the middle-east are strategically located between Asia, Europe and Africa while Hong Kong, Singapore, and the middle-eastern countries have shown that even a geographically and demographically small country can develop hubs provided they have the market. Similarly, Sri Lanka has a splendid opportunity to position itself within the South Asian market. b) Cultural compatibility

The host country should offer some degree of commonality and compatibility with the source countries. For example, Malaysia attracts many students from the Middle-East, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Maldives while UAE, attracts students from surrounding countries. The traditional educational destinations such as USA, Canada, UK and Australia attracted students from other English speaking countries, while France did the same for French speaking countries. It is important for Sri Lanka to position itself to offer a multicultural compatibility if it intends to attract foreign students from South Asia or any other region. c) Reputation for scholarship and research

Opportunity is enhanced when there are reputed and high ranked universities to provide the nucleus of the scholarship. In a small country, this is likely to come from improving local universities as opposed to attracting foreign universities. Most education hubs including Singapore, Hong Kong and China have used local universities in building this reputation in terms of world university rankings. Dubai and Qatar attained success without a lead local university, but invested in rebuilding universities pursuing internal and external accreditation. However in their case, there was a captive market of expatriates as a starting point. Sri Lanka in order to achieve its vision by 2020 has no option but to propel a few selected leading State universities to build this reputation such as the IITs have done in India.

A strong research culture enhances the reputation of a hub, necessary to attract high quality academics and students from other countries. Singapore, Malaysia and Hong Kong invests 1-2% of the GDP on research. In Sri Lanka there is little motivation or compulsion for the private degree awarding institutions to engage in research. The current level of state and industry partnership in research in Sri Lanka is minimal, flagging this as a major disadvantage. d) Prospect of work and migration

The ability to provide internships, post qualifying work experiences, work visas and potential immigration prospects is a key opportunity. This may be possible in countries which have a declining birth rate. While almost all the well-established education hubs have made it a well-used immigration gateway, of the newly established hubs, Singapore follows suit while Malaysia is also cautiously opening doors. Sri Lanka needs to debate and decide if it will allow such visas as it will increase the potential several-fold.

Does Sri Lanka need an education hub?

The decision for Sri Lanka to become an education hub should be made with a clear policy and set of objectives. Comparative study of other countries show that (a)developing the higher education sector to improve local talent, (b)developing the higher education sector to attract foreign earnings and (c)to attract talent to develop a knowledge rich economy have all been valid reasons. Countries that have successfully created education hubs have adopted a combination of strategies to achieve their objectives, chief among which is to develop the already established local universities.

The case for developing local universities

Most countries have State universities, with others having private institutions operating with or without government sponsorship. A fundamental strategic decision faced by any government desiring to develop an education hub is what it intends to do with the existing higher education institutes. State owned or sponsored universities in addition to funding constraints may also face other institutional problems such as student unrest and misalignment of programs to market conditions. Governments may also not possess the required political will or strength to systematically resolve such issues or be willing to make large public investments in education in the face of other important or urgent needs.

Singapore took the first steps of developing the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Nanyang Technology University (NTU) by increasing state funding and attracting top academics which resulted in them becoming world class universities within a few decades. Hong Kong also followed the same path, competing with Singapore for academic achievement, and has now produced several top tier universities. Singapores universities are now actively collaborating with other leading universities across the world thus benchmarking their universities with those outside Asia, to ensure sustainability as a leading international education hub. Malaysia on the other hand looked towards the private sector to develop such institutions by attracting foreign institutions.

Sri Lanka: Vision without policy?

Sri Lanka does not actually have any private universities  only degree awarding institutes. SAITM which is in the news is one such institute. But there are several others offering degrees mostly in the sciences and management. Thus if Sri Lanka is to pursue a vision of becoming an international education hub by 2020 (or even later), it needs to make a policy decision if it should like Singapore lay the foundation by improving the State universities or like Malaysia look chiefly to the private sector to provide the pull. The SAITM debate brings in to focus the lack of political consensus on this issue and the reluctance to make a firm decision. While this state of uncertainty in recognising private universities continues, so does the absence of a strategy to enable State universities to provide the lead in forming the education hub, a state of confusion that is unlikely to produce tangible results  making Sri Lanka lose yet another global economic and social opportunity.

Some essential policy initiatives

Strong public endorsement

The SAITM debate represents the diverse views in a nation on the merits of education as a public good or it being a private good. A policy or political initiative on creating an education hub should be accepted and actively supported by society at large and not merely by those who are positively or negatively affected. While it should primarily seek to provide greater access to local students especially for courses for which there is a demand such as medicine and engineering, finding overseas students for courses in faculties that have unfilled places may be a socially acceptable compromise position. Promoting post graduate courses is another intervention.

Internationalise learning environments

Many developing countries have regulations that curtail provision of private and fee levying higher education and admission of foreign students to state universities. Malaysia changed its legal framework in 1996 and Singapore also decided to strategically invite world-class and reputable universities from abroad to set up campuses. Hong Kong adopted a different approach where private institutions could easily enter or exit the market. However in both cases, these countries have allowed large foreign student populations in universities which in turn have improved the quality of education for local students.

Achieve low program delivery costs

The education provision should be made economically efficient and competitive with other education hubs. Malaysia, developing its education hub in the shadow of both Singapore and Hong Kong, by exploiting its relatively lower delivery costs to carve out a niche in the market. Sri Lankan universities have a low cost of delivery which is a key advantage yet to be exploited to develop a knowledge hub especially in attracting students from South Asia.

Develop specialisation

A hub may also gather reputation for specialisations. Some countries such as Nepal, Bangladesh and Russia have developed specialisation in medicine. Malaysia plans to specialise in niche disciplines such as Islamic finance and halal supply chain catering mostly to the students from Islamic countries. It has been found that most Asian countries pursue developing science and technology programs and that less attention has been given to humanities and social sciences disciplines without which sustained development would be difficult. Sri Lanka has a strong reputation for analytical skills, aesthetic and cultural studies which can be developed into unique programs.

Achieve quality student services and environment

The US, Canada, Europe and Australia have well developed services for student application processing, visa applications and for finding accommodation. Attractive and safe living environments are contributory to a students choice of destination for foreign study. The quality of student accommodation facilities, transport, campus facilities including learning support systems also get included in the decision making process. Many countries are creating special purpose facilities such as the EduCity Iskandar in Malaysia, while Singapore is clustering universities and other educational institutes in an area called Nepal Hill, with the purpose of fulfilling these service and environmental needs.

Create strong regulatory environment

The US, Canada, Europe and Australia have well developed internal accreditation bodies for approval of degree awarding institutions and universities. Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore, Qatar and UAE have independent quality assurance bodies to accredit degree offering institutions. These bodies evaluate the governance structures, key personnel, qualifications of teaching staff and quality of the programs and student facilities before granting licences to operate in those countries for a specified period. Therefore in Sri Lanka, it is necessary for the proposed legislation to create strong regulatory institution for accreditation of universities and institutions.

Conclusion

The vision of creating an education hub is far too important an opportunity for Sri Lanka to lose. It should target creating more opportunities for developing local talent while attracting high performing international students with affordable program and living costs. However managing the public perceptions of creating a successful hub will be challenging. In the first instance the benefits to society and the economy should be well articulated to get whole-hearted public endorsement. This should be followed by a strategic development process that identifies the most appropriate institutional building blocks which given the Sri Lankan context, is to select a few State Universities to offer niche programs having an international demand and/or programs for which local demand is waning. The mandate for creating private universities needs a firm social acceptance and legislative underpinning. Moreover, the path to a knowledge hub should extend well beyond an education hub and needs to be supported by a reliable quality assurance regime, increased research funding, support services and compatible visa schemes for international students and marketing in countries that are likely to patronise Sri Lanka considering proximity and cultural compatibility, which invariably leads to the already highly competitive markets in South Asia.

(Amal Kumarage is a professor at the University of Moratuwa and Nelson Perera is a professor at the University of Wollongong, Australia)
Last years Inspire Awards speaker  former Inspire Woman of the Year winner Donde Plowman  urged more than 500 attendees at the annual awards lunch to Start something.

We did just that in 2015 with our inaugural Inspire Awards program, honoring some of the most important and influential women in our community serving in business, government, philanthropy, education, health care and more. Its a chance to recognize women making positive impacts on Lincoln, along with young women preparing for leadership roles. And we couldnt be more excited to do it again.

The Journal Star couldnt do this without the help of our sponsors: Union Bank & Trust, Woods & Aitken LLP, University of Nebraska and NU Online, Liberty First, Husker Auto Group, Dillards and Stem Gallery. Thank you to our current sponsors and those to come.

We couldnt do it without the help of our Inspire advisory board, either. Thanks to returning members Barbara Bartle, President, Lincoln Community Foundation; Pamela Bourne, Partner, Woods & Aitken, LLP; Ann Chang, Artistic Director, Lied Center for Performing Arts, Associate Professor of Practice (piano, entrepreneurship) Glenn Korff School of Music; Jenni Christiansen, Commercial Relationship Manager, Wells Fargo Bank; Connie Duncan, Duncan Family Trust, Lincoln Public Schools Board of Education; L. Shanna Letcher, Advocate for African American Students, Lincoln Public Schools; Jackie Ostrowicki, Assistant Vice President for University Affairs and Director of Marketing and Strategic Communications, University of Nebraska; Lisa Smith, Investment Consultant, Smith Hayes; Ava Thomas, President and Publisher, Lincoln Journal Star; Natalia Wiita, Vice President of Sales, Lincoln Journal Star; Katie Zulkoski, Lawyer and Lobbyist, Zulkoski Weber LLC; and new 2017 Inspire board members Michelle St. Clair, Director, Branch Banking, First National Bank; and Kelli King, Director, William H. Thompson Scholars Learning Community, University of Nebraska.

And we couldnt do it without your help. Were still accepting nominations for all award categories, and wed love to hear from you about the women you see making an impact on our community. This is the final week for nominations, so please log on to nominate the women who have inspired you.

And finally, wed love to see your faces at this years awards lunch Sept. 13 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Cornhusker Marriott. Tickets and nomination forms are available online at journalstar.com/inspire/.

Im thrilled to announce this years speaker is Marianne Worthington, founder of Work Warrior LLC, a company that trains managers and small-business owners in the necessities of team management, and co-founder of Revo, an organization that provides resources for social entrepreneurs and nonprofits solving local problems using smart business models.

Marianne has presented on leadership topics to more than 10,000 people in nearly every state, and she's also a TEDx Speaker.

Last years Woman of the Year was Lincoln Chamber of Commerce President Wendy Birdsall. Other winners were:

* Beatty Brasch, executive director of the Center for People in Need: Excellence in Philanthropy.

* Christie Hinrichs, president and CEO of Tabitha: Excellence in Business (Large).

* Lynn Ayers, executive director of the Child Advocacy Center: Excellence in Business (Small to Medium).

* Lyn Wineman, president and chief strategist of KidGlov: Excellence in Entrepreneurship.

* Dr. Tracy Bender, occupational therapist, Lymphedema and Cancer Rehabilitation Specialist, Southeast Nebraska Cancer Center: Excellence in Health care.

* Leirion Gaylor Baird, chairwoman, Lincoln City Council: Excellence in Government Service.

* Pat Leach, library director, Lincoln City Libraries: Excellence in Education.

* AshLea Allberry, 100s of Women Who Care: Founders Award.

* Lauren Mosser, senior, Lincoln Southeast High School: Future Business Leader & Scholarship ($5,000).

I look forward to seeing you at this years lunch when we honor a new group of inspiring women.
Bay of Plenty artist Graham Mr G Hoete is usually known for transforming old barns and water tanks into beautiful pieces of art.

But recently hes taken to painting livestock  fibreglass imitations, that is.

At last months Fieldays, Mr G painted three fibreglass cows, which now sit outside Matamatas Farmlands Real Estate, Waikato ASB, and Waikato FMG.

It is part of a larger artistic campaign in which Mr G will travel New Zealand, painting locally-inspired murals on 15 Farmlands stores.

Matamata Farmlands Ian Morgan won the pink and black cow, dubbed Moonique, in a Trade Me auction.

Ian told The Waikato Times that after meeting the artist and watching the cows being painted, he really wanted to try and win the auction and own the remaining cow.

"It was more about the artists and understanding who he is from talking to him at Fieldays, says Ian.

"Looking at the cow and how he has painted it - you can connect his philosophy of art with that cow.

"He said this is how he sees a cow in his artist world.

"So I thought I would have a crack at it (the auction) and have our own Mr G cow. Its created a bit of banter between Morrinsville and Matamata Farmland stores."

But Ian says this is not in any way trying to replicate the cows on the streets of Morrinsville.

"This is just art," he says.

"Cows are important to Matamata, just like Morrinsville, but it is not like trying to be like our neighbours.

"Its the weirdest-looking coloured cow you could ever expect to see," he laughs.

Ian says while bidding on the cow, he hadnt really considered what he would do with it.

"I thought lets take it to the office, put it out on the sidewalk and see how people engage with it."

He said on the first day tourists came out of Momento to see it and take photos of it.

"For people who visit our community and havent seen cows, this is pretty exciting for them."

- Stuff
Te Wharekura o Mauao is marking five years at its Bethlehem campus, in which time the school has gone from strength to strength.

Prior to 2012, the Maori medium school was run from a temporary facility provided by what was then known as the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic (now Toi Ohomai Institute of Technology).

Initially the school began with 30 Year 7-9 students, but now has a roll of 220.

Its classed as a special character school which any student of any ethnicity may attend, so long as they embrace an immersive curriculum of te reo and tikanga Maori.

Principal Koa Douglas says kura such as theirs are increasingly becoming the springboard for the revitalisation of te reo Maori.

It connects students with their heritage, too. We see many parents sending their kids here because they want their children to be connected with the Maori world.

Assistant principal Heywood Kuka says the schools students are achieving above the national average.

Were disappointed if we dont reach close to a 100 per cent pass rate, he says. Our NCEA statistics show students in Maori medium schools are high achievers.

Last year all Year 13 students left school with NCEA Level 3. The school roll continues to grow, with more than 60 new enrolments this year  a 30 per cent increase on 2016.

The choice of site on the corner of Bethlehem Rd and Westmorland Rise initially faced resistance from locals, principally those in the Mayfield subdivision. Some residents were concerned traffic in the area would increase, while others worried their house prices would fall.

That still reverberates in our school community, says Koa. But this is us standing up to the naysayers and showing how well were doing. Having said that, our relationship with our neighbours is one of positivity and collaboration.

Today, the median house price in Bethlehem is $744,750.
In a new world of cyberattacks engineered by bad actors as well as mischief-makers, the Lincoln Electric System is a target.

LES is part of the nation's interconnected electrical grid, and that critical national infrastructure is a rich target for nation-states, terrorists and international criminals.

There's a lot more that LES Administrator and CEO Kevin Wailes can't tell us, but he can tell us that the utility has invested $7 million to $8 million to enhance security and that LES defends itself from an astounding number of potential breaches of computer security.

"Probably 70 percent of the bad things that happen result from bad cyber hygiene," Wailes said. "Folks sloppy with passwords; some not logging out of their computers."

LES is aggressively working to correct that piece of the security problem, but it's the outside actors who pose the looming threat.

Do we know of attempts from other countries?

"Yes," Wailes said.

Earlier this year, the U.S. Department of Energy issued a warning that the nation's critical infrastructure is in "imminent danger" of a cyberattack that could have devastating consequences.

"The current cybersecurity landscape is characterized by rapidly evolving threats and vulnerabilities, juxtaposed against the slower-moving deployment of defense measures," the department said.

Such an attack could at least temporarily cripple the economy, endanger health and safety, and even undermine critical defense infrastructure, the DOE stated.

"I have a playbook set up for different events," Wailes said during an early-morning interview on a hot July day that would send temperatures soaring above 100 degrees, providing a timely reminder that access to electrical power sometimes can be the difference between life and death.

"The economy, health, quality of life depends on what we do," he said.

"The hallmark of our industry is reliability."

In its simplest and most basic terms, that means "keep the lights on," Wailes said.

The threat to electric utilities has evolved dramatically and exponentially, he said.

"It used to be squirrels; now it's cyber, physical, severe weather amplified," Wailes said. "Cyber and kinetic."

A crippling cyberattack took down critical infrastructure in Ukraine last month.

In May, coordinated WannaCry ransomware attacks in 150 countries held medical records in Britain's National Health Service hospitals hostage, endangering patients' lives.

A threat is looming out there.

"Industry and government are working together" now to confront that threat, Wailes said. "But everything is not working perfectly; it's an evolving process."

Wailes is deeply engaged in that effort as vice chair of the national Electricity Sub-Sector Coordinating Council, which develops strategic plans and actions to protect electric utility infrastructure from physical and cyber threats.

"There's a lot of angst that the industry is not doing a sufficient job in protecting reliability," he said.

But a strong relationship has evolved between the electricity industry and the Department of Homeland Security, Wailes said. And the Department of Defense has weighed in with "a strong presence," he said.

"Government has lots of tools and information on threats (that) we don't have access to," Wailes said. "We need to work together.

"We need to work on resiliency and recovery," he said. "We've formed a cyber mutual aid group to lend assistance.

"If there's a massive cyberattack, the concern is we don't have the bench strength. So tons of efforts are going on now.

"We've made lots of strides," he said. "There's lots to be done."

LES now has "one of the highest reliability numbers in the country," Wailes said. "We try not to make ourselves a target."

"Seven years ago, we didn't have a cybersecurity staff. We do now."

The best protection is to "block access," and let the good stuff in, Wailes said.

"But all you need is a computer to create havoc.

"It's a new world."
Binghamton has a new AHL team, and appropriately enough, a brand new logo to represent it.

The Binghamton Devils have moved into that city, an affiliate of the New Jersey Devils. New Jersey was previously affiliated with Albany, which lost its AHL franchise.

The Binghamton Devils unveiled their new logo and uniforms on Saturday. The uniforms, of course, closely resemble the New Jersey Devils' new Adidas threads.

Binghamton was previously the farm team of Ottawa, and played as the Binghamton Senators. But Ottawa packed up its affiliate and moved it to Belleville, Ont., starting in the 2017-18 season.
SYRACUSE, NY -- Little Free Libraries are moving into Central New York, 30 within 20 miles of the City of Syracuse since 2012.

Little Free Libraries are free neighborhood book exchanges designed to inspire a love of reading, build community, and spark creativity.

The libraries were started in 2009 by Todd Bol and Rick Brooks in Hudson, Wisconsin. As of November 2016 50,000 libraries have been registered in all 50 states and 70 countries.

The first Little Free Library in Syracuse was installed in 2012 at 323 Gifford Street in an old payphone box. Although the library is not listed on the Little Free Library website, it is still there attached to the St. Joes Primary Care Center - West building. Owners can decide if they want their libraries listed on the Little Free Libraries website map.

The City of Syracuse's first Little Free Library commissioned in 2012 at 323 Gifford Street, Syracuse, NY, Friday July 21, 2017. Scott Schild | sschild@syracuse.com

Sarah Alamond of Liverpool recently installed a little library in front of her house on the Village of Liverpool's 6th street. Balking at the $40 registration fee for an official Little Free Library she is leaving hers off the grid.

"I was hesitant at first because we have a great library, she explains, but this helps build the community for the many walkers in my neighborhood." As we were talking a child darted toward the library to explore its options. Sarah wants the library to build relationships with her close neighbors and their community not people finding her on the internet. "People will see it when passing by, it is for them." she says.

Sarah is joined in her truly free library by a neighbor on 7th street who also is not officially registered with the international Little Free Library group.

For more information on how to have your own official Little Free Library visit, littlefreelibrary.org
SYRACUSE, NY -- Oh no! You just received a jury duty summons in the mail. Do not panic; you are not on trial. The United State Constitution guarantees you and your fellow Americans the right to a trial by jury, and this is your opportunity to fulfill that promise.

For criminal court getting a summons does not mean you actually need to report to the Syracuse Criminal Court house on State Street. It directs you to call in after 5pm for five days to see if your juror number is needed.

The jury summons makes a few things clear. First, your employer is legally obligated to give you time off to serve. Many employers will still pay you for the time you were scheduled to work. Also, you can postpone your term once with no questions asked. The clerk checking you in makes it clear they understand that serving may be a hardship, and they will work with you to make your service time a good fit.

If jurors are not paid by their employer or are unemployed they are paid by the court system $40 a day for their service.

If your number is needed and are summoned to serve in Onondaga County, consider the following details. The daily rate for jurors in the OnCenter garage is $4, which is a dollar discount. There is free WiFi, and you are welcomed to bring a computer or cell phone to pass the time in the holding room. A refrigerator, couches, and vending machines are in the lobby. Make sure you have cash, because only the drink machine takes cards.

Work days are Monday-Friday, 8:30 to 4:30 with a mid-day break for lunch.

When the case reaches the point for juror selection everyone relocates to the court room. In the court room cellphones are turned off headwear is removed; you have no choice but to listen to the process. The process is called voir dire, "to see to speak", and selecting jurors begins. Jurors are called up at random and questioned individually by the judge and attorneys with questions that may cause them to have bias or conflict in the case.

A defense attorney posed this question during my visit, "Do you think this person has a chance of being guilty just because they are here?"

Once 21 clear the initial questioning the prosecution and defense each have time to question the group as a whole. The attorneys carefully word questions based on questionnaires jurors fill out to see how they will respond to the case. They choose who they want to keep and the lottery system keeps going till the jury is full with twelve people and two alternates.

Approximately 120 people are summoned per criminal case and only 14 are needed, so your odds are low for being called up for questioning in the first place. Once the selection process is finished, even if you are not selected, you have met your commitment and will not be called for 10 years.

Supervising City Court Judge Hon. Stephen J. Dougherty estimates that serving as a juror is the second most important service to your country, only behind serving in the armed forces.

What if you blow it off?

Non-compliance can net you a $250 fine in accordance with Judiciary Law, JUD 527, and you will also be reassigned to another date. Disregarding the mailing is enough to get you fined. Once you respond and your five days pass, for criminal court, you are off the hook for ten years. Even if you never get called in to report.
WHITENY POINT, N.Y. -- An alligator that was causing a stir in a Southern Tier village has been safely captured, according to the village's mayor.

Whitney Point Mayor Ryan Reynolds posted about the roaming creature Sunday on his Facebook, confirming the sightings and saying the alligator may have been a released pet.

Reports of an alligator sighting along the Tioughnioga River between Whitney Point and Lisle have been circulating over... Posted by Ryan Reynolds on Sunday, July 23, 2017

Degardo Newborn and Elizabeth Parrillo said they saw the alligator Saturday while kayaking along the Tioughnioga River. The four-foot long creature was basking motionless on a riverbank before it scurried toward the water.

Other reports soon spread throughout the town of 900.

After about a week, Reynolds shared a news report online and confirmed that the alligator had been safely captured by DEC workers Saturday. The creature was being taken to Animal Adventure Park in Harpursville, Reynolds said.

Workers found the animal behind the local fairgrounds, 12 News stated.
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- The United States flew two supersonic bombers over the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in a show of force against North Korea following the country's latest intercontinental ballistic missile test. The U.S. also said it conducted a successful test of a missile defense system located in Alaska.

The B-1 bombers were escorted by South Korean fighter jets as they performed a low-pass over an air base near the South Korean capital of Seoul before returning to Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, the U.S. Pacific Air Forces said in a statement.

It said the mission was a response to North Korea's two ICBM tests this month. Analysts say flight data from the North's second test, conducted Friday night, showed that a broader part of the mainland United States, including Los Angeles and Chicago, is now in range of Pyongyang's weapons.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said Gen. Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander. "Diplomacy remains the lead. However, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worst-case scenario."

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing," O'Shaughnessy said.

The United States often sends powerful warplanes in times of heightened tensions with North Korea. B-1 bombers have been sent to South Korea for flyovers several times this year in response to the North's banned missile tests, and also following the death of a U.S. college student last month after he was released by North Korea in a coma.

The Hwasong-14 ICBM, which the North first tested on July 4, is the highlight of several new weapons systems Pyongyang launched this year. They include an intermediate range missile that North Korea says is capable of hitting Alaska and Hawaii, and a solid-fuel midrange missile, which analysts say can be fired faster and more secretly than liquid-fuel missiles.

The U.S. Missile Defense Agency said a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system located in Kodiak, Alaska, was successfully tested on Saturday night. It said that a medium-range ballistic missile was air-launched over the Pacific, and that the THAAD system detected, tracked and intercepted the target.
The candles were like stars in a galaxy of protesters.

Each flicker representing another activist in the mass of people that crowded the north steps of the Nebraska Capitol, seeping onto K Street where traffic had been diverted.

The vigil followed an impassioned rally protesting President Trumps Jan. 27 executive order outlining an immigration ban on seven Muslim-majority nations.

Since last year's presidential election, Lincoln  and the nation as a whole  has seen a trend of renewed activism in reaction to or in support of the Trump administration, while also touching on a wide range of human rights issues.

This trend has drawn out newer and often unlikely activists: normally mild-mannered Nebraskans who have taken center stage at many of the protests, marches and rallies this year.

Over recent weeks Journal Star reporters interviewed several march participants  a scientist worried about climate change, a Muslim woman filled with anxiety, a Trump supporter wanting to make sure the voices behind the president are heard.

And two sisters who made sure the tiny town of Loup City was among 670 cities nationwide to host a satellite Women's March in January.

"Right now feels more like it did in the '60s," said Loup City resident and march organizer Charlene Kampfe. "Theres more passion about things on either side, and people are paying attention to whats going on."

* * *

Jane Kleeb, a grassroots organizer on issues spanning local to international interest, said the Women's March on the streets of Omaha in January was monumental for the diversity of age, gender and race among participants.

"You're really beginning to see Nebraskans standing up on issues and now taking it to the streets," she said. "There is a sense of defiance, that I as a citizen can no longer sit on the couch and scream at the TV. I need to be out there."

Nearly 12,000 people showed up for Omaha's Women's March, while in Lincoln about 4,000 came out for one of the citys biggest activist events of the year. Participants streamed down Centennial Mall, some waving signs and wearing pink hats, protesting Trumps divisive rhetoric about women.

Simultaneously nearly half a million people swarmed the mall in Washington, D.C., on Jan. 21, a day after President Donald Trumps inauguration, to advocate for and celebrate women while addressing issues ranging from LGBT rights to health care.

Newly minted Libertarian feels GOP strayed from small government values A day after the Fourth of July, Trevor Reilly sat at Granite City Food & Brewery craftin

Julie Schmit-Albin, president of Nebraska Right to Life and the organizer behind Lincoln's annual anti-abortion march, feels the rise in activism has been overwhelmingly a response to last year's presidential election.

There has been such an increase this year, she said.

But Kleeb, chairwoman of the Nebraska Democratic Party, says you cant pin the new appeal of activism solely on Trump. Instead, she believes its rooted in a distrust of the entire political system.

People no longer believe that our elected officials are working in our best interests, Kleeb said. Normal operations would have been writing a letter to a member of Congress or attending a meeting, and because those methods have not worked, people are going to the streets, standing with people who they might disagree with.

Theres a lack of confidence, no question.

Matt Litt, president of the Nebraska chapter of Americans for Prosperity, agrees with Kleeb.

"It's from the election of Trump on a surface level," he said. "But I think more of it is that people feel like the government is not there to serve them."

The conservative group, an advocate for limited government, tax reform and First Amendment rights, has responded by creating an activist training program in Lincoln and Omaha.

* * *

So far in 2017, there have been 21 permits requested for marches or rallies in Lincoln. A decade ago, there were only six requests in 2007, including rallies for animal protection and bringing troops home.

Last year, there were 18 marches, rallies or protests with city permits.

But these permits only account for a fraction of the actual number of public gatherings. While city officials prefer organizers request a parade permit for marches or rallies, the application process has some downsides.

Deputy City Clerk Soulinnee Phan said many people are unaware they should apply for a permit or are uninformed on how or where to do so.

Another obstacle, she said, is timing constraints. Permit applications must be submitted 10 days prior to an event, but many events this year were planned last minute in response to political news. There's often not enough time to process an application.

Even if they dont get a permit, she said, they still have the right to assemble.

The permits help the city coordinate with police and ensure things run smoothly. Phan said they act more as a communication tool between the people and the city.

Schmit-Albin said Nebraska Right to Life files a parade permit each year, and because of the scale of the event  4,000 to 5,000 participants covering K Street on the north side of the state Capitol  they are expected to pay to have an additional police presence.

Woman starts 'Make Lincoln Kind Again' Facebook group Kelyn Nightengale's family used to be the type that gave money, but not time.

Last year, the organization paid just over $3,400 for additional police officers, insurance, barricades and electric signage to notify drivers about closed roads.

With years of experience organizing the Nebraska Walk for Life, Schmit-Albin worries that new activists are not taking the extra steps to expand on their movements.

"They aren't organized to educate and advocate for their position, they are just in the streets trying to get attention," she said.

In some cases, she questions the authenticity of the movements. While she says she's glad to see more people exercising their First Amendment rights, she believes some protesters may have ties to large donors.

* * *

Many of these rallies start at the national level and trickle down to local organizations and groups that create satellite protests of their own.

At the Capitol, there was the January pro-refugee rally and the March for Science in April.

Many protests took issue with Nebraskas elected officials, particularly Sens. Ben Sasse and Deb Fischer backing Betsy DeVos as Secretary of Education.

Unlikely activists, including educators and high school students, congregated outside Fischers downtown Lincoln office in February to voice their disapproval.

That same month, protesters swarmed the sidewalks outside the Grand Manse as Fischer attended a closed meeting with business leaders, urging the senator to hold town hall meetings during a congressional recess.

Trump supporter wants his voice heard, counter to liberal rallies BELLEVUE  For veteran Marty Jaramillo, it began when he was seated just a few feet away fro

Just days later, more unlikely rally-goers, including doctors and patients, returned to Fischers office, concerned about congressional health insurance reforms.

It's in Americans' DNA to rebel. This core value that we have as Americans is that we push back," Kleeb said.

But not all activism took issue with Republicans.

The aptly named Make America Great Again Appreciation March in Omaha drew support from pro-Trump activists in late March.

A counter-protest turned violent, however, leading to eight arrests.

* * *

In 2011, Occupy Lincoln became perhaps the citys longest single activist movement. It was an outgrowth of Occupy Wall Street, global protests against perceived economic inequality.

For over six months, tents dotted Centennial Mall and people camped outside the Capitol steps.

Mary Ann Shiech, the movements organizer, said it was the last time shes seen any real activism in Lincoln.

'It's odd' to march for science, says UNL scientist Jim Van Etten has stood in the crowd during a trove of presidential speeches.

Thats how I see activism today; its trendy, she said. Activism implies action and Im not seeing any action. I see people gathering at the Capitol holding a sign. Thats not going to change anything.

Shiech feels that movements like Occupy constitute activism versus protesting because they show that people are willing to put their bodies on the line for their cause. She worries the activist protests today have become less about making a difference and more about looking like you care.

She said she's seen true activism in other parts of the Midwest, like the Standing Rock protests in North Dakota about the pipeline, or even the Black Lives Matter protests that sprung from the shooting of an unarmed black man, Michael Brown, by police in 2014.

Lincoln is a sleepy little town unaffected by the world, it seems, but were not, she said.

* * *

Kleeb said many of the anti-Trump protests holds similarities to the grassroots tea party movement that sprouted up after Obamas inauguration, despite their ideological differences.

The tea party took issue with proposed Democratic policy and government spending through rallies and protests around the country.

Certainly Republicans that got engaged in the tea party movement were obviously concerned about the direction of our party with Obama, Kleeb said.

The grassroots strength and organizational power of the tea party is seemingly reflected in many of the activist groups that have coordinated many of this years rallies.

Woman starts 'Make Lincoln Kind Again' Facebook group Kelyn Nightengale's family used to be the type that gave money, but not time.

The anti-fascist group Antifa Nebraska, for example, organized protests outside a UNL fraternity, while advocacy groups like Kleeb's Bold Nebraska have been key players in organizing protests against the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines.

Other issues have also gained traction with Lincoln protesters. In the last decade, three marches were organized to protest wars in Iraq and Afghanistan to bring troops home.

Another three have spawned since 2012 to localize the Black Lives Matter movement.

And this years Climate March isnt the first to happen in Lincoln. In 2014 protesters lined up to affirm that climate change is real.

UNL political science professor John Hibbing said the recent surge in activism shares similarities with political involvement spurred around past elections.

"If you go back to Barack Obama, there was a lot of response from activists ... the last three presidents have been very polarizing figures," Hibbing said.

And with key issues like education and health care in the news, there's likely more to come.

"If something like health care should go through or tax reforms are passed, if (Trump) nixes the Iran deal  these are all things he can do that would stimulate even more protests," Hibbing said.

Local elections are on the horizon as well, including races for governor and Fischer's Senate seat in 2018.

But Hibbing said activism cuts to the chase, without needing to wait to cast a vote.

"It's an outlet," he said. "We have elections and that's the main way we make political decisions ... we elected Trump and he's going to be here for four years or however long, does that mean you sit on your hands? Probably not.

"You can voice your political views without having to wait for the next election."
Editor's Note: This story has been updated to clarify the respective roles of Intersection and ZenFi in the formation of New Yorks smart city infrastructure.

Everybody talks about smart cities, but few are doing anything about it.

New York City is an exception. It's in the early stages of an ambitious project to blanket the city with ultrafast Wi-Fi via smart kiosks, which will replace obsolete public telephones.

These kiosks are the work of a Google-backed startup called Intersection. The company has already installed around 1,000 kiosks, and aims to install more than 6,000 more, Intersection Chief Innovation Officer Colin O'Donnell said in an interview this week.

Mike Elgan Intersection Chief Innovation Officer Colin ODonnell on stage at Cannes Lions on June 18, 2017.

Each kiosk is around nine feet high and relatively flat. Each flat side houses a big-screen display that pays for the whole operation with advertising. The screens also show emergency and other public information.

A smaller user terminal on the skinny edge facing away from the street allows one user at a time to access information and make calls. The screen is a locked-down Android tablet with a custom interface offering a few apps to access various services, including one for paying parking tickets and another for voter registration.

[ To comment on this story, visit Computerworld's Facebook page. ]

Below the screen on the left is a big, red button for a one-press 911 emergency call. Under that is an audio jack, where non-iPhone users can insert their headphones or earbuds for privacy. (The hardware supports standard audio jacks, but not Apple's newer lightning cable configuration.) Next to those options is a numeric keypad for dialing calls. And below all that are two USB ports for charging devices.

Each kiosk provides free, high-speed Wi-Fi for anyone in range. By selecting the Wi-Fi network at one kiosk, and authenticating with an email address, each user will be automatically connected to every other LinkNYC kiosk they get within range of. Eventually, anyone will be able to walk around most of the city without losing the connection to these hotspots.

Wide-angle cameras on each side of the kiosks point up and down the street and sidewalk, approximating a 360-degree view. The company claims it deletes stored videos after 7 days, unless there's a compelling reason to keep them, according to O'Donnell.

While the built-in kiosk tablet doesn't appear to offer a high-performance user experience, the public Wi-Fi is blistering fast -- far faster than the average connection speeds offered by mobile carriers over cell networks. Some New York content creators producing massive amounts of content, such as HD videos, are now hauling their laptops down to the street for faster uploading.

CityBridge Intersection has already installed 1,000 LinkNYC smart kiosks on New York sidewalks. It's planning more than 6,000 more.

This is possible because LinkNYC kiosks are connected by fiber.

It's paid for by the advertising and costs nothing to taxpayers. In fact, the city is expected to earn $500 million over the 10-year Intersection contract.

London is the second Intersection city, where the project is called InLinkUK and the kiosks are called "InLinks." The London project is more modest, with a goal of around 1,000 kiosks. O'Donnell told me Intersection plans to deploy in 20 more cities after that.

Intersection is tightly conjoined with Alphabet's Sidewalk Labs company, which works to accelerate and guide the creation of smart cities. They even share an office in Manhattan. Other partners in the LinkNYC project include Qualcomm and Civiq Smartscapes (BT is a partner for the London project).

Smart cities: the immediate impact

LinkNYC is already changing New York; two million people are now using the system -- twice as many as in January.

The existence of smart-city implementations like Intersection's LinkNYC means that New Yorkers won't actually need mobile contracts anymore. Most who would otherwise pay for them will no doubt continue to do so for the convenience. But those who could not afford a phone contract in the past will have ubiquitous fast connectivity in the future.

This strongly erodes the digital divide within smart cities. A 2015 study conducted by New York City found that more than a quarter of city households had no internet connectivity at home, and more than half a million people didn't own their own computer.

At the same time, smart city kiosks widen the gap between urban and rural people, where the urban take a big leap forward and the rural stay behind with no solution in sight.

Smart cities are built on citywide fiber networks, which can eventually (as with the case of ZenFi's network) connect 5G wireless antennas on every street corner and every floor of every office building back to the core network. This densification of the wireless networks is the true hero of the smart cities revolution, enabling not only smart-city kiosks, but capacity for high-speed wireless applications on smartphones and tablets, widespread IoT deployments, mobile augmented reality applications, self-driving cars and more.

It's also amazing that New York is leading the smart city charge. Because if the concept can make it there, it can make it anywhere. Dark-fiber deployments in New York typically cost far more than in just about any other city because of heavy unionization and the scale of any disruption when streets have to be closed for fiber installation.

New York's example in aggressively enabling thousands of high-speed kiosks also puts pressure on other U.S. cities to follow suit. The first step is not only to wire up entire cities with fast fiber, but to architect it in a way that enables flexible deployment, as ZenFi is doing. And this is the best part of the smart cities revolution.

Smart cities: the long-term impact

O'Donnell claims that smart city rollouts happen in three phases, which he says is about "building the city from the internet up."

1. Instrumentation 2. Intelligence 3. Responsiveness.

New York is currently at the beginning of the instrumentation phase, where the immediate benefits are to underserved and under-connected members of the public. Over the next 15 years, the city will go through the other two phases, where sensor data will be processed by artificial intelligence (A.I.) to gain unprecedented insights about traffic, environment and human behavior and eventually use it to intelligently re-direct traffic and shape other city functions.

The two most transformational technologies will be augmented reality (AR) and autonomous cars. AR won't be one specific set of technologies, but many variations that will range from low-bandwidth and even offline applications to ultra HD streaming AR.

New York's LinkNYC kiosks mean everyone in the city will have network support for high-end streaming AR as they move around the city. Enterprises operating in the city can deploy top-of-the-line equipment and applications and rely on 5G connectivity on every block.

And as autonomous cars gradually roll out, New York will be well positioned to be one of the first cities to legalize them, because they'll be safer thanks to 5G, sensors and data from all those kiosks. This will enable a revolution in delivery systems, among other things.

(Note: The use of LinkNYC kiosks in the future for AR and self-driving cars is my own expectation; it's not based on current plans by Intersection.)

Risks and rewards

Smart kiosks do carry risks, however. One involves privacy. O'Donnell said privacy policies aren't set by Intersection, but are negotiated agreements between the company and the city. So if a city wants to use those cameras and sensors for surveillance, it can.

But the biggest risk revolves around hacking and the theft of data, monitoring of cameras and -- a worst-case scenario -- eventual control of the "Responsiveness" phase technology, where mayhem is deliberately caused.

Futurists and tech pundits often assume that if a beneficial set of technologies exists, it will be implemented and widely distributed. But this is obviously not true. Technology revolutions require drivers to realize them.

In this case, New York City and Intersection are the drivers, showing the enormous benefits of ubiquitous high-speed wireless, as well as connected sensor stations all over a city. This will drive huge demand in other cities to replicate the technology, which will create demand for city-wide flexible dark-fiber installation, which will transform how enterprises operate.

For enterprises, the advances change assumptions about what's possible for how offices, warehouses, field service, delivery and, eventually, next-generation technologies will work.

The most important calculation is the question of where: Where should offices, warehouses, factories and other major locations be built? Answer: They'll gravitate to smart cities. Because the benefits to enterprises of ubiquitous and dense high-speed wireless, sensor-based city services and fiber everywhere will prove incalculable.
The American Technology Council, which President Donald Trump established this spring by executive order, has four years to rebuild the federal governments information technology structure.

A massive reboot of both hardware and software will be necessary to bring government computers up to modern standards. The effort will force many government agencies to shift years of floppy disk and other outdated storage technologies to current cloud storage systems, and to adopt big data and machine learning solutions.

The ATC is comprised of cabinet members and top officials of related agencies. Both the executive order and the ATC it created terminate on Jan. 20, 2021.

The ATC, which is headed by Senior Advisor to the President Jared Kushner, met last month to set an agenda for collaborating with industry leaders to forge a new technology plan.

The ATCs goal is to promote the secure, efficient and economical use of information technology to achieve its mission. Toward that end, the federal government must transform and modernize its information technology operations and the systems it uses to deliver digital services, according to the executive order.

Council members will coordinate advice to the president on technology policies and processes. The council is tasked with coordinating the vision, strategy and direction for the federal governments IT reboot.

Two major impediments could hinder full achievement of the presidents IT goals, said Charles King, principal analyst at Pund-IT.

First is the sheer complexity of the federal governments IT assets, systems and management, he told the E-Commerce Times. The second is the compartmentalized culture of many or most federal departments and agencies.

Is an IT Reboot Needed?

An IT reboot is not necessary, suggested King, who favors expanding what the Obama administration started instead. The previous administrations accomplishments include appointing the first U.S. chief technology officer, and bringing greater order and innovation to federal agencies IT efforts.

Consideration of those ongoing efforts was curiously absent during the ATC meeting, said King.

Rebooting, or starting all over again, rather than building on that solid, existing foundation, is likely to waste time and money, he warned.

There is a clear need for the ATC initiatives, according to Brian Chappell, senior director at BeyondTrust, who cited a recent survey of federal IT managers.

An overwhelming majority of federal IT managers (81 percent) said that the federal governments aging IT infrastructure had a significant impact on their agencies cybersecurity risk, Chappell told the E-Commerce Times.

It is statistics like this that make initiatives like the American Technology Council essential in starting the drive toward not only modernizing the federal government and the services it provides, but also  and more importantly  improving the safety of U.S. citizens and government staff using those services.

Deja Vu All Over Again

Budget concerns are a major barrier to system modernization, said Tami Gallegos, federal manager at BeyondTrust.

Eighty-one percent of survey participants mentioned budget as a major roadblock, she pointed out.

Sixty-nine percent of the respondents expressed concern about losing information during the conversion, which would have a negative impact on their ability to achieve their missions.

This is a very complex proposition that will require talent and expertise across several technology cycles to get the job done, Gallegos told the E-Commerce Times.

Enterprise-focused IT vendors, including those involved with the ATC, should be able to offer valuable solutions to many of the federal governments IT infrastructure problems, said Pund-ITs King. However, it will take more than a few months to develop, design and deploy replacements for such massively complex systems.

A notable shift in the political landscape due to the 2018 mid-terms and the 2020 election could result in a new Congress and/or a new president starting the process all over again, he said.

Repeal and Replace Gov IT?

Information technology dynamics have changed dramatically in the last few years, according to David King, director of solutions marketing at Commvault. The need to introduce new applications more quickly and in dramatically larger volumes has altered the interaction between IT operations and the organizations that they support. [*Editors Note  July 25, 2017]

Hybrid cloud, virtualization, big data analytics and machine learning have provided new options to deliver those applications and derive new value from the information they produce.

If you are willing to consider doing things in a different manner, the results can be remarkable, King told the E-Commerce Times, so a reboot in how the federal government does infrastructure technology is a necessity.

Modernizing the current IT infrastructure and shedding legacy architectures will require a much more data-centric philosophy, he noted. It will be necessary to eliminate cumbersome data silos and make it easier to access big data and machine learning systems.

What Is Needed

The American Technology Councils agenda is to lay important groundwork, according to Dux Raymond Sy, CTO of AvePoint public sector.

However, the ATC may not go far enough to upgrade the governments IT infrastructure, which is a worrisome prospect, he said.

Government IT should embrace artificial intelligence, use commercial technology, and prioritize coding in schools, he suggested.

Moving from legacy technologies to the cloud is critical, and action will be required in three key areas to achieve a successful reboot of the U.S. IT infrastructure, Sy told the E-Commerce Times.

Influencing decision makers to muster the political will to change how government works is the first step for the ATC, he said.

What is slowing down government IT is the overlapping numbers of government agencies that are counterintuitive in modern technology, noted Sy. The irony is that new technology is designed for agility and more responsiveness. This is counter to how the government works. How the government works has to change.

Reach for the Sky

The second step for the ATC is to promote more government and private industry collaboration, noted Sy. The formation of the ATC is a good beginning toward creating a stronger IT partnership with other government agencies, but the government must be committed to executing the recommended changes.

Artificial Intelligence could be a vital part of any IT innovation efforts, but for AI to work, it needs to reside in the cloud.

The federal government is moving towards harvesting cloud technology, said Sy, which is a necessary step toward maximizing commercial technology.

No single government agency is tasked with overseeing innovative thinking about technology, so having an agency such as the ATC is great, according to Sy. Unless there is authority attached to that agency, though, nothing will move beyond merely discussing ideas.

Having government agencies move to the cloud is a good first step  but then what? The government can not behave like a homeowner who moves into a big new modern house but then continues to use worn out furniture and house maintenance policies from their old, rundown structure, Sy cautioned.

How long will it take? Its doubtful that it will take much time for the government to move into the cloud, he said. The bigger question is this: How does the government maximize the new IT infrastructure?

Forward-Looking Education

The third essential action the ATC must take is investing in technical education for the next generation, according to Sy. That includes improving computer education teaching goals in schools.

We need to make coding skills a much larger priority than it is now, he urged. The council needs to consider how to maximize commercial technologies that already exist.

Voices for Innovation is a strong advocate for more government spending on technological education. This is an area our government has to consider and address soon, said Sy.

Sy cited two examples of governments with forward-looking IT policies: Singapore and Estonia. Singapore has two agencies responsible for government IT and technology innovations.

These two agencies are in lockstep with all other Singapore government agencies, Sy said.

Estonia is one of the most modern and forward-looking governments out there leveraging IT, he added.

Initially, the intent was to modernize the Estonian governments IT. Then the plan was to follow through with better services and innovations. They have done that today, Sy pointed out.

Out With the Old

The days of upgrading technology hardware every five years are long gone. The government must focus on upgrading technology daily  and that way of thinking about technology innovation should be introduced at a formative age, Sy suggested.

How many government agencies are still using outdated hardware and software? The answer is mind-boggling. There are still government agencies using floppy disks to store data, he said.

Too many government agencies and IT workers are stuck in the old IT mindset. We spend a boatload of money, and once we spend money on upgrades we must wait another five-to-10 years to consider something new, Sy lamented.

That is what government IT is suffering from, he maintained.Two reasons explain why government IT has fallen into such a bad disarray: One is the bureaucracy, or its lack of political will. It is that mindset of if it aint broke, dont fix it.'

The second reason is the government attitude toward cost and spending taxpayers money.

How many times do we see government waiting to step up and make change only when bad things happen? Well, really bad things are happening today with malware, ransomware and really serious network breaches. The government has to step up, Sy said.

Getting There

Wheels are turning in some quarters to overcome governments big legacy obstacles in adopting AI/big data/machine learning systems, said Chris Nicholson, CEO of Skymind.

The government is grappling with outdated technology and a cumbersome procurement process.

They are reaching out through groups like DHS Silicon Valley office to  do deals with startups that have never worked with government before and have unique technology to offer, Nicholson told the E-Commerce Times.

Getting technology right will occur only if the government understands how new technologies can help agencies fulfill their missions, he said.

The government is planning on using powerful open source technology on top of their legacy systems. A lot of government has invested in Java and the [Java Virtual Machine], and there are many, powerful tools for big data and AI for the JVM stack, he said.

Small Steps to Success

An IT reboot as a necessary and inevitable change, in Nicholsons view, even if it is difficult to accomplish. It will involve educating people, connecting people, and empowering them to make hard decisions about how to build new systems.

In government, no one wants to fail or be seen to fail, but when you are building new systems, you are actually experimenting with the world, seeing what works and trying again, he said.

To avoid overall failure, the reboot needs to involve projects that are small enough to prove themselves at a scale where failure matters less, suggested Nicholson. That involves taking small risks and betting on new tech in order to understand its potential.

That is how you shape the future, he said. If failure is going to happen, it should happen small and early, so that you can get the big projects right. A lot of people on the ATC know this because they have built companies, made bets, failed, and corrected course until they succeeded.

*ECT News Network editors note  July 25, 2017: Our original published version of this story attributed David Kings comments to Craig McCullough, vice president of U.S. federal sales at Commvault. Per Commvaults Daniella Kohan, the quotes the company shared with us actually came from King.
Niantic Labs has decided to push back some planned Pokemon GO events in Europe after the disastrous Pokemon GO Fest in Chicago last weekend.

While the developer is understandably looking to prevent another failed Pokemon GO event, the decision to delay some events could turn out to be another lawsuit waiting to happen.

What Happened At The 'Pokemon GO' Fest In Chicago?

Thousands of Pokemon GO players flocked to Grant Park in Chicago last July 22 to participate in the first real-world event for the mobile game. However, technical issues turned the Pokemon GO Fest into a disaster.

While the blame is being passed between Niantic Labs and some carriers for the Pokemon GO Fest disaster, the developer apologized by refunding the $20 tickets, giving away $100 worth of PokeCoins, and adding the Legendary Pokemon Lugia to the accounts of attendees. However, a group has filed a class action lawsuit against Niantic Labs, claiming that the apology is not enough as they wasted travel expenses to fly in to Chicago to attend the failed Pokemon GO event.

Niantic Labs To Delay 'Pokemon GO' Events In Europe

In a blog post, Niantic Labs revealed that it will postpone the Pokemon GO events in Europe that are scheduled for Aug. 5 in Copenhagen and Prague and for Aug. 12 in Stockholm and Amsterdam to an unspecified date in the fall.

Meanwhile, the planned events in Yokohama, Japan for Aug. 14 and in Germany, France, and Spain on Sept. 16 will not be pushed back.

According to Niantic Labs, the decision was made to "guarantee the best possible gameplay experience" for European Pokemon GO players, with the developer apologizing for any inconveniences that the change in schedule may cause. To make up for it, Niantic Labs promised that Pokemon rarely seen in Europe will soon appear to help Pokemon GO players take another step or two in completing their Pokedexes.

Interestingly, the Pokemon GO event in Japan will still push through despite just a few days away from its European counterparts. Perhaps carriers are more reliable in the country compared to those in Europe?

The delay of the Pokemon GO events in Europe, however, is likely a sudden blow against some players who have already paid for travel and lodging arrangements to attend one of these events from other regions. The announcement of Niantic Labs gives these players some time to make adjustments, but if the number of days is not enough, there could be another class action lawsuit heading the developer's way to reimburse expenses for destroyed travel plans.

 2022 TECHTIMES.com All rights reserved. Do not reproduce without permission.
Our weekly roundup of the news, notes and chatter about the prospects for the next Democratic presidential race:

The 2020 Democratic presidential race now officially has its first candidate: Maryland Rep. John Delaney.

The third-term congressman announced his plans to run for president in a Washington Post op-ed Friday afternoon. Delaney, 54, won't run for re-election and is bypassing a run for Maryland governor in 2018.

Let's be honest here: More than anything, this reflects the reality that just about every elected Democrat thinks a couple big things: 1) They can beat Trump, and 2) The best-known Democratic prospects -- former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren -- all have good reasons they might not run, which could mean a truly wide-open race. After all, another Maryland Democrat, former Gov. Martin O'Malley, also looks likely to run.

Why do even Delaney's allies admit he is an extreme longshot? Beyond his lack of a national profile, Delaney is well to the right of the Democratic primary electorate, including his support for the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal. He previously pushed minimum wage hikes, but for amounts short of the $15 an hour that progressives have sought (and Delaney now says he backs). He has proposed allowing businesses to repatriate money earned overseas without paying taxes in exchange for buying infrastructure bonds.

"I don't really see it, but I think if he does this he will try to be the solutions candidate aimed at making Washington work again," said one Democratic strategist who has worked with Delaney. "He has a record of creating thousands of jobs as the CEO of two publicly traded companies that he built from scratch after being raised in a union household" in New Jersey, the strategist said. Delaney could also spend millions of his own dollars on a race.

News and notes:

Time to talk single-payer?

Democrats won a huge health care victory in the wee Friday morning hours. So what's next? Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders plans to introduce his single-payer health insurance bill -- "Medicare for all," as he'll cast it -- in September, an aide told CNN. The big question is which Democratic 2020 prospects will support it.

Already, Warren and New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand have embraced single-payer. California Sen. Kamala Harris expressed support for "the concept" in May, when she said health care access should not be "a function of your income," and again in July -- but cautioned the details are key. The Democratic base will demand she and others weigh in on the issue and on Sanders' bill, and it's likely to be a central issue in the 2020 nominating contest. "Single-payer is the absolutely the price of admission for our 2020 nominee both morally and politically," one Democratic operative said. A more skeptical operative said the party's 2020 primary could be "a suicidal litmus test" on single-payer.

Republicans tried to troll Democrats into voting for a single-payer bill that had no hope of passing Thursday. Democrats didn't take the bait.

Warren's fingerprints on Democrats' agenda

Warren was among the Democrats in Berryville, Virginia, to roll out a new agenda for the midterm this week. It was all economic populism, all the time, with a big anti-trust emphasis. Where'd that come from? Read this June 2016 Warren speech at a New America think tank event, and you'll see her fingerprints all over it.

Speaking of anti-trust, New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker told Recode the government needs to keep a much closer eye on Amazon and Google. "This consolidation that's happening all over the country is not a positive trend," he said, pointing to Amazon's bid to buy Whole Foods and Google's cable and telecom mergers.

Trump's transgender ban

Gillibrand was among the harshest Democratic critics of Trump's transgender military service ban, saying she was working on legislation to block it. She said on CNN she "can't think of anything less patriotic" and called the ban "outrageous."

Gillibrand has said she's not running in 2020. But many Democrats don't believe her, and see her as a strong contender. Gillibrand's biggest weakness, which some operatives told me they see her actively working to address, is that she was a moderate "Blue Dog" in the House whose previous positions on guns and same-sex marriage could prove problematic with the progressives.

Moulton a 2020 prospect?

Massachusetts Rep. Seth Moulton is profiled by Politico's Michael Kruse as an "insider who's an outsider." Focused heavily on Kruse's military record -- he went to Iraq four times -- Kruse finds those who know him speaking of a White House run as more of a question of when than if. "I'm not running for president, man," Moulton said.

Landrieu keeps his options open

New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is tamping down speculation that he might run for president in 2020 -- sort of. At least in the present tense. "The answer to the question is I'm not running for president," Landrieu told David Axelrod on "The Axe Files," a podcast from the University of Chicago Institute of Politics and CNN. "You'd never rule out running (for) anything, you never say never about anything, but I'm not running."

An unusual approach to Trump

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo is the rare Democrat who almost never says President Donald Trump's name -- a weird tactic for a big-state governor in a party fueled by resisting Trump. He blasted Trump's decision to ban transgender Americans from military service as a "Washington directive," The New York Times' Shane Goldmacher notes. "As a general rule, I haven't found nasty ad hominem attacks on a person whose cooperation is needed to help your state especially helpful," Cuomo told Goldmacher.

Calls for an African-American on the ticket

At the NAACP's convention in Baltimore, organization members said they wanted to see a black person on Democrats' 2020 ticket, per McClatchy's William Douglas and Katishi Maake. Among the people to watch: Harris, Booker, former Attorney General Eric Holder and former Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick.

The week ahead:

Tuesday, August 1 -- Minnesota Sen. Al Franken will sit down with NBC's Seth Meyers for a talk about Franken's book at the Great Hall at Cooper Union in New York City.

Wednesday, August 2 -- Polk County, Iowa, Democrats are teasing a 10 a.m. CT announcement about their steak fry. We're watching to see who the featured speaker will be at the Des Moines event that's seen as a must for future presidential contenders.

Expecting they could still be in Washington voting on health care, senators all kept their schedules open for the next week.

Before you go:

Hillary Clinton's forthcoming book "What Happened" is still six weeks away -- but it shot to the top of Amazon's best sellers list with pre-orders when the title and covered were announced this week. ... Michelle Obama was in Denver this week, discussing how she overcame racist jabs. "The shards that cut me the deepest were the ones that intended to cut," she said.

This story has been updated.

CNN's Ashley Killough, Sophie Tatum, Miranda Green, Saba Hamedy and Betsy Klein contributed to this story.
On November 11, the EU announced the renewal, until November 14, 2023, of the sanctions against officials linked to the Administration of Nicolas Maduro. | Read More
Don Walton Political reporter/columnist Don Walton covers politics and the Legislature along with writing a weekly column. Follow Don Walton Close Get email notifications on {{subject}} daily! Your notification has been saved. There was a problem saving your notification. {{description}} Email notifications are only sent once a day, and only if there are new matching items. Save Manage followed notifications Close Followed notifications Please log in to use this feature Log In Don't have an account? Sign Up Today

A postscript to an earlier column.

When President Bill Clinton sought Bob Kerrey's decisive Senate vote for the new president's budget and domestic policy agenda in 1993, he recruited about 25 people from Nebraska to come to a White House briefing hoping it would prompt them to persuade Kerrey to vote for his package.

"President Clinton looked each guest in the eye as their issue came up, called them by name and gave them the ground-level details of why Bob Kerrey needed to vote for his budget package," John Hansen said in recalling that event.

"The president's command of the details was beyond impressive," said Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union.

Clinton's chief-of-staff and his budget director also briefed the Nebraska delegation, but it was the president who zeroed in on the details, he said.

Among others who were there: Joe Batallion, Herb Schimek, Mike and Anne Boyle.

In the end, Kerrey voted for the president's package, providing the final decisive Senate vote.

* * *

A similar effort by President Jimmy Carter to win Nebraska Sen. Ed Zorinsky's vote to ratify a pair of new Panama Canal treaties in 1978 didn't end quite as well.

Carter hosted 150 Nebraskans under the crystal chandeliers in the East Room at the White House for a two-hour briefing that included remarks by Zbiginew Brzezinski, his national security adviser, and other administration officials after a personal greeting by Rosalynn Carter.

Zorinsky was one of two specific Senate targets for Carter, who spent 35 minutes with his guests and answered eight questions.

Zorinsky helped arrange the guest list of Nebraskans who would be invited to the White House briefing, and then voted no.

* * *

John DeCamp was a force.

DeCamp, who served in the Legislature from 1971 to 1987, was a freewheeler, an operator, a deal-maker. He knew how to work the legislative chamber; he knew how to work the Rotunda; he knew how to deal over dinner and drinks at night.

He made his own rules and then changed them and often operated in that electric space where there are no rules. Just results.

DeCamp had the ability to adapt and maneuver and change course and move swiftly and function at the edges.

And along the way he acquired and exercised power.

He was a consequential, and controversial, state senator.

* * *

John McCain.

What a life story.

Courageous and resolute beyond measure or imagination.

Stubborn and cantankerous at times.

Now, in the twilight, he has a chance to write the last chapter.

Or, if he is fortunate, perhaps a couple of chapters more.

McCain could have been more of a bipartisan  I know, I know, some people believe that's a dirty word  force during the Obama years. That might have been good for everyone.

Now, he has stepped forward on health care reform by stopping Mitch McConnell in his tracks.

That may have been annoying to many Republicans, but he's still fundamentally on their side.

His message, if I heard it correctly, is: Let's do this right and do it the right way.

And do no harm.

Sick people don't check into doctor's offices and hospitals and emergency rooms as Republicans or Democrats. There are no Republican or Democratic health care insurance policies.

So, hey, why don't you guys try to come to some reasonable agreement over health care policy that's best for us and the country without all of the partisan and personal maneuvering for political advantage.

It is doing harm.

* * *

And so the fallout from President Trump's abrupt withdrawal from the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade agreement continues, perhaps especially impacting the agricultural sector and states like Nebraska.

Beef and pork would have been the biggest beneficiaries of that treaty.

In the wake of the U.S. departure from TPP, Japan signed a broad trade deal with the European Union.

And now, Japan is ready to raise its tariff to 50 percent on frozen beef imports from the United States.

Finishing up:

* Deb Fischer, reacting to North Korea's latest intercontinental missile test: "Sitting by and allowing these tests to continue is not an option."

* Ben Sasse, sending a message to President Trump on Twitter: "A word of humble advice to our president: if you're thinking of making a recess appointment to push out the atty general, forget about it."

* Baseball trade deadline.
A year ago it was nonexistent, but these days anxiety trickles into the life of Natasha Naseem.

It's an anxiety surrounding her identity as a Muslim, an identity shared by many immigrants and refugees in Lincoln.

The anxiety has driven Naseem, a 20-year-old University of Nebraska-Lincoln student and daughter of Pakistani immigrants, to a new wave of activism in support of Muslim rights following last year's presidential election and subsequent policies aimed at immigration.

Like a July ruling from the Supreme Court that OK'd parts of Trump's travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries.

"Before, I wouldn't have cared," Naseem said. "I wouldn't have tried to pick a fight with these established forces."

But it's not only Muslim rights that Naseem is fighting for.

As a summer fellow at Organizing for Action, a nonprofit group that advocates for the agenda of former president Barack Obama, Naseem has stood behind the Affordable Care Act and women's rights.

She attended the Women's March in Lincoln on Jan. 21 and a campus rally decrying violence against women.

She also showed support for Muslims and refugees at the protest against Trump's January executive order that briefly halted immigration from seven Muslim-majority nations.

While she has lived in Lincoln for 16 years, Naseem said this year has been particularly straining for Muslims.

"I'm a Muslim and a Nebraskan," she said. "My family has been contributing to this community for 15-plus years and to dismiss any of it ... based on my faith, that's something I don't understand."

Naseem said she thinks the activist furor that swept Lincoln from January through March has slowed down.

"But that doesn't mean we can," she said.

She plans to continue her activism by meeting with other Muslims to create a unified voice for her community, while also reaching out to others.

"We're a lot more vested than one thinks," she said. "This is our home, this is where I grew up. I love Nebraska."

While things seemed easier for Naseem a year ago, she admits that things can change, with the help of activism.

"We took a lot for granted before Trump," she said. "But the rhetoric has changed so drastically ... we're up against something we haven't seen before."

"You become the unlikely activist because these are unlikely times."
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Its bad enough that Louisiana state policymakers allow the Louisiana nursing home industry to fleece the taxpayer. Worse will be if elected officials aid and abet the facilities in allowing callous treatment of clients.

Louisiana nursing homes receive lots of taxpayer dollars  over $900 million from Medicaid in fiscal year 2015. Their owners then donate a few of those millions each election cycle to keep it that way.

Theyve used this leverage over elected officials to lock in annually increasing reimbursement rates and to resist reforms that could save the state up to $200 million a year  while improving Medicaid care for their clients. The formula to determine nursing home rates also pays for empty beds, producing millions in bonus payments. Meanwhile, services for people with disabilities go without funding, higher education pinches pennies, and taxes go up.

+10 Special report on nursing homes: Inside Louisiana system that values profits over patients The past 10 months have ticked away at a torturously slow pace for Kenny Johnson, who prayed every day hed get the call telling him it was time to leave the nursing home.

Shamefully, policymakers such as Gov. John Bel Edwards and legislative majorities continue to let this gravy train roll. And if the politicians dont have the courage to stop it, at least maybe theyll act to prevent the industry from keeping families from discovering whether nursing home employees act unethically toward or injure loved ones.

Recently, Ann Graff and Lucie Titus sued Heritage Manor of Slidell, owned by Medico LLC, to install a camera in Graffs room at the institution. Titus, Graffs daughter, stated her mother could not communicate reliably, and neither Graff nor Heritage Manor personnel could shed light on mysterious severe injuries that she had received while under the institutions care. In response, Titus petitioned management to let her install a camera in Graffs room to record potential harm Graff could experience, whether self-induced or otherwise.

The request incorporated guidelines under law in the handful of states that legally permit placement of cameras in facilities. The family would pay for placing the camera and equipment needed to capture soundless footage of Graffs bed area, that her relatives could review. Her family also would place signage informing staff or visitors of the cameras presence; they had received consent from Graffs roommate for recording.

+5 Special report: Labeled 'a good-ol' boy system,' politicians in no rush to reform unpopular nursing homes A team of government experts and industry stakeholders spent more than two years painstakingly crafting a plan that would have reduced Louisianas expensive and unpopular reliance on nursing homes to house the states most helpless residents.

Yet Heritage Manor denied the request. The suit would enjoin the institution from stopping the action, arguing civil rights discrimination against Graff on the basis of her disability and violation of her rights as a Louisiana nursing home resident.

Nationally, the industry has argued against these kinds of laws by invoking the federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Acts privacy provisions, but family ownership of the equipment and recordings and the placement of signage moot that concern. More legitimately, unions join nursing homes in complaining that cameras demean employees and can cause families to misconstrue actions. The same argument has been made about police body cameras.

However, those views mistakenly put too little faith in both employees and the justice system. Good-hearted employees who take pride in their work have nothing to fear from families reviewing their job performance, and prosecutors surely have the sound judgment to bring cases based on this kind of evidence only where any employee misconduct is unambiguous. By contrast, malicious and or lazy workers have everything to lose from cameras; the oversight could either deter them from bad behavior or guide them to leave this profession.

+8 Special report: Lawmakers, politicians vote to enrich La. nursing homes, instead of saving money Year after year, Louisiana lawmakers gather in Baton Rouge and grouse about the unpalatable choices they face: Cut state services, raise taxes or do some of both.

In reality, nursing homes fear that cameras will expose employee misbehavior that creates legal liabilities, increase state corrective actions, and affect the bottom line by hiking personnel costs  through paying higher wages and dealing with staff turnover. The industry will fight any attempt to make camera installation a legal right.

Regardless, at the next available opportunity Louisiana policymakers should change state law to allow cameras in rooms of nursing home clients. If they wont protect taxpayer resources, they at least need to allow families to protect vulnerable citizens.

Jeff Sadow is an associate professor of political science at Louisiana State University-Shreveport, where he teaches Louisiana government. He is author of a blog about Louisiana politics at www.between-lines.com, where links to information in this column may be found. When the Legislature is in session, he writes about legislation at www.laleglog.com. Follow him on Twitter, @jsadowadvocate or write to him at jeffsadowtheadvocate@yahoo.com. His views do not necessarily express those of his employer.
With approval ratings low, at least for the moment, and with oil prices having crashed in the last few years, it might not seem the best time for President Donald Trump to push for exploration of oil and gas deposits off the East Coast of the United States.

It is nevertheless absolutely the right thing to do. The nation  and the world, with America now exporting natural gas from Louisiana facilities  will need energy for decades to come.

While many advocates for the oil and gas industry believe there is great potential on the East Coast, it is not the near-term source of energy. Leave aside the long lead time necessary for development of pipelines, ports and other infrastructure for energy production, such as exists in Port Fourchon and other coastal areas of Louisiana.

And leave aside the political issues, which can tie up development for years. Prices will limit the immediate impact of the exploration agenda proposed by Trump's Interior Department.

In North Carolina, reported the Raleigh News & Observer, Gov. Roy Cooper's administration said it would oppose opening Atlantic Ocean waters to drilling. That decision by Cooper, a Democrat elected last year, reverses the decision of Pat McCrory, the former Republican governor.

The issue is not purely partisan. Some GOP governors, as in South Carolina, oppose offshore drilling. Democrats like former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, of Louisiana, have urged new assessments of offshore potential on the East Coast.

Cooper said offshore energy exploration poses risks of oil spills to local ecosystems, tourist economies and the commercial fishing industry, but added that North Carolina workers and ports would see few benefits from drilling in federal ocean waters miles offshore.

While there are risks of development, as Cooper noted, the timetable for this project is a long one. For the moment, the nation has a glut of oil on the market; natural gas prices are very low. The costs of onshore "fracking" development are much less than the multi-billion-dollar price tags of big offshore projects.

But the reality is that, as the U.S. Interior Department said, assessments of whether there is an offshore mineral bonanza are out of date. Dramatic improvements in technology make it vital that a more comprehensive assessment of energy potential be made off the Atlantic coast.

In this case, the president is acting in a long-term national interest that probably will not come to fruition until he is gone from the Oval Office, even if he serves two full terms. Isn't that long-term thinking what we want presidents to do?
Kelyn Nightengale's family used to be the type that gave money, but not time.

Now, weve really pumped the brakes and looked at what matters more, she said.

And what matters most, she realized, is the people around her.

She created the Make Lincoln Kind Again group on Facebook as a way to commiserate with friends in the wake of the 2016 presidential election. She never expected the page to turn into a community effort with more than 1,500 members.

Weve really stretched our arms out and are still working to actively do stuff locally and be impactful, she said. And thats been great for me to show my kids, too. We dont have a lot, but we can do a lot.

The group has pooled money to pay overdue lunch fines at schools, cleaned up neighborhoods, collected household furniture for incoming immigrant and refugee families, held a diaper drive for the People's City Mission, sent supplies to Standing Rock and crafted cards for senior citizens.

Nightengale, who works in medical billing, extends the kindness into her job. On bills over $100 she writes notes to let people know they can reach out if they need help figuring out how to make payments.

She knows firsthand the struggle of mounting medical bills during illness.

When her husband, Josh, was diagnosed with cancer four years ago, they struggled to pay bills on a reduced family income as he transitioned to disability pay.

Doctors struggled to diagnose the non-tumorous myeloma, a rare form of cancer that flows through blood and causes organs to enlarge.

Josh now relies on Medicaid because, although the cancer is mostly gone, it left him in constant pain and paralyzed below the knee.

He's gone through a round of chemotherapy and even a stem cell transplant. He's healthy  for now  but Kelyn never knows what will come next.

"The fear for me is real," she said. "We're still going to have significant health care expenses every year, but at least they're manageable for us. If he were ever to get sick again, we would be destroyed from both sides  an emotional and financial standpoint."

With the Senate debating health care coverage for Americans, Nightengale is worried about access.

Her concerns have led her to action. The self-described tender heart has attended at least seven marches since the Women's March on Jan. 21.

Shes brought her children, ages 7 and 10, to several of the marches, too.

Her kids also helped compile a list of items to give to an incoming refugee family. Her daughter, a second-grader, said toys should be on the list for the family's son.

Her daughter is excited to make a new friend, Nightengale said.

Nightengale never imagined shed become an activist, she said, but she felt she couldn't just stand by as President Trump's divisive rhetoric harmed others.

Even if it just means shes combating the hatred by collecting coloring books for a 7-year-old refugee, shes glad to be making a difference.

"We're still just small potatoes," she said. "But at least it's something."
European music streaming service SoundCloud is close to a deal to sell stakes in the company to a pair of private equity firms, according to people familiar with the matter, an investment that will help the beleaguered company keep operating for the foreseeable future.

The two firms would be acquiring stakes via separate deals, said the people, who asked not to be identified discussing private transactions. The names of the interested parties or the sizes of the transactions couldn't immediately be obtained.

SoundCloud is popular with musicians but has struggled to generate revenue. Credit:Andrew Harrer

Combined, the two private equity firms would own a majority of SoundCloud, the people said. While the talks are at an advanced stage, they could still fall apart.

A darling of the independent music scene, SoundCloud operates one of the most popular music services in the world, attracting 175 million users with rough cuts from famous artists and mixes from unknown DJs. Yet SoundCloud, founded in Stockholm and now based in Berlin, has failed to generate much money from those users or build a business that can sustain itself.
It is 30 years since Paul Keating famously said that if you walked into any pet shop in Australia "the resident galah will be talking about microeconomic policy".

There's a good chance those pet shop conversations have now turned to inequality.

During the past week the Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, Treasurer Scott Morrison, and even Reserve Bank governor Philip Lowe have all weighed in on the topic.

There are different perspectives on what's happened to income inequality recently. But the trend in wealth inequality is fairly clear. Governor Lowe says it has become "more pronounced" over the past five or six years.
Can a school impose a uniform policy that does not take into account a student's religious or cultural beliefs and practices? This issue is being considered by the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal (VCAT).

Sagardeep Singh Arora, on behalf of his five-year-old son Sidhak Singh Arora, is challenging Melton Christian College's decision not to enrol his son unless he agrees not to wear his patka, a Sikh head covering.

Despite being a Christian school, Melton Christian College accepts children of all faiths "as long as they don't wear clothing that promotes other religions". Its stated reason for its stance is it doesn't "want children standing out as different".

Protections for freedom of religion in Australia are notoriously weak. The Victorian Equal Opportunities Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of a person's religion, but also grants a wide exemption for schools in relation to uniforms. section 42(1) states: "An educational authority may set and enforce reasonable standards of dress, appearance and behaviour for students."
Voters in Treasurer Scott Morrison's own electorate overwhelmingly believe inequality is a worsening problem in Australia and the government must do more to address it.

Polling of voters in Mr Morrison's southern Sydney seat of Cook has found nearly 85 per cent believe it is important for the government's policies to reduce inequality.

The ReachTEL poll was conducted last Thursday, three days after Mr Morrison claimed inequality was reducing in Australia and accused Labor of prosecuting a dishonest "politics of envy" campaign on the issue.
A $261 million plan to help the state's struggling primary school students improved their attitude to learning and lifted reading and numeracy levels, but had no "measurable impact" on their year 3 NAPLAN results, a new evaluation of the five-year program reveals.

About 20 per cent of all NSW schools, including public, Catholic and independent, were involved in the program, which targeted communities with the lowest-achieving students in the state. The schools were chosen based on measures including their NAPLAN results and level of disadvantage.

The NSW Literacy and Numeracy Action Plan was introduced to help the state's lowest-achieving young students. Credit:Quentin Jones

The state government launched the NSW Literacy and Numeracy Action Plan in 2012, which included 41,392 kindergarten to year 2 (K-2) students in 448 schools.

"The action plan aimed to increase the literacy and numeracy outcomes for students in the targeted schools, and to reduce the influence of socio-economic status as a key determinant of students' academic performance," an evaluation report into its effectiveness said.
The state of Australia's airport security has been thrown into question following the dramatic arrest of an Islamist-inspired terrorist cell in Sydney whose members were allegedly plotting to blow up an aircraft.

In a significant departure from the low-tech, lone actor attacks that Islamic State has inspired in Australia, the group of two middle-aged men and their two adult sons were allegedly working on an "elaborate" plot to build an improvised explosive device that could take down a plane.

Bomb squad officers were among dozens of police who raided five properties across Sydney on Saturday evening, smashing their way through glass doors and brick walls and arresting four men.

Fairfax Media understands a home-made bomb was allegedly found in a Surry Hills terrace, possibly to be planted on a commercial flight to the Middle East.
Renay Bull aka Renay Paige is the girlfriend of Newcastle fraudster Lemuel Page. Credit:Instagram His lengthy history of leaving investors short-changed was exposed after a number of people coming forward to claim they too were gazumped by the 48-year-old. "We are all clever and intelligent people," as one former investor put it. "We understand business and investment yet we all got done the same way." Newcastle developer Lemuel Page with his girlfriend Renay Bull. Most of the people Fairfax Media spoke to last week explained how Page would drop references to his supposed association to the well-known Ibrahim family in the form of a veiled threat.

Sam Ibrahim, the older brother of nightclub boss John Ibrahim, was a shareholder in Silver City Drilling, with Page, a trustee report shows. Ibrahim's wife Karen is listed as a current shareholder  and former director  of Page's company Elefteria Pty Ltd. Court documents and trustee reports showed Page claimed to be linked to another Sydney businessman who made the BRW Rich 200 List in 2001. This man lent slain businessman Michael McGurk up to $300,000 before the latter was shot dead outside his Cremorne home in 2009 Page clocked up an impressive debt of his own by the end of 2016  owing creditors, many former friends and business associates $17 million.

As the bankruptcy proceedings came to a head last year, properties owned by one of Page's companies were swiftly transferred to a company his girlfriend controlled. A home at The Junction in Newcastle was sold by Elefteria Properties Pty Ltd for $770,000 to Pegasus Corporation Pty Ltd in March 2016. The director of Pegasus is listed as Renay Bull, a body-builder, podiatrist and Page's long-term partner. Last August, Elefteria Properties sold a property for $1.2 million to Yipeeo Pty Ltd, which also lists Ms Bull as a director. Page avoided sinking into bankruptcy in November, 2016 after telling a trustee he had no real estate interests and offered to pay $180,000. Mr Goldstein was one of the fortunate few who managed to get most of his money back from Page after placing caveats on his properties.

After a working relationship blossomed between the pair over a couple of months, Mr Goldstein and Page took out options on purchases of properties in 2015. He alleged Page presented him with fraudulent option papers, which he suspected Page later stole back when he was left alone in Mr Goldstein's Sydney office. The pair also set up a motor dealer's licence, with Page's estranged wife Fiona. There is no suggestion of any wrongdoing by Fiona. The deal was that the trio would purchase cars at a good price before on-selling them for a profit. "We never on-sold them, we purchased them with my money," Mr Goldstein explained. "He then went off to some not-so-honest broker who then allowed him to completely finance loans on the cars  unbeknown to me."

Like other investors, Mr Goldstein's wife Dorothy likened Page's treatment of her husband to "grooming". "The way he grooms people is he comes across the poor person that has been very hard done by," she said. "He tells everybody that he has all these properties but I'm buying them out and this is the opportunity to come in. He was very, very clever." Another investor from the Hunter region said he lent Page $150,000 in 2013 and never saw a cent of it again. The man said Page kept coming up with excuses about why he couldn't pay the money back, including delays in property settlement.

"It was one excuse after another," he said. A Sydney woman told of how she met Page at Sydney's upmarket Establishment restaurant, where he would throw money around three times a week. The woman gave Page $70,000, most of which was a loan from her mother, to invest in an initial public offering for the Community Life Limited venture. It was development plan for a low-budget retirement village. "When we approached him about getting our money back he said 'I promise I'll get it for you,' " she explained. "We didn't have it in writing and thought there was zero chance we would get anything back."
While her husband does the school/daycare drop offs, Stewart gets stuck into her day and works until "around 3pm when it is time to down tools and pick the kids up". James Morgan and his wife Kelly. Morgan is the founder of AXS2. "Most days I will log back on from 4pm until dinner time. Sometimes I work late but I do try to stay offline and spend time with my husband and the kids in the evening." Stewart says she didn't seek any seed funding as she built the business in a very lean way and reinvested in the operation. Her business reached a turnover of $1 million in just two years.

Not just mums It's not just mothers, however, who take a stab at running a small business during school hours. I try and be as productive as I can because of my limited time. Kelly Walter James Morgan, who runs marketing consultancy firm AXS2, enjoys the balance of work and personal life. The Sydney-based father of two loves being able to do the school drop-off and pick-up, attend concerts and oversee homework. "The school day disappears very quickly for me and I have to ensure my clients are receiving great customer service." Morgan moved to Sydney from Britain in mid-2012 with wife Kelly and their kids, then aged four and two. With a background in corporate, Morgan wanted to continue his career and started applying for jobs.

Jobs were not easy to come by or flexible hours were not on offer. "So I decided to apply my marketing experience as a consultant." He approached some local SMEs and, within nine months, "my business expenses were being covered by my business income". Morgan says the time between 9.15am and 3pm flies by. "I have been home-based in previous roles, so it was not a significant adjustment. I set meetings with clients four or five times a week, meeting at their premises or coffee shops." He started AXS2, which offers small and medium-sized businesses the chance to have an "as-needed" marketing department, without the cost of paying full-time employees, with just $1000. He says his wife was able to "earn enough to cover rent, groceries and expenses whilst I was setting up the business". This is the fifth year of operation and he has recruited marketing executive, Amanda Knapton, who also works school hours and runs her own wedding celebrant business too. Morgan's company turned over $60,000 in the 2015-16 financial year and $90,000 the following year. His target for 2017-18 is $130,000.

He does get a bit of work in during non-school hours. "I tend to do preparation and planning for an hour each evening after the kids are in bed. This keeps me on track for maximum efficiency during the quiet hours in my house." Two days a week plus some late nights Kelly Walter has two kids, aged five and two. She runs her business Daily Orders manufacturing and selling custom planning whiteboards in Victoria. After a 13-year stint in the Australian Navy, and with a husband who often travelled away on work, Walter started Daily Orders. "I was on maternity leave in 2015 with my second child and I decided that because my husband was away all the time I needed something to do in the night times. I couldn't keep track of what he was doing, he was flying here and there all the time, so I decided to create this Daily Orders planning board." The name Daily Orders came from her time in the defence force  a schedule of events called "Daily Orders" was released every day. It was "effectively a schedule to tell everyone what they needed to know, what was happening during the day".
She first came up with the idea for a fashion brand of shoes that are good for you when she was trying to recommend shoes to patients that could fit foot orthotics. Frankie4 shoes are designed by a podiatrist. "I would get out brands that were literally designed for 80-year-old-plus women," she says. So Baird searched on Google for Australian shoe manufacturers and started sketching shoes to be made. "I knew what features I needed the shoes to have to make a shoe good for your feet but apart from that I was completely clueless," Baird says. It took three years before Baird had a product to sell using an initial investment of $150,000 in 2008. Caroline McCulloch says she is the typical customer of Frankie4 and so designs shoes she would like herself.

She quickly found out that wasn't enough and Baird and her husband, Andrew, borrowed from family, sold their house, sold a car and maxed out their credit cards to put in over $500,000 over the first two years and opening the first Bared Shoes store in Armadale. "Starting a business is really, really, really hard," Baird says. "My original order had taken all of the capital that I had to put in. I had a huge order of shoes that didn't fit anyone very well and to be honest looking back they were pretty hideous. I had very little cash flow and wages and rent to pay. I cried almost every day for the first 12 months." 'Nobody is trying shoes on' One day a patient said, her bottom lip trembling, 'Would you wear them?' and I said 'To be honest, I wouldn't'." Caroline McCulloch Baird struggled on and kept on working to improve the fit and feel of her shoes.

"When you go to manufacturers in China nobody else cares what the fit is like at all," she says. "Now I know why I can sell so many shoes because I actually care what they fit like. Nobody is trying shoes on half the time. Factories are dumbfounded that I want to keep sampling and tweak the fit so much." Baird's next major hurdle was when she walked in from hospital after giving birth to her second child and her store manager rang to give notice. "I was given this at a time that most mothers would be able to tell you that your emotions are fragile to say the least," she says. "I took the news as though I had been told that someone had died." Baird says it took a few hours before she could clear her head enough to figure out the positives, the main one being that she couldn't be back in the shop seven days a week with a new baby. "This really was a great turning point for my business," she says. "I needed to employ seriously good people who were 100 per cent invested in the business and that is what I have done ever since."

It's a strategy that's worked, with Baird opening her second store this year in Melbourne's central business district and continuing to expand her range online, which makes up 40 per cent of Bared Shoes' sales. "I don't plan on wholesaling because we get to be the face of it and I have these people who believe in and love the product we are selling," Baird says. "Also [if we sold wholesale] we would have no margin. We pay a fortune for our shoes because for us quality is the most important thing. I want to improve the product every year and not cut any corners." 'It would be hypocritical' Like Baird, Caroline McCulloch, founder of Frankie4, saw a gap in the market for fashionable shoes that are comfortable to wear. McCulloch opened a chain of podiatry clinics with her husband alongside shoe stores but says she realised women were not happy wearing the shoe brands she stocked.

"I would say, 'don't look down at your feet, just look straight ahead and keep walking'," she says. "It would be hypocritical as I was pushing products that worked but I wouldn't wear myself. One day a patient said, her bottom lip trembling, 'Would you wear them?' and I said 'To be honest, I wouldn't'." McCulloch started thinking about what parts of a shoe functionally worked well and also what things women liked the look of. She pulled together a prototype, flew to Sydney and showed a supplier and that was the genesis of Frankie4. McCulloch and her husband, Alan, invested about $250,000 to start up Frankie4, which was funded by their existing podiatry business AllPodiatry and The Shoe Co. "We sold it in our podiatry clinics to begin with to get feedback and that gave us a brilliant opportunity to see what women were saying about our shoes," she says. "I never tell them I'm the designer so I can get the direct feedback. People say my range each season gets better and better and I think it is because of that." McCulloch says initially Frankie4 was "sucking all the profit out of our podiatry clinics" but the business is now in the black with turnover of $5 million-plus a year and growth of 65 per cent.

"Cash flow has been a big challenge for us but now that our online store is doing really well that helps push the funds back into the business," she says. "We have a fantastic supplier and I know if we weren't with them it would be harder. We do pay a premium for our shoes but it's worth it." Frankie4 employs a different sales strategy to Bared, choosing to wholesale to 90 stockists across Australia and New Zealand and next month McCulloch will show the range in the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. The business employs 34 staff and McCulloch has just hired a full-time photographer. "We really want our brand to not only sell our product but also sell our story," McCulloch says. "It's just about constantly punching out images for stories on social media." 'Would I wear that shoe or not?'
A grade 4 teacher who told students stories about incest and paid them for massages will be re-investigated by the teaching watchdog following a campaign by parents.

Earlier this month, the Victorian Institute of Teaching controversially ruled that Caulfield Junior College teacher Chris Adams would keep his registration, despite being sacked by the Education Department for acting in a "disgraceful, improper" manner.

The regulator has now said it will investigate the matter again after receiving fresh information, although it did not say what the information was.

"The VIT takes its role in protecting children seriously and understands that the community must be reassured that our processes and decisions reflect the importance of this role," chairperson Lesley Lamb said.
The search for missing kayaker Junichi Yoshimura has stretched into its fourth day as the keen fisherman's family prepares to arrive from Japan.

The Japanese national, who arrived in Australia in November, has not been seen since Thursday morning, when he launched his kayak from an Altona boat ramp.

An image of the missing man's 2 Monks kayak.

On Sunday, Victoria Police spokesman Alistair Parsons said water police searched overnight and would continue on Monday as part of their regular patrols.

Mr Yoshimura, 41, has been working as a baker at Torquay's Zeally Bay Sourdough. Business owner, Joel Farnan, said he still hoped for a positive outcome.
A Japanese man missing in Port Phillip Bay has been described as a keen fisherman.

As the search for Junichi Yoshimura stretched into its third day on Sunday, Joel Farnan, owner of Zeally Bay Sourdough in Torquay, said his employee was adventurous and generous.

"He got his car and then shortly afterwards bought a kayak and often he'd go on these expeditions and come back with fish and share them around the bakery," he said.

Mr Yoshimura hasn't been seen since Thursday morning, when he launched his kayak from an Altona boat ramp.
Medellin, Colombia: It is a frequent theme in TV police procedurals: a young person, down on their luck and caught up with a drug gang, makes a deal with a prosecutor to turn in the kingpins and be whisked away to witness protection.

But for Cassandra Sainsbury, there are many reasons why that is unlikely to happen in her own, real-life court drama.

After a dramatic week, the 22-year-old South Australian is awaiting a fresh hearing, after she told the judge in her case that she had been threatened into carrying the cocaine she was captured with on April 12.

The judge chose to set another hearing to decide whether the introduction of the threat into the hearing record invalidated the legal basis of the plea deal on the table  a maximum of six years in prison rather than the harshest penalty of 30 years.
run75441 | July 30, 2017 3:15 pm



I picked up this version 4 BS lies of Trump and Scott Walkers Imaginary Foxconn Factory on Tom Bozzos facebook page where I stopped to see what he had to say as of late. While it is a great attention grabber, a link caught my eye in Wonkettes article leading to this America and the Foxconn Dream . This morning Ken Thomas has his very thorough analysis Foxconn Cashes in for $3 Billion-Plus: Analysis up. The first being the wonkier, the 2nd is a Bloomberg discussion, and Kens is an analysis on a topic he pursues, government subsidizing business. And this one ??? I am not sure yet.

You look at the picture and you see Ryan smirking in the background, a smug looking Trump smug face, and Mr. Terry Gou in a slight bow looking directly at Trump. I have seen the look before. Typically, this look comes from an Asian associate when they have taken what they want at your expense. Trump has been beating the protectionist drum loudly these days when talking to our neighbors Mexico and Canada. He has threatened China and other countries as well.

Mr. Terry Gou the CEO of Foxconn said he would only come to the US if the chosen location met Foxconns demands, which of course Walker with the aid of Paul Ryan did do. The facility is located in Paul Ryans backyard. And the threat of having tariffs placed on Foxconn products has dissipated. Foxconn will invest $10 billion in a factory some say will be 20 million square feet and create 3000 jobs of roughly 6600 square feet for each US worker. Sounds more like a warehouse to me even if they stuck 160 foreign made robotic manufacturing cells (Tesla did such) in it. More than likely, this will be an assembly operation with components and assemblies coming from Foxconn and Foxconn suppliers. The value-add will be out of country.

So what does all of this get Wisconsin for shelling out $519 per Wisconsin constituent and the US also?

According to Bloombergs Tim Culpan; Wisconsin is paying as much as $1 million per job, which will carry an average salary of $54,000. The states economic development corporation is selling the project to taxpayers with a claim that it will create 10,000 construction jobs for building the facility and another 6,000 indirect positions. It is expecting $3.3 million of investment per employee from the Taiwanese company.

Foxconn does not have a history of doing what it says and agrees to do. In Pennsylvania, Foxconn pledged $30 million to build a plant and hire 500 workers. It never happened. A pledge of $1 billion to build a plant in Indonesia dissipated also. Foxconns division Hon Hai has not spent 10 billion in any single year on infrastructure nor has it spent as much if one combines the last five years. Walkers boondoggle may be mostly hype and a way to insure he is reelected in 2018.

I wonder why Walker is not in the picture with Ryan and Trump? Maybe out building his used car business for when he is not reelected?
Giving you more say in your super? Not likely with these changes

The government is introducing a raft of changes to the regulation of superannuation in a bid to give consumers more power over their retirement funds. But, in fact, consumers are unlikely to use these new powers and the changes might not improve super fund performance.

The headline change introduces annual general meetings (AGMs) for superannuation funds. Previously these werent commonplace, as they are with companies. The government proposes these meetings will help fund members hold superannuation fund trustees and executives to account.

But many of us barely glance at our own superannuation account balances when the six-monthly statement appears in our inbox, so its reasonable to predict that, of the 15 million or so superannuation fund members in Australia, only a tiny fraction are likely to go to an annual meeting.

And why would we? One reason shareholders attend listed company AGMs is so they can vote on appointments of directors and remuneration of managers. However, superannuation funds are trusts, not public companies, and members wont have the same rights even if they attend.

These AGMs will instead offer members the chance to quiz the executives, auditor and actuary, but no votes on material decisions. So this is nothing new: superannuation fund members have virtually no influence over trustee appointments, executive remuneration or other decisions.

Even the industry fund trustees, who are representatives of member organisations in super funds (such as trade unions), are not usually elected by fund members but are appointed by their sponsoring organisations.

If members are consigned to tea and biscuits with the fund chairman, where is the consumer power in Financial Services Minister Kelly ODwyers reforms? It rests mainly with the regulator, the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA).

The key changes intend to give APRA more responsibility for protecting the interests of superannuation fund members. This is particularly in relation to MySuper  the standardised default superannuation product.

Because superannuation is mandatory for most employees, the system captures many people who dont have the will or the skill to make active choices about what fund manages their retirement savings. This includes decisions on where their savings will be invested, and what level of life insurance cover they take. Passive members dont shop around for efficient providers, to their own cost.

Following the paternalistic reasoning of the Cooper Review, successive governments have shepherded passive superannuation fund members into MySuper options. MySuper products must have a single diversified investment strategy, are allowed to charge only a limited range of fees and must offer a standard default cover for life and total and permanent disability.

MySuper funds also have to report their investment goals and performance on a dashboard that is supposed to help people make comparisons between similar products. Employers must choose a default fund for their employees from the list of MySuper products.

Even so, MySuper product fees and investment performance vary widely. APRA quarterly superannuation statistics (2017) report that, in 2015, after MySuper was up and running, annual fees and costs on a A$50,000 account balance in fixed-strategy MySuper products ranged from $265 per year to $1085 per year (with a median of A$520 per year).

The investment performance of MySuper products also varies considerably. In the same year, the mean annual investment return (gross of expenses) for single-strategy MySuper products was 8.45%, the bottom 10% receive less than a 5.5% return and the top 10% receive more than a 10.9%.

While some variation in returns is due to intentional differences in the design of default investment products, some is related to differences in manager skill or efficiency.

These latest reforms, if passed into law, will mean APRA can refuse or cancel a MySuper authority, at a much lower threshold than applies currently. If APRA has reason to think that a superannuation entity that offers a MySuper product may not meets its obligations, that is grounds to refuse or cancel an authority. Since the default superannuation sector is large, such a decision would be extremely costly to the fund in question.

Under this legislation, trustees of MySuper funds will be obliged to write their own annual report card. Each year, trustees will have to assess the options, benefits and facilities offered to their members and the investment strategy (target risk and return). Trustees will also be required to report on the insurance strategy for members, including whether (unnecessary) insurance fees are depleting balances; and to evaluate whether the fund is large enough to do all these at a reasonable cost.

In each case, trustees are required to show that they are promoting members financial interests. They will have to compare the performance of their MySuper product to that of other MySuper products.

Even though the trustees score their own card, APRA will also examine these, under the threat that the MySuper authority could be cancelled. Its not clear how much discipline these rules can impose on trustees, but there are some obstacles to implementation and some possible unintended consequences.

Most superannuation funds know very little about their members. Usually these funds only collect a members age, gender, some indication of income, and sometimes their postcode. To show that a financial service, investment or insurance product promotes (or fails to promote) the financial interest of a member will be very difficult on this little information.

For example, two 25-year-old men in the same profession will have very different needs for life insurance if one is single and the other has a non-income-earning partner and a child. But they will look the same to the MySuper trustees.

Also, having an annual peer comparison of investment performance by MySuper trustees will focus on short-term results rather than the long-horizon outcomes needed for a secure retirement.

So the governments claim that these changes will give consumers more power and strengthen regulation of this large sector are stretching the truth.

>> BACK TO THE NEWSLETTER: Click here to read other articles from this weeks newsletter

Susan Thorp, Professor of Finance, University of Sydney
Whenever I write about immigration, I prepare to please absolutely no one, least of all myself.

My personal curse is that I am a conservative who understands the feelings of people who are fed up with the broken immigration system and who do not want to see our borders become irrelevant. This has always been a keystone of the conservative platform: sovereignty, order, states' rights. I get it.

But I am an immigration lawyer, as you know, if youve ever read anything Ive written, and I also understand the feelings of immigrants who have paid in blood, sweat, tears and sometimes even actual currency to become legal in this country. Many of them have already contributed mightily to this society, albeit through back channels and from the depths of restaurant kitchens, sweltering construction sites or dingy offices.

So I see both sides, and I try to be fair when I look at the competing interests of pro- and anti-immigration constituencies.

I also dont like the people who separate out the legal from the illegal, because its a bit too simplistic to tell someone to get in line and do it the right way when there are no lines. The person here illegally today will, under our current system, likely have to wait over a decade before becoming the legal resident of tomorrow.

And conservatives really dont care about that, just as the progressive immigration advocates think anyone who has a problem with loosening the restrictions on our laws and regulations (and de facto quotas) is a bigot.

As I was saying, its a recipe for disaster and really spicy comments at the end of the column when I choose to write about immigration.

But I couldnt avoid the topic this week. The deaths of 12 people in Texas, victims of a botched human trafficking expedition, force me to confront the screwed-up way we deal with foreigners who want to come to this country and live, work and flourish.

Anyone who thinks that men and women will cram themselves into an airless truck, along with their babies, for hundreds of sweltering miles, only to end up dead or dying because they want to bring mayhem to this country should probably stop reading now. Youre on an entirely different, cruel wavelength. Go read the comics.

Those people came here the way that they did because there were few other options.

There are no laws that allow people who are starving or fleeing persecution from the other side of the border to come here freely, honestly and with dignity. You have to take your chances, and, believe me, if your child is starving or your brother was just killed by gang members from Mara Salvatrucha, you dont care about dignity. You just come.

We need to fix our system so that the tragedies that occurred last week dont repeat themselves. Unfortunately, instead of fixing the problem, our legislators put their heads in the sand, and our executive branch decides to go after the low-hanging fruit.

Worse, we have people who think these people who came in illegally deserve what happened to them. I call it the Elians Mama syndrome.

You remember her, dont you? She was the mother of that little Cuban boy who risked her life so he could have a better life. At the time, even in the wake of her death by drowning, people blamed her for putting that child in danger. I was at the beginning of my immigration career, almost 20 years ago, and all I could think was, How desperate must you be to put your child on a raft and send him into dark waters with the slim chance of survival?

Its the same thing that motivated those poor people to undertake a journey that ended in death in a Walmart parking lot. Blaming them bespeaks a horrific lack of humanity.

But we do it anyway. We do it when we call them illegals; we do it when we point the finger at them instead of at a system that doesnt allow for a more humane process to vet them at the border; we do it when we dont hold our legislators accountable for closing their eyes to the war at the border or, worse, for providing facile slogans about walls.

We cant have open borders. And we need to tighten our policies to make sure the drug runners and human traffickers keep their poison out of our country. And, no, we shouldnt make policy based on tragedies such as this one.

But instead of worrying about stupid tweets from President Trump and trying to figure out which thin-skinned journalist hes offended this week, instead of jockeying for moral superiority (Democrats) and pie-in-the-sky repeals of laws youll never erase (GOP), we should demand that our legislators do their job and fix the immigration system.

Now, damn it. We cant afford more bodies in parking lots.
Diageo launches Johnnie & Ginger in Australia

Diageo has released Johnnie & Ginger, its latest product innovation for Johnnie Walker in Australia.

The premix ready-to-drink (RTD), available in both bottle and can format, combines the depth of 35 malt and grain whiskies that make up Johnnie Walker Red Label, balanced with the flavour of ginger ale.

Johnnie & Ginger is a premium alternative to traditional RTDs or beer.

Jonathan Morgan, Diageo marketing manager says: With the warmer months just around the corner, Johnnie & Ginger is a great choice for Australians looking to make their weekend get-togethers with friends that little bit more special.

Featuring the iconic Johnnie Walker Striding Man, the new packaging reflects the products premium cues and has been designed to have visual impact and recognition at shelf.

The launch of Johnnie & Ginger will be supported by a wider marketing campaign featuring outdoor, PR, social and POS support.

Johnnie Walker will also release a remastered Johnnie & Cola RTD range at the same time with a new look, improved cola and the same whisky.

Johnnie & Ginger (ABV 4.6%) will be available to purchase from liquor retailers from mid-August. Bottles (345ml) will be sold in packs of four for an RRP of AU$19.99; cans (375ml) will be sold in packs of six for an RRP of AU$24.99.

30 July 2017 - Sam Coyne The Drinks Report, news editor
A Texas A&M University clinical professor at the Mays Business School said state legislators have analyzed every possible pro and con in their search to rein in soaring property tax bills during the special legislative session, and he doesn't "see anything that's been left unsaid."

"They've got some difficult problems on their hands in regards to tax policy, and I don't have a magic solution," said Charles Gilliland, also a research economist at Mays.

The Texas Senate passed Senate Bill 1 by a vote of 19-12 just after midnight Wednesday, sending the legislation over to the House. The bill would lower the current rollback rate from 8 to 4 percent, create an automatic election provision if a given entity exceeds the new rollback rate and establish a statewide office for complaint resolution and oversight.

If passed, residents would be able to vote on their property taxes if a taxing entity's revenue would increase by greater than 4 percent of the revenues they took in over the previous year.

State Rep. John Raney said in a statement that "property tax reform should start at the local level," but he "look[s] forward to the debate that will be coming soon in the House," regarding SB 1's passage in the Senate.

In his statement, Raney called property tax reform "obviously important, but we cannot have a serious conversation about tax reform without stating the importance of public school finance reform as well. Our economic future depends on a well-educated workforce, and if we do not sufficiently invest in our students, then we can expect our workforce and employers to leave us for other parts of the world."

Gov. Greg Abbott published an editorial Wednesday in the Houston Chronicle about property tax reform, a top priority of his call for a special session.

"We must do more to put a lid on property taxes," Abbott wrote in the op-ed, titled "Local property tax burden is crushing the Texas Dream."

Locally, property tax rates were the same in Brazos County in 2016 as they were in 2012, though they rose half of a percent in 2013. The rates rose 9 percent in College Station between 2012 and 2016, 4.5 percent in College Station ISD, 4.6 percent in Bryan ISD and decreased 0.6 percent in Bryan.

As The Eagle reported Tuesday, 2017 property values for all of Brazos County's taxing entities increased almost entirely across the board: property values in the county grew by nearly $2 billion from certified values from 2016, and valuations increased in the majority of the county's other taxing districts. The cities of Bryan and College Station saw valuation increases of 11 and 11.4 percent, respectively, while Bryan's school district saw a valuation increase of around 12,5 percent, compared to an 11.5 percent valuation increase in College Station's school district.

Mark Price, chief appraiser for the Brazos Central Appraisal District, said though the tax rates had stayed "fairly straight" over the past several years, property values have gone up because of the surge in new construction for homes and businesses.

Rapidly growing areas such as Bryan-College Station need to increase taxes for community needs like schools and infrastructure that arise with an influx of residents, Gilliland said.

"In a growing area, there are demands for public services that sometimes result in increased taxes," he said. "If you're looking for tax relief, you have to find some way to either replace the revenue you're going to forgo, or you have to essentially cut your expenditures."

But Gilliland said that legislation merely limiting tax rates would only go so far to provide taxpayer relief.

"Limiting tax rates would serve to possibly stop the increases, but for substantial relief, there would have to be actual reduction in tax rates," he said.

Rep. Kacal and Sen. Schwertner did not respond to requests for comment.
An investigation is underway into how a handcuffed DWI suspect was able to commandeer a trooper's patrol unit, then lead law enforcement on a three-mile chase through Normangee.

The Longview woman was recaptured within minutes of the Friday night incident after the trooper fired shots to disable the vehicle, though officials declined to release how many shots were fired or whether the bullets struck a tire to make it stop.

No injuries were reported.

Madison County Sheriff's Deputy Troy Poe said he was the first on the scene of the one-vehicle accident on Old San Antonio Road in Madison County, where he detained 31-year-old Bridget Cast at about 9:20 p.m. The DPS trooper arrived minutes later to investigate, since accidents outside the city limits typically are handled by the state officers. Cast was given a sobriety test and arrested on a charge of driving while intoxicated, according to officials.

She was placed in the front seat of the patrol car, and when the trooper stepped away, authorities say Cast made her move.

"He was actually preparing to take her to get her blood drawn," Poe said, referring to the standard practice of taking a driver suspected of DWI to a hospital, where the procedure is done.

Officials did not release all the details of the incident but said Cast slipped her arms forward from where they were cuffed behind her back, slid over from the passenger seat and took control of the trooper's car.

She sped off along OSR toward Normangee, authorities said, and the trooper jumped into the passenger seat of Poe's Madison County sheriff's patrol car. Poe drove as the two pursued Cast, who led them on a chase for three miles down OSR and onto Main Street in Normangee.

"There was other traffic in the area, some light traffic," Poe said.

According to Poe, he and the trooper tried to call for assistance, but the car's radio wasn't working properly. The trooper then shot at the vehicle from the Madison County sheriff's car, stopping Cast on the rural end of Main Street in Normangee. Poe said a Madisonville police officer arrived and took the woman to the Madison County Jail.

Sgt. Jimmy Morgan, spokesman for DPS's Bryan office, said he could not comment on whether the trooper will be placed on administrative leave. He said troopers are trained to make the best decisions possible for each situation.

"When people are evading in vehicles, there are a lot of things you have to consider," Morgan said. "Where are they going? Who could get hurt?"

According to Morgan, suspects are not placed in the back seat of a patrol vehicle when arrested by state troopers, but rather placed in the front passenger seat. Though it is not a regular occurrence, Friday night's incident is not the first time someone has taken control of a trooper's car.

"It doesn't happen often, but it has happened in years past," Morgan said.

The Department of Public Safety is reviewing the incident. Cast is charged with evading arrest in a vehicle and unauthorized use of a vehicle, both state jail felonies each punishable by up to two years in a state jail, and driving while intoxicated, a Class B misdemeanor.

She is being held at the Madison County Jail, but her bail amount was not available Saturday.
One thing you can say about John McCain is there is no middle ground. Either you love him or loathe him, sometimes both in a matter of hours or days, as last week proved.

On Tuesday, when he voted with the Senate majority to continue discussion on the latest version of the health care bill, we was cheered by fellow Republicans, but excoriated by Democrats. Then, some 60 hours later, the maverick Arizona senator cast one of the deciding votes to kill the even newer so-called "skinny" health care bill overturning Obamacare.

Then, Democrats cheered and Republicans condemned. McCain must be getting whiplash.

There is a word for John McCain: Hero.

Of course, he is a hero for his courageous service to his fellow Americans during the Vietnam War. He almost was killed in a 1967 fire on the USS Forrestal, the aircraft carrier off which he flew. Then, only a few months later, McCain was shot down during a bombing run on Hanoi and captured by the North Vietnamese.

His captors tortured him -- as they tortured all the Americans they captured. More than 50 years later, McCain continues to experience physical difficulties because of his captivity. Because his father and grandfather were four-star admirals, the North Vietnamese saw propaganda value in releasing McCain early. But McCain refused to be used and rejected the offer. He remained a prisoner of war until 1973.

McCain was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1982 and, four years later, he was elected to the U.S. Senate where, to the dismay of some conservatives, he continues to serve.

There, McCain has earned a reputation for often putting country above party, as he did early Friday morning in voting against the "skinny" bill. We wish more of our representatives in Congress would do the same thing, but, alas, that doesn't happen often.

We must take note here of two courageous Republican senators who joined McCain in defeating the "skinny" bill" Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Sen. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who rejected threats from the Trump administration if she voted against the measure. Three brave Republican senators defeated a bad, bad health care bill.

The votes by Collins and Murkowski aren't surprising, as both women had rejected other attempts to overturn Obamacare. Had McCain voted in favor of the bill, it would have ended in a 50-50 tie, which would have been broken by Vice President Mike Pence voting in favor of the bill. McCain didn't vote in favor, denying the vice president the chance to be a conservative hero.

Tuesday, when McCain, who is facing his own mortality, appeared on the Senate floor he was cheered and embraced by members of both parties -- as he should have been. He was only 11 days past surgery to remove an aggressive tumor from his brain and still has the scar about his left eye to prove it. He could have continued his recuperation at his Arizona home, but health care has been a passion for the senator.

McCain has been consistent in his criticism of the Affordable Care Act and he wants to see it replaced with something better. Still stung by the way Democrats forced through the act in 2010 without a single Republican input or vote, McCain understands that health care shouldn't be a Democratic issue or a Republican issue. It is an American issue, one that affects all of, regardless of party, economic status or medical condition.

After casting his vote to continue discussion on Tuesday, McCain gave a passionate speech on the Senate floor, urging his colleagues to put aside party differences and work together to reform health care. What a novel concept in Congress these days!

Unfortunately, neither side apparently got McCain's message.

Republicans have been trying for seven years to end Obamacare, without success. In all that time, they have been unable to come up with a better, more affordable plan. Democrats have been no help in all that time, rejecting attempt after attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Americans are not comfortable with the idea of abolishing Obamacare and replacing it at some time in the future. If the GOP hasn't been able to do it in seven years, what makes anyone believe they will do so in, say two years, if Obamacare expires then?

The Senate says health care is dead for now. Perhaps that will give both sides to sit down, talk to each other, and come up with a health care plan worthy of this great nation.

Thank you, Sen. McCain, for your courage in facing down your Senate colleagues and voting in the best interest of all Americans. You are a hero.

God bless you in your hardest fight in the months ahead.
An adage states, Any fool can destroy and tear down, but it is wisdom and skill that builds, conserves and preserves. The proposed budget submitted in May by the president is very foolish, as it is based on increased spending to destroy while slashing spending that builds, conserves and preserves.

The budget calls for an increase of $54 billion for the Pentagon for more weapons and war. The U.S. already spends more on war than the next seven nations combined, most of whom are considered our allies.

The past 16 years, the Pentagon has spent $3 trillion on the destruction of Middle Eastern nations to combat terrorism. The result of this foolishness is that our bombs have reduced these nations to rubble while spawning more hatred and enemies. Former defense secretaries have stated there are no military solutions to the devastation that the U.S. has wreaked on the people of the Middle East.

Another reason this increased spending should be rejected is that the Defense Department is the one federal department that has never been audited. There is waste and bloated spending with no accountability. Increased military spending, alongside tax cuts, is the largest contributing factor to our $20 trillion national debt.

Nebraskas two senators are members of the Senate Armed Service Committee. Both seem to believe that the more that is spent on war will somehow make us respected and strong. It is an illusion that is destroying whatever moral leadership this nation is perceived to possess.

As a combat veteran of a foolish war 50 years ago and a member of Nebraskans for Peace and Veterans for Peace, I urge citizens to contact our congressional delegation and reject this immoral budget.

Ron Todd-Meyer, Lincoln
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NORWALK  Materials dredged from Norwalk Harbor and other coastline communities in southwestern Connecticut could be put to work locally rather than hauled away at exorbitant costs to distant disposal sites.

Stamford Partnership, a quasi-public organization focused on improving that city, hopes to launch a feasibility study to see how suitable, non-contaminated dredged soils could be reused in the communities whence they come. The organization is seeking funding through the Western Connecticut Council of Governments.

NHMC members discussed the concept during their monthly meeting at City Hall last Wednesday evening.

The NHMC supports pursuing a feasibility study of this type. As described to the NHMC, the Stamford Partnership is seeking funds for this feasibility study through the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, John Pinto, NHMC Dredging Committee chairman, said Friday. This is not a new idea but rather an extension of what the Army Corps/DEEPs mission was to prepare a Dredged Material Management Plan (DMMP) for Long Island Sound.

Pinto said the NHMC participated in the development of the management plan, which identified nontraditional alternatives for the beneficial use of dredged materials. Those alternatives include using the materials for shore protection, marsh creation and enhancement, and beach and island nourishment.

The feasibility study, Pinto continued, would focus on coastal municipalities in western Connecticut. If the grant proposal put forward by Stamford Partnership to WestCOG is successful, there should be no initial cost to Norwalk, he added.

Very interesting idea

Anthony Mobilia, NHMC chairman, said the concept is worth exploring but added that more information is needed.

We expressed interest in it, but we have to learn more about it, Mobilia said Thursday. Wed like to see a feasibility study to see if its at all possible. Right now, its an idea and its a very interesting idea.

Mobilia said the city must look for different and more creative ways to dispose of dredged materials.

The proposed study comes in response to a request from WestCOG, a regional planning entity that represents 18 towns and cities from Greenwich to the Housatonic Valley.

Were creating an economic development strategy for the region and we solicited project ideas from local nonprofits, the towns and other regional entities, said Elizabeth Esposito, associate planner at WestCOG. The Stamford Partnership submitted a project idea for alternative dredging. We havent brought it to our board or made any decisions about when it would be done or how it would be done.

Off-site disposal costly

Pinto described the last Norwalk Harbor dredging project as An Augean Task given the amount of time put into planning, securing funding and regulatory approvals and the shear magnitude of the work.

In December 2013, Marine Contracting Co., LLC, working under contract with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, wrapped up the third and final phase of the massive Norwalk Harbor dredging project. Sixteen years in planning, the nearly $14 million project removed 499,200 cubic yards of sediment from the harbor and restored its federal navigation channel to authorized depths.

Contaminated sediment removed from beneath the Interstate 95 bridge added more than $200,000 to the cost of the project. The bulk of the overall dredged sediment  463,000 cubic yards  was placed in the Central Long Island Sound disposal site off New Haven.

For that reason, the alternative put forward in the Dredged Material Management Plan and being advanced by Stamford Partnership are worth exploring in Norwalk and beyond, according to Pinto.

This type of project would clearly benefit these communities as New York State and even our own CT DEEP have made dredging of our harbors extremely difficult and costly especially when it requires disposal of dredged material within Long Island Sound, Pinto said.

Rhode Island and Massachusetts, he continued, have successfully employed nontraditional uses of dredged material, particularly for beach erosion and wetland preservation, according to Pinto.

Norwalk would particularly benefit to assure protection of its barrier Islands, in addition to restoration and creation of wetlands necessary for cleansing Sound waters, Pinto said.

Pinto said the NHMC wants to participate in the formulation of an appropriate scope of work for the feasibility study and related pilot project, and also be part of any project management team established to oversee the work.

A plan to reuse dredged materials locally isnt without precedent in Norwalk.

The Norwalk Land Trust was awarded a $20,000 grant from the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service to restore five to eight acres of degraded intertidal salt marsh at Village Creek. The plan calls for taking material dredged from offshore near the Village Creek harbor and beach and using it to fill in the degraded area, which then would be planted with native salt-meadow plants. The NLT must match the grant by raising another $20,000 for the project.

rkoch@hearstmediact.com
Sometimes Washington provides real theater. Who could have imagined Sen. McCain, returning early from a hospital bed after learning he had brain cancer, to cast the deciding negative vote on the GOPs overthrow of Obamacare  President Trumps campaign centerpiece?

Especially given the the Presidents campaign disparagement of then Lt. McCains five-year POW imprisonment. At least we have one U.S. senator who embodies Duty, Honor, Country.
AURORA  A sweet, colorful taste of Italy can be found right here in Central Nebraska.

JoJos Gelato and Grill opened three years ago as a traveling food truck. Now, the business has expanded and has a more permanent location. The food is still served out of the truck at the Aurora location on Highway 34, but the location offers outdoor seating and shelter.

Owners Jim and Marni Jo Danhauer of Marquette opened the Aurora location on May 20 and still take the truck to area events. Jim built the pergola and the building himself, as he worked in construction. The location also has a drive-thru for customers. The shop employs 10 part-time workers.

The Danhauers married in April 2013 and decided to open their business later that year and did so in early 2014. The couple went to Italy on their honeymoon, where they tried gelato for the first time, though Marni Jo had been to Italy in 1988.

We made sure we tried it in every city, Jim said of gelato.

They toured the country and later took a class on how to make gelato.

It wasnt until Marni Jos daughter wanted a gelato home kit for Christmas they thought about opening their own shop. The kit actually turned out really good gelato. The couple went ahead with the business idea and did their first event in June 2014.

We thought Why not try and bring that to Central Nebraska? said Marni Jo, from whom the business gets its name.

Theres not really an ice cream shop niche here, she said of Aurora and why it was a good place for their business.

The photo used on JoJos sign is Jims favorite picture he took while in Italy, which shows a gondola on the water in the city.

When they started out, they made the gelato in their custom-built food truck, which took up a lot of room. Theyve since been able to have a commercial kitchen at home where they can make new gelato flavors and transport them to the trucks coolers.

JoJos gelato is made with equipment and ingredients imported from Italy, which the Danhauers take pride in. They want their gelato to be as authentic as possible. The only ingredient not imported from Italy, Jim said, is the local Nebraska milk.

Marni Jo said an Italian man visited the shop and was skeptical of the gelato at first, until he tried it.

Thats the fun part of it  the people, Jim said.

He said its fun to see peoples experience of trying gelato for the first time.

I like seeing the expressions of people who never tried it before, Jim said.

The flavors rotate in the cooler that holds eight tubs, but popular gelato flavors are strawberry cheesecake, caramel crunch and salted caramel. Pistachio is Marni Jos favorite and caramel crunch is Jims favorite. They also have a birthday cake gelato to celebrate Nebraskas 150th and are in the process of creating a solar eclipse themed gelato. JoJos will be at the Nebraska State Fair all 11 days, which Jim and Marni Jo said theyre excited about.

Though the gelato is popular, its not the only thing JoJos serves. Italian ice, sandwiches and paninis are also on the menu. Marni Jos favorite sandwich is their rosemary chicken sandwich that includes onion, arugula and ranch on it.

Jim and Marni Jo said theyve had great response and support from the community and said theyre continuing to develop and expand the business.

JoJos Gelato and Grill is open from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Sundays. For more information on flavors, specials, hours and where the JoJos truck will be, visit the JoJos Gelato and Grill Facebook page or at www.jojosgelato.net.
On the third weekend of August, Central Nebraska will welcome people from Europe, Australia and all across the U.S. who want a good look at the total solar eclipse Aug. 21.

No one really knows how many visitors the area will have, because total solar eclipses dont happen every year, or even every century.

According to sources Stuhr Museum is working with, the eclipse could bring anywhere from 10,000 to 100,000 people to the Grand Island area, said museum Executive Director Joe Black.

All of Grand Islands hotel rooms are booked, so it will not be a normal weekend. Therell be a lot of people in town that weekend looking for things to do, said Brad Mellema, executive director of the Grand Island Convention and Visitors Bureau.

A lot of activities have been set up to accommodate them.

One of the more interesting attractions will be Moonstock, described as three days of peace, love and beer. The outdoor gathering will take place Aug, 18-20 outside Kinkaider Brewing Co. in downtown Grand Island. The big attraction will be a Pink Floyd tribute band performing the night of Aug. 20, culminating with Dark Side of the Moon.

Stuhr Museum activities

Stuhr Museums Gem Over the Prairie event will probably attract the biggest eclipse crowd in Grand Island.

The event will attract two kinds of crowds, Black said  members of the scientific community and average people who just want to see the celestial phenomenon.

Visitors will park in two areas north of the Stuhr building. Scientists with large telescopes will be able to stay in the northern portion of the field. The public will park on the south side of the field. The Sheriffs Posse will be on hand to help with parking.

The main viewing area will be on the southern part of the grounds, near the church and the 1890 farm. Food vendors will be on hand.

The gates will open at 8 a.m. Aug. 21. No overnight camping will be allowed.

Professors will also be present to discuss the eclipse.

In Railroad Town, people will talk about the eclipse from an 1890 perspective.

Although the number of visitors is tough to predict, the Stuhr Museum is used to handling large crowds, Black said.

An eclipse is best observed with other people, he said. Experts say the best viewing area offers as big a sightline as possible from horizon to horizon, and the museum fits that description.

Nebraska musician Paul Siebert will perform as well.

The Painting the Legacy of Nebraska exhibit has been held over an additional day because of the eclipse. The Todd Williams art show, on display in the Stuhr Building, is the official traveling exhibit of the Nebraska 150th Commission.

Balloons will be launched into the sky as part of the NASA Nebraska High Altitude Ballooning Program. The co-leads of that project are Michael and Kendra Sibbernsen. He is the lecturer of astronomy at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and she teaches physics and astronomy at Metro Community College in Omaha.

Everything will be free that day at Stuhr Museum, except for food and items in the gift shop.

Eclipse viewing glasses will be available while supplies last. The museum suggests a donation of $2 for the glasses.

Walking events

The Nebraska Wanderfreunde Trailblazers, based in Omaha, will come to Grand Island for five walks and a swim event Aug. 18-21.

That group will bring at least 135 people to Grand Island.

The Nebraska Wanderfreunde Trailblazers operate under the umbrella of the American Volkssport Association.

Members of that group are coming from 17 states, said Jeanna Miller of Omaha, a member of the Trailblazers.

The public is welcome to join the group on almost all of its activities that weekend.

That includes a group walk through historic downtown Grand Island the evening of Aug. 18. A $3 fee will be charged.

On Aug. 19, the group will walk at Crane Trust Nature Center and swim at the YMCA. The price of the Crane Trust walk is $3. The day will conclude with a Star Party at Sherman Ranch near Marquette.

On Aug. 20, the group will take part in a morning walk at the Edgerton Explorit Center in Aurora and an evening walk along the Dark Island Trail near Central City. The fees are $3 for the Aurora walk and $4 for the Dark Island walk.

On the day of the eclipse, the group will start at Hall County Park and wind up at Stuhr Museum. For that event, the fee is $5.

For information, visit www.netrailblazers.club or call Miller at (402) 981-0463 or Sandy Spaulding at (712) 435-0815.

Church viewing party

First-Faith United Methodist Church, 4190 W. Capital Ave., will host a free eclipse viewing party open to the public.

The party runs from 11 a.m. to 1:15 p.m. Aug. 21.

You will be able to set up your chairs anywhere on the wide-open ball fields behind the church, says the churchs Facebook page. We will have concessions available so you can stop by on your lunch break. There is plenty of parking and the church will be open for access to restrooms, too.

Eclipse viewing glasses will be available.

Refreshments will be provided after the eclipse. People are invited to go inside the church to join in a discussion about the phenomenon they just witnessed.

Other viewing sites in Grand Island will include Camp Augustine and Heartland Public Shooting Park.

Some major employers in Grand Island plan to invite their employees outside to watch the eclipse, Mellema said.

Literacy Council program

The Literacy Council of Grand Island will host a total solar eclipse presentation at 7 p.m. Aug. 10.

The speaker will be Mariana Lazarova, a physics and astronomy professor at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. The Literacy Council is at 312 N. Elm St., Suite 101.

Everyone is welcome. Eclipse viewing glasses will be provided.

To RSVP, call the Literacy Council at (308) 385-5515.

Mormon Island

Look Up, Look Around: Citizen Science Encounter will take place Aug. 21 at Mormon Island State Recreation Area.

The event runs from 10 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Attendees will help scientists better understand the behavior of animals during an eclipse by recording their observations in a diary.

A park entry permit is required.

Church service

A community church service, organized by Trinity United Methodist United Church, will be held Aug. 20 in downtown Grand Island.

Called Praise on the Plaza, the service will be presented at Railside Plaza.

The event begins with a drum circle at 9 a.m. The worship service will begin at 9:30.

Crane Trust

The Crane Trust is inviting people to view the eclipse at the Crane Trust Nature and Visitor Center, just off Interstate 80 Exit 305 at 9325 S. Alda Road in Wood River.

In addition to the parking lot, a hay field next to the center will be cleared for parking. People may also park on the nearby gravel road.

At 10 a.m. Aug. 21, speaker Diana Nevins will discuss why the eclipse is occurring, what to expect and safe viewing techniques.

Guests are encouraged to bring chairs, good walking shoes, sunscreen, bug spray and water. Food will be available for purchase.

Access to eight miles of Crane Trust walking trails will be free.

The Crane Trust will be open Aug. 19 and 20 from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The hours Aug. 21 will be 7 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Other events

Leading up to the eclipse:

 The Liederkranz will host its third annual Craft Brew and Sausage Fest from 4 to 7 p.m. Aug. 19. The cost is $30 in advance, and $35 on the day of festival.

 The annual Vintage and Classic Wheels car show will be Aug. 20 at Stolley Park.

 Prairie Pride Brewing Co. is also planning an eclipse event.
Its 1897 at Stuhr Museums Railroad Town and Boys Scouts attending this weekends Overland Trails Council Merit Badge University are learning about some of the skills used during that time period that were part of everyday life on the plains of Nebraska.

Nearly 500 Boy Scouts, Scout leaders, instructors and volunteers are in Grand Island this weekend for the 10th annual Merit Badge University. During the three days of activities and classes, Scouts have the opportunity to choose from more than 70 merit badge offerings that they need to advance in the ranks of Scouting. Many of those merit badges reflect modern life, such as truck transportation, nuclear science, robotics, automobile maintenance and more.

But other merit badges focus on skills used by those who came before us, who didnt have the advantage of modern technology and science, such as the skills needed to be a tinsmith and a blacksmith.

Tinsmithing and blacksmithing were offered to the Scouts as a merit badge opportunity at Stuhr Museums Railroad Town, which has on staff a blacksmith and a tinsmith.

Loren Miller has been the Railroad Towns tinsmith for more than a decade. About a half-dozen Scouts gathered Saturday morning at Millers tinsmithing shop, where they not only got some hands-on experience making a tin cup, but also learned an important history lesson of a skill that eventually became automated as the Age of Machines redefined civilization during the Industrial Age.

The Scouts gathered around Miller in his small workshop full of the tools of the tinsmiths trade as he briefed them on the history of tinsmithing.

A lot of people dont have a lot of knowledge or arent familiar with what we are talking about when talking about tinsmithing, he said.

Human beings discovered tin more than 5,000 years ago. It appeared in veins, like gold, and out of the natural curiosity that defines humans, Miller said, they began to experiment with this metal.

The first time they found out was that they were able to mix tin with copper and with that you get bronze, which was pretty handy because for the next 3,000 or so years they were able to make tools, weapons and other things that they wanted to use it for, he said.

Then, flash forward to the 1600s in Germany when human beings learned to take iron and make it into a flat sheet.

With some experimentation, they would take the tin that came out of the ground, which melts at 444 degrees, then melt the tin and take their sheet iron and dip into their tank of molten tin, Miller said. When it came out, they had a new product of iron covered with tin. With that, they learned how to make hundreds and hundreds of things, such as utility things that they could cook with and vessels and containers to hold and store things.

As the popularity of these tin-sheeted goods grew and demand began to increase, advances in mechanization began to define the tin industry and machines eventually replaced the village tinsmith in the age of mass production.

Before mechanization dominated the tin industry in this country, Miller said, there were hammers and mallets and tin snips, but still those simple tools helped people advance their way of life.

It became particularly popular as we started to move west because as they moved west they could take a lot of tin containers and articles and stuff with them and it would make their loads a lot lighter.

As necessity is the mother of invention, when they began to use tin containers to store food and make it portable, demand for food in tin cans grew quickly. A tinsmith and his helper could only make about 40 tin cans per day, which Miller said wasnt enough as machines could make tin cans faster to meet the growing demand.

That is when industry changed things, he said. The cottage industry tinsmith began to fade out because he couldnt compete with industry and factories and those sort of things.

Next door to the tinsmithing shop at Railroad Town is the blacksmith shop, where another group of Scouts was getting hands-on instruction from Railroad Towns village blacksmith, Randy Dack.

Dack was passing on his years of skills in the blacksmithing trade to the young Scouts with a show and tell presentation on the knowledge that has come from experience, whether how to properly stand next to an anvil when working with hot iron or when to be hard and soft with iron when shaping it with a hammer, or how to work with fire and how to be safe.

Each Scout got to pound and shape hot metal as part of the merit badge experience.

Remember, this iron will go from red hot and turn back black in color and look like its cold, but it will still be 800 degrees, Dack warned them.

He said blacksmithing is all about manipulating metal, and it is a lot easier to do with heat.

The blacksmith must respect his tools and the heat, Dack said, and get them working together as one.

When asked why its important for young Scouts to learn about the art of blacksmithing, he said, One day the power is going to go out and if somebody doesnt preserve it, theyll find it has been lost and it will be gone forever.

Blacksmithing is about respecting ones self, he said, knowing you can make raw steel into an object used by people to better their lives.

Steel doesnt change, Dack said. The only thing steel wants to do is to resist what you want to do to it.

Scout leader Lewis Alvarez of the Denver area was observing his Scouts as they were learning about the art of blacksmithing from Dack.

This is a merit badge that is not particularly easy to get and the fact that they are able to come here and work with the hot metal and fire, it is an unusual merit badge they are able to get, Alvarez said.

Merit badges Scouts can earn in old-timey arts such as tinsmithing, blacksmithing, leather work and woodwork, which were also being offered at the Merit Badge University, give the Scouts an appreciation of how things used to be before the Age of Machines.

They learn to build stuff with their hands and not be attached to an electronic device all the time, Alvarez said. It really builds their self-confidence. Scouting is a great program to teach leadership.

One of Alvarezs Scouts, Blake Horvat, who is 16 years old, is a journeyman blacksmith. He was helping to supervise the other Scouts who were there to earn their merit badge in blacksmithing. He is an Eagle Scout.

Horvat said it was Dack who inspired him to become a blacksmith several years ago when he first came to Grand Island from Denver to attend the Merit Badge University.

He taught me my first class and I got hooked on it, he said. I went back home and found a guy who was willing to teach me and I learned.

Horvat said blacksmithing is an important trade for a young person to learn and preserve for future generations of Scouts.

It is really an old-fashioned art, but it is the most important one, he said. It is hard work.

Horvat said through Scouting, a Scout learns to be self-sufficient and self-reliant, which is a hallmark of the Scouting program. Blacksmithing and other hands-on trades are about connecting with the materials youre working with.

It about learning to do something with your hands, he said.
WASHINGTON  As Donald Trump veers wackily from day to day, swearing before 30,000 Boy Scouts, publicly humiliating his attorney general and changing his mind on policy issues, he is raising alarm that the president of the United States might be mentally unstable.

Caught unaware of a live microphone, Sen. Jack Reed, D-R.I., confided to Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, I think he (Trump) is crazy. Responded Collins, Im worried.

At least we can agree Trump is not an inspirational leader on civics. In a speech roundly decried as unhinged to the Boy Scouts Jamboree in West Virginia, he said what the hell, went on and on about the November election, diatribed against Hillary Clinton and his predecessor, and told the Scouts not to believe the news media.

Attorney General Jeff Sessions, the first senator to endorse Trumps presidency, is loyally carrying out Trumps agenda to force sanctuary cities to turn over undocumented immigrants and fill the jails with drug addicts. In return, Trump has mounted a daily fusillade of Twitter and media attacks on him. Trump wants him gone because Sessions legally had to recuse himself from the Russia investigation.

Trump wants a new attorney general to fire special prosecutor Robert Mueller, who ran the FBI for 12 years and is investigating Russias interference in the 2016 election. Mueller is charged with finding out whether the Trump campaign worked with Russia to undermine Clinton, examining meetings between Trump family and campaign officials, including Sessions, and Russians loyal to Vladimir Putin, an official U.S. adversary.

Then, on a day the Senate was voting tensely on the nations crucial health care insurance system, Trump suddenly tweeted that transgender Americans will no longer be welcome or tolerated in the armed services even though thousands of transgender people currently serve as soldiers, sailors, marines and merchant marines.

The Defense Department, with no idea Trumps decree was coming, is perplexed how to halt a policy under implementation. Former President Barack Obama announced last year that transgender people could serve openly in the military after a study concluded there would be minimal impact on military readiness or health care costs. Trump had promised the LBGTQ community would have no better friend than he would be as president.

Psychiatrists and psychologists are openly debating whether they should give opinions about Trumps mental health or use phrases such as narcissistic personality disorder, egotist, misogynist or pathological liar in reference to him.

The American Psychoanalytic Association concluded that psychoanalysts should offer relevant psychoanalytic insights to aid the public in understanding a wide range of phenomena in politics, the arts, popular culture, history, economics, and other aspects of human affairs.

But the APA urged extreme caution in making statements to the media about public figures, saying respect for individuals and the limits of psychoanalytic inference is essential.

In other words, it remains unethical for psychiatrists and others to diagnose the sanity of a public figure without personal interaction but it is good for society in general if experts discuss their interpretations of unusual behaviors.

Dr. Allen Frances, a professor emeritus of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Duke University and a textbook author on mental illness, wrote to The New York Times, saying its unfair to the mentally ill to say Trump is sick. Trump causes severe distress rather than experiencing it and has been richly rewarded, rather than punished, for his grandiosity, self-absorption and lack of empathy.

Rather than calling Trump psychiatric terms that dont apply, Trump should be called out for his ignorance, incompetence, impulsivity and pursuit of dictatorial powers.

His psychological motivations are too obvious to be interesting, and analyzing them will not halt his headlong power grab. The antidote to a dystopic Trumpean dark age is political, not psychological, Frances concluded.

Alas, the doctor makes sense. We will not be rid of the Trumpean menace to civility, gentility and rationality by blaming an illness such as narcissistic personality disorder that Trump does not have. Folks, we must face that we elected a boorish and dangerous threat to democracy, a man who thinks himself above the law.

As president, he is an unmitigated disaster. But he is not mentally ill.
The rollup to the Nebraska State Fair is in full swing as Grand Island prepares to welcome more than 350,000 people to town for the states biggest annual reunion.

At this point in the summer, Grand Island has already hosted thousands of visitors who have come to attend cattle shows, 4-H events, Heartland Shooting Park events, the Hall County Fair, Hear Nebraska concerts and a host of other activities. Yet to come, the Nebraska150 Express will stop in Grand Island on Aug. 6 as part of the states sesquicentennial celebration.

And, many thousands more will visit Grand Island to witness the once-in-a-lifetime celestial marvel of a total eclipse of the sun on Aug. 21.

Following quickly on the heels of the State Fair are Husker Harvest Days, the debut of the Aksarben stock show and auction, and Harvest of Harmony.

In all, more than 500,000 visitors will enjoy Grand Islands hospitality during the next two months.

As in years past, more than 1,000 volunteers will mobilize to tend to hospitality duties associated with State Fair and other events. Another 500 to 700 volunteers are being recruited for the annual citywide cleanup effort being organized by the Grand Island Area Clean Community System and its partners  Grow Grand Island, Nebraska State Fair, city of Grand Island, and Grand Island Area Chamber of Commerce.

The community beautification effort will take place Aug. 7-20, with the goal being to boost community pride by caring for and keeping streets, parks, lawns, businesses, churches, schools, parking lots and drainage basins litter free. Residents, family members, organizations, clubs and businesses are invited to participate.

Cleanup volunteers can sign up at www.statefairvolunteer.org or call (308) 385-5095. Once volunteers log their profile information, they can select the time and location of their cleanup preferences.

Each volunteer will receive a free t-shirt. Groups of any size are encouraged to participate to help Grand Island shine as the most welcoming community in the state.

For more information contact Denise McGovern-Gallagher at (308) 385-5095 or email director@cleancommunity.org.
RACINE COUNTY  Even though David Namowicz, president of Warren Industries, mainly hires unskilled labor, he isnt worried about Foxconn and its promised entry-level pay of $13 to $15 an hour.

Taiwanese electronics behemoth Foxconn has committed to building a $10 billion plant in southeastern Wisconsin and to eventually hire up to 13,000 people. Its reported average salary will be $53,875 plus benefits, and entry-level pay will be close to $15 an hour, according to state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, and state Sen. Van Wanggaard, R-Racine.

Namowicz would only say that Warrens entry-level pay is less than $13. But for several reasons, he said, the prospect of Foxconn paying more is no issue for him.

For one thing, The going rate in Kenosha is $13 at Amazon and others, he said. So were already facing that challenge.

Namowicz continued, What matters is: Where are they going to be? A lot of people who dont work on a regular basis may not have a car.

The odds are, a lot of them will not come from the city, he said. Warren, which does contract packaging and shipping, is already busing people in from Milwaukee, as does Amazon, Namowicz said. For two years, low-end labor has been a problem in Racine because of Kenosha (companies). Those with cars are going to Kenosha for the $13.

Wisconsin doesnt have much labor to hire, Namowicz said. Everyones fighting for people.

Namowicz said hes been trying to adapt by looking for clients that pay better so he can raise his starting wage and better compete for labor. With what weve been doing for the last one or two years, (Foxconn) didnt change our plans for the future.

Upward wage pressure

Barry Gerhart, a University of Wisconsin professor of management and human resources, said he thinks employers of low-skilled workers could have more trouble finding labor if Foxconn creates the promised thousands of new jobs.

Theyll either have to reach a little deeper in the applicant pool, raise wages and benefits, or automate, Gerhart said.

On the other hand, Gerhart pointed to the new income that would be flowing into the economy through thousands of Foxconn employees: approximately $700 million annually at the peak employment of 13,000 people. In addition, Foxconn would be expected to spawn another 22,000 indirect jobs from its supply chain. Some of the small businesses that cater to consumers would reap additional business from all that additional disposable income, he said.

Hart Posen, an associate professor of management and human resources in the UW School of Business, said the distribution of lower- and higher-paying jobs within Foxconn is extremely vague. But he doesnt expect this plant to look like the companys other ones that have great numbers of hand-assemblers. This one will more likely be highly automated.

But, If it looks like lots of reasonably low-cost people and a handful of high-cost people, then that will probably put wage pressure on other places that would hire that kind of worker, Posen said.
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 10:09 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad02c7 1 City Jagorawi,toll-road,accident Free

A toll road official, Mulyadi, 49, was hit by a car while helping victims of a car accident on the Jagorawi toll road.

He passed away on the scene.

On Thursday night, Mulyadi tried to help victims after three minibuses were involved in an accident.

State-owned toll road operator Jasa Marga spokesperson Dwimawan Heru said two of the minibuses were removed to the roadside.

The other minibus was still in one of the road's lanes.

When he wanted to secure the lane by installing a rubber cone and remove the remaining minibus, he was hit from the back by a car, Dwimawan said as quoted by tribunnews.com.

Mulyadi died and his colleague, who was also on duty, suffered major injuries.

One crane officer and the driver of the minibus also suffered major injuries.

Mulyadi was taken to PMI hospital in Bogor, while the crane officer was taken to Ciawi Hospital.

The other two were hospitalized at the Pertamedika Sentul Hospital in Bogor.

The perpetrator who struck Mulyadi has been detained by the police. (wnd/wit)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 10:30 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad2070 1 National excavator,Jujuhan-Police,Bungo,Jambi,theft,heavy-equipment Free

Personnel from the criminal investigation unit at the Jujuhan Police in Bungo, Jambi, apprehended five people on Friday for allegedly stealing assets belonging to mining company Artamulia Tata Pratama (ATP) Jujuhan.

The arrest came from information provided by an ATP Jujuhan employee, who reported an alleged theft of used track-load rails (excavator wheels) from the company.

The police arrest five suspects: RC, 35, YS, 24, HS, 36, AY, 23, and RW, 23.

They allegedly committed their crime in the south workshop area of a coal mine owned by ATP in Tanjung Belit village, Jujuhan district, on Wednesday.

The perpetrators stole and carried the used load rails with single cabin triton vehicles, said Jujuhan Police chief First Insp. David R. Yudhistira on Saturday.

They later took the load rails out of the mining area and sold them to a metal scrap buyer. The incident inflicted Rp 20 million (US$1,500) in financial losses upon the company.

During the arrest, the police confiscated Rp 1.6 million in cash allegedly left from the sale of the load rails. (ebf)
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Linkedin Newsdesk (JP) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 23:28 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad8209 2 Business salt-import,Australia Free

The government has issued an import permit for state-owned salt producer PT Garam to import 75,000 tons of raw salt material from Australia. The salt will enter Indonesia through three ports on Aug. 10.

"In 2016, we allocated 226,000 tons of salt imports, so we still have room. When the harvest returns to normal, we will stop importing," the Trade Ministry's foreign trade director general, Oke Nurwan, said in Jakarta on Friday.

He further said that the government would decide the price of table salt in the retailer market next week.

The ministry hopes that after the import is realized in August, the domestic supply of salt will gradually return to normal.

The Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministrys director general for territorial sea management, Brahmantya Satyamurti, said the amount of domestic salt production was currently far from the normal production of 166,000 tons a month.

From May to July, salt farmers only managed to produce 6,200 tons, which is far from normal, he said.

The Trade Ministry has ensured that salt distribution in the market will be tightly monitored by a food stability task force, which includes personnel from the police, the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) and the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry.

Salt imports are regulated under the Law No. 7/2016 on the protection and empowerment of fishermen, fishers and salt farmers. It stipulates that import permits issued to PT Garam by the Trade Ministry requires a recommendation letter from the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry. (dis/ags)
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Linkedin Newsdesk (JP) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 23:39 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad91e5 2 Business Block71,salim-group,startup Free

Block71, a Singapore-based global network of entrepreneurial hubs set up and managed by the National University of Singapore (NUS) enterprise, has finally landed in Jakarta after partnering with prominent conglomerate Salim Group.

Block71 Jakarta, dubbed an ecosystem builder for start-ups, will help start-up companies gain access to investors, corporate partners, mentors and industry, while its office functions as a co-working space.

NUS enterprise chief executive officer Lily Chan said the hub welcomed any start-up company to join the community. Several start-ups, such as Popbox, KliknKlin, Pinjam and Algoritma have joined the platform.

Trade Minister Enggartiasto Lukita said the existence of entrepreneurial hubs, such as Block71, was needed to boost the countrys digital sector.

Salim Group executive director Axton Salim said the conglomerate groups knowledge about the Indonesian market would be useful for start-ups that join Block71.

He added that Salim Group had invested in Popbox, a start-up that focuses on package delivery services. (rdi/ags)
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Linkedin Jessicha Valentina (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 10:15 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad1109 1 Guide To Jakpost-guide-to,#JakpostGuideTo,travel,#travel,Kemang,#Kemang Free

Many Jakartans have a love-hate relationship with Jl. Kemang Raya in South Jakarta. On the plus side, the road is filled with trendy restaurants, bars and shops, making it a popular destination among both local and expatriate residents; the flip side is the congested traffic and occasional floods that often frustrate visitors.

Despite this, Jl. Kemang Raya is still an interesting area to explore, especially for first-time visitors to Jakarta.

How to get there

The long, narrow and winding main street descending from Jl. Antasari to the upscale Kemang neighborhood is not public transport-friendly. Instead, take private vehicles, taxis or ride-hailing and on-demand transportation services, such as GO-JEK, Uber or Grab, to get there. Motorcycles are the preferred mode, as they can negotiate around the queue of cars and buses that often crowd the road, and even take the narrowest side streets that cut through the residential area.

For those keen to brave the area by public transportation, Metromini S77 and Kopaja S605A buses are available, departing from Blok M Terminal.

Otherwise, it might be easiest to be dropped off on Jl. Antasari at the top of Jl. Kemang Raya and explore on foot.

What to wear

Jl. Kemang Raya is filled with trendy restaurants and bars, which makes smart casual the safest bet for a daytime outing. At night, it really depends on the event or venue  club, pub, bar, literary cafe, steakhouse or fine dining restaurant?

Those coming to Kemang for a laid-back family weekend can opt for T-shirt and jeans, or anything ranging from casual to informal wear that speaks "comfortable". No flip-flops or beach sandals though, please. These aren't considered proper footwear to be seen wearing out in public.

Read also: Jakpost guide to Jl. Cipete Raya

What to do

Jl. Kemang Raya is not only for the hip and trendy, and is also considered a family-friendly place.

Ganara Art Studio has creative classes for children from 1.5 years old, including art education and physical development. (JP/Christhalia Wiloto)

Parents looking for recreational activities for their children can visit Ganara Art Studio. Located at Sekolah Kembang behind Aksara bookstore, the studio offers a range of creative classes for children aged 1.5 years and above, including early art sensory, fine motor fun, photography and cooking club. Adults can also join the studio's art classes, such as pottery and drawing, at the studio.

Chipmunks Playland & Cafe and Tamani Kids Cafe Adventure Land are also popular with kids. Chipmunks is located in the Colony building and it welcomes children aged six months to 10 years. Tamani Kids is located in the Kemang Square building and is open to children of any age.

Adults can also find a variety of things to do aside from eating or sipping Java.

Movie buffs can visit Kinosaurus. Located behind Aksara bookstore, the micro-cinema screens many different film genres, including documentaries from Taiwan and Malaysia, French as well as local films. Kinosaurus is open every weekend with tickets priced Rp 35,000 (US$2.62) for students and Rp 50,000 for general audiences.

Cutie Cats Cafe offers furry feline "therapy". (JP/Christhalia Wiloto)

Meanwhile, cat lovers can go to Cutie Cats Cafe. For Rp 55,000 on weekdays and Rp 85,000 on weekends, guests can enjoy some quality time with the furry felines.

What to buy

Kemang is a go-to place for those looking for some unique local or imported goods.

Opened in 2000, Aksara bookstore is one of the longest-standing shops on Jl. Kemang Raya. Here, visitors can find imported stationery, books as well as collector's items such as Star Wars memorabilia and The Wes Anderson Collection: The Grand Budapest Hotel. They also have a wide range of Blu-ray and DVDs.

Recently opened Intruders offers branded street fashion for the young and young-at-heart. (JP/Christhalia Wiloto)

Next to Aksara, fashion enthusiasts will find Intruders. Recently opened, the store offers branded street fashion, including Supreme, Balenciaga and AntiSocial Social Club.

Tulisan collaborates with local textile artisans to produce unique apparel and decorative items featuring hand-drawn sketches and prints. (JP/Christhalia Wiloto)

In the Colony building, fashion enthusiasts can get their hands on local high-end brands such as Tulisan and Ghea Fashion. Tulisan offers hand-drawn illustrations and sketches and prints mixes designed for those wanting a unique fashion piece. As for the latter, the shop offers a collection from one of the most prominent local fashion designers Ghea Panggabean.

Across the street from the Colony is Kem Chick's supermarket. Founded by eccentric businessman Bob Sadino, the grocery store offers imported products as well as ready-to-eat gourmet meals.

Off Jl. Kemang Raya is the letterpress printing shop, Distillery. The shop uses nearly extinct Heidelberg printing machines to create personalized business and wedding stationery.

Read also: Jakpost guide to Pantai Indah Kapuk

What to eat

Frequent visitors to Kemang will be familiar with how new bars or eateries pop up every month  and how only a few manage to stay open.

Casa Benedict by Casa restaurant may be a fine pick-me-up for those who braved the traffic to get to Kemang. (JP/Christhalia Wiloto)

Casa is one of the veteran eateries. Here, guests will find a plethora of dishes, varying from nasi goreng gila (fried rice served with various toppings) to Casa Benedict (Casa-style eggs Benedict), to sandwiches and pastas.

Those looking for local flavors might try Lumpang Emas in Colony. Specializing in Indonesian food, the eaterys signature dishes include nasi campur umara (rice cooked with lime leaves and served with a variety of sides), nasi burung punai tangkap (rice with fried pigeon) and more.

Off Kemang Raya, foodies will find the Akasya Express. Established by catering company Akasya, the eatery is known for its gyu tan don (Japanese rice bowl with beef tongue).

In addition to local establishments, Kemang Raya is also home to the US chain Hooters, toned down for local consumption. At Hooters Jakarta, the attraction is American food with a local twist, such as burgers and chicken with rendang sauce.

Those looking for a brew can drop by old-time favorites Murphys Irish Pub & Restaurant, Die Stube German Resto & Bar and English-style pub Eastern Promise, also known for its live bands. Younger crowds usually hit FJ on 7 at Colony or Parc 19 on Jl. Taman Kemang.

Where to stay

Those who want to beat the infamous Jakarta traffic by staying in Kemang can book a room at the grandkemang Hotel Jakarta or the Kemang Icon Hotel. The grandkemang is a four-star contemporary business hotel while Alila's Kemang Icon is a boutique hotel catering to urban chic, both suitable for foreign travelers. Each year, the grandkemang Hotel Jakarta hosts the Indonesian Contemporary Art & Design (ICAD) exhibition, which also makes it the right place to stay for art enthusiasts.

Tips

- Make a reservation at restaurants; they fill up fast.

- Leave shopping for days and never on Friday and Saturday nights, when the area becomes jam-packed with "nights out" revelers.

- The sidewalks are narrow and uneven, so be careful when walking. (kes)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 15:24 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad61cd 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Lake-Toba,traditional-dance Free

A group of performers showcasing Tortor traditional dance and Gondang Batak welcomed the arrival of Spanish orchestra group Vinculos on July 27 in Lake Toba.

Fifty members of the orchestra group are scheduled to stay in Lake Toba until August 2. During their stay, they will perform in several places located around the Tobasa regency.

Apart from the performances, members of the orchestra will also get an opportunity to see the making Ulos, Batak traditional fabric, and Sangkakala trumpet performance performed by 10 people for 10 minutes.

Read also: Ubud listed among 'world's top 15 cities'

The welcoming event was then followed by Ulos-handover ceremony presented by Tobasa regent, Darwin Siagian, and culture and education ministrys cultural heritage and diplomacy director Nadjamuddin Ramly to Vinculos director Manuel Paz.

Following the ceremony, Vinculos took the stage to perform for the guests.

The ministry of culture and education initiated the event to encourage cultural, social and educational exchange between the two countries.

This year, the ministry is targeting to promote Indonesian culture to 50 countries in the world through social media, cultural interaction and virtual communication.

Vinculos will introduce the beauty of Lake Toba to the world through their photos on social media, said Nadjamuddin.

Lake Toba was chosen because it is included in the tourism ministrys 10 priority destinations list.

Read also: Six ways to enjoy music events in Jakarta

Moreover, Darwin was enthusiastic with Vinculos visit to Lake Toba, he believed that the international orchestra group helps promote Lake Toba to the world.

Our hope for the future is we can always host big events in Tobasa to introduce the culture and tourism in this area. Its an honor for the people of Tobasa and Lake Toba to be visited by Vinculos, since they are a special guest from the ministry of culture and education, Darwin said.

Following their visit to Lake Toba, the Madrid-based group is slated to travel Pramuka Island on August 7 and Jakarta. (asw)
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Linkedin News Desk (The Jakarta Post) Jakarta  Sun, July 30, 2017 12:17 1931 4065a5a8898c7cc661d4adf97aad5240 1 News Tourism-Ministry-Pesona-Indonesia,tourism-ministry-wonderful-Indonesia,Padang,west-sumatra,festival Free

Padang plans to light up the night sky with its annual Torch and Telong-Telong (lanterns) Festival that will be held on August 6 at Panjang Chimpago Field, Padang Beach.

This is an annual event that celebrates the 348th anniversary of Padang. We hope that this event can entertain the locals and tourists who come to Padang, said the head of Padang culture and tourism department Medi Iswandi.

Read also: Six ways to identify an authentic Padang restaurant

Telong  Telong itself isnt a just an ordinary festival, theres a rather heroic story behind it. According to history, the lanterns helped the people of Padang in fighting against the Dutch army that colonized Indonesia at that time.

Telong-telong was the source of light that fighters used to fight the Dutch in Muaro Padang on August 7, 1669. At that time, the people of Pauh and Kuranji fought against VOC [Dutch East India Company] and occupied their buildings, Medi told.

That night, the Dutch didnt think they were going to get ambushed. They thought the locals were only holding a regular parade. All of the sudden the locals attacked and destroyed their places, added Medi.

Read also: Colorful portrait of Padang's public transportation

The day of the attack was then set as the birth date of Padang city.

The Torch and Telong-Telong parade will be joined by 11 districts consisting of 104 administrative villages spread all across Padang. The entrance fee for the event is only priced at Rp 5,000 ($ 0.50).

The parade will begin in front of Cimpago Lake in Purus and finish on the Sudirman street. After Maghrib (call for evening prayer), therell be a performance of Gandang Tassa as well as fireworks to close the event at 11:00 p.m. (asw)
RACINE  In partnership with the Southeast Wisconsin Workforce Development Board, Gateway Technical College is offering short-term training programs to equip Southeast Wisconsin residents with the skills and credentials to secure in-demand jobs as Computer Numerical Control Machine (CNC) Operators. Boot camp training is made possible through the support of Gateway Technical College and SC Johnson.

The no-cost, 14-week boot camp provides hands-on training and takes place five days a week in the SC Johnson integrated Manufacturing and Engineering Technology Center (iMET). Graduates receive a Certificate of Completion, college credits, job placement assistance and preparation for careers in manufacturing with wages ranging from an entry level rate of $12 per hour to an experienced rate of $20 per hour or more.

Training programs are open to Racine, Kenosha and Walworth County residents who are at least 18 years of age. CNC Machine Operator Boot Camp applications are now available, and are due by 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 4. Boot camp will be held from Monday, Aug. 28 to Friday, Dec. 1. For more information, contact Rich Salisbury, 262-697-4527, rich.salisbury@kenoshacounty.org; Todd Nienhaus, 262-638-6541, todd.nienhaus@racinecounty.com; or Jonathan Watts, 262-741-5272, jwatts@dwfs.us
The Southeast Gateway Group of the Sierra Club will gather at 1 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 6, for a 30-mile bike round-trip ride on the Rails-to-Trails Bugline Trail in Waukesha County.

This will be an out and back excursion using the same trail both ways. Those who dont care to pedal the entire route can stop at one of the towns on the route and go back or wait for the rest of the group for the return trip.

Once the Milwaukee, Menomonee Falls and Western Railway, the Bugline Trail is entirely paved with no motorized traffic. Participants will pass through the towns of Menomonee Falls, Lannon, Sussex and Lisbon, and travel around both old and working quarries that are a source of the Lannon limestone, used in many houses and other buildings in the Midwest. They will see a successful reclamation of a quarry into a park.

Bicyclists should meet in the parking lot of the Merton Town Library. This is reached by going east onto Kettle Moraine Scenic Drive from Route 83 in Merton. It is a short ride on streets to the trailhead for the Bugline.

For more information and to get a preview of the Sierra Club waiver, call or email Allan Sommer at 262-716-6955 or sommerallan4@gmail.com.
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RACINE COUNTY  With the announcement on Wednesday from tech giant Foxconn about building a facility in southeast Wisconsin, area educators are looking to see how they can train students for jobs at the company.

The Racine Unified School District, along with the Burlington Area School District, Gateway Technical College and the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, hope to fill the employment demand with qualified candidates.

Foxconn, a Taiwan-based company, will build a liquid-crystal display factory in the area as part of a $10 billion capital investment. The location of where the facility will be located has not been announced.

The company plans to employ up to 13,000 people at its facility.

Dan Thielen, chief of secondary school transformation for Unified, said the Academies of Racine, an initiative to get high school students thinking about a career after they graduate, curriculum prepares students for jobs through internships, apprenticeships and other hands-on experiences through partnerships with businesses.

Its being able to help with local manufactures to help outfit our schools with the latest and greatest equipment, Thielen said. The fact of the matter is were educating students for jobs that dont exist yet.

With Foxconn coming to the area, Thielen said the district has an opportunity to make another connection as they have with other local businesses.

Were here to support them and its good for the whole community, Thielen said. Its going to provide so many opportunities for this region.

Dramatic impact

Bryan Albrecht, president and CEO of Gateway Technical College, said with degrees in programs like mechatronics, Gateway students can be in a position to fill some jobs when the plant plans to be operational in 2020.

Were taking a look at all the programs that we offer so that we fill the needs of the current workforce but also what the future workforce needs, Albrecht said. We think its going to have a dramatic impact.

Other programs like hotel management and culinary arts might also see a boost if the area has an influx of people.

All of those programs will be impacted by people coming to our community, Albrecht said. Were so pleased that southeastern Wisconsin is looked at as one of the premier places to work. This is one more example of the innovation that can happen as a result of providing a really solid educational program.

Gary Wood, vice provost for the University of Wisconsin-Parkside, said the university already has the infrastructure to partner with businesses and accommodate what theyre looking for.

Were good at making connections with local businesses and finding what they need, finding out what theyre about, what jobs are available, who theyre looking for, Wood said.

At the moment, Wood said, its unclear what specific jobs will be available at the new facility but considering Foxconns place in the technology industry, UW-Parkside is prepared to train software developers and engineers.

It is a tech company, Wood said. We have that (technology) alignment if thats what the need is.

Impact on schools

Burlington Area School District Assistant Superintendent Connie Zinnen said the district will continue educate students the best they can.

I think our commitment remains the same if Foxconn is here or not, Zinnen said. We want to send students into the workforce for whatever job is out there.

Zinnen said the possible growth of residents could have a benefit to fill some of the schools.

Weve been a declining enrolling district in the last few years, Zinnen said. We have the potential for student growth it certainly could have an impact on the enrollment. We have the facilities to have students.

Recently, BASD had three referendums voted down that would have improved and built some facilities.

Zinnen said if more families started enrolling their children in the district as a result of Foxconn coming to the area the conversation could change regarding using taxpayer money to improve facilities.

We would love to welcome new families to Burlington if Foxconn does bring people to the area, Zinnen said.

With a likely influx of people to work at Foxconn and other companies that will spring up or expand, may welcome the need for more schools, said Racine Unified School District Chief Operating Officer Dave Hazen.

But Hazen pointed out that if local governments assist Foxconn by creating a tax increment district to cover the infrastructure costs, as seems likely, it would be years before the additional taxes generated by the new construction would flow to taxing entities such as Unified and Racine County.

How do we finance growth? Hazen said. There will be demand (for services) before we will have the tax dollars.

I would like to think  and I would like to be part of this  local governments will put together a planning committee to plan for this.
MOUNT PLEASANT  People sometimes say that their work colleagues are like family, but at DeRose Dental they truly are.

Three generations of DeRoses have been providing expert and gentle dental services to people in Racine County.

In 1955, Drs. Michael and Dorothy DeRose opened a dental practice in downtown. Dr. Michael was a periodontist and Dr. Dorothy was a pediatric dentist.

Dr. Dorothy was a trailblazer, as well. She was the first woman to graduate from Northwestern University Dental School in Chicago, as well as the first female dentist in Wisconsin to earn a post-doctorate degree.

The couples two daughters, Francesca and Nicolet, followed in their parents footsteps.

Dr. Francesca DeRose took over her fathers side of the practice after he retired, and she now specializes in cosmetic and restorative dentistry.

Dr. Nicolet DeRose specializes in pediatric dentistry and took over her mothers side of the practice after she retired.

Next generation

And now the family tradition is continuing with a new generation of dentists. Dr. Francesca DeRoses daughter, Maria DeRose Barnes, joined DeRose Dental this June after graduating from Marquette University School of Dentistry. Her sister, Dr. Rosa Barnes, recently completed a residency in pediatric dentistry in Florida and is now a pediatric specialist like her grandmother and aunt.

Its fun working with her mom, said Dr. Maria Barnes.

Its very exciting, and I think the transition is easier for me than for her. Shes always poking her head in the room to see how Im doing, Barnes said. The staff has been so helpful as well.

When the family gets together, the presence of four dentists in the family means a lot of shoptalk is served along with the Thanksgiving turkey.

Its all teeth all the time, Barnes said with a laugh. Dad has to remind us that not everyone wants to talk about teeth all the time.

New office

DeRose Dental recently moved into a spacious and state-of-the-art office at 5439 Durand Ave. near Regency Mall, and the practice is accepting new patients, Barnes said. Whats special about their practice, she noted, is their focus on putting their patients at ease and providing them with a positive experience.

We emphasize gentleness a lot. Were very kind and respectful to our patients, Barnes said. We dont rush through things.

The practice also has flexible hours to accommodate the working schedules of busy adults. The office is open until 8 p.m. on Tuesdays, and Barnes works occasional Saturday mornings as well.

Community involvement

At DeRose Dental, she and her mother also believe in the importance of being active in the community. Dr. Francesca is a past president of the Racine Dental Association, and Barnes has volunteered with the Boys and Girls Club to encourage middle and high school students to pursue carers in health care.

To learn more about DeRose Dental, visit their website at www.derosedentaloffices.com. Call 262-634-8662, ext. 2 to make an appointment. They are now accepting new patients.
Hamlin senior throws standout Gracelyn Leiseth headed to Florida

Hamlin's Gracelyn Leiseth to compete in women's track and field at the University of Florida.
Mason also accepted 17 donations from committees not affiliated with his campaign, 16 of which are based outside Racine, but all of which are based in Wisconsin. The outside committees donated $15,644.20 while the one local committee, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 430, donated $750.

"The majority of our contributions (210/349) are from Racine, and we raised more from the Racine Community than all our opponents combined," Mason said.

Mason added that strong ties outside Racine will be an important resource for the next mayor.
Bhattacherjees book is a specimen of breathless modern history told by someone who thinks he is scooping the world. His heroes are obvious  former US ambassador to India John Gunther Dean, Rajiv Gandhi, and former Indian ambassador Ranendra Sen to whom he invariably refers by his nickname, Ronen.

Through his contacts with Dean and to a far less extent, Sen, Bhattacherjee unfolds his version of Gandhis initiatives to stabilise the postconflict Afghan situation after the Soviet withdrawal, which never in fact added up to much and eventually collapsed.

The same narrative could be portrayed as another example of Gandhis naivete as a novice in international diplomacy. It is unwise to rewrite history on the basis of hero-worship. The records used to justify Bhattacherjees thesis are from the US and Deans personal collection and as usual not from Indian archives, whose unnecessary closure defy efforts to arrive at an authentic version of Indias position.

The author posits Sen in the role of intelligence-cum-diplomatic vizier to Gandhi  though it is unlikely that Sen himself subscribes to this view and astonishingly never cites any contact with MK Narayanan, who then occupied the key intelligence role, or MS Aiyyar, who was privy to Gandhis thinking on world affairs.

The closeness of Sen, Narayanan and Aiyyar to Sonia Gandhi as a result of their work with her husband brought them later appointments under successive Congress governments but that is another story.

The core argument is that Gandhi connected all sides (USSR, US, Pakistan, the Aghan leadership) creating the contours of a political consensus namely a non-aligned broad-based Afghan administration guaranteed by the major interested powers.

Despite the flaunted friendship between Gandhi and Reagan and Bush, the US let Gandhi down on the bargain that they had made on Afghanistan and Pakistans nuclear status, which meant that the peace effort was doomed.

The fall of Najibullah was another failure of Gandhis making. Rajiv Gandhis other diplomatic initiatives  disarmament, environment, third world economic cooperation like his Afghan proposals came to nothing because they did not take into account that the world was changing to a US-dominated sphere.

What the author regards as Gandhis talent for diplomacy was in reality negligible. India was in no position politically or economically to play in the big league and being consulted by the US did not imply dining at the high table. It is fanciful to think that the US and USSR needed a go-between or secret Indian channel between the White House and Kremlin, and such claims suggest that the authors informants sought to magnify their role.

The quid pro quo of Indias help to resolve the Afghan issue was the US reducing its arms supply to Pakistan, which has been a naive Indian assumption of Indo-US amity ever since the 1950s.

As could have been foreseen, US arms to Pakistan continued even as the Soviet pullout was imminent, making Indian assumptions ridiculous. The author sadly concludes the mujahideen were not willing to play by the rules and the Americans preferred the Pakistani leaders to Indias. Bhattacherjee gives too much importance to backstairs intrigues and off the record talks and indulges in gross exaggerations.

He describes Sen and Dean often coordinating on issues of interest on a daily basis which is ridiculous to anyone who has worked at high levels in the government. He writes that Pakistan president Zias death/murder in an air crash could spark a nuclear war between India and Pakistan more than a decade before India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons. He is fond of the word paranoia, used thrice on the same page.

He claims it was obvious to Rajiv and his team that the USSR was not going to last long, which would be news to everyone including the US and Gorbachev. The text is not free of absurdities; As an ex-intelligence officer, he knew that news is often the best tool for private investigation.

The author writes that British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher stopped over for an hour at Bombay airport in 1984 due to the murder of the UK top diplomat in that city, and the Maharashtra home secretary was surprised she did not mention the matter  which he regarded as sinister. Senator Charles Percy was Gandhis secret lobbyist in Washington DC. At another place, it is said that Zia wanted to delay history.

The editors at HarperCollins are generous with cli-ches, including the Great Game of the title and eyeball-to-eyeball confrontation. They also do not know the difference between defuse and diffuse. In sum, this is an unconvincing book and a waste of considerable research that should have been put to better use. Also about Pakistan/Afghanistan but of a very different nature is Nate Rabes racy, fast paced novel,The Shah of Chicago, about a shambolic effort to enter the illegal narcotics trade.

The anti hero is an unattractive jive-talking American junkie of Pakistani origin who returns to his country of birth to get rich quickly. He is a criminal ex-convict murderer but a lover of ghazal and Bollywood.

While his narcotics enterprise bombs, a totally improbable love life with a high-society Pakistani woman flowers.

This whole text is so full of outlandish stereotypes that it strains credibility, as indeed does the strange name of the author. But it makes for easy reading as a spoof compared to Bhattacherjees distorted presentation of the Great Game.

(The reviewer is India's former foreign secretary)
In his book Curfewed Night (2009) Basharat Peer talks about how the bookstores of Delhi opened his eyes to the fact that countries with troubled histories like Palestine, Israel, Bosnia, Tibet and East Germany were being chronicled by their writers, whereas there was no one to write about Kashmir, a valley caught in the crossfire of Indo-Pak politics. Peer seeks to remedy the situation by writing Curfewed Night, a non-fictional record of his experience as a Kashmiri in the frightening times of the 1990s.

As the text unfolds, with growing misgiving we realise that Kashmirs chief tormentor is the Indian Army the executor of every type of offence from intimidation to rape and torture.

One story stands out; that of a Shameema, a Kashmiri mother who is informed by her sons friends that her sons, Shafi and Bilal, have been picked up by the Indian Army and taken to a militant site close by. The mother rushes to the site fighting every soldier on the way. Shafi is already dead by the time she reaches the site. He had been sent into the militants building carrying a mine. The mine exploded and the boy was blown to pieces. The mother rushes in time to see the army chief place a mine in the hands of Bilal, her other son. She whips the mine out of Bilals hands and lashes out at the army men daring them to send her in his place. In the altercation some of the militants escape the cordon. The army finally consents to let the mother and son go and she is able to return with one son. At one point the little Bilal cries out, since Shafi is dead, he should follow his brother into the house. He wishes to die too

The repugnance of Kashmiris for the Indian Army stems from betrayal and terror. Between the pincer-pressure of Pakistani militant groups like Lashkare-Toiba and Jaish-e-Muhammad on one side and the Indian army on the other, life in the valley grinds to a stand-still. In a rare bout of humour, Peer observes how the militants become the style icons for Kashmiri youth, "Kashmiri teenagers in the early nineties did not imitate Che Guevara and Malcolm X; militants walking the ramp of war determined the fashion trends. Militants wore Kamachi shoes and boys wanted Kamachi shoes. Militants replaced the stones in their rings with pistol bullets and boys replaced the stones in their rings with pistol bullets. To the Sufi tradition of wearing an amulet was added a Kalashnikov cartridge.

Among other things it is hero-worship, a paucity of alternatives and travesty in the name of popular choice by elections rigged shamelessly by the Indian government that drive the boys and young men of Kashmir to cross over to the other side for arms-training and their return as JKLF militants.

Whether it is education or employment Kashmiris no longer have access to the best. Peer recollects how his teachers and his fathers Hindu friends were forced to leave their ancestral homes and are presently dwelling at subsistence level in poor houses in Jammu. Only banking flourishes in the valley due to the cash that is constantly pumped into the place by India and Pakistan as seduction strategy.

In his portrayal of Kashmiris, Peer gives priority to his middle-class background. The aura of tragedy is intensified by the increasing criminalisation of civil life. How the suspicion and constant spying of the Indian Army disrupt the life of the valley, scattering young men all over India and the world; how educated, wellintentioned young men find it difficult to rent accommodation in Delhi, is portrayed, in a true-to-life, reportorial style.

Peers representation lacks trimmings, flourishes and overtly emotional outbursts. As a writer he has confidence in his material. The carnage is ghoulish enough to merit attention without embellishments. Peer identifies sectarian violence as having its roots in class rather than religion.

However, Peers book is not solely about the chronicling of gradual and vicious stagnation of Kashmiri life. It is also an exciting repository of Kashmirs consolidated Hindu-Muslim history.Islam in Kashmir, says Peer, had borrowed elements from Hindu and Buddhist pasts; the Hindus in turn had been influenced by Muslim practices.

A number of stories stand out. One is that of the 14thcentury Tibetan prince Rinchana who became the ruler of Kashmir. To consolidate his position, Rinchana, a Buddhist, decided to convert to Hinduism and consulted the Brahmin pandits of Kashmir. The pandits however fell into an argument concerning Rinchanas possible caste-mark after his conversion. In the meantime, Rinchana met a Persian Sufi, Bulbul Shah who, in reply to his questions simply said, There is no god but God and Mohammad is His messenger. Impressed by the mans simplicity, Rinchana converted to Islam.

The other story is that of Zainulabideen, the liberal king, whose reign from 1420 to 1470 is considered to be the golden age of Kashmir. He is also referred to as Bud Shah or the Great King. Zainulabideens contribution is the colleges he built, the generous grants he provided, the craftsmen who came to Kashmir at his invitation to teach Kashmiris the secrets of papier-mache and carpet-weaving, the revival of theatre and music and the ending of the persecution of Hindus.

Peer rues how most of the historical monuments like Pari Mahal (built by Dara Shikoh) have been converted to army base camps. From its rich multicultural legacy of a shared Hindu-Muslim past, Kashmir has declined to a pool of lies, fear, betrayal and sadism. Laments Peer, Two words had remained omnipresent in my journeys. Whether it was at a feast or a funeral, a visit to a destroyed shrine or a redeemed torture chamber, a story about a stranger or about my own life, a poem or a painting  two words always make their presence felt: militants and soldiers.

The other writer who has been preoccupied with Kashmir throughout his career is controversial novelist Salman Rushdie. Rushdie confesses, I have a particular interest in the Kashmir issue, because I am more than half Kashmiri myself, because I have loved the place all my life. And I have spent much of that life listening to successive Indian and Pakistani governments, all of them more or less venal and corrupt, mouthing the self-serving hypocrisies of power while ordinary Kashmiris suffered the consequences of their posturing. (Step Across this Line, 305).

In three of his novels  Midnight's Children (1981), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (1990) and Shalimar the Clown (2005); Rushdie draws attention to the mystique, magic and tragedy of Kashmir. In Midnight's Children Kashmir is associated with Dr Aadam Azizs childhood and youth. The figure that stands out in the Kashmir passages is Taj the boatman who regales the child Aziz with stories and later, having given up washing, begins to stink.

The story-telling motif associated with Taj is repeated every time Rushdie uses Kashmir as a setting. Much of the action in Haroun surrounding Rashid the professional story-teller, who mysteriously loses his ability after a personal crisis, takes places in a shikara on Dull Lake in the valley of K. In his autobiography Joseph Anton (2012) Rushdie recalls how he was bullied by the Penguin people to change the name of the Valley of K to some other name since Kashmir was a contentious Islamic issue and Rushdie was already neck-deep in trouble over his The Satanic Verses (1988). With characteristic obstinacy, Rushdie stuck to his guns and finally got his book published by Granta.

Rushdies chief argument in retaining the name Valley of K is his conviction that the connection between Kashmir and story-telling is timeless. Katha Sarit Sagar the giant classical compendium of tales is a composition of Kashmiri pandits of yore. Therefore, a narrative based on the plugging and unplugging of the common magical fount of stories can only be set in the Valley of K.

Taj the boatman stands out in his capacity to regale the child Aadam with stories. But the adult Aadam witnesses a change in Taj, who loses his good spirits and grows unbearably dirty and smelly. The rapid deterioration of Kashmir from jannat (paradise) to dozakh (inferno) is perhaps hinted by Tajs alteration.

The text that centralises Kashmir and concentrates on its political entanglements is Rushdies 2006 novel, Shalimar the Clown a text that begins by depicting Kashmir as prelapsarian paradise and ends on a bleak dystopian note. The multicultural concept of Kashmiriyat is highlighted by a plot centering on Pachigam a village inhabited by Hindu and Muslim bhands (theatre workers) and cooks, cuisine and theatre being major strengths of pre-military Kashmiri way of life.

The love between the Hindu girl Boonyi and Muslim boy Shalimar, encouraged by their fathers Pandit Kaul, the classical scholar and head cook and Abdullah the director of the theatre company of the village, indicates an edenic amity and peace that animates Kashmiri lives till all is shattered by growing IndoPak animosity that culminates in violence and complete destruction of Kashmiriyat. Shalimar, the dancer-actortrapeze-artist, madly in love with his childhood sweetheart Boonyi, transforms into a deadly sniper-militant trained by Pakistani and Afghan militants. His sweetheart now becomes his sworn enemy.

Shalimar the Clown is more of a fable than an allegory. The simple tale of love across religions is rendered vicious and intricate by the advent of the American ambassador Max Ophuls, a libidinous man who seduces and in turn is seduced by Boonyi who leaves with him. Boonyis departure pulls Rushdies narrative out of the pastoral precincts of Kashmir into the larger political and social arena of Americas treacherous involvement in Indo-Pak Kashmir-centred politics.

Shalimar the Clown, while being a morose and pantomime-like take on Kashmirs social and political vitiation, is also a celebratory chronicle of what Kashmir was in her pre-lapsarian, edenic days, especially in its first half. In loving detail, Rushdie charts the mind-boggling multiplicity of her botanical wealth, the talents of her denizens in the realms of cookery (wazwaanor the banquet of thirty-six dishes minimum), theatrical histrionics (especially plays centering on Zainulabidins golden rule), and scholarship (Pandit Kauls untiring interpretation of classical texts).

In his book of poems evocatively titled Country without a Post-office, Agha Shahid Ali mourns the passing away of the immense greatness and sweetness that was Kashmir, At a certain point I lost track of you. / They make a desolation and call it peace. / Who is the guardian tonight of the Gates of Paradise? / My memory is again in the way of your history / I am being rowed through Paradise on a river of Hell: Exquisite ghost, it is night. /  If only somehow you could have been mine, what wouldnt have happened in this world? / Im everything you lost. You wont forgive me. / My memory keeps getting in the way of your history. (from Farewell)

Shahid is right when he talks about personal memory getting in the way of political history. Basharat Peer, the Vodafone Crossword prize-winner for non-fiction, Salman Rushdie who lays huge premium on the novel as repository of lost history and Agha Shahid Ali, regarded as a great Kashmiri poet; all rely on personal memories in their representations of the Kashmir that has been perhaps destroyed forever. What history has obliterated for its selfish political ends, art has preserved with care and acuity. Today, in order to appreciate the truth of the famed lines, If there is paradise on earth, / It is this, it is this, it is this; it is to art, and not reality, that we turn; art that scrupulously and courageously recalls and recreates the annihilated charm and elegance that once upon a time was Kashmir.
I started collecting stories and ideas about rings over the years Over these years, wherever I went, no matter what people asked me to talk about, I talked about rings, and I took furious notes not only in the Q & A but during the lecture itself, as the adrenaline generated new ideas even while I was telling the audience the old ones.

As she acknowledges this at the beginning of her new book, Wendy Doniger offers a riveting cross-cultural history of jewellery and its role in seduction, romance and infidelity ideas that she has been researching on and accumulating for a long period of time. Basically the book is about the stories that other people have told, through recorded history and all over the world, about pieces of circular jewellery, particularly rings. Providing accessibly written retellings of countless stories from mythology, folklore and literature, the stories are different but linked through a common cluster of meanings. The rings in this book always have some connection with love and/or sexuality.

Doniger begins her book by asking several questions and then tries to seek answers to those questions through different chapters and different constellation of stories. Why is sex and jewellery, particularly circular jewellery or finger rings, so often connected? Why do rings keep getting into stories about marriage and adultery, love and betrayal, loss and recovery, identity and masquerade? What is the mythology that makes rings symbols of true (or, as the case maybe, untrue) love?

The first seven chapters are about rings throughout history; in particular, they are all recognition stories in which a ring is a vital clue. They deal with sexual rings (chapter one), rings found in fish and found (with children) in the ocean (chapter two), rings of forgetful husbands (chapters three, four, and five) and clever wives (chapters six and seven). Chapters one and two are broadly crosscultural (though largely Anglophone) and deal with a number of relatively short texts; the next three chapters concentrate on fewer stories discussed in greater depth, taken from individual cultures  India (chapter three), medieval Europe (chapter four), and the Germanic world (chapter five). Chapters six and seven deal with a single theme  the clever wife  in cross-cultural distribution.

Chapters eight and nine veer ever so slightly into stories about necklaces in particular cultures and particular historical periods a treacherous royal necklace in 18th century France (chapter eight) and true-and-false necklaces in 19th century English novels and 20th century American films (chapter nine). The final two chapters return to rings, to the invention of the mythology of diamond engagement rings in 20th century America (chapter 10) and a concluding consideration of the cash value of rings and the clash between reason and convention in myths about rings of recognition throughout the world (chapter 11).

Some of the rings in the stories that we encounter throughout this book originally belong to men, and just about all the jewellery that women have, they get from men (sometimes they inherit it from their mothers, but not often). But both men and women tell the stories (though men are usually the attributed authors of the earlier texts). These stories drive Donigers arguments about six basic points, three about the content of the plots and three about the function of the narratives. Firstly, most of the stories take for granted what Doniger calls the slut assumption, that women get jewels only from men they sleep with (husbands or lovers). Secondly, women use jewellery to their advantage in the stories, often to win (or win back) their husbands, while men use (or try to use) rings to wriggle out of promises to women. Thirdly, mens concern for the paternity of their children, and womens for their childrens legitimacy, drive many of the myths of rings of recognition.

As far as the function of the narratives are concerned, Doniger states that by overcoming reason, the myths allow us to believe what we want to believe about the power and endurance of sexual love and about our ability to rebalance the moral world. Also, the tension between hard evidence (reason) and the soft power of myth (rationality) experienced by an audience is mirrored by a similar tension in the story itself. Finally, different versions (or variants, or tellings) of much-retold stories supply us with a cumulative mass of different psychological details that together suggest deeper meanings of the myth. And comparing earlier and later variants allows us to see myths in the making, a process that we can then recognise in such contemporary examples as the invented tradition of diamond engagement rings.

The book therefore does not move in a linear fashion but expands outwards, as if from a prism. Thus we get to read about ancient Sanskrit myths, Celtic lore, fairy tales, literature, modern song lyrics all of which depict detours of love, adultery and the foibles of jealous husbands and clever wives. One is surprised at the ease with which Doniger leaps easily from Sanskrit fables to Roman times, from medieval lore to the 18th century French court and modern Doris Day movies. She brings together Gentlemen Prefer Blondesand Seigfried, Shakuntala and Marie Antoniette, Solomon and Shakespeare and so many others with ease and lucidity.

The ease with which Doniger traverses different ages and cultures is really mindboggling. Summarised in one sentence this book offers a thoroughly interdisciplinary cross-cultural history of jewellery.The jewellery in the stories that she has collected here preserves (and sometimes erases) true and false memories; making promises that come true and that lie.

Thus The Ring of Truth, like all of Donigers other books is an astonishing and hugely satisfying work of scholarship rendered in compulsively readable prose. The Indian edition of this book has on its cover a painting by Raja Ravi Verma entitled A Lady Holding a Fruit and this picture definitely adds to the charm and the significance of the title.

(The reviewer is professor of English, Visva-Bharati University)
A Meghalaya Police constable, who was allegedly drunk, shot dead his senior in West Jaintia Hills district early on Sunday before fleeing with the weapon, a police official said.

Constable Lusen Sangma, of the 3rd Meghalaya Police Battalion, fired at close range at Havildar Litsingh Inghi, who succumbed on way to the hospital, district police chief R. Muthu told IANS.

The incident occurred in Sahbsein area at around 1 a.m. when Sangma, reportedly in an inebriated condition, stormed into the top floor room of Inghi, who was sitting along with two of his subordinates.

"Constable Sangma fired six rounds from his self-loading rifle inside the room and one of the bullets hit Inghi's shoulder. Sangma came down to the ground floor and fired another 15 rounds before fleeing with the weapon," Muthu said.

Asked the cause of the incident, he said that an investigation was on. "However, preliminary investigation hinted that the accused was in a drunken state of mind," he said.

Police have launched a hunt for Sangma, Muthu said.
The federal organization responsible for ensuring the safety of products in the marketplace likely will be led by an Auburn native.

Former U.S. Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle was nominated by President Donald Trump this week to chair the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Her nomination was sent to the U.S. Senate for consideration. The Senate must confirm Buerkle's appointment to the post.

Buerkle joined the commission in 2013 after she was nominated by then-President Barack Obama. Current Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell recommended her for the role.

"After having worked here for four years, I know the issues and I've developed a relationship with the stakeholders," Buerkle said in a phone interview Friday. "I think part of that was what led to the nomination and I've had tremendous support from my colleagues here on both sides of the aisle, which I'm also very grateful for that."

In February  shortly after Trump was sworn in as the 45th president  Buerkle was named acting chair. But she's in an unusual situation because there are three Democrats on the five-member commission. (Buerkle is one of two Republican members.)

That means Buerkle, despite being acting chair, is technically in the minority.

The commission won't remain that way for long. One Democrat's term will expire in October, which will allow Trump to nominate a Republican. That will give Buerkle and her GOP colleagues the majority.

Until then, Buerkle doesn't view the split as a problem because of the relationship she has built with her colleagues.

"I had support for the (2018 fiscal year) budget," she said. "I had support for a number of things because we work together and we figure things out. And so that seems to work.

"It's working OK right now and I really don't have any complaints. So much of what we do really is bipartisan. Safety should be bipartisan. It's not one party wants their kids to be safe and the other doesn't. It's pretty bipartisan. It's when you get into rule-making and you get into some of the ideologies that it gets a little less bipartisan. But that's not as often as you would think around here."

One achievement Buerkle touted from her tenure as a commissioner is her willingness to travel across the country to meet with stakeholders. She's held meetings with consumer groups, hospitals, manufacturers and retailers. These meetings, she said, help her learn what issues affect a business or what consumers are concerned about.

She recently visited Wisconsin to meet with portable generator manufacturers. The commission is in the process of developing a portable generator carbon monoxide rule.

On Monday, she will travel to Connecticut to visit children's hospitals. She uses her trips to hospitals to highlight various initiatives, whether it's a pool safety campaign or educational materials about toy safety.

Monday afternoon, she will meet with officials at the Lego headquarters in Connecticut.

"The collaborative piece is really helpful because, as I say to all the stakeholders, we can accomplish our mission of safety much better and much more effectively if we partner with everyone, with all of the stakeholders, because they have a lot to offer," she said. "They're all experts in their field and they can help us."

Buerkle was born and raised in Auburn. She was a registered nurse before graduating from Syracuse University law school. She worked for 12 years as an assistant New York state attorney general.

In 2010, she ran for Congress. She defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Maffei, by 648 votes.

She served in Congress for one term. Maffei defeated her in 2012.

While Buerkle no longer lives in central New York, she has maintained her ties to Cayuga County and the region.

In August, she will return for one of the biggest weekends in the Auburn area. She will participate in the 40th annual Great Race on a team with one of her daughters.
RACINE COUNTY  The Racine Water Utility has the legal and practical abilities to provide water out to Interstate 94 for a potential Foxconn facility.

The cost of doing so, however, is still unknown. High water impact fees have been a sore spot for local municipal leaders, who say costs have hurt their ability to attract development.

So far, the utility has not been directly involved in talks related to Foxconn, which is considering building a massive campus near Interstate 94 in Racine County to manufacture liquid crystal display (LCD) screens.

The discussions with the utility have mostly been big picture questions about whether it would have the capacity to treat a large amount of water, Utility General Manager Keith Haas said.

I havent been at the table, you might say, Haas said. Were tangentially involved with answering questions, but I dont know a lot of the details.

Details yet to be determined include how much it would cost to provide water out to areas the Racine Water Utility doesnt serve.

One of the areas Foxconn is targeting for its facility, which will be at least 1,000 acres, is on Highway 11 near I-94. Water lines currently extend on Highway 11 only to the western part of Sturetvant, about 2,000 feet west of Highway H, Haas said.

Water mains would likely have to be built to get more water west. The utility has not looked at what the costs might entail because it does not have enough information to do so, Haas said.

Since the water demand would be equal to that of a decent-sized city in the state of Wisconsin, the water impact fees would be calculated on a slightly different methodology, Haas said. The current water demand is all over the map, so it would be difficult to comment on a fee at this time.

To Haas point: Foxconn plans to eventually employ up to 13,000 workers. The Wisconsin Economic Development Corp. notes the campus will equal the population of cities including Glendale, Fort Atkinson, Stoughton, Waunakee, Hudson and Chippewa Falls.

How to pay for water will likely be a part of discussions among local government leaders, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos said.

My hope is that the City of Racine recognizes that this is a once-in-a-lifetime (opportunity) and theyll be reasonable with all that stuff, said Vos, R-Rochester.

Access to Lake Michigan water is seen as a key part of Foxconns decision to locate in southeastern Wisconsin. The company has not yet selected an exact location for its facility and is also believed to be considering Kenosha County.

DNR approval also needed

Mount Pleasant would also have to get approval from the state Department of Natural Resources, as part of the community lies outside the Lake Michigan watershed, Haas said.

Mount Pleasant is whats known as a straddling community, meaning it straddles the subcontinental divide and must follow rules set out in the 2008 Great Lakes Compact to obtain additional Lake Michigan water.

The village would go through a similar process as New Berlin did in 2008, when it received DNR approval for a diversion to get lake water for its entire community.

Its not as involved as the Waukesha application, but there are a lot of hoops to jump through, Haas said.

Legally, the Racine Water Utility can draw 60 million gallons of water per day from Lake Michigan under the Great Lakes Compact, Haas said. Right now, the utility pumps only about 20 million gallons.

So if a big water user were to come to the Racine area, we would have the permission to draw a large amount of water from Lake Michigan to feed that plant, Haas said.

Transportation also a factor

Another consideration for the city relating to Foxconn would be whether it would provide public transportation options for employees.

Transit and Parking System Manager Mike Maierle said its too early to say anything definitive, but that it is something the city would consider.

I really havent had any discussions with leadership or upper management about it, Maierle said. The transit system thinks that connecting workers with jobs in outlying areas is important and doing that requires financial cooperation of outlying communities and the employers.

Maierle mentioned that the city already does some busing to employment areas beyond city limits, including the Renaissance and Grandview industrial parks in Sturtevant. Routes to both parks are tailored to accommodate travelers around typical shift change times.

Weve discussed ways to improve that with communities out there, Maierle said.
Jewish people they say, have much in common with Kashmiri Pandits ~ long noses, sharp eyes and often enough of intellect. However, what they really share is a history of oppression, where, faced with constant extinction, they manage to survive.

But now in the changed times the two communities do not seem to have that much left in common. For one, Kashmiri Pandits have a very high literacy rate; the other far more crucial factor which sets the two apart is that while the Jews are rapidly expanding their country Israel, Kashmiri Pandits perceive that they are in the process of losing their land of birth ~ Kashmir. So, are they like refugees in their own country?

The government has, reportedly, over the past several years provided jobs to around 1700 Kashmiri youths under the Prime Ministers Relief and Rehabilitation Programme to lure back hundreds of Kashmiri Pandits who had left the valley following last years unrest in the wake of killing of Hizbul commander Burhanwani.

According to official figures, 62000 Kashmiri migrant families, mostly Pandits, are registered with the government ~ 40,000 in Jammu, 20,000 in Delhi and the remaining 2,000 in other parts of the country.

In fact, their crisis began in December 1989 with the gunning down of P N Bhat, a freelance journalist, and an advocate in Anantnag town in broad daylight and, subsequently, of Director of the Srinagar station of Doordarshan and another Kashmiri Pandit youth.

Till April 1990, however, at least 19,580 families of Kashmiri Pandits, Sikhs and non-Kashmiri Hindus had migrated to Hindu-majority Jammu city from the strife-torn, Muslim dominated Kashmir valley following threats to their life and property. It was not the first time the Pandits had fled valley. They did it first when the Afghan hordes came with Ahmed Shah Abdali, and Sikhs had to intervene and Dogras assumed power.

They did so again ~ that is why they are found scattered all over the country in job, less in business, a trait of the Pandits ~ when Partition forced them out and Pakistan occupied parts of Kashmir.

In retrospect, Kashmiri Pandits have been living as a besieged community since the beginning of Muslim rule in Kashmir in the middle of the 14th century.

Sikandar, the fourth ruler of the dynasty founded by Shah Mir, a Khorasani adventurer who usurped the throne of Kashmir in 1339, confronted the people with the choice between conversion and death.

A few Hindu families, mainly Brahmins, escaped and took refuge in the Hindu kingdom of Jammu across the Pir Panchal range of the Himalayas.

They returned to Kashmir in the reign of Zain-ul-Abdin, who is still remembered as the Badshah or great king. The present day Kashmiri Pandits are supposed to be their progeny. Some of the Kashmiri Pandits who had picked up Arabic and Persian prospered under the Mughals.

But things changed after Islamic fanaticism began to run riot under Aurangzeb. Pressure began to be put on Hindus to embrace Islam.

Some of them related their tale of woe before GuruTegh Bahadur, the ninth Sikh Guru. The supreme sacrifice by Guru Tegh Bahadur and his three companions at Chandni Chowk in Delhi under Aurangzebs orders raised their morale and they preserved their religion against heavy odds.

The Afghans took over Kashmir from the Mughals in 1752 and it remained a province of the Kingdom of Kabul for the next six decades.

Under their rule many of the Kashmiri Hindus were forced to migrate to Delhi and Agra in search of a living. In fact, it was Muhammed Shah, a later Mughal ruler of Delhi, who decreed that they be called Kashmiri Pandits to distinguish them from local Brahmins.

In 1819, Maharaja Ranjit Singh conquered and annexed Kashmir and made it a separate province of his expanding Kingdom ruled from Lahore in 1846. Maharaja Gulab Singh added Kashmir to his kingdom of Jammu and made Srinagar the winter capital of the vast state extending from the Punjab plains to China and Tibet.

Kashmiri Pandits did occupy a place of pride in Kashmir during the 100 years of Dogra rule, making the best use of facilities for higher education and improved communications with the rest of the country.

With Maharaja Hari Singhs accession to India in October 1947 began a new chapter in the chequered history of Kashmir, Pandits had started cooperating with Sheikh Abdullah after 1939 when he converted his Muslim Conference into the National Conference.

But Sheikh developed a distrust for the loyal Pandits soon after he came to power in the wake of the accession to India. They refused to stand by him in his endeavours to make Kashmir an independent state.

So, from 1947 onwards, they have been marginalised, discriminated against, persecuted, humiliated, attacked and driven out in a systematic manner.

The Kashmiri Pandits were bound to leave their hearths and homes in the valley to have uprooted themselves for a group fear of destruction or because of actual threats, or because they found it impossible to live in the suffocating environment of fundamentalism.

Although not such an endangered species as the Parsis, it may be taken for granted that the exclusive identity of the Kashmiri Brahmin has maximum security only on his ancestral soil of which he has remained an organic part for centuries. His tradition, customs and way of life have not wholly survived migration.

Lest our concern for the future of the indigenous Kashmiri Brahmin be taken as a sense of narrow loyalty or a futile exercise in shedding tears over what is perhaps inevitable, let us confess that our concern would be no less if the Ayengars of Tamil Nadu or the Bengalis of West Bengal were forced out to become refugees in the distant Himalayas to save their lives and livelihoods.

True, the government has lately identified separate enclaves for the rehabilitation of Kashmiri Pandits. But the question is ~ will not this action make the Pandits more vulnerable as and when the situation in the valley might deteriorate for any untoward reason?

One must not think of human beings solely as ethnic specimens worthy of being preserved in territorial museums only as attractive historical relics. But neither should one become indifferent to the prospect of extinction simply because the threatened species is represented by a handful of people in the vast national ocean that is India.

(The writer is former Associated Professor, Department of English, Gurudas College, Kolkata)
A lucrative, high in demand business simmers out from the shadows every Eid. The applying of mehendi, or henna, becomes imperative and salons all across the country burn the midnight oil on the night before the festival, catering to hundreds of women who turn up en masse for their requisite hand-candy. A good amount of traffic crowds around popular salons and the strong smell of mehendi resiliently permeate the air.

Other than the two Eids, mehendi is also applied to the hands is during weddings. But while its demand may fluctuate through the year, mehendi application is a tradition deeply entrenched in local culture.The bride puts it on under the vague belief that the darker the shade of her mehendi, the more happily married she will be. And on festivals, mehendi application is considered an important, often expensive, requirement.

This does not mean, though, that mehendi is merely for the traditionalists. Internationally, henna can take on funky patterns; on Madonna, an Om symbol on the hand or dotted decoratively around her face, a Maori henna-inspired tattoo flaunted by Rihanna or a blue-haired Gwen Stefani with a paisley printed on her bare shoulder.

The usual mehendi customer, however, isnt a big fan of the risque, having a penchant for routine winding trellises, multi-tiered florals and paisleys, trailing down the hand, stretching on to the wrists, decorating the back of the hand and then, the feet. The bona fide fanatic may also opt for a band to be etched on her upper arm, lower arm or around her ankle. This may result in the customer whiling her time away at the salon for hours but when it comes to mehendi, one has observed women showing admirable patience and an eagerness to sharply elbow any other who dares to usurp their turn with the exhausted (but fast getting rich) mehendi-waali. Mehendi wars on the night before Eid are a common, inevitable occurrence.

Also interesting are the slight changes in design being introduced by mehendi aficionados a change in colour and some very distinctive patterns, for instance. Here are some of the trends that weve noticed:

Regular mehendi gives off a deep burgundy shade and can be beautiful when applied with finesse. However, innovations can be made with a change in colour. Red mehendi gives off a bright red hue which can be eye-catching. Black mehendi is often available as an option although it is not recommended since it contains dyes that can often lead to severe allergies. White henna  which is basically a paste that can be applied in the same way as genuine mehendi  can be used to make a stark unique statement. And if the mehendi-wearer is feeling adventurous, there are UV-henna tattoos that glow in the dark. Again, like black and white mehendi, the UV-paint isnt actual henna but can be applied the same way as henna  in conventional patterns or avant-garde swirls.

Also, bling-lovers sometimes opt to have their mehendi tattoos coloured in with glitter. This is not usually in good taste, with the mehendi-wearer acquiring a Midas touch of sorts, rubbing off glitter on whatever she touches.

African henna is purely for the bold-hearted, usually featuring geometric designs, thick borders and distinctive filigree patterns. Tribal patterns are common and the designs are usually filled in extensively, leaving a stark stain on the skin. Infusions of glitter are also common. Usually large, the African style often extends beyond hands, winding about the entire length of an arm or the lower leg.

In complete contrast to its African counterpart, Turkish mehendi is delicate and extremely intricate. Peacocks, paisleys, criss-crossing grids and spirals dominate designs that are quite similar to regular local motifs. However, while mehendi in the subcontinent is often filled in in places, the Turkish style consists of thin, dense borders.

Largely popularised by pop-star Rihanna, Maori designs are a funky alternate to the usual henna patterns. Inspired by the Maori tribes of New Zealand, the patterns are distinctive; sharp zig-zags, pointy stars, fish hooks, mantises and artisticallyshaped fish, among others. The designs usually have symbolic interpretations: water-inspired designs speak of the balance between the spiritual and material world, fish hooks symbolise good fortune and heartshaped leaves are said to have healing energy!

Increasingly, one sees innovations in mehendi design via customisation. There are brides who shrug away the conventional mehendi motifs, opting for their love stories to be etched out on their hands, complete with skylines of places where they first met the groom, special mementos and important events. Enthusiasts are also seen steering their mehendi towards avant-garde territory  a peace sign, calligraphy, city skylines, prayer bead patterns printed down the wrist like a bracelet or even prints that emulate lacy gloves!

Its fun, exciting and gives mehendi, hitherto always entrenched in tradition, a cool, young vibe that it never had before.

(Dawn/ ANN)
As a young boy growing up in Bethlehem, I was often excited when our family had company. My dad, a Christian clergyman, loved to take us and the guests to Hebron.

Dad would take us to the Cave of the Machpela, situated within the Ibrahimi Mosque, where Abraham and his family are buried and would tell the story of how Abraham obeyed Gods calling even when it came to the request to sacrifice his own son. He would also tell us that the son in the Biblical story was Isaac, son of Sarah, while in the Koran the story refers to Ishmael, son of Hagar.

For us kids, the visit to Hebron, or alKhalil in Arabic (the Arabic name means companion, in reference to Abraham being Gods companion), was never complete without purchasing some of the amazing grape products. Not only did we often buy grapes when they were in season, but Dad, who had a sweet tooth, always bought some delicious treats: dibess(grape molasses), quttain (dried figs) and my personal favourite malban (dried sheets made of grape juice that stay tasty all year).

We also loved the glassmaking factories where skilled Hebronites made amazing glass creations while we watched. For me, the holy site and its cultural connection to Hebron are enough reasons to justify its recent designation as a World Heritage site by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

The barbed wire, metal detectors with heavily armed soldiers and rowdy settlers make a visit now totally unpleasant. Hebronites are also barred from many areas in parts of the old city, including Shuhada Street which the Israeli army bars Palestinians from using.

A massacre in the mosque by a Jewish settler who killed 29 Palestinian worshipers in 1994 also justifies Unescos decision to label the old city of Hebron/alKhalil as an endangered site.

The old town of Hebron/al-Khalil became a Unesco World Heritage site with a 12-to-3 vote with six abstentions  despite Israeli pressures and the decision to have the votes cast in secret. The authors of the Unesco resolution, who did not consider the question of religion as part of the process, were careful to give the old town and the holy places in it their due course.

The wording of the resolution is politically correct, giving historical background to the site and not ignoring its religious importance to Jews, Christians or Muslims. The resolution passed last week, garnering the necessary two-thirds majority votes. In reaction to the process, Israeli officials had blocked a Unesco delegation on June 26 from visiting Hebron, seeming to have lost any connection to the reality that they are an occupying power in Hebron.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu attacked the resolution, calling it in a Facebook post delusional and saying, This time they decided that the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron is a Palestinian site, meaning that it is not Jewish.

But the Los Angeles-based Jewish Telegraph corrected the Israeli prime minister. It correctly reported that the resolution did not mention the Cave of the Machpela, and does not designate the site as Palestinian.

The angry and even vulgar reaction of the Israeli delegate (whose actions caused the Polish diplomat to call in security) is reminiscent of a country that is unable to accept that other religions and cultures exist in these holy lands. Naturally, the resolution brought to the Unesco World Heritage Committee was raised by Palestinian Ambassador to Unesco Elias Sanbar, but the resolution itself doesnt identify the site as being Palestinian.

The governor of Hebron, Kamel Hamed, was humble in his reaction to the resolution passed in Krakow, Poland.

With its cultural and human heritage, this decision shows that Hebron is important to the entire world and not just Palestinians, he said. For centuries, the people of Hebron/al-Khalil have kept and protected the Ibrahimi Mosque, where Abraham and his family, revered by all Abrahamic religions, are said to have been buried.

Declaring that Hebron is part of the occupied territories, thereby giving Palestinians the responsibility of taking care of the holy sites in those areas, should not be controversial.

Not every country in the world that has Jewish or Muslim or Christian sites must somehow turn those sites over to the sovereignty of a country that has some kind of connection to that religion. Today there are Jewish and Christian holy sites in Jordan, for example.

Should Jordan relinquish these sites to Israel and the Vatican sovereignty, respectively? Of course not. Unesco states that what makes the concept of World Heritage exceptional is its universal application: World Heritage sites belong to all the peoples of the world, irrespective of the territory on which they are located.

The ruling that Hebron/al-Khalil is officially an endangered World Heritage site should not be seen as being anti Semitic, anti-Israeli or pro-Palestinian. Instead, it should be seen as the governor of the city saw it: The heritage of the city is much bigger than Palestinians and Jews.

As for me, I hope to continue to visit Hebron/al-Khalil to see the glass factories and to buy those amazing sheets of malban for my children and grandchildren to enjoy.

(The writer is a Palestinian journalist and former Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University By arrangement with The Washington Post)
China may not have forgiven India for snubbing its mega trans-continent corridor initiative, but in what may rankle it more is that New Delhi and Tokyo, Beijing's arch rival, are pushing ahead with a development corridor between Asia and Africa.

The announcement of the Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the African Development Bank (ADB) meet in Gandhinagar in May, came days after China hosted with great pomp the first One Belt One Road (OBOR) summit in Beijing. The venture is expected to get further impetus in September during the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

India has been involved in Africa for many years, in trade as well as capacity-building activities. Japan, which has been working on infrastructure projects in Africa, can help with its advanced technology as well as funds for the AAGC. Japan is reportedly planning to commit $200 billion for the proposed growth corridor.

So, is the AAGC meant as a counter to OBOR?

"The two are completely separate. OBOR is different. Long before OBOR, India and Japan were individually working in Africa, and were talking to each other about Africa," Rajiv Bhatia, a former Indian ambassador, told IANS.

"India and Japan feel that by intensifying cooperation with Africa, they can help each other and Africa. We are working on the AAGC in our own way and at our own pace," said the former High Commissioner to South Africa and Kenya.

He said that China's engagement in Africa is extensive, while the India-Japan collaboration is beginning to take shape. The AAGC shows that India and Japan desire to take their cooperation beyond the bilateral sphere, he added.

China's OBOR, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, is an estimated $5 trillion connectivity corridor spanning over 60 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. It is meant to be a revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route and is expected to comprise building of roads, bridges, gas pipelines, ports, railways and power plants, besides SEZs.

India and Japan had begun a dialogue on Africa in 2010, a continent in which both have much stake. The main objective of the AAGC is to enhance growth and connectivity between Asia and Africa. According to the vision document, the corridor will focus on four areas: Development Cooperation Projects, Quality Infrastructure and Institutional Connectivity, Enhancing Skills, and People-to-People Partnership.

Agriculture, health, technology, and disaster management are the main areas of development cooperation. It will focus on boosting skills and research and development capacities in Africa.

According to a report by McKinsey, China is Africa's largest economic partner, with goods trade worth $188 billion in 2015  compared to $59 billion with India. Since the turn of the millennium, Africa-China trade has been growing at approximately 20 per cent per year, the report says, adding that there are around 10,000 Chinese firms in Africa,

Three think-tanks  India's Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), Indonesia's Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA), and Japan's Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), prepared the vision document for AAGC. They have produced one report on the corridor and another report is due in a few months, said Bhatia.

He said that at the corporate level, companies of India, Japan and from Africa are looking at specified sectors of the growth corridor in order to execute projects. "There is seriousness and earnestness" behind the initiative, he added.

Bhatia, a former Director General of Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), also feels that giving too much importance to OBOR and China would help Beijing.

Speaking on the comparison between OBOR and the AAGC, Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, told IANS: "The OBOR, it seems, is visualised on the idea of economic corridors and infrastructure development with connectivity as the central focus, while the AAGC is a concept based on the theory of growth poles where several growth triangles and quadrangles are envisaged with different regional production hubs."

The proposed AAGC seeks to encompass and integrate Africa, India and South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania.

India's increased engagement with Africa comes in the backdrop of the third India-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi in October 2015 when all 54 African nations had sent their representatives. India has also made many high level visits to several African countries, as part of its outreach. India also held the AfDB annual meeting in Gandhinagar this May.
A Russian Soyuz MS-05 carrying the three new crew members to join the Expedition 52 docked to the International Space Station (ISS) after a six-hour spaceflight, to continue important scientific research in the orbiting laboratory, NASA said in a statement.

NASA astronaut Randy Bresnik, Sergey Ryazanskiy of the Russian space agency Roscosmos, and Paolo Nespoli of European Space Agency (ESA) launched aboard the Soyuz MS-05 at 11.41 a.m. on Friday from Baikonur, Kazakhstan.

The three crewmates aboard the Soyuz MS-05 spacecraft orbited Earth four times, before docking at the space station.

Their arrival restored the station's crew to six people, which includes Expedition 52 Commander Fyodor Yurchikhin of Roscosmos and Flight Engineers Peggy Whitson and Jack Fischer of NASA.

The new Expedition 52 crew members will spend more than four months conducting approximately 250 science investigations in fields such as biology, Earth science, human research, physical sciences and technology development.

The expedition team is expected to soon conduct new science investigations arriving on SpaceX's 12th NASA-contracted commercial resupply mission targetted to launch in August.

The astronauts will assemble and deploy a microsatellite investigation seeking to validate the concept of using microsatellites in low-Earth orbit to support critical operations, such as providing lower-cost Earth imagery in time-sensitive situations such as tracking severe weather and detecting natural disasters.

In addition, their work will also include an invesitgation into the study developed by the Michael J. Fox Foundation of the pathology of Parkinson's disease to aid in the development of therapies for patients on Earth as well as the use of the microgravity environment in stem cell research

Whitson, Fischer and Yurchikhin are scheduled to remain aboard the station until September, while Bresnik, Ryazanskiy and Nespoli are scheduled to return in December.
Gangnam, K-pop, cosmetics and Korean dramas are some of the usual reasons to visit South Korea. My trip was for a different reason; it was because of my love of history and my strong interest in the DMZ, or the Korean Demilitarised Zone.

It is a buffer zone formally set up on 27 July, 1953, when the Armistice Agreement was signed during the Korean War. South and North Korea drew a truce line across the Korean Peninsula, from the mouth of the Imjingang River in the east to the town of Goseong in the west. On either side of the truce line is a two kmwide stretch of land where military activity is forbidden.

Former United States president Bill Clinton called it the scariest place on Earth. As the official site of the DMZ notes, The DMZ vividly captures the scars and wounds of the Korean War as well as the wishes and hopes for the future.

My first visit to Seoul last September reinforced my belief that visiting the DMZ is a must-do. It is a place where we can feel the reality and pain of a separated nation. I booked a tour with the help of a friend, as it is impossible to go there on your own. Access is restricted to civilians and military escort is mandatory. If there is tension at the border or between the South and the North, the tour could be cancelled for security and safety reasons.

I joined a bunch of backpackers from other countries and travelled with them for this experience. It was a halfday tour, which covers Imjingak Resort (Nuri Peace Park), the Freedom Bridge, Third Tunnel, DMZ Theatre, Dorasan Station and Dora Observatory. We would also pass by Tongilchon Unification Village.

The tour started as early as 8am as there was a briefing to attend, as well as security checkpoints and passport verification to clear. First, we visited Imjingak Resort, which is located 50km northwest of Seoul. Imjingak was built in 1972, with the hope that someday unification would be possible. From the park, the Freedom Bridge is visible and gives one hope that maybe there will be reunification in the future.

We next visited the Third Tunnel. We were given a locker to keep all our belongings and no cameras were allowed. The tunnel was discovered in October 1978. It was dug by the North Koreans to spy on their neighbours. It is 1,635km long, two metres high and two m wide. It penetrates 435 m past the South Korea military demarcation line and starts at Panmunjeon, North Korea.

It was quite challenging to ascend and descend as the tunnel was steep. As I am tall, I had to walk hunched and my head banged the ceiling a few times in the tunnel. It was my unique way of saying Hi to North Korea! Luckily, I had a safety helmet on. It was certainly a unique experience and I was all sweaty, like I just had a full body workout, when I came out of the tunnel.

Our next stop was the Dora Observatory. It is a place not to be missed as we could view a North Korean village, using binoculars. If you are lucky, you get to see villagers going about their activities. I took extra time to look around.

Finally, at around 11am, we reached Dorasan Station. This was built so that people would be able to travel up and down the border. A sign at the station goes, Not the last station from the South, but the first station towards the North.

We again viewed the Unification Village from the bus as we headed home. I left the border hoping for unification some day. My visit allowed me to learn more about a place that is scarcely familiar to people around the world.

I now have the bragging rights to say, I've been to North Korea.
Scores of would-be migrants being smuggled from Central America to the United States were rescued from an abandoned truck, officials in the Mexican state of Veracruz said.

Authorities said 178 people were found in the tractor- trailer truck in the Mexican town of Tantima.

Their rescue comes less than a week after the horrific suffocation deaths of 10 migrants who were trapped in an 18 wheel truck and discovered last Sunday in a Walmart parking lot in San Antonio, Texas.

Authorities said as many as 200 migrants may have been crammed into the trailer found in Texas, many of whom had to be hospitalized. Some survivors fled the parking lot in waiting cars, according to witness accounts.

Officials said occupants of the truck on Saturday narrowly averted tragedy realized at some point that they had been abandoned by the traffickers, and that a few managed to escape the vehicle and enlist the aid of local inhabitants of the town who gave them food and water.

The Central Americans were then transported by police to a migration center, where they were given medical assistance before authorities began the process of returning them to their countries of origin.

A Mexican military source told AFP that most of the Central Americans were adults, although there were also a handful of minors found in the vehicle.

Officials in the United States say fewer migrants are making the perilous overland journey to America from Central American and Mexico in recent months, in large part because of harsh, anti-immigrant rhetoric from US President Donald Trump, who came to power in January.

Migrants from Central America and Mexico will to make the dangerous trip risk being victimized by thieves, criminal gangs and unscrupulous traffickers who sometimes take their money and abandon them in desperate conditions on either side of the US border.
China topped in pledging Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) to Nepal during the 2016-17 fiscal that ended in mid-July, Nepal's Department of Industry (DoI) has said.

China has been topping in investment commitments to Nepal in the last few years, Xinhua news agency cited the DoI data as showing.

China pledged 8.35 billion Nepali rupees ($81 million) followed by India with 1.99 billion Nepali rupees, and South Korea pledging 1.88 billion Nepali rupees.

Chinese investors pledged more than half of the total FDI commitments Nepal received during the year as the Himalayan country received a total FDI commitments of 15 billion Nepali rupees.

Nepali industrialists said the increased investment in Nepal should not be taken as a surprise given that China has been investing heavily across the world.

"Chinese investors are seeing a lot of investment opportunities in Nepal and they are coming here," Bhola Nath Pathak, project coordinator of Hongshi Shivam Cement, a Nepal-China joint venture industrial unit, told Xinhua.

During the Nepal Investment Summit organised by the Nepal government here in March, Chinese investors pledged the highest amount compared to investors from other countries.

The Chinese delegation committed FDI of $8.2 billion against total investment pledges of $13.52 billion from seven countries.

Entrepreneurs, however, say the realisation of pledged FDI commitments has remained sluggish.

"The investors still have to encounter many bureaucratic hurdles," said Pashupati Murarka, former President of Federation of Nepalese Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FNCCI).

"The government should clear the bureaucratic hurdles quickly for those investors who have received the licence to develop the industry."

Nepali government officials said they were making efforts to ease investors in Nepal.

"We initiated the process of legal and institutional reforms and simplified procedures for registering industries," DoI Director General Shankar Aryal said.

Nepal has introduced new Industrial Enterprises Act, Special Economic Zone Act and new Foreign Investment Policy lately offering more facilities to investors and easing the process of investing in Nepal.
Chief Minister of Pakistan's Punjab Shahbaz Sharif, who is set to succeed his brother as the Pakistan Prime Minister, is looking to his son Hamza Shahbaz as his replacement in Punjab, the media reported on Sunday.

Shahbaz Sharif is known to enjoy "a degree of comfort in dealing with his son", the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting insiders in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

According to the insiders, however, the final say on who gets to helm Punjab would rest with ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is looking to consolidate the party's control in Punjab, the Dawn said.

The PML-N cannot afford to lose its grip on Punjab since the next general elections are barely a year away.

"Shahbaz wants his son, who is already acting as the Deputy Chief Minister, to succeed him for the remaining term in Punjab," a PML-N legislator from Punjab told Dawn.

"However, (it is up to) Nawaz Sharif to decide whether Hamza will be the right choice for the post or not."

The PML-N leader added that Shahbaz Nawaz would continue to oversee matters in Punjab indirectly while his elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, would continue to govern the Centre from his Raiwind residence, the report said.

A Punjab minister may keep the Chief Minister's seat warm for Shahbaz Nawaz's son for 45 days.

On Saturday, the deposed Prime Minister formally announced that Shahbaz Nawaz would be his successor and Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will be Premier for 45 days till Shahbaz Nawaz contests a by-election to enter the National Assembly.

Rumours of Hamza Shahbaz's political tiffs with Nawaz Sharif's family and children abound.

He had not openly defended his uncle (Nawaz Sharif) in the Panama Papers case, choosing not to comment too much on the issue. But both families have often denied rumours of any political disagreement.

The Dawn said the names of three others  Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Information Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and Food Minister Bilal Yasin  were also being considered for the post of Punjab Chief Minister.
Two persons, including the gunman, were killed during a shootout at a nightclub in the German city of Constance on Sunday, police said.

The gunman, identified as a 34-year-old Iraqi citizen, opened fire at the Grey club on Max-Stromeyer-Strasse road at about 4.30 a.m., killing one person, the BBC quoted the police as saying.

The gunman was then shot by the police and died in a hospital.

Three people, including a police officer, were seriously injured in the attack, according to authorities.

Police and prosecutors said in a statement that special commando forces and a police helicopter was deployed as it was not yet known if the suspect had accomplices. The motive for the shooting was not immediately clear.
Southeastern Wisconsin received momentous news this past week: Taiwanese manufacturing giant Foxconn is coming to the area and investing up to $10 billion.

The plant to be built could eventually employ up to 13,000 people, with 10,000 construction jobs and 22,000 indirect and induced jobs throughout the state expected to be created, according to the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp.

This is game-changing.

For far too long, Racine had the highest unemployment of any city in the state. Now it sits at No. 2, just barely behind Beloit. What that means is that we have people here who need jobs.

Local educational institutions and officials are making it abundantly clear that training is already starting to ensure that those people will be ready to be hired for the jobs that come along with Foxconn.

These jobs are reported to pay about $50,000 per year, plus benefits. That is enough to support families and help families get out of poverty.

Along with jobs, Foxconn will bring more development, more houses and businesses, which will improve the tax base, helping governments afford more services and infrastructure improvements.

This would also help increase enrollment for local school districts, which have had numbers go down over the years.

To further sweeten the deal for southeastern Wisconsin, on Friday legislators announced that the Foxconn incentive package included plans for restarting construction on the Interstate 94 North-South project, which extends from the Illinois state line through Racine County to General Mitchell Airport in Milwaukee.

State legislators and Gov. Scott Walker had been struggling to reach agreement on getting this project done. It appears the Foxconn deal was the shot in the arm that project needed.

Some have criticized the proposed $3 billion in incentives that the governor has announced.

But Walker has assured those critics, saying the tax incentives will be tied to performance and if Foxconn doesnt fulfill its promises to invest and create jobs, then the company will not be eligible for tax credits. We expect him to follow through on that promise.
Patnaik's close aides say that to understand him, one has to understand his empathy

By Pratul Sharma/Photos Sanjay Ahlawat
Nitish Kumar may have won the trust vote in the Bihar legislature, but he is now weaker than what he was during his earlier stint as the chief minister. At that time, he had become a larger than life figure because of his success in controlling lawlessness in the state and preparing the ground for development. As a result, he was even seen as a possible player on the national stage.

But that aura is gone. The reason is his journey from the "communal" to the "secular" camp and back. Had he moved in only one direction, he would have appeared more straightforward than at present. But trips back and forth tend to undermine a politician's credibility. He is seen then as an opportunist on the lookout for the best chance.

If he had wanted to retain his trustworthiness in the wake of the corruption charges against Lalu Prasad and his family, he should have called for fresh elections. That would have been a message to Lalu Prasad as well, for it would have shown himas well as other politiciansthat sleaze doesn't pay. As it is, the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief is barred from contesting elections because of his conviction in the fodder scam.

But switching sides within two years of securing a mandate has put Nitish Kumar in the lowly category of the Congress MLAs in Gujarat who have been lured away to the BJP by the indefatigable Narendra Modi-Amit Shah duo.

Nitish Kumar's latest manoeuvre may well turn out to be his third political mistake. The first was in 2013 when he hurriedly quit the BJP because he feared that Modi's rise will erode his Muslim support base. As long as Modi did not venture out of Gujarat, Nitish Kumar was happy in the BJP in the company of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and L.K. Advani. But Modi's entry into the big league unnerved him.

So he ran from the rock of a changing BJP to the hard place of his old friend of the days of the JP movement, Lalu Prasad. This was Nitish Kumar's second mistake, for he ignored the possibility that the hero/villain of the RJD's "jungle raj" in Bihar may ultimately be his nemesis.

And so it has proved to be. But the way out for Nitish Kumar was not to retrace his steps, for he has gone back to the same person from whom he ran away four years ago. If the Bihar chief minister was afraid in 2013 that Modi would scare away the Muslims, he should harbour the same fear now when the rampaging gau rakshaks have become a frightening menace for the minorities.

True, Modi of 2017 is not the Modi of 2002, when he was called a "modern day Nero" by the Supreme Court, because he has been speaking out against the cow vigilantes. Modi has also succeeded in putting an end to the ghar wapsi and love jehad campaigns. But how far the BJP has changed with its veneration for the holy cow and its belief in the therapeutic value of cow's urine is open to question.

Nitish Kumar is teaming up, therefore, with a party whose pursuit of Hindutva and ultra-nationalism is far more aggressive at present than in the time of Vajpayee and Advani.

Politically, too, the BJP believes that the future belongs to it mainly because of its spectacular success in UP. Now, Nitish Kumar's floor-crossing will convince the BJP that the Hindi heartland is firmly in its grip. It is unlikely, therefore, that it will allow Nitish Kumar to call the shots as before. Instead, the Modi dispensation may placate him with a special financial package for Bihar.

What the latest events have shown is that Nitish Kumar's destiny is to be a provincial politician, remaining confined like his friend-cum-foe-cum-friend-cum-foe again, Lalu Prasad, in Bihar. Any hope that he may have had of playing a larger role, which was possible if he had stayed with the opposition, is unlikely to be fulfilled.

Bihar itself may gain because of the centre's largesse and Nitish Kumar's administrative capabilities. But the future of his partythe JD(U)is uncertain because its Muslim and Yadav components may drift away. The fading out of the party will make Nitish Kumar even more beholden to the BJP.

The RJD, on the other hand, is likely to grow and fill the empty opposition space in Bihar in the absence of the JD(U) and the Congress.

Nitish Kumar's well-wishers will hope that with his amiable personality, he will exert a moderating influence on the BJP and be on Modi's side in reining in the hardliners and turning the focus resolutely on development. That is the only way he can redeem himself.

(via IANS)
With six Congress MLAs having quit in Gujarat, the BJP on Sunday said the grand old party is now a sinking ship as their cadres are losing faith in the party leadership.

"People are now aware that the Congress party is now a sinking ship. And is not a trustworthy party anymore," Shahnawaz Hussain told ANI.

Meanwhile, another saffron party leader Vijay Bahadur Pathak said the BJP was not responsible for this horse-trading of MLAs.

"The BJP is not responsible for MLAs leaving their parties. It's because of their party's failure," he said.

As many as 44 of the Congress party MLAs were taken to Bengaluru on Saturday to ensure they don't succumb to police and political pressure to join the BJP.

Congress leader Abhishek Singhvi accused the BJP in the state of horse-trading ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections scheduled for August 8.

He said, "Crores of rupees have been spent in horse-trading in Gujarat by the BJP. One Congress Gujarat MLA Punabhai Gamit has said he was offered Rs. 10 crore by the BJP to join hands with them."

Union minister Ravi Shankar Prasad laughed off the accusation and said the Congress has become a sinking ship and is not able to hold their own house together.

"The Congress has become a sinking ship and the senior leaders, who did not get respect, are now openly saying that they don't want to continue with them. This is the hard fact. The sinking ship is not able to hold itself together," Prasad told ANI.

He said the Congress has been making baseless allegation against the BJP and further called on Congress president Sonia Gandhi to come up and clarify why their party is crumbling down like a deck of cards.

"They have to explain this. The allegations are laughable. They are making it in utter desperation," he said.

The developments come after at least six Congress MLAs in Gujarat resigned from the party to join the BJP.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Assam on Tuesday to review the flood situation in the state.

This was conveyed by the prime minister's office to Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal, a statement issued by the Assam government said.

The floods have claimed 79 lives in the northeastern state so far.

The prime minister's visit comes amidst criticism by opposition parties and organisations in Assam that despite the severe floods, which have affected more than 25 lakh people in 29 districts, Modi was yet to visit the state.

They also added that Modi, however, visited his home state of Gujarat, which too was affected by floods, a few days ago.

During his visit to Assam, the prime minister would discuss all the aspects related to the floods with Sonowal and senior officials, the statement said.

Matters related to flood management and the damages caused by the floods are also likely to feature in the discussions.

The Centre has announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh under the Prime Minister's National Relief Fund (PMNRF) for the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 50,000 to those seriously injured in the floods.

A seven-member inter-ministerial central team was on a four-day visit to Assam from July 25 to carry out an on-the- spot assessment of the damages caused by the floods and was expected to submit its report soon with recommendations to the Centre for an early release of funds.

Meanwhile, Assam Governor Banwarilal Purohit has contributed a month's salary to the Chief Minister's Relief Fund for the flood-hit people, said a Raj Bhawan spokesman in Guwahati.

Two waves of floods have affected over 25 lakh people in 29 districts of Assam this year, with the administration setting up 1,098 relief camps and distribution centres in the state.

Though the current wave of floods has receded, six districts are still reeling under it and over 2,000 people have taken shelter in the relief camps.
The Kerala unit of BJP has called for a statewide shutdown on Sunday in protest against the killing of a RSS activist allegedly by CPI(M) loyalists.

The 34-year-old RSS worker, who was hacked on Saturday night in the state capital, breathed his last at a private hospital. The deceased has been identified as E. Rajesh, who was a karyavahak attached to the RSS unit at Sreekariyam near Thiruvananthapuram.

State BJP president Kummanam Rajasekharan, who visited the hospital, told reporters that this was a result of state-sponsored violence.

"The CPI(M) led government has become a mute witness to the violence going on in the state capital district. Even our state party headquarters was attacked. But we exercised restraint.

"But now, we are left with no other option but to call for a statewide shutdown...to protest the killing (of Rajesh). The state government has not even called for a peace talk to resolve issues," Rajasekheran said.

According to the BJP, Rajesh was hacked by four suspected youth wing activists of the CPI(M), who came on two motorcycles.

He suffered serious injuries in his face, hands and legs, and according to the BJP, his left hand was severed and thrown away.

The killing comes a day after a group of CPI(M) workers led by local Councillor I.P. Binu smashed six vehicles parked in the state committee office of the BJP.

After the attack at the BJP headquarters, the residence of the son of CPI(M) state Secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan was stoned.

For the past two weeks, an uneasy calm has been prevailing in the capital district, with the activists of the BJP and the CPI(M) attacking each other every now and then.

Thiruvananthapuram district CPI(M) secretary Anavoor Nagappan in a statement issued on Saturday night said the CPI(M) had no role in this incident.

"There were some local issues in the area and in this incident, the CPI(M) has no role," Nagappan's statement read.
The high walls of the Bengalurus Central Prison in Parappana Agrahara seem to have too many dark secrets to guard. Stories of smuggled mobile phones, liquor and drugs, and extortion and sex racketing inside the jail have made headlines before.

But, on July 12, Deputy Inspector-General (Prisons) D. Roopa Moudgil opened a can of worms with her explosive jail report alleging VIP treatment to high-profile convicts such as AIADMK (Amma) general secretary V.K. Sasikala, convicted in a disproportionate assets case, and Abdul Karim Telgi, kingpin of the multi-crore fake stamp paper scam.

Soon ensued mudslinging among top police officers. And, the whistleblower was shunted out to the traffic department.

Now, however, Roopa stands vindicated. After quizzing jail officials, Karnataka assemblys Public Accounts Committee confirmed that Sasikala was, indeed, given special treatment in the prison.

The committee, chaired by BJP legislator and former home minister R. Ashok, has asked prison officials to submit a detailed action-taken report in 15 days. Sources say V.C. Prakash (a friend of former home minister and Karnataka Congress president G. Parameshwara) has also confessed to the Delhi Police that he helped arrange meetings between Sasikala and her party leaders, including her nephew and deputy T.T.V. Dhinakaran, inside the prison.

Prakash, who was being interrogated in a bribery case, said he knew some jail officials. Mallikarjun [close aide of Dhinakaran] asked me to help organise meetings with Sasikala, he told the police.

In 2003, DMK leader K. Anbazhagan had moved Supreme Court seeking transfer of Sasikalas case outside Tamil Nadu for a free and fair probe. The case was shifted to Karnataka. In February this year, she was convicted and sentenced to four years imprisonment.

Roopas report rocked Karnatakas Congress government, which is bracing for the 2018 Assembly polls. The four-page reportsubmitted to state police chief R.K. Dutta, Director General of Police (Prisons) H.N. Satyanarayana Rao, the home department and the Anti-corruption Bureaualleged preferential treatment to some convicts and highlighted issues such as rampant drug abuse by inmates.

A clipping in which Sasikala is seen walking within the jail in plainclothes was leaked to the media.

She also noted that there were murmurs that Rao had taken a bribe of Rs 1 crore, while another Rs 1 crore was split among jail officials to provide five-star facilities to Sasikala. The alleged facilities included a special kitchen and a mini conference room to meet visitors, besides a cordoned-off area consisting five cells, mattress, mosquito net, LED TV, canvas curtains, stove and pressure-cooker.

On July 13, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah ordered an inquiry by retired IAS officer Vinay Kumar. The opposition parties, however, demanded a judicial probe.

Five days later, Roopa and Rao were transferred, citing that they violated All India Service Rules, and that their transfers would ensure a fair probe. Roopa was posted as commissioner of traffic and road safety; Rao was sent on forced leave as he retires in August. R. Anita, who replaced Roopa, was also transferred within a few days on charges of giving preferential treatment to Sasikala.

Meanwhile, Rao vehemently denied the charges. He accused Roopa of trying to get even with him, as he had issued her two memos for not attending a CM meeting and because she was unhappy with the division of work in the department.

Soon after submitting a 16-page letter to the government, Rao rushed to the jail, ahead of the pending inquiry. Roopa, too, visited the jail a few hours later. She submitted a second report, after a jail official who had been asked to give her the CCTV visuals and video recordings of her previous visits allegedly refused to do so, citing orders from the higher-ups. Anita is said to be the officer who refused to hand over the video evidences.

Roopa alleged that crucial CCTV footages that could have proved her charges went mysteriously missing. She accused Rao of foulplay.

The CCTVs installed at the barracks have been deliberately rendered dysfunctional, while CCTV cameras (7 & 8) in the visitor room are broken, she alleged. Select footages have been deleted from the DVR [digital video recorder] at the prisons headquarters, too. The video recording of statements given by the inmates during [my] visits on June 28 and July 10, and the prison diary entries, too, have vanished.

High drama prevailed in the jail on July 15, after some inmates raised slogans against Roopa during her visit, while another group rallied in her support. That night, at least 32 inmates were allegedly beaten up on the orders of Jail Superintendent Krishna Kumar, and they were allegedly shifted to jails in Bellary, Belagavi and Mysuru. The high-profile probe was to begin the next day.

Kumar, who was busy collecting signatures of 2,000 inmates in his favour, was transferred, after public outcry and protests by inmates. The NHRC also has taken up the case of alleged torture of the 32 inmates.

The opposition parties led by BJP leader B.S. Yeddyurappa raised the luxegate issue with Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh, and demonstrated against the Karnataka governments shooting the messenger syndrome.

The issue came to a boil with a video clipping of Telgis cell with the comforts of homea cot, an LED television, a computer, and under-trials assigned to give him massagesgoing viral on social media.

Another set of visuals showing five cells being cordoned off for Sasikalas use was also splashed in the media. A clipping in which she is seen walking within the jail in plainclothes was also leaked to the media.

Notably, in June, Rao himself had said he would curtail the number of Sasikalas visitors, after reports of her meeting 28 visitors in 31 days surfaced. The visitorsincluding her husband Natarajan, nephews T.T.V. Dhinakaran, Vivek Jayaraman and K. Kartikeyan, Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha M. Thambidurai, and many leaders from Tamil Naduwere allowed to meet her for long hours.

According to rules, a convict is eligible to meet visitors only once in 15 days, and the meetings have to be monitored by a prison official. But in Sasikalas case, a private meeting room with five chairs, including a revolving one for her, was set up, alleged Roopa.

Sasikalas nephew Jeyanandh Dhivakaran rubbishes the charges. My aunt [Sasikala] is being used as bait in the cold war between two IPS officers, he alleges.

According to Roopas report, Telgi, a diabetic and AIDS patient, was confined to the wheelchair six months ago, and the court had allowed him to utilise the service of two convicts. She noted that Telgi moved around without the wheelchair, but continued to have undertrials give him massages in his cell.

This, she pointed out, violated the court order and prison rules, which bar under-trials from mingling with convicts. However, the jail superintendent had taken no action, despite my reminders, alleged Roopa.

My father-in-law [Telgi] is very sick and has been using wheelchair for many years, says Irfan Talikote, a businessman married to Telgis daughter Sana, who lives in Belgaum. If there are more than two people serving him in the jail, they are doing it voluntarily because of his friendly nature. The officer [Roopa] is doing this for publicity.

The Prison Manual, however, prescribes basic minimum needs to the inmates and bans VIP privileges to any inmate.

In October 2013, a Central Armed Reserve Constable Yenkanna Meti was arrested for smuggling in mobile phones for Telgi. Recently, after an extortion call was traced to the Parappana Agrahara prison, authorities admitted that 19 mobile phone jammers in the jail were defunct.

Roopa also highlighted drug abuse in the jail. A urine test revealed that 18 of 25 randomly selected prisoners tested positive for cannabis, barbiturates, benzodiazepine and morphine.

From the DGP to the jail warden, all are involved in flouting the prison manual, alleged Roopa.

Roopa Moudgil | PTI

Highlights from former DIG (Prisons) Roopa Moudgils reports

Report 1

Bribe of Rs 2 crore paid for VIP treatment and a special kitchen for Sasikala

Abdul Karim Telgi enjoys special treatment. Undertrials have been assigned as his masseurs

Rampant smuggling of narcotics

Convicts man the records room, where crucial documents are kept

Why was her boss, H.N. Satyanarayana Rao, unhappy over her visit to the jail without permission?

Inmates threaten doctors to issue certificates that can help them get treatment in hospitals

Inmates work at the prisons pharmacy, raising concerns over misuse of sleeping pills

Report 2

A locked room on the first floor, where the officers chambers are located, was maintained as a meeting room with curtains, a table and five chairs, including a revolving one for Sasikala. Ordinary prisoners meet visitors in an enclosure divided by a mesh, and under CCTV surveillance (Cameras 6 and 7)

The department has to safeguard crucial footage and hold the officials responsible in case of loss of evidence. The evidence includes CCTV footage from Telgis cell (Camera 89)

CCTV footage proves that a special kitchen was set up for Sasikala

Undertrials (in barrack no. 3) have not been given legal aid for almost a year

Video recordings of Roopa interacting with inmates are missing. First, she received a blank pen drive, and later a pen drive without the crucial footage

Mobile phone jammers are defunct, despite an annual

maintenance contract being in place
As governor of Bihar, Ram Nath Kovind loved to quote former president A.P.J. Abdul Kalam: Dream is not that which you see while sleeping, it is something that does not let you sleep. It turned out to be a key theme of his first speech after taking over as the 14th president of India. Kovind spoke about India in the dreams of Mahatma Gandhi and RSS ideologue Deendayal Upadhyaya. We need to sculpt a robust, high-growth economy, an educated, ethical and shared community, and an egalitarian society, he said. This is the India of our dreams, an India that will provide equality of opportunities.

Kovind is the first BJP member to move into the Rashtrapati Bhavan, and the transition is likely to be a smooth one. The first appointments to Kovinds staff show that he would receive active support from the prime ministers office. Retired IAS officer Sanjay Kothari has been appointed as the presidents secretary; Gujarats resident commissioner Bharat Lal will be his joint secretary, and journalist Ashok Malik, the press secretary.

Lal was Modis point man in Delhi during his days as the chief minister of Gujarat. After becoming prime minister, Modi gave Lal the responsibility to oversee his outreach activities in India and abroad. Malik is well-versed with the articulation required for the first president from the saffron family.

However, little is known about Kovinds views on key issues. He was nominated by the BJP with an eye on his dalit identity and his clean image. Kovinds tenure is expected to be free of controversies as he is likely to make informed decisions based on constitutional propriety, just like Mukherjee.

The outgoing president, however, had been forceful on certain issues, such as the debates regarding tolerance, pluralism and dissent. The soul of India resides in pluralism and tolerance, said Mukherjee. In his farewell speech, he spoke of former prime minister Indira Gandhi as his mentor. She had the courage to call a spade a spade, he said. Perhaps, that was what made Mukherjee a supporter of strong governments. He had seen dissent and policy paralysis during the United Progressive Alliance government in which no single party had a majority. Sources said Mukherjee was happy that the BJP government had a majority on its own, helping it tackle governance issues.

When Modi became prime minister, he told Mukherjee that he never had a chance to step inside the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Mukherjee then arranged a guided tour for the new prime minister. His warmth and assistance put Modi at ease. He [Pranab] was a guardian and a father figure.... He used to guide me, which was a help for a person like me, who had no experience of this kind of office, said Modi during a farewell function for Mukherjee.

Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley spoke about how the Modi government worked to resolve its differences with Mukherjee on legislative issues, especially over classifying certain bills as money bills and the promulgation of ordinances. As president, he was unquestionably the guardian of the Constitution. He realised that in a democracy there could only be one power centrethe elected government and the prime minister. He, therefore, actively associated with two different governments during his presidency with equal ease, said Jaitley.

In the past, there had been instances of strained relations between presidents and prime ministers, like in the case of Morarji Desai and N. Sanjiva Reddy, Indira Gandhi and Reddy, and Rajiv Gandhi and Zail Singh. Modi never had a problem with Mukherjee. I was surprised while working with Pranabda. Despite being part of the government for so long, and that, too, in key positions, he never judged or compared my governments decisions with his past experiences, said Modi.

Mukherjees emphasis as president was on enhancing academic standards in the country and making Rashtrapati Bhavan a cultural hub. As president, he was visitor of 126 institutions of higher education, including the Central universities and the IITs, and he started the practice of holding an annual conference of the heads of these institutions.

During his tenure, Mukherjee rejected 30 mercy petitions from convicts on the death row, like Ajmal Kasab, Afzal Guru and Yakub Memon. He commuted death sentences in four cases. He has not left any appeal pending for Kovind. There were only a few occasions when Mukherjee got upset. Sources said it happened when relations between the judiciary and the executive turned sour.

Mukherjees love for work, attention to detail and sharp memory are legendary. He made sure there was at least one public function every day at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. Though he quit smoking several years ago, he continued to receive pipes as gifts from foreign dignitaries. After his farewell, he donated 500 pipes to the Rashtrapati Bhavan museum, which he helped set up. He loved his food, but kept the portions small. Bengali sweets and hilsa fish were his favourites. Mukherjee, who was earlier seen in bandhgalas and dhoti kurtas, switched to achkan and churidar after he became president, perhaps inspired by Rajendra Prasad, the first president.

As he starts his post-presidency life at 10 Rajaji Marg in Delhi, the house once occupied by Kalam, Mukherjee will be busy writing about his presidential years. Only K.R. Narayanan had penned presidential memoirs before. Mukherjee is also likely to complete his political writings and set up an organisation in his name, which would be dedicated to education, economics and research.

Kovind has moved into the Rashtrapati Bhavan with a message of hope, drawing on the strengths of the past and outlining the opportunities of the future. The India of the 21st century will be one that is in conformity with our ancient values as well as compliant with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, he said. We must combine tradition and technology, the wisdom of an age-old Bharat and the science of a contemporary India.
Walking away: Modi and Shah have gained the most from Nitishs decision to break ties with Lalu | Salil Bera

In 2013, Nitish Kumar declared with what has come to be his trademark ambiguity Kal kya kisne dekha hai? (Who can predict anything about tomorrow?), when I asked him about rumours that he would walk out of his 17-year-old alliance with the BJP. In an irony that history will remind him of, central among his differences with the National Democratic Alliance was the rise and rise of Narendra Modi, who was then the chief minister of Gujarat. The stories of their personal friction are well documenteda dinner invitation in Patna for BJP leaders was cancelled, and flood relief money offered by Modi was curtly returned after advertisements featuring the two men together were released without Nitishs consent.

In 2017, that moment was dramatically inverted, when Modi welcomed Nitishs decision to break his tenuous alliance with Lalu Prasad over the issue of corruption. The tweet came within an hour of Nitish submitting his resignation to the governor, pointing to a pact that had obviously been worked out over several weeks. Nitish took his allies and even his aides by complete surprise. Several leaders close to him believed that although the gatbandhan with Lalu would break, there could not be a return to the NDA. They said Nitish was well aware that Modi and Amit Shah would never forgive or forget their humiliation by Nitish. They were hopeful that Nitish would acquire a moral sheen by taking on Lalu and his son Tejaswi, the deputy chief minister, and then position himself for a plunge into national politics in 2019. There were even murmurs of forging a non-Congress coalition that Maharashtra strongman Sharad Pawar might be deployed to build with Nitish as its face. They were all wrong. Nitish showed that in Indias House of Cards, he has always held an unpredictable hand of aces.

The biggest winners are Modi and Shah. The duo has extracted revenge for the defeat in the Bihar elections. It has also shown that when it comes to consolidating his political gains, Modi can be pragmatic and adaptable, instead of being ideological and adamant. By taking Nitish back despite grave personal differences, Modi has deftly smashed opposition dreams of a grand alliance against him in 2019.

While Nitish has outmanoeuvred those who thought they could forecast his next move and ensured his place in the pantheon of politicians who must be taken seriously, this is a zero-sum-game for him in some ways. It appears to reinforce the political status quo instead of delivering a huge advantage to him. He has sought the high moral ground by snapping ties on a principled opposition to corruption. But he will be dubbed an opportunist by his former allies for constantly wavering on his ideological articulations. His qualified support for demonetisation, his support for the NDA presidential candidate, his backing for the United Progressive Alliances vice presidential candidateall these paradoxical positions were taken even as he was calling for opposition unity. His principal challenge now is to keep his party together; a significant number of legislators are either Muslim or Yadav and there may be some disquiet among them at abandoning Lalu and embracing the BJP. He also has to carry party veterans and old socialists like Sharad Yadav and others with his decision. And, with this move he has clearly given up on all national and prime ministerial ambitions. The only way he could have retained those was by staying as a challenger to Modi. An alternative route was to sack Tejaswi and challenge Lalu to walk out of the government. The route he has chosen (unless he changes his mind again before 2019) confines his political future to Bihar. That is exactly what Modi would want him to do.

Lalu, who is accused of placing the love for his son over survival and sagacity, is an obvious loser. Unless he is able to bounce back in the next elections, what lies ahead for him and his family, which is accused of acquiring prime property worth crores of rupees for a few lakhs, is a maze of litigation and, perhaps, prison. The Congress must also take responsibility for this mess. Nitishs party repeatedly expressed its exasperation at the lack of a narrative in the opposition camp. Open swipes by Congress leaders at Nitish, too, did not help. But whether because of complacency or incompetence, and despite meetings between Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi and Nitish, the Gandhi family could not keep its allies house in order. The Congress is now staring at an inalienable truth: all this while it was fighting to take on the BJP, now it is struggling to even play the role of a primary opposition party. It is no longer the pivot around which other anti-BJP parties will organise. That, for the Congress, should be an existential wakeup call.

Finally, for liberal politics in India, this is an important reality check. For years, liberals who opposed the BJP had anointed Nitish as their great hope to take on Modi. But the same chief minister who joined hands with friend-turned-foe-turned friend (and now foe again) Lalu in 2015, in the name of secularism, has today chosen to make corruption the central principle of his political organisation. Of course, at the time Nitish built his peace-pact with Lalu, the RJD leader was already convicted of corruption in a lower court. So, if you believe that Nitishs decision has anything to do with corruption now or secularism back then, you are being delusional. This is realpolitik and to the victor goes the spoils. It is time to recognise that secularism has been bent, compromised and abused as a political slogan by parties across the spectrum. It has been corroded by the ambition of individual leaders and I am not sure there is a party that can claim to be a genuine practitioner of secular politics. Pluralism is a principle liberals must continue to battle for, but secularism as a political constructand in the way it has been executedis simply not authentic enough.

Much will happen between now and 2019, but for the foreseeable future, the Modi juggernaut rolls on, flattening all its challengers, along the path to political hegemony.
Call to form 3 constituencies in Banke

The recently formed Constituency Delimitation Commission has started its work in Banke district. Speaking at an interaction organised in Nepalgunj on Saturday, representatives of various political parties suggested that the commission make three electoral constituencies in the district.
MBABANE  An investigation has been instituted into the sale of Thonkwane Estates by Dups Holdings to the Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF) for a fee of around E74 million.

The two institutions have failed to comply with the Competition Act in that they did not report the transaction to the Swaziland Competition Commission (SCC).

Dups is reported to have made a profit of around E46 million when it sold the property to the PSPF after having bought it two months earlier for E28 million from the executor of the estate.

Thabisile Langa, the SCC Chief Executive Officer, informed the Times SUNDAY that the commission was currently engaged in a process of discussing the transaction with Dups and PSPF.

We have engaged the parties and advised them to notify the transaction.

The engagement with the parties is still ongoing and the matter has not been finalised yet, Langa said.

The CEO stated that all parties involved were expected to comply with the law before implementation of a merger or acquisition transaction.

She said the law also allowed the parties to make an application for condonation with the commission following prior implementation of an acquisition without notification.

If, however, the parties after prior implementation do not notify and are insistent on not notifying even after engagement by the commission, the commission will investigate the matter and take the matter to the Board of Commissioners for enforcement of the law.

In terms of Section 35 of the Act, failure to notify a merger or acquisition is an offence which attracts a fine not exceeding E250 000 or to imprisonment to a term not exceeding five years or both.

Further, Regulation 28A of the Competition Commission (Amendment) Regulations Notice of 2016 empowers the commission to impose a fine of up to 10 per cent of a firms turnover for failure to comply with the Act, Langa said.

Asked about the extent to which institutions do not report such transactions, the CEO said it would be difficult to quantify the non-compliance but we have to acknowledge that there is definitely an aspect of non-compliance and the Commission takes action on parties if they are found to have not complied with the Competition Act.

In determining the administrative penalty to impose on those who do not comply with the Act, Langa said they considered factors such as co-operation of the parties; the parties knowledge and experience with merger notifications in various jurisdictions; legal advice obtained from a reputable law firm with extensive Swazi competition law experience; the parties conduct in relation to other jurisdictions in respect of the same transaction; and the need to deter would-be offenders of the Act.
Chinese contractor resumes work at Dhalkebar

A Chinese company hired to build a critical power substation at Dhalkebar, which will enable the country to increase electricity imports from India during the dry season, has resumed work after a week-long hiatus.
Couple commits suicide by jumping off bridge

A couple allegedly committed suicide by jumping off from Kushma-Jandi suspension bridge in the district headquarters Kushma.
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By Phil Konigsberg

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie signed a law last Friday that will raise the statewide minimum age to purchase tobacco products, including electronic cigarettes, from 19 to 21, effective Jan. 1, 2018.

New York also had a golden opportunity to pass our own statewide Tobacco 21 law last month, after bills passed both the Assembly and Senate Health Committees. But T21 was then held up by the Assembly Rules and Senate Finance Committees, respectively.

Several venues within the state of New York, including New York City, have passed local T21 bills, but the pressure by the tobacco industry once again showed up in Albany to prevent the statewide bill from reaching the full Assembly and Senate in the final week of the legislative session.

A Phillip Morris document, dated Jan. 21, 1986, explains why the tobacco industry is desperate to prevent the increasing trend of states raising the minimum purchase age to 21. The document proclaims: Raising the legal minimum age for [a] cigarette purchaser to 21 could gut our key young adult market (17-20), where we sell about 25 billion cigarettes and enjoy a 70 percent market share.

A published 2001 report indicates that 90 percent of persons buying cigarettes for minors are in the 17-to-20-year-old age group. If the minimum age is raised to 21, then, there will be a paradigm shift of how teens, especially 16-to-19-year olds, get their cigarettes. Clearly, those who are age 21 are in different social circles and are either in their junior year of college or have been employed for three years and generally dont associate with 16-to-19-year olds. They are also wise enough by then not to buy cigarettes for younger people.

With the added impetus of our neighboring state soon implementing a T21 law, it is time that Albany finally gets this done during the next legislative session.

Phil Konigsberg

Queens Tobacco Control Coalition

Bay Terrace
By Gina Martinez

Muslim community leaders gathered in Astoria for a legal conference featuring some of the countrys top civil rights lawyers. The Muslim Legal Fund of America hosted the Muslim Nonprofit Leadership Conference all-day Saturday at the IBN SINA Center at 46-01 20th Ave. Topics discussed ranged from the travel ban, immigrant rights and mosque operations.

The conference was designed specifically to address legal and social issues facing the Muslim community in Queens and across America. Attorneys and other subject matter experts gave presentations on various topics related to running mosques and other Muslim nonprofit organizations.

MLFA said that whether its the Muslim ban, immigration delays, watch lists, compliance-related nonprofit revocations or womens access to mosques, American Muslim community leaders face many legal and social challenges as their religious community comes under greater administrative scrutiny. Lawyers said understanding these challenges is the first step in safeguarding the organizations and the communities they serve.

One presentation by Charles Swift, director and counsel at the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America, focused on dealing with informants in the community. Swift discussed the First Amendment and how to spot and protect yourself from an informant. Swift clarified that there are limits to free speech and that even an attempt to do something illegal can be considered a conspiracy.

A conspiracy to agree to do something illegal, even just an attempt is against the law, he said. They can agree with you to do an illegal activity, which would be a conspiracy. To agree to do something illegal is itself illegal. So an informant wouldnt do anything violent, but they absolutely can help you break the law.

He said informants cannot let somebody do something violent, but they can let someone agree to do it. He offered tips on how leaders can protect their community. He said there are very vulnerable members of every community who are easily manipulated and, in some cases, people can have an intellectual deficiency or are very needy and want friends. Swift said informants try to become their friends so they often prey on the neediest members of society.

Its good to know how to talk to people, he said, Especially needier people who might be a victim of entrapment attempts. The First Amendment is on life support. What that means is that while you cannot be arrested for most kinds of speech, speech can serve as evidence of your predisposition to commit am crime. For instance, people need to know the First Amendment does not prevent speech from being used as evidence. Use common sense, train the vulnerable in your community to use common sense. If someone in the mosque is starting to use violent rhetoric or talk about some sort of criminal plans, its probably an informant.

Other presenters included Khalil Meek, executive director of the MLFA; Shari Crittendon, attorney at the Constitutional Law Center for Muslims in America; and Sarrah Buageila, project manager at the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.
President Vladimir Putin said Russia will expel 755 U.S. diplomatic staff and could consider imposing additional measures against the United States as a response to new U.S. sanctions, although not for now.

Moscow ordered the United States on Friday to cut hundreds of diplomatic staff and said it would seize two U.S. diplomatic properties after the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate approved new sanctions on Russia.

Putin said in an interview with Vesti TV released on Sunday that 755 U.S. diplomatic and technical staff would have to leave Russia by Sept. 1.

"Because more than 1,000 workers  diplomats and support staff  were working and are still working in Russia, 755 must stop their activity in the Russian Federation," he said.

New U.S. sanctions were in part a response to conclusions by U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia meddled in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, and to further punish Russia for its annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Moscow said on Friday that the United States had until Sept. 1 to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people, matching the number of Russian diplomats left in the United States after Washington expelled 35 Russians in December.

On Friday an official at the U.S. Embassy, who did not wish to be identified, said the Embassy employed around 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in Russia, including Russian and U.S. citizens.

Putin said that Russia could take more measures against the United States but not at the moment.

"I am against it as of today," Putin said in the interview with Vesti TV.

He repeated that the U.S. sanctions were a step to worsening relations between the two countries.

"We were waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, were holding out hope that the situation would change somehow. But it appears that even if it changes someday it will not change soon," Putin said.

However, he said Moscow and Washington were achieving results on cooperation even "in this quite difficult situation". The creation of the Southern de-escalation zone in Syria showed a concrete result of the joint work between the two countries, Putin said.

SOURCE: REUTERS
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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Albany

A week after fire ripped through Madison Place, a cadre of worried neighbors met in Bleecker Park.

"I just pray they can save those facades," one woman said of the two row houses that had succumbed to the blaze; whose front stoops by then stood like charred theater sets atop the sloped street in Albany's Mansion Neighborhood.

That prayer was answered. Twelve years later, the robin's egg blue front of 4 Madison Place is still nestled into the stretch of homes a block below the Cathedral of Immaculate Conception, though with some new decor: A weathered tax lien adorns the front window, and what little remains of the home has been embellished by a huge, red X that alerts  or sometimes attracts  passersby to its vacancy.

Like so many other parts of Albany  including the stretch of houses near Madison Avenue and Lark Street recently destroyed  the tightly-packed properties at Madison Place were especially susceptible to heavy fire damage, their wood porches and old facades allowing blazes to catch and spread rapidly.

But for the owners of those properties  and for preservationists hoping to maintain centuries of local history  the blazes are often only the first battle in a long, costly and frustrating road to redevelopment.

First, insurance claims are filed. Then comes the question of whether to develop at all. If the answer is yes, property owners must then navigate a hodgepodge of local and state preservation rules.

The city Historic Resources Commission, for example, designates what materials can or should be salvaged, and helps determine if the proposed project is compatible with the surrounding area, scrutinizing everything from facades to windows.

In many cases, the commission's Erin Glennon said, developers can qualify for various tax credits. Because the Center Square district is listed on local, state and federal registers, a sizable portion of the redevelopment of the recently destroyed buildings there could be shouldered by taxpayers.

Those residential townhouses are a pretty straightforward project, though. Bigger projects, she said, are subject to even more stringent reviews from various state and local commissions. And then, of course, there's preservationist groups like Historic Albany, which are more than willing to mount legal challenges, if need be.

But other proposals aren't submitted at all, leaving property to sit vacant for years, confounding planners and leaving holes in tax rolls.

"It's hard to know exactly why some sit longer than others," said city Planning Director Chris Spencer. "It's insurance, but often it's economic as well."

"If you look at places where there's a better return on investment, you tend to see those (properties) get redeveloped a bit quicker," he said. "It's no different than the situation where you see vacant buildings that sit vacant for a long time. There's a reason that those stay vacant."

Indeed, a cursory comparison of fire-destroyed homes and the neighborhoods in which they reside would seem to reinforce an old real estate adage: It's all about location, location, location. Or it helps, at least.

Take the former 19th-century building at 598 Madison Ave.: A decade after that nine-unit building was destroyed by fire, then a wrecking crew, a new, 5,000-square-foot building stands there that's doubled the property's 1995 value, according to Zillow. Its proximity to Washington Park and the city's university and hospital corridors no doubt made it attractive for redevelopment, as was noted in the immediate wake of the fire.

"There's a tremendous emotional investment in Washington Park," Albany historian and former Assemblyman Jack McEneny said at the time. "It's like the first broken window in an empty house. It has enormous implications."

But not all homes are so lucky: It's been five years since a suspected arson ripped through another stretch of the Mansion District, displacing 20 people and destroying four Park Avenue homes that had been continuously occupied since the Civil War. Today, one of those properties has been purchased for use as a side lot, but little progress has been made on the remaining three.

Yet much like the homes along Madison Avenue, where the Executive Mansion and Empire State Plaza count as neighbors, those along Park would seem like prime real estate.

So why the lasting vacancies? For one, Albany simply "isn't the easiest place to develop," said Sue Holland, of Historic Albany.

"There hasn't been in the past a lot of handholding or help," she said, noting that some of the most effective tax credits for redevelopment weren't available until 2005.

"There has to be something to compel people to build back into the city," she said.

The other issue? Historic homes usually burn faster, bigger and more often.

Just after an April 1860 fire destroyed 15 homes on Orange Street, city officials banned wooden homes, paving the way for the brick residences that now occupy the slightly newer parts of the city. But there was no moratorium on wooden porches, Mansion Neighborhood Association Chairwoman Holly Katz said, thus allowing patios to be packed into secluded courtyards across the city, where they now sit like kindling for small sparks that can then devastate blocks.

And so, she said, when the city's oldest homes do go up in flames, they sustain a disproportionate amount of damage. That, coupled with various preservation rules, can complicate and drive up the costs of redevelopment.

Just behind the turquoise facade that survives at 4 Madison Place, for example, is a charred, mostly barren property that, because the exterior has to be preserved, would require any construction to be routed through the front door.

Next door, at 5 Madison Place, a rehab was supposed to begin in 2012.

"Some of my friends think I'm crazy," Tim Kelly, the developer, said of his $80,000 purchase, in 2010. "As you can see, nobody else went near it for the last five or six years."

That might have been for good reason: Despite support from neighborhood groups and preservationists, Kelly was never able to fully finance the costly rehab. Today, 4 and 5 Madison Place both sit with all the char and charm as they did in the weeks after that 2005 fire, much to the dismay and detriment of nearby homeowners, some of whom are still dealing with water runoff from 4 Madison Place.

"It's been a long process (to start redeveloping)," Katz said of the homes. "It's not been a successful one. ... For now, it's dead in the water."

In recent years, some properties have been refiltered through the Albany County Land Bank. Funded by settlements reached by the state Attorney General's office with Wall Street megabanks, the group buys and sells dilapidated structures for projects that align with neighborhood revitalization plans. Last year the Land Bank sold such a fire-damaged home at 274 Sheridan Ave. to a local construction company, which works with nonprofits to teach technical and construction skills.

But, as Glennon also noted, the city hasn't always had those options, instead leaving neighborhood revitalization efforts in the hands of absentee property owners who took the insurance money and ran.

Before the Land Bank existed, "the real estate market was not willing to absorb these properties," said Adam Zaranko, executive director. "As a result many have remained vacant for many years, which in turn negatively impacted the surrounding values, which discouraged future investment," he said.

"You can see the downward spiral that starts to occur," he said.

Spencer, meanwhile, said his department has spent more than two years modernizing some of the city's strictest zoning rules to allow for rebuilds.

"The new zoning is flexible, and creates flexibility to match" new structures with the surrounding areas, he said. "It's really geared (so that) if we lose buildings, we can replace them with something in-kind or compatible."

The homes near Madison Avenue and Lark Street could soon serve as a trial balloon for some of those new rules, shedding light on what helps  or in many cases hinders  redevelopment. Built before the 1900s, the wooden porches packed into the backs of those homes made saving them nearly impossible, fire officials said. Within about two hours, the blaze had engulfed five homes, destroying four and leaving a dozen people temporarily homeless.

"These are very old buildings," city Fire Chief Warren Abriel said. "They were actually right up against each other."

"There are good and bad things with old buildings," he said.

Businesses and community groups have already lent support, and the properties' historic locations already make redevelopment prospects seem brighter.

But a quick stroll eastward, to nearby Madison Place, would remind even the optimists that nothing is permanent; that no rehab is guaranteed.

The day after the Madison Avenue fire, as residents sifted through the blackened remains of their homes, grabbing belongings and, in one case, finding a dog for whom they'd assumed the worst, a next-door neighbor lamented the loss of that stretch of buildings, which had meant so much to the neighborhood's history.

"My whole neighborhood is about to change," said Dorinda Burton.

In fact, it already had. The question now is how much  and for how long?

RDownen@timesunion.com  518-454-5018  @RobertDownenTU
Doklam stand-off and Nepal

Last month, India sent troops to block Chinas efforts to build a road on the Doklam plateau. Currently regarded as Chinese territory, the Doklam plateau has also been claimed by Bhutan.
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New York

Weary Republicans in Washington may be ready to move on from health care, but conservatives across the United States are warning the GOP-led Congress not to abandon its pledge to repeal the Obama-era health law  or risk a political nightmare in next year's elections.

The Senate's failure this past week to pass repeal legislation has outraged the Republican base and triggered a new wave of fear. The stunning collapse has exposed a party so paralyzed by ideological division that it could not deliver on its top campaign pledge.

After devoting months to the debate and seven years to promising to kill the Affordable Care Act, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., simply said: "It's time to move on."

But that's simply not an option for a conservative base energized by its opposition to the health law. Local party leaders, activists and political operatives are predicting payback for Republicans lawmakers if they don't revive the fight.

"This is an epic fail for Republicans," said Tim Phillips, president of Americans For Prosperity, the political arm of the conservative Koch Brothers' network. "Their failure to keep their promise will hurt them. It will."

To the American Conservative Union, the three Republican senators who blocked the stripped-down repeal bill that failed in the wee hours Friday are "sellouts." A Trump-sanctioned super political action committee did not rule out running ads against uncooperative Republicans, which it did recently against Sen. Dean Heller, R-Nev.

There are limited options for directly punishing the renegade senators  John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. None of the three is up for re-election next fall. McCain, whose dramatic "no" vote killed the bill, is serving his last term in office, has brain cancer and is hardly moved by electoral threats.

Still, broad disillusionment among conservative voters could have an impact beyond just a few senators. Primary election challenges or a low turnout could mean trouble for all Republicans. Democrats need to flip 24 seats to take control of the House of Representatives, a shift that would dramatically re-shape the last two years of Trump's first term.

"If you look at competitive districts, swing districts, or districts where Republicans could face primary challenges, this is something that will be a potent electoral issue," Republican pollster Chris Wilson said of his party's health care failure. "I don't think this is something voters are going to forget."

One such challenger has emerged. Conservative activist Shak Hill, a former Air Force pilot, plans to run against second-term GOP Rep. Barbara Comstock in a competitive northern Virginia district.
President Donald Trump on Saturday scolded Congress for looking "like fools" and urged Republican senators not to be "total quitters" as he insisted that his push to overhaul the nation's health care law remained viable, the day after it was rejected by the Senate.

To reinforce his demand, the president threatened to cut lawmakers' own health insurance plans if Congress failed to revive the flagging seven-year effort to roll back the medical care program of former President Barack Obama.

"Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!" Trump wrote Saturday afternoon on Twitter.

It was the latest in a series of tweets he posted throughout the day, beginning shortly after 7 a.m., revealing how unsettled the president remains in losing a Senate vote to overhaul health care. One person familiar with his thinking said Trump was particularly focused on the unexpected defection of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who temporarily shelved cancer treatment in his home state and flew back to Washington to reject the president's efforts with a dramatic thumbs-down vote.

Trump is holding out hope that the Senate will return to health care in September and bypass parliamentary obstacles to approve it by a simple majority, according to the person familiar with the president's thinking, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Indeed, several of Trump's tweets Saturday criticized use of the Senate filibuster, including one that specifically targeted Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., the majority leader.

"Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT'S TIME!" the president said earlier in the day. "Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don't go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time."

Republicans have 52 seats in the Senate. The proposal this past week to repeal portions of the health care law, as long demanded by Trump, required a simple 51-vote majority to pass, but failed. It was not clear how he expected to win enough votes, or what might be different, with a new effort.

By midafternoon, Trump escalated his attack on lawmakers by taking aim at their own health care plans. "If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!" he wrote on Twitter.

The president has sought for months to end federal subsidies for insurance markets. And as recently as Friday, staunch conservatives have demanded the end of a special subsidy for House and Senate lawmakers, and their staffs, through a District of Columbia insurance exchange, instead of a system specifically for federal employees.
When viewing the powerful new film "Dunkirk," portraying British military and civilian heroism in early World War II, it's useful to keep in mind a simultaneous shameful period in U.S. history: the pro-Axis, isolationist "America First" movement, led by pilot icon Charles Lindbergh and radio priest Charles Coughlin, and opposing any U.S. aid to the struggling Great Britain.

In the years that followed World War II, one overarching conclusion for the United States and its Allies was to unequivocally support a free, united Europe that precluded both fascist and communist authoritarianism. NATO became the prime instrument for doing so. That's why Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent aggressions in Crimea, Ukraine and Syria are so concerning.
Oprah Winfrey joined our faculty here at Skidmore College in celebrating the 2017 graduating class's commencement. Winfrey received an honorary doctorate from the college and was, as always, an inspiring speaker. She spoke beautifully of living life with gratitude and intention. But even as inspiring as Winfrey was, she wasn't the most compelling speaker that morning.

That distinction would go to Abude Al-Assad, a member of the graduating class and co-chair of the senior gift drive. Al-Assad presented the college with a record-breaking class gift of just over $10,000. He spoke passionately about his upbringing in a refugee camp in Damascus, Syria  and how he is the first member of his family to attend college. He urged his classmates to strive to do more, to help more, even in this imperfect world. And he shared that his family was unable to join him at his graduation  because they were denied entry to our country  due, according to Al-Assad, to their nationality.

This was a breathtaking moment. He was graduating from college, had just raised more than $10,000 to help this college  and yet our government would not allow his family to attend his graduation. Even in the face of such adversity, this young man, his voice shaking with pride, urged on his contemporaries to not be daunted by this imperfect world  to rather embrace it, challenge it, push it to be better, through their own good works. It inspired me to do the same.

In addition to lecturing at Skidmore, I serve as the executive and artistic director of Hubbard Hall Center for the Arts and Education in Cambridge, Washington County. We strive to enrich people's lives and nurture our community through the power of the arts and education. We're a small organization, in a small village. But what we do, I believe, has huge reverberations in our world  in our block, village, town, county, state, nation and world.

We are living intentionally  working to give our young people  and students of all ages  opportunities to realize the power of creativity, collaboration and community. We are giving our community a safe space to gather, share ideas and celebrate our similarities and differences. And we are working to positively affect the world around us  by nurturing our sense of community and connectivity, in real time, face to face, with empathy.

And yet we need to do more. To face what our country is currently doing to such people of honor, intelligence and passion is heartbreaking. To realize we may lose Al-Assad and his talents to another country, given our stupidity, is agonizing. After all, after such mistreatment, why would he stay?

In my producing class at Skidmore we study people in various fields who in some way have reshaped the world through extraordinary visions  including Steve Jobs, using Walter Isaacson's definitive biography as our text. Last semester I pointed out to students that Jobs' biological father was a Syrian Muslim immigrant, who came to the U.S. to pursue his graduate studies; and that, if a ban on Syrian Muslims had stopped Jobs' father from entering the U.S. (and meeting Jobs' biological mother), Steve Jobs would have never been born. No Jobs  no Apple computers, no iPhone, none of the technological innovations and economic achievements in the U.S. that Jobs brought to life. So the obvious, aching question is: how many wonderful people are we losing right now, because of these travel bans?

Sign up for the Observation Deck newsletter Read the latest Times Union opinion, perspective and letters to the editor on Mondays by signing up for our Observation Deck newsletter.

What we're doing  and allowing to be done in our name  is not only wrong, and heartbreaking, it's stupid. Let's get ourselves back on track, and think about our intentions and how we're affecting the world around us  before we lose the next Steve Jobs  or Abude Al-Assad.

David Snider is a theater artist, arts administrator, and educator living in Cambridge.
Female army found dead

A female Nepal Army staff was found dead in Banepa, Kavrepalanchok district on Saturday.
[July 30, 2017]

Kurt Amend named Chief Executive of Raytheon Arabia

RIYADH, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, July 30, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) today announced Kurt Amend will serve as Chief Executive of the Raytheon Arabia business unit. In his new role, Amend will drive business strategy and execution of defense-related projects and technology development in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Amend brings nearly three decades of senior-level, U.S. government and aerospace & defense industry experience to Raytheon Arabia, most recently serving as president of Raytheon International, Inc., Riyadh, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

"With his broad business experience and deep relationships in Saudi Arabia, Kurt is uniquely positioned to lead Raytheon Arabia and the next chapter in Raytheon's strong 50-year partnership with the Kingdom," said Thomas A. Kennedy, Raytheon Chairman and CEO. "He will drive our efforts in support of the Kingdom's economic diversification and building a sustainable future, which will positively impact Saudi and U.S. economies, including job creation."

Additionally, Raytheon has named Faisal al Bak, director, Raytheon International, Inc. as an officer of Raytheon Arabia. Other officer appointments will be announced at a later date.







Raytheon Arabia Board

Amend will also sit on Raytheon Arabia Board of Directors alongside fellow Raytheon executives including:

John Harris , chief executive officer, Raytheon International, Inc.

, chief executive officer, Raytheon International, Inc. Wes Kremer , president, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems

, president, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems Dave Wajsgras , president, Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services

, president, Raytheon Intelligence, Information and Services Kimberly Ernzen , vice president, Land Warfare Systems, Raytheon Missiles Systems

, vice president, Land Warfare Systems, Raytheon Missiles Systems Tom Laliberty , vice president, Integrated Air and Missile Defense, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems.

, vice president, Integrated Air and Missile Defense, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems. Stephen Murphy , vice president, Contracts, Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems

Raytheon Arabia will be based in Riyadh and will focus on creating indigenous defense, aerospace and cybersecurity capabilities in Kingdom. The company is expected to include in-country program management, supply and sourcing capabilities, improved customer access and centralized accountability.

About Raytheon

Raytheon Company, with 2016 sales of $24 billion and 63,000 employees, is a technology and innovation leader specializing in defense, civil government and cybersecurity solutions. With a history of innovation spanning 95 years, Raytheon provides state-of-the-art electronics, mission systems integration, C5I products and services, sensing, effects, and mission support for customers in more than 80 countries. Raytheon is headquartered in Waltham, Massachusetts. Follow us on Twitter.

www.raytheon.com

Media Contact

Mike Doble

+1.703.284.4345

[email protected]

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/kurt-amend-named-chief-executive-of-raytheon-arabia-300496190.html

SOURCE Raytheon Company
Rex Early, longtime Republican leader in Indiana, has died

Rex Early was chairman of the Indiana Republican Party and led former president Donald Trump's campaign in Indiana in 2016.
Govt seeks more time to address demands

A talks team formed by the government to address Dr Govinda KCs demands failed to present their plans to endorse the Health Profession Education (HPE) Bill, making the meeting fruitless even on Saturday.
Turner Twyman/KMBC SOURCE: Turner Twyman/KMBC Kansas City police are investigating after one person was shot in a car on the city's south side. Police officers were called at 4:44 p.m. to Hickman Mills and Barrymore Drive on a shooting. Authorities said the victim was in a car that ended up in a ditch just off I-49.
Health insurance intricacies

Upon endorsement of the National Health Insurance Policy in 2013, the Ministry of Health and Population formed the Social Health Security Development Committee in February 2015 as a legal framework to oversee Nepals health insurance programme and to ensure appropriate implementation of universal health care within three years.
"I usually don't go to that other state in Kansas City. But occasionally the amazing food leads me to The Jacobson on southwest Blvd. If there is no other option in Kansas it is a good choice:) great food great service!!!"

of this stunning photo and social media message to the followers of a KCK power broker. . .offers her endorsement of crossing the State Line for good times in one of her latest message:Given that she. . . This power broker hottie lady seems happy about her choice and content to enjoy the good life rather than battle it out in low-stakes local politics.Developing . . .
The Italian-Canadian executive and his friends dine at the local tavernas and swim in a small gulf accessible only by boat

Ferrari's CEO and chairman of FIAT Sergio Marchionne is visiting the islands of Sporades in Greece. Marchionne initially visited the island of Skopelos with his yacht and the company of well known Italian entrepreneurs.

The yacht can accommodate up to 30 persons and is equipped with the most modern systems for security and luxury.

The Italian-Canadian executive and his friends dine at the local tavernas and swim in a small gulf accessible only by boat.

According to sources, Marchionne's yacht arrived in Skiathos on Saturday and will remain there for a couple of days.

Read more here.

RELATED TOPICS: Greece, Greek tourism news, Tourism in Greece, Greek islands, Hotels in Greece, Travel to Greece, Greek destinations , Greek travel market, Greek tourism statistics, Greek tourism report

Photo Source: Wikimedia Commons Copyright: Wisniowy License: CC-BY-SA

Source: ANA-MPA
The Euromoney Egypt Conference, being held in Cairo in September, will discuss the growing opportunities for investment and partnership in Egypt.



The conference titled 'Stability and Cohesion  Opportunities in Egypt' is the event's 22nd edition and will be held on September 18 and 19.



We are delighted to be working with the Government of Egypt on an agenda that gives a comprehensive and compelling overview of Egypts finance and investment outlook, said Victoria Behn, director of Middle East and Africa at Euromoney Conferences. We are returning in September with a reinvigorated interest from our core audience of international investors and financiers to attend the conference.



Once again, the Euromoney Egypt Conference will offer its audience of business leaders and decision makers the opportunity to exchange ideas and participate in informed, impartial and leading-edge discussions. With a tight focus on sectors and opportunities that are both vital for Egypt and attractive to international capital, the two-day event will feature panel discussions on: the investment outlook; capital markets development; privatisation; real estate; industrialisation and exports, financial inclusion and start-ups.



High-level representatives from multilateral and bilateral institutions will discuss their plans in Egypt and how private capital can partner with them.



For the first time since 2011 international capital feels comfortable in Egypt, said Behn. Challenges remain but the bold resolution of the currency crisis in 2016 has led not only to an upsurge of interest from equity investors but a triumphant return of the debt markets.



Euromoney has confirmed the participation of domestic and international speakers who will help evaluate the risks and examine the most promising opportunities in Egypt.



Confirmed keynote speakers are: Dr Sahar Nasr, Minister of Investment and International Cooperation, Egypt; Tarek Kabil, Minister of Trade and Industry, Egypt; James Harmon, chairman, Egyptian-American Enterprise Fund (EAEF); Mouayed Makhlouf, director, Middle East and North Africa, International Finance Corporation (IFC); and Benedict Oramah, president, African ExportImport Bank (Afreximbank).



More than 1,000 delegates from Egypt and abroad  most of them directly involved in the finance, investment and business of Egypt  will take part in the conference. - TradeArabia News Service


His Majesty King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa of Bahrain has called for regional and global solidarity and sustained coordination among countries of the world to counter terrorism, dry up its sources of funding and finally defeat it.



He made the remarks as he received at the Al-Sakhir Palace the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Shaikh Abdulla bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir and Egyptian Foreign Minister Sameh Shoukry, marking the quartets joint meeting in Manama.



They were accompanied by Bahrain's Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid bin Ahmed bin Mohammed Al-Khalifa, a BNA report said.

A joint meeting of the foreign ministers of the quartet will be held in Manama on Sunday.

HM the King welcomed the ministers and wished them success in their joint meeting, hailing strong fraternal relations and joint cooperation between the four countries as well as strenuous efforts to combat terrorism and extremism.



He commended the quartets firm keenness on supporting the security and stability of the region, addressing its problems and protecting it from the policies of backing extremist groups and harbouring terrorists.



These policies have caused dangerous humanitarian crises, with hundreds of thousands of our peoples displaced and left homeless, facing hardships in the diaspora, he said.



He highlighted the tragic plight of the displaced people, stressing the need to help them return to their homes safely and ensure them security and stability.



He paid tribute to martyrs from the four countries, who fell in the line of duty in the fight against the scourge of terrorism to defend our countries and peoples.



Our countries will continue their strenuous efforts to protect the blessed march of the Gulf Cooperation Council from any policies which may harm member states, affect its peoples or derail its achievements, he said.



HM the King stressed the crucial importance of defending the pan-Arab security and staving off any subversive attempts preying on the Arab region.



He commended the foreign ministers strenuous efforts to maintain regional security and stability, saying that Bahrain stands united with sister countries and backs all joint stances and measures to confront challenges and threats.



The strength and cohesion of Arab countries depend on their solidarity and unity in confronting all challenges., he said, describing pan-Arab joint action, at this defining period, as the vital pillar and the inevitable choice.



This critical phase requires stronger cooperation and unity to protect our vital interests, thwart subversive designs which aim at sowing divisions and undermining the pan-Arab security."



HM the King reviewed with the foreign ministers latest developments in the regional and international arenas.
MORAVIA  As southern Cayuga County towns are still reeling after flash floods earlier this month, two of the county's state lawmakers are urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to act.

State Sen. Jim Seward and Assemblyman Gary Finch visited Moravia and surrounding towns Thursday to survey the flood damage and call on the governor to provide emergency relief.

The flooding caused an estimated $3.74 million in damages to infrastructure. That figure doesn't include the impact to agriculture and homeowners.

Seward, R-Milford, sent a letter to Cuomo Tuesday requesting assistance for local governments affecting by flooding. He asked for the help on behalf of Cayuga and three other counties  Cortland, Chenango and Herkimer  that have experienced flooding in recent weeks.

"It's pretty evident that we need help here in terms of repair and recovery," he said.

The state Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services has been involved in the flood response, Seward said. Niel Rivenburgh, Cayuga County's deputy director of emergency services, confirmed the state's presence in the county. He said they have been "very engaged."

But Seward and Finch, R-Springport, believes more can be done.

With more floods occurring across the state, including the high water levels that have impacted communities along Lake Ontario, the lawmakers support legislation that would establish a supplemental fund to provide assistance after natural disasters.

A separate bill would create the Upstate Flood Mitigation Task Force to examine flood response procedures and the costs of flooding.

For now, the focus is on how to address the flooding in southern Cayuga County. The initial response effort has focused on public infrastructure needs. But Finch and Seward acknowledged the damage to residential properties and potentially to farms.

"It's overwhelming," Finch said.

The legislators advised property owners to document damages and expenses associated with repairs. That will help ensure the state has a more accurate assessment of the financial impact.

Documentation may help communities secure outside funding, including federal assistance.
Swine flu death: Medical team from Capital begins inspection in Syangja

A medical team from Kathmandu arrived in Waling on Saturday for field inspection after a man from Syangja, who was tested positive for the A (H1N1) viruspopularly known as swine fludied at the TU Teaching Hospital in the Capital last Monday.
MPs reservations block endorsement of Health Profession Education Bill

Strong reservations from lawmakers over several clauses of the Health Profession Education Bill have led to the legislation being stuck in the parliamentary Committee on Women, Children, Social Welfare and Elderly Citizens for more than seven months.
New Delhi, July 30

Though discussions on shifting the financial year to January-December instead of April-March are still on within the government, the change will not happen next year, according to Minister of State for Finance Santosh Kumar Gangwar.

In order to start the next financial year from January 2018, the government needs to present the Union Budget some time in November, which does not seem to be possible as the process is time-consuming and has to be kicked-off well ahead, the minister said.

These are points of discussion in the government. For now, consider March as the end of this fiscal year, Gangwar told IANS in an interview.

After Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in the current parliament session said the government is considering changing the financial year to January-December, speculation has been rife about the switchover in 2018.

However, there was no official confirmation either way on this and the government continued its stance of discussions are on.

Experts were of the opinion that the mammoth change was not likely to happen so soon after implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) from July 1, as the shift involves a lot of operational issues, including cutting short the year to three quarters, changes in governments balance sheet, new assessment year for income taxpayers and bringing forward of the Union Budget.

The Narendra Modi government had already advanced the Union Budget by a month to February 1 from 2017 in order to complete all the legislative processes and approvals for annual spending before the start of the financial year from April 1.

So far, Madhya Pradesh is the only state to adopt a January-December financial year. On May 2, Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan announced that the state would be shifting to the new fiscal from 2018 and complete all its budgetary proceedings by the close of 2017.

Chouhan has also issued instructions to clearly chalk out the state government programmes to be completed in quarterly, half-yearly and annual fashion.

The April-March financial year was adopted in India in 1867 to align it with that of the British government.

Prior to that, the Indian financial year used to begin from May 1 and end on April 30.

Meanwhile, with the GST Council meeting scheduled for August 5, Gangwar said the various issues that have cropped up since the roll-out of the new indirect tax regime would be discussed.

The minister said that the tax rates on textiles, hybrid cars and gold could also be discussed.

We have decided that on August 5 whatever changes are necessary will be brought about. The problems being faced by people... Council will discuss on those lines and whether any change is needed, he said.

Since the time GST has been implemented, people are putting forth representations on tax rates from all states. We will consider (them), he added.

The minister, however, noted that the July 1 roll-out has been smoother than expected and the government was ready for more challenges.

The glitches and problems experienced have been less than expected, Gangwar said. IANS
Chandigarh: Earrings of a 66-year-old woman were snatched in Sector 56 on Sunday while she was returning home after purchasing vegetables. She suffered minor injuries in the incident. Police sources said the victim, identified as Mukhtyari Devi, a resident of Sector 56, had gone to purchase vegetables from the market in Phase-VI, Mohali. She was returning home when a pedestrian snatched her earrings near her house. A case has been registered at the Sector 39 police station. TNS

Sampark: No cash above Rs 2K

Chandigarh: No Sampark Centre will accept cash payment of more than Rs 2,000 in cash for depositing bills of electricity and water besides fees for various types of work of different departments from August 1. Sources said the order had been issued by the administration. An officer of the Sampark Centre said a sufficient number of the POS machines had been kept at all 42 centres where residents could make payments through debit or credit cards. More than 40 different types of fees are received at the centres. The administration took the decision to promote digital payment. TNS
Shaibal Gupta

Shaibal Gupta

THE fall of the Mahagathbandhan government in Bihar is a tragic affair. It symbolises all the ills that have afflicted the social justice movement in Bihar. The movement emerged from the womb of the powerful socialist movement. After the ideological epicentre of the socialist movement was devoured by the JP movement, the social justice movement did play an important role in plebian ethos. Unfortunately, the movement later degenerated when proactive pursuit of positive discrimination created a caste-based empire, with the most undemocratic satrap heading these outfits.

When Lalu Prasad and Nitish Kumar joined hands for the 2015 Assembly election, in spite of their acrimonious relationship earlier, it seemed that social justice movement will not only get a new lease of life, but will also get reinvented. Lalu with his political capital and Nitish with his administrative acumen were expected to give a fresh lease of life to Bihars development strategy. But unfortunately, the strain in the Mahagathbandhan surfaced from the very first day when Lalus two sons, both greenhorn in politics, were appointed ministers, ignoring senior party functionaries of the RJD. While the younger son, Deputy CM Tejashwi Prasad Yadav functioned relatively better, the elder one turned out to be a disaster.

In the two terms of the NDA earlier, Nitish had full freedom to function and had kept the ministers on tenterhook. This not only helped him streamline the ramshackle administration, but also resurrected the state. In the process, Nitish had, indeed, emerged as a huge brand in the business of governance. In his third stint as part of the Mahagathbandhan, however, the Chief Minister felt disadvantaged. There was always a reminder from the RJD minions that they were a bigger party than the JD(U). Further, Rabri Devi often suggested that being the single-largest party in the Mahagathbandhan, Tejashwi should take over the reigns of the government. Nitish, who takes any administrative and political agenda very seriously, felt this continuous snipping was getting increasingly intolerable. Whenever recalcitrant RJD workers created problems for Nitish, they were not reprimanded by their senior leadership. When Shahabuddin was released from Bhagalpur jail on bail, he conveyed in a demonstrative manner that the state machinery is at his command and the role of the CM was merely incidental. Shahabuddins utterances were supported by the RJD high command, with a deliberate strategy to insult Nitish.

However, the Mahagathbandhan could have continued, in spite of its limitations, thanks to its comfortable majority. But once the spate of scandals involving Lalus family was made open, it was the last straw on the coalitions back. Assuming that Lalu had learnt a lesson from his conviction under the fodder scam, it was expected that his young sons will be leading a reinvented lifestyle. Under the mentorship of Nitish, they could be groomed into someone who will ultimately take over the reign of the state. But unfortunately, almost every immediate member of the Lalu family got embroiled into the crisis.

Bihar is the poorest state in India, with very low public investment earlier, but the extent of leakages in the public spending here was one of the highest. This started in the immediate post-Independence years. Indeed, buccaneering accumulation and resultant consumption has become a way of life in the state for long. Later, during Lalus period, this pattern of accumulation got perfected. Leave alone any stigma against such practices, those who indulged in it were actually held with awe and admiration.

Quite expectedly, these accumulations were used not only for conspicuous consumption, but also for tremendous political and criminal ramifications. Over the years, accumulation through corruption had gradually reached a cancerous proportion.

With democratisation and empowerment of people, it is only recently that corruption is now viewed with revulsion and disdain. The powerful constituency which was created by corruption and which had forestalled all development in the state is now in retreat. Nitish essentially choreographed this strategy.

As the decisive steps to check corruption in Bihar, details of assets of public functionaries were ordered to be put on the official website of the state government. The Local Area Development Fund for legislators, a great source of corruption, was abolished. Further, the bold initiative of enacting two formidable laws  Prevention of Corruption Act and Right to Service Act  has changed the rent-seeking tendency of public functionaries in a decisive manner. The first relates to the confiscation of such property by the state government, which are disproportionate to an individuals income from known sources.

The second stipulates a time limit for providing service by the state functionaries to the citizens, so that rent-seeking can be prevented. Earlier, rent-seekers could accumulate with gay abandon and even the most blatant rent-earners got either inconsequential censure or, at best, a suspension order. Additionally, in the name of right to private property, their illegal properties were not touched. Both these laws are now acting as the sword of Damocles for the rent-seeking government functionaries.

One may also note that the leakages of public spending in Bihar had a peculiar character, not to be seen elsewhere in the country. Here the fund for government programmes, earmarked for either economic or social sectors, would be siphoned off for private accumulation right at the input stage. Thereafter, such buccaneering private accumulation will not get invested within the state, as was the case in Indonesia; instead, the amount would often be transferred outside, as was the case in the Philippines. With their limited knowledge of the capital market  domestic or international  the looted resources of the state were generally invested in the real estate in metropolitan cities.

In this backdrop, the battle against corruption could not have been pursued within the Mahagathbandhan. Its liquidation might be a setback to secularism, but secularism cannot be pursued at the altar of brazen corruption. The UPA-II failed in its effort to deflect the allegations of corruption. In the process, the Congress got wiped out and the BJP got massive majority. Simultaneously, the social base of secularism shrunk, because corruption was protected thoughtlessly.

The writer is member-secretary, Asian Development Research Institute
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 30

The Special Cell has arrested a mother of five children, Mobai, from MP for arms trafficking. Mobai (45), a declared proclaimed offender in the Arms Act, was apprehended with 14 illegal semi-automatic sophisticated pistols of 7.65 mm and 14 spare magazines. The weapons are engraved with Made in England and Made in USA markings, said a police official.

On July 26, information was received that one woman supplier of illegal arms would come to Shastri Park around 6 pm to deliver a huge cache of semi-automatic weapons, said the official.

Accordingly, a trap was laid about 6.30 pm and the police saw a woman carrying a black and red colour bag waiting there for someone. After some time when no one turned up and as she was about to leave, she was overpowered and apprehended with the help of accompanying woman staff, added the official.

During interrogation, Mobai said she had collected these weapons from a manufacturer in MP and the same were to be supplied to various contacts in Delhi-NCR. She also admitted that she had supplied weapons in Delhi-NCR to different persons on several occasions in the past 15 years, said the DCP (Special Cell, Delhi).
Mukesh Tandon

Tribune News Service

Israna (Panipat), July 30

The All-India Jat Aarakshan Sangharsh Samiti (AIJASS) will hold a Bhaichara rally in Jhajjar on August 27, said Yashpal Malik, national president of the samiti. He appealed to people belonging to 36 communities to participate in the rally in a large number.

Malik was addressing a rally held under the shed of the grain market at the Israna block in the district today.

The state authorities had agreed upon six demands of the samiti at a meeting on March 19. Some of the six demands had been fulfilled and work on others was pending, he added.

BJP MP Rajkumar Saini had tried to disturb communal harmony in the state by making derogatory remarks against the Jat community, he alleged. It was a conspiracy of BJP leaders to malign the image of Jats that has been exposed due to unity in the community, said Malik.

We will hold a state-level Bhaichara rally in Jhajjar on August 27 to remind the state leadership of its commitments, he said. Besides, another rally would be organised in Hisar on September 13 to observe Sunil Shyorans Martyrs Day, he added.

The Jat agitation had been postponed not concluded. Dharnas were still continuing at three places, he said. If our demands are not met, Jats would regroup again and enter Delhi, Malik warned. The state-level executive committee of the samiti had decided to hold rallies in 75 blocks of the state, he added.

Office-bearers of the samiti Ashok Balhara, national general secretary; Nisha Chaudhary, general Secretary, Delhi; Pratap Dahiya and Suresh Machroli attended the rally today.
Tribune News Service

Shimla, July 30

The BJP executive set its agenda for the Assembly elections and decided to make corruption and women security the major issues, besides highlighting achievement of the Modi government and raising local issues at the constituency level.

Briefing the press after the concluding session of the three-day BJP executive meeting, former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition PK Dhumal said the BJP was getting enormous support from the general public against the corrupt Congress government which had lost its credibility after the tardy investigation in the Kotkhai minors rape and murder case.

The public was demanding a CBI probe into the gruesome murder of forest guard Hoshiyar Singh in Mandi, murder of eight-year-old girl in Kullu and even demanded that the case of 14-year-old girl in Parwanoo be handed over to the CBI, Dhumal said.

The people of Himachal are intelligent enough to decide between a corrupt Congress government, which had failed on all fronts and development policies of the NDA and unmatched leadership of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, he said adding that the BJP would win 60 or more seats in the 68 members Assembly.

Exhorting the workers to work for at least 15 days as full timers, he gave the slogans dagdar sarkar ko hatana hai, Bedag sarkar ko lana hai and the CM on bail, officers in jail. Dhumal said the benefits of Central schemes were not reaching the people of the state.

The revenue deficit grant has been doubled, the status of special category state had been restored but still the state government had raised loans to the tune of Rs 50,000 crores, he said and added that quality ration was not available in depots.

Focus on Modi govts work: Nadda to partymen

Shimla: Union Heath and Family Welfare Minister JP Nadda on Sunday asked BJP workers to reach out to people and propagated achievements of the Modi government. Addressing the state executive here, he said the achievements of the Modi government and failure of the state government to encash in on the assistance given by the Centre and development project would be the election plank of the BJP in the Assembly polls. Listing the achievements of the government, Nadda said Modi had changed the entire work culture of the country and converted challenges into opportunities. He said the government took a series of steps to unearth black money as a result black money worth over Rs 1 lakh crore was detected. TNS
Our Correspondent

Chamba, July 30

The police have arrested a teacher on charge of raping a girl. A case in this regard was registered at Tissa police station in Churah subdivision of Chamba district. The incident reportedly took place 3-4 days ago.

Earlier, an irate mob damaged certain shops, burnt a PWD rain shelter and two kiosks at Tissa. Deputy Commissioner, who was on the spot, said the situation was under control and peaceful.

Protesters also gheraoed the office of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM) at Tissa and shouted slogans against the local administration while seeking justice for the rape victim.

In another FIR, three persons were arrested for reportedly manhandling the teaching staff during a meeting of the school management committee in connection with the alleged rape at Government Senior Secondary School on July 27.

Earlier, residents gathered at the Government Senior Secondary School, Khushnagari, near Tissa, and gheraoed the school premises. They raised slogans against the school staff and the local administration and demanded the arrest of the accused.
Naya Sahkti Dalit leaders quit party positions

The coordinator of Dalit Shakita sister wing of Naya Shakti Nepal led by Baburam Bhattaraihas quit from the party position on Sunday.
Majid Jahangir

Tribune News Service

Srinagar, July 30

Two local militants of the Hizbul Mujahideen were killed in a brief gunfight in south Kashmirs volatile Pulwama district today, triggering day-long clashes that left nearly a dozen injured.

The gunfight erupted when security forces launched a search operation at Tahab village of Pulwama, some 38 km from Srinagar, after an input about the presence of militants in a residential area in the wee hours.

As the search operation was being carried out, the hiding militants fired upon the security forces to break the cordon. The security forces retaliated, triggering a brief gunfight in which two local militants of Hizb were killed, Senior Superintendent of Police, Pulwama, Mohammad Aslam told The Tribune. An Army man was also injured in the gunfight and his condition is stable, he said.

The two slain militants were identified as Shariq Ahmad of Gulzarpur Awantipora and Showkat Ahmed, alias Shabir, of Mihind, Anantnag. The SSP said the duo had joined militancy this year.

The Army claimed the two slain militants were threatening government officials and politicians in the area.

These terrorists were threatening government officials and politicians and based on this input, an operation was launched. They were given a chance to surrender, instead, they fired heavily, Brigadier Harbir Singh, Commander of 12 Sector, told reporters after the gunfight.

Intense clashes erupted in the district after the gunfight ended as youths tried to march towards the encounter site. In the clashes, nearly a dozen protesters were injured. One of the injured received a bullet in chest. Internet services were also suspended in the district following the killing of the militants.

A large number of people attended the funeral of the Shariq where a top militant commander of Hizb, Riyaz Naikoo, addressed the mourners. Naikoo, according to eyewitnesses, asked the people not to fall in Al-Qaida trap as it was aimed at defaming the Kashmir struggle.

In his nearly four-minute speech, Naikoo did not mention name of his former associate Zakir Musa, who was recently named as the head of Al-Qaida affiliate in Kashmir. Naikoo also raised pro-Pakistan slogans before leaving the venue.

Militant addresses people at funeral
Amir Karim Tantray

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 30

Tightening its noose on separatists, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) today picked another Hurriyat leader, Devinder Singh Behl, from his house in Bakshi Nagar, Jammu. One of the few non-Muslim separatist leaders, he was detained for over four hours.

Behl is chairman of the Jammu and Kashmir Social Peace Forum (JKSPF), a constituent of the Hurriyat Conference (Geelani group) and also a member of the Hurriyats legal cell. He has been attending the funerals of militants across the Valley, raising anti-India slogans.

NIA Inspector General Alok Mittal said, We conducted searches at the residence and office of Devinder Singh Behl, chairman, JKSPF, during which the team seized four cellphones, a tablet, incriminating documents and financial papers. He said they were probing his role as a courier as he was suspected to be routing funds from Pakistan-based handlers.

On July 24, the NIA, while on a hawala money trail, had arrested separatist leaders from Kashmir, including the son-in-law of Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Altaf Fantosh, Nayeem Khan, Peer Saifullah, Aftab Hilali Shah (Shahid-ul Islam), Raja Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Farooq Ahmed Dar (Bitta Karate) and Ayaz Akber.

Eyewitnesses said the NIA team reached Behls house at 1.30 pm with a team of more than 20 officials headed by a DIG-rank official. Soon, people started gathering outside, raising slogans against Behl and the separatists.

Sensing trouble, the NIA took the help of the police and CRPF commandos (Cobra unit), who safely escorted Behl to a vehicle. We have seen several Hurriyat leaders coming to his house. The government must take stern action against him and other separatists for fomenting trouble, said Varun Sahni, a former spy who spent years in a Pakistani jail and whose house is only a few metres away from that of Behls.
Rolling Stones frontman Mick Jagger has released two politically charged songs targeting what he sees as the uncertainty and surrealism permeating politics in the age of Brexit and Donald Trump. One song, titled England Lost, represents Jagger's mocking take on Britain's split from the European Union. The second, Get a Grip, describes an "upside down" world full of "lunatics and clowns".  Agency
Mona

Everything has been tried in Hollywood, there are stories yet to be told in our industry...opens up Akshay Oberoi, trained in theatre from the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore and in ballet, jazz and hip-hop from Broadway Dance Center, New York. He further honed his skills at Prithvi Theatre after moving back to India.

Come August and you see Akshay playing lead in Gurgaon, a neo-noir thriller and the actor is glad that this film is getting a pan India release. Its not usual Bollywood fare and without any known faces, getting a release doesnt come easy but I am thrilled the way film is being received.

Playing Nikki Singh, son of a real estate tycoon, this film takes on the male chauvinistic strand of our society and the events unfold leading life threat to Nikki and his adopted sister, Preet (played by Ragini Khana). Gurgaon is directorial debut of National Award Winning cinematographer, Shanker Raman.

Akshay, who has done films like Pizza and Laal Rang and interestingly debuted with Rajshri Productions Isi Life Mein, shares his rationale to pick up hat ke cinema, See, I am an outsider in the industry (he is Vivek Oberois cousin by the way), in the sense that nobody is launching me or making films for me, nor do I have huge spends on media, I got to find my way to stand out and still reach out to the audience.

And, doing films that are not run of the mill, his strategy to get noticed. 2017 will see three of his films  Kaalakaandi and Bombairiya apart from Gurgaon. I deliberately choose projects that let me explore different aspects as an actor. Kaalakaandi has him play Saifs brother and pans story of one night; while Bombairiya is comedy of what happens when strangers come together in a crazy city like this.

Theatre anymore? Post Pizza, I have been concentrating working on films, so, I have not been able to give time to theatre but the moment I feel my abilities are dipping, I am going back to my training ground!

mona@tribenemail.com
Jasmine Singh

Dhananjay Mangalmukhi, a student of Centre for Human Rights and Duties at Panjab University will see his fight, his request and his basic right to have a separate washroom for transgender students see the light of the day, as PU goes through the last round of construction of this washroom, being constructed near AC Joshi Library.

Dhananjay, the first transgender student at PU, wrote an application to the authorities, ten days after her admission in the campus in November 2016 to have separate washroom for transgenders. The University authorities accepted her application, and now the washroom is in the final stages of construction. Can you imagine what I had to go through for a basic amenity like a washroom? I couldnt use the boys toilets, once however, I did. I locked the washroom from inside fearing no one comes in. And when I came out, so many boys were waiting outside. So, the girls suggested that I could use their toilet. I didnt know where to go and, even now I am using girls washrooms, waiting to have a separate one for students like her, she takes us to the construction site showing us the washroom under construction. The University is said to have faced fund crunch, which is why the construction got delayed.

As of now, Dhananjay is the only transgender student in PU, but she expects to be joined by three more students who are trying to get admission in Department of Hindi and Germany. Dhananjay feels there should be seats for them as well. Both the departments have limited seats for students and on top of that there are categories, I dont think they can manage like this, she adds sharing how she has also written to the PU authorities regarding separate hostel facility and concession in fee.

Is desh main jitni dair roya na jaye, koi sunta nahi. The authorities and people around should realise that it is so hard for us to come out and study in an institution like this. Now, if we get separate facility like hostel and concession in fee it would be so motivating and helpful, Dhananjay sites example of IGNOU that has exempted their fee.

What Dhananjay is asking for are her basic rights. I dont want to get down to hijrapanti to get my message across. She shares an incident while getting her Aadhaar made where she was mocked at by the one making the card. I was wearing pants and a shirt, they looked at me and said, You dont look like a transgender. I had to give a long lecture to them about my rights finally that person understood. Dhananjay takes everyday as it comes, she moves on despite the strange looks that she keeps getting, she faces every hurdle bravely, asking for only what is basic and my right, she smiles as she gets herself clicked.

From the University

Renuka Salwan, director, Public Relations calls it a great initiative by the Panjab University, PU will be making four transgender washrooms, while the one near the library will be operational in almost a month, while the other three are in the pipeline. Also, if the money is left after construction of four toilets, University plans to make even a fifth toilet. She feels more students like Dhananjay and also her friends, visiting the University can utilise this facility.
Manas Dasgupta

Ahmedabad, July 30

In the largest single drug haul to date, the Coast Guard has seized about 1,500-kg heroin, valued at over Rs 3,500 crore, from a foreign ship off Porbandar along the Gujarat coast.

An official spokesman for the Ministry of Defence today said the ship  Henry Panama  was coming from Iran and was destined for the Alang ship-breaking yard in Bhavnagar district for dismantling.

The Coast Guard had intelligence inputs that the ship on its last journey was carrying a huge amount of narcotics for delivery in India. The input was received on July 25, after which the Coast Guard mounted a vigil on foreign ships headed to the Gujarat coast.

Coast Guard ship Samudra Pavak intercepted the foreign merchant vessel in the high seas and seized the drug. The bags containing heroin were concealed in a horizontal pipe on top of Henry Panama.

Two other ships were checked before the seizure was made in the merchant vessel. The eight crew members, all Indians, allegedly had knowledge about the drugs and were arrested. The authorities were now trying to identify those behind procuring such a huge consignment of drugs from Iran.

A joint investigation by the Coast Guard, Intelligence Bureau, Gujarat Police, Customs, Navy and other agencies has begun, the spokesperson said.

Was bound for ship-breaking yard
Syed Ali Ahmed

Delhi has seen unusual waterlogging this monsoon season with the three municipal corporations and the Public Works Department (PWD) of the Delhi Government having failed to desilt the drains owing to the political differences between the BJP and the AAP. While the three MCDs are ruled by the BJP, the state government is headed by AAP.

Instead of cleaning the drains, the agencies are busy slinging mud at each other. During a House meeting of the North Delhi Municipal Corporation, the BJP blamed the AAP government for not getting the drains cleaned, the maintenance of which is with the PWD.

At the special session of the Delhi Assembly in the last week of June, a report was tabled which pointed out the failure of the MCD and the PWD to get the drains cleaned well before the rainy season. Saurabh Bhardwaj (AAP), who is chairman of Committee on Petitions of the Delhi Legislative Assembly, said senior PWD officers, under the influence of the BJP-led Union Government, had disregarded instructions by ministers in the Delhi government in this regard.

The report pointed out that wrong claims on de-silting were made before the Delhi High Court. The Committee on Petitions has asked the Chief Secretary, Delhi Government, to submit an action-taken report through the Speaker.

Meanwhile, the common man continues to suffer with a young man losing his life owing to waterlogging in Delhis Mayur Vihar. The worst-hit areas, besides Mayur Vihar, are Vikas Marg, MB Road, the Jakhira flyover and railway underpass, Janakpuri, Okhla, Kalkaji, Minto Road, Karol Bagh, Mahipalpur and Azadpur. In Lutyens zone, NH-24 in East Delhi and Dhaula Kuan are the worst-affected.

Smart sub-cities on anvil

The Union Government, that had initially selected the New Delhi Municipal Council area to be developed as Smart City, has now decided to develop additional three Ssmart sub-cities in Rohini, Narela and Dwarka with the Wi-Fi facility, round-the clock electricity and houses built on green norms. Also, transit -oriented development norms will be followed. Options for building cycle tracks in the cities to ensure jam-free travel will be explored.

The government will have 677 hectares of land in Rohini, 259 hectares land in Dwarka and 218 hectares land in Narela to be developed as Smart sub-cities. This move is part of the government decision to make Delhi a world-class city. The Union Urban Development Ministry has asked the DDA to expedite the process of building these cities, inviting bids by the second week of this month. Construction of houses will begin in 2018 and will be completed in 2021.

Drivers licence in colleges

Come September, the learners drivers licence will be issued to students on the college campus after a test. According to Delhi Transport Minister Satyendra Jain, this is being done as the demand for the licence is the highest among those in the 18-24 age group.
Beijing, July 30

Chinese President Xi Jinping today said the Peoples Liberation Army is capable of vanquishing all invading enemies and praised its combat readiness as he reviewed a massive military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the worlds largest armed force.

Dressed in camouflage, Xi inspected 12,000 troops in various formations from an open-top military jeep at the parade held in Zhurihe  Asias largest military training centre in the middle of a desert in Inner Mongolia.

Over 100 fighter jets flew overhead and almost 600 types of weaponry were on display on the occasion.

Xi said the PLA should strictly follow the absolute leadership of the Communist Party of China and march to wherever the party points to.

While there was no reference in his speech to over a month-long India-China military standoff at Doklam in the Sikkim section, his remarks came in the midst of a shrill official media campaign and assertions by the foreign and defence ministries here accusing Indian troops of trespassing into Chinese territory at Doklam.

A spokesman said Zhurihe was selected to highlight PLAs combat readiness, but stressed war-zone trainings was long scheduled.  PTI
Tribune News Service

New Delhi, July 30

An MP from Punjab has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi objecting to the recommendation made by Chief Justice of India JS Khehar, who retires on August 27, for appointment of Justice Dipak Misra as his successor.

In his letter dated July 27, Harinder Singh Khalsa, who was elected on the Aam Aadmi Party ticket from Fatehgarh Sahib, claimed there were certain allegations of great seriousness against the proposed CJI? in the suicide note of former Arunachal Pradesh Chief Minister Kalikho Pul.

Khalsa also alleged that an inquiry against two judges of the Orissa High Court could not proceed after some reference cropped up against the proposed CJI.

Ordinarily, there could not have been any objection to the same, for, in the matter of appointment of the CJI, seniority is regarded as an inviolable principle. However, in these difficult times, even what ought to be the normal course of action tends to be objectionable, Khalsa wrote in his letter.

Our nation is at crossroads. Corruption in judiciary is something which the common man can never imagine of. The institution of judiciary has its foundation in the confidence of the common man in it; its impartiality, independence and integrity of men and women of whom it constitutes," he wrote.

Khalsa said the people expected the next CJI not just to be above suspicion, but also a judicial statesman.
New Delhi, July 30

China may not have forgiven India for snubbing its mega trans-continent corridor initiative, but in what may rankle more is that New Delhi and Tokyo, Beijings arch rival, are pushing ahead with a development corridor between Asia and Africa.

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The announcement of the Asia Africa Growth Corridor (AAGC), made by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the African Development Bank (AfDB) meet in Gandhinagar in May, came days after China hosted with great pomp the first One Belt, One Road (OBOR) summit in Beijing. The venture is expected to get further impetus in September during the visit of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

India has been involved in Africa for many years, in trade as well as capacity-building activities. Japan, which has been working on infrastructure projects in Africa, can help with its advanced technology as well as funds for the AAGC. Japan is reportedly planning to commit $200 billion for the proposed growth corridor.

So, is the AAGC meant as a counter to OBOR?

The two are completely separate. OBOR is different. Long before OBOR, India and Japan were individually working in Africa, and were talking to each other about Africa, Rajiv Bhatia, a former Indian ambassador, told IANS.

India and Japan feel that by intensifying cooperation with Africa, they can help each other and Africa. We are working on the AAGC in our own way and at our own pace, said the former High Commissioner to South Africa and Kenya.

He said that Chinas engagement in Africa is extensive, while the India-Japan collaboration is beginning to take shape. The AAGC shows that India and Japan desire to take their cooperation beyond the bilateral sphere, he added.

Chinas OBOR, proposed by President Xi Jinping in 2013, is an estimated $5 trillion connectivity corridor spanning over 60 countries across Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa. It is meant to be a revival of the ancient Silk Road trading route and is expected to comprise building of roads, bridges, gas pipelines, ports, railways and power plants, besides SEZs.

India and Japan had begun a dialogue on Africa in 2010, a continent in which both have much stake. The main objective of the AAGC is to enhance growth and connectivity between Asia and Africa. According to the vision document, the corridor will focus on four areas: Development Cooperation Projects, Quality Infrastructure and Institutional Connectivity, Enhancing Skills, and People-to-People Partnership.

Agriculture, health, technology, and disaster management are the main areas of development cooperation. It will focus on boosting skills and research and development capacities in Africa.

According to a report by McKinsey, China is Africas largest economic partner, with goods trade worth $188 billion in 2015 -- compared to $59 billion with India. Since the turn of the millennium, Africa-China trade has been growing at approximately 20 per cent per year, the report says, adding that there are around 10,000 Chinese firms in Africa, three think tanksIndias Research and Information System for Developing Countries (RIS), Indonesias Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and Japans Institute of Developing Economies (IDE-JETRO), prepared the vision document for AAGC. They have produced one report on the corridor and another report is due in a few months, said Bhatia.

He said that at the corporate level, companies of India, Japan and from Africa are looking at specified sectors of the growth corridor in order to execute projects. There is seriousness and earnestness behind the initiative, he added.

Bhatia, a former Director General of Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA), also feels that giving too much importance to OBOR and China would help Beijing.

Speaking on the comparison between OBOR and the AAGC, Sachin Chaturvedi, Director General, RIS, told IANS: The OBOR, it seems, is visualised on the idea of economic corridors and infrastructure development with connectivity as the central focus, while the AAGC is a concept based on the theory of growth poles where several growth triangles and quadrangles are envisaged with different regional production hubs. The proposed AAGC seeks to encompass and integrate Africa, India and South Asia, Southeast Asia, East Asia and Oceania.

Indias increased engagement with Africa comes in the backdrop of the third India-Africa Forum Summit held in New Delhi in October 2015 when all 54 African nations had sent their representatives. India has also made many high level visits to several African countries, as part of its outreach. India also held the AfDB annual meeting in Gandhinagar this May.  IANS
Prithvi Man Shrestha is a political reporter for The Kathmandu Post, covering the governance-related issues including corruption and irregularities in the government machinery. Before joining The Kathmandu Post in 2009, he worked at nepalnews.com and Rising Nepal primarily covering the issues of political and economic affairs for three years.
Zhukovsky (Russia), July 30

Russia and India are holding negotiations for the supply of 48 Russian Mi-17 military transport helicopters with Moscow hoping to seal the deal by the year-end, a top Russian official has said.

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Russian arms supplier Rosoboronexports CEO Alexander Mikheev said India has more than 300 helicopters belonging to the Mi-8 and Mi-17 family, which are deployed in troop and arms transport, fire support, convoy escort, patrol, and search-and-rescue (SAR) missions. He said India knows their specifications well.

Mikheev said Russia and India are holding talks with a view to sign a contract for 48 (Mi-17 V5) helicopters and the techno-commercial negotiations are set to commence.

We hope that we will reach an agreement before the end of this year, he told a select group of journalists here on the sidelines of Russias premier air show MAKS 2017.

Last year, Russia had handed over to India the final batch of three Mi-17 V5 military transport helicopters under a previously signed contract with Rosoboronexport, a company of the Rostec State Corporation that entailed a total of 151 units of the Mi-17V-5 helicopter, produced by the Kazan Helicopter Plant.

Designed to transport cargo inside the cabin and on an external sling, the Mi-17 V5 is considered to be one of the worlds most advanced military transport helicopters.

Mi-17 V5, supplied to India, ranks among the most technically advanced helicopters of the Mi-8/17 type, incorporating the best engineering solutions of previous generations.

In 2008, Rosoboronexport signed a contract for the delivery of 80 Mi-17 V5 to India, which was completed in 2011 -2013. In 2012-2013, three additional contracts were signed to supply a total of 71 Mi-17 V5 helicopters to meet the needs of the Indian Air Force.

Talking about other projects that are under discussion between Russia and India, Mikheev said, We are discussing a programme for modernisation of SU-30 with our Indian partners.

The aircraft park is quite large.

During a period of 15 years, we have fulfilled all our obligations to the Indian party, the HAL Corporationsupplied quite a large aircraft park, over 200, under the license agreementand we are offering new developments of our design bureaus.

Moreover, the Indian Air Force has some requirements for improvement of performance and operational characteristics, mainly with regard to avionics, electronic warfare systems, as well as updates of weapon systems by both Indian and Russian companies, he said.

Mikheev said Russia was already considering the capabilities of the Indian industry within the framework of the Make in India programme and noted that under it a well- known project was the joint venture for Kamov 226T helicopters.

Asked about the first Russia-India military-industrial conference in March where some questions concerning the problem with spare parts were raised, Mikheev said the industrial conference was jointly held by Russias Minister of Industry and Trade Denis Valentinovich Manturov and Defence Minister Arun Jaitley during which both sides reached an agreement on the issue.

I think that its actually a big plus in our relations.

We have agreed that the programme of after-sales services will be participated by Russian dedicated holding companies, in order to ensure the operation of previously supplied equipment throughout its lifecycle. Its 20, 30, 40 yearswhether it be a submarine, a helicopter, a tank, etc., Mikheev said.

We have specified six companies that will carry out direct cooperation with both operators of Russian equipment and Indian companies that will be charged with operating this equipment and manufacturing its spare parts, he said.

Mikheev named the six companies that will carry out direct cooperation asthe United Shipbuilding Corporation, the United Aircraft Corporation, Russian Helicopters, the United Engine Corporation, Almaz-Antey and Tactical Missile Corporation.

Rosoboronexport is the only state-owned arms trade company in the Russian federation authorised to export the full range of military and dual purpose products, technologies and services. PTI
Grenoble, July 29

Body parts that could belong to passengers killed in one or other of two Air India plane crashes years ago have been found on Mont Blanc in the French Alps.

Daniel Roche, who is fascinated by air plane accidents and has spent years combing the Bossons Glacier looking for remains, made the discovery on Thursday.

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I had never found any significant human remains before, he said. This time, however, he had found a hand and the upper part of a leg.

In January 1966, an Air India Boeing 707 from Bombay to New York crashed near Mont Blancs summit, killing all 117 people on board. Another Air India flight crashed on the mountain in 1950, killing 48 people.

Roche said the remains he had found could be of a female passenger from the 1966 Boeing 707 flight, as he also discovered one of the planes four jet engines.

These remains are probably not from the same person, said Stephane Bozon of the local gendarmerie. They are probably from passengers, but between the two aircrafts, its difficult to say.

Just 10 days ago, two bodies were found lying near each other, preserved in a receding glacier in the Diablerets massif in the Swiss Alps.

A DNA search identified the couple as Marcelin Dumoulin, a 40-year-old shoemaker at the time, and his wife Francine, a schoolteacher aged 37, who had disappeared in the Alps 75 years before.  AFP
Thiruvanathapuram, July 30

Five persons have been taken into custody in connection with the killing of an RSS worker here, even as the BJP called for a dawn-to-dusk statewide hartal on Sunday to protest the incident.

A day after the incident, Home Minister Rajnath Singh voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala and said political violence was unacceptable in a democracy.

Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayans office here said Singh spoke to him this morning over phone.

The Chief Minister informed him that the state government would take action against the accused, whoever they may be. Rajnath Singh expressed satisfaction on this stand, the CMO said in a Facebook post.

A gang led by a history-sheeter had attacked the 34-year-old RSS karyavahak Rajesh and hacked him to death.

His left arm was chopped off and there were several injuries all over his body.

The police said the suspected main accused, a history-sheeter, was among those taken into custody from rural Kattakkada near here this morning.

City Police Commissioner G Sparjan Kumar said interrogation of the accused was going on.

Five persons are in police custody now. They were taken into custody from rural Kattakkada. A hunt is on for one more accused. Only a detailed questioning will reveal the exact number of accused involved in the crime, he said.

State Police Chief Loknath Behera has appealed to the people to restrain from spreading rumours and provocative messages, statements, photos and videos.

Any such action would attract legal action, he said, adding that WhatsApp groups and Facebook posts are under the scanner of police.

As part of precautionary measures, adequate police force has been deployed in all sensitive spots across the city, the official said.

The dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal called by the BJP today in protest against the incident was near-total with state-run and private buses keeping away from roads and shops and business establishments remaining closed.

Sporadic incidents of stone pelting on vehicles were reported in some parts of the state.

People, who reached railway stations unaware of the hartal, had difficulty in getting vehicles to reach homes.

The city police have extended prohibitory orders for three more days till August 2 and banned processions in the state Capital.

The ruling CPI(M) and the BJP traded charges each other over the killing of the RSS functionary.

While BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan alleged that the CPI(M) was behind the attack, the CPI(M) district leadership denied any role of the party in the attack.

Opposition leader in the state Assembly Ramesh Chennithala and Kerala Pradesh Congress Committee president M M Hassan went on a fast in Kozhikode district to protest the politics of violence.

Describing the murder as brutal, Kummanam said this is annihilation politics aimed at wiping off the RSS and BJP.

The BJP would take up the matter with the Prime Minister, Home Minister and National Human Rights Commission, he said.

The incident comes close on the heels of the attack on the BJPs Kerala unit office and stone pelting at the house of CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnans son Bineesh Kodiyeri here. PTI
New Delhi, July 30

Detection and reportage of suspicious transactions, fake currency notes and cross-border fund transfers in the country's economic channels doubled in the last fiscal year, leading to unearthing of over Rs 560 crore black money, a government report has said.

The report of the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the premier technical snoop wing under the Finance Ministry, said the financial year 2015-16 saw a "record increase" in the detection of such instances.

All banks and financial intermediaries apprise the FIU of the detections as part of their obligation to comply with the country's anti-money laundering and counter-terror financing measures.

"The year 2015-16 ... saw a record increase in the number of reports received, processed and disseminated by the FIU," the recent report, accessed by PTI, said.

The number of cash transaction reports (CTRs) doubled from 80 lakh in 2014-15 to over 1.6 crore in 2015-16 and that of suspicious transaction reports (STRs) rose from 58,646 to 1,05,973 during the period, it said.

"A similar growth was registered in counterfeit currency reports (CCRs) -- over 16 per cent, NTRs -- nearly 25 per cent, while there was an 850 per cent growth in the number of cross border wire transfer reports (CBWTRs) during the period," the report said.

The central agency, tasked with analysing suspicious transactions in Indian banking and other financial channels, also issued a "record number" of 21 sanctions against the violating entities (banks and others) under sections of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).

The report attributed the increase in the number of detections and their reportage to the FUI's "proactive outreach" to stakeholders to ensure that they increasingly detect such instances.

However, a senior finance ministry official said it was due to the "increasing penetration" of technology and awareness against suspect fund movements at a time when the fight against black money is actively being pursued in the country and the world.

"An increased awareness and the fight against black money is leading all the stakeholders, including the government and reporting entities such as banks and others, to be pro-active in detecting suspicious activities in their channels," the official said, requesting anonymity.

"A sustained momentum in law enforcement and strict compliance of established norms is required to keep these numbers growing, which is an indicator that the regime against black money, tax evasion and money laundering is strong in India," he said.

The report said based on the STRs disseminated by the FIU, the CBDT detected unaccounted income of Rs 154.89 crore, the Enforcement Directorate nosed out proceeds of crime of Rs 107.47 crore and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) came across assets worth Rs 300 crore during 2015-16.

The total value of money unearthed stands at Rs 562.36 crore.

It said the black money detection figures in the last fiscal year are for "only 5 per cent of cases" flagged by the FIU to probe agencies.

The FIU obtains reports from banks and other institutions and sends them for action to investigative and enforcement agencies that are mandated under the law to combat economic crimes.

While over 3.53 lakh CCRs were received in 2014-15, their number rose by 16 per cent to over 4.10 lakh in 2015-16.

Similarly, CBWT reports during 2015-16 increased to over 1.1 crore as against 34 lakh in the previous year.

Cross-border wire transfer pertains to any transaction of more than Rs 5,00,000 or its equivalent in foreign currency where either the origin or destination of fund is in India.

Likewise, CCR is defined as the usage of a forged or counterfeit currency note or bank note as genuine or where any forgery of a valuable security or a document has taken place during a cash transaction at a bank.

An STR is a transaction that either indicates that it has been made in circumstances of unusual or unjustified complexity or appears to have no economic rationale or bona fide purpose.

It is also applicable to the transactions that give rise to a reasonable ground of suspicion that it may involve financing of the activities relating to terrorism.

An NPO Transaction Report (NTR) pertains to all transactions involving receipts by non-profit organisations of more than Rs 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency.

The FIU, established in 2004, provides financial intelligence to law enforcement agencies for safeguarding the economy from abuses of money laundering, terrorist financing and other offences.

It disseminates this data to probe agencies to check economic crimes, ascertain the extent of fake Indian currency notes (FICN) in banking channels and undertake legal action under criminal laws to check money laundering and black money.  PTI
Amir Tantray

Tribune News Service

Jammu, July 30

The National Investigation Agency conducted raids at Jammu and Kashmir Social Peace Forum Chairman Devinder Singh Behls house on Sunday in connection with its investigations into funds for militancy in the state.

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Behl, who is considered close to Kashmiri separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani, was also questioned.

People gathered outside Behls house to raise anti-Hurriyat slogans.

The development came less than a week after the NIA arrested seven separatist leaders, among them Altaf Ahmed Shah, known popularly as Altaf Fantoosh  Geelanis son-in-law  as part of its crackdown on subversive activities in the Valley.

Menawhile, in a statement, the National Investigation Agency said it conducted searches today at residence and office of Devinder Singh Behl, Chairman, Jammu Kashmir Social Peace Forum (JKSPF), a constituent of APHC(G),

Behl is a member of the Legal cell of the Hurriyat. He is a close associate of a top Hurriyat leader and regularly attends funerals (Janaja) of militants, the NIA said, adding it is investigating into his role as courier as he is suspected to be involved in routing funds to the separatist leaders from Pakistan-based handlers.

During the searches, the NIA team has recovered four mobile phones, one tablet, other electronic devices, incriminating documents, financial papers and some other articles. The questioning by NIA teams was going on when the reports last came in.

In a related development, NIA also issued summons to Naseem, the second son of Geelani, who heads separatist conglomerate Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, to appear before the agency on Wednesday.

Geelanis elder son Nayeem has been summoned at the NIA headquarters tomorrow in connection with its probe in the terror funding case which names Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, the front of another proscribed outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT), Hafiz Saeed, as an accused.

Read: Under NIA lens, Geelani's son falls ill; in ICU

The NIA has also named separatist organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and all-woman outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat in its FIR.

A surgeon by profession, Nayeem had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years there. He is tipped as the natural successor to the Geelani-led Tehrek-e-Hurriyat, a separatist conglomerate comprising hardline groups.

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 the HM, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, LeT, other outfits and gangs.

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 the Kashmir Valley by way of pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.

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.

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 and carried out arrests.  With agency inputs
KV Prasad

A former diplomat turned External Affairs Minister of India, when asked to comment on a development once, remarked that a good diplomat thinks twice before saying nothing. Diplomacy, the art of managing international relations, requires adroitness, negotiation, finesse, discretion, skill and tactfulness in accomplishment of the objective.

Last week, Delhi witnessed some unusual movement when representatives of two countries  Iraq and Palestine  decided to state their countrys position on two separate issues: the former on the whereabouts of the 39 missing Indians and the latter on developments in Jerusalem causing friction back home between Israel and Palestine.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Ibrahim al-Jafaaris visit came around the time when a huge controversy broke over the fate of the 39 Indians missing in Iraq since 2014 when Mosul fell to the Islamic militants ISIS.

The Foreign Ministers statement that the Iraqi government cannot make a categorical statement either way brought some relief to the government, which appeared to have painted itself into a corner on the issue, earlier suggesting they could be in Badush jail, now in a state of rubble.

Around mid-week, Palestinian Ambassador to India Adnan Abu Alhaijaa interacted with the media on developments and human rights violations in occupied areas of Palestine, suggesting India should play a positive role and help find a solution to the crisis in West Asia.

India is a great country and it can play a leading role in resolving the crisis in our region, he said, exuding confidence that Israel will lend its ear and give due consideration to New Delhis counsel especially since India-Israel relations are on a high. The previous governments in India also had good relations with Israel but the current dispensation has very strong relations it can play a positive role.

The recent standalone visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa without going to Ramallah, the seat of the Palestinian Authority president, is being characterised as a policy of de-hyphenation.

Israelis and Palestinians were engaged in a bitter battle after the former erected metal detectors and added an extra layer of security at the Al-Aqsa mosque entrance two weeks ago. The area is known as Islams third holiest site and is close to the Western Wall, the holy site for Jews. The new measure came in the wake of gunning down of two police officials on July 14 at the entrance to the compound.

There were reports of regular clashes between Israeli security personnel and Palestinian protesters with the faithful boycotting the entry to the site. Last Thursday, Israel dismantled the security gates, which saw the return of people.
Our Correspondent

Tarn Taran, July 30

Four Congress workers were injured in a clash between two party factions at Bhikhiwind, near here, last late evening.

The supply contract of mid-day meal material (grain and cereal) to schools in the area is said to be the reason behind the clash. Party leader Rajinder Kumar Babbu Sharma holds the contract. A rival faction led by Surjit Singh Chakiwala, which wants the contract, had been levelling allegations of pilferage against Sharma.

Last evening, the material was being supplied to the schools in a four-wheeler when Surjit Singh and his associates chased the vehicle and reiterated the charges. Sharmas supporters reached the spot, which led to a clash between both parties.

Sub-Inspector Balwinder Singh, Station House Officer (SHO), Bhikhiwind police station, said both factions of the Congress were armed when the clash took place. Balwinder Singh, an associate of Surjit Singh, and three from the other faction  Deepu, Gurmukh Singh Sandpur and Akash Sharma  were injured in the clash, said the SHO.

The SHO confirmed that both sides belonged to the Congress. He said the statements of the injured were being recorded and further action would be taken accordingly.

Bone of contention
Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30

In a major success in the multi-crore Crown chit fund scam, the Ropar police today arrested a prominent accused Manoj Saini from Sriganganagar in Rajasthan.

This comes days after he had attended a function in Thailand where the top accused in the scam  Mohsin Jameel  floated a new chit fund company.

This function triggered a controversy with the Crown Chit Fund Investors Sangharsh Committee reporting to the Punjab Police and the Enforcement Directorate that the accused had started a new company Bitso-Lives with the old agents to again dupe gullible investors in the state.

Earlier, the same accused had floated seven companies, one after another, and offered money-doubling schemes to thousands of investors. Showing losses, they shut one company and opened another on the argument that the fresh company would recover previous losses also.

The accused caught the polices eye when his pictures from the Thailand function reached them. Saini was in the close group of Jameel, the CEO of the Crown Chit Fund Companies, and Managing Director Jagjit Singh.

He was one of the six persons whom Jagjit Singh gave the power of attorney to run the companies in September 2015. Saini owns a fleet of six buses under the Shine Transport company. Inspector Daljit Singh, incharge of the Economic Offences Wing of the Ropar police, said the arrest was made as per a previous FIR registered in the scam.

Saini is accused of hatching a conspiracy with the company directors to dupe the investors, he said.

Police officials here said that Sainis property including his transport firm might be attached soon if he had attained those riches from ill-gotten money through the chit fund company.

He has told Ropar police that he took a loan of Rs 1.5 crore to start the transport company.

Jai Kumar, spokesperson of the Sangharsh Committee, said the duped investors have heaved a sigh of relief at his arrest. We have accused him of sending Rs 37 lakh to Mohsin Jameel in England through hawala channels, he said.

The committee in its statement to the police said that MD Jagjit Singh had been given conditional bail by the High Court in September 2015 on the plea that he would return the money of all the investors. However, a week after his release, he gave Saini and five others the rights to run the company.

Inspector Daljit Singh, incharge, Ropar EO wing, said that by having the power of attorney, Saini was liable to be prosecuted for not keeping the promises made to the investors.

Was in touch with key accused
Balwant Garg

Tribune News Service

(Jaito) Faridkot, July 30

A day after an industrialist was shot dead by gangsters, the Faridkot police arrested relatives and supporters of the gangsters from the Jaito area this evening.

All those arrested have been accused of giving shelter to the gangsters. The arrested include four women, relatives of Gurbax Singh, kingpin of a gang operating in the area, and Harsimrandeep Singh, alias Sema, another member of the gang.

The police have registered a case under Sections 212 and 214 of the IPC (harbouring offenders who are charged with many offences and are evading arrest) against those arrested, said Nanak Singh, SSP, Faridkot.

The Jaito police booked Harsimrandeep Singh and an unidentified person under Sections 302 and 120-B of the IPC and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act for the murder of industrialist Ravinder Kochhar.

The police identified the accused after a scrutiny of the footage of two CCTV cameras installed outside the rice mill where Kochhar was shot dead on Saturday evening. Facing many cases, Harsimrandeep was again booked in February for allegedly taking away a car and Rs 10,000 from the industrialist.

Two of Harsimrans associates in the carjacking case had allegedly committed suicide in the Dabawali area last month after they were cornered by a joint team of the Punjab and Haryana police.

It is believed that Kochhar was killed as he had stopped paying extortion money to the members of this gang. All accused are members of the Ranjit Singh-Gurbax Singh gang of Sewewala village of Jaito. Though the gang has been operating in this area for the past over five years, it was for the first time that the police have nailed all those who were supporting and sheltering them.

Govt indifferent to rising crime: Badal

Muktsar: Reacting to the trader's killing, former CM Parkash Singh Badal on Sunday alleged that there was no law and order in the state. "It seems the government does not exist. It has no interest in maintaining law and order or carry out development works," said Badal during his visit to some villages in the Lambi Assembly segment. On British MP Tanmanjit Singh Dhesi's demand for an independent inquiry into the role of the UK government in Operation Bluestar, Badal said: "We don't have any issue. It is but clear that in a number of inquiries held in the past the then PM Indira Gandhi and the Congress were held responsible.". TNS

Cong busy in vendetta politics: Mann

Chandigarh: Aam Aadmi Party state convener Bhagwant Mann on Sunday criticised the Congress government for the deteriorating law and order in the state. Mann alleged that rather than taking action, the government was busy framing AAP leaders in bogus cases. He said people were being killed in broad daylight in the state and criminals were posting videos on social media challenging the police to arrest them, but the government had remained a mute spectator. Mann said the denial of security to the Jaito trader even after repeated requests showed that the police were working under pressure. TNS
Pregnant women in rural Gorkha face a tough time

Despite being in labour for 24 hours, Sarita Gurung, 29, of Kerauja in Dharche Rural Municipality, Gorkha, could not give birth.
Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30

Sukhwinder Singh alias Mithu of Kaunke Khosa had weaved a life of love and happiness with Canada-born Indian girl Jaswinder Kaur Jassi in the late 1990s. But when they got married against the wishes of Jassis parents, the dream life could be lived for a few weeks only. Both were attacked by a group of contract killers allegedly hired by Jassis mother and an uncle. Jassi died. Mithu survived, but only to live a life full of sufferings.

The incident took place in June 2000. Now, 17 years later, the tragic protagonist of the infamous honour killing case, which has been the subject of a movie, a book and a National Geographic documentary, has appeared before the recently constituted two-member Commission of Inquiry into false cases registered by the Punjab Police in the last 10 years. His list of sufferings is long and the commission is his only hope.

The range of cases against him varies from rape, for which he spent three-and-a-half years in jail before his acquittal, to rioting, snatching and even drugs smuggling. He has been booked six times in different cases and has already been acquitted in four.

The cops who arrested me were sympathetic, but they wanted me to forget all about Jassi and my fight for justice I have even declined several marriage proposals coming my way. I cant share my love for Jassi with anyone, Mithu told The Tribune.

A number of friends and relatives of the accused approached him to withdraw his statement against Jassis mother Malkiat Kaur and uncle Surjit Singh Badesha. Both are facing extradition to India to face trial in the case. While they are yet to face trial, Mithu has already faced many.

Every offer of a compromise I declined resulted in a new case against me, he has claimed before the commission. His application has been registered and notices have been sent to the police.

From an initial offer of Rs 10 lakh to the latest Rs 1.5 crore besides the ownership of 14 acres of land or a well-settled life abroad, the supporters of the accused have promised it all to me. But I cant trade my love for all this. I just want Jassis mother and uncle to be punished for what they did to her and me, said Mithu. His voice trembling in between as his torrid life flashes before his eyes.

In one such case, Mithu was booked for rape in 2004 and stayed in jail till his acquittal in 2008, when the rape victim stated that she was made to complain against him.

I had thought my ordeal had ended with the acquittal, but I was wrong. I was elected a member of the village panchayat while I was in jail. Even as I faced more cases, the villagers kept electing me again and again as it was their answer to the police excesses. I am in my third term now. I have worked with both Congress and the Akali Dal. And I have suffered at the hands of both, he said.
Sanjeev Singh Bariana

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, July 30

The Vigilance Department has narrowed down its investigation to eight of the 42 canal and drainage projects of top most priority after the Irrigation Department did not respond to its queries.

Of the 27 projects under the VB lens in Malwa, it will be investigating only seven. In Doaba and Majha, the bureau has trimmed the number of projects from 15 to just one.

The revised list of projects also includes Kakkar Manj canal in Amritsar.

The VB has sought information on administrative and technical approval for projects, tender notices, pre-bid meetings, comparative statements, work orders and bills. The projects were executed by contractors Gurinder Singh, Pushpinder Singh Sidhu and Khara contractors.

A communication to the department last week pointed out that the bureau had not received any reply to its July 3 communication. The Vigilance said the probe was marked following complaints of corruption in several projects.

Chief Director (Vigilance) BK Uppal has asked engineers to continue doing their job without fear.

Sources in the bureau said, Protests are pressure tactics to stall the investigation. No innocent will be harmed. At the same time, seeing the technicality involved in the matter, the case might be shifted to the CBI.

Engineers said they were being harassed for decisions, for which they were not responsible. The decision to not split work tenders so as to hasten the work was taken in a meeting presided over by former Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, they said.

The Joint Action Committee (JAC) of the engineers associations of the Irrigation Department will continue its agitation till August 7. Subsequently, engineers will proceed on a mass casual leave.

The bureau is randomly questioning the department staff, which are surprised that the vigilance wing of the department has not been included in the investigation.

BP Singh Brar, president, JAC, said: The VBs tone in the communication shows that the exercise smacks of vendetta politics against the previous SAD-BJP government.
Mogadishu: At least five persons were killed and 10 wounded in Somalias capital Mogadishu on Sunday when a car bomb detonated on a busy road, the security ministry said. There was no immediate claim of responsiblity but the bombing fits the pattern of Al-Qaida linked Shabaab Islamists, who have carried out numerous suicide bombings and raids in the capital targeting civilian, government and military targets. Security ministry spokesman Ahmed Mohamud said five civilians were killed and 10 others hurt in the blast. The car was parked along the congested Maka Al-Mukarama road and detonated remotely. AFP
Seoul, July 30

The United States flew two supersonic B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force on Sunday after Pyongyang's recent tests of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), the US and South Korean Air Forces said.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from US President Donald Trump.

The B-1B flight was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the "Hwansong-14" rocket, the US statement said. The South Korean air force said the flight was conducted early on Sunday.

The bombers took off from a US air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J.

O'Shaughnessy said in the statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing".

The US has in the past used overflights of the supersonic B1-B "Lancer" bomber as a show of force in response to North Korean missile or nuclear tests.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's missile launches, which it said violate United Nations Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang's banned nuclear and missile programmes.

"At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate," China's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

Trump very disappointed in China

However, Trump said he was "very disappointed in China".

In a message on Twitter, he said: "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet..."

"...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!" he said in a subsequent tweet.

The Hwasong-14, named after the Korean word for Mars, reached an altitude of 3,724.9 km (2,314.6 miles) and flew 998 km (620 miles)for 47 minutes and 12 seconds before landing in the waters off the Korean peninsula's east coast, KCNA said.

Western experts said calculations based on that flight data and estimates from the US, Japanese and South Korean militaries showed the missile could have been capable of going as far into the United States as Denver and Chicago.

David Wright of the US-based Union of Concerned Scientists wrote in a blog post that if it had flown on a standard trajectory, the missile would have had a range of 10,400 km (6,500 miles).

North Korea said on Sunday it had been forced to develop long-range missiles and nuclear weapons because of hostile intent by "American imperialist beasts" looking for another chance to invade the country.

"In case the US fails to come to its own senses and continues to resort to military adventure and 'tough sanctions', the DPRK will respond with its resolute act of justice as already declared," its foreign ministry said in a statement.

DPRK is short for the North's formal name, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It did not specify what action it would take.

The missile test came a day after the US Senate approved a package of sanctions on North Korea, Russia and Iran.

The foreign ministers of South Korea, Japan and the United States agreed to step up pressure on Pyongyang and to push for a stronger UN Security Council sanctions resolution. Reuters
WASHINGTON  In todays economy, speed is everything.

Amazons plans to add 50,000 jobs at a dozen warehouses across the United States and Foxconns decision to build a $10 billion plant and hire up to 13,000 workers in Wisconsin arent just feel-good stories of job creation. They reflect the pressures companies now feel to be as close to their customers as possible  a trend thats helping restore some American factories and jobs.

Computer advances increasingly let manufacturers customize orders and ship goods faster. In the new world, making products in faraway low-wage countries like China can be a disadvantage: It can take too long  weeks, months  to ship finished products to the United States.

This is about customer proximity, said Michael Mandel, chief economic strategist at the Progressive Policy Institute. You develop a sustainable and durable advantage against overseas competition.

Mandel said the growing trend would have emerged regardless of who occupied the White House. Still, President Donald Trump took the opportunity to take some credit Wednesday for the Foxconn announcement, saying it definitely happened because of his election and his pursuit of tax and regulatory cuts.

This is a great day for American workers and manufacturing, and for everyone who believes in the concept and the label, Made in the USA,  Trump said.Amazon plans to make thousands of hiring offers in one day when it holds a job fair this week across the country. People offered jobs on the spot will pack or sort boxes and help ship them. Nearly 40,000 of the 50,000 jobs will be full time, and most will count toward Amazons previously announced goal of adding 100,000 full-time workers by mid-2018.

In Oklahoma City, Amazon is seeking about 350 part-time workers. Interviews will be held 8 a.m. to noon Wednesday at the Credit Union House of Oklahoma, 631 E. Hill St.

The move reflects Amazons propulsive growth at a time when traditional retailers are closing stores and cutting jobs.

For Taiwan-based Foxconn, building a factory in Wisconsin brings it closer to U.S. buyers of its liquid-crystal display panels, which are used in televisions, computer screens and automotive dashboards. Foxconn intends to hire 3,000 workers initially and eventually perhaps employ as many as 13,000. It could also receive up to $3 billion in state incentives over 15 years.

The company is best-known for assembling Apple iPhones in China, but its Wisconsin factory wont be building iPhones.

For years, the United States has lost factory jobs as manufacturing moved to low-wage countries, especially China. But America has been regaining some of its competitive edge.

The Reshoring Initiative, a nonprofit set up to restore American factory jobs, says that last year, for the first time in decades, the number of manufacturing jobs created by U.S. companies that moved operations back to the United States and by foreign companies investing in America exceeded the jobs lost by U.S. companies moving abroad. Wages, rents and property prices have risen in China, thereby reducing the Chinese cost advantage. Machines increasingly do work once performed by people, which has reduced the importance of labor costs. And manufacturers more and more worry that supply chains that cross oceans can be disrupted by such unexpected shocks as earthquakes and other natural disasters, thereby delaying shipments to impatient buyers.

Still, the United States will remain somewhat dependent on foreign factories for basic parts that go into finished products. Trump has asserted that new factories in the United States will reduce the trade deficit, which dampens economic growth. But foreign-owned companies in the United States can easily widen the trade gap, according to analysis by Robert Scott, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank based in Washington.

These plants are always magnets for imports, Scott said.

Scott estimates that roughly 40 percent of Americas trade deficit in goods of $751.5 billion in 2014 came from the U.S. subsidiaries of foreign companies.

For Amazon, the more workers it employs and the more warehouses it operates, the faster it can deliver products directly to American households.

As Amazon and other online retailers supplant physical stores as the primary source for American shoppers, fewer and fewer of the employees who stand between customers and their purchases are traditional cashiers and sales clerks. Rather, theyre the people sorting boxes and driving forklifts in vast warehouses.

Over the past five years, jobs at U.S. department stores have fallen nearly 12 percent; jobs in warehouses are up 38 percent.

Were in the middle of a really historic transformation of the job market right now, says Bernard Baumohl, chief economist at the Economic Outlook Group. You have to broaden your view of what retail is these days.

Still, Gary Burtless, an economist at the Brookings Institution, says Amazon may struggle to hire all those new workers: The U.S. unemployment rate has already fallen to 4.4 percent, close to a 16-year low.

Amazon is going to have to work a little harder than it would have three years ago to fill 50,000 slots, he says. Theres not a reserve army of unemployed to draw on anymore.
Charley and Kenneth Pearson work as long as daylight allows, no matter the scorching Oklahoma sun, pounding rain or freezing cold. Its no easy way to make a living, but the Pearsons never knew anything else.

But as other family farms around them disappeared, the Pearsons defiantly pressed on in the sand rock hills of southern Osage County. Its more than the farm, no matter the price of the ground they stand on.

Its still country, Charley Pearson said. Every time I go to town and I drop over that hill by the church, you still drop back into the country, no matter what there is behind you.

Like hundreds of other farms, the Pearsons roots go back 90 years to the original homestead. Today, they raise calves to be sent to grazing fields near Enid.

Twice a year, calves are sold and loaded on a tractor trailer, itself a surprisingly intricate and logistical process to line up seller, cattle and buyer in April and October. The Pearsons gradually expanded to todays 2,300 acres as farms around them faded away.

Soon, half-million dollar houses started popping up on sold farmland. Subdivisions started selling lots up the road for country living within commuting distance of downtown Tulsa. Change came fast in the past 10 years.

Although the brothers drive late-model trucks and run a modern business from Charleys office, there are relics to the generations before them on every inch of the property.

In the old barn, a massive collection of rusting license plates hangs in the corrugated metal building. Older houses and workshops still stand, including the barn the Pearson family broke apart and hauled to the ranch from Pawhuska to start the farm.

Past the gate, Charley and Kenneth keep their great-grandfathers 1959 Chevrolet Apache farm truck where it was last parked, the three-speed column shifter still in the truck. The weather turned the trucks green paint to a rusting, fading patina color. If Charley and Kenneth have their way, the truck will be there as long as theyre alive.

The brothers hold on to things, not only because they can save money if older equipment still works, but also its untold sentimental value.

Not for the young

The Pearsons  Charley is 57 and Kenneth is 67  have farmed for a long time, and so has the average farmer in Oklahoma. According to the 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture farm census, the average Oklahoma farmer is 58.3 years old, the same as the national average. Its also up from 57.6 in 2007 and 56 in 2002.

The youngest farmers in America dont have the farm as their primary income source, according to census data. Those farmers with a primary job off the farm are about 52 years old on average. Retirement farmers are the oldest category, with an average age of 69 for those operating a farm to supplant normal retirement.

Several factors drive up the average age. Unlike most jobs, the Pearsons live on one paycheck a year. None of their income is guaranteed. Theres no timecards at the gate. Its hard work, and the Pearsons said younger generations would rather work 40 hours a week for a regular wage.

Not only is the work difficult and wages dependent on countless variables, but its also getting more difficult for young people to start up new farms.

For a young person to come out here and start out, its not impossible because it has been done, Kenneth Pearson said. But theyre so far in debt theyll never get out.  Theyll never see the light of day.

Tom Buchanan sees both sides of the situation. When hes not working as the Oklahoma Farm Bureaus president, hes working cattle and irrigated cotton at his ranch in Altus.

Like most of America, more than 90 percent of Oklahomas farms are considered family farms. Corporate farms are growing, but Buchanan said most of those look and are operated nearly identical to comparable independent family farms.

Of more than 80,000 farms in Oklahoma as of 2012, 91 percent were family-owned single proprietorships. Family-held corporations made up 2 percent in 2012, up from 1.2 percent in 2002. Partnerships make up 4.5 percent, down from 6.8 percent in 2007.

With the changing dynamics of family farms, Buchanan said hes not sure young people will have the option to start their own farm in the near future.

It is an extremely steep hill for a young producer to start out brand new without any kind of family ties, Buchanan said. I really view that as extraordinary for 10-15 years from now for a brand new, never farmed, no family tied in, to break into farming.

Its going to be those people who can come back or grow in to an existing family farm. Thats the real outlook.

The lean times

Other factors make staying in farming more difficult, Buchanan noted. Land prices make startup costs painfully high, and most smaller farms operate on razor thin profit margins. A broken axle on the tractor, brush fire or hail storm can throw a whole years work in the red.

The Pearsons have seen it firsthand. A single lightning strike can kill dozens of cattle. Predators can pick off one at a time. Droughts and wicked weather can wreak havoc.

During the drought in 2011, most, if not all, of the nearby cattle farmers were forced to sell their herds or risk taking a catastrophic loss when drinking ponds dried up. In a pinch, farmers can ship hay in to feed cattle, but at a high cost. Charley Pearson said its almost impossible to haul in enough water for the cattle.

Despite the inherent risk with farming on all scales, Buchanan said farms growing into larger albeit family-run businesses is good for the agricultural industry as a whole.

The American consumer today enjoys the most abundant, most affordable and highest quality food supply America has ever seen, Buchanan said. Thats a result of the American farmer-rancher today. I believe they will continue to provide the most affordable, safest food supply this nations ever seen.

Although the romanticized family farm as the Pearsons have run for nearly a century is slowly giving way to larger, family-run farming corporations, the job wont be easier.

Farmers will continue to face both good and bad years. Cattle, wheat and other commodities will fluctuate as they have for decades.

But the Pearsons wouldnt have it any other way.

Ive had a lot of people ask me, Would you have ever done anything else? Charley Pearson said. And absolutely not. This is what I like to do. I enjoy doing this. I dont think I could ever work in a factory and do the same thing standing in the same spot every day in, day out.

Its a livelihood, and I think youll see that in the younger generation. If they really appreciate it, theyll see it as something totally different that people just dont realize goes on in todays times.
Instead of yelling over each other, avoiding one another or constantly being offended, its time to talk. Really talk. One-on-one. Family to family.

In one of the more enlightening public discussions lately, Tulsa consultant Risha Grant and Bishop Carlton Pearson spoke last week about their personal experiences and observations about bias and prejudice mixed with introspection and hope.

The jumping off point was Grants book, Thats BS: How Bias Synapse Disrupts Inclusive Culture. Pearson, who wrote the books foreward, called it academic and one of the most important pieces of literature in long time.

I feel Tulsa is on the verge of a major shift in consciousness, Pearson said. The city is finally becoming the gathering place.

The moderator of the event, hosted by Magic City Books, set the tone quickly and directly.

Bias affects voting rights, it affects education policy. Bias affects our self-confidence, immigration laws, election outcomes. Bias affects everything, and it even results, as we know, in loss of life, said Alison Anthony, newly named chief operating officer of the Tulsa Area United Way after serving in leadership roles at Williams since 1999.

We just cant go on in the same old way.

Its really simple

Much of the goals for diversity and inclusion in companies must start in the home with personal introspection.

We have to deal with our own mess, our own BS, before we can even start to deal with issues in the workforce, Grant said.

Grants approach is about making intentional changes based on honest instinctual reactions to others.

The companies Ive worked with and communities Ive worked in, they see diversity and inclusion as this huge complex concept, Grant said. We are forgetting its really simple because its about humanity.

Understanding bias is to recognize it and put a name to it. Some bias may be benign but can turn poisonous when morphing into a desire to harm, Pearson said.

Its cultural; its deeply embedded in the psyche of the people, Pearson said. So my response to it, I learned, was not to make it defensive or offensive but to slowly try and understand why the people or person thinks, acts or responds a certain way.

Both spoke of inequities. Some large and institutional, such as Grants grandmother not being allowed into local nursing schools so she worked as a maid instead.

Then, there are subtleties, such as greeting cards with little to no images of ethnic people or Apple belatedly including a black thumbs-up emoji. For decades, toys such as dolls and figurines were only in the likeness of white people.

Its these little things. You learn to adapt. If you havent had to walk that road, you dont understand it, Grant said.

Politics were not a part of the overall conversation. But, Pearson said problems from bias and prejudice are hard to separate from it, saying the present situation politically feels like weve gone back 40 years.

Im just so stunned that so many evangelical Christians so adamantly support Donald Trump, Pearson said. They are putting opinions over values. To me, the bottom line is racism. This man just slams the first black president so viciously, so violently, so unceasingly Im offended, and Ive never been that offended racially in my life.

Its really worrying me, and I find it quite bothersome that this group Ive worked and walked with for so many years may not like me the way I thought they did. So theres a whole new mentality that Im having to confront and not myself be prejudiced.

I admit to being prejudiced and having to deal with my own personal, private and very powerful prejudices, and Im dealing with it as deliberately and intentionally as I know how.

Conversations needed

Speaking frankly about their own biases, Grant and Pearson said change starts by inviting others who are different into your world. And, they say not to be overly sensitive when possible friends and allies slip up.

We have to give each encounter, especially if youre interested in the person you are addressing or who is asking the question, a safe space, Pearson said. A safe place to display whatever unkind or ignorance that is there or prejudice without you jumping down their throat.

Pearson described a time a friend invited a gay man to his home. The two spoke in detail about the difference in feelings they have toward women.

Id been around gay people my whole life but had never had that conversation, Pearson said. I had the most engaging conversation, the most revealing conversation, and the prejudices and the biases began to diminish  I learned a lot.

So many assumptions are made about people without actually knowing them, such as immigrants or people with disabilities.

Anthony mentioned a possible project of pairing opposite people and families for dinners in their homes. Pearson jumped in with a resounding yes.

When you have a conversation with that person, you start to soften up. What we dont do is put forth the work and effort to relate to people who are different, Pearson said.

Among the audience questions was about how media can help advance the concept of unity. Pearson said media focuses on breaking, straight-forward news.

I dont think they see themselves as bridge builders or fixers or healers, Pearson said. They need to change their consciousness, because they have so much of our attention.

The thought-provoking evening brought together a diverse crowd, but Grant pointed out how even the most progressive people gloss over the hard questions.

We are so busy being politically correct that we never say what needs to be said. We cant talk to each other without offending, Grant said. Weve got to have conversations. Weve got to do it respectfully, but weve got to say what needs to be said.
Tonight on Four Corners is a BBC report Weapons of Mass Surveillance from Nawal Al-Maghafi on the international cyber arms trade giving governments the tools to spy on their citizens.

It used to be walls have ears, now its smartphones have ears. Activist

The digital age has revolutionised the way we live our lives, giving us the tools to connect with people and share information in ways that would have previously been impossible. But this same technology has also given governments the ability to spy on their citizens on an astonishing scale.

Every country willing to write a pay check to the right party can do this sort of surveillance but no one wants to admit it. Cyber security specialist

Cyber surveillance technology enables governments to collect, catalogue and analyse the communications of millions of people.

Youd be able to intercept any internet traffic. If you wanted to do a whole country, go ahead. Former cyber security employee

This BBC investigation reveals a shadowy international trade in this cyber weaponry.

These companies are commercial players, (they) are developing these highly sophisticated technologies that could have a deep impact on our national security, on peoples lives. European MP

From international arms fairs to highly classified manufacturing facilities, the program tracks how major weapons makers have branched out from producing conventional arms to cyber espionage tools, landing lucrative deals worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Many of these deals are with countries run by repressive regimes.

Its a trade-off. None of these countries have the same ethical, moral code as we do  but we still do it. Every country therefore involves some form of compromise. Former Head of Cyber Security, UK Ministry of Defence

In interviews with workers hired to carry out mass scale cyber espionage, the film shows how these tools are being used to shut down dissent.

We focused on all the opposition. There were no exceptions. Former cyber security employee

Those targeted by highly invasive cyber surveillance say their lives have been shattered.

Being watched is a horrible feeling. You lose your freedom because you cannot move. Its a violation of your privacy. Its like having a stranger in your bedroom. Activist

Monday 31st July at 8.30pm on ABC.
Network bosses are unhappy with SBS and ABC moving further away from their Charter, with SBS under fire for its increased US content.

Sevens Tim Worner, Nines Hugh Marks, TENs Paul Anderson and Foxtels Peter Tonagh have all weighed in recently on the public broadcasters seemingly moving in on their turf, with public funding in tow. They argue that covering the same terrain is not why the public broadcasters were set up.

SBS has recently screened, or is about to unveil, Fargo, Roots, The Handmaids Tale, The Good Fight, Outlander, The Secret Life of Marilyn Monroe, while its multichannels have aired Uncle Buck, The Brothers, Scarface, 8 Mile, Purple Rain and Batman reruns.

It is clear they are now chasing the same programs and audience as us. They are not playing the distinct and special role set out for them in legislation. In particular the steadily growing amount of UK and US content on SBS does not seem consistent with its multicultural objectives, Tim Worner told The Australian.

Hugh Marks said Nine was increasingly finding itself going head to head with SBS for content, which is raising prices.

The landscape has changed so a full review of the role of public broadcasters in that landscape is a necessity. And this must include an update of their charters to reflect a more detailed social contract, including obligations around local content.

But SBS has had to become increasingly nimble in its revenue raising after cuts in funding together with a knock back for plans to increase primetime ads. SBS On Demand is becoming a quiet achiever for the network, much to the concern of commercial rivals.

SBS has long-argued multiculturalism extends beyond ethnicity, to include other cultures: gay, senior, youth, disabled and more. It says the broadly appealing titles help underpin its locally-distinctive titles.

In a statement it said, Many of the programs identified would not have been considered by Seven and Nine, and these claims are only being made after seeing SBSs recent success. SBS is bringing Australians more diverse content exploring cultures and celebrating diversity than it ever has before, including telling stories otherwise untold in the Australian media through its distinctive news and current affairs, our more than 70 in-language radio programs, and TV series such as The Family Law, Filthy, Rich and Homeless and upcoming drama Sunshine.

Marshall Heald, SBS Director of Television and Online Content, recently told TV Tonight, content was also chosen for its thematics.

A show like The Good Fight, when you pick it apart, is about an affluent, white lawyer working in a black law firm and having to engage in a whole ecosystem that she has no experience with. So theres a strong Charter alignment there, he said.

As an acquisitions network, and one of the few networks in the world with our kind of purpose, its very difficult for us to consistently acquire content that 100% meets our needs. We could really only do that if we had more local commissions.


One of Southern Nevadas most cherished charities will be moving into a new home for its headquarters. Shawn Danoski, CEO of Las Vegas-based DC Building Group, said construction has been completed on the new Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation facility and The Caring Place  which helps thousands of Southern Nevada residents annually.

The facility will be dubbed the Britney Spears Campus due to her generous fundraising efforts of over $1 million.

The 15,578 square-foot building at 3711 E. Sunset Road broke ground on April 17 and opened its doors on July 17. The new structure combines more than 45 pediatric and adult services which were previously located at two separate locations. Almany Architecture served as the architect of record. DC Building Group teamed up with Penta Building Group and a number of other subcontractors to donate both the construction time and funds needed to accomplish this project.

Serving as general contractor for the new facility, DC Building Group managed all the construction efforts for the foundations new offices. The project consisted of combining six existing tenant spaces into one functioning, flowing space that occupies the entire building, bringing NCCF and The Caring Place under one roof. This involved the demolition of most of the buildings interior, its roof, and some existing doors. A new roof was installed along with new interior walls and infill windows where doors had existed. Additionally, life safety systems were updated, and finishes were provided throughout the building.

Some of the new interior features include: four massage therapy rooms  Tranquility, Peace, Harmony, and Joy; an art therapy room; a craft room called Healing Arts; and a Pink Door room containing a special door adorned with hopeful quotes that serves as a motivational piece to others encountering a new journey in healing, as well as honor the founders Dr. Mary Ann Allison, MD, FACP, an Oncologist and Hematologist from Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada and her patient Connie Bernstein.

The Nevada Childhood Cancer Foundation and The Caring Place play an important role in the community, said DC Building Group Project Manager Ryan Plutchak. Numerous community members are affected by cancer or life-threatening diseases of some sort, whether it be personally or with friends and relatives. This foundation provides a place for people to turn to when these tragedies strike and they need help. DC Building Group is honored to offer financial assistance, design/value engineering assistance, and the time to complete the project. We provided a package that cut costs, shortened the schedule, and maintained the original intent of the property.

We are so thrilled and genuinely excited about moving into our new beautiful location. Our heartfelt thanks go out to Britney Spears for her compassion and dedication to our cause, giving us the means to do this through a recent capital campaign, said Jeff Gordon, NCCF president and CEO. The impact this will have on all the families we serve will be immeasurable as it will allow us to take care of even more community members in need of our many services.


The famed Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino presents the 40th Tribute to The King of Rock n Roll, Elvis Presley, a month-long celebration with casino promotions, food specials and more (Pictured: Donny Edwards Tribute to Elvis).

Held throughout the month of August, the celebration will include:

Friday, August 11, 2017 through Friday, August 18, 2017

Eat like a King at Sids Cafe! Available Friday, August 11 through Friday, August 18, the King Specials include Grilled Peanut Butter, Bacon and Banana Sandwich served with thick-cut Fries or house-made Potato Chips for $14, Southern Fried Chicken with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy, Corn On the Cob and homemade Buttermilk Biscuits for $20 and BBQ Beef Brisket with Baked Beans, thick-cut Fries and Cole Slaw for $20.

Sids Cafe offers a creative approach to home style cooking, while boasting attentive service and large plates of freshly prepared food. Menu options include appetizers, salads, diverse entrees, delicious burgers and desserts. Sids Cafe operates Sunday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to midnight; Friday and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 2 a.m. Dress code is casual and Sids Cafe is a non-smoking restaurant.

Friday, August 11, 2017 & Saturday, August 12, 2017

Enjoy two special performances of The King Lives! Donny Edwards Elite Tribute to Elvis on Friday, August 11 and Saturday, August 12. Starring Donny Edwards, the only Elvis Tribute Artist to perform at the hallowed grounds of Graceland, and an incredible 10-piece band, The King Lives! Donny Edwards Elite Tribute to Elvis will take fans from the nostalgic songs of the 1950s and 1960s to The Kings transition into the famous jumpsuit of the 1970s.

Held inside the famed International Showroom, tickets for The King Lives! Donny Edwards Elite Tribute to Elvis! start at $22 plus tax and applicable fees. Both shows begin at 7 p.m. and are open to all ages.

Monday, August 14  Rock the Wheel! Spin to Win

Held Monday, August 14 from 1 p.m. to 3 p.m., new Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino Players club sign-ups and locals who receive a special direct mail coupon will be given the chance to win a prize, including a hand-painted silk scarf, similar to those worn by The King, from Opportunity Village.

Held adjacent to the famed International Theater, qualified participants will receive one spin. Prizes are available while supplies last. Must be 21 years or older. Players Club membership is always free and as a Players Club member, you will earn Tier Points from your tracked slot and table play to determine how close you are to the next exciting level of benefits  comprised of Classic, Premium, Elite and Ultra tiers. Join the most rewarding choice in Las Vegas players clubs to earn complimentary rooms, meals, free slot play, special events and more.

Tuesday, August 15  2X Tuesday

Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino Players Club members can earn double slot points on Tuesday, August 15 from 12:01 a.m. to 11:59 p.m. Double points can be earned on reel/video reel machines and video poker machines. Not eligible for table game play. All game options, including Keno and reel games, played on Game king Machines will earn points at a Video Poker Ration.

Wednesday, August 16  $5,000 Rock n Roll Slot Tourney

Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino Players Club members are invited to the $5,000 Rock n Roll Slot Tournament on Wednesday, August 16 from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. Held at the Slot Tournament Area, between the Casino Cage and Fresh Buffet, participants will have the opportunity to win one of 16 cash prizes, including a grand prize of $2,000 in slot play.

Participants must be 21 years or older. Each qualified participant will play one session, with each session lasting two minutes. Prizes will be determined on how many points are earned at the conclusion of the two minutes. A total of $5,000 in cash play will be awarded, with the prize structure as follows:

1 st place  $2,000

 $2,000 2 nd place  $1,000

 $1,000 3 rd place  $600

 $600 4 th place  $300

 $300 5 th place  $200

 $200 6 th place 7 th place  $150 each

 $150 each 8 th place  10 th place  $100 each

 $100 each 11th place  16th place  $50 each

Thursday, August 17  Dress like the King!

Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino Players Club members are invited to dress like The King. Participants who dress like The King and post their photo on the Westgate Las Vegas Resort & Casino Facebook and Instagram accounts on Thursday, August 17 will receive one free entry into Fresh Buffet.
AUBURN  The intersection of Genesee Street and Loop Road can be a busy one, but on Friday evenings, many steer clear of it for another reason.

That's when, for more than 20 years now, the members of Blessed Hope Baptist Church in Elbridge have stood on all four corners of the intersection. Toting signs with Bible passages, they try to strike up conversations with passersby. They hand them pamphlet comics asking, "Are you a good person?" And they preach in voices that boom above the weekend traffic.

There's another thing the members of Blessed Hope do, though: They tell people they're going to hell. Speaking to The Citizen, several of those people said they were denounced by the church's members for being rude, politely disagreeing or just showing no interest in the message of Blessed Hope. Some described even more intense encounters, too.

Though many resent the church's forceful presence at a prominent intersection Friday evenings, the city of Auburn said it follows the law and has been the subject of no complaints. But criticism of Blessed Hope isn't limited to the devil horns and heavy metal music that greet its street ministry: Local people of faith also question whether rankling people is the best way to reach them.

'A lost and dying world'

The pastor of Blessed Hope is Eric Richards. In an interview during the church's presence on the corner July 14, Richards said he and other Blessed Hope members have been coming there since 1997. Many were part of another Baptist church in Elbridge, where Richards was an assistant pastor, but they left with him to form Blessed Hope at 1303 Route 5 three years ago, he said.

Richards said he wanted to start a street ministry because "I wanted to keep Jesus Christ in front of a lost and dying world."

"There's a lot of people who want to talk about the Lord and they don't. A lot of people don't know where to go," he said. "We can give them an opportunity if you want to talk."

Though Richards didn't know the area well, he first took his ministry of two or three people to Genesee and Loop because "this is where I believe the Lord wanted me to start." Today, about 15 to 20 gather with him at 7:30 p.m. Fridays in Market Street Park to pray, then stand at the nearby intersection for about an hour and a half. Richards said it's voluntary.

The pastor emphasized that Blessed Hope doesn't stand on the corner to pack its pews. He said the church is simply trying to spread the word of God as written in the King James Bible, and that Luke 14:23  "And the lord said unto the servant, Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled."  compels Blessed Hope to do so downtown.

Richards measures his ministry's success by its obedience to that verse, he said. Though he couldn't recall anyone who's joined his church through the ministry, the pastor said he has meaningful conversations with a couple people every Friday. It's also possible Blessed Hope inspires people to go to other churches, which Richards said he encourages because it still brings them to Jesus.

"'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved,'" he said, quoting Acts 16:31. "Our message is believe in him, because the salvation of your soul depends on that."

'More like harassment'

It's not just a message, though. Several people who've encountered the members of Blessed Hope Friday evenings in downtown Auburn said that what the church delivers is more like a demand.

Jenna LaMontagne, 20, of Auburn, said Richards once asked her if she's going to heaven or hell  and, in an argument that ensued, whether she's "a homosexual."

"He said that's wrong and 'homosexuals are going to hell,'" said LaMontagne, who told the pastor the Bible contradicts itself "all the time" and even recited a passage back at him, she claimed.

"They don't try to get your attention in a nice way," she continued. "They start off by saying, 'You're going to hell if you don't listen to me.' They're supposed to be accepting. But every encounter that I've had with them, they weren't polite at all."

Toni Brown, 35, of Auburn, said she told members of the church she was a (Methodist) Christian, and therefore "already saved," when they approached her last summer. They nonetheless insisted on her stopping to hear their message, Brown continued. As she walked away from them, they told her "you're going to hell."

"It seems a lot more like harassment. They're going to scare people away from the church," she said. "Kids aren't going to want to go to church after being screamed at that they're going to hell."

Amber LaVine, who now lives in Florida, recalled walking by Blessed Hope members about three years ago with her daughter Miranda, then 7. When Miranda said the members should "shut up," Amber said, they told the child that she was going to hell, and a sinner. Amber said she has avoided downtown Auburn on Friday evenings ever since.

Both LaVine and Brown also said they fear the church's street ministry will someday lead to people getting hurt. For Tony Pierce, it almost did.

The owner of Sign Guys on Osborne Street, a few hundred feet away from the intersection of Loop and Genesee, Pierce said his customers complain about the Blessed Hope members "all the time." It was partly for that reason, Pierce said, that he counter-protested Blessed Hope, waving his own signs, June 23. He called it "performance art and rage all rolled into one."

Pierce returned to the intersection with friend Joseph Goodwin July 7.

There, both said, a man standing with the church members took pictures of the two and, when they left, followed them down Genesee, toward Swaby's. Pierce and Goodwin said they witnessed the man showing people on the street the photos he took and asking for the names and addresses of the two. Pierce also said the man told him he'd have his business shut down in three weeks.

A third witness, who asked not to be identified, corroborated Pierce's account but said the man did not appear to be affiliated with the church.

Richards said Blessed Hope members are instructed to stay on the corner, and that following people, even critics, is "not something we practice and certainly something that I don't do."

Asked about his ministry telling passersby that they're going to hell, however, the pastor admitted as much. But he said it's "not vindictive."

"Has that ever been said? I'm sure. People try to make it vindictive, but revelation or scripture is not vindictive," Richards said. "It's for people to see for themselves what could happen to them if they do not adhere to what Jesus Christ spoke."

'You just get Bible quotes'

Auburn police were called to Swaby's when Pierce and Goodwin claimed someone followed them there from Blessed Hope's street ministry July 7.

But Chief Shawn Butler said the department could find no record of its response, nor the report Pierce said he filed at the station the next morning.

Both Butler and Auburn City Manager Jeff Dygert said they have received no complaints about Blessed Hope, and that the church follows the rules of public demonstration: It stays on the sidewalks and doesn't block them. As for harassment, Butler said, telling people they're going to hell doesn't amount to an arrestable offense, particularly without a complaint.

"Religious freedom is a topic we as police don't want to really challenge," Butler said. "I wouldn't ask my officers to get in the way of anybody's right to protest or practice their religion."

Blessed Hope also endures its own share of harassment, said member Michaela Tyrell, of Liverpool. Standing at the intersection since she was 7, Tyrell said people walking or driving by often direct vulgarity and middle fingers at the church members. But she has continued coming out for 15 years because "I care about people and I want them to know the truth," she said.

Lauren Smith, who saw Pastor Richards preach at an event at the Jordan-Elbridge Community Center in April, stressed seeing beyond the church members' actions at Genesee and Loop.

"Maybe they come across harsh, but when I met them in person they were not harsh," Smith said. "They were the opposite of what people were saying they experienced."

Smith, of Owasco, said she also saw another member of the church, whom she knows only as Jeremiah, speak at an Auburn church. His message, she continued, was helpful to her.

Still, even other people of faith find fault in the way Blessed Hope shares its own. The Rev. Frank Lioi, pastor of St. Marys Church and SS. Mary & Martha Parish in Auburn, said the church diverges from Catholicism and other denominations by believing the King James Bible is a "direct communication from God" with "total authority."

"It's hard to talk to them. You just get Bible quotes," the reverend said. "They would see us as totally evil or un-Christian."

Lioi also questioned whether Blessed Hope's confrontational style of street ministering in downtown Auburn is winning more critics than converts.

"For most people, that puts them off rather than engages them," he said. "That's more an annoyance than an invitation."
We do what we can, each of us in our own way. And we do it for each other, chipping at the devil, until hes done.

Its tragic that this line still resonates months after it was written, but I definitely needed it coming from our punk mom in her final, heroic hours. My notes for this episode have so many expletives and excessive punctuation, I dont know if Ill ever recover!

As I mentioned last week, the final season has felt sluggish, but Guillotines Decide shows us how powerfully that pace can unfold like a grisly, slow-motion car crash. As we watched, we were powerless to stop the horrors that crept up on our beloved Leda family. It makes sense that director Aaron Morton is primarily a cinematographer, as every lingering frame of this weeks episode overflows with a sense of foreboding, each scene almost daring us to guess to which character we ought to be saying our good-byes. To say nothing of this Blade Runner meets The Americans meets Mad Men magnificence:

Photo: BBC America

Yes, thats Siobhan and a recovering Rachel in a motel room, where Ferdinand  who, unfortunately, was Siobhans other informant  has sequestered his BDSM queen after rescuing her from Westmorlands lackeys. Lest we forget, Ferdy stomped a woman to death recently, but hes now provided the final piece necessary to bring down Neolution by delivering Rachel and her cornucopia of receipts safely to them. (Rachel calls him the only man who ever really loved [her], which is sad, not only because she evidently cant tell the difference between love and fetishization, but also because she calls him daddy a few too many times.)

Alone with the prodigal clone, Siobhan finally reveals the whole picture: Although the Neolution board has lobbied governments worldwide to pass laws requiring people to submit DNA samples  presumably to have access to a wider diversity of genetic material  Dyad and its affiliates have constructed a commercial behemoth that will allow it to sell curated evolution to the one percent. Once this is deployed, Coadys Castor disease will be weaponized en masse to sterilize the rest of us, thus making Westmorlands (and Hitlers) dream  and our dystopian nightmare  a reality.

Rachel knows this well, and before discovering she was the subject of a biosurveillance trial, she probably didnt have a single damn to give about its execution. Now, she realizes that this apocalyptic capitalist scheme will produce thousands of lives like the one she led at Dyad, lives that only exist to serve the sick whims of rich white guys, and she decides thats morally unacceptable. Mostly, though, she just wants hella revenge.

The Neolution board, meantime, has been entirely too distracted by the fallout from her email uncovering P.T.s fraudulence to take much note of anything else. Its surviving members are practically begging to be extorted: When Van Lier explains the rests absence  Suicides, he says, as casually as one might say, Traffic  Ferdinand delightedly crows, Its Neolution Black Friday!

Ferdinand understands Rachels megalomaniacal thirst for vengeance, of course, which is why he makes such a perfect pawn, one that could distract the board with his arrogant dance, waving around an empty thumb drive he thinks is a copy of Rachels backup evidence file for long enough to get the real documents uploaded and leaked to the government and press. (Including evidence of bribery, as well as key patents in six areas  food, pharmaceuticals, cloning, gene editing, gene sequencing, and biosurveillance.) But its his inability to ever grasp the pain of her entire existence that finally pushes Rachel to betray him and his vision of presiding over a dynasty of obscene wealth, in favor of Siobhans vastly humbler offer: Give yourself a chance to be truly free.

Meanwhile, Felix and Adele have returned from Switzerland, bless them, with a shit mountain of cheese (actually, bless them twice). Felix suddenly has an art opening  possibly due to some quick thinking he did in Geneva with this gallerist he wanted to impress?  and everyone decides to take the night off to support one of their favorite boys. Well, everyone except Siobhan and Delphine, who are busy doing the Rachel/Ferdinand deal behind Sarahs back (shed be furious, considering the whole murdered her sister bit).

Donnie bartends and Hell Wizard dons his best THE FUTURE IS FEMALE crewneck sweatshirt to DJ and partake in some light rapping (help). On the way over with hors doeuvres, a suspicious Sarah confronts Adele, who lets the Ferdinand thing slip, but all seems to be fine once S arrives to explain that the maneuver was successful. Cosima and I both started sobbing when she and Delphine clicked send on those documents (The Guardian?! After all Vulture has done for you?!). Theyre officially, if not yet logistically, free of Neolutions exploitation.

But first, Siobhan Sadler, one of the most casually badass characters to ever grace a television screen, must attend to some unfinished business. Though the hope was that the board kill Ferdinand after realizing he didnt have the evidence needed to extort them, Ferdy would never go down without first raging about being defeated out on a woman. He tries Rachel at the motel, but of course, its no fun when the girl youre strangling kind of wants to die anyway! Still furious, he heads to Siobhans, where, after preparing a tearful note and arming herself with a 9-mm, she abandons the party to meet him. Her plan is not perfect, but Siobhan Sadler always does the extra credit: After theyve both laid down their first set of weapons, Ferdinand reveals he found one of her hidden guns and shoots her in the heart  but he overlooks the second weapon, hidden in a chair, until its in her hand and opening his jugular. At the very least, she gets to watch the life drain from him completely before clutching a photo of her chickens and letting go herself.

Like I said: I was not okay, I am not okay, I will never be okay. But now Helena is in trouble. And Clone Club? We have to keep it together for the bebes.

Scattered Notes

 Taking Iras turn in the tragic redemption round is Gracie, who has a change of heart and lies to Mark about finding Helena through her nun mom. However, Mark sees through her and tells Coady, who sends the inexplicably merciless Detective Engers to locate her phone, track them down, and kidnap Helena. But first, shes got to shoot Gracie, a teenage girl kneeling unarmed on the floor of a convent, execution-style, for her sins. Religion  might be bad?

 Props are owed to James Frain, who has now played several violent misogynists  chief among them Ferdinand and True Blood vampire rapist Franklin Mott  yet somehow continues to delight me each time he returns. Maybe thats a personal problem, but Im inclined to chalk it up to some seriously magnetic screen presence. Considering hes slated to appear in Star Trek: Discovery as Sarek, its an especially great quality, because who wants to hate Spocks dad?

 Felixs art is  just a bunch of Leda portraits? (I mean, I like them, but it seems like putting a family photo album in the MoMA.) Anyway, he winds up recruiting Alison, Cosima, and Sarah for a last-minute, smoke-and-mirrors performance and manages to impress the aforementioned gallerist. Kind of meta, but Felix sells his art, which is what matters. Felix deserves everything, including the coroner.

 Cosima and Scott are growing their stock of the Leda cure, which hopefully will give us a feel-good ending: the sestras, setting off together to inoculate the rest of the Ledas, wherever they may be.
Detroit. Photo: Courtesy of Annapurna Pictures

Broadly  perhaps too broadly  titled Detroit, Kathryn Bigelows grueling new film dramatizes an incident at the Algiers Motel on the third night of the 1967 Detroit riots. Forty-three people would die in those riots, among them a white cop  which I highlight only because it was reportedly foremost in the minds of policemen and the National Guard as tanks rolled through the streets. For the would-be peacekeepers, the fear was sniper fire, and when they believed that they heard it coming from the Algiers, they descended en masse on a bunch of black people (and, crucially, two white teenage girls) enjoying the summer night. What followed was a prolonged session of physical and psychological torture that left three black men dead.

Its fair to say that Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal have a fraught relationship with torture. In their last collaboration, Zero Dark Thirty, they portrayed enhanced interrogation (in the affectionate parlance of the Bush II administration) as ghastly but fruitful. When their account came under attack (it was never proved that torture elicited useful intelligence on Osama bin Ladens whereabouts), Bigelow responded by asserting, somewhat disingenuously given the context, Depiction is not endorsement. Now theyve chosen to make a film in which torture at the hands of an occupying force is not merely useless but also psychotic and fascistic, a theater of cruelty in which pity is the first casualty and justice the last.

I dont mean to suggest that Detroit is self-serving, only that Bigelow and Boal have chosen to tell their story once again in a style that triggers our fight-or-flight instincts and with an eye for the mania of men under fire. The chief maniac is a white patrolman called Krauss (the victims names have not been changed, but some of the cops have pseudonyms), played by Will Poulter with arched, satanic eyebrows doing most of the heavy histrionic lifting. Early on, Krauss shoots a looter in the back as the man is scaling a chain-link fence. (The man bleeds out under a car, begging an old woman to phone his wife.) At the station, a detective informs Krauss hell be charged with murder and then  unaccountably  sends him back to the streets. Well, perhaps its not so unaccountable. When enlistment dwindled during the Iraq catastrophe, our military lowered the bar. In July 1967, Detroit needed uniforms on the street. It was burning.

The film opens as if its going to profile an entire city on the verge of incineration. An animated sequence adapted from a series of paintings by Jacob Lawrence depicts the postWWI migration of southern blacks in search of auto-industry jobs and the ever-more crammed and dilapidated neighborhoods in which they were forced to live. The filmmakers dramatize the flash point for the 67 riot: a police raid on a black after-hours club (a blind pig, in Detroitspeak) in which Vietnam vets (among others) are having a nice, peaceable time. The movies panoramic vantage doesnt last beyond the first half-hour, though. We dont see how the riots came to an end or the overall scope of the damage. For Bigelow and Boal, all narrative roads lead to  and from  the Algiers.

They reach the motel, narratively speaking, in the company of talented performers having a bad day. Larry Reed (Algee Smith) sings with the soul-music vocal group the Dramatics, known at the time for Inky Dinky Wang Dang Doo, and theyre about to hit the stage for a momentous show with Motown folks in attendance when a call comes to evacuate the theater. Their bus attacked by an angry crowd, the dejected Larry and his pal Fred Temple (Jacob Latimore) see a shimmering oasis  the sign for the Algiers Motel, where people are partying like its 1966. The two men check in, have a drink, and flirt by the pool with two suburban white girls (Hannah Murray and Kaitlyn Dever). But, as Martha Reeves and the Vandellas sang in the theater theyd just fled, theres nowhere to run, nowhere to hide.

As a prelude to the main event, Boal and Bigelow devise a coup de theatre that likely didnt happen but is so brilliant that who cares? Larry, Fred, and the girls wind up in the room of a man named Carl Cooper (Jason Mitchell, who was Eazy-E in Straight Outta Compton), who stages a bizarre little drama for the assembled. He assumes the role of a white cop hassling a black civilian, played by a friend, and ends up shooting the guy when the shit gets too real. Except Carls gun is a starter pistol. Its a prank. But something comes of it. The play awakens the raging imp in Carl, and he fires his fake gun out the window at the distant police and National Guard, whooping as they dive for cover. (We should teach these pigs a lesson!) Out of such playacting are tragedies born, and so the shit gets really real.

And so we arrive at the dark heart of Detroit, the sequence in which five black men (among them a Vietnam vet played by Anthony Mackie) and two white women face a wall while cops pace in back of them, punching and pistol-whipping their captives, demanding to know the location of the gun and identity of the shooter. You might expect the interrogation to end after five or ten minutes, but it goes on for what seems like hours, the camera on top of the characters as they plead and weep, the blows excruciatingly amplified. Members of the small audience with which I saw the film began to cry out halfway through, and I had to suppress an urge to yell, Enough! at the cops onscreen but also the filmmakers. Its an open question whether employing fascistic technique in the service of an anti-fascist message creates a hatred of fascism  or just whips us up to see the bad guys bleed.

The three Detroit policemen dont merely taunt and beat the people facing the wall. They separate and pretend to execute two of them to make the others talk. Focusing on the white girls in their short dresses gives the torturers their second wind and adds another dimension to their wrath. Our hopes are kindled by the hovering presence of other cops and Guardsmen, some of whom are plainly repulsed. But no one intercedes, including a black security guard, Melvin Dismukes (John Boyega), who had attempted to ingratiate himself with the Guard and watches the event with quivering passivity. A State Police corporal tells his men he doesnt like what hes seeing and orders them to leave. In his 1968 book The Algiers Motel Incident, John Hersey calls the State Police departure the most inglorious chapter in the entire narrative. But theres so much competition. (For the record, the cops real names were Ronald August, Robert Paille, and David Senak, the inspiration for Poulters Krauss.)

The question that Bigelow and Boal (like Hersey) leave hanging is why the people in that lineup didnt simply tell the cops, Yes, there were shots, but it was a starter pistol. Which brings us back to the question of torture and why, one theory goes, it doesnt usually work: People who are terrified shut down. To admit any knowledge might open them up to even more violent punishment.

Bigelow and Boal dont bring much moral complexity to Detroit. They dont illuminate the psyches of the cops or suggest the fundamental feeling of weakness that drives people to violence. They dont shed much light on Dismukess inaction or subsequent thoughts about what he didnt do. What Bigelow does  incomparably  is put us in that room with those people at that moment. She induces a feeling of powerlessness thats beyond our capacity to imagine on our own, and she keeps it going through the courtroom scenes and closing credits and beyond, as we return to a world where the same scenario is playing in an endless loop. If nothing else, movies like Detroit are protection against forgetting, so that what happens in Detroit doesnt stay in Detroit.

*This article appears in the July 24, 2017, issue of New York Magazine.
The last chance to see the exhibit, From Plate to Print: An Introduction to Printmaking at Baylor Universitys Martin Museum of Art will be from 1 to 4 p.m. Sunday.

The museum is in Baylor Universitys Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center, 60 Baylor Ave.

Admission is free.

For more information, visit www.baylor.edu/martinmuseum.

Crawford 150th

The Crawford Sesquicentennial Committee will host a hamburger and hot dog cookout, with Blue Bell ice cream, from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. Sunday at Crawford High Schools cafeteria.

It will be a fundraiser for the Crawford Sesquicentennial Celebration this fall. A free-will offering and donations will be accepted.

For more information, call 717-3458 or 486-2366.

Woodcarving club meeting

The Brazos Valley Woodcarving Club meets from 1 to 3 p.m. Monday at the Harrison Senior Center, 1718 N. 42nd St. in Waco.

The club is free and open to anyone who wants to learn woodcarving. Instruction includes chip carving, relief carving and round carving.

For more information, call 772-9317.

Heat relief

The Salvation Army Community Kitchen at 300 Webster Ave. will remain open from noon to 4:30 p.m. on days the temperature reaches more than 100 degrees.

The center will provide a free bottle of water and some much needed air conditioning for anyone seeking a little salvation from the heat.

For more information, call the Community Kitchen at 757-1641.

Shoe drive

Financial donations for Shoes for the Homeless are now being accepted by Mission Waco.

A donation of $45 provides a pair of shoes for a person who registers and qualifies at the Meyer Center. Participants will have the opportunity to be taken to a local shoe store to pick out their own pair.

The new shoes will be distributed at the beginning of the annual Walk for the Homeless at 8 a.m. Sept. 17 at 1226 Washington Ave.

Donations are accepted at https://secure.paperlesstrans.com/MissionWaco or by check at Mission Waco, 1315 N. 15th St., Waco, 76707. Please designate shoes for homeless. Call 753-4900 for more information.
Baylor Universitys endowment grew by about $80 million to $1.23 billion over the past year, according to newly released data.

Chief Investment Officer Brian Webb said growing the endowment is a high priority for Baylor administrators and regents as higher education costs skyrocket nationwide.

Considered a lifelong fund used largely for student scholarships, rather than as a bank account for temporary or immediate university needs, the endowment has periodically grown since the Great Recession caused a roughly 20 percent loss at most universities, including Baylor.

(Growth) is critical for a university from an affordability standpoint, so students that need scholarships can come here, Webb said. But, also from a competition standpoint over the long run, it does generate a steady flow of income to the university. And when youre competing with other universities with large endowments, they have that steady flow coming, and youve got to be able to compete with them.

Endowment return figures are not yet finalized, but Webb said he expects a return of more than $100 million.

About 67 percent of returns from the endowment pay for student scholarships. The rest goes to academic programs and salaries for specific chairmanships and professorships. Baylor President Linda Livingstone intends to incorporate fundraising for endowed chairs and faculty initiatives into her academic strategies, officials said.

With almost 14,500 undergraduates, Baylors endowment comes to about $85,000 per student. Webb said he wants to double that as Baylor works to compete with neighboring private schools Texas Christian University and Southern Methodist University.

TCU has almost 9,000 undergraduates and a $1.2 billion endowment  more than $133,000 per student. SMU has about 6,500 undergraduates and a $1.5 billion endowment  more than $230,000 per student.

Baylor officials have longed for a $2 billion endowment for at least 15 years. Webb called the number a reasonable, but clearly aspirational goal with no set timeline to achieve. He said regents still discuss the number but realize it will not be met overnight.

If you do the math, its going to take a little bit longer for us to get there, he said. But that is the target number we need to be as competitive as we should be with our peers.  Setting a specific date, as we saw with the 2012 initiative of wanting to get to $2 billion by that point in time, is probably a dangerous thing to do, quite honestly.

Mamie Voight, vice president of policy research for the Institute of Higher Education Policy, said by email that endowment funds should be leveraged for access and support to low-income students. After reviewing data, she estimated low-income students pay about $27,000 after grants and scholarships to attend Baylor for one year.

This price amounts to just about the entire annual income for many low-income families  an insurmountable barrier to enrollment and degree attainment for some, Voight said.

A 2017-18 Baylor undergraduate education costs $43,790. Regents raised tuition 4 percent, the smallest increase in more than 20 years, to $45,542 for the 2018-19 academic year. These rates fall below TCU, SMU and Rice University, and 93 percent of Baylor students receive some form of financial assistance, according to the university.

Well-resourced colleges employ sophisticated fundraising strategies designed to sustain and grow their endowments to meet specific goals, Voight said. Colleges can prioritize need-based aid in fundraising efforts and create the flexibility to provide more low-income students a real chance of accessing their universities.

Baylors sexual assault scandal, accompanied by fierce backlash from influential donors, has not affected the endowment, because the financial market largely dictates the health of the fund, Webb said.

Were very pleased with how our portfolio is positioned right now, because weve been able to enjoy the benefits of the market run weve been on for the last number of years, Webb said. We think weve got enough downside protection built in. If and when (a hit from financial markets) comes, well perform very well on a relative basis to our peers.
Democratic McLennan County Commissioner Lester Gibson plans to retire when his term expires next year, after 28 years representing Precinct 2, and a Republican community-service advocate has filed the initial paperwork for a run at filling his shoes.

Baylor graduate Gina Ford, of Axtell, has filed paperwork establishing a campaign finance manager, ahead of the start of official candidate filing in November.

Gibson has repeatedly said he is in his last term as a county commissioner. Precinct 2 residents will have a fresh face in the seat for the first time in almost three decades. Gibson, first elected to the Precinct 2 seat in 1990, was most-recently re-elected in 2014, beating Republican Tony Abad.

Gibson graduated from Baylor University in 1974 and served as a Waco City Council member from 1988 to 1990.

County Elections Administrator Kathy Van Wolfe said the first day to file for the March 6 primary election is Nov. 11 and the deadline is Dec. 11. Filing the paperwork to appoint a campaign treasurer allows a potential candidate to start raising money and spending money.

Danny Volcik is the only other person who has already filed a campaign treasurer report for the March primary. Volcik named himself as his own treasurer in a run for the Constable Precinct 3 seat, currently held by David Maler.

Ford, 44, Animal Birth Control Clinic project manager, named Mike Lee her campaign treasurer in her first run for office.

The move is a natural progression in her community service, Ford said. She said she has served off-and-on in private and nonprofit capacities in Central Texas for many years and would be honored to serve as commissioner. Living in Axtell, an unincorporated area, theres no shot at running for mayor or a council seat.

Ford, who is married with three step-children, said she moved to the county from Oklahoma City to attend Baylor University in 1991 and has remained since. She graduated in 1995 with bachelors degree in political science.

With Gibson retiring, this is an opportunity for the county to choose new leadership and perhaps benefit from a new perspective, she said.

Ford said her experience as a former small business owner and her ties to the community through the various nonprofits she has served will help make her a good commissioner.

While a Democrat has held the Precinct 3 seat for almost three decades, Ford said she doesnt believe Gibsons work or legacy would be undone if a Republican takes over

Hes done a lot of wonderful things for this community, she said. I want to be able to incorporate his good work. I feel my community background and service is going to help bring added voters.

Ford said shes interested in learning more about a recently discussed county proposal to unify the four precinct road and bridge departments into one unit.

The Humane Society of Central Texas fired Ford from her post as interim director in September 2012 for what the organization deemed unprofessional conduct. Ford sent a strongly worded email terminating a volunteer, according to Tribune-Herald coverage at the time.

Ford said she doesnt have any regrets about the way she handled the situation. She said she was a momma bear protecting her cubs at the time.

I guess it goes to show Im not a meek individual, Ford said. I stand up for people when they need to be stood up too. Im not afraid to stand up for myself.

Ford said she fired in a volunteer for making disparaging comments about the Humane Society and its policies, violating the volunteer handbook. In the email, Ford told the volunteer she had pissed me off for the last time, according to previous coverage.

Ford said she still sees members of the Humane Society on a regular basis through her work at the Animal Birth Control Clinic, and everyone is on good terms.

If people hold that against me, thats their option, she said.
Law enforcement officials arrested a Dallas woman in Bruceville-Eddy on Saturday night after bringing her vehicle to a stop with help of a spike strip, according to a press release from Department of Public Safety Sgt. D.L. Wilson.

The spikes helped end a chase that started at 10:14 p.m. in Hill County after a possible domestic assault, Wilson said. The woman, Katrina Romo Sherpa, 38, fled the scene along Interstate 35 and headed south in her pickup through McLennan County, he said.

Spike strips were deployed but failed as she passed through the Waco area with DPS troopers and officials from several other agencies in pursuit, Wilson said. The truck hit speeds of more than 100 mph, according to the press release.

The woman continued south into Bell County and onto U.S. Highway 190 in Killeen before turning around and heading back north in I-35, Wilson said.

Spikes were used again in Bruceville-Eddy and brought the vehicle to a stop at 11:34 p.m., Wilson said.

Sherpa was arrested on a felony evading charge and a driving while intoxicated charge and taken to the Hill County Jail, Wilson said.
Although Oglesby resident John C. Barnes served only a brief time in the military, just the two years he did serve were packed with more than enough action to provide a lifetime of memories, some good and some not. At 91, he hasnt forgotten what war looks like from a front-row seat, courtesy of the U.S. Navy.

Barnes was born in Blackwell in West Texas, the son of a Methodist minister. In 1932, his father was ordained in Waco, and the family moved for the first time when Barnes was six. His father would move about every four years, and Barnes would attend a new school with each move.

Times were tough for everyone during the Great Depression. His father headed up a relief effort for the town of May.

Almost everybody was in need back in those days, Barnes said. Money was scarce, and jobs were scarce.

Barnes graduated from high school in Oglesby and volunteered for the U.S. Navy, instead of waiting to be drafted into the Army. He went to Farragut, Idaho, for boot camp, followed by radio school, where he became a radioman, sending coded messages from ship to ship and ship to shore. He was assigned to the USS Ozark, a landing ship vehicle (LSV2) that transported troops and amphibious Ducks (DUKWs), a type of converted truck that can run on water and land.

Assigned to the 7th Fleet, Barnes went aboard the revamped and converted minelayer in Portland, Oregon, for its shakedown cruise to get the bugs out. The Ozark, or the Mighty O, as it was called, joined the 3rd Amphibious Force to serve in the Pacific theater.

An overwhelming sight to see

When Barnes first saw the ship, he was a little overwhelmed.

Ive been on boats and fished all my life, but when I went aboard that monster  and it isnt that big a ship  I thought, man, what have I gotten myself into? he said.

He was stationed in the radio shack close to the signalman and the quartermaster. They had a great view up above the deck, next to the bridge. He never knew what he was sending, as he would just type the information and give it to a team of code crackers.

The Ozark sailed up the Columbia River, loaded ammunition and went to Hawaii, where they picked up troops. On Dec. 31, 1944, she departed for the Lingayen Gulf, Luzon, Philippines, where she offloaded her first troops. Then, she set sail in February 1945 for the invasion of the Japanese island of Iwo Jima. There were at least 400 or 500 fighting Marines on board, ready to invade.

It was Feb. 19 when the coordinated attack began. As a radioman, Barnes had the additional job of manning communications on LCVP landing vehicles, riding with troops to the shore. While he didnt have to debark, he was in the thick of fire and witnessed some of the carnage up close. He took turns with other radiomen from other ships, so he only had to take a couple of trips to the shore. That was enough.

Youre under constant fire until they secure the island, Barnes said. Wed dump one load off and turn around and get another.

The ride to the beach with the men, many of them just 18, was pretty quiet, Barnes said. There wasnt much conversation going on. There was some joking and kidding on the ship, but all that stopped when they were headed to shore.

Under attack for several hours

Youre under air attack. Theyre strafing, theyre dropping bombs, and there are kamikazes. That was a continuous thing for several hours, he said.

The worst part of the invasion for Barnes was when the Ozark temporarily became a hospital ship to help treat the overflow of Marines wounded in Iwo Jima. Hospital ships just couldnt keep up. They would bring the wounded straight from the beach. Cots were set up everywhere, he said. Doctors operated right out in the open, taking off limbs and patching up the wounded. Eighteen men were buried at sea in solemn ceremony.

It was the most unpleasant thing I ever witnessed, he said. Its a very sentimental thing for me. You dont ever forget it. Its something that remains with you.

Iwo Jima wasnt the end of Barnes military travels. There was plenty more to come, including the invasion of the Japanese island of Okinawa.
Andrew E. Woltman, 88, of Lott, passed away on Friday, July 28, 2017, in Marlin. Funeral services will be 10 a.m., Monday, July 31, at Adams Funeral Home, with the Rev. Scott Spence officiating. Interment will follow in Saint Paul UCC, with military honors provided by Fort Hood Honor Guard. The family will receive friends from 4 to 6 p.m., Sunday, July 30, at the funeral home.
If nothing else, it has become clear that Donald Trump is adept at defining a media cycle. When the news last Wednesday was likely to be about the Senates health-care debate, he grabbed the spotlight back by announcing a bar on transgendered people in the military via Twitter, for example.

Its not wrong, necessarily, for a president to try to define the news cycle  others have tried mightily to do so  and its one thing this president is particularly effective at. Probably thats a skill set we should expect from a president who comes from reality television where success is defined by the ability to do interesting things that keep the cameras attention.

As media focus on the Trump-assigned topic of the day, though, it creates a swirl that too often obscures deeper currents. One of these is particularly important: The Republican Party is in danger of losing one of its principled values, which is an unyielding expectation of personal responsibility.

As a lifelong Democrat, this focus on individual duty was something I always found appealing about the Republican Party and its best representatives. Sure, I saw hypocrisy in Republicans failure to hold corporations to the same standard of responsibility, but I also saw that value upheld many times. As a prosecutor, I expressed that value in court and still believe that, though we lose proportionality too often, we need to hold individuals to account for hurting others .

I also see the need for most of us to be responsible for our own support; at a time when jobs are available for nearly anyone willing to show up every day and pass a drug test, getting a job should be the first resort for most people in creating their own destiny.

So what is changing?

Donald Trump threatens to provide too many excuses for those who struggle and suggests that the government can fix things. Unable to find the kind of job your father had? Not making enough money? The problem is immigration policy, we are told, or free trade. And who will fix that? The government, of course. There is no suggestion that the better outcome for an individual might come about by adapting to the new economy.

In his inaugural address, Trump made clear that government was going to save the day: We will bring back our jobs. We will bring back our borders. We will bring back our wealth. And we will bring back our dreams. In other words, you will not get a better job because you went back to school or took a risk  you will get a better job because the government will change policies to make things the way they used to be. The government will save you.

And thus the coal miner will wait for the coal mine to re-open. The auto worker will wait for the high-paying job his dad had making Thunderbirds to magically re-appear. The government will take care of that, Trump says. But it probably wont, even if policies change. Coal is more expensive than natural gas these days, and people are accustomed to going to a Walmart full of cheap goods from Asia. What will make individual lives better in this entrenched new economy will more likely involve personal sacrifice, like moving to a new town or training for a different kind of job.

The promise government can help people avoid those sacrifices is going to prove empty more often than not, whether Democrats or Republicans do the promising. Republicans will likely respond by saying that Democrats are no better at honestly promoting an ethic of personal responsibility, and they would be largely correct. But Democrats havent tried to differentiate themselves as the party of personal responsibility. Some might say Democrats provide jobs not by shifting policies but by bloating government with make-work jobs, but that doesnt seem true. Under President Obama federal employment grew by less than 1 percent per year  and 44 percent of the new full-time hires were veterans.

In the end, we need at least one party to return to this value. Our political discourse works best as a back-and-forth between two parties arguing from different but valid principles. For decades, one such principle has been an ethic of personal responsibility. Republicans advocacy for that value has deeply affected people on both sides, including me. To see them walk away from that value and promise that government can now make things better is disappointing but hopefully not permanent. America is great when there is a tension between personal responsibility and governmental action  and it takes two parties to keep that rope taut enough to walk on.
There are three branches of government, and two of them are in serious distress. What once passed for governing and leadership has become a spectacle of disservice by people who call themselves public servants.

The dramatic collapse of Republican efforts to change the Affordable Care Act provides Congress an opportunity to repair itself by returning to something approaching bipartisan lawmaking. It wont be easily accomplished.

The executive branch appears headed for even more turbulence. Just ask Anthony Scaramucci, the swaggering, newly named White House communications director. The White House today is a feuding, conniving band of officials vying for the affection of President Trump, who seems to encourage, even revel in, the chaos all around him. Trump has now named John F. Kelly, Homeland Security secretary, as chief of staff. The president called the retired Marine Corps general a star. But can he truly change the culture?

Washington hasnt been working for some time. The breakdown began years ago. Republicans often complained about high-handed tactics when Democrats controlled the Senate. White Houses are rarely perfectly run and staff rivalries are not uncommon. The dysfunction in Washington is one reason Trump was elected. But in the past six months, things have turned even worse, with the breakdown reaching new depths last week.

Till Sen. John McCain cast the decisive vote on the bill for a so-called skinny repeal of the ACA, the Senate was operating under procedures never seen before on a piece of major legislation. Legislating is never pretty  certain passage of the Affordable Care Act was not  but there are norms usually respected by both sides. In recent weeks, those norms went out the window as Republicans struggled to fulfill a seven-year promise that is as internally divisive as it is elusive.

The effort was transparently cynical as Republicans grasped at anything that might collect the 50 votes needed to keep alive what has proven to be their futile hopes of getting rid of Obamacare. The measure that arrived from the House was dead on arrival in the Senate. Nothing cooked up behind closed doors under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell worked, either.

In desperation, the Republican leaders turned to a vehicle no serious member of Congress believed could work. Sen. Lindsey Graham correctly branded the skinny repeal for what it was: The skinny bill as policy is a disaster. The skinny bill as a replacement for Obamacare is a fraud.

McCain had joined Graham in warning about the skinny bills deficiencies  and when the time came, he acted on his words. When the vote truly counted early Friday morning, McCain defied his party with an emperor-has-no-clothes thumbs-down that brought the repeal-and-replace movement crashing down of its own weight.

Congressional leaders are now left to pick up the pieces of a shattered and demoralizing process. Whats next no one can say. There will be angry words about the maverick from Arizona from conservatives who have never trusted him. The president, who had dissed McCain in the early days of his candidacy in 2015, has now felt the sting of payback.

There will be much talk about the need to work on a bipartisan solution. Republicans will have to swallow their pride to make this work. Democrats will be put on the spot since they will have to actually do what they claimed they wanted by working with the other side. Meanwhile, the president began tweeting again, calling for a Senate rules change to allow a simple majority to do all the chambers business.

For seven years, Republicans have lived what turned out to be a fiction. They have many complaints about Obamacare. They have words that work in political ads and in their innumerable appearances before the cameras. But they have no solution. They may keep trying, but if they return to the scheming that got them to the moment of spectacular collapse early Friday, they will expose themselves once again to searing criticism.

* * *

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, things are just as bad. Since Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has been rife with factionalism, built to be undisciplined by a president who lacks discipline. The boisterous arrival of Scaramucci, the New York financier and Trump loyalist, has managed in a single week to make things so much worse.

Scaramuccis expletive-filled rant to the New Yorkers Ryan Lizza took all the backroom maneuvering and senior-level backstabbing and put it on full public display. Scaramuccis broader threats show a lack of true understanding of how government works. Give credit to Lizza for his exposing of Scaramucci. Give credit also to his editors for setting aside normal restraint in journalism when it comes to vulgarities and obscenities. Scaramuccis state of mind can only be understood by reading his actual words, both his profanity and his vengeful and at times ill-informed accusations against those with whom he is supposed to work.

Scaramucci tried to wash away his remarks by claiming he sometimes uses colorful language and that he will try to do better. What he doesnt understand is that it was more than the words themselves that shocked; it was the attitude and the posture he struck and has struck since being named to the White House staff. Is he channeling the president in all this? Likely. Trump has railed of leaks and Scaramucci has joined the fight, misunderstanding the difference between leaks of national security information and leaks about whos having dinner with whom. It was his anger over a Lizza tweet revealing Scaramucci had attended a dinner that included the president and Fox News Sean Hannity that set him off.

* * *

The White House cant continue to operate this way, at least not in the true interests of the country or even those of Trumps core supporters. Officials can go through the motions. They can do routine business. They can arrange multiple meetings for the president with scores of outsiders. But they cant do good or serious work in an atmosphere of distrust and chaos.

In just a week, the president has made it almost untenable for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stay in the job, drawing concerns that Trumps ultimate target is special counsel Robert Mueller. Scaramucci has only fueled rivalries. And the problem extends to other parts of the executive branch. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke threatened Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska by implying that Murkowskis vote not to proceed with debate on health care could jeopardize federal support for the state, according to the Alaska Dispatch News.

The State Department, by every account, is not functioning well under Secretary Rex Tillerson. The reaction to Trumps transgender military ban shows that the relationship between the White House and the Defense Department is tense. Politicos Susan Glasser reported the national security apparatus under H.R. McMaster is not running smoothly.

Congress will soon depart for the annual August recess. Trump and Republican lawmakers had hoped to arrive at the summer break with a record of accomplishment, at the least with a significant down payment on the promises of the 2016 campaign. Instead, they face the bleak prospect of knowing that they have failed on their signature pledge on health care and that other legislative business remains unfinished.

The president has kept one big promise, which was to disrupt the capital. But it has not worked out quite like he and the Republicans had expected.
Its hard to know where to begin with President Trumps tweeted ban on transgender people serving in the U.S. military, which manages to offend on both moral and practical grounds, in both style and substance. But it might be instructive to look at Israel, whose transgender soldiers have helped to defend it from existential threat for almost two decades.

Any militarys survival  and by extension any nations  depends on its ability to draw on the talents of the widest possible population. Denying the U.S. military this ability undermines U.S. national security. Trump is also mistaken about the disruption transgenders in the military would entail. Other countries that allow transgender soldiers  including not just Israel but several other U.S. treaty allies  have found little to no effect on unit cohesion, operational effectiveness or readiness. And any service member who cannot abide the thought of fighting next to an equally qualified person of a different gender or sexual orientation endangers military discipline.

And the tremendous medical costs that Trump mentions? Transgender personnel account for well under 1 percent of all active-duty service members  and only a small percentage of them will seek care that could affect their ability to deploy. Estimates put the additional medical cost at about $8 million  about one-thousandth of 1 percent of the military budget.

Defense Secretary James Mattis had already ordered a review of the issue of allowing openly transgender recruits to join the military. But he and other senior officers have made clear they saw no reason to roll back current policy, which allows transgender persons serving to do so openly.

Trumps peremptory ban on transgender individuals serving in any capacity smacks of disrespect: for the militarys careful process, for the value of political deliberation, for the American ideal of equality. And, finally, it demeans the service of the transgender people currently serving in our military, who have volunteered to fight and die for their country  and deserve the gratitude of all Americans.
Colorful language is how new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci described remarks of his that Ryan Lizza quoted in the New Yorker on Thursday.

Degraded seems to me a better adjective. To speak that way in private is a flaw. To speak that way in the capacity of a public official  a communications official at that  is to further coarsen our culture.

But obscene language wasnt the worst thing about this now infamous interview. It wasnt even one of the worst things about it. In no particular order:

Scaramucci showed a bizarre obsession with trivial leaks. Part of the job description of the White House communications director is to oppose leaks that could cause trouble for the administration. But another part is to discriminate based on the seriousness of the leak  with the most serious ones being those that threaten national security.

In this case, the leak was that the president was having dinner with the first lady, Scaramucci, Sean Hannity and a former Fox News executive. Scaramucci even told Lizza it was the latters patriotic duty to tell him who shared this information.

The information Scaramucci gave him, if its true, was far more significant: He told Lizza that White House chief of staff Reince Priebus was about to be canned. If Scaramucci didnt want to be quoted, or quoted by name, he was leaking that information. (He has suggested that Lizza somehow broke his trust.)

Its true that leakiness on the scale this White House experiences is a serious problem for its functioning. Its also true that no White House can work well if it goes to war over small items of gossip.

Scaramucci didnt make even a cursory attempt to make sure what he said was true. Scaramucci accused Priebus of having illegally leaked a story about his finances. But the reporter behind that story noted how the information was available to the public and not sourced to Priebus. A communications director should want to be credible with reporters. Accusing a colleague of a felony, and quickly having that accusation proven false, does not build ones reputation.

He undermined his colleagues. One reason this White House is right to be concerned about all the leaks is that so many of them are part of a toxic culture of back-biting. The tone is set from the top: We have a president who wont fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions but will complain bitterly about him in tweets and interviews.

For the record, I dont feel too sorry for Sessions. Plenty of evidence about Trumps character  his impulsiveness, pettiness and lack of loyalty  was available to Sessions when he chose to play a major role in helping make him president.

There was also an opportunity cost to Scaramuccis remarks. Trump administration officials sometimes complain that all the good news about their work, from decent economic numbers to legislation to reform veterans health care, is getting lost. Those stories arent going to get more attention when the communications director chooses to dish about his co-workers rather than discuss accomplishments.

Some of the problems this interview illustrated should worry all Americans. Its useful to all of us to have a White House that can attract talent. But its those Americans who are most sympathetic to Trump and his agenda who should have the deepest worries.
U.S. Sen. John McCains return to Capitol Hill last week after learning that he suffers from brain cancer should inspire all red-blooded Americans to emulate his courage, duty and honor  qualities rare in the halls of power in Washington. Yet his speech pressing fellow lawmakers  including Republican brethren who control the Senate  to scrap the crass partisanship that renders government increasingly dysfunctional and to instead build consensus among all political comers might as well have fallen on deaf ears.

The next day Sen. John Cornyn, a Texas Republican and majority whip, blamed Democrats for failure to pass a health-care bill to replace the admittedly flawed Affordable Care Act, even though he and fellow Republicans through much of the process excluded Democratic involvement and met behind closed doors. Granted, the vote to bring a bill to the floor and open the process to amendments from both sides is about as open and transparent as it gets. But Republicans have spent way too much time creating ill will for Democrats to be suddenly shamed into participation.

Even a skinny repeal of the Affordable Care Act went down in flames Friday, the death blow delivered by the same senator who without success begged his colleagues to change their ways. His vote was fitting. For all the loud rhetoric about Democrats forcing Obamacare down Americans throats, even Democrats didnt ignore such critical protocols as committee hearings on major legislation.

Clearly we have a president incapable of bringing warring parties to the table to press deals to everyones benefit. Hes too busy refighting the 2016 election and pressing vengeance on enemies real and imagined to lead and forge any consensus. And when Republican Congressman Bill Flores again blames the Senate for failure, keep in mind he and House leadership only narrowly passed their health-care legislation  and without a shred of bipartisanship. After they delivered word to their president in a big, celebratory press event, the president undermined them by branding their reforms mean.

Republicans in the Senate  where gerrymandering cant bolster one partys numbers  created bad feelings when they excluded some of their own party from their closed-door meetings, including all the Republican women senators. By weeks end, with Republicans desperately crafting over lunch a last-ditch health-care bill imperiling millions of Americans and a sixth of the economy, it was obvious they didnt have public welfare in mind. They were just trying to put one in the win column for their party.

Lets trust each other, McCain told senators at one point. Lets return to regular order. 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. Thats an approach thats been employed by both sides, mandating legislation from the top down, without any support from the other side, with all the parliamentary maneuvers that requires. Were getting nothing done. All weve really done this year is confirm Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court.

Did anyone on Capitol Hill learn from this debacle? We doubt it.
Migrant farm workers are taking on one of Australia's richest families, the Smorgons, in what could be the first major strike in the farm sector for many decades.

The workers and a union are seeking better pay and conditions at giant glasshouses north of Adelaide at a company majority owned by a Smorgon-family investment company.

Ejaz Ali, who gave evidence in the Fair Work Commission asking to be allowed to go on strike over conditions at Perfection Fresh in Adelaide Credit:James Elsby

Strikes are almost non-existent in the farm sector, which is overwhelmingly non-union. On Friday, three migrant workers appeared in the Fair Work Commission to argue that they were genuinely representing their co-workers and wanted to strike.

One worker, Ejaz Ali, speaking through a Hazaragi interpreter, said he was representing up to 50 workers and that they were prepared to strike so they "could demand our rights". He said workers "had a lot of differences" with their employer, Perfection Fresh.
Bill Shorten will slam the door shut on tax loopholes that let high income earners legally use trusts to slash their tax bills, in a move designed to raise $17.2 billion over 10 years.

The new tax policy, foreshadowed by Fairfax Media a week ago, is the second-largest revenue raising measure announced by the federal opposition, after its ambitious plan to curb capital gains and negative gearing tax breaks, designed to raise $37 billion over 10 years.

Mr Shorten will tell Labor's NSW conference on Sunday that, if he wins the next election, he will introduce an across-the-board minimum 30 per cent tax rate on discretionary trust distributions to people over the age of 18.

The policy, Labor argues, will only affect 2 per cent of taxpayers and is a fairness measure that puts middle-income earners on level pegging with Australia's most wealthy.
I love a good perve inside a celebrity's wardrobe, thanks to the glossy mags. There's always some magical Portobello Road Market find  those that you, as a mere mortal, will never be able to nab, plus, quite often, a staggering number of jeans; it's not unheard of for some fashionistas to have more than 100 pairs.

Over the rainbow ... Kesha wearing a pair of colourful, customised overalls at LAX. Credit:starzfly/Bauer-Griffin

But since learning about the devastating effect denim production can have on the planet  the toxic chemicals and water usage in the dyeing process, the impact of so-called "distressing" techniques, and so on  I've had a massive rethink about how many pairs of jeans I "need".

I probably own about seven pairs but could easily survive with three: a light, a dark and a black.

Given Friday is Jeans for Genes Day, it is timely to share the stories of two people in the fashion industry who are slowing denim consumption by producing one-of-a-kind pieces using very different techniques.
Most single parents are women. Credit:Fertnig She has difficult conversations with some of these clients, talking about how to reduce expenditure and whether the children can continue to be educated privately. "These conversations can bring people to tears; it's really quite sad and tough," Kent says. It's becoming more common for dads to be equal co-parents after separation or divorce. Back on her feet

Debi Slinger, 56, from Melbourne divorced five years ago. She has three children aged 15, 17, 19. She had primary care of the children until recently, but now they're living mainly with their father because he lives in a more convenient location for them and she is working full time. At the time of her divorce, when her youngest child was 10, Debi did not have a paid job though she had worked in training organisations before she had children and holds academic qualifications in business. "It was a terrible time," she says. When she received her settlement, she thought "this is not going to be enough to retire on". However, after the initial set-back of her divorce she got back on her feet.

She found her job as a client relationship manager by word of mouth, saying that she had to put herself out there. "You have to be bold and it's hard to sell yourself when you [feel] kicked in the guts, but I had kids to look after." With the help of a property strategist, Debi has secured her financial future with three investment properties. She used part of her money from the settlement to pay for the deposits. "Having a focus when you are single is really important so that you can stay on track," Debi says "Property is a safe vehicle for me and I have a plan to buy more for the benefit of my retirement; and perhaps I will sell a property to help my children get a foothold on the property market.

"At the time of my divorce, I didn't think I would be in the position that I am in now and it hasn't always been easy." Solo by choice While most become single parents after breaking up with the other partner, some women are going into parenthood on their own. Elisabeth*, 41, from Sydney, was in relationships that broke down. "I got to my late 30s and didn't want to live with that massive regret [of not being a mother]," she says. The personal assistant has a healthy six-month-old girl after undergoing IVF. She says it is difficult financially, but it's a price she is happy to pay.

"I'm just about to go back to work full time; much earlier than I would have liked and it's purely a financial decision, mostly because of the costs of child care," she says. "I knew from the beginning what I was getting into. I worked out that I could afford to take six months off; though it has drained my savings to practically nothing," she says. Elisabeth rents and has had to cut back on lifestyle expenses  she doesn't go to restaurants and drinks instant coffee. "I haven't taken a holiday since 2010," she says. While some like Elisabeth are able to plan, others who become separated or divorced can find that they signed up for things with their partners, where the implications only become clear after the relationship ends.

Eyes open Dianne Charman, a financial planner and founder of Jade Financial Group, says couples need to talk about about money and especially joint debts. This helps to avoid a "heart-stopping moment" when a partnership ends and there is disbelief that they had ever signed up for this or that, she says. There are many reasons people avoid talking about finances with partners, but Charman says it can leave them at a disadvantage during the relationship, let alone if it ends. "They may think that money discussions will lead to tension and that they are not ready for that discussion," Charman says.

They may have other attitudes such as "we're in love and that will solve everything", she adds. Tidy up Laura Menschik, a financial planner and director of WLM Financial Services, who was a single parent herself, says it's important to "tidy up" the finances as soon as possible after a relationship breaks-down. "They may need even more insurance as a single parent," Menschik says. "I remember one of the things that worried me on becoming a single parent was who was going to look after me if I something happened to me like sickness or an accident."

There will likely be joint debts, where the terms of the loans means each partner is liable for the whole debt if, for some reason, an ex-partner dodges their responsibilities to meet repayments. There could be joint bank accounts and although it might not be top of mind, there are superannuation and wills to sort out. While superannuation is held in separate names, it is legally considered a marital asset and balances can be transferred as part of any financial settlement in divorce. "You need to look at who is the beneficiary of your super fund," says Menschik says, referring to the person nominated to receive the death benefit. Most couples have each other as the beneficiary, and this is not automatically invalidated by divorce or separation, nor by changing your will.

"Estate planning is another thing to look at, as divorce or separation does not negate a will," she says. "Look at the provisions for guardianship of the children should the other parent predecease you." *Not her real name Where to get help The Australian Government offers many different kinds of parenting payments through Centrelink.

As the payments are income tested and sometimes assets tested, which payments you receive and how much is going to depend on individual circumstances. The main benefit for many single parents will be the parenting payment, which pays a maximum of $748.10 a fortnight, which incudes the pension supplement. This will be the main income support benefit for most single parents, but there are others payments such as the child care benefit and the family tax benefit, A and B, where eligibility rules and payment rates are too complex to list. Loading If a single parent re-partners, benefits will likely be affected.
The Australian Federal Police have conducted a number of terrorist raids across Sydney over a suspected bomb plot to bring down a plane.

The raids, conducted by the Sydney Joint Counter Terrorism team, took place in Surry Hills, Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl on Saturday afternoon.

The operations are part of an ongoing investigation.

Fairfax Media understands the raids relate to a terrorist cell and a bomb plot to bring down an aircraft. The raids were not planned but instead were a rapid response to information about the plot received by police.
Shadow Health Minister Bill Marmion has called on the state government to justify the construction of a new medihotel designed to ease the burden on Perth hospitals.

Mr Marmion said the government could not go ahead with the medihotel construction if Minister for Health Roger Cook could not release the full business case into the viability and sustainability of the project.

The medihotel will be built alongside Fiona Stanley Hospital.

"Mr Cook has made some ludicrous claims about the savings that these facilities could achieve, based on what he says is the success of the Victorian model, however a report obtained by the Opposition found that in one example a medihotel increased costs," he said of .

"We've been fortunate to get a copy of a report that the Victorian Department of Human Services has done on medihotels, and it is a little bit disturbing.
Antonina Lebedeva, 73, tends to the grave of her relatives at the church of the Intercession in Baruta. Credit:New York Times The number of deaths exceeded the number of births in 2016 by a few thousand, and the prognosis for the years ahead is poor. From 2013 to 2015, extremely modest natural growth peaked in 2015 with just 32,038 more births than deaths. "The statistics and the propaganda are very different things," said Natalya Zubarevich, an expert in social and political geography at Moscow State University. Customers shop in the village of Baruta's lone store. Credit:New York Times On the world stage, Russia is flexing its newly restored military and political might in places like Syria and Ukraine, and is using cyber warfare to distort politics in the United States and Europe. But it often seems far less robust at home.

In particular, its rural areas - long considered the wellspring of Russian culture and identity - are dying. An abandoned house in the village of Baruta. Credit:New York Times Valentin Kurbatov, a specialist in village prose, moved to the Pskov region in north-west Russia in 1964. At that time, the entire region was known for cultivating flax, from which linen is made. "Linen has this heavenly blue colour, and when I came here the skies were reflected in the linen fields," Kurbatov said over a long discussion that finally ended because he said it was too distressing. "Now the brush and swamps have returned. Even when you ride the train to Moscow, all you see is this black forest with nothing in it." Similar to a tyre with a slow leak, villages like Baruta, 600 kilometres north-west of Moscow in Pskov, began to deflate after the end of the Soviet Union.

The Freedom Collective Farm, the glue that held the village together, disbanded. No longer bound by strict Soviet residency rules, the young fled to big cities with better prospects. The school closed, and the church stopped holding regular services. The only gathering point left for the 160 year-round residents is a small general store that stocks plenty of vodka and a little bit of everything else. "Just as fish seek deeper water, so people seek better places to live," said Fyodorov, showing the pithy rural wisdom that Russians hold dear. Russia's demographic problem dates back at least 100 years, to the upheaval of the 1917 revolution, followed by Stalin's purges in the 1930s. Both events curbed population growth, foreshadowing the devastating impact of World War II, when Russia lost some 20 million people. More recently, birthrates plunged in the years after the chaotic 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union.

These sorts of demographic catastrophes return to stunt population growth two decades after they happen, as the number of women reaching their childbearing years drops. Russia is entering one of those periods now, recording 83,300 fewer births in the first five months of 2017 than a year ago. In terms of population loss, Pskov, which borders Latvia and parts of Estonia, is among the worst-hit regions in Russia. The population peaked at around 1.8 million in the 1920s, said Andrei Manakov, a demographer at Pskov State University. It is down to 642,000, and projected to drop to about 513,000 by 2033. Researchers estimate that out of 8300 area villages in 1910, 2000 no longer have permanent residents. The region's defence industry factories closed in the 1990s, but residents anticipated the area would become a gateway to Europe as the newly independent Baltic states next door joined the European Union. The region failed to become a hub, however, and then came the 2014 crisis over Ukraine, which brought tense relations and interrupted trade.

"The border has become very unfriendly," said Lev Shlosberg, an opposition politician in the local legislature. "Because of the politics, the region is turning into the boondocks." In Baruta, Dmitry Mikhailov, 40, is among the youngest full-time residents. Asked what life was like, he said "bread, but no butter", adding: "It is not completely awful, and there is not much good." A few well-maintained wooden houses dot the village, painted bright colours and surrounded by small orchards. These belong to dachniki, descendants of village inhabitants who moved to St Petersburg or Moscow and turned their family homes into summer homes, or dachas. They keep countless villages on life support. Some of Baruta's satellite hamlets are deserted, or almost. Trees grow up through the old roads, rendering them impassable. Even local taxi drivers have trouble navigating, and mobile phone signals fade. In the cemetery of Baruta's 18th-century church, headstones are heaped with mostly faded plastic flowers. Antonia Levedova, 73, worked surrounded by a cloud of mosquitoes, sweeping a winter's worth of accumulated debris off the graves of her husband, grandmother, aunt and sister.

Of 50 houses in the neighbouring village of Seletskoe, where she was born, Levedova said, just three are inhabited all year, and a few more in the summer. It will soon disappear, she predicted. "The young left, and the old die," she said, shrugging with resignation. The Pskov region has four maternity hospitals, down from 26 a decade ago. "We understand that the Pskov region is melting away," Shlosberg said. The trend is similar across Russia. Under the most optimistic projections by demographers, the population by 2050 will stay the same, about 146 million, if immigration from Central Asia - which has also been dropping - balances out low birthrates. Less optimistic figures put the population around 130 million by 2050, and the most pessimistic say fewer than 100 million. "We understand that if the population is going to be small, Russia will not be able to play a role in world politics, in the economy," said Manakov at Pskov State. "That is why the authorities want the birthrate to increase."

The government created various incentives to have more children, in particular a one-time payment of about $US7500 for a second child. It also established a medal, the Order of Parental Glory, for seven or more children, which Putin awards to parents at a nationally televised Kremlin ceremony. But such measures have not spurred sufficient change. Another demographer, Sergei Zakharov of Moscow's Higher School of Economics, said the military adventures and economic problems of the past two years undermined the confidence people need to reproduce, similar to what happened in the 1990s. "Life is unpredictable, so people have fewer children," Zakharov said. While birthrates are declining in much of the developed world, most Western states replenish their populations with immigration. But even many of the most liberal Russians balk at welcoming immigrants from beyond the former Soviet states. Kurbatov, the specialist in village writing, said he mourned the demise of rural Russia as the very death of the roots of the language and the unique Russian soul.
Moscow: Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Sunday that the US diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere in the country will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people, signalling a dramatic escalation in the Russian response to American sanctions over the Kremlin's intervention in the 2016 presidential elections.

The United States and Russia have expelled dozens of each other's diplomats before - but Sunday's statement, made by Putin in an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel, indicated the single largest forced reduction in embassy staff, comparable only to the closing of the American diplomatic presence in the months following the Communist revolution in 1917.

In the interview, Putin said that the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel will be capped at 455 - equivalent to the number of their Russian counterparts working in the United States.

Currently, close to 1200 employees work at the United States' embassy and consulates in Russia, according to US and Russian data.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jul. 29, 2017 | METROPOLIS, IL

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 29, 2017 | 07:46 PM | METROPOLIS, IL

Employees of Harrahs Metropolis & Fat Edds recently awarded Friends of Fort Massac with a donation of $1,380.24, which was collected during the month of June.



A portion of the funds came from Harrahs Metropolis employees who donated $5 each day they wore jeans to work. All employees have the opportunity to wear jeans to work up to 4 times and make a charitable contribution. Fat Edds in Metropolis has graciously joined in, donating 20% of receipts collected on the last Thursday of each month to designated charities.



Friends of Fort Massac is a local non-profit organization that uses 100% of donations it receives for activities in the park. A few of the programs and activities include educational presentations with live animals such as Birds of Prey, Mammals, Reptiles and the upcoming Creepy Crawlers. They also provide for food & music performers at the Olde Tyme Christmas program, and food for volunteer workers at the Ohio River Sweep. Another local favorite is the annual Trunk-or-Treat, where they team up with local businesses, without whom the event would not happen. Lastly, they provide materials in the park such as various signs for equipment, buildings and displays.



Organizations and assistance programs have been selected for the remainder of the year to receive donations from these programs at Fat Edd's and Harrah's.
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By West Kentucky Star Staff

Jul. 30, 2017 | BOWLING GREEN, KY

By West Kentucky Star Staff Jul. 30, 2017 | 11:35 AM | BOWLING GREEN, KY

A former Monroe County Sheriff's Deputy is facing federal charges for allegedly misappropriating surplus military hardware.



The U.S. Attorney's Office in Bowling Green charged 34-year-old Larry Dale Martin this week with a single count of wire fraud for devising a scheme to sell and/or give away surplus military property, obtained from a Department of Defense program, including a camper and ATV.



Authorities say Martin coordinated the Department of Defense 1033 Program, which authorized the DoD to transfer excess DoD property to law enforcement agencies for "bona fide law enforcement purposes that assist in their arrest and apprehension mission.", and was responsible for making and submitting MCSO's online DoD Program property requests.



Between December 31, 2011, and 2014, Martin reportedly devised a scheme to order property and arrange for pick-up of property from the Program, which Martin allegedly sold or gave away, for his own personal benefit or the benefit of others, without the knowledge of the MCSO. Property included an industrial ice maker, a 2005 Trail-Lite Dual Axle Camper, and a Kawasaki Mule ATV.



If convicted at trial, Martin could have been sentenced to no more than 20 years in prison, fined $250,000 and served a three year period of supervised release.



This case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney David Weiser and is being investigated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Kentucky Attorney General's Public Integrity Unit.
Word has it that Nemanja Matic is now within the width of a gnats nobblies of completing his big transfer to Manchester United.

Its being widely reported that United are close to signing the Serbian midfielder from Chelsea for a fee in the 40million region.

Indeed, a leaked image of Matic wearing a United shirt is doing the rounds on social media, though whether or not its kosher is being hotly debated

Put it this way: If it is a Photoshop job, then its a darned good Photoshop job. Schweinsteigers old squad number too.

Telegraph scribe James Ducker is claiming that Matic completed his United medical on Sunday (hence the photo) and an official announcement is most likely due to follow on Monday at some point.

A good signing for United in an area that they desperately need to strengthen, and as for Chelsea  youve got to give it them, they really are formidable when it comes to recouping big money for players they clearly dont want anymore.
Week Ahead, 07-30-17

Monday, July 31:

A former Topeka Police Chief is now the Kansas U.S. Marshall. Hear how he has immersed himself into its history as we salute the badge, Monday on 13 NEWS at 10 p.m.

Tuesday, Aug. 1:

Tuesday is the Primary Election for mayor of Topeka.

The two candidates with the highest vote totals will move on to the general election, November 7, 2017.

Wednesday, Aug 2:

Kids, grades 3-5, can participate in a hands-on pre-eclipse event at the Topeka and Shawnee Co. Public Library.

The fun starts at 7 p.m. in the Marvin Auditorium. Registration is required - sign up

.

Thursday, Aug 3:

A recent study found today's teens are about as active as 60 year-olds. Why that's a big deal - and advice to get moving in this weeks 'To Your Health'.

Friday, Aug. 4:

The Topeka Performing Arts Center hosts the Grape Escape. Sample wines and food while enjoying a live performance by nationally known comedienne Caroline Rhea!

The festival starts at 6 p.m. Get tickets

.

Saturday, Aug 5:

National Night Out events will take place across Topeka and Shawnee County.

Before your neighborhood gets together that evening, kick off the fun from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. in the Plaza area in from on 515 SW Kansas Ave. for a free hotdog lunch, games and prizes.
The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) and the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency this summer jointly investigated reported human illnesses and several dog deaths from exposure to blue-green algae blooms in bodies of water. This is not a new issue or concept. Humans have been aware of blue-green algae because of both its detrimental and some beneficial effects.

What are blue-green algae and their medical effects on us? First, blue-green algae are not algae at all. They are primitive bacteria of a cell type called prokaryote (pro-CARE-ee-ot). That means the cell doesnt have a truly formed nucleus for its genetic material. True bacteria and algae are eukaryotes (you-CARE-ee-ots), like us humans, which sport a real nucleus with a membrane around it inside an individual cell. As a group of multiple species, blue-green algae are cyanobacteria CB) because so many of them produce a visible blue color either under a microscope or on water when they multiply enough to be seen, one of the contributors to pond scum.

They can produce other colors. Some species are the cause of ocean red tides along a seacoast. They are thought to be the first bacteria to use photosynthesis to produce their food and oxygen. They may have been responsible for the earths atmospheric oxygen. Because they are photosynthetic (not photogenic), they were originally lumped into the fresh water algae class.

They are thought to be responsible for the development of plants. Plants including true algae possess a chlorophyll-containing portion, which produces the nutrition of food for them, called a chloroplast. Chloroplasts are actually cyanobacteria that became part of the plant cells eons ago.

The number of species of cyanobacteria is mind-boggling. They live on and in all sorts of waters over the globe. In our fresh water lakes and streams they especially like more shallow, non-flowing niches. When the temperature gets over 75 degrees, theres a lot of rain, and the temperature rises rapidly in water with abundant phosphorus and nitrogen, they blossom or bloom. Many, but not all, species can produce compounds or cyanotoxins that can be harmful to mammaliansusually us and our best friends, dogs, and cattle as wellswimming in or consuming that water.

The skin or dermatotoxin from cyanobacteria can cause allergy type reactions such as rashes, eye/ear/throat irritation, and asthma. Gastrointestinal toxins may produce headache, fever, nausea, stomach cramps, vomiting, and diarrhea. Cyanobacteria liver or hepatotoxins may cause all the digestive symptoms, tissue damage, muscle weakness, paralysis, and respiratory failure with acute exposure, and just maybe liver cancer with chronic exposure.

Cyanobacteria cell or cytotoxins can affect liver and other organs and lead to feeling bad (malaise), headache, no appetite, vomiting, chromosome loss, DNA breakage, and organ damage. An example of such a cytotoxin is cylindrospermopsin (you really needed to know that, right?). Cyanobacteria nerve or neurotoxins can cause seizures, paralysis, respiratory failure or cardiac arrest. Example here are anatoxin-a and saxitoxin (from playing saxophoneoh, no. Sorry). The latter is associated with red tide and paralytic shellfish poisoning.

Cyanotoxins were first implicated in animal deaths in the late 1800s. Beach closings due to blooms have gone on since the 1950s in the Midwest. Blue-green algae blooms often look like pea soup or spilled green paint on the shore. Small ones in pockets of still water may not be very visible, but can still be problematic, especially for dogs playing in that area. The risk is proportionate to amount of exposure to the quantity of toxin. Not all blooms are toxic either, but it may be hard to tell the bad from the harmless. Sometimes the bloom emits an unpleasant bouquet.

The Minnesota Department of Health and Minnesota Pollution Control Agency advice is, if in doubt, stay out. Fish can consume and retain some toxins as well. Eating those fish may not be a difficulty if you dont eat a lot.

On the flip side of the medical discussion is the host of claims for the health benefits of eating blue-green algae, particularly a kind called Spirulina. One reference from the Journal of Medicinal Food, Feb. 2013, by authors from the University of Connecticut Department of Nutritional Sciences discusses the possible benefits of them for cardiovascular disease and some liver disease. (Curiously, all authors names are Asian.) They say the earliest human edible use recorded was 1,600 years ago in China. Human consumption was also traced back to Aztecs in the 14th century. Current U.S. sales have reached about $700 million annually. Yet another healthful (NOT healthy) food. Food we eat is dead. That aint healthy for the food.

We hope all this cheerful information helps make your time at the lake (another name for heaven for Minnesotans) more enjoyable (?). Oh, lets not forget the tick borne diseases like Lyme, anaplasmosis, Ehrlichiosis, etc., to further enhance your relaxing in the great out of doors, trying to catch fish, hiking through woods, or swimming in the lake. And, try not to get the blues from blue-green algae. Oh wait, how about mosquitoes, bad enough by themselves but also carrying encephalitis, Zika viruses and other germs? Have a great vacation
ALMA  Dan Kordiak and Jeff Shilts came here from Minneapolis 13 years ago to run an ice cream and coffee shop, something that was never really in the couples plans.

But they didnt regret it.

Those were the happiest six years of Jeffs life, Kordiak said.

After six years, Shilts suffered a heart attack and died. At the funeral, Kordiak was surprised to see 160 Alma residents show up just to say goodbye to their six-year ice cream man.

I was floored; I was absolutely floored, Kordiak said, tears welling in his eyes.

Seven years later, Kordiak is continuing to help sponsor one of the the biggest celebrations in the accidental hometown that embraced him and Shilts: Alma Swiss Heritage Days.

The annual festival was held Friday and Saturday in the small river town to celebrate the Swiss heritage of its founders. Music, food, outfits and small businesses along downtown Alma all were celebrated at the festival.

Guests could pick up their own hiking trail passport and get stamped after visiting 10 of the 16 participating businesses down Main Street.

The community is now now comprised of different heritages, Kordiak said, but back in the hills among the farmers plains, the strong Swiss family bloodlines and heritages can be found.

Swiss flags were even common to see lined up along the streets, Kordiak said, until about 40 years ago.

And the festival is a celebration of that strong connection forged with two little roads into a bluffside along the river in rural Wisconsin in the 1860s.

Its something different; its something unique to Alma, said Kordiak, who was dressed in traditional Swiss garb.

The uniqueness of Alma and its heritage is not lost on 2017 Swiss Miss, Sandra Ebert, who has lived in Alma her whole life and has a Swiss heritage.

Ebert was crowned Friday evening after a community vote, much to her surprise.

The new Swiss Miss day was filled with dancing, yodeling, accordion music and many other stops along Main Street.

And theres no other way she would rather be celebrating.

Its wonderful. So many people, Ebert said. Its a happy time. Swiss people come from all over.

The influx of people is a way for the community to support its local businesses, Kordiak said.

Kordiak is still a local business owner, owning the local bakery, The Empire Room and the Hotel De Ville, all of which were hosting their own specials and events this weekend.

However, bringing in money is not the main factor in Kordiaks sponsorship of the festival. Its really to celebrate the town that brought him and his partner Shilts into their community fold.

As a business owner, Kordiak said he has an interesting motto that explains this idea.

Were not going to make any money, but were going to look good doing it, Kordiak said.

And the Swiss look sure is Almas style.
Veterans of the Korean War recognized the 64th anniversary of the armistice that brought about the ceasefire on Thursday.

Often cited as the Forgotten War of the United States, the conflict still casts a long shadow over current international politics.

Winona native Neil Hinkley was among the first to be deployed when war broke out in late June of 1950.

We got right in the thick of it right from the start, Hinkley said. He was among the first three divisions to be deployed at the outbreak of war.

Hinkleys unit, the 10th Infantry Division, was en route to Japan from Alaska, halfway across the Pacific when North Korea started that ruckus in late June of 1950.

The North Korean blitz across the border was supported by the Soviet Union with weaponry and equipment, pushing back United Nations forces into the Busan (pronounced Pusan) Perimeter.

Hinkley recalls the intense fighting with disgust. He described the frustration of taking a hill during the day only for the enemy to take it during the night.

We did not have the equipment we shouldve had, Hinkley said. You dont go up against tanks and artillery with an M1 or a carbine, you need something bigger than that.

During combat, Hinkley was hit by enemy shrapnel. His wounds got him away from the front and into an army hospital in Texas, where he would spend a year-and-a-half recovering.

He received a Purple Heart for his service, and was honorably discharged at the rank of corporal.

With the Korean War overshadowed by World War II beforehand, and the Vietnam War coming shortly after, many citizens ignored the impact it had. People were sick of war, and the conflict on the small Asian peninsula faded from public memory.

Im not happy about that, because when you have thousands of people, or troops that are getting killed, what is that? Thats not a police action, thats war, Hinkley said.

Combined efforts of the United States and its allies pushed the communist armies across the border until they came close to Chinas doorstep. This provoked counterattacks that pushed allied forces back again.

The resulting armistice drew the line at the 38th parallel, maintaining the original border between North and South Korea. The two nations remain at war, and the ceasefire has been violated many times over decades of hostility.

During that time, another soldier, Mel Bailey, served as a personal specialist for the US Armys Seventh Division on the demilitarized zone. His active duty career spanned from 1966 to 1968.

Bailey was drafted into the war after he finished college, but the Army needed him for duties beyond firing a weapon.

Though he was a good shot, the Sergeant Bailey began teaching English to South Korean soldiers attached to the division. His students were college graduates who already knew the basics, but needed practice. Their textbooks were childrens books like Dick and Jane.

His unit was located north of Uijeongbu, extremely close to enemy occupied territory.

We were told we are the first line of defense if North Korea comes over, Bailey said. In other words, were canon fodder to slow them before they get to Seoul and before people get organized.

As a 76H30 personnel specialist, it was his job to assign the replacements according to their MOS, which meant matching a job to 200-300 people a day.

Bailey enjoyed his time with the South Koreans. They worked collaboratively against the communist armies in the north, knowing that they needed each other to keep the DMZ secure.

They knew how many of our guys had died and what it had cost there, and how their economy was building up, Bailey said. They were very, very helpful. Only the real idiots tried to mistreat the Koreans.

The VFW held an event on Thursday to commemorate those that served in the war.
I was in Washington, DC, last month as part of a National Organic Coalition fly-in. I took part in productive meetings with ag staffers for the Minnesota delegation  Senators Klobuchar and Franken and Representatives Walz and Peterson.

We presented data showing that the U.S. market for organic foods has grown by 80 percent over the last six years, while the amount of certified organic American cropland has only grown by around 12 percen during the same period. This situation has led to a massive increase in questionable imports, and points to several major failures of U.S. farm policy.

As the Washington Post (5/12/17) has reported, cargo ships of conventional corn and soybeans from Turkey, Ukraine, Romania and elsewhere have been sold in the US as organic. This situation has undercut markets and prices for bona fide American organic farmers, and allowed fraudulent grain to be sold as organic to meet the growing demand for organic poultry and dairy products. The USDAs National Organic Program must have the resources and support it needs to enforce our organic regulations and protect American producers and consumers.

Currently, 70 percent of organic soybeans and 40-50 percent of organic corn are imported. If any crops can be grown organically in the U.S., those crops are corn and soybeans. But American farmers are reluctant to go through the three-year transition process to enter the organic market, given market uncertainties and the lack of Farm Bill support during transition.

The next Farm Bill must include a safety net to provide financial and technical support for conventional, beginning and underserved farmers to switch some or all of their acres to organic production, comparable to the support they receive by staying conventional. A level playing field is needed, so that transition to organic is a production choice, not an increased risk.

Research shows that organic production systems protect water quality and quantity; enhance soil health; protect biological diversity, including pollinators; and produce foods without pesticide residues and dairy products with favorable fatty acid profiles. But much more research is needed to understand and improve organic systems.

A bill has been introduced in Congress (HR 2436) to increase funds for the Organic Research and Extension Initiative (OREI) from the current level of $20 million/year to $50 million/year. Such an increase would be a wise investment, given growing market demand, and the fact that organic research findings are often used by non-organic producers to improve their management systems and bottom lines.

A unique cost faced by organic farmers is the fee associated with annual organic certification. Two federal programs, the National Organic Certification Cost Share Program and the Agricultural Management Assistance Act (AMA), provide organic farmers with modest reimbursements for a portion of their annual organic certification fees. These programs, which began in Minnesota in 1998, should be renewed with adequate mandatory funding to meet projected demand.

Organic and transitional producers face all of the normal production challenges  extreme weather events; changing markets and prices; access to capital; and government red tape. On top of that, organic producers must take steps to protect their farms from pesticide drift and GMO contamination. Insurance mechanisms are needed, so that pesticide developers, applicators, and GMO patent-holders provide reimbursement, when their products cause harm to others.

The next Farm Bill will present a unique opportunity to invest in organic systems, which are market-driven, health conscious, and based on farmer-led environmental protection plans.
Each year as the summer storm season sweeps across Minnesota, we see the need for emergency assistance from state government. In the last two years alone, weve seen nearly 50 counties, communities, and several tribal nations receive emergency assistance from Governor Dayton.

This year alone numerous counties including Winona, Freeborn, Kittson, and many others have and will receive aid. Its worth noting that the governor was only recently empowered with the ability to declare an emergency bringing immediate relief to those devastated by natural disasters. Until a few years ago, the Minnesota House and Senate had to return to Saint Paul in a costly special session to approve relief for each and every disaster.

In a show of how government can and should operate, in 2014 I worked with Gov. Dayton to establish the Disaster Assistance Contingency Account. By creating the account and giving the governor the authority to act on his own, we ensured that when a disaster struck, our state would respond by quickly distributing funds without the need to call a special session, and it worked. For the last two years our state has responded to numerous disasters without wasting time and money on special sessions.

This all started back in 2008, after the massive flooding of southeast Minnesota, my colleagues and I worked to develop a state disaster playbook to guide the 13 state agencies, governors office, legislature, cities, counties, school districts and townships impacted when a disaster occurs. In 2012, the nonpartisan Legislative Auditor released a report titled Helping Communities Recover from Natural Disasters, with recommendations on how to improve Chapter 12A by creating Chapter 12B to address disasters that are not covered by a Presidential Declaration, the laws are known as the state disaster playbook.

In 2014 I crafted a bill to continue the improvements made to Minnesotas disaster response with Chapter 12A by creating Chapter 12B. Chapter 12B implemented several changes recommended by the legislative auditor that increased coordination by the 13 state agencies and others involved in responding to disasters, and created the Disaster Assistance Account to fund their efforts.

Last summer, more than half a decade after we started this process, nearly 40 Minnesota counties and communities, and several Native American reservations became eligible for disaster assistance. For the first time, as a result of the improvements made to the disaster playbook, state and federal funds were distributed quickly and efficiently without the need for a special session.

A dedicated account for disasters guarantees accurate accounting and avoids problems associated with hurriedly passing bills in a special session, such as overpaying or underpaying.

This year weve already seen numerous counties and communities get immediate assistance from Gov. Dayton through state agencies and local government partnerships. The Disaster Assistance Contingency Fund is working for Minnesotans. You shouldnt have to wait or consider how and when aid gets to you after a natural disaster and we made sure thats a reality. When we work together for good and efficient government, we serve the people of Minnesota the way they expect and deserve.
This is not the normal way to fire a Cabinet officer. President Trump is subjecting his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, to public torture for failing to protect him from the investigation of his campaigns apparent ties to Russia.

Last week, Trump told the New York Times that Sessions recusal from the investigation  a decision required by Justice Department rules  was unfair to the president who appointed him.

This week, Trump turned up the heat with a series of nasty tweets directed, amazingly, at a senior member of his own Cabinet.

Why arent the Committees and investigators, and of course our beleaguered A.G., looking into Crooked Hillarys crimes & Russia relations? the president demanded on Monday.

In case that wasnt obvious enough, he escalated early Tuesday morning: Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers!

And when reporters asked the president if he wanted Sessions to quit, Trump evaded the question three times. Time will tell, he said.

When most presidents want a Cabinet official to resign, they send their chief of staff or another trusted aide to whisper in his or her ear. If that doesnt do the trick, aides leak to reporters, inducing stories that the president thinks its time for a change. (I was a conduit for one such leak in 1993, when Bill Clinton wanted Les Aspin to quit as Defense secretary.) Or they simply call the offending Cabinet officer to the Oval Office and deliver the bad news person-to-person. Thats how Barack Obama fired Chuck Hagel from the Pentagon in 2014.

Not Trump. He sends his Cabinet officers Twitter messages with the subtlety and finesse of a brick hurled through a plate-glass window.

This isnt just a matter of style  of a drain the swamp president disrupting Washingtons prissy traditions. There are substantive lessons here, too.

The first and most obvious is that anyone who serves Trump should expect no loyalty from him, unless theyre family. Sessions was the first U.S. senator to endorse Trump when the New York moguls candidacy still seemed like a nonsensical long shot. The Alabaman took a political risk by backing Trump; if another Republican had been elected president, Sessions would have been stranded in the political equivalent of Siberia. His reward, now, is public humiliation. (Republican senators: Think twice before risking your reputations to defend this man.)

The second lesson is that, to Trump, effectiveness in government doesnt count for much compared to protecting the president from investigators. Sessions is responsible for a good share of what the administration has achieved in practical terms: its more aggressive prosecution of narcotics cases, its draconian crackdown on illegal immigration, its effort to defund so-called sanctuary cities.

But to the president, those accomplishments pale before the fact that Sessions allowed his deputy to name Robert Mueller as a special counsel to investigate the Russia allegations, and that the Justice Department is allowing Mueller to forge ahead.

The third lesson is that Trump thinks the Justice Department should act as his personal law firm. Thats not new, but its still chilling.

As Jack Goldsmith, a former Justice Department official under George W. Bush, wrote in Lawfare on Tuesday, the president seems bent on destroying the authority of the Justice Department that he worries, perhaps for reasons only he knows, may destroy him. At no time in modern history (and perhaps ever) has a President been so openly at odds, and bent on discrediting, his senior law enforcement and intelligence officials.

Trump wants his attorney general to order the FBI to reopen its investigation of Hillary Clinton  not because he thinks shes guilty of a crime (the FBI answered that question last year), but because it will strengthen his argument that whatever his campaign did was no worse than something hers must have done too.

(That, incidentally, is a 180-degree reversal of a position Trump took in November, when he said that prosecuting Clinton would be very, very divisive for the country. Its not something that I feel very strongly about, he said then.)

Does Trump hope to harass Sessions into resigning so he can name a more pliable attorney general, one who would follow an order to fire Mueller? It sure looks that way. The president has made it clear that hes after the special counsels scalp. And the Washington Post reported Tuesday that some Trump associates have already argued that the quickest way there is to name a new attorney general.

It all comes back to the Russia investigation. Trump rages at the media, Congress and now his own Justice Department for keeping it going. Hes already fired one acting attorney general, Sally Yates, and one FBI director, James B. Comey; now he appears ready to cashier one of his most loyal supporters and throw his Cabinet into chaos.

Trump insists that the controversy is groundless. And its true that conclusive evidence of direct collusion has not yet come to light. But the president is acting  relentlessly and recklessly  like a man with something to hide.
One person was killed and three others injured in a shooting at the Grey nightclub in the German city of Konstanz in the early hours of Sunday, the German police said in a statement.

The gunman was shot dead by police in an exchange of fire that has also wounded a policeman.

"Many guests had left the building panic stricken or were hiding when the shots were fired," the statement said

The gunman was a 34-year-old Iraqi who has lived in Germany for a long time, Fritz Bezikofer from the Kostanz police told CNN.

"According to our investigations this is not terror-related, unless the gunman radicalized himself within the last three days," Bezikofer said.

At this moment we believe that he may have had alternative motifs." Bezikofer could not give any more details.
Two fiber arts enthusiasts who have been friends since high school will open Unwound Artisan Yarn Shop on Tuesday at 413 Jay St. in downtown La Crosse.

Kait Holton of La Crosse and Carolyn Zick own the new business, which will sell yarn, spinning fiber that can be spun into yarn, and knitting and crocheting tools. The shops focus is on local, regional and small-scale brands.

Unwound also will sell fabric bags, wall art, soaps, jewelry and stationary.

Hours will be 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Wednesday through Sunday. The shops grand opening will be Saturday and include drawings for prizes.

This fall, Unwound will begin offering classes in knitting and crocheting. Well have different levels of classes, from beginner to advanced, Holton said. The two owners will be among the instructors.

Unwound also will host events such as knit nights and participate in others such as World Wide Knit in Public Day.

Zick and Holton have had a Chain 344 podcast on knitting, crocheting and spinning on YouTube for more than two years, and hope to resume it soon. But theyve been busy preparing to open their new shop.

Theyve been friends since Zick moved to Durand, Ill., during her high school freshman year. Holton was a high school sophomore there at the time.

They were in the same Spanish class, and bonded during their school art clubs trip to Italy the following summer and during the fundraising for that trip.

Zick and her husband, Caleb, moved to the La Crosse area from Durand in 2013 after he landed a local job. Holton and her husband, Alex, moved to the La Crosse area from Jacksonville, Ill., in 2015 for a job that Caleb had told him about.

Holton, 26, and Zick, 25, both enjoy knitting, crocheting and spinning wool into yarn. Holton said she has been passionate about yarn since she learned to knit in high school. Zick has enjoyed crocheting since she was 6 and has been knitting since 2013.

Its a great creative outlet, Holton said of crocheting and knitting. It lets you enjoy your brain.

You can follow a pattern someone else has written, write your own pattern or just create something without following a pattern at all, Holton said.

Im driven to be productive, Zick said. Its a hobby in which I can feel productive while also relaxing. There are a lot of studies on the mental health impact of any tactile (using the sense of touch) craft. Its very therapeutic.

This is the perfect way for me to share my passion about knitting and crocheting, Holton said of opening the new shop. I want to help other people discover it so it can impact their live in the same way.

I love the La Crosse area, Zick said. Ive never seen a community so engaged intellectually, with a very local focus and a rich textile history. I think the Scandinavian heritage of textile arts offers a unique opportunity for Unwound to succeed.

Holton said La Crosse seemed like a good location for their new shop partly because Its so vibrant with stuff going on all the time. The art scene here is great.

She said she and Zick have been helped by Downtown Mainstreet Inc., the Small Business Development Center at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse and the Wisconsin Womens Business Initiative Corp.

We like to support small businesses, and there are a lot of good small businesses here, Holton said of her and Zicks decision to focus on local, regional and small-scale brands.

Zick said she and Holton also want to sell unique yarns that big-box stores dont carry.

Zick and Holton plan to invite fiber arts enthusiasts to relax with their project and cup of coffee or tea in their shops lounge. Everyone regardless of skill level is welcome to come spend time in the lounge, and visit with other lovers of the fiber arts, Holton said.
As Esapekka Lappi maintained a firm grip on the lead of Neste Rally Finland on Sunday morning, attention turned to a thrilling three-car battle for second.

Stage info: SS22/23 SS22: Lempaa 1, 6.80km

Sundays opener heads to the eastern side of Lake Paijanne for a test that ran last year for the first time since 1999. The surface is hard and the road bends all the way, with great combinations of corners and crests. The second part is twistier, but it flows from start to finish. SS23: Oittila 1, 10.12km

Oittila is fast, fast, fast with plenty of dips, small crests and hay bale chicanes to watch out for. The final section could be the narrowest of the rally and there are chances to take big cuts through the grass. There are no junctions in the first 3.7km, but five in the last 2.3km.

The Finn emerged from the opening Lempaa and Oittila tests with a 42.2sec advantage in his Toyota Yaris, but behind him Teemu Suninen, Elfyn Evans and Juho Hanninen were engaged in a titanic scrap.

Second fastest for Hanninen in Lempaa left the Finn tied with fellow countryman Suninen in second place. Evans was third quickest in his Ford Fiesta and the Welshman was 2.0sec behind in fourth.

Evans was distracted when the wipers jammed across his windscreen but Suninen was more concerned. We struggled for grip all the time, we need to find something for the next stage, said the Fiesta pilot.

He did exactly that to pip Evans by 0.5sec, with Hanninen a further 2.2sec behind in his Yaris. With two stages remaining, Suninen held a 2.5sec advantage over Evans, with Hanninen a further two-tenths back in fourth.

The slippery Oittila caught out both Evans and Hanninen. I went wide on two junctions. It was exceptionally changeable grip and difficult to read the road, said Evans. Hanninen explained: I lost it quite soon after the start. I went wide on a left corner and hit a hay bale.

And Suninens secret to his pace? I cant say because were in a tight fight, he said.

Fifth-placed Craig Breen and Thierry Neuville, one place behind, overshot junctions in Oittila but Lappi remained as cool and calm as he has all weekend.

Im just trying to enjoy it but its difficult when youre not pushing flat out. Its not so enjoyable, you need to drive flat out for all the aero and the functions on the car to work. I dont want to do anything stupid because you cant trust the grip. It will be fine.

Jari-Matti Latvala was fastest in both stages, Toyota Gazoo Racing having diagnosed the problem that stopped his leading Yaris yesterday as a faulty ECU.

Head to WRC+ to see the latest onboard and video reports from Neste Rally Finland.

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Hands-on Exhibition at Wrexham Museum to Explore Ancient Wisdom

This article is old - Published: Sunday, Jul 30th, 2017

A hands-on exhibition exploring the engineering and challenges of the ancient world is now on at the Wrexham Museum.

The Ancient Wisdom exhibition, which launched at the museum last week, offers an insight into the technological achievements of the Ancient Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Sumerians and Babylonians.

If youre interested in puzzles and challenges, science and engineering and experiments, then this is the exhibition for you!

The exhibitions interactives include: Archimedes Screw, catapults; siege engines, aqueducts and arches, Roman signals, Egyptian locks and many more challenges. The exhibition is designed for families with children, but adults can just as easily enjoy the activities.

Cllr Hugh Jones, Lead Member for Communities, Partnerships, Public Protection and Community Safety, said: This will be a very engaging event for all those families looking to keep their children active during the summer holidays.

The inventions and technologies of ancient civilisations are incredibly interesting and this will be a very hands-on event where children will have the chance to have a go at testing those technologies for themselves.

Admission to the exhibition is free and will run until September 2. For more information, telephone 01978 297 460 or see the museums Facebook page.
In decisions in which they had essentially had no choice, the Auburn Planning Board and Zoning Board of Appeals quickly approved plans for Verizon Wireless to build a new 100-foot tower in an east-side neighborhood.

The Franklin Street tower approval was ordered by a federal judge, who ruled in late June that the city had violated federal laws that impose a strict timeline for reviewing cellphone tower applications.

Auburn had refused to accept a Verizon application that was filed in March 2016, just as a city moratorium on such projects was enacted. The telecommunications company came back multiple times to argue that federal law still requires that an application be accepted and decided upon within 150 days, regardless of any local moratorium. The city disagreed and Verizon sued in August 2016.

Nearly 10 months later, and more than a year after Verizon first applied, U.S. District Court Judge David N. Hurd ordered the city to give the proposal what amounted to instant approval.

Auburn Planning Board approves Franklin Street cellphone tower after court mandate AUBURN  The city of Auburn was ordered by a U.S. District Court judge to approve a site pla

The reaction from the two city review boards was understandably one of disappointment and frustration. How could a judge order this without allowing the city proper time do a thorough review of the application and conduct public hearings to get input from local residents?

One answer is that federal law is so stacked in favor of the telecommunications companies. Read Hurd's decision and it's clear that the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and the subsequent Federal Communications Commission's rules and interpretations give little to no power to municipalities to stop cellphone towers from being built where companies deem them to be needed.

It's certainly worth city leaders' time to reach out to our federal representatives to ask that this problem be addressed, via regulatory and/or legislative action.

But as long as the laws and regulations on the books remain in place, it's also important for city staff responsible for complying with them be better at handling these applications. Hurd's ruling makes it clear that the city botched this process, from the refusal to take the original application to the way it responded to Verizon's lawsuit.

"Defendant failed to submit a copy of the relevant City Code as it existed in March 2016 or the revised City Code which was enacted in August 2016 and failed to express any issues which the Application may have raised. Instead, quiet shockingly, defendants asserted at oral argument that they did not even retain a copy of the plaintiff's Application when they returned it to plaintiff on March 4, 2016, instead relying upon their dubious legal argument that they could not file the Application due to the moratorium. Regardless, defendants again received plaintiffs application in February 2017 as part of this action and have failed to identify any deficiencies which would require further City consideration."

Residents affected by this project should be upset they never even had a chance to have their voice heard. City officials need to acknowledge their own responsibility for allowing that to happen.

The Citizen Editorial Board includes publisher Rob Forcey, managing editor Mike Dowd and executive editor Jeremy Boyer.
LA CROSSE  Dancers swirled Sunday to Greek music and savory smells of grilled lamb and chicken kabobs wafted across Copeland Avenue, teasing the taste buds.

The dancers, music and food are integral to the annual St. Elias Festival, which is one of the seminal moments in the life of St. Elias Parish and a showcase of Mediterranean culture.

Its a good place to bring families, said Sara Whitewater, who brought her family and a friend with three other children.

We come for the food and the music, she said.

While Sunday marked her third trip to the outdoor festival, Whitewater knows the place well. Five years ago, she lived next door to the church in one of the apartments that was torn down to make room for the festival grounds. The church people were great, she recalled.

Ana Skemp of La Crosse also brought her family and shared similar thoughts.

This is the first time weve ever been, the food is lovely and the music is great, she said. Its almost like when we were in Greece.

The church brings Mediterranean dishes such as falafel and spanakopita to the food court.

In the church kitchen, coordinator Terri Markos of La Crescent along with a handful of other volunteers labored to prepare enough food for 700 guests. Markos along with primary coordinators Jeff and Christine Stolz and Julee and Ben Agar began planning as soon as last years festival ended.

Were a small fellowship, under 40 families, said Markos. We have to stay organized to pull this off.

Things get pretty hectic at the last minute, she added.

Markos, whose husbands grandfather was one of the founding members in 1909, also said that since the founders were mostly Syrian/Lebanese Christians, 10 percent of the events proceeds would go to help Syrian refugees.

Meanwhile, outside, the Maritza Dance Band and the Winona Area International Dancers showcased traditional Greek and Russian folk dances.

But the St. Elias Festival is more than spinning folk dancers and delectable Mediterranean cuisine. For the people of the Orthodox Church, its about celebrating their patron saint, Elias, otherwise known as the Elijah of the Old Testament and a model of the contemplative life.

But theres also another reason for St. Elias Festival.

As Father Dean Wilhelm, the parish priest points out, to let people know theres an Orthodox church in town.

The only other area Orthodox churches are in Rochester and Madison.

Wilhelm, who led lines of guests through the sanctuary

all afternoon, estimates that the first feasts dedicated to Elias began around the fourth century. While giving tours of the facility, he discussed early church history and the ethnic make-up of the Orthodox church in La Crosse, as well as a rather unusual form of detente practiced by the founders.

The area around here was an Arabic neighborhood, Wilhelm pointed out.

If you read the newspapers from the early days, the Syrians were fighting with the locals; probably Germans, he said.

To minimize friction, the early church fathers chose an architectural style distinct from most other Orthodox churches. Hoping to ease the tension, they patterned the existing structure after the protestant churches of the era. It was completed in 1917 at a cost of $125.

Wilhelm said that the ethnic makeup of the church has changed over the years and todays congregation is made up of Russians, Romanians, Greeks, Bulgarians, a family from Egypt and a few Lutheran converts. Parishioners travel from as far as Galesville, Taylor and Arcadia, all in Wisconsin, to attend Sunday services.
Police arrested on Friday a 46-years-old bus driver from Yeruham whose blood alcohol level was 20 times the legal limit.

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A resident of Yeruham called the police's call center at around at around 10:20pm Friday night to report on a driver who was speeding and driving erratically. He hit a parked vehicle and a fence and then kept going despite pleas by passersby that he stopped. No one was hurt.

The woman said the driver appeared drunk and unaware of his surroundings.

Egged Transport

A police patrol that was called to the scene located the driver, who was on his way to pick up factory workers in the area.

He was taken for questioning, where the level of alcohol in his blood was found to be 1070 micrograms20 times the legal limit, which is up to 50 micrograms for commercial and bus drivers.

The driver claimed he did not drink a lot and asserted the test was faulty.

The CEO of Egged Transport, Eyal Yahiel, said in response, "We consider this a very grave incident. We'll await the results of the police investigation. The driver was summoned for a hearing and his work will be terminated pending the hearing. We're very strict about the issue of safety and following the law."
The Military Court of Appeals will decide Sunday whether or not to accept two appeals filed in the case of Elor Azaria, who was convicted of shooting dead a neutralized Palestinian terrorist during his IDF service in Hebron.

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Azaria, who will appear in court for the first time as a civilian after having been released from the IDF on July 20 , has appealed his manslaughter conviction

His defense team raised questions regarding the testimonies of company commander Maj. Tom Na'aman and the soldier T.who both said they heard Azaria say that he shot the terrorist because "he deserved to die after stabbing my friend." In addition, Azaria's team claimed soldiers and police officers in similar cases in the past were not prosecuted.

Azaria with his parents going to the synagogue to pray on Friday (Photo: Dana Kopel)

Meanwhile the military prosecution has appealed Azaria's sentence of 18 months , which it says is too lenient. It demanded the court to instead adopt the minority opinion and add six months to Azaria's sentence, bringing it to a total of two years.

If Azaria fails to win an acquittal, he would be given two days to get his affairs in order before having to arrive at Prison 6 near Haifa to begin serving his sentence.

If he is acquitted, the house arrest he has been on for the past 10 days since his released from the IDF will be canceled and he will go free immediately.

The military prosecution team (Photo: Yariv Katz)

Inside sources estimated the Military Appeals Court would reject both appeals, even if it won't do so unanimously.

During the appeal hearings, Military Appeals Court President Maj. Gen. Doron Piles, who heads the extended five judges panel, urged the two sides to go to mediation and reach a compromise, but the military prosecution rejected that option.

No new testimonies were presented in the appeal hearings, and the judges did not allow the prosecution to raise all of the arguments presented in its appeal.

Azaria's options

If Azaria's conviction and punishment remain unchanged, he would still have the option of seeking permission to appeal to the Supreme Court.

Customarily, the Supreme Court does not interfere in rulings given in the Military Appeals Court, particularly in trials such as Azaria's in which the dispute is over the facts and not over the underlying principles.

If Azaria wishes to appeal to the Supreme Court, he would have to provide new evidence, new testimonies or new and substantial claims. He could also ask to delay the beginning of his prison sentence until a decision is made on whether to allow him to appeal to the Supreme Courta request the prosecution is expected to oppose.





Azaria with his parents at court (Photo: Yariv Katz)

Even if Azaria does file a request to appeal to the Supreme Court, his request will not be discussed before September due to the upcoming hiatus in the judicial system.

If Azaria accepts the military appeals court's decision and starts serving his sentence this week, he would be able in the coming weeks to ask IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and President Reuven Rivlin to either commute his sentence or pardon him. These requests will include opinions by senior IDF officials, such as Military Advocate General Brig. Gen. Sharon Afek and Manpower Directorate head Maj. Gen. Moti Almoz, who was the IDF's spokesman at the time of the incident.

If while serving his sentence Azaria does not express regret or take responsibility for his actionsas he has done so farthis will be taken into account to his detriment.
I suddenly realized, when seeing the pictures from the mourners tent, that I had met Dr. Bashar Hamarneh, the victim of the shooting at the security guards apartment in the Israeli Embassy compound in Amman.

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It was three or four years ago, in a Jerusalem restaurant, when the Jordanian gentleman, an orthopedist, told me enthusiastically he had visited Israel many times in the past. How do you manage to get an entry permit, I asked curiously, knowing its an exhausting process. I live with the Israelis in the same neighborhood, he replied with a smile, and I have been renting them apartments since the day the embassy opened.

Were quite friendly, Dr. Bashar leaned over to whisper in my ear, offering to give me a guided tour of his hometown Madaba, south of Amman, where he was buried three days ago. The name of a mutual friend, Dr. Mustafa Hamarneh, an intellectual and Jordanian parliament member, was raised during the meeting. His American wife, Jenny, was the legendary editor-in-chief of the Jordan Times until her death two years ago. A respected, well-established family. I sent a letter of condolence on Saturday. It was hard to find words which would be both warm and convincing.

Jordans King Abdullah with the father of the killed youth. The Israeli guards immunity issue is troubling both government ministers and the angry protestors

Now it seems both sides have decided to take a break. The attorney generals office in Amman sent Jerusalem the findings of the Jordanian investigation , and Israel promised to speed up its own examination of the incident with security guard Ziv. Meanwhile, the Israeli diplomats are stuck in Jerusalem.

Following heavy hints dropped by the Israeli media, the Hamarneh family was asked not to accept any financial compensation from Israel. Its more important for them, I understood Saturday, to receive an apology from Prime Minister Netanyahu . All he has to do is say two words: Im sorry.

The testimony provided by the driver of the furniture truck, who disappeared last Sunday night, was revealed for the first time Saturday. If what his wife says matches the version the security guard gave the Jordanian interior ministry investigators, the affair is a lot more complicated than the little we were able to read and hear.

This is the testimony that was published in Jordan on Saturday and distributed across the Arab world: The driver, Maher al-Juneidi, insistsaccording to his wife, Buteina Abu Rishthat there was a box of nails involved, not a screwdriver. According to his version, the youth, Mohammad Omar Jawawdeh, brought furniture to the bedroom in the security guards apartment, which was paid for by the landlord, Dr. Hamarneh. The furniture assembly began at 4 pm, and after two hours it turned out that there were some nails missing. The teen left the apartment, and when he returned from the truck with the toolbox, something raised the security guards suspicion. An argument erupted, the youth stabbed him, the security guard was injured, pulled out a gun and fired. Dr. Hamarneh fell down together with the teen. The driver fled to another room, locked the door and called for help. The security guard called for help too. When the Jordanian rescue forces arrived, they couldnt find the Israeli, who had escaped in the meantime to the embassy building.

Im not sure thats a reliable testimony. After all, the driver works for the furniture factory owner, the father of the killed teen. Our investigators are also taking into account the fact that the teens family originally comes from a village near Hebron, and the timing of the incident, at the height of the Temple Mount crisis. The funeral procession came out of the large Palestinian refugee camp Wihdat, in the Amman suburbs. The driver, al-Juneidi, was detained for thorough questioning until the weekend, and then chose to hide in the home of relatives, far from the scene of the event.

Jordans attorney general charged the security guard with two counts of murder and with carrying an unlicensed weapon. The first charge ignores the chain of events, and the second charge is strange. Israeli security guards make sure to register the type and number of weapon, as well as their personal details, with the authorities of the state they serve in. With this whole mess in Amman, lets hope the gun license was valid. From the Israeli side, its clear that the security guardwho holds a diplomatic passporthas diplomatic immunity. Amman, on the other hand, is insisting on making a distinction: Either his job is to defend Israels emissaries, or he is an unarmed diplomat who is entitled to restricted immunity only.

The immunity issue is troubling both the government ministers in Jordan and the angry protestors: How was the security guard allowed to return to Israel after the interior minister had promised the youths parents that justice would be served and that the guard would be prosecuted in the kingdom? The foreign minister has already clarified: Were acting according to the international code and we expect the Israeli side to do the same.

The shooting incident at the embassy compound could also have a negative effect on the return of Israeli diplomats to Cairo. In Ankara, the Israeli representatives rules of conduct have been toughened. When Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wont stop people from attacking synagogues in his country, diplomats are preparing to curb any bad surprises.
Security forces raided overnight Saturday the home of one of the terrorists in the cell that carried out an October 2015 attack near Itamar in which Na'ama and Eitam Henkin were murdered.

The IDF said the forces impounded vehicles worth tens of thousands of shekels  a sum equal to the terror money transferred to the family by Hamas as reward for carrying out the attack and for rebuilding the terrorists' homes, which were demolished.
President Reuven Rivlin on Saturday made an appearance at a demonstration held outside the President's Residence in Jerusalem for the release of Abera Mengistu, who is held in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip for more than 1,000 days now.

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"I was in contact with the Mengistu family from day one," Rivlin said after speaking to Abera's brother, Ilan.

Rivlin meeting Abera's family (Photo: Free Avera Mengistu)

The president added that he works day and night to bring Abera back home, and apologized for not mentioning him to US President Donald Trump when he asked him to act to bring back the soldiers Hadar Goldin and Oron Shaul, both of whom were killed in the fighting during Operation Protective Edge in Gaza in the summer of 2014 and whose bodies were snatched by the terror organization.

The semonstration (Photo: Free Avera Mengistu)

A meeting between Rivlin and the Mengistu family is scheduled for Sunday.

"For almost three years, my brother Abera has been screaming 'save me,' and unfortunately his voice has not been heard. We appeal to President Reuven Rivlin to make use of his status and ties and put an end to the suffering of Abera and my family," Ilan said.
Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman on Saturday called on Culture and Sport Minister Miri Regev and Coalition Chairman MK David Bitan to apologize to the Shin Bet after their scathing attack of the agency over its handling of the Temple Mount crisis.

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Regev referred to the organization as "delusional," while Bitan called Shin Bet officials "cowards."

Lieberman expressed his support to the organization in an interview with Channel 2 New, saying Regev and Bitan's comments were "unfortunate words which should not have been said."

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Photo: Moti Kimchi)

"In the past two weeks alone, the Shin Bet prevented 19 attacks," he said. "Many people taking part in terrorist activities were apprehended by the Shin Bet, thanks to the Shin Bet. I would also advise Miri Regev and David Bitan to simply take their words back and apologize."

Lierberman added in a snide remark towards the two, saying, "People dealing with security matters have to understand that you can't simultaneously busy yourself with the primaries, public opinion and ratings. When you're dealing with security you have to let some things go and can't please everyone. The right decisions need to be made and you can't just chase popularity."

Unsurprisingly, Regev returned in kind. On Saturday night she wrote on Facebook that she refuses to budge: "I stand by my position and unequivocal claim that removing the metal detectors and cameras was a wrong, regrettable and even delusional decision. The Shin Bet's recommendation and scare tactics against politicians undermined Israel's sovereignty and its deterrent force on the Mount," she wrote.

Regev also mocked Lieberman's remarks: "Speaking of the minister of defense demanding apologies, I demand that he apologize to the citizens of the country for the fact that Ismail Haniyeh is still proselytizing, speaking and inciting in Gaza."

Former Shin Bet heads came out against Regev and Bitan's comments, with Yaakov Peri asserting that "Politicians who are not familiar with the organization's conduct and the difficulties facing those who serve it must not go against it."
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has tasked the Shin Bet with investigating the shooting at the Israeli embassy in Amman, when a security guard shot dead two Jordanians, one of whom attacked him with a screwdriver.

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Attorney General Avichai Mandelblit and State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan are personally supervising the investigation and monitoring its sensitive political aspects.

PM Netanyahu meets with Israeli ambassador to Jordan and the security guard (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

In diplomatic discussions over the weekend, Israel promised the Jordanians it will conduct a comprehensive and transparent investigation into the incident, and that it will pass the investigation's findings to Amman.

Anti-Israel protest in Jordan near the Israeli Embassy

Last week, the Jordanians claimed it was a truck driver who stabbed the security guard, not the 17-year-old Mohammad Jawawdah who was shot dead along with the building's landlord. But by the end of the week, their version changed and is now mostly in line with the Israeli version.

Netanyahu hugs the guard, and angers Jordanians (Photo: Haim Zach/GPO)

The initial investigation found the security guard's actions were justified: Jawawdah, who was there to install furniture, had sneaked up behind the guard and stabbed him with a screwdriver. The guard, Ziv, pulled out his handgun and shot him in response. The

Zakaria al-Jawawdeh

In addition to the truck driver, who worked with Jawawdah, the Jordanian owner of the building was also present at the time of the shooting.

He tackled the attacker and tried to stop him, but was unfortunately hit by shrapnel and fatally wounded. He was given first aid by members of the Israeli embassy, but succumbed to his wounds shortly thereafter.

The attacker's funeral (Photo: Reuters)

Senior Israeli security officials explained the guard could not have foreseen shrapnel would harm the landlord, adding that Israel intends to pay a generous compensation to the family of the landlord, who was trying to protect the Israeli guard.

The same sources said the motive for the stabbing was nationalistic , with the stabber attacking over the crisis on the Temple Mount and not because of an argument over the delay in transporting the furnitureas the Jordanians initially claimed. The Jordanians' claim that the security guard's gun was not licensed was also rejected, after documents proved otherwise.

King Abdullah consoles the father of the stabber

Jordan, meanwhile, has conditioned the return of Israeli diplomats and emissaries to the Amman embassy in the guard being put on trial, as the Jordanian prosecutor accused him of murdering two Jordanian civilians. Israel, meanwhile, promised an investigation and noted the guard would be prosecuted only if the law dictates it.
Some 20 protesters demonstrated Sunday outside the Kirya IDF headquarters in Tel Aviv ahead of ruling on the appeals in the Elor Azaria trial.

Protesters were waving Israeli flags and calling for Azaria's acquittal.
The Military Court of Appeals rejected Sunday both appeals in the Elor Azaria trial, upholding the manslaughter conviction and 18-month sentence given to the former soldier who shot dead a neutralized Palestinian terrorist during his IDF service in Hebron.

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Azaria, who appeared in court for the first time as a civilian after having been released from the IDF on July 20, had appealed his manslaughter conviction.

His defense team raised questions regarding the credibility of the testimonies of company commander Maj. Tom Na'aman and the soldier Cpl. T.who both testified they heard Azaria say that he shot the terrorist because "he deserved to die after stabbing my friend." In addition, Azaria's team claimed soldiers and police officers in similar cases in the past were not prosecuted.

Azaria in court (Photo: AFP)

Meanwhile the military prosecution appealed Azaria's sentence of 18 months, which it says is too lenient. It demanded the court to instead adopt the minority opinion and add six months to Azaria's sentence, bringing it to a total of two years.

Military Appeals Court President Maj. Gen. Doron Piles rejected the defense team's argument of selective enforcement against Azaria over claims similar incidents in the past did not go to trial, saying "The defense failed in proving this claim. The three cases presented by the defense, including the case of Col. Israel Shomer, are not similar to our case."

The court also rejected the claims the testimony of Cpl. T. was not credible, saying there was "no practical relevance to the appellant's claims that T.'s testimony was engineered by the IDF Criminal Investigation Division (CID)... T. confirmed his testimony to the CID in his testimony in court. We found no fault in the conclusion of the district court that found T.'s testimony to be credible. We do not accept Azaria's assertion that T. fabricated his testimony to match the positions of the IDF chief. There is no proof to the defense attorney's claim that words were put in T.'s mouth. He repeated his version over and over again of his own accord."

Furthermore, Piles said the court found that none of the witnesses "had a motive to falsely accuse Azaria."

Azaria and his family talking to Likud MK Oren Hazan (Photo: Tomer Applebaum)

The Military Appeals Court did find the testimony of company commander Na'aman to be problematic, saying he "gave completely different versions (to the CID and to the court). His explanations raise questions, some of his remarks are meaningless and unclear." Despite that, the appeals court decided not to intervene in the dispute over the company commander's testimony.

Instead, the court pointed to Azaria's version, which it found to be "not credible," as well as "suppressed and adaptive and could not be trusted."

Azaria, Piles said, "refused to participate in a confrontation with the witnesses" and "tried to shape his version in accordance with the information he received."

Azaria arriving at court (Photo: Yariv Katz)

The appeals court reaffirmed the lower court's determination there was no justification for Azaria's shooting of the terrorist.

"We didn't find the appellant's claim he was afraid (the terrorist had) an explosive to be convincing. After hearing the warnings of a possible explosive, Azaria waited two minutes before shooting," Piles said.

"It is in the nature of one who fears for his life to warn others present at the scene, and he did not do so. He acted coolly and slowly. He set his sights, tarried, called out 'move, move' before shooting and even took off his helmet. This behavior is not in line with one who feels in danger. He was freely speaking to others at the scene, did not move away, and did not say anything of his concerns even after the terrorist's body was evacuated from the scene."

The judges added that "The use of weapons without justification is forbidden, immoral and even harmful... a soldier must not settle the score with his enemies. We must not accept actions like that... Azaria's actions blatantly violated the rules of engagement. He took no responsibility for his actions and did not express doubt. Azaria's behavior is not the way of the State of Israel or the IDF."

The court also determined the defense failed to prove its claims IDF Chief of Staff Gadi Eisenkot and then-defense minister Moshe Ya'alon's condemnations of the shooting immediately after the incident affected or influenced the judicial process.

Piles rejected claims information from the investigation leaked and that the court was influenced by any outside sources. "It is no secret the affair has caused controversy in Israeli society: the IDF is the people's army and the best sons and daughters are sent to endanger their lives to ensure the security and prosperity of the country. The heart of Israeli society goes out to the soldiers. Azaria's situation evokes empathy, but the ruling is not given in the city square. The public debate must not distract the court from the legal way of law," he said.

The Military Appeals Court rejected the prosecution's appeal of the sentence with a three-to-two majority. "The punishment set by the court was moderate," Piles determined.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Sunday his handeling of the crisis at the Temple Mount and his decision to place metal detectors in the area and then remove them is based on "a broad view of the challenges and threats facing us."

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"Some of (these challenges and threats) are not known to the public and due to their (sensitive) nature cannot be detailed," Netanyahu said.

Netanyahu at a cabinet meeting, July 30, 2017 (Photo: Reuters)

"I understand the public's feelings. I also understand the duty of leadership, of those who sit in this chair and carry the supreme responsibility for Israel's security, and that's how I act," he added. "I say to our enemies on all fronts: The IDF, the Shin Bet and the Israel Police are prepared to act with all their might against anyone who tries to harm our citizens, our soldiers and our policemen.

"In recent days I have instructed to reinforce the security forces on the Temple Mount and in the Old City in order to prevent disturbances and to deter lawbreakers," Netanyahu noted. "I gave the police a budget of up to NIS 100 million to create security solutions that will increase security."

Metal detectors removed from Temple Mount entrance (Photo: AP)

The Prime Minister then addressed to the tense period after the new security measures were introduced, mostly to show his appreciation to the security forces who were tasked with maintaining the order in those difficult days.

"These were two busy weeks for our security forces, who are on constant alert for further major challenges even now," he said. "On behalf of all the citizens of Israel, I would like to thank our commanders and soldiers, the policemen and Shin Bet agents who work day and night to protect us all. I greatly appreciate their work and their deep dedication to the security of Israel."
In 1984, Avi Blasberger was one of the first engineers at the Elop company, now owned by Elbit Systems, transferred to working on a top secret project: developing the camera for Israel's forthcoming spy satellite, a capability only possessed by the US and the USSR at the time.

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"Years later, a South Korean delegation visited us and asked who taught us to build satellites," recounts Blasberger, now the director of the Israel Space Agency. "I said we learned it from books, and they said that was impossible. Nevertheless, they ended up buying a camera for their observation satellite from us."

In the early hours of this coming Wednesday, the Israel Space Agency will launch two satellites into space from the French launch center in Koro, New GuineaOptSat 3000, a spy satellite purchased by the Italian ministry of defense, and the Venus research satellite. This marks the first time two Israeli satellitesthat aren't microscopic nano-satellitesare launched simultaneously.

The Venus research satellite (Photo: Yaron Druckman)

NASA has launched dozens of research satellites. What can Venus do that we haven't already seen?

"Venus will be used by precise agriculture and environmental studies researchers. It's equipped with a state-of-the-art camera developed by Elop, which is able to snap photos at 12 wavelengths. 110 sites were selected, which will be photographed by Venus once every two days, a repetition of relatively high frequency no other satellite possesses. Alongside its scientific mission, however, is also an engineering oneto test an electrical propulsion system developed by Rafael, which will someday allow observation satellites to circle more closely to Earth, thereby improving the sharpness of their imagessomething which has vast commercial potential. In the first two and a half years, the satellite will circle Earth at an altitude of 700 km, then dropping down to 410 km where the new propulsion system will be tested."

The proverbial old lady lying in the hospital hallway would like to know how Israel can afford research satellites when it's short of funds in so many other places.

"Research satellites move both industry and science forward. Investment in the field of space is returned 5 or 10 times over. It creates technologies that may then be sold for various commercial applications. Israel already has several start-ups related to outer space. Scientific research will also contribute to agriculture and improve the use of water, also paving the way for educational projects. This field, anywhere in the world, is reliant on governmental investment, and what Israel invests in this field is infinitesimal even compared to its population size and GDP. Our technological capabilities in space are some of the most advanced in the world. The French space agency, which has partnered with us on this project, is responsible for the satellite camera and has chosen an Israeli supplierwhich is quite out of the ordinarythanks to our capabilities and financial bid."

After Venus, what's next?

"We're working on a new flagship project with the Italian space agency, the Shalom satellite which is hyper-spectral, meaning it can take photos at more than 250 wavelengths and not just 12, like Venus, and embodies the future of observation satellites. The Italians already have the funds, while we're still in talks with the Ministry of Finance, the sum in question being 80 million euro per country. We're hoping to start the project by 2018 and launch four years after that.

"In the meantime, the future of manufacturing communication satellites in Israel is in question, after losing Amos-6 when its launch missile exploded and the hardships faced by the Israel Aerospace Industries to compete with other bids when it comes to costs and timetables for manufacturing Amos-8.

"After losing Amos-6, Minister of Science (Ofir) Akunis created a committee which decided the state should invest NIS 100 million annually in infrastructure for building communication satellites in order for it to be possible to produce parts for them, which today are being purchased abroad. Israel needs blue-and-white satellites operated by Israeli companies. We've since been in negotiations with the Ministry of Finance and now dealing with pretty low sums."

The company that operates the Amos satellites is owned by Shaul Elovitch , who's facing an ongoing investigation into his dealing as majority shareholder of Bezeq. Can it still purchase satellites?

"When the committee I mentioned was created, the Elovitch affair hadn't gone public yet. We continue operating without taking this aspect of it into account. The bottom line and very real need of the space industry still exist, one way or the other."

Astronaut Ilan Ramon went into space in the Columbia shuttle and perished in 2003. Will we see another Israeli astronaut?

"We certainly hope so, but there isn't a specific plan in place at the moment. The number of opportunities for launch has dramatically decreased since the American space shuttle program was scrapped. Today astronauts are only launched to the international space station, and only from countries that are partners to its operation. The director of NASA has already stated that the future mission to Mars will be open to other countries, and that Israel is one of the candidates. But that's not something that's going to happen anytime soon.

"However, Israel may get to Mars even without a local astronaut. In 2019, the Orion spaceship built by Lockheed Martin for NASA will be launched. It's supposed to be used for prolonged space missions and, in the future, a mission to Mars. These missions increase the need for protecting the crew from radiation. A protective suit developed by the StemRad company operating out of Tel Aviv under Dr. Oren Milstein will be tested onboard the Orion. During the spaceship's first flight, which won't be manned, the suit will be test-worn by a state-of-the-art test dummy, assisted by the German space agency. StemRad has developed a suit that's more ergonomic than those currently on the market and that also better protects against radiation relative to its weight. It focuses exactly on the areas under the most risk."

Our advantage in the Middle East is constantly eroding: Iran is already building and launching satellites.

"Iran has proven it possesses launch capabilities. It's willing to invest large sums of money and is closing some of the gaps. However, by my estimate our technologies are still more advanced. Access to space is a significant aspect of the rivalry between countries, among other things due to the double uses technology has in civilian and military sectors. We can and should invest more."
Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman took to Twitter on Sunday, asking Elor Azaria and his family not to file another appeal over his 18 month prison sentence

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"I ask the Azaria family not to file an additional appeal, but rather to appeal to the Chief of Staff for a pardon. I have no doubt that the Chief of Staff will take into account all the difficult circumstances and that he (Elor) was an outstanding soldier," Lieberman wrote.

Elor Azaria with his parents in court Sunday (Photo: Reuters)

In addition to Lieberman, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also touched on the subject, saying, "My opinion has not changed on the granting of a pardon to Elor Azaria, as I expressed following the verdict. When the subject is brought up for practical discussion, I will forward my recommendation for amnesty to the relevant parties."

Despite calls for a pardon, sources at the Office of the President said that thus far, no such request has been submitted to President Reuven Rivlin.

The same sources also added that Rivlin will most likely allow Lt. Gen. Eisenkot to handle the request.

Should Azaria request a pardon from Rivlin exclusively, Azaria will have to take into account that such a request entails an extended process of deliberation involving the IDF Military Advocate General, the head of the IDF's Manpower Directorate, the Chief of Staff and the Minister of Defense.

Minister of Defense Avigdor Lieberman

In addition to both Lieberman and Netanyahu, other government officials such as Bayit Yehudi Chairman and Minister of Education Naftali Bennett and Minister of Culture and Sport Miri Regev have expressed their support for pardoning Azaria.

In a statement, Bennett said, "The verdict is difficult, but the court must be respected. Now, after a year and a half of trials, it is time to pardon Elior Azaria. For the sake of our fighters who are on the front lines and in order to prevent the loss of our power of deterrence, Elor must return home."

Regev also issued a statement, saying, "Elor Azaria is an outstanding soldier and should have been home a long time ago now. Now it is under the IDF's authority and they should give him backup. Pardon him. And the sooner the better."
Current IDF Chief Rabbi Brig. Gen. Eyal Karim signed a position paper 17 years ago stating that the mixing of sexes in the IDFincluding in a professional framework of mentor and apprenticeshould be "strictly and absolutely prohibited" and could possibly divide the IDF.

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Karim joined some 20 rabbis identifying with Religious Zionism in the paper, which was exposed by rabbis belonging to the Liba Center, who are opposed to joint service in the IDF.

IDF Chief Rabbi Brig. Gen. Eyal Karim

The document's release comes just before the upcoming August conscription, where for the first time ever, female conscripts will be drafted into IDF armored unitsa prospect Liba Center rabbis are not prepared to accept.

In the document, the signatories emphasized that the IDF should be "kosher" in regards to observing Shabbat, food and modest dress. The rabbis, which included the heads of yeshivas and pre-IDF preparatory academies, stated, "The mixing of boys and girls in the same company as soldiers, commanders, fitness instructors and the like, should be strictly and absolutely prohibited.

Making matters more embarrassing for the IDF, Rabbi Karim and Rabbi Shlomo Inbar, both approached former Chief Rabbi of Israel, Eliyahu Bakshi-Doron, and asked him to intervene immediately against the "severe blow to modesty in the IDF."

The IDF Spokesperson's Unit issued a response to the document, saying, "The purpose of the Joint Service Ordinance is to ensure the designation of the IDF as the people's army. According to this ordinance, soldiers of all religions, sexes and communities serve based on the values of human dignity and the spirit of the IDF.

"The document in question is many years old and on the eve of his election, Karim made his position on the service of women in the IDF clear. He has participated in the formulation of orders regarding the integration of women in the IDF in a respectful and egalitarian manner and without harming the feelings of those serving.

"In regards to the Joint Service Ordinance, the order states that a soldier will not be a sent to a battalion against their will, so that all can serve in accordance with their beliefs."
MOGADISHU -- The death toll from fighting on Sunday between al Shabaab fighters and Somalia government and African Union peacekeeping troop stands at 24, a senior regional official said.

The fighting broke out when the al Shabaab fighters ambushed the troops early Sunday in the Bulamareer district of the Lower Shabelle region, about 140 kilometres (84 miles) southwest of Mogadishu.

"We have carried 23 dead AMISOM soldiers and a dead Somali soldier from the scene where al Shabaab ambushed AMISOM today," Ali Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region, told Reuters.
Thousands of people rallied in Turkey's largest city on Sunday against security measures Israel has imposed at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, shortly after Israel removed other measures that led to two weeks of violent Palestinian protests.

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The rally in Istanbul, called "The Big Jerusalem Meeting" and organized by Turkey's Saadet Party, drew some five thousand people to the Yenikapi parade ground on the southern edge of Istanbul.

"Down with USA and Israel" (Photo: AFP)

Protesters were brought in by buses and ferries from across the city, waved Turkish and Palestinian flags, and held up posters in front of a giant stage where the chairman of the Saadet party and representatives from NGOs addressed the crowd.

"The Al-Aqsa mosque is our honor," read a poster.

"You should know that not only Gaza, but Tel Aviv also has their eyes on this parade ground. Netanyahu does as well, and he is scared", said Saadet Party Chairman Temel Karamollaoglu, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Photo: Reuters

Turkey has opposed the security measures installed at the entry points of the mosque compound, with President Tayyip Erdogan warning Israel that it would suffer most from the dispute.

Erdogan accused Israel of inflicting damage on Jerusalem's "Islamic character", in comments that Israel's foreign ministry called "absurd."

The dispute over security at the mosque compoundwhere Israel installed metal detectors at entry points after two police officers were murdered in a terror attack this monthhas touched off the bloodiest clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in years.

Photo: Reuters

On Friday however, the main prayer session at the Al-Aqsa mosque ended relatively calmly after Israel removed the tougher security measures, though it barred entrance to men under age 50 .

Israel captured east Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Six Day War. It annexed the area in a move that has never been recognized internationally.

Photo: AFP

The Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, sits in the heart of the Old City. It is also the holiest place in Judaismthe venue of two ancient temples, the last destroyed by the Romans. Jews pray under heavy security at the Western Wall at the foot of the elevated plaza.
A new video has surfaced showing the moments in which an owner of a pizza parlor in central Petah Tikva used a wooden pizza tray to strike a terrorist who carried out a stabbing attack in the area before giving chase.

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In the attack, a 35-year-old bus driver, Abed al-Fatah Abu Halal from Ar'ara was moderately-to-severely wounded after being stabbed in the torso and neck by a 21-year-old Palestinian from Qalqilya. The victim was rushed to Rabin Medical Center where he underwent emergency surgery.

Pounding a terrorist over the head with a pizza tray

X

The terrorist reportedly told police that he "did it for Al-Aqsa." He was previously incarcerated between 2015 - 2016 for a nationalistically motivated attack.

After the terrorist ran off, Madar ran after him and, with the help of others, managed to subdue the attacker.

Shlomi Madar (Photo: Raanan Ben Zur)

I saw the terrorist running in my direction and he tried to come into the shop. He stabbed the counter a few times. I stopped him coming in by bashing the pizza tray on his head, Madar recalled after the attack.
General practitioners working out of new medical facilities near Perths hospitals could be paying rent as high as those found in premium grade office blocks in the CBD, according to new analysis by Y Research, a WA property information and research company.

Y Research examined medical property as an emerging class in Perths property market, and found strong growth in both demand and price for buildings that house medical facilities across the capital, especially if the buildings were close to hospitals.

Western Australias ageing population, robust employment growth, and flow of private investment towards new care facilities is turning medical into a major asset class, according to Damian Stone, Y Researchs principal and chief problem solver.

The health sector's strong performance is underpinned by the rental premium of medical centres compared to alternative options for medical tenants  office, retail and former residential properties, Stone said. Current asking rents for new medical centres on hospital campuses are comparable to premium grade CBD office buildings,

On average, asking rents for high quality medical centres are 88 per cent higher than office and retail properties advertised for medical use, and 50.7 per cent higher than former residential properties advertised for medical use, he added.

Given the anticipated surge in demand for medical facilities as the population ages, and with strong investment from the government, private sector, and property industry, medical property has the potential to be the prescription for the ailments of Western Australias commercial property markets in the years ahead, according to Stone.

The McGowan government has committed to building a number of medihotels in Perth, which would provide accommodation support for patients not ready to be discharged, but who no longer need a hospital bed.

The tender to build the first medihotel facility was won by the Fini Group, who are due to start work in 2018 and finish around 2021. The project will include apartments, an aged care facility, and a medical clinic adjacent to Fiona Stanley Hospital and St John of God private hospital.

There are more healthcare facilities on the way. Nationally significant investment is flowing into the healthcare sector, which is estimated to be worth over $120 billion, Stone said.

Healthcare in an attractive sector for investors due to strong growth and low volatility compared to retail and office property. Nationally, health care property delivered an annual return over 20 per cent. As a result of competition for limited quality assets, yields are tightening to levels comparable to quality office and retail assets, Stone said.

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Lahore: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is set to succeed his brother as the Pakistan Prime Minister, is looking to his son Hamza Shabaz as his replacement in Punjab, the media reported on Sunday.



Shahbaz Sharif is known to enjoy "a degree of comfort in dealing with his son", the Dawn newspaper reported, quoting insiders in the ruling Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).



According to the insiders, however, the final say on who gets to helm Punjab would rest with ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who is looking to consolidate the party's control in Punjab, the Dawn said.



The PML-N cannot afford to lose its grip on Punjab since the next general elections are barely a year away.



"Shahbaz wants his son, who is already acting as the Deputy Chief Minister, to succeed him for the remaining term in Punjab," a PML-N legislator from Punjab told Dawn.



"However, (it is up to) Nawaz Sharif to decide whether Hamza will be the right choice for the post or not."



The PML-N leader added that Shahbaz Nawaz would continue to oversee matters in Punjab indirectly while his elder brother, Nawaz Sharif, would continue to govern the Centre from his Raiwind residence, the report said.



A Punjab minister may keep the Chief Minister's seat warm for Shahbaz Nawaz's son for 45 days.



On Saturday, the deposed Prime Minister formally announced that Shahbaz Nawaz would be his successor and Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will be Premier for 45 days till Shahbaz Nawaz contests a by-election to enter the National Assembly.



Rumours of Hamza Shahbaz's political tiffs with Nawaz Sharif's family and children abound.



He had not openly defended his uncle (Nawaz Sharif) in the Panama Papers case, choosing not to comment too much on the issue. But both families have often denied rumours of any political disagreement.



The Dawn said the names of three others - Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Information Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and Food Minister Bilal Yasin - were also being considered for the post of Punjab Chief Minister.


Pune: Union Minister Rajiv Pratap Rudy has claimed that Chief Minister Nitish Kumar was under pressure from RJD chief Lalu Prasad during the grand alliance rule in Bihar and described his step to walk out of the coalition as a "big step" towards clean politics.

Rudy, the Minister of State for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, also expressed confidence that under the new JD(U)-BJP government, Bihar would be transformed.

"Bihar's population is 11 crore and Nitish Kumar has forged the partnership with the BJP in the interest of these people and the state. This alliance should have taken place much earlier. With this decision, Bihar is heading towards big transformation," he said.

"I feel Nitish Kumar was under huge pressure of Lalu Prasad Yadav during the alliance, but now he is relieved and I think this decision is a big step in the direction of clean politics," he added.

Rudy was speaking to reporters here on the sidelines of the launch of a skill development programme initiated by CREDAI Pune Metro.

When asked about the allegations levelled by Lalu Prasad that the new alliance was "fixed", the MP from Bihar slammed the RJD chief over his alleged involvement in various scams.

"He was found guilty in fodder scam and cannot contest elections... Now things are coming out that when he was the railway minister, he sold hotels and created shell companies in the name of his family members and now looking at the trail of all these scams, the amount of scam may go up to Rs 10,000 crore," claimed the minister.

During his speech, Rudy said the mindset of people in India had always been to make their children engineers or provide good education to them so that they could get better jobs.

"Post-Independence, even at the government level, we have never focused on skill development. There are 18 lakh seats in engineering colleges across India, out of which eight lakh seats are empty. If we focus more on skill development, we can really become the leading country in providing the skilled workforce to the world," he said.

Rudy further said that the Narendra Modi government was the first in India to have created a separate ministry for skill development.

"On behalf of the government, I urge CREDAI to make skill development their mission since the construction industry is one of the largest employment generators and construction workers are the real assets to their business.

"CREDAI can train them across India. It has the potential to turn this dream of skilled India into reality," he said.

Stating that construction-related deaths was a serious problem, Rudy said something must be done about this.
With just pen, paper and patience, Jenna Hestekin can create a stunning rendition of any photograph, capturing the essence of each subject with immaculate detail.

I used to do graphite, and now I use stippling, Hestekin said of her pen and ink drawings. I really love the rhythm. You just tap your pen  theres something kind of musical about it.

It took eight years for Hestekin to perfect the skill, and on Saturday she shared her work for the first time at Art Fair on the Green. One of two dozen new artists at the 59th annual event, Hestekin and her booth featured not one but three genres of art, including intricate scratch board pieces requiring up to 100 hours of labor and deceptively heavy wire animals.

As owner of The Cozy Red studio, Hestekin, of Independence, has been attending art shows for five years and was intrigued by the buzz around Art Fair on the Green, a scholarship fundraiser hosted by the American Association of University Women that draws thousands each year.

Ninety exhibitors were featured this year, and Hestekin was impressed by her fellow artists.

I couldnt pick a favorite booth, she said. Theres so much cool stuff.

Hestekins wire creations caught the eye of many, both charming in their petite size and striking in their workmanship. Each character, from foxes to horses, starts with a strand of wire, wrapped over and over until a shape develops, and then enhanced with old jewelry to create legs, ears and detail.

I was bored one day and made this crude little cow, Hestekin said. It went from there.

Happy accidents have resulted in many successes for Patty Tiry of Tiry Originals as well. The bead weaving artist from Palmyra, Wis., who has exhibited three times at this fair, creates necklaces, bracelets and earrings from tiny glass beads, needle and thread, and finds going off pattern can result in fabulous jewelry.

Her trademark statement pieces, composed of individual woven elements attached to a thick, hand stitched tubular herringbone chain, may take 20 hours, but luckily she finds the process soothing.

I dont think of it as being tedious, shared Tiry, who has been beading for 14 years. It keeps me sane.

Jon Lee of Blue Coon Pottery has been at his craft for two decades, throwing and firing bowls, mugs and canisters in his home studio. He brought dachshunds Cooper and Olive along for his fourth year at the fair. The Coon Valley ceramicist learned the art while teaching in Asia and explored the works of others during his travels with his wife.

We browsed Japan, Australia, the Philippines ... looking at the collections, Lee said. I have a love for the history of pottery.

Lee specializes in functional ware and displayed his series of Viking inspired pottery, bowls embellished with shells, images of trout incised in clay and newly featured fermenting pots. After four years at Art Fair on the Green, Lee is conscientious of expanding his repertoire and admires the evolution of the featured artists.

Every year different artists are coming up with new things, Lee said. (We) try to come up with something different to be the person thats capturing the consumer in some way.

Carol Robertson, president of AAUW, was delighted by the turnout at the event, with each admission boosting the funds for next years scholarships. In 2016, the organization awarded $25,000 in scholarships and 23 grants, and Robertson witnessed the magnitude of those contributions as the fair opened.

This morning a woman stopped by (who) we had given a $500 scholarship in 1973, Robertson said. It doesnt sound like much today but it enabled her to go to UW-L. She started to cry and said, I cant tell you how much that meant to me. We love when we can have that impact.

Art Fair on the Green continues today from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on the UW-L campus. Admission is $4, free for ages 12 and younger.
New Delhi: The RJD on Sunday said it will move court "within a week" against Bihar governor's invitation to JD(U)-NDA coalition to form government in the state, and hit out at Chief Minister Nitish Kumar for "robbery of the mandate".

"We will knock at the court's door, and go to the people's court ('janata ki adalat') as well to tell the masses about the kind of politics being played by the two parties -- JD(U) and BJP," RJD spokesperson Manoj Jha said.

The senior RJD leader also challenged Kumar to address a meeting in an area dominated by people from Dalit, Mahadalit and other backward castes, saying "He (Kumar) will face of the wrath of the people."

"Every mandate has a character and in Bihar it was the Dalits, the minorities and some progressive sections of the upper caste (which had voted for the previous government). Now, with JD(U) breaking the Grand Alliance, the character of that mandate has been dropped," he said.

"People of Bihar, including the youth, are feeling cheated about this robbery of the mandate they had given for an inclusive Bihar," Jha said on the on the sidelines of an event here.

The governor's decision to invite Kumar to form the government with the BJP, he said, was a "blatant violation" of the Supreme Court judgement in the Bommai case.

"According to the S R Bommai case judgement, it is mandatory to call the single largest party or electoral bloc first to explore the formation of a government," he said, adding, "we will move court soon, within a week's time".

He said the party will go to 'janata ki adalat' (people's court) and tell them about the "conspiracy" hatched by the BJP.

"If one looks at the political journey of Nitish Kumar, it is worse than a Machiavellian character. He spoke of 'Sangh-mukt' (RSS-free) India and now he made it a 'Sangh- yukt' (Sangh-driven) Bihar.

Attacking Kumar, he said, his political journey also tells us about morality in politics.

"We were wrong in believing every word spoken by Nitish, which was just rhetoric. For the last one year, he was playing according to the script of Nagpur, the RSS headquarters," he said.

"But history has a different view than contemporary tv anchors. History looks at in a nuanced manner. And, in the eyes of history, Kumar shall appear as somebody who destroyed, deceived the mandate which was won for building an inclusive Bihar," Jha said.

Nitish Kumar joined the very people and the philosophy, he pretended to be fighting, he said.
Patna: Bihar Minister Khurshid, alias Firoz Ahmad, who was given a 'fatwa' for chanting 'Jai shri Ram', said he is sorry if he had hurt people's sentiments.

I apologize to anyone who was hurt. I didn't abuse anyone. No one asked me what's in my heart, he said.

Ahmad had said on Sunday that he would not hesitate to chant 'Jai shri Ram' if it is for harmony and development of the state.

"If I have to say 'Jai shri Ram' for people of Bihar, development, harmony, I will never step back from saying it," the minister told ANI.

After the comment, a cleric issued a 'Fatwa' against him, saying that it was un-Islamic.

Ahmad, however, said the cleric reacted unnecessarily and done in a hurry.

As far as the fatwa is concerned, no one talked to me first and decided everything on their own, he said.

"God knows with what intention I raised slogans of 'Jai shri Ram'. My work will tell who I am... Respect Imarat Shariah, they should have asked my intentions (before issuing fatwa). Why should I be scared?" he added.

Khurshid was once again made a minister in the JD(U)-BJP government yesterday and was given the Minority Welfare portfolio.
Patna: RJD chief Lalu Prasad Yadav has spat more venom against his 'bete noire' Nitish Kumar and said the JD-U leader has betrayed the peoples mandate by joining hands with fascist forces.

Yadav said that he has urged Sharad Yadav, who was reportedly upset over Kumar's decision to side with BJP, to lead the fight against communal forces.

Nitish has tarnished the image of Ambedkar. I urge Sharad Yadav, whom we consider the true leader, to travel to every corner of the country and come to Bihar and join our fight against the BJP and Nitish Kumar, Yadav told ANI.

On July 26, Chief Minister and JD-U leader Nitish Kumar ended ties with RJD and the Congress over graft charges against Lalu's son Tejashwi Yadav.

I talked to Sharad Yadav over the phone. I appeal to him that come and go to every corner of the country, and take command of this fight, the RJ leader said on Saturday.

The Hindustan Times reported that Yadav is not the only party leader unhappy with Kumars decision. Parliamentarians Ali Anwar and Veerendra Kumar have also reportedly voiced their displeasure over JD (U)s return to the NDA.

Citing the RJD leader, the report further said that his party would launch a Desh bachao, BJP bhagao (save the nation, throw out BJP) movement.

On Saturday, Kumar distributed portfolios to 27 ministers of his new cabinet. Governor Keshari Nath Tripathi administered the oath of office.
Mumbai: As an actress, Anushka Sharma, who essays a Gujarati girl in 'Jab Harry Met Sejal', says she enjoys playing a character that has different beliefs from her own.

She says essaying such a character gives her a creative high and adds to her perspective.

Asked if the process of convincing oneself to believe in a character that one has to play on screen gives her creative growth, Anushka told IANS here: "Yes, it does. I enjoy when my philosophy is challenged by my onscreen character. Then I start analysing the mindset, the values and beliefs of the character... why is she like that.

"I start looking at things from a different perspective. As an actress, if I manage to do that on screen convincingly, I feel good."

The story of 'Jab Harry Met Sejal', which features superstar Shah Rukh Khan as Harry -- the male lead, revolves around how Sejal (Anushka) sets out on a journey with tourist guide Harry.

Giving a little insight into her character Sejal, Anushka said: "She is very superficial, doesn`t have any depth as a person. There is no similarity with me. But her morals and values of self-respect are something that I can relate to. But otherwise, the character is quite impulsive by nature."

The shooting of the film took place in different places like Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Lisbon and Budapest.

Sharing her experience of shooting films abroad, Anushka said meeting fans there is one of the best things to experience.

"I met some African fans, people from Italy and a girl from Spain who was so excited to see me and was talking about how she liked my films, dance and all... It is not individually about me, but knowing the fact that they watch Bollywood cinema and I am one of the members of Bollywood is a great feeling," said Anushka.

'Jab Harry Met Sejal' marks the third-time collaboration of the two actors who first appeared together in 'Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi'. They also featured in 'Jab Tak Hai Jaan'.

"There is a certain respect and comfort we share... He is special. While on set, even though we are not talking to each other all the time, we know there is no communication gap. There is comfort in silence. Perhaps that comes from a mutual respect between two artists."

And what has she taken away from working with Imtiaz Ali, who has directed the forthcoming film.

"Our process of understanding and building a character is same -- knowing the back story of the character. That apart, yes, of course, it was wonderful to work with Imtiaz. His writing and narration are very nuanced and I like that," Anushka said.

'Jab Harry Met Sejal' is set to release on August 4.
New Delhi: Since quite a while now, it was being said that Bollywood filmmaker Karan Johar and superstar Salman Khan have joined forces to produce a movie based on Battle of Saragarhi that will be starring Akshay Kumar. However, later, some reports also claimed that the 'Bhaijaan' of B-Town is no longer a part of the flick.

When asked about the same, PTI quoted Akki as saying, "The film is not shelved. It is happening. (And) that is not decided yet. It's still going on."

The film was reportedly based on military commander Havildar Ishar Singh who led 21 Sikh soldiers through a deathly battle against thousands of Afghani invaders.

Also, Akshay is all set for the release of his upcoming film 'Toilet - Ek Prem Katha'. The starrer is inspired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi's 'Swachh Bharat Abhiyan'.


Madrid: Spanish hotels are turning to private detectives and the courts to repel a surge in fake food poisoning claims by British holidaymakers that has already cost them millions of euros.

The number of food sickness claims soared to more than 10,000 during the 2016-17 tourist season, from around just 600 in 2015-16, said the head of Spain`s hotel confederation CEHAT, Ramon Estalella.

It estimates that more than 90 percent of the claims -- usually made through small-claims management companies that promise payouts of several thousand pounds -- are bogus.

For years Britons have been the biggest group of tourists to Spain by nationality. Estalella said they are responsible for virtually all of the fake illness claims.

The problem has arisen because British consumer law does not require claimants to produce any medical evidence of illness, and claims can be filed up to three years after a stay at a hotel, he said.

"If the law was the same in Germany, Spain or France, I am certain that people from there would do the same," Estalella told AFP.

Hotels complain that British claims management companies openly tout for business in Spanish resorts, promising not to charge any fees if no eventual damages are paid out.

An ambulance emblazoned with the words "Claims Clinic" was last year pictured driving around Tenerife on Spain`s Canary Islands, where more than one in three tourists is British.

The total value of the fake claims made during the 2016/17 season amounted to more than 100 million euros ($115 million), Estalella said.In the past hotels tended to settle the claims because the cost of fighting them in a British court would be far higher overall.

But they have adopted a harder line as the number of claims has soared.

Hotel representatives met with officials from the British embassy in May and shortly after the Foreign Office in London updated its travel advice to warn that fraudulent claimants in Spain could face prosecution.

Police arrested a British man on the holiday island of Mallorca in June, and placed another under investigation, on suspicion of targeting tourists outside hotels and encouraging them to make bogus claims.

They opened their probe after receiving a dossier from a law firm hired by the Club Mac resort in Puerto Alcudia in northern Mallorca. The file included evidence compiled by private detectives.

It featured photographs and other documents that could disprove food poisoning claims made by almost 1,000 British clients of the resort`s three hotels, said Carolina Ruiz, the lawyer at Monlex Abogados, who is handling the case.

The bar receipts of one man who claimed his holiday was ruined because he fell sick from the food at the all-inclusive resort show he drank over 100 gin and tonics while on holiday there, she told AFP.

"If he was sick it was not because of food poisoning at the hotel, it was for other reasons," Ruiz said ironically.

Police said the investigation is continuing and they have not ruled out further arrests in what is the biggest criminal probe to date against fake illness claims brought about by a complaint from a hotel group, Ruiz said.

Some Spanish hotels are turning the tables and launching lawsuits of their own against people who make fraudulent sickness claims.

The Ponderosa Apart Hotel in Tenerife in May filed a lawsuit for defamation against a British man who allegedly faked becoming sick, as well as against the law firm that handled his case.

"We have to stop them and if the way to do it is through the courts, we should do it. Otherwise they will finish us," the hotel`s director told reporters at the time.

What the Spanish hotel sector wants most of all is a change in British law to make it harder to make fake food poisoning claims.

"If there was a change in the law, this would end," Estalella said.
Berlin: An Iraqi gunman died in a shootout with German police early on Sunday after killing one person in a nightclub in the southern city of Konstanz, police said, ruling out terrorism as a motive.

"The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear," Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told broadcaster n-tv.

"We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background."

The 34-year-old man opened fire in the club in the early hours of Sunday, killing one person and injuring three others. He died in hospital of injuries suffered in a gunfight with police outside the venue. One policeman was also injured.

Police said the gunman had lived in Germany for a number of years and was not an asylum seeker. They added that a dispute among criminals may have led to the shooting in an industrial area of the city.

Police special forces were deployed in the city after the shooting around 0230 GMT as it was not clear if the suspect had acted alone or had accomplices.

On Friday, a failed asylum seeker killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg. Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and he was psychologically unstable.
Ahmedabad: Indian Coast Guard Ship Samudra Pavak intercepted and apprehended a merchant vessel carrying approximately 1,500 kg of heroin valued at around Rs 3,500 crore off the coast of Gujarat, officials said on Sunday.

"This is the largest single haul of narcotics seized till date," an official said. According to the Indian Coast Guard, based on intelligence inputs, the vessel was intercepted around 12 noon on July 29.

The ship was brought to Porbandar in Gujarat on Sunday morning for further investigation.

A joint investigation by the Coast Guard, Intelligence Bureau (IB), police, Customs, Navy and other agencies is currently underway, officials said.
New Delhi: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Assam on August 1 to review the flood situation in the state.

Prime Minister Modi would discuss all the aspects related to floods with the Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal and senior officials during his visit.

The flood has so far claimed more than 70 lives in the state so far.

The Centre has already announced an ex-gratia of Rs. two lakhs for the next of kin of the deceased and Rs 50, 0000 to those seriously injured in the floods.

The floods in the region have badly affected over 30 lakh people in 29 districts of Assam this year.

Earlier on Tuesday, Prime Minister Modi undertook an aerial survey of flood-affected areas in Gujarat and announced ex-gratia of Rs. 2 lakh to the next kin of those killed in Gujarat floods, and Rs. 50,000 to those injured.

He said more than Rs. 500 crore would be provided by the Centre to the State Disaster Management to provide relief at this time of emergency.

The Prime Minister assured that officers from the Government of India will provide all the assistance in short-term and long-term measures to the people in the region.

"Even if we expect more rainfall, relief work will be further intensified. The ministries of Urban and Rural development of the Indian Government will also take the stock of the situation and will provided the necessary assistance to people," he said.

He further said that the Center will provide all sort of the relief to people of Gujarat, whether it is agricultural relief, infrastructural relief or others.
Guwahati: Amidst impressive live demonstrations of various tactics and skills of rescue and relief by the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) personnel, Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju inaugurated setting up of Rescue Relief Teams (RRTs) at Dighalpukhri in Assam`s Guwahati.

Additional Director General (ADG), SSB S.S. Deswal emphasised that the border population has always found SSB beside them at the time of crisis or natural calamity and that is why it is popularly known as the "People`s Force".

DG, SSB Archana Ramasundaram said that for the last 53 years SSB has been dedicatedly and relentlessly securing the nation."The Government of India has mandated SSB to guard 1751 kilometers of international border with Nepal and 699 kilometers of border with Bhutan. Apart from this, the SSB is also deployed in Jammu and Kashmir for internal security and in states of Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar for anti-Naxal operation," she said.

"The SSB has proved itself to be a force with humanitarian face by working for humanity in adversity, be it in flood relief, cloudburst, landslides, during earthquakes, during droughts, cyclones, epidemics and accidents etc. The local populace always found SSB steadfastly with them during difficult times," she added.

During the review meeting of SSB Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh was appreciative of excellent services rendered by SSB in disaster relief and in the plan of raising RRTs in each sector.

The DG said that they had only three RRTs and therefore to further raise one RRT in each sector a consultative meeting was convened with National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA).

Consequently, SSB finally decided to set up 18 RRTs in each sector of SSB.

Every rescue and relief team comprises 35 trained personnel including five women who are well equipped with modern equipments to tackle any calamity in their respective areas of responsibility and to provide succour to the affected populace in the capacity of the first responder.

The DG also told that the inauguration of 15 RRTs` at 15 sector HQ including for three sectors at Guwahati were simultaneously taking place at their respective locations.

The DG further informed that in pursuant to national policy on Disaster management 2009, SSB is also going to set up a disaster management training school at Salonibari, Assam.

The case has already been taken up with the Government and therefore she urged Rijiju to grant approval to the proposal at the earliest.

Rijiju appreciated SSB for dedicatedly carrying out its duties on borders, in naxal infested areas and internal security but also in case of natural calamities and providing relief and rescue to the common masses as a First Responder.

Rijiju further said he was happy to know that these RRTs will provide all possible help and facilities to all other stake holders and sister organisation including NDRF and SDRF to get over the calamities and will work together.

While appreciating the setting up of RRTs by SSB, he emphasised that all other CAPFs should replicate the model of RRTs` of SSB in their respective forces as it will stream line the efforts of rescue and relief and make it more effective.

He also assured SSB that the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) will soon give its nod to set-up Disaster Management Training School in Salonibari, Assam and will provide all necessary monetary help for procurement of modern equipments for RRTs.

The function at Guwahati was witnessed at all SSB locations through live streaming on Facebook.
WINONA -- Veterans of the Korean War recognized the 64th anniversary of the armistice that brought about the ceasefire on Thursday.

Often cited as the Forgotten War, the conflict still casts a long shadow over current international politics.

Winona native Neil Hinkley was among the first to be deployed when war broke out in late June 1950.

We got right in the thick of it right from the start, Hinkley said. He was among the first three divisions to be deployed at the outbreak of war.

Hinkleys unit, the 10th Infantry Division, was en route to Japan from Alaska, halfway across the Pacific, when North Korea started that ruckus in late June of 1950.

The North Korean blitz across the border was supported by the Soviet Union with weaponry and equipment, pushing back United Nations forces into the Busan (pronounced Pusan) Perimeter.

Hinkley recalls the intense fighting with disgust. He described the frustration of taking a hill during the day only for the enemy to take it during the night.

We did not have the equipment we shouldve had, Hinkley said. You dont go up against tanks and artillery with an M1 or a carbine, you need something bigger than that.

During combat, Hinkley was hit by enemy shrapnel. His wounds got him away from the front and into an army hospital in Texas, where he would spend a year and a half recovering.

He received a Purple Heart medal for his service and was honorably discharged at the rank of corporal.

With the Korean War overshadowed by World War II beforehand, and the Vietnam War coming shortly after, many failed to see the Korean War's impact. People were sick of war, and the conflict on the small Asian peninsula faded from public memory.

Im not happy about that, because when you have thousands of people, or troops that are getting killed, what is that? Thats not a police action, thats war, Hinkley said.

Combined efforts of the United States and its allies pushed the communist armies across the border until they came close to Chinas doorstep. This provoked counterattacks that pushed allied forces back again.

The subsequent armistice drew the line at the 38th parallel, maintaining the original border between North and South Korea. The two nations remain at war, and the ceasefire has been violated many times over decades of hostility.

During that time, another soldier, Mel Bailey, served as a personal specialist for the U.S. Armys 7th Division in the demilitarized zone. His active duty career spanned from 1966 to 1968.

Bailey taught English to South Korean soldiers attached to the division. The sergeant's students were college graduates who already knew the basics but needed practice. Their textbooks were childrens books like the Dick and Jane series.

His unit was located north of Uijeongbu, very close to enemy occupied territory.

We were told we are the first line of defense if North Korea comes over, Bailey said. In other words, were cannon fodder to slow them before they get to Seoul and before people get organized.

As a personnel specialist, it was his job to assign replacements, which meant matching a job to 200 to 300 people a day.

Bailey enjoyed his time with the South Koreans. They worked collaboratively against the communist armies in the north, knowing that they needed each other to keep the DMZ secure.

They knew how many of our guys had died and what it had cost there, and how their economy was building up, Bailey said. They were very, very helpful.
New Delhi: Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has condemned the killing of a Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) worker in Kerala who was murdered on Saturday night and blamed Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M) for the attack.

Speaking to ANI, BJP leader Subramanian Swamy said that the ruling party (CPI-M) is definitely behind the death of the RSS worker.

"They (CPI-M) celebrate after killing RSS people. They are mad people sitting in power and doing things like these."

He further demanded that the Central government should dismiss this government.

Speaking to ANI on the same matter, BJP member Sudesh Verma added that this is not the first incident of political violence in Kerala, where a RSS or BJP worker has been killed.

"Hundreds of workers have been killed, we have been raising these issues but the so called- liberal and progressive forces in this country don`t condone this because it is happening against our members," Verma said.

He also questioned the award wapsi brigade.

"Every killing needs to be condemned and action needs to be taken. We expect that Kerala government should act on this," he added.

However, CPI-M state secretary Kodiyery Balakrishnan has maintained that his party members were not responsible for the murder and castigated the BJP for creating law and order problems in the state.

"The probe shows the attack against RSS worker is not a political killing. The main accused Manikandan is not a CPI-M member. His father is an INTUC worker. Those who are in custody are from various political outfits, one is from BMS also," Balakrishnan said in a press conference.

A 34-year-old RSS leader was murdered in Kozhikode on Saturday night. The police has so far detained eight people in connection with this case.The BJP has blamed the CPI-M for carrying out the attack.
New Delhi: An Indian Navy band will participate in the prestigious Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo in the UK next month, an event of military music performance undertaken by armed forces.

The participation of the naval band is expected to strengthen ties between India and the United Kingdom (UK).

The two countries have announced 2017 as the 'India-UK Year of Culture' to celebrate cultural ties and the 70th year of Indian independence.

"The invitation to the Indian Navy band to participate and perform in this prestigious event scheduled from August 1 to 26 is indeed a matter of pride and befitting recognition of the professional prowess of the naval band," the Navy said.

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the largest tattoo performed in the world in the sprawling stretch of the Edinburgh Castle Esplanade in Scotland.

The band has been practicing for the last few months to further hone their skills for the event. The band comprises one officer and 65 musician sailors, the Navy said.

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo boasts of performances from over 50 bands, and nearly 8,500 visitors attending the daily performances.

Nearly 2.5 lakh people are likely to attend the 26-day period this year.

Besides India, bands from Australia, France, Germany and Japan are also expected to perform at the tattoo this year.
New Delhi: With the JD(U) allying with the BJP, the NDA's numbers with the support of friendly regional parties are now very close to a majority in the Rajya Sabha, giving a boost to the government's legislative agenda.

A counting of the strength of different parties besides independent and nominated members suggest that the Modi dispensation can expect the support of at least 121 members in the 245-member House.

Shrewd political management by its floor managers can help it successfully stave off the challenge posed by the Congress-led opposition, which has often been successful in blocking its bills in the Upper House.

The Nitish Kumar-led party has 10 members in the Upper House, a significant addition to the treasury benches which have so far remained in a minority.

The JD(U)'s support boosts the NDA's number to 89 in the 245-member House.

Some members of the party have spoken against Kumar's decision to join hands with the BJP but it is not clear if they will defy its stand in Parliament.

With the BJP set for a win in the by-poll in Madhya Pradesh, where a vacancy was caused by Anil Madhav Dave's death, and pulling out all stops to snatch one seat from the Congress in Gujarat, its tally could go to 91 during the ongoing Parliament's session.

Regional parties like the AIADMK, the BJD, the TRS, the YSRCP and the INLD, which together have 26 members, have often backed the government, which can also count on at least four of the eight nominated members for support.

It all adds up to 121, very close to the majority mark of 123.

It may get a big boost during the monsoon session if the BJP wins eight of the nine seats in Uttar Pradesh. It has now only one member among them.

However, the NDA will face some reverses in Bihar which will see elections for six seats in March-April next year. The JD(U) and the BJP have currently four and two seats respectively. The RJD-Congress combine can win up to three seats.
New Delhi: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) has asked the Defence Ministry to trace and share with it all missing files related to the Bofors scandal, according to its two members.

The six-member sub-committee on defence, headed by BJD MP Bhartruhari Mahtab, is looking into the long-pending non- compliance of certain aspects of the CAG report on the Bofors guns deal.

The PAC strongly objected to the ministry's suggestion that certain paragraphs of the CAG report may be dropped as some files related to it are missing, according to the minutes of the parliamentary panel's meeting, a copy of which is with PTI.

The meeting was held earlier this month.

During the meeting, both PAC chairman Mahtab and BJP MP Nishikant Dubey stressed on the need for top ministry officials to trace and share missing files and notings related to the deal.

According to the minutes of the meeting, top defence ministry officials agreed that the ministry will share all the required details with the PAC.

When contacted, two MPs who are members of the committee confirmed that the ministry has agreed to share the details with them.

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 CAG report on Bofors is the oldest "pending" report before the PAC, which examines audit reports of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India after these are tabled in Parliament.
Srinagar: Former Jammu and Kashmir CM and National Conference leader Omar Abdullah on Saturday said that Pakistan fishes in the troubled waters of Jammu and Kashmir but they are not the creators of violent unrest in the Kashmir.

Addressing an event, organised by the Bureau of Research, on Industry and Economic Fundamentals titled 'Understanding Kashmir,' here, the former Jammu and Kashmir CM Said,"I know it is popular to blame Pakistan for everything that is happening in Jammu and Kashmir, but it is not true. While we know that Pakistan fishes in troubled waters, we also know that they are not the creators of the sort of agitations that we have seen in 2008, 2010 and 2016. So, there us a fair amount of blame to be shared across the board."

Blaming state and Modi government for the continuous unrest in the valley, Omar asserted,"How can we absolve ourselves of the responsibility? It's not just mainstream political players in Jammu and Kashmir that are responsible for what is happening. The Union of India is also responsible, whether it was the UPA Government or the NDA Government."

"Who you want to blame, how much for, depends on which side of the line are you. The Centre would like to blame the states more. We sitting in the states hold the Centre responsible to higher degree. It depends on which side you are sitting on," the former CM added.

Abdullah also cited an example of the cancellation of the parliamentary election in Anantnag following violent protests in the Kashmir Valley and said it was for the first time that the separatist Hurriyat Conference had been handed over an electoral victory.

"This is the first election in Jammu and Kashmir which the Hurriyat Conference have won, because since 1996 whenever elections were called the Hurriyat Conference had a single point agenda that some how this election should not take place. This is the first time on the back of protests you cancelled an election and handed victory to them."

He said the cancellation of the south Kashmir election proved the inability of the Indian government and the Election Commission to make their writ run in Jammu and Kashmir.

He also lashed out at present chief minister Mehbooba Mufti saying it is not within the latter's power to decide if India and Pakistan are going to engage with each other.
Aurangabad: A joint team of CRPF and police on Tuesday arrested three naxalites from Bihar's Aurangabad district.

Acting on a tip off that naxalites are pasting posters in different areas to terrorise people to make their proposed August 3 Bihar bandh a success, a joint team of CRPF and local police raided Sahajpur and Kalidi villages of the district and arrested three naxalites who had come to paste posters, Superintendent of Police, Satya Prakash said.

The arrested naxalites have been identified as Ramlagan Singh Bhokta, Kamlesh Singh Bhokta and Mahesh Bhuiya, SP said adding that police are conducting raids to nab their accomplices on the basis of information received from them.

These naxalites have been indulging in various naxal activities, he said and added that Kamlesh Singh Bhokta had been in jail for his involvement in naxal activities but at present he was on bail.

These naxalites were trying to influence and motivate local youths to join naxal outfit, SP said.
Thiruvanathapuram: One person was taken into custody here on Sunday in connection with the murder of a RSS worker in the city late last night , police said.

A search has also been intensified for the other accused, they said.

A gang led by a history shooter had attacked the 34-year-old RSS 'karyavahak' and hacked him to death. His left arm was chopped off and there were several injuries all over his body.

City police has extended prohibitory orders for three more days till August 2 and banned processions in the state capital.

The dawn-to-dusk state-wide hartal called by BJP on July 30 in protest against the incident was almost total.

People who reached railway stations unaware of the hartal had difficulty in getting vehicles to reach their homes.

BJP state president Kummanam Rajasekharan alleged that the CPI(M) was behind the attack.

Describing the murder as brutal, he said this is "annihilation politics" aimed at wiping off the RSS and BJP.

The BJP would take up the matter with the Prime Minister, Home Minister and the National Human Rights Commission, he said.

However, the CPI(M) district leadership has denied any role of the party in the attack.

The incident comes close on the heels of the attack of BJP's Kerala unit office and stone pelting at the house of CPI(M) state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishnan's son Bineesh Kodiyeri here.
New Delhi: Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday voiced concern over attacks on political workers in Kerala and said political violence was unacceptable in a democracy.

He tweeted saying, "Spoke to Kerala CM Shri Pinrayi Vijayan today regarding the recent incidents of political violence in the state. I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy."

Singh added, "I expect that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and that the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously."

I have expressed my concern with the law and order situation in the state of Kerala. Political violence is unacceptable in a democracy. 2/3  Rajnath Singh (@rajnathsingh) July 30, 2017

His phone call to the Kerala CM came a day after an RSS worker was hacked to death by a gang led by a history-sheeter near Thiruvananthapuram.

The HM said he expects that the political violence in Kerala is curbed and the perpetrators are brought to justice expeditiously.

Police said 34-year-old Rajesh's left hand was chopped off in the attack which took place around 9 pm last night. An investigation has been launched and search is on for assailants, they said.

BJP's Kerala unit president Kumanam Rajasekharan alleged the CPI-M was behind the attack, a charge denied by the district leadership of the Left party.

(With PTI inputs)
New Delhi: Referring to Madras High Court order, which made singing of 'Vande Mataram' mandatory in the Tamil Nadu schools, Union minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said that singing the national song was a "matter of choice" and those refusing to sing it could not be dubbed as anti- nationals.

Talking to news agency PTI, the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs, said,"Singing Vande Mataram is absolutely an individual's choice. Those who want to sing can sing it, those who don't, may not. Not singing it does not make one anti-national." He added that however, if someone deliberately opposed the singing of the national song, written by Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay, it was "in bad taste" and "not in the interest of the country".

Earlier on Saturday, sparks flew in the Maharashtra Legislative Assembly as the ruling BJP MLAs slammed Samajwadi Party's Abu Asim Azmi, who opposed a demand for making the singing of 'Vande Mataram' mandatory in the schools and colleges of the state.

Citing the Madras HC verdict, BJP MLA Raj Purohit said it should be followed by the schools and colleges in Maharashtra as well. Azmi said he would not sing 'Vande Mataram' even if he was "thrown out of the country", while AIMIM MLA Waris Pathan said he would not sing it "even if a revolver is put to my head". Speaking at Shirdi, state PWD Minister Chandrakant Patil today said no one should have a problem saying 'Vande Mataram' and 'Bharat Mata Ki Jai'.
Jammu/New Delhi: The NIA on Sunday conducted raids at two places belonging to a close aide of hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani in Jammu in connection with its probe in the terror funding case in the Kashmir Valley, officials said.

In a related development, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) also issued summon to Naseem, the second son of Geelani, who heads separatist conglomerate Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, to appear before the agency on Wednesday. His elder son Nayeem has been summoned at the NIA headquarters tomorrow.

The NIA raided the office and residence of a lawyer this morning amid allegations about his close proximity with Geelani, said officials, who are familiar with the developments.

His foreign trips have come under lens and he will be questioned soon, the officials said.

This is the second raid in Jammu in connection with the case of terror funding. Earlier, the agency had raided a businessman.

Earlier, the NIA had issued summons to Geelani's elder son Nayeem, asking him to appear before it for questioning tomorrow in connection with its probe in the terror funding case which names Pakistan-based chief of Jamaat-ul-Dawah, the front of another proscribed outfit Lashker-e-Taiba (LeT), Hafiz Saeed, as an accused.

The NIA has also named separatist organisations such as the Hurriyat Conference (factions led by Geelani and Mirwaiz Farooq), Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) and all-woman outfit Dukhtaran-e-Millat in its FIR.

A surgeon by profession, Nayeem had returned from Pakistan in 2010 after spending 11 years there. He is tipped as the natural successor to the Geelani-led Tehrek-e-Hurriyat, a separatist conglomerate comprising hardline groups.

Geelani's son-in-law Altaf Ahmed Shah alias Altaf Fantoosh has already been arrested by the NIA and was being interrogated in the same case, they said.

Besides him, Geelani's close aides Ayaz Akbar, who is also the spokesman of Tehreek-e-Hurriyat, and Peer Saifullah were arrested by the NIA from the Valley last week.

Shahid-ul-Islam, spokesman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference led by Mirwaiz Umer Farooq, Mehrajuddin Kalwal, Nayeem Khan (of the Hurriyat's Geelani faction) and Farooq Ahmed Dar alias 'Bitta Karate' have also been arrested. All of them have been remanded to 10 days of NIA custody.

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 the HM, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, LeT, other outfits and gangs.

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 the Kashmir Valley by way of pelting security forces with stones, burning schools, damaging public property and waging war against India.

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.

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 and carried out arrests.
New Delhi: It's that time of the year when all brothers will celebrate their oh-so-cool sisters with lots of smiles, love and gifts.

This year, Raksha Bandhan falls on August 7, when sisters and brothers will get together to celebrate their bitter-sweet bond.

While your sister is busy picking the best Rakhi for you, Tina Narang, design director of Intrika, has listed down some ideas so that you are equally prepared with a gift for her.

"India is a land of festivals and Raksha Bandhan is one of the most special festivals as it celebrates sibling love. And with Raksha Bandhan, every brother is faced with the challenge of choosing the perfect gift for his sister. This Raksha Bandhan, let the testimony of your love reflect in your choice of gift," Tina told ANI.

1. Chantilly lace saree - Intricate lace designs have become a popular option with haute couture this season. Steeped in opulence and elegance, these varied intricate lace designs add to the collection's unique look. Treat your wardrobe to Intrika's finest pieces and make a style statement with our unique Chantilly lace sarees.

2. Dresses - They are a wardrobe essential as they spell sheer class. Channel your inner diva and choose from a variety of styles that will help enhance your look. Be it a short dress or a chic full length gown, we create alluring garments that are sure to complement your look and feel, no matter the occasion.

3. Indo western - This is the most advisable option for all those who like to keep it chic and functional. Being one of the latest styles trending, it not only is minimalistic, but stunning as well. Embellished with eclectic designs and vibrant hues, pairing these outfits with a silk crop top will elevate one's fusion look to a whole new level.

4. Scarves - Originally worn by royalty, scarves have come to be a part of everyday wear in recent times and play a big part in planning your seasonal outfits. This classic accessory has become every woman's wardrobe staple. Lace being a versatile fabric goes well with every ensemble and can instantly transcend your look into a radiant one. Unique lace scarves and pashmina shawls with lace applique are accented with intricate craftsmanship by our hand embroiders; make for exquisite gifts for every woman.
Kabul: At least 11 militants were killed when the Afghan police repelled a Taliban attack in Pakika province, the Interior Ministry said on Sunday.



According to a ministry statement, the insurgents were killed and 17 others injured when Taliban militants attacked police checkpoints in Sarobi district on Saturday evening, Xinhua news agency reported.



No police official was injured in the operation, the statement said.



The Taliban have yet to make any comment.
Montreal: Canada has warned it was reviewing reports that Saudi Arabia is using Canadian armored vehicles in a crackdown in the Sunni-ruled kingdom's Shiite-majority east.

"We are looking at these claims very seriously... And have immediately launched a review," Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in French, said in during a visit in central Canada.

The Globe and Mail reported earlier that light armored vehicles sold by Canada to Saudi Arabia had been used against Shia civilians in a major operation that left several people in the town of Awamiya in Eastern Province.

Experts told the newspaper that vehicles appearing in photos and videos of the Saudi operations were Gurkha RPVs produced by Terradyne Armored Vehicles near Toronto.

Earlier, a spokesman indicated that Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland was "deeply concerned about this situation and has asked officials to review it immediately."

"If it is found that Canadian exports have been used to commit serious violations of human rights, the minister will take action," added spokesman John Babcock.

"The government is actively seeking more information about Saudi Arabia's current efforts to deal with its security challenges, the reports of civilian casualties, and the reports that Canadian-made vehicles have been used by Saudi Arabia in its current security operations," he said in a statement.

"Canada will review all available information as it determines an appropriate course of action."

Babcock said Ottawa had shared its concerns with Saudi Arabia, demanding that "its internal security operations be conducted in a manner consistent with international human rights law."

The controversial $13 billion US contract to supply Riyadh with light armored vehicles was struck by the previous Conservative government.

Trudeau's Liberal government has had to defend this contract against criticism that it may have violated Canada's export control rules that bar arms exports to countries with a poor human rights record and the prohibit using these weapons against civilians.

Freeland's predecessor, Stephane Dion, had stated in April 2016 that the government would halt or revoke the export license for the military equipment if credible information showed it was being used inappropriately.

"We have contracts in which people commit to respect Canadian laws, the terms of the contract and Canadian values, and we expect these contracts to be respected," Trudeau said.
Islamabad: Pakistan`s parliament will meet on Tuesday to elect a new Prime Minister after the Supreme Court disqualified Nawaz Sharif following an investigation into corruption allegations against his family.

The ruling party named Sharif`s younger brother Shahbaz Sharif as his successor over the weekend, but he must first enter parliament by contesting the seat left vacant by Sharif.

In the meantime the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), which enjoys a majority in parliament, has nominated ex-oil minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as interim Prime Minister.

The top court ousted Sharif Friday after an investigation into corruption allegations against him and his family, bringing his historic third term in power to an unceremonious end.

"The nomination papers --- shall be delivered to the Secretary, National Assembly by 2.00 pm, on Monday," said a notification by the National Assembly Secretariat and seen by AFP.

It said the assembly would meet at 3:00 pm Tuesday for the "election of the Prime Minister".

The younger Sharif -- who is chief minister of the country`s most populous province of Punjab -- has so far been unscathed by the corruption allegations engulfing his brother`s family.

However he only holds only a provincial seat and therefore must be elected to the national assembly before becoming Prime Minister.

On Saturday the Election Commission said fresh elections would be held in Nawaz Sharif`s former constituency, in the family`s power base in Punjab, in a process that could take up to 45 days.

Abbasi is set to be rubber-stamped as placeholder in the parliamentary vote.

The opposition could also field a candidate but has little chance of securing enough votes in the 342-seat house.
5 TV shows and films on homosexuality and same-sex marriages - IN PICS
Washington: US President Donald Trump on Saturday accused China of doing nothing on North Korea, after the belligerent hermit state launched an intercontinental ballistic missile test, and vowed change.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk," Trump said in two tweets.

"We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"
Konstanz (Germany): A gunman opened fire at a packed nightclub in southern Germany today, killing one and wounding four before being shot by police, authorities said, in an attack likely motivated by a personal feud.

The 34-year-old man, identified as an Iraqi national, "was critically injured in a shootout with police officers as he left the disco, and later succumbed to his wounds in hospital," police said in a statement.

"Investigations are ongoing into the background of the act, which was likely linked to a dispute in the attacker's personal life. There are no indications of a terror act," police added.

The foreign gunman was not an asylum seeker and has been living in the Constance region, which borders Switzerland, for 15 years.

Officers began receiving emergency calls from terrified clubbers at around 4:30 am (local time) as the man began shooting in the nightclub heaving with "several hundred" people, said police.

One person was killed on the spot and three others seriously wounded in the club called "Grey", located in an industrial zone of the city, which draws Swiss revellers during the weekends.

Shortly after the gunman left the building, he was shot by police. One officer was also injured in the exchange of fire.

Frightened revellers had either fled the building or found a place to hide, police said, adding that the danger was now over.

Helicopters were circling overhead and special forces were also deployed to secure the site.

A witness told national news agency DPA that the attacker was shooting randomly at clubbers around him.

"The club was jam-packed," added the unnamed man, who said he had seen the attacker and fled quickly with his friends.

Another unnamed clubber was quoted by Suedkurier daily that he was in the washroom when someone came in and closed the toilet door saying there was shooting.

"I didn't believe it and went out. But I heard shots and quickly ran back to the toilet and closed the door with another person. With us was a bouncer who was shot and he was bandaging the wound with a belt," said the witness.

A bartender then opened the emergency exit door, allowing revellers to flee, he said, adding that he saw another person with a wound in the leg lying on the grass by the parking lot.

"I just shouted at everyone to run and when we were in the parking lot, we heard shots again," he said.

Police was unable to confirm the type of weapon used, but Bezikofer said it was "not just a pistol, the talk is of a long weapon or an automatic pistol".

The shooting came just two days after Germany was shaken by a knife attack in the northern port city of Hamburg.

A 26-year-old Palestinian had killed one and injured six in an assault at a supermarket.

He was a known Islamist with psychological problems, and investigators say his motives remain unclear.

Germany has been on high alert about the threat of a jihadist attack, especially since last December's truck rampage through a Berlin Christmas market that claimed 12 lives.

But it has also been hit by other assaults unrelated to the jihadist threat.

Among the deadliest in recent years is a Munich shopping mall rampage last June by 18-year-old German-Iranian man which left 10 people dead including the gunman himself.
District of Columbia: US strategic bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula in a pointed show of force in response to Pyongyang`s latest intercontinental ballistic missile, American officials said Saturday.

US B-1B bombers along with fighter jets from the South Korean and Japanese air forces participated in the 10-hour bilateral mission, practicing intercept and formation drills.

The maneuver followed Pyongyang`s second ICBM test this month late Friday, with Kim Jong-Un saying the move demonstrated the country`s ability to strike any target in the United States.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said General Terrence O`Shaughnessy, Pacific Air Forces commander, in a statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."

The announcement coincided with another tweet storm from US President Donald Trump, who lambasted Beijing on the social media outlet for failing to rein in their North Korean allies.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk," Trump wrote.

"We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

Trump, who is at loggerheads with Beijing over how to handle Kim`s regime, has repeatedly urged China to bridle its recalcitrant neighbor, but Beijing insists dialogue is the only practical way forward.

In a standard response to the test, Beijing urged restraint by all sides, after the US and South Korea conducted a live-fire exercise using surface-to-surface missiles.

Weapons experts said the altitude and flight time of Friday`s missile suggested it was significantly more powerful than the earlier July 4 test, with a theoretical range of around 6,200 miles (10,000 kilometers) meaning it might be able to reach east coast US cities like New York, depending on the payload size.

South Korea said the test prompted it to speed up deployment of a US missile defense system, despite consistent protests from China that the program would destabilize the region.
GYUMRI, JULY 27, ARMENPRESS. Armenias Minister of Emergency Situations Davit Tonoyan and Adjutant General of the Kansas National Guard, USA, Major-General Lee Tafanelli attended the training at the square near Akhuryan fire-rescue squad on July 27, press service of the ministry told Armenpress.

The officials were accompanied by Shirak governor Artur Khachatryan.

The event was also attended by the UK Embassys Defense Attache Lt. Col David Ethel (residence in Tbilisi).

Minister Tonoyan summarized the training results, stating: I highly appreciate the joint training. Our rescuers performed perfectly in accordance with international standards, and the experience they got from these trainings will transfer to their colleagues. We thank the representatives of the US and UK armed forces for the support and for transferring their experience to us. As for the update of technique of the fire-rescue brigads, we will try in a short period of time to fully equip them through state budget allocations and assistance of our international partners.

I highly appreciate the results of both the training and the exercise. Each exercise is a great chance to improve our knowledge and skills. I am convinced that in real emergency situation the Armenian rescuers will quickly respond and will provide highly professional assistance, and our cooperation will be continuous, Major-General Lee Tafanelli told reporters.

Shirak governor Artur Khachatryan also thanked the fire-rescuers for the dedicated service.

UK Embassys Defense Attache Lt. Col David Ethel said he frequently visits Armenia and is confident that in case of emergency situation, professional rescuers will quickly provide assistance.
YEREVAN, JULY 27, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Karen Karapetyan on July 27 visited the Development Foundation of Armenia (DFA) where he was introduced on the process of ongoing programs, press service of the government told Armenpress.

DFA Executive Director Armen Avak Avakian presented to the PM the new program after the foundations structural reforms and said they managed to implement the program of the whole year within the first semester. Coming to the recorded figures, he said export agreements worth 3.3 billion AMD have been signed through the DFAs assistance. Four more international expos are expected to be held in autumn through the co-finance of the foundation. The talks on signing 20-25 agreements on exporting goods worth 800-850 million AMD are underway. The international business forums held in Abu Dhabi, Rome and Yerevan were ended by signing 15 concrete export and investment agreements: 10 million Euros will be invested in production of high technologies, 2 million USD in production of medical equipment, investments will be made also in energy and agriculture spheres, the export of ecologically clean food products from Armenia to the Arab states has launched, the necessary developments for export of medicines are underway.

Heads of the international cooperation, grant programs, marketing, post-investment service and programs departments at the DFA presented to the PM the upcoming programs based on sectoral directions. PM Karapetyan attached importance to the initiative of launching ambitious programs by the foundation with clear indicators and concrete expected results.




YEREVAN, JULY 28, ARMENPRESS. C4F Awards organizers invited a representative from Armenia's communications sector too - Tatevik Simonyan, the co-founder, Director of Communications & International Relations of SPRING PR-company will participate as the Jury for Corporate Awards of the C4F Awards 2018, reports Armenpress.

Professionals from Armenia, Germany, India, Brazil, Russia, South Africa and Budapest will have the opportunity to evaluate the nominated projects.

Communication professionals from different countries around the world have now confirmed their participation to join the international Jury Boards for the 9th edition of the prestigious Communication for Future Awards2018 (C4F Awards) which will be held in Geneva, Switzerland, next March.

"The C4F Award has its own uniqueness which combines a well-deserved appreciation for outstanding Communication Professionals and future Visionaries in the field of Communications. We strongly believe that communication, now more than ever, is the main driver of creating a prosperous future for the world. I am sure that C4F Awards 2018 is going to be much bigger and more Encouraging for the Communication Professionals all over the Globe !", Yanina Dubeykovskaya, Founding Director of the C4F Awards, said.

The C4F Awards were launched in 2010 and recognize highly professional and globally remarkable communicators and organizations with a creative approach and unique vision of the future of communications. There are 23 nomination categories for the Awards, set into three divisions: Personal, Corporate and Start-Ups.

SPRING PR-agency is awarded the Communication 4 Future Davos Awards 2017 (held on March 14 in Geneva, Switzerland) for the title "Pro Bono of the Future" for its Corporate Social Responsibility Project - "Lets Care, Armenia!" Pro Bono of the Future" is given for Corporate who show case an outstanding results in non-commercial communications and charitable projects.
The Democrat leadership has made constant, profound and incredible pronouncements that one's supportive vote for Republicans is tantamount to surrendering Democracy forever. Understanding their sincere thinking in their extreme position: How will you still vote on this election day?

Democrat; because the continuance of this Democracy from the existential threat of extreme Republicans is paramount.

Republican; the process of having a choice is the democratic method within what so called "Democracy" does exists.
By Ian Simpson WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Two members of a teenage robotics team from Burundi who went missing after a competition in Washington last week have been located and are safe, the city's Metropolitan Police Department said on Tuesday. The teens, Don Ingabire, 16, and Audrey Mwamikazi, 17, were spotted last week crossing the border into Canada. The Metropolitan Police Department would not say on Tuesday where or when they were found, citing department procedures for missing persons. "The others are still missing, so the case is still under investigation," police spokeswoman Karimah Bilal said. Four boys and two girls from the African nation were last seen on July 18 after the FIRST Global Robotics Challenge concluded. Organizers have said the disappearance may have been "self-initiated" because the students' hotel keys were left in a chaperone's bag while their clothes were taken. Police have said they did not suspect foul play. The Burundian embassies in Ottawa and Washington said they were unaware on Tuesday that two of the students had been found. The other missing Burundians have been identified as Nice Munezero, 17; Kevin Sabumukiza, 17; Richard Irakoze, 18; and Aristide Irambona, 18. High school students from more than 150 countries took part in the FIRST Global competition. An all-girl squad from Afghanistan drew worldwide attention when President Donald Trump intervened after they were denied U.S. visas. Burundi has long been plagued by civil war and other violence. Fighting has killed at least 700 people and forced 400,000 from their homes since April 2015. (Additional reporting by Anna Mehler Paperny in Toronto; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler)
SUNDAY, July 30, 2017 (HealthDay News) -- People are urged to prepare for disasters by having an emergency plan, and animal experts say that your plan needs to include your pets.

Hurricanes, tornadoes or floods can be unpredictable, and although no one can control the weather, people can control how prepared they are for these threats.

If an evacuation order is given, it is best if you are ready to leave right away, said Angela Clendenin. She is a public information officer for the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences' Veterinary Emergency Team.

"One of the best ways to prepare your pet for a potential disaster is to create a 'go kit' of necessary documents and supplies, which people can easily grab and transport with them in the event of an evacuation," Clendenin said.

"When evacuation is delayed, roads can get jammed with traffic or become impassible with early flooding or debris," Clendenin said in a university news release.

"For those who need assistance with evacuating animals, resources may become scarce or non-existent as the threat from the disaster gets closer," she added. "Evacuating early ensures that pets and their owners are able to get to safety before the disaster hits."

When preparing your emergency kit, be sure to also do so for your pets and livestock. Your pet's emergency kit should include a few days' supply of food, water, medications and comfort items, Clendenin advised.

"In the case that pet and livestock owners get separated, this kit should include photos of pets and descriptions of where livestock is located. Ensuring your pets and livestock are microchipped or visibly tagged or marked is also a way to identify animals and establish ownership," Clendenin explained.

It's also important to protect your pets after the emergency situation has ended, she added.

"After a disaster strikes, the area in and around homes can be quite dangerous for pets," Clendenin said.

Dangers include downed power lines and fencing that has fallen or broken into pieces.

More information

Ready.gov has more about disasters and pets.
A death row inmate scheduled to be executed next month failed in a bid to get a Jacksonville judge to delay his execution because of the state's new triple-drug lethal injection protocol.





Duval County Circuit Court Judge Tatiana Salvador on Friday rejected a request from Mark James Asay to put a hold on an Aug. 24 execution date scheduled by Gov. Rick Scott.





Asay's appeal included a challenge to a new lethal injection protocol --- which includes a drug never used before for executions in Florida, or in any other state --- adopted by the Florida Department of Corrections earlier this year. In its new protocol, Florida is substituting etomidate for midazolam as the critical first drug, used to sedate prisoners before injecting them with a paralytic and then a drug used to stop prisoners' hearts.





In a 30-page order issued Friday, Salvador ruled that Asay failed to prove that the new three-drug protocol is unconstitutional. Etomidate, also known by the brand name "Amidate," is a short-acting anesthetic that renders patients unconscious.





20 % of people experience mild to moderate pain after being injected with the drug, but only for "tens of seconds" at the longest, the judge noted. "Defendant has only demonstrated a possibility of mild to moderate pain that would last, at most, tens of seconds," Salvador wrote. "Therefore, this Court finds the potential pain and anesthetic aspect of etomidate does not present risks that are 'sure or very likely' to cause serious illness or needless suffering or give rise to 'sufficiently imminent dangers.'"





The execution of Asay, who has until 10 a.m. Monday to appeal the circuit court decision, is slated to be the 1st in Florida in more than 18 months; the state's death penalty has been in limbo due to a series of state and federal court rulings.





Asay was 1 of 2 death row inmates whose executions were put on hold by the Florida Supreme Court in early 2016 after the U.S. Supreme Court, in a case known as Hurst v. Florida, struck down as unconstitutional the state's death penalty sentencing system.





The federal court ruling, premised on a 2002 decision in a case known as Ring v. Arizona, found that Florida's system of allowing judges, instead of juries, to find the facts necessary to impose the death penalty was an unconstitutional violation of the Sixth Amendment right to trial by jury.





Asay was convicted in 1988 of the murders of Robert Lee Booker and Robert McDowell in downtown Jacksonville. Asay allegedly shot Booker, who was black, after calling him a racial epithet. He then killed McDowell, who was dressed as a woman, after agreeing to pay him for oral sex.





According to court documents, Asay later told a friend that McDowell had previously cheated him out of money in a drug deal.

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: The News Service of Florida, July 29, 2017
The office of Indonesia's ombudsman has unearthed evidence of rights violations in the execution of a Nigerian drug convict in 2016, an official said on Friday.





Humphrey Jefferson was still seeking clemency from President Joko Widodo at the time of his execution, which meant he still had a chance of being pardoned, said Ninik Rahayu, an official of the ombudsman's office who is overseeing the case.





Mr. Jefferson, sentenced to death in 2004, had also sought a second judicial review of his case by the Supreme Court, but his request was denied by the Central Jakarta court without proper explanation, Rahayu said, in what she called maladministration.





If the court had taken on Mr. Jefferson's case, his execution would have had to be delayed until its final verdict.





"When one is given the death penalty, all of the procedures must be done according to the laws," Rahayu told reporters at her office.





"The rights of the person must be fully met before his sentence is carried out. You can't bring back the dead to life."





Rahayu also said the Attorney General's office, responsible for conducting the execution, had not followed rules requiring it to give Mr. Jefferson and his family 72 hours' notice of the event.





The execution was done according to law, said Muhammad Rum, a spokesman for the Attorney General's office.





Telephone calls to the Central Jakarta court to seek comment were not answered.





A Supreme Court spokesman, Judge Suhadi, who goes by one name like many Indonesians, did not comment on the specific case but said the court did not generally grant a 2nd review.





Mr. Jefferson, 2 other Nigerians and an Indonesian were the only prisoners to face the firing squad on July 29 last year, from a group of 14 picked initially.





The delay was due to a "comprehensive review", said Attorney General H. Muhammad Prasetyo.





The executions were the 2nd round under Widodo, whose predecessor, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, imposed a moratorium on the death penalty.





Many international bodies and foreign governments have urged Indonesia to pardon those on death row. They have also called on Indonesia to abolish capital punishment, but the calls have gone unheeded.





Widodo has told law enforcement officers not to hesitate in shooting drug traffickers who resist arrest in the war on drugs.





The ombudsman's office has given government bodies 60 days to respond to its findings. But its limited powers mean it can only take its recommendations to Widodo in cases of failure to respond.





Mr. Jefferson's lawyer, Ricky Gunawan, said he planned to use the ombudsman's findings to file a civil lawsuit against the office of the attorney-general, seeking compensation for his client.





"We call on the Attorney General's office to stop the preparation of any future death execution ... and treat the convicts with respect and have their rights fulfilled," Gunawan said.

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: Reuters/NAN, July 29, 2017
Nevada's brand new $850,000 death chamber

Nevada has a problem on its hands after a Clark County judge ordered an inmate executed: the state has no apparent way to carry it out.





District Court Judge Jennifer Togliatti signed an order Thursday ordering Scott Raymond Dozier's execution for the week of Oct. 16. Dozier, 46, has voluntarily given up opportunities to appeal his decade-old death sentence and has repeatedly requested to die.





He was convicted in 2007 of robbing and killing a 22-year-old man at a Las Vegas hotel before dismembering the body. He was also convicted of another murder in Arizona.





Although the state has about 80 people on death row, most die in prison, and a volunteer is rare. Nevada hasn't had an execution since 2006, and only carried out 12 executions since 1977.





The state is required by law to use a lethal injection, but a drug needed to create the lethal injection cocktail has expired. Nevada found none of the 247 vendors it contacted last year were willing to replace it.





Numerous major pharmaceutical companies have refused to supply drugs that they know will be used for execution. This spring, Nevada Department of Corrections Director James Dzurenda suggested the agency might procure drugs from other states that don't anticipate using them.





On Thursday, the agency was unable to provide details on how they would proceed beyond a short statement.





"The Department is seeking guidance from the Attorney General's Office and will follow all appropriate and legal protocol to ensure state law is followed," it said.





Attorney General Adam Laxalt's office didn't immediately respond to a request seeking comment.





Nationwide, difficulties with the drug supply have prompted states to take drastic, controversial measures with the death penalty.





Officials in Arkansas scheduled 8 executions in 11 days this spring in a race against the expiration dates of their lethal injection drugs, although only 4 were carried out.





 | Report an error, an omission, a typo; suggest a story or a new angle to an existing story; submit a piece, a comment; recommend a resource; contact the webmaster, contact us: deathpenaltynews@gmail.com



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: The Nevada Independent, July 29, 2017
Miller Costello, left, and Brenda Emile, right.

OGDEN  In 2nd District Court Thursday, Weber County attorney Christopher Shaw told a judge that Miller Costello and Brenda Emile will require attorneys certified to handle death penalty cases.





Ogden couple accused of killing 3-year-old may ask for leave to attend funeral





Police responded to a 911 call on July 6 and found 3-year-old Angelina Costello dead. They observed that the girl appeared malnourished and had injuries consistent with prolonged abuse, according to the probable cause statement against her parents.





Officers on scene immediately recognized the child victim had bruising, contusions, lacerations, burns, open sores and abrasions all over her face, hands, legs, head and neck, the probable cause statement says.





Emile told officers she found the girl, who is the couples biological daughter, dead around 12:20 p.m. Thursday when she called police.





Court documents say the 3-year-old appeared to be extremely malnourished, cold to the touch and stiff with an apparent onset of rigor mortis, the stage of death where the bodys limbs begin to stiffen.





A Medical Examiners Office investigator removed the girls clothing and found a large burn on her chest along with small circular burns, bruises and cuts on her back, legs and feet, court documents say.





Officials said some of the girls injuries appeared to be recent while others were in various stages of healing.





Investigators searched the couples cellphones and found several pictures and videos, ranging from January 2016 to June 2017, showing the girls deteriorating health conditions.





The videos allegedly show both Costello and Emile taunting the child victim with food by presenting it to her and then removing it from her and disciplining her, court documents say.





Another video allegedly shows Costello using an infants feet to kick the girl in the face.





Police and the Utah Division of Child and Family Services removed an older and a younger sibling from the home after Costello and Emile were taken into custody, according to Ogden Police.





In an interview with investigators, Emile said she had covered the girl in makeup to conceal some injuries so they didnt look as bad, according to the probable cause statement.





Costello told officials he knew the girls health was deteriorating and that she needed medical attention or she would die. He said various times when he returned home from work, he saw new injuries on the girl, who was in Emiles care during the day, but did not seek medical attention or inform police.





Costello said Emile told him the child victim had been struck or otherwise injured by siblings in the house or had fallen down, the court document says.





Emile also told investigators she knew of the girls injuries but didnt attempt to prevent her from falling down or stop the other children from striking her. According to the probable cause statement, she said she didnt get medical attention because she didnt want a police investigation or to have her children taken from her.





The family has only lived in Ogden for only a short amount of time, a release from Ogden Police said. Court documents say the couple has self-proclaimed ties to a transient Romanian gypsy community.





Costello told investigators he buys scrap metal at auctions across the country for a living and made $150,000 last month, and he and Emile also had large amounts of cash and cashiers checks in their possession.





Costello, 25, and Emile, 22, are charged with aggravated murder in the death of their daughter. Aggravated murder is the only crime subject to the penalty of death under Utah law.





Costello and Emile appeared separately in court Thursday, and District Court Judge Michael DiReda informed them that he had spoken by phone with the attorneys who had expected to be retained to represent them individually. Because the funds that could be used to retain the attorneys are still tied up in the investigation, neither Costello nor Emile are presently represented.





Both Costello and Emile answered affirmatively when DiReda asked if they needed a public defender appointed in the interim. Weber County attorney Shaw advised the judge that a Rule 8 certified public defender would be necessary.





Rule 8 applies when the death penalty is a potential punishment for an indigent defendant. It sets forth qualifications for the complicated and expensive ordeal of defending a client in a death penalty case, requiring that the state provide for at least two attorneys with at least five years experience, who can dedicate those resources to the representation of the defendant ... with undivided loyalty.





Attorney Michael Bouwhuis is the coordinator of indigent defense services for Weber County. He said that he spoke with the county prosecutors Thursday, and they have not yet made a decision regarding the death penalty in Costellos and Emiles cases. The state is not required to declare its intention until after a preliminary hearing.





We have to assume they are pursuing the death penalty, for the purposes of providing representation and protecting the rights of our clients, Bouwhuis said.





A report on the status of the couples counsel is scheduled for Aug. 3. They are currently being held in the Weber County Jail without bond.





Source: Standard-Examiner , Nadia Pflaum, July 29, 2017





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Baku, Azerbaijan, July 30

Trend:

At night of July 30 and in the morning, the villages of Bala Jafarli, Gushchu Ayrim of the Gazakh district, the village of Kokhnegishlag of the Agstafa district and the village of Garalar of the Tovuz district were subjected to intensive shelling from the large-caliber weapons by the Armenian armed forces, the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry said in a message July 30.

Civilian facilities, sowing plots and proprietorship of the population have been damaged.

Serviceman of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Azerbaijan Akberli Huseyn Zakir oglu was killed during suppressing enemy fire.

The leadership of the Ministry of Defense expresses deep condolences to the families and relatives of the shehid (martyr).

Currently, our troops fully control the operational situation along the entire length of the front line.

The Ministry of Defense once again declares that our troops will take more severe retaliatory measures against this provocation of the enemy.

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 30

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian Oil Minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh and his Iraqi counterpart Jabar al-Luaibi have joined a new round of oil talks in Tehran to discuss further cooperation between the two countries, IRIB news agency reported.

According to the report, the sides are expected to discuss the two countries cooperation in the joint oil fields and also the ways for transporting Iraqi Kirkuks oil to Iranian refineries.

The report added that the sides are planning to refine Kirkuks oil in Iran and then send back the refined products to Iraq.

Under an initial agreement Kirkuks oil will be refined in two Iranian refineries of Tabriz and Kermanshah, the report suggested.

Exporting Irans gas to Iraq through Shalamcheh route and also the issue of training Iraqi oil experts in Iran are also on the agenda.

Iranian gas officials earlier announced that the volume of Irans gas exports to the neighboring country has already reached seven million cubic meters per day and Iraq has requested to increase the volume.

Iran has launched exporting its gas to Iraqi capital, Baghdad, since June 21 through a pipeline.

The two countries had earlier reached two agreements on exporting gas. The first agreement has envisaged gas export to Baghdad and the second one obliges Iran to export gas to Iraqi city of Basra through a pipeline crossing Shalamcheh City. Irans gas is expected to be used in power generation in Iraq.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 30

By Farhad Daneshvar  Trend:

The recent bipartisan package of US sanctions targeting Moscow, Tehran and Pyongyang is very likely to exert a dramatic impact on Irans gas industry, a UK- based expert told Trend.

"Once the new sanctions bill is approved, it will affect those parts of Irans oil and gas industry that involve Russian companies as well as domestic firms affiliated with the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)," Mehrdad Emadi, a consultant at the UK-based Betamatrix International Consultancy, said in an exclusive interview with Trend.

Elaborating on his forecast, Emadi said that the sanctions package includes all firms and entities linked to the IRGC and this is while a group of main contractors operating at Irans South Pars, the world's largest gas field, are affiliated with the elite force.

In the meantime, the sanctions are capable of making an impact on Irans gas exports as the sanctions package put embargo on all Russian oil and gas companies including Lukoil, which are negotiating huge projects in Iran, he said.

On the other hand the sanctions may restrict the European investment in Irans gas projects if the business entities linked to the RGs are partners, Emadi added."

On July 3 France's Total signed a $5 billion deal with Tehran to develop phase 11 of South Pars, marking the first major Western energy investment in the Islamic Republic since the lifting of nuclear related sanctions against Tehran.

"Therefore, the sanctions would directly and indirectly hit the engineering and investment sectors of the industry in Iran," he suggested.

However, those companies which are not linked to the IRGC will be on the safe side, the expert concluded.

The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to slap new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea but the bill in order to become a law needs to be signed by President Donald Trump.
Tehran, Iran, July 30

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Iran will stay committed to the nuclear deal, aka Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), as long as it enables the country to meet its interests, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said.

Araqchi, who is Irans head at a joint committee with the six powers party to the JCPOA to oversee the implementation of the deal, made the remark in an interview with IRIB TV July 29.

The recent legislature of the American Congress is a new law and speaks new things, but nothing new has happened. It is in fact the continuation of U.S. enmity, the diplomat said.

The United States imposed sanctions on Friday on six subsidiaries of a company key to Iran's ballistic missile program, citing continued "provocative actions" like Tehran's launch of a rocket capable of putting a satellite into orbit.

Araqchi went on to refute the idea that the JCPOA should have acted as a conciliatory factor between Iran and the US.

He added that Iran will give some strong response to the US for its new legislature posing sanctions on Iran.

The U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control imposed sanctions on six Iranian firms owned or controlled by the Shahid Hemmat Industrial Group. The move enables the U.S. government to block any company property under its jurisdiction and prevents U.S. citizens from doing business with the firms.

Washington's ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said the Trump administration would continue to impose consequences on Iran until it complied fully with U.N. resolutions.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 30

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has called on Muslims to take the opportunity of the Hajj rituals to take a united stance against Israeli efforts to control the al-Aqsa Mosque.

The Iranian leader described Hajj rituals as the best opportunity for Muslims to speak up about the al-Aqsa and Palestine issue, Iranian media reported.

Where can the Islamic Ummah find a better venue than Hajj to comment on the al-Aqsa Mosque? he said addressing a group of Iranian organizers of Hajj on Sunday.

He further accused the US of meddling in the issues of Muslim countries and creating terrorist groups in the region.

A recent round of standoff between the Israeli authorities and Palestinian worshipers occurred after Muslim gunmen killed two Israeli police officers near the compound on 14 July.
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 30

By Khalid Kazimov  Trend:

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has pledged support for the countrys armed forces including the Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) amid the recent efforts in the US to impose new sanctions on Tehran.

He said that everyone in Iran supports the armed forces and no one can hurt the countrys armed forces, Tasnim news agency reported.

He made the remarks following a meeting with Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani and the head of judiciary Sadeq Amoli Larijani on Sunday.

He further called for unity among Iranians saying the period of electoral competition is over in the country.

Rouhani was reelected as Irans president in a May election and the countrys Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is expected to endorse him as the president for a four-year term on August 3.

He also said that the government is planning to take measures aimed at giving support for domestic and international investors.

The US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly on Tuesday to slap new sanctions on Iran, Russia and North Korea but the bill in order to become a law needs to be signed by President Donald Trump.
Tehran, Iran, July 30

By Mehdi Sepahvand  Trend:

Iran has flown a first group of its pilgrims on Hajj pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia since Riyadh ruptured diplomatic ties with Tehran and withheld cooperation on arranging the pilgrimage for Iranians last year.

The Iranian pilgrims departed from the southern port city of Bandar Abbas for the holy city of Medina early Sunday, IRIB news agency reported July 30.

Riyadh cut its ties with Tehran in early 2016 after violent protests in front of its Iran-based diplomatic missions against the kingdoms earlier execution of leading Saudi Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr. Since then, Iranians have been unable to go on Hajj.

A year earlier, a deadly human crush had occurred during Hajj rituals in Mina, near Mecca, killing thousands of pilgrims, including about four hundred Iranians.

In January, however, Iran said it had been sent an invitation by Saudi Arabia announcing the latters willingness to host Iranian pilgrims.

The Iranians going on the pilgrimage this year number 80,596.
Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates recognize only Kuwait as a mediator in the diplomatic crisis with Qatar, Bahrains Foreign Minister Khalid bin Ahmed Khalifa said Sunday, Sputnik reported.

Foreign ministers of the four Arab countries met in Manama to discuss the dispute with Qatar.

"Apart from Emir of Kuwait Sabah Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, there is no other [mediator]. He has been acting in that capacity since the very beginning, everyone supports him, and we hope that his mission will succeed," the minister said at a press conference after meeting with his Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian counterparts in Bahrains capital of Manama.

In June, the four countries cut off diplomatic relations with Doha, accusing it of supporting terrorism and meddling in their internal affairs. Kuwait, acting as a mediator in the crisis, handed over to Doha the ultimatum of the four Arab states with 13 demands, including the requests to severe Qatars relations with Iran, close Turkeys military base in Qatar and shut down the Al Jazeera TV channel, as well as to end support for the Muslim Brotherhood, a terrorist organization banned in Russia.

Qatar refuted all accusations and refused to comply with the demands.

Apart from Kuwait, several other countries offered their services as mediators in the Qatar crisis. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan took a trip to the Gulf countries, looking for a way to settle the crisis, and US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made a number of shuttle trips among the countries of the region with the same goal.
The United States wants the UN Security Councils emergency meeting on the second North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile launch to be held on Monday, Sputnik reported citing local media.

The United States expects the UN Security Council to discuss the international communitys response to the recent Pyongyangs missile test, the CBS News broadcaster reported on late Saturday citing its diplomatic sources.

The information is not confirmed by US officials  moreover, earlier in the day, US Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley told CBS News that Washington had not called for the UN Security Councils meeting on the issue.

On Friday, North Korea conducted the second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile in less than a month. According to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), the test was successful with the missile having reached the altitude of 3,725 kilometers (2,314 miles) and traveled 998 kilometers for about 47 minutes before falling in the Sea of Japan.

Following the missile launch US President Donald Trump condemned North Koreas test pointing out that the United States would take all necessary steps to defend its national security. US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urged all countries to support stronger UN sanctions against North Korea.
The first ever military parade commemorating the Army Day kicked off on Sunday in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region with President Xi Jinping personally inspecting the troops, Sputnik reported citing local media.

During the Parade, President Xi Jinping said that the country needed the strong army more than ever before, according to the media reports.

The parade, which takes place at the Zhurihe military base, marks the 90th anniversary of founding the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which formally falls on August 1, the Xinhua news agency reported.

President Xi standing in an open-roof jeep reviewed the troops. According to Xinhua, Xi has never inspected such a large-scale military parade.

The PLA was founded on August 1, 1927, during the Nanchang uprising against then-ruling Kuomintang party. The later civil war resulted in founding the People's Republic of China in the mainland China on October 1, 1949.
A 34-year-old man opened fire in a nightclub in the southern German city of Konstanz on Sunday, killing one person and seriously injuring three others, Reuters reported.

The suspect was fatally wounded in a gunfight with police officers outside the music venue after they had rushed to the scene shortly after the incident around 0230 GMT. He died later in hospital.

The motive for the shooting is unclear. One police officer was also injured in the exchange of fire.

Police said in a statement that special commando forces have been deployed in the city as it was not clear if the suspected had acted alone or had accomplices.

On Friday, a failed asylum seeker killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg. Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and he had was psychologically unstable.
Fighting between al Shabaab fighters and Somali government troops and African Union peacekeepers killed 24 people on Sunday, a regional official said, with the Islamist militants putting the death toll higher, Reuters reported.

Al Shabaab ambushed a convoy carrying troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) early on Sunday in the Bulamareer district of the Lower Shabelle region, about 140 km (85 miles) southwest of Mogadishu, Colonel Hassan Mohamed told Reuters

Ali Nur, the deputy governor of Lower Shabelle region, said: "We have carried 23 dead AMISOM soldiers and a dead Somali soldier from the scene where al Shabaab ambushed AMISOM today,"

Abdiasis Abu Musab, al Shabaabs military operations spokesman, said: "We have in hand 39 dead bodies of AU soldiers including their commander."

The casualty figure could not be independently verified. The numbers al Shabaab and officials give usually differ.

Uganda's defence ministry said its soldiers were part of the AMISOM convoy and an unspecified number of its soldiers had been killed.

Al Shabaab wants to force out the peacekeepers, oust the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam in Somalia.
Please make yourself familiar with the Owasco Lake Emergency Preparedness advisory at www.cayugacounty.us/health. Read how the agri-business industry has known since June 2016 that Ohio Northern University scientists have determined that glyphosate (aka "Roundup") contributes to phosphorus runoff in Lake Erie, and by extension, likely also to the hazardous algae blooms in Owasco Lake, and the corruption of the potable water supply to 55 percent of the residents of Cayuga County: https://www.no-tillfarmer.com/articles/5793-scientists-glyphosate-contributes-to-phosphorus-runoff-in-lake-erie?v=preview.

These 46,000 potable water customers in Cayuga County who pay more than $2 million per year for domestic water supply should demand reimbursement for all their expenses, including time at the New York state minimum wage, for loss of potable water service due to municipal and commercial cowardice to effectively address the ecological disaster occurring in the Owasco Lake Watershed. Twenty-five percent of the city of Auburn residents and 16 percent of Cayuga County residents have household mean incomes below the New York state poverty line. Similarly, 50 percent of the students at the Auburn Enlarged City School District live in homes where the household mean income is below the poverty line.

No practice-run of the emergency water delivery has been required and overseen by the Cayuga County Health Department. Local residents do not know specifically who and from what water supply source their water will be derived during an Owasco Lake hazardous algae bloom cyanotoxin-related water supply disruption. Local and state elected representatives and agency staff have thus opened their taxpayer employers to paying for the defense of their public servants in civil court cases. Customers of domestic water customers should receive prompt payment, or reduction in this year's and next year's school taxes, including interest. Billions of U.S. and N.Y. taxpayer dollars have been squandered since passage of the 1972 Clean Water Act on make-work efforts to halt the ecological free-fall of freshwater potable water sources such as Owasco Lake. Now, 45 years later, Owasco Lake requires official management as a potentially unsafe source of domestic and emergency water.

No other source of potable water supply in Cayuga County is capable of replacing Owasco Lake. It is likely Auburn and the town of Owasco will have to reimburse certified water-hauling businesses for the cost of providing water from the village of Skaneateles or from Onondaga County Water Authority supplies. Now, the Cayuga County government expects residents and tourists to make-do with one gallon/day for three days  without clean Owasco Lake water.

Charlie Greene

Niles
Turkish jets killed 12 PKK terrorists in separate counterterrorism operations in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq, Anadolu reported.

According to a Turkish Armed Forces statement, the operations in northern Iraq were conducted in the Zap and Matina regions Saturday evening, killing three terrorists, who were preparing for an attack.

Turkish jets destroyed three weapon pits and two caves used by terrorists in the region, the statement read.

Turkish warplanes also conducted airstrikes in Beytussebap district of Turkey's southeastern Sirnak province on Saturday evening, according to the Turkish General Staff.

The statement said the airstrikes killed nine PKK terrorists including a senior member.

The PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU -- resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015. Since then, it has been responsible for the deaths of around 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians.
Getty Images. Chevron on Friday reported quarterly revenues that beat Wall Street's expectations and profits that rose from a year ago.

Chevron on Friday reported quarterly profits and revenues that beat Wall Street's expectations as the company cut costs and as oil and gas prices and refining margins improved.

Shares of Chevron were up more than 1 percent after the announcement. See the latest market reaction here (NYSE: CVX).

The oil major earned $1.7 billion, or and adjusted 91 cents a share, excluding impairments and gains from asset sales. Analysts had expected Chevron to earn 87 cents a share on $32.09 billion in revenue.

The integrated oil and gas company generated $34.48 billion in revenue in the quarter, up from $29.2 billion in the year-ago period.

"Second quarter results improved substantially from a year ago and year-to-date net cash flow is positive," Chairman and CEO John Watson said in a statement. "We're delivering higher production with lower capital and operating expenditures."

Chevron's cash flow generated by its operations  a key metric in the oil and gas industry  was $8.9 billion, more than double last year's $3.7 billion.

The San Ramon, California-based oil giant pulled back spending from $12 billion in the year-ago period to $8.9 billion in the first half of 2017.

Chevron reported a loss in its U.S. oil and gas exploration and production business, while earnings rose internationally. Both the American and foreign operations benefited from higher oil prices.

Higher profit margins boosted Chevron's downstream business, which includes refining crude oil into fuels.

Chevron announced a $1.08 dividend on Wednesday, unchanged from the previous quarter.

The company reported earnings of 77 cents including the $430 million in impairments and other charges and a $160 million benefit from selling assets.





More From CNBC


susan collins healthcare

When Republican Sen. Susan Collins landed in Bangor, Maine on Friday, a crowd at the airport greeted her with applause.

She was arriving home after a dramatic week in the US Senate, during which she defied her party leadership and voted "no" on all three Republican efforts to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare.

On CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper on Sunday, Collins said she'd never received such a warm welcome in her 20 years serving in the Senate.

"It really was so extraordinary, heartwarming, and affirming," Collins said. "I got off the plane, and there was a large group of outbound passengers, none of whom I happened to know, and spontaneously some of them started applauding, and then virtually all of them started to applaud. It was just amazing."

"It was very encouraging and affirming, especially after arriving home after a very difficult time," Collins added.

A tweeted photo of Collins at the airport went viral on Friday:

This is true: Susan Collins on our plane to Bangor, gets applause as she passes through Bangor airport waiting area. pic.twitter.com/a1s2QTpldd  BLCKDGRD (@BLCKDGRD) July 28, 2017

Collins said she voted against the bills because they withheld federal funding from Planned Parenthood, and because she didn't think the Republican plans would provide adequate coverage.

"While I support many of the components of this plan, this approach will not provide the market stability and premium relief that is needed," she said in a statement on Thursday, encouraging a bipartisan approach.

"The ACA is flawed and in portions of the country is near collapse," she added. "Rather than engaging in partisan exercises, Republicans and Democrats should work together to address these very serious problems."

Story continues

Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and John McCain of Arizona were the other two Republicans who joined Collins in voting against the "skinny" repeal on Friday, sinking Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's plan to overhaul the US healthcare system.

Watch a clip of Collins describing the scene at the airport:

.@SenatorCollins on #CNNSOTU says that receiving spontaneous applause at Maine airport was "extraordinary" https://t.co/PhzY8j0fqB  State of the Union (@CNNSotu) July 30, 2017

NOW WATCH: What its like living in North Korea  according to a North Korean defector





More From Business Insider


Stock prices will go up, but theyll also come down.

The stock market has been surging, with tech stocks leading the way. The rally has the potential to significantly tip the balance of an investors portfolio toward a few stocks.

One common scenario: Many companies, in particular tech companies, compensate employees with significant amounts of stock. So if youve been an Amazon employee for a couple of years, you may suddenly find yourself with an extremely undiversified portfolio, tilted heavily toward your employer.

Research from Merrill Lynch shows that people with highly concentrated positions can get hit by unrecoverable losses. And many stocks lose money. About 40% of the 13,000 stocks that were in the Russell 3000 between 1980 to 2014 experienced declines of more than 70% from their peaks.

Recent history can be instructive here, Andrew Porter, director of behavioral finance for Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, told Yahoo Finance. During the dot-com bubble, many entrepreneurs maintained a wealth creation mindset with their holdings, while other investorsincluding their family memberswere less attached to (or less confident in) the companies and took steps to diversify.

How to diversify from a very concentrated position

According to Porter, the way to deal with this concentration is by considering the individual purposes and goals of investing instead of focusing on speculating exactly how long or high a high-flier might fly. And while wealth creation is often concentrated in a few stocks, managing wealth is all about managing risk and not rolling the dice.

To accomplish this, investors and savers are presented with a menu of options for dealing with these issues, and figuring out exactly how to rebalance a portfolio can be a challenge. This is not an exhaustive list, and for each option there may be tax implications and other tricky scenarios, so talking to a financial advisor is prudent if you have questions.

You could sell a little over time

To lock in gains and make sure a bad day for one company wont wipe out your entire net worth, investors can make a plan to deal with the risk. One option is for scheduled sales, which liquidate a position over time. Selling slowly over time is one way to avoid a sudden big tax bill, especially if the stock has shot up a lot. However, this strategy has a tradeoff. Selling slowly means getting rid of risk slowly.

Story continues

You could set up a 10b5-1 plan

People with inside knowledge of a company may want to make a 10b5-1 plan, which allows a person to make a schedule of sales thereby insulating them from claims of acting on nonpublic information. Some people may have unique situations that make a 10b5-1 plan tricky. Founders or people on the ground floor may have so much stock that sales could move the market significantly, driving the value down. Often, company policy will dictate what is allowed for employees, so its important to check with your HR department to see what restrictions you have when it comes to ditching stocks.

Dabble in derivatives

Selling isnt the only option, of course. People with concentrated portfolios can use tax-advantaged options like a collar, which is when you buy a put option and sell a call option to limit potential losses while putting potential gains on a similar leash.

A prepaid forward is another choice, which gives an investor the ability to get liquidity to help diversify by getting a payment now and deliver the shares later.

Trading these types of derivative securities is more complicated than just buying or selling a stock, so you may not want to do this on your own. A financial advisor or a broker can help.

Put in a trailing stop order

Another simple way to stop potentially crippling losses would be to automatically sell stock if the value goes down a certain amount. Selling when a stock is plummeting isnt always sound advice for the long term, but it does get someone out of a potentially risky position. The easy way to do this is by setting up a trailing stop order that would automatically sell if the concentrated stocks price fell through a specified price floor. Putting in an order can be as easy as logging onto your investing platform and making a few clicks. If youre unsure, your financial service provider can help.

Its good to not keep all your nest eggs in one basket.

Regardless of the method, the market has often illustrated the importance of diversification time and time again. Confidence and belief in success can be a good thing, but it can blind people into thinking diversification is unattractive. Gravitating toward the familiar, extrapolation and other cognitive biases can also keep people from branching out.

When things are going well, when a nest egg is growinglargely or solely because of one or a few stocksits not exactly intuitive or natural to curb that growth in order to lessen downside risk, said Porter. But thats exactly what prudent investors do, by locking in gains and rebalancing.

Ethan Wolff-Mann is a writer at Yahoo Finance focusing on consumer issues, tech, and personal finance. Follow him on Twitter @ewolffmann. Got a tip? Send it to tips@yahoo-inc.com.

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Jameka Evans filed a Title VII case claiming she was discriminated against for being a lesbian. Source: Lambda Legal

This week, on the same day that President Donald Trump announced a ban on transgender military members, the administration weighed in on another issue involving the LGBT community.

That issue is whether Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964  which forbids discrimination based on sex  protects workers from bias based on their sexual orientation. In a friend of the court brief filed Wednesday in a discrimination case in the Second Circuit Court of Appeals, the Department of Justice argued that Title VII does not in fact protect workers from being discriminated against (aka, fired) for being gay.

This interpretation of the law contradicts the official stance of another federal agency  the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which before Trump was elected, decided that Title VII does protect gay workers. The courts, for their part, are split on the issue.

I think its extremely likely that it will go all the way to the Supreme Court, says Roberta Kaplan, the lawyer who successfully argued the case against the anti-gay Defense of Marriage Act.

Title VII and discrimination based on sex stereotyping

Title VII is a federal law that bars employment discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin. Historically, the laws sex provision has often been used to protect female employers from being treated differently from their male counterparts.

But since its original passage in 1964, the laws bar on sex discrimination has been used to protect workers from sex stereotyping and even discrimination based on their sexual orientation.

Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Source: Wikipedia

In 1989, the Supreme Court paved the way for the sex stereotyping argument in a decision called Price Waterhouse v. Hopkins. In that case, a Price Waterhouse senior manager named Ann Hopkins claimed that she was denied partnership because she didnt conform to gender stereotypes. (One partner said she was macho. Meanwhile, another advised her to walk more femininely, talk more femininely, dress more femininely, wear make-up, have her hair styled, and wear jewelry.)

Story continues

Ultimately, the high court established that sex stereotyping constitutes sex discrimination. That ruling opened the door for some LGBT workers to file discrimination claims under Title VII  particularly if those workers didnt fit stereotypes of masculinity or femininity.

The argument is youre in part punishing this gay man for not acting manly enough, says Jeffrey Hirsch, a professor at UNC Law School who specializes in employment discrimination law.

Facing discrimination for whom youre attracted to

Still, even after the Price Waterhouse ruling, it was difficult for LGBT workers to fight back if they were fired for being gay. As recently as 1991, the Cracker Barrel chain of restaurants adopted an official policy of not hiring gay people and fired at least nine workers under the policy.

At the time, only two states barred discrimination in hiring based on sexual orientation, The New York Times reported. (These days 22 states and Washington, DC bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.)

The Cracker Barrel once had a policy of not hiring gay employees. Photo: Flickr/Mike Mozart

Speaking of the Cracker Barrel firings back in 1991, William Rubenstein, then-director of the Lesbian and Gay Rights Project for the American Civil Liberties Union, said, Its outrageous and incredible, but its fair to say that as a general matter it would be very difficult to challenge these discharges other than in one of those places where there is a law specifically prohibiting it.

That has changed in recent years, as courts have become more amenable to the notion that Title VII shields gay workers.

Heres how Columbia Law School professor Suzanne Goldberg explained the legal argument supporting Title VIIs application to claims of bias based on sexual orientation: Its straightforward  The law prohibits discrimination based on sex and when an employer discriminates against an employee because of the sex of that employees partner [or prospective partner] that is sex discrimination.

The EEOC cites more than a dozen federal cases supporting the argument that Title VII covers sexual-orientation discrimination; many of those cases came after 2015, when the agency itself ruled that discrimination based on sexual orientation is illegal under federal law.

Still, other courts have ruled that, essentially, it is legal to fire or not hire an employee simply because theyre gay. The disagreement among the courts, combined with the split between two federal agencies  the EEOC and the DOJ  suggests the issue is screaming for some clarification from a fully staffed Supreme Court, as Hirsch, the UNC law professor stated.

The next hot-button case in the Supreme Court?

While legal experts Yahoo Finance spoke to agreed the issue will hit the Supreme Court, its not entirely clear whose case will actually go before the justices. The Second Circuit case the Trump administration weighed in on involved a skydiving instructor claiming he got fired after disclosing to a customer that he was gay. While that appeals court ruled against the skydiving instructor, the full court is reconsidering his case in September. Either side may end up petitioning that case to the Supreme Court. (While the instructor has since died, his case is being pursued by his estate.)

If that case doesnt reach the Supreme Court, then the Supreme Court may end up considering the case of Jameka Evans, a lesbian who presented as masculine and claimed she was harassed, physically assaulted, and denied equal pay at her job as a security guard at Georgia Regional Hospital. The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Georgia ruled that Congress never meant for Title VII to apply to sexual orientation.

Because Congress has not made sexual orientation a protected class, the appropriate venue for pressing the argument  is before Congress, not this Court, the court ruled.

If, and arguably when, the Supreme Court takes up this issue, the decision will likely be a close one that will depend on two justices who have reliably swung in politically charged cases.

Like any issue of this kind of importance and controversy, the one thing I can predict is that the Supreme Court vote is going to be very close, says Kaplan, the attorney who worked on the DOMA case. Its not going to be a huge majority one way or the other. As to which way it comes down, as in many cases that raise this type of issue, it is likely that the outcome will depend on the vote of Justice Kennedy and perhaps Chief Justice Roberts.

At the end of the day, this case likely wont force large multinational and national corporations to change their policies because many already bar discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Many, many national and global corporations prohibit sexual orientation discrimination against their LGBT employees, Goldberg said. In fact, the number of employers willing to stand up and argue that it is okay to fire someone because theyre gay is shrinking.

Still, if the Supreme Court ends up taking this case on and ruling for the employees, it will make it a lot easier for LGBT workers to file federal discrimination lawsuits, regardless of their employers internal policies.

Erin Fuchs is deputy managing editor of Yahoo Finance.

Read more:

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FTC likely to approve Whole Foods deal even if Amazon did deceive customers

Why Mark Cuban is throwing his weight behind an arcane Supreme Court case
Donald Trump

President Donald Trump unleashed an hours-long tweetstorm on Saturday aimed at Senate Republicans following their shocking defeat in the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act earlier this week.

"Republican Senate must get rid of 60 vote NOW!" Trump tweeted Saturday morning. "It is killing the R Party, allows 8 Dems to control country. 200 Bills sit in Senate. A JOKE!"

Trump was referring to a longstanding Senate rule, which requires 60 votes to overcome a filibuster in the upper chamber.

Trump said the "very outdated" rule "must go" and added, "Budget reconciliation is killing R's in Senate. Mitch M, go to 51 Votes NOW and WIN. IT'S TIME!"

This is not the first time Trump has urged the Senate's Republican leadership to get rid of the filibuster. Just on Friday, Trump called the 60-vote rule "senseless."

He added: "Republicans in the Senate will NEVER win if they don't go to a 51 vote majority NOW. They look like fools and are just wasting time......" He continued, "8 Dems totally control the U.S. Senate. Many great Republican bills will never pass, like Kate's Law and complete Healthcare. Get smart!"

"If the Senate Democrats ever got the chance, they would switch to a 51 majority vote in first minute," Trump said in another tweet. "They are laughing at R's. MAKE CHANGE!"

But Trump didn't stop there  later Saturday afternoon he called for a new healthcare bill to be approved, and appeared to threaten congressional members' health benefits and cost sharing reduction (CSR) payments meant to stabilize the individual insurance market.

"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.

"Unless the Republican Senators are total quitters, Repeal & Replace is not dead! Demand another vote before voting on any other bill!"

Trump's tweets aimed at Senate Republicans came on the heels of a blistering defeat the president and the GOP were handed earlier this week, when members of their own party defected and came out against the so-called "skinny repeal" of Obamacare that Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put forward late Thursday night.

Story continues

Mitch McConnell

In addition to all 48 members of the Senate Democratic caucus, three Republicans  Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and John McCain  also voted against the measure, effectively killing the GOP's efforts to overhaul the healthcare system.

Trump also weighed in on the ongoing controversy surrounding his campaign's possible ties to Russia on Saturday morning.

In reply to a Fox & Friends tweet saying that the firm behind the explosive Trump-Russia dossier also worked for Russia, Trump tweeted, "In other words, Russia was against Trump in the 2016 Election - and why not, I want strong military & low oil prices. Witch Hunt!"

The claim against the firm, Fusion GPS, was made by Bill Browder, a former hedge fund manager who spearheaded the passage of the Magnitsky Act after his tax lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, died in a Russian prison in 2009.

Browder alleged in a complaint filed with the Treasury Department last year that Fusion's work for the US law firm BakerHostetler violated the Foreign Agents Registration Act because it served Russian government interests.

Michelle Mark contributed to this report.

NOW WATCH: 'Do you even understand what you're asking?': Putin and Megyn Kelly have a heated exchange over Trump-Russia ties





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SpaceX CEO Elon Musk announced via Twitter on Thursday that the company will aim for a November launch for the Falcon Heavy, the huge rocket capable of taking crewed missions to Mars.

As Musk recently emphasized, though, that launch will be just the beginning of flight testing, and there's a "good chance that the vehicle does not make it into orbit" on the first try.

It's also worth noting, as The Verge has, that the Falcon Heavy has already had tentative launch targets that didn't come to fruition. In 2011, for instance, Musk said the Falcon Heavy would launch in "2013 or 2014."

Get Data Sheet, Fortune's technology newsletter.

Joining a tradition of Muskian optimism, the Heavy turned out to be a much bigger engineering challenge than anticipated. It has 27 engines, three times as many as SpaceX's Falcon 9, and all of those engines have to be carefully synchronized for a successful launch. But the firmer target date, and recent milestones including a test-fire of a booster on the ground, suggest things are on track this time around.

The Heavy needs all those engines to deliver its 54-ton payloads, potentially including human crew and infrastructure for crewed bases, as far as Mars. Earlier this year, SpaceX pushed back its target date for the first Mars missions from 2018 to 2020.

(Musk's colonization road map also includes an even bigger rocket, with 550 metric tons of orbital lift, but it's still in early development.)

Most importantly for SpaceX's plans, the Falcon Heavy, like the Falcon 9, will have reusable components that land intact on Earth after launch. Re-use is projected to drastically reduce launch costs, but even after success with the Falcon 9, that trick could be several years coming for Falcon Heavy.

See original article on Fortune.com

More from Fortune.com
Books are piled up in National Library in Greece

It was recently thought that four subjects alone could spur innovation by bringing order and logic to creative thinking: Science, technology, engineering, and mathfields known to much of the modern world by their acronym STEM. But STEM is already passe.

A new acronym has come to the fore, pioneered by advocates like the USs Rhode Island School of Design, which has developed lessons on it for primary-school and high-school educators. Its called STEAM, and though it might look and feel very much like its predecessor, the addition of the letter A is significant. It represents the Arts and tech firms are quickly realizing its importance. Why?

As Tom Perrault, chief of staff at digital health company Rally Health, pointed out in an article for Harvard Business Review, knowing how to make a product is no longer enoughin part because machines will soon be able to automate many of the data-driven tasks associated with this. Where humans can contribute more is in understanding the needs and behavior of the other humans for whom they are making things.

How a product is designed, its aesthetics, and how seamless an integration it makes into a persons life is what allows us to distinguish one product from another, and one industry competitor from another. Liberal arts-based subjects are key to this because they tend to teach students how to understand human nature, and are creative at heart. Steve Jobs knew this, and said so after Apples launch of the iPad in 2011: Its in Apples DNA that technology alone is not enough. Its technology married with the liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields the results that makes our hearts sing. And now Jony Ive, Apples chief design officer, is doing a stint as chancellor of the UKs Royal College of Arts to help other students realize the importance of this.

Its not just big tech companies that have taken to the idea. Michael Litt, co-founder of video platform startup Vidyard, said he is hiring more humanities graduates than those who are from STEM-based backgrounds, and is trying to fill in the gaps in his own engineering education by reading up on philosophy and psychology. Indeed, the arts are already more important to tech than you might think. Data compiled by LinkedIn in 2015 found that between 2010 and 2013, the growth of liberal-arts graduates entering the industry outpaced that of computer science and engineering majors by 10%.

Story continues

Policymakers in the US have also taken to the additional A: In March, lawmakers chairing the Congressional STEAM Caucus, created in 2013 by a bipartisan group of US legislators, criticized US president Donald Trump for proposing the elimination of the National Endowment for the Arts, arguing that [a]ctivating both sides of the brain prepares people to be innovative and creative, both critical to growing our 21st Century economies and creating good jobs.

The penchant for mixing arts with science to foster innovative thinking is hardly new, of course. Students of history will remember the idea was popularized in renaissance Italy by the likes of Leonardo Da Vinci. Perhaps it just took a strong STEM trend to reawaken popular appreciation for the concept.

Sign up for the Quartz Daily Brief, our free daily newsletter with the worlds most important and interesting news.

More stories from Quartz:
(Adds crew arrival at space station)

By Irene Klotz

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla., July 28 (Reuters) - A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, giving NASA for the first time four astronauts to boost U.S. research projects aboard the orbiting laboratory.

A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three spaceflight veterans slipped into a docking port aboard the station at 5:54 p.m. EDT (2154 GMT) as the $100 billion research outpost sailed about 250 miles (400 km) over Germany, a NASA TV broadcast showed.

Strapped inside the capsule, which blasted off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan six hours earlier, were Randy Bresnik, with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Sergey Ryazanskiy, with the Russian space agency Roscosmos; and Italy's Paolo Nespoli, with the European Space Agency.

The men will join two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut already aboard the station, a project of 15 nations.

Their arrival means the U.S. space agency now has four crew members instead of three available for medical experiments, technology demonstrations and other research aboard the station, the U.S. space agency said.

The extra astronaut will effectively double the amount of time for research, program manager Kirk Shireman said at a station conference last week.

NASA does not oversee the Russian staff, which was reduced to two in April until a long-delayed research module joins the station next year.

Previously, Russia flew three cosmonauts, with the remaining three positions filled by a combination of European, Japanese, Canadian and U.S. astronauts, who are trained and overseen by NASA.

By the end of next year, NASA intends to begin flying astronauts aboard space taxis under development by SpaceX and Boeing. Both spaceships have room for a fourth seat, bumping the stations overall crew size to seven once Russia returns to full staffing.

NASA is using the station to prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars and to stimulate commercial space transportation, pharmaceutical research, manufacturing and other businesses.

Story continues

The agency also conducts physics, astronomy and Earth science investigations aboard the outpost, which has been staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000.

Bresnik, 49, last flew on the space shuttle in 2009 during a space station assembly mission. Ryazanskiy, 42, spent five-and-a-half months aboard the station in 2013-2014. Nespoli, 60, is making his third space flight, having previously served on both space shuttle and space station crews.

The men are slated to return to Earth in December. (Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Tom Brown)
The Broadway hit musical Hamilton ventured out of New York late last year.

I saw it in Chicago July 11, the anniversary date of the famous 1804 duel with Aaron Burr. The show is exhilarating. It reinvigorated my respect for the lives of our founders, and provided insightful perspectives for understanding our American polity.

The production has received widespread accolades, from former President Barack Obama to former Vice President Dick Cheney. Young Americans have been clamoring to experience this compelling rendition of American history. The Rockefeller Foundation helped finance 20.000 New York City 11th graders to experience Hamiltons emotionally uplifting, yet tragic story, from our founding generation.

I have encountered only one criticism of Hamilton. Utahs U.S. Sen. Mike Lee complains the show distorts what should be our view of the founders. However, Lee makes the conservative fundamentalists typical error in confronting history: he wants to confirm his own limited government ideology, and preclude anyone elses interpretation.

As our first secretary of the treasury, Alexander Hamilton implemented a national economic program, which included the Bank of the United States. His Cabinet counterpart  Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson  opposed the program premised upon his anti-federalist (today we call it states rights) commitment. In the play, Jefferson acknowledges he could not defeat Hamiltons program.

Here is where Sen. Lee and his fellow conservatives misperceive our historical legacy. The founders established a constitutional order with the capacity to adapt to Americans evolving demands upon the governing apparatus established in 1787. The founding generation provided wide interpretive latitude in the Constitution to determine the breadth and scope of government.

We should not limit ourselves by trying to discern whether they would concur with us in our current endeavors  they vehemently disagreed among themselves. The men who wrote our Constitution led the national and state governments for decades after its implementation. They immediately devolved into factional disputes, leading to the development of political party divisions we live with today.

In addition, personal animus too often came between them. A bitter decades-long rivalry led to Burr killing Hamilton in their renowned duel. The publics negative reaction stunned Burr. Trying to restore his reputation consumed the rest of his life.

The most basic contribution the founders provided generations of Americans is the principle that even those who govern us are not above the law. The expectation that such public virtue would guide political leaders has been our historical legacy in the succeeding centuries. President Donald Trump poses a serious threat to this foundation of our constitutional order.

When campaigning for the Republican Partys nomination in January 2016, Trump outlandishly proclaimed he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue in New York, and not lose voters supporting his candidacy.

President Trump continues to premise his words and behaviors upon his notion he can act above the law. However, his supporters will not determine whether he has abided by our laws. Our constitutional system of justice will make this determination.

Hamilton portrays the man historians have labeled the father of the Constitution, James Madison, as a mousey underling of Jefferson. Such literary license does injustice to someone who, with Hamilton, wrote the Federalist Papers, our most significant American contribution to political theory, and the winning argument for ratifying the Constitution. At this moment, we should pay special attention to Madisons Federalist No. 10.

In it, he acknowledges, Men of factious tempers, of local prejudices, or of sinister designs, may by intrigue, by corruptionbetray the interests of the people. Despite clogging up government operations, even convulsing society, Madison argued the Constitution would prevent such demagoguery from executing its violence against the American people.

President Trump presents us with such a moment. The officeholders of this Republic are now obligated to ensure the continuance of our most basic governing principle: no person is above the law.
north korea icbm

The US believes North Korea fired a missile shortly before midnight Japan time, or 11 a.m. ET on Friday, a defense official confirmed to Business Insider  and initial estimates indicate it could be the longest-range missile ever tested by the Hermit Kingdom.

"I can confirm that we detected a launch of a ballistic missile from North Korea," Lt. Col. Christopher Logan told Business Insider. "We assess that this missile was an intercontinental ballistic missile, as had been expected," Capt. Jeff Davis later said in a Pentagon release.

Ankit Panda, a senior editor at the Asia-focused news website The Diplomat, cited a US source as saying that the missile flew for 47 minutes, reaching an altitude of 2,300 miles and traveling 620 miles. Such a long flight time and high crest suggest a tremendous range.

While North Korea had already demonstrated an intercontinental range with the July 4 test of its Hwasong-14 ICBM, the missile launched Friday appeared capable of reaching New York or Washington, DC. Yet as with the previous launch, it is unclear whether North Korea has developed the technology to accurately deliver a nuclear warhead to the US mainland.

The missile on Friday may have landed in Japan's exclusive economic zone, according to the Japanese public broadcaster NHK.

As launching an ICBM at full range could easily be interpreted as an act of war, North Korea lofts its missiles on a steep angle. Therefore a missile that flies only a few hundred miles toward Japan can still demonstrate a range of many thousands of miles.

North Korea missile test

For weeks US intelligence monitoring North Korean military sites had predicted another missile test. Thursday marked the Day of Victory in the Great Fatherland Liberation War, a North Korean holiday celebrating the end of the Korean War on July 27, 1953.

North Korea has a pattern of launching missiles on historically significant dates, like its July 4 debut of an ICBM, but the weather Thursday was poor, possibly preventing a launch.

Story continues

Typically North Korea waits until the day after a launch to release photos or video from the event, which researchers analyze for insights into Pyongyang's shadowy missile program.

NOW WATCH: A Navy SEAL explains what to do if you're attacked by a dog





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GMATPill wrote:

vivesomnium wrote: TrueLie wrote: A survey by the National Council of Churches showed that in 1986 there were 20,736 female ministers, almost 9 percent of the nations clergy, twice as much as 1977.



(A) twice as much as 1977

(B) twice as many as 1977

(C) double what it was in 1977

(D) double the figure for 1977

(E) a number double that of 1977s



The correct answer is D. However, I would like to know if "double" is a verb in this case?

If double was in verb form- it would be an infinitive - sentence giving order/command to the reader to double- that will not make any sense here. If double was in verb form- it would be an infinitive - sentence giving order/command to the reader to double- that will not make any sense here.



Try not to focus too much on the technicalities that really don't matter. Focus on answering the question in as little time as possible--and do it effectively.



This is an apples vs oranges comparison. Note that in (A) and (B), "twice as much as 1977" or "twice as many as 1977" are comparing the actual year of 1977 to how many female ministers there were in 1986. This is a typical GMAT trap--just don't be fooled into thinking this is testing you on "as much as" versus "as many as."



Hope that adds a little insight. Try not to focus too much on the technicalities that really don't matter. Focus on answering the question in as little time as possible--and do it effectively.This is an apples vs oranges comparison. Note that in (A) and (B), "twice as much as 1977" or "twice as many as 1977" are comparing the actual year of 1977 to how many female ministers there were in 1986. This is a typical GMAT trap--just don't be fooled into thinking this is testing you on "as much as" versus "as many as."Hope that adds a little insight.

apple an orange comparison is only one factor for this problem. this factor can be learned in gmat book . knowing this factor is not enough for non native. we need to overhaul the total grammar knowledge for this question. This situation is simple to here but fatal to your seccess on sc and verbal. whyall of non native begin preparing gmat when their grammar is weak. the result is that they can learn some grammar point in gmat book but are still lacking the basic grammar, making them fail on gmat sc. this case dose not happen to the natives, who naturally master the basic grammar already and need a few months to master the grammar points characteristic of gmat. that is the reason why the natives need only a few months for gmat.for non natives, even after they get 100 on TOEFL, they need to overhaul the total grammar in parallel with studying gmat books.we are a community, all persons have to help each person. each person have to help all persons. I need your help in my finding of the British girl I met in Halong Bay, Vietnam one year ago. help, I have difficulty looking for her in Vietnam.
Commonplace items sometimes play surprising roles in world development. For example, though most people today associate nutmeg with simple baked goods, this common spice once altered the course of political history. For centuries, the nutmeg tree grew only in the Banda Islands, a small chain in the southwest Pacific. Locals harvested the aromatic nuts of the tree and sold them to traders. Eventually these nuts, from which the spice is made, ended up as a luxury item in the European market, via Venetian spice merchants. Eager to establish a monopoly over this valuable spice, the Dutch attacked the Bandas, subjugating the native people in a mostly successful attempt to control the nutmeg trade.



However, one island in the Banda chain remained in the hands of the British and was the object of much conflict between the Netherlands and England. After many battles, the British offered to cede control of the island in exchange for New Amsterdam, a Dutch outpost on the east coast of North America. At the time, the Dutch, inveterate traders, were more interested in the spice trade than in the mercantile value of New Amsterdam and so accepted the offer. In 1667, the Treaty of Breda gave the Dutch complete control of the Banda Islands, and thus of the nutmeg trade, and gave the British New Amsterdam, which they promptly renamed New York.



Show Spoiler D

1. Which of the following, if true, most strengthens the claim that New Amsterdam would have remained a Dutch possession if not for the conflict over nutmeg?



A. Attempts to cultivate nutmeg trees outside of the Banda Islands had failed.

B. Few people lived in New Amsterdam before it was ceded to the British.

C. The British controlled trade in other valuable spices, such as cloves.

D. New Amsterdam served as a trading center for furs exported to Europe.

E. The Netherlands controlled no North American territories other than New Amsterdam.





Show Spoiler A

2. The second paragraph performs which of the following functions in the passage?



A. It offers specific information to complete the logic of the author's claims.

B. It summarizes and evaluates the evidence given thus far.

C. It presents the author's main point to explain a unique situation.

D. It cites a particular case to demonstrate the importance of historical change.

E. It discusses the necessary outcome of the author's assertions.





Show Spoiler C

3. In the passage, the author is primarily interested in



A. tracing the history of a major city

B. discussing the role of spices in world development

C. offering a specific example to support a general claim

D. arguing for continued research into political history

E. presenting an innovative view of a commonplace item A. Attempts to cultivate nutmeg trees outside of the Banda Islands had failed.B. Few people lived in New Amsterdam before it was ceded to the British.C. The British controlled trade in other valuable spices, such as cloves.D. New Amsterdam served as a trading center for furs exported to Europe.E. The Netherlands controlled no North American territories other than New Amsterdam.A. It offers specific information to complete the logic of the author's claims.B. It summarizes and evaluates the evidence given thus far.C. It presents the author's main point to explain a unique situation.D. It cites a particular case to demonstrate the importance of historical change.E. It discusses the necessary outcome of the author's assertions.A. tracing the history of a major cityB. discussing the role of spices in world developmentC. offering a specific example to support a general claimD. arguing for continued research into political historyE. presenting an innovative view of a commonplace item
golfpro20050 wrote:

Light is registered in the retina when photons hit molecules of the pigment rhodopsin and change the molecules shape. Even when they have not been struck by photons of light, rhodopsin molecules sometimes change shape because of normal molecular motion, thereby introducing error into the visual system. The amount of this molecular motion is directly proportional to the temperature of the retina.



Which one of the following conclusions is most strongly supported by the information above?



(A) The temperature of an animals retina depends on the amount of light the retina is absorbing.

(B) The visual systems of animals whose body temperature matches that of their surroundings are more error-prone in hot surroundings than in cold ones.

(C) As the temperature of the retina rises, rhodopsin molecules react more slowly to being struck by photons.

(D) Rhodopsin molecules are more sensitive to photons in animals whose retinas have large surface areas than in animals whose retinas have small surface areas.

(E) Molecules of rhodopsin are the only pigment molecules that occur naturally in the retina.



Source :Lsat

OFFICIAL EXPLANATION

The correct answer choice is (B).Premise: Light is registered in the retina when photons hit rhodopsin molecules and the molecules change shape?Premise: Due to normal molecular motion, rhodopsin molecules sometimes change shape without having been hit by light. This change causes errors in the visual system.Premise: The amount of molecular motion is directly proportional to the temperature of the retina.Answer Choice A: The stimulus does not indicate that the temperature of the retina depends on the amount of light. It could easily be affected by other factors, such as body temperature. About 15% of test takers fell prey to this answer.Answer Choice B: This is the correct answer and just over 40% of test takers correctly choose this answer. To prove this answer, you must link together several pieces of information. First, the last sentence of the stimulus shows that the amount of rhodopsin molecular motion is directly proportional to the temperature of the retina, and the second sentence of the stimulus shows that this motion causes visual body temperature (remember, the retina is a body part) to the temperature of the surroundings and then rightly notes that hot surroundings would cause more visual errors than cold surroundings if body temperature matched those surroundings.Answer Choice C: This was the most popular incorrect answer, and just under a quarter of test takers fell for this answer. The answer is wrong because we do not know that temperature causes the rhodopsin to react more slowly. Higher retinal temperature causes the rhodopsin molecules to change shape, but no mention is made of reaction time. This answer falls under the "New information" category.Answer Choice D: Another New Information answer choice. Similar to answer choice (C), this answer fails the Fact Test because no information is given about the surface area of the retina. Answer choices (C) and (D) are great examples of how an answer can contain information unmentioned by the stimulus. These answers are somewhat attractive because there is nothing actively wrong about them and thus they could be true. To avoid them, always keep in mind that your goal is to find the answer that must occur based on the information in the stimulus.Answer Choice E: While the stimulus focuses on rhodopsin, no indication is given that rhodopsin is the only naturally occurring pigment molecule-there could be others._________________
Re: While some academicians believe that business ethics should be [ #permalink

asdert wrote:

While some academicians believe that business ethics should be integrated into every business course, others say that students will take ethics seriously only if it would be taught as a separately required course .





(A) only if it would be taught as a separately required course



(B) only if it is taught as a separate, required course



(C) if it is taught only as a course required separately



(D) if it was taught only as a separate and required course



(E) if it would only be taught as a required course, separately





Meaning is crucial to solving this problem:

Concepts tested here: Meaning + Tenses

A:

in a separate manner

both separate and required

B:

Correct.

only if it is taught

both separate and required

C:

only way it is taught

in a separate manner

only if it is taught

both separate and required

D:

only way it is taught

only if it is taught

E:

only way it is taught

in a separate manner

only if it is taught

both separate and required

Hence, B is the best answer choice.

Dear Friends,Here is a detailed explanation to this question-Understanding the intended meaning is key to solving this question; the intended meaning of the crucial part of this sentence is that students will take ethics seriously only if it is taught as a course that is both separate and required. Habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense. The simple future tense is used to refer to actions that will take place in the future. The simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "separately required course"; the use of the adverb "separately" to modify the adjective "required" incorrectly implies that students will take ethics seriously only if it is taught as a course that is required; the intended meaning is that students will take ethics seriously only if it is taught as a course that is. Further, Option A incorrectly uses the simple future tense verb "would be taught" to refer to a hypothetical habitual action; please remember, habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense, and the simple future tense is used to refer to actions that will take place in the future.The sentence formed by this answer choice uses the phrases "take ethics seriously only if" and "separate, required course"; the use of the adverb "only" to modify the verb phrase "take...seriously" and the use of the adjective "separate" to modify "course" correctly imply that students will take ethics seriouslyas a course that is. Further, Option B correctly uses the simple present tense verb "is taught" to refer to a hypothetical habitual action.This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "taught only as a course required separately"; the use of the adverb "only" to modify "taught" and the use of the adverb "separately" to modify the adjective "required" incorrectly imply that students will take ethics seriously if theis as a course that is required; the intended meaning is that students will take ethics seriouslyas a course that isThis answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "taught only"; the use of the adverb "only" to modify "taught" incorrectly implies that students will take ethics seriously if theis as a course that is required and separate; the intended meaning is that students will take ethics seriouslyas a course that is required and separate. Further, Option D incorrectly uses the simple past tense verb "was taught" to refer to a hypothetical habitual action; please remember, habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense, and the simple past tense is used to refer to events that concluded in the past.This answer choice alters the meaning of the sentence through the phrase "only be taught as a required course, separately"; the use of the adverb "only" to modify "taught" and the use of the adverb "separately" to modify the adjective "required" incorrectly imply that students will take ethics seriously if theis as a course that is required; the intended meaning is that students will take ethics seriouslyas a course that is. Further, Option E incorrectly uses the simple future tense verb "would...be taught" to refer to a hypothetical habitual action; please remember, habitual actions are best conveyed through the simple present tense, and the simple future tense is used to refer to actions that will take place in the future.To understand the concept of "Simple Tenses" on GMAT, you may want to watch the following video (~1 minute):All the best!Team_________________
In Nigeria, there was a time when parents would tell their female children not to choose technical drawing as a subject or not to study engineering talk less of website designing. To them it seemed like a job that is meant for men only.

However, these days you see young ladies doing things like construction work, mechanical engineering and so on. Young Nigerians have joined the rest of the world in the belief that women can also do what men do.

One of the women who have made this change possible is Ire Aderinokun a Nigerian Google developer expert who specializes in website designing. She is a self-taught user interface designer and front-end developer.

She is one of the only three Google developer experts in Nigeria and the only woman. Aderinokun also owns a blog called the bitsofcode.

Meet Nigerian genius Ire Aderinokun female Google developer expert Photo Source: YouTube

The bitsofcode was created to break down coding techniques to new developers, on the blog she shares her thoughts on coding, experience about coding and tips on how to code.

READ ALSO: Meet 21-year-old Nigerian slay queen who sells Irish potatoes (photos)

At 13 years of age, Aderinokun built her first website as part of an online game obsession, even then she knew she loved designing websites but she was talked out of it by her parents and decided to further her career in other directions.

Aderinokun could be described as a jack of all trades with her experience in education. She gained a bachelors degree in Experimental Psychology and a Masters in Law at the University of Bristol in the UK.

In 2014, during her masters, she decided to go after her childhood dream of developing a website and joined Codecademy, an online platform for tutoring intending developers.

After gaining her masters and completing her education at Codecademy, she did some freelance jobs building websites and started her blog bitsofcode in 2016.

In 2015, Aderinokun became the Head of Technology at Big Cabal a media company in Lagos that creates content for Africans around the world.

Ire Aderinokun first Nigerian female Google developer expert Photo Source: Linkedin/bitsofcode

PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest gossips on NAIJ Gossip App

She became one of Googles technology experts in Nigeria after she joined the experts program this year. According to her, she went through a series of interviews before she was selected as a part of the three Google developer experts in Nigeria.

Meanwhile, Aderinokun is not only trying to acquire knowledge for herself but also trying to give back to the society, in June she announced that she would sponsor five Nigerian women who are willing to learn how to code.

Ire Aderinokun announced that she would sponsor women who want to learn how to code Photo Source: Twitter

Ireoluwa Aderinokun is the daughter of the late Chief Executive Officer of Guaranty Trust Bank, Olutayo Aderinokun.

The other Nigerian Google developer experts are Femi Taiwo and Prosper Otemuyiwa.

Good work Ire!

Watch the Legit.ng TV video below to see what the female vulcaniser in Kwara state is up to:

Source: Legit.ng
As of August 26th, 2021 Yahoo India will no longer be publishing content. Your Yahoo Account Mail and Search experiences will not be affected in any way and will operate as usual. We thank you for your support and readership. For more information on Yahoo India, please visit the FAQ
WASHINGTON -- That one of the greatest victories of World War II was a mass evacuation -- more than 300,000 British and French troops taken off a beach at Dunkirk -- was a preview of the industrial nature of that conflict.

Feats of organization -- such as the return of Allied troops to other French beaches on D-Day -- took precedence over military panache. It is the reason that Dwight Eisenhower was the indispensable irreplaceable man, not George Patton.

But Dunkirk also proved the comparative advantage that democracies have in modern war: the ability of free people to self-organize. It was nearly 900 private watercraft, including pleasure boats and paddle steamers, that braved the Luftwaffe to ferry the surrounded troops home. The future of a free Britain was delivered directly by its own citizens.

Christopher Nolan's film "Dunkirk" is a spare telling of that story from the firsthand perspective of soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians. Only briefly does the camera pull out to reveal the epic scale of events. Most of the time we are scrambling, flying, swimming and sinking along with the confused participants. There is little dialogue and almost no backstory for the main characters. The soldiers are played by essentially interchangeable young actors. But they somehow work as stand-ins for the waiting, vulnerable mass. They are not humanized, just human. And their motivation doesn't require much artistic development: Doing everything they can to get off the damn beach and get home.

The craft of the movie is taking the fragmented individual experiences of the characters and weaving them, inexorably, into a narrative that clarifies in a single scene. I will not sully this review with a spoiler. But the events of the film eventually come together with a pleasing click, dramatizing how the choices of individuals, both noble and base, gather into something larger than themselves. In this case, the deliverance of a nation.

The government leaders of the time have no direct voice in the movie, including the familiar voice of Winston Churchill. The lack of political context works as an artistic device. But the experience of the movie (or so I lectured my children) is enriched by knowing some of the history. The swift collapse of France. The utter isolation of Britain. An American president hamstrung by isolationists, doing what he could to help.

The recognition that World War II was a citizens' war should not obscure the importance of leadership. Dunkirk, perhaps more than any other event of the war, was Churchill's moment. As French resistance disintegrated, it was estimated that only 45,000 soldiers could be taken off the beaches before the perimeter collapsed -- effectively leaving Britain undefended to German invasion. Churchill told Parliament to prepare for "hard and heavy tidings." To his War Cabinet he raised the possibility of contaminating British beaches with poison gas when the Germans came.

At the same time in America, Charles Lindbergh, the original advocate of "America First," gave a radio address dismissing President Franklin Roosevelt's proposal for rearmament as "hysterical chatter." Roosevelt himself told the British ambassador that the British government might need to continue the war from Canada.

In London, Churchill was receiving the same suggestion to move the government and royal family across the Atlantic. He replied that "no such discussion" should be permitted. When the director of the National Gallery proposed sending the most irreplaceable paintings to Canada, he replied, "No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them."

The tired men of Churchill's government raised the prospect of a negotiated peace. Churchill responded, "Nations which went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished." Speaking to his full cabinet, he said, "If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground."

The success at Dunkirk made Churchill's defiance a realistic option and solidified his hold on power. Guns, ammunition and artillery to rearm the evacuated army flooded in from the Commonwealth and (by clever ruse) from America. British planning for a return to the continent began the same month as the Dunkirk evacuation ended. D-Day was already in mind.

It is a brilliant artifice in the movie "Dunkirk" to have Churchill's most famous oration -- "We shall fight on the beaches" -- read aloud by one of the soldiers who finally reaches safety. It was average people who gave Churchill's roar reality and force. But the roar was indispensable.
For five hours a day, three days a week, more than 150 aging Bangladeshis exercise, eat, pray and talk together at the Jamaica Muslim Center in Queens, New York.

A few kilometers away, at the Desi Senior Center, immigrants ages 60 and older exercise on a stage with guidance from a teacher.

These seniors are taking part in programs that they cannot find - and in many cases cannot pay for - elsewhere in the city.

Demographic changes in New York City

New York City has seen major demographic changes since 2000.

The Center for an Urban Future is a research group based in Manhattan.

In a recent report, it said that immigrants make up 49.5 percent of the city's residents who are over the age of 65.

In comparison, immigrants made up 38 percent of that same group in 2000.

The report says there are now more people over the age of 65 in the city than there are children ages 10 and younger.

Older immigrants face language and cultural barriers. They also are likely to face increased isolation and higher levels of poverty than natives.

The Center for an Urban Future estimates that 22 percent of foreign-born seniors are in poverty. It says that this is true of about 15 percent of native seniors.

Christian Gonzalez-Rivera is a lead researcher at the center.

He said:

Because the needs are now so much more diverse, along with the diversity of the population, we really need to rethink how it is that we serve seniors across the city in new ways.

Jahan Ara Amin's story

Jahan Ara Amin is from Dhaka, Bangladesh. She is among the many Bangladeshis at Desi Senior Center who have had problems since coming to the United States.

She and her husband first arrived in 2016. She says she did not feel welcomed by extended family members at her daughters home in Texas.

Dilafroz Nargis Ahmed, the Desi Centers director, explains this is common situation among Bangladeshi immigrants.

Amin spoke through a translator. She became sad as she talked about her problems.

She and her husband chose to settle in New York City because of the large number of Muslim-faith Bangladeshis.

Amin and her husband have yet to find affordable permanent housing. Her lack of English makes it difficult to use public transportation. She says she worries how she will go outside the next day.

When I am home, I feel tension and anxiety, she said. But when I come here [the Desi Center], I forget everything.

Recent arrivals such as Amin are among the 31 percent of older immigrants who do not get Social Security and other federal help. At Desi Senior Center, she receives a warm meal. Otherwise, she is mostly on her own.

Burden on local resources

Anand Ahuja, is an Indian-American immigrant and a lawyer who works on family and immigration law. He says situations like Amins still create an unnecessary burden on local resources. Some  but not all - of the money for such senior programs comes from public money.

If your own country members cannot take care of you, that should not be a license for you to be dependent upon the state, Ahuja told VOA. If you have a problem of religion, if you have a problem with languageisnt it better for you then to go back to your home country?

Earlier this year, U.S. Senator Tom Cotton proposed an immigration bill that includes a visa requirement for parents of citizens in need of caretaking. The parents would not be able to work or access public benefits in the U.S. They also must be guaranteed support and health insurance by their sponsoring children. Cotton plans to present the bill with some changes later this summer.

Are older adults taken care of when they live with their children?

Lakshman Kalasapudi is the deputy director of India Home, a nonprofit organization. She says many people mistakenly believe that South Asians who arrive as older adults are fully taken care of by their children.

She said:

Our people are more conservative, and more religious and family oriented, so they want to be with the family. But its very hard to be with the family nowadays because the children who brought them here, maybe [a] son or [a] daughter, maybe they are on [the] poverty line also.

Kalasapudi says this can lead to a real breakdown in the family structure. She says it can have a deeply negative effect on the seniors mental health. Social isolation among immigrants is common she adds. That problem is India Homes primary concern.

Subhash Bhasin, 78, and Prabha Bhasin, 74, emigrated from India nearly 40 years ago. They became American citizens. They receive Social Security and government-supported health care. But they too experienced loneliness and depression as they entered old age.

We went back [to India] and we tried three years, but we could not settle so we came again, said Prabha.

This time, they found a community through India Home.

We say our prayerswe sing bhajans, says Prabha. We feel like we have an extended family now.

I'm John Russell.

And I'm Ashley Thompson.

Ramon Taylor reported this story for VOANews. John Russell adapted it for Learning English. Caty Weaver was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

demographic  adj. of or relating to the study of changes that occur in large groups of people over a period of time : of or relating to demography

affordable  adj. having a cost that is not too high

burden  n. someone or something that is very difficult to accept, do, or deal with

dependent  adj. needing someone or something else for support, help, etc.

breakdown  n. the failure of a relationship or of an effort to discuss something

isolation  n. the state of being in a place or situation that is separate from others : the condition of being isolated

benefit  n. money that is paid by a company (such as an insurance company) or by a government when someone dies, becomes sick, stops working, etc.

bhajan  n. Hinduism a religious song of praise
Jeff Sessions thought he was on the Trump team, but he was sadly mistaken.

For President Donald Trump, the world breaks down into three categories  theres family, who are part of the charmed Trump circle by blood or marriage; there are winners, who have earned Trumps regard by making lots of money (often at Goldman Sachs); and then theres everyone else, who are adornments to be cast aside as Trump finds convenient.

Sessions is emphatically in the latter category. If the former Alabama senator wanted to be securely ensconced in Trump world, he should have had the foresight to marry Ivanka. Nothing else  not endorsing early, not carrying water in trying circumstances in the campaign  will ever make him anything more than some guy who happens to be attorney general of the United States.

Trumps treatment of Sessions is unprecedented in the annals of American government. Cabinet officials have been hung out to dry before. They have been forced to resign or fired. Never before has a Cabinet secretary been publicly belittled in an ongoing campaign of humiliation by the president who appointed him.

The drama hangs a lantern on Trumps flaws. Trump lacks gratitude, dismissing Sessions endorsement of him in the primaries as merely the senators reaction to the size of Trumps crowds. He obviously doesnt feel any respect for someone who, as an honorable person with a long career in public service, deserves it. He doesnt care about propriety, which would dictate dressing down Sessions in private, not flaying him in public. And, finally, he doesnt feel any obligation to Sessions, despite the fact that Sessions gave up a safe Senate seat to serve in his administration.

For Trump, loyalty is unilateral, not reciprocal, and it has a very particular content. Its not loyalty to the agenda or to the party, but to Trump, specifically his personal interests and honor.

Robert Muellers investigation, at the very least, creates an ongoing cloud over Trumps election victory. Insofar as the president believes that Sessions enabled this assault on his ego, the attorney general is persona non grata. He might as well have told the president that, yes, Barack Obama had a bigger inaugural crowd.

As a result, Trump is demeaning his attorney general and using the same weapons he uses against any of his targets  namely, anything at hand.

Trump hits Sessions for not pursuing Hillary Clinton, when the president himself had called for letting the Clinton scandal go. He criticizes Sessions for not firing FBI official Andrew McCabe, even though the White House reportedly interviewed McCabe to replace James Comey permanently as FBI director. Sessions should consider himself lucky that Trump has not, as of yet, accused any of his family members of being involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

Of course, Trump is free to fire Sessions whenever he likes. That he is not doing it and prefers to run him down, apparently in hopes that he will quit, speaks to an unwillingness to take responsibility. This is his government; he should either back his appointees or cashier them, not troll them on Twitter.

The episode shows the challenge that Republicans face in Trump. It is not ideological. Substantively, Trump is governing as more or less a conventional Republican. The challenge is characterological. How to work with a president who is key to advancing much of the GOP agenda without endorsing his brazen disregard for institutional and personal norms?

The Sessions imbroglio may blow over, as Trump moves on to the next thing. But it offers a window into how Trump could collapse his own administration  by letting the pressure of criticism and investigation get the best of him, destroying any cohesiveness within his own government and party, and creating an ongoing sense of crisis that eventually spirals out of control.

If this nightmare scenario becomes reality, the bizarre and small-minded campaign against Jeff Sessions will have been a sign of things to come.
VOA Learning English presents Americas Presidents.

Today we are talking about Grover Cleveland. When Americans remember him, it is mostly because he makes writing presidential timelines difficult. Cleveland was the nations 22nd president, and also its 24th.

He remains the only U.S. president to date whose second term did not immediately follow the first.

Cleveland is also notable because of his personal life, and because he held office during one of the countrys worst economic crises.

Early life

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born in the northeastern state of New Jersey and grew up mostly in New York. He was a middle child in a family of nine children. His father was a minister, and the family did not have much money.

As a result, Cleveland had little formal education. He was one of the few presidents who did not go to college. But he was able to become a lawyer. He earned enough money and developed a good professional image.

In time, he became a sheriff, a mayor, and the governor of the state of New York.

In his early life, Cleveland did not marry and have children. Instead, he had many friends, with whom he enjoyed hunting, fishing, and eating and drinking in restaurants.

But Cleveland did have a relationship with a widow named Maria Halpin. She became pregnant and said Cleveland was the babys father.

Cleveland said he was not sure if he was. However, he gave the child some financial support, the name of one of his closest friends, and his own family name. The child was called Oscar Folsom Cleveland.

Shortly after the boy was born, his mother was sent to an institution for the mentally unstable. Doctors quickly confirmed that her mental health was fine, but her son was taken from her and raised by another family.

The story about Halpin and the child became an issue in the election of 1884. The Democratic Party had nominated Cleveland as their candidate for president.

In general, voters liked his message of limiting federal spending, reducing the power of wealthy interests, and stopping political corruption. Some called him Grover the Good.

But Clevelands opponents said his history with Maria Halpin showed that he was an immoral man. At anti-Cleveland rallies, Republicans chanted, Ma, ma, wheres my Pa? Pa is another word for father.

But Cleveland did not comment much on the matter. His defenders said Clevelands honesty as a public official was more important than his bad judgment as a private citizen.

Voters seemed to agree. Cleveland narrowly won the election. His supporters answered the Republicans chants of wheres my Pa? by saying, Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!

First presidential term

Grover Clevelands presidency was unusual because he did not want to use the office to propose laws. Instead, he mostly aimed to keep the federal government operating efficiently. He also wanted to limit lawmakers power to help special interest groups.

As a result, Cleveland vetoed many bills in his first term. He set a record at that time for saying no to proposals from Congress.

One of the few ideas that he supported was reducing tariffs.

Many of his fellow Democrats liked that idea, too. But a number of Republicans did not. In the next election, their candidate, Benjamin Harrison, defeated Cleveland.

Cleveland returned to being a lawyer in New York.

In 1892, Cleveland was chosen to run against Benjamin Harrison again. The tariff issue returned: the Republicans protective tariffs had hurt some industries, and voters answered this time by voting Harrison out of office.

Cleveland returned to the White House. But this time he was not alone.

White House Wedding

Two years into his first term as president, Cleveland married the daughter of his close friend, Oscar Folsom.

The brides name was Frances Folsom. She was 21 years old at the time. The president was 49.

Cleveland was not the first president to get married while in office. But he was the first one to be married in the White House.

The event captivated the public. Whats more, Americans adored the new first lady. She was known for being social, charming, and beautiful. Historians conclude that she was the most popular first lady since Dolley Madison. She remains the youngest.

Second presidential term

When the Clevelands returned to the White House, the country was entering a severe economic recession. Some of the countrys biggest businesses were failing, including a railroad and many banks.

As a result, investors withdrew their money from the stock market. The withdrawal caused many other businesses to fail. The series of events is known as the Panic of 1893.

Soon, more and more Americans were out of work. Many could not afford houses or food. Some begged President Cleveland to intervene. But he declined. He did not think it was the role of the federal government to create jobs in order to reverse the depression.

However, Cleveland did use the power of the federal government to intervene during a famous labor strike. In that event, workers in Chicago who helped keep the trains operating walked out of their jobs. They were protesting a major decrease in their pay that did not include a decrease in their living expenses.

Since the owner of the company also controlled the price of housing and food, workers appealed to him to treat them more fairly. But the company owner refused even to meet with the workers.

Soon, the workers boycott grew. Workers at other railyards stopped working. Farmers could not get their goods to market, and others could not get the supplies they needed. Even the mail stopped being delivered.

So Cleveland sent federal troops to break the strike.

In the short term, Clevelands actions worked. The trains moved again, and both the courts and most of the public agreed with the presidents decision.

But in the long term, Clevelands handling of the panic, depression, and workers strike lost the support of many voters. At the next opportunity, they voted him out of the White House again.

Clevelands Legacy

Cleveland returned to New York, and later settled in a large house in Princeton, New Jersey.

There, he wrote, made speeches, sat on corporate boards, became a trustee of Princeton University and enjoyed the respect of the people who lived in the town.

He died at age 71 of problems with his stomach, heart, and kidneys. Several people said his final words were, I have tried so hard to do right.

Then and now, many people agreed with that idea. Cleveland was generally an honest man who worked hard and tried to act independently as president.

But he is not considered one of Americas best leaders. He did not have a clear idea about how to guide the country.



Yet the opposing party, at least, may have considered Clevelands presidency a success. After Clevelands final election defeat, six of the next seven presidents were Republicans.

Im Kelly Jean Kelly.

Kelly Jean Kelly wrote this story for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section.

Listening Quiz

See how well you understand the story by taking a listening quiz. Play each short video and choose the best answer.

Quiz - America's Presidents: : Grover Cleveland Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

widow - n. a woman whose husband has died

immoral - adj. not morally good or right : morally evil or wrong

tariffs - n. a tax on goods coming into or leaving a country

captivate - v. to attract and hold the attention of someone by being interesting or pretty

trustee - n. a member of a group that manages the money of an organization
Holding hands, people jumped in the water, and floated around in Bostons Charles River recently. That is something that would not have been possible years ago because the river was so polluted.

In the 1960s, the music group The Standells even sang about the river in their popular song, Dirty Water.

Well I love that Dirty Water, oh, Boston youre my home.

The swimmers were getting their once-a-year chance to cool off from the summer heat in the Charles River.

It is called City Splash. For a few days each year, the state of Massachusetts allows public swimming on Bostons part of the nearly 130-kilometer river.

The event is in its fifth year. It is a chance for the nonprofit Charles River Conservancy to show its efforts to build a swim park. Their idea is to build floating docks where swimmers can jump safely into the river without touching the hazardous bottom. These docks would be in areas where the water quality would be tested repeatedly.

Nearly 300 people signed up to swim.

"It felt refreshing and wonderful,'' said Newton, Massachusetts resident Ira Hart as he got out of the river. "They used to talk about how it was toxic sludge and you'd glow if you came out of the Charles. Well I'm not glowing, at least not yet.''

Boston is one of the cities hoping to follow the model of Copenhagen, Denmark. That city opened the first of its three floating harbor baths in the early 2000s. On sunny days, people swim in the harbor baths surrounded by tall buildings and cars on the highways. At night, the area is filled with people enjoying music and food.

Just recently Paris opened public swimming in a once-polluted canal. New York, London, Berlin and other cities are planning similar features for their waterways.

In Boston, the Charles River Conservancy still needs to raise several million dollars. It also needs to get approvals from city, state and federal agencies.

The groups spokeswoman, S.J. Port, said the biggest problem has already been taken care of: The Charles is now one of the cleanest city rivers in America.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced this month that the river earned a B grade for water quality last year-- an A being the best grade. It means the Charles River met the requirement for swimming 55 percent of the time.

Here are examples of other cities working to allow swimming again:

Portland, Oregon

In Portland, Oregon, the city and a local group invited residents to swim in the Willamette River this summer.

They opened the first official public beach with lifeguards on the river earlier this month. They have also launched a public information campaign and scheduled events around the water.

Among them was the Big Float river parade on July 15. People floated on the river in inner tubes and small boats. About 2,500 people participated in the party.

London

In London, a group of architects, designers and engineers have plans for a series of pools in the middle of the River Thames. It would be in an area where river water would be filtered, or cleaned, continuously.

Chris Romer-Lee, a lead organizer of the Thames Baths project, said the group aims to submit plans to local authorities by early 2018.

The group launched an online funding campaign last year that raised about $180,000 to work on their design. Now they are working to raise almost $20 million for the project itself.

New York

In New York, four local artists and architects launched the idea for +Pool, a floating pool in the shape of a plus sign in 2010. The water would also be cleaned or filtered.

Since then, they say they have successfully tested a filtration system that removes bacteria without using chemicals.The groups deputy director said they have raised nearly $2 million to keep developing the project. They are exploring possible places on the East and Hudson rivers and are preparing to get city approvals.

Melbourne, Australia

In Melbourne, Australia, the Yarra Swim Co. presented its idea for a floating pool on the city's Yarra River at a show last year.

Michael O'Neill is behind the effort. He said the company will reach out to community groups and government agencies in August. They want to know what people think the Yarra Pools project should offer. They also want to support other ideas for use of the river.

Berlin

In Berlin, the Flussbad project calls for cleaning up a canal off the German capital's Spree River for public bathing.

Barbara Schindler is a spokeswoman for the effort. She said the idea has been around since the 1990s, but has made progress in recent years.

She said the organization completed a water quality study in 2015. It has received $4.6 million in government funding to hopefully create the project.

Im Anne Ball.

And Im Jonathan Evans.





Anne Ball adapted this story for Learning English from the Associated Press. Hai Do was the editor.

We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section and visit us on our Facebook page.

_______________________________________________________________

Quiz

Now, test your understanding with this short quiz.

Quiz - Cities Aim to Make Once-Polluted Rivers Safe for Swimming Start the Quiz to find out Start Quiz

_____________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

splash  v. to cause water or another liquid to move in a noisy or messy way

dock  n. a structure built out into the water and used as a place to get on or off or tie up a boat.

hazardous  adj. involving risk or danger

toxic  adj. containing poisonous substances

sludge  n. thick, soft, wet mud

glow  v. to shine with low light and heat but usually without flame

canal  n. a long narrow place that is filled with water and was created by people so that boats could pass through it or to supply fields, crops, etc., with water

lifeguard  n. a person whose job is to protect swimmers from drowning

inner tube  n. a round tube that holds air inside a tire




Drought and conflict have caused a new displacement crisis in the southern part of Somalia.

Gerard Waite is chief of mission for the International Organization for Migration Somalia. He said about 800,000 people fled their homes over the past seven months. This is in addition to the 1.1 million people already displaced in the country.

We have a displacement crisis on top of a drought crisis, Waite said.

Poor camp conditions

He also said that the newly displaced people have put heavy pressure on existing camps.

These camps are, by and large, not very well managed. They are normally on private land in very cramped conditions. They do not have the basic services in these camps, Waite said.

The displaced people are not living in healthy conditions, and are forced to drink unclean water. This has caused over 71,000 cases of cholera or severe diarrhea in 2017, resulting in nearly 1,100 deaths.

Water shortages have meant that people are drinking higher-risk water, taking water which they know to be contaminated but they drink it anyway, Waite said.

Difficult weather patterns

Climate experts say the recent rainy season was well below average this year. It usually lasts from April to June. The next rainy season is not expected until October, but experts warn there will be heavy crop losses.

In addition, climate estimates suggest that there is a 45 percent chance of an El Nino weather event late in 2017. That could cause a further reduction in rain.

An El Nino is an irregular weather event usually resulting in warmer-than-average temperatures in some places around the world.

Waite said about 6.7 million people in Somalia are either suffering or near suffering from a food crisis.

Managing and preparing for drought

According to Waite, the International Organization for Migration has learned from Somalias drought in 2011. In that period of extremely dry weather, 200,000 people are believed to have died.

The need to deliver health systems to these places is extremely pressing, Waite said. However, he said they are also trying to work with the Somali government to create spaces that are better controlled and managed.

Somalias finance minister, Abdirahman Duale Beyle, told VOA in May that the droughts in Somalia are cyclical. He also said Somalia has become too dependent on external aid.

We have to change that kind of attitude, Beyle said.

There are projects meant to prepare Somalia for droughts, however.

The IOM, for example, is introducing drought-resistant potatoes. The U.N. Development Program is helping with several projects, including creating below-surface water tanks, wells, and community water storage ponds in Somaliland.

Beyle said now is the time for Somalis themselves to take responsibility for solving the problem.

We have the technology, the intelligence and the know-how to break the link between drought and famine, he said.

Im Phil Dierking.

Salem Solomon reported this story for VOANews.com. Phil Dierking adapted her report for Learning English. Mario Ritter was the editor.

How do you think a country can prepare for drought? We want to hear from you. Write to us in the Comments Section or on our Facebook page.

________________________________________________________________

Words in This Story

drought - n. a long period of time during which there is very little or no rain

contaminated - adj. to be made dangerous, dirty, or impure by adding something harmful or undesirable to it

cramped - adj. not having enough space inside

cyclical - adj. happening again and again in the same order 

displace - v. to force (people or animals) to leave the area where they live

manage - v. to take care of and make decisions about 

external - adj. coming from outside

famine - n. a situation in which many people do not have enough food to eat
The ANCs Mathews Phosa has described President Jacob Zuma as the worst president the country has had since the dawn of democracy.

In an interview with the City Press, Phosa said South Africa has been given a wake-up call not to sink this low again.

I am judging him in terms of Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki, and Kgalema Motlanthe, said Phosa.

Some of us have taken a stance that he must go. It is unequivocal that he must go, he said, referring to the upcoming vote of no confidence in Zuma.

Phosa said the vote is a potentially dangerous one, with those who openly going against ANC wishes potential targets for removal from the party or attacks on their lives.

Zuma has faced immense pressure from civil society, corporate South Africa, and opposition parties to step down, due to his poor running of the country and multiple allegations of corruption against him.

His close ties to the Gupta family, which have been accused of state capture on numerous occasions, are also a concern to citizens and business.
South Africas fibre-to-the-home market is like a gold rush, with companies racing to be first to stake their claims on the most lucrative neighbourhoods and estates in the country.

This has led to a surge in the availability of affordable, high-speed broadband services in South Africa, but according to sources at ISPs, it has resulted in unscrupulous behaviour.

An example is companies putting up signs and informing residents they plan to roll out fibre in their area, signalling to other infrastructure players to go elsewhere.

However, these companies may have no intention of rolling out fibre in the near future. They have staked their claim, but only plan to return to the area months later to start their work.

Raising expectations

The haphazard way in which areas are being claimed, combined with coverage map accuracy issues, results in Internet service providers sending out inaccurate notices to subscribers.

DSL subscribers have reported receiving messages from their ISP that fibre is available in their area, only to discover upon applying that they are not covered.

The inverse also happens, where people see fibre has been rolled out, but they are unable to order any services.

We have had other situations where you can see fibre on the pole, but the map says it is unavailable, said Cybersmart CTO Laurie Fialkov.

Yet, the next week, Telkoms retail division manages to install fibre to the customer.

There are also cases of outsourced door-to-door sales people stating that fibre is available, but the infrastructure providers map shows nothing of the sort.

It is a difficult operating environment, which is why, whenever possible, we try lay our own infrastructure so that we have end-to-end control of the service, said Fialkov.

Exciting times

Since Cybersmart started laying its own fibre, Fialkov said they have gained insight into the challenges faced by operators like Openserve  Telkoms wholesale and networks division.

Outsourced fibre installers may report to one division of the company that a build has been completed, resulting in its online coverage map being updated.

However, the data supplied to Internet service providers is only updated once a build has been signed off.

With South Africas fibre market still in its infancy, technical kinks are being ironed out while companies are scrambling to roll out infrastructure and launch services.

The next few years will be exciting for broadband users and service providers, but they will not be without their frustrations.

Now read: Top ADSL and Fibre ISPs in South Africa
Is Jordan country that has not supplied arms to Armenia?: 'The press usually has reliable information'

European Commission approves nationalization of Russian Gazprom's German subsidiary

Pashinyan: If the state interferes with the exchange rate unnecessarily, the economy will only suffer

U.S. to work with strategic coalition of Southeast Asian countries

Armenian PM: To reform army, it is necessary to make military service more attractive

Putin and Raisi discuss topical issues of the bilateral agenda

Blinken: Ukraine must decide on timing and content of any talks with Russia

Catholicos expresses hope that Russia efforts will contribute to ensuring free, safe life of Artsakh Armenians

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
Children who live in Aknashen like to run to the outskirts of the village. Driven by curiosity, they often climb the hill, where archaeological excavations of the ancient monument, dating to the Neolithic era, are being conducted. Explaining to them that the excavation area is a bad place for games can sometimes be very difficult, says Ruben Badalyan, the head of the expedition, the head of the earliest archeology department in the Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography under the National Academy of Sciences of Armenia (photos).

According to him, studies of this unique settlement began in 1998; later the process has been suspended and resumed as early as 2004. Although the hill is small, says Badalyan, the height of the cultural layer, formed as a result of successive settlements, is more than 5 meters.

There was revealed a huge amount of information during excavations, which certify that the territory of Ararat valley was occupied by a lake. It was formed after a volcanic eruption, as a result of which the watercourse of Araks River got covered with lava sediments.

Later, the water level of the lake gradually lowered, and in the first half of the 6 th century BC, the first Neolithic settlement, known in the territory of Ararat valley, was founded on this territory. "Everything known prior to this period mainly relates to cave shelters and temporary stays. But, here we deal with a sedentary settlement, which made the first attempts of construction and ceramic production, " says Badalyan.

As for who settled in this area in the early 6th century BC, it is too early to say, since there are no written sources that would allow to find out the language they spoke. However, it is already clear that it was a period, when continuous colonization began.

"Thus, we deal with a beginning of a very long period, which ultimately led to the creation of our society," adds Badalyan.

According to him, among the finds in the main place made primarily tools made of bone and obsidian, which had been extracted from the ridge of Gegham mountain. The excavated jewelries, such as barrettes, fragments of chains, and bone spoons, are worth of attention as well.

"We can conclude that humans populated in that territory had a feeling of aesthetic beauty. They adorned themselves, their clothes, and tools. We even have an evidence that they used make-ups, says Badalyan.

The most valuable finds, adds Badalyan, are perhaps those, that inhabitants of Aknashen contacted with people, who carried Middle Eastern cultures. "We have examples of painted pottery, which obviously came from Syria, Mesopotamia. There are findings of sea shells, which point to the contacts - even though transit contacts - with the population of the Red Sea and the Mediterranean coasts. In other words, we can say that in the 6th century BC there were developing cultural and economic ties, " he stressed.

The settlement was abandoned in the middle of the 6th millennium BC. It is difficult to provide certain reasons, says Badalyan, but people could move due to social or political circumstances. Excavations in Aknashen will continue for about 10 years: to be exact, unless archaeologists get to the level at which the settlement was established.
YEREVAN. - The Laboratory of Archaeological Studies of the Institute for Armenian Studies (IAS) at Yerevan State University (YSU) resembles more a warehouse than a scientific lab in the usual sense. The racks here are covered with cardboard boxes from where crocks are sticking out.

And it is hard to imagine that the content of these boxes is about 3,000 years old and that some time later all this will appear under a glass in a certain museum.

Now they are lying in enumerated boxes waiting in the wings.

The technological capacities of the university lab are not great: several manual tools and calcining furnace, which allows to check several properties of ceramics.

But to precisely determine the age of the artifacts one has to turn to foreign colleagues, says Hayk Avetisyan, Head of Chair at YSU Archaeology and Ethnography Department.

Certain studies, specifically of vegetable and animal origin findings, are currently carried out in the bioarchaeological laboratory of the YSU Biology Department. But the specialists hope that it will soon be possible to carry out radiocarbon studies here as well, since Armenia is a country with untapped sources of such work.

Hayk Avetisyan takes out the recently found artifacts from a box: ceramics, Scythian arrowhead and embellishments of Urartian Aramus fortress. The artifacts date from 8-6th centuries BC.

Then he arranges before me an entire ceramic set - a finding from Oshakan cemetery. This is an early Iron Age sample dating from 11-9th centuries B.C., he says.

To my question whether the arrowhead is imported if it is a Scythian sample, Avtisyan says this is not the case at all. Being made here on the ground, they were included in the arsenal of the warriors of the given region starting from time immemorial. But the archaeologists also find imported artifacts, specifically ceramics and embellishments, luxury items imported from Syria, Mesopotamia and Northern Caucasus. At the same time, items from local obsidian are found in Syria and Palestine. That is, the trade was very active then, he says.

In the adjacent room two archaeologists argue, trying to determine by eye and by feel the age of a red ceramic sherd. In their words, the appearance is deceptive: this ceramic item can be very ancient but it can also belong to the antic period.

In the back room Masters students are studying. They apply here from different universities  from architectural to economic ones. The Head of Chair is happy to note that Bachelors degree for Archaeology specialization has opened this year, whereas only Masters degree was available before.

According to the scientist, currently the Armenian archaeology greatly lacks human resources. However, this is indeed a very promising direction, he adds. The analysis of the volume of the work carried out in Armenia now shows that this work will last for 20 years if the volumes remain unchanged. Thus, the scientist thinks the salary of the young specialists will be at least stable if not large.

And if they take part in joint international expeditions (currently 10-15 such expeditions work in Armenia annually), their salary wont be bad at all, he notes. Thus, dealing with archaeology is profitable, Avetisyan confirms. It is also profitable for the state, since there is a commercialization opportunity here too: artifacts are taken to museums and the museums begin to earn more due to tourism. The most vivid example is the most ancient shoe from Armenias Areni village, which is now displayed in the Museum of History of Armenia.

That is, the archaeological and ethnographic work still has a wide scope of work to be carried out in the coming 20 years. And after the effective implementation of all this we can become more competitive in terms of revealing our identity in this fight of civilizations, he says.
When NATO military exercises kick off in Georgia next week, they will include troops from the United States, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, and Armenia. But they won't include Azerbaijan, an unexpected, last-minute dropout, editor at EurasiaNet.org, and author of The Bug Pit blog, analyst Joshua Kucera noted.

According to him, Azerbaijan also didn't participate in another set of recently concluded NATO-affiliated drills in Romania. Azerbaijan also didn't take part in U.S./Ukraine-hosted naval exercises in the Black Sea, called Sea Breeze, in spite of earlier promises that they would.

It's not clear why Azerbaijan dropped out of the exercises in Georgia and the Black Sea. There has been no official explanation, and neither the Ministry of Defense nor the Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to The Bug Pit's request for comment, the analyst wrote.

The exercises are all part of a huge series of NATO drills around the Black Sea this summer in which about 40,000 troops are participating. This, naturally, has aroused Russia's ire.

"All these deployments, including the incessant series of exercises, create an absolutely new configuration of forces near our borders, which in a substantial way not only worsen the security situation but also present a danger, a threat to Russia," said Russia's ambassador to NATO, Alexander Grushkov.

He stressed that Armenia usually sends small units to NATO exercises, and otherwise cooperate in limited ways with NATO. But what happened with Azerbaijan is rather curious, as Baku also cooperates with NATO; just last month Azerbaijani Defense Minister visited Brussels to discuss cooperation with the alliance.

According to him, the story of these exercise dropouts has been more or less ignored by the major Azerbaijani press, but one website quoted military analyst Uzeir Jafarov as saying that Armenia's presence at Noble Partner would justify Azerbaijan staying away. It's worth noting, though, that Armenia wasn't in the Sea Breeze exercises which Azerbaijan also dropped out of, and both Armenia and Azerbaijan took part, without incident, in the NATO Saber Guardian exercises last year."
YEREVAN.  "Turkish prisons are not at all like what you see in the film Midnight Express.- Sevan Nisanyan

In an interview to Armenian News-NEWS.am, well-known Istanbul Armenian writer, linguist, journalist, and columnist, Sevan Nisanyan, who escaped from Turkish prison after serving 3.5 years in prison, talks about his future plans, situation in Turkey and other issues.

Mr. Nisanyan, how did you manage to escape from prison?

I didnt actually escape from prison. I was transferred in April to an open institution, a kind of work camp, where we were allowed to take a week off every three months. I went home and did not return. Getting out of the country was more exciting, but I am afraid I cannot say too much about that yet.

Why did you choose Greece?

I applied for political asylum in Greece and received a temporary residence permit. The final decision on the asylum application will be made by the Greek authorities in March 2018.

I have always admired Greece and felt at home here. I hope to live in an Aegean island which is very close to my home in Sirince. We can actually see the island from the hills of my village.

Your family is in Turkey. Are not you afraid that they can be subjected to pressure?

My three elder children are grown up and intelligent people. I dont think they will be in any kind of danger.

How do you assess the situation in Turkey in general? Many people say that dictatorship is established and it is, first of all, a danger to national minorities.

The political and judiciary situation in Turkey is bad enough, but I am happy to say it is not yet as bad as the old Soviet Union!

Turkey is going through a period of madness. The political situation is frightful, the rule of law has collapsed. This of course affects everyone in the country, including, but not especially, the minorities. I know that the Armenian and especially the Jewish minorities are very worried, and very many of them have made plans to migrate to safer countries.

What awaits Turkey in the case of this government ? May there be an explosion, taking into account tense relations both on the external and internal fronts?

Turkey was always a very difficult country to govern; now the difficulties have multiplied beyond control. The country is fighting with virtually every other country in the world, but more importantly, it is at war with itself. The outcome of so much bad energy is difficult to predict. In any case it looks like it will not be a happy outcome.

What is it really like inside Turkish prisons? What kind of manners prevail there? How did they treat you?

Turkish prisons are certainly not what they used to be thirty years ago. They are not at all like what you see in the film Midnight Express. The buildings and infrastructure are quite modern, the personnel is reasonably well-trained and efficient, the regulations extremely detailed and mechanically applied. This makes the prisons psychologically more oppressive places than before. Total isolation and dehumanisation may sometimes be worse than physical brutality.

In three and a half years I changed eight institutions. I was everywhere very correctly treated on account of both my age and my social position. I was the only Armenian  the only non Turk and non-Muslim in fact  everywhere I went. This never posed a problem. Most inmates thought this something exotic and interesting, and made a double effort to befriend and/or protect me. I believe the prison administrators were also under strict instructions to treat me correctly and to make sure there were no security issues.

When will you visit Armenia?

I would love to visit Armenia as soon as I am able to travel freely, which I hope will be in March 2018 or soon afterward. Many of my co-nationals in Armenia offered my their friendship and support while I was in jail. I have many friends in Yerevan whom I would like to thank in person.
A 30-year-old Wisconsin Dells man was referred to the Monroe County District Attorney for intent to deliver methamphetamine.

Police noticed a suspicious male identified as Kenneth D. Frodin walking near Firemens Park July 16. The report says Frodin appeared to notice the police car and took off running before police attempted to make contact. Police chased him along Council Creek before subduing him. He allegedly gave police a false name after being apprehended. He was held at Taser point until other officers arrived and was transported to the Monroe County Jail.

A witness told police that Frodin tossed a small bag near a bridge. Police retrieved the bag, which reportedly contained methamphetamine.

Frodin was referred for possession of methamphetamine, possession of methamphetamine with intent to deliver and obstructing an officer. He has a bond condition from Sauk County that prohibits him from committing crimes, which triggered multiple bail jumping referrals.

In other Monroe County Police Department news:

Theron James Haas, 40, Black River Falls, was referred to the district attorney for marijuana charges after a July 14 traffic stop.

Shortly before midnight, police observed a Chevrolet Aveo traveling north on Superior Avenue. The license plate didnt correspond with any vehicle in the data base, and police initiated a traffic stop. Police detected a slight odor of intoxicants and identified a passenger as Haas, who is on probation with a provision that prohibits him from consuming alcohol. Haas submitted to a preliminary breath test, which registered a blood-alcohol of .063.

Police conducted a search of Haas and allegedly found a rifle casing that appeared to be a modified smoking pipe. The report said the pipe later tested positive for marijuana. Haas was referred for possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia and bail jumping.

Two Illinois men were referred to the district attorney on marijuana charges after police were called to the Microtel Inn & Suites July 13. An employee told police that the odor of marijuana was coming from a room on the third floor. Police knocked on the room door several times before Zachary S. Powers, 25, Rockford, answered. The report says he initially denied drugs were in the room was smoking but later said he was rolling a joint while getting ready to attend a concert. As police were speaking with Powers, James Allan Bowers, 26, Belvidere, exited the bathroom.

When police pressed Powers about the marijuana odor, Powers reportedly said he threw a joint out the window and that the marijuana belonged just to me. A search of Powers alleged foundly a container that smelled like marijuana. A search of the room allegedly found marijuana, wax and paraphernalia.

Both were referred for possession of marijuana and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Scott John Sebestia, 25, Camp Douglas, was referred to the district attorney for theft for allegedly stealing a wallet. The victim said there was $80 cash in the wallet and that Sebestia had used a gift card from the wallet.

Calvin Thomas Tappa, 39, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney on multiple charges after a July 16 incident.

Police were dispatched to a Superior Avenue residence after a 911 hang-up. Dispatch said that during the call a female could be heard yelling, I didnt do anything. When police arrived, the woman walked outside and Tappa shut the door and locked it. The report says Tappa eventually came to the door, was very unsteady on his feet and fell to the ground when told to sit down.

The woman told police she was scared of Tappa. When she called police, she said Tappa pushed her into the stove and grabbed her cell phone and broke it. Tappa was referred for criminal damage to property, disorderly conduct and false imprisonment. He has a bond condition that prohibits him from committing crimes, which triggered a bail jumping referral.

Anthony Clarence Liebe, 33, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for drug charges after a July 11 traffic stop.

Police observed a parked vehicle shortly after 11 p.m. registered to an owner with a revoked driving status. The vehicle left the parking lot and headed north on Kilbourn Avenue. The vehicle came to a stop south of Holton Street, and two people exited the vehicle. The report says both the driver and passenger ignored police commands to stop. When police shined the passenger, later identified as Liebe, he reportedly darted east through a yard before police apprehended him.

A search of Liebe allegedly found a methamphetamine pipe, three syringes, a spoon with white residue, two gem baggies and a cooking tin.

Liebe was referred for possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia and bail jumping. The driver was later identified as Kenneth D. Frodin, 30, Wisconsin Dells. He was referred for resisting an officer and bail jumping.

Hunter Rave Schulz, 19, Sparta; James K. Schulz, 22, Tomah; and a 17-year-old juvenile were referred to the district attorney after a July 17 incident. Police were called to a McCaul Street residence, where Hunter Schulz reportedly began yelling as she was retrieving property and that a loud altercation between the three ensued.

Logan Jon Tormoen, 27; and Teal Megan Herold, 28, both of Tomah, were referred to the district attorney after police arrested Tormoen on an outstanding warrant.

Police observed Tormoen and Herold walking on East Clifton Street shortly before 7 p.m. July 17. The report says police removed a syringe from one of Tormoens pockets. Police also learned that Herold has outstanding warrants from La Crosse and Monroe counties. A search of Teals backpack allegedly found a box of syringes, a spoon, a digital scale, two tourniquets and two straws.

Both were referred for bail jumping, and Herold was also referred for possession of drug paraphernalia.

Jeremy John Cory, 35, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping. He is accused of sending a pair of abusive and vulgar Facebook messages in violation of a no-contact order.

Keagan Decorah Rivera, 24, Tomah, was referred for the district attorney for disorderly conduct/alcohol-related after a July 16 incident.

Police received a report of two males lying in the middle of the 400 block of East Brownell Street. When police arrived, it appeared the two were fighting. Police identified Rivera as delivering closed-fist punches to the head of the other male.

The report says Rivera was visibly intoxicated. He has a bond condition that prohibits him from consuming alcohol, which triggered a bail jumping referral.

Joshua James Perrigo, 24, Norwalk, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping. He is accused of violating a bond condition that prohibits him from possessing dangerous weapons.

Sean Michael Lapp, 36, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for physical abuse of a child.

Police were dispatched to Tomah Memorial Hospital July 9 for a report of possible child abuse. The report says a seven-year-old child was brought to the emergency room for a laceration to the head. Police determined the laceration was caused by a cell phone Lapp threw at the boys head. The reports says that Sarah K. Lapp, 31, Tomah, gave a false account of the incident. She was referred for obstructing an officer.

Daniel Anthony Perez, 19, was referred to the district attorney for physical abuse to a child. The report says Perez got into an argument with a 15-year-old girl and threw her onto a bed, causing her strike her head against a hard plastic bottle.

Tonya Marie Pittman, 33, Tomah, was referred to the district attorney for bail jumping. She is accused of violating a bond condition that requires her to notify the county if she changes her address.

Donnell Derrick Simmons, 45, Matteson, Illinois, was referred to the district attorney for multiple theft charges allegedly using stolen credit cards.

An employee of Kwik Trip said a cigarette purchase of $407.38 was made at Kwik Trip May 6 with a credit card that had been stolen. She said numerous Kwik Trip stores across Wisconsin had been similarly victimized.

Police July 22 identified a silver minivan on Interstate 90 driving east from Sparta. The report said the occupants had attempted to purchase cartons of cigarettes at a Kwik Trip in Sparta. Police conducted a traffic stop and arrested Simmons, who was referred for obstructing an officer, forgery and forgery of a financial card.

John Todd Flom, 47, De Pere, was referred to the district attorney for disorderly conduct after a July 23 incident.

Police were dispatched to the Super 8 Motel, where employees were trying to expel a guest, later identified as Flom, for threatening staff and another guest. When police confronted Flom, he reportedly lunged toward an officer but then complied with an order to sit down after the officer removed his Taser. He was then handcuffed and taken to the Monroe County Jail without incident.

Travis Alan Cloud, 27; and Charlene Denis Hindsley, 42, Black River Falls, were referred to the district attorney for obstructing an officer during July 24 traffic stop. They are accused of giving police false information during the stop.
Thanks to many dedicated people and businesses, Downtown is the heart of Milwaukee and the entire state of Wisconsin. This week, OnMilwaukee presents Milwaukee Downtown Week, sponsored, aptly, by Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21. For seven days, we will share stories, videos and photography profiling some of the neighborhoods best offerings and celebrating those who make it so great.

Milwaukee Downtown Employee Appreciation Week, by the way, runs July 31 - Aug. 4, 2017.

The Dogg Haus

755 N. Water St.

(414) 226-2664

thedogghaus.com

Type of food: Hot dogs, brats, sausages, french fries and more.

Prices: $1.69-$7.49.

Vegetarian Friendly? Yes, there is a veggie hot dog on the menu.

Hours: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.

I love a good bratwurst, and pairing that with some french fries makes it even better. I pass The Dogg Haus every day on my way to the office and have always been intrigued to give the place a try.

So I decided to take advantage of our $7 lunch challenge and see what I could find on the menu for $7 or less.

I went in with the hope of getting a brat, but I was also prepared to settle for a hot dog in case price became a factor. Luckily, the brat fit my budget, costing $4.29. So with some cash to spare, I was able to purchase an order of small french fries for $1.69. All together, the total after tax was $6.34. I was very pleased, to say the least, not to mention it tasted great.

The Dogg Haus is sure to remain on my list of affordable and tasty lunch destinations Downtown.
Thanks to many dedicated people and businesses, Downtown is the heart of Milwaukee and the entire state of Wisconsin. This week, OnMilwaukee presents Milwaukee Downtown Week, sponsored, aptly, by Milwaukee Downtown, BID #21. For seven days, we will share stories, videos and photography profiling some of the neighborhood's best offerings and celebrating those who make it so great.

Milwaukee Downtown Employee Appreciation Week, by the way, runs July 31-Aug. 4.

Milwaukee may not be known for its hot weather, but that doesn't mean that the Brew City can't bring the heat  namely from the kitchen. That's why Senior Developer Nick "Power Palate" Barth and Pop Culture Editor Matt "Powder Puff Palate" Mueller are on a journey, burning their buds and torching their tongues across town to find the city's spiciest dishes. Grab your fork and a fire extinguisher  this is Burning Through Brew City.

The first stop on their capsaicin-rich quest?

TCB ghost pepper wings

Red Rock Saloon

1227 N. Water St.

(414) 431-0467

redrockmilwaukee.com

Red Rock Saloon is known for a number of things: blasting country music  both live bands and radio hits  out of its thirst-quenching Water Street nightlife hot spot, bucking patrons off of its feisty mechanical bull and busting even the strongest stomachs with its Unforgiven Challenge, a timed food gauntlet featuring two half-pound burgers topped with cheese, bacon, a deep-fried chicken breast, more cheese, more bacon, lettuce (see, a vegetable; it's healthy!), tomato and onion strings, all plus a basket of fries  and only 23 minutes to clean your plate.

What interested Nick and I, however, wasn't the big gut-busting burger at the challenge's center but the underrated final part of The Unforgiven food challenge: the TCB wings, which slathered in that most tantalizingly terrifying of culinary nightmares, the ghost pepper.

Now, the ghost pepper (proper name: Bhut Jolokia) isn't the hottest pepper in town anymore; in 2017, the Carolina Reaper technically brings the most heat, while the ghost ranks at a mere seventh place. However, thanks to the fact that it was the first pepper to score over a million scovilles (the scientific measurement of spiciness) the ghost pepper is still a food legend  and still capable of turning seasoned heat seekers into desperate, dignity-leaking messes of sweat, tears and sauce.

In other words, sounds like a great starting point!

While you could get the wings through The Unforgiven Challenge, you can also just order the TCB ("Taking Care of Business," for those in the know) ghost pepper wings on their own, with a platter of eight costing $10.99. If you're looking for a cheap Downtown lunch or dinner, however, Red Rock Saloon knocks the price down to .50 cents a wing all day on Mondays.

But will these wings cost us our tongues? Let's chow down and find out.

Heat

Nick: Make no mistake: The wings are hot. The ghost peppers in the TCB sauce bring a sharp burn to anything it touches. Your mouth will burn. Your tongue will burn. Your lips will burn. Got a dab of sauce on your cheek? That's going to burn, too. It's a very bearable burn, though, and not terribly challenging. If you're a spicy food fan, you can do this.

Matt: Forget any horror movie: The most terrifying moment of the year so far for me was when these fiery nuggets showed up at the table, and merely breathing in singed my nostrils. You could taste the heat even before picking up a single wing; how would I survive actually putting one of those taste bud atomic bombs in my mouth?

As it turns out, pretty well! The TCB sauce most certainly still packs plenty of heat, but it's more of a slow, escalating burn than an instant forest fire in your mouth. You'll grow to feel plenty of sizzle on your tongue, mouth and lips, but you won't feel any pain or regret. I didn't even have to resort to the glass of water for help well into the meal.

Flavor

Nick: I expected an all heat blast-o-rama, but Red Rock's TCB sauce was surprisingly flavorful. A pleasant sweetness and healthy dose of garlic balance the ghost pepper heat and really rounded out the flavor. It reminds me of a much hotter version of Secret Aardvark (a breakfast favorite). It was so good, we not only scooped up what was left of the sauce with the celery to get another taste, but we ordered a second round of wings immediately after the first.

Matt: I'll be honest: When I hear about a supposedly CRAZY spicy dish  especially one that is included in a crazy food challenge  I assume it's solely a stunt. I assume it's all flash and no flavor. But color me surprised: These weren't stunt wings; they were just actually delicious wings. The meat was tender and juicy, and the sauce itself wasn't just pure overwhelming napalm, as there was actually a lot of sweetness to the sauce, which helped balance out the heat. It's more taste than treachery.

Longevity

Nick: The burn comes on a bit slow; we were on our second or third wing and wondering what was up before it really started to kick in. Once going, the burn lingered pleasantly and the first round's burn was fading by the time the second order arrived. On the walk back to

the office, the heat settled into a warm belly burn that lasted the rest of the afternoon.

Matt: The feeling of spice radiating from my lips and tongue satisfyingly lasted all the way from the first bite of the wings to the start of the next order. A full session of spice  though by the time we walked back to the office, all was normal.

Overall

Nick: This is the kind of unexpected food find we're after. Red Rock Saloon's TCB wings aren't the endurance test I expected. They're a well-balanced and super tasty start to this spicy food hunt. I'm definitely going back for thirds.

Matt: I walked into this maiden meal expecting a scorched mouth and, worse yet, some subpar stunt wings that were more focused on devastating taste buds than giving them anything delicious to work with. I walked out of Red Rock Saloon with a satisfyingly sizzled palate and some new competition for my favorite wings in the city. Here's to the rest of this quest being this good.
Milwaukee residents are calling for more proactive community-based violence prevention strategies in the wake of the July 22 killing of 6-year-old Justin Evans Jr.

Evans, who was shot and killed outside his grandmothers home near 23rd and Nash streets, is the youngest victim of the summer so far. In 2017, there have been 66 homicides; 85 percent have been shootings and 82 percent of victims have been African-American.

Only four days before Evans death, two young girls  a 6-year-old and 9-year-old  were shot during an exchange of gunfire near 39th and Burleigh that also injured two older men. The girls and both men survived.

Angel Lewis, Evans aunt, described the boy as an enthusiastic and caring older brother who loved school and thought often about what he wanted to do later in life.

"He had so much ahead of him," she said.

A prayer vigil and peace march were held Sunday for Evans. Mayor Tom Barrett, Common Council President Ashanti Hamilton and Milwaukee Police Department Chief Ed Flynn attended the gathering, along with about 50 community members.

But residents said the reaction was not enough. They drew comparisons between Evans death and the police shooting of Sylville Smith last August in Sherman Park, which led to two nights of unrest that brought national attention. Keith Martin, who attended the vigil, criticized the turnout for the event, as did Darrin Reasby, founder of Born2Dream.

Lewis and Martin called for the shooter to turn himself in. And Reggie Moore, director of the City of Milwaukee Office of Violence Prevention, asked that anyone with information come forward. But Reasby, Martin and Moore also said the central city black community must build relationships and provide positive examples for children in order to address violence at the root level.

Ameka Jacobs, a resident of 23rd Street, said, "When does Black Lives Matter start?"
EU plans to make Google pay for the news it displays are making the internet giant furious

A major battle is brewing in Brussels over an EU reform plan that would force internet aggregators such as Google News to pay newspapers for displaying snippets of their articles online.

Google is furious at the reform idea, but powerful publishers, including Axel Springer in Germany or Rupert Murdoch's Newscorp in the UK, affirm that a tax is the only hope to save a news industry starving for revenue.

The fight, which will play out for the rest of the year, is the latest row straining ties between Google and the European Union, which slapped the Silicon Valley giant with a 2.4 billion euro ($2.8 billion) fine over unfair competition in June.

The proliferation of free news on the internet has brought the newspaper industry to its knees, with many consumers unwilling to pay for online service, preferring zero-cost platforms such as Google News or Facebook.

"Unauthorised internet use of media content" by aggregators and search engines "is threatening citizens' sustainable access to quality news content," said the European Alliance of News Agencies, of which AFP is a member.

"It is therefore crucial that neighbouring rights be created for news agencies and other publishers, covering all activity" on the web, the agency said.

Neighbouring rights is EU-speak for the obligation for online platforms such as Google or Facebook to pay for showing short quotes from copyrighted content, such as news articles.

The so-called "snippet tax" proposal is only one of several components of a major EU draft law intended to update European copyright law in the digital age.

The "snippet tax" is largely based on a tax introduced in Spain that critics say actually harmed publishers when Google decided to close down its news aggregator in response.

A similar law in Germany saw publishers swiftly give Google open access to their content following a steep drop in online traffic.

Biggest corporate fines by the EU

'Very sensitive topic'

Based on these examples, the Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), whose members include Google and Yahoo, called the idea "ill-founded, controversial and detrimental to all players."

In a blog post published last year, Google said: "It would hurt anyone who writes, reads or shares the newsincluding the many European startups working with the news sector to build sustainable business models online."

The two camps on the issue are now battling it out at the European Parliament and the EU council, the institution that gathers the national governments of the 28 member states.

Diplomats said the snippet tax has divided member states, with no compromise in sight for this year. Approval will require a special EU majority that must account for 65 percent of the bloc's population and not solely a majority of member states.

For now, France, Spain and Germany have declared their support for the tax while Ireland, UK and the Nordic countries are against.

In the European Parliament, three committees have approved a version of the tax proposal, but the key Legal Affairs Committee has still to decide, with lobbyists working hard to influence its decision.

French MEP Marc Joulaud said the committee is expected to approve the law on October 10 with an eventual vote on the overall copyright reforms at a plenary session in December or January.

Then the hard work begins. EU member states, MEPs and the commission must negotiate a compromise of their separate texts.

"This is a very sensitive topic in parliament but also for journalists, some for, some against," said Andrus Ansip, Commission vice-president in charge of the Digital Single Market.

"I didnt promote this idea, but publishers are very keen for neighbouring rights," he added.

 2017 AFP
A local funeral home director has been charged with three counts of possession of child pornography.

Steve Mitchell, 51, of Mauston, was charged on July 19. Mitchell owns the Thompson Funeral Home in the village of Wonewoc.

According to a criminal complaint:

The Juneau County Sheriffs Office began investigating Mitchell after receiving a Cyber Tip regarding a Chatstep account which allegedly contained an image of child pornography. After receiving an additional tip, detectives obtained a search warrant to investigate Thompson Funeral Home.

In early May, the Wisconsin Division of Criminal Investigation served a subpoena to CenturyLink, the funeral homes internet provider, to obtain the suspicious images. In June, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children also received a tip from Chatstep that Mitchell was uploading pornographic images of children.

On July 19, detectives from Juneau County, a digital forensics examiner from DCI and the Wonewoc Police Department, searched the funeral home for evidence. Several items were taken including a hard drive which allegedly contained a file with several photos of child pornography.

Mitchell was contacted by detectives and agreed to meet with them in Mauston. Mitchell will have an initial appearance Aug. 9 at 9 a.m. at the Juneau County Justice Center. He signed a $25,000 signature bond July 25 and was released from custody.
Four dissidents have been arrested in Vietnam on charges of trying to overthrow the state, authorities said Sunday as the country's communist leadership ramps up its crackdown on critics. Activists, rights lawyers and bloggers are routinely jailed in the one-party state but a new government in place since last year has vigorously pursued detractors. The four latest arrests were of dissidents who had previously served jail sentences for anti-state convictions. But the current charge they face is much more serious and can carry the death penalty. Prominent dissidents Pham Van Troi and Nguyen Bac Truyen, freelance writer Truong Minh Duc and Protestant pastor Nguyen Trung Ton were all arrested at their homes on Sunday, their wives told reporters. In an online statement the Ministry of Public Security said the four were arrested under Article 79 of the criminal code -- trying to "overthrow the people's administration". They are connected to lawyer Nguyen Van Dai and activist Le Thu Ha, who have already been detained on the same charge. "My husband fought against social injustice and China's invasion of the East Sea," Troi's wife Nguyen Thi Huyen Trang told AFP, using the Vietnamese name for the South China Sea. "He did not have any move to try to overthrow the state." Ton's wife Nguyen Thi Lanh said her husband was already recovering from a recent assault by plainclothes police when he was arrested. "Voicing support for the people cannot be called trying to overthrow the administration," she told AFP. Vietnam has competiting claims with China in the South China Sea but Hanoi is extremely sensitive to any criticism about how it handles the issue. John Sifton, from Human Rights Watch, said 2017 has been "a terrible year" for human rights in Vietnam. "More cases of government thugs beating up dissidents, longer and longer jail sentences, and now, more arrests," he said. "Vietnam's allies and donors, especially the EU and Japan, need to speak up," he added. Last month prominent blogger Nguyen Ngoc Nhu Quynh, known as "Mother Mushroom", was jailed for 10 years for Facebook posts about politics and the environment. Anti-China activist Tran Thi Nga, 40, was imprisoned for nine years for anti-state activities after a one-day trial last week in the northern province of Ha Nam, to which media access was restricted. The United Nations human rights office on Friday criticised the intensifying crackdown on rights and the recent convictions.
The UN accused Australia Monday of backtracking on a deal to relax its strong stance on asylum-seekers and resettle some refugees now held in overseas detention on home soil. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it had agreed last November to help relocate the boatpeople to the United States on the basis that Canberra would accept some of them who have links to Australia. "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," commissioner Filippo Grandi said in a statement. "UNHCR has recently been informed by Australia that it refuses to accept even these refugees." He added that they, along with the others in camps on the neighbouring nations of Nauru and Papua New Guinea, had been told their only option was to stay where they were or be transferred to Cambodia or the United States. Australia sends anyone who tries to enter by boat without a visa to remote detention facilities on Nauru and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.Even those subsequently found to be genuine refugees are barred from settling in Australia. The immigration department said Monday this had long been the case. "The position of the coalition government has been clear and consistent: those transferred to regional processing centres will never settle in Australia," said a spokesperson. Immigration Minister Peter Dutton reinforced this on Sunday. "No, people will not be coming to Australia. I have said that consistently, the prime minister has said it consistently, as did prime minister (Tony) Abbott at the time," he told Sky News. Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull struck a pact with former US president Barack Obama to resettle some refugees in the camps in America. President Donald Trump has grudgingly agreed to honour what he has called a "dumb deal", although it remains unclear how many Washington will accept. More than 1,000 remain offshore and Canberra's stance means "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", the UN said. "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," Grandi added. Rights groups, who have long accused the government of failing to uphold its international obligations, called on Canberra to honour the deal it had allegedly struck with the UN. "The right thing to do, the humane thing to do, would be to immediately bring those trapped in Nauru and Manus Island to Australia to be reunited with their family members here, said Amnesty International refugee coordinator Graham Thom.
Learn about both the history and present of Povazsky castle on video.

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More information about travelling in Slovakia

Please see our Please see our Spectacular Slovakia travel guide

The castle stands on rock at an altitude of 497 metres above sea level. The Celtic coin was found on the castle hill. In older literature the origin of the castle is stated as being 1128, however the first written mention about the castle is from 1316, that castrum Bestruche was in ownership of Matus Cak Trenciansky.

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The ground plan has the shape of a wedge. What is now the compound was built at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries. The west part is protected by a tall wall with two towers. The north part is protected by a gate. On the east side were the palaces, rebuilt during the Renaissance. On the most eastern part used to be a chapel. In the 17th century a fortified bank was added.

Read also:

Read also: Castle in Povazska Bystrica reopened Read more

Watch a video about Povazsky castle, which was prepared as a part of project Cultural Heritage to promote renewal and preservation of cultural and historical heritage in Slovakia, through the EEA and Norwegian Funds.
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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.
Hello, Tomah. It seems that I just wrote last months article yesterday. Its been an interesting summer to say the least. Before I get into the city and what we are up to, I would like to take a moment to acknowledge some very generous contributions to our city.

To start off with, I want to thank the Tomah Lions chapter for their gifts to our city. One has been placed in Gillett Park, and if you have not noticed it, you should take a look. It stands in the southeast corner of the park and is quite unique. It is shaped as a lion with its mouth open, and you need to place your head in the mouth to get a drink. If I may, a story from my childhood. I grew up in Iowa and at a young age my mother got very ill. The best treatment then  this was back in the early 1960s  for cancer was at Madison University Hospitals. So my dad and I made quite a few trips between Anamosa and Madison to visit her on weekends. Back then you traveled the two-lane Hwy. 151, which wound through all the towns and villages along the way. Whenever we went dad would always bring sandwiches and stop in Mineral Point at the park. Now this was a big deal to a seven-year-old because at that park was this very cool fountain of a lion that you could stick your head in and get a drink. Now five decades later the circle comes complete, and I see that same statue stand in my city park. Thank you, Lions, from all of us in Tomah and a small boy from Iowa. Your generosity and commitment to our community continues to amaze all of us  not only these gifts but the everyday selflessness and generosity your organization shows for our community.

And lest we forget, I mentioned two gifts the Lions donated. The other is ... no ... I think we save that for a future article and can wait to see for our own eyes. I guarantee you it is very special and you will be an amazing complement to our re-emerging downtown corridor. I plan on coordinating with the Lions to have dedication ceremonies for both, so watch the paper and our web site for further on that.

If you have been watching our parks, you will notice that some activity has been going on out at Butts Park. The North American Squirrel Association (nasa) has donated an open-air shelter that is designed to accommodate the elderly and physically challenged members of our community. The shelter was erected over a three-day period in mid-July, and as a bonus volunteers from the 175th Civil Engineering Squad from Middle River, Maryland, and Team Rubicon from Volk Field and Ft. McCoy, respectively, who were at training exercises, assisted in the construction. This shelter will provide tables, grills and outside seating and is expected to be phase one of a project that includes the future installation of a handicap-accessible pier and playground equipment. This is an extremely generous donation of time, labor and resources by nasa, and we are very grateful to them and all the military members who helped bring this to completion. I will be talking with director Protz on publicly recognizing this structure also. Our thanks as well to the 175th and Team Rubicon, who once again confirm the values and dedication of our military personnel to the citizens of Tomah and our great country.

Now on to the city. As you all know mother nature was not kind to us as of late. We had some very severe storm events that took their toll. High winds, primarily on the west end of town, did extensive damage to trees and caused homeowners some damage as well. That, topped with an inordinate amount of rain, events that came back to back, put a strain on us all. We had crews at the dam on a 24-hour watch. At this point I want to commend director Arity and all our Public Works Department workers involved in this event. Not one person turned away when asked and all committed themselves to watching the situation both at the dam and around town to ensure we kept ahead of the ongoing situation. I know this paper ran an article already so I wont expound on that. What I do want to make clear is that over a two-day period we received six-plus inches of rain. Our systems, and those of any other city, are designed to take water at one inch an hour. That is the best they can do. Any more and we start to see back up of water. We do the best we can, and I appreciate all the citizens and the patience you showed during this time period. As my dad used to say, a pint cannot hold a quart; if it is holding a pint it is doing the best it can. Well, dad, you got it right on this one; it was a tough ordeal, but we came out the other side pretty good compared to other communities around our area. We did release water downstream but did so a responsible rate so as not to overwhelm those on the Lemonweir. Again my appreciation to the community as a whole. Tomah took one on the chin but never went down.

Other than that we continue as usual. Projects such as Mill Haven and the hospital are progressing according to schedule. Some minor setbacks, but that is the case in all construction, and I am pleased to say at this point nothing that has impacted them seriously. The trail extension from Butts Park out to the west end of town has been bid and will be starting yet this summer with completion by the fall. I look forward to this. Our efforts to slow traffic on Highway ET have not been successful. Without sidewalks in that area, and practically no shoulder as well, we need to provide an alternate route for pedestrian and bicycle traffic before we see someone hurt. This will be an excellent addition to our already outstanding parks and trail system.

With that I will sign off with my usual invitation to all of our citizens. I maintain an open-door policy and welcome all concerns that anyone has in the community. We will always try to address these issues as best we can. Until next month, Tomah, stay safe and enjoy the summer  its moving fast and we know whats on the other end.

Roger A. Gorius is city Administrator for the city of Tomah.
The Sons of Norway Solvang Lodge 457 met June 27, at the Westby Community Center with President Sandy Iverson calling our meeting to order. A good crowd was on hand with 44 members in attendance.

In SONS business: Faye Mc Clurg was nominated and has agreed to fill the vacant Trustee position; the Sons of Norway joined with the lodge from Spring Grove for a Pot Luck at Myrick Park in La Crosse; Cedric Veum presented Recruitment Awards to Janet Johnson and Reuben Ellefson; and the Pot O Gold was won by Marilyn Sharping.

Blaine Hedberg, who is recognized worldwide for his 30 plus years of genealogy work and has been awarded the Medal of St. Olav by Norway, presented an outstanding program about his work in recording historical vital records from many of the churches and cemeteries in our area, going back to 1851.

The group sang the Norwegian Table Prayer and lunch was served by Cedric and Margaret Veum.
The following companies are subsidiares of Stanley Black & Decker: 2315708 Ontario Inc., 3-V Fastener Co. Inc., 3xLOGIC Dalian Technology Company Limited, 3xLogic Florida LLC, 3xLogic Inc., 3xLogic Indiana LLC, 8 Commerce Drive LLC, ADT France, ASIA FASTENING (US) INC., Advanced Turf Technologies LTD, AeroFit LLC, AeroScout (US) LLC, AeroScout Industrial, AeroScout LLC, AeroScout Ltd., Aeroscout (Singapore) Pte. Ltd., Al Khaja Pimex LLC, Allan Brothers, Automatic Doors Systems, Automatic Entrances of Colorado, Avdel Holding Limited, Avdel Holdings (Hong Kong) Limited, Avdel UK Limited, Aven Tools Limited, B&D Holdings Inc., B.B.W. BAYRISCHE BOHRERWERKE GmbH, BD Precision (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Suzhou Power Tools (Hong Kong) Limited, BD Xiamen (Hong Kong) Limited, BDB Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda, BDC International Limited, BDK FAUCET HOLDINGS INC., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) POWER TOOLS CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER (SUZHOU) PRECISION MANUFACTURING CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 1 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER ASIA MANUFACTURING HOLDINGS 2 S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER DE REYNOSA S. DE R.L. DE C.V., BLACK & DECKER GLOBAL HOLDINGS S.a.r.l., BLACK & DECKER GROUP LLC, BLACK & DECKER HOLDINGS LLC, BLACK & DECKER INC, BLACK & DECKER INDIA INC., BLACK & DECKER INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS S.A.R.L., BLACK & DECKER INVESTMENT COMPANY LLC, BLACK & DECKER SHELBYVILLE LLC, BLACK & DECKER SSC CO. LTD., BLACK & DECKER TRANSASIA S.a.r.l., BLACK AND DECKER S.A. de C.V., Bagley Road LLC, Baltimore Financial Services Company Unlimited Company, Baltimore Insurance Designated Activity Company, Bandhart, Bandhart Overseas, Bed-Check, Belco Investments Company Unlimited Company, Besco Investment Group Co. Ltd., Besco Investment Holdings Ltd., Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Besco Pneumatic Corporation, Best Lock Corporation, Black & Decker, Black & Decker (Czech) s.r.o., Black & Decker (Ireland) Inc., Black & Decker (OVERSEAS) GmbH, Black & Decker (Thailand) Limited, Black & Decker (U.S.) Inc., Black & Decker Argentina S.A., Black & Decker Asia Pacific (Malaysia) Sdn. Bhd., Black & Decker Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Black & Decker Distribution Pty. Ltd, Black & Decker Europe, Black & Decker Far East Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Finance, Black & Decker Finance (Australia) Ltd., Black & Decker Finance SAS, Black & Decker Funding Corporation, Black & Decker Hardware Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Healthcare Management Inc., Black & Decker Holdings (Australia) Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Holdings B.V., Black & Decker Inc., Black & Decker International, Black & Decker International Finance (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Finance 1 Unlimited Company, Black & Decker International Finance 3 Designated Activity Company, Black & Decker International Finance Holdings (UK) Limited, Black & Decker International Holdings B.V. & CO. KG, Black & Decker Investments (Australia) Limited, Black & Decker Investments LLC, Black & Decker Limited BV, Black & Decker Luxembourg S.A.R.L., Black & Decker Mexfin LLC, Black & Decker No. 4 Pty. Ltd., Black & Decker Puerto Rico Inc., Black & Decker de Colombia S.A.S., Black & Decker de Panama LLC, Black & Decker del Ecuador S.A., Black & Decker del Peru S.A., Black & Decker do Brasil Ltda., Black and Decker de Costa Rica Limitada, Blick Plc, Bostitch-Holding L.L.C., Bristol Industries LLC, Bulldog Barrels LLC, C&C Enterprise Co. Ltd., CAM International Holdings Inc., CAMACC Systems Inc., CONNEXCENTER SA, CPE Acquisition Co., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS INC., CRC-EVANS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LLC, CRC-EVANS WELDING SERVICES INC., CRC-Evans B.V., CRC-Evans Canada LTD., CRC-Evans International LLC, CRC-Evans Offshore Limited, CRC-Evans PIH Servios De Tubulao do Brasil Ltda, CRC-Evans Pipeline International Inc., CRC-Evans Pipeline International Sdn Bhd, CWS Industries (Mfg.) Corp., Chesapeake Falls Holdings Company Unlimited Company, Chesapeake Investments Company S.A.R.L., Chicago Steel Tape, Chiro Tools Holdings B.V., Christie Intruder Alarms Limited, Clarke Security Services Incorporated, Columbia Manufacturing Company Incorporated, Compass Corporation, Compass II Co. Ltd., Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing, Consolidated Aerospace Manufacturing LLC, Constellation (Luxembourg) Holdings S.a r.l., Contact East, Craftman, Cub Cadet LLC, DADO Inc., DEVILBISS AIR POWER COMPANY, DIYZ LLC, DeWalt Industrial Tools S.p.A., Dewalt Industrial Power Tool Company LTD., Doncasters US Holdings Inc., Dubuis et Cie SAS, E.A. Patten Co. LLC, ELU B.V., ELU Power Tools LTD, EMHART TEKNOLOGIES LLC, Eastern Vault & Security, Emhart Guangzhou (Hong Kong) Limited, Emhart Harttung A/S, Emhart Harttung Inc., Emhart International Holdings Limited, Emhart International Limited, Emhart Teknologies (Thailand) LTD., Excel Industries, Excel Industries Inc., F. Robotics Acquisitions Ltd., Facom, Facom Belgie BV, Fastener Jamher Taiwan Inc., First National AlarmCap LP/Premiere Societe en Commandite Nationale Alarmcap, First National AlarmCap. Trust, Frisco Bay Industries, GDX Technologies, GMT China, GRUPO BLACK & DECKER MEXICO S. DE R.L. DE C.V., GUANGZHOU EMHART FASTENING SYSTEM CO. LTD., Gamrie Designated Activity Company, Garden Way LLC, Generale de Protection, HSM Electronic Protection Systems, Hangtech Limited, Hardware City Associates Limited Partnership, Hefei INTACA Science & Technology Development Co. Ltd., Herramientas Stanley S.A. de c.v., Horst Sprenger GmbH Recycling-tools, Hustler Turf Equipment Inc., I.D.L. Techni-Edge LLC, INFASTECH CAMCAR MALAYSIA SDN BHD, INFASTECH DECORAH LLC, ISR Solutions, IguanaFix, Infastech (China) Limited, Infastech (Korea) Limited, Infastech (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech (Mauritius) Limited, Infastech (Shenzhen) Limited, Infastech (Singapore) Pte. Ltd, Infastech Company Limited, Infastech Fastening Systems (Wuxi) Limited, Infastech Holdings (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Infastech Intellectual Properties Pte. Ltd., Infastech Receivables Company Pte. Ltd., Infastech/Tri-Star Limited, InfoLogix, InfoLogix Systems Corporation, Infologix - DDMS Inc., Infologix Inc., Innerspace Products, Interfast B.V., Irwin Industrial Tool Ferramentas do Brasil Ltda., JAFFORD LLC, JRB Attachments LLC, JennCo1 Inc., Jewel Attachments LLC, Jiangsu Guoqiang Tools Co., Jiangus Guopiang Tools Co. Ltd., Jointech Corporation LTD., K.And.M. Holdco Products Ltd., Kodiak Mfg. Inc., Lista International Corporation, Lux Star International S.a r.l., M. HART DO BRASIL LTDA., M.P.N. HOLDINGS LIMITED, M.T.D. France SAS, MTD Asia Hong Kong Limited, MTD Austria Handelsgesellschaft m.b.H., MTD Consumer Group Inc., MTD Deutschland GmbH & Co. KG, MTD Deutschland Verwaltungsgeschellschaft mbH, MTD Europe Holding GmbH, MTD Holdings, MTD Hungaria Kft., MTD International Operations Inc., MTD Investments Australia Pty Ltd., MTD LLC, MTD PRODUCTS ITALIA S.R.L., MTD Poland Sp. z.o.o., MTD Products AG, MTD Products Australia Party LTD, MTD Products Benelux B.V., MTD Products Company, MTD Products Czech Spol. s.r.o., MTD Products Denmark ApS, MTD Products Inc., MTD Products India Private India Limited, MTD Products Limited, MTD Products New Zealand Limited, MTD Products Nordic AB, MTD Products S.A. de C.V., MTD Products Singapore, MTD Schweiz AG, MTD Southwest Inc., Mac Tools Canada Inc., Maquinas y Herramientas Black & Decker de Chile S.A., Microalloying International Inc., Microtec Enterprises, Moeller Manufacturing & Supply LLC, Monarch Mirror Door Co., NEWFREY LLC, NFASTECH COMPANY LIMITED, NIscayah, NSW Fabristeel Netherlands B.V., National Manufacturing, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH & Co. KG, Nelson Bolzenschwei-Technik GmbH Verwaltungs GmbH, Nelson Fastener Systems, Nelson Fastener Systems de Mexico SA de CV, Nelson Saldatura Perni S.r.l., Nelson Soudage de Goujons SAS, Nelson Stud Welding (Tianjin) Company Ltd., Nelson Stud Welding Canada Inc., Nelson Stud Welding Inc., Nelson Stud Welding India Private Limited, Nelson Stud Welding International LLC, New FEP Co. LLC, Newell Brands - Tools Business, Nippon Pop Rivets & Fasteners LTD., Niscayah Asia Limited, Niscayah Group AB, Niscayah Holdings Limited, Niscayah Investments Limited, Niscayah Teknik AB, Novia SWK SAS, OSI Security Devices, Onglin International Limited, P I H Holdings Limited, P&B Re Holdings LLC, PIH Services Limited, PIH Services ME LLC, PIH Services ME Ltd., PIH Services ME W.L.L., PIH U.S. LLC, PIPELINE EQUIPMENT AND SERVICES SARL, PORTER-CABLE ARGENTINA LLC, PT Stanley Black & Decker, Pacom Group AB, Pacom Systems (North America) Inc., Pacom Systems Espana S.L., Pacom Systems Pty Limited, Paladin Brands Group Inc., Paladin Brands Holdings Inc., Paladin Brands International Holdings Inc., Panalok Limited, Pengo Corporation, Pillo Health, Pinnacle Electronic Systems, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Pipeline Induction Heat Limited, Powers Fasteners Australasia Pty Limited, Powers Fasteners Inc., Powers Fasteners Inc. (Panama), Powers Rawl Pty. Ltd., Powers Shanghai Trading Ltd., Precision Hardware, Prikos & Becker LLC, Pro One Finance SAS, QRP Inc, RCTENN LLC, RIGHTCO II LLC, Rawl Australasia Pty. Ltd., Rawlplug Unit Trust, Refal Industria e Comercio de Rebites e Rebitadeiras Ltda., Remington LLC, SBD Cayman LLC, SBD European Investment Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Holdings S.a r.l., SBD European Security International Unlimited Company, SBD European Security Investment Unlimited Company, SBD Holding AB, SBD Insurance Inc., SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings LLC, SBD MDGP Partnership Holdings S.a r.l., SBD Manufacturing Distribution & Global Purchasing Holdings L.P., SBD Niscayah S.a r.l., SBD Property Holdings LLC, SBD UK Canada Holdings Inc., SPIRALOCK GLOBAL VENTURES LIMITED, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER HUNGARY KORALTOLT FELELOSSEGU TARSASAG, STANLEY BLACK & DECKER IBERICA S.L., STANLEY BLACK & DECKER MOROCCO SARL, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS INTERNATIONAL HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS ONE HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS S1 HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY BLACK AND DECKER CYPRUS S2 HOLDINGS LTD, STANLEY ENGINEERED FASTENING EASTERN EUROPE SP.Z O.O., SWK (U.K.) Holding Limited, SWK (UK) Limited, SWK Utensilerie S.r.l., Scan Modul, Security Group, SecurityCo Solutions Inc., Shanghai Emhart Fastening System Co. Ltd., Sidchrome Tool, Sielox Security Systems, Societe Miniere et Commerciale SAS, Sonitrol, Sonitrol Distribution Canada Inc., Sonitrol Security Systems of Buffalo Inc., Southern Monitoring Services Limited, Specialty Bar Products Company, Spiegelberg Manufacturing Inc., Spiralock Corporation, Stanley Access Technologies LLC, Stanley Atlantic Inc., Stanley Black & Decker (Barbados) SRL, Stanley Black & Decker (Hellas) EPE, Stanley Black & Decker Asia Holdings LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Asian Holdings B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Australia Pty Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Austria GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Belgium BV, Stanley Black & Decker CCA S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Canada Corporation, Stanley Black & Decker Cayman Holdings Inc., Stanley Black & Decker Cayman International Financing LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Centroamerica S. de R.L., Stanley Black & Decker Chile L.L.C., Stanley Black & Decker Colombia Services S.A.S., Stanley Black & Decker Czech Republic s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Black & Decker Distribution SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 1 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance 2 LLC, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Finance Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Finland Oy, Stanley Black & Decker France SAS, Stanley Black & Decker France Services SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Hermosillo S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley Black & Decker Holdings Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Black & Decker Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker IP Holdings Limited, Stanley Black & Decker India Private Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International FZE, Stanley Black & Decker International Fiance 2 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 1 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 2 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 3 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Limited, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 4 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance 5 Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker International Finance L.P., Stanley Black & Decker Ireland Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Italia S.r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Holding BV, Stanley Black & Decker Latin American Investment Unlimited Company, Stanley Black & Decker Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Limited Liability Company, Stanley Black & Decker Logistics BV, Stanley Black & Decker MEA FZE, Stanley Black & Decker Manufacturing SAS, Stanley Black & Decker Middle East Trading FZE, Stanley Black & Decker NZ Limited, Stanley Black & Decker Netherlands B.V., Stanley Black & Decker Norway AS, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan, Stanley Black & Decker Partnership Japan Holdings S.a r.l., Stanley Black & Decker Polska Sp. z o.o., Stanley Black & Decker Precision Manufacturing (Shenzhen) Co. Ltd., Stanley Black & Decker Romania SRL, Stanley Black & Decker Slovakia s.r.o., Stanley Black & Decker Sweden AB, Stanley Black & Decker Turkey Alet Uretim Sanayi ve Ticaret Limited Sirketi, Stanley Black & Decker UK Group Limited, Stanley Black & Decker UK Limited, Stanley Black & Decker de Monterrey S. de R.L. de C.V., Stanley Black and Decker Commercial Private India, Stanley Black and Decker Security Solutions Mexico S.A. de C.V. (fka DEWALT INDUSTRIAL TOOLS S.A. DE C.V.), Stanley CLP3, Stanley Canada Holdings L.L.C., Stanley Chiro International Ltd, Stanley Convergent Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Engineered Fastening Benelux B.V., Stanley Engineered Fastening France SAS, Stanley Engineered Fastening India Private Limited, Stanley Engineered Fastening Industrial Deutschland GmbH, Stanley Engineered Fastening Italy S.r.l., Stanley Engineered Fastening Spain S.L.U., Stanley Europe BV, Stanley European Holdings B.V., Stanley European Holdings II B.V., Stanley Fastening Systems Investment (Taiwan) Co., Stanley Fastening Systems L.P., Stanley Fastening Systems Poland Sp. z o.o., Stanley Feinwerktechnik GmbH, Stanley Grundstuecksverwaltungs GmbH, Stanley Healthcare Solutions France Sarl, Stanley Housing Fund Inc., Stanley Industrial & Automotive LLC, Stanley Infrastructure LLC Formerly f/k/a International Equipment Solutions ("IES"), Stanley Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Inspection US L.L.C., Stanley International Holdings Inc., Stanley Israel Investments B.V., Stanley Logistics L.L.C., Stanley Pipeline Inspection L.L.C., Stanley Safety Corporation LLC, Stanley Security AS, Stanley Security Alarmcentrale B.V., Stanley Security B.V., Stanley Security Belgium BV, Stanley Security Canada ULC (fka 3xLogic Holdings Inc.), Stanley Security Denmark ApS, Stanley Security Europe BV, Stanley Security Federal Systema LLC, Stanley Security Holding AS, Stanley Security Limited, Stanley Security Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Stanley Security Nederland B.V., Stanley Security Oy, Stanley Security Singapore Pte. Ltd., Stanley Security Solutions (NI) Limited, Stanley Security Solutions - Europe Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Australia Pty Ltd, Stanley Security Solutions Inc., Stanley Security Solutions India Private Limited, Stanley Security Solutions Limited, Stanley Security Sverige AB, Stanley Technical Services Ltd., Stanley Tools SAS, Stanley U.K. Holdings Ltd., Stanley UK Acquisition Company Limited, Stanley UK Services Limited, Stanley Works (Europe) GmbH, Stanley Works (India) Private Limited, Stanley Works (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd, Stanley Works (Wendeng) Tools Co. Ltd., Stanley Works Asia Pacific Pte. Ltd., Stanley Works China Investments Limited, Stanley Works Holdings B.V., Stanley Works Limited, Stanley-Bostitch S.A. de c.v., Stanley-Bostitch Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Stichting Beheer Intellectuele Eigendomsrechten Blick Benelux B.V., SureHand Inc. f.k.a. SBD Aura Inc., Sweepster Attachments LLC, THE BLACK & DECKER CORPORATION, TOG Holdings Inc., TOG Manufacturing Company Inc., TSI Monitoring LLC, TSI Sales & Installation LLC, The EAP Acquisition Co. LLC, The Farmington River Power Company, The Ferry Cap & Set Screw Company, The Stanley Works (Langfang) Fastening Systems Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Shanghai) Management Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works (Zhongshan) Tool Co. Ltd., The Stanley Works Israel Ltd., The Stanley Works Limited, The Stanley Works Pty. Ltd., Tong Lung Metal Industry, Troy-Bilt LLC, Tucker Fasteners Limited, Tucker GmbH, Tucker S.R.O., Universal Inspection Systems Limited, Venus Enterprise Co. Ltd., Visiocom International Pte Ltd, Voss Industries Inc., Wintech Corporation Limited, XMARK Corporation, XMARK Corporation., Yong Ru Plastics Industry (Suzhou) Co. Ltd, and Zag USA Inc..

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Plains All American Pipeline, L.P., through its subsidiaries, engages in the pipeline transportation, terminalling, storage, and gathering of crude oil and natural gas liquids (NGL) in the United States and Canada. The company operates in two segments, Crude Oil and NGL. The Crude Oil segment offers gathering and transporting crude oil through pipelines, gathering systems, trucks, and at times on barges or railcars. This segment provides terminalling, storage, and other facilities-related services, as well as merchant activities. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned and leased 18,300 miles of active crude oil transportation pipelines and gathering systems, as well as an additional 110 miles of pipelines that supports crude oil storage and terminalling facilities; 74 million barrels of commercial crude oil storage capacity; 38 million barrels of active, above-ground tank capacity; four marine facilities; a condensate processing facility; seven crude oil rail terminals and 2,100 crude oil railcars; and 640 trucks and 1,275 trailers. The Natural Gas Liquids segment engages in the natural gas processing, NGL fractionation, storage, transportation, and terminalling activities. As of December 31, 2021, this segment owned and operated four natural gas processing plants; nine fractionation plants; 28 million barrels of NGL storage capacity; approximately 1,620 miles of active NGL transportation pipelines, as well as an additional 55 miles of pipeline that supports NGL storage facilities; 16 NGL rail terminals and approximately 3,900 NGL rail cars; and approximately 220 trailers. The company was founded in 1981 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. Plains All American Pipeline, L.P. operates as a subsidiary of Plains GP Holdings, L.P.
Genesee & Wyoming Inc. owns and leases freight railroads. It operates through three segments: North American Operations, Australian Operations, and U.K./European Operations. The company transports various commodities, including agricultural products, autos and auto parts, chemicals and plastics, coal and coke, food and kindred products, lumber and forest products, metallic ores, metals, minerals and stone, petroleum products, pulp and paper, waste, and other commodities. It owns or leases 122 freight railroads, including 105 short line railroads and 2 regional freight railroads located in the United States, 8 short line railroads located in Canada, 3 railroads located in Australia, 1 railroad located in the United Kingdom, 1 railroad in Poland and Germany, and 2 railroads in the Netherlands with a total of approximately 16,200 miles of track. The company also operates 6,200 additional miles of track that is owned or leased by others. In addition, it operates deep sea maritime containers and provides bulk haulage, including coal, aggregates, cement, and infrastructure services. Further, the company provides rail service at approximately 40 ports; rail-ferry service in North America, Australia, and Europe; and contract coal loading and railcar switching for industrial customers. Genesee & Wyoming Inc. was founded in 1899 and is headquartered in Darien, Connecticut.
RELX PLC provides information-based analytics and decision tools for professional and business customers in North America, Europe, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Risk; Scientific, Technical & Medical; Legal; and Exhibitions. The Risk segment offers information-based analytics and decision tools that combine public and industry specific content with technology and algorithms to assist clients in evaluating and predicting risk. The Scientific, Technical & Medical segment provides information and analytics that help institutions and professionals to progress in science and advance healthcare. The Legal segment provides legal, regulatory, and business information and analytics that help customers in decision-making, as well as increases the productivity. The Exhibitions segment is involved in the events business that combines face-to-face with data and digital tools to help customers learn about markets, source products, and complete transactions. The company was formerly known as Reed Elsevier PLC and changed its name to RELX PLC in July 2015. The company was incorporated in 1903 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
Zoetis Inc. discovers, develops, manufactures, and commercializes animal health medicines, vaccines, and diagnostic products in the United States and internationally. It commercializes products primarily across species, including livestock, such as cattle, swine, poultry, fish, and sheep; and companion animals comprising dogs, cats, and horses. The company also offers vaccines, which are biological preparations to prevent diseases of the respiratory, gastrointestinal, and reproductive tracts or induce a specific immune response; anti-infectives that prevent, kill, or slow the growth of bacteria, fungi, or protozoa; and parasiticides that prevent or eliminate external and internal parasites, which include fleas, ticks, and worms. It also provides other pharmaceutical products that comprise pain and sedation, antiemetic, reproductive, and oncology products; dermatology products for itch associated with allergic conditions and atopic dermatitis; and medicated feed additives, which offer medicines to livestock. In addition, the company provides portable blood and urine analysis testing, including point-of-care diagnostic products, instruments and reagents, rapid immunoassay tests, reference laboratory kits and services, and blood glucose monitors; and other non-pharmaceutical products, including nutritionals and agribusiness services, as well as products and services in areas, such as biodevices, genetics tests, and precision animal health. It markets its products to veterinarians, livestock producers, and retail outlets, as well as third-party veterinary distributors through its sales representatives, and technical and veterinary operations specialists. The company was founded in 1952 and is headquartered in Parsippany, New Jersey.
Daniel Goebel, the new dean of Northern Arizona Universitys W. A. Franke College of Business, will be just one of several new faces on campus on the first day of the fall semester.

Craig Van Slyke, the previous dean of the college, stepped down about a year ago, but filled the position until NAU could find a new dean. Slyke will stay on as a business professor at NAU.

Goebel hails from Illinois State University, where he served for the last five years as the universitys associate dean for Academic Programs and Maintenance of Accreditation and as a professor of marketing. He has worked for Illinois State since 2001 as a professor and administrator. Hes had research published in numerous journals and textbooks since 1998 and served on the editorial review board for the Journal of Business Research and the Journal of Personal Selling and Sales Management.

Goebel said he got into teaching college courses after working as an accountant for 10 years for three different companies, Union Texas petroleum, A.E. Staley Manufacturing and Frito-Lay.

I got to thinking, 'what do I really want to do with my life,' he said.

He spoke with one of his former college professors and his father-in-law, who was also a professor, about teaching at the university level. He returned to college part-time to get his master's degree in business administration, specializing in marketing, from Illinois State in the 1990s and went back to college full-time to earn his doctorate degree in 1998 from the University of South Florida.

It turned out to be a great move for me, he said. I really enjoy interacting with faculty and students.

It was not the life path he was expecting or was expected to take as one of the first members of his family to attend college, he said.

Ive lived the impact that a degree can have on your life, Goebel said.

That's one reason why he accepted NAUs offer of becoming dean. About 40 to 50 percent of the students at NAU are first-generation students, he said. First-generation students often have things a bit harder than students who have had parents graduate from college -- they dont know what to expect or whats expected of them, and have to learn that along the way.

Watching them mature and succeed from freshmen to seniors is very rewarding, he said.

Goebel said he also accepted the position because the Franke College of Business program, like the one he oversaw at Illinois State, places students first.

We have smaller classes and quality faculty that interact closely with students, he said.

The Franke College teaches students more than just the basics of business, such as accounting, marketing and management. It also has a professional development section that emphases life skills that students need to get into the business world, such as resume and report writing, communication skills, how to dress for an interview or the workplace, etc.

Being able to communicate effectively is one of the best business skills you can have, Goebel said. If you cant communicate clearly to your managers or suppliers, you will not succeed and your business will not succeed.

Students also need to have a deep knowledge of their particular business field, whether it is marketing, finance or management, he said. Students need to be able to interpret the trends in their fields in order to be successful.

Goebel said another thing that attracted him to NAU was the quality of the faculty. NAUs professors are really good at identifying trends in the business world and adapting the colleges curriculum to match those trends, he said.

He also liked that NAU has several advisory boards that link professors, alumni and students together to collect feedback and collaborate on ways of improving the university and the College of Business.

Goebel said his first big project will be getting the College of Business ready for its next accreditation review by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business in 2019. The organization accreditation is one of the hardest to achieve and has been earned by less than 5 percent of the worlds business schools, he said. The organization looks at everything the college does: the quality of the teaching, research, innovation and student engagement. Business colleges are reviewed every five years.
The following companies are subsidiares of Brinker International: BI INTERNATIONAL SERVICES LLC, BI MEXICO HOLDING CORPORATION, BIPC GLOBAL PAYROLL COMPANY LLC, BIPC INVESTMENTS LLC, BIPC MANAGEMENT LLC, BRINKER AIRPORTS LLC, BRINKER ALABAMA INC., BRINKER ARKANSAS INC., BRINKER ASIA INC., BRINKER BRAZIL LLC, BRINKER CANADIAN HOLDING CO. ULC, BRINKER CANADIAN RESTAURANT CO. ULC, BRINKER CB LP, BRINKER CB MANAGEMENT LLC, BRINKER FHC B.V., BRINKER FLORIDA INC., BRINKER FREEHOLD INC., BRINKER GEORGIA INC., BRINKER INTERNATIONAL PAYROLL COMPANY L.P., BRINKER LOUISIANA INC., BRINKER MICHIGAN INC., BRINKER MISSISSIPPI INC., BRINKER MISSOURI INC., BRINKER NEVADA INC., BRINKER NEW JERSEY INC., BRINKER NORTH CAROLINA INC., BRINKER OF BALTIMORE COUNTY INC., BRINKER OF CARROLL COUNTY INC., BRINKER OF CECIL COUNTY INC., BRINKER OKLAHOMA INC., BRINKER OPCO LLC, BRINKER PENN TRUST, BRINKER PROPCO FLORIDA INC., BRINKER PROPERTY CORPORATION, BRINKER PURCHASING INC., BRINKER RESTAURANT CORPORATION, BRINKER RHODE ISLAND INC., BRINKER SERVICES CORPORATION, BRINKER SOUTH CAROLINA INC., BRINKER TEXAS INC., BRINKER VIRGINIA INC., CHILIS BEVERAGE COMPANY INC., CHILIS INC. a Delaware corporation, CHILIS INC. a Tennessee corporation, CHILIS INTERNATIONAL BASES B.V., CHILIS OF BEL AIR INC., CHILIS OF KANSAS INC., CHILIS OF MARYLAND INC., CHILIS OF WEST VIRGINIA INC., Grady's Inc., MAGGIANO'S OF ANNAPOLIS INC., MAGGIANO'S OF HOWARD COUNTY INC., MAGGIANO'S OF KANSAS INC., MAGGIANOS BEVERAGE COMPANY, MAGGIANOS HOLDING CORPORATION, MAGGIANOS INC., MAGGIANOS OF TYSONS INC., MAGGIANOS PROPERTY CORPORATION, MAGGIANOS TEXAS INC., PEPPER DINING HOLDING CORP., PEPPER DINING Inc., and PEPPER DINING VERMONT INC..

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The Boeing Company is the worlds largest manufacturer of airplanes and commands more than 50% of the market in some channels and categories. The company and its family of subsidiaries design, develops, manufacture, sell, service, and supports commercial jetliners, military aircraft, satellites, missile defense, human space flight, and related services worldwide. The company operates through four segments including Commercial Airplanes; Defense, Space & Security; Global Services; and Boeing Capital providing products and services to end-users in 150 countries.

Boeing got its start in 1910 when William E. Boeing developed a love for aircraft. Soon after he takes his first plane ride which leads him to build a hangar and begin construction of his first plane. The onset of WWI helped spur the companys growth but business was cut drastically in its wake. The start of WWII was another milestone for the company and one that led to its current position of dominance. The company was incorporated in 1916 and is based in Chicago, Illinois. Boeing employs over 140,000 people in 65 countries making it one of the most diverse employers on the planet.

The Commercial Airplanes segment is built around the iconic 7-series which includes the 737, 747, and 787. The segment provides commercial jet aircraft for passenger and cargo requirements, as well as fleet support services for regional, national, and international air carriers and logistics and freight companies. In terms of global volume, the company estimates about 90% of all air freight is carried aboard one of its jets. This segment also includes the Dreamliner family of planes. The Dreamliner is a game-changing airplane for many carriers as it opens up the potential for new one-stop destinations because of its capacity and range.

The Defense, Space & Security segment develops and manufactures a range of systems including manned and unmanned aircraft, missiles, missile defense systems, satellites, communications equipment, and intelligence systems for governments. Among the many iconic brands within this segment are the AH-64 Apache, Air Force One, B-52, C-17 Globemaster, Chinook, F/A-18, and the V-22 Osprey VTOL aircraft used by the Marines.

The Global Services segment offers a range of products and services that include supply chain and logistics management, engineering, maintenance, upgrades, conversions, spare parts, pilot and maintenance training, technical and maintenance documents, and data analytics to its commercial and defense customers.

Boeing is also a leader in innovation, leveraging its many decades and avenues of experience to further aerospace and defense technology. Among the many innovations is the MQ-25 Stingray which will be the worlds first autonomous aircraft. The Stingray is only one of many areas of research that also include drones and undersea vehicles.
Devon Energy Corporation is an independent oil and gas company headquartered in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The company was incorporated in 1971 by John Nichols and his son J. Larry Nichols and later went public in August 2000. The company has since grown to be included in the S&P 500 and is one of the first energy companies to introduce resolutions requiring the company to monitor its impact on global warming. One time a major player in the global oil market, Devon has since sold off its offshore holdings in an effort to focus on US production and its transition to a lower-carbon future.

Devon Energy merged with WPX in early 2021 in an all-stock merger of equals. The new company is primarily engaged in the exploration, development, and production of oil, natural gas, and natural gas liquids in the US midwest. The company operates more than 5,100 wells in Oklahomas Delaware Basis, Eagle Ford Group, and the two locations in the Rocky Mountains. As of late 2022, the company laid claim to 1.625 million barrels of reserves including 44% petroleum, 27% natural gas liquids, and 29% natural gas. Daily production was running in the range of 300,000 BPD in petroleum liquids, 125,000 BPD in natural gas liquids, and 920 million cubic feet of natural gas.

Rick Muncrief, formally CEO of WPX, is now the head of Devon Energy. Mr. Muncrief comes to the table with more than 40 years of experience including 27 years with one of the US Big Three Oil Companies. WPX Energy (Williams Production and Exploration) brought properties in the Williston and Permian Basins to the combined company. Its proven reserves were roughly 527 million barrels of oil and equivalents. The company also owns and operates a midstream network of pipelines and storage facilities it uses to market and deliver its products.

Devon Energy Corporation has pledged to reduce its GHG impact to net zero by 2050. This will be done by a variety of methods that include improving efficiency and leakage, a reduction in flaring, and the electrification of its operations. Near-term goals include a 50% reduction in GHG by 2030 including a 65% reduction in methane release and a 100% reduction in flaring. The company is also focused on reducing its environmental impact by relying on recycled water wherever possible and plans to reduce freshwater usage by 90% in the most active areas. Total greenhouse gas emissions have been in decline since 2018 and fell 17% between 2018 and 2020 alone.
With Sundays controversial new constituent assembly elections looming, popular demonstrations across Venezuela have intensified, as clashes between protestors and police grow ever more bloody. Despite President Nicolas Maduros assurances that anyone caught protesting would face time behind bars, opposition leaders urged Venezuelans to take to the streets, a call that thousands have evidently heeded. Venezuela: Small groups defy protest ban CNNI https://t.co/XHFWuLdUrQhttps://t.co/zX1iIV8Zkx pic.twitter.com/Gtkp3EVbhi RGuedez (rguedez) July 28, 2017 Venezuela: Small groups defy protest ban CNNI https://t.co/XHFWuLdUrQhttps://t.co/zX1iIV8Zkx pic.twitter.com/Gtkp3EVbhi RGuedez (rguedez) July 28, 2017 The widespread anger is down to Maduros calling of an election for a new assembly that would have the power to rewrite the constitution and would rival the opposition led , something neighbouring Colombia  which has been burdened in recent months by an influx of thousands of Venezuelans  said it would not recognise. President Juan Manuel Santos of Colombia said: The Constitutional Assembly promoted by the Venezuelan government is illegitimate and that is why Colombia will not recognise the results. Venezuelan opposition in final protest push ahead of Sunday vote https://t.co/bvgDUYoJbd pic.twitter.com/eOhbmliN8C Ramon Morell (@ramonmorell) July 29, 2017 The run up to the election has not been the peaceful campaign Maduro would have hoped for. It has instead been marred by violence and chaos. In a sign that the president still holds a firm grip on the country, armed and hooded intelligence officers arrested Mayor Alfredo Ramos, a local politician who the Supreme Court say had facilitated protests against Maduro.
Across the country, members of University and Colleges Union (UCU) are preparing for fourteen days of strike action across four weeks.

CATANIA, Sicily - Defend Europe, after repeatedly accusing the media of fake news coverage of their mishap-strewn mission, has used a string of falsehoods to divert attention from its latest setback.

The groups plan to board their chartered ship, the C-Star, has fallen apart in the face of pressure from NGOs, activists and the Italian government.

Instead members of the mission flew to Cyprus on Friday morning to meet the boat whilst telling media outlets, including HuffPost UK, that it was still headed to Catania.

Defend Europe also tweeted a short video on the 27th implying the boat was leaving Cyprus and heading for Sicily.

See you in Catania  pic.twitter.com/7pJpTJIyKT  Defend Europe (@DefendEuropeID) July 27, 2017

The ship is now believed to be headed to Tunisia.

Despite the groups members, Clement Galant, Patrick Lenart, Martin Sellner, Lorenzo Fiato and Robert Timm, leaving for Cyprus on Friday morning, a Defend Europe spokesperson told HuffPost UK in a face-to-face interview on Saturday morning that the ship was still headed for Catania and would arrive in five days.

In a video detailing the latest setback, Brittanny Pettibone, an American activist travelling with the group, said: The Defend Europe mission has finally, successfully launched.

Obviously there have been a lot of problems, setbacks and complications and much of that has been confused because of the fake news reporting by the media.

Defend Europe has repeatedly accused the media and NGOs of propagating fake news despite reporting events which have been confirmed by the group itself.

MSM is spreading fake news about #defendeurope https://t.co/CILGMM4upH  Defend Europe (@DefendEuropeID) July 20, 2017

There has been intense pressure from NGOs and activists to stop the C-Star docking in Catania and a symbolic blockade of the port was held on Saturday afternoon.

Story continues

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A flotilla organised by @Avaaz symbolically blockaded Catania port this morning in protest of #DefendEurope's imminent arrival pic.twitter.com/Q1VCCMI17k  Chris York (@ChrisDYork) July 29, 2017

Lenart says in the latest video: The problem in Catania was not economical but political. We received political pressure from different political characters.

[There were] left-wing activists in Catania making a sit-in for a number of days but that was the least of our problems.

Then we were followed all the time by the police in Catania but the most important thing, the most dangerous thing in some ways, was the pressure by the Italian government.

The Minister [of the Interior] said they were looking for us and would do anything they can to stop our mission. We also had other politicians questioning our mission so we decided Catania wasnt a safe port for us anymore.

The group had initially intended to arrive in Catania on the 17th of July in order to meet the C-Star on the 20th at the latest

Defend Europe are part of the young, media-savvy Identitarian movement which says it wants to preserve Europes identity and calls for an end to immigration and multiculturalism.

Rather than saving the lives of desperate migrants setting sail from war-torn Libya, the group sees NGOs as enabling people-traffickers by acting as a taxi service.

Through crowd-funding the group has raised 122,000 to charter the C-Star in order to document and observe of the doings of those NGOs.

Thorsten Schmidt, a spokesperson for Defend Europe, told HuffPost UK: Of course by now there is no definite proof of direct collaboration between NGOs and people-traffickers and but this [mission] is deemed necessary because the business of human traffickers is based on the fact that they expect an NGO boat to be waiting for those migrants.

This means when the human-traffickers are expecting the NGO boat to be there, even more migrants will come.

While the group claims it will simply observe and, if necessary, come to the rescue of any vessel in distress including those carrying migrants, a number of individuals and groups have expressed concerns to HuffPost UK that they will endanger lives by trying to disrupt search and rescue missions.

These fears are not unfounded - a similar mission by another Identitarian group in May actively tried to sail a boat into the path of the same NGO rescue ship that is currently docked in Catania.

Lauren Southern, a Canadian Identitarian, says in video of the incident: If the politicians wont stop the boats, well stop the boats.

The C-Stars mission has so far been plagued by mishaps and has been detained twice already, once in Suez and, just a few days ago, in Cyprus.

In a further irony, the anti-people trafficking mission was itself accused of people-trafficking before being released.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
BEIRUT (Reuters) - Nearly 90,000 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in Medina this year, and were due to start arriving on Sunday, after Tehran boycotted the pilgrimage last year amid tensions with Saudi Arabia. Around 800 pilgrims were due to leave Iran on three flights to Medina on Sunday, the director of the haj at Irans Haj and Pilgrimage Organization, Nasrollah Farahmand told state media. Approximately 86,500 Iranians are expected to attend the haj in total this year and 800 coordinators have travelled to Saudi Arabia to help Iranians during the pilgrimage, he said. Iran boycotted the haj last year after hundreds of people, many of them Iranians, died in a crush at the pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in 2015, and following a diplomatic rift between the two countries who are vying for power and influence in the region. In a speech to haj organizers on Sunday, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said that Iranians would never forget the catastrophic events of 2015 and called on Saudi Arabia to ensure the security of all pilgrims. "The serious and constant issue for the Islamic Republic is the preservation of the security, dignity, welfare and comfort of all pilgrims, particularly Iranian pilgrims," Khamenei said, according to his official site. "The security of the haj is the responsibility of the country where the two noble shrines exist." Riyadh severed diplomatic relations last year after Iranian protesters stormed the Saudi embassy in Tehran following the execution of a Shi'ite cleric in Saudi Arabia in January 2016. In February this year Iran, which is predominantly Shi'ite Muslim, sent a delegation to Saudi Arabia, which is mostly Sunni, that initiated the process of Iranian pilgrims returning for the haj. However, tensions between the two countries remain at an all-time high. Last month Iranian officials pointed a finger at Saudi Arabia after Islamic State carried out attacks on the Iranian parliament in Tehran and the shrine of the founder of the Islamic Republic, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, that left at least 18 dead. Saudi Arabia denied any involvement. Khamenei in his speech on Sunday also called on all pilgrims to show their reaction to the recent unrest at the Al Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and "Americas wicked presence in the region" at the haj, according to his official website. He did not specify what kind of reaction he expected pilgrims to show. (Reporting By Babak Dehghanpisheh; Editing by Susan Fenton)
By Angus MacSwan MOSUL, Iraq (Reuters) - Thousands of children have been separated from their parents in the nine-month battle for Mosul and the preceding years of Islamic State rule in northern Iraq - some found wandering alone and afraid among the rubble, others joining the refugee exodus from the pulverized city. In some cases their parents have been killed. Families have been split up as they fled street fighting, air strikes or Islamic State repression. Many are traumatised from the horrors they have endured. Protecting the youngsters and reuniting them with their families is an urgent task for humanitarian organisations. "These children are extremely vulnerable," said Mariyampillai Mariyaselvam, a child protection specialist with UNICEF (the United Nations Children's Fund). "Most have gone through a very painful history." Nine-year-old Meriam had left her family one day last October to visit her grandmother in west Mosul, then under Islamic State rule. The government offensive to recapture the city began, so she stayed there. Her father Hassan told Reuters he had been a policeman but quit when the radical Islamists seized Mosul in 2014, fearing he would be targeted. He, his second wife, along with Meriam and her three half-siblings moved from dwelling to dwelling. "We were living in many different places, moving around. Meriam stayed with her grandmother but when the bridges were shut down, I could not cross the river to see her," he said, speaking in the abandoned, half-built house in east Mosul where the family is now squatting. They eventually fled to the Hassan Sham displaced persons camp but Meriam was trapped in the west. After government forces retook the neighbourhood in June, she and her grandmother made it to the Khazer camp. Her father asked UNICEF for help and they managed to track down his daughter. They were reunited in Hassan Sham later that month. "I was hearing bombing and killing every day. I did not believe they would find her," he said. Life is still hard for the family. They left the camp to return to the city with their few possessions, but the house owner wants to evict them. Hassan makes ends meet by finding day jobs. But at least they are together, he said, cuddling his daughter as he spoke. Meriam, a bright-eyed girl with a shy smile, said she would like to go to school. "I have never been to school. I would like to have books, a backpack, and to learn letters. That is my dream," she said. MOSUL SURGE UNICEF says children in shock had been found in debris or hidden in tunnels in Mosul. Some had lost their families while fleeing to safety but sometimes parents had been forced to abandon children or give them away. Many children were forced to fight or carry out violent acts, it said in a statement. They were also vulnerable to sexual exploitation. UNICEF's Mariyaselvam, speaking to Reuters in Erbil, said the number of children coming out of Mosul had increased in the past few months as the battle reached its climax. He explained the distinction between separated children, who are split from their legal guardians but are with friends or relatives, and unaccompanied children, who are alone and without care or guardians. It was difficult to give an accurate number but child protection agencies have recorded more than 3,000 separated and over 800 unaccompanied children, he said. The latter are the priority. The task of rescuing and identifying them begins in the field, with relief agency teams placed in strategic locations where people are fleeing. Registration points are set up. Mobile child protection teams also visit households. Then UNICEF and its local partners begin tracing the legal guardians or relatives. "Our primary focus is care and protection for them. We try to make sure that they are provided immediate care," he said. In camps, they are usually placed with people on a temporary basis. If parents or other relatives cannot be identified, a legal process begins to put them in care homes with government permission. If all efforts fail, there is a foster programme. From the start, the children need specialised services such as psychological counselling. Some need mental health care. But the Iraqi government lacks sufficient resources or infrastructure to handle the challenge, Mariyaselvam said. Mosul, which served as the capital of Islamic State's self-declared caliphate in Iraq and Syria for three years, provided a particular set of problems. UNICEF and the government followed cases to ensure children were safe from abuse and exploitation once they were back in the community. "The situation we are seeing is that some children are not being accepted by the community because of their affiliation," he said, referring to the children of Islamic State fighters and supporters. Some youngsters were roaming the city streets and some were being used as child labour, he said. Families who had lost their homes or fled could sometimes simply not cope. "It is going to require a lot of time and a lot of resources and specialised services for them to rebuild their lives, including sending them back to school," Mariyaselvam said. And with the war still going on as Islamic State retreats and a government offensive to recapture the IS-held town of Tal Afar expected soon, a new wave of lost children is anticipated. (Reporting by Angus MacSwan; Editing by Dale Hudson)
By Samia Errazzouki RABAT (Reuters) - Morocco's King Mohammed VI has pardoned dozens of people arrested in recent protests in a northern region and blamed the failure of local officials to quickly implement development projects for stoking public anger. It was his first public address since the start of protests in October over injustice, corruption and underdevelopment following the death of Mouhcine Fikri, a fishmonger crushed in a garbage truck retrieving stock confiscated by police. Fikri's death triggered widespread anger and protests in the Rif region around Al-Hoceima, the town where he worked. These were the largest demonstrations since the 2011 Arab Spring inspired rallies that prompted the king to make constitutional reforms giving up some of his power. "If the King of Morocco is not convinced by the way political activity is conducted and if he does not trust a number of politicians, what are the citizens left with?" Mohammed VI said during a televised speech commemorating the 18th anniversary of his ascension to the throne. "To all those concerned I say: 'Enough is enough!' Fear God in what you are perpetrating against your homeland. Either carry out your duties fully or withdraw from public life." Morocco's government spokesperson did not respond to calls for comment on what actions may be taken, but one government official presented the speech as a "direct conversation with the people" over the slow progress in development projects. "The king has put his foot down, whoever doesn't do their work should leave their place for those who want to work," the official told Reuters. Just before the speech, the Ministry of Justice announced in a statement carried by MAP state news agency that 1,178 prisoners were being pardoned to mark the occasion. These included 58 members of the protest movement, dubbed Hirak al Chaabi in Arabic. Silya Ziani, 23, was the only leader of the movement who was pardoned. The other primary leaders remain imprisoned in Casablanca, including Nasser Zefzafi. "I am happy with my freedom, but I am waiting to hear the news of the freedom of all my comrades from the Hirak," Ziani told local reporters upon her release late Saturday night. For Taib Madmad, secretary general of the Moroccan Human Rights Association, the king's speech and royal pardon are not enough to quell unrest. "We can't speak about significant developments because the main demands of Hirak remain unaddressed, including the release and dismal of charges for all the members of Hirak," Madmad said. During the king's speech, Al Hoceima was mentioned only once, in a reference to praise the actions of security forces and their restraint. Earlier this month, clashes ensued after police used tear gas and truncheons to disperse protests in Al Hoceima, causing one protester to fall into a coma. The victim is currently being treated at a military hospital in Rabat. (Editing by Patrick Markey/Keith Weir)
Putnam Carpenter eclipse

Courtesy of Marketplace

For two minutes on August 21, the moon will completely block the sun during a rare total solar eclipse. From Oregon to South Carolina, communities in the 70-mile beltline where the eclipse will be most visible, will be jammed with spectators.

Astronomers predict that some of the best viewing will be in central Oregon, because of the clean, high desert air and typically clear skies. That has farming and ranching communities in the region gearing up for a mini celestial boom.

Rancher Grant Putnam and his partner, Christina Carpenter, own a cattle operation and farm called Organic Earthly Delights in the town of Madras, Ore. Come August, their fields will be covered with tents, cars and solar eclipse watchers. The farmers are putting on a four-day festival where they hope to host up to 500 eclipse spectators.

Were going to have meals, live music, were going to have a dance floor set up, a bouncy house, a water slide, said Carpenter.

Madras is expected to swell from 6,200 people to more than 70,000 for the eclipse. Motels booked up two years ago, so farmers started selling campsites in their fields.

This is a big investment for the owners of Organic Earthly Delights. They need to pay for port-a-potties, permits, trash cans and insurance. On top of food and music, theyre bringing in astronomers, beekeepers and equestrians to give talks on the farm. Theyll charge about $500 a head for four days of camping, meals, and activities.

At first some residents of this little farm town were nervous about this huge influx of outsiders.

And I keep saying we didnt advertise it, said Lysa Vattimo, Madras eclipse coordinator. (Thats right the eclipse is such a big deal here, the city hired her to be the eclipse coordinator.)

Astronomers and scientists started talking about Madras three and four years ago, Vattimo said.

Story continues

With so many people talking about Madras, residents figured they might as well make the most of it. Theyre hoping some of those visitors will fall in love with their community, that maybe a few will even move there and start a business.

This is opportunity, Vattimo said. She sees the eclipse as a way for her community to grow.

Overall the city is spending about $100,000 on her salary and other preparations.

Theres a lot of things that can go wrong when theres 70,000 people on the ground at one time, Vattimo said, pointing out that city officials worry about traffic jams, medical emergencies and wildfires.

Across Oregon there are estimates of up to a million visitors flooding the state for the eclipse.

Its definitely a once in a lifetime thing for us, said Angie Ludi, who just opened a clothing and gift boutique called The White Buffalo in downtown Madras.

Shes stocked up on solar eclipse souvenirs like t-shirts, paperweights, and necklaces  not to mention space-themed bath products.

Theyre actually called bath bombs, Ludi said. And for the solar eclipse, Im actually going to be carrying the galaxy bomb, too, and it has a little alien in the middle.

Ludi was initially nervous about opening an upscale boutique in a small farming community. But the prospect of thousands of eclipse tourists coming into her shop gave her more confidence.

Starting a business now, I feel like it kind of gave me that extra push that I needed to go ahead and do it, Ludi said.

Back at Organic Earthly Delights farm, Christina Carpenter and Grant Putnam moved their goat herd to a fresh pasture. The goats bleated happily as they tore into the tall grass.

Carpenter is even incorporating the goats into the farms eclipse festival. Visitors will be able to watch how they react when the sun disappears.

The animals will be here and kind of be a circus act, Carpenter said, laughing. I hate to say that, but in a healthy sort of way.

Like many small agricultural businesses, sometimes this organic farm struggles to make ends meet. Putnam said theyre hoping the eclipse festival will generate enough profit to double their income this year.

We want to expand into you know, pasture poultry and turkeys and chickens, Putnam said. Wed like to do some of those other things, so it would really allow us that opportunity.

So far, theyve booked about 275 campers  enough to break even. They know this is a rare economic opportunity. There wont be another total solar eclipse crossing Oregon until the year 2169.

See Also:
DUBAI (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia's foreign minister called what he said was Qatar's demand for an internationalization of the Muslim hajj pilgrimage a declaration of war against the kingdom, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Sunday, but Qatar said it never made such a call. "Qatar's demands to internationalize the holy sites is aggressive and a declaration of war against the kingdom," Adel al-Jubeir was quoted saying on Al Arabiya's website. "We reserve the right to respond to anyone who is working on the internationalization of the holy sites," he said. Qatari Foreign Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman al-Thani said no official from his country had made such a call. "We are tired of responding to false information and stories invented from nothing," Sheikh Mohammed told Al Jazeera TV. Qatar did accuse the Saudis of politicizing hajj and addressed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion on Saturday, expressing concern about obstacles facing Qataris who want to attend hajj this year. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain previously issued a list of 13 demands for Qatar, which included curtailing its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, shutting down the Doha-based Al Jazeera channel, closing a Turkish military base and downgrading its relations with Gulf enemy Iran. On Sunday, foreign ministers of the four countries said they were ready for dialogue with Qatar if it showed willingness to tackle their demands. (Reporting by Aziz El Yaakoubi, Editing by Larry King and Peter Cooney)
France 24 Videos

In 2014, Nadia Murad was captured, alongside many other Yazidi women, by the so-called Islamic State (IS) group in the Iraqi town of Sinjar. She was held hostage, enslaved, tortured and raped, before escaping to Mosul and making her way to Germany. After sharing the 2018 Nobel Peace Prize with Congolese gynaecologist Denis Mukwege, she is now a leading global advocate for survivors of genocide and sexual violence. Nadia Murad spoke to FRANCE 24 from the Paris Peace Forum. Murad said that more needs to be done to prevent sexual violence in conflict."Progress has been made on recognising survivors' right to reparations (...) but I think it's time to put political weight and resources behind the words," Murad told FRANCE 24's Catherine Norris Trent."Not much has been done to prevent what happened to the Yazidi women and girls," Murad said. More than eight years later, "we still have 2,800 women and children who are missing in ISIS [another name for the IS group] captivity in Syria, Turkey and some parts of Iraq. No effort has been made by the international community or our own government or any international organisations to look for the missing Yazidi women and children and bring them back"."Sexual violence does not go away when war is over (...) Ukraine is sadly another example of a failure to follow through on commitments to preventing sexual violence in war," Murad continued."Women's rights were never a priority for the international community to prevent the use of sexual violence," Murad said.Read more on FRANCE 24 EnglishRead also:Amnesty International demands urgent help for survivors of sexual violence in TigrayAllegations of mass rape by Russian troops in UkraineIraqs Yazidi community: Nadia Murads ongoing fight for justice
Wikileaks has released a classified US State Department from 2009 that appears to prove Special Counsel Robert Mueller, head of the Trump/Russia probe, once supplied the Russians with nuclear material.

Special Prosecutor Robert Muelller flew to Moscow and gave the FSB 10 grams of Highly Enriched Uranium (HEU) in 2009 https://t.co/mNdcTa7boQ pic.twitter.com/nPjFSKPHWQ  WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) July 29, 2017

The claim, if true, would be a hugely damaging revelation that would throw the whole investigation into chaos and incri

Only it isnt and Wikileaks knows it.

The text and tweet released by Wikileaks more than suggests Mueller is guilty of a serious crime, passing on nuclear material to the USAs superpower rival.

6. (S/Rel Russia) Action request: Embassy Moscow is requested to alert at the highest appropriate level the Russian Federation that FBI Director Mueller plans to deliver the HEU sample once he arrives to Moscow on September 21. Post is requested to convey information in paragraph 5 with regard to chain of custody, and to request details on Russian Federations plan for picking up the material. Embassy is also requested to reconfirm the April 16 understanding from the FSB verbally that we will have no problem with the Russian Ministry of Aviation concerning Muellers September 21 flight clearance.

But the section it omitted from the tweet changes the entire context of Muellers actions.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller departs after briefing members of the U.S. Senate on his investigation into potential collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign on Capitol Hill in Washington, US, June 21. (Photo: Joshua Roberts / Reuters)

It reads:

2. (S/NF) Background: Over two years ago Russia requested a ten-gram sample of highly enriched uranium (HEU) seized in early 2006 in Georgia during a nuclear smuggling sting operation involving one Russian national and several Georgian accomplices. The seized HEU was transferred to U.S. custody and is being held at a secure DOE facility. In response to the Russian request, the Georgian Government authorised the United States to share a sample of the material with the Russians for forensic analysis.

Story continues

This text is included in the document linked to in the tweet but its clear many people did took it at face value.

Need an investigator for the investigator. Meuller is a crook too. Just like @HillaryClinton and @BarackObama  Cheryl (@Cheryl4Trump) July 29, 2017

Mueller should be investigating himself. Trump, FIRE this clown.  Ted Andrews (@TMA62) July 29, 2017

Good grief. Get rid of this guy as head of special council He needs to be investigated regarding Russia. Conflict of interest!  Fortified Fortresses (@laurafortified) July 29, 2017

Wikileaks used to be a force for good in the world, playing a major role in revealing the inner workings of Guantanamo Bay and exposing events like the killing of journalists by US forces in Iraq.

But more recently the group and its founder, Julian Assange, have been accused of pandering to a pro-Russian agenda.

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Assange jumps in with anti-Mueller propaganda. In yellow is the original tweet. In blue is what they deliberately left out. @20committee pic.twitter.com/7FeqjNKjyv  Patrick S. Tomlinson (@stealthygeek) July 30, 2017

Hey, @JulianAssange, just get it over with and ask the Russians for asylum https://t.co/DCEjp81W80  Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) July 30, 2017

Assange has been eager to assist the Trumps in the ongoing probe into possible collusion between the Presidents associates and Russia during the 2016 US election.

When Donald Trump Jr released an email showing he attended a meeting with the knowledge he was to receive damaging information on Hillary Clinton via the Russian government, Assange tweeted:

Contacted Trump Jr this morning on why he should publish his emails (i.e with us). Two hours later, does it himself: https://t.co/FzCttGSyr6  Julian Assange  (@JulianAssange) July 11, 2017

He added: I argued that his enemies have it  so why not the public? His enemies will just milk isolated phrases for weeks or months ... with their own context, spin and according to their own strategic timetable.

Better to be transparent and have the full context ... but would have been safer for us to publish it anonymously sourced.

By publishing it himself it is easier to submit as evidence.

Assange has been living in the Ecuadoran embassy in London since 2012 trying to avoid extradition by the Swedish authorities over a rape case which was dropped in May.

He has long fought the charges, saying he feared it would ultimately mean extradition to the US for prosecution over what Wikileaks has published.

Swedens decision to discontinue its case ends that threat.

But appearing on the balcony of the embassy in May, Assange said a legal conflict with the United States and the UK continued and the road is far from over.

He is still there.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.
Corning Incorporated engages in display technologies, optical communications, environmental technologies, specialty materials, and life sciences businesses worldwide. The company's Display Technologies segment offers glass substrates for liquid crystal displays and organic light-emitting diodes used in televisions, notebook computers, desktop monitors, tablets, and handheld devices. Its Optical Communications segment provides optical fibers and cables; and hardware and equipment products, including cable assemblies, fiber optic hardware and connectors, optical components and couplers, closures, network interface devices, and other accessories. This segment also offers its products to businesses, governments, and individuals. Its Specialty Materials segment manufactures products that provide material formulations for glass, glass ceramics, crystals, precision metrology instruments, software; as well as ultra-thin and ultra-flat glass wafers, substrates, tinted sunglasses, and radiation shielding products. This segment serves various industries, including mobile consumer electronics, semiconductor equipment optics and consumables; aerospace and defense optics; radiation shielding products, sunglasses, and telecommunications components. The company's Environmental Technologies segment offers ceramic substrates and filter products for emissions control in mobile, gasoline, and diesel applications. The company's Life Sciences segment offers laboratory products comprising consumables, such as plastic vessels, liquid handling plastics, specialty surfaces, cell culture media, and serum, as well as general labware and equipment under the Corning, Falcon, Pyrex, and Axygen brands. The company was formerly known as Corning Glass Works and changed its name to Corning Incorporated in April 1989. Corning Incorporated was founded in 1851 and is headquartered in Corning, New York.
Drivers will be under threat of slow-and-go traffic beginning Tuesday if they take a popular stretch of canyon road along the Rio Grande between the northern New Mexico villages of Rinconada and Pilar.

Expect delays of between 15 to 30 minutes in the six-mile stretch of N.M. 68  a two-lane highway with views of the river and high cliffs that sees plenty of local and tourist traffic throughout the year  due to construction of a natural gas pipeline in the right of way along the northbound lane.

The $14 million project of the New Mexico Gas Company is expected to last until the end of November. Until then, drivers coming from either direction take turns waiting, then being led by pilot cars through a single lane 24 hours a day, seven days a week, said Tim Korte, spokesman for the gas utility.

Construction will take place 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday through Saturday.

Neil Nobles, owner of the roadside Sugars barbecue in Embudo south of Rinconada, said he learned about the project from a reporter a few weeks ago. Nobles, who was preparing some menu items last Friday, said hes worried that fans of his brisket and burgers from up north in Red River wont be coming down the highway for a bite.

I think its going to have an impact, Nobles said.

Meanwhile, New Wave Rafting vice president Steve Miller said hes concerned the first two weeks of the project will disrupt the land office business in end-of-summer rafters that he and other commercial raft companies depend on. New Wave employs eight people; other, larger companies employ more, he said. There are 15 commercial rafters who run this portion of the river.

The construction area coincides in part with the Rio Grande Racecourse, a popular stretch of water that begins at Pilar with a take-out at the Taos/Rio Arriba county line north of Rinconada.

Some rafting companies with permits to put in near Pilar often have customers arrive at the Rio Grande Gorge Visitors Center parking lot in Pilar.

Others transport customers north up via N.M. 68 to Pilar, either all the way from Santa Fe to or from a parking lot at the county line near Rinconda, or the put-in and will have go through the construction zone.

Getting sometimes distracted raft-trip ticket holders to the right spot, on time, is a challenge even without construction, Miller said. Adding 30-minute delays is going to play havoc with the choreography at the too-tight raft-trip launch site, he said.

Rafting permit holders had asked the utility to put off construction until mid-August, when many out-of-state tourists have to returned to school, Miller said.

However, the project is expected to take four months and utility officials are concerned that winter weather could delay completion, said the gas companys Korte.

The paving has to be complete before the cold weather begins, he said. The Aug. 1 start date is necessary, he said.

The rafting companies concerns are important  utility representatives met with the commercial rafters before other public meetings began in April, Korte said.

Were hoping to minimize the impact on their business, Korte said.

Utility representatives made presentations to public bodies from Angel Fire to Espanola, he said, as well as to state agencies such as the Department of Tourism and State Police. The utility contacted tourism-focused business associations, and distributed 5,000 fliers for visitors kiosks at restaurants and other tourist sites. The company also contacted an association of commercial truckers and two motorcycle businesses.

The new pipeline will replace one that is on the west side of the canyon and supplies natural gas to 16,000 customers in Taos, Questa and Red River. The current pipeline has been subject to unstable soils and three landslides. The utility began work on changing the pipelines location in 2014. Public comment via the Bureau of Land Management began in 2015 and an environmental assessment was completed in 2016. Final approval occurred in April, according to the utilitys online answers to frequently asked questions on the project.

Three alternate routes for motorists are being suggested, but they arent detours, Korte said. The alternative routes, which include a portion of the scenic High Road to Taos, may see more traffic and, for businesses along the way, more customers.

Traffic will continue through N.M. 68, just at a slower rate. The northbound lane between Mile Marker 24 and Mile Marker 30 will be closed a mile at a time for construction and the construction will move north to south, the gas company says.

More information is available at @nmgasco on Twitter and Facebook.
Political boss Clyde Tingley held court here. Glamorous actress and socialite Zsa Zsa Gabor slept here. And, so the story goes, Old West law dog and frontier legend Wyatt Earp lay low here.

Here is Downtown Albuquerque, the stretch that runs along Central Avenue from First Street west to Eighth Street. Its a section studded with storied buildings such as the old Hilton Hotel, now the Hotel Andaluz; the Sunshine Building; the KiMo Theatre; and Maisels Indian Trading Post. Its a belt of blocks sprinkled with memories of long-gone landmarks such as the Alvarado Hotel, the Grant Opera House and the Armijo House.

Walk along this memory lane with people who know where to point, and you can touch the ghosts of the bankers, lawyers, physicians, merchants and impresarios, the movers and shakers, who started Albuquerque along the path to what it is today.

Walking history

Albuquerque was founded in 1706, but the Albuquerque you are going to hear about today started when the railroad arrived in 1880, Janet Saiers said.

Saiers is vice president in charge of programs for the Albuquerque Historical Society. On this Saturday morning a couple of weeks ago, she was talking to a group of five people, including two from Denmark, who had gathered at the southwest corner of First Street and Central Avenue for the Historical Societys weekly guided Downtown Walking Tour.

We are going to talk about architecture, Saiers said. Some of the buildings on Central are 100 years old, which is old for Albuquerque. It might not be old for Denmark.

Initiated in 2014, the Historic Societys walking tour is led, on a rotating basis, by one of the 11 guides especially trained for the task. Guides carry binders containing photos of historic buildings and some use an amplification device to be better heard over the roar of motorcycles, cars and buses coursing the city streets.

Sometimes 10 or more people show up for a tour, sometimes only one and, on occasion, no one at all. But Saiers said people from all over the state, all over the country and all over the world have taken the tour.

Its a really nice way to get a quick brush up on history, said Rasmus Pedersen, 34, of Copenhagen, Denmark, who, with Tine Nielsen, 30, also of Copenhagen, took the walking tour July 15. You see things you dont notice if you just walk around on your own. You take a tour like this and you begin to notice things.

New Town

The tour route is made up of what was known as New Town 137 years ago when railroad tracks were put down a mile and a half east of Old Town, the original Spanish settlement.

Streets were laid out east and west of the railroad tracks. Back then Central Avenue was called Railroad Avenue, a name it would retain until it was rechristened Central in 1904. The buildings that grew up along those streets in the early days were made out of adobe and wood.

None of the buildings from those earliest times survive today, said Shannon Wagers, a semi-retired journalist who is a tour guide. Many of them burned down.

Some buildings, such as the lavish Alvarado Hotel, a Fred Harvey-operated railroad facility opened in 1902, were torn down. The Alvarado, despite efforts to save it, was demolished in 1970. In 2002, the Alvarado Transportation Center, a scaled down replica of the Alvarado Hotel, opened on the hotels old site on the southeast corner of Central and First Street. The center serves ABQRide, Amtrack, Greyhound and the Rail Runner Express.

My favorite place on the tour is the beginning at First and Central, Saiers said. I enjoy showing the photo of the 1902 Alvarado Hotel and then allowing people to note the architectural features  bell tower, arches, curves  that were mimicked in the construction of the transportation building.

The Sunshine Building at 120 Central SW is another building special to Saiers, a 1966 Del Norte High School graduate. Opened in May 1924 as a 920-seat movie palace, the six-story Sunshine was among Albuquerques first skyscrapers. It continued to show movies until the 1980s.

As a kid, it was a big deal to be dropped off at the Sunshine to go to the movies, Saiers said. Then, if my dad gave me money for a soda and popcorn, that was beyond belief. To the mind of a child, the inside of the theater was gigantic. I didnt know the difference between 500 seats and 5,000 seats. And the smell of popcorn in the lobby was heavenly.

Saiers told her tour guests that the Sunshine is now an office building and that most of the offices are occupied.

Seat of power

In 1939, San Antonio, N.M., native and hotel magnate Conrad Hilton built the Albuquerque Hilton at 125 Second St. NW. Now called the Hotel Andaluz, the luxurious California Mission style hotel is among Wagers favorite tour attractions.

I always like to take people into the hotel because its quiet there, she said. Its just a nice stop.

Not to mention that it is exquisitely beautiful and filled with colorful stories. Hilton honeymooned here with Gabor, his second wife, whom he married in 1942. Tingley was the center of attention during frequent sessions in the hotel lobby between 1940 and 1953, the years he served as the powerful chairman of the Albuquerque City Commission . The chair Tingley is said to have used back then is preserved in the hotel.

Exiting north from the hotel onto Copper Street, Wagers notes that Copper and Third streets marked the heart of Albuquerques red-light district from the 1890s up until the 1920s, a time when vice operated pretty much in the open.

There were brothels here, she said pointing west along Copper. Some were upscale, in particular the Vine Cottage, which stood about where the entrance to that parking garage is. There were also a few opium dens around.

Gunfighters and fires

If your roots run deep enough in Albuquerque, it may be easier to see things that are not here anymore, things you didnt see even when they were here.

Tour guide Abraham Santillanes grew up in Old Town and passed his childhood in the stores and theaters along Central Avenue. He pointed to the southwest corner of Central and Third Street.

That was the site of Albuquerques first major hotel, the Armijo House, Santillanes tells the party he is guiding. It was started by a prominent New Mexico family.

Built in 1880, the three-story hotel was thought to be the only first-class hotel in Albuquerque at the time. Some believe that Wyatt Earp, John H. Doc Holliday and several others involved in the infamous Oct. 26, 1881, gunfight at the OK Corral in Tombstone, Ariz., and/or its bloody aftermath may have stayed at the Armijo House in April 1882 while seeking refuge in Albuquerque from their enemies in Arizona. The Armijo House was destroyed by fire in February 1897.

It was a fire many years later, in 1953, that proved to be the most significant for Downtown Albuquerque. That fire damaged the Sears Roebuck Building, which was built in 1937 and still stands at 501-505 Central NW. While repairing the damage, Sears opened a temporary store east of Downtown in the Central and San Mateo Boulevard area. That site proved so popular that it signaled the coming migration of businesses, starting in earnest in the 1960s, from Downtown to the Heights.

The Sears fire was the beginning of the end for Downtown Albuquerque, Santillanes said. It had a good run from 1880 to about 1965. But by the 60s it was congested. Parking was impossible.

Magnificent remnants

Downtown may have dimmed down some since its glory days in the early 20th century when the electric lights embedded in the exterior of the Albuquerque Gas, Electric Light and Power Company, then located in the McCanna/Hubbell Building, 418-424 Central SW, blazed up that section of the street for blocks around.

But magnificent remnants, such as Maisels Indian Trading Post, boasting marvelous Native American murals on its entrance way at 510 Central SW, and the wondrously ornate Pueblo Deco KiMo Theatre, opened in 1927, rescued by city purchase in 1977 and restored in subsequent years, are alive and well and doing business.

And the memories of things lost and times past are stirred up most Saturday mornings during the Albuquerque Historical Societys walking tour.

I always enjoy it, said Greg Naranjo, a New Mexico native and longtime Albuquerque resident, who walked his second tour earlier this month. I always learn so much, and you get different perspectives with different guides.

DOWNTOWN WALKING TOUR

WHAT: Guided tour by the Albuquerque Historical Society

WHEN: 10 a.m.-noon Saturdays, January-November

WHERE: Starts at southwest corner of Central Avenue and First Street and proceeds west to Eighth Street.

HOW MUCH: Free

WHAT ELSE: Reservations required only for parties of five and more. Special tours may be arranged for days other than Saturday. Call 505-289-0586 for reservations or special tours.

ADVICE: Wear comfortable shoes.
The work of Paul Sarkisian crosses borders, composition, movements and materials.

Paintings and prints by the Santa Fe-based artist will hang in the lobby and throughout the Albuquerque Museum as part of its summer artist-in-residence program beginning Tuesday, Aug. 1.

Consisting of seven works and about five smaller pieces, the show has been organized like a mini-exhibition. Past artists-in-residence splashed paint across the museum walls (think pueblo-meets-sci fi conjurer Virgil Ortiz).

Sarkisian simply has been at the cutting edge of contemporary painting since the 60s, curator Andrew Connors said.

An abstract painter in the 1950s, Sarkisian turned to gargantuan, hyperrealistic imagery in the 1960s and 70s. Along the way, he explored surrealism, minimalism and maximalism. By the 1980s, he was bridging stylistic boundaries.

Sarkisians 1980 Untitled (Painting No. 4), currently hanging in the museums Common Ground exhibition, reveals a menage of materials and trompe loeil techniques that fool visitors into thinking a meticulously painted object is a folded newspaper, complete with what appears to be a photograph of a roaring locomotive. The piece is tactile enough that security guards placed a barrier before it to prevent touching. Sarkisian framed the work in panels of glitter.

Its the whole idea of illusion and perspective, Connors said. I just find it a great adventure into, what are we looking at? You dont have to know anything about art to understand his work.

By the 1990s, Sarkisian had adopted a more minimalist approach, reducing carefully rendered objects into their most basic shapes. Untitled (right leaning red 51), 2005, is typical of his ability to bring vitality and life to hard-edged abstraction in puzzle form. The full image looks like the wing of a bird, or an organic spaceship.

It is packed with motion and internal movement and because of its clean, hard edges and elegant proportions, it is easy to lose sight of the shapes origins as a scribble, or simple squiggle of overlapping loops, Connors said.

(Untitled)(El Paso), 1971-72, appeared in a major SITE Santa Fe exhibition of Sarkisians work in 2005. Part homage to the French neoclassical painter Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, it appropriates one of Ingres virginal nudes, adding an upside-down sheep that conceals the face. The result is a fractured hybrid of figurative painting and surrealism.

Hes constantly pushing peoples perceptions as to what art-making is about, Connors said. Now nearing 90, the Chicago-born Sarkisian first came to New Mexico from California for a residency at the Tamarind Institute. He later moved to Cerrillos, then to Santa Fe.

He was always trying to experiment, Connors said. It means an artist like Sarkisian is hard to pigeonhole.

If you go

WHAT: Paul Sarkisian

WHEN: 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Sunday Aug. 1 through June 30, 2018

WHERE: Albuquerque Museum, 2000 Mountain Road, SW

HOW MUCH: $1-4 at albuquerquemuseum.org or 243-7255
Recently, Gov. John Hickenlooper of Colorado decided to endorse the Paris Global Accord and set his state on a path to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent. He recognizes his state can save and make money because of cheap natural gas and the declining costs of solar and wind power. Gov. Hickenloopers vision is a win-win for both fossil fuel and alternative energy proponents.

New Mexico, with our abundance of wind and sunlight, has a tremendous opportunity to become a national model for increased solar and wind power, coupled with a decreased dependence on fossil fuels. An innovative and aggressive energy vision will generate a lasting positive legacy for Gov. Susana Martinez and help our state prosper economically and ecologically in the future.

New Mexico has 300-350 days of sunshine annually and fair-to-good wind resources. It ranks in the top 10 solar-friendly states. Our Renewable Portfolio Standard approved in 2004 mandates that 20 percent of our electricity must come from renewable sources by 2020. Good for us. But the present trajectory is neither innovative nor robust enough to maximize the true potential of renewable energy in our state. Given the bounty of our solar and wind energy, and the clear job creation potential therein, an aggressive harnessing of these renewable resources is in order and imperative.

The shift to more investment in renewable energy will not jeopardize our fossil fuel industry but complement it. Lowering the overall cost of energy in New Mexico will increase the efficiency of our fossil fuel industry and make these resources last longer. Today, Germany produces about 31 percent of its energy from alternative resources. In 2015 approximately 350,000 jobs in Germany were attributed to the renewable energy sector. Thats quite impressive, and Germanys wind and solar resources pale compared to New Mexicos.

Over the next 15 years, New Mexico should engage with private-sector energy providers and land developers to rationally expand the delivery of solar and wind energy. The governor and state legislators should update our RPS and mandate at least 50 percent of the states total energy requirement be supplied by wind and solar power by 2035. This is an achievable goal.

The governor can request federal assistance to seed and expand our renewal resource capabilities using a job-creation rationale under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and through the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. This has to happen now because time may be running out. A revitalized energy vision should promote rapid expansion by private-sector stakeholders through tax incentives and guaranteed support for implementation. If the governor embraces this vision, it will benefit all citizens by creating jobs, providing inexpensive reusable power and creating incentives for companies and individuals to come to New Mexico to get in on our power boom. A bipartisan vision and action plan for renewable-energy expansion must be brokered. The governor should seize this opportunity. If she does, we will pay less for our energy, have more new, higher-paying jobs, more skilled workers will immigrate to our state, our economic trajectory will be brighter and all New Mexicans will benefit.

New Mexico has a unique opportunity. The time is right to embrace alternative energy. Gov. Martinezs legacy awaits.

Victor K. Barbiero is an adjunct professor in the Department of Global Health at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University.
WASHINGTON  If President Trump ordered a senior government official to support the firing of special counsel Robert Mueller, how should that person respond?

Adm. Mike Rogers, head of the National Security Agency, answered my question about that onstage at the Aspen Security Forum. He began with the usual caveat that he wouldnt answer a hypothetical but then offered a comment that brought spontaneous applause:

I will not violate the oath I have taken in my 36 years as a commissioned officer. He said he regularly reminds NSA employees to recall their own oaths and ask themselves: Why are we here? What are we about? What is it that we are defending?  I wont sacrifice that for anyone.

In Trumps Washington, its a fact of life that officials must now weigh whether they would follow presidential orders that might be improper or illegal. Officials mull  and occasionally, discuss quietly  what to do if a presidential request for loyalty conflicts with their sense of right and wrong.

A possible order to fire Mueller is an imminent concern, but there are other tests of loyalty and conscience that could arise with this impulsive, policy-by-Twitter chief executive.

Take Trumps proclamation Wednesday that transgender people shouldnt serve in the military. This apparently caught the Pentagon by surprise and contradicted a wait-and-see statement by Defense Secretary James Mattis. How should he and his generals respond to the presidents edict?

Mattis and his commanders must also ponder how they would react to an impulsive order to conduct military action somewhere. Can they say no to the commander in chief?

Presidential orders cannot ordinarily be ignored or dismissed. Our system gives the commander in chief extraordinary power. Jack Goldsmith, a Harvard law professor and former assistant attorney general, explains in an email: A subordinate in the executive branch has a presumptive duty to carry out the command of the president. If one doesnt want to for any reason, one can resign  or refuse the order and face a strong likelihood of being fired.

For a military officer, the standard is even tougher. Soldiers must obey orders unless theyre unlawful. Under our system of civilian control, if the president issues an order  as on transgender soldiers  the militarys default response is to carry it out. Courts may find the presidential order to have been unconstitutional, but the military cannot make its own policy or law.

How should Congress and Justice Department officials weigh their choices as Trump threatens openly to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions, presumably to clear the way for firing Mueller? Its useful to think about the unthinkable  as a way of surfacing, and hopefully preventing, abuse of power.

Lets start with Justice. Since Sessions recused himself from the Russia investigation, an order to fire Mueller, for now, would go to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, who has strongly indicated he would refuse. In June, members of the Senate Appropriations Committee got this commitment: I am not going to follow any orders unless I believe those are lawful and appropriate orders. Special counsel Mueller may be fired only for good cause, and I am required to put that cause in writing.

Can Congress obtain similar pledges from other senior officials of the Justice Department who would be in the chain of command? During the Watergate scandal, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and his deputy, William Ruckelshaus, felt bound by the commitments they had given Congress not to fire special prosecutor Archibald Cox. A similar chain of obligation should be forged now, to circumscribe Trumps ability to sack Mueller.

Given the expectation that Rosenstein, and probably others, would quit rather than fire Mueller, the White House seems to be thinking about installing a new attorney general who wouldnt have the recusal problem and could be counted on to fire Trumps nemesis. Members of Congress are said to be gaming this option, thinking of ways to block a recess appointment or to extract a promise from any Sessions successor to leave Mueller alone. Thats another good firewall.

Protecting Mueller by statute may be impossible because of the constitutional separation of powers. If he is fired, though, Congress could enact a new independent counsel law, at least providing the authority needed for a continuing investigation that will get to the truth of what happened. In dealing with this administration, lawmakers and other officials cant wait until the bomb detonates; they should begin to take precautions now.

Email: davidignatius@washpost.com. Copyright, Washington Post Writers Group.
Pink Cotton, a bay son of High Cotton racing for Teed Off Stable LLC, led at every call en route to a three-quarter length win in s $50,000 Duke City Sprint Stakes for 3-year-olds at Albuquerque Downs.

Ridden by Elvin Gonzalez for trainer Bart Hone, Pink Cotton went 5 1/2 furlongs in 1:04.29 and returned a $4 win mutuel as the even-money favorite in the field of six. The colt earned $30,000 to push his bankroll to $66,750 from five starts.

Pink Cotton was bred in Florida by Winchester Baye Acres Inc. The colt was returning to New Mexico off of a sixth-place finish in the 1-mile, $65,000 Prairie Mile Stakes at Prairie Meadows near Des Moines, Iowa.

While out of the state, Pink Cotton scored a wire-to-wire victory in a 6-furlong, $32,000 first-level allowance race on .

I think his last race goes to show us that hes a sprinter, said John Wilkins, a managing member of Teed Off Stable, of Pink Cottons sixth-place run in the Prairie Mile. I dont think two turns are in his future, so well keep him sprinting.

We want to keep him in New Mexico and we want to keep him sprinting, he added. So hopefully youll see him one more time here (in Albuquerque), and then maybe well point him toward the Sunland Park meet during the winter.

Pink Cotton has won three starts, including a 5-furlong, $22,000 maiden-special-weight race in his career debut at Sunland on .

Evolve, a 22-1 longshot, ran second to complete a $2 exacta payoff of $73.60. Ranger Rod, Outrageous Green, Wine N Divine, and Bernin Sensation completed the order of finish.

RUIDOSO DOWNS: Apollitical Approach won the $59,850 John Deere Ruidoso Juvenile Challenge Saturday when Legal Eagle, which finished first, was disqualified. Also, Nolans Theory won the $50,000 By By JJ at 11-1 odds, and 2-5 favorite Jess A Hilbily Bone won the Bobby Dan Crenshaw Memorial.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

TRUJILLO, N.M  At a June U.S. Senate committee hearing, Department of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke and U.S. Sen. Martin Heinrich engaged in a testy exchange over a stalled deal that would provide public access to the federally designated Sabinoso Wilderness, 16,000 acres of spectacular canyon country in northeastern New Mexico landlocked by surrounding private property.

Zinke wouldnt commit to accepting the particulars of a plan, first announced last year, for the non-profit Wilderness Land Trust to donate an adjacent former ranch to the federal government as an access point for hikers, horseback riders and hunters to enter the wilderness.

Have you ever been there? Heinrich asked rhetorically. Well, on Saturday, Zinke was there.

And after a horseback ride with Heinrich and Sen. Tom Udall, an elk-and-chicken fajita lunch overlooking the Sabinosos Canyon Largo and conversations with a couple dozen hunting and wilderness advocates, Zinke said he has very favorable impressions of the access plan, with fine points and final details to be worked out.

The view is a little different from the Potomac, he told the Journal in an on-site interview, than it is, the view, from here. And being on horseback is the best way to see it, he said. There will be an announcement on the Sabinoso access issue soon, Zinke said.

On another hot topic, Zinke said the public shouldnt expect major changes, if any, to two New Mexico national monuments he is reviewing under orders from President Donald Trump  the Rio Grande del Norte in Taos County and the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks in Dona Ana County, which were established via proclamation by former President Barack Obama.

Zinke, a former Navy SEAL and U.S. House member from Montana, has been in New Mexico to collect information and comment on the New Mexico monuments, holding meetings and other events in southern New Mexico Thursday and Friday.

He dismissed the suggestion hes heard more from monument opponents than supporters. Like today? he asked, nodding toward the New Mexico Wildlife Federation leaders and public land advocates who cooked up the food and otherwise hosted the Sabinoso event.

For the New Mexico monuments, it seems to be the majority of people are proponents of the monuments than opponents, he said. Thats different than in some areas where the grass-roots have a much more pronounced apprehension and objections to the monuments.

He said, though, that Interior is reviewing specific issues, such as whether monument rules could affect flood control, fire suppression and even Border Patrol operations by, for instance, putting more red tape in front of road repairs after a flood. He also made a point of noting that fifth- and sixth-generation New Mexico ranchers with operations dating back to Spanish land grants  some ranchers have opposed the monument designations  are a very important part of the culture.

Zinke said he wanted to emphasize there are no plans to sell off Bureau of Land Management or other public lands. He heard in Las Cruces over the past few days that a driving force for the Organ Mountains-Desert Peaks monument was to protect against future sale of BLM territory.

I want to ensure everyone that there is no plan or intention ever to divest BLM, he said, with the exception of such previous transactions to give up acreage for schools or universities.

Optimism on Sabinoso deal

Sens. Heinrich and Udall, both Democrats, were optimistic about Sabinoso Wilderness access after their horseback tour with Republican Zinke. The three VIPs rode into Canyon Largo from a point reached over about nine miles of what are now unpaved, county and private roads from Trujillo, a village roughly 30 miles east of Las Vegas, N.M. Beforehand, the senators publicly thanked Zinke for making the trip to a remote part of New Mexico. You were persistent, Zinke said.

I think there will be a good resolution, said Udall. I think it was really important for him to see how valuable this land is.

Heinrich called the visit very constructive, and that he believed the access plan will be moving forward.

Zinke had been concerned previously about accepting the donated ranch as wilderness itself and whether there should be other kinds of access beyond on foot or horseback.

Zinke said Saturday that issues that still need to worked out in the access plan for the gorgeous and unique valley include how to provide access for firefighting equipment and infrastructure to serve visitors, such as parking area restrooms and directional signs, he said.

Zinke and the senators encountered a group of turkeys on their ride. The wilderness is also considered prime habitat for other game, including mule deer and elk. BLM officials who were part of a group that hiked into the canyon, where huge tarantula wasps were a highlight amid the cliffs and riparian areas along an intermittent stream, said its mostly hunters who are clamoring for access to the wilderness via the 3,600 acre-ranch that has been purchased by the Wilderness Land Trust.

I think it went well, said Wildlife Federation executive director Garrett VeneKlasen of Zinkes visit. I think this is going to happen. Im very excited about it, as will our 83,000 members be excited about it. It needs to happen and it needs to happen quickly.

Zinke said public lands are not a partisan issue. No one is more passionate about public lands than I am, he said. You can be as passionate, but you cant be more passionate.
SYDNEY  An Islamic-inspired terrorist plot to bring down a plane has been foiled by counter-terrorism raids across Sydney, Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull told reporters early Sunday.

Four men were arrested during the raids by heavily armed anti-terrorism squads carried out on Saturday night on five properties in Sydney after police received information from partner agencies.

Security had been increased at Australias major airports since Thursday, when police received information relating to a possible terror attack, Turnbull said.

Travelers could expect delays and should arrive earlier at airports because of increased security checks on luggage, he said.

Despite the raid, Turnbull said Australias terror threat level remained at probable.

The threat of terrorism is very real, Turnbull said. Airport security was enhanced and intensified two days before Saturday nights raid, he said.

Police acted after they became aware people in Sydney were planning to commit a terrorist attack using an improvised device, Australian Federal Police Commissioner Andrew Colvin said.

The four men arrested have not yet been charged. Colvin declined to say whether they were known to police before the raids or whether they were members of Islamic State or any known terrorist group.

The attack was to target the Australian aviation industry at a major airport, but airport security had not been compromised, Colvin said.

Terrorists are becoming very ingenious about ways to defeat our security mechanisms, Colvin said.

Australia has some of the best, if not the best airport security arrangements in the world and were confident those measures are effective, and would have been effective, in this circumstance, he said.

Police were still searching the properties, Colvin said, and he declined to say whether they had found bomb-making materials.

During the raids, a man with a bandage on his head and draped in a blanket was filmed by media being led away by authorities.

One woman told local broadcaster ABC that her son and husband were arrested during the raid, but she said they had no links to terrorism. I love Australia, she said before she was escorted away by police.

The occupants of a raided home were perfectly nice and normal people who said hello and seemed nice, a neighbor told the Australian Associated Press.

This was the 13th alleged conspiracy thwarted since the terror threat level was raised to probable in 2014, Justice Minister Michael Keenan said.

Since that time, a total of 70 people have faced charges as a result of 31 operations.

The primary threat to Australia still remains lone actors, Keenan said.

Five people have been killed in Islamic-inspired terrorist attacks in Australia: two at the 2014 Lindt cafe siege in Sydney; one police civilian employee shot by a radicalized teen in 2015; a garage attendant stabbed by two radicalized teens in April; and a Chinese-Australian hostage shot in June.

About 100 people have left Australia for Syria to fight alongside organizations such as Islamic State, Australias immigration minister, Peter Dutton, has said.

More than 40 people have been jailed on terrorism charges in Australia, and a so-called supermax top security jail to hold convicted terrorists is being expanded to prevent other inmates being radicalized.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

Ayudando Guardians Inc. opened its doors with two nurses and a medical records expert in 2004. It was formed, according to its website, due to the enormous need for guardians and conservators in the State of New Mexico.

The nonprofit Albuquerque-based guardian and conservator firm  now accused along with its principal owners of looting millions of dollars from client accounts  grew over the years.

And, the company increasingly became a family affair.

Newly unsealed federal search warrant affidavits describe how Ayudando  described in one federal document as permeated by criminal activity  began hiring more and more relatives of its two principals, Susan Harris and Sharon Moore.

Three family members, in addition to Harris and Moore, had their own Ayudando credit cards and over a four-year period racked up more than $1 million in personal purchases, court records allege.

Two of the three family members serve on Ayudandos board of directors, drawing salaries of at least $56,000 a year, a 2015 IRS tax form shows. Each of the three relatives racked up tens of thousands of dollars in credit card charges from 2013 to March 2017, one affidavit states.

The purchases do not appear to be related to Ayudando clients, said one affidavit stated. The credit charges appear to be personal expenses such as cruises, hotels, casinos, automobiles, furniture and other personal expenses.

The affidavits identify the three relatives as: Harris husband, William Harris, Craig Young and Cody Harris. They have not been charged.

Susan Harris and Moore were arrested after a 28-count federal criminal indictment was unsealed July 19. The company was also indicted.

Several Ayudando employees who became confidential witnesses in the case told investigators that Ayudando appeared to be putting more and more family members on the payroll and the business owners and their families appear to be living lavish lifestyles with expensive vehicles and expensive vacations, one affidavit states.

The organization was tightly run by the family insiders. Affidavits allege that some non-family employees had their access to client accounts cut off  meaning they lost their ability to monitor transactions and balances.

There was even a file room at the companys Central Avenue offices that non-family members were barred from entering, an affidavit alleges.

Mission gone awry

Ayudandos web site sets out a lofty mission statement.

As a provider for the State of New Mexico,Veterans and private individuals, Ayudando employs an experienced team of licensed social workers and rehabilitation specialists.

This diverse group is able to assist our clients with their everyday needs as well as providing assistance in managing their financial needs.

Details emerging from the yearlong federal investigation describe a different kind of operation.

Federal agents made detailed allegations in affidavits seeking search warrants to obtain company records and, more recently, sought permission to seize a 2018 K-Z RV Durango Gold 5th wheel RV purchased in late June of this year by Harris and her husband of 27 years, William Harris. They allegedly bought the RV using proceeds from an illegal scheme to embezzle funds from clients, some with special needs, according to an affidavit filed July 24.

Harris, 70, and Moore, 62, have pleaded not guilty to charges of money laundering, mail fraud, conspiracy and aggravated identity theft that allegedly dates back to 2006. Both women were ordered released from federal custody under certain conditions and after posting property bonds Friday.

Both have homes in the Tanoan Country Club area in Albuquerques Northeast Heights. An attorney for Moore didnt return a Journal phone call. Robert Gorence, who represented Susan Harris at her detention hearing, had no comment. Efforts to reach lawyers who have represented the firm in the past were unsuccessful last week.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorneys Office in Albuquerque declined to comment on whether the family members named in the affidavits or anyone else will be charged in the case.

The arrests of the two women coincided with a federal restraining order against them and 11 others, barring their entry into Ayudando offices at 1400 Central SE without prior approval from the U.S. Marshals Service. Several of those are believed to be family members of Sharon Moore or Susan Harris.

Based on the widespread indications of criminal activity, centered around Ayudandos core bank accounts and affecting all categories of its clients, it appears Ayudando is permeated by criminal activity, said one IRS agent in seeking a July 12 search of Ayudando offices. Efforts to restrict the search to certain client files would be futile and could result in substantial under-collection of evidence of criminal activity.

Federal agents who executed the search removed more than 476 boxes of documents along with computer hard drives from the business.

Accidental discoveries

The affidavits chronicle how over the past year at least four employees, referred to as confidential witnesses, came forward with information about the alleged embezzlement. The affidavit refers to them as walk-ins.

They told federal investigators how they discovered that Ayudando client funds were disappearing. At least twice, according to one affidavit, the employees found out by happenstance while company owners appeared to take steps to keep their activities hidden.

For instance, the affidavits say:

 One employee accidentally wrote a check for client services from a clients Veterans Affairs money market account. The check bounced, and, when she called the bank, she was told the money market account had been closed due to insufficient funds. According to the bank, there had been about $100,000 in transfers from the clients VA money market account into other Ayudando bank accounts.

 Employees who work as representative payees  managing monthly client pension or benefits checks from the VA or Social Security  didnt normally have access to Ayudando petty cash account. But several months ago, an employee accidentally got access to that account and saw that there were lots of payments from the petty cash account to the Ayudando owners and their family members. There was also a $75,000 payment to an American Express card from the petty cash.

 At least two confidential witnesses reported that their prior access to VA clients savings or money market accounts had been taken away several years ago. That kept them from seeing the balances. They had access only to a clients checking accounts.

 One employee alleged that she had a client who died about four or five years ago and who was missing about $30,000 from his account. The confidential witness told investigators the deceased client had money that should have been returned to Social Security. After she asked defendant Moore if the funds had been returned, the employee lost access to that clients account, and doesnt know if the money was ever returned.

 One relative of Ayudando president Susan Harris who works as a guardian is alleged to have taken about $22,000 in client funds from two different clients and failed to provide receipts to show where the money went. Such client advances require that guardians submit receipts. When informed about the issue, Moore told the employee in charge of the accounts that she would take care of it.

Stealing from veterans

The indictment singles out the cases of 10 veterans the government contends were victims of the alleged embezzlement scheme. Information in the affidavits suggests there could be several dozen more clients whose accounts were illegally tapped.

For instance, one employee told federal agents that one developmentally disabled client was missing about $30,000 from his account.

Another employee discovered on Jan. 24 of this year that 25 clients were missing a total of about $70,000 from their accounts.

Still another employee told investigators that she deals with mostly Social Security income clients who have limited income and financial resources. She stated that she has some clients who are children that are missing money.

The indictment alleged that the defendants diverted more than $4 million from petty cash and client reimbursement accounts to pay off credit cards used to pay for luxury vacations, vehicles and more.

The July 12 search warrant affidavit also stated, Additional large, unusual and questionable checks were written to pay for additional items that do not appear to be related to client accounts.

Missing private cash

Guardianship/Conservatorship services may be needed when someone is incompetent to manage his or her own financial affairs and/or personal care, and has no viable alternative method of delegating these duties to another, the company web site states.

About 166 of Ayudandos clients in New Mexico receive such state-funded services, because they were deemed indigent or met other eligibility requirements. The company also had dozens of private pay accounts, according to court records.

The affidavits allege that more than $1 million was missing from at least eight private pay client accounts. An employee, referred to as confidential witness #2, was responsible for managing Ayudandos client bank accounts, paying client bills, selling client assets such as real property and automobiles, and attending court as part of the conservatorship process.

That employee alleged that Moore, the chief financial officer, allegedly took about $700,000 from one clients estate. The estate was supposed to be settled in February 2017 and the employee became concerned that it wouldnt be possible to close the estate if there was money missing. She said Moore recently returned about $220,000 to the estate, but the money came from four other client bank accounts. Another $500,000 was still missing, the employee reported to federal agents.
State district judges in Albuquerque have identified 176 people, many of them indigent and all of them incapacitated in some way, who relied on Ayudando Guardians for help with everything from living arrangements to ensuring their funds, however meager, were safe.

Those people fall under court oversight, because the courts, over the years, have appointed Ayudando Guardians as their guardians or conservators and judges relied on annual reports from the company to keep tabs on Ayudandos clients.

A guardianship/conservatorship offers a higher degree of protection to the individual than other management mechanisms, explains Ayudando on its web site.

Now that the company and its two principals are under federal indictment for looting client accounts and money laundering, two CPAs with the U.S. Marshals Service are winding down Ayudando business operations. The Albuquerque-based company has lost about half of its employees since the recent arrests of its two top managers.

Chief District Judge Nan Nash and Chief Civil Division Judge Shannon Bacon in Bernalillo County said in an interview Friday that the courts are faced with having to quickly find lawyers who will file cases for replacement guardians and conservators, and to ensure no one slips through the cracks.

Our intention is to move heaven and earth to make sure every single case is transferred in a timely manner and in accordance with the law, Bacon said Friday.

Bacon has also asked the State Auditors Office to conduct an audit of 20 other companies, like Ayudando Guardians, that have contracts with the state Office of Guardianship to provide guardianship or conservatorship services for low-income or indigent and incapacitated New Mexicans.

We are looking into the Office of Guardianships oversight and lines of accountability for guardianship companies, said a spokeswoman for State Auditor Tim Keller on Friday.

The guardianship office provides publicly funded guardianship/conservatorship services, paying contractors about $325 a month for each client.

In responding to Journal questions, officials with the Office of Guardianship last week said the agencys most recent audit of Ayudando was in September 2016. Ayudando has 166 clients through its guardianship office contract, and is required to carry liability insurance and post fidelity bonds each year.

In Bernalillo County, about 110 clients who have court-appointed Ayudando guardians and conservators fall under the responsibility of the state guardianship office. That state agency is expected to find replacement companies, but faces budgetary issues and has only about 10 lawyers on contract, the judges told the Journal. Finding lawyers to refile cases for the remaining 66 private pay Ayudando clients is underway, and Bacon is also working to recruit guardians ad litem and other guardians to take over Ayudandos role.

Outside the courts jurisdiction are those clients who gave Ayudando authority to act as their representative payee, managing their monthly income from Social Security, VA pensions or other sources and paying their bills. That group of Ayudando clients will need to find new payees, and if they are now incapacitated, that could send another wave of guardianship/conservatorship cases into the courts.

Nash and Bacon said they learned that the U.S. Marshals Service, which has federal court authority to operate Ayudando for the time being, is expected to end its oversight by the end of August, so there is a looming deadline to transfer clients to other guardians.

As for those Ayudando employees who remain at work, many appeared shocked and worried about their clients when Nash and Bacon visited Ayudandos office last Thursday for a meeting with U.S. Marshals.

I cant tell you how moved we were about the dedication of the employees, Nash said. Even before the indictment was handed down, employees were paying for some clients incidentals out of their own pockets, she said.

They were just as gobsmacked as the rest of us (about whats happened), Nash added.

In promising that clients funds will be protected, Ayudandos web site notes, The guardian/conservator must file an inventory which lists all the property of the client and must file accountings with the court that reflect all transactions involving that persons assets.

But Nash and Bacon said the annual financial reports filed by Ayudando in their courts provided no red flags. Neither judge recalled receiving complaints from Ayudando clients about missing money.

Critics say the annual reports required of guardians and conservators fall short of providing judges with enough information.

Moreover, a recent lawsuit alleges a $600,000 theft of client funds by another Albuquerque conservator, Desert State Life Management. The firm filed annual conservator reports, but accountings of the clients trust funds werent in the court file, according to a lawyer involved in the case.
Justin Crabbe was 22 when he stepped on an improvised explosive device on Aug. 26, 2011, while serving in the Marine Corps in Afghanistan.

The blast claimed both of his legs and many of his fingers.

Upon hearing the news of his injuries, his parents, Cliff and Maureen Crabbe, and sister Jennifer traveled across the country from southern California to be by his side at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Maryland.

I thought, What am I going to do? How am I going to afford this?  said Maureen Crabbe, who was faced with the prospect of paying $100 a night for a hotel room for the three of them.

Thanks to the Fisher House Foundation, the family was able to stay nearby throughout Justins months-long recovery.

Plans for Albuquerques own 16-suite Fisher House, however, are at a standstill while involved parties try to negotiate building the facility in a designated historical district, said Sonja Brown, acting associate director of the New Mexico VA Health Care System.

We had really hoped we could break ground last year, said Brown, who added the proposed site is the only one available for the house.

That wasnt possible due to objections from the New Mexico Historical Preservation Division, which did not accept the foundations proposed plans for the $6 million project, which is to be located in the Albuquerque Veterans Administration Medical Center Historic District.

Fisher Houses provide a free place to stay for the families of military members undergoing treatment at medical facilities.

They feature large suites and shared living spaces intended to allow families the opportunity to interact.

The Fisher House Foundation funds, builds and furnishes the homes before passing them into the care of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The 28-acre historical district in Albuquerque was first placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1983, recognized for the Pueblo Revival architectural style of the buildings located within it.

The site selected for the Fisher House is on the southern end of the parade grounds on the west side of the campus.

That will be the first thing you see when you drive up to the campus, said Jeff Pappas, state historical preservation officer.

Most of the structures, which include the old main hospital building and officers and nurses quarters, were built by the VA in the 1930s to house and treat veterans with tuberculosis.

Chief among the issues with the Fisher House design was its pitched roof, which Pappas said would not fit in with the architecture  and flat roofs  of the surrounding structures.

New construction is possible within an existing historical district, but the buildings do have to conform to certain standards, Pappas said. That was one of the major characteristics we wanted changed.

Pappas said if all the requested changes are made, hell be on board.

But David Coker, president of the Fisher House Foundation, said changing the roof design would be cost prohibitive.

Now, the VA is reviewing a memorandum of agreement between Pappas and itself that would allow for certain adverse effects, like the pitched roof, in exchange for other concessions.

Hopefully, well come to an agreement, Coker said.

He said the organization has dealt with similar situations in the past, including in Charleston, S.C., and Milwaukee.

Were going to let the MOA process run its course, Coker said.

No timeline for the projects completion has been set, but construction should take around a year to complete once begun.

Friends of the New Mexico Fisher House has raised nearly $200,000 of a $3 million goal to contribute toward the project, though Coker said the foundation is capable of footing the entire bill.

We have learned through the years to work with the local community to get a house, he said.

Rita Navarette, an advocate for the project, said there is a substantial need for a Fisher House here, given the rural nature of the state and the fact that patients from around the southwest travel to Albuquerques VA hospital for care.

Fisher Houses dont just provide four walls and a roof, though.

A familys love is the greatest form of healing, Maureen Crabbe said. You couldnt ask for a better organization.

She said the time spent with her family and with other families coping with a sick or injured loved one at the Fisher House was invaluable in the healing process for all four of the Crabbes.

Today, Justin Crabbe is doing phenomenally, his mother said.

Hes happily married and his second daughter, Birdie June, was born last Wednesday.

His story will be featured in Vets for Pets, a book coming out this fall.

He uses a wheelchair around the house and has prosthetics he wears in public.

Hell tell you, hes not going to let this give him a bad day, she said.
Two Albuquerque police officers who shot and wounded a burglary suspect in May made no recordings of the shooting because it unfolded too fast, a police spokeswoman said.

Officers Israel Martinez and Patrick Casias shot and wounded Jacob Pacheco, 24, in May. Police were called to the area after a homeowner was alerted by his in-home security system, which recorded Pacheco rummaging through the mans home.

When the officers found the man near the 200 block of Truman NE, he fled and officers watched Pacheco, who had a firearm, try to carjack a woman, according to a criminal complaint.

Pacheco then tried to get into a marked police car to get away, and he later admitted that he pointed the firearm at Casias before Casias and Martinez fired their weapons, striking him in the arm, the complaint said.

This week, police released 21 on-body camera recordings from officers that captured the aftermath of the shooting, and investigators doing some interviews with officials at a nearby school and with the woman Pacheco tried to carjack. Police also released the home security footage that shows Pacheco in someones home.

Celina Espinoza, a police spokeswoman, didnt say if Casias and Martinez violated a policy by not turning on their cameras during the shooting.

The officers involved only had video immediately following the incident, Espinoza said. They said it simply unfolded too quickly for them to have time to initiate their cameras during the shooting.

Albuquerque police policy calls for officers to make recordings anytime they use force, make an arrest or stop someone and suspect they have committed a crime. But the policy also allows officers not to make recordings if there is a danger.

If the immediate activation of the (on-body camera) is not feasible due to immediate risk to the safety of the department personnel or others, the department personnel will activate the (camera) at the first available opportunity when the immediate threat has dissipated and it is safe to do so, the policy states.

Pacheco told investigators he broke into the house to get money to buy drugs, according to the complaint.

He has since been indicted by a grand jury on aggravated burglary, aggravated assault on a police officer and other charges. He is scheduled to go to trial July 2018.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

TRUJILLO, N.M.  Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Saturday that there was no threat in his calls to Alaskas two Republican U.S. senators last week after one of them broke ranks with the GOP on a health care vote.

Thats ridiculous, Zinke told the Journal when asked if the calls were threatening.  Quite frankly, its laughable.

Zinke was in remote northeastern New Mexico on Saturday to see a proposed public access point for the federally designated Sabinoso Wilderness.

His calls to Republican U.S. Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan sparked controversy and were portrayed as a warning of repercussions for the nations largest state after Murkowskis vote against proceeding on legislation to repeal Obamacare. A report by the Alaska Dispatch News said Zinke had complained that Murkowksi put Alaskas future with the Trump administration in jeopardy. Vice President Mike Pence broke a 50-50 tie to advance the repeal measure early last week.

I call Lisa all the time, Zinke said in Saturdays interview outdoors near the Sabinoso.  Im a Republican, Lisas a Republican. We talk about teamwork, where we can work together  I talk to Lisa all the time. Lisa will say the same thing.

The Obamacare repeal effort eventually died, in the early morning hours of Friday, when Arizonas Sen. John McCain joined GOP members Murkowski and Susan Collins of Maine in opposition  enough, with Democratic votes, to doom the measure in the closely divided Senate.

The Alaska Dispatch News reported Thursday that Alaskas Sullivan said that the call he got from Zinke heralded a troubling message.

Sullivan told the newspaper: 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 (supported by the Alaska senators) are going to stop. Sullivan said the message was pretty clear.

Murkowski also confirmed that she received a call from Zinke, but said she did not perceive the call as a threat against her or Alaska. He was just sharing the concern that the president expressed to him to pass on to me, Murkowski said Thursday.

On Saturday, Zinke said, The media maybe was bored for a day, and didnt have much to  talk about.

Lisa and I get along very well, he said of Murkowski. My wife and her husband, Verne, are friends. We fish, we ski together. We will continue to fish, well continue to ski together.

And the president is talking to her, too. You know, I work for the president. The president has an expectation of working together as a team. But, I talk to Lisa all the time.

The Associated Press contributed to this story.
VAN, Texas  Authorities in East Texas say a 3-year-old boy has been rescued by his grandfather after falling about 30 feet into a water well.

Firefighters in Van, about 70 miles (112.65 kilometers) east of Dallas, were called to the property but the child already had been retrieved from the well by the time they arrived.

No one was seriously hurt. Names of the two havent been released.

Fire officials say when a cover over the well crumbled Saturday and the boy fell in, the childs grandfather fortunately was nearby, went into the well and was able to get him out.

They also say while the grandfathers actions were heroic, they advised against such a solo effort because the prospect of two people possibly trapped would only complicate the work of rescuers.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M.  A suspect is expected to change his plea in the kidnapping, sexual assault and killing of an 11-year-old girl in a remote part of the largest American Indian reservation that prompted an effort to expand the Amber Alert system into tribal communities across the U.S.

More than a year after the May 2016 death of Ashlynne Mike in Navajo Nation, Tom Begaye is scheduled to attend a change-of-plea hearing Tuesday in an Albuquerque federal court. Its not known if his lawyers and federal prosecutors have struck a deal.

Begaye previously pleaded not guilty to murder, sexual abuse and other charges.

Begaye is from the small town of Waterflow near the unincorporated agricultural community of Lower Fruitland, where Mike lived with her father and siblings, according to the FBI. The town is near the Navajo reservation.

Begaye lured Mike and her brother into his van, authorities say. The girls brother told police the man took them deep into the desert and then walked off with the girl and a tire iron in hand before returning alone.

Begaye told investigators he sexually assaulted the girl and hit her twice in the head with a crowbar, and that she was still moving when he left her in the desert, according to court documents. Her body was later found in the remote area.

The younger brother was able to escape.

Mikes father filed a lawsuit against the Navajo Nation for failing to have an emergency notification system that he says could have saved his daughters life.

An Amber Alert wasnt issued in New Mexico until around 2 a.m. the morning after Mikes disappearance.

An Amber Alert system for the 27,000-square-mile (69,930-square-kilometer) reservation was proposed years ago but never implemented, despite the tribe having been awarded $330,000 in federal funding as part of a U.S. Justice Department pilot project.

Half the money was used to buy equipment such as megaphones and pop-up tents, but the rest went unspent.

The Navajo Nation covers parts of Arizona, New Mexico and Utah.

Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona introduced legislation in April that would expand the notification system to tribal lands. McCain said more than 7,700 American Indian children are listed as missing in the U.S.

Mikes family and other tribal members are expected to attend the change of plea hearing.

___

This story has been corrected to say that Waterflow, New Mexico, is a town near the Navajo reservation  not in the reservation.

___

Follow Russell Contreras on Twitter at http://twitter.com/russcontreras
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

New Mexico has 21 different governing boards running its 31 public colleges and universities, a higher education model some critics argue is inefficient and maybe even ineffective.

Now the state is actively exploring alternatives.

The New Mexico Higher Education Department is leading a study to determine whether reorganization or consolidation would make more sense, and department Secretary Barbara Damron said she aims to deliver recommendations to the Legislature and governor by the end of this year.

Her department has enlisted about 100 people to help, including university administrators, faculty and other campus personnel, lawmakers, representatives from K-12 education, business and other interested groups.

Three committees are examining different topics: higher education governance models around the U.S.; the financial implications of reorganizing  or keeping things the same  in New Mexico; and what changes to state law, if any, a reorganization would require since many schools governance is dictated by the New Mexico Constitution.

Damron warned against advocating for any specific changes until the research is complete, noting the complexities involved.

There is no one answer to how higher education should be structured, she said. We have essentially 50 labs (in 50 states) going on.

The project is an outgrowth of a statewide higher education master-planning process HED initiated last August that yielded an attainment goal  that 66 percent of working-age New Mexicans will have some post-secondary credential by 2030  and ushered in some reforms.

The effort recently narrowed to reorganization research due to what Damron called the appetite for such information.

New Mexico devotes about 13 percent of its general fund to higher education. Critics for years have complained that New Mexicos decentralized higher education network has created unnecessary overlap and duplication, and calls for change have grown louder amid the states budget crisis. The states 31 public institutions have a combined 77 access points around the state.

Sen. John Arthur Smith, D-Deming, warned during a recent higher education forum that the states higher education funding is spread too thin.

The bottom line is weve cut that pie into so many pieces that its very difficult for us to do justice financially to all the institutions in the state of New Mexico, Smith said.

During the 2017 Legislature, Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Las Cruces, and Sen. John Sapien, D-Corrales, sponsored a joint memorial urging HED to study the costs and benefits of New Mexicos system compared to others around the country.

McCamley said last week that New Mexico has a disjointed network of colleges and universities, making it harder to effect consistent change and limiting the ability to leverage New Mexicos higher education assets.

He noted that the University of New Mexico, New Mexico State University and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology all sought a piece of the Sandia National Laboratories management contract when it went out for bid last year but did so as part of two different teams. Neither team won the contract.

McCamley also said New Mexicos investment in higher education has not paid commensurate dividends on the workforce development front.

Everybody knows something needs to get done; its just a question of what that turns out to be, McCamley said. But we have to treat this with a sense of urgency. We have to get better and do it sooner rather than later.
Copyright  2017 Albuquerque Journal

They have led lives eroded by addictions, violence and prison, but with all that behind them, the men working in the wood shop at Fathers Building Futures are reconstructing their own lives while building something reverential.

The men, all of them fathers, have been trained to build kosher caskets used by members of the Jewish community  although the simple wooden construction has grabbed the attention of others who are interested in them as a final resting receptacle.

The Hebrew word kosher roughly translates to fit or clean. Consequently, a kosher casket is made completely of wood and held together by nontoxic and biodegradable glues, pegs and dowels. There is no plastic or metal, including hinges, screws or nails.

In a traditional Jewish funeral, bodies are not embalmed and the bottom of the casket has openings or intentionally drilled holes so contact with the bare soil in a grave hastens decomposition, explained Albuquerque Rabbi Min Kantrowitz.

Fathers Building Futures is a nonprofit economic development initiative for men who have been released from incarceration. By participating in one of four micro businesses  auto detailing, truck driving, mobile power washing and custom woodworking  they learn life skills, such as how to maintain a job, get along with supervisors and fellow workers and how to manage their money.

If you take unemployment, poor housing, a lack of financial know-how and then combine addiction, you arrive back in prison, said program executive director Emet Maayan. Were responding to the states nearly 50 percent recidivism rate. Our solution is not necessarily to teach a trade, but to teach the soft skills that go along with that, and then use our network to help them find permanent jobs.

By doing that, Maayan said, the men are able to overcome post-incarceration social barriers and deal with child support, pay their debts, grow out of poverty and become responsible citizens, parents and taxpayers.

Leading the team that assembles the kosher caskets is Francisco Solis, who had been incarcerated for five years on federal drug charges. Initially a client at Fathers Building Futures, Solis, 31, is now a full-time employee.

I dont get creeped out about making caskets. Preparing for death is part of life, Solis said. These caskets are simple and all natural and designed to return to the earth. You know, dust to dust. I appreciate that some people think were making something that has religious or spiritual meaning, and were sensitive to that.

The men in the wood shop were already producing high quality tables, book shelves, ornamental cutting boards, Lazy Susan trays and other items when Maayan had the idea to introduce kosher caskets. The notion sprang from his experience as a volunteer with Chevra Kadisha, the Jewish Burial Society.

When a member of the Jewish community dies, burial should take place within 24 hours. Society members are called to a funeral home to ritually wash the body, wrap it in a white shroud, recite psalms and place the deceased in a kosher casket.

It gave me an insight into how funeral homes work and how they quietly partner with the Jewish community, Mayaan said. Mayaan also learned that most funeral homes purchase kosher caskets from two major national suppliers, both out of state.

The folks at French Funerals and Cremations agreed to mentor the woodworkers at Fathers Building Futures and teach them how to become a local vendor. They also allowed them to examine a kosher casket to see how it was constructed.

Maayan then called upon Rabbi Kantrowitz to meet with the men and explain what a kosher casket is and their religious significance to the Jewish community. But the men are also doing something spiritual for themselves.

The Jewish concept of Tikkun, means to heal or repair, Kantrowitz said. These men have been incarcerated and many lived violent lives, so this is one way for them to rebalance, heal and repair from their past lives.

Working with Albuquerque furniture maker and artist Hershel Weiss, the woodworkers came up with a design for the caskets, which measure 76 inches long, 24 inches wide, 15 inches deep and are fitted with hemp rope handles. They can produce one a day.

The caskets are certified as kosher by the Rabbinical and Cantoral Association of Albuquerque, said Rabbi Harry Rosenfeld of Congregation Albert.

There are times in our lives when were all the same and should be treated all the same, regardless of our status or position, he said. Death is one of those times, and one of the ways we express that is our caskets are all the same  plain and simple and as inexpensive as possible, so regardless of finances you or your family can afford one. The caskets these guys are making fit all our requirements.

Available through French Funerals and Cremations, the caskets sell for $990, less than Frenchs most popular caskets that range in price from $1,500 to $4,000, said John Dyck, managing director of Frenchs location on Wyoming NE. They can also be purchased directly from Fathers Building Futures for $1,195.

Quite a few people who are not Jewish have selected a kosher casket because they appreciate the high quality and simple style and want something green, Dyck said, noting that the caskets have been certified green by the Green Burial Council.

Weve also had families who wanted an Old West kind of funeral. We have driven to ranches in eastern and northern New Mexico where wed supply the kosher caskets for people being buried on their own land. It brings a lot of comfort to the families.

The caskets are also in demand at La Puerta Natural Burial Ground, south of Belen, which is run by Donal Key and his wife Linda Canyon.

Among restrictions for burial there, the deceased cannot be embalmed and caskets must be biodegradable and placed directly in the ground and not inside concrete sub-ground vaults.

My wife and I both retired from careers in health care and we found over the years that people really are under-resourced at the end of life and its difficult for them or their families to come up with the $6,000 to $10,000 or more cost of a funeral. We wanted to find a better way to do it, and one that is more respectful and environmentally sound, he said.

Toll on the environment

Its not just bodies that are buried in traditional cemeteries around the country.

Also placed in the earth each year are caskets containing 30 million board feet of hardwoods, 2,700 tons of copper and bronze, and 90,000 tons of steel; vaults containing 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete; and 5.3 million gallons of embalming fluid containing formaldehyde, phenol, methanol, and glycerin.
Lawmakers in the state of New Mexico started discussing self-driving vehicle legislation in an unofficial capacity earlier this week, with domestic Transportation Secretary Tom Church revealing that Governor Susana Martinez is considering officially introducing the matter to the agenda of the upcoming parliamentary session thats set to start in January. New Mexico regulators are reportedly looking to draft a legal framework for regulating the emerging technology before its commercialized, with State Senator James White discussing the matter with his colleagues last Tuesday, according to recent reports. White is said to have argued in favor of enacting relevant legislation as soon as possible in an effort to be prepared for whats widely believed to be the next major technological revolution.

The Republican politician reportedly said that the advancements in the autonomous driving industry are being made much faster than the government can keep up, adding that advocates of such solutions claim that self-driving cars can save and improve many lives. White didnt elaborate on his own views on driverless vehicles but simply stated that the industry cannot be left unchecked for much longer. While speaking to the Transportation Infrastructure Revenue Subcommittee earlier this week, the Senator revealed that he took notice of self-driving solutions after riding in an autonomous car during a gathering organized by the Council of State Governments earlier this year.

Just like the majority of U.S. states, New Mexico currently has no laws regulating autonomous vehicles in any manner. Its still unclear how quickly will the local government be able to proceed with drafting and enacting legislation meant to oversee this industry segment, especially as its plans may change depending on the federal legal framework for self-driving technologies thats currently in the process of being materialized, having recently been approved by a U.S. House panel. The broad proposal seeks to define requirements that automakers need to fulfill in order to receive permissions to test autonomous vehicles on public roads but is still at least months away from being written into law. While lawmakers are yet to come up with comprehensive legislation regulating the self-driving industry, Silicon Valley giants like Alphabet, Uber, and Tesla continue to race for the title of the first company that managed to commercialize this emerging technology.
Samsung Australia is now accepting pre-registrations for the Galaxy Note 8, with the local branch of Samsung Electronics launching a dedicated page where all prospective buyers can sign up to be kept in the loop about the upcoming phablet by the company itself. The page features a teaser image that alludes to the upcoming Unpacked event that the South Korean original equipment manufacturer (OEM) announced earlier this month, stating that its latest high-end Android smartphone will be officially unveiled on August 23. The file name of the image in question also indicates that the Galaxy Note 8 will be marketed as the Galaxy Note8, with this stylized version of the phones moniker being a continuation of the product naming strategy that Samsung has been pursuing in recent years.

The teaser image also hints at the phablets design, heavily implying that the Galaxy Note 8 will feature a nearly bezel-less look and a screen that wraps around the long edges of its case, in addition to having minimal top and bottom bezels. This is in line with numerous recent sightings of the device that leaked online on many occasions in the last several months, both in the form of renders and real-life images. Samsung Australias teaser also contains a previously seen tagline saying do bigger things, suggesting that the Galaxy Note 8 will be larger than the Galaxy S8 Plus that the company launched this spring. According to previous rumors, the device will ship with either a 6.3-inch or 6.4-inch Infinity Display panel and succeed the 18.5:9 aspect ratio of the Galaxy S8 lineup.

The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to be powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 and Samsungs in-house Exynos 8895 system-on-chip (SoC), depending on the market, in addition to sporting 6GB of RAM and 64GB of native storage expandable via a microSD card slot. Due to the need to accommodate the S Pen stylus, the Seoul-based tech giant was reportedly forced to equip the Galaxy Note 8 with a 3,300mAh battery whose capacity is slightly lower compared to the 3,500mAh unit powering the Galaxy S8 Plus, though it remains to be seen how long will the phablet be able to last on a single charge in everyday use. The Galaxy Note 8 is expected to be released in late September following its August reveal.
Women still under-represented in judiciary says study

Research by the Law Society in England & Wales shows that there is some way to go before women are properly represented in the judiciary.



Data from the courts and tribunals show that just 28% of court judges and 45% of tribunal judges are female. Women make up just 22% of high court judges and deputy judges and only 24% in the court of appeal.



Things do appear to be changing among the younger judiciary though with women making up 49% of all court judges and 62% of tribunal judges under 40.



The percentage of non-barristers working as judges has decreased from 37 per cent to 34 per cent.



Global firm helps develop first law school in Bhutan

The Kingdom of Bhutan has opened its first law school thanks to a collaboration between the Kingdom and global law firm White & Case.



Jigme Singye Wangchuck School of Law (JSW Law), chartered by the current King of Bhutan His Majesty Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck, will be led by his sister Princess Sonam Dechan Wangchuck, a Harvard LLM graduate.



"This day has been many years in the making," said White & Case Chairman Hugh Verrier. "We are honored to have worked together with the Royal Government of Bhutan. The Firm's involvement stems from our ongoing commitment to legal education around the world. This law school will play a crucial part in advancing Bhutan's inspiring transition to democracy."



Website launches to match lawyers with anti-Trump causes

A new online portal will match pro-bono lawyers with critical causes and has been inspired by opposition to President Trump.



We the Action was launched on Friday and aims to help those affected by government policy including non-profits. It says that an unprecedented number of lawyers are stepping forward to help.



After the election and as Trump was coming, there was this huge outpouring of lawyers who just wanted to know what they could do, Marc Elias, the D.C. Democratic elections lawyer who is serving as We the Actions board chairman told Politico.com. We ought to be able to match this great demand for legal services.
Given the rules of idle conversation, Ill be asked this week: How was AirVenture? Or, if by pilots, the universal shorthand that identifies the worlds most important airshow by its venue: Oshkosh. (The locals invariably call it EAA, with the vowels drawn out in that nasal Scandinavian-influenced lilt of Wisconsin.)

I have an answer. It was the best AirVenture. Ever.

Thats bold talk for a pixel-addled, bleary-eyed cynic with a penchant for complaint, a refined sense of contrarianism and a bull^%$# meter thats been stuck on off-scale high for at least a decade. But I have my reasons and they wont be the same as yours.

I am long past the misty romanticism of flight and, to be blunt, I dont care to be the leather-jacketed acolyte trying to entice the next generation into the world of airplanes. Here it is kids. Take it or leave it. This years AirVenture framed for me why I got into journalism in the first place. And that was mainly because I love a spectacle and for one shining week in July, AirVenture is a spectacle like no other.

My reporters notebookand now a camera and a recorderhave served as a ticket into the world of surprisingly common unapologetic excess and, even better, the existence of less common uncompromised excellence. Thats the part of AirVenture I most admire: a crazy, unlikely thing done almost as well as its possible to do.

Any judgment of AirVenture has to be extracted from the background noisethe informational kind and the psychic kind, if not the acoustic variety that more or less defines the thing. The food is expensive, but at least its terrible. This year, the crowds were stupefyingly large and for a guy who basically hates being around people, this requires the discipline of a monk. I make do. And EAA managed to cram so much into the programs that it had trouble, at least from our perspective, of promoting everything that was available. We never did get an advance view of what the Apollo astronaut program was about or who would be there. Even our colleague, KITPLANES editor Paul Dye, who is a genuine NASA rocket scientistengineer, reallywas in the dark. Same for the Lindbergh anniversary flight and a few other events that would have made good stories.

But the core around which all this was built was the airshow and static displays in Boeing square. The days tend to run together, but I think it was Wednesday that Id set up a 360 camera in the square and skulked away to hide under the wing of an A10 so I wouldnt be in the footage. While I was standing under the wing looking east, pummeled by the screech of a power unit somewhere, there was an unending loop of aircraft streaking by. I swear I saw what looked like three Mig 17s trailing smoke go by in a perfect finger three sweep. Or were they F-86s? If such things exist in the wild and three pilots had the time and resources to actually practice, Oshkosh is the only place you could expect to see it. In the distance, a gaggle of bombers were flying in the opposite direction.

Against perfectly painted clouds, it looked like one of those 1940s war photos printed on Velox. In masterful understatement, I heard a voice in the crowd say, This is %^&@ing awesome. And it sure enough was. Far beyond any other AirVenture show Ive seen. Completely oblivious to my camera in the square, two people walked right up to it and talked for a few minutes. I wonder what they said. Ill know when I review the clips.

The bombers pushed everything over the top. A formation of B-25s? It was here. A B-29 two-ship? That, too. A B-1 and a B-52 nearly old enough to qualify for Social Security? All there and surrounded by people in funny hats and tasteless slogan t-shirts. Where the hell else are you going to get a selfie in front of a C-123 named Thunderpig?

I think the presence of the Blue Angels also kicked up everything a notch; or maybe 10. You havent seen these acts much at AirVenture for the very good reason that these teams require massive logistics paid for by the hosts and at Oshkosh, many houses have to be evacuated during the show. Oshkosh Corp., a 24/7 major defense contractor, had to shut down entirely for 90 minutes. EAA Chairman Jack Pelton said the association doesnt like to wear out its welcome with these cooperative folks.

The restored B-29, Doc, left an indelible impression on me for the care and skill lavished on its restoration. I didnt even have to imagine what it must have looked like right out of the factory at Wichita in 1945. It almost looks like that now. I got into the cockpit three times and never expected to find any chromoly tubing to mount a camera. But there it was, running vertically inboard of each pilot station. Ill publish that once I get caught up.

For many who attend and participate in AirVenture, the passion for flight and airplanes is the animator. For me, its less that and more the richness of telling their stories and trying to explain why the CAF would raise and devote millions to restoring Thats All Brother, the C-47 that led the Normandy airborne operation in 1944. Keegan Chetwynd, the CAFs curator, let me into the airplane for 15 minutes of shooting and then showed his profoundly deep knowledge of World War II history during the interview that followed. Ill post that soon, too.

At AirVenture, these stories flash by like an express train, more so this year than in any other that I can remember. It creates an event intensity thats exhausting and exhilarating at the same time. I collapse into bed every night, but Im up at 4 a.m. to start the cycle anew. I should probably take up crack instead. It would be less addictive.

While AirVenture is considered a commercially important venue for showing new products and technology, we in the press tend to overstate how much this matters. Or how crowds in the booths somehow measure GAs rocky health. Buyers find out about things through the web, social media and smart marketing. Only a small fraction of people see it at Oshkosh and its an illusion that those who dont attend hang on every online news item. We know they dont. Still, anyone who is anyone waves the flag at AirVenture, just to show theyre players.

Ive already written about the avionics trends and while these are significant and commercially important, theyre not game changers, to revert to the marketeers hackneyed all-purpose adjective. They push the ball another few yards forward but dont spike it through the uprights, if thats even possible in an industry as mature as ours. Dynons Skyview announcement may be the most significant of all the avionics developments. It seems to confirm that the trend for less expensive avionics is gaining ground and has legs. But throttle back your enthusiasm. Things like this wont change the face of aviation. They enhance its survival and for that, be grateful. I thought the most important avionics innovation was one that got the least attention: uAvionixs self-contained ADS-B Out product. More on that later. You can see the video here.

Engine and airframe wise? Meh. I wasnt expecting much so I wasnt disappointed. For those who relish complaining about the high cost of airplanes, delve into Vulcanairs four-place trainer/cruiser. It costs $150,000 less than the Skyhawk it would purport to rival. Its faster than a Skyhawk and its refreshing to see a company make selling price a key goal. But Cessna retains the advantage of momentum and nameplate. Flight schools will pay for this because theyre less constrained by price and more worried about support and dispatch reliability. As soon as the airplane is available in the U.S., well take a look. And stand by for absolute eye-glazing detail on all these new autopilots, plus all the stories we simply couldnt get published during the week.

AirVenture 2017 will, I think, be a hard act to follow. EAA deserves big props for pulling it all together without the scars of its birth showing, thus further assuring that Oshkosh will remain the center of the known aviation universe.
AVwebs General Aviation Accident Bulletin is taken from the pages of our sister publication, Aviation Safety magazine and is published twice a month. All the reports listed here are preliminary and include only initial factual findings about crashes. You can learn more about the final probable cause in the NTSBs web site at www.ntsb.gov. Final reports appear about a year after the accident, although some take longer. Find out more about Aviation Safety at www.aviationsafetymagazine.com.

April 10, 2017, Livermore, Calif.

Beech A36TC Turbocharged Bonanza

At about 1030 Pacific time, the airplane landed gear-up after the pilot experienced a flight control malfunction. The commercial pilot was not injured; the airplane sustained minor damage. Visual conditions prevailed.

Approaching for a landing, the pitched up steeply after the pilot disconnected the autopilot. After some oscillations, the pilot reduced engine power, set the landing gear selector switch to down, and extended the flaps. He stated that he heard the landing gear extend, and confirmed that the three green landing gear lights had illuminated. Control forces were so great, however, that he needed to use both hands and his knee to keep the yoke forward. Given the need to maintain strong nose-down force on the yoke, he was unable to reach the autopilot circuit breaker and the elevator trim wheel would not move.

He continued the approach, regulating pitch with engine power, and holding the yoke fully forward. At some point during the approach and ensuing struggle, he inadvertently knocked off his glasses and headset. Although the tower controller made multiple calls during the final approach warning the pilot that the landing gear was not extended, the pilot did not hear those calls. The airplane came to a stop on its belly. First responders noted the landing gear switch was in the down position, and the landing gear and auxiliary fuel pump circuit breakers were both tripped.

Further examination revealed the pitch trim system indicated 18U (up), and the elevator tabs were in the tab down (airplane nose-up) position. With the dual-yoke control bar in the full-forward position, it obscured elevator pitch trim indicator and left-seat access to most of the circuit breakers, including the autopilot and trim breakers.

April 11, 2017, Houston, Texas

Cessna 172 Skyhawk

The pilot of the float-equipped airplane reported that prior to takeoff, the windsock showed no significant wind. During takeoff on the waterway, the airplane initially accelerated as expected. He added that it became clear that the take-off run was not progressing as anticipated and decided to abort the takeoff. He brought the power to idle and applied back pressure to the control yoke. The airplane slid onto the grass embankment at the end of the runway and came to rest on the adjacent taxiway. The airplane sustained substantial damage to its fuselage.

Weather observations showed that from about 20 minutes before the accident to 60 minutes after the accident, the wind varied in direction from 360 to 050, and its speed varied from four to 11 knots, with a peak wind of 360 at 30 knots. The pilot departed waterway 17W.

April 12, 2017, Hartsville, Ind.

Temco GC-1B Swift

At about 1310 Eastern time, the airplane impacted trees and terrain shortly after takeoff. The solo commercial pilot sustained fatal injuries; the airplane was substantially damaged. Visual conditions prevailed.

Maintenance had recently been completed on the accident airplane as a result of a ground loop event. After the accident pilot and a mechanic inspected the repairs and reviewed the airplane records, the accident pilot completed a brief engine run-up and then performed what appeared to be a normal takeoff roll. Shortly after rotation, at about 35 feet agl, the airplane entered a gradual left roll. The left roll continued until the airplane impacted trees in a near-inverted attitude adjacent to the runway.

April 12, 2017, La Porte, Texas

Cessna 152

The airplane was substantially damaged at about 1115 Central time when it nosed over following a forced landing. The solo commercial pilot was not injured. Visual conditions prevailed for the post-maintenance test flight.

According to the pilot, there was a noticeable lag in the response of the engine during a low approach, and the engine lost power. Attempts to restore power were unsuccessful. With no runway remaining, the pilot turned the airplane to avoid a ditch; it ended up nosing over. Examination revealed water contamination in the engines fuel lines, fuel bowl and carburetor. No water contamination was noted in either fuel tank. According to the pilot, the preflight inspection did not show any evidence of water in the fuel, and there was no engine hesitation or sputtering during the run-up.

April 12, 2017, Monongahela, Penn.

Howard Aircraft DGA-15P

At about 1430 Eastern time, the airplane was destroyed when it impacted terrain during a go-around. The solo commercial pilot was fatally injured. Visual conditions prevailed.

According to witnesses, the airplane initially touched down left of the Runway 26 centerline, but then became airborne and its engine noise increased. The airplane then yawed and banked left, perpendicular to the runway, and the nose pitched up. The airplane then appeared to stall and roll inverted before impacting a ravine about 400 feet left of the runway. One witness had landed earlier in a Cessna 172, noting that a wind gust lifted its right wing and caused it to drift left. Red paint chips consistent with the airplanes wingtip were observed in ground scars about 200 feet left of the runway and about halfway down its length. Local weather included wind from 280 degrees at six knots, variable from 240 to 320.

April 15, 2017, Williston, Fla.

Cessna 170

The airplane impacted terrain at about 1523 Eastern time, shortly after departure. The commercial pilot and the three passengers were fatally injured. The airplane was destroyed. Visual conditions prevailed.

Security-camera video showed the airplane immediately after takeoff as it climbed to about 600 feet agl. The airplane leveled off just below the clouds, and then its nose pitched down. The airplane descended about 100 feet and leveled off again. Several seconds later, the airplane again pitched down and disappeared from view. The airplane came to rest 543 feet left of the runway, near the departure end. Evidence is consistent with a nose-first impact with the ground.

Local weather at 1519 included 10 miles of visibility and wind from 080 degrees at eight knots, gusting to 17 knots. Apparently, no data on cloud presence, height or coverage were available.

April 17, 2017, Loyalton, Calif.

Socata TB20 Trinidad

At about 1600 Pacific time, the airplane departed Truckee-Tahoe Airport (KTRK) in Truckee, Calif. Since that time, the private pilot and passenger have not been located, and the airplane is missing. Radar contact was lost about 16 nm north of Truckee, and the airplane is presumed to have crashed in remote mountainous terrain. Search and rescue efforts were suspended April 23.

April 20, 2017, Goodyear, Ariz.

Diamond Aircraft DA40 NG

The airplane lost engine power at 0719 Mountain time during a takeoff. The solo student pilot was not injured, but the airplane sustained substantial damage. Visual conditions prevailed.

Preflight actions included a check of the airplanes engine control unit (ECU), with no discrepancies noted. The takeoff was normal until about 400 feet agl when the pilot noticed a change in engine sound. The engine load indicator read 35 percent, and annunciator lights illuminated for ECU A FAIL and ECU B FAIL. The student pilot decided to go under power lines but struck the bottom wire. The airplane touched down, bounced and eventually struck a ditch.

This article originally appeared in the July 2017 issue of Aviation Safety magazine.

For more great content like this, subscribe to Aviation Safety!
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/07/2017 (1932 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A dozen Manitobans living outside Winnipeg have been granted a physician-assisted death, the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority shared.

A spokesperson with the authority declined to state which regional health authorities the patients resided in, saying it might disclose their jurisdictions given how small the number is, which may violate privacy.

In addition to those dozen individuals, Bronwyn Penner Holigroski shared that eight non-Winnipeggers are considered active cases, which mean they have actively pursued an application for a medically assisted death.

Altogether, 54 people have been granted their right to die, 42 of which were within the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority.

Provincewide, there are 24 active cases, 39 patients with denied applications, 82 people who died through an unassisted manner and 54 inquiries made. Some individuals who died unassisted also had their application for an assisted death rejected, Penner Holigroski said.

A total of 252 people made contact with the program.

Two physicians must assess anyone seeking assisted death on two in person occasions. Both assessments must be in agreement. A patient must also make a written request to seek relief through death.

It must be determined that death is reasonably foreseeable for medical help in dying to be granted. The person must be deemed mentally competent to provide consent.

Medically assisted deaths became Canadian law in June 2016.

 ifroese@brandonsun.com

 Twitter: @ianfroese
July 30, 2017 - Ottawa, Ontario - Global Affairs Canada

The Honourable Chrystia Freeland, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the Honourable Ralph Goodale, Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, today issued the following statement:

On World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, Canada joins the international community to denounce the heinous crime of human trafficking.

The International Labour Organization estimates that close to 21 million people in the world, mostly women and girls, have been the victims of traffickers who treat human beings as mere commodities to exploit for financial gain.

In Canada, most victims are also women and girls. Vulnerable groups at risk include Indigenous women, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer (LGBTQ) youth, migrants, runaways and at-risk youth. They are often lured away by false promises of a better life and end up thrust into a nightmare of sexual exploitation, forced labour, domestic servitude and abuse.

The Government of Canada works with provinces and territories, Indigenous communities, law enforcement, community organizations and international partners to combat human trafficking and raise awareness. We contribute to a multitude of international efforts to stop the scourge of human trafficking and help survivors and we will further support such work through our feminist international assistance policy.

Human trafficking is an abhorrent attack on human dignity and basic human rights. The Government of Canada is committed to bringing those who commit this crime to justice and to helping survivors go on to lead healthy and productive lives.

Contacts

Adam Austen

Press Secretary

Office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs

Adam.Austen@international.gc.ca

Media Relations Office

Global Affairs Canada

343-203-7700

media@international.gc.ca

Follow us on Twitter: @CanadaFP

Like us on Facebook: Canadas foreign policy - Global Affairs Canada

Media Relations

Public Safety Canada

613-991-0657

Scott Bardsley

Office of the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness

613-998-5681
125 YEARS AGO

From 1892: The two-acre parcel of land surrounding the Casa Grande Ruins has been set aside by President Harrison as a reserve for the protection of the ruins under the control of the Bureau of Ethnology administered by the Smithsonian Institution.

R. Gibson, whose left leg was run over and badly injured on the 4th of July by one of Dave Handfields horses, is now able to hobble around with the aid of crutches.

Thursday evening there was a fatal accident in Bellemont. James Sublette was driving a heavily loaded six-horse team when the lead horse -- which was frightened by a passing train -- swung the team and broke loose, pulling the driver off and down under the heels of the wheel horses. The wagon wheels passed over his neck, breaking it and causing instant death. The team belonged to William Hall and was conveying a load of goods from this place to the Halls Ranch north of Williams.

The registration of voters is going slowly and the registration officers are taking their time about it. By now there should be at least two-thirds of voters registered and there are only one-third who have done so

The Price Baking Powder Co., 184, 186 & 188 Michigan Ave. Chicago, Ill. has just published a new cookbook. All you have to do is send in a postcard asking for it and it will be sent to you FREE of charge.

100 YEARS AGO

From 1917: Leon Bone, Special Investigator for the Justice Department, is satisfied that the enemy aero-planes that have been seen flying over Southern Utah are real and has asked the War Department to send aero-planes to investigate, since it is impossible for ground crews to determine where their headquarters are located.

The contract for the new Post Office building on San Francisco has been let and excavation is expected to begin soon. It will be absolutely fireproof, being made of reinforced concrete. All fixtures will be steel. The building will front on San Francisco and be parallel to the switch track in the alley. It will be 54 feet across the front and 48 feet deep with a full basement having a 14-foot ceiling.

Field work on the property for the new sewer system is complete and plans are being drawn up. The money from the sale of the sewer bonds is now on hand and drawing interest so the Council will act promptly in letting the contract so that incoming revenue may soonest be realized.

A recent agreement between the Town Council and the Normal School provides for water from the Old Town Spring to be piped to the school to be used for irrigating the campus lawn and the 40 acres of land used by the Agriculture Department.

75 YEARS AGO

From 1942: The Civil Service Commission wants graduating seniors and graduates that are now holding examinations. There is a particular need in the fields of Public Administration, Business Administration, Library Science, Economics, Statistics and Math through Calculus.

It is reported that is takes 2,700 pounds of sugar to make enough alcohol to make enough gunpowder to fire one big Navy gun once.

The Historic Landmark location group in a field trip has located the site of the old Hangman tree with the assistance of a number of older citizens. They also visited the official original Tall Pine Flag pole that gave Flagstaff its name. It is still standing just east of the Girl Scout Cabin at City Park.

Forest Supervisor R. W. Hussy tells us that when called upon to subscribe the Forest Service employees have pledged to buy War Bonds with 14.5 percent of their wages.

A special program at Babbitts Shoe Department has been put into effect to specialize in corrective shoes.

As the election year heats up the Forest Service reminds campaigners that it is illegal to place any advertising signs in the National Forests.

50 YEARS AGO

From 1967: The abandoned building located at the turn onto the Snow Bowl Road burned to the ground on Tuesday. The roof was already gone before the Fire Department arrived. All they could do was to act to protect the surrounding forest and protect the adjacent buildings.

The new Ramada at Greenlaw Park is to provide 1,200 square feet of covered space, a storage space for equipment and other amenities.

B-B guns shattered windows in widespread parts of the city including Melody Music Store in the Greenlaw Center, Rascos Department Store on South Beaver and at the South Beaver School. The damage was done by 2 boys on a motor bike who had kidnapped a young boy, then held him while they did the damage and then released him before they motored on out of town. Chief Elmo Maxwell.

25 YEARS AGO

From 1992: Stone Forest Industries is closing down for at least a month due to a lack of timber. They are blaming the lack of supply on the frequent timber sale appeals by environmental groups. Faye Fisk, spokeswoman for the company, said that if they can get two buys in August they should be able to stay up and running through the winter.

Doug Despain, spokesman for the Carpenters Union Local 2772, said the union is assisting workers in getting unemployment compensation but that it is a devastating blow to family budgets.

The City has made another proposal to the 3M Company in its ongoing battle to get those billboards on the south side of Route 66 down so that the attractive landscaping project can proceed. This proposal is for a six-year phase-out with the removal of an additional 14 signs added along with an increase of payments to the city during this time.

Smiths Specials: Whole Fryers 89 cts. pound. Cantaloupe - 5 lbs. $1. - Chiles 89 cts. lb.- 8 piece fried Chicken $3.99 - Smiths Biscuits 4 for 99 cts.

On Tuesday afternoon 0.47 inches of rain fell, filling the construction ditches and causing flooding on Butler Avenue. Lightning struck power lines causing a brief power interruption and the street lights on Route 66 to quit for a period of time.
The following companies are subsidiares of Laboratory Co. of America: 1957285 Ontario Inc. dba Quality Underwriting Services, 2089729 Ontario Inc., 2248848 Ontario Inc., 3065619 Nova Scotia Company, 3257959 Nova Scotia Company, 8165335 Canada Inc., 8348596 Canada Inc., 896988 Ontario Limited, 9279-3280 Quebec Inc., Accupath Diagnostic Laboratories Inc., Assets of Pathology Inc, Beacon LBS IPA Inc., Beacon Laboratory Benefit Solutions Inc., CannAmm GP Inc., CannAmm Limited Partnership, Center for Disease Detection International, Center for Disease Detection LLC, Centrex Clinical Laboratories Inc., Chiltern, Clearstone Central Laboratories (U.S.) Inc., Clearstone Holdings (International) Ltd., Clinical Outreach Laboratory Services, Clipper Holdings Inc., Colorado Coagulation Consultants Inc., Colorado Laboratory Services LLC, Correlagen Diagnostics Inc., Covance Inc., Curalab Inc., Cytometry Associates Inc., Czura Thornton (Hong Kong) Limited, DCL Acquisition Inc., DCL Medical Laboratories LLC, DCL Sub LLC, DIANON Systems Inc., DL Holdings Limited Partnership, Decision Diagnostics L.L.C. (aka DaVinici/Medicorp LLC), Diagnostic Services Inc., DynaLifeDX, Dynacare - Gamma Laboratory Partnership, Dynacare Company, Dynacare G.P. Inc., Dynacare Holdco LLC, Dynacare Laboratories Inc., Dynacare Laboratories Limited Partnership, Dynacare Northwest Inc., Dynacare Realty Inc., DynalifeDX Infrastructure Inc., Envigo's nonclinical contract research services business, Esoterix Genetic Counseling LLC, Esoterix Genetic Laboratories LLC, Esoterix Inc., Execmed Health Services Inc., FirstSource Laboratory Solutions Inc., GDML Medical Laboratories Inc, Gamma Dynacare Central Medical Laboratories GP Inc., Gamma Dynacare Central Medical Laboratory Limited Partnership, HHLA Lab-In-An-Envelope LLC, Health Testing Centers Inc., Health Trans Services Inc., Home Healthcare Laboratory of America LLC, IDX Pathology Inc., Impact Genetics Corporation, Impact Genetics Inc., Kaleida LabCorp LLC, Lab Delivery Service of New York City Inc., LabCorp BVBA, LabCorp Belgium Holdings Inc., LabCorp Central Laboratories (Canada) Inc., LabCorp Central Laboratories (China) Inc., LabCorp Colorado Inc., LabCorp Development Company, LabCorp Employer Services Inc., LabCorp Health System Diagnostics LLC, LabCorp Indiana Inc., LabCorp Japan G.K., LabCorp Limited, LabCorp Michigan Inc., LabCorp Nebraska Inc., LabCorp Neon Ltd., LabCorp Neon Switzerland S.a.r.l., LabCorp Specialty Testing Billing Service Inc., LabCorp Specialty Testing Group Inc., LabCorp Staffing Solutions Inc., LabCorp Tennessee LLC, LabCorp UK Holdings Ltd., LabWest Inc., Laboratoire Bio-Medic Inc., Laboratory Corporation of America, Lifecodes Corporation, LipoScience Inc., Litholink Corporation, MEDTOX Scientific Inc., MNG Laboratories, MedAxio Insurance Medical Services GP Inc., MedAxio Insurance Medical Services LP, Medical Neurogenitics LLC, Medtox Diagnostics Inc., Medtox Laboratories Inc., Monogram Biosciences Inc., Monogram Biosciences UK Limited, Myriad Autoimmunes Vectra Testing Business, NWT Inc., National Genetics Institute, New Brighton Business Center LLC, New Imaging Diagnostics LLC, New Molecular Diagnostics Ventures LLC, Orchid Cellmark ULC, Ovia Health, PA Labs Inc., Paclab LLC, Path Lab Incorporated, Pathology Associates Medical Lab LLC, Pee Dee Pathology Associates Inc., Personal Genome Diagnostics Inc., Persys Technology Inc., Pixel by LabCorp, Princeton Diagnostic Laboratories of America Inc., Protedyne Corporation, SW/DL LLC, Saint Josephs-PAML LLC, Sequenom Biosciences (India) Pvt. Ltd., Sequenom Inc, Sequenom Inc., Tandem Labs Inc., Toxikon Corporation, Tri-Cities Laboratory LLC, Viro-Med Laboratories Inc., Visiun, and Yakima Medical Arts Inc..

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Generations of inbreeding in fundamentalist Mormon sect blamed for explosion in disease that leaves children severely mentally and physically disabled

Members of a fundamentalist Mormon sect living in a remote part of America are a million times more likely than the rest of the global population to suffer a rare genetic disease that negatively affects facial features and mental faculties.

Dr Theodore Tarby was the first to notice it in members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, when he first diagnosed it in a 10-year-old boy in 1990.

According to the BBC report, the boy's facial features were unusual with a prominent forehead, low-set ears, widely spaced eyes and a small jaw, and he was severely physically and mentally disabled. The doctor couldn't figure out what it was until a urine sample came back from a specialist lab diagnosing fumarase defifiency. There were only 13 known cases of it in the world at the time - one in 400 million.

But it wasn't only him. It turned out his sister, who they thought had cerebal palsy, had the disease too.

The number of sufferers in the FLDS community has grown dramatically and now the likelihood of being born with the condition in the sect is over a million times above the global average.

Doctors believe it has flourished in the sect more than in other places because of its polygymous beliefs, with many of its members being related to each other. The gene is recessive, meaning it only gets passed down to the children if both parents happen to carry it. That becomes an issue in a polygymous community where people are marrying other people they are closely blood related to, as it increases the chances of both parents carrying the gene.

The reclusive FLDS community settled in Hilldale and nearby Colorado City, Arizona, back in the 1930s after polygamy was banned by the state of Utah and medical experts trace the surgance of the disease back to its founders Joseph Jessop and John Barlow.

The original carrier of the mutative fumarase gene is traced to Jessop and his first with Martha Yeates, with whom he had 14 children, but it's believed to have passed into Barlow's bloodline when he married one of Jessop and Yeates' daughters.

The community of Hilldale/Colorado City is small, numbering only 7,700 people and the BBC reports that some men are even kicked out to prevent a shortage of wives for the polygamist husbands, shrinking the gene pool even further.

Not surprisingly, the surnames Jessop and Barlow dominate the community as their descendents have intermarried over the years.

It poses serious questions about the future of the sect but they refuse to take any action to prevent it spreading. Dr Talby said he advised that they place a ban on two people marrying if they both have the gene. If an already married couple has it, they should not have any more children and, controversially, abort any unborn fetus that tested positive. According to the BBC, the community has ignored his advice and do not believe in the opinion of medical experts that the condition is gene-based.
Pastor says he allowed his 10-year-old son to identify as a transgender girl because he was so unhappy he tried to kill himself

A New Jersey pastor and his wife who allowed their now 10-year-old son to start identifying as a girl at age 2, say they made the decision to let him live as he liked because he gravitated to "all things girly" as a child and was so unhappy with his life as a boy he tried to kill himself.

With his son Ben, now living as a girl named Rebekah, Pastor Christopher Bruesehoff of Holy Counselor Lutheran Church in Vernon, New Jersey, told Barcroft TV that he is worried about his transgender child's life as Rebekah gets older in the world.

"I've always worried about the reaction with Rebekah, both in the community and the church and the world. I'm very worried about how the world is going to treat her, because I see a lot of ugliness in the world on a regular basis," he said.

Rebekah's mother, Jamie, who struggles with depression and anxiety, has been writing about her journey on her blog, I Am Totally *That* Mom.

"Rebekah has always been gender non-conforming. As young as 2 or 3 she gravitated toward typically feminine things. She loved pink and sparkles, all things girly and that was fine with us," Jamie said.

"As her gender non-comformity intensified we started to notice some distress around things like being grouped with boys at school or in activities. By the time she was 7 all of this kind of hit a crisis point. Her anxiety was crippling and her depression was becoming life-threatening and we were at a loss. We were faced with a 7-year-old kid who wanted to die. At one time she punched out the screen in her second story window and tried to jump out," the pastor's wife explained.

Rebekah told Barcroft, "The hardest part of all this was when I didn't transition and I was not happy and it didn't feel right."

Jamie said they found a gender specialist who helped Rebekah understand who she is. After conversations with the specialist, "Rebekah came to tell us this is definitely me. I'm a girl in my head in my heart."

Rebekah added, "I felt like I was a girl because I liked the color pink and I liked girls' clothes and how they wore their hair and stuff."

Once Ben started fully identifying as Rebekah, Jamie said her transgender daughter became happy.

"When I see pictures of Ben I just think of it as part of my past and now I'm me," Rebekah said.

The family is now getting ready to put Rebekah on puberty blockers but Jamie explained that the decision to completely transition will be left to Rebekah when she turns 18.

"Rebekah really doesn't want to think about the medical side of it. She doesn't want to develop into a man. Medically transitioning involves a lot of different stuff and every transgender person chooses their own adventure. For Rebekah, the first step would be puberty blockers which will pause puberty and prevent her from going through male puberty and developing secondary male characteristics like facial hair, a deeper voice and an Adam's apple that are irreversible," Jamie said.

"The next step would be cross hormones. Rebekah is a natal male and so she would take estrogen to develop and go through female puberty. As far as surgery she hasn't indicated a desire for that, but that is a decision she gets to make down the road anyway. That's not something she would do before she is 18," the pastor's wife added.

Despite how the pastor and his wife feel about their son, however, last summer the American College of Pediatricians warned legislators and educators that teaching children to accept transgenderism is child abuse.

"The American College of Pediatricians urges educators and legislators to reject all policies that condition children to accept as normal a life of chemical and surgical impersonation of the opposite sex. Facts  not ideology  determine reality," the organization noted in a statement listing an eight-point explanation of its stance.

The national organization of pediatricians and other healthcare professionals dedicated to the health and well-being of children said while everyone is born with a biological sex, gender is an awareness and sense of oneself as male or female. It is a social and psychological concept.

"No one is born with an awareness of themselves as male or female; this awareness develops over time and, like all developmental processes, may be derailed by a child's subjective perceptions, relationships, and adverse experiences from infancy forward. People who identify as 'feeling like the opposite sex' or 'somewhere in between' do not comprise a third sex. They remain biological men or biological women," the organization said.

"When an otherwise healthy biological boy believes he is a girl, or an otherwise healthy biological girl believes she is a boy, an objective psychological problem exists that lies in the mind not the body, and it should be treated as such. These children suffer from gender dysphoria. Gender dysphoria, formerly listed as gender identity disorder, is a recognized mental disorder in the most recent edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association. The psychodynamic and social learning theories of GD/GID have never been disproved," it further explained.

This article was originally published in The Christian Post.
Pregnant Christian mother and her 3 young sons are killed in horrific car crash on way to Vacation Bible School

A devout pregnant Christian woman who was driving her three young sons to Vacation Bible School in Beecher, Illinois, was instantly killed with one of her boys in a two vehicle crash Monday. A day later, another of her sons doctors tried desperately to save died. Then on Thursday, after many prayers, her oldest son passed too.

The Will County sheriff's office told the Chicago Tribune that at about 8:30 a.m., Lindsey Schmidt, 29, and her 21-month-old son Kaleb were killed when a 25-year-old man driving a 2002 Chevrolet S10 pickup crashed into her family's 2014 Subaru Outback. He reportedly ran through a stop sign at an intersection in unincorporated Washington Township and slammed into the Schmidt vehicle, according to ABC7, forcing it off the roadway into a field. The mom was reportedly just one block away from her home when the accident happened.

"As many of you have heard through social media, this morning Lindsey (Riechers) Schmidt and her one year old son Kaleb were killed in a car accident on their way to Vacation Bible School at Trinity. Her 4 year old son Weston, and 6 year old son Owen are in critical care at a hospital in Chicago," Trinity Lutheran Church in Crete, where the family are parishioners, announced on its Facebook page Monday night.

Lindsey, who graduated from Illinois Lutheran High School, was in charge of the church's "Time Out for Moms" ministry and served as a room parent at Illinois Lutheran Schools, the church said.

"Please keep Lindsey's husband Eddie in your prayers, as well as their two boys who are fighting to hold on to life," they pleaded Monday.

But things got worse.

Schmidt's 4-year-old Weston died Tuesday.

"It is with great sadness that we report the passing of 4 year old Weston Schmidt. Last evening, the Sheriff's Office was contacted by the Cook County Medical Examiner who advised that Weston was pronounced deceased at 5:55 p.m. at Comer Children's Hospital in Chicago. Weston's 6 year old brother remains in critical condition at Comer," a release from the Will County Sheriff's Office said.

The community then gathered on Wednesday night at a prayer vigil, hoping that Owen Schmidt, 6, Lindsey's oldest son, would pull through.

He had been placed in a medically induced coma after the accident. At 2:39 a.m. Thursday, however, Owen was pronounced dead at Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago.

"I believe you all understand when I say I wish we weren't here," Pastor Frank Italiano told about 200 people who later gathered for a prayer vigil for the family at Trinity Lutheran Church Thursday evening, according to the Tribune.

"God is our rock and our fortress; the one we go to in times of trouble," he said, noting the "why" was sometimes difficult to understand. Lindsey's brother was also killed in a car crash in Beecher 12 years ago, ABC7 said.

"Where's the glory? Where do we see glory in this week?" he asked. "We don't. But you know what? Lindsey, Owen, Weston and Kaleb; they see glory right now ... that's where there is glory."

Alexa French, 30, had only kind things to say about Lindsey and her family.

"I can still see her amazing smile and hear her laughter in my head. There was a time in my life I was able to hang out with my friend and be around her infectious joyous nature. I am sure your brother Mark was waiting with open arms when you and your boys arrived at the Gates of Heaven," she wrote.

"I am a Christian Woman, but still struggle as a human to understand why tragedy of this nature happens to good people. I know God has a plan that we do not comprehend, but that doesn't always make us feel better (just being honest).

"But, sweet dear Lindsey I just want to say thank you for allowing me briefly into your life. I know our lives went in different directions, but like all my friends the love was always still there. Please watch over all of us for I know you are smiling down from heaven," she added.

Trinity Church is currently collecting donations on behalf of the family to cover the costs associated with the accident.

Visitation will be held on August 1 from 2-9 p.m. at Trinity Lutheran Church. Funeral services will be conducted the following day at 11:00 a.m., also at Trinity. Burial will be at Trinity Lutheran Cemetery with the Rev. Frank Italiano officiating.

Police say charges against the driver of the pickup truck are currently pending.

This article was originally published in The Christian Post.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer out as Trump seeks to fix image

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer resigned on Friday, ending a short and turbulent tenure that made him a household name and the butt of late-night television comedy lampoons, amid further upheaval within President Donald Trump's inner circle.

While not a surprise, Spicer's departure was abrupt and accompanied other changes in Trump's media and legal teams, as an investigation of possible ties between his campaign and Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election widened.

After six months in power and still without a major legislative win, Trump shuffled some of his closest staff, parting ways with Spicer after naming Anthony Scaramucci as the new White House communications director. Spicer had been communications director as well as press secretary following the resignation of Mike Dubke as director early last month.

A Republican close to the White House told Reuters that Trump settled on Scaramucci, 53, a political supporter and former Goldman Sachs banker, for the head media job on Thursday and met with him on Friday morning to formally offer it to him.

A White House official briefed on what happened next said Spicer was told of Scaramucci's hiring and Trump urged Spicer to stay on. But Spicer, 45, said he did not want to stay on under the terms and conditions described to him and quit.

A source close to the White House said: 'Basically Donald Trump likes Scaramucci on TV and saw the communications director job as a way to ... make him a top TV surrogate.'

The source said Trump wanted Spicer to be press secretary and do much of the communications director's work as well, 'with Scaramucci holding the ceremonial title with no responsibility. And that was the real challenge.'

At an early afternoon briefing, Scaramucci, in his debut before the White House press corps, named Sarah Sanders as the new press secretary. She had been Spicer's deputy.

Known by insiders as 'Mooch,' the new communications director is a Harvard Law School-educated Long Islander who founded a hedge fund after leaving Goldman, and sold it to join the Trump administration.

Spicer, a veteran Washington staffer, was parodied memorably by actress Melissa McCarthy on the 'Saturday Night Live' TV comedy show for his combative encounters with reporters.

'I am grateful for Sean's work on behalf of my administration and the American people,' Trump said in a statement. 'I wish him continued success as he moves on to pursue new opportunities. Just look at his great television ratings.'

Spicer will stay on the job through August.

From the start, Spicer invited controversy, attacking the media in his first appearance as press secretary for reporting what he called inaccurate crowd numbers at Trump's Jan 20 inauguration.

'This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration, period, both in person and around the globe,' he said, an assertion that quickly drew scorn.

In a Twitter post on Friday, Spicer wrote, 'It's been an honour & privilege to serve @POTUS @realDonaldTrump & this amazing country. I will continue my service through August.'

Before Trump tapped him for the job of press secretary, Spicer was the Republican National Committee's spokesman. He had previously worked in the administration of former President George W Bush. During that time, he dressed up in an Easter Bunny costume for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll.

Spicer and other Trump aides shook up White House dealings with the media, including cutting back daily televised news briefings and replacing them with audio briefings only.

Scaramucci told reporters, 'I love the president. ... It's an honour to be here.' Asked how he was going to right the White House ship, Scaramucci said there was nothing to fix.

'The ship is going in the right direction. I like the team. Let me rephrase that: I love the team,' he said.

Separately, Special Counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating the possible Trump-Russia ties, has asked White House officials to preserve any records of a meeting last year between the president's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and a Russian lawyer, a source with knowledge of the request said on Friday.

The spokesman for Trump's outside legal team, Mark Corallo, resigned. His departure came amid media reports that the role of Marc Kasowitz, who had been leading the team, was being reduced.

On Thursday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions brushed off sharp criticism from Trump, saying he loved his job and planned to stay in it. Trump took a broad swipe at his administration's top law officers this week in a New York Times interview, saying he would not have appointed Sessions as attorney general if he had known he would recuse himself.

White House unrest was not limited to communications and legal staff, said two officials familiar with the situation.

Trump has ignored the recommendations of national security adviser HR McMaster and his senior director for Russia, Fiona Hill, on dealing with Russian President Vladimir Putin, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

They said McMaster is frustrated by continuing debate about sending more US forces to Afghanistan. One official said tension persists between McMaster and chief White House strategist Steve Bannon and chief speechwriter Stephen Miller.
Multi-billionaire tech titan and star of CNBC's "Shark Tank" Mark Cuban says that most people are underestimating the potential of artificial intelligence to change the world we live and work in. He's especially intimidated by the pace at which new technology advances: "It scares the s--- out of me," says Cuban, speaking to Ozy Fest conference attendees in New York City. "However much change you saw over the last 10 years with the iPhone, over the last 20 years with the Internet, over the last 30 years with PC's, etc., that is nothing. Nothing!" Cuban says. "Things are getting faster, processing is getting faster, machines are starting to think," he continues. "And either you make them think for you or they will take your place and do the thinking for you."

Mark Cuban at OZY FEST

That could be problematic for many people. "If you are in a job where you have to think, you need to start paying attention, because I guarantee you, your employer is trying to figure out ways to use technology and use neural networks to do a lot of the thinking that employees currently are doing," says Cuban. "If you have spreadsheets in your job, ... now, the networks can do all that for you. And if they can go through 10 zillion iterations, they will come up with things we can't," he says. "So it's not so much robots  Rosy the Robot is going to take your job  so much as it is the types of thinking you will do, the types of consulting, the type of valuations. It's all going to change."

To be more knowledgeable about advances in AI, Cuban has read and recommends "The Master Algorithm," by Pedro Domingos. He also listens to the podcast "This Week in Machine Learning and AI," he says. Cuban's comments are part of a fierce debate among Silicon Valley tech billionaires regarding the effect artificial intelligence will have on the world. SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk says the potential is frightening. "I have exposure to the most cutting edge AI, and I think people should be really concerned by it," Musk said earlier in July. "AI is a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization." Meanwhile, Facebook CEO and billionaire Mark Zuckerberg says AI will make our lives better and safer.
Three Republican senators on Thursday appeared to get the assurances they needed to support the GOP's "skinny" Obamacare repeal, after earlier criticizing the proposal.

In the latest twist in a bizarre legislative process, Sens. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and Bill Cassidy, R-La., slammed the proposal to roll back parts of Obamacare at a news conference. But they later told reporters that they would back the plan after House Speaker Paul Ryan told them a House and Senate conference committee would seek a better alternative. A fourth senator who attended the news conference, John McCain, R-Ariz., would not say where he stood after speaking to Ryan.

Earlier, Graham said he could not support a "half-assed" plan that he called "politically" the "dumbest thing in history." But he added that he could back the bill if he is promised that lawmakers could strike a better Obamacare replacement deal in conference.

Johnson said the plan was sold to senators as "a vehicle to get to conference." McCain added that he is "voting no unless I see that there is a path to a conference" and said he would also listen to GOP Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey's opinions on the plan.

Essentially, the senators said they would back the plan only with the assurance that the House will not pass the same bill.

House Speaker Paul Ryan later said that his chamber is open to going to a conference committee to reach an Obamacare repeal deal with the Senate  but expressed doubts that his Republican counterparts could pass any major overhaul of the health-care system. After Ryan's initial statement, McCain responded by saying his assurances were not sufficient.

Supporting the proposal carries risks for senators who do not want it to become law. The House could simply approve it and send it to President Donald Trump's desk to end the months-long struggle to at least partially repeal Obamacare, a key GOP promise for the last seven years.

A conference committee can form when the Senate and House pass differing versions of bills and aim to strike one agreement that both chambers can then vote to approve. The House already passed an Obamacare replacement plan, the highly unpopular American Health Care Act. It is unclear if that process can produce a plan that enough Senate Republicans will support.

Separate GOP plans to immediately replace the Affordable Care Act or repeal it with a two-year transition period failed in the Senate amid Republican divisions. The skinny proposal is seen as a final attempt to push a plan through the Senate before the chamber tries to reach a plan that could also get approval in the House.

Senate Republicans unveiled the "skinny" repeal bill late Thursday just hours before they planned to vote on it. It repeals Obamacare's individual mandate, rolls back the employer mandate, suspends the medical device tax, increases contribution limits for health savings accounts, cuts off Planned Parenthood funding for one year and expands a program that would allow states to waive some consumer protections.

A Congressional Budget Office score requested by Democrats estimated that a skinny repeal plan would leave 16 million more people uninsured and make premiums about 20 percent higher than under current law. However, that report was based only on widely reported outlines of a skinny repeal proposal, meaning it does not capture the exact bill the Senate will field.

Insurance companies need to collect payments from healthier people in order to offset the costs of sicker ones. Without an individual mandate requiring Americans to have insurance or pay a penalty, it is expected that some healthy people will drop their coverage.

Graham did not mince words about the proposal.

"The skinny bill, as policy, is a disaster," he said.

It is still unclear if the Senate can reach a majority vote on the plan. As Republicans hold 52 seats, three "no" votes will block it.
House Speaker Paul Ryan said Thursday that his chamber was open to going to a conference committee to reach an Obamacare repeal deal with the Senate  but expressed doubts that his Republican counterparts could pass any major overhaul of the health-care system.

"If moving forward requires a conference committee, that is something the House is willing to do," Ryan said in a statement. "The reality, however, is that repealing and replacing Obamacare still ultimately requires the Senate to produce 51 votes for an actual plan."

Ryan's statement came after four Republican senators shredded the GOP's "skinny" Obamacare repeal plan, but said they could vote for it if they got an assurance that they could craft something better in a conference committee with the House.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., later told reporters that Ryan's statement was not sufficient. It's unclear now if Ryan's statement will satisfy the demands for the other three senators, Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and Bill Cassidy, R-La.

Ryan did not specifically say whether the House would take up the skinny repeal plan if the Senate passes it.

"The House remains committed to finding a solution and working with our Senate colleagues, but the burden remains on the Senate to demonstrate that it is capable of passing something that keeps our promise, as the House has already done," Ryan said. "Until the Senate can do that, we will never be able to develop a conference report that becomes law. We expect the Senate to act first on whatever the conference committee produces."

A conference committee can form when the Senate and House pass differing versions of bills and aim to strike one agreement that both chambers can then vote to approve. The House already passed an Obamacare replacement plan, the highly unpopular American Health Care Act. It is unclear if that process can produce a plan that enough Senate Republicans will support.

Here's Ryan's full statement:

"It is now obvious that the only path ahead is for the Senate to pass the narrow legislation that it is currently considering. This package includes important reforms like eliminating the job-killing employer mandate and the requirement that forces people to purchase coverage they don't want. Still it is not enough to solve the many failures of Obamacare. Senators have made clear that this is an effort to keep the process alive, not to make law. If moving forward requires a conference committee, that is something the House is willing to do. The reality, however, is that repealing and replacing Obamacare still ultimately requires the Senate to produce 51 votes for an actual plan. The House remains committed to finding a solution and working with our Senate colleagues, but the burden remains on the Senate to demonstrate that it is capable of passing something that keeps our promise, as the House has already done. Until the Senate can do that, we will never be able to develop a conference report that becomes law. We expect the Senate to act first on whatever the conference committee produces. Obamacare is collapsing and hurting American families. We have to keep working at this until we get the job done."

Separate GOP plans to immediately replace the Affordable Care Act or repeal it with a two-year transition period failed in the Senate amid Republican divisions. The skinny proposal is seen as a final attempt to push a plan through the Senate before the House would have to approve a proposal as well.

Senate Republicans have not unveiled text yet of a "skinny" repeal bill, which they aim to pass on Thursday night or Friday. Provisions of it may depend on what can garner a majority of support in the Senate during a string of upcoming votes.

A Congressional Budget Office score requested by Democrats estimated that a skinny repeal plan would leave 16 million more people uninsured and make premiums about 20 percent higher than under current law. However, that report was based only on widely reported outlines of a skinny repeal proposal, meaning it does not capture whatever concrete bill the Senate will field.
A Slovakian vehicle company wants to solve the problem of failing infrastructure by taking to the skies. AeroMobil designs flying cars that utilize existing airplane runways, thus relieving some pressure from congested roads.

The car is available for pre-order and the company claims it will be ready for delivery in 2020. It will come in at a price tag of $1.2 million to $1.6 million and will require users to have both a driver's and a pilot's license.

The vehicle transforms from car to plane in three minutes. In testing, the car has reached a driving speed of 100 mph and a flying speed of 224 mph.
President Donald Trump on Saturday expressed frustration with China over its inability to curb North Korea's nuclear ambitions, suggesting his effort to strategically cultivate his Chinese counterpart was nearing its end amid Pyongyang's continued defiance.

On Friday, North Korea fired a new intercontinental ballistic missile that experts say has the potential to reach the U.S. mainland. The test sparked condemnation from South Korea, America and Japan, but no consensus on how to check the hermetic Communist nation's ambitions.

However, Trump lashed out at China for being unable to rein in North Korea, as both countries exchange billions per year in trade across the border that separates them. In a series of posts on Twitter, the president accused China of doing "nothing for us with North Korea, just talk."

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...

they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!

Amplifying the president's displeasure, Nikki Haley, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations insisted there would be no emergency session of the U.N. Security Council. In a statement posted on Twitter Sunday, Haley said the time for continued multilateral discussions about the crisis was "over."

In the wake of North Korea's IBCM launch, Haley declared "there was no point in having an emergency session if it produces nothing of consequence. North Korea is already subject to numerous Security Council resolutions that they violate with impunity," she said, which has not produced a change in the regime's behavior.

"The time for talk is over," Haley stated, adding that an emergency meeting was "worse than nothing, because it sends the message to the North Korean dictator that the international community is unwilling to seriously challenge him. The danger the North Korean regime poses to international peace is now clear to all."

The U.S's pressure on China represent a stark departure from Trump's constructive tone toward the country, as he sought cooperation on sensitive issues such as trade and foreign relations. The president has made overtures toward Chinese President Xi Jinping, in order to convince him to exert influence over Pyongyang.

In April, a summit between the two leaders resulted in Trump and Xi agreeing to cooperate on a range of issues, with Trump declaring the bilateral meeting a "tremendous" success. Most notably, the president pointedly declined to label China a currency manipulator, despite having vowed to do so on the campaign trail last year.

With no consensus among major world powers on how to halt the aggressions, North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has grown increasingly brazen in his threats. On Friday, he claimed his country had the capacity to strike the entire continental U.S. North Korea has tested at least a dozen rockets in 2017 alone.
As concerns grow over North Korea's military provocations, a range of experts are warning that for various reasons, the U.S. cannot count on China as a reliable partner in defusing the crisis on the Korean Peninsula.

Early Sunday, the U.S. military said it had conducted a successful test THAAD weapon system test over the Pacific Ocean, a response to Pyongyang's latest missile test. That came on the heels of South Korea announcing a new precision ballistic missile it claimed is capable of destroying North Korea's nuclear facilities and tunnel strongholds.

On Friday, The North Korean government test-fired a Hwasong-14 intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan. That prompted a furious Twitter tirade from President Donald Trump, who berated China on its inability, or unwillingness, to control its ally.

For its part, China is concerned about the repercussions of North Korea's regime collapsing, including a civil war in an impoverished country with nuclear and chemical weapons. Beijing also is worried a fall of the regime could result in millions of refugees streaming across the border into China, observers say.

"I've been told by senior Chinese officials: 'Look we don't like the status quo but it's certainly a lot better than the alternative,'" said Harry Kazianis, director of defense studies at the Center for the National Interest, a Washington, D.C.-based public policy think tank founded by former President Richard Nixon.

Another reason the administration remains wary of negotiations is previous U.S. attempts at denuclearization have failed, even after substantial assistance to North Korea. In April, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson pointed out the U.S. had provided the North with about $1.3 billion in aid since 1995.

Those factors are playing out against a backdrop of a potential military conflict that grows more acute by the day. Experts now estimate the long-range missile can reach at least half of the continental United States. Yet Joel Wit, a senior fellow at the U.S.-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, told CNBC that all was not yet lost.

"I think the 'window of opportunity' is still open for dialogue," said Wit, a co-founder of Washington's 38 North think tank and a former State Department official.

He added that it's time for the Trump administration to sit down and hold "a serious security dialogue" with Pyongyangand forget about taking the "dead-end" sanctions route.
For example, Sendmybag.com might be likened to an Uber of baggage shipping, with door-to-door pick-up and drop-off and bag tracking. The Northern Ireland-based service first targeted students, who  according to CEO Adam Ewart  were being hit the hardest by excess baggage fees when the airlines introduced them. Six years after the company's 2011 launch, Sendmybag.com has expanded to other markets, such as vacationers and business travelers.

Airline baggage fees keep increasing, with domestic carriers earning $3.5 billion last year from checked-bag fees. In response, some travelers are turning to online luggage-shipping services such as Luggage Free , Luggage Forward and Sendmybag.com in search of cheaper prices and other perks.

In 2017, the service has already shipped around 200,000 bags and counting, Ewart said. And he can see the company hitting 1 million bags within the next few years.

"It's a great early adopter market because when a student uses [the service] for college, whenever they travel for business or vacation in the future, they'll use it again," he said.

The vast majority of customers who use Sendmybag.com use it again within six months, and 42 percent of orders placed this year so far have been by repeat customers, Ewart said.

More from Out of Office:

A look at airlines, then and now

The worst airports for summertime travel delays

Checking out, and into, the hotel room of the future

In terms of cost, sending one bag through the site is likely more expensive than checking that bag with an airline. Shipping becomes the cheaper option when you have multiple bags you need to travel with. All prices depend on the travel distance and the number, weight and shape of the bags. Here is some cost data from Sendmybag.com for popular air routes:

From California to New York in five to six business days: $79 if under 44 pounds, $90 if between 40 and 60 pounds.

From New York to London in two to three days: $99 under 33 pounds, $169 between 33 and 66 pounds.

From Washington, D.C. to Toronto in one to two days: $79 under 33 pounds, $115 between 33 and 66 pounds.

The company has seen a big uptick in business users because "time-saving points are particularly important for them," according to Ewart. Business travelers can save time by blowing through baggage check, or customs for international flights, and not having to wait around for their luggage at the baggage carousels, which 43 percent of travelers said was the worst part of their trip, according to the company's survey of 2,000 independent travelers.
Millennial-age American are prioritizing their furry best friends over nuptials or babies when it comes to house hunting.

To that point, 33 percent of millennials between ages 18 and 36 said that they considered canine-related features, such as a large fenced yard and dog-friendly neighborhoods, as a huge factor in buying their first home, while 25 percent cited marriage and just 19 percent said the birth of a child, according to a SunTrust Mortgage survey.

A desire for more living space (66 percent) and building equity (36 percent) were the only factors higher than considering their dog's needs when buying a home, according to the survey.

The survey also found that 42 percent of millennials who had never bought a home said that their dog, or the desire to have one, would be a key factor in their decision to get on the property ladder.

Some may find the survey results surprising, but Rachel Wingard, a millennial first-time home-buyer, says the results signify that millennials are thinking practically.

"People were surprised at the dog statistic but it shows a level of responsibility that you're caring for a living thing," Wingard said. "It's hard to think about children when you don't have any, and owning a home doesn't necessarily make marriage more plausible."
Police stand in front of the disco Club Grey in the southern German town of Konstanz, where a gunman opened fire, killing one and wounding four people before being shot by police, on July 30, 2017.

A 34-year-old man opened fire in a nightclub in the southern German city of Konstanz on Sunday, killing one person and seriously injuring three others, police said.

The suspect suffered life-threatening injuries in a gunfight with police officers outside the music venue after they had rushed to the scene shortly after the incident around 0230 GMT.

The suspect has been taken to hospital. The motive for the shooting is unclear. One police officer was also injured in the exchange of fire with the suspect.

Police said in a statement that special commando forces have been deployed in the city as it was not clear if the suspected had acted alone or had accomplices.

On Friday, a failed asylum seeker killed one person and injured six others in the northern city of Hamburg. Officials said he was an Islamist known to security forces and he had was psychologically unstable.

The Konstanz gunman who killed one person and injured three others in a nightclub in southern Germany on Sunday was an Iraqi citizen who had lived in the country for a long time and was not an asylum seeker, police said in a later statement, ruling out terrorism as a motive.

Konstanz police spokesman Fritz Bezikofer told the n-tv broadcaster that after an initial investigation into the events surrounding the shooting at the nightclub in Konstanz on the border with Switzerland investigators ruled out terrorism.

"The motives of the man who acted alone are unclear," he said. "We are still investigating but the circumstances surrounding the events at the disco in the evening before the shooting are a bit clearer and this led us to rule out a terrorism background."




it's very common to shop for groceries at

With a greater of selection of food markets, specialty stores and bulk discounters comes greater efficiency and cost savings for shoppers. However, sometimes the reverse is true. "It's a very competitive environment for groceries, which is great news for shoppers," said Tobie Stanger, a senior editor at Consumer Reports. "That competition drives down prices." But on the flip side, now it's not unusual to do your shopping at not only the grocery store but the farmers' market, warehouse club and big-box retailer, too  all in a typical week. Each month, 68 percent of Americans shop at least five different types of food retailers, according to the Hartman Group, a consulting firm for the food industry.

It's a very competitive environment for groceries, which is great news for shoppers Tobie Stanger a senior editor at Consumer Reports

That has also taken a toll on the one-size-fits all supermarket. "Remember A&P? It was around for more than 150 years, but closed in 2015," Stanger said. Now the stores that fare the best are so-called premium stores such as Wegmans, specialty stores like Trader Joe's and discounters such as Idaho-based WinCo, the ratings magazine said. In fact, Wegmans has held the top spot among all food retailers since 2006, according to a Consumer Reports subscriber poll, thanks to its competitive prices, prepared foods, healthy options and customer service. But making one to Wegmans run for ready-to-cook meals, another to Trader Joe's for Two Buck Chuck and a third stop at Costco for paper towels, along with all of the impulse items along the way, can strain any household budget, not to mention the time wasted food shopping.
"I think it would theoretically be superior to the existing social welfare system," Michael Tanner, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, told CNBC's "On The Money" in an interview. "It would be more efficient. It would be more humane and it would be a lot less paternalistic."

The idea is whether a person is unemployed or wealthy, a $1,000 monthly government check could replace all current welfare programs, including Social Security.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg are among those who say universal basic income, or UBI, is a good idea. With inequality widening, the idea of an unconditional, periodic cash payment that the government makes to everyone has suddenly become a hot topic.

The conversation about UBI has reached a crescendo as the workforce leans more heavily on technology. Nearly half of all U.S. jobs could be replaced by robots in the next decade or two, according to an Oxford University study.

Last November, Tesla's Musk said there was "a pretty good chance we end up with a universal basic income, or something like that," as a rising number of workers lose jobs due to automation.

UBI supporters say the cash from the government could fund basic needs, like food and housing, freeing people up to find new jobs in the digital economy.

"A lot of people when they first hear this idea really like it," said Jason Furman, former chief economic advisor to President Obama. That is, until you read the fine print

"And then when you look at the details it turns out it just doesn't work," Furman explained to CNBC. "It costs two to three trillion dollars. You would need to double the current income tax to make it work."

Furman, a professor at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, added that "the premise underlying it is wrong too. There's going to be a lot of automation but there's also going to be a lot of jobs and our focus should be on making sure people can get those jobs not giving up. And universal basic income represents giving up in the face of that challenge."

Yet Tanner took aim at the current social safety net. He argued the current "social welfare system spends nearly one trillion dollars a year fighting poverty, and it doesn't do a very good job of enabling people to rise and get out of poverty and to be in control of their lives."

He added: "Looking for some new alternative for that is not a bad idea."

The debate has been heightened by Europe's experiments in providing UBI to citizens, which have had mixed results. Those experiments have amplified calls to try a similar approach in the U.S.

"Our current system is certainly imperfect, I don't want to be the defender of the status quo," said Furman. He cited research where current government anti-welfare programs "that invest in children" providing food stamps, Medicaid and housing vouchers are successful and "increase their mobility."

Yet Furman added that "it's too simplistic to say, just write everyone a check, let's spend trillions of dollars doing that, rather than doing the hard work of trying to get the (government) programs right."

Tanner countered that it's hard to determine which federal programs are effective and which aren't. "We have over a hundred different welfare programs all with different rules and regulations. They're overseen by dozens of different agencies. Simplifying, consolidating and moving to cash would make a great deal of difference I think."

So might a UBI program work in America? "We don't have a lot of wide scale evidence yet there are a number of ongoing experiments in places like Finland, the Netherlands and Canada," Tanner acknowledged.

Still, Furman doesn't see UBI or the "rise of the robots" as coming anytime soon.

"Maybe 50 or 100 years from now we have enough robots to make everything and they can just hand the proceeds over to us," the academic said. "But I'm trying to think in the scale of the next 10, 20, 30 years, (robots) are not going to take our jobs on any time scale that I'm capable of envisioning."

On the Money airs on CNBC Saturday at 5:30 am ET, or check listings for air times in local markets.
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cheers,

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The Code Project | Co-founder

Microsoft C++ MVP



Apologies for the shouting but this is important.



When answering a question please:

Read the question carefully

Understand that English isn't everyone's first language so be lenient of bad spelling and grammar

If a question is poorly phrased then either ask for clarification, ignore it, or mark it down. Insults are not welcome

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Insults, slap-downs and sarcasm aren't welcome. Let's work to help developers, not make them feel stupid.



cheers,

Chris Maunder



The Code Project Co-founder

Microsoft C++ MVP



Hello again...



[Thought I could do this on my own in Adobe Dreamweaver, but I guess not]. I need a basic (responsive) html template whereby everything on the page is centered vertically in divs...both image & text content. (I believe I need what is known as a 'wrapper'...that can be set to a certain width...& then all other content would be centered in that wrapper)



If someone can just get me started, w/ just a few centered divs in a wrapper for placement of images & text, I can learn from that basic code & just add content as I go (& will be very appreciative of any effort, from anyone here).



thanx,



mwForman



modified 3 days ago.



Centering in CSS: A Complete Guide | CSS-Tricks - CSS-Tricks[^]



For example:

HTML < !DOCTYPE html > < html > < head > < style > html , body { display : grid ; height : 100% ; } body > div { margin : auto ; } </ style > < /head > < body > < div > Everything in this element is centered, both horizontally and vertically. < /div > < /body > < /html > Demo[^]





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer









Thanx. I don't need horizontal centering, tho...only vertical (i.e., all content would be centered on the page vertically, but would be positioned at the top of each div). What would that page code look like?



Thanx again,



MF



I am making some modifications in a web and opening it with

Firefox on a Linux Debian 11.2 machine and

I need to change the security preferences, unchecking the box

"Delete cookies and site data when Firefox is closed."



However, it won't let me uncheck this box, as it shows up with a

softer color and ignores the mouse click on the check box.



The person who worked on this project before is gone and I don't

may I ask if you established any security mechanism that does not

Let me modify this option.



I have seen that in /home/myuser/.mozilla/firefox folder

the files exist



-rw-r--r-- 1 myname mygroup 58 Jan 26 2022 installs.ini

-rw-r--r-- 1 myname mygroup 247 Jan 26 2022 profiles.ini



I have tried to change the permissions to 777, but despite that it does not allow me to change

that option in Firefox.



Any suggestion or comment is welcome.



Hi all, first attempt to set up a file upload on web page.



Pretty basic stuff, but my first try so can't see why it isn't working.



Firstly I'm running on apache2 on a VPS debian 10 install.

/etc/php/7.4/apache2/php.ini contains the following:

;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; File Uploads ; ;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;; ; Whether to allow HTTP file uploads. ; <a href= " http://php.net/file-uploads" >http: file_uploads = On ; Temporary directory for HTTP uploaded files (will use system default if not ; specified). ; <a href= " http://php.net/upload-tmp-dir" >http: ;upload_tmp_dir = ; Maximum allowed size for uploaded files. ; <a href= " http://php.net/upload-max-filesize" >http: upload_max_filesize = 2M ; Maximum number of files that can be uploaded via a single request max_file_uploads = 20

index.html looks like this:

<!DOCTYPE html> <html> <body> <form action= " upload.php" method= " post" enctype= " multipart/form-data" > Select image to upload: <input type= " file" name= " fileToUpload" id= " fileToUpload" > <input type= " submit" value = " Upload Image" name= " submit" > </ form > </ body > </ html >

upload.php as follows:

<?php $target_dir = " uploads/" ; $target_file = $target_dir . basename($_FILES[ " fileToUpload" ][ " name" ]); $uploadOk = 1 ; $imageFileType = strtolower(pathinfo($target_file,PATHINFO_EXTENSION)); if (isset($_POST[ " submit" ])) { $check = getimagesize($_FILES[ " fileToUpload" ][ " tmp_name" ]); if ($check !== false ) { echo " File is an image - " . $check[ " mime" ] . " ." ; $uploadOk = 1 ; } else { echo " File is not an image." ; $uploadOk = 0 ; } } if (file_exists($target_file)) { echo " Sorry, file already exists." ; $uploadOk = 0 ; } if ($_FILES[ " fileToUpload" ][ " size" ] > 500000 ) { echo " Sorry, your file is too large." ; $uploadOk = 0 ; } if ($imageFileType != " jpg" && $imageFileType != " png" && $imageFileType != " jpeg" && $imageFileType != " gif" ) { echo " Sorry, only JPG, JPEG, PNG & GIF files are allowed." ; $uploadOk = 0 ; } if ($uploadOk == 0 ) { echo " Sorry, your file was not uploaded." ; } else { if (move_uploaded_file($_FILES[ " fileToUpload" ][ " tmp_name" ], $target_file)) { echo " The file " . htmlspecialchars( basename( $_FILES[ " fileToUpload" ][ " name" ])). " has been uploaded." ; } else { echo " Sorry, there was an error uploading your file." ; } } ?>

Finally, there is a folder named uploads in the path where the index.html and upload.php files reside.



When I test with a jpeg file (286k in size), I get "sorry there was an error uploading your file".



Any advice would be much appreciated, thanks.







directory wasn't set to be writeable.

Terminal sudo chmod 777 ./uploads

did the trick.







https://linuxize.com/post/what-does-chmod-777-mean/[^]





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





I'm trying to store a variable from data loaded through a fetch API, so that it's available for use outside the "promise" - i.e. so that I can generate a variable and them compare it on page reload. So far, I have something like this, but it doesn't work:

let extractedVal = await main(x); let xml = " " ; let apiUrl = " link/to/myfile.xml" ; async function getXml() { let response = await fetch( " link/to/myfile.xml" ); let text = await response.text(); xml = new DOMParser().parseFromString(text, " text/xml" ); return xml; } async function main() { xml = await getXml(apiUrl) console.log(xml); var x = 1 ; return x; }

i get the error at line 1:

Uncaught SyntaxError: await is only valid in async functions and the top level or: x is not defined if I don't use await



Surely, I'm not seeking to do the impossible here? All the methods I can find for "hoisting" a local variable into global scope seem to fail.



modified 4-Oct-22 19:44pm.



Top-level await[^] is currently only supported in modules[^]. For regular Javascript code, you would need to wrap it in a function.



For example:

JavaScript let xml = null ; ( async () => { const apiUrl = " link/to/myfile.xml" ; const response = await fetch(apiUrl); const text = await response.text(); xml = new DOMParser().parseFromString(text, " text/xml" ); console .log(xml); })(); NB: If you access the xml variable before the fetch has completed, it will still be null . Another approach would be to store a promise[^] in the variable, and await that when you want to access it:

JavaScript const xml = ( async () => { const apiUrl = " link/to/myfile.xml" ; const response = await fetch(apiUrl); const text = await response.text(); const result = new DOMParser().parseFromString(text, " text/xml" ); console .debug( " xml:" , result); return result; })();





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





DSB Audio (David Sweeney-Bear) wrote: All the methods I can find for "hoisting" a local variable into global scope seem to fail.

You can't hoist across scopes. Hoisting merely moves definitions of variables to the top of the scope that they are defined in (but the initial value assigned to it is still done in the place where the they appear in the script text). You must define the 'x' in the scope that owns it (pref. not the global scope) and then it is visible in all inner scopes unless hidden by declaring another 'x' in a scope between the defining one and the using one. You can create a variable in the global scope from any other scope by using it without declaring it first (e.g. not in a var statement) - this is bad practice, so please do not do that.



I'm using JS to fetch data from an xml file on a server, like so:

var xhttp = new XMLHttpRequest(); xhttp.onreadystatechange = function() { if ( this .readyState == 4 && this .status == 200 ) { myFunction( this ); } };

I've noticed that when I use this code within my wordpress site, my function is able to get readable data in chrome console, i.e. a drop-down which shows all the xml code,

However if I use the same JS on a static HTML page, it seems to fetch the data but only displays "XML: [object XMLDocument] with no actual data.



Obviously, I'm new to all this, but it would really help my understanding to know why this happens.







So, instead of console.log(xml) I had written console.log("xml: " + xml) which is what caused the data to be "unreadable" in console.



Using just the variable in console.log means that both fetch and XMLHttpRequest work equally well. In fact they were working anyway and the real root of the issue I'm tying to debug lies elsewhere... probably a subject for another post!







JavaScript console .log( " xml:" , xml); There are a lot of other useful console features, most of which work in all modern browsers:

console - Web APIs | MDN[^]





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





helo code project, I am a student my final year project is about to finish but I have a problem, which that, how I can build a web page to only have course content. when I click on it goes to the next page.



like



heading course content for the college

then



consist of course content with icon



Please help me to create



Hello everybody

i'm looking for a group of person , beginner please, for create a team for dev.

This is for create a projet together.

I am just a beginner ! i start just by the html css et just little js.



Contact me please.

ps: i'm french, so sorry for my english ^^



As a personal side-project, I am writing a simple ASP.NET Webform website. Since I have never been involved in the production and it is always the ops team who handles the operation, I am not sure about this go-live process, for example, how to publish my website to the web hosting. Do I have access to IIS in the web hosting? Does anyone have a useful IIS guide recommendation?



Thanks in advance.









Talk to your hosting provider. They should provide documentation, guidance, and assistance with publishing your application to their platform. If they don't, find a better hosting provider.





"These people looked deep within my soul and assigned me a number based on the order in which I joined."

- Homer





What do you mean by front end development?


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.
SUMNER  The Nebraska State Patrol and Dawson County Sheriffs Office are searching for two suspects who led law enforcement on a high-speed chase Thursday afternoon in Dawson County.

According to Nebraska State Patrol communications, a state trooper spotted a vehicle allegedly stolen in Colorado at about 1:30 p.m. on the Lexington Interstate 80 Interchange.

Law enforcement chased the vehicle east on I-80 to Overton where the pursuit went north on several roads, the State Patrol spokesman said. The spokesman would not say the exact speed of the pursuit.

Law enforcement spiked the vehicle. When the tires deflated, a man and woman ran into a cornfield at Roads 444 and 764, southwest of Sumner. The State Patrol searched for the suspects in the field on foot and by airplane, but it ended the search through the corn sometime between 6-7 p.m., a spokesperson said this morning.

Not long after the search ended, at about 7:30 p.m., Dean and Jean Eberle heard a light knock on their back door.

The Eberles, who had a front row seat to the search of the cornfield across the road from their property, were warned earlier in the day by Dawson County Sheriff Gary Reiber and one of his deputies that two fugitives were on the loose in the area.

They asked about if all the vehicles were locked and, yeah, told us to keep in the house, the doors locked, Jean said.

Because of that warning, Jean said, they knew the knock was from the suspects. Dean then called 911, looked out the back window and spotted a woman on their deck and man just beyond the deck.

The man and woman then walked away from the Eberles home to one of the Eberles parked vehicles. At about that time, a deputy pulled into the Eberles driveway and spotted the suspects. They then ran into the trees.

And then, within a very short time, there were multiple law enforcement vehicles (in our yard), Jean said.

Law enforcement also brought with them a K-9 and used an aircraft during the evening, Jean said.

Though a fugitive search isnt something that Jean is accustomed to witnessing, she said she and Dean werent frightened.
ARMOUR Residential REIT, Inc. invests in residential mortgage-backed securities (MBS) in the United States. The company's securities portfolio primarily consists of the United States Government-sponsored entity's (GSE) and the Government National Mortgage Administration's issued or guaranteed securities backed by fixed rate, hybrid adjustable rate, and adjustable-rate home loans, as well as unsecured notes and bonds issued by the GSE and the United States treasuries, as well as money market instruments. It also invests in other securities backed by residential mortgages for which the payment of principal and interest is not guaranteed by a GSE or government agency. The company has elected to be taxed as a real estate investment trust under the Internal Revenue Code. As a result, it would not be subject to corporate income tax on that portion of its net income that is distributed to shareholders. ARMOUR Residential REIT, Inc. was incorporated in 2008 and is based in Vero Beach, Florida.
The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. manufactures, markets, and sells skin care, makeup, fragrance, and hair care products worldwide. It offers a range of skin care products, including moisturizers, serums, cleansers, toners, body care, exfoliators, acne care and oil correctors, facial masks, cleansing devices, and sun care products; and makeup products, such as lipsticks, lip glosses, mascaras, foundations, eyeshadows, nail polishes, and powders, as well as compacts, brushes, and other makeup tools. The company also provides fragrance products in various forms comprising eau de parfum sprays and colognes, as well as lotions, powders, creams, candles, and soaps; and hair care products that include shampoos, conditioners, styling products, treatment, finishing sprays, and hair color products, as well as sells ancillary products and services. It offers its products under the Estee Lauder, Aramis, Clinique, Lab Series, Origins, MAC, Bobbi Brown, La Mer, Aveda, Jo Malone London, Bumble and bumble, Darphin, Smashbox, Le Labo, Editions de Parfums Frederic Malle, GLAMGLOW, Kilian Paris, Too Faced, Dr. Jart+, DECIEM, and The Ordinary brands. The company sells its products through department stores, specialty-multi retailers, upscale perfumeries and pharmacies, and salons and spas; freestanding stores; its own and authorized retailer websites; third-party online malls; stores in airports; and duty-free shops. The Estee Lauder Companies Inc. was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in New York, New York.
The following companies are subsidiares of Sonic Automotive: AM GA LLC, AM Realty GA LLC, AnTrev LLC, Arngar Inc., Autobahn Inc., Avalon Ford Inc., Car Cash of North Carolina Inc., Cornerstone Acceptance Corporation, ECHOPARK: AM GA LLC, ECHOPARK: AM Realty GA LLC, ECHOPARK: EP Realty NC LLC, ECHOPARK: EP Realty SC LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark AZ LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark CA LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark Driver Education LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark FL LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark NC LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark Realty TX LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark SC LLC, ECHOPARK: EchoPark TX LLC, ECHOPARK: Echopark Automotive Inc., ECHOPARK: SAI DS LLC, ECHOPARK: SAI DS Realty TX LLC, ECHOPARK: SAI Vehicle Subscription Inc., ECHOPARK: TT Denver LLC, ECHOPARK: TTRE CO 1 LLC, FAA Beverly Hills Inc., FAA Capitol N Inc., FAA Concord H Inc., FAA Concord T Inc., FAA Dublin N Inc., FAA Dublin VWD Inc., FAA Holding Corp., FAA Las Vegas H Inc., FAA Poway H Inc., FAA Poway T Inc., FAA San Bruno Inc., FAA Santa Monica V Inc., FAA Serramonte H Inc., FAA Serramonte Inc., FAA Serramonte L Inc., FAA Stevens Creek Inc., FAA Torrance CPJ Inc., FirstAmerica Automotive Inc., Fort Mill Ford Inc., Franciscan Motors Inc., Frontier Oldsmobile-Cadillac Inc., Kramer Motors Incorporated, L Dealership Group Inc., Marcus David Corporation, Massey Cadillac Inc. (TN-MI), Mountain States Motors Co. Inc., North Point Imports LLC, Ontario L LLC, Philpott Motors Ltd., SAI AL HC1 Inc., SAI AL HC2 Inc., SAI Ann Arbor Imports LLC, SAI Atlanta B LLC, SAI Broken Arrow C LLC, SAI Calabasas A LLC, SAI Chamblee V LLC, SAI Charlotte M LLC, SAI Chattanooga N LLC, SAI Clearwater T LLC, SAI Cleveland N LLC, SAI Columbus Motors LLC, SAI Columbus T LLC, SAI Columbus VWK LLC, SAI Conroe N LLC, SAI Denver B Inc., SAI Denver C Inc., SAI Denver M Inc., SAI FL HC1 Inc., SAI FL HC2 Inc., SAI FL HC3 Inc., SAI FL HC4 Inc., SAI FL HC7 Inc., SAI Fairfax B LLC, SAI Fort Myers B LLC, SAI Fort Myers H LLC, SAI Fort Myers M LLC, SAI Fort Myers VW LLC, SAI GA HC1 LLC, SAI Irondale Imports LLC, SAI Irondale L LLC, SAI Long Beach B Inc., SAI MD HC1 Inc., SAI McKinney M LLC, SAI Monrovia B Inc., SAI Montgomery B LLC, SAI Montgomery BCH LLC, SAI Montgomery CH LLC, SAI Nashville CSH LLC, SAI Nashville H LLC, SAI Nashville M LLC, SAI Nashville Motors LLC, SAI OK HC1 Inc., SAI Oklahoma City C LLC, SAI Oklahoma City H LLC, SAI Oklahoma City T LLC, SAI Orlando CS LLC, SAI Peachtree LLC, SAI Pensacola A LLC, SAI Philpott T LLC, SAI Riverside C LLC, SAI Roaring Fork LR Inc., SAI Rockville Imports LLC, SAI Rockville L LLC, SAI S. Atlanta JLR LLC, SAI SIC Inc., SAI Santa Clara K Inc., SAI Stone Mountain T LLC, SAI TN HC1 LLC, SAI TN HC2 LLC, SAI TN HC3 LLC, SAI Tulsa N LLC, SAI Tulsa T LLC, SAI Tysons Corner H LLC, SAI Tysons Corner I LLC, SAI VA HC1 Inc., SAI VS GA LLC, SAI VS TX LLC, SAI Vehicle Subscription Inc., SAI West Houston B LLC, SRE Alabama  2 LLC, SRE Alabama  5 LLC, SRE Alabama  6 LLC, SRE California 10 LBB LLC, SRE California 11 PH LLC, SRE California  1 LLC, SRE California  2 LLC, SRE California  3 LLC, SRE California  4 LLC, SRE California  5 LLC, SRE California  6 LLC, SRE California  7 SCB LLC, SRE California  8 SCH LLC, SRE California  9 BHB LLC, SRE Colorado  1 LLC, SRE Colorado  2 LLC, SRE Colorado  3 LLC, SRE Colorado  4 RF LLC, SRE Colorado  5 CC LLC, SRE Florida  1 LLC, SRE Florida  2 LLC, SRE Georgia 4 LLC, SRE Georgia 5 LLC, SRE Georgia 6 LLC, SRE Holding LLC, SRE Maryland  1 LLC, SRE Nevada  2 LLC, SRE North Carolina  2 LLC, SRE North Carolina  3 LLC, SRE Ohio 1 LLC, SRE Ohio 2 LLC, SRE Oklahoma  1 LLC, SRE Oklahoma  2 LLC, SRE Oklahoma  5 LLC, SRE South Carolina  2 LLC, SRE South Carolina  3 LLC, SRE South Carolina  4 LLC, SRE Tennessee 6 LLC, SRE Tennessee 7 LLC, SRE Tennessee  1 LLC, SRE Tennessee  2 LLC, SRE Tennessee  3 LLC, SRE Tennessee  4 LLC, SRE Tennessee  5 LLC, SRE Texas 10 LLC, SRE Texas 11 LLC, SRE Texas 12 LLC, SRE Texas 13 LLC, SRE Texas 14 LLC, SRE Texas 15 LLC, SRE Texas 16 LLC, SRE Texas 9 LLC, SRE Texas  1 LP, SRE Texas  2 LP, SRE Texas  3 LP, SRE Texas  4 LP, SRE Texas  5 LP, SRE Texas  6 LP, SRE Texas  7 LP, SRE Texas  8 LP, SRE Virginia - 1 LLC, SRE Virginia  2 LLC, SRM Assurance Ltd., Santa Clara Imported Cars Inc., Sonic 2185 Chapman Rd. Chattanooga LLC, Sonic Advantage PA LP, Sonic Automotive - 1720 Mason Ave. DB LLC, Sonic Automotive 2424 Laurens Rd. Greenville Inc., Sonic Automotive 2752 Laurens Rd. Greenville Inc., Sonic Automotive Aviation LLC, Sonic Automotive F&I LLC, Sonic Automotive Support LLC, Sonic Automotive West LLC, Sonic Automotive of Chattanooga LLC, Sonic Automotive of Nashville LLC, Sonic Automotive of Nevada Inc., Sonic Automotive of Texas LP, Sonic Automotive  1495 Automall Drive Columbus Inc., Sonic Automotive  1720 Mason Ave. DB Inc., Sonic Automotive  2490 South Lee Highway LLC, Sonic Automotive  3401 N. Main TX LP, Sonic Automotive  4701 I-10 East TX LP, Sonic Automotive  6008 N. Dale Mabry FL Inc., Sonic Automotive  9103 E. Independence NC LLC, Sonic Calabasas M Inc., Sonic Development LLC, Sonic Divisional Operations LLC, Sonic FFC 1 Inc., Sonic FFC 2 Inc., Sonic FFC 3 Inc., Sonic Fremont Inc., Sonic Houston JLR LP, Sonic Houston LR LP, Sonic Momentum B LP, Sonic Momentum JVP LP, Sonic Momentum VWA LP, Sonic Resources Inc., Sonic Santa Monica M Inc., Sonic Santa Monica S Inc., Sonic Walnut Creek M Inc., Sonic Wilshire Cadillac Inc., Sonic eStore Inc., Sonic of Texas Inc., Sonic  Buena Park H Inc., Sonic  Cadillac D LP, Sonic  Calabasas A Inc., Sonic  Calabasas V Inc., Sonic  Camp Ford LP, Sonic  Capitol Cadillac Inc., Sonic  Capitol Imports Inc., Sonic  Carrollton V LP, Sonic  Carson F Inc., Sonic  Carson LM Inc., Sonic  Clear Lake N LP, Sonic  Clear Lake Volkswagen LP, Sonic  Denver T Inc., Sonic  Downey Cadillac Inc., Sonic  Fort Mill Chrysler Jeep Inc., Sonic  Fort Mill Dodge Inc., Sonic  Fort Worth T LP, Sonic  Frank Parra Autoplex LP, Sonic  Harbor City H Inc., Sonic  Houston V LP, Sonic  Integrity Dodge LV LLC, Sonic  Jersey Village Volkswagen LP, Sonic  LS Chevrolet LP, Sonic  LS LLC, Sonic  Lake Norman Chrysler Jeep LLC, Sonic  Las Vegas C West LLC, Sonic  Lloyd Nissan Inc., Sonic  Lloyd Pontiac  Cadillac Inc., Sonic  Lone Tree Cadillac Inc., Sonic  Lute Riley LP, Sonic  Massey Cadillac LP, Sonic  Massey Chevrolet Inc., Sonic  Mesquite Hyundai LP, Sonic  Newsome Chevrolet World Inc., Sonic  Newsome of Florence Inc., Sonic  North Charleston Dodge Inc., Sonic  North Charleston Inc., Sonic  Plymouth Cadillac Inc., Sonic  Richardson F LP, Sonic  Sanford Cadillac Inc., Sonic  Shottenkirk Inc., Sonic  Stevens Creek B Inc., Sonic  Volvo LV LLC, Sonic  West Covina T Inc., Sonic  Williams Cadillac Inc., Stevens Creek Cadillac Inc., The Sonic Automotive Family Emergency Fund (SAFE), Town and Country Ford Incorporated, and Windward Inc..

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Business leaders have a long history of lamenting that politics should be run more like business. Indeed, a few of them have even tried to demonstrate the ease with which things could work if only they were put in charge by crossing over into the political field.

Notably, those who have tried have almost all failed. Theres a reason for this  politics is a different market. No businessman would assume that someone who is good at running a supermarket would automatically and instantly be good at running an insurance company or a record label. They would acknowledge that different skills and sector-specific expertise is required; things that can often be learned, but arent simply innate in every business leader. Those who have succeeded in switching lanes  like Heseltine  have realised the challenge for what it is, and carefully studied the conditions in their new field before adapting their approach. But others still try to do with politics what they would never consider doing in their day jobs: leaping into a completely different industry as though it was exactly the same as their home turf.

Theres a good example of this in todays Sunday Times. Lord Sugar wants political dishonesty to become a criminal offence:

As the chairman of a public company, if I told lies in a shareholders statement that resulted in the crash of the share price or the increase in the share price which caused traders to go and buy lots of shares or not to buy lots of shares, I would be put in prison. He claims the same punishment should now be applied to politicians, adding: If they lie, which results in massive decisions like leaving the European Union, or gaining votes in a general election, then this should be a criminal offence as it would be in a public company if I lied to my shareholders.

The practical problems with this ought to be immediately obvious. How do you prove something was a lie, rather than simply an ideological disagreement? Labour claimed their manifesto was costed, based on their mistaken belief that tax rises dont reduce revenues or hobble growth. Is that a lie, or a legitimate alternative view of the world to pitch to the people?

How do you prove what was the deciding factor in gaining votes? How many voters would have to testify, after the fact, that a particular promise had swung their decision in the booth? And how would we know they were being honest and fair rather than exercising political revenge for one reason or another? Since the referendum, a series of bogus civil cases attempting to punish lies have shown that such truth litigation is a refuge of the desperate, seeking to win through sophistry what they could not win in open democratic debate.

But more important than these objections is the fundamental one. Do we really want a society in which a specialist police unit and a series of judges are charged with determining political truth? Great as our police officers and judiciary no doubt are, the prospect of them deciding which model of economics or social policy is true, and which should be criminalised is nightmarish at best. How much would economic circumstances have to change after an election before a politician would be free from arrest for changing their fiscal plans to borrow or tax more than they promised?

Then there is the final test of any idea: is the current system so broken that it needs to be replaced? We all know that politicians and political parties sometimes stretch or even break the truth. We all tend to believe that those with whom we disagree are mistaken in their analysis of the world and their views on the best way forward. But we also know that the whole point of democracy is to expose the former and debate the latter. We learn by the battle of ideas, and by sometimes bitter experience  but our system allows people to experiment, and to improve their thinking. Should Nick Clegg and the Liberal Democrats have been thrown in jail for adapting to circumstance and voting for tuition fees? No. Should they have been punished at the ballot box for breaking a flagship promise? On balance, yes. And they were  thats sanction enough.
Digital Realty is a real estate investment trust focused entirely on data centers. The company owns, acquires, develops, and operates a network of global data centers and the cloud-based solutions cloud service providers need to access and maximize them. The company has set itself apart from the traditional data center REIT by unifying its holdings across one digital platform called PlatformDIGITALR which provides seamless control of data flow.

The company was formed in 2004 when GI Partners contributed 24 newly acquired data centers to help form the business. Later that same year, the company went public through an IPO that provided the capital to begin a campaign of acquisition. The company has been steadily adding square footage and new locations to its network ever since and it is still not done. The expansion has helped to deliver a 10% FFO CAGR and fuel a steadily rising dividend distribution. The company made its 16th consecutive annual dividend increase in 2022 and additional increases are expected each year.

Digital Realty's global footprint provides access to connected businesses in more than 284 facilities in 23 countries. As of mid-2022, it had more than $53 billion in assets and was listed as the US 8th largest publicly traded REIT.

Digital Realty supports the world's IT infrastructure by providing a full range of data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions. Businesses can choose to rely solely on Digital Realty for their data center needs or use Digital Realtys propriety cloud-based solutions to interconnect multiple data centers, and clouds, or connect to a private network.

PlatformDIGITALR is the company's global data center platform. It provides customers with a proven solution for operating on the cloud, scaling a digital business, and managing its data flow. The platform allows for seamless connection to providers and services that are in demand by todays rapidly changing digital businesses.

Digital Realty Trust is a key member of the Green Grid, a consortium of industry insiders and policy makers focused on making data centers more efficient and sustainable. Digital Realty Trust offers industry-leading efficiency alongside its world-class quality data centers. Digital Realty Trust data centers require fewer building materials and provide industry-leading power usage levels or PUEs.
The following companies are subsidiares of Ingersoll Rand: 13125882 Canada Inc., 211 E. Russell Road LLC, 4458664 Canada Inc., ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES ASIA PTE. LTD., ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES BORROWER S.C.A., ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES INDIA PRIVATE LIMITED, ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES LLC, ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES MIDDLE EAST FZE, ACCUDYNE INDUSTRIES SERVICES LIMITED, ASTRUM IT GmbH, Accudyne Industries Acquisition S.A r.l, Accudyne Industries Canada Inc., Accudyne Industries S.A r.l., Air Dimensions, Air Dimensions Inc., Albin Pump SAS, BOC Edwards Global Low pressure Air business, CISA S.p.A., Cameron-Centrifugal Compression, Comercial Ingersoll-Rand (Chile) Limitada, Comingersoll-Comercio E Industria De Equipamentos S.A., CompAir, CompAir (Hankook) Korea Co. Ltd., CompAir Acquisition (No. 2) Ltd., CompAir Acquisition Ltd., CompAir BroomWade Ltd., CompAir Finance Ltd., CompAir GmbH, CompAir Holdings Limited, CompAir International Trading (Shanghai) Co Ltd, CompAir Korea Ltd, CompAir South Africa (SA) (Pty) Ltd., Consolidated Distribution Holdings Ltd., DV Systems Inc., Dosatron International SAS, Emco Wheaton Gmbh, Emco Wheaton USA Inc, Enza Air Proprietary Limited, FlexEnergy Holdings LLC, Frigoblock Grosskopf Gmbh, GD Aria Holdings Limited, GD Aria Holdings Limited, GD Aria Investments Limited, GD First (UK) Ltd, GD German Holdings GmbH, GD German Holdings I Gmbh, GD German Holdings II GmbH, GD German Investments GmbH, GD Global Holdings II Inc., GD Global Holdings Inc., GD Global Holdings UK II Ltd., GD Global Ventures I B.V., GD Global Ventures II B.V., GD Global Ventures III B.V., GD Industrial Products Malaysia SDN. BHD., GD Investment KY, GD UK Finance Ltd., GPS Industries, Gardner Denver (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Gardner Denver Austria GmbH, Gardner Denver Bad Neustadt Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Belgium NV, Gardner Denver Brasil Industria E Comercio de Maquinas Ltda., Gardner Denver CZ + SK sro, Gardner Denver Canada Corp (Canada), Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments II Limited, Gardner Denver Cyprus Investments Limited, Gardner Denver Deutschland GmbH, Gardner Denver Engineered Products India Private Limited, Gardner Denver FZE, Gardner Denver Finance II LLC, Gardner Denver Finance Inc & Co KG, Gardner Denver France SAS, Gardner Denver Group Svcs Ltd, Gardner Denver Holdings Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Investments Limited, Gardner Denver Hong Kong Ltd, Gardner Denver Iberica SL, Gardner Denver Inc., Gardner Denver Industries Ltd., Gardner Denver Industries Pty Ltd., Gardner Denver International Inc., Gardner Denver International Ltd., Gardner Denver Investments Inc., Gardner Denver Italy Holdings S.r.L., Gardner Denver Japan Ltd., Gardner Denver Kirchhain Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Korea Ltd., Gardner Denver Ltd., Gardner Denver Machinery (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Gardner Denver Nash Brasil Industria E Comercio De Bombas Ltda, Gardner Denver Nash LLC, Gardner Denver Nash Machinery Ltd., Gardner Denver Nederland BV, Gardner Denver Nederland Investments B.V., Gardner Denver Oy, Gardner Denver Polska Sp z.o.o., Gardner Denver Pte. Ltd., Gardner Denver S.r.l., Gardner Denver Schopfheim GmbH, Gardner Denver Schopfheim Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Gardner Denver Schweiz AG, Gardner Denver Slovakia s.r.o., Gardner Denver Sweden AB, Gardner Denver Taiwan Ltd., Gardner Denver Thomas GmbH (f/k/a ILMVAC GmbH), Gardner Denver Thomas Inc., Gardner Denver Thomas Pneumatic Systems (Wuxi) Co. Ltd., Gardner Denver Thomas Real Estate GmbH & Co KG, Garo Dott. Ing. Roberto Gabbioneta S.r.l., Ghh-Rand Schraubenkompressoren Gmbh, HASKEL EUROPE LTD., HASKEL HOLDINGS UK LIMITED, HASKEL INTERNATIONAL LLC, Hamworthy Belliss & Morcom, Haskel France SAS, Haskel Sistemas de Fluidos Espana S.R.L., Hibon Inc., Highspeed Newco LLC, Hingerose Limited, ILMVAC (UK) Ltd., ILS Innovative Labor Systeme, ILS Inovative Laborsysteme GmbH, INGERSOLL RAND ITS JAPAN LTD., INGERSOLL-RAND (CHANG ZHOU) TOOLS CO. LTD., INGERSOLL-RAND (CHINA) INDUSTRIAL EQUIPMENT MANUFACTURING CO. LTD., INGERSOLL-RAND CHINA LLC, INGERSOLL-RAND COMERCIO E SERVICOS DE MAQUINAS E EQUIPAMENTOS INDUSTRIAIS LTDA., INGERSOLL-RAND DE PUERTO RICO INC., INGERSOLL-RAND INDUSTRIAL COMPANY B.V., INGERSOLL-RAND INDUSTRIAL SP. Z O.O., INGERSOLL-RAND INDUSTRIAL U.S. INC., INGERSOLL-RAND PHILIPPINES INC., INGERSOLL-RAND SPAIN S.A., INGERSOLL-RAND U.S. HOLDCO INC., IR HPS Holdco. Inc., ITO Emniyet, Ingersoll Rand Cyprus Investments Ltd., Ingersoll Rand Finance LLC, Ingersoll Rand Global Investments LLC, Ingersoll Rand Global Ventures LLC, Ingersoll Rand Hong Kong Investments Limited, Ingersoll Rand Inc., Ingersoll Rand Investments (SG) Pte. Ltd., Ingersoll Rand Investments B.V., Ingersoll Rand Schweiz Investments Gmbh, Ingersoll Rand Technology R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand (Australia) Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand (China) Investment Company Limited, Ingersoll-Rand (Guilin) Tools Company Limited, Ingersoll-Rand (Hong Kong) Holding Company Limited, Ingersoll-Rand (India) Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Ab, Ingersoll-Rand Air Solutions Hibon Sarl, Ingersoll-Rand Beteiligungs Und Grundstucksverwaltungs Gmbh, Ingersoll-Rand Colombia S.A.S., Ingersoll-Rand Company Limited (Uk), Ingersoll-Rand Company South Africa (Pty) Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Cz S.R.O., Ingersoll-Rand De Mexico S.A. De C.V., Ingersoll-Rand Equipements De Production S.A.S., Ingersoll-Rand Holdings Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Industrial Ireland Limited, Ingersoll-Rand International (India) Private Limited, Ingersoll-Rand International Holding Llc, Ingersoll-Rand Italia S.R.L., Ingersoll-Rand Italiana Manufacturing S.R.L., Ingersoll-Rand Korea Holding Llc, Ingersoll-Rand Korea Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Lux Investments II S.A R.I., Ingersoll-Rand Lux Investments S.A R.L., Ingersoll-Rand Luxembourg Industrial Company S.A R.L., Ingersoll-Rand Machinery (Shanghai) Company Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Malaysia Co. Sdn. Bhd., Ingersoll-Rand S.A. De C.V., Ingersoll-Rand Services And Trading Limited Liability Company, Ingersoll-Rand Services Company, Ingersoll-Rand Services Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Singapore Enterprises Pte. Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand South East Asia (Pte.) Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand Superay Holdings Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Technical And Services S.A.R.L., Ingersoll-Rand Technologies And Services Private Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Technology R&D (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Ingersoll-Rand Tool Holdings Limited, Ingersoll-Rand Trading Gmbh, Ingersoll-Rand Vietnam Company Limited, Instrum Rand JSC, Interflex Datensysteme, Ir Canada Holdings Ulc, Ir Canada Sales & Service Ulc, Ir France Sas, Kryptonite corp, Lawrence Factor Inc., LeROI, LeRoi International Inc, MILTON ROY (HONG KONG) LIMITED, MILTON ROY (UK) LIMITED, MILTON ROY EUROPA B.V., MILTON ROY EUROPE SAS, MILTON ROY INDUSTRIAL (SHANGHAI) CO. LTD., MILTON ROY LLC, MILTON ROY US PURCHASER INC., MP Pumps Inc., Maximum AG Technologies Inc., Maximus Solutions, Mb Air Systems Limited, Nash Elmo, Officina Meccaniche Industriali Srl, Oina VV, Oina VV Aktiebolag, Plurifilter D.O.O., Pt Ingersoll-Rand Indonesia, Robuschi, Runtech Systems, Runtech Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Runtech Systems Inc., Runtech Systems OY, SEEPEX, Seepex (M) SDN, Seepex Australia Pty Ltd, Seepex Beteiligungs-Gesellschaft mit Beschrankter Haftung, Seepex France S.a.r.l., Seepex GmbH, Seepex Inc., Seepex India Private Ltd., Seepex Italia SRL, Seepex Japan Co. Ltd., Seepex Nordic A/S, Seepex OOO, Seepex Pumps (Shanghia) Co. Ltd., Seepex UK Ltd., Shanghai CompAir Compressors Co Ltd, Shanghai Compressors & Blowers Ltd., Shanghai Ingersoll-Rand Compressor Limited, Shenzhen Bocom System Engineering Co., Superay, Syltone, TIWR Real Estate GmbH & Co. KG, Tamrotor Marine Comp AS Norway, Tecno Matic Europe s.r.o., Thomas Industries Inc., Trane Technologies, Tri-Continent Scientific Inc., Vacuum and Blower Systems division, Welch Vacuum Equipment (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., Zaxe Technologies Inc., Zeks Compressed Air Solutions Llc, Zinsser Analytic, Zinsser Analytik GmbH, Zinsser NA Inc., and crayon interface.

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The following companies are subsidiares of Nokia Oyj: AO Nokia Solutions and Networks, ATG Germany GmbH, Aircom International, Alcatel - Lucent, Alcatel Centroamerica S.A., Alcatel IP Networks Limited, Alcatel Lucent, Alcatel Lucent Middle East North Africa DMCC, Alcatel Lucent Teletas Telekomunikasyon A.S., Alcatel SEL Unterstutzungs GmbH, Alcatel Submarine Networks, Alcatel Submarine Networks Brazil Ltda., Alcatel Submarine Networks Denmark ApS, Alcatel Submarine Networks Hong Kong Limited, Alcatel Submarine Networks Marine, Alcatel Submarine Networks Norway AS, Alcatel Submarine Networks UK Ltd, Alcatel Submarine Networks USA Inc., Alcatel de Venezuela C.A., Alcatel-Lucent Angola Limitada, Alcatel-Lucent Benin SA, Alcatel-Lucent Centro Caribbean Holding Limited, Alcatel-Lucent East Africa Limited, Alcatel-Lucent India Limited, Alcatel-Lucent International, Alcatel-Lucent International Holdings Inc., Alcatel-Lucent Managed Solutions India Private Limited, Alcatel-Lucent Nigeria Limited, Alcatel-Lucent Pakistan Limited, Alcatel-Lucent Participations, Alcatel-Lucent Participations Chine, Alcatel-Lucent Portugal S.A., Alcatel-Lucent RT International B.V., Alcatel-Lucent Saudi Arabia Co. Ltd., Alcatel-Lucent Services International B.V., Alcatel-Lucent Shanghai Bell Information Products Co. Ltd., Alcatel-Lucent Submarine Networks (Cabo Verde) Lda, Alcatel-Lucent Trade International AG, Alcatel-Lucent UK Limited, Alcatel-Lucent Ukraine SC, Alcatel-Lucent Vietnam Limited, Amber Networks Inc., Antelec, Apertio Ltd., Avvenu, Bell Laboratories Inc., C-Dot Alcatel-Lucent Research Centre Private Limited, Camilec, Comptel, Comptel Communications EOOD, Comptel Communications Holdings Limited, Comptel Communications India Private Limited, Comptel Communications Limited, Comptel Communications Oy, Comptel Communications Sdn Bhd, Comptel Oy, Comptel Palvelut Philippines Inc., DeepField, Diamond Lane Communications, Digiskin UK, DiscoveryCom Inc., Dopplr, ETA Devices Inc., Eizel Technologies, Elenion Technologies, Elenion Technologies LLC, Enpocket, Epistrophe Limited, Europe*Star Limited, Evolium, F5 Networks Inc., Hunan Huanuo Technology Co. Ltd., IRIS Service Delivery UK Ltd, IRIS Telecommunication Austria GmbH, IRIS Telecommunication France, IRIS Telecommunication GmbH, IRIS Telecommunication Poland sp. z o.o., IRIS Telekomunikasyon Muhendislik Hizmetleri A.S., InTalk Corporation, Intellisync Corporation, Intellisync LLC, Ipsilon Networks Inc., LCC International's U.S., LLC "Nokia Solutions and Networks Ukraine", Loudeye Corp., Lucent Technologies GRL LLC, Lucent Technologies Investment Co. Ltd., Lucent Technologies Nanjing Telecommunications Co. Ltd., Lucent Technologies Networks (Thailand) Limited, Lucent Technologies Nicaragua S.A., Lucent Technologies Philippines Inc., Lucent Technologies Qingdao Telecommunications Enterprises Co. Ltd., Lucent Technologies Qingdao Telecommunications Systems Ltd., MRAC Inc., Matra Nortel Communications, Mesaplexx Limited, MetaCarta Inc., Metrowerks Corporation, Mformation Software Technologies India Pvt Ltd, Motally, NE-Products Oy, NGI Industrial (NGI), Nakina Systems, Nassau Metals Corporation, Navteq, Network Alchemy Inc., Nokatus Insurance Company Designated Activity Company (DAC), Nokia (Shanghai) Enterprise Management Co. Ltd., Nokia (Thailand) Co. Ltd., Nokia Apps Distribution LLC, Nokia Arabia Limited  100.0, Nokia Asset Verwaltungsgesellschaft mbH, Nokia Bell NV, Nokia Canada Inc., Nokia Costa Rica S.A., Nokia Denmark A/S, Nokia Display Technics GmbH i.L., Nokia Dominican Republic S.A.S., Nokia Egypt S.A.E., Nokia El Salvador S.A. de C.V., Nokia Electronics Bochum GmbH i.L., Nokia Federal Solutions LLC, Nokia Hong Kong Limited, Nokia India Private Limited, Nokia Innovations Japan G.K., Nokia Innovations Oy, Nokia Innovations US LLC, Nokia Investment Management Corporation, Nokia Investments Oy, Nokia Ireland Limited, Nokia Jamaica Limited, Nokia Kunststofftechnik GmbH i.L., Nokia Networks (Chengdu) Co. Ltd., Nokia Networks S.R.L., Nokia New Zealand Limited, Nokia Operations de Guatemala S.A., Nokia Operations de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Nokia Paraguay S.A., Nokia Puerto Rico Inc., Nokia Services Pty Limited, Nokia Services and Networks Malaysia Sdn. Bhd., Nokia Shanghai Bell (Hong Kong) Limited, Nokia Shanghai Bell Co. Ltd., Nokia Shanghai Bell Lao Sole Co. Ltd., Nokia Shanghai Bell Philippines Inc., Nokia Shanghai Bell Software Co. Ltd., Nokia Siemens Networks Afghanistan LLC, Nokia Siemens Networks Algerie SARL, Nokia Slovakia A.S., Nokia Solutions Networks Iletisim A.S., Nokia Solutions and Networks (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks (Suzhou) Supply Chain Service Co. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks AB, Nokia Solutions and Networks Argentina S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Asset Management Oy, Nokia Solutions and Networks Australia Pty Ltd, Nokia Solutions and Networks B.V., Nokia Solutions and Networks Baku LLC, Nokia Solutions and Networks Bangladesh Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks Bolivia S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Branch Operations Oy, Nokia Solutions and Networks CCC, Nokia Solutions and Networks CJSC, Nokia Solutions and Networks Chile Ltda., Nokia Solutions and Networks Colombia Ltda., Nokia Solutions and Networks Czech Republic s.r.o., Nokia Solutions and Networks EOOD, Nokia Solutions and Networks Ecuador S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Ethernet Services Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks GmbH & Co. KG, Nokia Solutions and Networks Hellas Single Member S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Holding Osterreich GmbH, Nokia Solutions and Networks Honduras S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks India Private Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks International Holding GmbH, Nokia Solutions and Networks Investment (China) Co. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Israel Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Italia S.p.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Japan G.K., Nokia Solutions and Networks Kazakhstan LLP, Nokia Solutions and Networks Kft., Nokia Solutions and Networks Korea Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Kuwait Company W.L.L, Nokia Solutions and Networks LLC, Nokia Solutions and Networks Lanka (Private) Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks MEA FZ-LLC, Nokia Solutions and Networks Management GmbH, Nokia Solutions and Networks Morocco SARL, Nokia Solutions and Networks Myanmar Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks Nederland B.V., Nokia Solutions and Networks Nicaragua S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Nigeria Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Norge AS, Nokia Solutions and Networks Oy, Nokia Solutions and Networks OU, Nokia Solutions and Networks Pakistan (Private) Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks Peru S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks Philippines Inc., Nokia Solutions and Networks Portugal S.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks S.R.L., Nokia Solutions and Networks S.p.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks SIA, Nokia Solutions and Networks Schweiz AG, Nokia Solutions and Networks Serbia d.o.o. Beograd, Nokia Solutions and Networks Singapore Pte. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks South Africa Pty. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Sp. z.o.o, Nokia Solutions and Networks System Technology (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Taiwan Co. Ltd., Nokia Solutions and Networks Tanzania Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks Tashkent LLC, Nokia Solutions and Networks Technical Services Vietnam Company Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks TraffiCOM Kft., Nokia Solutions and Networks Tunisia SA, Nokia Solutions and Networks UK Limited, Nokia Solutions and Networks Venezuela C.A., Nokia Solutions and Networks d.o.o., Nokia Solutions and Networks d.o.o. Banja Luka, Nokia Solutions and Networks d.o.o. Sarajevo, Nokia Solutions and Networks do Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda., Nokia Solutions and Networks telekomunikacijske resitve d.o.o., Nokia Solutions and Networks Osterreich GmbH, Nokia South Africa (Pty) Ltd, Nokia Spain S.A., Nokia Technologies (Beijing) Co. Ltd., Nokia Technologies (UK) Limited, Nokia Technologies Oy, Nokia Technology Center Philippines Inc., Nokia Technology GmbH, Nokia Teknologia Oy, Nokia Training Center Russian Federation, Nokia Transformation Engineering & Consulting Services Spain S.L.U., Nokia UK Limited, Nokia US Holdings Inc., Nokia Unterstutzungsgesellschaft GmbH, Nokia Uruguay S.A., Nokia West and Central Africa SA, Nokia of America Corporation, Novarra Inc., OOO Nokia Solutions and Networks, OOO RTK  Network Technologies, OZ Communications, OZ Communications HK Limited, P.T. Lucent Technologies Network Systems Indonesia, PT Nokia Solutions and Networks Indonesia, Pishahang Communications Networks Development Company (Private Joint Stock), Plazes, Plum, R.F.S. (UK) Limited, RFS Brasil Telecomunicacoes Ltda, RFS Holding GmbH, RFS India Telecom Private Limited, RFS Italia SRL, RFS Radio Frequency Systems (Shanghai) Co. Ltd., RFS Radio Frequency Systems (Suzhou) Co. Ltd., Radio Frequency Systems (Africa) Pty Ltd, Radio Frequency Systems (S) Pte Ltd, Radio Frequency Systems France, Radio Frequency Systems GmbH, Radio Frequency Systems Inc., Radio Frequency Systems Pty Limited, Radio Frequency Systems de Mexico S.A. de C.V., Ramp Networks Inc., Redback Networks Inc., Rooftop Communications Corporation, SAC AE Design Group Inc., SAC Wireless, SAC Wireless LLC, SAC Wireless of CA Inc., SRA Computer C.V., STC, Sega.com Inc., Smarterphone, Societe de Telecommunication Camerounaise  Sotelcam, Space Time Insight, Symbian Limited, Symbian Ltd, Tahoe Networks, Taiwan International Standard Electronics Limited, Technophone Ltd, Telekol Group, Trolltech (Qt Development Frameworks), Twango, UAB Nokia Solutions and Networks, Unium, User Interface Design, Vertu Holdings Oy, Vienna Systems Corporation, Western Electric Company Incorporated, Western Electric International Incorporated, Withings, Zyzyx Inc., bit-side GmbH, cellity AG, earthmine, and gate5 AG.

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Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. operates as bank holding company for the Prosperity Bank that provides financial products and services to businesses and consumers. It accepts various deposit products, such as demand, savings, money market, and time accounts, as well as and certificates of deposit. The company also offers 1-4 family residential mortgage, commercial real estate and multifamily residential, commercial and industrial, agricultural, and non-real estate agricultural loans, as well as construction, land development, and other land loans; consumer loans, including automobile, recreational vehicle, boat, home improvement, personal, and deposit account collateralized loans; and consumer durables and home equity loans, as well as loans for working capital, business expansion, and purchase of equipment and machinery. In addition, it provides internet banking, mobile banking, trust and wealth management, retail brokerage, mortgage services, and treasury management, as well as debit and credit cards. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 273 full-service banking locations comprising 65 in the Houston area, including The Woodlands; 30 in the South Texas area including Corpus Christi and Victoria; 63 in the Dallas/Fort Worth, Texas area; 22 in the East Texas area; 29 in the Central Texas area, including Austin and San Antonio; 34 in the West Texas area, including Lubbock, Midland-Odessa and Abilene; 16 in the Bryan/College Station area; 6 in the Central Oklahoma area; and 8 in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area doing business as LegacyTexas Bank. Prosperity Bancshares, Inc. was founded in 1983 and is based in Houston, Texas.
Telefonica, S.A., together with its subsidiaries, provides telecommunications services in Europe and Latin America. The company's mobile and related services and products comprise mobile voice, value added, mobile data and Internet, wholesale, corporate, roaming, fixed wireless, and trunking and paging services. Its fixed telecommunication services include PSTN lines; ISDN accesses; public telephone services; local, domestic, and international long-distance and fixed-to-mobile communications; corporate communications; supplementary value-added services; video telephony; intelligent network; and telephony information services, as well as leases and sells handset equipment. The company also provides Internet and broadband multimedia services comprising Internet service provider, portal and network, retail and wholesale broadband access, narrowband switched access, high-speed Internet through fibre to the home, and voice over Internet protocol services. In addition, it offers leased line, virtual private network, fibre optics, web hosting and application, outsourcing and consultancy, desktop, and system integration and professional services. Further, the company offers wholesale services for telecommunication operators, including domestic interconnection and international wholesale services; leased lines for other operators; and local loop leasing services, as well as bit stream services, wholesale line rental accesses, and leased ducts for other operators' fiber deployment. Additionally, it provides video/TV services; smart connectivity and services, and consumer IoT products; financial and other payment, security, cloud computing, advertising, big data, and digital telco experience services; virtual assistants; digital home platforms; and Movistar Home devices. It also offers online telemedicine, home insurance, music streaming, and consumer loan services. The company was incorporated in 1924 and is headquartered in Madrid, Spain.
Baxter International Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops and provides a portfolio of healthcare products worldwide. The company offers peritoneal dialysis and hemodialysis, and additional dialysis therapies and services; intravenous therapies, infusion pumps, administration sets, and drug reconstitution devices; remixed and oncology drug platforms, inhaled anesthesia and critical care products and pharmacy compounding services; parenteral nutrition therapies and related products; biological products and medical devices used in surgical procedures for hemostasis, tissue sealing and adhesion prevention; and continuous renal replacement therapies and other organ support therapies focused in the intensive care unit. It also provides connected care solutions, including devices, software, communications, and integration technologies; integrated patient monitoring and diagnostic technologies to help diagnose, treat, and manage a various illness and diseases, including respiratory therapy, cardiology, vision screening, and physical assessment; surgical video technologies, tables, lights, pendants, precision positioning devices and other accessories. In addition, the company offers contracted services to various pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies. Its products are used in hospitals, kidney dialysis centers, nursing homes, rehabilitation centers, doctors' offices, and patients at home under physician supervision. The company sells its products through direct sales force, as well as through independent distributors, drug wholesalers, and specialty pharmacy or other alternate site providers in approximately 100 countries. It has an agreement with Celerity Pharmaceutical, LLC to develop acute care generic injectable premix and oncolytic molecules. Baxter International Inc. was incorporated in 1931 and is headquartered in Deerfield, Illinois.
Daimler AG, together its subsidiaries, develops and manufactures passenger cars, trucks, vans, and buses in Germany and internationally. It operates through Mercedes-Benz Cars & Vans, Daimler Trucks and Buses, and Daimler Mobility segments. The Mercedes-Benz Cars segment offers premium and luxury vehicles of the Mercedes-Benz brand, including the Mercedes-AMG, Mercedes-Maybach, and Mercedes-EQ brands; small cars under the smart brand name; and ecosystem of Mercedes-Benz under the Mercedes me brand, as well as vans and related services under the Mercedes-Benz and Freightliner brands. Daimler Trucks and Buses segment offers its trucks and special vehicles under the Mercedes-Benz, Freightliner, Western Star, FUSO, and BharatBenz brands; and buses under the Mercedes-Benz, Setra, Thomas Built Buses, and FU brands, as well as bus chassis. The Daimler Mobility segment provides financing and leasing packages for end-customers and dealers; and automotive insurance brokerage, banking, investment, and fleet management services under the Athlon brand. It also sells vehicle related spare parts and accessories. Daimler AG was founded in 1886 and is headquartered in Stuttgart, Germany
Uniper SE operates as an energy company. It operates in three segments: European Generation, Global Commodities, and Russian Power Generation. The company owns and operates various power and heat generation facilities, including fossil fuel power plants, such as coal, gas, oil, and combined gas and steam; and hydroelectric, nuclear, biomass, photovoltaic, and wind power plants. It also markets energy services comprising fuel procurement, and engineering and asset management, as well as operational and maintenance services; and procures fuels, trades in emission allowances, and markets electricity. In addition, the company engages in the sale of individual power and natural gas to resellers, industrial customers, and power plant operators; energy trading activities; infrastructure investments and gas storage operations; fuel procurement for power plants; operation and management of the plants; and trade and sale of energy. Further, it trades in commodities, which comprise power, natural gas, liquefied natural gas, and coal and freight solutions; provides district heating and online gas dispatch services; operates gas storage and power-to-gas facilities in Germany, Austria, and the United Kingdom; and owns and operates marine fuel oils production facility in Fujairah. It operates in Germany, the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation, rest of Europe, and internationally. The company was founded in 2016 and is headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany. Uniper SE is a subsidiary of Karemi Charge and Drive SE.
Singapore Changi Airport  home to indoor waterfalls, epic lounges, and the occasional X-Wing  frequently tops the list of the worlds best airports. With the opening immanent for its new Terminal 4, Changi looks to be a shoe-in for the number one spot again next year.

The state-of-the-art terminal promises passengers a more pleasant way to fly the friendly skies. Though it wont see its first flights until later this year, recently released photos reveal a modern boutique design sensibility mixed with nods to Singapores culture and history. The terminal will feature decor and sculptures by local and international designers and artists, the highlight of which is a 650-foot-long centerpiece named Petalclouds  a piece composed of six suspended structures that move in sync with animated lighting and music.

For a dose of local flavour, visit the Heritage Zone, where the shops and eateries are carefully disguised as the traditional Peranakan shophouses seen throughout Singapore. A large LED screen over two of the shophouses will display Peranakan Love Story, a theatrical production that takes place across two adjacent living rooms in 1930s Singapore.

Elsewhere, Changis T4 boasts features that wouldnt look out of place in a Silicon Valley startup. LED facades are dotted throughout, keeping passengers occupied with entertaining visuals as they wind through security and passport control. Robot housekeepers roam the lounge. A boulevard of 160 trees separates boarding areas from the common area, and a selection of colourful furniture is surprisingly fun and funky.

But the new terminal isnt just about aesthetics. Changi is also using it to introduce a new fast and seamless travel (FAST) system for check-in, baggage drop, immigration clearance, and boarding. T4 will use facial recognition technology to automate most of the departure process by capturing and tagging passengers photos onto their luggage, passports, and boarding passes  meaning you could theoretically make the slog from arrival to plane without ever interacting with another human being. Perfect for those days you skipped the morning latte.

(Dont worry if youre not the most tech-savvy traveller  conventional check-in counters will reportedly remain for passengers who cant find their way around the new systems.)

We are pushing the boundaries to take customer service up to the next level using new and innovative ideas, and thoughtful design features, explains Poh Li San, vice president of Singapore Changi Airport Groups T4 Programme Management Office.

Though Changi isnt the first to experiment with facial recognition technology, the ever-ambitious airport is taking the most comprehensive approach weve seen yet.

Competition remains strong in the region, and many of our neighbours are also building new airports or improving their existing infrastructure, says Poh. Changi Airport continues to push the boundaries to ensure that we stay ahead of the competition.

1/10 2/10 3/10 4/10 5/10 6/10 7/10 8/10 9/10 10/10

Up next for Changi: a fifth terminal, due to be completed in the late 2020s, that will dwarf its siblings (and surely earn more awards for the swanky airport).
With no path to win, Mastriano still silent on conceding blowout loss
The scars of fire are a hard-to-miss aspect of any visit to the North Rim of Grand Canyon National Park. Heading down State Route 67 quickly brings drivers face to face with the impacts of the 58,000-acre Warm Fire, which started when a managed wildfire got out of control in 2006.

Wildfire impacts are also strikingly visible along the roads to Cape Royal and Point Imperial.

Most recently, the 14,500-acre Fuller Fire swept through the area and created significant stretches along the roads where instead of dense forest the view is one of blackened ground and trees charred by fire. A naturally caused wildfire, the Fuller Fire was also allowed to burn by the Forest Service and the Park Service. Two weeks in, it started to burn more aggressively, fueled by gusty winds and low humidity. The fire necessitated road closures and burned at moderate and high severity in some places, which wasnt part of fire managers initial expectations. The total cost to put it out came to nearly $10 million.

We do get a lot of questions about fire in general on the North Rim because we have a lot of fire activity on this side of the canyon, said Mandi Toy, supervisory park ranger for interpretation at the North Rim and Canyon Districts. We talk a lot about fire history in the visitor center.

Elaine Gentry and her husband Mike Rizza, who were visiting the North Rim from northern California, said they had heard that the area had been burned by many wildfires, but to see it is something else, Gentry said.

But to see what is coming back makes me hopeful, Gentry said as she stood at Point Imperial.

Seeing the fire scars makes her wonder how the Park Service plans to manage fires and the forests in the future, whether that be by thinning trees, suppressing fire or letting it burn as a natural part of the ecosystem, Gentry said.

Seeing forests burned by fire inspired a mixed reaction for Alain Notte, who was visiting from Brussels.

We know it is a natural cycle to have this, but we also know people are not very cautious, he said.
Washington: A bipartisan group of US Senators has demanded to increase cooperation with India in Afghanistan. It also includes the help of New Delhis Afghan security forces, which can cause trouble for Pakistan.

MPs presented a proposal for a legislative amendment to the National Defense Authority (NDA) in the Senate in 2018 and sought its support. India is one of the largest providers of development assistance in the war-torn country. Pakistan can be disturbed by the amendment because it opposes any kind of interference in India in neighboring Afghanistan.

The amendment has been sought to increase the role of India in providing material support, hazard assessment, and maintenance assistance to Afghan security forces. Senator Dan Sullivan, Gary Peters, John Carnin and Mark Warner presented this amendment on Thursday. He is also the co-chair of the Senate India Caucus.
Xiaomi Redmi Note 4 and Redmi 4 have joined Samsungs Galaxy J2, the 10 best-selling smartphones in India. This list of 10 best-selling smartphones in India is released in the second quarter of 2017, issued by Counterpoint Research.

According to the Counterpoint report, Oppo A37 and Samsung J7 have been sold after the Redmi Note 4, Redmi 4 and Samsung J2. At the same time, the report also states that the number of LTE smartphones in India has gone up to 150 million in the last quarter. According to this, India China and America are behind the 4G handsets. India can leave behind these two countries in the coming times.

Talking about Xiaomi Redmi Note 4, 7.2 percent of all smartphones sold in the second quarter of the year 201 and 4.5 percent of Redmi 4 mobile is sold and gained the second position. On the third place, Samsung Galaxy J2s share of 4.3%, the Oppo A37, and Galaxy J7s share is 3.5% and 3.3%, respectively.

Speaking of the smartphone brand, Samsungs 24 percent of the smartphone market, 15.5 percent of Xiaomi, 12.7 percent of Vivo, 9.6 percent of Oppo and 6.8 percent of Lenovo (Moto) are sold in the smartphone brand.

Speaking of feature phones, Samsungs share in the feature phone market in the second quarter was 26.6 per cent, 15.7 per cent of Intels, 8.6 per cent of Micromax, 7.5 per cent of lava and 6.3 per cent of intensity.
Islamabad: Nawaz Sharif, who was removed from the post of prime minister after being disqualified by the Supreme Court in the case of dishonesty, is very angry. Nawaz Sharif, who is suffering from this problem, has raised the question whether everyone else in Pakistan is Sadik and Amin, that is, honest and good. Pakistans top court on Friday termed 67-year-old Sharif disqualified in the matter of dishonesty and had given the order that corruption cases could be registered against him and his children against the Panama Paper, after which he had to step down as prime minister.

It has been said in the court that during filing of nominations in the 2013 general elections, Sharif did not disclose the earnings from a son of his son in Dubai and was dishonest. Supreme Court Judge Justice Aijaz Afzal Khan said that Sharif is no longer an honest member of Parliament.

Sharif had said while addressing the leaders of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), You should be proud of that your leader is not a single blot on corruption. He said that PML-N In the meeting of the Parliamentary Party, I am proud that I have not been disqualified for corruption charges. In this meeting, the reply of Nawaz Sharifs brother and Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif Officers were declared.
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A 13 million fund has been announced to help landowners plant more trees in a bid to protect wildlife and reduce flood risk.

Farmers and land managers across the UK will be able to apply for up to 6,800 per hectare to plant, weed and protect trees.

The next round of the governments Woodland Creation grant will be made available in September.

The fund  part of the Countryside Stewardship scheme  will help plant more than 3 million trees, creating 1,900 hectares of new woodland.

The government has previously said it wants the UK to plant more than 11 million trees.

Guidance and application forms will be available in September, with the application window opening in January 2018.

A range of grants are available to support the creation of new woodland and sustainable woodland management.

Benefits of agroforestry

This week, a letter was sent by leading farming organisations to Defra Secretary Michael Gove explaining the benefits of agroforestry, which also called for more support.

The letter highlights the benefits of cultivating trees and crops or livestock on the same area of land.

It states that the current Rural Development Programme for England does not include options to support agroforestry, the result of a perceived lack of demand from farmers and landowners to adopt the practice.

In June this year, a major conference on agroforestry  organised by the Soil Association, the Woodland Trust and the Royal Forestry Society  brought together 250 farmers, foresters and researchers.
A macerator and two pumps from Borger are helping provide significant slurry handling savings at a farm-based AD plant in Lincolnshire.

Part of a custom-built container system designed and built by Gissing FE, exclusive distributors of Borgers equipment for the UK agricultural market, the macerator handles digestate from the farms lagoon, whilst the new rotary lobe pumps have replaced inefficient centrifugal units.

Requiring just the one generator to power three electric motors, Gissings space-saving (20 by 15, including pipework) container system reduces emissions for a spreading operation that would usually need two to three large tractors, plus the diesel and manpower to go with it.

Previously, said Jason Gissing, the farmer had to have three centrifugal pumps in line, which with three lots of fuel, was very inefficient.

The impellers on this design of pump will only spin so fast without being able to handle the digestate from the AD plant  and they were also heavy on wearing parts and very time-consuming to service.

However, with the self-priming Borger pumps, he added, they hold their pressure much longer to supply a higher volume of slurry  and with their Maintenance-In-Place design, are much, much easier to service  half the time or less than the centrifugal pumps.

Bespoke container system

To further benefit the farms AD plant, Gissing has also designed its bespoke container system so that it can be utilised for spreading as well as stirring the lagoon.

The Borger pumps can be started, stopped, revved up and down  all from the operators cab  from where the driver can also see what flow rates are being achieved, and if necessary, divert.

Gissings experience in the UK agricultural market goes back to 1938. The company is a fourth-generation family-owned and run team of specialists.

Borger is owned and run by its founder Alois Borger (who began the company almost 40 years ago), together with his family.

In addition to its pumps and macerators, Borger also supplies its BioSelect Separator for the AD/agricultural market. The Separator has throughputs up to 150m3/h, and can be very easily integrated into an existing system or used as a mobile separator.
Summary

Company Announcement Date: July 27, 2017 FDA Publish Date: February 08, 2018 Product Type: Food & Beverages

Bakery Product/Mix

Allergens

Food & Beverage Safety Reason for Announcement: Recall Reason Description Undeclared Egg Company Name: Vibrant Health Products Brand Name: Brand Name(s) liveGfree Product Description: Product Description Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Buns

Company Announcement

Vibrant Health Products, a family-owned bakery in Abbotsford, B.C., Canada, has voluntarily recalled one lot of liveGfree Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Buns due to a packaging error. As a result, this product may contain undeclared egg. The precautionary recall was necessitated when it was discovered that liveGfree Gluten Free White Bread was packaged into liveGfree Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Bun packaging. The liveGfree Gluten Free White Bread contains egg, which is not listed in the ingredients or as an allergen on the liveGfree Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Buns. People who have an allergy or severe sensitivity to eggs should not consume these products due to the risk of serious allergic reaction.

The recalled liveGfree Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Buns were sold through certain ALDI stores from 4/13/2017 to 7/27/2017 in the following states: Arkansas, Washington D.C., Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Missouri, North Carolina, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Texas, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia.

The recalled product is in an 11.3-ounce blue package marked liveGfree Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Buns with lot numbers ending in #0897 on the front of the package and the UPC #0 41498 25980 8 on the back of the package. The package has an allergen statement that states, Made in a facility that also produces products with eggs.



No illnesses have been reported to date in connection with this issue.



Consumers who have purchased the 11.3-ounce packages of liveGfree Gluten Free Classic Soft White Hamburger Buns with the above lot number should return them to the ALDI store where they were purchased for a full refund. Consumers with any questions may contact the supplier of the gluten-free buns, Vibrant Health Products, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time, Monday through Friday: Jenene Kilian at 604.743.4455 or jkilian@vibranthealthproducts.com. For media inquiries, contact Radha Marcum at 360.306.7322 or rmarcum@vibranthealthproducts.com.

Company Contact Information Consumers: Jenene Kilian 604.743.4455 jkilian@vibranthealthproducts.com Media: Radha Marcum 360.306.7322 rmarcum@vibranthealthproducts.com
Ford Motor Company (F 2.26%) said this past week that it earned $195 million in equity income from its joint ventures in China in the second quarter.

That's not bad, but it's not great. A year ago, in the second quarter of 2016, Ford earned $296 million from its Chinese joint ventures -- and its profit margin was a lot better.

Ford's China profit fell even though its sales rose during the quarter. So what's the story?

Sales were up, but profits fell

Here's the thing: Ford's profit dropped despite the fact that its sales in China rose 7.5% in the second quarter. But Ford executives in the region had said that they were adjusting pricing, suggesting that Ford might have resorted to cutting prices in order to boost sales.

That's something that Ford said it doesn't want to do, in China or anywhere else -- at least, not without cutting costs at the same time. But there's a dynamic in China that might have led Ford to make an exception: The rise of lower-cost domestic Chinese automakers, who have been giving the global brands (Ford included) very tough competition in some of the lower-cost market segments -- particularly around small, affordable SUVs.

That line of thought left me wondering if this level of profitability in China is the "new normal" for Ford. If so, that's a concern. Consider that rival General Motors' (NYSE: GM) equity income from China rose 8% in the second quarter to a healthy $509 million. GM's sales and operations in China are significantly larger than Ford's, but still: It's facing the same pressures from lower-cost domestic competition, but it managed a year-over-year profit increase.

So what happened? I asked Ford's chief financial officer to explain.

Ford's CFO says this isn't the new normal

"Is this the new normal?" I asked Ford CFO Bob Shanks.

Here's part of what prompted my question. Over the last six quarters, as competition from local Chinese automakers has ramped up, Ford's profit from its joint ventures in China and its profit margin have both trended downward.

"I don't think it's the new normal," Shanks said. He went on to explain that the year-over-year drop we saw in the second quarter was something of a fluke:

What's in that [profit decline] is really two things. One is that we receive investment incentives in China, and we don't get them necessarily in an even manner throughout the course of the year. This was a light quarter in terms of realizing those incentives, so there was a negative year-over-year effect from that. The other factor was the weakness of the renminbi. The biggest piece, though, was the timing of those incentives. It had a disproportionate impact in the quarter. It's not a normal impact, and so I think that will normalize as you get into the balance of the year.

I followed up by asking whether Ford's price adjustments, particularly on the Kuga, had an effect.

"No, those two factors explain everything [about the year-over-year profit drop]," Shanks said.

The upshot: Things should improve as the year goes on

During Ford's earnings call, Shanks explained that Ford had in fact cut its pricing in China during the quarter. But he said the effects of the price cuts were largely offset by cost reductions, as well as by the increased sales volumes and a more favorable "mix" of products sold year-over-year.

Ford's guidance for the full year doesn't address its equity income from China specifically. But it does call for a higher pre-tax profit in its Asia Pacific region (which includes China) than the $627 million it earned in the region in 2016. For the full year, it expects the effects of higher sales volumes, a more favorable product mix, and lower costs to more than offset the effects of negative pricing and unfavorable exchange-rate swings.

Long story short: Yes, Ford's pricing is still under pressure in China. But its sharp profit decline in the second quarter was something of a fluke, and the general trend should be positive as the remainder of the year unfolds.




Haiti - Politics : Career Profile in the Health Sector





The document on the career profile in the health sector in Haiti is being finalized. This was revealed by a Technical Group of the Ministry of Health (MSSP) during a presentation this week, for about twenty executives of the Office of Management and Human Resources (OMRH).



The development of this document, the result of a series of approaches and consultations with all stakeholders, aims in particular to contribute to the improvement of the public sector for health jobs in Haiti. Given the scarcity of qualified human resources and the lack of material and financial resources in the field of health, it has been foreseen to provide professionals in the sector with a reference document capable of taking into account all the organizational aspects of the Haitian health system. In addition, the document to be finalized shortly will be developed in order to be able to integrate the new job classification system that will soon be implemented by OMRH.



In his speech, Josue Pierre-Louis, OMRH's General Coordinator, invited the technical group of the Ministry to participate in similar meetings, convinced that the model could be used by all government ministries.



For his part, Antoine Verdier, Deputy General Coordinator of OMRH, said that the document could be integrated into the job classification system after defining the job descriptions.



Sie Azaria Coulibaly, Management Expert, explained to the participants the rationale and content of the document and the recommendations made, the creation of a training institute of middle managers of Health (Health auxiliaries, health officers, health technicians).



It should be noted that the preparation of this document is made possible thanks to the support of the OMRH through the provision of the normative frameworks of the management of the human resources and also by the technical and financial support of the American Agency for the International Development (USAID) through its Financing and Health Governance Project (HFG) of "ABT Associates".



HL/ HaitiLibre






















Haiti - DR : The Haitian Embassy handed some documents to the Haitians





The Embassy of Haiti in the Dominican Republic informs that it has handed over 500 official documents to Haitians living in irregular migratory situations, coming from different parts of the Dominican territory. A small number of documents, while nearly 150,000 Haitians enrolled in the National Plan for the Regularization of Foreigners (PNRE) are still awaiting documents from Haiti in an attempt to regularize their situation.



Many Haitians, after making their request, complain of waiting for several years for the delivery of their passport or their Haitian identity card, while in Haiti, President Moise and his Government are promising delivery in 5 days on the Haitian territory and boasts capacity of production in Haiti of 4,000 passports per day https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-21590-haiti-politics-issuance-of-identity-documents-the-minister-satisfied.html



Many compatriots accuse the Haitian authorities of preventing them from applying to the PNRE because of the delay in the delivery of the documents indispensable by the Haitian Government...



Note that almost all the many Haitians who fill the waiting area at the Consulate of Haiti in the Dominican Republic, claim a passport and/or a National Identity Card...



See also :

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20752-haiti-flash-distribution-of-passports-and-other-documents-in-dr.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-20521-haiti-politics-deliveries-of-passports-numbers-game.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19860-haiti-politics-jovenel-moise-promises-documents-to-illegal-haitians-in-dr.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-19107-haiti-dr-the-caneros-sent-4-608-copies-of-document-requests-to-privert.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18265-haiti-politic-the-chancellor-promised-passports-to-haitians-in-the-dr.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-18188-haiti-social-the-anh-unable-to-meet-the-demands-of-haitians-living-in-the-dr.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-17989-haiti-dominican-republic-the-haitian-government-says-anything.html

https://www.icihaiti.com/en/news-17919-icihaiti-politic-the-passport-application-increased-200-over-one-year.html

https://www.haitilibre.com/en/news-14432-haiti-politic-failure-of-pidih-a-fiasco-of-$2-million.html



SL / HaitiLibre


















Certified Risk Managers Honored Scott Smeaton For Ten-Year Dedication to Education

Posted by Press Releases on Sunday, 07-30-2017 9:16 am

Currently 3.0/5 Stars.

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5 3.0 from 4 votes

Scott Smeaton, CRM of Hierl Insurance, Inc., Fond du Lac Wisconsin was recently honored by Certified Risk Managers (CRM) for leadership and professionalism in the field of risk management.Mr. Scott Smeaton was awarded a certificate of achievement recognizing ten consecutive years as active affiliation with Certified Risk Managers. The CRM designation requires an annual continuing education update ensuring that his education is always up-to-date and relevant.Scott Smeatons ten-year accomplishment signifies an active commitment to advanced knowledge and professional development, stated William T. Hold, Ph.D., CIC, CPCU, CLU, President of The National Alliance for Insurance Education & Research, and co-founder of Certified Risk Managers. Having and applying up-to-date technical knowledge is what distinguishes the most successful risk management practitioners. Customers, associates, and the insurance profession as a whole benefit from such dedication and committed leadership.Certi...

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A looming $66 billion takeover by the German company Bayer may help soothe US agrichemical giant Monsantoas battered reputation. But both in USA and India the firm faces fierce charges of ecocide and anti-farmer monopolistic practices. Christopher Beyer and Sudipto Maity report from two sides of the world

St. Louis-based agrichemical giant Monsanto has recently weathered a crush of negative international press and harsh public scrutiny  especially in India.

Some observers hope a looming $66 billion takeover by the German company Bayer will help soothe its battered reputation. Financial analysts like Jason Miner, senior global chemicals analyst for Bloomberg Intelligence, say biotech companies like the impending chemical-agricultural behemoth are essential to Indias future.

But others, most notably environmental activists, reject this idea and want the company to leave their country.

Monsanto representatives declined comment on the pending merger and public criticism of the company, which is famous for herbicides such as Roundup and insecticides such as Bollgard II. But they pointed to a 2016 sustainability report showing positive results for Monsantos agricultural outreach programs in India, most notably Sustainable Harvest Agriculture Resource Environment, or SHARE, which the report says educated and increased productivity among nearly 71,000 small farmers.

Other initiatives deal with sanitation, clean water and encouraging education for farmers children. And the company works to reduce child labor through a committee that keeps watch on business partners to ensure no child under 14 works in the fields and awards school funding to any model village that has 50 farms and no childlaborers.

Still, critics abound in both India and in America.

Richard Oswald, president of the Missouri Farmers Union, said Monsantos monopoly has grown by consuming nearly 600 smaller agriculture businesses over the past 50 years, giving the company colossal control over the prices charged to farmers. He fears the merger with Bayer will simply increase the companys pricing power, and said,Famers dont really seem to take that to heart.

At the same time, he said, the public is increasingly aware of concerns surrounding glyphosate, the main ingredient in Roundup. According to the National Pesticide Information Center, a cooperative agreement between Oregon State University and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, studies have shown conflicting results on whether products containing glyphosate are associated with cancer. Some have associated use of glyphosate with non-Hodgkin lymphoma. Monsanto has argued glyphosate is not a carcinogen.

The public is looking at increased bad publicity about glyphosatebeing found in our food and even in the tissue of our bodies, Oswald said.

Many of the same concerns trouble people across the globe, including in India, home to Monsantos sole daughter company outside of the U.S.

The Monsanto Tribunal is an international group whose purpose is to hold Monsanto accountable for ecocide or human rights violations. A board of judges listened to victims testimonies and delivered a legal opinion on Monsantos actions last April in The Hague in the Netherlands. The tribunal delivered a guilty verdict, stating the company infringed on fundamental human rights.

Vandana Shiva, an Indian environmental activist, has fiercely opposed Monsanto since 1987 and is well-known for boldly voicing her contempt for the companys actions. She has called Monsanto a criminal entity and said she took the company to court in 1998 on charges of illegal smuggling of BTcotton, a genetically-modified, insect resistant variety, into India. She claimed Monsanto is now illegally testing BT cotton seeds on farmers fields.

The Monsanto Tribunal is showing thatits a criminal in its behavior of not obeying this law, Shiva said in an interview to our correspondents.

Krishna Vir Chaudhary, a farmer leader, joined Shiva in submitting a report to Indias National Human Rights Commission allegingMonsanto trapped farmers in debt, created a monopoly on seed price control and sued Indian companies for not paying royalties for using their seed, which conflicts with patent law in Indian courts.

According to reporting by Reuters, Indias right-wing, Hindu nationalistic Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- and the countrys Agriculture Ministry -- called for an anti-trust regulation against what they consider Monsantos monopolistic practices. They also complained that Monsanto cut the royalties it was able to charge farmers, a practice thought to have played a part in the farmer suicide epidemic in India.

Shiva said she believes the companys decision to merge with Bayer is its way of repairing its reputation and fooling the public into thinking the company is being purchased and controlled by Bayer when it is actually maintaining the same fidelity, capital research and basic structure. She said she fears the merger will lead to a company powerful enough to manipulate Indias government.

Critics say Monsanto isnt being bought by a flawless company. Bayers annual reports, show its no stranger to controversy or legal suits. Amongan extensive list of lawsuits, there were 2,300 pending legal claims last January for users who experienced health-related problems, some of them fatal, from a generic version of the oral contraceptive Yasmin.

But there are those who believe most farmers in India would be worse off without Monsantos help and that regardless of the companys faults and reputation, India will need its technology.

Bhagirath Choudhary, director of the South Asia Biotechnology Center in New Delhi, said Monsanto gave India BT cotton technology in 2002, allowing farmers to triple their yields from 2002 to 2015. Today, India produces 39 million bales of cotton. The merger cant be stopped, Choudhary said, so India should look for ways to benefit from its inevitability.

I am advocating for all those companies who have the technology that can help the Indian farmers, and Monsanto is one such, said Choudhary.

But Shiva and her supporters say the praises for Monsantos technological efficiency with farmers have been largely exaggerated and Indian farmers would earn four to ten times more by not spending money on Monsantos seed.

They had said that they would do everything -- because I have been in debates with them -- they said they will grow food on the moon, they will do nitrogen fixing. They havent managed to go beyond sale of gene traitsits a very crude technology.

Still, most people concede  as evidenced by the companys investment portfolio -- that Monsanto Growth Ventures, the companys venture capital arm, has been a heavy investor in bio-tech startups.It has helped fund some budding firmsin digital agriculture aiming to be the next Google or Skype of farm data management systems, Miner said.

As controversy swirls, other seed and chemical companies are also planning to merge  driven in part by the hope of servinggrowing populationsin countries like India and China with genetically-modified seeds and crops.

Miner said there are concerns that these mergers will decrease competition, leading to less incentive for cutting-edge research and development in biotechnology. To ensure against too much market dominance, anti-trust regulators are meticulously inspecting these companies, setting the Monsanto-Bayermerger completion date back to late 2017.

Meanwhile, some Indian activists, businessmen, and others are looking for ways for India to sustain its people without a major agrochemical conglomerate. Shiva, for example, started the BijaVidyapeeth, or Earth University, through her nonprofit organization, Navdanya, which helps teach farmers alternative systems of agro ecology in order to get out of debt and produce healthier foods.

But financial analysts say India is a growing economy where companies like Monsanto should invest, not divest. Its a vibrant market for agricultural inputs for farming, Miner said, adding that the future holds even more growth opportunity.

Interact with Sudipto: @thingsDeepsays and Christopher: @CBTStafford

Banner Image: potatopro.com

Images: Avishek Mitra and Monsanto Facebook
London, July 30 (IBNS): Oxford researchers are among a group of infectious disease experts to argue that the advice that patients should complete a course of antibiotics is not supported by evidence and should be dropped.

In a paper published in The BMJ , the authors, who include National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Oxford Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) professors Tim Peto and Sarah Walker, say that patients are being put at unnecessary risk from antibiotic resistance when treatment is given for longer than necessary, not when it is stopped early.

They say it is time for policymakers, educators and doctors to drop the complete the course message and state that it is not based on evidence.

Prof Peto said: 'The notion that stopping antibiotic treatment early encourages antibiotic resistance is not supported by evidence. At the same time, taking antibiotics for longer than is necessary increases the risk of resistance.'

The analysis, which was led by Prof Martin Llewelyn of Brighton and Sussex Medical School, was done for the ARK-hospital PGfAR programme, and for the NIHRs Health Protection Research Unit at Oxford University.

Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust is one of the leading collaborators in ARK-hospital, an NIHR-funded research programme aiming to safely reduce antibiotic use in hospitals.

Prof Walker, co-theme lead for Antimicrobial Resistance and Modernising Microbiology at the Oxford BRC, added: 'One reason why the complete the course advice is so resilient is that it is clear, simple and unambiguous, and the behaviour it calls for is easily followed. But evidence suggests that, often, stopping antibiotics sooner is a safe and effective way to reduce antibiotic overuse.

'Completing the course also goes against one of the most fundamental and widespread medication beliefs people have  that we should take as little medication as necessary.

'Antibiotics are a precious and finite natural resource which should be conserved by tailoring treatment duration for individual patients,' she added.

The team are calling for more research to develop simple, alternative messages, such as stop when you feel better. They say that clinical trials are needed to determine the most effective strategies for optimising the duration of antibiotic treatment.

The full paper, 'The antibiotic course has had its day,' can be read in the The BMJ.

Photo: WHO/Jim Holmes
Edinburgh, July 30 (IBNS): The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is an international event of military music performance undertaken by the Armed Forces.

In fact, the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is the largest tattoo performed in the world in the majestic, sprawling stretch of Edinburgh Castle Esplanade, Scotland.

The invitation to the Indian Navy Band to participate and perform in this prestigious event scheduled from Aug 1-26 is indeed a matter of pride and befitting recognition of the professional prowess of the Naval band.

The participation of the Naval Band would further cement the ties between the two countries, more so, when the Governments of India and UK have announced 2017 as the India-UK Year of Culture to celebrate cultural ties and the 70th year of Indian independence.

The Indian Navy Band has been practicing hard in the last few months to further hone their skills to capture the hearts and minds of the music enthusiasts in this international event.

The band comprising of one officer and 65 musician sailors would perform under the leadership of Commander Vijay Charles DCruz, Director of Music (Navy) who would be the Principal Conductor during the event.

The Indian Navy band is scheduled to depart for London from Mumbai on Sunday.

The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo is well renowned event with over 50 bands participating, and nearly 8500 visitors attending the daily performances.

A total audience of nearly 2.5 lakh attends the event over the period of 26 days. Apart from India, bands from countries like Australia, France, Germany, Japan, etc, would also be performing at the tattoo this year.
Raleigh, New Carolina, USA, July 30 (IBNS) Non-partisan Gorkha citizens across the globe are participating in a Global Unity March in over 100 towns and cities across six continents on Sunday, organizers said.

The Global Gorkha Unity March represents a united voice supported by Gorkhas around the world, and is centered on achieving three key objectives: representation of all Gorkhas as a united community isolated from political endorsements; righteous examination of the situation of Darjeeling and transitional justice to the martyrs of the movement and Initiation of a project to start fund raising for the Gorkhas in Darjeeling & Kalimpong districts facing acute shortage of food and basic amenities.

The Gorkhaland movement has gained massive support not only all over India, but across the world, said Manish Chettri, Global Coordinator of the March who is based in Morrisville, NC, USA.

"The Global Unity March is an effort to endorse constitutional rights of the Indian Gorkhas to raise their demand for a separate state under the Constitution of India.

From Adelaide in Australia to Atlanta in the U.S.A, Gorkhas living in India and across the globe will participate in the Global Unity March. Among the cities where the march will be held are San Francisco, New York, Munich, London, Hague, Paris, Tel Aviv, Mumbai, New Delhi, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore.

The Global Unity March, the first of its kind in support of the people-led Gorkhaland movement, serves as an occasion to show solidarity of the Gorkhas across the world and to protest against" the brutalities perpetrated by the State Government of West Bengal, India, against the peaceful protestors of Darjeeling hills and adjoining areas. The state of West Bengal has openly violated basic human rights of the citizens of Darjeeling."

It said among the oppressive measures were gunning down of peaceful protestors in Darjeeling and Kalimpong District, barring of Internet service, shut down of local news organizations operating in Darjeeling and blocking of food and essential supplies and ration entering the districts of Darjeeling and Kalimpong.

Amidst this humanitarian crisis, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Central Government led by the Bharatiya Janata Party have remained silent spectators, it said.

The Centre has yet to redress, or even acknowledge the atrocities being committed by the West Bengal government, it said.

It said the Global Gorkha Unity March will be a peaceful and an apolitical procession to condemn the atrocities on the Gorkhas of Darjeeling, Dooars and Terai. The global Gorkha community is standing in unison and demanding a redress of these undemocratic, unconstitutional measures enforced by the Indian Central Government and the West Bengal state government.

Chettri said: We are not affiliated with any political party, but feel the pain and helplessness of our people back home. With this single world rally, we will all march together as one, united by the common cause of #Gorkhaland. We will march to lend our voices to our brothers and sisters back home. We will march for the dreams and aspirations of our ancestors, our children for and our identity in India as legitimate citizens.




Kolkata, Jul 30 (IBNS): Metro rail service in Kolkata was partly disrupted on Sunday evening after a young woman committed suicide at Mahatma Gandhi (MG) Road station, reports said.

According to reports, a woman jumped in front of a Kavi Subhas bound approaching train at around 5:25 pm.

Following the incident, metro service in both direction was partly hit for nearly half-an-hour, a metro official said.

A security official of metro rail said that the woman was killed on spot after being hit by the train.

Identity of the lady is yet to be established, a police official told IBNS.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha)
Kolkata, Jul 30 (IBNS): West Bengal-based social democratic political party- Democratic Social Party (DSP)- on Sunday announced to leave the Left Front.

The 36-year-old political party, which had been a part of Left Front in Bengal, called its step a 'friendly separation'.

"We are not a part of Left Front from today onwards," mouthpiece of DSP, Nazrul Islam, told IBNS.

"We have sent our separation letter to Left Front chairman Biman Basu," Nazrul Islam added.

DSP was formed on July 17 in 1981.

(Reporting by Deepayan Sinha,Picture: Image of a Left Front rally in Kolkata)
Mumbai, July 30 (IBNS): A powerful actress, Neena Gupta recently wrote a post on Instagram which even inspired Bollywood actress Priyanka Chopra.

With her post, Neena asked for job and informed that she is currently staying in Mumbai.

Neena Gupta looked beautiful in the picture.

Asking for work, Neena Gupta captioned the image: "I live in mubai and working am a good actor looking fr good parts to play."

I live in mubai and working am a good actor looking fr good parts to play A post shared by Neena Gupta (@neena_gupta) on Jul 27, 2017 at 10:11pm PDT

Her daughter and fashion designer Masaba Gupta also shared her post.

She captioned: "Just the other day I was telling someone .. how I am never afraid/ shy to ask for work. Its obviously genetic. My mother put up this post on her instagram today. I mean,my 62yr old national award winning mother. She told me I must always work .. no matter what .. it keeps you from getting old...she told me they don't write for women her age anymore ... I don't think anyone can replicate what she did for TV anymore.. she complains that she can't do PR .. but says 'I do good work,that's my PR'.. time and again we've spoken about how whatever she asks for ... in due time ,she gets... But that's the magic of a pure heart. The universe just can't refuse you... the only advice I have the guts to give her is.. don't work with anyone who won't respect you ,at this age , that's the bare minimum & it's a strange strange industry she's in... the advice she gives me in return is..'whatever you do,free ka PR mat khaana,your only someone's kid/wife/niece/sister for this long. Prove yourself. WORK. Walk the talk & fly iYi @neena_gupta #neenaji."

Reacting to the post, actress Priyanka Chopra reacted: "Inspired ai."

Gupta has made appearances in several international films, such as Gandhi (1982), in which she played the niece of Mahatma Gandhi, and the Merchant Ivory films The Deceivers(1988), Mirza Ghalib(1989) In Custody (1993), and Cotton Mary (1999).

She starred along with Madhuri Dixit in Khalnayak (1993); she was featured in the popular song "Choli ke peeche" in the movie.



She is also known for her performance in popular television show Saans.

Image: Neena Gupta Instagram
Los Angeles, July 30 (IBNS): The upcoming James Bond movie will see the detective fight against a blind super-villain in Croatia, media reports said.

The 25th instalment of the spy thriller has been tentatively titled "Shatterhand", reports said.

Fans are eagerly waiting to see who will play the role of James Bond in the movie.

Actor Daniel Craig has been portraying the character in the last few movies.

"It is based on the 1999 thriller Never Dream Of Dying by US author Raymond Benson, who also wrote Bond books Tomorrow Never Dies, Die Another Day and The World is Not Enough," mirror.co.uk reported.

A source told the website: Bond scriptwriters feel it could be the perfect follow-up to Spectre . They are hoping to film in Croatia next year.

Recently, it was announced that the much-awaited next movie of detective James Bond will hit the silverscreen in 2019.

The official Twitter page of James Bond had confirmed the date when the movie will release in the US.

It will hit the US silver screen on Nov 8, 2019.

"James Bond will return to US cinemas on November 8, 2019 with a traditional earlier release in the UK and the rest of the world," read the tweet posted by the official page of the detective.

Image: Santabanta.com
Sydney, July 30 (IBNS): Security forces in Australia have stopped a suspected plot to bring down an aeroplane, media reports said.

Four people have been arrested during raids conducted in the country.

In a statement, the Australian Federal Police confirmed that four men arrested by the NSW Joint Counter Terrorism Team (JCTT) on Saturday are currently in custody pending ongoing enquiries.

"This recognises that terrorism investigations are inherently complex and that there can be legitimate reasons for extended periods of detention for suspects in such matters," read the statement.

"The AFP must satisfy the judicial officer before whom the application is made that this specified time is reasonable and necessary. The legislation dictates that this additional specified time of detention must not exceed seven days," it said.

Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull said operations were designed to disrupt and prevent plans to undertake terrorist attacks in Australia.

"I have been kept closely briefed on the progress of the operations by the heads of our relevant security agencies," he said.

The PM said: "However, as the operations are ongoing, it is inappropriate to provide further detail at this stage."

The PM said the priority of the government is safety and security of all Australians.

He said: "The public should be reassured that our security and intelligence agencies are working tirelessly to keep us safe."

Speaking on the arrests, ABC News website reported: "Four men were arrested after the raids at five properties in the inner-city suburb of Surry Hills, and the south-western suburbs of Lakemba, Wiley Park and Punchbowl."

The ABC reported that it has been told police found items that could be used to make a homemade bomb when they raided the house at Surry Hills.

Australian National Security said the national terrorism threat level has been kept as 'probable'.

Image: Internet Wallpaper


Islamabad, July 30 (IBNS): Days after resigning, Nawaz Sharif on Sunday vacated the Pakistan Prime Minister's House, media reports said.

According to media reports, he has departed for Murree along with members of the Sharif family.

On Sunday, before he departed for Murree, Nawaz met with members of the staff at the PM's House, Dawn News reported.

Nawaz Sharif on Friday stepped down from the post after the Supreme Court disqualified him from holding public office,media reports said.

The court was announcing its verdict in connection with the Panama Papers case.

His stepping down brought Nawaz Sharif's third term in power to an unceremonious end.

He stepped down nearly an year before Pakistan would have participated in the scheduled general elections.

Image: Maryam Nawaz Sharif


Washington, July 30 (IBNS): In a strong message, US President Donald Trump on Sunday said he was upset with China for its not doing enough move to prevent North Korea's weapon programme.

Trump said he was 'disappointed' with China.

He said his government will not allow China to continue its attitude towards North Korea.

Trump said he believes that China could solve the problem 'easily'.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet......they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017 ...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

Trump made the comment at a time when North Korea test-fired its second intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) in a month.
Raymond Bernal Jr. Memorial Park7th and Mission Streets in San JoseOn AUGUST 19, 2017 please join in solidarity with the historic Millions for Prisoners Human Rights March. People from all over the country will be marching and hosting a rally at the White House to formally issue and demand the removal of the 13th Amendment exception clause that legalizes slavery. People are traveling from as far as California to join the March. Solidarity marches, rallies, and protests are being planned across the country to coincide with the DC event.San Jose event on Facebook:Join the NEW ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENTMILLIONS for Prisoners HUMAN RIGHTSSATURDAY, AUG 19, 2017SAN JOSEWe DEMAND the 13th Amendment ENSLAVEMENT CLAUSE of the United States Constitution be amended to abolish LEGALIZED slavery in America.We DEMAND a Congressional hearing on the 13th Amendment ENSLAVEMENT CLAUSE being recognized as in violation of International law, the general principles of human rights and its direct links to: For profit exploitation of prison labor and the extortion of prisoners/families for needed goods and services Incentivizing criminalization by a private prison industry Reinforcement of systemic racial inequality and the militarization of police against our communities Disproportionate murder of black and brown people by police and the normalization of state sponsored murder via the death penalty Use of solitary confinement as punishment and torture Voter disenfranchisement of up to 6 million people Indefinite detention of entire families under arbitrary Immigration and Customs Enforcement quotas A bail bond system that unjustly penalizes the poor and dispossessed Producing 25% of the worlds prison population with only 4.5% of its overall populationMARCH WITHCalifornia Prison Focus & Rise Up for Justice11:00am: GATHER at Raymond Bernal Jr. Park, 7th and Mission Streets, San Jose, CA 9511211:30am: MARCH to County Jail12:30am: RALLY at James P. McEntee Plaza, 70 West Hedding, San Jose, CA 95110Join local organizations, learn more, and hear speakers from San Jose and surrounding communities, including:Watani StinerSean RamseyLaurie Valdez and moreFor a full list of sponsors or more information, email us at: riseup [at] forjustice.us Download and put up Fliers!San Jose March Facebook event:Riverside Solidarity Rally Facebook event:iamWE Prison Advocacy Network is forever humbled to be hosting the upcoming March on Washington DC: http://www.iamweubuntu.com/millions-for-prisoners-human-rights.html
Burma Breaking: Myanmar Now Editor Arrested

Police from Mandalay questioned Myanmar Now chief editor U Swe Win at the Kyauktada police station in Yangon. / Chan Son / The Irrawaddy

YANGON  Ko Swe Win, chief editor of Myanmar Now news agency, was arrested at Yangon International Airport at about 7 p.m. on Sunday.

Airport police told The Irrawaddy that a person who is facing an ongoing lawsuit is usually detained if they try to leave the country.

Ko Swe Win is being charged under controversial Article 66(d) of the Telecommunications Law by a follower of the nationalist group Ma Ba Tha.

Mandalay resident U Kyaw Myo Shwe opened the case in March at a police station in Mandalays Maha Aungmyay Township, accusing Ko Swe Win of insulting ultranationalist monk U Wirathu.

U Kyaw Myo Shwe told Mandalay police that the editor was leaving the country on Sunday, according to a police report on the arrest, however it is unclear how Ko Kyaw Myo Shwe obtained the information.

The report stated that the plaintiff wrote to the Ministry of Transport and Communication on July 12, explaining that he wanted to continue with the trial process.

The ministry responded on July 21, saying it would continue with the case. U Kyaw Myo Shwe then told police he believed Ko Swe Win was trying to flee the country and demanded his arrest.

Mandalay police informed their counterparts in Mingaladon, according to the report, which said the editor arrived at the airport at 7.15 p.m., where he was arrested by Mingaladon Township police captain Mya Tun Kyaw at Terminal 2 at 7.20 p.m. and brought to police custody.

Some unconfirmed reports said the authorities would transfer him to Mandalay Prison tonight.

Ko Swe Win was scheduled to visit Bangkok for a short work trip, according to Myanmar Now staff, who confirmed his arrest and that he was being held at Mingaladon police station.

The staff added that their editor had a verbal agreement with Mandalay police that he would report to them on August 3.
Miki Zohar, a

member of the Knesset, Israels parliament, from the right-wing Likud party

in which he accused Amnesty International of working to persecute and slander IDF soldiers.

Amnesty supports illegal infiltrators and draft refusers, and works with all its might to harm the State of Israel, he reportedly wrote.

He then went on to request that the finance minister use the anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) bill passed in March  which banned foreigners who have openly expressed support for BDS from entering the country  in order to immediately revoke Israels recognition of donations to Amnesty, since it is an organization which encourages others to boycott all or part of Israel.

In June, Amnesty International announced that it was launching a campaign to convince the international community to implement a full boycott of illegal Israeli settlements across the occupied Palestinian territory.
Reddit 4 Email 131 Shares

Daghan Irak | (The Conversation) |  

On July 4, Eren Aksoyoglu, a member of the Turkish Joint June Movement opposition bloc, was taken into custody for a tweet criticising the governments handling of a racially-motivated brawl in Ankara.

Less than two weeks later, Turkish police issued a warrant for film director Mustafa Altoklar for tweeting dismissively about the commemorations of the July 15 2016 failed coup against President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Previously, fashion designer Barbaros Sansal was briefly jailed for inciting hatred after tweeting a video. Social media screenshots are routinely used as evidence in lawsuits against Kurdish journalists, such as Ali Bars Kurt, who was sentenced recently to 28 months in prison.

Twitter has become a scary place for Turkish users, landing many who disagree with the current government straight in jail. Although frequent bans by the Erdogan government have failed to keep residents off the platform, the intimidation is getting more serious.

Since the coup attempt one year ago, which was blamed on a one-time Erdogan ally, cleric Fetullah Gulen, Turkish police have started encouraging internet users to inform on others. In December 2016, Aksam, a newspaper owned by Ethem Sancak, a functionary in Erdogans Justice and Development Party (AKP), announced hotline apps and accounts launched by the police.

The app urged users to Click the link to report a Twitter user to the police now. Since then, thousands of Twitter users critical of the government have been reported to the polices @EmniyetGM Twitter account.

According to the independent news website Diken, as of July 2017 seven people a day are taken into custody because of the content they share on social media. Small-scale data collection that I carried out for this article using the GetOldTweets software returned more than 3,500 tweets reporting a user to the police.

Turkey leads Twitter comfortably in all categories of removal requests, according to Twitters Transparency Report. Most alarming are court-ordered requests, in which Turkey outnumbers its closest competitor, Brazil, by 811 instances  at 844 to 33.

While the Turkish government has previously tried to censor tweets through court orders, calling for denunciation by citizens is new and chilling.

Censorship of traditional media

Its difficult to imagine these days that Twitter was once a thriving place for free expression in Turkey. For many Turkish speakers, Twitter is a grey market news source, able to fill in the blanks left by mainstream media.



Directorate General of Press and Information Turkish Government , Author provided



Around 6.5 million Turks are estimated to use Twitter, according to 2015 data. Though this number pales in comparison to 46 million Turkish Facebook users, Twitter has proved its worth repeatedly as a news source and political communication tool.

Twitters rise started after the 2010 constitutional referendum when Erdogans AKP, together with then-allies Gulenists, eliminated its secular rivals in the civil-military bureaucracy.

By the following year, Erdogan was instructing mainstream media bosses on how to cover news on terror, his term for clashes between the Turkish army and Kurdish guerrillas.

In December 2011, the Turkish air force killed 34 Kurdish civilians near the Iraqi border. But the news was not covered by mainstream media until the next day when the Turkish general staff claimed responsibility for the airstrike.

Meanwhile, tweeting under the hashtag #twitterkurds, Kurdish sources released the details of the killings and managed to push the incident into public view. The incident became one of the first examples of not covering the news until the government says so.

A voice for the silenced ones

Soon, other silenced groups, such as leftists, environmentalists, and even Kemalists started to use Twitter. In June 2013, Turkish Twitter made a giant leap with the Gezi Protests , which began as an environmentalist action in Istanbul and turned into a millions-strong movement.

As it became apparent that mainstream media would not cover the protests and the associated police violence, the number of users and tweets sent from Turkey quadrupled, reaching 25 million and 2.5 million users by June 1.

For his part, Erdogan, who had previously dismissed Twitter as chit chat, announced that it was the worst menace to society.

To counter anti-government tweets, he hired thousands of pro-AKP Twitter users, but to no avail. Erdogans base was still most present on Facebook, while Twitter attracted young, urban, secular users (in part because its platform was not available in Turkish language until 2011).

Twitter as Erdogans enemy

By the 2014 local elections, Erdogan, himself under investigation for alleged corruption after accusations by Gulenists and others, vowed to eradicate Twitter. The first block to Twitter came almost simultaneously.

Since then, Twitter has been so frequently blocked by the regimes telecom authority that Turks have come to expect a blackout after almost every event that could generate anti-government feeling: bombings, disasters, scandals.

Pressure increased again following the 2016 coup attempt. Since Erdogan became president in 2014 after 11 years as prime minister, Article 299 of the Turkish Penal Code has often been used to stifle dissent.

After the attempted coup, this statute, which forbids insulting the president, has been coupled with terror charges. The result is often a serious prison sentence.

Since the Gezi Park protests, the AKP has cultivated a band of so-called AK Trolls, who have caused discomfort even within the party. And many are still around.

They continue to amplify hashtag campaigns in support of the government and contribute to the complaints against individual Twitter users. Their presence, combined with the AKPs zealous chase of online opponents for terrorism punishment, has made Turkish Twitter a truly dangerous place.

On the Internet, the saying goes, nobody knows you are a dog. But in todays Turkey, where journalists, lawyers, human rights defenders and academics can be declared terrorists arbitrarily, you may still find yourself chained.

Daghan Irak, Postdoctoral research associate, Universite de Strasbourg

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.



Related video added by Juan Cole:

Euronews: Protesters detained in Turkey as part of governments widening crackdown
An artist's concept of the artificial sandy beach on Jamsu Bridge, Seoul. The "beach" will open to the public between Aug. 11 and 13. / Courtesy of Seoul City



By Chyung Eun-ju, Park Si-soo

Ever imagine tanning on top of a bridge? A Korean version of the "Paris Plages" is on its way to allow you to do just that.

Jamsu Bridge, a low bridge crossing Seoul's Han River, will be transformed into a dazzling sandy beach from Aug. 11 to 13. Dozens of sun beds and parasols will be set up on the bridge that will be covered with 810 tons of sand. And it's free to enter.

A 150-meter water slide also will be installed, charging 10,000 won ($8.92) for a ride, according to an office managing public facilities on the river. Events, including exhibitions, sand sculptures and a dance competition, and food trucks will cater to "urban beachgoers."

"This event was designed to bring back memories from the 1960s and '70s when the river was the main summer vacation destination," a Seoul City official said. "Back then, people would go to the Han River to escape the heat."

The so-called "Seoul Plages" began last year with artificial sandy beaches on riverfront areas.

The event was initially planned for July 28-30, but delayed due to rain.





Paris Plages in 2012






This image shows a Lone Star tick, which is thought to spread a virus similar to the severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus.

A woman in Japan died last year from a tick-borne disease  but she was never bitten by a tick.

Instead, investigators believe the woman became infected with a disease called severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome through a bite from a stray cat, according to The Japan Times. (Essentially, the cat was bitten by an infected tick, got infected and then passed that virus on to the woman.)

But what is severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome, and is it odd for a tick-borne disease to cut ticks out of the equation?

An Asian virus

Severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome is caused by a virus of the same name: severe fever with thrombocytopenia syndrome virus, or SFTSV, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The virus is spread primarily through ticks.

If you haven't heard of SFTSV, it may be because no cases of the disease have been reported in the United States; rather, infections have been reported only in Asia. [10 Important Ways to Avoid Tick Bites]

SFTSV is considered an emerging infectious disease, and researchers are still learning about it, said Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious-disease specialist and a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, who was not involved in the Japanese woman's case.

Suspected cases of the infection started to emerge in the mid-2000s, and scientists first isolated the virus in a lab in 2010, Adalja told Live Science.

An increase in diagnoses of SFTSV doesn't necessarily mean that the virus is becoming more common, Adalja noted. Rather, doctors may be more aware of the disease and know to look for it, leading to the increase in documented cases.

Fevers and blood problems

The tick-borne virus causes general flu-like symptoms, including fever, headache, and aches and pains, Adalja said. But these common symptoms can be caused by a number of diseases. A cluster of cases in China in 2007, for example, was thought at one point to be caused by a form of typhus spread by mites or a bacterial infection spread by ticks, he said.

As the disease progresses, however, it can cause changes in a person's blood, Adalja said. "Thrombocytopenia," for example, means that a person doesn't have enough platelets in their blood. Platelets help blood clot, so having fewer platelets can lead to bleeding problems. The virus can also lower the levels of white blood cells, which are cells that help the body fight infections, he said. [27 Devastating Infectious Diseases]

Eventually, SFTSV can lead to multiple-organ failure, Adalja said, meaning that various organs in the body shut down. Studies suggest that up to 30 percent of people who get the virus die, he noted.

Currently, there are no specific treatments for SFTSV, Adalja said. Instead, doctors treat the patients through supportive care.

Trouble in the heartland?

Because there haven't been any documented cases of SFTSV in the U.S., the disease isn't something a doctor would normally look for, Adalja said. However, he added that the virus is similar to another infection that's emerged stateside in recent years: the Heartland virus.

The Heartland virus is also a tick-borne disease, and studies have found that the two viruses are genetically related, Adalja said. In fact, animals infected with the Heartland virus may make antibodies for SFTSV, he said. A 2013 study, for example, found SFTSV antibodies in animals including sheep, goats and deer in Minnesota; it's possible that the animals made the antibodies in response to the Heartland virus.

Where's the tick?

Mammal-to-mammal transmissions of SFTSV have been reported before, Adalja said. In 2012, researchers reported human-to-human transmission of SFTSV in China, he said. And a review of the virus published in the journal The Lancet in 2014 suggests that human-to-human transmission of SFTSV is possible.

"It's not surprising" that the virus can be spread without a tick, Adalja said. "It's not the main mechanism [of spreading], but it can happen." If a virus is in an animal's blood or body fluid and a person comes into contact with that blood or body fluid, the virus can spread, he said.

Originally published on Live Science.
Johannesburg (AFP) - South Africa's firebrand opposition leader Julius Malema on Saturday accused Zambia's president of apartheid style repression for detaining a leading opposition politician on treason charges.

Hakainde Hichilema, leader of Zambia's United Party for National Development (UPND), has been in detention since April and Zambian President Edgar Lungu this month imposed a state of emergency, a move critics see as an effort to tighten his grip on power.

"There is something going terribly wrong in Zambia. The opposition is suppressed," Malema said in an address to his supporters at a stadium in the coastal city of Durban.

"Lungu, you are a coward. Allow the opposition to oppose you. If you are a true leader, you will defeat them properly not through arrest," he said.

Malema compared Lungu to South Africa's apartheid leaders including the architect of the white minority rule, Hendrik Verwoerd, and F.W. de Klerk, the last apartheid president.

"You are not different from de Klerk, ...you are not different from Verwoerd. When people oppose you, you arrest them, you declare (a) state of emergency," said Malema.

Lungu has denied accusations that he is creating a dictatorship in Zambia and has accused rivals of trying to overturn last year's election results.

Hichilema narrowly lost the 2016 election to Lungu's Patriotic Front (PF) party, and has alleged that the result was rigged.
Accra, July 29, GNA - President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has referred two petitions against the Deputy Chairpersons of the Electoral Commission, Ms Georgina Opoku Amankwa and Mr Amadu Sulley, respectively, to the Chief Justice for resolution.

A statement signed by Mr Eugene Arhin, the Director of Communications at the Presidency, said the petitions dated July 25, 2017, which invoked Article 146(3) of the Constitution, was received from Emmanuel Korsi Senyo, who described himself as a 'Concerned Citizen of Ghana.'

The President on Wednesday July 26, 2017 referred a similar petition against the Chairperson of the EC Charlotte Osei to the Chief Justice, in which some 'concerned staff' of the Commission through their legal representative called for investigations into alleged abuse of office and financial impropriety.

They also alleged that the Chairperson was at loggerheads with her two deputies, allegations she has since denied, and in the process also alleged malfeasance on the part of her 'accusers'.

The statement said pursuant to the invocation of Article 146(3) by both Petitions on the Commission's Deputy Chairpersons, the President thus referred them to Chief Justice Sophia Akuffo in accordance with the dictates of that Article.

Article 146(3) states: "If the President receives a petition for the removal of a Justice of a Superior Court other than the Chief Justice or for the removal of the Chairman of a Regional Tribunal, he shall refer the petition to the Chief Justice, who shall determine whether there is a prima facie case."

Subsequent clauses of Article 146 also enable the Chief Justice, where he or she decides that there is a prima facie case, to set up a committee consisting of three Justices of the Superior Courts or Chairmen of the Regional Tribunals or both, appointed by the Judicial Council.

In addition to these are two other persons who are not members of the Council of State, nor members of parliament, nor lawyers, and who shall be appointed by the Chief Justice on the advice of the Council of State, to investigate the complaint and make its recommendations to the Chief Justice who shall forward it to the President.

GNA
Winneba (C/R), July 29, GNA - Chief Dr Ramon Adegoke Adedoyin, President of Oduduwa University, Ipetumodu, IIe-Ife Osun State-Nigeria, has said there is the need for a concerted effort by stakeholders in education to expand and ensure adequate financial support for graduate education in Africa.

This stands out as one of the biggest challenges facing higher education in the continent, despite some international support for such effort which include the new World Bank Centers of Excellence Programme, he said.

Chief Dr Abedonyin said this in a speech during an International Multidisciplinary Conference organized by Graduate students Association of Ghana-University of Education Chapter for postgraduates Students at Winneba.

The programme, held under the theme: 'Reshaping Graduate Students for Sustainable Development of the African Continent, was held under the auspices of the School of Graduates Studies, Institute for Educational Research and innovation Studies, Center for International Programs, Center for Conflict Human Right and Peace Studies and Gender Mainstreaming Directorate.

Chief Dr Abedonyin said it is clear that graduate programs will have to be financed primarily by African governments with help from local donors, businesses, and the students themselves.

He said another major focus was to increase the quality of graduate programs of every level and in the areas of new faculty members; Ph. D. training opportunities for current faculty members, upgraded graduate curriculum that meets international standards, providing high-quality faculties for teaching, research and in higher expectations of excellence from both students and faculty members.

Chief Dr Abedonyin said colonialism has devalued African culture norms and institutions adding that African leaders have inherited a colonial legacy that tends to pit Africans against Africans.

The strength of a nation is not measured by its quantum of the natural resources or military might, but its crop of manpower produced by well planned, funded, staffed, equipped and supervised education system, he said.

GNA
Rabat (AFP) - King Mohammed VI of Morocco on Saturday pardoned more than a thousand detainees, some of whom were under arrest for taking part in protests in the troubled northern Rif region, the justice ministry announced.

The monarch pardoned a total of 1,178 people, including a number who had joined demonstrations in the northern port city of Al-Hoceima and surrounding area, the ministry said in a statement, issued shortly before King Mohammed made a televised speech to mark 18 years on the throne.

The justice ministry said pardons were granted to those "who have not committed crimes and who are not implicated in serious acts... bearing in mind their family and humanitarian conditions."

The Rif, a predominantly Berber region where Al-Hoceima is located, has been gripped by months of unrest.

Protests erupted last October after a fishmonger was crushed to death in a rubbish truck as he tried to retrieve a swordfish confiscated for being caught out of season.

Demands for justice later snowballed into a wider social movement named Al-Hirak al-Shaabi, calling for jobs, development and an end to corruption.

Abdessadek Al-Bouchtaoui, a lawyer for detained protesters, described the mass pardon as "a positive step but it does not go far enough, because we are calling for the release of everyone held."

According to the latest official figures, 176 were being held, including the movement's leader, Nasser Zefzafi.

The government has promised to make major investment in the region, sent ministers to the area and withdrawn police from prominent sites in a bid to defuse the situation.

A brief lull ended on July 21 with clashes over a banned demonstration which also drew in supporters from among the large Moroccan diaspora.

Seventy-two police officers were wounded by stones and 11 protesters were injured by tear gas used to break up the rally, the official news agency MAP reported, citing authorities in Al-Hoceima.
Inter were cruising with a comfortable 2-0 lead over Chelsea in Singapore thanks to goals from Stevan Jovetic and Ivan Perisic at the International Champions Cup.

That was, until Geoffrey Kondogbia somehow contrived to score the most unbelievably unnecessary own goal from distance.

The second-half substitute had only been on the pitch for 16 minutes when he booted the ball into the corner of the net from about 45 yards out under absolutely no pressure at all.

The following screenshots show just how wild the own goal was 1  Kondogbia receives a simple pass near the halfway line with plenty of time

2  he prepares to play a calm and controlled back pass to Daniele Padelli

3  but gets a rather heavy contact on the ball

4  Padelli suddenly realises that the backpass has a bit of juice on it

5  and watches on in horror as the ball flies into the back of the net

2  he prepares to play a calm and controlled back pass to Daniele Padelli
Gunjur (Gambia) (AFP) - The Gambia is courting Beijing's attention after re-establishing diplomatic relations last year, but villagers and activists say Chinese investment is a double-edged sword as they fight a firm accused of dumping waste.

Chinese firms in Africa are frequently accused of polluting the environment to produce materials ready to export back home, in incidents recorded by experts across the mines of Guinea, oil fields of Chad and forests of the Congo basin.

The government is nevertheless keen to kickstart direct Chinese investment to turn around the stuttering economy, though its environment agency has made clear it will tackle abuses of the delicate ecosystem in this largely undeveloped west African nation.

The residents of Gunjur, a Gambian village an hour south of the capital Banjul had welcomed the opening of a Chinese fishmeal factory in September 2016, hoping it would bring new jobs to an area reliant on scant rewards from fishing and tourism.

"When the factory came here, a lot of people were happy, including me," said Badara Bajo, the director of the Environment Protection and Development Group of Gunjur (EPDGG), a charity.

"We felt that it would help create employment opportunities and perhaps sustainable income to local inhabitants," he explained, describing his impressions of the Chinese-run Golden Lead company.

Future partner?

Banjul recognised Beijing as the seat of China's government over former ally Taiwan in March 2016, but the Asian giant was already one of the diminutive African state's top trading partners, with the Chinese snapping up valuable rosewood timber exports.

Illegal to export in neighbouring Senegal, the prized wood was smuggled over the border into The Gambia from the southern Senegalese region of Casamance, souring relations with Dakar.

Since President Adama Barrow took power in January, Banjul has engaged in a charm offensive with Chinese businesses, seeking funding for the type of infrastructure and energy projects the government says were neglected under former leader Yahya Jammeh.

Barrow praised Trade Minister Isatou Touray last week for signing an agreement for duty-free trade with China, which he said would "make our goods more competitive, and boost our export potential."

Touray herself told Chinese media at a regional summit in Abuja in May that "quite a number of Chinese firms are currently engaging with the new administration and we are moving in the right direction."

Streams turn red

Within months of the factory opening in Gunjur, residents began to notice a bad smell, followed by local waterways turning red, and finally wave after wave of dead fish washing up on the shore. Swimmers in Gunjur's lagoon began to complain of skin problems.

"The factory is very close to the lagoon. The lagoon is also close to the nature reserve which we have managed for 22 years now," Bajo said.

Alerted to allegations of waste being piped directly into the sea and the destruction of some the area's mangroves, the National Environment Agency (NEA) filed a lawsuit against Golden Lead on June 14.

Bajo and his colleagues also organised a protest in late May in the neighbouring village of Kartong, where another Chinese firm has its sights set on a factory.

Lamin Jatta, a Kartong resident, said the community "would not allow the Chinese company to pollute our environment, as this will drive European tourists from our beaches."

Cases like Gunjur's are test sites for the new government's willingness to tolerate what experts have described as Chinese firms' frequent disregard for the environment and the rule of law in other parts of Africa.

In its charges against Golden Lead, the NEA alleged that the Chinese company was discharging waste water from their processing plant into the sea at Gunjur beach without permission.

Golden Lead was also failing to keep records of its activities and waste management as required by Gambian law, it said.

Nevertheless, both sides agreed an out-court-settlement, with the firm promising to clean up its act, said government spokeswoman Amie Bojang-Sissoho.

"The company will remove its pipes from the sea and will make a comprehensive ecological assessment and restore the damage done to the ecology," she said, adding Golden Lead would "pay for testing of the water to know how and why it was affected."

'The Chinese pay'

Bakary Darboe, the managing director of the Golden Lead Company, said he "rejected the charges" despite the legal agreement, and noted that the firm employed 64 people in the area to make animal feed to be exported back in China.

After all, not everyone in Gunjur is incensed by the presence of Golden Lead.

"Unlike the local fishmongers who buy fish on credit basis, the Chinese pay in cash and take the fish," said Alieu Saine, a Senegalese fisherman who said the firm paid up to $2 million dalasi ($43,401) each time they purchased stock.

"The government should encourage the Chinese to set up more companies like this one as it will keep young people busy and discourage them from embarking on the risky 'back way' to Europe," Saine added, referring to a Gambian term for the cross-Sahara migrant route.

The villagers, he added, would "get used to" the smell, as he had.
A private legal practitioner, Nii Kpakpo Samoa Addo, is urging the Member's of Parliament served with warrants and subjected to searches on their way to Parliament to sue the police.

Mr. Samoa Addo, a member of the opposition National Democratic Congress, said the morning raid of the home of former Deputy Power Minister, John Jinapor for some evidence related to the AMERI power agreement, was an affront to the dignity of Parliament.

In Mr. Jinapors case, police did not give him a copy of the warrant after a legitimate request before the search and the lawyer, speaking on The Big Issue, noted that what the officers may have wanted to do was lawful but may not have been carried out lawfully.

In general, Mr. Samoa Addo felt the police were let off the hook for crossing the line over certain arrests.

It is about time people started suing the police for what I would consider constitutes a lawful arrest because most times people feel that because you can hold a person for 48 hours means that you have necessarily got the unimpeded constitutional right to hold someone for 48 hours. The Constitution talks about reasonable suspicion  that you must a have a reasonable basis to hold somebody.

I think the Members of Parliament of Parliament themselves must take the matter to court this is a fine opportunity for the courts to pronounce that when a Member of Parliament is on his way to or from Parliament, you cannot serve him with a process. So that service of the warrant on them at the time is illegal.

Security personnel must be queried in public

Criticism of the raid was noted by the Speaker of Parliament summoned an emergency meeting with some national security officers.

But Mr. Samoa Addo said officers connected must be queried in public before the House.

I think that Members of Parliament, to protect their own dignity, must drag the officers in question before Parliament. I don't think Mr. Speaker should do this in private. Mr. Speaker must bring them to Parliament so that they will be educated on what they can do and what they can do and what they cannot do.



By: Delali Adogla-Bessa/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Government has started moving state funds held with commercial banks to a dedicated account at the Bank of Ghana as the implementation of single Treasury Account begins.

The movement, which started this July, is part of plans to improve management of state funds.

Projected value of these accounts

An audit carried out last year puts the value of funds held by commercial banks at a little over 6 billion with the last count showing the number of individual government accounts at around 6000.

Reasons for the introduction

According to government, it has started implementing the single Treasury Account to help better manage public funds. It also wants to deal with corruption; waste and to let managers appreciate the total amount of funds in the state coffers.

Further, goverment wants to use the policy to encourage banks to lend to the private sector as most of the banks depended on the governments funds to improve their liquidity and even buy treasury bills.

While some argue that moving these funds could force the banks to be innovative to grow their loan books, others say managers want to use the policy to also check governments expenditure.

The Public Financial Management Act 2016 (ACT 921) requires government to set up this account.

According to the Act, the account is to serve as a unified Structure of government account to give a consolidated view of government cash and resources, including money received by covered entities shall be deposited

Economist Dr John Kwakye told JOYBUSINESS that government must move cautiously with this policy because it could cripple the operations of the some of the banks. He rather wants government to stagger the implementation of the policy.

So far, there have been mixed reactions to the policy. Whiles some banks have welcomed the initiative others think that it could affect the operations of banks.

Managing Director of Royal Bank, Osei Asafo-Adjei told JOYBUSINESS he does not think the move is a good decision, because government is the biggest spender in this country and our economy is not adequately diversified when it comes to liquidity and resources.

I feel that in other to support the banking industry, which is very an important segment of our economic development, banks should be allowed to bank some of the MDAs rather, rather than concentrating on government account at the bank of Ghana which would not be helpful," he added.

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com | Joy Business
Dakar (AFP) - Senegalese voters cast ballots Sunday to elect a new parliament, a test run for President Macky Sall ahead of a 2019 presidential election and after a campaign marred by violence and tensions.

Most of the 14,000 polling stations opened at 8:00 am (0800 GMT) but there were delays in several places after some sites were hit by a violent overnight storm, local media reported.

Polling ends at 6:00 pm and the first results are expected early Monday. More than 6.2 million people in the west African nation are registered to vote.

Sall is seeking to bolster his parliamentary majority as he eyes a second term, while his predecessor Abdoulaye Wade, 91, attempts to drum up support for his own list of candidates and for his son, Karim, who is waiting in the wings with eyes on the top job.

"We aren't talking any longer about July 30, but of 2019," Prime Minister Mahammed Boun Abdallah Dionne, who is running for a seat with Sall's coalition, declared at a rally.

In a sign of growing tensions, Interior Minister Abdoulaye Daouda Diallo banned inter-regional travel on Sunday until midnight.

Sall's other main opponent, Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall (no relation), is in jail awaiting trial for what supporters say are politically motivated embezzlement charges.

The mayor had been seen as a key contender for 2019 and a potential threat to the president in parliament until he was charged in March with allegedly misappropriating 1.83 billion CFA francs ($2.85 million, 2.7 million euros) in city funds.

There are a record 47 lists of candidates contesting the election, with 165 lawmakers due to take seats in parliament.

Fifteen seats are being set aside for Senegalese expatriates -- the first time that the country's diaspora, estimated at half a million, will have direct representation.

Violent clashes

There has been controversy over the failure to deliver on time new biometric ID cards needed to vote

Police have fired tear gas and arrested dozens during at times violent campaigning that left several injured in a country normally known for its peaceful democratic traditions.

Wade attempted to campaign in a downtown square he had decreed a restricted zone while still president in 2011, an area just metres from the presidential palace. He was pushed back by security forces, leading to several arrests.

Campaigning was marred by tragedy on July 15 when eight people were killed as rival supporters clashed during Senegal's League Cup final, and a stampede caused a wall to fall on escaping fans.

Controversy also erupted over the failure to deliver enough new biometric ID cards needed to vote, which hundreds of thousands of Senegalese have not received in time.

The president asked Senegal's constitutional council to relax the voting rules so people without the cards could use passports or other forms of identification to cast their ballots, along with proof they had applied for the IDs.

Several political parties and opposition coalitions angrily denounced the last-minute move, saying it increased the possibility of fraud.

Tit-for-tat arguments between President Sall and former president Wade's camps have also erupted over the length of motorways and number of bridges built under their respective tenures.

Wade has accused Sall of "destroying" Senegal, while the president's side say Wade did not do enough to develop the nation while in power, boasting of their achievements in building a new airport and other infrastructure projects.
Some forest reserves in the Asutifi South District of the Brong Ahafo Region have been invaded by illegal chainsaw operators who are cutting the trees for lumber.

The Desiri Forest Reserve at Siechem which shares boundaries with the Ashanti and Western regions is being destroyed by the illegal operators.

The District Chief Executive, Robert Mensah Dwomoh, who confirmed the development during the first meeting of the Assembly, accused the Forestry Commission, chiefs and politicians for turning a blind eye to these developments.

According to him, the Desiri and Bosomkese reserves have been greatly depleted over the years.

Unpatriotic Ghanaians including the traditional authorities, politicians and even the very people who are paid to protect the forest, have all contributed to the rapid degradation of the reserves.

He appealed to traditional authorities and Assembly members along the reserves not to hesitate to report any illegality for the necessary action to be taken.

He also called on the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the National Security and the government to help them fight against the illegal chainsaw operators who he said were heavily armed.

The Chief of the Siechem traditional Council, Nana Boffo Banin, told Citi News that, he has petitioned the DCE to take action against the crime after his tricycle and motorbike were burnt by the illegal chainsaw operators and some farmers.

Reports say most of the criminals were from neighbouring countries including Burkina Faso, and they have pitched camp in wooden structures within the forest reserves.



By: Atiewin Mohammed/citifmonline.com/Ghana
Sulley Haruna, 29, has been arrested by the police for driving a Toyota Corolla he snatched from its original owner.

The car, which by the time of the arrest in Somanya, has been painted with taxi colours, still possessed its original license number.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (ACP) Joseph Gyawu, the Adentan Police Divisional Police Commander, said on the 22nd April, the owner of the white Toyota Corolla, Michael Adomako reported to the Agbogba Police that his car has snatched from him.

He said the suspect went out with the complainant on a test drive and on the way, he pleaded with the owner to also test-drive the car.

ACP Gyawu said as soon as the complainant relinquished the car, the suspect sped off whiles the owner was stuck in the door of the passenger seat.

He said after some time, and realising that his efforts were futile, the owner let off his hold and watched his vehicle driven away.

ACP Gyawu said based on a tip off, on 17th July, the suspect was arrested with a taxi coloured car which in addition to the number plate bore a striking resemblance to the complainant's car.

The suspect, after investigation, was placed before the court for prosecution.


Mogadishu (AFP) - At least five people were killed and ten wounded in Somalia's capital Mogadishu on Sunday when a car bomb detonated on a busy road, the security ministry said.

There was no immediate claim of responsiblity but the bombing fits the pattern of Al-Qaeda linked Shabaab Islamists, who have carried out numerous suicide bombings and raids in the capital targeting civilian, government and military targets.

Security ministry spokesman Ahmed Mohamud said five civilians were killed and ten others wounded in the car bomb blast.

"It occurred in front of business shops along the road", he told reporters.

The car was parked along the congested Maka Al-Mukarama road and detonated remotely, security sources told AFP.

Witnesses said the blast left the street littered with bodies.

"I saw several dead bodies strewn and vehicles burning. The blast was very huge," witness Abdukadir Mohamed said.

Shabaab, which has been fighting for the last decade to overthrow successive internationally backed governments in Mogadishu, has also launched attacks in Kenya and Uganda, both contributors to a 22,000-strong African Union force in the country.
Universal Merchant Bank (UMB) dined and wined with its customers and stakeholders as part of celebration of their 45th Anniversary at the Movenpick Ambassador Hotel in Accra.

The special 45th anniversary celebration gala was held in honour of UMBs customers and stakeholders to show UMBs appreciation to them for supporting the bank since it first opened its doors for business in 1972.

In her welcome remarks, UMB Board Chairperson, Mrs. Elizabeth Zormelo, stated that As we celebrate our 45th anniversary, we acknowledge what we have achieved thus far, but we are also looking forward to the future. Like our founders, our vision for the future of UMB is ambitious and it is bold. She also expressed gratitude to the customers of UMB for contributing to the success of the bank.

The Chief Executive Officer of UMB, Mr. John Awuah, addressed the guests in attendance by acknowledging the contributions of former UMB executive leaders such as the first Managing Director of UMB, Mr. George Hammond.

He also remarked upon the importance of UMB to the corporate and private sector of Ghana, noting that When you review our 45 year history and indeed link it to the growth of the corporate and private sector, you will realize the significant contribution that this bank has made to many businesses in Ghana.

By virtue of being the only bank dedicated to serving the corporate and private sector, our objective was to help drive economic growth through helping all categories of businesses.

Mr. Awuah expressed the banks appreciation to the customers of UMB and reaffirmed the banks commitment to exceeding their expectations through innovation and exceptional customer service.

It was truly a night of celebration and many guests were happy to join in the festivities to mark the importance and significance of the occasion.

The event was graced by the special guest, H.E. Jerry John Rawlings and other notable dignitaries such as the Minister of Trade and Information, Hon. Alan Kyerematen; the Minister of Information, Hon. Mustapha Abdul-Hamid; Deputy Chief of Staff, Mr. Francis Asenso-Boakye; former Governor of the Bank of Ghana, Dr. H. A. Kofi Wampah; Nii Kpobi Tettey Tsuru III, La Mantse; the acting head of the Ga Traditional Council, Nii Dodoo Nsaki II, Otublohum Mantse; and many others.
30.07.2017 LISTEN

KESHE Foundation, a Global Non-Governmental Organization in Spaceship Technology, is set to bring new cutting-edge technologies to Ghana to boost governments job-creation agenda and create wealth for the people of Ghana.

The main objective of the initiative which is based solely on technology is to share the benefits of all aspects of KESHE Foundations technologies in different areas related to mankinds welfare and education. This was made known by Mehran TavakoliKeshe, a renowned Iranian Scientist and Founder of the KESHE Foundation at a press briefing in Accra, where he indicated that the Foundation will be employing over 3000 scientists by the next two years.

According to him, KESHE Foundation International is investing a total of $21 million in the construction of the first Spaceship Research Centre in Africa. He mentioned that, this vision of creating jobs and wealth is in line with President Nana Akuffo-Addos one-district-one-factory agenda to also provide decent sustainable job opportunities to ordinary citizens and high-earned skilled world-class technologists and scientists.

Under the project, interested applicants from Ghana and across Africa will be trained free of charge with majority of them employed by the Foundation and paid decent salaries. Construction of the KESHE Learning, Training and Research Centre will start in September this year and is expected to be completed by six months. In October 2016, following the conference organized by the Kesh Foundation International, in collaboration with Ghana Atomic Energy Commission (GAEC) the KESHE Foundation Ghana Ltd was formed.

Explaining the KESHE Foundation concept, Mr. Mehran TavakoliKeshe told the media that, the people of the earth are ready for peace; hence there is the need to make world leaders understand that we accept peace and as leaders they are obliged to accept peace of the people. The Earth Council, Universal Council and Core Team have prepared a letter to the world leaders that we need PEACE.

He further explained that the time and the place for the world peace is now but this peace should be based on humility. It is the duty of every man on earth to take responsibility of ensuring that this cycle of peace is achieved possibly through the application of new technology. This can guarantee the type of peace on earth that will bring all nations together as one and all could become part of this peace on this blue planet.

The Keshe Foundation is thus introducing to humanity the science of the universe through plasma science and technology where the focus is to solve numerous problems of third world countries using the plasma technology. Our mission is to enable humans create conditions to survive peacefully in deep space or anywhere in the universe. The support center is here to help answer questions you might have regarding a broad range of topics related to Keshe Foundation and the plasma science, he said and indicated that the foundation will not dwell on the old-fashioned way of teaching but will guide and enlighten its students for them to learn, teach and inspire others around the globe. Humanity needs to educate itself about the universal knowledge in its totality.

Mr. Mehran TavakoliKeshe also explained that KF SSI Education is delivering multiple study programs in public and private teachings. With the hard work of volunteers writing original subtitles and translations they will help deliver important knowledge to many different language speaking communities. The plasma academy will provide both theoretical and practical knowledge about plasma technology as it will offer workshops and events in every state. Imagine there is a technology, which cannot only balance your physical body, but also help you find out the root of your own disease or that of your patients! This technology, this knowledge is already available and is in every section of the Keshe Foundation, the knowledge is free for everyone, you can use it for yourself, you can build the devices for yourself, or the Keshe Foundation manufacturing produces it for you. The space technology that is now being developed will allow humanity to be members of the space community.

He said people have been for far too long, focusing on the physical aspect of life and now we are starting to understand and embrace plasmatic science that explains the plasma energy system of the universe and of each and every atom.

He also indicated that the spaceship must be created out of Magravs plasma since it is naturally conscious, and Magravs plasma can be concentrated and configured by thought, according to the requirements of space travel.

Doing a short presentation on how plasma technology works, Mr. Mehran TavakoliKeshe said, the energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another. with plasma technology, there is no worry of energy running out or leaving the lights on and using up too much energy, he said, explaining that he has designed plasma reactors which by gravitational positioning are able to generate their own magnetic and gravitational fields around the reactor and the craft to counter the forces of earth's magnetic and gravitational fields.

Through plasma science and technology, humanity may finally learn about the reality of the world of creation finding answers even for things previously unexplainable.  what is our purpose and how humankind shall comprehend the real value of peace, implement, and maintain it on planet earth first, and afterward, live peacefully anywhere in space.

The introduction of plasma science and technology, he said will renovate and enhance most sectors of science and technology, advance them to new heights. New attitudes and understanding will be applied reducing unethical or wrong behavior that is unacceptable to the ethos of the Universal Community.

Mehran Tavakoli Keshe strongly supported most of his works and indicated that, his technology would help change the world for the better.
Nairobi (AFP) - Elite Kenyan security forces on Sunday killed a man at the home of Deputy President William Ruto, ending a 20-hour siege that left one officer dead and another wounded, security officials said.

Ruto and his family were not at the vast property in the northwest of the country when Saturday's attack began, less than two weeks before what are expected to be tightly-fought elections.

Ruto condemned the violence at a campaign rally on Sunday.

"Those who seek to frustrate our unity, undermine our progress or work towards destroying our nationhood will not succeed," he told supporters in the town of Murang'a.

There are differing accounts on how many attackers were involved but the incident appeared to have ended Sunday when Kenya's police chief Joseph Boinnet said one assailant was shot and killed.

"The situation is under control," he said, noting that the drama started when a machete wielding man attacked and badly injured a police officer guarding Ruto's home, before storming the compound.

Regional security coordinator Wanyama Musyambo said the assailant then took one officer hostage in a room used as an armoury by police guards.

"It was a very delicate operation because, being in the armoury, he was at an advantage and was firing various weapons, and this caused confusion because you would think there was more than one person firing," Musyambo said.

Both the officer taken hostage and the gunman were later killed, Musyambo said.

Several security sources had earlier told AFP that the assault was staged by several people using guns, raising the possibility that some of the attackers remain at large.

"There are armed people who staged the attack and have shot the GSU officer and stolen his gun," one security official said, referring to the elite police General Security Unit deployed to guard Ruto's house.

Tensions mounting ahead of vote

The deputy president had left the house shortly before the attack to attend rallies alongside President Uhuru Kenyatta, his running mate who faces a re-election contest on August 8 against longtime opposition leader Raila Odinga.

Saturday's attack occurred despite the round-the-clock presence of GSU guards at the property, near the town of Eldoret, some 300 kilometres (200 miles) northwest of the capital Nairobi.

Moses Wetang'ula, leader of one of five opposition parties in the coalition backing Odinga, called the incident "unfortunate" in comments to The Standard newspaper, but questioned if it wasn't also an attempt to heighten security fears ahead of the vote.

"We hope it is not a ploy to play victim," Wetang'ula said.

Ruto's home sits in Kenya's western Rift Valley area, the flashpoint for an outbreak of election violence after the disputed 2007 polls that killed 1,100 people and tarnished Kenya's image as a regional beacon of safety and stability.

According to opinion polls, this year's election will be close and tensions have been rising.

Odinga has repeatedly claimed the government is scheming to steal the election, while Kenyatta has accused Odinga of trying to delay the polls.

Earlier this month, Human Rights Watch said it had received reports of threats and voter intimidation in Naivasha, a hotspot town in 2007 and one of the potential trouble spots in this year's election.

In the Rift Valley, hate speech flyers have been circulating and some local residents have already left their homes.

The 2007 bloodshed haunted both Ruto and Kenyatta long after it ended, when the International Criminal Court put both on trial for orchestrating the violence.

Those charges were later dropped, with ICC chief prosecutor Fatou Bensouda blaming a relentless campaign of victim intimidation for making a trial impossible.
Over a hundred techies and digital media enthusiasts gathered at Four Points by Sheraton, Victoria Island, Lagos on Thursday July 27, 2017 for the 3rd edition of the New Media Conference.

The conference, which was put together by Tosin Ajibade founder of Olorisupergal.com, also saw in attendance notable personalities in Africas media and IT industry such as Larry Madowo, Chude Jideonwo, Stephanie Busari, Tewa Onasanya, Olajumoke Okikiolu, Chiamaka Obueke, Efosa Aiyevbomwan, Adesumbo Adeoye, Tosyn Bucknor, Chiamaka Obueke and many others.

The forum kicked off at 8am with the compere Arit Okpo inviting Tosin Ajibade on stage to give the welcome speech after which the Senior Manager, Product Marketing at Samsung Electronics West Africa (SEWA) Olajumoke Okikiolu gave the keynote speech of the conference where she stated, By breaking down physical boundaries, new media platforms are empowering millions of people to embrace new ways of finding information and sharing their thoughts.

We have learnt to speak up and join voices to virtually drive support for humanitarian causes and press for change across sectors, including politics and business. This new-found freedom of expression has, in turn, revealed its pros and cons to us over the years, necessitating policy adjustments across industries and communities, both globally and locally - here in Nigeria.

The first panel was moderated by Deputy Editor-In-Chief Pulse NG Princess Abumere and they discussed upholding standards and professionalism in new media practice. This session led to a lot of debate among the attendees and panelists on how fake news has taken over the digital media world about which co-founder of Red Media Africa Chude Jideonwo remarked, Id like to correct a misconception, fake news is not a social media problem, it is a media problem and it has been in existence since the days of traditional journalism.

Another panel which had influential Kenyan media personality Larry Madowo on it delved into what the future holds for new media in Africa and he said, Let me give you all a candid advice, go learn how to code and write computer languages, it is the future of internet technologies. About a decade ago, being an ordinary computer literate puts you ahead of others but in coming years, knowing how to code is what will set you apart from the crowd.

The most intriguing discussion of the conference was the 3rd panel consisting of CNN Africa editor Stephanie Busari, PR Expert Bidemi Zakariyau, founder of Exquisite Magazine Tewa Onasanya, CEO Esob Ventures Adesumbo Adeoye and Deputy Chief Operations Officer of Red Media Africa Bukonla Adebakin with award-winning journalist Lamide Akintobi as the moderator.

The aforementioned panel touched various aspects of the digital age especially the challenges being faced by women in new media. Each panelist gave mind-stimulating opinions on how new media is shaping women of today and how it has accommodated women. As a woman, you cant limit yourself, the ages of limitations are definitely gone so, do it, Stephanie Busari encouraged.

Speaking to the women already in positions of authority and how they can empower other women, Adesumbo Adeoye said, Mentorship is crucial, we women must invest in each other and if you are a woman in a powerful position, you need to have a succession plan for when you leave that post.

The special masterclass session also took place at the same venue featuring lectures from professionals like MD Whogohost Toba Obaniyi, Bukonla Kukoyi The Quadrant Company, Bolu Essien Terragon London and Founder Tech Point NG Adewale Yusuf.

More discussions on how digital media has changed the general African lifestyle were held during the course of the conference featuring other experts such as MD Whogohost Toba Obaniyi and CEO Jedidah Promotions Ikechi Uko. Other media personalities present at the conference include CEO Black House Media Group Adekunle Ayeni, CEO Emblue Kevin Orifa, Eze Ezgozie General Manager of Universal Music Group - West Africa, Founder Tech Point Nigeria Adewale Yusuf, CEO Media Panache Nigeria Timilehin Bello, Adaora Mbelu-Dania, Akinlabi Akinbulumo amongst others.

The third edition of the New Media Conference is supported by Samsung

Refreshed by Malta Guinness

Partners - Shola Animashaun Photography, Evolve Media, Octagon group, Afrotainment, Orange Academy, World Bay Tech, Fourth Canvas

Media Partners - Bella Naija, Pulse NG, Goldmyne TV, Nigezie, Ynaija, 360 nobs, Media Panache Nigeria, Tech Point, COOL FM, Guardian, Ebonylife TV, Benny Capricorn, Be November, Bmax, Lagos Life, Ebuka Akara, Even Dailies, Expoze media, Moji Delano, Helen Events Blog, Lusurgy, Unilag Olod, Nauto hub, Pexxie, Steevane, The Pamilerin, Twinsgist Mag, Shawttynatt Media, Pidgin Blog, Osbalt, Penzaarville, Lusurgy, Classic naija blog, Kobz nation, Unilag Olodo.

Powered by Olorisupergal
Khartoum (AFP) - Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby on Sunday declared Sudan the 39th province of the worldwide Anglican Communion, six years after the predominantly Christian south gained independence from the north.

The Anglican church in Sudan, a majority Muslim country, has been administered from South Sudan since the 2011 split which followed a civil war that left more than two million people dead.

Sunday's ceremony in Khartoum added Sudan to the 85 million-strong worldwide Anglican communion's 38 member churches -- known as provinces -- and six other branches known as extra provincials.

Welby said that creating a 39th Anglican province with its own Khartoum-based archbishop was a "new beginning" for Christians in Sudan.

He installed Ezekiel Kondo Kumir Kuku as the country's first archbishop and primate at a ceremony in the capital's All Saints Cathedral attended by American, European and African diplomats and hundreds of worshippers.

"We welcome the new primate with jubilation," Welby announced to a cheering crowd as he handed a cross to Kuku.

Welby, spiritual head of the Church of England and of the global Anglican Communion, said it was a rare opportunity for an archbishop to declare a new primate.

"It is a responsibility for Christians to make this province work, and for those outside (Sudan) to support, to pray and to love this province," he said.

"The church must learn to be sustainable financially, to develop the skills of its people, and to bless this country as the Christians here already do."

The idea of a separate Anglican province in Sudan was first discussed in 2009 as it became clear that the south would secede.

Human rights and Christian campaign groups have regularly accused the Sudanese authorities of persecuting Christians and even destroying churches in the capital since the split.

Since the 1989 coup that brought Islamist backed President Omar al-Bashir to power, authorities in Khartoum have pursued Arabising and Islamising policies in a bid to unify the country.

This has stirred resentment and helped trigger a devastating civil war that ended with the secession of the mainly Christian south.

Christian communities in Sudan today are mostly found in the Nuba mountains of South Kordofan state. Exact numbers are unavailable.

US President Donald Trump is to decide on October 12 whether to permanently lift sanctions imposed in 1997 over Khartoum's alleged backing for Islamist militant groups.

Several campaign groups have urged Washington to maintain the sanctions or formulate new ones to address concerns over human rights violations.
30.07.2017 LISTEN

He should spare us such nonsensical effusions as The late President Mills was my source of inspiration and motivation (See Mills Was My Inspiration Classfmonline.com / Ghanaweb.com 7/21/17). It only makes those of us avid observers of the national political scene all the more angry and furious. It goes without saying that a man who can only be grateful to Divine Providence for having auspiciously removed his immediate boss, in order to make him the first post-colonially born leader of Ghana, is not one to be trusted for his testimony on absolutely any subject having to do with that predecessor or former boss, short of using his late boss to feather his own political cap or ambitions.

Then also, testimony indicating the deplorable state of the tomb of the late President John Evans Atta-Mills, scarcely 5 years after his death, and largely under the watch of his former arch-lieutenant, ought to tell those of us who have been studiously following events on the ground since July 24, 2012 the sort of motivation and inspiration the Gonja-born naturalized Fante citizen is talking about. I swear by the gonads of my good, old Uncle Tarkwa-Atta that were this shameless Son-of-a-Caterpillar standing right in front of yours truly, the sort of double-slaps he would dish this veritable scumbag would be heard across the echo chambers of Jupiter.

But I blame even more those members of the Atta-Mills Clan who have been pretending as if it is iced-water that runs through their veins and arteries. I want to know about the state of the Cape Coast-located Atta-Mills Library, as of this writing. Not that it really matters anyhow. The good news here, though, is that my good, old Uncle Tarkwa-Atta cannot be murdered, or re-assassinated, once more, to further the cheap and tawdry ambitions of the MacBeths of Ghanaian politics. Now, all-too-predictably, they want to use the memory of the slain man to play on the emotions of weak-minded and weak-hearted Ghanaian citizens and voters to score cheap political points. But Ghanaians, for the most part, have come too far and long a way to be so facilely sold spoilt-rotten goods.

I have said this before, and hereby repeat the same: that until the key operatives of the National Democratic Congress (NDC) are able to look the national and global community in the eye and tell us precisely how the late President John Evans (Fiifi) Atta-Mills met his death, the National Democratic Congress party machine may have to be summarily liquidated and mothballed, if the country is to be rid of this most foul stench of barbarism and wanton savagery that have been spreading all across the land.

We have heard the rascally likes of Mr. Daniel Allotey Jacobs  I hope I have his first name written out correctly  suavely and passionately attempt to exculpate former President John Dramani Mahama from any foul play that may very well have attended the circumstances surrounding the death of then-President Mills. But that is about all that anybody outside the inner-circle of my good, old Uncle Tarkwa-Atta has been told.

It has also been clearly and loudly implied that then-Vice-President John Mahama was not even listed among the inner-circle membership of the former University of Ghanas tax-law professor. What does this tell us about what really went on in the Atta-Mills Flagstaff House? Koku Anyidoho also needs to stop dreaming those cheap and bogus dreams and tell us what really occurred in the old Danish slave castle at Osu. And also why Mr. Mahama decided to adamantly hang onto his Vice-Presidents official residence, even long after he had been sworn in as the legitimate and substantive President of the Democratic Republic of Ghana, rather than fully and constitutionally assume occupancy of the Flagstaff House with his wife and children. Concerned Ghanaian citizens want to know.

*Visit my blog at: kwameokoampaahoofe.wordpress.com Ghanaffairs
30.07.2017 LISTEN

A senior research fellow at the Institute for Democratic Governance (IDEG) says the call for the three Electoral Commissioners to step aside are in the best interest of the EC. Kwesi Jonah says IDEGs calls were hinged on the operational continuity of the EC as it goes through the crisis (Source: myjoyonline.com, Friday July 28, 2017).

The above source went further to report that Professor Kwesi Jonah made a call for the appointment of an acting chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC). I strongly disagree with the learned University Of Ghana political science professor. Asking Charlotte Osei to step aside is not only unfortunate but equally risking setting a bad precedence.

Charlotte Osei as a law-abiding EC Chairperson acted on the directives of the Economic and Organized Crime Office (EOCO) to ask three of her workers to proceed on leave to pave ways for investigations into the EC Endowment Fund Scandal. The affected workers declined to comply with EOCO and Charlotte Oseis orders. The Director of Finance at the Electoral Commission (EC), Dr Joseph Kwaku Asamoah, has indicated he will not proceed on leave as directed by the Chairperson of the EC, Mrs Charlotte Osei to pave way for investigations into the loss of monies in the EC staff Endowment Fund (Source: ghanaweb.com, Thursday July 6, 2017).

Is it not the same law that EOCO and Charlotte attempted to follow? Then came the so-called faceless petition against EC Boss. Do we need a soothsayer to tell us that the faceless petition was born out of frustration aggression principle/hypothesis? If her subordinates refused to step aside why must Charlotte step aside for an acting EC leader? What prevented the three EC officials from exonerating themselves before EOCO?

Professor Jonah, did EOCO write to Charlotte Osei or not? Is the EC Endowment Fund misappropriated or not? I think we must rather impress upon the three EC workers to comply with EOCO directives. It is not fair to appoint acting EC Chairperson and ask Charlotte Osei to step aside just because her attempt to follow through EOCOs directiveswas saddled with equalization and acrimony.

Operational continuity of the EC will rather slow down with the proposed appointment of acting EC chairperson since the appointee will have to undergo orientations. EC is a big institution with an office in each district and, also with the director in charge of elections who can assure Ghanaians that operational continuity of the commission will not be compromised despite the misunderstanding that has befallen the top hierarchy.

Equally important is the fact that evidence-based research reveals that when Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) approach is adopted in resolving organizational conflict, it speeds up the resolution process. ADR is friendly in terms of organizational conflict processing efficiencies (Bingham, Nabatchi,Senger&Jackman, 2008). ADR refers to a wide range of conflict management strategies and process adopted in lieu of traditional judicial and administrative litigation and adjudication (Bingham, Nabatchi,Senger&Jackman, 2008).

A major conundrum of ADR is whether it could produce the same substantive resultsthat are not different from that of traditional court and administrative systems. However, research seemed to suggest that with appropriate arbitrators, ADR provides desirable resolution outcomes (Bingham, Nabatchi,Senger&Jackman, 2008). Parties involved in the EC dispute are likely to renew their commitment and bury their differences with ADR than judicial litigation. Please Professor. Jonah, come again!The thoroughgoing EC conflicts require ADR not an acting EC Chairperson. God Bless Our Homeland Ghana.

By Nana Yaw Osei, Minnesota, USA

[email protected]

Reference

Bingham, L. B., Nabatchi, T., Senger, J. M., & Jackman, M. S. (2008). Dispute resolution and the vanishing trial: Comparing federal government litigation and ADR outcomes. Ohio St. J. on Disp. Resol., 24, 225.
30.07.2017 LISTEN

The friends of Mr Henry Nana Boakye popularly known as Nana B at Akwatialine in the Asawase constituency, on Friday organised a special prayer for him.

The purpose for the prayer was to seek God's guidance and protection as he aspires for New Patriotic Party ( NPP), National Youth leadership.

The prayer and Quran recitation section saw the lives of most Ulamau, Chiefs and supporters of the NPP participating.

Mr Muyid Deen Suleman, chairman for the group said ,it was very important to recognise such character in our societies because of his positive personal relationship with people.

He said, Nana B has contributed immensely to the implementations of some policies and strategies meant to better serve the interest of the youth and that it was good to support him in that direction with spiritual backings.

Nana B has become one of the most distinguished young political character currently in Ghana because of his accommodative nature and sober reflections for mankind. He added

Mr Suleman indicated that,Nana B stands tall among all those aspiring for the same portfolio and that it was necessary to throw our support for him.

Mr Abubakar Alheri popularly known as white father, the organizer for the group thanked participants and prayed that, they continued to support Nana B in their diverse ways.
The attention of the Office of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has been drawn to a news item under the above caption and wish to react accordingly.

The story, which is sourced to the NDC MP for Bongo, Hon. Edward Bawa, is not only misleading but also full of propaganda and a calculated attempt to indignify the image and reputation of the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.

First of all, we would like to state emphatically that MOFA has not spent GH 20M on wrong chemicals as the story sought to portray.

For the information of the good people of Ghana, the amount earmarked by Government to fight the invasion of the armyworms is less than the one being quoted by the MP

The Finance Ministry released an amount of GH 16M out of which GH 15,815m was released to the ministry.

Part of this amount was to be used for the procurement of approved chemicals, sensitization and awareness creation, as well as procurement of logistics for the gang spraying team put in place by the National Taskforce and the Committee set up to oversee the fight against the pests.

It will interest everyone to know that these chemicals were approved after exhaustive consultations with sister countries, the CSIR, EPA and the PPRSD under the Ministry before orders were made for their purchase.

MOFA will like to state emphatically that reports from across the length and breadth of the country indicate massive progress in the fight against the armyworms.

It must be pointed out that the progress being in the fight against these 'alien' pests cannot be limited to one, two or three districts but must rather be seen from a general perspective.

MOFA is very hopeful that at the end of the day the country will witness bumper harvests in all the major crops including maize, sorghum, soyabean and rice.

Plans are also far advanced to support farmers whose farms were devastated by the armyworms.

In order to prevent future occurrence, MOFA has signed an agreement with the University of Ghana to train personnel of the Plant Protection and Regulatory Division of MOFA.

This partnership with the academia, we hope, will help bolster the emergency response ability of the ministry in fighting all forms of diseases that affect crops and animals in the country.

Meanwhile, MOFA will like to assure farmers that the National Surveillance and Monitoring Taskforce made up of personnel from NADMO, CSIR, FAO and PPRSD will continue to be on the ground to response to distress calls of farmers as we deal with pockets of reports of infection.

Signed

Issah Alhassan

Press Secretary to the Minister
In the past two months in this cropping season, a devastating organisms called armyworms have wreaked a grand havoc on our maize farms. It has been estimated that farms in the neighbourhood of twelve thousand hectares have been ran aground. The quantum of maize the nation has lost to this worms is envisioned to be over a million bags of maize.

According to unassailable agricultural records of facts, a million bags of maize bears the capacity to feed the three regions of the north for the first half of the year or otherwise rake in over GHC10m.

This only reflects an infinitesimal tip of the loss to mother Ghana. *The dismal phenomenon strongly invites the government to enormously beef up the combat against the exploits and destructions of the army worm invasion-new Ghanaian adversary.*

The government has reportedly sunk a lot of cash into the procurement of insecticides for farmers to flash out the worms, but this has woefully proven not to be enough and lacking. Official mouthpieces from the Ministry of Agriculture has articulated that the prescribed insecticides both liquid and powdered substances have been adequately availed to all satellite metropolitans, municipals and districts bureas of the Ministry. Some of the farmers from some parts of the country are however running a contrary comment to that of government's PR-gurus.

They maintain that they have been consistently turned away whenever they go to request for the insecticides. This may be as a result of one of these; the representatives are crooks, cheats and dacoits whose dishonesty leads them to pilfer the chemicals or the farmers have a deficit of information or the insecticide are just shamefully inadequate. Some farmers in Techiman lamented about how the government only made a provision for 5000 litres when 12000 litres of the insecticide were needed to crush the infestation.

It is a trite knowledge that stoking the offices is not the main hurdle to cross but making same accessible to farmers and getting them apprised of how and the precise spot of the plant to apply the insecticide. Army worms are not visible and noticeable through a mere normal sight but it takes a double checking and combing of the plant to detect their presence.

In reality, the only detective destructive symptom of army worms are perforated holes on the leaves and chopped upper stalk. The farmer, at that helpless and frustrating moment, cannot do much beyond nothing because the destruction has already effected.

The task to battle out the army worm invasion is multifaceted and of byzantine complexity which can be narrowed down to the synergetic collaboration of various government agencies. The Ministry of Information through the Information Service Department should wade in and a launch a rigorous campaign and sensitisation drive. This should be geared towards getting farmers depleted of information abreast with the exactitude of where to access the insecticide and how to use same. It renders the government's rather laudable intervention redundant if insecticides supplied for gratias do not get to the target farmers and even worse of is when they lack the manual.

The government must step up its efforts and fashion out effective measures towards stamping out the invasion to reverse any possibility of food insecurity. Maize constitute the the staple food of the country and any far-reaching destructive menace can slip Ghana, a country which is already operating on the brink of food insecurity, into the abyss of food shortage.

The Kenyans, our African siblings and remote and relatively sophiscated South Americans have suffered food shortage at the hands of the armyworm. Ghana may not be different if we do not pass these worms as innocent minute worms and fight them with all the force we can marshal.

God Bless Our Homeland Ghana!

ABDALLAH, ABDUL MATIN
President Nana Akufo-Addo on Saturday said his government would pay special attention to the professional development of teachers as the nation marches heads towards development.

He said teachers were the key change agents needed for the acceleration of the transformative change programmes of his government, thus his administration would ensure that the Ghanaian teachers become pivotal in the development agenda of the country.

President Akufo-Addo said this at the second session of the 21st congregation of the University of Education Winneba (UEW), at which some 10,587 students graduated from the University at various levels.

The number comprised 6,644 and 3,943 graduands from the Northern and Southern sectors of the University respectively.

The total figure is made up of 904 postgraduate, 6,000 bachelor's degrees and 3,675 diploma awards. Out of the lot, 1,464 have been certified as professional teachers in various fields of expertise.

Touching on the critical importance of teachers of developing the competencies of teachers, the President explained that the economic success of most modern societies was inter-related with the professional role of teachers and education in general.

Almost all modern, successful societies that have had outstanding results in training and economic development such as Singapore, Finland, Korea and Canada have shown that teacher quality is the single most important determinant of their successes.

For us also to make a success of our nation, we must pay attention to teachers. It is only a crop of well-trained, self-confident and contented teachers that can deliver the educated and skilled workforce we require to transform our economy, he said.

President Akufo-Addo said Government intends to restore the teaching profession to the status it once enjoyed, and make it an attractive career choice.

He said teaching should no longer be seen as a stop-gap measure or a job of last resort, but as a viable choice to enter a well-paid, well-respected profession with long term career prospects and good benefits.

Accordingly, government, he said, intends to facilitate teacher training nationwide, as well as institute special incentives for them, such as support for teachers to acquire their own homes.

The President said in line with the policy to motivate teachers and reward their hard work in the classroom, government would also support teachers to enroll in Distance Education programmes to boost their capacity.

It is for this reason that government, he said, would from September 2017, re-introduce the teacher training allowance that was revoked by the previous government.

The President said government, as a policy measure, would partner and support the UEW, as well as all the other public Universities in the country, to raise and improving standards to enable them to compete with the best on the Continent.

He was hopeful that Ghanaian universities would be ranked amongst the top 10 on the continent after the many interventions being made, saying, This is not beyond us to achieve, and my government will ensure that universities are equipped with the requisite logistics and guarantee that lecturers are well motivated to achieve this feat.


30.07.2017 LISTEN

We, the Unemployed Education Graduates Alliance (UEGA) by this release ,express outmost displeasure and disappointment in MOE and GES for having refused to make provisions for us to be recruited to practise our profession. As conscious citizens who wish to contribute our quota towards the general growth and development of this dear nation, we went to read education related programs at the countrys public universities after SHS hoping to be offered the opportunity to impart positive attitudes, knowledge and skills to the younger generation.

However, for about five years now, the Ghana Education Service (GES) and the government through Ministry of Education (MoE) have deliberately refused to pay significant attention to the plights of Unemployed Graduate Teachers in the country and we believe this unkind gesture by the GES and MoE is not helping in promoting quality education that the country hopes for.

We also believe that this is an attempt to deprive us our right to employment. To demonstrate our ability and willingness to conform to law and order, we humbly petitioned the Ministry of Education (MoE), Ghana Education Service (GES) and the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations on the 21st February, 2017 highlighting our grievances for immediate remedy even at the point when we were in the position which demanded radical yet harmless approach to channel our grievances.

It is however, heartbreaking to underscore that none of these ministries actually accorded our petition the needed consideration it demanded. At the Ministry of Employment and Labour Relations, we were told our petition could not be traced after having visited the Ministry on two occasions.

The MoE although registered our petition and gave it to the secretary to the Minister, no one could tell whether the Minister actually received our petition ot not. We requested for a meeting with the Minister but we were made to understand that, only the minister could call for a meeting with us but not the other way round.

On the 3rd April, 2017 however, the secretary accepted our letter to the Minister requesting to meet with him but we never had the chance to meet him. Perhaps, the office of the Minister is yet to fix a date to meet with us.

GES on the other hand gave us hope of employment upon our second visit to the office. We were instructed to submit all our documents and application letters for postings. In fact, we were filled with great joy and hopes when we heard this promising news from the Ghana Education Service.

GES assured us that our documents would be given the needed consideration so that we shall be posted to the schools that need our services. Nonetheless, several weeks after the submission of our documents, we were told GES is not doing any recruitment now hence, we should only expect postings when it becomes obvious that the Ministry is ready to recruit new Graduate Teachers.

Our major concerns therefore are that;

When exactly will MoE and GES recruit graduate teachers?

Must we wait for another year to pass by before recruitment will commence?

What baffles our minds is that, whenever we call the authorities of MoE to ask when graduate teachers recruitment will be done, they refer us to GES. We ask again that, when will these referrals bring a lasting remedy to our plights?

Just recently, our sister union AUTTG had a press release of which one of the media had an interview with the PRO of GES in the person of Rev. Jonathan Attakuma about the plight of university graduate teachers. The PRO said that they are seeking financial clearance and that we should exercise restraint. Until when must we exercise restraint?

If truly GES and MoE do not need the services of Graduate Teachers in the country again, why do they still allow universities in the country to admit students to study degree programs in education and train them to be professional teachers?

We wont travel to any country to seek for greener pastures. Greener pastures are also here in our motherland so our leaders should make it available and fruitful for us. We wont travel outside the country and use the knowledge and skills acquired at the nations universities to be cleaners, nannies etc. and to be maltreated in someones country.

We are therefore by this our second press release, giving the government, MoE and GES two weeks ultimatum to start processing for our recruitment. Unemployed Education Graduates Alliance (UEGA) has never planned of going on demonstration. We have waited for so long. The 2016/2017 academic year has ended and a new one  2017/2018 academic year is about to begin and we implore the government through MoE and GES to recruit us now. As earlier stated, we have not wiled for any demonstration but change when it is denied or too long delayed violence will breakout here and there; not that men planned or willed it but their accumulated grievances will erupt with volcanic fury (Osagyefo Dr.Kwame Nkrumah)

We therefore implore the government, through the Ministry of Education and Ghana Education Service to recruit us now before the unexpected happens.

Signed

Asamoah Richard

National Secretary (0546076918)

Wallis Kobea

President (0244941240)

Mark Donkor

P R O (0554024274)

Hamza Ibn Abdullai

National Organizer (0207605896)

Bismark Karikari

Ahanti Regional Rep (0242975336)

Sulemana Sualihu

Northern Regional Rep (0242521706)

Alex Nkansah

Central Regional Rep (0207132124)

Abdul Majid Issah

Western Regional Rep (0241109119)

Atanga Stephen

Upper East Regional Rep (0248959029)

Jaque Jordan

Volta Regional Rep (0247127027)

Frank Adomako

Upper West Regional Rep (0243808263)

Isaac Ohemeng Yeboah

Eastern Regional Rep

Bonto Osei Aikins

Greater Accra Rep (0242531593)

Frank Brain Addai

Brong Ahafo Regional Rep
30.07.2017 LISTEN

Notwithstanding the code of ethics that abhors corruption in government organizations, it is almost becoming normal for public servants to engage in corrupt practices in the discharge of their duties. Succeeding governments in Ghana have been fighting corruption in government bodies.

However, a cursory survey in all the important government agencies like the Passport Office, the Driver Vehicle and Licensing Authority [DVLA], Registrar Generals Department, hospitals and clinics among many bodies shows that corruption is still prevalent there. A visit to the above named offices would reveal the presence of goro boys and huge contractors hanging around, transacting businesses to process documents on behalf of other people. They dont provide these services for nothing.

The common justification given by those offering bribes using middle men in these outfits is that they require rapid services to be rendered to them in the three main offices which are centralized in Accra and require to offer services for thousands of people travelling down from all parts of the country.

They therefore see nothing wrong with offering bribes to get their hearts desirers. Decentralizing government agencies like Passport Office, DVLA, Registrars Generals Office etc. in all the ten regions of Ghana is therefore the way to go. To this end succeeding governments have intended to push through decentralization programs in all regions and districts. It seems to be working to some extent. However, we are yet to see it happening in full swing. One other way of ensuring fast and easy processing of documents in government office is through mechanization of all government offices. This method of pushing through documents is reported to have been adopted but it is yet to be widespread and effective.

Although a mad rush for services in government offices is responsible for offer of bribes in government offices, some Ghanaians say bribery is normal in consonance with our customs and traditions in which libation pouring is normal. While some people say it is customary to offer gifts for services, others say that would induce government officers in organizations including hospitals and clinics to pay attention to them.

Secret corrupt practices also happen during procurement involving top government officials and foreign,local contractors and suppliers.

There are government officials including those at the very top echelon of offices who make huge money through bribery enough for them to buy cars and put up buildings. This means that those officials accept government jobs in lucrative government organizations in order to enrich themselves through bribery and other private duties, but not to serve the nation.

The former Member of Parliament for North Dayi Constituency in the Volta Region, George Loh, has hit at public sector workers who transact private businesses instead of what they have been mandated to do in their various offices. For us bribery andcorruption in government bodies amounts to using governments outfits for private undertakings and gain.

He contended: we only pay people to go and sit in the offices and they do their private things and go away but are paid at the end of the month by the government of Ghana.

A research published by a reliable source has shown that Corruption in Ghana has been common since independence. Since 2006, Ghana's score and ranking on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index has improved slightly, ranking higher than Italy and Brazil.However, there is a growing perception in Ghana that government-related corruption is on the rise, ranked 64th in 2012, tied with Lesotho. Even though corruption in Ghana is relatively low when compared to other countries in Africa, businesses frequently quote corruption as an obstacle for doing business in the country. Corruption occurs often in locally funded contracts; companies are subject to bribes when operating in rural areas.

In a book published in 1975 by Victor T. Le Vine,bribery, theft and embezzlement arose from reversion to a traditional winner-takes-all attitude in which power and family relationships prevailed over the rule of law. Corruption in Ghana which has led to many government officials being found wanting is comparatively less prevalent than in other countries in the region though.Although winner takes all is not preferable by many people in Ghana, that alone cannot be responsible for massive corruption in the system.

Ghana is not a signatory to the OECD Convention on Combating Bribery. It has, however, taken steps to amend laws on public financial administration and public procurement. The public procurement law, passed in January 2004, seeks to harmonize the many public procurement guidelines used in the country and also to bring public procurement into conformity with World Trade Organization standards. The new law aims to improve accountability, value for money, transparency and efficiency in the use of public resources.It is our hope that the appointment of minister in charge of procurement would help matters.

However, some civil society organizations have criticized the law as inadequate. Civil society representatives, have drafted the Right to Information bill, which after being passed by parliament will allow greater access to public information on government transactions.The passage of the RTI bill is important because notwithstanding the new procurement law, there may continue to be fear of corruption in the tender process. The RTI law would therefore lead to transparency and accountability in government transactions and to lead to the elimination of corrupt practices in government circles.
30.07.2017 LISTEN

Accra, July 30, GNA - Mr Glen Askew, the Deputy Australian High Commissioner, has said grant opportunities are available for some selected basic schools to assist in their efforts at training children.

He said the Australian High Commission was interested in ensuring quality education for pupils and students.

Mr Askew said this at the launch of the 10th Anniversary of Gold Avenue School held under the theme: 'The Head, The Heart and The Hand'.

The event witnessed the graduation of three categories of pupils from Kindergarten (KG) to Primary, from Primary six to Junior High School and those who had completed their Basic Education Certificate Examination.

Mr Askew expressed confidence in the school's contribution to the advancement of children in society adding that this was the first time the Australian High Commission was collaborating with the Gold Avenue School.

He expressed the hope that this would become a lasting relationship between Australian High Commission and the school.

Mr Askew said the partnership was necessary as 'clearly, their academic performances are exceptional and by virtue of that, there are a number of international students from Ivory Coast, United States of America and other countries.'

He said the Australian High Commission had competitive grants opportunities available for schools such as the Golden Avenue School to help them scale up.

Mr David Afriyie, the Proprietor of the school, in an interview with the GNA, said it was his intension to expand the school from its current status to a Senior High School.

The school, which started with a pre-school system, now has a primary, Junior High School and three batches of student have sat for the Basic Education Certificate Examination (BECE).

Mr Afriyie said the Gold Avenue School, located at Ashongman in Accra started in 2007 with pre-school and continued in 2011 with the basic schools and JHS.

He said the school aims to become one of the best schools in the country adding that all the staff of the school are graduates from various tertiary institutions.

The launch of the school's 10th anniversary has paved way for the anniversary celebration slated for November

GNA

By Julius K. Satsi, GNA
Ayekyere (W/R), July 30, GNA - Nana Boakye, District Chief Farmer of Pretsea Huni/Valley, has appealed to the government to periodically build the capacity of cocoa farmers in the country.

According to him, this would help the government realize the desired one million metric tonnes of the produce.

Nana Boakye made the appeal at Akyeyere, in the Wassa Amenfi West District in the Western, when he led three hundred farmers to a cocoa research center in the area.

The farmers, who were selected from Tarkwa Nsueam Municipality and Prestea Huni/Valley District were there to learn the practical modern methods of cocoa farming and high yields.

Nana Boakye said the plight of cocoa farmers could be reduced, if the government resourced them with the necessary tools and funds to learn more on cocoa cultivation processes at the research centres.

Participants, who attended the programme, expressed the hope that it would help them to increase production.

GNA

By Erica Apeatua Addo, GNA
30.07.2017 LISTEN

Adaklu Kodjzobi (V/R), July 30, GNA - Ms Wanda Anderson, a nurse based in the United States of America, has presented hospital equipment worth 5,000 dollars to the Community Based Health Planning Services (CHPS) compound at Adaklu Kodzobi near Ho.

The items include hospital beds, crutches, walkers, maternity pads, baby scales, ohmmeter, digital thermometers, digital blood pressures, sanitizers, and bandages.

Ms Anderson said the gesture was her personal contribution to help meet the health needs of the community.

She said government alone could not meet the ever increasing health demands of the people especially those in the rural areas.

Ms Anderson pledged more support for the centre and appealed to the staff to use the equipment for the benefit of the people.

Mr Charles Azagba, Adaklu District Director of Health Services, who received the items on behalf of the CHPS Compound expressed gratitude for the donation and said it came at an opportune time.

He said the staff would take utmost care of the equipment and use them for the intended purpose.

Togbe Dzegblade IV, Chief of Adaklu Kodzobi said the contractor working on the construction of the CHPS Compound vacated post five years ago and appealed to the District Assembly to allow the staff to use the place which is about 90 per cent complete.

He said the current facility being used could no longer accommodate the staff and equipment.

GNA
Ho, July 30, GNA - Dr Hillar Addo, Vice President of Academics, Leadership University College of Applied Sciences (LUCAS) in Accra, has re-echoed the call for a practical-oriented educational system in the country.

He said that system must produce students who would impact positively on society, instead of only nurturing "certificate goals."

Dr Addo said this at the maiden graduation ceremony of Ho International School Complex.

He said 'education is producing critical thinkers and assertive students. It is giving people knowledge, skills, values and attitudes that human beings need to be confident and live their lives productively.

Dr Addo said knowledge abounds in the country and that what it lacked was the skills to become innovative, and productive and called for the introduction of practical learning in preschools to help pupils and students identify their talents and strength.

He said it was unfortunate that students had certificates but could not do much and asked that practical training be encouraged and parents advised to support skill training programmes.

Madam Commend Enyam Akpeloo, Proprietress of Ho International School Complex, said the School, established in 2014, has a blended curriculum of international and local course structures laced with field trips, creative workshops, among other practical activities to position pupils strategically within an 'evolving' educational system.

Madam Akpeloo said pupils in the School were being trained to become problem solvers even before they enrolled in to senior high school.

GNA
The Food and Agriculture Minister has denied reports in the media that the Ministry had blown a whopping 20 million on chemicals in dealing with the recent Fall armyworms invasion.

In a rejoinder signed by the Secretary to the Minister, Isaah Alhassan said, "the story, which is sourced to the NDC MP for Bongo, Edward Bawa, is not only misleading but also full of propaganda."

The statement added that it is a calculated attempt to smear the image and reputation of the Minister, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.

"...the amount earmarked by government to fight the invasion of the armyworms is less than the one being quoted by the Minister. The Finance Ministry released an amount of 16M out of which 15,815m was released to the ministry," the statement said.

According to the Ministry, the chemicals were approved after exhaustive consultations with sister countries, the CSIR, EPA and the PPRSD under the Ministry before orders were made for their purchase.

The Ministry, therefore, stated emphatically that reports from across the length and breadth of the country indicate massive progress in the fight against the armyworms.

"Plans are also far advanced to support farmers whose farms were devastated by the armyworms," the Ministry promised.

Read the statement below:

Re: Minister blows GH 20M on wrong chemicals

The attention of the Office of the Ministry of Food and Agriculture has been drawn to a news item under the above caption and wish to react accordingly.

The story, which is sourced to the NDC MP for Bongo, Edward Bawa, is not only misleading but also full of propaganda and a calculated attempt to indignify the image and reputation of the Minister of Food and Agriculture, Hon. Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto.

First of all, we would like to state emphatically that MOFA has not spent 20M on wrong chemicals as the story sought to portray.

For the information of the good people of Ghana, the amount earmarked by government to fight the invasion of the armyworms is less than the one being quoted by the Minister.

The Finance Ministry released an amount of 16M out of which 15,815m was released to the ministry.

Part of this amount was to be used for the procurement of approved chemicals, sensitization and awareness creation, as well as procurement of logistics for the gang spraying team put in place by the National Taskforce and the Committee set up to oversee the fight against the pests.

It will interest everyone to know that these chemicals were approved after exhaustive consultations with sister countries, the CSIR, EPA and the PPRSD under the Ministry before orders were made for their purchase.

MOFA will like to state emphatically that reports from across the length and breadth of the country indicate massive progress in the fight against the armyworms.

It must be pointed out that the progress being in the fight against these 'alien' pests cannot be limited to one, two or three districts but must rather be seen from a general perspective.

MOFA is very hopeful that at the end of the day the country will witness bumper harvests in all the major crops including maize, sorghum, soyabean and rice.

Plans are also far advanced to support farmers whose farms were devastated by the armyworms.

In order to prevent future occurrence, MOFA has signed an agreement with the University of Ghana to train personnel of the Plant Protection and Regulatory Division of MOFA.

This partnership with the academia, we hope, will help bolster the emergency response ability of the ministry in fighting all forms of diseases that affect crops and animals in the country.

Meanwhile, MOFA will like to assure farmers that the National Surveillance and Monitoring Taskforce made up of personnel from NADMO, CSIR, FAO and PPRSD will continue to be on the ground to respond to distress calls of farmers as we deal with pockets of reports of infection.

Signed

Issah Alhassan

Press Secretary to the Minister

Story by Ghana | Myjoyonline.com
Lusaka (AFP) - Zambian authorities on Sunday said they had arrested three Chinese nationals and two locals found carrying pieces of rhino horn at the border with Mozambique.

Parks and wildlife ministry spokesman Sakabilo Kalembwe said the five were arrested at the Chanida border post.

They were held for "illegal possession of 25 rhino pieces weighing 32.2 kilograms (71 pounds)," Kalembwe said in a statement.

The origins of the horns could not be immediately confirmed.

On Wednesday a 24-year-old Chinese woman flying from Zambia with 20 kilograms of rhino horn was arrested at South Africa's main airport on her way to Hong Kong.

But Kalembwe said no rhino has been reported poached in Zambia nor were any horns missing from its stockpiles in recent days.

Four decades ago, Zambia boasted a healthy rhino population of around 12,000 but by 1998 the animal was declared extinct due to rampant poaching. A few dozen have now been reintroduced into the country.

Rhino poaching is rife in southern Africa, especially in South African game reserves, fuelled by cross-border syndicates who are feeding an insatiable demand for their horn in Asia.

Rhino horn is mistakenly believed to have medicinal powers including being anti-carcinogenic.

Roughly a quarter of the world rhino population has been killed in South Africa, home to 80 percent of those remaining, in the last eight years.
30.07.2017 LISTEN

The Minister of Communication, Ursula Owusu-Ekuful, has warned all government agencies and MMDAs to immediately migrate onto the official government email domain before the end of the year.

She was speaking at a National Information and Technology Agency (NITA) breakfast meeting in Accra. The minister cautioned that government will not accept emails from agencies and MMDAs that will not comply with the directive.

She explained that Ghana is on a fast lane to becoming a fully smart country and so it is not safe for government communication to be carried through platforms that are not secured because of the high security risks. She warned, By the end of this year, we dont want to receive any official communication from any ministry, department or agency on any email platform either than .gov.gh. That information is not your personal information, it is official communication, and it is governments work so that must be on the government platform. 

She however encouraged all the agencies and MMDAs to feel free to consult NITA for all their technological needs because, according to her government needs to be interconnected and NITA has the necessary expertise to deliver the best results at a reduced cost. She pleaded,  We need linked up interoperable systems across government so please we have just sent letters to all ministries departments and agencies that before you procure any IT solution, Application, software, please talk to NITA because there may be something already existing which you may utilize at less cost to deliver the solution that your want.

The minister also bemoaned the quality and conditions of service of IT personnel in the public sector and challenged ministries, agencies and MMDAs to have an internal training for them and also endeavor to pay them well. That she believes will help actualize the dream of going digital.

What can we do to attract and maintain qualified IT personnel within the public service to help government in its digitalization drive? These are all issues we would want you to discuss and come out with solutions. I think we need to set up a class within the public sector and remunerate them.

Meanwhile the Acting Director General of NITA Ghana, Jeffrey Konadu Addo said his outfit is rebranding to attend to all the technological needs of ministries, agencies and MMDAs. He said the agency will provide a common secured platform for all government communication.

He further suggested that the agency be made an authority to consolidate all IT personnel and deploy them to government agencies as and when the need be. Participants from various ministries, agencies and MMDAs at the meeting expressed satisfaction but stressed the need for collaboration amongst stakeholders.
Dakar (AFP) - Senegal voted in a tense general election Sunday, with ex-president Abdoulaye Wade accusing his successor of engineering problems with the ballot to thwart an opposition victory.

The vote to elect a new parliament is seen as a test run for President Macky Sall ahead of a 2019 presidential election and follows a campaign marred by violence.

The first results are due early Monday in the west African nation, where more than 6.2 million people are registered to vote.

There were hours-long delays to voting in several places, and some voters complained of being left off the electoral rolls.

"I'm going home. I've checked at several polling stations and my name doesn't figure anywhere. However I normally vote here," complained Souleye Tine in Dakar's working-class Medina neighbourhood.

Wade pointed the blame firmly at the president after a campaign that at times saw violent clashes in a country normally known for its peaceful democratic traditions.

"Macky Sall arranged it -- he gave instructions so that in all the places where he thinks the opposition is going to win, there's no voting," Wade said.

"An election in which one of the candidates cannot find his ballot papers in the polling stations cannot be called an election," Wade said in reference to delays due to the absence of ballot papers for several electoral lists.

"I call on all voters who have voted to stay at their polling stations until the results are announced, to witness whether the results conform to reality."

Angry voters

At 91, Wade, who returned last month for the election campaign after two years abroad, is aiming to drum up support for his own list of candidates and his son Karim, who is not on the ballot but has ambitions for the presidency.

Sall, in power since 2012, is seeking to bolster his parliamentary majority as he eyes a second term.

Polling stations were due to close at 6:00 pm (1800 GMT) but in the central city of Touba the governor said people could vote until midnight after particularly long delays worsened by heavy overnight storms.

A polling station in the city was vandalised by voters angry that ballot papers for Wade's coalition were unavailable, official news agency APS reported.

Sall's other main opponent, Dakar Mayor Khalifa Sall -- no relation of the president -- is in jail awaiting trial for what supporters say are politically motivated embezzlement charges.

Former president Abdoulaye Wade is seeking to drum up support for his son, who has ambitions for the presidency

The mayor had been seen as a key contender for 2019 and a potential threat to the president in parliament until he was charged in March with allegedly misappropriating 1.83 billion CFA francs ($2.85 million, 2.7 million euros) in city funds.

Sall calls for calm

Wade had accused the government during the campaign of seeking to prevent an opposition victory through selective delivery of the biometric ID cards needed to vote, with several hundred thousand failing to arrive on time.

The constitutional council eventually moved to relax the rules so that people without the cards could use passports or other forms of identification to cast their ballots, along with proof they had applied for the IDs.

Sall said he hoped the problems with the vote would be resolved.

"I hope people will vote calmly and return home calmly," APS quoted him as saying, adding: "Senegal is a democracy that cannot be pushed backwards."

The election has been complicated by the record 47 lists of candidates in the running, meaning 47 types of ballot paper needed to be available at polling stations.

Fifteen of the 165 seats in parliament are being set aside for Senegalese expatriates -- the first time that the country's diaspora, estimated at half a million, will have direct representation.

Wade has accused Sall of "destroying" Senegal, while the president's side say Wade did not do enough to develop the nation while in power, boasting of their achievements in building a new airport and other infrastructure projects.
Ndjamena (Chad) (AFP) - French Defence Minister Florence Parly arrived in Chad on Sunday at the start of a tour of three Sahel countries where France is backing a regional defence strategy against jihadist insurgents.

The two-day swing will see Parly joined for part of the trip by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen in a joint show of support for the initiative.

In the Chadian capital Ndjamena, Parly will meet President Idriss Deby, followed by talks in Niger with head of state Mahamadou Issoufou and with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in Mali, her ministry said in a statement in Paris.

Parly "will reaffirm France's support for the emergence of a joint G5 Sahel force (...) tasked with playing a key role in fighting terrorism and trafficking which are contributing to instability in the region," it said.

She will also meet soldiers in Operation Barkhane -- a 4,000-man French mission to shore up fragile Sahel countries against jihadists who have carried out a wave of bloody bombings, shootings and kidnappings.

The planned G5 Sahel anti-terror force would gather Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in a 5,000-man joint unit.

France is trying to muster international support for the estimated 423 million euros ($480 million) it will cost, as the participating countries rank among the poorest nations in the world.

Newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron has won a commitment -- yet to be detailed -- from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to support the scheme.

Von der Leyen will join Parly in Niger and Mali where they will "seize the opportunity to show their support for providing equipment and training for the G5 force, as well as their active efforts to mobilise European and international partners to support their action," the French defence ministry said.
aPolice Chief Inspector Comfort Kyei-Baffour told the court, presided over by Madam Comfort Tasiame, that victims were aged eight and 11 years.

The little girls have been living with Quansah and the wife at Medoma in Kumasi.

He repeatedly abused the pair anytime the spouse was out of the house and warned them of death should they tell anybody about their ordeal.

The prosecution said on September 08, last year, the mother of the 11-year victim, who happens to be the granddaughter of the convict, visited, and the girl told her what they had been going through.

She reported this to Quansahs wife, took the daughter away and made a formal complaint to the police.

Police Chief Inspector Kyei-Baffour said a medical report signed by doctors who examined the victims confirmed that they had had their hymen broken.

The convict in his caution statement to the police profusely denied the offence.
Ndjamena (Chad) (AFP) - French Defence Minister Florence Parly arrived in Chad on Sunday, at the start of a tour of three Sahel countries, assuring that French troops in the region will have the means to carry out their mission against jihadist insurgents.

"You can count on my determination that you will have the necessary means to carry out your mission," she told the head of Operation Barkhane -- a 4,000-man French mission to shore up fragile Sahel countries against jihadist bombings, shootings and kidnappings.

"It's my fight, it's less risky than yours, of course," she added.

Parly was beginning a two-day swing of the region, during which she will be joined by German Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen in a joint show of support for the initiative.

Parly "will reaffirm France's support for the emergence of a joint G5 Sahel force (...) tasked with playing a key role in fighting terrorism and trafficking which are contributing to instability in the region," the French defence ministry said in a statement ahead of her arrival.

After meeting Chadian President Idriss Deby in Ndjamena, Parly will heald for talks in Niger with head of state Mahamadou Issoufou and with President Ibrahim Boubacar Keita in Mali.

The planned G5 Sahel anti-terror force would gather Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania and Niger in a 5,000-man joint unit.

France is trying to muster international support for the estimated 423 million euros ($480 million) it will cost, as the participating countries rank among the poorest nations in the world.

Newly-elected French President Emmanuel Macron has won a commitment -- yet to be detailed -- from German Chancellor Angela Merkel to support the scheme.

Von der Leyen will join Parly in Niger and Mali where they will "seize the opportunity to show their support for providing equipment and training for the G5 force, as well as their active efforts to mobilise European and international partners to support their action," the French defence ministry said.
LAGOS | NIGERIA, July 28th 2017: Following the announcement of MTV Shugas return to Nigeria, the award winning international drama series will be opening its doors to acting hopefuls as it sets out to discover new talent in Nigeria.

The show, which has had five successful seasons in Nigeria, Kenya, and South Africa, focuses on real issues affecting young people and tells hard-hitting stories that revolve around contraception, sexual health, family planning and social issues.

Auditions for the long-running Pan-African drama series are open to Nigerian residents aged 18+ and will be held on Saturday 12 August, at Planet One, Maryland, Ikeja, Lagos.

The auditions will be open from 9am until 6pm. Participants will be required to provide one Head Shot photograph (Minimum size 4x6 inches) and a form of photo identification, such as a Passport, Drivers License, National ID Card or Student ID Card.

Hopefuls are advised to arrive early, to guarantee their spot, as the audition will be held for one day only.

Budding actors & actresses who are unable to attend the physical audition need not worry as they can also submit a short video audition on Instagram , Facebook and Twitter using the hashtag #MTVShugaAudition. A script will be available on www.mtvshuga.com. The online auditions will be open from Friday 28 July to Wednesday 23 August 2017.

MTV Shuga, which aims to champion and exhibit Nigerian talent, is a multi-sectorial partnership that involves the MTV Staying Alive Foundation and is supported by MTV Base Africa, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the US Government and various UN agencies and NGOs.

MTV Shuga would-be actors will be judged by a diverse range of industry experts and selected based on their acting skills and originality.

MTV Shuga, which is commissioned by the MTV Staying Alive Foundation , has helped exceptional actors like Oscar winning Kenyan actress Lupita Nyong'o and Emmanuel Ikubese jumpstart their careers. Previous stars to have come through the public auditions include Samkelisiwe Makhoba, who showcased her talents in the leading role of Khensani in MTV Shuga: Down South.

Audition winners will join returning cast members Sharon Ezeamaka , Timini Egbuson and Jemima Osunde on set for the new season.

Speaking on the auditions for the upcoming series and plans to discover new MTV Shuga stars in Nigeria, the Executive Director of the MTV Staying Alive Foundation and Senior Vice President of Social Responsibility for Viacom International, Georgia Arnold said:

"We are excited to bring back the public auditions for the brand-new season of MTV Shuga. Nigeria has one of the most vibrant movie and television industries in the world, which is a testament to the amazing acting talent available in the country and our aim is to find another star through these auditions.

MTV Shuga has been proven to have a positive impact. A World Bank evaluation in Nigeria of MTV Shuga found that the show has the power to influence the sexual and reproductive health decisions of millennials. Double the number who watched the show got tested for HIV than those who had not.

The study also showed a 58% reduction in chlamydia among females who had watched MTV Shuga.

The sixth and seventh seasons of MTV Shuga will premiere on MTV Base (DStv Channel 322) and BET (DStv channel 129), as well as MTV networks and other third party broadcasters around the world in 2018.
Flagstaff residents have a chance to connect with the citys public safety officers during National Night Out on Tuesday.

The event, which will be held at the City Hall Parking Lot on 211 W. Aspen Ave. from 6-8 p.m., will feature representatives from Flagstaff Police Department, Flagstaff Fire Department, Coconino County Sheriffs Office and Guardian Medical Transport.

This is our community outreach, Flagstaff Police Public Information Officer Cory Runge said. We can bond with the community because crime prevention is not just the polices responsibility. We need the public too.

National Night Out will also feature carnival games for the kids, free hotdogs and a blood mobile for those looking to donate to a good cause.

Guests will be treated to a performance by Flagstaff Polices own singing police officer Kevin Rueb.

The event is free for all guests and the police department expects anywhere between 500 to 1,000 people to attend.
- The Nigerian Army has given an update on the oil exploration team ambushed by Boko Haram terrorists in Borno state

- The update was given by the director of Army public relations, Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman via his Facebook page

- The Army apologised for an earlier public statement suggesting that members of the team were rescued

The Nigerian Army has recovered the items of some staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) as well as that of University of Maiduguri on oil exploration in Borno state who were ambushed and killed by some Boko Haram terrorists alongside the troops escorting them.

The Nigerian Army also recovered additional bodies of 5 soldiers, 11 Civilian JTF and 5 members of the exploration team.

5 reflective jackets of the exploration workers recovered. Photo credit: Nigerian Army

Six members of the exploration team out of 12 that went out are still missing, while one of the NNPC staff returned to base alive.

PAY ATTENTION: Read the best news on Nigerias #1 news app

Other recoveries include 3 of the Nigerian Army's gun trucks, 4 rocket propelled grenade bombs, 4 rocket propelled grenade chargers, 6 AK-47 rifles, 1 anti-aircraft gun, 1 general purpose machine gun, 1 anti-aircraft gun barrel, 1 rocket propelled grenade tube, 4 Dane guns, 8 Tyres and 2 Tyre rims.

Pumping machine and tyres recovered from the scene. Photo credit: Nigerian Army

Others are 1 pumping machine, 2 Tyre jacks, 1 super battery, 5 reflective jackets, 3 Toyota Hilux, 4 Jerry cans filled with PMS, 1 Motorola radio, 1 Geographical Positioning System (GPS), 21 empty Jerry cans, 2 shovels and 3 food coolers.

Troops also recovered 122 rounds of PKM ammunition, 213 rounds of 7.62mm NATO ammunition, 1255 anti-aircraft guns ammunition, 4 boxes of API 12.7mm ammunition, 1 AK-47 rifle magazine, a digger, 2 bows and 13 arrows, 2 LLG bombs and assorted working tools.

Some Jerry cans recovered from the scene of the incident. Photo credit: Nigerian Army

The Nigerian Army condoled with the families of all that lost their loved ones in the incident, adding that search and rescue efforts are on-going.

We are counting on the goodwill and support of the populace in volunteering valuable information that could help in the search and rescue operation.

What the remnants of the Boko Haram terrorists are doing are pure criminal activities of kidnapping to gain funds. This has been noted and will be jointly addressed in conjunction with other security services.

The Nigerian Army remains resolute in the fight against terrorism and would not relent in its effort to safe guard lives of citizens, properties and the territorial integrity of the country, a statement by the director of Army public relations, Brigadier General Sani Kukasheka Usman said.

Some other items recovered from the scene of the incident. Photo credit: Nigerian Army

Usman also apologised for his earlier statement which suggested that the NNPC workers were released.

Meanwhile, at least eight persons were killed while 14 others sustained serious injury in a latest bomb attack by Boko Haram insurgents which happened at an Internally Displaced Persons camp.

Legit.ng learnt that the attack happened very late on Friday, July 28 in the camp located in Dikwa local government area of Borno state and was reportedly carried out by two female suic*de bombers.

The chairman of the council, Alhaji Rawa Modu, confirmed the incident in Maiduguri on Saturday, July 29.

READ ALSO: Top 5 things we learnt from new Boko Haram video on abducted UNIMAID lecturers

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 suspended Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Babachir David Lawal and the Director-General of the National Intelligence Agency (NIA), Ayo Oke, may have lost their jobs

- The presidential panel that investigated the duo recommended that they should be replaced

- The panel was headed by Acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo

A report by Daily Trust indicates that the suspended SGF, Babachir David Lawal and the DG of NIA, Ayo Oke have been relieved of their duties.

According to the report, the presidential panel set up to investigate the activities of the duo recommended that they should be disengaged and replaced.

Others members of the investigation panel are; the National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno (rtd) and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.

Acting President Professor Yemi Osinbajo's panel had said there won't be soft landing for Babachir Lawal and Ayo Oke.

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President Muhammadu Buhari had on April 19, suspended Babachir and Oke and set up the committee to come up with a resolution within a period of two weeks.

Babachir was investigated for allegedly awarding millions of naira contracts to a company in which he had interest, Global Vision Limited, under the Presidential Initiative on the North East (PINE).

Oke was probed for alleged $43.4 million operations cash found by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission at apartment 7B in Osborne Towers, Ikoyi, Lagos.

A senior government official, quoted in the report, said the investigations indicted both officials.

The report of the investigations is ready. The two suspended officials were recommended for total disengagement and replacement. It is clearly stated in the report that they should not be brought back to their positions. They are to be disengaged as recommended.

As promised, the committee gave fair hearing to all the parties involved. It was a thorough investigation. You would recall that the investigation was slightly extended beyond the two-week period which Mr President gave the committee, the source stated.

In a statement issued on May 3, the spokesman to the acting president, Laolu Akande had said that the panel was scheduled to submit its report to President Buhari on Monday, May 8.

But President Buhari left Nigeria for the United Kingdom on May 7 for a follow-up consultation with his doctors.

The source also disclosed that during their appearances before the panel, Babachir and Oke made some revelations that would lead to the investigation of some other top government officials.

Babachir Lawal was said to have indicted some senior government officials. Photo credit: The Guardian

Source: Twitter

The source, however, refused to mention names of those officials; he merely said that some of them currently occupy key positions in government.

Three months ago, Legit.ng reported that the panel vowed that there will be no soft landing for Babachir and Oke.

READ ALSO: Asari Dokubo attacks Buhari, Don Jazzy and Davido

Watch the Legit.ng TV report of the EFCC's ant-corruption walk in Abuja below:

Source: Legit.ng
- The Abuja House in London has been a beehive of activities in the last few weeks

- Senior government officials have been visiting the diplomatic residence to visit President Muhammadu Buhari

- National Assembly members do not want to be left out in the travel jamboree

A report by The Punch indicates that the President of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, are ready to visit President Muhammadu Buhari if invited by the presidency.

A source quoted in the report said the two National Assembly leaders did not make any request before their previous visit to Buhari in London, United Kingdom.

Only the presidency can determine who sees the President. Saraki and Dogara can only be invited; they wont lobby to see the President, the source said.

President Buhari received some governors recently in London. Photo credit: Aso Rock

It was gathered that some top leaders of the National Assembly had tried to visit the President, but it was unsuccessful.

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Following the recent visits to the President in London, some of them have however been hopeful that they might be invited to see Buhari.

However, there was no plan by the presidency to invite leaders of the National Assembly to visit Buhari in London.

Is it a carnival or a jamboree? There is nothing to prove. Even the lawmakers themselves have gone on recess for eight weeks, a presidential source said when asked of the possibility of the lawmakers visiting the president.

The official added that Saraki and Dogara, had earlier visited the president.

The special adviser to the president on media and publicity, Mr Femi Adesina, could not be reached via telephone before the report was published.

The National Assembly leaders had visited President Buhari earlier in the year in London. Photo credit: Aso Rock

Two weeks ago, a report by the Nigerian Tribune stated that there were plans by President Muhammadu Buhari to meet with Senate President Bukola Saraki in London.

Saraki had traveled to London to attend the graduation ceremony of his son at the London School of Economics.

Sources quoted in the report stated that said the Senate President, who left Nigeria on Wednesday, July 12 was billed to meet with President Buhari later that day, but the visit was cancelled later.

READ ALSO: Why we rejected devolution of power in constitutional amendment - Saraki

Watch the Legit.ng TV video report on how Nigerian youths protest made the National Assembly pass the 'Not Too Young To Run' bill.

Source: Legit.ng
- An online newspaper recently ran a report about the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN) bill passed by the Nigerian Senate

- The report had alleged that monies exchanged hands for the bill to go through

- The National Commandant of the PCN has denied the claims

The National Commandant of the Peace Corps of Nigeria (PCN), Ambassador Dickson Akoh has debunked a media report that alleged the PCN bribed members of the National Assembly to pass its bill.

The report had alleged that the PCN bribed senators with cash and job slots to pass the bill.

In a statement issued to Legit.ng on Saturday, July 29, Akoh described the story as a campaign of calumny, targeted at distracting the presidency from assenting to the bill.

Ambassador Akoh and his team has faced several media attacks but have remained resolute. Photo credit: PCN

He called on Nigerians to disregard the report, adding that it has no element of truth but the figment of the writer's imagination.

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Part of the statement read: My attention was drawn to the article on social media that cast the PCN in a contemptuous light, but on a second thought, they may be referring to a rival organization, National Unity And Peace Corps led by one Mr. Chinedu Nneji, whose was nipped in the bud by the National Assembly.

I wish to posit that it is most unfortunate that it has become a trade in stock for some individuals or groups, nowadays, to pre-occupy themselves with character assassination and distortion of obvious facts and figures against this noble objective.

We recall too that the two chambers of the National Assembly, as part of the legislative processes, organized public hearings in their respective chambers in respect of NPC bill.

Over 570 Memoranda were received and 300 oral submissions made during the public hearings. In all of these, it was only 4 submissions and presentations that were against the passage of the bill. Public hearing is one of the most important part of Bill making processes.

Does it mean Peace Corps bribed its way into the hearts of all individuals and institutions, including federal government ministries/agencies, traditional and religious institutions that all advocated for the passage of the bill?

Certainly, NPC is on the part to greatness. The question now begging for answers from every rational mind is that can any youth based organization have the financial capacity or wherewithal to bribe a single senator or House of Representatives member, how much more of the entire National Assembly members and its leadership; some of whom where former governors, ministers, business moguls, retired generals, e.t.c.

After the passage of the bill, we do expect deliberate and calculated campaign of calumny by those who want to truncate it being assented to by the Mr President.

Akoh was however optimistic that like any other antics and tactics in the past, to frustrate the establishment of the Corps, the ongoing smear campaign against the organisation would still fail, adding that, what God has ordained, mere mortals could only fight but in vain.

Peace Corps of Nigeria has been authenticated by the Nigerian Senate. Photo credit: PCN

Meanwhile, the Nigerian Senate has clarified the ambiguity emanating from the Nigerian Peace Corps Bill passed on Tuesday, July 25.

Reacting to the controversies surrounding the bill, the Senate Spokesman, Senator Aliyu Sabi Abdullahi, said the bill passed into law by the National Assembly was to give legal backing to the existing Peace Corps of Nigeria, under Akoh.

READ ALSO: National Assembly leaders planning to visit Buhari in London

Watch the Legit.ng TV video report on how Nigerian youths protest made the National Assembly pass the 'Not Too Young To Run' bill.

Source: Legit.ng
RUPERT  Getting kids involved in the kitchen, through cooking classes or at home, may make them more likely to choose healthy foods.

It is important to expose children to healthy foods in a positive way, said Becky Hutchings, University of Idaho Extension educator in Minidoka County.

The University of Idaho Extension office in Minidoka County recently received a grant from the Gladys E. Langroise Advised Fund through the Idaho Community Foundation. The funds were used to buy basic cooking equipment and supplies. Through the 4-H program, Hutchings started a Cooking Club. The first program offered in this club was a two-hour long, once a week class for seven weeks which was called Cooking 101. In each class, the students learned a new healthy eating technique and then participated in a food lab to put that knowledge into action. The 4-Hers made breakfast sundaes, fruity fruit salad, easy to fix green beans, drop biscuits, pasta with meat sauce and more.

Because of the interest in the program, the UI Extension Office in Minidoka County has decided to offer another Cooking 101 class this fall and another one in the spring. Students who participated in Cooking 101 will be invited to join the Cooking 201 series. Participating students will eventually reach Cooking 401, upon which time they will have graduated the program.

The Minidoka Cooking Club is open to all youth in Minidoka County as well as all youth in Minidoka County 4-H. Children do not have to be active 4-H members to participate. If you have questions or would like to have your child put on list to be notified when the fall Cooking 101 class will begin, call the Extension Office at 208-436-7184.
- Osinbajo condoled with families of those that lost loved ones and said Nigerians will never forget their sacrifice

- The acting president said the government is committed to winning the war against insurgency and restoring peace to the northeast

- Osinbajo also ordered that the search for mission people should continue

Acting President Yemi Osinbajo has condemned the appalling ambush, attack and abduction of soldiers, and civilians who were carrying out their duties to the Nation in the Lake Chad Basin Frontier Exploration.

In a statement released by Laolu Akande, a senior special assistant on media and publicity in the office of the Acting President, Osinbajo also assured Nigerians that the government was doing all within its powers to ensure that the attacks stop.

The statement read: "The objective of this patriotic exercise is to open up new areas for oil exploration for the common good of all Nigerians. The terrorist attack resulted in a number of deaths of hardworking and innocent Nigerians, and the abduction of some.

"Prof. Osinbajo commiserates with the families, relatives and associates of those who lost their lives in the despicable onslaught and wishes the injured speedy recovery.

READ ALSO: Ex Jigawa state governor's daughter, Hadiza Lamido, dies at 38

"The Acting President after an emergency meeting with the Military chiefs on Thursday issued fresh directives to the Nigerian military and all security agencies to immediately scale-up their efforts and activities in Borno State in order to maintain a strong, effective control of the situation and secure lives and property.

"While commending the military for the progress already recorded with the rescue of some of the abducted, Prof. Osinbajo has also ordered the continuation of search and rescue missions to locate and ensure the freedom of all remaining abducted persons as soon as possible, using all available and expedient means in the circumstances. He adds that justice would be pursued for the victims and against those who engage in this kind of unacceptable, criminal and terrorist conduct.

"Acting President Osinbajo pays tribute to the resilience, courage and bravery of officers and men of the Nigerian Armed Forces for their gallant endeavours and sacrifices for the peace, security and territorial integrity of our country. He eulogises the Nigerian soldiers who have paid the ultimate price in this mission and others linked to the current insurgency, and gives a firm assurance that the welfare of the families of the soldiers will be prioritized.

"He also commends the diligence of the management and staff of the NNPC, and the lecturers/consultants from the University of Maiduguri in pursuing Federal Government's resolve to grow our country's current crude oil reserve base through potential exploration in the Lake Chad Basin, stressing that the government will by no means be dissuaded."

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He said: "Some of these extraordinarily selfless Nigerians from the NNPC and the University Of Maiduguri put their lives on the line that we and generations to come will enjoy the resources of this land. We will never forget that sacrifice"

The statement continued: "Although pockets of terrorists have been launching attacks recently in Borno State, the Acting President assures the people of the State, the region and indeed all Nigerians, that the FGN is not only on top of the situation, but will define the end of these atrocities by both winning the war and winning the peace in the North-east."

Legit.ng had previously reported that the Nigerian Air Force (NAF) announced the introduction of additional measures to increase its operational capability in the ongoing battle against terrorists in the north-east.

The NAF revealed in a statement obtained by Legit.ng that the measures include the deployment of additional special forces and personnel of the Regiment Specialty to fight alongside the Nigerian Army troops and others already on ground.

In addition, the NAF has deployed thermal imaging cameras aimed at adding more value to the current efforts at detecting and checkmating the activities of suic*de bombers before they carry out their suic*de missions," the statement by Air Commodore Olatokunbo Adesanya, director of NAF public relations and information, read in part.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Osinbajo talking about Nigeria's unity

Source: Legit.ng
Corruption in Nigeria is one thing President Muhammadu Buhari has promised to fight to a standstill. However, it looks like it is going to be one long, uphill battle.

Recently, it has been revealed that Nigerian lawmakers are involved in defrauding the country and many of them have been sued by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) for varying crimes.

TransparencyITng recently made an infographic of some Senators who have been accused and charged to court for being involved in financial wrongdoing.

Below is the infographic:

Nigerian lawmakers being prosecuted for corruption offences Source: Twitter, TransparencyITng

1. Senator Bukola Saraki

The senate president, Bukola Saraki has been accused of false declaration of assets. However, in June 2017, he was acquitted of the charges.

2. Senator Abdulaziz Nyako

Senator Nyako has been accused of N29bn money laundering and is on trial at the federal high court Abuja.

READ ALSO: Peace Corps: Akoh denies bribing Nigerian senators to pass bill

3. Senator Joshua Dariye

Senator Dariye has been accused of diverting N1.16bn ecological funds and has been on trial since 2007.

4. Senator Danjuma Goje

Senator Goje has been accused of N25bn money laundering and is trial commenced in 2011.

5. Senator Ahmed Sani Yerima

Senator Yerima has been accused of diverting public funds to the tune of N1bn.

6. Senator Abdullahi Adamu

Senator Adamu has been accused of N15bn money laundering.

7. Senator Buruji Kashamu

In 2014, Senator Kashamu was accused of peddling banned substances and put on trial at the US Distric Court in Chicago.

READ ALSO: Reps block Senates move to cut Nigerian presidents powers

8. Honorable Nse Bassey Ekpeyong

Honorable Ekpeyong has been accused of forging his West African Examinations Council (WAEC) and Ordinary National Diploma (OND) in 2017.

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Legit.ng earlier reported that according to a report, the presidential panel set up to investigate the activities of the duo recommended that they should be disengaged and replaced.

Other members of the investigation panel are; the National Security Adviser, General Babagana Monguno (rtd) and the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami.

Watch this Legit.ng video as Nigerians speak on the state of the nation:

Source: Legit.ng
- The National Working Committee (NWC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) may have shot itself in the foot

- The party was quick to come to the defence of it's national legal adviser, Mr Muiz Banire after he was suspended by the party's executive committee in Mushin, Lagos

- The issue is however similar to that of the deputy national publicity secretary of the party, Comrade Timi Frank

The deputy national publicity secretary of the APC, Comrade Timi Frank, has said that the position of the party's NWC which nullified the suspension of Muize Banire by the partys executive committee in Mushin Local government area of Lagos state, has vindicated him.

Chief John Oyegun-led NWC recently issued a statement nullifying the suspension placed on Banire on the ground that only the national body has the constitutional mandate to suspend a national officer.

In a statement sent to Legit.ng on Sunday, July 30, Comrade Frank said he refused to honour invitation of a kangaroo committee engineered by the South-south executive of the party because they lack the mandate to invite him as a national officer of the APC.

Comrade Frank accused the APC's NWC of causing confusion with its recent decision

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The APC chieftain while describing the party's national chairman as a 'master of confusion' added that, Chief Oyegun-led NWC knew the position of constitution as regards a national officer but decided to keep mum in my own case because they were the sponsors of the kangaroo suspension against me in the first place.

He added: But one will wonder why the NWC quickly shown special interest in Muize Banire's suspension if they were not out to dance to the music of their pay master

While restating his earlier position that he was never under any suspension, Comrade Frank said, the APC national chairman is a man without words of his own but always out to serve the interest of higher bidders.

Because I was telling them the truth against their wishes, Chief Oyegun through the sycophantic zonal body arranged a kangaroo suspension against me but I thank God today because the same NWC has come out to say that nobody except the national body has power to suspend a national officer in which I'm one.

I therefore use this medium to tell those who think I'm under suspension to erase such thought in their minds. I am not under any suspension.

I must again call on leaders and governors of our party not to keep quiet any longer in any decision taken by Oyegun-led NWC because the current NWC under Chief Oyegun has lost competency, credibility and ready to be bought over by the higher bidders.

APC chairman, John Oyegun has presided over a largely divided party in the last two years. Photo credit: The Punch

About three weeks ago, Comrade Frank blamed Oyegun for the defeat of the APC in the just concluded senatorial re-run election in Osun state.

Oyegun caused our defeat in the election because of his failure as a leader. Adeleke left the APC for the PDP because of the inconsistency of the party leadership and came back to defeat the party.

If they knew what they were doing, Adeleke would not have left the APC and we would have been celebrating another victory now. The APC ticket would have been given to him because of the death of his brother, Comrade Frank told journalists at a press briefing.

READ ALSO: PDP chairman Ahmed Makarfi involved in auto crash

Watch the Legit.ng TV interview with Comrade Frank on the crisis in the APC

Source: Legit.ng
- Two Nigerian senators have reportedly been attacked during a press briefing

- The attack was carried out by suspected thugs during the briefing in Kaduna

- There have been allegations that the attackers were sponsored by Kaduna state government

On Sunday, July 30, two Nigerian senators, Shehu Sani and Suleiman Hunkuyi, were reportedly attacked by thugs during a press briefing in Kaduna.

According to Premium Times, Mr Sani, the senator representing Kaduna Central, confirmed the development.

He also alleged the attackers were sponsored by Kaduna state government saying that he and Mr Hunkuyi, a a senator from Kaduna north, had organized the press conference over alleged manipulation of the party (APC in the state) by Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

Senator Shehu Sani with journalist Lawal Mohammed after he was attacked at NUJ premises in Kaduna on Sunday, July 30

READ ALSO: El-Rufai compares shoes to examine level of poverty in North east (Photo)

The lawmaker said he had been having a running political battle with El-Rufai and that some journalists were also attacked with one of them being hospitalized.

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Bloodied Mohammed after hoodlums attacked him in Kaduna on Sunday

Meanwhile, Legit.ng earlier reported that a comment made by the Kaduna state governor Nasir El-Rufai, concerning the issue of restructuring, was described as irresponsible by a member of the National Executive Council of Arewa Consultative Forum (ACF), Mohammed Abdulrahman.

Watch this Legit.ng video on Governor Nasir El-Rufai below:

Source: Legit.ng
- The controversy surrounding the All Progressives Congress (APC) national legal adviser, Muiz Banire seems never-ending

- The Lagos state House of Assembly Deputy Speaker has dragged Banire to court

- The lawmaker accused the former Lagos state commissioner of environment of anti-party activities and breach of constitution

The Deputy Speaker of Lagos state House of Assembly, Honourable Wasiu Eshilokun Sanni has dragged the national legal adviser of the APC, Muiz Banire before a Lagos High Court in Ikeja.

Legit.ng gathered that the lawmaker's action is over an alleged forgery of his purported withdrawal letter from the 2015 election into Lagos Island Constituency 1 of the House.

Sanni, who filed the suit alongside two APC chieftains  Babatunde John Kehinde and Alhaji Kazeem Olatunji, is asking the court to declare Banire as not a fit and proper person to keep occupying the exalted office of the partys national legal adviser.

He also accused Banire of a series of anti-party activities and breach of several provisions of the APC constitution.

Honourable Sanni accused Banire of anti-party activities. Photo credit: citypeopleonline.com

In a 37-paragraph supporting affidavit detailing Banires atrocities, Sanni averred that having scaled through the nomination and screening of aspirants processes, he contested the primaries of APC on December 2, 2014 along with seven other aspirants and emerged as the partys candidate for election into Lagos Island Constituency 1 of the House of Assembly by pooling 186 votes out of the total number of 279 valid votes cast, with his closest rival, one Akeem Masha pooling a distant 70 votes.

Sanni said upon the announcement of his name as the winner of the primaries by the party, he received several congratulatory messages including from the then APC flag bearer for the 2015 governorship election in the state, Mr Akinwunmi Ambode (now governor), while the party issued him with the nomination form as its candidate for the election.

However, Sanni said in gross violation of his legal right as the duly elected candidate of the party, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) unlawfully substituted his name with that of Masha as the candidate of the party for the election based on a false withdrawal letter caused to be written by Banire in his capacity as national legal adviser to INEC.

He stated that the withdrawal letter dated January 9, 2015 had his purported signature and name, and there was no time he wrote such.

Dissatisfied with the development, Sanni approached the Federal High Court in Lagos and in a judgment in suit with reference number FHC/L/CS/34/2015, Justice Mohammed Buba upheld the reliefs sought and ordered his reinstatement as the lawful candidate of the APC.

Sanni said ever since Banire unlawfully substituted his name and caused a purported withdrawal letter to be written, the party was yet to set any machinery in motion for him to explain or justify why the letter was written, adding that by the development, Banire had betrayed the confidence reposed in him as the national legal adviser and his standing as a legal practitioner, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria and a bencher.

Besides, Sanni accused Banire of involving in series of anti-party activities and breach of several provisions of APC Constitution such as Article 21 (a) (ii), Article 21 (a) (v), Article 21 (a) (v), among others.

He also said that Banire, in breach of Article 21 (a) (x) of the partys constitution, filed an action in court against the chairman and other principal officers of the APC in Lagos state without first exhausting all avenues provided for in the constitution of the party.

Banire has been at loggerheads with APC leaders in Lagos state in recent times. Photo credit: proudlyyoruba.com

Based on the foregoing, Sanni is asking the court for a declaration that having breached the established legal principles but not limited to the provisions of the APC Constitution (2014), Banire be removed as the national legal adviser and a declaration that he is entitled to be expelled from the party or vacate office with immediate effect in accordance with Section 21 (d) (v) for the suit he instituted against the state chapter concerning the conduct of primaries for local government election and denouncing the entire process.

In the alternative, Sanni is asking that having regard to the provisions of APC Constitution including but not limited to the fact that the defendant had been engaging in anti-party activities likely to cause a breach of peace amongst the party members, an order should be issued by the court mandating the APC leadership to take appropriate disciplinary measures against Banire.

Meanwhile, Chief John Oyegun-led NWC recently issued a statement nullifying the suspension placed on Banire by the APC in Mushin local government area of Lagos state on the ground that only the national body has the constitutional mandate to suspend a national officer.

READ ALSO: Suspension: I have been vindicated by APC's NWC - Timi Frank

Watch the Legit.ng TV interview with an APC chieftain, Comrade Timi Frank talking about the crisis in the ruling party.

Source: Legit.ng
- El-Rufai ordered investigations into the attacks by hoodlums on NUJ premises

- The governor also sent a message to NUJ condemning the attacks

- El-Rufai says the state government would not allow anybody to gag the press in Kaduna

Kaduna state governor Nasir El-Rufai has condemned the Sunday, July 30 attack on the premises of the Nigerian Union of Journalists (NUJ).

A statement signed by Samuel Aruwan, Senior Special Assistant to Governor El-Rufai on media and publicity quoted him as saying that nobody will be allowed to stifle freedom of expression.

In a message to the Kaduna State Council of the NUJ, the government condemned the mob action by hoodlums at the premises of the NUJ on Sunday.

READ ALSO: Orji Kalu urges Igbos to ignore agitation for impossible Biafra and fight for presidency

The statement said El-Rufai had been briefed on the situation and the governor expressed sympathy with the NUJ and the persons that were harassed by the hoodlums.

The governor directed that the security agencies should investigate and take necessary action against the hoodlums.

The Governor also directed security agencies to beef up security at the NUJ secretariat to protect journalists doing their duty.

A statement signed by Samuel Aruwan, Senior Special Assistant to the Governor (Media and Publicity) said that the media must not be hindered from carrying out their constitutional and professional obligations. The government of Kaduna State upholds the principles of free speech and respects the freedom of expression.

Politics should not be a desperate game. And desperation should not be visited on journalists or any citizen.

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Aruwan added that the government of Kaduna State will not tolerate any attempt to muzzle the press and innocent citizens from exercising their constitutional rights.

Meanwhile, Legit.ng had earlier reported that two Nigerian senators, Shehu Sani and Suleiman Hunkuyi, were reportedly attacked by thugs during a press briefing in Kaduna.

Sani, the senator representing Kaduna Central, had confirmed the development.

He also alleged the attackers were sponsored by Kaduna state government saying that he and Hunkuyi, a a senator from Kaduna north, had organized the press conference over alleged manipulation of the party (APC in the state) by Governor Nasir El-Rufai.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of the devastation left behind in attacks on southern Kaduna

Source: Legit.ng
- The incident occurred at Ekwulobia area of Anambra state

- The governor was reportedly smuggled away from the scene by his security detail

- Disaster was averted because the security guards were cautious

Members of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) on Sunday, July 30 confronted Anambra state governor Willie Obiano while he was in church.

According to reports, the incident occurred at St. Josephs Catholic Church in Ekwulobia area of Anambra.

An eyewitness said the pro-Biafra agitators came to protest the oncoming governorship election in the state and they chanted no election as they confronted the governor.

READ ALSO: Ex Jigawa state governor's daughter, Hadiza Lamido, dies at 38

The atmosphere was charged with so much tension that it took utmost care from security operatives.

Governor Obiano had gone to the church to worship, only to be embarrassed by IPOB members in their hundreds, if not thousands, who stormed the church in buses.

They were chanting No election in Anambra on November 18. The Governor had to be smuggled out by his security details, the eyewitness said.

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Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported earlier that ex-Abia state governor Orji Uzor Kalu predicted that the agitation by IPOB for Biafra under its leader Nnamdi Kanu is not possible and so Igbos should face how to win the presidency.

According to reports, Orji Kalu made this prediction in a statement in Lokoja, Kogi state capital on Saturday, July 29 when he visited the central state to deliver a lecture at an Igbo gathering.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of an exclusive interview with IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu

Source: Legit.ng
ALBION  Small businesses along the City of Rocks Backcountry Byway flourish from the influx of visitors each year, but commerce can be seasonal.

For some, the byway played a role in emerging business. For others, not so much.

Either way, the businesses likely benefited from the more than 141,000 people who visited the City of Rocks National Reserve in 2016  not to mention nearby Castle Rocks State Park, which had more than 104,000 visitors.

Joan Bell, manager of Albion Country Store DBA Creekside 66 just outside Albion, said many summer customers are tourists. But the Albion Normal College is also nearby, so its hard to tell if tourists are visiting Miller Hall, City of Rocks or both.

But most of our customers during the winter are local people, she said.

For Suzanne and Dave Ogren, owners of Rock City in Almo, the solution to keeping steady traffic year-round was diversification. The family-operated business has a mechanics shop, a mercantile with groceries and a pizza shop.

We wouldnt be here without tourists, Suzanne Ogren said, although the business does have a firmly established clientele that would visit even if the national reserve and byway didnt exist.

Business picked up substantially after the Idaho Transportation Department paved the highway, she said. The road was reconstructed and paved from the Connor Creek corner to the east City of Rocks entrance during a phased project from 2005 to 2010.

Before, the road was just terrible, said Ogren, who is quick to point out that she and her husband are still newbies despite living in Almo for 20 years. Many families have been there for generations.

Ogren said much of their auto repair work is for people who live in the small ranching community, but they fix a lot of flat tires for park visitors.

The restaurant is entirely different, though, she said. We see a lot of customers during the (tourist) season and close the kitchen in the winter.

The store stays open year-round although customers buying the beer, ice, firewood and groceries are mainly tourists, Ogren said. We are fairly dependent on the park system.

Barry and Rexanne Peterson of Rupert opened the 30-bed Cache Peak Lodge, between Elba and Almo, three years ago.

Our customers are 50 percent tourists, Rexanne Peterson said. We really liked it up there and thought other people would too.

The Petersons also own Sunrise P River Ranch near Rupert and just built another two-story, two-bed lodge in Elba.

The traffic the byway brings greatly influenced their decision to expand in the Elba-Almo area, Peterson said.

We have tourists who stop in the driveway and call wanting to stay there that night, said Peterson, who rents Cache Peak Lodge only as a single unit for the privacy of guests.

No, the lodge  which has two kitchens and sleeps 30 people  is not rented by the room.
- Sources say the move to capture Shekau may be abandoned in order to get back the hostages the terrorists are holding

- Intelligence services are trying to see if people living on the routes where the ambush happened collaborated with insurgents

- The oil exploration team had been using the same routes for a long time before the attack, hence the suspicion by security forces

The Nigerian military has initiated a joint security intelligence service investigation into calls and messages within the Yesu District in Magumeri axis of Borno State.

PRNigeria reports that the action was necessitated by suspicions of the activities of at least one mole in the recent deadly Boko Haram attacks that left many people dead and several others.

The media platform quoted an unnamed official of the security service as saying that moles were among those in the convoy that also included different interest groups.

READ ALSO: IPOB members waylay Governor Obiano in church, chant no election

The aim of the investigation is to determine if those living along the routes collaborated with insurgents in any way since the same NNPC explorers had been using the same routes on the way to the exploration sites.

It is so baffling the shocking ambush by the terrorists when our gallant troops have always provided adequate security cover for the same convoy regularly on that same route and similar ones for months without problems! the source said.

PRNigeria also reports that there are concerns that the recently announced move to capture Boko Haram leader Abubakar Shekau in 40 days may be suspended or slowed down.

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This is because the insurgents are holding hostage some staff of University of Maiduguri and other abductees being moved to the suspected sites.

Some military decisions must have the backing and endorsements of the ruling political class before they can be carried out to avoid any collateral damage, another intelligence officer said.

Legit.ng also reported that acting president Yemi Osinbajo condemned the appalling ambush, attack and abduction of soldiers, and civilians who were carrying out their duties to the Nation in the Lake Chad Basin Frontier Exploration.

In a statement released by Laolu Akande, a senior special assistant on media and publicity in the office of the Acting President, Osinbajo also assured Nigerians that the government was doing all within its powers to ensure that the attacks stop.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of preparations of the Nigerian Air Force for an onslaught on Boko Haram insurgents

Source: Legit.ng
- Omokri believes that President Buhari's health issue has made Nigeria a source of ridicule internationally

- The ex-Jonathan aide also accused Buhari of being an hypocrite that was always doing what he outlawed for others

- Omokri says Nigerians have learned a tough lesson from the episode of putting the All Progressives Congress in power

Reno Omokri, ex-new media aide to former president Goodluck Jonathan has lamented what he considered an insult to Nigeria which was recently dished out by an international news platform.

Omokri tweeted his sadness at a question pasted for viewers of a news programme of the Cable News Network (CNN).

The question asked viewers to identify a president that has not been in office for over two months.

READ ALSO: Suspected moles reportedly led oil explorers into Boko Haram ambush

A disgusted Omokri tweeted:

Omokri is also displeased with the fact that President Buhari never kept to his own rules in his battle against corruption.

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He tweeted:

Meanwhile, Legit.ng reported recently that indications have emerged that the President of the Senate Bukola Saraki and the Speaker of the House of Representatives Yakubu Dogara are ready to visit President Muhammadu Buhari if invited by the presidency.

A source quoted in the report said the two National Assembly leaders did not make any request before their previous visit to Buhari in London, United Kingdom.

Only the presidency can determine who sees the President. Saraki and Dogara can only be invited; they wont lobby to see the President, the source said.

Watch this Legit.ng TV video of Nigerians speaking on President Buhari's imminent return from a recent medical trip abroad

Source: Legit.ng
In new research, Alex Green, an assistant professor at ASUs Biodesign Institute, demonstrates how living cells can be induced to carry out computations in the manner of tiny robots or computers.

The results of the new study have significant implications for intelligent drug design and smart drug delivery, green energy production, low-cost diagnostic technologies and even the development of futuristic nanomachines capable of hunting down cancer cells or switching off aberrant genes.

Were using very predictable and programmable RNA-RNA interactions to define what these circuits can do, Green said. That means we can use computer software to design RNA sequences that behave the way we want them to in a cell. It makes the design process a lot faster.

The approach described uses circuits composed of ribonucleic acid or RNA. These circuit designs, which resemble conventional electronic circuits, self-assemble in bacterial cells, allowing them to sense incoming messages and respond to them by producing a particular computational output (in this case, a protein).

In the new study, specialized circuits known as logic gates were designed in the lab, then incorporated into living cells. The tiny circuit switches are tripped when messages (in the form of RNA fragments) attach themselves to their complementary RNA sequences in the cellular circuit, activating the logic gate and producing the desired output.

Nature  Complex cellular logic computation using ribocomputing devices

The RNA switches can be combined in various ways to produce more complex logic gates capable of evaluating and responding to multiple inputs, just as a simple computer may take several variables and perform sequential operations like addition and subtraction in order to reach a final result.

The new study dramatically improves the ease with which cellular computing may be carried out. The RNA-only approach to producing cellular nanodevices is a significant advance, as earlier efforts required the use of complex intermediaries, like proteins. Now, the necessary ribocomputing parts can be readily designed on a computer. The simple base-pairing properties of RNAs four nucleotide letters (A, C, G and U) ensure the predictable self-assembly and functioning of these parts within a living cell.

Greens work in this area began at the Wyss Institute at Harvard, where he helped develop the central component used in the cellular circuits, known as an RNA toehold switch. The work was carried out while Green was a post-doc working with nanotechnology expert Peng Yin, along with the synthetic biologists James Collins and Pamela Silver, who are all co-authors on the new paper.

The first experiments were in 2012, Green said. Basically, the toehold switches performed so well that we wanted to find a way to best exploit them for cellular applications.

Natures Pentium chip

The possibility of using DNA and RNA, the molecules of life, to perform computer-like computations was rst demonstrated in 1994 by Leonard Adleman of the University of Southern California. Since then, rapid progress has advanced the field considerably, and recently, such molecular computing has been accomplished within living cells. (Bacterial cells are usually employed for this purpose as they are simpler and easier to manipulate.)

The technique described in the new paper takes advantage of the fact that RNA, unlike DNA, is single-stranded when it is produced in cells. This allows researchers to design RNA circuits that can be activated when a complementary RNA strand binds with an exposed RNA sequence in the designed circuit. This binding of complementary strands is regular and predictable, with A nucleotides always pairing with U and C always pairing with G.

With all the processing elements of the circuit made using RNA, which can take on an astronomical number of potential sequences, the real power of the newly described method lies in its ability to perform many operations at the same time. This capacity for parallel processing permits faster and more sophisticated computation while making efficient use of the limited resources of the cell.

Logical results

In the new study, logic gates known as AND, OR and NOT were designed. An AND gate produces an output in the cell only when two RNA messages A AND B are present. An OR gate responds to either A OR B, while a NOT gate will block output if a given RNA input is present. Combining these gates can produce complex logic capable of responding to multiple inputs.

Using RNA toehold switches, the researchers produced the first ribocomputing devices capable of four-input AND, six-input OR and a 12-input device able to carry out a complex combination of AND, OR and NOT logic known as disjunctive normal form expression. When the logic gate encounters the correct RNA binding sequences leading to activation, a toehold switch opens and the process of translation to protein takes place. All of these circuit-sensing and output functions can be integrated into the same molecule, making the systems compact and easier to implement in a cell.

The research represents the next phase of ongoing work using the highly versatile RNA toehold switches. In earlier work, Green and his colleagues demonstrated that an inexpensive, paper-based array of RNA toehold switches could act as a highly accurate platform for diagnosing the Zika virus. Detection of viral RNA by the array activated the toehold switches, triggering production of a protein, which registered as a color change on the array.

The basic principle of using RNA-based devices to regulate protein production can be applied to virtually any RNA input, ushering in a new generation of accurate, low-cost diagnostics for a broad range of diseases. The cell-free approach is particularly well suited for emerging threats and during disease outbreaks in the developing world, where medical resources and personnel may be limited.

The computer within

According to Green, the next stage of research will focus on the use of the RNA toehold technology to produce so-called neural networks within living cells  circuits capable of analyzing a range of excitatory and inhibitory inputs, averaging them and producing an output once a particular threshold of activity is reached, much the way a neuron averages incoming signals from other neurons. Ultimately, researchers hope to induce cells to communicate with one another via programmable molecular signals, forming a truly interactive, brain-like network.

Because were using RNA, a universal molecule of life, we know these interactions can also work in other cells, so our method provides a general strategy that could be ported to other organisms, Green said, alluding to a future in which human cells become fully programmable entities with extensive biological capabilities.

Abstract

Synthetic biology aims to develop engineering-driven approaches to the programming of cellular functions that could yield transformative technologies1. Synthetic gene circuits that combine DNA, protein, and RNA components have demonstrated a range of functions such as bistability, oscillation, feedback and logic capabilities. However, it remains challenging to scale up these circuits owing to the limited number of designable, orthogonal, high-performance parts, the empirical and often tedious composition rules, and the requirements for substantial resources for encoding and operation. Here, we report a strategy for constructing RNA-only nanodevices to evaluate complex logic in living cells. Our ribocomputing systems are composed of de-novo-designed parts and operate through predictable and designable base-pairing rules, allowing the effective in silico design of computing devices with prescribed configurations and functions in complex cellular environments. These devices operate at the post-transcriptional level and use an extended RNA transcript to co-localize all circuit sensing, computation, signal transduction, and output elements in the same self-assembled molecular complex, which reduces diffusion-mediated signal losses, lowers metabolic cost, and improves circuit reliability. We demonstrate that ribocomputing devices in Escherichia coli can evaluate two-input logic with a dynamic range up to 900-fold and scale them to four-input AND, six-input OR, and a complex 12-input expression (A1 AND A2 AND NOT A1*) OR (B1 AND B2 AND NOT B2*) OR (C1 AND C2) OR (D1 AND D2) OR (E1 AND E2). Successful operation of ribocomputing devices based on programmable RNA interactions suggests that systems employing the same design principles could be implemented in other host organisms or in extracellular settings.
This limited edition handset has a price tag of around US$445 and, unfortunately, it seems that Xiaomi only plans to sell 100 units in China. Color aside, there are no changed specs.

The specs of the Mi 6 Mercury Silver Edition remain the same as those of the standard edition - Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 processor, 5.15-inch full HD display, 6 GB RAM, 64 GB or 128 GB internal storage(the amount available for the limited edition has not been revealed), dual 12 MP camera setup on the back with 2X optical zoom, Android 7.1.1 Nougat with MIUI 8 on top, all driven by a 3,350 mAh battery.

Xiaomi has just confirmed that the Mi 6 Mercury Silver Edition handset should hit the market soon, without mentioning a launch date. We can only hope that more batches arrive after depleting the first one, but that is not certain. The price mentioned is 3,999 RMB - around US$593.

Xiaomi fans who wanted the Silver Edition of the Chinese brand's Mi 6 flagship will soon be able to get it. Unfortunately, it will only launch in China and the number of silver units available is expected to be very low - just one hundred, according to Xiaomi.

- 5692 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2013 Codrut Nistor - Senior Tech Writersince 2013

In my early school days, I hated writing and having to make up stories. A decade later, I started to enjoy it. Since then, I published a few offline articles and then I moved to the online space, where I contributed to major websites that are still present online as of 2021 such as Softpedia, Brothersoft, Download3000, but I also wrote for multiple blogs that have disappeared over the years. I've been riding with the Notebookcheck crew since 2013 and I am not planning to leave it anytime soon. In love with good mechanical keyboards, vinyl and tape sound, but also smartphones, streaming services, and digital art.
OAKLEY  The city of Oakley, population just 790, has more than 100 homes and businesses listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

The city is classified as a Congressional District with the Register and is noted for its architectural design from the late 19th century, featuring brick from two brickyards, sprawling wraparound porches, gables, towers and gingerbread decorations.

The district lists 115 properties with fewer than 15 percent not conforming to architecture of the late 19th century.

Tourists are entranced by the Victorian charm found in abundance in the city. But does that abundance of old buildings prevent growth in Oakley? And if so, do residents care?

The National Register notes in the districts 1974 nomination that the town had been economically dormant since the early 1920s.

By 1905 the city boasted 2,000 people, but the population dwindled after 1910 for two reasons: Irrigation water from the Oakley dam was only half of what was promised, and Burleys growth lured people north, according to the nomination.

A 1923 fire destroyed many buildings in the business district in Oakley, and very few of those were rebuilt.

Idaho does not regulate what property owners can do with their historical homes or buildings, including remodeling or tearing them down, and, with few exceptions, neither does the federal government, said Tricia Canaday with the State Historic Preservation Office.

One example of federal regulation is when federal funds are used for a project such as weatherization. Canadays office then reviews those projects, she said, but those occasions are rare.

Most of the regulation takes place on the local level, she said.

Oakley, however, is not one of the cities that have passed ordinances restricting what property owners can do to a home on the National Register.

Oakley Mayor Robert Bell doesnt think the old homes and buildings have hampered Oakley growth at all. People have always come to the city and purchased the old homes.

People are drawn to them, he said.

If it does hinder growth, Oakley residents dont care, he said. They embrace it. They love to show off their old homes.

Todd Muhlestein, an Oakley city councilman, said the old buildings and homes enhance the small-hometown feeling in the city and residents like that.

We can handle a little bit of growth, he said, but we dont want to be the next Twin Falls.
ALMO  Castle Rocks State Park is working to unearth the past with an excavation of one of the oldest homesteads in the park.

Tara Cannon, park archaeologist, led test excavations at three spots on the homestead in mid-June. The artifacts uncovered warrant a full-scale dig next year.

I absolutely love it, Cannon said. You get out in the dirt, and at the end of the day you are just covered in dust.

Artifacts uncovered at the John P. Jensen homestead include parts of a wood stove, cut bone from a large animal, square wooden nails, a cork, two-by-four fragments and pieces of amethyst and aqua glass.

Once cleaned, the items will go to the Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument for display.

Researchers can access them there, Cannon said.

Five teens and their leader from the parks Youth Conservation Corps assisted Cannon, and next years excavation will be open to the public.

Lots of people like to dig up things, and this way they can come out and learn to do it right, Cannon said.

YCC leader Tanner Pursley said it was a great opportunity for the teens and the only archaeological project the YCC has been involved with at Castle Rocks.

I think it really gave them a greater appreciation for what goes into discovering history, Pursley said.

Stiff winds blew over two tents during the 3 1/2 days of work and covered them all with grime, but the teens were enthusiastic.

Excavation is a long process, but when you find little things, thats pretty cool, said Braxton Poole, 17.

YCC member Carson Durfee, whose family helped pioneer the valley, was impressed to learn that the year the nails were made could be determined by their shape.

The excavation proceeded 10 centimeters at a time to a depth of 50 centimeters  below the level where artifacts were expected. The dirt was sifted through screens.

The group tested three sites: the spot the home stood, a depression thought to be a well or privy and another light depression.

A fourth site  a possible root cellar  holds promise but wasnt tested, Cannon said. If its a cellar it could be full of stuff.

Jensen and his wife came from Denmark and settled in the Almo valley in 1883 on a 160-acre homestead.

There were only a handful of people who came here at the time to try and make a go of it, Cannon said.

The Jensens had 13 children; six lived to adulthood. They lived on the farm for 18 years before moving to Box Elder County, Utah.

Charcoal was found on the boulders that outline the perimeter of the 35-by-35-foot home, indicating it may have burned.

The land for the park was acquired in 2003 through an exchange between the National Park Service and the state of Idaho. The homestead was documented during the exchange in an archaeological survey.

When I came to the park a year ago it really caught my attention, Cannon said. It will make a great interpretive site.

The homestead is across the road from the new Castle Rocks Fishing Pond.
The free event is held in communities across the country every year as a community-building campaign that promotes police-community partnerships and neighborhood camaraderie to make our neighborhoods safer, more caring places to live, according to a news release from Twin Falls police. Twin Falls will run from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. in City Park, and will include displays and presentations from the Twin Falls Police Department, Twin Falls County Sheriffs Office, Idaho State Police, Idaho Fish and Game, Twin Falls Fire Department, Magic Valley paramedics and other organizations and community groups. Falls Brand has donated hot dogs.
7 of 10

Indigenous people in Canada are entitled to an annual payment  money stipulated in treaties, which were signed by past generations with the Canadian government in exchange for territory. How much do they receive?
From Reader Supported News



Philando Castile Verdict

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When police kill innocent, peaceful people, public scrutiny turns to the police: their tactics, their training, their professionalism or lack thereof.

But average citizens rarely look at themselves. That in truth is where the problem lies.

Who killed Philando Castile and Justine Damond? Any and every American who remained silent about police homicide before the fatal shots were fired.

A jury of your peers. How many prosecuted by an unjust state throughout time would not have wished for that? Such a jury would be wise and courageous, not subservient to the state and the police. The injustice would surely be thwarted, no?

Where is the jury for Philando Castile and Justine Damond? Where is their exoneration?

An American jury was assembled to judge St. Anthony, Minnesota, police officer Jeronimo Yanez of firing seven shots into the chest of an unresisting and compliant Philando Castile as he sat in a car doing exactly what Yanez told him to do.

The jury graciously gave Yanez what Yanez did not give Philando Castile, the benefit of the doubt, the full benefit of the doubt. Who could know, they reasoned, that Police Officer Yanez did not in fact fear for his life?

But what if Philando Castile, fearing for his life -- which was in fact about to be unjustly taken -- had drawn his legally possessed weapon first and saved his life by shooting Yanez first? Who really believes any jury in America would have afforded Castile the same beneficial doubt the Yanez jury afforded him? So bury the unfortunate black man, set the police officer who killed him free, go home to your family and forget about it. It's over, juror number-X.

But just 30 days later, another law-abiding Minnesota citizen made a fatal mistake. She called the police to report a crime. Minutes later she lay dying, a bullet fired by another Minnesota police officer into her abdomen.

The Yanez juries had made the death of Justine Damond or someone like her a matter-of-time inevitability, like the overwhelming majority of American juries who hear the case of a police officer accused of unjustly killing a human being.

Justine Damond is dead in large part because the Yanez jury, like nearly every American jury hearing a case of wrongful death caused by a police officer, sends by acquittal or by failure to reach a verdict the same message, "Regardless of the evidence, regardless of the law, regardless of the pain and suffering you have caused, we will not convict you of anything. We actively support the covenant of absolute immunity you enjoy, and we will not under any circumstances do anything to undermine it."

American prosecutors in many U.S. jurisdictions are now actually starting to file charges when the evidence points to criminal liability in what can only be described as a rampage of police homicide nationwide. But so far they are being defeated each and every time by the very juries they impanel.

The Washington Post reports U.S. police nationwide are on track to kill over 1,000 people for the third straight year. Nothing will mitigate the killing more effectively than accountability for excessive use of force by police officers who engage in it.

When juries ignore evidence because the defendant is a police officer, the killing accelerates. As that happens, communities become far more dangerous for residents and law enforcement personnel alike. It's time for American juries to stop being extensions of the police.
Don't worry, eat your hamburger. That's what the CDC is saying as another "mad cow" was found in Alabama in July. The cow suffered from an "atypical" version of Mad Cow (BSE) says the CDC which occurs spontaneously and can not harm humans. Sounds good until you read that the atypical assertion is merely a CDC "theory" and the agency admits"transmission through feed or the environment cannot be ruled out."

There is a reason government officials are quick to defend the safety of the U.S. beef supply. Within hours of the first mad cow discovered in the U.S. in 2003, China, Mexico, Russia, Brazil, South Africa, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, South Korea and ninety other countries banned U.S. beef. Ninety-eight percent of the $3 billion overseas beef market vanished. It has taken 14 years for the U.S. to re-establish its beef exports and o ther beef exporting countries have had similar woes. If an atypical version of BSE that threatened no one didn't exist, governments might want to invent one. In fact the research behind the atypical theory is primarily floated by government ag departments.



Thousands are spent to make food irresistible

(Image by Martha Rosenberg) Details DMCA



In addition to losing exports, before "atypical" BSE was described, beef producers were forced to quarantine their ranches, search for tainted food sources and detain herdmates and offspring in a BSE outbreak. They lost huge amounts of money. The debut of "atypical" BSE means they can just say "these things happen" and keep doing business.

Mainstream media sources are cooperatively repeating the government statement that "the Alabama cow was not slaughtered, never entered the food supply and presents no risk to human health in the United States or anywhere else." But food reporters who have covered BSE since 2003 remember the that same thing was said about the first U.S. BSE cow until both the San Francisco Chronicle and the LA Times reported otherwise.

"In an interview, Alameda County health officer Dr. Anthony Iton recalled that in early January 2004 almost a month after the initial discovery [of a BSE cow], state health officials informed him that five restaurants in the Oakland area had received soup bones from the lot of tainted beef," reported the Times. "It immediately dispatched inspectors to the restaurants. But it was too late; soup made from the bones had been eaten. He was particularly disturbed to learn that none of the restaurant owners had received written notice of the recall and that federal inspectors did not visit them until 10 days after the recall."

And there was more government BSE bumbling. A cow, born and bred in Texas, found less than a year after the first one (born in Canada) was suspected of having BSE but ruled "negative" by government testers for seven months. Phyllis Fong, the inspector general at the time, ordered the more precise "Western blot" over the head of then Ag Secretary Mike Johanns and the cow was diagnosed with BSE.

After the Texas BSE cow, a BSE cow born and bred in Alabama was found. Extensive government investigations were conducted on both to find the source of the deadly disease and there was no mention of the current "atypical" BSE. Disturbingly, the government protected the identities of the ranches that produced the BSE cows from food consumers. It literally placed the interests of meat producers above the endangered public.

Government Prion Research Is Not to Be Trusted

BSE is transmitted by prions, invisible infectious particles that are not viruses or bacteria, but proteins. Though prions are not technically "alive" because they lack a nucleus, they are almost impossible to "kill" because they are not inactivated by cooking, heat, ammonia, bleach, hydrogen peroxide, benzene, alcohol, phenol, lye, formaldehyde or radiation. Yet government research into prion diseases--which include Chronic Wasting Disease found in deer and elk--is extremely inept.

In 2006, BSE research had to be delayed at the National Animal Disease Laboratory in Ames, Iowa because lab workers there accused the facility of failing to properly treat infectious wastes before they were sent to the city's treatment plant which empties into the Skunk River. [1] The lab, in charge of confirming BSE cases, was also charged with keeping rather than incinerating dead animals for months in containers. [2]

Nor do government protocols for human victims inspire confidence. When neurologist Ron Bailey's patient Patrick Hicks apparently came down with the human form of Mad Cow disease caused by eating infected meat, variant Creutzfeldt--Jakob Disease (vCJD), he was told by the National Prion Disease Pathology Surveillance Center the tissue samples he had sent for confirmation could not be tested because they were obtained from1-800-Autopsy and not kept properly. Creutzfeldt--Jakob Disease can exist in forms not caused from eating meat including one that "just happens" also called "atypical."

When a possible vCJD case occurred in Amarillo in 2008 threatening beef markets, the Amarillo office of Texas AgriLife Extension reassured the public that the woman's case was not caused from eating beef before tests on the woman had been conducted and a conclusion drawn. Since then, other prematurely-dismissed cases have occurred as have CJD clusters which seldom can be random and usually suggest a food source.

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Men on board ship live in particularly close association; in their messes, one man sits beside another; their hammocks or bunks are close together; in their common tasks they work side by side; . . . they form a closely knit highly coordinated team. How many white men would choose, of their own accord, that their closest associates in sleeping quarters, at mess, and in a guns crew should be of another race?

- Report from the chairman of the general board to the secretary of the Navy, Subject: Enlistment of men of colored race in other than messman branch, Jan. 16, 1942.

--

I cited that passage in a column that I wrote more than 25 years ago criticizing a Dec. 9, 1991, ruling by U.S. District Judge Oliver Gasch upholding the Navys right to expel a gay midshipman from the U.S. Naval Academy.

The spirit of that 1942 Navy report and a Jan. 28, 1982, Defense Department directive declaring, Homosexuality is incompatible with military service, guided Gaschs decision.

The Defense Departments ban on gays in the military simply adopted the earlier, discredited rationale for a racially segregated armed services. Read the 1982 directive: The presence of such members adversely affects the ability of the Military Services to maintain discipline, good order, and morale . . . among . . . servicemembers who frequently must live and work under close conditions affording minimal privacy.

The biases and fears against gays in the military rested upon the same kind of stereotyping and myths used against black service members decades earlier.

Today, the country officially recognizes that the military was wrong to cater to prejudice against Americans based upon skin color or sexual orientation.

America agrees that the opportunity to perform as soldiers, sailors, Marines or Air Force members should rest upon qualifications and ability, not invidious distinctions based on race or sexual identity.

This week, however, brought fresh evidence that the respect for basic humanity explicit in U.S. policies on military service has been lost on President Donald Trump.

Trump fully embraced the rancid prejudice that in the past turned away men and women ready to put their lives on the line for the United States. Without warning to Congress, the public or rank-and-file members of the military, the president resorted to Twitter to announce that he is banning transgender people from serving in the military in any capacity. He not only is turning away transgender people from the armed services. Trump is opening up the possibility of thousands of openly transgender members being expelled from service, and he has created the likelihood of many more having to conceal their identity and return to the closet.

Just like that, in a social media tweetstorm, Trump wiped out federal policy welcoming transgender Americans to serve openly in the military (although the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, apparently blindsided, said sensibly Thursday there would be no modification to current policy unless the White House turns the presidents tweets into a formal directive that is conveyed to the armed forces by the secretary of defense). And he resorted to some of the same bogus military readiness excuses that once barred a racially desegregated military and the presence of gay men and lesbians in uniform. A 2016 Rand Corp. study found that allowing transgender service members to serve openly would not be a drawback to military readiness. The number [of members] would likely be a small fraction of the total force and have minimal impact on readiness and health care costs, the report said.

Yes, there are moves afoot among far-right conservatives in Congress to stop the Pentagon from paying for gender reassignment surgery and medical treatment plans for transgender troops. And the military was reviewing its medical standards to accommodate transgender service members. But Trump precipitously nixed all that.

He said kick them out and dont let others in.

Does he even know, does he even care about what he has done?

The president is subordinating Americans solely on the basis of their gender identity. His outrageous action has given a green light to subjecting transgender people to contemptible treatment and exclusion in other aspects of American life.

That ought to offend every American. Trumps attack on transgender service members joins the growing list of ignorant, irrational and morally offensive decisions he has made since Inauguration Day.
From WSWS



Donald Trump

(Image by Renegade98) Details DMCA



The Trump administration's attack on the democratic rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people is the implementation of a reactionary political strategy. It seeks to combine appeals to homophobic hysteria, religious bigotry, the glorification of police and xenophobic American nationalism to encourage the growth of a fascist movement.

Embroiled in perpetual crisis, the Trump administration is attempting to establish a base of political operations centered around the demagogic president and outside the existing structure of the two-party system. By firing former Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus as chief of staff and replacing him with Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, Trump has taken another step toward his goal of establishing a personalist executive, comprised of a close group of fascists, generals, family relations and billionaire oligarchs.

The pattern of Trump's maneuvers this week proves the attack on LGBT rights is central to this strategy.

On Wednesday, the Department of Justice filed an advisory "friend of the court" brief in a private New York lawsuit, arguing that corporations can fire LGBT people because of their sexual orientation, on the pseudo-legal grounds that Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 does not protect LGBT people. After half a century marked by growing social acceptance and advances in the legal rights of LGBT people, millions of LGBT workers are again at risk of immediate firing because of their second-class legal status.

Earlier on Wednesday, Donald Trump tweeted an announcement that his administration would bar transgender people from military service "in any capacity," on the reactionary grounds that transgender people cost the military too much and because of the "disruption that transgender in the military would entail."

The same day, Trump announced the nomination of Kansas Governor Sam Brownback as the State Department's ambassador at large for international religious freedom. This move is aimed at bringing the evangelical and Catholic organizations that bankrolled Brownbank's short-lived 2008 presidential campaign into a bloc with Trump. After the Supreme Court legalized same-sex marriage in 2015, Brownback issued an executive order prohibiting the state government from suing or punishing churches that refuse to provide marriages and other social services for LGBT people.

White House sources told the Daily Beast that Trump and Bannon are working closely with Vice President Mike Pence, who has the closest ties to the evangelical establishment and who personally orchestrated the transgender ban tweets. According to the unnamed sources, Trump, Pence and Bannon thought that the move would be popular "with his base." The fact that military advisors said they were not consulted about the tweets, confirms the fact that Wednesday's policy announcements were conceived within the West Wing.

Wednesday's policy announcements were bookended by two major speeches, the first on Tuesday night in Youngstown, Ohio, which set the political tone for the moves. Paying tribute to "our values, our culture, our borders, our civilization and our great American way of life," Trump told a raucous crowd that "family and faith, not government and bureaucracy, are the foundation of our society." He continued: "In America, we don't worship government, we worship god." This out of the mouth of a man who has never worshiped anything but money and himself.

Speaking yesterday in Long Island, New York, Trump addressed another of his key constituencies: police and immigration officers. He announced a major escalation of immigration raids to be carried out under the pretext of fighting the El Salvadoran gang MS-13.

"We have blood-stained killing fields," Trump said, describing in gruesome detail the violent tactics of the gang. Police and immigration officials "are liberating our American towns," he added, and told officers he loved watching criminal suspects "get thrown into the back of a paddy wagon." He appealed to the country's over 1.1 million full-time police officers in the United States, 50,000 border patrol agents, and 20,000 ICE officials: "Please don't be too nice."

The official response of the Democratic Party has been remarkably restrained, with criticism limited to arguing that Trump's transgender ban would weaken the military.

Given the significance of Trump's attacks, the muted character of the Democratic Party's response contains a real warning. None of the democratic rights gained over the last century are secure so long as their enforcement is left in the hands of one or another faction of the ruling class, and are therefore vulnerable to shifts in the political winds.

The Democratic Party has dropped all references to democratic questions such as immigration, LGBT rights and abortion in its new "Better Deal" agenda, announced last week. Defending the new program, Democratic Minority Whip Steny Hoyer told reporters that social issues such as the rights of LGBT people and immigrants "won't be the focus" of the new agenda. "Essentially," he added, "what we don't want to do is distract people... we don't want to distract ourselves." In other words, the Democratic Party leadership is appealing to social reaction and religious bigotry to win votes in the 2018 midterm elections.

Several Democratic leaders have expressed concerns over the "Better Deal" program's failure to mention any democratic or social questions, and many will oppose the Trump administration's attack on LGBT rights. But the decision to promote a policy based on a pledge to "aggressively crack down on unfair foreign trade" (as the program states) will only fan the flames of nationalist chauvinism and further strengthen Trump's maneuvers.

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Putin is either an aggressive schemer, to be opposed and vilified at all costs, or a wise, restrained real-politician, balanced irreconcilable forces next door. Which is it?



The 2014 coup in Ukraine succeeded due to the fierce campaign led by neo-fascists, heirs to the Banderistas of 1940-'50s, now lauded as freedom fighters, but seen at the time as terrorists, murdering Ukrainians and Jews, and sabotaging a Ukraine in shambles after the war. They had almost zero support then, having collaborated with the Nazis to kill tens of thousands, but their hero, Stepan, was honoured with a statue in 2011, erected by the godfather of the current anti-Russian coupmakers, the (disastrous) former President Viktor Yushchenko. Ukraine's Soviet war veterans were outraged and the statue was torn down in 2013, just months before the coup, bringing the Bandera-lovers back to power.



The eastern Ukrainians, mostly native Russians, centered in Donetsk and Lughansk, saw the coup as a surreal rerun of WWII, this time with Banderistas triumphant. They had no real plan, but panicked at the thought of what was to come, and seized government buildings and declared themselves mini-republics, calling on Russia to come and rescue them, as was happening in Crimea.





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Anthony Scaramucci's rocky road seems to have its foundation in personal as well as pubic incidents. After his wife filed for divorce in early July after three years of marriage, Scaramucci tweeted, "Leave civilians out of this. I can take the hits, but I would ask that you would put my family in your thoughts and prayers & nothing more."

However, it behooves the American people to understand the backstory and unusual circumstances in a public servant's private life, as it can profoundly affect the wellbeing of the country.

Selected Scaramucci Timeline

January 6, 1964. Anthony "The Mooch" Scaramucci was born in Port Washington, Long Island, NY, of Italian-American parents. His grandfather, Alessandro Scaramucci, had emmigrated from Italy.

2011. Scaramucci and his first wife separate after 23 years of marriage. Scaramucci and Deidre Ball begin dating. (Exact dates for each are unknown.)

Early 2014. Scaramucci and Ball have their first baby together, a boy.

2014. Scaramucci's divorce from his first wife, with whom he has three children, is finalized.

July 11, 2014. Scaramucci and Ball marry.

January 12, 2017. Scaramucci is named Assistant to President Trump and director of the White House Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs.

March 6, 2017. White House announces the appointment of Ideagen founder and former CEO George Sifakis as director for the White House Office of Public Liaison, instead of Scaramucci.

June 19, 2017. Scaramucci is named senior vice president and chief strategy officer for the U.S. Export-Import Bank. At this time, he was also still under consideration for a post as ambassador to the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.

June 26, 2017. Wiki notes, "three network investigative journalists--Thomas Frank, Eric Lichtblau, and Lex Haris--resigned from CNN over a false, later retracted Trump--Russia story that connected Scaramucci to a $10 billion Russian investment fund. The network apologized to Scaramucci and said the online story did not meet their editorial standards. Scaramucci said the original story was not true, and accepted CNN's apology."

July 6, 2017. Ball files for divorce from Scaramucci. At the time, she was approximately eight months pregnant.

July 21, 2017. Trump Administration named Scaramucci as White House Director of Communications.

July 21, 2017. Sean Spicer, White House press secretary and an ally of Mr. Priebus, resigned in protest when Scaramucci was hired. He predicted it would add more chaos to the team.

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From American Conservative



Trump speaking at AIPAC

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Last week the Senate Judiciary Committee postponed a meeting ostensibly convened to discuss the failure to enforce the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA). Originally rescheduled for this week, the postponed meeting would have featured Donald Trump Jr. and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort testifying about their controversial Trump Tower meeting, but their subpoenas werecanceled at the last minute after they arranged to turn over documents. The June 2016 meeting under investigation included Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya, lobbyist Rinat Akhmetshin, publicist Rob Goldstone, businessman Ike Kaveladze, and translator Anatoli Samochornov. Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner was also in attendance, apparently only briefly.

The Judiciary Committee hearing was originally set up to look at the possible Russian links of former journalist and head of the research firm Fusion GPS Glenn Simpson, who was behind the infamous Trump dossier that appeared in January. Yet in reality it is part of the broader effort to determine whether Moscow interfered in the 2016 election on behalf of the Donald Trump campaign.

FARA was created in the lead-up to World War II to help monitor the activity of Italian, German and Japanese agent-lobbyists who were believed to be working hard in the U.S. to influence opinion as well as congressional votes in favor of their respective sponsoring nations. The intention was to force the "foreign agents" to register with the Department of the Treasury so they would have to identify their government sponsors and be required to reveal their sources of income.

FARA is not very rigorously enforced, which was one of the points that the Judiciary Committee was prepared to address in regards to Russia, but there can be consequences for those who ignore it. Former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was recently compelled to register as an agent of Turkey after he received $530,000 in payments to support Ankara's view regarding those it believed to be behind last year's coup.

Ironically, the most powerful and effective foreign-government lobby in Washington is so dominant that it has been able to avoid registering for the past 55 years. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) was last confronted by FARA when its predecessor organization the American Zionist Council was pressured by John F. Kennedy's Justice Department in 1962 and 1963. Kennedy's death stopped that effort -- and ended White House attempts to hold Israel accountable for the development of its secret nuclear weapons program (which depended on nuclear material removed illegally from the United States with the connivance of a company located in Pennsylvania called NUMEC).

AIPAC's website declares that it is "America's Pro-Israel Lobby," so by its own admission it functions pretty clearly as Israel's proxy. It spent $102 million in 2015, had 396 employees in 2013, and claims to have 100,000 members, many of whom are organized into state and city chapters. It also benefits from being a tax exempt 501(c)4 organization classified as promoting "international understanding." Its annual Summit in Washington attracts more than 15,000 participants, including scores of congressmen and other senior government officials. It blankets Capitol Hill with its lobbyists and is a prolific source of position papers explaining Israel's perception of what is taking place in the Middle East. Its easy access to the media and also to politicians in Washington is so widely accepted on Capitol Hill that it reportedly frequently drafts bills that Congress then goes on to propose.

No Washington lobby is benign. Lobbies exist to subvert the public interest. They promote particular agendas and are not intended to enhance the general well-being of the American public. Lobbyists would argue that they are in the information business, that they make lawmakers aware of facts that impact on pending legislation, but the reality is that every lobby is nevertheless driven by self-interest.

The power of the Israel Lobby and of AIPAC is not cost free for the American public. The current $3 billion plus that Israel, with a thriving first world economy, receives in military assistance is on top of the $130 billion that it has received since 1949. Protecting Israel in international organizations like the United Nations has sometimes marginalized the U.S. in such bodies and the lobby's influence over American foreign policy has often been noted. In 2010 General David Petraeus stated that Israeli policies were putting American military personnel in the Middle East in danger. He quickly recanted, however.

Once upon a time AIPAC's Steven Rosen boasted to an interviewer, "You see this napkin? In twenty-four hours, we could have the signatures of seventy senators on this napkin." He meant that congressmen would sign on to anything if they thought it would please Israel. Recently the U.S. Congress has been working on bills that would criminalize individuals or groups that support a boycott of Israel. It would not be the first such legislation. The 2015 omnibus trade agreement with Europe included an amendment mandating that nations engaging in anti-Israel boycotts, to include "Israeli controlled territories," should be subject to retaliatory action by the U.S.

There are currently two bills constituting the Israel Anti-Boycott Act of 2017 (S.720 and H.R. 1697) being considered by the Senate and House that outdo any previous deference to Israeli interests. The Senate bill was introduced by Senator Ben Cardin, who also had a hand in the trade-legislation amendments protecting Israel. According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency, the bill was drafted with the assistance of AIPAC. The legislation, which would almost certainly be overturned as unconstitutional if it ever does in fact become law, is particularly dangerous, and goes well beyond any previous pro-Israeli legislation, essentially denying free speech when the subject is Israel.

The two versions of the bill that are moving through Congress have 238 sponsors and cosponsors in the House and 46 in the Senate. If you do your math, you will realize that those numbers already constitute a majority in the House and are only five short of one in the Senate, so passage of the bills is virtually assured. The bill's sponsors include many congressmen who have in the past frequently spoken out in defense of free speech, with Senator Ted Cruz having said in 2014, for example, that "The First Amendment was enacted to protect unreasonable speech. I, for one, certainly don't want our speech limited to speech that elected politicians in Washington think is reasonable."

The movement that is particularly targeted by the bills is referred to as BDS, or Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions. It is a non-violent reaction to the Israeli military occupation of Palestinian land on the West Bank and the continued building of Jewish-only settlements. BDS has been targeted both by the Israeli government and by AIPAC. The AIPAC website, which describes the group's lobbying agenda, includes the promotion of the Israel Anti-Boycott Act as a top priority.

The Israeli government and its American supporters particularly fear BDS because it has become quite popular, particularly on university campuses, where administrative steps have frequently been taken to suppress it. The denial of free speech on campus when it relates to Israel has sometimes been referred to as the "Palestinian exception." Nevertheless, the message continues to resonate, due both to its non-violence its and human rights appeal. It challenges Israel's arbitrary military rule over 3 million Palestinians on the West Bank who have onerous restrictions placed on nearly every aspect of their daily lives. And its underlying message is that Israel is a rogue state engaging in actions that are widely considered to be both illegal and immoral, which the Israeli government rightly sees as potentially delegitimizing.

Twenty-one state legislatures have already passed various laws confronting BDS, in many cases initiating economic penalties on organizations that boycott Israel or denying state funds to colleges and universities that allow BDS advocates to operate freely on campus. The pending federal legislation would go one step further by criminalizing any U.S. citizen "engaged in interstate or foreign commerce" who supports a boycott of Israel or who even goes about "requesting the furnishing of information" regarding it, with penalties enforced through amendments of two existing laws, the Export Administration Act of 1979 and the Export-Import Act of 1945, that include potential fines of between $250,000 and $1 million and up to 20 years in prison.

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Three Key Plaers who make secision for the Middle East

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Two months have passed since President Trump made his first foreign visit to Saudi Arabia. But the talk and analyses on the fortune Saudis spent on dealing arms are still on people's lips.

On 24 May 2017, the German SPIEGEL online published a report in which Martin Schulz, the Chairman of the Social Democratic Party of Germany, warns of an incoming 'arms race' in the Middle East.

In the report, by pointing out what had been discussed in the NATO recent summit, Martin Schulz stated that if there is only one phenomenon running in the Middle East, it is the 'race of arms'; instead, a security architecture is needed to be planned.

Schulz also stated that Europe should interfere more strongly in Russia and Europe's superpower diplomacy, and it should not allow the arms deals to fall into the cycle of race and competition. He says EU should prevent military conflicts in order to save Europe from confronting again with the human disaster of migrant crisis.

Schultz also believed that equipping Saudi Arabia with arms, which Washington justifies due to the Iranian military power, will run an arms race in the region.

"Here, it is our duty as Europeans to frankly tell the US that their policy seems unreasonable," Schulz stated in the report.

In this report Schulz expressed his concern over this issue that "The 68-year-old commitment mentioned in the introduction of our constitution has been violated by 2016 worldwide astronomical military costs spent on arms deals, almost in the Middle East, Korean Peninsula and South Asia to increase their attack proficiency."

The world is actually witnessing a new wave of weapons deals. It is evident that with the help of weapons and military forces, the world cannot withstand the structural reasons of struggles and challenges including poverty, drought, displacement and hunger. This disaster won't be solved unless there are economic, political and social developments in the areas affected by the competition over arms deals. What the world actually needs is not more and more weapons, but the justice and the chance for development and progress, a constitution and a commitment like the one Schultz mentioned.

The complexity of today's world is increasingly surging ahead. The two blocks of East and West no longer exist, and even the logic of "horror balance" no longer has validity. In fact, the logic of causing nuclear fear isn't practical any more to stop and prevent the killings and brutalities of terrorist groups like ISIS, withstanding North Korea's dictatorship, and eradicating the worldwide cyber terrorism.

In fact, what is needed for the world is a new peace policy, both for defying the logic of increasing cold weapons, and offering a logical response to world terrorism threats.

Every nation that aims to effectively fight against terrorism must accept the risk of minimizing the terrorist weapons. The justifiable part of this new peace policy should therefore be focused on reducing the use of war weapons, not on dealing them.

History has shown that having more weapons won't bring more security. Instead, it should take more time to invest and research on planning peace projects. Here, the European Union plays a very critical role. The EU indeed should leave the position of a looker-on and play an active role in the establishment of an international peace policy.
From Robert Reich Blog



Donald Trump, the Snake Oil Salesman that Conned America

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The demise of the Republican effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act is hardly the end of the story. Donald Trump will not let this loss stand.

Since its inception in 2010, Republicans made the Affordable Care Act into a symbol of Obama-Clinton overreach -- part of a supposed plot by liberal elites to expand government, burden the white working class, and transfer benefits to poor blacks and Latinos.

Ever the political opportunist, Trump poured his own poisonous salt into this festering wound. Although he never really understood the Affordable Care Act, he used it to prey upon resentments of class, race, ethnicity, and religiosity that propelled him into the White House.

Repealing "Obamacare" has remained one of Trump's central rallying cries to his increasingly angry base. "The question for every senator, Democrat or Republican, is whether they will side with Obamacare's architects, which have been so destructive to our country, or with its forgotten victims," Trump said last Monday, adding that any senator who failed to vote against it "is telling America that you are fine with the Obamacare nightmare."

Now, having lost that fight, Trump will try to subvert the Act by delaying subsidies so some insurance companies won't be able to participate, failing to enforce the individual mandate so funding won't be adequate, not informing those who are eligible about when to sign up and how to do so, and looking the other way when states don't comply.

But that's not all. Trump doesn't want his base to perceive him as a loser.

So be prepared for scorched-earth politics from the Oval Office, including more savage verbal attacks on Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, more baseless charges of voter fraud in the 2016 election, and further escalation of the culture wars.

Most Americans won't be swayed by these pyrotechnics because they've become inured to our unhinged president.

But that's not the point. They'll be intended to shore up Trump's "base" -- the third of the country that supports him, who still believe they're "victims" of Obamacare, who continue to believe Trump himself is the victim of a liberal conspiracy to unseat him.

Trump wants his base to become increasingly angry and politically mobilized, so they'll continue to exert an outsized influence on the Republican Party.

There is a deeper danger here. As Harvard political scientist Archon Fung has argued, stable democracies require that citizens be committed to the rule of law even if they fail to achieve their preferred policies.

Settling our differences through ballots and agreed-upon processes rather than through force is what separates democracy from authoritarianism.

But Donald Trump has never been committed to the rule of law. For him, it's all about winning. If he can't win through established democratic processes, he'll mobilize his base to change them.

Trump is already demanding that Mitch McConnell and senate Republicans obliterate the filibuster, thereby allowing anything to be passed with a bare majority.

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From Common Dreams



THAAD Launch

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Touching down in Washington DC Friday night after a peace delegation to South Korea organized by the Task Force to Stop THAAD in Korea (STIK), I saw the devastating news. No, it was not that Reince Priebus had been booted from the dysfunctional White House. It was that North Korea had conducted another intercontinental ballistic missile test, and that the United States and South Korea had responded by further ratcheting up this volatile conflict.

The response was not just the usual tit-for-tat, which did happen. Just hours after the North Korean test, the US and South Korean militaries launched their own ballistic missiles as a show of force. Even more incendiary, however, is that South Korean President Moon Jae-in also responded by reversing his decision to halt deployment of the US weapon system known as THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defense). President Moon gave his military the green light to add four more launchers to complete the system.

South Korea's new, liberal president came into office on May 10 on the wave of a remarkable "people power" uprising that had led to the impeachment and jailing of the corrupt President Park Geun-hye. Part of the legacy that Moon inherited was an agreement with the US to provide land and support for THAAD, a missile defense system designed to target and intercept short and medium-range missiles fired by North Korea.

THAAD is controversial on many fronts: military experts say it doesn't work; environmentalists say it emits dangerous radiation; national assembly members say it was never submitted for a vote; China says the radar is aimed at them and has responded with economic sanctions; and the local residents of Seongju, where the system is placed, are furious that their tranquil lives have been pierced by a billion dollar Lockheed-Martin weapon system they were never consulted about.

Our delegation -- composed of former Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, Reece Chenault of US Labor Against the War, Will Griffin of Veterans for Peace, and myself -- had the opportunity to visit Seongju, a farming town 135 miles southeast of the capital, and the neighboring town of Gimcheon. The feisty residents, including women farmers in their eighties, have been protesting every single day for the past year. We attended a rally with thousands, which concluded with a symbolic smashing of a cardboard version of THAAD, and a candlelight vigil that takes place in both towns every night, rain or shine. The villagers have blockaded the roads to prevent entry of the launchers, fought with police, publicly shaved their heads in opposition, and set up a 24/7 protest camp. They are joined by the local Won Buddhists, who consider the THAAD site their sacred ground.

It was the resilience of Seongju and neighboring Gimcheon residents that pushed the Moon administration to pause the deployment process until a thorough environmental impact assessment had been completed, which would have taken about a year. This gave the villagers hope that they would have time to convince President Moon to rethink and reverse the THAAD agreement altogether. The president's recent decision will only spark more local outrage.

The North Korean nuclear program is certainly alarming, as are the myriad human rights violations of that repressive regime. But the question is how best to de-escalate the conflict so that it doesn't explode into an all-out nuclear war. Adding another weapon system into the mix is not the answer.

The North Korean regime feels encircled. It knows that the most powerful nation in the world, the United States, wants to overthrow it. There's Trump's belligerent rhetoric: "If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will." There's the ever-tightening screws of sanctions. Just a few hours before the latest North Korean missile test, Congress approved yet another round of sanctions to squeeze the North.

There are 83 US military bases on South Korean soil and US warships often patrolling the coast. US-South Korean military exercises have been getting larger and more provocative, including dropping mock nuclear bombs on North Korea.The US military also announced that it would permanently station an armed drone called Gray Eagle on the Korean Peninsula and it has been practicing long-range strikes with strategic bombers, sending them to the region for exercises and deploying them in Guam and on the peninsula.

The United States has also long held a "pre-emptive first strike" policy towards North Korea. This frightening threat of an unprovoked US nuclear attack gives North Korea good reason to want its own nuclear arsenal.

North Korea's leadership also looks at the fate of Iraq's Saddam Hussein and Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, leaders who gave up their nuclear programs, and conclude that nuclear weapons are their key to survival.

So the North Korean leadership is not acting irrationally; on the contrary. On July 29, the day after the test, North Korean President Kim Jong-un asserted that the threat of sanctions or military action "only strengthens our resolve and further justifies our possession of nuclear weapons."

Given the proximity of North Korea to the South's capital Seoul, a city of 25 million people, any outbreak of hostilities would be devastating. It is estimated that a North Korean attack with just conventional weapons would kill 64,000 South Koreans in the first three hours.

A war on the Korean Peninsula would likely draw in other nuclear armed states and major powers, including China, Russia and Japan. This region also has the largest militaries and economies in the world, the world's busiest commercial ports, and half the world's population.

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Quicklink Not Found

Sometimes, authors delete their quicklinks after publishing them.



To see if the quicklink was renamed or re-published, please click here.
WASHINGTON  There are three branches of government, and two of them are in serious distress. What once passed for governing and leadership has become a spectacle of disservice by people who call themselves public servants.

The dramatic collapse of Republican efforts to change the Affordable Care Act provides Congress an opportunity to repair itself by returning to something approaching bipartisan lawmaking. It wont be easily accomplished.

The executive branch has been a cauldron of turbulence. Just ask Anthony Scaramucci, the swaggering, newly named White House communications director, who predicted fewer than 48 hours ago what unexpectedly transpired late Friday afternoon: Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff, was fired.

The White House today has been a feuding, conniving band of officials vying for the affection of President Donald Trump, who seems to encourage, even revel in, the chaos around him. Trump named John Kelly, the Homeland Security Secretary, as chief of staff. The president called the retired Marine Corps general a star. But can he truly change the culture?

Washington hasnt been working for some time; the breakdown began years ago. The dysfunction in Washington is one reason Trump was elected. But in the past six months, things have turned even worse, with the breakdown reaching new depths this week. For this, the Republicans and the president bear the responsibility.

Until Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., cast the decisive vote on the bill for a skinny repeal of the ACA, the Senate was operating under procedures never seen before on a piece of major legislation. Legislating is never prettycertainly passage of the Affordable Care Act was notbut there are norms usually respected by both sides. In recent weeks, those norms went out the window as Republicans struggled to fulfill a seven-year promise that is as internally divisive as it is elusive.

The effort was transparently cynical as Republicans grasped for something, anything, that might collect the 50 votes needed to keep alive what has proved to be their futile hope of getting rid of Obamacare. The measure from the House was dead on arrival in the Senate. Nothing cooked up behind closed doors under Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., worked, either.

In desperation, the Republican leaders turned to a vehicle that no serious member of Congress believed could work. Hours before the critical vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., correctly branded the skinny repeal for what it was. The skinny bill as policy is a disaster, he said. The skinny bill as a replacement for Obamacare is a fraud. Nonetheless, Graham voted for it on the pretext that it would keep the effort alive.

McCain had joined Graham in lamenting the skinny bills deficiencies, and when the time came, he acted on his words. He had drawn criticism Tuesday when he returned to the Senate for the first time after being diagnosed with brain cancer and cast the deciding vote to begin debate on the bill.

Congressional leaders are now left to pick up the pieces of a shattered and demoralizing process. Whats next no one can say. There will be angry words about the maverick from Arizona from some of his colleagues and from conservatives who have never trusted him. The president, who had disparaged McCain in the early days of his candidacy in 2015, has now felt the sting of payback.

From the very beginning, it was clear that the fate of the Trump administration lay in the hands of the Senate Republicans, Ross Baker, a political science professor at Rutgers University, said in an email Friday. The Republican senators dutifully but often reluctantly did his bidding, but now they must come to the realization that he is not worthy of the loyalty he demanded.

He went on to say, With the debris of the Obamacare repeal effort still in view, the survivors need to regroup and rebuild armed with a set of bipartisan blueprints.

There will be much talk about the need to work toward bipartisanship. There are examples: Congress just sent Trump, with overwhelming support from both parties, a tough sanctions bill aimed at Russia that puts the president on the spot. On health care and perhaps other upcoming issues, Republicans may have to swallow their pride to achieve successes. Democrats, who have had the luxury of claiming they want to work with Republicans without actually having to do so, will have to make good their words.

For seven years, Republicans have lived what turned out to be a fiction. They have many complaints about Obamacare. They have words that work in political ads and in their innumerable appearances before the cameras. But they have no solution. They may keep trying, but if they return to the scheming that got them to the moment of spectacular collapse early Friday, they will expose themselves once again to searing criticism.

At the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue, things are just as bad, though the departure of Priebus and the arrival of Kelly offers the possibility of a reset moment of the kind that now appears possible for Congress. Since Inauguration Day, the Trump administration has been rife with factionalism, built to be undisciplined by a president who lacks discipline. The boisterous arrival of Scaramucci, a New York financier and Trump loyalist, has managed in a single week to make things so much worse.

Scaramuccis expletive-filled rant to the New Yorkers Ryan Lizza took all the backroom maneuvering and senior-level backstabbing and put it on full public display. His attacks on Priebus and chief strategist Stephen Bannon left little room for reconciliation. His broader threats show a lack of true understanding of how government works.

Scaramucci tried to wash away his remarks by claiming that he sometimes uses colorful language and that he will try to do better. What he doesnt understand is that it was more than the words that shocked; it was the attitude and the posture he struck and has struck since being named to the White House staff.

Max Stier, president and chief executive of the Partnership for Public Service, said there are many inadequacies in the executive branch that predate Trump, including some caused by congressional inaction.

Its important not to put it all on his plate. These are things that predated him but are getting worse under his tenure, Stier said. Trump is trying to use the model he followed as a businessman and developer, a model not suited to running the federal government, Stier said. It appears as if everything is being run through one small pipe, he said. President Trump and set of decision-makers are trying to address everything of importance in the federal government themselves. . . . So far, it doesnt seem to me they are learning the right lessons.

The White House cant continue to operate this way, at least not in the true interests of the country or even those of Trumps core supporters. In just a week, the president has made it almost untenable for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to stay in the job, drawing concerns that Trumps ultimate target is Robert Mueller III, the special counsel charged with investigating possible links between the Trump campaign and Russia.

This was not the fault of the chief of staff. It is illustrative of the problem that now falls into Kellys lap.

The problem of dysfunction extends to other parts of the executive branch. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke threatened Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan of Alaska by implying that Murkowskis vote not to proceed with debate on health care could jeopardize federal support for the state, according to the Alaska Dispatch News.

The State Department, by every account, is not functioning well under Secretary Rex Tillerson. The reaction to Trumps transgender military ban shows that the relationship between the White House and the Defense Department is tense. Politicos Susan Glasser reported that the national security apparatus under H.R. McMaster is not running smoothly and that Trump is not happy about it.

Congress will soon depart for its annual August recess. Trump and Republican lawmakers had hoped to arrive at the summer break with a record of accomplishment, at the least with a significant down payment on the promises of the 2016 campaign. Instead, they face the bleak prospect of knowing that they have failed on their signature pledge on health care, that other legislative business remains unfinished and that the White House faces uncertain days.

The president has kept one big promise, which was to disrupt the capital. But it has not worked out quite like he and the Republicans expected.
From Counterpunch

Notice how more frequently we hear scientists tell us that we're "wholly unprepared" for this peril or for that rising fatality toll? Turning away from such warnings may reduce immediate tension or anxiety, but only weakens the public awareness and distracts us from addressing the great challenges of our time, such as calamitous climate change, pandemics, and the rise of a host of other self-inflicted disasters.

Here are some warnings about rising and looming risks.

* The opioid epidemic is here now, and poised to become further exacerbated. It is the US's deadliest drug overdose crisis ever, taking over 1,000 lives a week. Even that figure is underestimated, according to a report by the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). These fatalities, many of them affecting people in the prime of their life, stem from legally prescribed drugs taken to relieve chronic pain. Tragically ironic!

Congress is figuring out how to budget for many billions of dollars to combat this toll -- much greater than the deaths by traffic crashes or AIDS. Republican and Democratic state officials are suing the drug companies for excessive, misleading promotion for profit. Still, the awful toll keeps rising.

* Cyberattacks and cyberwarfare are increasingly becoming a facet of daily life. Although IBM and other firms are trying to develop more effective defenses, the current scale of cyberattacks is "crazy," according to specialist Christopher Ahlberg. As he said in a recent interview with the Wall Street Journal, "If you told anybody 10 years ago about what's going on now, they wouldn't believe it."

Negotiations are not even underway for a cyber-warfare treaty among nations. The sheer scale and horrific implications of this weaponry seems to induce societies to bury their heads in the sand. Former ABC TV host of Nightline, Ted Koppel, discusses this emerging threat in his recent, acclaimed book, "Lights Out: A Cyber-attack, A Nation Unprepared":

"Imagine a blackout lasting not days but weeks or months. There would be no running water, no sewage, no electric heat, refrigeration, or light. Food and medical supplies would dwindle. Banks would not function. The devices we rely on would go dark. The fact is, one well-placed attack on the electrical grid could cripple much of our infrastructure. Leaders across government, industry and the military know this...yet there is no national plan for the aftermath."

Former Secretary of Defense and CIA Director, Leon Panetta, says Koppel's book is "an important wake-up call for America." Yet neither he nor the enormous military-industrial complex, of which he remains a supportive part, are doing much of anything about this doomsday threat to national security. The big manufacturers are too busy demanding ever more taxpayer money for additional nukes, aircraft carriers, submarines, fighter planes, missiles and other weaponry of an increasingly bygone age.

* "The World is Not Ready for the Next Pandemic," headlined a recent Time Magazine article. The authors note that the "US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ranks H7N9 as the flu strain with the greatest potential to cause a pandemic -- an infectious disease outbreak that goes global." They predict the disease could claim "tens of millions" of lives.

In between his Twitter-tantrums, President Trump approved an insanely myopic proposed budget cut of over $1 billion in the CDC's programs used to predict and combat rising pandemics from China, African countries and elsewhere. Fortunately cooler heads may prevail in Congress, backed by some private foundations.

The number of new diseases per decade, Time reports, has increased nearly fourfold over the past 60 years. Antibiotics are being overridden by adaptive mutations of bacteria. Dr. Trevor Mundel of the Gates Foundation, asserts, "There's just no incentive for any company to make pandemic vaccines to store on shelves." That profit-driven rejection is exactly why government must act to produce the drugs, as the Department of Defense it has successfully done with new anti-malaria drugs in the seventies and eighties.

University of Minnesota Professor Michael Osterholm, one of the nation's leading experts on infectious diseases, warns that for all our world-class scientists and high-tech isolation units, the US health care system is not ready for the stresses of a major pandemic. Not even close.

* It isn't just Elon Musk, founder of the Tesla company, who is warning that the advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is "the greatest risk we face as a civilization." In 2015, hundreds of other scientists, like renowned physicist Stephen Hawking, and technologists, like Steve Wozniak, signed a public letter that was a one-day story, instead of an alarmed world turning it into a galvanizing event. Professor Hawking warns us: "Success in creating Artificial Intelligence would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks. In the near term, world militaries are considering autonomous-weapon systems that can choose and eliminate targets." We humans, Hawking adds, "are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete and would be superseded by AI." In short, the robots race out of control, become self-actuating and are not held back by any moral boundaries.

From Lincoln to Einstein, we have been counseled that new situations require new thinking. A massive reversal of our world's priorities toward reverence for life and posterity, toward diplomacy and waging peace, toward legal and ethical frameworks for exploding science and technology (including biotechnology and nanotechnology) must receive our focus, from families nurturing their children to the philosophers, ethical specialists, engineers and scientists pausing from their exponential discoveries to ponder the serious adverse consequences of their creations.

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Give me your money or your life.

(Image by Sandy Qumbayah) Details DMCA



Ok kiddies. I refer to those of you out there who still believe in A) Santa Claus and B) This Two Party System of Government. Why? Well, for those of us who study what is called A) Truth and B) Facts that prove it, no one has ever seen either Santa Claus or this two party system of government being really adversarial on the key issues that go against this Military Industrial Empire.

Of course the major case in point has always been the race by the two parties to see who can spend more of your tax money on military spending to maintain our phony wars overseas and the 1000 bases there---in over 100 different countries. We'll leave that one for another day and another of my already over 100 columns on that subject. Let's stick with the healthcare fiasco.

Reference point: Obama's sellout to the private insurers, Big Pharma and the entire healthcare industry, better known as ObamaCare. In 2009, upon assuming office, Barack had the opportunity, using what is referred to as the ' bully pulpit', to publicize to Americans the need for what was labeled 'The Public Option' or AKA Medicare for All (who choose it ). This would allow anyone under 65 to have the choice to join the same plan that we seniors have: Medicare.

Now, this writer has been on Medicare for a few brief years, and knows it is not as viable as could be. It still has these sharks, AKA private insurers basically handling things, and then getting reimbursed by Uncle Sam. They still have the weight to deny many surgical procedures by insisting that doctors and patients who wish something done to 'jump through hoops' first.

Yet, compared to what this writer had previously, Medicare as it now is can be a blessing. The ability to go to specialists for a fair co-pay, and to have those surgeries for maybe a fraction of the old costs through private insurance, or medicines at much better prices than before is a giant step forward!

Well, Obama caved in, along with his (so called) progressive Democratic Party colleagues, and allowed this Affordable Care Act to keep the private insurers basically active and predatory. There were still very high deductibles (duh, like $3000 - $ 5000 in many instances) and premiums still rose. If you were under 65 and could not afford $6000 and up for decent coverage, then you settled for an inferior plan that still cost you $4000 or so a year. A friend of mine 56 could only afford a hospitalization plan which still costs her over $3000 a year. When she had an incident at an Urgent Care facility, and she passed out due to a deep cut, the ambulance and the emergency room has her still paying off the $2000 bill now 18 months later!

Now we have the (bought and paid for) Congress, run by the Republicans, hammering out a plan which is worse than even, Obama's plan. We know that under the Affordable Care Act millions of low income working stiffs did get coverage that they never before could get. These were folks who did NOT qualify for Medicaid, but the plan they did get was no Oasis. Yet, better than nothing, right?

Alas, for the rest of we working stiffs, whose earnings though paltry, did not qualify us for the discounted or free coverage under ObamaCare, had to go onto plans as explained above: mostly mediocre coverage with those insanely high deductibles etc.

The Republican plan will be even more reactionary than Obama's. Ok, so where is the so called adversarial Democratic Party during this fiasco? We know that their Congressional mouthpiece, Ms. Pelosi, already has determined that 'Medicare for All' is NOT on the table. Remember, this was the same (super-rich, by the way) lady who said the same thing about the call for hearings on the run up to the invasion of Iraq, to hold the Bush gang accountable: "It's not on the table."

What really cracks this writer up, and another reason why I did NOT support' Feel the Bern' for president, was his appearance on CNN's Anderson (serve the empire) Cooper show Tuesday evening. The interview was about the Republican Health Care fiasco bill. 'Feel the Bern ' had the great 'bully pulpit' opportunity to trumpet the need for 'Medicare for All'. Instead, like the good Democratic soldier he really is, he copped out and ranted about how we must save the Affordable Care Act, admitting it was NOT the best bill, but only needed some altering here and there. No mention of what millions of us out there are now being enlightened about, which is the need for an extension of Medicare for all of us, with each of us under 65 to contribute via taxes... still much LESS than buying into private health insurance with its high deductibles and high co pays etc.

With this current two party - one party empire neither group will ever 'drain the swamp', rather 'swamp the drain' of true governmental protection and oversight. Please folks, remember this for all you 'Free market' advocates: A Medicare for All system need not outlaw or legislate out private insurance---only compete with it for your support.
A Deputy Minister for Local Government and Rural Development (MLGRD), Mr Augustine Collins Ntim, has given metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies (MMDAs) a two-month ultimatum to come up with one or two cash crops with a budget that will support between 10,000 and 20,000 farmers to each cultivate an average of 10 acres within the next four years.



He challenged the MMDAs to recruit 100 young people in their districts who would be trained to support the farmers to plant seedlings of crops under the Planting for Food and Jobs initiative.



Mr Ntim urged them to establish seed banks in the various electoral areas that would raise improved and high yielding varieties of seedlings as approved for the district to be distributed to the farmers.



He was speaking at a sensitisation meeting on the establishment of the District Chamber of Agriculture, Commerce and Technology (DCACT) at Abesim, near Sunyani.



MLGRD collaboration



The MLGRD, in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovations and the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, intends to set up the DCACT to spearhead governments technological, entrepreneurial, commercial and agribusiness initiatives through the MMDAs.



The 13-member DCACT was established to enhance governments drive for industrial revolution through various districts with the mandate to promote agribusiness to facilitate an interface between the private and public sector at the district level.



The meeting brought together key stakeholders such as MDCEs, municipal and districts directors, directors of agriculture, planning and budget officers.



It was also to provide the participants with information on the procedures, merits of the DCACT and the Planting for Food and Jobs and other investment programmes of the government.



The MMDAs are expected to submit their project proposals in alignment with the medium-term development plan and in consultation with the department of agriculture for consideration.



The seven identified crops under the Planting for Food and Jobs include cashew, shea butter, mango, citrus, cocoa, rubber, oil palm and coconut.



Two million farmers



Mr Ntim said more than two million farmers would be registered and supported under the initiative.



He also explained that the project sought to position the country as a leading producer of cocoa and cashew in the world in the next four to 10 years and added that 50 districts had been identified for the production of cashew nuts.



The Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture in charge of Crops, Mr Sagri Bambagi, disclosed that available evidence suggested that only 11 per cent of maize farmers in Ghana used improved seeds for cultivation.



According to him, the seed industry in the country is seriously facing challenges due to the neglected investment in improved seed and agriculture.



Mr Bambagi expressed worry about the countrys inability to improve on the various seeds for farmers to support them to increase their yields and pledged to team up with the other ministries to put interventions and programmes in place to improve the varieties of seeds in the country.

Source: Daily Graphic









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President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo-Addo has called on Spain to partner Ghana in executing its agenda of transforming into a country of growth, opportunities and prosperity.



He said Ghana's favourable economic and business climate provided several avenues of investment interests which could be developed for the mutual benefit of the two countries.



President Akufo-Addo made the call when the outgoing Spanish Ambassador to Ghana, Ms Maria Jesus Alonso, paid a farewell call on him at the Flagstaff House in Accra yesterday.



Flagship programmes



With the focus to make the countrys economy dependent on partnerships and equity investments, President Akufo-Addo said the governments flagship policies such as the one-district, one-factory, one-village, one-dam and the planting for food and jobs project were areas of possible investment for Spain's business community.



The President expressed gratitude to Spain for the support it had offered Ghana, particularly in the area of potable water delivery.



He also thanked Spain for providing support in the fight against piracy in the Gulf of Guinea, saying that Spain had a role to play in the security of the West African sub-region.



The President said Ghana and Spain had good economic relations spanning 50 years and added that both countries had a lot to contribute to each other to further boost their ties.



Taking relations higher



In response, Ms Alonso said though she was sad to leave Ghana, she would continue to ensure that the relations and co-operation between the two countries were taken a notch higher.



She gave plaudits to the governments quest to engage more of the private sector in the quest to bring vibrancy into the economy and said she looked forward to a better economic relationship between Spain and Ghana.



The outgoing envoy pledged to convey the President's request to Spains and private sector leaders, to increase their volume of investment in Ghana.



Since 2009, the number of Spanish companies in Ghana has increased from 14 to 46, an indication that more are looking to invest in the country, she said.



Nigerien Ambassador



Earlier, the outgoing Nigerien Ambassador to Ghana, Ms Dan Nana Icha, also called on the President to bid him farewell after a three-year duty tour of Ghana.



She used the opportunity to call for the revival of the joint commission between the two countries for their mutual economic benefit.

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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Latest Linux Hardware Reviews, Open-Source News & Benchmarks

AMD Makes More Updates Around New Radeon GPU Driver Code In Linux 6.2 7 Hours Ago - Radeon - AMDGPU Linux 6.2 Following last week's batch of AMDGPU/AMDKFD changes slated for Linux 6.2, on Friday another round of feature patches were sent in for DRM-Next ahead of the Linux 6.2 cycle. There is continued work around new IP blocks presumably for RDNA3 and MI300 graphics while given the more modularized development approach with block-by-block enablement makes it harder to ascertain the current status.

Mageia 9 Alpha 1 Released With A Smaller Footprint, Many Updates 9 Hours Ago - Operating Systems - Mageia 9 It's been a year and a half already since the release of Mageia 8 for this Linux distribution whose roots trace back to Mandriva and before that the legendary Mandrake. Mageia 9 will be out as the next iteration of this desktop Linux distro in the months ahead while this weekend there is the release of Mageia 9 Alpha 1.

KDE Makes It Easier To Set Environment Variables, Fixes Vertically-Arranged Displays 9 Hours Ago - KDE - KDE This Week KDE developers remain very busy working on driving improvements for what will be the Plasma 5.27 release next year and also enhancing the various applications on the KDE desktop.

11 November

AMD AOCC 4.0 Arrives For Squeezing More Performance Out Of Zen 4 11 November 04:00 PM EST - Software On Thursday when launching AMD 4th Gen EPYC Genoa processors, AMD also published AOCC 4.0 as the newest version of the AMD Optimizing C/C++ Compiler. I've been putting it through its paces the past day and continues showing the positive performance impact of proper compiler tuning.

Google Releases Lyra 1.3 For Advancing This Very Low Bitrate Audio Codec 11 November 09:00 AM EST - Google - Lyra 1.3 In early 2021 Google announced Lyra as a very low bitrate codec intended for speech with aims of getting Lyra and AV1 possible for video chats on 56 kbps connections.

AMD P-State EPP Driver Updated For More Power/Performance Control On Linux 11 November 07:00 AM EST - AMD - AMD P-State EPP Back in September AMD posted the Linux driver patches for P-State EPP as their latest effort to improve the power efficiency of Ryzen and EPYC processors. Sent out this week is now the fourth iteration of those CPU frequency scaling driver patches.

Rust Developers Move Ahead With Preparing To Upstream More Code Into The Linux Kernel 11 November 05:36 AM EST - Linux Kernel - More Rust In The Kernel With the upcoming Linux 6.1 kernel release there is the initial Rust infrastructure merged for enabling the use of the Rust programming language for future kernel drivers and other kernel code. But that state in Linux 6.1 is the very basics and not yet practical while now a secondary sent of "Rust for Linux" patches have been sent out for enabling more kernel development to happen with Rust.

LibreOffice Enables RISC-V 64-bit Support 11 November 05:15 AM EST - RISC-V - LibreOffice + RISC-V If the royalty free open-source processor ISA RISC-V is to enjoy success on the Linux desktop, obviously it needs an office suite... LibreOffice as the open-source office suite alternative to Microsoft Office is now seeing proper RISC-V 64-bit support.

10 November

AMD EPYC 9554 & EPYC 9654 Benchmarks - Outstanding Performance For Linux HPC/Servers 10 November 02:30 PM EST - Processors After showcasing the AMD EPYC 9004 "Genoa" series and geeking out over AMD's reference platform running the Linux-powered open-source OpenBMC, it's time to move on to benchmarking. For evaluating the EPYC Genoa performance under Linux, AMD kindly provided review samples of the EPYC 9654 flagship 96-core processor, the EPYC 9554 64-core processor, and the EPYC 9374F 32-core high frequency CPU. In today's benchmark review I am looking at the EPYC 9554/9654 CPUs while the EPYC 9374F will be featured in its own review in the coming days on Phoronix.

AMD's EPYC 9004 "Genoa" Reference Board Runs The Open-Source OpenBMC 10 November 02:30 PM EST - Motherboards For as exciting and performant as AMD 4th Gen EPYC "Genoa" series processors are with up to 96 cores, AVX-512, and the other impressive Zen 4 enhancements, there was something else subtle that got me really excited with Genoa... AMD's "Titanite" reference board for Genoa is running the open-source, Linux-powered OpenBMC!

AMD Launches EPYC 9004 "Genoa" Processors - Up To 96 Cores, AVX-512, Incredible Performance 10 November 02:30 PM EST - Processors Following September's successful launch of the AMD Ryzen 7000 series "Zen 4" desktop processors, today AMD is lifting the embargo on their EPYC 9004 series "Genoa" server processors. EPYC Genoa takes AMD server processors to the new SP5 socket, up to 96 cores / 192 threads per socket, AVX-512 with Zen 4, twelve channels of DDR5 system memory, and much more -- all combined it puts AMD and the industry at new levels of HPC performance. I've been benchmarking the AMD EPYC Genoa processors the past few weeks to astounding success. This article is looking more at the feature set and platform for Genoa while separately are my initial AMD EPYC 9554 / EPYC 9654 Linux review and benchmarks.

PipeWire 0.3.60 Released With Many Fixes, Improvements 10 November 08:14 AM EST - PipeWire - PipeWire 0.3.60 PipeWire 0.3.60 is out today as the newest update to this software used for managing audio and video streams on Linux. With modern Linux distributions PipeWire is increasingly used now as the replacement to PulseAudio in addition to its video capabilities.

Mesa Adds Initial Support For Open-Source OpenGL On NVIDIA RTX 30 "Ampere" 10 November 06:00 AM EST - Nouveau - Ampere OpenGL While NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 "Ada Lovelace" GPUs are shipping, the Nouveau Linux driver stack for open-source support on NVIDIA hardware is finally getting ready to provide basic OpenGL support for the existing RTX 30 "Ampere" graphics processors.

AMDVLK 2022.Q4.2 Brings More Performance Tuning 10 November 05:15 AM EST - Radeon - AMDVLK 2022.Q4.2 Following AMDVLK 2022.Q4.1 from late October, AMDVLK 2022.Q4.2 is now available as AMD's latest official open-source Vulkan Linux driver update for both gamers and enterprise customers.

Linux 6.2 To Introduce Allwinner A100 & D1 Display Support 10 November 05:05 AM EST - Linux Kernel - drm-misc-next Sent out today was this week's batch of "drm-misc-next" code containing Direct Rendering Manager updates to the core infrastructure and smaller drivers of material that is ready for queuing ahead of the Linux 6.2 cycle.

Fedora Workstation Bringing Early Support For Blender On Wayland 10 November 04:39 AM EST - Fedora - Blender + Wayland On Fedora While the release next month of Blender 3.4 is planning to ship with Wayland enabled, Fedora Linux 37 users are expected to soon find their packaged Blender versions already running with the Wayland support enabled.

9 November

Fwupd 1.8.7 Released With Linux Firmware Updating Support For More Hardware 9 November 12:07 PM EST - LVFS - fwupd 1.8.7 Fwupd 1.8.7 is out today with support for updating more device firmware under Linux for different hardware as well as various fixes and other enhancements.

Intel Introduces Xeon Max & Data Center GPU Max Series 9 November 09:00 AM EST - Processors With SC2022 kicking off next week and AMD set to unveil their next-generation server processors tomorrow, Intel is using today to announce the Xeon Max Series and the Data Center GPU Max Series.

NVIDIA Proposing New Linux API For Dynamic Mux Switching With Modern Dual-GPU Laptops 9 November 05:49 AM EST - NVIDIA - Dynamic Mux Switching While the VGA_Switcheroo has long been part of the Linux kernel for laptops with hybrid (dual GPU) graphics for switching between the GPUs on platforms with a hardware mux switch, this current API has been found to be ineffective for the latest laptops like those with "NVIDIA Advanced Optimus" support. Thus NVIDIA is working on and proposing a new Linux user-space API around dynamic mux switching.

Fedora 38 To Modernize Its Live Media Creation 9 November 04:42 AM EST - Fedora - Modernize Fedora Live Media In addition to Fedora 38 looking at creating Phosh images for mobile devices, Fedora developers now have clearance to go ahead and overhaul how their Fedora Linux live images are assembled.

8 November

Intel Releases November 2022 CPU Microcode For Various Functional Issues 8 November 07:28 PM EST - Intel - New Intel CPU Microcode Intel today published their "20221108" CPU microcode collection alongside announcing various security disclosures for the quarter. Fortunately on the CPU microcode side, the changes are all focused on functional issues.

AMD Joins The Cloud Hypervisor Project Started By Intel 8 November 02:00 PM EST - Intel - AMD + Cloud Hypervisor Over the past three years one of Intel's many promising open-source software projects has been the Rust-written Cloud Hypervisor. Cloud Hypervisor started as just a modern, security-focused, cloud-centric Rust VMM hypervisor for modern hardware/software. It began as just one of many open-source software projects at Intel but last year was folded into the Linux Foundation umbrella while Intel continues to be a major contributor to the project. Coming as a bit of a surprise today is AMD announcing they have joined the Cloud Hypervisor project.

Fedora 38 Looking At A Phosh Image For Mobile Devices 8 November 12:30 PM EST - Fedora - Fedora Mobility With Phosh It looks like Fedora could be taking on more mobile ambitions with a Phosh image now proposed for running that Wayland shell focused on smartphones and tablets while delivering a good GNOME-based experience. Separately, a change proposal is expected for also introducing a Fedora Linux image with KDE Plasma Mobile.

NVIDIA Makes The PhysX 5.1 SDK Open-Source 8 November 10:17 AM EST - NVIDIA - Open-Source PhysX Back in 2019 NVIDIA open-sourced the PhysX 4.1 SDK and was working on a PhysX 5.0 open-source code drop while we haven't heard anything more on the matter in the past two years. Coming out this morning as a surprise is the NVIDIA PhysX 5.1 SDK open-source release.

ASRock X670E PG Lightning - Nice AMD Zen 4 Motherboard For $250 USD 8 November 10:00 AM EST - Motherboards When it comes to new AMD AM5 motherboards featuring an X670 series chipset, one of the cheapest options right now is the ASRock X670E PG Lightning that retails for around $249 USD. I picked up one of these motherboards at launch and has been working out well on Linux for those wanting to build a cost-minded AMD Zen 4 desktop system.

Mesa Developers Eye Removing Clover Once Rusticl OpenCL Code Hits Parity 8 November 08:00 AM EST - Mesa - Rusticl Wins New to the upcoming Mesa 22.3 release is Rusticl as a Rust-written OpenCL implementation for Mesa drivers. Rusticl supports OpenCL 3.0, handles OpenCL images and other features, works with multiple drivers, and is modern and maintained. Already among Mesa developers is a discussion that has begun around removing the older "Clover" OpenCL Gallium3D implementation once Rusticl has firmly hit parity with that older, unmaintained state tracker.

Big Nouveau Driver Update For Linux 6.2 To Improve Open-Source NVIDIA Support 8 November 06:30 AM EST - Nouveau - Nouveau For Linux 6.2 It's been a long time since there has been much in the way of notable Nouveau DRM driver changes merged to the Linux kernel for improving the open-source NVIDIA graphics support. Fortunately, that is changing with Linux 6.2 set to receive a rather big update.

Annoying AMD Linux Graphics Driver Crashes With "Timed Out Fences" Has A Fix Coming 8 November 05:54 AM EST - Radeon - Fences Timing Out Crash Since the Linux 5.19 kernel there have been many reports on Twitter, Reddit, or forums, and elsewhere over open-source AMD Radeon driver users experiencing crashes that often then appear in the kernel log around fences timing out. A fix for this show-stopping bug for AMD gamers looks like it will be coming to the Linux 6.2 kernel.

Linux's New Compute Accelerator Framework Quickly Taking Shape 8 November 05:36 AM EST - Linux Kernel - Compute Accelerator Subsystem Towards the end of October there finally came about a patch series fleshing out the "accel" subsystem for the Linux kernel in preparing this new subsystem/framework that builds atop the Direct Rendering Manager (DRM) code and is designed for all the up and coming AI accelerator drivers for the kernel. Given the number of accelerator drivers from different vendors eyeing mainline kernel adoption, this new compute accelerator framework is quickly being formed.

NVK Vulkan Driver Starting Work On New Compiler 8 November 05:17 AM EST - Nouveau - NVK Compiler The NVK open-source NVIDIA Vulkan driver that was started earlier this year and has been progressing nicely the past few months is starting to see work now on its own shader compiler where as up to this point has been relying on existing Nouveau Mesa code for code generation.

7 November

Old AMD CPU & Motherboard Support Removed From Open-Source Coreboot 7 November 03:36 PM EST - AMD - Deprecated Code, Now Removed Upstream Coreboot has phased out support for older AMD 14h / 15h / 16h series processors and associated motherboards.

More Development Activity Ticking Up Around Vulkan For Blender 7 November 09:00 AM EST - Vulkan - Blender + Vulkan There has long been plans for supporting the Vulkan API with the Blender 3D modelling open-source software but there has been a lack of developers working on it. Fortunately, things are starting to (slowly) come together on Vulkan enablement for Blender.

Some AMD RDNA3 Fixes Land In Mesa Git Ahead Of December's Radeon RX 7900 Series Launch 7 November 06:55 AM EST - Radeon - Mesa Fixes With the AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT / RX 7900 XTX having been announced last week and set to ship on 13 December, it's down to crunch time for ensuring that the open-source Linux driver support is in shape. Unlike on the Windows side where it's just expected of the user to navigate to AMD.com and download a convenient driver installer, on Linux that's not exactly the case. AMD will likely have their Radeon Software for Linux driver package on their website but that is limited in scope to their few supported enterprise/LTS Linux distributions supported, while most gamers/enthusiasts will be left wondering about the Linux kernel and Mesa versioning requirements.

The Linux Kernel Has Been Forcing Different Behavior For Processes Starting With "X" 7 November 05:56 AM EST - Linux Kernel - Ugly Hack An ugly hack within the Linux kernel that has been in mainline for over three years has been called out. Due to a buggy X.Org Server / xf86-video-modesetting DDX, the Linux kernel has been imposing different behavior on whether a process starts with "X" and in turn disable the atomic mode-setting support.

Intel Preparing HDMI 2.1 FRL For Their Linux Driver, Native HDMI 2.1 For Meteor Lake 7 November 05:38 AM EST - Intel - Native HDMI 2.1 For Meteor Lake With next-generation Meteor Lake CPUs the integrated graphics are set to have native HDMI 2.1 display capabilities. Intel's open-source Linux kernel driver has begun those HDMI 2.1 preparations and sent out today were early patches for enabling HDMI 2.1 Fixed Rate Link (FRL).

Intel RAO-INT Added To GCC 13, Grand Ridge & Granite Rapids CPU Targets Ready 7 November 05:23 AM EST - Intel - Intel For GCC 13 Intel compiler engineers continue being very busy working to land as much of the new CPU feature support as they can into GCC 13 for what is the next annual compiler release that will debut as GCC 13.1 in the early months of 2023.
XTRA Airways, a Florida-based airline charter service, could potentially establish a new aviation service link between Guam and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, adding a new service option for customers.

According to an application filed at the U.S. Department of Transportation, XTRA Airways seeks to establish an air link between Guam and CNMI. Another proposed link would service customers between CNMI and Tianjin and Hangzhou, China.

XTRA Airways intends to start providing air service in 2017 to both routes, according to their DOT application.

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While XTRA Airways could potentially add Guam to its list of service routes within a few months, the company is seeking to start operating flights between the CNMI and the two major locations in China.

Our focus right now is starting operations for the CNMI and to focus on the CNMI market first before extending flight service to Guam, said Charles H. Ada II, Guam International Airport Authority executive manager.

Once that is set up and running, then we can sit down and talk about setting up the flights between Guam and Saipan, Ada said during a recent airport authority board meeting.

The airline has been actively recruiting staff for its new routes, both through active face-to-face recruitment and online employment channels.

XTRA Airways, with headquarters in Coral Gables, Florida, has been servicing the commercial airline charter market since 1989. The carrier is owned by AerSale, a global supplier of commercial aircraft and engines.

According to corporate website information, the company operates a modern fleet of Boeing 737-400 and 737-800 aircraft.

As a growing regional hub, the A.B Won Pat International Airport terminal has been actively expanding its airline network throughout the years to support an increasing volume of passenger traffic. In recent years, the airport has seen a proliferation of low-cost carriers providing a cheaper alternative to travelers.

In total, the airport services more than 3.55 million arriving, departing and transit passengers on an annual basis, according to a recent report from airport authority.

As of 2016, about 16 carriers pass through A.B Won Pat International Airport, transporting passengers to various destinations. These carriers connect the island to more than 24 direct points of origin all over the region, according to the report.
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.




Amman, Jordan (July 2017) - Simit Saray, which spreads delicacies to the 4 continents of the world, greeted the Jordanians with hello through opening the first store in Amman, the capital of Jordan.

By: TRACCS jordan

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-- Continuing investments without slowing down; the growing world brand Simit Saray has added a new ring to the chain of flavours in the countries of the four continents. The Simit Saray Store, which received a great deal of attention since it opened its doors, received a full mark from its guests, with the Jordanian Partnership, Fashion Retail Corner, which is a lifestyle company that owns and operate some of the leading franchise concepts, in addition to restaurants & coffee shops across Jordan.Simit Saray, which hosts its guests in Amman at The Galleria Mall, is becoming the stop point for those who want to have a pleasant time at the same time.Abdullah Kavukcu, Chairman of the Executive Board of Simit Saray, indicated that Simit Saray's tastes have become indispensable in Middle East. Kavukcu said, "As Simit Saray; today, we are proud of being delighted our tastes to every culture and every geography of the world. Kavukcu, who indicated that Simit Saray has exported products with high value added by saying: "We will be entering new markets soon. Our investments will continue in our existing markets. We will open 100 stores abroad, 75 stores in domestic until end of this year."
Force0six and Minnesota Ketamine Clinic

Media Contact

Jake Bastien, Founder and CEO

Force0six, LLC

info@force0six.com Jake Bastien, Founder and CEOForce0six, LLC

End

-- MN Ketamine Clinic, a clinical practice headquartered in Edina, Minnesota, has selected Force0six, a full-service internet marketing firm specializing in SEO, Google Adwords and Social Media Marketing, as its Internet Marketing agency.Force0six will lead the strategic planning efforts for Minnesota Ketamine Clinics digital marketing campaign providing radius targeted ads using Google Adwords as well as multiple social media outlets. They will also be tasked with the websites search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and monthly analytics. This cohesive digital marketing effort will draw in clients seeking this specialized treatment throughout the midwest including Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Wisconsin and beyond.Jake Bastien, CEO and Founder of Force0six stated,Dr. Gregory Simelgor completed his anesthesiology residency at the University of Minnesota and decided to expand his scope of practice and started the Minnesota Ketamine Clinic where he consults patients suffering from depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder. He uses recently discovered properties of a familiar medication ketamine to help patients in their fight with their debilitating illnesses. With his expertise in anesthesiology, Dr. Simelgor focuses on safe and effective ways of administering ketamine therapy in the outpatient setting.Force0six brings digital into all aspects of your business, from online channels, processes, and analytics to the operating model, incentives, and culture. Specialties include: Ecommerce Optimization & Analytics Digital Marketing Social Media Marketing Google Adwords Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Pay Per Click (PPC) Services
Several police officers were killed and injured in an attack on a checkpoint in the southern Afghanistan province of Helmand, officials said on July 29.

The details and casualty toll from the July 28 attack remain unclear, with reports indicating anywhere from two to 25 police officers being killed.

Attaullah Afghan, a member of the Helmand provincial council, said the attack took place in the district of Nawa, killing 12 officers and wounding 12 others.

Omar Zwak, a spokesman for the governor of Helmand Province, confirmed the attack but said only two police were killed while 10 others were wounded.

Tolo News cited local sources as saying 10 police officers were killed at the checkpoint in Samad Square in Nawa district.

The Taliban militant group claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their fighters had killed 25 local and national police.

Officials said Taliban fighters briefly took over the checkpoint but that it was retaken by Afghan security forces early on July 29.

The attack follows a July 26 Taliban-linked raid on a military base in which Afghanistan's Defense Ministry said 26 soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in the southern province of Kandahar.

The Taliban, former rulers of Afghanistan, were driven from power after a U.S.-led invasion following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States.

But since the U.S.-led coalition ended active combat operations in 2014, the militants have ramped up attacks on military bases across the country, challenging the thinly stretched domestic security forces.

The United States currently has about 8,400 troops in the country to help train Afghan forces, down from about 100,000 during the peak of its Afghan mission.

U.S. media have reported that U.S. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis will recommend sending another 3,000-5,000 troops to break what he has called a "stalemate" between government forces and the Taliban.

With reporting by dpa, AP, Tolo News, and Geo News
Exercise Noble Partner 2017 was launched on July 30 at the Vaziani military base near Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili attended the opening ceremony. A total of 2,800 soldiers from five NATO member countries (the United States, Britain, Germany, Turkey, and Slovenia) and three NATO partner countries (Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia) are taking part in the drills, which have seen U.S. and German heavy military machinery being deployed on Georgian soil for the first time. (RFE/RL's Georgian Service)
With Kyrgyzstan scheduled to hold its presidential vote on October 15, this week's Majlis looks at the unavoidable Russian influence on Kyrgyzstan's elections.

Russia is being accused of meddling in elections in the United States and in European countries, but the hand of the Kremlin has been felt in Kyrgyzstan's elections for some time now.

Muhammad Tahir, RFE/RL's media relations manager, moderated a discussion on Russia's role in Kyrgyzstan's previous elections and how candidates for the country's presidency are currently posturing themselves with Russia in mind.

Former Kyrgyz member of parliament Ravshan Jeenbekov participated in the talk from Bishkek. Taking part from the United States was Erica Marat, one of the leading authorities on Central Asia, who is currently teaching at the National Defense University's College of International Security Affairs. And I've been watching Kyrgyzstan's elections for a couple of decades now, so I had something to say also.

Listen to the podcast above or subscribe to the Majlis on iTunes.
Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov has said in an interview with a German newspaper that he may shut down the so-called Balkan route for migrants altogether later this year.

Ivanov told Der Spiegel in an interview published February 29 that when Austria reaches its limit of 37,500 migrant entries, Macedonia will close its border with Greece, effectively shutting down the Balkan route to northern Europe used by hundreds of thousands of migrants.

"When Austria reaches its limit, it will happen," he said, suggesting that could occur very soon, "perhaps right at this moment."

He added: "We need a political decision now. Soon it will be too late. The Austrian ceiling of 37,000 will be reached."

The interview was published on a day when Macedonia used tear gas and stun guns to repel an attempt by several hundred migrants to ram through the barbed-wire fence on its border with Greece.

WATCH: Migrants Try To Storm Greek-Macedonian Border

Macedonia already has imposed sharp cuts in the number of migrants it will allow to pass through to countries further north. It is rejecting Afghan migrants entirely and allowing transit for up to 580 people a day from other countries, mostly Syria and Iraq.

Ivanov's remarks reflect the view of most Balkan leaders that new restrictions they are placing on migrants are justified by curbs imposed by Austria, the follow-on destination of most of the migrants attempting to pass through.

Austria recently said it would accept no more than 80 asylum claims per day and cap the number of people seeking to cross its territory at 37,500 this year.

Some days, Macedonia, which has applied to join the European Union, has not allowed any migrants to enter from Greece, leaving thousands of people stranded in Greece.

Ivanov defended his government's border restrictions despite criticism from the United Nations, European Union, Amnesty International, and others that it violates international laws governing the treatment of asylum seekers.

"We can't wait until Brussels makes a decision. We have made our own decisions. In times of crisis, every country must find its own solutions," he said, adding that most Balkans leaders are taking their cue from Austria.

"The closing of the border to Greece was merely a reaction. Whenever a country to the north closes its borders, we follow suit," he said. "Macedonia made it clear that it would only be able to tolerate 2,000 migrants at a time making their way through the country. Macedonia may not be in the EU, but it is still behaving more responsibly than some EU member states."

"If we had waited for EU guidelines, Macedonia would have been flooded with refugees," he said.

Ivanov acknowledged that if Macedonia closes its door to migrants, they likely will seek to go through Albania or some other route.

"No one wants to stay in Greece, Macedonia, and Serbia," he said. "The goal of the refugees is Germany. They will find a path there. A dangerous path."

With reporting by AFP and Macedonian Information Agency
Many hundreds of protesters marched in the streets of Moldova's capital, Chisinau, on July 30 to denounce a new electoral law. The crowd chanted slogans such as "Thieves" and "We will not give up!" Critics say the legislative changes favor the country's two largest political parties while supporters of the new rules insist they will make politicians more accountable. Already signed by Moldovan President Igor Dodon, the law is due to be first applied in the next parliamentary elections in November 2018. (RFE/RL's Moldovan Service)
Hundreds of protesters rallied in Moldova after parliament approved controversial changes to the electoral system that critics say favors the country's two largest political parties.

Protesters carrying Moldovan and European Union flags gathered in front of the parliament building in the capital, Chisinau, on July 30.

Demonstrators in the former Soviet republic chanted "Thieves! Down with the dictatorship!"

Protesters have staged several rallies since lawmakers approved the changes on July 27, including lowering the threshold for political alliances to enter parliament, creating new constituencies, and requiring candidates to declare their assets.

Critics say the changes will squeeze out smaller parties and benefit the two main political players  the ruling pro-Western Democratic Party and the opposition pro-Russia Socialists. They also claim there was a lack of public debate and input before the vote.

The leaders of several small pro-European parties were expected to address the crowd.

There were no reports of violence at the rally.

Andrei Nastase, leader of the opposition Dignity and Truth Platform Party, has accused the Democratic Party of colluding with the Socialists in a "cartel" to squeeze out other groups.

The Venice Commission, a body which rules on rights and democracy disputes in Europe, has also voiced opposition, saying individual constituency lawmakers could come under pressure from business interests.

Supporters of the changes say the new rules will make politicians more accountable.

Moldova has had three governments since 2015, after the disappearance of $1 billion from the banking system sent the country into a political and economic crisis.

Moldova holds its next parliamentary elections in 2018.

With reporting by Reuters and AP
Pakistani police say at least eight people have been killed after a collision between a van and truck in the country's northwest.

Police said a speeding truck crashed into a van that was traveling from the city of Rawalpindi to Peshawar, the provincial capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province.

The van then hit the main gas pipeline in the area and a fire erupted, engulfing the van and all 13 passengers on board.

Emergency teams put out the fire and rescued the survivors.

Police said eight people were injured in the crash, with six in critical condition.

The injured were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment.

Based on reporting by Dawn and Geo TV


The U.S. State Department called Russian President Vladimir Putin's demand that U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia be slashed by 755 personnel "regrettable and uncalled for act" and said Washington was considering a possible response.

"We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it," a State Department statement said on July 30.

Putin's demand that the United States slash its staff in Moscow came amid an escalating row over new sanctions being planned by the U.S. Congress against Russia.

Speaking in an interview with Russian state television broadcast July 30, Putin said that more than a thousand U.S. diplomats and "support staff" are currently working in Russia, and that "755 must stop their activities."

Moscow ordered the reduction in U.S. diplomatic staff after U.S. lawmakers passed a bill that would impose additional sanctions on Russia and sent it to President Donald Trump for his signature.



The Russian response escalates tensions in the relationship between Washington and Moscow, which has been badly damaged by Russia's aggression in Ukraine, its role in the war in Syria, and its alleged interference in the U.S. presidential election in 2016.



Russia, meanwhile, has stepped up its accusations that Washington is trying to unjustly and "illegally" isolate it with sanctions and other measures.



The Russian Foreign Ministry said the U.S. sanctions legislation confirmed what it called the "extreme aggression" of the United States in international affairs.



Putin's announcement came two days after the White House said Trump would sign the bill, which would require him to seek congressional approval in order to ease sanctions against Moscow.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence told Fox News in a July 30 interview in Estonia, where he was on an official visit, that Trump had made it "very clear that very soon he will sign the sanctions."

"But at the same time, as we make our intentions clear, we expect Russian behavior to change," Pence said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry had previously said that Washington must reduce its diplomatic staff to 455 people by September 1.



The ministry said that is the number of Russian diplomats in the United States after Trump's predecessor, Barack Obama, expelled 35 Russian diplomats in December -- a response to alleged Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and ill-treatment of U.S. diplomats in Russia.

Initial news alerts -- including from Russia's state-run TASS news agency -- on July 30 said that Putin had ordered 755 U.S. diplomats to leave the country, though it later became clear he was talking about overall staff reductions at U.S. diplomatic facilities. Not all of the individuals ordered to cease their work would be U.S. citizens kicked out of the country.

It was not immediately clear how many reassignments the forced drawdown would entail at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and at the three U.S. consulates in Russia.

A 2013 report by the State Department Inspector General said that the U.S. Embassy in Moscow and the consulates in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg, and Vladivostok employed 1,279 staff, including 934 "locally employed" staff and 301 U.S. "direct-hire" staff.

A chart in the report gave a slightly different figure, indicating that there were a total of 1,200 staff, including 867 "foreign nationals." It did not say how many of those were Russian.

"Unless we brought in hundreds of Americans to build the new embassy [building, there is] no way that we have 700 Americans at [the] embassy," Michael McFaul, the U.S. ambassador to Russia in 2012-2014, wrote on Twitter.

The Russian Foreign Ministry also said earlier that, as of August 1, the United States would be barred from using warehouses that it has used in Moscow and from a modest property in the capital's leafy Serebryanny Bor district that is used by U.S. Embassy mainly for events such as parties and barbecues.



That move appeared to be a direct response to the Obama administration's decision to seize two Russian diplomatic compounds, one in Maryland and one in New York State, when it expelled the 35 diplomats in December.



Putin surprised many people in both countries by declining to retaliate immediately over the expelled diplomats and seized properties. The restraint was widely seen as a gesture to Trump, who was due to take office within weeks and had repeatedly said that he wanted to improve ties with Moscow.



Putin said in the July 30 interview that the reduced U.S. diplomatic presence would be "quite painful" and added that he did not expect ties with Washington to improve "any time soon."



"We have waited long enough, hoping that the situation would perhaps change for the better," he told the prominent Russian television host Vladimir Solovyov.



"But it seems that, even if the situation is changing, it's not for any time soon," Putin said.

With reporting by AFP, TASS, AP, The New York Times, Reuters, and Bloomberg
Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed controversial legislation prohibiting the use of Internet proxy services -- including virtual private networks, or VPNs -- and cracking down on the anonymous use of instant messaging services.



The law on proxy services, signed by Putin on July 29 and published by the government on July 30, was promoted by lawmakers who said it is needed to prevent the spread of extremist materials and ideas.



Critics say Putin's government often uses that justification to suppress political dissent.



Almost all of the changes under the law are set to take effect on November 1, months ahead of a March 2018 presidential election in which Putin is widely expected to seek and win a new six-year term.



Under the law, Internet providers will be ordered to block websites that offer VPNs and other proxy services. Russians frequently use such websites to access blocked content by routing connections through servers abroad.



A second law also signed by Putin on July 29 -- and published July 30 -- will require operators of instant messaging services, such as messenger apps, to establish the identity of those using the services by their phone numbers.



This law, set to take effect on January 1, 2018, will also require operators to restrict access to users at the authorities' request if the users are disseminating content deemed illegal in Russia.



Russian authorities in recent years have escalated efforts to prosecute Internet users for online content considered extremist or insulting to religious believers.



In one recent high-profile case, a Russian blogger was convicted of inciting hatred and insulting religious believers' feelings with videos he posted on YouTube -- including one showing him playing Pokemon Go in a church.



The blogger, Ruslan Sokolovsky, was handed a 3 1/2 year suspended sentence that was later reduced by more than a year.



Sokolovsky was also added to an official list of "terrorists and extremists" maintained by Russia's Federal Financial Monitoring Service.

With reporting by RIA-Novosti, TASS, Interfax, Meduza, and AP




Russia's state-funded international network RT says one of its correspondents has been killed in shelling by Islamic State (IS) forces in Syria.

The network said on July 30 that Khaled Alkhateb, 25, was killed while reporting earlier that day on the Syrian Army's operations against IS around the town of Sukhna, in the eastern part of the Homs Province.

"RT mourns the loss of its correspondent," the network said in a statement in Arabic.

It added that Alkhateb had recently started working with the network's Arabic-language channel, RT Arabic.

The Russian military is backing President Bashar al-Assad's forces in a six-year-old war against rebel groups and IS militants.

Moscow and a U.S.-led coalition support opposite sides in the Syrian war, though both oppose IS forces.

RT said a cameraman working with Alkhateb, Muutaz Yaqoub, suffered minor injuries in the shelling and was hospitalized in Homs.

A monitor said that Syrian government forces entered Sukhna, the last IS stronghold in Homs Province, on July 28 after militants started withdrawing.

Based on reporting by RT, AFP, Reuters, and AP
Ukrainian officials and local residents moved to stabilize conditions in the freshly recaptured southern city of Kherson, as Russian symbols were being torn down and with the restoration of Ukrainian radio and television service and a new police presence.

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.

The action on November 12 came after months of occupation by Russian forces following their unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February and as Ukrainian and Western officials hailed Kyivs latest extraordinary battlefield success and Moscows strategic failure.

As jubilant Kherson residents awoke the morning following the arrival of the first Ukrainian troops, Ukraines military said it was putting stabilization measures in place to ensure safety.

Ihor Klymenko, chief of the National Police of Ukraine, said about 200 officers were at their posts in Kherson and that checkpoints had been set up. Authorities also began seeking out any evidence of possible Russian war crimes, he said in a Facebook post.



The Ukrainian communications watchdog said national TV and radio broadcasts had resumed in the strategic southern city and officials said aid supplies had begun to arrive from nearby regions.

Social media postings on November 12 showed local residents removing memorial plaques put up by Kremlin-installed authorities during the occupation.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy and other officials warned that while special forces had entered central Kherson, the full deployment of Ukrainian troops was still under way and that some Russian soldiers could have shed military uniforms for civilian clothing and remained in the city.

Even when the city is not yet completely cleansed of the enemys presence, the people of Kherson themselves are already removing Russian symbols and any traces of the occupiers stay in Kherson from the streets and buildings, Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address.

But he said that medicine, communications, social services are returning. Life is returning.

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.

Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba, speaking to world leaders at an ASEAN summit in Cambodia, warned that the celebratory mood could turn grim with the possible discovery of war crimes evidence in Kherson.

Such evidence was discovered after Russian troops pulled out of the Kyiv and Kharkiv regions months ago.

Every time we liberate a piece of our territory, when we enter a city liberated from the Russian Army, we find torture rooms and mass graves with civilians tortured and murdered by the Russian Army in the course of the occupation of the territories," he said. "Its not easy to speak with people like this. But I said that every war ends with diplomacy and Russia has to approach talks in good faith.

The White House on November 12 hailed Russias withdrawal from 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," U.S. national-security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters as he accompanied President Joe Biden to the ASEAN 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 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.

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.

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?'"

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters
Ukraine says that one of its soldiers was killed and nine others injured in fighting with Russia-backed separatists in the east of the country.

Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council said on July 30 that the bulk of the casualties over the previous 24 hours were sustained in the front-line town of Krasnohorivka due to shelling from separatist forces.

The shelling there left one soldier dead and eight others wounded, the council said in a statement. Another Ukrainian soldier was wounded during an attack on government positions in the town of Shirokino, it added.

Hostilities between Kyiv's forces and Russia-backed separatists persist in eastern Ukraine despite an internationally backed 2015 cease-fire deal aimed at resolving the conflict, which has killed more than 10,000 since April 2014.

Kyiv, the United States, the EU, and NATO accuse Moscow of supporting the separatists with weapons and personnel, an allegation Moscow rejects despite substantial evidence of such backing.

Ukraine and the separatists frequently trade accusations of cease-fire violations.


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
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence discussed security issues, the fight against corruption, and counterterrorism strategy during a video conference call with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, the presidents office said.

"Both sides talked over...the (Afghan government's) four-year security plan, reform plans for combatting corruption, counterterrorism efforts, and regional security, Ghanis office said on July 29.

The statement said the call took place on July 28.

The office reported the vice president said the United States would remain as a partner with the people and government of Afghanistan to achieve peace, stability, and development.

The United States in 2001 led a military invasion of Afghanistan to topple the Taliban government, which U.S. leaders accused of harboring Al-Qaeda terrorists, including founder Osama bin Laden.

The NATO-led combat mission in the country officially ended in 2014.

Currently, the coalition consists of about 13,500 troops, tasked with training, advising, and assisting Afghan forces. About 8,400 of the troops are from the United States.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan
Just beyond the northern boundaries of Grand Canyon National Park, the Kaibab National Forest covers the rest of the heavily forested, higher elevation Kaibab Plateau. Though the Forest Service has a harder time determining specific visitor numbers than the National Park Service, the agency has tracked growing visitor use in at least one place: the Rainbow Rim Trail.

Located west of Highway 67, the remote, 18-mile dirt singletrack trail winds through forests, meadows and rocky outcroppings along the rim of the Grand Canyon. It has caught the eye of mountain bike outfitters, horseback riders and organizers of trail running events.

Because companies or other organized entities need permits to run trips or hold events on the national forest, the agency can track use trends. Its data show that between 2013 and 2016, the number of user days that were permitted for the Rainbow Rim area more than doubled from 750 to over 1,600, said Dan Gunn, natural resource specialist on the North Kaibab Ranger District. In 2016 alone, the district received requests from five new businesses or other entities for special use permits on the Rainbow Rim Trail on top of nine already issued, Gunn said.

And while those numbers dont encompass all individual use of the trail, it provides a good way to gauge growth in interest, he said.

The Rainbow Rim Trail has likely been getting more attention in part because its close to southern Utah, which has been heavily marketed as a hub for mountain biking in recent years, Gunn said. Federal land managers have constructed new trails in the area while commercialized events have sprung up as well, he said.

As those areas see more people, people are going to continue to move eastward and we are continuing to see that, Gunn said. Especially in the summer, the cooler temperatures of the Kaibab Plateau make it an attractive alternative to the Utah desert, he said.

Theres also traditional news media and social media to thank for increasing knowledge of and attention on more remote areas like the North Kaibab, he said.

Recently, growth in Rainbow Rim Trail use has spurred the Forest Service to begin a needs assessment and capacity analysis for the area. Those processes help determine both the need for authorized outfitter and guide services as well as the estimated number of visitors, both guided and non-guided, that an area can handle during a defined time period based on resource and setting capability.

That information will then help the Forest Service prepare a "user-day allocation" that determines a percentage of total visitor capacity available to outfitter-guides.

Similar analyses are happening on other focus areas on the Kaibab National Forest as well, said Gunn and Forest Service Recreation Staff Officer Missy Robinson.

Zooming out from the Rainbow Rim Trail, the Arizona Trail also has been getting more attention lately, Gunn said. A comprehensive management plan is underway to deal with increasing visitation on the 800-mile trail that stretches from the Utah state line to the Mexico border and through the North Kaibab Ranger District, Gunn said. He said public meetings should be coming up soon on that process.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence has reaffirmed Washington's support for the Baltic nations and accused neighboring Russia of seeking to redraw international borders " and "undermine democracies."

We stand with the people and nations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and we always will, Pence said on July 31 in the Estonian capital, Tallinn, where he met with the three Baltic presidents -- Kersti Kaljulaid, Raimonds Vejonis, and Dalia Grybauskaite.

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are members of NATO and were under Moscow's rule during the Soviet era.

The three countries and other allies in Eastern Europe have expressed concerns about Russia's intentions in their respective regions.

No threat looms larger in the Baltic states than the specter of aggression from your unpredictable neighbor to the east, Pence said. At this very moment, Russia continues to seek to redraw international borders by force, undermine the democracies of sovereign nations, and divide the free nations of Europe against one another.

The United States rejects any attempt to use force, threats, intimidation, or malign influence in the Baltic states or against any of our treaty allies, he also said.

Pence said the U.S. administration stands firmly behind Article 5 of the NATO treaty -- the provision stating that an attack on one NATO country is an attack on all members of the alliance.

He also pledged that the United States would not be deterred from its goals by Moscow's demand for drastic cuts in staff levels at U.S. diplomatic facilities in Russia.

Recent diplomatic action taken by Moscow will not deter commitment of the United States to our security, the security of our allies, and the security of freedom-loving nations around the world, he said.

After Pence began his visit to Estonia on July 30, Prime Minister Juri Ratas said the U.S. vice president raised the possibility of deploying the Patriot antimissile defense system in the country.

"We spoke about it today, but we didn't talk about a date or time," Ratas told state broadcaster ERR.

The U.S. Patriot defense system is a mobile, ground-based system designed to intercept missiles and warplanes.

Ratas also said the two leaders talked about the upcoming Russian military maneuvers planned for near the Estonian border, and how Estonia, the United States, and NATO should monitor them and exchange information."

Estonian Foreign Minister Sven Mikser told Current Time TV, the Russian-language network run by RFE/RL in cooperation with Voice of America (VOA), that Pence's visit was "an extremely important event."

"The message from the vice president was very clear: The U.S. stands by all its allied obligations and commitments, and the U.S. is truly committed to being there for us, for all of its NATO allies," Mikser said.

Pence planted an English oak before departing Tallinn aboard Air Force Two later on July 31, en route to Georgia's capital, Tbilisi, for the second leg of his trip.

Officials said Pence will highlight U.S. support for the Caucasus nation's sovereignty and territorial integrity before continuing on to visit the newest NATO member, Montenegro.

Georgia, which has expressed hopes of joining the Western alliance, has seen Russian encroachment on its territory.

Georgia, which has expressed hopes of joining the Western alliance, has seen Russian encroachment on its territory.

The Kremlin recognized Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent countries after fighting a five-day war against Tbilisi in 2008. Russia maintains thousands of troops in the two regions.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili said on July 27 that Pence's visit will demonstrate that the United States continues to support Georgia in building a stronger military force.

During Pences visit, 800 Georgian and 1,600 U.S. troops are taking part in the previously planned Noble Partner 2017 exercises.

Troops from the United States, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Slovenia, and Armenia were taking part.

"The vice president's presence here is definitely showing that this is not only about military exercises, but it is also showing unification with our values, with our foreign policy targets, and showing a clear message that we are together," Margvelashvili said.

Pence was due to arrive in Tbilisi in the evening of July 31 and participate in an official dinner hosted by Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvrikashvili.

On the last stop, Pence will welcome NATO's newest member with his stop in Montenegro, whose accession to the alliance in June was adamantly opposed by Russia.

On August 2, he will attend the Adriatic Charter Summit in Montenegro's capital, Podgorica, U.S. officials said.

Pence was expected to highlight the U.S. commitment to the Western Balkans and stress the need for good governance, political reforms, and rule of law in the region.

The leaders of Albania, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Serbia, and Slovenia are also scheduled to attend the summit.

With reporting by AP, Reuters, dpa, and Interfax
The train had traveled from the village of Sant Vicenc de Calders, some 60km (37 miles) to Barcelonas south-west. Public Works Minister Inigo de la Serna said 56 people. received medical treatment, with 53 taken to city hospitals. One man was seriously injured by a blow to the chest, but his life was not in danger according to the regional health authorities.



Emergency crew at the scene of accident

When the train arrived at Francia station it applied the brakes but at the same time it made a noisy crash. The passengers were thrown to the floor. Even though the train did brake, it wasnt until the crash when it reached a full stop, a passenger described what happened. Francia is Barcelonas second main train station after Sants. Dozens of emergency personnel were sent to the station, with most of the injured being treated on the platform. The affected train was running as part of minimum services ordered by the Public Works Ministry as long as RENFE rail workers staged a one-day strike. Officials are investigating data and equipment from the drivers cabin to try to understand the cause of the accident. The driver was between the injured people. He is said to be in a state of shock.
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This is an article from Curious Kids, a series for children. The Conversation is asking kids to send in questions they'd like an expert to answer. All questions are welcome  serious, weird or wacky! The article was originally published at The Conversation. The publication contributed the article to Space.com's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.

What started the Big Bang?  Pippi, 8, Canberra.

This is one of the two questions I get asked a lot (the other one is: do aliens exist?) Both are very good questions! Pippi, the short answer is that we do not know what started the Big Bang. This is a big mystery.

The Big Bang is an idea about the history of the Universe, the history of space and time and matter ("stuff") and energy. The Universe is about 13.8 billion years old and from observations we make using telescopes we can tell that the Universe was very small 13.8 billion years ago.

Observations also suggest that in the first fraction of a second, the Universe seemed to expand very quickly but then slow down. After a few hundred thousand years, the simplest type of atom formed: hydrogen. The hydrogen started to form stars and galaxies.

After billions of years the Earth (and us) formed from the atoms made inside stars - every atom in your body more complicated than hydrogen was made by a star at some point in the last 13.8 billion years. In all that time, the Universe has continued to expand. In fact, observations now tell us that the expansion of the Universe is getting faster.

The idea of the Big Bang agrees with all these observations. So scientists think the Big Bang is an idea that does a good job of describing the history of the Universe.

However, the idea is not perfect. We don't know why the Universe expanded so quickly in the first second and then slowed down. We don't know why the expansion of the Universe is speeding up now. We don't know why we have a certain number of forces that control the Universe. And we don't know what started the Big Bang!

Very large telescopes, like the Murchison Widefield Array can make observations that help us understand how the Universe evolved.

It took hundreds of years to build the idea of the Big Bang, and it may take a long time to improve it or find an idea that is better. Scientists have a lot of ideas about how the Big Bang started. But these ideas must agree with our observations of the Universe.

The future is very exciting for anyone who wants to help figure this out. The advanced technology we have means that we can build machines that smash particles (tiny little bits of stuff even smaller than an atom) together to show what happened right after the Big Bang. We can now build powerful new telescopes to observe the stars and galaxies in the Universe in a lot of detail. We will use these machines and telescopes to see which ideas about the Big Bang are right and which are wrong.

Sometimes new ideas take many years to be worked out. Sometimes new ideas pop into people's heads very quickly. It is very exciting to have a new idea about the Universe. We will need lots of people who are good at puzzles to help us.

Hello, curious kids! Have you got a question you'd like an expert to answer? Ask an adult to send your question to us. They can:

(Image credit: CC BY-ND)

* Email your question to curiouskids@theconversation.edu.au

* Tell us on Twitter by tagging @ConversationEDU with the hashtag #curiouskids, or

* Tell us on Facebook

Please tell us your name, age, and which city you live in. You can send an audio recording of your question too, if you want. Send as many questions as you like! We won't be able to answer every question but we will do our best.

Steven Tingay, Professor of Radio Astronomy, Curtin University
A group of scientists is taking to the skies to chase the shadow of the moon during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21 from the unique vantage point of two retrofitted WB-57F jet planes.

Amir Caspi, a scientist at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, and his team will soar 50,000 feet over Missouri, Illinois and Tennessee in jets outfitted with high-tech telescopes. At this altitude, the telescopes mounted on the noses of the planes will be able to capture a clear view of the outer layer of the sun's atmosphere, or the corona; they may also capture thermal images of Mercury, a planet typically obscured by the bright glare from the sun, according to a statement from NASA.

"At the planes' cruising altitude of 50,000 feet, the sky is 20-30 times darker than as seen from the ground, and there is much less atmospheric turbulence, allowing fine structures and motions in the sun's corona to be visible," NASA officials said in the statement. [The Best ISO-Certified Gear to See the 2017 Solar Eclipse]

A photo illustration of the two NASA WB-57F jet planes that will chase the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21, allowing scientists to image the sun's outer atmosphere and study temperature variations on Mercury. (Image credit: NASA/Faroe Islands/SwRI)

Researchers are interested in getting an up-close view of the corona so they can better understand the structure of the sun's outer layers. For example, the corona can reach peak temperatures hundreds of times higher than those at the surface of the sun. One possible explanation for this is that tiny bursts of bright light called "nanoflares" release heat into the corona.

Studying this is difficult because these solar flares are too small to detect individually, however, "the high-resolution and high-speed images to be taken from the WB-57F jets might reveal [the nanoflares'] effects on the corona," according to the statement.

Using the high-definition images captured during the total solar eclipse, scientists will study the corona for a phenomenon called Alfven waves, which can occur in a plasma (a gas in which electrons have been separated from their parent atoms) in a magnetic field. The scientists will examine whether waves move toward or away from the surface of the sun, and measure the strength and size of the waves.

"We see the evidence of 'nanoflare' heating, but we dont know where they occur," Caspi said in the statement. "If they occur higher up in the corona, we might expect to see waves moving downwards, as the little explosions occur and collectively reconfigure the magnetic fields. [Where to See the 2017 Total Solar Eclipse, State by State]

The scientists also plan to use the high-tech telescopes aboard the WB-57F aircraft to study temperature variations on the surface of Mercury, which can yo-yo between 800 degrees Fahrenheit (427 degrees Celsius) on the dayside and minus 290 degrees F (minus 180 degrees C) on the nightside. This information can be used to determine what the planets soil is made of and how dense it is, which will provide insight as to how Mercury and other rocky planets formed, NASA officials said in the statement. If all goes according to plan, the scientists will capture thermal images of Mercury a half hour before and after the moon completely covers the sun, when the sky is still relatively dark.

The researchers could also potentially search for vulcanoids  a family of hypothetical asteroids that may lie between Mercury and the sun. The total solar eclipse also provides the perfect opportunity to search for vulcanoids, which are believed to be remnants of the early solar system. Vulcanoids have likely evaded detection due to their small size and the unforgiving glare of the sun. During the eclipse, however, the sun's bright light will disappear, allowing scientists to look for these elusive objects.

"If discovered, vulcanoids could change what scientists understand about planet formation," NASA officials said in the statement.

Most skywatchers on the ground will see at most about 2 minutes and 40 seconds of darkness during the total solar eclipse on Aug. 21. The motion of each of the high-speed planes, however, will extend the duration of totality to just over 3 minutes as they chase the moon's shadow.

"These could well turn out to be the best ever observations of high frequency phenomena in the corona," Dan Seaton, co-investigator of the project and researcher at the University of Colorado in Boulder, said in the statement from NASA. "Extending the observing time and going to very high altitude might allow us to see a few events or track waves that would be essentially invisible in just two minutes of observations from the ground."

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 Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
London, July 29, 2017 (SPS) - Tauro beach in Gran Canaria (Canary Islands), once rocky, has been covered in sand illegally taken from the last African colony, Western Sahara, as noted by an investigation conducted by British newspaper the Guardian published on Saturday.

Titled Trouble in Paradise, the Guardians investigation stressed that the project to cover the rocky beach with 70,000 tons of sand was done in breach of international law and in defiance of the last African colony, the occupied territory of Western Sahara.

It is noted that the Spanish authorities launched an investigation on the issue and that experts in human rights said that if the sand that covers the Gran Canaria beach comes from the occupied State, it would be a violation to the UN Security Councils resolutions and the decision of the International Court of Justice.

The Guardian said that the International Court of Justice clearly states that the natural resources of an occupied territory cannot be exploited by the occupant, unless it benefits the local population. (SPS)

062/090/APS
The United States has its first export customer for the new JLTV (Joint Light Tactical Vehicle) hummer/MRAP replacement. Britain wants to buy up to 2,747 vehicles for about $379,000 each. This deal will include terms for substitution of some American components with British equivalents and the use of British accessories. Delivery schedules also have to be worked out as well as terms for some technology transfer. The American designer and manufacturer, Oshkosh, has been promoting the JLTV to military and police organizations worldwide and already has several other NATO allies discussing JLTV acquisition.

Mass production for JLTV begins in late 2019 with most of those vehicles going to the U.S. Army, which currently plans to buy 49,000 vehicles to replace armored HMMWV (hummer) vehicles as well as many armored trucks (MRAPs). Thousands of American soldiers and marines already have experience with JLTV because low-rate production began in 2015 with orders for 657 vehicles and that has since been increased so that the American military (mainly the army) can get their personnel used to the new vehicle. These users also provided a lot of feedback, which is understandable because the initial design of the JLTV was based on a lot of troop feedback and online discussions (especially on message boards only accessible to the troops) about what worked and what didnt in combat, especially with regard to armored hummers and MRAPS. The military wants to avoid relearning lessons about vehicle protection learned and forgotten after World War II, Korea and Vietnam. That means constant feedback from users and that is most important before mass production begins.

The first low-rate production orders came months after the Oshkosh L-ATV was selected as the winner of the design competition. The Oshkosh JLTV is a light armored vehicle that provides a high (MRAP) level of protection against roadside bombs and mines while also carrying a crew of two and up to 2.3 tons of passengers or cargo. Top road speed is 112 kilometers an hour and it has a hatch in the top that allows for installation of a manned machine-gun or a RWS (remote weapons station). Range on internal fuel is 480 kilometers and it has an improved suspension for a smoother ride off-road. The diesel engine can also generate 70 kw of electrical power.

Back in 2013 the U.S. Army received the first 66 prototypes of the JLTV, 22 each from three manufacturers (Lockheed, Oshkosh, and AM General). Each design was different but adhered to the basic design specification. The three JTLV designs were all improvements on the HMMWV. After two years of testing the army selected Oshkosh. The initial order was for 16,901 vehicles costing about $400,000 each. There are eight models, which is normal for vehicles like this and reflects different needed (basic personnel carrier, scout, ambulance, cargo and so on). About a quarter of the first JLTVs are for the U.S. Marine Corps. Additional vehicles will be built for foreign and non-military customers. Because the U.S. is producing this new vehicle design (which contains a lot of expensive new tech) the per-unit cost is lower than most nations can match by developing their own comparable vehicle. That was a major attraction for the British.

When the JLTV enters service in 2019 it will signal the end of an era. The HMMWV (hum-V or hummer) was an iconic and revolutionary vehicle and the most innovative military transport to show up since World War II. About half the annual sales of HMMWV vehicles went to the U.S. Army, with the rest going to other branches of the American military and foreign customers. Over 200,000 hummers have been produced so far, in dozens of variants and versions. The army will continue to use the hummer for a decade or more after the JLTV enters service, but the unique vehicle design is now beginning to fade away.

The 6.4 ton JLTV that replaces the 4 ton armored HMMWV (2.4 tons unarmored) is heavier because of the JLTV being more robust and better protected. The hummer itself replaced the 1.1 ton jeep and the 3 ton M37 "3/4 ton" truck in the 1980s. The JLTV marks a notable design direction for tactical vehicles. The JLTV is designed to absorb combat damage and be quickly equipped with two different armor kits. In effect, the World War II concept of the unarmored light vehicle for moving men and material around the battlefield has been radically changed.

This began in Iraq, where it was demonstrated that you can fight your way through a hostile population on a regular basis and defeat a guerilla force constantly attacking your tactical and logistical vehicles. This has never worked before but it worked this time, in part because U.S. troops promptly armored their hummers and trucks and quickly developed "road warrior" tactics that defeated roadside and suicide bombs. Even though these bombs created a lot of American casualties, the U.S. casualty rate in Iraq and Afghanistan was a third of what it was in Vietnam and World War II. This was in large part because of the armored hummers and trucks. Few people outside the military noted this event, a watershed moment in military history. But it was recognized within the military and produced this sharp shift in design philosophy for tactical trucks, and the result is the JLTV.

The U.S. Army began replacing the World War II era vehicles with the HMMWV in 1985. This was the first new unarmored combat vehicle design since World War II when the jeep and  ton truck was introduced. The HMMWV was expected to last for three decades or more. But that plan changed once Iraq was invaded. As expected, hummers wore out a lot more quickly (in five years) in combat than during peacetime use (14 years). So the army and marines began developing, ahead of schedule, a new vehicle to supplement the hummer in combat zones.

In addition to being built to better survive mines and roadside bombs, the JLTV will be able to generate up to 70 kw of electricity (for operating all the new electronic gear and recharging batteries), have an automatic fire extinguishing system, and jam-resistant doors. Like the hummer, JLTV will be easy to reconfigure, for everything from a four seat, armed scout vehicle to an ambulance, command vehicle, or cargo or troop transport.

The hummer will continue to be used outside of the combat zone, where most troops spend most of their time. But the JLTV will be built to better handle the beating vehicles take in the combat zone, including a design that enables troops to quickly slide in armor and Kevlar panels to make the vehicles bullet and blast proof.
New Zealands largest foundry and one of the countrys oldest engineering firms, A&G Price of Thames, went into liquidation this week with the loss of around 140 jobs.

Staff were told on Wednesday not to return to work on Thursday.

"This is devastating for the workers, their families and our communities," says Thames-Coromandel District Mayor Sandra Goudie on Stuff. "Were talking about a lot of really good workers - people who are tried and true - engineers, welders and other skilled tradespeople.

"Were really optimistic that people will find jobs quickly, and its heartening to see that our communities are rallying together already to lend support," says Sandra. "Since the announcement last night, our council, along with our local radio station Coromandel More FM has been inundated with job offers from employers from within the district and the surrounds."

Work and Income arranged sessions for affected A & G Price staff, covering financial assistance, including superannuation that is available, as well as employment opportunities that are advertised with Work and Income, and potential opportunities.

Brothers Alfred and George Price opened an engineering workshop in Onehunga, Auckland in 1868, before opening a foundry and engineering works in Thames in 1871.

Business thrived on the gold mining then booming around the Coromandel Peninsula, with operating mines in Thames and in the Karangahake Gorge and at Waihi.

In Thames, A&G Price made stamper batteries, Pelton wheels, pumps and other machinery for the goldfields. The Onehunga works supplied flax milling machinery and built railway carriages and wagons for the government. The Onehunga factory closed when the railway contract was completed in 1874, and all work was shifted to Thames.

Burke St Thames near Beach Road in the gold rush days. Supplied photo.

Designing and building railway steam locomotives began at Thames in the late 1880s. By 1896 the Thames premises had electric lighting from a Pelton wheel-powered generator. The Thames factory manufactured railway engines even before the Thames branch railway was completed in 1898.

A&G Price made a major contribution to New Zealands progress in its more than 140 years of operation, through the design and construction of steam and diesel locomotives, road graders, rock crushers, boilers, marine engines, mining, sawmilling and forestry equipment. Between 1904 and 1928 they manufactured 123 steam locomotives for the New Zealand Railways Department.

The company moved towards specialised heavy machining and technical refurbishment work with the decline of the railway work in the 1960s.

Up until this week A&G Price continued to work in the field of pattern-making and could cast up to 10,000 kg in iron, 6000 kg in steel, 2500 kg in stainless steel, and up to 1300 kg in non-ferrous alloys. Other activities included metallurgy testing and development. The heavy machine shop has capacity to handle items up to 40 tonnes, six metres in diameter and 10m long. A recent development has been manufacturing the specialised keels for Americas Cup and Whitbread/Volvo Ocean Race yachts.
Babcock International Group PLC, together with its subsidiaries, provides value-add services for aerospace, defense, and security in the United Kingdom, rest of Europe, Africa, North America, Australasia, and internationally. The company operates through four segments: Marine, Nuclear, Land, and Aviation. It designs, procures, operates, and manages critical utility and process equipment; offers asset management, defense and maritime training, information and intelligence, equipment and system, and facilities and infrastructure services, as well as naval platforms; and designs, manufactures, and provides through-life support for mechanical and electrical systems and equipment. The company also offers naval architecture, engineering, and project management services; submarines and complex engineering services in support of various decommissioning programs and projects, training and operation support, new build program management, and design and installation; critical vehicle fleet management, and equipment support and training services for military and civil customers; and designs, assesses, manufactures, installs, maintains, and decommissions vehicles for police, fire and ambulance, civil service, military, and other security-focused organizations. In addition, it provides plain line track renewal services; and engineering services for track projects, signaling, telecommunications, and on-track plants. Further, the company offers critical engineering services to defense and civil customers, including pilot training, equipment support, and airbase management, as well as operates aviation fleets that provide delivering emergency services. Babcock International Group PLC was founded in 1891 and is headquartered in London, the United Kingdom.
The following companies are subsidiares of Whirlpool: 1900 Holdings Corporation, ADC, Aeradriatica S.p.A., Airdun Limited, B. Blend Maquinas e Bebidas S.A., BUD Comercio de Eletrodomesticos Ltda., BWI Products Limited, Bauknecht AG, Bauknecht Hausgerate GmbH, Bauknecht Limited, Beijing Embraco Snowflake Compressor Company Limited, Bill Page Orchestra, Bill Page Orchestra Inc., Brasmotor S.A., Brunson Place Properties, Brunson Place Properties LLC, CNB Consultoria Ltda, Cannon Industries Ltd., Centro de Desarrollo Tecnologico e Innovacion WHM S. de R.L de C.V., Comercial Acros Whirlpool, Comercial Acros Whirlpool S. de R.L. de C.V., Consumer Appliances Service Limited, Ealing Compania de Gestiones y Participaciones S.A., Elera Delaware, Elera Delaware Inc., Elera Holdings Corporation, Embraco Europe S.r.l., Embraco Eurosales S.r.l., Embraco Industria de Compressores e Solucoes em Refrigeracao Ltda., Embraco Luxembourg S.a r.l., Embraco Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Embraco Mexico Servicios, Embraco Mexico Servicios S. de R.L. de C.V., Embraco North America, Embraco North America Inc., Embraco RUS LLC, Embraco Slovakia S.r.o., Everest Campus, Everest Campus LLC., General Domestic Appliances Holdings Ltd, General Domestic Appliances International Ltd., Guangdong Whirlpool Electrical Appliances Co., Guangdong Whirlpool Electrical Appliances Co. Ltd., Haceb Whirlpool Industrias S.A.S., Hefei Rongshida Sanyo Electric, Hefei Whirlpool Enterprise Management Service Co. Ltd., Hoover Comercial Limitada, IRE Beteiligungs GmbH, Indesit Argentina S.A., Indesit Company, Indesit Company Beyaz Esya Pazarlama A.S., Indesit Company Beyaz Esya Sanayi ve Ticaret A.S., Indesit Company Ceska S.r.o., Indesit Company Domestic Appliances Hellas Mepe, Indesit Company International Business S.A., Indesit Company Luxembourg S.A., Indesit Company Magyarorszag Kft, Indesit Company Nordics AB, Indesit Company Polska Sp. zo.o., Indesit Company Singapore Pte. Ltd., Indesit Company UK Holdings Ltd., Indesit IP S.r.l., Indesit International ZAO, Indesit Ireland Ltd., Indesit Middle East FZE, Indesit Ukraine LLC, Industrias Acros Whirlpool S. de R.L. de C.V., Industrias Acros Whirlpool S.A. de C.V, Jackson Appliances Ltd., Joint-Stock Company Indesit International, KitchenAid, KitchenAid Australia Pty Ltd, KitchenAid Australia Pty Ltd., KitchenAid Delaware Inc., KitchenAid Europa Inc., KitchenAid Global, KitchenAid Global Inc., KitchenAid Inc., KitchenAid Korea Limited, KitchenAid Promotions, KitchenAid Promotions LLC, KitchenAid Trading Co., KitchenAid Trading Co. Ltd., LAWSA S.A., MLOG Armazem Geral Ltda., Maytag Corporation, Maytag Limited, Maytag Properties, Maytag Properties LLC, Maytag Sales, Maytag Sales Inc., Maytag Worldwide N.V., Merloni Domestic Appliances Ltd., Nineteen Hundred Corporation, Polar S.A., Qingdao EECON Electronic Controls and Appliances Co., Qingdao EECON Electronic Controls and Appliances Co. Ltd., South American Sales Partnership, THC Assets Corporation, Up Points Servicos Empresariais S.A., Vitromatic S.A. de C.V., WCGP Nova Scotia Co., WHirlpool EMEA Finanace S.a r.l., Whirlpool (Australia) Pty. Limited, Whirlpool (B.V.I.) Limited, Whirlpool (China) Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (China) Investment Co., Whirlpool (China) Investment Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (Hefei) Trading Co., Whirlpool (Hefei) Trading Co. Ltd, Whirlpool (Hong Kong) Limited, Whirlpool (Japan) Co. Ltd., Whirlpool (Thailand) Limited, Whirlpool ASEAN Co., Whirlpool America Holdings Corp., Whirlpool Argentina S.r.l., Whirlpool Asia B.V., Whirlpool Asia Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Asia Inc., Whirlpool Asia LLP, Whirlpool Belux N.V./S.A., Whirlpool Bermuda Euro Ltd., Whirlpool Beyaz Esya Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S., Whirlpool Bulgaria Ltd., Whirlpool CIS Ltd., Whirlpool CR, Whirlpool CR spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool CSA Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Canada Co., Whirlpool Canada Co. (post 9/1/05 amalgamation company), Whirlpool Canada Holding Co, Whirlpool Canada Holding Co. (post 4/18/06 amalgamation company), Whirlpool Canada Investments S.a r.l., Whirlpool Canada LP, Whirlpool Canada Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Chile Limitada, Whirlpool Colombia S.A.S., Whirlpool Comercial Ltda., Whirlpool Company Polska Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Company Ukraine LLC, Whirlpool Croatia Ltd., Whirlpool EMEA S.p.A., Whirlpool Ecuador S.A., Whirlpool Eesti OU, Whirlpool El Salvador, Whirlpool El Salvador S.A. de C.V., Whirlpool Electrodomesticos S.A., Whirlpool Eletrodomesticos AM S.A., Whirlpool Enterprises, Whirlpool Enterprises LLC, Whirlpool Europe B.V., Whirlpool Europe Coordination Center, Whirlpool Europe Holdings Limited, Whirlpool Ev Aletleri Pazarlama Ve Ticaret A.S., Whirlpool Finance B.V., Whirlpool Finance Center Corp., Whirlpool Finance Luxembourg S.a r.l., Whirlpool Finance Overseas Ltd., Whirlpool Financial Corporation, Whirlpool Financial Corporation International, Whirlpool Floor Care Corp., Whirlpool France Holdings SAS, Whirlpool France SAS, Whirlpool Germany GmbH, Whirlpool Global B.V., Whirlpool Global Investments B.V., Whirlpool Greater China Inc., Whirlpool Guatemala, Whirlpool Guatemala S.A., Whirlpool Hellas S.A., Whirlpool Holdings Corporation, Whirlpool Home Appliances B.V., Whirlpool Home Appliances Limited Liability Company, Whirlpool Hungarian Trading Limited Liability Company, Whirlpool India Holdings Limited, Whirlpool Insurance Company, Whirlpool Insurance Company Ltd., Whirlpool Internacional S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool International GmbH, Whirlpool International Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool International Manufacturing S.a r.l., Whirlpool Ireland Appliances Limited, Whirlpool Ireland Limited, Whirlpool Italia Holdings S.r.l., Whirlpool Italia S.r.l., Whirlpool Japan Co. Ltd., Whirlpool Japan Inc., Whirlpool Kazakhstan LLP, Whirlpool Latin America Corporation, Whirlpool Latvia S.I.A., Whirlpool Lietuva UAB, Whirlpool Ltd Belgrade, Whirlpool Luxembourg Holdings S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg Investments S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg S.a r.l., Whirlpool Luxembourg Ventures S.a r.l., Whirlpool MEEA DMCC, Whirlpool Magyarorszag Kereskedelmi Korlatolt Felelossegu Tarsasag, Whirlpool Management Services S.a.g.l., Whirlpool Maroc S. a r.l., Whirlpool Mauritius Limited, Whirlpool Mexico Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Mexico S. de R.L. de C.V., Whirlpool Mexico S.A. de C.V., Whirlpool Mexico Ventures LLC, Whirlpool Microwave Products Development Limited, Whirlpool NAAG Holdings Corporation, Whirlpool NAR Holdings, Whirlpool NAR Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Nederland B.V., Whirlpool Nordic, Whirlpool Nordic A/S, Whirlpool Nordic AB, Whirlpool Nordic AS, Whirlpool Nordic OY, Whirlpool Oceania Inc., Whirlpool Overseas Holdings, Whirlpool Overseas Holdings LLC, Whirlpool Overseas Hong Kong Limited, Whirlpool Overseas Manufacturing S.ar.l., Whirlpool Peru S.R.L., Whirlpool Polska Appliances Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Polska Sp. z o.o., Whirlpool Portugal, Whirlpool Portugal S.A., Whirlpool Product Development (Shenzhen) Company Limited, Whirlpool Properties, Whirlpool Properties Inc., Whirlpool Puntana S.A., Whirlpool R&D S.r.l., Whirlpool RUS LLC, Whirlpool Realty Corporation, Whirlpool Romania S.r.l., Whirlpool S.A., Whirlpool SSC Limited, Whirlpool Slovakia Home Appliances spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool Slovakia spol. s.r.o., Whirlpool South Africa (Proprietary) Limited, Whirlpool Southeast Asia Pte, Whirlpool Sweden Aktiebolag, Whirlpool Taiwan Co. Ltd., Whirlpool Technologies LLC, Whirlpool UK Appliances Limited, Whirlpool UK Pension Scheme Trustee Limited, Whirlpool Ukraine LLC, Whirlpool WW Holdings B.V., Whirlpool do Brasil Investements B.V., Whirlpool do Brasil Ltda., Whirlpool of India Limited, Whirlpool Osterreich GmbH, Whirlpool Osterreich GmbH, Xpelair, Xpelair Ltd., Yummly, Yummly Canada Ltd., and Yummly Inc..

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Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. operates as the bank holding company for Frost Bank that offers commercial and consumer banking services in Texas. It operates in two segments, Banking and Frost Wealth Advisors. The company offers commercial banking services to corporations and other business clients, including financing for industrial and commercial properties, interim construction related to industrial and commercial properties, equipment, inventories and accounts receivables, and acquisitions; commercial leasing; and treasury management services. It also provides consumer banking services, such as checking accounts, savings programs, automated-teller machines (ATMs), overdraft facilities, installment and real estate loans, home equity loans and lines of credit, drive-in and night deposit services, safe deposit facilities, and brokerage services. In addition, the company offers international banking services comprising deposits, loans, letters of credit, foreign collections, funds, and foreign exchange services. Further, it acts as a correspondent for approximately 171 financial institutions; offers trust, investment, agency, and custodial services for individual and corporate clients; provides capital market services that include sales and trading, new issue underwriting, money market trading, advisory, and securities safekeeping and clearance; and supports international business activities. Additionally, the company offers insurance and securities brokerage services; and holds securities for investment purposes, as well as investment management services to Frost-managed mutual funds, institutions, and individuals. It operates approximately 157 financial centers and 1,650 ATMs. The company serves energy, manufacturing, services, construction, retail, telecommunications, healthcare, military, and transportation industries. Cullen/Frost Bankers, Inc. was founded in 1868 and is headquartered in San Antonio, Texas.
Kimco Realty Corp. is a real estate investment trust (REIT) focused on open-air mall-style properties in the US and is among the largest mall REITs on the market. The firm has been in business since the post-war boom of the 1966 and trading on the public markets since 1991. The name is a blend of the founders names, Martin Kimmel and Milton Cooper, who merged their assets in order to form the larger company.

The stock was added to the S&P 500 in 2006 and has held its position ever since. Kimco is also know for being the first vertically integrated REIT meaning it is internally managed and advised, and provides its own asset and property management. The firm raised $120 million with its IPO and was worth $11.4 billion in October 2022.

As of October 2022, the company laid claim to more than 530 properties enclosing 92 million square feet of retail space. The properties are primarily located within grocery-anchored shopping centers and mixed-use assets in suburban areas. The tenant-focus is on a diverse blend of essential and/or necessity-based goods or services that drive multiple consumer trips per week and provide stable income.

Kimco Realty is headquartered in Jerico, N.Y., but does not limit its investments by geography. The companys properties are located in 1st-ring suburbs surrounding major metropolitan areas from coast to coast. One area of focus is high-barrier-to-entry coastal properties in population-dense vacation zones while another is the rapidly expanding Sun Belt.

The firm offers a variety of services and features apart from property rentals that include curbside pickup zones and many others that enhance the tenant and consumer experience. Other features include digital maintenance requests, Click Pay, and a Discount Program. Some of the markets served by Kimco Realty include New York, Los Angeles, Dallas, Houston, Baltimore, Philadelphia, Miami, and Atlanta.
Carnival Corporation & plc is a leisure travel company operating a fleet of cruise ships, hotels, and resorts with international destinations. Brands under the Carnival Corporation umbrella include Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America, P&O Cruises, Seaborn, Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises, and Cunard. The companys goal is to provide extraordinary vacations at an exceptional value. As of 2022, the company laid claim to nearly half of the global cruising market share with several new ships in the works.

Carnival Cruise Line was launched in 1972 with one second-hand ship and a tank of fuel. The first port of call was San Juan, Puerto Rico, but soon more were added. The original growth strategy included a festive atmosphere, features and amenities unlike any other cruise line at the time. Slow to start, the growth strategy shifted into overdrive in 1980 when Carnival shocked the world by building its own ship. The Tropicale became an iconic name in the cruising industry and sparked a wave of shipbuilding that is still underway.

The companys growth hit a new stride in 1987 following the IPO which floated 20% of the company on the open market. The proceeds from the IPO allowed the company to embark on a voyage of acquisition and now Carnival is the worlds largest travel and leisure business.

Today, Carnival Corporations 87 ships visit approximately 700 ports worldwide and employ more than 120,000 people while serving more than 13 million guests annually for a total of 85 million passenger cruise days per year. Net revenue, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, peaked out at over $6.5 billion annually.

Carnival Cruise Line is the companys largest brand serving guests on all coasts of North America. The brand's 22 ships make 1500 voyages per year with trips ranging from 2 days to 3 weeks and ports of call from the Caribbean to Alaska. The company's largest ship is named Panorama and can accommodate more than 4,000 passengers.

Carnivals 9 brands provide access to a wide range of cruising styles and destinations including the Caribbean, Alaska, Australia, New Zealand, Hawaii, England, and ports in Asia. The company is headquartered in Miami, Florida and has offices around the world. The company also has the distinction of being the only company included in both the S&P 500 and FTSE 250 indices.
Perusahaan Perseroan (Persero) PT Telekomunikasi Indonesia Tbk provides telecommunications, informatics, and network services worldwide. The company's Mobile segment offers mobile voice, SMS, and mobile broadband services; and digital services, including financial services, video on demand, music, gaming, IoT, big data analytics, and digital advertising services. Its Consumer segment provides fixed voice and broadband services; and IPTV and related consumer digital services. The company's Enterprise segment offers ICT and digital platform that covers enterprise-grade connectivity services, including satellite, IT services, data center and cloud, and business process outsourcing services, as well as CPE trading and managed, cyber security, financial, big data, digital advertising, e-health, managed ATM, and professional services. Its Wholesale and International Business segment provides wholesale voice, managed, A2P SMS, IP transit and connectivity, data center and cloud, security, and value added and digital services; mobile network operator, mobile virtual network operator, and call center services; and tower and infrastructure services to other licensed operator companies and institutions. The company's Others segment offers digital services, such as digital platform, digital content, and e-commerce; and property management services. The company also provides building management and maintenance services, payment, business management consulting and capital venture, health insurance administration, tourism, directory information, telecommunication construction, and multimedia portal services; acts as a civil consultant and developer; and leases offices. As of December 31, 2020, it had approximately 9.1 million fixed wireline subscribers, including 8.0 million fixed broadband subscribers; and 169.5 million cellular subscribers, including 115.9 million mobile broadband subscribers. The company was founded in 1884 and is headquartered in Bandung, Indonesia.
Deidre Ball and Anthony Scaramucci in 2016. Photo: Jared Siskin/Jared Siskin/PMC

Anthony Scaramuccis estranged wife, Deidre Ball, really doesnt like her husband, according to a bombshell new report in Page Six.

Ball reportedly filed for divorce three weeks ago, when she was nine-months pregnant. Scaramucci wasnt at the hospital when she had their son  he was in West Virginia at the Boy Scout Jamboree with President Trump. The Mooch reportedly didnt meet the baby, James, who was in a neonatal-intensive-care unit at North Shore Hospital, until four days after he was born. (But he did text his wife: Congratulations, Ill pray for our child.)

According to Page Six, the couple split four or five months ago. They have another son, Nicholas, born in early 2014. The pair met when they were both working at Scaramuccis hedge fund, SkyBridge Capital, and married in July 2014. Both of their previous marriages ended in divorce.

A source told Page Six Ball had simply reached her limit: [Anthony] tells her shes not that smart, that hes out of her league. (Someone close to Scaramucci reportedly countered that she was actually abusive: She would say, Youre a grifter, youre this. She would mock him for being a Trump sycophant.)

So far, neither President Trump nor Scaramucci have publicly commented on the story, and the communications director suggested on Twitter he wouldnt be commenting publicly on family matters. Although we imagine he wont stay silent for long.

Family does not need to be drawn into this. Soon we will learn who in the media has class and who doesn't. No further comments on this.  Anthony Scaramucci (@Scaramucci) July 29, 2017
Frank Ocean wore Green Boxs t-shirt this weekend at New York Citys Panorama Festival. Photo: Twitter / @deray

Musician Frank Ocean headlined New York Citys Panorama Festival at Randalls Island Park this weekend wearing a T-shirt with a simple message: WHY BE RACIST, SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC, OR TRANSPHOBIC WHEN YOU COULD JUST BE QUIET?

In todays political maelstrom, and the news that President Donald Trump wants to ban transgender troops from serving in the Army, just being nice to people might sound like a retro idea from your Methodist grandmother. But it actually comes from astute 18-year-old Kayla Robinson whos behind the independent clothing brand Green Box Shop founded in 2016. Robinson is based in South Florida and identifies as bisexual and Afro-Latino. According to the companys website, the shirt, also available in tie-dye, is meant to address how hate speech will not be tolerated by the tolerant left.

When I couldnt find any social justice tee shirts online for myself, that really would grab someones attention, I decided to make my own and sell them to raise money to get my yoga teacher certification (Now the ultimate vision is urban farming), Robinson writes on the site.

Green Box Shop also offers other tees with similarly catchy slogans like: Roses are red / Doritos are savory / The U.S. prison system is legalized slavery, F*ck Donald Trump, and Chill With That Misogyny. (Robinson is pictured modeling her F*ck Donald Trump shirt below.)

The shirts, pictured below, retail for about $20 dollars, and can be purchased through Green Boxs website. Robinson has already been inundated with orders  and they are sure to sell quickly.
King Mohammed VI has lambasted the Moroccan service civil for its poor governance and weak performance pointing out that many civil servants do not have the skills, qualifications or ambition required, a fact that hampers the materialization of the countrys ambitious development programs.

In a strong-worded speech delivered Saturday on the occasion of Throne Day, King Mohammed VI, pointed out that Morocco has been constantly developing, that progress is clear and real and that it is recognized across the board and in all sectors. Today, however, we are witnessing glaring paradoxes that are hard to understand or accept, he deplored.

On the one hand, Morocco enjoys indisputable credibility at continental and international levels, the esteem and consideration of our partners and the confidence of major investors, such as the Boeing, Renault and Peugeot groups. But on the other hand, we are shocked by the end results, the facts on the ground and the modest achievements made in certain social sectors, so much so that it is shameful to admit we are actually talking about present-day Morocco, the Monarch said in his speech, delivered, at a peak viewing time, on the eve of Throne Day, celebrated on July 30.

The Throne Day speech is traditionally devoted to drawing the balance sheet of achievements completed the previous year and presenting the roadmap for future plans and projects. It also expounds the countrys foreign policy and standpoint on topical regional and international issues. This year, however, the tone is different and the content is as different. It sends a clear-cut message to officials and civil servants as well as to political parties and their officials and elects that their work is not satisfactory, that they lack a sense of responsibility and national commitment.

Deploring that a number of the successful, human and local development programs, which have a positive impact on citizens living conditions, do no match Moroccos ambitions, the Monarch said the poor results in many sectors, are mostly due to the inadequacy of joint action, the lack of a national, strategic dimension, inconsistency instead of harmony, disparagement and procrastination instead of entrepreneurship and concrete action.

King Mohammed VI drew a parallel between the private sector, which he described as efficient, competitive, and attracting the best human resources and the public sector, particularly the civil service, which is suffering from poor governance and weak performance. He pointed out in this regards that many civil servants lack skills, qualifications or the ambition required. Moreover, they are not always guided by a sense of responsibility.

One of the problems which impede Moroccos progress is the weakness of the civil service, be it in terms of governance, efficiency or the quality of the services provided to citizens, he insisted, mentioning as an instance the regional investment centers, which are  with the exception of one or two  a problem. They impede the act of investing instead of serving as a mechanism that provides incentives and resolves the problems of investors at the regional level, without their having to go to central government departments.

This has an adverse impact on regions that are suffering from insufficient  sometimes inexistent  private investment and from the public sectors weak performance. This, in turn, affects citizens living conditions, he explained, underlining that the challenge is even more daunting in regions with the biggest shortage of health, education and cultural services, not to mention the lack of jobs.

Calling for greater cooperative efforts to close gaps and help these regions catch up with the others, which have a vibrant private sector that boosts economic dynamism and creates wealth as well as jobs, King Mohammed VI pointed out, in a scolding tone, that in order to put an end to this situation, governors, caids, directors, staff members, local officials, etc. should work hard, just like staff in the private sector  or even harder.

They should show a sense of responsibility that does credit to the civil service and yields concrete results since these officials are entrusted with serving citizens interests.

King Mohammed VI also pinpointed political parties for failing to assume their responsibility and for their practices that induce a number of citizens, especially young people, to shun the countrys political life.

The evolution witnessed in Morocco in the political domain and in the area of development has not led to the kind of positive reaction you would expect from political parties, leaders and government officials when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccans, he said.

All in all, our development policy choices remain sound. The problem lies with mentalities that have not evolved as well as with the inability to implement projects and to innovate, he stressed.

One may come up with the most efficient development model and the best plans and strategies but, without a change in mentality; without having the best civil servants; without the political parties choosing the best elites that are qualified to run public affairs; without a sense of responsibility and national commitment; one would not be able to offer all Moroccans the free, dignified life one wants them to have.

Pointing out that this situation can no longer be tolerated because the homelands interests and those of the citizens are at stake, King Mohammed VI stressed the need to apply rigorously the provisions of the second paragraph of Article 1 of the Constitution, which links public office with accountability.

It is high time this principle were implemented in full. Just as the law applies equally to all citizens, it must be applied, first and foremost, to all officials, without distinction or discrimination, and in all of the Kingdoms regions, he stated in a firm tone, announcing This is the dawn of a new era in which there is no difference between officials and citizens as far as civic rights and obligations are concerned; nor is there room for shirking responsibility or avoiding sanctions.

Morocco must come first: before political parties, before elections and before senior positions, the Monarch insisted.
For the second time in less than two years, King Mohammed VI berated the poor management, the inadequate performance and the sluggish service of the Moroccan administration.

In the Throne Day speech broadcast Saturday, the Monarch, in a very critical tone, shed light on the major issues suffered by public administration wherein most civil servants do not have the skills, qualifications or ambition required; moreover, they are not always guided by a sense of responsibility.

Some of these civil servants report to work for only short periods of time, preferring to settle for modest  but guaranteed  pay, instead of working hard to improve their social conditions, said the Monarch.

One of the problems which impede Moroccos progress is the weakness of the civil service, be it in terms of governance, efficiency or the quality of the services provided to citizens, added the Sovereign.

He cited in the regard the example of the regional investment centers. With the exception of one or two, these center are a problem, said King Mohammed VI, noting these bodies impede the act of investing instead of serving as a mechanism that provides incentives and resolves the problems of investors at the regional level, without their having to go to central government departments.

However, the inefficiency of these centers has an adverse impact on regions that are suffering from insufficient  sometimes inexistent  private investment and from the public sectors weak performance. This, in turn, affects citizens living conditions, deplored the Sovereign who had called last year for the reform of the public administration.

To put an end to this situation, King Mohammed VI urged governors, caids, directors, staff members, local officials, etc. to work hard, just like staff in the private sector  or even harder. They should show a sense of responsibility that does credit to the civil service and yields concrete results since these officials are entrusted with serving citizens interests, stressed the Moroccan Sovereign.

In general, Moroccos development policy choices remain sound. Its progress is crystal-clear and recognized across the board and in all sectors but the problem lies with mentalities that have not evolved as well as with the inability to implement projects and to innovate, said King Mohammed VI.

Today, however, we are witnessing glaring paradoxes that are hard to understand or accept. On the one hand, Morocco enjoys indisputable credibility at continental and international levels, the esteem and consideration of our partners and the confidence of major investors, such as the Boeing, Renault and Peugeot groups.

But on the other hand, we are shocked by the end results, the facts on the ground and the modest achievements made in certain social sectors, so much so that it is shameful to admit we are actually talking about present-day Morocco, he went on to say.

While it is true that our action, through a number of sectoral plans  like those relating to agriculture, industry and renewable energy  has been successful, human and local development programs, which have a positive impact on citizens living conditions, do us no credit, nor do they match our ambitions, underlined the Monarch.

In many sectors, this is mostly due to the inadequacy of joint action, the lack of a national, strategic dimension, inconsistency instead of harmony, disparagement and procrastination instead of entrepreneurship and concrete action, said King Mohammed VI in review of the public administration.

The Monarch also criticized political parties for failing to uphold their responsibilities. The evolution witnessed in Morocco in the political domain and in the area of development has not led to the kind of positive reaction you would expect from political parties, leaders and government officials when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccans, he deplored.

The Monarch rebuked the opportunism shown by politicians and officials who vie for the spotlight to derive benefits from the achievements made, both politically and in terms of media exposure, and expressed sharp disapproval of their tendency to hide behind the Royal Palace and ascribe everything to it, when matters do not turn out the way they should.

When results are positive, political parties, politicians and officials vie for the spotlight to derive benefits from the achievements made, both politically and in terms of media exposure. However, when matters do not turn out the way they should, they hide behind the Royal Palace and ascribe everything to it, underlined the Sovereign saying enough is enough! and it is high time to implement accountability rules.

King Mohammed VI insisted further that one may come up with the most efficient development model and the best plans and strategies but, without a change in mentality; without having the best civil servants; without the political parties choosing the best elites that are qualified to run public affairs; without a sense of responsibility and national commitment; one would not be able to offer all Moroccans the free, dignified life one wants them to have.

What I am seeking to achieve today, in all regions of the Kingdom, is a new massira, or march  a march for the achievement of human and social development; a march for equality and social justice for all Moroccans, because such a major endeavor cannot be carried out in one region and not in the others, the Monarch said.
3,000 fail to return after use of Georgia-EU visa-free opportunity

By Messenger Staff

Georgias Deputy Interior Minister, Shalva Khutsishvili, says that 55,000 Georgian citizens have taken advantage of the Georgia-EU visa-free regime since its activation on March 28, 2017.However, 3,000 people have not returned back after the expiration of the 90-day period, Khutsishvili told the IPN news agency, saying this may not necessarily mean that the people violated an agreement rule.Khutsishvili stated that some of the people who have not returned and have been identified by the Ministry, may travel to other countries with whom Georgia also have a visa-free regime.There are possibilities that from the EU nations they left for Turkey, Ukraine, or Belarus. Thus, we cannot definitely say now that all of the 3,000 violated the law, Khutsishvili stated.The Deputy Minister announced that after the Georgia-EU visa liberation came into play, a large number of Georgians traveled to countries Georgia has direct flights to or a large diaspora, such as Germany, France, Poland, Greece and several others.Based on regulations, Georgian citizens holding biometric passports can travel to the Schengen Zone for a period of 90 days within any 180-day period for purposes other than working.The new measures will trigger an alarm system if a Georgian citizen overstays the 90-day limit and will inform the relevant European authorities.The fact that only 3,000 have not returned yet from the 55,000 means that the majority of travelling Georgians did not violate the rules.It is very important that the relevant bodies identify the people who failed to come back and take measures to forcibly return them, as if not this may encourage others to do the same in the future.As unemployment is high in Georgia, some will definitely try to use the opportunity to stay in other countries.Any person attempting to violate the rule, shall add to a bigger risk of having the privilege of visa free regime temporarily revoked. It is important to keep the number of violations to minimum so that the EUs suspension mechanism shall not come into effect, and Georgia shall not lose the opportunity it tried so hard to gain.
Life & Style

Cover: Will Ryan leave Kelly to permanently host the NEW American Idol? Does anyone (besides Kelly) care? Did you guys know we have Seacrest to blame for Keeping Up With the Kardashians? You do now. He produces it. Dont say you never learn anything from the tabloids.

Jailhouse Mock:Dance Mom harridan Abby Lee Miller is in jail for bankruptcy fraud and claims to be in prison hell cleaning toilets. Please let there be no Martha Stewart-style redemption for her.

Mindys Mini: Mindy Kaling is pregnant? Well, a source told People magazine she is, so probably not, but Life & Style says shes already yearning for baby no. 2 despite baby no. 1 still being either a zygote or not real.

OK!

Cover: Miracle babies at 47 must mean this is the 47th time a tabloid has proclaimed Gwen to be pregnant.

Bat Man Returns: More claims that Ben has been trapped by a woman. I swear this guy gets trapped more than Adam Wests 1960s Batman! I hope Batman solves the mystery of Why would anyone want to date Ben Affleck?

Spoonful of something: They dont QUITE call Emily Blunt bossy in this story about how the Mary Poppins star went a little method. Instead, they sayd she was downright demanding and had an air of authority on set. But when people did what she asked, stuff got done. Weird how that happens when a woman who knows what shes doing asks for what she wants.

In Touch

Cover: In Touch posits that even though Megyn Kellys ratings are in the toilet, it is Matt Lauers closely shaved head that will roll. NBC paid $20 million to get her, but I survived the Conan/Leno/Fallon wars of aught ten and I remember the way NBC paid Conan a lot of money to go away and kept the old guy with slightly better ratings.

Carey that weight: Mariah attacked for her weight! screams the story that is certainly not attacking Mariah Carey for her weight, but is definitely pointing out people on her staff who are. I say this with all sincerity: I hope she fires them all.

Cant stop, wont stop: The Kardashian men (Rob, Scott Disick and Kanye) are spinning out of control with breakdowns, boozing and binge-eating respectively. Its like Jane Austen sort of said: It is a truth universally acknowledged that a Kardashian man in possession of a wife must be in want of therapy, potato chips and bottle service.

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You know when you see a stranger on the subway immersed in a book and youre just dying to know what theyre reading?

Sarah Joseph, 23, student

Book: Room by Emma Donoghue

Stop: Dundas

Joseph hasnt seen the Oscar-winning adaptation of Room and wasnt familiar with the story about a 5-year-old boy and his mom trapped in a room.

At first I didnt like how it was written out because its in the little boys perspective and, if you look at it, the grammar was really weird, she said.

But the narrative style grew on her. When you start any book or series theres always that first little hump, she said. She couldnt wait to see where the plot was leading so she checked Wikipedia.

Cindy Hayes, 51, administrator

Book: The Pearl That Broke Its Shell by Nadia Hashimi

Stop: Dundas

Set in Kabul in 2007, part of Hashimis debut novel tells the story of Rahima, who is born into a family of girls. To continue going to school and chaperone her sisters, Rahima begins to dress and behave as a boy, a cultural practice known as bacha posh in which girls are raised as boys until they are of marriageable age. Rahimas story is juxtaposed with that of her great-grandmother, who followed the same custom a century earlier after she was orphaned by an epidemic.

Theres a real story here. Theres no fluff, said Hayes, adding that she read for three hours straight over the weekend.

Jason Smith, 30, recovering addict

Book: The Wee Free Men by Terry Pratchett

Stop: Bloor

Tiffany Aching, a young witch, comes to the rescue of her sweet-toothed brother Wentworth, who was lured away by an evil queen who promised him candy. But Aching cant do it on her own. She seeks the help of the Wee Free Men, six-inch tall blue men who speak and curse freely with a Scottish accent.

Part of Pratchetts Discworld fantasy series, the novel is aimed at young adults. However, Smith says anyone would enjoy its silliness and humour. This is about the difference between whats real and whats really real, he said. Its hard to explain but its very simple when youre reading it.

Smith insisted on describing his occupation as a recovering addict because he wanted to help change the stigma.

There is hope out there, he said.

Manny Sagoo, 22, process manager

Book: Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth

Stop: Union

Talent doesnt guarantee success. Duckworth, a University of Pennsylvania psychologist, argues that the key factors are finding your passion and working hard.

Its pretty interesting because it pulls parallels from common knowledge and psychology studies, Sagoo said.

Halfway through, he says its too early to have put any of the books lessons into practice but hes hoping it might help him answer questions of his own.

Its telling you that your passion doesnt necessarily knock on a door and say Im your passion and this is what you want to do for the rest of your life.

Does he think he will have found his calling after finishing the book? I dont know but why not give it a shot, he said.

SHARE:
Its a touchy thing, this ongoing Canada 150 moment; given the ugly evolution of a country too long enthralled with its skin-deep decency, that seems only apt. Institutions have gone to great length to amend convention and include Indigenous voices typically kept to the margins, or integrate a breadth of diversity into the bipolar Canadianness we typically take for granted.

How much of this turns out to be a permanent shift or merely of-the-moment, only time will tell. But for now, another voice has joined the chorus of Canadian cultural annotation, and its a welcome one.

Here opened at the Aga Khan Museum just a week ago, well after the din of the official sesquicentennial markers, with a view of Canadian nationhood from a unique remove. The Aga Khan, its patron and the leader of a global community of Ismaili Muslims, put the museum here in 2014 for the express purpose of gently nudging western notions of Islam away from the ravages of extremism and closer to the complex beauty of a culture both ancient and contemporary.

Here stands true to form: It presents a pan-cultural array of artists, all of them Canadian, with roots in Iran, Lebanon, Ethiopia, India, Korea and Iraq to name a few, intermingled with First Nations and European-descended Canadian artists.

At its core is an ancient funeral stele, carved from marble, bathed in white light. It serves as a central conceit, resituating this country from its European colonial beginnings to a global, everyone-in-the-pool here and now.

It also makes for a crowded swim of Canadianness, which only makes sense. Generations of diasporas from every inch of the globe have put us among the most pluralistic societies on earth, though our institutions, with a traditionally stubborn devotion to a narrow notion of Canadian culture bound to its colonial roots have been historically remiss in reflecting it. In the watershed of the sesquicentennial, the need to engage with actual reality has become both urgent and heeded, and the AKMs role is key in adding its own suite of marginalized views to the panoply.

It is, though, a tall order, and Here contributes more to a rising cacophony than it does a harmonizing of priorities. Its subtitle  Locating Contemporary Canadian Artists  seems almost like a surrender to the weight of its task: This is less a show with something to say than a set of propositions, vaguely linked, bound together by a hazy notion of nationhood becoming less distinct by the moment.

This is, of course, only the truth; an influx of difference isnt something to make sense of and order into neat little boxes  as though it were even possible  so much as something to learn to respect and to luxuriate in its irresolvabilities. Thats a tough road for a museum to travel, with a built-in mandate of making sense, but the jumble here is faithful to the confusion of a nation warily embracing its messy evolution.

The show lives, spiritedly, in moments: Zadie Xas YZilla the Witch of Flyness in Green Jade City, a cloak crafted of taffeta, fur, black ceramic hands and at least one eyeball, itself a reflection of the struggle to craft identity in a fractured reality; or Jamelie Hassans Souvenir of Lebanon Made in Canada, cross-sections of cedar log into which are carved effigies of a cedar tree, a symbol of her Lebanese ancestry, inscribed in among the most common of Canadian trees.

The notion of hybridity here is one of the shows few clarifying moments. Babak Golkar offers two works that operate as time capsules, one a stone tomb inscribed with the phrase NOTHING IS WORTH DYING/KILLING FOR, and another in the form of a taxidermied fox, standing impassively on its hind legs holding a silver serving tray. Each holds in them an artwork not to be extracted until 2117, though for what reason Im not sure.

As a cynical gesture, Id guess its a bare-minimum measure for a new community to emerge with its Canadianness  whatever that is  fully formed, and Golkars acid wit seems in step with the sesquicentennial moment. Riding alongside him, and more clear-eyed, if youll pardon the pun, is Jaret Vadera, whose Diseases of the Eye series use enlarged medical procedural illustrations as a metaphor for the removal of foreign bodies  an increasingly popular notion, as U.S. President Donald Trumps aggressively evolving immigration policy makes clear.

Indeed, if theres a subtext to be gleaned here, its surely one of belonging: Who has a right to it, and who decides? Nep Sidhu, with a trio of spectacular tapestries strung high above the museums main floor galleries, asks that question with an invocation of a revolutionary: The works, in their graphic abstraction, refer to Malcolm X, and one of them his condemnation of Indigenous oppression in America. Nearby, in a small vitrine, Anishinaabe artist Nadia Myres intricate beaded pieces from her Scarscapes series sit under glass, a quiet embodiment of the trauma X decried.

There are links: Brette Gabels Blanket, from this year, dangles in the museums atrium, its angular patchwork echoing across cultural divides. The eight-sided star motif is a traditional pattern in Indigenous and Islamic design both. A curiosity of technique, here it reads as a quiet indictment of a dominant culture presiding over an array of difference that finds communion in its exclusion.

Back in the exhibition, another piece by Hassan leaps out. An enlarged 2004 Canadian $20 bill fitted with a green neon maple leaf brings the quote by Gabrielle Roy, emblazoned right on it, to the fore: Could we ever know each other in the slightest without the arts? Sitting right next to an image of Haida artist Bill Reids iconic Spirit of Haida Gwaii, which we all carried around in our wallets for years only to arrive at this profound moment of disconnection, the question remains a loaded one indeed.

Prompted by the 150 marker, institutional responses have started to trickle in, many of them with a sudden, belated urgency; and while Here can offer no solutions, it reboots the question with previously unconsidered breadth.

Roy, a Manitoba-born francophone who died in 1983, was tied up in the traditional two solitudes dilemma of English and French, a polarity that feels less relevant to questions of Canadianness by the moment. Hassan and the museum do well to repeat it here with fresh urgency, amid an array of difference growing broader with each passing generation. The query, now, is less Roys hopeful Could we? than it is the more dubious Can we? One way or another, well find out.

Here: Locating Contemporary Canadian Artists continues at the Aga Khan to Jan. 1. For more information please see www.agakhanmuseum.org/here

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OTTAWAIraqi security forces and its allies, including Canada, are helping secure Mosul after liberating it from Daesh, even as future battles loom to root extremists from other Iraqi cities.

And while its not known yet whether Canadian special operations forces soldiers  serving on an advise and assist mission to aid Iraqi and Kurdish troops  will be part of those coming operations, the acting commander of Canadian forces in the region concedes much work remains to be done to eliminate Daesh.

While the battle for Mosul represents a significant milestone, the Canadian commitment to the coalition against Daesh, its more than that and there is still a lot of work to do throughout Iraq, said Col. Jason Kenny, commander of the air task force in Iraq and acting commander, Joint Task Force  Iraq.

Daesh continues to hold territory and pose a threat to Iraqis, he said in a telephone interview from the region Friday.

Our work is not done and we continue to focus on supporting the Iraqi forces as they fight Daesh, he said.

Iraqi forces backed by coalition nations secured a major victory earlier this month when they won back control of Mosul, Iraqs second largest city which had been a Daesh stronghold.

But Kenny cautioned that significant work remains, an acknowledgement that Daesh forces are still holed up in other Iraqi centres. And if Mosul is any indication  where extremists used suicide bombers, drones and civilians as human shields to prolong their hold on the city  the coming battles could be difficult.

Were prepared to support the Iraqi forces wherever that might take them, Kenny said.

With Mosul now in Iraqi hands, attention is turning to other pockets of the country where Daesh still has a presence, including the cities of Tal Afar and Hawija.

Kenny declined to say whether Canadians will be part of those operations, citing operational security. However I can tell you that is continually assessed and our forces are reactive to the coalition needs, he said.

A U.S. commander says discussions are underway among Iraqi and coalition military leaders about future offensives to go after the remnants of ISIS (Daesh), and their safe havens and sanctuaries.

The coalition provides advice, at the very senior levels, on how to sequence future operations. But, ultimately, the government of Iraq makes those decisions. And, ultimately, the government of Iraq is going to lay down the road maps for the future operations, Col. Pat Work, a commander of a advise and assist task force, told a July 21 briefing.

The times going to come where the guns of Iraq, backed by the coalition, turn against ISIS in those areas, and the Iraqi security forces attack to liberate those populations, too. And well be there to support them, Work said.

Canada has up to 850 military personnel involved in its military mission against Daesh, including just over 200 special operations forces soldiers who have been in Iraq on a mission to initially assist Kurdish peshmerga troops and, more recently, Iraqi security forces in Mosul.

For now, Canadian special forces soldiers continue to operate in Mosul, but officers wont rule out a role in future offensives.

While retaking the city was a significant achievement and inflicted a definitive blow to Daesh, much work is left to be done and the Special Operations Task Force will remain with its partner force to provide advice and assistance in ensuring our Iraqi partners are successful, Maj. Alexandre Cadieux, spokesperson for Canadian Special Operations Forces Command, said Friday.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced last month that Canadas military mission to counter Daesh, first deployed in 2014, would be extended to 2019.

In addition to the ground forces, other elements of the Canadian mission include a CC-150 Polaris aerial refueller that has flown 785 sorties, four Griffon helicopters and a single CP-140 Aurora surveillance aircraft, down from two that were initially deployed. It has flown 821 reconnaissance flights and surveyed thousands of locations of interest that could be possible Daesh targets, Kenny said. While Canadian troops on the ground serve only in Iraq, the surveillance flights can include Syria too, he said, adding, It goes where the coalition needs it to go.

With the extension of the mission, the government also deployed a C-130J Hercules transport aircraft to help move personnel and equipment for coalition forces. Its been a really welcome addition, he said.

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EDMONTONJason Kenney has made his bid for the leadership of Albertas new United Conservative Party official.

Kenney, who is a former federal cabinet minister and former leader of the Alberta Progressive Conservatives, made the announcement Saturday in Edmonton.

He joins former Wildrose leader Brian Jean, who is the only other officially declared candidate in the race, although conservative strategist Doug Schweitzer has expressed an intention to run.

The vote is to be held Oct. 28.

Read more: Alberta Wildrose, Progressive Conservatives to vote on proposed party merger

Members of the PC and Wildrose parties agreed to merge in votes that were held last weekend.

Kenney says a leader is needed who has consistent conservative convictions, who also has the political skills to unite the new party while reaching out to broaden its support.

I know that I have those clear convictions. And I have been blessed with the right kind of experience, which I believe has given me the temperament needed for the huge challenge ahead, Kenney said in a news release.

The United Conservative Party was recognized Tuesday as the official Opposition by the Speaker of the legislature, with interim leader Nathan Cooper at its helm.

Jean launched his own campaign Monday and has called for Albertans to get a vote on photo radar.

He has also promised to give voters the power to recall members of the legislature.

The UCP wont become an official political party until papers are filed with Elections Alberta.

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OTTAWAIts the plan the federal government doesnt want you to see and doesnt want to talk about.

Details of Canadas special forces operations in Iraq? Nope. The inside scoop on Canadas negotiating strategy for upcoming trade talks with the United States? Not that, either.

Instead, the document kept under wraps outlines some of the planning for how the Canadian government will respond to the death of Queen Elizabeth.

Yet the Privy Council Office  the bureaucrats who support the Prime Ministers Office and cabinet  has refused to reveal the internal plan meant to guide the governments actions in the hours and days after the Queen dies.

That plan is a cabinet confidence, reserved for the eyes of cabinet ministers and senior advisers, the office said in response to an access to information request by the Star.

The office even refused to discuss whether bureaucrats have been meeting to discuss the topic. Asked for details about any committee established to oversee the planning, the Privy Council Office delayed its response, saying it needed four months to consult other government institutions.

The Star appealed the offices decision to withhold all records to the information commissioner of Canada. But after a review, commission investigators deemed that the documents are indeed cabinet confidences that will be kept under wraps.

Its no secret that the health of the Queen, age 91, has been on the minds of Canadian bureaucrats and politicians.

In announcing in April that Prince Charles and his wife, Camilla, would be visiting Canada for July 1 celebrations, Canadian Heritage Minister Melanie Joly said the Queens health did not allow her to make the trip.

I understand that, of course, the Queen is ill, Joly told CTVs Power Play. She then clarified to say, Well, not necessarily ill, but doesnt have the capacity, the health, to come to Canada.

Documents obtained from the Canadian Heritage Department reveal that backroom planning for the Queens death has been underway for several years, with broad consultations that have included the Canadian Armed Forces, Rideau Hall, the Privy Council Office, Buckingham Palace and Canadas High Commission in London.

In 2012, Kevin MacLeod, at the time the Canadian secretary to the Queen, reviewed the Succession of the Crown Plans. In an email to Stephen Wallace, the secretary to the Governor General, MacLeod said he was most impressed with its thoroughness.

MacLeod passed along several suggestions to Wallace  all of them censored from the material released to the Star  but said, all in all, this is a very strong document and, again, congratulations on a great effort.

That planning has continued, with meetings and email exchanges, including several in 2016 with the subject line Succession to the Throne that included officials in the Heritage Department responsible for major events and commemorations.

Emails were also exchanged with the office of the Earl Marshal, who has a role in planning state ceremonies in the United Kingdom, including organizing the funeral of a monarch and the coronation of the new one.

Exact details of all those discussions and decisions were kept from the Stars view. Dozens of pages provided under access to information were censored in their entirety on the grounds that their contents constituted advice to a cabinet minister.

The Privy Council Office declined to comment Friday on any of the planning, saying only that arrangements concerning succession to the throne will be announced at an appropriate time and conveying a wish for the Queens continued good health.

PCO will work closely with Rideau Hall and all implicated government departments to ensure that appropriate measures are in place. The Government of Canada wishes Her Majesty the Queen a long and prosperous reign, a council office spokesperson, Stephane Shank, told the Star.

Rideau Hall, the home of the Governor General, was equally tight-lipped. It will not be possible to share with you, at the present moment, details and the sequence of events pertaining to the death of Her Majesty the Queen, said a spokesperson, Marie-Eve Letourneau.

The reluctance to comment is understandable, said one person familiar with some of the governments work on the file.

People dont want to cast a lot of light on the subject because no one wants anyone to believe that the Queen is about to die, the source said.

But the source, who spoke on background because of the sensitivity of the topic, said that developing contingency plans was simply good practice.

The source noted, for example, that when members of the Royal Family travel abroad, they pack mourning clothes with them, just in case. If a death occurs in London, they have to be prepared, he said.

Just as Ottawa has planned for the deaths of past prime ministers and governors general  often in consultation with those personalities themselves  it has laid plans for the death of the Queen.

When the news comes that so-and-so has passed, there is an awful lot that has to be done in a very short prescribed period of time. The more planning you can do in advance to know who has to be called when and what happens in what order, so much the better, the source said.

The key players who will be involved know that they will have roles to play and I presume they are talking to each other on a fairly regular basis.

That planning is almost certain to include the offices of the lieutenant-governors, who serve as the Queens representatives in each of the provinces.

The death of the Queen  who has reigned for 65 years  will have a profound effect on Canadians, predicted Garry Toffoli, vice-chairman and executive director of the Canadian Royal Heritage Trust.

Most of us have never known any other monarch. It has defined our lives, he said.

Traumatic might not be the right word, but it will be emotional when it happens, Toffoli said in an interview.

Given that her mother lived to 101, the Queen could have another decade ahead of her, he said. But he said its understandable that plans have been laid.

As for guidance on what to expect when she dies, Toffoli suggested looking to the death of the Queens father, King George VI, on Feb. 6, 1952  the last time a reigning British monarch died.

The Heritage Department documents provided to the Star included an annex detailing some of the activities that unfolded on the Canadian end that year.

Within an hour of the official announcement of the kings death in London, notifications went out to the prime minister and cabinet officials in Ottawa. The CBC was quickly instructed to ensure that radio programs would immediately be altered in a manner suitable for the occasion. That meant no ads, only appropriate music, news and announcements.

Public Works was contacted to ensure flags were lowered to half-mast on federal buildings. Work was started on proclamations: one to announce the death of the king and another to mark the accession of the Queen. The senior judge of the Supreme Court and the prime minister took oaths of allegiance to the new monarch.

The Canadian representatives at the kings funeral included the Canadian high commissioner, Vincent Massey, who was the incoming governor general, as well as the minister of national defence and the secretary of state for external affairs. Prime minister Louis St.-Laurent did not attend the funeral.

A national day of mourning was declared and a ceremony held in Ottawa at the National War Memorial on the day of the funeral.

Toffoli expects some of those activities will occur in the wake of the Queens death, too. There are things that will happen automatically and then there will be things that will be up to the government of the time to decide what to do, he said.

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A battle is brewing just south of James Bay between Moose Cree First Nation and a resource company that wants to develop the worlds next niobium mine in the heart of its traditional territory.

For now, NioBay Metal Inc. wants a drilling permit to confirm the results of an exploration program undertaken in the 1960s. Down the road, the company has plans to develop an underground mine to produce niobium, a metal that helps make lighter, stronger steel.

NioBay says the mine will cause minimal environmental damage and offers big benefits for Moose Cree, but the First Nation fears otherwise. The proposed mine site sits near the shore of South Bluff Creek, a culturally significant area for Moose Cree members that borders the North French River watershed, a region they consider protected. Now, they want the province of Ontario to protect it, too.

Company president and CEO Claude Dufresne said Moose Cree members arent in a position to make a decision about the project because NioBay hasnt been allowed to make its pitch in the community.

From a global economic perspective niobium is critical, he said.

The metal is used in the construction of cars, highrises, bridges, jet engines and MRI machines, but most of the production comes from only three mines in the world  one in Quebec and two in Brazil. Its significance to the U.S. became clear in 2010, when it appeared more than once in a diplomatic cable, leaked by WikiLeaks, outlining 300 foreign infrastructure and resource sites considered critical to U.S. interests.

If NioBays James Bay project proceeds, the mine will be built in the heart of Moose Crees homeland in northern Ontario.

To date, the province has protected 1,583 square kilometres of the North French River watershed from development. Moose Cree wants that protection extended to cover the remaining 5,080 square kilometres of watershed still open to mining, as well as the South Bluff Creek watershed that lies next door.

Stuck in the middle, the Ontario government has put NioBays application on hold, leaving Moose Cree and NioBay to wait for a final decision.

In a statement to the Star, Northern Development and Mines Minister Bill Mauro said his government will continue to work with the company and Moose Cree First Nation regarding this exploration permit application. Any potential impacts that are identified will be considered in a future permitting decision.

Moose Cree Chief Patricia Faries says her community is united in its opposition to the project.

The South Bluff Creek is highly used by our members and has camps all along it. You can still drink the water from the creek and the sensitive wetland area supports brook trout, moose, black bear and boreal caribou, Faries wrote in a letter to Premier Kathleen Wynne in May.

Families that occupy the area are united in their opposition to this project. Its protection is also of paramount importance to our people, she said.

Her letter and a band council resolution rejecting the project have been posted on the First Nations website and Facebook page.

In a statement Natural Resources and Forestry Minister Kathryn McGarry added that her ministry has met with Moose Cree First Nation and recognizes the importance of the two watersheds to the community.

The (Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry) supports the participation of Indigenous groups and communities in natural resource management which is why the ministry has taken steps to protect areas of interest to Moose Cree First Nation in the past and is interested in pursuing a dialogue with Moose Cree First Nation to further these opportunities in a balanced approach. 

Meanwhile, Dufresne said the mine would bring more benefit than risk to Moose Cree First Nation, including jobs for Moose Cree members and a partnership agreement for the First Nation.

The mining claim is about 40 km south of Moose Factory, where Moose Cree First Nation is based. Dufresne said the footprint of a future mine would be smaller than the Niobec niobium mine in Quebec and a fraction of the size of the Detour gold mine near the southeastern edge of Moose Crees traditional territory.

The risks associated with niobium processing are very, very low, he added, noting the Niobec mine in Quebec has been operating for 40 years with no environmental issues.

Niobium doesnt require toxic chemicals for processing, unlike gold processing, which often involves cyanide, and the mine could recycle most of its water, limiting its discharge to close to zero, he told the Star.

When asked about effluent reports from the Quebec Niobec mine in 2013, which show it released some amounts of arsenic, zinc, copper and nitrogen, though at levels below regulated limits, Dufresne said its too early to say which elements will be discharged.

However, I would like to note that even drinking water contained minerals, he said.

Right now, NioBay is focused on finalizing exploration work to validate the resource. But a presentation to investors on its website shows NioBay was hoping for mine construction by 2020 and production by 2021. The company is estimating a mine life of 25 to 30 years.

Obviously now everything will be postponed until we can get some support from the Moose Cree, Dufresne said.

We obviously want to make sure that the project is well known and after that if the community as a whole is against it, well then, obviously we wont be able to build a mine  but we havent reached that stage yet, he said.

Moose Cree First Nation, however, seems resolute.

It is not a matter of our community needing more time to better understand the economics of the project. Moose Cree will not allow any industrial development here ever, Faries wrote in her letter to Wynne.

Our ancestors have lived on this land since time immemorial, drawing the animals, fish and plants for our sustenance. We are charged by the Creator with the sacred duty of preserving and protecting the land including its waters for our future generations.

Moose Crees opposition to development in this area is nothing new and their right to reject the mine should be respected, said Anna Baggio, the director of conservation planning for Wildlands League, the Ontario chapter of CPAWS.

Moose Cree declared the North French River watershed protected in 2002 and rejected a similar drilling proposal in the South Bluff Creek watershed by the mining claims previous owner in 2003  13 years before NioBay acquired the claim.

NioBay should have done their due diligence and checked with the community before they purchased that property because if they had checked with Moose Cree, Moose Cree could have told them that they had said no to drilling before, Baggio said.

Moose Cree say damage from exploration work in the 1960s, which was undertaken without the First Nations consent, is still visible on the landscape and Baggio is concerned that a mine would cause permanent damage to the ecosystem.

These are very sensitive wetlands, its cold and the growing season is very short, the land does not restore itself, she said.

There are certain places where mining just shouldnt happen, and this is just one of those places.

Wildlands League and 11 other environmental organizations have thrown their weight behind Moose Cree First Nations call for protection of these lands and waterways.

In an open letter to Wynne in June, they noted the watersheds not only provide critical habitat for migratory birds, fish and threatened boreal caribou, the boreal forest serves as a vital carbon sink.

Protecting these areas could help Canada meet its international climate and biodiversity targets, they said.

Canada has committed to reduce emissions to 30 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 and, under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, to protect 17 per cent of its lands and inland waters by 2020. With three years left to reach its goal Canada is lagging behind other G7 countries, a CPAWS report released last week said.

Only Canada and the U.S. have not yet met the 17 per cent target, but the U.S., which has protected 13 per cent of its territory, is ahead of Canada, which has protected 11 per cent. Germany meanwhile is leading the pack with protection for 37.8 per cent of its lands and inland waters.

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Hooked to an artificial respirator, Khaldoun Senjab has been identified by the United Nations as a Syrian refugee for priority resettlement.

A Canadian official who interviewed the computer systems programmer in Lebanon last year noted on the refugee sponsorship application for Senjab, his wife and two children: Beautiful family that will settle well.

Thats why the family was shocked to receive a rejection letter from the Canadian visa post in Beirut in April, saying Senjab was inadmissible because of his work with the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, an opposition umbrella group recognized by the United States, as well as countries in the Middle East and Europe, as Syrias legitimate representative.

We escaped death and war in Syria to face a very difficult situation in Lebanon. Just imagine the situation for a woman with her ventilator-dependent quadriplegic husband, said a frustrated Senjab, who is restricted to lying in bed after a serious diving accident in 1994.

The decision of the Canadian visa officer was absolutely unfair. They treated me like a criminal. I did nothing wrong. They didnt only break my heart but they broke the heart of my tiny little family.

According to the Immigration Department, visa officials have rejected 381 cases, or 3 per cent, of the 11,333 Syrian private sponsorship applications received between Nov. 4, 2015, and July 20 this year. Of those, nine cases were refused due to the applicants alleged association with a group engaged in or instigating the subversion of a government.

The Syrian opposition coalition was launched in 2012 with the goal of overthrowing the regime of Bashar Assad and building a democratic, pluralistic Syria. It works with the Free Syrian Army  made up of defected Syrian Armed Forces and supported by the United States, United Kingdom, France, Turkey and Saudi Arabia  to protect civilians. Canada has not recognized the Syrian opposition coalition as the countrys legitimate representative.

Although we cannot comment on a case, we can say that applications are considered on a case-by-case basis on the specific facts presented by the applicant, said Immigration Department spokesperson Nancy Caron.

Admissibility decisions are made by trained officers in accordance with the criteria set out in the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.

Since the Syrian civil war started in 2011, five million Syrians have fled the country, with another 6.2 million internally displaced, according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The death toll is estimated at over 400,000.

The Assad regime has been condemned by the international community for its brutal attacks on its own people and use of chemical weapons.

Critics said supporters of the Syrian opposition are particularly at risk of torture and persecution if returned to the country from temporary shelter abroad.

It is preposterous that the Canadian government is refusing urgent refugee cases like Senjabs, for any kind of remote connection to the Syrian opposition, said Toronto lawyer Tim Wichert, who represents the family in asking the Federal Court of Canada to review the government decision.

In his clients case, Senjab said he worked as a freelancer through a friend on the web server for the website of the coalition, providing defence against web security attacks. He said neither was he a member of the group nor did he endorse any violent activities with or against the Assad regime.

As of the end of March, almost 46,000 Syrian refugees had settled in Canada, including 23,975 sponsored by Canadian government, 17,705 by private faith and community groups and some 4,210 in the mixed stream.

However, there are still 14,972 Syrians in 5,652 private sponsorship applications in process. Wichert fears immigration officials are trying to find a simple solution to clear their caseloads by using the inadmissibility on security grounds to refuse applications.

Immigrations position seems to be that anyone who worked or volunteered with the coalition is inadmissible to Canada on security grounds for engaging in the subversion of a government by force or being a member of an organization that has engaged in the subversion, said lawyer Pierre-Andre Theriault, who is aware of at least three such cases in recent months.

Over 80 countries around the world, including the European Union and the United States, recognize the coalition as the legitimate representative of the Syrian people. The discretionary, and discriminatory, application of inadmissibility provisions seems problematic to me.

Theriaults client, Mohammad Waleed Taleb, received a fairness letter in June from the Canadian visa post in Turkey raising concerns that the Syrian refugee could be inadmissible due to your past activities and past employment with the coalition.

Taleb, 32, said he volunteered to help with creating the media office for the opposition in October 2011, advocating for human rights and democracy for a new Syria.

I created the websites, social media, branding and e-marketing channels. I felt it was important to be involved in the movement for democracy in Syria because of the ongoing violence in Syria being committed by the al-Assad regime against civilians, said Taleb, who is in exile in Turkey with his wife, Duaa Khiti, and children, Khaled, 7, and Lana, 4.

My role was very specific within the media office and I was not directly or indirectly involved in the promotion or implementation of any violence or war crimes.

Taleb said life has been tough for his family as they only have temporary residence status in Turkey and he fears for their lives there because he is known to members of Daesh, also known as ISIS and ISIL, in the country and has received threats.

Duaa and I are terrified to return to Syria. We know that the situation in Syria has deteriorated significantly and we believe that our lives would be at risk, said Taleb. There is no place in Syria that my family and I can be safe.

Jennifer Raine, of the People of the East End Refugee Support Group that is sponsoring Taleb and his family, said she understands the needs to properly screen newcomers for security threats but Ottawas broad stroke against anyone associated with the Syrian opposition does not make sense.

Its not that hard to tell the difference between those who work behind the desk promoting democracy and those who have weapons in their hands, said Raine, whose group was matched with the family in December 2015.

These guys cant go back to Syria. Their status in Turkey is tenuous. What are they supposed to do?

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PARISEmmanuel Macron is a master of persuasion.

In his youth, he seduced his married high school drama teacher, the woman who is now his wife. In middle age, with no government experience, he cajoled a sitting president into giving him a coveted cabinet position. Then  with no support from any established political party  he dazzled a nation, becoming, at 39, the youngest-ever president of France, a country where tradition is a way of life.

Nearly 100 days into Macrons presidency, there are already indications that the French are increasingly skeptical of their new president. While a majority still approve of him, Macrons initially sky-high approval rating dropped by 10 per cent this month, mostly because of his refusal to back down on commitments to slash government spending. He has also come under fire for failing to aid migrants, sparred with Frances chief military officer, who later resigned, and pushed to expand the states powers to fight terrorism in ways that critics fear will permanently curtail civil liberties.

Read more:

Emmanuel Macron meets with Rihanna about education initiative

Emmanuel Macron sets vision for future of France in Versailles speech

Judging from the new presidents calendar, however, the dip in domestic popularity is of little concern, for his roving political eye seems to have identified a new conquest. Macron may be the president of France, but now he seems to be running for a different office altogether: the leader of the free world.

Following the election of Donald Trump  who ran on promises of America First isolationism  commentators worldwide immediately began referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto defender of the liberal world order. With her famously stoic demeanour, Merkel appeared the natural replacement. Throughout her long career, she has advocated diplomacy and international law, and has defended an embattled European Union.

But in his first three months in office, Macron has dared to tread where Merkel hesitates to go. In keeping with his youthful image, he makes bold statements in defence of global causes such as climate change action, as evidenced in his Twitter campaign to Make Our Planet Great Again. And in the style of the French Obama, he hosts international celebrities in the Elysee for conversations on hot-button issues  including both Bono and Rihanna last week.

In any case, the major plot points of his young presidency have all featured him in the international spotlight, either attempting to charm or stand up to powerful world leaders, often those unpopular in France.

This is not to say that nothing has happened on the domestic level since his election in May. Macron, a relative political outsider even a year ago, ultimately succeed in carrying out an almost unthinkable overhaul of French political life. The new centrist party he founded, Republique En Marche (Republic on the Move), now has an absolute majority in Parliament.

But in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, his principal ambition to date seems to be casting himself as a master negotiator in a new world where all roads somehow lead to Paris.

To some extent, France is back again, said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to the United States and the EU, in an interview. You have France pushing forward its interest, but doing so in a way that makes it take a central position on the world stage, because France likes to lead and likes to be seen as leading.

This defence of French interests has taken forms large and small, including a last-minute move to temporarily nationalize Frances largest shipyard on Thursday  to save French jobs from a potential Italian takeover. But so far, it has mostly been the world stage on which Macron has set his sights.

Last week, for instance, he hosted Libyas two rival leaders for talks in a chateau outside Paris. The mission was tentatively successful: the meeting led to a conditional ceasefire agreement between Fayez al-Sarraj, Libyas UN-backed prime minister, and Khalifa Haftar, the military leader who controls much of eastern Libya.

For France, the issue of Libya holds particular significance, given the countrys past difficulties in negotiating any functioning resolution in the region, as in the joint Franco-British 2011 operation.

The cause of peace has made great progress today, said Macron at the end of discussions, heralding the historic courage of the two leaders he invited.

Likewise, Vimont said, Macron has positioned himself as a similar mediator between Israel and Palestine and even between the United States and Russia.

Macron has hosted  separately  Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In each of these meetings, Macron has used his considerable charm to play both sides, even while blasting Putin for Russias state-owned media being organs of propaganda. With Abbas, he opposed settlements, calling them illegal under international law. With Netanyahu, he decried anti-Zionism, which, for Macron, is the reinvented form of anti-Semitism.

But nowhere was Macrons ability to seduce more on display than in the case of Trump, whom he invited to Paris after the two had a tense first meeting in Brussels in May. The entire affair was dominated by a six-second handshake widely interpreted as a display of Gallic machismo  and that Macron later told a French newspaper was a moment of truth.

In their second encounter, however, Macron was all smiles, outwardly embracing Trump, who enjoys an approval rating of just 14 per cent in France, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center. Even after Trump commented on the good physical shape of Macrons 64-year-old wife, Brigitte, the young president referred to his American counterpart as dear Donald and flattered him while the cameras were rolling.

But Macrons flattery began long before the visit, Trump revealed in an Oval Office interview with the New York Times this month. Trump  who has refused to visit Britain until Prime Minister Theresa May can fix a warm welcome for him  initially asked Macron whether there would be protests in Paris, he told the Times.

I said, Do you think its a good thing for me? 

Trump said Macron was quick to say that protests would not be a problem, and that a lavish spectacle of French military pomp would await him on the storied Champs Elysees. Trump arrived, and there were no protests in sight. He now extols his great relationship with Macron.

For Dominique Moisi, a French foreign policy expert at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne, a think tank with ties to the Macron campaign, there is potential danger in Macrons having put himself in the limelight.

At the same time, the devil is in the details, Moisi said. By receiving these leading opposite forces in Paris, hes taking a risk. What if he fails?

In Macrons official presidential portrait  whose heavy symbolism Frances chattering classes have taken to scrutinizing in the manner of a Holbein or a Rembrandt  he appears near a stack of books, one of which is opened on the desk behind him.

Among them is Stendhals The Red and the Black, Le Monde revealed, a classic 19th-century novel that tells the story of Julien Sorel, a young provincial who, like Macron, comes to Paris to seek his fortune and, as it happens, seduces an older woman along the way.

In the novel, things do not end particularly well for Julien, but one thing is sure: He is the slave of a staggering ambition, and nothing can stand in his way. Among the novels most famous lines: Each man for himself, in that desert of egoism which is called life.

Macrons young presidency has not yet experienced a major domestic crisis or attack. Likewise, none of his major policy proposals have yet been implemented  including his controversial push to liberalize Frances highly regulated labour market. Those reforms are due to be introduced in Parliament this fall, and could inspire massive protests.

With an absolute majority in Parliament  populated with deputies Macron hand-picked, all of whom represent a new political party that bears his own initials  Macron is not yet used to opposition. As he said to French troops, in the midst of a dispute over military budget cuts, I am your boss . . . I need no pressure and no commentary.

For some, Macrons overt allusion to Stendhal evinces a sense of humour on his part, an ironic self-awareness. For others, it represents a different kind of irony, almost an inadvertent foreshadowing.

As Moisi put it, The hard times are yet to come.

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MOSCOWRussian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday the United States would have to cut its embassy and consulate staff in Russia by 755 under new sanctions from Moscow.

In response, the U.S. State Department deemed it a regrettable and uncalled for act.

Russians Foreign Ministry on Friday ordered a reduction by Sept. 1 in the number of U.S. diplomatic personnel in Russia. It said it is ordering the U.S. Embassy to limit the number of embassy and consular employees in the country to 455 in response to approval of a new package of sanctions by the U.S. Congress. The White House has said U.S. President Donald Trump would sign those sanctions into law.

We had hoped that the situation will somehow change, but apparently if it changes, it wont be soon, Putin said in an interview televised on Rossiya 1, explaining why Moscow decided to retaliate. I thought it was the time to show that were not going to leave it without an answer.

Russia is open to co-operating with the U.S. on various issues, including terrorism and cybercrime, but instead it only hears unfounded accusations of meddling in U.S. domestic affairs, he said.

Read more: GOP-led House set to pass Russia sanctions bill limiting Trumps authority

Putin said more than 1,000 people are currently employed at the Moscow embassy and three U.S. consulates in Russia. They include both Americans and Russians hired to work in the diplomatic offices.

The Russian leader did not explain how the figure of 755 positions was calculated.

In a statement, the State Department said: This is a regrettable and uncalled for act. We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it. We have no further comment at this time.

The State Department declined to give an exact number of American diplomats or other U.S. officials in Russia, but the figure is believed to be about 400, some of whom have families accompanying them on diplomatic passports.

The vast majority of the more than 1,000 employees at the various US diplomatic missions in Russia, including the embassy in Moscow and consulates in St. Petersburg, Vladivostok and Yekaterinburg, are local employees.

Asked about the potential for additional sanctions against Washington, Putin described the reduction in diplomatic staff as painful and said he currently opposes further measures.

We certainly have something to respond with and restrict those areas of joint co-operation that will be painful for the American side, but I dont think we need to do it, he said, adding that such steps could also harm Russian interests.

Putin mentioned space and energy as the main areas where Russia and the United States have successfully pursued projects together.

Along with the cap on the size of the U.S. diplomatic corps in Russia, the Russian foreign ministry on Friday said it also was closing down a U.S. recreational retreat on the outskirts of Moscow as well as warehouse facilities.

The diplomatic tit-for-tat started under former U.S. President Barack Obama. In response to reports of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Obama ordered the expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian recreational retreats in the U.S.

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Meeting in council  where a council is a group of people who come together to consult, deliberate and make decisions affecting the wider group  has been a form of deciding human affairs for probably as long as human society has existed.

Often, councils have chosen symbols to designate their authority. Canadas governing councils  or parliaments  use the mace. Symbolizing the authority of the Crown, as exercised by the elected assembly, the mace is carried into the legislative chamber at the beginning of every sitting day and placed on the table in front of the speaker, where it remains until the sitting is adjourned. Once convened, the legislature is empowered to decide matters of government.

Like the mace, the talking stick  a symbolic instrument of democracy used by many Indigenous peoples along the Northwest Coast of North America  indicates which speaker has the right to be heard. (A talking feather, sacred shell, wampum belt or other symbolic object may also be used for this purpose.)

Matters taken up by elected representatives in Canadian legislatures are decided by a division into those voting yea and those voting nay. Supported by a majority of voices in favour or against, the outcome becomes a decision of the whole House of Commons; abstentions are not recognized. In this way, the house (with the Mace in place) has the authority to speak and speaks with one voice.

Canada is a country of three founding traditions  French, British and Indigenous. Yet the design of our House of Commons mace  with its coats of arms, roses, shamrocks, thistles, and fleurs-de-lys  recognizes and reflects only the first two. This is simply unacceptable in such an essential part of our parliamentary regalia.

Indigenous contributions to Canada are far too little known and celebrated in the popular history of this country. Indigenous peoples freely shared their knowledge and technologies with the first European explorers and settlers, enabling them to navigate and survive in a  for them  alien climate and landscape.

Early military alliances between Britain and First Nations were a critical part of the defensive network of British North America. First Nations and Metis fighters fought beside British troops and colonial militias against invading American forces during the War of 1812; thousands fought with Canada alongside her allies in the two World Wars.

Like many, I have found it difficult to celebrate Canadas 150th. Spanning nearly 4 billion years, our geology is some of the oldest on the planet; life in some form has existed here for probably almost as long. The current consensus holds that modern humans migrated to what is now as the Americas possibly as far back as 20,000 years ago, millennia before the first Europeans arrived. Certain West Coast Indigenous cultures are among the longest enduring in the world.

Replacing the Mace in our federal elected legislature with one whose design reflects the governing symbols of Canadas Indigenous cultures will not bring clean water to reserves, pay for education, return lost and murdered Aboriginal women to their families or bring about First Nations self-government. But it will recognize in a highly visible manner that Canadas Indigenous traditions must be an integral part of the way this country is governed.

That, I could celebrate.

Pat Steenberg has been a CBC radio producer, a House of Commons procedural clerk and the leader of a national NGO. She is retired and lives in Ottawa.

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Amazon.com Inc. (AMZN) - Get Free Report was the talk of Wall Street Friday morning after the online retailer reported second quarter earnings that missed analysts' expectations by over a dollar. Jeff Bezos' company reported earnings of 40 cents per share, well short of analysts' $1.42 per share expectations. In early afternoon trading, Amazon shares were down 2.49% to $1,019.70.

Shares of Tesla Inc. (TSLA) - Get Free Report were up slightly in early trading as the company begins deliveries of its Model 3 cars today. The vehicle is the cheapest model Tesla manufactures with a $35,000 starting price tag. Tesla shares were up 0.7% to $336.79.

Shares of Starbucks Corp. (SBUX) - Get Free Report were getting pummeled early following the company's earnings release after the closing bell Thursday. The coffee shop operator reported third-quarter earnings of 55 cents a share on revenue of $5.67 billion, compared to Wall Street's estimates for earnings of 55 cents a share on revenue of $5.76 billion. That miss sent the stock tumbling 8.6% to $54.37 per share.

Outgoing General Electric Corp. (GE) - Get Free Report CEO Jeffrey Immelt, 61, is reportedly in the running for the vacant top job at Uber Technologies Inc. There are fewer than six names on the company's short list, human resources told employees, according to Bloomberg. Former CEO Travis Kalanick left the company last month. GE shares were lower 1.2%.

Watch: Who Could Replace Travis Kalanick as CEO of Uber?

Apple Inc. (AAPL) - Get Free Report shares were down 0.4% to $149.97 in early afternoon trading Friday ahead of the company's earnings release August 2.

U.S. Steel Corp. X shares were down 7.93% to $23.01 in afternoon trading after analysts at Citi downgraded the stock to "sell" from "neutral" while also lowering its price target to $20 from $26.

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Granite Construction Incorporated operates as an infrastructure contractor and a construction materials producer in the United States. It operates through two segments, Construction and Materials segments. The Construction segment engages in the construction and rehabilitation of roads, pavement preservation, bridges, rail lines, airports, marine ports, dams, reservoirs, aqueducts, infrastructure, and site development for use by the public. It also focuses on water-related construction for municipal agencies, commercial water suppliers, industrial facilities, and energy companies. The company also constructs various complex projects, including infrastructure/site development, mining, public safety, tunnel, solar, and power projects. The Materials segment is involved in the production of aggregates and asphalt for internal use, as well as for sale to third parties. In addition, it offers site preparation, mining, and infrastructure services for residential development, energy development, commercial and industrial sites, and other facilities; and provides construction management professional services. The company serves federal agencies, state departments of transportation, local transit authorities, county and city public works departments, school districts and developers, utilities, contractors, landscapers, manufacturers of products requiring aggregate materials, retailers, homeowners, farmers, brokers, and private owners of industrial, commercial, and residential sites. Granite Construction Incorporated was founded in 1922 and is headquartered in Watsonville, California.
BUTTE  Two entrepreneurs from the Bay Area are setting up shop here.

In mid-July, Mike Williams and May Huang held a soft opening for their new enterprise: M&M Trading Company, a prefabricated stone countertop business at 3960 Wynne Ave.

M&Ms countertops are not custom.

Instead, Huang and Williams said, their countertops are precut for a standard cabinet depth, come in a variety of edge-styles, lengths and stones (including granite and quartz) and can be fitted together and color blended by the companys trained craftsman so that the counters seams are minimally visible.

This is a big do-it-yourself community, said Williams, noting that the countertops can be installed using M&M tradesmen, contractors or, for those with an adventurous side, self-installation.

Huang said homeowners with experience in home improvement and construction can qualify to take an installation class at M&M.

You get a feel for how to handle the materials, said Huang, noting that working with the countertops takes some getting used to.

The couple said the prefabricated nature of their products, which runs from about $35 to $70 per square foot, allows them to compete with prices for some laminate and stone countertops offered at big box stores. The countertops are also an alternative to custom countertops, which can run between $92 and $135 per square foot, according to M&Ms website.

The thing were trying to do is take people who want stone and are settling for laminate and convert them to stone, said Williams.

Williams, who has a built a career working in finance and operations in the tech industry, said hes no stranger to the Mining City. Its his parents hometown, said the Bay Area resident, who noted that he spent many summers visiting the Mining City during his youth.

Huang, meanwhile, is Williams partner and collaborator.

Huang also grew up in the Bay Area but is originally from Beijing, China. In 1985 Huang and her mother moved from China to California and met up with her father, who had already been living in the United States.

We landed in Berkeley, and thats kind of where our family grew roots, said Huang, who went on to work in software development and business.

Huang and Williams created M&M after buying and renovating a home Uptown, where they plan to live part time. When they set out to remodel their kitchen, the couple said they were shocked by the prices of stone countertops, which they said tend to be less expensive in their home state.

They did a little research, the couple said, and discovered that the mid market for stone countertops in western Montana was being underserved.

Based on their research, the couple estimates that people living in Bozeman, Helena, Missoula and Butte and their counties spend around $390 million on kitchen remodels each year.

When it came to naming the business, Huang said the word trading seemed to fit.

Not only are we trading (in terms of) moving parts around and commerce, said Huang, by trading youre also sharing information, youre sharing knowledge, youre sharing know-how.

And some of the knowledge that M&M will be trading is the know-how that goes along with craftsmanship.

Through their business the couple plans to offer employees a first step toward a career in a skilled trade.

We want to create a group of tradesmen, said Williams. (Because) thats what Butte grew up on.

Williams, who estimated that the company will have around 20 employees, said M&M aims to set a high bar for their staff, but what they will ultimately walk away with is a marketable set of skills.

For Williams and Huang, M&M is about unleashing potential and contributing to the community.

Because we have roots here, Williams said.
Hilltop Holdings Inc. provides business and consumer banking, and financial products and services. It operates through three segments: Banking, Broker-Dealer, and Mortgage Origination. The Banking segment offers savings, checking, interest-bearing checking, and money market accounts; certificates of deposit; lines and letters of credit, home improvement and equity loans, loans for purchasing and carrying securities, equipment loans and leases, agricultural and commercial real estate loans, and other loans; and commercial and industrial loans, and term and construction finance. This segment also provides treasury management, wealth management, asset management, check cards, safe deposit boxes, online banking, bill pay, trust, and overdraft services; and estate planning, management and administration, investment portfolio management, employee benefit accounts, and individual retirement accounts, as well as automated teller machines. The Broker-Dealer segment offers public finance services that assist public entities in originating, syndicating, and distributing securities of municipalities and political subdivisions; specialized advisory and investment banking services; advice and guidance to arbitrage rebate compliance, portfolio management, and local government investment pool administration; structured finance services, which include advisory services for derivatives and commodities; sells, trades in, and underwrites U.S. government and government agency bonds, corporate bonds, and municipal bonds, as well as mortgage-backed, asset-backed, and commercial mortgage-backed securities and structured products. This segment also provides asset and liability management advisory, clearing, retail, and securities lending services. The Mortgage Origination segment offers mortgage, jumbo, Federal Housing Administration, Veterans Affairs, and United States Department of Agriculture loans. Hilltop Holdings Inc. was founded in 1998 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.
Haemonetics Corporation, a healthcare company, provides medical products and solutions. It operates through three segments: Plasma, Blood Center, and Hospital. The company offers automated plasma collection devices, related disposables, and software, including NexSys PCS and PCS2 plasmapheresis equipment and related disposables and intravenous solutions, as well as integrated information technology platforms for plasma customers to manage their donors, operations, and supply chain; and NexLynk DMS donor management system. It also provides automated blood component and manual whole blood collection systems, such as MCS brand apheresis equipment to collect specific blood components from the donor; disposable whole blood collection and component storage sets; SafeTrace Tx blood bank information system; and BloodTrack blood management software, a suite of blood management and bedside transfusion solutions that combines software with hardware components, as well as an extension of the hospital's blood bank information system. In addition, the company offers hospital products comprising TEG, ClotPro, and HAS hemostasis analyzer systems that provide a comprehensive assessment of a patient's overall hemostasis; TEG Manager software, which connects various TEG analyzers throughout the hospital, providing clinicians remote access to active and historical test results that inform treatment decisions; and Cell Saver Elite +, an autologous blood recovery system for cardiovascular, orthopedic, trauma, transplant, vascular, obstetrical, and gynecological surgeries. It markets and sells its products through direct sales force, independent distributors, and sales representatives. Haemonetics Corporation was founded in 1971 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.
LVMH Moet Hennessy - Louis Vuitton, Societe Europeenne operates as a luxury goods company worldwide. The company offers champagnes, wines, and spirits under the Clos des Lambrays, Chateau d'Yquem, Dom Perignon, Ruinart, Moet & Chandon, Hennessy, Veuve Clicquot, Ardbeg, Chateau Cheval Blanc, Glenmorangie, Krug, Mercier, Chandon, Cape Mentelle, Newton Vineyard, Cloudy Bay, Belvedere, Terrazas de los Andes, Bodega Numanthia, Cheval des Andes, Woodinville, Ao Yun, Clos19, and Volcan de mi Tierra brands. It also provides fashion and leather products under the Berluti, Celine, Christian Dior, Emilio Pucci, FENDI, Givenchy, Kenzo, Loewe, Loro Piana, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs, Moynat, Patou, and RIMOWA brands. In addition, the company offers perfumes and cosmetics under the Acqua di Parma, Benefit Cosmetics, Cha Ling, Fenty Beauty by Rihanna, Fresh, Givenchy Parfums, Guerlain, KVD Beauty, Kenzo Parfums, Maison Francis Kurkdjian, Make Up For Ever, Marc Jacobs Beauty, Officine Universelle Buly, Parfums Christian Dior, and Perfumes Loewe brands; watches and jewelry under the Bulgari, Chaumet, Fred, Hublot, Repossi, TAG Heuer, Tiffany & Co., and Zenith brands; and custom-designed yachts under the Feadship brand name, as well as designs and builds luxury yachts under the Royal Van Lent brand. Further, it provides daily newspapers under the Les Echos brand; Belmond, a luxury tourism service; home other activities under the Belmond, Cheval Blanc, Connaissance des Arts, Cova, Investir, Jardin d'Acclimatation, La Samaritaine, Le Parisien, and Radio Classique brands; and selective retailing products under the DFS, La Grande Epicerie de Paris, Le Bon Marche Rive Gauche, Sephora, and Starboard Cruise Services brands, as well as operates Jardin d'Acclimatation, a leisure and amusement park. The company operates 5,556 stores. LVMH Moet Hennessy - Louis Vuitton, Societe Europeenne was incorporated in 1923 and is headquartered in Paris, France.
Bahrain's Housing Minister Bassim bin Yaqoob Al Hamar has made an inspection visit of Janusan area to identify the housing needs of the locality.



The visit follows directives from His Royal Highness Prime Minister Prince Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa to visit the village and be informed about its needs regarding service facilities and housing.



He highlighted the Housing Ministrys plans to implement a housing project in the village whenever a suitable land lot is provided, stressing that all the housing needs of the village will be included in the ministrys action plan.



He added that the housing demands of Janusan and the neighbouring regions are given priority in the distribution programmes of the Northern Governrates projects, including the Northern City, as well as in the private sector projects.



The minister inspected the housing project that is currently implemented by the private sector in the village for the benefit of the Mazaya programme applicants.



Al Hamar expressed admiration for the project and the units design, stressing the need to expedite the construction process.



The minister lauded the key role played by the private in addressing the housing issue in the kingdom, urging the housing applicants to benefit from projects that are adjacent to their current residence.
- NASA tabled documents allegedly showing how the KDF was planning to help Jubilee rig elections

- KDF through their spokesperson confirmed the documents but said they were quoted out of context

- A day later Defence CS Raychelle Omamo denied the existence of such documents saying she has not seen them

- It is not clear who between KDF and Omamo is saying the truth

On Friday, July 28, National Super Alliance (NASA) leaders Raila Odinga and Kalonzo Musyoka tabled damning documents that alleged reveal how the military is being prepared to help President Uhuru Kenyatta rig elections and retain power.

The documents detailed the names and contacts of some of the top, 'regime-friendly' military officers who were tasked to ensure this happens.

The documents further claimed that areas such as Mathare and Kibera would be cordoned off and water and electricity supply cut off should anything unlikely happen.

Defence CS Raychelle Omamo Photo: Ministry of Defence

Source: UGC

READ ALSO: Police reveal who attacked DP Ruto's Sugoi home in Eldoret

NASA claimed the military had already been prepared to hand over power to Uhuru even if he loses to Raila.

Hours after the allegations, military spokesperson Colonel Joseph Owuoth confirmed that the documents tabled by NASA were indeed authentic but said they were quoted out of context and denied that the KDF was being prepared for the same.

However, a day later, as reported by TUKO.co.ke, the Jubilee administration came out guns blazing and denied the allegations and any knowledge of the documents.

KDF soldiers in action Photo: Courtesy

READ ALSO: CS Matiangi and Omamo dismiss NASAs claims on KDF plan to rig August 8 polls

In a presser by Defence CS Raychelle Omamo and her Interior counterpart Fred Matiang'i, the two termed NASA's statement as reckless and denied that such documents originated from the military.

I have not seen the documents. KDF has no plans to rig the elections as alleged. The KDF has no role to play in the management and supervision of the General Election. This is the sole responsibility of IEBC," Omamo said when asked about the documents.

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Her response clearly indicates a lack of communication between her office and the KDF if Owuoth's response was anything to go by.

I've slept with over 100 men, tried taking away myself 5 times

Have something to add to this article or suggestions? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- DP Ruto's Sugoi home was still under siege on Sunday, July 30, 18 hours after attack

- Gunshots were heard from the home as police battled an intruder armed with a machete

- But police boss Joseph Boinet said the siege was over as the intruder had been killed

- Kenyans are suspecting an ulterior motive following the attack

Deputy President William Ruto's home at Sugoi in Uasin Gishu county was still under siege on Sunday, July 30, 18 hours after an intruder armed with a machete invaded the compound.

Reports reaching TUKO.co.ke indicate that heavy gunfire was heard on the morning of Sunday, July 30, as more police officers were deployed to the home.

This contradicts an early statement by police boss Joseph Boinett that the intruder armed with a machete and not a gun as it had early been speculated had been neutralised.

READ ALSO: Police reveal who attacked DP Ruto's Sugoi home in Eldoret

Journalists and residents camped 200 metres from the home said they heard gunshots from inside the compound as more security personnel were deployed.

A source who spoke to TUKO.co.ke in confidence said the IG's statement was meant to calm nerves as the attackers could be more than just a machete-wielding intruder.

Police officers at Ruto's Sugoi home Photo: Standard

At around 2 am Sunday, an Armoured Personal Carrier (APC) arrived at the DP's home to help in bringing calm.

READ ALSO: Uhuru, Waiguru lead Kenyans to mourn legendary entertainer Big Kev

However, Boinett now says the siege is over after the attacker was killed on Sunday morning.

As reported by TUKO.co.ke, Kenyans, however, have expressed their dissatisfaction at the statement by the police.

Some believe the attack is a ploy to divert attention from the damning allegations made by the opposition NASA on KDF being used to rig the August 8 polls in favour of President Uhuru Kenyatta.

I've slept with over 100 men, tried taking away myself 5 times

Have something to add to this article or suggestions? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
- IEBC's acting director of ICT has gone missing throwing the commission into confusion

- Chris Msando was one of the few people at the IEBC's office who knows where the servers are located

- He went missing on the night of Friday, July 28 and has not been heard from since

- He was supposed to demonstrate a dry run of how the the results of the polls will be transmitted on Monday, July 31

IEBC's ICT's deputy acting director Chris Msando has been reported missing just days to the General Election.

READ ALSO: Police reveal who attacked DP Ruto's Sugoi home in Eldoret

TUKO.co.ke has since established from his wife that Msando disappeared on Friday night and has not been heard from.

He was one of a handful of IEBC staff who knows where the ICT servers for the commission are located.

From left: IEBC Chair Wafula Chebukati, the IEBC CEO Ezra Chiloba and the acting deputy director of ICT Chris Msando. Photo: Nation.co.ke

The family reported the matter to the Embakasi police station.

READ ALSO: Terror attack at Deputy President William Ruto's House, GSU shot

IEBC tweeting about the matter said that they are working with law enforcers to establish where he could be.

One of our ICT Managers has gone missing. The Commission is working with Police and family to establish his whereabouts, IEBC tweeted.

Msando had reportedly sent a message at around 3am on Saturday to one of his colleagues reminding them of the work awaiting them later in the day.

Before the disappearance, he had been to the KTN studios where he he stressed that IEBC would deliver credible polls.

READ ALSO: UPDATE: Fierce exchange of fire at Ruto's house as elite cops enter home

He was supposed to demonstrate a dry run on Monday, August 31 on how the transmission of the results will happen.

IEBC recently its ICT director home after a hitch during the ICT systems audit.

IEBC ICT Director James Muhati was sent home recently on compulsory leave. Reports indicated that he had refused cooperate in an audit of the ICT systems.

I've slept with over 100 men, tried taking away myself 5 times:

Have something to add to this article or suggestions? Send to news@tuko.co.ke

Source: TUKO.co.ke
New associates

Benjamin Goddard has joined the technical service team at Anders Business Solutions (ABS). Goddard is a Montana native. After a few years working out-of-state he is back in Missoula with his family. Goddard's 10-plus years of experience in office technology, blended with our 100 years combined technical staff experience in IT, VoIP, copiers and multi-function devices, brings additional value added services to our client base. Goddard has specific factory training on Konica Minolta and Ricoh lines of office equipment and solutions but has extensive knowledge with just about everything. He enjoys his free time with his wife and children. He can be reached at ABS, 1525 S. Russell, 406-549-4143.

Alpine Physical Therapy welcomes Kim Mize, DPT, CSCS. Originally from Minneapolis, Minnesota, Mize spent seven years there directing a womens health program, while focusing her interests on runners and pelvic health needs. After settling in Missoula, Kim began working as a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Montana. Along with instructing PT students in womens health and orthopedic courses at UM, she coordinated and supervised clinical internships for PT students. She continues to teach pelvic health and obstetrics at UM. Mize has more than 18 years of experience treating patients with pregnancy-related musculoskeletal conditions, urinary incontinence and pelvic pain. She recently received her Certificate of Academic Proficiency Achievement in male pelvic floor dysfunction and treatment from the prestigious Herman & Wallace Pelvic Rehabilitation Institute. She is passionate about helping people return to full movement using various manual therapy approaches and therapeutic exercises. Mize can be reached by calling Alpines north clinic at 406-541-2606.

Appointed

Sarah Mulligan, of Portico Real Estate, has been elected to the Board of Directors of the National Down Syndrome Congress (NDSC). NDSC is a national membership organization that promotes the interests of people with Down syndrome and their families through advocacy, public awareness, and information. As a member of the Board, Mulligan will share the organizations dedication to improving the world for individuals with Down syndrome. In addition to being a Realtor, Mulligan is the mother of four children, two of whom have Down syndrome.

Recognition

Heidi Drescher, MMS, PA-C, of Community Physician Group at Community Medical Center was honored last week with the Sherman Emerging Leader Prize for her relentless dedication to ensuring her rural, underserved patients benefit from best practices in Inflammatory Bowel Disease (IBD) care. The Sherman Prize is a national award that honors outstanding individuals who go above and beyond to make exceptional contributions in the fight to overcome Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis, diseases of the gastrointestinal tract. She is one of the only IBD-focused health professionals in a 200-mile radius and has built a reputation as an innovative, determined and caring specialist using the latest advancements in care combined with a holistic approach to improve quality of life. Call 406-327-4542.

Rita Tolan, Goodwill retail director, was recognized with the Leadership Award at Easter Seals-Goodwill Northern Rocky Mountain Inc. 2017 Montana Annual Awards Celebration on Friday, July 21, in Great Falls. Tolan from Missoula was honored for her contribution to furthering the mission of Easter Seals-Goodwill. Tolan came to Easter Seals-Goodwill with many years of retail experience in 2011. Under her leadership the Missoula store reached many strategic milestones ahead of expectations. Easter Seals-Goodwill Northern Rocky Mountain Inc. is a nonprofit human services organization that touches the lives of over 24,300 people in more than 39 different programs in 40 locations across Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and Utah. Its staff of almost 1,000 professionals is dedicated to creating opportunities that change lives.

Rachel Maki was chosen by the employees of Missoula Federal Credit Union as the winner of the 2017 Second Quarter Service Quality and Excellence Award. Winners are chosen for providing exceptional service and mentoring, demonstrating leadership, showing initiative, and promoting teamwork. MFCU employees nominate and choose winners on a quarterly basis, as well as an overall winner on a yearly basis. Congratulations to Maki.
The U.S. Ambassador to Cambodia has told a gathering of Cambodian-Americans that the United States should become more active in engaging with Phnom Penh as the country is undergoing a period of rapid change.



Speaking at the meeting in Maryland on Sunday, Ambassador William Heidt said the U.S. Should not sit on the sidelines as developments in Cambodia brought change.



My message to [Cambodian-Americans] is that Cambodia is changing. It is time for the United States to lean forward and to engage. This is not the time to stand on the sidelines, he said.



We have three or four important ways the United States can try to influence Cambodia to move in the right direction, he added, noting the large Cambodian expatriate community living in the United States and people-to-people relationships as one of those methods.



There are a lot of concerns about poverty and the political situation in Cambodia.



During his visit, Heidt also met with Cambodian-Americans in Seattle and northern California.



Prime Minister Hun Sens rule has routinely come under fire from international human rights groups as corrupt and autocratic.



Sarah Kith, one attendee of the meeting, said there were many questions that needed to be answered regarding Cambodias future. Im not sure were at the point where we can say democracy is thriving. How do we sustain opposition? How to we encourage safe dialogue about differences and feel safe? Not only physical [safety] but also psychological? We need to be able to provide voices that are different.

Sovan Tun, president of the Buddhikarama Pagoda, where Heidt spoke, said enduring poverty and disparities in Cambodian society were closely linked to a lack of political freedoms. Cambodia is still poor compared to other countries. The poor are poorer. The rich are richer, he said. Moreover, we need to do more for freedom in Cambodia; to clamp down on opression of the vulnerable.



Marong Kuy, who helped run Sundays meeting, said Cambodian-Americans had been encouraged by the results of last months commune elections. In the recent election, we can see that there could be a change in the future according to the polls as the Cambodians back there have a love for freedom and democracy.
Somalia's al-Shabab insurgents and troops from the African Union peacekeeping mission clashed on Sunday, a senior military officer said, while the group said it had killed 39 soldiers.

The incident took place in Bulamareer district in Lower Shabelle region about 140 km southwest of Mogadishu.

The al-Shabab fighters ambushed a convoy carrying troops from the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM), Col. Hassan Mohamed told Reuters.

"The ambush turned into a fierce fight between al-Shabab and AMISOM. We understand fighting is still going on but we do not have the figure of casualties," he told Reuters.

Abdiasis Abu Musab, al-Shababs military operation spokesman, said: "We have in hand 39 dead bodies of AU soldiers including their commander."

The casualty figure could not be immediately independently verified.

Government officials were not available for immediate comment.

Al-Shabab, which wants to force out the peacekeepers, oust the Western-backed government and impose its strict interpretation of Islam in Somalia, has targeted the peacekeepers in the past.
Apple, Inc. has confirmed that it is removing some applications providing virtual personal networks, or VPNs, from its China App Store, to comply with new Chinese regulations  a move critics say is capitulating to internet censorship.

Apple confirmed the move in an email to National Public Radio on Saturday, after several VPN providers announced that their apps had been removed from the China App Store.

Software made outside China can sometimes be used to get around Chinas domestic internet firewalls that block content that the government finds objectionable. Critics call Chinas great firewall one of the worlds most advanced censorship systems.

VPN apps pulled

Earlier this year, Apple said, Chinas MIIT [Ministry of Industry and Information Technology] announced that all developers offering VPNs must obtain a license from the government. We have been required to remove some VPN apps in China that do not meet the new regulations.

App maker Express VPN said in a blog post that its app was removed from the China Apple Store, and it noted that preliminary research indicates that all major VPN apps for iOS [Apple operating systems] have been removed.

The statement continued, Were disappointed in this development, as it represents the most drastic measure the Chinese government has taken to block the use of VPNs to date, and we are troubled to see Apple aiding Chinas censorship efforts.

Another company, Star VPN, also announced it had been contacted by Apple with the same notice.

China successful

Golden Frog, a company that makes security software, told the New York Times that its app also had been taken down from the China App Store.

We gladly filed an amicus brief in support of Apple and their backdoor encryption battle with the FBI, so we are extremely disappointed that Apple has bowed to pressure from China to remove VPN apps without citing any Chinese law or regulation that makes VPN illegal, said Sunday Yokubaitis, president of the company.

The Times reports that this is the first time China has successfully used its influence with a major foreign technology platform such as Apple, to flex its muscle with software makers.

China is Apples largest market outside the United States.
A gunman and a police officer were killed in an attack on the home of Kenyas deputy president in the western town of Eldoret, a senior administrator said Sunday, just more than a week before a national election.

Deputy President William Ruto and his family were not at home at the time of the Saturday attack, police said. Ruto is the running mate of President Uhuru Kenyatta, who is seeking a second and final term in office in the Aug. 8 elections.

From the exchange of fire we thought it was more than one attacker, because he used different firearms, but after we subdued him, we found only one man dead, plus our officer who he had killed, Wanyama Musiambo, Rift Valley Regional Coordinator, told reporters at the scene Sunday.

Musiambo declined to comment when asked about the motive of the attack, or the attackers identity. The deputy presidents residence is guarded by an elite paramilitary police unit.

Musiambo said the attacker initially had no gun but managed to break into the police armory once inside the compound.

I want to say that after the operation we discovered that it was one gunman, but because he was inside there, he could change position and firearms because he had access to the guns. And the guns he was using were ours, he said. We have however launched investigations into the issue, to find out if he conducted the attack alone or he was with others who may have escaped.

Late Saturday, police initially said the attacker was armed with a machete and had injured one police officer before holing himself up in an outbuilding.

Ruto and Kenyatta spent Saturday campaigning in the counties of Kitale, Kericho and Narok, the presidents office said in a statement. Neither commented on the incident.

A Reuters reporter near Rutos compound said he saw several police vehicles going in and out of the compound, as well as one armored vehicle in the compound.

The reporter said he also saw one armored vehicle in the compound.
The crocodile industry in Australia's Northern Territory, a new report says, is worth more than four times the previous estimate of US $80 million. Officials hope the findings will give poorer aboriginal communities the chance to develop crocodile farming industries.

The saltwater creature is the world's largest reptile. In Australia, they were once hunted to the brink of extinction, mainly for their skins, which were used to make durable leather goods and clothes.

They have been a protected species since the early 1970s, and their numbers in Australia's tropical north have soared.

Economic opportunities

The Northern Territory regional government now sees economic opportunities for indigenous communities, where officials want to see an expansion of crocodile egg collection programs.

The eggs would help to stock crocodile farms owned by aboriginal groups, or traditional owners of land, which would supply reptile skins to big fashion houses including Louis Vuitton and Gucci, as well as supplying crocodile meat.

"We are looking at direct investments into rangers to make sure that we see on country a growth in the crocodile industry, so the harvesting of eggs, the growing of the crocodile locally and remotely, which is a very important and valuable use of traditional country done by traditional owners," said Michael Gunner, the Northern Territory's chief minister.

Hunting for sport?

An independent Australian MP, Bob Katter, has said that as crocodile numbers increase, so does the threat to people. He believes big game trophy hunters should be allowed to shoot them for sport. Katter has argued that crocodile safaris would boost the incomes of indigenous communities.

While the Northern Territory government supports crocodile safaris, the final decision rests with Australia's federal government, which has refused to allow them. Conservationists have insisted that the shooting of iconic animals for profit in Australia is abhorrent and should never be allowed.
Their home countries dont want them back. Hundreds of foreign fighters who enlisted with Islamic State to fight in Syria and Iraq are being stripped of their citizenship and blocked from returning by Western governments.

Returning fighters are seen as a grim threat, the deadly legacy of a murderous movement being defeated and rolled back on the battlefield. Western intelligence officials say they are already over-stretched trying to monitor tens of thousands of suspected extremists who never left their home countries.

British officials say they have stripped more than 100 British fighters and brides of their citizenship, preventing them re-entering the country legally, according to British news reports. All those who have lost British citizenship are dual nationals. Under international law, governments cant revoke someones citizenship if it would render them stateless.

According to Britains Sunday Times newspaper, 152 IS recruits have been stripped of British citizenship since 2016, 30 since March.

Of the estimated 850 Britons who joined IS or al-Qaida-linked groups in Syria, 15 percent are thought to have been killed. A handful of returnees have been jailed, but officials say many cannot be prosecuted for lack of evidence. Some are thought to have become disillusioned with jihadism, but many are thought to pose a significant terror risk.

Britain isnt alone in fearing the havoc returnees could wreak or the added burden they place on intelligence services already struggling to maintain surveillance on thousands of suspects who never left to fight. In June, following terrorist attacks in Manchester and London, British authorities admitted 23,000 radical Islamists had been considered a person of interest to the security services at any one time, more than six times the previous figures made public by the government.

Of those, 3,000 are considered serious threats, including about 400 people who have returned to Britain after fighting for IS in Syria and Iraq.

Other countries fearful

Since 2015, several Western governments have moved to amend their laws to make it easier to revoke the citizenship of dual nationals involved in terrorism. Even so, European governments have faced mounting criticism that they have little in the way of comprehensive plans ready for returnees, either in keeping tabs on them or requiring them to enter rehabilitation and de-radicalization programs.

There is fierce debate also over the effectiveness of de-radicalization programs on fighters who have not already become disillusioned.

Critics include Alex Carlile, a former independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, who has complained about the British governments inconsistency and has called for the reintroduction of tough "control orders" that were banned in 2012 over human right fears. The control orders allowed the authorities to restrict suspects movement and their use of phones and computers.

He said in a television interview last month it was a grave mistake to abolish the orders which may have saved dozens of lives between 2005 and 2011.

In February, the Australian government revoked the citizenship of Khaled Sharrouf, who slipped out of Australia in 2013 after serving a four-year jail term on terrorism-related charges.

He became internationally infamous after posting on the internet in August 2014 a photograph of his seven-year-old son holding the severed head of a Syrian soldier. In April a new video surfaced showing Sharroufs youngest son wearing a suicide vest being prompted by his father to issue threats to murder Australians.

At least 110 Australians are estimated to have joined terrorist groups in Iraq and Syria. Seventy are thought to be dead, three were captured in Lebanon and are in jail there. Australian officials are considering revoking their citizenship.

It has been rare for Western fighters to be captured. In an interview last week with VOA, Gen. Andrew Croft, who oversees the coalition air campaign against IS in Iraq, said foreign fighters are certainly 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, he said.

A move by then-president Francois Hollande to pass legislation to make it easier to revoke French citizenship of terrorist suspects holding dual nationality failed last year. Opinion polls suggested the legislation had public backing, but political critics and rights groups argued the measure would do little to prevent terror attacks and risked worsening race relations by stigmatizing sections of the population, notably Muslims of North African descent.
John Morris, a celebrated American photo editor who brought some of the most iconic photographs of World War II and the Vietnam War to the world's attention, has died at 100.

His longtime friend, Robert Pledge, president and editorial director of the Contact Press Images photo agency, told The Associated Press that Morris died Friday at a hospital in Paris, the city where he had been living for decades.

Among his proudest achievements, Morris edited the historic pictures of the D-Day invasion in Normandy taken by famed war photographer Robert Capa in 1944 for Life magazine. In addition, as picture editor for The New York Times, he helped grant front-page display to two of the most striking pictures of Vietnam War by Associated Press photographers Nick Ut Cong Huynh and Eddie Adams.

During a career spanning more than half a century, Morris played a crucial role in helping to craft a noble role for photojournalism. He also worked for The Washington Post, National Geographic and the renowned Magnum photo agency.

His job as a photo editor included sending photographers to war zones or other reporting sites, advising them on the angles of their photographs, choosing the best shots in the stream of images transmitted and staging the selected images for the news outlets.

Describing himself as a Quaker and a pacifist, Morris was also known for his political commitment, backing the Democratic Party and being an early support for Barack Obama. Even at his advanced age, Morris had closely followed the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign and had been "appalled" by the election of Donald Trump, his friend Pledge said.

Morris felt his fierce anti-war convictions did not contradict his work with photographers covering war zones.

"He believed that photography could change things," Pledge said in a phone interview from his New York office. "Morris was convinced that images of horrors, devastations, damage to minds and bodies could prompt a movement of hostility to war in the public and eventually help make the world wiser."

Born in New Jersey in 1916 and raised in Chicago, John Godfrey Morris described himself as a journalist. His first major assignment in 1943, as picture editor for Life magazine in London, made him responsible for getting to the world the 11 famous, grainy black-and-white photos of the Allied invasion taken by Capa on Omaha Beach, June 6, 1944.

In a 2014 interview with The Associated Press for D-Day's 70th anniversary, Morris recalled that Capa sent four rolls of negatives via couriers to his editors in London. But, because of an alleged mistake by a young dark-room assistant, three of the rolls were ruined.

"The first three, there was nothing just pea soup, but on the fourth there were eleven frames, which had discernible images, so I ordered prints of all of those," he recounted.

For years, Morris blamed himself.

"I used to go around with a sad face saying I am the guy who lost Capa's D-Day coverage. Now I say I am the one who saved it! It was, needless to say, an awkward moment," he told the AP.

Years later during the Vietnam War, as a photo editor for The New York Times, Morris insisted that difficult pictures be published because they showed the horrors of the war.

On at least two memorable occasions, he got disturbing pictures published on the front page of the renowned paper.

The first one, by AP photographer Eddie Adams, showed a Saigon police chief executing a Vietcong prisoner at point-blank range in 1968 during the opening stages of the Tet Offensive. The second one, by AP photographer Nick Ut Cong Huynh, depicted a naked 9-year-old girl and other children fleeing a napalm bombing in 1972. Both photographs won Pulitzer Prizes.

Morris, who was married three times, is survived by his partner, Patricia Trocme, four children and four grandchildren, Pledge said. He was awarded the Legion of Honor, France's highest award, in 2009.
Six security contractors working for Canadian-listed miner Continental Gold were killed after an explosion at an illegal gold mine in central Colombia, the company said Saturday.

The explosion took place Friday in the Buritica municipality of Antioquia province when the contractors surprised a group of illegal miners in a shaft they were inspecting, Continental said. One of the seven contractors survived.

Illegal mining is widespread in Colombia and accidents and civil unrest around mines are not uncommon.

The contractors were performing routine underground inspections of a government-closed illegal mine, Continental said in a statement on its website.

Upon entering the underground mine, the contractors were accosted by illegal miners, followed by a subsequent explosion, Continental said. The company is looking to authorities to enforce the rule of law to prevent this kind of tragic event from ever happening again.

The inspection of the illegal mine was mandated by the government.

The regional disaster authority earlier in the day released initial details of the incident but said the cause of the explosion was not yet clear. It did not provide details on the number or condition of the illegal miners.

The Continental statement did not elaborate on the cause of the explosion.
An Israeli military court has rejected a soldier's appeal after he was sentenced to 18 months in prison for killing a Palestinian.

Elor Azaria, 20, was convicted of manslaughter in January for fatally shooting an incapacitated Palestinian assailant in the West Bank nearly a year ago.

The landmark case polarized the nation, pitting much of the public against Israels most prized and respected institution, the army. In a rare move, the military condemned a soldiers actions during a Palestinian attack, while many ordinary people were appalled that an Israeli youth serving on the front lines was hauled into court like a common criminal.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tweeted Sunday he would recommend a pardon for Azaria.

The incident in question took place last March in the West Bank town of Hebron, when two Palestinians went on a stabbing rampage targeting Israeli troops. One assailant was shot dead by soldiers and the other was wounded, lying incapacitated on the ground.

Eleven minutes later, a cell-phone video caught Azaria taking aim at the 21-year-old injured Palestinian and shooting him in the head. The soldier claimed that he feared the man was booby-trapped with a bomb; but commanders quickly disputed that and Azaria was put on trial for violating the armys code of moral conduct.
America's top law enforcement officer wandered through a Salvadoran jail, sizing up the tattooed gang members who sat with their backs to him on the concrete floors of their cells. His soft voice was barely audible over the downpour pelting the tin roof as he spoke to the local police.



In the midst of a week when his role  and future  in President Donald Trump's Cabinet was in serious doubt, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions could be found thousands of miles away from Washington, surrounded by concertina wire and soldiers with rifles. Belittled by his boss back home, he vowed not to loosen his grip on the job that he loves.



For Sessions, leading the Justice Department is an opportunity to make tangible progress on issues he long championed, sometimes in isolation among fellow Republicans, during two decades in the U.S. Senate: hard-line immigration policies and aggressive prosecutions of gangs, drugs and gun crime. His priorities mark a departure for a department that, during the Obama administration, increasingly focused on preventing high-tech attacks from abroad, white-collar crime and the threat of homegrown violent extremism.



Yet Sessions' policy focus is often overshadowed by the expanding investigation into Trump campaign ties to Russia. Sessions, whose own campaign contacts with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. have been questioned, has stepped aside from the investigation. That unnerved Trump, who subjected his attorney general to almost daily public humiliation this past week.



Sessions was trying to weather the storm in San Salvador, where on a balmy afternoon his attention turned to the notoriously brutal street gang MS-13, whose violence in the U.S. has become a focal point in the immigration debate. Here was the former Alabama senator, traveling El Salvador's streets in a motorcade alongside leaders of the Justice Department's criminal division, buoyed by reassurances from congressional Republicans in Washington after Trump's tirade.

The trip was planned before the firestorm, but Sessions hoped his work on MS-13 would help mend his tattered relationship with Trump.



"It hasn't been my best week for my relationship with the president,'' Sessions told The Associated Press. "But I believe with great confidence that I understand what's needed in the Department of Justice and what President Trump wants. I share his agenda.''



Sessions cut his teeth as a federal prosecutor in Mobile, Alabama, at the height of the drug war, an experience that has shaped his approach to running the Justice Department. Allegations of racially charged remarks cost him a federal judgeship, but he went onto become the state's attorney general.



He was elected to the Senate in 1996 and developed a willingness to break with fellow Republicans in ways that sometimes left him on the sidelines.



He fought against efforts to overhaul the criminal justice system last year, a rare area where conservatives and liberals had found unity. He also was a leading opponent of the 2013 bipartisan bill that sought to ease immigration restrictions.

That issue drew him to Trump. Sessions was the first senator to endorse the businessman-turned-politician. Trump rewarded that support by naming Sessions as attorney general. It was, Sessions has said, a job that "goes beyond anything that I would have ever imagined for myself.''



"In the Senate, you get paid for your words. But in the Department of Justice, every now and then you can actually take action and set priorities and see it actually take effect,'' Sessions told AP in an interview from inside the headquarters of Policia Nacional Civil, El Salvador's police force, where he had gone to build rapport with the commissioner. "It's kind of a real adjustment. I was a federal prosecutor for 12, 14 years, really. This is coming home to the Department of Justice I so much loved and still do. You can make things happen in the Department of Justice.''



In moving quickly to put his own stamp on the Justice Department, Sessions continues to find himself at odds with both Democrats and members of his own party.



His decision this month to revive a program that lets local American police seize cash and property with federal help prompted rebuke from conservative groups such as the Koch-backed Freedom Partners, which called it "unjust and unconstitutional.''



Sessions told federal prosecutors to pursue the toughest charges against most suspects, a move that critics assailed as a revival of costly drug-fighting policies. He wants a crackdown on marijuana as a growing number of states work to legalize it. His escalating threats to withhold money from cities that refuse to cooperate with immigration authorities have made city leaders only more defiant.



Timothy Heaphy, a former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Virginia who served under President Barack Obama, said the fast pace of Sessions' changes is disturbing.



"He came in clearly with an agenda to go back in time to a tough-on-crime and law-and-order approach,'' Heaphy said. "He's ignoring all the progress we made.''



During his final years in the Senate, Sessions began to gain greater notice from the far-right. He was a favorite of Breitbart, the website previously run by Steve Bannon, who now serves as Trump's senior adviser. Other Sessions' aides also serve in top administration posts, including Stephen Miller, the architect of several of Trump's immigration proposals.



Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of Tea Party Patriots, said Sessions has a "warrior spirit'' and is working on behalf of people whose voices haven't always been heard in Congress.



"He has had to take on battles before within his own party and against the opposition party, and he takes those on and he fights them,'' she said.



Sessions believes he is making progress.



"A number of things we've done are just beginning to ripen,'' he told the AP. "I'm pretty happy with the speed with which a lot of it is happening. Sometimes the American people may not know how effective that's been.''
Iraqi intelligence officials said Sunday they foiled an attempt by the Islamic State group to attack revered Shi'ite shrines and the sect's spiritual leader.

The IS plan was to launch a series of suicide attacks in Karbala and Najaf that house the shrines as well as the home of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, two officers told The Associated Press.



The simultaneous airstrikes by Iraqi and Russian air forces two weeks ago hit gatherings of suicide bombers in the Iraqi town of Qaim and in Syria's Mayadeen area, both under IS control. They gave no details on casualties.



Recent meetings with the Russians yielded increased intelligence sharing between the two nations, they said. Both spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to brief the media.



Early this month, IS suffered a major blow as U.S.-backed Iraqi troops captured the northern city of Mosul after nine months of highly destructive warfare. The militants now control small towns mainly near the border with Syria.



IS took over Iraq's second-largest city in in summer 2014 when it conquered much of northern and western Iraq. Along with territories in Syria, they declared a caliphate and governed according to a harsh and violent interpretation of Islamic law.
At least 18 African Union troops were killed in a deadly ambush in the Lower Shabelle region by al-Shabab militants, officials and security sources told VOA Somali.



The attack, near near Golweyn village, 120 kilometers south of Mogadishu, targeted a supply convoy of 24 vehicles near the town of Bulo Marer.



Al-Shabab claimed killing 39 AU soldiers, but military officials say that figure is exaggerated.



The convoy of Ugandan soldiers was as part of AMISOM that left Shalanbod town.



Residents in Jeerow village also told VOA Somali that they saw al-Shabab fighters dragging the bodies of two soldiers



AU military spokesman Wilson Rono confirmed the ambush in an interview with VOA Somali.



There was an IED [Improvised Explosive Device] that was made on the road that hit our convoy and then they followed that up with an ambush, but so far we have not gotten the details of the casualties on both sides, he said.



Rono denied the figure claimed by al-Shabab.



That figure is farfetched.



AMISOM exit strategy

The attack comes a day after AU and Somali government officials concluded a five-day conference where they discussed transitioning security responsibilities from the AU peacekeepers to the Somali national security forces. AMISOM said it will start gradual transfer of responsibilities next year.



A statement issued at the conclusion of the conference said the transition is real and must happen, but will be gradual and conditions-based.



The statement also said the commanders of AMISOM and Somali national forces will hold a meeting in August for a joint, coordinated operation against al-Shabab for the rest of 2017 and beyond.



Deputy Governor of Lower Shabelle Ali Nur Mohamed, whose region sees relentless al-Shabab attacks, says politicization of the rebuilding of Somali national army is delaying the process. Mohamed was referring to the apparent divisions within the Somali national army in his region.



He said some members of the national army have left the region following the infighting, which he says created a vacuum in the troops capability to operate alongside the AU troops.



It was five years ago when AU and Somali troops came here in this region, but their operations have been politicized by the officials in previous governments and AMISOM officials themselves, he said.



He said the Somali government needs to make its own plans.



Mogadishu explosion



Meanwhile, at least 10 people were killed and 15 others were wounded in a massive suicide car bomb attack Sunday in the Somali capital, witnesses and security sources said.

The car that exploded was in a line of vehicles on Maka Al-Mukarama road, Mogadishus busiest street, witnesses said.



A VOA Somali service reporter who went to the scene said the car was stuck in a traffic jam due to intensive stop and search operations by the security forces. The bomber then detonated the car filled with explosives.



A security source who could not be named said its believed the ultimate destination for the car used in the attack may have been the parliament, where lawmakers were discussing ongoing constitutional reviews.



Most of the victims were shoppers caught in the explosion as they came out of a supermarket next to the road.
North Korea said Sunday its latest test missile, deemed by weapons experts as capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, was a "stern warning" to Washington against a new round of sanctions aimed at Pyongyang.

The North Korean Foreign Ministry said Washington should "wake up from the foolish dream of doing any harm" to the reclusive communist nation.

Pyongyang's statements came hours after the U.S. Air Force flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean Peninsula, accompanied by South Korean and Japanese jet fighters, as a show of strength against North Korean threats.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it conducted its 15th successful shoot-down of a medium-range ballistic missile in 15 tests of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system. The target ballistic missile was launched from a fighter jet over the Pacific Ocean, but the military said it was detected, tracked and intercepted by the defense system located in Alaska.

Military Defense Agency chief Lieutenant General Sam Greaves said data collected from the test would improve the U.S.'s "ability to stay ahead of the evolving threat."

The U.S. Pacific Command said its fly-over conducted with South Korean and Japanese jet fighters was in "direct response" to North Korea's "escalatory launch" of intercontinental ballistic missiles on July 3 and last Friday.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," said General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander. "Diplomacy remains the lead; however, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worse-case scenario. If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing."

The 10-hour joint forces mission began at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. U.S. Air Force bomber jets were joined by two Japanese F-2 fighter jets in Japanese airspace. The U.S. bombers then flew over the Korean Peninsula and were accompanied by four South Korea fighter jets. The U.S. bombers also did a low-pass over South Korea's Osan Air Base, before returning to Guam.

U.S. President Donald Trump again criticized China for failing to stop North Korea's ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.



Following Friday's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed west of Japan, Trump singled out China for blame on Saturday evening, saying Beijing could "easily solve this problem.

"I am very disappointed in China," Trump wrote on his Twitter account. "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue."



Trump's remarks echoed those made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who released a statement that blamed both China and Russia for North Korea's continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.



"As the principal economic enablers of North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability," Tillerson said.



In April, Trump praised his first meeting with China's President Xi Jinping, later telling reporters that Xi had agreed to suspend coal and fuel shipments to pressure North Korea to stop its belligerent behavior. However, since then, the North has continued to threaten its neighbors and the United States, and Trump has grown more critical of Beijing.

Even though the North Korean missile landed west of Japan, experts said it would be powerful enough to reach much of the U.S. mainland. North Korea's official news agency said leader Kim Jong Un boasted that the latest test was meant to send a grave warning to the U.S."



China condemned the launch, while Japan, South Korea and the U.S. vowed to work together on a new Security Council measure aimed at curbing North Koreas nuclear ambitions.



At the same time, the U.S. Congress has overwhelmingly approved new sanctions aimed at North Korea, Russia and Iran, a measure the White House says Trump plans to sign into law.
Pakistans restive northwest province Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has issued directives to its administrative and security departments to make serious efforts to cut off the money supply of banned terror groups.

The provincial departments have been instructed to devise a strategy to crack down and to closely monitor the proscribed groups and individuals involved in raising funds illegally for welfare or religious purposes, Pakistani media reported.

Despite its continued efforts against terrorism, terror financing remains a challenge for Pakistan due to political resistance, sympathizers and money trails that are hard to track, analysts say.

Pakistan will have to come up with a strategy to freeze assets of terror groups, make it difficult for terrorists to gather funds, but to also spot those whove adopted new identities and have re-established their networks, A. Z. Hilali, head of political science department at the Peshawar University told VOA.

Suspect groups identified

The official document circulated by Khyber Pakhtunkhwas government emphasized banned groups are not allowed to gather money under any circumstances and security forces and the administration should ensure people and groups raising money for mosques, charity or madrassas (religious seminaries) are lawfully doing so.

In 2015, Pakistan banned around 200 terror groups after establishing their involvement in sectarian and terrorism related activities against the state.

Pakistan had also frozen around $3 million worth of assets of 5,000 suspected terrorists last year. "We will make every possible effort to implement National Action Plan (NAP) to counter terror financing in our province, Shaukat Yousafzai, spokesperson for the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government told VOA.

"We're the biggest victim of terrorism and we do not want them [terrorists] to succeed. Well also work to start awareness programs so that banned groups can be prohibited from gathering funds from the masses, Yousafzai said.

A report issued by the Financial Monitoring Unit of Pakistan in March estimated the annual operational budget of terrorist organizations is $48,000 to $240,000.

The terror groups in Pakistan generate hefty amounts through charity and welfare work, receive huge foreign donations and use the "hawala system," an alternative finance system, used for money laundering, experts say.

National plan

Pakistans National Action Plan, a comprehensive strategy aimed at eliminating extremism mentions the state should choke financing for terrorist and terrorist organizations.

Hilali says there is a need to introduce legislation to prohibit collection of funds from the general public. Terrorists collect large sums of money especially during the holy month of Ramadan under the guise of Zakat [mandatory Islamic charity].

The madrassas [religious seminaries] also play an important role and we are aware that a few of them remained involved in collecting funds on behalf of banned terror outfits in the past, Hilali added.

Security analysts also stress that the government should regulate and register all the religious seminaries across the country and should practice caution before making donations to religious organizations and seminaries.

In 2016, Khyber Pakhtunkhwas government received scathing criticism when it allocated a grant of $3 million to Darul Uloom Haqqania, a religious seminary that is interpreted by some critics as the University of Jihad.

The Haqqani network, considered a terrorist group by Afghanistan and the United States, continues to fight Afghan and U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

U.S. officials have long accused Pakistan of providing support to the Haqqani network. The U.S. State Department released its annual Country Report on Terrorism 2016 earlier this month. It criticized Pakistan and said it remained unsuccessful in stopping the activities of the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani network.
A southern Philippine mayor on President Rodrigo Dutertes list of top drug suspects was killed during a predawn raid at his home on Mindanao island, police said Sunday.

Reynaldo Parojinog was the third mayor to be killed in the governments bloody narcotics crackdown.

Third mayor killed

Parojinog, the mayor of Ozamiz city, was killed during a gun battle with police serving a search warrant at his home.

Several high-powered firearms and an unspecified amount of methamphetamines were recovered, Timoteo Pacleb, chief of police of Northern Mindanao, told reporters.

Police were met with a volley of fire ... prompting police to retaliate, Pacleb said.

Several others, including Parojinogs wife, were killed during the raid.

The Parojinogs, if you would recall, are included in President Dutertes list of personalities involved in the illegal drug trade, Ernesto Abella, the presidents spokesperson, said in a statement.

In November, the mayor of Albuera town in central Leyte whom Duterte asked to surrender over his alleged involvement in the drug trade, was killed during a shootout inside his detention cell.

War on drugs

Duterte has promised an unrelenting war on drugs, defying critics who were trivializing his campaign with human rights concerns and unjustly blaming the authorities for the bloodshed.

Another mayor suspected of involvement in illegal drugs in southern Mindanao and nine of his men were killed in a shootout at a police checkpoint in Cotabato in October.

Critics say Duterte has turned a blind eye to thousands of deaths during police operations that bear all the hallmarks of executions.

Police say they have killed suspects only in self defense and deny involvement in a spree of killings of drug users by mysterious vigilantes.

Duterte in several of his news conferences and public events has waved a thick book he said contained names of officials suspected of drug links. The book contains about 3,000 names.
Four Arab countries boycotting Qatar are ready for dialogue to ease the dispute if Doha agrees to certain demands, Bahrain's foreign minister said on Sunday after a meeting with his counterparts.

"The four countries are ready for dialogue with Qatar with the condition that it announces its sincere willingness to stop funding terrorism and extremism and its commitment to not interfere in other countries' foreign affairs and respond to the 13 demands," Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed al-Khalifa said.

He was speaking at a televised news conference in Manama after meeting with his Saudi, Emirati and Egyptian counterparts to discuss the dispute. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Egypt and Bahrain have previously issued a list of demands for Qatar.
There is more to the Big Snowy Mountains than meets the eye. The true distinctive qualities that make it a gem for the area lie beneath the surface, painted in smooth strokes of ice.

The Big Snowies are an island range just south of Lewistown. The highest point, Great House Peak, rises to 8,681 feet.

True to their island range name, they jut out of the flat prairie with spectacular green ridges and clear water.

The area is a geographic marvel. The Big Snowies are one of only a handful of "psuedo-cirques" in the world. A cirque is a steep hollow point at the end of a valley or carved into a mountainside. A cirque is typically formed by glacial erosion. However, the psuedo-cirques of the Big Snowies were believed to be formed by landslides of heavy limestone resting on smooth shale rock layers.

The mountains are part of a 98,000-acre wilderness study area  one of 44 in Montana and one of seven managed by the Forest Service.

Ice caves

The Ice Caves of the Big Snowies are the pinnacle of an arduous hike. The Ice Caves Loop is an approximately 12.3-mile hike with a 2,143-foot elevation gain in the first three miles.

Dave Byerly, a Lewistown resident and the Montana Wilderness Association's go-to expert on the range, says not to be discouraged by the climb.

"Hiking is always easier when there are big views," Byerly said.

The Big Snowies aren't wanting for big views.

The hike

A recent hike led by Montana Wilderness Association member Sadie Russell was part of the group's "Discover Wild Montana" wilderness walks program.

Robin Morris, a hiker who traveled more than three hours to attend the hike, said the Ice Caves have been on her bucket list for years.

Even Gerry and Chuck Jennings, active members of the MWA and avid outdoorsmen, remarked that they haven't made it back to the caves since their first and only trip more than 30 years ago.

The group set off on the steep terrain. The first two miles led the group through lush forest ripe with beds of white lady slippers, bluebells and vibrant orange mountain lilies.

The trail, in large part, was built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the early 1930s during the Great Depression.

Wildlife

The Big Snowies are home to some big game.

"There's a great population of elk and one of the largest populations of black bear," said Ron Wiseman, Judith Mussellshell District ranger. "One of the largest  if not the largest  black bears ever harvested was found here."

But what Wiseman is most excited about is the rumored return of mountain goats.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks made an effort to reintroduce mountain goats to the area years ago, but the mountain lions ate most of them. Wiseman said his office receives a call every few years about someone spotting a single goat in the mountains.

"It's been years since we've heard of even one mountain goat," Wiseman said. "This year people were taking pictures around Greathouse Peak and saw eight."

Wiseman encourages anyone who sees or photographs a mountain goat (or eight) to call the ranger station with the details.

Ridge top

In a single file line the group rounded a seemingly infinite switch back and suddenly the mountain opened up. They rounded their final climbing curve, signifying their presence atop the ridge and collapsed into the slate rock piles to scarf down a quick lunch and look out over the whole state of Montana.

To the north, the Judith and the Moccasin mountain ranges rose from either side of Lewistown.

"One hundred years ago, up until just a few decades ago, there was gold in them there hills  as they say," Byerly said. "At one time there were thousands of miners up there. In the old photos, the Judiths didn't have trees. The Snowies, for whatever reason, never had gold. It's not logging country either because they're too steep. The area was consequently protected."

After some jerky and a few big gulps of water, the crew carried on. The Ice Caves were still another 2 miles across the ridge.

Walking the top

The landscape completely changed.

The forest gave way to loose shale that eventually turned into a mountain-top prairie with sparse trees.

On a clear day hikers atop the ridge can see from Canada to Wyoming. It's possible to see the Bull Mountains (near Roundup), Absarokas (near Billings), Crazies (near Bozeman), Beartooths (near Red Lodge), Castles (near White Sulphur Springs), Big Belts (near Helena), Little Belts (near Neihart), Sweet Grass Hills (near Sunburst), Highwoods (near Great Falls), Bear Paws (near Rocky Boy's Reservation), North Moccasins (near Lewistown), South Moccasins (near Lewistown), Judiths (near Lewistown) and the Little Rockies (near Lodgepole).

On this day the hikers could barely see into Wyoming.

The group walked the spine of the ridge for two more miles before reaching a junction in the trail that would lead them down to the cave.

Cave

Then, finally, they stood at the cave's mouth and felt the cool air percolating out of the opening in the rock face. A long tongue of snow stretched down into the darkness.

The group made their way in, skirting along the exposed dirt to either side of the ice and clinging to the walls for support. A tall pillar of ice stretched from floor to ceiling on the left side of the 100-foot wide cave. A pristine swath of white ice coated the entire cave floor.

The temperature inside the cave is about 40 degrees cooler than the air outside. That's part of what keeps the ice frozen all year.

According to research conducted by Jim Foster and Rod Benson for Earth Science Picture of the Day, a nonprofit research corporation for cross-disciplinary study of science and technology, air density is the primary factor in maintaining ice in the cave.

Cold air is heavier than warm air, so when it flows into the cave it sinks to the bottom. Because the air must descend into the cave, it is too heavy to rise back out and instead keeps the area cool as water seeps through the porous limestone and freezes into ice.

While some explored the cave, others looked around for fossils along the trail. Rocks with embedded prints of different shells and barnacles were collected and showed off among the hikers.

The ice of the Ice Caves signify the true value of the mountains. The water that misses the caves but still purifies itself in the Madison limestone eventually makes its way down and becomes the headwaters of Big Spring, a water source for Lewistown and the surrounding area.

The spring pumps up to 64,000 gallons a minute or about 90 million gallons of water a day.

More

Though the Ice Caves seem like the pinnacle of the hike, they are only one of the highlights of the trail. From the junction where hikers can turn off to travel down to the cave, there are still seven miles to go to complete the hike.

The trail takes hikers along the ridge to the breathtaking vista of West Peak before winding down through the forest, making a quick stop at Grandview Point before returning to the trailhead at the top of Crystal Lake.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister called Qatar's demands for an internationalization of the Muslim hajj pilgrimage a declaration of war against the kingdom, Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television said on Sunday, although it was unclear whether Qatar had actually made any such demand.

"Qatar's demands to internationalize the holy sites is aggressive and a declaration of war against the kingdom," Adel al-Jubeir was quoted saying on Al Arabiya's website.

"We reserve the right to respond to anyone who is working on the internationalization of the holy sites," he said.

However, it was unclear whether Qatar made the demand. It did accuse the Saudis of politicizing Hajj and addressed the United Nations Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion on Saturday, expressing concern about obstacles facing Qataris who want to attend hajj this year.

No one from the Qatari government was immediately available for comment.

Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Egypt and Bahrain have previously issued a list of 13 demands for Qatar, which include curtailing its support for the Muslim Brotherhood, shutting down the Doha-based Al Jazeera channel, closing a Turkish military base and downgrading its relations with Gulf enemy Iran.

On Sunday, foreign ministers of the four countries said they were ready for dialogue with Qatar if it showed willingness to tackle their demands.
A steady stream of tourists left a North Carolina island Saturday under evacuation orders prompted by a widespread power outage, wiping out a significant chunk of the lucrative summer months for local businesses.

It could take days or weeks to repair an underground transmission line damaged early Thursday by construction crews working on a new bridge between islands. The construction company drove a steel casing into an underground transmission line, causing blackouts on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands.

Cars lined up Friday to get on ferries, the only way off Ocracoke Island, after about 10,000 tourists were ordered Thursday evening to evacuate. A second order for visitors to Hatteras Island, south of Oregon Inlet, meant up to 60,000 additional people had to evacuate starting Saturday, primarily north over the inlet bridge.

As of 2 p.m. Saturday, North Carolina ferries had evacuated about 3,800 people and 1,500 cars from both islands, according to Gov. Roy Coopers office. Cooper said he called local officials to pledge state help.

Well do all we can to get repairs moving, he said in a release.

One power cable severed

Excavation at the site revealed Saturday that one of three underground transmission cables that supply the islands power is missing a 2-foot section. A timetable for repairs wont be known until crews determine whether either of the other cables, still buried as of Saturday afternoon, was damaged, according to Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative.



Dare County spokeswoman Dorothy Hester had no estimate for how many people still needed to leave Hatteras Island.



We realize people are disappointed. They brought a lot of stuff here. Theyre packing up and moving out, she said. While disappointed, theyre going to make their way home.



Roughly 80 percent of the islands tourism stems from vacation rentals, and the order coincides with the customary Saturday turnover for weekly home rentals, so those people would be leaving anyway. The big question is when visitors can get to homes rented for upcoming weeks in the height of tourism season, said Lee Nettles, director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau.



The order barring inbound tourists did not apply to Hatteras Islands roughly 6,000 year-round residents or to other property owners.



Residents are fine. We all know how to pull together, said Angela Conner Tawes, manager of Conners Supermarket, a third-generation grocery store in Buxton, which delivered about 90 barbeque sandwiches to utility workers for lunch. But financially for us, losing time in August is a big deal. This is when we make our money for the year. Were just holding our breath and waiting.



As of Saturday afternoon, tourists were still shopping at the store, which has kept regular hours thanks to its two large generators. One unknown is whether the store will get its Tuesday scheduled delivery, Tawes said.



The islands regular summer fish fry went on Saturday evening because organizers ordered the fish before the evacuation call was made Friday. Now theyre just hoping to recoup their costs. They had foregone the normal plate fees, feeding whoever showed up with whatever they want to pay, if anything.

Economic blow

The utility is supplying temporary power to residents, businesses and emergency services with diesel and portable generators.



But conservation measures were still mandatory, which include barring the running of air conditioners and hot tubs, Hester said.



Business owners were upset that the disaster was caused by human error, not Mother Nature.



Its a hard pill to swallow that someone forgot where the power cable was, said Jason Wells, owner of Jasons Restaurant on Ocracoke Island. How do you forget where the power cable is?



Wells said his restaurant, closed by the outage, is missing out on at least $5,000 a day in sales. He said many seasonal businesses close for one-third of the year, making the summer months essential to their bottom lines. His 25 workers typically make between $75 and $250 a day.



So when you take this hit in July and factor in that youre only open eight months out of the year, its big, he said. Its a lot more than people even realize.



He estimated that total losses for shops, hotels and restaurants on the island could easily top $100,000 per day.
Thousands of people rallied in Turkey's largest city on Sunday against security measures Israel has imposed at the Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem, shortly after Israel removed other measures that led to two weeks of violent Palestinian protests.

The rally in Istanbul, called "The Big Jerusalem Meeting" and organized by Turkey's Saadet Party, drew some five thousand people to the Yenikapi parade ground on the southern edge of Istanbul.

Protesters were brought in by buses and ferries from across the city, waved Turkish and Palestinian flags, and held up posters in front of a giant stage where the chairman of the Saadet party and representatives from NGOs addressed the crowd.

"The Al-Aqsa mosque is our honor," read a poster.

"You should know that not only Gaza, but Tel Aviv also has their eyes on this parade ground. Netanyahu does as well, and he is scared", said Saadet Party Chairman Temel Karamollaoglu, referring to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Turkey has opposed the security measures installed at the entry points of the mosque compound, with President Tayyip Erdogan warning Israel that it would suffer most from the dispute.

Erdogan accused Israel of inflicting damage on Jerusalem's "Islamic character", in comments that Israel's foreign ministry called "absurd".

The dispute over security at the mosque compound - where Israel installed metal detectors at entry points after two police guards were shot dead this month - has touched off the bloodiest clashes between Israelis and Palestinians in years.

On Friday however, the main prayer session at the Al-Aqsa mosque ended relatively calmly after Israel removed the tougher security measures, though it barred entrance to men under age 50.

Israel captured East Jerusalem, including the Old City and the holy compound, in the 1967 Middle East war. It annexed the area in a move that has never been recognized internationally.

Al-Aqsa mosque, Islam's third holiest shrine, sits in the heart of the Old City. It is also the holiest place in Judaism - the venue of two ancient temples, the last destroyed by the Romans. Jews pray under heavy security at the Western Wall at the foot of the elevated plaza.
U.S. President Donald Trump has begun an urgent round of diplomatic consultations with Japan and South Korea about North Korea's intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

Trump spoke by telephone with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe for nearly an hour Monday morning, Tokyo time.

A White House statement said the Trump and Abe agreed that North Korea "poses a grave and growing direct threat" to the U.S., Japan, South Korea and other countries, and that the two also committed to increasing diplomatic and economic pressure.

Abe told reporters he and the U.S. president totally agreed "that we must take further action."

President Trump also was trying to reach South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who has been vacationing, U.S. officials said.

Abe said Japan and the United States will promote concrete action to enhance defense systems and to ensure their people are safe against the threat from North Korea.

Senior U.S. officials said Sunday the time for talking about the diplomatic consequences of North Korea's latest missile test is over, since the danger to international peace that Pyongyang poses is now clear to all nations.

U.S. bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula to demonstrate military strength Sunday, and Vice President Mike Pence noted that the United States has all options ... on the table for responding to North Korea. Pyongyang said its latest test, of a missile believed to be capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, was a stern warning" to Washington not to increase sanctions, but Pence rejected that as unacceptable.

At the United Nations, U.S. Ambassador Nikki Haley said the United States is not even asking for an emergency meeting of the Security Council, as it has on previous occasions, because the Western powers are done talking about North Korea. China, as North Korea's principal ally and supporter, must now decide if it will act more directly to rein in Pyongyang, Haley added.

Pence was in Estonia, one of the United States' NATO allies, when he was asked about the North Korea situation.

The era of strategic patience is over, the vice president said, and he added pressure will continue until North Korea permanently abandons its nuclear and ballistic missile program.

U.S. military officials project confidence



The continued provocations by the rogue regime in North Korea are unacceptable, Pence said in Tallinn, the Estonian capital, and the United States of America is going to continue to marshal the support of nations across the region and across the world to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically.

Pyongyang's statements came hours after two U.S. Air Force B-1B bombers flew over the Korean Peninsula accompanied by South Korean and Japanese jet fighters.

General Lori Robinson, commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command and the U.S. Northern Command, told VOA in a statement late Sunday: I want to assure our citizens that USNORTHCOM remains unwavering in our confidence that we can fully defend the United States against this ballistic missile threat.

Separately, the U.S. Missile Defense Agency said it had conducted its 15th successful shoot-down of a medium-range ballistic missile in another test of its Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system, known as THAAD.

The target ballistic missile was launched from a fighter jet over the Pacific Ocean, but the military said it was detected, tracked and intercepted by the defense system located in Alaska. The test disclosed Sunday was the agency's 15th consecutive success.

'International solution required'

Haley said China is aware it must take action against North Korea, and Japan and South Korea are expected to increase pressure on Pyongyang, too. The U.S. ambassador to the U.N. wrote on Twitter that this is not only a U.S. problem, but one that will require an international solution.

In a formal statement released by the U.S. mission to the United Nations, Haley addressed the question of calling for Security Council action.

There is no point in having an emergency session if it produces nothing of consequence. North Korea is already subject to numerous Security Council resolutions that they violate with impunity. ... An additional Security Council resolution that does not significantly increase the international pressure on North Korea is of no value. In fact, it is worse than nothing, because it sends the message to the North Korean dictator that the international community is unwilling to seriously challenge him.

China must decide whether it is finally willing to take this vital step, Haley's statement continued. The time for talk is over. The danger the North Korean regime poses to international peace is now clear to all.

Bombers' flight direct response' to North Korea

The U.S. Pacific Command said the supersonic B-1 bombers' flight over the Korean Peninsula was a direct response to North Korea's missile launch on Friday, as well as its first launch earlier in July of a ballistic missile capable of intercontinental flight.

North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability, said General Terrence O'Shaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander. Diplomacy remains the lead; however, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worse-case scenario. If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.

The 10-hour joint forces mission began at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. The U.S. aircraft were escorted by two Japanese F-2 fighter jets in Japanese airspace, and four South Korean fighters flew alongside the American bomber crews as they passed over the Korean Peninsula. The B-1s also did a low-altitude pass over South Korea's Osan air base before returning to Guam.

At the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Lieutenant General Sam Greaves said data collected from the successful shoot-down exercise would improve American forces' "ability to stay ahead of the evolving threat" from North Korea.

'Disappointed in China'

President Trump has focused on China in his comments about the North Korean missile test.

Trump singled out China for blame in a tweet on Saturday evening, saying Beijing could easily solve this problem.

I am very disappointed in China, Trump wrote. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue."

Pence said Sunday in Estonia that U.S. officials "believe China should do more" about the North Korean crisis.

"We believe China has a unique relationship with the regime in North Korea and has a unique ability to influence decisions by that regime, and we call on China to use that influence, along with other nations in the region, to encourage North Korea to join the family of nations, to embrace a nuclear-free Korean peninsula and abandon its provocative actions and its ballistic missile program, he said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson released a statement that blamed both China and Russia for North Korea's continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

As the principal economic enablers of North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability, Tillerson said.

In April, Trump praised his first meeting with China's President Xi Jinping, later telling reporters that Xi had agreed to suspend coal and fuel shipments to pressure North Korea to stop its belligerent behavior. However, since then, the North has continued to threaten its neighbors and the United States, and Trump has grown more critical of Beijing.

Walter Wisniewski contributed to this report
President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Saturday morning to criticize Republican senators following their failed vote to repeal parts of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare.

Trump said the Republican senators "look like fools." He also suggested they alter rules that require 60 votes to break a filibuster, even though that would not have changed the results of the health care bill debate.

Senate Republicans failed to gather the 50 votes needed to pass the "skinny" repeal bill that would have ended several key parts Obamacare, including the requirement that most Americans buy health insurance or pay a penalty.

The bill was written through the budget reconciliation process, which meant, among other things, that it required only 50 votes for passage instead of a 60-vote filibuster-proof majority. A 50-50 tie would have let Vice President Mike Pence, in his role as president of the Senate, cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of the legislation. But even though Republicans control the Senate by a 52-48 margin, the bill failed to reach the 50-vote mark.

Republican Senators John McCain of Arizona, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine voted with Democrats and independents in the 51-49 defeat of the Republican-led repeal effort early Friday morning.

Republican senators had wanted for seven years to do away with Obamacare, the signature domestic legislative achievement of former President Barack Obama.

Trump's tweetstorm also included a reference to the investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 election.

U.S. intelligence agencies have concluded that Russia worked to help Trump's campaign and hurt his Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. But Trump continues to question that conclusion and recently claimed that in fact the opposite was true  that Moscow favored Clinton.

Trump's tweet included a link to a Fox News story from earlier this week detailing the congressional testimony of a witness who said the company behind an anti-Trump dossier that played a large role in the Russia investigation was working on behalf of the Russian government.

Financier Bill Browder, whose investment firm was once the largest portfolio investor in Russia, testified Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee in its probe of the apparent Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election. He told the senators that Fusion GPS, the company that produced the dossier full of unsubstantiated and lurid claims about Trump, also launched a "smear campaign" against him in an effort to fight sanctions against Russia.

"What I'm familiar with is Fusion GPS and Glenn Simpson's role working on behalf of the Russian government to overturn the Magnitsky Act," Browder told members of Congress. "The steps they took there compromised their integrity."

Glenn Simpson is the founder of Fusion GPS. He, too, had been summoned to testify publicly before Congress about his work on the dossier and his alleged ties to the Russian government, but he reached a deal with members to conduct an interview in private.

The Magnitsky Act is a U.S. law that imposed sanctions on Russian officials whom the U.S. held responsible for the 2009 death in jail of Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who had been retained by Browder to investigate corruption.
The U.S. Air Force flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean Peninsula Saturday, accompanied by South Korean and Japanese jet fighters.

The U.S. Pacific Command said the mission was in direct response to North Koreas escalatory launch of intercontinental ballistic missiles July 3 and July 28.

North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability, said General Terrence OShaughnessy, U.S. Pacific Air Forces commander. Diplomacy remains the lead; however, we have a responsibility to our allies and our nation to showcase our unwavering commitment while planning for the worse-case scenario. If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing.

The 10-hour joint forces mission began at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam. U.S. Air Force bomber jets were joined by two Japanese F-2 fighter jets in Japanese airspace. The U.S. bombers then flew over the Korean Peninsula and were accompanied by four South Korea fighter jets. The U.S. bombers also did a low-pass over South Koreas Osan Air Base, before returning to Guam.

Trump criticizes China

Also Saturday, U.S. President Donald Trump again criticized China for failing to stop North Koreas ballistic missile and nuclear weapons programs.

Following Friday's launch of an intercontinental ballistic missile that landed west of Japan, the U.S. president singled out China for blame on Saturday evening, saying the country could "easily solve this problem."

Trump's remarks echoed those made by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, who released a statement that blamed both China and Russia for North Korea's continued violations of U.N. Security Council resolutions.

"As the principal economic enablers of North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability," Tillerson said.

In April, Trump praised his first meeting with China's President Xi Jinping, later telling reporters that Xi had agreed to suspend coal and fuel shipments to pressure North Korea to stop its belligerent behavior. However, since then, the North has continued to threaten its neighbors and the United States, and Trump has grown more critical of Beijing.

North Korea's missile launch Friday was its second this month. Even though the missile landed west of Japan, experts said it would be powerful enough to reach much of the U.S. mainland. North Korea's official news agency said leader Kim Jong Un boasted that the latest test was "meant to send a grave warning to the U.S."

China condemned the launch, while Japan, South Korea and the U.S. vowed to work together on a new Security Council measure aimed at curbing North Korea's nuclear ambitions.

Word of Friday's missile launch came as a bill approved by Congress calling for tougher sanctions on North Korea, as well as Iran and Russia, landed on Trump's desk.
Taiwans first typhoon of the year left 81 people injured and coastal towns flooded as the island braced for a second tropical storm Sunday.

Howling winds toppled motor scooters and hit people with flying glass, the Central Emergency Operations Center said. In Yilan county on the northeast coast, one person was blown down, another was struck by a wind-driven object and a third was injured when a utility truck flipped.



Typhoon Nesat made landfall on the northeast coast of Taiwan Saturday evening with maximum sustained winds of 137 kilometers (85 miles) per hour and gusts of up to 173 kph (107 mph), according to the national weather bureau.

Minor injuries, flooded streets, fields



All but two of the injuries were light, an operations center staff person said.



The typhoon also left shops and streets in agricultural Pingtung county knee deep in muddy water after dumping about 600 millimeters (23.6 inches) of rain.



More than 10,000 people, largely from Taiwans south, were evacuated before the typhoon and 1,612 were still in shelters Sunday morning.



Nesat caused the cancellation of 145 international flights and cut power to nearly half a million households.

Tropical storm in China



The typhoon passed through Taiwan and reached Fujian province in southeastern China by 7 a.m. Sunday as a less severe tropical storm, officials said.



Close to 70,000 people have been evacuated so far and dozens of trains and flights suspended in Fuzhou, the provincial capital, Fujians water resources department said.



Taiwan, meanwhile, is on alert again as a second tropical storm was to make landfall Sunday night.



Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines regularly see typhoons from June through November. The deadliest in Taiwan since 2000 was Typhoon Morakot, which set off landslides that left about 680 people dead in 2009.
U.S. military officials have confirmed the death of four additional senior Islamic State leaders in a July 11 airstrike in northeastern Afghanistan that also killed the top leader of the terrorist group.

The drone attack struck IS headquarters in Kunar province, which borders Pakistan, and eliminated Abu Sayed, the amir of Islamic States self-styled Khorasan province branch, or ISK-P.

A U.S. military statement Sunday listed names and titles of the four slain terrorists identified as senior IS advisors, including Sheik Ziaullah, Mulawi Hubaib, Haji Shirullah, and Assadullah.

The U.S. military confirmed Sayeds death at the time, but could not immediately provide details of other commanders killed by the missile strike.

Sayed was the third ISK-P chief the U.S. military has eliminated in the past year in its bid to prevent the group from establishing a foothold in Afghanistan.

"We will be relentless in our campaign against ISIS-K, the statement quoted General John Nicholson, Commander of U.S. forces in the country. He used one of several IS names.

"There are no safe havens in Afghanistan. We will hunt them down until they are no longer a threat to the Afghan people and the region, he added.

Observers acknowledge the death of Abu Sayed and other top leaders have dealt a considerable blow to the groups Afghan operations.

U.S. airstrikes have primarily been responsible for killing about 20 founding and some of second-generation leaders of ISK-P since it launched extremist activities in the country two years ago, notes Kabul-based Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN).

The decapitation of ISK-P has been well underway over the past two years as the US military has stepped up its military campaign, mainly through air strikes, against the group in Nangarhar, the non-governmental organization wrote in an article last week.

The eastern province of Nangarhar borders Kunar, and several of its districts are considered IS strongholds. Afghan security forces, backed by U.S. airpower, have been conducting major operations in the province to eliminate IS bases.

IS is also under attack from Afghanistan's Taliban insurgency and facing emerging internal differences, but there are no visible signs its appeal to some radicalized sectors is fading, AAN warns.

ISKP has shown it is resilient. Recruits continue to pour in to Nangarhar from various provinces of Afghanistan as well as from Pakistan, the watchdog noted, adding the group can be expected to put all its efforts into holding out against Afghan and U.S. forces to retain its strongholds in Nangarhar.
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence said Monday there is no larger threat to Baltic states than the "specter of aggression" by Russia, as he pledged support for NATO allies Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

"At this very moment, Russia continues to seek to redraw international borders by force, undermine democracies of sovereign nations and divide the free nations of Europe one against another," Pence said. "Under President Donald Trump, the United states of America rejects any attempt to use force, threats, intimidation or malign influence in the Baltic states or against any of our treaty allies."

Pence spoke in Estonia's capital, Tallinn, after meeting with Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid, Latvian President Raimonds Vejonis and Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaite.

The U.S. vice president expressed hope for improved relations with Russia, but said that "recent diplomatic action" by the government in Moscow will not deter the U.S. commitment to its security and that of its allies.

Pence also praised Estonia for meeting the NATO alliance's target of spending at least 2 percent of its Gross Domestic Product on defense, and said Latvia and Lithuania would hit that level by the end of next year. Trump has repeatedly called on NATO members to boost defense spending.

Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania all have asked for tangible demonstrations of U.S. military support. Concerns about Russian expansionism have increased sharply in the Baltic region with Russia's annexation of Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.

Later in the day, Pence traveled to Georgia, where troops from the United States and other NATO partners began military exercises Sunday. He was greeted at his plane by Georgian Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili. Pence's tour will also take him to Montenegro, NATO's newest member.

"Our message to the Baltic States, my message when we visit Georgia and Montenegro will be the same," Pence said Sunday after he arrived in Tallinn. "To our allies here in Eastern Europe: We are with you, we stand with you on behalf of freedom and it's a great honor for me to be here."

The NATO military exercise that began Sunday at Georgia's Vaziani military base, Tbilisi, marks the first time that U.S. and German heavy military machinery was deployed in the former Soviet republic, which borders Russia.

Georgian President Giorgi Margvelashvili attended the opening ceremony at the exercise, dubbed Noble Partner 2017. A total of 2,800 soldiers from five NATO members  the U.S., Britain, Germany, Turkey and Slovenia  joined troops from NATO partner countries Ukraine, Armenia, and Georgia.

Pence said the U.S. is making it very clear "that Russia's destabilizing activities, its support for rogue regimes, its activities in Ukraine, are unacceptable."

Referring to the prospect of increased U.S. sanctions against Russia, which Congress passed last week by an overwhelming margin, Pence said he and Trump "expect Russian behavior to change."

"If Russia will change its behavior," Pence said in Estonia, "our relationship can change for the good and can improve for the interests of both our countries, and for the interest of peace and stability in this region and around the world."

Pence said he expects Trump to sign the sanctions bill, which also applies new penalties to North Korea and Iran as well as Russia, "very soon."
Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro says the election Sunday for an assembly to rewrite the constitution was a resounding success. The people have delivered the constitutional assembly, the president said. There were states of the country where voters came out challenging the bullet of the paramilitaries, crossing rivers ... they crossed mountains, but they voted for the Constitutional National Assembly.

The opposition in the South American country said the unpopular measure would result in a socialist dictatorship and had called on Venezuelans to boycott the vote. Dozens of polling places in Caracas, the capital, were empty.

US plans strong, swift actions

Heather Nauert, a spokeswoman for the U.S. State Department, said the election undermined the Venezuelan people's right to self-determination. Nauert said, We will continue to take strong and swift actions against the architects of authoritarianism in Venezuela, including those who participate in the National Constituent Assembly as a result of today's flawed election.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, tweeted Sunday that Maduro's sham election is another step toward dictatorship. We won't accept an illegitimate government. The Venezuelan people and democracy will prevail.

The Trump administration had already placed economic sanctions on a number of high-ranking members of Maduro's administration. A number of top U.S. lawmakers also have expressed their support for the citizens of Venezuela.



WATCH: Video of Caracas explosion

Venezuela's National Electoral Council said more than 8 million people, representing more than 41 percent of eligible voters, went to the polls Sunday to cast their ballots, despite demonstrations, roadblocks, and violence that left at least nine people dead. Members of the opposition, however, estimate only two to three million people voted.

Polls show more than 70 percent of Venezuelans oppose the assembly.

Countries reject Sundays vote

A number of nations, including Argentina, Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Panama. Paraguay, Spain, Britain and the United Sates said they would not recognize Sunday's vote.

Maduro said, however, that he had received congratulations from the governments of Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

Details on what is likely to be included in a new constitution are unclear. Maduro has said it is the only way to pull Venezuela out of its severe economic and social crisis and stop the seemingly endless violence.

Critics assert that only Maduro supporters were candidates, including first lady Cilia Flores, and the first vice president of the ruling United Socialist Party, Diosdado Cabello.

Early presidential elections sought

The opposition contends the 545-member constituent assembly would dissolve the opposition-controlled congress and turn Venezuela into a socialist dictatorship. Maduro opponents are demanding early presidential elections.

The drop in global energy prices together with political corruption have destroyed oil-rich Venezuela's economy.

Gasoline, medicine, and such basic staples as cooking oil, flour, and sugar are scarce. Many Venezuelans cross into neighboring Colombia and Brazil to buy food.

Maduro has blamed the country's woes on what he calls U.S. imperialism and its supporters inside Venezuela. He has warned against intervention by the Organization of American States, saying that would surely lead to civil war.
A community meeting will be held Thursday to discuss the proposed demolition of Willard Alternative High School, a plan that has dismayed some neighbors of the school.

The school is scheduled to be demolished between June and August 2018 after a new school is built on the same property, where the school's parking lot stands now. After the new school is close to being completed, the old building will be torn down to make room for a new parking lot.

The plans for the new building were presented Wednesday at a Missoula City Board of Adjustment meeting.

During the public comment portion of the hearing, several Willard neighbors voiced their concerns over the plan to tear down the school.

The neighbors said they were worried about the fact that the entrance and exit for the new parking lot would be off Sixth Street, which has a large amount of traffic.

Julie Devlin wants Missoula County Public Schools to explore using the old school, rather than tearing it down.

After a community meeting in June, the school district revised the plans for the new Willard school, something for which neighbor Helen Jenkins thanked them. Those revisions included more preservation of the green space behind the school by reducing the size of the parking lot. However, Jenkins said she felt that not enough was done to engage the community in the process when it came to the design of Willard.

"I don't think the school's exterior reflects the identity of the neighborhood," Jenkins said.

Jenkins asked the board to use what influence it had to stop the school's demolition.

The Board of Adjustment has no power to impede the school district's plans, said Andy Short, board chair.

Local governing bodies have little control over what school districts do with their properties. A lawsuit over the demolition of Central School in Helena was dismissed earlier this year, with Helena District Court Judge Michael McMahon ruling that the school district has "exclusive and sole authority" over its property.

This court concludes the Montana Constitution grants exclusive and sole authority to school boards of trustees to control and supervise schools and develop the full educational potential of each person, McMahon said in his oral ruling. "Montana law expressly prohibits a local government, such as the city of Helena, from exercising any power that applies to or affects the local school system.

The plan to demolish Central School was approved by voters as part of a bond issue, similar to the Willard school plan. The plans for Willard were included as part of the Smart Schools 2020 bond issue approved by voters in November 2015. Projects will continue into the year 2020.

The new two-story building would be large enough for 250 students, about 100 more students than now enrolled at the school. Willard School is meant for students with alternative learning styles in need of smaller classes and more hands-on curriculum.

The new school would have a multipurpose space and a teaching kitchen  both of which could be used for neighborhood events. A sliding wall would separate a set of large stairs from the multipurpose room, meaning the stairs could be used by students as a learning space and could be transitioned into bleachers.

The community meeting on the plans will be held from 5:30 p.m. until 7 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 3 at Willard.
North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un claimed Saturday that his country possesses missiles that could strike the entire United States mainland, following a test launch Friday.

China has condemned the launch, while Japan, South Korea and the U.S. vowed to work together on a new U.N. Security Council measure aimed at curbing North Koreas nuclear ambitions.

North Korea has stepped up its missile testing under Kims reign, with the Friday launch marking its second such launch this month.

According to the official Korean Central News Agency, Kim boasted that the latest test is meant to send a grave warning to the U.S. Kim said the test confirmed all the U.S. mainland is within our striking range."

In response to the launch, U.S. and South Korean forces fired missiles into South Korean territorial waters Friday.

A defense official told VOA the exercise began around 5:30 pm EST.

A White House statement called the North's missile test a "reckless and dangerous action" which will further isolate the country.

The statement said "the United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said North Korea's latest launch was "in blatant violation of multiple United Nations Security Council resolutions."

The top U.S. diplomat added, "As the principal economic enablers of North Korea's nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability."

Second ICBM test in July

North Koreas intercontinental ballistic missile launch was the second in just a few weeks. The latest launch flew higher and longer than the first ICBM Pyongyang launched on July 4.

Pentagon spokesman Navy Captain Jeff Davis said North Korea launched the missile from Mupyong-ni arms plant in the countrys north.

Defense officials in Washington and Seoul, as well as private analysts, said the missile was in the air for 40 to 45 minutes, reaching a peak altitude of 3,000 kilometers and traveling some 1,000 kilometers laterally before splashing down approximately 160 kilometers west of Japan's second-largest island of Hokkaido.

Japan said the missile fell into its exclusive economic zone.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe termed Fridays launch a serious and real threat to his country's security.

After Fridays unusual late-night launch, the top U.S. general, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford, and the head of U.S. Pacific Command, Admiral Harry Harris, called the Republic of Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, General Lee Sun Jin to discuss military response options and reaffirm their ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Republic of Korea alliance, according to the U.S. Chairmans office.

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said the launch by the North clearly violates U.N. Security Council Resolution and it is a grave threat to international peace and security."

Moon added that once again we urge North Korea to awaken from a vain illusion such as developing a nuclear program and missiles and instead choose a new path for a dialogue."

While the type of missile tested is yet unconfirmed, the preliminary data is fully consistent with a Hwasong-14 tested with a larger second stage that is powered by a high-thrust engine, according to Michael Elleman, senior fellow for missile defense at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

If flown on a flatter trajectory, this missile could reach as far as 9,000 to 10,000 km,[easily putting Seattle or San Francisco on the US West Coast into range], according to Elleman, whose comments were published on the 38 North website of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

Word of Fridays missile launch came as a bill approved by Congress calling for tougher sanctions on North Korea, as well as Iran and Russia, landed on the desk of President Donald Trump.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Saturday pardoned two women who were sentenced to prison terms for sending text messages to Georgian acquaintances about the movement of Russian military equipment on the eve of a war in 2008.

Two orders published by the Kremlin said Annik Kesyan and Marina Dzhandzhgava would not have to complete the rest of their sentences. It cited humanitarian principles for the decision.

Kesyan and Dzhandzhgava were found guilty of treason for sending text messages about the movement of Russian military hardware near the border with Georgia's breakaway region of Abkhazia not long before a war broke out in 2008.

Kesyan was sentenced to eight years in prison, while Dzhandzhgava was given a prison term of 12 years, according to Team 29, an association of lawyers based in St. Petersburg.

Putin in March pardoned a third woman, Oksana Sevastidi, who was also convicted of treason for sending a text message to a Georgian acquaintance about a train carrying Russian military equipment.

Rights groups had criticized the sentences given to the women.

Team 29 said in an article on its website that in April 2008 Kesyan had sent a text message to a friend saying "Yes, they are moving", in response to a question about whether Russian tanks were moving in Sochi.

Dzhandzhgava was accused of treason for sending a text message to a Georgian acquaintance about the movement of a train carrying Russian troops, Team 29 said.
First Lady Grace Mugabe has once again urged President Robert Mugabe to name a successor in order to stop factionalism crippling the ruling Zanu PF party, claiming that presidential spokesperson George Charamba and several other people are fanning conflicts in the party.

In several media platforms monitored from Washington, Mrs. Mugabe, who appeared angry on stage in Chinhoyi at a rally organized by the Zanu PF Youth League, said the president should have a say on the person who will succeed him contrary to some peoples beliefs that he has no role to play.

I know the constitution. I am educated and remember that I am Doctor Grace Mugabe. I know what I am talking about. All what I am saying is that the president has a role to play in his own succession. He cannot just watch the process 

She attacked senior party officials fanning factionalism, including Mrs. Sarah Mahoka, who she claimed wanted the party to remove Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa from office.

She added that some people even wanted to victimize Zanu PF political commissar Saviour Kasukuwere and Higher Education Minister Professor Jonathan Moyo.

 Please let us tell each other the truth. The truth must come out now. Kasukuwere was just being victimized. Kasukuwere is a minister appointed by the president There is no one with a right to remove Kasukuwere without the authority of the president. If people were not happy with what Kasukuwere was doing then they should have written down their grievances and approached the president. Its not good for big people to stand before crowds and utter useless things. Stop it.

 If we are doing a lot of things with Kasukuwere and Jonathan Moyo, let them do their work. You even create corruption cases against them. There have no case to answer. We have been quite for a long time. This must stop. Guys if you do not understand each other on certain issues, sit down and sort them out.

At the same time, she attacked presidential spokesperson, George Charamba, for using the State-controlled Herald newspaper as a platform for attacking some Zanu PF activists like Moyo, Kasukuwere and others.

Right now in The Herald there are some people that are being attacked but others are not being attacked. Stop it  I have tried to bring you close (Charamba) but you did not reciprocate  You cannot separate the president from his wife. That cant happen  He (Charamba) must stand for the truth and write developmental stories  He knows that we do a lot of good work in Mazowe and he is not concerned about that. You have no right to attack ministers George 

The combative first lady further noted that factionalism is crippling the party. People look at President Mugabe and say he is now old and say we are being left out (of the succession race)  He (Mugabe) may be slow when walking but he is strong  President Mugabe is the one we elected in the last (Zanu PF) Congress. We elected him and I know that there is an elective process once again where we will select others.

 But there will come a time when the president will say he is wants to rest. He cant just sit and watch the succession process  You (Mugabe) will lead us in that process  when his time comes. If you (Mugabe) dont like that say it right now in front of people. People say everything will start with the mother of the nation  Mark my step  Everybody must back the mother of the nation.

Mrs. Mugabe said is not expected to leave chaos in the party and nation without participating in the succession issue.

You (people) can insult me or whatever but that is the scheme of things. When time comes there is no one that will take Mugabes post without his blessings. Period. Without his blessings you cant be president of this nation.

Mrs. Mugabe allegedly leads a faction called Generation 40 while Mnangagwa is said to be the frontman for another group nicknamed Team Lacoste. The two factions are fighting for President Mugabes succession.

Mr. Mugabe, 93, is the sole Zanu PF presidential candidate for the 2018 poll.
CHINHOYI, Zimbabwe (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe on Saturday said he was not stepping down nor dying and that there was no one with his political stature who could immediately take over from him.

The 93-year-old leader has been in charge in the former British colony since independence in 1980. His health is closely watched by Zimbabweans, who fear the country could face chaos if he dies without anointing a successor.

Mugabe told tens of thousands of supporters at a rally in the town of Chinhoyi, in his home province, that doctors were recently surprised by his "strong bone system."

He has traveled to Singapore three times this year for what officials say is routine medical treatment.

"There is the issue that the president is going. I am not going," Mugabe told supporters on the grounds of a local university, 100 km (60 miles) west of the capital Harare.

"The president is dying. I am not dying. I will have an ailment here and there but bodywise, all my internal organs ... very firm, very strong," Mugabe said as he leant on the lectern. Mugabe, who looks frail, had walked onto the stage slowly but without assistance.

The issue of who will succeed Mugabe has deeply divided the ruling party, with two factions supporting Vice President Emmerson Mnangagwa and Mugabe's wife Grace.

On Thursday, Grace challenged Mugabe to name his preferred successor, to end divisions over the future leadership of ZANU-PF.

She repeated the call on Saturday, adding that Mugabe would lead the process to choose his eventual successor.

Mugabe said although some party officials wanted to succeed him, he saw no one among his subordinates with his political clout to keep the party united and fend off a challenge from the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change.

"A new man will not have the same stature and the same acceptance as I have managed to secure for the party over the years," said Mugabe.
The White House says President Donald Trump approves of Congress new sanctions against Russia and he intends to sign the bill.

In a statement Friday, the press secretary said the president had reviewed the final version of the bill, which outlines additional sanctions against a wide range of Russian industries. The bill also gives Congress the ability to block the president from lifting the Russia sanctions.

The Trump administration had opposed the sanctions aimed at punishing Russia for interfering in last years U.S. presidential election. The White House argued that it needed flexibility in trying to improve relations between the two countries. But after months of investigations into contacts between Russian officials and members of Trumps campaign team, there was broad bipartisan support in both houses of Congress for more stringent measures.

Russia responds with sanctions

Russia responded earlier Friday to the sanctions with new measures targeting U.S. missions in the country. Moscow said Washington must reduce the number of diplomatic and technical staff working in U.S. missions in Russia to 455 by September 1. Thats same number of Russian diplomats and technical staff Moscow said are working in the United States. It is unclear how many Americans that would affect, but it could be in the hundreds.

In addition to the reduction in U.S. diplomatic personnel, Russia also said it would block the U.S. Embassy in Russia from accessing its warehouses in Moscow and a vacation compound in Serebryany Bor.

We also reserve the right to take other measures according to the principle of reciprocity, which may affect the interests of the United States, the ministry said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson issued a statement Saturday on the U.S. sanctions legislation, a day after a phone call with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

"The near-unanimous votes for the sanctions legislation in Congress represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States," he said. "We hope that there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues and these sanctions will no longer be necessary.

"We will work closely with our friends and allies to ensure our messages to Russia, Iran and North Korea are clearly understood."

Putin approves decision

President Vladimir Putins spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said the Russian leader had personally approved Fridays Foreign Ministry decision.

The form in which the sanctions bill emerged from the Senate had greater significance, Peskov said.

The Russian retaliation was celebrated in Moscow as a long-overdue response to actions from the previous U.S. administration.

In December 2016, former President Barack Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats and seized Russian Embassy compounds in Maryland and New York as punishment for Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential elections.

At the time, Putin chose not to respond, a move many saw as a gesture of goodwill to the incoming Trump administration, which had expressed a desire for improved relations with Moscow.

Yet Fridays move reflected growing Russian frustration that the Trump White House, besieged by multiple investigations into its ties to Russia during the campaign, had not delivered on its campaign promises.

We did everything in our power to save relations from disaster, but the Americans did just the opposite, wrote Konstantin Kosachev in a post to Facebook. Kosachev, a Russia politician, went on to call the retaliation long overdue.

Sergey Markov, a political analyst close to the Kremlin, also cheered the Kremlins decision as inevitable, writing on Facebook that hopes that the president of the United States could change relations with Russia for the better are over.

The bill U.S. senators approved Thursday also imposes new sanctions on Iran and North Korea. For Russia, the measures are designed to affect a wide range of Russian industries, hitting the country squarely in the pocketbook.

The European Union has expressed concern about the new sanctions, saying they could affect the European energy sector.

Praise on Capitol Hill

Daniel Fried, an Obama-era official who coordinated the administrations sanctions policy, told VOA he didnt think the move by Congress to block Trump from altering sanctions would affect a bilateral settlement, but rather was meant to stop Trump from lifting the sanctions for no good reason.

I think if there were a settlement and if this were generally acceptable to all the parties, including Ukraine, I think that Congress would not stand in the way of the administration lifting the Ukraine-related sanctions, he said.

On Capitol Hill, lawmakers praised the group effort to pass the bill quickly. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Ed Royce, a California Republican, said in a statement: I am pleased the Senate has acted overwhelmingly to give the administration much-needed economic and political leverage to address threats from Iran, Russia and North Korea. This bipartisan bill is about keeping America safe, and I urge the president to sign it into law.

Senator Mark Warner, a Virginia Democrat who is vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence and a member of the Senate Banking Committee, said, This bill passed with overwhelming majorities in both the Senate and the House, sending a strong message to Vladimir Putin that attacks on our democracy will not be tolerated. President Trump should sign this bill as soon as it hits his desk. Otherwise, he risks encouraging Russias interference in future elections.

VOAs Charles Maynes, Michael Bowman and Katherine Gypson contributed to this report.
Members of the Show Choir of the Duke Ellington School of the Arts provide the musical selection during a 2013 performance of "Anne & Emmett," a dramatic reading and one-act play by Janet Langhart Cohen. (Astrid Riecken/FOR THE WASHINGTON POST)

American journalists have a label often applied to the D.C. schools: one of the nations most troubled school districts. So why are several dozen suburban families paying an average of $11,000 a year in tuition to send their kids there?

During the 2016-2017 school year, only seven tuition-paying students living in Maryland and Virginia attended these D.C. public schools: Garfield Elementary, Hart Middle, Burrville Elementary, Browne Education Center and two magnet high schools, Banneker and the School Without Walls. But one other D.C. school had an astounding 45 tuition payers.

That is the Duke Ellington School of the Arts in Northwest Washington. It would probably have had even more if it did not limit tuition-payers to no more than 10 percent of its total enrollment. Many affluent suburban students yearn to attend the nationally famous campus and its classes in dance, literary media and communications, museum studies, instrumental and vocal music, theater, technical design and production, and visual arts.

Ellington does not calculate how many potential tuition-payers it rejects, but its overall admission process is very selective. School official Desepe de Vargas told me that only 190 of 610 applicants were admitted to the ninth and 10th grades last year. The upper grades dont take new students. The school had 525 students last year.

Tuition-payers seem happy to be there, no matter what their neighbors might think about attending a D.C. school. There are pieces of me that I will cherish forever because of what Duke Ellington has helped me to become, said Arlington County resident Nia Webb, who just arrived at the University of Virginia. Her sister Naja, who is about to begin her junior year at Ellington, said the school feels like a haven. I dont feel overlooked because teachers and students alike know my name, she said. The teachers care about my well-being.

Their parents, Adriane and Schuyler Webb, are devoted Arlingtonians who have been recognized by the county School Board and superintendent for their leadership of the African International Parent Network. But they say no school in the Arlington system could provide what the District offered.

Our daughters benefited by experiencing things that may not have been possible at their home school, Adriane said. For example, Nia was sponsored by DCPS to travel to Ecuador and Galapagos Islands in the summer of her junior year, where she helped build a school for the locals. Naja was selected to be on the committee that illustrated the 2016 Christmas book for the Obama administration. As a result, she was a guest in the White House where she met the president and first lady.

Two of the other six D.C. schools with tuition-payers, School Without Walls and Banneker, are high-performing selective magnets. The remaining four are neither magnets nor high performing, but there are other reasons to pay tuition to public schools.

Parents might have moved out of the city but want to leave their child in a school where they are comfortable. The location and hours of their jobs or child-care arrangements might make the school the most convenient. The school might have a special program or team of teachers better at filling a childs special needs than any school they can find in their own district.

Districts differ on tuition fees. For high schoolers, Prince Georges County charges $8,927 to $13,175, Montgomery County $16,203, and Fairfax County $11,919. Arlington County bars nonresident students.

A leading advocate for impoverished children told me that she got a job in the District many years ago and, with some reluctance, chose a home in Montgomery County. Co-workers had told her that the D.C. schools were just too awful. A few years later, one of her children fell in love with the performing arts and begged to be sent to Ellington. She agreed, with much chagrin.

Many Americans believe that school districts full of impoverished children should be avoided. But such places almost always have some great schools. It is best to take a closer look.
Virginia

Wanted gang member arrested in Arlington

An MS-13 gang member wanted in connection with two homicides in Texas was captured Saturday in Arlington, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

They said Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez, 20, a Salvadoran national who was in the United States illegally, was arrested by Arlington County police and federal agents.

ICE officials said he was wanted in connection with two killings in the Houston area, one last year and one this month. He was arrested while walking near Four Mile Run and Columbia Pike, ICE officials said.

 Martin Weil

MARYLAND

Man accused of raping 13-year-old girl

A Maryland man has been arrested on a rape charge involving a 13-year-old girl he met on social media, Montgomery County police said.

The girls family reported her missing on June 23, and the next day she told her family she was at the Extended Stay America hotel on Century Boulevard in Germantown, police said.

Her family drove to the hotel and found her with Charles Ebenezer Berry Jr., 21, of Germantown, who had been corresponding with the girl on Instagram and Snapchat since 2016, when she was 12, police said.

Berry picked up the girl from her home and knew she was 13 before taking her to the hotel to engage in sex acts, police said. He had met the girl previously, police said.

Authorities arrested Berry on Thursday, and he was charged with one count of second-degree rape. He is being held in jail without bond.

Police said he may have contacted other girls and that there could be other victims. Anyone who thinks their children have contacted Berry are asked to call 240-773-5400.

 Lynh Bui
Keith the tram horse stands ready to pull his streetcar July 20 in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man in Britain. Horse trams have run there since 1876. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)

You can keep your shiny 7000-series Metro cars. I prefer Keith.

Keith is a horse. He pulls a streetcar in Douglas, the capital of the Isle of Man, a teardrop of land that sits between England and Northern Ireland and is home to 84,000 people.

The island is most famous for its epic, antic motorcycle races, but its also a lost world of old and seemingly obsolete modes of transportation. This includes not just the horse tram, which takes riders on a 1.6-mile journey along Douglass crescent-shaped bay, but also an electric tram that runs north from the capital and a steam train that runs south.

Earlier this month, My Lovely Wife had business on the Isle of Man. I tagged along, sampling the local color and riding the rails. It was nice to be away from Washington: Washington weather, Washington politics, Washington traffic.

Not once as I rode behind Keith did I hear the hectoring words stand clear, doors closing. There are no doors on the Isle of Man horse tram.

Keith feasts. (John Kelly/The Washington Post)

Riding it was a glimpse of what commuting in Washington was like a long time ago. The Manx horse tram started operating in 1876, six years after the first horse-powered streetcars debuted in Washington. While our streetcars started switching to electricity in the 1890s, the Douglas trams continued to be pony-powered, their service interrupted only by World War II.

This is not to suggest that the horse trams are worry-free. Tram horses pollute in their own way. And as with our own subway, there have been funding problems. In 2015, the horse tram ran at a deficit of 263,000 pounds, about $344,000. That prompted the local borough council to vote to end the service.

The Isle of Mans Department of Infrastructure stepped in and took over. I guess thats sort of like the federal government taking over Metro. The tram is considered an icon of the island, a magnet for tourists and an important bit of history. The service will continue at least through 2018.

That ensures continuing employment for Keith and the 20 other Clydesdales and shires  Alec, Mark, Steve, Teddy and the rest  who each work no more than two hours a day during the tourist season, from April through November.

When the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authoritys subway cars go out of service, theyre discarded, although architect Arthur Cotton Moore thinks they should be turned into housing for the homeless and this summer some were repurposed as pop-up retail kiosks at the Grosvenor-Strathmore Metro station .

When Douglass horses go out of service, theyre sent to the Isle of Man Home of Rest for Old Horses. Id like to go there myself some day.

Baby driver

I thought about Metro while I was riding the London Underground, too. As on Metro, certain seats in each subway car are designated for the elderly, the infirm or the pregnant.

One day on the Northern line, I noticed a young woman sitting in one of the seats and reading a book. She didnt look pregnant, but pinned to her shirt was a badge that had the distinctive London Tube roundel and the words Baby on Board! What gives?

Research showed Londoners were often too afraid to offer their seat in case the woman turned out not to be pregnant, a Transport for London spokesman wrote in answer to my query. It also found those who needed to sit down felt they could not ask fellow passengers to give up their seats  particularly in their first trimester, when theyre not showing.

And so the Baby on Board badge. Since its introduction in 2005, about 1.3 million have been issued.

The badge makes it easier to identify mums to be, who might need a seat, the spokesman wrote. It also empowers pregnant women to ask when they need to sit down.

Does the badge require proof of conception  a note from a doctor, say, or a photo of a pregnancy test kit?

No, wrote the spokesman. We trust people to be honest.

The Underground has a similar badge for disabled riders with invisible impairments that reads, Please offer me a seat.

The badges are free and can be ordered online. I loved this little detail on the Transport for London website: Baby on Board badges come in plain envelopes.

Twitter: @johnkelly

For previous columns, visit washingtonpost.com/johnkelly.
John G. Morris, a photography editor who shepherded Robert Capas indelible images of the D-Day landing in 1944 into print at Life magazine and who later selected two shocking images from the Vietnam War for the front page of the New York Times, helping to turn public opinion against U.S. involvement in the conflict, died July 28 at a Paris hospital. He was 100.

His death was confirmed by a friend, Robert Pledge, the president of Contact Press Images photo agency. The cause was not disclosed.

Beginning at Life magazine in the 1930s and later as executive editor of the Magnum photo agency, Mr. Morris supervised such acclaimed photographers as Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson, Alfred Eisenstaedt and W. Eugene Smith.

Mr. Morris was not a photographer himself  except for a few weeks in France in 1944  but his editorial vision was instrumental in defining the craft and aims of modern photojournalism.

A picture has to say something, has to have an idea, he told the photography magazine Black & White in 2014. From my standpoint, it has to have passion, it has to have human feeling. It also should be well composed, because thats how the idea comes through. A photographer has to have a head, a heart and an eye.

John G. Morris in 2014. (Christophe Ena/AP)

One photojournalist who possessed all three qualities was the Hungarian-born Capa, who gained renown during the Spanish Civil War in the 1930s and was working for Life during World War II. Mr. Morris was Lifes London-based photo editor and was nominally Capas boss.

On June 6, 1944, Capa was aboard a transport ship in the first wave of the Allied D-Day assault on Normandys Omaha Beach. Wading chest-deep through water and holding his camera above his head as bullets struck all around him, Capa shot the first images of the initial phase of the invasion.

He turned his back toward the German forces firing at him and U.S. troops to capture the face of a young soldier crawling through the water toward the shore. After 90 minutes, Capa boarded a medical transport boat and helped care for wounded soldiers on the return trip to Britain.

His film reached Mr. Morris at Lifes London office on the night of June 7. Capa had hastily scrawled a note: John, all of the action is in the four rolls of 35-millimeter.

Mr. Morris had less than 12 hours to develop the film, annotate the images and secure the approval of Allied censors. To meet Lifes deadline, the photographs had to be in the hands of a courier no later than 9 a.m. the next day, June 8.

Mr. Morris shouted at a photo assistant to hurry. In the process of drying the film, the assistant closed the doors of a closet-like space in the darkroom, overheating the emulsion on the film.

Theyre ruined! Ruined! Capas films are all ruined! the assistant said, running to Mr. Morris.

John G. Morris in 2010. (Stephen Lovekin/Getty Images)

I held up the four rolls, one at a time, Mr. Morris wrote in a 1998 memoir, Get the Picture.

Three were hopeless; nothing to see. But on the fourth roll there were eleven frames with distinct images. They were probably representative of the entire 35-millimeter take, but their grainy imperfection . . . contributed to making them among the most dramatic battlefield photos ever taken.

Mr. Morris had several sets of prints made and rushed to the censorship office, which examined the photos for several hours before approving them for release.

I left the ministry at about 8:45 and drove like a maniac through the scattered morning traffic, down the little side streets, reaching the edge of Grosvenor Square at 8:59, Mr. Morris wrote. I ran the last fifty yards and found the courier  about to padlock his sack. Hold it! I shouted, and he did.

The courier took the photos to an airplane, which flew to an airfield in Scotland, where the photos would be put on a larger plane bound for the United States.

Capas pictures were published in the next issue of Life. Blurred, shaken and practically echoing with bursting artillery shells and the shouts of dying soldiers, they showed the tumult of battle with heart-stopping intimacy.

Their very crudeness gives a feeling of the struggle itself, Mr. Morris said in 2004.

Six weeks later, using a borrowed camera, Mr. Morris went to Normandy himself, joining Capa and other Life photographers  and eventually novelist Ernest Hemingway  as they accompanied Allied forces toward Paris as it was liberated from Nazi control. His images were published as a book in France in 2014.

For 70 years, Mr. Morris blamed himself for losing three rolls of Capas images from Omaha Beach. Only in the past two years, as photographers and historians examined development processes and the nature of the film used by Capa, did a new consensus emerge. Most experts now believe there were never any usable images beyond the original magnificent 11, as they are sometimes called. The prevailing belief is that Capa was under such intense fire that he had little chance to shoot other images or that his camera may have malfunctioned.

I used to take the blame for the loss of Capas D-Day film, Mr. Morris said in 2014. In recent years Ive learned to say that Im the one who saved the 11 frames.

John Godfrey Morris was born Dec. 7, 1916, in Maple Shade, N.J., and grew up in Chicago. His father, who was born in 1869, founded a book publishing company and later worked for a Chicago-based college that provided extension courses, or what is now called distance learning.

At the University of Chicago, Mr. Morris helped launch a student publication modeled on Life, which was first published in 1936. He was the picture editor.

After graduating in 1938, he found a job in the mailroom of Time-Life publications before becoming Lifes Hollywood correspondent and then London picture editor. He later worked for Ladies Home Journal and as the top editor of Magnum, the agency started by Capa and other photographers.

In 1954, he sent Capa on an assignment to Vietnam (then Indochina), where Capa stepped on a land mine and was killed. Several other photographers who worked for Mr. Morris also died in the line of duty.

Mr. Morris worked for The Washington Post in the 1960s and, from 1967 to 1973, was the picture editor at the Times. In 1968, he insisted that a photo by Eddie Adams of the Associated Press, showing a South Vietnamese police official in the act of executing a Viet Cong prisoner with a shot to the head, be run on the front page of the Times.

Four years later, Mr. Morris selected another photo, this time by Nick Ut, showing a naked, screaming Vietnamese girl fleeing a napalm attack. Both pictures won the Pulitzer Prize.

I have always believed in showing how ugly war is, Mr. Morris told the Times in 2016, and I have encouraged newspapers to take a realistic view of war.

Mr. Morriss first wife, the former Mary Adele Crosby, died in 1964. His second wife, the former Marjorie Smith, died in 1981. His third wife, photographer Tana Hoban, died in 2006. Two of his children predeceased him.

Survivors include his companion, Patricia Trocme of Paris; two children from his first marriage; two children from his second marriage; and four grandchildren.

Mr. Morris moved to Paris in 1983 and, for six years, was a correspondent and editor for National Geographic. He also headed the Democrats Abroad organization for many years. He completed a 600-page book about his life shortly before his death.

He often traveled to photography workshops, describing his approach to photojournalism and recalling his work with Capa and others.

I am not a photographer, Mr. Morris told the Times last year. They did the great work; I just put it in the magazine or newspaper.
An MS-13 gang member wanted in connection with two homicides in Texas was captured Saturday in Arlington, Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials said.

They said Douglas Alexander Herrera-Hernandez, 20, a Salvadoran national who was in the United States illegally, was arrested by Arlington County police and federal agents.

ICE officials said he was wanted in connection with two killings in the Houston area, one last year and one this month. He was arrested while walking near Four Mile Run and Columbia Pike, ICE officials said.
A panel of seven experts gave the best advice they had to a group of young professionals gathered in Billings on Friday.

If youre an introvert, tag along with an extrovert.

Dont apologize (for joining a conversation)  youre not that big of a bother.

Tell people running for office: This is what is important to us, and we expect you to do something about it.

A leader is somebody willing to do what nobody else is willing to do.

Figure out what you need to get rid of and what you can be transparent about.

The advice was given to 160 participants in the Montana Young Professionals Summit, which continues today.

Gov. Steve Bullock also spoke during the event, hosted by the Billings Chamber of Commerce and the 275 members of the chambers NextGen group.

Panelists addressed four areas to people still developing their business chops  workforce, civic engagement, leadership and networking/relationship building.

Big Sky Economic Developments Steve Arveschoug said that Yellowstone County businesses will have more than 32,000 jobs to fill during the coming decade  24,000 of them because Baby Boomers are retiring.

Right now, we dont have the talent to fill those positions, he said. Its no longer enough for communities to build roads and bridges. Every community in Montana needs to be investing in themselves to attract talent.

Amanda Boerboom, executive director of Eagle Mount, had some tips for sizing up a room. Is it hopping, or quiet? How are people standing? People standing in a V- or U-shape are interruptable and approachable, she said, but not those in an O-shape, the sign of a more intimate conversation.

Effective networking sometimes involves taking a chance. Take it, she advised.

Everyone is a little uncomfortable, she said, going into an apparently cohesive group.

Two of Forward Montanas four main focuses, said the groups executive director, Rachel Huff-Doria, are issue advocacy and leadership development.

Forward Montana is the states largest youth advocacy and civic engagement organization.

Elected officials in their 50s or 60s have no student debt, so young peoples needs arent being addressed, she said. Its really important that all our leaders arent 65-plus with no kids in the house.

Its all just conceptual, said Jeff Walters of Vertex Consulting Group, unless you step forward and get in line with people who want to make change. Most often, thats not a lot of fun.

Bullock recalled some of his early jobs, including his favorite before being elected the state's attorney general and, later, governor. He once worked as a tour boat guide on a 90-passenger vessel.

Later he landed a job with a Philadelphia investment firm, a job he didnt care for as much. He drew some criticism, he said, for the black-and-white Mickey Mouse watch he sported, a watch given to him by his family. Most people at the firm wore gold Swiss-made timepieces, he said.

Bullocks solution?

I used my next three or four paychecks, he said with a grin, to buy an assortment of Mickey Mouse watches, including a gold one.

We spend a majority of our lives working, he said. Ive probably learned more from my failures than my successes. Make sure its something youre excited about  and make sure youre making a difference.
One person was killed when a fire broke out in a house in the 1500 block of Walnut Street in Woodbridge on Sunday morning, police said.

Authorities responded to a call shortly before 6 a.m., Prince William County police said. When they got to the home, firefighters discovered an injured occupant, who was pronounced dead at the scene.

The victims identity was unknown, police said.

Investigations into the death and cause of the fire are ongoing.
An anti-pipeline protester interrupts the gubernatorial debate between Democrat Ralph Northam and Republican Ed Gillespie on stage at the Omni Homestead Resort in Hot Springs, Va., on July 22, 2017. (Bob Brown/AP)

For a guy whose party is supposed to be united behind him, Ralph Northam has faced moments of surprising disharmony from fellow Democrats in his campaign for Virginia governor.

The lieutenant governor has been shouted down by protesters at public events and drawn sniping on party blogs, all over a single issue: energy companies building two natural gas pipelines in rural parts of the state. Northam wont oppose the projects. Some Democrats despise them.

While a few worry that the open dissent will wreck his chances this November, numbers suggest that there arent enough disgruntled pipeline opponents to make a difference in the election. After all, the pipelines are being built in areas with far more natural beauty than voters.

But what the pipeline opponents lack in quantity, they make up for with passion.

This community is widespread and powerful, and they would work their hearts out for him, Kay Leigh Ferguson, a Charlottesville resident who is an active pipeline opponent, said about the Democratic nominee for governor. I think Northam ignores that at his peril.

The issue involves two projects inspired by the boom in fracked natural gas. The $5 billion Atlantic Coast Pipeline, proposed by Dominion Energy and several partners, would run some 550 miles from West Virginia through central and southern Virginia and into North Carolina, with a spur flung out to Hampton Roads.

The 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline would also start in West Virginia, but would enter Virginia in the southwest  near Blacksburg  and connect with an existing pipeline in Pittsylvania County. Its being built by a partnership led by EQT Midstream.

[Pipeline creates dilemma of development vs. losing peace and quiet]

Northam casts himself as an environmentalist  raised on the Eastern Shore, opposed to offshore drilling, an advocate for alternative energy. But he has been unusually hazy on the pipelines, saying only that they need tough environmental oversight and that their fate is in the hands of federal regulators. Like Gov. Terry McAuliffe, a fellow Democrat who has more openly supported the pipelines as job creators, Northam has collected thousands of dollars in campaign donations from Dominion.

His Republican opponent, Ed Gillespie, fully supports the pipelines. He also has received contributions from Dominion. Even though pipeline opposition unites Republicans and Democrats in affected parts of the state, Gillespie has seen nothing like the blowback aimed at Northam.

And Gillespies campaign has delighted in skewering Northam over the issue. Republicans have unity problems of their own  Gillespie nearly lost the gubernatorial nomination to Corey A. Stewart, who ran on protection of Confederate symbols and devotion to President Trump, despite the presidents low poll standings in Virginia. Stewart has grudgingly said hell vote for Gillespie but has refused to endorse him.

[Gillespies primary scare has White House, others urging Trump world hires]

So state Republicans have been quick to highlight the Democratic divide over the pipelines. Gillespie spokesman David Abrams retweets every news article or blog post about Northams controversial position, with lead-ins such as Brutal stuff here and Another brutal . . . piece.

In the odd position of attacking Northam for seeming to agree with Gillespie on an issue, the Republican campaign is trying to paint the Democrat as moving to the right of his base. Lieutenant Governor Northam winked and nodded to liberal Democrats in his primary, and now hes winking and nodding to the broader electorate, Abrams emailed when asked for a comment.

The pipeline issue did, in fact, dog Northam throughout the primary. His upstart challenger for the nomination, former congressman Tom Perriello, made opposition to the pipelines a centerpiece of his campaign and hoped the passion of pipeline opponents would help counter the support Northam got from the party establishment.

The strategy delivered a huge boost for Perriello in rural parts of the state. Even some Republican-leaning voters tilted to him over the pipeline issue because of concerns about eminent domain and property rights. In 17 counties and three cities of southwestern Virginia, Perriello won by an overall 30 percent margin.

But Northam won the more populous parts of the state, where the pipelines have no direct impact and little visibility, and beat Perriello by 12 points. The city of Alexandria alone made up for Perriellos margin in all of the southwestern part of the state.

Perriellos loss devastated some pipeline opponents. But they vowed to keep up the fight. One protester interrupted Northams opening statement at his debate with Gillespie this month; a band of college students even briefly took over the stage at Northams primary election victory party in June.

Josh Stanfield of Activate Virginia, a grass-roots group recruiting Democratic candidates for House of Delegates races, has found himself drawn into the governors contest by the pipelines. He posted an essay on the Blue Virginia blog last week, slamming Northam and encouraging people to continue speaking out.

Supporting the pipelines ends up completely in line with the Trump regime, Stanfield wrote. He accused Northam of breaking with Democratic values because of a crass calculation that defying the protesters will not translate into the loss of a significant bloc of votes.

The essay sparked an immediate debate, with some party faithful arguing that airing dirty laundry and tearing down Northam could have the same result that attacks on Hillary Clinton had last fall: snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Martyrs always take a perverse joy in their martyrdom. But true progressives understand that getting 95% of what you want in a candidate is better than 0%, Del. Mark H. Levine (D-Alexandria) posted as part of a lengthy back-and-forth.

Stanfield dismisses that argument. Hes voting for Northam either way, he said. But the candidate needs to be pushed. This is about making the basic Democratic case that we should oppose all new fossil-fuel infrastructure pipelines, he said.

Northams campaign spokesman rejected the notion that the candidates position on the pipelines is simply a political calculation. The political ramifications have mattered very little in what the lieutenant governor wanted to say on the issue, spokesman David Turner said. Science should say whether they can be built safely and environmentally sound.

The vocal opposition is not a concern, Turner said. Were a big-tent party, and we welcome a host of ideas across the spectrum.

He pointed out that the League of Conservation Voters endorsed Northam despite disagreeing with him on the pipelines. The Sierra Club did the same.

And the hard truth is that Northam could have more to lose by opposing the pipelines than by sticking with them and enduring the taunts.

[Dominion letter shows why staying neutral on pipeline could help Northam]

Dominion is a powerful political force in the state  and not just through donations. It has tens of thousands of employees, retirees and shareholders in Virginia, as well as a vast customer base. Ahead of the primary, Dominion sent out mailers reminding people to check the candidates pipeline positions before voting.

In addition, the Laborers International Union of North America, which represents the workers who build such pipelines, has given heavily to Democrats over the years.

Pipeline opponents know what theyre up against but believe right is on their side. They have walked 150 miles of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline route, staged outdoor concerts, posted mini-documentaries on Facebook, organized art events and spoken out at local government meetings all over the region.

Some are taking a hard look at Cliff Hyra, a Libertarian running for governor who opposes the pipelines. If the race between Northam and Gillespie is tight, Hyra could play the spoiler  giving the protesters more power than they seem to have now.

I spent a lifetime primarily voting for the lesser evil, said Mara Robbins, an environmentalist in Floyd County who has worked against the Mountain Valley Pipeline. Those of us who are taking this stand are getting slammed right and left by party loyalists, by people saying this is what happened with Hillary and Trump and Bernie [Sanders] supporters who wouldnt vote for Hillary.

The most common thing we hear is that this is just going to get Gillespie elected. Well, if thats what Northam wants, thats whats going to happen, she said. I cant think that way anymore.
ALABAMA

Firefighters battle chemical plant blaze

A plant that produces agricultural chemicals caught fire Saturday in southwest Alabama, blanketing the area with potentially hazardous smoke and prompting an order for people to stay inside.

Police said the fire began before dawn at a factory operated by Tiger-Sul Products, and crews were still there hours later. No injuries were reported.

Atmore Police Chief Chuck Brooks told WALA-TV that sulfur was burning in a warehouse, and the 200 to 300 residents nearest the plant were asked to stay inside their homes as a precaution.

It is extremely hard to breathe near the warehouse, Brooks said.

Sheriffs officials closed part of U.S. Route 31 because of the smoke and diverted traffic to Interstate 65.

 Associated Press

NORTH CAROLINA

3 charged with hiding kidnapping suspect

Investigators have accused three people of hiding a North Carolina suspect who eluded officers for six days and is believed to have kidnapped a 68-year-old man.

Authorities told local media Saturday that Jennifer Hawkins, 40, and Franklin Badgero Jr., 45, were arrested Friday and are charged with harboring Phillip Stroupe II in Hawkinss Barnardsville home Wednesday night. The third suspect, Larry Hawkins III, was arrested Saturday afternoon.

The search continues for Thomas Bryson of Mills River. Stroupe was driving Brysons truck when authorities found him Thursday. Hed been on the run since July 22, when he stole a bike at gunpoint, authorities say.

 Associated Press

N.Y. couple jumps from 9th floor: Police say a Manhattan couple apparently distraught over their finances jumped from the mans ninth-floor Madison Avenue office window and died. Chiropractor Glenn Scarpelli, 53, and his wife, Patricia Colant, 50, were found Friday morning. Police say they each had suicide notes that cited financial problems. Chief of detectives Robert Boyce said the source of their money problems wasnt clear and that police were looking into it. According to state and federal records, Scarpelli owed tens of thousands of dollars in unpaid state and federal taxes.

Homeless woman set on fire dies: A West Virginia homeless woman authorities say was set on fire last week while sleeping on a porch has died. Media outlets reported that Rachele Jarrett, 44, was asleep on a porch in West Virginia last week when Carl T. Magee III, 34, poured gasoline on her and set her on fire. Jarrett died Friday at a hospital. On Saturday, Charleston police upgraded the charges against Magee to first-degree murder and arson.

N.C. island evacuated: A steady stream of tourists left a North Carolina island Saturday under evacuation orders after a construction crew drove a steel casing into an underground transmission line Thursday, causing widespread power outages on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands. As of Saturday afternoon, North Carolina ferries had evacuated about 3,800 people and 1,500 cars from both islands, Gov. Roy Coopers office said. Excavation revealed that one of three cables that supply the islands power is missing a 2-foot section. A timetable for repairs wont be known until crews determine the full damage, according to Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative.

Mother fatally shot, son wounded: Authorities say a Chicago mother was fatally shot and her 4-year-old son was wounded by gunfire on the citys West Side. Officials say the shooting happened Friday night. The Cook County Medical Examiners Office identified the woman as Nikia Betts, 28. Officials say she was shot in the head and taken to a hospital, where she died. Police say the boy was shot in the arm and was in good condition at a hospital.

 From news reports
Am I strong enough to beat this cancer?

I wonder if Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked himself this question when he was diagnosed recently with a deadly glioblastoma brain tumor.

When I was diagnosed with cancer in 1984, that question was certainly at the top of my own list. Just 26 at the time, I was pretty much untested: My greatest challenges so far had been taking the SATs and coming out as a gay man.

I certainly was no John McCain, who has survived five years of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, three bouts with melanoma (one of the deadliest of cancers) and three decades in the Senate. If anyone has the strength to prevail over cancer, its McCain. But is strength, or toughness  or any personality trait  really what it takes?

At the time of my diagnosis, a friend gave me a best-selling book, Getting Well Again, that asked this hard question: Why do some patients get well and others die when the prognosis is the same for both? I found the answer deeply upsetting: The authors had identified a cancer personality [that] can contribute to the onset and progress of cancer. In other words, the onus was on me. If I failed, I had no one to blame but myself.

This theory of personality has been much on my mind since McCains diagnosis became public. Emerging from the outpouring of tweets and statements that followed was the notion that the senator is a warrior par excellence who will surely win his latest battle.

For example, Vice President Pence tweeted, Cancer picked on the wrong guy because he is a fighter. Pences comment reminded me of another book, The Type C Connection: The Behavioral Links to Cancer and Your Health,which argues that the personality traits of some people make them prone to cancer. Typically, Type C individuals are the antithesis of warriors: They are unassertive people-pleasers who repress their emotions.

Warrior or people-pleaser, these character-driven approaches suggest that you are responsible for your outcome. Both are just wrong.

Theres been pushback against the idea that this warrior mentality is necessary for a successful outcome, Rohan Ramakrishna, a neurosurgeon at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who specializes in brain tumors, told me in a phone interview.

Putting it bluntly, Ramakrishna said, Your response to treatment is a biological one, not a psychological one.

Instead of focusing on McCains character traits, Ramakrishna prefers that we take notice of his highly supportive family and that he is being treated by a top team at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, one of the countrys best cancer facilities. (McCains generous congressional health plan is also a likely factor in securing top treatment, which is correlated with longevity.)

People use warrior metaphors with good intentions, Ramakrishna explained, but the unfortunate flip side is the implication that its your own fault if the cancer comes back, or if you die. Those who triumph over more-curable diseases, such as cancers that have effective treatments, arent tougher than those facing glioblastoma  its just that the odds are more in their favor.

You dont want people to think that their outcome is in their hands, he said. If someones cancer progresses, its a failure of our treatments, plain and simple.

Ramakrishnas assertion reminded me of my friend Jacqueline Zinn, who at 55 was diagnosed with the same kind of brain cancer as McCains. A wife, a mother of four and a triathlete, Jacquie left no stone unturned in her quest to beat glioblastoma. Over 18 months, she underwent brain surgery, two rounds of radiation, two courses of chemotherapy, and the Gamma Knifes virtual slice and dice. After the cancer recurred, as glioblastoma almost always does, Jacquie summoned a remarkable inner power  a strength  as she canceled credit cards, gave away her clothes, taught her husband how to pay the bills, wrote future letters to all her kids and planned her memorial service.

Jacquie was tough, determined and hopeful  yes, a warrior. But still, she lost the battle against her brain tumor. Ramakrishnas words echo: If someones cancer progresses, its a failure of our treatments, plain and simple. . . . Ultimately, the response of cancer to our treatments is biological and not psychological.

John McCain, like Jacquie, may be a fighter, but the biological process will play out as it will. And nobody will think any less of his warrior spirit if this usually fatal cancer prevails.

Read more

Defeating cancer was once a war; now its a moonshot

This is not the end: Using immunotherapy and a genetic glitch to give cancer patients hope

Negotiating cancer: Tips from one whos done it
A former gas station turned into an art gallery features a vintage Buick with a backdrop of Twin Rocks, part of Bears Ears National Monument in Utah. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

The route to Newspaper Rock  so named because its carved with ancient petroglyphs  from the tiny city of Monticello, Utah, follows a narrow two-lane road through a breathtaking landscape.

Its breathtaking partly because of the way the land craters into canyons on stretches of State Road 211, causing uninitiated drivers to grip the steering wheel. Soon the earth rises into mountains that seem to glow red under the sun. On one short stretch, the mountains divide, giving way to the road.

This is the northern part of the Bears Ears National Monument, which President Barack Obama designated as a monument in December. President Trump has been considering a reversal of that decision.

Trump issued an executive order in late April to review Bears Ears and 26 other land and marine monuments within 120 days, a period that ends in late August. Trump was fiercely lobbied by Utah public officials who are opposed to the new monument, and he paid special attention to Bears Ears, calling on Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to review it first.

Dogged by protesters who support monument status as a way to protect Bears Ears and its archaeological sites, Zinke toured the 1.35 million-acre site in the spring, calling it drop-dead gorgeous land. Within weeks, he recommended that the monument be dramatically scaled down. He said a final decision wouldnt be made until the other monuments had been reviewed.

Newspaper Rock, a petroglyph panel etched in sandstone, records centuries of human activity. (Katherine Frey/The Washington Post)

So its not clear whether the portion of Bears Ears that leads to Newspaper Rock will remain part of the monument. Zinke gave no indication of what should stay and what should go, saying that Congress has a role to play in future efforts to carve up the nations newest monument.

Utah residents who live near Bears Ears are among those who oppose monument designation. They regard it as a federal intrusion in a state where the U.S. government owns more than 60 percent of the land. Supporters  who contributed 80 percent of the comments solicited in the review process  favor keeping Bears Ears whole. It is the only monument designated at the request of a coalition of Native American tribes: Navajo, Hopi, Zuni and Ute.

Newspaper Rock is an odd name for a boulder seemingly in the middle of nowhere, its Native American petroglyphs recording 2,000 years of history.

Its been described as spiritual and eerie. There are drawings of humans with small heads and big bodies and of wheels that sit off on their own. There are also people on horseback and animals that were probably hunted as game.

Conservationists say there are tens of thousands of similarly valuable sites in Bears Ears, containing pottery, drawings, dwellings and spiritual gathering places.

As arresting as the symbols at Newspaper Rock is their lack of protection. All that stands between gawkers who could deface centuries of history is a single wrought-iron fence that a teenager could hop without much effort.

Monument designations often outpace the hiring of personnel to protect antiquities. Sometimes Congress neglects to provide the funding immediately because of politics or the slow pace of budget decisions.

(The Wilderness Society)

The monument is more than drop-dead gorgeous, as Zinke described it during his tour. It is history carved in stone. And it feels alive.

Read more

Two national monuments are no longer up for review, Interior says

Zinke defends huge job cuts at Interior: This is what a balanced budget looks like.

When Calif. builders dig, paleontologists are there to bag the fossils  even whales
Sputnik, a radio station funded by the Russian government, is broadcasting from the heart of the nation's capital. (Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post)

PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN is a fresh convert to the principle of reciprocity in his dealings with the United States. He ought to take it a step further.

On Friday, the Russian leader, irked at a sanctions bill that sailed through Congress, confiscated two American diplomatic properties in Russia and ordered the expulsion of diplomats and other staff from the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. The moves matched sanctions that President Barack Obama slapped on the Kremlin in response to Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

As long hes into reciprocity, Mr. Putin might take notice that while Moscow continues to banish U.S. international news outlets from Russian airwaves, Kremlin-funded mouthpieces such as Sputnik radio have enjoyed a field day in the United States, taking advantage of Americas open society to sow misinformation and distrust.

As reported by The Posts Justin Wm. Moyer, Sputnik, Moscows main radio propaganda outlet, has taken over a bandwidth on the Districts radio dial, 105.5 FM, formerly occupied by a bluegrass station, and began airing broadcasts July 1 from offices in downtown Washington, three blocks from the White House.

Meanwhile, there has been no change in Russias decade-long banishment of U.S. government-funded outlets airing programs on Russian television airwaves, or Russian-language broadcasts from Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, which were banned by a 2012 law.

Mr. Trump should also take notice. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One recently, he said, To me, the word reciprocal is a beautiful word. As it happens, he was talking about international trade, an area in which he thinks Americans get a bad deal.

Yet in the realm of U.S.-Russian international news, reciprocity seems absent from Mr. Trumps radar. A 24/7 Russian-language television venture produced by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, called Current Time, has been up and running for several months, producing high-quality news, but is available only online.

The asymmetry is a problem. Mr. Putins government, intent on undermining liberal democracies by casting doubt on the very notion of truth, and sowing division and doubt about basic Western institutions, has become increasingly adept at weaponizing information. U.S. intelligence agencies have called attention to Moscows fake news campaign, as have U.S. allies in Europe.

English-language shows on Sputnik and, secondarily, RT  the Kremlins not-much-watched but widely available English language television mouthpiece  feature useful American dupes and others who need no instruction from Moscow to reinforce the narrative, already current on the extreme left and right of Western politics, that U.S. capitalism, elections, institutions and media are corrupt. They trade in moral equivalence, eliding the plain fact that the Russian government  cynical, brutal and heedless of democratic norms  pursues interests and subscribes to values antithetical to those prized by most Americans.

The wild disparity in access accorded by Moscow and Washington to each others government-sponsored media outlets is unsustainable. If Mr. Trump is a champion of reciprocity, as he asserts, then U.S. diplomats should demand reciprocal treatment for Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. And if Mr. Putin has embraced reciprocity, he should be prepared to live by it.
Scott Pruitt has repeated a particular line again and again since becoming the head of the Environmental Protection Agency.

The future aint what it used to be at the EPA, hes fond of saying.

As it turns out, the past may not be what it once was, either.

In an obscure corner of the Ronald Reagan International Trade Building, a debate is underway about how to tell the story of the EPAs history and mission.

A miniature museum that began as a pet project of former EPA administrator Gina McCarthy has come under scrutiny. It features the agencys work over 4 decades, with exhibit topics such as regulating carbon dioxide emissions and the Paris climate accord. The Obama administration championed such efforts, but President Trumps policies are at odds with them.

Now the museum, which opened just days before President Barack Obama left office, is being reworked to reflect the priorities of the Trump administration, an effort that probably will mean erasing part of the agencys history.

Unlike other stark changes that have taken place at the EPA since Trump took office, the museum overhaul has not been primarily driven by political appointees. Rather, some of the same career staff members who worked on the exhibits under the Obama administration informed Trump appointees about the museum and the fact that parts of it were not in line with their vision.

I wanted to make sure that they knew it existed, said Nancy Grantham, a career public affairs employee at EPA, who has toured the exhibit with at least one Trump official. Thats just how I operate. I dont like to be surprised, and I assume others dont like to be, either.

Most people outside the agency arent even aware of the one-room exhibit just outside the entrance to the EPA Credit Union, which cost more than $300,000 to assemble and is open to the public free each weekday. McCarthy cut the ribbon with a giant pair of scissors Jan. 17, joined by a handful of former and current EPA officials and staff members.

There is no question that parts of the museum reflect an Obama administration-centric narrative. It includes a panel dedicated to the 2009 endangerment finding, in which then-EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson concluded that the agency was legally obligated to control greenhouse gas emissions linked to climate change because they threatened public health. A separate panel features a Dr. Seuss cartoon-themed poster with the message Join the Lorax and Help Protect the Earth From Global Warming.

The Paris agreement, in which nearly 200 nations pledged in December 2015 to curb their carbon output, also has a display panel, which notes that the EPA is leading global efforts to address climate change. In June, Trump announced plans to withdraw from the agreement.

The Clean Power Plan, Obamas signature effort to regulate carbon emissions and combat climate change, also is prominently displayed. The CPP shows the world that the United States is committed to address climate change, the exhibit reads.

The EPA mini-museum may soon display coal. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)

Trump signed an executive order in March ordering his deputies to scrap the Clean Power Plan.

[How Scott Pruitt moved to the center of power in the Trump administration]

On a tour of the exhibit Thursday, a career official said that these climate displays are slated to be removed, adding that the agency may add a display of coal to the museum.

Grantham acknowledged that the climate panels probably will be altered and possibly shelved, although she stressed that no final decisions had been made. It should be no surprise that there may be changes, she said.

She also said there is interest in beefing up sections of the museum that are priorities for the new administration, such as the Superfund program and a bipartisan 2016 law regulating new and existing chemicals that some of Pruitts deputies helped write. She said the administration also may add examples of EPA staff members working on agriculture to a section focused on agency employees in the field.

Every past EPA administrator is mentioned in the museum, with one exception: Anne Gorsuch, mother of Supreme Court Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, whose short and tumultuous tenure as President Ronald Reagans first EPA administrator was marked by sharp budget cuts, rifts with career EPA employees and a scandal over the mismanagement of the Superfund cleanup program. She resigned in 1983.

Grantham said Gorsuch will be added to the exhibit.

The EPA museum began as the brainchild of McCarthy, who visited pollution-themed museums in Japan a year ago. Meeting with other environmental ministers from G-7 nations in Toyama, she toured the prefectures Itai-itai Disease Museum, which is focused on a pollution-related illness that began in the area a century ago.

Back in Washington, staff members set about making her vision a reality, with the goal of having it up and running before the Obama administration left office.

Albert Stanley Stan Meiburg, who served as the EPAs acting deputy administrator at the end of Obamas second term and worked at the agency for nearly 40 years, said he was struck by the fact that other agencies ranging from the Energy Department to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention had exhibits on-site that told their stories.

EPA had nothing, he recalled. Nothing!

McCarthy gave us the impetus to do the exhibit, Meiburg said, although she did not oversee its development.

We thought, Nows the opportunity to do it, and to do it in the way that told the history of the agency,  he said, noting that the EPA had that space under lease and could modify it at very little cost.

Meiburg said the focus of it was the story of the agency and it was not something driven by a particular agenda. But he added, We wanted to try to get this opened on Ginas watch.

[Pruitt pushes for government-wide effort to question climate science]

After identifying a space they could use for the museum, EPA employees contracted with the Smithsonian for advice on gathering artifacts and setting up exhibits. They also contacted the EPA Alumni Association.

That group shared a 50-page document it had put together, titled 50 years of environmental progress, according to Phyllis Flaherty, an alumni association board member who worked at the EPA from 1976 to 2011. She said the document provided a sort of outline for what to include in the exhibit. The group also contributed a video for an exhibit about the EPAs role in the anthrax episode on Capitol Hill in 2001, as well as historical photos and the text of oral history interviews they had done.

Linda St. Thomas, a spokeswoman for the Smithsonian, said the institution prepared the elements of the exhibit, such as the display panels, but had no input on its underlying content.

Christopher Sellers, an environmental historian at Stony Brook University who has visited the exhibit, questioned in an interview why the federal government would want to alter it so soon.

It gives a good sense of what EPA has done over the last 40 years of its existence, he said. It really explains whats at stake in having an agency like the EPA and having environmental laws to begin with.

Its unclear how much taxpayer money, if any, it will take to overhaul the EPA museum to reflect the views of the Trump administration. Grantham said $45,000 remains in the agencys contract with the Smithsonian, but the costs would depend in part on how many changes ultimately get made. The money must be committed by Sept. 30, because it does not carry over to the new fiscal year, which will start Oct. 1.

In the meantime, to make sure the current administration is represented, EPA officials have installed a large poster board in the museum, highlighting the agencys new back to basics agenda. It features a picture of Pruitt shaking hands with coal miners at a Pennsylvania mine and promises sensible regulations for economic growth.

Neil Gorsuchs mother once ran the EPA. It didnt go well.

EPA remains top target with Trump administration proposing 31 percent budget cut

Federal court blocks Trump EPA on air pollution
When a panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit decided an important gun rights case last week, some advocates were already thinking ahead.

Clark Neily of the Cato Institute told my colleague Ann E. Marimow that the 2-to-1 ruling against the Districts requirement of a good reason to obtain a permit to carry a gun in public was thoroughly researched and carefully reasoned.

[Appeals court blocks D.C.s concealed carry law]

It would make an ideal vehicle for the Supreme Court to finally decide whether the Second Amendment applies outside the home, Neily said.

As if.

The fact is the justices have shown a remarkable lack of interest in deciding that issue, or in expanding upon their landmark 2008 decision in District of Columbia v. Heller. They have had multiple chances to define with specificity what the Second Amendment protects beyond Hellers guarantee of individual gun ownership in ones home, and they have declined each opportunity.

Just last month, the court decided to stay out of a similar case from California, where the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit decided that the Second Amendment does not protect the right to carry a concealed weapon in public.

[Supreme Court declines to review California concealed-carry law]

Declining to even review the ruling brought an impatient rebuke from Justice Clarence Thomas.

It reflects a distressing trend: the treatment of the Second Amendment as a disfavored right, wrote Thomas, who was joined by Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.

Thomas said he found the 9th Circuits ruling indefensible.

But even if other members of the court do not agree that the Second Amendment likely protects a right to public carry, the time has come for the court to answer this important question definitively. Twenty-six states have asked us to resolve the question presented, he wrote.

Circuit Judge Thomas B. Griffith acknowledged the absence of clear direction at the beginning of his opinion last week on the D.C. permit procedure.

Constitutional challenges to gun laws create peculiar puzzles for courts, he wrote, because they require balancing the highest goal of government  protecting innocent lives  against individual rights bestowed by the Constitution.

The Supreme Court, he observed, has offered little guidance.

The courts first in-depth examination of the Second Amendment is younger than the first iPhone, Griffith wrote. And by its own admission, that first treatment manages to be mute on how to review gun laws in a range of other cases.

By listening closely to what the court had to say in Heller, Griffith and Judge Stephen F. Williams blocked the Districts law as a violation of a core Second Amendment protection.

The law requires those seeking a permit to carry a concealed firearm to show that they have good reason to fear injury or a proper reason, such as transporting valuables. Living in a high-crime area shall not by itself qualify as a good reason.

As of July 15, D.C. police had approved 126 concealed-carry licenses and denied 417 applicants.

Judge Karen LeCraft Henderson came up with a very different interpretation from her colleagues. Heller blessed the Districts regulation, she wrote, because of the citys unique security challenges as the nations capital and because the permit process does not affect the right to keep a firearm at home.

The sole Second Amendment core right is the right to possess arms for self-defense in the home, Henderson wrote.

She added that by characterizing the Second Amendment right as most notable and most acute in the home, the Supreme Court necessarily implied that that right is less notable and less acute outside the home.

She noted that her colleagues had put on blinders to the historical analyses of the D.C. Circuits sister circuits: All who have considered the issue concluded that restrictive state regulations on carry permits are constitutional.

There arent many states with such stringent requirements  Maryland, New Jersey and New York are among them. They are outliers, said attorney Alan Gura, a go-to Second Amendment lawyer who successfully argued Heller at the Supreme Court and the D.C. case, Wrenn v. District of Columbia, as 44 states allow citizens to claim their rights.

As is its custom, the Supreme Court has not given reasons when it declined to review the lower court decisions upholding the state restrictions. That unanimity, though, could be one reason the Supreme Court has not gotten involved.

The court most often steps in when there is a conflict in the lower courts. The D.C. Circuits panel decision creates that  for now.

The city has not decided on its next legal move, but it seems likely to ask the full D.C. Circuit to review the panels decision. As David Kopel, a University of Denver law professor and gun rights activist notes, when Heller was decided in that court a decade ago, the full circuit declined to review and overturn the panels groundbreaking endorsement of an individual right to gun ownership.

But the court has changed dramatically since then. It is more liberal now, with a majority of judges appointed by Democratic presidents.

If the full D.C. Circuit joined its sister circuits in upholding the good reason requirement, gun rights activists would be back to the Supreme Court, again asking for review.

As Thomass dissent indicates, there is some division on the court on the matter, and reasons for why the justices have not stepped in are a matter of speculation.

Perhaps a solid majority agrees the lower courts have read Heller correctly and that it leaves space for jurisdictions to impose stringent requirements for carrying a gun outside the home.

Or perhaps the court remains closely divided  Heller was decided on a 5-to-4 vote  and the justices simply have little appetite for tackling the controversial matter of guns in the absence of a lower court disagreement that would force their hands.
Vice President Pence touched down in Estonia on Sunday on the eve of President Trumps expected signing of legislation to impose broad sanctions against Russia, and said he came bearing a message from the president: Russias destabilizing activities, its support for rogue regimes, its activities in Ukraine, are unacceptable.

Speaking briefly with reporters in Town Hall Square here in Tallinns old town, Pence reaffirmed the presidents decision to sign the sanctions bill but also held out the possibility that the implementation of the penalties  for which Russia has already retaliated  might actually improve relations between the two countries, saying he and Trump expect Russian behavior to change.

The president and I remain very hopeful that well see different behavior by the Russian government, with regard to Ukraine, with regard to supporting rogue regimes in Iran and North Korea, Pence said. We continue to believe that if Russia will change its behavior, our relationship can change for the good and improve for the interests in both of our countries and the interest of peace and stability in this region and around the world.

Russia has rejected the idea that the sanctions will in any way improve relations, with its U.S. embassy tweeting on Saturday: Washington still doesnt get the fact that pressure never works against @Russia, bilateral relations can hardly be improved by sanctions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people.

Vice President Pence, third from left, and Estonias Prime Minister Juri Ratas, second from right, before talks in Tallinn on Sunday. (Raigo Pajula/AFP/Getty Images)

Pences long-planned, 3-day trip to Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro was originally intended to reaffirm the United States commitment to NATO  Estonia is one of five countries meeting its defense spending commitment  and touch on the United States commitment to the security of the Baltic states. All three countries have been the targets of Russian aggression.

But in the wake of Trumps decision to sign the legislation  which passed the Senate on Thursday on an overwhelming 98 to 2 vote  the vice presidents trip has taken on a clear Russia focus, senior administration officials said. Nearly all of Pences remarks and speeches are likely to address the challenges Russia poses in this part of the world.

But Pences rhetoric abroad so far seems slightly out of sync with some of his bosss previous comments and actions on the topics of both Russia and NATO.

Despite the firm conclusion of his own intelligence community that Russia interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, Trump has repeatedly refused to fully accept that determination. When he has acknowledged that Russia did meddle, he has played down Moscows role, saying other state or individual actors could have played a role as well.

When asked how the Baltic states can accept Pences reassurances that the United States will support them against Russian aggression and interference in their domestic politics when Trump has frequently taken a softer line, the vice president said, The president has confirmed repeatedly that we believe Russia did meddle in U.S. elections. I think he has also said it could have been other actors as well.

His message throughout Eastern Europe, Pence added, is a simple one. While our policy is America-first, its not America-alone, and that our allies in Eastern Europe can be confident that the United States of America stands with them, he said. We are committed to NATO, we are committed to our common defense.

Trumps comments and actions have at times raised questions about his commitment to the alliance, despite statements of strong support from Pence and other administration officials.

While attending a ceremony at NATO headquarters in Brussels in May on his first trip abroad, Trump delivered a speech from which he specifically removed a roughly 20-word section intended to reaffirm U.S. support for the treatys Article 5, which says an attack on one member is an attack on all members. He later committed to NATOs collective defense ideal, which is the cornerstone of the treaty, but the earlier omission worried European leaders.

Pence on Sunday again tried to play down the presidents previous uncertainty on Article 5, arguing Trump has never wavered in his commitment.

From the time the president sent me to speak at the Munich Security Conference, we made it clear that the policy of our administration is to stand firmly with our NATO allies and to stand firmly behind our Article 5 commitment that an attack on one is an attack on all, Pence said. The president has made it clear from the outset of our administration and will continue to make it clear to all our allies in the region.

Trump was initially reluctant to accept the Russia sanctions legislation, which curbs his ability to lift them on his own without consent from Congress. But he finally agreed to sign it after revisions, which also include sanctions on Iran and North Korea.

In many ways, the president had no choice. Trump would have encountered a fierce political backlash  as well as faced the threat of a veto override from a Republican-controlled Congress  had he refused to sign the bill. Rejecting the legislation also would have raised further questions about his seeming reluctance to confront Putin.

Pences trip also comes as Trump is facing growing scrutiny at home over Russia, in the form of special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIs widening investigation. In addition to looking into whether Trumps associates colluded with Russians in the 2016 election, Muellers probe has grown to include questions about the finances of Trump and his family, as well as possible attempts to obstruct the investigation.

Michael McFaul, the ambassador to Russia under former president Barack Obama, said that Pences tough-on-Russia message will be welcome in each of the countries hes visiting  but may disguise a deeper uncertainty about what the Trump administrations true policy is toward Moscow.

It will be easy for him to have positive bilateral meetings when he goes there, McFaul said. But of course he has a very convoluted message on what theyre doing on Russia.

All three countries have struggled for years with Russian aggression. In 2007, Estonia faced a cyberattack that hobbled dozens of corporate and government websites  an attack for which it blames Russia, though the Kremlin denies the charge. In 2008, Russia invaded Georgia, and Montenegro has accused Russian agents of an attempted coup in 2016, aimed at preventing the nation from joining NATO.

Most certainly all three of these countries have felt the influence  the coercive influence  of Russia on their domestic politics, so from my point of view, thats an interesting and positive set of countries for him to go to, with the caveat that I dont know what their Russia policy is, McFaul said. I follow it pretty closely, and I could not tell you what the strategy is.

But Sunday afternoon, in the sun-soaked town square, Pence seemed to only have one overarching message  that he and the president are in policy lockstep, and that he is just a humble emissary spreading Trumps greetings abroad.

The vice president stopped to shake hands with a few of the people who had gathered to watch the spectacle, many of them  like Pence  tourists in Estonia. As each individual introduced themselves, Pence often tied their comments back to Trump, telling a man from Paris, The president was just in Paris for Bastille Day, and telling a couple from Poland, The president was just in Warsaw.

Then, he ducked into his motorcade and pulled away.
Breastfeeding is a key contributor to the survival, health and well-being of infants and mothers. It provides babies with the best possible start in life. Breast milk is a natural, renewable food that is environmentally safe, produced and delivered without pollution, packaging or waste.

Many hands make light work. In Missoula, there is significant collaboration to provide breastfeeding support. Partners include the Missoula City-County Health Department, Community Medical Center, St. Patricks Providence Hospital, The Birth Center, La Leche League, The Lotus Project, the Missoula Breastfeeding Coalition, Mothers Milk Bank of Montana, The Montana Breastfeeding Coalition, The Nursing Nook, ZooTown Brew, Missoula Food Bank, Missoula Valley Mid-wives, other local midwives and doulas, breastfeeding-friendly businesses and, of course, the many new moms on their journey to breastfeed.

Together we form a warm chain of support for breastfeeding families. We provide new and prospective mothers the information they need to make infant feeding choices. By working together, our partners can continue to support and educate breastfeeding women to help them meet their individual breastfeeding goals.

For decades, Community Medical Center has been an ally in supporting breastfeeding families in our community. Mary Dickson, a lactation consultant at Community Medical Center, states, CMC is proud to be a partner in providing breastfeeding support to families in Missoula. We are grateful to have an excellent network of care providers working towards 'Sustaining Breastfeeding Together.' We appreciate the work of the Missoula Breastfeeding Coalition and the Missoula Baby Bistro in the support of moms before and after they leave the hospital.

As we recognize World Breastfeeding Weeks 2017 objectives (to inform, anchor, engage and galvanize), Missoulas Baby Bistro is one anchor which serves to engage and inform new moms. This weekly breastfeeding support group provides the opportunity to meet other new mom-and-baby pairs, share successes as well as concerns, tell birth stories and bring questions. The group is facilitated by a lactation expert who can answer questions, make referrals and help moms gain confidence as they navigate their breastfeeding goals. Initiated in July 2015, the Baby Bistro has been generously hosted for the past three years by ZooTown Brew.

Baby Bistro is moving Aug. 2 to the new Missoula Food Bank located at 1720 Wyoming Street in order to accommodate our growing group. There is free parking, a beautiful conference room and free coffee or tea. The group meets every Wednesday from 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m. If you are pregnant or nursing, please drop by any time during our open hours. Like us on Facebook at Missoula Baby Bistro, where postings are frequently updated.

Our concerted efforts galvanize public opinion around the issue of breastfeeding in public. The Missoula Breastfeeding Coalitions rest-stop tent is a presence at many summer events and allows families a respite in order to feed and change babys diapers. The Breastfeeding Friendly Business campaign also helps moms gain a measure of comfort and security as they navigate their errands around town. Soon you may view life-sized cut-outs of local Missoula breastfeeding moms (courtesy of a grant from the Montana State Breastfeeding Coalition) strategically placed in order to help normalize breastfeeding in our community.

We know that when partners have a unified voice, community support is also gained. Sustaining Breastfeeding Together reminds us that we all have a part to play in creating a strong, enabling environment for women to breastfeed successfully.
Russias deputy foreign minister said Sunday that his country was poised to retaliate aggressively against any new U.S. sanctions on Moscow.

I think retaliation is long, long overdue, Sergei Ryabkov said on ABCs This Week with George Stephanopoulos. We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal.

His comments come as Russia announced Friday that it would seize U.S. diplomatic properties and expel scores of U.S. diplomats and other staff members.

The steps were described by Ryabkov as retaliation for the punitive sanctions bill passed by Congress on Thursday, an effort to address Russias meddling in the 2016 U.S. election. On Friday, the White House said President Trump plans to sign the legislation.

[Trump plans to sign new Russia sanctions bill, White House says]

(Andrew Roth,Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

After the Senate . . . voted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation, it was the last drop, Ryabkov said. If the U.S. decides to move towards further deterioration, we will respond in kind. We will mirror this, we will retaliate.

He added, My whole point is  dont do this, its to the detriment of the interests of the U.S.

When asked what sort of retaliation the United States could expect, Ryabkov wouldnt elaborate but added, I can assure you different options are on the table, and consideration is being given to all sorts of things, both symmetrical and asymmetrical.

Experts predict it could lead to all-out economic war. If the bill is approved, and most probably it will be adopted, then we will inevitably enter the stage of what we call the Cold War, Andrei Sidorov, an expert on international politics at Moscow State University, told The Washington Post last week. And the Cold War means various responses.

[Kremlin is done betting on Trump and is planning how to strike back against U.S. sanctions]

In a statement on Saturday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said, The near unanimous votes for the sanctions legislation in Congress represent the strong will of the American people to see Russia take steps to improve relations with the United States.

We hope that there will be cooperation between our two countries on major global issues and these sanctions will no longer be necessary.

(Washington Post Live)

The Russian Embassy in Washington didnt seem to buy the attempt to make nice, tweeting, Washington still doesnt get the fact that pressure never works against @Russia, bilateral relations can hardly be improved by sanctions.
A sign in Moyock, N.C., warns travelers that access to both Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands is restricted to residents only on Saturday. (Steve Earley/AP)

A steady stream of tourists left a North Carolina island Saturday under evacuation orders prompted by a widespread power outage, wiping out a significant chunk of the lucrative summer months for local businesses.

It could take days or weeks to repair an underground transmission line damaged early Thursday by construction crews working on a new bridge between islands in North Carolinas Outer Banks. The construction company drove a steel casing into the line, causing blackouts on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands.

Cars lined up Friday to get on ferries, the only way off Ocracoke Island, after about 10,000 tourists were ordered Thursday evening to evacuate. A second order for visitors on Hatteras Island, south of Oregon Inlet, meant up to 60,000 additional people had to evacuate starting Saturday, primarily north over the inlet bridge.

As of Saturday afternoon, ferries had evacuated about 3,800 people and 1,500 cars from both islands, according to Gov. Roy Coopers office.

Cooper (D) said he called local officials to pledge state help. Well do all we can to get repairs moving, he said in a news release.

Customers enter the darkened Island Convenience Store in Rodanthe on Hatteras Island, N.C. (Steve Earley/AP)

Excavation revealed Saturday that one of three underground transmission cables that supply the islands power is missing a two-foot section. A timetable for repairs wont be known until crews determine whether either of the other cables was damaged, according to the Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative.

Dare County spokeswoman Dorothy Hester had no estimate for how many people had yet to leave Hatteras Island.

We realize people are disappointed. They brought a lot of stuff here. Theyre packing up and moving out, she said.

Roughly 80 percent of the islands tourism stems from vacation rentals, and the order coincides with the customary Saturday turnover for weekly home rentals. The big question is when visitors can get to homes already rented for upcoming weeks, said Lee Nettles, director of the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau.

The order barring inbound tourists did not apply to Hatteras Islands roughly 6,000 year-round residents or other property owners.

The islands regular summer fish fry went on Saturday evening because organizers ordered the fish before the evacuation call.

The utility is supplying temporary power to residents, businesses and emergency services with diesel and portable generators.

Aaron Howe cooks in the dark kitchen at the Island Convenience Store in Rodanthe on Hatteras Island, N.C.. (Steve Earley/AP)
Outnumbered but emboldened, progressive Democrats who watched Republicans fail to unwind the Affordable Care Act are thinking harder about passing major expansions of health-care coverage. For many younger activists and legislators, the push to undo the ACA with just 51 Senate votes is less a cautionary tale than a model of how to bring about universal coverage.

The ambitious idea, discussed on the congressional backbenches and among activists, is not embraced by Democratic leaders. In the hours after the repeal push stalled, Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) suggested that Republicans sit down and trade ideas with Democrats. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) suggested that Republicans fully fund subsidies for current ACA exchange plans  money that President Trump frequently threatens to cut off.

The Republicans near miss on repeal demonstrated boldness from which a future left-wing majority could learn. Democrats passed the ACA through regular order, with a fleeting, fractious Senate supermajority. Republicans proved that major health-care policy changes can be pushed nearly to the finish line in the reconciliation process, with just 50 supportive senators and a vice president ready to break a tie.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), a freshman who favors universal Medicare coverage, said that Republicans have rewritten the playbook. When we do have a Democratic president, and when we do have a Democratic majority, Id support getting this through with 51 votes in the Senate, said Khanna of a universal coverage, single-payer plan. That will diminish the role of lobbyists and special interests in trying to get a few senators to block something that everyone in this country will want.

Democrats who endured previous efforts to expand health insurance had rarely considered a reconciliation strategy. In 2009, the Obama administration and Democrats in the House and Senate included veterans of the failed 1993-1994 health-care push, who remembered the insurance industrys effectiveness in sinking their bills.

(Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)

The 2009 approach brought insurers on board; it adopted the mandate for individuals to obtain health insurance, an idea cooked up in conservative policy circles, and went into affect slowly to avoid piling up costs.

How much time and effort did they spend in trying to make the ACA bipartisan? asked Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.), a rising Democratic star elected in 2014. Its never going to happen. Our bills shouldnt be about getting the most amount of Republicans on board; they should be about insuring the biggest number of people.

When Democrats lost control of the House in 2010, it taught party activists that there was little to gain from compromise. This year, the ACA policy that proved most intractable was not the mandate  a skinny bill to repeal it got 49 Senate votes  but instead the expansion of Medicaid, which up to nine Republican senators refused to roll back.

To progressives, this was proof that theyd been right to demand more in 2009  from a public option to a Medicare buy-in for younger people to single-payer health care itself. Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, recalled that Democrats had ridiculed the professional left for supporting a public option in reconciliation. In conversations since the start of the repeal debate, theyve come to agree with him.

In 2009, what we consistently got from Democratic senators was: Hey, reconciliation was a procedural can of worms. We dont want to go there, Green said. Republicans have made very clear that you can go there and push your ideas into law. But our ideas will be more popular. Its pretty clear that the center of gravity has shifted.

This week, as the Senate debated then waylaid the repeal bills, the PCCC held all-day training sessions for 2018 Democratic candidates in a hotel near the Capitol. Many swing-district hopefuls said they either embraced single-payer health care or described it as an obvious goal to work toward.

The image I have in my head is that everyone who wants to see a doctor can see one, without going to the ER or going bankrupt, said Rick Neal, an international aid worker who was exploring a run against Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Ohio). Health care doesnt fit in this free-market fantasy that people have, because people will do anything to see a doctor. The high premiums were seeing right now are an indication of market failure.

1 of 11 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad  Behind the scenes of the late-night vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act View Photos Inside the Senates health-care fight. Caption Inside the Senates health-care fight. July 27, 2017 The Capitol is seen during an all-night session to consider the Republican health-care bill on Capitol Hill in Washington. Melina Mara/The Washington Post Wait 1 second to continue.

Andy Kim, a former National Security Council staffer running against Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-N.J.), described the ideal process for passing a bill in now-common progressive terms  starting with what voters want, not what might win over Republicans.

The way you start something thats bipartisan is by starting with the American people, he said. Bipartisanship starts with them.

Democrats have not yet formed a consensus on how to approach health care again. On Thursday, as the repeal effort headed for the cliff, Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.) needled Democratic senators  10 of whom face reelection next year in states Trump won  by introducing the text of a single-payer bill sponsored by Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.). For the first time, most House Democrats have co-sponsored Conyerss bill; 43 members of the Senate minority, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), voted present, while five voted no on the Daines amendment.

Sanders did so because he intends  barring yet another jolt of life in the repeal campaign  to release a Medicare for All bill before the Senates August recess. The bill will be designed to reframe single-payer, which enjoys tentative support in public polls, as cost-effective and sensible.

If Sanderss bill gets a favorable Congressional Budget Office score, it would become a starting point for Democrats in future health-care debates. Even some progressive Democrats worry about the story getting ahead of the storytellers.

The reconciliation rules may allow you to squeeze through something, but it doesnt allow you to do lawmaking the way its supposed to be done, said Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii), who was endorsed by the PCCC. When it comes to repeal, reconciliation is the tool that theyve used; theres every reason to think wed use reconciliation to undo it. But its not a path we should go down with enthusiasm.

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), who would chair the House Budget Committee if Democrats won control of Congress, was similarly cautious about reconciliation. In an interview with The Washington Post and the New York Times, taped for C-SPANs Newsmakers, Yarmuth said that he supports universal Medicare and could see it becoming law in five to 10 years, as employers realized that they would gain flexibility if they were taxed slightly higher but could save on insurance costs. But he would not copy the process Republicans had tried to use for repeal.

Its not good for the country, whether youre Democrat or Republican, when you pass a bill with only partisan votes, Yarmuth said.

Conyers, meanwhile, was trying to make universal health insurance the partys default position. On Friday, as most House members left town for their recess, Conyers joined Khanna at an event to launch a pledge for 2018 Democrats. Raising his right hand, the Capitol peering over his shoulder, Conyers said he would stand up for Medicare for All. 

Were seeing a crumbling of the Republican legislative program, Conyers said. We may not be in the minority much longer.

Read more at PowerPost
Emmanuel Macron is a master of persuasion.

In his youth, he seduced his married high school drama teacher, the woman who is now his wife. In middle age  with no government experience  he cajoled a sitting president into giving him a coveted cabinet position. Then  with no support from any established political party  he dazzled a nation, becoming, at 39, the youngest-ever president of France, a country where tradition is a way of life.

Nearly 100 days into Macrons presidency, there are already indications that the French are increasingly skeptical of their new president. While a majority still approve of him, Macrons initially sky-high approval rating dropped by 10 percent this month, mostly because of his refusal to back down on commitments to slash government spending. He has also come under fire for failing to aid migrants, sparred with Frances chief military officer, who later resigned, and pushed to expand the states powers to fight terrorism in ways that critics fear will permanently curtail civil liberties.

Judging from the new presidents calendar, however, the dip in domestic popularity is of little concern, for his roving political eye seems to have identified a new conquest. Macron may be the president of France, but now he seems to be running for a different office altogether: the leader of the free world.

[Thank you, dear Donald: Why Macron invited Trump to France]

Following the election of Donald Trump  who ran on promises of America First isolationism  commentators worldwide immediately began referring to German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the de facto defender of the liberal world order. With her famously stoic demeanor, Merkel appeared the natural replacement. Throughout her long career, she has advocated diplomacy and international law, and has defended an embattled European Union.

But in his first three months in office, Macron has dared to tread where Merkel hesitates to go. In keeping with his youthful image, he makes bold statements in defense of global causes such as climate change action, as evidenced in his Twitter campaign to Make Our Planet Great Again. And in the style of the French Obama, he hosts international celebrities in the Elysee for conversations on hot-button issues  including both Bono and Rihanna this week.

In any case, the major plot points of his young presidency have all featured him in the international spotlight, either attempting to charm or stand up to powerful world leaders, often those unpopular in France.

This is not to say that nothing has happened on the domestic level since his election in May. Macron, a relative political outsider even a year ago, ultimately succeed in carrying out an almost unthinkable overhaul of French political life. The new centrist party he founded, Republique En Marche (Republic on the Move), now has an absolute majority in Parliament.

But in subtle and not-so-subtle ways, his principal ambition to date seems to be casting himself as a master negotiator in a new world where all roads somehow lead to Paris.

To some extent, France is back again, said Pierre Vimont, a former French ambassador to the United States and the E.U., in an interview. You have France pushing forward its interest, but doing so in a way that makes it take a central position on the world stage, because France likes to lead and likes to be seen as leading.

This defense of French interests has taken forms large and small, including a last-minute move to temporarily nationalize Frances largest shipyard on Thursday  to save French jobs from a potential Italian takeover. But so far, it has mostly been the world stage on which Macron has set his sights.

[Macron hosts Netanyahu, condemns anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism]

Last week, for instance, he hosted Libyas two rival leaders for talks in a chateau outside Paris. The mission was tentatively successful: the meeting led to a conditional cease-fire agreement between Fayez al-Sarraj, Libyas U.N.-backed prime minister, and Khalifa Haftar, the military leader who controls much of eastern Libya.

For France, the issue of Libya holds particular significance, given the countrys past difficulties in negotiating any functioning resolution in the region, as in the joint Franco-British 2011 operation.

The cause of peace has made great progress today, said Macron at the end of discussions, heralding the historic courage of the two leaders he invited.

Likewise, Vimont said, Macron has positioned himself as a similar mediator between Israel and Palestine and even between the United States and Russia.

Macron has hosted  separately  Russian President Vladimir Putin and President Trump, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In each of these meetings, Macron has used his considerable charm to play both sides, even while blasting Putin for Russias state-owned media being organs of propaganda. With Abbas, he opposed settlements, calling them illegal under international law. With Netanyahu, he decried anti-Zionism, which, for Macron, is the reinvented form of anti-Semitism.

[Macron is the president Trump wishes he could be]

But nowhere was Macrons ability to seduce more on display than in the case of Trump, whom he invited to Paris after the two had a tense first meeting in Brussels in May. The entire affair was dominated by a six-second handshake widely interpreted as a display of Gallic machismo  and that Macron later told a French newspaper was a moment of truth.

In their second encounter, however, Macron was all smiles, outwardly embracing the Trump, who enjoys an approval rating of just 14 percent in France, according to a recent poll from the Pew Research Center. Even after Trump commented on the good physical shape of Macrons 64-year-old wife, Brigitte, the young president referred to his American counterpart as dear Donald and flattered him while the cameras were rolling.

But Macrons flattery began long before the visit, Trump revealed in an Oval Office interview with the New York Times this month. Trump  who has refused to visit Britain until Prime Minister Theresa May can fix a warm welcome for him  initially asked Macron whether there would be protests in Paris, he told the Times.

I said, Do you think its a good thing for me? 

Trump said Macron was quick to say that protests would not be a problem, and that a lavish spectacle of French military pomp would await him on the storied Champs Elysees. Trump arrived, and there were no protests in sight. He now extols his great relationship with Macron.

For Dominique Moisi, a French foreign policy expert at the Paris-based Institut Montaigne, a think tank with ties to the Macron campaign, there is potential danger in Macrons having put himself in the limelight.

At the same time, the devil is in the details, Moisi said. By receiving these leading opposite forces in Paris, hes taking a risk. What if he fails?

In Macrons official presidential portrait  whose heavy symbolism Frances chattering classes have taken to scrutinizing in the manner of a Holbein or a Rembrandt  he appears near a stack of books, one of which is opened on the desk behind him.

Among them is Stendhals The Red and the Black, Le Monde revealed, a classic 19th-century novel that tells the story of Julien Sorel, a young provincial who, like Macron, comes to Paris to seek his fortune and, as it happens, seduces an older woman along the way.

In the novel, things do not end particularly well for Julien, but one thing is sure: he is the slave of a staggering ambition, and nothing can stand in his way. Among the novels most famous lines: Each man for himself, in that desert of egoism which is called life.

Macrons young presidency has not yet experienced a major domestic crisis or attack. Likewise, none of his major policy proposals have yet been implemented  including his controversial push to liberalize Frances highly regulated labor market. Those reforms are due to be introduced in Parliament this fall, and could inspire massive protests.

With an absolute majority in Parliament  populated with deputies Macron hand-picked, all of whom represent a new political party that bears his own initials  Macron is not yet used to opposition. As he said to French troops, in the midst of a dispute over military budget cuts, I am your boss. . . . I need no pressure and no commentary.

For some, Macrons overt allusion to Stendhal evinces a sense of humor on his part, an ironic self-awareness. For others, it represents a different kind of irony, almost an inadvertent foreshadowing.

As Moisi put it, The hard times are yet to come.

Read more

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Two deaths in Europe point to the rebirth of E.U. optimism

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Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

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When President Trump lumped the Lebanese Hezbollah movement together with the Islamic State and al-Qaeda last week, describing Lebanons government as a partner in the fight against all of them, he might not have realized quite how complicated the situation in Lebanon is.

So on Saturday, Hezbollah took a party of journalists on a tour that helped explain, trumpeting the results of the militias recent fight against Syrias al-Qaeda affiliate in barren mountains near the northeastern Lebanese town of Arsal.

The arduous trek into the rocky terrain underscored the sway the Iran-backed Hezbollah exerts in Lebanon, where it remains the most effective and best-armed military force and retains the ability to strike at will almost anywhere in the country.

It also illuminated the complexity of the political and military landscape in Lebanon  a U.S. ally, whose government includes Hezbollah, which is in turn branded a terrorist organization by Washington. Whether the Trump administration can navigate the pitfalls of this complexity may determine if this tiny, relatively calm country can continue to escape the turmoil raging elsewhere in the Middle East.

Trumps comment was made alongside Lebanese Prime Minister Saad Hariri, who was on a visit to the United States to seek U.S. support. Lebanon is on the front lines in the fight against ISIS, al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, Trump said, without apparently realizing that Hariri struck an alliance with Hezbollah late last year to secure his appointment as prime minister.





The comment coincided with the conclusion of a two-week offensive by Hezbollah in the Arsal area that drove out scores of al-Qaeda-affiliated fighters belonging to the group known as Jabhat al-Nusra, as well as well as several hundred former Free Syrian Army rebels  whose allies until recently had received support from the United States.

Hezbollah officials said they took journalists on the tour to demonstrate that Hezbollah, not the United States, is the one doing most of the fighting against terrorism.

The current American president is ignorant of the region, said Hezbollah spokesman Mohammed Afif, speaking to reporters in a cave until recently occupied by Nusra. We are the force that fights terrorism while the United States continues to support terrorism in many forms.

Guided by a vanguard of Hezbollah officials in black-windowed armored vehicles, a convoy comprising over 40 journalists four-wheel-drive vehicles set out Saturday from the nearby Bekaa Valley and trundled slowly up a rocky mountain into the area where the battles took place.

There were frequent mishaps. Vehicles got bogged down in the rock-strewn dust. Sections of the convoy lost their way in the featureless wilderness. One group came within 200 yards of Syria before being hurriedly turned around by Hezbollah guides. A U.S.-manufactured Polaris All Terrain Vehicle driven by Hezbollah fighters acted as sheepdog to the unwieldy convoy, scooting over the most unnavigable stretches of rock to help journalists who were stuck or heading in the wrong direction.

The first stop was at the complex of caves and tunnels where Afif spoke, and where, Hezbollah officials said, Nusra fighters had holed up for years before they were ousted last week.

Identifiable only by an unobtrusive hole in the rocks, the complex extended unexpectedly deep into the mountain and included a kitchen, a row of toilets, a variety of rooms apparently used as sleeping quarters and offices, and a number of prison cells where, Hezbollah said, Lebanese hostages had been kept.

A Hezbollah fighter stands at a watchtower at the site where clashes erupted between Hezbollah and Al Qaeda-linked fighters in al-Kheil Valley in the Lebanon-Syria border on Saturday. (Bilal Hussein/AP)

There was also a sizable assembly room where a Hezbollah commander identified as Haj Abu Ahmed delivered a PowerPoint presentation outlining the different stages of the battle on colored maps. They were based here, and they were defeated here, he said of the Nusra fighters. They were confronted by Karbala, Lebanon and the resistance, he added, referring to the 8th century battle in Iraq in which adherents of the Shiite branch of Islam were vanquished by a Sunni army.

The cave was followed by visits to outposts where the rebel and Nusra fighters had maintained positions during the three years in which they took refuge from Syrian Army and Hezbollah advances just across the border, bringing a tiny slice of Syrias war into this remote corner of Lebanon.

Nowhere was there any evidence of the Lebanese state, which has struggled to assert its role in the years since the 1975-1990 civil war saw the country overrun by scores of private militias. Only Hezbollah survived intact, retaining its status because of the role it played resisting what was then the Israeli occupation of a big chunk of southern Lebanon.

For the most part, the area is empty, an arid wilderness of ungoverned space devoid of habitation. Hezbollah outposts, flying yellow Hezbollah flags alongside those of Lebanon, are few and far between. Tents labeled as belonging to the Iranian Red Crescent are erected at some of the posts, presumably to supply medical aid to the fighters. There is no sign of its Lebanese equivalent.

But Hezbollah is walking a tightrope, too, between its role as Lebanons power broker and the disapproval it elicits from an international community otherwise eager to support the Lebanese state, against groups such as the Islamic State and Nusra and also against the influence of Hezbollahs sponsor, Iran.

The tour ended on a rocky outcrop looking north toward the town of Arsal and the surrounding mountains, which remain under the control of Islamic State, Nusra and rebel fighters. The area also contains tens of thousands of civilian Syrian refugees, whose lives will be at risk in any battle there. They are almost all Sunnis, and harming them could ignite sectarian tensions elsewhere in Lebanon.

That battle is expected to be undertaken imminently by the Lebanese Army, which has been preparing for months for the offensive, with the help of U.S. military aid and U.S. military advisers who are active on the ground, said Aram Nerguizian of the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Hezbollah appears to have embarked on its offensive in an area where the army has no presence to remind its constituency and the international community that it remains an important player, he said.

Basically Hezbollah has two strengths when it comes to how it shapes political and military outcomes, he said. Its incredibly media savvy and understands the power of optics. And it has freedom of action that no state actor has, including the Lebanese Army, or any political faction.

As the sun set over the mountains where the final battle will be fought, Afif, the Hezbollah spokesman, announced the conclusion of the tour, apologizing to the journalists who had gotten lost and reminding them of the purpose of the visit.

We are the ones defeating terrorism, he said. The Americans and their allies are the ones who are supporting terrorism, and they are the last ones who should be criticizing Hezbollah.

Heba Habib in Stockholm contributed to this report.

Read more

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A new Syrian ceasefire offers an early test of Trumps friendship with Putin

Trump erroneously says Lebanon is on the front lines fighting Hezbollah, a partner in the Lebanese government

Todays coverage from Post correspondents around the world

Like Washington Post World on Facebook and stay updated on foreign news
The nations worst wildfires are burning in Montana. Thousands of acres have been scorched, and thousands more will be lost before the last flame is doused this season.

Already more than a dozen homes have been destroyed, and the running total of property damage is climbing. The smoke is harming air quality in many communities, including Missoula. Worst of all, a firefighters life has been lost.

Wildfires in Montana are a certainty we anticipate every summer. The only question is how bad the fires will be  and how much they will cost us.

Beyond Montana, wildfires are a growing national emergency. Yet the United States government continues to manage them, and fund them, as though they were an unforeseen, temporary inconvenience.

It may not mean much to the nations leaders in Washington, D.C., who hail from more urban parts of the country, but the four fires that make up the Lodgepole Complex in eastern Montana have torched more than 270,000 acres and 16 homes. At last count, some 600 firefighting personnel were working to contain the blaze.

Meanwhile in western Montana, a single fire in Mineral County ballooned by 1,000 acres in one night last week and became the nations No. 1 priority fire. The Sunrise fire, while not as large as those in eastern Montana at more than 4,000 acres, is proving a challenge to contain as it threatens dozens of homes. Evacuation orders were issued for residents of Sunrise and Quartz Flats, and other neighborhoods were told to be prepared to evacuate as well.

With 23 active fires currently requiring state and U.S. Forest Service attention in Montana, Gov. Steve Bullock officially declared a fire emergency last Sunday. The governors executive order means Montanas general fund may be tapped to help cover some costs, which is important because the Legislature approved a plan this year to use up to $30 million of the states $65 million fire fund to help shore up the overall budget.

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation alone estimates it has spent between $5 million and $10 million fighting wildfires so far this year. If this turns out to be as bad a year as 2013, when Montana spent $57 million on fire suppression, the state may have no money left to cover next years firefighting costs.

Given the growing urgency of the situation, Montanans were outraged to learn this week that the Federal Emergency Management Agency initially rejected the states request for firefighting aid on the Lodgepole Complex. The FEMA grant is expected to cover 75 percent of fire suppression costs.

On Monday, U.S. Sen. Jon Tester called out the agency and his fellow members of Congress on the floor of the Senate, arguing, Fires are a devastating natural disaster and should be treated that way.

Tester asked that FEMA Administrator Brock Long explain why Montanas request for help was rejected, reverse its rejection and in fact, provide additional emergency resources to help firefighting efforts in Montana.

A few days later, on Thursday, U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte released a joint letter to Long also requesting that his agency reconsider its rejection of federal fire management assistance for Montana, pointing out that, According to the Bureau of Land Management, 124,202 acres burned in 2013, which led to the declaration of a state of emergency. This year fires have already burned almost three times that amount of land.

Later that day, FEMA relented and announced that it would in fact, grant emergency funds for the Lodgepole Complex fires.

Tester, a Democrat, and Daines, a Republican, have long been in agreement on the need to change the way the nation pays its wildfire costs. They both, along with former Congressman and current Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, signed on as cosponsors of proposed legislation to treat catastrophic wildfires like other natural disasters and allow the U.S. Forest Service to focus more on wildfire prevention, instead of spending more than half its budget on wildfire suppression. Alas, the Wildfire Disaster Funding Act, despite racking up more than 150 cosponsors, has yet to make it out of subcommittee.

By now it should be clear to even the most uninformed member of Congress that the current system is headed for collapse. Just as hurricanes and floods are considered disaster emergencies in some parts of the country, so too should wildfires that threaten neighborhoods and livelihoods be met with swift action from the nations emergency response agencies. This is not just Montanas problem.

According to the National Interagency Fire Center, more than 4,200 square miles have been burned by wildfires in the United States so far this year, an area approaching the size of Connecticut  and 30 percent larger than the total number of square miles burned by the same date last year.

Wildfires are growing in size and intensity every year. Individual states and the Forest Service should not be left to deal with natural disasters on their own; its bad policy and even worse financial management.

States like Montana simply dont have enough money to cover the ever-increasing costs of protecting our communities. And every dollar the Forest Service is forced to spend on putting out fires is a dollar that would have been better spent preventing fires in the first place.

As fires rage all around us, Montana is a blazing example of the need to manage  and fund  wildfires like the natural disasters they are.
The United States pointedly showed off its military prowess over the Pacific and the Korean Peninsula on Sunday in response to North Koreas launch Friday of a missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, a test Pyongyang said was a stern warning for Washington to back off from threats and more sanctions.

In a sign that tensions are spiraling upward rapidly, the United States flew two supersonic B-1 bombers over the Korean Peninsula as part of a joint exercise with Japan and South Korea. And U.S. forces conducted a successful missile defense test over the Pacific Ocean, sending aloft from Alaska a medium-range ballistic missile that it detected, tracked and intercepted using the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense System.

[As North Korea intensifies missile program, U.S. opens $11 billion base in the South ]

The sense that time is running out in the confrontation with North Korea was reinforced as the day wore on. Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, batted down rumors that the United States would seek an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council. It was pointless, she said, as long as China wouldnt commit to increasing the pressure on North Koreas leader, Kim Jong Un.

In fact, it is worse than nothing, because it sends the message to the North Korean dictator that the international community is unwilling to seriously challenge him, said Haley, who earlier retweeted a photo of the bombers on their mission over the Korean Peninsula. China must decide whether it is finally willing to take this vital step. The time for talk is over.

The basic dilemma for the United States is that North Koreas missile technology has leapt forward faster than predicted, leaving few realistic options for a resolution, which can take time to negotiate.

Kim Jong Un is not going to negotiate in good faith, said Cliff Kupchan, chairman of the Eurasia Group, a political risk consulting firm. He sees acquisition of a nuclear deterrent as critical to his countrys security. The U.S. is on the verge of a binary choice: either accept North Korea into the nuclear club, or conduct a military strike that would entail enormous civilian casualties.

Amid the show of force by the United States and its allies, North Korea said it would respond with a resolute act of justice if it were provoked either militarily or economically.

In case the U.S. fails to come to its own senses and continues to resort to military adventure and tough sanctions, the DPRK will respond with its resolute act of justice, the state-run Korean Central News Agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman saying, using the acronym for the Norths official name, the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea.

The spokesman said the United States should wake up from the foolish dream of doing any harm to the DPRK, and warned Washington against a preemptive nuclear strike.

If the Yankees . . . dare brandish the nuclear stick on this land again . . . the DPRK will clearly teach them manners with the nuclear strategic force, the spokesman said.

The Trump administrations frustration has grown exponentially in recent days, since Pyongyang on Friday conducted its second successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile. Though it landed off the Japanese coast, experts said if the missile had flown in a lower arc it could have reached the U.S. mainland.

A U.S. Air Force B-1B Lancer (top) assigned to the 9th Expeditionary Bomb Squadron, being joined by Republic of Korea air force F-15s, during a mission into Japanese airspace and over the Korean Peninsula. American forces on July 30 successfully tried out a missile interception system the U.S. hopes to set up on the Korean peninsula. (Kamaile Casillas/Air Force via AFP/Getty Images)

U.S. officials have been trying to get China, North Koreas main trading partner and economic lifeline, to exert pressure on its neighbor. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has called Beijing and Moscow the principal economic enablers of Pyongyang. Though China voted last year for harsh U.N. sanctions against the countrys leaders and state-tied companies, it fears that a destabilized regime would send refugees flooding across the border and has urged dialogue as the only pragmatic approach.

President Trump on Saturday berated China, tweeting that they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. And Vice President Pence, traveling Sunday in Estonia, told reporters that all options are on the table.

The continued provocations by the rogue regime in North Korea are unacceptable, and the United States of America is going to continue to marshal the support of nations across the region and across the world to further isolate North Korea economically and diplomatically, Pence said.

North Korea tested its first nuclear weapon in 2006 and has been burdened with six sets of U.N. sanctions since then. The North claims its weapons are for defensive purposes. But a series of missile launches and tests conducted since Kim came to power more than five years ago have increased concern that North Korea may be closing in on the ability to fit a nuclear weapon on a missiles nose cone.

The North Korean leader himself had openly boasted that more missile tests would be coming. In late March, he vowed to send a bigger gift package to the Yankees, state-run media reported.

People have been warning about the North Korean ICBM for 20 years, Joseph Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund, said Sunday on ABCs This Week. But the wolf is at the door. This a very real threat to the United States.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), speaking on CBSs Face the Nation, called North Korea a clear and present danger that must be taken seriously.

Im convinced that North Korea has never moved at the speed that this leader has to develop an ICBM to put solid fuel, to have an interesting launch device, and to have a trajectory which, as of the latest analysis, would enable it to go about 6,000 miles and maybe even hit as far east as Chicago, she said. We cant have that.

Feinstein said she hoped John F. Kelly, the incoming White House chief of staff who starts his new position Monday, would be able to begin negotiations with Pyongyang that would eventually end its nuclear program.

For now, however, worried capitals are focusing on bulking up their militaries. South Korea announced Saturday that it will start talks with the White House about building more powerful ballistic missiles capable of striking the North.

[South Korea, in a shift, wants more military firepower against the North]

And the U.S. military was blunt in its assessment of the threat posed by North Korea. In a statement accompanying the departure of the two B-1 bombers from Guam to the Korean Peninsula, the Pacific Air Forces commander, Gen. Terrence J. OShaughnessy, called the country the most urgent threat to regional stability.

If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing, he said.

Ashley Parker and Madhumita Murgia contributed to this report.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday that the U.S. diplomatic missions in Moscow and elsewhere in the country will have to reduce their staffs by 755 people, signaling a significant escalation in the Russian response to American sanctions over the Kremlins intervention in the 2016 presidential election.

The United States and Russia have expelled dozens of each others diplomats before  but Sundays statement, made by Putin in an interview with the Rossiya-1 television channel, indicated the single largest forced reduction in embassy staff, comparable only to the closing of the American diplomatic presence in the months following the Communist revolution in 1917.

In the interview, Putin said that the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel will be capped at 455  equivalent to the number of their Russian counterparts working in the United States. Currently, close to 1,200 employees work at the United States embassy and consulates in Russia, according to U.S. and Russian data.

[What do these 755 people do in at the U.S. mission in Russia?]

More than a thousand employees  diplomats and technical employees  have worked and are still working in Russia these days, Putin told journalist Vladimir Solovyov on a nationally televised news show Sunday evening. Some 755 of them will have to terminate their activity.

Putins remarks came during a 3 -day trip by Vice President Pence to Eastern Europe to show U.S. support for countries that have chafed at interference from Moscow  Estonia, Georgia and Montenegro.

The president has made it very clear that Russias destabilizing activities, its support for rogue regimes, its activities in Ukraine are unacceptable, Pence said, when asked by reporters in Tallinn, Estonia, whether he expects Trump to sign the sanctions. The president made very clear that very soon he will sign the sanctions from the Congress of the United States to reinforce that.

As we make our intentions clear, we expect Russian behavior to change.

On Sunday night, a senior State Department official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said, The Russian government has demanded the U.S. Mission to Russia limit total Mission staffing to 455 employees by September 1. This is a regrettable and uncalled for act. We are assessing the impact of such a limitation and how we will respond to it.

The Kremlin had said Friday, as the Senate voted to strengthen sanctions on Russia, that some American diplomats would be expelled, but the size of the reduction is dramatic. It covers the main embassy in Moscow, as well as missions in St. Petersburg, Yekaterinburg and Vladivostok.

The U.S. Embassy in Russia has been unable to provide exact numbers on the number of staff it employs in Russia. But according to a 2013 review by the State Department, of 1,200 employees of the American Mission in Moscow, 333 were U.S. nationals and 867 were foreign nationals, many of them probably local Russian support staff, including drivers, electricians, accountants and security guards. That would suggest that the majority of the 755 who must be cut would not be expelled from the country.

This is a landmark moment, Andrei Kolesnikov, a journalist for the newspaper Kommersant who regularly travels with Putin and has interviewed him extensively over the past 17 years, told the Post in an interview Friday. His patience has seriously run out, and everything that hes been putting off in this conflict, hes now going to do.

The Russian government is also seizing two diplomatic properties  a dacha, or country house, in a leafy neighborhood in Moscow and a warehouse  following the decision by the Obama administration in December to take possession of two Russian mansions in the United States.

The move comes as it has become apparent that Russia has abandoned its hopes for better relations with the United States under the Trump administration.

I think retaliation is long, long overdue, deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov said Sunday on ABCs This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

We have a very rich toolbox at our disposal, Ryabkov said. After the Senate . . . voted so overwhelmingly on a completely weird and unacceptable piece of legislation, it was the last drop.

Hours later, Putin said during his evening interview that he expected relations between the United States and Russia to worsen and that Russia was likely to come up with other measures to counter American financial sanctions, which were passed by the House and Senate last week and which President Trump has said he will sign.

The reduction in U.S. diplomatic and technical staff is a response to President Obamas expulsion of 35 Russian diplomats in December in response to the alleged Russian hacking of the mail servers of the Democratic National Committee. The United States also revoked access to two Russian diplomatic compounds on Marylands Eastern Shore and on Long Island. American officials said they were used for intelligence collection.

It is not yet clear how the State Department will reduce its staff in Russia. Some of the local staff were hired to help with a significant expansion of the U.S. embassy compound in Moscow.

After the State Department, the next largest agency presence in Moscow in the 2013 review belonged to the Defense Department, which had 26 employees working for the Defense Intelligence Agency (20 of them U.S. nationals) and 10 working for the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (of whom nine were U.S. nationals).

The Library of Congress had two U.S. staff and two foreign staff, and NASA had eight U.S. staff and four foreign staff members.

There were 24 Marine security guards.

The move increases the likelihood of new, perhaps asymmetrical reprisals by the United States in coming days.

Michael McFaul, former ambassador to Russia, tweeted Sunday: If these cuts are real, Russians should expect to wait weeks if not months to get visas to come to US.

Ashley Parker in Tallinn, Estonia, and Carol Morello and Madhumita Murgia in Washington contributed to this report.

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Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/07/2017 (1931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

When Robert Orr looks out at his Kingston Crescent neighbourhood, he feels as if hes watching it die.

The tree canopy where hes lived since 1995 is withering before his eyes, just one casualty in the citys battle against Dutch elm disease.

And the situation is getting worse.

KEN GIGLIOTI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS FILES Dutch Elm disease is evident as the core of the tree truck has rotted out from the base.

If it keeps going like this, it wont be the neighbourhood I moved into, said the soft-spoken, 61-year-old retired teacher.

Itll be completely different, Orr continued. The trees really are such an important part of the fabric of this neighbourhood.

In the area where he lives, hundreds of elm trees have been lost in the past decade. City statistics show that 5,500 trees are lost to the disease each year.

When one of Orrs neighbours moved to Kingston Crescent in 1975, he had 27 elm trees on his property. Now, he has none. Orr and his partner had eight when they first moved to the neighbourhood. This summer, their last tree was infected.

One doesnt have to be a tree lover to realize there are some very practical concerns here, Orr said.

Were down to our last one, which now has the disease. Two doors down, our neighbours have two with the disease. The tree directly across from our house in the park now has the disease.

Dutch elm disease spreads through the fungus carried on the backs of elm bark beetles. They lay eggs in elm trees in the spring, which go on to hatch and mature throughout summer before a new generation is born in the fall.

When diseased trees are not removed quickly  ideally during the summer they are infected  the disease spreads.

Orr is frustrated by what he views as the citys lack of political will to shut down the disease.

Since the summer of 2016, he says hes witnessed the city losing the fight. He says not only has the tagging of infected trees slowed down, but so has their removal.

Martha Barwinsky, the citys forester, admits theyve fallen behind in efforts to remove diseased trees, but says they continue to tag them on schedule.

They do the best they can with the resources they have, she says.

There are currently 970 trees marked last year that still need to be removed, she said. Were removing them, but were still behind.

The city has more than 230,000 adult American elm trees, which makes it the largest standing population in North America.

JUSTIN SAMANSKI-LANGILLE / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Robert Orr poses in his backyard Thursday. Orr is concerned about the rapid spread of Dutch Elm Disease in his neighbourhood and the lack of action by the city. 170727 - Thursday, July 27, 2017.

But, Barwinsky says they are at a critical point in trying to protect the citys tree canopy.

Its a real concern, she said. We have to catch up and get these trees removed and come up with a better model for removing diseased trees earlier.

Another concern is the arrival of the Emerald ash borer beetle, which isnt a matter of if, but when, Barwinsky said. The fear is it could coincide with the city battling Dutch elm disease, thus further dividing their resources.

If their arrival isnt properly attacked, it could result in the death of all ash trees in Winnipeg. Once they arrive, she added, theyre here to stay.

The city currently has 16 to 20 people working on surveying trees and is rerouting funds from tree planting to go toward the removal of diseased trees.

That, in Orrs opinion, is a disastrous and short-sighted strategy.

So just at the time were losing a lot of trees, theyre going to cut back on planting, he said. That is a terrible, misguided way of thinking.

Orr tries his best to do his part by talking to his neighbours, calling 311 about diseased trees and writing letters to Trees Winnipeg and his city councillor. But he recognizes his efforts are limited and says he often receives no response from authorities.

He thinks the city needs to boost funding to the department that fights tree disease.

We need to do something differently or were going to lose the canopy, he said. Politicians need to be talking about this, educating people and encouraging them to plant trees. We need to get at the removal of all these diseased elm trees before its too late.

ryan.thorpe@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 29/07/2017 (1932 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

ARBORG  Every summer Edwin Kowalsky and his wife Lillian  along with other members of their family  plant flowers around the family home and give it a coat of paint.

The house is full of memories. Lillian Kowalsky said its the house her inlaws lived in and its the home where she and her husband spent the first two years of their marriage.

Its also where they were living when their first child was born.

PHOTOS BY WAYNE GLOWACKI / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Pat Eyolfson (left) and Philip Thorkelson say the heritage villages success would not be possible without the local communitys support.

The Kowalskys dont live there anymore  havent for years  and while they can go there any time they want to spruce up the house for free, if others want to see it, they have to pay admission.

Thats because the Kowalsky House is now one of the 17 buildings on display at the Arborg & District Multicultural Heritage Village located in this Interlake community about 100 kilometres north of Winnipeg. Its on Highway 68, just east of where Highway 7 ends, on the southern bank of the Icelandic River.

My husband was born in that house, Lillian said recently. We still live on the old homestead where it was moved from.

We go to the house every spring to clean up before the Heritage Village opens up. We go there and have a little family gathering. I never would have thought the house I once lived in would be part of a museum.

But now as long as the village will last, it is there.

The Arborg & District Multicultural Heritage Village began as an idea in 1999, and by October 2000, it was moving its first building onto the site, the Trausti Vigfusson House.

The village had its grand opening in May 2008.

It takes a village to raise a village and Pat Eyolfson, the founder and longtime president of the organization, said the historic village started with just a few people thinking it would be a good idea and would bring tourists to the community.

We started up as a grassroots committee and decided to have a public meeting to see if there was interest, Eyolfson said.

There were 80 people there.

Eyolfson said that public meeting was in February 1999. By May they were incorporated and, shortly after, they received charitable status.

In 2009, the village received an influx of buildings when it helped save from the wrecking ball heritage buildings that had been at the Winnipeg Beach Ukrainian Homestead Museum. Two buildings, a windmill and numerous pieces of antique farm equipment made its way from the shores of Lake Winnipeg to Arborg.

We paid for the move, volunteer Philip Thorkelson said, adding a ton of work had to be done to preserve the buildings on their site, including pouring concrete foundations.

The windmill, known as the Hykaway Grist Mill, was originally built near Meleb, where a family ground wheat into flour in it. The other two buildings were the Saunders House, a log house built in 1905 in the Clandeboye area, and the Slipachuck House, built in the early 1920s in Komarno.

Vic Siran, a former volunteer and executive member of the museum in Winnipeg Beach, said he was glad to see buildings move to the heritage site

Theyve done a remarkable job renovating the buildings, Siran said.

An old road grader on display at the Arborg & District Multicultural Heritage Village.

The provincial park had made plans to expand the park where we were located they would have just bulldozed (the buildings). That would have been a shame.

All in all, it worked out well.

The first house moved to the Arborg site, the Vigfusson House, was built in 1902 by Trausti Vigfusson, who marked the logs with Roman numerals and then reassembled the house after moving it by horse-drawn wagon.

When the heritage village moved the house to their site, they recreated the original move by having teams of draught horses pull the structure.

The house is also notable for a piece of local history. Eyolfson said Vigfusson had a dream in which he was visited by John Ramsay, who had recently died and had helped the Icelandic pioneers two decades before.

She said in the dream Ramsay asked Vigfusson, a carpenter, to fix the picket fence around the gravesite of Ramsay and his wife Betsey. Vigfusson did rebuild the fence and it can still be seen at the edge of an agricultural field near Riverton.

Arborg Mayor Randy Sigurdson said the land on which the entire heritage village sits was sold to them by the town.

We charged them a dollar, Sigurdson said.

Hmm, wonder if we ever got that dollar? he added laughing. It is just the perfect spot for something like this. They wanted to be visible.

Sigurdson said in the years the village has been open it has been a great asset for Arborg.

There are busloads of people who come to the village and sometimes the buses spend a couple of hours there and then go through the town, he said.

We become the recipient of all the hard work and economically it is great for the town.

We have nothing but praise for them.

Eyolfson said the group has always known they need to be self-sustaining in order for the village to survive.

She said thats why early on, in 2005, they moved the St. Nicholas Ukrainian Catholic Parish hall to the site. This is where the organization holds its fundraising dinners and rents the space out for wedding receptions and other functions. It has also since built an interpretive centre, to hold artifacts and explain the history of the area.

But Eyolfson said overall the village is there because of the work of many unsung heroes  their volunteers.

Antique film cameras on display inside the historical villages interpretive centre.

This project would never have come this far without the hard work of our entire board and all of the volunteers, she said.

We have in excess of 40,000 volunteer hours since inception.

Thorkelson is just one of the longtime volunteers.

My wife and I were interested in local history and we decided we wanted to be part of some group. We thought this would be a good one. And it has been. And weve met many great people.

Eyolfson also credits government and others for helping sustain them.

We also could not have accomplished all we have without the continued support of all the local businesses, Eyolfson said.

The Town of Arborg, the RM of Bifrost-Riverton, and the community and surrounding communities at large supporting every endeavor we pursue and every fundraiser we have.

We are very very fortunate the provincial government and federal government have supported us through Community Place programs, federal Community Futures East Interlake, and funds towards hiring summer students.

We have not done this project alone.

And the village is not done growing. Still on their radar is acquiring another church, a Lutheran one to go with the Ukrainian Catholic one they have, and a historic store instead of the recreated one they are currently putting together.

Admission is $5 for adults 12 and over, $3 for children four to 11, and free for children three and under.

kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Hey there, time traveller!

This article was published 30/07/2017 (1931 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Fake news!

The signature menu item at Vickys Diner, 58 Albert St., is the Vickys Favourite, which boasts two generously proportioned beef patties slathered in house-made chili, topped with bacon, tomato, mustard, onions, pickles, lettuce, cheese and mayonnaise. Sounds lip-smacking, right? Well, imagine our surprise when owner Vicky Ramantanis let us in on a secret after we invited her to say a few words on behalf of her namesake burger.

The truth is, Ive never eaten one, Ramantanis admitted somewhat sheepishly, explaining it was her father Chris Ramantanis who came up with the idea for the behemoth-in-a-bun years ago, not long after he established Vickys Drive-Inn, Vickys Diners out-of-town predecessor. I do enjoy a fat boy from time to time but the Vickys Favourite has too much meat. I mean, look at me; Im small.

PHOTOS BY JOE BRYKSA / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Vicky Ramantanis displays her diners signature Vickys Favourite burger.

Ramantaniss equally petite 520-square-foot spot opened May 15 in the space formerly occupied by the White Star Diner, and, before that, Albert Street Burgers. J-Lo fans may recall the scene from the 2004 film Shall We Dance?, parts of which were filmed in Winnipeg, when Lopezs and Richard Geres characters strolled past the time-honoured locale, which also used to house Frost Lunch and Mikes Burgers.

I did a bit of research on the building and read that it was a jewelry store, too, back in the day, Ramantanis says, plunking herself down on one of four stools tucked under her newly refurbished, stainless steel lunch counter. I took possession March 1 and figured Id be up and running by early April, but because it was a bit of a hot mess in here, renovations took longer than expected. Its all good, though; people whod been by in the past have commented it looks better than ever and hopefully, theyll feel the same way about the food.

  

The location of Vickys Diner, 58 Albert St., has a storied history and even appeared in the movie Shall We Dance?

Ramantanis, 30, was a 15-year-old high school student attending Windsor Park Collegiate when her father, a career restaurateur whose previous ventures included the Jolly Mug and the Rendezvous Restaurant, raised the prospect of purchasing a mothballed, seasonal take-out joint in Ste. Anne. She remembers accompanying him in the dead of winter to the eastern Manitoba community from their home in St. Boniface to take a peek at the premises formerly known as Popeyes.

First of all, the drive felt extra-long and Im sure I let him know how annoyed I was, the entire way there, she says with a chuckle. As for the place itself, my first reaction was something like, What a dump. Are you kidding me? But he definitely had a vision and it ended up working out great in the end. (She laughs again when asked why her dad chose to name the business after her, given her lacklustre attitude, instead of her older sister. Her name is Sotiria and even she admits Sotirias Drive-Inn would have been a bit of a mouthful.)

Although she can joke about it now, she says her first few years at the drive-in werent enjoyable, to say the least, especially to a teenager who often wished she could just head to the mall or movie theatre on weekends, like the rest of her friends.

Vickys regulars dont mind a bit of a wait to have their orders filled.

We always lived in the city  we always commuted back and forth  and there was period of time, for sure, I just hated my life, she says. Every Friday Id get picked up from school at 3 p.m. and be taken directly to the drive-in, where Id work till 11 (p.m.). Then wed get up on Saturday and Sunday and do the same thing, all over again. But coming from this crazy, Greek family, its not like there was anybody to complain to  and even if I did (complain), its not like they would have given a crap.

Last summer, Ramantanis, who eventually became part-owner of the biz, began toying with the notion of establishing a place of her own and leaving her sister and father in charge of things in Ste. Anne. She briefly considered renting a site on Notre Dame Avenue, not far from Red River College. But when she discovered the owner of the White Star Diner was in the throes of vacating his Exchange District digs in favour of a move to Kennedy Street, she nixed her first plan, opting for Albert Street instead. Before signing on the dotted line, however, she invited her father on a date.

In this business, people will tell you what their sales are like and how much foot traffic there is, but I think you should always go see for yourself, she says, guessing it was the last week of August 2016 when she and her dad dropped by the White Star for lunch. It was actually funny because my dad used to run a place on Albert (Street) called the Everest Cafe  back when this area was a bit sketchy  so when I told him where we were headed, he was all, No, no, no. But after our lunch, he agreed things have really changed around here and we could both see the potential.

It was actually funny because my dad used to run a place on Albert (Street) called the Everest Cafe  back when this area was a bit sketchy  so when I told him where we were headed, he was all, No, no, no. But after our lunch, he agreed things have really changed around here and we could both see the potential

 Vicky Ramantanis

One thing Ramantanis is still getting used to since agreeing to a five-year lease is figuring out her customers wants and needs all over again. When she was toiling at the drive-in, she would often begin preparing a regulars meal before they had even finished parking their vehicle, she notes, adding while she may not be very good with names, she rarely forgets a unique order.

Sometimes you think to yourself people might be embarrassed by us remembering that they dont want chili on their cheeseburger or that they prefer fried onions versus raw  that maybe theyll think, Jeez, I must come here too often  but in my experience, they seem to appreciate little touches like that, she says, pointing out her menu is a slightly trimmed-down version of whats available in Ste. Anne, the biggest difference being there is no pizza. In addition to a whack of burgers, including a gluten-free veggie option, there is a mix of hotdogs, gyros, chicken fingers, fries and poutine to choose from.

Vickys Diner is open Monday to Friday, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Ramantanis experimented with remaining open Saturday afternoons during the Jazz Winnipeg Festival and the Winnipeg Fringe Theatre Festival, but hasnt made up her mind whether shell continue the practice or not. A more pressing concern, she says, is coming up with a recipe for her first foray into Burger Week, an annual celebration of all things ground-round, which is scheduled to run from Sept. 1 to Sept. 7.

In addition to burgers and hotdogs, Vickys menu includes gyros, chicken fingers and poutine.

Because Ive never taken part (in Burger Week) before, Im not really sure which direction to take. Part of me thinks I should do something crazy and out-there, but another part thinks I should stay somewhat traditional, she says, pausing to say thanks to a customer who briefly interrupted to remark how much she enjoys the diners Instagram feed (www.instagram.com/vickysdinerwpg) and in particular, Ramantaniss milkshake-of-the-day posts.

Before getting back to work, Ramantanis says another thing shes learned about running a restaurant all by her lonesome is theres no place to hide. In Ste. Anne, when people inevitably inquired if she was Vicky, shed occasionally point to her sister slaving away on the grill and say, No, thats Vicky over there, if she wasnt in the mood for chit-chat, or had already answered the same question 50 times that day.

Definitely cant do that here, she says, mouthing good choice to another customer who just placed an order for a whistle dog and onion rings. But thats OK. Now that Im more mature  ha ha ha  I want everybody to know Im the owner, that Im the face of the place and that Im super-proud of what were trying to accomplish here.

David Sanderson writes about Winnipeg-centric businesses and restaurants.

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca

French fries smothered in gravy and hotdogs with all the fixings are among the traditional diner fare offered at Vickys.
GSK plc, together with its subsidiaries, engages in the creation, discovery, development, manufacture, and marketing of pharmaceutical products, vaccines, over-the-counter medicines, and health-related consumer products in the United Kingdom, the United States, and internationally. It operates through four segments: Pharmaceuticals, Pharmaceuticals R&D, Vaccines, and Consumer Healthcare. The company offers pharmaceutical products comprising medicines in the therapeutic areas, such as respiratory, HIV, immuno-inflammation, oncology, anti-viral, central nervous system, cardiovascular and urogenital, metabolic, anti-bacterial, and dermatology. It also provides consumer healthcare products in wellness, oral health, nutrition, and skin health categories. The company offers its consumer healthcare products in the form of nasal sprays, tablets, syrups, lozenges, gum and trans-dermal patches, caplets, infant syrup drops, liquid filled suspension, wipes, gels, effervescents, toothpastes, toothbrushes, mouthwashes, denture adhesives and cleansers, topical creams and non-medicated patches, lip balm, gummies, and soft chews. It has collaboration agreements with 23andMe; Lyell Immunopharma, Inc.; Novartis; Sanofi SA; Surface Oncology; Progentec Diagnostics, Inc.; Alector, Inc.; and CureVac AG., as well as strategic partnership with IDEAYA Biosciences, Inc. and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. The company was formerly known as GlaxoSmithKline plc and changed its name to GSK plc in May 2022. GSK plc was founded in 1715 and is headquartered in Brentford, the United Kingdom.
GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft engages in the development and production of systems and components for the food processing industry worldwide. The company operates through five divisions: Separation & Flow Technologies, Liquid & Power Technologies, Food & Health Technologies, Farm Technologies, and Heating & Refrigeration Technologies. It provides separators, decanters, homogenizers, valves, and pumps; and process solutions for the dairy, food, beverage, chemical, and other industries. The company also offers solutions for food processing and pharmaceutical industries, which includes preparation, marinating, and processing of meat, poultry, seafood, vegan products, pasta production, baking, slicing, packaging, and confectionary, as well as frozen food processing; and granulation systems and tablet presses. In addition, it provides integrated customer solutions for milk production and livestock farming, such as automatic milking, feeding systems, conventional milking solutions, manure handling, and digital herd management tools; and sustainable energy solutions for an array of industries including food, beverage, dairy, and oil and gas in the field of industrial refrigeration and temperature control. The company was formerly known as mg technologies ag and changed its name to GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft in 2005. GEA Group Aktiengesellschaft was founded in 1881 and is headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany.
One hundred years after Frank Littles murder in Butte on Aug. 1, 1917, his great-grandniece has crafted the definitive biography of the union organizer.

Botkins book is exhaustively researched and copiously annotated. One hundred thirty-nine of the books 488 pages are notes, bibliography, and index with the remainder an eminently readable literary journey through Franks short life  a life whose impacts reverberate internationally a hundred years later.

Most of the basics of Littles union life are well known, from the Fresno Free Speech Fight to the Bisbee Deportation to his final 13 days in Butte. Botkins contribution to history is in the comprehensive documentation of these historic events, weaving their story into the complicated fabric of the labor movement of the 1900s and 1910s. We see a man dedicated to his cause, forcefully advocating at every turn for his One Big Union and for the workers of the world.

The book does not reveal any huge surprises in terms of Littles activity in Butte, but Botkins detailed research makes it absolutely clear what we can  and cannot  say with certainty. We still do not know for sure who killed Little, and we can now confidently say we never will. Botkin has presented more detail than is generally known about the possible murderers, but in the final analysis acknowledges that the case remains unsolved.

The first portion of the book recounts the detailed history of Littles family and early life. Its fascinating to learn the details of his formative years in Oklahoma, and Botkin lays to rest the erroneous idea that Little was of Native American ancestry, even though he himself promoted that suggestion. This part of the book sketches the origins of Oklahoma and the Indian Territory, and this careful narrative blending of regional history  in Oklahoma, Bisbee, and Butte  with the personal life of Frank Little and his family is one of the hallmarks of Botkins writing.

Botkins book is also a good overview of the entire IWW (Industrial Workers of the World) story. By connecting us through Franks life and death to players as disparate and united in their vision as Bill Haywood, Joe Hill, and Helen Keller, Botkin reveals the hopes and dreams of the union movement of the day. The story ends with the aftermath of Franks death, and Botkin has not focused on modern-day implications of Franks story, but it does echo loudly down the decades. People come to Butte from London and Berlin simply because Frank Little is buried here, and his anti-corporate rhetoric is easily applied to America in 2017.

Errors are few and not relevant to the point of the book; for example, Butte was not the largest city between Pittsburgh and Spokane but rather Minneapolis and Spokane.

This book is as accurate as any story can be 100 years after the fact, and the writing has a cadence and flow that make it easy to read and hard to put down. It is the best analysis possible of one of American Labors most interesting, complicated, and important characters.
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Medrano M.D. PLLC, C/HCA Capital Inc., C/HCA Development Inc., C/HCA Inc., CAREOS Surgicenter LLC, CC Clinic PLLC, CCBH Psychiatric Hospitalists LLC, CCH-GP Inc., CFC Investments Inc., CH Systems, CHC Finance Co., CHC Holdings Inc., CHC Management Ltd., CHC Payroll Agent Inc., CHC Payroll Company, CHC Realty Company, CHC Venture Co., CHC-El Paso Corp., CHC-Miami Corp., CHCA Bayshore L.P., CHCA Clear Lake L.P., CHCA Conroe L.P., CHCA Mainland L.P., CHCA Pearland L.P., CHCA West Houston L.P., CHCA Womans Hospital L.P., CHCK Inc., CJW Infectious Disease LLC, CJW Wound Healing Center LLC, CLASC Manager LLC, COL-NAMC Holdings Inc., COSCORP LLC, CP Surgery Center LLC, CPS TN Processor 1 Inc., CRMC-M LLC, CUC PLLC, CVMC Property LLC, Calder Immediate Care PLLC, California Imaging Center Manager LLC, California Urgent Care LLC, Calloway Creek Surgery Center L.P., Calloway Creek Surgicare LLC, Cancer Centers of North Florida LLC, Cancer Services of Aventura LLC, Capital Anesthesia Services LLC, Capital Area Cardiology, Capital Area CareNow Physician Associates, Capital Area Multispecialty Providers, Capital Area Neurosurgeons, Capital Area Occupational Medicine PLLC, Capital Area Primary Care PLLC, Capital Area Primary Care Providers, Capital Area Providers, Capital Area Specialists PLLC, Capital Area Specialty Providers, Capital Area Surgeons PLLC, Capital Division - CCA Inc., Capital Division Inc., Capital Network Services Inc., Capital Professional Billing LLC, Capital Regional Healthcare LLC, Capital Regional Heart Associates LLC, Capital Regional Psychiatry Associates LLC, Cardiac Surgical Associates LLC, Cardio Vascular Surgeons of North Texas PLLC, Cardiology Associates Medical Group LLC, Cardiology Clinic of San Antonio PLLC, Cardiology Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Texas PLLC, Care for Women LLC, CareNow, CareOne Home Health Services Inc., CarePartners HHA Holdings LLLP, CarePartners HHA LLLP, CarePartners Rehabilitation Hospital LLLP, CareSpot Professional Services of Middle Tennessee LLC, CareSpot of Brentwood (210 Franklin Road) LLC, CareSpot of Cool Springs (100 International Drive) LLC, CareSpot of Donelson (2372 Lebanon Road) LLC, CareSpot of Hendersonville (280 Indian Lake Boulevard) LLC, CareSpot of Hermitage (5225 Old Hickory Boulevard) LLC, CareSpot of Lebanon (1705 West Main Street) LLC, CareSpot of Mt. Juliet (S. Mt. Juliet Road) LLC, CareSpot of Murfreesboro (1340 Broad Street) LLC, CareSpot of Nashville (2001 Glen Echo Road) LLC, CareSpot of Nashville (West End Avenue) LLC, Career Staffing USA Inc., Carlin Springs Urgent Care LLC, Carolina Forest Imaging Manager LLC, Carolina Regional Surgery Center Inc., Carolina Regional Surgery Center Ltd., Cartersville Medical Center LLC, Cartersville Occupational Medicine Center LLC, Cartersville Physician Practice I LLC, Catalog360 Limited, Cedar Creek Medical Group LLC, Cedars International Cardiology Consultants LLC, Cedars Medical Center Hospitalists LLC, Centennial Cardiovascular Consultants LLC, Centennial CyberKnife Center LLC, Centennial CyberKnife Manager LLC, Centennial Heart LLC, Centennial Hospitalists LLC, Centennial Neuroscience LLC, Centennial Psychiatric Associates LLC, Centennial Surgery Center L.P., Centennial Surgical Associates LLC, Centennial Surgical Clinic LLC, Centennial Womens Group LLC, Center for Advanced Diagnostics LLC, Center for Advanced Imaging LLC, Center for Digestive Diseases LLC, Center for Occupational Medicine LLC, Centerpoint Cardiology Services LLC, Centerpoint Clinic of Blue Springs LLC, Centerpoint Hospital Based Physicians LLC, Centerpoint Medical Center of Independence LLC, Centerpoint Medical Specialists LLC, Centerpoint Orthopedics LLC, Centerpoint Physicians Group LLC, Centerpoint Womens Services LLC, Central Florida Cardiology Interpretations LLC, Central Florida Division Practice Inc., Central Florida Health Services LLC, Central Florida Imaging Services LLC, Central Florida Management Services LLC, Central Florida Obstetrics & Gynecology Associates LLC, Central Florida Physician Network LLC, Central Florida Regional Hospital Inc., Central Health Holding Company Inc., Central Pasco LLC, Central San Antonio Surgical Center Investors Ltd., Central Shared Services LLC, Central Tennessee Hospital Corporation, Central Texas Cardiac Arrhythmia Physicians PLLC, Centrum Surgery Center Ltd., Charleston CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Chatsworth Hospital Corp., Chattanooga ASC Acquisition Inc., Chattanooga Diagnostic Associates LLC, Chattanooga Healthcare Network L.P., Chattanooga Healthcare Network Partner Inc., Chelsea Outpatient Centre LLP, Chesterfield Imaging LLC, Chicago Grant Hospital Inc., Childrens Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Chino Community Hospital Corporation Inc., Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Hospitals Inc., Chippenham & Johnston-Willis Sports Medicine LLC, Chippenham Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Chippenham Pediatric Specialists LLC, Chiswick Outpatient Centre LLP, Christiansburg Family Medicine LLC, Christiansburg Internal Medicine LLC, Christina Cano-Gonzalez M.D. PLLC, Chugach PT Inc., Church Street Partners, Citrus Memorial Hospital Inc., Citrus Memorial Property Management Inc., Citrus Primary Care Inc., Citrus Specialty Group Inc., Citrus Surgicenter LLC, City of San Antonio H2U Employee Health and Wellness Center PLLC, Clarksville Surgicenter LLC, Clear Creek Surgery Center LLC, Clear Lake Cardiac Catheterization Center L.P., Clear Lake Cardiac GP LLC, Clear Lake Family Physicians PLLC, Clear Lake Medical Tower Owners Association Inc., Clear Lake Merger LLC, Clear Lake Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Clear Lake Regional Medical Center Inc., Clear Lake Regional Partner LLC, Clear Lake Surgicare Ltd., ClinicServ LLC, Clinical Education Shared Services LLC, Clinishare Inc., Coastal Bend Hospital CT Services Ltd., Coastal Bend Hospital Inc., Coastal Carolina Home Care Inc., Coastal Carolina Multispecialty Associates LLC, Coastal Carolina Primary Care LLC, Coastal Healthcare Services Inc., Coastal Imaging Center L.P., Coastal Imaging Center of Gulfport Inc., Coastal Inpatient Physicians LLC, Coliseum Health Group Inc., Coliseum Health Group LLC, Coliseum Medical Center LLC, Coliseum Park Hospital Inc., Coliseum Primary Care Services LLC, Coliseum Primary Healthcare - Macon LLC, Coliseum Primary Healthcare - Riverside LLC, Coliseum Professional Associates LLC, Coliseum Same Day Surgery Center L.P., Coliseum Surgery Center L.L.C., College Park Ancillary LLC, College Park Endoscopy Center LLC, College Park Radiology LLC, Colleton Ambulatory Care LLC, Colleton Diagnostic Center LLC, Colleton Medical Anesthesia LLC, Colleton Medical Hospitalists LLC, Colleton Otolaryngology Head and Neck Surgery LLC, Collier County Home Health Agency Inc., Collin County Diagnostic Associates PLLC, Colorado Health Systems Inc., Columbia ASC Management L.P., Columbia Ambulatory Surgery Division Inc., Columbia Arlington Healthcare System L.L.C., Columbia Bay Area Realty Ltd., Columbia Behavioral Health Ltd., Columbia Behavioral Healthcare Inc., Columbia Behavioral Healthcare of South Florida Inc., Columbia Call Center Inc., Columbia Central Florida Division Inc., Columbia Central Group Inc., Columbia Champions Treatment Center Inc., Columbia Chicago Division Inc., Columbia Coliseum Same Day Surgery Center Inc., Columbia Development of Florida Inc., Columbia Doctors Hospital of Tulsa Inc., Columbia Eye and Specialty Surgery Center Ltd., Columbia Florida Group Inc., Columbia GP of Mesquite Inc., Columbia Good Samaritan Health System Limited Partnership, Columbia Greater Houston Division Healthcare Network Inc., Columbia Health System of Arkansas Inc., Columbia Healthcare System of Louisiana Inc., Columbia Healthcare of Central Virginia Inc., Columbia Hospital Corporation at the Medical Center, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Arlington, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Bay Area, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Central Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Corpus Christi, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Fort Worth, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Houston, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Kendall, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Massachusetts Inc., Columbia Hospital Corporation of Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Miami Beach, Columbia Hospital Corporation of North Miami Beach, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Broward, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Dade, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Florida, Columbia Hospital Corporation of South Miami, Columbia Hospital Corporation of Tamarac, Columbia Hospital Corporation of West Houston, Columbia Hospital Corporation-Delaware, Columbia Hospital Corporation-SMM, Columbia Hospital at Medical City Dallas Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Hospital-El Paso Ltd., Columbia Integrated Health Systems Inc., Columbia Jacksonville Healthcare System Inc., Columbia LaGrange Hospital LLC, Columbia Lake Worth Surgical Center Limited Partnership, Columbia Medical Arts Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center Dallas Southwest Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center at Lancaster Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Arlington Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Denton Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Las Colinas Inc., Columbia Medical Center of Lewisville Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of McKinney Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Center of Plano Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Medical Group - Centennial Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Daystar Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Parkridge Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Southern Hills Inc., Columbia Medical Group - Southwest Virginia Inc., Columbia Medical Group - The Frist Clinic Inc., Columbia Midtown Joint Venture, Columbia North Alaska Healthcare Inc., Columbia North Central Florida Health System Limited Partnership, Columbia North Florida Regional Medical Center Limited Partnership, Columbia North Hills Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Columbia North Texas Healthcare System L.P., Columbia North Texas Subsidiary GP LLC, Columbia North Texas Surgery Center Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Northwest Medical Center Inc., Columbia Northwest Medical Center Partners Ltd., Columbia Ocala Regional Medical Center Physician Group Inc., Columbia Ogden Medical Center Inc., Columbia Oklahoma Division Inc., Columbia Palm Beach GP LLC, Columbia Palm Beach Healthcare System Limited Partnership, Columbia Park Healthcare System Inc., Columbia Park Medical Center Inc., Columbia Parkersburg Healthcare System LLC, Columbia Pentagon City Hospital L.L.C., Columbia Physician Services - Florida Group Inc., Columbia Plaza Medical Center of Fort Worth Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Primary Care LLC, Columbia Psychiatric Management Co., Columbia Resource Network Inc., Columbia Rio Grande Healthcare L.P., Columbia Riverside Inc., Columbia South Texas Division Inc., Columbia Specialty Hospital of Dallas Subsidiary L.P., Columbia Specialty Hospitals Inc., Columbia Surgery Group Inc., Columbia Surgicare of Augusta Ltd., Columbia Tampa Bay Division Inc., Columbia Valley Healthcare System L.P., Columbia West Bank Hospital Inc., Columbia Westbank Healthcare L.P., Columbia-CSA/HS Greater Canton Area Healthcare System L.P., Columbia-CSA/HS Greater Cleveland Area Healthcare System L.P., Columbia-Georgia PT Inc., Columbia-Osceola Imaging Center Inc., Columbia-Quantum Inc., Columbia-SDH Holdings Inc., Columbia/Alleghany Regional Hospital Incorporated, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of Central Texas, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of Northern Ohio, Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corporation of South Carolina, Columbia/HCA Heartcare of Corpus Christi Inc., Columbia/HCA International Group Inc., Columbia/HCA John Randolph Inc., Columbia/HCA Middle East Management Company, Columbia/HCA Physician Hospital Organization Medical Center Hospital, Columbia/HCA San Clemente Inc., Columbia/HCA of Baton Rouge Inc., Columbia/HCA of Houston Inc., Columbia/HCA of New Orleans Inc., Columbia/HCA of North Texas Inc., Columbine Psychiatric Center Inc., Columbus Cardiology Inc., Columbus Cath Lab Inc., Columbus Cath Lab LLC, Columbus Doctors Hospital Inc., Commonwealth Perinatal Services LLC, Commonwealth Specialists of Kentucky LLC, Community Hospital Family Practice LLC, Comprehensive Radiation Oncology LLC, Comprehensive Radiology Management Services Ltd., Concept EFL Imaging Center LLC, Concept West EFL Imaging Center LLC, Congenital Heart Surgery Center PLLC, Conroe Hospital Corporation, Conroe Montgomery Physicians Group PLLC, Conroe Orthopedic Specialists PLLC, Conroe Partner LLC, Conroe Specialists of Texas PLLC, Continental Division I Inc., Coral Springs Surgi-Center Ltd., CoralStone Management Inc., Corpus Christi Healthcare Group Ltd., Corpus Christi Heart Clinic PLLC, Corpus Christi Primary Care Associates PLLC, Corpus Christi Psychiatric Specialists PLLC, Corpus Christi Radiation Oncology PLLC, Corpus Christi Surgery Center L.P., Corpus Christi Surgery Ltd., Corpus Christi Surgicenter LLC, Corpus Surgicare Inc., Countryside Surgery Center Ltd., Crewe Outpatient Imaging LLC, Cumberland Medical Center Inc., Cy-Fair Medical Center Hospital LLC, DFW Physicians Group PLLC, DOMC Property LLC, DS Real Estate Holdings LLC, Daleville Imaging L.P., Daleville Imaging Manager LLC, Dallas CardioThoracic Surgery Consultants PLLC, Dallas Cardiology Specialists PLLC, Dallas Hand Surgery Center PLLC, Dallas Medical Specialists PLLC, Dallas Neuro-Stroke Affiliates PLLC, Dallas Pediatric Neurosurgery Specialists PLLC, Dallas/Ft. Worth Physician LLC, Davie Medical Center LLC, Daytona Medical Center Inc., Dean 4641 LLC, Deep Purple Investments LLC, Del Sol Bariatric Clinic PLLC, Delray EFL Imaging Center LLC, Denton Cancer Center PLLC, Denton County Hospitalist Program PLLC, Denton Pediatric Physicians PLLC, Denton Regional Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Denver Clinic Surgicenter LLC, Denver Mid-Town Surgery Center Ltd., Denver Surgicenter LLC, Derry ASC Inc., Diagnostic Breast Center Inc., Diagnostic Mammography Services G.P., Diagnostic Services G.P., Dickson Surgery Center L.P., Doctors Bay Area Physician Hospital Organization, Doctors Hospital (Conroe) Inc., Doctors Hospital Columbus GA-Joint Venture, Doctors Hospital Surgery Center L.P., Doctors Hospital of Augusta LLC, Doctors Hospital of Augusta Neurology LLC, Doctors Osteopathic Medical Center Inc., Doctors Same Day Surgery Center Inc., Doctors Same Day Surgery Center Ltd., Doctors-I Inc., Doctors-II Inc., Doctors-III Inc., Doctors-IV Inc., Doctors-IX Inc., Doctors-V Inc., Doctors-VI Inc., Doctors-VII Inc., Doctors-VIII Inc., Doctors-X Inc., Doctors Memorial Hospital of Spartanburg Limited Partnership, Dominion Hospital Physicians Group LLC, Dublin Community Hospital LLC, Dublin Heart Specialists LLC, Dublin Multispecialty LLC, Dura Medical Inc., E.P. Physical Therapy Centers Inc., EASTSIDE URGENT CARE LLC, EHCA Diagnostics LLC, EHCA Eastside Occupational Medicine Center LLC, EHCA LLC, EHCA Metropolitan LLC, EHCA Parkway LLC, EHCA Peachtree LLC, EHCA West Paces LLC, EIRMC Hospitalist Services LLC, EMMC LLC, EP Health LLC, EP Holdco LLC, EPIC Development Inc., EPIC Diagnostic Centers Inc., EPIC Healthcare Management Company, EPIC Properties Inc., EPIC Surgery Centers Inc., EPSC L.P., East Falls Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgery LLC, East Falls Family Medicine LLC, East Falls Plastic Surgery LLC, East Florida - DMC Inc., East Florida Behavioral Health Network LLC, East Florida Cardiology Network LLC, East Florida CareNow Urgent Care LLC, East Florida Division Inc., East Florida Emergency Physician Group LLC, East Florida Healthcare LLC, East Florida Hospitalists LLC, East Florida Imaging Holdings LLC, East Florida Primary Care LLC, East Houston Primary Care PLLC, East Houston Specialists PLLC, East Layton Internal Medicine LLC, East Orthopedics PLLC, East Pointe Hospital Inc., Eastern Idaho Brachytherapy Equipment LLC, Eastern Idaho Brachytherapy Equipment Manager LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners ACO LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners Holdings LLC, Eastern Idaho Care Partners LLC, Eastern Idaho Health Services Inc., Eastern Idaho Regional Medical Center Inpatient Services LLC, Eastside Behavioral Health Associates LLC, Eastside General Surgery LLC, Eastside Heart and Vascular LLC, Eastside Medical Center LLC, Eastside Surgery Center LLC, Edmond General Surgery LLC, Edmond Hospitalists LLC, Edmond Physician Hospital Organization Inc., Edward White Hospital Inc., El Paso CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, El Paso Healthcare Provider Network, El Paso Healthcare System Ltd., El Paso Healthcare System Physician Services LLC, El Paso Nurses Unlimited Inc., El Paso Primary Care PLLC, El Paso Surgery Centers L.P., El Paso Surgicenter Inc., Eldridge Family Practitioners PLLC, Elite Family Health of Plano PLLC, Elite OB-GYN Services of El Paso PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of El Paso PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of Irving PLLC, Elite Orthopaedics of Plano PLLC, Elstree Outpatient Centre LLP, Emergency Physicians at Wesley Medical Center LLC, Emergency Providers Group LLC, Emergency Psychiatric Medicine PLLC, Encino Hospital Corporation Inc., Endocrinology Associates of Lees Summit LLC, Endoscopy Surgicare of Plano LLC, Endoscopy of Plano L.P., Englewood Community Hospital Auxiliary Inc., Englewood Community Hospital Inc., Envision Stakes LLC, Eye Care Surgicare Ltd. a Missouri limited partnership, FHAL LLC, FMH Health Services LLC, Fairfax Surgical Center L.P., Fairview Medical Services LLC, Fairview Park GP LLC, Fairview Park Limited Partnership, Fairview Partner LLC, Family Care Partners LLC, Family Care of E. Jackson County LLC, Family First Medicine in Brownsville PLLC, Family Health Medical Group of Overland Park LLC, Family Health Specialists of Lees Summit LLC, Family Medicine of Blacksburg LLC, Family Practice at Forest Hill LLC, Family Practice at Retreat LLC, Family Practitioners of Montgomery PLLC, Family Practitioners of Pearland PLLC, Fannin MOB LLC, Fannin MOB Property Management LLC, Far West Division Inc., Fawcett Memorial Hospital Inc., Florida Care Partners LLC, Florida Care Partners Orlando LLC, Florida Home Health Services-Private Care Inc., Florida Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Flower Mound Surgery Center Ltd., Focus Hand Surgicenter LLC, Foot & Ankle Specialty Services LLC, Forest Park Surgery Pavilion Inc., Forest Park Surgery Pavilion L.P., Fort Bend Hospital Inc., Fort Chiswell Family Practice LLC, Fort Myers Market Inc., Fort Pierce Immediate Care Center Inc., Fort Pierce Orthopaedics LLC, Fort Pierce Surgery Center Ltd., Fort Walton Beach Medical Center Inc., Fort Worth Investments Inc., Forward Pathology Solutions LLC, Four Rivers Medical Center PHO Inc., Frankfort Hospital Inc., Frankfort Wound Care LLC, Freeport Family Medicine LLC, Fremont Womens Health LLC, Frisco Surgicare LLC, Frisco Warren Parkway 91 Inc., Frist Clinic Express LLC, Ft. Pierce Surgicare LLC, Ft. Walton Beach Anesthesia Services LLC, G. Rowe M.D. PLLC, G. Schnider M.D. PLLC, G. Voorhees M.D. PLLC, G.P. Martin Fletcher & Associates LLC, GA PHYSICIAN SERVICES LLC, GA Urgentcare Holding LLC, GHC-Galen Health Care LLC, GI Associates of Denton PLLC, GI Associates of Lewisville PLLC, GME Services of Osceola LLC, GPCH-GP Inc., GYN-Oncology of Southwest Virginia LLC, Gainesville GYN Oncology of North Florida Regional Medical Center LLC, Gainesville Physicians LLC, GalTex LLC, Galen (Kansas) Merger LLC, Galen BH Inc., Galen Center for Professional Development Inc., Galen College of Nursing, Galen Diagnostic Multicenter Ltd., Galen GOK LLC, Galen Global Finance Inc., Galen Health Institutes Inc., Galen Health Partners Limited, Galen Holdco LLC, Galen Hospital Alaska Inc., Galen Hospital of Baytown Inc., Galen Hospital-Pembroke Pines Inc., Galen International Holdings Inc., Galen KY LLC, Galen MCS LLC, Galen MRMC LLC, Galen Medical Corporation, Galen NMC LLC, Galen NSH LLC, Galen Property LLC, Galen SOM LLC, Galen SSH LLC, Galen Virginia Hospital Corporation, Galen of Aurora Inc., Galen of Florida Inc., Galen of Illinois Inc., Galen of Kentucky Inc., Galen of Mississippi Inc., Galen of Virginia Inc., Galen of West Virginia Inc., Galen-Soch Inc., Galencare Inc., Galendeco Inc., Galichia Anesthesia Services LLC, Galichia Emergency Physicians LLC, Garden Park Community Hospital Limited Partnership, Garden Park Hospitalist Program LLC, Garden Park Investments L.P., Garden Park Physician Group - Specialty Care LLC, Garden Park Physician Group Inc., Gardens EFL Imaging Center LLC, Gastroenterology Specialists of Middle Tennessee LLC, General Hospitals of Galen Inc., General Medical Clinics Limited, General Surgeons of Houston PLLC, General Surgeons of North Richland Hills PLLC, General Surgeons of Pasadena PLLC, General and Cardiovascular Surgeons of Conroe PLLC, Generations Family Practice Inc., GenoSpace LLC, Georgia Health Holdings Inc., Georgia L.P., Georgia Psychiatric Company Inc., Glemm SA, Good Samaritan Hospital L.P., Good Samaritan Hospital LLC, Good Samaritan Surgery Center L.P., Goppert-Trinity Family Care LLC, Grace Family Practice LLC, Gramercy Eye Surgicenter LLC, Gramercy Surgery Center Ltd., Grand Strand Regional Medical Center LLC, Grand Strand Senior Health Center LLC, Grand Strand Specialty Associates LLC, Grand Strand Surgical Specialists LLC, Grandview Health Care Clinic LLC, Grant Center Hospital of Ocala Inc., Grayson Primary Care LLC, Greater Gwinnett Internal Medicine Associates LLC, Greater Gwinnett Physician Corporation, Greater Houston Preferred Provider Option Inc., Greater Tampa Bay Physician Network LLC, Greater Tampa Bay Physician Specialists LLC, Greater Tampa Bay Physicians - Pinellas LLC, Green Oaks Hospital Subsidiary L.P., Greenview Hospital Inc., Greenview PrimeCare LLC, Greenview Specialty Associates LLC, Gulf Coast Division Inc., Gulf Coast Electrophysiology Associates PLLC, Gulf Coast Inpatient Specialists LLC, Gulf Coast Medical Center Primary Care LLC, Gulf Coast Medical Ventures Inc., Gulf Coast Multispecialty Services LLC, Gulf Coast Physician Administrators Inc., Gulf Coast Provider Network Inc., Gwinnett Community Hospital Inc., Gynecology Specialists of Utah LLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Del Sol Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Las Palmas Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - Medical City Dallas PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers - St. Davids Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers LLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Clear Lake Regional Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Conroe ISD PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Conroe Regional Medical Center PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  Corpus Christi PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  El Paso PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  PISD PLLC, H2U Wellness Centers  San Benito CISD PLLC, HBP Lone Star Inc., HCA - IT&S Field Operations Inc., HCA - IT&S Inventory Management Inc., HCA - IT&S PBS Field Operations Inc., HCA - IT&S TN Field Operations Inc., HCA - Information Technology & Services Inc., HCA - Raleigh Community Hospital Inc., HCA - Viera ALF LLC, HCA - WHS Progressive LLC, HCA - WHS Services LLC, HCA ASD Financial Operations LLC, HCA ASD Sales Services LLC, HCA American Finance LLC, HCA Carenow Limited, HCA Central Group Inc., HCA Central/West Texas Physicians Management LLC, HCA Chattanooga Market Inc., HCA Development Company Inc., HCA Eastern Group Inc., HCA Global Capital LLP, HCA Gulf Coast GME PLLC, HCA Health Services of California Inc., HCA Health Services of Florida Inc., HCA Health Services of Georgia Inc., HCA Health Services of Louisiana Inc., HCA Health Services of Miami Inc., HCA Health Services of Midwest Inc., HCA Health Services of New Hampshire Inc., HCA Health Services of Tennessee Inc., HCA Health Services of Texas Inc., HCA Health Services of Virginia Inc., HCA Health Services of West Virginia Inc., HCA Healthcare Mission Fund LLC, HCA Healthcare UK Limited, HCA Holdco LLC, HCA Human Resources LLC, HCA Imaging Services of North Florida Inc., HCA Inc., HCA International Holdings Limited, HCA International Limited, HCA LewisGale Regional Cancer Centers Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA Long Term Health Services of Miami Inc., HCA Luxembourg 1 Sarl, HCA Luxembourg 2 Sarl, HCA Luxembourg Equities Sarl, HCA Luxembourg Finance Limited, HCA Luxembourg Investments Sarl, HCA Management Services L.P., HCA Medical City Limited, HCA Medical Services Inc., HCA Midwest Comprehensive Care Inc., HCA Outpatient Clinic Services of Miami Inc., HCA Outpatient Imaging Services Group Inc., HCA Patient Safety Organization LLC, HCA Pearland GP Inc., HCA Physician Services Inc., HCA Plano Imaging Inc., HCA Property GP LLC, HCA Psychiatric Company, HCA Purchasing Limited, HCA Realty Inc., HCA Richmond Cardiac Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA SF LLC, HCA SFB 1 LLC, HCA Sarasota Orthopedic and Spine Clinical Co-Management Company LLC, HCA Squared LLC, HCA Staffing Limited, HCA Swiss Capital 1 LLP, HCA Swiss Capital 2 LLP, HCA Switzerland Finance GmbH, HCA Switzerland Holding GmbH, HCA Switzerland Limited, HCA UK Capital Limited, HCA UK Holdings Limited, HCA UK Investments Limited, HCA UK Limited, HCA UK Services Limited, HCA Wesley Rehabilitation Hospital Inc., HCA Western Group Inc., HCA-Access Healthcare Holdings LLC, HCA-Access Healthcare Partner Inc., HCA-California Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCA-EMS Holdings LLC, HCA-EmCare Holdings LLC, HCA-Georgia Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCA-HBPS Holdings LLC, HCA-HealthONE LLC, HCA-Solis Holdings Inc., HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of Continental LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of Gulf Coast LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of North Texas LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Service Holdings of TriStar LLC, HCA-Solis Mammography Services LLC, HCA-Solis Master LLC, HCA-Urgent Care Holdings LLC, HCAPS Anesthesia Manager LLC, HCAPS Conroe Affiliation Inc., HCOL Inc., HD&S Corp. Successor Inc., HDH Thoracic Surgeons LLC, HHBY Holdings LLC, HHNC LLC, HICCH-SCL LLC, HM Acquisition LLC, HM OMCOS LLC, HMMG 1226 LLC, HPG Energy L.P., HPG Enterprises LLC, HPG GP LLC, HPG Solutions LLC, HSS Holdco LLC, HSS Systems LLC, HSS Virginia L.P., HTI Gulf Coast Inc., HTI Health Services of North Carolina Inc., HTI Hospital Holdings Inc., HTI MOB LLC, HTI MSO LLC, HTI Memorial Hospital Corporation, HTI Physician Services of Utah Inc., HWCA PLLC, Hamilton Memorial Hospital Inc., Hamsard 3160 Limited, Harley Street Clinic @ The Groves LLP, Hathor Chelsea Ltd., Healdsburg General Hospital Inc., Health Care Indemnity Inc., Health Insight Capital LLC, Health International Billing Partners Limited, Health Midwest Medical Group Inc., Health Midwest Office Facilities Corporation, Health Midwest Ventures Group Inc., Health Partners of Kansas Inc., Health Service Partners Inc., Health Services (Delaware) Inc., Health Services Merger Inc., Health to You LLC, HealthCoast Physician Group LLC, HealthONE Aurora Investment LLC, HealthONE Care Partners LLC, HealthONE CareNow Urgent Care LLC, HealthONE Clear Creek LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Bariatric Medicine LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Behavioral Health LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cancer Care LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cancer Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Cardiovascular LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Medical Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Neurosciences LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Occupational Medicine LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Oncology Hematology LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Orthopedic Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Otolaryngology Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Pediatric Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Pediatric Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Primary Care LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Spine Specialists LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Spine Surgeons LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Surgery Neurological LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Surgical Specialties LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Transplant Services LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Womens Services LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services - Youth Rehabilitation LLC, HealthONE Clinic Services LLC, HealthONE High Street Primary Care Center LLC, HealthONE IRL Pathology Services LLC, HealthONE Institutes for Clinical Research LLC, HealthONE Lowry LLC, HealthONE Radiation Therapy at Red Rocks LLC, HealthONE Radiation Therapy at Thornton LLC, HealthONE Ridge View Endoscopy Center LLC, HealthONE Surgicare of Ridge View LLC, HealthONE Urologic LLC, HealthONE at Breckenridge LLC, HealthONE of Denver Inc., HealthOne Heart Care LLC, HealthOne Lincoln Investment LLC, HealthOne Westside Investment LLC, HealthTrust Europe Company Limited, HealthTrust Europe LLP, HealthTrust Locums Inc., HealthTrust Workforce Solutions LLC, Healthcare Oklahoma Inc., Healthcare Purchasing Alliance LLC, Healthcare Sales National Management Services Group LLC, Healthcare Technology Assessment Corporation, Healthco LLC, Healthnet of Kentucky LLC, Healthserv Acquisition LLC, Healthtrust Inc. - The Hospital Company, Healthtrust MOB Tennessee LLC, Healthtrust Purchasing Group L.P., Healthtrust Utah Management Services Inc., Healthy State Inc., Heart Specialist of North Texas PLLC, Heart of America ASC LLC, Heart of America Surgicenter LLC, Heartcare of Texas Ltd., Hearthstone Home Health Inc., Heartland Womens Group at Wesley LLC, Heathrow Imaging LLC, Heathrow Internal Medicine LLC, Hendersonville Hospital Corporation, Hendersonville Hospitalist Services Inc., Hendersonville OB/GYN LLC, Hendersonville ODC LLC, Hendersonville Primary Care LLC, Henrico Doctors Hospital - Forest Campus Property LLC, Henrico Doctors Neurology Associates LLC, Henrico Doctors OB GYN Specialists LLC, Henrico Surgical Specialists LLC, Heritage Family Care LLC, Heritage Hospital Inc., Heritage Medical Care LLC, Hermitage Primary Care LLC, Hidalgo County Family Practitioners PLLC, Hidden Lakes Health Center PLLC, Highlands Regional Medical Center, Hip & Joint Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Homecare North Inc., Hometrust Management Services Inc., Horizon Orthopedics LLC, Horizon Surgical LLC, Hospital Corp. LLC, Hospital Corporation of America, Hospital Corporation of Lake Worth, Hospital Corporation of Tennessee, Hospital Corporation of Utah, Hospital Development Properties Inc., Hospital Partners Merger LLC, Hospital Realty Corporation, Hospital-Based CRNA Services Inc., Hospitalists at Centennial Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists at Fairview Park LLC, Hospitalists at Greenview Regional Hospital LLC, Hospitalists at Horizon Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists at Parkridge LLC, Hospitalists at StoneCrest LLC, Hospitalists at Wesley Medical Center LLC, Hospitalists of the Wabash Valley LLC, Houston - PPH LLC, Houston CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Houston Healthcare Holdings Inc., Houston NW Manager LLC, Houston Northwest Concessions L.L.C., Houston Northwest Operating Company L.L.C., Houston Northwest Surgical Partners Inc., Houston Obstetrics and Gynecology for Women PLLC, Houston Pediatric Specialty Group PLLC, Houston Urologic Surgicenter LLC, Houston Womans Hospital Partner LLC, ICU Associates of West Houston PLLC, IMX Holdings LLC, IRL Pathology Services MidAmerica LLC, Idaho Behavioral Health Services LLC, Idaho Physician Services Inc., Illinois Psychiatric Hospital Company Inc., Imaging Realty LLC, Imaging Services of Appomattox LLC, Imaging Services of Jacksonville LLC, Imaging Services of Louisiana LLC, Imaging Services of Louisiana Manager LLC, Imaging Services of Orlando LLC, Imaging Services of Richmond LLC, Imaging Services of Roanoke LLC, Imaging Services of West Boynton LLC, InVivoLink Inc., Independence Neurosurgery Services LLC, Independence Regional Medical Group LLC, Independence Surgicare Inc., Indian Path Hospital Inc., Indianapolis Hospital Partner LLC, Institute for Womens Health and Body LLC, Institute of Advanced ENT Surgery LLC, Integrated Regional Lab LLC, Integrated Regional Laboratories LLP, Integrated Regional Laboratories Pathology Services LLC, Intensive Care Consortium Inc., Internal Medicine Associates of Huntsville PLLC, Internal Medicine Associates of Southern Hills LLC, Internal Medicine of Blacksburg LLC, Internal Medicine of Pasadena PLLC, Internist Associates of Houston PLLC, Isleworth Partners Inc., J. M. Garcia M.D. PLLC, JCSH LLC, JDGC Management LLC, JFK Internal Medicine Faculty Practice LLC, JFK Medical Center Limited Partnership, JPM AA Housing LLC, Jackson County Medical Group LLC, Jackson County Pulmonary Medical Group LLC, Jacksonville CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Jacksonville Multispecialty Services LLC, Jacksonville Surgery Center Ltd., James River Internists LLC, John Randolph Family Practice LLC, John Randolph OB/GYN LLC, John Randolph Surgeons LLC, Johnson County Neurology LLC, Johnson County Surgery Center L.P., Johnson County Surgicenter L.L.C., Jordan Family Health L.L.C., Jupiter EFL Imaging Center LLC, KC Pain ASC LLC, KC Surgicare LLC, KPH-Consolidation Inc., Kansas CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Kansas City Cardiac Arrhythmia Research LLC, Kansas City Gastroenterology & Hepatology Physicians Group LLC, Kansas City Neurology Associates LLC, Kansas City Pulmonology Practice LLC, Kansas City Surgery Center Properties LLC, Kansas City Vascular & General Surgery Group LLC, Kansas City Womens Clinic Group LLC, Kansas Healthserv LLC, Kansas Pulmonary and Sleep Specialists LLC, Kansas Trauma and Critical Care Specialists LLC, Kathy L. Summers M.D. PLLC, Kendall Healthcare Group Ltd., Kendall Regional Medical Center LLC, Kendall Regional Urgent Care LLC, Kennedale Primary Care PLLC, Kingwood Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Kingwood Surgery Center LLC, Kingwood Surgicenter LLC, Kissimmee Surgicare Ltd., Kyle Primary Care PLLC, L E Corporation, LAD Imaging LLC, LGMC Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, LOC @ The Christie LLP, LOC @ The London Bridge Hospital LLP, LOC Partnership LLP, LPN TeleBehavioral Health PLLC, Lafayette OB Hospitalists LLC, Lafayette Urogynecology & Urology Center LLC, Lake City Imaging LLC, Lake City Regional Medical Group LLC, Lake Forest Family Health PLLC, Lakeside Radiology LLC, Lakeside Womens Services LLC, Lakeview Cardiology Specialists LLC, Lakeview Hospital Physician Services LLC, Lakeview Internal Medicine LLC, Lakeview Medical Center LLC, Lakeview Regional Medical Center Inpatient Services LLC, Lakeview Regional Physician Group LLC, Lakeview Urology & General Surgery LLC, Lakewood Surgicare Inc., Laredo Medco LLC, Largo Medical Center Inc., Largo Physician Group LLC, Las Colinas Primary Care PLLC, Las Colinas Surgery Center Ltd., Las Encinas Hospital, Las Palmas Del Sol Cardiology PLLC, Las Palmas Del Sol Internal Medicine PLLC, Las Palmas Del Sol Urgent Care PLLC, Las Vegas ASC LLC, Las Vegas Surgicare Inc., Las Vegas Surgicare Ltd. a Nevada Limited Partnership, Lawnwood Cardiovascular Surgery LLC, Lawnwood Healthcare Specialists LLC, Lawnwood Medical Center Inc., Layton Family Practice LLC, Leaders in Oncology Care Limited, Leadership Healthcare Holdings II L.P. L.L.P., Leadership Healthcare Holdings L.P. L.L.P., Lees Summit Family Care LLC, Leslie Cohan M.D. PLLC, Lewis-Gale Hospital Incorporated, Lewis-Gale Medical Center LLC, Lewis-Gale Physicians LLC, Lewisville Primary Care PLLC, Lewisville Surgicare LLC, Lincoln Surgery Center LLC, Live Oak Immediate Care Center LLC, London Oncology Clinic LLP, London Pathology Limited, London Radiography & Radiotherapy Services Limited, Lone Peak Hospital Inc., Lone Star Intensivists at Gulf Coast PLLC, Lonestar Provider Network, Longview Regional Physician Hospital Organization Inc., Lorain County Surgery Center Ltd., Los Gatos Surgical Center a California Limited Partnership, Los Robles Regional Medical Center, Los Robles Regional Medical Center MOB LLC, Los Robles SurgiCenter LLC, Loudoun Surgery Center LLC, Louisiana Psychiatric Company Inc., Loveland Surgicenter LLC, Low Country Health Services Inc. of the Southeast, Lowry Surgicenter LLC, M. Jamshidi D.O. PLLC, MCA Investment Company, MCA-CTMC Holdings LLC, MEC Endoscopy LLC, MFA G.P. LLC, MFM Fact PLLC, MGH Medical Inc., MH Anesthesiology Physicians LLC, MH Angel Medical Center LLLP, MH Asheville Specialty Hospital LLC, MH Blue Ridge Medical Center LLLP, MH Eckerd Living Center LLLP, MH Highlands-Cashiers Medical Center LLLP, MH Hospital Holdings Inc., MH Hospital Manager LLC, MH Master Holdings LLLP, MH Master LLC, MH McDowell Imaging LLLP, MH Mission Hospital LLLP, MH Mission Hospital McDowell LLLP, MH Mission Imaging LLLP, MH Physician Services LLC, MH Transylvania Imaging LLLP, MH Transylvania Regional Hospital LLLP, MHS Partnership Holdings JSC Inc., MHS Partnership Holdings SDS Inc., MHS SC Partner L.L.C., MHS Surgery Centers L.P., MMC Sleep Lab Management LLC, MOSC Sports Medicine Inc., MOVCO Inc., MP Management LLC, MRT&C Inc., MSL Acquisition LLC, MVH Professional Services LLC, Macon Healthcare LLC, Macon Northside Health Group LLC, Macon Northside Hospital LLC, Macon Psychiatric Hospitalists LLC, Madison Behavioral Health LLC, Mainland Family Medicine PLLC, Mainland Multi-Specialty Group PLLC, Mainland Primary Care Physicians PLLC, Management Services Holdings Inc., Manatee Surgicare Ltd., Marietta Outpatient Medical Building Inc., Marietta Outpatient Surgery Ltd., Marietta Surgical Center Inc., Marion Community Hospital Inc., Mark Gottesman M.D. PLLC, Martin Fletcher & Associates L.P., Martin Fletcher Associates Holdings Inc., Mary Alice Cowan M.D. PLLC, Maternal Fetal Medicine Specialists of Corpus Christi PLLC, Maternal Fetal Services of Utah LLC, Maury County Behavioral Health LLC, Mayhill Cancer Center LLC, McAllen Comprehensive Upper Extremity Center PLLC, McKinney Surgeons PLLC, Mechanicsville Imaging LLC, Mecklenburg Surgical Land Development Ltd., Med City Dallas Outpatient Surgery Center L.P., Med Corp. Inc., Med Group - Southern Hills Hospitalists LLC, Med-Center Hosp./Houston Inc., Med-Point of New Hampshire Inc., Medi Flight of Oklahoma LLC, MediCredit Inc., MediPurchase Inc., MediStone Healthcare Ventures Inc., MediVision Inc., MediVision of Mecklenburg County Inc., MediVision of Tampa Inc., Medical Arts Hospital of Texarkana Inc., Medical Associates of Ocala LLC, Medical Care America Colorado LLC, Medical Care America LLC, Medical Care Financial Services Corp., Medical Care Real Estate Finance Inc., Medical Care Surgery Center Inc., Medical Center - West Inc., Medical Center Imaging Inc., Medical Center Surgery Associates L.P., Medical Center of Baton Rouge Inc., Medical Center of Plano Partner LLC, Medical Center of Port St. Lucie Inc., Medical Center of Santa Rosa Inc., Medical Center of Southwest Florida LLC, Medical Centers of Oklahoma LLC, Medical City Dallas Hospital Inc., Medical City Dallas Partner LLC, Medical City Dallas Primary Care PLLC, Medical City Frisco, Medical City OB-GYN PLLC, Medical City Pediatrics PLLC, Medical City Specialty Surgicenter of Dallas LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Alliance LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Frisco LLC, Medical City Surgery Center of Lewisville LLC, Medical City Transplant PLLC, Medical Corporation of America, Medical Group - Dickson Inc., Medical Group - Southern Hills of Brentwood LLC, Medical Group - Southern Hills of Nolensville LLC, Medical Group - StoneCrest FP Inc., Medical Group - StoneCrest Inc., Medical Group - Stonecrest Pulmonology LLC, Medical Group - Summit Inc., Medical Imaging Inc., Medical Imaging of Colorado LLC, Medical Office Buildings of Kansas LLC, Medical Oncology Associates LLC, Medical Partners of North Florida LLC, Medical Plaza Ambulatory Surgery Center Associates L.P., Medical Specialties Inc., Memorial Family Practice Associates LLC, Memorial Health Primary Care at St. Johns Bluff LLC, Memorial Healthcare Group Inc., Memorial Neurosurgery Group LLC, Memorial Satilla Specialists LLC, Memorial University Medical Center, Menorah Medical Group LLC, Menorah Urgent Care LLC, Mercy ASC LLC, Metairie Primary Care Associates LLC, Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center of Boerne LLC, Methodist Ambulatory Surgery Center of Landmark LLC, Methodist Cardiology Physicians, Methodist CareNow Physician Associates, Methodist CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Methodist Healthcare System of San Antonio Ltd. L.L.P., Methodist Inpatient Management Group, Methodist Medical Center ASC L.P., Methodist Physician Alliance, Methodist Physician Practice Services LLC, Methodist Physician Practices PLLC, Metroplex Surgicenters Inc., Metropolitan Multispecialty Physicians Group Inc., Miami Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Miami Beach Healthcare Group Ltd., Miami Dade Surgical Specialists LLC, Miami Lakes Surgery Center Ltd., Miami-Dade Cardiology Consultants LLC, Michael Mann M.D. PLLC, Mid-America Surgery Center LLC, Mid-America Surgery Institute LLC, Mid-Cities Surgi-Center Inc., Mid-Continent Health Services Inc., MidAmerica Division Inc., MidAmerica Oncology LLC, Middle Georgia Hospital LLC, Middle Georgia Urgent Care Services LLC, Middle Tennessee Neurology LLC, Midtown Diagnostics LLC, Midwest Cardiology Specialists LLC, Midwest Cardiovascular & Thoracic Surgery LLC, Midwest Cardiovascular and Thoracic Surgeons of Kansas LLC, Midwest Division - ACH LLC, Midwest Division - CMC LLC, Midwest Division - LRHC LLC, Midwest Division - LSH LLC, Midwest Division - MCI LLC, Midwest Division - MMC LLC, Midwest Division - OPRMC LLC, Midwest Division - RBH LLC, Midwest Division - RMC LLC, Midwest Division Spine Care LLC, Midwest Doctors Group LLC, Midwest Heart & Vascular Specialists LLC, Midwest Holdings Inc., Midwest Infectious Disease Specialists LLC, Midwest Medicine Associates LLC, Midwest Metropolitan Physicians Group LLC, Midwest Oncology Associates LLC, Midwest Trauma Services LLC, Midwest Womens Healthcare Specialists LLC, Mikrod Services Inc., Mill Creek Outpatient Services LLC, Millenium Health Care of Oklahoma Inc., Mission Bay Memorial Hospital Inc., Mission Community Anesthesiology Specialists LLC, Mission Employer Solutions LLC, Mission Health, Mission Health Partners Inc., Missouri Healthcare System L.P., Mobile Corps. Inc., Mobile Heartbeat, Mobile Heartbeat LLC, Montgomery Cancer Center LLC, Montgomery Hospitalists LLC, Montgomery Regional Hospital Inc., Montgomery Surgery Associates LLC, Mountain Division - CVH LLC, Mountain Division Inc., Mountain View Hospital Inc., Mountain View MRI Associates Ltd., Mountain West Surgery Center LLC, MountainStar Behavioral Health LLC, MountainStar Brigham General Surgery LLC, MountainStar Canyon Surgical Clinic LLC, MountainStar Cardiology Ogden Regional LLC, MountainStar Cardiology St. Marks LLC, MountainStar Intensivist Services LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - Cache Valley LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - Ogden Regional Medical Center LLC, MountainStar Medical Group - St. Marks Hospital LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Neurosurgery-St. Marks LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Timpanogos Primary Care LLC, MountainStar Medical Group Timpanogos Specialty Care LLC, MountainStar Specialty Services LLC, MountainStar Urgent Care LLC, MountainView GME Primary Care LLC, Mountainstar Brigham OBGYN LLC, Mountainstar Cardiovascular Services LLC, Mountainstar Ogden Pediatrics LLC, Movement Disorders of North Texas PLLC, Mt. Ogden Utah Surgical Center LLC, NPAS Inc., NPAS Solutions LLC, NT Urgent Care PLLC, NTGP LLC, NTMC Management Company, NTMC Venture Inc., NTX Pathology Program PLLC, Nashville Psychiatric Company Inc., Nashville Shared Services General Partnership, Nashville Surgicenter LLC, Natchez Medical Associates LLC, Natchez Surgery Center LLC, National Association of Senior Friends, National Contact Center Management Group LLC, National Patient Account Services Inc., National Transfer Center Management Services LLC, Navarro Memorial Hospital Inc., NeighborMD Management LLC, Network MS of Florida Inc., Network Management Services Inc., Neuro Affiliates Company, Neuro-Hospitalist of Clear Lake PLLC, NeuroHospitalist of McAllen PLLC, Neurological Eye Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Neurological Specialists PLLC, Neurological Specialists of McKinney PLLC, Neurology Associates of Hendersonville LLC, Neurology Associates of Kansas LLC, Neurosurgery Atlanta LLC, Neurosurgery of Kingwood PLLC, Neurosurgical Associates of North Texas PLLC, Neurosurgical Specialists of El Paso PLLC, Neurosurgical Specialists of North Texas PLLC, Nevada Surgery Center of Southern Hills L.P., Nevada Surgicare of Southern Hills LLC, Nevada Urgent Care Holdings Inc., New Iberia Healthcare LLC, New Iberia Holdings Inc., New Port Richey Hospital Inc., New Port Richey Surgery Center Ltd., New Rose Holding Company Inc., Niceville Family Practice LLC, North Augusta Imaging Management LLC, North Augusta Imaging Services LLC, North Augusta Rehab Health Center LLC, North Austin Plastic Surgery Associates PLLC, North Austin Surgery Center L.P., North Brandon Imaging LLC, North Central Florida Health System Inc., North Central Methodist ASC L.P., North Charleston Diagnostic Imaging Center LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Lake City LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Live Oak LLC, North Florida Cancer Center Tallahassee LLC, North Florida Division I Inc., North Florida Division Practice Inc., North Florida GI Center GP Inc., North Florida GI Center Ltd., North Florida Immediate Care Center Inc., North Florida Neurosurgery LLC, North Florida Outpatient Imaging Center Ltd., North Florida Physician Services Inc., North Florida Physicians LLC, North Florida Radiation Oncology LLC, North Florida Regional Company Care LLC, North Florida Regional Freestanding Surgery Center L.P., North Florida Regional Investments Inc., North Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., North Florida Regional Psychiatry LLC, North Florida Regional Trauma LLC, North Florida Rehab Investments LLC, North Florida Surgical Associates LLC, North Georgia Primary Care Group LLC, North Hills Cardiac Catheterization Center L.P., North Hills Catheterization Lab LLC, North Hills Orthopaedic Surgeons PLLC, North Hills Surgicare L.P., North Houston - TRMC LLC, North Miami Beach Surgery Center Limited Partnership, North Miami Beach Surgical Center LLC, North Palm Beach County Surgery Center LLC, North River Physician Network LLC, North Shore Specialists of Texas PLLC, North Suburban Spine Center L.P., North Tampa Imaging LLC, North Texas - MCA LLC, North Texas Cardiology PLLC, North Texas Craniofacial Fellowship Program PLLC, North Texas Division Inc., North Texas General L.P., North Texas Geriatrics PLLC, North Texas Heart Surgery Center PLLC, North Texas Internal Medicine Specialists PLLC, North Texas Medical Center Inc., North Texas Neuro Stroke OP PLLC, North Texas Pulmonary Critical Care PLLC, North Texas Sports and Orthopedics Center PLLC, North Texas Stroke Center PLLC, North Texas of Hope PLLC, North Transfer Center LLC, Northeast Florida Cancer Services LLC, Northeast Methodist Surgicare Ltd., Northeast PHO Inc., Northern Utah Healthcare Corporation, Northern Utah Healthcare Imaging Holdco LLC, Northern Utah Imaging LLC, Northern Virginia CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Northern Virginia Community Hospital LLC, Northern Virginia Hospital Corporation, Northern Virginia Surgicenter LLC, Northlake Medical Center LLC, Northlake Physician Practice Network Inc., Northlake Surgical Center L.P., Northlake Surgicare Inc., Northside MRI Inc., Northwest Fla. Home Health Agency Inc., Northwest Florida Healthcare Systems Inc., Northwest Florida Multispecialty Physicians LLC, Northwest Florida Primary Care LLC, Northwest Medical Center Inc., Notami (Opelousas) Inc., Notami Hospitals LLC, Notami Hospitals of Florida Inc., Notami Hospitals of Louisiana Inc., Notami Hospitals of Missouri Inc., Notami LLC, Notco LLC, Nuclear Diagnosis Inc., OB Hospitalists of Womans Hospital PLLC, OB/GYN of Brownsville PLLC, OB/Gyn Associates of Denton PLLC, OBS Diagnostic and Treatment Centre LLP, ODP Holdings LLC, ODP Manager LLC, ODP Properties LLC, OHH Imaging Services LLC, OPRMC-HBP LLC, Oak Hill Acquisition Inc., Oak Hill Family Care LLC, Oak Hill Hospitalists LLC, Oakwood Surgery Center Ltd. LLP, Ocala Health Company Care LLC, Ocala Health Imaging Services LLC, Ocala Health Primary Care LLC, Ocala Health Surgical Group LLC, Ocala Health Trauma LLC, Ocala Regional Outpatient Services Inc., Ocala Stereotactic Radiosurgery LLC, Ocala Stereotactic Radiosurgery Partner LLC, Occupational Health Services of PRH LLC, Occupational and Family Medicine of South Texas, Ogden Imaging LLC, Ogden Internal Medicine & Urology LLC, Ogden Regional Health Plan Inc., Ogden Regional Medical Center Professional Billing LLC, Ogden Senior Center LLC, Ogden Tomotherapy LLC, Ogden Tomotherapy Manager LLC, Okaloosa Hospital Inc., Okeechobee Hospital Inc., Oklahoma Holding Company LLC, Oklahoma Outpatient Surgery Limited Partnership, Oklahoma Physicians - Medical Specialties LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Obstetrics and Gynecology LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Primary Care LLC, Oklahoma Physicians - Surgical Specialties LLC, Oklahoma Surgicare Inc., Old Fort Village LLC, On-Site Primary Care PLLC, Oncology Services of Corpus Christi LLC, Oncology Services of Corpus Christi Manager LLC, OneSourceMed Inc., Online Pathology Services Limited, Orange County Healthcare LLC, Orange Park Hospitalists LLC, Orange Park Medical Center Inc., Orlando CareNow Urgent Care LLC, Orlando Outpatient Surgical Center Inc., Orlando Outpatient Surgical Center Ltd., Orlando Surgicare Ltd., Orthopaedic Specialty Associates L.P., Orthopaedic Sports Specialty Associates Inc., Orthopedic Hospital Ltd., Orthopedics Specialists LLC, Osceola Neurological Associates LLC, Osceola Physician Network LLC, Osceola Regional Hospital Inc., Osceola Regional Hospitalists LLC, Osceola Surgical Associates LLC, Outpatient Cardiovascular Center of Central Florida LLC, Outpatient GP LLC, Outpatient Services - LAD LLC, Outpatient Services Holdings Inc., Outpatient Surgical Services Ltd., Outpatient Womens and Childrens Surgery Center Ltd., Overland Park Cardiovascular Inc., Overland Park Medical Specialists LLC, Overland Park Orthopedics LLC, Overland Park Surgical Specialties LLC, Oviedo Medical Center LLC, Ozarks Medical Services Inc., P&L Associates, P/SL Hyperbaric Partnership, PET CT LLP, PMM Inc., POH Holdings LLC, PSG Delegated Services LLC, PTS Solutions LLC, Pacific Partners Management Services Inc., Palm Beach EFL Imaging Center LLC, Palm Beach General Surgery LLC, Palm Beach Healthcare System Inc., Palm Beach Hospitalists Program LLC, Palmer Medical Center LLC, Palms West Gastroenterology LLC, Palms West Hospital Limited Partnership, Palms West Surgery Center Ltd., Paragon Physicians Hospital Organization of South Texas Inc., Paragon SDS Inc., Paragon Surgery Centers of Texas Inc., Paragon WSC Inc., Paragon of Texas Health Properties Inc., Parallon Business Solutions LLC, Parallon Enterprises LLC, Parallon Health Information Solutions LLC, Parallon Holdings LLC, Parallon Payroll Solutions LLC, Parallon Physician Services LLC, Parallon Revenue Cycle Services Inc., Park Central Surgical Center Ltd., Park Ridge Surgery Center LLC, Park South Imaging Center Ltd., Park View Insurance Company, Parkersburg SJ Holdings Inc., Parkland Hospitalists Program LLC, Parkland Oncology LLC, Parkland Physician Services Inc., Parkridge East Specialty Associates LLC, Parkridge Hospitalists Inc., Parkridge Medical Associates LLC, Parkridge Medical Center Inc., Parkridge Professionals Inc., Parkside Surgery Center Inc., Parkway Cardiac Center Ltd., Parkway Hospital Inc., Parkway Surgery Services Ltd., Parthenon Insurance Company Limited, Pasadena Bayshore Hospital Inc., PatientKeeper, PatientKeeper Inc., Patients First Neurology LLC, Pavilion 2 Condominium Property LLC, Pavilion 2 Medical Office Building Condominium Association Inc., Pavilion Surgicenter LLC, Peach State Anesthesia Partners LLC, Pearland Institute for Womens Health PLLC, Pearland Partner LLC, Pediatric Anesthesia Consultants of San Antonio PLLC, Pediatric Cardiac Intensivists of North Texas PLLC, Pediatric Critical Care of Clear Lake PLLC, Pediatric Hospitalists of Conroe PLLC, Pediatric Intensivist Group LLC, Pediatric Intensivists of El Paso PLLC, Pediatric Intensivists of North Texas PLLC, Pediatric Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Pediatric Specialty Clinic LLC, Pediatric Surgicare Inc., Pediatrics of Greater Houston PLLC, Pensacola Primary Care Inc., Physician Associates of Corporate Woods LLC, Physicians Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Physicians West Surgicenter LLC, Pinellas Medical LLC, Pinnacle Physician Network LLC, Pioneer Medical LLC, Plains Healthcare System Inc., Plano Ambulatory Surgery Associates L.P., Plano Heart Institute L.P., Plano Heart Management LLC, Plano Surgery Center - GP LLC, Plano Surgery Center Real Estate LLC, Plano Surgicenter Real Estate Manager LLC, Plano Urology PLLC, Plantation General Hospital L.P., Plaza Medical Specialists PLLC, Plaza Primary Care PLLC, Plaza Transplant Center PLLC, Podiatry of Clear Lake PLLC, Poinciana Medical Center Inc., Port St. Lucie Surgery Center Ltd., Portland Primary Care LLC, Portsmouth Regional Ambulatory Surgery Center LLC, Portsmouth Surgicenter LLC, Preferred Hospitals Inc., Preferred Works WC LLC, Premier ASC LLC, Premier Medical Management Ltd., Primary Care Medical Associates Inc., Primary Care Plano PLLC, Primary Care Services of Orlando LLC, Primary Care South PLLC, Primary Care West PLLC, Primary Care of West End LLC, Primary Health Asset Holdings Ltd., Primary Health Group Inc., Primary Health Inc., Primary Health Network of South Texas, Primary Health Physicians PLLC, Primary Medical Management Inc., Proaxis Therapy HealthOne LLC, Provident Professional Building Condominium Association Inc., Psychiatry Services of Osceola LLC, Pulaski Community Hospital Inc., Pulaski Urology LLC, Pulmonary Renal Intensivist Group LLC, Putnam Community Medical Center of North Florida LLC, Putnam Hospital Inc., Putnam Radiation Oncology LLC, Putnam Radiation Oncology Manager LLC, Putnam Surgical Group LLC, Quantum/Bellaire Imaging Ltd., Quick Care Centers LLC, Quivira Internal Medicine Inc., RCH LLC, RMC - Pulmonary LLC, RMC Transplant Physicians LLC, RMCA Professionals Mgmt LLC, ROi CPS LLC, Radford Family Medicine LLC, Radiation Oncology Center of Thornton LLC, Radiation Oncology Manager LLC, Raleigh Community Medical Office Building Ltd., Rapides After Hours Clinic L.L.C., Rapides Healthcare System L.L.C., Rapides Regional Physician Group LLC, Rapides Regional Physician Group Primary Care LLC, Rapides Regional Physician Group Specialty Care LLC, Rapides Surgery Center LLC, Raulerson GYN LLC, Raulerson Gastroenterology LLC, Raulerson Primary Care LLC, Raymore Medical Group LLC, Red Rock Holdco LLC, Red Rock at Smoke Ranch LLC, Red Rocks Surgery Center LLC, Redmond Anesthesia Services LLC, Redmond Hospital Services LLC, Redmond Neurosurgery LLC, Redmond Park Health Services Inc., Redmond Park Hospital LLC, Redmond Physician Practice Company, Redmond Specialty Services LLC, Regional Hospital Healthcare Partners LLC, Research Cardiology Associates LLC, Research Family Physicians LLC, Research Internal Medicine LLC, Research Neurology Associates LLC, Research Neuroscience Institute LLC, Resource Optimization & Innovation L.L.C., Reston Hospital Center LLC, Reston Hospitalists LLC, Reston Surgery Center L.P., Retreat Cardiology LLC, Retreat Hospital LLC, Retreat Internal Medicine LLC, Retreat Surgical Associates LLC, Rhodes Limited-Liability Company, Richmond Imaging Employer Corp., Richmond Multi-Specialty LLC, Richmond Pediatric Surgeons LLC, Ridgeline Surgicenter LLC, Rim Building Partners L.P., Rio Grande Healthcare MSO Inc., Rio Grande NP Inc., Rio Grande Regional Hospital Inc., Rio Grande Valley Cardiology PLLC, Rio Grande Valley CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, Rio Grande Valley Urology PLLC, Riverside CyberKnife Manager LLC, Riverside Healthcare System L.P., Riverside Holdings Inc., Riverside Hospital Inc., Riverside Imaging LLC, Riverwalk ASC LLC, Roanoke Imaging LLC, Roanoke Neurosurgery LLC, Roanoke Surgery Center L.P., Roanoke Valley Gynecology LLC, Robotic Radiosurgery LLP, Rocky Mountain Pediatric Hematology Oncology LLC, Rocky Mountain Surgery Center LLC, Rome Imaging Center Limited Partnership, Roodlane Medical Limited, Rose Ambulatory Surgery Center L.P., Rose Health Partners LLC, Rose Medical Plaza Ltd., Rose POB Inc., Rosewood Medical Center Inc., Rosewood Professional Building Ltd., Round Rock Hospital Inc., Round Rock Trauma Surgeons PLLC, Royal Oaks Surgery Center L.P., S.A. Medical Center Inc., SAPN LLC, SCRI Global Services Limited, SCRI Holdings LLC, SCRI Scientifics LLC, SJMC LLC, SSHR Holdco LLC, SSJ St. Petersburg Holdings Inc., STPN Manager LLC, SWMC Inc., Sahara Outpatient Surgery Center Ltd., Salem Hospitalists LLC, Salem Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Salt Lake City Surgicare Inc., Samaritan LLC, San Antonio Division Inc., San Antonio Regional Hospital Inc., San Antonio Surgicenter LLC, San Bernardino Imaging LLC, San Joaquin Surgical Center Inc., San Jose Healthcare System LP, San Jose Hospital L.P., San Jose LLC, San Jose Medical Center LLC, San Jose Pathology Outreach LLC, San Marcos ASC LLC, San Marcos Surgicenter LLC, Sante Fe Family Practitioners PLLC, Sarah Cannon Development Innovations LLC, Sarah Cannon Research Institute LLC, Sarah Cannon Research Institute UK Limited, Sarasota Doctors Hospital Inc., Savannah Behavioral Health Associates LLC, Savannah Health Network LLC, Savannah Health Services LLC, Savannah Inpatient Services LLC, Savannah Multispecialty Associates LLC, Savannah Pediatric Care LLC, Savannah Primary Care Associates LLC, Sebring Health Services LLC, Selma Medical Center Hospital Inc., Senior Health Associates LLC, Short Pump Imaging LLC, Silicon Valley Health Holdings LLC, Silicon Valley Surgery Center L.P., Silicon Valley Surgicenter LLC, Sky Ridge Spine Manager LLC, Sky Ridge Surgery Center L.P., Skyline Medical Group LLC, Skyline Neuroscience Associates LLC, Skyline Rehab Associates LLC, Skyline Specialty Associates LLC, Smith Laboratories Inc., Solis Mammography at Bayshore Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Clear Lake Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Conroe Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Denton Regional Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at HCA Houston Tomball LLC, Solis Mammography at Kingwood Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Las Colinas Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center Alliance LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center Arlington LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of Lewisville LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of McKinney LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical Center of Plano LLC, Solis Mammography at Medical City Dallas LLC, Solis Mammography at Pearland Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Rose Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Skyline Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at StoneCrest Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at West Houston Medical Center LLC, Solis Mammography at Womans Hospital of Texas LLC, Solis Mammography of Cedar Hill LLC, Solis Mammography of CyFair LLC, Solis Mammography of Dallas LLC, Solis Mammography of Flower Mound LLC, Solis Mammography of Frisco LLC, Solis Mammography of Garland LLC, Solis Mammography of Grand Prairie LLC, Solis Mammography of Houston NW LLC, Solis Mammography of Katy LLC, Solis Mammography of Louetta/249 LLC, Solis Mammography of Mainland LLC, Solis Mammography of Mansfield LLC, Solis Mammography of Mesquite LLC, Solis Mammography of Montgomery LLC, Solis Mammography of North Cypress LLC, Solis Mammography of North Loop LLC, Solis Mammography of Sugar Land LLC, Solis Mammography of West Plano LLC, Solis Mammography of Womans Place LLC, South Atlantic Division Inc., South Austin Surgery Center Ltd., South Austin Surgical Management LLC, South Austin Surgicenter LLC, South Brandon Imaging LLC, South Florida Division Practice Inc., South Texas Surgicare Inc., South Transfer Center LLC, South Valley Hospital L.P., Southeast Georgia Health Services LLC, Southern Hills Medical Center LLC, Southern Hills Neurology Consultants LLC, Southern Kentucky Medicine Associates LLC, Southern Kentucky Surgicenter LLC, Southern Texas Physicians Network, Southpoint LLC, Southtown Womens Clinic LLC, Southwest Florida Health System Inc., Southwest Florida Regional Medical Center Inc., Southwest Medical Center Family Practice LLC, Southwest Medical Center Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Southwest Medical Center Surgical Group LLC, Southwest Medpro Ltd., Southwest Surgical Clinic Inc., Southwest Virginia Orthopedics and Spine LLC, Spalding Rehabilitation L.L.C., Specialists in Obstetrics and Gynecology PLLC, Specialty Associates of West Houston PLLC, Specialty Physicians of Northern Virginia LLC, Specialty Surgicare of Las Vegas LP, Spotsylvania Condominium Property LLC, Spotsylvania Medical Center Inc., Spotsylvania Multi-Specialty Group LLC, Spotsylvania Regional Surgery Center LLC, Spring Branch Family Practitioners PLLC, Spring Branch Medical Center Inc., Spring Hill Hospital Inc., Spring Hill Imaging LLC, Spring Hill Physicians LLC, Springview KY LLC, Spruce Pine Healthcare LLC, St. Davids Austin Area ASC LLC, St. Davids Cardiology PLLC, St. Davids CareNow Urgent Care PLLC, St. Davids Healthcare Partnership L.P. LLP, St. Davids Heart & Vascular PLLC, St. Davids Neurology PLLC, St. Davids OB Hospitalist PLLC, St. Davids Ortho Neuro and Rehab PLLC, St. Davids Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation PLLC, St. Davids Quality Alliance LLC, St. Davids Specialized Womens Services PLLC, St. Davids Trauma Surgeons PLLC, St. Lucie Hospitalists LLC, St. Lucie Medical Center Hyperbarics LLC, St. Lucie Medical Center Walk-In Clinic LLC, St. Lucie Medical Specialists LLC, St. Lucie West Primary Care LLC, St. Marks Ambulatory Surgery Associates L.P., St. Marks Gynecology Oncology Care LLC, St. Marks Investments Inc., St. Marks Physician Billing LLC, St. Marks Professional Services LLC, St. Marks South Jordan Family Practice LLC, St. Martins Healthcare Limited, St. Martins Ltd., St. Martins Medical Services Limited, St. Petersburg General Surgery LLC, Stafford Imaging LLC, Statland Medical Group LLC, Steamboat Springs Surgicenter LLC, Sterling Primary Care Associates LLC, Stiles Road Imaging LLC, StoneCrest Surgery Center LLC, StoneSprings Medical Office Building Property LLC, StoneSprings Surgicenter LLC, Stonecrest Medical Group - Family Practice of Murfreesboro LLC, Stonecrest Medical Group - SC Murfreesboro Family Practice LLC, Stones River Hospital LLC, Suburban Medical Center at Hoffman Estates Inc., Sugar Land Surgery Center Anesthesia LLC, Sugar Land Surgery Center Ltd., Sullins Surgical Center Inc., Summit Convenient Care at Lebanon LLC, Summit General Partner Inc., Summit Heart LLC, Summit Outpatient Diagnostic Center LLC, Summit Research Solutions LLC, Summit Surgery Center L.P., Summit Surgical Associates LLC, Summit Walk-in Clinic LLC, Sun Bay Medical Office Building Inc., Sun City Hospital Inc., Sun City Imaging LLC, Sun Towers/Vista Hills Holding Co., Sun-Med LLC, Sunrise Flamingo Holdings LLC, Sunrise Flamingo Surgery Center Limited Partnership, Sunrise Hospital and Medical Center LLC, Sunrise Mountainview Hospital Inc., Sunrise Mountainview Multi-Specialty Clinics LLC, Sunrise Outpatient Services Inc., Sunrise Physician Services LLC, Sunrise Trauma Services LLC, Surgery Associates of NTX PLLC, Surgery Center of Atlantis LLC, Surgery Center of Aventura Ltd., Surgery Center of Bay Area Houston LLC, Surgery Center of Greenview L.P., Surgery Center of Independence L.P., Surgery Center of Overland Park L.P., Surgery Center of Port Charlotte Ltd., Surgery Center of Rome L.P., Surgery Center of the Rockies LLC, Surgical Associates of Southwest Virginia LLC, Surgical Care Medical Group LLC, Surgical Center of Irving Inc., Surgical Facility of West Houston L.P., Surgical Park Center Ltd., Surgical Specialists of Clear Lake PLLC, Surgical Specialists of Conroe PLLC, Surgical Specialists of Corpus Christi PLLC, Surgicare America - Winter Park Inc., Surgicare Merger Company of Louisiana, Surgicare Outpatient Center of Baton Rouge Inc., Surgicare Outpatient Center of Jackson Inc., Surgicare of ADC LLC, Surgicare of AGI LLC, Surgicare of Alpine LLC, Surgicare of Altamonte Springs Inc., Surgicare of Anchorage LLC, Surgicare of Arapahoe LLC, Surgicare of Arlington LLC, Surgicare of Ashburn LLC, Surgicare of Augusta Inc., Surgicare of Aurora Endoscopy LLC, Surgicare of Aventura LLC, Surgicare of Bay Area Endoscopy LLC, Surgicare of Bay Area LLC, Surgicare of Bayonet Point Inc., Surgicare of Bayside LLC, Surgicare of Bountiful LLC, Surgicare of Brandon Inc., Surgicare of Brentwood LLC, Surgicare of Brighton LLC, Surgicare of Brooksville LLC, Surgicare of Brownsville LLC, Surgicare of Buckhead LLC, Surgicare of CAREOS LLC, Surgicare of Central Florida Inc., Surgicare of Central Park Surgery Center LLC, Surgicare of Central San Antonio Inc., Surgicare of Chattanooga LLC, Surgicare of Chippenham LLC, Surgicare of Citrus LLC, Surgicare of Clarksville LLC, Surgicare of Corpus Christi LLC, Surgicare of Countryside Inc., Surgicare of Dallas Specialty LLC, Surgicare of Denton Inc., Surgicare of Denver Clinic LLC, Surgicare of Denver LLC, Surgicare of Denver Mid-Town Inc., Surgicare of Dickson LLC, Surgicare of Eastside LLC, Surgicare of Evans Inc., Surgicare of Fairfax Inc., Surgicare of Florida Inc., Surgicare of Flower Mound Inc., Surgicare of Focus Hand LLC, Surgicare of Fort Worth Co-GP LLC, Surgicare of Fort Worth Inc., Surgicare of Ft. Pierce Inc., Surgicare of Good Samaritan LLC, Surgicare of Gramercy Inc., Surgicare of Greenview Inc., Surgicare of Hanover Inc., Surgicare of Houston Kingwood LLC, Surgicare of Houston LLC, Surgicare of Houston Womens Inc., Surgicare of Indianapolis Inc., Surgicare of Kansas City LLC, Surgicare of Kingwood LLC, Surgicare of Kissimmee Inc., Surgicare of Lakeview Inc., Surgicare of Las Vegas Inc., Surgicare of Laurel Grove LLC, Surgicare of Lorain County Inc., Surgicare of Los Gatos Inc., Surgicare of Los Robles LLC, Surgicare of Loveland LLC, Surgicare of Madison Inc., Surgicare of Manatee Inc., Surgicare of McKinney Inc., Surgicare of Medical City Dallas LLC, Surgicare of Memorial Endoscopy LLC, Surgicare of Merritt Island Inc., Surgicare of Miami Lakes LLC, Surgicare of Mountain West LLC, Surgicare of Mt. 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For 4-year-old Sidney Fahrenbruch, monsters under the bed were an emergency.

Read: Cop Helps Girl, 10, With Math Homework After She Messaged Police Department on Facebook

Officer David Bonday of the Longmont Police Department in Colorado was dispatched to the Fahrenbruch's new home on Sunday to launch a thorough investigation into the monsters that might have been lurking around the house  with little Sidney as his sidekick.

"I think it was her wanting to spend time with a police officer," her mom, Megan Fahrenbruch, told InsideEdition.com.

She explained Sidney met Officer Bonday at a community barbeque event with the police department about a week before they moved into their new home.

"He loved her the first time he met her because she was wearing her police outfit," she said. "She instantly gravitated toward him. That's when she asked him if he'd come check her new house for monsters."

Bonday agreed, and over the next few weeks, he planned what time would work best for the family.

And when he arrived for the inspection, Sidney was waiting for him on the steps in her police uniform, ready for duty.

"It was cute to say the least," Bonday told InsideEdition.com. "Ive never had anyone ask me to check for monsters before."

Handing her a flashlight, Bonday and Sidney began their search.

"They searched the whole house, top to bottom," her mom said. "They went to town. They looked in every closet, every bathroom and every room to make sure there were none."

At the end of their investigation, Bonday and his little assistant concluded the home was secure.

Read: 7-Year-Old Girl Calls 911 After Accidentally Moving Her Elf on the Shelf

"We didn't find any monsters, cleared the whole house as a matter of fact," he said.

Even though Sidney's mom had a hunch they'd reach that conclusion, she said her family appreciated having Officer Bonday come by to check.

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"It actually gave her the confidence to be around the new house," she explained. "She wants to be a police officer now more than ever."

Watch: Girl, 9, Uses Birthday Money to Pay for Police Officers' Lunch After Shootings

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The Worst Human Trafficking Offenders

Human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar enterprise, and it's one of the fastest-growing illicit industries in the world. Each year, the U.N. marks World Day Against Trafficking in Persons, which falls on July 30 this year, to help raise awareness. The U.S. State Department annually investigates more than 100 countries for its Trafficking in Persons report. In the 2017 report, 23 countries were classified as Tier 3, the lowest classification for countries that "do not fully meet the Trafficking Victims Protection Act's minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so." Here's a look at five of the countries that are classified among the worst human trafficking offenders.

Russia

The U.S. Congress-approved sanctions against Russian banks and oil companies also target North Korean labor in Russia and elsewhere. According to the report, Russia recently expanded bilateral agreements with North Korea that allow for labor camps and "slave-like conditions" for workers within Russian borders. About 20,000 workers from North Korea are sent to Russia each year. The country has been rated Tier 3 since 2013.

China

China was downgraded to Tier 3 after three years on the Tier 2 Watch List. Chinese officials responded by calling the assessment "irresponsible." The report cited gaps in state laws against human trafficking and ongoing state-sponsored forced labor despite formal announcements that the practice had been stopped. According to The Diplomat, demographic challenges created by the country's one-child policy have led Chinese men to find wives through sex trafficking.

Iran

Iran's government "continued to punish trafficking victims for unlawful acts committed as a direct result of being subjected to human trafficking, such as adultery, prostitution, and illegal immigration," some of which are punishable by death, according to the report. Migrants, particularly those from Afghanistan, are coerced into combat roles in Syria, and children as young as 3 years old work as street beggars under the threat of physical and sexual abuse.

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Belarus

Forced and compulsory labor are used as punishment for various offenses in Belarus, including government criticism and failure of unemployed people to pay a fine. About 7,000 people suffering from alcoholism or drug dependencies are held in "medical labor centers" with an obligation to work, according to the report. The government has yet to approve a draft of the State Program on Countering Crime and Corruption, which addresses human trafficking. But it has made progress by repealing a law that bound state workers in the lumber industry to their jobs.

Venezuela

Venezuela fell to Tier 3 in 2014 after President Nicolas Maduro's rise to authority in 2013. Sex trafficking and child sex tourism are common, particularly among women lured from poorer regions to tourism hubs. Officials reported an increase of sex trafficking in the informal mining sector, according to the report, but the government did not report any investigations into human trafficking or any protection efforts for victims.

Want to Know More?

Read about the countries perceived to be the most corrupt, statistics on global violence against women and discover more news, rankings and analysis on the U.S. News Best Countries site.

Deidre McPhillips is a data reporter at U.S. News. You can find her on Twitter or email her at dmcphillips@usnews.com.
How often have we thought about the existence of life beyond Earth, and feared that if we ever encountered extraterrestrial beings, they might wreak all kinds of havoc on our planet, as shown in the movies.

But the pertinent question still remains, do aliens exist?

Some might think the only people who believe in aliens are "forum-dwelling internet conspiracy theorists," but several NASA astronauts believe extraterrestrials exist and have been in touch with humanity for a long period, reports said.

Data cruncher and blogger Sam Monfort in his blog on Feb. 21 said the number of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) sightings is currently at an all-time high. He wrote that one of the first recorded UFO sightings was in Portland in 1905, where a "buzzing sphere-shaped UFO descended from the clouds."

Read: Can Scientists Talk To Aliens?

According to Monfort's report, there have been 104,947 reported sightings on record over the past 100-plus years. He used information from the National UFO Reporting Center (NUFORC), which collects and disseminates objective UFO data and keeps careful logs of all UFO sightings worldwide.

Furthermore, there have been several astronauts such as Edgar Mitchell, Cady Coleman, Edwin Buzz Aldrin and Dr Brian OLeary who have claimed to have seen UFOs. Aldrin, one of the first people to walk on the Moon, had shared his experience on board the Apollo 11, when he and fellow astronauts saw something flying alongside their spacecraft. Initially, they thought it was the final stage of a detached rocket, until mission control confirmed it was 6000 miles away from them.

Buzz Aldrin

Both Neil Armstrong and Aldrin saw UFOs shortly after their historic landing on the Moon in Apollo 11 on July 21, 1969, according to unconfirmed reports. NASA astronaut Armstrong believed aliens have a base on the Moon and they apparently warned Armstrong and others to "get off and stay off the Moon."

During a Reddit "Ask Me Anything" session, Aldrin said the "first humans to set foot on Mars should never return to earth."

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When one user asked Aldrin if he believed in aliens and asked him about the sightings he saw on board Apollo 11, the astronaut replied: "On Apollo 11 en route to the Moon, I observed a light out the window that appeared to be moving alongside us. There were many explanations of what that could be, other than another spacecraft from another country or another world - it was either the rocket we had separated from, or the 4 panels that moved away when we extracted the lander from the rocket and we were nose to nose with the two spacecraft."

Although Aldrin was reluctant to describe the sighting as an extraterrestrial craft, he believes there are other life forms in space.

Edgar Dean Mitchell

In 1971, Mitchell became the sixth person to walk on the Moon, and the journey spiritually transformed his life in such a way that he devoted much of his time exploring "esoteric realms of science, psychic phenomena and the existence of extraterrestrial beings."

He was convinced after the journey to the Moon that "aliens have been observing us and have been here for some time." Mitchell once even claimed that "peace-loving" aliens had visited Earth to save humanity from nuclear war, and indicated the Vatican knew about the existence of extraterrestrials.

Mitchell, who had been outspoken about his belief in aliens, told Mirror Online that top-ranking military sources had spotted UFOs during weapons tests. He also said that strange crafts flying over missile bases at the White Sands facility have been spotted by military insiders. The facility is a government-owned rocket engine test site where the world's first ever nuclear bomb was detonated in 1945.

Gordon Cooper

Cooper was one of the seven astronauts who took part in Project Mercury, the first human spaceflight program of the U.S., which ran from 1958 to 1963. Cooper, the last American to fly in space alone, had said he spotted UFOs flying over Germany seven years before he went into space.

In 1963, when he shot into space in a Mercury capsule for a 22-orbit journey around the world, Cooper told the tracking station he could see a glowing, greenish object appearing in front of him and approaching his capsule. The UFO was reportedly "real and solid," because even the tracking radar had picked it up, according to syti.net.

According to a taped interview by author, J.L. Ferrando, Cooper revealed how he felt he was living with a secret, which was imposed on all specialists in astronautics. "I can now reveal that every day, in the USA, our radar instruments capture objects of form and composition unknown to us. And there are thousands of witness reports and a quantity of documents to prove this, but nobody wants to make them public," he said. He added: "Because authority is afraid that people may think of God knows what kind of horrible invaders. So the password still is: We have to avoid panic by all means."

Read: Are There Aliens On Mars?

Brian OLeary

O'Leary, who was one of the 11 astronauts named for a possible NASA Mars mission in the 1960s, authored three books that spoke about our connection to UFOs. He had also lectured on the subject across the world.

Regarding crop circles that he first saw in 1991 in England, he said in an interview: "The Crop Circle phenomenon, besides the hoaxed ones, is a very real phenomenon created by some unknown, probably non-human intervention," according to UFO Evidence.

OLeary is also reported to have said, "There is abundant evidence that we are being contacted. Civilizations have been monitoring us for a very long time and that their appearance is bizarre from any type of traditional materialistic western point of view.

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The greenish glow under the microscope might not have rivaled Times Square in its intensity, but to the microbiologist Katharine Coyte, her first glimpse of this bustling city was just as exciting. As a doctoral student at the University of Oxford, she had engineered a small plastic slab studded with holes, like the worlds tiniest slice of Swiss cheese, called a microfluidic chip. It was meant to resemble the porous environments, such as soil, in which many bacteria live, and she had seeded it with different strains of E. coli. She tagged each of the strains with a fluorescent protein to give it a distinctive color, which would allow Coyte to measure how many of each cell type were present. As a steady stream of water brought nutrients to the setup, she stood back and watched the bacteria build a microbial megalopolis known as a biofilm.

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Biofilms are everywhere. Far from being rare alternatives to the lone microbe swimming in a flask or sprawled in a petri dish, 99.9 percent of the simple cells called prokaryotes default to living in close quarters among millions of their compatriots. These biofilms of clustering bacteria can create impossible-to-eradicate infections on central lines and catheters; they foul everything from sewer lines to our teeth. The billions of bacteria that can live in a single biofilm cover themselves with a sticky combination of sugar and protein called the extracellular matrix, which effectively glues them to their surface of choice. Both the matrix and the physical shape of the biofilm protect those cells living at the center of the structure from attack by predators and antibiotics. The size of the biofilm and the interaction of cells within it give the different cells the opportunity to specialize in a particular task, such as acquiring food, subverting predators or acting as a reservoir of genetic material from which to regrow the entire structure.

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We can watch these complex communities in what is essentially their natural habitat and study their structure or metabolism. Theres a lot we can learn when we can study biofilms in their whole freaky native state, said Melissa Garren, a marine biologist at California State University, Monterey Bay.

Time-lapse video shows the growth of Pseudomonas aeruginosa as a biofilm on a flat plate. (Scott Chimileski / Roberto Kolter / Harvard Medical School)

As a case in point, the microfluidic chip experiments by Coyte, now a postdoc at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York, and her colleagues illuminated how the flow of water and the number of bacteria present can constrain and reconfigure the growth of biofilms. Their work, published this year in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, adds to a burgeoning literature demonstrating that physical forces like hydrodynamic shear and the stickiness of the extracellular matrix shape the growth of microbes into complex collectives. These studies provide a big step on the path to decoding the rules that govern the formation and evolution of biofilms.

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Those biophysical forces are like universal zoning rules for the biofilm cities: They govern how the inhabitants obtain food and building materials, how they can move and how they interact with one another. Just as urban planners use their knowledge of civil engineering principles and regulations to build better cities for people, microbiologists and bioengineers can use these rules to make objects more or less hospitable to the billions of cells that live in and around us.

On September 17, 1683, Antonie van Leeuwenhoek wrote to the Royal Society of London with news of tiny animalcules he had seen under the microscope. From the teeth of himself, two women and two old men who had never cleaned their teeth, Leeuwenhoek had scraped a little white matter, which is as thick as if twere batter, and looked at it with his hand-polished lenses. His letter described an unbelievably great company of living animalcules, a-swimming more nimbly than any I had ever seen up to this time, in what was to become one of the first descriptions of bacteria recorded. Scientists now know that the tooth plaque Leeuwenhoek described was actually a biofilm, not a simple collection of individual bacteria.

Despite the dates of Leeuwenhoeks early discoveries, it took microbiologists until the 1970s and 80s to begin investigating biofilms. Early pioneers like Bonnie Bassler of Princeton University identified the chemical signals that bacteria use to take a census of their colleagues in a process known as quorum sensing. Other researchers decoded the genes that synthesized the extracellular matrix and how this matrix could vary between species and even within the same individual.

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Important as those scientific contributions were, the studies suffered from a fundamental limitation. What makes a biofilm different from a mass of identical bacteria are the multitudes of interactions among the component microbes. Yet those scientists were largely obliged to observe biofilms growing in petri dishes or the equivalent. And it became increasingly clear that those simple laboratory conditions could not support the full range of biophysical interactions that shape biofilms and their function.

We have a habit of thinking of bacterial evolution in petri dishes, which means were missing crucial factors on selection pressures. For example, many of the interactions among the bacteria in biofilms are intensely competitive, both within a biofilm and between them. Fast-growing organisms will snatch up nutrients before their neighbors take over their space. Other bacterial species secrete antibiotics to prevent competitors from elbowing into their territory. To prevent freeloading cells from getting the benefit of extracellular matrix produced at a cost of energy and valuable nutrient resources, some species of bacteria attach themselves to matrix molecules to privatize them. The microbes in a biofilm can also specialize at different tasks, depending on where in the biofilm they are located and their genetic background. Cells on the edge focus on acquiring food and warding off predators, whereas those in the core often hunker down and serve as reserves. The cells within also walk the fine line between sharing resources and competing for them. The success or failure of all these interactions depends strongly on precise details of the dynamic physical circumstances in which the biofilms are growing, which can change significantly over a scale of microns.

What results, Coyte says, is a complex cooperative that looks and acts differently from bacteria growing in pure culture. We have a habit of thinking of bacterial evolution in petri dishes, which means were missing crucial factors on selection pressures based on physics, she said.

The first biofilm researchers focused more on the chemical environments of these microbial communities rather than the physical forces that also governed their existence, according to Knut Drescher, a biophysicist at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, Germany. In the past five to 10 years, advances in microscale engineering and high-resolution microscopy have allowed scientists to measure physical forces acting on individual cells and replicate a range of environmental conditions in the lab that have enabled scientists to begin to track the formation of a biofilm, cell by cell.

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If you want to understand how a biofilm grows, you need to see individual cells. The resulting architecture and physiology arise from these interactions, Drescher said.

Even the earliest experiments on the physical forces affecting a growing biofilm challenged existing ideas. Microfluidic chips showed that the texture and shape of the surface to which the microbes attached were far more important than anyone thought, because they controlled the distribution of nutrients and the shape of the resulting biofilm. Similarly, rapidly flowing water can impede the formation of a biofilm because hydrodynamic shear forces can pry off loose cells.

But researchers have found exceptions. In 2008, Wendy Thomas, a bioengineer at the University of Washington, showed that some strains of E. coli have evolved fringelike attachment threads called fimbriae that adhere better in fast-flowing water than in a more torpid stream. Other bacteria create a different type of extracellular matrix that gives them superior sticking strength in areas with high amounts of hydrodynamic shear. The picture becomes only more complex as researchers recognize more layers of physical variables and biological responses as relevant.

This complexity turns out to be essential to understanding the real-world behaviors of many bacteria. Consider the bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa, which can cause life-threatening infections in immunocompromised individuals and can form resilient biofilms on medical equipment such as ventilators and catheters. Like E. coli, Pseudomonas strains differ in the type of matrix molecules they make, if they make them at all. In January 2017, Bassler, Drescher and their colleagues showed that, in simple environments, strains that produce matrix always win out over their nonproducing cousins.

Inserting obstructions to simulate a porous environment creates much more complex flow conditions, leading to a more balanced growth of two strains of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. (Carey D. Nadell / Deirdre Ricaurte / Jing Yan / Knut Drescher / Bonnie L. Bassler / eLife)

Then the scientists made the environment more complex, substituting simple linear structures for curved or branching ones. This serpentine network created traffic problems, a growing pain common to all developing regions. At first, the researchers found, the matrix-producing Pseudomonas out-competed their neighbors because they could stick to the surface despite the continuous flow of water. Then the problems began. The resulting biofilm of matrix producers grew so large that it cut off its own flow of water and nutrients, providing a perfect flow-free niche in which matrix-free cells could grow without competition from their matrix-producing counterparts. Water flow and surface microstructure, then, allowed different strains of Pseudomonas to dominate the resulting biofilm.

Different strains or species of bacteria have different types of interactions in a biofilm, similar to the different vibes you can get in different neighborhoods in the same city, according to Carey Nadell, a senior scientist in Dreschers lab and first author on the new study describing this work, which was published this year in eLife.

In the growth of biofilms, the race goes not always to the swift. Coytes study in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences looked at how more moderate growth could result in greater long-term success in complex environments. Mathematical models Coyte devised supported that hypothesis, so to explore it further, she built the microfluidic chip that mimicked the soil habitat of many biofilms. She tagged each of two strains of E. colione that grew into biofilms quickly and one more slowlywith its own fluorescent colored marker to identify them under the microscope.

What she and her colleagues observed was that under conditions of low flow, the slow-growing strains prospered because the fast-growing strains tended to cut off their own access to resources. When flow speeds where high, both varieties often washed away, but the fast-growing strains were more successful at dispersing cells downstream to colonize other locations. At intermediate flow speeds, the results were more complex. As the fast-growing E. coli biofilm got thicker, it shifted the flow of water and nutrients toward its slower-growing brethren. That advantage was not necessarily permanent, however: As the slow growers own thickness began to block the movement of water, the advantage could sometimes shift back to the fast-growing strain. This stabilizing back-and-forth between the strains moderated the overall growth of the biofilm, yet both strains continued to grow and disperse cells.

Previous studies were descriptive; they werent quantitative enough. These studies helped to change that, says Yang Liang, a microbiologist at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore who co-authored a review of Coytes and Nadells work in Trends in Microbiology. Even tiny shifts in surface structure or water flow can alter which microbes thriveif they survive at all.

Antibiotics have worked wonders in fighting many types of dispersed infections, but bacteria growing as biofilms are far less vulnerable and far more resilient. Decades spent throwing ever-more powerful antibiotics at biofilms hasnt stemmed the death tolls from them. Focusing on the biophysical rules that control these bacterial cities at the microscale might just give scientists a way to halt the urban sprawl and give more humans a fighting chance.

This article appears courtesy of Quanta Magazine.

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This article was originally published on The Atlantic.
LAKESIDE  The news was both good and worrisome for the crowd of Flathead Lakers.

Nearly 50 of the group gave up a night last week to hear the latest on the challenges facing the lake theyve been working to protect since 1958.

The University of Montanas Flathead Lake Biological Station Director Jim Elser offered the good news that the latest round of sophisticated DNA monitoring showed no evidence that invasive quagga or zebra mussels had set up shop in the pristine waters of Flathead.

But there was a caveat.

Despite the quick action thats been taken since last winters discovery of larvae of the invasive mussels at Tiber and a suspected detection in Canyon Ferry last winter, Elser said theres no way of saying for certain that an infected watercraft hasnt been launched in Flathead Lake.

In fact, Elser said its probably inevitable that it either has happened or will someday.

Considering that, Elser said the worst thing that could happen is for people to just give up and refuse to play an active role in ensuring the destructive mussels dont gain a foothold in the last uninfected major watershed in the country.

With their ability to reproduce quickly with devastating results to infrastructure for hydropower, recreation and municipal waters, Elser and Tom McDonald, the fish, wildlife, recreation and conservation manager for the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, said everyone who cares about the Flathead Lake drainage has a responsibility to do their part.

Its a new day in boating. Its a new day in fishing. Its a new day for recreation in western Montana, McDonald said. All of you are ambassadors in the fight to keep invasive mussels from spreading here. All of you are boat inspectors.

The Flathead Lakers honored CSKT with the group's annual stewardship award for the tribes quick response to address the threat of the new aquatic invasive species.

The tribes closed all water bodies, other than Flathead Lake, to motorized watercraft or watercraft launched from trailers, and required inspections of all boats using tribal waters. They inspected 3,900 boats at their Polson office and set aside $250,000 from mitigation funding to pay for a new position to lead the aquatic invasive species team and pay for additional efforts to keep mussels out of the watershed.

We knew right from the beginning that this was very serious, McDonald said. There wouldnt be an opportunity for a do-over.

***

Education will be a key in keeping Flathead Lake mussel free.

The notion of cleaning, draining and drying a boat every time its moved from one water body to the next has to become as automatic as putting on a seat belt, McDonald said.

Those prevention efforts can make a difference.

After invasive mussels showed up in the Midwest, the states of Wisconsin and Minnesota took two different routes.

Wisconsin opted for the route of least resistance and didnt make the effort to keep mussels from spreading. As a result, nearly every lake in that state is now infected.

On the other hand, in the State of 10,000 Lakes, Minnesota started an educational program and used other efforts to stop the spread of invasive mussels. As a result of that effort, only about 20 lakes in Minnesota have populations of mussels.

Our lives and environment would change for the worse if invasive mussels gained a foothold here, said Flathead Lakers president Steve Russo. The experience in other states can teach us something.

Efforts to inspect boats at the edges of the Flathead Basin are making a difference.

Russo said boaters are learning  sometimes the hard way  that the law requires them to stop at the inspection stations.

He told the story of one boater who zipped by the inspection station only to be pulled over a few minutes later by a Lake County sheriffs deputy. The boater apparently told the deputy he didnt have time for the inspection. The deputy replied that he had the authority to impound the mans boat for 72 hours and fine him $500 for not taking the time.

He decided to go back to the station, Russo said.

***

Technology is also helping in the effort to keep invasive mussels from invading Flathead Lake.

While the states monitoring effort focuses on looking for mussel larvae, Elser said that method is actually a step too late. By the time there are enough larvae to collect, the invasive mussels have already reproduced and gained a foothold.

UMs Yellow Bay Biological Station is hoping to be able to discover the presence of mussels by testing the lakes waters for their DNA.

The station has some of the worlds leading experts in the technology that allows scientists to learn what species are present in water without ever actually capturing one. That technology continues to evolve to the point now that scientists at the Yellow Bay station are testing a monitor that cuts the time necessary to test samples from days to hours.

Environmental DNA is really a mind-blowing capability that we now have available to us, Elser said. Its the only way to find them before they have a chance to reproduce.

If invasive mussels are discovered in the lake early, it offers a chance for people to keep their spread to a minimum. At a lake in New York state, scuba divers were used to harvest as many mussels as possible in the early stages of an infestation.

Elser said that effort has so far kept the mussels from spreading.

Theres some that would say that its impossible to keep them out, Elser said. Im worried that some in state agencies have taken that attitude. Some believe that if one mussel larva finds its way into Flathead Lake, its over.

But thats not true.

For an infestation to occur, some things have to come together for mussels. There has to be a large enough concentration of them to procreate, reproduce and spread.

Its hard to be a mussel larva all by yourself, Elser said.

Thats why early detection is so important.

The station collected 120 samples from 30 sites around the lake in December shortly after the discovery of invasive mussel larvae in the state. That was repeated again in April.

There were no detections in the April sample, Elser said. Thats good news.  We will be repeating that again this summer and in the fall.

McDonald said the 10-foot draw-down that happens every winter at Flathead Lake could turn out to be helpful in stopping small infestations of invasive mussels from gaining that foothold.

There may have been little colonies that started in the fall and then were exposed during the winter draw-down, he said. If you look at the stats and the number of boats coming from all directions, you would have to think the lake has been exposed before. If you were a betting man and was asked which lake had the best chance for invasive mussels to appear, I think you would have to say Flathead.

But now theres been a paradigm change with the discovery of invasive mussels in the state.

McDonald said thats why the tribes required that every boat owner was required to have their boat inspected before it could be launched on waters managed by the CSKT.

It was meant to be a wake-up call to everyone, McDonald said. There were so many people who had never been through a check station. It was all new to them. We wanted them to see that its not a big hardship and have the opportunity to explain to them what is at risk.

People were asleep at the wheel, he said. They needed to wake up. They need to know that they cant be lazy boaters any more.
Charlie Gard, the terminally ill British baby at the center of a legal battle that raised ethical issues and captured the worlds attention, has died. He would have turned one next week.

The infant died a day after a court ruled he could be moved to a hospice and removed from life support.

Our beautiful little boy has gone," his mother, Connie Yates, said in a statement obtained by the BBC. "We are so proud of you Charlie."

Charlie suffered from the rare, genetic disease called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome, which causes progressive brain damage and muscle weakness.

His mother and father, Chris Gard, fought a lengthy battle with Great Ormond Street Hospital to get permission to take Charlie to the United States for an experimental treatment called nucleoside bypass therapy.

Read: Baby Delivered by Emergency C-Section After Mom Was Struck By Lightning Dies: Report

The couple tried for five months to convince authorities to allow Charlie to be moved, but judges from the High Court, Supreme Court and the European Court all agreed with doctors who said the treatment would not be beneficial.

Charlies case attracted attention from all over the world, including that of Pope Francis, who said he was following the case with affection and sadness.

For them he prays, hoping that their desire to accompany and care for their own child to the end is not ignored, the Vatican said in a statement.

The Vaticans Bambino Gesu Childrens Hospital in Rome offered to allow Yates and Gard to keep Charlie on life support there until a decision was ultimately made, but it was later determined that such a move could not legally occur.

President Donald Trump also weighed in on the matter, tweeting: If we can help little #CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so."

Read: Teen Dies From Brain-Eating Amoeba After Rafting Trip With Her Church

On Thursday, the couple reportedly said their final wish to have more time with their son was denied, as a judge ruled to move Charlie to a hospice and have life support withdrawn.

Story continues

Most people wont ever have to go through what we have been through, Yates said in a statement. Weve had no control over our sons life and no control over our sons death.

Doctors treating Charlie said the risk of an unplanned and chaotic end to Charlies life at home was unthinkable.

We deeply regret that profound and heartfelt differences between Charlies doctors and his parents have played out in court over such a protracted period, Great Ormond Street Hospital said in a statement, The New York Times reported. We will never do anything that could cause our patients unnecessary and prolonged suffering.

Watch: 14-Year-Old Girl Electrocuted After Using Phone in Bathtub

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Washington (AFP) - Retired Marine Corps general John Kelly was brought in as US President Donald Trump's chief of staff to bring order to what was seen as a White House in disarray.

Sixteen months later, Kelly is gone amid reports that his relationship with the volatile Trump had deteriorated to such an extent they were no longer on speaking terms.

On Saturday Trump told reporters that Kelly, 68, would be leaving at the end of the year and "I appreciate his service very much."

Four months earlier, the chief of staff had said he expected to remain in the White House through Trump's 2020 reelection campaign.

Although Kelly is credited with bringing some discipline to the Oval Office, his tenure was hardly smooth.

Kelly was serving as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security when he was brought in on July 31, 2017 to replace Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff.

Kelly took over a White House plagued by political intrigue and allegations of election collusion with Russia.

Priebus, a former chairman of the Republican Party, was ousted just days after Trump ignored his wishes and named Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci to be White House communications director.

Kelly was also not enamored with Scaramucci and "The Mooch," as he is known, was shown the door after an ill-advised profane interview with The New Yorker.

Next to go was Steve Bannon, the White House chief strategist who helped get Trump elected but clashed repeatedly with other top aides to the president.

At the same time as he was cleaning house, Kelly also imposed himself as a strict gatekeeper to the Oval Office, reportedly insisting that even Trump's daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, both of whom have senior White House roles, go through him.

But Kelly's authority as the White House gatekeeper did not last long as tensions rose with a president who bristles at being controlled.

Rumors of Kelly's imminent departure surfaced repeatedly over the past few months and CNN reported on Friday that he and Trump "have stopped speaking in recent days."

Story continues

Kelly's first brush with controversy came in October of last year when he described a congresswoman from Florida as an "empty barrel."

- 'Too lazy' -

Several of Kelly's statements on immigration also raised eyebrows.

In January, he claimed to a group of Democratic members of Congress that Trump's views on building the US-Mexico border wall had "evolved" but the president came out the very next day and said this was not true.

In an interview, Kelly said some young immigrants were "too lazy" to sign up for a program that would shield them from deportation.

Kelly also came in for criticism over his handling of the case of Rob Porter, who worked at Trump's right hand despite accusations of abuse by his two former wives, which ultimately forced Porter's resignation.

Announcing Kelly's appointment, Trump praised the veteran of more than 40 years in the Marine Corps as a "Great American and a Great Leader."

Kelly capped his military career as head of the US Southern Command, an assignment that immersed him in border security issues and counter-drug operations in the Caribbean and Central and South America.

That experience prepared him to take charge of Homeland Security, a sprawling bureaucracy responsible for border protection and internal threats.

At Homeland Security, Kelly was pivotal in the effort to carry out Trump's election promises to build a wall on the Mexican border, deport undocumented immigrants and tighten visa screening for potential extremists.

The blunt-talking Kelly is close to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, also a retired Marine Corps general. Kelly served as Mattis's top aide in the 2003 assault on Baghdad that crushed Saddam Hussein's army.

- Lost own son in Afghanistan -

He is further shaped by the experience of having his own son, also a Marine, die in battle. Lieutenant Robert Michael Kelly was killed in Afghanistan in 2010.

A native of Boston, Kelly enlisted in the Marines when he was 20, spent two years in an infantry company, and then left to go to university.

After graduating he rejoined the Corps and rose steadily through the ranks.

In the late 1990s, he was the Marine Corps commandant's liaison to the House of Representatives, the first of two such stints that exposed him to the political give-and-take between the military and legislators.
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's Foreign Ministry expressed serious concern on Saturday after South Korea said it will proceed with the deployment of four additional units of the U.S. THAAD anti-missile defense system. The deployment will not resolve South Korea's security concerns and will only make things more complex, the ministry said, reiterating a Chinese call for the system to be withdrawn. North Korea said earlier on Saturday it had conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that proved its ability to strike all of America's mainland. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Kim Coghill)
The race to replace Donald Trump has begun after the first candidate declared his intention to run in the 2020 US presidential election.

John Delaney, a Democratic congressman from Maryland, has announced he will seek his partys presidential nomination in a bid to defeat Mr Trump.

Mr Delaney, 54, tweeted: Im running for President.

In an article for The Washington Post, he set out a policy programme emphasising his socially liberal and pro-business views.

Mr Delaney said his politics was based on simultaneously celebrating the power of our free-market economy while insisting that there is a role for government to set goals and rules of the road and take care of those who are left behind.

In a message focused on preparing our country for the future, the congressman highlighted technological innovation, automation and globalisation as issues that needed political attention.

We need to encourage a more just and inclusive form of capitalism and reduce barriers to small-business formation, start-ups, job creation, investment and growth, he added. We need to strengthen our safety-net programs and create a new social contract.

Mr Delaney said he would not be seeking re-election to Congress in order to focus on his presidential bid.

To do this work with the commitment it deserves, I will not be running for re-election to the House of Representatives, he said. No games, no cat-and-mouse, no backup plan at the 11th hour if a focus group goes badly.

Mr Delaney has represented Maryland in the House of Representatives since 2013. He grew up in a blue-collar family but made his fortune by co-founding a pair of healthcare and financial companies that went on to be floated on the New York Stock Exchange.

He is the first candidate to announce his 2020 presidential bid. Others Democrats tipped to run include senators Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts and Kamala Harris from California.

Veteran Vermont senator Bernie Sanders has also not ruled out a second challenge after losing out to Hillary Clinton in the 2016 contest.
EL MANSOURI, Lebanon (Reuters) - On Lebanon's beaches, endangered sea turtles have a human ally to help them in the face of myriad threats. Mona Khalil, 77, founded The Orange House Project in 2000 to protect sea turtles on the south Lebanon beach in el Mansouri from predators, pollution and encroaching humans. "I am teaching and encouraging the new generation how to take care of the environment and as I am getting old I want the new generation to continue what I am doing now", she said. With sea turtles returning to the same beach where they were born to lay their eggs, Khalil relocates nests threatened by agriculture and installs metal grids to protect them from predators. She also raises the eggs by hand at the group's facility and released the first of this year's baby turtles earlier this month. Every time there are new hatchings and turtles released she invites groups of families and school children to watch. "I didnt know we had sea turtles who came to this beach here to lay their eggs here," teacher Faten Chalhoub, 34, who was there with her nieces told Reuters. "When I saw them for the first time it brought me great happiness, I loved them. I fell in love", she added. There are some in the town who feel differently about Khalil's work. Her activism was responsible for banning dynamite fishing in the area, which resulted in her house being shot at and attempts to burn her farm down. There are two species of sea turtle that breed in Lebanon, the green turtle, which is an endangered species and the loggerhead turtle, which is classed as a vulnerable species. The exact number of turtles in the eastern Mediterranean is uncertain. An estimate cited by the World Wildlife Fund suggested that there were 60,000 nesting female loggerhead turtles worldwide. Khalil is determined to carry on with her work, despite any hostility, "I fought for 17 years, so why not, 18, 19, 20 more. As long as God gives me life, I am a fighter", she said. (Writing by Maria Semerdjian in Beirut and Mark Hanrahan in London Editing by Jeremy Gaunt.)
In a pair of tweets Saturday, President Donald Trump expressed his disappointment with China over North Korea firing an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) Friday that appears to have the range to reach most major U.S. cities. Trump also accused past U.S. leaders of allowing trade worth billions of dollar to happen with Beijing, despite it not taking any measures to curb Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.

READ: Is China Worried About US Arm Deal With Taiwan, The First Under Trump Rule?

Twitter users were quick to react to Trumps comments, with most criticizing him for his double standards and pointing out he and his daughter Ivanka Trump have helped the Asian country in promoting trade with America.

Some of the users expressed disappointment in the commander-in-chief for just tweeting about the issue and not taking any concrete steps to tackle it.

Trump in his tweet indicated his helplessness over the issue, hinting at policies made by former President Barack Obama. Some users latched on to this and said the attitude revealed his insecurity.

However, there were some who appreciated Trump and criticized Obamas policies.

The president's response came a day after North Korea claimed to have conducted another ICBM launch and termed it a stern warning for the U.S. The new missile launch comes just a month after Pyongyang conducted its first ICBM test. Trump condemned Pyongyangs actions in a statement, terming it reckless and dangerous.

Story continues

By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people. The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region, the statement read.

This is not the first time that Trump has criticized China on the North Korea issue. In May, after North Korea tested a new type of Scud missile, Trump wrote on his personal Twitter account: North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet another ballistic missilebut China is trying hard!

Trump again targeted China in June and wrote on Twitter that while he greatly appreciated the efforts of President Xi & China to help with North Korea, it has not worked out. The president has repeatedly said the U.S. would take all necessary action to ensure Americas security, the administration is yet to come up with a concrete plan for the same.

READ: Entire US In Strike Range, Claims North Korea, What Options US Has

The U.S. and South Korea militaries conducted joint military exercises after both the ICBM missile launches in a show of strength, but it doesn't seem to have deterred Pyongyang. On Sunday, the U.S. flew two supersonic bomber planes accompanied by South Korean jet fighters over the Korean peninsula.

Meanwhile, South Korea President Moon Jae-in has called for talks with the U.S. on deploying more anti-missile defense units in the region. Seoul is also speeding up the deployment of four additional U.S. THAAD antimisile defense system in the region, reports said.

South Korea had earlier deployed two such units but the rest were delayed due to environmental concerns.The U.S. has also used sanctions as a tool to contain North Korea, but it doesn't seem to have deterred Pyongyang so far.

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Donald Trumps crackdown on immigration may be emboldening the transnational street gang MS-13, which the President has vowed to dismantle, decimate and eradicate.

While addressing law enforcement officials on Long Island, New York, the President asserted that previous weak immigration enforcement has allowed the gang to terrorise communities.

And they were all let in here over a relatively short period of time, Mr Trump said. Not during my period of time, believe me. But were getting them out. Theyre going to jails, and then theyre going back to their country. Or theyre going back to their country, period.

MS-13, whose formal name is La Mara Salvatrucha, formed decades ago among Salvadoran immigrants in Los Angeles and has since built a criminal network that spans across the US. It is estimated to have 10,000 members nationwide.

Mr Trump's visit to the New York county that has been racked by violence attributed to the gang  17 murders over 18 months, according to The Washington Post  aimed to give power and poignancy to his message that more must be done to fight immigration, the newspaper said.

But while Mr Trump has promised to wipe out the gang, the FBI has said it is growing, according to CNN.

Several people familiar with MS-13, including two gang members themselves, told the network they think the Presidents crackdown on immigrants is helping the gang because witnesses of crimes are more reluctant to come forward for fear of being deported.

It's not like before, where ... they (the gang) were more hidden, said Margarita, whose teenage son was attacked by the gang in suburban New York.

People can get deported, so they don't call the police. So they [MS-13] feel more free, she said.

I think it's emboldening them, because this gives them the opportunity to tell immigrants, What are you gonna do? Are you going to report us? They're deporting other innocent people ... [so] they're going to associate you with us by you coming forward, said Walter Barrientos, Long Island coordinator with Make the Road, an immigrant advocacy group.

Story continues

Mr Trump used stark language in his speech on Friday, saying MS-13 gang members have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful, quiet neighbourhoods into bloodstained killing fields, a phrase often used to describe a site in Cambodia where thousands of people were killed by the Khmer Rouge  a group responsible for one of the worst mass killings of the 20th Century.

Mr Trump also appeared to conflate immigration with crime, even though several studies  over many years  have concluded that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than people born in the US.

Unlike what Mr Trump suggested, the members of MS-13 were not all let in here.

According to CNN in May, the departments of Justice and Homeland Security have been unable to provide reporters with any estimates of how many MS-13 members nationwide came into the US illegally  and how many members joined the gang after coming to the US.

However, the network also reported that the gang actively recruits in the USs immigrant communities and often victimizes undocumented immigrants, who are vulnerable to extortion because they are afraid law enforcement officials will discover their status.
President Donald Trump: AP

Donald Trump appears to have threatened members of Congress after Republicans failed to deliver on one of his key campaign promises to repeal and replace Obamacare.

In one of his latest tweets, Mr Trump wrote, If a new HealthCare Bill is not approved quickly, BAILOUTS for Insurance Companies and BAILOUTS for Members of Congress will end very soon!

The Senate's Republican leadership suffered a colossal defeat earlier this week when a majority of senators, including members of their own party, rejected multiple proposals aimed at dismantling the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as Obamacare.

After the final failed vote in the early hours of Friday morning, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the upper chamber would move on from healthcare to other matters, but the President appears to have other plans.

Observers have suggested that Mr Trump in the second part of his tweet asserted he will eliminate subsidised health insurance for members of Congress unless they pass a healthcare bill quickly.

Meanwhile, in the first part, he appears to have threatened to cancel payments that compensate insurance companies for reducing out-of-pocket costs for low-income people. Insurance companies have been demanding big rate increases or fleeing from individual insurance markets created by Obamacare, and making those cost-sharing reduction payments could be key to keeping insurers in the market and preventing spikes in premiums.

While the Trump administration has previously threatened to cancel those payments to destabilise markets and bring Democrats to the negotiating table on healthcare reform, some powerful Republican legislators have also called for guaranteeing the cost-sharing subsidies.
President Donald Trump pumps his fist after speaking to law enforcement officials: AP

Donald Trump has appeared to endorse police brutality.

During a speech to law enforcement officials on Long Island, New York, the President suggested that officers shouldn't protect suspects' heads when they're pushing them into police vehicles.

And when you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon  you just see them thrown in, rough  I said, Please dont be too nice, Mr Trump said.

Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody  dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, okay? he added.

His remarks were greeted with loud applause and laughter.

Mr Trump also asserted that laws were horrendously stacked against police officers, saying that that will change.

For years and years, [laws have] been made to protect the criminal, Trump said. Totally protect the criminal, not the officers. You do something wrong, youre in more jeopardy than they are. These laws are stacked against you. Were changing those laws.

As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.  Suffolk County PD (@SCPDHq) July 28, 2017

In response to the President's address, the Suffolk County Police Department said it does not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.

The SCPD has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously, the department tweeted.
Mr Trump had pledged to improve ties with the Kremlin but the new legislation now forces him to take a hard line: Evan Vucci/AP

Donald Trump is to sign a bill in the coming days that imposes fresh sanctions on Russia, the White House said.

The US Senate voted almost unanimously for the crackdown earlier this week for the legislation which forces Mr Trump to seek approval from Congress if he wishes to ease the sanctions.

As a result the US leader will have to take a hard line with Moscow after US intelligence agencies concluded that the Kremlin meddled in the 2016 presidential election to help Mr Trump pull off his shock victory.

It dashes his pledge for better ties with the Moscow as the agencies investigate whether his campaign colluded with Russian hackers to dig up dirt on his then White House rival Hillary Clinton.

Russia hit back after the sanctions were approved overwhelmingly in the Senate, accusing Washington of extreme aggression in international affairs.

Its Foreign Ministry also ordered the US to cut back its diplomatic staff in Moscow by 1 September and to shut down its embassy recreational retreat on the outskirts of the capital.

The White House last night issued a statement saying Mr Trump would sign the bill after reviewing the final version.

President Donald J. Trump read early drafts of the bill and negotiated regarding critical elements of it, the White House statement said. He has now reviewed the final version and, based on its responsiveness to his negotiations, approves the bill and intends to sign it.

Analysts said the US president was under pressure to sign the bill or face anger from Republicans. His new White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci told CNN that the U.S president may veto the legislation.

The fresh package of sanctions targets Russia's aggression in Ukraine and Syria, citing corruption, human rights abuses and weapons sales.

The bill also aims to hit Vladimir Putin and his inner circle by targeting alleged corrupt officials, and crucial sectors of Russias fragile economy, including its energy sector.

Story continues

Russia's Foreign Ministry dismissed the new sanctions as "creating unfair competitive advantages for the US economy.

"This kind of blackmail aimed at restricting the cooperation between Russia and other nations is a threat for many countries and global businesses," the statement said.

Russian policemen stand guard in front of the US Embassy in Moscow (AFP/Getty Images)

Russia's response to order the US to cut its number of diplomats in Moscow mirrors moves by outgoing President Barack Obama last December to expel 35 Russian diplomats and shut down two Russian estates in the US.

The Kremlin had previously said that it would not impose any sanctions on the US until Mr Trump signs the bill - which he is expected to do in the coming days.

The Senate backed the sanctions bill by a margin of 98-2 with strong support from Mr Trump's fellow Republicans as well as Democrats.
BENGHAZI, Libya (Reuters) - A fighter jet from eastern Libyan commander Khalifa Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army was shot down in Dahr Al-Hamer district in Derna and its two crew detained, an air force spokesman said on Saturday. Haftar's LNA is one of the most powerful armed factions in Libya, where a U.N.-backed government in Tripoli is struggling to assert authority over an array of armed factions which have been competing for control since the 2011 fall of Muammar Gaddafi. The coastal city of Derna - 348 km (216 miles) east of Benghazi - is under the control of a coalition of Islamist militants and ex-rebels called Majlis Shura Mujahideen Derna. The city has been besieged by Haftar's LNA's forces, who launch occasional airstrikes, for more than three years. "A MiG-21 fighter was shot down by a missile after the aircraft carried out an airstrike targeting militants," LNA spokesman for the Benina air base, Naser Hassi, told Reuters. Derna, which has a history of militancy, is a target for LNA forces, backed by neighbouring Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, as part of Haftar's self-declared war on Islamist militants. In May, Egypt's President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi launched airstrikes on militants in Derna in response to a deadly attack on Coptic Christians in Egypt. Critics said the strikes were meant to help Haftar rather than punish militants responsible for the Egypt attacks. (Reporting by Ayman Al Warfalli; Writing by Ahmed Elumami; Editing by Patrick Markey and Andrew Bolton)
Washington (AFP) - Donald Trump suffered yet another humiliating blow Friday as a small group of Republican rebels dealt him a stinging legislative defeat on health care, adding to the woes of a White House riven by vicious infighting.

The billionaire president lashed out at Republican senators who defied his threats and barbs to vote against health care reform, which experts predicted would have left millions more Americans without coverage.

"3 Republicans and 48 Democrats let the American people down. As I said from the beginning, let ObamaCare implode, then deal. Watch!" Trump tweeted after the dramatic vote in the early hours of Friday.

The party rebellion -- led by Senators Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and John McCain -- is a deeply ominous sign for Trump, whose political brand is defined by his dealmaking acumen and a take-no-prisoners approach to politics.

For months, Trump has kept skeptical Republicans in line with an implicit threat that he would turn his diehard supporters against them.

Republican lawmakers had privately worried that even an angry tweet against them could spell disaster at the next election.

But there are growing signs those threats are losing potency, when Republicans not only killed efforts to dismantle Obamacare, but joined Democrats in supporting a new sanctions regime against Russia.

- To veto or not to veto? -

The sanctions bill -- which also includes measures targeted at North Korea and Iran -- is designed to restrict Trump's ability to lift punitive measures on Moscow.

Trump now faces a choice between swallowing a bill he deeply opposed and refusing to do so -- a move that would intensify suspicions about his attitude to Russia and likely bring a humiliating veto override.

Trump's administration and his presidential campaign are under investigation by a special prosecutor and several Congressional committees over whether they colluded with Moscow to tilt the 2016 presidential election.

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The new sanctions appear to have thwarted Trump's efforts to build better relations with Russia.

Russia's foreign ministry on Friday announced countermeasures, ordering Washington to reduce its diplomatic staff and seizing two US facilities.

Moscow ordered the US to reduce its diplomatic presence in Russia to 455 diplomats and staff and also barred it from using a Moscow summer house and storage facility.

Moscow complained that the "new sanctions bill showed with all clarity that relations with Russia have fallen hostage to the domestic political struggle in the US."

- Infighting -

If the view from Trump's White House looks bleak, the view inside is no better.

This week saw top staff in open warfare with each other, as they fought to get Trump's ear.

White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci launched a searing foul-mouthed attack on his most senior colleagues.

In an eye-watering exchange with a New Yorker reporter, the fast-talking Scaramucci described chief of staff Reince Priebus as a "paranoid schizophrenic" and chief White House strategist Steve Bannon as trying to build his own brand off Trump.

Scaramucci, a millionaire New York financier, arrived at the White House vowing to serve Trump's interest and right a badly faltering administration.

He did not apologize for the tirade, but said he would try to clean up his language in the future.

"I sometimes use colorful language. I will refrain in this arena but not give up the passionate fight for @realDonaldTrump's agenda," he tweeted.

On Friday, Trump will try to turn the page with a trip to the New York suburbs to talk about his administration's battle against the violent street gang MS-13.

He also will likely be cheered by data showing the US economy gathered speed in the second quarter, with gross domestic product up 2.6 percent in the April-June period.
Rome (AFP) - The foulest stench is in the air, but the zombie-like creatures lurching through rubbish-strewn streets of Rome are not monsters in Michael Jackson's "Thriller", but heat-weary tourists and furious residents.

And the crisis is piling the pressure on to the Italian capital's anti-establishment mayor Virginia Raggi.

The 39-year-old faces a growing backlash over a collapsing transport sector, failing garbage collection service and water shortages following a dry spring and scorching early summer.

A ban on frolicking in the city's historic fountains is repeatedly flouted by tourists desperate to cool off after slogging through sticky streets.

Buses break down or burst into flame, and little water can be spared to clean the pavements.

"We know Rome was not built in a day," Roberto Giachetti, vice-president of the lower house of parliament, wrote on Facebook Friday.

"But a year of Raggi seems more than enough to give her the coup de grace."

Bruno Rota, director of Rome's crumbling public transport company Atac, announced Friday he was throwing in the towel and resigning after three months on the job -- but not before launching a stinging attack on the workers.

Not only did the "level of absenteeism mean it's difficult to cover shifts", he said, the company -- with debts totalling 1.3 billion euros ($1.52 billion) -- was also unable to convince anyone to loan it the funds to repair its ageing vehicles.

Those who opt to walk -- in temperatures set to top 40 degrees Centigrade (104 degrees Fahrenheit) -- stumble into potholes and along streets where the smell is such that residents "hood" public bins with plastic.

- Raging thirst -

Rome's difficulties in dealing with the 4,500 tonnes of rubbish it produces daily saw it sign a deal last year for a large chunk of it to be sent by train to be recycled in Austria.

Raggi, from the populist Five Star Movement, came to power promising to clean up the city, but ran into trouble off the bat.

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Her chosen garbage tsar, Paola Muraro, was forced to resign after it emerged she was being probed for alleged wrongdoing as a consultant to the city's rubbish collection agency, AMA.

The ringleaders of a criminal gang in Rome who had made a racket out of corruption in city services -- including the rubbish collection -- were given stiff prison sentence last week.

But locals are still paying the price: on Thursday police detained 15 people for putting the health of thousands of citizens at risk by burying toxic rubbish in land next to a natural spring.

With nearby Lake Bracciano at dangerously low levels and taps on the verge of being turned off, Romans took to social media on Friday asking what they were supposed to drink.

Acea, the utility firm which runs Rome's water system, threatened to introduce staggered supplies from Monday following the region's decision to stop withdrawing water from Bracciano to avoid an environmental disaster.

Environmental group Legambiente blames pipe leaks, saying over 44 percent of water in Rome is being wasted that way.

The prospect of rationing was averted late Friday when the municipality of Rome, the state and Latium -- the region in which the capital is located -- came to an agreement.

Though the drought has hit the whole of Italy, "Rome is the situation that worries me the most," said Environment Minister Gian Galletti, who is set to address parliament on the crisis early next week.
Brussels (AFP) - The European Union's top court has ordered Poland's right-wing government to suspend logging in the ancient Bialowieza forest pending a final judgement, a spokesman said Friday.

Bialowieza, straddling Poland's eastern border with Belarus, includes one of the largest surviving parts of the primeval forest that covered the European plain 10,000 years ago.

The UNESCO World Heritage site also boasts unique plant and animal life, including the continent's largest mammal, the European bison.

"We issued a decree yesterday ordering the immediate halt to the forest's exploitation," an EU Court of Justice spokesman told AFP on Friday.

He added the order was "temporary" pending a final court ruling in the case, which could take months, possibly years.

The court was acting on a July 13 request by the European Commission, the 28-nation EU executive, for "interim measures" to stop large-scale logging in "one of Europe's last remaining primevel forests."

The Polish government has said it authorised the logging, which began in May last year, to contain damage caused by a spruce bark beetle infestation and to fight the risk of forest fires.

But scientists, ecologists and the European Union have protested and activists allege the logging is a cover for commercial cutting of protected old-growth forests.
By Gabriela Baczynska and Agnieszka Barteczko BRUSSELS/WARSAW (Reuters) - The European Union's top court ordered Poland on Friday to immediately halt large-scale logging in an ancient protected forest, one of many cases that has pitted the nationalist, eurosceptic government in Warsaw against the bloc. The EU's executive Commission earlier this year sued Poland at the European Court of Justice (ECJ) over logging in the Bialowieza forest, a UNESCO World Heritage site. Straddling the border between Poland and Belarus, it is one of Europe's last primeval forests and home to its largest herd of European bison as well as unique birds and insects. In an interim decision, the ECJ said the logging should stop immediately as it could cause "serious and irreversible damage" to the forest. The main case filed by the Commission against Warsaw at the ECJ could take years to conclude. The Commission has said the logging violates the bloc's wildlife protection laws. Poland's environment ministry, which declined to comment on the ECJ announcement, says it is needed to protect the forest from an invasion of beetles. The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) has also tripled the quota of wood that can be harvested in Bialowieza. Environmentalists say the vast majority of trees felled so far were not affected by the beetles. They have been holding regular protests to try to halt the logging and UNESCO has also appealed to Poland stop cutting down the trees. BEETLES AND POLITICS "If Polish authorities do not respect the (ECJ) decision, it will be in serious conflict with EU law," said Agata Szafraniuk, a lawyer at ClientEarth, an environmentalist group. Poland's Environment Minister Jan Szyszko - who enjoys the backing of forester and hunting lobbies - was quoted as saying on Friday that more than one million trees must be cut down in Bialowieza this year because of the beetle invasion. As well as stoking tensions with Brussels, the issue has deeply divided Poles - as have other moves by PiS, including its tightening of control over state media and the courts and its refusal to host any refugees who arrive in the EU. A local group of nationalist activists in Bialowieza has called the environmentalists "green terrorists" and has vowed to confront them, prompting Krzysztof Cibor of Greenpeace to say: "The defenders in the Bialowieza forest are vigilant, but we all hope that nothing bad will happen." Environmentalists say Szyszko's real motives are political and economic because increased logging brings more revenues to the local community, one of the poorest in Poland, helping to boost support for PiS. "Around half of the wood sold was from trees more than 100 years old," said another green group, Wild Poland Foundation. Plans several years ago to extend the protected area of the forest ran into stiff local opposition. Szyszko is a powerful figure in the PiS government because of his close links to the ultra-Catholic broadcasting network of a politically influential priest, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk. PiS has built an increasingly close alliance with Rydzyk, who encourages his followers to back the party in return for financial grants for his various business projects. Poland still has several days to react to the ECJ interim decision. Should Poland lose the main case at the ECJ, it could be fined a lump sum of more than 4 million euros and possible daily penalties of up to 300,000 euros for every day in which Warsaw fails to adhere to the court's decision. (Additional reporting by Robert-Jan Bartunek; Editing by Gareth Jones)
White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus: Susan Walsh/AP

Behind Donald Trumps surprise replacement of his chief of staff lay months of White House infighting and power struggles.

In the six months since Inauguration Day, Reince Priebus, the President's embattled chief of staff, had never managed to make it into Mr Trumps good graces.

The President held a grudge against the former Republican National Committee chairman for encouraging him to drop out of the presidential race, according the The New York Times. He also kept a mental catalogue of those who disavowed him after the Access Hollywood tape leaked, and Mr Priebus was top of that list.

Mr Trump had reportedly been discussing finding someone stronger for Mr Priebus' position in recent days, claiming he needed a general to lead the White House team. Mr Priebus's replacement, John Kelly, is a four-star Marine Corps general who served three tours in Iraq.

In a speech on Friday, hours before he announced Mr Priebuss ouster, the President heaped praise on his then-Secretary of Homeland Security.

I want to congratulate John Kelly, who has done an incredible job of Secretary of Homeland Security. Incredible, he said in an address to police officers. John Kelly is one of our great stars.

An official told the Daily Beast Mr Trump had taken a liking to Mr Kelly in cabinet meetings, where he relied on him to bring discipline to the conversation.

Meanwhile, the Presidents relationship with Mr Priebus was growing increasingly sour. Mr Trump had recently hired former Wall Street financier Anthony Scaramucci as his director of communications  against the advice of Mr Priebus and then-press secretary Sean Spicer.

Mr Spicer ultimately resigned over the appointment, but Mr Priebus held on. In the days following, Mr Scaramucci waged a war of words on the chief of staff, who he blamed for c**k-blocking him out of a previous White House position.

In his new position, Mr Scaramucci accused Mr Priebus of leaking his financial disclosure form, and suggested he would have the FBI investigate.

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He then pointedly compared their relationship to that of Biblical brothers Cain and Abel. In the book of Genesis, Cain murders Abel after God favours his brother's sacrifice.

Here's a screenshot of the tweet that @Scaramucci deleted. pic.twitter.com/e2AggSLJSt  Jeffrey Guterman (@JeffreyGuterman) July 27, 2017

On Wednesday night, Mr Scaramucci called the New Yorkers Ryan Lizza and unloaded on the chief of staff.

Reince is a f*****g paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac, he said, insisting that Mr Priebus would resign very soon.

Even Kellyanne Conway, a top White House adviser, had privately told people that Mr Priebus was gone, according to BuzzFeed News.

"If I was Reince, I would be like, 'F*** you guys, I'm out, one administration source told the outlet on Thursday.

Mr Priebus offered his resignation to Mr Trump that day, according to CNN.

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

I am pleased to inform you that I have just named General/Secretary John F Kelly as White House Chief of Staff, Mr Trump tweeted on Friday evening, by way of announcement.

He added: 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!

Mr Priebuss ousting marked a victory for the Trump loyalist camp in the White House, which boasts campaign stalwarts like Stephen Bannon and Ms Conway.

Mr Bannon  who represents the grassroots, nationalist beginnings of Mr Trumps campaign  had frequently clashed with Mr Priebus, who emblemises the traditional conservative camp who eventually camp to accept him. The two men reportedly warred over everything from tax reform to the travel ban on six Muslim-majority countries.

On Friday, however, it appeared the Bannon camp had temporarily won.

Mr Priebus said in a statement: It has been one of the greatest honours of my life to serve this President and our country.

I want to thank the President for giving me this very special opportunity. I will continue to serve as a strong supporter of the President's agenda and policies.

I can't think of a better person than General John Kelly to succeed me and I wish him God's blessings and great success.
By Margarita Antidze TBILISI (Reuters) - The Georgian army began two weeks of military exercises with the United States and other partner countries on Sunday, a day before U.S. Vice President Mike Pence visits the ex-Soviet nation. About 2,800 soldiers from the United States, Britain, Germany, Turkey, Ukraine, Slovenia, Armenia and Georgia were taking part in the maneuvers, with Washington dispatching an entire mechanized company including several Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and M1A2 Abrams main battle tanks. Georgia's Prime Minister Giorgi Kvirikashvili said the drills were an important event for the South Caucasus republic. "These exercises will help Georgia to get closer to NATO standards and to strengthen stability in the whole region," Kvirikashvili said at the opening ceremony on Sunday. The "Noble Partner" exercises are being held in Georgia for the third time. Russian officials had not commented on the event yet, but in previous years Moscow warned that drills could destabilize the region, a charge denied by Georgian officials and U.S. diplomats. "This exercise is not directed against any country. It's about to help Georgia to grow its capacity to interoperate in international operations," U.S. Ambassador Ian Kelly told Reuters. Russia and Georgia fought a war in August 2008 over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia. Moscow continues to garrison troops there and to support another breakaway region, Abkhazia. The exercises were being run out of the Vaziani military base near Georgia's capital, Tbilisi. Russian forces used to be based there until they withdrew at the start of the last decade under the terms of a European arms reduction agreement. Pence plans to attend the drills and address participants on Tuesday. The United States has spoken favorably of the idea that Georgia might one day join NATO, something Russia firmly opposes. (Reporting by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Dale Hudson)
No single action by the president has shown his utter lack of human decency as has his latest pathetic pronouncement.

Based on lies as usual, his "policy" banning transgender soldiers, patriots to a one, from the military is nothing but a cowardly effort to quiet conservatives who are rightly appalled by his treatment of the attorney general. Donald Trump is a coward, pure and simple and utterly devoid of scruples.

It continues to amaze me how a significant portion of this country can support a man who has no leadership ability; he demonstrates this on an almost daily basis.

Wake up, America! And frankly, more importantly, wake up, Republicans! It is only a matter of time before he commits some abuse of power that even the Republican Congress cannot ignore. You have Mike Pence waiting in the wings; he would prove far more capable of enacting Republican initiatives than Trump ever will.

And think how nice it would be to wake up in the morning and not have to defend some idiotic tweet from the tweeter-in-chief.

-- Walter Max, Alberton
Grozny (Russia) (AFP) - As the plane from Moscow touches down in Grozny, the capital of the Russian republic of Chechnya, a young woman wraps a scarf around her hair.

"Here it's better to be veiled," she told AFP.

On Grozny's streets, many women follow her example and wear headscarves or a hijab that covers the chest, while others are in long dresses that hide their arms and legs.

"We don't force women to wear a headscarf," the city's mayor Muslim Khuchiyev said. "But we remind them that this is the Chechen tradition and what our faith calls for".

Under authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov, in power since 2007, the role of Islam has grown massively in the Russian North Caucasus republic.

In Grozny, dozens of mosques have been built from the ruins of a city devastated after separatists waged two wars against the Russian army.

Grozny hit the headlines in recent months after Russian opposition daily Novaya Gazeta published a report alleging that gay men were being persecuted by the Chechen authorities.

Homosexuality in the conservative region is taboo.

Kadyrov, 40, has also expressed support for polygamy, which is against the law in Russia, saying that "for me, the most important thing is Islamic law".

With alcohol sales restricted, school children studying the canons of Islam and women officially encouraged to wear headscarves for work and study, regional authorities are actively promoting Islam.

- 'The good Islam' -

Malika, 29, goes to the mosque every day with her husband.

"In the last two or three years, people have become more and more religious," she said, adding that she makes her daughter take lessons in religious morality.

"Of course the authorities encourage us. A religious woman is a good mother, a religious man is a peaceful person," said Malika as her phone rang to alert her to one of the five daily calls to prayer, which are also broadcast around the city over loudspeakers.

Story continues

"Grozny has emerged from ruins to become a modern Muslim city, a showcase for Islam," Khuchiyev said.

Taking pride of place in the centre of Grozny is the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque, named after Kadyrov's father. Chechnya's previous leader Akhmad Kadyrov was assassinated in 2004.

It was opened in 2008 on the site of the ruined former parliament building, destroyed by Russian bombs.

Now "the largest mosque in Europe... is already not big enough," said Khuchiyev.

Asked about financing for the mosque, the mayor simply said "the money came from Allah," echoing a phrase often used by Kadyrov himself to bat away questions about public spending.

Most of the city's grand reconstruction projects were enabled by lavish funding from Russia.

Since taking power Kadyrov has sought to eliminate the Islamist insurgency known as the Caucasus Emirate that grew out of the pro-independence fighting units in the second Chechen war that erupted in the late 1990s.

"We absolutely had to build new mosques so that people came back to the good Islam," Khuchiyev said.

Khuchiyev means that Chechens should embrace religion without being drawn into the Caucasus Emirate or the Islamic State group, to which the Emirate has now sworn allegiance.

A large number of Chechens have joined IS fighters in Syria and Iraq, according to Russian authorities.

- 'Muslim city, for Muslims' -

In recent years, Kadyrov has expanded his message to address the wider Islamic world.

After the violence erupted this month at a sensitive holy site in Jerusalem, he seemed to declare support for Palestinians on his highly popular Instagram account.

"Almighty Allah has always at the necessary moment put a sword in the hands of a warrior for Islam who is capable of liberating Al-Aqsa," the post read.

Al-Aqsa mosque is part of a compound in Jerusalem's Old City known as Haram al-Sharif, or Temple Mount to Jews.

Moscow-based political analyst Nikolai Petrov said Kadyrov's desire for "a special role in the Muslim world" has been visible ever since Charlie Hebdo.

Hundreds of thousands of Chechens joined a government-directed protest against the French satirical magazine for publishing cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed in January 2015, just days after staff at Charlie Hebdo were murdered in a jihadist attack.

Kadyrov's "latest statements on Israel and Palestine, on Chechens in Syria, and even the scandal over gays in Chechnya -- all this only strengthens his position," said Petrov.

"The greater the shock tactics, the stronger his status as leader."

Grozny is aiming to be a place of influence for Muslims internationally, Khuchiyev said: "People come from very far away to pray and study here".

However, the emphasis on Islam has alienated some residents, such as Yelena, who has lived in the city since she was born.

Yelena, a Russian Orthodox member, said she feels "like a second-class citizen."

"Grozny is a Muslim city, for Muslims," she said.
By Jim Finkle LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Hackers attending this weekend's Def Con hacking convention in Las Vegas will have a chance to break into voting machines and voter databases in a bid to uncover vulnerabilities that could be exploited to sway election results. Organizers decided to set up the 25-year-old conference's first "hacker voting village" to raise awareness about the threat of election results being altered through hacking. Such concerns have been growing since the end of last year, when news surfaced that top U.S. intelligence agencies had determined that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered computer hacks of Democratic Party emails to help Republican Donald Trump win the Nov. 8 election. Those concerns escalated in June, when a U.S. Department of Homeland Security official told Congress that Russian hackers targeted 21 U.S. state election systems in the 2016 presidential race and a small number were breached, but there was no evidence any votes were manipulated. Russia has consistently denied all such accusations. The genie is out of the bottle," Def Con founder Jeff Moss said in an interview. "The age of interference in voting has arrived on a large scale through electronics." The voting village is one of about a dozen interactive areas where participants can study and practice hacking. Others areas include automobiles, cryptology, healthcare, lockpicking and wireless networks. It will house more than 30 pieces of election equipment, including types of voting machines and digital poll books that are currently in use. "Were going to get our hands on the machines. People are going to pull them apart, Moss said. The village will also run training simulations where a "blue team" is tasked with defending a mock voter registration database from a "red team" of hackers. Moss said he expects several county voting officials to join in. The village will hold a full-day conference on election hacking, featuring talks by technology and legal experts, as well as former government officials. It is open to the more than 20,000 people expected at this year's Def Con convention. Jake Braun, one of the village's organizers, said he believes the talks and hands-on work will convince participants that election results are not immune to hacking. "Theres been a lot of claims that our election system is unhackable. That's BS," said Braun. "Only a fool or liar would try to claim that their database or machine was unhackable." (Reporting by Jim Finkle in Las Vegas; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Joseph Radford)
Hamburg (AFP) - A rejected asylum seeker aged 26 killed one person and wounded six others in the German city of Hamburg Friday, shouting "Allahu Akbar" before being overpowered by passers-by and arrested.

The mayor of the city called it an "attack" motivated by "hate", but police have remained cautious about naming the killer's motives.

Here is what we know about the attack so far.

- What happened? -

Around 3:10 pm (1310 GMT), a man carrying a large knife entered the supermarket belonging to the Edeka chain on Fuhlsbuettler Strasse, a lively shopping street in the Barmbek district of northern port city Hamburg.

He struck out wildly at people around him, killing one man and wounding five others.

Eyewitnesses said the man shouted "Allahu Akbar" (God is greatest) as he ran out of the supermarket, pursued by passers-by armed with chairs and other improvised weapons.

One of the group was hurt while they were overpowering the attacker, who was then arrested by police.

- Who was hurt? -

Police have identified the dead man as a 50-year-old believed to be a German citizen.

Those hurt in the supermarket included a 50-year-old woman and four men aged 19 to 64, while a 35-year-old Turkish man was wounded while capturing the attacker.

All of the injured are being treated or operated on in hospital, some of them with serious injuries, police said.

- Who was the attacker? -

The attacker was a 26-year-old man born in the United Arab Emirates, but police have yet to confirm his nationality.

He lived in a migrant accommodation centre in Hamburg, which was searched by heavily armed police late Friday according to newspaper Bild. He supported himself with "odd jobs," German media reported.

Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz said that the man was a failed asylum seeker whose deportation had been delayed because he had no papers.

His asylum status matches that of Anis Amri, who killed 12 people with a truck at a Berlin Christmas market on December 19.

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- Islamist connection? -

Police have not commented on a possible motive for the crime, saying only that they are "continuing to investigate every possibility".

But multiple German media reported that the man was known to the authorities as an Islamist and that police were investigating his connections to Germany's Salafist scene.

Scholz called his actions an "attack" in which he had "turned his hatred against us".

Citing security sources, news website Spiegel Online reported that the suspect suffers from mental health problems and regularly takes drugs.

- Overpowered -

A group of passers-by tracked the killer as he fled the supermarket with bloody knife in hand.

Amateur video footage showed them circling him in the middle of a busy city street, hurling chairs to keep him at a distance as he brandishes his knife and yells.

A 35-year-old Turkish man finally managed to overpower him using a pole, Spiegel Online reported, suffering injuries himself in the process.

Police then arrested the attacker.
John Kelly -  2017 Bloomberg Finance LP

Few would argue that John Kelly has been one of the successes of the Trump administration.

A retired four-star Marine Corps general, he was widely respected in Washington before his appointment and if anything his reputation has been enhanced during the six months he spent as homeland security secretary.

Plain talking in style, his appointment to the Homeland post was far less contentious than some of the other choices made by Mr Trump.

...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

Unlike many other administration appointees, Mr Kelly's senate confirmation hearing was bipartisan in tone.

Many were impressed by his independence and willingness to distance himself from some of Mr Trump's more hardline positions.

He voiced doubts about the effectiveness of a wall on the US-Mexican border, suggesting that it was unlikely "to be built anytime soon.

Mr Kelly also flatly disagreed with Mr Trump's suggestion that all Muslims should be banned from the United States.

He said he did not believe it "appropriate" to target individuals because of their religion or ethnic background.

Mr Kelly also said that while serving in Iraq his forces sought to ensure stability by fostering good relations with clerics and Muslim leaders.

Profile | General John F Kelly

Before entering the administration, Mr Kelly had spent 45 years in the military. His youngest son, Robert, was killed in action in Afghanistan.

Mr Kelly's final post being as head of the US southern command with responsibility for South and Central America, a remit which included the Guantanamo Bay detention camp.

As homeland security secretary, Mr Kelly has been responsible for a sharp rise in the deportation of undocumented immigrants, leading him into conflict with "sanctuary cities"

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His work was hailed by Mr Trump earlier this year. "We're getting really bad dudes out of this country, and at a rate that nobody's ever seen before."

Mr Kelly found himself defending the administration's entry on travellers from seven Muslim majority countries which was repeatedly overturned by the courts.

He has also faced the challenge of trying to persuade the EU to accept a ban on passengers bringing laptops and computer tablets onto flights to the US.

On this, he was rebuffed but his negotiating skills enabled him to reach a compromise with the EU, which saw tighter checks on passengers and luggage imposed at European airports.

Joe Manchin, a Democrat member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believed that the former military man could impose some order on the increasingly anarchic White House.

"If a general can't to it, I don't know who can."

In his first day in the job of Mr Trump's chief of staff, he requested the president remove Anthony Scaramucci as communications director, according to several sources.

Mr Scaramucci was indeed asked to leave the White House, with Mr Kelly's authority bolstered.
The then Homeland Security Secretary speaks to the media about immigration enforcement legislation: EPA

White House Chief of Staff John Kelly is expected to resign in the coming daysthe latest shakeup to an administration in which frequent resignations and firings appear to be turning into the new normal. President Donald Trump is reportedly looking for Mr Kelly's replacement, according to CNN. A potential successor is Nick Ayers. He is currently serving as Vice President Mike Pence's chief of staff.

Mr Kelly, who is reportedly no longer in speaking terms with the president, is the second chief of staff to serve Mr Trump since his inauguration. Prior to Mr Kelly, former Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus served the role.

Who is John Kelly?

A retired four-star Marine general, Mr Kelly served in the military for nearly five decades. He ran the militarys operations in Central America, South America and the Caribbean and has worked as a senior assistant to the Secretary of Defence. He also served tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Mr Kelly will be the first current or former general to serve as White House Chief of Staff since Alexander Haig in the final stage of Richard Nixons administration in the 1970s.

Mr Kelly had been retired from the military for less than a year when Mr Trump asked him to run his Department of Homeland Security. In an 88-11 vote, the Senate confirmed Mr Kelly as Homeland Security Secretary in January, putting him in charge of the administrations policies on issues including immigration, cyber-security, countering domestic terrorism and aviation security.

Where is he from?

Mr Kelly was born and raised in Boston and graduated from the University of Massachusetts. His son, Robert Michael Kelly, was killed in combat in Afghanistan in 2010.

What does Congress think of him?

Mr Kelly cruised through his Senate confirmation hearing in January, receiving praise from both Democrats and Republicans. During the proceeding, he also voiced opinions that appeared to differ from those expressed by Mr Trump, and demonstrated a notable degree of empathy for those who seek refuge in the US.

Story continues

They, for the most part, dont want to come up and leave their homes, their families, Mr Kelly said. But there isnt an awful lot of economic opportunity for them there.

He has since taken a hard line against illegal immigration and vigorously backed the President on the need for a travel ban on refugees and immigrants from seven Muslim countries. The ban, which was allowed to go into limited effect by the Supreme Court in June, was later reduced to six countries.

The President and then Homeland Security Secretary listen to the national anthem in May(AP)

What do other people think of him?

Initially, several of Mr Trumps advisers reportedly opposed the Presidents choice to appoint Mr Kelly as his new chief of staff, suggesting the former general does not have the political savvy or background needed for the job.

Before becoming Homeland Secretary, Mr Kelly got some insight into how the government works when he served as a liaison to former Defence Secretary Leon Panetta. He also worked as a legislative assistant for the marine corps commandant in the mid 2000s.

Mr Kelly told CNN in June that what I never saw on the military side was the level of the toxic kind of politics that are associated with what I do now, repeating what he frequently tells members of Congress who criticise his actions: if you dont like the laws, try to change them.

John has also done a spectacular job at Homeland Security, Mr Trump wrote on Twitter, calling Mr Kelly a great American and saying he had been a true star of my Administration.

However, Mr Kelly has not always appeared to be on the same page as Mr Trump, publicly questioning the need for a full border wall with Mexico and calling Russia a threat to the US as the President has tried to develop friendlier relations with Moscow.

Mr Kelly has also belittled the President's intelligence in past meetings, according to CNN. At one point, he was quoted calling Mr Trump an idiot and lamented about his job as chief of staff.

"He's an idiot. It's pointless to try to convince him of anything. He's gone off the rails. We're in crazytown," Kelly reportedly said. "I don't even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I've ever had."

Throughout his term as chief of staff, Mr Kelly has reportedly clashed with first lady Melania Trump over "staffing issues and travel requests" on several occasions. "There have been instances where the East Wing staff were not treated as equals to the male-dominated decision makers in Chief Kellys office," a White House official told NBC in November. "Promotions were denied then finally granted after months of requests."
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un claimed he could strike the entire continental U.S. after test-firing the regimes second intercontinental ballistic missile within a month.

Fridays unusual late-night launch drew condemnation from the U.S. and its allies, with the top American general calling his South Korean counterpart to discuss a potential military response. President Donald Trump said the test was reckless and dangerous, adding in a statement the U.S. will take all necessary steps to protect its territory.

We have demonstrated our ability to fire our intercontinental ballistic rocket at any time and place and that the entire U.S. territory is within our shooting range, the state-run Korean Central News Agency said on Saturday, citing Kim. It said the test was part of the final verification of the Hwasong-14 missiles technical capabilities, including its maximum range.

The ICBM test, which follows the first launch on July 4, raises tensions between major powers, with the U.S. accusing China and Russia of providing Kim cover to pursue his nuclear ambitions. Trump has previously expressed frustration at the pace of Chinas efforts to rein in its neighbor and ally, which it supports with food and fuel sales.

While U.S. lawmakers have voted to send Trump legislation that would impose new sanctions on North Korea, the United Nations Security Council has struggled to reach agreement on potentially tighter penalties.

Read more: The options for dealing with North Korea

As the principal economic enablers of North Koreas nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said in a statement.

While the U.S. seeks a peaceful denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, Tillerson said, we will never accept a nuclear-armed North Korea nor abandon our commitment to our allies and partners in the region.

Story continues

China opposes North Koreas launch and its violations of Security Council resolutions, Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said in a Saturday statement in the Peoples Daily newspaper. He called on all parties to show restraint.

The Pentagon said the latest missile flew 1,000 kilometers, while South Koreas Joint Chiefs of Staff said it reached an altitude of about 3,700 kilometers  almost 1,000 kilometers higher than the prior test. Japan said the missile flew for about 45 minutes  six minutes longer than previously  and landed in its exclusive economic zone.

The test showed North Koreas progress in developing a missile capable of hitting U.S. cities such as Denver or Chicago, according to Melissa Hanham, a researcher at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California. Initial data suggested that if such a projectile were launched toward the U.S., it could travel about 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles).

Its getting close to New York, Hanham said by email.

Re-Entry Capability

After the July 4 ICBM test, South Korea cast doubt on whether Kim had acquired the re-entry capability for the missile to survive the return to Earths atmosphere.

North Korea insists its nuclear program is designed to prevent an attack by the U.S. or others. Trump rejected those claims, saying it had the opposite effect.

By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people, he said.

Military Options

Yonhap reported that Fridays test was the first time North Korea had launched a missile from Jagang, a province north of Pyongyang that shares a border with China.

While Beijing has condemned Kims actions it has also been cautious about squeezing too hard amid concern it could spark a messy collapse of his regime and a refugee crisis on Chinas border. It also worries such developments could spur a beefed-up U.S. military presence nearby.

U.S. Marine General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, discussed military response options in a phone call with his South Korean counterpart, his spokesman said in an emailed statement that didnt elaborate.

While Trump hasnt ruled out a military response, Dunford warned in June that an armed conflict with North Korea would leave the millions of residents in Seoul, South Koreas capital, to face casualties unlike anything weve seen in 60 or 70 years. Still, this month he told a security conference in Colorado that whats unimaginable to me is allowing the capability for a nuclear weapon to land in Denver, Colorado.

Missile Shield

South Korean President Moon Jae-ins office said hed ordered a show of force in response to North Koreas actions. Hours later, the U.S. and South Korean militaries said they fired long-range precision-guided tactical missiles into South Korean territorial waters.

Moon also called for talks with the U.S. to consider the deployment of more Thaad missile-defense launchers to South Korea, an apparent shift from a decision to put the program on ice pending an environmental impact study. The defense ministry suggested any further installation would be temporary.

China on Saturday said it had grave concerns about the possibility of more Thaad launchers in South Korea. It called on the U.S. and South Korea to stop the deployment, saying the launchers hurt the strategic balance in the region.

Pyongyangs actions have undermined Moons early attempts to engage with North Korea via proposals to meet with Kim and discuss a peace treaty. Moon instructed his government to now look at potential direct sanctions if necessary, his spokesman Yoon Young-chan said at a briefing.

The UN Security Council is likely to hold an emergency meeting early next week, Yonhap reported Saturday, citing unnamed government officials.

Still, Pyongyang has once again made it clear that they are operating on their own timetable, Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum CSIS in Honolulu, said by email.

My guess  and when it comes to North Korea were all guessing  is that they are waiting for the next sanctions resolution, which they will then say forces them to accelerate their program and we will finally have our much-anticipated next nuclear test.
On July 25, 2017, a day to remember as the day Sen. Steve Daines voted yes for the motion to proceed to begin the process of repealing the Affordable Care Act. He voted to take away health care from thousands of Montanans. He voted to close rural hospitals in this state. He voted to deny quality of life to those with disabilities and chronic illness. This from a man who refused to hold one in-person town hall with constituents who will be impacted by this choice. This from a man who refused to meet with a large group of nine at the Bozeman airport. This from a man who has very good health insurance, that we, the people, pay for.
We have our first map of the distribution of all the light energy within our home galaxy, the Milky Way, a map that accounts for visible, ultraviolet and infrared radiations. It was created by a team of astrophysicists from Germany, Romania and the United Kingdom who used a new method to track all the photons in the galaxy.

Researchers from the University of Central Lancashire (UCLan) in the U.K., the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics (MPINP) in Heidelberg, Germany, and the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy used computer models and calculations to track all sorts of stellar photons  including those emitted as heat radiation by interstellar dust  in the Milky Way. This was a different approach than the traditional one that looked at the distribution of stars as an analogue for the way light was spread across the galaxy.

Read: The Fastest-Moving Stars In The Milky Way Are Actually Outsiders

This approach also allowed the researchers to predict the paths the photons will take, allowing them to model the distribution of light energy throughout the galaxy. And this map will allow astronomers to better understand our own galaxy, as well as the process behind the formation of stars in spiral galaxies.

Cristina Popescu from the UCLan, who was lead author of a study published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, said in a statement Thursday: We have not only determined the distribution of light energy in the Milky Way, but also made predictions for the stellar and interstellar dust content of the Milky Way.

Milky Way Light Map

Photo: ESA / HFI / LFI consortia

Another potential interesting outcome of this study is it could take us closer to knowing the source of cosmic rays, the mysterious high-energy radiation that is made up of high-energy protons and electrons. Researchers found that stellar photons in the Milky Way interact with cosmic radiation to produce gamma-rays, which are made up of the highest-energy photons in the universe.

Story continues

Cosmic rays are interesting to science because they control the formation of planets and stars, and cause chemical reactions in space that ultimately create complex molecules that could be critical to life as we know it.

Richard Tuffs from MPINP said in the statement: Working backwards through the chain of interactions and propagations, one can work out the original source of the cosmic rays.

Read: Most Of Milky Ways Antimatter A Result Of Weak Supernova Explosions

The study also considers how the interaction between photons of gamma-rays and those of the interstellar radiation fields reduce the intensity of the gamma-rays.

The basis of the model used by the researchers had been previously used by Popescu and Tuffs to map the panchromatic spectral energy distributions of star-forming galaxies in the nearby universe. But adapting that model to study the Milky Way, with the observer being on the inside, wasnt easy, as Tuffs pointed out.

It has to be noted that looking at galaxies from outside is a much easier task than looking from inside, as in the case of our galaxy, he said.

Related Articles
Washington (AFP) - In a long career as a maverick Republican, it may have been John McCain's defining moment.

Donald Trump and his Republicans had rejoiced when the cancer-stricken senator returned to Washington this week to vote on health care.

But the feisty elder statesman and long-time Vietnam prisoner of war -- once a target of Trump's scorn -- ended up defying the president, helping kill off efforts to dismantle Barack Obama's health care reforms.

With the plan hanging by a thread, Trump was acutely aware that McCain's vote would be a deciding factor.

What he failed to predict was that the 80-year-old -- in the twilight of his career -- would stun the political world and side with Trump's opponents, bringing the president's campaign pledge to repeal and replace Obamacare crashing to the ground.

"We must now return to the correct way of legislating and send the bill back to committee, hold hearings, receive input from both sides of the aisle, heed the recommendations of the nation's governors, and produce a bill that finally delivers affordable health care for the American people," he said.

"We must do the hard work our citizens expect of us and deserve."

- Thumbs down -

Two days earlier, McCain had dramatically returned to Washington from Arizona, where he was recuperating after a shock brain cancer diagnosis, to cast one of the deciding votes to allow formal debate on health care to begin.

Then on Thursday, as the Republican effort to overhaul Obamacare hung in the balance, McCain spoke out about the bill's faults, warning it offered no workable replacement and could cause health care costs to spike for million

McCain made clear he is no fan of the Affordable Care Act, telling reporters "the status quo is not satisfactory."

But what Republicans were cooking up in its stead was not the answer for the senator from Arizona.

Two other Senate Republicans -- Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski -- had long opposed the effort, and were likely to vote no. A third Republican defector would sink the bill.

Story continues

Vice President Mike Pence was on hand after midnight to break the tie in the event of a 50-50 vote. He could be seen talking intently with McCain for more than 10 minutes on the Senate floor.

At the climax of the vote, McCain strode into the chamber's well at 1:29 am, caught the eye of the clerk, raised his right arm, and flashed a thumbs down.

Some Democrats in the chamber gasped and applauded. Republicans including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the erstwhile commander of the anti-Obamacare plot, sat in stony silence as McCain turned and walked away.

- Revenge? -

It could well be the political exclamation point on McCain's sprawling career that saw him rise to become the 2008 Republican presidential nominee.

And the irony cannot be ignored that his vote preserved -- at least for now -- the deeply controversial reforms brought into being by the very politician who defeated him almost nine years ago.

Also unavoidable: recognition that McCain's "no" vote was a direct slight against the current president, someone whom McCain has never truly supported.

The feeling was mutual. In 2015 as he ran for president, Trump mocked McCain's war hero status as a former POW, sneering, "I like people who weren't captured."

Amid the messages of thanks by Democrats for their "hero" McCain, one stood out, from congressman Steve Cohen.

"Senator John McCain to Trump -- revenge is a dish best served cold," he tweeted.
Sen. John McCain of Arizonas vote against the skinny repeal of Obamacare may have been the most dramatic, but the objections of Republican Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine had already put the bills fate in jeopardy.

The Senates Republican women, including Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, had been left out of the initial drafting process and derailed the Majority Leaders mid-July effort to repeal Obamacare in order to replace it further down the road.

While Capito ultimately voted for the bill, Murkowski and Collins held firm on Friday morning and, along with McCain, joined with Democrats to kill the bill.

Heres who they are.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski

Lisa Murkowski has been a U.S. Senator since 2002, when she was appointed to finish out her father Franks term when he was elected governor of the state. She ran for the seat in 2004 and won, but in 2010 she lost the GOP primary to a Tea Party challenger. But ultimately, Murkowski beat both the Tea Party and Democratic candidates and became the first successful write-in candidate since South Carolinas Strom Thurmond in 1954. She won reelection in 2016.

Murkowski has been wary of the process to replace the Affordable Care Act since it began. She has said she could not support a bill that did not expand coverage and left costs high, but was largely concerned with the approach to Medicaid. She was also against including cuts to Planned Parenthood in a repeal measure. According to the Alaska Dispatch News, a quarter of Alaskans receive health coverage via the entitlement program. In July, Murkowski said that while some Alaskans had told her that she should stick with the president, most wanted her to put her states citizens first. Almost without exception, it was, Please Lisa. Protect Alaskas interests, the Dispatch News reports she said. Help us with ensuring that the most vulnerable are cared for, and that when it comes to the access issues that we face, the costs that we face, that you can help us address these.'

Story continues

Murkowski vocalized her displeasure with the secretive Obamacare repeal process in late June, telling an Independent Journal Review reporter that she had not seen a draft of the bill because she is not a reporter and Im not a lobbyist. She, along with Sens. Collins and Capito of West Virginia, later came out against Majority Leader Mitch McConnells plan to immediately repeal the Affordable Care Act, but hold off on replacing it, effectively killing that effort.

Her opposition to the health care plan made her a target of President Donald Trump, who tweeted that she had really let the Republicans, and our country, down when she voted against a motion that led to the Friday morning vote. The administration also reportedly called Murkowski and Alaska Sen. Dan Sullivan threatening that there would be consequences over her position on the repeal.

Sen. Susan Collins

Susan Collins, of Maine, was first elected to the U.S. Senate in 1996 and was last reelected in 2014. She will be up for reelection again in 2020, though she is said to be seriously considering a run for governor of Maine. It would be her second time vying for the governorshipshe lost to independent Sen. Angus King in 1994.

Collins has said she could not support the Obamacare repeal because of the impact it would have had on Americans seeking coverage. I cant support a bill that will greatly increase premiums for our older Americans, Collins told MSNBC in June. I cannot support a bill that is going to result in tens of millions of people losing their health insurance.

The Maine Republican was also dismayed by the deep cuts to Medicaid that had been proposed under the repeal legislation and the impact it would have on vulnerable citizens including disabled children and poor seniors.We should not be making fundamental changes in a vital safety net program thats been on the books for 50 years  without evaluating what the consequences will be, she said on CNNs State of the Union.

In a lengthy statement issued Friday, Collins explained the many reasons why she voted against the measures, including her opposition to proposals that would have stripped funding from Planned Parenthood. Let me be clear that this is not about abortion, she said. This is about interfering with the ability of a woman to choose the health care provider who is right for her. This harmful provision should have no place in legislation that purports to be about restoring patient choices and freedom.

Like Murkowski, Collins faced threats as a result of her position on the repeal. The Associated Press reported Texas Rep. Blake Farenthold complained about the opposition the repeal effort had faced from some female Senators from the northeast. During a radio interview, he reportedly said, if it was a guy from south Texas, I might ask him to step outside and settle this Aaron Burr-style.

She was later caught on a hot mic discussing the threat, with a Senate colleague telling her he thinks she could beat the st out of the Representative. Well, hes huge, she said in response. And he  I dont mean to be unkind, but hes so unattractive its unbelievable.
Mike Pence is 'planning for his presidential inauguration' claims Democract congresswoman Maxine Waters: Getty

US Vice President Mike Pence is preparing for Donald Trumps impeachment, a congresswoman from their rival Democrat Party has claimed.

Mike Pence is somewhere planning an inauguration, Maxine Waters wrote on Twitter.

Priebus and Spicer will lead the transition she added, referring to the two latest members of Trumps White House to resign.

Former chief of staff Reince Priebus stepped down and Sean Spicer resigned as press secretary both stepped down from their roles in recent weeks.

Mike Pence is somewhere planning an inauguration. Priebus and Spicer will lead the transition.  Maxine Waters (@MaxineWaters) July 30, 2017

A long time critic of Mr Trump, Ms Waters was the first US politician to claim that the salacious sex acts alleged in the unverified Russian blackmail dossier against the US leader were absolutely true.

The document, alleged the Russian state has compromising sexual and financial information on the President.

She has also repeatedlycalled for his impeachment.

Hes someone that Im committed to getting impeached! Mrs Waters told a Washington bookshop audience in May. Hes a liar! Hes a cheat! Hes a con man! Weve got to stop his ass.

Two Democrat congressmen, Al Green and Brad Sherman, filed the first impeachment articles against Mr Trump on 12 July.

They claimed Mr Trump obstructed justice by firing FBI Director James Comey during his investigation into Russian interference in the election.

But for an impeachment trial to go ahead, a majority in the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority in the Senate must approve it.

With both the House and Senate under Republican control until at least the mid-term elections in November 2018, this is unlikely.

Mr Pence has distanced himself from the recent scandals rocking the White House, including revelations of Donald Trump Jrs meeting with a Russian lawyer during the election campaign.

Story continues

The Vice President is "not focused on stories about the campaign - especially those pertaining to the time before he joined the campaign" said Mr Pence's spokesman in a statement, shortly after they emerged.

Donald Trump is someone that found his way to the presidency of the United States of America  I still dont know how.

Only two American presidents have been impeached, and in neither case did it lead to their removal from office. Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson were both exonerated by the Senate and completed their term in office.

Richard Nixon resigned following the Watergate scandal before Congress could impeach him.

Fourteen vice presidents have later become president - eight of those because of the death of the sitting president. Five became president during a following term and one following the resignation of the sitting president.

Related:

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Dave Dombrowski has been through enough of these. Monday will come and go, therell be a discussion over whether hes still a genius or has become an idiot that hell pay no attention to, and 55 games will follow. Maybe more.

Then well find out about the Boston Red Sox. And maybe the Red Sox will find out about the Red Sox.

They are, see, plenty good enough to win the AL East, as is. We knew that just about a week ago when they were up 3  games and pulling away, even if by Saturday afternoon they were a full game back and leaning toward bedlam, which can happen, except it always seems worse  more interesting, anyway  in places like Boston.

With about 45 hours until the trade deadline, the Red Sox of the so-so offense, of the .239 batting average in July, of the fewest home runs in the American League, had feathered in one Eduardo Nunez and promoted one Rafael Devers, while sending to the disabled list one David Price.

The teams highest paid player  thats Price  is mad at the TV guy, who happens to be a Hall of Fame pitcher. Price talked a little bit about that Saturday with reporters, who he was mad at previously, and may still be. Its getting hard to follow. Fortunately, Dustin Pedroia stood up and said hes got this, this being the clubhouse, which is fine, because, again, nobody thinks the Red Sox arent good enough, except for the fact theyre not winning enough.

Dombrowski, meantime, is starting to sound like a guy lowering expectations for Mondays deadline. The Chicago White Sox, as of early December, employ four of Bostons better prospects, that due to the Chris Sale trade. And Devers became important when Pablo Sandoval went belly up. And Dombrowski has said several times that after trades for Sale (those four minor leaguers) and Craig Kimbrel (four more minor leaguers, two Novembers ago), the likes of Devers and 18-year-old lefty Jason Groome are more valuable to the organization than ever.

The Boston Red Sox are good enough to win the AL East as is. (AP Images)

Accurate in this moment and subject to change, the Red Sox are of the mind Prices elbow will be healthy soon enough, and major improvements to the offense will come from the existing roster, and if theres an upgrade to be had in the bullpen, well, theyll see about that.

Story continues

Also, Yu Darvish and Sonny Gray are still out there, along with a raft of second tier starters. Also, Rick Porcello posted a 3.06 ERA in July. Also, Eduardo Rodriguez is iffy and Drew Pomeranz is sturdy and Doug Fister is not, so far. The New York Yankees hardly lose anymore, which is also a problem, and all this winning happened to coincide with the trade that brought them Todd Frazier, Tommy Kahnle and David Robertson. Theyre also the consensus favorite to land Gray, not that that means anything until the news conference.

Were not going to go out and make a big trade for a starting pitcher, Dombrowski told the Boston Globe recently. Were still hopeful that David will be back at this point.

A ruse, perhaps, as the Red Sox, being who they are, arent often allowed to lie in the weeds. Or, just the reality of today, and the uneasiness that comes when a good team plays poorly in the days leading to the deadline, and the ticking clock, and the sense that something isnt quite right.

It does seem the important thing here will not be the deadline, but those 55 games that chase it.

More MLB coverage on Yahoo Sports:


A Royal Canadian Mounted Policeman was captured chasing a black bear from a park in Waterton Lakes National Park in Alberta.

The young bear can be seen climbing a tree in the park as Sgt. Clayton Wilbern approaches with caution. But the moment the bear begins to retreat, Wilbern jumps into action, chasing the bear from the park in an attempt to scare it off.

According to Wilbern, the bear came a little too close to a nearby playground, making the situation more dire.

"It was heading towards a playground where there was a whole bunch of kids playing," he told the CBC. "So we tried to get it to go around the playground, which luckily we did. Hundreds of people were watching us as we were trying to get the poor little guy out."

Becuase it's Canada's 150th birthday this year, RCMP officers are often decked out in red serge.

"It was very Canadian," said Wilbern.

While it's common to see wildlife in the area, this bear manages to get awfully close to the busy downtown area. It's important to keep bears as far from people as possible so they don't get acquainted to interactions, and lose their fear of humans. Bears unafraid of humans can cause serious issues, including food dependencies and possible attacks.
Kim Jong-un on July 4, celebrating the launch of a missile which could reach Alaska - AFP

US officials announced on Tuesday that they believe North Korea will be able to field a reliable, nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile as early as next year, in an assessment which significantly increases concern about the rogue regime in Pyongyang.

The new assessment by the Pentagons Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) reduces by two years the previous forecast of North Koreas capability.

The timeline was reduced as a result of Kim Jong-uns recent flurry of missile tests, which showed surprising technical advances by the countrys weapons scientists. It came as North Korea fired its 14th missile this year.

Intercontinental ballistic missile test launch map

Scott Bray, national intelligence manager for East Asia at the Office for the Directorate of National Intelligence (ODNI), said in a statement that the recent test of an intercontinental range ballistic missile was not a surprise to the intelligence community but he described it as a milestone.

This test, and its impact on our assessments, highlight the threat that North Koreas nuclear and ballistic missile programs pose to the United States, to our allies in the region, and to the whole world, he said.

The intelligence community is closely monitoring the expanding threat from North Korea.

President Donald Trump, during his visit to Poland earlier this month, vowed to confront Pyongyang very strongly to stop its missile advances.

But it remains unclear how he can act, without causing civilian casualties on a large scale.

Mr Trump has sought help from China, but grown frustrated  tweeting on June 20 that Beijings efforts have not worked out.

On Tuesday Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, sounded a more optimistic note, however, and said talks were progressing.

"We're constantly in touch with China. Things are moving but it's still too early to tell how far they'll move," she said, speaking after a UN meeting in New York.

Story continues

North Koreas missile test range

The Washington Post reported that one of the few remaining technical hurdles is the challenge of atmospheric reentry  the ability to design a missile that can pass through the upper atmosphere without damage to the warhead.

Officials told the paper that they could achieve that feat as early as this week, with Thursday marking a North Korean holiday to celebrate the end of the Korean War.

Theyre setting up for something, a defence official told AFP.

North Korea startled the world earlier this month with its successful July 4 test of a missile capable of striking parts of Alaska  the first such missile with proven intercontinental range.

There has been alarming progress, said Joseph DeTrani, the former mission manager for North Korea for the ODNI and a former special envoy for negotiations with Pyongyang.

In the last year they have gained capabilities that they didnt have, including ones that we thought they would not have been able to obtain for years.
North Korea reportedly launched a ballistic missile that flew for 45 minutes and may have landed within 230 miles of Japans coast Friday, according to reports.

The Pentagon confirmed the United States detected the missile launch at approximately 10:45 a.m. EST, what would have been shortly before midnight in Japanese time. The type of missile launched has not been confirmed, but it is possible the latest in a series of attempts to develop a missile was capable of reaching the United States.

Read: Ahead of Armistice Day, North Korea Pledges War, Could Launch Missile

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said the missile may have landed within 230 miles of Japans coast. He called for an emergency meeting of government officials.

I have received the first report that North Korea again launched a missile and it possibly landed inside the exclusive economic zone, Abe told Japanese broadcaster Nippon Hoso Kyokai.

North Korea did not immediately confirm the launch.

missile

Photo: STR/AFP/Getty Images

According to a South Korean military official, North Korea fired a projectile into the East Sea, which is part of the Sea of Japan, reported NBC News. It was fired from North Koreas Jagang province, reported South Koreas Yonhap news agency.

We detected a launch of a ballistic missile from North Korea. We are assessing and will have more information soon, Pentagon spokesperson Lt. Col. Christopher Logan said to CNBC in an email.

The last missile launch North Korea conducted occurred July 4.

It is clear, based on [the ICBM launch] over the July 4 weekend, that North Korea has advanced significantly and quicker than many had expected, General Mark Milley, chief of staff of the US Army, said to the National Press Club Thursday. A War on the Korean peninsula would be highly deadly. It would be horrific.

Story continues

The United States military with the South Korean military, would utterly destroy the North Korean military  but that would be done at high cost in terms of human life, he added.

Read: North Korea's Kim Jong Un Celebrates Missile Launch With Banquet

The July 4 missile flew to a height of 1,741 miles and landed 577 miles from the launch site, appearing in waters between the Korean Peninsula and Japan. The Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) said the missile could have flown 4,970 miles if fired on a maximized range trajectory. That would put Hawaii and Alaska at risk.

According to a U.S. official aware of the latest intelligence developments, the U.S. predicted North Korea would have the capability to launch a nuclear-capable intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by early 2018. This would be two years sooner than previous estimates.

Related Articles
North Korea claimed to have conducted another intercontinental ballistic missile launch (ICBM) Friday, with the countrys leader Kim Jong Un personally supervising the launch at midnight.

The North Korean leader termed the missile test a stern warning for the U.S., saying the U.S. would face destruction if it tried to attack it, North Koreas KCNA news agency reported.

"The test-fire reconfirmed the reliability of the ICBM system, demonstrated the capability of making a surprise launch of the ICBM in any region and place any time, and clearly proved that the whole U.S. mainland is in the firing range of the DPRK missiles," KCNA quoted Jong Un as saying.

The new missile launch comes just a month after Pyongyang conducted its first ICBM test, Reuters reported.

In response to the launch, the U.S. and South Korean militaries carried out a joint ballistic missile exercise Saturday morning, reports said.

READ: Ahead of Armistice Day, North Korea Pledges War, Could Launch Missile

The US Army said they conducted a live-fire exercise using surface-to-surface missiles with the Souoth Korean military.

In a statement, the Army said the exercise involved Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) and South Korea's Hyunmoo Missile II.

Meanwhile, President Donald Trump condemned Pyongyangs actions, terming it reckless and dangerous.

By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people. The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region, Trump said in a statement.

While the president said the U.S. would take all necessary steps to ensure security for America and its allies, the adminsitration is yet to come up with a concrete plan to tackle North Korea.

The joint military exercise conducted by the U.S. and South Korea after the first ICBM missile launch doesn't seem to have deterred Pyongyang in conducting another launch.

Story continues

South Korea President Moon Jae-in has called for talks with the U.S. on deploying more anti-missile defense units in the region, and Seoul is speeding up the deployment of four additional U.S. THAAD anti misile defense system, reports said. South Korea had earlier deployed two such units but the rest were delayed to environmental concerns.

The U.S. has also used sanctions as a tool to contain North Korea, but it hasn't had much effect so far.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has put out a notice saying the companies helping North Korea economically would have to pay a heavy penalty. The notice is mostly aimed at China, which accounts for 90 percent of North Koreas trade, CNN reported.

READ: North Korea Calls Seoul's Proposal To Improve Ties 'Nonsense'

The U.S. is also moving to increase international pressure on North Koream and has asked United Nations members to cut down diplomatic relations with Pyongyang.

Dialogue with North Korea is another option that the U.S. is mulling, but the talks that have takenplace in the last 20 years and included countries like Japan, Russia and China were not fruitful. While North Korea earlier promised to drop its nuclear program, it did not.

Trump has said that he would like to meet Jong Un to reduce tensions between the two countries, but that seems unlikely as no U.S. president has ever met a North Korean leader in power. The president has also said he is ready to use force to deal with Pyongyang, but that doesn't seem to be an option, given Pyongyang belligerence is backed by nuclear bombs.

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Hamburg (AFP) - The suspect who killed a man with a knife in a Hamburg supermarket was a known Islamist with psychological problems but his motives remain unclear, German officials said Saturday.

Identified as a 26-year-old Palestinian, he arrived in Germany in 2015 from Norway but was due to be deported as his application for asylum was rejected.

Friday's assault risks reopening a bitter debate over refugees two months before general elections, putting pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel over her decision to open Germany's borders in 2015 and let in more than a million asylum seekers.

Merkel expressed her sympathies to victims and their families and vowed that "the violent act must be and will be clarified".

Investigators were still struggling to determine the exact motive for the assault, which left six people injured.

The suspect "was known as an Islamist but not a jihadist," said the port city's interior minister Andy Grote, noting "there are indications of radicalisation".

But Grote stressed that while there could have been an Islamist motive, the suspect also suffered from "psychological instability".

"It remains unclear which was the overriding element," he said.

The Palestinian suspect is being held but has refused to speak about why he staged the attack, Nana Frombach, the spokeswoman for the local prosecutor's office said.

Germany's interior minister Thomas de Maiziere also cautioned against jumping to conclusions.

"The jihadist ideology could be used as a justification for action that may actually be motivated by other reasons," he said, adding that "the real motives could perhaps lie in the personality of the perpetrator."

The attacker had entered the supermarket and taken a kitchen knife from the shelves.

"He ripped off the packaging and then suddenly brutally attacked a 50-year-old man who later died," said deputy police chief Kathrin Hennings.

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He later wounded two more men in the supermarket before fleeing, hurting four other people along the way, before he was overpowered by courageous passers-by.

The man had brandished the bloodied knife, shouting "Allahu Akbar" ("God is Greatest") as he fled the scene, but bystanders gave chase and flung chairs to stop him.

- 'Almost exemplary' -

If confirmed as an Islamist attack, it would be the first in Germany since Tunisian Anis Amri drove a truck into crowds at a Berlin Christmas market on December 19, killing 12 and injuring 48.

News website Spiegel Online named the supermarket attacker as Ahmad A., while officials said he had not appealed against Germany's decision to deny him asylum.

In fact, he had helped to obtain documents to facilitate his departure from Germany.

On the day of the attack, he had even gone to the authorities to ask if the papers had arrived. Police chief Ralf Meyer said the suspect was "almost exemplary" in this aspect.

And heavily armed police who searched a Hamburg asylum seekers' shelter where the man lived failed to find any weapons.

- 'Started drinking heavily' -

At the accommodation in a leafy suburb, the suspect's neighbour, who gave his name only as Mohamed, described him as "very intelligent".

"He was always helping other asylum seekers with their paperwork," the 31-year-old Syrian refugee told AFP.

But in recent weeks, he "had a crisis, he bought Islamist clothes and read the Koran very loudly in his room".

"And three weeks after Ramadan, he had another crisis. He started to drink heavily and smoke joints... he was sad that his mother was ill and that his asylum request was rejected," recounted Mohamed.

Ahead of elections in September, the latest assault risks rekindling the debate over the record refugee influx.

"It makes me especially angry that the perpetrator appears to be a person who claimed protection in Germany and then turned his hate against us," said Hamburg mayor Olaf Scholz.

"What was this man doing in Germany?" the mass-circulation Bild newspaper asked.
Pakistan's ruling party was to meet with parliamentarians Saturday to begin nominations for an interim prime minister after the Supreme Court ousted premier Nawaz Sharif, a polarising move which plunged the country into political uncertainty.

Sharif became the 15th prime minister in Pakistan's 70-year history, which it has been under military rule for roughly half of, to be ousted before completing a full term when he was disqualified from office by the Supreme Court Friday.

The decision brought an abrupt end to his third tenure as a democratically elected premier and sent his political opposition into the streets handing out sweets and beating drums in celebration.

But Pakistanis were divided on whether it set the country's democratic progress back, with supporters, commentators and some corners of the country's press slamming the ruling as a "judicial coup".

The decision removed Sharif from the leadership as well as his parliamentary seat with no clear successor in place.

A PML-N source who requested anonymity told AFP the party would meet with parliamentarians later Saturday to "chart out a future plan and nominate an interim prime minister".

He said the party leadership was already holding informal meetings at the prime minister's official residence, which Sharif has not yet vacated.

Meanwhile the Election Commission of Pakistan confirmed fresh elections would be held in Sharif's former constituency.

Friday's judgement saw the court disqualify Sharif for failing to disclose his monthly salary of 10,000 dirhams ($2,700) from a company owned by his son in the United Arab Emirates.

Sharif did not withdraw the salary, court documents show, but the five-member bench ruled his failure to disclose its existence meant he was not "honest" -- a requirement for Pakistani politicians under the country's Constitution.

Opposition leader Imran Khan, who has spearheadead the push against Sharif, hailed the verdict as ushering in a new dawn for Pakistan.

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But some observers slammed it as "political" and a "technicality", with rights campaigner and lawyer Asma Jahangir telling private Geo television late Friday that the powerful military was using the courts to destabilise democracy.

The military had an antagonistic relationship with Sharif, who had made several overtures to improve relations with nuclear arch-rival India.

Sharif's link to the UAE company was exposed as part of an investigation into corruption allegations against his family that erupted as a result of the Panama Papers leak last year.

The publication of 11.5 million secret documents from Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca documenting the offshore dealings of many of the world's rich and powerful implicated three of Sharif's four children -- daughter Maryam and sons Hasan and Hussein.

Claims about the lavish lifestyles and luxury London property portfolio of the Sharif dynasty played out for months in endless loops in the country's raucous news media.

Bribery and other forms of graft are endemic in Pakistan. But the PML-N has consistently and noisily denied the accusations, insisting that the dynasty's wealth was acquired legally through Sharif family businesses in Pakistan and the Gulf.
Washington (AFP) - The stunning collapse of President Donald Trump's health reforms was due in large part to the defiance of two Republican women who resisted relentless White House pressure to toe the party line.

While Senator John McCain's revolt grabbed the headlines, the votes of the lesser-known Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski proved decisive in sinking Trump's goal of repealing Obamacare.

During his presidential run against Hillary Clinton, Trump faced flak over his behavior and comments towards women.

And after Friday's health debacle, critics again questioned Trump's attempts to intimidate Collins and Murkowski, either via his top lieutenants or the bully pulpit of Twitter.

While several male Republican colleagues who voiced concerns about the direction of the repeal effort ultimately caved to Trump's demands, it was Collins and Murkowski who stood firm.

A wavering McCain's dramatic last-minute kibosh of the latest effort to repeal Obamacare would not have been possible without the persistence of the female senators from Maine and Alaska.

Each has faced aggressive arm-twisting and callouts by Trump, scare tactics from his cabinet, even threats of violence from a Republican congressman, Blake Farenthold, who said he would challenge "some female senators" to a duel if they were men rather than women, because they were blocking health care reform.

The mounting pressure against Collins and Murkowski served as a reminder of some of Trump's controversies from his presidential campaign.

He smeared a female reporter who moderated his first debate, attacked Clinton as an "enabler" for her husband's marital infidelities, used crude banter at campaign events, and of course there was the "Access Hollywood" tape, where he was heard using graphic language to boast of assaulting women.

Now in power, he can't shake the fact that women have blocked his singular legislative initiative.

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Among the Senate's 52 Republicans, five are women. Collins and Murkowski have been the most consistent opponents to the Obamacare repeal plans.

They both also voted against his nominee for education secretary, arguing she was not qualified for the post.

When Trump made nasty and denigrating remarks about a female MSNBC news host in June, Murkowski, age 60, and Collins, 64, led the condemnation.

"Stop it!" Murkowski blasted to him on Twitter. Collins's reprimand was similar.

On health care, the pair argued that the various plans offered threatened to adversely impact millions of American families on Medicaid.

They also cast votes against earlier Senate plans that would have left tens of millions more Americans uninsured.

- 'Standing strong' -

Collins's opposition goes back to 2015, when she was the only current Republican senator who voted against a similar partial repeal bill.

She and Murkowski were the only Republicans to oppose a motion to proceed to the health care bill debate that collapsed this week, prompting an angry tweet from Trump.

Murkowski "really let the Republicans, and our country, down yesterday. Too bad!" he said in an ominous tweet.

The intimidation ratcheted up dramatically when Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke called Murkowski, reportedly to warn her that the administration was prepared to withdraw its support for expanded oil drilling in Alaska and some of her other priorities.

He threatened the wrong lawmaker.

Murkowski chairs the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee, and she immediately delayed several administration nominations up for the panel's consideration.

She is no political pushover either. During Murkowski's 2010 re-election bid, she lost her Republican primary to a Tea Party-backed challenger. Undeterred, she mounted a write-in campaign and retained her seat.

Murkowski's and Collins's passionate positions against their own party earned respect from across the aisle.

"Thanks for standing strong throughout," tweeted Democratic Senator Michael Bennet.

Another Senate Democrat, Mazie Hirono, told CNN that she recently spoke with Murkowski, who offered advice about dealing with bullies: "fight back."
Madrid (AFP) - The plight of a Spanish woman who vanished with her children after defying a court order to hand them over to her Italian ex-partner, found guilty of domestic violence, has shaken the country.

The case burst into the limelight this week just as lawmakers agreed a series of measures to tackle abuse against women, in a country that has made the struggle against domestic violence a priority.

Juana Rivas, a woman in her mid-30s from Maracena in southern Spain, was living in Italy with her partner when she took both their sons -- aged 3 and 11 -- away in May 2016 and never returned, alleging abuse.

According to the Maracena municipal women's centre which is representing her, she had suffered "psychological and physical violence."

Her ex-partner, who was found guilty of abusing her in 2009, filed a complaint for child abduction, according to Andalusia's high court, which oversees all courts in the southern region including the one that has dealt with the case.

In an interview with Italy's Ansa news agency, he denied any violence.

"I want to be able to hold my children again in my arms, I haven't seen them since last year," he said.

A Spanish court subsequently decided the children should return to Italy, arguing among other things that the eldest boy was evaluated by psychologists and did not show any indication of not wanting to see his father.

Rivas appealed but this was rejected and the court ordered her to hand over the children on Wednesday, July 26.

- 'Defend them' -

Footage of Rivas earlier this week showed her in tears as she appealed to the media.

"If they want to steal them from me, I will defend them until my last breath," she told reporters.

On Wednesday, she never turned up and has remained in hiding ever since with her children.

The case has sparked an outpouring of support for Rivas, not only from fellow residents in Maracena, but further afield in Spain.

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Netizens have taken to Twitter to pledge their support with the hashtags #Juanaestaenmicasa (Juana is in my house) or #YoSoyJuana (I am Juana) and a petition launched on Change.org in December 2016 has garnered more than 208,000 signatures.

Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told reporters "you have to put yourself in the place of this mother" when asked about the case.

"She had to go live in Italy, come back, she's been assaulted twice, her husband was sentenced by the courts," he said.

But in the Ansa interview, her ex-partner accused her of organising a media campaign against him.

The court in charge of the case has ordered both parties to appear at a hearing on August 8 to decide how to proceed.
Police chiefs have rebuffed President Trumps call to rough up suspects.

Officers can stop protecting suspects heads when they lower them into patrol cars, Mr Trump said during a speech to law enforcement officers, who clapped and laughed.

But dignity and respect are the bedrock principle" behind "procedural justice and police legitimacy, said the International Association of Chiefs of Police in a statement.

Issued just hours after his speech, the statement does not make reference to President Trump or his remarks.

The ability of law enforcement officers to enforce the law, protect the public, and guard their own safety, the safety of innocent bystanders, and even those suspected or apprehended for criminal activity is very challenging" said the statement.

For these reasons, law enforcement agencies develop policies and procedures, as well as conduct extensive training, to ensure that any use of force is carefully applied and objectively reasonable considering the situation confronted by the officers.

Law enforcement officers are trained to treat all individuals, whether they are a complainant, suspect, or defendant, with dignity and respect.

This is the bedrock principle behind the concepts of procedural justice and police legitimacy.

As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.  Suffolk County PD (@SCPDHq) 28 July 2017

Mr Trumps speech focused on measures to counter violence by a notorious street gang, MS-13.

Linking gang violence to immigrant communities, he repeated his administrations commitment to speeding up deportations of illegal immigrants, enforcing immigration laws and building the wall on the Mexican border.

When you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon  you just see them thrown in, rough  I said, Please dont be too nice, he said.

Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody  dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, okay? he added.

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The audience of law enforcement officers laughed and clapped.

For years and years, [laws have] been made to protect the criminal, Mr Trump said.

Totally protect the criminal, not the officers. You do something wrong, youre in more jeopardy than they are. These laws are stacked against you. Were changing those laws.

Mr Trump called MS-13 members animals who have transformed peaceful parks and beautiful quiet neighborhoods into blood-stained killing fields.

The gangs members have allegedly committed 17 murders in Sussex County since the start of 2016, according to USA Today.

The police force for Sussex County, where Mr Trump spoke, wrote on Twitter immediately afterwards that it has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners.

Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously."

"As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners."

Human rights advocates have also condemned the presidents remarks.

Innocent until proven guilty? Our president would rather not bother with that, expanding the role of the police officer to include judge, jury, and executioner said American Civil Liberties Union deputy legal director Jeffery Robinson in a statement.

And if the police happen to make a mistake and arrest an innocent person? Well, the pain and humiliation they endure is just a small price to pay for our return to being tough on crime. Just remember which communities will pay.

This country is weary of the type of policing that Trump espouses, having seen over and over again that it only makes it harder for police to investigate and solve crime."

"We must increase the trust between police and civilians, not decimate it.
President Donald Trump told a crowd of police officers Friday not to be too nice to suspected gang members and others under arrest.

When you see thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon, you just see them thrown in; rough. I said, please dont be too nice,' Trump said Friday at a Suffolk County, New York event discussing the administrations efforts to handle a violent gang known as MS-13. Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put your hand over it. Like, dont hit their head, and theyve just killed somebody. I said, you can take the hand away, O.K.?.

Some in the crowd cheered at Trumps remarks. But on social media, some observers were quick to accuse the President of encouraging violent behavior among officers at a time when police departments nationwide are under pressure to clamp down on officer-involved incidents.

President Trump appeared before federal, state, and local law enforcement officers Friday to discuss his administrations ongoing efforts to rid the country of illegal immigrants, particularly members of the MS-13 gang. Police say the gang has been responsible for 17 killings on Long Island since January of 2016.

They kidnap, they extort, they rape, and they rob. They prey on children. They shouldnt be here, President Trump said of MS-13, which first arose in Los Angeles. They are animals.

We cannot accept this violence one day more, Trump continued. Youre not going to allow it and were backing you up one hundred precent.

Trump said the administrations goal was to dismantle, decimate, and eradicate MS-13 and other criminal groups operating in the U.S. But immigration advocates have expressed concern that the Presidents rhetoric and targeting of undocumented immigrants writ large has in actuality emboldened gang members and spread fear among law-abiding undocumented immigrants.
The man who confessed to killing four young men in Bucks County, Pennsylvania appeared to have an active social media presence before the crimes. Cosmo DiNardo, 20, often shared things on Facebook and Instagram  posts that are now making the rounds on the internet due to a curious public.

A Facebook group entitled Cosmo DiNardo & Sean Kratz: Everything You Need To Know, has begun sharing publicly DiNardos social media postings. What started as a closed group July 13 was made public shortly thereafter, according to local news outlet Philly Voice.

Read: Whats Next For Cosmo DiNardo, Man Who Confessed To Pennsylvania Murders?

DiNardo confessed to his role in the murders of Dean Finocchiaro, 19, Jimi Tar Patrick, 19, Tom Meo, 21, and Mark Sturgis, 22, earlier in July. In his confession, he implicated his cousin, Sean Kratz, also 20. The bodies of the four young men were found on an expansive property owned by DiNardos parents. DiNardo and Kratz were both charged with murder.

Cosmo DiNardo

Photo: Facebook/Jay Patterson

One member of the Facebook group dedicated to information about the two men was an acquaintance of DiNardos and broadcast three live videos Thursday sharing DiNardos social media posts. Two videos, six minutes and 21 minutes long respectively, focused on DiNardos Instagram posts, while another 42-minute long video focused on his Facebook feeds. Though DiNardos Facebook page was taken down Thursday, some of those social media posts are listed below, as reported by Philly Voice.

Nov. 23, 2016: A GUN IS LIKE A WOMAN ITS ALL ABOUT HOW YOU HOLD HER

Dec. 19, 2016: I have no luck when it comes to woman

Dec. 20, 2016: I need a ride or die chick who can fill that position

Dec. 27, 2016: I am a savage no explanation needed!

Jan. 20, 2017: Birthday sex anyone ????

Jan. 26, 2017: I currently sell firewood but this spring I am starting my own landscaping and tree business if anyone would like a free estimate call me at [phone number]

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Mar. 1, 2017: Who on here uses Tinder and is successful with it

Mar. 15, 2017: I need to buy some friends

Mar. 19, 2017: so I've been doing a lot of thinking lately so hear it goes the master plan is for me to move someone I can become a professional hunter. Here is how i plan to make my dreams come true. First I am going to Montana to do taxidermy school for 6 months. My second stop will be to open a butcher shop in New Hope. After the butcher shop, I will use the funds to acquire equipment and a building to make a archery range and a paintball course. After the first four steps I will yu sed the funds to buy property in different states mainly out west and florida as well as South Africa ad Equiatorial Africa. Once I buy property the next move is to use the friends I have made at the butcher shop and taxidermy to go guide hunts for whitetai bear and alligator as well as elk and other small game and predators. I plan to have all this in place by the time I'm thirty years old.

May 21, 2017: when mom starts the convo off with listen u fat fuck

Jun. 24, 2017: Im the big bad wolf come to blow your house down

Jun. 26, 2017: guns get drawn like cartoons

Jun. 26, 2017: Its nightmare on elm street and guess whos playing Freddy

Jul. 5, 2017, 4:46 a.m.: Whos awake (DiNardo later told prosecutors he shot and killed Jimi Patrick later that night.)

Jul. 6, 2017: Best methods to fall asleep? Other than sleepy pills and shitty tasting tea oh and working out doesnt make me tired FYI

Jul. 7, 2017, 4:15 a.m.: where the working men at (DiNardo told prosecutors he killed the other three main later that day.)

Jul. 8, 2017: Time to say bye bye to Facebook and hello to more free time (This was DiNardos last post on Facebook.)

A full list of DiNardos social media posts can be found here.

Both DiNardo and Kratz remained behind bars after being unable to post bail. The men were set to appear before a district judge for a preliminary hearing in September.

Read: Cosmo DiNardos Motive: Why Were Four Young Men Killed?

We will heal, I know it. District Attorney Matthew Weintraub said of the community after the murders. I know it because of the immeasurable outpouring of support and prayers from all of you  for the boys, for the families, for our first responders and for me.

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Moscow (AFP) - Russia's foreign ministry on Friday announced counter measures in response to tough new sanctions proposed by the United States, ordering Washington to reduce its diplomatic staff.

Moscow ordered the US to reduce its diplomatic presence in Russia to 455 diplomats and staff and also barred it from using a Moscow summer house and storage facility.

The ministry said that this was in response to the passing of a new bill on sanctions by the Senate late Thursday. US President Donald Trump will now have to decide whether to accept or veto the measures.

US Ambassador John Tefft "expressed his strong disappointment and protest" at the development, the US embassy spokesperson told AFP, adding that "we have passed the notification back to Washington for review."

The embassy spokesperson declined to comment on the current number of US diplomats and staff in Russia.

President Vladimir Putin on Thursday slammed what he called "anti-Russian hysteria" in Washington and said that Russia could not "endlessly tolerate this kind of insolence."

Moscow complained that the "new sanctions bill showed with all clarity that relations with Russia have fallen hostage to the domestic political struggle in the US."

It warned that it "reserves the right to carry out other measures that could affect the interests of the US" while acting in a reciprocal fashion.

The move comes after Russia has repeatedly expressed anger at Washington barring its diplomats access to two compounds in the US in December last year, under Barack Obama, in response to suspected Russian meddling in the US election.

Obama at the same time expelled 35 Russian diplomats for spying.

President Vladimir Putin initially held off from retaliating, saying he would wait to see how Trump reacted after he came into the White House.

Trump and Putin discussed this diplomatic spat at their first meeting at the G20 in Hamburg this month.

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Russia's deputy foreign minister Sergei Ryabkov had said after subsequent talks in Washington that the matter was "almost" resolved.

The Russian foreign ministry on Friday slammed what it called "extreme aggressiveness of the US in international affairs" and said Washington was using the "absolutely far-fetched pretext of Russia's interference in its internal affairs" to carry out "flagrantly anti-Russian actions."

The ministry said "We propose to the US side to bring the number of diplomatic and technical staff" working in Russia "in exact accordance" with the number of Russian diplomats and support staff in the United States by September 1.

It said that this would reduce the number of US diplomats and staff to 455.

The ministry also said it would bar access to a summer house and storage facilities in Moscow used by the US embassy from August 1.
Scientists are attempting to unlock the secrets of the "lost continent" of Zealandia, setting sail Friday to investigate the huge underwater landmass east of Australia that has never been properly studied.

Zealandia, which is mostly submerged beneath the South Pacific, was once part of the Gondwana super-continent but broke away some 75 million years ago.

In a paper published in the Geological Society of America's Journal GSA Today in February, researchers made the case that it should be considered a new continent.

They said it was a distinct geological entity that met all the criteria applied to Earth's other continents, including elevation above the surrounding area, distinctive geology, a well-defined area and a crust much thicker than that found on the ocean floor.

Covering five million square kilometres (1.9 million square miles), it extends from south of New Zealand northward to New Caledonia and west to the Kenn Plateau off Australia's east.

Drill ship Joides Resolution will recover sediments and rocks lying deep beneath the sea bed in a bid to discover how the region has behaved over the past tens of millions of years.

The recovered cores will be studied onboard, allowing scientists to address issues such as oceanographic history, extreme climates, sub-seafloor life, plate tectonics and earthquake-generating zones.

Co-chief scientist Jerry Dickens, from Rice University in Texas, said the region was a vital area to study changes in global climate.

"As Australia moved north and the Tasman Sea developed, global circulation patterns changed and water depths over Zealandia fluctuated," he said.

"This region was important in influencing global changes."

Australian National University's Neville Exon said the two-month expedition, setting out Friday from Townsville, would also help better understand major changes in the global tectonic configuration that started about 53 million years ago.

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This is around the time that the Pacific "Ring of Fire", a hotspot for volcanoes and earthquakes, came into existence.

In the February scientific paper, lead author Nick Mortimer said experts had been gathering data to make the case for Zealandia being a continent for more than 20 years.

But their efforts had been frustrated because most of it was hidden beneath the waves.

"If we could pull the plug on the oceans, it would be clear to everybody that we have mountain chains and a big, high-standing continent," he said at the time.
Joy-Anna Duggar has not announced shes expecting her first baby, but there are several signs she and husband Austin Forsyth could soon be parents. Ahead of the return of Counting On this fall, check out these four signs the Duggar family has a big pregnancy announcement ahead.

Jim Bob And Michelles Comments

Joys father, Jim Bob Duggar, made a rather telling comment during the Counting On tell-all special. Part two of the episode, which aired Monday, showed the father of 19 telling host Stephanie Oz that viewers should anticipate big things happening in their lives come next season of the TLC series.

After stating fans should expect to see his son Joseph Duggar grow his relationship with Kendra Caldwell, he hinted Joy could soon be expecting. This comment rattled fans seeing as though his daughter Jinger Duggar has been married since November 2016 and Joy has only been married since late May.

Maybe Joy and Austin will have a little one on the way. You never know what will happen, he said during the episode.

READ: Jana Duggars Complete Dating History Revealed

Jim Bob only corrected himself when Joy interjected herself into the conversation, stating Jinger could also become pregnant. Maybe Jinger and Jeremy, Jim Bob said. Jinger and her husband Jeremy Vuolo didnt respond to his statement.

Earlier in the episode, Joys mother, Michelle Duggar, also stated that she and Jim Bob have more grandbabies on the way. Currently, only their eldest son Josh and his wife Anna Duggar are expecting.

joy duggar

Photo: TLC

READ: When Is Anna Duggar Welcoming Baby No. 5?

New Home, New Baby?

Last month, family friends of the Duggars revealed on the Duggar Family Blog that Joy and Austin were prepping for post-married life. The blog stated that Joy and Austin were planning on putting down roots in their home state of Arkansas after their extended honeymoon and adding, It might not be too long before they enter parenthood.

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It has since been announced that Austin and Joy will not be building a home, but rather fixing up an abode. The renovation of their dream home will be shown on Counting On Season 3.

A Desire For Children

For months, Joy has publicly expressed her desire to have a family of her own. In May, while wishing her mother Michelle Duggar a Happy Mothers Day in a Facebook video, she dished about her hope to have children.I cant wait to be a mother myself, she said in the footage while Austin stood by her side. (You can listen to Joys remarks at the 38 seconds in above.)

READ: Joseph Duggars Pricey Wedding Registry Upsets Fans

Life Plans

In May, Joy divulged her five-year plan Crown of Beauty Magazine, stating that she planned to be married and a mother. Shes already got the marriage part down. Now, is it time for babies? Fans will have to wait and see!

The Duggar family returns with an all-new episodes of Counting On on Monday, Sept. 11, at 9 p.m. EDT on TLC. Viewers should also expect to see the continuation of Joseph Duggars romance with Kendra Caldwell before they marry in October.

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The most powerful present-day rocket in the world which also has the largest payload capacity is SpaceXs Falcon Heavy, except one drawback  it has never even been fully tested, let alone flown. But company CEO Elon Musk announced late Thursday that SpaceX will finally test the Falcon Heavy in November, the clearest indication yet of the rockets maiden launch.

Musk made the announcement on his Instagram and Twitter accounts.

Even though the exact date for the test launch is not yet known, it will take place from NASAs Kennedy Space Center in Florida, since SpaceX does not have the facilities at its development site in Texas to support the thrust produced by the Falcon Heavy. With the power of almost three Falcon 9 rockets (27 Merlin engines, compared to nine in the Falcon 9), the Falcon Heavy is expected to generate 5.1 million pounds of thrust at take-off.

Read: Blue Origin Vs. SpaceX: Jeff Bezos' New Glenn Rocket Bigger Than Falcon Heavy?

The 27 engines actually come from three cores in the rockets first stage, each of which is a Falcon 9 rocket, one of them as the center booster and the other two as side boosters. After lift-off, the center core engines throttle down, and the side cores power the rocket till the end of the first stage, when the two boosters separate and the center core powers up to full thrust again.

In another tweet Thursday, Musk said the two side boosters will return to the Cape Canaveral facility in Florida, while the central booster will land on a droneship. SpaceX has demonstrated successfully a few times both types of landings that allow it to reuse its rockets.

The only rocket which had a larger payload capacity than the Falcon Heavys 54 metric tons (119,000 pounds) was the Saturn V moon rocket, which last flew in 1973. SpaceX claims the Falcon Heavy can carry twice the payload than the largest capacity rocket in operation, the Delta IV Heavy manufactured by United Launch Alliance (a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing). This high capacity for payload makes the rocket suited for crewed missions to the moon or even Mars.

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However, getting the Falcon Heavy into orbit is no easy task. While the Falcon 9 has achieved that feat a number of times already, putting three of the lighter rockets engine cores together in one enormous machine is not just a simple matter of addition, as Musk explained at the International Space Station Research and Development Conference in Washington, D.C., on July 19.

At first it sounds real easy, you just stick two first stages on as strap-on boosters, but then everything changes. All the loads change, aerodynamics totally change. Youve tripled the vibration and acoustics. You sort of break the qualification levels on so much of the hardware.  The amount of load youre putting through that center core is crazy because youve got two super-powerful boosters also shoving that center core, so we had to redesign the whole center core airframe. Its not like the Falcon 9 because its got to take so much load. Then youve got separation systems, Musk reportedly said.

Falcon Heavy

Photo: SpaceX

Read: SpaceX Signs First Customer For Reused Falcon 9 Rocket

And despite knowing all that, and preparing accordingly, Musk wasnt sure if the heavy rocket will actually be successful in its first launch test.

Theres a lot of risk associated with Falcon Heavy, a real good chance that that vehicle does not make it to orbit. I want to make sure to set expectations accordingly. I hope it makes it far enough beyond the pad so that it does not cause pad damage. I would consider even that a win, to be honest, Musk said of the November test.

If everything goes without a hitch, SpaceX has two more Falcon Heavy flights scheduled in the first half of 2018. If the rocket starts commercial flights by the end of 2018, as SpaceX plans, it could mean a big boost for the company, which is now already one of the worlds most valued privately held businesses. According to pricing made available by SpaceX, it will charge $90 million for carrying up to 8 metric tons of payload to geosynchronous transfer orbit. Data gathered by CNBC showed SpaceX is now valued at $21 billion, with only six other companies worldwide that are privately held and valued at over $20 billion.

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By Anjali Athavaley and Liana B. Baker (Reuters) - Sprint Corp has proposed a merger with Charter Communications Inc as the wireless carrier seeks an alternative to a deal with T-Mobile US Inc that has so far not come to fruition, according to sources familiar with the matter. Japan's SoftBank Group Corp, which controls Sprint, proposed a complex transaction that would create a new company and be controlled by SoftBank, the sources said, asking not to be named because the talks are private. The Wall Street Journal first reported the discussions on Friday. (http://on.wsj.com/2eVpfoi) There is no guarantee Charter would be interested in a tie-up with Sprint, the sources said. Bloomberg reported Friday Charter had rebuffed Sprint's merger proposal. Charter's market capitalization, at $94.6 billion, is much larger than Sprint, which closed trading valued at $32.8 billion on Friday. Verizon Communications Inc also expressed interest in a takeover of Charter earlier this year, sources have said. If Charter were to agree to a merger with Sprint, it would need the blessing of No. 1 U.S. cable provider Comcast Corp. Charter and Comcast announced an agreement in May that bars either company from entering into a material transaction in wireless for a year without the other's consent. Sprint and Comcast declined to comment while Charter, SoftBank and T-Mobile did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Sprint shares rose 5.8 percent in after-market trading while Charter shares were marginally up. Sprint has been looking at solutions to further its turnaround, strengthen its financial health and better compete in the fierce U.S. wireless industry. It held talks this month about receiving billions in funding from Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc and John Malone's Liberty Media Corp, Reuters previously reported, but they have not resulted in a deal. Sprint had been in a two-month period of exclusive negotiations with Charter and Comcast over a potential wireless partnership that had put Sprint's merger talks with T-Mobile US on hold. That exclusivity period has ended but talks with the cable companies continue, according to the sources. Despite regulatory hurdles, investors have long expected a deal between T-Mobile and Sprint, the third- and fourth-largest U.S. wireless service providers, anticipating cost cuts and other synergies. T-Mobile appears to be in no rush to pursue a merger although it has acknowledged interest in speaking to Sprint. T-Mobile has been gaining share from larger competitors AT&T Inc and Verizon Communications Inc in a saturated U.S. wireless market through network improvements and lower prices. (additional reporting by Ismail Shakil and Gaurika Juneja in Bengaluru; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Bill Trott)
BAUCHI, Nigeria (Reuters) - Suspected members of Boko Haram have released a photograph that appears to show three kidnapped members of an oil exploration team in northeastern Nigeria, according to the university whose staff were part of the team and which distributed the image on Friday. The abduction of the oil survey team and a rescue attempt that led to multiple fatalities have led to a U-turn by the government and military, who earlier this month had said Boko Haram were defeated and all but eliminated. The defense minister told reporters on Thursday that the authorities were not in full control of the environment in the northeast at the moment, and that the military was trying to regain territory there. The team, which included university staff and employees from Nigeria's state oil firm, was kidnapped by suspected militants from Islamist insurgency Boko Haram while searching for oil in the conflict-ridden northeast on Tuesday. A rescue attempt on Wednesday ended in the deaths of at least 37 members of the original prospecting team and the rescuers, including Nigerian military and armed vigilantes. Friday's photograph, released by the University of Maiduguri, appears to shows three of its staff, seemingly unharmed, sitting crosslegged on a red floor in front of a patterned wall. The university gave the names of the staff pictured, but declined to give any further details. Four staff members are missing in total, a university spokesman said. Also on Thursday, Acting President Yemi Osinbajo dispatched the chiefs of the military to the northeast to help regain control of the situation. Of those killed in the kidnapping and attempted rescue, five are staff from the University of Maiduguri, 22 are from the vigilante Civilian Joint Task Force and 10 are military, according to officials and military sources. Northeastern Nigeria has been wracked for eight years by an Islamist insurgency that has killed at least 20,000 people and forced some 2.7 million to flee their homes. The Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, which contracted university staff, has for more than a year surveyed what it says may be vast oil reserves in the Lake Chad Basin. It is aiming to reduce its reliance on the southern Niger Delta energy hub, which last year was hit by militant attacks on oil facilities. The government and military have repeatedly said Boko Haram is on the verge of defeat. In December, President Muhammadu Buhari said the group's last stronghold, an enclave in the Sambisa forest, had fallen. But insurgents have launched attacks with renewed zeal in the past few months. The latest attack brings the death toll in Maiduguri and its environs since early June to at least 99. Seventeen people were killed in the city in one week alone this month. (Reporting by Ardo Hazzad; Writing by Paul Carsten; Editing by Hugh Lawson)
A teen who was injured in a freak accident on the "Fire Ball" at the Ohio State fair on Wednesday is now speaking out.

Abdihakim Hussein, 19, was on the ride when one of the cars, which was carrying four people, detached, killing one and injuring seven others, three critically.

Read: Ride Accident at Ohio State Fair Leaves 1 Dead, 7 Others Injured

It's just scary, like a nightmare come true," Hussein told CBSNews. "It started going faster, then it started going higher. That's when it hit the ride, like 'boom!' and my whole life just flashed in front of me, like I just seen people dying,

Hussein and his girlfriend were passengers in the row next to the car that detached.

Husseins girlfriend, Hannah Sallee, told the station that it was pure chaos in the aftermath of the accident.

"There were people panicking everywhere and what really bothers me is people just wanted to have their phones out," Sallee said.

Hussein suffered a fracture at the back of his neck, according to ABCNews.

Sallee said in a Facebook post that she and Hussein were initially on the car that broke off but were moved at the last minute.

What an awful image that will forever be in my head. Not a pretty scene. I'm so thankful that my friends and I survived this, Sallee wrote on a post.

The family of Tyler Jarrell, 18, who was killed in the tragedy, is planning to file a wrongful death suit, reports said.

The Fire Ball swings riders 40 feet in the air while spinning them at 13 revolutions per minute, according to amusement park operator Amusements of America.

Read: Teen Paralyzed in Diving Accident Gets Hospital Visit From Country Star Zac Brown: 'Oh My God!'

Authorities said the ride had passed its state inspections before the accident. Video taken by a local news crew shows an inspector checking other rides at the fair Monday.

The ride will remain closed after the accident.

Story continues

Other rides at the fair have returned to normal operations while others are scheduled to after inspections, reports said.

Watch: Paralyzed Teen Gets Perfect ACT Score Just Months After Freak Diving Accident

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Tensions have mounted over North Koreas attempts to develop a viable nuclear weapon after it carried out a successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM).

Experts said the test suggested the communist state now has a missile capable of carrying a nuclear warhead within reach of major US cities.

In response, the US and South Korea carried out a live-fire missile training exercise in a defiant show of firepower.

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who was present at the latest launch, said the test was a stern warning to the US, which he claimed his country was now able to strike at any place and time.

In response, Donald Trump re-iterated his promise that the US would take all necessary steps to combat the threat from North Korea.

"By threatening the world, these weapons and tests further isolate North Korea, weaken its economy, and deprive its people, he said.

"The United States will take all necessary steps to ensure the security of the American homeland and protect our allies in the region."

US officials have refused to dismiss the possibility of a military response to North Korea. Earlier in the week, Marine General Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said he was actively preparing options for military action.

Rex Tillerson, US Secretary of State, said China and Russia were partly to blame for North Korea's activities.

"As the principal economic enablers of North Koreas nuclear weapon and ballistic missile development program, China and Russia bear unique and special responsibility for this growing threat to regional and global stability, he said.

Following the latest missile test, Song Young-moo, the South Korean Defence Minister, said his country would speed up the deployment of THAAD anti-missile units given to it by the US.

"This ballistic missile launch by North Korea is a serious provocation that not only clearly violates the UN Security Councils numerous resolutions but also threatens the safety of the Korean peninsula and world peace," Mr Song said.

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"The joint governments of South Korea and the United States will firmly punish North Korea for its missile provocation.

After chairing a meeting of his country's National Security Council, South Korean President Moon Jae-in calls on the United Nations (UN) Security Council to impose stronger actions on North Korea.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres condemned the launch of a "ballistic missile of possible intercontinental range".

The latest missile test took place shortly before midnight on Friday night. Fired from Jangang province in northern North Korea, it flew for more than 620 miles and reached an altitude of 2,300 miles before landing in the sea in Japans exclusive economic area, South Korean officials said.

The Pentagon confirmed it believed the missile was an ICBM. US officials believe North Korea will be able to fire a reliable, nuclear-capable ICBM by next year.

In contrast to other reports, a Russian Defence Ministry official said Moscow's data suggested the launch was only of a medium-range ballistic missile, according to Russian news agency Tass, China and Russia are reported to only see a long-range missile test or nuclear weapon test as reasons for further UN sanctions.

While some experts said the missile used in the latest test would have been able to hit cities on the west coast of the US, such as Los Angeles, others said it could have travelled as far as Denver or Chicago.

The US has a complex system of defences against ICBM missiles, including anti-missile units based in California and Alaska. In May the system, successfully shot down an incoming ICBM during a test.

Additional reporting by agencies.
By Alexandria Sage FREMONT, Calif. (Reuters) - Tesla Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk said on Friday the Model 3 had over half a million advance reservations as he handed over the first 30 to employee buyers, setting the stage for the biggest test yet of the company's strategy to become a profitable, mass market electric car maker. Outside Tesla's Fremont, California factory, Musk showed off the $35,000 base vehicle with a range of 220 miles (350 km) on a charge that marks a departure from the company's earlier luxury electric cars. Musk took to the stage driving a red Model 3, and said Tesla has produced 50 of the vehicles so far, including 20 for testing purposes. Hours before the event, Musk acknowledged it would be "quite a challenge" to build the car during the early days of production. "We're going to go through at least six months of manufacturing hell," Musk told journalists. The over half a million reservations are up from about 373,000 disclosed in April 2016. Customers pay $1,000 refundable deposits for the car, which is eligible for tax credits. Any new buyers would likely not receive their car until the end of 2018, Musk said. A longer-range version of the car is priced at $44,000 and will drive 310 miles (500 km) on a single charge. The cars feature a streamlined dashboard devoid of buttons or knobs, with a 15-inch touchstream display to the right of the driver. Tesla faces major hurdles living up to the Model 3 hype. The 500,000 vehicles Tesla vows to produce next year are nearly six times its 2016 production. Were Tesla to produce and sell 500,000 cars per year, the company would likely outsell the BMW, Mercedes, or Lexus brands in the United States. Production delays and quality issues marred the launches of Tesla's Model S and Model X vehicles, and the company blamed production problems for a shortfall during the second quarter of this year. Musk has said a simpler Model 3 design will greatly reduce potential assembly-line problems. Tesla has burned through over $2 billion in cash so far this year ahead of the launch. A troubled Model 3 launch could heighten the risks for the company, while a steady delivery of Model 3s could generate a stream of cash that would allow Tesla to avoid going again to the capital markets to fund its operations. Tesla's share price has surged 54 percent since January in anticipation of the Model 3 launch, and Tesla's pricey valuation now exceeds that of traditional rivals like General Motors Co and Ford Motor Co. Until now, Tesla has operated as a niche producer of luxury electric vehicles, with a charismatic, showman CEO who regularly interacts with fans on his Twitter account. Now loss-making Tesla is trying to move into a different league, building vehicles in high volume for customers able to pay only a few thousand dollars more than the average price of a conventional car or truck sold in the United States. The Model 3 is part of Musk's broader plan to build a clean energy and transportation company that offers electric semi-trailer trucks, rooftop solar energy systems and large-scale battery storage systems. (Reporting by Alexandria Sage; Editing by Joe White, Lisa Shumaker and Kim Coghill)
By Irene Klotz CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - A new crew arrived at the International Space Station on Friday, giving NASA for the first time four astronauts to boost U.S. research projects aboard the orbiting laboratory. A Russian Soyuz capsule carrying three spaceflight veterans slipped into a docking port aboard the station at 5:54 p.m. EDT (2154 GMT) as the $100 billion research outpost sailed about 250 miles (400 km) over Germany, a NASA TV broadcast showed. Strapped inside the capsule, which blasted off aboard a Soyuz rocket from Kazakhstan six hours earlier, were Randy Bresnik, with the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration; Sergey Ryazanskiy, with the Russian space agency Roscosmos; and Italy's Paolo Nespoli, with the European Space Agency. The men will join two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut already aboard the station, a project of 15 nations. Their arrival means the U.S. space agency now has four crew members instead of three available for medical experiments, technology demonstrations and other research aboard the station, the U.S. space agency said. The extra astronaut will effectively double the amount of time for research, program manager Kirk Shireman said at a station conference last week. NASA does not oversee the Russian staff, which was reduced to two in April until a long-delayed research module joins the station next year. Previously, Russia flew three cosmonauts, with the remaining three positions filled by a combination of European, Japanese, Canadian and U.S. astronauts, who are trained and overseen by NASA. By the end of next year, NASA intends to begin flying astronauts aboard space taxis under development by SpaceX and Boeing. Both spaceships have room for a fourth seat, bumping the stations overall crew size to seven once Russia returns to full staffing. NASA is using the station to prepare for human missions to the moon and Mars and to stimulate commercial space transportation, pharmaceutical research, manufacturing and other businesses. The agency also conducts physics, astronomy and Earth science investigations aboard the outpost, which has been staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since 2000. Bresnik, 49, last flew on the space shuttle in 2009 during a space station assembly mission. Ryazanskiy, 42, spent five-and-a-half months aboard the station in 2013-2014. Nespoli, 60, is making his third space flight, having previously served on both space shuttle and space station crews. The men are slated to return to Earth in December. (Reporting by Irene Klotz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Tom Brown)
Ret. Army Col. Derek Harvey speaks about ISIS during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on Capitol Hill May 21, 2015: Getty Images

Donald Trumps top Middle East official has been fired by national security adviser HR McMaster.

Derek Harvey, a former analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, had been a key player in the Trump administrations Iran policy review and had been helping to develop the US's approach toward foreign policy in Syria, Iraq and other regional hotspots. He had been viewed as one of Mr Trumps more hawkish foreign policy advisers  particularly on Iran.

In an emailed statement to The Atlantic, Mr Harvey confirmed he was leaving and praised Mr McMaster: I have known LTG H.R. McMaster for many years, and H.R. and I have worked closely together to tackle some of our nation's most difficult challenges. I value our friendship and deeply respect his visionary leadership. I look forward to working with H.R. in my future capacity.

Mr Harvey had a relationship with Mr McMaster that dated back to their service as advisers to General David Petraeus in Iraq during the 2000s, according to Politico.

General McMaster greatly appreciates Derek Harveys service to his country as a career Army officer, where he served his country bravely in the field and played a crucial role in the successful surge in Iraq, and also for his service on Capitol Hill and in the Trump administration, said NSC spokesman Michael Anton. The administration is working with Colonel Harvey to identify positions in which his background and expertise can be best utilized.

Mr Harvey had been brought into the Trump administration by ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, who resigned in February after it was revealed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about his contacts with a Russian official.

Since taking on the role of national security adviser, Mr McMaster has removed several staffers hired by his predecessor, including former deputy national security adviser KT McFarland.

Mr McMaster has also reportedly tried to push out Ezra Cohen-Watnick, the senior director for intelligence coordination, but the President is said to have personally saved Mr Cohen-Watnick's job.

The dismissal of Mr Harvey comes in the same week as Mr Trumps reported refusal to sign off on Mr McMaster's plan to send more US troops to Afghanistan, with members of the Presidents cabinet apparently split on how to approach the longstanding war in the country.
Caracas (AFP) - Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro was pushing forward Saturday with a controversial weekend vote, despite growing domestic political opposition, international condemnation and deadly street protests.

On Friday, his forces faced small groups of protesters defying a ban he had imposed on demonstrations against the election he has called Sunday to choose a new body to rewrite the constitution.

Blockades went up across a few roads in Caracas and in a border town with Colombia, San Cristobal as well as in Maracaibo and Guayana, but the scale was far less than the mass protests seen earlier this week before the ban took effect.

"It's normal that there's fear, but people are still coming out into the streets despite it all," a lawmaker in the opposition-controlled National Assembly, Freddy Guevara, said at one of the Caracas protests.

Maduro on Thursday warned that anyone taking part in protests against his "Constituent Assembly" risked up to 10 years in prison.

The threat appeared to dampen public anti-government demonstrations of the sort that, in the past four months, have led to 113 deaths -- eight of them during a two-day general strike that ended Thursday.

The most recent reported fatality occurred Friday when an 18-year old protester was killed in San Cristobal.

Human rights organizers said another activist, a 23-year-old violinist famous for playing at anti-government protests, had been arrested in Caracas. An opposition mayor, Alfredo Ramos, was also arrested for not lifting barricades under a court order.

Meanwhile, international censure of Maduro remained fierce.

US Vice President Mike Pence spoke by telephone to a detained prominent Venezuelan opposition leader, Leopoldo Lopez, who early this month was moved from prison to house arrest.

- Maduro playing his 'card' -

In implicit support for the opposition, Pence praised Lopez's "courage."

He also called for the "unconditional release of all political prisoners in Venezuela, free and fair elections, restoration of the National Assembly, and respect for human rights in Venezuela," a statement from his office said.

Story continues

The United States this week imposed sanctions on 13 current and former Venezuelan officials, including police and army chiefs, over Maduro's plan.

Colombia's President, Juan Manuel Santos, said his country would not recognize the results of Sunday's election in Venezuela, calling the basis of the Constituent Assembly "spurious."

Yet Maduro has remained determined to see through his plan, with backing from a loyal military.

"We have a card to play: a card that will win this game. And that card is the National Constituent Assembly," he said.

He urged the opposition to stop its "insurrection" and hold talks instead. The leftist president has repeatedly accused the US of fomenting the unrest against him.

The new assembly would comprise 545 citizens chosen from across the country, and from societal sectors over which Maduro's government holds influence.

The opposition, which brands the election of the body a ploy by an unpopular "dictator" to cling to power, has called for a boycott of the vote.

Some 70 percent of Venezuelans oppose plans for the constituent assembly, and 80 percent reject Maduro's leadership, according to the polling firm Datanalisis.

- 'Tense' situation -

An electoral expert, Eugenio Martinez, noted that most of Venezuela's 20 million voters would be able to vote twice, raising questions about the validity of final turnout and balloting figures, especially with no foreign election observers present.

Fears of open civil conflict have prompted thousands of Venezuelans to join an exodus into Colombia.

The neighboring country said it would give 150,000 Venezuelans who had overstayed permission to remain another three months before they had to leave.

On Thursday, the United States ordered families of its embassy staff in Venezuela to leave. The US and Canada also warned against their citizens making non-essential travel to the country.

The United Nations human rights office said it was "deeply concerned" about the "very tense and very difficult situation" in Venezuela.

Air France on Saturday announced it was suspending flights to Venezuela ahead of the weekend vote. The carrier said it was monitoring the situation.

Some in Maduro's administration have broken ranks, most prominently his attorney general. Some diplomats resigned this week, including one at the United Nations and another at the embassy in Panama.
We will exercise our right to protest every say until it is no longer necessary

Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and candidates attend the closure of the campaign for the National Constituent Assembly in Caracas. Photograph: Xinhua/REX/Shutterstock

Venezuelans are planning to defy a government ban on public demonstrations and risk deadly repression with marches across the country to protest against a vote Sunday that opposition forces say will mark the end of democracy.



At least four people have been killed this week since the opposition called a two-day strike, adding to the toll of more than 100 dead in a wave of unrest which began in April. The governments ban on protests  and the oppositions defiance  only heightened the risk of further violence, as more than 370,000 troops were sent out across the country.



As they increase their repression we will increase our resistance in the streets. We will exercise our right to protest every say until it is no longer necessary, said Josefina Alvarez, a 46-year-old cashier at a pharmacy in Caracas.

The protests came two days before the controversial vote called by the government of President Nicolas Maduro to elect a 545-member constituent assembly that will will have the power to rewrite the constitution and dissolve state institutions.

The government says the assembly will open a path to peace for the politically polarised and economically crippled country, while the opposition says it would mark the consolidation of an authoritarian regime.

Julio Borges, the head of the opposition-led National Assembly, said Maduros constituent assembly is an attempt to dissolve the countrys democracy. Thats why we are fighting  so that the country isnt killed off, he said.

Closed-door negotiations to avert the showdown are being brokered by former Spanish prime minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, but few analysts believe they will succeed.

Backing down now would make Maduro look very weak among the [government-allied] elites and the military, said Jason Marczak, of the Atlantic Councils Latin America center.

Luis Flores, a taxi driver in Caracas, also said he had no faith in a last-minute agreement. Unfortunately, a negotiation that could have led to a transitional government is no longer an option, because we cant keep on believing [the governments] lies while they cling to power and continue to destroy our economy and crush any dissent, he said.

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Meanwhile, international pressure continued to mount against Maduro as Delta joined Avianca in suspending flights in and out of the country, and the US state department ordered the families of its embassy staff to leave Venezuela.

The US has threatened unspecified sanctions if the vote goes ahead. As a prelude, the US treasury department announced this week that it was freezing the assets of 13 current and former members of the government and the state oil firm PDVSA. Thumbing his nose at the measure, Maduro awarded each of the sanction persons a replica of a sword used by a national independence hero.

The new measures spared Venezuela from broader financial sanctions or sectoral sanctions targeting its oil industry, a move which analysts have warned could further exacerbate the already critical humanitarian situation.

Venezuela relies on oil exports for 95% of its income, and the countrys foreign currency reserves  currently at less than $10bn  hit their lowest ever level earlier this month.

UK foreign secretary Boris Johnson in a statement called on Maduro to change course and break the deadlock for the benefit of all Venezuelans. And the United Nations human rights office said it was deeply concerned about the very tense and very difficult situation in Venezuela.

Colombia, which has been bracing for a flood of immigrants from its neighbouring country, announced on Friday that it was granting a special permit for Venezuelans already in the country to remain for up to two years.

If the assembly is seated the fever and ferocity of the protests will escalate, Marczak predicted.

Borges, the national assembly leader, said it would mark a new juncture for the opposition. We will spearhead a new stage where along with our citizens we do not abandon the street until we can restore democracy in Venezuela, he said.
HANOI (Reuters) - Vietnam has asked Indonesia to investigate and clarify reports that the Indonesian navy shot and wounded two Vietnamese fishermen in the South China Sea. Foreign Minister Pham Binh Minh told Indonesian foreign minister Retno Marsudi by telephone that the reported incident was "very serious ... and not appropriate with the strategic partnership relationship between Vietnam and Indonesia," the Vietnamese foreign ministry said in a statement on Friday. "Vietnam is deeply concerned about this incident and proposes Indonesia to quickly investigate and clarify the incident and inform Vietnam of the results and to stop repeating similar acts," Minh was quoting as saying. Earlier this week, a local Vietnamese sea rescue committee said Indonesia's navy had shot and wounded the Vietnamese fishermen last weekend. The Vietnamese boat was about 132 nautical miles (245 km) southeast of Con Dao island when the fishermen were shot on Saturday night, the Binh Dinh provincial search and rescue committee said on its website. The report was pulled off the website the next day. Indonesia's foreign minister told Reuters the information provided by her country's navy on the incident was different and said illegal fishing involving Vietnam had been a long-term issue. Marsudi said in a text message she had underlined to Vietnam's foreign minister the importance of the countries settling negotiations on their exclusive economic zones. She said the two would meet in Manila during a regional forum next month. The Indonesian navy has yet to comment on the incident. Disputes over fishing rights and oil drilling have stoked tension in the South China Sea, through which about $5 trillion in goods is shipped each year. China claims almost the entire sea, but Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam and Taiwan also have claims. Although Indonesia says it is not a party to the dispute, it recently renamed the northern reaches of its exclusive economic zone, asserting its own maritime claim. The coordinates given by the Vietnamese search and rescue committee indicated that the shooting happened close to the area Indonesia now calls the North Natuna Sea. Indonesia has sunk hundreds of mostly foreign boats caught illegally fishing in its waters since President Joko Widodo launched a crackdown on the poaching of fish in 2014. Indonesia and Vietnam said in May they would launch a joint investigation after reports that Vietnamese coast guards had tried to forcibly free five fishing boats and their crew detained in waters near Indonesia's Natuna Islands. (Reporting by Mai Nguyen; Additional reporting by Bernadette Christina Munthe and Agustinus Boa Da Costa in Jakarta; Editing by Catherine Evans and Kim Coghill)
Some Republican senators who voted for Obamacare repeal legislation could regret it down the road.

Early Friday morning, the Senate voted down a last-ditch effort by Republicans to repeal and replace Obamacare, delivering a blow to Senate Leader Mitch McConnell and the rest of a party that promised for seven years to repeal the legislation. But the members who may pay the highest price are Republican senators in battleground states who supported the bill and are up for re-election next year.

Take Sen. Dean Heller of Nevada, one of 49 Republicans to vote in favor of the so-called skinny repeal proposal on Friday. Heller is the lone GOP senator up for re-election in a state Hillary Clinton won in 2016. Hes now on the record voting for an extremely unpopular bill that could have resulted in millions of Americans losing their insurance.

Democrats will try to ensure that he pays for that vote. Priorities USA, the powerhouse Democratic super PAC, has already released an online ad targeting Heller for his health care position.

Thatll continue, Patrick McHugh, the executive director of Priorities USA, said about the attack ad against Heller. I think youll see advertising and communications educating voters [about who] voted for Trumpcare from now until Election Day. I dont think its gonna stop.

Rep. Jacky Rosen, a Democrat running for Hellers seat next year, slammed the senator for the vote. No politician from our state has ever been more dishonest about their intentions, more misleading about their position or more disingenuous to their constituents, Rosen said in a statement. This was the biggest broken political promise in modern Nevada history.

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In the weeks leading up to the healthcare vote, Hellerwho waffled over the billwas pressured by both wings of the Republican Party. Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, a Republican with high approval ratings, urged him not to support a bill that would gut Medicaid and decrease the number of insured. Meanwhile, pro-Trump Republicans were pressuring Heller to back an Obamacare replacement. America First Policies, a non-profit group that promotes the administrations positions, launched an attack against Heller. (The group later pulled the ads.)

Heller, who barely won in 2012, may be the most vulnerable GOP candidate in a year when the Senate map looks very good for the party. But hes not the only one.

Sen. Jeff Flake of Arizona cast votes for the motion to proceed and all three GOP plans. Flake is on shaky ground back home: according to a Morning Consult poll released in July, just 37% of registered Arizona voters approve of the senator.

Several Democratic challengers have emerged as possible candidates to run against Flake, including Rep. Kyrsten Sinema and Phoenix Mayor Greg Stanton, according to the New York Times. And Flakes votes may be a liability in the race. According to a poll released on Thursday, just 6% of Arizona voters backed the Senates plan to repeal and replace Obamacare.

Thank you to 51 Senators, including John McCain, for your vote last night. Saved coverage for AZ & thousands of critical healthcare jobs.  Greg Stanton (@MayorStanton) July 28, 2017

McHugh, the spokesman for Priorities USA, said the group would hold Heller and Flake accountable for their votes. Now we have them on the record in support of a replacement plan, he said, that polls show is politically toxic.

Spokesmen for Heller and Flake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Donald Trump was addressing law enforcement officials in Brentwood, New York, when he said officers should not be "too nice" with suspects: Reuters

Police departments across the US have criticised Donald Trump after he told officers not to be "too nice" with suspects in a speech which seemingly encouraged police brutality.

Law enforcement authorities from New York to Los Angeles have slammed the President's comments and experts have warned the remarks could encourage inappropriate use of force among officers.

The backlash came after Mr Trump gave a speech to police in Brentwood, New York, which was intended to support police in the fight against the MS-13 gang, which has been accused of numerous murders across the US.

During his speech, Mr Trump suggested officers should not protect suspects' heads when pushing them into police vehicles and his comments were greeted with loud applause and laughter by the audience of law enforcement officials.

He said: When you see these towns and when you see these thugs being thrown into the back of a paddy wagon  you just see them thrown in, rough  I said, Please dont be too nice."

Like when you guys put somebody in the car and youre protecting their head, you know, the way you put their hand over? Like, dont hit their head and theyve just killed somebody  dont hit their head. I said, You can take the hand away, okay? he added.

But New York police commissioner James O'Neill told the The New York Times the department's training and policies about the use of force "only allow for measures that are reasonable and necessary under any circumstances, including the arrest and transportation of prisoners".

He said: "To suggest that police officers apply any standard in the use of force other than what is reasonable and necessary is irresponsible, unprofessional and sends the wrong message to law enforcement as well as the public."

The department which covers the easternmost part of Long Island was quick to respond after the department's former chief James Burke was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for beating a handcuffed man in an interrogation room last year.

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Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck also criticised Mr Trump's comments on Twitter. Responding to another tweet by a law enforcement officer named as Deon Joseph, who said he would not start roughing up suspects because of a "dumb remark by POTUS", Mr Beck wrote: "If an officer acts outside the law, it serves only to undermine the hard work and sacrifice they make to keep this city safe."

If an officer acts outside the law, it serves only to undermine the hard work and sacrifice they make to keep this city safe. https://t.co/LBqk8Xdwcz  Chief Charlie Beck (@LAPDChiefBeck) July 30, 2017

He was joined by Steve Soboroff, one of the civilian commissioners who oversees the police department told the Los Angeles Times that Mr Trump's remarks stood in sharp contrast to the departments' philosophy on the way to treat suspects.

"What the president recommended would be out of policy in the Los Angeles Police Department. It's not what policing is about today," he said, before adding: "I have faith that any one of our officers would not take their hand off someone and bang their head into a car because that's what the President of the United States recommends."

The Suffolk County Police Department also responded within hours on Twitter saying: "As a department, we do not and will not tolerate roughing up of prisoners.

"The SCPD has strict rules and procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously."

The SCPD has strict rules & procedures relating to the handling of prisoners. Violations of those rules are treated extremely seriously.  Suffolk County PD (@SCPDHq) July 28, 2017

Both the International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Police Foundation also hit back at Mr Trump's remarks.

In a statement the IACP said treating all individuals including suspects, complainants and defendants with dignity and respect was "the bedrock principle behind the concept of procedural justice and police legitimacy".

The Police Foundation added "we cannot support any commentary - in sincerity or jest - that undermines the trust that our communities place in us to protect and serve".

Boston Police Commissioner William Evans echoed the importance of building trust with communities law enforcement officers serve.

"The Boston Police Department 's priority has been and continues to be building relationships and trust with the community we serve. As a police department we are committed to helping people, not harming them," he told local radio WBZ.

I'm a cop.



I do not agree with or condone @POTUS remarks today on police brutality.



Those that applauded and cheered should be ashamed.  Ben Tobias (@GPDBenTobias) July 28, 2017

Ben Tobias, a spokesman for the Police Department in Gainesville, Florida, also drew huge attention after he tweeted that he disagreed with Mr Trump's remarks and that those who "cheered should be ashamed".
Electric vehicles are most certainly the future of the automotive industry  and you need only look at the outlawing of gas-powered vehicles for proof of that  but if you needed one more piece of proof to add to the pile, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, Ben Van Beurden, has some news for you. Van Beurden, whose position atop Royal Dutch Shell makes him the shot caller for its wholly owned subsidiary Shell Oil, says hes ready to embrace the electric future, and hes buying an electric vehicle in September to prove it.

Don't Miss: New leak shows iPhone 8 performance that completely crushes every Android

The next buy I do is my next car, which will be an electric vehicle, Van Beurden noted in an interview with Bloomberg. The CEO didnt expand on that comment during the rest of his chat, but a Shell spokesperson took the time to explain exactly what he meant.

It seems Van Beurden has been eying a Mercedes-Benz S500e, which while not entirely electric is indeed a plug-in hybrid. Hell be ditching his current car, which happens to be diesel, when he makes the purchase of his new car in September.

Declaring that hes ready to personally move to a vehicle less reliant on the very commodity that has grown his company to the multi-billion dollar behemoth it is today might seem like a bad PR move, but thats only if you believe Shell wont also become a leader in rapid-charging electric vehicle stations, hydrogen, or natural gas as well. The move towards greener energy alternatives will require Shell and its kin to adapt, and Shell has already declared its willingness to embrace electric charging sooner rather than later.

Trending right now:

See the original version of this article on BGR.com
Updated: The Wall Street Journal had the media and telecom worlds buzzing tonight with a report that Sprint Corp proposed a full merger with Charter Communications,

But dont get too excited yet. Charters not interested in the plan to create a new public company controlled by Sprints owner, Japans SoftBank, Bloomberg says.

Charter declined to comment.

A deal would be complicated to structure, and would sent ripples through the cable and wireless industries. If successful, it could create a TV, broadband, wired and wireless phone juggernaut to rival AT&T which owns DirecTV and is preparing to close its $85 billion acquisition of Time Warner.

Liberty Medias John Malone is Charters largest shareholder  and enthusiastic about cable industrys prospects in the digital era. He also owns or has influential stakes in Discovery Communications (which is preparing to buy Scripps Networks Interactive), Lionsgate, Liberty Global, SiriusXM, and Live Nation.

The No. 4 wireless company has been eager to find a partner to help it compete with Verizon, AT&T and T-Mobile. Sprint and T-Mobile have held on-again/off-again merger conversations.

But Sprint put them on hold recently, and agreed to talk exclusively with Charter and Comcast about a wireless services deal. The exclusivity period expires on Monday. During this period, Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son talked to Warren Buffett and Malone about the possibility of making a multi-billion dollar investment in the wireless company.

One potential complication with the Sprint-Charter idea: The No. 2 cable company would need Comcasts approval to proceed.

The cable companies agreed in May to work only together with respect to national mobile network operators for one year. They specified, in an SEC filing, that during that period they cant make a major deal affecting their wireless businesses without each others prior consent.

Story continues

Both companies are creating their own wireless offerings would depend heavily on their WiFi networks, and a wholesale agreement with Verizon to handle cell phone calls.

This week, Comcast CEO Brian Roberts told analysts that he doesnt feel he needs to invest more heavily in wireless.

Its a tough business, he said, adding that I dont see something happening in that industry that we envy a position that we dont have today.

Later. Charter CEO Tom Rutledge said he agrees with Roberts view.

We like our relationship with Verizon, he said. We like our potential relationship with Comcast. And we do think that the industry has a lot of challenges in front of it, and that its fully penetrated.

Charters also still digesting the Time Warner Cable systems it bought last year. At the end of Q2 it had $61.8 billion in debt.

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DNEPROPETROVKS

Victoria Rozhnov was at home with her six-year-old daughter, Angelica, when the shelling began. She quickly ran into the girls room and pulled her out of bed to move her to the bathtub. As soon as they left the room, a shell landed in the backyard. A large piece of shrapnel entered through the houses window, landing in Angelicas bed. Had she stayed in bed, it would have ended in a disaster. It was a great miracle, Victoria says.

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That day in early February 2017, in their rented apartment in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the Rozhnovs resolved to immigrate to Israel.

Three years after the beginning of the civil war in Ukraine, many Jews still live in the Donetsk and Luhansk areas, which are controlled by the pro-Russian separatists. When the battles began, Victoria and Stanislav Rozhnov fled Donetsk with little Angelica, who was three years old at the time, and rented an apartment in another, quieter city.

Victoria, 27, is a housewife. Stanislav, 29, a coal miner, went to work at the mine every day, until it was shut down and he ran out of money to pay rent. Left with no other choice, and despite their fears, they were forced to return to their apartment in Donetsk. Baby Maxim was born 14 months ago, and they found themselves in the midst of war with two small children.

Donetsks destroyed airport. People walk around with rifles and you dont know what theyre thinking (Photo: Sergey Averin, RIA Novosti)

"We were so afraid, Victoria says, It was a real nightmare. People walk around with rifles and you dont know what theyre thinking and what they want from you. Sometimes theyre drunk and they just shoot. Some of our acquaintances were killed in bombardments.

Now theyre about to join Victorias parents, who immigrated from Donetsk to Haifa in 2016 and have since been pressuring them to make aliyah too. We are leaving all our belongings behind and coming to Israel with only three bags. Well come to Israel, study Hebrew in an ulpan and start a new life, Victoria says.

They are bringing along their dog, Betty. The Jewish Agency is helping new immigrants bring their dogs for free and is even funding the air transportation of two dogs to Israel.

When Victoria talks about Israel, her blue eyes light up with a glimmer of hope. Its hard to say the same about her husband. His eyes look dimmed, and he seems sad. Im afraid I wont have a job in Israel, because you have no coal mines there. But Im sure things will be better for the children, Stanislav says.

A Soviet sanatorium

Both Victoria and Stanislav have Jewish grandparents, but they know nothing about the Holocaust. They have never lit a Shabbat candle or fasted on Yom Kippur. The fact they are eligible to make aliyah under the Law of Return is a lifesaver.

I meet them at the refugee center created by the Jewish Agency on the banks of the Dnieper River, a 30-minute drive from the city of Dnepropetrovsk and about 220 kilometers from the conflict zones. Its an old resort village, like a Soviet sanatorium, which serves as a transit camp for Jews who escaped the battles and would like to immigrate to Israel. Its noting luxurious, but the conditions arent bad: Three meals a day, a television in every apartment and an air conditioner. They can bathe in the Dnieper. Most importantly, its quiet and safe.

The Rozhnov family at the refugee center.' More than 2,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel from the conflict zones since the beginning of the war

The center was established by the Jewish Agencys emissaries in Dnepropetrovsk and Kharkiv, Max Luria and his wife Natalie Navitovsky, who are responsible for eastern Ukraine, an area with some 100,000 Jews. They came here from Israel in April 2014 with three children, one of whom was six-months-old at the time. They thought they would have a pleasant and serene mission, but the war broke out two weeks later. The Jewish Agency gave Max an emergency appointment and put him in charge of the evacuation of Donetsks Jews.

Although we are here with babies, we decided to stay and take care of the Jews, Max says. The Agencys security officer instructed us to have an extra fuel tank available, so if something happens, we can put the family in the car and drive towards Kiev.

When Max and Natalie took in the first Jewish refugees, they immediately noticed their distress. We saw frightened people who had fled a war zone, Max says. They had no passports, and they were afraid to return home.

He turned to several donors, who helped set up a residential center allowing Jews to recover for a few weeks before their passports are issued and they can undergo an immigration process. More than 630 people stayed at the center in 2016, and at a certain point it accommodated 150 people at the same time. At the moment, there are six families there waiting to make aliyah.

At the center, I meet 50-year-old Victoria Vinnitskaya and her 77-year-old mother, Sofia. They both lived until recently in an apartment building in Donetsk, which was hit with artillery shells.

It happened in the evening hours of April 8. Victoriaa history teacher, psychologist and tour guidewas at home. Her mother, a doctor working at the local hospital, who keeps working as an infectious disease specialist despite her age, was in the adjacent apartment. Suddenly, there was heavy shelling. The building and the yard were hit by five shells. All the windows were shattered. The main gas pipe was ruptured and gas began leaking. The front door was damaged, the elevator got stuck and the tenants were trapped in the building. A structure in the yard, which had served as a cobblers workshop, was completely burned.

We sat in the building like in a death trap until 2am, Victoria says. There was the smell of gas in the air and we were afraid everything would explode. Victoria cant stop the tears. Sofia is stronger. She doesnt cry.

Victorias 22-year-old son, Alexander, was in Israel at the time as part of the Masa program (semester- or year-long programs in Israel). Friends of his from Donetsk sent him pictures of the damage to his mother and grandmothers house. All phone and internet service was disconnected, and he didnt know what had happened to them for more than 24 hours. Contact only returned the next day. He wouldnt stop crying on the phone, Victoria says. He told me, Thats it, Mother, you must immigrate to Israel. I wont let you stay there anymore.'"

The two women realized there were no more excuses. They left everything behind and moved to the refugee center ahead of making aliyah. We could have sold the apartment for $1,500, but we decided it was better not to sell and left the keys with friends.

Alexander is about to join the IDF. They will live in the northern town of Kiryat Yam, next to friends who immigrated two years ago.

I ask them who they identify with morethe rebels or the Ukrainians. Sofia replies in Yiddish, I only identify with Israel. We know Israel defends its citizens.

The Gusev family38-year-old Natasha, 39-year-old Slava and 18-year-old Nikitaarrived at the refugee center from Donetsk in March and will soon immigrate to Israel. Nikita was supposed to make aliyah as part of the Selah program (an abbreviation for Students before Parents), but convinced his parents to join him. His 10 classmates at Chabads Or Avner School in Donetsk have all immigrated to Israel already.

In the first year of the war, things were very difficult, Nikita says. We were experienced shelling three times right next to our house. Then we got used to it. We would go down to the basement. There are no air raid sirens here. If you hear a whistle, its far away. If you hear something like a strong wind, you should flee, because a few seconds later theres a large explosion. And several minutes after that, police, army and ambulances arrive. Good friends of oursa mother, a father and two childrenwere killed. The rocket came in through the window and killed them.

The rescue from the hospital

More than 2,000 Jews have immigrated to Israel from the conflict zones since the beginning of the war. The Jewish Agency believes there are still 5,000 or 6,000 Jews left there.

People are very afraid to leave despite the difficult situation, Max Luria says. Because of the war, they cant sell their houses and property, and they leave with nothing. In Israel, they have to start all over again. Learn a language, find work.

Luria himself immigrated to Israel in 2006 from Dnipropetrovsk, and his wife Natalie immigrated from the Russian city of Vladivostok. Their story is my story too, and I give them a lot of inspiration, says Max.

Jewish Agency emissary Max Luria and his wife Natalie. Although we are here with babies, we decided to stay

One of the exciting rescue operations Max and Natalie were responsible for involved two brothers from Luhansk, who had lost their parents at a young age. The eldest one, 23, immigrated to Israel in 2014 and joined the Border Police. His younger brother, 22, is mentally ill and was kept in an isolation ward at a psychiatric hospital all alone, without any relatives. The older brother wanted to bring his sick brother to Israel, but the authorities in Luhansk would only discharge him from the hospital if his brother arrived and took responsibility for him. He planned to do so, but Jewish Agency officials were afraid if he travelled to Ukraine to pick up his brother, the Luhansk Peoples Republic would force him to enlist, and he would be unable to return to Israel.

Max located a group of pro-Israel German Christians, who managed to rescue the brother from the Luhansk hospital and smuggle him to Dnipropetrovsk, where he was taken to a psychiatric hospital. Max and Natalie arranged a flight for his brother from Israel, and the two met at the hospital. The sick brother broke into tears and kept saying, I want to come with you to Israel. And he did. They flew to Israel together, and he is now hospitalized in Kfar Saba.

More than 19,000 people have immigrated to Israel from Ukraine with the Jewish Agencys help since the start of the waran average of about 6,000 a year compared to some 2,000 in the year before the war. According to the Agencys estimates, about 200,000 members of Ukraines Jewish community are eligible for aliyah. Chabad presents much higher numbersa million and a half people.

For 70 years, these Jews hid their religion because of the Soviets, says Chabad emissary Rabbi Shmuel Kaminezki, the chief rabbi of Dnipropetrovsk. There are many Jews here who dont know they are Jewish. There are families in which the old grandmother gathers everyone before she dies and tells them theyre Jewish."

Unfortunately, the State of Israel isnt doing enough to bring them to Israel. They could bring 100,000 people. They should invest several hundreds of millions of dollars and increase the aid packages, he says. Today, the state offers a NIS 15,000 (about $4,200) grant to each family that immigrates from Ukraine.

The huge discrepancy between the Jewish Agency and Chabad figures is mostly due to the Law of Return. Many Ukrainians say they have Jewish roots, but only those who can present documents proving they meet the laws requirements can immigrate. The Nativ liaison bureau is responsible for verifying the documents on behalf of the state. Local rabbis help locate the documents in archives. Young people arrive with the story their grandmother told them when they were small, but without any proof the Jewish Agency is forced to turn them down.

Dnepropetrovsk has a thriving Jewish life. The worlds largest Jewish center, the Menorah, was built in the city with a donation from two Jewish oligarchs, Igor Kolomoisky and Zvi Hirsch Bogolubov. Its comprised of seven buildings symbolizing the seven-branch candelabrum, covers 36,000 square meters in size and includes a hotel, kosher restaurants, a magnificent synagogue, a Holocaust museum, a wedding hall, a mall, ritual baths, a medical center, a bank, galleries and more. Its the Jewish peoples Dubai, says Rabbi Kaminezki.

That doesnt reflect what is happening 200 kilometers from there, however, which is why the Jewish Agency is putting a lot of effort into convincing Jews to make aliyah. The Agencys delegation in Ukraine, led by Ron Garfield, includes five regular Israeli emissaries, a mobile emissary and dozens of activists. The Agency is also working in cooperation with the Ofek Israeli company, with the Immigrant Absorption Ministrys support, to strengthen the connection between Ukraines Jews and Israel.

In the past three years, 500 high school students arrived in Israel as part of the Naaleh program (an acronym meaning youth making aliyah before parents), and 333 youths arrived as part of the Selah program. The Agency operates 144 Hebrew classrooms for some 2,000 students. It has also developed a professional training program to increase immigrants chances of finding work in Israelstarting from musicians and dancers, through bus drivers, doctors and hi-tech workers.

Roman Polonsky, head of the unit for Russian-speaking Jewry at the Jewish Agency, believes the crisis in Ukraine will continue, as will the wave of immigration.

People are fleeing the war and the uncertainty, and as far as theyre concerned, Israel is a safe and stable place. When I tell them Israel is not the most successful model of serenity and stability, they say: Yes, but you have the Iron Dome and no one there fights his own brother with weapons.
Jordan has given Israel the results of its investigation into the shooting deaths of two Jordanians by an Israeli Embassy guard.

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Jordan's attorney general has filed murder charges against an Israeli embassy guard in the shooting deaths of two Jordanians. State media said Friday that Attorney General Akram Masaadeh charged the guard with two counts of murder and possession of an unlicensed firearm.

Anti-Israel protest in Jordan in front of Israeli embassy in Amman

Reports further stated that Masaadeh called for the guard to be tried in Israel, and that Jordan would relay such a demand through diplomatic channels.

Jordanian authorities have said that in Sunday's incident, the Israeli guard opened fire after a 16-year-old attacked him with a screwdriver. Another Jordanian man, standing near the teen was also killed.

The funeral of Bashar Al-Hamarna, a physician and landlord of house where shooting took place

Meanwhile, Israel's State Prosecutor Shai Nitzan instructed the relevant authorities to hand over material relating to the incident, and at the end of the investigation the Jordanian authorities will update the developments and findings.

Netanyahu greets Israeli security guard upon his return from Jordan (Photo: Haim Tzach/GPO)

Political sources privy to the initial Israeli investigation said that it appears the security guard behaved properly under the circumstances after the 16-year-old Jordanian stabbed him three times, twice in the back and once in the chest.

Photo: Haim Tzach/GPO

As for the Jordanian doctor, Bashar Al-Hamarna, who owned the apartment and was also killed in the incident, the findings of the initial investigation indicate that after the attacker crept up behind Ziv and began to stab him, he jumped back and fired his weapon. Ziv apparently tripped as he jumped back, which caused one bullet to hit the doctor, who was injured and later died of his wounds. The State of Israel apologized to the Jordanians for his death and undertook to pay the family financial compensation.

Ynet reported yesterday that the police are expected to summon the Israeli security guard at the Israeli embassy in Jordan, who shot two Jordanians to death, for questioning.

King Abdullah consoles father of teenage boy who apparently attacked Israeli guard with screwdriver

The guard, along with the rest of the embassy staff, returned to Israel under the protection of diplomatic immunity.

Upon returning, the guard received a warm welcome from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, much to Jordan's dismay, with Jordan's King Abdullah II calling Netanyahu's behavior "unacceptable and provocative."

The stabbing and subsequent shooting incident at the Israeli embassy in Jordan came following mounting tensions at the Temple Mount, where two Israeli policemen were killed by Palestinian terrorists earlier this month.

Protest in Amman over Temple Mount crisis

Israel responded to the deadly attack at the Temple Mount by setting up additional security measures at the holy site, a move that aroused a monumental backlash from the Muslim and Palestinian publics, including mass prayer demonstrations, violent riots and a deadly attack in the settlement of Halamish, in which three family members were killed by a Palestinian terrorist.

After two weeks of violence, Israel removed the added measures from the site on Thursday, a move that Muslim protestors see as a great victory.

PM Netanyahu (L) and King Abdullah II (PhotosL AFP)

The Waqf, Jordan's religious body that administers a major Jerusalem holy site at the Temple Mount, stated Israeli police have indeed lifted all restrictions on Muslim worshippers there. The Waqf added that the situation at the compound has returned to what it was before a deadly Arab attack there earlier this month.

Israeli police confirmed that age restrictions and other measures set earlier in wake of security assessments warning of Palestinian violence have been lifted.

The Israeli embassy in Jordan (Photo: Shalom Bartal)

Gaza's Health Ministry state a Palestinian teen was killed in clashes with Israeli soldiers stationed near the strip's border fence with Israel on Friday.

The ministry added that the 16-year-old was killed protesting tensions at the Templke Mount. There were several such protests on Friday in the coastal territory ruled by the terror group Hamas.

Israel's military said dozens of Palestinians rolled burning tires, hurled rocks at soldiers and tried to damage the security barrier. The military said shots were fired at main instigators after they ignored warning shots and calls to halt.

Several hundred Jordanians have chanted "Death to Israel" in a protest near Israel's Embassy on Friday, before being dispersed by security forces. Friday's protesters emerged from a mosque near the embassy in Jordan's capital, Amman. They were blocked by police after walking for about 200 meters (yards).
The Religious Peace Initiativea joint Israeli-Palestinian interreligious dialogue grouptook part in negotiations between the Jerusalem Islamic Waqf and Israel in an attempt to bring the Temple Mount crisis to an end.

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The Israeli Mosaica organization, together with the Muslim Adam Center worked with both the Israel Police and the Waqf to "translate" into detail the understandings between the Israeli government and Jordan.

Rabbi Micharl Melchior (Photo: Guy Asiag)

Former minister and Knesset member Rabbi Michael Melchior, told Ynet, "The removal of the cameras was not the end of the story. There were a lot more details to the agreement. They were delicate things we can't go into detail about. Despite interest from the public and the press, we don't want to ruin what we have fixed."

For Melchior, the bottom line is what matters. Israel removed "provocative and inefficient" security measures while the Waqf will be obligated to keep the quiet at the Temple Mount. However, he makes it clear there is no acceptance of Israeli sovereignty over the site.

"We work daily on the subject of religious peace and therefore are very connected to senior Waqf officials and the entire Muslim world," Melchior added. "We kept sending messages from them to the police and back, and in the end we also formulated what would include the Waqf announcement about ending the crisis."

Rabbi Melchior agreed to reveal only a small amount of details behind the scenes of the negotiations.

"There were extremist people, religious and political officials, who suddenly raised their heads and were not ready under any circumstance to come to an agreement, because they wanted the success of having the metal detectors removed.

"After their victory in this, they weren't satisfied with the status quo of July 14, 2017 at the Temple Mount (before the terror attack that led Israel to place the additional security), and there were those who wanted to go back to June 4, 1967 status quo (before the Six-Day War). Despite the fact they normally don't have a lot of say, they managed to create an atmosphere accordingly."

Photo: Yael Friedson

According to Melchior, these extremist positions also threatened to infiltrate Waqf leadership, but the trust between the parties in the Religious Peace Initiativewhich operates centers in east Jerusalem, Ramallah and Gazaenabled the mobilization of all parties to resolve the crisis.

"In the end, we managed to bring all of the eight central leaders of the Waqf to one common position," he said.

Melchior is not worried the cabinet decision to place smart cameras at the Temple Mount will resume the crisis, despite threats in recent days from the Muslim side.

"As far as I know, there was no such operative decision. In any event, I believe in the future any dialogue will be done through the Waqf," he said.

Photo: Ohad Zwigenberg

In regards to the perceived shot Israel took to its pride, Melchior said, "Despite all the talk about capitulation, it was in our supreme interest in the end, and I am glad the police also saw it that way. What happened in the last two weeks is that all the extremists began to celebrate here freely. All the moderate voices, usually strong and central, just had their heads down.

"The Waqf understands the Temple Mount is a holy place, and they are obligated to keep the peace and quiet. Under no circumstances do they want the place to be used by people to hide arms, cause riots or launch incitement.

"Of course this doesn't mean they accept Israeli sovereignty, but they definitely don't want the site to be used for incitement and violence. That in itself is a significant message."
Violence erupted Saturday night during the funeral of a 22-year-old man who was shot to death during a police chase in Jaffa earlier that day.

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During the procession, in which hundreds of people took part, Channel 2 News reporter Gilad Shalmor and photographer Gal Zeitman were beaten and their equipment was destroyed as they were trying to cover the event. They were taken to Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center in a light condition.

The crowd also blocked the way of drivers who happened by the area, shouting obscenities at them and at nearby police forces.

The funeral procession (Video: Asaf Zagrizak and Nitzan Dror) (:    )

X

The funeral procession, which traveled from the deceased's home through the city's mosque and ended at the city's cemetery, became a demonstration by the family and local residents, who accused police officers of being trigger happy when their gun was pointed at Arabs.

Police reported that after the end of the funeral, several of its participants clashed with police forces, set trash cans on fire, blocked roads and even set fire to vehicles in several locations.

Police arrested eight people, including six minors, for disturbing the peace. One of the detainees was released during the night.

Mounted police in Jaffa (Photo: Nitzan Dror)

"The police have repeatedly called on the public in Jaffa to show restraint and public responsibility and to refrain from violating the law and public order," the police said in a statement. "It's in everyone's public interest to return to daily routine as soon as possible.

"We will continue the dialogue with the community dignitaries in Jaffa, but will not hesitate to stay firm and bring to justice the lawbreakers who violate public order."

The investigation into the incident in which the suspect was killed on Saturday was entrusted to the Police Internal Investigations Department and a gag order was imposed on the details of the victim and on the details of the investigation.

The attorney who represents the family of the deceased said that "there was no reason to open fire (on the suspect) because he did not pose any danger to the officers. In my opinion, this was a wrong and unnecessary shooting that led to the loss of human life for no reason."

The suspect who was shot dead by police

Attorney Amir Badran, a member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa city council, said that "the police are beginning to treat the Arab minority as an enemy and shoot its members with intention to kill."

At the same time, some residents of Jaffa were speaking in support of the police.

One such local resident said: "It is true the police did not have to shoot him dead and that there were confrontations, but unfortunately we do not see people protesting against criminals who murder people. Unfortunately, violence and crime continue and no one speaks out. Everyone is silent. But when it's a policeman who does the shooting, everyone becomes a hero."

Police forces near Abu Kabir

Tel Aviv-Jaffa Mayor Ron Huldai said, "I understand the pain of the Arab community in Jaffa, but it is important at this time to maintain restraint for the sake of order and security for all. We must not allow the extremists to destroy the shared life in Jaffa, which we have built together through hard work. I hope the matter will be investigated quickly and thoroughly."
- Nana Oye Lithur is saying Charlotte Osei is the best EC commissioner ever

- She says the handling of the 2016 election is a clear evidence of her competence

YEN.com.gh brings you the latest news in Ghanaian politics

A former Minister of Gender Children and Social Protection, Nana Oye Lithur is heaping praise on the Chairperson of the Electoral Commission (EC) Madam Charlotte Osei, claiming she is the best thing that has ever happened to Ghana's EC.

Former Gender Minister, Nana Oye Lithur

READ ALSO: Kumawood's Bernard Nyarko and Christian Awuni are in love and it's beautiful

According to the former Minister, Charlotte Osei is a reformist, who has transformed the face of Ghanas Electoral Commission ever since she was appointed into office.

Mrs Osei has come under huge public pressure and criticism after a recent petition to the president by some aggrieved EC workers for her impeachment, triggered some scandals within the commission.

Whiles some Civil Society and Pressure groups, as well as individuals have called for the head of the EC boss over some corruption allegations leveled against her.

Some others, including the opposition National Democratic Congress (NDC), top members have also jumped to her defense, threatening President Akufo-Addo not to dismiss the EC Chairperson.

READ ALSO: Moesha Boduong flaunts her son after his graduation (photos)

The latest to jump to Mrs Oseis defense is the former NDC minister, Nana Oye Lithur. To her the success of the 2016 election is a clear indication that, she is up to the task.

I would say without any doubt that Charlotte is the best Chairperson of the Electoral Commission, the evidence is clear in the sterling high praise that she was given after the 2016 election, she said in a media interview.

Madam Charlotte Osei, EC boss

PAY ATTENTION: Get all the latest news on the go with the YEN.com.gh app right here

Lawyer Oye Lithur also indicated that, the EC boss must be commended for her concise explanations and answers she gave to Members of Parliament, after she was summoned before the house.

She also stated that, she is convinced Madam Charlotte Osei will be exonerated from all legal matters after the investigations of the Chief Justices into the petition.

President Akufo-Addo has rightfully forwarded the petition to the Chief Justice, I believe that we should allow the legal processes to work. A legal process has been set in motion subject to our constitution. I will say with confidence that I know that Charlotte will come out of this, she said.

READ ALSO: Here are all the heartbreaking photos from the funeral of late Kotoko equipment officer

Do you have a story to share? We are on Facebook! Or send us an email at info@yen.com.gh

Source: YEN.com.gh
The typical olive oil company would probably employ a decent-sized staff, compete for gold medals at olive oil tastings, sell their product in a glass bottle, and try to get into the biggest stores possible.

By those standards, Nena Talcott and Bonnie Storms Grove 45 is not your typical olive oil company  and thats just fine with them.

It doesnt sit on a ship coming across the ocean, Talcott said. Its not sitting in big vats until its bottled in a warehouse on the East Coast. It just goes from our trees to our hands to you. I think thats what sets us apart.

For a company with an in-house, hands-on approach to marketing, Grove 45 tends to get the kind of attention youd expect of a large producer with a lavish marketing budget. In March, Grove 45 made Bon Appetits list of 3 Small-Batch, American-Made Olive Oils to Rival Italys Finest.

The article praises the oils fresh and peppery finish, but Talcott and Storm suspect the marketing plug, like others Grove 45 has attracted from the likes of Fortune and The New York Times, has just as much to do with their distinctive extruded aluminum bottle and pewter label.

The stark packaging has won design awards, but its also practical. The aluminum bottle is recyclable and keeps out the ultraviolet light, heat and oxygen which over time cause the oil to spoil.

Even the darkest glass will allow UV rays to get in there, Talcott said.

The bottles no-frills aesthetic also reflects the companys do-it-yourself identity.

Youre looking at the entire company, Storm said. I do all the farming. Nena does all the marketing. At this time of year Im in the grove every single day, whether Im irrigating or suckering.

Storm said she has an ace pruner in Bev Lincoln, and the milling is done off-site, but she and Talcott do as much as they can themselves, right down to affixing the labels onto the bottles.

Talcott and Storm had been friends for years, and they teamed up as business partners in 2009. Talcott had gotten divorced and left the wine business and was looking for something to do, and Storm, whod imported some olive trees from Italy but wasnt making much money off them, was tired of being in the olive oil business by herself.

They came up with the name Grove 45 in honor of the year they were born and released their first 60 cases in early 2010, from olives harvested the previous year on Storms 240-acre Chiles Valley ranch. They sold out in a month, and by July Travel and Leisure had named Grove 45 one of Our Favorite Olive Oils  the only American brand to make the list.

Their trees consist of five varieties: the Tuscan varieties Frantoio, Leccino, Maurino and Pendolino, and the Sicilian-style Noccelara de Belice. Storm said they thrive like weeds, enjoying the same latitude as their Mediterranean homeland, a high water table, and the same good soil and climate that produces world-class winegrapes.

Its just like wine, she said. Everything plays a part.

Talcott and Storm use a roughly 60/40 blend of black and green olives to produce a medium-robust extra-virgin oil that has the bite of a Tuscan oil without getting too bitter. Storm said its much milder and more broadly appealing than the oil she used to make under the Storm Olive Ranch brand.

Theres a pungency and bitterness to it that is normal for this style and these olives, Talcott said. As people become educated about olive oil, just like they have about wine, theyve really taken to this oil because its a great flavor enhancer on foods. Its not one you cook with.

Despite being confident about the oils quality, Talcott and Storm avoid olive oil competitions. For one thing, entry fees are expensive. But more important, they dont like the everybody gets a trophy mentality of large tastings.

They give out 20 to 30 gold medals, 30 or 40 silver medals, 30 or 40 bronze, and then five best in show, Talcott said. What does that even mean?

This years harvest looks promising, and should produce the usual 300-400 cases. The water table on the ranch is so high that the trees have always had easy access to the aquifer, so the rainy winter shouldnt make a huge difference.

Youll find Grove 45 at high-end stores like Murrays Cheese in New York Citys Grand Central Station and St. Helena businesses like Acres, Erin Martin Showroom, Dean and DeLuca, Oakville Grocery and Sunshine Foods. But dont look for it at a supermarket.

Its artisanal appeal makes it most suitable for small specialty stores, where knowledgeable merchants can recommend it to customers and explain its high price point ($40).

Its a hand process, Talcott said. Were not a big mechanized farm. Were a small farm with 500 trees and its all done by hand, which is an expensive process.
He said the shipyard operates sustainably and decreases the construction time to less than three years. Borisov expressed hope the deadline will be observed.



Project 636.6 Varshavyanka is the third-generation diesel-electric submarine which is considered to be one of the most silent in the world. They can develop surface speed of up to 20 knots, submerge to a depth of 300 meters and their autonomous navigation is 45 days. The crew comprises 52 men.



The first batch of six submarines was already handed over to the Black Sea fleet. Another six Varshavyanka submarines are to be built for the Pacific fleet by 2022.



 Copyright 2017 TASS. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.



Comment:

The first of the six diesel-electric submarines of project 636.3 Varshavyanka-class (improved Kilo-class) for the Pacific fleet - the Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky - will be handed over to the Russian Navy in November 2019, Admiralty Shipyard Director General Alexander Buzakov said during the keel-laying ceremony. The last if six SSK is set to be delivered in 2022. Project 636.3 submarines are fitted with Kalibr missiles for strike at surface (anti-ship 3M-54 and 3M-541 missiles) and ground targets (cruise missiles 3M-14) and have upgraded radio-electronic equipment.
12:19

The air hostess and crew members of the Air India Mumbai to Jeddah flight were detained in Saudi Arabia for three hours due to a permit issue.



The incident took place on June 26 when the crew members of the national carrier landed in Jeddah. The air hostess and crew of the Air India flight 931 were returning to their hotel after having dinner when their taxi was intercepted by Saudi police to check their permits.



Despite showing the xerox of immigration and valid Air India IDs they were put in the police vans and were told not to use cell phones.



The crew members made a call to hotel and explained the situation and gave the location following which two hotel staff came for their release.



The staff showed the immigration paper to the police and tried to explain them but they didn't listen and took the crew members to the police station.



The cell phones of the crew members were confiscated by the police and they were locked in a room. After three hours, an Arab hotel staff came and explained the police official about their identity following which they were released.



The crew members and the air hostess were detained as xerox permits were not valid in Jeddah, and only original documents and passports are valid.



The crew members upon reaching hotel got a call from station manager, Jeddah, who enquired about the incident. The station manager said that the amnesty period is over in Saudi and the government is throwing out illegal immigrants. -- ANI



Image for representation only.


Iraqi government forces drive down a road leading to Tal Afar on June 9, 2017, during ongoing battles to retake the city from Islamic State (IS) group fighters. (AFP Photo)

BAGHDAD, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi declared on Saturday a new plan to liberate the town of Tal Afar from Islamic State (IS) militants, which will include the participation of the predominantly Shiite paramilitary Hashd Shaabi units and Sunni tribal fighters.

"I have put forward a plan to liberate Tal Afar with the participation of all (kinds of) security services, in addition to the Hashd Shaabi and Asha'iry (tribal units)," Abadi said in a speech broadcast by the Iraqi official television.

Abadi did not say to what extent the Hashd Shaabi would participate in the liberation of the ethnically mixed town of Tal Afar, some 70 km west of Mosul, as they were forced earlier to participate only in the open land outside Mosul, not inside the Sunni city.

The participation of the predominantly Shiite paramilitary units in the ethnically mixed region in northern Iraq, where Sunni Muslims form a majority, could spark sectarian tension with Sunni Arabs, Turkomans and other minorities.

The neighboring Sunni state of Turkey also has concerns about the participation of the Shiite dominated Hashd Shaabi, because Turkey does not want the Iraqi campaign to drive the IS from Tal Afar to change the ethnic composition of the region, which is predominantly Sunni.

Abadi also urged the political parties to act in a way similar to the army's leaders, who were racing to achieve their main goal of defeating IS group, instead of fighting each other for political gains.

"We want national political parties similar to the army's leaders in their race to defeat Daesh (IS group)," Abadi said, adding "the world states participated and supported Iraq in its war against terrorism because they found a real determination to fight Daesh."

On July 10, Abadi officially declared Mosul liberated from IS after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq.

Later in the month, Iraqi military officials, including Abdul Amir Yarallah from the Joint Operations Command, said after the liberation of Mosul the troops will advance westward to free Tal Afar, the last IS redoubt in Nineveh province. The town fell to IS in 2014.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 06:36:57|Editor: ying

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LOS ANGELES, July 29 (Xinhua) -- A family dog found help from others for two unconscious girls after lightning strike in the western U.S. state of Utah.

The two girls struck by lightning in a remote corner of national forest land in Beaver County Friday morning were rushed to hospital after the family dog led relatives to the two unconscious, the Deseret News reported on Saturday.

The dog that came along with the two girls, 8-year-old and 16-year-old, on a hike returned alone to their camp at a family reunion and alerted others.

The family members followed the dog back to the site where the girls were found on the ground unconscious.

Both girls were flown to Beaver Valley Hospital via helicopter, and from there Life Flight took them to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

The younger girl was listed in critical condition and the older girl was in serious but stable condition, according to the Deseret News.

"Out in the west, where we're up in the mountains, we're more exposed than in a lot of other places in the country," said Randy Graham, National Weather Service meteorologist in charge was quoted as saying by the Deseret News.

"It's a very real and dangerous situation," he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 06:57:01|Editor: Yurou Liang

Police officers investigate at a property following counter terrorism raids in Sydney, Australia, July 30, 2017. A terrorist plot to "bring down" a plane was foiled late Saturday, as authorities raided four properties across Sydney, with four men in custody. (Xinhua/Will Koulouris)

SYDNEY, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A terrorist plot to "bring down" a plane was foiled late Saturday, as authorities raided four properties across Sydney, with four men in custody.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the media on Sunday, and said that the arrests were centered around a plan to detonate a bomb - involving an aeroplane.

Turnbull said the investigation was ongoing, and that security has been ramped up at all major airports across the nation as a result of the heightened terror threat.

"Every day, every hour, we are focused on ensuring that our defences against terrorism are stronger than ever," Turnbull said.

"That our co-operation is tighter than ever. That our co-ordination is swifter than ever before. Now, we have strong transport, security systems in place in Australia, to prevent acts of terrorism."

The prime minister said that travellers should be aware that the measures imposed at airports may cause delays, but that safety of passengers was the number one priority.

"Some of the measures will be obvious to the public, some will not be. Travellers should be prepared for additional scrutiny at screening points, and while it is important that Australians are aware of the increased threat - be assured we have the finest security and intelligence services in the world and they are working, as is my government, and all our governments around Australia, night and day, to keep Australians safe," Turnbull said.

Travellers have been urged to arrive at airports at least two hours before their flights, and to limit how much baggage they bring.

The four men in custody after the raids have not yet been charged.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 07:42:13|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

Soldiers make preparation for a military parade at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, July 30, 2017. China will hold a military parade at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region at 9:00 a.m. Sunday, in celebration of the 90th birthday of the Chinese People's Liberation Army. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

Click to see more photos>>

ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Troops gathered Sunday morning at the Zhurihe military training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region for a military parade to mark the 90th birthday of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

It is the first time that China commemorates Army Day with a military parade since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The PLA has come a long way since its birth in the Nanchang Uprising on Aug. 1, 1927. Today, the PLA commands about two million service personnel, one of the world's largest military forces. The Army Day falls on Aug. 1.

Covering more than 1,000 square kilometers, Zhurihe is the largest military training base in Asia. It is also the site that has witnessed several major PLA exercises and international war games.
File photo taken on May 22, 2017 shows Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Pakistan's eastern Punjab Province, speaking at the second International Seminar on Business Opportunities in Punjab (ISBOP) in Lahore, capital city of Punjab Province, Pakistan. (Xinhua)

ISLAMABAD, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan's ruling party PML-N decided Saturday to name Shehbaz Sharif, chief minister of Punjab province, as the country's new prime minister.

The decision was announced by former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif after a meeting of the PML-N's parliamentarians, which was held here.

The meeting also decided to name former Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as the country's interim prime minister before the nomination of Shehbaz Sharif is approved by the National Assembly (NA), the lower house in Pakistan.

According to Pakistani laws, the prime minister must be a member of NA. Currently, Shehbaz Sharif is not a NA member and he must first contest for a seat in the NA before he can be voted by the parliament for the PM.

To fill up the power vacancy, the ruling party PML-N decided to pick Shahid Khaqan Abbasi as an interim prime minister, whose tenure, according to local media reports, is likely to last about 45 days before Shehbaz Sharif is officially made the country's new prime minister.

Local political analysts believe that Shehbaz Sharif is almost set to be the country's new prime minister as the ruling party PML-N enjoys majority seats in the NA in addition to the pledged support from some of its allies in the parliament to vote for Shehbaz Sharif.

Shehbaz Sharif is a senior politician in Pakistan. He has served as the chief minister of Punjab, the most developed province in Pakistan, for three times.

He is the younger brother of former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who was disqualified by the country's apex court over corruption charges on Friday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 09:23:08|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping reviewed the country's armed forces in the field on Sunday morning, as part of the commemorations to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

It is the first time that President Xi, also general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and chairman of the Central Military Commission, observed such a massive parade staged in the field.

Clad in camouflage military suit, Xi stood in an open-roof jeep that drove slowly past formations of troops as military music was being played through loudspeakers.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 10:48:55|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping said Sunday China needs a strong army more than ever, urging the building of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) into a world-class military force.

Speaking shortly after a grand military parade at the Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to mark the PLA's 90th anniversary, Xi said enjoying peace is a bliss for the people while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army.

"The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

"Today, we are closer to the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation than any other time in history, and we need to build a strong people's military more than any other time in history," Xi said.

He urged the PLA to fully implement the CPC's thoughts on building a strong military, follow the path of strengthening the army with Chinese characteristics, strive for the CPC's target on strengthening the PLA under the new circumstances, and build the heroic PLA into a world-class military.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 11:04:04|Editor: Yurou Liang

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NANJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Novelty ringtones lose their fun when they announce your dirty secrets.

A court in eastern China recently introduced a shaming ringtone to embarrass debtors and pressure them to pay the money they owe.

The Guanyun County People's Court in Jiangsu Province teamed up with a local telecommunication operator to design a "special ringtone" for local "laolai" (those who avoid repaying their debts).

The measure is aimed at shaming debtors who go missing after being ordered to repay debts, according to the court.

If anyone calls the debtor, the ringtone tells the caller: "The subscriber you are calling has been put on a blacklist by the Guanyun County Court for failing to repay their debts. Please urge the person to fulfill his legal obligations. The Guanyun County People's Court appreciates your support. Thank you!"

"The ringtone is designed to warn debtors and force them to repay their debts as soon as possible," said Pan Xingjun with the court.

Pan said that the ringtone let laolai feel the pressure from friends and relatives.

"The ringtone will disgrace debtors and force them out of their hideouts," Wang Yong, an employee with the court, told the Paper.cn. "The debtors' relatives and friends will be reminded of the debtor's lack of credibility and they can avoid being swindled."

"They cannot cancel the ringtone by themselves unless they repay their debts, and all mobile phone numbers registered under their name will be covered by the ringtone," Pan said.

China adopted a nationwide real-name registration policy for mobile phone number subscribers on Sept. 1, 2010. All new registers need to provide their ID cards to telecom operators to obtain new phone numbers.

"The court will give proof to help cancel the ringtone once they repay the debts," according to Pan.

So far, ten debtors have been put on the list by the Guanyun court. Most of the debtors are self-employed people who have hidden or transferred their assets to avoid repaying debts.

"They have the ability to repay, but refuse to carry out their legal obligations," the court said. "Some of them fabricated proof to resist repaying debts."

The court said it would work with more telecom operators to further enforce the measure.

When the ringtone was launched on the morning of July 20, a laolai immediately called one of the judges in the afternoon to cancel it, promising to repay the 100,000 yuan (14,800 U.S. dollars) he owed in installments.

Guanyun is not the only place to adopt the ringtone policy. The city of Huangshi in central China's Hubei Province and the city of Dengfeng in Henan Province recently introduced similar measures.

Many laolai have tried a variety of ways to shun repayment.

On Friday, a court in Wuhan, capital of Hubei Province, said that a 59-year-old woman had plastic surgery in an attempt to disguise herself to avoid repaying 25 million yuan of debt.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 11:29:05|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- President Xi Jinping on Sunday ordered the country's military to further improve its combativeness and modernize national defense and the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the remarks after reviewing a grand military parade at the Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

The parade was held to mark the PLA's 90th founding anniversary, which falls on Aug. 1.

The PLA must regard combativeness as the sole and fundamental benchmark, focus on war preparedness, and forge an elite and powerful force that is always "ready for fight, capable of combat, and sure to win," Xi said.

He also called on the officers and soldiers to build the army with better political awareness, strengthen the army through reform, develop the army with science and technology, and govern the army according to law, in order to push for the modernization of national defense and the military in all respects.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 12:59:22|Editor: ying

Photo taken on July 30, 2017 shows a formation of special troops during a military parade at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. China on Sunday kicked off a grand military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 13:04:30|Editor: ZD

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CARACAS, July 29 (Xinhua) -- Anti-government protests continued here Saturday, trying to derail a national vote to be held one day later to elect a 545-member National Constituent Assembly (ANC) tasked to rewrite the constitution for Venezuela.

Opposition-led protests have lasted some four months to demand President Nicolas Maduro step down, causing at least 110 deaths. The three latest ones were confirmed to happen Friday in the capital Caracas and the states of Tachira and Merida.

On Friday, the opposition coalition, the Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD), rejected the government's latest invitation for dialogue.

"We will not let up the pressure on false hopes," MUD spokesperson Freddy Guevara told a press conference. "The only way we are going to (hold) dialogue will be if they tie up and imprison us," he said.

Maduro said Saturday his government has been holding secret talks with the MUD in recent weeks.

"In the last six weeks, there have been direct conversations between envoys from the MUD and a presidential delegation led by Jorge Rodriguez (mayor of Caracas), Delcy Rodriguez (former foreign minister) and Elias Jaua (education minister)," said Maduro during a campaign speech.

The opposition has denied reports that the talks focused on a timeline to hold fresh elections, among other political issues.

"We were about to reach an agreement to issue a statement approved by all political parties of the MUD when he (an unnamed MUD leader)...called for a general strike," said Maduro.

A 48-hour general strike since Thursday further intensified protests over the past week. Chaos and violence including burning and vandalizing buildings have been reported in anti-government protests that have been taking place almost daily since April in the South American country.

Freddy Guevara, the MUD vice-president of the National Assembly, has urged supporters not to "lower the pressure, based on false illusions, for one moment."

Maduro has called the ANC the only way out of Venezuela's political and economic crisis while the MUD has rejected it as an unconstitutional power grab.

Maduro expressed confidence on Friday that the ANC election will see the opposition defeated.

"This Sunday July 30 the people are going to punish you at the polls," said the president.

Luis Gavazut, a social sciences researcher, said: "Evidently, the ANC is a space for political dialogue at a national level."

Gavazut also dismissed opposition allegations that Maduro's plan for the ANC to rewrite the constitution has led to more violence, saying violence was due to factors such as poverty and hunger.

The expert believes that through the ANC, Maduro would be able to discuss new strategies such as "amplifying and perfecting the Venezuelan economic system."

Jesus Silva, a constitutional expert, also said the fundamental ideas to be developed in this constitutional project had been revealed.

"They seek to deepen the values and principles of the Bolivarian model led by President Hugo Chavez (1999-2013)," Silva said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 13:09:32|Editor: Yurou Liang

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by Leo Tan

CAPE TOWN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese company in South Africa has successfully integrated itself into the local business culture by greatly contributing to local social economic development and creating hundreds of jobs.

Hisense, a China-based home electronics manufacturer, first opened shop in South Africa in 1996. In the last two decades, the brand has expanded to South Africa's four major cities and is now found in over 3,500 retail stores nationwide as well as 10 neighboring countries.

The brand is widely recognized as a cost-effective alternative in home electronics.

In contrast to many other foreign investment companies, Hisense has opted to open its major manufacturing facility in South Africa in an attempt to create local job opportunities instead of importing products from overseas plants, said Claire Noyes-Smith, marketing manager at Hisense South Africa.

She told Xinhua in a recent interview that the establishment of the facility has secured Hisense's footprint in Africa and given them the impetus needed to expand further on the continent.

In 2013, in partnership with the China-Africa Development Fund, Hisense invested around 350 million rand (about 27 million U.S. dollars) in the Atlantis industrial area outside Cape Town, and established a state-of-the-art manufacturing facility.

The 27,000-square-meter manufacturing development has come as a much-needed boost to the community of Atlantis, where poverty and social issues are part and parcel of everyday existence, Noyes-Smith said.

The factory now employs over 500 people on a full-time basis, with training and social upliftment projects benefiting approximately 2,000 people in the community, the marketing manager said.

Currently, Hisense is the only international electronics brand that locally manufactures its products on a large scale, as opposed to those that only have much smaller assembly lines.

Noyes-Smith noted that Hisense made a conscious decision to create jobs for 500 previously unemployed locals. The area of Atlantis is beset with socio-economic challenges, including gangsterism, drugs, crime, and most notably a 55-percent unemployment rate.

The establishment of the Atlantis factory has a wide-reaching positive impact on employees and their families, Noyes-Smith said.

Besides, the workers are trained with specialized skills by experienced engineers sent from the Hisense headquarters. This is not only to uphold the quality and productivity of the brand, but also to ensure the transference of skills is duly achieved, Noyes-Smith said.

Currently, Hisense has been endorsed by the "Proudly South African" campaign and is planning to upgrade the production technology used in the Atlantis facility.

Hisense started a training program this year in order to upskill 1,000 technical engineers. They are partnering with National Rural Youth Service Corps and Manufacturing, Engineering and Related Services Sector Education and Training Authority to get this project off the ground, Noyes-Smith said.

According to data released by GFK, a trusted source of relevant market and consumer information, Hisense occupies 24 percent of the market share for televisions in South Africa, ranking at number one and out-competing other major brands such as Sony, LG and Samsung.

With consumer expectations rising in South Africa, Hisense is confident that there is still room for expansion in the local market, Noyes-Smith said.

"We will also place a bit more emphasis on driving our mobile growth strategy, and also work towards expanding further into Sub-Saharan Africa,with South Africa being a solid African base," Noyes-Smith added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 13:24:36|Editor: ying

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ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese President Xi Jinping reviewed the country's armed forces on Sunday morning, as part of the commemorations to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

It is the first for Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, to oversee such a large military parade in the field.

Xi was greeted by Han Weiguo, commander-in-chief of the parade and commander of the Central Theater Command.

"Comrade chairman, the troops are ready. Please review," Han said.

"Proceed!" Xi replied.

Clad in a camouflage military suit, Xi stood in an open-roof jeep that drove slowly past troop formations to a backdrop of military music.

The officers and soldiers stood to attention along the length of an airstrip at Zhurihe military training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, flanked by sandy prairies that stretched to mountains on the skyline.

Every few moments, Xi called out "Salute to you, comrades," to which assembled troops responded "Hail to you, chairman."

Xi alternated the greeting with "Comrades, thanks for your hard work," to which soldiers replied "Serve the people!"

"Follow the Party! Fight to win! Forge exemplary conduct!" Servicemen and women exclaimed to Xi.

More than 12,000 service personnel from the air force, army and navy, as well as the newly formed rocket force and strategic support troops, took part in the parade. Advanced weapons including stealth fighters and nuclear missiles were displayed.

It is the first time that China has commemorated Army Day with a military parade since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

The PLA is in the midst of an unprecedented reform led by Xi to improve its combat capability.

Xi was endorsed as the core of the CPC Central Committee in 2016.

The PLA has come a long way since its birth in the Nanchang Uprising on Aug. 1, 1927. Today, the PLA commands about 2 million service personnel, one of the world's largest military forces. Army Day falls on Aug. 1.

In a speech after the inspection, Xi said the country needs a strong army more than ever, calling for the building of the PLA into a world-class military force.

"The PLA has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies and protect China's national sovereignty, security and development interests," Xi said.

The parade exhibited reform achievements, including major structural transformations, system and policy innovations and the introduction of new weapons.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 13:29:37|Editor: ZD

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DHAKA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The World Bank has approved a total of 570 million U.S. dollars for two projects in Bangladesh to improve health, nutrition, and population services and strengthen the country's public procurement.

The 515 million U.S. dollars Health Sector Support Project will strengthen the country's health system and improve quality and coverage of essential service delivery, with a focus on northeastern Sylhet and southeastern Chittagong divisions, where key health indicators are below national average, said the Washington-based lender in a statement received here Saturday.

The other financing approved together, the 55 million U.S. dollars Digitizing Implementation Monitoring and Public Procurement Project, will help Bangladesh improve public procurement performance, including its capacity to monitor implementation of development projects and programs using digital technology, it said.

Bangladesh spends over 7 billion U.S. dollars yearly on public procurement, which constitutes about 70 percent of the annual development program, it added.

According to the bank, the Health Sector Support Project aims to increase the number of mothers receiving quality delivery care in public health facilities to at least 146,000 mothers annually in Sylhet and Chittagong divisions.

It will also provide basic immunization to nearly 5 million children.

As the country experiences demographic changes, the project will help address emerging health challenges, such as non-communicable diseases. In Sylhet and Chittagong divisions, it will support school-based adolescent health and nutrition services.

The project will also help improve financial management and procurement in the sector and develop a robust health information system. It will enable over 7,000 community clinics to provide complete essential data on service delivery, and ensure at least 150 health facilities to each have two accredited midwives on staff.

"The World Bank and the government have been working together for years to improve the health sector and public procurement performance," said Qimiao Fan, World Bank Country Director for Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal.

"These two projects will help further progress towards better health outcomes and optimal use of public resources through an effective public procurement and monitoring system. This will benefit the entire nation and support Bangladesh's journey to becoming an upper middle-income country."

The financing will contribute to the government's 14.7 billion U.S. dollars health sector program between 2017 and 2022. It includes a 15 million U.S. dollars grant from the Global Financing Facility to improve service delivery for reproductive, maternal, newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition.

The World Bank helped Bangladesh roll out electronic procurement (e-GP) in four key public procuring entities in 2011, and establish a high capacity data center in 2016 to accommodate increasing demand for electronic procurement. The new project will expand e-GP to all 1,300 government procuring organizations.

The project will help the Implementation Monitoring and Evaluation Division effectively monitor the execution of annual development programs by establishing a single online platform connecting all public sector organizations.

This will capture both financial and physical progress of development work. The project will also engage citizens to monitor quality and progress of development work.

"Since 2002, the World Bank has been supporting Bangladesh to make systemic changes in public procurement to improve the efficiency and transparency of public spending," said Zafrul Islam, World Bank Task Team Leader.

"By institutionalizing electronic procurement and digitizing project implementation monitoring, the project will improve effective utilization of public resources. It will also help enhance accountability of public officials through citizen engagement."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 14:29:57|Editor: Zhang Dongmiao

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NANCHANG, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The People's Liberation Army (PLA) has come a long way since the armed uprising by 20,000 soldiers in the city of Nanchang on August 1, 1927.

Ninety years later, a creative young Chinese animator looking for a new way of telling the stories of modern history has used a cute bunny to represent the world's largest military force, along with eagles, bears, elephants and chicken representing some other countries.

Lin Chao's online animation "The Year, the Bunnies, and the Events" celebrates the upcoming 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army on August 1.

"With this cartoon, I want to tell our audience about the growth of our army," said Lin. "As a life-long fan of the military, I can see that our army is really becoming stronger."

Lin Chao, 32, is a member of the Dai ethnic group from southwest China's Yunnan province.

"I grew up reading magazines about the military," he recalled. Lin remembers how, as a student, he read an article in a textbook about the hardships of Chinese soldiers during the Korean War.

Lin began drawing his bunny series online in 2012. In 2014, his comics were adapted into an animation series. Topics include the fall of Qing Dynasty, the Chinese People's War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression, the Korean War, the Great Leap Forward, the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, the Kosovo War, and the September 11 attack.

He uses different cute animal figures to represent different nations. For instance, the United States is an eagle, the bear for the former Soviet Union, a rooster for France, and camels for the countries in Middle East.

"The Red Army was once called the 'Tubalu'," Lin said. "Tu" means at first the army was not regular units at that time and soldiers were ill-equipped. "'Tu' sounds like bunny, so I drew a bunny to represent China's mainland," he said.

"Bunnies are cute and easily accepted by audiences," said Xu Yuanzheng, a publicity official in Nanchang city. "In Chinese there is a saying 'even a bunny can bite', which could also explain how China rose from extremely harsh conditions."

The place the bunnies protect is called "Home of Horticulture", because in Chinese the word "horticulture" has similar pronunciation as "China."

The cartoon series soon became the most watched military history animation in China in 2014, with more than 500 million hits.

It was so popular that the PLA land forces contacted Lin and they began working on a new series about the founding of PLA.

"Both the army and Nanchang city promised that we have freedom in production," Lin said.

In the animation, a bunny smashes a cup and decides to rise up. He hid his long ears under cap before the first shot was fired.

Lin told Xinhua that the bunny represented Zhu De, one of the pioneers of the PLA who helped organize the Nanchang uprising.

"It was based on real history," Lin said.

Before the uprising, Zhu invited two Kuomintang regimental commanders to dinner and played cards with them, to give the revolutionaries time to ready themselves.

Lin began working on the animation in last September.

The animation does not show any fighting. "Such spectacular scenes are for blockbusters," Lin said. "What I do was just give audiences a rough idea, and if they are interested, they will dig deeper themselves."

Xu Yuanzheng believes the animation is a good way of teaching young people about history.

Web users also expressed their interest.

"My son likes it so much that he keeps talking about the 'Home of Horticulture'," said Weixiaomiandui on Sina Weibo. "He said he will work hard like the bunnies."

Mint_feixingmoshi said: "Telling history in such a humorous way is easy for young people to understand. Can't believe I cried while watching it! So proud!"

Lin Chao is happy with the audience reaction.

"Indeed we should be proud," he said. When he was young, he read the Naval and Merchant Ships magazine and most of the articles were about the advanced foreign warships. "But now I can see more information about the progress of our domestic vessels."

"I truly believe that our army will become stronger," he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 14:45:04|Editor: ZD

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KABUL, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Pakistani Embassy has started a four-day process of examination for scholarship in its Kabul based headquarter and its diplomatic missions in other Afghan cities, drawing attention of around 8,000 students to join to test, a private local news agency reported.

Quoting Akhtar Munir, the press attache of the embassy, Pajhwok Afghan News reported that the test with some 8,000 Afghan online applicants would be overseen by a delegation of Higher Education Commission of Pakistan.

Mohammad Abid, a student who took part in the test, thanked Pakistani government for providing higher education opportunities for Afghan students. He said the test was conducted in transparent manner but he complained the paper was difficult.

Wasim Hashmi, an advisor to Human Resource Development at Education Commission of the host country, said that Pakistan had approved master and doctorate scholarships for Afghan students for the first time, in addition to bachelor scholarships.

The scholarship includes medicine, engineering, law, economics, pharmacy, computer science and other disciplines, as well as tuition fee, health expenditures, hostel fee and food charges. Successful candidates will also receive monthly pocket money.

In the past, most of Afghan students were unable to complete studies because of language difficulties, but now they will be provided a six-month language course ahead of beginning main course studies, according to the report.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 15:30:13|Editor: Zhou Xin

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SRINAGAR, Indian-controlled Kashmir, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Two militants belonging to Hizbul Mujahideen (HM) militant outfit were killed Sunday in a fierce gunfight with troops in restive Indian-controlled Kashmir, police said.

The gunfight between militants and government forces broke out at village Tahab of Pulwama district, about 43 km south of Srinagar city, the summer capital of Indian-controlled Kashmir.

"A gunfight triggered here today in which two militants were killed," Brigadier Harbeer Singh, an Indian army officer told media on spot.

"Soon after the cordon we offered the militants to surrender but they fired upon our troops, which was duly retaliated, resulting in their killing."

Police officials said the duo was inside a residential house and tried to break the cordon and escape, however, they could not find safe passage.

According to police spokesman, the area was cordoned off on specific intelligence inputs about presence of militants.

The slain militants were identified as local cadres of HM, the region's indigenous militant outfit.

Reports said a trooper was wounded in the standoff and he was immediately removed to hospital.

A guerrilla war is going on between militants and Indian troops stationed in the region since 1989. Gunfights often take place between the two sides.

Kashmir, the Himalayan region divided between India and Pakistan, is claimed by both in full. Since their independence from Britain, the two countries have fought three wars, two exclusively over Kashmir.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 15:30:14|Editor: Zhou Xin

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JALALABAD, Afghanistan, July 30 (Xinhua) -- An Afghan local leader was killed in a roadside bomb blast in eastern Nangarhar province on Sunday, the latest in a string of targeted attacks, a provincial government spokesman said.

"Malik Shirin Aqa was martyred after his vehicle was hit by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) along a road in Khogyani district around 07:30 a.m. local time Sunday," Attahullah Khogyani told Xinhua.

Two other people aboard the vehicle were injured. They were shifted to a hospital where one of the wounded remained in critical condition, he said.

Civilians considered to be supporting government, civilian government employees, religious leaders, tribal elders and persons involved in peace and reconciliation efforts came under attack in targeted killings over the past years in the militancy-hit country.

Afghan civilians continue to bear the brunt of armed conflicts as more than 1,660 civilians were killed and over 3,580 others injured in conflict-related incidents in first half of the year, according to figures released by the United Nations mission in the country.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 15:40:17|Editor: Zhou Xin

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KABUL, July 30, (Xinhua) -- The Afghan National Police (ANP) repelled a Taliban militants' attack in eastern province of Paktika on Saturday, killing 11 militants, the country's interior ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said in a statement that a group of Taliban militants attacked police checkpoints in Sarobi district in the province, 155 km south of Kabul late on Saturday evening, but faced a harsh response from the police forces.

"The clashes left 11 armed Taliban fighters dead and 17 others wounded, but no ANP member was harmed in the clashes," the statement said.

The relatively peaceful province has been the scene of sporadic clashes between the government security forces and Taliban militants recently.

Taliban-led insurgency has been rampant since April when the militant group launched its annual offensive in different places of the country, which had claimed hundreds of lives including militants, security personnel and civilians.

The Taliban has yet to make comments on the clashes.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 15:45:23|Editor: An

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The People's Liberation Army (PLA) will officially celebrate its 90th anniversary of founding on Tuesday in the midst of unprecedented reform.

Just several days ago, Chinese President Xi Jinping said at a workshop of provincial and ministerial officials that military reform is historic, and he lauded breakthroughs and achievements in major fields.

OVERALL PLANNING

Xi put forward the dream of building a strong army during an inspection of the armed forces in southern China in December 2012, less than a month after he assumed office as general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission (CMC).

At a meeting with national lawmakers from the armed forces on March 11, 2013, Xi said that following the command of the Party, being capable of winning wars, and having a proper working style were fundamental to building a strong and modern force.

Following a series of inspections of military units and thorough studies, Xi further elaborated on the requirements of reforming the armed forces at a CMC meeting held from Nov. 24 to 26, 2015.

Taking into consideration the larger global picture as well as the profound and complicated changes occurring internationally, Xi called for greater wisdom and courage throughout national defense and military reform.

He also proposed a timetable, saying that key achievements in the reform must be made by 2020.

RESHAPING THE HEAD

A series of major structural reforms have been made public since Dec. 31, 2015, following the establishment of the PLA Army general command, the PLA Rocket Force and the PLA Strategic Support Force.

The following month, the four general departments -- staff, politics, logistics and armaments -- were reorganized into 15 agencies of the CMC, and five theater commands were initiated on Feb. 1, replacing the seven military area commands.

Theater commands focus on the study and command of wars and are essential parts of the joint operation command system, according to Yuan Yubai, commander of the the Southern Theater Command.

The reform is structured so that the CMC takes charge of the overall military administration, while theater commands focus on operations and different services on troop developments, said Cai Hongshuo, deputy head of the expert panel of the CMC's leading group on reform.

RESTRUCTURING THE FORCES

Last December, Xi said the military's structure had to be readjusted and optimized to adapt to rapid changes to the global military environment.

A key feature of the structural reform is downsized ground forces.

Army Commander Li Zuocheng said the reform has brought huge changes to the army service, including the installation of the army general command and major personnel cuts, with army troops currently accounting for less than 50 percent of the overall armed forces.

On April 18 this year, Xi had a group meeting with the leading officers of 84 reshuffled units at the corps level. Ten days later, Defense Ministry spokesperson Yang Yujun announced that the CMC had decided to regroup the country's army groups from the previous 18 to 13.

Yang said the regroup was a crucial step to building a strong and modernized new type of army and was important to shifting the focus of the PLA from quantity to quality and efficiency.

SYSTEM & POLICY INNOVATION

The reform also stresses the importance of regulating power within the military, demanding a strict system to supervise the use of power.

A new discipline inspection commission has been established within the CMC, and disciplinary inspectors have been sent to CMC departments and theater commands.

The CMC has built an audit office, and a political and legal affairs commission. Adjustments have also been made to improve the military judicial system.

Military education institutions were reshuffled. There are now 43 military education institutions, including two -- the National Defense University of the PLA and the National University of Defense Technology -- directly under the CMC, 35 specialized in specific armed services, and six armed police forces.

Integrated military and civilian development has also been upgraded to a national strategy to promote the coordinated development of national defense and the economy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 15:50:23|Editor: Zhou Xin

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JAKARTA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Indonesia has boosted measures to extinguish forest fires in the country as the number of hotspots increased significantly on Sunday, a senior government official said.

A total of four helicopters were dispatched to undertake water bombings in West Kalimantan province of Borneo Island as forest fires have been flaming there for four days, spokesman of national disaster agency Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

Satellite has detected that the number of hotpots climbed to 239 across the vast archipelagic nation as of Sunday. Among them, 126 are located in West Kalimantan province, the spokesman told Xinhua in a text message.

Soldiers, policemen, personnel of the disaster management agency and volunteers are struggling to douse the blaze, he added.

Difficult access to the scene, lack of sources of water and limited number of devices have hampered the firefighters from conducting their mission, Sutoppo said.

The smoke from the fires has not reached neighboring Malaysia or other nations in the Southeast Asia region, he added.

Indonesia is frequently hit by forest fires with the biggest one in 2015 spreading across the islands of Sumatra and Borneo.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 16:10:27|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ELDORET, Kenya, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police on Sunday killed a lone attacker who stormed into Deputy President William Ruto's rural home in Eldoret on Saturday, ending an 18-hour siege.

"The assailant has been shot dead and the weapon he had snatched was recovered from him. The siege is over," Inspector General of Police Joseph Boinnet said, 18 hours after the dramatic incident.

Local police officers said the man was killed at about 6:00 am (1500 GMT) Sunday by paramilitary police who were flown from Nairobi for the operation.

Multiple gunshots, loud bangs could be heard from the heavily fortified deputy president's home in Sugoi on Sunday morning.

A source said that at first paramilitary officers could not proceed to the house where the attacker was holding their colleague as human shield, resulting in an extended siege.

But other sources said the attacker killed a police officer he was holding hostage overnight.

"We have two bodies here. One is the assailant and another is an police officer who was stabbed and held as a shield," said a witness.

Ruto spent the night at his rural Sugoi home before leaving Saturday around 11:00 a.m. (2000 GMT) to accompany President Uhuru Kenyatta for a series of political campaigns in northwest Kenya.

On Saturday night, the intruder entered the farm complex after stabbing the police officer at the gate. The attacker was alone and armed with a machete, not a firearm as earlier reported, according to Boinett.

One police officer was injured, and is now undergoing treatment in a stable condition, he said.

The motive of the attacker was not known yet, and investigations have been launched into the assault, the police chief added.

Neither the deputy president nor any member of his family was at the house when the attack occurred.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 16:10:28|Editor: An

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ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Helicopters dropped off dozens of soldiers to the ground while stirring up clouds of yellow sand, as jets flying overhead fired infrared flares into the sky.

China on Sunday displayed its most cutting-edge armaments in a magnificent military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

This is the first time that China has commemorated the Army Day, which falls on Aug. 1, with a military parade since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

Unlike the grand parades staged at Tian'anmen Square, this was held at the remote Zhurihe military training base amidst a desolate landscape in northern China and had more of a combat feel.

At the height of the parade, 18 helicopters dropped off scores of soldiers on sandy prairies, blowing up huge clouds of yellow sand.

Within seconds, the soldiers stormed out and assembled for inspection.

Wang Ruicheng, deputy head of the general office of the parade headquarters, said participants of the parade were soldiers undergoing combat training at the Zhurihe base.

In past parades, more attention was paid to ceremonial details such as grooming and moves in unison. The Zhurihe parade, however, feels real, he said.

"Here, soldiers have stares that kill," said Wang.

Unlike previous National Day (Oct. 1) parades and the 2015 V-Day parade held in Beijing, no military bands or choruses were present, and attendance was limited to military staff.

Troops were not required to perform their trademark synchronized goose-stepping march-past.

Instead, soldiers clad in sand-covered combat uniforms all proceeded in and on top of rows upon rows of tanks, armored vehicles and missile launchers that roared past the rostrum, while formations of China's latest fighter jets roared overhead.

At one point, seven J-11B fighter jets fired infrared decoy flares into the air.

"This is the first time that we employed a real battle-like maneuver in a military parade," said Xiao Jun, lead captain of the J-11B echelon.

The change reflects the improvement of the PLA's combat capabilities in the wake of sweeping reforms launched since 2015 to boost the military's readiness to fight and win wars, Wang said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 16:20:34|Editor: Zhou Xin

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RAMALLAH, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Israeli forces opened at dawn on Sunday al-Mathara gate in Al Aqsa Mosque, MENA news agency reported.

Hundreds of al Quds residents staged a sit-in on Saturday in front of the gate in a protest over closing it by the Israelis.

Islamic Awqaf Department of Al Quds City is closely monitoring the Israeli police commitment with opening the gate of the holy mosque and allowing worshipers to perform their prayers.

On July 15, Israeli police closed and cancelled Friday noon prayers in the al-Aqsa Mosque and briefly detained Jerusalem's top Muslim leader after three Palestinians and two Israeli police officers were killed in a gun battle in the mosque compound.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 16:25:36|Editor: An

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TAIPEI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Taiwan's weather agency continued issuing sea and land alerts Sunday as Typhoon Haitang was forecast to hit the island later this day on the heels of Typhoon Nesat.

Nesat weakened as it moved away from Taiwan Sunday morning, while Haitang, centered on southwest Eluanbi as of 11 a.m. Sunday, was gaining strength and moving toward the island, the agency said.

Torrential rains are anticipated in Pingtung, Chiayi and Tainan as well as the mountainous areas in Kaohsiung and Taitung Sunday. Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu were also forecast to have heavy rain. The weather authorities warned possible geological disasters in these areas.

Offices and schools on the island announced closures Sunday in the wake of the double storm. Road closures caused by Nesat have not yet reopened.

Rainfall in the north and northeastern parts of Taiwan may weaken as Nesat moves off, but Haitang is likely to spread torrential rain across the island later Sunday.

Taiwan will feel the greatest impact of Nesat and Haitang from Sunday to Monday, with areas around the island expected to see strong wind and heavy rain, particularly central and southern Taiwan, the weather bureau said.

Typhoon Nesat, which made landfall Saturday evening in Taiwan's Yilan county, brought showers in many parts of the island and caused damages.

A total of 191,898 households in Taiwan had experienced power outages Saturday evening, according to the island emergency operation center. More than 70,000 had power restored as of 10 p.m. Saturday. The main areas where the power outages struck were Yilan, Pingtung and Hualien counties.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 16:40:43|Editor: Zhou Xin

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BERLIN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Several people were injured in a gun shooting early Sunday morning at a night club in Konstanz in southern Germany, local media reported.

It was unclear whether there were people killed. The police were unable to confirm a report by the local media SWR that the perpetrator(s) had been arrested.

"There were casualties in the shooting, visitors could save themselves by fleeing into the open or hiding," the DPA news agency quoted a police spokesman as saying.

The SWR, a regional public broadcasting corporation in the southwest of Germany, reported that some eyewitnesses said the gunshots were fired with a machine gun.

The police in Konstanz in the state of Baden-Wuerttemberg said via Twitter that there was no longer any danger after the shooting.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 16:50:47|Editor: yan

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Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, delivers a speech after overseeing a grand military parade to mark the 90th anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) at the Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, July 30, 2017. (Xinhua/Lan Hongguang)

ZHURIHE, Inner Mongolia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Dozens of soldiers stormed out of 18 helicopters landing on a sandy patch in the heart of the vast Inner Mongolian prairie.

They joined thousands of other camouflaged soldiers in a massive miltary parade as tanks and missile launchers rumbled past. Fighter jets streaked across the clear blue sky, shooting flares.

President Xi Jinping reviewed the armed forces on Sunday morning as part of the commemorations to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army (PLA), which falls on Aug. 1.

More than 12,000 service personnel from the army, navy, air force, armed police as well as the newly formed rocket force and strategic support troops, took part in the parade at Zhurihe military training base.

China needs to build strong armed forces more than any other time in history as the Chinese nation is closer to the goal of great rejuvenation than ever, Xi said, delivering a speech after overseeing the parade.

"The PLA has the confidence and capability to defeat all invading enemies and safeguard China's national sovereignty, security and development interests," said Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Xi, who was endorsed as the core of the CPC Central Committee in 2016, called on the PLA to stay loyal to the Party, boost combat capability and continue to serve the people.

Observers said the parade had more of a combat feel as soldiers appeared as if they were gripped by the heat of battle.

"Here, the soldiers have the stares that kill," said Wang Ruicheng, deputy head of the general office of the parade headquarters.

Late leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping also inspected troops in the field at key moments in history.

It is the first time for Xi to oversee such a large parade at a military base, and the first time for China to commemorate Army Day with a military parade since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949.

SHOW OF STRENGTH

Sunday's commemoration began with a flag-raising ceremony at around 9 a.m.

Xi was greeted by Han Weiguo, commander-in-chief of the parade and commander of the Central Theater Command.

"Comrade chairman, the troops are ready. Please review," Han said.

"Proceed!" Xi replied.

Camouflage-clad Xi mounted an open-top jeep that drove along an airstrip.

"Salute to you, comrades," Xi called out to the soldiers.

"Hail to you, chairman," they replied.

Xi alternated the greeting with "Comrades, thanks for your hard work," to which soldiers replied "Serve the people."

"Follow the Party. Fight to win. Forge exemplary conduct," servicemen and women exclaimed to Xi in unison.

Forty-one attack helicopters flew in formations spelling Chinese characters "Ba Yi" -- or Aug. 1 -- and the number 90.

The parade did not feature goose-stepping in a march-past. Instead, the officers and soldiers rode in military vehicles that rumbled past the rostrum.

The gleaming armament showed how far the PLA has come since it was a small force with poor weaponry at the Nanchang Uprising in 1927.

Today, the PLA commands about 2 million service personnel, one of the world's largest military forces.

Xi said history had proved that the PLA was a heroic force that had followed the Party's command, served the country with loyalty, and fought for the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

On Sunday, cutting-edge weapons like J-20 stealth aircraft, 8X8 all-terrain vehicles, radar-and-communication jamming drones and solid-fuel intercontinental missiles were among about 600 pieces of military hardware on show.

About half had never been paraded. New faces included female marines and an electronic warfare force under the new strategic support force.

The public watched the procession from state media's live broadcast. The parade trended on social media.

"I am so moved. Go PLA. Go China," said a netizen. "It is you who guarantee our happy life. Salute to you, PLA soldiers."

XI'S REFORM

The parade at Zhurihe, which means "heart" in Mongolian, captured the essence of fundamental changes taking place in China's armed forces with sweeping reform measures unleashed in recent years.

In just two years, the top bureaucracy was streamlined, military services balanced, the joint command system reshaped, equipment upgraded and border patrols increased.

Meanwhile, China's second aircraft carrier was launched; more warships were commissioned; and new fighter jets, drones, and missiles were unveiled.

"The size of the ground force has been greatly reduced to account for less than half of the armed forces," said General Li Zuocheng, commander of the PLA Army. "The army is getting fit as it turns modern and strong."

The Zhurihe base has also felt the pulse of Xi's reform as the largest military training ground in Asia got busy.

A lot more live-fire drills were conducted in the past few years. The country's first professional opposing forces brigade was created here, opening a new age in PLA training.

Xi on Sunday again urged the PLA to focus on war preparedness to forge an elite and powerful force that is always "ready for the fight, capable of combat and sure to win."

COMMITMENT TO PEACE

The troops frequenting the Inner Mongolian prairie today are different from the cavalry armies standing on the same turf commanded by Genghis Khan over 800 years ago.

China's modern armed forces remain committed to peace.

Chinese servicemen are actively involved in international peace-keeping missions. The country has sent about 35,000 military personnel, the most among permanent members of the UN Security Council, to at least 24 UN peace-keeping missions.

Xi said that enjoying peace is a bliss for the people, while protecting peace is the responsibility of the people's army.

"The world is not all at peace, and peace must be safeguarded," Xi said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 17:05:51|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MEXICO CITY, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Venezuela's election for a National Constituent Assembly (ANC) aiming to rewrite the constitution will kick off on Sunday.

The proposed-election has heated up the intense situation in the country. At least 110 people have been killed in protests and strikes led by the opposition coalition since early April.

HOW DOES THE ELECTION PROCESS WORK?

The ANC was proposed by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro on May 1, aiming to review and rewrite the 1999 Constitution to break the political gridlock that has paralyzed the country. A popular referendum will be held on the new constitution after it is drafted.

According to the constitution, the ANC will act as the supreme organ of power before the new constitution is approved.

Among the 545 seats of the assembly, 364 will represent regions while 181 represent different civil society groups. About 6,120 candidates are competing for the seats, according to the National Electoral Council.

More than 19 million constituents will vote at 14,515 voting stations guarded by some 232,000 soldiers around the country on Sunday.

HOW DO DIFFERENT PARTIES REACT TO THE ELECTION?

The opposition coalition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) is trying to stop the ANC election, and threatens to upgrade street protests against the ANC.

The MUD claims that the ANC is raised to postpone the regional and municipal elections originally scheduled for this year.

After a 24-hour strike last week and a 48-hour strike Wednesday, the opposition announced the initiation of a three-day protest starting from July 28, during which the main roads across the country would be blocked.

The U.S. government demanded the vote to be called off.

A White House statement from U.S. President Donald Trump warned on July 17 that "the United States will take strong and swift economic actions" if the vote is to be held Sunday.

On Wednesday, the United States leveled sanctions at 13 current and former Venezuelan officials.

Thirteen countries in the Organization of American States, including the United States, Argentina, Brazil, Mexico and Canada, also asked Venezuela to drop the ANC.

The Southern Common Market (Mercosur), South America's trade bloc, called on the Venezuelan government and the opposition to solve the current political crisis through dialogue.

Despite warnings and pressure, Maduro insisted the vote go ahead as planned.

Analysts say that the Constituent Assembly is unlikely to be impeded. The conflict over the ANC election between the ruling party and the opposition is expected to intensify, and the political struggle will last for a long time.

WILL ANC SOLVE VENEZUELA'S CRISIS?

The opposition may continue to hinder the constitution rewriting process by organizing street protests and seeking international intervention, or advising their followers to vote against the new constitution in the referendum.

Yuan Dongzhen, deputy director of Institute of Latin-America Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Science, said whether the ANC election could relieve the domestic political crisis depends on the political will of both sides.

For the moment, the Constituent Assembly is unlikely to bridge the political divide in Venezuela, and thus the social instability in the country will continue, Yuan predicted.

Mexican political scientist Jose Del Tronco said that the profound problems in Venezuela cannot be settled merely through the ANC.

Only with a flexible and open mind can the country end its current stalemate and restore economic and social order, he said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 17:10:51|Editor: Song Lifang

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BAGHDAD, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi intelligence service thwarted a plot by the IS militant group to carry out attacks against Shiite shrines and the house of the most revered spiritual Shiite leader in Iraq, an official newspaper reported on Sunday.

"The terrorist Daesh (IS group) was prepared for three separate operations led by terrorists from outside Iraq to attack the shrines of Shiite Imams in the provinces of Karbala, Najaf and Samarra, and the residency of the top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf," the state-owned al-Sabah newspaper quoted Abu Ali al-Basri, head of intelligence apparatus of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), as saying.

The group also aimed at attacking a mosque in the town of Kufa near Najaf and some crowded areas in the oil-hub city of Basra in southern Iraq, with the objective of igniting sectarian strife between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, according to al-Basri.

"The attacks were designed to be carried out by car bombers and dozens of suicide bombers of different nationalities in cooperation with gangs of smuggling to facilitate the entry of weapons and suicide bombers into the targeted provinces," al-Basri said.

The intelligence information was presented to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, and to the Interior Minister Qassim al-Aaraji, to get the orders to carry out preemptive airstrikes against the terrorists' bases by the Iraqi F-16 jets, just hours before moving to their targets, the newspaper said.

The Iraqi warplanes destroyed seven IS posts, where dozens of IS militants and their booby-trapped vehicles were gathering, in the IS-held areas of Mayadeen inside Syria and the Iraqi town of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, leaving dozens of IS militants killed, according to al-Basri.

The holy Shiite city of Karbala, about 110 km south of Baghdad, is home to a shrine that includes Imams Hussein and Abbas, while Najaf, some 160 km south of Baghdad, is home to the shrine of Imam Ali, as well as the house of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, is home to a shrine that includes the two Imams of Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari.

"The terrorist scheme is the most dangerous in the history of Iraq which, if succeeded, would drag Iraq into an unknown dark tunnel and a spiral of violence and blood, but the vigilance of the heroic security men prevented this," it added.

On July 10, Abadi officially declared Mosul's liberation from IS rule after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq. The liberation of Mosul was a big blow to the extremist group in Iraq.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 17:15:58|Editor: Lu Hui

File photo taken on May 22, 2017 shows Shahbaz Sharif, the chief minister of Pakistan's eastern Punjab Province, speaking at the second International Seminar on Business Opportunities in Punjab (ISBOP) in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan's ruling party PML-N decided Saturday to name Shahbaz Sharif as the country's new prime minister.(Xinhua)

by Muhammad Tahir

ISLAMABAD, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) party has named Shahbaz Sharif, younger brother of ousted Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif as his successor, which means Sharifs will maintain their power in the country's politics despite disqualification of Nawaz Sharif by the country's top court on Friday.

Nawaz Sharif stepped down as prime minister hours after the Supreme Court of Pakistan disqualified him for holding any public office over his alleged failure to disclose his income from a UAE-based company that is owned by one of his sons.

The removal of Nawaz Sharif by the judiciary had raised concerns in the country about political crisis, however, PML-N senior leaders and lawmakers' agreement on Shahbaz's nomination will ensure continuation of Nawaz Sharif's policies. Nawaz Sharif will have more time to focus on political activities for the coming parliamentary elections that are scheduled for May next year.

Shahbaz Sharif, who is the incumbent chief minister in Pakistan's most populous Punjab province, has a vast experience in internal and external affairs because of his long involvement in government affairs.

As PML-N enjoys majority support in the parliament, Shahbaz Sharif will not face any serious challenge from the opposition parties, which are involved in consultations to field a joint candidate to challenge Shahbaz Sharif.

Although political watchers expect political crisis and tensions between the PML-N and the opposition parties, Nawaz Sharif adopted a soft and reconciliation tone when he spoke to reporters after he presided over a meeting to choose his successor.

Former senator and a political analyst Afrasiab Khattak describe the court's disqualification of an elected prime minister as unfortunate as the verdict has created disruption in the political system that could lead to instability.

"Political issues should be resolved politically not through courts. This is not a healthy practice," Khattak told Xinhua.

He said as PML-N party enjoys clear majority in the National Assembly and a very strong support base in Punjab province, Sharifs will not give up and will have dominant role in politics.

Political observers are of the view that Nawaz Sharif could use the victim card in politics and the next year's elections as he has been removed for the third time before completion of his five-year constitutional term.

Marvi Sarmad, a senior political and security analyst, said Shraif's PML-N party could win more sympathies and votes in the coming elections in the wake of the disqualification of Nawaz Sharif on a very minor issue.

Although opposition leader Imran Khan is the main beneficiary of the court's removal of the prime minister by the judiciary, he could not stop Sharif party from powerful role in the politics, she told Xinhua.

"I do not think there will be any significant change in the political situation," she said and pointed out that Shahbaz has a long political experience and he could overcome the current crisis.

PML-N and Nawaz Sharif himself showed political sagacity to implement the Supreme Court's verdict despite expressing serious reservations.

The court's verdict was shocking for the PML-N as the court has not only disqualified its popular leader and also caused a huge embarrassment for the party.

There is no doubt that Nawaz Sharif's disqualification will have a negative impact on the internal and external policies he had been pursuing as the prime minister. But transferring the power to his brother will ensure continuation of policies, including fight against terrorism.

Cordial relations with India and Afghanistan will be a difficult task for the new leader but he will have to honor Nawaz Sharif's pledges for good neighborly relations.
A general view shows Iraq i Shiite Muslims praying at the Great Mosque of Kufa in the city of the same name, 10 kilometres (6.2 miles) northeast of Iraq's central shrine city of Najaf on June 18, 2017 during the holy fasting month of Ramadan. (AFP Photo)

BAGHDAD, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Iraqi intelligence service thwarted a plot by the IS militant group to carry out attacks against Shiite shrines and the house of the most revered spiritual Shiite leader in Iraq, an official newspaper reported on Sunday.

"The terrorist Daesh (IS group) was prepared for three separate operations led by terrorists from outside Iraq to attack the shrines of Shiite Imams in the provinces of Karbala, Najaf and Samarra, and the residency of the top Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in Najaf," the state-owned al-Sabah newspaper quoted Abu Ali al-Basri, head of intelligence apparatus of the Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS), as saying.

The group also aimed at attacking a mosque in the town of Kufa near Najaf and some crowded areas in the oil-hub city of Basra in southern Iraq, with the objective of igniting sectarian strife between the Shiite and Sunni Muslims, according to al-Basri.

"The attacks were designed to be carried out by car bombers and dozens of suicide bombers of different nationalities in cooperation with gangs of smuggling to facilitate the entry of weapons and suicide bombers into the targeted provinces," al-Basri said.

The intelligence information was presented to Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi, who is also the Commander-in-Chief of Iraqi forces, and to the Interior Minister Qassim al-Aaraji, to get the orders to carry out preemptive airstrikes against the terrorists' bases by the Iraqi F-16 jets, just hours before moving to their targets, the newspaper said.

The Iraqi warplanes destroyed seven IS posts, where dozens of IS militants and their booby-trapped vehicles were gathering, in the IS-held areas of Mayadeen inside Syria and the Iraqi town of al-Qaim near the border with Syria, leaving dozens of IS militants killed, according to al-Basri.

The holy Shiite city of Karbala, about 110 km south of Baghdad, is home to a shrine that includes Imams Hussein and Abbas, while Najaf, some 160 km south of Baghdad, is home to the shrine of Imam Ali, as well as the house of Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.

Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad, is home to a shrine that includes the two Imams of Ali al-Hadi and Hassan al-Askari.

"The terrorist scheme is the most dangerous in the history of Iraq which, if succeeded, would drag Iraq into an unknown dark tunnel and a spiral of violence and blood, but the vigilance of the heroic security men prevented this," it added.

On July 10, Abadi officially declared Mosul's liberation from IS rule after nearly nine months of fierce fighting to dislodge the extremist militants from their last major stronghold in Iraq. The liberation of Mosul was a big blow to the extremist group in Iraq.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 17:26:01|Editor: Zhou Xin

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BERLIN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Two people including the perpetrator were shot dead in a gun shooting at a night club in Konstanz in southern Germany early Sunday morning, local police said.

The police of Konstanz in the Baden-Wuerttemberg state said the suspected perpetrator shot a person dead in a discotheque at 4:30 a.m. (0230 GMT) Sunday. The gunman was then killed in a shootout with police.

It was not clear whether a single offender or several perpetrators were involved, according to a statement of the police. Special police forces and a police helicopter were requested for possible investigation.

The motive of the probably only acting man is yet to be known. Investigation by the prosecutor's office and the Criminal Investigation Department is underway, according to the police.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 17:51:10|Editor: Lu Hui

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MOGADISHU, July 30 (Xinhua) -- At least five people were killed and scores of others injured in a bomb explosion outside a police station in Mogadishu's city centre on Sunday, police said.

A police officer told Xinhua that a vehicle loaded with explosives blew up in the middle of road as traffic build up along Maka Al Mukarama road.

"The vehicle exploded in the midst of traffic along Maka al Mukarama road killing five people and injuring several others," said Yahye Mohamed.

The victims were largely civilian who were using the road.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 18:16:19|Editor: Lu Hui

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JUBA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has donated a combined sum of 1.8 million U.S. dollars to South Sudan's ministry of health to fight cholera and malaria in the war-torn East African country.

The Chinese Embassy in South Sudan on Saturday handed over a check of 1 million dollars for cholera response, donated anti-malarial drugs worth 800,000 dollars and also donated one ambulance to the country's biggest referral hospital.

The South Sudanese government also launched a Chinese-aided project worth 33 million dollars for the modernization and expansion of the country's main referral hospital, the Juba Teaching Hospital, and renovation of the China-funded Kiir Mayardit Women's Hospital in the South Sudanese town of Rumbek.

Health Minister Riek Gai Kok said the donation is a generous addition to the 600 bicycles and communication gadgets provided by the Chinese government to support health in the grassroot level.

"We thank you for the kind donation that will help us a lot in strengthening our capacity to respond to diseases," said Kok.

Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan He Xiangdong said Beijing is committed to helping Juba improve its public health sector by providing capacity building and financial contributions.

"This is a gift from the Chinese people to our brothers and sisters in South Sudan because we are trying to help them improve the public health sector," the Chinese envoy said.

Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, China has contributed diplomatic and material support to South Sudan.

Early this year, China and South Sudan agreed to boost cooperation in the health sector by enhancing knowledge sharing, capacity building, and hospital to hospital collaborations.

Beijing has been sending 15 medical specialists annually to various hospitals across South Sudan to provide free medical services.

"We are very proud of having this partnership with China and we urge the two governments to deepen this relationship for the generations to come because health is the pillar for development," said South Sudan's Finance Minister Stephen Dhuie Dau.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 18:21:21|Editor: An

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Training in "realistic conditions" taken by thousands of Chinese troops before a massive parade Sunday is "not related to the country's neighborhood situation," a military spokesman said.

Ren Guoqiang, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, told a press conference that the training was arranged in accordance with the armed forces' annual training plan.

He did not elaborate on what was meant by "neighborhood situation."

China held its first-ever Army Day parade, at Zhurihe military training base in Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region to commemorate the 90th birthday of the People's Liberation Army (PLA).

Ren said the 12,000 troops participating in the parade were fresh from military training so that they could show their battle spirit.

Over 600 pieces of armaments and 100 aircraft were displayed, nearly half of which were paraded for the first time, according to Ren.

He said the parade was a breakaway from the formalities of ceremonial parades. No military bands, no public attendance, no grooming and even no goose-stepping march.

"[Parade] elements irrelevant to real battles were reduced to a minimum," Ren said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 18:21:25|Editor: Zhou Xin

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DOHA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Bahraini King on Saturday discussed with foreign ministers of the four Arab countries to explore ways for ending Qatar diplomatic crisis, Bahrain News Agency (BNA) reported.

The second meeting between King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain was held in Manama, BNA said.

King Al Khalifa and the ministers mainly discussed the Qatari crisis and the agreement reached by the foreign ministers of the Arab quartet during a meeting in Cairo on July 5.

The king also hailed the Arab countries' efforts in fighting terrorism and extremism.

The four Arab countries have severed diplomatic ties with Qatar early last month, accusing Doha of supporting terrorism, interfering in their internal affairs and seeking closer ties with Iran, a Saudi rival.

Qatar strongly denied the charges against it, while rejecting a list of 13 demands put forward by the bloc for resuming diplomatic ties.

Kuwait has been trying to mediate the crisis and several top Western diplomats have toured the region to try to defuse the row, including U.S. Secretary of States Rex Tillerson.

On Thursday, Qatar's foreign minister accused Gulf neighbors and Egypt of "stubbornness" in their ongoing diplomatic dispute and said the UN should step in to help resolve the crisis.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 18:31:29|Editor: Zhou Xin

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TEHRAN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday urged Muslims worldwide to take stance against the U.S. and Israel's "villainy" during the imminent annual Hajj ceremonies.

One of the topics related to the Islamic world is "the issue of al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Aqsa Mosque, which is in focus today," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website.

The U.S. interference in the affairs of regional Muslim countries and its creation of the terrorist groups is another important topic which the Muslims should take the stance against during the Hajj ceremonies to be held in late August in the holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia, he added.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 18:46:30|Editor: Zhou Xin

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GHAZNI, Afghanistan, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Afghan forces have repulsed a Taliban attack on Qarabagh district of the eastern Ghazni province, forcing militants to flee after leaving 20 bodies behind, provincial police chief Mohammad Mustafa said.

"Taliban militants launched a coordinated attack on security checkpoints in Qarabagh district late Saturday night triggering fierce fighting which lasted for several hours until today morning during which 20 rebels were killed," Mustafa told Xinhua.

The official also confirmed the death of two policemen and injuries of six others in the firefight, saying the militants have run away and the situation is in full control of the security forces.

Meanwhile, Zabihullah Mujaheed who claims to speak for the Taliban outfit, in contact with media, confirmed the clash in Qarabagh district, saying two policemen were killed, five wounded and two police personnel were captured.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:21:45|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MOGADISHU, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Transitioning Somalia's security from pan African mission to the country's security forces will take place in a gradual and conditions-based manner, a joint meeting of the AU mission and Somalia government resolved on Saturday evening.

A communique issued by AMISOM at the end of a five-day meeting said the gradual process will ensure gains made against Islamist militant group Al-Shabaab are not reversed.

The meeting, which discussed in detail the implementation of the National Security Architecture derived from a security pact signed by Somalia's leaders on April 16, called for "critical and urgent" joint operations across south and central Somalia to "further disrupt and degrade" Al-Shabaab.

"The Somalia National Army (SNA) sector commanders shared their immediate objectives and priority operations to further degrade Al-Shabaab," the communique reads.

The joint operations are aimed at enhancing the protection of civilians, opening of Main Supply Routes blocked by the insurgents and creating a free and secure environment for the Somali people to thrive.

"We brainstormed, we tried to see how best we can move forward in terms of strategizing on the best way to implement these decisions and have a more stressed, affirmed impact on the battlefield against Al-Shabaab," said Francisco Madeira, the Special Representative of the African Union Commission Chairperson (SRCC) at the end of the five-day meeting.

"I'm very happy to say that these discussions were open, frank, they looked into everything and they came up with a very clear way forward. A clear approach and consensus," he added.

During the meeting, there was also consensus that AMISOM and SNSF hold a planning meeting in August to plan for coordinated joint operations for the rest of the year and beyond. AMISOM will assist in the development of a counter-insurgency plan.

The joint meeting also renewed call for "adequate and predictable" funding to AMISOM, to enable the Mission capacitate the Somali National Security Forces (SNSF), to ready it for the transitioning of security responsibilities.

Participants said additional support would focus on furtherance of training, mentorship and equipping SNSF with the necessary infrastructure and mobility, to enable them conduct their security responsibilities effectively.

"The main objective is how we cooperate and pull all our efforts to make ends meet in ensuring that the objectives that are expected out of us, are delivered in the best manner that can support us, in stabilizing this nation," Somali Federal Minister of Defence Abdirashid Abdullahi Mohamed said.

The meeting commended the current stabilization efforts in Mogadishu by the Federal Government of Somalia and the progress made in strengthening security in the regional states.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:26:47|Editor: Zhou Xin

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TEHRAN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday urged Muslims worldwide to take stance against the U.S. and Israel's "villainy" during the imminent annual Hajj ceremonies.

One of the topics related to the Islamic world is "the issue of al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Aqsa Mosque, which is in focus today," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website.

There is no better place than the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, to voice Muslims' opinion and stance in support of Palestine and Aqsa Mosque, he said.

The U.S. interference in the affairs of regional Muslim countries and its creation of the terrorist groups is another important topic which the Muslims should take the stance against during the Hajj ceremonies to be held in late August in Mecca, he added.

"The U.S. government is more villain and malicious than the terrorist groups," he stressed.

Muslims should be cognizant about the divisive plots hatched by the enemies, Khamenei added.

Iran decided to withdraw from sending pilgrims to Hajj ceremony last year, with concerns over the safety of the pilgrims after the deadly stampede in Hajj of 2015.

More than 450 Iranians died among a total of 2300 pilgrims killed in the stampede in Mina area.

After resolving the issues between Tehran and Riyadh, Iran decided to send as many as 86,500 pilgrims to annual Hajj ceremony in Saudi Arabia this summer.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:31:48|Editor: Zhou Xin

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NAIROBI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenya's tourism marketers on Sunday promised to bring more Chinese tourists to the East African nation after a visit by Chinese business magnate Jack Ma.

Kenya Tourism Board (KTB) said travel agents have termed the visit by the billionaire a major boost and endorsement to their campaigns - that seek to woo Chinese travelers into Kenya.

KTB Chief Executive Officer Betty Radier said in a statement issued in Nairobi that China now listed among the top 10 tourist source market the country has potential for further growth.

Radier noted that KTB will invest more resources in strategic marketing initiatives aimed at attracting the high-end consumer segments.

"By end of April this year, we received 14,029 visitors from the country compared to 10,407 recorded in the same period last year, an increase of 34.8 percent," said Radier.

Last year, the market posted 47,860 arrivals up from 29,790 recorded in 2015, indicating a growth of 60.7 percent, she said.

Radier said family travel, resulting from the government's visa waiver for children under the age of 16, is among the factors contributing to the growth of the market.

Chinese billionaire Jack's visit coincided with the launch of mobile online training for travel agents in China rolled out by KTB to create top of mind destination awareness and spur interest for travel among the Chinese.

"As a result of his visit, I can assure you that our work of marketing Kenya has been made easier, interest to travel to Kenya has suddenly gone up and this is positive feedback," said Travel Service Bigeyes International co-founder Vivien Zhang.

A top 10 wholesaler of Africa and Middle East General Manager Johnson Chen disclosed that his company has received several inquires about Kenya that has been in the limelight in connection to Jack's visit and other China's development projects in Kenya, including Standard Gauge Railways.

"We anticipate to register an increase of travelers to Kenya in the month of September through to October, Kenya is now among the top sale destination owing to positives associations between the two countries," said Chen.

The tour operators were speaking over the weekend during promotional marketing campaigns by KTB in China's cities of Beijing, Shangai and Guangzhou.

KTB launched online mobile training for travel agents selling Kenya's products to enhance their knowledge on tourism packages the country is offering.

The marketing body has also planned to produce a destination video specifically for the Chinese market to sustain top of mind destination awareness among the Chinese.

The General Manager for Joy Way, an international travel company Eric Zhu said Kenya will host more family travelers from next year through a kid's safari package that the company has developed.

"Family travel segment to Kenya is increasingly becoming popular. In partnership with Kenya Airways, we are packaging this product around wildlife and the train services that cater for large groups and corporate clients," he said.

During his visit to Kenya, the Chinese business mogul known and respected globally for his innovative business solutions, said he saw a great future in Africa and urged both political and business leaders in the continent to embrace innovation.

Insisting the growth of technology in this era was the third phase of a global business development cycle, Jack said the new phase of technology development, driven by intelligence systems, would require the development of brains and innovations where innovation would replace human beings.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:36:52|Editor: Zhou Xin

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by Nguon Sovan, Mao Pengfei

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Situated about 20 km from the Angkor world heritage site in northwestern Cambodia's Siem Reap province, Run Ta Ek eco-village has found a green approach to reduce poverty.

Founded in 2004, the eco-village has forged a partnership with Apsara Authority, which manages the 401-sq-km Angkor archeological park, said Mey Marady, director of the Run Ta Ek eco-village development project.

The 1,012-hectare eco-village is one of the first all-solar homestay projects in Cambodia and helps educate tourists on history, culture, flora, fauna, and wildlife that can still be found around the area.

He said the village can accommodate around 850 families, and to date, the Apsara Authority has given homes and lands free to over 100 families to support the homestay program through farming and tourism-related jobs.

The village establishment was to deal with the growing population inside the park, he said, adding that the population inside the park was only 100,000 people 20 years ago, but now there were over 100,000 families.

"Our objective is to save the world heritage site," he told Xinhua. "The government gives a house and a hectare of farmland free to whoever volunteers to leave their houses in the Angkor protected area," he said.

He said at the eco-village, they could earn incomes by renting their homestay to tourists and by growing organic crops and raising animals.

"Some families can make around 300 to 500 (U.S.) dollars per month, which is not bad," he said. "The (eco-village's) concept is planning to turn this place into a unique place in Cambodia and in Asia."

Run Ta Ek eco-village is a solar-powered property with water from a windmill water pump. Featuring chalets with a patio, the homestay also has its own organic farm and restaurant.

"The tourists come here, we don't treat them as strangers, we treat them as a part of our family... they get up the same time as our locals get up, they go to rice fields, go to fish, come back and make food here and there, so whatever daily lives do, they do," he said.

Yoeum Pich, 38, a mother of two, said she used her house as a homestay for tourists as her family moved to a cottage built at her farmland.

"In the past two years, we have seen an increase in foreign tourists to the village," said Pich, who came to live in the village six years ago. "Seven or eight groups (of tourists) come to stay at my home every month, and one night stay costs 15 U.S. dollars."

For food, she said tourists can enjoy at a restaurant in the village.

Pich said she could earn about 300 dollars per month from renting her homestay and selling vegetables grown at her farm.

Jahare Bin Abu Bakar, group general manager of government and industry relations at Malaysia's Ministry of Rural and Regional Development, said the eco-village was very impressive and would play a role in reducing poverty in the long run.

"I found this project is very impressive. This is a good innovation from the government of Cambodia in order to reduce the poverty level in this rural area," he told Xinhua during an ASEAN-China field trip to the village.

"I strongly believe this kind of project will benefit the rural people and the country," he said.
Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei speaks live on television after casting his ballot in the Iranian presidential election in Tehran June 12. (Reuters Photo)

TEHRAN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei on Sunday urged Muslims worldwide to take stance against the U.S. and Israel's "villainy" during the imminent annual Hajj ceremonies.

One of the topics related to the Islamic world is "the issue of al-Quds (Jerusalem) and Aqsa Mosque, which is in focus today," Khamenei was quoted as saying by his official website.

There is no better place than the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia, to voice Muslims' opinion and stance in support of Palestine and Aqsa Mosque, he said.

The U.S. interference in the affairs of regional Muslim countries and its creation of the terrorist groups is another important topic which the Muslims should take the stance against during the Hajj ceremonies to be held in late August in Mecca, he added.

"The U.S. government is more villain and malicious than the terrorist groups," he stressed.

Muslims should be cognizant about the divisive plots hatched by the enemies, Khamenei added.

Iran decided to withdraw from sending pilgrims to Hajj ceremony last year, with concerns over the safety of the pilgrims after the deadly stampede in Hajj of 2015.

More than 450 Iranians died among a total of 2300 pilgrims killed in the stampede in Mina area.

After resolving the issues between Tehran and Riyadh, Iran decided to send as many as 86,500 pilgrims to annual Hajj ceremony in Saudi Arabia this summer.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:41:56|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ABUJA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Death toll in twin suicide attacks which rocked a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno last Friday has risen to 14, a government rescue agency said on Sunday.

The Borno State Emergency Management Agency told Xinhua a total of 15 people were injured in the suicide attacks.

Two female suicide bombers carried out the attack late Friday, said Rawa Modu, head of the Dikwa local district in the state.

Modu said the suicide bombers were suspected to have infiltrated the camp to detonate their improvised explosive devices.

Seven victims had died on the spot and others died later in the hospital, according to the official.

Terror group Boko Haram was suspected to have carried out the attacks.

The group is blamed for the deaths of more than 20,000 people and displacing of 2.3 million others in Nigeria since their attacks started in 2009.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:51:58|Editor: Zhou Xin

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ABUJA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Nigerian Army early Sunday said 21 additional bodies of an oil exploration crew, who were ambushed by a terror group in the country's northeast, have been recovered.

The army also recovered vehicles and various calibers of weapons in an operation to rescue the ambushed oil exploration crew last Tuesday, said Sani Kukasheka Usman, the army spokesman.

The bodies recovered included those of five soldiers, who gave security backup to the crew, 11 civilian self-defense force and five members of the national oil corporation.

Six out of 12 staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) in the exploration team are still missing, only one of them returned alive to his base, the army spokesman said.

Terror group Boko Haram is suspected to be responsible for the ambush while the crew was in the exploration of crude oil in the Lake Chad Basin. The ambush took place in Magumeri area of Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno.

The army described the incident as "unfortunate and highly regrettable."

Search and rescue are still ongoing to secure the safe return of the missing oil workers, the army added.

Last Thursday, the Nigerian government suspended the exploration of crude oil in the Lake Chad Basin due to the attack by Boko Haram.

Encouraged by the commercial oil found in the neighboring Chad Republic, Nigeria had embarked on the oil search on the orders of President Muhammadu Buhari to focus and intensify its exploratory work in the inland basins on the Chad Basin.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:52:00|Editor: Zhou Xin

Chinese poet Jidi Majia (L), vice-president of the China Writers Association, is awarded Lifetime Achievement Prize of Silver Willow during the third Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry Art Festival at the Cambridge University's King's College in Cambridge, Britain, July 29, 2017. (Xinhua/Tang Chao)

CAMBRIDGE, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Chinese poet Jidi Majia was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Prize of Silver Willow during the third Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry Art Festival, which opened Saturday at the Cambridge University's King's College.

The organizing committee said Jidi Majia is one of the most eminent poets in China and one of the most famous Chinese poet of ethnic minority who is active in contemporary world poetic circles.

Highlighting the role of poetry in communication among human spirits, Majia said in his speech that "It is gratifying to note that when many confrontations or potential confrontations occur, poetry miraculously becomes the most secretive way for communication among human spirits and mind."

"In that space, Eastern poets, Western poets, Jewish poets and Muslim poets can find the joy and resonance the human spiritual and ideal world created by poetry," he added.

The theme of the festival is "Cam River, Cambridge". Almost 200 poets, writers, calligraphers and scholars from all over the world will gather to read poems, exchange ideas, and hold seminars and thematic exhibitions at the bank of River Cam, the place where Chinese renowned poet Xu Zhimo wrote the wellknown poem "Saying Good-bye to Cambridge Again".

In addition, during the festival, King's Choir, the choir with British or the world's highest chorus also display the Chinese song Molihua (Jasmine), which was originated from the folk song in Jiangsu province, later recomposed by famous conductor Knight Stephen Cleobury and then recorded to be CDs.

As a uniquely excellent overseas chorus, King's College Choir releases album with the Chinese song as the theme song. Under the guidance of Knight Stephen Cleobury, King's College Choir performed Molihua at the National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nanjing Museum and other famous art museum in 2016.

During the festival, four artworks exhibitions are also held in the King's College.

In the thematic exhibitions of "River Cam, Cambridge," over 20 artists with different backgrounds exhibit their calligraphy, painting and porcelain artworks.

The Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry & Art Festival started in 2008. The King's College of Cambridge University set up stone inscribed with Xu Zhimo's best-known poem under the shade of willows at the bank of the River Cam to commemorate the Chinese poet, who's also an outstanding alumni of the King's College, for his contribution to Sino-British cultural exchanges.

The stone inscribed with Xu Zhimo's best-known poem marks the first time for this college to set up memorial stone for its alumni. Over the past decade, many Chinese tourists have come to King's College, and the stone of the King's College becomes a must-visit place for many Chinese tourists.

The Cambridge Xu Zhimo Poetry & Art Festival is co-hosted and organized by the cultural protection project of "Cambridge Rivers Project", Cambridge Rivers Press and Development Department of the King's College. After three years' development, the festival has become one of the largest and most influential Sino-British cultural exchange activities in Britain.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 19:57:05|Editor: Zhou Xin

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NAIROBI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Commonwealth said Sunday former president of Ghana John Dramani Mahama will lead a 15-member team of observers to monitor Kenya's general elections on Aug. 8.

The Commonwealth Secretary-General Patricia Scotland has constituted the 15-member group at the invitation of Kenya's Independent and Electoral Boundaries Commission (IEBC) to monitor the tightly contested polls.

Speaking ahead of the group's arrival in Kenya, Scotland urged all stakeholders in Kenya to commit to ensuring peaceful and transparent elections in which candidates and voters are free from intimidation, and the fundamental freedoms of expression, association and assembly are respected.

"The Commonwealth Charter recognizes the inalienable right of individuals to participate in democratic processes, in particular through free and fair elections in shaping the society in which they live," she said in a statement.

The deployment of Commonwealth observer group follows the visit of a pre-election assessment team to the country in March.

Kenyans will vote on Aug. 8 to choose among candidates for the presidency, National Assembly, Senate, and County Governors and County Assemblies.

Scotland said the Commonwealth observers will assess a number of factors to ensure the credibility of the electoral process as a whole.

"This includes the pre-electoral environment, the voting process, counting and tabulation procedures, as well as the announcement of results," she said.

The independent group will determine whether the elections have been conducted according to the standards to which Kenya has committed itself.

"This includes its own election-related legislation as well as relevant regional, Commonwealth and international commitments. Where appropriate, the Group may also make recommendations for the future strengthening of the electoral framework," Scotland said.

The Commonwealth chief said observers will act impartially and will adhere to the standards of the International Declaration of Principles for Election Observation, to which the Commonwealth is a signatory.

She said these elections represent another positive step towards consolidating the reform and devolution process.

"Commonwealth has had a longstanding and fruitful relationship with Kenya. We stand in solidarity with its people as they exercise their right to choose leaders who will continue to advance the democratic and development gains made following the last elections in 2013, which were the first to be held under the new Constitution," she said.

The observer group's report will be submitted to the Commonwealth Secretary-General, who will thereafter send it to the Kenya government, the IEBC, political parties, and eventually to all Commonwealth governments. It will then be made public.

An advance group of Commonwealth observers arrived in Kenya on July 19 and will be joined by the remainder of the Group on July 31.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 20:02:11|Editor: Yurou Liang

Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro casts his vote during the election for the National Constituent Assembly (ANC), in Caracas, Venezuela, on July 30, 2017. All the polling stations for electing members to the National Constituent Assembly in Venezuela opened at 6:00 a.m. local time (1030 GMT) on Sunday, despite opposition-led protests against the move. (Xinhua/Presidency of Venezuela)

CARACAS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- All the polling stations for electing members to the National Constituent Assembly (ANC) in Venezuela opened at 6:00 a.m. local time (1030 GMT) on Sunday, despite opposition-led protests against the move.

Venezuelans began to vote at their local polling stations to elect 537 of the total 545 members of the ANC with the remaining eight seats belonging to the indigenous people, according to the National Electoral Council (CNE).

President Nicolas Maduro is among one of the first figures who casted his vote at a polling station in the west of the capital city of Caracas.

The ANC was proposed by Maduro on May 1, with a view to reviewing and rewriting the 1999 Constitution to break the current political gridlock that has paralyzed the country. A popular referendum will be held on the new constitution after it is drafted.

According to the constitution, the ANC will act as the supreme organ of power before the new constitution is approved.

The government said that the new constitution would "guarantee peace and coexistence among all Venezuelans," but the leading opposition coalition, known by its Spanish acronym MUD, has refused to take part in the process.

Among the 545 seats of the assembly, 364 will represent regions while 181 represent different civil society groups. About 6,120 candidates are competing for the seats, according to the CNE.
Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan He Xiandong speaks during a handover ceremony at the General Medical Stores in Juba, capital of South Sudan, June 3, 2017. China on Saturday donated over half a million boxes of anti-malaria medicine to South Sudan to help the East African nation fight the deadly parasitic disease. (Xinhua/Gale Julius)

JUBA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese government has donated a combined sum of 1.8 million U.S. dollars to South Sudan's ministry of health to fight cholera and malaria in the war-torn East African country.

The Chinese Embassy in South Sudan on Saturday handed over a check of 1 million dollars for cholera response, donated anti-malarial drugs worth 800,000 dollars and also donated one ambulance to the country's biggest referral hospital.

The South Sudanese government also launched a Chinese-aided project worth 33 million dollars for the modernization and expansion of the country's main referral hospital, the Juba Teaching Hospital, and renovation of the China-funded Kiir Mayardit Women's Hospital in the South Sudanese town of Rumbek.

Health Minister Riek Gai Kok said the donation is a generous addition to the 600 bicycles and communication gadgets provided by the Chinese government to support health in the grassroot level.

"We thank you for the kind donation that will help us a lot in strengthening our capacity to respond to diseases," said Kok.

Chinese Ambassador to South Sudan He Xiangdong said Beijing is committed to helping Juba improve its public health sector by providing capacity building and financial contributions.

"This is a gift from the Chinese people to our brothers and sisters in South Sudan because we are trying to help them improve the public health sector," the Chinese envoy said.

Since gaining independence from Sudan in 2011, China has contributed diplomatic and material support to South Sudan.

Early this year, China and South Sudan agreed to boost cooperation in the health sector by enhancing knowledge sharing, capacity building, and hospital to hospital collaborations.

Beijing has been sending 15 medical specialists annually to various hospitals across South Sudan to provide free medical services.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 20:47:22|Editor: Mengjie

The 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu pays homage to the life-sized statue of Buddha Sakyamuni as a 12-year-old in Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, July 27, 2017. The Panchen Lama performed a series of Buddhist services in Lhasa over the past few days. (Xinhua/Chogo)

LHASA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The 11th Panchen Lama Bainqen Erdini Qoigyijabu performed a series of Buddhist services in Lhasa, capital of Tibet Autonomous Region, over the past few days.

The Panchen Lama visited Jokhang Temple Thursday, leading a prayer service and blessing lamas in the most revered monastery in Lhasa.

He arrived at Jokhang Temple at around 5:30 a.m., greeted by lamas lining up at the temple gates holding Tibetan incense and Buddhist prayer flags.

The Panchen Lama visited the major halls of the temple, paid homage and presented a hada, a long, scarf-like white silk used by the Tibetans for blessings, to a life-sized statue of Buddha Sakyamuni as a 12-year-old. Jokhang's house treasure was brought to the temple by Princess Wencheng of the Tang Dynasty in the seventh century.

The Panchen Lama then led sutra chanting at the temple, praying for peace, prosperity and stability, before performing a head-touching ritual to bless the lamas.

On Sunday morning, the Panchen Lama held a head-touching ritual for long lines of Buddhists, including young moms with sleeping babies in their arms, at his Lhasa residence.

"I attended the ritual last year. This year I was lucky to be the first to receive the head-touching blessings," said Degyi, an 84-year-old woman. "I wish the Panchen Lama health and longevity!"

The Panchen Lama is scheduled to hold more Buddhist and social activities across Tibet in the coming days.

Gyaincain Norbu, born Feb. 13, 1990. in Lhari county, Nagqu prefecture in northern Tibet, was enthroned as the 11th Panchen Lama on Dec. 8, 1995 after a traditional lot drawing ceremony in Jokhang Temple in Lhasa.

The Panchen Lama serves as vice president of the Buddhist Association of China and is a member of the Standing Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, the country's top political advisory body.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 21:02:30|Editor: Zhou Xin

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KABUL, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Four senior advisers of Islamic State (IS) have been killed following a U.S. forces airstrike in eastern Afghanistan's Kunar province, U.S. forces in Afghanistan said in a statement released here on Sunday.

"U.S. Forces-Afghanistan has confirmed the death of four senior advisers of the IS in a strike that also killed Abu Sayid, a senior IS leader, in Kunar province on July 11 this year," the forces said in the statement.

The four eliminated IS elements were identified as Sheik Ziaullah, Mulawi Hubaib, Haji Shirullah and Assadullah, said the statement, adding that all of the four had played crucial role in Afghanistan.

"We will be relentless in our campaign against IS, and there are no safe havens in Afghanistan," the statement quoted Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the U.S. Forces-Afghanistan, as saying.

Hundreds of IS militants including three top commanders have been killed during the Afghan and NATO forces operations over the past year.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 21:02:32|Editor: Yamei

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Photo taken on July 30, 2017 shows a formation of special police of the armed police force during a military parade at Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. China on Sunday held a grand military parade to mark the 90th founding anniversary of the People's Liberation Army. (Xinhua/Pang Xinglei)

BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- China's Army Day parade on Sunday showed a firm determination of the country to safeguard peace and a peaceful environment needed for development and prosperity, international experts and scholars have said.

Chinese President Xi Jinping watched the military parade marking the 90th anniversary of the founding of the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA), which falls on Aug. 1, at the Zhurihe training base in north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

During the parade, Xi delivered a keynote speech urging further improvement of the PLA's combat effectiveness and modernization of China's national defense.

Xi stressed in his speech the need for the PLA to promote fighting capabilities to win wars, said Shi Pengxun, principal research fellow at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney.

"The parade conveyed a clear message to the outside world that China is militarily prepared for any case with a resolution to safeguard peace," said Shi, who is also an adjunct senior research fellow at the Energy Studies Institute, National University of Singapore.

Guo Shengxiang, dean of the Academy of APEC Creative Finance, an Australian think tank, believes that a military force conforming to economic strength for China serves as a guarantee for peace. "This will help the world share China's peace dividends along with economic ones," he said.

Overseas Chinese applauded the Army Day parade, believing a strong army is necessary to guarantee China's development and prosperity.

"China's development and peaceful rise in a complicated international environment call for an army capable of safeguarding peace," said Chen Ronghua, honorary chairman of the U.S. association of Fujian townsmen.

Commenting on China's military development over the past decades, Belarussian Defense Minister Andrei Ravkov has recently said the PLA is today a well-equipped and modernized military force, making a huge contribution to maintaining regional and global security.

Qiao Fengxiang, Professor of Texas Southern University and Founding President of U.S.-China Friendship Association, said that the peaceful rise of China requires peaceful domestic and international environments, which however do not always come naturally to any country.

China seeks a peaceful international environment to develop itself and realize the Chinae Dream, and at the same time safeguards and promotes world peace through its own development, Qiao said.

"To this end, building strong armed forces is essential," Qiao added.

Bo Zhiyue, the founder and president of the Bo Zhiyue China Institute, said that it is critical for every country in the world to build a modernized army.

China, the biggest developing country in the world, needs a powerful people's army to provide assurance for its economic growth and safeguard its state sovereignty, Bo added.

China's grand strategy is peaceful development, and the core of the strategy is economic growth, said Bo, adding that building a world-class armed force is of vital significance to a country's sovereignty, security and development.

Former Chilean President Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle has expressed his congratulation for the PLA's 90th founding anniversary.

He said that both Chile and China are peace-loving countries, which have maintained good military-to-military relations.

The former president added that he believed the two countries will continue to develop their military-to-military relations and make concerted efforts to safeguard peace.

Bambang Suryono, an Indonesian scholar and president of the Jakarta-based think tank Nanyang ASEAN Foundation, said that China's PLA is capable of deterring and wining wars as it has made eye-catching achievements in military capabilities and national defense building.

Meanwhile, Major General David Gawn, Head of Mission and Chief of Staff to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), spoke highly of the troops of China.

"Right now I work as the head of commission for UNTSO. I have five Chinese officers under my command. I'm very impressed with the professionalism and everything that they do," said Gawn.

"Having worked an exercise with Chinese and the PLA, I wouldn't expect anything less. I think as much as the world knows, China is the biggest contributor to U.N. operations. We couldn't be there without China. So, great country, great relationship and great troop," added Gawn.

Related:

Commentary: Military parade demonstrates CPC's determination of building a strong army

BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The grand parade on Sunday demonstrated the military's resolute loyalty to the Communist Party of China (CPC), who is determined to build a strong army.
File photo shows Nigerian policemen inspecting the site of an explosion in Abuja, capital of Nigeria, on Oct. 3, 2015. (Xinhua/Olatunji)

ABUJA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Death toll in twin suicide attacks which rocked a camp for internally displaced persons (IDP) in Nigeria's northeastern state of Borno last Friday has risen to 14, a government rescue agency said on Sunday.

The Borno State Emergency Management Agency told Xinhua a total of 15 people were injured in the suicide attacks.

Two female suicide bombers carried out the attack late Friday, said Rawa Modu, head of the Dikwa local district in the state.

Modu said the suicide bombers were suspected to have infiltrated the camp to detonate their improvised explosive devices.

Seven victims had died on the spot and others died later in the hospital, according to the official.

Terror group Boko Haram was suspected to have carried out the attacks.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 21:37:44|Editor: Zhou Xin

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DUBLIN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Central Bank of Ireland on Sunday raised its economy forecast to 4.5 percent this year and 3.6 percent next year, upwards from 3.5 percent and 3.2 percent respectively at last forecast.

In its third quarterly bulletin for 2017, the central bank examines recent trends in the domestic economy and provides the Bank's forecasts for the Irish economy and its views on domestic macroeconomic policy issues.

Gabriel Fagan, the Bank's chief economist, said the Irish economy continues to grow at a strong pace and the prospects for sustained and solid economic growth remain positive.

"Revised projections for growth this year and in 2018 reflect both stronger momentum in the domestic economy and improved prospects for external demand, especially from our European trading partners," he said.

The quarterly bulletin continues to highlight a number of risks to the downside. However, the Bank has not made any adjustments to its forecast in this regard, but cited Brexit and the sensitivity to broader international shocks as concerns.

"As a small and open economy, Ireland continues to face economic risks externally," said Fagan.

"And despite there being little new information emerging to date, it is clear that the economic impact of Brexit on Ireland is set to be negative and material. At home, we must continue to prudently monitor the risk of overheating," the Irish economist said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 21:42:47|Editor: Song Lifang

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GUANGZHOU, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A total of 230 members of Shanxinhui, a Shenzhen-based company suspected of organizing and leading a pyramid scheme, have been arrested in southern China's Guangdong Province, police said Sunday.

Of the 230 members, 142 have been detained to face criminal charges. Fifty-five companies involved in the case have been investigated, the public security department of Guangdong province said in a statement.

Beijing police have also detained 63 people after members of the pyramid scheme gathered in the capital city Monday. Four others were put under non-criminal detention.

Chinese police have previously investigated Shanxinhui for allegedly manipulating people into taking part in pyramid selling and cheating them out of huge amounts of property under the guise of helping the poor.

Zhang Tianming, legal representative of the company, and other suspects have been put under coercive measures, which may include summons by force, bail, residential surveillance, detention or arrest.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 21:47:52|Editor: Zhou Xin

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GUIYANG, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A direct flight linking the southwestern Chinese city of Zunyi with Da Nang in Vietnam will be launched on Aug. 5, local authorities said Sunday.

The flight, served by an Airbus A321, will take off at 12:10 p.m. from Da Nang International Airport and is scheduled to arrive at Zunyi Xinzhou Airport at 3:55 p.m. local time.

Departures from Zunyi are on the same day each week at 4:55 p.m., arriving in Da Nang at 7:00 p.m.

Flights will operate every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday.

The route is the first international flight Zunyi has opened this year and will help boost tourism, business and investment between the two cities.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 21:47:55|Editor: Zhou Xin

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MANAMA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Arab quartet on Sunday expressed preparedness for talks with Qatar under the condition that Doha meets their demands, said a statement issued by the quartet's foreign ministers.

"We reiterate the importance of Qatar's compliance with the 13 demands outlined by the four states," said a joint statement released by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt after a meeting.

The foreign ministers also stressed that Doha must honor the six principles put forward by them during their previous meeting in Cairo, Egypt earlier the month.

The six principles include demands for Qatar to stop funding terrorism and extremist groups, stop inciting propaganda against them and halt interfering in their internal affairs.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 22:18:07|Editor: An

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ZHENGZHOU, China, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Shaolin Temple, the cradle of the Chinese martial arts located in central China's Henan province, on Sunday hosted a martial arts competition attracting more than 100 enthusiasts.

The competition featured four traditional events of Iron Palm Kungfu, Stone Lock Kungfu, Two-Finger Zen and Flying Knife Kungfu.

Zhang Longxiang, 44, broke eight bricks in one stroke with his palm to win the Iron Palm title. He started learning martial arts at the age of 10, and has been training Iron Palm for over two decades.

"Shaolin Temple, the birthplace of Shaolin KungFu, has become a good platform for us to communicate among our martial arts lovers, and I like it very much," said Zhang.

Giuliano Zampese, a student of the Shaolin Culture Center in Venice, Italy, also stayed at the Shaolin Temple to receive traditional Kungfu training with two friends.

"It's nice to see the performance but so difficult for me to do like them, I have never watched such a stunning show like that although I have been practicing Shaolin Kungfu for 15 years," said Zampese.

The Martial Arts competition at the Shaolin Temple will continue through July 31.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 22:33:14|Editor: yan

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CAIRO, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Egyptian army on Sunday seized a truck loaded with materials for making explosive devices in North Sinai province, the military said in a statement.

Meanwhile, in several security raids in North Sinai's cities of Arish, Rafah and Sheikh Zuweid, the military destroyed a number of extremists' hideouts and seized a large number of weapons, ammunition and equipment used for making explosive devices, Egyptian military spokesman Tamer al-Refaay said in the statement.

"The forces also found an amount of electronic devices, cameras, communication devices, extremist-oriented books and documents and military uniforms used by the terrorist elements," al-Refaay said.

Bordering Israel and the Palestinian Gaza Strip, Egypt's North Sinai province has been the center of anti-government terrorist attacks that have killed hundreds of policemen and soldiers since the military's removal of former Islamist president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013.

Since then, most of the terrorist operations were claimed by a Sinai-based group loyal to the regional Islamic State (IS) militant group.

The Egyptian military and police have killed hundreds of militants and arrested a similar number of suspects as part of the country's anti-terror war declared in 2013 by President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi, then army chief, following Morsi's removal.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 22:53:23|Editor: Mengjie

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- China allocated 1.63 billion yuan (242.3 million U.S. dollars) of financial aid to encourage university students to join the army in 2016, according to the Ministry of Education (MOE) Sunday.

A total of 124,100 university students ranging from undergraduates, postgraduates to doctoral students received funding last year for enlistment in the armed forces, while 8,117 ex-servicemen were also subsidized with 44.6 million yuan of funding to pursue their higher education degrees.

China has formed a comprehensive education aid system to encourage more university students to join the army, and those veterans can also be financially supported if they are willing to go to college, the MOE said.

The annual subsidy for each undergraduate will not exceed 8,000 yuan, and the sum for masters or doctoral students can reach up to 12,000 per capita each year, said the MOE.

The students' university name roll will be maintained during the period of enlistment, and they can resume their study after leaving the army, according to the MOE.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-30 23:13:26|Editor: yan

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MANAMA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Saudi Arabia-led Arab quartet on Sunday expressed preparedness for talks with Qatar, while insisting that Doha must meet their demands.

"We reiterate the importance of Qatar's compliance with the 13 demands outlined by the four states," said a joint statement released by the foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Bahrain and Egypt after a meeting.

Speaking at a televised joint news conference, Bahrain's Foreign Minister Sheikh Khalid bin Ahmed Al Khalifa said the four countries are ready for dialogue with Qatar if it announces its "sincere willingness" to stop funding terrorism and extremism, halt interference in other countries' foreign affairs, and respond to the 13 demands.

"We are ready to have a dialogue provided the 13 conditions are met by Qatar," said Sheikh Khalid.

Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al Jubeir said their demands "cannot be negotiated," adding steps taken by his country along with the UAE, Bahrain and Egypt were "sovereign and within international accords."

On the issue of Qatari Hajj pilgrims, Al Jubeir said they are welcome by Saudi like pilgrims from any other country.

"Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not accept politicization of the pilgrimage, which is a religious act," he said. "We will welcome Qatari pilgrims like other Muslims."

He blasted Iran for trying to exert influence by benefitting from the situation in the Gulf.

"Any country that has dealt with Iran has a negative consequence, and if our brothers in Qatar think they will reap any benefits with Iran then they did not assess the situation properly," he said.

UAE Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Minister Sheikh Abdulla bin Zayed Al Nahyan said all measures taken by four states were within international laws and "essential to deter the scourge of terrorism which affected stability of other countries."

The Saudi-led quartet cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and imposed a blockade on the tiny rich Gulf nation on June 5, citing Doha's support of terrorism and extremism, interfering in their internal affairs and seeking closer ties with Iran, a Saudi rival.

The quartet presented in late June a list of 13 demands to Qatar as preconditions for resuming diplomatic ties and ending their sanctions. The demands included Doha's end to funding terrorism and extremism, stoping interference in their internal affairs and downgrading ties with Iran.

For its part, Qatar has strongly denied the charges, while rejecting the the quartet's demands, citing it would not negotiate on issues related to its sovereignty.

On Sunday, the quartet's foreign ministers also stressed that Doha must honor the six principles put forward by them during their previous meeting in Cairo, Egypt earlier the month.

The six principles, a reduced version of the 13 demands, include demands for Qatar to stop funding terrorism and extremist groups, stop inciting propaganda against them and halt interfering in their internal affairs.

They were created amid signs of easing of the Gulf standoff following the visit to the region by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson earlier the month.

During Tillerson's visit, Qatar and the U.S. signed a deal on combating terrorism financing, one of the core demands by the Saudi-led alliance.

Later, Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani issued a decree to amend some provisions of its law on fighting terrorism.

On July 21, in his first public speech since the crisis started, Sheikh Tamim also called for holding talks to resolve the Gulf standoff, though emphasizing that any talks should respect its national sovereignty.

He insisted that his country has been "fighting terrorism relentlessly and without compromise."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 00:13:59|Editor: yan

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DAMASCUS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A reporter with the Russia Today (RT) TV channel was killed on Sunday by Islamic State (IS) militants while covering Syrian army operations, local media reported.

Khaled al-Khatib, 25, was killed in the eastern part of the central province of Homs when IS militants targeted the RT reporting team with a rocket shell, according to the reports.

Another Syrian Army official, who has not been identified yet, was also killed in the shelling, the RT network said on its website.

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian Air Force, have reached the outskirts of the Sukhneh town, the last IS stronghold in Homs, a military source told Xinhua Friday.

The Syrian army has been carrying out a crushing offensive over the past few months in Homs to end the presence of IS there.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 00:23:59|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Rating agency Moody's said credit trends for most of its rated non-financial Chinese companies were stable, with only those in the retail sector still facing weak but improving credit conditions.

"A challenging operating environment and merger and acquisition activity have pressured the credit profiles of Chinese retail companies, but revenue and margins are stabilizing thanks to improved product and service offerings and upgraded shopping environments," said Lina Choi, a Moody's vice president and senior credit officer.

Choi made the comments in a report monitoring Chinese businesses in Internet and technology, automobiles, retail, oil, construction and engineering, property and utilities.

Revenue growth of IT companies will slow but remain stable, supported by steady consumer demand and improved monetization, while automakers and auto services companies will face the same situation due to reduced vehicle purchase tax incentives.

Despite slowing sales growth on home purchase curbs, the credit profiles of property developers will improve, with major companies able to increase their market share.

Construction and engineering companies will see moderate revenue increases and stable leverage because of solid domestic and overseas infrastructure investment as well as a large order backlog for existing property projects.

Moody's also expects the credit trends of companies in oil and utilities to remain stable.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 01:09:17|Editor: Yamei

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RIYADH, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iraq's prominent Shiite cleric, Muqtada al-Sadr, arrived in Saudi Arabia on Sunday for his first visit here in 11 years, Al Arabiya TV reported.

A statement from al-Sadr's office called the visit a "positive breakthrough in the Saudi-Iraqi relations."

Al-Sadr was received by the Saudi Minister of State for Gulf Affairs Thamer Al-Subhan.

"We hope it is the beginning of the retreat of sectarian strife in the Arab-Islamic region," said the statement.

The visit could boost the Saudi-Iraqi ties, especially after the recent opening of two border points that had remained closed since the 1990s, the report said.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 01:39:17|Editor: yan

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MOMBASA, Kenya, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Kenyan police confirmed on Sunday that they are investigating a wanted terror suspect after being arrested in the coastal city of Mombasa.

Regional police commander Larry Kieng said a full report of Al-Shabaab trainee, Mustapha Juma Nassir, whose real name is Kahir Murit, will be released once investigations are completed.

"Anti-terrorism agents are holding the suspect. We believe he was planning terrorism attacks in the country," Kieng told Xinhua on Sunday.

The police boss said they intercepted communications between him and Al-Shabaab members from his mobile phone.

Kieng said two of his accomplices escaped when police raided their house and detectives are pursuing them.

Earlier in July, police released pictures of wanted terror suspects and placed millions of shillings in bounties on their head for planning a series of attacks across the country.

The suspects include Abdullahi Jarso Kotolo alias Seyfdeen, Hassan Jarso Kotolo, Hassan Abdalla Mushi and James Kimanthi Masai.

Others are Hamisi Swalleh Abdalla and Rama Mbwana Mbega alias Junia, who is said to be hiding in Boni Forest where the terror group has operational bases. Police reports say Seyfdeen is from Marsabit and has a senior position.

Among the suspects were two brothers, Salad Tari Gufu and Gufu Tari Gufu, who may have been involved in the recent abduction and shooting of Public Works PS Mariam El Maawy in Lamu.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 01:39:18|Editor: yan

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BEIJING, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Chinese insurance regulator has vowed to strengthen supervision to fend off financial risk and propel reform in the sector.

"The whole sector will put risk control in a more important position," Chen Wenhui, vice chairman of China Insurance Regulatory Commission (CIRC), said when addressing a two-day internal meeting ending Saturday.

"Actions will be taken to crack down on serious violations, dissolve hidden risk points and improve the long-term mechanism to hold the bottom line of no systemic risks," Chen said.

The CIRC deputy head stressed the insurance should be a "dashpot" for the economy and a stabilizer for society, instead of a source of risk.

His words came as a further response to big insurers that have grabbed headlines by using leveraged money to buy in shares in listed companies in seek of short-term profits or controlling stakes, triggering sharp volatility and market concerns late last year.

The insurance regulator has moved in to restrain such deals with an array of measures rolled out.

Highlighting stability and financial security, Chen said insurance would in no way become financing and investment tools of big shareholders and pledged policies to ensure healthy development of the sector with improved competitiveness and more opening up.

The regulator will strengthen the sector's role in supporting the real economy, he said.

Thanks to continued financial reforms and opening up, China's insurance saw booming growth in the past years. Insurance premium income jumped 27.5 percent year on year to 3.1 trillion yuan (about 460 billion U.S. dollars) in 2016.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 01:49:25|Editor: yan

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RIYADH, July 30 (Xinhua) -- The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) will hold an emergency meeting in Istanbul, Turkey on Tuesday, to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian violence in Jerusalem, a report said Sunday.

Foreign ministers of the OIC member states will discuss the issues of continuing to support Muslims in Jerusalem to preserve their identity and the Islamic sacred sites, including the Al Aqsa Mosque, in light of recent Israeli restrictions on the Muslims' entry to the mosque, the official Saudi Press Agency (SPA) reported.

The meeting will also send "a unified message" to the international community by the Muslim World, to demand Israel respect the UN resolutions, the Geneva Conventions and all resolutions on the Palestinian issue and Al Aqsa Mosque, which is an integral part of the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, the report added.

The OIC has already held an emergency meeting of the permanent representatives of its member states last Monday to discuss the latest Israeli-Palestinian violence.

On July 20, the OIC also held an international conference in Baku, Azerbaijan with the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, to discuss the situation in Jerusalem.

Violent clashes erupted between Palestinians and Israeli security forces since July 14 after Israel imposed security measures at the Al Aqsa Mosque compound, the third holiest site in Islam and the holiest site for Jews, in the wake of a deadly shooting incident.

These measures, including installation of metal detectors and cameras at the compound's entrances, were regarded as an attempt by Israel to claim further control over the holy site, managed by Jordanian religious authorities.

Under international pressure, Israel has removed all security measures at the entrances to the compound, while continuing to ban Palestinian Muslims under 50 from access to the Al Aqsa mosque for prayers.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 01:59:27|Editor: Yurou Liang

The U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) and his wife Karen Pence (R) arrive in Tallinn, capital of Estonia, for an official visit on July 30, 2017. Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas on Sunday met with visiting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on bilateral defense cooperation and EU-U.S. cooperation. (Xinhua/Sergei Stepanov)

TALLINN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas on Sunday met with visiting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on bilateral defense cooperation and EU-U.S. cooperation.

The two discussed cooperation in defence, digital issues and cyber security, as well as cooperation between the United States and the EU in connection with the Estonia Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

"The Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU certainly wants to contribute to strengthening transatlantic relations and, within the framework of these relations, to the development of international trade and the fight against terrorism and cyber threats," Ratas said in a statement.

Making progress on the EU-U.S. free trade agreement would be strategically important for the U.S. and Europe alike, he added.

The Estonian digital solutions are of interest to the United States, according to the Estonian prime minister, who noted that the two countries have an excellent cooperation in the field of cybersecurity.

He added that joint exercises and an exchange of information and experts provide an opportunity to further enhance it.

Pence arrived here earlier in the afternoon for a two-day visit, which will also take him to Georgia and Montenegro.

On Monday morning, the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Kersti Kaljulaid, Raimonds Vejonis and Dalia Grybauskaite, respectively, are set to meet with Pence and participate in a roundtable discussion on cyber issues and innovation.

The U.S. vice president is also scheduled to be given a presentation of the tasks of the local NATO battlegroup, and meet with NATO personnel.
Estonian Prime Minister Juri Rates (L) welcomes U.S. Vice President Mike Pence at the Stenbock House (Government office) yard in Tallinn, capital of Estonia, July 30, 2017. Pence and his wife Karen Pence are on a two-day official visit to Estonia. (Xinhua/Sergei Stepanov)

TALLINN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Estonian Prime Minister Juri Ratas on Sunday met with visiting U.S. Vice President Mike Pence on bilateral defense cooperation and EU-U.S. cooperation.

The two discussed cooperation in defence, digital issues and cyber security, as well as cooperation between the United States and the EU in connection with the Estonia Presidency of the Council of the European Union.

"The Estonian Presidency of the Council of the EU certainly wants to contribute to strengthening transatlantic relations and, within the framework of these relations, to the development of international trade and the fight against terrorism and cyber threats," Ratas said in a statement.

U.S. Vice President Mike Pence (L) and his wife Karen Pence arrived in Tallinn, capital of Estonia, July 30, 2017 for a two-day official visit. (Xinhua/Sergei Stepanov)

Making progress on the EU-U.S. free trade agreement would be strategically important for the U.S. and Europe alike, he added.

The Estonian digital solutions are of interest to the United States, according to the Estonian prime minister, who noted that the two countries have an excellent cooperation in the field of cybersecurity.

He added that joint exercises and an exchange of information and experts provide an opportunity to further enhance it.

Pence arrived here earlier in the afternoon for a two-day visit, which will also take him to Georgia and Montenegro.

On Monday morning, the presidents of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, Kersti Kaljulaid, Raimonds Vejonis and Dalia Grybauskaite, respectively, are set to meet with Pence and participate in a roundtable discussion on cyber issues and innovation.

The U.S. vice president is also scheduled to be given a presentation of the tasks of the local NATO battlegroup, and meet with NATO personnel.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 02:34:45|Editor: yan

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ISTANBUL, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Thousands of Turks joined a rally in Istanbul on Sunday to show solidarity with Palestinians in a dispute with Israel over Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

The mass mobilization, dubbed Great Jerusalem Rally, was organized by Turkey's Felicity Party in the city's Yenikapi area and backed by several civil society organizations.

The crowds shouted anti-Israel slogans, carrying Turkish and Palestinian flags, the state-run Anadolu Agency said.

Israel installed metal detectors at entrances to the mosque compound after two Israeli police officers were shot dead on July 14, a move that has set off bloody clashes between the Israelis and Palestinians as well as denunciations from some parts of the world, including Turkey.

Israel removed the detectors on Friday under pressure, while pray at the mosque ended peacefully that day.

"Israel is harming Jerusalem's Islamic character," Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last week. "Nobody should expect us to remain silent against the double standards in Jerusalem."

Foreign ministers of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation is scheduled to hold an extraordinary meeting over the dispute in Istanbul on Tuesday.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 02:39:47|Editor: yan

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ANKARA, July 30 (Xinhua) -- A total of 12 outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants were killed in separate counter operations in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq Saturday, military statements said Sunday.

The operations in northern Iraq were conducted in the Zap and Matina regions, killing three terrorists who were allegedly preparing for an attack, and destroying some weapon pits and caves, according to a statement by the Turkish Armed Forces.

Another airstrike was conducted in Beytussebap district of Turkey's southeastern Sirnak province, killing nine PKK militants, including one senior member.

One Turkish soldier was also killed on Sunday in an anti-PKK operation in southeastern Hakkari province, local media reported.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the EU, has resumed its armed campaign against the Turkish government since July 2015.

According to data from local media, over 1,200 Turkish security personnel and civilians have since died in PKK attacks, while more than 7,000 PKK members have been killed during operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 02:39:49|Editor: yan

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TEHRAN, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Iran and Iraq on Sunday discussed the ways to enhance energy cooperation, local media reported.

Iranian Petroleum Minister, Bijan Namdar Zanganeh, and his visiting Iraqi counterpart Jabar al-Luaibi exchanged views on topics of mutual interest, Tehran Times daily reported.

Both sides talked over the shared oil and gas fields in the border regions as well as cooperation in energy investment, developing infrastructures, and training.

Extractions from shared oilfields was a topic of discussion, al-Luaibi said, adding that the two sides also exchanged views on transfer of oil from Iraq's city of Kirkuk to Iranian refineries.

Iran and Iraq will sign an agreement in the current year or the next year on producing oil from two shared fields, said al-Luaibi.

The ministers also discussed latest developments in the global oil market with an emphasis on boosting cooperation in the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

Besides, Iran's Petroleum minister noted that Iran will start gas exports to Iraq's southern city of Basra city over the next few months.

Once the Basra pipe is made operational, Iraq is expected to import around 80 million cubic meters per day (mcm/d) of gas from Iran.

Iran and Iraq share 23 hydrocarbon fields. Iran is yet to start developing the oil fields it shares with Iraq, while its western neighbor has already started producing oil from most of them, Press TV reported.

The two countries are also working on a plan based on which crude oil would be piped from Iraq to the refineries in Iran's northwestern Tabriz city and western Kermanshah city. Iran would later return the byproducts obtained to Iraq.

Iran started exports of seven to eight mcm/d of natural gas to Iraq's capital Baghdad in June. The exports are expected to reach as high as 35 mcm/d in the near future.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 03:30:06|Editor: yan

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ARUSHA, Tanzania, July 30 (Xinhua)-- Tanzania is set to build modern public latrines along the east African nation's major highways in a new drive to control open defecation (OD).

Anyitike Mwakitalima, coordinator of the National Sanitation Campaign, said Sunday that the initiative is one of the government's efforts to fulfill the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which states; "by 2030, achieve access to adequate and equitable sanitation and hygiene for all and end open defecation, paying special attention to the needs of women and girls and those in vulnerable situations."

He said that the Tanzanian government through Ministry of Health Community Development, Gender, Elderly, and Children was alarmed by open defecation along highways, hence is determined to build toilet facilities in those strategic areas, across the east African nation.

"As a government, we're concerned about the high number of people who defecate in the open mainly along the main highways in the country," the official said.

He said that the government plans to build public latrines in the highways which connecting Dar es Salaam to Tunduma (two latrines), Dar es Salaam-Mtwara (one latrine), Morogoro-Mwanza (two latrines), Kagera-Kahama(two latrines), Mbeya-Katavi (one latrine), and Dar es Salaam-Arusha (one latrine).

According to him, the open defecation was one of the leading causes of the increase in the number of typhoid and diarrhea cases in the county.

Mwakitalima said that the National Sanitation Campaign is also mandated to ensure every Tanzanian is using a sanitation facility.

He, however, said that campaign is also projected to reach out 15,000 villages and streets across the country.

The first phase of the project started in 2012 and ended in June last year, while the second phase started in July 2016 and will go up to June 2021.

"We're closely working with villagers through the community-led total sanitation (CLTS) approach, whereby the community is highly engaged," the official said.

Among other beneficiaries of the project include public schools, whereby in the first-phase 2,133 toilets were built in primary schools.

"We're also planning to reach out 3,500 primary schools, 700 in secondary schools, and 1,000 dispensaries," he said.

So far, according to the official, Tanzanian government and development partners have pledged to pump in 53 million U.S. dollars to support the campaign.

About 26 million Tanzanians use unsanitary or shared latrines, whereby 5.4 million have no latrine at all and defecate in the open.
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks with Russian President Vladimir Putin during their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany July 7, 2017. (REUTERS FILE PHOTO)

MOSCOW, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Moscow will reduce diplomatic staff of the United States in Russia by 755 people in order to equal the number of Russian diplomatic personnel in the U.S., Russian President Vladimir Putin said Sunday.

"The personnel of the U.S. diplomatic missions in Russia will be cut by 755 people and will now equal the number of the Russian diplomatic personnel in the United States, 455 people on each side," Putin said in an interview broadcast with Russia's Rossiya TV channel.

Denouncing the latest "unlawful" move by Washington to tighten sanctions against Russia, Putin said it is time for Moscow to show that "we will not leave anything unanswered."

"We've been waiting for quite a long time that maybe something would change for the better, we had hopes that the situation would change. But it looks like it's not going to change in the near future," Putin said.

On Thursday, the U.S. Senate overwhelmingly approved a bill slapping tougher sanctions on Russia, two days after the bill was approved by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill will be sent to the White House for President Donald Trump to sign into law or veto.

Putin said Russia has prepared a large set of measures to respond to the U.S. when it is necessary, including restrictions in "sensitive" areas of cooperation with the latter, which hopefully would not be affected for the moment.

"We could imagine, theoretically, that one day a moment would come when the damage of attempts to put pressure on Russia will be comparable to the negative consequences of certain limitations of our cooperation. If that moment ever comes, we could discuss other response options. But I hope it will not come to that. As of today, I am against it," Putin said.

According to the president, the above-mentioned areas mostly include the joint fight against terrorism, obligations in nuclear arms control and space projects rather than economic relations, Putin said.

The Russian Foreign Ministry announced on Friday that it would scale down U.S. diplomatic staff in Russia to 455 people and seize a U.S. warehouse and a recreational compound in Moscow.

It added that Russia reserves the right to give an adequate response if Washington takes further hostile measures.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 03:50:12|Editor: Yurou Liang

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WINDHOEK, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Namibian President Hage Geingob on Sunday urged all Namibians to respect traditional authorities.

Geingob made the remarks when he addressed a cultural festival in the Zambezi region, northeast of the country. The festival, organized by the Masubia Traditional Authority, is an annual event.

This year's event was attended by several ministers and other chiefs from different traditional authorities.

In his address, Geingob said Namibians should treat all traditional authorities with respect. He also said traditional authorities should also practice fair and inclusive leadership.

"Let us all learn to co-exist and thereby shore up the boundaries of our Namibian House against any and all retrogressive forces," he said.

The Namibian House, Geingob said, should be defined by cultural harmony and regional goodwill instead of discord, tribalism and regionalism.

"After 27 years of independence, it is incumbent on all Namibians to distant themselves from ideas, attitudes and practices that will undo the progress that we have made over the years," he said.

According to Geingob, Namibians must find the common cause by uniting to solve problems through tangible and long-lasting solutions.

The government, he said, is committed to fostering a spirit where people should all pull in one direction as a nation.

Geingob also took the opportunity to assure the nation that the economic crisis was over and that things will run smoothly as before.

"Our economy is coming back, so we are ready to pull ahead and build this country to maintain peace and unity."
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 04:25:22|Editor: yan

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LONDON, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Britain's official children's commissioner said Sunday young children should be taught in their schools how to avoid being sucked into gangs or exploited by older criminals.

The commissioner, Anne Longfield, wants to see lessons to help children spot when they are being targeted by gangs.

Her intervention follows weekend media reports saying young children are being used by criminal gang members as "money mules", warning children looking for "a sense of belonging, fast money" or "glamour" were at risk.

Research by Longfield's commission has revealed 46,000 children in England are involved in gangs.

In a radio interview Sunday Longfield said children in Britain as young as 10 were being recruited into gangs that could be extremely violent, usually intimidatory and sexually abusive, particularly towards girls.

"These are horrific situations that young people are getting themselves into," she said.

Longfield added that some young people were being used to transport drugs.

In the interview she said: "Anecdotally, I'm told that middle-class children are often being targeted as well because they are less likely to be stopped. Children who are easier to intimidate, vulnerable in some way and often being bullied, those that are easier to control, are being picked on."

She has called on police forces to keep better data on involvement in gangs by children, adding that life skills lessons in schools should include information on the risks of becoming involved in gangs, an understanding of how gangs target children and help in building resilience to resist them.

One concern is that parents maybe unaware of who their children are talking to on social media sites.

"Most schools at the moment do provide life skill lessons but they're often inconsistent and often they don't tackle some of these issues that are much harder to tackle," said Longfield.

The commissioner also called for police forces to work together to produce better data on the number of children targeted by gangs.

The government has announced that personal, social, health and economics (PSHE) as a subject is to be made compulsory in all state schools, and is currently consulting on what to include in the curriculum, but no timetable for its introduction has yet been set.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 04:55:31|Editor: yan

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by Raul Menchaca

PINAR DEL RiO, Cuba, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Pinar del Rio, Cuba's westernmost province and known for the country's best tobacco, is in full harvest mode for the next few weeks.

Vice President Jose Ramon Machado has called for the province to have harvested 17,000 tonnes by the end of July, which would make 2017 among the best years in a decade for the crop. Cigar exports bring in around 450 million U.S. dollars a year to the Caribbean nation.

"Next year must be even better," Machado said at the beginning of July while touring several tobacco plants in Pinar del Rio.

Local media reports that tobacco farmers are planning to plant 18,700 hectares for the 2017-2018 season, 700 more than the previous one.

A particular focus is given to the so-called "Tobacco Triangle," made up by the municipalities of Consolacion del Sur, Pinar del Rio, San Juan and Martinez and San Luis, which jointly compromise the area known as Vueltabajo.

In Vueltabajo, several thousand hectares with a number of tobacco varieties are planted every year, from which are extracted 65 percent of the best leaves used to make Habano cigars, Cuba's fourth largest export category, after biotech products, nickel and sugar.

Now tobacco farmers are preparing the soil, selecting the best areas for seeding, and expanding their capacity to cure the leaf. About 30 pumping stations have been installed and electrified while dozens of wells are being drilled to ensure enough water despite the drought impacting the island.

Since 2010, Vueltabajo has shown a systematic increase in the growth of planted areas, matching Cuba's economic needs and development projections.

The area will see five varieties of the plant in 2017-2018 season, considered more resistant to disease and with greater yields.

Last week, a new tobacco processing plant was opened in Las Ovas, a few kilometers east from the provincial capital.

Located in what was a large abandoned warehouse at the entrance of the city, the installation seeks to prepare and classify all the leaves to be used in cigars, which are made for export.

Francisco Gonzalez, director of the state-run Pinar del Rio Tobacco Company, explained that the creation of this center is part of a strategy to consolidate tobacco-related activities formerly carried out across a number of facilities.

"Thus, the raw material will reach the factories already classified and prepared, and the factories will only have to roll the cigars and finish the production," said the sector official.

The Premium cigars are marketed by Habanos S.A., a joint venture between the state-owned Cubatabaco and Altadis, a Franco-German subsidiary of the British multinational Imperial Tobacco.

Unable to sell in the U.S. due to the embargo imposed on the island, Habanos S.A. has still cornered 70 percent of the global cigars market, estimated at about 400 million units.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 05:10:33|Editor: Yurou Liang

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ALGIERS, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Algeria vowed Sunday not to resort to external debt under any circumstances, despite the sharp decline in the country's oil revenue since the collapse of oil prices in 2014.

Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmadjid Tebboune made the remarks at a tripartite meeting between the government, the General Union of Algerian Workers, and the Employers Forum, the largest Algerian business organization in the North African nation.

"Resorting to foreign debt is not allowed and we do not even accept to think about it," Tebboune said.

"We will not undermine our sovereignty under any circumstances," he noted.

He further reassured that Algeria has enough resources to maintain the country's economy balance, despite decline in oil revenues.

"We have enough financial means to continue to finance priority development projects, especially in the sectors of housing, healthcare and education, while we have an annual import budget worth 35 billion U.S. dollars to assure the country's needs," he said.

The PM said that Algeria seeks to reach the ranks of emerging countries as soon as possible, through the establishment of an integrated economy, noting that Algeria had spent about one-third of its gross domestic product as public investment.

Algeria's oil revenue, which constitutes the country's public treasury primary resource, has dropped by about 50 percent since 2015.

The oil rich nation lost 35 billion dollars of its foreign exchange reserves in 2015 following the collapse of oil prices in the international market, and about 30 billion dollars in 2016, which led to a decline in exchange reserves to 143 billion dollars from 194 billion dollars in 2013.
USS Rafael Peralta (DDG 115) arrives in its homeport of San Diego for the first time on June 30, 2017 in anticipation of commissioning scheduled for July 29. The 65th ship of its class, Peralta is classified as a Flight IIA Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer and is named for Marine Sgt. Rafael Peralta. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Phil Ladouceur/Released)

LOS ANGELES, July 29 (Xinhua) -- The U.S. Navy's newest guided-missile destroyer, USS Rafael Peralta, was commissioned on Saturday in its homeport of San Diego, the U.S. state of California.

The newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer, DDG 115, is named for U.S. Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta from San Diego, who was killed in 2004 in Iraq and posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for heroism.

Peralta smothered an enemy grenade with his body to absorb the majority of the lethal blast and shrapnel and saved the life of two U.S. soldiers with him in the battle of Fallujah.

USS Rafael Peralta is the 65th Arleigh Burke class destroyer. It is equipped with the Aegis Baseline 9 Combat System which includes an Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD) capability incorporating Ballistic Missile Defense 5.0 Capability Upgrade and Naval Integrated Fire Control-Counter Air capability.

The ship's IAMD radar will provide increased computing power and radar upgrades that improve detection and reaction capabilities against modern air warfare threats, according to the website of U.S. Navy.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 06:06:24|Editor: yan

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TRIPOLI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Five of Libya's eastern army soldiers were killed and four others were injured by extremist militants in Libya's eastern city of Darna, local media reported.

The soldiers were killed when militants attacked three army check points in southern Darna, the army's news agency reported.

A warplane of the army was shot down by terrorists in Darna on Saturday, the agency said, killing the pilot and a soldier, an injuring another.

The eastern city of Darna has been a haven of militants since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi's regime in 2011. The army, led by General Khalifa Haftar, has been in a violent war against militant groups in eastern Libya for more than three years.

Forces of Haftar, who is allied with the eastern-based authorities, recently took over the city of Benghazi, defeating militant groups in the city.
Source: Xinhua| 2017-07-31 06:16:26|Editor: Yurou Liang

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TRIPOLI, July 30 (Xinhua) -- Protesters stormed headquarters of Libya's constitution drafting authority on Saturday, after it unanimously introduced a constitution draft, said authority spokesman.

"The authority met today with a quorum of 43 members to vote on a draft constitution after amendments made by members. A draft was approved by 42 members out of 60." Siddiq Dersi, spokesman of the authority told Xinhua.

Dersi said that after the meeting, dozens of protesters surrounded the headquarters of the authority, in protest against the voting process.

He stressed that there are tribal and social efforts made to contain the situation and facilitate the safe exit of members from the headquarters.

A member of the authority confirmed that many were "trapped inside the authority's building."

"Some protesters are armed and they threatened some members. They accused them of being traitors, and said that the draft served interests of other countries and ignored rights of eastern Libyans," said the member, who did not reveal his name.

The head of the eastern-based parliament, Agila Saleh, called for a parliament session to assess the performance of the constitution drafting authority.

Saleh stressed the need to amend the constitutional declaration to form a committee of specialists to draft a constitution, in view of the "failure of the constitution authority to produce a draft."

Libya has been struggling to make a democratic transition following the 2011 uprising that toppled former leader Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
James Jim Buckmaster

Funeral services will be held on Saturday, July 29 at 10 a.m. at Lincoln Memorial Funeral Home. Interment will take place at Lincoln Memorial Park.

Harold Huls

Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 29, 2017 at the American Lutheran Church of Filley, with Pastor LuRae Halstrom officiating. Burial will be at 10 a.m. at the Evergreen Home Cemetery of Beatrice, with military graveside honors conducted by Bitting-Norman Post 27 of Beatrice. In lieu of flowers, a memorial has been established, with Dave and Betty Norton and Norman and Karen Mortensen in charge. There will be no viewing at the church on Saturday.

Arliss A. Schultz

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 29, 2017 at the St. Pauls U.C.C. (Maple Grove) Church in rural Tecumseh. Memorials may go to the familys choice.

Jack R. Steel

A memorial service will be held at 11 a.m. on Saturday, July 29, 2017 at the Mt. Calvary Lutheran Church. In lieu of flowers, memorials are suggested to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, Homecare & Hospice of Manhattan and the University of Nebraska Cancer Center. Memorials may be left in care of the Stewart Funeral Home, P.O. Box 48, 66547.

Eleanor Ideus

Funeral services will be held at 10:30 a.m. on Monday, July 31, 2017 at Holy Cross Lutheran Church of Beatrice, with Pastor Kathee Forrest officiating. Burial will be at the Evergreen Home Cemetery of Beatrice. A family prayer service will be held at 10:15 a.m. on Monday in the fellowship room of the church. A memorial has been established to Holy Cross Lutheran Church and Beatrice Good Samaritan, with Chris and Renae Mason and Jeff and Laurie Corey in charge. The body will lie in state at the Fox Funeral Home from 8 a.m. on Saturday, July 29 until 9 p.m. on Sunday, July 30 and then for one hour preceding the service at the church on Monday. The family will meet and greet friends and relatives at Fox Funeral Home on Sunday from 5:30-7 p.m.
Lisa Densmore Ballard, a professional photographer in Red Lodge, won two awards at the 2017 Outdoor Writers Association of America Excellence in Craft Contests. The annual awards program recognizes and honors the best work of outdoor communicators who are members of OWAA.

Densmore Ballard was awarded second place in the people category of the photography contest for Sunrise Hunter with Horse," published in the LOWA Hunting Supplement, 2016, and third place in the outdoor fun and adventure category of the photography contest for Kayaker on Bowman Lake, published in Woodstock Magazine, Summer 2016 issue.

Headquartered in Missoula, the Outdoor Writers Association of America is the oldest and largest association of professional outdoor communicators in the United States. It was organized in 1927 by members of the Izaak Walton League of America and includes professional communicators dedicated to sharing the outdoor experience. OWAAs professionals include writers, photographers, outdoors radio and television show hosts, book authors, videographers, lecturers and artists. For more information, go to owaa.org.
Man in video of vicious attack dies, another shot dead

Thomas, 34, of Lackpat Road, El Dorado, was walking along Pentecostal Road at about 9.15 pm on Thursday when he was approached by two men, one of whom shot at him.

Police said Thomas tried to escape his assailants but fell in a drain at the side of the road.

One of the men jumped onto his head and chest, trampling on him repeatedly. Both men ran off after leaving Thomas motionless in the drain.

The incident was captured on CCTV cameras and the footage was viewed by members of the Tunapuna Police Station.

Thomas was hospitalised in critical condition after the attack.

A suspect was held yesterday at a house in Sea Lots.

Meanwhile, police are investigating the shooting death of a 30-year-old man in Petit Bourg early yesterday morning.

Police said Kerlon Dorset, 30, of Francis Avenue was liming with friends at Upper Irving Road Extension when, at about 2 am, he and three others decided to go home as it was raining.

Reports are that Dorset got into the back seat of car and it pulled off. However, a short while later, a gunman shot at the vehicle.

Dorset told his friends he had been shot and they took him to the Eric Williams Medical Sciences Complex, where he died.
TT, US committed to fighting terrorism

Dillon said while violent extremism is not a local issue, TT is treating with the concern of some citizens travelling to areas of conflict and eventually returning home. The minister said Government is addressing this matter through a combination of legislative framework and operations. Attorney General Faris Al-Rawi, who was present at the meeting, said TT continues to address border management and maritime security in the context of its geography.

Thomas III recognised the need for TT and the US to synchronise their efforts, especially to deal with the threat posed by the Islamic State terrorist group.
Woman gang raped in Arima

The victim of Bamboo Settlement told police at about 11.30 pm she was standing near a car park when she was approached by two men who were masked and armed with guns. The men ordered her to the nearby carpark where they took turns sexually assaulting her. The suspects then ran away and the victim went to the Arima Police Station where she reported the incident.

She was taken to a doctor who examined her. Investigations are continuing.
Kambon to PoS merchants: Respect Emancipation

Kambon was speaking at the opening of the Lidj Yasu Omowale Emancipation Village at the Grand Stand, Queens Park Savannah on Friday night. He said each year, participants and coordinators of the parade find themselves at odds with congestion in the nations capital as many business places are open.

I would like to politely ask the downtown business community to respect the occasion as they feel the need to make another dollar off of my people, Kambon said.

Kambon said by keeping their businesses open, merchants are also inconveniencing their employees who wish to participate in celebrations but may be fearful they will lose their jobs.

I see this as a gross disrespect as many of these same merchants dont see it fit to open their stores on Christmas Day. Also featuring at the opening ceremony was Miss Universe 1977 Janelle Penny Commissiong- Chow who was presented with a plaque commemorating 40 years since her historic win as the first black person to take the title. Commissiong-Chow said she felt overwhelmed with the award. She said the perception of beauty has changed since her crowning as many people of African descent have taken more pride in their appearance and their heritage.

Forty years ago I became the first woman of African lineage to become Miss Universe. I was able to reach into the African diaspora and instil a level of pride in themselves. Just as Emancipation Day has displaced the previously celebrated Discovery Day, which celebrated colonialism, so are our old mindsets being displaced by a more conscious sense of self. The event also featured performances from veteran pannist, Ken Professor Philmore, Nehilet Blackman and the San Juan South Cultural Organisation.
Harvey ordained as Bishop of Grenada

During the four-hour ceremony, Harvey was anointed with oil, presented with a book of the Gospels; invested with the symbols of his office  the ring, mitre and pastoral staff; seated on the cathedral (the Bishops chair); received the kiss of peace from all the Archbishops and Bishops present; and then the documents that made him officially ordinated were signed. In his homily titled A New Time For Hope and Change, Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Castries in St Lucia Robert Rivas thanked Harvey for saying yes to God and the Pope. He said Harvey had a great responsibility as the diocese had been without a bishop for about a year, and so he was expected to revamp and revitalise the church in Grenada.

He advised Harvey to make himself small so that he would hear the voice of the Lord, to rule wisely and with a gentle heart, to live a simple lifestyle and to be humble. He said it was important because as the clergy would be looking to him for support and direction, the religious for affirmation and inspiration, and the laity for leadership by example and empowerment to act with greater responsibility in the progress of the church.

Rivas described Harvey as tall, handsome, courageous, virtuous, a theologian and a good shepherd who cared for little people. He also called him the gift given by Pope Francis to Grenada.

He told the large audience the new bishop came to them in loving kindness, with a big heart of love and that he was gentle and kind and so urged the members of the diocese to meet him similarly as he would need their support and collaboration to succeed. He is coming to build the church in Grenada on loving kindness of the heart of our God. For the church in Grenada, the time has come to change gear and to recharge your batteries for action. Referring to the incident on June 12 when Harvey was tied up and robbed as he prayed at the Holy Rosary/St Martins in East Port of- Spain, Rivas said he paid the price for his kindness and his work with the poor and marginalised. His commitment to serve the poor and vulnerable will continue as part as his ministry as bishop and you must find in him a model and example for caring. Rivas asked Grenadians to love their new and fifth bishop as they loved Bishop Emeritus Sydney Charles.

The church in Grenada has been crying for a messiah and now it has gotten its dream bishop. Wipe your tears church! Your time of joy has come. Be strong, take courage, a good leader has been given to you. During his light-hearted and at times jovial address, Harvey said he was still struggling with the question of what God wants. He described himself as a senior and a sinner, but one that hoped God would enable him to, one day, become a saint.

He spoke of the steep hill that is Market Hill in St Georges with the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception near the top and the market near the bottom. He invited them to remember the importance of the market in the history of Grenada and as a place of assembly, saying they should always be in the market in some way. If we are to be truly church, we must climb that steep hill to go up to our cathedral yes, but we must never stay in that cathedral. We must come down back into the market place again to sanctify it and make it holy. He asked the parishioners to join him in doing so on a regular basis, and said he expected many more people to get involved in the religious work in St Georges. Harvey said, to him, holiness and sanctity were not about prayers, but the extent to which a person allows Christ to work on them, and the personal, spiritual, and social climbs they made in their lives despite the difficulties.

However, he admitted sometimes the church itself could be a difficult situation or hill to climb. Being church, following Christ, and dealing with all the people who say they Christian, including your bishop, but very often fail to be Christian, that is part of the climb. At the event, there were numerous representatives from the government of Grenada, as well as archbishops, bishops, and priests from the US, Africa, and across the Caribbean. There was a large contingent from Trinidad and Tobago, including Archbishop Joseph Harris who was one of the co-consecrators, along with Charles and Papal Nuncio Archbishop Nicola Girasoli.
Family members told me get married and have children

However, he feels the onus is on parents and other family members to aid the process.

Family have to bring more awareness of the need of vocations and of the possibility that God may be calling a member of their family to serve the Church in this way, Ango, 41, said in a recent Sunday Newsday interview.

Ango, who is of Nigerian and Trinidadian heritage, was ordained at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, Port-of- Spain on July 15. His installation comes at a time when local priests are overburdened because of the shortage of clergymen in the archdiocese.

In his homily at the event, Archbishop Joseph Harris alluded to the growing need for vocations to the priesthood, saying Angos ordination was a welcomed reprieve for the church.

It is a moment of thanksgiving because the God which never leaves his flock unattended once again smiles on us and gives us help to work in the vineyard, Harris said.

Ango, though, acknowledged parents seldom view the priesthood as an option for their sons and remained stuck in conventional stereotypes.

What parents talk about is I want my son to be a doctor, a lawyer and engineer, he said, adding many parents also have said they do not encourage their sons to be priests because they want grandchildren.

Ango, who celebrated his first Mass as a priest two weeks ago at St Peters RC Church, Mayaro, said during his ordination he felt a mixture of pride, fear and apprehension.

People wanted to know how I felt after the big day. I want to admit that it felt great but also kind of terrifying. I felt relieved that the long preparation is finally over, but also apprehensive about taking on the duties. Ango said he has not yet gotten used to the idea of people calling him Father.

Had it not been for his familys love for the church and its teachings, Ango said he would have never considered entering the religious life, let alone becoming a priest.

In fact, so involved were his parents in the St Pauls parish of Nasarawa, Nigeria, Ango said even at the tender age of ten he knew he wanted to be a priest.

He told Sunday Newsday: All my family went to Mass every day and my sister sang in the choir.

My dad was a reader and my mom a leader in the womens organisation.

My brothers and I were altar servers. A former member of the youth group in the parish, Ango was also president of the altar servers for ten years. He said he used to admire the seminarians who were sent to do apostolic work in the parish and functioned as well as the manner in which parish priest, Isaac Madaki, exercised his duties.

He was an example of the fatherliness, prayerfulness and generosity that is fundamental to the priestly life, he said of Madaki.

Ango said he continued to serve the church in maturity and reasoning until he finally decided to enter the priesthood.

Angos decision, however, was met with some resistance from his family, including his father.

It was not easy for my father because I just graduated and got a good job with Nigeria Beer and Beverage in the sales and marketing department. I was happy with the job since the wages come in regularly on a monthly basis. But my father was unhappy with my decision because he felt I had a good job. On the other hand, he recalled his mother Mary Ango (now deceased) was very happy for me because that is what I always wanted to become.

Some family members were supportive and some were not.

Some even said, What a waste. They felt that I should have married and had children. Angos journey to the priesthood began with studies in philosophy which he pursued in Nigeria.

He then moved to Rome, Italy where he studied theology.

To study in Rome is not easy because you have to study in Italian but I made it. Saying life here does not differ much from Nigeria, Ango described the people here as happy and caring. Since coming to this country two years ago, Ango has served at St Marys RC, St James and St John the Baptist RC, St John Road, St Augustine.

He described his first Mass at St Peters RC, Mayaro two Sundays ago as a happy one, saying there were about 500 people in the congregation from the communities of Biche, Manzanilla, Ortoire, Fishing Pond and Guayaguayare.

So, what can church-goers expect from the newly-ordained priest? My style ministry will be meeting with people if we want to have the greatest impact in their lives, he said.
Roget calls for boycott of one percent businesses

Addressing the unions 78th Annual Conference of Delegates at Paramount Building, Circular Road, San Fernando on Friday evening, a fiery Roget said workers had to understand the nature of the battle saying the elite in society had built their empires on the backs of the working class.

But who are these elites? You see, if we were not paying attention or in case we did not know, they are now so emboldened, that they have stepped forward to identify themselves as the smallest group, but the most powerful group, some 5,000 people that has total control over the rest of us, Roget said, So elitist they are, that in the comfort of their own private enclaves, the discussion is how they are the Starbucks of the Caribbean.

But wait, if they consider themselves the Starbucks of the Caribbean, then what names do they give the rest of the citizens, the descendants of slaves and indentured labourers, the ordinary working people, the poor and the vulnerable. What are they calling us? Roget asked. He said the elites had boasted about having some one hundred and twenty businesses throughout Trinidad and Tobago which were being supported by the working class.

Let us identify these businesses. Where are these businesses throughout Trinidad and Tobago? Where are these businesses that trade under different names? As workers we use our hard earn dollars every day to support them against us. We must identify all of these businesses and begin a massive boycott and show them the power of the people, the real power of the rest of us, Roget said.

He also addressed the recent departure of former Petrotrin chairman Professor Andrew Jupiter saying Jupiter had been hounded out of office as he had shown his willingness to work with the union to ensure that the company was able to compete in the international market.

Despite the initial progress made by beginning to turnaround production and start the process of cleaning up corruption in the company, the government was not satisfied that their people was in place, and therefore they hounded the chairman out. And now we are hearing of their choice of chairmanship, a name with a proven track record of failure and questionable dealings with contractors, he said.

He said the union would not accept the privatisation of Petrotrin, the retrenchment of any Petrotrin worker or the leasing out and farming out of Petrotrins acreage to friends, family and financiers of the government.
Rachels mom at vigil for Videsh

For 40 minutes on Friday evening, the concerned group of family, friends and neighbours of the dead boy, marched through Malabar with prayers being offered and a tree sapling planted in Videshs memory.

A nearby plaque read, This Lignum Vitae Tree (Latin for The Tree of Life) is planted in loving memory of those who have gone before us.

May its branches provide shelter and its roots be forever watered with peace and love. Neighbour Angani Akow said Videsh was truly loved in the community.

Everybody knew this boy. He was really, really exceptional.

Everybody is aunty and everybody is uncle.

Anything you are doing, he would say I could help? I could do anything? He was only 13 but look at the lives he touched (in reference to the vigils huge turnout). He was everybodys son. Videshs cousin, Samantha Rattan, led all present in one minute of silence to remember her relative as one incredible little boy. Rattan thanked all present for supporting the family through their most difficult experience. The vigil ended with all singing the song, Let There be Peace On Earth.

Videshs parents did not talk to the media.

Nicholas led a group of her own community wearing jerseys commemorating her own murdered daughter, Rachel.

She told Sunday Newsday, I came today because I know what this mother is going through. I went through the same thing. I came to give support. Asked how she felt at the vigil, she said, It has re-opened my pain but at least they have held somebody for the Malabar killings.

Im still waiting on the police to find out who did this to my daughter. They (Videshs family) get closure but I am still waiting. I want to talk to the mom but she is busy. Sunday Newsday asked if she thinks things will get better in TT, Nicholas replied, No. I think things will get worst.

The only thing that will help in this situation is God.

Everybody has to turn to prayers and God. Thats the only thing. It will never get better. It will get worse.

It is end times, a terrible time to live in. She was my one and only child. This is pain that doesnt ever go away. I really hope that God, when he is ready, could reveal who did this to Rachel. I need some closure, too - the family, friends and everybody. Asked about the polices progress on the case, she said, I want to believe the police are doing their work but I wish they could make a breakthrough. Saying she has shown a lot of patience, Nicholas lamented DNA tests on Rachels body have not yet returned to TT.
Bishop Harvey: I want to make a difference

Harvey, 68, was officially installed as Bishop in an ordination ceremony, yesterday, at the Spice Basket Auditorium, Beaulieu, St Georges.

The ceremony was witnessed by a large contingent of local priests and parishioners from the various communities in which Harvey ministered in Trinidad and Tobago.

In an interview at Archbishops House, Port-of-Spain, on Monday, hours before his departure, Harvey said it was in Grenada, more than four decades ago, that he took the decision to enter the priesthood.

He recalled while teaching at the Seminary, late Archbishop Anthony Pantin had urged him to think clearly about the move.

As fate would have it, Harvey had also been invited to Grenada to lead priests and parishioners in a weekend of introspection to determine the way forward for the church on the island.

It was a great weekend, he said of the visit in the 1970s.

It was so affirming of all that I had spent three years studying in some depth and I came back home and I said to myself, I think I will go forward to the priesthood.

I knew I would go forward but I always knew it would not be easy. But I met some wonderful Grenadians and I hope to meet them again. Fast forward to 2017.

Harvey was chosen by the Vatican to lead the churchs flock in Grenada, an appointment he welcomes.

God has been so good to me over the past six months and there have been so many surprises that have both challenged and strengthened me that I cant help but think that it is with trust in God I am going to Grenada, he said. But there is another reason why this towering man of the cloth loves Grenada.

It is one of those countries in the Caribbean where we see the resilience of Caribbean people. Recalling the hurricanes that have ravaged the island and the socio-political turmoil to which Grenadian have long been subjected, Harvey said: They have come through and everybody will tell you its a wonderful island. Harvey said he also has paid attention to what many people might consider mundane occurrences.

There is a healthy respect for people in Grenada. The people at Customs and Immigration, they show you a basic respect, and from that comes other things. You walk the streets of St Georges and there is that fundamental respect. However, Harvey said he was aware of the challenges at the level of the Catholic church.

The fact that you are given charge of a diocese, the Catholic church believes that as a Bishop, you are Chief Shepherd in the diocese.

You are Christ in the diocese and it places a tremendous responsibility on you to know the sheep, the people entrusted to your care, and to seek to do always what is in their best interest according to the mind of Christ, and that is not easy. In fact, Harvey sees his role as extremely critical given the dwindling Catholic congregations on the island.

I have already said that I need at least five years to make some difference on the island. He said in some instances, the situation reflected the state of Catholicism in other islands in the Caribbean.

But Grenada is the worst as far as I know. Harvey took the oath of allegiance on Thursday, ahead of yesterdays ordination.

At Archbishops House, he told Sunday Newsday: Every Bishop is required to make the profession of faith where basically you stand alone and say what the church has believed for centuries.

The interpretation of what that means has developed over the centuries. So, I hope I am in the mainstream of that development now.
Two B-1B strategic bombers of the U.S. Air Force on Sunday conducted joint drills separately with fighters of Japan's Air Self-Defense Force and the South Korean Air Force, U.S. military and other sources said.

The drills were apparently intended to check North Korea, which fired an intercontinental ballistic missile on Friday, the second ICBM launch by the reclusive state following the first one on July 4.

In Tokyo, Japanese Foreign Minister and Defense Minister Fumio Kishida said the ASDF carried out a joint drill with the U.S. Air Force in airspace above the sea west of the Kyushu southwestern Japan region and around the Korean Peninsula.

Kishida underscored that the drill was aimed at "further strengthening the deterrent power and coping abilities of the entire Japan-U.S. alliance and showing Japan's will and advanced capabilities for stabilizing the regional situation" under the current tough security environment including North Korea's missile launches.
Thousands of cattle displaced by the 270,200-acre Lodgepole Complex fire have been greenlighted for grazing on the Charles M. Russell National Wildlife Refuge, U.S. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke announced Saturday.

Cattle were to begin arriving on the refuge Saturday night, as ranchers suffering from the worst fire damage took the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service up on an offer for grass and water, both hard to find on the Lodgepole Complexs more than 422 blackened square miles.

We were able to do this in a couple days. We already have three families with contracts to get in there. We think we can accommodate at least Garfield County, fire victims, Zinke told The Gazette on Saturday. At the end of the day, the government belongs to the people. Were happy to do it.

Cattle will be allowed to stay on the refuge until Nov. 1, though most are expected to leave earlier as ranchers send their calves to market, Zinke said. The stay guarantees thousands of calves wont be sold early at discounted rates that could break a ranch budget.

The grass isnt free. Ranchers will have to meet standard lease terms. No one expects free grass, said Dean Rogge, farmer/rancher and board member of the Garfield County Conservation District.

Theyre our heroes today, Rogge said of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife. Were just thankful the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service came to our aid. And everyone else, too. Everyone across the nation and the support from across the state. Its overwhelming. Garfield County just wants to give a big thank you to everyone who is supporting us.

Rogge said the conservation district has spent years developing a partnership with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. That relationship helped open up CMR grass to ranchers in a hurry.

Since the four fires of the Lodgepole Complex blew up July 20, Garfield County ranchers have been living on the good graces of others. Everything from hay to bagged ice has been trucked into the community, largely by people responding to social media updates on community needs.

Saturday, the fire was in full wind-down, with fire management sources issuing their final report on the complex that began the week as the nations top fire priority. Roughly a dozen homes were destroyed in the declared disaster area, which qualified by weeks end for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding to pay for 75 percent of costs related to fire and cleanup.

But the challenges for ranch families within the fires 194-mile perimeter are far from over. After the calves are sold off in the fall, ranchers will have to decide whether they can keep the adult females, the cows and heifers that are the backbone of any ranch that produces calves for a once-a-year fall payday. The charred landscape will not have recovered enough to feed the cows and heifers expected to birth next years calves in late winter or early spring 2018.

Ranchers spend decades developing the bloodlines of their herds, Rogge said. Those genetics disappear in the back of a stock trailer departing Garfield County on Highway 200 when herds are liquidated.

These guys have spent a lifetime, maybe generations of their lives on the genetics of their cattle herds. For the ones that sell, its like starting over. Its like youre 20 years old again, Rogge said. Thats tough. Genetics are important.

Rogge and other ranchers were surprised at how quickly the plan came together to open up the CMR refuge for prescribed grazing by displaced cattle.

The conversation about opening up CMR land began July 24, as the Lodgepole Complex exited its worst period, according to USFWS. Sarah Swanson, a local farm implement dealer, wrote Zinke about the possibility of making CMR pasture available. By mid-week U.S. Sen. Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte were involved.

There is grazing on the CMR, refuge manager Paul Santavy said. Roughly two thirds of the refuges 1.1 million acres are grazed at some point in a year, while the other third is in recovery. Grazing is part of the refuge management plan done to different prescribed levels to promote healthy ground cover and wildlife habitat.

"This is a difficult time for many families in Montana and we are eager to get to work as neighbors do and help people impacted by this fire disaster. We stand ready to welcome our neighbors in need," Santavy said.

There are already a few thousand cattle headed to the refuge, some by cattle drive, Santavy said.
BOZEMAN  Montana U.S. Rep. Greg Gianforte will work off his sentence for assaulting a reporter by volunteering for an organization that builds custom wheelchairs for children.

Gallatin County Court Services director Steve Ette says the congressman will work with ROC Wheels, a Bozeman nonprofit organization.

Ette tells the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that Gianforte is working with ROC Wheels on when and how his hours will be completed. He has until Nov. 28.

The Gianforte Family Foundation, Montana's second largest charitable trust, has donated annually to ROC Wheels since 2005, according to federal records. In 2015, the most recent year with available information, the foundation gave $60,000 to the wheelchair charity.
In a frank tone, King Mohammed VI delivered a speech on the occasion of the eighteenth anniversary of Throne Day drawing up the main obstacles to Moroccos human and social development model and the factors hindering the full achievement of social justice and the rule of law in the country.

Underperforming civil service

In his speech, read out from the Northern city of Tetuan, the King strongly rebuked civil servants and public officials for their underperformance. The Monarch pointed out to the paradox that Morocco enjoys indisputable credibility at continental and international levels evidenced by the flow of investments by world giants such as Boeing, Renault and peugeot, to mention but a few, and the sluggishness facing social projects.

He drew a contrast between the dynamism marking the activities of the private sector, which attracts the countrys best brains, and the public sector which remains plagued by employees lacking skills, qualifications and ambitions.

One of the problems which impede Moroccos progress is the weakness of the civil service, be it in terms of governance, efficiency or the quality of the services provided to citizens, deplored the Monarch.

The Sovereign gave the example of the low performance of regional investments centers, which has an adverse impact on regions that are suffering from insufficient  sometimes inexistent  private investment and from the public sectors weak performance. This, in turn, affects citizens living conditions.

This further worsens regional disparities, noted the King notably in terms of the biggest shortage of health, education and cultural services, not to mention the lack of jobs, therefore, there is the need for greater cooperative efforts to close gaps and help these regions catch up with the others.

The King also called on local officials to work hard, like the staff in the private sector or even harder to show a sense of responsibility that does credit to the civil service and yields concrete results since these officials are entrusted with serving citizens interests.

Frozen political parties

The King went on to criticize political parties for failing to uphold their duties. He deplored that the evolution witnessed in Morocco in the political domain and in the area of development has not led to the kind of positive reaction you would expect from political parties, leaders and government officials when dealing with the real aspirations and concerns of Moroccans.

The Monarch rebuked the opportunism shown by politicians and officials who vie for the spotlight to derive benefits from the achievements made, both politically and in terms of media exposure.

He particularly expressed sharp disapproval of their tendency to hide behind the Royal Palace and ascribe everything to it, when matters do not turn out the way they should.

As a result, citizens complain to the King about government services or officials that take too long to respond to their queries or process their cases, asking him to intercede on their behalf, he went on to say, underlining that citizens are entitled to convincing answers within reasonable timeframes to their queries and complaints.

Ignoring citizens legitimate requests and queries pushes young people to shun political life and elections all together, King Mohammed VI said, adding, Put simply, they do not trust politicians; indeed, some stakeholders have perverted politics, diverting it away from its lofty objectives.

Linking responsibility to accountability

The Monarch stressed the need for officials to show responsibility in ensuring the achievement of projects that serve citizens whenever they are.

Whether a project concerns a district, a hamlet, a city, a region or the entire country, it still has the same objective, which is to serve citizens. In the eyes of citizens, digging a well or building a dam, for instance, are equally important, he said.

In this regards, the King put emphasis on upholding the Constitution notably the second paragraph of Article 1, which links public office with accountability.

This is the dawn of a new era in which there is no difference between officials and citizens as far as civic rights and obligations are concerned; nor is there room for shirking responsibility or avoiding sanction, he underscored.

In his speech, the King also examined the events taking place in some parts of the country, which have regrettably revealed an unprecedented lack of the sense of responsibility, alluding to the recent unrest in Al Hoceima.

He blamed political parties for failing to assume their responsibility, saying that some political parties believe that all they have to do is hold their general meetings, those of their political and executive committees and get involved in election campaigns.

The Monarch denounced the practices of partisan bickering and political score-settling, noting that running public affairs should have nothing to do with personal or partisan interests, populist discourse, or the use of strange expressions that undermine political action.

An ode to law enforcement services

In the face of the vacuum created by underperforming officials and political parties, law enforcement services have found themselves face to face with the citizens. They have bravely and patiently fulfilled their duty, showing restraint and commitment to the rule of law as they maintained security and stability.

The King commented on the situation in Al Hoceima and refuted what some have referred to as the security approach, as if Morocco were sitting on top of a volcano, or as if each household and each citizen were being watched over by a policeman.

In reality, there is only one policy and a single, unwavering commitment, which is to enforce the law, respect the institutions, ensure the security of citizens and safeguard their property, he made it clear.

He praised the work achieved by law enforcement officers in safeguarding the internal and external security and stability of the homeland, and protect the security, serenity and tranquility of citizens as well as their commitment to the rule of law.

Putting the interest of the homeland and citizens first and foremost

After praising Moroccos institutional model, the King affirmed that there will be no backtracking on democratic achievements or the work of institutions.

Officials must exercise their prerogatives without waiting for someones permission. And instead of repeating the same excuse  namely I am being prevented from doing my job  it is better for them to offer their resignation, which nobody would reject, he said, stressing that Morocco must come first: before political parties, before elections and before senior positions.

The King called for a new march to achieve human and social development; a march for equality and social justice for all Moroccans, because such a major endeavor cannot be carried out in one region and not in the others.
King Mohammed VI has granted Royal Pardon to 1,178 inmates on the occasion of Throne Day, celebrating the Monarchs enthronement, it was officially announced on Saturday.

According to a statement issued by the Ministry of Justice, the list of the 1,178 pardoned inmates includes some of the protesters who were arrested on the sidelines of the social unrest in Al Hoceima.

The pardon was granted to people who did not commit any serious crimes or offenses, the statement explained.

Family and personal reasons were taken into account for the decision made in favor of these people, the statement said, adding the move translates the special interest granted by the sovereign to this region and its population.

According to the news portal le360, one of the leaders of the protests in the city, Salima Ziani, aka Silya, is reportedly among the persons pardoned, while Nasser Zefzafi, another leader of the protests who had created enormous disorder by interrupting a Friday sermon last May, is not on the list.

The portal said some 30% of the persons arrested because of the Al Hoceima events have reportedly benefited from the pardon and that others may be included in upcoming lists.

The King grants pardon to inmates on the occasion of religious and national holidays.

The Justice Department also announced that the Monarch granted pardon to the young people, member of the Justice and Development Party (PJD) who were convicted for condoning terrorism on the backdrop of the assassination of the Russian ambassador to turkey last December.

The six PJD youths were brought before court for praising the diplomats assassination on social media, as condoning terrorism is a crime under the Moroccan penal code.

Last May, they were handed sentences ranging from three years to eight months in prison.
Putin says hes not waiting around for improved relations anymore. Photo: Martti Kainulainen/AFP/Getty Images

Two days after the White House said that President Trump would sign legislation imposing new sanctions on Russia, Russian president Vladimir Putin confirmed that he was ordering the U.S. to significantly cut the number of diplomats it has stationed in the country. Putin says 755 U.S. Embassy personnel must be gone by September 1, explaining in a state-television interview on Sunday that he no longer expects the U.S.-Russia relationship to improve. We waited for quite some time that maybe something will change for the better  had such hope that the situation will somehow change, but, judging by everything, if it changes, it will not be soon, Putin said.

It is time for us to show that we will not leave anything unanswered, he added.

The Senate passed the new sanctions on Thursday, sending the bill to Trumps desk. In response on Friday, the Russian foreign embassy told the Trump administration that the U.S. would have to reduce its diplomatic staff in Russia to match the size of Russias U.S. staff level. Putins statement on Sunday confirmed that order and specified the number of people who will be affected.

After September 1, the number of American diplomatic and technical personnel allowed to remain in Russia will be limited to 455 people. Reuters reports that the U.S. currently employs about 1,100 diplomatic and support staff in the country, which includes both U.S. and Russian citizens.

Initial reports about Putins order indicated that 755 American diplomats would need to leave the country, but the actual translation of Putins comments turns out to have been that 755 U.S. Embassy personnel will have to pack up. That being the case, its likely that Putins order means that the U.S. will have to both pull some of its American diplomatic personnel and fire some of its Russian support staff. (A former U.S. ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, also pointed out on Sunday that he didnt think there even were as many as 755 American diplomats working in Russia.)

In another retaliatory move on Friday, the Kremlin also said it was seizing two U.S. properties in Russia that are used by American diplomats for recreational purposes.

Appearing on ABCs This Week on Sunday, Russias Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov warned that they were considering additional retaliatory measures, as well. Calling Russias response long, long overdue, Ryabkov added, I can assure you that different options are on the table and consideration is being given to all sorts of things, both symmetrical or asymmetrical.

If these threats were meant to dissuade President Trump from signing the new sanctions into law, Trump never really had that option to begin with. The additional financial sanctions, which U.S. lawmakers sought as payback for Russias meddling in last years presidential election, received veto-proof, almost-unanimous support from both houses of Congress last week. The White House originally objected to the legislation because it included a component that prevented the president from being able to reduce or drop the sanctions without congressional review and approval. Trump, who has been dealing with an ongoing investigation into whether or not members of his campaign helped Russia interfere in last years election, was not able to get that review component removed. On Friday, after a week of mixed signals as to whether or not Trump would veto the bill, the White House announced the president would indeed sign the legislation.

This post has been updated to include additional details and better clarify who the order targets.
The death watch is finally over. Photo: Susan Walsh/AP

This is really a lesson in life, a source close to the White House told me last Saturday, Priebus made a mistake with Anthony because he kept his enemies on the outside, not the inside. Anthony wasnt part of the problem theyve been having, so Anthony can look like the solution.

At the time, Anthony Scaramucci, a political novice who gave up dreams of being a Hollywood star to make millions in finance, had just been hired as the White House communications director  news that surprised even the presidents closest advisers, including his chief strategist, Steve Bannon, and his chief of staff, Reince Priebus, who in a normal White House wouldve been responsible for such a hiring decision. The press secretary, Sean Spicer, resigned in protest of Scaramuccis appointment  signaling that those of his Establishment, Republican National Committee ilk, like Priebus, who had prevented Scaramucci from joining the administration from the outset, might not be long for Trump World.

Reince is on death watch, the source told me then. One of the major selling points Reince had to get this position was that he could work with Congress, he could help navigate it, hes got these relationships  it turns out that he really doesnt.

Predictions regarding matters of palace intrigue at the White House have been notoriously inaccurate in these early stages of the Trump administration. The president is an unpredictable and emotional decision-maker, and, until last Friday, rumors of an imminent staff shake-up had been merely that. People talk about warring factions on the inside, about staffers teaming up with one another against their enemies. But thats only true in a temporary way; most everyone working for the president is in fact working for themselves, and in and surrounding this White House, everyone treats everyone else with thinly veiled hatred and obvious suspicion. Sometimes, when their interests align, they seem to be on the same side. But that can only last so long. And yet, when it comes to anonymously sourced guesses about an officials continued employment, it has remained the safest option to just wait and see.

As it would turn out, the week would go precisely as my source guessed  though nobody couldve known just how strange and colorful it would all be.

You know the rest by now: Scaramucci announced on Twitter that he was having the FBI investigate Priebus for suspected leaking (specifically of a document that was a matter of public record), then he deleted the tweet and claimed he didnt mean to imply what he said. That night, a second source close to the White House told me matter of factly that Priebus was on the outs: Tomorrow hes going to go to the office and get ass-raped by Anthony and the president  but just verbally. The following day, The New Yorkers Ryan Lizza published an explosive interview conducted with Scaramucci just before his deleted tweet was sent, wherein he, among other things, confirmed he wanted the FBI to investigate Priebus, whom he described as, a fucking paranoid schizophrenic. (He also said Bannon was guilty of trying to suck his own cock.)

In any other administration, Scaramucci would be out. In this one, however, hes safe  for now. The Wall Street Journal reported that the president was disappointed in Priebus for not responding to Scaramuccis fire with fire of his own  a common Trump refrain, after all, is that when he gets hit, he hits back harder. And to make matters worse, the Republican health-care bill failed again  yet another legislative setback that reflected poorly on his abilities. From Air Force One on the tarmac in Washington early Friday evening, as it cinematically poured, Trump announced that Priebus was gone. Taking his place would be Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly.

Scaramucci had served as a cable-news surrogate and economic adviser to Trumps presidential campaign, but hed been prevented from getting an official job in the administration by his many enemies, which included everyone from Spicer and Priebus to Omarosa, the Apprentice villain who reportedly wanted the office Scaramucci planned to occupy for herself, since it had an unobstructed view of the Washington Monument. Friday night, as the political world reacted to news of Priebuss firing, a source close to Scaramucci texted me a kissy-face emoji followed by the word wins, that symbol being shorthand for Mooch, Scaramuccis nickname.

In the end  or as of now  missing out on the beginning of the administration was good for the kissy-face. Trump is unhappy whenever he gets bad press, a source close to the president told me recently, explaining his sour mood. Someone must be blamed. Hes not going to blame himself. Hes not going to say, You are a failure. You fucked up. Thats why things arent going well. Someone must be blamed, and that someone is Sean Spicer and Reince Priebus.

They were easy marks, since, with their histories of Establishment conservatism and their lack of New York cred, they never quite felt like Trump guys. In and out of the White House, Priebus was referred to by all manner of derogatory nicknames centered on the male anatomy, like Rancid Penis, which was coined in 2012 by Roger Stone, Reince Penis, the Penis, and Little Penis. And the president, according to various reports, took great joy in humiliating him, too, even once ordering him to kill a fly during a meeting.

The source close to the White House said this: Juxtapose Anthony and Priebus  who is Trump going to like more? Who is Trump going to listen to more? Who is Trump going to want to represent him?

Still, even without Priebus or Spicer, Scaramucci is entering a White House full of potential landmines. Bannon had cautioned against his hiring because he wanted a communications professional in the role instead, for instance, and that was before the whole sucking-his-own-cock thing.

This isnt a normal presidency, the source said. Trump always likes shiny new toys. Anthony will be the golden boy for the next couple of months.

Trump is taking a gamble on Scaramucci, the source added. But if he makes Trump look bad on this, hes going to fall out of favor very soon  and if he thinks Reince was mistreated by the president? Wait until he sees how the president will treat him.
Complacency is a trap. At least thats what I was thinking when I up and left the comfort of a Yankee prep school gig, where I taught music, amongst other things, for 28 years. There was also that life long career as a composer, musician and artist.First, it was a year in St. Thomas, USVI, working as a reporter and shooting photography and then, a year in San Agustin Etla, Oaxaca, Mexico.Time passed.More time passed and a year back in the Athens of America followed by a hasty return to Oaxaca where it is all happening.A couple of years in San Sebastian Etla and now, just down the road in San Pablo Etla. Life is good.Click on an image to see it larger.For additional photography please visit my flickr page You can find my music on Jango World & latin - Worldbeat ) and at iTunes and most online stores.Soy consciente de todas las tradiciones del Internet!If you are coming to Oaxaca, please contact me for tours or advice.
I've never been hit so hard by a celebrity's death. Like usually I'll feel sad because they died but then I get over it. This time, I'm having a hard time getting over it. I think it's cause Linkin Park's music really got me through the darkest of the times and all I can of is how Chester was able to reach out to so many folks through his music and yet couldn't be saved himself :/



My heart hurts really bad for his wife and kids. Like if I'm feeling this way and I don't personally know him, I can't imagine how those closest to him must feel.

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same

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Same thing. *hugs*

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basically, though Prince, Bowie, Chris, Lou, and Amy hurt just as bitterly.

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Same :'( I also felt this way about Robin Williams and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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I feel this. I listened to LP nonstop when I was 13-14 and going through depression shit. I can't believe he's gone. I haven't been so sad about a musician since Amy. Both Amy and Chester got me through bleak times.

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Same, I've been thinking about him everyday.

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And same. It hurts so much, I can't imagine what everyone else is going through. What really helped me was going to a memorial (lplive put up a list here ). I didn't meet up with any other fans, but just seeing the lights, flowers, letters, and posters that were already there helped a lot. I also brought a letter to the band, although I can't be sure it'll ever get to them. Writing my feelings down like that was a good outlet for my grief.And same. It hurts so much, I can't imagine what everyone else is going through.

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I feel the same. I'm still too hurt o listen to their music right now, even though I want to.

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Yes @ all of this

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same



i was rly affected by terry pratchett's death bc he was so formative and his way of dying was so long and slow and painful to witness, but otherwise nobody else hit me as much as chester

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this makes me hurt all over again. ugh.

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Brutal :(

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Christ on the cross.

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this is so fucked up and sad. this poor woman and her poor children.



wasn't her twitter hacked or something by some assholes a day or two after his death?

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This poor woman.

I'm wishing for the best for her family.



(what does an agnostic/atheist say in place of 'praying for the family'? 'Wishing the best for' seems inadequate, somehow. I feel for them)

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maybe thoughts instead of prayers

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I always says I'm sending thoughts or love.



Edited at 2017-07-30 06:45 pm (UTC)

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In sympathy cards I usually write 'keeping you and your family in my thoughts'

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I say "I'm keeping you in my thoughts".

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Lighting candles for them.

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Like most of the others, I usually put 'you and your family are in my thoughts'

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I've seen people say "sending out good vibes", but in this context that might not work or it could come off as insensitive, idk.



I tend to say "my heart goes out to them", usually because I'm not always sure where other people stand in terms of beliefs, as well.

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In tears right now. Thinking about his kids going through this hurts my soul and heart so much.



LP was definitely a big part of my HS days which I dealt with a lot of shit so this whole thing is so hard to fathom to me. Like it sort of feels like a piece of my childhood is gone now. His voice was so unique and amazing. It's so sad knowing he was in so much pain all this time.



Edited at 2017-07-30 06:42 pm (UTC)

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His son from his first marriage can't be more than 14 and his son with Talinda is around 8 or so, I think. I wonder if it will be easier on the toddler girls since they know less of him? It's awful for all of them either way.

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I went shopping yesterday and entered a tech store that was playing a LP playlist and I just started crying. :| People around me must have thought I was nuts.



It still hurts so much. LP were my lifeline for over 10 years of my life while I was battling a massive depression and chronic anxiety. I started listening to them again not long ago because I was having a hard time dealing with my newfound heart condition.



Chester's passing really made me feel lost all of sudden, right before my bday and my moving to the other side of Europe all on my own without family/friends for work. If I'm hurting this imagine, I can't imagine how Talinda, their kids and the band are feeling.

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that was sweet

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heartbreaking. i hope she has a strong support system <3

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I hope so too. I feel like she and Vicky can maybe hold each other up, at least. :////

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i've been looking at old videos, interviews of him and the rest of the band, making myself sad =(



all the LP guys seemed like they had a great friendship, my heart hurts for them and chester's family

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:(



My heart goes out to her and the whole family. <3

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It took the oil supermajors quite a while to come to terms with the new oil price realities. The blow from the 2014 price crash was so severe and apparently unexpected that they needed two years to start changing their tack. Luckily, Big Oil had a good example to follow: shale boomers.

True, a lot of independents active in the U.S. shale patch went under during the crisis. True, production costs are not exactly the same as Saudi Arabias, even for the lowest-cost producers in the shale patch. And true, these production costs are now rising for shale producers as oilfield service providers get back on their feet after two years of offering cut-my-own-throat discounts to the producers just to keep going.

Its difficult to find a reliable estimate for production costs in the shale patch. Some sources, such as the Wall Street Journal, peg the average at US$23 a barrel. Continental Resources Harold Hamm, however, warned last month that oil below US$50 is unsustainable, and if crude slips below US$40 a barrel, it could deal a severe blow to many producers. The remarks suggest that most shale producers are far from the US$23 a barrel that the WSJ calculates as an average.

But its not about production costs, its about the attitude. Shale producers, unlike Big Oil, dont deal in projects that take years before the oil starts flowing. They deal in projects where oil starts flowing quickly and returns are seen in just months, not years. Now, FTs Andrew Ward writes, Big Oil is increasingly adopting this attitude to its own projects as a way of adjusting to the new normal.

Ward quotes data from Wood Mackenzie that shows the cost of new Big Oil projects has fallen over the last three years from about US$7 billion to less than US$4 billion. Additionally, capex per barrel of oil fell from US$15 in 2015 to US$11 in 2017. Related: Barclays: Oil Could Rise By $7 If U.S. Sanctions Venezuela

New large-scale projects are few and far between. Brownfield, rather than greenfield, developments are the norm, at least for the time being. BP, for example, recently utilized the latest in digital imaging to find a whole new oil field underneath one it is exploiting. Shell said it could bring down costs at its Mars platform to less than US$15 a barrel. These are just a couple of examples of the change we are seeing in Big Oil, a transition to a whole new way of thinking.

It looks like this transition is being successful, if we are to judge by the latest quarterly financial reports from some of the supermajors.

Shell reported a triple increase to US$3.6 billion in its net attributable profits, excluding identified items. Operating expenses fell to US$9.55 billion over the quarter from US$11.55 billion a year earlier. CEO Ben van Beurden attributed the results to cost-cutting activities, as well as the oil price improvement. Related: Electric Vehicles No Threat To Oil Prices Anytime Soon

Total also said it did better this second quarter than a year earlier thanks to cost reduction measures. The French major booked a net profit of US$2.5 billion, up 14 percent on the year, with operating cash flow rising 33 percent to US$5.3 billion even though, CEO Patrick Pouyanne said, the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, only rose by 9 percent in the period.

Exxon and Chevron are combining the cost-cutting drive with boosting their exposure to shale, taking advantage of the benefits that the shale patch offers alongside the independents, who have now turned into Big Oils main competition. The two reported second-quarter figures today and, given their increased exposure to shale oil, its hardly a wonder that both reported profits, with Exxon posting a twofold increase in its net result to US$3.4 billion and Chevron swinging into a profit of US$1.45 billion from a loss of US$1.47 billion a year earlier.

The price crash has certainly been instructive for Big Oil. It has made the supermajors more cautious with their investment strategies, and although some warn that this cut in investments will come back to bite them in the form of an oil deficit that they wouldnt be able to respond to, its likely that this new attitude to new projects will in fact make better use of resources  a win-win scenario.

By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com

More Top Reads From Oilprice.com:
The 470-acre Bruner Mountain fire south of Roundup was expected to be 50 percent contained by Saturday night if the weather cooperated, a spokesman said late Saturday afternoon.

The fire could be fully contained by Tuesday or Wednesday, said Adam Carlson, disaster and emergency services coordinator for Musselshell County

Evacuation orders have been lifted, Carlson said, with no structures threatened or destroyed. But he cautioned homeowners to be careful when driving in the area because fire crews and equipment are still in the area.

The number of firefighters, originally numbering 225, was expected to drop to 150 by Saturdays end, he said. Thunderstorms were forecast for Saturday evening and fire officials were keeping a close eye for any new fire starts.

The fire had previously been estimated at 800 acres.

With how rugged the terrain is, it makes it tough to come up with an accurate number, Carlson said. Aerial mapping had it just over 470 acres.

The fire began Thursday evening after lightning moved through the Bull Mountain area. A Type I Incident Team is coordinating the firefighting efforts, with crews on scene from the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Forest Service, the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation and area fire departments.

On Saturday morning, public information officers also released final updates on the Lodgepole Complex and Buffalo fires.

The Lodgepole Complex fire, which started July 19 as four fires after a thunderstorm and eventually merged, burned an estimated 270,143 acres. The wildfire, located 52 miles west-northwest of Jordan and 15 miles east of Winnett, was 80 percent contained as of Saturday morning.

A total of 373 personnel were working on the fire, and crews and equipment will be reassigned as needed. A Western Montana Type II interagency team is in charge.

Weekend efforts included mop-up and continued rehabilitation work on the fire suppression lines.

The final Buffalo fire update, which encompasses the Buffalo and Stallion fires, both sparked by lightning on July 24, is 90 percent contained.

The Buffalo fire began 31 miles southwest of Broadus and spread into Campbell County, Wyo. The Stallion fire is in the Bittercreek area of Campbell County, 45 miles north of Gillette and within three miles of the Buffalo fire.

No structures were destroyed in the fires that blackened 3,020 acres. Mop-up operations continue on the fires that have been overseen by the Alaska Interagency Incident Management Team.
Hamza Shabaz to be next Punjab CM

LAHORE: Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, who is set to succeed his brother at the Centre in less than two months, is looking towards his son, Hamza Shabaz, as his replacement in Punjab so as to keep the position in the family, but also because he enjoys a degree of comfort in dealing with his son, say Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) insiders.



According to the party insiders, however, the final say on who gets to helm Punjab rests with ousted prime minister Nawaz Sharif, who is looking to consolidate the partys control in Punjab. The PML-N cannot afford to lose its grip on Punjab at this time, especially since the next general elections are barely a year away, says a senior PML-N leader.



Shahbaz wants his son, who is already acting as the deputy chief minister, to succeed him for the remaining term in Punjab. However, [it is up to] Nawaz Sharif to decide whether Hamza will be the right choice for the post or not, a senior PML-N legislator from Punjab told repoters. Whoever is nominated for the CM post will follow instructions from Shahbaz...but his level of comfort with his son will be higher than with an outsider. At the same time, Shahbaz wants to give his son the experience he needs to serve at the top level.



The PML-N leader added that Shahbaz would continue to oversee matters in Punjab indirectly, while his elder brother (Nawaz Sharif) would govern the Centre from his Raiwind residence.



After installing a new chief minister, Shahbazs duties will be doubled  partially looking after the affairs at the Centre, and keeping an eye on matters in Punjab full time. If Hamza manages to get the CM slot in Punjab he will be a strong candidate for this post in the 2018 polls as well, the leader said.



On Saturday, the deposed prime minister formally announced that Shahbaz would be his successor, while Petroleum Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi will be premier for 45 days till Shahbaz contests the by-election from NA-120 in order to get to the National Assembly.



But the decision to hand over Punjab to Hamza is not easy for Nawaz Sharif since he may not want to see his younger brother and his son ruling at the Centre and in Punjab...virtually taking over the party at the end of the day, the PML-N leader said, adding that the selection of Shahbazs replacement would be more difficult than at the Centre.



Rumours of Hamzas political tiffs with the former premiers family and children abound. He had not openly defended his uncle (Nawaz) in the Panama Papers case, choosing not to comment too much on the issue. Hamza is an MNA from NA-119, Lahore, and if selected for the post of CM, will have to contest the by-election from Raiwind, the seat his father will vacate. Nevertheless, both families have often vehemently denied rumours of any political disagreement.



A provincial minister told mediamen that the names of three of his colleagues  Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, Information Minister Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman and Food Minister Bilal Yasin  were also being considered for the CM slot. Any of these ministers will get the slot for 45 days if Hamza gets a go-ahead from the party leadership. In case Hamza fails to secure the blessing of the party leadership, one of the three ministers will get the full remaining term, he said.



The minister added that Rana Sanaullah enjoyed a seamless equation with Shahbaz Sharif as the former was considered one of the CMs most trusted lieutenants. Nevertheless, there was a chance that the law minister may not be the ultimate choice for the CM slot as the Sharifs need someone more pliant.



Mujtaba Shujaur Rehman hails from an influential Arian family of Lahore with strong roots in the PML-N. His father Mian Shujaur Rehman was the lord mayor of the Lahore Metropolitan Corporation and had close relations with the Sharif family.



Bilal Yasin is a relative of Kalsoom Nawaz, wife of Nawaz Sharif, which could be all the credential he needs to be selected for the slot.
Until three undocumented immigrants were rounded up and processed by ICE agents in March, St. Josephs Church in Fort Edward on Sundays was a melting pot of faces.

Members of up to 12 Mexican immigrant families, about 50 people in total, could be seen in the pews and at the altar, where Mexican immigrant children served as altar boys and girls.

No more, the Rev. Tom Babiuch said solemnly in a recent interview. They dont come here anymore. Theyre afraid to step out and have a normal life.

Babiuch said he knows the three people well, and said he cant fathom how a nation built by immigrants can allow agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to grab people off the streets  people who were doing nothing wrong  and put them into a limbo of fear, wondering what will happen next to them and their kids.

This country has been built on Christian values and Christian messages. To do this to these people is totally unChristian, he said.

ICE spokesman Khalid Walls said the apprehensions werent random, but the result of a tip.

In an effort to help the immigrants, both those here legally and illegally, Babiuch and Julie Leonelli, the churchs director of religious education, have formed a group theyre calling North Country Immigration Support.

The goal of the group is to educate people that the immigrants are valuable not only to the farms and quarries where they work, but the communities where they live.

They said major immigration reform at the federal level is needed.

On Thursday, immigration activists Lisa Catalfamo and Sue Sanchez presented a talk at the church on the need for immigration reform. They showed dozens of Catalfamos photos from the town in Mexico many local immigrants came from.

Catalfamo, who is married to a Mexican immigrant and works with another group that teaches immigrant women English and helps with family planning, traveled to the town and presented photos to family members of their loved ones who are now living in this area.

She captured the smiles  and tears  of those family members upon seeing the images of their sons and daughters who left Mexico to improve their lives. Catalfamo wants an overhaul of immigration law to allow immigrants to be able to pursue the American dream but stay connected to the families they leave behind.

At St. Josephs, the loss of the primarily Mexican immigrants is being felt by many of the congregants, including two women who were in the church recently, working on music for upcoming Masses.

They used to fill the first five pews, said Nancy LaFave, the music director, pointing to the left side of the church.

Now theyre afraid to come, choir member Brigitte Steffens said.

Leonelli said the families still pray, but they do so in their homes, where they have set up prayer corners.

Our church school year ended right about the same time all this happened. They stopped coming during that. They were not comfortable going out anymore, Leonelli said. Its sad, really sad, because its such a loss for the kids. Its a change in their quality of life.

Babuick reminisced about past Our Lady of Guadalupe services and celebrations, when the Mexican women would be all dressed up and singing songs in Spanish.
ALBANY  Robert and Lisa Moser, Saratoga Springs residents with strong ties to the local region, have made a $2.5 million donation to support the regions only pediatric plastic surgeon and The Cleft-Craniofacial Center at Albany Medical Center.

We are involved in a lot of charity donations, said Robert Moser, a successful businessman who owns and manages real estate assets, and sometimes you find one that grabs you by the heartstrings, and this is one of those.

The donation, made by the Mosers and their children Carson, 9, and Emery, 7, will allow Dr. Oluwaseun Adetayo and The Cleft-Craniofacial Center to serve more children from the region who are born with cleft, cranial and facial abnormalities.

Robert Moser is a 1995 graduate of Queensbury High School and graduated from Union College four years later. Lisa Moser is a 1993 graduate of Hudson Falls High School and graduated from Siena College.

Powell, who lives in Granville, attended the recent news conference announcing the gift and publicly thanked the Mosers for their donation. Her son had already been treated, but this gift will help others like him.

Powell said she and Dr. Adetayo are working together to raise people's knowledge of the issues.

Dr. Adetayo, section chief of Pediatric Plastic Surgery and director of The Cleft-Craniofacial Center, developed a unique model of care in which Albany Med physicians work alongside community-based specialists from numerous disciplines in The Cleft-Craniofacial Center.

She is a graduate of the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and serves as the director of the specialized center, which opened in 2015 and serves hundreds of children annually from northeastern New York and western New England.

The Mosers had funded cleft organizations globally, but upon realizing there was an outstanding program locally, Robert Moser, owner of Prime Group Holdings, decided to focus locally.

What were doing is the easy part. Its the doctors that perform the miracles, Robert Moser said. Its hard enough for a kid to go to school with anything that looks different. Something like a cleft lip or palate is a horrible thing to have. If we are able to correct it, it helps them have a happier life.

The Moser children are following their parents lead in making donations. They are giving from their own savings to organizations like the Ronald McDonald House and encouraging their classmates at St. Clements Regional Catholic School in Saratoga Springs to follow suit.
FORT EDWARD  Two people have been indicted in Washington County Court on drug charges in connection with a traffic stop on Christmas night.

Garfield R. Jones, of Fort Ann, and Tammy A. Reed-Corson, of Glens Falls, were arrested after the car they were in was stopped by State Police on Dix Avenue in Kingsbury for having a license plate light that was out.

They were found to have 25 grams of cocaine, 13 small glassine envelopes of heroin and 39 grams of marijuana, according to police.

Reed-Corson has been charged with two counts of third-degree criminal possession of a controlled substance and one count of criminal possession of a narcotic drug. Jones was indicted on one count each of criminal possession of a controlled substance and criminal possession of a narcotic drug.
BOLTON  The crackdown on impaired boaters on Lake George continued Saturday with two more boating while intoxicated arrests, bringing the total to at least nine for the year.

A New Jersey man and a Rockland County man were charged Saturday night during separate boating stops in the town of Bolton, police said. One was stopped for speeding in a no-wake zone, the other for operating without navigation lights at night, according to the Warren County Sheriffs Office.

The arrests have occurred as police crack down on impaired boating after a deadly summer last year in which 8-year-old Charlotte McCue died in a boat crash while in Lake George on vacation. The Lake George man blamed for the crash, Alexander M. West, had been drinking and using drugs and was convicted of manslaughter.

Charlottes death, and several other high-profile boating accidents last year, prompted a regional effort to make the lake safer, which has included shutting down the annual Log Bay Day party scheduled for Monday.

According to the Sheriffs Office, arrested Saturday night for misdemeanor BWI were:

Donald S. Baker, 65, of Flemington, New Jersey, arrested after he was spotted operating a boat near Dome Island at about 10:30 p.m. without navigation lights activated. His blood alcohol content was 0.11 percent, above the 0.08 percent threshold for intoxication.

Christopher G. Morris, 30, of Tappan, was stopped shortly before 8 p.m. after he was seen speeding in a no-wake zone in Sawmill Bay. His blood alcohol content was not released.

Both men also received tickets for the boating offenses that led to them being stopped, and they were released pending prosecution in Bolton Town Court. Sheriffs Patrol Officer Jeff Webster and Park Commission Officer R. Sutphen made the arrests.

Most of the increased number of BWI arrests this summer have come during a joint overnight boat patrol operated by the Warren County Sheriffs Office and Lake George Park Commission.

The total already exceeds the number of arrests for entire summers in some years past, the Park Commission making two all of last year, according to the agencys annual report.
WHITEFISH  The walls of Jersey Boy's Pizza in Whitefish hold bright paintings and sketches of bald figures with gritted teeth, floating heads and skeleton-like men. The lines are bold and show no hesitation. The characters are tough and ready to fight.

"The bad guys are interesting," artist Tyee Pancheri said.

He gave a partial smile as he looked at his work then shrugged and looked toward his sister, Mandee Johnson.

"It's like his alter-ego, because he's the loveliest man I know," Johnson said.

The people and things in Pancheri's daily path typically take a harsher reality on the pages of his sketchbook. Looking at the figures in each piece on display, it's not a jump to recognize some of his favorite things: action figures  the villains  heavy metal music, Pabst Blue Ribbon and cigars.

But people probably wouldn't recognize that the creator, 35, has Down syndrome. They probably wouldn't guess that he loves mowing the lawn each week and riding his bike to work at the Kalispell food pantry four days a week  a routine he's kept for the last decade.

"Tyee has a calm, easy-going presence," Johnson, 38, said. "He knows when someone needs a hug or had a bad day. But he can be shy."

Or as Pancheri puts it, "I'm not really a people person."

"Yeah, you can be pretty quiet around others. But your art has a little more chaos," Johnson added.

"That's true," he agreed with a grin.

Down syndrome is a genetic disorder that means Pancheri has an extra chromosome. The syndrome can cause delayed development, but it has different symptoms with each person who lives with it.

Johnson said for her brother, the syndrome has led to some speech difficulties, which she said might contribute to how shy he can be. Though, she added, being reserved is just part of his personality.

"But art doesn't need words," said Souheir Rawlings, an art instructor in Kalispell.

Rawlings works with people who struggle to communicate, for whatever reason. She helps them do it through art.

She said her students may have disabilities, but the only thing that's apparent in their work is "their tremendous abilities."

"Tyee, well he's magnificent, he's definitely got his own style," Rawlings said. "The people he creates, they seem strong and resilient and maybe a bit brave and heroic. Maybe it helps him feel that way in a world that's not always compassionate."

Maybe, she said, he finds power in those images.

The art displayed in Whitefish is a combination of Johnson and Pancheri. The people were created by Pancheri, the color provided by Johnson.

On a recent afternoon, Pancheri and his sister sat at their kitchen table which doubles as their studio. Pancheri turned the pages of one of his sketchbooks, looking for his favorite characters.

"He's going through a floating head phase," Johnson said as her brother rolled his eyes at her. "I kind of miss the bodies, Tyee. I miss the big monkey arms you would draw."

Johnson said when Pancheri was a child, he would sit with his legs folded on the living room floor, bent over papers with a crayon in his hand. When he felt overstimulated, the rhythm of moving his hand back and forth on the sheet and watching the lines appear helped him check out of whatever felt overwhelming.

Then, eventually, his pictures carried the faces and character of the dozens of action figures he collected. Over time, he created his own characters.

"His work is obviously what's in his mind and in his world, it's a glimmer into him," Johnson said.

About four years ago, Johnson began adding color to her brother's sketches. She started by tracing his work, saying "it felt safer that way." Then, she and Pancheri began playing with colors.

Sometimes it's just the two of them, sitting at the kitchen table adding to Pancheri's work. Sometimes friends and other family members join along.

Pancheri's character with spiky hair became a redhead with blue skin. A man with a surprised look on his face and a cigar hanging out of his mouth turned orange, and the shapes Pancheri had drawn behind the character each took a different color: red, green, yellow, purple and blue.

They also gave names to the pieces. They titled a man standing next to a 10-legged spider hanging from the ceiling "Spider Man."

For the last two years, Pancheri has taken classes with Rawlings at her studio Art and Soul, where she acts as an expressive arts consultant and educator. Since then, Johnson said her brother returns home with his own color-filled art.

"I think, for him, (art is) an opportunity to be something else, to be big and powerful," Johnson said. "And I understand that."

When the siblings' art first went up at Jersey Boys Pizza, Johnson said she and her brother met with friends for a slice of pizza and a round of beer.

They looked around the room at the finished project from years spent at the kitchen table adding to each other's work.

"He was giddy," Johnson said. "So was I. I wanted people to see it, to see him and his different abilities."

"I look at them as everything," Pancheri added, pointing to his characters. "And my routine, I need my routine."

"Yeah," Johnson said with a laugh. "Really we're just kind of boring, routine people that like to make art."

Johnson said she didn't know what they would do next  try to get his work in some more local locations or send it along to places where people with disabilities display their art in a larger format.

She said when they're asked whether the art is for sale and for how much, they don't really have an answer.

"I could probably part with some of them if I knew they would be loved," Johnson said looking toward her brother.

"Yeah," Pancheri agreed, nodding his head with a smile.
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Watch Charlize Theron kick some class in the stylish, violent Atomic Blonde.

This no PG-13-rated Bond movie. Its an R-rated, bone-crunching rampage, a la John Wick, with a well-dressed female protagonist. Sometimes, its double-crosses and triple-crosses are hard to follow, but thats not a big deal, because the fight scenes never disappoint.

Based on The Coldest City, a graphic novel, the show is directed by David Leitch, a stunt man who understands how important it is for the audience to see whats going on  especially during those moments when fists and jaws connect in this spy thriller.

Theron is agent Lorraine Broughton, an M16 agent who is being briefed throughout the film, which unfolds as the narrative she tells her superior (Toby Jones). The time period is just before the fall of the Berlin Wall.

A British agent with whom Lorraine was involved is killed, and she is dispatched to East Berlin to get her hands on a list of undercover agents. She also is assigned to find and eliminate a double, make that triple agent.

Theron is enjoyable in this role  shes a great action lead; shes so good, in fact, that I hope we see her in more actioners. One of the finest scenes involves her riding an elevator and coming to grips with the fact that she will need to exit shooting. Its a fantastic action sequence.

James McAvoy is wonderful as her Berlin contact whose motivations rarely are clear, and John Goodman is on hand for a smaller but entertaining role. Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service and Star Trek Beyond) is a standout as a French operative who seduces Lorraine (or is it the other way around?)

The look of the movie is one of the stars. Its washed-out, gritty appearance enhances its Cold War environment, which includes Therons appearance in stiletto heels and black-and-white outfits and her almost-white hair that sometimes ends up spattered with blood thats not always her own.

The film also boasts one of the finest soundtracks this year, with 1980s Europop that ranges from Der Commissars After the Fire to 99 Luftballoons and Voices Carry by Til Tuesday.

Leitch does a commendable job of directing, never pulling any punches, so to speak, when violence erupts, which is often. He is, not so incidentally, directing Deadpool 2, a hotly anticipated sequel.
JACKSON, Wyo.  Grand Teton National Park will receive $2 million to complete renovations around its feature attraction, Jenny Lake.

The Jackson Hole News and Guide reports about $757,000 of that money is coming from the National Park Service's Centennial Challenge Program. The rest, $1.26 million, will come from the Grand Teton National Park Foundation.

The challenge program is aimed at completing deferred maintenance in national parks.

Grand Teton is in its fourth year of renovations around Jenny Lake, including fixing six facilities and a nearby visitor center.

Park spokesman Andrew White says part of the funding will be used to fix an interpretive plaza. The work will begin this summer and continue into next year.
Iowa Democrat Nate Boulton has won an important endorsement in his race for governor.

The American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees Council 61 is throwing its support to him.

The union's leadership announced the decision at its convention Saturday night in Des Moines.

The endorsement for Boulton, a state senator from Des Moines, is the latest in a string of union support that he has received.

AFSCME represents 40,000 public employees, and at a time when many of them are upset over the law passed in this year's legislative session to significantly reduce their collective bargaining rights, they are a force to be reckoned with in next year's election.

Danny Homan, president of the union, credited Boulton, a labor law attorney, for his work opposing the collective bargaining measure, as well as his opposition to a bill that changes the state's workers' compensation law. It, too, passed the Republican-dominated Legislature.

"He has just been a fighter for working men and women his entire life," Homan said.

Justin Cole, a member of the committee that approved the endorsement, praised Boulton for standing up for workers and for the excitement he says he is generating among his members.

"I think hes going to renew a lot of hope in the younger voters," said Cole, who is vice president of an AFSCME local in Mount Pleasant. "Hes definitely got the ability to motivate people.

Homan said the union did extensive surveys of its membership and held a forum about a month ago that was open to AFSCME members and included five of the candidates.

In addition to grass roots help, AFSCME 61 also will help with donations, Homan said, but he didn't know yet how much that would be.

Boulton said he is grateful for the endorsement.

"Every day, Iowa's public employees go to work keeping our communities safe and doing everything they can to ensure all Iowans have a high quality of life," he said.

Boulton is one of several Democrats seeking the party's nomination to run for governor.
A methamphetamine investigation by the Davenport Police Departments Tactical Operations Bureau has led to the arrest of two men on drugs and firearms charges.

Jeremiah Allen McKinney, 32, is charged with two counts of possession with intent to deliver methamphetamine. Each of the charges is a Class B felony under Iowa law that carries a prison sentence of up to 25 years.

McKinney is also charged with one count of trafficking in stolen weapons first offense and failure to have an Iowa drug tax stamp. Those charges are Class D felonies that carry a prison sentence of up to five years.

Trevor Terrence Kunze, 24, is charged with one count each of trafficking in stolen weapons first offense and possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. Both charges are class D felonies.

According to the arrest affidavits filed by police, late Friday officers were following a silver Oldsmobile Alero. McKinney was the front seat passenger in the car.

The car parked at the Hy-Vee grocery store at 1823 E. Kimberly Road, and Kunze, who was a passenger in the back seat, got out of the car and went into the store.

Officers then made contact with McKinney. Police seized 29.6 grams of methamphetamine from McKinney along with $975 cash.

Another person in the back seat had 8 grams of methamphetamine. That person was not arrested at the time. McKinney admitted to selling the person the 8 grams of methamphetamine, according to the arrest affidavits.

Officers also went inside the Hy-Vee and took Kunze into custody. Kunze had a black Beretta .40-caliber Model PX4 Storm concealed in his front waistband. The gun, which had been stolen, had two .40-caliber bullets in the magazine. Officers were not able to run the serial number of the weapon as the serial number had been defaced.

McKinney admitted to giving the stolen weapon to Kunze, according to the affidavits.

Kunze was convicted of grand theft auto in 2014 in Winter Haven, Florida, in 2014, and is not allowed to possess a firearm.

Federal authorities could take over the weapons charges, which would mean a long prison sentence as there is no parole in the federal system.

McKinney was being held Saturday night in the Scott County Jail on a $100,000 bond, cash or surety.

Kunze also was being held Saturday night in the Scott County Jail on a $10,000 bond, cash or surety.

-- Thomas Geyer
A faulty air conditioner is being looked at as the cause of a fire that damaged a Davenport home late Friday.

Firefighters were dispatched to 1329 Mississippi Ave. at 10:56 p.m. for a house fire, authorities said.

Firefighters with Engine 4 A-Shift arrived on the scene to find smoke and flames shooting from the window air conditioner on the south side of the home. The fire was quickly put out.

Firefighters entered the house and put out flames on a couch that was sitting underneath the window.

No one was home at the time the fire broke out, and there were no injuries, authorities said.

The 576-square-foot one-story frame home built in 1900 suffered both smoke and fire damage. There was no damage estimate available Saturday.

-- Thomas Geyer
Make no mistake, pensions in Illinois are at the heart of the state's structural failings. But Gov. Bruce Rauner's pledge to scuttle a key educational funding bill, Senate Bill 1, is not the hill on which to die.

Rauner is scrambling and his agenda is a shambles. And his acts of desperation are making him more difficult to support and defend by the day.

This month's veto override that ended a two-year budget impasse was a significant loss for Illinois' Republican governor. The standoff accomplished nothing of value. That bipartisan rebuke of Rauner's veto, in many ways, left Illinois back where it started prior to Rauner taking office.

What was the point, exactly?

Taxes were hiked. Education is stressed. Pensions dominate state-level decision-making, to the detriment of college students, the elderly and those with disabilities.

As if Illinois can't go a month without crisis, the state again finds itself wondering if school districts will get the cash promised in the budget. That's because the budget releases the funds only upon the passage of a new distribution formula. SB 1 contains that new formula, which would right decades-old inequality that has hammered small, rural schools for too long.

Rauner, however, has promised a line-item veto for, perhaps, one of the legislation's most significant components that would send anywhere from $100 million to $200 million  roughly 2 percent of total educational spending  to Chicago Public School District, or CPS, to pay for its pension shortfall. Rauner's administration calls it a bailout. Lawmakers from Chicago counter that CPS is the only district in Illinois that doesn't already receive funding for pensions. In essence, the bill makes CPS whole.

Many an analyst have argued that killing the CPS pension piece would legally kill SB 1. In effect, Rauner could be issuing a full veto, whether he intended to or not.

There's no doubt that much of Rauner's consternation is about playing to his base. It's easy to bang around downstate Illinois blasting Chicago fat cats. Parochialism is good politics in a state like Illinois. But it's also an explosive chemical compound.

Divisive populist regionalism will never fix Illinois' failing pension system. It's a pointless attack on the symptom that does nothing to cure the disease.

More than two years of brinkmanship accomplished precisely zilch for Illinois. But, politically desperate, it appears Rauner is going all in as his 2018 re-election bid nears. After the budget defeat, he sacked his most senior staff. He replaced it with right-wing partisans from the Illinois Policy Institute. And now, he's banging around the state scapegoating his state's one major market.

Rauner's rightward leap risks not only his political fortunes but the well-being of his state.

In the Quad-Cities, numerous superintendents have come out in support of SB 1. It would mean millions in new revenue for districts in East Moline and Rock Island that, for too long, have struggled under the weight of an angst-ridden local tax base and Springfield's dysfunction. SB 1 would, finally, mean administrators and school boards could draft a budget with a measure of confidence about state aid.

Pensions are the problem, governor. In that, there can be no disagreement. That reality can't be fixed without a constitutional amendment, court rulings have repeatedly proven. It's a goal attainable only with Democrats and unions at the table, however. Anything else is a political impossibility.

Picking this fight with CPS is a gamble. The votes simply don't exist to pass Rauner's school funding bill, which excludes the CPS provision. Another bipartisan veto override could reduce Rauner to a lame-duck. At best, the issue heads to a protracted court case that leaves schools in the lurch well into 2018.

Republican lawmakers, including the Quad-Cities' Rep. Tony McCombie and Sen. Neil Anderson, must support an override, if it comes to that. Anything else would be joining Rauner in a political folly that solves nothing.

Or, instead, Rauner could prove to be the reasonable Republican whom we've long supported. He could sign the legislation. He could assure educational funding gets released on time. And he could start building the case for the constitutional amendment that grapples with the pension fiasco once and for all.
PITTSBURGH | Zach Scott was a year old and his brother was still in the womb when their dad got laid off from Halliburton in 1986, the year after oil prices tanked and ushered in the largest industry downturn until, some argue, the current one.

Within two years, 20 percent of the workers in the oil and gas industry had lost their jobs. Many of them did not return and they discouraged their children from going into the industry  creating a generational gap that is now coming home to roost.

Scott's father did neither of those things. He kept coming back to the oil and gas fields, despite the multiple layoffs that used to count as battle scars for industry veterans.

Cautiously, things appear to be turning up again, leaving companies scrambling for workers and wondering if those they have let go will return. If those former employees don't come back, will the industry known for bluster, swearing and endless hours away from home be able to recruit the hot-shot smarts it needs to move forward?

At the end of each cycle, about 30 percent of the workers who lose their jobs don't come back, said Tony Angelle, a vice president with Halliburton. His company is thinking about ways to attract talent now that activity is picking up again after a two-year slump.

They "don't want anything to do with the oil and gas business," he said at the Developing Unconventional Gas East conference in Pittsburgh in June.

Another fraction of the former workforce comes back reluctantly, still bitter about having been laid off, he said.

There are people who fall in love with the business and never want to leave, said Jared Oehring, vice president of technology with U.S. Well Services. But if the business  cycles and all  is to be made worthwhile for more than just the die-hards, the tradition of oilfield culture needs an upgrade.

"If times are tough and supervisors are yelling and cursing, like the old-school oil business," it will repel many workers, Oehring said.

As oil and gas companies are starting to negotiate what work-life balance means in the context of their business, even those that choose to remain are thinking differently about their work.

Scott is a case in point.

Just out of high school in the northern Pennsylvania county of Bradford, his father got him a job at the wash bay of Superior Well Services. It paid $7.25 an hour, $2 more than his gig at the local cemetery.

Zach Scott took the job and went on thinking he was going to be a science teacher. Washing trucks turned into an internship doing lab work, then work in the field  logging, blending cement, coordinating hydraulic fracturing jobs.

Superior hired Scott as an engineer, even though he had no formal engineering training. Superior was working on shallow wells, not the blockbuster shale wells common today. The money wasn't nearly as good as it is now. The hours were tough. There was a lot of cursing and crude talk. It was the old-school oilfield, and Scott liked it just fine.

In 2009, months after the Great Recession had begun, he got his first taste of the downturn. He was laid off.

That downturn wasn't a major blow. The industry contraction was shorter and less severe than in prior cycles, especially in Pennsylvania, where the Marcellus Shale had been discovered and companies rushed to mark their territory in the promising new shale play.

As Scott prepared to go back to school to get his teaching certificate, he heard from a recruiter and eventually accepted a job as a project manager for Pinnacle, a Halliburton company.

"I was pretty much working 340 days out of the year, at least 16 hours a day," he said. "That's just field work. Not counting phone calls."

He started working the night shift and making sales calls during the day, with the eventual goal of becoming a district manager and settling down. At one point, his boss said he wanted to know about his home life.

"I said, 'Boss, I'm never home.'"

"What are you saying?" his boss said.

"Well, I don't have a life," Scott said.

He sought a managerial position but didn't get it and left the company in August 2013.

Next was a sales job with a wireline company, which lasted two years. Then another wireline firm, which lasted a month.

This layoff came just before Super Bowl weekend in 2016. Scott's father  who at that point had bounced around to a few other well service firms  was let go the same week.

Another month passed and Scott was offered a job with Weatherford, a large oilfield services company. The most recent downturn was underway, and drilling companies were pulling back on their capital budgets.

Scott had his guard up. He told his would-be boss, "If you can make me feel confident about coming over there, then I'm your man. But I don't want to be left out in the cold."

"He said, 'Zach, Weatherford truly believes that the industry is coming back and they're ready for this return.'"

The reassuring voice was laid off two months later, and Scott outlasted him by only a few weeks.

Over the years, Scott has considered going back to his original career choice. But now he is "hip deep in this stuff."

"I've got a lot of contacts," he said. "At what point do you just walk away?"

Ten years ago, the oil and gas industry was plucking people from the street, luring workers from other professions and paying them great money to accommodate the shale ramp up, said Bob Newhouse, whose Texas-based Newhouse Consultants helps oil and gas companies with their talent management.

"If you could walk and chew gum, you're hired," was the motto of the day.

By the time these newbies were laid off a few years later, they hadn't been steeped in the industry long enough to want to brave its cycles again and again.

The evolving oil and gas industry may not have room for them anyway, as it ramps up for another potential upswing, Newhouse said.

New technology and equipment, digitization, big data  they all require a different skill set and may be the reason that 81 percent of oil and gas CEOs surveyed by Ernst & Young earlier this year said the industry will need to rebuild its workforce with more educated, higher skilled workers over the next decade.

It also will need to overcome an image problem. That same study and another by Deloitte found that younger generations were turned off by the prospect of oil and gas.

"They primarily see the industry's careers as unstable, blue-collar, difficult, dangerous and harmful to society," Ernst & Young wrote. "Perhaps most concerning, more than two out of every three teens believe the oil and gas industry causes problems rather than solves them."

The surveys showed another generational disconnect. While CEOs thought that salary and the ability to work with cutting-edge technology would be at the top of the list for young employees, young workers who were surveyed placed a much greater emphasis on work-life balance, happiness at work and stability than did their potential bosses.

Part of accommodating that shift is recognizing that the old oilfield culture, that "rough and tumble" spirit that both bonded and kept oilfield workers on edge in the past will no longer suffice, Newhouse said.

When Cliff Simmons, now a sales representative for wellhead manufacturer Stream-Flo USA, showed up for his first oil and gas job some 40 years ago, his future boss barked out only two sentences: "What the do you want?" and "When can you start?"

Another supervisor was famous for asking his underlings, "Does your mother know you're this stupid?" A day when he wasn't yelling and hurling insults is the day employees grew nervous, Simmons recalled fondly.

Some of that behavior has been attenuated by a sharper focus on safety, he said, which requires more standardization and less mischief. Where once it was common to hear "once he gets hurt, he'll learn," that would be unacceptable in today's climate.

Some companies use personality profiles to guide how workers interact with each other. Chevron employees answer a series of questions describing themselves and in the end they get a color marker. Red is a "doer." Green is a "thinker."

Newhouse has seen the colors on hard hats and posted on office doors. While the system risks oversimplifying, he's found it to be a helpful indicator for supervisors to tailor their approach to individual employees.

On a recent muggy Wednesday evening at the Coraopolis Cobblehaus Brewing Co. outside Pittsburgh, where the brew master is an oil and gas engineer, Scott printed out name tags for guests at a mixer for the networking group Young Professionals in Energy.

He wore bootcut jeans with a large horseshoe belt buckle and dress shoes, a mixture he said represents a little bit of the South and a little bit of him.

When asked for his business card, he pulled out a pile and fanned them out.

"Which one should I give you," he wondered aloud.

There were at least three options: northeast account executive for Basin Energy Group, sales representative for a lubricant company called Gator Industrial Solutions LLC, and associate for Aflac. He'd left the other two options at home, Scott explained.

He's juggling a handful of gigs with a new perspective  he's a newlywed.

He met his wife when he left the field work for sales.

"That's another reason why the downturn is such a huge hit," he said. "When (workers) were traveling all the time, you didn't know what you were missing. Now that they know, they don't want to give it up."

Scott said he passed on opportunities to work in the oilfields of Texas and North Dakota because he didn't want to give up his courtship.

He's got high hopes for the lubricant business, though, and might pull his father back into the oil and gas business.

His dad, after the latest layoff, took a job with the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation and plans to retire from the agency.
The need to expand is a daunting challenge for any business owner, but, all things considered, there are worse problems to have than the pressing need for more space.

Weve been in business here for about 12 years and actually outgrew our building a long time ago, said Shawn Darling, owner of Recreation Station in Spearfish, a dealer in new and pre-owned boats and marine accessories, which broke ground for an expanded sales and service center just east of their current location at 2935 E. Colorado Blvd.

Their current sales and service facility is 2,600 square feet on an approximate one-half acre lot. The new building will be more than five times as big, 15,000 square feet on eight acres of land, allowing what Darling called an across the board expansion in sales of boats, accessories and other motorsports items and service.

Its a big deal for us, Darling said. We decided to make the big investment in our community and in our staff.

Last weeks groundbreaking was more than ceremonial. Excavators are already at the site, and he hopes to be in the new facility yet this year, Darling said.

We are rolling, he said.

For more information, call Recreation Station at 605-717-4386 or check out their website recstation.net.

Drug-testing business

Ken and Dory Batka of Spearfish recently opened Vigilant Business Solutions, providing workplace drug testing and background check services in Rapid City, the Black Hills and across South Dakota.

The national concern over drug addiction and its effect on the workplace has created a need for more drug-testing services, and the legalization of marijuana in states like Colorado has made drug screening all the more important, Batka said in a news release.

Just because it is legal to smoke it does not mean it is allowed at work, he said.

Vigilant is based in Spearfish and recently joined the Rapid City Area Chamber of Commerce. The firm offers pre-employment screening, criminal background, national sex and violent offender registries, DMV driving history, education verification, employment verification, credit reports and tenant screening, according to the release.

They provide on-site drug testing performed at an employers place of business to remove the inconvenience of lost time and money from traveling off-site.

By coming to the customer, we make the whole process more affordable, convenient and allow the employee to remain at work, Batka said.

Vigilant also offers hair follicle, DNA, paternity testing and home drug-testing kits for parents.

For more information, call 605-642-1491 or check out vigilantbusinesssolutions.com.

Tail-wagging success

Rebecca and Jeff Almy encountered a railroad derailment and a personal loss in a journey to expand their dog-care business.

According to a release from the South Dakota Small Business Development Center, an 18-month search for a new location was derailed for a couple of weeks by a train accident that dumped bentonite on the property they had hoped to close on in Black Hawk.

Among other complications came the biggest setback  Rebeccas father died during preparations to move into the new space.

That was a couple of years ago, and now their business, Tails n Training is a tail-wagging success, thanks to help from the SDSBDC.

Tails n Training offers dog training, grooming and overnight kennel stays, along with washing stations for pets.

Rebecca gained experience in dog training and care in upstate New York before she and Jeff moved to Rapid City, her hometown. They started their business in Rapid City in 2010 but soon needed more room.

Dona Leavens, regional director of the Rapid City Small Business Development Center, helped the couple with planning the expansion and Fran White, a Black Hills Community Economic Development loan officer, helped them get financing through the Small Business Adminstration 504 loan program.

Black Hills Community Economic Development recognized Rebecca, Jeff and Tails n Training as 2016 Expansion Business of the Year.
SPEARFISH | The Black Hills State University science labs have been buzzing all summer, as more than 20 students conduct research with faculty mentors.

A variety of programs and partnerships provide financial support to students as they pursue their research. 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 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.

Brianna Mount, assistant professor of physics at BHSU, directs the REU program in collaboration with Sanford Underground Research Facility. She said 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, Mount said.

The research opportunities at BHSU have gained national attention. Mount is working with seven visiting students from other universities for a 10-week REU research program. These students are conducting research in the areas of biology, chemistry and physics on campus through Aug. 4.

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, said the purpose is to encourage students at a turning point in their careers to stay within science, technology, engineering and math 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, Mount said.

During the Davis-Bahcall summer program students spent five weeks exploring 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.
By Art Lawsons calculations, it would take 20 to 30 game wardens to adequately patrol over 2 million acres of tribal land on the Wind River Reservation.

But come the August eclipse, when more than 10,000 visitors are expected to descend on Fremont County and the reservation, the Shoshone and Arapaho Fish and Game director will have three. Same as always.

Tourism officials and authorities in Fremont County have been working on eclipse preparations for two years, relying on consultants and broad task forces. Planning on the reservation, though, has largely fallen to Lawson.

Hes been at it for three weeks.

I just got the directors position, Lawson said. Well see what happens.

County contrast

Fremont County took some warming up to the importance of the August eclipse.

When I heard about it at first, I was like, eh, said Jordan Dresser, who does public relations for the Wind River Casino, which has been planning for the event for more than a year.

Then the data started piling up. A consultants report in early 2016 projected up to 20,000 eclipse visitors on top of an already busy summer tourism season in the area. After Casper, Fremont County has emerged as the second most popular location in Wyoming for tourists to view the totality.

The local visitors council started promoting Fremont County as a destination, and communities from Dubois to Lander have prepared unique programming. Public authorities have been working on the logistics of handling thousands of out-of-state visitors traveling to view roughly two minutes of the sun disappearing behind the moon.

Excitement has spread.

Its a small community, said Wind River Visitors Council spokeswoman Casey Adams. Everybody I talked to  theyve got family and relatives showing up.

In the county, hotels, vacation rentals and campgrounds are still available during the eclipse, and the visitors council website lists dozens of accommodation options.

But opinions about, and preparation for, the coming eclipse vary depending where one stands in central Wyoming.

Concerns and hope

On the reservation, its complicated. The two major tribal-owned casinos are offering eclipse programs and lodging, and a local nonprofit is offering tepee stays in one of the small population centers.

But while nobody is sure exactly how many people will be around on Aug. 21 to view the eclipse, it is very possible that more visitors will come than can be accommodated at the casinos  which are familiar with working with tourists  and the tepee camping operation. Other than the signs denoting reservation boundaries, there is little to inform travelers that the open spaces bordering the state roads through the reservation are private land requiring special permission to access.

Lawson is planning to put up more signs and will try to block off some of the more sensitive sacred sites and graves.

Buying food, gas and other essentials may also be a challenge for visitors who find themselves on remote parts of the reservation, which often lacks cellphone service.

Paula McCormick, with the visitors council, said that one of the most popular destinations on the morning of the eclipse will be tiny Crowheart, on the northern edge of the reservation, due to the length of the total eclipse.

The center line is Crowheart, McCormick said. For the people who have traveled to do this ... the importance to them is being as close to the center line as possible.

The Crowheart Store, with its expansive convenience store, post office and gas station, is the only service stop for miles in either direction.

Eclipse keychains and shirts are already on display, and owner Lloyd Haslam said hell keep additional supplies and gas on hand for the expected visitors. But he was wary of overstocking and skeptical of whether more than a few tourists would purchase the expensive camping permits for the designated area near the town.

Ive had people all summer talking about it as tourist people come in and stuff, Haslam said. Heck, I could care less.

Camping opened

While camping for non-tribal members is usually allowed only adjacent to bodies of water where fishing is permitted, the tribal councils have agreed to open three broad swaths of land for camping: two southwest of Highway 26 and 287 and one northeast of the Wind River.

Permits will be required, covering the week leading up to the eclipse and costing $500. Viewing the eclipse from reservation side roads will also require a day permit.

Despite the remote nature of the camping areas, no portable toilet facilities or garbage cans will be provided.

You pack it in, you pack it out, Lawson said. We will cite.

While the Bureau of Indian Affairs is planning to bring in additional officers from Montana to patrol the reservation during the week leading up to the eclipse, law enforcement of all kinds will be stretched thin.

Lawson and his wardens have the authority to cite and arrest lawbreakers on the reservation, but they rely on the Fremont County Sheriffs Department to actually transport detainees to jail. On the day of the eclipse, when many day trippers are expected, that may be a tough sell.

Wind River Casino spokeswoman Jackie Dorothy said the sheriffs department has told homeowners to protect their own land.

During this one day, people are going to be told they have to defend their homes themselves, Dorothy said.

Lawson acknowledges enforcement will be a challenge.

Its a special event, and were going to have stuff happen, he said. The biggest problem is going to be trespassing and littering.

Mitigating mishaps

In part, that is why the tribal casinos are offering eclipse programs.

Dorothy said the Arapaho-owned Wind River Casino will be offering reservation tours and two eclipse viewing areas. One, at the main casino, will offer traditional Arapaho songs during the event.

Thats the reason for designating those two spots, she said. Just so you know youre not trespassing on sacred lands or in someones yard.

Lawson has already had to discourage a German film crew that wanted to perch on Crowheart Butte to film the eclipse.
Hats off to Governor Pete Ricketts and a couple state agencies for formalizing an approach to international trade.

Nebraska governors have been leading trade missions to other countries for at least three decades, but the Ricketts plan unveiled during his second annual Summit on Economic Development in Lincoln, creates a Council for International Relations in conjunction with the departments of agriculture and economic development.

Is this a big deal? The export of more than $6 billion in agricultural products in 2015, more than 25 percent of the states agricultural cash receipts, makes it a big deal. The fact that it brings together business, agriculture and education groups to expand overseas trade opportunities and new international partnerships is reassuring.

I have often wondered, important as it is for Nebraska to be a global player, if the trade missions were just a way for some state officials to get out of the country. Sure, the reports have trickled in that people in one country are buying Nebraska beef and another country is buying some kind of cash crop. But it has been hard to quantify their importance to the big picture.

The Nebraska Governors Council for International Relations is an important next step to grow trade for the state by leveraging combined resources, growing current investments in Nebraska and exploring prospects for future partnerships. Ricketts has outlined three goals for the council: 1) developing long-term strategies for expanding existing and developing new trade relationships; 2) growing partnerships and identifying new collaborations with overseas counterparts; and 3) growing current investments in Nebraska while exploring prospects for future investment.

At least 20 organizations are involved in the council. Lets hope that meetings of such a large group dont become unwieldy and that the plan is to create working groups with future direction based on formal action suggested by reports from those groups. Lets also demand public accountability from the council to give us a comfort level that they are on track to delivering what has been promised.

UNL Chancellor Ronald Green said global engagement has been helping Nebraska attract top-level talent and establish innovative partnerships for years. He said hes hopeful that the council will allow Nebraskans to come together to take a long-term view of the states effort to grow in a global world.

Nebraska Corn Growers Association Vice President Den Nerud offered an interesting perspective. He said with 95 percent of the worlds population living outside Nebraskas borders, there is great potential for growth.

Its not the property tax relief for which the Nebraska ag sector has been clamoring, but it does sound like it has the potential to benefit farmers and ranchers state-wide. Lets hope it works.
The Nebraska Commission on Indian Affairs (NCIA) along with the Mid-America Transportation Center (MATC) hosted the Sovereign Native Youth STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) Leadership Academy in Lincoln this week. I was part of a tour with these Middle and High School students of the Capitol and later a tour of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) Museum near Ashland. I really enjoyed working with these exceptional young people, who came from all over Nebraska.

This week also included a radio interview with the Chadron radio. So I could be in two places at once, my Legislative Aide did a radio interview with KRVN in Lexington where the Right to Repair legislation was discussed. I co-sponsored this bill (LB 67) that would restore ownership, or what I consider to be just basic property rights, to owners of agriculture equipment. Information technology has advanced to the point everything has an on-board computer which owners of ag equipment cannot repair themselves because they cannot access software operating systems. Ag equipment owners should have the same rights of ownership an automobile owner has. If you have a car with a problem, you can plug in a little hand-held diagnostic computer and read a fault code and find out what part is bad and replace it yourself. If you own a shiny new half-a-million dollar piece of ag equipment with a problem, you cant even start the engine without paying a technician to come out and access the operating software. I hope folks contact the members of the Judiciary Committee and urge them to support this bill and vote it out to General File so we can debate it and pass this legislation.

My staff also attended a hearing about the 911 emergency system this week. There are a lot of challenges making sure everyone in the state has access to basic cell phone/wireless coverage so no matter where you are, you can dial 911 and call for help. Thats the goal in the law and getting there, especially in places like the Sandhills, is a considerable challenge. This infrastructure is taken for granted in the urban areas of our state, so not everyone realizes the urgent need we face in the western Nebraska. I am a strong supporter of efforts to expand wireless coverage and we have to do everything we can in the Legislature to promote this. Unless theyve been out west recently, No Service is not something a lot of people in Nebraska have seen on their phone in a long time. Like everything else, this capability costs money so funding is also a serious concern.

The staff and I continue to discuss the property tax issue with many citizen groups and a number of Senators. I think a ballot initiative is going to happen this summer, along with a legislative resolution a number of senators support early next session. I am excited and very hopeful we will see something soon, and I will be supporting it.

The Nebraska constitution says the legislature shall provide for the free instruction in the common schools. What has happened instead is the legislature provided laws that ended up forcing 70% of the States school districts (175 of 249) to operate without financial support from the State. In those school districts, 100% of the costs are being paid for entirely by local property tax payers. This is a very divisive situation where most urban schools end up with State dollars supporting them, and most rural schools do not.

The bottom line is the Legislature has to find a way for the State of Nebraska to pay a lot more for K-12 education than it does right now.

Ill be at the Middle Niobrara Natural Resource Districts Conservation Field Day in Ainsworth 26th of the July. Later that day Ill be at the ribbon cutting for the new Mid-Plains Community College in Valentine. Ill also be at the Sheridan County Parade in Gordon on the the 29th of July as well as the County Fair and Rodeo.
Firefighters who responded to a raging mobile home fire near Black Hawk on Friday morning were told that people might be inside, but the blaze was so hot they were unable to go into the home to rescue them.

They put out the fire, but not before three people had died inside the burned-out home. Two other people in the home were able to escape with only minor injuries.

The fire that started about 4:56 a.m. Friday destroyed the mobile home at 4640 Sturgis Road in B&J Mobile Home Park northwest of Rapid City and caused a grass fire and damage to another nearby home. Firefighters on their way to the blaze could reportedly see the flames from several miles away.

At a Friday afternoon news conference, officials announced that three people were found dead in the home.

Officials with the Rapid City Fire Department, Pennington County Sheriff's Office, Black Hawk Fire Department and the Pennington County Fire Administrator's office said two of the victims were adults but that one victim's age was unknown. Identities of the victims were not released by authorities by Friday evening.

Rapid City Fire Department Lt. Jim Bussell said when firefighters arrived, they found one trailer engulfed in flames and that despite attempts to enter the home, it was too hot to get inside.

"The structure was fully involved, so the amount of fire that was presented to the firefighters when they arrived was such that it didn't allow for entry," Bussell said. "They do what they can with what they have at that point."

The fire also caused a small grass fire. Bussell said the mobile home fire was so hot, it damaged some of the siding on the exterior of an adjacent home. Officials don't believe any of the second mobile home's interior was damaged.

Law enforcement officers were able to evacuate the second mobile home quickly.

The first mobile home is a total loss. Officials are now worried about the stability of the floor in the trailer due to the heavy damage sustained from the fire.

More than 12 agencies responded to the fire, Bussell said.

"We appreciate the cooperation of all responding agencies, and that's how we handle things in this part of the world, part of western South Dakota," Pennington County Fire Administrator Jerome Harvey said. "Everybody works together and this was, again, another example of that."

Bussell said mobile homes are lightweight construction, so fires burn "quickly and hot."

He said B&J Mobile Home Park is a "fairly densely populated" area with several structures within a small piece of land.

There was one other minor injury as a result of the fire, and that person was being treated. No firefighters were injured during the blaze.

The cause is being investigated by the state fire marshal.
HERMOSA | Chris Ficek knows the perils of searching for treasure.

"Weve almost died a few times," he said, recounting stories from all seasons.

But it's not gold he's after  it's rocks. More precisely, agate.

Finding a Fairburn agate takes dedication and persistence, but hiking miles into the often unexplored wilderness to find these elusive rocks can be dangerous, as Ficek knows all too well.

He and his partner have fallen through the ice "a few different times." Once, when he was by himself, he was crossing a river and went under with his pack on. Ficek said he struggled for air and nearly drowned.

Then there was the time he and his partner ran out of water when it was 110 degrees outside. His partner threw up until he couldn't throw up any more.

"We barely managed to make it back to the car, he said.

Ficek, a vendor from Sturgis, told stories of his Fairburn agate hunts to other rock hounds gathered at his booth Saturday at the Fairburn Agate Rock Swap at the Custer County Fairgrounds in Hermosa.

In previous years, the event has been hosted in Rapid City; this is the first year it has been held in Hermosa. The annual event started on Friday and continues through Sunday, as enthusiasts from across South Dakota and the Midwest gather to share in their admiration of the rare rock.

Event organizer Tom Woodden hopes the rock swap will inspire younger rock hunters to get more involved in the hobby.

Were trying to build up interest among the young people. I am one of the old-timers, and all the older generation rock hounds have built up collections. Now, were trying to make sure the younger generation is interested.

Ficek has been attending the rock swap for a couple of years. He was a miner in the Rocky Mountains until he broke his back and decided to return to South Dakota.

"With my full body cast still on, I started looking for Fairburns, and Ive been doing it ever since, he said. I just do it for my kids, so theyll have something.

Often used in decoration, the Fairburn agate is the state gemstone of South Dakota, due to the large deposits found in the Black Hills. There is an especially large deposit found near the small town of Fairburn.

People come to South Dakota from all over to collect the Fairburn agate. We think it is one of the best stones in the world, as far as an agate. The Fairburn agate is noted worldwide for its quality and patterns, Woodden said. If youre lucky, you might find one.

More than a dozen vendors lined the Custer County Fairgrounds on Saturday to display their rare rocks, rock jewelry, and agate-inspired art. They swapped stories from the field with the other rock hunters who perused their booths.

Fairburn agates are known for their deep and varied colors that form rings inside the rock. The beauty of South Dakotas gemstone inspired one Pine Ridge artist and rock hunter to display their unique patterns and colors in paintings of other South Dakota and Lakota symbols.

Dustin Twiss, a member of the Oglala Lakota tribe, is a modern conceptual artist who has created his own unique style that he calls "fortification art." He has spent more than 20 years hunting rocks but was inspired to create his art only after seeing the beauty of the elusive Fairburn agate. Using the patterns and colors of the agate, he creates scenes familiar to South Dakota, such as buffalo, landscapes and Black Hills skies.

When I found my first agate, I was hooked, said Twiss of his rock hunting.

He was introduced to the hobby by his grandmother, who kept a collection. His home was near rock beds, so he could go out and search with his friends.

"Most people have to come miles from Rapid City to look, but I can find them in my yard," he said.

Twiss said not everyone fully appreciates his art, but others are very enthusiastic. One piece, for example, uses the rich colors of the agate to show cold and warm air washing over the Badlands.

Some people lose their minds when they see my art, and others walk on by, said Twiss. "Each piece is a tribute to our skies, wildlife, spirit, culture, history of the Great Plains.
The state of Nebraska may have shut down liquor stores in the reservation border town of Whiteclay, but that hasn't stopped people in the area from getting alcohol.

Liquor outlets in four nearby communities have seen a big boost in sales since beer stores in Whiteclay were ordered to close.

The closures, which are being appealed, came after state officials worried about lax enforcement of alcohol laws, and also that millions of cans of beer were being sold in Whiteclay, including to residents of the adjacent and supposedly "dry" Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Business is particularly booming in Rushville, Whiteclay's closest neighbor in northwest Nebraska.

Sales there have more than tripled, from 3,729 gallons of beer in April to 12,962 gallons in June, according to data compiled by the Nebraska Liquor Control Commission. Chadron, Gordon and Hay Springs have also seen moderate increases.

Overall, the amount of beer distributed to retailers in northern Sheridan and northeastern Dawes counties dropped from 56,927 gallons in April to 50,673 gallons in June.

The Liquor Commission requested the data from distributors after ordering an end to Whiteclay beer sales in April. For more than a century before then, Whiteclay served as a watering hole for people from South Dakota's nearby Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, where alcohol is banned.

The shift in sales isn't a surprise.

Area beer sellers in Nebraska and South Dakota have reported brisk business in recent months, but the Liquor Commission numbers are the first official data available.

Still, it's too early to establish a pattern, said Hobert Rupe, the Liquor Commission's executive director. And he stressed that lack of adequate law enforcement, not the amount of beer they sold, was the reason for closing Whiteclay's stores.

Supporters of closing the Whiteclay stores have argued that neighboring communities, with larger populations and the ability to pass local liquor ordinances, are better equipped to police alcohol sales.

"We haven't heard the complaints" from those communities about the vagrancy, violence and drunken behavior that once plagued Whiteclay, Rupe said Thursday.

Shortly after the Whiteclay stores closed, the Rapid City Journal reported that many people who used to buy and consume alcohol in Whiteclay were driving to nearby towns but then returning to the streets of Whiteclay, where they felt comfortable and safe from law enforcement oversight.

John Maisch, an anti-Whiteclay activist and former Oklahoma liquor regulator, said the new numbers show alcohol sales have dropped more than 10 percent while still preserving a large amount of business for area distributors.

"The sky is not falling for the wholesalers," Maisch said. "It's a win-win."

Opponents of the Liquor Commission decision say it hurt the Whiteclay stores' owners and won't help problems with alcohol on the reservation, where bootlegging is common.

"Closing the stores is not  is not  solving the problem, clearly," said Rushville Mayor Chris Heiser. "The good people in Pine Ridge are still going to get their alcohol."

The Whiteclay store owners have challenged the closings, and a hearing before the Nebraska Supreme Court is set for Aug. 29.

In the meantime, the Liquor Commission is pressing forward with separate citations that the beer store owners engaged in illegal business practices, including selling to bootleggers, something the store owners' attorney has denied. Rupe said one or more hearings on those allegations will be held in the coming months.
People, we have an attitude problem to discuss: It has come to my attention that too many of you are mocking President Donald Trump and his "Made in America" theme week. Perhaps it's because it takes some nerve for Donald Trump to champion "Made in America," since so much of the merchandise manufactured by his family's many enterprises is definitely not made in America.

It's not the first time this administration has concocted one of these. Who can forget "Infrastructure" week, "Technology" week or "Energy" week? "American Heroes" and "American Dreams" are up next.

My main quibble is that they don't reflect reality. Yes, I know that's being picky, but the administration's branding geniuses can come up with more cutting-edge themes that really capture the Trump experience.

First of all, it's likely you're scratching your head right now. Perhaps you thought that it was actually "Russia Investigation" theme week or, more specifically, "Presidential Pardon" week, since Trump and his lawyers are reportedly discussing his pardoning whomever of his associates gets accused of criminal activity in connection with the probe into whether his side sold out the American election to his buddy Vladimir Putin. Some accounts included discussions about whether he could pardon himself. There's a real heated debate about that one, although the Trumpster claims he has "complete" power to pardon.

Every theme week could be "Russian Collusion" week, or more accurately "Russian Collision." But not every one could be called "Mooch." That's the nickname of Anthony Scaramucci, who has now become White House communications director, chosen by POTUS even though he has zero Washington or communications experience. That was such a slap in the face to Sean Spicer that Spicer resigned.

We really should go back to the beginning though. They've really packed a lot into six months. Shouldn't they have started out with a "Muslim Travel Ban" theme week, to celebrate the wild success of that initiative? And let's not forget that other immigration triumph, "Mexican Wall" week.

It's been a never-ending series. They're still struggling with "Obamacare Repeal and Replace" week.

Trade policy? How about "Isolationist" theme week. That could be coordinated by Steve Bannon. In fact, various members of the administration can be in charge.

Even the man at the very top, the president himself can join the fun. I'm referring to President Vladimir Putin, of course. He could oversee "Election Theft" week. It could be a reunion, a collaboration with Donald Jr. and the rest of the gang.

This administration has so many theme songs that play ad nauseam. "Tweet" week comes to mind. "Fake News" week is another. And now we have the president mulling Mueller ... Bob Mueller, the special counsel who is apparently getting too close for comfort. So Trump is publicly musing about replacing Mueller. And that's not fake muse; he hinted just that in The New York Times. If he did that, every week would have an "Impeachment" theme. Perhaps he needs to consider doing away with theme weeks altogether, even though that would be un-themely.
PIERRE | Two years ago, Gov. Dennis Daugaard commenced a review of rest stops and tourist-information centers along South Dakotas two interstate highways.

A team from state governments Department of Tourism and Department of Transportation issued recommendations.

The state Transportation Commission received a briefing last July but didnt formally vote whether to accept the plan.

The Transportation Department proceeded with two closures last fall: Hidewood rest stop on I-29 between Watertown and Brookings; and Tilford rest stop on I-90 west of Rapid City.

Losing those rest stops caught the attention of some South Dakota travelers. The citizens also caught the attention of some members of the Legislature.

Sen. Larry Tidemann, R-Brookings, spoke about the rest stops Wednesday at the start of the meeting of the Legislatures appropriations committee at Northern State University.

Tidemann, the panels chairman, indicated officials from the transportation department would be called to testify to the committee about the closures.

He said the rest stops were spaced along the interstates so there would be approximately one hour between them.

But Tidemann also noted the speed limit then on rural highways was 55 miles per hour.

Currently interstate speed limits are 65 in metropolitan areas and 80 through much of South Dakota.

Its one thing for a governor or a state government agency to eventually set aside a citizens complaint or suggestion. But its a different equation for each of the 105 legislators who serve one of the 35 districts across South Dakota.

Meanwhile, a representative for the Transportation Departments division of planning and engineering went Thursday to the Transportation Commission. The agency wants to close two overpasses on the interstates.

One allows local traffic on 281 Street in Lincoln County to cross I-29 without stopping. It is between exit 62 for US 18 into Canton and exit 64 for SD 44 into Worthing.

The second serves local traffic on 348 Street crossing I-90 in Brule County. It is between exit 265 for SD 50 north into Chamberlain and exit 272 for SD 50 south into Pukwana.

The commissioners agreed to set public hearings.

Regarding the rest stop closures, Daugaard wanted a modern approach to interstate traffic in South Dakota. Closing the two seemed attractive.

Just as important, shutting the rest stops saved $210,000 that was being spent for maintenance contracts. Now that money is going to other purposes.

News reporters often make lists of stories they intend to write. The list tends to be longer by the year. Last summer, I looked at the two departments plan for closing several rest stops and tourist-information centers along South Dakotas interstate highways.

Then I forgot about the report, until a reader recently contacted me. The reader asked whether I would write about it. That led to the news story earlier this month.

Transportation Secretary Darin Bergquist cooperated in answering questions about the closures and the broader plan for revitalizing South Dakotas system of interstate rest stops and tourist centers.

Meanwhile, keep the tips coming.
Some call it an opportunity, while others see it as a problem  particularly for low-income residents who dont have transportation.

As soon as October, Rapid City could lose three grocery stores, including two in the downtown area as well as one on the west side of town. The decision by SpartanNash to close the stores and consolidate its operations in two other stores has raised concerns from people like Mary Corbine, the food security manager of Feeding South Dakota who told the Journal the decision will impact a lot of people and not just the people who are food insecure.

The response from the city has been to put a more positive spin on the announced closures of FTC Express on Sturgis Road, the Family Thrift Center on Omaha Street and Prairie Market on York Street.

Mayor Steve Allender called it an opportunity and that there are many reasons, in my mind, to be positive about it as there are negatives. Ben Snow, the president of the Rapid City Economic Development Partnership, expressed similar sentiments.

Both Allender and Snow said they could see a day when a grocery store comes to either Main or St. Joseph Street that would help fill that void and meet the needs of the growing number of young people who live in downtown Rapid City.

Unfortunately, that won't help those who could soon find themselves no longer within walking distance  all stores are well over one mile from a supermarket  of a grocery store as winter approaches.

If the city wants to view closures or vacant retail space as opportunities, it is safe to say that Rapid City is becoming the land of opportunity. Retail space is available downtown, in the strip mall at Baken Park and on the west and north sides of Rapid City  in some cases for months.

If the city sees the closure of the grocery stores as something potentially positive, it needs to do something positive to make that happen. It should not simply wait for a suitor to come courting.

Economic development  and in this case meeting a clear need, as well  requires a pro-active approach. The city needs to consider recruiting a supermarket for downtown Rapid City or create an environment where food markets owned by local merchants can have a chance to flourish.

It is not unprecedented for the city to incentivize businesses to come to Rapid City or encourage developers to build in the community. While it didn't work out, the most recent example is President's Plaza where Vision Funds and tax-increment financing were approved to take advantage of the opportunity at the intersection of St. Joseph and 5th streets. The city has used these economic-development tools in the past with varying degrees of success, including offering incentives to bring Cabela's to Rapid City.

If as city Planning Manager Vicki Fisher says "this could very well be a positive for the community as a whole," the city needs to make a concerted effort to bring a grocery store to downtown Rapid City as the "whole" also includes those who depend on those stores.
This past week, the governors office announced the state would be making additional budget cuts. Three days later, the Department of Public Health and Human Services held three administrative hearings, where over a 100 individuals and providers explained what this will mean for health services for our most vulnerable Montanans.

These cuts will hit communities hard  cuts to mental health services, to home- and community-based services for seniors and people with disabilities, and to wages for direct care workers, who care for our friends and family in some of the most difficult circumstances. Services will be eliminated. Families will suffer.

How we got here

Before the legislative session adjourned, the Montana Budget and Policy Center reiterated that the budget wasnt ready for prime time. Not only did the Legislature accept cuts proposed in the governors budget, but they also made even deeper cuts. Rather than taking a balanced approach to our budget, legislators blocked each and every tax fairness measure to restore much needed revenue. Instead, the Legislature passed and the governor signed, a budget that contained deep cuts, while leaving an insufficient ending fund balance for dealing with an economic downturn or lower-than-expected revenues.

In addition, a handful of legislators and the executive agreed to a backroom deal that put in place additional painful cuts that would be triggered if revenue came in just $6 million (or 0.27 percent) below previous projections (with additional cuts if revenue dropped even further). The Governors office announced last week that all four levels of cuts would be triggered.

It is no surprise that this is where we stand today.

Legislators and state policymakers will say, we had no choice. This is false. There was a choice. Legislators could and should have taken seriously the many proposals to ensure tax fairness and adequate revenue.

From restoring a top tax bracket that would impact only the wealthiest 1 percent of households, to a long overdue increase to the tobacco tax to fund direct-care worker wages, to closing tax loopholes that give an advantage to large corporations shifting profits offshore, there were many opportunities to avoid this crisis.

Legislators heard from their constituents, including direct-care workers, teachers, college students, and many more, who called and testified in support of these measures and urged legislators to consider revenue to stave off devastating budget cuts. Legislators ignored these pleas. Instead, Montanans who are struggling to make ends meet are now being asked to bear the burden of these cuts.

Shifting costs

Once again, communities will be forced to pick up the tab. Nonprofits will feel increased pressure as they attempt to fill the need for services. With cuts to education and the failure to pass an infrastructure bill, legislators are again shifting their responsibility to local governments and, often, local property taxpayers to fill the holes in these budgets.

We can and must do better. This is a long-term issue that needs a long-term solution.

We can no longer afford to have our representatives protect the bottom line of large corporations at the expense of our most vulnerable citizens and local property taxpayers. We deserve a state that takes seriously tax fairness and adequate revenue to invest in our communities. Our Legislature must be forward thinking and make strong investments in our citizens, our children, and our communities.

These cuts we face will have a devastating impact for years. But it is not too late to do something about it. The time for just saying no is over. We are ready to have a thoughtful debate about what it is going to take to ensure we can be the state that we all love and can afford to live in. Then we need to come together to find common sense ways to create a fair tax system for all of us.

Families in Montana deserve to have this conversation.
Linda Massa Youth Home has been operating a program called the Youth Crisis Diversion Project for the past six months.

The funding grant ended June 30 and resumes Oct. 1, creating a funding gap for the project that works with Ravalli County youth and families who are experiencing crisis in the home.

We help them gain access to local social services, mental health services and respite shelter for the youth when necessary, said Jennifer Wirth, development coordinator. It is our goal to help the families avoid juvenile detention, hospital emergency rooms and other costly out-of-home placements as much as possible.

The Youth Crisis Diversion Project works closely with 25 community partners including West House (an adult crisis center), the Ravalli County Sheriff's Department, Hamilton Police, area schools and Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital.

The project has been really successful in the number of families we have been able to work with as well as the positive impact we have been able to make, Wirth said.

Anna Green, program director of LMYH, said the home created a think tank in 2015.

Our county really struggles with youth psychiatric emergencies, she said. We decided to bring community leaders together to figure out how to help these kids and these families. We dont have enough to have a West House for kids  that would be very expensive.

She said nearly 40 professionals came together to brainstorm a solution.

We thought about what the families need to stabilize, Green said. One thing is a respite stay to get the kid out of the environment into our highly structured, highly supervised, activity-rich environment. It gives the parents a break and gives the kids time to reset. It gives us time to assess what is going on and is a cost savings to the community.

Green said early, fast and thorough intervention can stabilize families, thus reducing incidents with law enforcement and the hospital.

There are Youth Crisis Diversion Projects in the larger cities of Montana through the Childrens Mental Health Bureau including Missoula, Helena, Flathead, Great Falls and Billings.

Executive Director Geoffrey Birnbaum and Wirth wrote a grant to Montana Mental Health Trust that funded the program from Dec. 1 to June 30.

We hit the ground running with three kids the first day, Green said. They were in acute crisis.

In the Youth Crisis Diversion Project, the staff at Linda Massa Youth Home makes direct contact with a family in crisis.

Typically these families are ending up in the ER with a suicidal youth, Green said. We work with West House and they do a mental health assessment. If they find the youth is low to medium risk of suicidal acting out, theyll call us to either do an intervention or (ask) if we have a bed to take that kid out of the ER.

Green said there is a spike in youth in crisis in Montana that may be the highest in the country.

This program really matters, our data shows we need it, she said. If we have a bed, and it seems appropriate, we bring the youth in for a two-week stay.

Green said poverty is the No. 1 issue and kids struggle when parents live in poverty.

We do crisis counseling, crisis planning and service referrals, Green said. They are fast-tracked to services like therapy and med management. We have had a lot of success getting families wrapped up.

Green said helping to stabilize families can include getting students enrolled in school and helping families enroll for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits. She said early intervention reduces the cost to the community.

Linda Massa Youth Home and the Youth Crisis Diversion Project has served 22 youth and had more than 70 contacts in six months.

This is parents, kids, social workers, therapists and school officials calling saying they have a kid in crisis that they dont know what to do about, Green said. We have been able to create change with just some consults.

Wirth said the youth home staff feels the services are so important they are committed to see it through the funding lag and are looking for assistance to help bridge the gap to the next funding cycle.

We are in the process of reaching out to private donors as well as the county to see what assistance we are able to find in the interim, Wirth said.

Green presented the dilemma to the Ravalli County Commissioners on Thursday. The commissioners couldnt directly fund the 501(c)(3) but extended their contract with West House, which will contract with LMYH to provide mental health service.

Commissioner Greg Chilcott praised LMYH saying the Youth Crisis Diversion Project keeps youth in the Bitterroot Valley.

Were excited about a community program to keep kids close to home, Chilcott said. We dont have any place for them to go other than the hospital, so this is a way for them to stay in the valley.

Green said community donations to help continue the program through the funding gap can be delivered directly to the home.

We didnt expect the gap, she said. Our goal is to keep kids out of hospitals. ... We found we have a great deal of success in resolving crisis. There is a lot of support in the community. Weve been able to organize a lot of people.

Green said in addition to funding, people can call and share ideas.

There is help for kids in crisis and there is help for families, Green said. If you have an out-of-control kid, were here to help you. Call us or go online to bitterrootyouthcrisis.org.
Seven students from Bitterroot College have been admitted to the Missoula College registered nursing program and one student accepted into the Great Falls College dental hygiene program this fall.

Victoria Clark, director, said she is proud of these students.

To have Bitterroot College graduates selected to study at other programs around the state is a wonderful outcome for us, Clark said. Weve had students accepted into statewide programs in the past, but this year weve had a bumper crop.

Clark credited the faculty and the hard work by students.

Kudos to our faculty who do a tremendous job. It is the partnership between faculty and students that drives this outcome, Clark said. Bitterroot College students are qualified, prepared and ready to move to the next step in their career and life goals.

Ben Reynoso was accepted into the Great Falls College dental hygiene Program. He graduated from Corvallis High School and enrolled in Bitterroot College in the spring of 2015.

It was a really good experience. I was happy to stay local, stay at home and save a lot of money by not attending a large, expensive university, Reynoso said. Working with the Bitterroot College staff, students and alumni was a really good experience for me. I feel I have been prepared. Great Falls wouldnt accept me if I wasnt prepared.

Reynoso obtained his associates degree by completing the prerequisites for the dental hygiene programassociate of applied science. Reynoso qualified for student work-study and worked as a Spanish tutor and provided technology assistance to students and staff.

I didnt think it was possible, he said of dental hygiene program. I didnt think I could get into college much less get it done locally. Im nervous because I have never left home but I think it is doable.

His goal of working in the dental field hearkens to his childhood.

When I was younger my family planted the seed in saying, You should be a dentist because you have such nice teeth. Ever since them, it was in the back of my head. Im getting my foot in the door with dental hygiene.

Reynoso said he may continue with additional dental schooling to become a dentist.

He is paying for college thanks to other opportunities provided by the Bitterroot College.

Through the Bitterroot College I was able to get my phlebotomy technician certification nationally and thats how I will get myself through my college career, he said.

Reynoso worked at Marcus Daly Memorial Hospital as a full-time phlebotomist this summer and has applied for that full-time job at a clinic in Great Falls.

I really appreciate Marcus Daly Hospital and their staff. They are excited for me expanding my future, Reynoso said. I am grateful to have worked there this summer.

Ben Reynoso is not the only one in his family to attend Bitterroot College with great success. Sophia Reynoso, his sister, also attended locally.

We went through the college together and we are both in the medical field, he said. She got into the Missoula College nursing program and I was accepted in to my program, so we are both excited. It was a nice experience to go Bitterroot College together. Im really happy about it.

Bitterroot College is registering students for fall semester with classes starting Thursday, Aug. 31.

There is still time to enroll but dont delay, Clark said. Classes are filling and time is needed to ensure Federal Financial Aid can process in time to pay fall bills.

Admissions walk-ins are welcome and the college is open and staff is available to assist with college applications, applying for Federal Financial Aid, and answering questions 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Monday through Friday.

The Commercial Drivers License (CDL) course starts on Monday, Aug. 28, and is accepting applications now so students have time to apply for fee assistance. Applications can be picked up at the college office or downloaded from the website www.umt.edu/bitterroot-college. For more information call 406-375-0100.

The Bitterroot Colleges fall continuing education will be available online the second week of August with catalogs mailed the first week of September. Fall continuing education registration opens Tuesday, Sept. 5.

Bitterroot College has new Workforce Programs (non-college credit, but students earn an Industry Recognized Credential) coming this fall in bookkeeping, data analytics, website design and welding along with existing programs in phlebotomy, certified nurse assistant and CDL.
POLSON  They had been on his trail since April.

The 570-pound male grizzly had developed a taste for livestock in the Mission Valley this spring and had gone on a killing spree that included pigs, a 350-pound calf and llamas.

Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes biologist Stacy Courville set culvert traps three different times earlier this year in an attempt to capture the bruin. In those attempts, they captured three other younger grizzly bears that were apparently drawn to the kills. All of those younger bears were moved to remote areas and released.

On Sunday, Courville captured the large male that was causing the trouble east of Polson.

It was the second time in less than three years that he had been caught in a culvert trap. Unfortunately, it was his last.

The bear was euthanized Tuesday.

***

Grizzly bears are showing in places that they hadnt before in the Mission Valley.

Just like grizzlies out past the Rocky Mountain Front, we now have grizzlies going as far as the Flathead River, Courville said. We have had them on the Bison Range. The entire Mission Valley is now generally considered grizzly bear habitat.

The decision to kill a grizzly bear is never an easy one, Courville said.

If more people living in grizzly habitat made an effort to protect with electricity anything that might attract a bear to their property, that difficult decision would be less frequent.

This spring and summer has been an especially busy one for Courville and the people who work with him to manage grizzly and blacks bears on the reservation.

They trapped and relocated their first grizzly in April after a young sow decided to take a stroll through the town of St. Ignatius. That was the earliest grizzly bear that Courville has trapped in the 22 years that hes worked for the tribes.

We had such an extended winter this year that there was still snow on the ground when the bears appeared, Courville said. And then it turned hot and dry so fast. The huckleberries and service berries are starting to come on now. Maybe it will quiet down some.

While Courville said Mission Valley grizzlies typically dont have beef on their menu, they are drawn to smaller domesticated animals like goats, sheep, llamas and especially chickens.

Once they get started on chickens, its something they are always looking for, especially family groups or sows with cubs of the year, Courville said. Chickens are just easy. Since 2010, it seems like everyone has chickens.

Its also very easy for people to do their part in keeping their chickens safe and bears wild.

Electricity works very well for that, Courville said.

Courvilles crews use electrified netting that can be set up in less than an hour as a temporary measure while landowners put together their own electric fencing. The Defenders of Wildlife have a cost-share program that pays 50 percent up to $500 to keep bears away from attractants, like chicken coops.

Its been a great program and highly successful, said Jonathan Proctor, Defenders of Wildlifes Rockies and Plains Program director.

Now in its eighth year, the program has helped about 300 landowners in western Montana, Idaho and Wyoming keep grizzlies away from livestock and other bear attractants.

People need to contact us first so we can help build something with the specs that will work for grizzlies, Proctor said. We need to make sure that its done right.

Weve had overwhelming success rates with this program, he said. The electric fence has eliminated problems that people were having with bears. In a couple of cases, the landowners have video of a bear coming up to a new electric fence and running away after touching it. Its a highly effective and very affordable way to protect peoples property and grizzly bears by keeping them out of trouble.

The program is dependent on funding, but, so far, there has been enough to pay for the projects that have been approved.

***

Lou and Karl Klenck of Bigfork recently turned to Talmo after a black bear keyed in on a cherry tree in their backyard. It was the first time in 15 years of living on the mountainside overlooking Flathead Lake that they had a bear hit the fruit trees they planted in their backyard.

The bear wasn't just eating cherries off the tree, it was literally tearing it apart to get at the fruit.

The Klencks tried a number of different methods to drive the bear off, but it just kept coming back.

"It was totally unafraid of us," Lou Klenck said. "We were only 20 feet from the fruit trees yelling at it. It was completely unconcerned. ... We didnt' want to have that bear put down because of it, though. There were bears here before we were."

So they asked for some help and were directed to the Defenders program and Talmo. He explained what they needed to obtain to build an electric fence powerful enough to turn away a bear, and then showed up to help build it.

Then they left for more than a week on a trip. When they returned, they found that none of their fruit trees had been disturbed.

"This really seemed to be the answer," she said. "We were very pleased with the response we received from Russ and the organization. We didn't want the bear to be put down, but we also wanted the fruit off of our trees. It appears like we'll get both of those things."

CSKTs Wildlife Program Manager Dale Becker said the tribes' biologists work really hard to find ways to ensure that bears and humans can co-exist on the same landscape.

Its tough, Becker said. These guys work every day in the summer with odd hours to try to keep these bears on the straight and narrow. Sometimes you just run out of options.

Since 2010, Courville said the tribes have been forced to remove three family groups and send them to zoos when they became habituated to people after being drawn to homes by one attractant or another. In one case, the sow bear had to be shot and killed after someone shot it in the face with a shotgun and she abandoned her cubs.

I hate it when I have to destroy a bear over a chicken worth a dollar or even $20, Courville said. Securing attractants will go a long way in helping make sure that doesnt have to happen.
Guwahati: The city based Dispur Hospitals on Saturday (29 July) conducted the evening OPD clinic at Guwahati Press Club, where Dr Udayan Saikia offered free consultations to over 30 media persons along with their dependents. The participants also got their weight, blood pressure & sugar checked in the camp, which was assisted by Biswajit Das and Sonmani Dutta from the same hospital.

The next camp, organized under the series of 'Evening with a Doctor' programs at the press club, will be graced by Dr Vijay Sankaran (neurosurgeon) from SIMS Chennai Hospital. The 5 August camp will begin at 2.30 pm and conclude by 4.30 pm.

Till date, practicing doctors from Apollo Chennai Hospital, Manipal Bangalore Hospital, Fortis Hospital, Medanta-the Medicity Hospital, GNRC Hospitals, Down Town Hospitals, Narayana Super-Specialty Hospitals, Swagat Super-Surgical Institute, Shankardev Nethralaya Guwahati, Wintrobe Hospital, Barthakur Clinic, Nemcare Hospital, Rahman Hospitals, Sun Valley Hospital, Sight First eye-clinic, Government Ayurvedic College, MMC Panbazar etc have attended the camps.
Guwahati : After public fury about centre's ignorance to Assam, while the state fighting with the devasting flood affecting over 25 lakh people of 29 districts and claiming 82 lives, finally Prime Minister Narendra Modi has decided to visit the flood-hit north eastern Indian state on August 1.

On Saturday, Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said that, PM Modi will visit to Assam on August 1 and he will take stock the flood situation in the state.

Prime Minister Office (PMO) has confirmed PM Modi's visit and communicated with the Assam Chief Minister's Office.

During his visit the Prime Minister will discuss matters incorporating all the aspects relating to the recent floods in Assam with the Chief Minister and various officials at Guwahati.

Modi is likely to take up the matters relating to flood management and protection.

PM Modi will also take stock of the damage caused by the floods.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Guwahati, July 29 : Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal on Saturday inaugurated Dima Hasao's District Judicial Courts at Jatinga (Boro Haflong) thereby paving the way for separation of the Judiciary from the Executive.

The inauguration of the Judicial Courts marked the end of a long standing demand of the litigant citizens.

Speaking on the occasion the Assam CM said that an independent Judiciary would fulfil the long standing demand of the local people and thanked the Chief justice of Gauhati High Court for his prompt efforts in establishing the Court.

He also said that it was due to the commitment of the Government to the public such projects could be achieved in a short of time.

Sonowal also said that the government is committed to the uplift of all sections of the people and quoted the Prime Minister's push for Sabka Saath Sabka Vikas.

Reiterating his government's commitment to the development of hill district, Sonowal said that an exhaustive blue print for infrastructural development like laying road networks as well as village roads including bridges have been drawn for a fast-paced development of the district.

Giving a list of priorities for Dima Hasao district a modern State Civil Services Training Institute will also be commissioned shortly in the district, Sonowal stressed on the abundance of clean environment around Dima Hasao which could usher in a tourism revolution in the district.

Referring to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's emphasis on transforming Assam and North East into an organic hub, Sonowal said that Dima Hasao has the potentiality and possibility of becoming an epicentre of organic farming in the State.

He also called upon all the ethnic groups to work to strengthen the fabric of universal brotherhood among all people belonging to all ethnicities living in the hill district.

Sonowal requested them to work for more vibrant economic development of the region.

Chief Justice, Gauhati High Court Ajit Singh while speaking on the occasion hailed Chief Minister Sonowal for promptly taking up the matter sincerely and take steps for establishing Judicial Courts in the district.

He also said that inaugurating the court with necessary infrastructure would be able to expeditious dispose of cases to lend justice to every litigant. He also requested the common people to repose faith in the judicial system to help the system work well.

Judge-in-Charge, Administrative Department Justice Hrishikesh Roy, Portfolio Judge, Dima Hasao District Justice Mir Alfaz Ali, Chief Secretary V.K. Pipersinia, Chief Executive Member of North Cachar Hills Auonomous Council Debolal Gorlosa, Office bearers and members of the advocate bar association and a host of other dignitaries were present on the occasion.

(Reporting by Hemanta Kumar Nath)
Minister for Information and Communications, Mohan Bahadur Basnet

KATHMANDU, July 30: Minister for Information and Communications, Mohan Bahadur Basnet, has said that he would take necessary initiatives on behalf of the ministry to resolve problems of working journalists.

Receiving a report of the Minimum Wages Fixation Committee at the Ministry today, Minister Basnet said, "Problems of working journalist should be resolved. I have heard that the working journalists do not get appropriate wages. It will be addressed." He said that problems should be resolved through talks in coordination between working journalists and media houses.

Minister Basnet expressed the view that the role of media would be important in the reforms task being carried out under the ministry. Saying he earlier had put his concern about the Committee's report, Basnet assured to take initiatives to address the issues pointed out by the report by holding consultation with all bodies concerned.

Similarly, Committee Chairperson Poshan KC said that the report was prepared with the participation of working journalists, employees and workers of 60 districts of all provinces in formal and informal manner.

According to a survey carried out by the Committee, 32.3 per cent of journalists and media workers are still deprived of minimum wage. Likewise, only 74.2 per cent of journalists received appointment letters.

The journalists and media workers getting monthly remuneration is 66.9 per cent while around 9.9 per cent are paid once in two months and 23.1 per cent once in three or more

Likewise, 43 per cent of the media institutions were found without a provision of leave for their workers. RSS
Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dr. Ayodhee Prasad Yadav

By Review Nepal

Kathmandu, Nepal: Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) Dr. Ayodhee Prasad Yadav has reiterated that the election of the provincial assembly and the House of Representatives was not possible together.

CEC Yadav has said so while speaking before the Good Governance and Monitoring Committee (GGMC) of the Legislature-Parliament on Sunday. Both elections in a single time are not possible for constitutional as well as managerial reasons, Yadav said.

Though the Election Commission (EC) had already made clear that both elections in a single time would not be possible, the government and the political parties have been mulling the idea to hold these two elections in a single time.

It is being reported that the main opposition party CPN UML, which had been opposing the idea to hold these two elections in a single time, has now agreed to do so. However, neither the government nor the parties have made official views regarding the issue.

There is no only one reason but many that both the elections would not be possible in a single time like representations of women and other marginalized communities, printing of ballot papers, mobilization of human resource and other managerial aspects, CEC Yadav said.
Marijuana took center stage for the Lompoc City Council on Tuesday night as an overflow crowd spilled out of the council chambers and dozens o
In a week where the U.S. Senate leaders played vote-a-rama in an attempt to pass a health care bill  any health care bill  Sen. John McCains call for bipartisanship reminded Americans that our government should be better than this.

The most revered members of this institution accepted the necessity of compromise in order to make incremental progress on solving Americas problems and to defend her from her adversaries, McCain said, speaking on the Senate floor with a recent surgical scar over his left eye, just days after receiving a cancer diagnosis. Our deliberations today  not just our debates, but the exercise of all our responsibilities  authorizing government policies, appropriating the funds to implement them, exercising our advice and consent role  are often lively and interesting. They can be sincere and principled, but they are far more partisan, more tribal more of the time than at any other time I remember.

Stop listening to the bombastic loudmouths on the radio and television and the Internet, the 30-year Senate veteran said. Lets trust each other. Lets return to regular order.

Although McCain voted Tuesday to start debate on the House health care bill, he then voted against repealing the Affordable Care Act without replacing it. Then at 1:30 a.m. Friday, the Arizona senator cast the deciding vote against a bill that not even its proponents wanted to become law. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was pushing to pass it so GOP senators could go on vacation claiming to have repealed Obamacare. Fortunately for the nations health, McCain and GOP Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine said no. They voted for their constituents' best interests despite enormous pressure from President Donald Trump and GOP Senate leadership.

The Senate hasnt held a single public hearing on health care legislation this year. Instead, McConnell selected a dozen Republican men to concoct a proposal in secret.

McCain called for more inclusive, public process: Let the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee under Chairman Alexander and Ranking Member Murray hold hearings, try to report a bill out of committee with contributions from both sides. Then bring it to the floor for amendment and debate, and see if we can pass something that will be imperfect, full of compromises, and not very pleasing to implacable partisans on either side, but that might provide workable solutions to problems Americans are struggling with today.

In fact, recent polls show majorities of Americans want Republicans and Democrats to work together to improve health care affordability and access.

Again, we call upon our Montana delegation to avoid doing harm to Montanans. In our state with seven Indian reservations, relatively low per capita income, many part-time and seasonal workers and many very small businesses, the ACA has helped tens of thousands of people get better, more affordable health care in their home communities through Medicaid and subsidized private insurance and the guarantee to cover pre-existing conditions.

Not everyone has benefitted. There are Montanans who arent wealthy, but dont qualify for premium subsidies. The private market and government coverage mandate hasnt provided good options for some employers.

Sen. Jon Tester has said he wants to fix flaws in the ACA and will work with Republicans to do that.

So far, Sen. Steve Daines has been an uncompromising repeal fan. Rep. Greg Gianforte, who has yet to actually vote on health care legislation in his brief tenure, sent out a statement Tuesday urging the Senate to repeal and replace the ACA.

Montana needs all three of our federal lawmakers to find solutions to help those who struggle with health care costs  without hurting those who finally found affordable care with the ACA.

Perhaps McCains speech eventually will inspire compromise that benefits average Americans in places like Arizona and Montana. Or maybe Congress will instead continue its partisan gridlock. Its up to Tester, Daines, Gianforte and the 532 other members of Congress who all have access to excellent health care, thanks to U.S. taxpayers.
Over the past 43 years, one of the few constants within the Lompoc Valley has been the arrival of hundreds  sometimes thousands  of dogs for
Polish filmmaker Agnieszka Holland, with more than 20 feature films and dozens of television episodes on her CV, has said that her latest film Spoor should be called 'No Country for Old Women'. While I understand the analogy, with much due respect to her, I beg to differ.

Instead, I would call it 'Every Country for Old Women', as we need more of her wonderful main character, and indeed, more of Holland's perspective, in our lives. Part thriller, part magical realism, Spoor weaves a strange tale, hiding a beast of a heart under its seemingly straightforward murder-mystery story.

Duszejko (played with complete conviction and ferocity by Agnieszka Mandat-Grabka) is a retired engineer and part-time schoolteacher, living in a small town on the Polish-Czech border. A great lover of animals, she becomes distressed when her beloved dogs (her 'daughters') go missing. Not long after, members of the local hunting club begin turning up dead one by one, seemingly murdered by the animals they (illegally) hunted. Duszejko begins her own clandestine investigation, aided by other misfits of the town.

Holland takes her time with the story, taking us on this journey through its subtle twists and turns. Framing it month by month via a hunting calendar (showing us when certain animals can be legally killed), Duszejko is a warrior for animals: the police wearily put up with her rantings and crime theories (not as far-fetched as they might think, even if she discusses astrology); she takes her young students out after dark to look for her lost dogs; she takes a visiting entomologist as a lover, reading philosophy into his discoveries; all the while, the bodies pile up, with only animal tracks as evidence.

On the side, Duszejko has her lover, and acts as intermediary/matchmaker between a local girl trapped by poverty, indebted to a local business owner, and a young computer whiz, hiding his epilepsy working for the police department. These tales (perhaps an influence from Holland's time working in television) weave around this Fargo-esque town, and Holland takes us on this journey to fully understand the world and motivation of her main character. This is still a community run by men with money, who, in the end, care not for anything that they cannot buy or take. Duszejko's fight is motivated a fierce love and moral fortitude that they could never comprehend.

Cinematographers Jolanta Dylewska and Rafal Paradowski capture the landscape in richness and strangeness; the sparse beauty of winter, the rich life of summer, still hint more than a little at the wildness found even a few feet from civilization. Add to this a haunting score that elicits an ancient magic, and Holland seems to be evoking a call from an ancient, matriarchal goddess to fight against the machismo that has invaded and seeks to control/kill the natural world.

A murder-mystery, a dark comedy, and an eco-thriller rolled into one, Spoor is a deceptively subversive film, shot with minimalist precision. Holland has crafted a haunting, elegant, and perfectly strange tale of class and gender struggle, animals rights, and the dark power of nature.
Brimstone & Glory



Just in the past seven months, there have been at least two major tragedies in Tultepec, Mexico, a place where an important part of the community is related to the pyrotechnics business.

More than 40 people died back in December due to an explosion at a market, and later on, in March, at least four persons lost their lives when a similar accident happened inside a house. The latter incident occurred just before the massive pyrotechnics festival that each year is celebrated in the town; a cultural event that, at the same time, reminds us that danger is always present in Tultepec.

The documentary Brimstone & Glory, directed by Germanys Viktor Jakovleski, is quite an intense ride that puts us right in the middle of the fireworks celebration, while also addressing its background and the unsafe reality of everyday life in Tultepec. Its a one-hour film, hence becoming a visceral experience that tries to share with the audience a little of the adrenaline that comes from, among other activities, running around a big wooden bull, filled with fireworks.

The doc has some storylines and also explains the religious roots of the festival, but its main intention is to show the big, crazy, alcohol-fueled fireworks spectacle. Theres excellent camera work all around, using GoPro cameras for the POV shots and drones to capture the immensity of the unique and certainly controversial event.
In This Corner of the World is already a blockbuster hit in its native Japan. Japan Cuts hosted the US premiere of the film and I had a chance to chat with its producer, Maki Taro, about the risks and meaning of this hand-drawn look at a Hiroshima girls life during wartime.

The Lady Miz Diva: In this day and age, IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD is a rarity, with its hand-drawn animation. What went into the decision to make this a hand-drawn feature?

Maki Taro: I really feel that for a movie like this, where its really about humanity and human emotions, and very much about daily details, I think that only hand-drawn animation can do that.

LMD: Would you please tell us about how the award-winning manga by Kouno Fumiyo came to be a film produced by your company Genco Inc?

MT: The director, Mr. Katabuchi {Sunao}, had encountered the original manga, and he really fell in love with it, so he thought that I was the only one who could make this into a film.

LMD: How much persuasion did it take to bring you on board?

MT: At first, director Katabuchi and Kouno-san started as a friendship, because they were very much alike and they had a mutual respect for each others work. So, for about two years they were just working on their own as an independent project, and they were writing scripts, and many times they visited the Hiroshima locations by themselves. So, for a period of time, they were doing it just as an independent project.

I came in midway and I joined, but it was the production studio who came to me asking me to get involved as a producer.

LMD: What did your participation add to what had already been in planning?

MT: A producer has many different jobs, but one of the biggest is to bring in funds, so I worked on the business side of things. Id seen, director Katabuchis previous film, Mai Mai Miracle, and fell in love with it. If you just think of it as a normal business, this particular film, In This Corner of the World, the result was it was a big hit, but you never know when youre making it how it will go.

It was an unknown, because this film was particularly sort of plain, and when you compare it to Your Name, there is no miracle involved, there is no boy meets girl involved, and the normal elements that you would expect in animation. There is nothing like that in the film. If you think about it, normally, it would be very difficult financially to fund this kind of film.

So, personally, as a member of the audience, I was very much moved by Mai Mai Miracle, and I actually cried, but I didnt know why. I couldnt understand why I cried, so I thought the director was a very interesting and strange artist. As Im sure you understand, because youve seen it, the idiosyncrasy of the director and his power. Mai Mai Miracle was actually a failure businesswise. So, you can understand, his previous work did not do well, financially, and this new work is just so plain, but I really believed in his idiosyncrasy as an artist, so I just wanted to introduce it to the wide world.

LMD: So, even though you understood that there was a huge risk, you were willing to take the chance?

MT: Yes, yes, I was. The producer is believing in this film, so the producer is the one to take the first and greatest risk; I have to be willing to do that. But for an independent producer, this would be a really difficult thing to do, because that would ruin their company.

LMD: At this festival, we are seeing more films each year with stories of life during World War II. Is that an accurate reflection of what is being consumed by the Japanese audience? Is there a renewed or continuing interest in telling stories of regular people during incredible times?

MT: When you think about war-era movies, its usually always portraying soldiers, and military, and heroes, or its a really tragic situation. You dont really see a lot of common peoples lives, except maybe the wife of a soldier, or something like that.

The Japan that is depicted in this film is a very realistic depiction. Some people feel as if Suzu is a real historical person; is this like a documentary? But in reality, in Japan, they know that since that war, we havent had any war for over 70 years. So, especially the young people, they really dont have any familiarity with war. Some people might say, Oh, the US and Japan had a war? Because of the war defeat experience, the topic of war, and talking about war itself is kind of taboo. So, the people who lived through the big war, like my parents generation, they dont talk about it. Its almost like the culture passing on the experience doesnt exist.

So, in that sense, to have depicted the role of common people, and especially womens everyday life during that period in such a realistic manner, I think was a very meaningful thing to do.

LMD: I understand that between directors and producers, there is often a lot of negotiation about things you can keep in the film, and things you cant keep. What were the negotiations and discussions regarding this aspect with director Katabuchi?

MT: As I mentioned before, I came in midway, already the project was started, so director Katabuchi already had a plan and a script. Originally, the film was 150 minutes long, and the final cut is 120 without the credits, so that was something I asked him to cut, from the funding point of view, and also because really long films are not welcomed at theaters. {Laughs} So, I really had to fight about that point. What is perfect for director, that is inviolable, but as a producer, I have to look at the reality, as well, so you just have to wait for him to come around. {Laughs}

LMD: Do you think there are aspects or details that western audiences might not fully understand?

MT: Im wondering, but probably the most incomprehensible thing for the American audience might be how Suzu married into this family  the Hojo family - not out of love, but as a labour. She was there to work for the family. So, in the US, I dont know, maybe there is matchmaking that exists, but probably weddings are out of love, so maybe that is something that the audience cant quite get.

Its sort of a coming-of-age story; shes growing up. Through the story, she really tries to like and love Shusaku. Then she loses her hand, so she kind of loses her meaning or value as a laborer. So, that is why she thinks she must go back to Hiroshima. There is the scene where she decides that she has to go to Hiroshima, but right before the atomic bomb is dropped, she tells the sister-in-law, I actually want to stay. Please let me stay here. That is the moment where she is really trying to find her place in this world - her own place - but that is the process. I would be really happy if that is actually conveyed to the audience.

LMD: As you are the president of Genco Inc. with many anime successes [HONEY AND CLOVER, NODAME CANTABILE, ELFEN LIED, ACCEL WORLD, SWORD ART ONLINE, GENSHIKEN, TORADORA] tell us how producing a feature like IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD differs from a weekly anime series?

MT: For a TV series, usually the timing for going on air is predetermined, and in Japan it is weekly, so, its almost like the production is like a conveyor belt. Film, on the other hand is very, very special, and the motivation, the passion, and the money that goes into it, have nothing compared to a TV series. So, everyone is really motivated and feels obligated to make it a success. As a producer coming into it, I become very sensitive about it. On the other hand, TV series rarely become a huge hit, whereas film can become a huge hit, so that is a great joy if that happens.

LMD: What would you like IN THIS CORNER OF THE WORLD to say to the audience?

MT: I think when the audience sees this film, I think the individual audience members having seen it  depending on their age, or gender, or career  what they feel will vary greatly. I think that is kind of a rare thing in a film. So, everyone will take different things away from it, and where you cry in which scene might be different, and if you see it multiple times, how you feel about different things might also change. So, my wish is that each audience love this film and continue to love this film as their own. And of course, I would like them to recommend it to others. {Laughs}
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 Spotlighting BOP's continued curious failure to make serious use of "compassionate release" | Main | Should an uptick in federal gun prosecutions garner bipartisan praise? 

July 30, 2017

Reviewing the unique (and uniquely important?) Texas experience with criminal justice reform

This lengthy new Business Insider article, headlined "Texas is shedding its lock-'em-up image thanks to a 37-year-old tattooed lawyer and an unlikely political alliance," provides an extended account of how one significant state became a significant leader on criminal justice reform. Here is a small excerpt:

Until 2005, criminal-justice reform had been nearly impossible to pass in Texas, as was the case in many conservative states. Reformers were derided as "soft on crime" while even popular bills ran into vetoes from Republicans like Gov. Rick Perry, budget crises, and tough-on-crime district attorneys, many of whom view securing harsh sentences as a metric of success. But with Texas's prisons bursting at the seams, legislators were faced with a choice: reduce incarceration with reforms or funnel billions into new prisons. At the same time, a new movement emerged among conservatives, led by Marc Levin, the director of the Right on Crime campaign created by the right-leaning Texas Public Policy Foundation. Levin, an Austin-based attorney and public-policy expert, and other conservatives like him understood ideas such as addressing substance abuse with treatment rather than incarceration, and promoting parole, probation, and reentry programs, as inherent to conservative ideology, not antithetical to it. Meanwhile, fiscal conservatives in the state had grown appalled by the taxpayer burden of funding and maintaining new prisons, while libertarians were cynical of the broad government power required to funnel vast numbers of Texans through prisons each year. Social conservatives like Prison Fellowship, an evangelical Christian organization founded by Chuck Colson, a former Watergate-era felon, approached reform after witnessing through their prison-ministry programs how rarely inmates were given opportunities for redemption. "You really had a point where the only thing that was standing against reform from the conservative perspective ... would just be the muscle memory of being 'tough on crime' for decades," Derek Cohen, the deputy director of Right on Crime, told Business Insider. What propelled reform forward, however, was that those groups were able to join with liberals long clamoring for change in the Republican-controlled state. The movement formed the Texas Smart On Crime Coalition to push their agenda in the statehouse and, while the coalition is bipartisan, that doesn't mean they agree on everything. The movement can be thought of as a sort of Venn diagram. Liberals, conservatives, and religious groups each have their own reform plans, and they work together on issues where there is broad agreement, while still vehemently opposing one another where values diverge. "This shows that just because it's bipartisan doesn't mean that it's compromise," Cohen said. "We're retaining our perfect circles and just in the few places that they overlap, thats where we're working together." Common issues like bail reform, rehabilitation and treatment programs, and prosecuting youths through juvenile rather than adult courts are all fair game for collaboration. But issues like "mens rea reform," or requiring more proof of a defendant's culpable mental state, are more polarized. Similarly, en masse sentence reductions for drug crimes and "ban the box" initiatives  some of which impose civil or criminal penalties on employers that ask about applicants' criminal histories  remain partisan battlefields. Cohen said the key to unlocking reforms in Texas has been that most Americans, whether conservative or liberal, just want a system that works. "They want a system that shows that that behavior is morally blameworthy ... but also that which rehabilitates," Cohen said. "There isn't this monolithic, punitive impulse in Texas or in conservatives or liberals or anywhere in the country."

July 30, 2017 at 05:38 AM | Permalink

Comments

This irresponsible policy saw a surge in murders in many cities. Not mentioned.

Any drop in thefts came from the carfentanyl opiate overdoses. This shit is so good, police dogs have come out of checking wrapped packages, staring, and nodding out.

The Chinese are experts at fake products. They have produced fake eggs. Imagine duplicating a shell, a yolk, the white albumin, and the cholazza suspending the yolk, to generate 2 cents more profit over each real egg.

Carfentanyl is cheap compared to heroin, a natural product. It is all over the news. Why is this biased article leaving out this most likely reason for the dropping crime rate, the passing of of the addicts by the thousands?

Posted by: David Behar | Jul 30, 2017 11:00:25 AM

The pro-criminal lawyer will take credit for the drop in crime.

When I proposed 123D, I figured 10,000 executions of the violent birth cohort would reduce crime substantially. Now, we are getting 40000 overdose deaths, still sweeping up, headed to 60,000. This is unbelievable.

I no longer support the death penalty. Shut it down. Fire all the lawyers running their stupid con, the defense, the prosecution, the appellate judges. Fire them all on the spot. Save $billions, immediately. Let them become high school history teachers. Their salaries may be higher, and they would be great at it. I never learned so much American history, and in such great depth, as when I began studying the law. I was stunned with every turn of the page, once acquiring a legal perspective.

The overwhelming majority of deaths are of addicts, from the cheap carfentanyl mixed with heroin to increase profits by a tiny amount, and not of pain patients. The latter are quite different. You give a pain patient the smallest dose of methadone. They return, complaining, it made me dizzy. It made me nauseous. I did not feel good. I had to cut it in half.

Posted by: David Behar | Jul 30, 2017 10:00:15 PM

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 Texas completes second US execution in as many days | Main | Reviewing the unique (and uniquely important?) Texas experience with criminal justice reform 

July 30, 2017

Spotlighting BOP's continued curious failure to make serious use of "compassionate release"

Mike Riggs has this notable new piece at Reason headlined "Congress Wants to Know Why the BOP Won't Let Elderly Prisoners Go Home to Die: 'Compassionate release' is an excellent tool that the BOP refuses to use." Here are excerpts:

For years, federal prisoners and their advocates have begged the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to shorten the sentences of elderly and terminally ill offenders using a provision called "compassionate release."... In 2013, the BOP Office of Inspector General encouraged the BOP to send these kinds of prisoners home. In 2016, the U.S. Sentencing Commission went so far as to expand eligibility for the program in hopes the BOP would use it more. But the BOP has largely ignored those recommendations [and now] Congress demanded that the BOP explain why it continues to incarcerate geriatric and terminally ill prisoners who pose no threat to public safety and are unlikely to commit new crimes upon their release. In a report accompanying the 2018 appropriations bill, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-Ala.) ordered the BOP to turn over reams of data about the compassionate release program. Including: the steps BOP has taken to implement the suggestions of the BOP Office of Inspector General and the U.S. Sentencing Commission

a detailed explanation as to which recommendations the BOP has not adopted, and why the number of prisoners who applied for compassionate release in the last five years, as well as how many requests were granted, how many were denied, and why

how much time elapsed between each request and a decision from the BOP

the number of prisoners who died while waiting for the BOP to rule on their application for compassionate release Only 10 percent of America's prisoners are in federal prisons, but it is an increasingly old and sick population due to the disproportionately long sentences tied to federal drug offenses. As of June 2017, BOP facilities held 34,769 prisoners over the age of 51. More than 10,000 of those prisoners are over the age of 60. Elderly prisoners pose financial and human rights problems. "In fiscal year 2014, the BOP spent $1.1 billion on inmate medical care, an increase of almost 30 percent in 5 years," BOP Inspector General Michael E. Horowitz wrote in prepared testimony to the U.S. Sentencing Commission. "One factor that has significantly contributed to the increase in medical costs is the sustained growth of an aging inmate population."... Shelby's letter gives the BOP 60 days from the passage of the appropriations bill to submit its data to the committee. "Elderly and sick prisoners cost taxpayers the most and threaten us the least, and there's no good reason they should stay locked up or die behind bars because bureaucrats can't or won't let them go home to their families," Kevin Ring, president of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, said in a statement. "It's time for someone to get to the bottom of why the BOP's answer is always no on compassionate release."

July 30, 2017 at 05:25 AM | Permalink

Comments

The of NO is a simple one. These old inmates provide the Bop with huge $$$$, does one think they are going to give away their fiscal security and power if not for ed to.

Posted by: MidWestGuy | Jul 30, 2017 7:26:24 AM

How long did that bitch who helped out the blind sheik live? Oh yeah, that's right.

Posted by: federalist | Jul 30, 2017 7:42:47 AM

The sad fact is that for some, they will have no family that recognizes them and/or able to care for them. Unlike younger, fitter men and women, the system cannot simply turn geriactic people out on the streets with $5 in their pockets. As with most major reforms there has to be plan and provision for appropriate care. The real answer is to ensure that wherever possible, families are enabled and encouraged to maintain regular contact, with release before old age and health become a problem. Also functioning health and rehabilitation programs inside or associated with prisons.

Posted by: peter | Jul 30, 2017 9:37:44 AM

@peter is getting close.

"Elderly and sick prisoners cost taxpayers the most and threaten us the least, and there's no good reason they should stay locked up or die behind bars because bureaucrats can't or won't let them go home to their families"

That proves too much because the elderly and sick cost the taxpayers the most whatever their status, prisoner or not. In fact, if the are released to homes in states that failed to expand the ACA such people may be worse off at home than in prisons. Prison medical care isn't great but it a far sight better than nothing. On the other hand, if they are released to states where the ACA has been expand then all one is doing is shifting taxpayer medical care from prisons to some other taxpayer program. Now, maybe there are some efficiency savings to such cost shifting but the FAMM person doesn't go there and I haven't seen the data. In the end, the whole "cost" argument for compassionate release is very weak, whatever costs saving that will be achieved are going to be achieved either through worse patient outcomes or will be at best incremental.

Posted by: Daniel | Jul 30, 2017 10:52:32 AM

I think its time the Federal Government revamped its way of thinking.They are evil the way they throw innocent in jail.They need to close all Federal prison except for murders,and give people a chance instead of throwing away the keys.

Posted by: Lou | Aug 13, 2017 4:36:35 AM

Post a comment
An elderly man who's been living in an Oakland senior citizens' housing complex in Oakland was arrested last month on suspicion of dealing cocaine, black tar heroin, and marijuana out of his apartment. 68-year-old Landry Daniels, a 14-time felon, was arrested on June 21 as the East Bay Times reports, and charged two days later with multiple counts of transporting controlled substances and possession with the intent to sell.

Currently free on $60,000 bail, Daniels pleaded not guilty in court on Wednesday, and will reappear in court on August 30.

During Daniels arrest, police say they seized $20,000 worth of drugs from his car and his apartment, and a neighbor who lives in the complex tells ABC 7 that she saw the suspicious activity going on for two years, and that the customers were mostly young women in their teens and 20s.

Daniels lives at the Glen Brook Terrace Satellite Senior Homes at 4030 Panama Court, a 66-unit building near Piedmont Avenue in Oakland. He was arrested in Emeryville on June 21 along with a couple of buyers whom undercover officers observed conducting drug deals with Daniels at his building. Officer found 14.1 grams of what they believed was cocaine in Daniels's vehicle, as well as 5.6 grams of suspect black tar heroin, according to the East Bay Times. Another 40 grams of suspect cocaine and 25.5 grams of suspect heroin was discovered in Daniels's apartment after serving a search warrant.

Daniels served prison sentences for nine of his prior convictions, which included drug crimes and petty theft.

An anonymous fellow resident of the senior complex who did not want to appear on camera tells ABC 7 that she's "appalled" that this was allowed to go on as long as it did, despite her calls to the building's management company. Also, she says, Daniels had a habit of taking up the only disabled parking spot in front of the building, and it turned out that he was using a bogus disabled placard on his car too.
DOWN

Presidential payback. Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke phoned each of Alaskas Republican U.S. senators to warn them of repercussions for Alaska if they failed to vote for Trumpcare. Zinkes calls came after President Donald Trump tweeted his displeasure at Murcowski for voting against starting debate on a House bill that would substantially reduce private insurance subsidies and Medicaid coverage for millions of Americans.

UP

FEMA funding. After denying Montanas request of a federal Fire Management Assistance Grant on July 23, the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved it on July 27, so the federal government will pay 75 percent of the states cost of fighting the Lodgepole Complex Fire in Garfield and Petroleum counties. Gov. Steve Bullock, Sens. Jon Tester and Steve Daines and Rep. Greg Gianforte appealed to FEMA for the grant. The federal aid is especially needed as Montana is cutting its budget and diverting part of a firefighting fund to the general fund.

DOWN

Uncertain costs. Montana Blue Cross and Blue Shield would request an average health insurance rate increase of only 2.3 percent for 2018  if the company new that the Affordable Care Act provisions would remain in place, the company president told the Associated Press. But because of uncertainty about what Congress may do to the law, Montanas largest insurance carrier filed a rate request averaging 23.1 percent. The price of uncertainty is an increase 10 times what it would be with market certainty.

UP

Coal trust. Montana Coal Board grants totaling $1.4 million have been awarded to: Big Horn County for replacement of two ambulance chassis, a road belly dump and grader; Big Horn Hospital Association for renovation and equipment replacement at Heritage Acres Long Term Care; the city of Hardin for street work in front of Hardin High School and a wastewater treatment facility preliminary engineering report; to Miles City for a preliminary engineering report for the Miles City airport; Hardin Public Schools to prepare a facility and education feasibility assessment and purchase of AED units; Lame Deer Public Schools for school housing purchase; Musselshell County for the purchase of a dump truck; Northern Cheyenne Utilities Commission for the purchase of water and wastewater system maintenance equipment; and Rosebud County to replace the roof on the Rosebud County Hospital.
Another independent movie house may be biting the dust. The bedraggled yet still appreciated Opera Plaza Cinema  appreciated for its programming and location if not its interior  is allegedly set to be replaced with in the ground floor of the Opera Plaza development with 6,300 square feet of retail and service space. This is according to Socketsite, which does not point to a source but presumably this is come down the pipe in the Planning queue.

The change will still need approval, and it's unclear where in the process this may be.

Opera Plaza's four small screens regularly feature independent and foreign films, as part of the Landmark Theatres chain. Currently they're showing the remastered 4K re-release of Merchant Ivory's Maurice, the French comedy Lost in Paris, and Alejandro Jodorowskys Endless Poetry.

If Opera Plaza closes, this will leave Landmark's presence in San Francisco with just two locations, the single-screen Clay Theatre, and the multi-screen Embarcadero Center Cinema.

The Clay Theatre, which has been under the management of Landmark since 1991, was readying for a major revamp as of last year, though it's unclear if or when it may still close for a renovation.

Overall it's been a rough decade for SF's scrappier and smaller movie houses, with the closures of The Red Vic (in 2011), and the Lumiere (in 2012). The Roxie became a non-profit a few years back, and both the historic Vogue and Balboa theaters, which still show first-run Hollywood fare, are also run by a non-profit.

We'll let you know if and when plans for Opera Plaza become a reality.

Update: SFist reached out to Landmark Theatres for comment, and rep Laine Kaplowitz tells us, "We are currently speaking to the landlord regarding our future. Thats all I can confirm at this time."

Previously: Historic Clay Theatre Readies For Renovation, Could Add Dining And Drinks


The ASEAN-Australia- New Zealand Free Trade Agreement (AANZFTA), which took effect from January 1, 2010, plays a key role in enhancing economic relations, trade and investment between ASEAN and Australia and New Zealand, Nam said.



Within the agreement framework, ASEAN countries can enjoy 90 to 100 per cent tariff reductions in Australian and New Zealand markets, and Vietnamese firms should take full advantage of this potential, he said.



He noted that Australia and New Zealand were among the biggest importers in the world since both economies are largely dependent on imported products.



Vietnams chief exports to these two markets include agricultural products, seafood, coffee beans, cashews, electronics parts, textiles, footwear and construction material.



If the AANZFTA was utilized well, Vietnamese producers could enjoy all the privileges contained therein, boosting export turnover and earning handsome profits, Nam said.



Statistics from the Ministry of Industry and Trade showed that trade between Vietnam and Australia hit 5.26 billion USD in 2016, up 6.5 percent year-on-year. Particularly, Vietnam enjoyed trade surplus of 480 million USD with Australia in the year.



According to Phan Thi Dieu Linh, expert from the Department of Asia-Pacific Market, although Australian consumers are favoured of locals products, they are still open with imported ones, which have high quality, good looking and rational prices. This factor also facilitates Vietnamese exports, she underlined.



Meanwhile, Trinh Thi Thu Hien from the Foreign Trade Agency under the Ministry of Industry and Trade, stated that there is large room for Vietnamese shipments to Australia as export revenue is still humble, standing at 1.6 percent of total export values in Australia.



Hien said that the AANZFTA is being carried out in the context of deeper regional and global integration which supports the development in Vietnam-Australia and New Zealand relations. Domestic businesses should apply international standards to meet increasing demands of foreign customers and become more competitive with foreign rivals, she highlighted.

Vietnamplus
The event which is part of the activities marking the the Vietnam-Laos Solidarity and Friendship Year 2017 aims to present the land and Vietnamese people, achievements and cooperation between the two countries and the two cities.



Standing Deputy Secretary of HCMC Party Committee, Tat Thanh Cang affirmed the special relationships of solidarity between Vietnam and Laos which founded by the late Presidents Ho Chi Minh and Cayson Phomvihan; and bilateral cooperation projects, contributed to prosperity of the two sides.

Vientiane Mayor Dr Sinlavong Khoutphaythoune hoped the two countries will continue to maintain cooperation relationships.



The Ho Chi Minh Citys delegation also laid a wreath at Laos' anonymous martyr's monument in Vientiane and presented 50 cows to Vientiane as part of the project supporting techniques in raising beef cattle in the 2015-2020 period between the two cities.

The Vietnam-Laos Solidarity and Friendship Year was organized in 2002, 2007 and 2012. Ho Chi Minh City has supported Vientiane in many various projects, including upgrading Vientiane-Ho Chi Minh City friendship high school worth US$ 5 million; building financial information center, human resource training, added Vientiane Mayor Dr Sinlavong Khoutphaythoune.



Standing Deputy Secretary of HCMC Party Committee, Tat Thanh Cang speaks at the opening ceremony of the HCM City days in Vientiane 2017 . Standing Deputy Secretary of HCMC Party Committee, Tat Thanh Cang presents a painting to Vientianes leader. The Ho Chi Minh Citys delegation also laid a wreath at Laos' anonymous martyr's monument in Vientiane . The Ho Chi Minh Citys delegation also laid a wreath at Laos' anonymous martyr's monument in Vientiane .

The delegation visits Laos' anonymous martyr's monument in Vientiane .

HCM City presents 50 cows to the Vientiane City

Mr. Tat Thanh Cang visits a veterinary center in Mount Phu Si in the old town of Luang Prabang.

By AI CHAN  Translated by Kim Khanh
The carrier cancelled flights VN576 and VN577 between Hanoi and Taipei on July 29 while starting four other flights later than previously scheduled for the routes between Ho Chi Minh City and Taipei and between Hanoi and Taipei on July 30.Flights VN576 and VN577, which were canceled by the storm on July 29, will fly on July 30.The airlines domestic flight will be delayed as a result of knock-on effect.The carrier will follow up the weather conditions and update further information related to flight schedule adjustments.It recommended passengers who intend to travel to or from Taoyuan and Kaohsiung airports closely follow the storms movements and the carriers notice to be proactive in adjusting their traveling plans.For more detailed information, passengers should visit www.vietnamairlines.com, contact ticket offices of Vietnam Airlines nationwide or call customer service 1900 1100.

VNS
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SIOUX CITY | A major Iowa shopping holiday is fast approaching.

No, it isn't Black Friday or Christmas.

During Iowa's annual sales tax holiday, Aug. 4-5, most apparel priced less than $100 will be exempt from state and local sales taxes. On a $100 item, for example, shoppers in Woodbury County will save $7 -- $5 on the 5 percent state tax and a dollar apiece on the 1 percent city and county sales tax.

The tax holiday coincides with back-to-school shopping, and even though many school essentials -- like backpacks and crayons -- are not tax exempt, retailers are gearing up for a massive increase in foot traffic for that Friday and Saturday.

MODE, a boutique at Lakeport Commons outdoor mall, estimates it might have four times as many customers that weekend, partly because of a promotion they're planning -- everything in the store will be $10 or less.

Store manager Kristie McGregor said the store carries a range of styles and sizes -- so mothers and grandmothers can bring school-aged girls there for back-to-school shopping, and everyone can walk out with something.

"We love multi-generational shopping at our store," McGregor said.

The store expects to sell a lot of denim items, jackets and tops, and accessories that weekend, a reflection of what people tend to buy at back-to-school time.

At Bomgaars, all clothing will have an additional 15 percent discount, bringing the total discount to 22 percent, said Joe Boyle, manager of the Hamilton Boulevard Bomgaars.

In past years, clothing sales at Bomgaars had doubled during the two-day holiday, Boyle estimated.

"We usually do have a lot more foot traffic those days, because there is a fair amount of people that save their school shopping to do that weekend just because of the tax holiday," he said.

Boyle added he appreciates the state forgoing some of its tax revenue to boost sales at businesses, and to give shoppers a break.

"It definitely generates business, because it's top-of-mind for people, you know, it's an incentive for them to go do their shopping," Boyle said.

Kim Kletschke, co-owner of Karlton's men's clothing store in downtown Sioux City, said that the extra foot traffic of the tax holiday is a bonus for his store during the summer season, when "all people want to be is in a t-shirt and swimsuit," instead of dress clothing.

"It's a good incentive to get them out and thinking about buying fall clothes maybe sooner than they would need them," Kletschke said. "Just in general, it might be just enough of an extra incentive to go through the sales racks."

Even though most tax-holiday shoppers are in a back-to-school frame of mind, Kletschke said customers still take advantage of the tax break.

"Saving the seven percent's better than not," Kletschke said.

Sioux City retailers happen to be in a good location for a tax-free holiday, as shoppers will come from neighboring South Dakota and Nebraska for the event.

"Everybody comes in from out of town, from all the rural areas, everybody's coming in to shop in Iowa for that tax-free event," McGregor said.
SIOUX CITY | When buying various drugs for his family's dog, who later succumbed to renal failure, Bill Drilling couldn't help but think there must be a high consumer demand for pet medications.

Drilling, co-owner of Drilling Pharmacy in Morningside, said JoJo the Shih Tzu was taking more medications than all the members of his household combined.

"We probably kept her going an extra two or three years being on those medications," Drilling said, while his daughter's 7-year-old Shih Tzu, Lizzie, toddled around the pharmacy's gift shop on a leash.

The little black and white pooch, who donned a red flower on her collar, takes flea, tick and heartworm preventatives that can now be purchased at Drilling Pharmacy.

A year ago, Drilling said he added pet-specific medications, such as Heartgard, which is available by prescription only, to make the process of buying them more convenient and economical for customers. Hy-Vee stores also added flea and tick and heartworm drugs to their pharmacies in 2016, citing customer convenience.

It's a trend that started several years ago with big-box stores such as Costco, Target and Walmart that will only likely continue to spread as insurers and pharmacy benefit managers increasingly require human patients to buy their own drugs from mail-order services. More and more independent brick and mortar pharmacies are opting to take a bite out of the pet medication market to help keep their doors open.

According to the American Pet Products Association, $66.75 billion was spent on U.S. pets in 2016. Americans shelled out $15.95 billion of that on veterinary care and $14.71 billion on supplies and over-the-counter medications.

"We got all our medications for JoJo through the veterinarian. It was very expensive," said Drilling, who consulted with pharmacists who had long since diversified into the world of pet meds before taking the leap. "We have had people wanting to use their insurance card on the dog saying, 'It's a family member.' It was a shock when I said they couldn't do it."

Although selling pet-specific medications is a fairly new venture for independent pharmacies, Drilling said he can recall filling prescriptions for dogs and cats who needed insulin to manage diabetes throughout his career. Many prescription drugs are approved for use in both humans and animals.

"Except for the Heartgard and TruProfen (an anti-inflammatory), basically everything else we have would be used in a human, too," said Drilling, who cautions against sharing your dog's or cat's blood pressure pills and other drugs and encourages storing pet medications separate from human medications.

Although medications for man's best friends may be cheaper at a pharmacy, there is currently no federal law preventing veterinarians from charging a fee for writing prescriptions for them, according to the American Veterinary Medical Association (AVMA), a nonprofit association that represents more than 89,000 U.S. veterinarians.

When faced with one of these fees, Drilling said a customer decided to purchase her pet's medication from her veterinarian rather than have it filled at his pharmacy. He recalled another case where a prescription for an animal was so specialized that it had to be made at a veterinary compounding pharmacy.

This year, a bill was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives that directs the Federal Trade Commission to require prescribers of animal drugs to verify prescriptions and provide copies of prescriptions to pet owners, pet owner designees and pharmacies without the prescriber demanding payment or establishing other conditions.

The AVMA opposes the Fairness to Pet Owners Act of 2017, which has been stuck in committee since January, claiming the extra regulatory burden could limit the number of patients veterinary clinics are able to see and lead pet care costs to rise even higher.

In most cases, the AVMA says clients are able to receive a written prescription from their veterinarian to fill at a pharmacy simply by asking for it. In Iowa, Nebraska and South Dakota, not honoring a client's request for a prescription in lieu of dispensing a medication could be considered unprofessional conduct and grounds for discipline.

The AVMA recommends that pet owners consider getting their pet's medications from a veterinarian if the veterinarian has the medication in stock and the pet needs it immediately. The AVMA also notes that veterinarians and veterinary technicians can answer questions on the spot and may even be able to demonstrate how to give the medication to the pet right in the office.

While shopping around may not work for every pet owner, if your dog or cat takes a medication on a consistent basis, as JoJo did, Drilling said it doesn't hurt to try. And his delivery drivers will even bring pet medications to your doorstep.

"Whatever pharmacy you go to, you should just check and see if they offer this just for the sake of convenience," he said. "Check the prices and see if this could save you a little money."
DOON, Iowa | The color guard representing American Legion Post No. 476 led 104 floats celebrating Doon's 125th anniversary bash on Saturday morning. Important work, leading a parade.

Members of the group performed another meaningful task, quietly, one hour prior to the parade.

Eight members of Post No. 476 gathered with 20-some members of the Surma family at Hillside Cemetery southwest of Doon at 10 a.m. Commander Marvin Post apologized at the start of a brief ceremony, saying this action was long overdue.

The uniformed contingent assembled to perform military rites at the grave site of Stan "Sas" Surma, a member of the Polish Army during World War II. Surma, who came to Doon after the war's conclusion, built a business, raised a family, and served for years in Post No. 476, a key organization in this Lyon County town.

However, when Surma died 11 years ago, he didn't receive military rites at his burial because of a split in the local legion, primarily because he wasn't a U.S. military veteran.

"Somewhere along the line this (military rite) for him was eliminated," Post said. "We thought this was something we could do this weekend for his family."

All six children of "Sas" and Grace Surma were present for the ceremony, one that included the folding and presentation of a flag, a gun salute and playing of taps. Post presented the flag to son Carl Surma, of Doon, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Army.

Post thanked Carl Surma for the service his father gave to the U.S., and the Allied Forces in defeating Germany in World War II.

"Marv came to me a while back while I was mowing my yard," Carl Surma said. "Marv said this had been bothering him, the fact my dad never got military rites."

Stan "Sas" Surma was born in 1927 at Pietrycze, Poland, making him a 12-year-old when Germany overran his homeland and started World War II. A couple of years later, "Sas" boarded a vehicle in Poland, thinking it would take him to a site where members of a resistance movement were gathering. Instead, he was fooled and was shipped off to a work camp, separated from his family.

He would serve time in the labor camp, raising crops to feed members of the Germany military.

Allied bombers later helped liberate the camp and "Sas" joined the Polish Army toward the end of the war. His children said he guarded the motor pool during the Nuremberg Trials at Nuremberg, Germany. He also helped clean a concentration camp following the war.

"Sas," who was Catholic, appealed to Catholic Relief Services three years after the war ended. His application was approved and he boarded a ship named "Hope," which was bound for the U.S. He landed at Boston, Massachusetts, with $2 in his pockets. His first U.S. purchase consisted of ice cream and a Coca-Cola. "Sas," who was 21 at the time, spoke no English.

"Dad wanted to go where there was open land and plenty of food," said daughter Penny Toay, of Waverly, Iowa.

"Sas" was placed in the care of C.M. and Marie Kopp, of Doon, a couple that expressed a willingness to sponsor an immigrant. The Kopps were aided in the effort by Steve Ratus, a World War II veteran from Doon. Ratus is buried next to "Sas" and Grace Surma, in the shadow of a giant evergreen on the northern edge of Hillside Cemetery, mere steps from rows of corn that help feed a nation today.

On Labor Day in 1948, "Sas" arrived in Doon, where he'd remain for good.

"The town sponsored a bank loan to get him started in the shoe business," said daughter Amy Surma, of Creston, Iowa. "He had watched a shoemaker in Poland and knew something about that business."

"Stan the Shoe Man," which is engraved on his headstone, operated his business until his retirement in 2003. Along the way, he pitched in with American Legion Post No. 476, served on the Doon City Council and Doon Board of Education, and assisted with the U.S. Air Force Air Defense Team-Ground Observer Corps.

"Sas" was 79 when he died on Oct. 28, 2006. He was buried here on Nov. 1, 2006.

His military rites, though 11 years late, were appreciated by his children and grandchildren, many of whom dabbed tears as Post presented the U.S. flag to son Carl.

As a nation, we should be grateful. Stan "Sas" Surma played a role in working for us while saving the free world. He then went on make an impact on his new country, and a new hometown, a place that wrapped its arms around this war survivor.

"Dad came from Poland when Hitler came to power," Carl Surma said. "Dad knew what freedom -- the freedom many of us take for granted -- is all about."
SIOUX CITY | Woodbury County officials are closing in on hiring a new director for county parks, as Woodbury County Conservation Board on Thursday will recommend a person to be the next leader.

Conservation Board Director Rick Schneider is retiring at the end of 2017. He will turn 65 in August and has been director of the Woodbury County Conservation Board since March 1975.

The monthly conservation board meeting will be held at 4:30 p.m. Thursday at Little Sioux Park, in rural Correctionville. An agenda item will have the board members considering acceptance of the recommended new director, from a committee that interviewed candidates.

Schneider explained the conservation board has the power to hire and set the salary for the director. The Woodbury County Board of Supervisors sets the budget annually for the conservation board.

Schneider said the new director will likely start in the post Nov. 1, in order to give some overlap training time, before Schneider leaves in mid-December.

The Woodbury County Conservation Board oversees 16 outdoor options, including wildlife areas, nature preserves and parks such as Little Sioux Park south of Correctionville, Southwood Conservation Area near Smithland, and Brown's Lake-Bigelow Park and Snyder Bend Park, both near Salix. Many of the areas were in infancy when Schneider arrived.

Schneider currently oversees a staff of 17 employees, plus many more seasonal workers.
New at Cornerstone

Leo Gefroh Jr. and Diane Hanebutt have joined Cornerstone Bank in Bismarck.

Gefroh is a vice president/business banker and has more than 32 years of banking experience.

Gefroh earned an associate's degree at what was then Bismarck State College, a bachelors degree in business administration at the University of Minnesota Moorhead and a graduate degree in banking at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Hanebutt is a mortgage loan processor. Originally from Hebron, Ind., she majored in business management at St. Joseph College and received her master's degree in business administration at Anderson University in Indiana. She has more than 27 years of mortgage experience.

Gullicks selected

Jason Gullicks has been named the Bismarck operations manager for Apex Engineering Group.

Gullicks graduated from North Dakota State University and has 20 years of civil engineering experience.

He succeeds Scott Olson, who retired in July.

Kreofsky on staff

Dr. Cole Kreofsky has joined the Bismarck Cancer Center as a radiation oncologist.

A graduate of Wayne State University School of Medicine in Detroit, he completed his radiation residency at Mayo Clinic School of Graduate Medical Education in Rochester, Minn.

Fuchs recognized

Bryon Fuchs, of Bismarck, a transportation engineer for the North Dakota Department of Transportation, recently received the Dr. L.I. Hewes Award from the Western Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials at the annual meeting in Juneau, Alaska.

The award recognizes outstanding contributions to the highway development program and is presented to someone actively engaged in highway development.

Fuchs was nominated by the NDDOT for his leadership in many programs that help to improve the states transportation infrastructure, his role in managing the Emergency Relief program and his involvement in the Local Roads Safety Program.

The Hewes Award began in 1951, and Fuchs is only the third recipient from North Dakota.

Fuchs graduated from North Dakota State University with a bachelor's degree in civil engineering and is a registered professional engineer in North Dakota. He has been with the NDDOT for more than 16 years.

Fugere with NDHFA

Amy Fugere, of Bismarck, was recently hired by the North Dakota Housing Finance Agency as a homeownership specialist.

She has a background in lending and worked at Capital Credit Union as an underwriter and at Gate City Bank as a loan officer.

Schuh joins Bianco

Josh Schuh has joined Bianco Realty in Bismarck.

Schuh is a Realtor.

Filibeck achieves

Chris Ray Filibeck, of Bismarck, has been named a member of the 2017 Executive Council of New York Life Insurance Co. Members are among the most successful of the companys licensed agents.

Filibeck has been an agent since 2009, and this is his seventh consecutive council.

Detailers take part

Paul Richter and Nevada Crimmins of Xtreme Auto Detail in Dickinson were selected for the second consecutive year to join more than 50 detailers in a weeklong work project at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

The group expected to detail 17 historic aircraft and clean and polish the first presidential Air Force One jet.

Promoted, hired

Three people have been promoted at First Community Credit Union, Bismarck, and one employee has joined the staff.

Promoted employees and their new positions are Jessica Nygaard, financial services officer; Josh Fettig, financial services representative; and Hannah McInnes, member service representative team lead.

Tom Wyatt has been hired as a member service representative.

Wyatt, Fettig and McInnes work at the north branch. Nygaard is located downtown.

Nygaard is a graduate of Minnesota West in massage therapy and cosmetology and Minnesota State University in business management. She started at FCCU in 2015 and most recently was a team lead.

Fettig started at FCCU as a member service representative in 2013.

McInnes has an administrative assistant associates degree and an office management associates degree from Lake Region State College. She began her career at FCCU in 2016 as a member service representative.

Wyatt, from Bethel, Minn., has an associates degree in accounting from Anoka-Ramsey Community College and a bachelors degree in church music from Concordia University in Nebraska. He has financial customer service experience.

Miller with MACS

Don Miller has joined MACS in Bismarck as assistant store manager.

Miller has 20 years of retail management experience, most recently as shipping and receiving manager at Dicks Sporting Goods.

Leaders in closings

Shirley Thomas and Jim Jeromchek have been named Realtors of the month by Bianco Realty for having the most closed sales in June.

Lawyers on list

Lawrence Bender and William P. Pearce have been named to the 2017 Great Plains Super Lawyers list in the energy and resources area.

Brad McCamy received a Rising Star designation in energy and resources. The designation is for leading lawyers 40 or younger or in practice for up to 10 years.

The three are with Fredrikson & Byrons Bismarck office.

New roles at BND

Three people have transferred to new roles at the Bank of North Dakota.

Pam Lewis is now a student loan specialist in new loans. Lewis joined BND in 2014 as a student loan customer service representative.

Michelle Schwab is now a loan operations specialist in operations. Schwab had been an electronic banking specialist since April 2016.

Wanda Herberholz is now an electronic banking specialist in operations. Herberholz began her career at BND in student loans in 1995.

Three promoted

Three people have been promoted at Widmer Roel.

Pao-Yueh Claudia Schollmeyer is now a tax supervisor. She joined Widmer Roel in 2011.

Rhonda Elkin was promoted to senior staff accountant. Elkin joined the firm in 2011.

Stacy Cahoon has become a tax and accounting services supervisor. Cahoon joined Widmer Roel in 2012 and manages the Hazen office operations.

Thiem selected

Rebecca S. Thiem has been selected to the 2017 Great Plains Super Lawyers List in the primary practice area of civil litigation-defense. Thiem was also selected to the 2017 Top 5 North Dakota Super Lawyers list.

She is with Serkland Law Firm, Bismarck.
Todays top picks from our online calendar. Find more events at siouxcityjournal.com/calendar.

Greek Fest 2017

Head down to Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, 900 6th St. for the last day of Greek folk dancing, children's events, Grecian Boutique, bake sale, church tours, music and singing 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Visit www.holytrinity.ia.goarch.org for more information.

Monty Python's Spamalot

Lovingly ripped from the classic film comedy "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," SPAMALOT retells the legend of King Arthur and his Knights of the Roundtable, and features a bevy of beautiful show girls, not to mention cows, killer rabbits and French people. Did we mention a bevy of beautiful show girls? Shows 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 2 p.m. Sunday at the Sioux City Community Theatre.

Bare

Bare is an incredible show that focuses on a coming-of-age of a group of high school seniors at a co-ed Catholic boarding school, each struggling to define themselves in the face of their relationships, sexuality and religion. Tonight's show begins at 8 p.m. at Shot in the Dark Theatre, 413 Nebraska St. Admission is $18.
This is in response to the writer of Monday's Mini Editorial who asked: "Where in the U.S. Constitution does it say that anyone -- or everyone -- is entitled to health insurance and/or medical care paid for by someone other than one's own self -- i.e., taxpayers?"

Well, I guess the part that says: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare ..." In case you missed it, "promote the general Welfare" which when we all, sooner or latter, will need health care means we're all in this together and we need come up with something that works for all Americans and not just the healthy and wealthy.
DEAR ABBY: My 18-year-old daughter has just graduated from high school. She has now informed me that she's not going on to college, like we had previously discussed, and becomes upset when we try to talk to her. My question is, should we let her make her own decision about this -- and pay for it for the rest of her life -- or continue to push her into some kind of life skill set? -- LIFE SKILLS IN MISSOURI

DEAR LIFE SKILLS: Your daughter may be burned out from studying. Rather than "push" her into doing something she is sure to resent, consider allowing her to take a gap year.

This does not mean it should be spent resting on her laurels or her fanny. She might benefit from getting a job and learning what the real world is like. It would give her time to mature and, after spending a year in a lower-paying job, she may begin to appreciate the wisdom of furthering her education for the financial benefit it brings.

DEAR ABBY: I have had a weight problem all my life. What makes it harder is that I have a sister a year younger who can't gain a pound. She has always been the "hot one" and the center of attention. People she has introduced me to have actually said, "I can't believe you're sisters" instead of "Nice to meet you."

Of course, my sister is married, while I am still single. I hate being around her because I feel like a slug. I'm more physically active than she is, and I eat healthier. I'm not ugly, but I feel that way around her. Do you have any advice on handling this? -- IN HER SHADOW IN MARYLAND

DEAR IN HER SHADOW: For starters, stop comparing yourself to your sister. You are overdue for reviewing your own assets as an individual.

You may not be as "metabolically blessed" as your slender sister, but that doesn't mean you don't have important qualities that she doesn't share. Figure out what those are, "polish" them, and you will discover you are a successful person in your own right.

If you think your not being married is a drawback, it's time you understood that marriage isn't a goal; it is only a beginning. It's a partnership, hopefully a successful one, but it's not a guarantee of success in any area.

DEAR ABBY: My son volunteers teaching classes at a community center and is generous about assisting anyone with anything he is capable of. But when it comes to helping his wife and family, he never has time because he's always helping strangers. I believe his giving should begin at home. How can we get him to see the light? -- DO-GOODER'S MOM

DEAR DO-GOODER'S MOM: While I agree that charity should begin at home, your daughter-in-law should address this with your son, not you. Suggest she begin by asking him why the psychic gratification he receives from helping strangers seems to be greater than what he feels from helping family. His answer should be an interesting jumping-off place for the discussion that ensues. Everybody needs to feel important, and strangers may be more inclined to express their gratitude.
The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has been the key tool used by Israel to dispossess Palestinians of their lands for over a century. It also discriminates against Palestinian citizens of  Watch video 

The Jewish National Fund (JNF) has been the key tool used by Israel to dispossess Palestinians of their lands for over a century. It also discriminates against Palestinian citizens of Israel in the provision of land and housing, and appropriates lands in the Occupied Palestinian Territory in violation of international law.

Canadian taxpayers subsidize these activities, as the JNF has a fundraising office in Canada that has had charitable status since 1967.

Join with Independent Jewish Voices Canada (IJV) in calling on the Minister of National Revenue to revoke JNF Canadas charitable status NOW!

Sign our petition here.
Eliminations for the Hambletonian Oaks were contested on the Saturday, July 29 program at the Meadowlands, with two splits going for $40,438 collecting the top five finishers for the $500,000 final on Hambletonian day Saturday, August 5.

Floating away towards the center of the pack, 1-9 favourite Ariana G picked up cover moving to the far turn and kicked away with ease to a 1:51.3 victory in the first Hambletonian Oaks elimination.

Ice Attraction sprinted out for command, going the first quarter in :27.2 while Ariana G settled into fifth. Approaching the half, Glitzey Gal edged off the rail from third and rushed up to challenge Ice Attraction before going off stride through a :55.1 half mile.

Fine Tuned Lady began an uncovered move around the far turn, with Ariana G positioned second over and carried within two lengths of the lead at three-quarters in 1:23.3. At the head of the stretch, driver Yannick Gingras fanned Ariana G off cover, taking the lead at the eighth pole and sprinting to a two-length victory over finalists Dream Together, Sunshine Delight, Fine Tuned Lady, and Dream Baby Dream.

Winning 14 of her 17 starts, Ariana G, by Muscle Hill from the Cantab Hall mare Cantab It All, competes for owners Marvin Katz and Al Libfeld and trainer Jimmy Takter. She has earned $958,058 in her career, and paid $2.20 to win.

"I had my options open going to that first turn," Yannick Gingras said. "I would've been happy to cut the mile or race from the back, but there were a lot of leavers so I took my time. She let me drive her any way I wanted."

Ariana G is not yet confirmed to be heading for the Hambletonian.

"It's not my decision, but wherever they go, I can tell you one thing: I'm going to drive her," Gingras also said.

Magic Presto commandeered the field before the half in the second elimination, winning in 1:52.1.

Feed Your Head took control moving to the first turn, going the first quarter in :28.2 with Hillarmbro sitting second and Magic Presto third. Magic Presto soon tipped off the rail and brushed to the lead, hitting the half in :56.

Moving around the far turn, Hillarmbro flushed first over to pressure Magic Presto, with Overdraft Volo and Southwind Avanti drafting on cover. Past three-quarters in 1:24.1, Magic Presto turned away Hillarmbro.

Feed Your Head, getting room at the eighth pole, lunged after Magic Presto, but was a neck short. Southwind Avanti closed for third and Overdraft Volo and Caviart Wonder round out the Oaks finalists.

Owned by Melvin Hartman, Herb Liverman, and David Mc Duffee, Magic Presto, by Kadabra from the Muscles Yankee mare In The Mean Time, has won eight races in 16 starts, compiling $457,180 in earnings. Trained by Richard Norman and driven by Brian Sears, she paid $3.60 to win.

"We have our hands full with (Ariana G)," Brian Sears said. She looks very good, no question about it. My filly was a little peculiar tonight. She was just looking at everything and usually she is very relaxed, but maybe all of the commotion tonight had her on her heels a little bit."

Alongside the Oaks eliminations, glamour boy trotters competed in the $49,580 Reynolds Memorial, with What The Hill claiming victory in 1:52.1.

What The Hill darted right to the top, with stablemate Southwind Cobra coming away on his back from post one. Those two continued sitting one-two through splits of :28.2, :56.2, and 1:24.2 until Southwind Cobra broke when angling to the outside at the top of the stretch.

What The Hill then inherited a three-and-a-half length lead after the break, continuing on the front to win by three-quarters lengths over Yes Mickey and 6-5 favourite Bill's Man.

What The Hill now has four wins in six seasonal tries. He races for the ownership group of Burke Racing Stable, Our Horse Cents Stables, Jerry and Theresa Silva Stables, and Deo Volente Farms. He is trained by Ron Burke and was driven by David Miller. He paid $7.00 to win.

(With files from the Meadowlands)
The essential component of totalitarian propaganda is artifice (het toepassen van kunstgrepen. svh) . The ruling elites, like celebritie...
Not every issue is an economic one, but there are economic elements to most issues, including police shootings. This is a deep societal question right now in the Twin Cities that involves political, sociological and psychological issues rather than economics per se. But a few economic insights may be helpful.

The base of all economics is the idea of opportunity cost. This is the value of what you give up when you choose one alternative over another. If you eat hamburgers, you cannot be a vegetarian. If you work as a police officer, you cannot earn the income of an investment banker. Become a futures trader, and you might forego the satisfaction a social worker gets from serving others. Pass on joining the Peace Corps, and you might give up an opportunity to live among another culture, but perhaps also the risk of getting hepatitis.

When it comes to police shootings, there are increasing opportunity costs at the institutional and individual levels.

Institutionally, make rules too stringent on drawing and firing service weapons and more police may be killed by criminals who fire first. Prosecute more police shootings, and more crime may occur because perpetrators know that they will have time to get away or get their weapons out in case the police arrive.

At the other end of the spectrum, if the consequences for use of police weapons are too lax, innocent people may be killed by nervous or vindictive officers. If one officer among several thinks they see something in someones hand that might be a gun, everyone must shoot. All other officers on scene are supposed to join in and keep firing until there is no possible threat. A backfiring car can lead to a summary execution with nearly 150 bullets fired into two innocent men, as happened a few years ago in Ohio.

Few police are killed in the line of duty, but just one in the news can change the instantaneous calculations an officer often has to make. Add in regular court acquittals or non-indictments of officers whom prosecutors choose to pursue for their actions, and citizens become hesitant to call the police in many cases. Consider a family with a mentally ill relative who is not really dangerous but more than parents or siblings can handle. They fear that, if they call police and this loved one makes what an officer might interpret as a threatening move, he or she will be killed.

These are opportunity costs on the individual level  officers choosing to risk their careers by shooting rather than risk their lives by not; citizens choosing to forgo police services that may be needed or helpful.

The recent shooting of Justine Damond, a 40-year old Australian woman, by Minneapolis police tells people it is dangerous to call 911 and then go outside to meet the police and explain what you think happened. Call 911 and get killed is a new sardonic slogan.

Where then to operate on that long continuum between police hardly ever firing weapons or firing at the slightest threat?

Various sources, however imperfect, show that the United States has levels of police shootings that are far higher than other developed countries. Compared to England and Wales, most studies show a U.S. resident is 75 to 200 times more likely to be shot to death by the police; a Danish study for Europe over the 1996-2006 decade shows that the U.S. rate is 850 times higher than the U.K. and several other European nations.

Expectations are a powerful force in economics and are a factor in police shootings. The phenomenon of suicide by cop is well known here. If you can reasonably expect that the police will open fire and keep shooting if you threaten them, then doing so is, for some, an easy way out. You dont even need to own a firearm.

But if the expectation is that police wont shoot you, then provoking a police shooting is not a viable option for self-harm. Suicide by cop is virtually unknown in the U.K., Scandinavia, the Netherlands, Germany or New Zealand.

Relative abundance of key resources is also an element in economics. In the debate over violent crime, the availability of firearms is often cited as a determining reason why there are more shootings in the United States and for why police here need to be trained to shoot earlier in confrontations. More guns = more shooting, on both sides of the law, the equation goes.

Americans do own more firearms than citizens of other countries, but the gap is not nearly as great as one might believe. There are more firearms in countries such as England, France and Germany than Americans think. Our country has roughly four times more guns of all types per capita than Germany, but our police are 60 to 400 times more likely to shoot and kill someone than in that country.

Higher levels of economic inequality and higher proportions of racial and ethnic minorities correlated to poverty also are given as factors in the nature of U.S. criminal violence and the necessary police response to it. The United States does have a more racially mixed population than many other industrialized nations but the gap is narrower than most Americans think.

Then there is culture. Our nation has a culture of individualism and violence, one glorified in books and movies and as part of the national ethos. This undoubtedly is true to some extent. The degree to which it determines level of gun use in crime and prudent police practices in response is hard to quantify.

If you believe, as I do, that in recent decades we have gone too far toward the quick-to-shoot end of the spectrum, then one must ask how this can be changed. A look at U.S. history shows that democracy is surprisingly effective, especially when there is political leadership. Political corruption was high, especially in the 1830s and 1870s-1890s. But reforms eventually took place at state and federal levels. The spoils system and the power of political machines slowly eroded in the face of popular sentiment expressed through the vote.
In 2014, Kylie Frost sought out Laura Hamilton, the only midwife who does home births in Lewis County, to oversee her pregnancy and deliver her baby.

Hamilton, according to her lawyer, has delivered more than 4,000 babies across Southwest Washington in her 34 years of practice. She graduated with the first class at Seattle Midwifery School, has been a licensed practical nurse since 1977, and by some estimates she was delivering three-quarters of the babies in Lewis County in the early 1990s.

But despite that experience, Frosts case went all wrong.

When she was a week shy of full term, Frost passed several fist-sized blood clots. Hamilton told her the discharges were normal and there was nothing to worry about, according to a wrongful death lawsuit Frost filed against Hamilton in April. Finally, after four more calls to Hamilton, Frosts mother-in-law called Providence Hospital in Centralia. A nurse told the family to have Frost go see Hamilton or come to the hospital, according to the lawsuit.

At Hamiltons Chehalis clinic  which she runs out of her home  Frost continued bleeding. Her contractions got worse, and she said she felt horrible abdominal pain when she tried to push, according to court records. Hamilton then checked the babys heart rate, but it was no longer detectable. Hamilton told Frost her baby was gone and called 911, according to the lawsuit. Frost delivered her stillborn baby, Oliver, by cesarean section at a hospital.

What Frost may not have known at the time was that Hamilton had already racked up dozens of complaints, several professional disciplinary orders and had been subject to multiple state Health Department investigations over the course of her career, including a 1994 case in which an administrative health law judge determined Hamiltons negligence was a factor in the death of a 21-year-old mother.

Hamilton currently is under Health Department investigation in three cases, two of which have sparked lawsuits  including Frosts and another by a cousin. She also faces another malpractice case that is under appeal.

Despite that track record, Hamilton, 60, continues to practice. In multiple interviews, officials from the state Department of Health couldnt answer why Hamilton has not been barred from delivering children.

Shes had some problems in the past, and it seems to be more than normal, said Sim Osborn, one of the lawyers representing the plaintiffs in the two active malpractice lawsuits against Hamilton. Theres never really any closure for this on anyone. Theres never a resolution of these cases. Its good for the clients and good for (Hamilton) to get this resolved, but it is what it is. Theres no perfect system.

Hamilton declined to be interviewed, but her lawyer, Donna Moniz, describes her as a devoted, experienced licensed midwife.

Unfortunately, pregnancy, labor and delivery are not risk-free. Although it is hard for both parents and health care providers to accept, complications can and do occur through no fault of the delivery provider, whether physician or midwife, Moniz wrote in a statement to The Daily News. Hamilton sees her clients for every prenatal visit. She attends every birth herself barring unusual circumstances. She consults or refers to physician specialists for deviations from normal.

Hamilton is denying the allegations, and she disputes some of the facts in Frosts lawsuit, which will be heard in Lewis County Superior Court.

Birth: A legal minefield

Over her career, Hamilton has been subject to at least 22 complaints for her midwifery care, and the health department determined all but three of them were serious enough to warrant investigation. Kathy Weed, program director for midwifery at the state Department of Health, said in her three years with the department she has never encountered a midwife with as many complaints as Hamilton.

Obstetrics is a legally fraught area. Medscape, a medical industry newsletter, says OB-GYNS are the most frequently sued of all medical practitioners. A Medscape survey found 85 percent of OB-GYNS had been sued for malpractice at least once. Comparable statistics for midwives were not available.

At the same time, the number of home births  the rule a century ago  have more than doubled since about 2004, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Today, they account for 1.36 percent of all births, up from 0.56 percent in 2004. But in Washington and Oregon, more than 3 percent of births occur at home, the CDC estimates.

Most of these are supervised by midwives, of which there are 170 licensed in Washington. In this state, two midwifery associations have established standards of care most midwives choose to follow, but the state does not have any standard of care laws that are legally binding for midwives, meaning they enjoy a great deal of choice in what they can and cannot do, Weed said.

The law does state: It shall be the duty of a midwife to consult with a physician whenever there are significant deviations from normal in either the mother or the newborn. State law also outlines requirements for licensing and license renewal, what drugs may be administered during care for the mother or baby, and requires midwives to plan for consultations, emergency transports and transfers.

Some of most common and serious birth injuries, according to Standford Children Health, are infant cephalohematoma (a form of bleeding in the head that causes complications, such as jaundice); temporary or permanent facial paralysis due to nerve damage; fractures to the collarbone; and damage to the brachial plexus network of nerves that sends signals from the spine to the shoulder, arm and hand. (Statistics for injuries during midwife deliveries were not available.)

A brachial plexus injury from 2014 sparked a second lawsuit this year against Hamilton. It was filed by Seng Hamilton and her husband, who is Laura Hamiltons cousin.

Seng Hamilton was under Laura Hamiltons care in 2014. That April, Laura Hamilton drove to Seng Hamiltons house to deliver her baby. They both had noted the baby was large, according to a medical malpractice lawsuit filed in Lewis County Superior Court this spring.

The suit states Seng Hamilton went through a long labor and the midwife attempted several maneuvers to deliver the baby, named Zachary. The suit alleges Laura Hamilton used excessive traction and pulled and twisted Zacharys head and neck to attempt to deliver him.

Zachary was born with a limp arm, suffering permanent paralysis of and dysfunction in his arm and shoulder, according to court records. The suit alleges Laura Hamiltons actions caused the injuries. The family is seeking general and special damages in an amount to be determined at trial; as well as damages for pain, suffering, mental anguish, emotional distress and others.

Seng Hamiltons child is facing a lifetime of medical issues and care and rehabilitation, and all that costs money. And there are certain things hell never be able to do, said Osborn, lawyer for Seng Hamilton and Kylie Frost.

The costs for that should be borne by the person that caused it.  If I could wave a magic wand and make the child better, or bring the Frost child back, of course I would, but thats not possible.

In response to the suit, Laura Hamiltons lawyer counters that Seng Hamiltons labor was not long, lasting four to six hours, that the statute of limitations has run out, and that their sons injury was caused by an act of God  the natural forces of labor, according to court records.

In her statement to The Daily News, Moniz, Laura Hamiltons attorney, wrote, Complications are stressful for everyone. First and foremost, parents grieve the loss of a perfect baby. Midwives, nurses and doctors as part of the health team all wish the outcome was better. Babies may not survive even with hospital deliveries by physicians.

Seng Hamiltons case has been investigated by the state Department of Health and is one of the two cases, including the Frost case, awaiting possible enforcement action against Laura Hamilton.

Hamilton was the midwife in another lawsuit involving a brachial plexus injury in a child born in 2010. The 2014 negligence suit alleged Hamilton twisted and pulled the child during delivery, causing the injury. A jury in 2015 cleared Hamilton of negligence, but the case is under appeal.

History of complaints

The State Department of Health archives are full of complaints against Hamilton. A few of them are as follows:

In 1989, officials with the department had proof Hamilton had written prescriptions for an antibiotic, as well as birth control pills, which was outside the legal scope of practice as a midwife, according to a report filed in 1992 with the board of practical nursing.

In a 1991 complaint, a healthcare official said Hamilton had no backup plan, as required by law, when problems developed during a delivery and Hamilton had to transfer the patient to the hospital. The official then went on to say the unmonitored home deliveries were unsafe and allowing these conditions to persist will eventually result in a maternal death, a fetal death or a brain damaged child, according to health records.

Also in 1991, a health department investigation determined Hamilton had violated the scope of her practice as a midwife and committed fraud by representing herself as a physician who could authorize prescriptions, according to health department investigative reports. The state took no action against Hamilton for the violations.

In 1993, the Medical Assistance Administration, which dealt with Medicaid payments and is now a part of the Health Care Authority, disciplined Hamilton. In order to continue accepting Medicaid patients, Hamilton had to take steps to improve her practice and have more detailed charting, data and notes regarding her care for mothers and their babies.

In several other complaints filed since 1993, Hamilton was investigated for a series of minor complaints, such as insufficient charting, breach of confidentiality or failing to follow disciplinary orders. The complaints were closed without action.

A mothers death

The first time state health officials disciplined Hamilton followed the September 1994 death of 21-year-old Stephanie Luedke. Luedke went to Hamiltons Chehalis clinic where Luedke delivered her second child, a boy, at around 10:30 p.m. For the next two hours, Luedke continued to bleed, became lightheaded and complained of nausea and abdominal and back pain, according to a 1995 ruling by a health law judge.

Nearly four hours passed before Hamilton called 911 to get Luedke to the hospital, time in which Luedke continued to bleed, while her blood pressure dropped and her pulse increased. When Luedke arrived at the hospital, surgeons performed an emergency hysterectomy, but Luedke died, according to the records.

The health law judge concluded in 1995 that Luedkes death likely was the result of a postpartum hemorrhage that started at Hamiltons clinic and was preventable. The judge found Hamiltons negligence was a matter of mistakes in judgment and was not a matter of any malice or willful inaction, according to the records.

Hamilton was allowed to continue practicing, but the health department ordered her to undergo more training, heightened scrutiny and comply with additional terms and conditions for at least three years. Over the next three years, health officials received several complaints alleging Hamilton had violated the conditions.

In 1998, Hamilton was accused of failing to transport another woman to the hospital in a timely manner after she gave birth. Like Luedke, the woman had cervical lacerations, which required surgery and multiple blood transfusions. The woman survived. In resolving the case with the health department, Hamilton admitted no wrongdoing, but agreed to a stipulation that re-imposed conditions on her similar to those ordered in the Luedke case.

Despite numerous phone calls from The Daily News, neither Weed nor other health department officials could explain why Hamilton did not face more severe sanctions after the complaints from the 1998 case.

The third case under investigation at the health department, which also is awaiting a decision regarding enforcement actions, involves a baby who was exposed to heroin in utero in 2016.

The complaints, which were filed in 2016 by a social worker and Providence St. Peter Hospital in Olympia, allege that Hamilton mishandled the birth of Evan Copeland, a baby born in July that year, according to Health Department reports.

The baby was born in Hamiltons car on the way to her Chehalis clinic. The babys mother is Hamiltons niece. The complaints allege Hamilton provided care for the baby for two days until law enforcement and Child Protective Services removed the infant from the home and Hamilton failed to instruct the parents to seek medical attention for obvious signs of withdrawal, which include vigorous crying, jitteriness, poor feeding and excessive sucking, according to health department records.

The complaints state Hamilton should have immediately notified CPS when the boy was born because of the mothers history of heroin use, but instead Hamilton notified CPS late the following day and she reported the baby and mother were fine, with no signs of withdrawal, according to health department records.

The baby was removed the next day and admitted to the hospital, where he screened positive for opiates and cannabis. The hospitals complaint stated that signs of withdrawal would have been very apparent while the baby was in (Hamiltons) care.

The infant was later placed in intensive care, treated and later placed in foster care, according to the records.

Moniz, Hamiltons lawyer, said her client did notify CPS within 24 hours of the babys birth and child protective workers picked the baby up less than 48 hours after delivery. Moniz states the baby started showing signs of withdrawal sometime later, according to health department records.

Moniz told the Health Department that the complaint involves frustration by CPS workers who did not follow their own procedures in taking the baby. Hamilton did not believe her niece had used heroin during the pregnancy, Moniz said.

CPS has not filed charges against Hamilton. It is unknown when the Health Department is expected to issue its rulings and findings in the heroin and Seng Hamilton cases, or when it will complete investigating the Frost case. But whatever the outcome, the hurt of tragic deliveries will continue, Osborn said.

I cant imagine what the mothers are going through. Its just horrible. Its horrible.

I cant imagine what the mothers are going through. Its just horrible. Its horrible. Sim Osborn
WASHINGTON  That one of the greatest victories of World War II was a mass evacuation  more than 300,000 British and French troops taken off a beach at Dunkirk  was a preview of the industrial nature of that conflict. Feats of organization  such as the return of Allied troops to other French beaches on D-Day  took precedence over military panache. It is the reason that Dwight Eisenhower was the indispensable irreplaceable man, not George Patton.

But Dunkirk also proved the comparative advantage that democracies have in modern war: the ability of free people to self-organize. It was nearly 900 private watercraft, including pleasure boats and paddle steamers, that braved the Luftwaffe to ferry the surrounded troops home. The future of a free Britain was delivered directly by its own citizens.

Christopher Nolans film Dunkirk is a spare telling of that story from the firsthand perspective of soldiers, sailors, airmen and civilians. Only briefly does the camera pull out to reveal the epic scale of events. Most of the time we are scrambling, flying, swimming and sinking along with the confused participants. There is little dialogue and almost no backstory for the main characters. The soldiers are played by essentially interchangeable young actors. But they somehow work as stand-ins for the waiting, vulnerable mass. They are not humanized, just human. And their motivation doesnt require much artistic development: Doing everything they can to get off the damn beach and get home.

The craft of the movie is taking the fragmented individual experiences of the characters and weaving them, inexorably, into a narrative that clarifies in a single scene. I will not sully this review with a spoiler. But the events of the film eventually come together with a pleasing click, dramatizing how the choices of individuals, both noble and base, gather into something larger than themselves. In this case, the deliverance of a nation.

The government leaders of the time have no direct voice in the movie, including the familiar voice of Winston Churchill. The lack of political context works as an artistic device. But the experience of the movie (or so I lectured my children) is enriched by knowing some of the history. The swift collapse of France. The utter isolation of Britain. An American president hamstrung by isolationists, doing what he could to help.

The recognition that World War II was a citizens war should not obscure the importance of leadership. Dunkirk, perhaps more than any other event of the war, was Churchills moment. As French resistance disintegrated, it was estimated that only 45,000 soldiers could be taken off the beaches before the perimeter collapsed  effectively leaving Britain undefended to German invasion. Churchill told Parliament to prepare for hard and heavy tidings. To his War Cabinet he raised the possibility of contaminating British beaches with poison gas when the Germans came.

At the same time in America, Charles Lindbergh, the original advocate of America First, gave a radio address dismissing President Franklin Roosevelts proposal for rearmament as hysterical chatter. Roosevelt himself told the British ambassador that the British government might need to continue the war from Canada.

In London, Churchill was receiving the same suggestion to move the government and royal family across the Atlantic. He replied that no such discussion should be permitted. When the director of the National Gallery proposed sending the most irreplaceable paintings to Canada, he replied, No, bury them in caves and cellars. None must go. We are going to beat them.

The tired men of Churchills government raised the prospect of a negotiated peace. Churchill responded, Nations which went down fighting rose again, but those who surrendered tamely were finished. Speaking to his full cabinet, he said, If this long island story of ours is to end at last, let it end only when each one of us lies choking in his own blood upon the ground.

The success at Dunkirk made Churchills defiance a realistic option and solidified his hold on power. Guns, ammunition and artillery to rearm the evacuated army flooded in from the Commonwealth and (by clever ruse) from America. British planning for a return to the continent began the same month as the Dunkirk evacuation ended. D-Day was already in mind.

It is a brilliant artifice in the movie Dunkirk to have Churchills most famous oration  We shall fight on the beaches  read aloud by one of the soldiers who finally reaches safety. It was average people who gave Churchills roar reality and force. But the roar was indispensable.
How do we change the world? One random act of kindness at a time. Kindness is a gateway for all of us to connect and care for each other.  Morgan Freeman Whether its a supporting...

MAKING CONNECTIONS Editors note: The following random acts of kindness were emailed or called into County Press editor Jeff Hogan at jhogan@mihomepaper.com. The following acts of kindness experienced by County Press readers...

Ed-Tech students connect with community ATTICA TWP.  The Lapeer County Education and Technology Center (Ed-Tech) is a place where students can get a taste of the career opportunities that exist in their field of...
Arab FMs to meet in Bahrain to discuss Qatar boycott

The foreign ministers of Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates meet in Cairo discuss the diplomatic crisis with Qatar.

AFP, Dubai :

Top officials of four Arab states boycotting Qatar are scheduled to meet in the Bahraini capital Sunday, as a political crisis that has split the Gulf enters its second month.

The foreign ministers of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Egypt will meet in Manama in a bid to persuade Qatar to "end its support for extremism and terrorism, stop meddling in the affairs of neighbouring countries and change its policies," read a statement on state news agency BNA.

On June 5, the Saudi-led bloc cut diplomatic and economic ties with Qatar-the world's largest exporter of liquefied natural gas-over allegations the emirate supported Islamist extremism and had close ties to Shiite Iran, Saudi Arabia's regional arch-rival. The Saudi-led bloc recalled their ambassadors, ordered all Qataris to return home and banned Qatar from using their airspace.

Qatar has denied the allegations and accuses the bloc of imposing a "blockade" on the tiny emirate.

Qatar has also rejected the bloc's demands-which include downgrading ties to Iran and closing both the Al-Jazeera news channel and a Turkish military base in the country-as a violation of its sovereignty.

Bahrain's King Hamad on Saturday called for "the solidarity of all Arab countries in fighting terrorism and cutting off its financing... for the defence of our homelands" ahead of the meeting, which comes after the Saudi-led bloc held talks in Cairo earlier this month.

Kuwait is leading mediation efforts in the crisis, the worst to grip the region since the 1981 creation of the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council.

Kuwait and Oman-GCC members along with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Qatar-have not joined the Qatar boycott.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain are expected to discuss imposing new economic sanctions on Qatar when they meet in the Bahraini capital Manama on Sunday, the pan-Arab al-Hayat newspaper reported.

The four Arab states cut ties with Qatar on June 5, accusing it of backing terrorist groups and cozying up to their arch-foe Iran, allegations Doha denies.
US flies bombers over Korean peninsula after North Korea missile test

A U.S. Air Force B-1B bomber, left, flies with a South Korean fighter jet F-15K over the Korean Peninsula, South Korea on Sunday

Reuters, Seoul :

The United States flew two B-1B bombers over the Korean peninsula in a show of force after recent North Korean missile tests, the U.S. Air Force said in a statement on Sunday.

North Korea said it conducted another successful test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday that proved its ability to strike America's mainland, drawing a sharp warning from U.S. President Donald Trump.

The B-1B flight was in direct response to the missile test and the previous July 3 launch of the "Hwansong-14" rocket, the U.S. statement said. The South Korean air force said the flight was conducted early on Sunday.

The bombers took off from a U.S. air base in Guam, and were joined by Japanese and South Korean fighter jets during the exercise, according to the statement.

"North Korea remains the most urgent threat to regional stability," Pacific Air Forces commander General Terrence J. O'Shaughnessy said in the statement.

"If called upon, we are ready to respond with rapid, lethal, and overwhelming force at a time and place of our choosing".

The U.S. has in the past used overflights of the supersonic B1-B "Lancer" bomber as a show of force in response to North Korean missile or nuclear tests.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un personally supervised the midnight test launch of the missile on Friday night and said it was a "stern warning" for the United States that it would not be safe from destruction if it tries to attack, the North's official KCNA news agency said.

North Korea's state television broadcast pictures of the launch, showing the missile lifting off in a fiery blast in darkness and Kim cheering with military aides.

China, the North's main ally, said it opposed North Korea's missile launches, which it said violate United Nations Security Council resolutions designed to curb Pyongyang's banned nuclear and missile programs.

"At the same time, China hopes all parties act with caution, to prevent tensions from continuing to escalate," China's foreign ministry said in a statement on Saturday.

However, Trump said he was "very disappointed in China".

In a message on Twitter, he said: "Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet..."
17 students to get gold medal

A Correspondent :

A total of 17 students of Chittagong University are going to get chancellor gold medal award. The students will be awarded for being first and second in the national essay competition since 2009 to 2016. Registrar of Chittagong University Prof Dr Kamrul Huda said, a total of 33 students have achieved first and second position in the national essay competition since 2009.

to 2016.

Of them, 17 will be awarded by the chancellor gold medal as they achieved first position while rest will be awarded for achieving second position in the national essay competition. Education Minister Nurul Islam Nahid is scheduled to hand over the prizes to the students on July 30 at the BBA hall of Chittagong University.




Naf Tourism Park project progressing fast

BSS, Chittagong :

The planned Naf Tourism Park (Jaliardwip) is getting ready to welcome tourists from across the world next year as work on this world-class tourist spot in the middle of the Naf River in Cox's Bazar is progressing fast, a top official said on Tuesday.

The Bangladesh Economic Zones Authority (BEZA) is developing Jaliardwip, an island of 291 acres of land, as an international standard tourism park as part of its master plan to develop 100 special economic zones across the country. "The Naf Tourism Park is expected to be ready next year.

The first park of its kind will open a new era of tourism for Bangladesh as it will have all facilities that a world-class tourism park has for entertaining tourists across the globe," BEZA executive chairman Paban Chowdhury told BSS.

Jaliardwip lies near the river border of Bangladesh and Myanmar. The lofty hill and river have created a perfect condition for the island to be a world-class tourist destination. The island is 450 kilometers away from capital Dhaka and 185 kilometers from Chittagong city. But it is only 60 kilometers from Cox's Bazar airport.

The facilities will include a five star hotel, a hanging bridge, 9.5 kilometers of cable car network.

a floating jetty, a children's park, an eco-cottage, an oceanarium and water-restaurants, he said, adding that the park is expected to create direct and indirect jobs for 20,000 people.

Chowdhury said construction of a hanging bridge and land development work will be completed by this year. There is a plan to invest around Tk 2500 crore for the overall development of this park, he added.




Todays Events



Discussion

Bangabandhu Sangskritik Jote organises a discussion demanding trial of those who gave shelter to Bangabandhu's killers at the Rehearsal Room of Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy in the city's Segunbagicha at 10:30 am.

Memorial meet

'Swadhin Bangla Betar Karmi Parishad' organises a memorial meeting for five artistes of Swadhin Bangla Betar in the VIP Seminar Hall of the Central Public Library in the city's Shahbagh at 5:30 pm.

Orientation

The orientation of the newly elected office-executives of Dhaka Taxes Bar Association will be held at the Institution of Diploma Engineers, Bangladesh in the city's Kakrail at 5 pm.
Robyn Krile picked up a job two weeks ago catching shoplifters at Kmart. A year ago, she was a sergeant supervising a team of police officers catching criminals around Bismarck.

Its something, she said. But its a difficult change for someone who had aspirations to someday become a lieutenant or even police chief.

Her career shift came after she was fired from the Bismarck Police Department in March.

To Krile, the termination felt like a final blow after years of perceived discrimination based on her gender, which she contested in a complaint filed with the state department of labor in January.

Police said they dont discriminate against women and that her firing was the result of an independent letter from a local prosecutor challenging her credibility as a witness.

Now Krile says she's fighting to even the playing field for women at the department and take back her career.

(There is) part of me that says Im done with that department. But part of me says that someone needs to step back in and fight ... And its only going to get worse if someone doesnt stand up, she said.

Climbing the ladder

Krile, 37, was hired as a Bismarck Police officer in 2004 after graduating from the University of Mary with a degree in social and behavioral sciences. As an officer, she received several letters of appreciation and commendation and enjoyed training new recruits. Rarely did issues of gender arise, she said.

(My supervisors) put a lot of faith in me and passed me a lot of challenges as to help me realize my skills and learn that I could be a supervisor, she said in an interview with her attorney this month.

In January 2013, she was promoted to the rank of patrol sergeant. She contends this was where her career plateaued.

In the interview, she described a series of moments when she sought additional training or promotion and was faced with what she alleges were new policies that prevented her from achieving opportunities offered to males.

There was always another reason why they couldnt groom me and couldnt allow me to advance, she said.

Krile is one of four women, including former Police Chief Deborah Ness, hired in the past 40 years to have a rank higher than police officer. Women represent 12 percent of the force in Bismarck, which is consistent with national averages.

Things began to decline sharply for Krile in March 2016 when she chose to call out Melvin Vargas, an officer on her shift, for making arrests without backup officers present. Krile said she saw this as a safety issue and brought him into her office for a talk. The conversation escalated into yelling, and she said he could not make arrests without backup and that she would write him up. In the interview, she said Vargas was insubordinate and aggressive.

Deputy Chief Randy Ziegler reprimanded her for allegedly lying about the policy  backup is best practice, not required  and saying she did not know of officers making solo arrests, which police say happens with some regularity. He also said she singled Vargas out for reprimand and mishandled the interaction.

After that, she was moved to a different shift due to supervision issues, according to police. Krile told some of her subordinates that the reason she was moved was because Vargas, who is Hispanic, had pulled the race card. In October 2016, Police Chief Dan Donlin issued her a second letter of reprimand.

I find the choice you made, to spread inaccurate information to subordinate officers at the expense of disparaging and defaming another officers reputation, to be unacceptable and shameful, Donlin wrote in a letter.

Following this incident, Krile was given a yearly evaluation score of a 2.9 out of 5 by her lieutenant. Thats the lowest score in the department and just one-tenth of a point below what she would need to put in for a promotion to lieutenant.

I really felt that it was to intentionally to keep me from being able to get promoted, said Krile, adding that she oversaw some of the most major crime scenes and suspect searches that year.

Evaluation records provided by her attorney, Chris Redmann, show that most female patrol officers at the department scored in the bottom half of the rankings in 2016. Scores are used for potential promotions and pay raises.

Police response

Donlin, who limited his comments due to the labor complaint and possible litigation, said Kriles problems started once she became a sergeant.

I think it is fair to say Ms. Krile was, for many years, a valuable member of the Bismarck Police Department and was well liked by many. However, after becoming a sergeant, she made some pretty serious mistakes, he wrote in statement to the Tribune that cited the two letters of reprimand.

In interviews this month, he denied her claim that the department discriminates based on gender.

If there are any problems at the department that could be perceived as that, its personality differences, he said.

Donlin said promotions are competitive processes and factor in experience, knowledge and tenure.

He contends that there are very good female officers in the department, who are satisfied with their roles as officers, and for that reason do not put in for ranking positions. In March, another female officer was promoted to sergeant, he noted.

Theres two females out there that have been there for a while, Id love them to put in for sergeant, said Donlin, adding there are also up and comers that Im looking forward to.

A fast termination

Krile had just finished teaching young officers on March 23 how to write reports when the deputy chief told her that she could resign in the next two days or be fired.

The basis for her termination, she would learn, was a letter from Burleigh County Assistant States Attorney Julie Lawyer challenging her credibility.

Lawyer reviewed Kriles personnel file earlier that month after she received an anonymous letter about another officer. The letter cited a previously undisclosed internal affairs investigation into Bismarck Police Officer Scarlett Vetter, who was reprimanded in 2013 for throwing away a purse with marijuana stems in the departments womens locker room.

Vetter and Vargas declined requests for comment made through the police department.

Once I got that information, since wed never heard about that before, I thought, well, we should check and see if there is anything else in anyone elses files that we hadnt heard before that may be something we have to disclose, Lawyer said.

Because of some major Supreme Court decisions, prosecutors must tell defense attorneys potentially discrediting information about their witnesses, including police officers. Lawyer claimed Kriles statements referenced in the letters of reprimand could get her discredited on the stand.

Because this includes misconstruing the facts to such an extent that it misleads the fact finder and outright lying, our office will no longer be able to use Sgt. Krile to testify in our cases, Lawyer wrote in a letter dated March 22.

But to Krile and her attorney, it was an illogical and unreasoned conclusion based on an investigation wherein the BPD took innocent and immaterial statements and categorized them as 'lies.' "

In writing the letter, Lawyer emphasized that Krile allegedly told her lieutenant that officers never make arrests without backup unless there are exigent circumstances. She reviewed eight cases where Krile signed off on a police report and cited one in which the officer had no backup. But dispatch logs provided by Redmann show that officers had help on the other seven, an indication that Kriles statements about backup may not have been totally off-base.

There was no immediate way for Krile to contest Lawyer's finding, which effectively bars her from working again in law enforcement.

Although Lawyer said Vetter now has a credibility issue she needs to disclose, Vetter remains on the force. Lawyer said the difference was Vetter was more truthful in the internal affairs investigation.

Lawyer did not find previously undisclosed problems with any other officers.

Further controversy

Donlin and Lawyer say the labor complaint and termination happened completely independent from one another. The police chief described learning of Lawyers determination as a bombshell.

I thought it was done and over, and there you go, Donlin said.

But Krile's attorney says, "the termination was a convenient ending for the Bismarck Police Department after a pattern of gender-motivated discriminatory conduct against my client."

Redmann, a former Fargo Police officer and FBI analyst, pointed out that the Police Officer Standards and Training Board decided within a few minutes of discussion in May that Kriles actions did not violate the code of conduct or justify any sanctions. Krile still has her peace officer license.

We didnt see enough evidence on our end, Board Chairman and Minot Police Capt. John Klug said in an interview.

Donlin said he had no choice but to fire Krile after getting the letter.

If you cant be used as a witness, you cant do your job as a police officer, so we have to let you go, Donlin said.

Kriles complaint with the department of labor was assigned to an investigator this month, after the police department declined to mediate. She and her attorney are continuing their investigation and considering litigation over gender-based discrimination.

Robyns primary goal in both litigation and public attention to this case is to ensure her experience, in some way, betters her female patrol colleagues at the police department  it is so her experience turns a page, and female patrol officers in the police department are offered the same opportunities, are competitively ranked and consequently competitively paid when compared to their male counterparts, Redmann wrote in an email. Secondarily, Robyn wants to have logic and the law prevail, which both indicate the Giglio (credibility) letter should be removed from her personnel file as it was erroneously issued. This will allow Robyn, a career civil servant, to continue as a law enforcement professional.
Disputes with neighbours should be solved thru' talks: PM

UNB, Dhaka :

Mentioning that Bangladesh believes in maintaining good relations with neighbouring countries, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on Sunday said there may exist disputes among neighbours but those need to be resolved through discussions.

"Problems may be there among neighbours but those should be solved through talks...friendship and cooperation should continue," she said.

The Prime Minister said this when Pakistani High Commissioner in Dhaka Rafiuzzaman Siddiqui when he paid a courtesy call on her at her office here in the morning.

After the meeting, PM's Press Secretary Ihsanul Karim briefed reporters.

The Prime Minister said Bangladesh has solved land boundary and maritime disputes with India peacefully. "Indian parliament unanimously ratified the Land Boundary Bill unanimously," she said, adding the peaceful solution to the dispute has set an example in the world.

Sheikh Hasina also mentioned resolving maritime dispute with Myanmar the same way. "We've also solved insurgency problem in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and brought back 62,000 refugees from India by signing the peace treaty."

Terming poverty the main enemy of this region, she put emphasis on working together by all countries of the region to root out poverty.

The Prime Minister elaborated her government's achievements in various sectors that took place in the last eight and a half years. "After assuming office, we've set goals to ensure food security, education and healthcare for people."

She also mentioned that the governmentimplemented many programmes in these sectors and people are now getting the benefits.

Besides, Hasina said, there are necessary policies of Awami League, including the economic one, to ensure socioeconomic development of the country.

The Prime Minister said the past BNP-Jamaat government stopped many people's welfare-oriented programmes like community clinics and 'ekti bari ekti khamar project' out of political vengeance.

Hasina also referred to theAugust 21grenade attack on her in 2004 and said the militants carried out synchronised bomb blasts at 500 places in 63 districts out of 64 in 2005.

While talking about the menace of terrorism, she said the arms sellers are ultimately being benefitted from it.

Highly lauding the development activities in Bangladesh, the Pakistani High Commissioner said Bangladesh now totally has changed with rapid development.

Rafiuzzaman Siddiqui said the Pakistani people highly appreciated the way Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has been containing terrorism and militancy.
406 fail to fly for Hajj due to visa problems

Staff Reporter :

Biman Bangladesh Airlines on Sunday cancelled a scheduled Hajj flight due to visa complexities.

A total of 406 Hajj pilgrims were supposed to fly to Saudi Arabia at 7.45 pm from Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport but they failed to report for the flight, General Manager of Public Relations, Biman Bangladesh Airlines, Shakil Meraj, told The New Nation yesterday.

"The situation arose due to visa complexities of Hajj pilgrims. It will cause economic losses and rescheduling harassment for pilgrims and also for Biman," he mentioned.

He said as private Hajj tour operators failed to get visas of pilgrims within the schedule date, the flight has been cancelled.

A fresh flight schedule will be announced later to carry the pilgrims to Jeddah, he added. However, Hajj pilgrims alleged that their agencies' failure to rent houses for them in Makkah, lack of assigning Muallems there, and complexity with issuance of clearance letter for visa permission have created such complexities. For this, they said, they were unable to fly on the scheduled flight for performing Hajj.

General Secretary of the Hajj Agencies Association of Bangladesh (HAAB) M Shahadat Hossain Taslim reasoned introduction of E-Hajj System by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia for such visa complexities.

"Not only our Hajj pilgrims are facing such complexities, pilgrims from other countries are also facing such visa problems. They will get visa only after meeting the E-Hajj System requirements," Taslim added.

He affirmed: "We are keen to take care of such complexities and working to assist the pilgrims. Nobody will be left behind who have registered. We will reschedule them to fly soon."
SC declines to accept judges` draft code of conduct

Court Correspondent :

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on Sunday rejected the draft of a gazette that clarifies the service rules for the sub-ordinate court judges, submitted by Law Minister Anisul Huq.

Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha expressed his displeasure with the draft, saying that none of the recommendations of the court had been included in the draft of the gazette. He marked, "The law minister has made a complete U-turn following our meeting,".

The Appellate Division had given the government time until July 30 to issue the gazette following a petition submitted by Attorney General Mahbubey Alam. The matter was raised before the six-member bench of Appellate Division led by Chief Justice SK Sinha on Sunday.

Later, the Justice and other judges have proposed to sit with the representatives of the states from 2 pm to midnight every day until Thursday to finalise the draft. "Let us sit and discuss. No more delays," Justice Sinha said at last. The court then adjourned the matter until next Sunday.

The government submitted a draft of the rules for the sub-ordinate court judges last year to separate the judiciary from the executive. The separation followed a historic Appellate verdict over a case filed by Judge Masdar Hossain. It declared the judicial services independent, dissolving the judicial cadre of Bangladesh Civil Service on the grounds that it was incompatible with the constitution.

However, the draft of rules submitted by the government last year were declared incompatible with the Masdar Hossain case verdict because it appeared similar to the Government Servants (Discipline and Appeal) Rules 1985.

The Supreme Court then amended the draft and sent it back to the law ministry, asking it to finalise and submit it.


6 BD workers killed in KSA road crash



Six Bangladeshis, including two brothers, have died in a road traffic accident in Saudi Arabia.

The accident occurred at 'Alzubarah' on Thursday night local time, according to an official at the Bangladesh Embassy in Riyadh. Counsellor (Labour), Sarwar Alam at the embassy, referring to witnesses, told bdnews24.com that two of the victims died on the spot when a vehicle carrying Bangladeshi workers from Dammam to their workplace in Riyadh collided with another vehicle.

The four other Bangladeshis died after being taken to a hospital, he said.

Four of the dead Bangladeshis are from Rajbari district. They are Irshad Bapari, 28, his brother Humayun Bapari, 25, Kubbat Khan, 25, and Miraz Mandal, 22. One of the two others is Idris Dewan, 32, from Faridpur. The other dead Bangladeshi is also from Faridpur, but Sarwar could not provide his details.

"We've lost everything," Manju Bapari, the other brother of Irshad and Humayun in Rajbari, told bdnews24.com.
Rape accused Bogra Sramik League leader, 2 associates on remand

The arrested Tufan (left), Rupam, Ali Azam were placed on three-day remand on Sunday in a case filed for raping a Bogra student after abduction on Friday night.

UNB, Bogra :

A court here on Sunday placed a local Sramik League leader and two of his associates on a three-day demand in two cases filed for reportedly raping a girl and torturing her along with her mother in the district town.

Senior Judicial Magistrate Abdullah Al Mamun passed the order after Inspector (Operation) of Sadar Police Station Abul Kalam Azad, also investigation officer of the cases, produced them before the court seeking a seven-day remand for them, said Additional Police Super (Media) Sanatan Chakrawarty.

Police arrested Tufan Sarkar, convener of the town unit of Sramik League, and his three associates-Rupom, Ali Azam and Atikur Rahman-on Friday night over the incident.

The IO, however, did not seek remand for Atiqur as he gave a confessional statement before a court on Friday night under section of 164, the police officer said.

Atique narrated before the court how Tufan raped the girl and tried to hush up the incident.

On July 17, Tufan took the girl to his house at Badurtala in the district town promising to arrange her admission into a local college and raped her there.

As the girl went to the house of female councillor of Bogra municipality Marzia Akhter Rumki, also younger sister of Tufan's wife Ayesha Akhter, seeking justice, his supporters-Atiqur, Rupom and Azam-picked the girl up along with her mother from their house at Namajgarh in the town and took them to the house of Tufan on Friday noon.

Tufan, his wife, Marzia and his mother-in-land allegedly beat the girl and her mother with sticks while three Sramik League men shaved their heads. Later, the girl's mother filed two cases against 10 people, including Tufan, his wife and sister-in-law, with the Sadar Police Station on Friday night.

Police arrested Tufan and his three associates from different areas of the district town soon after the filing of the cases.

Meanwhile, policemen were deployed at the hospital where the girl and her mother were undergoing treatment for ensuring their security, said officer-in-charge of the police station Emdad Hossain. "We're trying to arrest the rest of the accused."

Besides, Deputy Commissioner of Bogra Noor-e-Alam Siddiqui visited them at the hospital on Sunday when he announced to bear the cost of their treatment.

Talking to reporters, the DC said they also formed a three-member probe committee, led by Additional District Magistrate Abdus Samad, to look into the incident.

General Secretary of district Sramik League Samsuddin Sheikh Helal said they have already suspended Tufan from the organisation.
2nd phase gas price hike illegal: HC

Staff Reporter :

The High Court (HC) on Sunday declared illegal the second phase hike in gas price for domestic use from June 1 this year.

The bench of Justice Zinat Ara and Justice Kazi Md Ejarul Haque Akondo delivered the verdict on a writ petition filed by the Consumers Association of Bangladesh (CAB).

Delivering the verdict, the HC, however, said the consumers would not get back their money paid for the utility bill in June and July.

The court asked the authorities to collect gas price from August at the rate that came into effect from March 1.

According to the notification issued by the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission (BERC) on February 23, the prices of household gas will be increased to Tk 750 from Tk 600 for a single burner and Tk 800 from Tk 650 for double burners a month from March 1.

The Commission also announced at that time that gas prices would be increased again to Tk 900 for single burners and Tk 950 for double burners from June 1.

Citing from the HC judgment, petitioner's counsel Advocate Mohammad Saiful Alam told media that the public notice issued by the BERC on February 23 increasing the gas price in two phases has been declared illegal and therefore, the BERC cannot enhance the gas price twice in a fiscal year.

"A consumer will have to pay Tk 750 for using a single burner and Tk 800 for double burner every month from August 1 following the HC verdict," he said adding, "The gas price for industries and other uses will remain as it is."

He also said the BERC has been asked to issue a notice on August 1 circulating the HC directives.

The lawyer also said the HC observations will be known once its full verdict is released. The HC on February 28 stayed the second phase of gas price hike for six months.

The Bench of Justice Moyeenul Islam Chowdhury and Justice JBM Hassan also asked the BERC Chairman and its Secretary to explain in four weeks the legality of the notification hiking gas prices in two phases.

The court passed the order after hearing a writ petition filed by architect Mubasshar Hussain on behalf of the CAB, challenging the legality of the mass notification for the second phase gas price hike by the BERC.

Moving the petition, petitioner's counsel argued that the Commission increased the prices of gas in two phases in violation of Section 34(5) of the Bangladesh Energy Regulatory Commission Act 2003.

Section 34(5) of the act stipulates that the tariff set by the commission will not be revised more than once in a fiscal year unless there is any change in the prices of energy or any other changes.

The Appellate Division of the Supreme Court on June 5 extended its stay on the High Court order that stayed for six months the government decision to raise gas prices for all consumers in the second phase.

A four-member Bench, led by Chief Justice Surendra Kumar Sinha, also asked the High Court Bench that stayed the second hike to dispose of its (HC) rule by July 31.
Integrating migrants into mainstream economy

Tharanga Yakupitiyage :

Despite the "undeniable" benefits of migration, barriers including public misconceptions continue to hinder positive development outcomes, participants said during a series of thematic consultations here on safe, orderly, and regular migration.

At a time where divisive rhetoric on migration can be seen around the world, member State representatives, UN agencies, and civil society gathered at the UN for a two-day meeting to discuss migrants' contributions to sustainable development as well as the challenges in harnessing such contributions.

In her opening remarks, Special Representative for International Migration Louise Arbour noted that though the benefits of migration outweigh the costs, public perception is often the opposite and negatively impacts migration policy.

"This must be reversed so that policy is evidence-based and not perception-driven. Policies responding to false perceptions reinforce the apparent validity of these erroneous stereotypes and make recourse to proper policies that much harder," she added.

Among such evidence is the 575 billion dollars in global remittances transferred by international migrants to their families, almost 430 billion of which went to developing countries.

These essential lifelines, which are are three times larger than official development assistance (ODA) and more stable than other forms of private capital flows, have contributed to progress on key aspects of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in migrants' countries of origin, including poverty reduction, food security, and healthy families.

Benefits can also be seen in the countries where migrants reside as 85 percent of migrant workers' earnings remain in the countries of destination.

Migrants also tend to fill labour market gaps at all skill levels in countries of destination, advancing economic growth, job creation, and service delivery.

Participants noted that this contributes to a "triple win" scenario for the country of origin, country of destination, and the migrants themselves.

"When migrants succeed, societies do too," said Assistant Foreign Minister for Multilateral Affairs and International Security of Egypt and one of the sessions' moderators, Hisham Badr.

Contributions of migrants to development in origin and destination countries go beyond financial remittances and include transfers of skills and knowledge and entrepreneurship.

Despite representing 13 percent of the overall population in the United States, immigrants made up over 20 percent of entrepreneurs, building businesses from popular search engines to environmentally-friendly cars.

In fact, 40 percent of Fortune 500 companies in 2016 had at least one founder who immigrated to the U.S. or was the child of immigrants. According to the New American Economy, those firms alone employed almost 20 million globally and generated more than 5 trillion dollars in revenue.

This diaspora is also often "bridge-builders," maintaining strong links to their countries of origin.

However, participants noted that inadequate policies stand in the way of positive development outcomes.

"The crucial issue is not that migration and development are linked, but how they can be leveraged to create positive development outcomes," Badr told delegates.

Arbour noted that that cost of sending and receiving remittances remains excessively high. Currently, the global average cost of transactions is over 7 percent, significantly greater than the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) target of 3 percent.

The lack of access to financial services also poses a major obstacle as it prevents the investment of remittances into productive activities and sustainable development in remittance recipients' communities.

Arbour stressed the need to boost financial inclusion, calling it "low hanging fruit."

Participants particularly highlighted the importance of integrating migration into development planning, including the need to engage with the diaspora to create more effective migration and development policies.

Numerous UN member States have already launched initiatives to include the diaspora, including Jamaica, which hosts a biennial conference to motivate greater involvement in the country's socio-economic development.

During the consultations, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) launched a similar platform for diaspora communities to contribute to the Global Compact for Safe, Orderly, and Regular Migration (GCM), the UN's first intergovernmentally negotiated and comprehensive agreement on international migration, which is expected to be adopted in 2018.

"Diaspora communities have emerged as key influencers in global development practices," said iDiaspora Forum moderator Martin Russell.

"The iDiaspora Forum is a platform designed to initiate ideas, learn lessons, and share best practices. Diaspora engagement is a booming industry," he added.

In the final panel of the meeting, which aims to gather input and recommendations to feed into the GCM, Overseas Development Institute's (ODI) Managing Director Marta Foresti pointed to the compact as a unique opportunity that the international community cannot afford to miss.

"With the global compact, we can create a new positive narrative," she concluded.

Organized by the president of the General Assembly and co-facilitators including the Permanent Missions of Mexico and Switzerland, the informal session is the fourth in a series of six to take place this year.

The last two consultations will take place in Vienna from 4-5 September and Geneva from 12-13 October on the issues of smuggling of migrants and irregular migrants, respectively.

 IPS
Barbarism by AL men stirs Bogra

Heads-shaving of rape victim, her mom; Female councillor also arrested for sheltering criminals One confesses rape, three others on remanded

Md Joynal Abedin Khan :

A tense situation is prevailing across Bogra district following a barbarian torture like shaving heads of a raped college girl and her mother at a councilor's house after being picked up by some ruling party men from their residence in the district on Friday night.

Thousands of people from different walks of lives on Friday staged demonstration and formed human chain in the town's Satmatha area protesting the heinous act by a female councilor and her cohorts in their custody, reports our Bogra correspondent.

The protest was arranged under the banner of Bangladesh Sachetan Nagarik Samaj (conscious citizens' group).

The demonstrators also sought exemplarily punishment to the councilor and her cohorts.

The people, mainly school and college girls and their guardians, are worried about their security due to 'autocratic rule' of the ruling party men.

The attendance of the students was very thin at different educational institutions following the sensational incident.

In the meantime, a team of Detective Branch (DB) of police arrested Bogra municipality woman councillor Marzia Akter alias Rumki and her mother Rumi from a house in Pabna Sadar town around 7:30 pm on Sunday, said M Asaduzzaman, Superintendent of Police (SP) of Bogra.

"Marzia was arrested in connection with the barbarian torture like heads shave on a raped victim girl and her mother at her house, the SP said.

They, in their attempt to muffle the victim, picked up the student and her mother, tortured them for four hours and then shaved their heads, the police official said.

Police also have arrested Bogra Town Sramik League Convener Tufan Sarker, his accomplices Ali Azam Dipu, Rupom and Atik on charges of abetting the rape of the girl, the police official said. Earlier, Tufan raped the 17-year old college girl on July 17 and several times later, promising her admission to a good college. Following the incident, the victim's mother filed the rape and torture case against 10 people, including Tufan, his wife Asha, Asha's elder sister and Bogra municipality woman councillor Marzia Akter, said Emdad Hossain, Officer-in-Charge (OC) of Bogra Sadar Police Station.

The accused are Sramik League leader, Tufan Sarker, his wife Asha Sarkar, Asha's elder sister Marzia Akter, Ali Azam and Rupom, the OC said.

The law enforcers made the arrests on Friday in a case filed by the mother of the raped girl, he said.

"They beat up the girl and her mother and later released them after shaving their heads," OC Emdad said.

Meanwhile, the three accused, including Tufan Sarker, were placed on a three-day remand in a case filed for raping a girl.

Chief Judicial Magistrate of Bogra Shyam Sundar Roy rejected the bail petition of Tufan and his two other aides -- Ali Azam of Chaksutrapur Khaipatti of the town and Rupom of Kalitala -- when police produced them before the court with a seven-day remand prayer for each.

However, police did not seek remand for another arrestee Atikur Rahman as he gave confessional statement before the magistrate.

Also, District Sramik League has suspended Tufan, convener of Bogra town unit of the workers' front of ruling Awami League amid widespread allegation over the rape.

Tufan abducted the female student from her home, raped her and then asked his party cadres and a woman councillor to make sure everything was hushed up, according to a report on the media.

"There are seven to eight injury marks on the victim's body. She might have been struck with blunt object like an iron rod or stick. Her body has deep scars but she is now out of danger," said Abdul Mottaleb, Head of Surgery Department of Bogra Shaheed Ziaur Rahman Medical College.

A three-member probe body led by Additional Deputy Magistrate Abdus Samad Pradhan has been formed to investigate the incident, said Nure Alam Siddique, Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Bogra.




Fine variety rice prices higher in cities despite a drop across country

Anisul Islam Noor :

Despite a drop in paddy prices acrose the country, the prices of fine varieties of rice are yet to come down in Dhaka and port city Chittagong.



Experts say a group of unscrupulous traders are cashing in on the lax monitoring by the administration.



Fine quality Miniket, Najirshail and Jeerashail were selling at Tk 56 to 62 a kg and medium quality Lata and Brridhan-28 at Tk 50-Tk 52 a kg in Dhaka on Sunday, almost the same price as it was in June.



In the last one month, Boro paddy prices saw a fall by Tk 150-Tk 300 a 75-kg sack.



When contracted over phone, traders from Rangpur, Dinajpur, Pabna, Kushtia, Naogaon, Mymensingh said rridhan-28 variety of paddy was selling at Tk 1500-Tk 1550 a 75-kg sack and Jeerashail variety at Tk 1700-Tk 1750 in those areas.



Farm economist Prof Gazi M Jalil said millers, traders and importers are making big profits due to the fall in the paddy prices.



"Big millers and importers should be brought under scrutiny so that consumers with limited income could buy rice at affordable prices," he said, suggesting that the government should strengthen its market intervention to give some relief to the low-income group.



Prof Jalil also said the public rice stock has declined to a record low, which is not a good sign for the food security of the country.



Akkas Ali, a rice trader at Badamtoli in the capital, said prices of fine rice varieties declined only by Tk 30-Tk 35 a 50-kg sack at the rice mills in the last two weeks.



But this slight fall couldn't be reflected at the retail level, he added.



Mohammad Asadullah, joint secretary of Badamtoli-Babubazar Rice Wholesalers Association, said finer paddy prices decreased by Tk 4-Tk 5 a kg in the millers' hubs. So, the prices of Miniket, Brridhan-28 and Jeerashail should come down by minimum Tk 4 a kg, he added.



KM Layek Ali, General Secretary of the Bangladesh Auto Major Husking Mill Owners Association said the import duty cut has led to the decline in paddy prices significantly, as stockists started selling out their paddy fearing a fall in prices.

He also said the prices of fine and medium quality rice have marked a Tk 2-Tk 3 drop per kg in rice mills in July. This downtrend would continue if paddy prices keep falling.



Miniket is selling at Tk 50-Tk 54 a kg and Brridhan-28 at Tk 45-Tk 46 a kg at mill gates, Ali added.



Meanwhile, coarse rice varieties are now trading at Tk 44 to Tk 48 a kg at retail markets in the city, down from Tk 46-Tk 50 in June, according to sources at the key kitchen markets.



These varieties were selling at Tk 38-Tk 44 a kg in Rangpur, Dinajpur, Naogaon, Kushtia and elsewhere in the millers' hubs.



The National Board of Revenue reduced the import duty on rice to 10 per cent from 28 per cent on June 21, which helped ease coarse rice prices.



Meanwhile, the number of L/Cs for importing the staple food through the private sector showed a notable rise recently, Food Ministry data show.



The private sector imported 0.117 million tonnes of rice in the first 23 days of this fiscal year while the total import in the last fiscal was 0.133 million tonnes.



Shawkal Jamal, an importer in Naogaon, said the import duty cut has refueled in the increase in rice imports.



Imported Swarna variety was selling at Tk 39-Tk 40 a kg when the same variety from local sources was trading at Tk 42-Tk 44 a kg, he said.



The recent decision of the Bangladesh Bank (BB) allowing traders to import rice on three months' deferred payment (until December 31, 2017) has prompted importers to bring in more rice, he added.



Last month, the central bank allowed traders to import rice at zero margin. This means importers will not have to make any advance payment to banks for opening Letters of Credit.



The prices of coarse varieties in Bangladesh are the highest among the rice producing nations.



The prices of coarse varieties imported from India, Thailand and Vietnam are Tk 35.27 to Tk 38.09 a kg now when those are Tk 38-Tk 43 a kg (mill-gate price) in Bangladesh.








Tributes paid to Major Ziauddin

Staff Reporter :

People from all walks of life, including ministers, political leaders, freedom fighters and cultural activists, paid their last tributes to Major (Retd) Ziauddin Ahmed, a sub-sector commander during Bangladesh's Liberation War in 1971, at the Central Shaheed Minar in the capital on Sunday.

A guard of honor was also given to Ziauddin Ahmed when his body was taken to the Central Shaheed Minar at 3pm.

The body covered by national flag was kept there for two hours so that people can pay their homage to the valiant Freedom fighter.

Later, the body of Ziauddin Ahmed was taken to his birthplace Pirojpur for Janaza.

Ziauddin Ahmed, commander of the Sundarbans sub-sector under Sector 9 during the Liberation War of 1971, breathed his last at Mount Elizabeth Hospital in Singapore while undergoing treatment at early hours of Friday.

He was 67.

His body was taken to Dhaka from Singapore on Saturday night.

Earlier on July 1, he was admitted to Square Hospital in Dhaka with kidney and liver diseases.

As his condition deteriorated, Ziauddin was taken to Singapore in mid-July.

Ziauddin Ahmed, renowned as the Mukuthin Somrat (crownless king) of the Sundarbans among his countless admirers, was a strict military leader reputed to have run the most disciplined force during the war.

He was also appointed as a commander of the first East Bengal Regiment under Z-force of the Freedom fighters.

Ziauddin was commissioned as a second lieutenant of the Pakistan Army in 1969. He was serving the army in the then West Pakistan when the Liberation War broke out in 1971.

The patriot managed to flee from West Pakistan in July and joined the Liberation War thereafter.

Ziauddin was commissioned as a major of the Bangladesh Army in 1975. He was serving at the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI) during the brutal bloodbath of August 15, 1975.

Following the killing of Bangabandhu on August 15, Ziauddin joined the so-called Day of Uprising of Soldier and People (otherwise known as National Revolution and Solidarity Day) on November 7 the same year under the leadership of Col Taher.

Later, he stood for the Biplobi Sainik Sangshta (Revolutionary Sepoys Organisation) in opposing the military rule and took shelter in the Sundarbans with his followers as part of the resistance.

Ziaduddin was arrested in an army operation in the Sundarbans in 1976. Along with many other descanting military officials and political leaders, he was sentenced to life imprisonment by a military court.

In 1980, he was freed on presidential clemency.

After a brief stay away in Singapore in the early 80s, Ziauddin returned to the country. In 1989, he was elected the chairman of Pirojpur municipality. He later formed a non-political organisation, named Sundarban Banchao (Save the Sundarbans), uniting the fishermen of the Sundarbans.

He was the chairman of Dubla Fishermen Group till the last day of his life.








The Undead Archives

I have finally salvaged my pre-Blogger TDR archives and added them into Blogger. They are almost totally in the form of one giant post for each month. And the formatting strayed from the originals. Sorry. But historians everywhere can rejoice that this treasure trove of my thoughts is restored to the world.
Trump administration officials offered some interesting comments last week at the MHA Energy Symposium in Mandaree. If the government follows through with the statements it could change how North Dakota and the Mandan, Hidatsa and Arikara Nation work together on oil development.

The MHA hasnt been happy with changes the state has made in a tax agreement and has threatened to leave the partnership.

Gavin Clarkson, deputy assistant secretary of Indian Affairs for policy and economic development, told the symposium on Tuesday that the government wants to remove hurdles to economic development, citing burdensome regulations.

Probably his strongest statement was this:

Together, were going to prove that it is in everybodys best interest for taxes collected at MHA to stay at MHA and be collected by MHA and nobody else.

Then, on Wednesday, William Bradford, director of the Energy Department's Office of Indian Energy, told the symposium that tribes, not the federal government, should oversee energy development on tribal lands.

Both the speakers were emphasizing a theme of the new administration of reducing federal regulations and providing local control. Its also another example of more attention being given tribes since the Dakota Access Pipeline protests.

Last week, before the Public Service Commission held hearings on a proposal by Cenex Pipeline to upgrade a pipeline in northwest North Dakota, all tribes in the state were notified. During the Dakota Access protests tribes had complained about the lack of communication with them in a number of instances.

Troy Eid, who specializes in Native American law for Greenberg Traurig law firm in Denver, told a Bakken oil conference in Bismarck recently that companies need to work with tribes from the beginning on projects.

"I don't think DAPL was a one-time adventure," he told attendees.

Its obvious the tribes want more say in projects and oil development that impact them. It appears the Trump administration agrees with them.

The Tribune Editorial Board believes the tribes should be leading the way in determining their future.

The MHA has launched an aggressive plan to put oil funds to work for a better life on the Fort Berthold Reservation. They should be protective of the oil taxes and the state should consult them if changes are wanted.

The oil industry wants the state and tribes to work together to avoid two systems of taxation. At the same time the industry is being challenged by Gov. Doug Burgum to eliminate oil-related spills and to double production to 2 million barrels a day.

Unfortunately, global factors will play a major role in determining oil production.

Recent events show the tribes cant be ignored or taken for granted. While the Trump administration green-lighted the Dakota Access Pipeline, its also telling MHA and other tribes that development policies apply to them. Thats likely to translate into fewer regulations and more local control.

North Dakota officials will need to continue to adjust to the changes. Burgum has a meeting scheduled this coming month with MHA and it could help set a new direction of cooperation.
Obamacare is broken and we need to fix it. Since 2013, insurance premiums have more than doubled in the United States. This fall, families in North Dakota will need to brace themselves for another double digit increase in their health insurance costs. These increases are unsustainable for our families and our businesses, and thats why we have been trying to reform our health insurance system.

Through this process, there are a few guiding principles that I have followed. First, we need to give individuals and families more choices, not force them to buy one-size-fits-all policies, paying for coverages that they neither want nor need. Next, we need to ensure coverage for those who truly cant afford insurance by preserving Medicaid. Finally, we need to bring down the cost of health care by reducing federal regulation and empowering our states to be innovative in their approach to health care coverage.

Over the last few days, the Senate voted on several versions of legislation that would have started the process of reforming our health care system. These bills would have ended the individual and employer mandates and helped restore Americans ability to choose their health care coverage. At the same time, they would have provided states with greater flexibility to innovate free from mandates imposed by Washington.

The Health Care Freedom Act would have:

 Repealed the individual mandate.

 Repealed the employer mandate for eight years.

 Repealed the costly medical device tax for three years.

 Increased the contribution limit for health savings accounts.

 Provided greater flexibility to the states through the 1332 waiver process.

 Defunded Planned Parenthood for one year and increased funding to Community Health Centers by $422 million.

 Continued to fund Medicaid expansion and did not impact traditional Medicaid.

The Better Care Reconciliation Act that we actually voted on in the Senate was significantly different from the original draft. I worked with others to add more than $200 billion in a long-term stability fund and important Medicaid provisions to make sure low-income individuals had coverage.

Under the revised BCRA, North Dakota would have received a similar amount of resources as under the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), but with more flexibility and a variety of new tools to meet the needs of patients and the state. Between Medicaid, the refundable tax credits, the long-term state stability fund, a new substance abuse treatment fund, and additional federal resources to cover the treatment of Native Americans, the state would have had the necessary tools to provide health care coverage for low-income individuals.

At the same time, the legislation would have provided $50 billion in funding to help stabilize the insurance market and make it more competitive so that consumers could have access to better and more affordable health insurance policies. Further, the bill would have phased in over seven years to make sure the states have a long adjustment window to ensure financial viability.

The Obamacare Repeal and Reconciliation Act would have repealed portions of Obamacare, while continuing Medicaid expansion and insurance premium support payments and giving Congress the time to enact a replacement.

None of these bills received sufficient support to pass.

While critics have used Congressional Budget Office numbers to criticize our reform efforts, it is important to understand how the CBO score works. The CBO score indicated that up to 16 million more people would be uninsured under the Health Care Freedom Act. This CBO estimate results from repeal of the mandates, meaning people would choose not to sign up for insurance. They would not lose access to insurance because the premium support payments, Medicaid and expanded Medicaid would have continued to remain in place on the same basis. In other words, insurance coverage would not have been ripped away from people as some opponents have claimed.

All along, Ive said that health care reform will be a process, not one bill. We have worked diligently to get that process underway. We will continue those efforts and hope that Democrats will join us to make reforms to the health care system that will provide Americans with access to patient-centered health care and insurance at affordable rates.
GRAND FORKS  Months after U.S. Rep. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., sent three broadcast news giants a questionnaire on media bias, hes heard nothing back -- and he said that, for now, hes moving on.

Ive had a response in that I havent heard back from any of the network executives, he said recently, blasting the unconscionable decision of executives at NBCUniversal, CBS Corp. and ABC Television Group to ignore his March 31 letter. I consider their arrogance or indifference to be a message, and I take it as much. No response is a response to me.

Cramer began pursuing the issue just before the November election, when he announced he intended to call for hearings on broadcast media bias. He was upset with coverage of the presidential campaign -- specifically, FBI scrutiny of Hillary Clinton emails -- and believed it warranted a discussion on networks responsibilities using federally-owned airwaves. He later called it a shot across the bow for media leaders.

In December, Cramer opted for questionnaires instead of hearings, claiming news coverage had since improved and that a new administration would give his letters more clout. His questions pressed executives on any collusion with the Clinton campaign to create a favorable narrative, and asked if their coverage of the new Trump administration would match the approach they took with the early Obama administration. His questionnaire was not sent to Fox Television Stations Group, a recipient of a Nov. 4 letter in which he announced his intention to call for media bias hearings.

The media networks need other things, said Cramer, a member of a House committee that hears communications and technology matters. Ill have plenty of other opportunities to ask them whats wrong -- why they didnt have the opportunity to send me a note.

An NBCUniversal spokesman said the broadcaster had no comment. Neither ABC Television Group nor CBS Corp. responded to requests for comment.

Cramers scrutiny comes as the news industry itself is increasingly in the news. He was an early endorser of President Donald Trump, who has long had a contentious relationship with the media. Since his inauguration, Trump has tweeted the phrase fake news about 60 times, fake media 11 times and used the phrase fake msm on June 6.

The FAKE MSM is working so hard trying to get me not to use Social Media, Trump tweeted then. They hate that I can get the honest and unfiltered message out.

Sarah Cavanah, an associate professor in the University of North Dakotas communication department, said those developments come as the media landscape changes. Though journalism still follows the same tenets of objectivity, Americans consume it differently than in decades past.

Instead of getting that nightly news message from Walter Cronkite  now we get all these very targeted messages that come through social media, that come through partisan media or only come through specialty media, she said. As a result, viewers can pick and choose the kind of news they want to hear.

Cavanah said those changes have still left major media institutions objectivity intact. Though outlets like Breitbart or The Nation might skew right or left, studies show major metro newspapers and national broadcast media remain objective.

You will see some studies where they poll personal beliefs of journalists, Cavanah said, which often finds that reporters, as a group, are politically left of center. But when they actually assess the content, they have a hard time finding this alleged bias.  In rigorous academic studies, it hasnt popped up a whole lot.

Cavanah drew a distinction between Trumps rhetoric and Cramers questionnaire. Cramers apparent openness to conversation and heated debate, she said, makes him radically different from President Trump.

And she drew a further distinction between Cramer and Rep. Greg Gianforte, R-Montana, who made headlines after body-slamming a reporter for The Guardian in late May, the day before Gianforte won a special election for his congressional seat. The incident stemmed from a question the reporter asked on GOP health care reform. Gianforte later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge and apologized.

I think theres a lot of steps between the two, Cavanah said of Cramer and Gianforte. The journalism industry will likely shake off Cramers questions, she said, which appear designed around a political purpose and less around an earnest interest in learning about the media. He may sincerely want to reform the media in a certain way, but it doesnt seem like the data gathering.

Cramer responded to those kinds of comments in December, claiming he didnt announce his interest in media bias hearings for political gain. Instead, he sent the letter so that these guys are on notice that theyre not doing this within a vacuum.

Last week, Cramer went a little further. I dont think most people care what the Washington Post or the New York Times says, Cramer said. But the three broadcast networks -- everyone in America can watch them.
By AM Sunday, July 30, 2017 Share Tweet Share Share Email

Earlier this week TPQ featured Uri Avnery's weekly column. Tikkun Magazine also ran it along with a complementary piece by Adam Keller.





I started being politically involved in the summer of 1969, when I offered myself as a volunteer to do menial work at the elections campaign headquarters of Uri Avnerys HaOlam HaZeh / New Force Party. Uri Avnery, then a radical young Member of the Israeli Parliament, had been one of the first Israelis to call for creating a Palestinian state in the newly-occupied territories. As a matter of fact, it was not this which initially drew me to the party  but rather its opposition to the rotten old parties which dominated Israeli politics, as well as the call to separate religion and state. HaOlam HaZeh was, in fact, rather similar to the Dutch D-66 party, launched at much the same time. It was only gradually, over a period of some two years, that I fully accepted the idea of Israel making peace with the Palestinians and getting out of the Occupied Territories.



There was a key moment  an evening in 1971 when I was sitting with some twenty other youths in the a dingy basement of a house in downtown Tel Aviv, and heard a soldier in uniform who had just come from the Gaza Strip. He was telling of horrors: extrajudicial executions, the victims bodies thrown into dry wells; torture; soldiers beating up passers-by on the streets of Gaza just for the fun of it We were shocked, we did not want to believe it, we said This cant be true, our army does not do such things!. The soldier said: Yes, it is true. I have done it myself, and now I cant sleep at night. Later that night, we went out with some three thousand leaflets, badly printed on an old stencil machine, which contained what the soldier had told. We put them into postboxes around Tel Aviv  To let the people know what the government was hiding from them  and looked behind our shoulders to make sure there were no police patrol cars in the streets.



There followed the daily exhausting routine of activism  distributing leaflets on street corners, endless debating with passers-by, going after midnight to write graffiti and paste inflammatory posters on the walls, visits to Palestinian villages, protest vigils of a few dozens outside government offices, sometimes a bit bigger demonstrations which required weeks of intensive preparations and sometimes had disappointing resultsEven if the going was difficult and there were many setbacks, for some decades we felt we were making a headway. PM Golda Meir said that There is no such thing as Palestinians.



Gradually, the idea that the Palestinians are indeed a people and deserve to have their own state became widely accepted in the mainstream of Israeli society, and Golda Meirs opinion is nowadays held only by the extreme right lunatic fringe.



When Egyptian President Anwar Sadat landed in Israel and spoke on the Knesset podium, there was a month of peace euphoria. Peace stopped being an unattainable dream and became a concrete, real possibility, peace rallies grew from hundreds to thousands and to tens of thousands, sometimes to hundreds of thousands. When it became clear that Menachem Begin wanted peace only with the Egyptians and had launched an invasion of Lebanon in order to crush the Palestinians, there was for the first time in Israeli history an active grassroots anti-war movement, with large rallies on the streets and soldiers going to prison for refusing service in Lebanon and eventually the protest of soldiers mothers forcing the government to terminate the Lebanon adventure.



The outbreak of the First Intifada convinced many that continued occupation was both immoral and impractical. For decades, the PLO had been considered a terrorist organization, and the activist and philanthropist Abie Nathan served two six-month prison terms for the crime of having met Yasser Arafat and shaken his hand. We will meet the PLO only on the battlefield was what Prime Minister Yitzchak Rabin said in the earlier part of his career, and he ordered soldiers to break the bones of rioting Palestinians. Little did Rabin realize that eventually he himself would shake Arafats hand on the White House lawn, in a blaze of worldwide publicity  or that he would pay for that courageous act with his life and become after his death the archetypal Martyr for Peace, at the focus of vast annual memorial rallies.



At the time when Rabin signed the Oslo Accords with Arafat, we felt that our task was nearly done, that peace between Israel and the Palestinians was at hand and only a few last details needed to be worked out. Even after the assassination of Rabin, peace activists were far from losing heart. The first time that Netanyahu got elected, we in general regarded it as a regrettable accident to be soon corrected. Many of us considered Netanyahu an altogether illegitimate Prime Minister  a bit like many Americans consider Trump nowadays  and the three years of Netanyahus first term were stormy, full of intensive demonstrations and protests.



In 1999 Ehud Barak was elected, claiming to be Rabins successor and complete Rabins unfinished task. The fact that this claim got wide public credibility enabled Barak to give the Israeli peace movement the most grievous blow it ever suffered. In August 2000 Barak, Arafat and Clinton were closeted for intensive negotiations in Camp David. Opinion polls in Israel indicated that, if an agreement was reached and presented to the Israeli voters, it would have gotten at least 70% support and possible as much as 80%. A vast coalition was formed, including the Labor Party and more or less everybody to its left. Gush Shalom (The Peace Bloc), on whose behalf I took part in this coalitions meetings, was the most radical and critical participant  but we, too, were ready to throw our full backing behind a Barak-Arafat deal. A full-scale campaign was planned in great detail. A very beautiful color poster was prepared, with a large dove and the words Back the Agreement  Vote YES for Peace. Everybody in the room fell in love with it  If things had gone as we hoped, a hundred thousand copies would have been printed and everybody around the country would have seen them.



What did happen is that Barak came back with the announcement that he had made generous offers but the intransigent Arafat had rejected them, and there was no partner. Shortly afterwards, Barak allowed Sharon to stage his provocation at the Temple Mount, the most sensitive spot in the entire Middle East  resulting in 13 dead Palestinians, the outbreak of the bloody years of the Second Intifada, and the increasing isolation of the peace movement. There had never been a more difficult and uphill task, in all my years of peace activism, as the effort to convince Israelis that Baraks generous offers had not been so generous at all. The general Israeli public just refused to listen, convinced that Barak offered EVERYTHING to the Palestinians and they reacted with bloody terrorism and suicide bombings.



There was a partial upsurge in 2003, when hundreds of prominent Israelis and Palestinians met in Geneva and signed a draft peace agreement  just needing the signature of the official leaders on the dotted line. But the crafty Sharon, Prime Minister by then, diverted this political energy into a unilateral move in Gaza. Israeli settlers were removed from the Gaza Strip, but direct military occupation was replaced by a suffocating Israeli siege of the Strip  and on the West Bank occupation and settlement expansion continued unabated. There followed several rounds of fighting in and around Gaza, shooting of missiles at Israel and large scale bombings by the Israeli Air Force  altogether cementing the feeling of ordinary Israelis that peace is impossible and that every territory given to the Palestinians will just become a Hamas shooting pad.



And so we come to the present  the incredible fiftieth anniversary of the occupation, which none of us really believed we would see. There was an impressive big rally on the Rabin Square, and numerous smaller protests and events are planned at various locations. But there can be little doubt that Netanyahu  now far more firmly seated than he was twenty years ago  fully intends to continue and perpetuate the occupation.



So why should we continue being active under these inauspicious conditions? For two overlapping reasons. Because it is immoral to occupy and oppress and dispossess another people  and when your country is committing injustice, to be silent is to be an accomplice. That would be true in any country  and doubly true in a country which prides itself as The State of the Jewish People, given the centuries-long history of Jews suffering injustice and discrimination and persecution.



But also, we must continue to act and strive and protest and hope against hope because of sheer self-interest. Because Israels present course is a deadly threat to our future. As things now stand, the survival of Israel depends of three factors: On Israels military superiority in the Middle East, on the American domination of the world and the United States being willing and able to give Israel unlimited political, military financial and diplomatic support. An undermining of any of these three would put Israel in very grave trouble. And history shows conclusively that no military superiority, regional or global, lasts forever  nor are there any eternal alliances.



Only a peace agreement, making Israeli a legitimate part of its geographical environment, can truly ensure our long-term survival. And only the Palestinians can sign such a peace.



Ultimately, the reason to continue being a peace activist in Israel is very simple: we just cant afford to stop it.
CAIRO  U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin this week announced that Alexander County will receive a $25,000 federal grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture Office of Rural Development to support the purchase of a truck that will improve response times to emergencies that require heavy equipment.

"This grant will help ensure that the people of Alexander County don't need to rely solely on volunteers to transport their equipment," Sen. Duckworth said, in a press release.

Duckworth visited Cairo earlier this month to meet with local officials, tour the city of Cairo and hear directly from residents of the Elmwood and McBride housing developments who are being relocated because the housing complexes have fallen into a state of extreme disrepair.

At the meeting, according to Duckworths statement, residents expressed frustration that federal officials were eager to visit and document their time in Alexander County without bringing actual resources to the area.

According to the USDAs project announcement, the funds will be used to purchase a Ford F250 4x4 vehicle to be utilized alongside the countys emergency equipment and communications trailer. Currently, volunteers are called upon for the transport of the trailer and heavy equipment as there is no dedicated vehicle for responding to natural disasters or other emergencies.

"Speaking with residents a few weeks ago, they expressed disappointment with the lack of investment in and overall neglect of their community. Senator Durbin and I will continue working to build momentum towards the better Cairo that the optimism, hard work and resilience of its people deserve," Duckworth said.

"This federal funding will allow Alexander County to improve emergency response times and better serve its residents," Durbin said, in the statement. "I will continue working with Senator Duckworth to ensure that our state's rural communities have access to the critical federal investments that drive economic growth."

In the statement, Alexander County Board Chairman Chalen Tatum said he was tickled to death to receive the grant funding. It is greatly appreciated, he said.

Though Duckworths earlier visit was about the housing crisis in Cairo, the statement from her office called the grant to buy a new truck a concrete example of the federal support needed in the community and that residents have long asked for.

Generally speaking, an aide to Duckworth said that the senators often act as liaisons between requesting local governments in Illinois and federal agencies to make sure the application process goes smoothly.

The USDA Office of Rural Development Economic Impact Initiative grant program provides funding to assist in the development of essential community resources in rural communities with extreme unemployment and severe economic depression.
"Tracy and I can't thank the people of Southern Illinois enough for their support and their prayers. Our victory tonight sends a powerful message to out-of-touch politicians everywhere that we're unified and unyielding in the fight for our conservative values. Joe Biden's going to be held accountable for destroying the economy, ignoring the border crisis, and taking us from America First to America Last in two years flat. But none of this would be possible without the trust of voters from across our vast 12th District. Serving you is truly the honor of a lifetime."
As I sit at my desk looking out my office window at Illinois Avenue, I cant help but wonder what the town will be like in just a few short weeks.

Will there be 100,000 people? Will we have good weather? Will people be able to get around easily? And, the list goes on.

While the eclipse brings with it a level of uncertainty, there are a few things you can do to prepare ahead of time.

With SIU move-in going on at the beginning of the week and eclipse-goers arriving in town on Friday, theres no doubt grocery stores will be hit hard. To avoid empty shelves, do your shopping a week or two in advance. Stock up on emergency items like batteries, flashlights and first aid kits.

But, the planning doesnt stop there. Pick up your prescriptions early to avoid the crowds. Also, schedule your appointments at the beginning of the week. Traffic will begin picking up on Wednesday, Aug. 16 when the students start arriving and will likely remain busy until the Tuesday after the eclipse. With tens of thousands of people expected, gridlock is possible. Be patient and allow extra time to get to your destination. Dont forget to fuel up prior to eclipse weekend to avoid a long line at the gas station.

Whether you plan to watch the eclipse from downtown, the SIU Arena or in your backyard, viewing the sun without the right eye protection can be extremely dangerous and even blinding. NASA recommends viewing the eclipse through special-purpose solar filters, such as eclipse glasses.

You can buy a pair of glasses for less than $5 at Auffenberg of Carbondale, Dunkin Donuts, Fat Patties, First Mid-Illinois Bank & Trust Carbondale, Murdale True Value, Pagliais Pizza, Primos Pizza, Tres Hombres Mexican Restaurant & Bar and Vic Koenig.

Before you kick back and enjoy this once-in-a-lifetime experience, make sure your glasses are certified with the designated ISO 12312-2 international standard, have the manufacturers name and address printed somewhere on them and are not scratched or wrinkled. So, this means no sunglasses or homemade filters.

For the sake of avoiding information overload, Im going to leave it at this: prepare, prepare, prepare. I cant say it enough.

Ready or not, an eclipse is coming in 22 days. If you still dont feel prepared, dont worry, youre not alone. Remember, were all in this together. If you have questions, please dont hesitate to call City Hall at 618-549-5302.Were always happy to help.

Dont forget eclipse information is always just a click away on our website, www.carbondaleeclipse.com. We also have a special section just for local residents. Visit www.carbondaleeclipse.com/local and youll find a series of questions and answers about all things eclipse.
CAHOKIA  Russell Weisman has a theory  he said it may be far fetched for some, but it makes sense to him.

Weisman, senior historic preservation specialist with the Missouri Department of Transportation, has had a fascination for more than a decade with how eclipses have played a role in Native American culture. He said its no secret that throughout history, these native populations have assigned significance to the astronomical events. One of the more significant, and a local example, Weisman said, was that of Tecumsehs brother, Tenskwatawa, later known as the Shawnee prophet, who was able to predict the eclipse of 1806 after his religious authority was questioned by William Henry Harrison.

This, coupled with the rise of the Ghost Dance religious tradition as well as depictions of eclipses on early native calendars, have led him to a theory that the sudden, mysterious rise in population at Cahokia  notably called the big bang, which occurred in 1050  could relate to an early form of eclipse chasing, at least in a way. This lines up, though, because there is another eclipse the following year in 1051.

Its possible that they are looking for a recurring pattern of events that relates to this idea of the birth and death of the sun and that they want to be there to witness this because they think they can benefit from being touched by the shadow, Weisman said. Thats my theory, anyway.

Weisman backs this idea up. He said there is historic evidence backing up the idea that native cultures held beliefs that they had multiple souls  one that existed as a person's reflection, another in their eyes and yet another in their shadow. Weisman also said there were some beliefs that these souls could be transferred. He speculated that the fascination of native peoples with the eclipse may have had something to do with a belief that by standing in the shadow of the moon, they were having part of the suns soul transferred to them. This makes sense, Weisman said, if it is looked at through the proper lens.

As a solar eclipse occurs, we know, scientifically  the moon is the active agent in the passage between the earth and the sun, blocking the sun, he said. Weisman said it is a widely held belief around the world by nonscientific peoples that the sun indeed dies and is reborn during an eclipse.

In all of his efforts to interpret the past, Weisman said he knows it can be easy to appear insensitive and to carelessly trample on or inadvertently demean or misrepresent religious beliefs that are not your own and that you do not fully understand. This is why he said he approaches his role with extreme care.

So, if thats the case. If you believe the sun dies and you are touched by a shadow, just maybe, possibly, thats the shadow of the sun. Thats its soul, thats its spirit, he said.

A quick Google search indicates Native Americans were not alone in their fascination with eclipses. Stories abound from the Vikings to the ancient Egyptians. In this list is the Hindu legend of Rahu and Ketu.

Sanjeev Kumar, president of the Hindu Temple and Cultural Society of Southern Illinois, explained, with the aid of temple priest Gursev Sharma, that there is a constant fight between gods and demons in Hindu beliefs, and one such storied fight is the root source for eclipses in their culture.

Kumar explained that in Hindu holy texts, there is a story wherein Vishnu, the chief god in their polytheistic tradition, is attempting to provide immortality to him and the other gods. To do this, he churned the oceans, creating an elixir of long life. Vishnu did his best to keep this elixir out of the hands of demonic forces, though.

Vishnu also tried to make sure the demons do not become immortal, Kumar explained.

Vishnu decided to fool the demons, Kumar and Sharma said, giving them a different elixir than the holy water of immortal life. One demon caught on, though, and later tried to drink some of the elixir by deception. However, Kumar said his plan was foiled by the sun and the moon  they got word Vishnu then decapitated Svarbhanu.

When the head is cut, it actually forms two demons out of it, Kumar said. The head becomes Rahu and the body becomes Ketu.

In the struggle, Rahu and Ketu did manage to get a drop of the elixir, granting them some god-like qualities, giving them, Kumar said, a feared but respected place in the Hindu pantheon.

They fear them because they are demons but they are also reverent because they are part of the system, Kumar said. He added that Rahu and Ketu are always trying to exact revenge.

Now, since sun and moon are who complained about that, Rahu and Ketu now they try to take revenge whenever they get a chance. So, what is believed is that they swallow sun or moon. Thats how we get the darkness, Kumar said of the blackout conditions of an eclipse.

Because of this story, Kumar said eclipses are not seen as auspicious events. Indeed, Hindus place a great significance on light and when the sun, which for them represents God, is blacked out. Kumar said this is a time to lay low.

People are advised not to do any auspicious thing during that time, Kumar said. He and Sharma said it is suggested that practitioners stay indoors, try not to leave the house, dont look at the eclipse and to cover food to keep negative power from tainting it. Sharma added that this period begins 12 hours before the eclipse for able-bodied adults and four hours before for children and the elderly. Kumar then explained that right after the eclipse it is suggested that charitable acts be performed to neutralize the negativity generated by the eclipse.

Kumar said none of this is to say, however, that people of his faith ignore the modern explanations, as well.

Of course there is a scientific reason for that, also, Kumar said of the eclipse.

Pagans, too, have a deep respect for the relationship between the sun and moon and how they interact with peoples daily lives. Tara Nelson, a founding member of the Southern Illinois Pagan Alliance, said Paganism is a nature-based practice that is guided by finding balance. It should be noted, Nelson pointed out, that she speaks for herself as an, eclectic pagan, and that Paganism itself encompasses many different beliefs and denominations, much like Christianity.

For its adherents, the Pagan symbolism found in the eclipse should be easy to spot, Nelson said.

Many Pagans feel the balance of sun and moon energies, she said. The male and female energies associated with the sun and moon are powerful symbols to experience. With the total solar eclipse it will be easy to connect (to) and witness how the balance of the sun and moon, male and female energies are around us every day, Nelson said.

For some Pagans, Nelson said, the eclipse can provide a powerful time to look at their lives and allow for the energy of lightness to darkness and the return to lightness again to be used as an opportunity to decide what aspects of their lives are no longer welcome.

Nelson said Paganism is the modern form of many ancient spiritual practices and has evolved over time, much like societal understandings of an event like the eclipse.

Our understanding of an event like a total solar eclipse has changed the ways in which we interact with our world and nature itself, Nelson said. There is one that that has remained though, and Nelson said it is worth celebrating as well.

The wonder and awe still exists and for many Pagans this can be a powerful spiritual and symbolic experience, she said.

While the history of these events is something to respect and enjoy, its another thing to be a part of. Weisman said there is clear evidence of a similar eclipse taking place in Southern Illinois in 941.

The shadow path of the eclipse Nov. 21 in 941 is parallel and overlapping with the shadow path of the eclipse that will occur on Aug. 21 of this year, Weisman said. He pointed out that rock art examples documenting the event can be found at Evans Farm  near Cave In Rock, Fountain Bluff at Whetstone Shelter, and at Vogt  near St. Louis. Weisman said based on available sunspot data, it seems like this years eclipse corona will mimic that of the eclipse in 941.
It is July, the Mississippi River is at a low level and we now have our minds directed toward the barbecue grill, swimming, etc. When next spring comes we will go back into our panic mode in fear of floods. Instead of looking forward to spring we dread this time of year along the Mississippi River Valley.

Every year we are threatened with severe flooding in the heartland from the Mississippi River. Many factors come into play with the cause of flooding which seems to be more often in recent years. Climate warming, amount of snow melt off in the northern portions of the upper Mississippi River Valley with a combination of heavy spring rains and rock dikes causing displacement, are a few of the main causes.

Let it be clear that my intentions are not to downgrade the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, whom I have high respect for. As a river pilot I have seen great performances by them. They have accomplished much toward flood control and river navigation making it more navigable. But I do not agree with their theory that rock dikes doesnt cause any displacement of water in the river.

Common sense must dictate that putting millions of tons of rock in the river with the building of rock dikes has caused a narrowing of the river with an appreciable amount of water displacement. Some might think that a few rocks in the river would not cause displacement and they would be correct, but we are talking about millions of tons of rock that push the water level up at normal times.

Rock dikes have served a purpose directing current into a channel which in turn cuts out sand and silt maintaining a deeper channel. This method was used in earlier times with wood piling dikes which allowed much of the water to run through them. Rock dikes replaced the wooden piling and diverted much more of the water into the channel.

Just think of years dumping rock in the river how it must have had an effect on displacement. All one has to do is drop a quarter-pound rock in a nearly full gallon of water and displacement will run it over. While this may not be too scientific, I think it will prove my point.

Common sense is a sound and prudent judgement man makes without formal training. It is a judgement based on vision and what the eyes tell us. Surely one can see that millions of tons of rock dumped into the water will make in time, a lesser space for water at its normal level. I am talking of an operation that is practiced by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on a yearly basis.

As stated before, rock dikes have done a great job in deepening the channel of the river, but the contribution it has on flooding which is a negative effect, far outweighs the positive of good done in deepening the channel.

I have no schooling in the field of instruments, formulas, elevations, volumes, displacements etc., but I do have some common sense. Technology is a great thing. Common sense tells me if technology and common sense were both applied, our accomplishments would be much greater.
Andrew Harrer-Pool/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- In a pair of tweets Saturday evening, President Trump said he is "disappointed" in China after North Korea fired an intercontinental ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan.

"I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk," Trump wrote, adding, "We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!"

I am very disappointed in China. Our foolish past leaders have allowed them to make hundreds of billions of dollars a year in trade, yet...  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

...they do NOTHING for us with North Korea, just talk. We will no longer allow this to continue. China could easily solve this problem!  Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 29, 2017

The launch Friday was North Korea's 11th ballistic missile test this year. The U.S. and South Korea responded by firing short-range missiles into the Sea of Japan "as a show of force," the U.S. military said in a statement.



Trump has frequently invoked the Chinese government after North Korean missile tests. In May, after the North Koreans fired off a short-range Scud missile, he tweeted: "North Korea has shown great disrespect for their neighbor, China, by shooting off yet another ballistic missile...but China is trying hard!"



In April, a botched North Korean ballistic missile test drew this response from the president: "North Korea disrespected the wishes of China & its highly respected President when it launched, though unsuccessfully, a missile today. Bad!"

Copyright  2017, ABC Radio. All rights reserved.
WILLMAR, Minn.  Saying that the nations farm economy is on the brink of a crisis and needs a strong safety net, people from a variety of backgrounds offered ideas Thursday in Willmar about what should be included in the next farm bill.

The current farm bill expires in September 2018, and with $10 billion in proposed cuts looming for the program, theres concern the safety net will have more holes than it does now.

The farm bill is under a lot of pressure already, Rob Larew, senior vice president of public policy and communications for the National Farmers Union, told the crowd at a meeting hosted by the Minnesota Farmers Union. There are proposed cuts in a number of different sections and thats critically disturbing.

While the farm bill is typically seen as benefiting just farmers, the message presented Thursday was clear that the farm bill helps rural communities and is a safety net for the entire country.

Nearly 80 percent of farm bill money goes to food and nutrition programs that aid children and the elderly.

Larew said a good farm bill is not only needed to provide support to farmers who have been rocked by low commodity prices and high input costs in recent years, but also to secure an adequate food supply in the country and to provide necessary funding for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, often referred to as food stamps.

About a half million Minnesotans use food stamps, usually on a temporary basis after a job loss or health crisis, said Marcus Schmit, director of advocacy for Second Harvest.

Schmit, who said $5 spent in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program returns $10 to the farm economy, fears federal cuts to the farm bill will mean costs to maintain SNAP will be passed onto states.

The farm bill probably is the most important piece of legislation not only for our farmers but rural communities  rural America, said Gary Wertish, president of the Minnesota Farmers Union, adding that rural America played a big role in the 2016 election.

We dont need to be cutting rural America, Wertish said.

The current farm economy has some remembering the farm crisis of the 1980s. Numerous farm foreclosures not only reduced the number of farmers but emptied many rural towns.

Were very close to that. If we dont get some reprieve in prices, were very close to having another washout, Wertish said. Thats the importance of having a strong safety net.

The driving factor in the farm bill discussion is the critical state of the economy, Larew said.

Paul Sobocinski, a farmer from Wabasso, said he sees a huge squeeze in the future for farmers and that Congress needs to be aware of a potential huge crisis and that funding for agriculture should not be cut now.

Sobocinski said health care, better payments for conservation programs and expanding crop rotation are issues he wants Congress to hear about.

Encouraging investments in on-the-farm, small-scale renewable energy projects like solar and wind power, expanding broadband internet, providing assistance to get farmers in the business and having a solid crop insurance program were also discussed.

Wertish said after years of low prices, the current crop insurance program is not working like it should to help farmers stay in business.

Representatives from the offices of Sens. Al Franken and Amy Klobuchar and Rep. Collin Peterson were at the meeting and assured participants that the Minnesota delegation will hear their concerns and members are already working on the new farm bill.

The congressional delegation will likely hear much more of the same during a legislative forum next month at Farm Fest.

We want to make sure Congress hears us, said Bruce Miller, membership and outreach director with the Minnesota Farmers Union.
The choice of a college is one of the most important decisions a young man or woman will ever make.

A persons education and the contacts and friendships made during a college career can chart a persons career and family life. Its not a decision that can be made lightly.

High school students and their families have numerous considerations when trying to determine which institution of higher learning best suits their personal needs.

Does the school have a good academic reputation?

Does the school have the necessary field of study?

Can we afford this school?

Is the campus, and surrounding community, a safe environment?

That checklist goes a long way toward determining college choice. But, there is still one more element that is crucial in making a final decision.

Where to live?

In todays world, on-campus housing can be the make or break element in a students decision making process. The fact that on-campus housing at Southern Illinois University Carbondale is aging and enrollment continues to decline is probably not coincidental.

And, to be perfectly frank, living conditions are no small consideration.

This comes as no secret to SIUs administration. A University Housing Master Plan was released in 2011. The plan stated unequivocally that SIU Carbondale needs to upgrade its on-campus student housing.

That plan called for the demolition of Brush Towers  Neely, Schneider and Mae Smith halls. While the towers are iconic for SIU Carbondale grads and they make up the only thing resembling a skyline in Southern Illinois, they are aging and less than aesthetically pleasing.

The 2011 plan called for the construction of dormitories that resembled more traditional housing.

That 2011 plan also touched on Thompson Point. It was noted Thompson Point is more attractive physically because of its location on Campus Lake. But, like Brush Towers, the buildings are aging and in need of renovation.

The goal of the 2011 study was to have new housing available for the 2015 school term.

Then the budget impasse happened.

The old housing is still in place. New studies have been completed, suggesting clusters of smaller units be built near Woody Hall to make the campus more compact. And, plans were in place to raze some of the high rise units this year.

Unfortunately, Illinois state budget crisis intervened. The state failed to make timely payments to SIU, and budgets were slashed. The need for new, improved housing hasnt mitigated, but the financial realities have put the project on hold.

While the current housing situation isnt dire, it is an issue that needs to be addressed sooner rather than later. The SIU Board of Trustees acknowledged the housing matter in their last meeting, but budget constraints pushed the issue to the back burner.

If SIU Carbondale werent in a competitive market for students, the housing might be considered adequate. Alumni know the Towers and Thompson Point are aging. They know the dormitory rooms are small. In an earlier era, the dormitories were an acceptable option.

Times have changed.

SIU Carbondale has to compete for every student  even with its sister institution in Edwardsville.

The dormitories that were acceptable in the 1970s and '80s now seem, to be polite, rustic or quaint. Modern dormitories frequently feature common living areas and separate bedrooms for up to four students in a single unit.

In comparison, SIU Carbondales housing is spartan.

Without question, SIU faces serious issues, from staffing to consolidation of departments, but the importance of upgrading and modernizing student housing cannot be ignored.

Retention has proven to be an issue at SIU Carbondale. Students have to be comfortable in their surroundings. Upgrading student housing certainly wont solve all the issues facing SIU, but it is a step in the right direction.
NORTH -- The Challenge Center in North will begin its WINGS FOR SUCCESS program at 8 a.m. this Monday, July 31.

Founder Sandy Sigmon reports the Challenge Center has received two grants this year -- one from Dollar General for $7,000 and the other from the Sisters of Charity Foundation of South Carolina for $1,000 -- to purchase educational software.

"Were excited about the changes this school year as we will be working with new staff members and the new computerized education programs," Sigmon said. "Our Adult Basic Education classes will be taught by Ms. Elvernia Richberg, and our new teacher, Mrs. Natasha Hart, will teach the GED and Work Skills classes."

The Wings for Success program is for adults ages 17 and older who want to improve their educational skills to earn their GED diploma, she said.

"Our students can enroll for classes, learn what they need to know, pass the GED and progress to related programs for job skills and career training. Adults who enroll in our program will have individual assistance, will learn to use computers on our new education software and be able to learn employment skills at the same time," Sigmon said.

"We have the National Career Ready Curriculum that includes WorkKeys certification that employers are looking for. Students will improve their computer skills, will learn to write resumes and do job searches," she added. "The curriculum covers many of the subjects that will help adults earn a diploma and become prepared to find a good job, get hired and keep their job."

For adults who have not finished their education or who had a difficult time learning for whatever reason, or if they are older adults, they are welcome to enroll in the program, Sigmon said.

"Please come talk with us," she said. "We are in the town of North at 4583 Savannah Highway (U.S. 321), in our beautiful new county building next door to North Furniture Store," she said. "Those who are job hunting are welcome to visit our Virtual One Stop, where you can use the computers to search for jobs, create resumes, do research, or take online classes. Bring your own devices or laptops to use our WI-FI."

Classes will be held from 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and the Virtual One Stop is open during those same hours.

For more information about the opportunities available at The Challenge Center, call 803-247-3433.
All Regional Medical Center employees will receive a raise, hospital trustees decided Tuesday.

The board unanimously agreed to provide a 2 percent pay increase for the employees, effective July 30.

"The RMC Board of Trustees recognizes the vital role that the employees contribute in achieving the mission of our health care system, and the timing was right to recognize those contributions," RMC Interim President and CEO Bert Whitaker said.

Employees will see the increase on their Aug. 18 paychecks. Doctors, pro re nata, temporary and contract employees are not included in the pay raise.

Also during the meeting, trustees extended Whitaker's contract by three additional months or until a new CEO is found.

The initial contract was for six months with an option to extend three months.

Whitaker stepped into the position Feb. 13 of this year following the termination of Tom Dandridge, who had been CEO for 24 years.

Whitaker was initially going to serve until March 30, which is when the hospitals management contract with QHR ended. Trustees then decided to name Whitaker the interim CEO.

"The search is coming along good," RMC Chair Melvin Seabrooks said, following the meeting. "They are out on the market interviewing the candidates.  Sometime in August we should have potential candidates."

In other matters, RMC Finance Committee Chairman Matt Stokes said the hospital saw a gain in operations of $531,000 for June and a total gain including non-operating income of $406,220.

The reason for the gain was largely due to patient volume increases for the month of June.

"We continue to find ways to control expenses," Stokes said.

The RMC system has spent $231,263 more than it has received in revenue so far this year. The hospital was $845,655 in the red at this same time last year.

"We have three more months to go," Stokes said, asking RMC Chief Financial Officer Liza Porterfield if she thinks the hospital will come out in the black by year's end.

"I think we will make it," Porterfield said.

Trustee Dr. Oscar Butler Jr. said, I know we are going to continue to make it, so there will be no doubt in the minds of our employees or citizens in the community.

Porterfield noted RMC has about $10.6 million tied up in Medicaid application backlogs, which should also help the hospital's financial position.

The S.C. Department of Health and Human Services did a system conversion for its Medicaid eligibility system about three years ago, resulting in the backlogs.

Normally, the backlog runs about $5 million to $6 million. The backlog was as high as $16.1 million in February 2016.

The hospital will receive about 20 percent of the money.

In related matters:

 Trustees approved about $3.7 million in capital projects. That includes $1.3 million for a patient monitoring upgrade. Also, $2.4 million will be spent on renovations to the hospital's lab heating and cooling unit and its endoscopy suite.

Porterfield said the $2.4 million is actually budgeted for fiscal year 2018, but the work needs to begin sooner rather than later.

Whitaker said the upgrade of the endoscopy suite and other planned upgrades are being made to ensure the hospital is ready for its visitation by The Joint Commission, most likely in May 2018.

"The goal is to start now," Whitaker said. "I don't want to go through the CEO transition and have him or her have to start from scratch."

The commission is a nonprofit organization that accredits more than 21,000 U.S. health care organizations and programs.

 Whitaker said the hospital is looking at services that might be needed with the arrival of the Volvo manufacturing plant in Berkeley County.

"We don't have any decisions or any specifics at this point, but I think the strategy is right on target," he said. The hospital could look at adding services in the eastern end of the county.

 Trustees recognized Medical Staff Executive Committee Chairman Dr. Arden Weathers, Vice President of Strategy and Compliance Brenda Williams and Vice President of Human Resources Howard Harris for their service to the hospital over the years.

Weathers retired July 2 and Williams and Harris are retiring Aug. 1. Weathers has served the hospital for 45 years, Williams for 38 years and Harris for 16 years. The board gave them all a round of applause.
The Republican president has a job approval rating around 40 percent. The GOP has an unfavorability rating around 56 percent. And Republicans trail Democrats by nine points in an average of "generic ballot" polls.

All of which makes it notable that the Republican National Committee is trouncing the Democratic National Committee when it comes to raising money, especially from small donors.

The numbers are striking. In June, the RNC raised $13.5 million to the DNC's $5.5 million. For 2017 so far, the RNC has raised $75.4 million to the DNC's $38.2 million.

The RNC started the year with $25.3 million in cash-on-hand. Now it has $44.7 million. The DNC started the year with $10.5 in cash-on-hand. Now, that has fallen to $7.5 million.

As of June 30, the RNC reported $0 in debt. The DNC reported $3.3 million in debt.

A look inside the numbers is even worse for the DNC. Looking at collections from small donors -- that is, those who contributed less than $200 -- the RNC raised $10.5 million in the months of May and June. The DNC raised $5.3 million from small donors in the same time period.

The RNC's money total is a record -- more than was raised in any previous non-presidential election year. That is true for June, and for all of 2017 as well. The $75.4 million raised this year compares to $55.4 million for the same period in 2015; to $51.2 for the same period in 2014; to $41.1 million for the same period in 2013, and so on going back.

"It's definitely a reflection of support for President Trump," said RNC spokesman Ryan Mahoney. "Our small-dollar donors are giving at a record pace because they believe the RNC is supporting President Trump, and they like that."

The obvious reason for the Democrats' troubles is that they lost the White House, the House and the Senate last year. Now the party appears to have a particularly bad hangover.

There is much discussion about the intensity of Democratic opposition to Trump, and indeed Democrats showed a lot of fundraising enthusiasm in the losing Georgia congressional race that turned into a referendum on the president. But the fact is, the passions behind The Resistance have not, or have not yet, turned into support for the main vehicle of opposition to Trump, the Democratic Party.

Democrats have simply not gotten over the Hillary-Bernie split that plagued the party last year. And they have not decided what they will be in the future. Remember, this is a party that won the White House in 2008 and 2012. It's not an exaggeration to say that many believed demographics favored them so heavily that they were virtually guaranteed Democratic victories in the years ahead. And then the Trump victory reminded them that there are still a lot of working-class voters in the country who aren't necessarily natural Democrats.

This past week, Democrats rolled out a new agenda, which they call "A Better Deal," which is designed to appeal to those disaffected voters. And not a minute too soon. When a recent ABC-Washington Post poll asked, "Do you think the Democratic Party currently stands for something, or just stands against Trump?" -- just 37 percent said the party stands for something, while 52 percent said it just stands against Trump, and 11 percent had no opinion.

So now Democrats have a huge job in front of them. And it is unclear whether Tom Perez, the Hillary Clinton-backed candidate who won the DNC chairmanship in a divisive battle with Rep. Keith Ellison, is the man to do it. Last month, in explaining another dismal fundraising period for the Democrats, Perez distanced himself from the problem. "I got here on March 1," Perez told MSNBC, "and I was the first to say it, we've got a lot of rebuilding to do."

The new fundraising numbers don't predict what will happen in 2018. But they do say what is happening now. And that is, in spite of his problems there is enough support for Trump in the Republican base to set new small-donor fundraising records, while Democrats have yet another measure of the work that lies ahead.
Russian pop stars, including People's Artist of USSR, Prima donna of the Russian pop music Alla Pugacheva, Peoples Artist Filipp Kirkorov, Honored Artist Kristina Orbakaite, well-known TV presenter and comedian Maksim Galkin have arrived in Baku to perform at Zhara-2017 International Music Festival, Azertac reported.

In a talk with journalists at the Heydar Aliyev International Airport in Baku, the Russian celebrities shared their impressions about the festival.

I have a special program for the festival. I plan to have a solo concert on my 70th jubilee. Of course, Im not planning to present it everywhere, but will definitely do it in Baku. Ive an awesome mood. Ive not flown for a few years. But I`ve summoned up the strength to come to Baku, said Alla Pugacheva.

Maksim Galkin said: I gave a solo concert in Baku earlier this month. Every time I come here I encounter the true Azerbaijani hospitability in your city. My expectations have always been justified.

Filipp Kirkorov:  I am looking forward to Alla Pugachevas concert. Unfortunately, this time I came to Baku for only a day and that day would be really busy with rehearsals, press conferences and a red carpet event. I plan to repeat the success of my solo concert of last December in Baku. I have been looking forward to Zhara concerts since the last summer.
By Trend





US Ambassador Allan Mustard and Turkmenistans Minister of Finance Gochmyrat Myradov signed an Intergovernmental Agreement (IGA) to implement the provisions of the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA), said the US Embassy in Ashgabat.

The agreement underscores growing international cooperation to curb offshore tax evasion and marks a step forward in building a stronger, more stable and responsible global financial system.



Ambassador Mustard stated, Todays signing marks a significant step forward in our efforts to work collaboratively to combat offshore tax evasion  an objective that mutually benefits our two countries. By working together to detect, deter, and discourage tax abuses through increased transparency and enhanced reporting, we can help to build a stronger, more stable, and more accountable global financial system.



The automatic exchange of financial account information for tax purposes has become the global standard in the effort to curtail offshore tax evasion. The United States enacted FATCA in 2010 to combat offshore tax evasion by encouraging transparency and information exchanges on financial accounts held by U.S. taxpayers in other jurisdictions. The United States has intergovernmental agreements to implement FATCA with more than 113 jurisdictions.
By Trend





The upcoming cotton harvesting campaign has been mulled at a meeting of the Cabinet of Ministers of Turkmenistan, the Altyn Asyr TV channel reported July 29.

Reportedly, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov gave instructions to ensure the proper level of cotton harvesting in all regions of the country.

Turkmenistan is one of the biggest cotton producers in the world. More than one million tons of cotton is grown annually in Turkmenistan, which is the raw material base for the development of textile industry. Up to 70 percent of the raw materials are processed in the country.
Dubai Investments Real Estate Company (DIRC) has signed a Dh1.1 billion ($299.47 million) financing deal with First Abu Dhabi Bank (FAB) and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank (ADCB) for its Mirdif Hills development in Dubai, UAE.



DIRC is the real estate development arm of Dubai Investments, a leading, diversified investments conglomerate listed on the Dubai Financial Market.



The project financing was arranged as a club deal by FAB and ADCB. FAB acted as the sole coordinator, joint mandated lead arranger, book runner, issuing bank and account bank. ADCB acted as a facility agent and security agent.



The deal was signed by Khalid Bin Kalban, managing director and CEO of Dubai Investments and chairman of DIRC; Andre Sayegh, deputy group CEO of FAB; and Colin Fraser, head of wholesale banking at ADCB.



Mirdif Hills, which is being constructed in phases with a project cost in excess of Dh3 billion ($816.5 million), is currently the only freehold development situated in the Mirdif area. It is located adjacent to Mushrif Park and also is in close proximity to Dubai International Airport. Mirdif Hills is being launched in clusters and will be replete with all lifestyle attractions and a wide array of commercial and retail outlets, community recreation and landscaped areas in a gated environment.



Kalban said: Mirdif Hills is an iconic project by Dubai Investments, which sets new benchmarks in freehold mixed-use developments in Dubai. The financing agreement with First Abu Dhabi Bank and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank reinforces Dubai Investments commitment to work in strategic partnership with banks for its projects. This is a significant step forward as Dubai Investments continues to develop and monetize its real estate land bank.



Sayegh said: The financing for Mirdif Hills project is one of First Abu Dhabi Banks strategic transactions with Dubai Investments. As the largest bank in the UAE, we are committed to backing key projects and initiatives that support the UAEs economy and growth plans.



Fraser said: ADCB is committed to playing an integral role in the development of key developments within the UAE, and the agreement with Dubai Investments for financing the Mirdif Hills project exemplifies this strategic roadmap. The agreement further is a testament to ADCBs success in delivering banking excellence in the UAE.  TradeArabia News Service


After five years of construction, a 26-foot tower in Mandan is collecting data on temperature, precipitation and chemicals in the air, water, plants and soil that could aid research on problems such as climate change and the spread of disease.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory is one of 60 host sites for National Ecological Observatory Networks data-gathering project.

No other project has taken on something with this kind of scale both in size and length, said Andrea Anteau, NEON field operations manager for North Dakota when the tower was being constructed.

The tower has been gathering data for three to four months and scientists started field observations of plants and insects last growing season. In total, the project will gather 578 data points over the next 30 years. The raw data will be public, allowing professional and amateur scientists to access it.

The Mandan site is one of three NEON sites in North Dakota, along with two sites near Woodworth. The towers are outfitted with sensors that measure everything from temperature and wind speed to the amount of carbon dioxide being taken in by plants and how that is helping the plants root systems grow.

In conjunction with the tower, six full-time and 21 temporary summer field scientists have been setting mosquito and beetle traps and dragging cloth to pick up ticks as samples to be sent to independent labs for disease testing.

Some of the data is not yet available but, over the next three to six months, everything will be added to the online NEON data portal, neonscience.org.

The portal also offers explainers on how to interpret and analyze the data, though it does not do any analysis. Anteau said this is in an effort to offer impartial, primary source information.

Its a matter of creating information without a conflict of interest, she said.

Former NEON communications manager Jennifer Walton, when the tower was being constructed, said the long-term nature of the project and the concept of gathering the same information at every site the same way is part of what makes NEON unique. She said other long-term ecological research plans have not allowed for comparison. The NEON method will allow one issue to be linked to another on a national scale.

Typically, scientific studies are only done on a five-year timeframe, which means it may only include data from a dry season or a wet season and trends found may be attributed to a particular cycle. After NEON has built up its database, scientists using it will be able to look beyond those seasonal effects to the bigger picture.

That data becomes much more valuable as time goes on, Anteau said.

Despite only having a few months of data, Anteau said she has had several universities, in North Dakota and outside the state, reach out to her as they start using NEON data for projects.

For example, Anteau said NEON does not collect information on the amphibian community, but researchers that do study them may be using NEON data such as rainfall alongside their own data gathering to explain what they're seeing within their research topic. Because NEON is already gathering this data, it is one less thing those researchers will have to gather for themselves, according to Anteau.

Construction costs for the project were about $434 million, coming from the National Science Foundation, which funds major research projects with high start-up costs. Each tower site is estimated to cost $1 million.
Italy-based Pirelli, a leading global tyre manufacturer, has launched a limited edition tyre with a coloured sidewall  displaying the colours of the Italian flag.



These tyres will be used on Italian diplomatic cars in France, Germany, the UK, Switzerland, Japan, China, Russia, the US, the UAE and Saudi Arabia, said a statement from the company.



The very first Maserati Quattroporte running on green, white and red P Zero tyres was shown by Marco Tronchetti Provera, CEO and vice chairman of Pirelli, in the presence of Italian Foreign Minister Angelino Alfano, after the final session of the four-day XII Ambassadors Conference, hosted in the Pirelli HangarBicocca, Pirellis space dedicated to contemporary art.



The occasion marked the symbolic handover of the first set of Pirelli Tricolore tyres to the Italian diplomatic corps, it added.



Pirellis Color Edition tyres were presented at the latest Geneva Motor Show earlier this year, it said.



They represent the final frontier of the perfect fit strategy, followed by Pirelli to respond as best as possible to the increasing requirement for personalisation: both from car constructors as well as everyday drivers, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Saudi Basic Industries Corp (Sabic), a leading petrochemicals conglomerate, posted a net profit of SR3.71 billion ($989.16 million) for the second quarter of this year, a 25 per cent decline from the same period last year.



The profits dropped (from SR4.96 billion) amid higher selling costs and lower sales, a Reuters report said.



The company's results are closely tied to oil prices and global economic growth because its products -- plastics, fertilisers and metals -- are used extensively in construction, agriculture, industry and the manufacturing of consumer goods.
The UAE has officially submitted its candidacy for membership into the International Maritime Organization's (IMO) Category B during its participation in the organization's General Meetings held in London, UK.



The plenary sessions, which was chaired by Abdullah Belheif Al Nuaimi, Minister of Infrastructure Development and chairman, Federal Authority for Land and Maritime Transport, discussed important and timely issues related to the maritime sector along with its global best practices, said a statement.



The UAE presented its candidacy during a coordination meeting organised by the Member States of the IMO, in the presence of Minister Al Nuaimi, it said.



The presentation included the contributions of the country in upgrading the maritime sector and its participation in the agreements of the international maritime system, in addition to its effective and influential role in supporting the marine sector locally, regionally and globally, it added.



IMO member states expressed their admiration for the UAE's bid for membership into Category B. In fact, Kitack Lim, secretary general, IMO, lauded the distinctive features of the UAE's maritime sector.



Lim said: The UAE is actively contributing to the development and support of the global shipping sector--reinforcing their role as one of the most important members of the IMO.



Over the years, we have greatly benefited from its experiences that are shared during our public meetings and we look forward to working closely with the UAE for the further growth and development of the international maritime transport sector, he said.



Al Nuaimi stressed that the UAE is seeking to join the executive council in the category B section and is looking to add more value to international trade and international shipping. He added that the UAE is a perfect candidate for Category B membership because of its international reputation, which enables it to be a strong executive in the organization and an active participant in the development of regulations and laws.



He also shared that the country is a pioneer in the global indicators of sea ports worldwide, and ranks third in the world in terms of the quality of port infrastructure.



Al Nuaimi revealed that the UAE has been a long-time member of the IMO  dating back to 1981. Derived from its rich maritime heritage, the country is regarded as one of the most important international maritime trade centres in the Gulf and the world and one of the most economically and commercially developed countries in the Middle East.



He also shared the UAE's strategic experience as an incubator for 20 of the world's leading ports with some being among the top 10 ports in terms of advanced infrastructure in the field of transport and shipping. It also operates more than 56 ports outside the UAE.



The UAE is the only Arab member country of the IMO Executive Council. 11 leading countries in the field of international maritime trade led by Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina, France and Australia are also vying for membership.



Members will be elected at the 30th Ordinary General Assembly meeting between November 24 and December 5, it stated.  TradeArabia News Service
Dubai-based Emirates Central Cooling Systems Corporation (Empower), the worlds largest district cooling services provider, has announced the successful re-certification of Information Security from British Standards International.



Based on International Standards for Information Security Management System (ISO27001:2013), the re-certification audit has resulted in a satisfactory opinion for Empowers policies and procedures. British Standards International awarded Empower the re-certification certificate after the company passed a rigorous audit of its business processes, it said.



The audit covered operations of Empower at the head office and all critical processes of Empower. The company underwent a comprehensive audit and assessment processes and functions related to Information Security governance, operations and assurance.



"Achieving the (ISO27001:2013) recertification is a significant accomplishment. The successful completion demonstrates Empowers expertise in information security management and its dedication to have the top levels of security in place throughout the company. While the re-certification represents the beginning of our commitment to the quality of our management processes and information security, it also outlines our ability to continued improvements," said Ahmad Bin Shafar, CEO of Empower.



The British Standards International has the highest level of security specialisation recognising the experience in providing information security. Companies looking to achieve these quality certifications must submit information about completed projects to design and implement network infrastructure security solutions, and then meet all certification requirements that demonstrate highest security solutions.



Empower currently operates more than 1.250 million RT, providing environmentally responsible district cooling services to large-scale real estate developments.  TradeArabia News Service


RJ - Romain Jerome, a high-end Swiss watchmaker, explores new territories with its Steampunk Urban Safari collection.



In a nod to the 70s style and la SAPE  a dandy-esque fashion movement originating in the Congo which stands for the Society of Ambiance-Makers and Elegant People  Romain Jerome pays tribute to a provocative fashion.



"Exuberance is key, expressed here through a roaring leopard print pattern which covers both the strap and the Roman numerals VI and XII. The emblematic Steampunk case in 50mm adds to the new models imposing look," the company says.



Unique to the Steampunk model, which features a self-winding Swiss-made mechanism, the dial is integrated into the movement. The different finishes and elements of the movement, such as the circular graining, the hex nuts and the pistons, give a true impression of depth to the dial.



The leopard print, hand painted by Swiss craftsman Andre Martinez, offers a striking contrast with the raw elements of the timepiece and in particular with the structured bezel, made of oxidised steel with a black PVD coating. This first model is limited to 25 pieces and is priced at $14,950.

RJ also offers a jewelled model, limited to 5 pieces only, enhanced with a bezel in red gold and set with 286 diamonds. This model is priced $45,500.



Stirring up traditional horology, Swiss made brand RJ-Romain Jerome expresses raw energy and a contemporary philosophy through its designs.

Based in Geneva since 2004, this high-end watchmaking Maison plays with the notion of legends and icons as a tribute to human kinds rich history. RJ-Romain Jerome offers every man a chance to distinguish himself from the rest, through sophisticated designs that can be likened to true pieces of art, says the watchmaker. - TradeArabia News Service
Tesla, a manufacturer of electric cars, has launched its affordable Model 3 car, handing over the first 30 units to employee buyers.



Chief executive officer Elon Musk said the model had over half a million advance reservations.



Outside Tesla's Fremont, California factory, Musk showed off the $35,000 base vehicle with a range of 350 km on a charge that marks a departure from the company's earlier luxury electric cars, a Reuters report said. The car has a topspeed of 225 km.



Musk took to the stage driving a red Model 3, and said Tesla has produced 50 of the vehicles so far, including 20 for testing purposes.



Model 3 is a smaller, simpler and a more affordable electric car. Designed and built as the worlds first mass-market electric vehicle, it is a critical step in Teslas mission to accelerate the worlds transition to sustainable energy, the company said.



Like every Tesla vehicle, Model 3 combines range, performance, safety and technology. Intelligent design maximises interior space to comfortably fit five adults and all of their gear. The high-efficiency powertrain provides zero to 60 mph acceleration in as little as 5.1 seconds.



Model 3 is designed to achieve the highest safety ratings in every category. Eight cameras, forward radar and 12 ultrasonic sensors enable active safety technologies including collision avoidance and automatic emergency braking, the company said. It also has six front row and two side curtain airbags.



Reservations for Model 3 first opened on March 31, 2016 and remain available today, it said.



The company intorduced two options a Standard edition expected to travel 220 miles on a full charge, and a long-range model that would travel 310 miles.



Musk said the company will soon build the cars at a rate of 5,000 a week, ramping up to 10,000 a week by the end of next year, and that customers who order the cars now would likely receive them late next year. - 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.
The Big 5 Solar event, scheduled to be held in Dubai, UAE, in November, will shed light on the future of solar energy in the UAE and the region and the need for new regulations for building-integrated photovoltaics (BiPV).



The event, from November 26 to 29 at the Dubai World Trade Centre, will feature a day-long Global Solar Leaders Summit, as well as solar talks throughout the event. The expo is being held under the patronage of UAE's Ministry of Energy.



With the success of ground-mounted PV solutions such as those in the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Solar Park, local governments are looking to diversify their energy mix. Currently however, projects like the launch of Dewas Shams Dubai initiative to connect solar energy to buildings, inclusive of their online solar calculator, are coming hand in hand with the limitations of current policy and regulations surrounding new solar technologies.



Although BiPV solutions are not yet at the forefront of building design in the region, upcoming projects in the retail, transport and building sectors will see a wealth of opportunities for facade-based technologies to take centre stage. Partnered with the rising popularity of these solutions abroad, it is paramount to facilitate BiPV growth in the UAE, said the event organisers.



According to the Architectural Solar Association (ASA), tailoring global regulations for this specific landscape is the key to encouraging a mass adoption of BiPV in the region. However, locally focused safety regulations are perhaps the biggest hurdle faced by the industry, it said.



The incentives for adopting renewable energy methods have become more complex than simply adjusting to an environmental outlook; they are making a move towards lowering utility costs and increasing the value of properties. According to Anoop Babu, Mena regional manager ASA, preparing for the future should be at the core of building concept design.



He describes the transition towards BiPV as removing facades that would otherwise be idle for the next 20 years, and replacing them with active building elements.



The ASA are an official supporting association of The Big 5 Solar event. The Big 5 Solar pursues the escalating green demands in the GCC construction industry, and is set to become a premier platform for solar industry professionals to network and do business in the Middle East.



The event will also offer a series of high level free-to-attend Continuing Professional Development (CPD)-certified solar talks covering topics such as the connection between solar and construction, the impact of VAT on the solar industry, the role of small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in driving the solar industry in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena), as well as many more.



These talks will bring together solar industry pioneers to empower a positive change and transformation of the renewable energy sector with a focus on solar.



A prominent feature at The Big 5 Solar 2017 will be the Global Solar Leaders Summit (GSLS), the only established high-level summit in the Middle East focusing on solar technology. Key speakers include: Dr Matar Al Neyada, undersecretary of the UAE Ministry of Energy; Dr Rashid Aleem, founder of Aleem Business Congress; and Dr Nasser Saidi, chairman of the Regional Clean Energy Business Council. They will come together highlight the latest trends and practices in the solar industry along with major opportunities and challenges within the booming solar market.



Organised by dmg events Middle East, Asia & Africa, The Big 5 Solar will be co-located with The Big 5 Dubai, the largest, most influential and renowned construction industry event in the Middle East. - TradeArabia News Service
National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) has signed memorandums of understanding (MoUs) with international and Iranian companies to conduct feasibility studies on developing Azadegan oilfield, a report suggested.

According to the report published by ISNA, the deals were inked with companies such as France's Total, Malaysia's Petronas, Japan's Inpex and Royal Dutch Shell as well as the Iranian Tenco firm.

Iran is looking to increase crude output, and with 37 billion barrels of oil, Azadegan oilfield, which is shared with neighboring Iraq, is the country's largest.

The Islamic Republic discovered the Azadegan oilfield in 1999 in what was Iran's biggest oil find in decades.

The NIOC later divided the project into South Azadegan and North Azadegan.

The report said all companies except Tenco have submitted the outcome of their studies and preparations are afoot to hold the tender.

The NIOC has signed a deal with Persia Oil and Gas Development Company to conduct feasibility studies on Yaran oilfield and received the results of the studies.

It is estimated that a consortium led by Persia will take over responsibility to develop the oilfield.

Two phases of the development projects of Darkhovin oilfield have been completed. An MoU has been signed with an Italian and a Philippine company as well as an Iranian firm to develop its third phase.

An Italian a Dutch-British and an Iranian company have expressed their readiness to develop Kish gas field. They have reached deals to conduct feasibility studies on the field. The development of the gas field will be implemented in several phases.

The NIOC also has signed three MoUs with Russias Gazprom, Thailand's PTTEP and Norway's DNO to conduct studies on developing the Changuleh field.

The Azar field is a joint and complex field which is currently producing 30,000 barrels of oil per day. It is set to be expanded through new oil deals by an Iranian company.

A deal to conduct feasibility studies in Yadavaran field has also been signed with a Dutch-British company.

An Austrian company has come to an agreement with the NIOC to undertake feasibility studies on developing Bandar Karkheh field. -- Reuters
Championing the importance of womens contributions to the growth and development of aviation, 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.



Waiz 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. Al Muheiri 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, Waiz and Al Muheiri began their simulator challenge in the Boeing 777 cockpit, taking-off, landing and piloting each assigned journey.



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."



Al Muheiri also commented on the simulator experience with Waiz: 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, Waiz 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.



Emirates female cockpit crew come from 24 nationalities, covering a diverse age range of 20 to 59 years. Emirates also has the first Arab woman to Captain the Airbus A380, as well as the youngest Emirati female pilot operating the A380. Additionally, Emirates employs women who are highly skilled professionals working as aircraft engineers, mechanics and aircraft maintenance and repairs technicians. Women also work in critical positions in flight operations at the airline.



Later in the day, the UAE General Civil Aviation Authority hosted Waiz in Kidzania at Dubai Mall to speak to young girls and women about her experiences and the Dreams Soar project. Al Muhairi and female cadets, Khalid Ali Al Mansoori and Maryam Yousuf Bin Ismail, also gave talks about their aviation journeys in an effort to inspire the young women in attendance. - TradeArabia News Service
At one time in my checkered careers, I was a contract writer for the North Dakota Civil Defense Survival Project, a federally-funded undertaking in 1958-59 to save the country in case of nuclear attack by the Russians.

This was launched only four years after Congress added "one nation under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. However, the thinking in the Pentagon was that this may not be a sufficient defense against those godless communists so they wanted a backup plan, God notwithstanding.

Our first planning assumption was that the Russians would bomb the Air Force bases at Minot and Grand Forks. Bismarck and Fargo protested because they thought they were as important as Grand Forks and Minot and deserved the honor of being targets, too.

In North Dakota, it is our culture to resolve objections by taking complainers into the all-inclusive boat. So we added Fargo and Bismarck as targets without checking with the Russians.

Because radioactivity would continue for decades after the attack, our first strategy was to evacuate people from the target cities and out of the radioactive fallout that would spread across the state.

As we thought of evacuation, however, the realities hit. First, the high college traffic would soon be paralyzed by breakdowns of those rust heaps students drove, given to them by parents who wouldn't dare drive them across the street.

Then there would be a slew of old people who shouldn't be driving in a parking lot, let alone a stampede out of town. They would pause for bearings and cars would pile up for blocks. Then there were the ever-present road warriors who would weave in and out of traffic as they bulled their way to safety.

As we contemplated the hordes pouring out of the target cities, we concluded that evacuation would never work. So it was decided that the only other option was to dig. So North Dakota, along with the rest of America, went underground.

The Civil Defense planning operation was moved to the Capitol basement, where two feet of concrete protected us from the blast and radioactivity. Civilians across the state were encouraged to prepare bomb shelters in their basements and stock plenty of crackers and water for a long siege of radioactivity.

In fact, when our family moved from Bismarck to Grand Forks in 1967, we bought a house that had such a bomb shelter. The crackers were gone but the shelter had a jug of chokecherry wine, which, if you drank more than half a glass, would eliminate all worry about the Russians.

As for the Civil Defense staff, boxes of crackers and gallons of water were brought into the basement vaults of the Capitol in preparation for doomsday.

Another concern was continuity of government. What if the high-ranking political leaders were killed and we didn't have anyone qualified to shout "all clear" when the bombers left? So a constitutional amendment was adopted to authorize quick replacement of the lost leaders.

Just so you know that this narrative is not fake news, just take your copy of the North Dakota Constitution in hand and you will find the tracks of the Civil Defense Survival Project in Section 7 of Article XI.

No doubt, our comprehensive planning forestalled a Russian attack with such success that Civil Defense evolved into the Homeland Security Agency. As for a Russian attack today, we have entered an era of detente. Polls show that we have become less religious since 1954 so maybe the USA has become more compatible with godless communism.

Meanwhile, have a cracker and a shot of chokecherry wine.
British Airways (BA) First customers flying from the UAE to London can avail special fares on First cabins on board the 787-9 Dreamliner when booking 60 days in advance.

Since the opening of The First Wing on April 5, the new exclusive check-in area for British Airways First, Gold Executive Club and oneworld Emerald customers at Heathrow Terminal 5 has welcomed nearly 200,000 travellers through the dedicated security channel leading directly into the Galleries First lounge and Concorde Room.



The airlines First customers that book 60 days in advance can now experience the new generation First cabins on board the 787-9 Dreamliner on the Abu Dhabi-London route for as little as Dh20,550 ($5,593.2).



Customers flying First from Dubai can also enjoy special rates when they book 60 days in advance with fares starting from as little as Dh21,270 ($5,789). Dubai customers will also be able to access British Airways new Concorde Lounge concept at Concourse D in Dubai International Airport.



Exclusive to First guests, the Concorde Lounge opened in 2016 and provides a dedicated area for First customers and their guests to relax and unwind in a private environment before boarding their flight.



British Airways is continuing to invest in other improvements to First, including a similar refresh of its flagship Concorde Room at Heathrow Terminal 5 to be unveiled in October 2017. The lounge, which is also exclusively for First customers, will receive an updated look and feel, as well as improvements to the terrace area.



British Airways new Liberty London washbags will also take to the skies at the end of July. Boasting prints from Libertys vintage textile archive, the ladies kit features an eye-catching print called Indiana flower pattern in a range of blues, while the male washbag showcases a more understated black and grey paisley design called Arundel.



The gentlemens washbag features Refinerys revitalising moisturiser, lip balm, deodorant stick and shave gel, as well as a razor, brush and comb, toothbrush/toothpaste, eye mask, socks, ear plugs and pen. The ladies kit includes Aromatherapy Associates triple rose renewing moisturiser, hydrating hand lotion, renewing cleanser and deodorant stick, along with a lip balm, cotton wool pads, toothbrush/toothpaste, hairbrush and pen.



Alex Cruz, British Airways chairman and CEO, said: We know that our First customers are used to the very best in life and have very exacting standards. They rightly expect every part of their journey with us to cater to their needs, so weve focused on areas that we know matter to them. First Wing enables them to maximise their time, whisking from kerb to lounge through the fast track security channel. And weve paid attention to the details that make a difference on board too, through elements such as the updated Liberty washbags and the ability to pre-order a preferred meal.



From the feedback weve received from our First fliers, these changes are making a real difference to their experience, driving great customer reaction and theres more to come with the revamped Concorde Room at Terminal 5, due to be unveiled this October. - TradeArabia News Service


Sabre Corporation, the leading technology provider to the global travel industry, today named Clinton Anderson as president of Sabre Hospitality Solutions (SHS), effective August 7.



Anderson will succeed Alex Alt who has accepted an executive position at another company.



Clinton has demonstrated his tremendous value and executive skills leading initiatives and taking on strategic projects across the company over the past three years, working effectively with customers and employees alike, said Sean Menke, Sabres president and CEO. Having someone of Clintons caliber already on the Sabre team allows a seamless transition as he steps into this new role and builds upon the outstanding organization and opportunities that Alex has created during the past five years hes been at Sabre. Sabre has identified the hospitality sector as a key engine of growth and Alex has also positioned the company for tremendous opportunities.



Anderson joined Sabre in 2014, and he currently serves as senior vice president of strategy where he has been instrumental in key product, technology, business and investment strategy initiatives. Prior to joining Sabre, he co-founded Emerson/Anderson, a private investment fund focused on small cap businesses. He was also a partner at Bain and Company where he served as a leader of consumer products and performance improvement practices and led consulting engagements across many industries to drive profitable growth, operational efficiency and strategic differentiation.



Growing the Sabre hospitality business and taking advantage of the technology opportunities in the sector has been a key focus in building Sabres business strategy, said Anderson. We have leading technology solutions and intend to continue to build a portfolio that will allow us to scale and work with hotel operators of all sizes and across the globe. Alex should feel very proud of what he has accomplished, and I welcome the chance to take the reins and continue to drive Sabres hospitality business to even more success. - TradeArabia News Service


International lifestyle company Two Roads Hospitality has announced the expansion of Alila Hotels & Resorts into North America.



Singapore-based Alila, which became part of the Two Roads Hospitality portfolio in June 2015 and was recently voted the No. 4 Hotel Brand in the 2017 Travel + Leisure World's Best Awards, will open its first North American resort property in California's fabled Big Sur in fall 2017. The launch brings the brand's commitment to innovative design and luxury, crafted artisanship and personalised hospitality to the US market.



"The introduction of Alila Hotels & Resorts to the North American market is a significant milestone in Two Roads' international growth strategy," said Jamie Sabatier, chief executive officer of Two Roads Hospitality. "As a brand that is long synonymous with opening resorts in spectacular, bucket-list destinations, it couldn't be more fitting that Alila's US debut will be along the iconic Big Sur coastline. This opening will strengthen the global footprint of Alila and further cement its position as a luxury leader in the boutique and lifestyle sector."



The fall 2017 opening of Ventana Big Sur, an Alila Resort, marks the debut of a re-imagined luxury resort experience. Boasting a multimillion-dollar comprehensive revitalization, Ventana Big Sur will provide an intimate, immersive experience with features including 59 refreshed guest rooms, suites and villas, a full-service Spa Alila, two enhanced outdoor pools with a new infinity-edge hot tub and outdoor Japanese hot baths. Additionally, The Sur House restaurant, with a new concept and expanded ocean-view patio, will offer majestic views of the Pacific Ocean.



"Since the Post family settled in Big Sur at the end of the 19th century, Big Sur has represented the confluence of ocean, forest, mindfulness and artistry un-paralleled anywhere else in the world. I couldn't be more excited for the opening of Ventana Big Sur to once again bring travellers back to this special part of the world," said John Pritzker, co-chairman of Two Roads Hospitality and founding partner and director of Geolo Capital. "We look forward to shining a bright light on the new Ventana Big Sur experience that celebrates the mystic beauty of Big Sur."



Ventana's resort-wide enhancements also will include a new Social House with three unique lifestyle spaces for relaxing and connecting; the new 7,000-sq-ft Ocean Meadow Lawn for events and celebrations; a new Glass House Gallery; a new Alila Experience Program featuring discovery-based guest activities; and the debut of a luxury camping experience  Redwood Canyon Glampsites  in the resort's 20-acre redwood-canopied forest.



Alila Hospitalities include daily guided walks through the serene landscape, yoga, Tai Chi and Pilates classes, and nightly wine tastings and cheese pairings. An on-site experience coordinator is available to arrange further adventures.



"At Alila, we strive to deliver holistic experiences that go beyond the typical and traditional, combining transformative programming with world-class service and amenities," said Frederic Flageat-Simon, chief executive officer, Two Roads Hospitality Asia. "Unveiling the brand in the US is an exciting step for our company, and we look forward to introducing Alila's innovative hospitality approach to our North American guests." - TradeArabia News Service
Gulf Air, the national carrier of Bahrain, has joined Saudi Arabian telecommunications services company Etihad Etisalat (Mobily) as its newest Neqaty program partner.



Through this new partnership with Gulf Air, Mobily customers can now redeem their points for Gulf Air FalconFlyer miles when the combined points reach 5,000 points or more. Customers can access their Neqaty account and select from multiple points redemption options with Neqaty partners.



Gulf Air senior manager customer experience, Kavita S. Al Jassim said: We are delighted to partner with Mobily, broadening their distinctive offering and privileges available to Gulf Airs FalconFlyer Loyalty Programme members and giving their customers the chance to increase their FalconFlyer miles for greater travel benefits. We look forward to working closely with Mobily and building a mutually rewarding partnership.



Gulf Airs FalconFlyer Programme, with its innovative incentives and benefits for the airlines frequent flyers, offers members attractive privileges and value-added benefits such as bonus miles up to 250 per cent, family membership and special privileges both on the ground and in the air. Other advantages include the best redemption rates and the best miles earning system for premium class in the GCC and Middle East region, special online booking bonuses, a generous baggage allowance, three years miles validity, unlimited lounge access, priority baggage handling and guaranteed seats among many other benefits intended to make the traveling experience more enjoyable and rewarding. Further information about Gulf Airs FalconFlyer programme can be found online by visiting gulfair.com.



Neqaty is one of the most distinguished loyalty programmes in the region, thanks to both the strategic diversification of its many partnerships across multiple sectors and its added value that allows all Mobily customers to collect and redeem points through the programmes premium partners. - TradeArabia News Service
Kuwait-based Jazeera Airways has officially revealed its renewed corporate logo and advanced website upgrades as the advent of its various upcoming launches to meet the diversified needs of its customers.



The new corporate identity signifies an important milestone as the company reaches its 13th year of successful operations in the Middle East. The new identity comes as the award-winning airline redoubles its commitment to its customers by accommodating a holistic experience with smart and convenient offerings in the coming years. As the regions first private airline, Jazeera Airways will continue to accomplish its long term corporate strategies through the new and upcoming ventures while staying true to its brand essence, originality and rich regional heritage.



The new vision that reiterates placing customers at the very heart of Jazeera Airways will continue its overarching approach of turning seamless travel into a reality as they enjoy the new special features, offers and discounts in store.



The New Logo

The new logo visually represents an evolution to an energetic color palette that demonstrates the brands spirit of adventure and boldness as it forges into the future. It represents the carrier name in bold colorful and is further embellished by regional geometric patterns, with reference to the diamond-shape that expresses the carriers long standing legacy as top carrier from the Arabian peninsula. Jazeera Airways logo pays homage to the original brand mark, whilst integrating a contemporary manner that now speaks volumes about how East meets West with its expanded connections into the middle East and Eurasia and many more destinations to come.



Jazeera Airways has travelled a long way since its inception in 2004 and has become an integral part in the local and regional airline industry. During its remarkable journey, Jazeera Airways has overcome incredible challenges, weathered many economic cycles, and has come out stronger. As we solidify our position regionally and venture into more international markets with new routes, we reiterate our commitment to our customers. To this end, we are launching a new website to act as a gateway to providing ease and comfort from the very first click. We are geared with renewed efficiency and vitality to embark on a new journey with our customers as many exciting launches lay ahead of us, said Rohit Ramachandran, Jazeera Airways chief executive officer.



The New Website

The new-generation website is seasoned to present a fresh new look with top e-commerce features that will accommodate a personalized online experience backed by enhanced browsing and online check-in services, live chat assistance and updated fares, smart travel tips and an efficient four-step booking process. Additionally, apart from a personal travel timeline that stores user profile history, the website also provides new travel extras such as Jazeera lounge and Park & Fly as well as updates on exciting travel packages.



Given Jazeeras evolution in the past decade, the new launches are a natural transition to rejuvenate the brand as it entered its 13 year mark of successful growth in Kuwait and the region. With the new logo and website comes an enhanced focus on our customers base. The travel landscape is constantly changing, and with the onset of new changes in our company we hope to match those needs and empower our customers with improved services. Our revised key values  to be Passionate, Connected, Insightful and Inventive embody the spirit of Jazeera and everyone involved as each played a significant duty to elevating the brand to where it is today. added Ramachandran.



Jazeera Airways currently stands at over 17 destinations and strengthened its footprint by entering a popular touristic market, which are the recent flights to Baku setting course to new lands beyond the Middle East. The new additions will encapsulate the Jazeera brand personality and are only the beginning of a magnitude of upcoming launches that will complete the rebranding phase and deliver on its promise to ensure seamless experiences from start to finish.



To learn more about Jazeera Airways services, offers, promotions and destinations, customers can visit the airlines brand new website on www.jazeeraairways.com. - TradeArabia News Service
CHEYENNE  The 2017 Cheyenne Frontier Days Western Art Show & Sale opened on July 20, 2017. Around 700 people attended the opening reception and sale.

The live auction made over $30,000 for the museum, with the first ever sculpture triptych, or sculptych, by Chris Navarro and Brandon Bailey, Heck of a Heck of a Wreck, going for $19,500.

During the opening night, the art show sold over $200,000 of art. Fifteen percent was sold with the Buy It Now option, which allows patrons to bypass the usual drawing and add a 25 percent premium to ensure they were able to buy the artwork first.

The 2017 CFD Western Art Show museum purchase piece is Windswept Ridge (West of Laramie), by Marlin Rotach. This was donated by Bobby Born and Chip and Mary Campbell in honor of Liz Escobedo and in memory of Richard Escobedo.

The 2018 CFD Western Art Show poster is Rodeo Icon, by Don Weller and the 2018 CFD Western Art Show limited edition print is Winter Blues, by Matt Wolf.

The CFD Western Art Show & Sale features the nations top artists presenting original art that celebrates the heritage of the American West. This year, the Western Art Show & Sale will be open through Sunday, August 20, 2017. You can visit the art show with CFD Old West Museum admission.

The museum is located at 4610 Carey Ave., Cheyenne. Hours during Frontier Days are 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.; after Frontier Days, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Museum admission is $10; senior and military discounts are offered.
Great Casper Cleanup

Help clean up Casper prior to the Eclipse! Gather a group of 15-30 people (companies, clubs, organizations, and friends) and help clean up litter along main roads and the interstate. Sign up to clean any time until August 16, at a time that works for your group. Must be 12 years old to participate.

Locations (each group will be assigned one location): I-25 (Hat Six to Shoshoni bypass, six locations); Yellowstone Highway (four locations); First Street (two locations); Wyoming Boulevard (10 locations); Second Street (eight locations).

For more information, call Beth Andress, 235-7562 or email bandress@casperwy.gov.

Store helps BGCCW back to school

Its getting more expensive to equip a child with their school essentials each year. Gap Factory Store in Casper is hoping to help by offering a discount to shoppers who donate a backpack, school supplies or a monetary gift.

Between July 31 and August 13, 2017, shoppers who donate at Caspers Gap Factory Store, 455 Newport Street, will receive 10 percent off a Gap purchase. All school supplies and backpacks will go to the Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming. Monetary donations are split 50/50 between Boys & Girls Clubs of Central Wyoming and Boys & Girls Clubs of America.

For more information, contact Lou Bruggman at 235-4079.

Help Joshuas

Joshuas Warehouse needs help with its new thrift store. If you need to put in hours for community service or fine conversions, or if you have time to help with a worthwhile project, we can use you.

Sheet rock, plumbing, electrical work, general help. If you can donate any time to help, please contact Kim Perez, CEO, at 265-0242 or text her at 215-6683.

Stuff the Bus

needs help

All children should have access to the tools they need in order to learn. Each year, parents spend between $60 and $100 to provide one child with requested/necessary school supplies. For many families this can be a hardship, especially if they have more than one child in school.

The seventh annual Stuff the Bus event is a school supply drive to benefit students in need in our community. We are looking for local businesses, community members, and other organizations that are interested in participating in the drive.

Opportunities to participate include but are not limited to making a corporate donation or hosting an employee or customer school supply drive at your organization. Often times local organizations or businesses will host a friendly School Supply Drive competition between their internal departments or offices. The Casper Area Education Foundation is a 501 3 organization, so all donations are tax-deductible.

If your organization is interested in assisting, please contact Tanya Southerland at (307) 253-5380 or tanya6230@myncsd.org.

Information for families on August distribution dates for school supplies will be announced soon. For more information, please visit www.natronaschools.org.

12-24 Club

receives grant

The 12-24 Club Inc. is grateful for the support of the Goodstein Foundation. Through the years the foundation has supported our mission towards recovery in Central Wyoming. These funds will be used for our daily operation and will help to rebuild the loss that we suffered by theft in 2016, said Dan Cantine, director.

Paul Homar, vice president/treasurer of the Goodstein Foundation wrote, We are very aware of your worthwhile endeavors and are happy to play a part in accomplishing your goals.

The 12-24 Club Inc. is a nonprofit organization. If you would like to contribute, please call 237-8035.

Women educators make donations

The Wyoming Gamma Chapter of Alpha Delta Kappa, located in Casper, recently announced several altruistic contributions. The chapter is composed of women educators. Altruistic funds are raised throughout the year. A special thanks is offered to Stage III for their assistance to the chapters fundraising through tickets sold for one play each year.

The chapter provided scholarships to assist three students in attending KEY Camp at Casper College this summer. In addition to food donations made throughout the school year, the group made a cash donations to the Wyoming Food For Thought Project and Mercer Family Resource Center in support of the homeless students in Natrona County. Other financial contributions were made to The Longest Day project in support of Alzheimers research and to Saint Judes Childrens Research Hospital.

The children and parents at Seton House were recipients of customized Easter baskets and Mothers Day gift bags and of donated items throughout the year.

Create logo

for Habitat

Art 321/ Casper Artists Guild is partnering with Habitat for Humanity, The Heart of Wyoming, in a special call to artists for logo design entries.

Art 321 joins Habitat in celebrating the development of a new subdivision, Harris Crossing, which includes 13 lots that will be developed into modest housing for the benefit of Casper families. Details and rules can be found at Habitat office or at Art 321. A cash prize will be awarded to the winner and finalist submissions will be posted at the August 3 Art Walk.

Hospice boutique accepting donations

Memory Lane Boutique at Central Wyoming Hospice and Transitions is in need of donations for its inventory. Items accepted include furniture, jewelry, household goods, knickknacks, craft supplies, toys and sporting goods. Donations may be dropped off from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday at 319 S. Wilson. The public is invited to shop during the same hours.

Would you host a hockey player?

The Casper Coyotes are preparing for the next season and that means finding families to host young men ages 17 to 20 years old from across America and foreign countries. The boys arrive in August and stay until March or April. They should have a room of their own and become a part of your family. Their expenses are paid. Team rules are simple, and you add family rules. Interested? Call Joe, a veteran of hosting, at 315-1987.

Quilts of Valor

every Wednesday

The Central Wyoming Chapter of Quilts of Valor meets from 1 to 4 p.m. Wednesdays to sew at the Central Wyoming Senior Services Center, 1831 E. Fourth St. Quilts of Valor are made by volunteers. Donated fabrics, supplies or monetary donations are appreciated. The chapter awards quilts to veterans who reside in the Central Wyoming region. Dues are $5 per year, and new members are always welcome. If you have any questions, please contact Yung Hui Torske at 258-5578, Sandy Elliott at 307-554-0331 or any chapter member.

Scarves for Special Olympics

Special Olympics Wyoming invites those who knit and crochet to make scarves for the Wyoming Special Olympics athletes to wear at State Winter Games in February 2018. Please use black, gray and white in the scarves, which should measure approximately 6 by 60 inches in any pattern. The deadline to receive the scarves is January 2018. Please send scarves to Special Olympics Wyoming, attn. Scarf Project 2017, P.O. Box 624, Jackson, WY 83001. There is more information available at www.sowy.org/other-fundraisers.

Food of the month

Wyoming Food for Thought Project has announced its food of the month suggestions for the nearly 1,000 weekend food bags its volunteers prepare for food-insecure school students in Natrona County each week. Often, schools, churches and other groups designate certain collection days for a specific type of food as a donation.

The suggested food items may be taken to program headquarters at 900 St. John, but its best to call ahead.

August, mac n cheese; September, Chef Boyardee products; October, cereal; November, soup; December, chili.

For more information, call Cassandra at 337-1703.

Restorative justice meeting set

An informational meeting regarding restorative justice and NCRJs upcoming pilot program will be held from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Aug. 1. There is no cost to attend and it is open to the public. Lunch will be provided. Please RSVP to 307-233-6603. This is sponsored by the Wyoming Community Foundation and the Casper Police Department. Feel free to call with questions or visit NCRJ on Facebook.

Disabled vets need volunteer drivers

The Disabled American Veterans need volunteer drivers to take veterans to their medical appointment at the VA hospital in Cheyenne. The volunteer driver will transport them in a VA vehicle. If you are interested, please call the DAV transportation office in Cheyenne at 307-778-7577 for further information.
By Art Lawsons calculations, it would take 20 to 30 game wardens to adequately patrol over 2 million acres of tribal land on the Wind River Reservation.

But come the August eclipse, when more than 10,000 visitors are expected to descend on Fremont County and the reservation, the Shoshone and Arapaho Fish and Game director will have three. Same as always.

Tourism officials and authorities in Fremont County have been working on eclipse preparations for two years, relying on consultants and broad task forces. Planning on the reservation, though, has largely fallen to Lawson.

Hes been at it for three weeks.

I just got the directors position, Lawson said. Well see what happens.

County contrast

Fremont County took some warming up to the importance of the August eclipse.

When I heard about it at first, I was like, eh, said Jordan Dresser, who does public relations for the Wind River Casino, which has been planning for the event for more than a year.

Then the data started piling up. A consultants report in early 2016 projected up to 20,000 eclipse visitors on top of an already busy summer tourism season in the area. After Casper, Fremont County has emerged as the second most popular location in Wyoming for tourists to view the totality.

The local visitors council started promoting Fremont County as a destination, and communities from Dubois to Lander have prepared unique programming. Public authorities have been working on the logistics of handling thousands of out-of-state visitors traveling to view roughly two minutes of the sun disappearing behind the moon.

Excitement has spread.

Its a small community, said Wind River Visitors Council spokeswoman Casey Adams. Everybody I talked to  theyve got family and relatives showing up.

In the county, hotels, vacation rentals and campgrounds are still available during the eclipse, and the visitors council website lists dozens of accommodation options.

But opinions about, and preparation for, the coming eclipse vary depending where one stands in central Wyoming.

Concerns and hope

On the reservation, its complicated. The two major tribal-owned casinos are offering eclipse programs and lodging, and a local nonprofit is offering tepee stays in one of the small population centers.

But while nobody is sure exactly how many people will be around on Aug. 21 to view the eclipse, it is very possible that more visitors will come than can be accommodated at the casinos  which are familiar with working with tourists  and the tepee camping operation. Other than the signs denoting reservation boundaries, there is little to inform travelers that the open spaces bordering the state roads through the reservation are private land requiring special permission to access.

Lawson is planning to put up more signs and will try to block off some of the more sensitive sacred sites and graves.

Buying food, gas and other essentials may also be a challenge for visitors who find themselves on remote parts of the reservation, which often lacks cellphone service.

Paula McCormick, with the visitors council, said that one of the most popular destinations on the morning of the eclipse will be tiny Crowheart, on the northern edge of the reservation, due to the length of the total eclipse.

The center line is Crowheart, McCormick said. For the people who have traveled to do this ... the importance to them is being as close to the center line as possible.

The Crowheart Store, with its expansive convenience store, post office and gas station, is the only service stop for miles in either direction.

Eclipse keychains and shirts are already on display, and owner Lloyd Haslam said hell keep additional supplies and gas on hand for the expected visitors. But he was wary of overstocking and skeptical of whether more than a few tourists would purchase the expensive camping permits for the designated area near the town.

Ive had people all summer talking about it as tourist people come in and stuff, Haslam said. Heck, I could care less.

Camping opened

While camping for non-tribal members is usually allowed only adjacent to bodies of water where fishing is permitted, the tribal councils have agreed to open three broad swaths of land for camping: two southwest of Highway 26 and 287 and one northeast of the Wind River.

Permits will be required, covering the week leading up to the eclipse and costing $500. Viewing the eclipse from reservation side roads will also require a day permit.

Despite the remote nature of the camping areas, no portable toilet facilities or garbage cans will be provided.

You pack it in, you pack it out, Lawson said. We will cite.

While the Bureau of Indian Affairs is planning to bring in additional officers from Montana to patrol the reservation during the week leading up to the eclipse, law enforcement of all kinds will be stretched thin.

Lawson and his wardens have the authority to cite and arrest lawbreakers on the reservation, but they rely on the Fremont County Sheriffs Department to actually transport detainees to jail. On the day of the eclipse, when many day trippers are expected, that may be a tough sell.

Wind River Casino spokeswoman Jackie Dorothy said the sheriffs department has told homeowners to protect their own land.

During this one day, people are going to be told they have to defend their homes themselves, Dorothy said.

Lawson acknowledges enforcement will be a challenge.

Its a special event, and were going to have stuff happen, he said. The biggest problem is going to be trespassing and littering.

Mitigating mishaps

In part, that is why the tribal casinos are offering eclipse programs.

Dorothy said the Arapaho-owned Wind River Casino will be offering reservation tours and two eclipse viewing areas. One, at the main casino, will offer traditional Arapaho songs during the event.

Thats the reason for designating those two spots, she said. Just so you know youre not trespassing on sacred lands or in someones yard.

Lawson has already had to discourage a German film crew that wanted to perch on Crowheart Butte to film the eclipse.

Im like, No, absolutely not, Lawson recalled. There are grave sites and everything around Crowheart Butte.
A Wyoming judge recently recommended that a young woman who violated her parole be sentenced to boot camp  a program designed to rehabilitate criminals under 25.

Boot camp, known as the Youthful Offender Program, focuses on hard work and physical activity. Participants fight fires and maintain trails and have access to services such as anger management counseling and job training.

When they complete the program, theyre allowed to ask for early release. Often, this means they can avoid serving years of prison time. Instead, they can re-enter society much more quickly and focus on rehabilitating their lives with the tools theyve gained in boot camp. Its also a win for the state, which would have to pay the cost of incarcerating these people.

We believe if we catch (offenders) young and work intensely with them, we can give them the tools they need to keep them from going down the path of career criminals, boot camp spokeswoman Wanda Kerns told the Wyoming Tribune Eagle a few years ago.

But instead of a six-month boot camp that carried the possibility of early release, the woman, Taylor Blanchard, was ordered to serve her full six- to 10-year sentence at the Wyoming Womens Center in Lusk. The reason: Wyoming doesnt offer boot camp  and all the opportunities it affords  to women.

Now, shes suing the state, saying the Department of Corrections wouldnt allow her to participate in the boot camp in Newcastle and also rejected her request to attend a boot camp that accepted women in a different state. The class action suit, which was filed in federal court, seeks an order that requires the DOC to let women attend boot camps in Wyoming or in another state that has a program that accepts women.

This is a massive failure of the states criminal justice system. The Wyoming Department of Corrections mission statement says it contributes to public safety by exercising reasonable, safe, secure and humane management, while actively providing offenders opportunities to become law-abiding citizens.

What is reasonable about sentencing a young woman who violated her parole to up to a decade in prison, when a man guilty of the same crime might serve less than a year? What is boot camp if not an opportunity to become a law-abiding citizen? What is humane about this shocking double standard?

Blanchard and others like her  both young men and women  have made mistakes, and they should be held accountable for their actions. But those consequences must not be based on whether they are male or female.

The law that authorizes the Youthful Offender Program doesnt have a gender-based requirement  and that makes this not only deeply unfair and troubling but also unconstitutional. Women like Blanchard are being denied the opportunity to reform and live the full and productive life they could have had, and the only reason they will miss out on that opportunity is that theyre not men.

The state should waste no time correcting this egregious mistake  either by allowing women to participate in its boot camp or allowing them to attend one that accepts women in a nearby state.

Its difficult to believe that the state has allowed itself to fall into in this position, but now that the situation is upon us, one thing must be made clear: Wyomings young women deserve as many opportunities as the states young men do to rebuild their lives. The state has a responsibility to fix this  and soon.
Someone who bought a Powerball ticket in Southern California has won a record $2.04 billion Powerball jackpot. The winning numbers drawn Tuesday morning at the Florida Lottery draw studio in Tallahassee were: white balls 10, 33, 41, 47 and 56, and the red Powerball was 10. The jackpot ticket was sold at Joes Service Center in Altadena, northeast of Los Angeles. The business will receive a maximum Powerball bonus of $1 million. The Multi-State Lottery Association said Monday nights scheduled drawing was delayed by nearly 10 hours until Tuesday because a participating lottery had issues processing sales. The jackpot was by far the largest lottery jackpot ever won, topping the previous record $1.586 billion prize won by three Powerball ticketholders in 2016.
Tucson Electric Power Co. has proposed a small increase to its renewable-energy program budget next year, while bumping up the caps on surcharges customers pay to support the programs.

In a recent filing with the Arizona Corporation Commission, TEP has proposed a 2018 program budget of about $53.6 million, an increase of $1.6 million from this year.

Most of that money will pay for renewable energy from large, utility-scale solar farms, which TEP believes are the most cost-effective way to meet its ambitious renewable-energy goals, company spokesman Joe Salkowski said.

The Corporation Commission has mandated that state-regulated utilities get at least 15 percent of their power from renewables by 2025.

TEP has its own, loftier goal  30 percent by 2030.

To get there, we really need to continue expanding our cost-effective community-based solar resources, Salkowski said.

The cost of TEPs utility-scale solar power purchase contracts has dropped from more than 10 cents per kilowatt-hour just a few years ago to 3 cents in TEPs most recent deals.

Along with Arizona Public Service and other state-regulated utilities, TEP has proposed new fees and lower reimbursements for excess power production for customers with their own rooftop solar arrays.

Those issues are still being hashed out in separate Corporation Commission proceedings.

TEPs 2018 renewables plan, which has not yet been set for hearings, doesnt address customer-owned rooftop solar issues since the utility no longer offers upfront incentives for such systems.

Paying for big solar

In the proposed 2018 budget, $44.3 million would pay for TEPs utility-scale renewable generation, including the above-market cost of renewable generation supplied through power-purchase agreements with third-party operators of solar and wind projects.

The budget includes about $7.2 million to pay ongoing performance-based incentives to commercial customers who installed on-site solar energy systems under an incentive program phased out a few years ago.

It also asks for about $2 million for ongoing administrative, educational outreach and testing and research costs.

Surcharge caps

would rise

TEPs proposed budget would not increase the rate of the monthly surcharge customers pay to support renewable-energy projects, keeping that usage-based rate at 1.3 cents per kilowatt-hour. But the utility has proposed raising existing caps on what residential and small business customers pay monthly for the surcharge.

Under the plan, the caps would rise to $5.50 from $5.10 per month for residential customers and to $165 from $160 for small commercial customers. Caps for large commercial, industrial and mining and lighting customers would remain unchanged.

The renewables surcharge would average $4.70 monthly for the typical TEP home customer and $32.87 for the average small-business ratepayer.

TEP estimates that about 68 percent of residential customers and 7 percent of small commercial customers would hit the new surcharge caps.

Rooftop-solar waiver

TEP says its 2018 renewables plan would allow the utility to get 8 percent of its 2018 annual retail sales from renewable resources, meeting the incremental requirement under the state mandate.

But TEP has again filed for a waiver from a requirement that utilities get 30 percent of their renewable energy from distributed generation, such as customer-owned rooftop photovoltaic arrays. Half of that is supposed to come from residential installations.

TEP formerly collected credits toward its renewable-energy requirements from customers who installed their own rooftop solar arrays, in exchange for cash incentives.

Since those incentives were phased out in 2014, TEP and other state-regulated utilities are no longer collecting the credits, so theyve been granted waivers to the rules.

TEP-owned renewables

TEP is not seeking to recover costs in 2018 for any new company-owned renewable generation projects.

Under a Corporation Commission policy set last year, those costs will now be figured into TEPs rate base and recovered through regular rates over time, like any other power plant.

Its an indication of how well-integrated solar energy development has become for us, TEPs Salkowksi said. Were building those resources out in the same way weve traditionally built other resources weve used to provide service.

About $100 million in costs from TEP-owned renewables projects were included in the companys main rate case, which was decided in February.

The last funding for a TEP-owned renewable-energy project through the renewable-energy surcharge was $40 million for a roughly 17-megawatt (AC) solar photovoltaic project at the U.S. Armys Fort Huachuca in Sierra Vista, the second phase of which was completed early this year.

However, TEP has budgeted $1.7 million in 2018 for carrying costs, depreciation and operating and maintenance for the Fort Huachuca project.

TEP-owned rooftop solar on hold

Absent from the 2018 renewables plan is TEPs company-owned rooftop solar program, which was launched as a pilot by TEP in 2014. Under the program, TEP installed solar panels on the roofs of some 500 customers and in return, they were guaranteed a flat monthly rate for power.

But a proposed expansion of the TEP Residential Solar Program was put on hold last year amid TEPs rate case and contentious Corporation Commission proceedings on the value of customer-owned rooftop solar.

Solar-industry representatives and supporters have argued that the program poses unfair competition to private solar installers.

Solar proceeding

is postponed

Meanwhile, formal hearings on TEPs proposed treatment of rooftop solar customers have been delayed until at least October.

TEPs plan would cut reimbursements to customers for excess energy their rooftop solar arrays provide, and add new demand charges and meter fees.

The proceedings were originally supposed to start in July but were delayed pending settlement talks that so far have proved fruitless.

Facing a daunting slate of more than a dozen other pending cases, the Corporation Commissions Utilities Division staff asked that the TEP hearings be put off, and the administrative law judge in the case set the initial hearing for Oct. 23.
DEAR DR. ROACH: I am a 41-year-old man living with clinical depression and chronic anxiety. Though my condition has been well-maintained through cognitive behavioral therapy as well as medication, I have a great deal of difficulty sleeping at night. A different medicine, Remeron, left me unable to shake the grogginess at daybreak. My doctor has since switched me to a low dose of Seroquel (25 mg per day) for sleep. I recently came across an article on social media that suggests that studies have connected this use of Seroquel to Parkinsons disease, cardiac issues and something called neuroleptic malignant syndrome. There is a great deal of heart disease in my family. Im curious about your thoughts on this.  M.C.

ANSWER: Quetiapine (Seroquel) is classified as an antipsychotic medication, one to help people with disturbed thinking processes, such as in schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. It is a powerful medication with significant potential for side effects  for example, sedation, which can be life-threatening in combination with opiates (morphine-like drugs) or benzodiazepines (like Valium). The sedation effect can be used to treat people with insomnia, but I am very cautious about prescribing it for this use, and leave it only to psychiatrists and other experts. Seroquel has even greater risks in people over 65.

Seroquel often increases blood pressure, and routinely increases cholesterol. It may cause weight gain (although at the low dose of 25 mg, this is less likely, especially compared with Remeron). All of these increase risk of heart disease. Your regular doctor should be monitoring weight, blood pressure and cholesterol, especially given your family history. It also can affect the electrical regulation of the heart, so monitoring with an EKG is appropriate in people with risk factors.

Seroquel can cause movement changes that resemble Parkinsons disease, but this is unusual. These almost always go away if the drug is stopped.

Neuroleptic malignant syndrome is a terrifying and, thankfully, very rare syndrome of fever, confusion and muscle rigidity. It usually begins within two weeks of starting the medication, but it can happen at any time. It needs to be recognized and the drug stopped immediately.

Most people on low-dose Seroquel do fine. However, there are enough risks to this medication that I recommend to my students and residents in internal medicine not to prescribe it. There are some times when it is reasonable, if the patient is carefully followed.

DEAR DR. ROACH: I recently saw a new eye doctor, who told me I had a freckle on my retina. He said he thinks its benign and wants to follow up in six months. I am anxious and wonder if I should see a retina specialist right away. Is it treated by laser? How is it diagnosed if it is not benign?  N.

ANSWER: I suspect your doctor is talking about a choroidal nevus, the most common pigmented lesion of the retina. A few percent of the population have this condition. They usually appear in childhood, and are rare in darkly pigmented individuals. Like skin moles (freckles), a small number of these will turn cancerous: Roughly, one person among 500 with choroidal nevus will develop melanoma in 10 years. Some characteristics of the lesions predict the likelihood of progression. For this reason, careful observation is the key to identifying those nevi that are at risk for turning cancerous.

Apart from the small risk of cancer, they rarely require treatment.
We've collected a few front pages from newspapers.com to give you a look at some July 30 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.
Tucson Police arrested an armed suspect after he robbed the ACE Cash Express on West Valencia Road and South 12th Avenue on Sunday morning, police said.

Police were alerted to an alarm where an employee was robbed at gunpoint, said Sgt Pete Dugan, a public information officer with the Tucson Police Department.

According to Dugan: When police contacted the business to confirm the alarm, the employee indicated a robbery had taken place.

As officers arrived in the area the suspect fled on foot but police were assisted by a Department of Public Safety helicopter that happened to by flying overhead.

Based on the description of the suspect, the helicopter flight crew spotted a man who was hiding behind a garbage container near the adjacent Food City.

When approached the suspect surrendered to officers. He was found with a hand gun in his possession.

As a precaution the Food City was evacuated but no other suspects were found and police think the suspect in custody may have been alone.

There were no reported injuries from the incident.
Three high school students in denim shirts and wide-brimmed hats make rounds on a hot summer day, checking gauges and pumps and testing water samples to make sure everything is working properly at Pima Countys Wastewater Reclamation Facility on the far west side.

All of Tucsons solid waste and about 70 percent of its liquid waste comes here to be treated.

These students are part of Pima Countys Bio-Science Academy, a monthlong paid internship that helps high school students and recent graduates gain work experience in STEM  science, technology, engineering and math  fields while also earning college credits.

The Bio-Science Academy is part of a program called Youth Career Connect, funded by a four-year $5.4 million Department of Labor grant under Regional Partnership of Innovation Frontier Southwest. The regional partnership in this project includes Yuma, Santa Cruz, Cochise and Pima counties.

Pima County focuses on four career pathways  biotechnology, industrial technology, health information technology and aviation.

Students in the biotechnology pathway, from Pueblo, Sunnyside and Tucson high schools, were recommended for the program by their teachers.

We take kids in bio classes and were giving them opportunities above and beyond what they get in school studying, said Gerry Brunson, project coordinator for Youth Career Connect and workforce development specialist with Pima County. Opportunities include employer speakers, mentorships with employers within their career pathway, work experience and internships as available.

For Victor Carrillo, a recent Tucson High graduate, the science drew him in.

I was always interested in science, Carrillo said. Its the perfect opportunity to see if this was something I wanted to pursue. Its really interesting and Id love to work here some day.

Yamaika Romano, a 17-year-old going into her senior year at Pueblo High School, said she chose the Wastewater Reclamation Department for her internship because its a step forward toward the career she wants as a wildlife biologist. And she loves being in a lab.

Noemi Somalinog, a 17-year-old senior at Pueblo, loves the chemistry aspect of her internship and chose it because she wanted to try new things.

I started my career path in the medical field, but this might be my second option, Somalinog said. Its really cool. Theres a lot of chemistry going on.

The Bio-Science Academy with regional wastewater provides students with six college credits at Pima Community College.

The Youth Career Connect grant ends next summer, but Brunson is confident that the partnerships will continue.

The way I look at grants in these projects is its the seed money to start the projects and programs that will be sustained, Brunson said. Its building a sustainable model of something and I know weve done that in Southern Arizona. For instance, the regional wastewater thing wont go away when the grant money ends. It will go on.

We love being a part of YCC, said Molly Renner, Regional Wastewater Reclamation Departments operations instructor. Its a great opportunity to engage the public and show them what we do. The more people know what we do to keep Pima County safe, the better.

IN THE LAB

At the plants microbiology unit a few miles down the road, interns don lab coats, safety glasses and rubber gloves.

The lab, which employs 33 people, analyzes wastewater, ground water and lead filters for the department.

We always look forward to the groups of kids, said Jenelle Chraft, lab manager. We hope theyll be interested in science careers and possibly come work for us.

On a recent weekday, students tested samples of effluent for total suspended solids  the number of particles that can be caught in a filter  to find out how clean the samples are.

Samples were put in an oven to bake the water out of them, then weighed. The weight should decrease as the effluent gets further into the treatment process.

These samples were pretty dirty effluent, so they could see a range, said Sarah Russell, wastewater laboratory technician. Its very important to know what our wastewater quality is.

Thats what drew Bri McElroy, an incoming UA freshman, to this internship.

Im interested in the water cycle and how they clean it, McElroy said.

For Alondra Cordova, a 17-year-old senior at Pueblo, leaning about whats in water seemed like a good fit, since she wants to be a firefighter.

A total of 80 students participated in various activities within the programs four pathways this summer, which concluded with a graduation last Friday.
The Tucson-based Udall Foundation is again finding itself under renewed criticism from a federal agency after a report of problems with its accounting practices, poor financial control and its policies for awarding scholarships.

The report from the Office of the Inspector General comes at the same time that U.S. House of Representatives considers an appropriations bill that would eliminate the single largest source of funding for the executive-branch agency that provides scholarships and internships for top students in environmental policy and tribal policy.

The bill, authored by Georgia Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Graves, would strip an estimated $5.4 million allocated by Congress from the foundation, which also operates two institutes, the U.S. Institute for Environmental Conflict Resolution and the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management and Policy.

In a release touting the passage of his $20.2 billion financial reform bill out of the House Appropriations Committee, Graves said he was proud to cut $1.3 billion out of the federal budget. In it, he touted the elimination of several non-essential programs, specifically singling out the Udall Foundation, which has its office in downtown Tucson.

The appropriation bill is awaiting consideration by the full House, which will likely take place in September.

In early June, the Office of the Inspector General sent a 31-page final audit to Congress outlining a number of continuing issues with the federally-funded agency.

Overall, we found problems with the Foundations compliance with legislative spending requirements and program objectives; its policies for awarding scholarships, internships, and fellowships; and how it allocates costs between its two program areas, Education and Environmental Conflict Resolution, the report says.

We found that the Foundation was not separately tracking its spending for scholarships, internships, and fellowships and did not meet its legislative spending requirements in the years we reviewed, it reads.

We questioned the Foundations use of two different base amounts to calculate its spending requirements for scholarships, internships, and fellowships; administration and salaries; and the Udall Center. Using different base amounts gives the appearance that the Foundation is using the amount that allows it to spend more on administration and less on scholarships.

Philip Lemanski, the executive director of the foundation, and Eric D. Eberhard, the chair of the Board of Trustees, declined to be interview and referred all questions to a two-page response written to the OIG when the foundation received a draft version of the report.

In it, Lemanski wrote the board strongly disagreed with the lack of context provided in the draft report as well as the vague or, in some cases, misleading language of the draft report.

Taken together, the problems with the way the report is written may lead the reader to conclude that the Foundation willfully ignored statutory requirements, rather than made errors in calculation; has not yet fully documented most of the relevant policies; and has not proceeded in good faith based on guidance provided to it.

However, Lemanski agreed to the eight recommendations from the OIG on better accounting practices and changes to formal policies.

The Foundation is committed to continuous improvement in the reliability of its data and internal controls while meeting the statutory purposes of the Udall Foundation programs, he wrote.

This isnt the first time the Udall Foundation has been criticized by the Office of the Inspector General.

In 2013, it found significant issues with the Udall Foundations internal controls for financial management, personnel and contracting.

In 2015, the OIG found the federal agency failed to implement key policies and procedures over its contracting practices, including requiring evidence of managements receipt and review of contractors invoices.

In both instances, the foundation under Lemanskis leadership agreed to make changes in an attempt to meet federal rules and guidelines.
Even after a decade of run-ins with the law, Tucsons top illegal contractor still gets business from locals who dont bother to check on his bona fides.

Guadalupe Lupe Cardenas already had five criminal convictions for botched home improvements when another city resident hired him in April for what was supposed to be a $5,800 landscaping project.

Cardenas, 72, took off without finishing the work after receiving half the money, leaving behind a torn-up yard and damaged electrical lines, the homeowner said in a May complaint to the states contracting regulator.

The Pima County attorney is reviewing the case for a possible sixth prosecution. But even if Cardenas is convicted again, it could be years before the homeowner gets any money back.

Such offenders typically take a long time to pay when courts order them to make restitution, said Deputy County Attorney Mark Hotchkiss, who supervises such prosecutions.

Cardenas, who operates under two names  Lupe & Sons Landscaping and Lupes Organic Landscaping  still owes his last three victims about $24,000 in total after paying off about $4,800 over the past few years, Hotchkiss said.

Victims often are stunned to learn theyll be stuck paying out of pocket to fix the botched work, he said.

People take these kinds of crimes pretty personally. And I dont blame them, I would too.

But chronic offenders like Cardenas have little incentive to mend their ways under current state law, Hotchkiss said.

In Arizona, illegal contracting is a misdemeanor with a maximum $2,500 fine no matter how many previous convictions someone has.

Thats notably different than how state law treats other misdemeanors such as shoplifting or impaired driving, where charges can be bumped to the felony level for repeat offenders.

At least two of the Grand Canyon States neighbors  California and Nevada  have escalating penalty systems for illegal contracting. In both states, a third offense is a felony punishable by up to $10,000 in fines.

Arizonas system allows repeat offenders to operate a little under the radar without fear of heavy penalties, Hotchkiss said.

NO BARGAIN AFTER ALL

Bad actors often target the elderly and those coping with disasters such as house fires or flood damage, he said.

Tucsonans filed nearly 170 complaints of illegal contracting last year, said Jim Knupp, a spokesman for the Arizona Registrar of Contractors. Home renovations, landscaping, paving and swimming pools were among the top complaints.

Cardenas checkered past is a matter of public record on the registrars website, which offers a searchable database of such offenders at azroc.gov/roc/unlicensedviolations.html

But consumers dont always practice due diligence, Knupp said.

It seems like some people spend more time checking which cellphone plan to buy than they do when theyre hiring a contractor, even though the latter has much higher financial stakes, he said.

Those who rely on popular websites such as Angies List or the Better Business Bureau may not get the full picture because such sites arent always up to date, the Arizona Daily Star found. Neither site, for example, has any mention of the criminal records of Tucsons top five illegal contractors.

In Arizona, a contractor needs a license to perform work that requires a building permit or is valued at more than $1,000 including labor. A handyman, by comparison, doesnt need a license but is restricted to casual and minor jobs that cost less than $1,000 and dont require a permit.

The registrar maintains an online database of licensed contractors at azroc.gov/roc/contractorsearch.html and urges homeowners to always use a licensed entity for major work.

Doing so makes them eligible for up to $30,000 in compensation if something goes wrong, money that comes from a special fund all licensees pay into, said Knupp.

Bad operators will often lure would-be customers by offering bargain pricing, he said. But if they take off with deposit money or botch the job, it ends up not being a bargain at all.

OTHER OFFENDERS

Cardenas, who had no comment when contacted for this story, may be Tucsons worst offender, but hes by no means alone.

Others at the top of the complaint list include:

Hugh G. Burford

Burford, 44, a Georgia native who moved to Tucson around 2010, was named in 2015 to the states most wanted list for illegal contractors after a string of complaints about his masonry, concrete and flooring work.

Doing business as Creative Concrete and Tile, he racked up five criminal convictions and more than $19,000 in fines, penalties and court-ordered restitution between 2013 and 2015.

Burford couldnt be reached for comment. He didnt respond to a voicemail and a text message left on his last known cellphone number.

Omar Mendivil

Mendivils firm, Adobe Home Renovations LLC, had four complaints from 2015 to 2016 from homeowners who said he charged them thousands of dollars for painting, roofing, and floor installations that were done poorly or not at all. He has two convictions for unlicensed contracting and was assessed more than $13,000 in penalties, fines and restitution.

Reached for comment, Mendivil, 44, said he is no longer in business and said his previous troubles were just a matter of bad luck.

Victor M. Modesto

Modesto, 52, who did business as Aqua Valley Pools, was convicted four times between 2009 and 2015. State officials said he took money upfront for garage floor repainting and hot tub and pool deck repairs but abandoned the projects before the work was finished. He was ordered to pay more than $24,000 in penalties, fines and restitution.

Reached for comment, Modesto blamed his business problems on a relative who has since died and on unreasonable customers who were very picky. He said the firm is now out of business.

Kace J. Rivera

Rivera, 42, had five complaints between 2014 and 2016 while operating as Torson Iron Works and Torson Iron Designs, state records show. Consumers said they paid for custom doors, gates and security doors that never arrived. Three of the cases resulted in criminal convictions with penalties, fines and restitution totaling more than $23,000.

Rivera couldnt be reached for comment. His business phone number is no longer in service.

It seems like some people spend more time checking which cellphone plan to buy than they do when theyre hiring a contractor. Jim Knupp, spokesman, Arizona Registrar of Contractors
Deputies were investigating the theft of a vehicle by a gunman Saturday afternoon when a passerby told them there was a body dumped on the side of a nearby road, officials say.

The incident started about 1 p.m. when deputies were in the 2900 block of East Blackbrush Road, near South Country Club and Old Vail Roads, talking to workers who told them a gunman had stolen their work truck, Deputy Cody Gress said in a news release.

The workers said the gunman fled after pointing a gun at them and demanding keys to the vehicle.

Deputies were talking to the workers when a passerby said hed found a mans body on the side of the road about a mile away.

The body had obvious signs of trauma the news release said.

Meanwhile, Tucson police contacted the Sheriffs Department after they said a man called them from a convenience store near South Craycroft Road and East 29th Street about 1:30 p.m. saying hed stolen the vehicle from the workers on Blackbrush.

That man was being held in connection with both the stolen vehicle and the discovery of the body, Gress said.
Pima County Supervisor Steve Christy has a good line for when supervisors inject big national issues into board meetings.

Christy, one of two Republicans on the board, offered it to me Friday when I called him about a new proposal scheduled to be heard on Tuesday.

I dont see someone running up to President Trump, pounding on his door and saying, Mr. President, weve just received a resolution from the Pima County supervisors! he said.

This line was on point especially when dealing with symbolic gestures such as the countys resolutions, passed last month, in support of the Paris Accord on climate change and against the proposed U.S.-Mexico border wall. At the national and international level scale where these decisions are made, its hard to imagine anyone caring about Pima Countys toothless resolutions.

But I struggled with whether Christys line is a proper response to this Tuesdays hot-button agenda item. That day, the supervisors are scheduled to consider an ordinance proposed by Supervisor Richard Elias banning people from accepting pay to perform so-called gay conversion therapy on children.

This practice, also known as reparative therapy and sexual orientation change efforts, aims, in short, to turn gay people straight. Its best known in some Evangelical Christian faiths. The conservative group Focus on the Family, for example, supports it.

It is a dubious practice. Most people and experts consider a persons attraction to one sex or the other a fixed part of who they are  not something that can be turned in another direction by some sort of counselor. More importantly, it suggests theres something wrong with being gay.

But if an adult wants to give it a try, who are we to stand in the way?

The tougher questions come when this practice, this so-called therapy, is applied to children. Mainstream medical and psychological experts say, dont do it. All the way back in 1992, the American Academy of Pediatrics concluded:

Therapy directed specifically at changing sexual orientation is contraindicated, since it can provoke guilt and anxiety while having little or no potential for achieving changes in orientation.

The studies and position papers opposing conversion therapy have piled up since then. So has legislation: Nine states have banned practicing conversion therapy on children: New York, California, New Jersey, New Mexico, Vermont, Oregon, Illinois, Connecticut and Nevada.

Yes, theyre mostly Democratic Party-dominated states. And predictably, this has become another front in the countrys renewed culture war.

For Focus on the Family, the issue isnt whether or not homosexuality is a mental illness; our concern is rooted in the origins of humankind and how we were created, the group says in its position paper on the issue.

For Christians, homosexuality conflicts with Gods design for marriage and sexual expression  one man and one woman in a lifelong committed marriage relationship. So, homosexual behavior is a moral and relational issue that goes beyond mental health.

ABC News revealed in March that there have continued up to this year to be gay-conversion camps operating secretly in Alabama  and by implication, elsewhere.

Does it happen in Pima County? Elias doesnt know. Neither does Adam Ragan, who brought the idea for the ordinance to Elias.

These kinds of places dont advertise in the Daily Star, Ragan said. They operate at the fringes of society.

So, its an abstraction, but one that is animating the usual divides in our society right now. Supervisor Ally Miller, the other Republican on the board, condemned the proposal on Facebook last week and was met with strong pushback.

I support the right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children. That is it...period, Miller wrote.

When a number of apparently sincere commenters argued that conversion therapy is a form of child abuse, Miller accused them of being online trolls who were networking against her. She also said that if anyone wants to ban conversion therapy, they should take it to the state Legislature.

That is a worthy argument, I think. And its one of the reasons I generally question local efforts to take on state, national or international issues. Whats the point of taking symbolic stands?

This seems like an attempt at a resolution thats looking for a problem, Christy told me. I have yet to find any instances that seem to indicate this is a real problem within Pima County.

But heres the thing: Arizonas Legislature will never ban conversion therapy. Its more likely to try to require conversion therapy than to ban it.

And this proposal is not a simple resolution staking out a political position on a hot-button issue. It would actually make it a civil infraction, punishable by a fine of up to $2,500, to accept payment in exchange for trying to change the sexual orientation of a minor.

I think its to make sure that people know that its something thats akin to child abuse, Elias told me. Is it symbolic? Some might say that, because we dont know to what extent its out there happening.

Its also about protecting our children.

These words  protecting our children  can sometimes make people like me groan. Its as if you can justify anything in the name of protecting the children.

But if you are really convinced that conversion therapy harms vulnerable children, as I am, and if you can foresee that the state Legislature will never do anything about it, then the county proposal is more than a symbolic gesture. Its not just the equivalent of the knock on the presidents door that Christy imagines.

It may not be the countys top priority, but theres just enough substance there to make it worth passing.
Southern Arizonas dry air, dark skies, and plentiful mountain peaks are prime conditions for the many world-class telescopes that dot the region.

These conditions, unfortunately, come with consequences. Arizona summers bring heat and lightning, the perfect storm for raging wildfires.

Telescopes perched on Mount Graham, Mount Lemmon, Mount Bigelow, Kitt Peak and on Mount Hopkins were all at least potentially threatened during this seasons wave of wildfires.

Despite some close calls, including one fire that came within several feet of a telescope, officials said the equipment escaped largely unharmed by the dangerous fires.

Mount Graham

The Frye Fire near Safford was this seasons most destructive, burning more than 48,000 acres. It is still burning in some places but firefighters have the blaze 98 percent contained.

It ignited June 7 and grew to almost 11,000 acres by June 16, growing 4,000 acres overnight. We knew now we were going to be in harms way, said Eric Buckley, director of the Mount Graham International Observatory.

By June 18 the fire (in a combination of wildfire and back burn) surged within 50 feet of the Vatican Advanced Technology Telescope in which the University of Arizona is a partner, said Buckley and Heidi Schewel, a U.S. Forest Service public affairs officer.

Also threatened by flames on Mount Graham were the Submillimeter Telescope and the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory, one of the most powerful telescopes in the world.

When the light from each of the LBTs 8.4-meter mirrors are combined, it can produce images with the spatial resolution of a 24-meter mirror  higher than any ground-based telescope and 10 times the spatial resolution of the Hubble Space Telescope, said Buell Jannuzi, director of Steward Observatory which oversees many telescopes in Southern Arizona.

Firefighters battled the flames by back-burning the forest and dousing the area with water and slurry.

All firefighters, telescopes, and observatory personnel emerged from the fire unscathed, but astronomers did lose weeks of observing nights, Jannuzi said.

Photos of the site show a large swath of charred forest and a thin line of green trees standing around the telescopes.

Im just amazed we didnt suffer any real damage, Buckley said.

It was not until the monsoons kicked in that we stopped really worrying about the Burro Fire and Frye Fire, Jannuzi said.

The problem now is the lack of vegetation left on Mount Graham which leads to erosion of the soil and ash when it rains, resulting in mud slides that can block roads to the observatories.

Mount Lemmon

and Mount Bigelow

Telescopes in the Santa Catalina Mountains including the Mount Lemmon Sky Center and the 61-inch Kuiper Telescope on Mount Bigelow were closed after the Burro Fire erupted June 30.

The fire, about 2 miles away from Mount Bigelow, prompted an evacuation of the mountain late July 3 and early July 4, and a closure of the telescopes, said Jim Grantham, head of mountain operations on both Bigelow and Lemmon.

Again, no telescopes were damaged, not even by smoke.

I was very satisfied with the cooperation of the incident management team with me, with the observatory, in making the preparations we deemed appropriate for the Bigelow Observatory, Grantham said.

The fire burned through more than 27,000 acres of forest, but is now 100 percent contained.

Kitt Peak

The human-caused Elk Horn Fire burned about seven miles south of Kitt Peak National Observatory, consumed 650 acres and is now extinguished.

Kitt Peak, southwest of Tucson, was closed to the public between July 6 and 10 because of the fire, but was never fully evacuated. Astronomers stayed on the mountain during the closure.

No observing was actually affected by the fire, which was surprising, said Lori Allen, director of Kitt Peak National Observatory. We got very lucky with this fire because the wind never drove it to the observatory.

When the fire broke out, Tohono Oodham fire management officer Guy Acuna called in firefighters and acted as a liaison between them and the mountain operations personnel on Kitt Peak.

The whole southwest regional firefighting infrastructure worked very well for us, because, you remember, they were battling very large fires in more densely populated areas at the same time, Allen said. Yet they still managed to divert resources enough to stop this fire.

Mount Hopkins

Lightning sparked a small fire on the west side of Mount Wrightson on July 2. The fire lasted just two days.

We were watching it because if it grew, it could have potentially threatened (the Fred Lawrence) Whipple (Observatory) on Mount Hopkins, Jannuzi said.

Theres a lot of fuel on Mount Wrightson, said Grant Williams, director of the Multiple Mirror Telescope on Mount Hopkins.

The fire was discovered and reported on Sunday afternoon, Williams said. It was too late for the firefighters to come in and do drops from a helicopter, so it waited until the next day.

Fortunately it was low wind that night and few raindrops fell, Williams said. They came in the next day with helicopter and did seven water drops. It completely extinguished the fire.

Another fire started a week later on the east side of Mount Wrightson during a storm, and the rain extinguished it right away.
The recent statement regarding banning military service by transgender Americans that was issued via Twitter by President Trump is astonishing, shocking and profoundly troubling. But it is not entirely unexpected.

I am a former Army infantry officer with over 10 years commissioned service. I served as a platoon leader and company commander as well as in division and theater staff positions. Military readiness and capabilities were a part of my job and my training. I am also a transgender veteran and a leader in the transgender community. I have spoken with other former officers and NCOs with equal or greater experience on this matter.

Mr. Trumps statements are truly astonishing because he made a great show of supporting LGBT Americans, even declaring that Caitlin Jenner could use any restroom in Trump Tower.

They are shocking in that he undermined the entire military command and staff process, a process that works tremendously well and has been refined over two centuries, in 10 minutes. For all his fawning about how my generals are really smart, he has jumped the chain of command and usurped their authority.

The most profoundly troubling aspect, however, is the lack of concern for the stability of our military. Stability speaks not only to manpower but confidence in senior leadership. With our military facing declines in enlistment rates across the board and growing demands around the world, we are stretching our limits for projecting power. It is alarming that the commander-in-chief is either oblivious to the impact of this precipitous declaration, or worse is willing to eliminate the equivalent of two aircraft carrier crews from service. He is also either oblivious to, or complicit in, undermining the authority of senior leadership in one of the nations most trusted institutions.

The factors he cited fall into three categories  deployability, competence and cost. All three are red herrings hiding an inherent bias against transgender people. I know hundreds of veterans and many active and reserve component service members who have been exemplary performers throughout their careers in all fields. Many just happen to be transgender.

The first claim is that a transgender service members will have a long period of non-deployability. Some of our detractors are quoting a period of a year. The truth is that the recovery period for surgery is approximately two months. Some trans people who are elite athletes begin training again after six weeks and are back in peak shape within a couple more months.

I have personally been non-deployable for a period of three months at one point in my career due to having meningitis, but I was never considered unable to perform my duties. Current policy already considers the needs of the service and deployability in considering when to allow each service member to schedule surgery.

Another objection is that service members will become unable to perform their responsibilities. With three women completing the Armys Ranger school and several supporting Special Operating Forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and the militarys opening of all specialties to women and basing specialty qualification on ability rather than gender, this objection is now irrelevant.

Finally, the claim is that the cost is exorbitant. Again, this claim is a myth. Gender confirming surgery (GCS) is relatively inexpensive when compared to numerous other procedures. While the cost is more than can be borne out of pocket, the cost of basic transitional surgery is no more than that of many very common surgeries.

Even many Republican legislators have expressed bewilderment at Trumps policy announcement. We have to ask ourselves: How can a service member at ANY level, including the most senior commanders, or the people of this country have any confidence that Trump really is acting on the advice of my generals when he decides to employ our military in the future?

I state these facts and ask these questions a veteran and former officer.
Royal-themed specials continue with Prince Harry in Africa.

This one hour doco follows HRH Prince Harry on his return to Lesotho, in South Africa, to continue the work of Sentebale, the charity he set up in the country a decade ago.

Prince Harry first travelled to the little known kingdom of Lesotho 12 years ago, shadowed by broadcaster Tom Bradby. It was there, after seeing the countrys disadvantaged children, that the Prince decided to follow in the humanitarian footsteps of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, and set up Sentebale (which translates as Forget Me Not), which provides care, support and education to youth affected by HIV and AIDS in Lesotho and Botswana.

This documentary sees Prince Harry set off on an unforgettable adventure, where cameras bear witness to his travels through the beautiful and challenging scenery to remote locations with his deeply personal aim of discovering the stories that he wants to tell to the world.

The film will also capture the moment that Prince Harry is reunited with Mutsu, a local teenager who the Prince met on his first visit to Lesotho, and with whom he has since remained in regular contact, both knowing firsthand what is was like growing up without a parent.



Thursday August 10 at 8.30pm on UKTV.
New Delhi: ANHAD (Act Now for Harmony and Democracy), a socio-cultural organization that stands for justice, secularism and democracy since 2002, has strongly condemned the destruction of the local Rajghat in Barwani, Madhya Pradesh, that has housed the urns of Mahatma Gandhi, Kasturba and Gandhis secretary, Mahadev Desai.

ANAHDs press statement said, The unceremonious and sudden manner in which the three urns were taken away and the place dug up is simply outrageous.

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ANHAD has termed the incident as poignant because close to the site of this memorial, Medha Patkar and her team were protesting for the rehabilitation of 244 villages and 40,000 families that have been rendered homeless by the Sardar Sarovar dam.

Statement said, Both these developments  the razing the Gandhi Memorial as well as the ongoing struggle of the dam-affected for livelihood and shelter  are unacceptable in a just and transparent democracy. The central as well as state governments stand accountable for its ruthless destruction of livelihoods, residence and now our history and leaders, all in the name of development.

Moreover it said, This comes in the wake of the current governments attempts to selectively wipe out history, rewrite textbooks, muzzle freedom of speech, among others.

Organization has expressed its solidarity with Medha Patkar and activists of Narmada Bachao Andolan who are on indefinite fast for justice, life and civilisation in the Narmada valley. The statement was undersigend by Aban Raza, Amrita Nandy, Dhruv Sangari, Leena Dabiru, Mukhtar Ahmed Sheikh, Ovais Sultan Khan and Shubha Menon.
Russia and the UK are hardly bosom buddies these days and the relationship must be at its worst since the days of the Cold War. Russias activities in the Ukraine and Syria have contributed to the poor state of relations between the two adversarial nations.

What with incursions just outside of British air space and British waters by the Russians this has built up to a level of hostility not seen since the Soviet Union.

Putin has been throwing his weight around the world for a while now and in one quote Prince Charles actually compared the Russian President to Adolf Hitler.

Verbal war of the aircraft carriers

Michael Fallon, British Defence Secretary, announced after a gap of many years the UK has a brand new aircraft carrier, Hms Queen Elizabeth. This massive colossus is meant to show that the UK can still punch above its weight around the world should the need arise. Michael Fallon, possibly getting carried away with the thought of deploying the UK's new state of the art aircraft carrier, decided to insult Russia's, Admiral Kuznetsov.

Fallon described the Soviet-era carrier as "Old and dilapidated" which given its record of breaking down at sea he may have a point. Naval experts have pointed out that the steam gushing from Kuznetsov's funnel and the fact it is escorted by tugs shows the ship is not in the best of mechanical health.

Relic or not the Admiral Kuznetsov should not be written off altogether it still has the capability to defend itself but how it would fare up against HMS Queen Elizabeth is not known. The Russians responded by saying that the UK's new aircraft carrier should keep away from Russias Admiral Kuznetsov.

Putin's dream

Vladimir Putin wanted to make Russia great again long before Trump coined the term.

Obviously, the Russians are still a nuclear power and this still makes Russia a world player. Russian conventional forces are a threat hence NATO beefing up its defences in the Baltic and Eastern Europe. On the cyber front, Russia is confronting its enemies like its alleged interference in the US Presidential election.

Putin like the Russian chess masters is a shrewd and intelligent operator and should never be taken for a fool.

The ex-KGB operative and black belt in Judo is a gambler who is not afraid to take risks and Russias enemies would do well remember this. The Russian bear has woken from its slumber and is stalking the world again.
The Conservatives have been using a large proportion of their media support and social media accounts to promote the story that Jeremy Corbyn has U-turned on a tuition fees policy. However, the policy that they cite never existed in the first place and this smear only shows that they take the public for granted and dont hold most people in a high regard at all. What is the truth of the supposed policy and what have they spun to create this fabrication?

The smear is purely designed to take the heat off them and deflect attention from the shambles they are making of government.

They have U-turned multiple times since before the election and are currently split over Brexit deals.

What Jeremy Corbyn said to NME

There is a lot of debate over this fabrication and Corbyn told Andrew Marr on the 23rd July that I recognised it was a huge burden, I did not make a commitment we would write it off because I couldnt at that stage. Conservative MP, Jo Johnson, then tried to claim that Jeremy Corbyn had told people that he would commit to wiping their debt and continued to say that he deceived the public to get votes. The sense of irony is lost on the brother of the man who still claims the 350 million figure is correct.

What Jeremy Corbyn told NME was Yes, there is a block of those that currently have a massive debt, and Im looking at ways that we could reduce that, ameliorate that, lengthen the period of paying it off, or some other means of reducing that debt burden. This is clear that he planned on finding a way to make it easier for those who already have high levels of student debt.

There is nowhere in the interview that he says he would wipe that debt.

Conservative U-turns in 2017

The smear against Corbyn is designed to hide their own failures, which are significant compared to the fake U-turn perpetuated by the Conservatives and their supporters. On May 18th, the Conservatives would downgrade pension Triple Lock to a double lock, opposite from the 2015 manifesto and introduce a means-tested winter fuels payment, as opposed to the universal entitlement currently.

On the 22nd May, they decided to backtrack on the dementia tax just four days after announcing the policy.

20th June saw them capitulate on the first day of Brexit negotiations, changing their minds on the sequencing of Brexit negotiations. In the manifesto, they stated they would introduce a cap on energy prices but that has since disappeared without a trace.

On the 26th June after the DUP deal, they announced they would reinstate their policy on the pension triple lock, stating it was safe and at the same time their plan for means-tested winter fuel payments were dropped.

The public sector pay cap was rumoured to be scrapped by the Conservatives, however, they later clarified the cap would remain. Earlier on this year, Jeremy Hunt fought the Supreme Court over the governments decision to not fund abortions for Northern Irish women, but on the 29th June, they changed their minds. Theresa May announced in May that they would scrap free school lunches but this policy has now been dropped.
Parliament may be in recess but that doesnt mean all politicians are off on holiday, nonetheless, Theresa May has taken this time for a 3-week holiday whilst most other politicians will spend it doing more work with their constituents. But there have been several announcements that include the ban on new diesel and petrol vehicles by 2040 and Liam Fox stating the UK could be open to the idea of downgrading food standards in the UK in a bid to secure a trade deal with the US.

Donald Trump continues to try and distract the world from his collusion with Russia during the presidential election.

The EU issues a warning to Poland and rejects talks with Turkey, whilst Macrons government makes their first intervention in the private sector.

UK news

Liam Fox announced that the UK could seek to downgrade food standards in a bid to secure a trade deal with the US. He said that the UK would be open to the idea of importing chlorinated chicken. The American Farming Association have said any deal must see the UK relax bans on chlorine chicken, hormone beef and genetically modified crops. Current EU law says that poultry cannot be disinfected using chemicals. Boris Johnson has backed the plan but environment secretary, Michael Gove, is against the idea along with his predecessor and commons leader, Andrea Leadsom.

The government have announced plans to ban new diesel and petrol vehicles from 2040 in a bid to combat toxic air pollution levels. Approximately 40,000 deaths a year can be attributed to air pollution (Fullfact, 2016), however, the figure is an estimate and it could even make smaller contributions to the reduction of individuals lifespan.

Meanwhile the government have been dealt a blow after the Supreme Court ruled that the tribunal fees, introduced by the coalition government in 2013, were unlawful. They were introduced to reduce the number of malicious and weak cases, but this led to an overall reduction of 79% and discriminating against those on middle and lower incomes as well as women.

The Conservatives have also passed off an EU directive as their own legislation. They announced that they would be banning credit card surcharges from January 2018, the legislation builds on an EU directive which will be at risk once we leave in 2019. Meanwhile they have announced the plan to increase the retirement age to 68. U-turned on their pledge to give children free school breakfasts, and two MPs, Peter Bone and Christopher Chope took turns to camp out and flooded parliament with around 70 bills, none of which are likely to be made into law but it means that other important bills wont get heard until a later date.

World news

In the French commune of Semeac, residents built a wall around a disused hotel that had been bought by the government to house 85 migrants who have fled the warzone that has engulfed the Middle-East.

Emmanuel Macrons government intervened and bought a French shipyard to stop it falling into Italian ownership. The EU meanwhile have issued Poland with a formal warning over plans for the control of the judiciary to be given to the president and the justice minister and they have also rejected a request from Turkey for new accession talks. The EU have condemned the security crackdown that followed the attempted coup in 2016.

Meanwhile in America, Donald Trump has issued a ban on transgender people serving in the military, citing costs. However, estimates put transgender spending at 0.004  0.017% of the defence budget with more money being spent on Viagra. Furthermore, after a tense session, the bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was voted down by one vote. John McCain got the final vote and audible gasps were heard when he voted against Donald Trumps bill.
As first years in a new job go, Sadiq Khan's as Mayor Of London has not been the easiest. He was elected to replace Boris Johnson in May 2016 and in that year has had to cope with the fallout from Brexit, terror attacks on Westminster Bridge, Borough Market, Finsbury Mosque and the Grenfell Tower disaster. His reactions to some of those disasters have put him at the forefront of the world media attention.

London's first Muslim Mayor

As the capital's first Muslim mayor Khan had to be sure to give Londoners of all faiths the correct message after the terror attacks claimed many lives.

As a practising Muslim, he was only too aware of how incendiary the situation could become if it were to be handled wrongly. A former lawyer and MP, Khan is used to choosing the right words and he did so again making the simple "Not in my name" statement after the London Bridge attack as he was concerned about fellow Muslims feeling somehow responsible.

In his first year as mayor, he has been an enormous success. Publicly visible within hours of a disaster, comforting families of victims and survivors alike. His messages have been politically on point and well delivered. He has presented a different face of politics than his predecessor Boris Johnson, who preferred to play the clown.

Twitter spat with Donald Trump

So what is the problem with the US President? It would seem that, in addition to being a Muslim, Trump has taken umbrage with Khan's statement that after the June terror attacks and an increased police presence on the streets there was "no need to be alarmed." Trump went into meltdown on Twitter criticising Khan's statement.

Donald Trump Jr. also joined in the attack in reply to a quote from Khan taken out of context that terror attacks were "part and parcel" of living in a big city. Khan refused to bite, replying that he had been busy with more important things.

Trump's state visit to UK

It is no secret that Khan opposes plans for a state visit to the UK by the US Commander-in-Chief.

His claim is that whilst the President of the USA has many policies, including a travel ban from six predominantly Muslim countries, that we fundamentally disagree with, it would be inappropriate to roll out the red carpet.

For his part, Trump is reluctant to visit the UK at least until 2018 or until he is sure that there will be more support for him and his policies. So it would appear that there may be somewhat of a stalemate.

Whatever happens between them, Khan has shown that he is a doer. He is a man of the people, for the people and he wants to serve six terms as London mayor. There will be few who would bet against him.
Over the last 24 hours, the biggest story to dominate the political headlines has been over Donald Trump's controversial tweets about the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe." In response, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough wrote an op-ed where they didn't hold back with their thoughts about the president, before later breaking their silence on the air.

"Morning Joe" on Trump

Donald Trump is not a fan of the mainstream media, and this has been evident since the early days of the 2016 presidential election. From the day the former host of "The Apprentice" announced that he was running for office, he started his feud with the press when he labeled illegal immigrants from Mexico as "rapists" and "murderers." While the majority of the media initially reacted to his candidacy as a joke, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough were willing to give him a chance, holding multiple interviews with the billionaire real estate mogul in the process.

However, as time has moved on, the duo have become two of Trump's most vocal critics, resulting in the president lashing out at the program on more than one occasion. On Thursday morning, Trump took to Twitter were he labeled Scarborough as "psycho," while accusing "low I.Q." Brzezinski of bleeding from facelift during last New Year's Eve. In response, the hosts fired back with an op-ed on June 30.

In their response to Donald Trump's tweets, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough didn't hold back in their Friday morning op-od. "For those lucky enough to miss Thursdays West Wing temper tantrum, the president continued a year-long habit of lashing out at 'Morning Joe' while claiming to never watch it," the Washington Post op-ed wrote.

MSNBC's Joe and Mika: "Donald Trump is not well" https://t.co/SvKxWsQhXI via @PostOpinions  Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 30, 2017

The hosts, who were recently engaged, claimed Donald Trump's tweets were a "fit a flurry of falsehoods" which were "laughable" and a clear "lie." "Putting aside Mr. Trumps never-ending obsession with womens blood, Mika and her face were perfectly intact, as pictures from that night reveal," the piece read.

On the air

In addition, the couple postponed their planned vacation to appear on the program to deliver an on-air response. "Yesterday was just another example of how deeply personal he is.

He attacks women because he fears women," Joe Scarborough said.

Mika Brzezinski also fired back, pointing out, "It is unbelievably alarming that this president is so easily played by a cable news host." Despite the remarks from the president, it appears that the hosts of "Morning Joe" are not going to back down anytime soon.
As fans just saw on "90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After," Paola is working hard on her career as a model and is even living away from her husband. Everyone saw her do a topless photo shoot as one of her first ones, but now Fox News is talking to her and finding out her thoughts. Paola spoke out about what kind of modeling she is doing now and how she feels about that topless shoot.

Paola speaks out about her new modeling career

When Paolo's husband Russ Mayfield found out about the topless shoot, he wasn't thrilled. The thing is she has moved on since then and is doing a totally different kind of modeling.

Now she is focusing on being a trainer and a fitness model. Her husband Russ doesn't love that she has to flaunt her body on social networks, but at least she isn't taking her top off for pictures anymore.

She explained it to Fox News saying, "I'm getting more into fitness and that requires to be a little bit more revealing, something that my husband is not that happy [about]. But he's getting to the point [of] trying to understand my position that I'm not doing it just because I want to expose myself." The reason she wants to share these pictures is so that she can motivate people to do what she is doing.

Russ talks about her stripping down on television

Russ even talked to Fox News about how the fact that Paola stripped down on television was hard for him and his family as well.

Russ is actually really proud of Paolo and how hard she has worked on her body. He also said he doesn't want to change her at all. Now that she is focusing on fitness, it looks like Russ is a lot happier about the modeling she is doing. No word on if she is the bread winner just yet, though.

One other thing that Russ said was that he is from Oklahoma.

It made it sound like he might not be living there anymore, which would mean that hopefully Russ and Paolo are living together now. On this season of "90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After," Russ and Paolo aren't living in the same area because he is in Oklahoma working on selling their house and she is in Florida working. This couple looks like they are doing great together.

Are you shocked to hear that Paola regrets doing that photoshoot? What do you think about what she is doing now in the fitness industry? Sound off in the comments section below on your thoughts, and don't miss new episodes of "90 Day Fiance: Happily Ever After" on TLC on Sunday nights. This new season is all about the couples who got married on past seasons of the show.
Donald Trump started off his Thursday morning like he did many others, with a controversial series of tweets that didn't go over well with his critics. While the president usually vents on social media, his latest tweets might have finally crossed the line.

Hollywood on Trump

If there's one thing that is for sure about Donald Trump it's that he is not a fan of the mainstream media. For the better part of the last two years, the former host of "The Apprentice" has spent his days blasting the press, ridiculing journalists and shaming cable news outlets.

Whether it's newspapers like the New York Times and Washington Post, cable news channels like CNN and MSNBC, or individual reporters and hosts like Megyn Kelly, Trump has found a way to expand his obsession with hitting back against the media. Trump's latest attack came in the form of a pair of tweets where he singled out the hosts of MSNBC's "Morning Joe." The feud between Donald Trump and Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski has increased over the last year, as the once friendly relationship has spiraled into a near hatred. On Tuesday morning, Trump labeled Scarborough as a "psycho," while then accusing "low I.Q." Brzezinski of bleeding from a facelift while allegedly attempting to spend time with him on New Year's Eve.

The backlash grew by the minute, which included some harsh criticism from big names out in Hollywood, as seen across Twitter on June 29.

Trump's tweet attack on Mika Brzezinski is the latest in a long line of disparaging jabs aimed at prominent women https://t.co/6gw9JZ6pq8 pic.twitter.com/h9OppUPKeW  CNN (@CNN) June 30, 2017

In various tweets on Thursday, popular names in Hollywood came out to show their support for Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough, while not holding back their thoughts on Donald Trump in the process.

"Besides possible obstruction of justice & treason, we have a childish mentally unstable bully in the WH. We have 25th Amend. for a reason," actor and director Rob Reiner tweeted out.

The president is a hurtful, bullying, boorish, ridiculous, undignified, childish asshat. And it hurts to say that.  Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 29, 2017

The viciousness of Trump's tweets is disturbing, the pettiness perhaps more so. This guy is not cut out for the main stage.  Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 30, 2017

"The president is a hurtful, bullying, boorish, ridiculous, undignified, childish asshat.

And it hurts to say that," author Stephen King wrote on his Twitter feed. In a follow-up post, King also added, "The viciousness of Trump's tweets is disturbing, the pettiness perhaps more so. This guy is not cut out for the main stage."

POTUS likes to punch down. Whether it's anchors, US Attorneys, or standup comics. Meanwhile, millions are about to lose health insurance.  Kathy Griffin (@kathygriffin) June 29, 2017

So, can we dispense with the notion that Donald is going to "grow into the job" or become "more presidential" yet? https://t.co/VLdOj8gEEq  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 29, 2017

"So, can we dispense with the notion that Donald is going to "grow into the job" or become 'more presidential' yet?" actor George Takei posted.

"You're a horrible, hurtful, human, @realDonaldTrump. I'm embarrassed that you are representing America this way," actress Alyssa Milano added. "

'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.' Abraham Lincoln pic.twitter.com/vkJnlXbnXg  J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) June 29, 2017

You're a horrible, hurtful, human, @realDonaldTrump. I'm embarrassed that you are representing America this way. https://t.co/WT6gw2GQIe  Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) June 29, 2017

Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling re-tweeted Donald Trump's attack on Mika Brzezinski, while attaching a quote from Abraham Lincoln reading, "'Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's character, give him power.' Abraham Lincoln." "POTUS likes to punch down.

Whether it's anchors, US Attorneys, or stand-up comics. Meanwhile, millions are about to lose health insurance," comedian Kathy Griffin wrote.

Besides possible obstruction of justice & treason, we have a childish mentally unstable bully in the WH. We have 25th Amend. for a reason.  Rob Reiner (@robreiner) June 29, 2017

Celebs on Sanders

While many focused on Donald Trump, other Hollywood stars decided to turn their attention to deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for her constant defense of the president's tweets. "There is no medication on Earth that Sarah Huckabee Sanders can take to keep her from hating herself at the end of every day," Alec Baldwin tweeted.

There is no medication on Earth that Sarah Huckabee Sanders can take to keep her from hating herself at the end of every day.  ABFoundation (@ABFalecbaldwin) June 29, 2017

So, is "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" the official White House communications strategy now?  George Takei (@GeorgeTakei) June 29, 2017

Actor George Takei returned to his social media feed, this time throwing shade at Sarah Huckabee Sanders.

"So, is "I'm rubber, you're glue, whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you" the official White House communications strategy now?" Takei wondered. As the backlash continued, it was clear that the opposition to Donald Trump was just getting started.
"Star Trek" stars and crew arrived last Saturday at Comic-Con in San Diego to tell us a little hint of what to expect from the show. The show's cast, Jason Isaacs, Sonequa Martin-Green, James Frain, Shazad Latif, Doug Jones Shazad Latif, along with show's executive producers Aaron Harberts, Alex Kurtzman, Heather Kadin and Mary Wiseman gave their fans a first look at the new "Star Trek" franchise. The show is scheduled to be released on September 24 on the digital CBS All Access.

Story details revealed

Rainn Wilson who plays the role of Harry Mudd in the new series moderated the panel discussion.

One of the questions asked during the press con was "how Star Trek: Discovery is different from the Original." Alex Kurtzman responded to the question and said that "Discovery" was greatly inspired by the Original Series. "It's a little bit larger and bolder than the original," Kurtzman added.

Martin-Green's portrayal of First Officer Michael Burnham revealed a hint of how her character would be in the show. She talked about her seven years of working relationship with the character of Captain Philippa Georgiou, who will be played by Michelle Yeoh. According to Green, Michael and Philippa's characters are very close. "I finished studying at the Vulcan Science Academy and went straight to the Shenzhou where Captain Philippa took me under her wing," she said.

James Frain talked also his character during the Comic-Con. Frain will be playing "Sarek," who is a classic character in the Original. Its a story of who Sarek was when he was younger," he said.

'Star Trek' continues to embrace diversity

According to Indie Wire, the CBS' Star Trek series continues to promote a message that reflects the Original series' essential values.

As what is the original always push, the new show is committed to depicting the universe as a "varied and wide place."

During the Comic-Con, star Sonequa Martin-Green said that if you love the original "Star Trek" then you should know what it is promoting for, otherwise you have missed the whole point." She added also that the show has always been a picture of the Diversity and equality.

Executive producer Akiva Goldsman also said that show is about empathy. It is about accepting other people despite differences and finding common ground. Over the course of the press con, the stars and producers emphasize that their goal is beyond promoting diversity. They are also committed to the other fundamental values that "Star Trek" was originally founded upon.
Vicki Gunvalson may seem like she is one tough cookie, but there is one thing that can really upset her. Radar Online is now sharing that Vicki is dealing with her daughter Briana Culberson's health. Everyone has seen on "RHOC" that Briana has had some issues and she was finally diagnosed with lupus.

What did Gunvalson have to say?

Vicki explained that they are having one big issue when talking to The Daily Dish. She said, "Her struggle has been finding the right doctor. Shell find a doctor, and then that doctor says, basically, I cant do anything more for you, so find somebody else. So she needs a rheumatologist, and shes been finding one out of UCLA. She admits that this has been hard on her daughter, but at first she was hoping that she was diagnosed wrong.

It doesn't seem like that is the case now at all. Briana has lupus and she is dealing with it all in the best way she can. She is very lucky to have as much support as she does by her side.

Vicki Gunvalson revealed that her daughter is just thirty-years-old and is dealing with a lot right now. Vicki is hoping that Briana can continue to stay in remission or find a cure or whatever ends up happening that makes her daughter feel better. Briana was actually seen going to the hospital on last season of the show and the fans were really worried about her. She had been living in Oklahoma, but her family is back in California near her mom now.

What is going on with Vicki now?

Right now, Vicki Gunvalson seems to be doing really well.

She has moved on from Brooks Ayers and has a new man in her life that was introduced on the show. The fans are happy to see her with someone new and doing well. Vicki says that she has moved on from Brooks and that he isn't a part of her life at all anymore.

This season fans will also see Vicki Gunvalson have an issue with her health where she is rushed to the hospital in Iceland.

The fans are going to have to wait to see it happen on the show and find out what went down with her.

Did you realize that Briana Culberson was dealing with such big health issues? Do you think that they will show more of this on the show this season? Sound off in the comments section below on your thoughts, and don't miss the new episodes of "The Real Housewives of orange county" when they air on Monday nights on ABC. There has been some speculation that Briana could be added as a housewife to the show and the fans would love if they decided to have her on the series more.
With 3/4 of a trillion dollars in their pocket, Apple did not seem to mind shelling out a couple of billions to get the company out of a legal fiasco. A patent lawsuit came between Apple and nokia back in May. However, neither one revealed any details nor left any comment regarding the value of the settlement. What was only known to most at the time was the American label had to the pay the Finnish brand a substantial fee to end the dispute.

However, recent reports have surfaced, particularly from Nokiamob regarding the amount of money that quickly cut the fight short.

According to the source, Nokia announced that it received a $2 billion cash payment from Apple. No further details on the terms of the agreement were disclosed. Considering it was a non-recurring catch-up revenue, people are left to wonder how will Nokia spend all that cash.

The lawsuit

The recent lawsuit is actually the second high-profile patent fight between Nokia and Apple. It started last year as accusations of breaking the law on dozens of patents Nokia owns including the patents from its subsidiaries, NSN and Alcatel-Lucent. Considering Nokia's background in the phone market, a lot of smartphone creators purchased the rights to the company's patents for almost everything. Apple, in particular, has been relying on Nokia's patents since the iPhone 3GS.

These include video coding, display, chipsets, UI, software, and antenna.

Apple and Nokia have been involved in a licensing deal since 2011, but the former accused the latter of seeking unfair terms, which led to their refusal to sign a new deal. The dispute got uglier when Apple resisted against the patent entities with an antitrust suit on behalf of Nokia.

This came right after Nokia filed suit in multiple countries asking for more settlement and royalty money.

Settling differences

As mentioned, Nokia and Apple put an end to the legal dispute by signing a multi-year patent agreement in May 2017. The settlement also came with new licensing terms and an agreement to do a joint effort in exploring future collaborations centered on Digital Health initiatives.

Sources say that they will work together on advanced technologies as well as research and development. More specifically, Apple will be employing Nokia for digital health, an optical network, and IP routing. The decision to go beyond a simple cash payment settlement earns the approval of many technologies and innovation experts and advocates. Signing a usual patent licensing deal is already a good thing on its own, but to further work together to improve technology is a much greater deal altogether.
India and china appear to be on a collision course at Doklam, located on the tri-junction between India, Tibet, and Bhutan. The incident that ignited the face-off started when the India army objected to the Chinese attempt to construct a road close to Doklam which is claimed by Bhutan. The incident became a flash point as both China and India massed almost 1000 troops each in an eyeball to eyeball confrontation.

Chinese state media threatened India with war as China claimed Doklam to be part of China as per an 1890 treaty between the British rulers and Tibet.

The Indian side did not agree and beefed up troops and guns. The Chinese stopped the construction but warned India a repeat of 1962.

At that time an unprepared Indian army had been pushed back. India has refused to budge, and the defense minister announced that India was different from 1962. The army chief General Bipin Rawat also said that India was ready for a two front war meaning with Pakistan and China. AL Jazeera News has reported this.

China beset with problems

China is a belligerent nation, and it has claimed the entire SC Sea and used North Korea as a proxy to needle the USA. China is also facing restive population in Tibet and in Xinjiang region the Muslim Uighurs are up in arms against China.

Historically China only respects force and though China is making a lot of threatening noises the chances that it will go to war with India are minimal.

Economic considerations

Any border war with India will further strengthen the American strategic partnership with India, and that is not to Chinas liking. China is already facing US troops in South Korea, and the US Navy is carrying out freedom of navigation exercises in the SC Sea. It has a border dispute with Vietnam with which it fought a war in 1983.

The Chinese also have a massive trade relationship with India of 70 billion dollars which is heavily weighted in their favor. Many Chinese companies are depended on India to generate a major portion of their sales.

The Chinese economy is slowing down, and a conflict will result in a huge adverse economic impact on China.

Military option

Militarily also the Chinese are on a sticky wicket and India has the high ground in the area. China cannot talk of nuclear blackmail as well as the Indians have developed ICBM capability and can hit most parts of China. In such a scenario the dragon can ill afford a war with India.

With the entire area population against China, the Chinese may well end up with a result they have not bargained for. The Indian security advisor is in China, but Xi cannot back down for loss of face. The Peoples Congress is also to take place so Xi cannot show himself a weak leader, but with India not backing down the road construction is stopped.
Once a front runner in the world of Japanese politics, Tomomi Inada recently resigned from her post as Defense Minister. She tendered her resignation to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe at a questionable time.

This happened during investigations into an alleged cover up she participated in. Abes Cabinet members have not had a good year so far, and her departure is an additional incident to the growing number of scandals, CNN reported.

Japanese presence in South Sudan

The Defense Department launched an investigation into Inadas actions relating to the Japanese presence in South Sudan.

She denied any participation and insisted that she was innocent. The report stated that she assisted in concealing pertinent records relating to Japanese peacekeepers. These records are of utmost importance as they include an in-depth account of the dangers these Japanese citizens faced in the war-torn African region.

The Inada-led Defense Ministry stated that they did not have data on Japanese activity. However, the investigations ensued as it was later disclosed that they were available after all.

This data was crucial in deciding whether the Asian nation would continue sending peacekeepers and other troops to the embattled country. As no records were available at that time, Japan continued to deploy troops.

If the report had surfaced on time, the country would have ceased its operations in South Sudan.

Inada worked hard to reach the Defense Minister post. She assumed the position in August 2016. Based on her political history and the numerous merits under her name, some people considered she might be the next Prime Minister after the end of Abes term.

If this happened, she would create history by being the first female prime minister in Japans history.

Abes Cabinet

Inada and Abe advocate for Japans continued participation in military proceedings across the globe. In fact, they even want the country to have a more active role. Despite its history in World War II and the resurgence of military threats in Asia, detractors have slammed Abe for seeking a more conciliatory approach.

Abes Cabinet, which includes Inada, has been rocked by scandals these past months. Recently, a certain Yasunori Kagioke informed lawmakers that his political influence helped him and his company, Moritomo Gakuen, with land purchases from the government.

When questioned, Inada stated, under oath, that she did not have any relations with the man. Upon further review by investigators, they found out that Inada acted as a lawyer for Moritomo Gakuen in a 2004 trial. She later admitted to this and expressed her apologies for the oversight. Her explanation detailed the events of that trial which was originally her husbands case.

The political landscape in Japan is wrought with concerns. Inada, who has proven her extensive capabilities in the past, hit a wall with the recent allegations against her. Prime Minister Abe will need to scrutinize his Cabinet and ensure no more dishonesty occurs. He must succeed in this if he wants his Cabinet to continue serving their nation.
Ukraine suffered a Hack Attack in December when over 200,000 people were left without Power for several hours after an implanted malware led to the shutdown of some substations. The incident was analyzed and what was considered dangerous was the type of malware the hackers used.

Are power firms at risk?

The analyses made by experts at Def Con and Black Hat show that power firms can be attacked by hackers using that type of malware as their level of cybernetic security is low.

One of the experts who analyzed the cyber attack in Ukraine believes that power grid operators should become conscious of the possibility of other incidents like that taking place.

Operators need to prepare to protect their consumers against this new kind of threat.

The incident in December last year was preceded by another hack attack in March 2015, so that was not the only cyber attack that used malware to shut down the power for several hours in Ukraine.

Is this type of malware easy to spot?

After the analysis of the event in late December made by the experts at Def Con and Black Hat, power firms interested in securing their networks have more information than before. However, the hacking methods are hard to spot as there are almost no visible signals of intrusion in the network.

Other experts consider that the incident in Ukraine did not leave signs that indicate the hackers were also targeting other networks.

Even so, they believe the methods used by the hackers could be used in other countries as well as the hackers are getting more and more experienced.

What regions are most exposed?

One of the specialists who analyzed the event stresses that power firms in the US are not as exposed to this threat because the hardware used in this region isnt similar to the one in Ukraine.

Other regions are very exposed to the risk, the examples given by him being Europe, the Middle East, and Asia. He thus criticized authorities for not taking measures to make power firms aware of the threat. Nowadays most of the security methods need electrical power, so having several cities without power for a few minutes could have negative consequences.

If this type of event took place and lasted for several hours or even days, the impact would be more dramatic.

Even if there were not many cases of hack attacks on power firms so far, awareness about this is important as it could pose a great threat to the national security of many countries.
Montreal is a beautiful city set on an island in Quebec, Canada. Home to famous attractions, museums and great restaurants, Montreal is a fun weekend destination for couples and families. Visit the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, take a romantic walk through the Montreal Botanical Garden, and admire the architecture of the Notre-Dame Basilica. Best things to do in Montreal with kids include the Old Port of Montreal, the Biodome, the Pointe-a-Calliere Museum and the Montreal Science Centre.

We recommend that you call the attractions and restaurants ahead of your visit to confirm current opening times.

1. Montreal Museum of Fine Arts  Courtesy of PackShot - Fotolia.com

One of the most prominent museums in Canada and one of the best things to do in Montreal, this esteemed facility is the largest of its kind in the province of Quebec. The museums Sherbrooke Street location is significant for its inclusion in the Golden Square Mile, a prestigious stretch of road within the citys widely acclaimed historic district. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is comprised of four pavilions, with a fifth currently under construction. The museums permanent collection houses over 40,000 pieces ranging in style and medium. The museum offers both permanent and temporary displays, with touring exhibits visiting the center on a rotating basis. Additionally, the site boasts an elaborate concert venue. All exhibit and concert information is available on the museums website calendar. 1380 Rue Sherbrooke O, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-285-2000

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2. Montreal Botanical Garden  Courtesy of Denis0856 - Fotolia.com

The Montreal Botanical Garden is considered one of the most significant and important contributions to the horticultural world and one of the top Montreal attractions. The Gardens expansive and diverse collections and comprehensive facilities contribute to its valuable reputation. The 190-acre site features 10 themed greenhouses and a Chinese lantern garden, along with numerous exhibits, gardens, sculptures, and examples of plant life. An onsite planetarium and insectarium add additional interest and educational opportunities, and in the warmer months the Garden hosts a summer concert series. A rotating series of educational and interactive activities, groups, and lessons occur throughout the year based on the seasonal activities of the Garden and featured exhibits. 4101 Rue Sherbrooke E, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-872-1400

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3. Notre-Dame Basilica  Courtesy of Alessandro Lai - Fotolia.com

One of the most dramatic architectural feats in the world, The Notre Dame Basilica is a quintessential component of the Montreal skyline. With a colorful and striking interior, the Basilicas ceiling is painted a deep rich blue and scattered with golden stars. The remainder of the sanctuary is an array of tones that fill the space with vibrant, polychromatic hues. The stained glass windows, which line the walls of the soaring building, depict Montreals religious history, and they are a unique departure from the standard adornment of biblical scenes typically found illustrating church glass. When mass is not being offered, the church is open to visitors. Additionally, there are choral performances throughout the year, and an evening sound and light show is presented during the week. 110 Rue Notre-Dame O, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-842-2925



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4. Jean-Talon Market  Courtesy of ksl - Fotolia.com



The Jean-Talon Market is an expansive and bustling farmers market located in the Little Italy district of Montreal. Encompassing several blocks, the market is a year round staple in the Montreal food scene, and it allows vendors to sell an array of produce, hand made goods, and local farm fresh ingredients. The multicultural variety of ingredients and products lends itself to the appeal of the market, and everything from spices to fresh cut flowers to locally raised meats are available for sale in the open air stalls. In the winter, the market is smaller and moved to internal or closed stalls, but remains open for the sale of seasonal goods. In the warmer months, the market becomes a lively hub of shoppers and vendors. 7070 Avenue Henri Julien, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-277-1588

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5. Things to Do Near Me: Old Port of Montreal  Courtesy of diegograndi - Fotolia.com



Once the primary functioning port for the city of Montreal, the Old Port of Montreal is now a historic preservation site and recreational area. Originally used for Montreals importation and exportation of goods, the port dates back as early as 1611 when it was used as a trading post by French fur traders. However, in the 1970s, the Ports economic and functional purposes were transferred to a new location, and this site became a tourism based recreational district. Today, visitors can walk up and down the mile long stretch of docks and see an expansive collection of attractions. If you are looking for things to do in Montreal today, this is a great place to start exploring. While the riverfront is often used for walking, roller-blading, or biking, it is also home to several event venues, an urban beach called Plage de lHorloge, or Clock Beach, the IMAX theatre, and the Montreal Science Centre. 333 Rue de la Commune O, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-496-7678

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6. Things to Do Near Me: Biodome de Montreal  Courtesy of benjo94 - Fotolia.com



Housed in the facility that once hosted the 1976 Montreal Olympics, the Montreal Biodome is now a natural science epicenter. Visitors to the Biodome are able to contemplate replicas of each of the four unique ecosystems found within the continents of North and South America. They have the unique opportunity of coming into contact with the geographical patterns and plant and animal life that inhabit these regions. The Tropical Forest exhibit, for example, allows visitors to walk through a replica of South American rainforests. The Laurentian Forest exhibit displays the North American wilderness, while the Saint Lawrence Marine Eco-system comprises a habitat created around an estuary modeled after the Gulf of Saint Laurence. Finally, an expansive polar section is designed to provide insight into both the Arctic and Antarctic regions. 4777 Avenue Pierre-de Coubertin, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-868-3000

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7. Things to Do Near Me: La Guilde Culinaire  La Guilde Culinaire

La Guilde Culinaire offers participants the experience of attending a prestigious French cooking school without the intensity and grueling examinations. Instead, guests are able to benefit from the lessons and tips from professional chefs, while learning the staples of cooking and meal preparation. The experts at La Guilde Culinaire offer a variety of classes, including general cooking classes and courses on preparation of a multicultural array of specific cuisines, including Spanish, Chinese, and Thai, along with Tapas, sweets, and chocolates. Classes are predetermined on a monthly basis. 6381 Boul St-Laurent, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-750-6050



8. Things to Do Near Me: Pointe-a-Calliere Museum  Courtesy of Think2ice - Fotolia.com

The Pointe-a-Calliere Museum is a museum of history and archaeology situated in Old Town Montreal. The museum was founded as a celebration of Montreals 350th birthday in 1992, and it showcases an expansive range of artifacts and exhibits, beginning with exhibits dedicated to the First Nations. They illustrate the coexistence and interactions of the earliest known population of the area. Additionally, the museum demonstrates the influence of the British and French historical presence, and the resulting impact on the areas history and modern status. Three distinct archaeological sites are located within the museum complex, and they feature archaeological remains from every distinct period in the citys past. 350 Place Royale, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-872-9150

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9. Things to Do Near Me: Montreal Public Markets  Courtesy of Nitr - Fotolia.com

Montreals Public Markets is a network of 15 urban markets located all over the Island of Montreal. Regardless of the season, markets offer first-class produce and products in a pleasant atmosphere that reminds of a friendly village, with a vibe that encourages hanging out and socializing. The markets offer fresh, seasonal, and local produce with something for everyone, including fresh flowers, fruits, vegetables, prepared food, cheeses, wine, candies, snacks, and much more. The most important principle is the minimum of intermediaries, only one between the food producers and the consumers. There are more than 250 members of the Montreal Public Markets that sell their goods, many from the same neighborhoods as the shoppers. The markets host many seasonal events and celebrations, cooking demonstrations, gourmet walkabouts, workshops, and more.



10. Things to Do Near Me: Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum  Courtesy of ronniechua - Fotolia.com

Located in historic Old Town, the Marguerite Bourgeoys Museum is an epicenter of historical and cultural significance for the city of Montreal. The museum itself is centered on the life and accomplishments of Marguerite Bourgeoys herself, the founder of the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel and the citys first teacher. One of the original pioneers of the 17th century, Bourgeoys is credited for having contributed to the birth of Montreal. Connected to the museum is the Notre-Dame-de-Bon-Secours Chapel, which is open to the public. Together, the two buildings showcase artifacts, documents, and other sacred objects that Bourgeoys and the historic congregation once owned. The highest view of Old Montreal can be seen from within the tower of the chapel. 400 Rue Saint Paul E, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-282-8670

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11. Things to Do Near Me: Le Bateau-Mouche  Le Bateau-Mouche

Le Bateau-Mouche offers high-quality urban cruise experiences embarking from the Old Port of Montreal, providing guests with an opportunity to experience the beautiful city from a new perspective along the St. Lawrence River waterfront. Day and dinner cruises are offered for guests of all ages, providing a chance for guests to relax, revitalize, and learn about the rich history and culture of Montreal from knowledgeable tour guides. Day cruises operate throughout the summer months, lasting between 60 and 90 minutes and documenting the history of the port city and seaway as part of dynamic, interactive presentations. Dinner cruises serve up four- and six-course menus, featuring dishes prepared with locally-sourced ingredients from Montreal purveyors. Quai Jacques-Cartier, Vieux-Port de Montreal, Phone: 800-361-9952



12. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Montreal Ghosts  Courtesy of Sharkshock - Fotolia.com

Montreal Ghosts is a unique walking tour combined with street theatre set in the historic landscape of Old Montreal. The ghosts are professional local actors who are working with the tourist agency Guidatour. Montreal Ghosts was the first company to develop the concept of an evening walking tour of the city with street theatre showing the ghosts of the past. The tour allows guests to explore Old Montreal in a very different way. In both tours, the Traditional Ghost Walk or the Ghost Hunt, the guests encounter witches, charlatans, and former criminals that await them around the dark corners of Old Montreal. Played by actors, they tell the grim stories, legends, secrets, and mysteries of the past. The tours are available in English and French. 360, Saint-Francois-Xavier St., Montreal, QC, H2Y 2S8, Canada, Phone: 514-844-4021



13. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Maison Saint-Gabriel Museum  Maison Saint-Gabriel Museum

Dedicated to illustrating the story of the first settlers of New France in the 17th century, the Maison Saint-Gabriel Museum aims to preserve the heritage, history, and artifacts of the original pioneers. The museum itself is housed in a 300-year-old farmhouse that, once an original building of the settlers, is now a National Historic Site. Exhibits within the museum include interpretive information and artifact exhibits describing the life and habits of these first settlers, showcasing their personal stories, farming techniques, the old school house, and a church. Over 15,000 artifacts are housed in the museum, and most of them originated between the 17th and 18th centuries. 2146 Place Dublin Pointe-Saint-Charles, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-935-8136



14. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Le St-Urbain  Le St-Urbain



This classic French restaurant offers patrons an authentic and upscale dining experience for both lunch and dinner. The restaurant is renowned for its impressive wine list, which is inscribed across the surface of a large blackboard that covers an entire wall of the space. The menu is designed to pair with the wine offerings, and the food selections are adjusted regularly to adhere to seasonal availability and locally grown ingredients. Three menus allow guests to order lunch or evening portions, as well as dessert choices, which includes a rotating cheese selection. Aside from the interior dining room, a small, seasonal patio is also available for guests. 96 Rue Fleury O, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-504-7700

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15. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Zoo Ecomuseum  Courtesy of Justin - Fotolia.com



The only outdoor zoo in Montreal, this 28-acre site is home to over 115 species of animal life. Part zoo, part eco reserve, the Ecomuseum is known for showcasing creatures native to the Saint Lawrence Valley, which comprises the southwestern portion of Quebec. It has created several natural habitat exhibits, and the Ecomuseum prides itself on being able to educate guests on the authentic lifestyle and habits of each creature while providing a sanctuary in which they can comfortably live. The Ecomuseum is divided into four distinct zones that serve as the homes of mammals, birds, reptiles, and marsh creatures. 21125 Ch Ste-Marie, Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-457-9449



16. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Pullman  Pullman



Offering Tapas and an expansive wine list, Pullman is open for dinner in the evenings. This elegant and sophisticated restaurant is known for the quality of its wines, of which it has a diverse array that includes some particularly nice vintages. Pullman emphasizes artistic and bold presentation, and the wines are meant to perfectly accompany the menu. The knowledgeable staff members are always happy to suggest pairings. Dishes range from simple servings of snacks to larger meals, all derived from locally grown and seasonal fare. This trendy restaurant offers a fine modern dining experience, and the atmosphere balances industrial and warm touches, offering an overall welcoming experience. 3424 Av du Parc, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-288-7779

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17. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Montreal Science Centre  Montreal Science Centre



Located on the King Edward Pier in the center of the Old Port of Montreal, the Montreal Science Centre is home to a vast array of technology and science based exhibits and an expansive IMAX theater. The Science Center welcomes families and visitors of all ages, and it is comprised of interpretive and interactive displays that inform guests about the various featured topics through activities and personal experience. Permanent collections include a Windmill exhibit and a Cargo exhibit, which delves into the journey cargo takes in a big city port like the Montreal Port. Additional permanent exhibits include a young child centric area and a Science Zone, which features 26 unique, participation-based experiments. Rotating exhibits and IMAX features vary, and the Centre offers a calendar of events on their website. 2 Rue de la Commune O, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-496-4724



18. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Bouillon Bilk  Bouillon Bilk



Bouillon Bilk opens in the evenings, serving dinner to expectant and enthusiastic patrons. The restaurant is located in a unique structure, and the inspiration for its atmosphere and menu was derived from the understated and minimalist essence of the space. The food is upscale Canadian fare, a fuse of local organic ingredients and distinctive flavor combinations. The staff consists of knowledgeable food and wine enthusiasts who are able to advise on pairings and selections. The space is comprised of understated furnishings, instead relying on an unpolished elegance and eclectic simplicity, allowing the food to resonate with guests. 1595 Boul St-Laurent, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-845-1595

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19. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Tandem  Tandem



This classic French restaurant is located in the quiet Villeray neighborhood, and it is open to patrons in the evenings. Chef Pascal Turgeon offers a three-item menu to his guests: two seasonally determined dishes and a main dish that varies day-to-day. Chef Turgeon bases the daily menu around the availability of produce and ingredients sold at the market. The restaurant offers upbeat fine dining in a polished and sophisticated environment. Each dish is individually designed and elegantly presented, and the staff is knowledgeable regarding the restaurants expansive array of wine and dish pairings. The restaurant also offers a BYOB system, allowing guests to bring their own bottle of wine if they prefer. 586 Villeray, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-277-3339



20. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Arthurs Nosh Bar  Arthurs Nosh Bar



Arthurs Nosh Bar is advertised as a traditional Jewish deli, but is actually neither traditional nor a deli, and while the menu contains several traditional Jewish dishes, dont expect your bubbas smoked meats. You will, however, find delicious organic smoked salmon and they do serve latkes, challah bread, and kosher salami, but it is more a place where you can expect quinoa and gluten-free dishes. The mix works very well and the place is beautifully decorated, bright and modern, with an herb garden, leather banquettes, and black and white photos on the wall. You can get breakfast in a glass, known as the Bloody Cesar, and your traditional breakfast drink will have a bagel with smoked salmon as a garnish. The place is always packed, especially for weekend brunch, so expect to wait in line. 4621 Notre-Dame St W, Montreal, QC H4C 1S5, Canada, Phone: 514-757-5190



21. Where to Eat in Montreal, Canada: Park Restaurant  Park Restaurant



Park Restaurant, serving Asian fusion dishes and hand-crafted sushi, is open for lunch, closes for several hours in the afternoon, and reopens for dinner. The restaurant is named for its resident chef, Antonio Park. Park, a native Korean, was raised in South America before moving to Montreal, and considers his native background as a multicultural blend. His philosophy as a chef is to fuse this blend into the dishes he prepares, an apparent success as evidenced by the restaurants popularity. Park uses a variety of spices, ingredients, and cooking methods to create his delectable dishes, which vary based on season. The restaurant environment offers a trendy, industrial vibe, purposefully infused with hints of tastefully decadent elegance. The result is an edgy yet romantic ambience that still feels casual. 378 Avenue Victoria, Westmount, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-750-7534

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22. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Round Table Food Tours  Courtesy of koss13 - Fotolia.com Exploring Montreal food offerings would take years, but with the help of Round Table Food Tours, you can walk or bike your way behind the scenes and talk to the best chefs, young entrepreneurs, foodies and interesting local characters. You will visit iconic restaurants, learn about diverse Montreal neighborhoods, pick up gossips and legends, and sample some fantastic food. Round Table Tours offers about half a dozen food tours. On the Iberian tour, visitors get a taste of Spanish and Portuguese Montreal. A Jewish tour takes visitors to well-known landmarks such as Lester's Deli, Willensky's Light Lunch, and Cheskie's Bakery. Montreal: The Living Table focuses on healthy and sustainable food. 4101 boul. Decarie, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H4A 3J8, Phone: 514-812-2003



23. Things to Do in Montreal, Canada: Velo Lifestyle  Courtesy of Aris Suwanmalee - Fotolia.com Velo Lifestyle is one of Canada's premiere bike retailers, offering online service through its website and a physical store and gallery space in Montreal's Griffintown neighborhood. The company, which is operated by Allo Velo, Inc., strives to encourage Canadians to ride bicycles daily, selling top European brands tested for quality and lifestyle demands. Top brands for sale include Dutch Gazelle, VANMOOF, and Creme Cycles, along with cargo bikes produced by brands such as Butchers and Bicycles, Triobike, and Larry vs. Harry Bullitt Cargo Bikes. Visitors at the company's Montreal location can enjoy a full-service coffee bar serving up Italian roast lattes and other coffeeshop delicacies, with bike rentals available for exploration of the city's most beautiful landmarks. 141 rue Shannon, Montreal, H3C2J4, Phone: 514-937-8356



25 Best Things to Do in Montreal, Canada

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Chateau Dufresne Museum

Built in 1915, this historic mansion turned museum originally served as the home of the Dufresne brothers Marius and Oscar. The French Canadian entrepreneurs based the mansion on the Petit Trianon, a small chateau located on the grounds of the Palace of Versailles in France. After the Dufresne brothers, the property was owned by a university in the 1940s, and then passed on to the city of Montreal in 1957.

It has since become a renowned establishment known for housing various art museums. Today, the 40-room building is open to the public for tours. It showcases the elaborate architecture, styling, and decor of the Dufresne brothers and presents historic and famed works of art that have found a home in the Museum.

2929 Rue Jeanne-d'Arc, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-259-9201

Free Montreal Tours

Free Montreal Tours offers an informative 120-minute jaunt through the city. Local guides utilize a combination of love for Montreal along with their professional training at the Institute de tourisme et dhotellerie du Quebec, a well known hospitality and tourism training program, to provide guests with a compressive and entertaining tour experience.

The tour illustrates the history of the city, and provides a background of its founding and evolution, along with stories and anecdotes that bring the city to life. Tour goers will better appreciate the historic beauty of Montreals Old Town after the tour, and they will also receive personalized recommendations on attractions, restaurants, and sites to visit on their own. Phone: 514 613-1940

Montreal Craft Beer Tours

This three-hour guided tour leads guests through three pillars of the Montreal craft beer scene. The establishment is dedicated to visiting locally owned and founded establishments, and the six breweries showcased on this tour are unique to Montreal. In addition, each brew is accompanied by a specifically selected food pairing that has been chosen to enhance both the experience of the beer.

A house made Poutine, beef gravlax and cheese, and chocolate are among the delicacies paired with each drink. Guests will walk from pub to pub while the local guide entertains them with historical stories about the darker past of Montreal, including tidbits about the former Red Light District. Guides also highlight the entertainment district and several of the citys architectural gems such as hidden parks, outdoor venues, and historic mansions.

4768 Rue de Brebeuf, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-700-1280

Tuck Shop

This quaint Italian eatery is tucked into a small urban space in the charming St. Henri neighborhood, offering upscale evening dining at market value. Tuck Shop does not have a set menu, and instead bases the nightly fare around daily market availability and seasonality, using social medial accounts to update guests with the evenings upcoming dishes and wine list. The location of Tuck Shop is cozy and offers guests an intimate and relaxing dining experience.

4662 Rue Notre-Dame O, Montreal, Canada, Phone: 514-439-7432

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A retired professor has opened a book stall in Ha Noi, inviting passers-by to read books and newspapers for free. Drinking water, electricity, and reading glasses are also available. Bach Lien reports.

Every day at 6am, an old woman carries huge piles of books and newspapers from her house to a modest book stall in front of her house on ang Tien ong Street. The mini library is free for passers-by and neighbours to peruse and enjoy.

The woman, Pham Thi Huyen Dung, is well-known among the local residents. At 72 years old, she retired from her job as a lecturer at the Ho Chi Minh National Academy of Politics. In February this year, she took advantage of the vacant land in front of her house and set up a stall where she displays old books and newspapers that can be read for free by everyone.

The book stall is located just behind the ong a Mound on ong a Street, in front of her house at 56 ang Tien ong Street. It often attracts significant attention from people walking past. Readers of all ages come to the library to find books they want, or maybe some surprising items.

Waste not, want not

The idea came to her a few months ago. February marked 50 years since she became a member of the Communist Party of Viet Nam. Every day, she receives a free copy of the Ha Noi Moi newspaper as a reward for her fidelity to the organisation and contributions to the country.

When I read it alone, I found it a pity that many other people were not able to read it. I wished that I could share the knowledge I gained from reading this newspaper with other people Then I thought of inviting other people to read with me, for free, she recalls.

I hope that people will actively spend their free time reading newspapers and books, along with me, and together we can collect books, so many other people can read too, she says.

Her book stall is open from 6.30am to 10.30pm.

At the start of the project, the stall had a small selection of newspapers and some old books on health and spirituality. After a few weeks she began to meet people from her neighbourhood who dropped by the stall to look for books before their morning exercises. Noticing the popularity of the idea, she bought other books and newspapers to give her readers a bigger choice and a variety of themes. Touched by her kindness, people of all ages, from old retirees to students, donated books to Dung.

Dung recalls that at the beginning, not many people were interested in her book stall.

At first, I had to invite passers-by to sit down and spend time reading. Many people didnt believe in my sincerity It took time to earn peoples confidence, she recalls with a big smile

She also offered plastic chairs, and free water to her readers. The book stall became a hub for the community, with several people donating objects to make her job easier.

A neighbour offered her an iron bookcase, a scrap-iron dealer offered her some shelves, while another neighbour gave a parasol.

I got the support of many people. But some other people thought that I was a little mad. But each time I saw elderly people and children reading my books with enthusiasm, I realised I was doing something very useful, Dung says.

Nguyen Ngoc Tuyet, a student who often goes to the stall to pick up newspapers, said: I can find many interesting books about nature and science. I love those two subjects, and its nice to be able to read them here for free. Even in summer its hot but this spot is very comfortable, as there is water, and seats under the shade of the trees, she says.

Dung is sad to see that reading culture is gradually being lost among Vietnamese people. But young students like Tuyet inspires some hope that she can contribute to making books popular again, even if its just in her local neighbourhood.

A good book is like a good friend to anyone. It will stay with you for the rest of your life. So we should preserve it and share it with other people in need, Dung says.  VNS
The Ly Club, housed in a period building near Hoan Kiem Lake, offers diners quality food and traditional service in an exquisitely designed ambiance. Ha Nguyen tries out some dishes.

Despite its location in the heart of Ha Noi, a stones throw from the crowds around Hoan Kiem Lake, Ly Club is itself an oasis of calm under the ancient trees on Le Phung Hieu Street.

I recently attended a party at the club, and was greeted by two young female waitresses in traditional Vietnamese long dress. They invited me upstairs to the second floor, where my colleagues were waiting.

I immediately experienced a warm atmosphere in the room, helping me feel at home. We were all impressed by the French architecture of the villa and the tasteful decor, such as the black and white photos of Ly Club in days gone by, and imagery inspired by the lotus flower of the Ly dynasty (1009-1225).

I liked the attention to detail, with images of the flower meticulously embroidered on to the lanterns. This continued with the bowls and plates which were handmade by Bat Trang ceramic artisans and based on the brown enamel of the Ly.

Warm dish: Chicken soup with water chestnut, shredded chicken, mushroom, lotus seed, and other ingredients is a must-try dish at the club.

A friend seated next to me said she had been invited to the club several times. She said the owner wanted to introduce new, particularly business and foreign guests, to traditional Vietnamese service in a peaceful setting.

The server told us that the villa was built in the early 19th century, which makes the building the same age as Long Bien Bridge, also built during the French colonial time.

I was so absorbed in contemplating the clubs decor, the server had to ask me to take my seat. A plate of banh cuon, or steamed rolled rice crepes with minced pork on lotus leaves (VN70,000), had already been placed on the table.

I have eaten this dish many times, but I was surprised at how enjoyable it was, maybe because of the attractive presentation and the fresh ingredients.

The second dish to arrive was the sup ga ac trai dua (VN175,000), chicken soup with water chestnuts, shredded chicken, mushroom, lotus seeds, carrot, goji and Chinese dates in a young coconut . All of the ingredients inside the coconut were good, but I was particularly impressed by the broth, which had the sweet scent of coconut. I wanted to finish the soup but refrained when my host told me there were still many dishes to come.

Location, location: Ly Club has proven popular not only for its tasty food but also the attractive old villa.

Very quickly after that, the server brought us a goi tom cang Mekong (VN450,000), or Mekong River crayfish salad with shallots, chilli and tomato cherry, served on ice . It was my first hint of the marine-themed menu. The shrimp had been steamed with lemongrass and mixed with chilli, eryngium and basil before being served on ice. I hadnt tried this kind of salad before, so I was really impressed by the fresh shrimp and aroma of the eryngium. The flavours were so light that I could almost feel them remaining on my tongue.

Next up was the ca tuyet ap chao & mang tay (VN525,000), or pan-seared cod fillet, potato, carrot, onion, mousseline, crunchy prosciutto, red port jus and green asparagus, which arrived on a big platter. The design was so attractive I struggled to stop staring, until the server reminded us that the dish should be eaten hot.

The cod was fresh and tasty, particularly when dipped in the spicy sauce. The steamed carrot and potato were chopped into small shapes that looked appetising. My friend and I considered our weight, but decided to dig in anyway as the dish looked so good.

The meal didnt stop there as our servers brought us than bo Uc cuon nam kim cham sot xi dau voi gung (VN275,000), or Australian beef roulades with prawn, enokitake mushrooms and seaweed served with soya ginger sauce.

Despite feeling full after the preceding courses, we were curious about the beef imported from Australia. The first bite reminded me of the quality meat I had the chance to experience years ago at the Shangri-la Hotel in France.

The dish here may be even better, thanks to the soft mushrooms and aromatic peppery soya ginger sauce. While we were enjoying the dish, a waiter arrived with a final serving, com chien hat sen (VN90,000), or stir-fried rice with fresh lotus seeds, carrot, green pea shallots and spring onions.

The dish was designed very carefully. All the ingredients were wrapped in a cup made of lotus leaves, infusing them with the natural fragrance.

We were left with a resounding impression of quality, from the cosy atmosphere to the fresh and aromatic food. We all agreed that here, at Ly Club, we were treated like kings or mandarins, and the staff were clearly passionate about the dishes they were serving.

If youre looking for a calming respite from the hustle and bustle of downtown Ha Noi, or fancy trying some traditional Vietnamese dining, Ly Club comes highly recommended. VNS

Ly Club

Address: 4 Le Phung Hieu Str, Hoan Kiem District, Ha Noi

Tel: 84(24) 39363069

Opening hours: 11:00-22:30

Comment: Unique culture and cuisine, perfect for business lunches and family meals.
Iowa tax holiday

held this week

DES MOINES  The 18th annual Iowa Sales Tax Holiday will be held Friday and Saturday. Qualifying clothing or footwear with a selling price of less than $100 will be exempt from sales and local option tax.

Lists of taxable and exempt items are available on the Iowa Department of Revenue website: https://tax.iowa.gov/iowas-annual-sales-tax-holiday. Information on how to apply the tax to layaway and mail order items, rain checks, gift certificates, coupons and exchanges is also available on the website.

Businesses that are open on these days and sell qualifying items are required to participate. The holiday does not include Sunday.

Bank raises cash

for vets center

WAVERLY  State Bank held its annual Cookin for a Cause event July 14 to support the Waverly Area Veterans Post. Bank staff served burgers and hot dogs, raising $1,278.14, plus the banks $500 match for a total contribution of $1,778.14.

To date, the total amount contributed as a result of State Banks Cookin for a Cause event series is more than $37,000 to local charities across each of the markets served by the bank. Other recipients of the funds include Bremer-Butler Crisis Fund, Bartels Lutheran Retirement Community, Cedar Valley Hospice, The Larrabee Center, Big Brothers Big Sisters of Northeast Iowa and Relay for Life of Bremer County.

Nonprofit group hosts workshop

CEDAR FALLS  The Cedar Valley Nonprofit Association will host a workshop for both nonprofit and for profit organizations. The program, Board Governance, Partnerships that Work: Nonprofit Executives & Boards Moving Forward Together will be from 8 to 9:30 a.m. Thursday at The Community Foundation of Northeast Iowa.

The workshop will be led by Kari McCann Boutell, president of the Iowa Council of Foundations. Boutell works with the ICoF board of directors and oversees organizational activities, including strategic planning, program development and management, membership recruitment and retention, as well as education and outreach for the purpose of supporting philanthropy in Iowa. The workshop is free to CVNA members and $25 non-members. Go to cedarvalleynonprofits.org to RSVP.
WATERLOO  A fire left a couple with minor injuries and an uninhabitable home Saturday morning.

Capt. Bill Harter said the fire began at 148 Mohawk St. around 7:10 a.m. in the kitchen and worked its way into spaces within the walls and roof.

Firefighters fought the fire through the morning, tearing into walls and the ceiling to smother the hidden flames.

The homes two residents escaped with minor cuts and burns, but neither went to the hospital for their injuries.

Man arrested

for hitting dog

WATERLOO - A Waterloo man has been arrested for allegedly smacking a dog with a hammer in January.

The dog, named Dexter, suffered bleeding from the blow but didnt have any fractured bones and survived, according to police.

Randy Lee Hess, 35, Waterloo, was arrested Thursday on warrant for misdemeanor animal abuse. He was later released from the Black Hawk County Jail.

Hess mother called police to her West Fourth Street home Jan. 19 and told authorities Hess wanted to use the restroom, but the dog was in the way. He allegedly picked up a hammer and struck the dog in the face, court records state. He left the house before police arrived.

The mother told police Hess frequently antagonizes the dog, records state.

Authorities obtained an arrest warrant for Hess in January.

Fire damages

Nashua plant

NASHUA  A fire erupted in GMT Corp.s Nashua plant late Saturday morning. The cause is unknown and is being investigated.

Around six workers were inside cleaning up paint when they noticed the fire in the northeast corner of the building. They quickly evacuated without any injuries.

The Nashua Fire Department was preparing to burn down the old elevator leg at the Five-Star Co-op in Nashua, alongside 16 other fire departments, in a training exercise when the call came in.

All 16 departments then transferred to GMT and contained the fire.

The building is currently out of operation as most of the area suffered from smoke damage. A fire marshal will inspect the building next week.

The Nashua building is used by GMT for production, such as plate blasting, burning and secondary operations, welding, machining and painting of medium to large weldments. The main plant is in Waverly.

Body found

in Iowa River

IOWA FALLS  A mans body was recovered from the Iowa River in Iowa Falls Thursday.

Iowa Falls police said they received a call shortly before 11 a.m. Thursday of an unresponsive male in the river near the 500 block of Lincoln Avenue.

The man was pronounced deceased at the scene. He is a 67-year-old, but not being identified yet until family is notified. An autopsy is being scheduled.

Police said a preliminary investigation showed nothing suspicious about the death.

Gummy bears

lead to arrest

WATERLOO  A Waterloo man was arrested after sheriffs deputies found marijuana gummy bears in his vehicle during a traffic stop.

Jay Franclin Valenz Cruz, 25, of 535 Carolina Ave., was arrested July 19 for possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and first-offense operating while intoxicated. He was later released from jail.

According to the Black Hawk County Sheriffs Office, a deputy was following the vehicle on U.S. Highway 218 shortly before 1 a.m. after noticing it weaving. He pulled it over on U.S. Highway 63, and the driver had an odor of alcohol and wasnt able to complete field sobriety tests, according to court records. He later blew a .10 on a breath test, record state.

After Cruz was detained, deputies found a cooler of ice holding a large container of gummy bears that appeared to be homemade. The gummies smelled of marijuana and tested positive for THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

Deputies also found a syringe of hash oil, pipes and vaping equipment.

Wildlife area

dam breaks

TRIPOLI (AP)  Officials with the Iowa Department of Natural Resources say heavy rainfall last weekend in Northeast Iowa has caused a breach of a public hunting area dike.

Storms dropped up to 15 inches of rain in the Wapsipinicon and Plum Creek watersheds in Chickasaw and Bremer counties. DNR officials say that caused a 60-by-40-foot section of the dike on Martens Lake on the Sweet Marsh Wildlife Management Area to fail.

The breach likely occurred during the night of July 23.

Officials say there is no timeline yet for when repairs can be made.
WATERLOO  Summer should always end with good memories, and friends can gather with friends and make new ones at the sixth annual Stem & Stein.

Tickets are now on sale for the event which takes place from 4 to 8 p.m. Aug. 12 at the RiverLoop Expo Plaza in downtown Waterloo. The signature event is sponsored by Hy-Vee and the Waterloo Center for the Arts as a benefit for Friends of the Art Center.

Friends do a lot to support the art centers acquisitions, exhibitions and collections, as well as outreach and programming for the public, says Laura Stammler, arts center development and marketing manager. Events like this really enhance our community and the quality of life in downtown Waterloo, and bring new people to the downtown.

A wide variety of craft and domestic beers, wines and hors doeuvres will be available to sample. The art center will be open for visitors to view galleries, as well.

Hy-Vee coordinates the event and brings in new exhibitors each year.

Its the sixth year of the partnership between Hy-Vee and the arts center, as well, Stammler points out. Our partnership with Hy-Vee is critical for this event. They are huge supporters of the community, and the Cedar Valley benefits from that support. Their staff is tremendous to work with, and its a chance for them to showcase their chefs, she says.

New this year will be SingleSpeed Brewing Co., the centers new neighbor. SingleSpeed opened their beer hall and restaurant earlier this spring after renovating the 90-year-old Hostess Wonder Bread plant.

In addition to serving beer and food samples at the event, the brewery will offer tours and host a concert following Stem & Stein. A group calling themselves the Spokeswomen also are putting on a bike ride on the morning of Aug. 12, riding from Waterloo to Cedar Falls and back.

SingleSpeed is a great asset for us, and were thrilled to have their involvement, Stammler says. They have participated and served beer in the past, but this is the first time theyre doing additional activities.

Beer exhibitors are expected to include Lakefront Brewery, Pearl Street, Potosi Brewing Company, Fahr Beverage, Merchant du Vin, Boulevard, Lagunitas, Peace Tree, New Belgium, Lark Brewing, Firetrucker Brewery, Iowa Brewing Co., Kalona Brewing Company, Second State Brewing, SingleSpeed Brewery, Millstream Brewing Company, CRAZE Home Brew Club, Boulevard, New Holland/Woodchuck, Artisan Brewery, Founders Brewing, Pabst Brewing Company, MillerCoors, Boston Beer, Boone Valley Brewing Company and others.

Wine exhibitors include Johnson Brothers, Southern Glazers, Englebrecht Family Winery, Fireside Winery, Global Wines, Wine Merchants/Iowa Wine, Johnson Brothers Constellation, Hollen Family Vineyards and Wine, Gallo Family and Prestige Wine & Spirits, John Ernest Vineyard & Winery, Okoboji Wines, Wine Centric Distribution Company, Remedy Bloody Mary Mix, Southern Glazers, Kitchen Wines and Brew Shop, Welk Resorts, Lakefront Brewery, Pearl Street and others.

Providing food samples will be Hy-Vee stores in Waterloo and Cedar Falls, Hy-Vee Market Grille, Scratch Cupcakery, SingleSpeed Brewery, Chocolaterie Stam, Bryans on 4th, Tea Cellar, Chotto House by Ginger Thai, Chi Stop, Basal Pizza, Kubo, Jims Smoking the Wheels on the BBQ, Laughing Tree Cafe, Popcorn Heaven and more.

Judges awards will be presented. Last years winners were Hy-Vee Market Grille, best appetizer; Jims Smokin the Wheels on the Grill BBQ, best entree; Isle Hotel & Casino Simply Yummy, best dessert; Hollen Family Vineyards & Winery, best wine; Potosi Brewing Company, best beer; and Hy-Vee VIP tent, best booth.

Festival and VIP tickets may be purchased at Hy-Vee stores, Kimball Avenue Hy-Vee Wine & Spirits, Waterloo Center for the Arts or online at www.cvstemandstein.com

Tickets are $35 in advance, $40 on the day of the event or $30 per ticket for groups of six or more in advance. VIP admission is $50 and includes access to the VIP tent with exclusive wine and beer tastings and gourmet hors doeuvres.

The event will take place rain or shine.
WATERLOO  The South Waterloo Church of the Brethren will host the Northern Plains District conference of the Church of the Brethren from Friday through Sunday.

The Rev. David A Whitten, pastor of the South Waterloo congregation, is the moderator of the conference. The Northern Plains District represents 30 congregations in Iowa, Southern Minnesota and Montana.

Worship services will feature the theme from the Book of Judges.

On Saturday, the community choir One Voice from Waterloo will provide special music and the Metropolitan Brass, also from Waterloo, will present special music on Sunday morning.

Participants of the conference will make contributions to several service projects. They include T-shirt diapers for Haiti; supplies for the House of Hope in Waterloo; school kits for Church World Service; and cash donations to agencies that support refugees  Nigerian Crisis Fund or Church World Service.

There also will be six dynamic workshops. Three are planned for 10:30 a.m. Saturday: Mental Health and the Congregation by Kim Hill-Smith and Marlene Dickerson; Intentional Strength-Based Ministry for the Community of Faith by the Rev. Belita Mitchell; and Christ in Action by moderator the Rev. Sam Sarpiya.

At 8:30 a.m., Sunday workshops will be: A Listening Session with the General Secretary by the Rev. David Steele; Building Bridges across Communities by Waterloo Mayor Quentin Hart; and Brethren Heritage Trip by La Donna Brunk, Diane Mason and Diane Sittig.

An auction of handcrafted items, woodworking projects, and antiques is set for 4 p.m. Saturday to support the district.

The South Waterloo Church of the Brethren is located at 6227 Kimball Ave. The public is invited to attend the workshops, auction and worship services.
Editor's Note: This article has been updated to reflect that staff writer Amie Steffeneicher contributed to the writing of it.

CEDAR FALLS  As a lifelong space and creative content enthusiast, Tim Dodd found it fitting to put the two passions together on what began as simply a valued hobby.

He joined up with another Cedar Falls photographer, Neal Johnson, as part of a Tesla contest of user-submitted ads. They were over the moon when their commercial was announced as the second-place finalist during a live Tesla event Friday night.

It was a big honor and really cool to see Elon Musk tweet out my name and our project, Dodd said.

The commercial, starring Dodd in a Russian high-altitude flight suit he purchased online a few years ago, features the Everyday Astronaut as he wistfully goes about his day.

He hangs his head as he halfheartedly brushes his teeth, irons his shirts and mows the lawn, longing for something. Finally, the Everyday Astronaut glances outside his window sees his spaceship  a Tesla Motors car  has arrived.

The commercial was originally chosen as one of the top 10 entries by the Elon Musk-owned company and was vaulted into the top 3 in recent weeks by online voting.

While the winners are not awarded a prize or even the airing of their commercial on TV, Dodd values the experience and opportunity to show what he can do.

I think a lot of people had different ideas on what was going to happen, but it was still fun and exciting, Dodd said. I absolutely love doing marketing things, so if anything would happen to come out of that, I would jump on that opportunity in a heartbeat.

One unique opportunity already has presented itself after the success of the commercial. Dodd said he received an email from an Austria-based company inviting him to ride a 0g flight in Russia. However, no official plans have been made to do so yet.

One thing is for sure. Dodd will continue his brand, producing more content for YouTube and his public speaking presentations like those he did at Musks other company, Space Exploration Technologies Corp., or SpaceX.

Staff writer Amie Steffeneicher contributed to this article.
WATERLOO  Herb Miehe had problems with his feet most of his adult life.

He had little feeling in them. He could not keep them warm. Late in life, one was amputated. Then the other.

It could have been worse. Hed seen the worst.

Hed seen thousands die in a winter hell called Chosin in the heart of North Korea.

Miehe, who passed away in 2003, was one of the Frozen Chosin or the Chosin Few, a group of U.S. Marines, including many Marine Reservists from Waterloo, who were trapped by advancing Chinese Communist forces at Chosin Reservoir in November and December of 1950. The Marines, alongside British Royal Marines, South Korean troops and others, broke out and fought their way to the port of Hungnam, taking their casualties and refugees with them.

Herbs son, Burk Skeet Miehe, who operates Amercan Pattern & CNC Works in Waterloo-Cedar Falls, said his father only began to talk about his experiences later in life.

But his feet told plenty. By the time Herb emerged from Chosin, his feet were frozen and blackened from frostbite.

For his family back home, that wasnt the worst. Herbs folks  Herb Sr. and Luella  received a Western Union telegram stating Herb had been wounded.

I realize your great anxiety but nature of wounds not reported and delay in receipt of details must be expected, said the telegram from Gen. C.B. Cates, commandant of the Marine Corps. Herb Sr. knew the horrors of war; hed been wounded in the Argonne Forest in World War I.

Skeet Miehe said it made for some anxious weeks for his grandparents.

Then they heard from Herb. He sent a message via a ham radio operator in Yokuska, Japan, who contacted another in Waterloo, R.H. Knox, via a signal relayed to him from another ham operator in Des Moines.

The message was short, but sweet news.

Am O.K. Dont worry. Letter follows, Herb Miehe Jr. wrote his folks. He was recuperating at a naval hospital in Yokuska.

Herb Miehe was officially discharged from the Marine Corps in 1958. He worked many years as a life insurance agent in central Iowa, and then returned to Waterloo to work at John Deere when the present-day foundry opened in the early 1970s.

Herb began to share his war experiences later in life with his son.

Of course, I probably asked more questions about it too, Skeet said. One that particularly haunted him was a fellow U.S. Marine from Hawaii he carried from the reservoir down a mountainside to an ambulance.

He died by the time he got him to the truck, Skeet said. All his fingers were black. He always wished hed got hold of that kids parents. Thats the one think that I think that ate on him.

More than 7,300 of the 17,000 U.S. casualties killed and wounded  were not related to combat. Temperatures reached 35 below zero.

While Herb Miehe may have mourned his comrades, he never sough accolades for himself. He never received a Purple Heart for his combat wounds until Julie Miehe, Skeets wife, contacted U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley. The senator presented Herb Miehe with his Purple Heart in 1993. Several years late he lost both feet from his service.

Skeet has preserved many of his fathers mementos, including his decorations, his duffel bag with his engagements written on it in English and Korean, the Western Union telegram his grandparents received  and a menu his dad saved of the Thanksgiving dinner troops enjoyed in North Korea prior to the Chinese attack. Skeet said his dad told him it was the best meal he ever had.

Today the house where Herb Miehe grew up on East Eighth Street in Waterloo is a shelter for homeless veterans. It was renovated by the nonprofit group Americans for Independent Living.

I wish Dad could see it. Hed be really happy on that one, Skeet said.

Retreat, hell! Were not retreating, were just advancing in a different direction. Gen. Oliver P. Smith, commander, 1st Marine Division, Chosin Reservoir,

North Korea, 1950.
John F. Kennedy, president of the United States, had just met with his team of generals. He disclosed to them the Soviets were installing nuclear missiles in Cuba. It has recently come to light that after the president left the generals continued to talk, and those conversations were recorded.

To put it mildly, the leaders of our armed forces were almost united in their disapproval of the president. Surgical air strikes and an armed invasion of the island were the options they favored, and the presidents failure to use them meant he wasnt manning up.

Somewhat later Gen. Curtis LeMay, who served at the time as chief of staff of the United States Air Force, said to the president, It looks like you are in a pretty difficult spot. Kennedy is said to have replied, If you havent noticed, you are there too, general.

This story is relevant because it illustrates two features we are confronted with as the Trump administration rethinks and then announces its policy in Afghanistan.

The first is simply this: In our country, generals do not decide when we go to war. We have maintained since the founding of the country a civilian control over the military. It is not an accident we call the elected president the commander in chief. It is also why only Congress can formally declare war. Elected representatives decide when and where this nation fights, or if it does at all.

I point this out because I am somewhat conflicted. I think one of the best appointments President Trump has made was to select James Mattis as his secretary of defense. In the New Yorker magazine, he has been described as deeply thoughtful and ferociously aggressive about war  seen by his peers as both a solider and a scholar.

He is a former general of the Marine Corps, and he distinguished himself during the surge in Iraq. He is now reviewing our path forward in Afghanistan. So, while I still favor civilian control on military matters, I am hopeful our president listens carefully to Gen. Mattis recommendations.

Which brings us to our second issue: Just what are our options in what is now Americas longest war?

At this point, we should say it is not going the way we thought it would when we invaded. The Taliban still controls about thirty percent of the country and terror attacks continue almost unabated. This year through June, there have been 1,000 casualties and 220 deaths among the Afghan people, mostly from suicide attacks. The newly elected government, headed by Ashraf Ghandi, is as corrupt as the one the now-departed Hamid Karzai headed.

We have tried to use overwhelming force. At one point 40 countries supplied troops (the U.N. mandated International Security Assistance Force). Up to 140,000 troops were deployed in country. We are bombing regularly with the same intensity as we have for the last 16 years.

It isnt that our generals are not smart or our troops not brave. It is just a damn tough place to fight.

Which raises one option some have considered. Stop trying to win the whole country.

Civilians flee their homes, shops and occupations when the Taliban comes into power in their district. Life with the Taliban is harsh and brutal. To some, it makes more sense to first secure the areas we do control to provide safe harbor, basic freedoms, adequate food, shelter and education. Only when secured areas have been obtained should expansion into the more difficult regions be undertaken.

If more troops are needed to accomplish this goal and continue the training of the countrys military, so be it.

The Cuban Missile Crisis was resolved when the Russians agreed to withdraw their weapons from the island, and we agreed to remove our aged Jupiter missiles from Turkey. This was fortunate because we now know that laying in the sea off the coast of Cuba were Soviet submarines armed with nuclear weapons and with instructions to fire if we intervened with force in Cuba.

Fortunately, a civilian president didnt listen to his generals. But that doesnt mean that this time, this president shouldnt.
In the late 1970s while in a doctoral program at the University of Northern Iowa, I learned the legend of a professor who was most popular on doctoral committees. As he was known to ask easy questions or no questions at all, doctoral candidates eagerly sought him out to serve on their committees. He listened to the students defense and at the end would simply ask what the doctoral candidate planned to do with his life now that he is a doctor. A joyous question, a sign the student has succeeded.

Until one day, at the end of a doctoral dissertation defense, while everyone else on the committee seemed ready to give the student a pass, the committee chair asked the legendary professor for his opinion. To everyones surprise, the professor said despite the impressive performance he would propose to fail the student. He then revealed a few books and several pages of notes specifically pointing to areas of the dissertation that had been plagiarized and that some of the research was based on fake data or the works of others. Only then did everyone realize what the professor had been doing for years, which was to spend time in the library to fully read and check the cited sources. For previous students who had done the work he was pleasant and easy to please.

We often read blogs or letters written to newspaper editors that are thoughtful and articulate. Occasionally, there are letters that present statistics and historical citations far beyond the ability of casual writers. Fortunately, these days it is rather easy to check the origins of any writing. While the professor had to go to the library and research numerous books and references, nowadays one need only to Google a few consecutive words or sentences or exact statistics. The search often reveals who else may have written the same materials.

Politicians are familiar with letters coming from constituents that sound like form letters proposed by opposition parties. Letters to newspapers from avid Democrats or Republicans who rely on professional writers sound the same. They repeat the same list of misconduct allegedly committed by the opposing party. In politics it is said you need to repeat a message at least seven times for people to remember. So, when several dedicated opinion writers repeat the same line prescribed by paid political writers, the effect could be impressive.

In general, this is not a concern when both parties resort to such tactics. But it does become a concern when letters recite details of atrocities of a religion, a race or a particular group to create fear and division. It would not be difficult to locate the writings of extremists in the Middle East, for example, that chronicle the alleged atrocities of the West, detail of out-of-context biblical verses they consider evil and specific statistics about killing of civilians. Similarly, details of verses lifted from the Koran that point to the evilness of the religion can be found in essays often written by groups whose motives could be nothing but to seek a religious war or generate conspiratorial fear of those considered as other.

The accessibility and openness of our society and media creates an opportunity for those with ill intentions to try to sway our opinions in the wrong direction. The fear of Russian interference in our political affairs is a nonpartisan fear. A Russian-produced, carefully crafted essay with persuasive statistics, not all true, could be dispersed to demonize one group or another to continue to keep the country divided into groups and at each others throats. As long as we are divided, we will be vulnerable.
During my first days of Lutheran grade school, I was surprised to learn the world had only 10 rules. Sure, eight of them ordered what I shalt not do and just two told me what I must do. Still, no Lutheran worth his catechism ever had a problem with a negative four-to-one ratio.

But then Mrs. Kuring, my teacher, added more rules. No talking in school. No running in the hallway. No biting your classmates.

We quickly learned to follow Mrs. Kurings rules more diligently than the commandments because hers were backside-tested; the Big Ten were merely time-tested. Later, either through fear or faith, we learned to follow both because there would be hell to pay, either now or later, if we didnt.

Presidents of the United States face the same trade-off: You can choose not to follow the rules, but it can be a costly choice.

Donald J. Trump is a rule breaker. That was a key reason the majority of rural voters chose him over his 2016 challenger. And he has kept his word; rule-making Washington has never seen, heard or been hit with a tweeting tornado like The Donald.

Much of the presidents rule breaking, however, hasnt yielded tangible results. In mid-July, the Senate Appropriations Committee approved its 2018 budget for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which, noted several Capitol Hill policy watchers, broadly and soundly rejected the deep cuts Trump had proposed for USDA only two months earlier.

The Senate bill also restored the undersecretary for rural development Trump previously had ticketed to eliminate.

These setbacks did not set back the president. The same week of his Senate rebuke, Trump nominated Iowan Sam Clovis, a former campaign official and radio talk show host, to be USDAs undersecretary of research, education and economics.

Its not a controversial, rule-bending choice. Its an outrageous, rule-breaking choice. By statute, noted the July 24 San Jose (Calif.) Mercury-News, this undersecretary is to be chosen from distinguished scientists with specialized or significant experience in agricultural research, education and economics. By contrast ... Clovis has never taken a graduate course in science and is openly skeptical of climate change.

And, it went on, The Senate should reject the nomination. Naming an anti-science blowhard to a job meant for a scientist would be like Ford picking a CEO who rides a horse to work.

Despite that ringing denouncement, 22 of the most powerful, well-funded American farm and commodity groups, representing everything from dry beans to soybeans, offered Clovis a ringing endorsement in a flowery letter sent to Senate Ag Committee leaders.

Some have suggested that Dr. Clovis is not qualified for this position due to his lack of hands-on science and research experience. We do not share this point of view, it explained. After all, USDA already employs some of the finest and most dedicated scientists in the world. They do not need a peer. They need someone to champion their work.

Call it the Rick Perry Standard: Just because you dont know anything about a federal agency  including its name  or how it operates, doesnt mean you cant become its leader.

Three days after posting its We Love Clovis letter, Big Ags biggest ag groups learned  in a Senate Ag Committee hearing on farm credit and crop insurance, no less  Clovis had labeled crop insurance, the central pillar of U.S. farm policy, unconstitutional.

When told of this farm bill heresy, the committees crop insurance-loving chairman, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, announced to many of the letter-sending farm group leaders in the hearing room, If there is some nominee coming before this committee who says crop insurance is unconstitutional, they might as well not show up.

The farm leaders didnt flinch. Why would they? The rules, they recently learned, do not apply and the truth is simply what the loudest, most persistent yeller says it is.

Which brings us back to Mrs. Kuring. You dont have to follow the rules but, sooner or later, there will be hell to pay.
More than nine and a half years ago, we welcomed the news a developer was going to step in to help save the historic Rath Packing Co. administration building from demolition.

After multiple extensions were granted by the city of Waterloo over those years, were squarely back at square one.

Waterloo officials have declared Mako Waterloo Corp. in breach of its contract to restore the building at 1515 Sycamore St. and are demanding the firm deed ownership back to the city.

A letter was sent to Mako Waterloos managing partner Bruce DeBolt last month, saying the firm had not lived up to its obligations under a January 2008 development agreement.

Its apparently the end of a deal which initially held so much promise.

The building still sits empty in an area where other improvements have been realized over the past several years.

If we get the building back we will work to evaluate any potential redevelopment, said Waterloo Community Planning and Development Director Noel Anderson. If we are unable to find someone in an acceptable time frame to the council, we will move towards demolition. Lets hope we can find someone to redevelop it.

The initial agreement called for the city to donate the building and surrounding property to the company for $1 and required the city to remove asbestos, which ultimately cost $257,000. Mako agreed to spend an estimated $1.5 million refurbishing the structure.

The 200,000-square-foot building, which once served as the administrative offices for the meatpacking giant, has been vacant and deteriorating since Rath Packing was liquidated in 1985. City leaders were preparing to raze the building when DeBolts Mako Waterloo firm announced plans in 2008 to stabilize the structure for new tenants.

The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places, and Mako Waterloo was given until July 2011 to complete the project. That deadline was extended to Sept. 13, 2013, after DeBolt ran into issues with financing.

In July 2013, the developer was given another extension. City Council members voted unanimously to give Mako Waterloo Corp. until September 2014.

Mako Waterloo actually initiated construction by erecting a security fence, boarding up unsecured windows and putting new windows on a portion of the building. However, inaction after that doomed the structure to further dilapidation and vandalism. The fence was removed earlier this year. Some of the new window panes have been broken and vandals have ripped plywood off the windows to get into the building.

All of those involved, including those who live and do business in the area, understandably have been frustrated throughout the lengthy and apparently fruitless process.

Three years ago, news had arrived an information technology firm had been identified by Mako to occupy a portion of the building when a renovation was completed.

Its coming along. We are working as fast as we can, DeBolt said at the time. Weve got a tenant for the property, and we are working very hard to have them in by the first of the year (2014).

Three years later, here we sit. Meanwhile, it has been learned Mako One Corp. has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization in federal court as lenders attempt to foreclose on a similar building renovation project in Sioux City.

We dont begrudge city officials for attempting to do the right thing. And we were solidly behind the initial agreement with Mako Waterloo. It seemed the perfect solution for everyone. But now we all have the benefit of hindsight.

The city will have to navigate the legal hoops to get ownership of the property back. When that happens, any redevelopment plan needs to have a strict timeline, or the option of demolition needs to come back into play.

We dont want to see this building dilapidate further for another decade.
New brand

ERNEST NUNNALLY

WATERLOO  Branding is a very powerful tool, and our current president used it effectively against Hillary Clinton. Crooked was merely a branding strategy, but he used it in every reference to her, and it was very effective and imprinted in peoples minds. Thats how successful branding works.

I propose going forward we use his own strategy against him by branding this president Treasonous Trump.

The key is to use it consistently and often, on every social media outlet you use. Perception is reality. Never use his name alone, always proceed it with Treasonous. Treasonous Trump.

For seven years, Treasonous Trump told lies about President Obama not being legitimate. Eighty percent of these racist Republicans bought his filthy lies about the first African-American president. Now these same 80 percent still support him. They are the reason why we have this thing in the White House.

Peace out. Dont give up the resistance.

Trumps ego

VELMA FLAUCHER-FLACK

CEDAR FALLS  When observing Donald Trump, these words come to mind: ego  the self, the individual as self-aware; egotism  excessive reference to oneself in speaking or writing; mania  an excessive enthusiasm, obsession, craze.

Egomania is the term that best fits what Donald Trump exhibits on a daily basis. He cannot reason beyond himself. Sadly, many of our politicians become more self-absorbed as their careers advance. They no longer put we the people first on their agendas. They go along with whoever and whatever in order to maintain or advance politically.

At this time, Donald Trump is wielding excessive power. In doing so, our democracy is at risk. He turns one way and then another in his efforts to be number one and to maintain control over things he knows very little about. His behavior is irrational and scary.

Traffic cameras

DAVE DREYER

WATERLOO  I feel the red light cameras are more for revenue than safety. I feel the high crime cameras would be more beneficial for the city of Waterloo. The residents and other people coming to Waterloo would feel safer walking our streets if the crime were reduced. This would bring more people to town without other concerns.

This was sold first to reduce property taxes; however, at the last council meeting the first message was new officers and maybe tax relief. We hear our plan is modeled after Cedar Rapids, but monkey see monkey do? Can we not think out of the box? Isnt Cedar Rapids fighting the state as to whether the cameras are legal at what expense to the taxpayer? Other cities such as Dubuque are employing crime cameras with much success, but we arent modeling after that. Why not?

Our police chief said he knows 13 intersections with many accidents and speeding so lets police them instead of sitting somewhere with low traffic.

Bike lanes

STEVEN BUCKLES

WATERLOO  It appears very little planning went into the implementation of bicycle lanes on Park Avenue in Waterloo. Sure, someone drew pretty pictures of white lines down Park Avenue, but someone forgot to present instructions to both bicyclists and drivers using this street. Even after the lines were painted, bicyclists are still either riding on the sidewalks or using the hash-marked areas as the bike lane. Casual bikers and spandex bicyclists alike dont understand what you have done.

As a biker, I would avoid this fiasco because if I dont understand whats going on. What about those drivers of a ton or more trying to drive safely through the mess? My opinion: I strongly feel fear for the safety of our community led by such poor planners and city leaders. This needs to stop.

Letter response

DAMIAN VORTHMANN

SUMNER  Responding to Mark Piels letter July 23: While I respect your right to have your opinion about Trump, let me lay some facts on you. First things first, everyone needs to get off their high horse. Trump is president. if you feel the need to whine about it, move to Canada or Mexico. Second thing is an actual fact, Trump has done more in seven months of presidency than Obama did in eight years. The third and final thing is Trump did not lie about anything he said hed do.

Excellent exhibit

JOSH WILSON

WAUKEE  As a Waterloo native and University of Northern Iowa alum I still often return to the Cedar Valley to visit friends and family; however, I dont often visit local attractions. This June I lost my grandfather, a longtime Waterloo resident and Korean War veteran. It just so happens that around the same time as grandpas passing, the Sullivan Brothers Iowa Veterans Museum opened a new exhibit honoring the Korean War. I had the opportunity to visit the museum for the first time recently and simply put, it was amazing.

I have been blessed to travel often, both domestically and internationally, and in doing so have visited many museums. The Iowa Veterans Museum is truly something the Cedar Valley can be proud of. I have been telling many about my visit and hope they will follow suit. I know if my grandpa was still with us he would have loved the new Korea exhibit. My family sure did. On behalf of all of us, thanks to the museum for telling the story of that often forgotten war.